Biggest flaws in the Revenant profession, how you would fix them

[Cecylio.1286]

It's sad that I have to agree. My Sylvari Revenant-Herald is my main (mostly story reasons), yet I hate her sometimes. I can handle few enemies, but throw some that apply conditions and I'm usually dead in a sec. I like buffing people, but I rarely swap out of Herald. Other Legends are just... well, bad. Not entirely, but there are flaws. Even Herald has some. I think one of the best solution is to add more utility skills to choose from. Many Legends lack good condition cleanse, break stuns or protection from conditions/stuns in general. Such utility skills are important to me. I run Herald/Jalis, so basically - as Herald I need condition cleanse and stability - I have those as Jalis, yes, but he's missing break stun that isn't Elite skill and his energy consumption is HUMONGOUS. I can barely use any skills, before I run out of energy.

 

I understand the idea, than when I need to cleanse conditions, I swap to Jalis, etc. But at the same time, I don't like it. I like having a set bar of skills that I can rely on, not two bars of barely useful skills! Idea is good, but execution is bad. It just doesn't work the way it should work.

 

How about making every Legend even more unique and give it more skills to choose from, but! make swapping cooldown much longer. So I can rely on my current set of skills, but when I see different enemies or boss, I swap my Legend and have second bar of reliable skills. I can't swap quickly, to spam skills, so I have to choose carefully... but at least that would be a MEANINGFUL choice! I hope I explained it good.

 

And where's the second underwater weapon? I guess it comes with another Elite Spec.

[Llethander.3972]

The biggest flaw in the Revenant, as I see it, is the Energy system. Whereas all other classes have their skills limited by cooldown, with the exception of Thief though I will touch on that momentarily, the Revenant skills are managed by both Energy and Cooldown. The only skills that actually feel like Energy as a resource is particularly good are the toggle skills such as the Renegade elite, Ventari Tablet's bubble, etc and that's only because we get to choose when we want it to turn off. Thieves are managed by Initiative, which is similar in a sense to Energy, however only their weapon skills are reliant on their Initiative.

 

The best way to make the Revenant feel better would be to remove the Energy cost of weapon skills and have them governed strictly by cooldown while retaining the Energy mechanic for utility skills, elite skills, and F-skills. As it is, Revenant players have to choose whether they want to use their utility skills or their weapon skills. What this usually ends up meaning is that the utility skills get used and the Revenant player spams 1 on whatever weapon they have equipped.

[Mako.4137]

Yeah the energy system is flawed and it does kind make the limited number of skills feel even more limited.

[narcx.3570]

The biggest flaw isn't so much with revenant, but with how strong and cheap condis are in general...

 

Anet took condi's and decided to make them rev's biggest weakness/counter... And in anet's defense, at the time they designed revenants, condi's weren't really that strong, so it didn't seem like that bad of an achilles heel to give them. But after elite specs and condi damage reworkings, the end result is that now you have something that's so strong it works against all the classes, but then, like, SUPER DOUBLE EXTRA works against revs.

[Mako.4137]

I think the Rev's are kinda flawed. Certainly not as smooth or polished as other professions. I mean, the energy system kinda sucks for one thing.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Personally I'd like:

3 Legends equippable to match the 3 traitlines.

Energy for utilities only.

Only 1 weapon set.

Weapons only have cooldowns, no energy costs.

 

At least 1 legend should be a "Melee Kit (Dwarf probably)" and 1 should be a "Ranged Kit (???)" in order to make sure that no matter what weapon you choose, you can cover your other range category with a Legend choice.

 

Legends don't reset energy to 50, instead invoking adds 25 energy. Legends have independent cooldowns (you can burst 50 energy by invoking twice since you have 3 legends). Similar to attunements but instead of changing weapon skills, you change utilities.

 

Invocation traitline adjusted to work like Arcana (generalist traitline, affects legend swapping cooldown/energy restoration). Other traitlines refocused to work within their legends with 1 row dedicated for multi-legend synergy.

[Dragon.8762]

* Rework the energy system (auto attacks grant energy on third hit)

* Grant more access to stability in general

* Grant more access to resistance in general

* Rework renegade summons to have stability on cast

* Revert staff 5 pvp damage nerf

* Reduce energy cost on phase traversal

* Reduce energy cost on renegade f abilities

[Mako.4137]

I think the two legend thing is fair, but I dont think they've utilised that limitation in a way that would make things fun, such as interesting synergy with talents or alternate playstyles. The lack of utilities makes things seem even more dull.

 

I think its very obvious that the renegade needs more utilities. Summons are good, but there should be other abilities for other situations and perhaps some way to deal with condis etc.

