Make all elite spec weapons available for core!

[Quadox.7834]

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Avatar.3568 said:

@Bazsi.2734 said:What would be the point of elite specialisations then?

The class mechanic changes, tho I do not like that idea too

You take berserker, and equip a dagger mainhand. Whats your F1?You stay core thief, you equip rifle. How does anything work on that build? etc.

What wouldn't work on core thief rifle? Sure, it would be terrible bcs no stealth on dodge and steal puts you in melee and so on, but that's not a problem (it would only be a problem if it were too strong).

I'm going to reverse the question, what would work on core rifle thief? Losing the malice mechanic means you get no stealth and deal no damage, losing the deadeye traits means you have no initiative management and even less stealth. You're basicly a free kill.Same with core thief on staff. You lose initiative and endurance management tools, and weakness application. But you're still forced to staying mostly melee, without the tools to stay alive in melee.

I could go through every class and every e-spec weapon, which I'm not going to do. Half of them would be just pointless, some of them would be outright terrible like the thief ones, and some of them would greatly benefit the class. So some classes would get something, others would get nothing.The release of EoD will bring enough new skills/combos and chaos to entertain you. We don't need this additional tinkering with a well thought out e-spec system.We don't need the chaos of EoD throwing a wrench in this current well-thought-out meta either by that token.

1. Well thought out espec system. okay, that's a good one.

Thats a subjective opinion of mine. If we look at the objective facts though: the 4 pillars of an elite specialisation are: new weapon, new tratline, new support skills, altered class mechanic. The reasoning you gave to erase one of these is... "diversity and more options improves balance" (thats a hot take) and "no reason not to".The not-so well thought out part was the fact that most especs were just straight-up upgrades to core specs. Especs having exclusive weapons while core specs have no exclusive weapons are part of this - it increases the numbers of options that the especs have over core, which results in a higher likelihood that especs are meta over core. More options = more versatile = higher chance of being meta. By letting core specs equip these weapons you increase possibilities and diversity. Also, in regards to the "hot take", you can read this in JusticeRetroHunter's posts.

2. So because it doesn't give thief any new viable options, you just cannot tolerate that most other professions get more options to tinker with, at minimum work on anet's part compared to, say, designing a new weapon. so far the missing berserker burst skill for dagger is the only thing I know that would need to be added. What a terrible mentality.

I like how you assume just because I explained one example in detail that that must be the only reason. Sword would be just as useless in the hands of a core ele or core engineer, core guardian with longbow would be able to stack so many modifiers that it could oneshot squishies from 1200+1500 range with true shot(power DH at least needs to tether you first), and the list goes on.There is no reason that sword would be useless on core elementalist, and the only reason sword would be worse on core is because of the lack of heat mechanic, but it would still allow for some interesting core power sword/shield builds. It also doesn't matter if the new weapons would be sup-par, so be it, it would not ruin anything, including your enjoyment of the game.There would be overpowered and useless combos all over the place. Balance in general would be worse until the devs make several balance passes to tone down the outliers, and several currently balanced builds/combos would be ruined in the process. And after all this work, we MIGHT not be worse off than we are today.You honestly think core guardian stacking every damage modifier to oneshot with longbow would be the mew meta or something. This is highly delusional. You havn't given any good examples of what would be overpowered yet.So it's not minimal work, it would harm balance instead of helping it, and in general it would add to the chaos right along/before EoD release. And you call my mentality terrible right after arguing that giving unfair advantages to only some classes is cool... thats funny.Having options is not an unfair advantage. The espec weapons are most certainly not all overpowered compared to core and are not supposed to be. Look at reaper greatsword par example. I have stated that it is only a problem if it is too strong, not if it is too weak. If rifle on core thief only allows for some meme build and nothing viable, this does not take anything

away

from thief, in the absolute worst case it adds zero.I value balance and fairness, guess I'm just that kind of a horrible person.You are probably very nice to your grandma.

[Quadox.7834]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:there are 3 reasons why it could be problematic.1 weapons with specific e-spec mechanics, but holo sword might be the only one.

Off the top of my head, Mirage Axe arguably, Druid staff maybe?Mirage axe in what way? De-targeting? No, that exists on mirror images.

Ambush, its central to the weapon.Could you explain how so?

