Happy for the spears, yet worried it will mean even longer time to see Longbow added to a new class.

[Frozey.8513]

On the GW2 launch Longbow was given to Warrior and Ranger, and on HoT Guardian got to be the latest class to gain access to it. I'm really hyped over the polearm/glaive style gameplay we might get with the landspears, but I'm dreading the fact that due to every class is getting a spear, it might mean that even after 10 years longbow on a new class still won't see light of day. 😞 

Edited June 4 by Frozey.8513

[Dean Calaway.9718]

It's not a weapon for everyone, only serious door kickers.

[DeathPanel.8362]

I'd prefer to see new specializations for each profession.

[Frozey.8513]

18 hours ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

I'd prefer to see new specializations for each profession.

That would be really nice, or at very least a new core traitline to accompany new set of weapons different classes could get. I would especially hope for either of the bows being given to the Light-armoured classes since none of them has access to Longbow or Shortbow. 🙂

[phandaria.4891]

Longbow elementalist when? Pew pew elemental arrows!

I wanna see mesmer using longbow as melee range weapon too. Lol.

[ShatteredStars.6548]

18 hours ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

I'd prefer to see new specializations for each profession.

I disagree, getting new weapons is better.

[DeathPanel.8362]

22 minutes ago, Frozey.8513 said:

That would be really nice, or at very least a new core traitline to accompany new set of weapons different classes could get. I would especially hope for either of the bows being given to the Light-armoured classes since none of them has access to Longbow or Shortbow. 🙂

Here's another interesting idea.  Now that some weapons are no longer linked to the specializations, maybe make all specialization trait lines act like normal trait lines.  Imagine having both Willbender and Dragonhunter trait lines at the same time.  They could give these unique combinations new specialization names and icons.  This way they wouldn't even have to create new trait lines.  They'd just need to rebalane overpowered combinations.

[Randulf.7614]

3 minutes ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

Here's another interesting idea.  Now that some weapons are no longer linked to the specializations, maybe make all specialization trait lines act like normal trait lines.  Imagine having both Willbender and Dragonhunter trait lines at the same time.  They could give these unique combinations new specialization names and icons.  This way they wouldn't even have to create new trait lines.  They'd just need to rebalane overpowered combinations.

I'm not necs against it, but balancing has been one of the team's weakest points over the years. This might be too big a job to be achieveable in terms of balancing all traitlines and combos as equal. It would simplify the system though which has got a bit messy

[DeathPanel.8362]

3 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I'm not necs against it, but balancing has been one of the team's weakest points over the years. This might be too big a job to be achieveable in terms of balancing all traitlines and combos as equal. It would simplify the system though which has got a bit messy

Balancing is more or less tweaking numbers.  No game will ever have true balance.  The team's been good at protecting the game against game-breaking balance issues thus far.  It's something that I think would be worth trying.  They can use special beta character slots to have players help test and give feedback the same way they did with Weaponmaster.  I think if they put 1/10th of the effort into this than they poured into WvW alliances it would be easy for them to do.

[frazazel.7501]

52 minutes ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

Here's another interesting idea.  Now that some weapons are no longer linked to the specializations, maybe make all specialization trait lines act like normal trait lines.  Imagine having both Willbender and Dragonhunter trait lines at the same time.  They could give these unique combinations new specialization names and icons.  This way they wouldn't even have to create new trait lines.  They'd just need to rebalane overpowered combinations.

The problem here isn't just in balancing the traitlines, but also a question of what to do when you take 2 different elite specs? If you take Souldeast and Druid, do you choose which of pet-merging or celestial avatar you get? If you take a Druid trait that affects your CA skills, how does that work if you don't have CA? Also, won't some combinations of traits allow a single player to provide both alacrity and quickness?

It's a fun thought, but this suggestion would require a huge overhaul to the elite specializations that we have, and would break longstanding game design goals. I can't see this happening unless priorities change in a big way.

[Arkaiden.9726]

1 hour ago, phandaria.4891 said:

Longbow elementalist when? Pew pew elemental arrows!

