draxynnic.3719

> @"Saulot.7259" said:

> I would really love the new specialization to be pet focused. The previous two specs fought the class mechanic. Druid weakens your pet, soulbeast removes your pet the majority of play (individually depending on your game mode). I want to see the specialization enhance the pet.

>

> I was thinking something like a Warden. A tanky build that adds a shield as a weapon. The ranger may split some of its damage to the pet or receive damage reduction within a certain proximity of the pet. The Warden could potentially use wells where they gain fortitude by connecting with the earth.

Given current design principles, what would be the tradeoff? The core ranger mechanic is, for better or worse, pets, so an elite specialisation that only strengthens that would be hard to tradeoff short of a direct penalty to the ranger's stats. One possibility, I guess, could be to make it so that the F2 is no longer under the player's control, but happens when the pet chooses to use it - this could possibly fit for a case where the ranger has _both_ pets out at once.

If I recall correctly, there _was_ that many traits for turrets once. Paring that back, though, was done to nerf it.

For the other two... well, you _know_ you're being silly there. Elementals and even spirits were never part of the identity of the elementalist and ranger to the degree that minions are to the necromancer. Guild Wars 1 used to have entire _builds_ based purely around minions.

From a balance perspective, splitting it across three major traits means that if you want to have a minion-focused build, you can do it and have a fairly strong minion presence. Without making that investment... sure, you can still HAVE minions, but they're going to be significantly weaker. Requiring taking 2-3 major traits to really get minions to shine seems a fair trade for minions to actually remain reasonably powerful as a build theme should you choose to take it, rather than going the way of turret engineer.

Because if those traits get rolled into one or even two, the end result _is_ going to be weaker minions (because that's how balance works - one trait isn't going to be as good as three, because you have to pay for the two other traits you get in the power budget). And given that "army of undead" is often the first thing people think about when they think "necromancer" - let's keep that at least somewhat viable in practice, shall we?

In the meantime, it's not like the specialisation is going to waste if you don't play MM - Death Magic without minions is becoming quite popular in competitive modes for the extra durability.

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> Necromancy is stigmatised because of the plague that ravaged Cantha. While necromancy has no direct ties to that disease, necromancy specialising in spreading diseases and forging flesh in new forms still should make people really sceptical about their methods.

Do you have a source for that? There's nothing in Winds of Change to indicate such a stigma that I've been able to find, and the only evidence of dislike for necromancers in Cantha that I can find in general is the early Ritualist skill quests, and even there, that's only Ritualists, and could just be an expression of frustration of having to clean up after minions get loose. There's evidence of stigma against necromancers in Ascalon, in Kourna, and even somewhat in Kryta (although it's subtle) in GW1, but I don't recall an indication that there's any stigma against it in Cantha, let alone that it's _despised._ Based on the human forces that the PC fights such as the Ministry of Purity, Kurzicks, and Luxons, necromancers seem no less common than ritualists.

Revenant already has a ritualist-esque elite spec in Kalla - I don't want to see the potential of a third elite spec being wasted on another spirit summoner. Otherwise, the most logical places, lore-wise, for a ritualist-themed elite spec would be necromancer or guardian.

Hammer skill 2 has needed a fix since forever, and staff skill 5 needs to lose the self-root. A windup is okay, but you should be able to move during it. Right now, it's no longer useful as a mobility skill, and it's easy for the enemy to avoid _accidentally._

Both can probably use some DPS buffs to compensate for the lost damage on their skill 5s, especially Staff where it was where the spike really was. Maybe it could have a mechanic whereby if you get knockbacks with the staff, staff skill 2 gets an improved effect if used within a certain period of time? That way, the CC and the damage is still separated, but you're rewarded for a well-executed Surge.

> @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > @"Lily.1935" said:

> > You know, people keep claiming that Ritualist and Revenant has a lot in common. I see a little bit with summoning of some spirits, but beyond that I have seen Nothing else. Blindfolds don't count since Necromancers use them too on occasion. And they're not even a requirement on Revenant since Rytlock got rid of his. Its always just "There's a lot there" and never any proof of that.

> >

> > I have shown proof that the Revenant is not limited to Dead spirits. I've shown that their magic is Mist Magic not magic specifically involving the dead. I've Shown how Ritualist uses bones and ashes in their rituals. I've shown how Necromancer also uses bones and ashes in their rituals. I've shown that Both Ritualists and Necromancer's Call the dead from The underworld and the realm of torment. I've shown that the mechanics side of Revenant doesn't work well with Ritualist, but the necromancer's mechanics absolutely do with far less of the ritualist's Identity falling off in translation. Worse still, You NEED Togo to justify ritualist on the Revenant. And even then you would be as much of a ritualist as you are a Monk by using Centaur stance or an assassin using assassin stance.

> >

> > To be perfectly honest. I don't want Ritualist as an elite spec for Either Revenant or Necromancer. I want the real thing. Not some half baked copycat. Ritualist and its legacy would be served better as its own profession and not shoehorned into the extremely narrow Revenant profession. You'll lose aspects of the ritualist no matter what, with Revenant you'd lose weapon spells, Urns, restoration magic, protection spirits, channeling magic and only really get Spirit Spammer, or at least a hollow shell of what it was. With Necromancer you could keep the restoration magic, the protection spirits, the urns and spirit spammer but still lose the Weapon spells and Channeling magic... You lose a lot less with the necromancer translation but there's still a big loss of what made the ritualist the ritualist.

> >

> > Even if we ignore the mechanical nightmare that the ritualist would bring for the Revenant, there just is no room for it in the lore. The Revenant doesn't exist in Cantha. The Ritualist is one of the oldest professions in the lore, older than Even Necromancers among humans. Revenant is only a few years old. its an extremely new form of magic that doesn't use Rituals at all, doesn't preform death rites and has no way for it to be connected with the ritualist to really spread as a unified teaching. The Renegade master in PoF even was following Rytlock's teachings, she wasn't someone following an old teaching.

