hatsamu.4327

I was using trailblazer's.

I was able to solo HoT hero points like Avatar of Balthazar with it, so felt pretty good to me. Even at half bar of shadow force, Consume Shadows was a full heal + enough barrier to sustain until the next time I needed it. It could handle groups of fire djinn no problem because it can break defiance bars without having to spend initiative, also pulsing, also AoE. And I was going for max shadowform Assassin flavor, so I was in melee range with double daggers and a goofy playstyle. You could use scepter and be like LordHizen, soloing legendary bounties and Axemaster Hareth.

What do you all think about the GM minor trait, specifically the stealth attack portion? Trying to get value out of it feels awkward since the rest of the spec offers no stealth, smoke fields, or leap finishers, meanwhile initiative is more limited, F1 is not a shadowstep, and wells will reveal you. I get the synergy with Shadow Arts, but maybe it shouldn't be a mandatory trait? Maybe a trait affecting dark auras could be interesting? Combo finisher grants dark aura? Dark aura grants barrier? Dark aura gains access to stealth attack? The master minor feels like it should affect self, especially since it's also on the top Gm major trait, which is otherwise ostensibly supposed to be the selfish choice. Shroud animations could have a bit more flavor (Ninja Gaiden ninpo-esque? 😁) but other than that, having a grand time with Consume Shadows assassin-tanking HoT hps!

That's what I mean, it would have overlap. It's just that the long chains on fist flurry and impact strike are pretty easily punishable, and if it's supposed to be our actual control spec, it could use an aoe control of some kind.

Wouldn't that be better served by tweaks to Daredevil? The staff is basically a bonk stick already, just long. Getting an actual disruption spec would put Daredevil in a weird spot.

Yeah, it gets the Assassin-like icon and sounds like the lore too, since the bodyguards of the emperor used to be part of the Assassin job description. That's the in-game lore reason, but the rl behind-the-scenes reason is indeed that the devs had Asuratech in mind. Holosmith was designed to contrast with with the Charrtech of Scrappers. You can hear them talk about it in this Guild Chat.

If you associate dual sword with a ninja spec, sure, but GW1's Assassin from different from that. Through shadowfrom, it ended up being a popular tank class, and offhand swords generally have blocks. (Including Rev, before it got changed.) The waist armor in the teaser definitely looks like heavy armor though. There's a chance more than one class gets offhand sword since they've doubled up on weapons in both previous expacs, but then it seems like missed opportunity when there's so many themes they could pull from.

Yeah you're right, though we have 4 beta events this time instead of 3. The reveal order isn't 100% either, since Dragonhunter was shown before Reaper.

So we now have Mesmer, Necro, and . . . well it's probably not Ele. So I guess this means the beta events won't be bracketed by armor weight.

I can't wait to see what kind of trade-off that spec would get, haha. You're predicting based off which icon? The crossed-swords or the movie-300-immortals mask? And I've seen a lot of support for guardians to be the crossed-swords, somewhat surprising to me.

Hey man, thanks for the shoutout! But yeah, I think keeping expectations in check goes for us too. Adding a bunch of details for synergies to theorycraft might be fun, but I doubt we can really lessen the workload of the devs. Behind the scenes, there's probably systems interactions they have to contend with that are unseen to us players as we daydream. I think certain aspects of yours have a good chance of appearing (in some form or another) since it addresses current shortcomings of Thief that have been expressed by others, e.g. dark magic, AOE zoning, or the tanky/supportive trait row. From what we've seen of Virtuoso, there might be themes sprinkled in from the forums, but it's hard to claim we inspired them when they inspired us and we're all inspired by a shared pool of fantasy media. Their Deadeye was pretty different from the old forums (DeceiverX's?). And have you seen that Bard elite concept in the Mesmer forum? Super detailed, widely shared, and I have no actual polling statistics of course, but I'll say it was vocally popular. But ultimately not the direction Anet decided to take and my expectations are the devs will continue to do their own thing, I think.

If it is the dual katanas icon, I'm hyped! I had an elite spec concept that was hoping for a combo-type mechanic. (Funnily, it ended up looking similar to what they did for Virtuoso) Could the 3 initiative(?) diamonds be referencing a mechanic like the 3-step assassin attack chain? They said they broke a lot of rules in these elite designs, so maybe initiative will be massively changed to facilitate this.

I've got a bit of a wild take for #4: It looks like the artist decided to depict the surface with defined ridges, maybe a hint of a metallic sheen. So what if it's not a flame? It kind of looks like the five pointed crests that adorn the helmets of the Ministry of Purity and some members of the Imperial Guard. And on the wiki page for the Imperial Guard, there's concept art of a samurai wearing a helmet with a different crest: one with a diamond shape. Maybe there's a new organization that combines both crests.

They also showed the Necro silhouette. And all 9 elite spec icons are on this page.

Wouldn't that be too close to Mirage? That was already a thief-style mesmer with the deception utility skills, and ambush skills being tweaked stealth-attacks. Flying swords are a common trope in xianxia, so I think they'll go in another direction and the daggers will be more for mid-range pew-pewing, like WildStar's Esper class.

They came across as a blended fantasy culture to me. They had those Germanic influences to them, but their faces/makeup/hair seemed more styled after Japanese kabuki and noh theater. I always thought it was like someone at Anet was inspired by the dramatic makeup on pale skin with black hair, mentally linked it to a gothic style, and then to a Gothic style.

