What is the difference between GW1 and GW2 classes?

[perilisk.1874]

Another thing about GW1 is that it had a lot more detail in its counterplay. That is, there were skills designed to counter, specifically, spells, attacks, signets, shouts, stances, and so on. That's partly because there were more skills across fewer categories. They also all shared one of two energy mechanics, which also helped. There isn't nearly as much rock-paper-scissors type stuff going on in GW2. There's basically just DPS, boons, and CC, and simple counters to each (heal/cleanse/defense, strip/corrupt, stab, respectively).

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Lance Von Alden.8415" said:

> As far as you guys are talking, I find GW1 kinda boring with what you said. I am a guy that likes to live in the thrill and react to the different stuff happening instead of preparing a lot before a battle. Yes, there are some strategic stuff that you need and can be fun but I leave that for Turn-based Strategy Games, hehe.

 

It sounds boring on paper.... most RPGs come off that way because of what they are. But you can also say the same thing about RTS games, despite those being extremely proactive and maintaining a strong pace.

 

What GW1 did was take a then typical RPG game format, and made 2 significant changes...... you were limited to 8 Skills at any given time (and had to return to town to change them), and players could Dual class with almost zero overhead. This limitation count, combined with this untethering of class restrictions, created an environment of unparalleled buildcraft. The likes of which have yet to be replicated in any other game with that much success.

 

Skills were rarely powerful in the own right, and designing a build that spammed skills were a fraction in effectiveness to builds which could combine 3 skills into a coherent combo. A typical build would use 4 or 5 slots for attack skills, 2 for contingency support or buffs, and most people would use slot 8 for a Resurrection skill. This was common, because if a player died, they had to wait for the team to wipe (which let them resurrect at shrine checkpoint with an HP penalty) or be resurrected by a player with that skill loaded.

 

Individual skills were often built on the idea of "conditionals", ie "If this = then that". For instance Bed of Coals creates a field around the caster that does minor damage, but if enemies are knocked down within it, they are inflicted with Burning. Aftershock is a skill that deals damage to nearby enemies, and deals bonus damage to foes knocked down when hit. Dragon Stomp is a skill that deals damage and knocks down foes in an area. So you get one player to aggro or lure a group of mobs close together, then cast Bed of Coals as a setup, Dragonstomp to knock them down, followed up by Aftershock for big damage. The whole combo does 430 damage, 75% of which is front loaded damage; or 2/3rds of most level 20 (max level) targets with a 3-skill combo. For comparison, typical attack skills run between 20-35 damage. Many skills don't even do damage directly, instead setting up debilitating effects to make a target more vulnerable to follow up attacks.

 

Two of my all time Favorite combos from GW1 is Splinter Barrage and the Flame Defender Paragon.

 

Splinter Barrage is a combination of 2 skills. The Ritualist's Splinter weapon spell enchants a weapon, so the next X number of strikes deal damage "around" the struck target, but not the target itself. This skill is an indirect damage dealing effect, designed to allow the caster to deal damage through the attacks of other players. Barrage is the Ranger's land mark Bow skill, which fires arrows directly at (up to) 5 targets in the proximity of the main targeted enemy. When combined, each Barrage will cause each target to be struck multiple times.... once on the main attack, and one additional hit PER enemy via Splinter Weapon. The damage scaling literally multiples by the number of enemies, which only one combo in GW2 (Guard's Permeating Wrath paired with a Multi-hit Cleave attack) can readily replicate.

 

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Splinter_Weapon

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Barrage

 

 

Flame Defender Paragon is a build concept for Paragon/Elementalist dual class. Paragon's Class ability allows them to generate energy for every ally affected by one of their shout type skills. Using Adrenaline based shout skills, they can rapidly generate energy to feed expensive skills. The core of build is Searing Flames, "Go for the Eyes", Enduring Harmony, Blazing Finale, Aggressive Refrain, and "They're on Fire".

 

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Searing_Flames

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Go_for_the_eyes

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enduring_Harmony

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blazing_Finale

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aggressive_Refrain

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/They%27re_on_fire

 

Searing Flames applies burning to enemies in an area around the target, or does additional damage if they're already on fire. While expensive on energy, the cool down is short and can be applied repeatedly to keep targets burning. Blazing Finale aids this further by casting it on the tank and other melee builds. Aggressive Refrain, while also expensive on energy, self-renews when a shout ends. This skill is used to increase attack speed to generate Adrenaline faster to keep applying "Go for the Eyes". "Go for the Eyes" is cheap adrenaline based shout used to generate energy for other skills. This perpetuating loop is established for the purpose of generating the energy needed to repeatedly cast Enduring Harmony, Searing Flames and "They're on Fire!", which grants damage reduction from burning enemies. When the loop is running, Allies take around 30% less damage, and enemies are almost constantly burning (which is a degen that sustains 14 dmg per second).

