draxynnic.3719

As an observation:

Historically, water travel wasn't just preferred for crossing seas. River travel was the preferred mode of trade even inland when there was a suitable river to do so up until the invention of railways. As expensive as a boat and crew is, it's still cheaper per ton of cargo than the porters, wagons, and/or pack animals you'd need to transport the same cargo, and often faster and safer (even with the existence of river pirates) as well.

[Here's something I prepared earlier.](http://virtuallyinterrupted.com/build-templates-and-monetisation/ "Here's something I prepared earlier.") I think everything I said there is valid.

One thing I'd particularly bring attention to is that even from a business standpoint, the heavy monetisation of build templates (up to 300 gems for what is essentially a line of code) makes sense only if your strategy is to harpoon whales. At that price, most people are going to copy-paste codes, either from websites or from some form of storage on their own system. You can't avoid that short of removing the ability to share builds through chat codes altogether, so you might as well embrace it and support local storage of build templates just like in _Guild Wars Nightfall_. Equipment templates are justifiable because they do represent a similar amount of additional space on the servers as an equivalent number of inventory slots and that's something that can't really be stored client-side, so that's what you can rest your monetisation on: let people store an unlimited number of builds on their own system, and they'll have more incentive to collect multiple equipment sets, and the equipment templates can then be the most convenient means of storing them if reasonably priced (500 seems a little high to me, but not ridiculously so: 400 is probably reasonable).

For the people like @"AzureNightmare.3914" who like the hotkeys and having the templates stored somewhere other than their own system, the current system for build templates is probably reasonable, but overpriced. Honestly, I couldn't consider a fair price for server-side storage of a build template to be anything higher than a hundred gems _at most._

Keep in mind that, depending on the elasticity of the demand curve, lowering the price can result in higher profit overall, through bringing the ((profit/unit) x quantity) function closer to its maximum.

As an additional comment that goes broadly towards monetisation strategies in general: People are already concerned about what a possible expansionless future might mean for content generation and monetisation of _Guild Wars 2._ Aggressive monetisation of a feature that was free with _Guild Wars Nightfall_ is only going to exacerbate those concerns.

With respect to the Shark's Teeth Archipelago:

I get the impression myself that the bridges there could have been designed to allow ships to pass, and there's a good chance that the metal bridges we see there now were made by the Pact in order to facilitate the southern invasion route, rather than having been there historically. If the worst came to the worst, there might be a portage route across the Squall Cusps or through the Scavenger's Causeway.

Yeah, spirit weapons used to be the Guardian's equivalent to phantasms, minions, and the old scrapper drones. Problem is that they essentially had all the downsides of all three, being temporary and difficult to control.

I could see the "virtues as attunements" thing working - traits related to active use of a virtue could trigger when "choosing" that virtue. So, for instance, Wrath of Justice might trigger on the first hit after "choosing" Justice, while killing an enemy while Justice is on cooldown might refresh Justice, making Justice with Radiance essentially the specialisation's equivalent to Air on a Fresh Air build.

> @"Clownmug.8357" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > In an ideal situation, it generates 50 stacks of bleeding, inflicting the equivalent of 100-200 seconds of bleeding over the course of 11-13 seconds in PvE, and 200-400 seconds of bleeding over the course of 13-17 seconds in competitive. They probably balanced according to the ideal situation without thinking about how often the ideal situation can actually be realistically expected to occur.

>

> I guess Skale Venom and Spider Venom have flown under the radar for years then.

Both of those have actually been the recipients of _buffs_ over the years, if anything.

Honestly, I think the only explanation is that someone overestimated the effect Razorclaw's Rage would have through looking at the theoretical numbers and didn't consider how unreliable getting those numbers was. Or it used have no interval, and they found that was broken when combined with multiple-small-hits attacks and put in the interval to fix it, and didn't realise they'd nerfed it into uselessness.

I'm absolutely not defending it. My first sentence in this thread was, after all, "Yeah, Razorclaw's Rage really needs a buff." Merely speculating about _how_ a skill that is so bad it pretty much might as well not exist except as a trap for the uninitiated might have come to be.

In an ideal situation, it generates 50 stacks of bleeding, inflicting the equivalent of 100-200 seconds of bleeding over the course of 11-13 seconds in PvE, and 200-400 seconds of bleeding over the course of 13-17 seconds in competitive. They probably balanced according to the ideal situation without thinking about how often the ideal situation can actually be realistically expected to occur.

