GW2 Suggestion Profession List

I personally don't care about epeen either, unless however, if it interferes with the efficiency of my party. Fire Magic Sylvaris would NOT get into any parties I'm leading, because to me fun is pwning an area as fast and efficiently as possible with a party perzactly geared toward pwning said area. And I wouldn't expect to be let into a group if I wasn't the race geared toward the spec I would be running either, I wouldn't undercut someone else's ability to complete an area just because I wasn't running the spec I should be.

Edited it to make it more clear, and i noticed i forgot Dervs, not like we need them or anything j/k

Stickied for now.

Keep it clean, people.

Wouldn't that cause just as much elitism? No matter what you do, if you introdue races it will cause elitism. I propose you should at least make the stuff causing elitism lore-based. Of course though, I have no idea what i'm talking about, so please disregard this post if you see fit. Good day to you all.

ohh i can't resist this thread.

basics

PvE character has infinite levels (or extremely high cap). But no ability to reallocate attribute points (adds to roleplaying).
PvP all characters are set to the same level e.g. 20. But have the ability to reallocate attribute points.

There are no professions.

All characters have a set health and energy level that does not increase with level. i.e. a level one character will have 250 health and 20 energy. A level 100 character would have 250 base health and 20 base energy.

Every level gained gives you X attribute points.

As now you get to take 8 skills into the game.


Attributes

Attributes are divided into 2 types. For ease of understanding I will call them Primary attributes and skill attributes.

Attributes have a hard cap in the amount of points you can put into them. i.e. like in GW you can't have more than 12 points in any one attribute.

Everyone starts with all the attributes possible to get in the game (but obviously no attribute points). However skill attributes might be obtained by quests.

Primary Attributes

These are like the primary attributes are now (they do not include things like Soul Reaping or anything that gives energy or health when X happens). They adjust some underlying calculation in the game.

There are no skills connected to the Primary Attributes.

Examples of Primary attributes:
Strength: Increases armor penetration
Energy Storage: increases the amount of energy.
Health: increases the amount of health
Critical Strikes: increased chance of critical strike.
Dodge: increased chance of evading melee attack.
Damage Reduction: gives a small amount of damage reduction

you could have any number of these like reduction in condition length or resistance to elements etc.

Skill Attributes

These are the attributes that we would recognize now i.e. fire magic, marksmanship, sword, axe, dagger etc.

skills are connected to these attributes. I hope I don't need to explain this any further.

Armor

Armor will have 3 statistics connected with them. AC, Health and Energy.

This would give you the option of high health and low energy or high energy and low health. Throw in the adjustment in AC for lots of choices and trade offs.

Advantages of this system
You get to decide what type of character you want. If you want to create a tank then you place points in the right skills and pick the right armor.

PvE characters get the feeling of gaining lots of power as they will be able to max out every attribute line and have ultimate flexibility in skill choice.

If you choose a skill line you don't like you don't have to restart a new character just continue to gain levels and adjust character overtime.

PvP still has to make the strategic decisions of where to place the attribute points to be most effective.

There is no need for a player to have X number characters in order to unlock skills.

The level of a character after a certain point becomes pointless as they will have maxed the attributes their character needs even if they haven't maxed all the attributes.

When they add a new campaign they only have to add a new skill attribute rather than an entire class. This should be easier to implement for the developers and requires less work.

Makes a single PvE character more self reliant as they can easily add in good healing skills or defense skills. Keeps the need for team balancing in PvP as the attributes are limited.

Definately NO.
If PvE chars have infinite levels, that means you'll put a lot of time into them... To find out that in fact your char is builded like crap and you have to redo it, or continue without being able to join a guild because you don't have the-cookie-cutter-of-the-now?

No.

Characters in GW need clear cut jobs and separated skill sets, or else the imba gimmicks we have now will look like nothing to what we'll have. Imagine if Sway had shadowsteps, critical strikes, and knockdown on top of everything else. Yeah I'm sure you think that with your system such an imbalanced combination would never happen, but someone would make it work, especially when were talking about the people who play GW.

Didn't see that at first, but also no. I shouldn't even have to explain this.

I am sorry, I don't mean this to be rude. Did you actually read the rest of the post? Or did you just read the first few lines?

In PvE you could get an effective build early on say about level 20, as you would be able to max out the required attributes. This means that there will not be the grind, but there would be reward for sticking with one character.

At high levels the character would not be uber powerful. It would have better chance of critical hits, have armor penetration. yes it would better health and energy, but health and energy would plateau and the top level could be reached relatively quickly.

If you make a mess of your character you don't need to start again. just continue to level and gain attributes points and place them into the areas that you now want to do. No need to restart at all.

In PvE at a certain level all the characters will have the same attributes because all the attributes will be maxed out. So let say at level 100 all attributes are maxed your PvE character can do anything from being a monk to being a warrior. Just put on the right armor and set up the right skill bar.

Of Course to some the uniformity at high level might not be appealing. To me however (as I like to try everything) it would be a bonus.

Yes you would spend a long time with one character but that character can do a lot more. Again I think this is an advantage as you will be playing the game once rather than repeating the same quests over and over again with different characters (which gets old fast).

yeah, but this means I would have to level ONE CHARACTER ALOT, which would get boring reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaallly fast, much faster than playing multiple characters.

depends on how you play really. If there is good content then leveling should be fine. If however after about 2 levels you have to stand around killing imps for three hours simply to gain a new level then yes it would be boring.

