Guild Wars 2

It’s certainly amusing that the most iconic guardian – Logan Thackeray – uses a sword and shield combo. He may be the only guardian on any given map who does.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

If nothing else, the T6 mats are a great use of laurels.

Profit.

It could use a rename that makes it sound like a proper heroic e-spec and not just a furnace.

Healing Bombs was fantastic. I built around it. I carried PUGs in dungeons and fractals with it. It made the support engineer fun.

As a guardian and engineer player, I’m worried that engineers are getting spirit weapons.

Gaebriel.3754:

I’d like to see a future Guardian elite spec that utilizes the now-removed Tomes. In a reworked non-clunky way and this time not as elite skills but as Engineer-type kits.

The animations were fantastic and it really suited the Guardian theme!

The Cleric!

Not sure about the new weapon though. We have all the scholarly-associated weapons already: i.e. focus, staff, and scepter. And clerics in RPGs are traditionally associated with bludgeoning weapons: mace and hammer.

Maybe if ArenaNet introduced the ‘wand’ as a new weapon type?

Seabreeze.8437:

Genesis.8572:

The people who have the idea that ninjas are not associated with bo staffs clearly never grew up watching Ninja Turtles.

You get a +1 since Donatello is my favorite. <3

He is my favorite too. +1 to you too.

Given how the warrior was given so many weapon options, I am most interested in seeing how the one weapon to an e-spec model works out. At some point the warrior is most likely to run out the quickest. So at what point do you add new weapon classes? E.g., great axe, polearm, etc.

The people who have the idea that ninjas are not associated with bo staffs clearly never grew up watching Ninja Turtles.

Diovid.9506:

CandyHearts.6025:

They mentioned Guard would get tomes back later.

I believe they said Guard might get tomes back, possibly as kits.

Not sure what the associated weapon would be – we already have the scholarly staff, scepter, and focus – but I would LOVE having tome “weapon” kits on guardian! The aesthetic and flavor of it is brilliant.

I believe WoodenPotatoes has also recently expressed this worry about vulnerability being available too liberally in the e-specs.

Ashen.2907:

Genesis.8572:

When people overwhelmingly look forward to the Chronomancer and Reaper, which share the same designer, and are overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the Tempest and Dragonhunter, which share the same designer, what does that say about their respective designers and e-specs?

It says that the sample size and selection are not currently sufficient to make any such correlation.

Sure, if it was just the strawpoll that I was drawing upon, which can be admittedly be dismissed as circumstantial evidence. But at first glance – from the strawpoll and elsewhere – there does seem to be a correlation.

When people overwhelmingly look forward to the Chronomancer and Reaper, which share the same designer, and are overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the Tempest and Dragonhunter, which share the same designer, what does that say about their respective designers and e-specs?

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Went back and re-read yours and star’s post, and yes, I somewhat misunderstood what you were pointing out.

But I think you and star are still wrong on what you bolded from the original post. How is it that a Rev’s traitlines are invalidated without using a specific weapon?

What I replied was that other classes have weapon improving traits in their lines too, but does that invalidate the traitlines if you don’t use that weapon?

I was lamenting more the Dragonhunter’s traitline assumptions than the Revenant’s.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Two wrongs in your reading comprehension:

Read a bit closer next time.

It is possible to respond without insulting others. I recommend that you do so in the future.

1. The duck thing was stated by me, but no where in the world did I say “if it looks like a duck it HAS to be a duck.” Besides, that was just a joke.

A joke? You posted your duck “joke” twice insinuating that it’s signets. You may not have said that it HAS to be signets, but your language comes precariously close to making that assertion explicit.

2. I did not say you are “not meant to swap Legends.” I said I believe they are not meant to be swapped on cooldown, meaning use the Legend swap when you need it, as in you need the utility skills of the other Legend or you’re hitting below 50 energy. Although, I’d argue the latter too, but that’s a different debate, and one I wouldn’t consider until the next beta test.

I’m not seeing a difference here then between an elementalist or engineer swapping and revenant legend swapping: i.e., you switch when needed. Either way, you are dancing between your available attunements/kits/legends as needed, but there is an assumption that this swapping will be relatively often and that it will not just be legend/attunement/kit camping.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Except, no one is really saying they HAVE to be signets.

