Weapon and Build Diversity

I would love to see some weapon related improvements that tackle build diversity, so here are my thoughts...

Weapon Recharge Reduction Traits...

• Remove the weapon cooldown reduction traits and make the 20% reduced skill recharge as the standard/baseline numbers. This will allow for more build diversity because players will not feel forced into trait lines just to improve weapon recharge reduction.

Fast attack skills for ALL weapons on ALL professions...

• There is not anything wrong with having fast attacks in a game billed to have “fast paced action combat”. Adjust damage of skills for balance. Again… “Guild Wars 2 is an online role-playing game with fast-paced action combat” and “Experience high-impact, fast-paced combat and choose from an arsenal of professions, weapons, and playstyles.”.

Remove all weapon skill roots...

• It is not fun to get rooted while attacking. There are only a handful of skills that immobilize a player, and I don't think we need them at all. Reduce damage if that's a concern, but make using weapons fluid and fun.

Add weapons for professions outside of elite specs…

• The below are the missing weapon sets across all professions.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/21472/missing-weapon-sets-for-professions-and-some-suggestions

Secondary profession system that allows for Cross profession CORE weapon slotting...

• Example… A character has to earn 20 secondary profession levels to unlock the use of core weapons from 1 other profession. Each core weapon gained requires use of Hero Points (and we have an excess of 404 Hero Points currently).
• Players can unlock all secondary professions, and their core weapons, but only 1 secondary profession and set of core weapons can be used at any given time.
• ONLY weapons can be unlocked, not anything else related to other professions.

Allow all weapons to be used regardless of active elite...

• Please stop tying in weapons to Elites. Just make weapons that fill in the “gaps” for each profession. I never really understood the decision to limit weapons to elites. What would be inherently wrong with, let’s say, core Necro being able to use greatsword? Core Guardian using a longbow? Berserker Warrior using daggers? Druid using main hand dagger?

2 Weapon options for all...

• Give Engineers access to 2 weapons, and allow Elementalist to have 2 weapons... just have them assign 2 of 4 attunements to use per active weapon (those 2 could be swappable out of combat).

Melee weapons aren’t fun when they don’t have decent mobility tied to skills...

• Playing melee stinks bad when weapons don’t have movement and positioning utilities. Short hops are ok, but really still anemic in design. There needs to be more review to make melee a more viable combat choice when fighting other players.

I have more coming later...

Im imagining holo with sword shield and rfle right now and its horrifying, god no please or ele with any useful combination of weaponset, yikes no

Would rather not see mirage using chrono shield. That would be another level of cancer I don't want to deal with.

However, outside of the allowing of weps to be accessed regardless of elite, I really like the idea of streamlining the weapons in the game to allow for better diversity and performance. Especially the removal of roots on skills, as they really limit the effectiveness of certain weapons (like rev shield)

Good builds are beyond stale and many rotate around weapons launched in 2012. Everything related to weapons need some TLC.

@Swagger.1459 said:Weapon Recharge Reduction Traits...

• Remove the weapon cooldown reduction traits and make the 20% reduced skill recharge as the standard/baseline numbers. This will allow for more build diversity because players will not feel forced into trait lines just to improve weapon recharge reduction.

Nope. This would reduce build diversity if anything IMO. It's hard to foretell what exactly would happen but this would effectively reduce the value of some traits which would just pigeonhole the trait choices even further.

Fast attack skills for ALL weapons on ALL professions...

• There is not anything wrong with having fast attacks in a game billed to have “fast paced action combat”. Adjust damage of skills for balance. Again… “Guild Wars 2 is an online role-playing game with fast-paced action combat” and “Experience high-impact, fast-paced combat and choose from an arsenal of professions, weapons, and playstyles.”.

Your POV on this is wrong. This exactly what GW2 combat is when compared to games like World of Warcraft where a single attack can take up to 3 seconds. You'll have done 5 things during that time in GW2 on any weapon/class.

Remove all weapon skill roots...

• It is not fun to get rooted while attacking. There are only a handful of skills that immobilize a player, and I don't think we need them at all. Reduce damage if that's a concern, but make using weapons fluid and fun.

