There a reason that ES weapons are still restricted to ES? - [Merged]

To me it seems silly that Elite Spec weapons are still tied to Elite Specs. Sure, the weapons obviously benefit from those specs, but there are weapons that I far prefer to continue using with other specs.

My two big examples is, I LOVE the Necro's two handed sword, and I don't want to lose it just because I want to try the new ES.

And if Mesmer actually manages to get a main hand pistol, I DEFINITELY want that, but I love Chronomancer so much.

I just want to play with the weapons I want, while using the ES that I enjoy the most. And I don't particularly see a reason for it to be forced like it continues to be. My damage might get hit a bit, but I'm a super casual, so don't really care.

The simplest reason would be: that's how the game was designed.

Not all classes can use all weapons, which you don't seem to have much of a problem with. The way I see it, elite specs are actually a bonus in terms of weapons, instead of something we should feel was added to the game as a whole - they allow classes to equip more weapons than they were initially designed for. So for me, the default situation is that all classes are restricted to their core weapon sets, and elite specs are just an optional expansion of that - at the cost of needing to actually choose that spec.

I might agree that there can be some potential problems that might result from allowing especs share their own elite spec weapons. On the other hand, unlocking all those weapons for core (as soon as you unlock the appropriate espec, of course) should not be a problem at all. It's not like core will be comparable with espec even after that.

Because balance.

Just imagine what would happen if you are a mirage and you get access to shield. No balance updates would make it fair neither fun to play against.

But who knows ? Maybe that is the big plan. Nerf the ES so hard so that in the future you can play whatever spec with whatever weapon (with the exception of core spec using ES weapons obviously).

@flog.3485 said:Because balance.

Just imagine what would happen if you are a mirage and you get access to shield. No balance updates would make it fair neither fun to play against.

But who knows ? Maybe that is the big plan. Nerf the ES so hard so that in the future you can play whatever spec with whatever weapon (with the exception of core spec using ES weapons obviously).

As far as I'm aware, there are only a couple specs at most that would cause balance issues. I don't believe that is enough reason to remove a fairly significant amount of playstyles. PVP can keep their restrictions if they want, I don't do it lol.

Also, should have mentioned, I'm totally fine with the Elite Specs unlocking the weapons. So you still have to get the expansion, and still have to get the points to unlock the weapon. Hell, I wouldn't even care if its required that you fully unlock the entire ES before you can use the weapon for everything.

@Fractured.3928 said:

@flog.3485 said:Because balance.

Just imagine what would happen if you are a mirage and you get access to shield. No balance updates would make it fair neither fun to play against.

But who knows ? Maybe that is the big plan. Nerf the ES so hard so that in the future you can play whatever spec with whatever weapon (with the exception of core spec using ES weapons obviously).

Well you just can’t say: oh it is ok for some specs to not have the choice of choosing a weapon of another ES and still allow the other specs to do so.That is a good enough reason because players would riot.

Other than that, if the devs can’t create different traits for different game modes, it doesn’t seem they would be able to make ES able to choose another ES weapon on certain game modes and not on others. It is alsoway too confusing. Furthermore, what do you do with WvW ? It does have PvP attached to it.

Weapons are hardcoded into the classes, just like weights. The reason elite specs can use different weapons is because technically a Chronomancer is not a Mesmer, it's its own thing.

@Fractured.3928 said:

As far as I'm aware, there are only a couple specs at most that would cause balance issues. I don't believe that is enough reason to remove a fairly significant amount of playstyles. PVP can keep their restrictions if they want, I don't do it lol.

Also, should have mentioned, I'm totally fine with the Elite Specs unlocking the weapons. So you still have to get the expansion, and still have to get the points to unlock the weapon. Hell, I wouldn't even care if its required that you fully unlock the entire ES before you can use the weapon for everything.

It's definitely an attractive idea on necro and a few other classes - and that's my overall problem with it. Staff on any kind of ranger outside of druid is a total joke, and mainhand dagger might actually be modestly useful on non-soulbeast condi builds but still desperately needs some reworking. Not sure offhand dagger would bring that much to core warrior or zerker builds, and a torch offhand on spellbreaker seems... laughable. On the other hand, shortbow would give my condi herald a very nice set of options outside of relying on hammer for ranged hits at times, shield mirage could be pretty handy (as someone mentioned), I have a tempest that would be absolutely murderous with sword in fire attunement, etc. In particular, I could see core guardian and DH doing very well for itself with mainhand axe. As for necro GS, having that excellent grab and huge pulsing (and expanding!) blind field on classes with slower shroud degeneration would be pretty onerously good.

