Guild Wars 2

how much influence do the additional weapons for each class influence what you will main?

ie: you didn’t play X class..but now that they are getting X wep you are going to start..

I’ve had my engineer parked for ages at like level 15 but hammer looks interesting.

thief getting staff could be interesting…ele getting sword i’m excited about..and ranger druid staff…

ahhh so many choices!

Nope. My ele will always use a staff.

Mea.5491:

I wanted to get Greatsword for my Necro but I have to give up on Reaper because my current build is perfect. I simply can’t choose which trait line to get rid of, I must keep them all, lol. I will try GS for fun but I’m 99% sure I will keep my current build.

What is this “perfect build” you speak of?

I won’t change how I play if weapons are crap.
I may enjoy more my mesmer because of the new trait line, hammer may be fun for engi.
Ele will stay staff, thief won’t change, I will definitely not change guard or even buying a bow. And probably won’t change much with war.
So basically I will adapt but I will still play thief.

My Guardian will love his bow so I’m all for it. However my roleplay thief. She would use a rifle or anything for assassinating. She would not touch a staff. Also she would use kits, like throwing knives etc.

Hard to say, matbe if we had info for all the classes it would be easier to answer this question. If I speculate and the class is what I think it will be in my head than yes, but that’s pretty unlikely that it is going to turn out like what I think it will.

Not the weapons as much as the other things that come with the elite specs:

So far we have details on mesmer, guard and necro.

Of the 3, guard appears least likely going to get me to swap, no matter how much they dress it up, it still looks like just a petless ranger (trap ranger at that) to me. I’ll play it some obviously before I say for sure, but right now it’s easily the least interesting looking.

Reaper is a definite maybe. IF AND ONLY IF it’s anywhere near as powerful as touted, I’ll be making that change. And right now it looks like my Reaper’s build will most likely be a GS carrying, zerker wells necro.

Mesmer, without question will be my elite spec. Shield or not I don’t care. I play mostly solo PvE, and Mesmer is easily the least powerful and most complicated of the entire lot to bring up to max power. Even the Engineer before the core spec’s patch wasn’t so horrid for making simple solo play. Ultimately what decides it for me and the Chronomancer are the wells. My Mesmer will turn into a pink necro-like thing when elite specs drop, and I’m okay with this as long as it is as capable as my Necro is now of running Kamikaze into a group of 5-7 mobs (level 80 pve and wvw both I can get away with this) and melting them all seconds. It’s not the best m37a1337sP33dZ01Rkr build on earth, but it’s both simple and effective enough for what I do. And I hope to have a Mesmer with something so simple available soon.

Not at all. Have no interest in a bow with my Guard.

The only, previously unplayed, professsion…that I will give a shot now…due to a new weapon…will be engineer. The hammer looks like it will finally make melee an option for engineers.

I will likely continue to main my mesmer, but not for the new weapon. I will definitely take the new elite specialization…just not really interested in the shield mechanics.

I may as well consider my guard a second main, but I will 100% not trait into the new elite specialization…therefore I will not even use a longbow. I think they did a terrible job with the guardian elite specialization.

I am very interested in the reaper. I leveled a necromancer just in preparation for the reaper, but I am skeptical of how much I will even make use of the greatsword. ANET’s insistence of trying to attach penalties to necromancers and everything they touch is really frustrating. They want the GS to be slow, they want to limit mobility, they refuse to let us play the whole profession (no utilities in shroud), they refuse to allow any true active defenses (blocks, reflects, invulnerabilities). In the end, even the GS may be pointless if dagger still outpaces it. Depending on the uptime of reaper shroud, I may not even use a GS as RS doesn’t depend on having a GS equipped. I may be able to get all my “cleavage” just from RS. If that’s the case, GS may just be my alt weapon to swap to. So no, doesn’t look like necros getting GS will make me swap mains either.

I can’t imagine any new weapon a warrior or thief would get would make me swap either.

If ele is really getting a 1h sword…and it will be true melee…that may be a game changer though.

