Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

Dirame.8521:

Err… actually Vizu is the most Legendary Thief. She backstabbed Shiro.

I have literally no recollection of who she is.

The assasin’s girl in the story line mission when you’re going to see the emperor. Thannakai temple mission.

Despite the fact that ranger can actually have 2 long fear, and a pull with axe #4 for this, let’s say they only do this change in PvE. I think this would be way enough to remove some hate off the ranger’s shoulder.
Another, change could be to move the knockback on an utility skill which would allow more variety to weapon choice for “decap”. (That is, If you really think that ranger absolutely “need” a knock back)

Why not just making it a knock down instead of a knock back. Let’s say :
- Range 1200 : 1 second
- Range 900 : 2 second
- Range 600 : 3 second

This way it’s really used has a defensive skill but the ranger have to move out instead of staying still pewpewing. In fact, rangers pet’s may love this change to since they will gain 3 second free dps without runing forever doing nothing.

Definitely a torch, this would be really cool. It coul be like that, giving thieves mesmer’s like and elementalist’s like ability :

I believe torch would be a defensive weapon with :
- Skill #4 : a Block ending with an explosive aoe blow when blockin a melee attack.
- Skill #5 : “Ash coat” a skill that would grant protection when activate and that would blind and burn attackers.

Thieves would end up with new dual skill as well :
- Dagger #3 : “fiery blossom” Leap forward inflicting burn and physical damage
- Sword #3 : “fiery slash” Deliver a burning slash and roll backward leaving a fiery trail
- Pistol #3 : “Plasma shot” Shooting a plasma bullet that explode when hiting it’s target dealing aoe damage.

As special features, we could imagine that thieves would be able to leave behind them “Ash clone”. These clone would be inactives but would shatter after a short while or when hit, Blinding and burning foes in area. Ash clone would appear each time the treasure hunter use a movement skills.

Bran.7425:

Soilder.3607:

This change wasn’t made for PvP. This change was made for PvE teams that can stack near perma stab and trivialize lots of content..

Not so sure of that with all the talk of counter play. Currently Stability is the god-boon in any mode. That and could anyone see the revenants gaining stability (current version) on dodge. As it is the other profession like to complain about Companion’s Defense.

It’s hard to see how you came up with Stability being “god-boon” in PvE. In PvE, if you don’t dodge you’re dead (most of the time). The changes on stability won’t really affect PvE (except maybe for people on modniir world boss).
On the other hand stability will become a really strategic boon in wvw. Which will male the fights… shorter in most of the case and buff even more the populated server.
Lastly, in PvP, this kind of change will probably be somewhat balanced.

I’didn’t looked at all the answers but yesterday was warrior/guardian daily. It doesn’t really surprise me that you encountered a lot of them.

I would also like to react on this false assumption that necromancer don’t have competitive damage. This is wrong!
Necro have good damage and can stack multiple sources of damage. Damage were never why necro are in a bad spot in PvE. This is a false assumption that people need to sort out of their head. Use dagger/wh (auto attack and locust swarm) add all minion (for example and you out damage almost every classes). The fact is that it’s a bad setup for group play. Necro lack the ability to be group friendly, Necro is stuck with really bad support ability that are out of place in the game in it’s actual form but by no mean they lack damage.

Short answer : classes don’t have “roles” in this game

Long answer : Depending on how you build yourself through gear and trait, you will be able to fill absolutely any kind of role with all the classes. On the other hand, all classes have weakness and strenght in their ability to fill these roles. For example, necromancers lack the abilitie to buff allies and most of the support capacity that he have been granted with are a variety of small heals. While it’s appealing when you come from another game, you quickly understand that this kind of support is underwhelming in GW2 because in this game you rely more on boons than on heals.

Since launch ele have been through a lot of phase.

- At first people though of staying in 1 attunement.
- Then they understood that swaping attunement is probably the most important thing to do with ele. (at this point we end up with unkillable elementalist that needed a well deserved nerf to mobility. Around the same time they decided to add a limited number of targets on aoe)
- After some struggle people end up understanding the true value of boons and combo (Good thing that elementalist is the best at that)
- a little while after, they buffed the staff (which don’t have small damage value at all especially if you undestand that you can stack different source of damage : AA + meteor shower + lava font = more damage than any other classes. Good thing that at this moment people were already exploiting the fiery greatsword).
- And we end it now. FGS has been nerfed (it was destroying PvE content). Elementalist have still very interesting tools (conjure weapon, easy access to aura, uber combo abilities and weapon that deal nice damage depending on how you build.)

So, does it improved over the years? Yes. It improve a lot. It improve through nerf and buff as well as through our understanding of how to build, overcome pve mechanism and use combo mechanisms.

To be honest, since more than a year, Elementalist are number one in PvE. Even if for a long time peoples were looking only for warrior because warrior have better passive abilities to survive a tough fight. Now that most people know the fights mechanism (and that warrior’s dps had been tone down) elementalists are PvE kings (and that’s whether they play staff or dagger or whatever).

