Guild Wars 2

…And shouts – together with traps – are scratched from the list for our new utilities.

So far it looks like reaper becomes a even more devastating hardcounter to condi and hybrid engis, but at least their blows seem to be slow and we have good access to blind.

But since they take even less dmg from chilled foes (minor trait), elixir C will become almost mandatory to deal with them, unless cleaning formula 409 turns out to clear condis by using other utility-types in addition to elixirs.

But insta-cast dps utilities (shouts)…
Looks like “who spams first, wins” so far, similar to fresh air, d/p thiefs and s/d engis . I hope a-net balances this by not letting them become too tanky per nature, else the meta becomes too zerker-heavy in PvP. Having one forgiving zerker in the meta (medi hammer) is already painful enough.

Lets see what the tomorrows stream reveals beyond this…

How are shouts scratched? They got shouts from warriors. It appears we are getting our hammer from guardians? Your making an absolute blind assumption to suggest there is any proof that we will not get shouts.

Then again, maybe we are getting some form of android functioning like banners too.

The “assumption” is that ArenaNet isn’t going to give out the same mechanic twice.
Mesmer receives Wells (Necro)
Guardian receives Traps (Ranger)
Necro receives Shouts (Warrior)
It’s a very safe assumption to make.

A less safer assumption, but also quite likely, is to not expect any of the future Elite Specializations to get any mechanics from classes already having their mechanics taken from.
Which is to say, we can scrap the thought of getting any other mechanic that is specific to the Ranger, Warrior, and Necro.

edit: Traps are being shared by both Ranger and Thief so there’s that assumption down the drain. Still, the way I figure that… If another Elite Spec gets a mechanic from the Ranger, we probably won’t see another Elite Spec getting a mechanic from the Thief.

coglin.1867:

They got shouts from warriors. It appears we are getting our hammer from guardians?

How does that matter? Chronomancers didn’t get their shield from Necromancers.

coglin.1867:

How are shouts scratched? They got shouts from warriors. It appears we are getting our hammer from guardians? Your making an absolute blind assumption to suggest there is any proof that we will not get shouts.

Then again, maybe we are getting some form of android functioning like banners too.

Shouts are a utility-type
The hammer is a weapon.

They stated that each class will get access to 1 (for them)new weapon, out of the pool of already existing weapon-types, and 1 (for them)new, individual utility-type. I don’t know where they stated it, but i remember reading their plans to give each specialization a unique, class-redefining role, so handing out the same utility-type twice to 2 separate specializations does not make any sense in that regard.
That also means that we are the only ones to get the hammer, necros are the only ones to get the great sword, guardians are the only ones to get longbow, rangers are the only ones to get staff, and mesmers are the only ones to get shield.

Ofc, we still can get shouts in future specialization-release-waves, but in that moment we’d be the only class to get shouts, while other classes get separate, different utility-types. Same goes for weapons.

Even if the theory that elite specs are “dual” classes, in the sense that they combine 2 classes together, turns out to be true, you can’t determine if Traps originated from Ranger or Thief. Same with Shouts.

For the moment, it’s just safe to assume we won’t be getting Wells, Traps or Shouts.

I’m interested to see how our class mechanic is affected, since the current one is tied to the individual utilities.

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

Unhinged Carrot.3849:

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

Whatever they get, those skills need to pop out little floating things. I’m not sure if signets can fulfill that role.

MiniEquine.6014:

Unhinged Carrot.3849:

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

Whatever they get, those skills need to pop out little floating things. I’m not sure if signets can fulfill that role.

Well, Signets aren’t thematically suited to the Engineer anyway, so would require some conceptual reworking to fit. I can see the “drones” providing a periodic effect which can be sacrificed for a cooldown period in order to gain a greater, instant effect by “overcharging” the drone… AKA Signets.

Engi is def getting signets. Ranger will most likely get mantras. Ele and war are the ones I can’t think of what they will do

MiniEquine.6014:

Unhinged Carrot.3849:

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

Whatever they get, those skills need to pop out little floating things. I’m not sure if signets can fulfill that role.

Unhinged Carrot.3849:

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

If the current elite specialization design philosophy continues to hold, they won’t sacrifice anything and instead get something extra or something further modify the already existing tool belt skills.

Maybe those floating things are passively generated via the minor trait, up to three of them. Then, using a tool belt skill also expends one of them to cause some sort of extra effect (as to what, I don’t know, maybe extra damage or some kind of buff). So you can pop up to three of them to get these extra effects, and then they’ll regenerate over time.

Or maybe they’ll just leave the tool belt untouched since it’s a giant cluster-kitten for the most part. Given that we’ll be getting an F5 baseline, I’m not sure they’ll be venturing into F6 territory. An additional two Fs is a little much to give that quickly.