Still no interest in anything ranger related

Revenant is going to depend entirely on the power/melee legend and its weapon sets.

ODB.6891:

The hammer looks like it will finally make melee an option for engineers.

Reading things like these makes me cry.
You keep talking about melee, but sadly, you have a very poor idea of what it is.
Melee was never an option to engineers, it’s mandatory.
If you would have at least tried it, you would have seen that engi got many things that are buffed at melee range. You just see “range: 1000” under rifle skills and you assume you have to play it ranged.
The thing that will decide if hammer is worthy will never be that number you see after range, it will be its damage, if hammer can outdps the rifle, then we will take it, else we will still play rifle in melee.
And I’m so sorry for you if you think engi use their rifle auto.

It all depends on the weapon, the skills, and the profession. My guardian will be all over the longbow when HOT is available (I already have one sitting in my bank just for that occasion).

I’m not sure influence is the right term. My two mains, Ele and Ranger haven’t had their elite specs revealed yet.

The Tempest’s weapon could be anything, but I don’t really care anymore. If it’s my Zephyrite magic theory, Sun, Wind and Lightning attunements, then I lose my two favourite attunements, water and earth. My only other theory was that the Tempest was a squishy evasive type character with a break bar, a skirmishing melee fighter that doesn’t die when they clip the edge of a Guardian Staff wall. Anet went the obvious route with the break bar, letting the warrior ignore more game mechanics, so yeah.

Druid on the other hand had me interested from the initial announcement. The Maguuma druids are awesome and Ranger, my favourite profession, definitely needs a few different things that the Druid, or even just the staff, could provide. Despite playing Ranger I hate using bows and have been using axe or almost pure melee since launch, the Ranger’s greatsword is what initially sold me on the Ranger anyway. A ranged support power weapon would be perfect to play with Greatsword. A melee condi weapon with hard control and mobility would also be perfect for my PvP condi builds. I play druids in every other (enjoyable) game that’ll allow me, so I’ll be making druid specific builds anyway.

As for things I can fully comment on. My Mesmer wouldn’t see play without Time Marches On. My Guardian will be able to show off my hard earned Kudzu that doesn’t suit her at all while she continues to be a bank character. My male Sylvari Necromancer whose name begins with “Trahe” never felt right without a greatsword.

It’s not about the weapons, it’s about weapon skills, utility skills and traits. From what I’ve seen, the Reaper will probably fit my playstyle and the Dragonhunter and Chronomancer will not. We’ll see.

Absolutely. I’m drooling at the thought of running around on a “Berserker” warrior with a sword in one hand, and a torch (pls anet) in the other.

Raiding villages, setting fire to their homes, salting the land, destroying the men in brutal combat, enslaving the women and children…

what the actual 1-5 skills on the new weapons end up being..i’m sure play a real factor in whether or not you switch to it

it’s going to be interesting to see how many people take the elite spec ..but dont use the new weapon…

i wonder if they are balancing for that..cause initially it will probably be crazy

Maybe. Depends on if the druid is a bang or a bust.

Probably not. If the Elementalist ends up with Warhorn (pls no) then definitely not. PvE will still be Staff or Scepter Focus and PvP will still be D/D or S/F. I can’t imagine ANet creating anything in the offhand that will even remotely unseat the king of PvE or the king of PvP.

Gunsnroll.2657:

ODB.6891:

The hammer looks like it will finally make melee an option for engineers.

Reading things like these makes me cry.
You keep talking about melee, but sadly, you have a very poor idea of what it is.
Melee was never an option to engineers, it’s mandatory.
If you would have at least tried it, you would have seen that engi got many things that are buffed at melee range. You just see “range: 1000” under rifle skills and you assume you have to play it ranged.
The thing that will decide if hammer is worthy will never be that number you see after range, it will be its damage, if hammer can outdps the rifle, then we will take it, else we will still play rifle in melee.
And I’m so sorry for you if you think engi use their rifle auto.

