What will Ch 4 Professions be?

Druid (more use of the Forms mechanic)
Demonologist

I agree, this alone would greatly improve the game. I certain that almost everyone in the game is tired of seeing a carbon copy of their character.
I know its really irritating when you zone into an outpost and see 5 people that look exactly like you.

I hope too that there is no new classes, improving on the existing ones or new races will be cool. Slots are a give and take issue.

Personally I am waiting for a mimic that will be able to capture monster skills. I loved the characters in Final Fantasy that had that ability. I believe they will release one eventually why else would they create monster skills? Because most of the monster skills are powerful maybe they should be elite skills.

How about a Druid type like in Diablo II who is a shape shifter, can have a pet or summon animals/creatures, can use the forces of nature and has mimic abilities which allow them to copy monster skills. Because monster skills are so powerful instead of a bunch of elite skills the Druid could capture monster skills and only use one at a time, but be able to have a library of them to choose from. The shape shifting ability would change the character into a werewolf (increased damage an health regeneration), werecat (faster attack rate and increased speed), werebear (high damage output and armor) also have skill like Fullmoon that lengthens the duration of the change. The forces of nature could be used for healing, defense, and attacking. Again taking from the Diablo Druid summon animals or creatures you could summon wolf packs, eagle/hawk, cause infestation player will be covered in fire ants same deign as being on fire and rain poison arrow frogs causes AoE poison. I think this character would work well with a Mayan or Inca type chapter.

For three+ years, I'd played Magic: The Gathering. (It's a card game)

To this day, they have like 20 or more sets out. That's a LOT of cards to keep track of. And there were some crazy combo's that just shouldn't have existed; but how can you change the text on a card already printed?

However, now... tons of possibilities. Millions. Black and red decks, blue and green, two different types of green decks, spiders, zombies, whatever the hell you wanted, it would work.

Some decks, like builds in Guild Wars, will counter each other. It is inevitable. A monk trying to heal against a shock warrior is just not going to happen. That doesn't mean you say "omfg nerf dat!!" there is no inbalance. As Guild Wars becomes more versatile, cheap combo's are going to happen, but since there's just so much versatility, practically anything can be combo'd.

People would complain about how Magic just has way too many cards... but what are they going to do, STOP making the game? It's the same for Guild Wars. If they add the regular amount of skills for each game, they're going to have to balance it more. I heard long ago someone (likely important) saying GW was a saga. Thus, six games before they either go on hiatus, or stop.

I personally want two new professions. But after that, that's it. I have no idea why people think the new classes are useless... scythes have a huge arc for damage, and their physical arc can hit three people at once. They have much stamina, and forms really brings something new to the table.

Paragons are the much-needed "bards" from other games that I can't believe were not put into the core game at first. Spear THROWING I cannot agree with, I think poking them would have been nice.

Ritualists are the only ones I can really think to myself would be the less useful of all new professions. Spirits are nice, but can be destroyed pretty easily without sufficient Spawning Power. They're nice minion masters, though. I don't see why people would rather choose a level 26 golem with normal health, than a level 20 (20, right? At twelve death?) with 64% normal health, AND minions to come.

Assasins are amazing at PVP, but PVE I cannot agree with so... But the chaining of attacks is a great idea, and like the Dervish, he brought something new to the table.

I really hope they do add just two more professions, then go on to work on something else. 12 professions is enough, 14 is just begging for inspiration!

... Also. Races would be a great, but immensely complicated, system. Unless the races were to fit to human form, which... most cannot say they do.

i recall reading anet said they won't always release new proffesions with each new chapter.

my bet is they won't add any.

rumours on various foreign sites is that chpt 4 is aztec/central american/south american themed. no idea about that, i red it on gamefaqs.com..LOL

if they did add new classes...

alchemist (with potions maybe concenrating on attribute buffs, enrgy and health regen potions)

and druid

shapeshifting/summoing creatures

I was being cheeky

But an army of "Undeads" sounds kinda cool but it has been done with a Necro... From what you describe it I'm seeing a Vizier-type character summoning Wraiths etc.. I 'spose to make it different you could give him an elementalist-sized energy storage capacity and make all his summoning skills cost like 25-30 energy each to make it fair, but different to Minion Master. Maybe make the undead more powerful as a result.

