The Aspect arena patch got me thinking about how a similar mechanism could be used to bring back a GW random arena play style into GW2. There would be four gates with certain popular pvp skillsets – like the crystals in AA – of GW professions (more skillsets could be added in later – there would be a lot of room for elaboration/future updates). Once a skillbar is taken, the gate locks to other players.
There would be no dodging or downed state. An initiative bar, or perhaps the endurance bar, would be used for casting skills. Warrior and Dervish profession bars would use a mix of adrenaline and initiative. Auto-attacking would just be an additional skill on the bar that has no cost or cooldown and deals damage in accordance with GW’s auto-attack. As in GW you would have a critical hit chance determined by your weapon and it would be increased by flanking a moving enemy.
All of these parts are already in GW2 and making an arena that mimicked the original GW spirit of random arenas would really give a sense of nostalgia and accomplishment to the Guild Wars title. Except skill activation bars (and hexes, but let’s consider those later), all of these aspects are implemented in GW2. Adding in a little icon above caster’s heads (such as the necro’s fear) and hopefully adding in viewable cast time bars would be easily implemented. This really doesn’t seem too difficult to create based on what I have seen in the Aspect Arena, and I really hope you all consider it!
In Depth Ideas:
Concerning Team Balance
Personally I would make overall categories of GW builds such as damage, interrupter, and healer. These would be analogous to the “crystals” of the aspect arena; just as you chose the wind crystal for wind aspect skills, you would choose healer and get a skill bar based on healing. There would be a few different healing skill bars and one would be randomly assigned to the player who steps into the “healer” category crystal. Skill bars would not be mirrored across teams. By this I mean an enemy healer might have a ritualist skillbar and you might receive a monk skillbar. Every category skillbar will be balanced against each other (ritualist healing will not be subpar to monk healing and vice versa). Unlike the aspect arena, once you choose a gate (crystal), it becomes unavailable to other players.
Here I’ve listed some possible skillbars. I’m leaning towards initiative because it is very easy to read and is intuitive. Each point of initiative counts for an equivalent of 5 energy. A caster would have 8 initiative points whereas a warrior would have 4 and an ele would have 15. Hopefully it is not difficult to manipulate initiative regen rate. I didn’t really want to go into initiative cost, cast times, recharge times, etc. because really there doesn’t even need to be much change from the original skills.
Protection Monk – I’m assuming support skills would be ground targeted as opposed to ally targeted based on how GW2 functions. Perhaps they could target the ally closest to the center of the aoe? Monks are a bit of a hassle to figure out.
Dwayna’s Kiss – heal target area, with an additional heal per boon.
Guardian – give protection for 6 seconds.
Healing Breeze – give regeneration for 6 seconds. (lower initiative cost to 1).
Shield of Deflection – create a symbol that lasts for four seconds and gives aegis every second.
Draw Conditions – Transfer all conditions from allies in target area to yourself.
Mending Touch – remove up to two conditions from yourself and heal for each condition removed.
Return – cripple nearby foes, then teleport to the nearest ally.
Dark Escape – grant yourself swiftness and protection for 10 seconds.
Domination Mesmer – This can be make or break depending on whether GW2 differentiate between spells and attacks. I’m trying to show a possible no hex Mesmer build.
Power Leak – interrupt target spell. Target foe loses 3 initiative.
Psychic Instability – interrupt target foe. If that skill is not an autoattack, they are
knocked down.
Cry of Frustration – interrupt target foe. If that attack is not an autoattack, all enemies in 600 range are interrupted and take damage.
Ether feast – Target foe loses 1 initiative and you are healed.
Empathy – give all allies in target area gain retaliation for 8 seconds.
Shatter Enchantment – target foe losing one boon. If you removed a boon, they take damage.
Blackout – Target touched foe’s skills are disabled for 6 seconds and your skills are disabled for 5 seconds.
Resurrection Signet – Revive one ally in target area.