Ha, everyone knows elementalists would get a melee longbow!  They would use it as a bow-staff 😁

1 hour ago, phandaria.4891 said:

I wanna see mesmer using longbow as melee range weapon too. Lol.

As a mesmer main, I approve of this suggestion.

Edited June 14 by Arkaiden.9726

[DeathPanel.8362]

5 minutes ago, frazazel.7501 said:

The problem here isn't just in balancing the traitlines, but also a question of what to do when you take 2 different elite specs? If you take Souldeast and Druid, do you choose which of pet-merging or celestial avatar you get? If you take a Druid trait that affects your CA skills, how does that work if you don't have CA? Also, won't some combinations of traits allow a single player to provide both alacrity and quickness?

It's a fun thought, but this suggestion would require a huge overhaul to the elite specializations that we have, and would break longstanding game design goals. I can't see this happening unless priorities change in a big way.

Depends on how much effort they want to put in.  If they want to minimize the work, they can simply make it so that the specialization trait line you take on the 3rd line (where your specialization used to be) is the unique specialization mechanics that would be followed.  The other specialization trait line taken would only apply in terms of passive bonuses and not have any specialization mechanics.

If they want to put in more effort, they can try to merge the specialization mechanics in some unique way depending on what specializations are combined.

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

Here's another interesting idea.  Now that some weapons are no longer linked to the specializations, maybe make all specialization trait lines act like normal trait lines.  Imagine having both Willbender and Dragonhunter trait lines at the same time.  They could give these unique combinations new specialization names and icons.  This way they wouldn't even have to create new trait lines.  They'd just need to rebalane overpowered combinations.

Considering that both willbender and dragonhunter override virtues with different skills, how exactly do you envision that combination to even work in the first place?

That being said if balancing mess floodgates were to get opened, how about skill mastery - allowing players that own expac X and did the unlock thing to access all espec skills (heal, utility, elite) regardless of active espec?

[DeathPanel.8362]

37 minutes ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

Considering that both willbender and dragonhunter override virtues with different skills, how exactly do you envision that combination to even work in the first place?

That being said if balancing mess floodgates were to get opened, how about skill mastery - allowing players that own expac X and did the unlock thing to access all espec skills (heal, utility, elite) regardless of active espec?

Like I said previously, it depends on how much effort they want to put in.

They can simply make it so the trait line you choose on the 3rd line takes precedence in mechanics, while the other ones only offer the passives involved.

Or, they can combine the mechanics in some unique way depending on the combination, but that would take more work.

Opening up all the utility skills so they're no longer locked to specialization choices as long as you own the associated expansion would be interesting too.

[frazazel.7501]

So, I take Soulbeast as my main elite spec, then Druid as a secondary one. So I'm a Soulbeast with some Druid traits, but no access to Celestial Avatar. What do my traits that affect my Celestial Avatar skills do? Do they do nothing, and I just have to choose different traits?

So I take Mechanist as my main elite spec, then Scrapper as a secondary one. So I'm a Mechanist with Scrapper traits. I spec into being a heal alac mechanist, and take the quick scrapper traits. I now provide Quickness and Alacrity in the healer role, and my party can run 4x dps.

[DeathPanel.8362]

3 hours ago, frazazel.7501 said:

So, I take Soulbeast as my main elite spec, then Druid as a secondary one. So I'm a Soulbeast with some Druid traits, but no access to Celestial Avatar. What do my traits that affect my Celestial Avatar skills do? Do they do nothing, and I just have to choose different traits?

So I take Mechanist as my main elite spec, then Scrapper as a secondary one. So I'm a Mechanist with Scrapper traits. I spec into being a heal alac mechanist, and take the quick scrapper traits. I now provide Quickness and Alacrity in the healer role, and my party can run 4x dps.

Correct, obviously there would need to be some tweaks to the traits to behave differently if there's another specialization is present.  For example, instead of triggering on celestial avatar skills, it will trigger on beast skills instead, and vice versa.

Regarding the engineer specs, things can be shifted around so you can't get a situation where you can provide both quick and alac.

