Guild Wars 2

If we get to go back to Elona and Cantha. How do you think the four expansion specific professions (Rit, Assassin, Paragon, Derv) will have changed to fit into GW2?

This is all purely speculative. Maybe none of them exist anymore. Who knows? I just would like to see what people come up with as it fits into the known lore we have of those two places in the last 250 years since GW1.

Paragon and Assassin I don’t see. Paragon is, essentially, a warrior or guardian with a throwing spear – giving the warrior a mainhand ranged weapon to go with the warhorn or the guardian a warhorn would probably pretty much cover the paragon entirely, as much as can be in the GW2 system. Assassin, on the other hand – while ArenaNet keeps saying that they see the thief and assassin as separate, there are enough similarities that I don’t think it’s reasonably practical to have both in one game.

The dervish and ritualist, however, both have styles that aren’t really currently available – the dervish playstyle rested on building up enchantments and then using them to unload more powerful attacks (the guardian and mesmer have similar-ish mechanics with virtues and shatters, but really don’t have the same feel), while the ritualist had a kind of ‘ramping’ style where the more things they had active, the more powerful their skills became.

Of the two, the dervish is the one that we probably have more lore on what may have happened to them – the good dervishes are likely to be among the wandering Sunspear remnants (a role that harkens back to dervish origins during the Shattered Dynasties) while there will be others with Joko’s forces both undead and among the Mordant Crescent. Mechanically, a new profession built around boon-stripping is possible… but I could also see it being done by granting the scythe as a weapon to guardians and/or elementalists… and possibly even rangers, although that’s a bit of a stretch.

Ritualists I could best see as being an expansion of necromancers, with a set of ritualist-like active skills alongside the necromancer ones – and as discussed in the other thread, they could well be absorbed in parts into other professions. If they are a ‘new’ profession, then what I’d expect to see is spirits being available as weapon skills similar to the mesmer (in order to differentiate somewhat from engineers and rangers taking spirits and turrets as utilities) while other weapon skills gain secondary effects is a spirit is active nearby. Urns would be treated similar to elementalist weapon conjures, except they do not generate a second conjure, are simply on a timer rather than having limited shots, and generate some effect on being dropped.

Ritualist is essentially the Engineer. For example, DwG/“Glaive” from GW1 is essentially the GW2 bomb kit.

Whereas spirits are what the turrets are trying to be, but fail because GW2 lacks body blocking and agro mechanics of Gw1, nor’ does the damage of GW2 turrets compete with GW1 spirits.

If the player could summon more than 3 turrets, and the turrets did triple their current damage, we might see turrets being used, without dying in 1 hit, then we might see GW2 turrets being used. Until then, they are a joke compared to GW1 spirits.

About dervishes, the problem with them is unlike Guardians/Old Monks where you can say that the power can be drawn from faith on anything, including your warband for the Charr (and probably the glorious taste of ale for Norn :P), the Dervish was a VERY religious centric profession.

I think the most we can (/will if more are added in the future) get from old dervishes is in Human Racial Skills as all of them are god-centric (I hope in the future there is at least an Elite for each god, they said in not so early phases of development that each race would have 6 elite skills but given the low number of profession Elites I can see why they went for less).

As Drax said, giving a Scythe (or even a Battleaxe and have some of them have a Scythe skin) to specific professions could be the closest it gets to the feeling of old dervishes (pick a human of said profession for the racial skills and try to pick the closest skin to a hood you can get for better representation if this happens).

I also agree with Drax in that it’s possible that Ritualists end up as an expansion of necromancers. I’ve said many times that the 8 professions we have with their mechanics and options, if you add some weapons or utility families can cover nearly any stereotype (for example give Ranger a Staff, and with a Nature Magic trait line, already existing skills summoning lightning and springs, close bond to animals as a profession mechanic, etc… and you have a Druid without needing to create a whole profession for that with the balancing issues that comes with that). So absorbing the old Ritualist into the Necromancer might do the trick here too.

