Guild Wars 2

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

The main difference between the Icebrood and the Nightmare Court is that, while they are enemies, they are specifically enemies of a particular race. The Dragons seem to be enemies of everyone. It’s not a good comparison.

Fair enough, how about “Orr Vanquisher”. Orr are not race specific, the inhabitants of it are a threat to anyone who steps foot in there. This pushes the focus of vanquishing Orr onto the class, when someone may have no interest at all in that part of the game. For example my friend who mains a Guardian really has no interest at all in the lore or the dragons. He only plays PvP. Reaper, Druid, Tempest, Chronomancer all make sense. They describe what the class can do in the sense that you know a Reaper is usually associated with death, Druids with nature magic, Chronomancer instantly tells you it’s about using Time. Dragonhunter just says that you are a guy that hunts dragons. And people keep saying that it is fine to show inconsistency but it’s not if only one class does it.

Yes, “Orr Vanquisher” (Orrvanquisher? :P ) is a better example of this. The Undead will always be our enemy since they are a Zhaitan’s creation. I don’t necessarily see a problem with a group that devotes their lives to slaying the undead though.

Still, you’re allowed to play the class however you like. They aren’t changing any personal stories for any classes or races. A Chronomancer doesn’t have to even use any time magic, and in the same way a DH doesn’t need to use a longbow or traps. Think of the Dragonhunters as the reason why Guardians can now do something, but not all Guardians that take Dragonhunter specs necessarily do it. Heck, you can even run a full bunker build and take Dragonhunter traits (which really isn’t that bad, to be honest). This totally flies in the face of what the spec is there for, but you’re allowed to do it and nobody is forcing you to feel or think otherwise.

Sure, a group of undead slayers would be fine, but do not force it on the player. Look at it this way:
What can a Chronomancer do? Chrono implies time and in fantasy it’s established that mancer will deal with manipulation of that, i.e necro mancer manipulator of death ect.
What can a Druid do? Druid implies nature manipulation ect.
What can a Dragonhunter do? Hunt dragons?
You see how the other spec names imply an ability but this one implies the goal? (IDK what word I’m looking for)Not what he can do, but what he should do?

I get what you’re saying, but nobody is forcing you to do any of that. What if I don’t like time magic but I like the trait line of the Chronomancer. Is Anet forcing me to feel like I should use time magic simply because my name is a Chronomancer? Should I feel like I must reap souls if I’m a reaper? What if I only want to raise undead corpses?

That’s the point I’m trying to make. You’re not being forced to feel or think that you should do something or that you ought to feel a certain way. The only way you are forced into it is if you force yourself to think that your spec is Dragonhunter therefore you must hunt dragons.

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

The main difference between the Icebrood and the Nightmare Court is that, while they are enemies, they are specifically enemies of a particular race. The Dragons seem to be enemies of everyone. It’s not a good comparison.

Fair enough, how about “Orr Vanquisher”. Orr are not race specific, the inhabitants of it are a threat to anyone who steps foot in there. This pushes the focus of vanquishing Orr onto the class, when someone may have no interest at all in that part of the game. For example my friend who mains a Guardian really has no interest at all in the lore or the dragons. He only plays PvP. Reaper, Druid, Tempest, Chronomancer all make sense. They describe what the class can do in the sense that you know a Reaper is usually associated with death, Druids with nature magic, Chronomancer instantly tells you it’s about using Time. Dragonhunter just says that you are a guy that hunts dragons. And people keep saying that it is fine to show inconsistency but it’s not if only one class does it.

Yes, “Orr Vanquisher” (Orrvanquisher? :P ) is a better example of this. The Undead will always be our enemy since they are a Zhaitan’s creation. I don’t necessarily see a problem with a group that devotes their lives to slaying the undead though.

Still, you’re allowed to play the class however you like. They aren’t changing any personal stories for any classes or races. A Chronomancer doesn’t have to even use any time magic, and in the same way a DH doesn’t need to use a longbow or traps. Think of the Dragonhunters as the reason why Guardians can now do something, but not all Guardians that take Dragonhunter specs necessarily do it. Heck, you can even run a full bunker build and take Dragonhunter traits (which really isn’t that bad, to be honest). This totally flies in the face of what the spec is there for, but you’re allowed to do it and nobody is forcing you to feel or think otherwise.

Draknar.5748:

Neox.3497:

As I already said the slightest advantage IS pay to win for me. And since elite specs won’t be bad or 100% balanced you WILL have an advantage. It’s quite simple.

Except you aren’t playing the same game anymore. You are playing Guild Wars 2, everyone else is playing Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. You can’t compare the two.

You are trying to argue for being able to either have access to all specializations in PvP without paying for the expansion, or not allowing people who have paid for the expansion to use their specializations in PvP. Do you not see a problem with this?

I really hope, for the sake of people like you who feel this way, that they let GW2 purists (which I will call you guys from now on) to be able to play PvP with each other and no one else. And further, I honestly hope that there are so few people that fall into this category that you/they can no longer even play PvP. You won’t have to worry about balance if you physically can’t play PvP with anyone.

Does this make me a bad person?

This is how it normally works in other games. All the expansion players move on to the next content while those who don’t buy it are stuck in long queues because there’s nobody left. I don’t see why they couldn’t implement something like this, since GW2 expansions are unlike any other game already.

Arrk.4102:

The “motivation” of the Elementalist is controlling the elements. Not using the elements to kill elemental threats to Tyria. Similarly Guardians “motivation” is to protect, not to protect against the Icebrood. If the new Warrior spec is called “Nightmareslayer” people would get equally mad that a motivation of killing Nightmare is getting put upon them AND we get no description of the spec itself, just what they seek out to do.

Right now I’m not really concerned about the name, since you brought up motivation. Motivations can change and they don’t have to all be based along the same type of thing. This is evident in the real world as well.

The name doesn’t actually cause the motivation, it’s the design behind the class or specialization that does. Typically, a name is an afterthought to a motivation because somebody feels strongly about something and then labels themselves, not the other way around. We also did get an explanation of what the DH does, so I’m not sure what “no description of the spec itself” means when you use it.

The main difference between the Icebrood and the Nightmare Court is that, while they are enemies, they are specifically enemies of a particular race. The Dragons seem to be enemies of everyone. It’s not a good comparison.

Arrk.4102:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I’m re-posting my reply from another thread into here as its more relevant to this thread in the first place (even though its responding to another in the other thread). Apologies if you’re reading this twice and feeling confused.

---

Yes, i get the goofy feeling of the name. i know that many of us imagine some 12 year old at the D&D table for the first time introducing his half-elf warrior named Sylvan Deathmaker when we first heard the name, BUT…
While anyone can become a hunter of dragons, i think they meant it thus:
Just as a warrior in D&D might follow the teachings of a certain god, they are still a warrior and not say, a Paladin or cleric of that god. In the same vein, in GW2 while everyone is fighting against the dragons, the Guardians felt a deeper calling to this one particular act and having been the GW2 equiv of a paladin already, it made sense for them to take on this “calling” similar to how vampire slayers or witch hunters develop that singular unrelenting focus on going after and trying to erradicate whatever it is they are going after. Its more a description of an obsession fueled by events in the world around them. To that end then, i can be a bit more forgiving of the name. Even more so if the way we get the class introduced is because something happens to Eir, spurring her son on to take up her bow in search of her or to avenge her.
Then the fanaticism would definitely make sense.
Seriously, we play a game with “Warrior” and “Ranger” as class names already. Dragonhunter, while on the surface not as flashy or cool at first glance as Chronomancer or Reaper is still fine and possibly more understandable when tying it to actual class motivations.

