I Bring You Fire: GW2 Elementalist Videos
Also, Water. And Earth. And probably the other one as well. As well as the details on combat, Arenanet released some proper details and videos of the Elementalist class. You'll find them below, along with the statement that Eric Flannum himself brought to the interview comment thread when people were worried about the loss of variety in builds. Videos go! Comment cut and paste go! Go go!
Meteor Shower go!
Phoenix go!
Static Field:
Water Trident go!
Churning Earth go!
Some of the same concerns came up on our fan forums and in our community manager Martin Kersteins words:
Rest assured that our new skill system will still allow you tons of variety. Guild Wars had a gazillion different skills to make a build – but the amount of viable builds wasn’t actually that high. It was very easy for players to cripple themselves – for example, you could bring Gash without Sever Artery – which was pointless. If you rated builds on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being an incredibly effective build, what we did is make sure that all players will be equipped with a 5, at minimum.
You will also be able to use different weapon combinations: If for example, you have an axe in your main hand, this will define your first three skills. Pick up a shield – this defines the next 2 skills. Switch to a mace in your offhand – those skills change, basically giving you a different set of combinations. Switch to a Greatsword and you get 5 completely different skills.
All of this is then complimented by your free choice for the other 5 slots. Yes, one slot is reserved for a healing skill, and one for an elite skill – but we are not talking about one healing skill here, you will have a variety of different heal and elite skills to slot, each with their different flavors, each changing the way you actually play (aka your build).
It all boils down to this: The amount of possible builds might be a little bit lower than in GW, but the amount of viable and useful builds you can actually use is much higher.
Kieron stop!