Guild Wars 2

20 weapon skills and 4 weapon swaps. Equalize the base health and armor for all professions. Use weapon skills, traits and utilities to balance and make them unique.

Your variations in base health and armor and amount of skills available to each profession is causing a chaotic environment for balance.

In it’s current state; you’ll find it almost impossible to balance because players will always try to find ways to augment their weaknesses. Remove the weaknesses.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not every class having 4 weapon swaps is an improvement or not, your suggestion seems incomplete without some mention of what you think the Ele class-specific mechanic should then become.

In other words, if Engis had 4 weapon swaps + toolbelt skills, Guardians had 4 weapon swaps + Virtues, etc … Elementalists would have 4 weapon swaps + what exactly? Or are you suggesting that all the class-specific mechanics need to go?

Kintari.4172:

Leaving aside the question of whether or not every class having 4 weapon swaps is an improvement or not, your suggestion seems incomplete without some mention of what you think the Ele class-specific mechanic should then become.

In other words, if Engis had 4 weapon swaps + toolbelt skills, Guardians had 4 weapon swaps + Virtues, etc … Elementalists would have 4 weapon swaps + what exactly? Or are you suggesting that all the class-specific mechanics need to go?

I don’t understand the mechanisms behind balancing an Engineering tool belt with Guardian Virtues or a Hunter Pet or a Thief’s Steal or a Warrior’s Burst.

I don’t think the developers themselves balance those at all. These look like iconic features that gives a profession it’s own personality and feel so to speak. It’s more of an artistic thing than a mechanical thing.

In response to your question; I think the solution would be to provide the Elementalist with something… Elementally?

If every class was given the option to have 4 weapon swaps, then ever class would have their weapons nerfed to compensate. As a result, like the elementalist, every class would have to commonly rotate through their weapons. The average majority couldn’t handle it and would complain, saying their class is weak and that the game was too hard, because they wouldn’t switch weapons.

Healix.5819:

If every class was given the option to have 4 weapon swaps, then ever class would have their weapons nerfed to compensate. As a result, like the elementalist, every class would have to commonly rotate through their weapons. The average majority couldn’t handle it and would complain, saying their class is weak and that the game was too hard, because they wouldn’t switch weapons.

I don’t understand your reasoning.

Are you stating that swapping between 4 different weapons and having 20 weapon skills would be too difficult for the average person to understand?

One thing I definitely agree on is normalizing base hps and armor across the professions.

Then tweak some numbers/utilities/traits accordingly.

Like you might say “But if warriors and thieves were left as they are, but thieves got a bunch of extra hps and armor, why would someone play a warrior?” Warriors could get x desirable stuff added to them. Maybe they’re better at clearing conditions than they are now and they get more sustainability in healing etc. Necros (the other high hp class currently) might just outright get more damage or something.

Minion of Vey.4398:

One thing I definitely agree on is normalizing base hps and armor across the professions.

Then tweak some numbers/utilities/traits accordingly.

Like you might say “But if warriors and thieves were left as they are, but thieves got a bunch of extra hps and armor, why would someone play a warrior?” Warriors could get x desirable stuff added to them. Maybe they’re better at clearing conditions than they are now and they get more sustainability in healing etc. Necros (the other high hp class currently) might just outright get more damage or something.

The Warrior’s current weakness is condition removal and mobility. If you provide the Warrior with ANY of these 2 things; it throws balance off a cliff.

If base health and armor were normalized then yes I agree, Warriors would require mobility and condition removal. The Thief would still have stealth. Stealth is what Thieves use to remove conditions and be mobile.

Lets be perfectly clear about something the Ele does NOT have 4 weapon swaps in fact its 1 of only 2 classes that cant swap weapons at all . What the Ele does is Swap attunements giving them a wide array of skills to use .

As to your argument that “variations in base health and armor and amount of skills available to each profession is causing a chaotic environment for balance.” i disagree It makes the player have to choose how to build their class more carefully

Adine.2184:

Lets be perfectly clear about something the Ele does NOT have 4 weapon swaps in fact its 1 of only 2 classes that cant swap weapons at all . What the Ele does is Swap attunements giving them a wide array of skills to use .

Pretty sure the OP knows this and was referring to the fact that eles can switch between 4 different sets of 1-5 skills, which while not technically swapping weapons, is equivalent in a sense, as it replaces your 1-5 in the same way swapping weapons would.

However, there’s a sense in which it is not equivalent at all, and that is this: if a class were to have 4 true weapon swaps, that expands the number of combinations of weapons they can equip by a lot.

