Or do people just like to hate on it because it's flipped the meta upside down, I see arms warriors and demon hunters and enhance shaman's being just as much of an issue in solo shuffle.
A serious response would be appreciated

In the interest of trying to reach out an olive branch to Blizzard, we have prepared the following patch notes in an attempt to find a middle ground:

Systems Changes

• All cooldowns should now be off the GCD.
• In the interest of making sure you have time to press the cooldowns, we are setting the GCD to 2.5 seconds baseline.
• The addon API has been sunset. If you're really that good you can play without WeakAuras. Using 3rd party tools is now bannable offense.
• AoE effects will now display as they resolve. You can react just fine without knowing where AoEs are coming from.
• /script SetCVar(“cameraDistanceMax”,XX) has been disabled to promote fair play.
• Gem sockets should be available on all equipment. Jewelcrafters should have the ability to attempt to force multiple gems into a socket that already has a gem. This won't always succeed and the gem might break.
• Add a housing system. Seriously. We've been asking for this for years. No garrisons don't count.
• Healers you want to DPS? Fine. All your globals are DPS and all your heals are now off the global. Have fun.
• Factions are being removed from the game. Its not like they serve a purpose anymore since BfA ended.
• Hearthstone Triple Triad is now available in game.
• Tired of playing the story? Come get distracted for a few weeks in the Golden Saucer! Unlike the Darkmoon Faire, it NEVER closes.
• All mounts Fly. Yes even that one.

Race Changes

Alliance

• Humans are now known as Hyur. Humans are boring in fantasy settings anyway so I'm sure you prefer that.
• Gnomes are now cuter and will be known as Lalafell. Don't worry, you can still kick your favorite guildie FC member, but now you can also bake them too.
• Dwarves and are being removed. All dwarves will be race changed to Lalafel to maintain the appropriate height.
• Night Elves are now Wildwood Elezen. Wood Elves are soo cliche, so lets add some spice.
• Void Elves are now Duskwight Elezen. See above, but you still get to be edgy.
• Draenei and Lightforged Dranei are now Xaela and Raen Au'ra respectively. We respect the RP community and 90% of all R34 art will continue to be focused here.
• Worgen will find themselves logging in as Hrothgar. If they want to be furries in combat, why yuck their yum?
• Dark Iron Dwarves are being renamed to Hellguard Roegadyn. You went through the effort to unlock them, and we wouldn't want to force you into being a Lalafell would we?
• Kul'tiran Humans will now be Roegadyn Sea Wolves to maintain their Pirate Identity.
• Mechagnomes have been removed from the game. Nobody liked them anyway.

Horde

• Orcs and Mag'har Orcs are being converted to Midland and Highland Hyur respectively. You chose a generic fantasy race, so we're leaning into that decision for you.
• Undead will also be converted to Highland Hyur to maintain their identity as "Edgy Humans"
• Tauren and Highmountain Tauren will both be converted to Helion Hrothgar. If you REALLY wanna play a furry. Sure.
• Trolls will have their backs straightened out so they can be Elezen. Now you can finally be as tall as you are meant to be.
• Zandalari Trolls are being removed. The only reason they were there in the first place was so trolls can stand up straight.
• Blood Elves are now Viera. Lets be real, you only rolled Blood Elf because you wanted to be sexy, and Veira are hot.
• Nightborne are also being converted Duskwight Elezen. They're just edgy elves much like Void Elves anyway.
• Goblins only have access to the new crafting classes. Go work that market board you.
• Vulpera are now known as Mi'quote. Now you can be even sexier.

Neutral

• Pandaren will now be known as Miqo'te. We must preserve the cute factor.
• Drac'thyr will now be known as Au'ra. We must preserve the hot factor.

Class Changes

Warrior

• Arms warriors are now Samurai. Much cooler 2 handed class anyway.
• Fury warriors are now called Dragoons, to preserve the APM requirements to assist in your carpel tunnel and facilitate floor-tanking.
• Protection warriors no longer use Shields. Instead they tank things with pure rage and a 2 handed weapon. This will make gearing your character more streamlined.

Hunter

• Marksman Hunters are now Bards, so we can get that Buff Class we always wanted.
• Beast Mastery hunters will be rolled into the Summoner specialization. This not only allows them to keep their pets, but keeps them from getting too confused by the rotation.
• Survival Hunters have been removed from the game. Blizzard made a mistake, so lets just pretend they never existed.

Mage

• Fire, Frost and Arcane will all be rolled into a new specialization class called "Black Mage". They will keep their Rune of Power Leylines ability.

Rogues

• Why do we still call Ninjas "Subtly" rogues. They're ninjas, and Ninjas are cooler.
• Outlaw rogue will be ported over to the new system shortly. We love the idea of maintaining the Pirates vs Ninjas trope. Knowing Blizzard this will likely cost a raid tier though.
• Assassination will now be Machinists. There are too many melee classes in the game and Rogues need a ranged option.

Priest

• Holy Priest will still be the most generic possible healer as a White Mage. You'll be fine.
• Discipline Priests are unique in healing by DPSing, so the obvious decision here is Sage.
• Shadow priests are picking up a Spear and will become Dragoons moving Forward. Lets be real we only bring you for PI Dragon Sight anyway.