I'm inclined to disagree with removing the casting time. It's SUPPOSED to be a high-tell, high-impact skill, akin to Jade Winds and Chaotic Release. Problem is that combining that with being a stunbreak that doesn't protect against follow-up stuns means that it's easy to hit it with a follow-up stun, draining energy for little benefit.

It's that protection from re-stunning that make the other stunbreaks so much better. Riposting Shadows is the best revenant stunbreak because it follows up with an evade frame and gets you out of there, making an immediate re-stun unlikely. Gaze of Darkness is an area blind, possibly causing re-stun attempts to miss. Pain Absorption's Resistance protects against taunt and fear, and also protects against soft CC that immobilise, cripple, and chill that might otherwise hinder you from getting out of the follow-up attack. Even Darkrazor, awkward as it can be using him as a stunbreak, covers his own casting with Stability and then applies heavy counter-CC.

RotGD... does none of that. The 50% damage reduction helps survive whatever spike the attacker planned to follow up with, _if you get it off,_ but that 1.25s cast time is completely unprotected, and none of the stability access that Jalis has access to can be called in to protect the completion of a skill which is used as a stunbreak (since True Nature has a cast time, albeit a short one).

_Shortening_ the cast time I could get behind, but I don't think it should go below the 0.75s of Chaotic Release. It is, after all, supposed to be an echo of a ritual that took _several minutes_ to perform, not something you just turn on with a thought. However, that cast time needs to be covered by something so that pinning down a Jalis revenant isn't simply a matter of chaining two stuns in quick succession while they don't have Stability. Maybe it could cover itself with a stack of Stability, maybe a block, maybe invulnerability (although I'd hesitate to make it something so strong that it would likely prevent capture point contribution), but I think it does need to have _something._ And unlike making it an instant cast, I think it _is_ fitting for it to provide some strong protection to the user while it's being invoked before dispersing that protection to the user's allies.

> @"Kravey.4563" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > Yeah, Razorclaw's Rage really needs a buff.

> >

> > > @"Jthug.9506" said:

> > > and why doesn't Icerazor apply chill?

> >

> > I suspect it's because ArenaNet decided that combining it with Abyssal Chill to stack Torment was just too much.

>

> Then why they called it ICErazor ??? :open_mouth:

Because they'd already named it _before_ they introduced Abyssal Chill and realised the synergy it created, and didn't think to rename it.

Mind you, it's possible that they could get away with turning it (back?) into Chill now, and one thing they could possibly do is make it so that not every bolt that Icerazor throws inflicts Chill.

Honestly, I'm already in the habit of activating Vengeful Hammers in lieu of a stunbreak, since it both allows you to keep some pressure up _and_ provides some protection against CC. It's not the revenant being hit in the head by the hammers, after all, and it fits the "vengeful" aspect of the skill: try and pull a hard-CC-and-spike on me, and I'll smack you and your friends in the heads with hammers.

Personally, though, I think that giving RotGD some protection against being interrupted would probably do the job, whether it's stability, a block during the cast time a la Shelter, or some other effect that makes it harder to interrupt.

Another possibility could be to make it use less energy _when used as a stunbreak._ Which would fit the general "if you hit me it'll only make me stronger" theme: hitting a Jalis rev with a hard CC gives them the opportunity to use a stronger RotGD.

I think a large part of the reason why the effects of the virtues are, to some degree, "fixed" is because so many of the core traits assume that guardians will **always** have reliable access to burning and aegis regardless of the build. How much they rely on these depends on the build, but short of a complete rework of the core traits (and I'd rather they didn't, since core guardian traits work fairly well on the whole at the moment - not saying they're perfect, but a long way from needing to be torn up at the roots and rebuilt anew) burning is always going to be the primary damaging condition of a guardian, and aegis is always going to be present to some degree.

I'd also disagree with the primary assumption of the OP. Firebrand is designed to **both** provide condition options and support options. Whether Firebrand is oriented towards condition damage, granting quickness, healing, granting protective boons, or even doing power damage depends on the traits, utilities, and gear being used, and the playstyle will shift accordingly. Yes, a DPS-oriented Firebrand will still have _access_ to the support tomes, and a heal/prot Firebrand will still have _access_ to Tome of Justice, but they'll use them differently: the former will regard the support tomes as something to pull out in an emergency, while the latter might try to spend as much time as possible in support tomes and only pull out the ToJ as a stopgap when the other two are on cooldown.

