Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 features a variety of different weapons, 19 of them to be exact. 3 of those 19 are underwater weapons and so they shouldn’t be elite specialization weapons (unless they were useable on land for some obvious reasons). This allows a variety of play styles for all the different classes. Something that has irked me already and will almost definitely irk me again, there are 9 classes in the game and for some reason there will be 7 weapons distributed amongst them.

When Anet announced the shield as being the revenant’s elite specialization weapon, I could ignore it. After all, it’s not really a new weapon for the revenant seeing as how the class hasn’t been released yet. Also, the shield is pretty weak right now, and that representation would give value to an often underused and widely regarded underwhelming weapon. If that was the only repeat weapon, I would have been totally fine and this post wouldn’t exist.

That is to say that there is another repeat weapon. A picture released today shows the thief with what is clearly a staff on GW2’s twitter today. First of all, the revenant already showcased a unique way to use the staff: a melee (albeit non-combative form) staff. But the thief? I can understand that perhaps they are going with a monk theme, lore wise a staff would be a solid weapon choice, perhaps. But consider the following:

Thieves could have been snipers with The Predator! By the nine gods, it even requires a Gift of Stealth to make! Instead, the thieves will now have access to The Bifrost, which requires the Gift of Color. This isn’t to knock on The Bifrost, after all, I have that legendary and I love its design. But this choice makes such little sense to me.

Also, as I said before, the staff is already being used as an Elite Specialization weapon already. The ranger is getting it. What makes the choice even more non-sensical is that now 7/9 classes will now be able to use the staff. That isn’t weapon diversity. I can’t understand the logic that dictates a thief getting the staff when it’s already the most popular weapon based on how many classes can equip it. Let alone when it’s already being used for the Ranger.

I understand that some or many of you are excited to see a martial artist thief spec that uses a staff, but I’m majorly disappointed with the lack of creativity. The entire point of expanding the weapon sets was to increase build diversity. That’s all well and good but if the overwhelming majority of players are playing with the same weapon, I feel like that defeats the purpose.

While I remain very excited for the expansion, it’s a shame that the expansion of weapon choices introduced so few weapons and so many of the same weapon to different classes.

My final note is that from what has been shown about elite specializations, they tend to be obvious meta choices. While there will be a good amount of people who won’t use the elite specializations, I’d wager that the overwhelming majority of players will. Not only are the talents really strong, but the animations are incredible. The side effect of duplicating the same weapon for Elite Specializations is that you make certain weapons much better than others. Many people feel that the Great Sword is too strong right now as a weapon choice. (Being someone who loves Great Swords, I personally don’t feel this way, but I can understand where they come from.) But when shield and staff are now meta for 2 classes each (in addition to roles where they currently are used already), you are creating more “Great Swords”. In future expansions, please consider giving each class a unique weapon so that all weapons can get some love.

Tl;Dr OP is bummed because despite having 9 elite specializations announced, only 7 unique weapons were “expanded”.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNL5THxXAAALdRC.jpg:large

All I can say is I’m disappointing that all the new weapons are either two-handed or off-handed. I had hoped that at least one class would get a new primary-handed weapon, like Elementalists getting swords like they were supposed to, maybe seeing Mace on a necromancer, or even Dagger on Guardian or Warrior….

I agree. I suppose it would have happened (more likely at least) if they had given each class its own weapon.

Well said. Ele is now the only profession with only a single two-handed weapon. They have 3 off-hands. It’s a bummer.

Well, I made Bolt hoping that the Tempest would use bolt (because that would be perfect and make tons of sense). Alas, it’s a warhorn. It’s just like the thief making more sense with a rifle (Gift of Stealth!) than a staff (Gift of color?!).

I’m sure I’ll like the thief, it’s just that I wish the weapons were unique and some of them different. No character got a simple main hand weapon. Either 2 handed (5 weapon skills) or Off hand (2 weapon skills…)

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I understand that some or many of you are excited to see a martial artist thief spec that uses a staff, but I’m majorly disappointed with the lack of creativity.

I somewhat agree with you, but let alone your above quoted line.

Thief with rifle being sniper spec is much less creativity than a martial art staff thief imo.

I was very much impressed and eager to create a new cha as Bald male elder thief with arcane outfit and staff… as an asian martial art monk style.

