Food for Thought: the Pipe-dream of Weapon Proficiency

[itspomf.9523]

I was a bit punchy last night after roaming the Labyrinth and having a really intense fight with Steve over who got to carve the pumpkin (we won), and it occurred to me just how crazy fun it could be if weapon specialization was unrestricted from specializations.

This would cause some really wild issues with balance and perhaps offer even more freedom of choice than the original mechanics did back around launch, when still we could sink points into all 5 trait lines, but it could potentially open up numerous new builds and approaches to play. Then again, this is just me thinking about the fantastic party boon support of Deadeye and how much I enjoyed Daredevil's staff (but hated its elite mechanics), and how awesome it'd be to just mash the two together.

Anyway, onto the concept:

At its core, the idea is the fact that, if we've unlocked it, we might as well make use of it. That, and it seems a bit weird that we get amnesia any time we change our elite spec! Suddenly I can't remember how to hold a shield as a mesmer, or use a torch as a necromancer. It makes sense that the passive buffs that are traits would be changed around because of *waves hands*, but that's meta game mechanics rather than the flavor of running around with a giant, rocket-powered wrench.

Thus, I'd want to decouple weapon proficiency from specializations. You'd still need to master a specialization to acquire everything, of course, and the existing mechanisms for unlocking new skills and traits would remain unchanged.

However -- and this is the fun part -- instead of having only 3 trait specializations to choose from, you get a 4th slot: weapon proficiency.

That's basically the entire concept right there, but as for why this would be fun, it's equally a trade-off: almost every Elite specialization has a focus upon its analogous weapon and at least one trait that improves their usage, just like many core specializations do -- like how Arms for warrior is great for swords, axes, and maces, but you'll want Strength for greatswords or hammers. Or how Discipline is even better for axe-toting barbarians.

So even if your Chronomancer picks Axe Proficiency as her weapon slot, the fact that you've chosen Chronomancer as your Elite specialization means you cannot benefit from the traits of Mirage, thus losing improved Axe usage!

This would be the same as if I followed my wild, candy-corn fueled fantasy of Deadeye, but with a staff: I cannot use rifles, and only one-third of the Silent Scope trait, nor would I be able to choose the Daredevil trait, Staff Master.

Obviously the inherent loss of value in this trade-off between our hearts' desires and game mechanics isn't going to be equal across all professions and Elite specializations, but neither are they necessarily equal to one another.

[Sigmoid.7082]

Not only is this a balance nightmare but a lot of the elite specs either don't have or don't need a weapon trait to be strong.

Also being able to pick and thing reduces and removes the opportunity cost and impactfulness of actually having to pick the spec in the first place.

Think of adding a new offhand/mainhand to weaver? Each new spec they add means they need to make way more skills than necessary. It's one of the reasons it got delayed and thief has only gotten two handed weapons.

There are also some combos that would be annoying/ oppressive.

This has been suggested a many times before and it just isn't a good idea.