[tenryuta.2014]

> @Kiroshima.8497 said:

> Personally I'd like:

> 3 Legends equippable to match the 3 traitlines.

> Energy for utilities only.

> Only 1 weapon set.

> Weapons only have cooldowns, no energy costs.

>

> At least 1 legend should be a "Melee Kit (Dwarf probably)" and 1 should be a "Ranged Kit (???)" in order to make sure that no matter what weapon you choose, you can cover your other range category with a Legend choice.

>

> Legends don't reset energy to 50, instead invoking adds 25 energy. Legends have independent cooldowns (you can burst 50 energy by invoking twice since you have 3 legends). Similar to attunements but instead of changing weapon skills, you change utilities.

>

> Invocation traitline adjusted to work like Arcana (generalist traitline, affects legend swapping cooldown/energy restoration). Other traitlines refocused to work within their legends with 1 row dedicated for multi-legend synergy.

 

that would suck, legend kits would make things bad, ie; i renegade ranged and melee because of how good it is(atleast i think its good :'( ). the legend itself is the kit, an inversion of engi kits for the heal/uti/elite. engi is the only kit user unless you count conjures and banners as kits(please dont, they have cooldowns on them that exceed the use time, double conjure doesnt count when someone can take the second, leaving a sword ele screwed if he can only hit something ranged). destroying that level of customization would destroy what makes revenant a revenant

 

resetting energy on invocation is not great either, we would be OP if a herald could cast nature/darkness/strength/chaos, burn out, invoke to jiro/malmal, spam some utility, repeat invoke spam invoke spam.

 

the traitlines are fine as is, and there are more than enough "use x legend for this trait" around, salvation for example is meant for ventaris, but could be used with herald and renegade easily, devastation for jiros but can work with anything.

 

my question to all is: does soulcleave have an icd because i often drop it for others to boost burst?

[narcx.3570]

> @tenryuta.2014 said.

>

> my question to all is: does soulcleave have an icd because i often drop it for others to boost burst?

 

No, there's no limit on how many times or how often it can proc... But it's not a dps increase over not using it and having the extra energy for more weapons skills/citadel bombardment/razorclaw...

 

EDIT: It just occurred to me you might be a power renegade, it's definitely worth using for them since you only use 35 energy during the 10 seconds you spend in Kalaa (Icerazor and PSx2.) But then again, you prolly get more DPS just using Jalis/Shiro since they added the 10% bonus to Impossible Odds.

 

[tenryuta.2014]

> @Burtnik.5218 said:

> By reworking the class, remove the bandaid fix called wep swap, ele and engi gets away without it, rev can too if a proper work will be put into him. starts by adding F2-5 keys for general utility such as stunbreak, condi clear etc to base rev. 2 extra utility skills per legend are needed as well. Main problem is energy system atm and the fact we have to swap instead of being able to actually adapt to a situation and stick to a legend which we need at x moment.

 

so you dont use renegade then i take it, it has a stun break, on my favorite skill no less: darkrazors daring, which also interrupts alot of CC mordrem making them standing derps, and its only 12cd, which is great(please dont ask me to solo an elite/champion giant frog or vinetooth, im heavy on power and support not flatout OHKO that- ahem some classes can do :p ), condi clear is the divine power of the stoner(she has a name i guess ;p ).

 

no wep swap would destroy many a revenant to either stick to ventari or stoner if melee or mally and jiro for ranged ruining the whole build it how you want that gw2 is known for. random anon user:"but we want shitty updates like skyforge ascension did, its like so awesome that its ff14 with gods and space stuff". also engi has as many as 5, yes 5 kits/wep swaps possible at once, thats 30 possible skills with only 5 buttons, ele has 20, more if weaver, and temporary more if using conjures(which still suck if your sword and run out of frost bow/fiery sword).

[Mako.4137]

Ive never actually played ventari, its one of the things I would have no idea how to improve.

[Pluften.7026]

I reckon that Revenant simply needs some utilities a bit like Glyphs for elementalists - skills that can be slotted no matter what legend you're attuned to and provide a slightly different function accordingly. For example something like this that I briefly came up with for the sake of an example

 

Invoke Power:

Ventari: Aoe Burst of DMG around you that heals allies based on dmg done and gives regen

Shiro: AoE High Burst of DMG and might around you

Jalis: AoE burst of DMG and applies half a second of taunt, increasing by 20% in duration per target hit

Mallyx: AoE burst of light DMG, converts enemy boons into conditions and allies a bit of torment.

Glint: Burst of DMG around you and extends boon duration of allies around you based on the number of enemies hit

Kalla: Burst of DMG that extends the duration of conditions on enemies around you and gives you Kalla's fury for each target hit.