You must have missed that whole “If it looks like a duck” bit then.

I do disagree with you that signet passives won’t work because of Legend swapping. People are assuming that Revs are supposed to swap Legends on cooldown because of how Elems work, but I don’t think that’s the intention of the design. I think your supposed to swap based on Utility need. If you look at it that way, signet passives would work then.

So what’s the point of the legend swapping again if we’re not meant to swap legends? If that’s how you feel, we may as well be stuck in one legend without the swap.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Genesis.8572:

starlinvf.1358:

That is a problem that still exists, even with the weapon swap. All the Weapon swap did was band-aid the underlying problem of lacking cross-compatibility between weapons and legends.

I know I’m gonna catch flak for it, but comparing to every other class in the game, you have a range of synergy between weapons and traits….. but no class other then the Revanent requires a Specific weapon for an entire trait line to operate correctly. Even Marksmanship (the next closest pigeon hole) is broad enough to be used on an All-melee ranger.

Sadly, this may be an expanding design philosophy. One of the minor traits for the Dragonhunter more or less assumes that you will be using the longbow (and maybe the scepter) as those are the only weapons that qualify for being beyond the Pure of Sight range threshold.

All classes have weapon improving traits in their traitlines though. What’s wrong with Rev getting the same?

I’m not sure how this connects with what I was actually lamenting about.

Rygg.6237:

What the revenant lacks for party support and theme is boon spamming, specially good party support boons like protection, vigor or might, Revenant as of now has very limited access to might and fury and the uptime is too low to make it worthwhile, but as far as Revenant is supposed to feel as a sort of high risk-high reward frontline class that focuses on manipulating enemy damage and negating it, and I feel like it doesn’t accomplish that quite well yet.

For the Elite spec, skill placeholder icons found by datamining seem like glyphs/signets. If anything they’ll be based on Glint’s Skills from GW just like half of the LAS skills but I don’t expect anything too much of a gamechanger or that is party focused sadly, we’ll have to wait another 1-3 moths to see.

Those Glint skill icons are also reminiscent, if not more so, of the ranger’s spirit icons than they are of signets. Spirits could provide that sort of boon/soft-CC support you and Artaz describe.

Could they be signets? Yes. Is it a guarantee? No. I’m inclined to agree with draxynnic that we should not necessarily assume they are signets. And it’s the nature and character of signets that give me pause.

All of signet skills have an engraved metallic aesthetic. Much like actual signets, they are designed to give the sense that if you were to impress these signets into hot wax that you would imprint that symbol on the wax – as per the historical use of signets. Most of the signet skills depict relatively simplistic embossings and engravings. I don’t get that impression, no pun intended, from the Glint skills. They look less like engraved signet rings and more like encircled, grainy concept art with painted strokes. Do these “signets” even look like signatory paraphernalia?

Furthermore, within the interior of the signet circles, the color schemes either use one color (often with an implied darker shading to give the illusion of engraving/embossing) or two colors (often the metallic shades plus an additional solid basic color). These Glint skills use up to four colors within the enclosed interior (black, red, white, and blue) and more of a painted color bleed. I certainly do not doubt that the circle plus its uniform exterior pattern is held in common with basically all signets, but we should also be aware how these Glint skills also boldly diverge from those trends we find in other profession signet aesthetics.

More pressingly, I am having a difficult time imagining how an all signet utility bar would function with the core Revenant playstyle that involves legend-swapping utility bars. True, the e-spec tweaks the playstyle of the core profession, but how far would the Revenant e-spec venture from the core idea of alacritous legend-swapping? At the end of the day, the dragonhunter still has virtues. The reaper still has a shroud. The tempest still swaps between all four elements. The chronomancer still shatters illusions. The druid will still have pets, and I suspect we will observe similar trends with the unrevealed profession e-specs.

The nature of signet skills in GW2 is that they generally provide minor passives but have larger activation effects but result in the loss of those passive effects. Unless you are a warrior face-rolling open world content on autopilot with all the passives you can muster, most people don’t equip all the signets at once on their profession.

