Guild Wars 2

Assuming it ever happens, I thought it’d be interesting to see people’s views on this:
- What do you want and/or expect it to be?
- Which new weapon should it allow access to?
- How should virtues be altered, or what new mechanic should be added on?
- How should tomes function (similar to conjures, kits, old tomes, etc)?
- What should become of Tome of Courage/Tome of Wrath? Should they become utilities, some sort of merged elite, etc?
- What should the elite specialization be called?

I had suggested this in the feedback thread simply because it honestly seems like the best way to go. How I imagine this would work:

• Tomes would act like kits. Each would have a special purpose that limits their roles.
• Two tomes already exist, one for damage dealing at range for multiple targets, and one for heal support.
• Tome of Courage would fill a dedicated heal support role quite like Legendary Centaur Stance on the Revenant. It would fit the heal skill slot. There are few of these style support roles available in the game, so an additional one would be beneficial and desirable. Its skills would of course remain largely similar to what they previously were, except toned down for regular use.
• Like with engineers, switching to the elite spec with tomes would disable weapon swap. This is made up for by the more physical manifestations of the virtues that already makes up the Dragonhunter. The longbow option would also be a perfect companion here because it encourages the more backline style gameplay that can be augmented by kit choice.
• Perhaps this would be a fine way to solve Spirit Weapons by making them part of a melee focused tome rather than utilities. I’m just throwing out wild suggestions at this point in the list, but this just came to me. A melee focused tome that uses them as the weapon slot abilities would be thematically awesomesauce. Each of the 1-5 skills would summon a different weapon to perform the attack. Animation wise, the attacks would fade in and out of existence as you attacked rather than floating near you as they currently work. Sword for auto, hammer for a high damage number 2, 3 as the bow for say a knockdown or pull, 4 as the shield for reflection/aegis, and 5 as a sort of FIRE EVERYTHING skill with multiple condition effects.

Having tomes like kits sounds like a nice idea.

Fashion Mage.3712:

- Which new weapon should it allow access to?

Main hand focus, so you can dual-wield books! =D

Rashagar.8349:

Fashion Mage.3712:

- Which new weapon should it allow access to?

Main hand focus, so you can dual-wield books! =D

My thoughts exactly. ;p

Lemondish.3268:

• Like with engineers, switching to the elite spec with tomes would disable weapon swap. This is made up for by the more physical manifestations of the virtues that already makes up the Dragonhunter. The longbow option would also be a perfect companion here because it encourages the more backline style gameplay that can be augmented by kit choice.

I’m not sure if I’m misinterpreting this, but you are aware that you will only be able to equip one elite spec at a time, yes? So anything the dragonhunter offers won’t be usable with any future tome-based elite spec.

Anyways, my thoughts: Making tomes into kits seems like the most straightforward approach, but thinking about it a bit it might be a bit excessive from a design standpoint. When you give kits to a new profession, assuming you fill the standard loadout of utilitly skills, thats 5-6 kits, or 5-6 entire weaponsets to design. That might be a bit much to ask of a single elite spec.

I think an alternative would be to have the tomes become the active effects of virtues. That is, activating a virtue allows you to equip one of the tomes. This would make them more akin to elementalist attunements than kits, but it does open up other utility skill types like glyphs for example.

As for a weapon and name I’d say a warhorn or offhand mace might work alright, and a name like scribe or prior might fight the more scholarly theme of such a spec.

Assuming the elite spec stays in line with what tomes are supposed to be, I would imagine it would focus on ranged support since the old tomes essentially let you become the ultimate ranged support. Again, like the old tomes, I think each tome should encompass a different kind of support (offensive support, protective support, healing support). Categorizing the tomes like this would probably let them fit in quite nicely as a replacement to virtues and -as Riot Inducer said- make them akin to an elementalist’s attunements, although how they would work with current virtue traits might not make much sense. Glyphs would be pretty cool as utilities as well, especially if they functioned differently with each tome active.

For it’s weapon, I think a shortbow or main-handed focus would fit in nicely with the theme of ranged/backline support. A warhorn would be okay too, although I think a main-handed or two-handed weapon would be more fitting considering that the class lacks a long-ranged support weapon at all.

As for it’s name, considering that many of the abilities offered by the old tomes were named after monk prayers from GW1, and the fact that the playstyle provided by tomes are similar to that of protection/healing/smiting monks, I think “Monk” would be a pretty fitting name.

Rashagar.8349:

Fashion Mage.3712:

- Which new weapon should it allow access to?

