Guild Wars 2

Since the the engineer of gw2 took most of the mechanics of the gw1 ritualist it is the purpose to work out a new mechanic for a possible reincarnation of the ritualist (possible under a different name) in gw2.At this point mechanic related discussion only please

“my body is a temple where sensations take place beyond your wildest dreams”

Mediums are scholars ,they mediate communication between spirits of the dead.And channel the etherial forces which can lead to extreme power outages once a spirit lends them their powers.
They could unify with 3 types of spirits:demonic,benevolent and tortured ,..
For example with a benevolent spirit they could purge areas ,sharing the feeling of compassion and warmth to any ally nearby,knock back shadowfiends forcing evil spirits to vanish and a necromancer to return to its normal form..
Only with full unification the medium has enough strenght to use the maximum amount of power(elite skills) the kind of spirit they unify with has to offer.
They work with a unification mechanic.

Unification with a demonic spirit:(more dominating/damage abilities)

shrinking ray:shrink an enemy, decreasing the damage it inflicts

Unshakable:becomes immune to knockdowns or other effects that interrupt combat(elite skill)

Sacrifice:sacrifice health in order to resurrect or heal an ally

Sorrow:enemy target loses precision and are vulnerable,25 procent dmg they do goes to their allies

Inferno/hellfire:souls of enemies burn in hellfire and the more they run around the harder it burns and damages them(elite skill)

Devils’ pact:Let the demonic spirit take over your body for x seconds,transforming into a mighty demon,pain suppression (elite skill)

Spellbloom:enforces target ally casters’ spell inpact and effect,granting might and other buffs to comfort" your ally

Spirit might:summons spirits around you to do aoe ,if you get downed while under the effect of spirit might,the spirits that are active in the aoe will be chainpulled/zap toward you to revive you

Unification with tortured spirit:(deny/mass chain stuns/condition)

Chained spirit:whenever the enemy tries to do melee dmg they will choke and lose all endurance

Prison of agony:lift an enemy off the ground in a prison of mental and physical suffering(elite skill)

Stare into the abyss:a vortex of spiritenergy that draws enemies to it,reducing their speed and forcing them to crawl with downed skills(elite skill)

Mind blast:the medium project a wave of telekinetic force that knocks enemies back,gives retaliation to the medium and damage to the foe

soul trap:if enemy is downed while spell is active it returns spirit energy to you and enemy goes automatically to defeated mode

Banish:extra damage to any summoned,undead and shadow fiends

Pain reflection:if damage inflicted on target ally or self=equel damage returned to a target foe when the medium desires to cast it back ,within a certain time ofcourse(elite skill)

Clarity:mental focus,reserving of vigor in personal suffering/immune to confuse

Unification with Benevolent spirit:(more support-like unification,dispels,purge,soothing aura,..)

Spirit shroud;the character becomes a white transparant spirit,making them difficult to hit(elite skill)

Anti-magic burst:burst that eliminates magical effects in an area

Rejuvenate:regenerative spirit energy(passive minor healing skill)

Cleanse:remove all negative effects from allies in range(elite skill)

Spirit shield:any hostile spells are absorbed into the spiritworld,empowering the spirits surrounding the medium

Second chance:the spirit mere presence lends greater resilience to wounds and automatically restores health when you or the ally falls close to death(elite skill)

Will-o’-the-wisp:a small living spiritpet that grants a regeneration and can be converted to an aura that blinds in close combat

Purity ray:cleans 1 curse,damages enemy

the skill list I made long ago but it is just to give an idea
I know lots of players would like to see the ritualist return in its old form.
But I think the turret engineer is meant to be what the ritualist was in gw1
But the ritualist of gw1 is awesome so i have mixed feelings,but sometimes change is a good thing and I would love to see a reincarnation of that profession,if needed with other name and mechanic(at least,I don’t mind)
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2011/349/a/e/possession_by_aeon_lux-d4j69us.png

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/072/c/e/immortal_souls_by_ChrisCold.jpg

Hi Tipsy,

I have a few questions, and I’ll list them below. I can see you’ve put some great effort in here and I’d like to help you further the concept.

1) What resource does the Medium use? Eg: initiative, adrenaline, etc. How does your unification differ from elementalist attunements in terms of mechanic?

2) How are the above skills tied to the skill bar? and how do you switch between unifications?

3) How to you manage cooldowns on skills and also the “full unifications” for elite skills? what happens if the cooldown is finished but you’re not fully unified?

