Guild Wars 2

On reflection, I probably could have positioned what I tried to get at in the OP better.

Even just making going “balls deep” in to a trait line worthwhile would be nice.

I main a hammer guardian when doing dungeons/fractals. I tried a more supportive build focusing on Cleric gear and buffing symbols with traits, so increasing size, during, and adding a heal to them.

This meant I kept symbol of protection up pretty much constantly, and gave my party a bit more leeway to move around and still get it’s benefit, but over-all it just wasn’t worth it over the hybrid trait builds that usually used. The trickle-heal, even when geared totally for healing, didn’t really do anything against the heavy hitting mobs. I even tried stacking Sanctuary and Merciful Intervention, with the outcome still being paltry. Even adding a combo-finisher blast heal or something could make things a bit more interesting.

So it ends up feeling like I am still playing solo, just with party members around me. I grant some boons, lay down protection and Aegis, and DPS along. Then there is the uber-situational stuff like Stand Your Ground or Wall of Reflection which almost feel gimmicky due to the situationalness of them.

So my idea was to give each profession some things to excel at, but not be the only option for that thing. Heck, I’m not saying each prof is the only thing that can do xyz, but at least give them all some variation in strengths and weaknesses, and the current ‘communist’ power spread means for some players just feel like they lack purpose.

I do agree that actual changes in content and encounters could help with this.

So I have seen plenty of “Warr/Guard OP” “Only ever need 1 Ele” “Ranger/Engi are trash” types of posts.

It got me thinking about profession balance, and the perceived lack thereof. What if you could take some aspects of the Holy Trinity, but still create variation between the professions?

I split aspects of the game in to 3 sub sections.

Dealing damage – DPS or Condition
Mitigating damage – Tankiness or Control
Healing damage – Heal or Sustain

To explain the differences between Heal and Sustain, Heals are larger, have cooldowns, and can affect your allies, whereas sustain tends to be smaller, more constant heals just for yourself.

I then re-jigged the stats of each profession to fall in to the above.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/842/ywpbg.jpg

What this now does is give each profession a primary and secondary aspect that they excel at.

Warriors can deal large amount of flat damage, take a good amount of damage, are capable at sustaining and controlling the flow of battle, but little in terms of condition, and are terrible at healing.

Guardians are bottom of the pack DPS-wise, but can tank and heal for England. Conditions give them a bit of extra damage, and their control and sustain are weak.

Engi becomes the medium-armor tank option, but by way of kits/shields/exoskeletons, but is very balanced in all areas, adapting to the situation as needed (kinda like how Druid worked in WoW).

Ranger becomes about heavy control of the battle-field, along with impressive heals.

Thief is like the warrior, but sacrificing tankiness for condition damage.

Ele is the main damage dealer for the light armor crew, can heal well, but takes hits like a wet tissue.

Mes still deals significant damage, but is mainly about control.

Necros condition their way to glory, whilst having the highest sustain out of anyone.

This gives each armor class almost their own mini trinity.

Heavy is great at tanking (makes sense), can dish out damage and heal. Doesn’t offer much in the way of strategy though.

Medium armor gets the most balanced choice, with a tanky option, a damage option, or a support/control/heal option.

Lights are mainly damage focused, but can still offer decent healing and control.

Obviously, for this to work, things would need to be tweaked, like making condition damage more viable in PvE, and working control a bit differently (professions that excel at applying control, should also excel at removing them) making the control aspect desirable for both offensive and defensive purposes.

So rather than your normal trinity set up that pigeon-holes proffs/classes in to roles, this is a middle-ground between it and the current jack of all trades with a single unique mechanic set-up.

Well if you really wanted to, you could have a matrix of mixing armor prefixes to get different effects, like cross-breeding pokemon. No doubt that would be a million times more difficult to balance than the idea I proposed though.

Runes are the suffix though, I’m talking about prefixes :p

Off the back of the Zerk Meta thread, I did some spitballing of ideas on how the prefixes for armor could be made to be more interesting.

My idea is for each prefix to add a flat bonus as per it’s primary stat (so Power primary prefixes at 2% base damage per piece).

3 pieces of the same prefix grant an additional benefit.

Going the whole 6 piece hog grants a unique passive, as well as an RNG effect that both helps and hinders the character. This makes full kit builds more risky, but also more interesting.

Here is a table I dreamt up, and it is in no way balanced, but it gives an idea on what I was thinking. I would really make more builds interesting and effective.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/842/r1qg.jpg

Hi, sounds like a great guild, are you still recruiting?

80 Guardian
30 Ranger
10 Ele

(still relative newbie)

To date, the only F2P game that has gotten it right is Marvel Heroes, but not everyone likes isometric ARPGs. Actually, Smite and LoL are good too, but MOBAs are a whole different kettle of fish.

I’ve not long been playing GW2, but I think the quality for a B2P game is excellent, way more content than a similarily priced normal game would offer.

I played WoW for 2 years on release, and whilst I enjoyed it, because of the sub I felt I HAD to play, rather than play when I wanted too. Once it got to large guild raids, things started to feel more like a second job than a game, and I was paying to work that job.

I think part of the problem is that people burn out on games. I rotate things, currently bouncing between GW2, Marvel Heroes, The Witcher 2 and the DLC for Bioshock Infinite. Recently finished Stick of Truth too. I find doing so keeps you from becoming a bitter, burnt-out husk of a gamer.