User:Lysander/Ideas

Elite Specializations

Hypnotist

• Weapon: Main-hand Focus
• Style: Dazes, Confuses, and Taunts, oh my! The hypnotist is a master of mental magic, controlling enemies by means of powerful CC conditions. Defensive cantrips allow it to escape damage and easily swap position with clones to bewilder foes. This is aided by a new type of shatter skill that doesn't actually shatter illusions, but rather duplicates them for a short period of time, causing further confusion.

Empath

• Weapon: Warhorn
• Style: Empaths are sensitive to the emotions of their allies and enemies, and can assuage conditions or reinforce torment. They can use boisterous warhorns to increase the power or duration of existing conditions or boons, while inspirational shouts can support allies and CC enemies. They can also direct their illusions to shatter upon allies rather than enemies, converting conditions on those allies into boons. Beware, however: The Empath is so sensitive to the conditions of others that they can sometimes feel those conditions themselves.

Communer

• Weapon: Shield
• Style: Inspired by the Wargs of Game of Thrones, this pet-oriented spec enables rangers to enter the minds of their pets, seeing through their eyes and controlling a greater variety of pet attacks. While the ranger is communing, the body is protected by passive shield skills and defensive consecrations designed to protect against damage like a defiance bar.

Sniper

• Weapon: Rifle
• Style: A long-range shooter, the sniper can cripple enemies before it ever comes into range of any attacks. Using natural venoms to make shots more effective, the sniper is a lethal threat against the unsuspecting foe.

Chemist

• Weapon: Mace
• Style: Chemists combine the elements to create powerful reactions. The ability to quickly swap attunements with new elemental well combo fields and finisher skills enable the chemist to create powerful new effects in battle, such as storms of slicing glass shards or mighty hurricanes. The increased concentration of combo skills orients this spec more towards cooperation with allies, but it is perfectly capable of decimating enemies on its own.

Devastator

• Weapon: Greatsword
• Style: The devastator is a force of indiscriminate destruction. Powerful but inaccurate, the devastator loses the ability to target specific enemies with skills, demanding careful use of the camera and character movement. Even so, the whirling blasts of elemental power that the devastator can send forth from its greatsword have varying probabilities of missing foes entirely, adding a extra degree of unpredictability. Fortunately, a set of explosive utility skills will always hit foes in AoE fashion, but these are not quite as damaging and are more oriented towards attunement-specific conditions. The attunements themselves will open elemental channels after they have been activated for a certain amount of time, allowing the devastator to passively bleed elemental energy separate from its skills.

Minion Master

• Weapon: Torch
• Style: A new set of minion skills enables necromancers to at long last become true minion masters, gaining greater control over their minions' attacks and survivability. Using the bright flame of a torch to direct their undead allies, they can cause minions to torment a particular enemy or stand firm and defiant against a slew of attacks. A new form of shroud enables minion masters to connect with their minions more closely, teleporting among them and manipulating health and condition output.

Warlock

• Weapon: Sword
• Style: The warlock is able to unleash the power of the Underworld via creating tiny rifts, which hover stationary and lash out at foes with dark tendrils or absorb life force that the warlock can channel. Able to gain extra life force via these rifts, the warlock can maintain a more powerful shroud which would supply the bulk of its offensive ability, while as an alternative using a sword to direct dark energy about at medium range.

Darkblade

• Weapon: Axe
• Style: While not as quick and evasive as their daredevil counterparts, darkblades bring more defensive capability to the battlefield, and are better prepared for large-scale fights against mobs of enemies. Their profiency with an axe enables both powerful damage and blocking, and their mastery of stances enables them to minimize incoming damage and conditions as well as increase damage output. With greater staying power in melee range, they are able to make great use of the shadowstep abilities that are the thief's trademark.

Shadowmancer

• Weapon: Focus
• Style: The shadowmancer uses a focus to, ironically, distract its foes by creating false shadows on the battlefield. New manipulation skills enable it to move effortlessly among these shadows or manipulate their forms and locations, fooling enemies and leaving them vulnerable for quick, damaging strikes. In addition, their steal ability will create additional shadows around the foe, which the shadowmancer can manipulate itself into for increased damage at melee range.

Zealot

• Weapon: Axe
• Style: The zealot protects those it serves not by defending and healing, but by relentlessly attacking enemies until they are no longer a threat. As such, all of their virtue skills become offensive derivations of their originals, while condition-applying mantras add to the means by which the zealot can torment a foe. In addition to using the axe at melee range, the zealot is also able to channel damage and conditions through the weapon at medium range.

Underwater Elite Specializations

I think that every profession should have at least two remaining elite specializations that will enhance combat on land. That said, we also have a water dragon to fight, and ANet will need to do something to improve combat underwater. So, give each profession an additional elite specialization that is specifically for underwater combat. To make switching environments as painless as possible, these should be a derivation of an on-land elite spec that can be transitioned into smoothly without having to swap too many traits, etc (while still requiring the training of additional hero points). For instance, an underwater derivation of the chronomancer could be the hydromancer, which is able to use water to manipulate the outcomes of combat the same way the chronomancer uses its temporal wells on land. In order to make things easier, have the chronomancer trait line automatically switch to the hydromancer trait line when going underwater, with trait selections remembered the way they are when alternating between PvE and WvW.

Legendary Weapons

I understand that the idea of legendary weapons is that they are these unique, special weapons with special effects and special names. But so many players have legendary weapons by now that they are hardly unique at all. Here's a long-shot idea on how to maybe restore the appeal of going so far out of your way to obtain special weapons:

Instead of having set legendary weapons, have legendary components that contribute to certain aspects of an existing design. For instance, elemental effects could be added to existing weapon sets (excluding unique exotics that already have special effects) to give particular feelings of prestige. Of course, each of these effects would have challenges to acquire the same way that the steps of the legendary journey work. This would limit the need to keep creating new legendary journeys and new themes for unique weapons, while greatly expanding the number of aesthetically unique weapons that players could build.

For instance, let's say a player playing as a reaper wants to create a unique greatsword with affects of darkness and ice. They could take an existing non-unique greatsword model and obtain components to add dark and icy auras to the greatsword, and either dark or icy footprints when they wield it. The components to acquire for the auras and footprints would be the same for a greatsword that they would be for any other weapon type, so there is no need to complete so many different journeys. However, the individual components would be soulbound on use and would still take a great deal of materials to make, so there is still a sense of great accomplishment every time you are able to add legendary components to a weapon.

There are tons of different themes that could be thought up for components, which could be added to any weapon a player desires. Therefore, there is plenty of opportunity for a player to create weapons that match the feel of their characters while still being able to use their weapons of choice. And there is much more opportunity to be unique instead of seeing a dozen other players in a zerg with the same legendary weapon.