Guild Wars 2

Alright I understand there have been a lot of threads about this. Discussing whether or not they should be locked to a legend, or a small pool per legend, etc. Well I had a thought on that, partially based on what some other people have been saying about Elementalists and Glyphs (And my apologies if someone else already mentioned something like this.).

Now of the suggestions I’ve seen for the skills the best idea does seem to be a small pool of skills per legend, so that there’s at least a little customization to it other than picking your legend and weapon. We’ll ignore heals and Elites for the moment and just focus on Utilities. Now lets “assume” for the sake of an example that there’s 4-5 Legends to pick from (same as the number of trait paths.), and lets say each one has a pool of 4-5 unique utilities. Now a way we could pad that is with a series of “neutral” skills, which can come in one of two forms. One is something similar to Glyphs where it has a slightly different effect based on your Legend. Like say it causes a boon, Resistance on Malyx and Protection on Jalis. (Again just an example, obviously they could do more interesting things, but for simplicity sake.). Alternatively they could have some “true” neutral skills. A sprinkle of abilities based more on the mists than the legends, that are the same across the board regardless of your legend.

Yes I understand that the Legends are a big part of the Revenant’s Utilities bar with the mechanic, but along with unique skills this would be a descent way to pad things a little to allow for more builds/customization. Plus one could be like a Signet which makes you gain Energy faster as the Passive, and maybe auto-recharge your swapping ability on use (with a long cooldown of course.).

Anyway that is my idea. What do you think? Do you have suggestions that you personally think would make this idea work better? What are the faults you see? Please try to keep opinions constructive. Whether you agree or disagree saying “this is a dumb idea” doesn’t help anyone.

Wolfe.9850:

Alright I understand there have been a lot of threads about this. Discussing whether or not they should be locked to a legend, or a small pool per legend, etc. Well I had a thought on that, partially based on what some other people have been saying about Elementalists and Glyphs (And my apologies if someone else already mentioned something like this.).

Now of the suggestions I’ve seen for the skills the best idea does seem to be a small pool of skills per legend, so that there’s at least a little customization to it other than picking your legend and weapon. We’ll ignore heals and Elites for the moment and just focus on Utilities. Now lets “assume” for the sake of an example that there’s 4-5 Legends to pick from (same as the number of trait paths.), and lets say each one has a pool of 4-5 unique utilities. Now a way we could pad that is with a series of “neutral” skills, which can come in one of two forms. One is something similar to Glyphs where it has a slightly different effect based on your Legend. Like say it causes a boon, Resistance on Malyx and Protection on Jalis. (Again just an example, obviously they could do more interesting things, but for simplicity sake.). Alternatively they could have some “true” neutral skills. A sprinkle of abilities based more on the mists than the legends, that are the same across the board regardless of your legend.

Yes I understand that the Legends are a big part of the Revenant’s Utilities bar with the mechanic, but along with unique skills this would be a descent way to pad things a little to allow for more builds/customization. Plus one could be like a Signet which makes you gain Energy faster as the Passive, and maybe auto-recharge your swapping ability on use (with a long cooldown of course.).

Anyway that is my idea. What do you think? Do you have suggestions that you personally think would make this idea work better? What are the faults you see? Please try to keep opinions constructive. Whether you agree or disagree saying “this is a dumb idea” doesn’t help anyone.

I could see there being utility skill choices for each legend. It would be weird if you only have the 1 heal, 3 utility, 1 elite skill per legend, and then have skill points to spend on nothing. I’m guessing that’s where they’ll throw the customization in. Either that, or weapon customization? I don’t think they’ll do that though.

Wasn’t it confirmed at some point that you DON’T get to change anything regarding the legends skills? The arrows are only their to change the order of the utilities, each legend gets 1 heal skill, 3 utilities and 1 elite, and you are locked into those

I’m not disagreeing, I think that some neutral skills wouldn’t hurt if their is one skill on a legend you don’t like but I think that arena-net have already kind of decided and locked in this idea of having a legend and having each legend have 5 skills and not being able to change those skills, but who know’s maybe they’re are more “neutral” skills we haven’t heard about yet?

thewaterguy.4796:

Wasn’t it confirmed at some point that you DON’T get to change anything regarding the legends skills? The arrows are only their to change the order of the utilities, each legend gets 1 heal skill, 3 utilities and 1 elite, and you are locked into those

I’m not disagreeing, I think that some neutral skills wouldn’t hurt if their is one skill on a legend you don’t like but I think that arena-net have already kind of decided and locked in this idea of having a legend and having each legend have 5 skills and not being able to change those skills, but who know’s maybe they’re are more “neutral” skills we haven’t heard about yet?