Why should we get motivations thrust upon us? Reaper and Chronomancer are more describing the class (Reaper – death connotations, the new death shroud, chrono obviously is dealing with time) while Dragonhunter is what they seek to do. That is already pushing what the devs want onto us. It would be fine if all the classes were forced on that, but again DH is the anomaly.

All classes have a motivation behind them.

The Guardian class is meant to be a protector of the innocent through defensive magic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a greatsword-wielding medi guard that spins to win and brutally murders their foes.

A ranger’s motivation is to gain greater understanding of nature and animals, but there’s nothing stopping you from going on a murderous rampage of all the woodland critters.

Elementalists strive to achieve strength through attunement to the elements. Necromancers gain strength through devoting their training towards death and blood magic (but they aren’t the bad guys, they do it for good!). I could go on.

You always have motivations thrust upon you. Some would even say that it’s the motivations of the class that get them to play it, sometimes more than the skillset. At the end of the day, you can still play the class however you want. When I take the DH spec, I’m probably going to use the Longbow and a full set of shouts. Traps aren’t really my cup of tea in PvE and WvW.

Rebound.3409:

God kitten it…..i wanted to be a Gandalf not a Tempest..

Technically, you’d be an Istari, not a Gandalf.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Bash.7291:

Saiyan.1704:

Genesis.8572:

Silhouette.5631:

The devs said they gave it the name kuz of lore, not as much because of play style, wait until the expansion before yall go saying its just thrown togeather. Anet usually provides great game depth (even if the characters lines in the main plot are a tad simplistic). That being said I’m not going to complain about what Anets giving us when everything we already having is working just fine. (Go talk to a theif/necro/memser/ranger about stuff not workin right)

Even if there is a lore explanation, the specialization could use a simple name change (e.g. “dragonbane”) and have many of its abilities and aesthetics (e.g. angel wings) changed to reflect that whole draconic and foe-slaying motif. As it stands, the trait and ability names feel disjointed and like a hodge-podge of differing elite specialization ideas haphazardly thrown together.

I’m sorry but Dragonbane just sounds terrible. But to each his own. I rather have Harbinger or Grainger (play on words).

As for traps usefulness, we’ll be able to pull them off easier than rangers can. People are so quick to judge and compare.

I didn’t want mantras, shouts, or spirits. Traps are fine for the theme. They’re especially fine for condition builds which happens to be my specialty

I am looking forward to the hybrid meta in pvp so badly… between the radiance changes and the traps… its going to be very interesting.

Unless they add some support/sustain on to traps I doubt anyone will use more then one.

Because while they do good damage said damage is easily avoided & taking them means you lose your sustain & support.

Also, it’s not really a loss if you don’t take them. There is only one trait in the entire line that does anything to traps, and it gives them bleed on hit. You can easily build a Guardian Longbow build that doesn’t use any traps at all (which I may end up doing for WvW). Their Pure of Sight minor trait increases damage beyond 600 units, so if you’re fighting at around that range you could just run a full shout build and essentially make yourself a Paragon.

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

Arrk.4102:

Knighthonor.4061:

Dragon Hunters are the GW2 version of Demon Hunters from Diablo 3.
No demons here so we Dragon Hunters.

What’s wrong with that?

Mesmers have time magic, so Chronomancer is a natural evolution.
Necromancers have death magic, so Reaper is a natural evolution.
Rangers have nature magic, so Druid is a natural evolution.
Elementalists have air magic, so Tempest is a natural evolution.
Guardians have X, so DH is a natural evolution.

Tell me what is X.

Also, we have demons in GW2, so there.

To be fair, I already told you what X was in an earlier post. Just because X isn’t a type of magic (engineers won’t become magical either, and most likely thieves too) doesn’t mean that it can’t work.

Except it doesn’t link to the class at all. ““X”, in this case, is some sort of furious zeal.”
DH has nothing to do with Zeal, so there is no link. Engineers are getting some sort of flying turrets, so a thing they have established as a class already. Technological theme going further. I’m not saying it has to be magical, I’m saying it has to at least be established.

Definition-wise, it does have to do with zeal. Zeal is a great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. The Guardian is the “holy warrior” archetype of the GW2 universe, and those guys are well known for their zeal, honor, valor, passion, and righteousness.

I reiterate, I wouldn’t have made the class like this if I had the choice, but the link is there.

Neox.3497:

Elendur.9342:

Neox.3497:

Ralanost.8913:

Neox.3497:

Ralanost.8913:

Neox.3497:

It’s going to be slightly pay 2 win at least on certain classes. You are limited on what you can do and the elite spec MIGHT be strong at the current meta/patch.

Imagine dagger for the ele would be a elite spec.

Would that be pay 2 win now?

You can’t apply that here. Expansions aren’t pay to win. They add new content to the entire game that you get access to by paying the fee. You want that content? Buy the expansion. You aren’t entitled to free stuff.

What you went completely off topic. And it still doesn’t change the fact, that you can potentially be in a disadvantage without the expansion. Which IS pay to win in some degree.

Elendur.9342:

Pay to win would be if they did something like making an epic gear or whatever 10 times more powerful than anything else in game and made it available only through a transaction involving real money. That way, if you spend money to buy that epic gear you are paying to win, since no one without the same gear wouldn’t stand a chance against you, and you HAVE to spend money to get this gear.

GW2 does not do that! You pay for the game, and then you have the option to pay for things like weapon and armor skins, you cannot pay to become a god on the game.

On the expansion, you will pay to get extra content. That extra content involves changes to te classes, but we have no evidence at all that the specializations will be extremely overpowered when compared to the old classes, probably not, since they didn’t even raise the level cap.

More powerful? Probably yes.
Extremely overpowered to the point that any one running a specialization can trash anyone running an old class? Very unlikely.

Every little advantage that you get by paying with real money IS pay to win.

Pay to win doesn’t mean you always win, it simply means you win more often than you actually should because you paid money to get an advantage.

Expansions aren’t pay to win. You are just being resentful that you have to spend money after all this time. Just be truthful to yourself. Anyone that wants any of the new content will be getting HoT. If you don’t, you will still get some fundamental changes and still be competitive. Nothing the new content will bring will make anything you have done up to this point useless and invalid. Your fears are beyond paranoid.

You totally missed the point. I will buy the expansion anyway so there are no fears at all. LOL
I’m just stating that you MIGHT get an advantage by buying the expansion and by not buying it you MIGHT get a disadvantage.
But I think the chances are very high because otherwise all elite specs will be weak and to say the will be balanced is dream thinking. There will always be stronger and weaker builds, maybe depending on the current meta.

