ViciousVyne.2935

Disclaimer: This feedback is purely from a WvW and PvP perspective, more particularly from a roaming / small scale view. I was hoping the scepter would take on a more supportive role, so I am happy to see the direction that ArenaNet is taking this weapon. However I feel like when designing it, they focused more on doing things the "unique" way, instead of going with what would actually make sense. Seeing how ArenaNet managed to turn the original design of the Vindicator around, after lots of feedback from the community, I still remain hopeful that with a few tweaks and changes this weapon could be in a solid spot. First thing to note is that the weapon feels very clunky and unintuitive. I believe parts of it comes down to the auto attack being melee-ranged, while the rest of the kit is medium-ranged. Right now, Revenants already have access to 2 melee main hand weapons, and what they are lacking is a ranged option to pair with their other available offhand sets (Sword, Axe, Shield). This would probably be less of an issue, if the entire design of the weapon didn't revolve around me having to spam auto attacks to get any use of the other abilities. This leads me to the next issue I've experienced, which is the whole stack building by auto attacking. I feel like the decision for this was made in a complete vacuum (e.g. by whacking Golems in a testing area). Having to land 6 auto attacks to enable the pull/teleport on Otherworldly Bond seems fine, when you're up against Golems who just stand still, but when you're running around in a WvW/PvP environment, you will face players who will actively dodge, block, blind and kite you around. This means that it's going to take a lot longer to build those stacks, than if you're up against PvE Mobs. The general combat flow for Revenants right now, is to sit in each legend for about 10 seconds, before swapping to the next legend to regain energy. Being forced to spend the vast majority of those 10 seconds chasing someone around, trying to hit them with auto attacks just doesn't add up to me, and is the last thing that I would consider fun gameplay. Additionally, I don't understand the idea of unlocking a teleport/pull-type ability, by making us run up to the enemy in melee range, and then charge it up. Shouldn't a pull be used to bring someone closer to us, instead of forcing us to chase them? Alternatively for the allied teleport, it also makes it very hard to use. I tether myself to an ally that I see in need of help...and then I am supposed to chase around the enemy, spamming auto attacks before I can even think of assisting my ally. The easiest way to fix this from my perspective would be, to remove the auto-attack stacking all together, and put the build-up completely on Otherworldly Bond. The Skill already has an upkeep cost. Just make it so that, once activated, the skill will start building up stacks for as long as I upkeep it. Once it reaches its 6 stacks, it allows us to unlock the pull/teleport. This would free us up to do things other than just spam auto attacks, while also letting us support from a medium range, not being forced to constantly be in melee range. The next thing I would change is to turn the auto attack into a regular 900 range skill, that applies it's benefits in a radius around your target. More particularly a non-projectile version, how we see it on the Necro scepter or axe for example. With the above proposed changes, it would make the entire kit feel more streamlined. This might not sound as cool as a lightning sabre, but I'd much rather take a useful generic skill over a niche and unique one. I also believe that the scepter would be a perfect option to add a legend-based boon/condition on top of the auto attacks, the way it is on the underwater trident. I think right now it is too limited in only being a support weapon, and I would like to see some play for Hybrid builds. If the barrier application for these kinds of builds is a concern, then the applied barrier numbers can always be tweaked/lowered for more offensive legends, while keeping them on more supportive/defensive ones. We already have the Hammer, which is only ever useful in WvW zerging, and practically sees no use outside of it. I'd hate to see another weapon go down the route of "this is the only situation it's viable" and collect dust for anyone else. Additional notes: If the auto attack remains melee ranged, then please for the love of god change the animation. It's too flashy, and too rigid. It clips through the floor and just ... "feels off?". One option would be to add a similar effect which exists on the Guardian staff right now. Just turn it into a red mist cloud that expands forward, or as other's have pointed out in this thread already, change it to a whip-like effect.

It blows my mind how something like this: was hotfixed within a day.

Bump, To be honest this is an absolute game breaking bug for sPvP when your skills randomly swap in the middle of a fight, with the restriction of sPvP to not be able to swap skills back out of combat . Considering it mostly happens to me with phase traversal and riposting shadows, two skills that are the exact opposite of each other. Its just so frustrating to swap to Shiro in able to get away, only to teleport right onto the enemy and die. Now I'm no game developer so maybe I'm completely clueless here but I feel like this should have been hotfixed within the first 2-3 days after the september patch. The only reason this is being ignored ( atleast I assume it is because I havent seen any offical statement on it ) is that the revenant playbase is fairly small. If this happaned to any other profession I'm sure the outcry would have been much bigger. But those are just my 2 cents.