Hinted Hero Update

How about we get the Dervish update before all this? Honestly.....what are they waiting for.

They've already stated in the past that they cannot do this. I understand that this was their initial intention with MOX but they couldn't make it happen.

I'm not too concerned by what profession we get though. I think extra casters would be more useful since there's little use for the number of physicals we already have, but I don't think I'd ever want three Rits or Mesmers, let alone 4 Necs, Eles or Monks.

Drkn stated Batholos; although I like the idea of Bartholos being a hero- didn't Salma name him as the Captain of the Seraph Guard after the Battle for Lion's Arch? I really doubt he'd be able to wander off with us since his duties will tie him to the new Krytan army lol

Maybe the new hero is a female sylvari El from the future.

I think Keiran might be a new hero :P

Razah was supposed to be a hero that could be any profession at any time. Then somebody actually started looking at the programming and in-game mechanics to make it happen and ArenaNet quickly figured out that it was a really stupid idea. The problem is that different professions use different armor and therefore different insignia and runes. If you were to make a W/* and put on Knight's insignia or a Superior Strength rune, and then changed to a R/*, what would happen? Now ANet has to put in special programming to check all the lousy insignia and runes just for one stupid hero.

Even if they did it, they would probably code it to where you would have to just pull off all the runes and insignia every time you wanted to change professions. Now it's going to annoy the crap out of you to constantly have to pull off all of your insignia and runes every time you wanted to change a profession, and pretty soon you'd quit using the hero entirely because it is such an annoyance. So in short, they just spent hours programming all kinds of unique, special features for one hero that you would never play because it is too inconvenient for you to deal with the hassle.

In short, this will never happen. ANet won't even put in a max weapon mod trader, which is something that any other MMO in the past two years would have implemented. But this still hasn't shown up despite that players asked for it years ago, and it would considerably improve gameplay because people wouldn't have to stand around town all day waiting for somebody to buy/sell a mod.

Years ago, before ANet announced the hero system, I said that players should be able to use any character on their account in their party up to a number of characters. So if you have a monk character, now you don't need to wait for a monk to show up because you can use your own. Henchman player characters would not get any drops or money or XP, but they would have the weapons, armor, runes, and insignia equipped and the same skill bar set when you last logged out with that character (PvE skills are automatically disabled).

To me, this was a good idea because it would have encouraged players to play different professions and get players used to other classes. You also would have reduced the amount of gimmick play because to make a Sabway build, you'd need to waste three player character slots. Should skills get nerfed and a new gimmick build appeared, you'd have to either delete characters or buy a bunch of new slots, and then go through the huge hassle of leveling them up, buying new armor and skills, etc. To me it would have encouraged team play and limit heroes to a few slots, because few people are going to have the time or effort to make 30 player characters with all skills unlocked for the purpose of being able to metagame their way around Guild Wars.

Yeah, I remember hearing how the multi-profession style of hero would just be a huge pain when they tried to make Razah like that. And I'm not sure how feasible it would be, even this far down the line. And thinking over it now, the whole runing system would just be cumbersome.

But like Coraline and many others said, maybe the new hero might be open access to anyone of our own characters? That would be really unexpected, and a bit /facepalm worthy since so many of us are really throwing out random NPC names as possible choices.

I'd definitely use my remaining character slots for something like that.

I am still hoping for a mursaat hero.
It would be awesome to just c-space through mobs calling Spectral Agony on anything.
PvE just got easier.
Oh well, dream on Alex, dream on...

They say it'll be something "unexpected"? And everyone has the expectation that the number of heroes of any one class will be "even"? Or that you won't get a 4th of any one class before a 3rd of the others?

Dervish hero incoming.

A fundamental limitation of GW engine is that you cannot pull up information from a character not loaded into memory. That's a big part of the lack of auction house. When account-wide treasure hunter and wisdom were added, you had to log onto each of your characters for the account title to tally their stats and add together. Zaishen quests were originally concepted as account-wide, meaning you could only do a quest once on that account per day (and presumably with better rewards.) However they could not get the quest log to share info across the account like that. There are various account-wide datas in guild wars but the important point is that these all must be stored completely separate from character data, and character data itself by definition is not.

If they make Assassin AI competent and give us hints how to design Assassin skill bars so they actually work, I'll appreciate that. Thus far Assassins need more initiative on their own and targetting separate from what player is attacking, as their attack combos are poor and they make no real use of shadow stepping, besides a voluntary suicide to attack an insignificant target a wrong moment. If I were to micro-manage my Assassin all the way, I'd rather take the Warrior or the Ranger instead, and get the job done much quicker and with lesser chance of Hero accumulating DP.

To a lesser extent Dervishes suffer from the same problem ... unless their skill bar is idiot-proof and their skills provide ample armour/hit point/block boost, they're going to suck big-time with their 'Warrior' mentality embedded in the AI brain.

Evennia as Paragon.
As a bonus we might get a look in to Ascalon vs. Charr content

I gotta say that this is true.