Warlock

• In an attempt to allow Demonology Warlocks to maintain their identity as a pet specialization we are converting them to Scholars. Don't worry, most of your global are still DPS casts. You just heal between them.
• Affliction Warlocks have been removed from the game. DoT classes are too complicated anyway.
• Destruction Warlocks will join Mages in Turretting Fire spells while eating mechanics to the face as a Black Mage.

Paladin

• Protection Paladin has been renamed to just Paladin. Captain America's Shield is being replaced by a spell called "Unlimited Blade Works"
• Retribution Paladin is being removed from the game temporarily for yet another massive rework. It will return in the next expansion in 11.1 as Blizzard will likely need time to focus on other class design during this overhaul.
• We know Holy Paladins really love managing Blessing of Summer, so we will let them continue to micro-manage party buffs as Astrologians.

Druid

• Guardian Druids will maintain their role as the most annoying tank to heal in the new Gunbreaker class!
• Resto Druids will randomly be assigned between White Mage and Astrologian as really all they do is put HoTs out anyway.
• Feral Druids have been removed from the game. None of you liked us anyway.
• Balance Druids are now Dancers. We're tired of the raid team giving you all the buffs. Now you can buff everyone else.

Shaman

• Elemental Shamans will now play Red Mages so they can be useful as a Res-bot.
• All Enhancement Shamans will be converted to Ninjas to assist you further with your carpel tunnel.
• We've heard feedback Restoration Shamans miss Vesper Totem. Totems are pets right? I think scholar fits best here.

Monk

• Monk is being renamed to Monk. Monks punch things. Why do we need them to do anything else??

Demon Hunters

• We are finally adding a 3rd specialization for Demon Hunters. The Reaper specialization is being added for you edgelords to have something extra to play.
• The development time for Reaper was longer than expected. We expect Havoc and Vengeance to be reimplemented at a later date.

Death Knights

• Blood Death Knights have been renamed to Dark Knights. With the loss of Vengeance we really need an edgy tank to stick around.
• Unholy and Frost are being rolled into the new Reaper specialization.
• Demon Hunters are being removed from the game. With only one specialization there really isn't a point.

Evoker

• Evokers can now play any class they want, as it should have been from the start.

I realize this isn't really in the meta these days since movement options are all the rage. I played from Vanilla to MoP, played a hunter and loved it. When classic came out, I decided to play a mage, and I loved it too. I also had a elemental shaman in TBC Classic and had a blast with it too.
I recently bought Dragonflight and everything seems to be about movement. Heres a bunch of instant casts for movement. Heres a spell that allows casting while moving. But I don't really enjoy that play style. Granted I've only got my mage up to level 20 in Dragonflight so far, so maybe Ill enjoy it more later, but so far its not grabbing me.
So to the meat of the question: is there a ranged/caster class that is more stationary or turret like? My limited research seems to point toward warlock but I thought I'd ask you fine folks. I don't really care about topping meters or anything, I mostly play with a friend in a duo type deal, so dungeons and LFR probably are as far as Ill get in the raiding world.

Hello, it's me again, the wordiest of birds, with another analysis and design post. This could easily be ten different posts, but I'm cutting it down to two main themes. As always: I mostly play PvE, but spend time on every class in every mode; The goal of this is not necessarily to wildly invent new systems for the game, but to identify themes, and what it takes for them to flourish, not condemn and start over, and invite conversation; I find spoiler-hiding my walls of text helps keep it digestible. Part 2 will cover non-attribute designs and tech in GW2, and open discussion about whether our current obsession with "hit big monster make big numbers go up more" is stifling the diversity of the game, and whether there could be a place for builds that aren't exclusively about damage or boons. A lot of this has been cooking for a long time, and as much as I love the game, I do worry about it's longevity, and the diversity of elite specs, builds, and challenges that we've been getting for the last several years, and what it'll mean for content in the future.
TL;DPremise/Highlights:

• Identifying each gear attribute as a distinct gameplay loop or objective, while limiting which of the nine any single player is meant to fulfill at the same time, would help educate players on the importance of each attribute, make a greater assortment of gear prefixes be valued, increase build diversity, and help the devs design future challenges, elite specs, and core mechanics that goes beyond "stack and whack" basics.
• Precision should proc more effects than just crit damage more often, and Ferocity should enhance melee-range hits more than ranged hits to promote melee play.
• Expertise should not be limited to propping up Condition Damage, and be the key to several non-damage challenges in game, while different enemy types should be more or less vulnerable to specific damaging conditions.
• Toughness is awful and should negatively impact incoming condition duration, not just strike damage, and not be undermined by Protection, which should be converted to a stacking buff to encourage multiple applications.
• Baseline healing and boon duration should be close to zero without first building for Healing Power and Concentration, which should be their own roles, separate from one another.
• Different content shouldn't be defeated by the exact same gear as everything else, and more professions should benefit from a wider variety of gear, and different gear sets than each other.
• Gear prefixes with different purposes should be found in specific, but not unique, places in the game, to promote maps and content that lack replay value.
• 4-stat gear often outperforms 3-stat gear by a wide margin, and Celestial even more than that. 4-stat gear should represent fulfilling multiple roles to a lesser extent, whereas 3-stat gear should perform one role greater, at the loss of every other role. It currently does not, outside of Berserkers, due to the relative weakness of every other attribute combo's roles.