The Revenant, however, would be constantly losing all of those signet passives by legend swapping. The passives may as well not exist, because signet passives are there to offset the opportunity cost of keeping them unused on your bar. What’s the point of having signets and their passives if you are constantly losing those passives? The most comparable profession to such a situation is with necromancer signets and death shroud locking out skills #6-10.

I could only really seeing signet skills work if those signet passives were somehow retained when the other legend was being channeled. But if that was the case, then having those Glint passives in the other legend would lend itself to a playstyle that mostly stayed in one legend. Could we see that with the Revenant e-spec? Maybe. After all, the Tempest’s overload incentivizes that to an extent. But certainly such an e-spec would be a great disservice to not only Glint but also the idea that channeling a particular legend provides the Revenant with that legend’s own self-contained idiomatic playstyle.

So if they are not signets, what else could they be? I don’t know nor can I say for certain. But right now I am entertaining the possibility that the Revenant e-spec will gain summonable spirits, as per the Ranger AND, more importantly, the GW1 Ritualist. It’s not as if people have not already drawn thematic and lore comparisons between the Revenant and Ritualist already. Also, the circular shape of 4/5 of the Ranger’s spirit skills also involve a uniform background pattern, a circle, and a non-metallic design, as described above with the Glint skills. To be clear, I’m not saying that e-spec will be the Ritualist. I simply think that it’s possible that the Revenant e-spec could provide and harken back to a playstyle similar to the Ritualist through summonable spirits.

starlinvf.1358:

That is a problem that still exists, even with the weapon swap. All the Weapon swap did was band-aid the underlying problem of lacking cross-compatibility between weapons and legends.

I know I’m gonna catch flak for it, but comparing to every other class in the game, you have a range of synergy between weapons and traits….. but no class other then the Revanent requires a Specific weapon for an entire trait line to operate correctly. Even Marksmanship (the next closest pigeon hole) is broad enough to be used on an All-melee ranger.

Sadly, this may be an expanding design philosophy. One of the minor traits for the Dragonhunter more or less assumes that you will be using the longbow (and maybe the scepter) as those are the only weapons that qualify for being beyond the Pure of Sight range threshold.

Cyvien.8049:

Based on the class/weapon revealed, we can predict unique weapon for each class (since Druid is known to have staff, so thief doesn’t).

No. You are making logical leaps here between the e-spec/weapon reveals and your predictions, which are rooted in your unfounded presumptions. Based on the class/weapons revealed, we know the class/weapons that have been revealed. Nothing more.

The idea that no first generation e-spec shall share an unlocked weapon with another first generation e-spec is a groundless assumption that is unsupported by anything ArenaNet has said on the matter. If you can find evidence from ArenaNet saying otherwise, you are more than welcome to correct me. Until then, it’s a myth, an urban legend, and an unsubstantiated assumption that somehow persists within the popular imagination of some players.

In the meantime we do have other evidence that must be taken into consideration when making predictions: datamining. And the datamined materials around the time of late June provide a much stronger case than informal logic rooted in baseless assumptions. The datamined longbow was the Dragonhunter longbow. The datamined greatsword was the Reaper greatsword. The datamined shield was the Chronomancer shield. The datamined warhorn was the Tempest warhorn. ArenaNet confirmed that the Revenant’s e-spec will be tied to Glint, and amidst this same batch of datamined e-spec weapons was a shield that looked like a crystalline dragon wing shield that is highly suggestive of a Glint motif. Furthermore, there was a staff whose design pattern is virtually identical to the weapon held by a thief in another piece of datamined concept art.

Revenant is not a good case against it since the Glint photo can very well be Glint himself.

Glint has undergone a complete ontological change and became a shield then? Is that what you are saying? This shield is Glint now?

Cyvien.8049:

Yup, even the fact that the sun rised for each days you lived as a human being doesn’t entailed that it will rise again tomorrow. But I still have a good argument that it will rise again tomorrow based on induction. But the chance shouldn’t be involve because there’re too many unknown.

Let’s cut to the chase. Based on available evidence do you have a good argument that thief will not get staff?

