For next Balance Update, can Rev get extra time?

[Ardent Heretic.8216]

I know this sounds unfair to ask. I know @ArenaNet almost certainly can't respond to this thread. Please hear me out and do what you think is fair.

 

My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

 

Newest of all the professions, Revenant came into the game when existing professions were already fully developed. That alone gave the other professions more of a chance to settle into places that make their play styles feel complete and varied.

 

In addition, a sweeping change was made to the core design just before it launched; weapon swapping was added in. This felt like a bandaid fix, but it got Revenant to a playable place in a quick way. It always felt like this was meant to be reverted at a future time to return the profession to its design purpose. Much of the time since that change has gone toward re-balancing the skills that were originally tuned to a single weapon set profession.

 

Third, Revenant was released at the same time as its first elite spec. It was never necessary to balance the profession as a standalone without Herald. This becomes more apparent with the implementation of Renegade.

 

Finally, a developer mentioned in a pre-release interview for PoF that Renegade saw major reworks just prior to release as well.

 

Conclusion: The Revenant, Herald, and Renegade each saw major reworks just prior to their release. The profession and specs AS WE KNOW THEM did not receive as much development time as others.

 

I understand that the concepts may have received the same amount or even more than others (reworks take time), but the time prior to these reworks can't fully be counted. No other profession has received this level of rework, as far as I'm aware.

 

I'm not asking for major reworks, or even to undo the reworks that have been made. What I'm asking is that the developers put in some extra time to get Revenant to the place THEY envisioned and could have if the reworks had been done earlier in the design timeline.

 

I love Revenant. The flavor and core design have made this my favorite profession since the HoT beta. But I will admit that at times it feels... incomplete. And I think it deserves another look.

 

Edit: grammar and spelling

[SrebX.6498]

I cannot agree more.

I LOVE this profession and I want to play it seriously, but I can't help feel how little thought has gone into this class

 

HoT was clearly rushed and as that means Rev too was rushed. Since then, Time after time, Elite spec after Elite spec, Balance patch after balance patch, Rev got minor band aid fixes that were supposed to do some fine tuning, but the main issues of this class still weren't addressed.

It's time, @Arenanet ; It's time to develop a 4th utility for each Stance, it's time add more flavor and use to the Elite skills, it's time to address the issues with Energy management [i.E Not being able to generate any, having EVERY SINGLE SKILL consume Energy, while some of them still having CDs], It's time to make Ventari on par with other support specs, **Its time to polish this class.** give it real functionality, instead of just trying to mix everything up and come out empty handed.

[Ojimaru.8970]

> @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

 

Could you kindly cite the source of this statement?

 

If the profession and its Elite specialization has received "major' reworks, that implies they have each received _additional_ development time, not less. Further, nothing in your post mentions any _specific_ thing that is wrong about the Revenant or its Elite specializations.

 

> @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> That alone gave the other professions more of a chance to settle into places that make their play styles feel complete and varied.

 

Prior to Heart of Thorns, all builds in PVE were Berserker builds, and you would maybe see one or two item sets in WvW. Post-HoT, you rarely, if ever, saw base Warrior, Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer, or Guardian. On the other hand, you could play either Revenant or Herald with similar outcomes, whether Power- or Condition Damage-based.

 

> @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> Third, Revenant was released at the same time as its first elite spec. It was never necessary to balance the profession as a standalone without Herald. This becomes more apparent with the implementation of Renegade.

 

What is the basis of this assumption? What does the implementation of the Renegade make apparent about the need to balance the core specializations two years ago? Do you think ArenaNet already had the Renegade's traits and numbers fleshed out when they released Heart of Thorns?

[FrostDraco.8306]

-ruaghs in necromancer-

[ScottBroChill.3254]

> @Ojimaru.8970 said:

> > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

>

> Could you kindly cite the source of this statement?