If anything, in fact, I'd say that Firebrand was primarily intended to beef up the **supportive** aspects of the guardian up to the level set by druids, chronomancers, and tempests in HoT - guardian was billed as being amng the most supportive professions in core, but the "no dedicated healers" philosophy of core combined with the fairly selfish focus of dragonhunter meant that this aspect was pretty much lost in HoT. Firebrand addresses it, and ArenaNet saw an opportunity to expand the guardian's condition options in the process.

This does open up the possibility for a dedicated condition-oriented elite specialisation in the future, but even then I don't think it would replace the core concepts of the virtues entirely. Justice, for instance, might become an energy bolt that inflicts additional damaging conditions such as Torment and Confusion on top of Burning (and anything else that might come from existing traits), Resolve might consume or transfer conditions instead of being a simple heal and cleanse, and there might be a trait similar to Shattered Aegis that inflicts conditions when an Aegis is expended so that whatever Courage does also plays into being a condition spec.

Within the core themes of "burning, healing, aegis", I think ArenaNet has actually done a pretty good job at providing three very different sets of virtues. Which is a _good_ thing, since it means there's probably less of an urge on ArenaNet's part to start piling on punitive "tradeoffs" like they did to chronomancer and scrapper.

Yeah, Razorclaw's Rage really needs a buff.

> @"Jthug.9506" said:

> and why doesn't Icerazor apply chill?

I suspect it's because ArenaNet decided that combining it with Abyssal Chill to stack Torment was just too much.

> @"Scoobaniec.9561" said:

> > @"narcx.3570" said:

> > I hope if they do give rev's greatsword, they make it a straight ventari healing weapon, with flowery, butterfly-spewing, rainbow-exploding animations just to spite all the little Twilight edge lords who think rev=deathknight.

>

> But rev was described as the darker class so whats ur problem here?

> We literally have a "non magical" warrior, a "paladin" guardian.. so what do you think rev is if its not dark themed class on par with thief, necro?

>

> "This ties in to bring Rytlock back as the first revenant," Peters says. "He has a very ‘whatever it takes' attitude. If he can get powers from Mallyx, he will use them. He'll do whatever he needs to in order to be more powerful. Revenants are a little bit darker in that way."

>

> Peters stops short of calling revenants actually evil — "we don't do that for player professions" — but compares them to playing as a necromancer. He says revenants will be more of an anti-hero profession."

>

> https://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/18/8061219/guild-wars-2-profession-reveal-revenant-pc-mmo-arenanet

>

> Sounds like death knight type to me. I want swing that twilight already

I think it depends very much on the legends being channeled. I do note, for instance, that the section you're quoting is in the context of talking about Mallyx, who is the most clearly villainous of the legends.

However, thus far, we've had more heroic legends than villainous. Jalis, Ventari, Glint, and Kalla are all portrayed as being on the side of good. Shiro seems to be a little... conflicted, as his legend seems to encompass his heroic (or at least not actively villainous) past life as well as the events that made him a villain. There's also nothing inherently "dark" around Shiro's powers apart from lifesteal.

The comparison to a necromancer may well be simply having a broad common theme about death than evil - in Guild Wars, necromancy is only connected to evil in that some entities have used it for evil. Necromancy is the magic of death, revenants draw power from the dead (or an entity presumed to be dead, in the case of Jalis). However, the only legends that can really be said to fit a "dark knight" theme are Mallyx and Shiro, and maybe Kalla if you just look at what the skills do and ignore her background. I think it's pretty safe to say that revenants aren't dark knights if they're running a Jalis/Glint tank build or a Ventari/Kalla support build.

Whether a hypothetical elite specialisation coming with a greatsword classifies will depend entirely on which legend it's based on. I suspect, though, that ArenaNet's intent was for the Reaper to fill that "death knight" theme - which, conveniently, comes with a greatsword so you can swing Twilight on that.

Now you're just taking your own mickey, aren't you?

> @"HyperLooser.2698" said:

> If channels Balthazar then obviously burn hybrid, if some Jora or such norn legends, then power and possibly some support.

>

> So it all boils down which legend it will be tied to, ofc anet can just pull some completely new legendary being out of nowhere and do whatever they want and they pretty much will ruin it completely by trying to do something different than normally games do with greatswords/hammers.

Bingo. Decide on the legend, then give skills as appropriate to the legend. There's no guarantee that greatsword is going to be superior to anything else except subjective aesthetics, and _maybe_ the skills working together better than a MH/OH combo.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

>

> **6) Ranked is Fundamentally Broken**

> ---------------------------------------------------

> The way ranked operates is pretty dated and some things need updating such as:

>

> •The way rating is awarded/taken away is total RNG when it should be skill based, represented by your contributions in a match. A player sitting in spawn having a tantrum shouldn't lose the same or even less than the 4 teammates left to 4v5.