Roe.3679:

ronpierce.2760:

I just wanted to say. One time; I suggested a trait for necromancer that said “Break stuns when entering Death Shroud”. And everyone jumped ALL over me with how broken OP it’d be. But I don’t see how it’s any more OP than stun breaking with legend swap. O.o

Well I only saw one stun break out of all their bar skills and it was their elite. So it still stands at this point. Plus they can’t just flash their legends like we can flash DS. If they use it to stunbreak it is a more significant choice.

Just because I want everybody to jump out of their skin, I’ll say it :

“On the POI it appeared that there weren’t any coold down on legend swap.”

Even DS have a cool down. I thought for myself : “wtf no cool down on legend swap? really? and it proc signet? Are they serious?” This demo is almost like an april fool prank.
On the character, there were shaman stat armor, knight trinket and cele weapon → absolutely no damage setup. It’s like they bet a diner for trying to be efficient with this setup or they they thought
- “let have a balance setup healing/condi, let gear in shaman!”
- “but, we gota show the power hammer…”
- “Oh… why not some knight trinket?”
- “yeah good idea!”

at a moment on the POI you can look at the stats he got. He got 768 Healing power and almost the same goes for condition damage from it’s gear/trait. We also saw that he had emerald jewels (knight stats) and celestial weapon. Also he had a pretty high HP for a medium HP classe.

This can only mean that he was wearing shaman gear on it’s toon (Vit/healing power/condition damage).

All together it was a pretty terrible setup if they wanted to show amazing dps. It was like hiting with absolutely no firepower…

ok… I was wrong… Revenant indeed gain all we could never dream to have…
More then that… Revenant actually have trait that fit their traitline!!! It’s… It’s… It must be another game classe…

I think the next step for them will be to describe the druid specialization. This is the specialization for which we have the most informations atm. It’s logical that it will be their next annoucement.

Once they will give us a glance at a first specialization, we will be able to speculate on how other specialization will be done (a bit more accurately).

But overall, I’m really curious at what the elementalist will get. It’s really a profession that i feel hard to come up with specializations idea (except with specializations pigeonholed in an attunement that would just destroy the “elementlist’s feel”)

It’s interesting to see that you came up with idea that are somewhat similar to mine. In another thread, I tried to expect how Specializations could end up. I restricted myself to the fact that these specializations would be tied to a weapon (if the weapon is unequiped or switched Specialization effects disapear) and that they would keep the current traits and utility. While maintaining these rules I still allowed me to slightly modify current mechanisms. All in all, I came up with this for mesmers :

1- the Specialization that would look like your Illusion mancer
Mesmer :
Specialization name : Dreamer
Weapon : shield

Granted what we saw on the video when they anounced the XPAC, we can expect :
- an aoe skill (with probably slow/chill and a damaging condition)
- if we follow weapon logic, we can expect a new fantasm on the other skill.

Tied to this, i think we could imagine that illusion linger while wielding the shield. This could bring some love to some traits and mesmer’s 2 fantasms utilities. The shield would act like a mirror allowing the mesmer to cast illusion on him.

2- the specialization that would look like Phantasmal stance (except that i keep mesmer reliance on illusion)
Mesmer
Specialization name : Singer
weapon : Warhorn

While using warhorn, the singer can’t use any phantasm (this is a phantasmless weapon) but each time the singer charge a mantra, it’s clones will resonate dealing [small to medium value] aoe damage. And each time the singer consume one mantra charge, the clones will inflict around then a condition (cripple, bleed or vulnerability).

- WH #4 : would be a blast finisher as well as an aoe fear.
- WH #5 : would be a channeled dealing damage and inflicting confusion to nearby foe.

I think with the restrictions I set up, the 2 of these specialization would still be balanced and would keep the “mesmer” theme alive.

Well people tend to be pessimistic when it come to a once shiny profession like warrior. But the real issue is that people tend to stick to some builds that have been proven to be strong and don’t try anything else. So if i ’ve had to answer your question :

Can warrior still do all of this effectively or should i look elsewhere?

I’ll say, Yes they can. Should you look elsewhere? I think you got, with guards a good experience on how to build your toon, you won’t have access to the shiny focus burst but you can definitely do something that hit hard, have a good survivability and a good mobility.

I think that necromancer is the profession, with warrior, that have an in build mechanic which could make it a candidate for some upkeep skills. That’s a good point, ain’kitten

Now, does revenant get all we’ve always wanted? I don’t think so. They get a bunch of things that are Necromancer’s like, sure, but they do as well get things that’s related to other profession and that fit the fact that they can channel ancient legend (with different base professions).

I think it will be more that the revenant will have a “taste” of each profession depending on it’s legend “attunement”. Like Mallyx is necromancer’s like as well as Jalis seem guardian like.

From the look of it, the revenant right now feel balanced. Absolutely not overpowered but with some different mechanic that could be refreshing in the current game. Condition wise, it feel like the revenant will struggle to apply large amount of them even while in mallyx attunement but they will be good at managing them. And mallyx elite definitely feel like Dagger #4 with a longer CD (because elite have loooooong CD).

