Guild Wars 2

Pick one. Drawbacks promote playstyles. Direct upgrades don’t provide anything new to gameplay at all, and GW2 has so little going for it that any change-ups would be ideal. Although, Reaper doesn’t necessarily do anything unique within the scope of this game’s mechanics anyway.

It’s like how Revenant was cool because it had to commit to a single weapon which would strongly define its playstyle and also passively provide a very strong cue to enemies who saw that player approaching. However, everyone cried until one of the only genuinely unique things about the Revenant’s design was taken away from it. With only one weapon, it would have been easy to keep skill cooldowns very low for that class as well in order to prevent them from defaulting to 1 (and sometimes 2) for 10-15 seconds at the relative outset of any engagement.

Bhawb.7408:

Except it would be silly for a Warrior to burn themselves. It makes “sense” for Necromancers and Mallyx, thematically, to have self-harm on their skills, it doesn’t for Berserker, at least not in this sense. Yes corruptions suck, it doesn’t make what he said any less valid, or make the idea of corruptions being self damaging a bad concept.

It does make sense for a Berserker, though. Real life example: Blackbeard.

The man was famous for setting his beard on fire during battle to intimidate people. Sure, it probably hurt, but that was a secondary concern so long as he was scaring the kitten out of people.

Berserkers aren’t really concerned with self-preservation. Hurting yourself to get a bigger advantage? Okay!

I think that the mechanics of the different professions are too different to make such a direct comparison. We get five extra skills when we go into shroud – this is the amount of skills you get on a weapon, and some of them are really potent. The guardian also had quite a lot of special skills, 3, and they got changed.

Warrior gets an alteration of the burst it already has (1 skill/set).

Herald gets 1 more ability.

Chronomancer gets 1 more ability.

Tempest does get 4 new abilities, but they have a really really heavy opportunity cost associated with them.

I much rather getting a brand new shroud rather than getting a new, 6th shroud skill. while the rest remain the same.

Unless engineers get 10 toolbelt skills with their elite spec, I do not feel like our request is valid. More to the point, our reaper traitline is quite powerful in some regards, mainly by the virtue of being focused towards providing us with the ability to be a melee brawler. I believe that if we kept both shrouds, the potency of the traitline would be toned down to account for it.

All in all – do not focus too much on the “f” button and think about overall functionality. The reaper, as far as I am concerned, will be much more fun and satisfying to play if it is its own thing, rather than getting access to the default shroud.

ZDragon.3046:

Our point is with things we are missing and should have as a light armored profession we shouldn’t have to have the idea that Some traits will only proc once per every other cast By doing that its a draw back to a buff because in those traits should proc every time you successfully completed the action, not ever other time. Its like saying well if you play ele “We will reduce the cooldown on swapping to water by 50% but now you only get traits that effect water every other time you swap into it.” :/ there should not be a need to limit necro with every buff they get by putting a drawback on it when other light armored professions don’t have these drawbacks. Increasing the speed of life blast shouldn’t have anything to do with Reaper shroud skills so lets not even include them.

IT.
IS.
A.
BUFF.
PERIOD.

Its called balance. Some traits are just flat out too strong to just immediately double because we’re weaker than other professions in some areas. This is not the place to make us better by doubling everything, that isn’t how balance works. Light armor means exactly nothing, stop acting like that should matter. And it is nothing like your ele comparison, this is an auto attack, this isn’t some weird ICD, and it worked just fine on Reaper’s Shroud.

Are other professions broken? Absolutely, that’s why they should be nerfed, not Necromancer made OP. This understanding is why Necromancer is one of the only communities that seems to understand how balance works. Apparently the idea of it is a flat buff in every single conceivable way is a bit difficult, but that’s literally what any version of this idea being presented is, a flat buff in every way.

Most comments in this thread are unbelievably childish. Only be cause you don’t like the skin of a warhorn you bash it to the ground… I am pretty excited to be honest and it will be the 1st or 2nd (either shiro revenant or tempest) to try out during the beta.

If they did why shouldn’t I choose Reaper? I know our ranged weapons are highly questionable but if and once they’re improved this shouldn’t be a concern.

I find the fun of the elite specs is that you actually have to make the choice to specialize. There should be negatives and positives that come about by making this choice. It is a system like classes branches in other mmos. When there is multiple elite specs for a profession the variety should make the game fun. People need to stop trying to get everything on the base class on elite specs and vice versa. This seems similar to that suggestion where elite spec weapons should be available without the trait line equipped and it takes away from the entire point of the system.

Kidel.2057:

You won’t solve this problem by adding the old shroud. To be honest adding a second shroud would solve nothing.
They just need to buff GS damage by 5-10%.

Robert actually said GS is getting about a 20% buff across the board, so that should help quite a bit. (5-10% really wouldn’t be noticeable on its last-beta iteration…. it was really, really undertuned. 20% is much better)

The BIGGEST thing I’m getting from this whole thread from those who want both RS and DS to be available at the same time it that you guys want to make the Reaper trait line pretty much mandatory. See, if you have access to both shrouds… Why would you settle for just DS? Sure, certain builds wouldn’t use it. But they’d be underpowered compared to the dual shroud builds.

Big thumbs down from me on this idea

I am definitely not a fan of the idea. I would rather keep both shrouds separate and serve different playstyles. Letting reaper remain a melee-only shroud allows the devs to balance accordingly and give us tools in the traitline that take this into consideration.

