Missing professions and class themes.

[VocalThought.9835]

I'm just curious to know what fantasy rpg class themes you guys think are missing and how you think they could implement them.  I know people feel there's no need to add a new profession, cause I'm one of those guys, but I'm open to hear ideas and concepts. I would even like to hear about possible new elites. Just curious to hear from you guys what you think is missing.

[Warscythes.9307]

Fist fighting brawler/monk. Yes daredevil is kind of similar, but just hand to hand combat is not something done before.

[Bookah pls.9352]

One thing GW2 has always lacked for me is the feeling of a proper full blown mage, one who actually casts spells and not just magical attacks performed via their weapons. So a sort of hand wraps weapon would be cool here and open door for a more traditional pugilist style monk for medium or heavy.

The good old classic big bad barbarian leaping and whirling around with a two handed axe is another i'd LOVE to see.

Shapeshifting is a concept underused but its kinda tied to norns, conjurer is another one.

[Borked.6824]

Just taking some literality, it's pretty criminal that we haven't seen the rebirth of the Dervish and Paragon.  

[VocalThought.9835]

3 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

Just taking some literality, it's pretty criminal that we haven't seen the rebirth of the Dervish and Paragon.  

I thought the classes from Factions and Nightfall were combined into the Revenant. 

[VocalThought.9835]

20 hours ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

One thing GW2 has always lacked for me is the feeling of a proper full blown mage, one who actually casts spells and not just magical attacks performed via their weapons. 

So,  if Elementalist or Mesmer isn't it, what would your mage do that they can't?

[Warscythes.9307]

3 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

Just taking some literality, it's pretty criminal that we haven't seen the rebirth of the Dervish and Paragon.  

 

10 minutes ago, VocalThought.9835 said:

I thought the classes from Factions and Nightfall were combined into the Revenant. 

I would say more guardian to be honest. One issue with the theme of the class from GW1 is that they are human centric. Dervish specifically has a lot of ties to the human god. They are basically holy warrior priests. With GW2's multiple races I don't see it ever be a thing, can you imagine a Charr worship the human gods for power? It would have to be retuned to something like, for example like the guardian. So instead of humans god, they worship 5 ideals of sort. Honestly guardian or rev fits pretty well in the end.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Ashantara.8731]

MONK

They could make it an "unarmed" Elementalist elite spec and give it "symbols" instead of weapons that are basically items that resemble a mark on the palm or back of the character's hand. They would bend the elements to their will, similar to the elemental benders in Avatar: The Last Airbender. They could even assign certain elements, or singular spells, to certain deities (like water to Dwayna, for instance).

I actually expected something cool like that for End of Dragons and was sorely disappointed by the elite spec we got instead (actually by most of the new elite specs).
 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

Just taking some literality, it's pretty criminal that we haven't seen the rebirth of the Dervish and Paragon.  

I generally think of the revenant as the translation of the general dervish style, with reaper specifically covering the Grenth dervish. Paragon, by contrast, is pretty much split across professions that support through shouts or shout-like effects - guardian, warrior, even tempest to a degree. 

Ritualist is the GW1 profession that I think is most absent.

You can see this in how the various professions are represented in NPCs. Paragons are just area buffs and basic ranged attacks. For dervish, Amala provides an indication of the ultimate expression of dervish in GW2 mechanics, and what she does is adopt a different set of skills based off the gods she channels - she's basically like a revenant except that her legends are the gods and she has five of them instead of two. 

In the case of ritualist, though: you can see the basis for what a ritualist profession, or at least specialisation, might have been in the numerous ritualist enemies we fight in EoD. But what do we have that's playable and even close to that? Engineer turrets? Lol. Renegade, but only in bursts before switching back to a core legend. Phantasm-heavy mesmer, maybe?

[VocalThought.9835]

12 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I generally think of the revenant as the translation of the general dervish style, with reaper specifically covering the Grenth dervish. Paragon, by contrast, is pretty much split across professions that support through shouts or shout-like effects - guardian, warrior, even tempest to a degree. 

Ritualist is the GW1 profession that I think is most absent.

You can see this in how the various professions are represented in NPCs. Paragons are just area buffs and basic ranged attacks. For dervish, Amala provides an indication of the ultimate expression of dervish in GW2 mechanics, and what she does is adopt a different set of skills based off the gods she channels - she's basically like a revenant except that her legends are the gods and she has five of them instead of two. 