I like all the weapon choices for all the elite specs. Their relative to the class and in line with want the class needs are. Not saying other weapons would not have worked, but these weapons seems more appealing to me. I don’t see anything wrong with multiple classes using the same weapons or not evenly distributing the 16 weapons among the professions. I think being too creative would be more of a turn off to most people, then just going for what seems more practical.

The only weapon that was a shock, was Ele’s warhorn, but I must admit, they did a great job with that weapon’s abilities. Rifle for thief would have been nice and I’m waiting for it, but I can’t think of how they would implement it and what would be different other then range that would make it different then Short Bow and Pistol and how would they make it unique from the Warrior and he Eng. I’m sure they could, but it might take more time.

I personally think that all other classes’ weapons were expected. I’d like to see more elite specs, but I am satisfied with the concept of these coming with HoT.

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay. In fact, making it clear now that they won’t be shooting for such meaningless pseudo-symmetry in future is a huge plus. Because really, most people complaining don’t care about the larger structure, they’re just irritated their pet choice didn’t make the cut in round one.

When round two comes along if it’s announce that Rangers are getting rifles you can bet the Thief-riffle-sniper fan club would be giddy to see they’re getting their favorite choice too because weapon’s can be duplicated in a wave and you KNOW the Swords-for-Elementalists party won’t give a flying skritt’s butt that Engineers are getting sword main-hand that wave too. They just want their sword.

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

I love the warhorn for ele. Sorry that you don’t.

I fully agree with Nike’s post: the big picture is more interested in balancing the game across all professions, not about offering everyone their favorites.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

I love the warhorn for ele. Sorry that you don’t.

I’m not talking about it not being cool for some people. We were talking about it improving the gameplay. Currently that’s not really the case (though i admit it’s not fully the warhorn’s fault, but partially caused by scepter problems and Tempest in general being a bad design).

I agree that perhaps I might be bitter about my weapon not making the cut. But I’m mostly curious why certain weapons that have very, very low representation weren’t used and weapons that have a high number of classes that can use them were used.

The greatsword is usable on what, 6/9 people now?
The staff is usable on 7/9.
The shield is usable on 5/9.

Meanwhile, the short bow has a whopping 2 people and the rifle has 2 people who can use them.

This is mostly frustrating because as someone who likes to collect legendary weapons (I currently have 8 ), I generally like to make weapons that look good, but more importantly, that I will use. I won’t make underwater weapons for 1% of the game’s content. Likewise, I probably won’t make a short bow until at least 3 people can use it. I’ll definitely make the shield now, because before, I didn’t feel like I’d use it enough to justify the incredible effort it takes to make a legendary.

I guess that’s my biggest gripe. I would have loved to see the pistol, rifle, and short bow get some more love this patch.

The land spear at the end of season two was a harsh troll. They know exactly how the player base will respond to that stuff and it’s disappointing. One day they are going to do it and it’s going to blow up in their faces.

Iason Evan.3806:

Well said. Ele is now the only profession with only a single two-handed weapon. They have 3 off-hands. It’s a bummer.

To be fair, an ele offhand grants 8 skills compared to the 3-5 granted by adding a MH or 2h to any other profession.

Not only that, the weapon choices for the elite specs seem chosen more for the thematic synergy with the spec’s mechanics or flavor than being concerned with being able to say “we added exactly # skills to every profession” and having to come up with a bunch of filler or try to justify why adding mainhand sword was an appropriate choice for an AoE battle commander style specialization.

Eventually you’ll see specs supporting every weapon for every profession. Next round of specs, I’d expect to see those that got offhands get new MH or 2H weapons, and those that got 2H get offhands.

Astralporing.1957:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

I love the warhorn for ele. Sorry that you don’t.

I’m not talking about it not being cool for some people. We were talking about it improving the gameplay. Currently that’s not really the case (though i admit it’s not fully the warhorn’s fault, but partially caused by scepter problems and Tempest in general being a bad design).

Again, we disagree. It adds a dimension to my game play.

I understand the sort of thing you mean, though: for my main (mesmer), I wanted a new main hand option (since scepter is useless in PvE most of the time) and was disappointed when I heard about shield for Chronomancer. However, the actual gameplay is different — not what I had hoped for specifically, but definitely will add a dimension to the class.

I feel the same about ele warhorn vs some main-hand option: it’s a great addition imo, even it’s not the change I wanted.