I generally don;t try to power level. I don't chase max titles either, so I don't spend a lot of time simply killing things to achieve the next title.

this though it a matter of personal taste. I like to work on one character rather than have 10 different ones (because I also like to try everything as well). this is perhaps because I play casually. What I hated was running 5 different characters though a new campaign, after the second time through it was an absolute chore.

I am willing to accept a difference of opinion based on play styles though.

is there not already imbalance in the game as it stands? In PvP the attributes would be limited making only one or two skill lines effective, like now. It is possible now to take skills from 8 different attributes into battle but no one really does it because it would not be effective.

In PvE does it really matter if you can make a really powerful combination of skills?

regarding infinite levels. I understand the conceptual problem people might have with that, but the levels would really become meaningless after a short period of time. In fact you could remove levels all together. I only suggested the infinite levels because, if recall rightly, it has been mooted that they are considering a very high level cap or no cap at all.

[shadow walk][escape][pious assault][chilling victory][eremites attack][bulls strike][rending touch][death pact signet]
I dont need to invest points into anything here, outside of scythe + expertise, to create a super imba build with skills from multiple professions.

It does when it completely removes all challenge from the game.

Based on your system, I could be a tanking, dps'ing, disabler who can set people on fire and single-handedly keep my team alive while doing so, if I level myself enough; and eventually everybody would be doing this. PvE would have no challenge, unless the players were put up against impossible or incredibly frustrating(realm of torment style) odds, which would then not be fun.

your points are valid.

But i would point out that they are flawed. This is a system for GW2 and therefore the skills are not going to be the same. Yes the skills will need to be balanced for this system, just as in GW1 the skills have to be balanced for the existing system.

as for that skill bar. Yes it looks powerful, but wouldn't blind or any melee avoiding skill counter it?

with any new system the devil is always in the details.

As for challenge. I have got the impression from what I have read (and I might well be reading into it something that isn't there) that in PvE you are not going to have teams of 8 going out on a regular basis. Rather it is going to be you and a companion only. The larger teams will be made for the very difficult areas and in certain areas a team might come together without any planning from people that happen to be in the area. This random party formation might mean that there is no dedicated monk or tank.

Given this a PvE character will have to be more self sufficient. their skill bars are going to have to include defense, offense and healing.

But on your technical point you're right the proposed system would not work with the current skills. If it is done incorrectly the game will not work it will become imbalanced and not be any fun at all.

blind/ anti-melee counters regular Sway, yet it still manages to rape Halls vigorously, even when played by a less experienced team.

Exactly, your idea is too hard to implement. KISS. It's why Guild Wars is fun.

Well I agree with you Grey, GW2 will be rebalanced for itself, not so that you could copy your old builds and play on as if nothing had changed.

My suggestion is pretty similar execpt I opted to do what you do with the core attributes by using insignias.
And limited the player to having points in no more than 4 attributes at a time.

I have however made sure primaries don't have effects and replaced them with masteries, if your system has only those 8 skills for primaries I fear it may become flat and force the focus on a particular combination for each arche type, so all mages health and energy all melees health and strength all others health and critical strikes.
(Because Dodge and damage reduction only help you retain health, but are useless against conditions and degen, so Stamina would be the best overall survivability if you ask me)

What I like about GW is it's build diversity, I like experimenting with different builds way too much to give up re-speccing.

However a freebasing system(no professions just attributes) requires a lot of balancing, I fear Anet won't go there, especially with their views on PvP.
(which are pretty cool by the way, without them we wouldn't have a 8 skill bar and be just like any other MMO)

I can't see it being significantly more complex (but yes there would be more combinations to consider). However this is all opinion (as i am sure that neither of us has ever had to implement a system). And as opinion I understand your point.

Yes, it would be very hard to balance because of the sheer number of combinations, and while having no experience in designing game balance, the one thing I am sure off is that our game balancer isn't exactly the best in the industry. Based of Izzy's past judgments and decisions, giving him this much to balance would be asking for a broken game.

Ok, had some more ideas along these lines, but this may be badly typed, cause my backspace died.

The Skills page (U) would look like this
________________________________________
| +Character
| ...Insert Name
| ...Level XX RACE CLASSNAME*
| ..+Characteristics
| ....+Proficencies
| ......[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
| ....+Attribute Distribution
| ......+Rogue
| ........+Way of the Shadow
| ..........+Dual Weapon Style
| ..........+Art of Shadow
| ..........+Art of Death
| ..........+^Deft Striking
| ........+Way of the Wild
| ..........+Archery Stlye
| ..........+Survivalism
| ..........+Animal Empathy
| ..........+^Combat Expertise
| ........+Way of the Sanctified
| ..........+Whirling Blade Style
| ..........+Prayers of the Earth
| ..........+Prayers of the Wind
| ..........+^Ascension
| ......+Fighter
| ........+Way of the Soldier
| ..........+Axe Combat
| ..........+Blade Combat
| ..........+Blunt Weapon Combat
| ..........+Battlefield Planning
| ..........+^Martial Ability
| ........+Way of the Captain
| ..........+Polearm Combat
| ..........+Command & Order
| ..........+Motivating Speech
| ..........+^Charisma
| ......+Mage
| ........+Way of the Divine
| ..........+Prayers of Restoration
| ..........+Prayers of Protection
| ..........+Prayers of Retribution
| ..........+^Divination
| ........+Way of the Elements
| ..........+Geomancy
| ..........+Pyromancy
| ..........+Hydromancy
| ..........+Areomancy
| ..........+^Mystic Empowerment
| .........+Way of the Lich
| ..........+Necromancy
| ..........+Bodily Curses
| ..........+Mashochism
| ..........+^Soul Harvesting
| ........+Way of the Mind
| ..........+Freed from Reality
| ..........+Freed from Control
| ..........+Freed from Odds
| ..........+^Freed from Time
| .........+Way of the Spirit
| ..........+Spiritual Council
| ..........+Ancestral Rage
| ..........+Restoration of Soul
| ..........+^Soul Binding
|.... +Statistics
| ......Level:XX
| ......Deaths:XX
| ......Titles:XX Maxed:XX
| ......Dragons Slayed:XX
ect.
|

While reading thru this thread, I thought of a great deal of comments concerning the posts within but I'm too tired to properly articulate those ideas.