Rifle Turret can be useful in some setups not for it what it does in itself but its utility. Toolbelt gives a basic projectile finisher. Meh. But you can also trait Explosions and detonate the Rifle Turret for knockback on a relatively small cooldown. The problem is that there are more effective ways to do similar things without giving up a utility slot.

Anti.9156:

its in virtues traitline now instead of valor. The trait cant compete with absolute resolution. so basically they removed it from hammer dps guards

I sometimes feel that our weapon traits are misplaced in the wrong lines, particularly hammer. It should have been put in either Zeal or Valor.

Thor Rising.7850:

This is so true. Sadly elementalist shouts blow the reapers away in every single catagory. I truly regret being dumb enough to pre order this game.

Elementalist shouts have lower cooldowns, more damage, team buffing utility, and roughly 1/2 to 1/4 the cast times of reaper shouts. Boy! Sure am glad I have a second healthbar to tank damage while lying on the floor. At least we get to look somewhat cool lying on the ground.

What the hell is wrong with the devs in charge of game balance? Reaper shouts are only offensive and still do roughly half the damage of ele shouts which also grant allies massive buffs. Literally all their shouts grant massive buffs to allies. Give me my kittening money back, or balance the kittening game.

Can you get a refund? Money talks. It’s worth considering.

Weapon swap does not solve the problems that the Revenant have, but giving Revenant weapon swap was never meant to fix everything.

Though I appreciate your attempts to answer my concern, I think you’re nevertheless missing my point.

Xillllix.3485:

Kheo.2504:

Ayrilana.1396:

Also keep in mind that the OP is referring to weapon swaps outside of combat.

You mean going into your inventory and clicking a weapon twice? That kind of weapon swap?

Searching through 160 inventory slots isn’t practical at all.

Know which bag you keep your weapon. A little organization of your bags helps.

Fjaeldmark.9043:

I don’t see how it’s a slap in the face. Traeharne is an expert on Orr because he’s been studying it for 25 years.

And how long have humans been studying their own religious traditions? Why are we being told about this human religion from a sylvari and not a human priestess of Lyssa? Because this knowledge has been lost? Apparently not if Trahearne learned it from somewhere.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m not the rude one here.

Keep telling yourself that.

jheryn.8390:

Most of us get it. You mean out of combat. I still say we don’t need it. There are much better things they can focus their programming time on rather than something that people want for sheer convenience and/or laziness.

Pretty much this. For engineers there is not much stat synergy between pistol and rifle set-ups, so it would only benefit P/P and P/S engineer weapon sets and MAYBE rifle & hammer set-ups.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

As I said before, this is just a fun post. No need to shove your opinion down the throat of other’s ideas.

I’m not shoving my opinion down anyone’s throat. I’m simply stating mine regarding proposed legends. There’s no need for your uncalled for rude behavior.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Wow, way to ruin a fun thread with pushing your opinion on other’s ideas. +1 for seriousness, right?

Also, where’s your actual numbers for “lot in the community” because from what I saw just as many actually wanted GS on Rev’s. Since we’re using those terms and numbers, I saw that lots more wanted GS than those that didn’t.

Did you really come into this thread just to call me out?

KingFarout.1092:

Edit: Ohh you mean after glint. Well I would say Scarlet and give revs the Rifle. It would kind of be funny getting one of the most hated people in guild wars back so soon.

I also actively hope it’s not Scarlet. Sylvari can have their centaur Ventari legend. Let the rest of us be free from Sylvari and their current favorite child status.

Phineas Poe.3018:

No. Revenant weapon skills are garbage compared to ours. Could you imagine an engineer with Jump Shot and Blowtorch? The tears would be unbelievable.

They need it.

Agreed.

Engineers do not have to use kits – and HGH certainly makes alchemist builds viable – but kits greatly increase our kitten nal and form part of the core assumptions of our profession: i.e., we use kits. And our kits already have an incredible amount of utility, even if you don’t specialize in that kit. You may specialize in one or two kits (e.g., grenade/mortar or flamethrower/elixir), but then swap out to another kit on your action bar as needed for its particular utility: e.g., blocks on tool kit, BOB and fields on bombs, etc.