It’s true that some of what made the Ritualist unique in his approach to magic would be lost, but we don’t know how much of the old ways of Ritualistis has survived in Cantha after all what happened (or maybe it’s the only way now for them with all the isolation and purity obsession).

A nice way to make them return could be something that, I think Konig, proposed when I explained my theory of the 8 professions covering most holes. That an Agression user in Heavy Armor sharing some things like life leeching with a Necromancer like Thieves and Mesmers (theorically Denial users) share Stealth and other things could cover holes other professions don’t.

Now that I think it, it might be cool to have binded spirits like bloodsong doing the leeching. Maybe with all the isolationist aproach Ritualists are now even creepier and have become some sort of purity elite heavy guard running around with chained spirits binded to their will… I don’t know, I think I’m starting to go a bit too much off-topic and theorycrafter in this case… but you get the idea. At least the main way the profession works would have to change as the Engineer already covers the Turret based profession.

About Assassin and Paragons, they’re mostly absorbed in existing professions. If anything the Thief coul get an Utility Skills Family based on martial arts (with the return of Palm Strike for example) or maybe even a “Way of…” family as there were many Sin skills with that name that worked similarly enough to have a GW2 family, but most things (and popular skill names) from the Sin are already on the Thief. And a shouts Guardian with a Staff (with an auto-attack animation and range close to using a Spear) is already similar enough to the Paragon.

Well, we’ve been told outright that the ritualist was originally intended as a way to bring in an engineer playstyle, converted for a lower-technology setting – and now they can make the engineer they’ve always wanted. On the other hand, we’ve also been told that they don’t see the engineer as replacing the ritualist. On the vestigial hand, they said the same about thieves and assassins. The final hand is that there are some mechanics in the ritualist playstyle that weren’t in the engineer – the synergy seen between direct-cast ritualist skills and spirits, for instance.

The first is probably the gripping hand – we’re probably unlikely to see a ritualist as a separate profession because it is very close to the engineer. But there is room for the alternative option.

The dervish is an interesting quandary, since if you take out the avatars (now revealed to be human racials) it’s not necessarily any more tied to the gods than monks or guardians (in fact, ArenaNet seemed to have been careful in GW1 to only give the avatars to those where it was at least possible that the individual in question honestly worshiped the god in question, although they were admittedly a little dubious). Chances are the blessings of the gods have allowed them to bypass some restrictions of the bloodstones, though, since at least at first glance they seem to have access to monk, elementalist, and necromancer-like powers.

However, while the general theme can be covered by a scythe-wielding guardian or elementalist, a large part of the intended dervish playstyle was based on the ‘buff and strip’ mechanic which doesn’t really fit on either profession. Personally, though, my inclination would be to have this mechanic show up as the heavily armoured Aggression user’s schtick – consuming boons in order to hit harder seems right up Aggression’s alley. The scythe-wielding guardian and elementalist could then be regarded as vestiges of the original dervish teachings that survived Joko’s purge, but the most coherent body of dervish-like lore is now the Mordant Crescent, and they’re looking to reap souls.

draxynnic.3719:

Paragon and Assassin I don’t see. Paragon is, essentially, a warrior or guardian with a throwing spear – giving the warrior a mainhand ranged weapon to go with the warhorn or the guardian a warhorn would probably pretty much cover the paragon entirely, as much as can be in the GW2 system. Assassin, on the other hand – while ArenaNet keeps saying that they see the thief and assassin as separate, there are enough similarities that I don’t think it’s reasonably practical to have both in one game.

The dervish and ritualist, however, both have styles that aren’t really currently available

I agree that the Paragons and Assassins are pretty much gone. I don’t see how they could be modified or made distinctively different than warriors and thieves respectively. To much of Paras and Sins have been absorbed into the new classes.

