What's the point of the secondary profession?

This is the part where Anets version of "balance" came and bit them in the ass.

A build in GW is NOT the equivalent of a deck in magic. It approximates a 7 card hand in magic (+ one drawn), the "perfect" hand if you will.

the colours went more or less like this i think:

White: Monk

Blue: Mesmer, Ranger

Red: Elementalist

Black: Necromancer

Green: Ranger, Warrior


The problem is that in MTG althought there is no stronger colour, they are not equal. Black is NOT better than Green. Its just better at destroy and playing from the graveyard. Green on the other hand can produce mana and lay out the pain in the form of gargantuan creatures.

Its impossible to predict whether mono Black VS mono Green will win just by basing yourself on the colour, yet they are in no way EQUAL.

the advantage of playing muticolour decks in MTG is obvious, in a Black/Green deck you can for example create a strong mana curve coupled with huge creatures that just keep on coming back from the grave while adding some decent creature control as well.

Problem is in GW it dosent really work that way.

One of the big issues is the fact that we cant use sec prof runes on the toons i feel.

The other huge issue is artificial imposed metagame stemming from constant never ending skill balancing. Lets take a look at why:

In MTG its not the player who can slam down his card onto the table first that wins the fight, Its the deck construction as a WHOLE and a small measure of luck (a good "balanced" deck needs very little luck indeed).

In GW it seems that the build is not nearly as important as who clicks on the skills first, fastest, and most consistently, the famed "player skill". Typical Anet reaction to outrage that a build dominates the meta is to nerf it, but....in MTG the fact that a deck or a given hand wins the match consistently just means its BETTER and that the player has done a good job in making those skills work together.

Result? if its all about "player skill" and not "build skill" then all classes become ultra specialized in niche build types, then its the player that clicks best that wins. Its not a dig at the PVP community, its too late for that anyways it IS a critique on Anets take on "balance" a take that has taken hold of PVE in the form of Ursan i might add.

Its not ALL bad though.

Heroes have opened up some new possibilities in the form that instead of just one "hand" we can have 3 more. This means that each Hero takes the place of a colour (secondary profession) and its the end result that counts not the single individual builds. The downside is that they are TERRIBLE players and lack scripting capabilities, it could be somewhat compensated with 7 Heroes but hey...

I think maybe you guys need to consider the difference between "somewhat inspired by" and "an exact clone of".

And MtG not being based on luck? Please. Even Poker is about 60% luck, MtG is like 95% luck.

Guild Wars is a team game, not a 1 vs. 1. Biggest difference, IMO. Your 'hand' is technically all 64 skills. It's like having your whole deck playable at your leisure, rather than luck of the draw.

Ah, I remember MtG (started about a week after Legends had come out, and thus about 2 days after it disappeared from the local shops ) - balance thrown out of whack every expansion, constant errata, nerfs (Trample, for example), and card bannings for tournaments, rules simplified to the point that a 5 year old could learn the game, etc., etc... Glad I gave up on it back 'round Mercadian Masques...

The purpose of secondaries originally was to allow more archetypes. I think the problem in the current system is the lack of skill points. You need 12 ranks at least for a skill line to be effective. That means you've maxed out by the time you've picked two lines from your primary. There are a few times that a 11/10/10 build will work, but not always. Even then, you are running the risk of being gimmiky.

In MtG your constraints are land cards (mana) and what's in your hand. In GW you have 8 skills, but they have verying degrees of effectiveness in order to use them. If every skill had a set stat (meaning no skill points) or if you have 200 att points for primary skills and 100 for secondaries then the secondary professions would probably become more easy to use. Until then, only a signet of illusions mesmer can approach free use of secondary classes.


That's my opinion, now the people in IRC will probably call be a n00b because of it.

i want to use my muti-colored cards, so i have to go 2 or 3 colors deck i think the mana fix in MTG is easier than in GW,reason:in MTG, 60% time is luck of the draw, if you get land host or screwed, no matter how high your skill level is, you lose. However, in GW, there just that 8 skills on your screen, everytime you play it, they will be there, no matter what.So imo the secondary professions in GW is quite important since the choice is limited to only one secondary(MTG u can go mono white,bule white, black white,red white,green white or even 3 colors 4 colors 5 colors deck).

Not really, no.