All in all, this new profession don’t really hype me (maybe when I will play it I’ll fall in love with it but it doesn’t feel really appealing at the moment) and other classes specializations haven’t been enlighten right now, there are still tons of things to look for.

BrunoBRS.5178:

considering you won’t gain points from leveling up past 80 anymore, yeah, they’ll be pretty useful.

That!

In fact considering they will be the only way to gain skill point they won’t become “useless”, they will become “needed”. You need skill point for things like :
- Skills (there will be new skills to unlock so… yes)
- Craft siege weapon
- Craft legendary
- Craft mystic forge skins
- Upgrade material
… etc.

How easily you get 25 might stack, i’d say it depend on your teammate. But in coordinate group play it’s probably pretty easy. These “2 stacks over the course of 34-39 seconds” are the potential damage. We know that these stacks have a high chance to be removed but this doesn’t change their potential damage. You can’t say that a thing is negligible by assuming it will be cleansed.

Anyway, if it’s negligible, why are you so hype to keep it? You should say : “Yeah, why not after all this does like nothing at all. Let’s sacrifice that for the sake of being wanted in parties!”. But instead you are fighting to keep it while almost saying it’s garbage. You don’t want to lose anything, you want more, more and more. Shared might stacks, bleeds stacks on you foes, more bleeds stack to transfer on your foe. Look at this, this is all for the sake of buffing a condimancer that don’t need any buff (No more buff to condimancer, it will end up by nerf and nerf and nerf again for the sake of keeping one buff alive. I’m pointing at what happened with dumbfire which ended with tons of reduced condi duration on necromancer’s weapon skills and at last what it is right now).

for your last question, I was talking about selfbleeds. And it’s bad because there are mechanisms that may grant you damage buff while hp above 90% (scholar rune, hello!) meaning that using it negate this damage buff. Yeah that would be pretty dumb. By the way from the look of it, you never played a powermancer with limited condiremoval, even 2 bleed stack are pretty worrying with this kind of setup.

Today, I’m guessing what could have been an alternate specialization of mesmer.

Mesmer
Specialization name : Singer
weapon : Warhorn

While using warhorn, the singer can’t use any phantasm (this is a phantasmless weapon) but each time the singer charge a mantra, it’s clones will throb dealing [small value] aoe damage. And each time the singer consume one mantra charge, the clones will inflict around then a condition (cripple, bleed or vulnerability).

- WH #4 : would be a blast finisher as well as an aoe fear.
- WH #5 : would be a channeled dealing damage and inflicting confusion to nearby foe.

I think this could be a pretty fun specialization.

RashanDale.3609:

Dadnir.5038:

The damage part of BiP is a really long lasting bleed on foe. Pretty powerfull thing in fact. And I think it’s mostly why this skill is held back with a long cool down and restrain to selfbuff.

in the end it’s just 2 stacks of bleed and it probably wont stay nearly as long on an enemy in most cases, so i dont think that this should really be an issue or a reason not to buff the skill.

And 2 bleeds are noticeable with 25 might stack especially if you have to waste time removing them/ asking your teammate to remove them. Any enhancement need to make the necromancer more reliable in where he is weak : group play.

if youre specced into condition maybe. as a powermancer it’s just a bit over 2k. i think if you buff the benefits of the skill significantly, then it’s justified to increase that a bit. But you may be right and 4 or 5 stacks with the same duration is too much.

I’m sorry, don’t get me wrong, I’m looking at the skill while trying to keep a certain balance. It’s just that if you were looking at it like the dev would look at it this skill, in pvp, it is potentially :

- Berserker amulet: 1.2k direct damage and 6.5k condition damage.

- Carion amulet : 10k condition damage and 300 direct damage.

This is by no mean negligible. Of course if they could give me party support from this skill without removing the damage part I’d buy it. But I’m realist and I know that this much damage, even if it’s potentially, is what held back any changes.
That’s also why I say that I’d be willing to sacrifice//trad this skill’s damage for a change that would make this skill more party friendly.

Palador.2170:

Maybe they’ll replace Death Shroud with team friendly F1-F4 skills that are fueled by the Death Shroud “Life Bar”?

Maybe but necromancer would be totally defenseless and most of the existent traits would become useless.

The damage part of BiP is a really long lasting bleed on foe. Pretty powerfull thing in fact. And I think it’s mostly why this skill is held back with a long cool down and restrain to selfbuff.

What I’m saying is that it would be a good trade off to lose this long lasting bleed for the sake of gaining some party buff which would actually make up a bit for what necromancers lack to be attractive in group play.

And 2 bleeds are noticeable with 25 might stack especially if you have to waste time removing them/ asking your teammate to remove them. Any enhancement need to make the necromancer more reliable in where he is weak : group play.

Obtena.7952:

Dadnir.5038:

In fact I came up with the same conclusion as the OP. In SW condition build are indeed pretty valuable since there are mobs very resilient but with low HP.