I'm still not getting how a true shape-shifter would work, or what benefits changing form would have...unless you had each form doing something for you like the Dervish forms.

I really hope they don't put in new professions at all. An increase in new skills for existing professions would be cool though. As well as balancing out stuff.

Focus some more on the existing colours like in magic the gathering instead of adding a new colour (profession). 40 extra new spells per class would be way more interesting than another hybrid derived from the core classes which were presented at the launch of prophecies.

When factions hit the shelves, I wasn't interested in the assassin and ritualist but I was looking forward to see the new skills for my monk, same for Nightfall.

Being a once MTG freak myself, your analogies are a bit off.

First, new skills = new cards. New *Professions* = new COLORS. Magic's never gone beyond 5 (6?)

Second, "Standard" rotates out the old cards, and that's the modern format in which there is indeed a good deal of diversity at the moment. (only took them like 10 years to get to that point...) Formants like type 1 and legacy see extremely short games that are dominated by a small subset of all those possible card combos, and like these formats, there's no mechanism in sight to rotate old skills out of PvP (outside of an occasional tournament for the top 25 guilds). This will be more and more a problem with GW PvP as it ages.

With these facts combined, new professions might be important, however. Throwing skills on a specialist profession rather than one of the cores cuts down on your possibility to combo skills across secondaries.

Support for the old side classes in terms of new skills, armors, weapons probably needs to be dropped at some point if they want to continue adding new profs and not having things get out of hand, in fact I was surprised asn/rit got ANYTHING at all in NF. Maybe the next chapter shouldn't support them. However it would mightly piss off customers if they do that, so good luck...

Just wanted to throw in my $0.02. I also hope there will not be any new professions for the next chapter. I think 10 professions is a nice and even number to stay at. Any more professions would cause balancing to be a nightmare and the task insurmountable for creating new skills for every existing class in all future chapters.

If ANet decides to go the no-new-profession/content-release route, then I think it's important to balance the new content between PvE and PvP. New professions make sure a significant portion of new content for PvP, if that's taken out, I think more will need to be done for the PvP side of things; otherwise, we may get some upset PvP'ers.

Well there plenty of good ideas for new classes but most of them could be covered by expanding the skills of the current classes. Ie people want a Demon summoner well a ritualist or necro sould possibly do that, people want an animal shape shifter a ranger could be able to do that with beast mastery. although im sure Anet could add some good new classes i agree with the general consencis that there are enough classes atm and if any more were added it would remove the old fun of guild wars which allowed u to be any class (hence why most people have 1 of every class) to keep gameplay more interesting. Howvere if too many are added it makes it increasingly harder for people to keep up and so classes begin to get ignored more and more, until people being to use just character type which will probally be Warrior since thats the class the majority of people already play the most. (especially people who dont play gw much or who like to farm alot)

Yes, you have a good point there. Current classes could be give these new skills people are asking for, but hasn't Anet already said they will be rolling out 2 new classes with each new chapter?

If not then I agree that these new skills could be added to existing classes. Mesmers are having a hard time at the moment why not give them the ability to mimic monster skills, give the ranger shape shifting skills in beast mastery, summon demons for the necro or rit, and on and on. I would agree that if the programmers concentrated on game content and story line, AI (of minions, pets, henchmen, heroes and critters) and skills more instead of coming up with new classes newer chapters would blow the old ones away.

I'm happy if they stick with the 10 professions. New armour, skills and heroes is all I ask.

I hope they add some missions where you can't use heroes because for me Heroes killed PvE. Nobody gets in groups anymore it's just... You. I'd rather play a single player game like Morrowind at that point. I had fun getting in groups but nobody wants to now with their heroes...

Thank god this game has good PvP still.

Well, you do have a point there. Especially in NF you see almost everyone with a 4 above their heads...

Does it matter what the professions will be? I mean, peoples will still buy the game even if the professions is like a summoner or a warrior-melee type class.

FoxBat, I now agree with you. The only reason however, is because of inbalance.


So, everyone, let's say ANet DOES make two new professions, would the biggest problem with you folks just be balance?