> >

> > When you compare the history of the Ritualist with the Necromancer there is serious history between the two. Ritualists and necromancers are both Priests of grenth. They're both working within death magic. No that's not a misconception, both have in the past required dead parts to preform their magics. Such as bones, ashes and corpses. Much of the identity of the ritualist is in death. A part of their culture's lamentation for the dead. Ritualists found necromancers to be problematic a lot of times which we see in Shin Jea as they seak out the aid of ritualists to deal with a problem caused by a necromancer because ritualists understand the dead. What we can expect with this Xpac is a strong connection between the two. Possibly either necromancers required to conform to the Ritualist's practices due to pressure from the Ministry of Purity, or the necromancer becoming an underground practice.

> >

> > You have to consider what the lore is with Cantha right now. They're isolationist, there is no way for Revenant to get their teachings there without some serious sloppy writing and hand waving. There's a lot of Lore with the Ministry of Purity which are currently the primary acting force on behalf of the Emperor themselves, Which with the trauma of Shiro's Plague and that the necromancer's specialize in spreading plague and dead bodies would be highly stigmatized, the high level of Xenophobia of the nation and the High ranking Priesthood of the Ritualists in Canthan Lore, there shouldn't be a question in anyone's mind that if the Ritualist is involved with the story it is intrinsically going to be tied up with the necromancer. As it always has been.

>

> Id love to see ritualist return as its own class... have it be something different and new. Just as Id like for assassin to come as its own and dervish and paragon to come as their own as well. They ALL were different to anything we have now and while they share similarities they do not share exact moments or connections with said classes, the only one who would is the monk. The lore as far as I know stated that monks are literally the precursor to guardians, and that the years of conflict forced the monks to become more martial and thus the guardian was born.

Guardian is a bit of a mutt - we know there's a bit of Ritualist in there, and there was Paragon in there according to a prerelease interview which is no longer available online. Assassin is, honestly, close enough to thief that it would be doable as a thief elite specialisation - there are some things assassin had that thief is missing, but the majority of it is in there, and thief is about as close to assassin as mesmer, elementalist, necromancer, ranger and warrior are to their predecessors.

Personally, I like the idea of making them only available in unranked for a while - give people a chance to get used to them, and the balance team a chance to see how they operate, before they start showing up in ranked and in tournaments. I'd certainly rather not see a repeat of the PoF release where they suddenly showed up mid-season.

> @"crepuscular.9047" said:

> reaper tanky? if reaper is a regular tank, then firebrand is an apocalypse tank for the stupid amount of dmg it can ditch out vs the amount of sustain it can eat

How many have you seen in competitive modes since the Mantra of Solace nerf the week before last? I've seen three, and none of them impressed me with their self-sustain.

Mind you, the reapers I've fought against and beside haven't felt that tanky either, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You mean Soaring Devastation?

If the move speed increase is so important, that strikes me as a good thing - it means the trait has a chance to compete with Piercing Light. I could see the reasoning for making the speed increase permanent if you have the trait, but it should probably stay in a major trait that competes with Piercing Light.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> - DM shouldn't dedicate 3 major traits to minions (if they want to, they have to put a sure way to generate minions that don't discriminate builds or at least put a minor in DM that generate a minion passively without being dependant on "on death" effect) and the dedicated minion skill trait should make those minion's active skill worth something instead of buffing in vain over and over again the passive minions.

I'm inclined to disagree. The point of putting them in major traits and _not_ having anything minion-related in the minors is so that you can invest heavily in minions _if you choose,_ but the traitline doesn't force you into minions - you can choose to use it just to make yourself a bit tougher instead.

Ashes are... an interesting thing to try to fit, to say the least. I am sceptical that ritualists _actually_ carry around ashes of various historical figures, especially since some of the pots are then used as bombs. It's probably more likely that what's happening is that the ritualist is calling the spirit into a receptacle, and it just happens to be in that form. Maybe it even has ashes in it, but are they necessarily ashes of cremation, or is it simply a ritual reagent and any ashes would do?

I think, if you were to boil the ritualist down to its essentials, there are five things that really stand out:

*Direct offensive spells involving channeling the power of the Mists

*Spirits

*Weapons spells

*Urns

*Healing, in part through the above.

Translating these into GW2 terms:

Channeling could simply be covered through the ritualist's weapon(s) giving them appropriately-themed attacks.

Spirits are... well, we have multiple things that are or act like spirits. One could argue that Shadow Fiend and Flesh Wurm already count.

Weapon spells and urns, I think, would likely both fit into the category of bundle objects in GW2. Urns were used by the ritualist directly, weapon spells were applied to allies. A system similar to Elementalist conjured weapons would work, where the ritualist has one appear in their hands and another appears on the ground somewhere for an ally to pick up.

Healing... well, direct heals on a single ally have been pretty much removed. I don't think this necessarily needs to be directly included, it can be something that comes naturally out of the other elements. Core necromancer already has a few healing and protective effects, so I'm not sure that they'd need to have a separate "Restoration" line of skills.

Saying that ritualist really needs to have its own profession to really do it justice... I can definitely see where you're coming from, but at this stage I'd be almost as surprised by ArenaNet introducing a new profession (will it be introduced with three elite specialisations out of the gate? How will they explain the Commander showing up with a new profession this late in the story?) as a new race.