I’m not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. This game doesn’t follow the “most damage = loot rights” rule; GW2 follows enough damage = loot rights. Condition damage is the worst strategy in that environment because its damage is spread out over time and requires some ‘building’ to apply them. If you want to tag and get loot rights in trashy mob PVE environments, you need to be FAST and apply your bursts, preferably AOE ones, ASAP. Necro does that really well.

You know… there are people that play for fun not for loots. In most of silverwaste event mobs don’t loot, all that leave to you is looking for the best way to be in control of your fight. The build is not here for curse shore events it’s here for silverwaste and maybe expansion maps.

But I also agree that perplexity may be a waste of money. It’s just that ATM there is plenty of room for confusion to be apply on mobs. Beside confusion is pretty OP against husk.

Mostly what bhawd said, except for ‘Spectral attunement’ Trait. While I would be extatic to see whitering precision thrown out of it’s position as a GM trait, I think your idea fit more in a defensive traitline then is the curse one.

Also, nothing here would change necromancer’s place in PvE.

- For blood is power I think that it’s the damage part that is crippling this skill. Removing the bleed stacks inflicted on foe could open up this skill to becoming a party wide buff or a personal buff with at least a decent cool down.

- Corrosive Poison Cloud would still be a Poison field inducing issue with might stacking.

- Spectral armor and Epidemic are already strong, their design just don’t fit PvE content.

Right now, I’d like to bet on HoT and specialization to make necromancer more attractive.

In fact I came up with the same conclusion as the OP. In SW condition build are indeed pretty valuable since there are mobs very resilient but with low HP.

While you chose to use your necromancer, I chose my mesmer and I’ve gone on the confusion/torment path that is pretty effective I’ve seen some 10k-11k confusion damage pop on my screen.

I don’t use Perplexity runes (to espensives) but I think the necromancer have a better use for them in SW because necromancer have some good access to cripple/chill. It’s not something that everyone see but, If you cripple (I’m pretty sure that chilling work to, It worked when i did it with my elementalist) those kitten charging beasts, it interrupt the charge, procing an interrupt (though I’m not sur if you have to cripple it before it charge).

An heavy cripple/chill build may be very valuable to make perplexity runes shine in SW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBLhZYkjmub7th/2E4CC0C0KanGRVcA-ThyAABDcEA6TfQlKB74QAYtyPAOBAu/AAyU9nfWcY69AAA-e

I purposedly chose rampager because it’s cheap elite skill can be golem or plague, both are fine I leave the last utility on personal choice, WoD may be taken here with the “chilling darkness” trait.

Derigar.7810:

So it has been almost confirmed that the Necromancer will be able to wield a Greatsword. This gave me food for thought when it came to naming the specialisation and the new ability this would allow.

My idea is that, whilst wielding a Greatsword, the Necromancer’s light armor will temporarily gain Heavy armor stats, making him, effectively, a real death KNIGHT. This would give the Necromancer a truly tank-y specialisation, whilst still allowing for DPS or other roles if it would change weapons.

What would you find about a specialisation like this?

I don’t want to hurt you but if necromancer gain a bit more armor stat with it’s specialization, nobody will ever use it.

Tankiness ain’t an issue for necromancers. There are plenty of tanky build that are totally perfect to suck up average damage. For example :
- Spectral build 04343 (With this you can go in and out of an ennemy zerg at will)
- Minion build 40440 (the 2 last point can be spend in whatever traitline you want. The only important feature being vampiric master that give you one hell of a sustain)

The real issue is that this game rely a lot on some mechanism that the necromancer lack : boon sharing, block, dodge and even invulnerability. To be blunt Necromancer don’t buff other which make him a selfish character. Necromancer have unreliable combo finisher and it’s combo field doesn’t contribute in group fight (worst, these combo field are an hindrance for some of the PvE content). And lastly, Necromancer can’t survive against one hit ko mechanism due to the fact that they can only take damage on health pools that are connected. (I’m not including movement skill because, while they are indeed valuable, I don’t think they would help the necromancer to a valuable asset for group content. This would just enhance necromancer’s selfishness)

So, a specialization that give at least one of the thing that necromancer lack would be valuable. But a specialization which would grant a tiny armor boost wouldn’t be valuable at all. I think… there would even be people that would delete their necromancer if dev were doing that. They would delete it, saying on forum : “It’s useless devs even troll us with specialization while other profession gain amazing feature”

What i wanted to say is that people will still argue in pvp, that warrior with a possibility of 3-4 burst skills on equiped weapon will gain way to much condition removal out of “cleansing ire”.

That’s also why, in my guesses, I build the changes around a single weapon and remove the features when not actually wielding this weapon. I also keep every traits and trait’s line as they are right now to avoid going out of the current referencial. I really think it would be easier for dev to balance like this. Also, modifiying a whole traitline for a specialization could create more issue when there will be more specializations for each classes.

I may be totally wrong in the way I see things and you may be totally right. But I think this aspect is also a part of the game of guess and clues.