In short, I wouldn't like to see any of the professions we already have go but, rather, see them improved upon with a greater depth and diversity.

I have to admit, however, that I always felt there were room for a few more specifications. Chronomancer, for example, could be considered an extension of some Mesmer qualities; but how cool could it be to have a profession focused on some creative indulgences within a deeper content of such an idea?

I sympathise with the argument that the 6 core classes are basic enough to maintain balance, but I feel more strongly that the further professions in GW were far more creative than the traditional ranged, melee, healer, magic-user, etc... and this is partly what attracted me so dearly to GW in the first place.

The concept of unique classes is one that should not be taken for granted. Almost every RPG seems to carry the same core classes and I would love to see Guild Wars 2 explore a greater depth in professions than we have already seen in other games.

It's tough to know what we want in GW2 without seeing what the creative minds of aNet are fully capable of but, whatever classes we do end up with in GW2, I feel it is most important than aNet brings a greater depth to those classes and their differentiation among one another. Of course, balance is important, but I feel that it would be a narrow limited perspective to maintain that such a balance is not sustainable with a multitude of professions. In fact, it is the skills and attributes that make professions unbalanced and, since GW2 is basically a reworking of the entire system, I see that a great attention given to this system could recreate what we already have with a greater balance.

I would like to see aNet explore the most possible unique professions while giving each an equal dimensionality and sense of purpose.


Note: I add great emphasis on "unique professions" because I fail to see the point in separating different styles of swordsmanship into multiple classes (for example) when the skill options and weapons that a player chooses can be utilized in doing this. For example, one Warrior-type could have a two-handed weapon and a skill bar of Berserker-type skills while another Warrior-type could have dual-wielding and Shogun-type skills. Equally, the "Knight" section sounds like a general generic expansion on the Paragon concept. In these examples, I use the creative ideas of Phoenix Tear's first post in this thread.




Edited for spelling and grammer.

Demagogue-
Powerful orater, rallying a cabal of followers to do their dirty work. Usually aligned with a higher authority or acting on behalf of a 'Spiritual' authority. Their true art is that of oratory. Their very words can stir the passion of their allies or the ire of their enemies.

Tier One.) The Strategist- This specialty of this Demagogue directs the movement and flow of resources during battle. sometimes weakening one group of allies to strengthen another.

Tier Two.) The Agitator- This school of the Demagogue deals in the reckless behavior of the enemy. Basing their movement on the movement of their foes they are masters of using the enemies own tactics against them.

Tier Three.) Fomenter- The most dangerous school of Demagogue. Their fiery words incite destructive, almost reckless behavior in their allies that, if not controlled correctly, may lead to a disadvantage.

Some skill Examples-

"The Soil Is Ours!" Shout. All enemies lose 5 Energy, 5 Adrenaline, or 5 Enchantments.

Ward of Comraderie. All allies in the area of Ward of Comraderie gain 2 energy each second and strike for +12 in melee. This ward ends after 10 seconds.

Manage The Field. Skill. Target other ally and all allies within earshot of that ally gain +20 Armor against all damage sources. You and all allies within earshot lose +20 armor against all sources.

Never Say We Die! Skill. All allies attack 20% faster and gain +50 armor against all sources. All skills cost 30% more of the base damage to use.

100% no. proffessions are what makes the game fun. you need some structure there and no proffessions would probably mean ridiculously overpowered players.

game updates. skills get nerfed and buffed regularily, yeah? you could have an amazing build one day, and then be thrown right back down to the bottom because one key skill is nerfed. and what would you do if someone wanted you to run a particular build? what if someone wants a prot monk and you're a healer who has put all their time and effort into upping the strength of your healing? it would be incredibly resticting. i've had to change my builds numerous times, and if that option was off limit to me and others, i think that Anet would be dealing with some very angry players and would loose alot of customers.

The first thing I noticed about this thread was that a lot of new profession ideas were taken from other games, are you trying to make those games MMO or improve GW2?

The way I see it, all races should be equal in terms of resistances to elements and such however each race gets their own exclusive set of skills and access to the skills available to everyone else....that reads poorly, let me give an example...

To make this simple, I'll use skills and terminology from the current GW.

A norn could only use the norn PvE-only skills but also have access to all the professions. Most Norn skills are aimed at melee professions already so although you'd not be hindered by making a Norn Elementalist, you'd gain nothing from the PvE-only skills....like a monk with "Dodge This!" would gain nothing, d'you see where I'm going?

An Asuran would be only allowed their PvE-only skills as well as the common pool, exactly like the Norn but with Asuran skills in place of norn ones. As they stand, most Asuran Skills are aimed at the offensive casters (Ele, Necro, etc)

A human would be allowed the Ebon Vanguard skills and the common pool, currently, Vanguard skills are balanced, meaning the Human race is the base race. Having no advantages or disadvantages.

The Sylvari are hard to base seeing as they're not included in the current GW, but I'm sure you can guess what sort of thing I'd've written if I knew what they were like.

