Guild Wars 2

As revealed in the tentonhammer article, and I quote “ArenaNet examples how Elementalists currently have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which will be reduced to 8.7 seconds when the Arcane specialization is selected.”

http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/guild-wars-2/guild-wars-2-heart-thorns-specializations-and-jon-peters-qa

We’re finally getting base 10!

For the lazy:

1. Each profession now will pick 3 lines. So for an Elementalist you could pick Air, Water, Arcane. In current terms this means you would be 06066. What you can no longer do is hybridize builds. So you couldn’t be 06242 if you wanted to. This means in the end you will get 9 Minor and 9 Major traits.

2. The specialization is just one of your lines. So same example I could take Water, Arcane, <New Spec> as an Elementalist.

3. Stats are removed from trait lines. Stats will be increased to 1000 base, and gear will gain more stats to it. So gear will matter even more.

4. Passive stats are added to their respective lines. For example selecting Arcane specialization automatically reduces Attunement swap timers.

5. Traits are condensed down to 3 choices of major traits per tier. So there’s only 3 Adept, 3 Master and 3 Major trait choices possible with 3 Minors as you go.

6. Core skills (weapon, utilities, elites) are unlocked down with “Hero Points.” Hero Points are doing activities on the game map.

7. As Utility sets unlock some previous Major traits will automatically apply to them. Example they used was as you unlock Wells utilities on a Necro, Wells will automatically gain Ground Targeting instead of having to specialize into it.

8. Skill Points will become crafting materials. Unclear what or how.

9. Specializations will add 1 weapon, 1 heal, 4 utilities, and 1 elite.

10. They trying to reuse utility types. Examples used was Traps and Shouts for two specializations so Runes will affect them.

11. New runes/sigils/armor/weapon for each specialization as part of the specialization reward track.

12. Specializations identifiable in UI, will have unique Icon if spec’d a certain way.

Yeah, but power levels are going to go through the roof. 3 grandmaster traits is going to be pretty insane.

8.7s, so 0.3s less than the cd of on-swap sigils, just to jumble things up a bit

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

8.7s, so 0.3s less than the cd of on-swap sigils, just to jumble things up a bit

Thought the same

This sounds phenomenal, although this makes me think they are going to be changing elemental attunement in some way. Hopefully they make it partially inherent in the class so that every ele isn’t pidgeon-holed (for pvp) into water/arcana/X.

BlackBeard.2873:

This sounds phenomenal, although this makes me think they are going to be changing elemental attunement in some way. Hopefully they make it partially inherent in the class so that every ele isn’t pidgeon-holed (for pvp) into water/arcana/X.

Should be interesting to see what they do with the Arcane line in general. With stats no longer tied to attunement lines and instead to gear it means gear setup will play a greater focus on what your stats are. You can no longer have full offensive gear and still rely on 6 points in water to add 300 vitality and healing. But what does this mean for stats like boon duration that was also part of Arcane?

Regardless it should be some pretty interesting shifts all over.

Kodiak.3281:

But what does this mean for stats like boon duration that was also part of Arcane?

Perhaps they will add stat-sets that have condi intensity and boon specialization that act like ferocity did for crit damage. This would be more interesting to make condi duration a serious stat that condi builds need to really spec into rather than get passively from food/1st trait line in large amounts. Choosing boon duration over other stats will be interesting on boon-based builds.

Also keep in mind that they have increased the base stats of all classes (916->926) and they will raise them again (926->1000), this means that the differences in base health and class armor will be relatively less stringent, which is a good thing for us

Edit: the downside of this is that healing will be relatively less effective (there is no base healing power), but maybe they will adjust the magnitude healing skills accordingly.

Significant power increase for us arcane eles! No longer will we lose stats in that line.

I’m used to having my blasting staff with renewing stamina traited and judging by the trait line changes so far, I’m greatly fearing that I won’t have both at the same time since the preview images depict allowing only one major trait of each tier selected.

Having said that, I’m now hoping that either renewing stamina becomes a minor arcane trait, or all staff damage/healing radii were to be increased by 60 and blasting staff as a trait would be reworked or culled. I’d prefer it to be reworked to grant 20% faster staff cooldowns, but hey, a guy can dream, right?

DanteZero.9736:

I’m used to having my blasting staff with renewing stamina traited and judging by the trait line changes so far, I’m greatly fearing that I won’t have both at the same time since the preview images depict allowing only one major trait of each tier selected.

Having said that, I’m now hoping that either renewing stamina becomes a minor arcane trait, or all staff damage/healing radii were to be increased by 60 and blasting staff as a trait would be reworked or culled. I’d prefer it to be reworked to grant 20% faster staff cooldowns, but hey, a guy can dream, right?

I bet it going to be with Windborne Dagger more then staff. If they do make it so its only 3 staff will be with the shield and scepter will be with the CDR. Its kind of fun to think of what going to get combined. I think only Adept level is going to be paired together though well for the most part.

OUR DREAM COME TRUE!!!!

Gaaroth.2567:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

8.7s, so 0.3s less than the cd of on-swap sigils, just to jumble things up a bit

Thought the same

Actually I was not thinking enough when I wrote that

The attunement recharge will be 10 without Arcane and 8.7 with arcane (10/1.15=8.7).
But you cannot swap attunements at will: we have to take into account the attunement swapping cooldown. The attunement swapping cooldown that we have now is 1.625s base and it can be reduced to 1.625/1.3=1.25s with 6 points in arcane. As they mentionned the new attunement recharge will be 10 it is likely that the new attunement swapping cooldown will be 1.25 base and it is possible that specialising in arcane will improve this by 15%. We could therefore expect a 1.25/1.15=1.09s attunement swapping cooldown. But the devs did not mention anything about attunement swapping cooldown, so we cannot be sure.

I expect the real attunement cooldowns (swapping cooldown + recharge time) will be:
10 + 1.25 = 11.25s base
11.25 / 1.15 = 9.78s by specsialising in arcane

Therefore, if my expectations are not too pessimistic then there will be no issue with on-swap triggers.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Gaaroth.2567:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

8.7s, so 0.3s less than the cd of on-swap sigils, just to jumble things up a bit

Thought the same

Actually I was not thinking enough when I wrote that

The attunement recharge will be 10 without Arcane and 8.7 with arcane (10/1.15=8.7).
But you cannot swap attunements at will: we have to take into account the attunement swapping cooldown. The attunement swapping cooldown that we have now is 1.625s base and it can be reduced to 1.625/1.3=1.25s with 6 points in arcane. As they mentionned the new attunement recharge will be 10 it is likely that the new attunement swapping cooldown will be 1.25 base and it is possible that specialising in arcane will improve this by 15%. We could therefore expect a 1.25/1.15=1.09s attunement swapping cooldown. But the devs did not mention anything about attunement swapping cooldown, so we cannot be sure.

I expect the real attunement cooldowns (swapping cooldown + recharge time) will be:
10 + 1.25 = 11.25s base
11.25 / 1.15 = 9.78s by specsialising in arcane

Therefore, if my expectations are not too pessimistic then there will be no issue with on-swap triggers.

I hope the swap cooldown is less than 1.25. That’s way too much imo.