Main hand focus, so you can dual-wield books! =D

As cute as that sounds it won’t happen. Main hand and off-hand-only weapons are priced differently at vendor so they’re not gonna let you use an off-hand-only in the main hand.

Nike.2631:

Rashagar.8349:

Fashion Mage.3712:

- Which new weapon should it allow access to?

Main hand focus, so you can dual-wield books! =D

As cute as that sounds it won’t happen. Main hand and off-hand-only weapons are priced differently at vendor so they’re not gonna let you use an off-hand-only in the main hand.

That reasoning is about as concrete as “The Necromancer elite specialization won’t be called ‘Reaper’ because there’s a title called that already”, and we can see how that turned out. I agree it is somewhat unlikely though, but just not for that reasoning.

While kits would be amazing, I have a feeling they’d probably be treated more as conjured weapons (basically how they used to function before, albeit hopefully with much less cooldown and longer duration).

After all, the main reason Engineers have no weapon swap is almost certainly because kits exist. So unless they removed Guardian’s weapon swap with the Tome elite spec (if that’s even possible), I can’t see them giving us kits on top of everything else.

Alternatively, I suppose the Tomes could actually become our profession mechanic rather than being utilities at all. Tome of Justice would basically be the old Tome of Wrath, offensive / burn based. Tome of Resolve would probably borrow the healing / cleansing aspects of the old Tome of Courage. Tome of Courage (the new one, not the old one…) would be centered on defensive buffs, blocks, and reflects. That might actually be a handy way to balance them and allow them to be more powerful, since you’d be giving up your virtue passives by using them.

In terms of new weapons… wow, I dunno. Guardian has all the magic weapons already, and obviously something magical would be the most fitting. Maybe they’ll have added some new weapons to the game by then. But if not, and we absolutely have to choose from the existing weapons… offhand dagger, maybe? I mean, given the complexities of the Tomes I think an offhand is probably the most likely choice, and dagger could perhaps act as a pseudo “writing tool” of sorts, creating inscriptions or something.

For names, Arcanist sounds pretty good to me. Or Lorekeeper.

As a sidenote, this better happen at some point. I loved tomes, broken as they were. They had darn well better return via elite spec and not just be dumped into the abyss forever.

Thought I’d answer your questions in order:

1. I would expect an Elite Spec based on Tomes to provide a significantly more magical feel to the Guardian. I’d want to feel even more like a Mage in heavy armor, rather than a magical knight.

2. As for which weapon it should provide, I’m among those who wouldn’t mind seeing something like a mainhand focus. The idea of wielding two foci spellbooks, skulls, chains, etc. would not only LOOK awesome, but probably feel awesome channeling arcane bolts as an auto attack. If a mainhand focus wasn’t an option, then perhaps a mainhand Axe would be appropriate to give the feeling of a Battlemage.

3. Okay so I’m combining the next two questions for this as my idea encompasses both. First, I am not actually a fan of keeping Tomes as kits. Sure, they’re cool but I just don’t feel it fits the Guardian. I think they’re more shrewd in the way they use magic. The idea of an arcane spellcaster is awesome, for sure, but I have an idea that I think would be awesome.

Now, what I would like is for Tomes to function SIMILAR to Conjured weapons and Kits, but not quite the same. Namely, I wouldn’t want Tomes to replace our weapon skills as they did before.

Hear me out, here. Gaining access to multiple kits and a new weapon is A LOT of work and balancing and I don’t like the idea of an elite that makes me choose between my utility or my weapon – they should work in tandem.

So my grand idea is that activating a Tome should instead alter Virtues. I think an interesting concept has been laid out through the Dragonhunter to see Virtues altered in the future, so why not give the Tomes elite a 4th Virtue (Virtue of Wisdom?) or something and make, as I suggested, make Tomes alter the Virtues.

I could see it functioning like this – Activating one of the Tomes will alter or replace the 3 or 4 Virtues instead of the weapon skills. Perhaps the 4th virtue is a skill that changes more drastically than the other depending on which Tome you have channeled. The channeled Tome could also switch to a skill that can be activated after channeling, but with the trade-off that activating it would reset your Virtues to their defaults or something along those lines.

The framework for this sort of thing is already there – it mixes elements of kits, mantras and so on, but even though I know the idea I’m suggesting is super rough . . . wouldn’t it be nice to have something new and unique instead of just kits or conjured weapons?

4. Naturally if something similar to my suggestion happened, they could use the previous intentions of Wrath and Courage as starting points for some of the utilities.