Nice shot!
Personnally i do think that 2 burst skill on a weapon set would be to much but you’ve set this perfetly. Like i said everythink is possible and except dev nobody may be sure of it’s theory.

Let’s guess with thief this time. What would happen if thieves get Torch.

Thieves
Specialization name : Treasure hunter
Weapon : Torch

I believe torch would be a defensive weapon with :
- Skill #4 : a Block ending with an explosive aoe blow when blockin a melee attack.
- Skill #5 : “Ash coat” a skill that would grant protection when activate and that would blind and burn attackers.

Thieves would end up with new dual skill as well :
- Dagger #3 : “fiery blossom” Leap forward inflicting burn and physical damage
- Sword #3 : “fiery slash” Deliver a burning slash and roll backward leaving a fiery trail
- Pistol #3 : “Plasma shot” Shooting a plasma bullet that explode when hiting it’s target dealing aoe damage.

As special features, we could imagine that thieves would be able to leave behind them “Ash clone”. These clone would be inactives but would shatter after a short while or when hit, Blinding and burning foes in area. Ash clone would appear each time the treasure hunter use a movement skills.

Oh dang! Forget it I took a look at the actives skills of the guardian’s spirit weapon and the spirit hammer skill would be totally overpowered. Like one shoting ele and thieves on a 12 seconds cool down.

Who need to be fast in PvE? I don’t see the lack of moving speed as an issue in “PvE” except perhaps for breaking records on dungeon runs. Where mesmers and guardians miss this moving speed would be more on the WvW side of the game where you actually need to travel fast from point to point.

By the way, let’s say that the special feature that shield grant to mesmer is an ability to keep illusions with him while out of combat. We could say that, by looking into the reflection of it’s shield, the mesmer is able to cast illusion on himself giving him illusion minion without any enemy. Granted how things are right now this would give the mesmer a the choice beetwen a bunch of clone that would be almost harmless, the 2 utility fantasms and the fantasm that could be one of the shield skill. By the look of it, there wouldn’t be anything imbalanced in this. What’s interesting is that it would make “compounding celerity” a very interesting trait while right now he is almost useless. (don’t forget that by the rules that i set, when unequiping the shield or changing weapon, every features of the shield would disapear, which would mean that illusion would shatter and disapear).

Knighthonor.4061:

Warrior + Scepter == VOID KNIGHT

Anti-Magical fighter the Void Knight, gain energy from the use of magic around him to devastate those that wield magic for the wrong reasons.

Void Knight’s Weapon List:
*Scepter -Specialization Weapon
*Shield – Parent weapon
*Off Hand Mace – Parent weapon
*Off Hand Axe – Parent weapon
*Off Hand Sword – Parent Weapon

The Void Knight Mechanics:

Void Knights generate Magical Energy, by draining enemies. Void Knights have a debuff called “Void Might” that applies to enemies and stacks in effect. Void Mights can be consumed for powerful attacks and enhances other skills as well.

I appreciate the fact that you tag along with me for the scepter and I’m glad that you try to tag along wth the goal of the thread to. I’d just say that you are a bit off limit by creating a new mechanism, “void might”, that have little to no synergy with existing warrior traits. But, everything is possible .

I would also like to catch up with the guardian’s bow idea. It’s fine to open up to a weapon but what kind of feature do you add to make it worse a specialization. If it were me I’d probably guess things like that :

Guardian
Specialization name : Blessed arrow
Weapon : Longbow

With the bow, guardian’s now have access to an average attack speed long range weapon. The guardian’s bow would be mostly a longbow with single target’s hybrid damage skills like :
- “lightning arrow” an arrow that would inflict vulnerability for a short duration (also it would be the Auto Attack)
- “barbed arrow” an arrow that would bleed when it hit
- “maiming arrow” an arrow that would immobilize it’s foe
- “blazing arrow” (also a burning skill might be a bit redoundant in a guardian build…)
- “disrupting arrow” an arrow that would inflict confusion.
The main feature with this guardian could be a special synergy with guardian’s spirit weapons losing the minion’s aspect of these skills by wielding them in the bow and allowing the bow user to use their active skill from afar. Guardian’s would gain from this some pretty offensives skill on short cool down to support an aggressive gameplay.

I could try to do the same for warrior pistol but ATM it doesn’t make my imagination goes wild.

Well, how should i say that, since, what you essentially see is what my guess are while this thread is less a showcase of my guesses but a mean for everyone to actually use their brain and try to create something?

Should I shout “With this thread I’m asking you to create something, use your imagination. I’m not asking you to critic every puny things other people will write.”

Now on the other hand, I’m looking at specialization like I would look at evolution. If a warrior gain nothing from specialization, he does not evolve. Staying in the boundaries of brute strengh grant absolutely nothing to the warrior profession.

More then any other classes the warrior need to be open minded when it come to specialization because we know that more specializations will come and we also know that the warrior is the classe that already master the most weapons. Which mean that it’s choices are limited. Restraining this choices would just hurt warrior and let him die slowly, outclassed by other professions that actually follow the stream instead of opposing it.