The Charr are the polar opposite to humans, their skills will probably be the other end of the spectrum to humans. Although at the moment, with no Charr skills available, it's hard to comment on them.

D'you see where I'm going with this? There's no disadvantage to being any race but there are advantages to being the right race, with this sort of system, you'd get to maintain the profession idea (Even changing them all radically, this still works).

strongly against profession trees unless you could switch easily. one it's sound way to much like other game. 2, take the attribute system for example, you can switch easily and people like being able to switch what they do quickly and try out different builds. how many people here actually want to run very similar builds all day long. i would add one more attribute to each profession, and open up many more skill options.

spirits for rits and rangerswould be expanded alot,

god forms and godly powers of the dervish would be expanded.

the stealthly side of the ranger (snipering, running with a smaller argo bubble, scout items that let you see ahead)

warriors hardcore-ness would expanded,

monks would have a protection, healer, and remedy (condition removal) smiting.

Mesmer would have punish, ether (energy denial and straight damage, illusion, and inspiration.

eles would have better water magic to start, tinting (glyphs and spell mods) would be it's new attribute.

necromancer might be split into mesmers and rits not sure about them.

assassin smoke screens and throwing stars, caltrop would be expanded.

paragons would get there own pets and type of beast mastery.

and 75 more attribute points would be added

@ Pheonix on first page lol Dervish's are not farmers dervish's are old islamic warriors ) they were holy warriors kinda like the Christian Templar Knights.

Summoners that can summon beasts to do fighting for them with skills that help their beast's effectiveness. summon animals, god avatars, nature phenomenons (earth, wind, fire, water summons/spiritual beings)

The way I look at it, GW has covered all the bases as far as the different ways to damage and heal.

Lets look at the melee side.

• Warriors - Close combat melee, damage absorbers, minimum aoe.
  Rangers - Distance melee, traps, pet master.
  Assassins - Close combat, movement skills, high damge.
  Dervish - Close combat melee, close combat magic, aoe based.
  Paragon - distance melee, aoe support, damage absorber.

Now the spell casters.

• Elementalists - High damage, spell spammer.
  Monk - Mid damage, 1-on-1 support, minimum aoe support, primary healer.
  Necromancer - Hex based pressure, minion master, Vampiric.
  Mesmer - Hex based, Highly situational, offensive support.
  Ritualist - Aoe offensive and defensive support. Some 1-on-1 direct offensive skills.

I know you could add more to the descriptions but for my purposes that will do. As you can see there is a large mix of close and distant, AOE and 1-on-1, all mixed up within various classes or professions. I would like to see less professions. I figure you can combine different aspects of mosts of the professions into the core professions and create more versitility within the profession while keeping the professions defined.

Example:
1. Combine the leadership aspects of the Paragon and AOE melee of the Dervish to the Warrior profession.
2. Combine the spear skills of the Paragon and the movement skills of the Assassin to the Ranger and give the profession a more broad name.

The same goes for other profession. Place the skills (or similar skills in GW2) together and create 6-8 professions. All primary bonuses can be attibuted to the race of the character. The profession gives the character access to armors (and their bonuses to keep the classes more defined) and end game weapons that are profession specific, etc...

This will allow more versitility within the professions along with a wider range of weapons without having to change your primary profession.

The skills are only accessable through a teir system. Your character level and your profession levels will be separate. Character levels control max hp, attib points and quest accessability (not related to skill quests).

Your profession levels will control quest accessabiliy (related to skill aquisition) and minimum skill effectiveness (duration, dmg, healing, etc...) based on the profession (not just the attribute).

The skill points (not similar to GW) will be aquired though quests, missions, mini-games, etc.. The two types of skill points are primary and secondary. Primary go directly towards your primary profession experence and your secondary go into a pool of points to be distibuted between the secondary professions as you see fit. You will only have access to skills (or skill quests) in relation to what level you are in any given profession. You can only perform quests based what secondary profession you have sellected at that moment.

Attib points (gained though character levels and/or ingame events) can be allocated to freely to whatever attributes are available (via primary and secondary professions). They, of course, affect the overall maximum skill effectiveness based on that attribute.

This system allows for a great mixture of play options while ensuring that no one profession or race has a major advantage at any stage of the game. It also allows for free movement thoughout the land because the story can be controled by the characters level or profession level. It will cut down on skipping players skipping the story while openning up the world (Factions major downfall). It also allows for multiple starting points based on race and lore.

To appease the gamers that enjoy a teired progression (titles). Primary and secondary combinations can lead to alternate profession titiles. If your a W/Mo your profession would change to Palidin, or a Mo/W would be a Cleric, etc... All your skills would remain the same but it would be easier to ID profession mixes. I wouldn't recommend bonuses for these profession due to balancing reasons.

I don't like the idea of no profession in an MMO and the idea of any one character with the ability to use all their skills at their max potential. This leads to over powered builds and a serious lack of creativity.

You can still have a teir system that allows ANET to go crazy with their "Title" system that they have fell in love with.

You could name the professions differently based on Race as well to assist with identifying character's race bonuses in Pvp and pve. The only issue would be the crazy number of combinations given the 5 races and anywhere from 6-8 professions.

I would like to see ANET stay true to GW game play and enhance it... not completely overhaul it.

My suggestion is to have only 6 professions, based mostly on the current core 6, but with aspects of the other 4 implemented in.
The attribute system would stay the same. Right now I am unsure if a secondary profession system would work, as I would rather if all the classes were self-sufficient and had clear-cut roles to make balance easier.
Attributes points would cap at a certain level, making level cap irrelevant.
All weapons would be class specific, except for one - the Crossbow. This gives all classes a pulling weapon, while keeping bows for Rangers.