And how and Atheist charr or a Silvary will channel the spirits?

There is a charr spirit of Baelfire, but only the Shamans are allowed to cast spirits. But shamans are charrs enemies… Did it will work with atual lore? How?

And Silvary? There is and silvary spirit?

And azurans. They believe in their death they will join the eternal alchemy and spirits are just etereal energies of “bookas”.

I can´t see how a medium will work with atual races lore.

The problem with a fan designing a profession or character archetype in any game is that the creator often doesn’t understand that the classes/characters are often group-efforts on the actual game-designer’s part.

Even if they were to consider this, they would have to run it through dozens of group meetings and those staff members would tear it to shreds and stick in their own ideas that the group agree with and it would ultimately look like a distant-cousin from what the fan wanted to create.

—

Back on topic.

This looks like a mix of Mesmer, Necro, and Guardian. And I am of the opinion that ArenaNet wants new professions to be more distinctive – That’s how they came up with the Mesmer.

They’re moved on from the Ritualist. You’ll have to come up with something more distinctive.

redrex.9634:

Hi Tipsy,

I have a few questions, and I’ll list them below. I can see you’ve put some great effort in here and I’d like to help you further the concept.

1) What resource does the Medium use? Eg: initiative, adrenaline, etc. How does your unification differ from elementalist attunements in terms of mechanic?

2) How are the above skills tied to the skill bar? and how do you switch between unifications?

3) How to you manage cooldowns on skills and also the “full unifications” for elite skills? what happens if the cooldown is finished but you’re not fully unified?

I think the medium would use something along the lines of celestial force or spirit power/spirit approval to fuel their abilities
Instead of activating fire,water,air,earth at will like an elementalist would..
The medium would have skills at 2 different levels:the initiation rituals to gain the favor of a certain spirit (demonic,benevolent,tortured,..) and the ultimate form when ritual stage is complete.
Ofcourse with the initiation rituals they would be able to have skills for any situation like any other profession
But the skills would lean towards the spirit type you try to gain favor for;benevolent initiation would be more supportive tanky,tortured controle,and demonic more damage for example.

Then the ultimate form could be best comparable with full adrenaline bar,but instead it represents how many favor you build towards one of the spirits(there would be 3 horizontal bars on top of each other as i see it now..each representing a different spirit type approval lvl)
Depending on how much the bar is filled you gain more special powers,and even more unique to the spirit type if you fill a second part of the bar.
If you then manage to get full approval of a spirit you gain access to its ultimate power/elite skill and your initiation skills will switch to the ultimate form skills if you press the button to switch to them..
When starting a ritual for the benevolent spirit the approval of the demonice spirit would also decrease:the bar of demonic spirit would go down and its skills become less effective,and vice versa

I guess you would switch to another spirit approval process F1 F2 F3
with F4 if you wish to enter the ultimate spirit form if you have full approval bar of that type of spirit to gain access to its most unique abilities and elite stuff.
I guess they would have 3 bars like a necromancer builds up life force;but instead it indicates if the spirit type you perform the rituals for are willing to lend you their powers
So it would be very different compared to other professions currently ingame really.

who says charr or sylvari cant be gifted to be a medium?Im not gonna go this road.its like talking why minions of 1 necromancer are used for good and others for evil..but should it be banned from game because its actually pure evil dark arts?Or is it?
I would think sylvari engineer or necromancer is stranger as medium infact..
or a sylvari plant attuning to fire..see,you can make problems everywhere if you want it..
But back to you the one I actually quoted:I hope I answered all questions

Edit;
forgot to answere question 3 I think..
the cooldowns on skills is a real riddle to me too,but I’d think its best if you decide to go in the ultimate form,all approval bars will reset once you get out of it.
the bars could have tiers like adrenaline ,with each time more powerfull skills of that spirit type if you reach the next barpiece
Full bar-ultimate form available with f4
I can imagine a medium to be somewhat tired too after it has offered its body to something foreign" as a spiritvessel which the medium truly is…
So perhaps after ultimate form they could have some kind of weak moment,so they have to plan when to use this more strategically too

Ok, let me get this straight, because your explanation is a little disorganised:

There are 3 skills which build up favor.

There are 3 favor bars, and they are mutually exclusive.

If you build up favor in one bar it reduces the favor in the others.

Once a favor bar is full, one can access the ultimate skill.

