Why are there no insp/heal/prot weapons in proph?

Praise · November 5, 2020 at 5:57 PM

I've always been annoyed at the fact that there are no randomly generated (oldschool gold) staffs or wands with inspiration requirement in Prophecies (or Factions for that matter). Looking into it, it appears that the same is true for heal and prot. And then there is blood which has no exclusive skin but can still get a ghostly/shadow/dead/raven staff with blood req, and curses which has a staff but no wand. Summarised:

DF is a primary attribute with special status (the only one in the list of possibilities for hsr/hct/mastery mods), so a DF weapon with mixed attribute is still useful. However, mesmers have simply no way of focussing on inspiration. Why would anet create the attribute only to neglect it?

I would like to hear some theories about why there is no support for using inspiration in Prophecies. The first thing you think of might be that "inspiration was intended to assist all casters as a low-level attribute instead of being a main focus attribute'", but then why leave the mesmer with only 2 main attributes when the others have 3-4?

End · November 5, 2020 at 8:47 PM

I would guess that its because inspiration, heal and prot aren't damage attributes. As such they felt at least initially they didn't make sense to have weapons linked to them. Hence why they have foci but not weapons. But it could just be they were lazy and didn't feel like putting any in.

Pleikki · November 5, 2020 at 9:03 PM

Yeah well even more intresting is why they addds resto at start of dact but later removed it, guess its for reason end gave us.

Praise · November 5, 2020 at 9:29 PM

Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. DF also has no damage skills, but I guess they had to add something and that's why it's special also as a +1 on offhands?

Resto has life steal though, so if they removed it because no dmg... does that mean if blood wouldn't have had dark pact & agony sig/touch it wouldn't have had weapons either?

Also, if the damage argument is true, does that mean anet intended for casters to deal dmg through autoattacks?

justice · November 5, 2020 at 9:30 PM

Yeah it doesn't make a lot of sense. For every reason I can think of there are several counter points.

For ele vs monk you could make the "theme" argument when looking at the different elements and then when looking at monk just say cover df/healing/protection under one staff and wand but then separate the smite stuff into its own. Any secondary monks can use these off hands to pair with a main hand.

Inspiration is a very secondary attribute and its low breakpoints often support that. Also it is stacked with mantras which are stances.

These are weak debate points but nothing else really makes sense. Not even lazy makes sense since there are already a lot of skins in prophecies and some are fairly amazing.

A point against staves like ghostly staff not having ALL the attributes could be that it would water down the pool even more and in some cases unnecessarily.

Tl;dr

Monks use df with protection and healing prayers

Secondary monks just use their own caster staves or wands while onehanded martial weapon usesrs just take the available focuses in the offhand.

Inspiration magic is just not a build focused attribute and is presumed to be run along side another main attribute. Martial uses can still pair an offhand with a one handed weapon though.

justice · November 5, 2020 at 10:32 PM

Actually I figured it out I think.

In short they didn't want melee martial warriors running a secondary support attribute having access to "free" ranged damage.

Praise · November 6, 2020 at 2:13 PM

Quote from justice

In short they didn't want melee martial warriors running a secondary support attribute having access to "free" ranged damage.

That sounds a bit farfetched to me, but I'm not a warrior. Would that really give a significant advantage? Then what about warriors running a conjure build (those conjures were around in 2005, weren't they?)? The 'no damage skills' argument sounds more likely to me, that just leaves DF as the odd one out instead of insp&heal&prot. But as you said earlier, anyway it doesn't make a lot of sense...

justice · November 6, 2020 at 7:11 PM

Quote from Praise

That sounds a bit farfetched to me, but I'm not a warrior. Would that really give a significant advantage? Then what about warriors running a conjure build (those conjures were around in 2005, weren't they?)? The 'no damage skills' argument sounds more likely to me, that just leaves DF as the odd one out instead of insp&heal&prot. But as you said earlier, anyway it doesn't make a lot of sense...

Support lines don't have a conjure spell.

Understand it was a decision made before launch even. A PvP game with secondary professions. Anet was very aware of there being potential issues when developing that system.

Its about attribute investment. If you invest 9 ranks in air magic, a damage line, then its not any different than a warrior investing into marksmanship and equipping a bow on swap. But we are talking secondaries like healing prayers where a warrior could deal the same auto attack damage as an air wand while having a lot of sustain. Yes wanding isn't exactly "rofl op damage" but it isn't nothing either. Back then some warriors in PvP arenas were engaging fights with vampiric bows before the clash, no marksmanship.

In gw2 anet had to relearn this lesson with the elite specialization for ranger, the druid. A very support specialization and its new equipable weapon type, ironically to this convo, was staff. It was very support /healing oriented and its auto attack was relatively weak. But even with it being a weak damage attack it had measurable attrition. They ended up nerfing this pathetic damage auto attack several times to address this. I believe this is something the 2005 anet devs were mindful of.

ESO has a similar thing with its restoration staff. The restoration staff does terrible damage and unlike the destruction staff (ice/fire/lightning) its auto attack damage has no damage improvements through its weapon line.