It’s actually a bit odd with these new utilities. Since engineer is the red-headed step child of the professions (although it’s possible revenant might have that role when it comes out, we’ll see), they only got 4 utility types with 5 skills each instead of everyone else’s 5 utility types with 4 skills each. However, I find it hard to believe that they would add 5 utilities to engineers and only 4 to all the other classes. As such, engineers will have 4 utility types with 5 skills and 1 utility type with 4 skills, whereas the other professions will have 6 utility types with 4 skills each.

Why are you thinking that engineer takes disadvantages out of this?
When we pick a trait that influences a utility-type, we have 5 skills to choose from. Other only have 4.
While other professions have a pretty narrow deffinition of what their utilities do, all our utility-types have a very broad band of effects / attacks / support to give.

In total we have as many utilities as all classes.
If looked closer into it, we have the perfect setup to fulfill our classes roll: jack of all trades.

It’s difficult to predict what they could do with the engineer specialization. They can’t just add other skills like with the chronomancer – we already use up to 5 button due to the elite toolbelt – but at the same time, they can’t even just change what those skill do – like they did with the dragonhunter – as they aren’t fixed, but tied to our utilities.
Imho, what Unhinged Carrot says won’t be completely wrong.
I think the specialization will remove our current toolbelt – based on utilities – to give us a toolbelt that somehow uses the drones we’ve seen on the trailer (sort of engineer/ranger, maybe?).
Dunno about a second weapon slot, though – it would depend on how we would end up balanced after such a change. Still, unless they somehow limit kits availability, i doubt we’ll ever have that second weapon in an elite specialization.
And dunno about the utility type either. It could be something that uses the drones we’ve seen (but i can’t think of an existing utility type that could be appropriate for them). Or something different. Guess i’ll just wait and see.

Edit: Albeit, if they follow a sort of engineer/ranger paradigm with those drones, we could indeed get Shouts as an utility type (as in we shout orders to our drones, like rangers can do with their pet).
Edit 2: It would also be coherent with what they said in the elite specializations blog post (bolded is mine):

One specialization will have access to traps, while at least one profession’s elite specialization will be a full set of six shouts.

Yamsandjams.3267:

It’s actually a bit odd with these new utilities. Since engineer is the red-headed step child of the professions (although it’s possible revenant might have that role when it comes out, we’ll see), they only got 4 utility types with 5 skills each instead of everyone else’s 5 utility types with 4 skills each. However, I find it hard to believe that they would add 5 utilities to engineers and only 4 to all the other classes. As such, engineers will have 4 utility types with 5 skills and 1 utility type with 4 skills, whereas the other professions will have 6 utility types with 4 skills each.

They didn’t say that every spec will get 4 utilities, 1 heal and 1 elite. It’s possible that we won’t get a heal, for example, and get 5 utilities.

We are the only profession getting base reworks, so Med kit and Mortar are like new skills.

Manuhell.2759:

It’s difficult to predict what they could do with the engineer specialization. They can’t just add other skills like with the chronomancer – we already use up to 5 button due to the elite toolbelt – but at the same time, they can’t even just change what those skill do – like they did with the dragonhunter – as they aren’t fixed, but tied to our utilities.
Imho, what Unhinged Carrot says won’t be completely wrong.
I think the specialization will remove our current toolbelt – based on utilities – to give us a toolbelt that somehow uses the drones we’ve seen on the trailer (sort of engineer/ranger, maybe?).
Dunno about a second weapon slot, though – it would depend on how we would end up balanced after such a change. Still, unless they somehow limit kits availability, i doubt we’ll ever have that second weapon in an elite specialization.
And dunno about the utility type either. It could be something that uses the drones we’ve seen (but i can’t think of an existing utility type that could be appropriate for them). Or something different. Guess i’ll just wait and see.

Edit: Albeit, if they follow a sort of engineer/ranger paradigm with those drones, we could indeed get Shouts as an utility type (as in we shout orders to our drones, like rangers can do with their pet).
Edit 2: It would also be coherent with what they said in the elite specializations blog post (bolded is mine):

I initially also considered that they may remove toolbelt skills, but this would create a lot of problems that they would need to simultaneously solve:

1) we would lose many of our stunbreaks
2) turrets would be messed up. Without the ability to detonate them, we’d have to wait for them to be killed or despawn after 5 minutes before we would put them down again!
3) med kit would completely not work (in it’s current form, but I know it’s also being revised)
4) and finally, some utilities,which are used primarily for their toolbelt skills, would become largely unusable. E.g. Rifle Turret, maybe Portable Battering Ram, Elixir R.