 

One their own, each skill is difficult to use or has fairly weak impact. But by combining the effects and behaviors of multiple skills into a chain/rotation, this build is capable of casting an extremely expensive skill every few seconds. And as a side effect of this, inflict substantial amounts of damage while also maintaining damage reduction across the whole team.

 

For all its done, GW2 only captures a fraction of the depth and creative flexibility that GW1 brought to the Market. The Buildcraft in GW1 is so expansive, the game itself is a constant experiment to find skill synergies and attribute thresholds, and tailoring them to do greater damage, or directly counter certain bosses or builds. Another good example of this creative discovery process is a build I figured out to kill The Great Destroyer (final boss of Eye of the North) using its own attack.

 

The combination was Broad Head Arrow (Ranger) and Pain Inverter (Asuran Rep). The boss has a skill https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enraged_Blast, which exists to punish players for trying to interrupt its skills (thus making it difficult to suppress). The Skill does a large AOE knock down and 115 damage. What Broad head Arrow does is Daze a the target (if timed right), which in GW1 was a setup to make a target easy to interrupt with basic attacks. What Pain Inverter did was completely reverse the damage back to the Destroyer everytime it tried to use Enraged Blast. Players would still get knocked down, but took no damage. Since Pain Inverter deals damage based on the number of things the Enemy tries to hit, a full party of 8 reflects back 8 hits back when Enraged Blast is used, dealing 640 damage each time (Its HP pool is 2700) . And because of how Daze works, you can do this multiple times over by just using basic attacks while the control effect and Pain Inverter are active at the same time. With minions present, the number of hits increase per Enraged Blast. I showed this to a PUG group I hooked up with to test it out, and we completed the fight in under 2 minutes while barely taking any damage from the boss itself.

 

Then you have things like the Infamous Touch Rangers; a Ranger/Necro that had 75% block rate and used "Expertise" to make the powerful necro touch skills extremely cheap to use. Theres also the Bunny Thumper..... bane of all that is PvP; a Ranger Warrior wielding a Hammer which Knocks down a Foe, and sets them up for a series of attacks which have secondary effects involving knocked down foes.... one of which dazes the target, another to deep wound, and third to recoup energy. As unbalanced as these are, they also spawned several builds made to explicitly counter them in PvP.

 

 

See, its not just planning...... the game revolves heavily around "Forethought". The more you understand your enemy or the levels you travel in, the better you can adapt your builds to deal with them. GW2 tends only spark build changes during balance patches or updates...... with GW1, it wasn't unusual to tweak or load a different build every time you stopped in town, before moving on to the next zone. You could build entire team comps around chaining skills between players, just as much as you'd create builds to fit a role and/or counter play to specific challenge in the next zone you were going to. This limit to only being able to change builds at towns also meant remote locations (more then 2 zones from the closest town or outpost) were major endurance challenges...... because you'd not only need your build to tackle your end target, but also be capable enough to survive everything on the way there. And with a limit of 8 skills, theres only so many things you can roll up into single build before it over reaches. And I miss the Capture signet mechanic, and the Elite hunting activities it promoted.

[perilisk.1874]

Of course, GW1 has build templates. Meaning, if buildcraft doesn't really appeal to you, you can just download a template and you're good to go. Plus, you can easily save different builds for different situations.

[Rhyse.8179]

GW1 has gotten a big influx of returning players recently, thanks to a rare update from Anet. If anyone is interested in checking it out (or going for a nostalgia trip), now is the time.

 

You'll get used to not jumping. Just remember to look at the map more.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

gw1

have to stand still to cast, cant dodge or jump

can have multiple weapon sets to switch to (or skills that get boosted with higher stat increases) with different skills on your 8 slot skill bar

can do a main profession and a secondary profession (warrior/monk, ranger/mesmer)

your elite skill, which is in gold, defines your build and playstyle

there were a TON more build options in gw1 (my main issue with gw2)

gw1 mesmers required more skill, they were mostly about interrupting enemy skills which required fast reflexes (think 1/4 sec cast times)

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Profession

[ScottBroChill.3254]

there was way more style and flavor in classes in terms of skills and playstyles. In gw2, theres some flavor but really its a bunch of the same skills with the same effects masked in visual effects that matches the proffesion being used. I don't like that I can do everything on my class that everyone else can do on their class. It takes away individuality and importance of my proffesion choice. Class choice now is almost about what armor you want and what color skill effects you want. GW2 has fun gameplay, but in terms of scratching my rpg itch I don't like that every class is a self sustaining jack of all trades and has the ability to do what every other class does. The only exception to this would be healers in gw2 which only a couple classes can do.

[witcher.3197]

Here's my take on it:

 

**Elementalist**

 

Very different, because it didn't have access to all "attunements" by default. For the most part you had to focus on one element per build, and each element had several different options/directions they could take. Needless to say they had by far the most build diversity (mainly in PvP).

