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

[Panda.1967]

There are very few especs that could feasibly work together in any capacity… so no… this will never happen.

Elementalist… Tempest overloads, Weaver dual attunements, and Catalyst sphere all operate independently of eachother with the only remote overlap being between Tempest & Weaver with dual attuning to one element conflicing with overloads… but that could easily be solved by requring a single element attunement to use an overload… so fire overload with both Tempest & Weaver would require dual fire attunement.

Mesmer… Mirage could function with either Virtuoso or Chronomancer… though Virtuoso would cripple Mirage’s ambush skills… Virtuoso and Chronomancer however both conflict heavily with their shatter skill replacements.

Thief… Daredevil can similarly function with either Deadeye or Spectre… but Deadeye and Spectre both conflict over Steal skill replacements.

All other professions have conflicts across all elite specs. Warriors all change up Burst skills, Necromancers all change Shroud, Guardians all change Virtues, Ranger F5, Engineer Toolbelt… and Revenant…

Revenant makes the most sense to allow this on given how the class works… the only problem is, all of the elite specs override Ancient Echo… Herald has Facet of Nature… Renegade has Heroic Command, Citadel Bombardment, and Orders from Above… and Vindicator has Energy Meld & Alliance Tactics… whats more aggravating is the fact that all three especs would benefit immensely from the effect of Ancient Echo, moreso than they do from their espec replacements…

Edited June 21 by Panda.1967

[DeathPanel.8362]

18 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

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 

The trait lines in their current state can't be used together in a balanced way.  There would have to be some rebalancing.  The upside is these are just mostly numbers changes and shifting around of triggers and none of it would require any new animations or mechanics.

[Purple Effects.2503]

8 minutes ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

e trait lines in their current state can't be used together in a balanced way.  There would have to be some rebalancing.  The upside is these are just mostly numbers changes and shifting around of triggers and none of it would require any new animations or mechanics

The amount of rebalancing would be insane though. 

how are you going to balance a necromancer to seriously have 3 shrouds, you’d have to gut the power by large margins and possibly risk causing a huge issue. Necromancer survives on the fact its shroud is overbloated to balance out the lack of certain things on the current weapons.

Not to mention conflicting mechanics I.e weaver and tempests which directly won’t work together well at all. 

I ain’t saying it’s impossible. But how elites work would need fundamental reworks to achieve, and the idea of every class doing everything would need to go, it’d just be too bloated to exist in a fully open kit. The role compression and bloat would be immense 

that ain’t saying it’d have to be a bad thing, it’d likely put options on the table that don’t exist today. I.e alike a new class. But yeah, the work would be immense and it’d likely mean a large period of time of things just being absolutely wild while they configure it 

[DeathPanel.8362]

2 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

The amount of rebalancing would be insane though. 

how are you going to balance a necromancer to seriously have 3 shrouds, you’d have to gut the power by large margins and possibly risk causing a huge issue. Necromancer survives on the fact its shroud is overbloated to balance out the lack of certain things on the current weapons.

Not to mention conflicting mechanics I.e weaver and tempests which directly won’t work together well at all. 

I ain’t saying it’s impossible. But how elites work would need fundamental reworks to achieve, and the idea of every class doing everything would need to go, it’d just be too bloated to exist in a fully open kit. The role compression and bloat would be immense 

that ain’t saying it’d have to be a bad thing, it’d likely put options on the table that don’t exist today. I.e alike a new class. But yeah, the work would be immense and it’d likely mean a large period of time of things just being absolutely wild while they configure it 

Rebalancing is easy when it's just a matter of tweaking numbers and rearranging effects that already exist.  Easier than creating a whole new map or new weapon sets at least.  It can be done via open betas where they let you create beta characters with combined trait lines and mechanics and seeing player feedback similar to what they did in the past with Weapon master.  It would be an easier way to get a bunch of new specializations without creating new ones from scratch.

[Purple Effects.2503]

4 hours ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

ebalancing is easy when it's just a matter of tweaking numbers and rearranging effects that already exist.  Easier than creating a whole new map or new weapon sets at least.  It can be done via open betas where they let you create beta characters with combined trait lines and mechanics and seeing player feedback similar to what they did in the past with Weapon master.  It would be an easier way to get a bunch of new specializations without creating new ones from scratch

But it’s more then rebalancing numbers

their are elite mechanics which directly conflict with one another that would need reworking. 

there will be too many overpowered mechanics that need to be reworked / redesigned. 

there will be over bloat where the elite mechanics simply just stack too much onto one class. 

there will be elites that need to be completely redesigned. 

Edited June 22 by Magmi.6723

[DeathPanel.8362]

8 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

But it’s more then rebalancing numbers

their are elite mechanics which directly conflict with one another that would need reworking. 

there will be too many overpowered mechanics that need to be reworked / redesigned. 

there will be over bloat where the elite mechanics simply just stack too much onto one class. 

there will be elites that need to be completely redesigned. 

I said before if that's too much work that they could just make it so that the 3rd trait line specialization is what mechanics that apply while the others just grant their passive and triggered bonuses to the specialization mechanics that apply.  It would in effect normalize the specialization trait lines into core trait lines and allow for new interesting combinations while maintaining the unique mechanics of specializations.  That would be probably the easiest way to do it, but it would effectively mean you're not getting new specialization, but new core trait lines.