> •Win and loss streaks should be accounted for when rating is being added/taken away with winstreaks awarding more and loss streaks taking away more.

> •The scoreboard should better reflect what actually goes on in a conquest game.

> •There should be a limit on far apart two ratings can queue together. Right now the lowest rated player in the game could queue with the highest, and I shouldn't have to explain how that's broken. Contrary to popular belief, the game does NOT use the rating of the highest rated player in a Duo, but an average of the two ratings.

> •The decay rate is pretty harsh. A week would be better than starting after 72 hours.

>

I think one of the other problems is how points gain/loss is decided after a match.

My understanding of the system is that it compares the player's individual MMR against the average MMR of the enemy team to decide point loss/gain.

This means that you can have some games that are actually quite hard to win, which have a bad potential gain/loss ratio. If your team's average MMR is lower than the enemy team, but your MMR is higher, this generally means you've got a hard game on your hands: the expectation is that the enemy team is stronger than yours, and as one of the better players on your team (possibly the best) you probably need to be at your best to carry your team. However, if you succeed, you get a fairly mediocre gain, and if you fail, you can lose a lot. Conversely, in the reverse situation, you probably don't really need to play at your best to be carried to a win by your teammates, but you'll get a lot in the likely case that you'll win.

For those who _aren't_ playing the metagame, I think this is responsible for a lot of variation in skill levels within a tier. A string of games where you're expected to carry an uncarryable team can send someone into a lower division than they really should be (usually resulting in a relatively swift climb back up, but in the meantime, the players of that division who face them are going to have a bad time), while a string of games where someone is the weakest player in a team that carries them could pull them higher than they belong, becoming a burden on their teams.

As long as the other problems aren't dealt with, this does have the advantage of meaning that top players who play the "duoqueue with a friend's smurf account" game and do manage to lose get punished, but if that sort of manipulation could be stopped, I'd like to see gain/loss based on the comparison between team averages, not on the comparison of the player's rating with the other team's average.

(Incidentally, regarding your first point: Ideally, it should work that way, but the problem is finding a means of judging contribution that avoids people playing the algorithm without playing the game. Sure, staying in spawn is generally not contributing, but consider, for instance, sitting on a point your team owns when you're not currently under attack. I've seen games where that behaviour has won the game, and I've seen games where it's lost the game.)

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> Daredevil

> - Is actually not too bad but only from a power stand point once you throw condition into the mix that not at all skillful play. Being able to apply your main damagaing condition while playing so safely is beyond frustrating to most players and why the build is hated to such an extreme. Im not sure how anet could really handle this though i think right now about the only real counter to any dodge melee spamming class is tempest which has alot of access to condi clear and auras such as shocking aura which would counter an evasive play style like condi thief/ daredevil. However tempest as you noted is not really around its a rare find these days.

I've been seeing tempests around quite a bit more since the scourge nerfs. It was the scourge that essentially pushed the auramancer tempest out of the meta in the first place - with less boonhate flying around, the auramancer tempest might see a renaissance.

YMMV whether that's a good thing, whether it's pushing the game more towards defensive boons, or whether scourge should get a nerf or two reverted* while tempest gets some buffs so it can survive alongside scourges.

*Scourge's big problem is that it had a sequence of smaller nerfs before the big whammy last balance patch. It probably would be fair, now that the scourge can't use shroud skills around both themselves and their shades, to at least reduce the cooldowns on shade placement again so the scourge has an easier time making sure that there's a shade in a useful spot.

You're positioning yourself as arguing against me when you're essentially saying the same things with different words.

Namely:

1) The link between magic and human theology makes magic more popular and available among humans than it might be otherwise.

2) However, this applies equally to elementalists, necromancers, mesmers, and guardians. Additional factors are necessary to explain differences in popularity among this group.

Point 1 was made a long time ago, but when talking about the mesmer _specifically,_ rather than magic users _in general,_ we need to recognise point 2. The theological connection alone cannot explain why mesmers might be preferred over, say elementalists. (Noting that it's hard to say with any certainty that they _are,_ but we do seem to see more prominent signs of mesmer magic being used in Kryta while among asura there are more signs of elemental magic being used.)

And if we go back to the very start of the thread... the largest proportion of pretty much _every_ human military force are warriors, it's just a question of just how high that ratio is. So warriors seem to be the profession most expected to be in combat.