[frazazel.7501]

Now you're asking for a huge rework with substantial rebalancing. This would probably be more work than making a 4th elite spec for each class, which they already don't want to do. It sure would be cool to be able to mix-and-match elite spec traits, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that it could happen.

[quake.9023]

id rather they not force existing weapons on all classes. rifle mesmer is so cringe, like wttff. just make new weapons, or new elite

[frazazel.7501]

On 6/18/2024 at 12:01 AM, quake.9023 said:

id rather they not force existing weapons on all classes. rifle mesmer is so cringe, like wttff. just make new weapons, or new elite

Why should they create new weapons when there are existing unexplored ones? Isn't that unnecessary bloat that they're trying to stop doing? I appreciate that they're building on existing systems instead. I think we'll probably get new elite specs at some point. But for now, new weapons scratch almost the same itch that new elite specs do. Especially with the higher-effort weapons that they've been designing lately.

[andreiblue.8231]

On 6/4/2024 at 11:16 PM, Frozey.8513 said:

On the GW2 launch Longbow was given to Warrior and Ranger, and on HoT Guardian got to be the latest class to gain access to it. I'm really hyped over the polearm/glaive style gameplay we might get with the landspears, but I'm dreading the fact that due to every class is getting a spear, it might mean that even after 10 years longbow on a new class still won't see light of day. 😞 

Dont forget about focus, it is useable my more classes than longbow, but no elite specialization had focus as its weapon nor was part of the ones added to classes in SotO

Edited June 19 by andreiblue.8231

[andreiblue.8231]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:17 PM, Frozey.8513 said:

That would be really nice, or at very least a new core traitline to accompany new set of weapons different classes could get. I would especially hope for either of the bows being given to the Light-armoured classes since none of them has access to Longbow or Shortbow. 🙂

The problem is warrior since it has access to most weapons unlike elementalist and engineer which have the least. The only weapons warrior doesnt have are scepter, focus and main hand pistol. That means they could add maximum 3 more times weapons to classes and the scepter doesnt fit the warrior class very well, though the focus could be used as some sort of brass knuckles.

[Fueki.4753]

8 hours ago, andreiblue.8231 said:

 That means they could add maximum 3 more times weapons to classes and the scepter doesnt fit the warrior class very well, though the focus could be used as some sort of brass knuckles.

They could use sceptres as Javelins and it'd fit very well with Warrior.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

2 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

They could use sceptres as Javelins and it'd fit very well with Warrior.

I would make the gen 2 scepter and yeet the cute little snek at people. 

[draxynnic.3719]

I don't think spears are really likely to delay more longbows beyond simply being an expansion where no profession draws from the list of established terrestrial weapons.

Guardian, warrior, and ranger already had longbow.

Engineer, thief, and necromancer are all getting melee weapons, so if anything they might make it more likely that their next weapon will be ranged (although thief players will roll their eyes again if ArenaNet continues to deny more offhands).

Elementalist and revenant are both light enough on ranged weapon options that if they get ranged spears (ele almost certainly is, rev is a coinflip) there will probably still be space for another ranged weapon.

If mesmer gets a ranged spear, though, that will probably start building up pressure for their next weapon to be melee - it'll make them the only profession that only has two melee weapon options (yes, I count ele daggers as melee, being 240-400 range rather than 130 doesn't change much in practice).

[Purple Effects.2503]

On 6/14/2024 at 5:41 PM, DeathPanel.8362 said:

Here's another interesting idea.  Now that some weapons are no longer linked to the specializations, maybe make all specialization trait lines act like normal trait lines.  Imagine having both Willbender and Dragonhunter trait lines at the same time.  They could give these unique combinations new specialization names and icons.  This way they wouldn't even have to create new trait lines.  They'd just need to rebalane overpowered combinations.

I could only imagine, having 3 Shrouds and scourges F abilities all active at the same time lol, a lot of these elites rework parts of the core class, how would u fundamentally make all of these work in cohesion together?

allowing the use of the elite trait lines wouldn’t really be that great because of this. Ultimately using a elite trait line without any of its mechanical changes, wouldn’t prove to largely be that amazing, many parts of the trait lines wouldn’t even work properly in some cases