First, the state of the game. While GW2 is both celebrated and chided for it's [relative] departure from "holy trinity" teamcraft, it still fails to present the 'role' of RolePlaying Game especially seriously. Increasingly, traits and skills lack any kind of narrative or thematic flavor, opting instead to slap numbers and % increases around until some unseen meta god is appeased, while teamcraft has identified a flexible DPS/boonDPS/boonHeal to be the main way to approach challenges, but with severe consequences should they be played off-design. This leads to an ENORMOUS amount of dead traits, dead equipment prefixes, dead runes and sigils, and some dead weaponry, plus oversimplified gameplay with spammable moves, and while a limited number of meta/best-in-slot equipment makes it easier for the developers to target overperforming builds, it means that there are many elements of buildcraft that sneak under the radar, unnoticed and unassuming.
Questions are asked, "Are there any advantages to melee combat over range?", "Are we expected to stand still or move around during combat?", "Should every profession be viable at every challenge, or should they have unique advantages?", and "We don't believe that profession complexity should translate into an increase in DPS," among others. In attempting to form a baseline for the game, and make it's various components easier to balance, the game runs the risk of becoming too homogenized, too bland, reliant increasingly on roleplay themes that the devs don't seem interested in mechanically representing, while as many as 30 different non-PvP attribute combinations fail to see use. All the while, powercreep slowly inflates the average player's output, undermining the difficulty of old content, failing to teach players how the intricacies of the game works, and shocking inexperienced players who jump from location to location with difficulty and mechanics they are neither prepared for, nor understand.
Gripes aside, Guild Wars 2 has perhaps the strongest foundation for MMO buildcraft I've ever played. It's huge array of diverse traits and swappable weapon sets, and diverse component interactions, both within a profession and between professions, is what drew me to the game, kept me playing the full range of content, and what leads me to make these lengthy, passionate articles. There's a good reason why many other MMOs see GW2 as an inspiration, or even copy from it directly. For all it's challenges, all this game needs is a slight clarification in philosophy, even without making any of the changes recommended here, and the pieces will fall into place over time.
Guild Wars 2 is sometimes compared to Magic the Gathering.>! They both share an incredible number of sub-mechanics and themes that all fold together in intricate, and sometimes unexpected ways. Fans of each game are probably aware of the remarkable confidence that MtG has in it's color spectrum: for each color, there are a series of powerful, and well-documented sub-themes, many of which overlap with other colors. It's when the colors combine that the game truly shines, creating dynamic playstyles and themes that appeal to an incredibly diverse audience, with 3-color decks having much more tech available, and much stranger themes, than 2-color, or 1-colored decks. From the moment that a colored card is revealed to you, a practiced player can instantly make inferences to what their opponent's strategies may be, and begin to move in a way to counteract it, while pushing their own strategies. This "foreknowledge of theme" rather than "foreknowledge of event" means that two players can effectively combat each other, despite never having met or taken the chance to look through each other's deck list, and makes for more personalized decks, and more enjoyable games.!<
I give this example because such a case could be made for Guild Wars 2's attribute system.>! Much like MtG colors, each attribute aligns with a purpose, some objective that promotes value when travelling the world or the Mists alike, with each "color combo" coming together to form an attribute prefix. The problem with this analogy is that Guild Wars 2's gear prefixes aren't each designed to carry a mechanic that helps the player succeed, either while travelling alone, or in a group. Many traits exacerbate this with attribute conversion, usually from +Power, and if your selection doesn't result in you or an ally killing an enemy faster, it's generally regarded as a dead choice. !<
Were GW2 to shift to recognize each attribute as a genuine gameplay mechanic, it would grant the designers a foundation from which to design content that harnesses specific challenges, and grant the players of the game confidence in their build, as well as flexibility in purpose, when approaching said challenges.
(As an aside, first: many MMOs have rather abstract stat and buff systems, that make it impossible to understand without extensive out-of-game research, and even once understood in concept, Guild Wars 2 doesn't always communicate how these effects are supposed to interact. An across the board UI fix here would allow players to see a breakdown of where their stats are coming from, by source, and what % impact it has on each of their attribute, such as from gear, food, utility consumables, or traits, without having to actually slot it first, possibly at an armor-repair station so as to not blow out the during-gameplay UI. Being able to see the exact number of points they are away from their next +1% or 1sec effect increase would be helpful too. )
In the case of the attributes themselves, each attribute should be viewed as a component of a larger puzzle, that each have their own, special identity. By considering which professions, skills, weapons, and group content are defined by which attributes, much stronger combinations of those attributes should arise.

