Guild Wars 2

I know each profession will get access to only one new weapon type.

You can make specializations even more interesting by giving current weapons new skills.

For example, i would like to see mesmer’s greatsword become a melee weapon when specced into Chronomancer. All 5 of the weapon skills would change to reflect this. At the very least, a new auto attack on the weapons would be cool. I strongly feel mesmer needs another melee weapon since sword is the only option.

Updating the skills on old weapons with new skills with the theme of the specialization, would certainly make the elite specializations of every class feel and play like a new one.

This is……. actually a pretty good idea.

I really like this idea as well. Turns your class/specialization into something new.

Probably something Anet will look into, but don’t expect anything like that for a few years at least.

I actually think this is what the warrior spec is gonna do

please revamp the animations too

I think it’d probably be a nightmare to implement though:

-You want the Chronomancer to have different skills with the greatsword? How do you accomplish that? A trait? Because I’m sure there would probably be players who want to use their GS on their Chronomancer for range so making it baseline would cause problems with that.
-You’re talking a lot of new skills here. Why just 1 weapon getting more skills? Why not all of them? A slippery slope begins and now you have to decide how to get around it.
-If not all of them, then which ones?

I think there might be some stuff in the works to make certain traits affect certain skills in the way you mean, like the new Ranger trait that’ll change Winter’s Bite into an AoE skill or how Ricochet turns pistol attacks into bouncing attacks. I wouldn’t mind more trait changes like that per spec but just making alternate skills for all the skills is going to require a lot of thought and planning.

Azure.8670:

I actually think this is what the warrior spec is gonna do

I hope this is what the warrior spec does. I don’t see any weapon that warriors can’t use right now making any sense for them.

Leo G.4501:

I think it’d probably be a nightmare to implement though:

-You want the Chronomancer to have different skills with the greatsword? How do you accomplish that? A trait? Because I’m sure there would probably be players who want to use their GS on their Chronomancer for range so making it baseline would cause problems with that.
-You’re talking a lot of new skills here. Why just 1 weapon getting more skills? Why not all of them? A slippery slope begins and now you have to decide how to get around it.
-If not all of them, then which ones?

I think there might be some stuff in the works to make certain traits affect certain skills in the way you mean, like the new Ranger trait that’ll change Winter’s Bite into an AoE skill or how Ricochet turns pistol attacks into bouncing attacks. I wouldn’t mind more trait changes like that per spec but just making alternate skills for all the skills is going to require a lot of thought and planning.

Currently, in the second tab of the Hero Menu, you can select Traits in one tab, buy and select utility/healing/elite skills in another tab. The last tab only allows you to see what your weapon skills are. Maybe in this last tab, instead of only being able to view your weapon skills, you can choose which complete set of skills you want for your weapon. This will make this tab give players a choice in customizing their characters further just like the other tabs.

For example: If we’re looking at greatsword for mesmer. You’ll see the normal set of skills for greatsword, and it will have a box that says RANGED next to it. Directly under it could be a box that say MELEE with a new set of skills for greatsword next to it. Players can check the box for melee or ranged; either using the greatsword as it is currently implemented, or using it in the new way.

This would be difficult to do for every weapon right away, but if implemented slowly, one weapon for each class, every few patches or so, it’s better than not at all, and better than having to wait for a future expansion for this feature.

So, when you go to the second tab of your hero menu, you will be able to customize traits, heal/utility/elite skills, and weapon skills.

For clarity, I just want to say I don’t want to be able to mix and match skills on the greatsword from the “RANGED” or “MELEE” categories. What I want is that you have the option to choose to go all “RANGED” or all “MELEE” with that specific weapon.

Another idea would be to maybe give Rangers/druids the ability to use their staff as a melee weapon like a monk, or as a caster weapon like a magic user.

This is just an idea I have.

That’s almost slowly turning it into how skills worked in GW1. It would definitely add a lot more complexity and variety but would probably be a balancing nightmare. The addition of these elite specializations already increase the variety in an exponential but tame way.

Maybe they will do it in the far future but I would be surprised to see it show up so soon, as fun as it sounds.

