[Suggestion] Elite Specs for Old Weapons

[Suggestion] Elite Specs for Old Weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: azureai.9764

azureai.9764

A lot of folks were happy with the new directions that the Elite Specs gave to the old classes. But I found myself disappointed that the first wave of Elites didn’t build on anything I already liked about my characters. The choice boiled down to play with all new toys or don’t use the Elite. The Elites don’t play nice with the other trait lines you learned on and worked so hard to get.

Now that we have additional Elites that add new toys (and it looks like we’ll be getting another wave of those), why not introduce Elites that focus on improving what you already like about the base class?

For instance:
New, Swappable Weapon Skills: Introduce Elites that give new Ability options to the current weapons. Don’t like your old Guardian Scepter 1 (“Orb of Wrath”)? Swap it out with the new Elite version – but you can keep the Scepter 2 and 3 that you like. Gives players new options to customize their character without the necessity of adding new weapons (you’re going to run out of weapons to add to classes at some point, Anet).
Buffs to Unique Skill Types: Focus down on some of the unique skills that make the base classes interesting. Running a Engineer that likes her some Turrets? Your Thief interested in dabbling in some new Venoms? Here’s an Elite that gives you some new tools, traits and buffs to specialize in those fields.

These kind of Elites, in concert with the “New Toys” Elites, would give players more customization over characters they’ve had for nearly 5 years now. And by carefully balancing the new “Improvement” Elites and rolling them out over time (i.e., the first couple of “Improvement” Elites may focus on a single mainhand, offhand, and/or dual hand weapon) – that will give players a reason to revisit unique features in their class that they grew to love.

tl;dr: I’d like some new options without having to play essentially a different class.

[Suggestion] Elite Specs for Old Weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: castlemanic.3198

castlemanic.3198

I see issues with swappable weapon skills. It’s more to balance than simply just giving a new weapon to an existing profession through an elite skill. The right half of our skillbar doesn’t even have that many variations when you compare it to everything they did in Guild Wars.

At least now, your weapon choice matters for the first 5 skills, you by default have a heal and a utility skill, and you have a choice from about 20 utility skills. Adding futher customisation in the form of swappable weapon skills adds to the overkill that must be design. If I were to allow weapon skill swapping, it would be everything that that weapon has to offer, not just individual skills. In an ideal world, yes, individual swappable skills would be awesome (and trust me, i’d be down with individual swappable weapon skills for EVERY weapon in the game, on top of giving every class every weapon somehow through elites), but it’s simply to much to balance, and it’s easier if it’s just the entire weapon that can be swapped, instead of individual skills.

Also, it’s hard to say what skills will remain unique. Necromancers had wells originally, but mesmers got them. Physical skills were unique to warriors, but they were passed on to thieves. Elementalists held on to glyphs but they were needed with the ranger. Necromancer and elementalists both got shouts, and guardians were handed traps. the only three professions that got unique utility skills were the engineer (gyros) and warriors (rage skills). Revenants don’t count, because each legend IS it’s own unique skill set.

The utility skill sets that are available for players to choose from are a HUGE advantage for ArenaNet to design with, because it makes future development both easier and cheaper. If money weren’t a factor, I’d maybe even go so far as to demand unique skills for each class (although still totally knowing that ArenaNet really doesn’t owe me anything), but realistically I know that they’ve got a bunch on their hands.

There’s also another thing. If developers would spend so much time enhancing the current professions, why shouldn’t they spend that time promoting the professions to new heights? Unfortunately we have to deal with opportunity costs and, as you put it, “New Toys” elites are the better of the two opportunity costs wise, because of the new toys and the shiny factor. What they can do is vastly different than what they should do (those who feel the burn of balance patches would greatly understand).

It’s not a bad idea, I’d be for it, but I don’t think it’s something ArenaNet can cost effectively do.