Currently, when you go for Reaper, you state that you give up on all the ranger power pressure in favour for more powerful melee abilities and tools to better survive close encounters. It might not be of sufficient level according to some people, but this is a matter of tweaking numbers, so we will see how it goes in the long run. I personally enjoyed great success with soldier reaper, though maybe it was because I did not bring a great sword along.

It is true that two of the other elite specializations revealed so far, Tempest and Chronomancer, get straight upgrades to their class mechanics, but I consider these to be bad implementations rather than good ones. I much prefer the design of Reaper and Dragonhunter.

Do not get me wrong, I understand why people believe that giving us access to both shrouds would help the class in terms of performance, and I am aware that it is currently underperforming in both PvE and PvP. I would just like to see the issue addressed in a manner, different from simply letting us use both shrouds. A-net is afraid enough of us when we have just one.

I find it interesting that you say the word “meta” requires context, and then you spend the rest of the time explaining how we should avoid the context meta is typically used in video games, and instead use it in the ways it’s never used.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Mesmer F5 gets added on top of F1 through F4.

Ele overload gets added on top of attunements.

RS should get added on top of DS.

DH should receive similar treatment.

I’d rather see F5 removed, because it allows for insane condi spikes, but that probably won’t happen.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Mesmer F5 gets added on top of F1 through F4.

Ele overload gets added on top of attunements.

RS should get added on top of DS.

DH should receive similar treatment.

The general train of though behind Ele and Mes getting upgrades instead of sidegrades is because they just get offhand weapons while we get a greatsword. Pretty sure Anet even said they they would try to compensate the classes that get offhands.

While interesting…

Why would you not pick Reaper if it added bonus Shroud?

It’s not alternate playstyle, like Elite Specs were announced to be (although we have Chrono), it’s just level up.

And then, after you add another Elite Specialization? Three Shrouds, four Shrouds?

Because what you suggest isn’t any alternative, so both Shrouds would’ve been baseline, I suppose? You wouldn’t annihilate all remaining non-Reaper specs with such change, wouldn’t you…or would you?

Dragonhunter replaces the Guardian’s mechanic too, no?

If this applies to revenant’s copied conditions they might “fix” it.

Ariurotl.3718:

The OP has picked one of the smallest greatswords in GW2 (same basic model as Cobalt) to illustrate the point, which is rather unfair.

Yes, but since he doesn’t have much of a point to begin with I’d imagine he’d want to stack things in his favor as much as possible.

Have you seen Sunrise or Twilight? Or the black lion greatswords? They are HUGE. There is reason to make them even bigger, they are already touching the ground

Westwater.1095:

Completely agree, especially with the design of the hammers in the game. Some of them are absolutely pathetic looking. They admittedly have been getting better in some of the newer sets but they still need to be at least 20%-50% bigger on average.

I like doorswords too, but there are still people in the community who don’t. That’s why there are so many options for aesthetics. Making them all bigger would irritate those who are happy with their skins the way they are.

Instead of making them all bigger, making a wider variety of smaller and bigger swords would be nice.

If everyone liked the same thing we’d all go around wearing the same armor and wielding the same weapons. That’s not the game I want to play.

CETheLucid.3964:

If you want them to go even bigger, play a norn or a charr. Really unfair comparison you’re making VS Tera using one of the smallest great swords in the game.

GW2 has several GS as large or larger than the pictures you posted. That’s the reason people are lashing out at you, not because of your opinion.

You’re being dishonest.

^ This exactly. If you want to compare, fine, then do so. But compare them fairly.

Draelteryx.4752:

To make an example, most of the great swords. they are closer to the size of a one handed sword then a two handed one.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gallery_of_greatswords

No, they’re not.

While I agree that some could be a bit bigger, I don’t think that making them all Tera-sized is a good idea.

Also, choosing one of the smallest greatswords to try and “prove” your point that they’re small isn’t something that the community is going to overlook. If you even glance at that gallery you will see that you are completely incorrect.

japanese/korean MMO always have ridiculous weapon size.

Draelteryx.4752:

To make an example, most of the great swords. they are closer to the size of a one handed sword then a two handed one.

You need glasses.

If you already have glasses, you need a new prescription.

I don’t even…

I’d rather not see yet more doorswords.

There are greatswords in this game? I thought everyone was running around with full traits in surfboard mastery ;j

They are already gargantuan! The fantesyesqe humongousness of them is insane. If anything they need to be reduced in size and bulk. Wow!

OP have you ever actually held or swung a real sword? I know its a fantasy game, but come on – were pushing the extreme limits of that in weapon size already, any bigger and they have to reclassify this game as a superhero genre game.

That cracks me up, because I’d love to see every weapon in the game about half the size they are now.

I have the opposite view – most of the weapons are far too large and cumbersome. I’d absolutely hold it as a downgrade if they were to be made any bigger, and I’m always hoping for more reasonably sized weapons. I want sleek and elegant weaponry, and with all due respect, I do not feel the need to compensate for anything with oversized swords.

To be fair, a pistol is not a long ranged weapon. And its not like thieves are lacking in damage. Stealth burst, stealth burst some more. Blind and stomp. Am I missing anything?

Bandini.6185:

Yes, I miss those events too, and I wonder why they didn’t implement more.

I think this can be answered the same way as questions such as…

Why didn’t they add:

• the emotes that were in Guild Wars 1?
• the <insert class here> from Guild Wars 1?
• build templates from Guild Wars 1?

etc.

The answer to all of these is “Who knows?”

It’s not meta at all, it was just used by the Abjured during their win in Cologne. Metabattle users decided that one team using it to win the WTS means it’s a frequently used build lots of players should use, and thus named it meta.