I don’t think any of these problems are unsolvable, but they would require a significant re-working of a lot of things in order to facilitate complete removal of our toolbelt skills.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Manuhell.2759:

It’s difficult to predict what they could do with the engineer specialization. They can’t just add other skills like with the chronomancer – we already use up to 5 button due to the elite toolbelt – but at the same time, they can’t even just change what those skill do – like they did with the dragonhunter – as they aren’t fixed, but tied to our utilities.
Imho, what Unhinged Carrot says won’t be completely wrong.
I think the specialization will remove our current toolbelt – based on utilities – to give us a toolbelt that somehow uses the drones we’ve seen on the trailer (sort of engineer/ranger, maybe?).
Dunno about a second weapon slot, though – it would depend on how we would end up balanced after such a change. Still, unless they somehow limit kits availability, i doubt we’ll ever have that second weapon in an elite specialization.
And dunno about the utility type either. It could be something that uses the drones we’ve seen (but i can’t think of an existing utility type that could be appropriate for them). Or something different. Guess i’ll just wait and see.

Edit: Albeit, if they follow a sort of engineer/ranger paradigm with those drones, we could indeed get Shouts as an utility type (as in we shout orders to our drones, like rangers can do with their pet).
Edit 2: It would also be coherent with what they said in the elite specializations blog post (bolded is mine):

I initially also considered that they may remove toolbelt skills, but this would create a lot of problems that they would need to simultaneously solve:

1) we would lose many of our stunbreaks
2) turrets would be messed up. Without the ability to detonate them, we’d have to wait for them to be killed or despawn after 5 minutes before we would put them down again!
3) med kit would completely not work (in it’s current form, but I know it’s also being revised)
4) and finally, some utilities,which are used primarily for their toolbelt skills, would become largely unusable. E.g. Rifle Turret, maybe Portable Battering Ram, Elixir R.

I don’t think any of these problems are unsolvable, but they would require a significant re-working of a lot of things in order to facilitate complete removal of our toolbelt skills.

…that might sound batkitten crazy… but what is if they give us a toolbelt swap?

We might not even get any toolbelt changes. Our toolbelt will look completely different after we slot the new utilities anyway.

Then again, the same could be said about Warriors, who will get a new Burst if the new weapon is main hand, or 2handed, yet will still get an F2.

I personally would like to see an unlocked toolbelt, that allows us to pick F1-5 independently from our utilities. But even that could cause problems with turrets, and balance issues with the F5.

fluidmonolith.3584:

I initially also considered that they may remove toolbelt skills, but this would create a lot of problems that they would need to simultaneously solve:

1) we would lose many of our stunbreaks
2) turrets would be messed up. Without the ability to detonate them, we’d have to wait for them to be killed or despawn after 5 minutes before we would put them down again!
3) med kit would completely not work (in it’s current form, but I know it’s also being revised)
4) and finally, some utilities,which are used primarily for their toolbelt skills, would become largely unusable. E.g. Rifle Turret, maybe Portable Battering Ram, Elixir R.

I don’t think any of these problems are unsolvable, but they would require a significant re-working of a lot of things in order to facilitate complete removal of our toolbelt skills.

Well, as you mentioned above, we already know they’re reworking some utilities. Maybe the rework is more extensive than we thought, and not limited to the ones we’ve seen yet. Turrets alone surely would need a redesign, anyway.

I have no idea what they could do otherwise. After they added the elite toolbelt to the base profession, we finished any utility slot toolbelts could be tied upon. Adding other slots wouldn’t make sense thematically. So, unless they do some drastic change to the mechanic itself – decoupling it from the utilities – i can’t think of ways to expand it.
Sure, they can do new utilities, and those utilities would have different toolbelt skills. But it would still be the same mechanic. And as far as we know, elite specializations change the class mechanic – that’s what the first minor trait does, after all.

Engi could easily get shouts but I wonder what function they might serve.

My guess is Engineer’s elite may be a direct damage trait line trading condition application for higher dps.

Unfortunately, there are not many weapons that are Engineer-like. The firearms are used, already. Too bad a machine gun or shovel are out of the running. Hammer and dagger come to mind and dagger would fit with a purely dps specialization.

Don’t worry about Necro. Kite the Reaper.

coglin.1867:

How are shouts scratched? They got shouts from warriors. It appears we are getting our hammer from guardians? Your making an absolute blind assumption to suggest there is any proof that we will not get shouts.

Then again, maybe we are getting some form of android functioning like banners too.

I believe Weapon type doesnt play a role in what off class the elite spec is. look at Chronomancer and Shield. Necro cant use Shields.

necros are a huge problem now for engies mainly in pvp in general. The lack of condition cleanse is the main issues. Not necessarily saying 1v1 but the pressure on us is huge….almost to a paralyzing effect. What was up with all the complaining necros in pvp?