(Incidentally, on rangers: norn and sylvari _definitely_ seem to be more focused on rangers. Charr I'm not sure about - none of the legions specialise in rangers, but we do see more use of war beasts among the legions than in Ebonhawke or Kryta, which by extension might translate into more rangers to handle them.)

That's kinda my point. Surgery was associated with barbers once because barbers were, essentially, the least bad people to do the job, being equipped with sharp blades and having experience with using them in a carefully controlled manner. As surgical techniques became more advanced, though, surgery became more and more complex such that that became the primary role... and, conversely, barbers became _less_ professional as shaving technology improved. A modern barber does not generally need the fine blade control that a barber a few centuries ago did.

However, when you have a spellcasting profession: a magic-user is already an expert. A mirage or chronomancer versus a mesmer is like the distinction between a someone working on quantum teleportation or dark matter theory versus a physicist.

The situation you describe could happen, but that's something I'd already stated:

> @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> What's more likely to erode the distinctions is that the Bloodstones are no longer forcing distinct splits between the schools, allowing the lines between them to fade and blur. Thus far, the professions have survived as distinct entities due to a mix of tradition and a certain element of danger in experimentation, but sooner or later people are going to start finding their own combinations. What's likely to kill, say, mesmer is a profession isn't going to be subdivision into specialisations, but somebody coming up with a hybrid of mesmer and some other profession(s) that leads people to start going "Do we call this thing a mesmer? Or the other profession name? _Kitten_ it we'll just give it a new name". Especially if this new hybrid profession proves to be more popular than traditional mesmerism.

Elite specialisations as currently presented, however, are subdivisions rather than anything like this. A mirage, for instance, is at most the equivalent of a Me/A from GW1 - not enough of a shift to represent a move into another discipline.

If you're looking at instanced PvE, then renegade is probably the more versatile. Herald tends to get pinholed into power DPS, while renegade works as condi DPS, support, and power DPS. While renegade is typically regarded as a condi spec, I think this is mostly in comparison to herald, which is mostly power-focused, but renegade still has plenty of power tools: shortbow has decent power coefficients on most skills and is really more hybrid than condi, Kalla's Fervor grants Ferocity, and the offensive warband members worth summoning are all power-based (sorry, Razorclaw, but even in ideal conditions you don't generate enough bleeds to be worth the energy).

I don't think the examples you cite are really comparable. Those splits happened because a substantive split occurred in methodology between psychology (mostly based on studying people and their behaviours) and neuroscience (directly studying the brain structure using advanced technology), let along between cutting hair and increasingly advanced modern medicine.

Elite specialisations are something that I'd consider to be more aligned with considering things like quantum mechanics, relativity, and fluid dynamics, which are all branches of physics. They're _different,_ but they still all fall under the same general umbrella.

What's more likely to erode the distinctions is that the Bloodstones are no longer forcing distinct splits between the schools, allowing the lines between them to fade and blur. Thus far, the professions have survived as distinct entities due to a mix of tradition and a certain element of danger in experimentation, but sooner or later people are going to start finding their own combinations. What's likely to kill, say, mesmer is a profession isn't going to be subdivision into specialisations, but somebody coming up with a hybrid of mesmer and some other profession(s) that leads people to start going "Do we call this thing a mesmer? Or the other profession name? _Kitten_ it we'll just give it a new name". Especially if this new hybrid profession proves to be more popular than traditional mesmerism.

Which is, essentially, what happened to guardians. Guardians mostly came from monks, but have so much stuff from other professions mixed in that they just aren't recognisable as monks any more. They're not a specialisation of monks, they're doing something substantially different from traditional monks, albeit using a similar power source.

> @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > Again, it applying to magic schools applies to _all_ magic schools. The argument holds just as well if you were talking about elementalists or necromancers. The religion/philosophy argument does not say anything about preferencing one school over another. There _does_ seem to be a bias among modern Krytans and historical Orrians towards mesmer magic, but I don't think religion is the reason for it. (It might be in Orr, since there are indications that Lyssa might have been one of the most worshipped gods there, but in both Kryta and Ascalon I'm pretty sure the top three were Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru; the only other place where I can think of where Lyssa was one of the major gods was Vabbi before Joko's second takeover.)

> >

> > Regarding holomancy and gate tech: Who _made_ those? Sure, we've seen that a straight Engineer can produce such technology, but having someone with the knowledge of how the magic works probably helps.