>

> If the profession and its Elite specialization has received "major' reworks, that implies they have each received _additional_ development time, not less. Further, nothing in your post mentions any _specific_ thing that is wrong about the Revenant or its Elite specializations.

 

Receiving major reworks does not imply more, or additional time spent on it. All it means is that previous ideas were scrapped and new ideas and implementations were added. It says nothing about time spent balancing, tweaking, and adjusting everything just right to make it fluid and connected. Major time was spent on all the other professions once all the old ideas were scrapped and they had their "major" reworks (I'm assuming this has happened with most other professions in early development), and then they were left with plenty of time to figure out balancing builds within themeselves, scrapping skills that weren't the best fit, and basically polishing everything. Revenant missed on the polishing time and the internal balance of the class and instead received some cool visual skills, and basically was just given the right numbers and damage coefficients to remain usable.

 

There is a big divide between what it is and what it should be. Although this is subjective, there seems to be a more agreement of this view than with other classes.

[Ardent Heretic.8216]

> @Ojimaru.8970 said:

> > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

>

> Could you kindly cite the source of this statement?

>

> If the profession and its Elite specialization has received "major' reworks, that implies they have each received _additional_ development time, not less.

 

This is not a statement of simple fact and cannot be cited. This is conjecture based on the premise that major reworks, though themselves requiring time, by definition effectively negate time already spent.

 

>Further, nothing in your post mentions any _specific_ thing that is wrong about the Revenant or its Elite specializations.

 

You are not wrong here, and it's a difficult thing to quantify. Let me attempt to remedy this: The profession doesn't _feel_ finished. We have a low number of overall skills and few mechanics to counter-balance this. The best I can offer as evidence here are the various forum threads expressing this specific sentiment. In addition, the energy mechanic has opportunities to provide unique playability, but in practice in its current iteration largely serves as an additional limitation for the profession and requires nearly every build to swap legends on cooldown to be optimal.

 

> > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > That alone gave the other professions more of a chance to settle into places that make their play styles feel complete and varied.

>

> Prior to Heart of Thorns, all builds in PVE were Berserker builds, and you would maybe see one or two item sets in WvW. Post-HoT, you rarely, if ever, saw base Warrior, Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer, or Guardian. On the other hand, you could play either Revenant or Herald with similar outcomes, whether Power- or Condition Damage-based.

 

Build diversity is often lacking in a competitive PvE environment by nature, and my experience was that in every game mode Herald was vastly superior to core Revenant in nearly every build except Condi, which was not at first considered viable.

 

> > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > Third, Revenant was released at the same time as its first elite spec. It was never necessary to balance the profession as a standalone without Herald. This becomes more apparent with the implementation of Renegade.

>

> What is the basis of this assumption?

 

This seems like a direct logical argument to me. Revenant never existed without Herald, therefore there was never a balancing of the profession made without the existence of Herald.

 

> What does the implementation of the Renegade make apparent about the need to balance the core specializations two years ago? Do you think ArenaNet already had the Renegade's traits and numbers fleshed out when they released Heart of Thorns?

 

Of course it is doubtful Renegade was in any way fleshed out two years ago. My argument here is that Herald covered some of the gaps in core Revenant play which become more obvious when specced Renegade and unable to use Herald's skills or trait lines.

[Set.7461]

It's pretty obvious with the bugs.

 

Axe 5 was bugged since launch of HoT and what did they recently do to "fix" it? They made the fault effect angle upwards. That's right, as earthquake crack in the ground.... in the air.

 

Vengeful Hammers was only recently fixed a few months before PoF. That's a 5 years of the damn hammers spinning off ledges, disappearing through walls and still burning your energy.

 

UA and Axe 4 still gets you stuck into walls.

 

Sword 2 spreading damage? I can live with that but having it still hit random trees, doors, or supply depots which you can't even damage? Why is it called "Precision Strikes" when it never hits what I want?

 

Cancelling hammer 5 immediately resets it back to 3 sec cooldown like stowing every other skill. Wait half a second longer(while still casting mind you) and it goes on full cooldown while not having the skill go off.