So, hypothetically, if I was to make a ritualist-themed necromancer elite specialisation, I'd probably take the following approach:

The one thing pretty much _every_ ritualist build was expected to have is at least one spirit, so that would replace the shroud mechanic. F1 would summon a spirit whose attacks take up the traits normally on shroud skill 1. F2 summons a disenchantment spirit that removes boons when it hits, corrupting them if you have the appropriate trait. F4 would probably summon some sort of healing or protective spirit so it fits with Transfusion. F5 I'd also see as being a protective spirit (being the equivalent of shroud for the purpose of traits), including all damage dealt to the necromancer going to the spirit instead.

Channeling themes, as previously noted, would be used in designing the weapon attacks.

Utility skills would be, essentially, conjures. So the healing skill might be a conjure that effectively turns the user into a Restoration healer while using it. Others would likely be more aggressive in nature, although some can be more defensive (similar to Conjure Earth Shield). To really carry the flavour, each could also have a particular effect that happens if the bundle is deliberately dropped by the user.

> @"zaswer.5246" said:

> Staff is a suport weapon , cc heal and a dmg acording to its utility

I don't want to keep hijacking the thread, but I think you're completely missing the point on this one:

Staff _is_ more support/defence-oriented than sword/sword, to be sure, but its offensive output is not actually that much below sword in damage output. If you're playing a power build, you can switch to staff to get a defensive boost or to use Surge of the Mists for a CC (and, in PvE, a damage spike) and not lose too much on your DPS output. If you're playing a condi build, though, staff has literally _zero_ ability to dish out damaging conditions - it doesn't even have a skill that applies chill to trigger Abyssal Chill - so you're hitting like a wet noodle until you can swap back.

Meanwhile, in competitive modes, you end up pretty much forced to bring staff on condi builds anyway, because unlike raids, in competitive modes you need _some_ form of either disengaging or surviving when the enemy focuses on you. If you look at metabattle, _every_ revenant build for competitive modes uses staff because you need the defence, apart from condi heralds who use some combination of mace, axe, MH sword, and shield (yes, _shield_ - for all it gets maligned, it becomes a less bad option to get some defence in). For a power revenant, this isn't a problem, because power coefficients on staff are still pretty good. For condi revenants... they're forced to take it to have some survivability, but it's a bad weapon.

I get the feeling that your viewpoint is based entirely around raids, but I'm looking across the entire game, including competitive modes, and overall, power revenant has a lot more reasonable choices, and a lot less cases of having to take less-bad options, than condi rev. You're putting down Jalis as "low damage" (compared to Shiro), but I was running Jalis/Glint fairly successfully last season, and the hammers certainly do contribute to damage (and in PvP, are a lower energy drain than Impossible Odds) while also significantly adding to durability. Maybe the optimised power rev setup for maximum damage in raid conditions does less damage than the optimised condi rev setup for maximum damage in raid conditions, but power rev, broadly speaking, has more opportunity to _adapt._

Now, this isn't necessarily a call for the next rev elite spec to be condi-based. That's what they tried with Renegade, and honestly, it's a bandaid solution. Revenant needs a second condition-based, or at least power/condi hybrid, weapon in its core set, or the problem is just going to keep coming up again.

But neither do I think that the next legend should be based around maximising power DPS in raid conditions as you seem to think. Raids aren't the entire game.

Eh. The Ministry of Purity had necromancers back in GW1, although admittedly Winds of Change also abandoned the concept some other factions had of being restricted to specific professions (for instance, the Jade Brotherhood tended towards more "upper-class" professions while the Am Fah tended more towards "survivalist" professions), so this might not be saying an awful lot. The Ministry of Purity is really more of an ultranationalist group than anything, so I don't think they'd necessarily have an objection to death magic as long as it's _their_ death magic. Although, like the White Mantle early in Guild Wars 1, they might pretend that they don't have necromancers to anyone they're trying to make nice with.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > The key part, though, is that revenant reproduces the **feel** of many dervish builds of having a certain ebb and flow to them. Guardian virtues don't achieve the same **feel** because even though they're a case of sacrificing a buff for an immediate effect, it's not a buff you've chosen to activate in the first place so you can discharge it later, it's not something you can do nearly as often.

>

> This is highly subjective.

> _You_ **feel** parts of Dervish in Revenant.

> _I_ don't **feel** Dervish in anywhere in GW2.

> But then again, I don't **feel** any of the GW1 professions, in their direct GW2 counterparts either.

Well, if you don't see any of the parallels even in the direct counterparts, then it's a bit odd to jump into the conversation trying to claim that one thing parallels to another in the first place.

Now, clearly, with the changes to mechanics, _nothing's_ going to be a direct conversion and GW2 professions are much less specialised than their GW1 equivalents,, but there are certain playstyle elements that do carry over. It was a common consensus before HoT that the dervish playstyle wasn't present in the core professions - there were things that were certainly arguably dervish-like, such as the guardian virtues you mentioned, but it was all just an element or two, nothing that really brought it together. Healers were accepted to be gone, and pure interrupt builds like some old mesmer, but it was generally considered that the dervish playstyle _could_ be made to work in GW2 but hadn't been (although guardian was viewed as the closest).

Revenant and reaper pretty much put paid to that.

> @"zaswer.5246" said:

>Im talking about raids (high end pve) and if you need someone better to berify it gor you go to snow crows discord ant ask there

Raids are a somewhat distorted situation, since you can usually assume you have basically all non-unique buffs and usually the priority is just to maximise DPS. So I can see why you downplay Glint in this context... although it is worth noting that the raid group's fury and might does still need to come from _somewhere._ Glint does work quite well in open world meta events and competitive modes, however.

> Jalis being on par with shiro in dps means shiro needs a change

Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. "Shiro is the only good legend for power damage" "If any other legend gets good enough to compete with Shiro, Shiro should be buffed!"