* indicates a primary attribute.

Warrior
Attributes:
Strength*
Swordsmanship
Axe Mastery
Hammer Mastery
Tactics

The Warrior would essentially have the same role - taking hits and dealing out melee damage. There would be one-handed and two-handed variants of all weapons. One-handed would allow the use of a shield, boosting armour and adding additional defensive effects. Two-handed would allow Warriors to hit 2 foes adjacent to the target foe, much like scythes currently do.
Tactics would aim more at boosting mobility, and may also have skills to help with conditions, along with self-heals and adrenaline gain skills.

Stalker (name made up on the spot, don't really care what they're called)
Attributes:
Expertise*
Marksmanship
Blade Mastery
Survival

The Stalker is a hybrid of the current Ranger and Assassin. It may choose to focus on ranged bow attacks, or melee attacks. It would focus more on debilitating and softening groups of enemies through conditions and interrupts. Marksmanship would work similar to how it currently does, while Blade Mastery would focus on dealing damage alongside these conditions and interrupts in close combat. Survival would focus on not only defensive skills, but also traps and skills such as smoke bombs or caltrops to hinder enemies. Expertise would inherently lower energy cost of skills, and would also contain skills, stances and preparations to boost offense.

Elementalist
Attributes:
Energy Storage*
Fire Magic
Earth Magic
Water Magic
Air Magic

Elementalists would function very similar to how they currently do, but would be the game's main ranged damage dealer. Each magic line would be capable of nuking and spiking, as well as having their own added effects. For example, Fire Magic spells could burn opponents, while Water could slow or inflict bleeding. Each line would also have a few defensive spells. Fire would focus on hurting enemies who attack your team, Water would focus on blocking, Earth would focus on boosting armour and damage reduction, and Air would focus on boosting the chance for enemies to miss you. Pure nuking would be used in favour of DoT spells.

Monk
Attributes:
Divine Favour*
Protection Prayers
Smiting Prayers
Sacred Blessings

Monks focus more on supporting and buffing then pure healing. Smiting Prayers focuses more on hurting those who attack your allies then on pure damage. Protection and Divine Favour work in similar ways, with Divine Favour providing more passive healing as a secondary effect to your spells. Sacred Blessings would focus on buffing your allies offensive and defensive capabilities, through enchantments and weapon spells. Defensive buffs would focus on boosting armour, while Protection Prayers would focus on downright damage negation.

Necromancer
Attributes:
Soul Reaping*
Curses
Blood Magic
Death Magic

Necros are turned into more of an offensive buff-debuff class, instead of the current damage dealer they have become. Curses revolves almost entirely around debuffing foes, stripping enchantments and weakening with hexes and conditions with little damage involved. Blood Magic spells would give your team boosts with sacrifice spells, much like the current Order spells. Life steal spells would deal damage and have you or your allies gain health (they can be protted). Death would focus on minions and minion management, along with other corpse exploitation spells.
Soul Reaping would return energy, but less then it currently does. It would also house energy management skills.
Well Spells would also see a revamp - they would work like Wards, don't require a corpse, but only one may be active for each Necro at any time.

Mesmer
Attributes:
Fast Casting*
Domination
Illusion
Inspiration

Mesmers would be the most versatile of the caster classes. Inspiration would allow them to sap energy and interrupt their foes, while slightly buffing their teammates and themselves. Domination would deal with the enemies emotions, making them feel empathy and not attack your teammates, or mistrusting and turning on their own. Illusion deals with hexing the enemy to weaken them, and turn their own damage back on them without preventing it, like the current spell Backfire. Fast Casting, obviously, makes you cast spells faster.
Overall, the Mesmer won't nuke you, but they'll kill you for trying.

Professions/classes is an outdated and pointless system and many in-dev MMOs are moving away from it, instead of some archaic system that I'd expect to see in EQ do something like this:

4 Main attributes, call them w/e you want, but for this...

Dexterity
Strength
Wisdom
Faith

12 secondary attributes, 3 linked to each. With a number of skills linked to to the secondary attributes.

You can only use two main attributes at once.

From this you can start to see how each "class" might take shape. Have a large amount of dexterity faith (in that order) you'd fit into the assassin that we have now, Strength Wisdom (again in order listed) you'd fit into the warrior, Large Faith + Strength dervish.

Only w/ this you could change you're "class" at will anywhere in the world and anytime. (limitations would be missions/dungeons + in combat in the world)

Based on your current points in each attribute different skills and skill "panels" would be unlocked for use. Think of it like a tree:

Wisdom tab branches out into Destruction (pure damage spells), The Elements (snares, some damage and other weakening spells), and Ether (mesmer like attrib).

Strength would branch into Weapon Mastery (all meele (-daggers) and spears), Tactics (most paragon-like things plus tactics), and Brute Force (the current strength, self buffing dmg increasing).

It would be interesting if they had a summoner (if anybody has played ffx then you know what im talking about) but to have the ability to summon a creature of every element to fight your battles. And for every level you gain, it to gets double exp for its exp.

My post may not be as intelligent, or witty as the others but I do have an idea of what should be put into GW2, profession wise, and for the new species we get to play as: Slyvarie.

The profession would be mainly based on controlling the plant life around the being. Their role in combat would be protection to AOE melee, depending on the choice of the player.