The last I heard all they have confirmed was that they had not actually decided where they were going to go with this as of yet.

thewaterguy.4796:

Wasn’t it confirmed at some point that you DON’T get to change anything regarding the legends skills? The arrows are only their to change the order of the utilities, each legend gets 1 heal skill, 3 utilities and 1 elite, and you are locked into those

I’m not disagreeing, I think that some neutral skills wouldn’t hurt if their is one skill on a legend you don’t like but I think that arena-net have already kind of decided and locked in this idea of having a legend and having each legend have 5 skills and not being able to change those skills, but who know’s maybe they’re are more “neutral” skills we haven’t heard about yet?

I agree, I think there should be some neutral skills. Also, don’t forget the racial skills we have. I recall a vid where they said that one could guess how many legends there are based on the number of skills in the game. So far it looks like there will be 5 legends, because most classes have about 20 utility skills, not including healing skills or elites.

I guess the skill points would work the same as they already do. The only difference would be that we would have to unlock all the skills of a legend to use them at their full potential.

I’m guessing that everyone would start with the Dwarf and would have to unlock the other legends afterwards.

thewaterguy.4796:

Wasn’t it confirmed at some point that you DON’T get to change anything regarding the legends skills? The arrows are only their to change the order of the utilities, each legend gets 1 heal skill, 3 utilities and 1 elite, and you are locked into those.

Confirmed that this is how it currently works but also that it may change.

Personally I don’t see a need to change it. I wouldn’t hate it if they did but I don’t see a need for it. I see plenty of flexibility in the existing set up. And I think people will see that too when they can actually play one.

ArenaNet seems to’ve 180’d from their stance in the original Guild Wars, where players were given enormous freedom of choice in how, precisely, to set up their characters. The new philosophy seems to be constricting the choices down as much as possible, whilst trying to cram as much as possible into any given decision in order to make for “a smaller number of much more meaningful decisions” rather than the extensive and excellent customization and fine-tuning available in the first game.

The Revenant is the ultimate example of this; its utility packs a’la Demon and Dwarf stance are designed around certain playstyles, and since ArenaNet doesn’t have to worry about any of the Legend Stance skills being abused with anything but their own immutable pool of precisely five util slots, they can make crazybonkers stuff like Inspired Reinforcement. The less choices the player has, the more powerful ArenaNet can make those individual choices because there’s less risk of some particularly clever chap managing to bust the game open 55-Monk style by combining things ArenaNet didn’t foresee.

AN would probably state that there’s more meaningful choice with the Rev than there is for the other professions, given that you still get full customization of gear (because that totally matters, gaiz >_>), and your choice of playstyles is given much more focus and pop because they don’t have to worry about awkward hybridizations.

Want to play a tanky frontliner with hefty team support? Go Dwarf Stance and DROP ROADS ON YOUR ENEMIES.

Want to torture your enemies and turn the entire boon/condition system on its head? Run Demon Stance and enjoy handing out ALL the Torment.

Want to do all the deeps in Creation and turn your Revenant into a war crime with feet? Snag Assassin Stance, push the Impossible Odds button, then laugh and laugh…

And so on. Smaller number of more impactful and theoretically more balanced choices, at the cost of fine-tuneability and personal character. Your hammer-sniper Jalis Rev is awesome...but it’s also completely identical to everyone else’s awesome hammer-sniper Jalis Rev. No, traits and gear don’t count.

If the NPI has taught us anything it’s that the ability of some folks to end up option-shocked cannot be underestimated. The Rev is likely built with this in mind as much as anything else, with a small handful of much more easily understand skill packets over a pool of skills that some people would apparently look at and go “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME GAME I CAN’T MAKE DECISIONS LIKE THIS!”

The Rev appeals to players who want fewer decisions without ending up with bad builds while being themed closely enough to the original game to appeal to lore guys who miss the original game’s mechanics, without actually offering those lore guys any of the original game’s depth of build-yness. It’s actually kinda fiendishly clever once ye tear it all down and examine the bits.

@ DevilLordLaser,

I agree with your analysis. I’m not sure if you dislike the new design philosophy, but I’d say its flaws are also its virtues. The revenant is generally a more restricting profession. But. If we look at the current state of balance, which profession isn’t? The revenant is simply more open-minded, more honest about it, and thus, its builds are easier to grap and to identify.

I also prefer more meaningful trait choices for a more restricting profession, than less meaningful trait choices for a more customisable profession that, ultimately, its level of customisation is relegated to picking the strongest utility skills and sticking with them at the expense of any other.

Specializations will probably work like that too. And, as time goes on, the level of customisation of the new system will increase, as new specs get to be added into the game.