Look at the necromancer. By the same logic, it would be totally absurd to give a greatsword (long lump of steel, great symbole of pure strengh) to them. By your same logic it’s an absolute absurdity. But, Necromancer will step forward and make this weapon their own. They will use it in their own way like, I think, warrior may be able to use a scepter it’s own way. Even if it mean that all their effort have to be gathered just to summon one dark field out of the scepter. If this mean they can stear up some special strengh out of it, then that mean they can evolve and keep their own in front of the other classes.

By the way, by the look of it (And i’ve played more then enogh to GW and GW2) all actual profession are a huge mix between ancient classes of GW. To be honest, mesmers are more “spirit” ritualists with moving spirits then GW’s mesmers. You can see some monk/ritualist/paragon in every guardian. Our actual profession are an evolution of GW ancient classes. They are the product of evolution. Allow specializations to be as well a product of evolution.

NB.: While i agree that pistol could be a weapon used in a specialization. I also want to say that Rytlock is a pretty bad example because as a charr he got access to a skill that use a pistol (Racial skill : “Hidden pistol”) which could explain the artwork in it’s whole by itself.

While I higly appreciate your concerns regarding warrior I would have liked you to stretch your mind to imagine how, this weapon would be able to be at the core of a specialization. What feature would make this weapon so unique that it’s worse a specialization.
The game of this thread is this, stretch your mind to imagine how a new weapon can give birth to a specialization while staying on the boundaries of the rules set.

My guess with the scepter for the warrior is a bit extrem but still stay in these boundaries. In fact the scepter would be an ovni for the warrior which make things easy to create a whole specialization around it.
The important point of this scepter specialization is the darkfield given by the scepter. It give to the warrior that is a master at combo finisher a new combo field that may be of use. Dark field essentially giving life leeching ability this would become like a Warrior/necromancer from the old GW.

Mesmer :
Specialization name : ??
Weapon : shield

Necromancer :
Specialization name : ??
Weapon : Greatsword

Warrior :
Specialisation name : ??
Weapon : ??

It’s mostly all we got ATM, it’s your turn to make your imagination going wild

I’ve already guessed some thing in other thread. That was mainly wishes that were tied by another rules. The fact is that we got some informations but not enough which is perfectly fine for a huge guessing game. I hope that people will understand that this thread is this, a guessing game. If it’s fine with you, just play along with the rules of this thread. If you’re not fine with it… well critisism are fine but probably pointless

First of all, I’ll set some rules around these specializations.

1- They are tied to 1 weapon.
2- They can alter existing mechanic or use them but not change them.
3- while not wielding the specialization weapon, all classes are basically the basic classes we all know.

What we already got :

Ranger :
Specialization name : Druid
Weapon : staff

Engineer :
Specialization name : ??
Weapon : Hammer

Did all chapter of LS2 with all classes
Ele is fine granted you use a staff. There are some fight where you don’t want to mele things. You just need enough dps.

You know… glass canon ain’t viable in zerg or raid, thief is fine.

anduriell.6280:

Yes, it is broken when it depends on when the arrow hits or not and how many targets. So you use a trait or another skill is executing and LB#3 doesn’t work.

The definition of broken skill.

Uh… you know, by your definition, every skills are broken if your target dodge or block or whatever.

No, this skill is viable and like LB#4 it’s a skill that should be viewed as an utility. What’s broken are player that smash their keybord without thinking. Don’t get me wrong LB#3 used as an utility is really good and interesting, same for LB#4 but people need to think of what they do and what they are doing when they use these skill.

For LB#3 there are a lot of way to break the stealth it grant you, be it an attack skill that hit or a trap that trigger. Also the reveal debuff can prevent you from gaining stealth.

For LB#4 it’s the same. If you use it while playing solo, it’s fine, it’s your choice to cut your pet dps for your own safety. If you use it while in a group content you better use it wisely because, it’s not just your pet dps that you cut, it’s the dps of all the players that play with you.

There is another way to deal with Sw/D thieves.

Sw/D is a pure power spec, so most of their damage come from crits. Not long ago someone post a condi signet build (S/F) which would probably work very well on this kind of thief.
- Just by using “stone heart” (earth XIII) you negate 2/3 of a power creep damage
- On the other hand you deal condition damage which are pretty interesting against thieves that have low base hp and few way to deal with condition.
- This kind of build ain’t boon starving so you won’t be reliant on a regen or a protection to survive. On the other hand, the thief will nothing to steal.
- Lastly, this build is less active so you lose a bit of the “elementalist fun”

Like said above thieves are naturally weak to condi burst (low health pool) and aoe (you can’t negate an aoe with a blind). 2 things that this ranger exel at.
And btw, the build that this ranger use is a cheesy build that could wreck any player that don’t know what they are facing.

PS.: Don’t worry this runeset ain’t available in spvp and it’s useless in pve. You’ll only see this in wvw.

