Guild Wars 2

Ever since they said that tomes will be saved for some future spec I cannot stop thinking about this idea I have for it so I just have to put it down on “paper” and free my mind from it. This is basically Durmand Priory’s take on guardian that focuses more on it’s magical nature effectively turning guard into Battlemage. The rise of the bookworm!

TOMES
Tomes would replace Virtues and would act as… well kits with cooldown. As much as I would like to be able to switch at will this would cause some serious problems with minor traits “Justice is Blind” and “Inspired Virtue” to begin with. Cooldowns would have to be flat for all three like elementalist’s attunements and can be further reduced by traiting into Virtues.

We already have two tomes. Tome of Wrath (now Justice), offensive one that can allow power and condi builds. Tome of Courage (now Resolve), that is heavy into healing. Needless to say first two need serious balancing to make them viable. And finally we need third one that would deal with boon distribution.

WEAPONS
As every battlemage ever, Lorekeeper would be highly incentivised to use Staff/Scepter/Focus through traits and additional perks.

ARMOR
I don’t know if this is even possible, but it would be interesting if Lorekeeper spec could allow guardian to wear light armor. So unlike other specs that offer new weapon this one would give player new armor type. Of course incentive to wear it would come through traits which I will explain later and more style options. This is not forced upon player mind you! You just CAN, not HAVE TO wear it.

HEAL/UTILITY/ELITE
We have these almost complete. Lorekeeper is the master of spirit weapons and can further strengthen them through traits! Heal skill would be a spirit staff, utilities we already have. Elite skill would be a immobile tornado of all weapons with ground targeting. What it’s command is, I’ll leave it to your imagination since I don’t know either.

TRAITS
I really like what Robert Gee did for Reaper by dividing traits into three categories (up, mid, down) which control three aspects of the spec. This would be the case for Lorekeeper as well.

Up traits would regulate weapons and armor. Staff trait that increases staff damage, maybe causes more burning while equipped etc. Scepter trait that increases projectile speed and [insert extra here], Armor trait that gives you extra damage, regen and 25% speed while wearing full set of light armor.

Mid traits that control tomes like further cooldown reduction, additional effects while swapping, condi damage boost, healing efficiency, etc etc.

Down traits control spirit weapons. Weapon movement speed, remove duration of weapons so they act as permanent pets until killed, clear conditions or give stability when commanded etc etc.

There, I’m finally free! /dance

TL;DR More awesome than Dragonhunter.

A very interesting idea and I really like the idea of opening up the other armour types to wear through Elite Specs. I would see this as mostly a complete armour class change as Arenanet mentioned issues with mixing the different armour types. Now just some questions;

• Would spirit weapons become more like necomancer minions?
• Wouldn’t we be looking at adding another slotted skill category not already used by the Guardian?
• How do the new Tome Virtues act with the existing virtue traits? (I see this part being quite messy & not so sure about Elementalist attunment comparison)
• Also I was really hoping Tomes would come back as the Guardian’s version of the Engineer’s Kits. Could this idea be adjust to using Kits as the Tomes?

Bezagron.7352:

A very interesting idea and I really like the idea of opening up the other armour types to wear through Elite Specs. I would see this as mostly a complete armour class change as Arenanet mentioned issues with mixing the different armour types. Now just some questions;

• Would spirit weapons become more like necomancer minions?
• Wouldn’t we be looking at adding another slotted skill category not already used by the Guardian?
• How do the new Tome Virtues act with the existing virtue traits? (I see this part being quite messy & not so sure about Elementalist attunment comparison)
• Also I was really hoping Tomes would come back as the Guardian’s version of the Engineer’s Kits. Could this idea be adjust to using Kits as the Tomes?

Well I imagined this spec purely from thematic and practical perspective.

Tomes as Virtues would be a merger of attunment and kits. It’s like attunement because it has a cooldown and it’s a kit because it can be unequipped at will so that you can use your default weapon or swap for another tome.

If they were like kits that would mean that devs need to come up with 4 more tomes and new virtues which is 23 new additional skills, plus rebalancing two existing tomes.
In my proposal they need one more tome (5 skills), rebalance existing ones, heal and elite for spirit weapons. We already have all these interesting mechanics that are just waiting to be used in a proper way. Also thematically they are all perfect match for a battlemage archetype.

