Guild Wars 2

Does anybody have any good sources that describes how classes have changed from their conception in design until they were eventually set at-release?

I have found this list of historical traits, and find it very interesting.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits

Apparently, warriors used to have stance as their class mechanic, and it got swapped at some point. I also know that elementalists used to have only 5s CD on attunement changing. Are there any other sources about how these used to be?

I would LOVE to have a POI or stream to hear the class designers talk about the design iterations they went through and what motivated the changes they made.

Ranger pets used to have a different mechanic. If you look up the Professions in the Wiki, and peruse the ‘Talk’ pages, you can read discussions about how some things worked, or changed.

Also, you could use the Wayback Machine to look up the Blog announcements detailing how the Professions were designed to be, and some of the changes that took place.

Good luck.

ungh.. I remember back in Beta when defeated Ranger pets would just limp around doing nothing and needed to be revived in the same way a downed player was… I also miss the “I Will Avenge You!” shout..

Togashi Jack.9531:

ungh.. I remember back in Beta when defeated Ranger pets would just limp around doing nothing and needed to be revived in the same way a downed player was… I also miss the “I Will Avenge You!” shout..

I hated that dead ranger pet crap, lol. I would be trying to res a player and some ranger’s pet would get in the way…

a long long time ago in a land far far away.. someone said elementalist should have a cheesey burst build, a mobile bunker build minus the mobility and any possible chance of downing another player, and a handful of gimmick traits buried deep in the traitlines beyond any playable build arrangement    oh, wait..

Wow! Alot of those traits are amazing.

reading those traits

my heart.. my memories.. they hurt so much why is my heart hurting.

Ah the good old days when Necro’s sacrificed hp for certain skills, and actually needed to think before spamming those skills….

Yes, there were a couple build exceptions, but there was high risk for those builds too.

I do agree those traits look golden, much better than the stuff we have now.

As far as I know, the armor classes were like this from the start so they didn’t have to create armors for each profession like they did in GW1.

I think the word you are looking for in this sense, however, is “professions”.

Yes I want info on this

You’re probably not going to get an official list of these changes other than what’s already available to players through knowledge of beta, headstart, and previous dev videos/blogs.

A lot of the old mechanics looked/sounded really cool. If Arenanet explained all of them people would be asking why we don’t have it that way now and why it was changed to what it was. It took them a lot of testing to figure out what worked and what didn’t; players didn’t go through that same testing so a lot of things about the way it used to be just end up sounding way way cooler than what we have now.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

You’re probably not going to get an official list of these changes other than what’s already available to players through knowledge of beta, headstart, and previous dev videos/blogs.

Yea, it was more out of curiosity. I would love to hear the devs talk about how they have evolved the classes. Its interesting to see what ideas were scrapped, and was hoping to hear why they chose to do so. I am not looking to complain about how the classes are, but more to learn about their design process. I am sure they had a lot of interesting concepts for class mechanics, and even tested a few. I just wonder what made them settle on what they did.

I think it would make an AWESOME stream sometime, like with a super-casual atmosphere, where they get a chance to talk about how they, say, took Warriors from concept to the release form.

This page on guru shows how the devs were thinking of the professions a few months after launch, and probably well before as well.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/960-class-balance-philosophies/

Guild Wars 1: Practice with various effective builds until you find one that suits you

Guild Wars 2: Oh, you don’t have enough AP or not the exact right rune or weapon? goodbye

forever under represented..

where is all the Mesmer kitten?

This warrior trait though.

Hatred Power Major Increases damage by 25% when health is below 50%.

BlackBeard.2873:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

You’re probably not going to get an official list of these changes other than what’s already available to players through knowledge of beta, headstart, and previous dev videos/blogs.

Yea, it was more out of curiosity. I would love to hear the devs talk about how they have evolved the classes. Its interesting to see what ideas were scrapped, and was hoping to hear why they chose to do so. I am not looking to complain about how the classes are, but more to learn about their design process. I am sure they had a lot of interesting concepts for class mechanics, and even tested a few. I just wonder what made them settle on what they did.

I think it would make an AWESOME stream sometime, like with a super-casual atmosphere, where they get a chance to talk about how they, say, took Warriors from concept to the release form.

Oh no, I absolutely agree with you. I find learning how things were and what has changed incredibly interesting! I just don’t think it’s going to happen :/

Xenon.4537:

Togashi Jack.9531:

ungh.. I remember back in Beta when defeated Ranger pets would just limp around doing nothing and needed to be revived in the same way a downed player was… I also miss the “I Will Avenge You!” shout..

I hated that dead ranger pet crap, lol. I would be trying to res a player and some ranger’s pet would get in the way…

Yeah .. that was really bad .. especially since the pets mostly died real fast at that time
and as a ranger you wasted more time with rezzing your pet than anything else.

Weren’t engineers supposed to be a heavy armor class?

Mesmer clones actually dealt damage with their autoattack.

Wow look at all those neat SB traits for thief. WTF happened? Poor neutered SB

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Mesmer clones actually dealt damage with their autoattack.

I would love to see clones to better damage. They seem to do about 1%, which is completely zero in low level. Starting around 3% each but lowering weapon damage a little would make having clones worth using, however briefly. Or don’t even lower weapon damage for it. >_>
And apply some motion AI to them, so they stop standing in fires or so they can slowly kite their target.

Ah, wishful thinking. :\

Sword Mastery: You do 10% more damage with “swords” equipped.
Go For the Throat: Dancing Blade lets you Evade when you charge in causing cripple than retreat

looks like traits for a double sword thief…. XD in my dreams

Ayakaru.6583:

Guild Wars 1: Practice with various effective builds until you find one that suits you

Guild Wars 2: Oh, you don’t have enough AP or not the exact right rune or weapon? goodbye

^ this. You dont know how many times ive been kicked from high level fractals for not being zerker. Even though im usually the one who is trying to heal the ones who are full zerker.
im a celestial ele

Marmatt.8590:

Ayakaru.6583:

Guild Wars 1: Practice with various effective builds until you find one that suits you

Guild Wars 2: Oh, you don’t have enough AP or not the exact right rune or weapon? goodbye

^ this. You dont know how many times ive been kicked from high level fractals for not being zerker. Even though im usually the one who is trying to heal the ones who are full zerker.
im a celestial ele

I’ts all about max dps,
and at a cost, that’s only zerker. Conditions are considered a no-go because they do good damage, but after a warm up period, healing is considered neglectable and especially celestials are frowned upon as the balanced noob gear (no offense to you)
I really hate a game where they try so hard to give us options, and then people say you should play only the top option because the rest is crap