Zev.3407:

I never played gw1 so i can’t say anyone from there(but i’m sure they all will be fro mthere.)

But i’d say Tybalt for the engineer legend, if they ever do it.

I would be against having Tybalt as a legend. He has done nothing noteworthy apart from having an endearing personality. He has little to no historical legacy in the game or achievements to his name. There are so many other characters I would consider before Tybalt even registered as a candidate to make the list.

Rain.9213:

Dhuum would be cool except for the fact that he’s not dead. Just dormant. I would love to see Kalla Scorchrazor for 3 reasons.

1. It would add a Charr legend that Charr players can feel comfortable channeling.
2. It would add another female legend.
3. The Specialization weapon could be Greatsword!

As for the utility skills it can grant, perhaps it could draw inspiration from Warrior and get stances that act as upkeep skills that grant perma resistance, perma stability, and perma invuln as long as you have the energy. Of course, they can be balanced out to cost a lot of energy considering they would be very strong. Elite skill can summon Kalla’s soldiers similar to Thieves guild except all Warriors instead of thieves making them more tanky.

While I like the idea of adding another female legend, I think that Bonfaaz Burntfur would be a far more interesting choice. He’s Flame Legion, caused the Searing of Ascalon, and led the charr forces in its assault. It makes his use by a Revenant, particularly if you were charr and human, far more complex.

(Also, the Revenant not getting greatsword was one of those things that a lot in the community actually rejoiced about given how tired we were of everyone and their mother’s lap dog having the overused greatsword.)

I am not going to propose “a fix” for shield. There are multiple possibilities to provide a bit more functionality that I will propose.

Shield #4 Skill: Add a debuff or another boon. Maybe the “judgment” of the shield would be Weakness or Slow on foes. Daze should also be considered. As it stands, this ability (and the entire shield weapon for that matter) is made redundant by the Focus trait that provides protection on use of either skill.

Shield #5 Skill: Blast finisher. Since it’s already a light field that would most likely provide additional Retaliation, of which the Guardian is admittedly not on short supply.

The one point where I remain upset about Trahearne is where he performs the ritual at the Cathedral of Radiance to allow players the death ritual of the Lyss priesthood and him telling the players all about it and human religion. Having a sylvari be the expert of all things Orr felt like a giant slap in the face for my human characters.

I get your point about the appeal of having profession-specific armor, but armor tends to be defined more by culture and organizations rather than something as gamist as “character class.”

Raif.9507:

Reddit tends to be a hivemind and anything not saying ANet is doing the right thing and is awesome is instantly downvoted to oblivion. I wouldn’t use it as a proper source for seeing how people are reacting to Tempest.

And the forums tend to have a higher chance of actual balance discussion and theorycrafting more so than the GW2 reddit.

The anti-Dragonhunter name as well as the anti-Pre-Purchase debacle were both raised in opposition to ANet, but only one of those resulted in some form of response on ANet’s part.

Zev.3407:

I know shield was datamined (but so was ele sword), but i thought they said no same weapon would be used for the elite

mesmer is already getting shield

I don’t recall them saying this, but I suspect they meant that they would not reuse a weapon that a profession already had. E.g., a mesmer e-spec would not simply use greatsword.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Actually from what I heard, Thief is getting rifle. Staff already gone to Ranger.

This myth needs to die. ArenaNet has never said nor suggested that there would be no overlap in new weapons between the e-specs. Indeed, we know that the Mesmer is getting the shield via the Chronomancer, and a Glint-esque shield has been datamined, which will likely be for the datamined Glint Revenant e-spec. It’s therefore more than possible for the Thief and Ranger to get the staff through their e-spec.

Mordeus.1234:

It only becomes a problem with the Druid and the Reaper. Since the Druid would be Nature Magic and the Reaper would be Soul Reaping which already exists. Maybe instead of Druid it would be “Spirit” and Reaper would be something like “Darkness”.

Missing an obvious name for the Druid line: “Druidism.” For the Reaper it could be “Doom.”