So are you saying that it might be pay to win until they manage to balance all of it and depending on the meta?

It is not pay to win. The specializations will certainly be better, since if we both play as rangers but my ranger can equip a staff and your ranger can’t, that means my ranger can do one thing yours can’t, therefore it is better. But that does not mean that having a staff makes me unbeatable, or overpower, or even mean that the staff is better than the longbow that you can equip as well.

It just means that I have an extra option.

It will not be balanced because the game is not 100% perfectly balanced yet. Maybe specializations will be OP, maybe they will be competitive with the older classes, just giving the player more options (notice that I ditched the term ‘powerful’ that I sed before) than older classes, or maybe even some of them will suck and at the end for a while before we get the nerfs and buffs and a druid end up being weaker than a mesmer…

We can’t know details for sure yet, but it is not pay to win.

As I already said the slightest advantage IS pay to win for me. And since elite specs won’t be bad or 100% balanced you WILL have an advantage. It’s quite simple.

Sorry, but you’ve got a complete misunderstanding between Pay2Win and Expansion Buy2Play.

Pay2Win:
There exists a set of features for the game, available to all customers, that allow for continual, repeat micro-transactions that, by spending more money on these micro-transactions than other people, give a distinct advantage in game.

Expansion Buy2Play:
There exists an expansion for the game, available to all customers, that allows for a potential increase in content, skills, levels, gear, and story for a fixed price. No additional payments are accepted or, if they are accepted, have no effect on the player in a competitive sense.

dietzero.3514:

Knighthonor.4061:

Paragon likely coming when they add Spears to the main game. No point added paragon when the weapon is long bow.

And Dragon Hunters fit, since they are similar to Demon Hunters in theme from Diablo 3…. Except we hunt Dragons in this universe.

Demon Hunters were normal humans whose families were killed by demons, and now use their hatred and training to hunt them down. Guardians are already fully trained and powered humans, who are now suddenly big game dragon hunters? Yeah, no.

Diet, this is not a good argument. There are other reasons that DH is not the best name, but your logic here is not sound.

If a normal person without any training is able to focus their hatred and eventual training into living a life of hunting demons, then why would it not be possible for a trained fighter to add a new set of skills in the same manner when the same hatred exists? Wouldn’t they actually be more qualified for the job? Imagine both groups were hunting demons instead; this is why this particular argument doesn’t work.

Arrk.4102:

Knighthonor.4061:

Dragon Hunters are the GW2 version of Demon Hunters from Diablo 3.
No demons here so we Dragon Hunters.

What’s wrong with that?

Mesmers have time magic, so Chronomancer is a natural evolution.
Necromancers have death magic, so Reaper is a natural evolution.
Rangers have nature magic, so Druid is a natural evolution.
Elementalists have air magic, so Tempest is a natural evolution.
Guardians have X, so DH is a natural evolution.

Tell me what is X.

Also, we have demons in GW2, so there.

To be fair, I already told you what X was in an earlier post. Just because X isn’t a type of magic (engineers won’t become magical either, and most likely thieves too) doesn’t mean that it can’t work.

Arrk.4102:

Arbiter is someone who decides, or say, judges (a link to the core class). The Arbiter decides who or what is the ultimate threat, and goes after it. How does that not fit? Because of the traps? Please, how does Reaper imply shouting or Chronomancer imply wells? And seeing that Druid and Tempest are following the one word name pattern, DH is the anomaly here.

An arbiter judges. That’s really it. I’m not saying that an Arbiter spec couldn’t work, but this isn’t the one. When I think fantasy-style Arbiter, I think of a person looking down on others, locking them up with orders and bureaucracy, demanding their punishment be carried out to the fullest terms or that their matters be settled how the Arbiter sees fit. I can’t help but feel this way after playing Magic: the Gathering, were my favorite commander was Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

http://www.mtgedh.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Grand-Arbiter-Augustin-IV.jpg

If there were a class based around the act of arbitration, I would imagine it being a back-line heavy CC class. Tons of stuns, interrupts, slows, and maybe even quickness for allies. I don’t know what weapon it could gain, because both the hammer and scepter are already in the Guardian’s armory, but I would sooner see one of those repurposed if the spec is taken.

Craywulf.5793:

We need to stop coming up with alternative names and narrow down to at least three. Otherwise ArenaNet is not going bother listening to this thread. Get organized set up a poll and choose a name. If we want ArenaNet to hear us….we must be united. I know everyone has a cool name they wanna add to the list, but we need to remember why this thread started…to change the Dragonhunter name. There needs to be some compromise if we want to make any real progress. So lets get a poll going and vote the heck out of it to send ArenaNet a clear message of change.

You’re on a fools errand if you think the community will be able to narrow it down to begin with. There have been at least 30 different “cool” names, most of which are completely terrible. There are some that could work, but when things like “Arbiter” keep coming up (which does not fit this specialization at all) it makes me question if it even could.

The best response from the community is to keep the thread alive. Any other thread will get merged into this one, despite anyone’s wishes.

Unhinged Carrot.3849:

My guess is that the Engineer specialisation will sacrifice the toolbelt for weapon swap and gain access to Hammer and Signets.

Whatever they get, those skills need to pop out little floating things. I’m not sure if signets can fulfill that role.

You will still be able to play Guardian the exact same as you always have been. None of the DH’s skills are identical to the Ranger’s skills, so you don’t have to worry about that either. There are still plenty of differences.

This will not be the only elite specialization though. Guardians will eventually get another one, like all the other classes, so you may like that one better.

Talonblaze.3175:

MiniEquine.6014:

I would argue that this game’s PvP and WvW are there purely for players to fight against players. There is little to no lore involved in the WvW game mode.

Although WvW is acknowledged by several NPCs within the game, even beyond those just camping outside the portals in LA. So its integrated into the world at the very least. It’s not like say, waypoints which were recently pidgeon-holed into the story whereas prior there was no acknowledgement of them in the world.

Hmm, it’s tough to find a lot of good lore information about the Mist War (AKA WvWvW), but there seems to be something about Balthazar pitting people against each other from alternate dimensions (at least from GW1). They don’t seem to mention a definite reason in GW2, but that some mysterious invaders are assaulting your world’s (read version of the universe’s) foothold in The Mists and you need to stop them.

I agree that this has, so far as we know, nothing to do with Dragons, and I do think that there are changes that should have been made to the Guardian elite spec including the name, but I don’t believe that this is the reason why. They don’t seem to give as much attention to lore with regard to PvP or WvW at all the same as they do for PvE, so if they make some clarifications then it might help.

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

Arrk.4102:

Another argument I would like to add opposing the DH name:
Remove the Dragons completely from GW lore. Do all the class/spec names make sense?
Literally the only thing that would be out of place then would be 2 skills of the Elementalist and the whole DH spec.
Meaning they would only make sense as a standalone class in the context of Tyria. Without that context they make no sense as either a spec or a class.