> >

> > You are somewhat touching on an element of asura usage of magic that I was considering touching on earlier in the thread: while asura are often regarded as the most magic-focused race, it's more accurate to say that they're the most magi_tech_ focused race. The magitech is impressive, to be sure, but without their tech, asura magic-users tend to be nothing special compared to what some human or even sylvari spellcasters have been capable of. It's a distinction that's been references by the devs in the past: asura take a scientific approach to magic, while humans have a more intuitive approach, which likely means that the best human spellcasters are likely better attuned to magic than the best asura. (There's an indication of this in Sea of Sorrows, where there's a scene where a human spellcaster is trying to explain something to an asura spellcaster, and the asura's response can be summarised as "I'm confused, how did you get from A to H?")

> >

> > Despite this, though, there is an irony in that I'm pretty sure that most of the generic Pact soldiers remember seeing using mesmer magic were asura. Mesmerism may not be as popular among the asura as elementalism or engineering, but it doesn't seem to be highly unpopular either, probably in part because it likely _is_ worthwhile to have someone with that training when building devices that operate within that field. If anything, asura probably even have _more_ mesmers per capita than humans due to their more egalitarian education system and cultural focus on magic as a science.

> >

> > As for why charr might prefer direct magic over magitech: if you're Ash Legion on an operation, it's probably more convenient to have someone who can just cast the spells rather than lugging around equipment to do it. It's probably why Ash seems to be the most magic-heavy legion outside Flame. Given the norn lifestyle, they might well have a similar attitude - mind you, norn scholar professions tend to be uncommon outside of shamans, and even shamans aren't necessarily spellcasters. Conversely, though, you don't see many norn lugging around asura magitech either.

>

> I think you are using magic schools in a different context. I am specifically referring to Denial/Aggression/Aggression/Destruction, which are now abstract concepts that might not even exist in the future, and Mesmer as a specific profession with its own identity. One that has persisted from Orrian times, is thematically tied to Lyssa by humans, and is a major part of politics and the arts in their society. The mind domain, spellbreakers, Revenants, alchemists, golemancy, holomancy, etc can contain/borrow from/resemble mesmerism but they are not Mesmers, nor do they refer to themselves as such.

>

> The Mind/Dream and Raven may push people to explore Mesmerism because it relies on one's own intellect and magical abilities. I do not see Charr or Asura doing this in a proportion close to humans. Conversely I don't see humans moving towards asura magitech. The Orrians were accomplished artificers and the White Mantle Portal device shows the race is fully capable on its own

>

> Edit White Mantle Portal devices were probably made by mesmers. Gate technology was probably made by dynamic scientists.

> And for all we know the two developed independently.

Yeah, and that's my point. Human religion/philosophy emphasises those magic schools. But it doesn't give any reason for them to play favourites _within_ those magic schools. Human religion and philosophy gives them no reason to favour mesmers over elementalists, necromancers, or guardians. It's _well acknowledged_ that the patronage of the gods gave humans an advantage when it comes to magic, but when it comes to the takeup of one such profession over another, you need to look beyond that, since _all_ of the (playable) magical professions apart from revenants were connected to the pantheon.

Taking a step back, in fact: warriors, rangers, and all of the scholar professions are explicitly linked to the pantheon, while guardians and thieves could probably be assumed to have inherited the same patrons as their monk/paragon and assassin predecessors. The only professions that don't have divine patronage that we know of (although I have theories as to which gods _would_ be associated with them) are engineer and revenant.

Revenants are still new and rare enough that _nobody_ has a lot of them. However, if we were to base human preferences on religion, you'd expect the linked professions to be more popular than engineers. In practice, however, no aversion to engineers is present: in fact, with the exception of the various undead (which are relics of a time before engineers as we know them now _existed_) engineers seem to be more common than rangers among human forces. With ranger being the preferred profession of Melandru, one of the more important gods to Krytans and Ascalonians at least in GW1's time, by your argument one would expect rangers to be clearly preferred over engineers, but they're _not._

You could say that it gives them a bias for those established schools over something weird that the asura came up with, but we're not comparing mesmers agaisnt golemancers and such, but against elementalists, necromancers, and guardians (and guardians also seem to be comparatively common among humans, although it does seem to be an uncommon profession generally).

I think there _is_ a bias that's developed towards mesmers among modern Tyrian humans... but I don't think this bias can be explained by theology, or at least not completely. Theology doesn't stop necromancers from being disliked, and it doesn't seem to have stopped rangers from falling out of favour either (they're not disliked per se, we just don't see many of them). There needs to be deeper explanations: it's always been noted that humans get wigged out by necromancers, and the apparent drop in the popularity of ranger as a profession could be explained by increased urbanisation of Tyrian humans in GW2 compared to GW1. Conversely, there are probably cultural factors for mesmer being a popular profession among humans - especially, it seems, among upper-class humans.