Protection: the plant-caster would have to cast a spell, alike of what you see in the Maguuma Jungle, during The Wilds, as you run into the Pine Soul and it casts it's plant barrier to avoid melee attacks. Spells that would protect the whole group for a small amount of time, but to break this barrier would be to cast an AOE fire DMG skill, but any other elemental attacks give little to no DMG to the group, or player.

Antidote: Plants hold many antidotes, and poisons. Holding a similarity to the "Antidote Signet" from the Ranger profession, this attribute would have the capability to transfer their conditions, alike of "Smite Condition" when taking off the condition DMG would transfer to foes around the ally. Many other antidote skills would be able to take off and heal the whole group, to adding a little more armor to the group + caster.

AOE: This caster would be able to slow down and give severe DMG and add a condition to the targeted foe or foes. Similarity to a R/E, E/R.

Growth: The main attribute: Like Fast casting, Energy storage, Tactics, etc. The Growth determines how fast, and how agile their spells work against the group and foes.

Yeah. I know this sounds cliche, but it was just a thought, a suggestion.

In my honest opinion I think either of these 3 professions should be included into GW2:

The Summoner profession: (Could possibly be the evolution of the necromancer?)

The summoner would provide you with the ability to summon either an animal or god to assist you in battle. Along with this extremely powerful ability, your primary attribute would be Clericy - each rank in this attribute would decrease recharge times of all skills and spells by 1%. At 16 Clericy this means the recharge times of all skills and spells would be reduced by 16%. The summoner would specialise in max health skills as well as damage reducing abilities.

Energy would be obtained by skills and for each time you create and end life of a creature (including undead)

The Slayer profession: (Could possibly be the evolution of the warrior?)

The slayer is the ultimate killer. Able to defeat a foe blindfolded, this profession would be melee based (with robes like the master of whispers - long and mystic-like) and with the weapon and focus item being a whip with sharp blades attached to it, and a defender as the focus item. The primary attribute would be "Accuracy" and each rank in this attribute would grant the user a 1% chance to block any and all attacks as well as a 1% chance to strike a critical hit. This combined with high block rates makes the slayer a lethal yet defensive profession.

Energy would be obtained by skills as well as hitting enemies through critical hits and blocking attacks.

The Shapeshifter profession: (Could possibly be the evolution of the ritualist?)

The shapeshifter is the ultimate ritualist really with creature holding spells and a chance at extreme running haste - making it a great runner. The primary attribute would be "Stealth". With each hit you take from an enemy, you have a 1% chance with each rank in stealth, that you run 50% faster for 5 seconds. This means at 16 Stealth, you'd have a 16% chance at running 50% faster for 5 seconds with each hit you take from an enemy! Shapeshifter skills would change the way you take and deal damage, as well as give you animal powers and abilities.

An example of a skill could be "Universal Weaponry". This skill empowers your weapon to deal the optimal damage to the opponent you are facing. For example, if you were attacking an undead enemy with the skill active, it would deal holy damage, and if you were to immediately hit an enemy that could only be damaged with lightning damage (If it was under the iron mist spell for example), your weapon would deal lightning damage to that opponent and so on and so forth.

Another skill could be "Mimic's Backfire" (Attribute: Mimicry)

Energy: 15
Activation time: 0.75 seconds
Recharge time: 30 seconds

Elite Item spell. Hold the mimic octopus (2...32 seconds). whenever an enemy uses a spell on you, that spell fails and is cast on them instead. Drop effect: gain 1 energy for each spell that was cast on you.

Energy would be obtained by skills as well as creature holding spells.

The Shapeshifter's armor would be pieces of creatures placed on the armor (like the shells on ritualists armor), for example if it was the elite Zion armor, the chestpiece would have a large lions head rawring out to the side of one of the shoulders and would have ancient symbols symbolising the energy of the creatures power.


I'd also love to see 2 new campaigns, one completely desert based, with undead creatures/mummies/pyramids/portals and mystic metal creatures (like ones from stargate with their headpieces that fold up and all that. And one completely based on space - where there are floating citadels and the entire land of the campaign is floating above toxic wastelands.

My post might not follow the suggested posting form but I'm in a bit of a hurry. I thought about this profession in the Guild Wars Ideas site and altough it still needs a lot of work, I'm pretty content with the base for the class. And don't mind the rant at the beginning, it relates to a conversation I had with someone about my earlier (very dumb) idea:

Spirit Walker

OK so my Naturalist idea was pretty dumb and not original at all. I tried to figure out a character class that would use the animal blessing type skills introduced in EoTN but also have the possibility for another type of role as a healer. Instead of trying to create a unoriginal hybrid, I came up with something like this:

The class communes with the natural spirits of the world. For the Norn these spirits include the Bear, Wolf and Raven. Spirit Walker is deeply in touch with these spirits and can take upon their powers in the form of a shapeshift, using his feral connection for vanquishing his enemies. More subtle spirit walkers prefer calling upon nature's spirits to aid them and protect and heal their allies.

1. Communing (main attribute) - Basically similar to Ritualist's main attribute. Putting points into this would increase bonuses for shapeshifting and increase health and duration of spirits.

2. Guardian spirit - This would include a protective shapeshift ea. the Bear. It would be high armor & health form with slower attacks. Buffs to party members armor could be considered. [TANK]

3. Feral spirit - This would include an aggressive shapeshift ea. the Wolf. It would have fast attacks and conditions and maybe damage boosting buffs. Also an increased running speed could be considered if implemented in a sensible manner. [DPS]

4. Guiding spirit - This would belong to the Raven but I'm having a hard time figuring out what it would actually do. In EoTN the raven has blind, cripple and bleed and also stance to counter knockdown. Maybe the Raven form could be similar to the paragon.