Is that correct? I like the creativity but you need a solid unique mechanic to fit behind your concept.

Do weapons interact with favor?

Do slot skills interact with favor?

What are the ultimate favor skills? Are they summons, transforms?

keep going, you’re teasong out some good ideas. If you need some guidance on organisation, see some of my own threads,

The Inquisitor: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Concept-Profession-Inquisitor/first
The Spiritualist: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Concept-Profession-Spiritualist/first

more or less,but there are 3 bars which get filled up with favor.And each skill/utility builds toward a different type of spirit

each exclusive bar corresponding to type of spirit:
Favor barpiece 1 reached – fisrt tier of special spirit abilities – Favor barpiece 2 -T1 2X as effective+Tier2 special abilities of the spirit
Favor barpiece 3- Tier 1 skills 3x effective,T2 skills double effectiveness
Demonic F1 Benevolent F2 tortured F3
Full Favor bar:allow spirit to take over body,summon,trasform->elite
F4 if you decide to use the ultimate form of the bar that is full
When you use this ulitmate power all bars reset..if you didnt ,changing to different spirit favor skills would indeed reduce the favor in another spiritbar.

"weapon"bar(or should i call it ritual bar?) would build favor
The ultimate skills could change accordingly,depending on whether you use relics,totems,bodyparts,urn,…
Perhaps Utility skills would be different kinds of goods/tools/objects that aid you building favor towards one of the spirits.(would Mediums really use any of the weapons currently ingame?)
(for example a feather would change skillbar to build favor towards a benevolent spirit,a bodypart/bloodjar would help to build favor towards a demonic spirit,
chains and voodoodoll would build favor towards tortured spirits,
other players can carry you in an urn when you get full torture spirit approval and both you and the player carrying you gets skills that are very prone to performing combos)
Depending on the relic you equip you would get different initiation skillbar(enough variety to be effective in groups when doing the intitiation rituals)
Some rituals are for summon,other for transform perhaps and other to let a spirit take over body(I leave this open for now but i was thinking especially about letting spirits take over body when you get full approval)
Perhaps if I have more time later on I will re-organize skills to fit this whole picture

Tipsy.5802:

who says charr or sylvari cant be gifted to be a medium?Im not gonna go this road.its like talking why minions of 1 necromancer are used for good and others for evil..but should it be banned from game because its actually pure evil dark arts?Or is it?
I would think sylvari engineer or necromancer is stranger as medium infact..
or a sylvari plant attuning to fire..see,you can make problems everywhere if you want it..

1 – Like i said in my original posts, the only charrs allowed to “use” spirits are the shamans, and they are flame legion, so any medium will be on the evil side.
2 – Just like GW1 there are good necro and evil necro… I don´t really understand your point here, just because someone is using a bunch of meat doesn´t mean they must be bad…
3 – I don´t see why a silvary cannot be an engineer or necro, one is a high skilled on equipments, learned everything it needs living near the azurans, so they must be the second best enginnering users. The other is a magic user, and sylvari are strong attuned with the magic in Tyiria.
4 – And about attuning to fire? Really? Did you study a little biology? Every living body has WATER in his cells. And this WATER is a fire kittenant. If you put a LIVING plant in direct contact with fire it will need to evaporate all the water before getting on fire. Just like EVERY HUMAN BODY. So all this fire attunement is bad for every class, like air attunement (eletric shock), earth attunement (silicosis caused by the breathing of a lot of dust particles)… So if you want to go that way the only element an elementalist can use is water because the others will kill him, in every race.

If you want to create problem please try to use something GW1/GW2 lore related.

Lore is just not relevant unless they really would like to do something with this concept/mechanic.
Also keep in mind that everything should change/progress in tyria at some point:
like in gw1 charrs are the enemy and in gw2 they are a playable race(progression is key,Tyria moves on,charrmancipation)
If I would have suggested years ago to have charrs as playable race i’d be shot at sight…
And its true, charr legions reject the flame legion values and believes.But how does this apply to all shaman?Or even mediums(which are something different)
And where does it say the only charrs allowed to use spirits are flame legion?