We might well be able to point to the Mesmer Collective for that. We don't know much about it, but it does show signs of being primarily a human organisation (possibly even being effectively controlled by the Shining Blade).

Meanwhile, other races certainly seem to have mesmers. There are a couple of events and hearts in Ascalon involving Ash Legion mesmers. I've seen generic asura using mesmer magic (although they do seem to prefer elementalism, especially the Inquest), I'm pretty sure there are generic mesmers among the Nightmare Court, and mesmers seem to be about as common as any other spellcasting profession among the norn.

> @"derd.6413" said:

> > @"Kulvar.1239" said:

> > > @"derd.6413" said:

> > > > @"Kulvar.1239" said:

> > > > > @"derd.6413" said:

> > > > > > @"Kulvar.1239" said:

> > > > > > > @"derd.6413" said:

> > > > > > > > @"wisprr.4612" said:

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > **@derd:** I don't see why that would be needed for something like this, and apparently neither does Kulvar. Could you please go into much more detail why you feel that way, and possible solutions?

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > have you lot ever played against a stealth class? in any game? it's horrible

> > > > > > > extremely unfun to play against since there's no way to counter a stealth initiative. most games have systems in place to add some counter play to such things but gw2 doesn't

> > > > > >

> > > > > > GW2 do have something to counter that.

> > > > > > Thief is limited by initiative when other classes have cooldowns. This make thief bursty, but then he's starved. So it's a matter of surviving the initial burst.

> > > > > > By having defensive cooldowns and stunbreak/stability, you can handle the initial burst.

> > > > >

> > > > > i love how your answer didn't even mention stealth like "yeah stealth has no counter play but you can survive burst damage."

> > > >

> > > > The counter to stealth is seeing the thief approaching by not showing your back and waiting.

> > >

> > > how would i see the thief coming when he's perma-stealthed.

> > >

> > > >I have been dreaming since forever that Thief would just have something as simple as an elite skill that you push once, it stealths you, you stay stealthed until you enter combat, and then it drops.

> >

> > As said, by having him in detection range

>

> i'm not talking about your post, i'm talking about OPs

Well, the OP is talking about looking for ways to implement it, and one step to doing so is finding some way of making it _fair._

Permanent stealth while out of combat, using the existing stealth mechanics, _would_ be unfair. However, if there was something similar to what happens in some personal story instances involving stealth, where entities have a "zone of awareness" within which they'll see you regardless, that probably would serve to remove 90% of the problems while offering some counterplay. "Skips" in PvE would still require dodging zones of awareness, and in sPvP and WvW, you could actually reasonably hunt someone down rather than having to rely on flailing randomly and hoping for a lucky hit or long-recharge reveal utilities.

I would be inclined to think that every hostile entity should have a detection zone, rather than just some, and there might be some zones where you just _can't_ use this sort of stealth (inside towers and forts in WvW, near capture points and other significant locations in sPvP), but it's probably not something to be discarded out of hand.

If implemented as a signet, it could also be made so that if activated, it gives an extended period of regular stealth (allowing for more opportunity to set up a stealth attack than the current 3s duration often does) to give it a combat functionality - keeping in mind that if this was to be implemented, it would probably be as part of a new elite specialisation and not something that can be combined with malice-fueled Deadeye stealth attacks. Something like a 60s recharge for active usage might be suitable.

> @"SeikeNz.3526" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"SeikeNz.3526" said:

> > > agree with almost everything but:

> > >

> > > **Herald = A "No longer OP but it's still a solid player. It can struggle vs. condi heavy comps."**

> > >

> > > what this prove, this is about builds that some players use because a herald can have perma resistance up and have total immunity to condi dmg

> > >

> > Trevor is probably talking about the main builds used, not everything that could possibly be built using a particular profession and elite specialisation. Most sPvP players assume Shiro/Glint when they see Herald, and weakness versus condi-heavy comps is a feature of that build.

> >

> > Going Mallyx/Glint removes that weakness, as well as the weakness that Shiro/Glint has that all of its heals require remaining in a dangerous position to get full effect. Conversely, Mallyx/Glint compared to Shiro/Glint sacrifices mobility, spike potential, and a stunbreak that actually provides some protection against the follow-up stun (the best stunbreaks are those that are followed up by by granting Stability or some sort of you-can't-hit-me effect like an evade or block to protect against follow-up stuns: Pain Absorption will protect against fear and taunt, but not other hard CC).

