Profession's pigeonholed?

Hope this is the right place to post this. I've just been recently thinking about the different classes and was considering some off-beat combo's and styles of play, but due to the way the game has been 'tweaked' I've realized that there's no way I could successfully play them. I realized I was pigeonholed into the way I play.

Take for example

I considered playing E/W focusing purely on melee only. With this combo I'd have a huge energy supply for warrior attack skills as well as mixing it with elementalist spells.

Now people might point out that Elementalist's have lower armor than a Warrior.. but I'd like to point out that with points in Earth or Water I could easily have more armor than a Warrior. Consider, 60 base armor, +53 from Armor of Earth for a total of 113 armor vs everything with a bonus of +15 armor vs 1 element. Yes you do move slower with Armor of Earth, but in the middle of a fight that probably won't matter (thinking PvE here). Or if you go water you can use Armor of Mist for 94 armor plus +15 vs 1 element. Armor of Earth can be kept on permanently since the skill recharges in 15 seconds while Armor of Mist will leave you with lesser defense for 12 seconds. Other water option is Armor of Frost which would give you 100 armor vs physical while reducing your defence vs fire down to 36 (51 if you have Pyromancer Armor) and every other element will have 75 armor but you will be left at base armor for 16 seconds.

Now I've established that with Armor of Earth an elementalist can easily enough match a warrior for armor level. The only thing it can't match is damage absorbtion since only Warrior's can use Runes of Absorbtion or have armor which provides damage absorbtion.

So whats the problem? To do this relies heavily on enchantments. All the armor spells I've mentioned are classed as Enchantment spells. And ANet in their wisdom have flooded the game with enchantment strippers. Once you hit Ruins of Surmia mission you can basically forget ever using an enchantment spell ever again.. unless you want to take damage when it gets stripped. There are places where critters don't strp enchantments, but the vast majority of area's in the game - especially the missions - all have creature's which strip enchantments.

This means E/W being played as a warrior type is pointless & moot, as the only way to get armor willbe removed as soon as you get into a fight and forget re-casting it as they will strip them right away again. Only solution is to kill the enchantment strippers 1st - but how? If you blast em with elementalist spells.. why not just stick to the spells? If you attack with melee you'll get hit harder because your defense is not up and that will hurt. and you'll end up having to do this every fight.. run in to kill 1 or 2 critters taking major damage doing so just so you can put up your defense to kill the rest.

Now I know E/W might be a "stupid" thought.. and "not" what an Elementalist is about. But thats my point. If I play as an elementalist primary, I've been pigeonholed into playing a spellcasting character. If I want to play a sword wielding elementalist who has same armor as warrior via spells with huge energy pool to draw from for attack skills .. I can forget it as the way PvE is made it's impossible for me to do.

Or am I missing something here? And btw, to anyone who says "send in the henchies 1st"... that doesn't work. I have tried (using my current nuking elementalist) to send them in and then go in after them with an enchantment on me.. and it got stripped right away even though everything was attacking the henchies.

and btw, please don't say "but you couldn't use runes!". Thats not my point here. I know I can't use warrior runes, but it shouldn't matter too much.. apart from the Absorbtion Rune's..

In the same way they have pigeonholed Monk's to be healers, and reven then the healing options is limited. Why? Because most of monks skills are enchantments.... and unless your playing with players you can forget ever being able to maintain those enchantments on anyone. This means you can forget smiting monks..

Smiting monks *do* work in PvE in certain area's. But what does a smithing monk do when they get into fights where there every attempt to smite just gets stripped causing them to heal themselves or the party member who had the smite enchants on them?

How does someone play a smiting monk in PvE once they hit Ruins of Sumia since 7 out of 17 skills are enchantments? And the others there are either elites or have huge recharge times. So even if you try and rely on the non-enchantment skills.. you better have time to wait for the skills to recharge... and dont' forget some of them are conditional - these rely on the target trying to heal, sacrifice life or have a hex on them.

Sure it could work, but your selection of what you can do is limited and those recharge times on the few skills you can use are not very nice considering the damage those skills do.

Oh and lets look at the ever popular Mo/W - apart from certain regions in the game does this work? You have less armor than warrior and no defense spells. You do have access to very nice energy stores for energy based attacks as well as skills that help keep your energy up as well as gaining adrenaline.. as well as making your damage holy damage which is cool... but wait! to do that you need enchantments.. whoops. Guess you won;t be able to attack with weapons in most of the game because of enchantment stripping.

Now for Ranger - we all know that Ranger as a secondary doesn't offer too much (apart from those W/R using it for 1 skill.. pfft). As a primary your semi pigeonholed into attacking with bow or pet as you don't have the energy to blast things with elementalist spells.. although you can mix it with mesmer for interrupting.. but again, pigeonholed into attacking with bow. R/W? that works, but seems from what I've read it's "frowned" upon.

Mesmer - can mix it up quite a bit. can play elementalist and get those spells off fast, but with lack of energy won't have the total punch an elementalist could have giving the chance (remember PvE). m/w? no defense spells, but can lock targets down so it doesn't matter, but lesser energy. against mass groups might have trouble because of armor. M/R? this works if your playing for interrupts.. can mix wand/bow attacks as needed. But again if you look at the options, it's still all about being a mesmer and doing what they do. So still pigeonholed.

