Core swap weekend a glimpse of new Dual Profession system for next expansion?

So if I understand this core swap weekend properly, it looks like when you defeat an enemy, you obtain 5 skills from the defeated profession if you take the orb.

Besides a fun event, why would ANET be developing a system where the same 5 skills would obtainable by other classes?

I’m guessing that the next expansion will allow all professions to obtain a secondary profession with a few more skills be available from the new profession as an option.

Although this would probably be a ton of work, does anyone else think this feature could even be implemented?

Would anyone pick a secondary profession instead of an elite spec to produce a Warrior with a secondary Thief profession instead of Berserker or Spell Breaker ?

Don't look too deep into it, it's just an event.

It seems like a huge amount of effort to just be an temporary event.

Temporarily gaining 5 specific skills could be a beta launch for dual professions.

That could be really broken in some cases and really hard to balance unless there's heavy restrictions, there are skills some classes don't have for a reason, like stealth and teleports, or certain boons.

Are you sure you want a thief with mirage skills? lol

It would be Thief with mesmer skills.

Or a mesmer with thief skills.

No elite profession could be picked when selecting a secondary profession.

Could be a core shatter mesmer with the elite skill Thieves Guild. Would be awesome.

yeah, no. all semblance of balance would go out the window.

on the other hand, necro with shadowstep...

Yeah. But you couldn’t be a Scourge or Reaper. You could only be a Core Necro with Shadowstep.

I would probably have too many builds that will make people cry. If they can't balance with the way the current skillsets are, doing this dual profession thing would be suicidal.

How many of you didn't play the first Guild wars? Dual classing worked well enough over there, and for me it was a large part of why I played the game at all, that unique blending of classes really added to the game. And it was a lot of work to hunt out the skills you required for "nasty" builds.

I am fairly certain IF this is the route the devs are going to go down they will be spending, or have spent a lot of time on the mechanics and balance (or I hope they have and do) to see that the game doesn't implode for the people who cannot work out how to build classes :)

@OutOfOrder.3719 said:Besides a fun event, why would ANET be developing a system where the same 5 skills would obtainable by other classes?

I’m guessing that the next expansion will allow all professions to obtain a secondary profession with a few more skills be available from the new profession as an option.

I too had this thought. It seems like a rather complex event idea to not have something else behind it.

Could imagine the option to swap one core traitline for a single core traitline from any class, that can be used when playing any elite spec (assuming there will at least be a 3rd elite spec at some point in the future) of the player's class. Of course there would be some redundant traits, unless those lines also unlocked the relevant weapon's from a class to be chosen.

6-0 skills is a harder one though - in this event looks like their being really cautious by making it limited/fixed skill sets, but if it was complete free for all choice I can't consider all the insane combinations that would be possible (eg Blink & Shadowstep & Jaunt... lol).

Weapon skills even moreso - can just imagine power mesmer with something like ranger GS and Maul+F1 combos... I'd imagine there would have to be some limitation on weapon choices.

Aha, I think I understand the "everyone can do everything" homogeneity and direction of balance - to set up balance for multi classing. xD (/s, but who knows there may be something like that going on).

The basic premise for OPs argument is flawed. We already have skills across all classes, its called racials.Either way I highly doubt it, it would ruin a large part of what makes the GW2 class combat unique.

Would be interesting if you could use a secondary class instead of elite specs. But with the current frequeny and size of balance patches this would be a nightmare.

One thing, that is curious to me, is the recent change to Ranger shouts. Maybe they wanted to get rid of a few skills in the Shout category in order to nerf possible synergies.

Heal guard engi, trading group stability and additional tankiness for superspeed..Or heal engi guard with medical dispersion field.

That would be something even a mesmer-thief will have troubles with. ;)

That being said, it's probably a balance nightmare and will dominate again not-multiclass builds.

depends on how it works could just be bundels for utility skills.

doubt that anet is gonna add dual professions to this game tho

@Dediggefedde.4961 said:Heal guard engi, trading group stability and additional tankiness for superspeed..Or heal engi guard with medical dispersion field.So you'll end up with either a kitten engie or a kitten guard, what lovely options.

"If you dual profession me down, I will become stronger than you can ever imagine" - obi-want-balance kenobi

Sometimes they are just curtains, and they are just blue!

if they somehow did this.. it would be like a whole new game,, it would rebirth guildwars as if it just came out.. all the old players would return to the hype train

It would be a definite game changer, and would be extremely hard to balance, but would be worth the wait.

I would imagine everyone would be something/Thief for just shadow step alone.

There would have to be a new trait to pick a second profession as your elite specialization choice instead of complete freedom to take any thief trait such as; deadly arts, critical strike, shadow arts, trickery and acrobatics. Perhaps a toned down/generic third trait that all professions can pick for the same utility skills, and maybe one Thief elite.

This way if there are any obvious imbalances from taking Thief as a Second Profession, the second profession trait can be adjusted instead of nerfing all thief main builds.

So in theory, ANET would have to produce 9 new Secondary profession generic traits. But virtually each profession will then have access to 8 new secondary profession traits if a player decides to pick this option. It could be done, but would be extremely hard to balance.

I hope that makes sense :)

Honestly I suspect it is more a matter that ANet been developing a system to enable more skills in general (for ex f6-f10+) in plan for something else down the road, and figured a good way to test it could be to fill it with normal skills and let players play with it.

That's been something that's been requested plenty times in the past, for ways to put in food/util/siege or other much used items to have available without going through inventory every time, could also be related to the build feature they're working on. So if they fixed those UI issues (UI issues are always more issues than players give them credit for, ask any dev), and created a flexible system for this, then this sounds like a good test.

Think people are overcomplicating what ANET has really done here. When you pick up an orb you get a special skill. If you use the skill your heal/utilities and elite change to predetermined skills from the profession whose orb you used. This sounds like ANET has created 9 transformations, 1 for each class, that you just swap to to gain the skills.

@LaGranse.8652 said:Think people are overcomplicating what ANET has really done here. When you pick up an orb you get a special skill. If you use the skill your heal/utilities and elite change to predetermined skills from the profession whose orb you used. This sounds like ANET has created 9 transformations, 1 for each class, that you just swap to to gain the skills.

To add to this point, they released the information on the thief healing, utility, and elite skills and I can't think of any situation where I'd prefer those five skills over my own profession's bar. If the other professions have as lackluster skills, I can't see it being game breaking. On the contrary, I expect a lot of free bags next week from people trying out subpar skill selections.

~ Kovu

I love Scourge either warrior utility skills with endure pain. But it is definitely too powerful.

So if dual professions becomes a thing in the next expansion, both primary and secondary professions will need to be Core skills and elites only. Even this may be too powerful as every profession would have access to Rampage.