[Fueki.4753]

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:no you didnt, you said they SHOULD stay part of elite specialization, never explain why.

1) it was released with the Elite specialization, specifically made for it and it's available via its first minor trait.Suddenly making it available for Core (and therefore eventually to the other elite specializations, see point 2) might even break some lines of code, bugging the game out even more.2) Once they give the weapons to core, there'll be people crying for them to be given to all off the specializations for that profession.After all, all weapon for core "should" be available for all elite specializations.3) They are balanced for the elite specialization. If they suddenly balance the weapons around more than that, it'd break them.Imagine, for example, they suddenly buff Holosmith's sword so it's viable for core (and eventually Scrapper, see point 2) while they don't nerf the heat bonuses that comes with Holosmith and what sword actually is balanced around. It'd suddenly be broken on Holosmith.Or imagine a Burn DH with access to the axe. Burn DH already is broken without the axe. The axe would only exacerbate the problem.

[Kuma.1503]

This would be a godsend to core engi. Just imagine being able to play core power with hammer. Literal game changer.

[Yasai.3549]

Only ones who REALLY NEED IT right now are like, Engineer, Ele and Revenant, which has such pathetic weapon customization it's almost a joke.

[Senqu.8054]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Super Hayes.6890" said:This was the best and worst thing about GW1. There were so many options and all weapons were available to all classes so you could do anything. This was terrible for balance and there were soooooooo many useless skills in the end. I want access to elite spec weapons on core in GW2 but I get why it wasn't done that way.

What balance problems was there really in gw1 though? The only real balance issue was Melle Hate, which was that most melle builds had very very hard counters in the form of blind from a blind bot ele and mesmer hexes.

Blind back in guild wars 1, made you completely invalid in gw1 as a melle class. Gw2's blind is a mercy in comparison. 90% miss rate on all attacks for the duration, which back then can be perma'd by a single blind bot ele on 2 and sometimes 3 melle players. Oppressive is hardly a fitting word for what this single mechanic did to melle and it was the only real problem in the game.

Even with this Melle hate problem, it wasn't enough to subdue the diversity of the game...the diversity was so robust, that the game still remained balanced for the most part and why they never changed it for years because the counter to blind bot Ele, was a healer that could cleanse you of those conditions. (or bringing blind immunity)

Mind you, this archived page here is the list of the builds that were played in ranked arena, that performed enough in competitive formats to deserve a spot on a page. This is merely a fraction of the builds that were played as the website they us-to have these builds hosted was closed, and not all the builds were transferred. This is Random Arena's alone (the equivalent to gw2's conquest mode) and there are 250 builds on this page.

https://gwpvx.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Archived_tested_RA_builds

Guy's i am not joking when the build diversity in gw1 was far superior to gw2's build diversity. There were thousands of meta viable builds across all the modes.

I miss those days :(

Spamming the chat in HA with:warrior lfg iwaynecro lfg foc spikeassa lfg WotA...

Im nostalgic again

[Disney.7826]

Cant wait to see shortbow herald or shield mirage

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Avatar.3568 said:

@Bazsi.2734 said:What would be the point of elite specialisations then?

The class mechanic changes, tho I do not like that idea too

You take berserker, and equip a dagger mainhand. Whats your F1?You stay core thief, you equip rifle. How does anything work on that build? etc.

The same, but now with MORE damage.

Seriously, they'd have to invent a dagger primal burst and a T2 and T3 core burst version (maybe just more boon removal?)

Although dagger/torch would be fun... if that primal dagger burst were still a leap...

[ButterPeanut.9746]

@Quadox.7834 said:Okay, good discussion. Things that would need to be added:

• Berserker burst skill for dagger (1 total)
• More? Can't think of anything. Weaver dual skills don't depend on offhand. So far, seems very possible for expansion-worthy content.

You would also need to add tier 2 and tier 3 burst for warrior dagger on core.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@ButterPeanut.9746 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Okay, good discussion. Things that would need to be added:

• Berserker burst skill for dagger (1 total)
• More? Can't think of anything. Weaver dual skills don't depend on offhand. So far, seems very possible for expansion-worthy content.

You would also need to add tier 2 and tier 3 burst for warrior dagger on core.

Just remove 1 extra boon per Tier.Let the Primal Burst be a leap that immobilizes the target and grants some might stacks.