You see, in MtG, when you play a monocolor deck, you will have a solid mana supply. But, your deck will not be as versatile as a multicolor deck. But nevertheless your deck will still be strong enough to beat other decks.

If you play multicolor deck (2 colors, 3 colors, 4 colors, 5 colors), the ONLY problem you will have is resource management. If you can fix that, your cards from any colors you use will be as strong as though you're using a monocolor deck; there's no such thing as "this is my primary color so the cards from this color are stronger".

With that said, I'd say that the concept of "Primary attribute" in GW makes the whole "similar to MtG" premise to go downhill and never really reach the point it should be. I'm not saying it's bad to have the primary attribute, but that it creates an imbalanced profession (color) combination you won't find in MtG.

Yeah. But cards from your so-called second color in Magic never get "weaker" because you think of it as "second color", unlike in GW.

Hear, hear.

He stated CLEARLY that it's based on luck, just that if you make a good enough deck, you can negate the need of "lucky draw" most of the time. It's different from Poker, clearly, as you make your own deck.

Yay, let's bash that other classic and more popular game so that we can feel better about ourselves and the game we play, eh?

It's pathetic. Please stop it.

You left Magic during the old era where each set was more broken than the ones before. And let me tell you; unlike MtG where the dev can't go back in time and fix the previous sets which are broken (so instead they have to use restriction rules to fix them), GW's dev HAS ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD to fix the game. And look at how balanced GW is.

As I said earlier; the only problem you will face with multicolor deck is the resource management. And the more colors you use, the more severe the problem. But if you can overcome such problem, every single card in your deck would be as strong as though you're using a monocolor deck. In GW, however, skills from your secondary profession will NEVER get as strong as when they're from your primary profession (due to runes).

What's the difference between running Zergway and a Suicide Black deck?

Most successful decks are mono-colored, and for good reason. They often splash in some other colors for a specialized addition.

Twiddle Desire used black for Tendrils, Wake used blue for counter spells, Opposition splashed in green solely for the Hermit and a bit of mana acceleration.

Now think about GW.
Splash some /mo for mending touch or Aegis, splash air magic for shock/gale, splash 10 blood for a boonprot, etc.

Very few competitive decks balance out 2+ colors together; as I said previously, one color forms the foundation, and the other color provides useful bits.

<----- quit after Mirrodin block, none of that Japanese samurai animal baloney for me.

1vs1 is just one way of playing mtg. Teams, emperor, 2 headed Giant, ffa.... heck you can even do Wow style "raids" if you can be bothered.

it can be a team game no problem, and OC decks can be modified (have to be really) accordingly.

As for the hand, it would be as you describe if we could modify our bar while in combat.


@Numa. if your basing your deck on 95% luck something is wrong.

But GW is only a team game - the competitive side, at least, considering M:TG doesn't have "PvE." Even Hero Battles are a team game because it's not just your build, but your heroes as well.

No, by "your," I mean "your team." The team acts as one with 64 skills (or 32 for 4v4).

If you look at the decks used in CHAMPIONSHIP matches (aren't those where you'd find "competitive decks"?) during Odyssey-Onslaught-Mirrodin era, you'd have seen that most of them ARE MULTICOLOR DECKS.

Blue-green madness? Goblin-bidding (red black)? Astral Slide (multicolor)? Modular (artifact-based multicolor)?

Please do some research before posting something as though you know about it. No offense.

http://cards.mtgnews.com/Cards/LW/Do...ege_Tower.html

3 color, but simply amazing

without 2ndarys, no solo farming etc

Ravager splashed 3 colors - Red for shrapnel blast, black for Disciple of the Vault, and Blue for Thoughtcast.
Slide splashed red for Lightning Rift, Slice and Dice, and Starstorm.
You are correct about madness, it was blue/green.

Type 1, which is the main TOURNAMENT format with the highest rewards, had very competitive decks mono-colored with a little splashing.

Black Reanimate
Twiddle Desire
Sligh
Ravager
Suicide Black (AGAIN)


I could go on, should you wish.

I competed at the west coast regionals 4 years straight. I have much more experience in this discussion than you.

Congratulations, you've never played Magic.

Thats not true,PTQ are only for Type 2 and Extended

The Grand Prix (3?) years back was Extended and Type1.

Otherwise there's no use for P9.