All spirit attributes would also include a series of fitting spirits and spells in the manner of a Ritualist. As in: protective and healing spirits/spells in guardian, damaging spirits/spells in feral, condition making & hindering spirits/spells in guiding.

The class would be a CASTER. Only the shapeshifts would trigger melee usefulness. Forms would be elite skills and equipping one would "lock" the skill bar so that it shifts into the forms own skill bar, preventing making a dual character with a healer bar and a melee fighter bar. Weapon would be a stave that works similar as monk staves in GW1. Obviously shapeshifting would be a permanent "condition" since running around in caster form with a bar set up for a certain form wouldn't make much sense, now would it? There could be more forms with different bonuses but these were the ones in EoTN.

This idea came from EoTN animal blessings, Ritualist and a little from Egil Fireteller so it's pretty original to GW. However this set up would only work for the Norn, maybe Sylvari as well, so it isn't perfect. I'm not sure what ANet plans to do with shapeshifting but I hardly believe they will leave it to just giving the Norn bear form racial. It would be like giving us 3 nifty shapeshift skill and taking them back.

EDIT

To add more clarity:

Armor: Caster armor (armor bonuses for shapeshifting would obviously be different, you don't take your metal armor with you)
Weapon: Staves
Role: DPS + tanking (in form), support/healing (with a caster build)

I like the ideas of tier systems on the first page. All of you who provided them, great job. I personally like the idea of being able to flourish in your profession. If it was the 6 original profs, and then they all had several tiers it would be sweet.

Also I like how Exorcist, Medic, and Runelogist sound

This is what worries me as well. My original Naturalist idea was a horrible ripoff from WoW Druid so I re-thought it over. Ritualist offered a good starting point for a character communing with natural spirits. Altough WoW Druid is a blast to play, it's WoW, not GW. GW2 will have a whole new system for handling classes and skills but most likely they will use GW1 as a reference so starting to think classes based on the original game is far more rational.

As for PvE-only skills and racials: I personally hope that PvE only skills won't even exist. As for racials: they could be more strategically meaningful than actual skills of their own. Already adding the Norn Bear form - skill might not have been the best move to make, seeing as it's rather powerful for a racial. Other races could have something on the lines of:

Sylvari - Natural spores = Cause blindness/stun for a COUPLE of seconds. This would allow the Sylvari to get away from the enemy but the enemy wouldn't be immobile for too long.

Charr - Battle Rage = For xx seconds you do xx% more damage. Just like Norn Bear form, this would have to be very carefully balanced.

Asura - Deafning scream = Makes the next two attacks of the enemy fail. Asurans look like some sort of moles to me so they might scream...could be anything else though, haven't put much thought on Asura.

Humans - Maybe some manner of a shout since humans are usually considered as far more social than other races.

Personally, I'm for sticking close to the GW1 system of professions, as it is to me one of the game's trademarks, but condensing them down to five (no primary attributes, probably no 2nd profs), possibly with specializations later down the line:

I. General: A fusion of Warrior and Paragon. Merge Command/Leadership, Tactics/Motivation, incorporate Strength into the 4 weapon masteries but trash as attribute line. Focus: tanking, party buffs. Crunchy frontline.
i) Possible specializations: Vocal General (more Paragonlike), Mighty General (more Warriorlike).

II. Forester: A fusion of Ranger and Assassin. Merge Wilderness Survival/Deadly Arts/Shadow Arts (eliminate Shadow Stepping), incorporate Critical Strikes into Marksmanship and Dagger Mastery but trash as attribute line, keep Beast Mastery and Expertise. Focus: traps/poisons (basically nonmagical hexes that count as conditions), spiking. Semisquishy, in-and-out midline->frontline->midline.
i) Possible specializations: Forester of the Leaf (more Rangerlike), Forester of the Shadow (more Assassinlike).

III. Disciple: A fusion of Monk and Dervish (unfortunately this is the weakest combo, I think, but it was left after I made the other ones). Incorporate Earth Prayers into both Healing Prayers and Protection Prayers but drop as attribute line, incorporate Smiting Prayers into Protection Prayers and Wind Prayers but drop as attribute line, buff Wind Prayers into... something, keep Scythe Mastery, fuse Mysticism and Divine Favor. Focus: healing and protection OR enchant-reliant DPS. Semisquishy midline.
i) Possible specializations: Disciple of the Word (more Monklike), Disciple of the Blade (more Dervishlike).

IV. Arcanist: A fusion of Elementalist and Mesmer. Fuse Water Magic/Illusion Magic (hex-based), Domination Magic/Air Magic (shutdown-based), Energy Storage/Inspiration Magic, perhaps redistribute Earth Magic/Fire Magic into Defensive Magic and Destructive Magic (or just Destructive Magic)... if the latter, keep Fast Casting, if the former, trash it. Focus: nuking, shutdown, hex, possibly buff. Squishy backline.
i) Possible specializations: Stormy Arcanist (more like a Mesmer - Water/Air focus), Fiery Arcanist (more like an Elementalist - Earth/Fire focus).