5. I’d say something like Arcane Warrior, Battlemage or Lorekeeper or Arcanist like Electro suggested.

-Librarian-

Duel Focus

Tomes as Kits

Loss of Weapon Swap

Buffed Virtues

seems pretty straightforward tbh. guardian becomes a caster with the books, and gets main hand focus as a medium range weapon. I would play the kitten out of it.

choovanski.5462:

-Librarian-

Duel Focus

Tomes as Kits

Loss of Weapon Swap

Buffed Virtues

seems pretty straightforward tbh. guardian becomes a caster with the books, and gets main hand focus as a medium range weapon. I would play the kitten out of it.

So much this. When I heard they were removing tomes for “Feel My Wrath” (amazing) and Signet of Courage (trashy, way to long cast and way to long between pulsing heals) and said that we might see tomes return as a specialization. I was way more pumped and excited for that specialization than for Dragonhunter and bows even before knowing anything about Dragonhunter. I so want to dual wield Anomialies.

Edit:

I can see the tomes now:
Tome of Resolve (Tome focused on healing and mostly like the old Tome of Courage) as a heal.
Tome of Wrath (Tome focused on AoE damage) as the Elite.
Tome of Courage (Tome focused on taking hits with a taunt and protection/blocking skills)
Tome of Judgement (Focused on single target damage)
Tome of Serenity (Focused on buffing other players)
Tome of Conviction (Focused on Controlling others)

Electro.4173:

In terms of new weapons… wow, I dunno. Guardian has all the magic weapons already, and obviously something magical would be the most fitting. Maybe they’ll have added some new weapons to the game by then. But if not, and we absolutely have to choose from the existing weapons… offhand dagger, maybe? I mean, given the complexities of the Tomes I think an offhand is probably the most likely choice, and dagger could perhaps act as a pseudo “writing tool” of sorts, creating inscriptions or something.

That was pretty much my thought too. Guardian already has access to all the traditional “spell-casting” weapons the game offers, so barring any newly introduced weapon types, this makes the most sense for a number of reasons.

Thematically, Dagger as an offensive melee (or even ranged) weapon, doesn’t fit on the class at all, but being used as a channeling focus rather than an actual weapon, similiar to the OH-Dagger on a few other classes, does fit thematically and would make alot of sense.

The alternative would be Axe, but I think if Guardian got Axe, most people would instead rather see it as that extra offensive melee weapon added to the Guardian, rather than a casting weapon, and as a result it wouldn’t fit with the design plan of a Tome-specialization, and would instead be better kept under lock-and-key waiting for some Crusader-esque (or even Dark-Guardian/Knight-esque) specialization instead.

But the only way you are going to get Dagger on Guardian, is if it using it as a magical focus, so it’d make sense to tie it into a Tome specialization.

Dual wield swords . Envision the glorious heavy armor symmetry of the fiery knight walking towards you with 2 swords ready and the image of an open book hovering behind them.

Paired Swords & Tome (kits) is a great visual for Guardians.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Nike

As cute as that sounds it won’t happen. Main hand and off-hand-only weapons are priced differently at vendor so they’re not gonna let you use an off-hand-only in the main hand.

That reasoning is about as concrete as “The Necromancer elite specialization won’t be called ‘Reaper’ because there’s a title called that already”, and we can see how that turned out. I agree it is somewhat unlikely though, but just not for that reasoning.

Look at the crafting material requirements for off-hand-only vs mainhand. We’re not talking namespace conflict, were talking economy. That’s not something they bend on much. Add in needing new animations and now we’re really deep in Itainthappening Land.

Nike.2631:

Dual wield swords . Envision the glorious heavy armor symmetry of the fiery knight walking towards you with 2 swords ready and the image of an open book hovering behind them.

Paired Swords & Tome (kits) is a great visual for Guardians.

I thought about OH-Sword as alternative to OH-Dagger, but dual-wielding appearances is not really a thing for Guardian (I realise this is a specialization so can change thematics somewhat, but introducing a dual-wield on a caster specialization, which is what a Tome spec would be, rather than a physical specialization would make little sense), and if this was done, short of another casting-focused specialization, they’d be no-place to have a Dagger fit on the class somewhere anymore.
Likewise, if Guardian ever was to get a dual-wielding themed offensive physical specialization, OH-Sword would be the go-to weapon for that instead.

