Guild Wars 2

Let’s call it a Staff-Caster for now. It would fit in the Scholar category, but I could see it as an Adventurer just as easily.

Imagine your lone adversary on a walkway. He spins his radiant staff off his shoulder in a flourish and seemingly scribes glowing sigils in the stones around him before flipping backward into a defensive posture. As your party cautiously walks the path, the sigils explode into a myriad of spells that wound and envelop your troupe in fear. All the while he waits, taunting you from afar, spinning his staff, and sending spells ripping into your helpless group. Those who do make it through see him again strike the ground, writing spells in the stone around him, calling forth an army of minions that charge into the fray right along with his deadly spinning staff.

I can see this profession being like the Elementalist in that it lacks weapon-swapping choosing to focus on casting. They make up for it by summoning multiple allies for a short term, as well as creating conditions to bottle-neck and slow down foes.

Staff wouldn’t be the only weapon, but it could take the slot of the long- and short-range weapon if necessary. Dagger, Focus, Pistol, Scepter, Short-bow, Torch, and Warhorn are all current weapons I could see in their inventory.

Now, maybe I’m completely out of it, but without our individual fantasies life it a pretty boring place.

That’s pretty similar to Necro with an updated staff skill set honestly. What you are describing are essentially magic based traps, and thats pretty good description of Necro’s marks already. Plus Necro can summon minions. Really biggest difference is that Necro doesn’t have any marks that summon minions, and he doesn’t use his staff physically.

Agree with OriOri, this is more or less a necromancer

Oh, and necro did have that one mark skill that summon minions, its from the Lich Form skill number 4 (Mark of Horror)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark_of_Horror

And yet, I think a new “permanent” summoning profession that are not based on undead is nice (If only mesmer illusion were permanent and can follow us around)

We don’t need another profession, d###it. We need more skills.

No, I’m not gonna shut up about this.

Arnox.5128:

We don’t need another profession, d###it. We need more skills.

No, I’m not gonna shut up about this.

We have plenty of skills and traits that don’t even get used. They should be making those good enough to justify taking them.

As for a rune-scriber/etc, that would easily be done through an elite spec. That’s how GW2 is set to develop its new roles, building on the base mechanics of another class.

Rauderi.8706:

We have plenty of skills and traits that don’t even get used. They should be making those good enough to justify taking them.

But that’s an issue of balance. Not of new content.

I wrote up an elite spec idea for elementalist recently that shares some of these ideas (minus the pets). I called it “Spell Forge” and it used two-handed hammer as a ranged casting weapon with a “spell-smithing” kind of theme. It focused on control and condi application in a sort of mirror of staff. Each #2 skill was an attunement associated mark (like necro marks).

The utility skills were something I called seals. The mechanic for seals went like this:

1. Lock a spell behind a magical seal, allowing it to build in power. Would have some kind of visual marker associated with it to notify players and opponents of its location and the identity of the specific seal.
2. After casting a seal a sequence skill becomes available to remove the seal and release the built up spell.
3. The sequence skill can be activated immediatly for a diminished effect, but after every increment of 3 seconds the power of the spell would increase and layer an additional effect over the first with an even greater radius for the new effect. Increments max out at twice, so after 6 seconds of gestation the spell reaches maximum effectiveness but can still be held off on activation.

Here is an example:

F5 was a new profession mechanic that consumed “Arcane Flux”, temporarily locked you into an attunement, and replaced attunements with a set of low cd arcane themed skills that provided defense, utility, or enhancement buffs for your other skills.

Not quite the same, but like others have said it could certainly be executed through an elite specialization. Thanks for sharing!

Arnox.5128:

Rauderi.8706:

We have plenty of skills and traits that don’t even get used. They should be making those good enough to justify taking them.

But that’s an issue of balance. Not of new content.

But what good is it to add new skills when the old ones aren’t balanced? Things would teeter out of control, and it’s very likely that any new skills you add will be OP briefly then get nerfed into oblivion so that the old-but-popular skills stay on top again.

Personally I miss the Spirit Spammer of GW1, the Ritualist. I loved playing those, though my first love is the Ranger