Movable Field Tech
Along with the movable shields that for example the Revenant has access to, is there a reason why the Elementalist got shouts as utilities, rather than the obvious case for Wards?
One of the reasons, no doubt, is that ‘wards’ is not a utility skill category. So no elite specialization will get wards as their utility skills, just like no elite specialization will get symbols or marks as their utility skills.
While I don’t think that’s bad reasoning, I also don’t think there’s any reason to not create a new type of utlity skill either, as long as it opens up the class mostly horizontally instead of vertically. Wards could have been awesome.
One of the reasons, no doubt, is that ‘wards’ is not a utility skill category. So no elite specialization will get wards as their utility skills, just like no elite specialization will get symbols or marks as their utility skills.
Before HoT and the Revenant, there also weren’t movable fields, cascading attacks, or any of the more unique utility skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf or Vengeful Hammers.
If your argument is that wards will never exist (or weren’t thought of) because the current game didn’t have them is the type of logic that would invalidate any new ideas or forward progress. The whole POINT of a sequel with new tech is to increase the play options and content, not re-hash the same old stuff.
One of the reasons, no doubt, is that ‘wards’ is not a utility skill category. So no elite specialization will get wards as their utility skills, just like no elite specialization will get symbols or marks as their utility skills.
Before HoT and the Revenant, there also weren’t movable fields, cascading attacks, or any of the more unique utility skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf or Vengeful Hammers.
If your argument is that wards will never exist (or weren’t thought of) because the current game didn’t have them is the type of logic that would invalidate any new ideas or forward progress. The whole POINT of a sequel with new tech is to increase the play options and content, not re-hash the same old stuff.
That was not the argument. What I thought you meant was that the skill type ‘ward’ should have been given to elementalists. Why I said wards, symbols and marks would never been given to a new profession as utility skills, is because they are skill types of weapon skills, not utility skills.
However, if you didn’t refer to the currently existing skill type, but instead meant a new skill type, then I stand corrected
Elementalists probably got shouts to play off the theme of the Horn as their weapon. How that justifies Shouts for Necromancer instead of something like stances I don’t know.
As for moveable fields, something like this would have been an amazing trait for the Reaper as well. A trait that remove the ability to cast wells at range and instead made them summon below you and move with you would have been really cool.
Nothing about the Necromancer seems very well thought out though.
One of the reasons, no doubt, is that ‘wards’ is not a utility skill category. So no elite specialization will get wards as their utility skills, just like no elite specialization will get symbols or marks as their utility skills.
Before HoT and the Revenant, there also weren’t movable fields, cascading attacks, or any of the more unique utility skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf or Vengeful Hammers.
If your argument is that wards will never exist (or weren’t thought of) because the current game didn’t have them is the type of logic that would invalidate any new ideas or forward progress. The whole POINT of a sequel with new tech is to increase the play options and content, not re-hash the same old stuff.
Guardian Hammer 5 and Staff 5 ares specially classed as “Ward”. So its not like the category never existed, or never had a mechanic associated with them.
Secondly, none of the things you listed about the Rev’s mechanics were conceptually unique to their introduction. The backend method used to the more process efficient is new, but we’ve had examples of Cascading attacks (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tribune_Burntclaw), moveable fields (Banners, Mr Sparkles, Commander tags), vengeful hammers are at best 2 projectiles, or at worst a pulsed AOE field, Rite of the Great Dwarf is just a hard buff with a visual effect.
Yes, they’ve made advances….. but they aren’t as sweepingly unique or completely novel as you believe they are. The problem that a lot of us see, is that they were supposed to be incrementally advancing the underlying tech for years now. But instead of moving completing these advances, a very common response to a lot of potential game play advances were met with “Our engine can’t do that” or “we can’t modify the engine enough to make that work”; and of the projects they did start, more then half are left unfinished, only partially implemented, or perpetually promised as “coming”.
More food for thought….. Super Adventure Box is basically a hack of their physics system, and exploited several bugs in order to do what it did. Now that they fixed it, SAB doesn’t work right anymore, and has to be revamped to replicate the behavior. This means SAB didn’t add any real tech advances.
About the only potentially legitimate front end tech updates were from Tequatel Rising and the addition of the jump pads. Zypherite aspects I consider a minor hack, since they utilize server controlled movement to achieve their effect. Moredrem attacks are combinations of existing effects found almost exclusively in player skills, so thats not an advancement either.
The only significant attempts to update the tech have been tied to Fractals and Heart of Thorn…. and HOT has only been in heavy production for how long now? They’ve gotten more work done in the last 6 months then they’ve had in the last 2 years prior…. and the majority of it being things thats been in need of fixing since the game launched in mid 2012.