Agent Noun.7350

Yeah the issue with quickness Chrono isn't that other professions can also do quickness--that's a good thing--but that other professions do it more reliably, more consistently, and more easily. You can achieve the same thing quickness Chrono does much more easily on other professions with no real trade-off, which feels pretty bad. It's not that quickness Chrono is bad at its role when played well--it isn't, not at all--it's just much harder to play than the other quickness options without anything to gain for it. That "when played well" bar is a lot higher for Chrono than it is for its competitors.

Yeah, this. I think adding extra weapon swap slots would be an awful thing to sell, but as the special feature for an elite specialization it could definitely work. Call the spec Armsmaster or something like that.

I disagree, it could be a tengu focused expansion and maybe even make them a playable race. I mean, if you're gonna give me tengu as a playable race, then by all means go right ahead. Knowing how difficult it is to make armor skins for the existing races as it is, and the necessity to make sure every existing armor skin would work for tengu models, though, I sort of doubt we'll ever see a new playable race. Maybe a new race that has essentially the same skeleton and proportions as humans, but likely not something as different as tengu. Believe me, I'd love to play as a tengu, but it just doesn't seem realistic given how difficult ArenaNet has said it already is to make armor models.

As much as I'd love to go to Cantha, I think other races deserve some time in the spotlight, too. Heart of Thorns centered on the sylvari and Path of Fire centered on humans. An expansion that takes us to Cantha would necessarily center on humans again. Asura are in the spotlight constantly because their technology is behind everything, so that leaves norn and charr who have so far been left out.

Honestly, I don't know that I'd say GW2's community is any better or worse than most other MMOs. On the whole, I've found that people stop to help out, answer questions, etc. about as often in GW2 as they do in most other MMOs I've played (which is to say, a pretty decent amount). Map chat is garbage, but it beats WoW's trade chat, which is garbage but also the garbage is on fire and likes to spout 12-year-old memes.

That makes sense to me. My general feeling is that I'm okay with an elite spec being versatile so long as you can only actually build your character for one or the other. If Chronomancer can offer great support or great damage, but not both at the same time, it's not a huge deal. But where that changes is when it starts to overwrite the rest of that profession's elite specs. If Chronomancer, for example, offered better DPS options than Mirage ever could, that would be a big problem, because it would crowd out Mirage. As it is, Mirage's DPS is higher than Chronomancer's, but it's also different--you go Mirage for condi, Chronomancer for power--so I don't think it's as big of a deal as it could be. If a third Mesmer elite spec comes out and is geared towards power damage or tanking, and Chronomancer outperforms it on what it's supposed to be the best at, then there'd be a problem again. My real problem with Chronomancer is that I think it's too much of a support generalist, to be honest. I like that it provides either a strong support build, a strong tank build, or a solid power DPS build--I don't want that to change--but right now there are two issues: You don't really have to choose between a support build and a tank build. You give up damage, sure, but you don't have to give up your support capability to be a good tank, or vice versa. That's probably worth taking a look at.If you do build for support, you can provide too many different kinds of support. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with point 1 above--if we look at tanking as a form of support and/or crowd control--but it's more far-reaching. Chronomancer is good at quickness and alacrity (a good niche), but also at healing, applying and sharing offensive boons, and crowd control. All at the same time. It's really got to pick one.My hope is that Chronomancer can keep its current damage--it's strong, but not extremely so, and really fun to play--but maybe has to scale back some of its support versatility to make room for other professions to compete in those areas. We need room for other tanks, for example. Or, hey, here's a fun option: what would it take to transfer Chronomancer's tanking capabilities to Mirage? It makes a lot of sense that the elite spec whose main thing is "I'm not actually where you think I am" would be great at distracting enemies and avoiding their damage. The issue is that I'm sure Mirage would be good at that, but because Chronomancer can do that role and also provide its core support, there's no reason to try it.

Ultimately I think it's okay if elite specs are just plain better than base professions, so long as we add at least a couple more elite specs per profession. When there was only one per profession, making them better than the base profession was a serious problem, because "use this one spec or you're missing out" isn't exactly an interesting decision. With two elite specs per profession, it's a bit better, especially because most elite specs have multiple ways they can be used well. Increase that to three or four, though, and I think we're in good shape. Sure, ideally the base professions should still have a place, but ultimately I'm more interested in having good build variety than I am in where that variety comes from, if that makes sense. I have to admit I don't entirely agree with all of your points, but this one I definitely do. I'm not a professional game designer, not even close, but after a lot of years playing and thinking about games, I've started to think that most RPGs could be improved by removing boring choices. And personally, I think a lot of GW2's stats are boring. I'm not a fan of "just plain do more damage" stats, so naturally I don't love Power or Condition Damage; combine that with Power being functionally worthless unless it's also paired with Precision, which is lackluster unless it's combined with Ferocity, and there just isn't much of interest do to there. By extension, I think traits, runes, and sigils do have the potential to be interesting. Many aren't right now, but traits and items that let you actually do new things or that meaningfully modify how your existing actions work are interesting build choices. If I had my way, GW2 would scrap stats entirely (much like GW1) and focus more on increasing the gameplay variety that sigils, runes, and traits offer. That won't happen, of course--it'd require a total rework of the equipment system so large it'd almost be a new game, for one thing--but hey, I can dream.