> >

> > I'd be curious to see where Mallyx/Glint and Jalis/Glint fit in the order, but if someone says "herald" without specifying outside of a WvW context, it's usually safe to assume they mean Shiro/Glint.

>

> and that's what make a class balanced, you are not supposed to have everything like some classes, you must choose and the classes with everything should be nerfed

That depends. "Jack of all trades, master of none" is reasonable and, I think, to a degree _necessary_, particularly when soloqueueing. Issues arise when you have one build which can do everything AND can beat the specialists at their own game. Particularly when you get professions which have both high spike potential _and_ the ability to outsustain most professions even if the spike fluffs.

Again, it applying to magic schools applies to _all_ magic schools. The argument holds just as well if you were talking about elementalists or necromancers. The religion/philosophy argument does not say anything about preferencing one school over another. There _does_ seem to be a bias among modern Krytans and historical Orrians towards mesmer magic, but I don't think religion is the reason for it. (It might be in Orr, since there are indications that Lyssa might have been one of the most worshipped gods there, but in both Kryta and Ascalon I'm pretty sure the top three were Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru; the only other place where I can think of where Lyssa was one of the major gods was Vabbi before Joko's second takeover.)

Regarding holomancy and gate tech: Who _made_ those? Sure, we've seen that a straight Engineer can produce such technology, but having someone with the knowledge of how the magic works probably helps.

You are somewhat touching on an element of asura usage of magic that I was considering touching on earlier in the thread: while asura are often regarded as the most magic-focused race, it's more accurate to say that they're the most magi_tech_ focused race. The magitech is impressive, to be sure, but without their tech, asura magic-users tend to be nothing special compared to what some human or even sylvari spellcasters have been capable of. It's a distinction that's been references by the devs in the past: asura take a scientific approach to magic, while humans have a more intuitive approach, which likely means that the best human spellcasters are likely better attuned to magic than the best asura. (There's an indication of this in Sea of Sorrows, where there's a scene where a human spellcaster is trying to explain something to an asura spellcaster, and the asura's response can be summarised as "I'm confused, how did you get from A to H?")

Despite this, though, there is an irony in that I'm pretty sure that most of the generic Pact soldiers remember seeing using mesmer magic were asura. Mesmerism may not be as popular among the asura as elementalism or engineering, but it doesn't seem to be highly unpopular either, probably in part because it likely _is_ worthwhile to have someone with that training when building devices that operate within that field. If anything, asura probably even have _more_ mesmers per capita than humans due to their more egalitarian education system and cultural focus on magic as a science.

As for why charr might prefer direct magic over magitech: if you're Ash Legion on an operation, it's probably more convenient to have someone who can just cast the spells rather than lugging around equipment to do it. It's probably why Ash seems to be the most magic-heavy legion outside Flame. Given the norn lifestyle, they might well have a similar attitude - mind you, norn scholar professions tend to be uncommon outside of shamans, and even shamans aren't necessarily spellcasters. Conversely, though, you don't see many norn lugging around asura magitech either.

> @"Gryphon.2875" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > While it could be said that these are linked to the Crystal Desert rather than to Aurene and her forebears specifically, the Crystal Desert itself seems to have gained the "Crystal" part from past actions by Aurene's forebears, making that an indirect link.

>

> I believe the Crystal Desert got its name as a result of the war of the Five against Abbadon. He also had used crystals at times, such as the magic embued into the Searing Cauldrons given to the Titans to give to the Charr.

>

>

The war against Abaddon changed it from being the Crystal Sea to the Crystal Desert, but the "Crystal" part always referenced that when you looked closely, each grain of sand was actually a tiny crystal - something that was as true when it was seafloor as when it became desert. It's also heavily implied that what would become the Crystal Desert was Kralkatorrik's main area of operation in a previous Dragonrise (Glint harvested his blood from the area to make the original Dragonblood Spear), so it seems likely that the cause is that Kralkatorrik crystallised the region some time in the past, and then something broke that crystal down into sand.

In short, the War of the Gods made it a desert, but the implication from what we know is that Kralkatorrik gave it the "crystal" part of the name.

Similarly, the Searing Cauldrons were powered by drawing from the sleeping Kralkatorrik. It isn't specified by name, but it is specified that while the Titans taught the Flame Legion how to make them, the power was drawn from an ancient, quiescent being that slumbered within charr territory. It just so happens that Kralkatorrik was an ancient being associated with crystals who was sleeping within charr territory at the time when the Flame Legion made the Searing Cauldrons.