I could give you the links for all the Type1 tournies in California if you'd like

Edit: It's not the most important format, this is true. My mistake in previous posts

I should clarify, that if your deck uses 24 lands of one color, for example, splitting the lands 12 of one color and 12 of another won't dramatically affect the efficiency of either color (except maybe in the case if your deck uses cards which require 3x of one type of mana, which is extremely rare)

Even then, there are tons of mana fixers for 2 colors. Painlands, Duals, Fetchlands, etc.

It was just an example, chill.

ah yes, in that case I fully agree. I misunderstood you.

in hero battles as well the team acts as one. In some cases the "fingers" may act on their own, but what you really want is a hand...or a fist.

what's the point of secondary ?

sometimes u don't have to invest anything in the secondary, and yet u can be effective in a team.

[skill]echo[/skill][skill]arcane echo[/skill][skill]aegis[/skill]

(not sure why people wanna echo mending)

Mmmm...

invest 9 in prot for the break point

Secondary profession is for GoLE. L33t need for speccing there.

Dervish + wild blow is win imo
Also, I love use dervish earth prayers skills on my ele in pvp and the arcane echo, echo for pve.

Secondary professions are great imo, it makes it possible to come up with all sorts of weird, yet effective, builds.

Notice how you prefer to use skills that are not "less effective/more difficult to spec-up" when used by non-primary profession?

You don't, for example, feel like using Avatar of Grenth when you're a primary elemenalist. In Magic, you can use whatever cards in your not-main color (the color you have the most lands of) as long as you can keep up with mana-management (which is one of the biggest challenge, imo, in MtG and the one that usually relies on luck).

They don't. It's a joke build highlighting a series of skills that are completely useless in the combination suggested.

Similar joke builds are frenzysig (using a heal sig while frenzying - which leads to taking quadruple damage and usually the death of the character) and hamstorm (combining hamstring with firestorm - a combination that the back of the original Guild Wars box suggested was a good combination of skills.)

Regarding the original post: A large part of the point of secondaries is to reduce the number of professions that need to be created to cover certain archetypes that combine certain areas of expertise. For instance, you don't need a specific Paladin class when that archetype could be covered by going W/Mo or W/D. As people have said - some professions could certainly do with having more skills that are based on the primary attribute, but the idea itself isn't a bad one - it just currently has a few shortcomings that need to be fixed.

A warrior isn't going to run Meteor Shower, just like a black deck isn't going to run Mobilization.

If GW didn't have secondary professions, I wouldn't have played it for more than a week. XD
It would have gotten boring so fast for me.

A warrior won't feel like using Meteor Shower because of his limited energy pool. And even if he manages to use it, it won't be as effective as when it's used by primary elementalist.

Mobilization won't be used in a deck that play mainly with black cards NOT BECAUSE IT'S NOT BLACK (it's white), but because it MOSTLY BENEFITS WHITE-aligned creature type (soldier). If, for example, black has cards with "soldier" creature type, Mobilization would be totally usable and as effective as it is now (the activation cost of its ability is easily splash-able, too).

Anyway, you of all people should know better than to use a "tribal theme" card in this discussion, no?

Secondary professions just give more options and exponentially increase the flexibility available to you. Just because most players use the same combinations and builds doesn't detract from the original idea which I think is great.

I would however remove the limitation of having just a single secondary profession. Let a character have any skills they've learnt from the primary profession, and any combinations of skills they've learnt from other professions.

I think its silly that a character has to temporarily forget everything they know from one secondary profession because they're using a skill from another.

I don't think it would overpower things too much because you're still limited to the 200 attribute points and the 1 elite skill. It would of course mean you could finally have the frenzy-echo-mending holy trinity on the same bar.

As far as I commonly see secondarys are either for the one or two extra skills a build needs that are commonly not really attribute based. Or farming builds.

A warrior won't use Meteor Shower because of how much he has to spec to make it worth his while.

Similarly, Mobilization (which is used to excellent effect with Wake) worked best with white because it required 1W per soldier, not because of the creature type.

Attribute points can be roughly akin to Lands/acceleration.
Gale costs 4 air? Spec 4 air.
You need a Mountain for Haste to give that Avatar of Woe insta-kill on cast? Spec several bloodstained mires and 4-6 mountains to get the job done.

Oh, and by the way.