• >>>Power:
• Well understood as the de-facto, go-to attribute for inflicting instantaneous damage. However, defined as a role, it should be more clear that inflicting damage every strike is the target objective; too many prefixes grant Power, as a sort of "This is all you need"-attribute instead. ANet once stripped the damage from disables for purity of purpose, but several weapons still fail to deliver adequate Power-based damage while lacking damaging conditions, controlling conditions, utilities, boon effects, or trait interactions: examples include Thief and Ranger MH sword and Willbender OH sword, Dragonhunter longbow, and Guardian scepter, Necromancer axe, or Daredevil staff. (This isn't to say these things aren't used, just that for purely power-based damage, they are sometimes subpar and with clearly better alternatives of weapon or trait.) If Power is a role, it should reflect in high-damage, long-cooldown abilities, or features used to set up or recover said abilities: Ranger's Hilt Bash > Maul, Guardian's Banish > Mighty Blow, and Gunslinger's Gunstinger > Dragon's Roar are excellent examples of this.
• Should a challenge be defined by a Power requirement, it should>! mostly be a DPS race, or swamped with weaker foes to cleave through. They don't need to go down in a single hit, but it should enable the fantasy of being powerful.!<
• >>>Precision: (a big one)
• Crits are simple, but misunderstood: inflicting a critical hit to gain the damage multiplier does result in higher damage, but that multiplier is the result of Ferocity, not Precision. As well, several traits generate different special effects or inflict conditions on critical hits, or increase your crit chance in various circumstances, such as striking a disabled foe, or attacking from the sides or behind. This would indicate that Precision is not the stat of "extra damage", but the attribute of "special effect". If so, then Precision could take on an entirely new meaning in buildcraft, based on which other attribute you combine it with:
• Precision+Ferocity: Inflicts higher damage multipliers on crit, and the current standard application of the attribute, crit-capping essentially translates to "permanent damage increase" rather than a rare event like it should be. Berserker and Assassin gear is easily available for this, but on it's own, fails to present any kind of real downside to not inflicting tons of damage on every hit.
• Precision+Healing Power: Could apply healing or barrier to self or in an AoE on crit. Several frontline assault builds fail to scale well with +Heal, leading to strange skill intentions from Spellbreaker, Willbender, Daredevil, Scrapper, Soulbeast, Vindicator, and Weaver. Battlescars especially is abhorrent, with an +Heal modifier of x0.006; if the skill simply required crits and high healing to function, rather than require neither, it would encourage buildcraft and purpose-selection of traits. Ele's Healing Ripple could AoE heal not just on attuning to water, but on crit,>! barrier-on-crit would help enable "effect on barrier" professions like Scourge and alacDPS Mechanist, and heal-on-crit would help grant Vindicator some license as a group-healdps, a role that currently does not exist. Zealot's, Marshal's, Seraph's, and Magi's gear are all seldom used, but could see new life with this interpretation.!<
• Precision+CondiDMG and Expertise: Applying conditions on crit leads to very reasonable hybrid-dps builds, but controlling conditions on crit, like cripple or chill or slow, creates some very intriguing debuff builds. Paired with traits that could trigger on "application of a non-damaging condition", and suddenly Necromancers, Mesmers, Rangers, Thieves, or ice/stone Elementalist become very real control casters in competitive play. The Bringers' attribute set, with Expertise, precision, and vitality sees no use, but becomes interesting for this purpose.
• Precision+Concentration: Traits and weapon skills that grant a variety of boons on a crit, or escalating boons up a ladder the way Specter's Well of Bounty and Sorrow works, would create a frontline boon-DPS that doesn't rely on feverishly mashing utility skills off-cooldown, something the devs don't seem to be able to stray away from, quickness and alacrity boon-providers being the obvious winners here.>! They could then consider using Commander's or Seraph's gear instead of Diviner's, but the lack of a 3-stat Precision/Concentration block is troubling.!<
• Should Precision be considered a role, gameplay that includes a Precision requirement should>! involve durable champions in some way. Precision/Ferocity builds would chip health down much more effectively, and Precision/Expertise builds would assist in controlling the enemy. That said, Precision could easily take a role in just about any team-wide content that involves striking quickly and often to proc the various effects.!<
• >>>Toughness: (a big one)
• I think that most players have a poor understanding of the impact Toughness has on the game, and I don't think anyone at ArenaNet much cares for it. This is a big flag, considering the popularity of tanks and bruisers in other games, and shouldn't be underestimated. Raid tough-tanking was an interesting concept, while it lasted, but more of a chore than an actual pursuit of an attribute. The theming is clear: the more Toughness you have, the less damage you take. What shocks the would-be bruisers is that this only affects strike damage, with tanks burning to death just as easily as anyone else. While this should create an identity role for Condition Damage over strike damage, the unpopularity of Toughness means cDPS never feels this advantage. What's more, as the only attribute that demands incoming effects, rather than outgoing action, it doesn't feel significant to play around, and when increased on champions and bosses, it results in purely hidden information that doesn't lend to player choice or agency.
• To top it off, the protection boon grants a whopping 33% damage reduction in strike damage from one boon alone (or 40% as a Tempest or shield Engi), while Concentration benefits many other builds outside of high durability, and boons affect up to 5 targets. Even with 3-stat, Toughness-priority heavy armor, good food, a utility, and Rune of the Dolyak, getting 30-40% damage reduction out of Toughness is extremely difficult, with heavy diminishing returns, with 10-20% being a more realistic useage case. Add in that most damage-reduction traits are a flat value that doesn't scale with Toughness (or any other stat), and Toughness becomes one of the most worthless attributes in the game.
• Recommendation 1: Flip those values, protection granting 20-33% damage reduction, while Toughness on a heavy armor class maxes out at 50% with full investment. Recommendation 2: Make protection a stackable boon, at 5% reduced incoming damage per stack, to a maximum of 5 stacks, with profession tech like Hardy Conduit or Over Shield granting 7% reduced damage per stack instead. This would mean that there would have to be a far more significant commitment to "keeping protection up" on allies as a defender, than to simply spec Concentration, and passively churn out enormous damage reduction, and create a space for more than one defender to contribute. Recommendation 3: Change damage-reducing traits and skills to scale with Toughness as well. Recommendation 3.5: Make Taunt duration scale with Toughness instead of Concentration? This would be a weird one I dunno I'm just spitballin ere