Jalis might not be in the raid meta at the moment, but it has been in the past. That suggests that the issue is not a fundamental one of design, but of how the numbers and various synergies work out (for instance, I think Jalis was benefiting a lot from a synergy with Assassin's Annihilation, which no longer exists). The answer to such a problem is to improve the existing legends, not necessarily to invent new ones. It's a lot easier to ramp up power numbers than to add conditions to skills that didn't previously have them (and therefore changing their functionality).

> Burst of stregth is used with sword skills for a burst , now what? You hqve to change to shiro and suddenly you spend 10 or more seconds doingAA wich is a dps loss

Like @"Dadnir.5038" said, Shiro doesn't have a monopoly on sword. A common rotation with Glint/Shiro is to use the higher-energy sword offhand skills when in Glint, ideally after a Burst of Strength, so you can save energy for Shiro skills, primarily Impossible Odds, when you switch to Shiro.

> Also condi builds being worse than power recently? Are you in this year ? Man in all pve the condi builds are much better than de power ones , sc has 2 builds on condi for renegade , one with shiro and other with kalla and both get to 37 k of dps , you know the benches on power? Well there are not sc benches but what i got in rene with kalla was 29 at most , even if i am not great playing i know my stuf so lets asume sc could pull 32 k , now compare (that is if you can realy get to 32 k dps wich i doubt)

I said condi options were _more restrictive_ than power. Those that exist are doing pretty well in the current meta... but there are less ways to build a condi rev than a power rev that are actually viable, especially if you define "viable" as something other than "maximum DPS in raid scenarios".

Let's look at the legend options:

Shiro is power. There are some incidental benefits to a condi build, such as quickness boosting the rate of condi application from a weapon, but the direct damage is all power-based.

Jalis is also power, albeit a little more support-oriented. No damaging conditions, all of the direct damage that Jalis does is power, and Retaliation is also power-based. Jalis skills do nothing to support condition damage, serving purely as utility for a condi-oriented build, but can add to power damage.

Mallyx is, obviously, condi... or is he? Banish Enchantment and Call to Anguish both have decent power coefficients, and only apply damaging conditions through Abyssal Chill. EtD is obviously condi-based, but the rest of the kit you could probably use on a power rev if you wanted to... but taking Corruption pretty much commits you to condi.

Ventari is pure support and doesn't directly contribute to damage at all (but does supply Alacrity).

Glint has a bit of burn through Elemental Blast, but Burst of Strength purely synergises with power, and Chaotic Release is pure power damage (in PvE, it's no damage in competitive nowadays). Fury also benefits power more than condi (especially with Rampant Vex being removed) and might stacks _could_ be made to benefit power over condi if you're running Notoriety.

Kalla has Icerazor and Soulcleave for power DPS, Citadel Bombardment is a bit of a hybrid that leans towards condi, and Razorclaw tickles.

So... a power build can choose between Shiro and Jalis for cores, and Glint and Kalla are both leaning more towards power. Which you actually choose depends on what precisely you need. Condi... well, Mallyx is pretty much stapled on, and then it's a least-bad question of Shiro, Glint, or Kalla. You can run Jalis if you really need the toughness and Stability, but my experience has been that Glint still offers more survivability in PvP while adding more offensively.

Now, let's look at weapons:

Sword(/sword) is a melee-oriented power DPS set. Because it offers a decent amount of chill, it can act as something of a hybrid with Abyssal Chill.

Mace is a 'skirmishing'-style condi weapon - the autoattack is melee, but the short recharge of the fire field gives it some standoff capability.

Axe offhand, as previously discussed, is something of a power/condi hybrid.

Staff is a hybrid between a defensive power melee weapon and a support weapon. Because of this, it can be expected to have lower DPS than sword. However, importantly, staff still has decent power coefficients, while offering no conditions at all. So it's actually a reasonable second set for power to get some extra breakbar or defensive options. For condi, though... you take it because you need a defensive weaponset and you have no better choices.

Hammer is a power-oriented ranged weapon. Because it's ranged, it can be expected to have lower DPS than sword/sword, because ranged _usually_ does less damage than melee. It's pretty much useless for condi builds, since the only damaging condition you can get out of it is through the chill on Phase Smash. It's also buggy at the moment, but that's a reason to fix it, not to replace it.

Shortbow is, as previously discussed, power/condi hybrid.

Which means that, ultimately, everything but mace is fairly well suited to power builds, even if sword/sword is optimal for raid conditions where you stack on the boss and DPS is all that really matters. With condi builds, you've basically got mace (and axe), shortbow (if renegade) and then you're into least-bad-option or this-isn't-going-to-do-any-damage-but-I-need-the-utility picks.

Which tends to mean that "condi" revs are themselves typically hybrids. Now, in PvE, condi usually means Viper's anyway, so you wouldn't notice this, but in competitive modes, you usually see some power stat in there somewhere, because odds are one of your weapons is still sword or staff and that's going to do basically _no_ damage without some power investment.

> Also i am triing mixing a sb on a power raid build and for the moment all i can say is that you dont loose much dps. But you dont gain either.

To be expected. As noted above, in raid conditions where you just stick to the boss, the melee set is generally going to give the best DPS. I think ranger was an exception to this for a while when greatsword and sword were both more defensive weapons than they are now, but this has changed.

> Also kallas fervor? Really? You know that even in small hitboxes bosses its better to use the trait that buffs citadel bombardment instead of the one that buffs kallas fervor ? Even being a rng attack citadel does more dmg .

Not sure what the relevance of this is? You get Kalla's Fervor naturally as long as you're running renegade, and my point was that it buffs both condition damage and power damage (through Ferocity). So its existence doesn't push you to either.

> Also being power renegade already gives you 100% crit rate with a minor trait so maybe you should look at your renegade again.