Same thing really applies to Warhorn; You could use it as a casting-focus, but it makes much more sense to reserve it for a Paragon-esque shouty/chanty specialization, if ANet ever decided we were never going to get land Spears no-matter what.

((looks at greatsword… in the hands of a Mesmer))
((looks at staff… in the hands of Thief))
((Looks at most maces and scepters from the same weapon set))

And after the Dragonhunter, I don’t see offhand dagger with physical skills as something that couldn’t be explained with the right theme. Knives have a long tradition in the real world of being how heavily armored warriors ended up delivering the killing stroke in duels. There’s lots of gaps a knife slides through that a sword won’t. Bonus damage if target is below 25% health? Sign me up.

I’m with you — warhorn Guardian is gonna be sweet no matter what the theme .

I think an off-hand sword would befit a more offense-oriented martial specialization better. An off-hand/main-hand dagger would be nice if it was used as a magical focus like the Mesmer’s greatsword. I still think there are better options though, such as a shortbow, warhorn, or maybe even pistols.

KotCR.6024:

Electro.4173:

In terms of new weapons… wow, I dunno. Guardian has all the magic weapons already, and obviously something magical would be the most fitting. Maybe they’ll have added some new weapons to the game by then. But if not, and we absolutely have to choose from the existing weapons… offhand dagger, maybe? I mean, given the complexities of the Tomes I think an offhand is probably the most likely choice, and dagger could perhaps act as a pseudo “writing tool” of sorts, creating inscriptions or something.

That was pretty much my thought too. Guardian already has access to all the traditional “spell-casting” weapons the game offers, so barring any newly introduced weapon types, this makes the most sense for a number of reasons.

Thematically, Dagger as an offensive melee (or even ranged) weapon, doesn’t fit on the class at all, but being used as a channeling focus rather than an actual weapon, similiar to the OH-Dagger on a few other classes, does fit thematically and would make alot of sense.

The alternative would be Axe, but I think if Guardian got Axe, most people would instead rather see it as that extra offensive melee weapon added to the Guardian, rather than a casting weapon, and as a result it wouldn’t fit with the design plan of a Tome-specialization, and would instead be better kept under lock-and-key waiting for some Crusader-esque (or even Dark-Guardian/Knight-esque) specialization instead.

But the only way you are going to get Dagger on Guardian, is if it using it as a magical focus, so it’d make sense to tie it into a Tome specialization.

I wouldn’t like it to be off-hand dagger since that’d be conflicting with focus (kitten it I want my books! =P ) A main-hand dagger as a casting weapon could definitely be very interesting but I’d kind of feel like if we got that then the utility skills that would be most thematically fitting with a main-hand dagger would be corruptions.

Oh man, main-hand dagger and book (focus) could be an awesome witchhunter spec.

Nike.2631:

Rashagar.8349:

Fashion Mage.3712:

- Which new weapon should it allow access to?

Main hand focus, so you can dual-wield books! =D

As cute as that sounds it won’t happen. Main hand and off-hand-only weapons are priced differently at vendor so they’re not gonna let you use an off-hand-only in the main hand.

yes because changing that is the hardest part when creating an elite specialisation

Ok, look. The game has rules. Structure. The fewer rules you break, the more likely your effort is to not get ignored by Devs. Putting a cheaper, more easily acquired off-hand only weapon in the main hand is breaking a rule. One where you could easily color within the lines and have a better chance of getting what you want.

Kits are quite powerful and would need some kind of limiting factor.

They either need a limit of how many can be equipped at once, some kind of cool down between activation or very long CD’s for the abilities they give access to.

I would gladly give up weapon swap for tomes as kits. Hell, I would also wear light armor as a restriction (not because I want to have choice in wearing different armor skins…) to make it more monk like.

And for those saying Focus mainhand is over powered because it costs less to make, I laugh at that. My 10+ ascended weapon boxes from fractals and the trading post with cheap exotics by the handful beg to differ on it honestly mattering for an end game character advancement.

Azoqu.8917:

I would gladly give up weapon swap for tomes as kits. Hell, I would also wear light armor as a restriction (not because I want to have choice in wearing different armor skins…) to make it more monk like.

And for those saying Focus mainhand is over powered because it costs less to make, I laugh at that. My 10+ ascended weapon boxes from fractals and the trading post with cheap exotics by the handful beg to differ on it honestly mattering for an end game character advancement.

This. I’d give up weapon swapping and lose heavy armor for tomes without a thought.

Eh when it comes to what weapons we could possibly get for another spec I highly doubt they would make an off hand into a main hand no matter how much we want them to.