I could see the Dervishes easily coming back. They could be a third warrior class. With the gods having abandoned them, they could pull their magic from another source but primarily be boon/enchantment based. I think they would be hardened and changed by the devastation that is Palawa Joko in Elona. They would no longer care for the gods and maybe even have animosity for them leaving. I could see new mechanics made for them as warrior class instead of an adventurer class.

The Ritualist, I believe, would be another easy class to generate. They wouldn’t have to be turret based as they were before. Their magic could be solely spirit/mist/ancestor based. I see necros as manipulating the undead corpses and corrupted spirits for their ends and the ritualists (as in GW1) could be manipulating the more benign spirits and magics stemming from the mists. Yes necros have minions, but I am sure it would not be that complicated to differentiate spirits from undead. As someone mentioned above. Turrets certainly do nothing to body block as spirits did. Maybe this would be part of their strength.

I think both Dervs and Rits would be easy enough to change through mechanics and lore. It certainly would not be unprecidented. The Mesmers are really nothing like they were in GW1. They were completely revamped. These two classes could be too.

If ArenaNet decides not to add any more professions, I believe that sub classes may appear. Also mentioned above we may just receive more skills/weapons/traits that allow the existing classes to have sub classes or specialty of themselves.

Dervs could be a warrior specialty.
Rits could be a necro specialty.
They may even have sub classes for all of them. I can see a some others.

Druids a Ranger specialty.
Paragon a Guardian specialty.
Chronomancer a Mesmer specialty.

I honestly would rather see the ritualist adsorbed into the engineer class. Read: Improved the engineer.

We need better support turrets, as the Healing Turret change is an amazing start. Perhaps a turret which prevents us from taking more than 10% of our max HP in a single hit? (A throwback to GW1…)

We also need better offensive turrets, which damage worth taking. And reworked weapon spells! Give us back Splinter Weapon in the form of gadgets!

I don’t think it’s necessary for the dervishes to take a ‘the gods abandoned us so we’ll abandon them’ attitude. In fact, the dervishes may well be the only ones in Elona to truly believe in the gods, since they’re the ones that have always had access to the human racial skills. (Note that, while we’re never outright told this, the impression I get is that human racials are the rarest of the racial skills – pretty much every norn NPC transforms, sylvari NPCs regularly grow their seeds, and asura and charr racials are just using their technology which is a common theme whenever either race shows up – however, you almost never see a human NPC using a racial. The only time i can think of offhand where I’ve seen evidence of an NPC using a human racial are Risen…) Basically, lorewise the main things we need are for dervishes to recognise the distinction between dervish skills and human racials… and to get a fix on just which bloodstone they’re connected to, as I get the feeling that ArenaNet has been more serious about getting that right this time around.

I see necros as manipulating the undead corpses and corrupted spirits for their ends and the ritualists (as in GW1) could be manipulating the more benign spirits and magics stemming from the mists.

I see where you’re coming from, but it’s a pretty fine distinction to make, especially since unlike many settings, “necromancer” isn’t shorthand for Always Evil Wizard. A necromancer’s shade could well be the manifestation of an ancestor in a war aspect. On the flipside, names of Ritualist spirits like Pain and Agony don’t exactly evoke images of benign spirits.

As has been observed, the GW2 necromancer goes a lot further into the spirit realm than the GW1 necromancer. Necrotic Grasp, Rending Claws, and Ghastly Claws all seem like they’re drawing from the spirit world, albeit with a necromancery slant, as do all of the spectral skills and the whole concept of Death Shroud. I’m not going to dismiss the ritualist entirely, but with ArenaNet’s current policy of keeping the professions distinct both mechanically and thematically, I could easily see the call being made that the necromancer has the theme of communing with the dead (what the term ‘necromancy’ actually originally referred to) while the engineer is ‘close enough’ from a mechanical perspective.

EDIT Hooo boy. A Shelter-esque turret in GW2… that should force the boss design team to stop relying on spikes to make things difficult and break the current meta of going full berserkers and relying on dodging/blocking the spikes.

Or they’ll just start hitting us with attacks that consist of 10 packets doing 5000HP each.

draxynnic.3719:

I don’t think it’s necessary for the dervishes to take a ‘the gods abandoned us so we’ll abandon them’ attitude. In fact, the dervishes may well be the only ones in Elona to truly believe in the gods, since they’re the ones that have always had access to the human racial skills.

I 100% agree with you. I was just saying that is one direction that they could go to change the dervishes if they felt they needed to do so. I would rather them still be connected to the gods personally.

draxynnic.3719:

jheryn.8390:

I see necros as manipulating the undead corpses and corrupted spirits for their ends and the ritualists (as in GW1) could be manipulating the more benign spirits and magics stemming from the mists.

I see where you’re coming from, but it’s a pretty fine distinction to make, especially since unlike many settings, “necromancer” isn’t shorthand for Always Evil Wizard. A necromancer’s shade could well be the manifestation of an ancestor in a war aspect. On the flipside, names of Ritualist spirits like Pain and Agony don’t exactly evoke images of benign spirits.

I didn’t mean to suggest that necros are evil in any way. I am just saying there is a distinction between the two classes. Necros tend to use the physical remains of creatures and places where rits traditionally used the spirits. Where it is true that necros in GW2 seem to be utilizing spirit magic more, there are many things that still make the ritualist distinctive despite the bleed over into other classes. And you are right, Pain, Agony, and Destruction are not exactly benign, LOL. In GW1 however, the two classes never felt remotely the same. Just as Engineers and Rits do not feel remotely the same. So I believe that a Rit could be manipulated just as the mesmer was to recapture a new/old profession.

draxynnic.3719:

I could easily see the call being made that the necromancer has the theme of communing with the dead (what the term ‘necromancy’ actually originally referred to) while the engineer is ‘close enough’ from a mechanical perspective.

Again I agree with the part about the necro. About the engineer I can see what you are saying, but if we do go back to Cantha, from a lore perspective, engineers, even mechanically, do not make sense as a rit replacement. Even necros by themselves do not make sense there because both were obvious separate professions in Cantha. Maybe it is easier to explain the rits absence in Tyria, it would not be in Cantha.

I agree that the engineer turrets should be better. Engineers are NOT a replacement for Rits. If turrets are what makes them a replacement for rits, somewhere Anet has seriously failed. Turrets as they are suck. They are not the main utilities used by most Engineers and they were the core of most Rit builds in one way or another.

Short answer: Para/Sin – no; Derv – unlikely; Rit – possible

The Paragon and Assassin have effectively become the Guardian and Thief, they’re in the game already in both lore and game but with a name change.

Dervish, as has been said, is solely focused on god-worship. Seeing a charr dervish? That just sounds silly and blasphemous. And if you spent enough time in the Black Citadel, you’d know what the charr did to any god-revering charr.

They want to kill him, proclaiming him as Flame Legion. Basic witch hunt nonsense.

And the other races? Less lethal but equally silly. Only humans should have dervishes, and if you think about it, what made a dervish such in mechanics is either a PBAoE buff-focused guardian (since enchantments became buffs) and human racial skills. Just give the other four gods an avatar skill that’s more avatar like than Grenth’s and Melandru and give some professions a scythe and that’s probably the closest you’ll get to dervish in mechanics. The niche of the profession is just too narrow, imo, to work out as a 9th profession.

Though dervish NPCs? That’s a possibility.

Come to Ritualist – an issue it has is that, mechanically, it has been usurped by the engineer with its aesthetic elements merging into guardian and necromancer (the former more of a player opinion while the later is more apparent even from a lore standpoint – see other thread on the Ritualists and the mention of Priestess Rhie). If it returns – and IMO, it very much can – it would need a full out mechanical overhaul.

However, there’s still the snag it runs into as being a Cantha-centric profession. As pointed out in said other thread, the teachings of Ritualism never left Cantha, even though Ritualist adventurers did. There was next to no adaptation – except possibly into the Guardian and/or Necromancer – into other lands. And Cantha is a human-only (so we’re informed) land. There’d be no reason why there’d be a charr, asura, or sylvari ritualist (one can get by with norn as being a shaman profession to them, since a lot of the shaman NPCs summon spiritual allies).

In the end, I don’t see a new profession coming about from the old two left, and at best I only see a new soldier profession coming about in order to make it even at 3-3-3 for armor rating.

jheryn.8390:

I see necros as manipulating the undead corpses and corrupted spirits for their ends and the ritualists (as in GW1) could be manipulating the more benign spirits and magics stemming from the mists. Yes necros have minions, but I am sure it would not be that complicated to differentiate spirits from undead. As someone mentioned above. Turrets certainly do nothing to body block as spirits did.

What constitutes a “corrupted spirit”? Why such a term? Why would heroes deal with something that, by term usage, implies evil? Necromancers are “dark” but not “evil” in the least – not by default, at least.

Similarly, why would ritualists solely deal with benign? And even if you think that – you’re wrong. There are multiple quests in GW1 (Shackled Spirits, Power Surge, and Haunted for three) where ritualists deal with hostile spirits, be it trapping, soothing, or using them. Even some of the skill names – Pain, Anguish, and Destruction(to name a few) – show hostility from the spirits. The quest Haunted actually shows, albeit indirectly, that the spirits summoned by ritualists have names which reflect their own emotions and, in turn, their state of being benign – or in most cases, lack of.

Spirits called “Sorrow” are full of such and spread such; Spirits called “Pain” are full of such and spread such; etc.

And don’t forget the Envoys – they’re bound by the Oracle of the Mists (in GW1, this is Suun) and are the souls of criminals who’ve done great terrible deeds. I highly doubt you’d call Shiro Tagachi a “benign spirit,” yet he was one such spirit summoned by a ritualist.

As for body-blocking spirits/turrets… keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 has no body blocking unless you enable it so you don’t go running out of melee range. Even if spirits were brought into the game somehow for a ritualist’s minions, it would not be body blocking. And regarding differentiating spirits from undead – it’s more of differentiating function of the minions. Illusions are very weak, numerous yet limited at a single time, and can all be manually destroyed; turrets are stationary but indefinite in time and special skill usage; spirit weapons are on a timer; necro minions are weak but not as so as illusions, indefinite, with mixed amount of special skill usage, and pets are stronger but limited to only one.

What would spirits have to make them unique from those?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

However, there’s still the snag it runs into as being a Cantha-centric profession. As pointed out in said other thread, the teachings of Ritualism never left Cantha, even though Ritualist adventurers did. There was next to no adaptation – except possibly into the Guardian and/or Necromancer – into other lands. And Cantha is a human-only (so we’re informed) land. There’d be no reason why there’d be a charr, asura, or sylvari ritualist (one can get by with norn as being a shaman profession to them, since a lot of the shaman NPCs summon spiritual allies).

Lefsi Spiritchaser. Seer Fiercereign. Charr Avengers in general. They may not be following the same traditions, but separation of mechanics and lore be felined, they’re nonhumans with no connection to Cantha and they’re summoning spirits. Yes, they can be explained away as actually being necromancers who focused on the spiritual side of things – the modern equivalent being the necromancer summoning shades and using spectral skills – but it shows that the general concept of spirit-wrangling is not foreign to either norn or charr. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if ritualist-style powers was how the Shaman Caste first started.

There’s also a question mark over whether Rhie is a necromancer at all, as I’ve mentioned either here or in the ritualist thread.. She throws lightning in Cathedral of Silence – I distinctly remember this because of how surprised I was when I realised a character that I had assumed was a necromancer was actually the source of the lightning orbs.

You’ve also missed some of the subtleties in the explanation of what happened with the Ritualist and other ‘foreign’ professions. It’s not that they didn’t cross over. It’s not even, strictly, that teachers didn’t cross over – the analogy they use is martial arts such as kungkittenin the West (where local teachers certainly do exist, but return to the birthplace of their tradition on occasion to keep up their own training) – it’s just that the true masters remained in Cantha, and most of the local teachers were in LA. The traditions came over, it’s that the combination of the destruction of LA and isolation from Elona and Cantha killed them. To stretch the analogy a little, saying that the ritualist teachings never made it to Tyria is like saying that Eastern martial arts never made it to the West… which is clearly not the case, even though the centre of those styles remains in East Asia.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

jheryn.8390:

I see necros as manipulating the undead corpses and corrupted spirits for their ends and the ritualists (as in GW1) could be manipulating the more benign spirits and magics stemming from the mists.

What constitutes a “corrupted spirit”? Why such a term? Why would heroes deal with something that, by term usage, implies evil? Necromancers are “dark” but not “evil” in the least – not by default, at least.

Similarly, why would ritualists solely deal with benign? And even if you think that – you’re wrong.

You obviously didn’t read my reply to Drax. I said that I never thought necros were evil and that Rits had spirits that were not benign. And corrupted has more meanings than the implication of evil. A plan can become corrupted meaning the that the plan changed from its original inception. Corruption can mean an exploitation or distortion of something. All of the necros minions and spirits are not as they appeared originally making them both exploited and distorted versions of thier original forms. They are corrupted. Not just the spirits but minions as well. Again, corrupted here does not imply evil.

I also agreed that Rits had spirits that were not all benign. I was only offering that as a suggestion of how things COULD be altered to distinguish the professions. The same goes for body blocking. I know we don’t have it until activated, I was offering it as a possibility for added skills.

This thread was a opportunity for people to be creative and give opinions of what they thought could happen or what they envision the four newest GW1 professions if “We ever get to go back.” There are many, many possibilities of how ANet could add things or make them adaptable to GW2. They did so with Mesmers. And since this thread asks what happens “If we get to go back,” that implies that we would be there and not in Tryia any longer. None of us, including you, have any idea how Anet could manipulate lore or mechanics to fit us back into Cantha and Elona. These are just speculations and opinions.

If you have ideas about what happens if we are allowed back in Elona and Cantha, by all means post them here. They are welcome. That is what this thread is for. This is supposed to be a fun thread where people can enjoy speculating, not to have their words twisted or opinions scrutinized.

From what a friend explained, Dervishes nowadays would have gone kaput what with the Six Gods having left Tyria and all that jazz. That was their whole thing: they were zealots and while their scythe-swinging skills and enchantment-rips are cool, in the end they (lore-wise) have no reason to exist. Though I believe there might be a way for them to still be around, if Paragons having morphed into Guardians/Warriors mean anything.

Well, they could always just not let us play them. They can be around, but since we are outsiders, not have access to their training.

Assassins and thieves seem pretty much the same. Add a mid-range physical damage weapon to guardian and you have a paragon, and ritualists and engineers also have strong similarities though one does things by magic the other by tech. Dervish could be a bit of guardian, though not much.

Dervishes can fit into a class just like paragons without damaging lore. I see a lot of comments made about the connection between dervishes and gods, but paragons lore-wise have a stronger connection.
From the gw wiki: “Paragons are touched by the gods, chosen by them to serve as emissaries among mortals. At some point in their lives, each Paragon has experienced an event in which he should have died but did not. Paragons ascribe their survival to the gods themselves, and dedicate their lives as the gods’ servants in the mortal world.”
In comparison, dervishes are ‘priest-warriors’ and thus are closer to monks in that they believe in gods but don’t have a divine or godly experience.

So lore wise, dervishes can be added to GW2 just as easily as the paragon and monk. By renaming it. Or having them devote themselves to something else.

Mechanic wise, all of them can be done, I’d love to see a profession mechanic in the future where it summons the rit spirits or applies different protection (dervish enchant) and such. Though, I don’t expect new classes, but rather new weapons with weapon skills to compensate. We will see.