If they were to balance out all the classes, and the new ones to boot, would you then be interested? I mean, as long as there is balance, diversity is good. However GW is already a very diverse game... I just don't know where the hell they are going to get these new classes from, it just to me doesn't sound like Shapeshifter (though it would be cool) will be a class. I really think a "hands" melee fighter would be cool though. That's what I thought was gonna be in NF.

Of course, I also thought NF was going to have "war" PvP, where it was like un-instanced and stuff. Ahh that's another topic for now.

They better not add any new professions - Why complicate the metagame any further?

I think as soon as we learn what it's supposed to be set in(theme wise), we'll have a better idea as to what the new classes will be(if any). If the next chapter is themed around Norse and Celtic mythology we'll see some type of berserkers and druids. It'll be interesting to see what the new campaign will be like, as they seem to be quickly running out of common themes. Maybe actual seafaring motifs, or tundra? Maybe a Native American thing? Looking forward to Ch.4

I'd be happy with no new professions, but new heros available. Like, right away they give you a (female) ritualist. Another paragon, dervish, assasin and mesmer as you progress.

It seems hard to add new proffesions other than the ones that are already here, without changing the race of humans of course, if they did cahnge the race, I;d easily make a charr, dwarf or elven character

Shapeshifter/morpher:

It would be cool turning into a cheetah and having your movement speed increased 50%. Morphing into a gorilla (king kong woot) and being able to actually throw enemies away from you causing various conditions. Shapeshifting into a rhino or bull and ramming enemies causing cripple and/or bleeding. Turning into a giant amardillo and rolling into an armor ball for plus 200 armor. Morphing into a giant lizard and whipping people with your tail causing cripple. Turning into a cobra and spiting poison at foes and blinding them also. Yes it could be considered overpowered, but anet can balance it.

Many more possiblities. It gets me excited just thinking about a class like this.

i keep seeing 'no new professions' very CONSTRUCTIVE ideas.... wait thats my sarcasm kickin in...

that'll be some stand alone game, completely lacking in real gameplay differences. just more armors, skills, and pve content is NOT very attractive for a full game price. sorry pals, new professions is what sells the games.

as i suggested. they should work a full year on either this coming chapter or the next, and make the same as what we get for 6 months, then polish/add what we need for everything: MORE skills, better balance, more armors, more everything. you see? and then how much more attractive will that standalone game be? all answer for you, very attractive.

All I'm saying is if I have to choose between 150 new skills spread among the core classes, or 2 speciality professions, I go with the specialties as wrecking less havoc with the metagame, because it reduces how those skills can be combo'd and abused. And also hope that new stuff for old specialty classes is eventually phased out (already NF has content that you can't access without factions, that kind of thing can't go on ad infinitum)

As for the widespread disinterest, I imagine completionists are facing character fatigue, those people who HAVE to have a PvE of each primary profession and run all of them through each campaign, you'd have to run through NF 10 times, the next chapter 12, etc. and that aspect starts getting pretty rediculous. Doesen't help if they are going to force you to grind though the entire campaign per character just to unlock the high-end area a la DoA.

Please no proffesions. Focus on getting things right this time and not adding a gimmick to get people to buy the next chapter.

Maybe this time we can get more then 20 PvE missions AND still have some kickass PvP without siphoning all the time and energy on balance.

On a slightly different tack ............... Instead of an actual 'new profession', why not have an additional/extra 'attribute' added to each profession in the new chapter.

Example 1: Warrior

Axe Mastery
Hammer Mastery
Swordsmanship
Strength
Tactics
Polearm Mastery - New Attribute


Example 2: Ranger

Beast Mastery
Marksmanship
Expertise
Wilderness Survival
Nature Mastery - New attribute

Etc, etc, etc.

So in all, there would be, say, 10 new attributes in the next chapter. If it was done right, this should change a few 'builds' and add loads of new skills.

Can we have another skill slot please? Nine is good!

there will be 2 new professions for each chapter....anet confirmed that after the factions release. as for what they are most likely casters

I would like to see a new caster that uses special gems you earn to transform that build into an in game creature. I thought changing into worms for some quests was fun. I would also like to see a build that can ride something.