Don’t get me wrong I’d love to see tomes as kits, but I feel that having so many would water down the experience and from a practical standpoint I prefer them being replacement for Virtues.

Yeah I guess if you trait into permanent spirit weapons that would make them the same as necro pets. Bear in mind that all of this is just me spewing ideas, that were somehow related to Lorekeeper, all over the place

I’m under the impression that specializations focus on new ability types and traits rather than abilities of an existing type and traits that focus on base class abilities/weapons. The tome specialization should focus on the tome ability type rather than focusing a bit on tomes and helping to fix Spirit Weapons. As for a new weapon, I’d say tridents would be the most appropriate, but that’s assuming that ANet would be okay with allowing underwater weapons to be used above water.

I don’t think the tomes being the replaced virtue mechanic would work very well with pre-existing virtue traits. Additionally, them being kits allows one to focus on adding the playstyle of a tome or two to a mixed build as opposed to something like the elementalist’s attunements where one would have to use all attunements in order to be effective.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I’m under the impression that specializations focus on new ability types and traits rather than abilities of an existing type and traits that focus on base class abilities/weapons. The tome specialization should focus on the tome ability type rather than focusing a bit on tomes and helping to fix Spirit Weapons. As for a new weapon, I’d say tridents would be the most appropriate, but that’s assuming that ANet would be okay with allowing underwater weapons to be used above water.

I don’t think the tomes being the replaced virtue mechanic would work very well with pre-existing virtue traits. Additionally, them being kits allows one to focus on adding the playstyle of a tome or two to a mixed build as opposed to something like the elementalist’s attunements where one would have to use all attunements in order to be effective.

I’d definitely love to see underwater weapons being used in ground combat and that spec should bring something new to the class. However I don’t think they should stick to that idea blindly so that guards eventually get guns/daggers/rifles etc. I’d rather see new ways to use existing weapons in order to preserve guardian theme, otherwise what the point of having different classes. In the example above I suggested giving them Light armor (if that’s even mechanically possible) which could bring potentially different playstyle through traits. So far most of us are of opinion that weapons are the ones that bring new way of playing the class. Why shouldn’t armor be that defining feature instead?

Tome as Virtues could be incorporated properly with existing virtue traits if the cooldowns are nailed just right. Not too prohibitive, but not as liberal as ele’s attunement swapping. Also bear in mind that we will have only 3 trait lines in the future so grabbing Radiance and Virtues trait lines just for two minors would be a bad idea if nothing else synergizes with the build you had in mind.

True, having Tomes as Virtues would be a drastic departure from standard guardian play, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. New Virtues that are coming with Dragonhunter are already miles away from what we’ve been playing since release. I think that where our opinions differ is that I’d like Tomes to bring new playstyle, while you want them to compliment existing ones. Nothing inherently wrong with either of them, they just differ.

I’d also like to point out that I’m not here to “defend” my idea, I just want some brainstorming discussion

Zergs.9715:

I’d definitely love to see underwater weapons being used in ground combat and that spec should bring something new to the class. However I don’t think they should stick to that idea blindly so that guards eventually get guns/daggers/rifles etc. I’d rather see new ways to use existing weapons in order to preserve guardian theme, otherwise what the point of having different classes. In the example above I suggested giving them Light armor (if that’s even mechanically possible) which could bring potentially different playstyle through traits. So far most of us are of opinion that weapons are the ones that bring new way of playing the class. Why shouldn’t armor be that defining feature instead?

I wouldn’t mind seeing new skills for old weapons either, but I suspect that future specs would simply just bring new weapons rather than revising older ones.
I’d very much enjoy the ability to use light armor on guardians, of course there’d need to be some sort of benefit for doing so (like reduced cooldown on the spec mechanic for example) unless the player is forced to use light armor.

Zergs.9715:

Tome as Virtues could be incorporated properly with existing virtue traits if the cooldowns are nailed just right. Not too prohibitive, but not as liberal as ele’s attunement swapping. Also bear in mind that we will have only 3 trait lines in the future so grabbing Radiance and Virtues trait lines just for two minors would be a bad idea if nothing else synergizes with the build you had in mind.