If you're only counting 5 skills on a two-hand weapon then you must not be counting the stealth attack, in which case you can't be counting 6 skills for mainhand either. So any way you slice it, two-hand weapons don't end up with fewer skills than either mainhands or offhands. Something else you've glossed over is the skill 1 basic attack. For melee and some ranged, this can be a multi-step chain. Each skill in the sequence has an animation/fx, icon art, a tooltip, different coefficients/effects. So if we're talking dev work, wouldn't these be considered additional skills? And all this is even before considering flip skills. These don't affect the comparison since these have been added everywhere, but do you really think the devs chose rifle for Deadeye because of a lower number of skills when they basically doubled the skillbar by adding Kneel?

I'm a bit confused by this. Single hand weapons don't require any more skills than 2-h weapons do, right? Off-hand: (2 skills for slots 4 and 5) + (3 DW skills for s,d,p) = 5.Main-hand: (2 skills for slots 2 and 3 w/o OH) + (2 DW skills for d,p) + (Skill 1, technically 3 skills if chain) + (Stealth attack) = 6 or 8.2-hand: (4 skills for slots 2, 3, 4, and 5) + (Skill 1, technically 3 skills if chain) + (Stealth attack) = 6 or 8.

But besides the F1, wouldn't there be a new main mechanic as well? The function of deadeye mark is to serve the malice mechanic, and daredevil didn't even launch with a different F1. There are parts of the class that haven't been touched by elite specs yet, so maybe like altered initiative or a mechanic enhancing dual-wield skills. Even if it's a support skill it would probably still need to affect enemies, could be an aoe damage pulse maybe, otherwise a bunch of Steal-related traits wouldn't work.

I don't think it's supposed to be an oriental dragon. I think it's "lunar" because it's like a wolf-dragon-thing, like you'd see on DeviantArt. And other places.

The aegis is the more important part of the skill to me, so I'd like something that calls to that more. "Incoming!" was a paragon shout that gave a move speed boost and a heal. Which I guess isn't the same as aegis, but I think it still works in the sense of warning your allies so they can defend against attacks. "Shields Up!" was a shout that boosted armor, so I think that works too. But it was a warrior shout (so was Retreat though) and maybe not as good at representing the swiftness aspect.

I had an elite spec idea for this as well, though now defunct. But I don't see assassins as antithetical to support since GW1 assassins had a tanking build. I do worry that the more parts of a profession that gets dedicated to support (the F-skills, the weapon, the utilities. . .), the more they'll undertune the rest of the class. So I'd rather the support options be part of trait choices, for more build options. I think the PoF classes made out pretty well in terms of flexibility between dps and support. Just the ability to provide one of the high-value boons, like quickness or alacrity, would be enough. Maybe something like barrier (which is basically a type of heal) could help the thief's own sustain or be shared for group benefit.

You keep saying "Large Shield" No one is suggesting a "Large Shield". I just said "Shield". Plus the game doesn't even have a shield size option like it does for Bow and Swords, so I don't know what you're referring to. Plus, when ANet give an introduces a new weapon to a profession, they typically create a new weapon skins, so players can always pick a skins they want, small or large, but it'll still just be a Shield. The main problem for me is: why should Anet make a systemic change like allowing offhand weapons in the mainhand if they don't have to? All classes still have enough weapons open for elite specs without them having to use such tricks to artificially increase the pool of weapons they can chose from. "Systemic Change"? I guess I don't see making a "main hand only" or an "offhand weapon only" dual welded a systemic change. I can understand if you said aquatic weapons, but this is simply having the weapon in another hand like most of their other weapons. The only weapon that would need more care would be a main hand Shield due to positioning and stowing. The reason for allowing these weapons to be used would be to stick with the theme of the profession. If any profession was to use a Scepter in an off hand or a focus in the main hand, would be a spell caster and if anyone would be able to use a Shield in their main hand would definitely be the Warrior. The point of thinking of off hand weapons as a main hand option doesn't have to be taboo or against a cardinal rule. It's adding to a creative process without straying too far from what's implemented. I think offhand/main hand only weapons are more of a "happen-stance" than something that ANet was focused on having.Somewhere in the back-end, the game knows to treat them differently. Off-hands have their own category in the bank wardrobe and a double-click or right-click command within the inventory gets handled differently. I'm not sure how UI layout + coding can be happenstance. Plus, wouldn't asymmetrical shields and foci need to receive mirrored models? I'm just skeptical of the return on investment. I don't know how much work a change like this would create, but it's guaranteed at least some. Meanwhile, it's just opinion that the remaining weapons can't fit Warrior, so how many classes really require this change to justify it?

https://clips.twitch.tv/AdventurousFrailHorseradishMau5 During the Extra Life Twitch stream, Robert Gee from the skills/balance/systems team stated they are currently working on the elite specs.

Same here. Many games nowadays have embraced separating cosmetics from stats, and as forward-thinking as many of GW2's systems were, we technically still have that restriction but it's just that we can choose which cosmetics to bind our stats with. I would also like to see weapons included in this system as well though, so maybe something like a cosmetic equipment tab. I'd experiment with my characters' looks more if I didn't have to re-transmute/re-dye back and forth, or have to reacquire a set of correct-stat armor + runes + inventory slots/equipment template.