I know, I know - @Fractured.3928 you're quite clear that you don't care about the balance aspect of it, you just want to be able to use the weapon you want (I personally would love to run GS on some of my core necro builds). However, balance is a thing, whether we individually care for it or not in certain contexts. I don't like the idea of implementing a change that could further divide class performance. I haven't done (and probably won't get around to) a formal analysis of it across all classes, but I suspect that the classes currently overperforming in everything will probably find good uses for crossover elite spec weapons, while classes that have significantly struggled to find niches in different game modes will also be the ones to have useless e-spec weapon crossovers.

This isn't a thing because apparently it'd be super broken for certain specs to have actually useful weapons.

Some might argue about the unfairness that would happen for some classes who's E-Spec weapons are quite niche due to mechanics being closely tied to the spec itself (I.e. Druid staff is pretty bad even as a Druid, the thought of using it outside of Druid is laughable)

Others might just cry about PvP balance as if many E-Spec weapons are actually utilized in high level play and thus would see additional use on alternate E-Spec builds...

All this aside, personally, I think it could be interesting to have fully unlocked E-Spec weapons. It would significantly open up a plethora of new competitive builds, such as;

• Condi Mesmer with Axe
• Condi Chrono with Axe
• Condi Reaper with Torch
• Tempest with Sword
• Weaver with Warhorn
• Power Necro with GS
• Power Deadeye with Staff
• Heal Scrapper with Sword
• Power Scrapper with Sword
• Power Holo with Hammer
• Condi Herald with Shortbow
• Power Herald with Shortbow
• Healigade with Shield
• Alacrigade with Shield
• Condigade with Shield
• Power Berserker with OH Dagger (Maybe MH Dagger gets a Primal Burst skill that makes it a usable weapon?)

Though, there is something to be said about additional workload with things like Primal Burst for Warrior MH Dagger, Malicious variant of Thief Staff stealth skill and additional dual attunement skills for Weaver Warhorn...

@Blocki.4931 said:Weapons are hardcoded into the classes, just like weights. The reason elite specs can use different weapons is because technically a Chronomancer is not a Mesmer, it's its own thing.

I would literally be amazed if this was true, and dumb founded by lack of foresight. Do you have proof of this hilarious oversight by the devs?

@voltaicbore.8012

You're correct, balance does come into play whether I want it or not. I just don't think any of the mixes would particularly outshine plenty of things in the game already.

@Taril.8619 said:

Though, there is something to be said about additional workload with things like Primal Burst for Warrior MH Dagger, Malicious variant of Thief Staff stealth skill and additional dual attunement skills for Weaver Warhorn...

I didn't even think about the Weaver, and how that would force them to deal with that on every single expansion. That so far is the biggest argument against this imo.

@Fractured.3928 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:Weapons are hardcoded into the classes, just like weights. The reason elite specs can use different weapons is because technically a Chronomancer is not a Mesmer, it's its own thing.

It's not an oversight, that's just how the game functions. When this game was made they weren't planning to release an expansion or literally change how classes work.

@Blocki.4931 said:

@Fractured.3928 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:Weapons are hardcoded into the classes, just like weights. The reason elite specs can use different weapons is because technically a Chronomancer is not a Mesmer, it's its own thing.

As someone who does some programming, and doing plenty of architectural IT work. Not expecting to change things like that, is very much so an oversight. Also, I am unable to find any proof of what you're saying is true, so I'll just choose to not believe that the devs would do something like that.

The reason is as simple as already given; it's how Anet decided to implement them ... and so far, that's better than any reason presented here to change it.

In otherwords, if you want to change it, the question isn't why it's the way it is ... the question is why it would be a better idea to NOT have it work the way it is. I can assure you that the primary reason here is to maintain the concept of the especs, a major part of that concept being unique access to weapons and their skills. Now, you might come back and scoff at the idea that the espec concept is THAT important that the weapons shouldn't be shared across all specs. If that's the case, then you haven't been paying attention to the kinds of changes Anet makes to classes and why they make them. HINT: most of them are NOT balance related.

Perhaps the weapons could get an underpowered version of thier current skills if the espec is not equiped. This would still require resources to implement with minimal gain for Anet. I prefer the weapon setup in GW1 where you could use any weapon you want regardless of how useless it may have been. I also prefer new classes over elite specs but these ships have sailed.

yeah I want a thief with staff and rifle

This is a thing because many ESpec weapon skills are tied in to the Elite Spec's mechanic. They would not work correctly without it.

@Trise.2865 said:This is a thing because many ESpec weapon skills are tied in to the Elite Spec's mechanic. They would not work correctly without it.

This here.

While some of OP's examples might work well, like a core necro using greatsword, there are some classes which would end up with the weapon being a useless addition for the other specs.Imagine, for example, sword on core engi/scrapper. While it might sound awesome to have a one handed power weapon for these to pair with a shield, it really isn't, since alot of swords power is locked behind holosmith's heat system. Without heat, you don't get the extra damage on the autos, you don't get the extra blades on 2 (so: again extra damage missing) and also not the additional quickness uptime from skill 3.

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Trise.2865 said:This is a thing because many ESpec weapon skills are tied in to the Elite Spec's mechanic. They would not work correctly without it.

Yep, most espec weapons is absolutely pointless outside the espec, as their skills and traits is tied to it.

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Trise.2865" said:This is a thing because many ESpec weapon skills are tied in to the Elite Spec's mechanic. They would not work correctly without it.

Ehh...

Not really. The only reason there'd be "Useless additions" is due to certain weapons being focused onto a single build type, which at the very least the other E-Spec of a class has no synergy with (With the E-Spec that has the weapon simply outperforming a Core build in the same role)

I.e. Spellbreaker has no synergy at all with a Condi build. Therefore it wouldn't have a use for Berserker's Torch. With Condi Zerker outperforming Condi Core (Except maybe in PvP where Zerker's downsides can be exploited and a Condi Core with Torch could probably outpeform Condi Zerker)

Even in the case of Engie's sword, while the heat system provides significant boosts to Sword (Especially with Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit trait) baseline sword is still infinitely better than the current power build option of Pistol (Which even sucks for Condi builds...)

Engie's baseline sword is actually comparable to Soulbeast's Dagger. The Sword does more damage on autos skills 2 and 3, while the dagger provides slightly more quickness on skill 3 which also has charges for more burst potential and provides much stronger conditions with skill 2.

The only thing that's missing from Engie's sword outside of Holosmith is the 1 high power skill to use between kit swapping for each kits 1 high powered skill as without Heat, skill 2 isn't doing insano levels of damage (I suppose Radiant Arc hits pretty hard and could be used)

I would be against it because future especs will be less fun if they have to think about inter espec design

@yann.1946 said:I would be against it because future especs will be less fun if they have to think about inter espec design

This is one of the reasons it's the way it is. They can do whatever they want and have more freedom when designing since they know nothing about the specs will ever intermingle.

The weapons can be strong, impactful, thematic, and design focused since they will never need to consider it working with any other weapon from another elite spec.

They also don't need to consider things like the reason why thief has only ever gotten 2h weapons on why weaver , which was originally meant to be for HoT but got delayed, was a nightmare to build: dual skills.

@Taril.8619 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Trise.2865" said:This is a thing because many ESpec weapon skills are tied in to the Elite Spec's mechanic. They would not work correctly without it.

You say it yourself, sword lacks a powerful damage spell to use between rotations.Also if we let this system through, then all specs would also have access to hammer.

I don't see a reason why I should ever run sword/shield or sword/pistol over other weapon combinations, as long as you don't have heat.If you want the utility from shield paired with a power weapon, you are better off simply chosing hammer. You also get a block, stun, reflec from that weapon. Plus you get electrowhirl as a pretty good hard hitter, especially with the additional utility from it counting as an explosion.

Why would I ever want to run sword/shield over hammer? I don't see a reason for it.Or if you just want power burst, you can use rifle for blunderbuss and jump shot.Without heat, sword just can't compete with our other power options.

@Kodama.6453 said:

Why would I ever want to run sword/shield over hammer? I don't see a reason for it.Or if you just want power burst, you can use rifle for blunderbuss and jump shot.Without heat, sword just can't compete with our other power options.

Because a level 17 newbie won't have access to three trait lines, 3+ stat equipment, or even fully grasp (let alone have access to) the full power of their class/weapons.Really if the primary argument I'm seeing is that e-spec weapons don't really work outside of their trait line, I'm not sure why we need to limit their accessibility then? The only good argument is the cross-espec weapon interactions - and this sounds like a problem exclusive to the Elementalist - to which I say: I'm not paying Anet to take it easy.

@Timbersword.9014 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:

Why would I ever want to run sword/shield over hammer? I don't see a reason for it.Or if you just want power burst, you can use rifle for blunderbuss and jump shot.Without heat, sword just can't compete with our other power options.

You misunderstand.

The problem here is not that e-spec weapons all don't work outside of their own elite spec.The problem is that some don't work outside of them!

Which means that this system is unfair and discriminating some classes.Necromancer, for example, has it's weapons designed in a way that makes them usable on all of their specs, since these weapons are not directly intertwined with their class mechanic.

So this new system would be beneficial for necromancers, since they get to use their e-spec weapons on other specs and they actually are useful.Then you have other classes, with weapons designed resolving around their changed class mechanic.I already mentioned holosmith's sword here, which has alot of benefits locked behind the heat system.

Basically, an engineer would get the hammer as an addition for other specs (core and holosmith), but that's it. Sword becomes meaningless, there is no reason to use sword as long as you don't have access to heat.

But yes, the fact that all e-spec weapons from that point on would need to get balanced for all specs of the class, not just their associated elite spec, is also a strong counter point.