+33% from the minor, +53% with fury, +73% in PvE if you really go all in and add Roiling Mists, and it's not exactly hard to get a base of 27%. Mind you, it can still be worthwhile to build up a bit more than that in case you have to dodge sometime or if you're ever caught without fury (unlikely in raid conditions, I know). It's almost as if this was _exactly_ what I was talking about when I said "if you don't have 100% crit chance or close to it with fury, you're doing it wrong" - heaven forbid that anyone assumes that since we're talking about renegade, a renegade minor doesn't need to be explicitly called out.

Honestly, I'm inclined to agree.

Revenant is related to Ritualist in much the same way as Guardian is related to Monk - they're drawing from the same or a similar overall power source, but how they use it is very, very different. If anything, more so with the Revenant than with the Guardian.

And yeah, I don't think there's much point to legends which are simply a translation of an existing profession into a legend. Mallyx and Glint had entirely unique skills. So did Shiro - yes, he was technically an assassin, but by the time we fought him in GW1 he'd collected so much power that he'd essentially transcended mortal assassins. Jalis was technically a warrior, but the legend relates to him focuses on his legacy, and while Ventari's precise profession is unknown (he would have had one, centaurs have professions just like humans, and this has largely followed through into GW2 although GW2 doesn't make it explicit) his legend also focuses on his legacy.

Kalla is probably the most 'normal' of the legends, but in her case the focus is more on her as a leader than her as a ranger or warrior.

Personally, I'm definitely more eager to see a future revenant legend being something exotic that doesn't fit into the other professions rather than a revenant facsimile of a profession that already exists... or even one that existed in a previous game.

Cough.

@"draxynnic.3719" said:

> Now, this isn't to say that revenant is the only thing reminiscent of the dervish in GW2. Reapers, for instance, are fairly unambiguously a GW2 necromancer take on the Grenth dervish.

Yeah, there are similarities in guardian as well, but I don't think guardian quite matches as well as revenant does. You can also find similarities in weaver, reaper (as mentioned), holosmith, spellbreaker (which borrows some skill names directly) and arguably even berserker.

Similarly, you can find similarities with ritualist in renegade, engineer, ranger, necromancer, elementalist (particularly after the recent change to Glyph of Lesser Elementals) and older versions of thief, mesmer, and guardian.

Yeah, there are quite a few things that can PBAoE in GW2. There were in GW1 as well! But I think the revenant does stand out as a profession that is particularly oriented towards it, particularly in the form of PBAoE that acts like an enchantment (such as Vengeful Hammers and Embrace the Darkness). Cleave is obviously no longer a weapon-specific thing, but revenant weapons are still _particularly_ well suited to dealing with bunched-up enemies. Not exclusively so, but it's there.

The key part, though, is that revenant reproduces the feel of many dervish builds of having a certain ebb and flow to them. Guardian virtues don't achieve the same feel because even though they're a case of sacrificing a buff for an immediate effect, it's not a buff you've chosen to activate in the first place so you can discharge it later, it's not something you can do nearly as often. A herald can potentially throw out a lot of such effects and apart from the heal (and the elite in competitive modes) they all have fairly short recharges - for guardian, the only way you're getting multiple virtue activations in a short timespan is if you're running Radiance and scoring kills (which is more of an Assassin's Promise-esque style) or you use Renewed Focus.

That's just the most obvious example. Just the base mechanics, for instance, carry that feeling of flowing from one mode of operation to another as you swap between legends. How much of a difference this makes depends on your build, but it's definitely there in a way that it isn't with guardian.

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Lily.1935" said:

> > > Ritualist summons the dead. The revenant has no such limitations. This might be hard for you to hear this, but the only limitation the Revenant has is that the person they're channeling has to currently be in the mists. It doesn't mean they have to be dead. We saw this with Palawa Joko in the Living story and its likely that the revenant could channel someone like Arkk who never technically died but is lost in the mists. You want to hyper narrow the Revenant's scope to the Death magic that the Ritualist and Necromancer both share. When there is no such limitations. Revenant magic is chaotic and unstable. The stabilizing element is their Legend which grants them access to their abilities. They are more akin to a Blue mage. I will not ignore some of the similarities they have with both necromancer and Ritualist, they do have some. But I also can't ignore the Identity of the ritualist which is that of a Shaman dancer, using bones and ashes to commune with the dead.

> >

> > I think it's a bit deeper than that. Revenants have to channel someone which had a significant enough impact to leave a strong echo in the Mists. Joko, for instance, is an individual who has shaped Elonian history for centuries, and not just in the obvious way - the rise to power of the Ossa family and the founding of the Order of Whispers were both in response to him. He's definitely a revenant legend candidate, albeit probably one the PC will never use thanks to that "ugh, never again" response. There are actually pretty strong signs that, contrary to what the PC thought, Joko had already left the mists at that point, but there was still enough there to use.

> >

> > Characters whose main claim to fame is opposing a particular villain, however, do not seem to qualify - in these cases, it's the villain that created a big enough impact for the legend to form around. For instance, Shiro represents the events of Factions and the Jade Wind - Vizu, Archemorous, and the others are part of Shiro's legend. The exception seems to be when the primary actor is of the power level of a god or Elder Dragon, or is a dependent champion of an Elder Dragon, such as the Great Destroyer. Now, I don't think ArenaNet has explicitly stated that these are the requirements, but it does seem to fit what we've seen thus far - a legend must have had a significant impact on at least one culture, and they have to do so at least partially on their own initiative rather than simply trying to stop someone else.

> >

> > Ironically, if we were to have another legend focused around summoning spirits, I could see it being King Adelbern.

>

> There is a problem with this hypothesis of yours. And that's Mallyx. Mallyx is not a significant demon in the lore of Tyria and had little individual impact on the story. Varesh Ossa on the other hand was quite prominent. There is no suggestion that the Revenant can channels legends that are currently in Tyria, although considering that Time is irrelevant to the mists, they could channel a version of King Adelbern. Although if you wanted to play like the king he'd function more like a Minion Master as opposed to a Spirit spammer since he's acting as a commander of forces not a conjurer of the mists.