 

Something like that, a set of invocation utility skills that change based on legend but roughly have the same use no matter what stance. One for AoE, one kinda stunbreak with different effects, etc. They'd have to get creative obviously but they did it for elementalist with their glyphs so I don't see why Anet couldn't do it here. This way at least you don't have to ALWAYS have all of the two legends skills you're attuned to and you get a little bit diversity while still keeping your utilities to the theme of the legend you're communing with

[Mako.4137]

I think Glyphs might be interesting, but I think I slightly prefer the idea of seperate abilities for each stance (including additional ones you can slot in if you want) and general skills which you can customise as you see fit. Maybe there could be one or two F-skills on each stance as a glyph. Rev's have only two legends at a time as opposed to ele's who have multiple elements available. Any change is good for me though, there should be more to the core revenant profession.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

Professions were designed to be able to spec into different roles and playstyles and so was revenant, but the difference is the other professions are built around certain mechanics, conditions, boons, and flavors. I think they gimped the profession when implementing legends because they are all so different that they don't flow well together. They wanted to do too much with each individual legend and make them their own "sub-professions" in way that they lack a real identity and don't flow with other legends or a certain playstyle.

 

If I were to fix this I would decide on a certain playstyle for the revenant. Is he an upfront bruiser? Will he have high mobility or low? How will he deal with spike damage and conditions? Is he slow/powerful or quick/weaker? Does he teleport? (I think he should..) Basically give him a playstyle identity outside of invoking legends, because that means nothing if they are all different. Right now the only thing he has is upkeep skills, which can be useful but are boring so rev needs something else. Jalis is supposed to be a tank legend, but the weapon for it's traitline is the longest ranged weapon we have. Why wouldn't it be something close combat related, or shield related. Fix that.

 

Basically nothing compliments each other, and each legend seems like it belongs to another class. I think the point was to be able to have something like that with the rev, and although a cool idea, it doesn't perform well. It doesn't work in the game. The only way it would work is if the utility bar had more skills per legend, and no swap. And not more skills to just choose from, I mean like 5 utilities, a heal, and an elite. 12 in total that are equipped. Because otherwise these hyper focused legends won't work with just 3 utilities. They aren't enough to define a build, and they aren't enough to compliment the whole build in their current iterations. Imagine ele having utility swap, but it's two bars are conjures and glyphs. About one skill on each of those bars is going to be used. Nobody wants that ish.

[Mako.4137]

The idea that each legend offers a different playstyle is kind of what drew me to the Revenant tbh.

[Ryouzanpaku.1273]

I think problem main problem is in energy system implementation. What I would like to see is:

variant A: weapon skills do not have energy requirement, legends skill still has it maybe bit altered, energy regen will stay as it is

variant B: weapon skills GENERATE energy, legend skills use it, there is no automatic energy regen (would cause problems for Herald)

variant C: hybrid variant where weapons generate energy but there is still energy regen - this would be probably extremely hard to balance, but would be also very cool...

[Mako.4137]

I like those ideas, would be interesting to test them out.

[crosknight.3041]

my main issue with rev is it tries to hard to be jack of all trades and is outdone in almost every aspect.

Only condi seems to be keeping up with other builds. Healer rev i only ever see hand kiting at daimos in raids and due to the role it has to be a selfish healer. Herald was obliterated when facet of nature was nerfed.

 

Nitpicks

underwater rev feels unfinished that you can only use 2 legends: please make all legends work underwater.

Energy management can cause issues compared to other classes

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Nothing wrong with Herald, but Renegade is badly designed. It wants to be a condi glass cannon and support at the same time, which doesn't work at all.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Whats bad:

1. Fewer skills than other professions and they have rigid boundaries.

2. Double skill restriction with CD and Nrg

3. No class interaction whatsoever with E-Specs.

 

How to fix stuff:

Weaponskills have CD and no NRG cost.

Weaponskills replenish energy, depending on skill and maybe dmg too.

New utilities per legend.

Herold could have a class interaction and an F2 depending on channeled legend.

 

Additionally something improbable:

Two sets of skills per weapon.

They keep animation for the most part but they will behave as a condi or power weapon depending on set. This could be implemented with a drop out menu (similar to utility menu on other classes) above the AA chain.

Condi weapons would have more reddish animations and power more whitish (so you could destinct them visually, but this is optional)

So you could use 2 staffs with 2 different weapon sets for example. This would bump up build diversity massively without a huge investment in new animations and mechanics, just pure balance.