There also are not many other options for what weapons the guardian could get.

Personally if tomes (kits) were to come back I’d love to see the staff get an alternate set of skills that mix long range damage with some support. (ala battle mage meets monk)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Eh when it comes to what weapons we could possibly get for another spec I highly doubt they would make an off hand into a main hand no matter how much we want them to.

There also are not many other options for what weapons the guardian could get.

Personally if tomes (kits) were to come back I’d love to see the staff get an alternate set of skills that mix long range damage with some support. (ala battle mage meets monk)

An off-hand becoming a main-hand isn’t all that much more unlikely than a currently existing weapon set gaining new skills. Not that I would necessarily object to that either.

I posted an idea for this a couple of months ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/SUGGESTED-Elite-Specialization-Kit-Guardian

Tomes will be different from kits because they have cooldowns still, but unlock multiple skills.

Maybe more of an Environmental Weapon like Ele’s conjures.

I think the tomes should be a hybrid between Kits and GW’s Item Spells. So for the duration of holding a tome, you also generate a passive Virtue effect unique to that tome. But when you drop it, you activate the active Virtue effect of that tome. So a 4th Virtue would be available when using a tome.

However carrying the tome around like an Item Spell would mean that the Guardian would be unavailable to fight, so I would link each tome to a Ghost. There is something visually similar to the Ascalonian Ghosts and the attacks of a Guardian. Each of the 6 tomes would be linked to 6 ghosts, one for each of the original GW professions. So you’d have a Healer (Monk), Mage (Elementalist), Enchanter (Mesmer), Cultist (Necromancer), Archer (Ranger) and Captain (Warrior). Also each tome/ghost would visually reference a Henchman from GW.

Upon equipping a tome, a ghost is summoned of which you command and the tome skills are performed from. The ghost isn’t considered an active target, so it has no health. It would be relatively stationary like Ventari’s Tablet.

So the tome skill bar would be like this:

1. Auto Attack: The Ghost fights with its’ own weapon.
   #2: Secondary Attack: Commands the ghost to do a more powerful single target attack.
   #3: Guard: Commands the ghost to be in a passive stance.
   #4: Ground Target attack: This flags the Ghost to a ground targeted location, upon traveling there you can press it again to command it to perform a AoE attack.
   #5: Retreat to Guardian: This flags the Ghost to your location, upon traveling there you can press it again to command do the same AoE as #4.

- Healing Skill:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Monk with no weapon equipped
Carry Effect: Increase Healing Power to those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Activates a powerful AoE heal
#1: Strikes the enemy at close range with fists, will chase after the target if it move towards the Guardian.
#2: Sends out of a 3 bounce orb of light that grants aegis to the Guardian and subsequent allies.
#3: Commands the ghost to cease attacking and generates a healing aura
#4-5: Draws conditions from player & allies in the AoE of the ghost.

- Utility 1:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Mage (Elementalist) with a Staff
Carry Effect: Grants Fury to those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Activates a large AoE burn attack that cleanses conditions
#1: Sends out a fireball of blue flame
#2: Summons a firestorm of blue flame
#3: When the ghost is placed in the AoE of an enemies’ attack, it retaliates by launching a AoE burning attack.
#4-5: Summons up a Ward Against Foes

- Utility 2:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Enchanter (Mesmer) with a Scepter and Chalice Focus
Carry Effect: Reduces duration of Daze and Stun to those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Activates an AoE Stun

- Utility 3:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Cultist (Necromancer) with a Skull Focus
Carry Effect: Drains health of those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Drains a larger portion of health

- Utility 4:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Archer (Ranger) with a short bow
Carry Effect: Increases precision to those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Summons a storm of ghostly arrows that randomly strikes enemies causing vulnerability

- Elite Skill:
Ghost: Summons a Ascalonian Captain (Warrior) with a hammer
Carry Effect: Grants Protection to those near Guardian
Drop Effect: Turns the ghost corporeal and sends it into a frenzy, drawing aggro

This is just a rough idea, I don’t know what to call the spec. But I think the weapon would be a warhorn that launches out a ghost.

What is this new specialization ?
Are we talking about change coming in more than one year ?
Is guardian the only profession already talking about new elite (which is pretty telling) ?

I try my best to pretend that DH is just a bad dream.

Kicast.1459:

Are we talking about change coming in more than one year ?

Possibly. If tomes don’t come back in the next elite spec, then I don’t think I’ll bother hanging on to GW2 for them anymore. :>