Sariel V.7024:

Genesis.8572:

I’m more concerned about why the Orders of Whispers meeting place is so open. Their old sewer base behind the Captains’ ship was one of the greatest small touches of Old Lion’s Arch.

You’re missing the obvious-as-hell secret tunnel leading out of there to wherever they really do business.

No, I’m not missing anything. I’ve been there before on one of my OoW characters. Their Lion’s Arch establishment is still far more open and public than the incredibly neat hidden grotto you reached through the sewers.

MiniEquine.6014:

Kidel.2057:

What makes me laugh is that Guardian and Warriors used to be the best classes in the old keyfarming (whan you had access to all story quests since lv1) because of heavy armor and good mobility with base skills.
Hearing that for some people Guardian lacks mobility and doesn’t have 100% swiftness uptime makes me wonder if we are playing the same game at all.

They don’t want to use the tools that give them the swiftness uptime.

Neither does Kidel with the Revenant.

skowcia.8257:

I will play it like it doesnt have any weapon swap taking advantage of ez bloodlust on second set, and if it wont perform well i will stay away from it. The class was designed without weapon set after all so it should perform well with one set right? Why i would play reskined guard with more fancy animations and worse sustain after all?

So you have not, in fact, cancelled your pre-purchase like you said you would and you will still play a Revenant? Good to know. And based on that on your prior vaporous claims, I wager that you probably will play your Revenant with your second weapon set too (and not just for “ez bloodlust”).

And if Roy already had plans for weapon swap why there wasnt 2nd underwater set datamined yet? Thats right, cause he didnt had any plans for weapon swap.

Or because they were working on other weapon sets and legends. Or because they were still internally testing whether weapon swapping was feasible for the Revenant in land combat before going about designing another weapon for a marginalized game mode. Don’t over think the obvious, Skowcia.

Kidel.2057:

Main Guardian for 3 years. We have staff with aoe swiftness, shout with aoe swiftness and another shout with swiftness too. I usually stack 100% swiftness uptime in wvw or in jumping puzzles.

Main Guardian since the GW2 beta. If you think that Guardians have “perma swiftness,” you may have been maining a Guardian too exclusively, and so I would recommend playing a class that actually does have “perma swiftness” then you could learn what it truly feels like to have it. Because you don’t have “perma swiftness” when it requires you to equip two utility slots on long cooldowns and a utility “weapon” to upkeep swiftness. Plus, it’s not as if you get it as a guardian in WvW or open world PvE train via staff and two utility skills. You get it by mooching off everyone else’s swiftness boosts in a group setting.

It’s night and day in terms of speed between my guardian and engineers. One engineer has mecha legs, which is a traited perma twenty-five percent speed boost that requires no slotting of any weapon or utility skill. The other one has speedy kits which grants 20 sec swiftness on a 20 sec cooldown by simply switching to a kit. THAT, Kidel, is a perma swiftness. Guardian can’t even touch that level of effortless passive speed. There’s a reason that Guardians have the reputation for being slow, cumbersome turtles regardless of the game mode setting.

skowcia.8257:

Rebember that you been one of these people asking for weapon swap..which now will hold the class back and make it feel similiar to warrior/guard with extra 5 utility skills /shrug

In b4 increased cd’s on weapon skills just to balance it out.

Now that Revenants have weapon-swap, have you cancelled your pre-purchase yet?

In the Shiro stream, Roy indicated that weapon swap had been in the works for the Revenant even before the extra beta weekend. It’s not as if the pro-weapon swappers here are culpable for ArenaNet. Also consider that the other major proposal that some people floated around made them nothing more than reskinned elementalists in heavy armor with a utility swap.

nearlight.3064:

Well for Engi, unless they’re cele pistols and rifle have absolutely 0 synergy with eachother so there would be absolutely no point to weaponswap, especially when they have kits they can instantly change into.

Agreed. Even when the engineer e-spec gets the hammer, the lack of weapon swap will likely be a complete non-issue, since they can easily cover melee (bombs, tools), semi-melee (flamethrower), ranged (grenade, elixir), and long-range (mortar) through their kits without even touching their standard weapon skills.

Great is the mystery of the Mists.