 

[Edds.7681]

From a PvE world player. It's hard for me to find flaws in Revenant with its tidy legend roles and trait roles. I do wish they would have access to Barrier like with Jalis or Glint's Shield 4

[Shonesto.2510]

A few things.

 

1) No build diversity. You pick a legend and your skills are basically set. I would like to see at least 1 extra utility skill per legend.

2) Not enough weapons. Also, some of the energy numbers on weapons skills are too high considering you have to juggle energy and CDs on weapons, which no other class has to deal with).

3) The energy mechanic as a whole. As others have said, you legend swap mainly to get back energy, which conflicts with the rigid roles each legend has. This is particularly noticeable on core Rev (yes, some of us are still at that point).

 

Removing energy costs on weapons or tweaking CDs would help with energy. More options to generate energy are also needed.

 

The lack of weapons is very restrictive as well, particularly with sword being so weak vs mace/axe.

 

I love the idea of this class and the skills look fantastic, but it really does feel like it's incomplete and still in development. Core revenant is very bad right now (Either Mallyx condi or Shiro Impossible Odds W1 spam, legend swap to Jalis when energy is 0, then legend swap on CD to Mallyx/Shiro for more energy and repeat).

 

EDIT: One other thing, underwater aspects are lacking. You can only have spear and 2 of the legends are unavailable underwater. Just furthers the case that the class is incomplete and still is 2 years later.

[Hooglese.4860]

What I sincerely and dumbfounded by is how powerful revenant auto attacks are. Like sword auto is stupid powerful, shortbow auto is it's best skill, maces is great. They're all really strong but for the closest classes to our own (theif and elementalist), they're weak. For ele and thief, they don't really auto attack, most of their damage comes from their large access to skills, which we should have since we use energy and cds. Our non-auto-attack skills should be very powerful with crap auto-attacks to benefit energy management which in turn increases the skill ceiling. In reality it's better to just use an upkeep skill and auto-attack which makes it one of the lowest skill caps amongst all the professions. I'd love if sword for example, could do some serious burst damage then you need to bail or your dead to support Shiro's skill set and yet sword just works with everything cause it's got a strong auto-attack. If this was the case it would explain why we have no condi-defence and why weapon skills have energy cost *and* cooldowns.

 

**Example Redesign of Sword**

* Reduce auto-attack chain damage by 25-33%

* Double the number of projectiles Precision Strike shoots out, if all 6 land on one target, the cooldown is refreshed.

* Unrelenting Assault does compounding damage against the same target st that if you hit all 5 hits against one target, it does 50% more damage total.

 

This is just an off the fly example, it's probably not balanced but it would a hell of a lot better than spamming 1 while holding an upkeep. Still upset about how we lost our condi-copy ability and made livid by how warrior gets the ability to copy 5 every 6.5s. That was a fucking stupid redesign decision just to make Mallyx more attractive as a PvE option but forgetting that it only does Torment and Confusion which are PvP condis... Good job idiots, you had my favorite play style and you threw it in the dumpster to appease maybe a dozen people.

[Hooglese.4860]

What I sincerely and dumbfounded by is how powerful revenant auto attacks are. Like sword auto is stupid powerful, shortbow auto is it's best skill, maces is great. They're all really strong but for the closest classes to our own (theif and elementalist), they're weak. For ele and thief, they don't really auto attack, most of their damage comes from their large access to skills, which we should have since we use energy and cds. Our non-auto-attack skills should be very powerful with crap auto-attacks to benefit energy management which in turn increases the skill ceiling. In reality it's better to just use an upkeep skill and auto-attack which makes it one of the lowest skill caps amongst all the professions. I'd love if sword for example, could do some serious burst damage then you need to bail or your dead to support Shiro's skill set and yet sword just works with everything cause it's got a strong auto-attack. If this was the case it would explain why we have no condi-defence and why weapon skills have energy cost *and* cooldowns.

 

**Example Redesign of Sword**

* Reduce auto-attack chain damage by 25-33%

* Double the number of projectiles Precision Strike shoots out, if all 6 land on one target, the cooldown is refreshed.

* Unrelenting Assault does compounding damage against the same target st that if you hit all 5 hits against one target, it does 50% more damage total.

 

This is just an off the fly example, it's probably not balanced but it would a hell of a lot better than spamming 1 while holding an upkeep. Still upset about how we lost our condi-copy ability and made livid by how warrior gets the ability to copy 5 every 6.5s. That was a fucking stupid redesign decision just to make Mallyx more attractive as a PvE option but forgetting that it only does Torment and Confusion which are PvP condis... Good job idiots, you had my favorite play style and you threw it in the dumpster to appease maybe a dozen people.