In the case of ritualist, though: you can see the basis for what a ritualist profession, or at least specialisation, might have been in the numerous ritualist enemies we fight in EoD. But what do we have that's playable and even close to that? Engineer turrets? Lol. Renegade, but only in bursts before switching back to a core legend. Phantasm-heavy mesmer, maybe?

That's funny. When I look at Revenant I easily see GW1 class represented. Dervish seems to be represented in the Demon Legend, Paragon seems to be the Dwarf King Legend, of course Shiro is the Assassin, and Monk is the Ventari. Ritualist is the overall vibe of the profession, but also gets represented in Renegade and Vindicator. 

[Lily.1935]

On 10/8/2022 at 6:48 PM, VocalThought.9835 said:

I'm just curious to know what fantasy rpg class themes you guys think are missing and how you think they could implement them.  I know people feel there's no need to add a new profession, cause I'm one of those guys, but I'm open to hear ideas and concepts. I would even like to hear about possible new elites. Just curious to hear from you guys what you think is missing.

There actually a lot of design space the professions thematically can fill that have either poor representation in them or lack it entirely. Although I do believe arena net has hit on a few themes fairly well, they're still missing quite a few. I'll list them.

Druid/Nature Mage: Although Ranger has an elite specialization called druid, and they do have nature magic Ranger only fills a small fraction of what this archetype actually about. They simulate some of it with their pets, such as the Drake able to call down fire and the Jacaranda able to call down lightning or wind. and we have some bramble growth spells, the package is still quite lacking when we think about druids. I think range fills a lot of it, but I think we can go a lot further.
Expanding on this idea, Summoning multiple animals to fight for you is something the ranger could do. Not just one pet at a time but a full family supported with a scepter+focus combo along with some elemental spells. Not like elementalist elements, but more in the lines of natural disasters and plant growths. Like I said, ranger fills SOME of this idea already, and we do see the Druid who is a caster. But my idea is more of the summoner offensive style caster which they still could use.

The Armorer: Although not super common among fantasy RPGs this is a beloved style of play in games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder. Table top RPGs especially love this idea. Whether it be the Warhammer 40k universe or your humble artificer gnome crafting herself a suit of armor to ride in. This fantasy is sorta done by the Asura and Tiami especially but we haven't really realized it fully. I also don't see why we couldn't take the fantasy of the Armorer in a direction inspired by other game genres like Halo, Metroid, Megaman, Iron man, or something like that in addition to pulling from Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer. Mechanically, it could be done very well on engineer and visually it could be a treat to see. It would need to follow the same rules as the character's physical model so functionally it could be a shroud, but visually it could be very distinct with a visual power armor replacing the characters normal armor.
I'd Go very far with the inspiration of this idea and take the idea of the Charge beam associated with Megaman and Metroid and have that be the auto attack while the power armor is active. I think traits which boost the speed of the user and reflexes work great as well so a Dodge sub theme in its design. Of course with Beam weapons you need different beam types and gaining the Ice beam is too amazing of a classic to pass up. Although Chill on a ranged auto attack would be too strong as it is now a new condition called Frostbite, which I've mentioned before, Could be used for a condition damage style build. Of course you also have the Melee designs some people love with power armor too so a sort of phase blades, Power beam and ice beam options could all be really fun to design for and play with.
I've been toying with the idea and working on this. Using the traits to change the power armor significantly similar to how the traits change out mech parts.