To make things simple, let’s take a class that has access to 6 different weapon sets. If they get to choose 4 of these as sets to swap between, that’s 6! / (4! * 2!), or 15, unique combinations of 4 different weapon sets that they can choose from.

Keep in mind that each 1 of these 15 possible configurations would have access to 20 total skills across all 4 weapon swaps, just like an Elementalist would with 4 attunements.

The difference is that the Elementalist cannot independently choose 4 different sets of 5 skills, an Elementalist effectively picks 1 set of 20 skills. Since they have access to 5 different weapon sets, this gives them 5 total configurations they could pick from; again, each configuration consisting of 20 skills.

So this might not accomplish what you think it will.

The Elementlist should have 4 weapon sets and a specific set of skills for each attunment.

Example:
If you have a staff for your fire attunment; you’ll have the 5 staff fire skills.
If you have double daggers for your air attunment; you’ll have the 5 double dagger air skills.

Calae.1738:

The Elementlist should have 4 weapon sets and a specific set of skills for each attunment.

Example:
If you have a staff for your fire attunment; you’ll have the 5 staff fire skills.
If you have double daggers for your air attunment; you’ll have the 5 double dagger air skills.

Giving the elementalist 5^4, or 625 possible configurations to choose from. 5 weapon set choices for fire x 5 choices for water x 5 choices for air x 5 choices for earth. Are you sure this is what you want?

You should try double wolf ranger 1v1 builds and tell me that pets are simply "artistic". They serve a huge purpose on that extreme example.

Calae.1738:

Minion of Vey.4398:

One thing I definitely agree on is normalizing base hps and armor across the professions.

Then tweak some numbers/utilities/traits accordingly.

Like you might say “But if warriors and thieves were left as they are, but thieves got a bunch of extra hps and armor, why would someone play a warrior?” Warriors could get x desirable stuff added to them. Maybe they’re better at clearing conditions than they are now and they get more sustainability in healing etc. Necros (the other high hp class currently) might just outright get more damage or something.

The Warrior’s current weakness is condition removal and mobility. If you provide the Warrior with ANY of these 2 things; it throws balance off a cliff.

If base health and armor were normalized then yes I agree, Warriors would require mobility and condition removal. The Thief would still have stealth. Stealth is what Thieves use to remove conditions and be mobile.

Well that was the point. If health and armor were normalized.

Kintari.4172:

Calae.1738:

The Elementlist should have 4 weapon sets and a specific set of skills for each attunment.

Example:
If you have a staff for your fire attunment; you’ll have the 5 staff fire skills.
If you have double daggers for your air attunment; you’ll have the 5 double dagger air skills.

Giving the elementalist 5^4, or 625 possible configurations to choose from. 5 weapon set choices for fire x 5 choices for water x 5 choices for air x 5 choices for earth. Are you sure this is what you want?

I would agree that out of combat weapon switching would probably be problematic but; I’m sure you could make out of combat weapon switching less of an issue by using templates. The more unique weapons there are the more combinations you have to try to balance.

What I mean by templates is 2 sets of weapons that attack the same way but have different visual styles. Greatsword and Hammer. Both are 2 handed weapons and would deal damage the same way; they just look different and swing different. Greatsword would attack faster and deal less damage; Hammer would have slow swings but deal higher damage. This would avoid people from keeping a Hammer in their bags if they choose to use a Greatsword.

We could put restrictions and rules on weapon sets. For example: 2 melee and 2 ranged weapon sets. It would prevent people from using the same weapon sets on 2 slots. Example a Thief with pistol/dagger on weapon set 1 could not use any daggers and pistols on weapon set 2. He would have to use sword/sword.

Silly idea is silly.

I dislike relying on a million of abilities.
GW2 is an action game and should revolve around reflexes not cheesing 80 icons vs the 80 icons of the opponent.

And I know a ton of Eles who would really love “specialization” traits that allow them to use an element only and be really effective with it.

I recently dropped my level 40 Ele to reroll a Guardian. Couldnt fight more than 1 enemy at a time, always had to stick with my level range or lower and still got killed over and over. But the biggest reason was that I just could not remember the huge number of spells and all the different weapon combos. Ive also played an Engineer, Warrior and Hunter. It just all depends on your playstyle and how good you are with twitchy fingers. Some may like the difficulty of a spellcaster, others rather play this game like Diablo; in that case a warrior or guardian is a better choice. So I dont think the Ele should be the standard template.

Dim.5720:

I recently dropped my level 40 Ele to reroll a Guardian.

I did the opposite, left my level 30 Guardian for an Ele. I like to constantly switch attunements and I find it much better than weapon switch. Each to their own.

I do agree on equalizing base stat/armor or to somehow make up the difference. It does not seem fair at the current position.