>

> The Legends must be significant enough in some way. Either powerful or legendary. Much of what the Revenant does would technically allow them to act as any profession in the game, They could channel a necromancer or warrior just fine and gain there abilities. Arkk is a legend that could be channeled. If personal legend is a factor, he's known among Mist being. Otherwise his mother who spearheaded the fractals project in the first place would be a legend enough to be called on.

>

> Usoku Is such a legend that would satisfy your criteria though. His actions are influenced by Shiro, but Shiro's actions were influenced by a minor demon in the story.

Never said the individual had to have had a big impact on Tyria. Mallyx's impact within the Mists themselves were quite significant, and it's possible that he also had a significant impact on the original war of the gods that allowed him to reach such a high position in the first place. Consider that he's positioned on at least the same level as Shiro and Khilbron, and seems to be if anything _higher_ on the totem pole than the likes of Lord Jadoth and the Fury - it's entirely likely that he's had a significant history even before Abaddon was imprisoned that we don't know.

At the very least, though, Mallyx represents Nightfall, the Margonites, and the Realm of Torment. Yes, he was technically subservient to Abaddon, but I'd already noted that one situation in which a legend could be a subordinate is if the superior is something too high in scale to be a legend, such as a god.

When it comes to Adelbern - one thing I'd note here is that the legends do somewhat draw on what the figure's impact was rather than how that figure actually fought. Jalis, for instance, fights nothing like the historical Jalis, instead seeming to be more of an embodiment of the Great Dwarf with Jalis as its face. Shiro doesn't release a small-scale Jade Wind any time he has a big enough energy reserve and feels like it, he devastates a continent with his death scream. Ventari's powers all resolve around a tablet that he only inscribed when he was close to death. Adelbern as a legend, therefore, would likely revolve around the Foefire, and what is the best-known consequences of the Foefire? Spirits all over the place!

Usoku certainly would fulfill the criteria, unless there's some reason he wouldn't that we don't know about (such as someone else being the proverbial power behind the throne). Since I don't think we know much about him, though, he's pretty much a blank slate as to what he'd have.

(Incidentally, the Joko case is an example of channeling someone who is almost certainly not in the Mists - as we're breaking out of the Great Hall prison, Joko was in the process of kidnapping Taimi.)

I'm... really not comfortable about taking minions away from core necro. It should always be possible to make a MM reaper (particularly given the existence of "Rise!"), or a MM scourge, or even a MM core necro (particularly starting characters). It's one of the basic assumptions of necromancer that minions are an option should you choose to take it.

If we were to look to make a more minion-focused necromancer specialisation, I'd probably take one of two approaches:

Approach 1: Basically, ritualist. Give the necromancer an alternative source of summons, which they might use in lieu of their existing minions or in combination with them.

Approach 2: Support. Consider the orders necro from GW1 - one possibility could be to have buffs along those lines in lieu of shroud abilities. The general principle there is that while it's not bringing minions directly, if you don't have anything else to buff, you can buff your minions. Scourge MM has something of this effect, but mostly through traits and the skill that grants barrier - this could be a bit more direct.

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> Ritualist summons the dead. The revenant has no such limitations. This might be hard for you to hear this, but the only limitation the Revenant has is that the person they're channeling has to currently be in the mists. It doesn't mean they have to be dead. We saw this with Palawa Joko in the Living story and its likely that the revenant could channel someone like Arkk who never technically died but is lost in the mists. You want to hyper narrow the Revenant's scope to the Death magic that the Ritualist and Necromancer both share. When there is no such limitations. Revenant magic is chaotic and unstable. The stabilizing element is their Legend which grants them access to their abilities. They are more akin to a Blue mage. I will not ignore some of the similarities they have with both necromancer and Ritualist, they do have some. But I also can't ignore the Identity of the ritualist which is that of a Shaman dancer, using bones and ashes to commune with the dead.

I think it's a bit deeper than that. Revenants have to channel someone which had a significant enough impact to leave a strong echo in the Mists. Joko, for instance, is an individual who has shaped Elonian history for centuries, and not just in the obvious way - the rise to power of the Ossa family and the founding of the Order of Whispers were both in response to him. He's definitely a revenant legend candidate, albeit probably one the PC will never use thanks to that "ugh, never again" response. There are actually pretty strong signs that, contrary to what the PC thought, Joko had already left the mists at that point, but there was still enough there to use.

Characters whose main claim to fame is opposing a particular villain, however, do not seem to qualify - in these cases, it's the villain that created a big enough impact for the legend to form around. For instance, Shiro represents the events of Factions and the Jade Wind - Vizu, Archemorous, and the others are part of Shiro's legend. The exception seems to be when the primary actor is of the power level of a god or Elder Dragon, or is a dependent champion of an Elder Dragon, such as the Great Destroyer. Now, I don't think ArenaNet has explicitly stated that these are the requirements, but it does seem to fit what we've seen thus far - a legend must have had a significant impact on at least one culture, and they have to do so at least partially on their own initiative rather than simply trying to stop someone else.

Ironically, if we were to have another legend focused around summoning spirits, I could see it being King Adelbern.

Just so we're on the same page, which mode are you referring to?

It's dropped off a bit at the moment, but it wasn't too long ago that Jalis was typically taken _instead of_ Shiro for the DPS role in high-end PvE content, since the hammers often aren't _that_ much of a DPS loss to Impossible Odds (keeping in mind that there are three hammers and they spin fairly fast, so that relatively small damage per hit adds up quickly) and Jalis offers other utility that can be useful, such as a more practical CC for breaking Defiance bars. And you don't see many builds that aren't packing Glint or Kalla - the preference is to go Shiro/Glint, Shiro/Kalla, Jalis/Glint, or Jalis/Kalla rather than Shiro/Jalis. Doesn't seem to me like Shiro is the king of power DPS quite as much as you claim.