• Recommendation 4: Either additionally or alternatively, grant Toughness the added effect (either universally, or as a common trait tech more likely) of %-reduction of incoming condition duration, at -1% per 15 points of Toughness, to a maximum of -75%, as a form of negative-Expertise, if you will. This would help cement high-toughness, heavy-armor builds as a durable tanking effect in game: protectors who can grant allies Toughness, like Firebrand's Unbroken Lines, allow them to power over area hazards, while those who can pull conditions off allies and onto themselves, like Necromancer, Guardian's Save Yourselves, Rev's Pain Absorption, and Specter's Hungering Darkness, can help snuff out conditions in a way that doesn't rely on condition cleansing skills or traits, truly tanking for the team in more ways than one. It combos with the resolution and resistance boons without supplanting them, much like how Toughness already combos with protection. Above all, it creates a distinct gameplay intention, one that can be proactively built around, using forgotten prefixes such as Crusader, Captain's or Knight's, Cavalier's, Nomad's, Settler's, Giver's, or Trailblazer's. Minstrel's, Cleric's, and Apothecary's are all great for heal-tank builds as well.
• Should Toughness be considered a role, gameplay that demands Toughness should involve a lot of sudden or prolonged threats, and regular condition application in groups. Dangerous traps, or an environment that applies conditions over time, would be repelled by anyone who has better armor and defenses, and the overall nerf to protection as a boon would means that proper healing, blocking, dodging, and relocation are all made more important.
• >>>Vitality:
• Simple: more +VIT, more health. There needs to be some purity of purpose, however, where traits granting Vitality should be a distinct tanking/front-liner option, or have traits that convert their Vitality into other, more thematic attributes; various alchemical effects make sense, as does Necromancer's manipulation of life forces and Ranger's Wilderness Survival, but Guardian Power of the Virtuous, Force of Will, and Imbued Haste, and Virtuoso Quiet Intensity, are questionable sources, especially given their other effects and themes. Specter's Strength of Shadows feels custom-made for Ritualist's, not just a convenient coincidence, since it doubles or even triples up on different technologies and build requirements, while Plaguedoctor's, Shaman's, and Sentinal's all fail to see use by comparison.
• Should Vitality be considered a role, having a Vitality challenge would mean enemies strike hard and often, in a way that having less than a certain amount of health could put you on the floor. This may be through strike damage, possibly after a knockdown or disable, or repeatedly applied damaging conditions, or fights with a strong opening strike, requiring either high Vitality, or barrier application to survive for those first few seconds. Alternatively, an applied debuff that prevents the player from receiving health for a period of time would be a great test of their Vitality.
• >>>Ferocity:
• A UI element showcasing the end value of a critical hit on weapon and skill tooltips would help describe the value of this attribute at a glance.
• As a rule, traits that grant Ferocity or extra critical hit damage should be a benefit predominantly earned by front-line fighters, in melee range: Warrior's Axe Mastery is a great example of this, having a passive attribute benefit, but mostly benefitting axe skills, which are melee range specifically. This isn't to say that ranged damage should be nerfed, but there needs to be a very clear distinction of what the advantage to melee fighters is over plugging away with shots from a safe distance, which also negatively impacts the value of defensive and mobility skills and effects. An alternative could be creatures that take extra damage from crits, but only from players within short melee range, or designing certain weapons to have specific skills that inflict individually increased critical hit damage. Snipers and other 1hKO builds, and professions with high or guaranteed crits such as arcane Elementalist, Spellbreaker, or Renegade, would be a great example of this feature, making use of prefixes such as Valkyrie's and Crusader's, which without extra precision, have been left to rot.
• Including Ferocity as a role in a scenario would likely mean>! fevered combat in a close-quarters space, inside a room or hallway, or otherwise have some kind of barrier or line-of-sight obstacle that discourages trying to take potshots from a 'safe' distance. Once combat is met, high-Ferocity fighters should clean house very quickly, perhaps as a result of a short window of high vulnerability to crit damage, much like how Exposed works.!<
• >>>Healing Power:
• While healing is recognized to be a valued role in the game, as spoken by ANet's 'design philosophy' document considering "Damage, Boons, and Healing" the main roles in PvE, the actual applications of healing are a bit scuffed. "Pure DPS", "boon DPS", and "boon healer" are all used often in instanced and competitive play alike, but "Pure Boons", "Pure Healing", and "Heal DPS" are essentially nonexistent.
• As a role, Healing Power should do what it says, and actually be responsible for healing, something that it doesn't currently actually do very well. Fast-moving, selfish assault units like Revenant (battlescars and Vindicator), sword Weaver, Willbender, and various forms of Thief, all have insanely low multipliers to their healing skills, or features that don't scale with Healing Power at all, such that even heavy investment into healing power is sometimes meaningless.
• (again: Battlescars has a Healing Power multiplier of 0.006, and even less in competitive. With maximum Healing Power, runes, and tapioca pudding, on Devestation/Salvation Vindicator below half health, that means you can only squeeze an extra 13.4 extra health per strike out of Healing Power scaling alone. If the healing done by battlescars was a serious problem in competitive play, the solution should have been to nerf the base healing to essentially zero, and crank the multiplier to reward gear investment, not crash the multiplier to rely on the unmodifiable base heal instead).
• >! Warrior's Vigorous Shouts grants power->healing power conversion, almost as a joke, given Warrior's overall lack of heal tech, as is the heals available to Necromancer, several Mesmer skills, and even some effects from our very own pocket-medic Specter. The regeneration boon is often the only consistent source of healing, and often scales more than twice as powerfully as skills or passives with healing attached, and even then requires Concentration, which is just ye olde "Boon Healer" raising it's head again.!<
• Given how Healing Power begins at a base of 0, if healing skills received a significant buff to their multipliers, especially on single-target or self-healing skills, while hammering down their base values, perhaps 'group healer' may actually get an opportunity to breathe in this game, the way the devs like to pretend it does. If this is tied into Precision's special-action identity, gear such as Magi's and Seraph would have a use as well, and if battlescars only inflicted their lifesteal on a crit, or Elementalist's Healing Ripple caused AoE heals on a critical hit, there would be a very real incentive to put Healing Power in the hands of front-line fighters, and not just in the back row of people who have Concentration and provide other boons.
• If a scenario was described with the Healing Power role, then there would likely be prolonged exposure to a damaging effect, such as a smog or psychic effect, as the party rushes around to solve puzzles or explore zones. Or, a space where the party is expected to split up, and be responsible for their own healing for a time.
• >>>Condition Damage:
• The UI should reflect both how much damage a skill does across it's lifetime, as well as how much damage it does per second, to help get a feeling for the moment-by-moment effects in combat.