Sligh (you know, that red deck that easy kills turn 2?) is mono red, rarely speccing blue or black if you're particularly innovative.

The whole primary/secondary thing was more than half the reason that I bought GW in the first place. When you play you're essentially building your own class... It's just that some people make better choices than others. On top of that some skills see little use because they need some revamping. But even with the bad there are still SOOOO many great combinations of skills that help add substance and uniqueness to the game.

No shock axe Warriors or critical barrage Assassins, no touch Rangers(I could do without that one..) Every profession would probably have 2-3 optimized builds (pigeon hole much?) and that would be that. It would be like the talent system in WoW, 3 trees to choose from. Sure you can mix and match different talents but you won't be very effective.

All around the game would be less interesting and a lot more predictable without the potential for a secondary profession.

And no matter how hard he tries, he'll never get up to the same level of power as primary elementalist, which is my point.



Then it goes back to the mana issue I describe earlier.

In this case, if you can provide "enough" white mana (from whatever means), you can use Mobilization in ANY deck.

But of course, mono-white deck would give you the ability to produce white mana effortlessly (duh). But that's the strenght of monoclor deck, which is also my point.

I try to describe things in a broader sense, you see. I don't think it's a good idea to describe things in a "Look, this card fits my argument perfectly so let's assume every other cards work the same way" kind of sense.

I think people are getting away from the aspect of a secondary profession as increasing your options, while not increasing the complexity of having to add that many more skills to each profession.

By simply being able to have a secondary profession, you now have a whole other level of possible combinations.

My issue is that those options are rarely used, and even less frequently preferred. If dual classes are to be a part of GW2, then they need to add up to more than the sum of their parts. A GW1 w/e is basically a, "warrior who can throw fireballs", but it's lacking the synergy of the 2 professions. Where the warrior who can enchant his sword to [temporarily] do fire damage, or to make the next enemy striking him get set on fire? GW1 lacks skills that take advantage of the combination of professions.

Think outside the box; where is the w/r who can charm some great beast and ride it into battle as his steed? Where is the n/rt that can truly summon, then reap the soul of a defeated foe? Where is the e/me who can really make your mind burn?

I'm also not a fan of primary attributes restrictions. Then again, I'm a huge fan of character customization.

So much nonsense about MtG in this thread...

The secondary profession is very similar to adding colors to a Magic deck. However, the format you are playing drastically affects what is acceptable (quite like what form of PvP you are playing affects what skills are acceptable). Now, I haven't played Magic in about a year, but right at the end multi-color decks were some of the best (at least in Vintage).

In Standard, Block, or possibly even Extended the colorwheel is fairly balanced so that one color doesn't necessarily have an edge over another. However, IMO GW is more like Vintage, and in Vintage, you aren't going to see much green in a competitive deck (believe me, I tried, try searching my name with R/G beats) because green is very weak. You've got fastbond, crop rotation, and thats about it. However, in blue you get FoW (heh, not fissure of woe), 3 of the p9, tinker, gifts, fof, mana drain and a bunch of other broken stuff that green can't compete with. In black you've got yawgwin, duress, necro, bargain, etc. Strong cards get played, and the strong cards are in certain colors. Strong skills get used, and those strong skills are in certain professions (hence why you don't see a lot of necros in GvG, or a lot of mesmers in PvE). That's what I think the parallel is in Magic.

As far as the secondary profession goes, it is to shore up on weaknesses or to provide a win condition. Two examples in Magic: R/G Beats and Gifts.

Red by itself has very little defense against enchantments, so adding green for things like Naturalize or Emerald Charm help strengthen that weakness. Parallel would be a resto ritualist using a mesmer or a monk secondary for some hex removal.

Gifts, pre-restriction (not sure about now), splashed red for empty the warrens as a win condition. Parallel would be something like a A/E sliver farmer. Or maybe even a Shock Axe.

Secondary professions definitely add depth to the game, and I think they work exactly as designed. However, just like in Magic, things can get broken and need to be fixed, hence the nerfbat or the banhammer (Magic equivalent). Nothing usually to cry about.

My $0.02

[skill]Assassin's Promise[/skill]
One of the best mesmer PvE elites. (I'd actually say it's THE best but people sure love their SoI ...)

...You can't be serious.

I think he is, but then again, he's .... well.... (continuing this would result in mass flamefests)