It’s not at all fair to remove dragons from the GW2 lore because they are the lore. It’d be like trying to remove magic from the lore and needing to justify elementalists. The fact is, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense out of context, because out of context nothing matters. In an alternate universe of Tyria where the Dragons either never existed or never took power, you can bet that this class wouldn’t exist. However, that’s not the case here and it really isn’t debatable.

The only thing that is useful about this particular stance is “what becomes of the Dragonhunters when the Dragons are all gone?” I brought this up in a separate comment many pages back about how they might feel like a villain in a movie/show that actually accomplishes defeating the good guy, and now they’re left saying “well, now what?”.

Also, does this mean that the class should have no place in PvP and WvW, there there are no dragons? Since those places exist in the Mists, you could theoretically end up in a world where there is not event a concept of a dragon.

I would argue that this game’s PvP and WvW are there purely for players to fight against players. There is little to no lore involved in the WvW game mode. There is some historical game context in playing PvP (that not many probably worry about) with some lore, and the concept of WvW can’t relate to the lore because it’s a very meta idea. Most of the PvP maps were made just to be maps to fight on, unlike something like the Fractals which are meant to be shards of the past. I could see them implementing something in the Fractals that occasionally prevent elite specs in them, but probably not because it wouldn’t be “play how you want”, even if it didn’t fit historically.

Aside from the meta aspect, The Mists is essentially the Universe. Tyria does exist within the realm of The Mists. If one were to end up in a world apart from Tyria then you would be right. Within the context of Tyria, however, that seems irrelevant as that is where we are.

Arrk.4102:

Another argument I would like to add opposing the DH name:
Remove the Dragons completely from GW lore. Do all the class/spec names make sense?
Literally the only thing that would be out of place then would be 2 skills of the Elementalist and the whole DH spec.
Meaning they would only make sense as a standalone class in the context of Tyria. Without that context they make no sense as either a spec or a class.

It’s not at all fair to remove dragons from the GW2 lore because they are the lore. It’d be like trying to remove magic from the lore and needing to justify elementalists. The fact is, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense out of context, because out of context nothing matters. In an alternate universe of Tyria where the Dragons either never existed or never took power, you can bet that this class wouldn’t exist. However, that’s not the case here and it really isn’t debatable.

The only thing that is useful about this particular stance is “what becomes of the Dragonhunters when the Dragons are all gone?” I brought this up in a separate comment many pages back about how they might feel like a villain in a movie/show that actually accomplishes defeating the good guy, and now they’re left saying “well, now what?”.

purecontact.1680:

Rhiannon.1726:

Sentinel, Warder (and Keeper would fit here, too): My dictionary gives me the same translation like guardian (-> Wächter). So these are just different words for the same thing -> a person who guards something.

FYI : Sentinel should be taken as “Border Guard”.

Which is why it’s one of the better options than anything else people have suggested so far. Border Guards are out on their own, usually need the extra range weapons because of the distance from things they are, and they need to have similar skills to that of a hunter. It would make sense with the traps because of their defensive nature too.

Alice.5360:

Alas, there is no dragon hunter faction and, if they happen to make one, that’s still forcing PVE-story and NPC choices onto the player character.

There’s no DH faction that we’ve heard of so far/until now. We haven’t heard of Revenants before, but they’ve technically been around the entire time (which is required to justify them playing through the personal story). That doesn’t mean Revenants didn’t exist until they announced it.

As they release more elite specializations after the first set, they will all be able to be played at level 80. That means that anything a level 80 can do now is also something a level 80 will be able to do 2+ years from now. That means that at least up until the beginning of the level 80 storyline for our characters all of the future elite specializations of now and the future have already existed.

Arrk.4102:

MiniEquine.6014:

Arrk.4102:

Arrk.4102:

The Arbiter would continue to build on the Judge theme that Guardian has with Judge’s Intervention, Virtue of Justice, all the of Judgment skills, and traits like Justice is Blind, Supreme Justice.

Building on this Arbiter would require very little amount of work for them. The Arbiter would be the “judge” and he decides that something is a threat to Tyria and they hunt it down. So no need to rework the whole theme, just change the name, rename a few hunter themed traits to judgement or justice or w/e and it’s a done deal, it is a natural progression of the character from a light magic defensive guy to a light magic using guy that seeks out the threat, instead of going from guardian to ranger.

Arbiters don’t hunt anything down, they pass judgment and that’s it. Even if you don’t like Dragonhunter, arbiter is nowhere near where this specialization comes, but there is a potential for them to introduce it with a different elite specialization with much more fitting skills.

But it at least builds on what is already in place, while DH just jumps out of nowhere and doesn’t add to Guardian, they just make a completely new thing.
Mesmers have time magic, so Chronomancer is a natural evolution.
Necromancers have the whole death theme, so Reaper is a natural evolution.
Rangers have nature magic, so Druid is a natural evolution.
Elementalists have air magic, so Tempest is a natural evolution.
Guardians have x, so DH is a natural evolution.

Tell me what X is in this case?

At this moment, I’m not making an argument for DH. Like I said earlier, I personally would have liked to see the entire spec go in a different direction, not just the name. However, for what the spec is, it is not a bad name (even though the name is inherently clunky if not bad). I do want that distinction clear.

“X”, in this case, is some sort of furious zeal. It is not a skill set like Chronomancer time magic or Druid nature magic; rather it is a mindset. They’ve come to want the Dragons dead so much that they’re going to do this big hunt to take them down once and for all. The reason this sticks out more is because no other class currently has a name like this. It’s the first class/spec to incorporate a devotion towards doing something in particular, and it might not be the last. There is an evolution if one chooses to see it, and there isn’t an evolution if one chooses not to. The concept is nebulous and that causes issues when it’s the only one of its kind.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Anyone have information on the actual cost of this? I’ve heard $40 – $50 – which is nearly the cost of a whole game. Thinking if that is the general cost there better be at least 2 toon slots and some serious additional bonus (not counting the specialization add-on stuff).

No, because Anet hasn’t released the cost. Believe me, you’ll know when they announce the prices. Until then, guessing is all we can do.

Arrk.4102:

Arrk.4102:

The Arbiter would continue to build on the Judge theme that Guardian has with Judge’s Intervention, Virtue of Justice, all the of Judgment skills, and traits like Justice is Blind, Supreme Justice.

Building on this Arbiter would require very little amount of work for them. The Arbiter would be the “judge” and he decides that something is a threat to Tyria and they hunt it down. So no need to rework the whole theme, just change the name, rename a few hunter themed traits to judgement or justice or w/e and it’s a done deal, it is a natural progression of the character from a light magic defensive guy to a light magic using guy that seeks out the threat, instead of going from guardian to ranger.

Arbiters don’t hunt anything down, they pass judgment and that’s it. Even if you don’t like Dragonhunter, arbiter is nowhere near where this specialization comes, but there is a potential for them to introduce it with a different elite specialization with much more fitting skills.

Totbot.4583:

Because you only get two dodges? For PvE that’s fine, but for pvp and wvw two dodges isn’t going to cut it for a slow hitting melee class. How are you going to hit the enemy with a slow hitting attack if you have to interrupt your own attack to dodge?