Chapter 4

• 2 new professions
• 1 new continent
• new skills for every profession
• new broken skills that good players will cry about in the pvp forums
• stupid special event
• boring story
• no good farming areas

Did I miss anything Anet?

One more vote for the "no new professions please" crowd.

Please come up with something new that is NOT 1 new melee class + 1 new support class.

- Xeeron

I'd like to see a 9th skill slot that is reserved for a ressurect skill...

i would like to see a barbarian (like in the diablo series) with he ability to dual weild 1 handed weapons and the main attribute could be ears a adrenalins faster or something like that....yes i know its a copy of diablo but i loved that class and would love to see it in my new favorite game. and the 9th skills slot for rez is an awsome idea!

Still if they don't add new professions I think 1 or 2 or both of the following should happen:

1) You can only create a new character with the new race... as in you can't create humans in the new chapter. (You can still bring your over of course.)

2) Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon, and Dervish would have to be available in the new chapter as well. (I know they are chapter specific but I could a lot of complaints about not being able to create a Charr Dervish and so on. Plus if there were only the core professions a lot of people already have one if not several so there would be a lack of interest.)

Just because there would be no new professions does not automatically mean the content of the chapter would be better.

I am with the majority here about not adding more professions, atleast for another expansion or two. I dunno I guess with a new expansion every 6 months I don't want to try and form a group from a pick of about 30 different classes in 4-5 years from now. Trying to set up a group build would be too tedius and would create a gigantic learning curve for those trying to start and get into the game. In any RPG there are only so many roles you can do in terms of what each ability a character brings to the group, too many would just simply start cancelling each other out in those abilities.

You might aswell just start calling newer classes "Warrior 2.0", "Neo Elementalist", or "The Second Monk", and so on. With just the current 10 professions we have in the game right now you can already start to see some professions stepping on other's feet in terms of what abilities they add to a group.

A new race and the next expansion allowing all professions to start in would be a much better selling point for the game.

Although I do enjoy new content to explore I also understand that too much content spreading your players thin is a silent death to any RPG. Now I'm not saying no new explorable content every expansion. But I am all for consolidating alot of the older content and bringing something new from it. Let's face it, zoning into ascalon and seeing 2 other people there in district 1 at peek time isn't very cool when the same is for every town outpost cause the developers in year 6 has 14 different campaigns and 8,000 outpost when there are only 20,000 players on at one time, most that are currently fighting, pvping, or whatever.

A good thought out balance is the key success to keeping any Online alive, just enough to not get bored, but not so much your overwhelming people from the game especially newcomers or those that like playing multiple classes, and it would suck to spend 2+ years of constant playing to try and keep up on just one individual character.

As fore-mentioned throwing out constant new stuff at a rapid pace also means more bugs, exploits, and unbalancing. It would be good, and wise if the developers take a breather, sit back, and say, "Ok this is what we got up until now, how can we make the current game better?"

Nearly every Online RPG dies eventually, because the "fast money" and "selling additions" overcome the thought of quality, that's the reason majority of the playbase, even here on this forums as an example is not all about new and new and more new, but a good balance of reworks aswell.

I want a gun-wielding class. Not M95s or M240s, just a big old boomstick. That'd be cool.

Burntpowder's Long Rifle
Piercing DMG: 30-40 (Reqs 9 Marksmanship)
Life-Stealing: 7 (-1 health regeneration)
Armor +7 (vs elemental attacks)
Backfire rate: 30%
Two Handed

For each point in Gunsmithing (Primary) you gain an additional 2% chance for your weapon to not backfire. When a backfire occurs you are blinded for 3 seconds and take 20 damage. Long Rifles fire at a rate of 2.5 seconds and have a range of 1.33 Aggro Circles. Their projectile speed is very fast.

I want the Bard I saw in concept art a while ago.

Ive been keen with this idea a long time my self.
It would be nice if they gave ranger some sort of artribute that could give greater distance.

Giving each new profession a new attribute was actually a really good suggestion. It would create more varitey without all new professions. I think that would satisfy the people who didn't want new professions and those that want something new.

I too hope for no new classes