The Minion Master/Demon Summoner: Although necromancer has a minion master build which... Exists, it never filled that niche I was looking for. The minions were much too safe in design and didn't feel much like minions to me. I didn't feel like the master of the undead but more like someone who has a few pets. It was a major disappointment for me.
The Classic ideas of a necromancer when we look at its, in my opinion, best thematic designs all have something in common. Minions are hard to maintain control over. Its a constant battle to keep them under your control and alive. Diablo III, Guild Wars 1, Magic the gathering's color black, and Classic tabletop games like D&D have these ideas locked down in some unique ways. Dungeons and Dragons takes the direct approach that if you do not constantly exert your control over your minions or fight for control over a Demon you've summoned, you'll lose control of them and they can and will kill you. Magic the gathering continues this theme with reanimation costing either your own life, sanity or the sacrifice of countless victims. And even when you exert your control over the undead or demonic forces they still could kill you here as well. It was a tough balancing act and the flavor in the game expresses the foolishness of young necromancers dying to their own hubris. Diablo III also takes on this idea but the minions can't kill you, not directly. With Diablo III the minions require a large sum of necromatic energies to summon and control and sometimes require a blood sacrifice as well. Massive numbers of creatures need to die to summon them and control them. Guild Wars 1 continues the tradition of hard to control minions too. The Minions had no danger sense and would kill anything and everything you didn't see as an ally. If something got into their aggro range, the minions would charge them down and keep attacking until it was dead. Minions also lost health over time and you had to feed them. Often times you sacrificed your own health to do this. And if you died, the minions didn't vanish, they turned hostile.
There are quite a few elements that these all have in common and I'm not suggesting that all of these designs need to be in Guild wars 2. Hostile player summoned creatures would be bad design no matter how you slice it, however some other ideas can work wonders.
The blood cost of minions/demons to be summoned and controlled and using your life force to command them to take actions is extremely thematic. Using your own health and Life force to command them even as they themselves try to return to the mists either through death or fading away builds a unique method of controlling Minions that we haven't seen anything like in Guild Wars 2. These creatures would be bound to you. And you would need to pay the price in blood. Either yours or your victims. Which sounds evil, but Necromancer has never shied away from the shades of grey.

For me, these are the big ones. Metroid is one of my favorite series of all time and I love Megaman, especially Megaman X. Druid is only one of my absolute FAVORITE casters to play in Dungeons and Dragons and the Minion Master is something I also love. So being able to cosplay as Samus in Guild Wars 2, in a 3rd person 3D space would be loved, being a Minion master with my horde of undea or Running around as Nature caster are all things I would absolutely love.

As for a new class entirely. There are some ideas that could work, and I'm not opposed to it. The Dervish from Guild Wars 1 is a personal favorite of mine, but I don't have too much to say about that at the moment when the design space of many of the current classes is still not filled for me personally as a player.

[Randin.5701]

A shapeshifting-based class is the one that first jumps out to me--a wildshape druid or something similar. 

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, VocalThought.9835 said:

That's funny. When I look at Revenant I easily see GW1 class represented. Dervish seems to be represented in the Demon Legend, Paragon seems to be the Dwarf King Legend, of course Shiro is the Assassin, and Monk is the Ventari. Ritualist is the overall vibe of the profession, but also gets represented in Renegade and Vindicator. 

I'd classify Jalis as being more Dervish than Paragon myself, and Glint is probably the most classic dervish-y legend of all by bringing in the "apply an enchantment, then consume it" style. Ventari, on the other hand, I see as being more akin to a healing ritualist, albeit with only one 'spirit'.

However, it's more dervish than ritualist overall because of the legend-switching playstyle. As I noted, we can see what the GW2 interpretation of dervish likely would have been in Amala, and that involves swapping styles like a revenant. Now, like Amala's avatars each resembling professions favoured by that deity, revenant legends often approximate other professions (Shiro is thief-like, Jalis and Glint are both a bit guardian-like, and so on), but this probably would have happened if dervish had been translated across directly as well.

Kalla is fairly ritualist-like, but is only one half of a build. Alliance draws on ritualist themes, but you can't combine them. The only core legend that's ritualist-like is Ventari, but that pretty much locks you into support. It's the closest you can get to playing a ritualist in GW2, but the NPC ritualists demonstrate just how far away it actually is.

[Jtoon.6907]

Bard. 

[Kulvar.1239]

On 10/10/2022 at 12:48 AM, VocalThought.9835 said:

So,  if Elementalist or Mesmer isn't it, what would your mage do that they can't?

To me they're not wizards but sorcerers. Their skills don't seem like the product of studying.

Firebrand tomes and former "charge mantra" animations are more wizardy than elementalist and mesmer.

From playing D&D, I associate wizard with more practicality to the spells rather than a thematicality (elements, illusions).

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

To me they're not wizards but sorcerers. Their skills don't seem like the product of studying.

Firebrand tomes and former "charge mantra" animations are more wizardy than elementalist and mesmer.

From playing D&D, I associate wizard with more practicality to the spells rather than a thematicality (elements, illusions).