Even when their AI is improved, they will always be outdone by casters. The instantaneous targeting and reflexive AI of casters allows them to target what you target, find targets for AoE instantly, heal/prot with godlike precision, and more.

If Melee heroes are to be viable, they'll need either a substantial skill update, amazingly thorough AI improvement, or that caster AI gets nerfed.

They go through all these issues too like being blinded, crippled, hexed, and more and are a hazard to themselves with certain hexes or standing in AoE.

Regardless, when the 7 hero update comes, I'm gonna run a couple of 100B heroes with a curses necro. At least the 7 heroes will open the possibility up of running melee heroes and not being too ineffective.

My vote for a new hero is Paragon. Paraway will be so much fun and Paragons are actually pretty decent heroes and more so when there are multiples of them.

Random thought: ice elemental / mkt guard as a wedding gift from Frozenwind/MKT?
That would be funny, though not /facepalm obvious.

The seer,its the seer.

the best update for heroes would be another rit imo, just because there updating melee heroes doesn't mean it has to be melee...

Doppleganger

I wouldnt just say melee heroes, but rather all melee players are just useless in PVE. Having a full team of ranged attackers / casters is always much better, it makes controlling agro and flagging a lot easier, you dont have to wait for anyone to have to run into melee range to attack or chase enemies, and crippled and snare hexes dont reduce your parties offensive capability.

For the new hero, I genuinely hope it is either a mesmer or ritualist, if not a variable class hero.

Don't confuse defy pain pugs with even half-decent melee players.
There are some factors stacked against melee. That's because melee has such enormously high damage potential in spite of these facts, especially when you factor in all the absurd buffs you can place on them. In most places you can sufficiently neutralize the downsides to make 100+ DPS worth it. (although not necessarily AI melee). Even top caster damage builds (as opposed to support) basically rely on summoning melee assassins.

Let's summarize all of this:

New Hero(s) will probably be Mesmer(Proph/EotN hero), Ritualist (Factions hero), and/or Paragon (Nightfall hero).

Probably one for each campaign; Yes, after War in Kryta and Hearts of the North in Proph/EotN there will surely be more of Guild Wars:Beyond, in Cantha, and probably in Nightfall as well).

As stated somewhere on GWWiki; new hero(s) will not be Keiran (Ranger), or Miku (Assassin).

That would be quite interesting, entertaining and useful, but, on the other hand; it would be quite hard to implement as they already tried with Razah and M.O.X, also, as they are working on GW2 currently, I'm almost certain they won't even bother to try to implement that again...

~Zaph

I like what people in the GW2 forums said. Keiran Thackery becoming a Paragon. We only have 2 paragons atm, and it makes sense if you at the things he did in the new quests (becoming a leader of the people and stuff like that). He also recieved 2 paragon skills remember!

They don't need to stand around town all day for it now. If their build is so fragile that it can't work with 19% enchantment duration or a +24 Fortitude/Hale or a +4 Insightful or +13% damage when health's over 50%, they need to re-evaluate it, I'd say.

Mommy told me not to play with fire. But Mommy's dead.

...I want a 3rd Mesmer.

One for Panic, one for Ineptitude, one for Psychic Instability/Tease.

Then you could make a team that abuses PvE fast casting, Spirits in PVE, and soul reaping in PvE.

I'd use a Warrior hero if I could have a 4th hero to add to my team.

However, for ideas about a new hero, I'd like a hero who can wield a bow and can use spear attacks without the requirement of actually needing to use/hold a spear.

I think those are good guesses. I doubt the AI update has anything to do with the hero we get. I do think the hero will be someone/something we met during WiK/HotN. Which is why some sort of Seer hero is high on my list. He may not even be a true Seer, more like a GOLEM or Seer construct. I doubt it will have any special abilities if it is added, yet.

Mantle Knight Franklin could join us as a Paragon, so could Thackery.

Kimmes The Historian might be useful as he is a Mesmer.

I would like to see Evennia as a hero, just not as a monk.

Maybe Barthalos, if Gwen can lead the ebon vanguard and still be our hero, so can he or Thackery(who leads the ebon falcons). But we need another Warrior hero like we need a hole in the head.

I think blimm is another possibility, but comes to us as a Rt hero. After all he does have a Rt staff.

Other than the Ebon Falcons, the only useful one being Koro Sagewind, or someone we have yet to meet, I cant think of anyone or anything directly relating to WiK/HotN that wouldnt either be absurd(Murro) or useless.

I was thinking about how they could get around the muticlass profession. Maybe they could have you bring say any one Ebon Vanguard at a time. When you select the ebon vanguard, it could have a drop down menu where you could select any one of the 10 professions. I doubt they would do that, but it would effectively give you 10 new heros even if you could only use one at a time. Then again, it would be easier to just give us 10 new heros or at least enough to even out the number of professions we have.

I'd rather take an extra necro, rit or mes hero than take a warrior.

If I did use a warrior hero though, it would be a strength spear chucker W/P, not a melee.