V. Cultist: a fusion of Necromancer and Ritualist. Fuse Spawning Power/Communing/Death Magic (all minion spells go here), Blood Magic/Curses, keep Channeling Magic (incorporate more spike-y Blood Magic here), Soul Reaping, Restoration Magic. Focus: jack-of-all-trades - sacrifice-reliant spiker or hexer, healer/buffer, minion master. Squishy backline, probably needs most protection if saccing.
i) Possible specializations: Blood Cultist (more like a Blood/Curses Necromancer or Channeling Ritualist - focus on saccing for hexes and damage), Spirit Cultist (more like a Resto or Spirit Spam Rit or MM Necro - focus on creating and maintaining a large army)

The lore explanation could be that as time passed and old schools were destroyed, arts were lost and some of the more popular profession pairs grew into each other. Ideally, this shuffles up the system significantly to make GW2 not a rehash of the first game, but keeps the spirit of GW1. This could also make life easier for the dev team (if they are still basing armor/appearance/weapons on profs and atts) as there will be fewer items to have to design, unlike under some of the tiered systems. It's also a bit easier to understand (for me, at least) and (hopefully) boils down the many attributes into fewer, more useful ones.

For racial specials: I like Drake's suggestion of a bonus to one attribute; we might have more Air Asurans than Fire ones, but at least not all Eles (or Arcanists) will be Asuran, so there'll still be room for variation. Perhaps Humans could have a flex point instead of an att bonus. There might also be additional race skills.

One final note: being able to change specs is, IMO, a must. I don't want to be kept out of a group because I specced into Water and the things I'm supposed to fight resist cold. A short anecdote: My friend once convinced me to play MapleStory. When I reached level three (he was not with me at the time to advise me), I specced a point into a spell I'd been using a lot. When he asked me what I'd done when I leveled, I told him, and he told me I'd permanently gimped my character and I'd have to restart. I uninstalled the game. When you're going to be putting hours and hours and hours into a single character, it makes no sense be forced to suffer from a permanently ruined build if you don't know any better or mis-allocate a point somewhere along the way.

Why? Removing Critical Defenses would make some sense but removing shadowspetting? Might as well render sin focusing characters completely defenseless.

I don't see how combinging excisting classes would work out. There would be way too much going on. Especially the ranger combined with the sin...stances, powerful dagger attacks, possibility for merging those with ranged attacks, possibility of throwing in a pet for RaO or HaO type of skills. Not to mention the other class combos. Then having a weird combo like the monk/dervish, seeing as the dervish is mainly a melee fighter. Not to mention the dual classing which will STILL be present in GW2.

We need something new or altered excisting classes. Combined classes just get way too complicated.

Hmm... I don't know what I was thinking ditching shadow stepping, actually... maybe change it to some kind of more nature-themed thing with the same effect and make it be part of some stances?

In terms of complication... it'd only be like the prof combos we've got now (with a few exceptions) - you just have to spec wisely. And if all the class combos are overpowered, then technically the game is balanced. Perhaps keep the damage low? Also, remember that the new classes are supposed to be doable for both solo and group play, so they need to be a bit more independent. Also remember that though classes may have multiple powerful trees, I'm assuming, at least, that we're sticking with an 8-skill bar as that is, IMO, another huge element of what makes us unique. So a single character won't be able to utilize all of those skills, just as Elementalists have a huge variety of powerful skills but have to narrow their attributes down to one or two elements (for instance).

With regards to Mo/D... I was just thinking in terms of them both being religious devotees and very fond of enchantments... they can choose to ignore the scythe if they want, but I thought perhaps it would give them some ability to fight for themselves. Since contemporary Monks are probably the least capable of dealing damage on their own unless they spec into Smiting, it could add soloability to your average healer (who normally can't stand on her own very well).

Also, do we know for a fact that dual-classing will be possible? I wasn't sure of that. This system definitely wouldn't work with that, no; I was thinking single-prof with a later specialization that perhaps unlocks some new skills limited to that version (more shadow stepping for of the Shadow, more pet stuff for of the Leaf, for example).

Well they have this line on wiki:

So who knows? Of course that could mean a system where you have your actual character class and a secondary class in the lines of leatherworking, blacksmithing etc. but I guess that since it's GW it means dual classing.

Personally I'd like to see dual classing gone, it just takes too much meaning out of what class you actually started playing when you started. If dual classing was removed, then combining classes as you said would make sense. Would be awesome to see these "hybrids" taken into a whole new level, in the form of classes that not so many game has seen yet.

Personally, I dont like the idea of demons in GW.... Demons aren't nice little people that you can toss around at the click of a button. They torment, and inflict pain and deisese among us. They are beings of the spiritual relm whom are not to be messed around with like that If something like that were added into GW2 thousands of players would be lost because a good deal are Christians. That's ALOT of money to be lost. So....

The Core Professions

• Fighter

-The basic melee combatant, under Balthazar. Specializes in damage-dealing from up close.

• Hunter

Ranged fighter, under Melandru. Focuses on ranged attacks, as well as stealth-based abilities.

• Cleric

Healers, under Dwayna. As implied, they heal damage, remove debuffs and the like.

• Warlock

Debuff casters, under Grenth. Can also control the undead, with roles that vary based on the type summoned.

• Musician

Party Buffers, under Lyssa. Can either buff party members or debuff enemies within range.

• Lancer

Spear Fighters. Can cast buffs on themselves as well as party members, and controls a familiar.

• Sorcerer

Offence-based spellcasters. Specializes in AOE and damage-dealing spells.

Race-Exclusive Professions

• Barbarian

Norn Exclusive. They specialize in melee, but are focused on endurance to better survive multiple enemies.

• Shaman

Charr Profession. Can control spirits and cast defensive spells.

• Tinker

Profession for the Asura. Can create devices such as bombs, traps, etc.

• Druid

Profession for the Sylvari. Can control plants as a means of offence and defense.

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Now I hope that wasn't too many... ^^;