ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Evolution of Professions

 (Discussion)
Some examples... Elona has been ravaged by Palawa Joko's undead forces. The humans there are wanted for battle as soon as possible. Warriors would only be taught in one weapon class. Paragon's would be focused on their spear mastery and leaders wouldn't be "trained" like they used to be. So, a Paragon's attributes could be javelin mastery, spear mastery (as a close-quarters weapon) and maybe their motivation skills would have survived the tests of time. Maybe they prefer the protective enchantments the dervishes used.

The Five Gods have been silent for 250 years - it can be assumed that the dervishes have lost their avatar abilities and some of the more holy enchantments. Consequently, their wind and earth magic could have developed to be far more like the elementalist attributes, or maybe they compensated for their loss of enchantments by using the Ritualist weapon skills, developing it to have the spirits possessing armour and bodies as well, becoming more like a Shaman class.

No one knows what has happened to the Assassin and Ritualist classes from Cantha, but Eye of the North showed that the professions had been spread into the wider world. Would the humans of Ebonshawke be training assassins to damage the Charr, or take a more direct defence? The spirits that roam Old Ascalon would suggest the opportunity for minion masters and ritualists to take advantage there. Spirit summoning and corpse mastery could be combined into a primary profession. Any assassins might not feel comfortable with a dagger in each hand and prefer a sword and shield, more like a Sword Master. Instead of a shield, they could choose to make use of a two-handed sword and rely on stances to protect them.

With the flooding of Kryta, there would likely have been a quick development of a strong navy. be it an Admiral or a Pirate class, it would encorporate water magic, leadership skills and probably a melee weapon (not a sword or the one used by the Elonians?)

All of the powder kegs used throughout Guild Wars 1 shows that there is gunpowder of some description available in Tyria. Most likely, the Asura would be the ones to develop this for use in portable weapons, making a new Gunner class. Gun skills could replace rangers' archery, as the rangers would be rendered obsolete by the new technology, the assassins adopting their trapping techniques as their own and the Sylvanni taking over as servants of Melandru. Those still clinging to the ranger class would probably seek to mimic the Norn. Would humans be able to learn to shapeshift? If so, that and the beast mastery would form a Druid class.

I've tried to write this so that the classes will be available regardless of race. In a similar way to Guild Wars 1, this system makes certain classes exclusive to certain areas, and hopefully this shows a logical development for how and why.


 * Why this is a good idea
 * This system is explainable, and allows players familiar to the game new things as well as familiar aspects to each profession.
 * With expansions opening up new areas, they can also open up new professions, changing the shape of PvE and PvP each time.


 * Why it may not work out
 * It could be overly complicated, particularly considering different professions for different races.
 * Professions would have developed differently on different continents - for example, although there are reasons for other professions to take up elemental attributes, there is no reason for there not to be an elementalist, other than it would cause massive profession overlaps.
 * Guns would not replace bows because they would be too inaccurate