 

For example on air you could build for total melee shutdown, CC, single target spike, or solid direct damage AoE. Water was more about snaring targets and supporting allies a bit.

 

**Necromancer**

 

Minions and self-harm were the key parts here. Both got rather downplayed in GW2. You actually had to use corpses of enemies as a resource for summoning minions from them. Self-harm in GW2 means getting 2 bleed stacks on yourself, whereas some GW1 skills would straight up make you lose 33% of your maximum HP on use.

 

They became very popular hybrid healers in PvE because they never ran out of energy, as they got energy (resource for casting skills) whenever something died, even minions.

 

**Mesmer**

 

Again, nothing in common except colors. They focused on armor ignoring damage and hardcore shutdown. Make the target lose x energy, deal damage in AoE for each energy lost. Cast a hex (debuff) on the target called Panic - whenever he uses a skill, every enemy near him gets interrupted. Disable your target's elite skill, steal skills from their bar, interrupt a skills and lock them out of that school of magic for x seconds (interrupt fire ele -> can't use fire magic for a while), you name it.

 

**Thief/assassin**

 

This one is kinda similar - use teleports to annoy your target and deal big damage. Attack skills did have CDs though and had to be "chained" - you had a bunch of attack skill types you had to organize a sequence out of. You open with a lead attack, then you're allowed to use an offhand attack, no you're allowed to use a dual attack, etc. After you end the chain, repeat.

 

They could also build for way higher critical strike than anyone, so they'd do well with a lot of martial weapons from other physical classes. They had the energy regeneration of a caster too, so in PvE they became very popular as casters and were incredibly useful for solo farming as a skill called Shadow Form kinda made them immortal.

 

**Ranger**

 

There are only 2 types of bows in GW2 whereas there were 4 or 5 in GW1. Pets weren't baseline, you actually had to have a skill on your bar that let you have a pet, and then dedicate your skills slot for pet skills. Most rangers were petless, actually. The remaining ones were hybrids, usually dedicating half of their bar to their pet and the other half to skills from another martial profession, beastmaster builds didn't use bows.

 

In PvP they were shutdown gods focusing on interrupts, bit like mesmers.

 

**Warrior**

 

Hulk smash. Not much to say here, kinda similar except mobility was waaaay lower in GW1. In PvP they were always very popular with probbly the 2nd best build diversity after eles, mostly focusing on CCs.

[starlinvf.1358]

Don't forget Ritualist, Dervish, Paragon and especially Monk.

 

Monk - Despite being mostly healer, there were some very unconventional combos you can use with their skills to accomplish game breaking builds. 55 Monk is the most infamous, exploiting the health penalty of Runes (which increased your attribute ranks at the cost of HP total), the more consistent behavior of Regeneration (which wasn't healing, but restored HP per second), and a skill which caped the amount of Damage you could take in a single hit to 10% of your Max HP. This meant anything hitting you could only deal 5 damage, and regeneration could restore it within 1 second. Since healing breeze was +5 regen (10 HP per sec), very few things could hit you fast enough to outpace it. ON TOP OF THAT!!!!! It also paired with an upkeep based version of Retaliation, and an aura which restores energy whenever you are hit. So anything hitting you take significant damage, AND adds energy back so you can keep your protection spells going. There was also a Variant of it for a little while in PvP which used Ritualist skill that Steals Life on hit, hurting your attacking, and healing you in the process. Whoa boy..... if you could bait in a zealous attacker into thinking you were vulnerable, and tried to unload skills to finish you off, ou could pop the Urn skill and heal yourself up completely while they kill themselves off. I put a dent in a lot of direct damage based builds in Faction battles.... until they started watching for the Life Leech indicators. But it still forces them to back off, unless they had Hex based spells, or a Enchantment Strip.

 

Ritualist is by far my favorite class in all of GW1. Designed as a hybrid support class, it had access to 3 of the 5 major Spell archetypes, as well as 2 that were unique to it. Weapons Spell allowed them to enchant allied weapons for additional effects, ranging from damage, to unblockable, self healing, or even debuffs, whenever they struck an enemy. This is what became the basis for Thief Venoms in GW2, but were targeted buffs instead of self/group buffs. The second was Summoned Spirits. While classified the same as Ranger spirits, they served a different role as "conditional" support triggers, automated turrets, or enemy debuff in an area around them. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wanderlust was a entertaining, because it forced people to keep moving in a game where movement and combat were 2 different states. Next to the Mesmer hexes, Spirits had the most dilution across multiple classes in GW2... most of which are modeled on their conditional effects, but dropped the Spirits as the source. However, Engineers inherited the Totem style skill archetype with Turrets and Gyros, but lacks the high impact complimentary skills that could use spirits as ammo for bigger spells...... instead that went to Mesmers with their Shatter skills.