For Pve, little stab is fine. But it looks like Reaper isn’t getting much party support, so yet again good luck with your hard hitting melee spec that people won’t take over Warriors and Guard.

They might get traits that give them stability or give the shouts an added effect to allies.

Prophet.1584:

What happens to skill scrolls that we currently have? do they give the new currency if used after the expansion? is there any information on the conversion from skill points to new currency? I just don’t want to lose out on anything that i’ve gathered.

When they look at the characters, they are able to see exactly how many skill challenges are completed by counting them through the world map. From this number, plus the number you unlocked from leveling, you will have a final number that correlates to the number of hero points you can have. The skill scrolls used for points will not affect that world map number, but they can be counted if you have more points spent on skills than you have unlocked in the world. If you had spent any “skill scroll” skill points on items at the Mystic Forge, then you don’t have to worry about them anyway because that’s what the “Djinngots” will be used for (so you already got what you were going to get).

The only issue with this, potentially, is if somebody just didn’t buy any skills and spent the rest on Mystic Forge items. Those players may seem to come out on top, perhaps…

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This seems odd to me… you want to maximize chill usage, yet this is clearly a power based build. I’ll probably pass on this, but maybe some of the shouts are useful to condition users. I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the live stream. Not even a mention of the elite skill, wonder what it does…

A little disappointed that they didn’t do more with the DS, they made it sound like they are just replacing the effects and ranges of the skills, but again I guess we will have to see what the other skills are.

I wonder if this build would be good with sinister gear…

Chilled isn’t a condition that benefits from condition damage. The only thing that affects it is condition duration and that is getting removed from the trait lines. This is why Hammer Medi Guardians benefitted from glacial heart (hammer criticals have a chance to apply chilled) because they don’t run condition damage and they do run precision.

Also, they did say that Death Shroud skills were changing, but that the traits that affected each skill would still affect the replacement skill, or something to that extent. It would be more melee focused though.

Rising Dusk.2408:

It looks neat, but also so far doesn’t seem to have much in the way of team support. I’ll reserve final judgment until tomorrow, but at least the animations look neat.

I was sort of hoping they would hit allies with something so that Rune of the Trooper would work, but it appears not. Oh well.

LughLongArm.5460:

Not a Necro player, YET, but that looks freaking amazing!!!

Fixed that for ya

I’m going to have to get my Necromancer to 80, stat!

Kaleban.9834:

First post in this merged thread: two months ago.

How hard is it for ANet to login to the forums, type out “yes” or “no” and be done with it? Letting forum warriors speculate on stuff like this for months on end is really foolish. Its also toxic to the community and is basically the company thumbing its collective nose at the players.

But, given the lack of rapidity in fixing bugs and glitches with each patch, not to mention that nearly three years in there are still release bugs and issues that were never resolved, I can’t say I’m very surprised.

I’m pretty certain that they are not yet sure if they will give us a slot yet or not. Once they put together the packages of HoT expansions, you can bet that at least one of them (I’m guessing there will be a “basic” package and a similar “heroic edition”) will offer a character slot, but they are probably debating where it goes and how much they offer.

I would be more upset if they told us something now and then, for some reason, decided to do something different later on. Concrete information is more valuable than speculative information anyway, and they can only provide the former when they know what it is themselves.

(I do think they should consider the answer sooner than later, though, because this thread is too long. I agree)

Diovid.9506:

It has to do with unlocking though. It gives a sense of progression. Why is that not a good reason?

This ^

For the leveling player, they will not have the hero points to just automatically unlock every trait right down the line. As they get points and fill out their pages, the more powerful traits will be unlocked last; the 9th being unlocked when you complete the path.

Outside of that, there isn’t a point to having or not having it there, so they might as well keep it for the only thing it matters for now.

Zackie.8923:

MiniEquine.6014:

Genesis.8572:

MiniEquine.6014:

I was hoping for something different with the Longbow as well, but this spec will be here for people who want to play it. I mean, the DH is not exactly the same as the Ranger; no pet, traps have different effects, and you can still slot regular Guardian utilities instead of the traps. Not every elite spec is going to be one everyone wants to play, but maybe the next Guardian elite spec will make you fanboy over it (and hopefully more people than this one has too!)

What were you hoping from the guardian longbow spec?

My idea for it would have been a ranged, angelic semi-support class. The Longbow would essentially have an auto-attack (the one they have is fine) and up to four “Mark” skills (mimicking the Necromancer’s marks but with Guardian symbols, though probably not triggered by enemies, maybe triggered by allies? o.O), which would pulse condi clears, regen, aegis, protection, stability, quickness, and healing to allies with maybe an opposite effect to enemies. The utility skills and heal would be a new set of channeled shouts, almost exactly like the anthems in GW1. These would do sort of what the Longbow does, but with varying intensity and at point-blank range instead of 1200 units away. The Elite would temporarily transform you into a “Paragon of Light” or “Spirit of the Paragon”, changing your weapon to a spear and giving you wings (with float? they added it to Chronomancers) for a short time and granting you abilities similar to that of the Paragons. Spears would be thrown, in the same way.

I am not entirely sure if the name of the class could be Paragon though, as they didn’t really use bows, but the Elite skill would be the embodiment of the idea behind it.

Anet please hire this person to develop the guardian

Aw, shucks

Avol.9761:

Ok look, if a another player gets more abilities than me as a guardian, because he bought heart of thorns, and i still have the standard abilities, than the player who bought heart of thorns has a better variety of ways to defeat me, plus he is automatically more versatile than i am. So that is pay to win my friend, paying for more abilitties and a better class set, is pay to win. Screw that, i regret buying this game.

This is a very disingenuous way at looking at expansions. Like others have said, there is no undue burden for buying a single-payment expansion. Sometimes this game goes on sale for $10/$15 too; it’s not likely that such a price would be sustainable for the amount of time that goes into it. When did you buy this game? I bought my second account for $10 with a sale back in January. An additional $30-$60 for the next full area of content and skills is hardly an issue.

dietzero.3514:

They are not all soldiers…why do you think that? The Vigil are all soldiers, sure, but the other two? No.

Now Dragon hunters? Yes. Everyone in the pact is a Dragon hunter, because that is the very purpose of the pact, and that is what everyone is striving for. From the scholars back at the Priory, to the Whisper spies scattered everywhere. All Dragon hunters.

P.S Guardian says: ‘ME SPECIAL DRAGONHUNTER!’

Never mind, you’re being difficult on purpose and are simply refusing to acknowledge definitions of words at this point. I will no longer respond to you if it’s with regard to our post chain.

dietzero.3514:

MiniEquine.6014:

dietzero.3514:

The Pact are not all soldiers. They ARE all dragon hunters, though. The very purpose of the Pact is to hunt dragons.

That is actually completely backwards, you know. All of the pact are soldiers. From Wikipedia:

Occupational designations[edit]

In most armed forces use of the word ‘soldier’ has taken on a more general meaning due to the increasing specialization of military occupations that require different areas of knowledge and skill-sets. As a result, ‘soldiers’ are referred to by names or ranks which reflect an individual’s military occupation specialty arm, service, or branch of military employment, their type of unit, or operational employment or technical use such as: trooper, tanker, commando, dragoon, infantryman, marine, paratrooper, ranger, sniper, engineer, sapper, medic, or a gunner.