Your problems with Glint seem to be PEBKAC issues to me. Nothing to use Burst of Strength on? What about Shackling Wave, Deathstrike, Surge of the Mists in PvE, or even Chilling Isolation? There's plenty of opportunity to chain up high-power attacks in that period.

Kalla you've already identified some of the benefits it has with power, but you're obviously trying to use everything rather than using your energy efficiently. Often just the ultimate is all you want from it, although Icerazor's is nice for building up Battle Scars stacks. You can make it so that even autoattacks hit like a truck, and if you build up a big stack of Battle Scars, that's where multihit attacks like Sevenshot and Unrelenting Assault kick in to convert Battle Scars into rapid power damage.

Meanwhile, there's very little outside of Mallyx that supports conditions. Shiro, Jalis, and Ventari stances don't produce damaging conditions at all, and if you're not a renegade, mace/axe is the only weaponset you have that has damaging conditions at all outside of converting chill to torment with Abyssal Chill. Glint provides boons and a small amount of burn. Kalla... like I said, while it may _look_ like it's condi-based, it actually works a lot better with power due to the legend skills, _even when armed with shortbow_ (the autoattack is more power-based than condition-based, and prioritising your energy elsewhere while autoattacking is certainly a viable tactic, particularly considering the jankiness of skills 2 and 3). Nothing in the traitline really pushes you to condis either - Kalla's Fervor stacks ferocity as well as condition damage (if you don't have 100% crit chance or close to it with fury, you're doing it wrong) and the only traits that really push you into condition damage are Blood Fury and maybe Heartpiercer if you're not benefiting from the piercing.

Believe me, power builds have a lot more viable choices than condition builds at the moment, both in terms of legend choice (Mallyx being the only legend that really lets you pump out condis, although Shiro and Glint help with providing buffs and/or vulnerability, particularly since fury contributes to condition damage if you're running Invocation) and weapons (condi has mace/axe, shortbow, and sword with Abyssal Chill in a pinch, power has literally _everything else..._ and shortbow. And axe, for that matter - Frigid Blitz is a fairly solid power hit, albeit not _quite_ so hefty as Deathstrike).

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

>

> Ranger spirits are not an adaptation of the ritualist, these spirits already existed on rangers back in GW1.

> The engineer got some mechanics transitioned from the ritualist, tho.

>

The mechanics have changed, though. GW1 ranger spirits affected everyone equally, friend or foe. GW2 ranger spirits, on the other hand, are selective in the way that supportive ritualist spirits were.

Gotta say, I'm sceptical about Togo's prospects as a legend both from a thematic perspective and a skills perspective.

From a thematic perspective... what makes Togo so legendary. The existing legends are all tied to some major event during which they were a focal point in history - Jalis represents the end of the dwarfs and the Great Destroyer, Shiro represents the Jade Wind, Ventari represents the birth of the sylvari (it's not coincidence that all his skills revolve around the Tablet), Mallyx represents Nightfall, Kalla represents the overthrow of the shamans, and Glint represents _well where do I even start?_

Togo's impact is... simply put, it's not on that level of significance. The Tengu Accords started to fall apart less than a decade after his death, and never applied to the Sensali to begin with. Apart from that, his main accomplishment is... being part of fighting Shiro. Shiro's the one whose impact was enough to generate a legend within the Mists - Togo simply played a part in one of the final chapters.

From a skills perspective - what legend skills would Togo bring? We can assume his direct attack spells would go onto the weapon(s) he'd be associated with, but after that? There's a heal skill... which would be similar to Soothing Stone if translated into GW2. There's an energy management skill, which would probably be more likely to go into F2 than 7-10. Dragon Empire Rage could possibly be an elite, but after that, you're basically looking at spirits, and _Kalla already does that._ So I'm not convinced that Togo actually brings much to the table which which to establish his own playstyle. Certainly, I'm _really_ not convinced we need a second bite at the spirits cherry right after Kalla.

> @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:

> If they give us Scepter they need to give us another offhand as well, preferably Focus, since neither Axe or Offhand Sword would synergize well with a Scepter mainhand. Plus it would be fitting and thematic to get both Scepter + Focus for a Rit spec at the same time. The precedent is set as well, with Spellbreaker getting both main and offhand dagger simultaneously, which are effectively different weapons in terms of code and usage.

I'm not entirely convinced. Axe and sword both feel similar to guardian offhands, in that they _can_ be used at range but you still get the most out of them if you get up close and personal. Axe in particular has fairly long-range skills, but one of them is a gap-closer. I could see it working, especially if scepter is balanced as more of a 'skirmishing' weapon that rewards getting close occasionally rather than being a completely stand-off weapon like hammer.

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> The necromancer doesn't use Mist magic. They use death magic. They can't summor cosmic horrors or rip holes into reality like the Revenant can. You got to read the lore of the classes. Revenant is uses mist magic. Not necromancer. Both necromancer and ritualist use death magic specifically.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> Lorewise, Revenant is completely different than both Ritualists and Dervishs though.

> Ritualists allegedly summon the very souls of Ancestors and are almost exclusively linked to Grenth worship.

Both of these are misconceptions.

Ritualists are associated with Grenth worship in about the same way Necromancers are - from a human's perspective their magic falls within Grenth's domain, but actually being a Grenth worshiper is required for neither. You can see this in Eye of the North - there are charr and norn ritualists. By contrast, ArenaNet was fairly careful about which enemies and NPCs they gave avatar forms to - if something is a dervish which uses an avatar elite, it's either human or something which is otherwise connected to the gods in some fashion.