In this case I wouldn’t really say it’s a matter of synergizing or not; it’s more of a matter of whether or not it would work at all. For example, how would a tome switching mechanic work with Absolute Resolution and other traits like it?

Zergs.9715:

True, having Tomes as Virtues would be a drastic departure from standard guardian play, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. New Virtues that are coming with Dragonhunter are already miles away from what we’ve been playing since release. I think that where our opinions differ is that I’d like Tomes to bring new playstyle, while you want them to compliment existing ones. Nothing inherently wrong with either of them, they just differ.

I’d prefer them to offer new playstyles as well, but my problem with them replacing virtues is if they become like attunements where you can’t really efficiently stay in one, and as a result you cannot focus completely in a single playstyle. It’s a common complaint with elementalist players who would would prefer to stick to a single element or so instead of being forced to use all elements.
I’d be okay with tomes replacing virtues assuming that one could specialize and focus in the use of a single tome or two rather than being forced to use all of them in order to be efficient.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I for some reason remember hearing/reading somewhere that under new system virtues will tick their passives even after being activated. As far as activation goes, well as soon as you switch to certain Tome it triggers active effect.

There’s a bit of a difference between Tomes as Virtues and ele’s attuments which you are comparing them with. They’d be more like kits with cooldowns.
Attunement – has cooldown, cannot unequip
Kits – no cooldown, can unequip
Tomes – has cooldown, can unequip

I am one of the people who root for one attunement eles to be viable. Even made a suggestion about it to give ability of weapon swapping to one attunement eles. That being said I think that Virtues are more situational powers than subjects to proper rotations like attunements. Same would be the case with tomes because you don’t have to rotate through them. You can unequip it at will and use your default weapons.

3 Tomes and 3 traits dedicated to them. I don’t see why shouldn’t each trait be dedicated to one tome. That way you could potentially have the ability to camp just the one you want. New system already waters down the meaning of adept/ master/grandmaster. I say it should go even further and treat them as equals in terms of build crafting. IMO it all comes down to how well the traits are designed and how much incentive players have to utilize them.

Now I actually have a possible build stuck in my head… Thanks

Bookah

/thread

I think the fact that there’s already speculation on the next Guardian elite spec should be a clear sign that the upcoming one is a bust.

Rym.1469:

Bookah

/thread

Thank you for you invaluable and highly original input.

Black Box.9312:

I think the fact that there’s already speculation on the next Guardian elite spec should be a clear sign that the upcoming one is a bust.

Actually I think there’s nothing wrong Dragonhunter, name aside. What I wrote in tl;dr of my OP was just a joke. I think it’ll have it’s purpose in the game. Also ppl instead of asking for betterment of existing range options asked for bow without getting into too much detail and Anet gave us their take on it.

Also such things take a long time to develop which is why I think this good time to start thinking about new stuff and improving old. After all Jon Peters asked us to give our input on Tome substitutions. This time I think we as players should go into greater detail and be more specific about it, so that devs may get a clearer picture and/or inspiration for future specs.

I’m just really sad that DH has both a terrible name and an incredible lack of synergy with the base class.

Zergs.9715:

Actually I think there’s nothing wrong Dragonhunter, name aside. What I wrote in tl;dr of my OP was just a joke. I think it’ll have it’s purpose in the game. Also ppl instead of asking for betterment of existing range options asked for bow without getting into too much detail and Anet gave us their take on it.

Also such things take a long time to develop which is why I think this good time to start thinking about new stuff and improving old. After all Jon Peters asked us to give our input on Tome substitutions. This time I think we as players should go into greater detail and be more specific about it, so that devs may get a clearer picture and/or inspiration for future specs.

I saw quite a few people mentioning that they’d like to support using the bow, but instead it’s just dps with some control. In fact, the response to the leaked longbow seemed to be quite positive besides the few people who didn’t want a longbow at all. The difference between the leaked longbow and this one, is that the leaked one had a dps stance and a support stance. This longbow is essentially just the dps stance, and in my eyes, the spec is very much like a ranger-wannabe.