Guild Wars 2

So in Guild Wars 1 there were these things called secondary professions. Essentially you had access to every skill of your first profession and the skills of the secondary profession. You had access to the all of the traits of the primary profession and had all but the specialized trait of the second profession. This allowed A LOT of theory crafting in Guild Wars and was in and of it’s self a lot of fun. I would like to see this redone in Guild Wars 2.
Here’s my idea, You select a secondary profession from the list of professions, what that secondary profession gives you access to is:
1: All of the healing and utility skills of the secondary class
2: The non Elite specializations (so a Me/E would not have access to tempest or a T/Me would not have access to chronomancer)

Here is what your secondary profession will not give you access to:
1: Any of the F1, F2, F3 etc. skills for the secondary class (so a T/Me could make clones but not shatter them)
2: The elite skills of the secondary profession (this one is iffy, it is possible to to make the elite skills work and have them included in what you get access too but i put them here for safety and balance reasons)
3: The weapons and weapon skills of the secondary profession (this is because thief and elementalist weapon skills are dependent upon initiative and attuned element respectively, this would make balance even more difficult for A-Net and playing some profession combos really difficult, imagine Me/E and having all 5 shatters and 4 elementalist specs F1 through F9 just for your 1-5 weapon skills and how thief’s 4 skill for main hand weapons would interact with elementalist attunment swaps)
4: The armor of the secondary profession

Post ideas and feedback please!

(NOTE: with this idea, the ability to save builds would be a big help)

This will probably never come to pass. I find it somewhat disappointing, but there it is. I kinda wanted to remake my R/N, but whatever. That’s a different game.

Saving builds I can agree with, and while I do miss the dual class system, it would wreak havoc on the skill system. Every single thing would need reworking and rebalancing, which is precisely why ANet dropped the dual class system in the first place.

EDIT: And don’t even get me started on what would happen to the trait system.

not everything would need rebalancing, it wouldn’t be hard to balance the small things that would need balance, id like to see what happens with enacting this with everything just the way it is, small changes would be needed but it would really make the game A LOT more interesting

Syionide.3705:

not everything would need rebalancing, it wouldn’t be hard to balance the small things that would need balance, id like to see what happens with enacting this with everything just the way it is, small changes would be needed but it would really make the game A LOT more interesting

I don’t think you quite understand how balancing works. Plus, a massive rework like this would take huge resources to do.

Plus, can you imagine if all professions could stealth? Teleport? Make portals/reflect barriers?

No. This should not happen.

Doing what secondary professions did in gw1 is what E.Specs are for.

“Plus, can you imagine if all professions could stealth? Teleport? Make portals/reflect barriers?”

Honestly this wouldn’t be a problem, stealth is fragile as it is and if you’ve ever played a Mesmer or a thief the stealth mechanics for both of those classes are designed in such a way where to get any real stealth duration you have to trait into it, depriving you of real combat oriented opportunities in other traits. Teleports and reflect barriers are limited to each profession, you wont have every teleport in the game and you wont have every reflect barrier in the game and it deprives you of real combat oriented opportunities with regard to other skills

Tertiary profession.

Syionide.3705:

“Plus, can you imagine if all professions could stealth? Teleport? Make portals/reflect barriers?”

Honestly this wouldn’t be a problem, stealth is fragile as it is and if you’ve ever played a Mesmer or a thief the stealth mechanics for both of those classes are designed in such a way where to get any real stealth duration you have to trait into it, depriving you of real combat oriented opportunities in other traits. Teleports and reflect barriers are limited to each profession, you wont have every teleport in the game and you wont have every reflect barrier in the game and it deprives you of real combat oriented opportunities with regard to other skills

You underestimate the power of player ingenuity and creativity.

I can name several builds off the top of my head in GW1 that made dual professions difficult to manage. It’s a fun idea, and GW1 was designed for it.

I get where you’re coming from, I do. But GW2 was not designed with dual professions in mind, and the entire skills system and traits would need to be reworked (again!) in order for it to work. I’d rather they focus on more important things, don’t you?

what made it difficult in Guild Wars 1 was the amount of skills we had access to, we don’t have anywhere near the amount of skills we had in GW1. Will there be builds made that are completely broken? Yes absolutely. Will they need to be balanced? Yes absolutely. Will it improve the game? Yes absolutely. Should A-Net be focused on improving the game? Yes absolutely.

Anet explicitly said that elite specializations are there to fill a similar role as the secondary profession system did in GW1. You can disagree with them all you like but considering they look at it like that, it seems highly unlikely that they will bring the secondary profession system (or something closer to it than the elite specialization system) back.

Furthermore, one of the reasons Anet did away with the secondary profession system was that it was too difficult too balance, especially with the introduction of more professions and skills down the line (in GW2’s terms: with the introduction of more elite specializations). This provides even more evidence that Anet will not consider it.

Will they need to be balanced? Yes absolutely.

That’s what you think. I Think the amount of resources required and the balance problems that will be caused by this will in no way be worth it.

Syionide.3705:

what made it difficult in Guild Wars 1 was the amount of skills we had access to, we don’t have anywhere near the amount of skills we had in GW1. Will there be builds made that are completely broken? Yes absolutely. Will they need to be balanced? Yes absolutely. Will it improve the game? Yes absolutely. Should A-Net be focused on improving the game? Yes absolutely.

It’s your single opinion that it would improve the game. I’m trying to tell you that I disagree with you.

I’m not attacking you, just having a conversation.

The elite specs don’t even come close to filling that role. we get 6 new skills max and 1 weapon and 1 trait line compared to the 5+ trait lines and 20+ skills we would get from this suggestion. It’s not good enough. Also, just because it is my opinion doesn’t invalidate the suggestion, in the same way that your disagreement isn’t invalidated because it is your opinion.

With regards to game balance in, its current state, what specifically would be broken. Specific builds or skill combos or trait combos.

Syionide.3705:

not everything would need rebalancing, it wouldn’t be hard to balance the small things that would need balance, id like to see what happens with enacting this with everything just the way it is, small changes would be needed but it would really make the game A LOT more interesting

That’s easy for you to say since you’re not the Dev’s doing the balancing, they have their hands full already with what they have now to balance. GW1 was a nightmare for them to balance with tons more of skills then they had dual professions to deal with too.