Arantheal
But insta-cast dps utilities (shouts)…

Looks like “who spams first, wins” so far, similar to fresh air, d/p thiefs and s/d engis . I hope a-net balances this by not letting them become too tanky per nature, else the meta becomes too zerker-heavy in PvP. Having one forgiving zerker in the meta (medi hammer) is already painful enough.

Hmm, in anyway, I certainly hope you have already realised “shout” on necro isn’t instant cast? O.o It goes from 3/4 seconds, to 2 seconds. Also, the damage sucks tbh (around 200?) :X.

necros are slow

im just gonna post this in every thread i see on this topic ><

ZeroStrifeX.2183:

Arantheal
But insta-cast dps utilities (shouts)…

Looks like “who spams first, wins” so far, similar to fresh air, d/p thiefs and s/d engis . I hope a-net balances this by not letting them become too tanky per nature, else the meta becomes too zerker-heavy in PvP. Having one forgiving zerker in the meta (medi hammer) is already painful enough.

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Hmm, in anyway, I certainly hope you have already realised “shout” on necro isn’t instant cast? O.o It goes from 3/4 seconds, to 2 seconds. Also, the damage sucks tbh (around 200?) :X.

Hmm, in anyway, I certainly hope you have already realised this post was made 1 day before the stream, so to this time it appeared they get the shouts a’la warri and guard which are insta-casts? O.o

Helcor.9527:

necros are a huge problem now for engies mainly in pvp in general. The lack of condition cleanse is the main issues. Not necessarily saying 1v1 but the pressure on us is huge….almost to a paralyzing effect. What was up with all the complaining necros in pvp?

Not sure if serious, I used to believe condition necro hard countered engi but many changes the first being prevention of changing utilities in match to gain early LF so yeah necro doesn’t have the HP at start to endure a condition burst from engi even vs cele, immobilize,blind/confusion and CC will get him, it’s not like there is much to dodge from necro. No ones/team leaves a necro alone in matches anyway.

If you are getting owned against condition necros on condition engi or cele engi it’s because you aren’t dodging or using your ccs right. As an engi there are 4 skills you need to worry about dodging, reaper’s mark, putrid mark, deathly swarm and dark path (especially on condition engi if you avoid the two transfers,or better yet reflect deathly swarm it’s gg). As long as you avoid these which you should be able to do with 50% vigor uptime and gear sheild, the corrupt boon and doom won’t hurt you too bad (can’t really avoid an instant cast and a 1/2 second cast reliably). Meanwhile necros need to worry about dodging pry bar, grenade barrage, the 4-6 ccs engis have, and whatever weapons skills you have depending on your weapon. Cele engi is kitten matchup, and condition engi is a 4-6. You won’t win everytime, but if your losing 90% of your fights against terromancers its a L2P issue.

Powermancers are a little different, against them you need to avoid dark pact, wells, and burst them down when they enter DS, so they can’t spam lifeblasts (or LOS). This is also a relatively even matchup because most powermancers only run 1 stun break, so the mass cc engis have should be able to lock them down. If they pop lich in a 1vs1 tell them they are a scrub, and walk away (or cc chain them, that one stack of stab wont do much against slick shoes). If you notice a necro has 100% life force it is probably best to not engage 1vs1, and wait for them to get to the teamfight. Also, you can completely shut out a necro and 100-0 them pretty easy by interrupting their heal, which is on a huge cast.

In terms of reaper, it does look like it will do a bunch of melee damage and be really strong in melee range, but most of the skills look really telegraphed and easy to dodge, or interrupt. I wouldn’t be too worried.

I know a lot of people think this is a lopsided matchup, but it isn’t bad. Focus on dodging the big hitters, and cc bursting necros out of DS. The class has massive holes that engis are pretty good at exploiting, so while you are weak to their conditions, they are weak to your cc. Another generic tip is to stay on the offensive, you never want to let necros free cast.

Arantheal.7396:

ZeroStrifeX.2183:

Arantheal
But insta-cast dps utilities (shouts)…

Looks like “who spams first, wins” so far, similar to fresh air, d/p thiefs and s/d engis . I hope a-net balances this by not letting them become too tanky per nature, else the meta becomes too zerker-heavy in PvP. Having one forgiving zerker in the meta (medi hammer) is already painful enough.

---

Hmm, in anyway, I certainly hope you have already realised “shout” on necro isn’t instant cast? O.o It goes from 3/4 seconds, to 2 seconds. Also, the damage sucks tbh (around 200?) :X.

Hmm, in anyway, I certainly hope you have already realised this post was made 1 day before the stream, so to this time it appeared they get the shouts a’la warri and guard which are insta-casts? O.o

Yup, definitely i knew it was made one day before the stream. My point was simply to ensure it’s been acknowledged and updated ^^. I’m glad you already did anyway x). and hmm, in anyway, I certainly like the way you “phrased” your reply O.o