[Crozame.4098]

@Quadox.7834 said:

1. Increases options & diversity

2. Diversity and options improves balance (read JusticeRetroHunter)Wow, that guy still cannot show decisively why diversity is good FOR THIS GAME. The only proof he offers are bullshits like: Chaos theory is a universal theory that explains everything, and check numerous 1 hour long vids that explain the CHAOS theory, but not how it applies to this game.

[Bazsi.2734]

@Crozame.4098 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

1. Increases options & diversity

2. Diversity and options improves balance (read JusticeRetroHunter)Wow, that guy still cannot show decisively why diversity is good FOR THIS GAME. The only proof he offers are bullshits like: Chaos theory is a universal theory that explains everything, and check numerous 1 hour long vids that explain the CHAOS theory, but not how it applies to this game.

Diversity is a prerequisite for a game to be fun, thats pretty much a given. But some people here are acting like any kind of diversity is good. Here, have some useless extra choices, isn't this so much better?

[Crozame.4098]

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Crozame.4098 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

1. Increases options & diversity

2. Diversity and options improves balance (read JusticeRetroHunter)Wow, that guy still cannot show decisively why diversity is good FOR THIS GAME. The only proof he offers are bullshits like: Chaos theory is a universal theory that explains everything, and check numerous 1 hour long vids that explain the CHAOS theory, but not how it applies to this game.

Diversity is a prerequisite for a game to be fun, thats pretty much a given. But some people here are acting like any kind of diversity is good. Here, have some useless extra choices, isn't this so much better?

There must be also be an upper bound on diversity, for a game to be enjoyable.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Kuma.1503 said:This would be a godsend to core engi. Just imagine being able to play core power with hammer. Literal game changer.

Or hell, sword. Even without the heat mechanic, having a mainhand power weapon so that you can use shield would be amazing.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Filip.7463 said:Cant wait to see shortbow herald or shield mirage

I dont think shield mirage would be all that good.1 its a power based weapon, and power mirage aint doing good anyways2 shield is made with chrono in mind ( alacrity on shatter and potential for improved alac ), it has actually insane cooldowns, 35s and 40s, and if memory serves me right shield 4 goes on CD when sec charge is used so more like 40-45s cd on one skill and 40s on another.

[Kodama.6453]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Filip.7463" said:Cant wait to see shortbow herald or shield mirage

I dont think shield mirage would be all that good.1 its a power based weapon, and power mirage aint doing good anyways2 shield is made with chrono in mind ( alacrity on shatter and potential for improved alac ), it has actually insane cooldowns, 35s and 40s, and if memory serves me right shield 4 goes on CD when sec charge is used so more like 40-45s cd on one skill and 40s on another.

Wouldn't really call it a "power based weapon", it is a utility weapon like shields on other classes. Sure, it deals some power damage, but this is not the reason it is used at all. Just like how an engineer is not picking shield for the power damage, which it has a small amount of.

Also you forgot that you can reduce the 40s cooldown by 10 seconds if you catch the returning wave.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"Crozame.4098" said:There must be also be an upper bound on diversity, for a game to be enjoyable.

There is no upper-bound. It's a hard concept to wrap your head around I get it... believe me, it's not easy to understand, and I struggled to understand it at first myself...but you have to abandon the notion that diversity and balance are different things...they are the same exact mechanism...and the only thing that actually matters, and what you have to come to terms with, is that the mechanism that is at work in a system that exhibits diversity, is the actual process of one side of a spectrum, moving to the other side of that same spectrum. The process is scale invariant, which means there is no upper or lower bound...it's invariant at any and all scales just like a fractal. If the system is finite, then the only thing you really should care about, is making sure the evolution lasts as long as possible because it means that there will be a definite beginning and a definite end in a finite system. Making the system more complex is exactly what this does...makes the evolution longer.

Maybe this picture can help you understand since you refuse to watch lectures on the subject... but this is the last post you will see from me because I refuse to hijack ANOTHER thread with this topic. I can't hold your hand anymore in trying to explain this to you any longer. You can say what you want at this point, I've provided more then enough resources to you, your now on your own.

@"Bazsi.2734" said:Diversity is a prerequisite for a game to be fun, that's pretty much a given. But some people here are acting like any kind of diversity is good. Here, have some useless extra choices, isn't this so much better?