• Condition Damage suffers many well-documented difficulties. Compared to power-crit DPS, the nine different professions having varying access to each of the five different damaging conditions means that while there's a greater incentive to use some classes or builds over others, it's extremely difficult to balance all cDPS roles against each other, especially if they don't bring some kind of other value to the team. Additionally, enemies succumbing to their injuries wipes the conditions attached to them, forcing you to start over; this should mean that bosses, who can withstand the stacks, should be the intended target for cDPS, but many bosses have the unfortunate tendency to phase, becoming immune to further condition applications, and breaking flow. Plus, some bosses having different Toughness levels means it can be difficult to recognize when a fight would benefit from condition damage over strike damage, when then that information is hidden from the player.
• My first proposal would be that different, specific enemies have telegraphed vulnerabilities to one or more conditions: "burning destroys plants and undead" is always a popular one, but few enemies, if any, have this effect. Torment should have extra effect on spellcasters and ghosts, while bleeding and poison should have extra effect on beefier, beastlike enemies, and humanoids. Confusion is fine, since it already has an identity against enemies that make many attacks at a time. Destroyers used to be immune to burning, and frankly, the game was better for it.
• My second proposal would introduce "stacks for stacks" trait technology in professions that predominantly use long-duration conditions, such as poison and bleeding, to inflict an additional application of those conditions for every 10-15 stacks already applied to the target. This would help with ramp-up during fights where those durations actually matter, without infringing on the ability of hybrid-dps and pDPS to deal damage quickly.
• This wouldn't all be so bad (just requires an affirmation of intention), if Expertise wasn't so monumentally instrumental in propping up competitive cDPS, and had it's own identity. Grieving gear and Sinister should have been fantastic for burning hybrid-dps, Trailblazer's for tank-dps, Seraph for heal-dps, and Ritualist's for boon-DPS, but Viper's is so overwhelmingly useful on every single profession in the game, that there is very little reason to pursue these gear sets.
• Describing a scenario with the Condition Damage challenge would probably mean>! a challenging, single-monster fight, ideally one without phases for it to drop conditions uptime during. It would likely have some form of content that discourages Power damage, such as moving around a lot, or an aura effect that damages anyone who gets too close for too long, which would allow Condition Damage to continue to tick away unabated. Identifying exactly which conditions are meant to be effective against which targets would also help grant the fight some much-needed identity, such as a boss that consumes poison stacks to suffers damage instead of healing, or a boss that cycles through vulnerability to different condition types throughout the fight.!<
• >>>Concentration:
• What a nightmare of an attribute this thing is. Singularly responsible for Might and Fury, Protection, Regeneration, Vigor, Resistance, and Resolution, and Alacrity and Quickness uptime, there basically isn't a single build in the game that doesn't benefit from Concentration in SOME capacity, especially in a group, and between Harrier's, Ritualist's, and Diviner's, there isn't really a single build in the game that can't climb into bed with it.
• As covered, Regeneration has an enormous advantage from Healing Power over other skills that heal, provided it has longer duration. The only builds that don't benefit from it in some way are "hi, DPS" types who otherwise need to trade their ability to generate their own boons for traits that increase their damage output. What mostly grinds my gears is that boons are so pivotal to the balance of the game right now, that there are no easy solutions on how to fix it. The main alternative could be maintaining our current level of boon cap, with full Concentration investment, but amplifying the % increase of Concentration's contribution, so that without it, boons only last for a second or so. Otherwise, having significantly more access to boons would mean that having to stack boons is the only way to keep them up, creating new "Boon Only" spellcasters who's EXCLUSIVE contribution is to buff the team.
• Concentration as a role in content would probably require the team to split up for long periods of time, such that the more duration you have, the longer you can benefit from the effects, until you can safely return to your healer or boon-giver. Moving ground hazards and social-distancing mechanics that discourage group stacking for very long would also enable this.
• >>>Expertise:
• My favorite. Expertise carries the same foundational problems as Concentration, but at least only for one aspect of dps-gameplay. That said, it deserves better than to simply prop up Condition Damage, and should have much more diverse options. Bleeding is a good example: in competitive game modes, the already-long duration of bleeding locks enemies into combat longer, making it harder for them to break out of combat and flee. Poison, for it's lack of damage, inhibits healing, while chill and slow impact cast speed and cooldown. Weakness, vulnerability, cripple, taunt, and fear, all spell out an exceedingly powerful PvP/WvW advantages, and alternative gameplay styles of battlefield control.
• As a role, Expertise is the attribute of pressure, committing to the long game and working to undermine enemies long enough to see them fail or falter. Personally, I'd like to see more underperforming traits get swapped out for more traits that apply, or benefit from, the application of these conditions, and much in the same way as Healing and boons, SEVERELY limit the base durations, while amplifying the %-duration-increase gained from heavily investing in Expertise. Even halving some existing durations, and making expertise grant +2% duration per 15 points instead of 1%, would help open up some variant gameplay builds, especially if combined with precision for "apply condition on crit" or "gain advantage when striking a foe with X condition" builds, for gear-dedicated gameplay effects.
• Rangers should be using mud, thorns, and conditions earned from taking Trapper's Expertise to be hit-and-run guerilla fighters. Elementalists should be chilling with ice, and entombing in stone, and Necromancers should be a dark beacon from which the land and people suffer debilitating curses. Thieves have no trait or gear interaction with preparation skills, and could gain a unique condition for each trap, and Dragonhunter actively competes with itself between it's trap trait, Piercing Light, and Dulled Senses, which inflicts cripple on disable. Even a trait, "Traps and preparations have longer effect duration based on your Expertise" would reinforce the role of control artist, and help introduce more and varied prefixes than the five that we currently abuse.
• Using Expertise as a role in content design would likely mean the same singular boss from the Condition Damage role, but ideally, would involve challenges that encourage the use of NON-damaging conditions. The Snowblind Fractal is a good example of an encounter where ice elementals try to put the fire out, and need to be slowed or stopped, as is having to immobilize the ghosts during the Gorseval raid boss, to prevent them from getting to the boss the middle.