A hunter is a specific profession. Someone who hunts is not necessarily a hunter, but someone who makes their living hunting is a hunter.

Well, if you are going to go into what the Pact are paid to do, that would be dragon hunting. They are not all soldiers, but they are all finding ways to take down the dragons.

So they are all very literally Dragon hunters. That is their JOB.

I feel like a broken record. I repeat:

Occupational designations[edit]

In most armed forces use of the word ‘soldier’ has taken on a more general meaning due to the increasing specialization of military occupations that require different areas of knowledge and skill-sets. As a result, ‘soldiers’ are referred to by names or ranks which reflect an individual’s military occupation specialty arm, service, or branch of military employment, their type of unit, or operational employment or technical use such as: trooper, tanker, commando, dragoon, infantryman, marine, paratrooper, ranger, sniper, engineer, sapper, medic, or a gunner.

They are soldiers. There are some within the Pact that are dedicated to finding ways to take the Dragons down, but they are still soldiers in an army and an overwhelming majority of the pact are just foot soldiers or infantry. They do what their commanders tell them and they march into battle against the Dragons and their minions. Soldiers.

Lebensbaum.9216:

Yeah, bro, the gems that you buy using gold in-game have been bought with real money by someone else somewhere down the road. They are not just created when converting gold to gems. It’s an EXCHANGE. That’s why the gold/gem price ratio is constantly changing. If more people want to sell gems for gold, the price for gems in gold decreases. If more people want to buy gems with gold, the price increases.

Alright, look at it this way then. They want everyone to buy the expansion with the exact same currency because interms of the expansion, offering a different method of payment would result in certain people being able to not be able to buy the game with in-game currency and others could. It’s not exclusively about them turning a profit (though they would anyway), but about making it completely fair. The only way to do this is to either charge nothing for it or to charge a fixed fee in real world money, like how they do with the initial purchase of the game itself.

It doesn’t matter anyway, they’ve already stated that they will not allow the expansion to be purchase with gems. You buy in-game items with gems, not the game itself. Buying the deluxe edition after the fact is essentially just buying the items you would have gotten, since gameplay doesn’t change.

Lebensbaum.9216:

Someone will still have to buy the gems, so I don’t see how they will make less money by letting us buy the expansion with gems. Granted the number of gems required cost as many € as buying the game directly.

The problem is that gems don’t have to be bought by using real money. There are plenty of people in-game right now that could use the gold they have to buy enough gems to cover the cost of an expansion. Anet doesn’t see any of that money since it was all generated in-game. For others, this isn’t the case, but making it cost real money would mean that everyone buys the expansion the same way and that just because somebody has played for 2 years they don’t “get it for free”.

AikunFelcis.7258:

MiniEquine.6014:

Genesis.8572:

MiniEquine.6014:

I was hoping for something different with the Longbow as well, but this spec will be here for people who want to play it. I mean, the DH is not exactly the same as the Ranger; no pet, traps have different effects, and you can still slot regular Guardian utilities instead of the traps. Not every elite spec is going to be one everyone wants to play, but maybe the next Guardian elite spec will make you fanboy over it (and hopefully more people than this one has too!)

What were you hoping from the guardian longbow spec?

My idea for it would have been a ranged, angelic semi-support class. The Longbow would essentially have an auto-attack (the one they have is fine) and up to four “Mark” skills (mimicking the Necromancer’s marks but with Guardian symbols, though probably not triggered by enemies, maybe triggered by allies? o.O), which would pulse condi clears, regen, aegis, protection, stability, quickness, and healing to allies with maybe an opposite effect to enemies. The utility skills and heal would be a new set of channeled shouts, almost exactly like the anthems in GW1. These would do sort of what the Longbow does, but with varying intensity and at point-blank range instead of 1200 units away. The Elite would temporarily transform you into a “Paragon of Light” or “Spirit of the Paragon”, changing your weapon to a spear and giving you wings (with float? they added it to Chronomancers) for a short time and granting you abilities similar to that of the Paragons. Spears would be thrown, in the same way.

I am not entirely sure if the name of the class could be Paragon though, as they didn’t really use bows, but the Elite skill would be the embodiment of the idea behind it.

I like this idea. Now I can clearly see that there is still possibility for them to create Paragon-like specialization. If they dont want to make spear a land weapon, they can create basically a utility/elite kit (just like Engineers have) “Paragon’s Spear” and you wield light-imbued spear and get 5 skills for it! The simplest solution is the harder one to figure out. Love it.

EDIT: If they don’t want implement kits for guardian, they can add this spear as elite spirit weapon (elite one, which you can actually wield). That would fit perfectly.

Well, over on the Guardian forum Anet were talking about removing tomes and re-introducing them in a later elite specialization. The reintroduction could be for some Scholar/Archivist “kit” specialization where you swap between your tomes. I think this would be an excellent way to bring them back, and they wouldn’t really be competing with the Engineer because the tomes would be magic-based.

RabbitUp.8294:

MiniEquine.6014:

In looking at all of the current staff skins there are no skins that are really suited for melee combat.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/1/18/Adamant_Guard_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f7/Bandit_Spire.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/0/04/Guild_Pillar.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/43/Ceremonial_Stave.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/3/3a/Legionnaire_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/e/ea/Shiverpeak_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/5/57/Hero%27s_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/e/e4/Krait_Crook.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/44/Lionguard_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/9/90/Molten_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/bd/Sovereign_Pillar_Skin.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/d/d7/Tormented_Staff_Skin.jpg

I mean, I saw all of those, but in terms of the “realism” argument (which I’m not making; it is a fantasy game after all that hasn’t had realism for some time) none of those really work for what a melee staff, like a bo staff, does. Not many of them have balanced ends. Some would actually be okay, but no more ridiculous than any of the greatswords out there (the worst offenders of realism imo), which is why I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.

Aggrostemma.1703:

I think the biggest question is:

Can we buy the HoT from the gem store or not?

If the answer is yes than everybody has access to it so we cannot even talk about the P2W situation. In the case the answer is actually no… It’s a different story.

The answer is no, and it really doesn’t change anything. Everyone will have access to it for the same price (This is the important part). The only people that claim GW2 is P2W are those that are not yet aware of the difference between P2W content and B2P Expansion content.

Genesis.8572:

MiniEquine.6014:

I was hoping for something different with the Longbow as well, but this spec will be here for people who want to play it. I mean, the DH is not exactly the same as the Ranger; no pet, traps have different effects, and you can still slot regular Guardian utilities instead of the traps. Not every elite spec is going to be one everyone wants to play, but maybe the next Guardian elite spec will make you fanboy over it (and hopefully more people than this one has too!)

What were you hoping from the guardian longbow spec?

