Guilds Wars 2: An In-Depth Look at the Revenant

This past weekend ArenaNet opened the floodgates on allowing players to experience the newest profession, the Revenant, in the base game instead of a closed off newer area. For the first time ever players could see just how well the new class would perform under the stress of challenging end-game content and, more importantly, if it would even be enjoyable to play.

First and foremost this class just looks incredibly amazing. The core model makes it clear you’re badass and the animations following skill usage is stunning. Well, mostly anyway; most notably the ultimate skills feels especially underwhelming. Calling upon these legendary figures for their greatest abilities should invoke much more than a weak puff of smoke or shroud on top of your character.

On a similar note the actual result of the elite skills for what they cost make using them at all a distant second thought. Not to mention the incredibly long casting time just for a minor stat increase or a bit of healing. Generally, however, all of the skills in the Revenant’s repertoire lend to an extremely satisfying flexibility which puts this new class in the fast lane for solidifying its place in the dungeon meta.

However, an excess of flexibility leads to problems that could potentially knock this profession down to Necromancer levels. Sorry Necromancer, you’re just…bad. Largely, and to the distraught of many fans, is the evident lack of damage. Two of the three legends thus far hardly do any damage whatsoever and the third is more of a tanky frontline with some support rather than anything. Even the weapon sets lean more towards utility instead of giving a good old-fashioned beat down. Granted a fourth and final legend has yet to be formally revealed, a prominent figure named Shiro wielding a sword has been speculated to, as you can imagine, bring the Revenant some much needed dps.

But more specifically onto actually putting this legendary toting figure to the test, just how well does it even do late game? The short and sweet of it is that currently, not bad, but not very well either. It’s no guardian or elementalist in terms of support and damage, but you can hold your own while bringing a helpful amount of support. Running a staff and the Ventari led to an almost overkill amount of healing, even on the more difficult fractal runs the Revenant kept both teammates and itself alive. Sure the damage was pitiful and the boon output poor but you bet your bum your teammates will be alive and well. That is, if you can even use this character effectively.

Even veteran players of Guild Wars 2 will initially have trouble using this class to its max potential. The Ventari, being particularly difficult, takes a lot of practice getting tablet movement and skill usage down. Needless to say you also have your weapon skills and another legend to switch to, all of this on top of having a large majority of the lowest cooldowns in the entire game. Committing to the centaur’s healing tablet brings a significant amount of healing and utility but man do you have to be on your micromanaging game, not only that but you have to be accurate too. The ranges on the healing is surprisingly short, and to get as much healing as you need forces fully specializing in the respective talent tree.

As is a staple of Guild Wars 2, the traits don’t offer much to help, going all the way down one path grants only minor bonuses. This especially hurts the Revenant seeing as how little skill customization there is. PVP and World v. World isn’t the major point of this article but it should be noted that enemies can read you like a book because of this.

But so far we still have one last legendary to go. As mentioned before, Shiro, could potentially fix a lot of the Revenant’s problems. Most notably a damage per second on par with at least a guardian is in order, else this shiny new class will fall to the depths of never being picked for any dungeon ever.

Genuinely this is a rewarding class to play, initially difficult to get a handle on but when you eventually get the hang of it you feel unstoppable. Juggling weapon abilities and using them effectively while swapping legends with their own set of skills all the while moving around feels so refreshing from the typical standard rotations offered by all other classes. The Revenant so far doesn’t compete with higher tiered classes but fans, and no doubt ArenaNet staff, are hopeful that the to-be-reveal-later final legendary will help cover, and then some, the weakness currently keeping this class down.