Necros - if your not using necros skills to support henchies/groupies or heal yourself, etc.. then why play necros? Actually, an option that works is N/W. Can melee with decent armor and only needs a few necros skills to work out. This is one of the few combo's that doesn't rely too heavily on the 1st profession to work and doesn't require enchantments either. every other N combo is basically a mix of necro and the other profession to work out.. N/E .. lower energy but this can work if you can kill fast and have SR.. N/R .. errm yeah.. bow attacking necro? why? more energy? you'll need it without expertise.. pet user? pfft.. if you use pet skills you'll lack necro skills.. if you ignore pet skills your pet's just used for minion fodder.. N/M .. mix of mesmer and necros.. why Me? I'd say for condition locking and inturrupts.. N/Mo - monk is for what.. healing? heh.. still going to end up relying on necro skills..

Oh and E/W isn't "pigeon-holed" since you don't have to use any E skills apart from armor and wards - it's not what you'd say an Elementalist is all about.. but you have options to do something else.

That's what I mean when I say pigeonholed - your not able to play anything apart from the "stock standard" for each profession for the majority of the game. Your forced to play a certain style for each profession simply because the game prevents you from doing anything else - or you can do it, but you'll be suffering a huge disadvantage.

I mean they give you the means to play as something different but make sure you can't. Considering the ways to play as something different usually involves the use of enchantments to let you do something you normally couldn't do.. but due to what they have done in PvE you can forget that. Or no matter how you twist it your still playing the way the class is to be played..

Or am I just a total and utter idiot? Please remember I'm talking about the PvE game and not PvP with the consideration that you'd be using henchies and not real players - since if you have a good group of people you can play as wacky things and generally get it to work since the other's can help and support you as you help and support them... henchies don't do that.

I can think of a few combo's that can work doing a mix of the 2 profession's, but it's still a duality and still playing the main profession the way it's been pigeon-holed as being.

But for me I've been thinking about different combo's, but every combo I considered (apart from a few) relied on enchantments or were too close to the "original" profession "intentions" as to not really be considered different.. It just makes me wonder... we've been given a huge option of different profession combinations and skills.. yet the vast majority of off-beat combo's and idea's won't work because of what they have done in the game - they work on paper, but not reality.

I don't know.. I know I'm not the smartest player around and I know I don't know everything there is in the game. It just seem's that when I tried to consider playing combo's of profession' which were "different" I realized they either wouldn't work because of the way PvE has been setup or they were still close enough to their main profession as to not really be that different. It just seems to be that profession's are pigeonholed into set roles/routes and trying to do anything different is impossible.. even though they provide you the means of doing things "different."

I would love to have some feedback on this. I want to know what i've missed if anything.... I just want to learn

PS. Pigeonholed? Is that the right term for if something is sort of being forced to play the one way and anything else is discouraged?

No offence mate, but I really wish people would make an effort to compact their post into a nice readable concise few paragraphs. No doubt what you said there holds truth, and the number of enchantment strippers in the PvE game does limit the flexibility quite substantially. Unfortunately, what good points you did make are lost in the quagmire of the rest of the post...

I agree completly

again though, make your post shorter as youve said everything about the subject theres nothing left for me to say

Any game that uses a class or profession system, pigeonholes players by definition.

No profession should be better at a role than the profession actually designed to do it. Like with your E/W example. Surely you didn't expect your Elementalist to be able to tank better than the profession that was designed to tank?

I might add that elementalists who tank make monks angry. ANGRY.

You're not a better tank than a warrior, and when you get to enemies who can shatter enchantments and cause heavy damage (yes, they do this in PvE!), you're screwed.

And for some reason, I never ran into delusional Elementalists in the beginning of the game; no, only at the end when they couldn't survive all the damage. There's a reason we call warriors "tanks"- because they don't need enchantment upkeep to be able to survive stuff without constant babysitting by a monk.

Sorry to be a bit rough with you, mate, but speaking as a healer, I get REALLY frustrated when elementalists and mesmers try to tank (IW is a crappy spell, by the by).

The only time I've seen an elementalist actually do well when under attack was fighting a very, very dumb Wa/Mo runner with no attack skills in random arena. And even he needed to heal with his monk spells (E/Mo supporter).

I see your point, I really do, but I agree mostly with Narci. An Elementalist is supposed to use spells just like a ranger is supposed to use a bow. If each profession could do everything, why not just make one profession for everyone?

Also, secondary classes are supposed to be just that... secondary. Playing a necro/warrior means that you're a necromancer who can, if needed, use a few well-picked warrior skills to aid him. It isn't designed to be a pure warrior who has a little Soul Reaping.

Consider a warrior/monk. It's a warrior who uses a few monk skills, healing or protection, to support his role as a warrior. The healing and protection skills aren't supposed to dominate. That's why it's called a secondary.

Use alot of skills from your primary profession (after all that's what he's best at) and a few support skills from your secondary.

That way you'll get on fine I think.

PS: If you want to make a warrior who can use alot of skills, I suggest you either invest in adrenal skills so you don't use all the energy you want to keep, or pick elementalist as secondary. The elementalist has a few skills that give you more energy or make those you use cost less. Maybe you can use some of those.

Remember, all the professions have something to offer. I'd say you aren't restricted by anything but your own preferences and playing style. I myself won't play elementalist as primary because I prefere to deal some down-to-earth damage instead of standing back and firestorm spam. Of course you don't have to do that, but I really don't like using squishy classes as primaries.

well shouldnt the warriors always be a better tank? sure the ele's have more flexibility with skills but they are have their own downfalls and rightfully so

as a monk i can make any class easily capable of tanking for 10 secs. if there are enchantment strippers then the secret is to stack the enchantments. rarely do they strip the same person more than once. so simply cast a worthless enchantment after armor of earth. i have found that healing seed+prot spirit+breeze makes any profession capable of taking a massive amount of punishment. the breeze gets stripped but so what i can cast it again.

i don't have a real problem with casters tanking if they know what they are doing. they should not go in first, ever.

I'll just dismiss this topic as a whine.

I can't believe what GW players complain about these days. At least their "grind" argument has ANet's backing; now people complain about their Warrior not being able to deal damage, and their Elementalist not being able to take damage.

This is ridiculous. GW already has like... none... of the major concepts associated with a traditional MMORPG.

I find that the mere fact that Elementalists can boost their armour rating incredulous.

It is a nice idea for a pve build. original for sure.
as for enchantment stripping, why not take a coverenchantment? bring Aura of Restoration for instance. and recast the Armor of Earth before it completely runs out.
with maybe a Ward of Melee, you could make a nice tank. However, your damage willl not be the same. you will miss the strength attribute, which gives the armorpenetration bonus. as well as superior runes for your weapon.
However, you may be able to partly compensate this with close range earth ele spells such as Aftershock, or something like that.
However, you will have a hard time convincing a PUG of your creative approach.
And pack a speedbuff to partly counter the Armor of Earth.
good luck.

John Bloodstone & aron searle - I have a dreaded bad habit of not making short post's when I'm thinking things through. The thing is I like to explain my thinking out and then see what people have to say, this way I'll know if my thinking is correct or not or how to improve myself. Yes I could just ask "Are we being pigenholed?" - but how much does that say about why I think that way or how I'm seeing it be.

Narcissus - I'm not saying that 1 character should be better than another. Even if you took out all the enchanter strippers a W/x is still better at melee fighting than a e/w would ever be even with their spells. Heck a W/E >>>>>>>>> E/W. Sure the W/E has less energy, but has same access to the spells and access to better armor and better runes..

What I'd like is to have the "flexibility" to be able to play off-beat combo's and styles of play. E/W are a possibility and they work on paper, but the game neuter's them because of enchantment stripping. Only way around that is to run multiple enchantments constently and hope that the one's you need aren't removed .

Forget E/W. What about smiting monk's? Now smiting is a primary attribute for them, but a lot of the smiting skills are enchantments.. thus limiting the feasability of being a smiting monk except in certain area's.. or spending extra time and energy to run useless enchants to protect from enchant strippers. The Monk gets piudgenholed into playing mainly healer... or healer/protection.. but if we're talking PvE with henchies.. what can they do?

I'm not about trying to make it so 1 character can do everything, but i'd like some flexibility to play something other that "normal". I'd like to have the ability to try different builds and such - who cares how well they work.. but this game as it is right now in PvE prevents that or makes me go to huge length's to make sure I can do what I want to do.

Iere (and later Rancour) - Here's a suggestion: read my post

I say this because I believe you didn';t even bother to read what I was saying and just read the 1st line about my thoughts about playing a E/W melee'ing and then made your post based on that. Take the time to read my post and you'll see I answered parts of your post.

Case in point -> "and when you get to enemies who can shatter enchantments and cause heavy damage (yes, they do this in PvE!), you're screwed. "

That's my whole damned point. They give you skills which let you playt a certain way.. which isn't quite what one would see as an Elementalist.. but it's still possible... but wai.. no you can't because while you have the skills you can't use them due to the huge number of creature's in PvE which screw the whole build up.

Why bother giving Elementalist's a defense spell if 90% of the game they can't use it anyways? I've just been pigeonholed into playing your stock standard nuking elementalist.. because in the game thats all I can ever be... even though I can combine my skills with 5 other professions which "should" let me play differently.. but nope.. all I can do is nuke.

"Remember, all the professions have something to offer. I'd say you aren't restricted by anything but your own preferences and playing style."

Now just if this statement was correct. If it was correct I'd not have made this thread - because you ARE restricted to what you can do by the way the game plays. I may want to play a sword wielding E/W who relies on Armor of Earth to keep my defense up.. but nope, that won't work as there went AoE and bye bye defense and ability to play my sword wielding E/W!

I am restricted. I am forced to play certain professions a certain way in PvE. Thats pigeonholing me and reducing my enjoyment of the game.

E/W isn't as good a tank or melee as a W/E would be.. but why can't I play it? Why can't I play it even if it isn't as good as a W/E? Why am I forced to play as a nuker if i play as an Elementalist?

I have a E/Mo right now and I am having fun playing her. But she's a nuker. No tankage and runs around if anything gets too close But I'm forced to play this way. It is fun, don't get me wrong on that. But i also like playing off-beat characters. GW doesn't let me even try. Oh and to comment about the Firestorm spam.. anyone who tries to rely on spamming firestorm is an idiot :P mixing up the spells and having a selection of fast and slow casting ones is the way to go...

sorry, another long post ...

IMO spell casters are spell casters. With the possible exception of Monk as a secondary, Primary magick users should stick to...well using magick. I have a W/Ne and a Mes/Ele. I play them in totally different ways. When i started out i tried to play the mes like a war, but i got whooped real bad. So i started thinking ok, re-think and adapt. As a W/Ne i have a good range. I use a sword and Idol, or Ageis, Well of blood, well of suffering, plague touch, maybe life siphon but usually not, and some bleeding, and other warrior skills. I dont try and play a necro. Sure i can animate bone horrors with the best of them, and have even got my energy up to about 40 i think (with gladiators armor and Idols). But still i dont waste time. I wanted to be a warrior. Stand up in someones face and slap it with my big....Sword

As a Mes, i let someone else do that bit. I used to think that it was a lesser role, as a magick user, standing at the back, not doing much. But i was wrong. Warriors are great. W/Mo wow can usually go solo. But W/x Will get whooped if he runs into trouble on his own. Ok i have seen a Axe W/Mo take out about 30 griffs in about 6 mins, but thats only because he has a build for that. like Rancour said each proffesion has its pros and cons, i play a mes, cause i like fast casting, and the Ele part, for some cool area effects, i play a warrior to beat people down. enjoy playing one for something, and the other for something else.

Mixes things up

Obs

First off, keep things concise. Great writers get their points across in a few sentences.

You said it yourself, it's not as good at it. But you CAN play it. You just won't be as good which you've spent 10 pages already stating.

notice the

thats me making a bad joke.



I once made a Mo/Ra for PVE. Now this was my second character after playing a w/m and i wanted to try something a little creative. I got him to level 9 and kind gave up.

What i wanted to do was create a smiting monk combining ranger power attacks, i didnt have a build already though up i was just experimenting. I did not want to just be a healer, its not my bag of tea.

Everytime i got into a group it was the same thing, people would tell me that a monks job was to heal and would just kick me unless i was to do as they said and act as healer.

not quite the same as your point, but i understand your frustration in this matter.

Cover enchants are the way to go, really. Sadly, there aren't a WHOLE LOT of cover enchant options available to the elementalist.

That said, if you could convince a monk to give the thing a go with you, and with a little coordination, the monk could deal the cover enchants for you just fine. Any protection monk has had to learn to deal cover enchants anyway.

If you happen to play evenings eastern time, I on around 10 PM when I can be. I have an ascended monk who would be happy to try this out.

I think the idea of an Ele/Wa is a great idea, although I wouldn't make the character into a damage dealer. I'd think along the lines of wards and shouts, and I'd try to fit into the same niche the Protection Monk fits: defending party members from harm. Ward against Harm, Ward against Melee, Ward against Elements, Watch Yourself, and Shields Up would be a great boon to any party, and depending on the situation, you chould choose to place your defences on the tanks or on the squishies. Add into the mix your armor buffing spells (which can usually be cast on others) and some conditional interrupting through Maelstrom or some armor ignoring damage (Obsidian Flame) and you have a great variety of tools at your disposal.

Sure, a "tanking Elementalist" is going to probably result in numerous deaths, but there's more options available to you than that, some of which will result in a very, very strong, team-oriented character for PvE.

cmb

I understand where you're coming from, being a warrior it is difficult to take advantage of your secondary with such a limited energy pool. I pretty much have to rely solely on my warrior skills because if I try to use even the simplest of cantrips it requires more energy than I can maintain.

Look at w/mo for example. 2 pips of regeneration, and a lot of monk enchantments require you to lose a pip of regen. Well, you aren't going to be able to do much with such a pathetic energy state. You're left to rely completely on your adrenaline skills, and depending on your weapon of choice this becomes quite the situation. In the end you're left with the majority of the population using Mending + Live Vicariously (sp?) swinging their swords wildly. To some extent, it can work. But it's not like you have many options to begin with, and in most games once someone finds something that works it becomes the cookie-cutter build. Just look at the solo monk, and the amount of nerfing required to finally kill it (although some say they can still do it).

In your e/w example, axe, hammer, and sword all require you to be in the melee. You already know your AL sucks and you won't last very long and it will make your monks job very difficult. Unless you have a cheap enchantment that you can constantly throw up to cover armor of earth you'll be a sitting duck. And since you can't put any points into strength that whole skill area is useless, save a few skills that have use in limited areas. In which case you're left with tactics, and the focus of that tree is to enhance your defensive capabilities. Well, if you're not in the melee you won't have much use for this tree at all. But like strength there are some skills that will have their uses but it's not worth the points. The fact that I can't even think of any off the top of my head and I use tactics heavily proves the point right there.

a properly built ranger can tank better than a warrior...so why not?

cryptic:

History of Guild Wars:

Dawn of Gaya: "Firestorm fraking ownz. If only i had a fire staff."
Prehistoric: "Get a Tank!"
Stone Age: "More damage!"
Copper Age: "Team looking for one more monks"
Bronze Age: "Get their monks first!!! Rez ... rez plz ... omg rez ... noob monk!!!"
Iron Age: "Spiker trapping Tank looking to make the uber build with only 2-3 diferent classes"
Classical antiquity (only on the european server): "Lets just play, dont leave. Noobs NOOBS!"
Dark Age: "Air ele looking for spike group! Putrid necro with tainted flesh looking for group"
Middle Ages: "Ranger looking for ranger group."
Renaissance: "I will avenge you!"
Romantic Aera: "Goddamn mesmer got me again."
Industrial revolution: "lets make that build"

ontopic:
the secondary profession is only 0/8 to 4/8 as important as the primary profession, depending on your strategy. 2/8 as important for 80% of all.

kamatsu, u can b an e/w if you want, you can kill people with it and be good at it. just dont complain when people strip your enchantments. if they couldnt you could just use armour of earth and be a warrior with extra armour and energy, you can do anything but there is a counter for everything, and think of it this way: if they are taking enchantment strippers then they have less skills to use and as an ele primary theres a good chance you have 1 spell atleast to simply blast them away

He does have a valid complaint. Arena.net is extremely bad about certain aspects of the game. They don't balance PvE mobs at all. For example enchantment stripping in mobs. Early on next to nothing stripped enchantments and you could solo and farm like nuts. The solution to this is add some enchantment stripping. However Arena.net goes completely nuts when it adds enchantment stripping and enemies spam it quite constantly. Thus rendering any enchantment reliant builds useless. There are very few areas where enchanment stripping is present, but in a moderated amount.

Basically the PvE design helps promote the tanks, monks, and nukes cookie cutter builds. Either an area doesn't have something outside of what this build handles well or whatever it cannot handle is so heavily spammed tossing a single mesmer or necro in really can't contend with it.

I am a proud user of the R/W and i would like to state that i like it for melee much more than any warrior.

ArenaNet, in a future update, please make all the PvE monsters just stand around and not attack anything (particularly mesmers, because gosh isn't it just so annoying when they use their mesmer skills?) so that people who want to make the most creative builds of all can do so freely.

Thank you to thoise who saw what I was actually driving at. those who got stuck on my E/W example, for shame

Orbberius - I have no problem in PvE as it stands, unless I want to try playing as something other than a cookie-cutter build. If I want to try something different, I am stopped in PvE or have to go to huge length's to get around what ANet has done in PvE.

It's sort of sad because I know why they did it - people whined and complained early on about people playing with enchants and making the game too easy for them. There was a plathora of people running around with enchants on them... so ANet in their wisdom tossed in some and then some more and then even more enchant strippers throughout the PvE game. End of problem of people using enchants. Pity it also killed off any thought of doing something different that relied on enchants (ie E/W or smiting monk).

In reality, I used the E/W as an example of how if I play Elementalist I've been pigeonholed into playing a nuker, even though I've been given skills that when combined with Warrior skills can let me play as a melee elementalist. But I can't because of the way the game plays and thus I've been pigeonholed into being a nuker. Same goes for a Mo/W except in certain area's - you try playing a smiting monk who wields a weapon.. not going to work through most of the PvE due to enchant strippers. You'd then have to have covering enchants constently and hope to be able to put them up before the important enchants get stripped.. Same goes for the E/W I mentioned before.

Obsiedion - you see, your thinking is whats made the game the way it is. You only see spell-casters as spell-casters. I look at all the skills and ways of combinign them with other professions and I see other ways to play them, ways which on paper work just fine - albiet with certain failings.. ie no points in strength for my E/W example. however because of the way the game in now, I'm forced to play a spell-caster purely as a spell-caster. I've been pigeonholed.. even though I can see ways of playing different combinations that work based on the combination of skills, they don't work in reality because ANet in their wisdom have made it way, way hard to even try and play as anything other than tank/nuker/healer. pfft!

aron searle - lol sorry mate, I made my post at like 11 pm Which probably explains why I came across so crabby in it .. hehehe

Actually what you said about Mo/r is my point as well. you play as a monk primary.. what else can you do but heal? You've been pigeonholed by public perception and game mechanics. Altho I know a few Mo/x combo's that might actually work and not be "pigeonholed".. but don't ask me what they are.. wouldn't want ANet to nerf them before I tried them out.. hehehehe (and not talking about the standard farming Mo/W either)

UnOrthOdOx - yep, the only way to do it is cover-enchants and pray you'll have the ability to re-cast them when they get stripped so as to not get the all important defense stripped. But that then means carrying what willlikely be a useless skill to you just to make a build work. Oh wells..

octaviancmb - now see, I like you. hehe Your not going out and saying "this won't work! Elementalist's only cast spells!". Your thinking about how you could play this and fit it in with a group. Out-of-the-box thinking. hehehe Seriously tho, it's nice to see someone willing to look at something different and try and find ways of fitting it in without just bashing it because it's not what is "common"

Algren Cole - well said.

lord_guru32 - I'm not talking about PvP. Thats another whole different ball-game compared to PvE, which is what I'm talking about.

Heh, done it again. Yet another long winded post. Thank you to those who are reading my post's. I do appreciate all feedback, even if I disagree or maybe come across like a grouch.. heh

Professions having pigeonholed roles is a great thing. It is a nice way to make professions directly relevant in party formation and gameplay. The ugly alternative is to have professions be limited to defining aesthetic themes and not strategy, and nobody really wants that.

You talk about wanting to avoid cookie-cutter builds, but that is a completely separate issue. It is possible to have pigeonholed profession roles while maintaining a wide variety of builds and playstyles within each one. If you really must have your variety jump outside the pigeonholed role, you should just move on to the correct profession to do so.

To be honest, I feel that the real one pigeonholing you in your examples is you. You want a viable melee fighter that uses magic to generate extra combat advantage -- no problem, it's doable! But when you go to make your build and avoid picking the profession primary devised for that...well, gee, you're on your own then...

In other words, take those profession choices out of your creative identity and save them for the tactical build process, where they belong!

What I want you to grasp is that you DO have the flexibility to play something other than the "normal". And you DO have the ability to try different builds and such - who cares how well they work. It's just that some of them DON'T work well or as well.

It seems to me the title of the thread should be "PvE Enchantment removal - too much?"

While we are on that topic, there are rarely any more than two enchantment strippers in a given group of mobs. Enchantment removal skills tend to have very long recast timers (most of the time longer than the enchantments they remove). Between a group of 6-8 players, and multiple enchantments between you all they can't all be removed at once (well they can with WoTP, it's just very rare in PvE). If you get stripped, just chock it up to bad luck and recast.

Couple things to mention about this post...

1) as many people have said the system is in place so there wont be any profession that can just ultimately screw all of the others. We dont need the warriors to be able to use monk spells and/or elementalist spells to the same avail as the intended main characters.
2) On this note.. you went off on a semi-halfRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed rant here about things that are honestly just YOUR opinion and not fact. Im cool with people's opinion, but when you pass them in a tone of fact that kills it. So statements like a N/mo is useless as your only healing with the monk secondary(is completely incorrect... lets think.. you could be a very hi damage necro/smiter, or amazing protect necro/protect monk), and that goes for every combination. It isnt that the professions are redundant.. you just have to be intelligent and tenacious enough to use them to their fullest extent!

Rezyk - "It is possible to have pigeonholed profession roles while maintaining a wide variety of builds and playstyles within each one. If you really must have your variety jump outside the pigeonholed role, you should just move on to the correct profession to do so."

That to me is the exact definition of being pigeonholed. Being forced to play a certain profession if I want to play a certain way, even if another different profession has skills, that on paper, would let them somewhat match what the "main" profession does.

"To be honest, I feel that the real one pigeonholing you in your examples is you. You want a viable melee fighter that uses magic to generate extra combat advantage -- no problem, it's doable! But when you go to make your build and avoid picking the profession primary devised for that...well, gee, you're on your own then..."

You dsay I'm the one pigeonholing me but then laugh at me for wanting to do things differently and say I'm stupid? Excuse me, but why shouldn't I consider playing outside the box if a profession has the skills to do so?

"In other words, take those profession choices out of your creative identity and save them for the tactical build process, where they belong!"

IE just go and copy all the other cookie-cutter builds and never try to think of anything else and anything different and try and make something unusual to work. Pfft.

Narcissus - mu isue with the enchantment stripping isn't with the enchant stripping itself. It's with the fact that ANet provided a whole slew of skills and there's a whole lotta combinations that you can do, but some of them don't work very well without some luck, a good group or wasted skill space.

I hate PUG's. I've tried them and detested every single one of them. Playing with henchies is solid and dependable. Sure they have issues, but they work. Thing is they don't work as a "team" to cover the flaws of the way PvE works. I know I could make my E/W example work, I'd just have to use 2-3 skill slots to make it work. *shrugs* just takes more work.

Forget the enchantment striupping - maybe using that as an example was a bad idea. How about reading some of the responses in this thread and seeing the general attitude of people - oh no! you can't be anything apart from what your main profession does! They pigeonhole, the general populance of GW does and so do the dev's in ANet. Yes, the enchantment stripping hinder's wacky builds somewhat but your right in that they can be worked around.

But you know what, I thank you. Thank you for responding the way you did and by showing me your thoughts on the matter. I see I might have gone overboard and to extreme - I admit I'm not the greatest player, but I was just expressing the way I felt about the issue - I just felt pigeonholed. Heh, ah wells.. guess I'll just go muddle through the game with my nuker and hopefully eventually finish the game.. and then see if I wanna go through it again.

Oryaka Drake - I was paying attention to you until you wen't off all swearing and ranting and raving. but'll I'll respond.

1. Why not? The game lets you combine 2 professions together, so why shouldn't I be able to play a E/W who does both spell casting and melee? In PvE with henchies I end up in melee range too often as it is anyways (when playing my elementalist).

And as pointed out the E/W is lacking a lot of benefits that the W/E would have. But lets just forgeth that right? I mean it's not like I'm asking for some super duper uber strong character. I just want to play something off-beat and not "cookie cutter".. but according to you anyone who wants that is after uber strong characters? pfft.

2. Please note that everything I said is my OPINION. I believe I made it perfectly clear it was my opinion and thoughts and that I wanted to learn more and see what other people thought/said. I appreciate those who have made constructive comments about what I have been talking about and pointing out where I was wrong or ways to get around issues that I saw. I don't believe I have ever said that what I was posting was "fact" or the only way it is - it was the way I saw things. I also admitted I'm not the smartest player in the game and that there are lots of things I don't know about the game and how to get around them, etc and so on.

eh i know they strip in SF, but if you send in the tank and stay out of aggro range, i rarely get stripped. Sure, its annoying and you remember it, but also remember the other times you didnt get stripped. another thing, wards cant be stripped :-) not as powerful, but beats losing it and taking damage.

Quoted for truth.

I feel your pain, brother, as a healer monk nothing annoys me more then wasting valuable energy on people who think they can tank when they cant and oh, ofcourse, when you actually cannot heal them because they take damage so fast and hard you cant cast against it and die they berate you, the monk, for 'failing to heal' them. Yeah right.

Anyway, back on topic.
Every class has their place in UW, every combo can be made to work but dont expect to be able to create a build that can overpower the game solo, there isnt a way and it has been tried which is as it should be.

But you CAN play the game that way, cant you? That some enemies can put a serious hurt on you is a given, that applies to every profession and profession combo, so recast your enchantments and fall back on being an ele when you come up against enchantment strippers.

As far as I can tell you want to do something that simply isnt possible for any profession, namely to become all powerful, if there were no enchantment strippers then one good protection monk could make a party untouchable, surely that is not what you are asking for, is it?

Don't put words in my mouth; I didn't laugh or say you were stupid or say you shouldn't play outside the box. I applaud your effort to make a creative build, even if it wasn't a success by your standards (and not all of them should be!). My point is that you are insisting on too many details being stuffed into your creative identity -- details that belong as part of the later build process. "My character will melee while magicking up combat advantages" is OK for designing your creative role. "He will also be an E/W" is not; that's a detail inherent to this game's build system (at which point, making the wrong choices OUGHT to stifle your power).

-_- I had already explained how that is not what I am saying. Please stop treating so many counter-arguments as equivalent to "stick with cookie-cutter" for your defense; you are just attacking a straw man and it is exceptionally annoying.

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation.

i agree with the fact that warriors were ment to be tanks, and most others werent. I understand the monks pain, as a warrior, my job is to run in first and take the brunt of the damage, because I CAN. I HATE it when someone who is NOT a tank runs in first(mesmer,ele,ranger..etc...) and then immediatley bites it because the monk cannot keep up with the massive amounts of damage they are taking. Then they yell at me, because, i didnt get run in and get the attention off them(which is really hard when they run in first), and then the poor monk gets yelled at for not being a good enough healer. And then, after they're rezed, the do it AGAIN. and after a couple times of this, they become nothing more than a temporary and shortlived meat sheild with all the DP they have. But as a warrior/ranger, i can see how a ranger can stay alive better than i might think due to troll and some other useful skills, but by no means should they run in FIRST. Sure, my monk friends love it when i run in first, then everyone else after me, because they've seeded me and it makes their job easier. But a warrior should always be the primary tank, and theres a reason for that. Just as a ranger is designed to use a bow, its not pigeonholeing so much as it is keeping the game balanced. okay, so that was a bit long. done. Oh, and im not attacking you that think you should use your secondary as a primary, its fine to try, im all for finding new, unique ways to play. i just dont like it when people who think they can do things like my little story here fail at it and then blame their party. thats all.

Professions are not only pigeonholed by enchantement strippers but also by players. Play any non-standard mix of professions & you only open yourself up for immature attacks from other players. I would LOVE to mess around with some non-standard profession mixes but if I did so I would never get into a group.

In the arenas I was teamed up with a R/Me, he used a sword and I didn't see an offhand. Our team did fine and given the comments I saw directed at the Ranger I'd say his build was quite effective.

I've never understood why anyone runs in at all. It is so much more effective if people hold a choke point. In PvE I play my warrior as an offensive lineman, my goal is to not let anything get past me. Target a healer that's in the back sure, but let the rangers/necros/mesmers/eles take out the healer. As a monk, I'm 10x more effective with henchmen even with the tanks attacking the healers simply because I don't have to run past 5 mele creatures, into the arms of 5 archers to heal a warrior that ran out of healing range...

Certain skill/profession combinations just work better than others. I don't see how you can alter this fact. Bringing 8 random skills together is not going to be as good as having 8 well-thought-out skills that actually work in the game. Any two character combinations work just fine in the game though (especially in PvE), and there are plenty of possible combinations that presumably work.

Being creative is fine, as long as you can find a combination that works well. Apparently, you're not having much luck, but that's not ANet's fault. Not all combinations work moderately well in the game world, and apparently, you're just not finding the ones that do. I mean, it's PvE... what doesn't work in PvE?

To take it to the extreme, it's kind of rediculous to make a warrior primary that employs only ele spells that cause exhaustion and complain that ANet is pigeonholing you because the warrior profession doesn't have enough energy.

You said it yourself, it's on paper. You can test things and try them out but sometimes they don't work as well. Don't go whining to the world about it.

Also, clearly your paper thought process sucks. Ever read any military strategy book telling you that in formulating a plan to take the opponent into account? Any plan that doesn't do that is more than likely to fail.

You'd get in my group.

You have a fair enough point but consider this, do you really want to team with people who obviously lack the insight to see something creative being done? Even if your build wasnt perfect or great, give it a shot, I say.

I was going to write an intelligent reply to this post but the more I thought about the sillier your argument becomes... and I don't know why no one has pointed this out yet. And since you like long posts here's one right back for you... it's still going to be an intelligent reply, and longer than I mean it to be because there's obviously a lot you don't understand about guild wars, and game balance in general.

Let me get this straight. Your Elementalist has 113AL base with armour of earth compared to a warriors 80AL base... and becomes a far superior tank.

You whine because sometimes there are monsters that remove your armour of earth. I would say, that about 1/3 of all monster mobs in the game are capable of stripping enchantments.. the true number is probably lower. This is just assuming that only mesmers and necros can strip enchants, and that monsters are equally divided into the 6 classes... and that not every mesmer / necro monster has an enchantment strip.

So... 1/3 of the time your Elementalist is a slightly worse tank than a warrior, losing by 20AL. 2/3 of the time, your Elementalist is a far better tank than a warrior... by 33AL.

I don't know about you, or anyone else, but I find this unfair... to the warrior! The warrior should be the one complaining, not you. What a ridiculous argument. If Elementalists could "always" have greater tanking capability and yet 3x the energy of warriors... we are lucky that people like you don't design games.

As it is, sometimes the warrior is better, and sometimes the elemetalist is better. So???

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Second thing : stop complaining about enchant stripping. Enchantments are strong in this game : I hesistate to call them overpowered, but they are a very determining force in this game. In PvP, smite groups are a dominant force - even though players in PvP have access to the same spells that those monsters mobs are using on you. A single player can be outputting 5 or 6 different enchantments at a time, while each "remove enchantment" spell only takes off one... enchantment removal simply cannot keep up. (hint - there is something called "aegis" which gives 50% block to everyone in the party as well as being a covering enchantment... hit one button and suddenly there are 8 enchantments that the enemy has to remove, or most likely, ignore).

Removing enchantments is as integral to this game as dealing damage. You cannot deal damage, you lose. You cannot remove enchantments, you also lose. As someone said before, you might as well ask monsters to stand there and not hit you.

Yes, in PvE you CAN play a team that does not have enchantment removal and spell interrupts. It just gets harder - but the PvE portion of the game was ridiculously easy anyway even the final few missions. Stripping Aura of Faith, Mark of Protection, and other powerful enchantments makes killing certain bosses a piece of cake. We had 8 players all attacking a single boss and he was gaining hp faster than we could kill it - because none of us could strip Aura of Faith from it, or interrupt its orison.

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So in conclusion : yes you can play an E/W. Just be prepared that 1/3 of the time you will have less armour than a Warrior. And if you run 5 enchantments, prepare for 1 to be stripped. And if you run only one... well... Just like if you had 250hp you should prepare to lose 50hp at least when fighting monsters. If you only had 50hp to begin with and then cry foul when you die...

My smiting / protection monk plays perfectly fine to the end of the game, pve. It is a very strong build and i use exclusively enchantments. Sure there are enchantment strippers everywhere, so deal with it. Not being able to deal with combat damage = same thing as not being able to deal with enchantments = same thing as not being able to deal with enchantment removal.

I think your problem is that you see the game only in terms of pure damage and armour which is not what guild wars is about. The game is much deeper than that, and incorporates concepts of enchant / hex removal and control, and there are many ways of neutralizing an enemy besides killing them - in fact, neutralizing an enemy is MORE effective because a dead enemy can simply be ressurected and come back to kill you.

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PS> Let me show you a few builds that are hardly pigeonholed, off the top of my head.

R/E -> not using bow or pet, I hold an Earth Staff to gain extra energy. High levels of Expertise, Wilderness and Earth Magic - I use 4 traps and 2 wards both offensively and defensively, to slow down and cripple the opponents movement and fighting ability. Whirling Defense makes sure I don't get interrupted while setting traps right under the noses of my opponents, and wards make sure they can't hit me and can't run away. Very fun build to play - high expertise makes traps cost very little mana (4 mana for my elite trap) and damage output can be high when monsters (or real life players for that matter) don't or can't get out of my way.

E/Mo -> can make superb healers. what they lack in terms of divine favour they make for with Ether Renewal being such a strong energy management skill. The have practically infinite energy and healing compared to monks.

Your definition of "pigeonhole" in fact is too narrow. If you consider the "role" you play in the party each profession has a huge range of playstyles. Necros can play damage dealers... support melee in damage.... support casters with energy.. support healing... strip enemy enchantments... summoner... tank... how is this being "pigeonholed" when you have so many choices? If your definition of pigeonhole is being put into 1 of 2 categories (melee or spellcasters) then it's not a pigeonhole, it's a freaking warehouse. If a necro could ONLY play as a summoner then yes you have a valid complaint.