With these roles defined, each attribute combination becomes not just a build type, but a distinct element of encounter design. Simply select two sets of 2-3 different attributes, combine them together, and you have a meaningful encounter:

• The front gate of the Ascalon Fractal sees many enemies together (Power), with a constantly occurring arrow barrage (Healing Power and Toughness), boiling oil (burning, healing again but could be solved with the Toughness change), and a champion guarding the gate (Precision, Ferocity).
• A boss that suffers extra critical hit damage from melee range (Ferocity), but which sheds extremely damaging conditions (Vitality, Healing Power, and fixed Toughness), on a timer that demands at least some players take advantage of the melee-range crit increase to win in time, would mean an active decision between how many DPS, healers, self-heals, and boons are necessary to win. Boneskinner comes close to this, only undermined by the fact this wasn't entirely intentional.
• A Healing Power + Vitality + Toughness fight where the boss will die after a 5-minute chase sequence requiring you to jump through an obstacle course would require ENTIRELY different technologies to win than most players are capable of spinning today. Spirit Vale's Spirit Run could have been this, but instead, was limited to a series of DPS checks against walls, and the River of Souls is instead steeped in cheese mechanics and demands for superspeed and stability.
• A Power + Precision + Expertise fight, where the boss gains Exposed for 2 seconds before inflicting a devastating blow, but who's Exposed state can be drawn out by additional time based on the defiance-damage inflicted by non-damaging conditions, would require several control artists to debuff the boss, long enough and often enough for the DPS to take it down. Disable builds already enable this, in a way, but Defiance Bars completely invalidate the non-damaging aspects of Expertise.