Also,just because a group of shaman" joined an evil group called flame legion ,does this mean all charr shamans through history of tyria should be evil?
There could be shamans who see things from a different angle too.
Just like good/evil Necromancers there could be good/evil shaman in Tyria
All this is not really on topic,mediums are no shaman

Sylvari have a common dream,an appetite/gift to mediate the flow of other spirit powers would suite them fine…
its just how you want to see these things and how you nest these things into the game really.
I’m chaotic and not a lore master so you put me at a disadvantage here too(but places and characters in Tyria have to move on and keep changing)
Its way too early to talk about the lore aspect too for this idea.
For which profession do they talk about lore actually?they only seem to talk about what a profession is able of..
Lets keep things like realism/lore for another more appropriate topic,and focus on mechanic and concept
I always like some references within the lore ofcourse to a great elementalist or somthing.
But it just is not relevant atm,and i’m starting to think you want to lead this topic astray

Lore is not relevant?

Well let´s make an sniper? Why not? Just a rifle and 5000 range. Or maybe an heavy weapon soldier with a gatling gun?

Lore is always relevant.

Didn´t you play EotN? I believe not. Someone named Pyre Fierceshot started the human/charr friendship showing that not all charrs are violent animals. And the real problem are the Charr Shamans. If you start a Charr one question is about who was your parent, and one answer is “A SORCEROUS SHAMAN”. And there even a lot of lore before GW2 with ghosts of ascalon and destiny´s edge. So it is 250 years of lore to change the charrs. and remember, there is a bigger threat than just flame legion.

And sylvari are not meditative about spirit powers, they are just a curious race, remember they have only 25 years in this world. Even with the dream EVERYTHING and not only spirits are interesting for them.

So you just propose… throw in the garbage a lot of time and money (did you know they pay writers to create these “non relevant” lore?) creating a lore because you are “in your words” chaotic and not a lore master".

I bet these writers do a wonderful job creating relevant lore to something they like..But the whole point is that is another stage in the design.
This topic is about a concept/mechanic of a possible profession,lore whatever at this point…
You dont like the idea of the medium then just admit it instead of creating so called fictional problems concerning lore/realism.
I don’t feel like engaging in that discussion,start a new topic about it if you really want.

Evolverzilla, more constructive criticism please.

Charr rangers currently use spirits anyway.

Tipsy, lets continue.

So Favor of the Tortured Soul, Favor of the Demonic Soul, and Favor of the Benevolent Soul…

Can I make a suggestion? have:
One bar
Soul skills are in the middle and both ends,
One end is Demonic, the other benevolent
the middle is tortured and represents unalignment.

This way you can manage your resources as a player and is simple enough to understand but allows a learning curve.

How does that sound?

Maybe one bar would indeed be better instead of 3 on top of each other
I quickly photoshoped an idea sheet with one bar

The Ritualist profession from Guild Wars 1 has already been included in Guild Wars 2. It has just been renamed into “Engineer”.

The GW1 Ritualist used to summon stationary spirits who attack enemies.
The Engineer has turrets.

The GW1 Ritualist used to hold the ashes of dead heroes to gain new powers.
The Engineer has weapon kits.

The GW1 Ritualist used to have weapon spells that give boons to himself or others.
The Engineer can drink or throw elixirs, and equip an elixir gun.

The GW1 Ritualist used channeling magic to deal lightning damage to enemies through the power of the dead.
The Engineer has explosives.

There is nothing left of the Guild Wars 1 Ritualist that has not been used in the Guild Wars 2 Engineer, except the flavour. And most of that flavour can be given to the Necromancer anyway.

@redrx and Tipsy
Stop you two to just talk kitten. Just because I don´t agree with you two… OOOO you are not construtive…

I´m being construtive from the very beginning. How did you TWO put the Mediun on the lore? Yes you need to think this from the beginning. A game needs an epic lore. WOW, Diablo, Skyrim. All sucessful games, all have a big and interesting lore. Duke nuken 3d, hell yeah, the last… OMG throw this on the garbage please. Look how the difference of the history and how these worked in DN3d and DNF.

Even Anet… they send us a lot of lore even before the betas. So before even they have skills more structured, chars and classes well defined.

Rangers use NATURE spirits, not charrs spirits.

And just because I don´t find it lorewise. OOO you don´t like it, admit… Act like an adult then I will learn to respect you.

And look at the picture. Yeah it´s my ritualist from GW1. And he completed most of my HOM and he is very cool looking.