First thing is that i don’t think specializations will force your classe to a designed “rôle”. Which mean that Anet won’t throw us (out of nowhere) a trinity with specializations.
Actually, every classes can fill every role of the so called trinity, it’s just a matter of Build.

Now, in my opinion, druids with staves will most likely have more access to controles skills. Probably a mix beetween ele water attunement staff and ele earth attunement staff to fit the picture of a druid that we got from GW1 profecy.

As for the “meta” whatever they do, they won’t destroy pvp balance by buffing defensives attribute. It’s more likely that they will add more complexity in the fight designed instead of forcing player to look for a “healer”. The easier step here would be to force player to try to enhance their controle on rampaging mobs instead of cornering them. (For example, i’m sure nobody would want to zerk corner some of the nasty mordrem they gave us recently. Fixing it in a place before we can hurt him is obviously a better solution.)

By the way, if I’m trying to use the same logic I used on necromancer for it’s specialization, Druid could become something like that :

New mechanism :
While in druid specialization, player can’t switch pet. Now F4 force your pet in passive mode following you while granting you it’s power.
depending on how deeply you ’re trait you will have a choice for different effect (which you can obtain only if your pet is alive). You can use 3 points to obtain these effect :

Marksmanship :
1 point : gain 15% of your pet’s power.
2 point : opening strike now also cripple for [duration]
3 point : You can use F2 at 1200 range. (ranger actually performing the attack not the pet)

Skirmishing :
1 point : gain 15% of your pet’s precision.
2 point : gain 10% movement speed.
3 point : switching weapon grant you aegis. (yes this traitline is all about switching weapon )

Wilderness survival :
1 point : gain 15% of you pet’s toughness.
2 point : Add 2 stack of torment for [duration] on F2 use.
3 point : shouts work on you.

Nature magic :
1 point : gain 15% of your pet’s vitality.
2 point : increase F2 boon duration by 20%
3 point : your pet become the owner of your spirit utility. You now only have access to spirit active effect that occur around your pet. Reduce CD on spirit active effect by 20%.

Sorel.4870:

As stated above, you can’t really reach 300% magic find playing normally. You have to think about new players! How unfair would it be to have TP prices set by veterans who have 600% MF when these new players only have like 50%? Inflation in this game is already quite bad as it is, thanks to grinders (but that’s a problem in every MMO I guess).

You know, i’m playing dily, without “rushing” magic find. Just salvaging my loots and sometime salvaging ecto to upgrade T5 at the mystic toilets. I didn’t take advantage of events like Halloween and hivernel that could have given me tons of luck. But I’m still reaching already 266%.
So, Yeah i could understand the concern of the op.

NB.: Despite reaching 266% base magic find I don’t really see any difference in my drop rate. Perhaps i loot more white loot. But still nothing exotics or more “goldy”. 300% of almost 0% is almost nothing and i don’t think 600% of 0% will be better.
By the way someone tell me that you can still use luck essence when you are at 300% it’s just that it won’t raise the %age.

In fact, looking at the fact that necromancer starve for any kind of combo finisher, a spin would be more then welcome… Especially because whirlwind finshers are the one that synergize the best with our kitten dark field…

Thought I’d add my wish on the wishlist instead of critizing.

First of all, this assume that the specialization won’t be tied to one and only weapon (that’s my bigest fear here). Second, for specialization, I assume that with mastery point we can enhance the new mechanism.

Class mechanism :
The specialization will replace death shroud on F1 by a mechanism that pour LF in our weapon, giving it an “aura” for the duration of the LF decay. We will then have 4 way to develop this aura depending on how we’ve build our basic traits. We will be able to spend up to 3 point on these aura depending on how we build in the base build.
- aura of pain
- corrupted aura
- aura of the undying
- Bloody aura
Let’s say we’ve got someone who play a 4-2-1-6-1 build. He got 3 points to spend. he will be able to spend up to 2 point on aura of pain, up to 1 point in corrupted aura, 0 point in aura of the undying or 3 point in bloody aura. He can choose to to mix this point or go to a full spec aura.
For exemple :
Aura of pain
1 point : attack ignore 10% of enemy armor
2 point : add [value] damage each time you hit a foe
3 point : share weapon aura with ally in [radius]

Corrupted aura
1 point : each hit apply 2s torment
2 point :
3 point : grant you and party member in [area] +[value] condition damage

Aura of the undying
1 point : grant 50% more endurance regeneration
2 point : reduce damage taken by 10%
3 point : reduce condition duration on you by 10%

Bloody aura
1 point : add a small regeneration effect (I think that Ele number would be fine)
2 point : share the regeneration to up to 5 allies in radius
3 point : share healing granted from leeching effect gained from the blood magic trait line.

Utility
well : “well of ruin” foe in the area trip for each tick. Short duration long CD (like well of darkness for exemple
corruption : “Soul barb” does damage for each enchantment on your foe. Self cripple
spectral : “Shelter” channeling skill. Prevent player in a X radius to lose more then 10% of their HP from a single attack.
minion : “Animated dead ent” create a stationary minion that root foes periodically. (summon bone wall could be pretty good to)
Signet : “signet of lost soul” passive = grant ferocity. Active = Can only be used while health pool under 30%, recharge your 2 other utility CD.