My idea for it would have been a ranged, angelic semi-support class. The Longbow would essentially have an auto-attack (the one they have is fine) and up to four “Mark” skills (mimicking the Necromancer’s marks but with Guardian symbols, though probably not triggered by enemies, maybe triggered by allies? o.O), which would pulse condi clears, regen, aegis, protection, stability, quickness, and healing to allies with maybe an opposite effect to enemies. The utility skills and heal would be a new set of channeled shouts, almost exactly like the anthems in GW1. These would do sort of what the Longbow does, but with varying intensity and at point-blank range instead of 1200 units away. The Elite would temporarily transform you into a “Paragon of Light” or “Spirit of the Paragon”, changing your weapon to a spear and giving you wings (with float? they added it to Chronomancers) for a short time and granting you abilities similar to that of the Paragons. Spears would be thrown, in the same way.

I am not entirely sure if the name of the class could be Paragon though, as they didn’t really use bows, but the Elite skill would be the embodiment of the idea behind it.

Ojyh.9842:

You mean that they have a long term bigger plan ? I don’t think so… But if they do, I can’t see how it can be good if it implies more specs like this one. I prefere to warn them now and tell them to stop while it is still possible.

The first and biggest error A.Net made with the DH was to believe that because of the longbow a Guardian should turn into a Hunter. I would prefere not to encourage them in that way by saying he could be an assassin or something like that.
Your suggestions would make the existence of professions useless. It would mean being able to play every kind of archetype with any character, just changing its appearance.
The very first idea behind the GW2 profession designs was to make every profession clearly identifiable and have their own unique style, but giving the possibility to any character to fulfill any role in a party. That sounded good. In the end it wasn’t in every aspects… But now they’re even going back on the style and identity of the professions.
That’s quite sad.

They do have a bigger plan. They’ve already said that these are not the only elite specializations we will see, and I’ve heard numbers of up to 5 different elite specializations (I think from people calculating out the total number of hero points available in the world, comparing it to the cost for a spec, and finding that you could have your 5 cores and an additional 5 filled with all the hero points). I was hoping for something different with the Longbow as well, but this spec will be here for people who want to play it. I mean, the DH is not exactly the same as the Ranger; no pet, traps have different effects, and you can still slot regular Guardian utilities instead of the traps. Not every elite spec is going to be one everyone wants to play, but maybe the next Guardian elite spec will make you fanboy over it (and hopefully more people than this one has too!)

Dante.1763:

MiniEquine.6014:

My dad plays it. Throwing money at the game repairs your tanks faster without using the in-game normal currency and allows you to use the top-tier rounds (that can only be bought with the in-game special currency), which lets you continually use the best tanks all the time with the best shells. It’s so blatantly P2W. He doesn’t buy stuff though.

That is actually wrong, i play world of tanks(26k battles). There is no repair time in world of tanks, all you have to do is have the proper amount of Silver(Regular currency) to repair a tank and its instant, at least on the PC version, i wont play the xbox or mobile versions. You can also not use gold to repair tanks, again at least on the PC version.

The APCR/HEAT/HESH gold rounds(The special currency) are available to be bought for credits as well now(Shells come in two purchasable forms – standard and premium. Standard ammo is always bought with credits. Premium ammo can be bought either with gold or for a large quantity of credits. Premium ammunition usually boasts enhanced capabilities verses the standard ammo available for the same gun. Premium rounds should be used sparingly though, as their great expense makes indiscriminately firing off premium rounds an expensive endeavor. From: http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ammo), at least they are on the PC version.
Edit: They are also looking into nerfing “Premium” Ammo so its much closer to the standard ammo and gives less of an advantage to people who buy those shells.

Now, throwing money at world of tanks does allow you to buy premium vehicles(Which are worse than or equal to tanks of the same tier, usually worse.) Which earn 50% more credits and can use crews from the same nation and vehicle type without a penalty.

So it does have a slight pay to win factor..but its nowhere near as bad as other games. And it certainly shouldnt be used to show why GW2 has no pay 2 win factor, as unlike GW2 its a free to play game and they need to make their money somewhere.

Alright, I didn’t know about the repairs, but simply being able to constantly buy the premium ammunition with real money is P2W. The point of P2W is that, to people with loads of money, it doesn’t much matter that it is expensive to do; the fact that they could throw $10,000 at a game and be consistently better off than other players is enough for them.

GW2 is a Buy2Play game. There is nothing you can buy in the gem store that will give you an unfair advantage. The only exception to this is the ability to buy gems, convert those gems to gold, and buy as many legendaries as you want. They should have never implemented the legendary weapons being able to be sold on the TP (IMO), but they have the same stats as ascended weapons and everyone can craft those anyway. Still, where it counts the most for whether a game is P2W the most is when you are going up against other players in PvP. GW2 PvP is almost completely standardized, and the traits you don’t have right away can be bought with some gold, which you would get naturally from doing PvP anyway.

As for the making money part, League of Legends is F2P, and the only things you can buy there are character skins and additional rune slots. You can spend thousands of dollars on that game too, but none of it makes you any better in-game.

Dante.1763:

Godmoney.2048:

P2W? Bro, have you played World of Tanks or Heroes and Generals before? You’re saying GW2 is P2W? Do you have any idea how off base and hyperbolic you sound to us?

I’m a fairly invested Heroes and Generals player. I’ve spent at least 120$ just getting my account baseline playable. You have to pay for every bullet you fire out of a rifle, every shell out of tank, every grenade you throw.

If you think GW2 is p2w you have no idea how much worse some games are. Honestly it’s insulting considering how little GW2 actually costs compared to the shear amount of content available for free.

Shame on you. You can’t save $50 up by the time Thorns comes out? You’ve had literally years now to save up. You still have several months to save the $50 if you even tried.

Way off topic, but PM me how WOT is P2W please…

And yea i agree with the rest though!

My dad plays it. Throwing money at the game repairs your tanks faster without using the in-game normal currency and allows you to use the top-tier rounds (that can only be bought with the in-game special currency), which lets you continually use the best tanks all the time with the best shells. It’s so blatantly P2W. He doesn’t buy stuff though.

Artaz.3819:

HoT can only be considered Pay2Win if the counter-to-specializations meta only exists within other class HoT specializations. But if done right, base core-game builds will be able to complete and/or be meta.

The problem probably won’t be based via P2W as much as just core class mechanic issues being put on back burner over new HoT balancing once launched.

TL;DR Real concern should be that HoT will likely put vanilla-class issues on back burner over new HoT Specialization issues.

It’s not based on Pay2Win at all. In Pay2Win, somebody can continually invest money into the game to the point where doing so both exceeds a reasonable amount of money for other players and gives them an objective advantage in doing so. Even if the elite specs gave a clear advantage, the fact of the matter is that the expansion will have a set price. Even if somebody wanted to throw $1000 at the expansion, they could not; they would only be able to pay the $30-$60 for it and the rest could go to the gem store for vanity items. When everyone has a reasonable limit placed on themselves via an expansion, nobody has an unfair advantage because everyone can do it.

Mobile games like Clash of Clans or Game of War are Pay2Win because you can literally throw thousands of dollars at the game and be objectively better off than anyone else. It becomes a matter of “who can spend the most money” rather than the expansion principle of “whoever wants to spend this set amount one time”.

