Guild Wars 2

As a veteran Guild Wars 1 player (I still play) one of the things I love most about the game is the way you acquire elite skills! I LOVE THE TIME and in some cases difficulty! The process is involved. I have to buy a Signet of Capture for each elite skill I want for 1 platnum each. I then have to track down the mob, which is made easy with the official GW1 wiki. Finally I have to defeat the mob (who is generally surrounded by other mobs). After the target mob is dead I use Signet of Capture. I now have a brand new elite skill for my hybrid class!

With the announcement of New Skill and Traits I would like to propose bringing the way elite skills are acquired from GW1 into GW2. In a persistent environment the mechanic would have to be different for obvious reasons. Here’s how this could happen.

1. Visit a certain NPC to start an elite skill quest. These NPCs would be scattered all over Tyria and depending on the rarity or difficulty of the elite skill they would be placed in easy to reach places (Queensdale, Wayfarer Foothills, etc), medium to reach places (Malchor’s Leap, Frostgorge Sound, etc) and hard to reach places (Honor of the Waves, Arah, etc).

2. The NPC will give you a mission to complete some sort of objective (destroy, courier, escort, explorer, a mix of these or perhaps a brand new type). The objective would probably be a certain NPC. Think guild bounties.

3. Targets will always be found in either special instances or they may be instanced themselves to where only you and your group mates can see and interactive with them. You can bring your friends along if you would like help getting these elite skill quests done. Targets inside dungeons would always require groups.

4. After the mission is complete return to the NPC quest giver and you’ll be rewarded with a brand new ELITE skill… and perhaps some karma and coin for your troubles too!

And if for some reason players don’t want to trouble themselves to go get these elite skills they could buy elite skill packs from the gemstore. 5 Randoms Elite Skills for 400G. “Guaranteed not to contain duplicates.”

Does this sound like a good suggestion?

I agree and would really like to get the feel of elite capturing again. I enjoyed that aspect of GW1 and in a way was unique and challenging. My thoughts on this is that:

1) I think they should be given to champion level mobs so there would be more reason to seek out these monsters. Of course, champion level mobs in level 30-80 areas

2) capture signet would be an elite skill, maybe purchasable by skill points?

3) of course it would work like how it was in GW1, target the corpse and choose an elite skill to get.

4) You can base many achievements for this! Heck, you can even base a daily for this “Capture 1 elite skill”

of course there would still be the option of purchasing an elite skill for 30 skill points :/ but that would be too boring IMO :/

1. Yes! Definitely. This would encourage players to start attacking Champions again. They’re found ALL over Tyria. There’s that Champ Ooze just outside Meddler’s Summit. No one attacks it. How much more so would people do it if they knew there was an elite skill waiting?

2. I like this idea. But instead of making it an elite skill make Signets of Capture available from any merchant for a fixed price. 5g a piece and account bound would work. 5g isn’t too high. This cost is doable for many level 80s who likely have lots of gold sitting around. This item also creates a new money sink.

3. Yup! Pretty much what I was thinking. Nothing more simple or satisfying than standing over a lifeless corpse taking their elite skill

4. Very cool idea!

I don’t think the new elite skills should be available from class trainers. They should be bound to Champions. The only way to get them is to either kill a certain Champion or buy an Elite Skillpack from the gemstore, which has the potential to become a good source of income for Arenanet.

A third of players will always prefer to go kill Champions exclusively for elite skills. A third would rather buy Elite Skillpacks and hope they get the skills they’re want. The last third would occasionally kill Champions and buy Elite Skillpacks. In all three cases Arenanet makes money, the gold-gem exchange remains healthy, and a new money sink creates more stability for the Tyrian economy. Think: if players are spending all their gold on Signets of Capture the price of legendary items may come down a few hundred gold or more. No doubt still high but now perhaps they’re within reach of a few more players.

Some more thoughts:

- When Champions spawn they randomly pick from a pool of Elite class skills. This will encourage players to return back to the same Champion. “It’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

- Champions will use the randomly chosen Elite skill in their rotation. It will up the difficulty of many. For example the Champ Oak and Troll in Queensdale go down very fast.

- Adding a random elite skill to a Champion’s rotation will create a dynamic encounter. Let’s say a Champion randomly picks a new elite Mesmer skill called Crippling Anguish (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Crippling_Anguish). The fight dynamically changes to heavy control and ranged and less melee. The next time the same Champion spawns it randomly picks a new elite Necromancer skill called Discord (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Discord). The fight now becomes heavy healing like Claw of Jormag during the last phase with all the ice damage. Players likely will return back to fight Champions not because they want the elite skills but they like the random nature of the encounter.

- To keep players from farming each Champion will be assigned a pool of 3. You have a 33% chance to get a specific elite skill from a specific Champion. This, coupled with the 5g for a Signet of Capture, should strike a nice balance between creating fun accessible progression that will not feel like grinding. Nobody likes grinding!

I’ve created a visual companion for this thread. It took me about 6 hours. It is my hope that this suggestion gets some traction because I would really like the acquisition of elite skills to be like GW1.

Elite skill capping deserves to come back. It was an iconic mechanic of GW1.

But I think to give it more longevity, without bloating the skill pool with elites, each Champion could have a list of ‘Aspects’ to cap with your capture signet. Aspects are like ingredients for a recipe. After you cap 3 Aspects, the specific combination you captured within the signet turns it into an account bound item that when double clicked can unlock a new elite skill if that character can use it. Then you still have to purchase with skill points.

It’ll take the community time to document the champions, their aspects lists, and what combinations provide what elite skill signets. And you can use alts to hunt down elites for your other characters, since a completed signet becomes an account bound item that is used to unlock the elite in the skill purchasing list.

@Redfeather – would your idea work with my idea?