Based on what fluff there is, it's actually the other way around. Guardians are more instinctive in their magic use (firebrand might be an exception), scholar professions generally involve a bit more learning. GW2 shows even less of the learning process than GW1 did, however, so it's not something you see in-game much.

[Kulvar.1239]

16 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Based on what fluff there is, it's actually the other way around. Guardians are more instinctive in their magic use (firebrand might be an exception), scholar professions generally involve a bit more learning. GW2 shows even less of the learning process than GW1 did, however, so it's not something you see in-game much.

Well, not like you would have maths exam to level up as a scholar anyway.

I was talking more about abilities (look and effects), since all you do to level up is the same regardless of profession anyway.

[draxynnic.3719]

The distinction is that in GW1, PCs were all explicitly starting out at the tail end of a training process, and one of the story book missions shows Gwen learning her first spells. There are also quests that demonstrate things like an elementalist NPC researching new ways to use magic. GW2 tends to brush all of that under the carpet, though.

[Kulvar.1239]

6 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The distinction is that in GW1, PCs were all explicitly starting out at the tail end of a training process, and one of the story book missions shows Gwen learning her first spells. There are also quests that demonstrate things like an elementalist NPC researching new ways to use magic. GW2 tends to brush all of that under the carpet, though.

I wish GW2 would not. If we could get more lore about each profession, it would be great.

[Bastien.1386]

For me it would be these types of classes:

- Bard and/or Dancer ( FF14, Aion's Songweaver or Lost Ark's Bard)
- Monk (Lost Ark/Diablo),
- Summoner (like Lost Ark, FF14 or Aion),
- Druid (shapeshifting, nature damage skills, etc)
- Dragoon (FF14 like. Lots of jumps, dragons, etc)
 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Bastien.1386

[Scalacious.4139]

Something about Voodoo / Witchdoctor could be fun, maybe as an elite for the necro. Bard could work as an elite for the mesmer, since they allready got some muthical themes in there. And although guardians have some religious themes around them, they could really use an elite with more of a zealot/cleric vibe.

[fomagnoma.8371]

Definitely Bard, in the form of EverQuest 1's bard.

[Kozumi.5816]

Missing themes:

• Warrior
• Archer
• Rogue
• Mage
• Bard
• Paladin
• Cleric

You know, pretty much all the BASIC DnD classes?

Instead we get: Dragon wings spearing holy warrior, summoning spirits bow person, made of paper piano your keyboard sword mage, and really angry screaming burning warrior.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Scalacious.4139]

19 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Missing themes:

• Warrior
• Archer
• Rogue
• Mage
• Bard
• Paladin
• Cleric

You know, pretty much all the BASIC DnD classes?

Instead we get: Dragon wings spearing holy warrior, summoning spirits bow person, made of paper piano your keyboard sword mage, and really angry screaming burning warrior.

I concede you the Mage, Bard and Paladin, but the rest is in some way or another allready in the game.

Warrior is pretty close to the warrior profession. The ranger profession can be an archer and if you meant to say ranger (no worries, the class is a joke in DnD anyways) the ranger profession still comes pretty close, even going so far that you can be a druid the same way as ranger uses druid spells in DnD. Thief is pretty much a rogue. Guardian feels like a (fire/life) cleric, though the many other domains are missing.
Mage would be nice since Elementalist almost feals more like a shaman, since it controlls the elements and not arcane magic. One could argue, that a necromancer is a mage of the necromancy school. (Glamour) Bard could be implemented as a mesmer elite maybe since mesmers allready have some skills and flavour around music. Paladin could work as an elite for the guardian.

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

On 10/19/2022 at 2:47 PM, Kozumi.5816 said:

Missing themes:

• Warrior
• Archer
• Rogue
• Mage
• Bard
• Paladin
• Cleric

You know, pretty much all the BASIC DnD classes?

Instead we get: Dragon wings spearing holy warrior, summoning spirits bow person, made of paper piano your keyboard sword mage, and really angry screaming burning warrior.

Yeah what Guild Wars 2 clearly is lacking:

imagine a profession, that doesn't fight face to face or fair and square.

A deadly acrobatic masters of shadow and stealth, that will ambush you unexpecetly with high burst and ticking poisons

someone how depends more on mobility than a straigth up defensives and has more tools in doing so than other professions.

 

Sounds a bit like Thief, only viable

/s

Edited December 6, 2022 by Felices Bladewing.3914