Sytherek.7689:

Snow.2048:

My final issue with the name at this point is how it applies better to other professions. You could easily say new Ranger spec: Dragon Hunter, new Warrior spec: Dragon Hunter, without anyone blinking an eye (still some muttering about it being generic and unimaginative I’m sure but what can you do). These are profs who you can see hunting Dragons for a living, being an offensive force against Dragons. Guardians protect others, are pillars of strength and virtue that you can look up upon, not obsessive hunters who will stoop to anything to kill their prey, as I personally assume a Dragon Hunter would.

The “Dragonhunter” sobriquet indicates a worrisome homogenization of the classes. When I think “Guardian”, I think “Protector” and “Defender”, not “Aggressor.” In my mind, this heralds a shift toward making all the classes interchangable and generic, giving each some aspects of the others. Taken to an extreme, what point is there to classes if they all do the same things?

I’m expecting the Ranger “druid” to be a healer/buffer, taking on aspects of the Guardian.

The new Chronomancer gave me great hope that classes would gain enhancements reflecting their base design.

The Dragonhunter erased that optimism.

But we’ll see.

This elite spec is quite far from the base design, but could it be closer to one of the other elite specs? Like:

Guardian — ? — ? — Dragonhunter — ???

Maybe it’s a scale of variations. I’m assuming the Thief will gain elite specs that are very support-y, and the Warriors might even find themselves using magic at some point. I think, even though it doesn’t make sense right now, that it could be pretty cool later on when everything is fleshed out.

Looking through the weapons a Guardian cannot use (they are tied with the warrior for the most useable weapons), here are some possibilities:

Axe – A brutal skirmisher/crusader

Dagger – A stealthy assassin of light

Pistol – Unlikely (but who knows?)

Warhorn – A rallying commander with extra defensive boosts

Rifle – Light Lasers! (also somewhat unlikely. Guns don’t seem to be a Guardian thing, but who knows?)

Short Bow – Maybe tied with the Dagger Assassin?

Not many of the rest of the weapons seem very protective as the Guardian can already use all of the weapons that are. The only way for it to go seems into a more aggressive role, especially if it’s at the tip of the “defense” section of the scale (despite Medi Guardian offensive strength).

You might like the rifle, but it’s objectively weak outside of its #3 and #5. I agree it has its uses, and there was a time recently that you could run some sort of PvE Turret build (albeit not ideal), but that has since been an issue if any PvE mob attacks your turrets. You could try it though? It worked rather well against world bosses for me, but any time you need to move a lot it really isn’t that good.

For P/P, you could run a full condition build, but, again, the pistols are generally pretty weak compared to the kits. Conditions also won’t be too effective until the condition overhaul update, so I’d wait a little with that.

In either case, maybe a static discharge build would work? It relies on the trait of the same name in the tools adepts that pings enemies with lightning whenever you use a toolbelt skill. Usually the Rifle Turret is taken for the extra TB skill. If you run the Toolkit, you could get a 5 stack of confusion (with pry bar) and run P/P for extra condition damage. It also has a relatively low tool belt CD.

Dante.1763:

RabbitUp.8294:

It’s not. Try again.

“The Pact is the union of the three great orders of Tyria: the Durmand Priory, Order of Whispers, and Vigil. The alliance was founded in 1325 AE by the sylvari Firstborn Trahearne and his trusted friend with the stated purpose of defeating each of the Elder Dragons, one by one, starting with the undead dragon Zhaitan. "

Id say they are dragon hunting if their entire purpose was to defeat all the elder dragons. One by One, that seems like hunting to me. Hell check the verb form of the word, hunt.

1.) To chase, or search for, for the purpose of killing.
2.) To chase or search for with force or hostility for the purpose of finding(Usually followed by Down, example given was, “They hunted him down and hanged him”)

Sees like they are hunting dragons to me though.

They are hunting, but that does not make the pact soldiers “hunters”. There are subtle distinctions with what a profession is and what a hobby/job is.

If somebody types a lot for work, that doesn’t make them a “typist”, but they are typing. A construction worker that goes fishing on the weekend isn’t a fisherman, but a crabber up north is. The class names are their professions, meaning that what they do is their way of life. The minute the dragons are all dead, all of the pact soldiers stop hunting, but they are still soldiers.

Edit: Along that vein, when all the dragons are dead, the Dragonhunters will probably have a “well…now what?” moment that any villain has whenever they defeat the good guy (a la Megamind (2010)).

Inimicus.7162:

Arewn.2368:

I completely agree with OP.
Melee staves (hit-you-with-it style) are incompatible with the staff design in GW2. In GW2 they are magical implements and highly decorative in design.
These are NOT bo staves, or anything of the like.
This isn’t a matter of “realism”, it’s simply nonsensical. Imagine making a sword who’s abilities fire arrows, bow-style. Or a hammer who’s abilities are all focused around slicing/cutting.

If ranger/druid staff has an ability or two that uses the staff to smack at an enemy, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be implemented as a primarily hit-you-with-it style weapon.

A melee/bo staff would be a cool addition to the game, but this would not be the way to do it. Do it properly if at all.

First, ty for seeing to the heart of my post.

Those last 2 bits:
For the staves we have now, at best they could be like that 1 scepter block skill, however the retaliation attack would need to be ranged to make sense with the skill setups that staves have anyway.

And I agree that a true melee staff form would be wonderful, but it would ultimately have to be separate from these ornamented status symbols (2 handed scepters) that we have now to work. And I think rolling applicable staff fighting moves into a polearm weapon type is the closest we can get without making a gigantic muddled mess of our weapon categories.

At first I was willing to completely dismiss the argument you have, but now I have changed it to a partial disagreement. In looking at all of the current staff skins there are no skins that are really suited for melee combat. They should at least implement some basic design staff skins that look like what you want.

However, they probably should not add another weapon category at this time. Adding skins is easy and painless, for the most part, and the only classes that currently use staves are for strictly magical, ranged purposes (we don’t know for sure if the Revenant staff will be used in melee or not). If they actually add classes that use them as melee weapons, then they should definitely implement new skins, but people will still use the “magical” staff variants for melee combat anyway.

Also, even if the introduced polearms, those skins will most assuredly also be ridiculously oversized as well (for the higher-end weapons).

dietzero.3514:

The Pact are not all soldiers. They ARE all dragon hunters, though. The very purpose of the Pact is to hunt dragons.

That is actually completely backwards, you know. All of the pact are soldiers. From Wikipedia:

Occupational designations[edit]

In most armed forces use of the word ‘soldier’ has taken on a more general meaning due to the increasing specialization of military occupations that require different areas of knowledge and skill-sets. As a result, ‘soldiers’ are referred to by names or ranks which reflect an individual’s military occupation specialty arm, service, or branch of military employment, their type of unit, or operational employment or technical use such as: trooper, tanker, commando, dragoon, infantryman, marine, paratrooper, ranger, sniper, engineer, sapper, medic, or a gunner.

A hunter is a specific profession. Someone who hunts is not necessarily a hunter, but someone who makes their living hunting is a hunter.