[SUGGESTION] Elite spec: WARDEN (WIP)

WARDEN:the Warden is a very adaptable defender / attacker that encourages allies and demoralizes foes. Based on the concept of a Prison Warden (Leader) using GW1's concept of Wards for area control. Specializes in creating combos, having access to more fields AND finishers at the same time.

CLASS MECHANIC:~the elementalist can choose a different weapon set for each element, but there's a longer global cooldown for changing attunements.For example: staff for fire, dagger-dagger for air, scepter-focus for earth, pistol-torch for water

WEAPONS: pistol and torch(i haven't really fleshed out these weapons yet, and am considering pistol mainhand, pistol offhand, and torch offhand skills)

PISTOL: projectile weapon with debilitating conditions and damage~water 3: encase your target in ice, dazing and immobilizing

EDIT: some brainstorms: the skill positions are rough guestimates~ (earth 3) a bullet that passes through the target, then ricochets off of a wall of stone behind the target, then returning to the target to push the target closer to the Warden.~ (water 4) a bullet that creates a mirror of ice in front of the target, which then reflects damage back onto the target.~ (water 5) fire multiple bullets: the first few build walls of ice around the target/s, the last one fills the cage with water, causing the target/s to float~ (fire 4) a bullet that acts like a flare, revealing enemies in an area.~ (air 4) a bullet that summons cyclones near it's target, which pulls the target in a circular pattern (like the fire cyclones in the speciman chamber)~ (air 2) a bullet that acts like a lightning rod~ (air 3) a bullet that tethers a few targets together and then electrocutes them with a short daze / stun~ (fire 1) an autoattack chain where the first two/three bullets in the chain are like stickie bombs, and the last bullet ignites them (if the last bullet gets dodged / evaded / blinded, then more bullets could stack to a limit for additional damage the next time a "last" bullet is fired)~ (fire 5) a bullet that causes the enemy to dodge, and then creates a smoke field behind that enemy's original position.~ (earth 5) a barrage of bullets that stop in front of the target, forming an earth elemental, that leap-attacks the target wherever it goes for a single attack

TORCH: combo finishers and conditions / boons,~air 5 skill: a bright lightning flash applies blind and revealed in an area around your target (blast finisher).

UTILITY SKILLS: WARDSwards that pulse boons to allies and / or conditions to enemies (600 radius? Longer duration than wells with longer interval between pulses)

Elite: Ward against Harm: pulses barrier, protection, resistance, and regeneration to allies.

Ward against Foes: pulses slow, vulnerability, chill, and revealed against enemiesWard of Weakness: pulses blind and weakness against enemiesWard of Stability: (stun break) pulses stability and vigor to alliesWard against Elements: removes burning, chilled, vulnerability, and weakness on every pulse.

Heal: Ward of the Unseen: pulses health and aegis to allies

TRAITS:

adept: Warden's can equip different weapons in each attunement.~ breaking stun grants might to allies (600 radius)~ granting stability to an ally also heals that ally for a small amount~ revealed you apply lasts 20% longer

master: swapping attunements damages target and casts a condition on target foe based on attunement.~ deal 10% more damage against revealed enemies.~ vigor you apply grants quickness to allies (with a cooldown per target)~ projectiles now pierce 5 targets, and debilitating conditions last 20% longer (pistol trait)

grandmaster: swapping attunements creates a combo field based on new attunement at caster's location~ combo fields created by grandmaster minor trait move with the caster, and last longer~ wards pulse their effects more often, and apply an additional damaging condition to foes every interval, and grant allies an aura when initially cast~ Your blast finishers trigger twice in combo fields (torch trait)

Wards are a really cool idea, they sound very similar to banners though, are they the same thing?

Hmm I think ele has a lot of cool potential for elite profession mechanics, but I don't think this is one of those. Having to equip 5 different weapon sets sounds terrible for gearing and like a nightmare to implement.

Hmm I do wonder how the weapon skills for pistol would look on ele though. That sounds like a thing you can really go wild on.