[Purple Effects.2503]

19 hours ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

I said before if that's too much work that they could just make it so that the 3rd trait line specialization is what mechanics that apply while the others just grant their passive and triggered bonuses to the specialization mechanics that apply.  It would in effect normalize the specialization trait lines into core trait lines and allow for new interesting combinations while maintaining the unique mechanics of specializations.  That would be probably the easiest way to do it, but it would effectively mean you're not getting new specialization, but new core trait lines.

The question isn’t if it’s too much work, if something was to be an expansion feature it should be work really because it’d require to be polished. 

The question would be if the end state of classes would be favored compared to now realistically. It could bring a lot of interesting options to the game, it could also make the game ALOT harder to play mechanically also. 

[DeathPanel.8362]

2 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

The question isn’t if it’s too much work, if something was to be an expansion feature it should be work really because it’d require to be polished. 

The question would be if the end state of classes would be favored compared to now realistically. It could bring a lot of interesting options to the game, it could also make the game ALOT harder to play mechanically also. 

It doesn't necessarily have to be an expansion.  It could be a QOL feature.

Ideally, I'd like for specializations to be eventually separated from the trait lines entirely the same way triggered effects were moved to relics from runes.

[Purple Effects.2503]

1 hour ago, DeathPanel.8362 said:

It doesn't necessarily have to be an expansion.  It could be a QOL feature.

Ideally, I'd like for specializations to be eventually separated from the trait lines entirely the same way triggered effects were moved to relics from runes.

Susposed that could be a way, may also help introduction of new elites if they were separated from traitlines and weapons. 

i.e the Elite specialisation is a choice which is only the mechanic. 

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

Susposed that could be a way, may also help introduction of new elites if they were separated from traitlines and weapons. 

i.e the Elite specialisation is a choice which is only the mechanic. 

I think that would still mess up quite a lot of the existing balance to little benefit.

[DeathPanel.8362]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think that would still mess up quite a lot of the existing balance to little benefit.

The benefit would be the new specializations.  

[Batalix.2873]

I would rather they spread more love to focus, which never got any especs across all three expansions. And also the other off hands, which we haven't seen shield or warhorn appearing since HoT.

But I agree it couldn't hurt to hand out another longbow and short bow at some point. I think Mesmer should get a melee/short range support shortbow and use it like a harp. I'm having a harder time imagining longbow after engi got shortbow (I think that should have been longbow), but maybe Revenant or Thief could do something interesting with it.

If this is a stealth "ele should have longbow" thread, I'm afraid I just don't agree after spear. That weapon kind of nuked both longbow and rifle dreams.

[Doggie.3184]

On 6/14/2024 at 12:18 PM, phandaria.4891 said:

Longbow elementalist when? Pew pew elemental arrows!

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

Missed opportunity to give Elementalist Gough's Greatbow from Dark Souls to fire their elemental Spears from instead of throwing them.

[mirage.8046]

longbow has been another longlasting desire of mine for mesmer and elementalist. however, I don't think that's happening given that the elementalist's spear will do what a longbow could do. they even admitted the 'longbow ele' wishes on their spear test stream! :| 

bows aren't the only focus, however, because off-hands have also been requested. who didn't want off-hand sword thief or focus revenant? a mesmer with longbow could focus on long-ranged sniping or laying down AOEs. I'm not sure about other classes like engi, thief, or rev having a longbow. Shortbow warrior would be so odd considering that could've been a mid-range main-hand pistol for warrior. also, a shortbow would conflict with the condi longbow because shortbows often apply condis. 

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, mirage.8046 said:

longbow has been another longlasting desire of mine for mesmer and elementalist. however, I don't think that's happening given that the elementalist's spear will do what a longbow could do. they even admitted the 'longbow ele' wishes on their spear test stream! :| 

bows aren't the only focus, however, because off-hands have also been requested. who didn't want off-hand sword thief or focus revenant? a mesmer with longbow could focus on long-ranged sniping or laying down AOEs. I'm not sure about other classes like engi, thief, or rev having a longbow. Shortbow warrior would be so odd considering that could've been a mid-range main-hand pistol for warrior. also, a shortbow would conflict with the condi longbow because shortbows often apply condis. 

I could see there still being space for longbow ele. Spear ele still feels like it's more of a spellcasting focus apart from the auto, and is quite different to how elemental archer themes tend to operate in other games. Spear probably does reduce some of the pressure for it, though.

Longbow engi could have a trick arrow theme - which is what a lot of people were expecting when shortbow was first teased, until shortbow turned out to be more of a support mortar-ish weapon.

[Stalima.5490]

On 6/4/2024 at 9:16 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. 😞 

Everyone is getting longbow, a longbow just shoots little spears, use your imagination.

[Shagie.7612]

big archery enjoyer who's only really played shortbow rev for the last 2 years, would love to see more access to sb/lb
it's extra frustrating that warrior's is more or less a melee weapon because of fan of fire and slow travel times when shooting fire arrows is 10/10 cool factor

i'm afraid they're running out of niches to fit weapons into though, given a few of the spear kits and how they struggle both to feel good and to find a place

[draxynnic.3719]

17 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

i'm afraid they're running out of niches to fit weapons into though, given a few of the spear kits and how they struggle both to feel good and to find a place

One of the things that strikes me with this is that there are some niches that are completely unfilled that ArenaNet seems to be actively avoiding for no good reason that I can see.