I agree somewhat. There are certainly skills that this could be done to but it's not a blanket solution. For example, I would never ever remove the root from Ring of Warding on Guardian Hammer. Can't imagine how that would even work on something like Phase Smash on Revenant Hammer.

Secondary profession system that allows for Cross profession CORE weapon slotting...

• Example… A character has to earn 20 secondary profession levels to unlock the use of core weapons from 1 other profession. Each core weapon gained requires use of Hero Points (and we have an excess of 404 Hero Points currently).
• Players can unlock all secondary professions, and their core weapons, but only 1 secondary profession and set of core weapons can be used at any given time.
• ONLY weapons can be unlocked, not anything else related to other professions.

Absolutely not. There are enough balance issues in this game already. It's a cool thing that can be done in other games but those games are built to allow this system to work. Like GW1.

2 Weapon options for all...

• Give Engineers access to 2 weapons, and allow Elementalist to have 2 weapons... just have them assign 2 of 4 attunements to use per active weapon (those 2 could be swappable out of combat).

What for? Engineer and Elementalist are already the 2 most flexible classes in the game. They don't need more options. Ele could use a bit more power but those are needed in the form of buffs, not more flexibility.

Melee weapons aren’t fun when they don’t have decent mobility tied to skills...

• Playing melee stinks bad when weapons don’t have movement and positioning utilities. Short hops are ok, but really still anemic in design. There needs to be more review to make melee a more viable combat choice when fighting other players.

Mobility is part of the games balance. For example, Thief is reliant on being the most mobile class, and if that's suddenly in jeopardy, it drops off the deep end. If you suddenly add a ton more of mobility, everything breaks. Limiting mobility is what allows some classes to have ridiculously high defense/attack.

As far as weapons go, my thoughts are that maybe:A whip or a gunblade might be interesting to see. I imagine a gunblade could be two-handed and the whip would be one-handed. A scythe could be interesting to bring back, they already exist in the game at some level. Since we have mounts, maybe something like a lance could be added. Since Tyrians exist in a modernizing world maybe some sort of magi-chemical warfare, something like a gun slinging alchemist where the bullets are loaded with _____ . Lasers could be made into some form of weapon since holomancy was introduced.As for a future profession, I think:Idk, Glint showed us how to use magic and resonance and there's been a lot of musical elements introduced since siren's landing; maybe a bard or choir type profession. Or to be more hip and edgy it could be called a Resonator thanks to closer alliance with the dredge and their sharing of tech. This could also be an ode to the paragon profession. I'd like to see some sort of pseduo-mesmer profession or something capable of manipulation or illusion magic. Or since dragons keep dying and I'm sure many sects of tyria are learning from their dragon encounters some sort of branding profession.

@Swagger.1459 said:

Remove all weapon skill roots...

• It is not fun to get rooted while attacking. There are only a handful of skills that immobilize a player, and I don't think we need them at all. Reduce damage if that's a concern, but make using weapons fluid and fun.

100% agree with this. Literally no one likes that there are weapon skills that force you to be rooted. I think it would be interesting if certain skills gained advantages (which would thus incentivize you to stand still) for standing still when casting, but dislike that there are so many that completely root you.

For balance purposes though, I think some skills should at least have reduced mobility while casting if they were to become mobile, like Whirling Defence on ranger, or 100 blades on Warrior.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

Remove all weapon skill roots...

• It is not fun to get rooted while attacking. There are only a handful of skills that immobilize a player, and I don't think we need them at all. Reduce damage if that's a concern, but make using weapons fluid and fun.

How would you resolve Phase Smash on Rev hammer?

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

Remove all weapon skill roots...

• It is not fun to get rooted while attacking. There are only a handful of skills that immobilize a player, and I don't think we need them at all. Reduce damage if that's a concern, but make using weapons fluid and fun.

We have to distinguish between getting locked into an animation, and getting rooted (which is getting locked into an animation + getting locked into place). Phase smash is a very odd skill since technically you have zero sum of movement after the attack is finished, but the skill does involve movement of the physical location (allows you to proc weapon-swap sigils on legend-swap at the end of the attack) of your character + an evade.