Can you pick Assassin or Ritualist as a secondary profession in pre-searing?

Right, so I've had this question in mind for a while and I've been looking around for the answer (yes, also using the infamous search button) but no luck.

Does taking Assassin or Ritualist as a secondary profession point to a first time choice or a change after Ascension? Assume I have GW Prophecies and will buy Factions and link the two. I have two pre-searing characters (in Prophecies) that still need to pick their secondary profession. When I buy and link Factions, will I be able to make them Assassin or Ritualist for secondary straight away, through some pre-searing quest? Or will I have to pick any of the core prophecies, take the characters all the way through the game, let them travel to Cantha and only after Ascension be able to change their secondary to Assassin or Ritualist?

Any help on this issue will be much appreciated.

That quote is referring to after ascension, as in you bring a l20 over to cantha and get to switch secondary to Ri or A if you want. Don't know if you can get it as a secondary in pre-searing.

this is purely speculation at this point, but i would think that existing characters would need to be able to travel to cantha in order to change their secondary to an assassin or ritualist.

first off, lore-wise, there are no indications that ascalon has any contact with cantha in the first place. even when you characters arrive in the seared region of ascalon, they cannot access the guild halls at cantha until they reach the krytan ports in lions arch. ascalon does not seem to have any ports and have always had a bad relationship with krytans so how would any canthans have reached ascalon pre-searing?

second, there are the technical aspects. factions is a stand-alone expansion. skills, items, and content for factions would be available through factions. accessibility to this content in prohecies would be limited at best. if you started a character with an assassin/ritualist secondary, you would need to get skills for that class. how would you expect to get all those skills, especially when there aren't any assassin/ritualist trainers/mobs in prophecies? implementing those NPCs specifically for only a fraction of customers seems inefficient. think about future expansions: if they implemented this scheme, they would need to do the same thing for each and every expansion prior to a new one being released -- the amount of work involved would increased factorially with each new expansion.

Occum's Razor refers to the concept that the simplest answer is the most likely one. There will likely be "boat" travel available to cantha, if your account supports it. thus the only content that can be exchanged between prophecies and factions is what you can "carry" with you.

Factions will include a Canthan Academy as well which serves as a presearing environment for that campaign. However afterwords. yes you will be able to change professions around on your characters in factions as you did in the desert in the original.

OK, thanks for your reactions. I hadn't thought of the storyline thing yet but that makes sense. So most probably it's not possible before Lion's Arch - and maybe even not before Ascension.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but should you buy Factions stand-alone and use it on its own, it will have all 8 classes available. Namely the 6 core professions plus the two new ones. Given that there will be a sort of pre-searing environment in Factions, the best thing to do might be to start a new character in Factions because you would have all professions available there. That's what strikes me as sort of unfair - yet necessary too, for the people who will only own a copy of Factions.

Most people will be using ascended characters from prophecies or new ones from factions anyways...

Unfortunately there's not a lot of concrete info on this (or much really) but it's a very good question and I would think you COULD -
If you have your accounts linked you should be able to start a new Ranger in either place, no? So why not the secondary?

The bigger unknown IMO is primary starts - can you start an assassin or ritualist in pre-sear or say a ranger, monk etc in Cantha. Though some of us may go 'nooo....' does it make sense for all further chapters to only allow 2 primaries in each environment? Here a Ritualist can serve as a healer, but we might not always have attacker/healer blends in chapters.

I'd actually think you could chose where to start with any combination you want (obviously for those of us who've had more than enough of GW:P we'd mostly be looing to start in GW:F).

But I might have missed something along the way - I kind of stopped digging into every particular once I got slot-blocked.

New skills are available for all classes in Factions. It would not make sense to limit availability of the basic classes, in terms of both primaries and secondaries in the expansion chapters. there would not be enough balance in gameplay if we didn't have the archetypal characters. the ritualist may fit the healer archetype and the assassin the melee archetype, but what about the rest? i think that the decisions Anet makes with factions will likely set precedent for future expansions: same basic archetype classes with a couple new professions. One of the issues that I see here is that 8 professions seems better than 6, so why would Factions customers or any future expansion folks go out and buy Prophecies?