A pistol ? Why not, I like this idea. It can be a pistol with different bullet effects according to the element.

wards are kind of a cross between a banner and a well.they're like a well in that once you cast it... it stays in the same place and pulses.they're like banners in that they have a longer duration and a larger area of coverage

in GW1, they were more passive in that they never pulsed. inside the area, allies or foes (depending on the ward) ALWAYS had the effect on them. for example: one ward made enemies move slower. another ward effect gave enemy melee attacks a percent chance to miss. another ward effect reduced incoming elemental damage against allies. and so on. as long as they were inside the ward, the effect persisted.

i honestly think that GW1 style wards would break PvP in GW2, because of their large area of coverage coupled with the constant effect AND the 30+ second duration.

as for the class mechanic: it's based on the complaint of being "Stuck" with whatever range your single weapon slot gives you. you would have a choice whether to equip multiple weapons or not. i agree that it would be a nightmare to implement.

the main questions become:~ would the weapon slots be implemented into the equipment panel or the class mechanic skill slots?~ how would you equip the SAME weapon into more than one element slot, but less than all 4 element slots? (say you wanted a staff in fire and water, and dagger / dagger in air and earth )

as for pistol skills... oh boy... i want so much to be able to come up with something unique just for elementalist. my brain at the moment just can't conjure anything much different from mesmer, thief, and engineer pistol skills. i'd honestly like to try out some of the "spiral crowd control" (like in the LWS4 map bosses: think specimen chamber and great hall encounters) and float type effects on pistol, but i don't really know how yet. i kinda want to avoid those typical "cone" and "arrow spread" types of skills, too.

some brainstorms:~ a bullet that passes through the target, then ricochets off of a wall of stone behind the target, then returning to the target to push the target closer to the Warden.~ a bullet that creates a mirror of ice in front of the target, which then reflects damage back onto the target.~ fire multiple bullets: the first few build walls of ice around the target/s, the last one fills the cage with water, causing the target/s to float~ a bullet that acts like a flare, revealing enemies in an area.~ a bullet that summons cyclones near it's target, which pulls the target in a cicrcular pattern (like the fire cyclones in the speciman chamber)~ a bullet that acts like a lightning rod~ a bullet that tethers a few targets together and then electrocutes them with a short daze / stun~ an autoattack chain where the first two/three bullets in the chain are like stickie bombs, and the last bullet ignites them (if the last bullet gets dodged / evaded / blinded, then more bullets could stack to a limit for additional damage the next time a "last" bullet is fired)~ a bullet that causes the enemy to dodge, and then creates a smoke field behind that enemy's original position.~ a barrage of bullets that stop in front of the target, forming an earth elemental, that leap-attacks the target wherever it goes for a single attack

well, i guess with ideas like these, offhand pistol would be a must...

If you wanted to use different weapon sets for different attunements, you could restrict it to two sets (like other classss) and then choose which attunements use which set of weapons. It would still need some kind of UI work or perhaps a panel similar to the Pet panel that would open and let you swap attunement choices between Set1 and Set2 while out of combat. ie.

Set1 - [Fire] [Water] Air EarthSet2 - Fire Water [Air] [Earth]

i couldn't agree to that. the whole point of being able to equip different weapons for each attunement is to allow the elementalist to maintain it's 4 "attunement weapon set" system. assigning 2 particular elements into a "set" would start too many arguments as to which elements should be paired, due to each person having preferences as to which element skills from which weapons they want use. for example: one person might want fire staff, sceptre-focus air, dagger-dagger water, pistol-torch earth... while someone else would want dagger-focus fire, sceptre-dagger air, staff water, dagger-dagger earth.

what i meant by my questions was more like this:

for warrior... if you equip a sword and shield in your first weapon set... and then equip ONLY an offhand sword in the second set... the second set will automatically use the sword from the first set as the main hand weapon in the second set.

so then: if you equip a staff for fire (weapon set 1) and dagger-dagger for air (weapon set 2) and pistol-torch for water (weapon set 3) and leave earth (weapon set 4) empty... which weapon set would be equipped for earth?

i think the solution would be:~ you equip a weapon set in your default equipment slot on your hero panel, and that weapon will automatically populate all 4 attunement weapon slots.~ you "equip" your "attunement weapon sets" into the UI (default F1 through F4 slots) by click / dragging other weapons into the slots, but, the weapons would still be in your inventory, so you could "equip" the same weapon into a different attunement as well. THIS weapon selection "equipped" to the attunement in the UI would override the default weapon that is equipped in the hero panel.~ any attunement that is NOT assigned a weapon will use the default weapon from the hero panel.