Elite
Order of apostasy : Enchants all party members (duration). These party members remove one enchantment when they deal physical damage.

Traits
I think one trait per trait line will be already a lot. Assuming that all trait using the “swap to deathshroud mechanism” will no become “when you use your specialisation mechanism…”
other then that I clearly see coming a GS trait with a 20% CD reduction.

greatsword
1 – Auto attack will be pretty much the same as ranger GS auto except that the last stike won’t be a dodge but a 1s chill.
2 – “Fetid ground” necromancer will plant it’s GS in the ground rooting him for the time of a channeled skill that will probably do damage at the level of guardin GS2 (without projectiles but with a poison effect)
3 – here I would like something that grant us a bit of movment
4 – should be a defensive skill

Like Vukorep said, there is an easy solution to jormag fear that the game actually provide to us.

Take a charzooka, look at jormag’s claw obvious animation and use fire shield whenever he fear. The trick here is to cancel the shield before it end (usually, just after you see people feared). This will make the skill with a really short cool down.

NB.: Save the fire shield for the fear everything else should be dodged (and don’t worry even with a necro you should have more then enough endurance to dodge every non fear attack).

but… this is not craft, this is said to be a reward in collections. They never said we will be able to “craft” precursor.

“The Mastery System

We’re reimagining progression with our new Mastery system. Explore new training opportunities for your character beyond level 80 and master abilities like hang gliding in the jungle, tearing the bark off of heavily armored Mordrem, or building new collections that earn precursors to a legendary weapon."

Totally against OP.

Necromancer’s need utility and traits that actually help the necro’s party in their fight. So, if we got utility, it’d better something usefull instead of a root, a life leeching and a personal damage modifier.

If we can expect something like marjory with blade enchanted with soul, We’d better be able to buff our companion’s weapon to. Although… “Price of failure” would NEVER make it to release, understand that confusion would be a bit to much of an addition to the necromancer (even if we already have access to it with combo). We’d better have a bit more access to torment than confusion.

Let’s imagine that Necromancer gain the specialisation “communer” from the communing attribute from ritualist (GW1). By that they gain access to some weapon spells like :
Sundering weapon : For X s allies attack ignore 10% ennemy armor
Shelter : channeling skill. Prevent player in a X radius to lose more then 10% of their HP from a single attack.
Armor of unfeeling : you are immune against critical damage for [duration]. Gain protection for [duration].

Edit : Corrected Sundering weapon I forgot the 10% thingy.

Is their a meaning for unholy sanctuary here? I mean, this is a pretty bad trait that suck 1 condition on 1 person every 3 second why even bothering taking it? I mean, your whole party can die from condition even if you got this trait this is not like it will help anyone in your party.

Like drarnor said, swaping Withering Precision for weakening shroud would be better. Although it depend on whether mobs will have boons or not but ATM, WoP feel pretty useless in your build, you better take WoS.

Actually, it’s been a while but nothing really change to destroy it, a well build with vampiric ritual give a whole lot more sustain/damage then SoV will ever do.

Also, I don’t really understand the choice behind hoelbrack runes, if it’s theoric don’t mind the price, and go for strengh runes. Also a true vampiric build would go for runes of vampirism whether it’s a good choice or not

I’d say that golem have it’s use but not in a power dps spec. Like said, lich is situational. I’s also say that axe 2 ain’t really this usefull.

The best burst skills we got, from my point of view is still “reaper touch” and life blast.

WoD? this is a defensive skill that have absolutely nothing to do with damage… And well of corruption is perfectly fine but against boon junky.

How do I say, right now in PvE since the last confusion change I’ve been able to see some number up to 9k confusion damage (without max condition damage or any food). Mordrems trully hate my confusions.

Back in the past when confusion damage weren’t nerfed in PvP / WvW there was a build that was destroying absolutely every other classes thanks to confusion. The build was abusing a synergy between “blinding befuddlement” (which hadn’t any ICD) and “Dazzling glamours”. Well that was back in the good old days…

What happened to exploration?
Maybe you’re a veteran like me… So you’ve just explore everything you gotta explore. But in fact HoT is advertised in a manner that it will provide 3 layered map so that 3 time exploration for each map. And yes maybe with the new masteries système we will be able to enjoy some new perspective in the “old” maps.

Is soloing going to be forever screwed/ solo content best at zerker?
while I understand what you mean about the zerker thing (yes zerker is easy mode for PvE content sadly) i also see with silverwaste content that they tried to let us enjoy more condition damage. So maybe thay got some plan to give us more use for defensive stat to. Also, I hardly had any issue doing the whole 2nd season solo.

Why not give all map explosive content?
I wonder. We ve got map that clearly lack content (snowden drift, lornar pass, gendarran field, kessex hill or ashford plain).