Medium are not a lorewise. They will have to rework part of this lore to create
1 – Humans, ok, they already have spirits roaming free…
2 – Norns, ok, they already believe in spirts, of the wild, but spirits
3 – Sylvaris, humm I really don´t know, they die and be part of the dream, but one event has a golem talking about sylvari soul battery or something like this.
4 – Azurans, you have to make azurans that don´t believe on eternal alchemy and that when they die they spirits not join the eternal alchemy…
5 – Charrs that are Shamans but they are not flame legion and are accepted by today charr society (this will be really dificult, they needed to really cast out the shaman class).

And even, ritualist was a Cantha exclusive profession. How this transpired on Kryta.

Stop doing only yhe lazy way… Let´s use a name for a class, make some cool skills and bang, a new class.

And just for information. You talk about the necros using dark magics… Look at the summoned spirits of a ritualist. They look like tormented and chained, so ritualists use tormented slaves spirits to help them. For me it is evil.

And IF you two don´t accept criticism, don´t start a topic on a PUBLIC environment. All this talk is about the medium, not something different that need another topic.

The Medium has a total different mechanic as the gw1 ritualist has,thats why it said “new ritualist?” in the title
(which I now edited because some people don’t seem to get what this topic is about)
I believe some kind of ritualist is possible with a new mechanic.It is true the engineer took most of the gw1 ritualist.
But the purpose of this topic is to find a good mechanic for a possible reincarnation.

The medium mechanic is totally different as the gw1 ritualist,and the gw2 engineer.
Thats why I removed the reference to the ritualist from the topic title all together.

@evolver
it shows that you have no respect when I said multiple times its not about the lore.
And who are you to say mediums use charr spirits..
You are destructive instead of constructive.
Its easy to be destructive and have no respect for others..Who should grow up?
And because you have no respect you probably would just disagree to anything I’d say anyway..
So get out.

Tipsy.5802:

The Medium has a total different mechanic as the gw1 ritualist has,thats why it said “new ritualist?” in the title
(which I now edited because some people don’t seem to get what this topic is about)
I believe some kind of ritualist is possible with a new mechanic.It is true the engineer took most of the gw1 ritualist.
But the purpose of this topic is to find a good mechanic for a possible reincarnation.

The medium mechanic is totally different as the gw1 ritualist,and the gw2 engineer.
Thats why I removed the reference to the ritualist from the topic title all together.

@evolver
it shows that you have no respect when I said multiple times its not about the lore.
And who are you to say mediums use charr spirits..
You are destructive instead of constructive.
Its easy to be destructive and have no respect for others..Who should grow up?
And because you have no respect you probably would just disagree to anything I’d say anyway..
So get out.

it´s easier to say to someone to get out when you don´t want to discuss somethng and ignore all the rest. It´s easier to just change the post because people keep showing that your idea is not a well formed idea.

Learn to accept adversities and learn to discuss.

Ant do read too… no one said that Mediuns use charr spirits, i said about RANGERS. And said about CHARR MEDIUNS using CHARR SPIRITS not general mediuns.

And again LORE is something that a game needs to be sucessful, because IT WILL GIVE the insight of how the game will work. Just pushing something without any thougts and wanting everyone to bows at you will not work.

Whatever… i already bumped a lot your topic. Now i will just let it go to 4th page where it was.

I changed the topic to give people better understanding what the topic is about.
And it may not be a well formed mechanic idea till this point yet no.but thats why I would like other insights on the mechanic I was thinking about.

Mediums commune with the spirit world in its entirety.
So little is known about the spirit world.
Its not good to think narrow minded charr spirits -> medium charr
And lore is important so these great lore writers you were talking about earlier could do a wonderful job fleshing out more details of the mysterious spiritworld.
Please Do understand that lore and profession mechanic are 2 different design aspects that at a point could come together
BUt forming this mechanic idea for a reincarnation of the ritualist is what this topic is all about.
ANd your input till this point just won’t help to construct this “well formed idea”
--
Update:perhaps a description about the profession would be nice thing to add to this mechanic topic,am thinking something along those lines:

“Mediums are spiritvessels gifted to contact the spirit realm.
They offer spirits comfort and a home to rent;their body
This mystical profession is a minionless caster but with great affinity to the spirit world,it is more like an empty bottle waiting to be filled,a spirit magnet that can unify with different spirit types and likes to connect to the spiritworld.Changing the “spirit aura” and areal spiritual activities" around them (spirit rays and blasts out of their back,chest,hands,eyes,…) According to which spirit they start an iniation ritual they get more specific and unique skills"
Charr Medium: