Guild Wars 2

Hopefully ya’ll are planning to bring back these three classes at some point in the game, possibly in an expansion pack. Though to be honest, they should just be added in a content patch rather than an expansion pack.

Obviously, the Dervish and Paragon would have to bring with them 2 new weapon types, the Scythe and Javelin (can’t really call it a spear anymore, due to underwater weapons). I can see how adding 2 new weapons could be a bit problematic as for deciding who of the existing classes gets the new weapons.

My opinion would be:
Scythe – Necro, Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer, (Ritualist)
Javalin – Ranger, Elementalist, Mesmer, Thief, (Ritualist)

Alternatively, all weapons could be made available to all classes…. just a thought…

How would these three classes play in GW2?

The Dervish should have various passive buffs (Enchantments) from their F1-F4 that when triggered apply various debuffs to enemies while sacrificing the buff on yourself for a short time, similar to the Guardian’s Virtues but harming enemies rather than assisting allies. Dervish skills would likely build around a mixture of condition and raw damage.
The Dervish would uses Enchantments (Shrouds) in the same manor they did in GW1, with an initial and end effect, some may have active effects for their duration.

• Every combination of weapons has 3 Attacks and 2 Shrouds
• Additional shrouds might be available in utility, healing and elite skills.
• The F1 mechanic causes your next Attack to “consume” 1 Shroud (consumes in reverse order like in GW1)

Weapons: Scythe, Dual Sword, Great-sword, Staff, Hammer, Dual Mace, Dual Axe, Focus
Credit: Nurvus for new Dervish

The Paragon F1-F4 should maybe be based off their Anthem skills in some way… To be honest, I don’t really have any ideas for the paragon’s playstyle/mechanics.
Weapons: Javelin, Shield, Dual Sword, Dual Pistol, Mace, Warhorn

The Ritualist should have Boons (GW1 Ritualist Boons) as their F1-F4.

• Boon of Creation – passively granting buffs when they summon a spirit, Can be triggered to detonate spirits inflicting various conditions to enemies near spirits
• Spirit’s Gift – healing allies a small amount upon summoning a spirit, trigger to detonate spirits providing an AoE heal at each spirit’s location
• Explosive Growth – damaging nearby enemies when you summon a spirit, can be triggered to detonate spirits creating a Spirit Rift at their locations
• Summon Spirits – allows the Ritualist to call their summoned spirits to them, no passive benefit.
  *Weapon skills would offer ways to summon various lesser spirits triggering the boon effects with a summon cap and short life spans.
  *Utility Skills would offer specific Greater Spirits that have longer life spans and don’t contribute to the summon cap, however once summoned the skill is replaced with a sacrifice ability skill to destroy your greater spirit for a special effect
  *Triggering a boon will sacrifice all spirits Greater and Lesser.
• Ashes – creates a skill bundle item that may be dropped for an effect.

Weapons: Staff, Scepter, Focus, Javelin, Scythe, Warhorn, Dual Dagger

Suggestions and changes are welcomed and may be added to the first post.

Regarding the 3 Profession, I’ve made a suggestion for each of them in my Expansion Concepts thread – you can find the link in my signature.

About your suggestions:

• Dervish – Too similar to Guardian, and in my opinion doesn’t capture the feel of GW1’s Dervish at all.
  My suggestion was:
  - The Dervish’s Enchantments would all be instant and named Shrouds in GW2
  They work like they did in GW1, having initial and end effects, sometimes active effects too.
  - Every combination of weapons has 3 Attacks and 2 Shrouds
  - Additional shrouds might be available in utility, healing and elite skills.
  - The F1 mechanic causes your next Attack to “consume” 1 Shroud (consumes in reverse order like in GW1)
• Paragon – I was told (didn’t check) that the Paragon practice was absorbed into Guardian in the Lore that leads into GW2
  Following that, I suggested that the Guardian is given Lightning-themed skills, the Shouts, Chants and Echos, as well as 1handed and 2handed Spears usable on Land.
• Ritualist – Your Boons idea could work, but what about the rest of the gameplay?
  I personally suggested F1 to be a Possess mechanic, causing you to gain bonuses based on your Active Spirits, but I think your F1-F4 idea is better, since mine would force players to use Spirits, and I think variety is a good think.
  I also suggested that, like in GW1, Ritualist has:
  - Ashes – works as a Skill Bundle that has an effect when dropped
  - Skills that interact with Spirits – pulling spirits to you, having additional effects if a spirit is nearby, etc
  - Spirits would be stationary (bound by them chains like Anima from FFX).
  Perhaps better than both your idea and my original idea, would be to make Ashes change the F1 skill from Possess to a group of 4 skills in F1-F4, instead of changing your 1-5 skills like the usual bundles.

I forgot about Ritualist Ashes >.< I agree they should be skill bundles with effect when dropped too.
I figured it would be an unspoken understanding that Spirits would be stationary since they were stationary in the first GW… plus having the Summon Spirits ability on F4 to teleport them to you sorta implies that they can’t move on their own.

I like your idea for the Dervish a lot better than mine… I’ve been sitting here looking through the GW1 Dervish enchantments for the past hour trying to think which ones would best fit the class as a whole and nothing comes to mind… Shrouds and using F1 to consume on next attack does fit a lot better though. It would also make the weapon choices more specialized with each weapon combo having it’s own shrouds.

As for the Paragon being absorbed into the Guardian practice… I heard nothing about this before… though at times I have seen similarities to the Guardian and Paragon… It still would be nice to see the actual Paragon class resurface though… decided to go check the lore and found this:
“With the turmoil in Elona and the spread of the Order of Whispers into other lands, more Paragon teaching showed elsewhere in Tyria. These teachings melded with other traditions, and over time, the guardians and their abilities can be found throughout the world and among all the races. They are not tied to a particular race, philosophy, or group of gods but rather to a larger concept of proactive defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight alongside while appealing equally to humanity’s defensive nature and the charr’s desire to rule the battlefield.”
so I guess the Paragons were absorbed into the Guardian practice…

Ritualist is quite similar to the Mesmer at the moment… a lot of illusions instead of ghosts.
Paragon/dervish: very much like the guardian → heavy classes with high healing abilities.
Paragon is also partly into the warrior → adrenaline was one of the ways how spear attacks got charged.

I don’t think they should get these back, I’d rather see some completely new classes.

What?
Dervish is a medium armored profession
Dervish isn’t a profession focused on healing at all

Iv had this idea for a while. I dont like introducing these as classes since they were all in some way absorbed into the new game.
Instead i would like to see them introduce that all classes be able to use all armor, and have their skills chaged in accordance to what armor they use. a necromancers staff skills would thus change to schythe skills when wearing heavy armor, since their staff graphicly is a schythe when they cast spells anyway.
I have not tought them all through, cos, theres a lot to work though: but heres an example of what iv thought could be possible:

Necromancer
Medium armor
Staff skills
Vamperic touch: Scythe attack – Siphon health.
Vameric mark: Mark – Siphon health.
Soul Reap: Scythe attack – Siphon health. Summon a spirit horror if the target dies from this attack.
Blood lust: Scythe attack – Bleed foes in the area for 3 seconds
Order of the vampire: Order – For 3 seconds Party members have +16 damage and siphon health on attacks.

Heavy armor
staff skills
4 scythe attacks of some sort. one of them should reap life force. 2 should cause conditions. the first should be a chain.
Order of pain: Order – For 3 seconds Party members Inflict bleeding and cause + 16 damage on attacks.

Thus, it could be possible to introduce these 3 classes mecanics divided on the other classes, but making all armors available to all classes.

Have a look at my Spiritualist concept for the Ritualist class?
I know a lot of people want the class back, and I’ve developed a concept so they’re unique but maintain their feel.
Let me know your thoughts https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Concept-Profession-Spiritualist/first#post1278125

The defining mechanics of these GW1 classes have been rehashed and distributed between the GW2 classes by the way of skills or traits.

Though I often feel that the thing that made the classes fun did not transfer successfully to the new owner.
In other cases it was the look or lore of certain classes and abilities that players liked.

I feel the ideas the OP has can all be added to existing classes as new traits and utility/elite skills, to recapture the fun gameplay offered in GW1. Because that was another feature from GW1 that I would like to see in GW2, the huge amount of options you had in filling your skillbar.

In short… forget them, they will never come back (and they shouldn’t anyway)

GW2 needs new classes, not old junk, which has already been partially implemented into the existing playable classes as good as possibly the new skill system is allowing….

Paragon = Guardian without Javelins
Ritualist = Engineer with mechanic weapons instead of ghosts
Dervish = sword/greatsword swinging guardian, just with better armor this time and without gw2 lore unfitting divine avatar transforms… which would only suit to the humens anyways

The game needs real new classes, stuff like dragoons, chronomancers, bards, oracles.
That would be key classes, that are able to give the game something really new and unique as gameplay features, that makes playing these classes feel completely different from playing any other of the existing classes…

If at all any of the 3 old classes anything has a real good and realistic chance for a working comeback with certain improvements and different new functions, then it is the ritualist..the other two gw1 classes are totally for the garbage bin, if you ask me …

I only partialy aree with the garbage can… i still think some of the awesome things could be implimented.. i miss the fealing of swinging a scythe in combat for instance… would be awesome to have that weapon reintroduced… and the javelin aswell…
i dont think introducing new calsses for the awesomeness of the old ones to be preserved, just keep their weapons… javelins and scythes… make em available to other classes?

Here’s the Dervish, for you, Orpheal

1. Dervishes broaden their knowledge, studying the raw aspects behind the deities, rather than the deities that embody them, in turn drawing attention from all the races of Tyria.
   Instead of Avatar of Balthazar, you have Aspect of War, Aspect of Fire, etc.
   See? I just came up with a sollution to the “not all races are into gods”.
   Just like Paragons evolved into Guardians, so can Dervish improve themselves, perhaps even acquire a different name.
2. Dervish Enchantments from GW1 can be named Shrouds in GW2
   All Shrouds have Initial effect, duration, and End effect; sometimes possibly also an Active effect for the duration.
3. F1 key is “Piety” (placeholder name), wich causes your next Attack Skill to teardown a Shroud to produce bonus effects, while also triggering the Shroud’s End Effect.
4. Dervishes wear Medium Armor, Scythes, Greatswords, Sword MH & OH; Axe MH & OH, Spear, Trident

The 3 old professions have great mechanics.

Paragon have all the Shout, Chant and Echo weaving, and yet I can imagine that being added to the Guardian Arsenal instead of a new profession being created.

Dervish has the enchantment sacrificing.
And no, it has little to do with Mesmer – Dervish sacrifices 1 enchantment to both trigger the enchantment’s end effect, while also empowering 1 of his attacks.

Guardian is the paragon and mesmer is the ritualist in terms of proffesion theme (paladin & spirits) and dervish doesn’t really fit in the lore.

Anything fits the lore if the devs want it to.
I mean it.

Nurvus, I don’t think that’s an option. Redrex has made an amazing class suggestion and we’ve been working on broadening it’s horizons. I’ve read some of your suggestions and I kind of like them.

I have to clear some things up.

I know the Guardian is the Paragon class… I’ve read the lore on the change and accepted it, but there are still features from the original Paragon class that I feel shouldn’t have been lost. I’d still love to see the original Paragon class resurface, but I’d be happy with Nurvus’ suggestion of just expanding the Guardian class.

The Ritualist and Dervish DO NOT exist in any of the current GW2 classes. NO, the Mesmer and Engineer ARE NOT the GW2 version of Ritualist. The Mesmer clones and phantasms were an evolution on the original concept of the mesmer, an ILLUSIONIST, these were not an adaptation of Ritualist abilities into the Mesmer class. The Engineer was only loosely inspired by the Ritualist’s spirits for it’s Turrets, and nothing more. The essense and playstyle of the Ritualist was not brought over to GW2 in any form.

The Dervish doesn’t have any traces present in any of the GW2 classes at all, all of the melee builds were based around the Warrior and Assassin classes, even the Ranger’s melee was designed around skills from these classes with a few ranger skill elements added.

That said…

This thread isn’t about if these classes exist in GW2 in one form or another already. Rather than focusing on “why not to add them” can we move the topic into the direction of improving the concepts or why certain aspects may need change?

Panda, it’s inevitable to have people post in a destructive manner, quickly indicating reasons why your idea doesn’t work, but not making an effort to try and help making it work.

This is the suggestions forum, and you do well to make suggestions.
The more elaborate, however, the more easily you will avoid those kinds of comments.

1. Paragon’s unique mechanics and playstyle can be incorporated into Guardians.
2. Assassin’s unique mechanics (lead, offhand, dual strike) – wich I must insist have nothing to do with the current Thief’s mechanics – can be incorporated into Thieves.
3. Dervish, as you said, is truly unique.
4. Ritualist is also unique. People try to dumb its image down to a pet profession, like Engineer, Ranger, Necromancer, or Mesmer, but in reality they are quite unique because of their whole kit:
   - Skills that gain bonus effects when near a spirit
   - Manipulating spirits (pull, destroy, consume, etc)
   - Ashes

Nurvus, I’m aware of this. Only trying to stear the discussion into a more constructive direction. I’m not opposed to criticism, I’d just like to see more constructive criticism than destructive criticism. If you see something that doesn’t work, feel free to point it out, but try to also provide some ideas as to how it could be improved or offer suggestions for alternatives.

Also, I’ve reformated the OP and added your dervish suggestion into it Nurvus

You can just check the Expansion Concepts thread in my signature and reply there too, as it has all the suggestions I mentioned plus more.

Thumbs up guys, I very well approve of your thread, and i would extremely love to see the Dervish and Ritualist Classes come again soon (specialy the Dervish cuz the Dervish was my favorite, and its kinda very unique to me ^^) and as a suggestion they might branch the Assassin skill type of fighting into the thief (i mean they make it something like an optional thing, you get to be a full pledged thief or an assassin and u can change at a fee, like changing your trait points)

Thankyou Israfyl

I and a close friend were dissapointed about the lack of Dervish and Ritualist as well as the loss of Assassin skill combos on the Thief.

But we have Guardian with his spiritual weapons, so maybe ritualists with their spirits will be okay…

Engineer’s turrets and Guardian’s spiritual weapons are not the main aspect of the class, right?

But spirits are all the Ritualists have. Their mechanic in GW1 is all about their spirits. The spirits are the main mechanic and without those spirits, Ritualists are nothing.

I think:

Ritualist can be exist in the future. Because not Engineer’s turrets, nor Guardian’s spiritual weapons aren’t the main mechanic, they are just a little part. Guardian and Engineer can be exist without their summoned friends. But Ritualist’s spirits are all this class has, and his skills are all about these spirits.

But on the other hand, there are more classes who can summon then in gw1. In GW1 we have ritualist with his spirits, and a necromancer with his undead pets.

Now we have:
1. Guardian with spiritual weapons (which for me related with ritualist by the way more then engineer with his turrets).
2. Engineer with turrets.
3. Necromancers with undead fellas.
4. Mesmers with clones. And clones for Mesmer more important then turrets for engineers or spiritual weapons for guardians. And that make mesmer familiar with ritualist. But it’s my opinion.

All of them maybe are not related with ritualist’s spirits, but they are summoners.

Again, in GW1 there are only two, who can summon. Necromancer and Ritualist. Now we have four classes who can summon. With ritualist it would be 5 summoners.