I just want to point out something, that the OP's suggestion doesn't actually add any new elements into the game, but in fact follows all the principles that was laid out in another thread. The retirement of restrictions that reduce the possibility space (such as weapons being tied to specific elite specs) will add dimensionality to the possibility space, and as a consequence make the game more complex and makes the evolution time for a system to evolve from heterogenous -> homogenous take a longer period of time. This is the exact way one would achieve to make a game more diverse and more complex without actually adding more elements into the game, which is ideal.

Also there is no "other kind" of diversity...it's strictly a mathematical binary thing...there is no good and bad diversity. Only less and more diversity, and it's also not static...it changes over time, and the above image should illustrate that all systems are moving to an eventual state of 0 diversity, as the complexity of the system is computationally reduced.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"Quadox.7834" said:

1. Increases options & diversity
2. Diversity and options improves balance (read JusticeRetroHunter)
3. More fun and theory-crafting
4. They can still be paid content (unlocked by buying expansions) just as they are now.
5. Would greatly benefit certain lacking professions, especially engineer.
6. No reason not to.

Discuss

So i was thinking about this idea alot and i really like it. I wanted to add that it would be cool to see some kind of cross-over mechanic like their was in Guild Wars 1, where you could mix and match skills from other classes.

I went and made a little build based on these ideas : A Hybrid Condi/Power Shout Reaper that uses Warrior shouts, and scourge's Torch.

There are a bunch of build ideas that came to my mind (Warrior/Tempest Shout and Aura Healer, and a Tempest/Guardian Condition Cleanser) with these kind of crossover ideas and dang...imagine if you could cross over trait trees also? the possibilities seem endless.

One thing I want to mention is that as others have said earlier in the discussion, that a lot of skills and traits have this issue of being too self contained, in that their effect only applies to that particular class, or set of of mechanics specific to the class. This in my view kind of shows how rigid and flawed some of the mechanics are in the game and to me is a clue that these mechanics shouldn't be so rigid. Aside from that, i think with a few conceptual redesigns of how some of these mechanics work, i would love to see cross-over ideas implemented in some way.

[Quadox.7834]

@ButterPeanut.9746 said:

@"Quadox.7834" said:Okay, good discussion. Things that would need to be added:

• Berserker burst skill for dagger (1 total)
• More? Can't think of anything. Weaver dual skills don't depend on offhand. So far, seems very possible for expansion-worthy content.

You would also need to add tier 2 and tier 3 burst for warrior dagger on core.

Of course but that's not really a "new skill", it just has higher damage like, say, eviscerate. No new animations.

[Sovarica.4368]

They should at least try it for a season.. The PvP mode has been getting reallly stale..

At least it could create some buzz from the people who have left GW2 and might want to try to come back to check it out

[Kodama.6453]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

So i was thinking about this idea alot and i really like it. I wanted to add that it would be cool to see some kind of cross-over mechanic like their was in Guild Wars 1, where you could mix and match skills from other classes.

I went and made a little build based on these ideas : A Hybrid Condi/Power Shout Reaper that uses Warrior shouts, and scourge's Torch.

There are a bunch of build ideas that came to my mind (Warrior/Tempest Shout and Aura Healer, and a Tempest/Guardian Condition Cleanser) with these kind of crossover ideas and dang...imagine if you could cross over trait trees also? the possibilities seem endless.

One thing I want to mention is that as others have said earlier in the discussion, that a lot of skills and traits have this issue of being too self contained, in that their effect only applies to that particular class, or set of of mechanics specific to the class. This in my view kind of shows how rigid and flawed some of the mechanics are in the game and to me is a clue that these mechanics shouldn't be so rigid. Aside from that, i think with a few conceptual redesigns of how some of these mechanics work, i would love to see cross-over ideas implemented in some way.

May be fun for you to think about, but that's literally it, it will never become more than a thought experiment.The game is not built for it and there would be way too much work to make a system like this work in the slightest.

How are weapons supposed to work? Do I have just access to the weapon kits of my chosen primary class or can I use the weapon kits of my secondary classes as well?If it's the first, then engineer gets majorly screwed over by this system, since they keep their very limited pool of weapon choices, while losing their advantage of having engineer kits (since these are utility skills which then could be used by all other classes as well).If it's the latter, then how are you selecting which weapon kit you want to use?