What I’m sorry for about you is your poor attitude and the way you think you are entitled to address others over the internet. I’m sorry you weren’t taught any better. I’m sorry you think you know anything about me or how I play engineer. I think you should apologize to whoever was supposed to teach you how to talk to other humans, because you just made them look bad. I think maybe you should cry. Engineers may be in semi/melee range, but that is definitely not melee combat…at least not how it is with any other class except ele. The closest thing engineers have to actual melee combat is the tool kit. That is a utility, not exactly a weapon…like the topic of this thread is actually about. I think you should take whatever personal issues you have and work on those in private instead of bringing them to the forums to address others.

More than the weapon, the game-play they might offer. So, from that perspective, definetly yes. I always play what I find the most fun, regardless of profession, its theme, its looks or aesthetics. Obviously, fun is relative and is directly related to effectiveness, so there has to be a balance between those as well.

I want no silly hammers on my engineer.

Depends on the skills/traits for those weapons and whether I’ll prefer them over the existing ones.

The weapon is only usable if you pick the elite specialization, and it would probably make little sense to do that unless you also make use of the extra skills from the spec. So it’s really not about the weapon, it’s about the whole elite spec package. Whether that affects my ‘main’, I’m still in the ‘wait and see’ with it. I’ll wait for more info before I even decide if I’ll buy the new version or not.

Necro getting greatsword is a big plus to me, and I love the shouts….but dragon hunter is also very intriguing to me, need to level a guardian first but I think the longbow and traps will be very, very fun.

Honestly I will play chronomancers for sure.
It adds nice things to the class, things that give it a viable play style.

The reaper also appears to be very nice for PvE, however it basically forces the necro to have a melee shroud and doesn’t give the class much if anything in the way of gap closers.

The dragon hunter also is severely depressing. Sure the bow might be nice for the 1-4 skills but the number 5 skill and traps are just something that was neither wanted or needed.
Not to mention the fact that traps are stationary, long Cd and will only be good vs low skilled noobs due to the fact the guardian will never be able to overload someone with so many conditions that they cannot cleanse them all (looking at trap ranger).

There is also the fact that by choosing traps you lose allot of utility & or survivability for damage that is easily avoided.

If I could go back in time and give arena.net advice on what to do with guardian it would have been to give it anything other then traps
Stances
Mantras
Wells
Manipulations
Spectral skills
Survival skills
Cantrips
Glyphs

But traps ? No thanks.

Like somebody said, it depends on the package, not the weapon itself.

Guardian is my primary and mesmer is my secondary, and the elite specialisations aren’t changing that. I’m more excited for chronomancer than I am for the dragonhunter, but not enough that I think they’re likely to flip places.

Necro has been #7 for most of my playtime, but of late I’ve started enjoying it more than ranger and elementalist, and the reaper spec looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. Depending on what other professions get, I can see it jumping a few places in the order.

On the professions with known weapons but where the details on the spec aren’t known: Hammer looks promising. I’d have preferred mace, but I’ve felt for a while that pistol and rifle can feel redundant with some kit builds, and having an option to have a genuine melee weapon underneath it is something that I think the engineer could benefit from. Ranger staff is something that a lot of people have been looking for and, like dragonhunter, I support it on that basis, but ranger getting staff in and of itself doesn’t shift it in the order.

But I wasn’t expecting greatsword on necro to have as much potential to shift it in the order as it might have now, so we shall see…

Elites changing my main? No. Know what did make me change my main? June 23rd patch. Killed my PVE Ranger. Also killed my hopes of Anet fixing PVE Ranger. So, I’ve moved all my ascended stuff from it to my PVE Thief as it will be my new main. Done waiting for Anet to fix the pet and the Ranger.

My main will always be Guardian. I really lucked out via personal preference.

I like being more sturdy, somewhat support. Spin attacks. Rainbows! xD Greatsword kit is my favorite out of any GS. Then here comes Longbow which is my favorite weapon in most games.

For my secondary though… That will definitely be based on what’s released. I’m bouncing between a few at the moment.