Right we're on the same page - I'd be surprised if you can't start a Ranger in Cantha, or an Assassin in pre-sear, linking the two. W/o linking you don't have the content of the other but could still start say as a Ranger in chapter2, if you just bought chapter2. Without access to some of the GW:P Ranger skills, but access to the new GW:F Ranger skills.

Simple answer to the question of this thread - Nope, not atm. ^.^

I've been thinking about this, too.

1. To get two extra slots.
2. To get any skill/items not available in Cantha (there will sure to be some, probably mostly elites, but maybe some regular skills not offered in both places).
3. For the extra content.

There are no Trainers for Ass/Rit in Pre-Sear, so being able to make one there would be pointless if they even allowed it storyline wise.

All classes are available in Factions so of course you will be able to make any class in their training area.

They would have to overhaul Pre-Searing, and the rest of Prophecies to make room for the new classes, which is highly unlikely since they would have to do it again and again for each new chapter.

Don't count on any new content for the new classes in Prophecies, as well, don't expect any content for Chap 3 classes in Prophecies or Factions, etc.

The only thing Factions won't have are the Elite skills from Prophecies. Maybe Factions-only players will get bored and decide to buy Prophecies to play through it, but they don't need to. If I was just starting out I would probably just buy Factions and not Prophecies.

for the back story of course... OK we are all vets now. we have been in the 1st chapter for so long its all well known to us right? yet Weekly I find new people coming into ascalon city that are totally new to the game . that means people are buying it right? yup!!! And as such chapter 2 will come out and new people will buy that. well there is this entire area we all know that they will not have access too. so sure they will likely want to enjoy the back-story as well at some point...

Plus I would imagine that stores will start offering bundle deals with both chapters in it for a bargain rate... a starter kit for want of a better word that has both chapters and the strat guide... (no matter how out of date it is. its still useful to new people....) So lets say a store like <Removed> (BigBox store A) bundles Chapters 1 and 2 and stat guide for like $60-$70 hey thats a pretty good deal if you ask me... Especially for a new player just starting out... and heck. that's a ton of content to go though...

you will be able to get those secondaries in canta's "presearing"

Apparently both! Yay!

From ANet Interview March 7 2006
Yes, those who own both campaigns—Guild Wars (original Prophecies campaign) and Guild Wars Factions—can create Assassins and Ritualists who are able to play in both cooperative and PvP modes in Tyria and Cantha. They then can create a character with a birthplace in either land. That is, you may choose to start on the continent of Tyria, or on the continent of Cantha. Once a character is ascended, he or she can travel between the continents via boat. And existing characters can be recast, for those with both campaigns, to have as a secondary the Ritualist or Assassin profession.

Since Ritualists and Assassin primaries can start in Pre-Searing, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to choose it as a secondary. Though Bgnome makes a valid point about having to add skill trainers for every new class that comes along, eventually making Pre-Searing "overpopulated".

There's still a lot of Pre-searing uncovered.

Why couldn't Ritualists start out in some corner of the Catacombs? And as for changes to pre-searing, have you been there recently?

The last time I had been to pre-searing was wayyy back in July. I was there recently, to help a new guild member through some of the quests (yes, I know, its very easy, but if you're new it can be confusing), and things have moved. Mhenlo stands in a different corner of Ashford Abbey, the one collector is no longer inside the Catacombs just outside of Ashford Abbey, she's over by the Barradin Estate. There are no longer aloe thingies to kill right outside of Ascalon (so you can't farm the seeds there any more).

There's plenty of places to add a trainer - over by the gypsy caravan on the way to Barradin's Estate, the shrine thingy where all the spiders spawn for the apple quest, over by the bear hunters (who still crack me up). Or how about putting a ritualist trainer in that hidden area outside Ranik? I love that spot, and the ritualist kind of brings to mind the whole earth mysteries thing, so placing them in a cave/grotto works for me.

Ya but I think they might've said not all skills from the core are available in the stand alone Factions. I think they'll leave out some of the elites and some other skills as well.

yeah all skills are not available (elite and regular) to just factions folks. Also the new profession wont be available to prophecies only folks.