The point of weapons having their set of skills is to make balancing simpler. By having a weapon always having the same skills for 1 profession makes it easier to balance and also makes PvP simpler, since you have an idea of what your enemy is running.
If the Devs feel like Mesmers need a melee weapon, they will most likely just give them something like an Axe, or hammer. This way its simple, and mesmers can have a new skillset without sacrificing a trait or something of value in exchange, and their respective skills can be balanced and compliment each other (have their own playstyle). since it doesnt matter what the weapon itself is, just what the skills are.
I don’t see them adding extra skills to current weapons professions use anytime soon. They would most likely add new weapon types before they ever do this (if ever). And if they did it would most likely be a new system (not connected to traits) that would allow you to switch out maybe 1 or 2 skills but not the entire skill bar for balancing/confusion sake.

Let the developers decide what’s more work than it’s worth. If balancing is an issue, I prefer to hear the devs say that. I don’t think anyone can speak on behalf of the devs.

As players, you should say whether you like the idea or not. If you like it, then throw in your support. Maybe with enough support they may decide it’s worth their effort to make us happy.

If you don’t like the idea, then that’s okay, too.
I, for one, am very excited at the thought of being able to use old weapons in new ways.

I think this is a great option for the devs to at least explore. They probably already have. I’d love to see them implement this at some point.

good idea, but wont happen imo… creating new skills for existing weapons for each specialization would mean it’s not just a specialization, but a completely new class… and that’s obviously not what they want… they want to adjust current classes and give elite specialization builds new feel, but still keep the basics…

Hot Boy.7138:

Let the developers decide what’s more work than it’s worth. If balancing is an issue, I prefer to hear the devs say that. I don’t think anyone can speak on behalf of the devs.

As players, you should say whether you like the idea or not. If you like it, then throw in your support. Maybe with enough support they may decide it’s worth their effort to make us happy.

If you don’t like the idea, then that’s okay, too.
I, for one, am very excited at the thought of being able to use old weapons in new ways.

Yeah, but the thing is, I don’t believe it’s feasible in the fashion you’re looking for and I think others can see it that way too. We’re not speaking on behalf of the devs, but making educated guesses and those guesses say it’d be extremely hard to balance and implement.

MaXi.3642:

good idea, but wont happen imo… creating new skills for existing weapons for each specialization would mean it’s not just a specialization, but a completely new class… and that’s obviously not what they want… they want to adjust current classes and give elite specialization builds new feel, but still keep the basics…

And this is why I try to make compromises for ideas. I honestly think it can be done but only for specific circumstances…like for the Mesmer GS auto, the OP wants it to be melee. I could see the option of putting a trait that comes along with a few other perks, but one of them is “change GS auto into [insert here]”. The parts, I feel are important here, is it’s limited by how many traits you can have so you can’t go changing a whole slew of attack, and it keeps the options as choices rather than linking them to elite specs…but if it should be aimed at an elite spec, you just put it in their trait line. It’s far more easy to manage.

Well I do think that allowing present weapon abilities to change with the spec definitely gives ANet more design freedom. So instead of asking, what do we call a warrior with a staff? They can say, well we like this-theme or that character-idea how can we incorporate that. I kinda feel this might have happened with the guardian, where the design probably started by asking what weapon and what abilities are they were going to give them instead of starting from the Witch/Dragon Hunter archetype and seeing how it can thematically be incorporated into the class.

However. I can see a lot of players being very unhappy about this, probably feeling like ANet devs are being lazy or uncreative or something. Lets face it ‘profession X gets new weapon’ sounds a lot better that ‘profession X’s weapon Y skills are being changed’.

Dahkeus.8243:

Azure.8670:

I actually think this is what the warrior spec is gonna do

I hope this is what the warrior spec does. I don’t see any weapon that warriors can’t use right now making any sense for them.

And that’s what I mean by design limitation. If every class has to get a new weapon then you’ll end up with specialisations not being thematically consistent.

MaXi.3642:

good idea, but wont happen imo… creating new skills for existing weapons for each specialization would mean it’s not just a specialization, but a completely new class… and that’s obviously not what they want… they want to adjust current classes and give elite specialization builds new feel, but still keep the basics…

This is a matter of scope then. Instead of giving them all new weapon abilities, how about only giving 1 weapon new abilities i.e. so that the scope is still in-line with other specialisations.