 

Phase Traversal doesn't work in action cam like it does in normal mode unless you are within the 1200 range.

 

 

Soulcleave bug? Fixed instantly. Sevenshot bug? Ha, fixed before launch. It seems like they prioritize fixing bugs that favor Rev and take their time fixing things that actually hurt the class. I'm not worried. I'm confident these bugs will be fixed 3 months before the next xpac.

 

I was hoping they took the time to polish renegade but instead of a fluid elite spec with a fluid new weapon, we got clunky wells(which has no valid path bugs) and a clunky weaponset. To be fair Renegade did get some polish. At least our dancing summons are now instagramed instead of the plain things we had before :/

[fufu.2165]

[Anets comment about rev](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygB7P7rg8u4&feature=youtu.be&t=11s&muted=false "https://youtube.com/watch?v=ygB7P7rg8u4&feature=youtu.be&t=11s&muted=false")

[Obtena.7952]

> @Ojimaru.8970 said:

> > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

>

> Could you kindly cite the source of this statement?

>

> If the profession and its Elite specialization has received "major' reworks, that implies they have each received _additional_ development time, not less. Further, nothing in your post mentions any _specific_ thing that is wrong about the Revenant or its Elite specializations.

 

To be fair, the class itself has received approximately 2 years less development time (this includes players experience with the class) than all the other classes and I do believe this has lead to a significantly and relatively less developed class. On the other hand, that's completely reasonable; 2 years less development AND player experience in any class would make it feel like it's lagging other classes that have those 2 extra years.

[Einlanzer.1627]

> @Obtena.7952 said:

> > @Ojimaru.8970 said:

> > > @"Ardent Heretic.8216" said:

> > > My case: To date, Revenant has received significantly less development time than other professions.

> >

> > Could you kindly cite the source of this statement?

> >

> > If the profession and its Elite specialization has received "major' reworks, that implies they have each received _additional_ development time, not less. Further, nothing in your post mentions any _specific_ thing that is wrong about the Revenant or its Elite specializations.

>

> To be fair, the class itself has received approximately 2 years less development time (this includes players experience with the class) than all the other classes and I do believe this has lead to a significantly and relatively less developed class. On the other hand, that's completely reasonable; 2 years less development AND player experience in any class would make it feel like it's lagging other classes that have those 2 extra years.

 

I actually think the bigger problem was that it was launched with its first elite, which altered the way that Anet developed it compared to other classes. Basically, instead of having a finished core class with an elite spec that acts as an alteration to the core class, the "final" design of the Revenant included the Herald concept, and Glint "completes" the Revenant rather than altering an already complete class as is the case with other classes/elites. This fact is glaringly obvious when you level a Revenant and pick up Glint at 80.

 

In other words, it takes getting Glint to make the Revenant feel as complete as other classes do with only their core specs, and Revenants are effectively missing some base elements in their design.

 

Instead of learning their lesson, they made the exact same mistake this time with Renegade - using it to complete the core class in a different way, instead of giving the base class a badly needed upgrade and then designing the elite to do something more innovative. Revenants should have had Shortbows as a hybrid condi weapon to begin with as soon as they got weapon swap, and this elite should have gotten a greatsword and not been so focused on filling out Revenant's missing condition options.

 

It's a problem that needs to be addressed. The biggest issue is that all of their legends and all of their weapons are pigeonholed - they have no fluid or hybrid choices and severely limited build customization, which makes the whole legend and weapon swap features feel poorly implemented. It's almost as if they were designed without weapon swap and then added it as a lazy band-aid to help mitigate their obvious problems! Gasp!

 

Seriously, though. Give them a few skills tied to their invocation line and and arguably a new base weapon, both designed around hybridization and synergy with other legends and weapons. If they do a good job implementing new utility skills to add more depth of gameplay, I'd even be fine with them removing weapon swap.