So far, none of the released ones will make me leave my ele main. And even though I don’t like the name of the ele spec (since it sounds like it will be some kind of wind/force, and if new threads are true it’ll be warhorn as new weapon ), I doubt it will make me give up my staff aoes.
Only one left that could possibly make me switch is the Engi elite spec, but need to know more on it first.

skullmount.1758:

So far, none of the released ones will make me leave my ele main. And even though I don’t like the name of the ele spec (since it sounds like it will be some kind of wind/force, and if new threads are true it’ll be warhorn as new weapon ), I doubt it will make me give up my staff aoes.
Only one left that could possibly make me switch is the Engi elite spec, but need to know more on it first.

I’m on the opposite side of the argument, if Druid ends up being decent I might move to that, if Ele’s get a warhorn, I might actually just delete my Ele out of disgust.

You could just not play with that specialization line

Slapinator.4196:

You could just not play with that specialization line

Which is what I plan to do with my Guardian. The only thing from the elite spec I kinda like is the virtue changes and longbow.

What elementalists haven’t really thought is that if they add them another attunment or whatever these are called(fire,water,air,earth) they are gonna get 8 skills from warhorn, 5 from staff, 3 from scepter, 5 from dagger and… .iv’e lost count actually. You get the point though.It may not be true but you get the point i dont know you dont know only arenanet knows and will reveal when they are ready to reveal.

Slapinator.4196:

You could just not play with that specialization line

I could but, currently I main Ele, if the specialization is lack luster (imo of course) then why bother having one ? This is Anets new shiny system, as a WvW player the only real reason for me to even purchase the expansion is specializations. I’m of the opinion that specialization are going to trump old builds in most areas because they are new and shiny.

You are correct though, I could just continue to play staff Ele, but how much fun would that be ? That’s why I said I would probably gravitate towards Druid (provided it’s what I think it will be or close to).

yes
my current main is a thief

if thief gets rifle. it will remain main
if it gets a staff. i’m done with it and will transfer everything off it =/

necro i’m finding fun (and its my 2ndary main) and with greatsword i’ll likely play it more.

ranger is….meh right now. good sword/greatsword animations. but the bow looks so static when shooting, no movement (when you use the repeated shot skill, female human just looks so…..lacking in movement. bow stays still even when moving. and only part that moves is lower body. while for males you see the character bending forward to absorb the recoil and rocking back and forth as shots go)
and the staff looks so…static…..like necro staff. aka minimal movement.
so i doubt this will make me play ranger.

lastly, the guardian. the addition of a bow might make me make a character for it. need more info first though

My main is ranger, despite all the issues with the lousy AI of pets . Wish they were more controllable, as in I could make them dodge out of AOE. And even if the elite specialization when it’s revealed is that the ranger turns into an animal (like the norn racial abilities) I’ll continue to play her (them).

But I’ve 80’s of all classes, so I can change if necessary for whatever content. With over 3k hrs. as a ranger it’ll take awhile before one of the other classes could be considered my main.

It will influence my main in the fact that Guardians have rubbish ranged weapons at the moment and I will definitely be rolling a long bow, plus my personal guild is the dragon slayers legion so makes sense to roll a dragon hunter. suppose it works for me. All I hope is that specialization isn’t a trade off for something our class already had.

I will finally start playing my necro more with greatsword. My mesmer may switch one of her slots from sword/pistol to sword/shield. I will need to see druid before I decide if I will give her a staff. My guardian probably wont change, not sure.

i get a hammer… i love hammers, so yes.. it most likely will change my playstyle a lot

Depends how the staff on Ranger turns out really.

I’ll have to wait and see how I like them first. So the answer to your query is “I dunno.”

I won’t be switching to a toon who uses an off hand. Specialized? Because you can use a sheild and maybe a utility doesn’t mean anything. Should have been 5 weapon skills. Even of you only get a shield one of the main hand existing weapon skill should have changed.

my mains will never change. engineer and warrior till i quit the game

It depends, really. We don’t know most of the specs yet anyway.

But if ele gets Flaming Toot, I’m deleting it.