However, it's not death magic. It's Mists magic. Both Ritualist and Revenant fundamentally operate by opening a channel to the Mists, contacting an entity within, and making use of its power. The distinction is that ritualists contact relatively weak entities, but can do so with multiple entities at once, causing them to manifest in the physical world or to cast some sort of spell across the veil. Revenants, by contrast, contact legendary entities (or, rather, their echoes) but channel their power through what is essentially a limited form of possession (albeit one where the revenant seems fully in control, although it's possible that can change if the revenant makes a mistake).

That said, we do know that a bit of ritualist magic has made it into other professions. Guardian is specifically called out in _Sea of Sorrows,_ and necromancers have picked up some abilities that appear ritualist-like. In a GW2 context, I could definitely see a necromancer elite specialisation being ritualist-like, although its worthwhile noting that the presence of NPC paragons and dervishes in Elona did not translate to these professions being made playable, directly or as an elite specialisation.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"Lily.1935" said:

>

> This entire post feels like what bothers me about most people in regards to Dervish:

> Most people reduce the entire profession to that one Gimmick of the **five** Avatar Elite skills.

> **five** out of **15** Elite skills of out a total amount of **85** skills don't make up the whole profession.

> While I agree that the Legends of Revenants somewhat resemble the Dervish Avatars, clearly don't make up or majorly define Dervishs.

> I'd even consider Necro Shrouds and all the transformation skills distributed among Warrior, Necro and Elementalist, as well as the Guardian Tomes (both original and Firebrand) and the racials Reaper of Grenth and Avatar of Melandru closer to the Avatars than Revenant's Legends.

I think there's more to the dervish-revenant parallel than just avatars in playstyle.

For instance, one of the notable characteristics of the dervish was that it was essentially a PBAoE (Point Blank Area of Effect) specialist - while other professions certainly _could_ act in this role, the dervish was built around it, with enchantments that involved PBAoE attacks, a basic attack which cleaved (which was novel to them in GW1), effects which meant they'd damage those around them, and both spells and attacks with an area effect. There is a degree of this to the revenant as well - mace is largely about area attacks, and even sword has a certain AoE focus with the end of the autoattack chain and the new Chilling Isolation (which still does more damage overall of there are three or more enemies to be hit). While Shiro is mostly mobility and single-target focused, Jalis and Mallyx each have a pulsing channeled PBAoE effect (Vengeful Hammers and Embrace the Darkness) and a skill that acts as an immediate area attack (Inspiring Reinforcement and Call to Anguish).

Another feature of dervish was that certain builds had a bit of a cadence to their playstyle. You'd build up a stack of enchantments, then use them as fuel to release a powerful offence (sometimes getting defensive benefits along the way as well, and usually splashing a lot of conditions around). Revenant can have much the same feel - the behaviour of herald facets, where the sustained effect of the facet is consumed for an immediate attack, is a pretty direct comparison, but even the process of shifting between modes of operation through legend-swapping is reminiscent of this, particularly if you combine it with invocation and corruption traits so that you're splashing out boons, conditions, and damage every time you swap.

Now, this isn't to say that revenant is the only thing reminiscent of the dervish in GW2. Reapers, for instance, are fairly unambiguously a GW2 necromancer take on the Grenth dervish.

Personally, I'm leaning towards a shadow magic assassin as well.

While there's certainly a bit of magic in the thief, especially the Deadeye, the Assassin did manage to have a more magical feel, particularly when it came to using magic as the weapon directly rather than as a means to set up for a more mundane attack. Would be nice to see this return to the GW2 thief.

> @"zaswer.5246" said:

> Revenant is easy in fact , just add a legend that can help shiro in a power dps build because that is the only thing the rev is really missing.(and no neither glint nor kalla are really good shiro partners for power builds just the only options available )

To be honest, I'd consider both to be far better partners for a power build than a condi build. Kalla seems like a fit for condi at first glance, but then you realise that the bleed spirit is not worth the time or the energy and everything else is power. Glint is... decent, because might adds to condi and Elemental Blast gives burns and chill, but she's probably still a better fit for power than condi, and Jalis also has decent power damage through hammers.

Personally, despite the champion title, I'm quite sceptical of Revenant getting the Ritualist as an expansion 3 speculation.

First because, like it or not, Kalla already does spirit summoning. It might be a large part of the reason why renegade is what it is - ArenaNet wanted to give it a ritualist flavour without having a _Canthan_ flavour, and ritualist magic was known to the charr in GW1, which when coupled with the fact that Rytlock is the first revenant and there was no charr legend, makes a charr legend a natural fit. Why is it Kalla rather than Olma or Bonfaaz? Probably because Rytlock was looking for a legend that his students would respect, rather than one they've never heard of or a Flame Imperator. When it comes to a third rev elite, it makes sense to do something new rather have a second go at a pseudo-ritualist. Revenant may draw on a similar power source, but they aren't ritualists any more than guardians are paragons.

Second, because ArenaNet seems to be holding tight to the lore that Revenant originated in Tyria (specifically, with Rytlock) and hasn't had the chance to spread to other lands until we're able to visit them ourselves. Pretty much every PoF elite specialisation had some tie to Elona apart from Renegade, why? Because there were no revenants in Elona before we arrived, or at least not long enough for a local tradition to have emerged. The other professions have all been around for long enough for local variants to develop, and those provide for elite specialisations - in the case of revenant, though, the profession itself is developing before our eyes. The same is likely true of Cantha - there won't have been the opportunity for a local revenant tradition to develop.

Personally, I think there's a good chance that the new rev elite will reflect events in Tyria since the start of PoF rather than Cantha. Could be Asgeir. Could even be Svanir, if ArenaNet decides it's time for another villain.