We're talking about players here since you brought it up. Melee heroes are horrible due to AI, not their damage or skills. If some miracle of AI happened they could theoretically become worth using.

It's going to be Mad King Thorn.

would LOVE to see koro as a new hero! she is my choice!!

Razah was supposed to be this, but the entire GW1 team couldn't figure out how to make it work (supposedly). As much as I want a switch primary profession hero, I doubt they figured it out with 5% of the people they had last time around.



First born sylvari I thought showed up 25 years before the time of GW2, making that 225 years in the future. I'm sure a link from wiki would be a stronger proof of this, but I'm feeling lazy at the moment.

Isn't Gwen "Gwen's evil twin sister"?

Oh, and just so that I comment on the OP, melee heroes suck. But in all honestly, it's probably a good thing. If I could have 3 WotA assassins running around as well as a human plays it, it'd be a bit ridiculous (not that the state of PvE isn't already a bit ridiculous).

I'd love to have either Nola or Koro as a hero, if it's an Ebon Falcon. I like them both a lot.

That makes the most sense. Keiran hasn't had a solid place in the GW world for ages and they are putting a lot of time and effort into making him into a developed character.

People have already speculated that his GW2 ancestor, Logan Thackeray, will be "blue mace guy", aka the 2nd soldier with support like abilities, similair to how a paragon works.

John Stumme said he likes the idea of allowing players to get to know a character and their development before they join the party, Thackeray seems like the most logical conclusion of all the current candidates from Hearts of the North.

There has been a lot of evolution of his character through the BMP style content and I think him becoming a paragon is a good way for a writer to solidify the link between him and Logan as leaders of the humans and the founder of Ebonhawke. It also seems in line with John Stumme's style to reflect lore/story based development with game mechanics (partnering well with Miku via the hex + sniper combo, using that as a metaphor for a test for his relationship with Gwen, giving him paragon skills to literally reflect his new-found leadership qualities). People paying attention would also notice Keiran's new hair style is looking A LOT like Logan's - I doubt that's a coincidence. The guy is very important in GW lore - more so than Gwen, so they needed to do something to increase his profile, making him into a hero seems like a great way.

I also think there's something to be said about marriage being about castration by a woman symbolising settling down and being responsible and all that boring stuff. Gwen has disapproved in the past on multiple occasions of Thackeray's roaming ranger-like ways. Becoming a paragon instead of remaining a ranger would symbolise settling down and taking on responsibility.

I've always found it suss that Thackeray was never given an animal companion (although, I will be making a GW2 ranger called Keiran and naming my pet Miku seeing as that to me seems to be the ideal ranger pet partnership gameplay right there - too bad we will never see it in GW1).

Koro as a hero, she has a special skill I think, that kills her while the rest of the team is perfectly fine. I'll skip.

If it's not the Sylvari idea I posted, I'm going to have to go with this. He's having an identity crisis right now, and I don't think newlyweds would split up as we go traipsing off to whoever knows where. It's definitely Thackeray, and since he's "not a ranger", he's definitely going to be a paragon given his newly found skillset and leadership.

Think of it this way: His personality has been to this point pretty much solo, thinking of his own interests. He's attracted to a recluse because he has the same reclusive tendencies. He fits the bill of ranger. Now that he's been thrust to the forefront of a conflict (albeit a small one) and assumed a leadership role, he's finding his true self. Paragon.

It's pretty cut and dry given the story we've been told thus far. I'd even go so far as to bet an oppressor weapon on it.

Oh and one more thing...new Paragon hero = Paragon skill update?

I'm guessing:

Dinas: a new Hero Mesmer

He goes undercover in the White Mantle and helps defeat them in the War in Kryta.

I hate to burst everyone's bubble but...

Did you not notice that most of the characters in WiK were dual profession? That's why I'm not thinking "ZOMFG KEIRAN IS PARAGON NAO!!!1!". I just saw it as he gained a secondary profession instead of being straight ranger. Sure, he uses TNTF, but it's also a Sunspear skill and I don't recall any mention of him visiting Elona...

I can see how it's a possibility but I can also see how it's not. Have to admit I thought Gwen would make him stay at home as a househusband while she's travelling the world. It would account for the /facepalm obvious factor though.

you need points in leadership to make there is nothing to fear effective. It have a 4 seconds duration if you have no point in leadership (+1 second for each 2 points into leadership)

Keiran is a ranger that uses a long lasting TNTF

Except, you know, it was a completely different version of TNTF with less damage reduction and healing.

he used ALOT of cons.

Heros have variable secondary, with only a fixed primary defining them. So if Keiran were to become a hero, they have to pick one or the other to highlight. Of course if he isn't becoming a hero then it is bunk, but if he IS becoming a hero then it's signifies a paragon. So the fact that there's "secondary" skills does not prove the change but, if he was going to change, this is the only way to do it.

As has been mentioned this is the only possibility that is made obvious by the first part of the story. There's only 3 characters involved in hearts so far, we already have gwen, it can't be miku or keiran's original professions, and keiran is the only one of those two who showed the possibility of profession change.