How is revenant even supposed to work at all? They can't chose their utility skills in the first place, just their legends.

Another major problem: the workload of new skills which Anet would have to create is absolutely overwhelming:

• creating 303 new skills for engineer alone, since they have to create a toolbelt skill for every healing, utility and elite skill of all other classes.
• if you can use weapon skills of other classes, then we need new burst skills for warrior, new stealth/dual wield skills for thief, new attunement skills for elementalist, etc.

If you want to make this system fair for all classes, then it requires way too much work.Dual classing in this sense won't come back. Anet has chosen a different path now by trying to make elite specs thematical dual classes instead (like how they explained that spellbreaker represents warrior/mesmer).

[Bazsi.2734]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:snip

So I was reading through this entire post, and at first I got confused what you mean by

you have to abandon the notion that diversity and balance are different thingsI thought you might refer to the sum of all viable choices as diversity, in which case this statement would almost be true. But then you went...it's strictly a mathematical binary thing...there is no good and bad diversity.And this is why I won't bother watching lectures and whatnot to properly educate myself on chaos theory. I get you found it fun, you liked it, but the things you are deriving from it are absolutely useless in the context of this game. Since we're doing pure maths, let me disprove your statements with one simple example:

Lets add a new build that can oneshot anyone from spawn, so diversity clearly went up. According to your "theory" we just made the game better, while in reality we just killed it.

There, that refutes everything. Shouldn't have invoked the power of math and absolute statements.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"Bazsi.2734" said:Lets add a new build that can oneshot anyone from spawn, so diversity clearly went up.According to your "theory" we just made the game better, while in reality we just killed it.There, that refutes everything. Shouldn't have invoked the power of math and absolute statements.

And this is why I won't bother watching lectures and whatnot to properly educate myself on chaos theory.

No no no friend... this is why you should educate yourself, because then you would understand what is happening in your own example, because this is exactly the kind of problem this framework is built to address!

(Also it's really not Chaos Theory Crozame just says that a lot for some reason idk why. It's important to know chaos theory in order to understand why this is how it works, but the actual mechanisms here that have been described are derived from complexity theory, thermodynamics and evolution in biology)

Lets add a new build that can oneshot anyone from spawn, so diversity clearly went up.

Look at the image above. In this system, the number of dots are mapped 1to1 with a color you can pick. You can pretend that the red color is the "one shot anyone from spawn" build that you added to the game. Instead of 5 dots per box at the beginning, there are now 6 per box, and the diversity indeed goes UP when you added the red color at this maximally diverse beginning state because the possibility space has increased.

Now the system is allowed to evolve...Red then begins to take over the system, making it approach the maximal homogenous state, the state in which all players are playing this one shot build, and the diversity will EVENTUALLY collapse to this homogenous state.

The time it takes for this to happen is what is important here, and this is based on the complexity of the system, where computations are occurring (aka players making decisions).

Let's say, players in this systems computation didn't know before time, that in a pool of 216 dots, that one of these colors one shots people from spawn. It would take 216 computation to deduce by the system to determine that this skill is the best skill. the above 216 players is just the total number of dots in the system as a whole...the entire process of things changing from different colors to one single color IS the computation for determining which color is the best color. If you were to add a color which is even stronger then red, and you allow the system to evolve again, the computation occurs again, This time it will take 294 computations...and the system will take even longer then before...

Think about this problem now in a system of a million colors (dots per box) and you as a player in this system is making a decision (a computation) and you wanted to find the one shot build. How long would that take you? You'd have to go through all million colors to find the build...once you find it your happy and smiling...but it just took a long time...as everyone else eventually finds the build they will also be happy and smiling...but you notice as more players are finding this color in the hay stack of colors you observe the diversity and the balance of this game is looking "bad"...and this is where people start to say that "red build should be nerfed!" because the red color is annihilating all the other colors, as people choose it over other colors.

That is the point...is the time it takes to find that one shot build is what the entire framework is about...that it is this very process of finding the optimal strategy which collapses a diverse system toward homogeneity...that process is dependent on the complexity of the system. If you want to learn more, without watching lectures or whatever, you can read this comment and other comments on this thread https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1448804#Comment_1448804

[Sindrener.1592]

Horrible idea ?

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@bluri.2653 said:Horrible idea ?

embrace monke