Talk to Jarrel the Tamer right outside Old Ascalon... He has regular contact with Cantha.

The only NPC I know of that mentions Cantha in Ascalon, but point is, if he knows of it and regularly travels to it, surely others have heard and know of it, too.

Pre-Searing, I dunno. Jarrel is also in Pre-Searing, though he looks completely different (wondering if it's even the same NPC).

My guess is if you start an Assassin or Rituralist you'll start an Cantha and there will be seven trainers to teach you one of the other proffesions. For those who have both and want to make say a W/A then I would hope that there is some type of trainer or you have to do a quest to find the trainers. Such as you meet a mysterous figurein pre-searing and he/she saids. "Psst...Hey you, yeah you how would you like to learn the crafts of the shadow ehh? Well if your intersted I..could tell you for a price. What do you say?" Then you pay some cash maybe 50-100gold and he/she gives you a quest to find the Assassin. Far as an assassin we know they are payed killers so ofcourse they would be hard to find and their contacts wouldn't speak with some gold to wet thier lips. Far as the rituralist I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm just braining storming.

I seem to recall that an earlier article from Anet said that the Xunlai agents are Canthan merchants.

As for starting a Rit/Ass in Tryia, I'm still not convinced, and the thing that worries me is the way that the character creation system has already been set.

When you create a new character atm, you choose campaign before choosing primary profession. This indicates to me that the plan is that campaign selection will lead to different options for primary profession selection.

OK, I know that this could be swapped round when Factions is released if all primary professions are available in both campaigns, but it would seem easier to me in that case to put the screens in the other order to start with and just add Rit and Ass options to the primary profession selection screen.

Wow. Does that mean there will be assassin/ritualists quests in Tyria?

This changes everything... now I want to start an Assassin in pre-searing, just to see all the changes!

This is also a good sign that the Assassin and Ritualist (and future chapter's professions, too) will be supported by Anet with new skills and weapons in future and previous chapters!

Another question. Say I bring my lvl20 Me/N over to Cantha, and then change my secondary to Assassin. What if I decide I don't like the change? Can I assume that we can still go back to the desert, switch my secondary back to Nec or whatever, and then continue playing through Cantha? I'm just curious as to whether existing ascended players from Prophecies will have the option to switch secondaries anytime they want from the very beginning of the Factions campaign (while Factions only players can not...).

I would assume "yes."

Well, now hold on. Who says Factions can't? Why wouldn't there be an area in Factions that allows switching secondaries? It's assumed there will be a "Ascension" quest in Factions, so I assume you can change secondaries to any profession in Factions, too.

One thing to consider.

ArenaNet is big on equal opportunity for any and all players in this game. Given that...why would ArenaNet introduce an endless stream of increasingly-useless professions with no additional support with each chapter and focus exclusively on the core six? Would make for a seriously unbalanced game if you ask me.

Instead, I think we may end up seeing less in the way of new professions as time goes on and the game matures. Perhaps dropping down to one profession a chapter, and then eventually just sporadic releases of single new professions as a need for them emerges. Chapters would end up being new maps, game types, skills and gear as opposed to profession-boxes.

I think I'd like that, actually.

I'm not assuming that Factions only players won't be able to switch secondaries EVER, just that they won't be able to switch at all until they reach the Factions equivalent of ascension (somewhere towards the middle of the campaign I assume). From what I've gathered now, it sounds like Prophecy veterans won't be able to switch secondaries around from both campaigns until they ascend in both campaigns. If that is true, then my lvl20 'could' switch to an Assassin secondary at the beginning of Cantha, and probably back to a core secondary in the desert, but not back n forth whenever I wanted until ascension was achieved in both campaigns.

Now that Factions is here, I'm giving this thread a final bump. There's been a lot of speculation in it and good arguments for both a "yes" or a "no" to my original question.

I briefly logged in with one of my Prophecies pre-searing characters yesterday to check it, I only went up to Armin Saberlin (I think that's the one) to ask about secondary professions, and there were no directions for trainers for Assassin or Ritualist. So I'm guessing it's a "no", but haven't checked further than that. Is there anyone here who has?

Your help is much appreciated