The main problem with these "Attributes as Roles" designs, is the gear combinations themselves. 4-Stat prefixes carry such a staggering advantageous weight over 3-stat prefixes, and Celestial over most 4-stat prefixes, that the more 'roles' are added to an encounter design, the more 4-stat and Celestial gear carries the day. While all the rest of this can be done fairly easily without disrupting metas too badly, I would honestly, personally, recommend lowering the stats associated with 4-stat and Celestial gear, even by 5% total, to help 3-stat gear, which is infinitely more narrow in application, stronger and more specialized for purpose. Additionally, changing which stat conversions exist on which professions, how, and increasing what % they take from other, less ideal attributes, could mean that each of the nine professions stand to benefit from different attribute combinations than each other, which would help enormously in bringing value to the 33 underperforming stat combos.
Otherwise, were these to be adopted, many different dead or unrecommended prefixes stand to open up, which really highlights the extreme extent to which gear has been made useless in this game, by merit of the narrow outlook the balance team takes when viewing each profession.
Disappointing outliers include:

• Nadijeh's Marshal gear (PoweHeal, precision/condi) (no such thing as a healDPS)
• The Twins' Grieving gear (PoweCondi, precision/ferocity) (no Expertise? Garbo, apparently)
• Maklain's Minstrel gear (Toughness/Heal, vitality/concentration) (not unused, just unpopular)
• Pahua's Trailblazer gear (Toughness/Condi, vitality/expertise) (should be ideal jungleguerilla fighter)
• Thackeray's Seraph gear (Precision/Condi, concentration/healing) (to craft this gear you need to actually farm the map and buy the inscription.)
• Ruka's Wanderer gear (PoweVitality, toughness/concentration) (bizarre)
• Ossa's Crusader gear (PoweToughness, ferocity/healing) (bizarre, ferocity with no precision)
• Laranthir's Vigilant gear (PoweToughness, concentration/expertise) (expertise, but no condition damage?)
• Tizlak's Commander gear (PowePrecision, toughness/concentration) (precision but no ferocity)
• Apothecary's, Clerics, Bringer's, Rabid, Shaman's, Sentinel's, Settler's, Nomad's, Cavalier's, Knight's, Soldier's, and Zealot's gear from the core game are all a strange mix of healing power, toughness, and other stats, that should all present exciting, meaningful gameplay structures, but are all dumped and forgotten as random loot to be salvaged and forgotten.

Much of this is exacerbated by the fact that stat-selectable gear is so readily available, with every single stat an option. Gearing a new build has turned from what used to be, at minimum, an excuse to run certain dungeons or farm Heart of Thorns, and devolved into a fairly meaningless scramble to grab up stat-select gear from any source, select either Berserker's, Viper's, Harrier's, Diviner's, or Celestial, and sigh in relief as you ignore the game's 33 other options. (Not that all those are ignored, I'm just being facetious. Easily 90% of all online builds use the above 5 options though.)
So. This concludes Part 1. In part 2, I aim to cover how we might pair these 'attribute roles' with mechanical effects in different classes that help produce roles not currently recognized by ArenaNet. In the meantime, I'd like to open discussion:

1. Should each professions be expected to benefit from a more personal set of gear attributes? Overlap is guaranteed in many cases, but should we see more cases such as Ritualist's, which is only desirable on professions with Vitality conversion? Or should all professions benefit identically from the same prefix options?
2. Are there any archetypes or build fantasies that you think our current selection of attributes could be used to address, but currently aren't in the game, such as Expertise affecting trap duration? If so, what are they, which profession would be doing it, and which attributes do you think would enable it?
3. Do you think stats being freely available is a good thing, or would you be interested in different attribute sets looted from specific zones or content types? For example, high-durability gear looted by roaming open world, or that different metas drop gear with prefixes that are explicitly designed to help you defeat it? Or that 'raid-ready' gear prefixes be looted from champions, strikes, and raids themselves?
4. Should 4-stat and Celestial be nerfed, or 3-stat buffed, in order to make them more appealing? If not, what purpose do you propose for 3-stat, non-Berserker gear?
5. If more content started to use a greater variety of challenges, other than just "hit big monster make big numbers go up more", would you be excited to experiment with different gear setups, in order to be better prepared for the challenges of each encounter? Or, do you prefer having a small number of loadouts, that can handle any and all content in the game?

As always, thanks for reading! If you have critiques, let me know! And if you're interested in Part 2, find it here! [link later]

This account is stacked, this game was my life for many years.
I don't find myself enjoying it anymore, so maybe it can go to someone who will actually play it.
Only looking for a couple thousand bucks OBO
Dragonflight purchased
Drak'Tharon realm [Alliance] - 1 lvl 69 rogue (10 lv 60 characters (2 pally, mage, warlock, monk, warrior, priest, druid, hunter)
Thunderhorn realm [Horde] - lv 54 shaman, lv 52 demon hunter, lv 51 shaman, lv 37 pally
Garrosh realm [Alliance] - lv 58 Death Knight, lv 35 pally
Total Mounts: 455, but i think just over 400 of those are "Usable on 1 Character", as i had juuust got the Frenzied Feltalon mount.
410/500 towards next mount achievement
All TCG mounts except 2 are bound, those 2 being Spectral Tiger and Swift Shorestrider (I own the Swift Spectral Tiger)
Other notable mounts include: Flametalon / Fossilized Raptor / Honeyback Harvester / Life-Binders / Loyal Gorger / Midnight / Pureblood firehawk / Swift Zhevra / Thundering Onyx Cloudserpent / Voidtalon of the Dark Star / Ashes of Alar / Core Hound / Drake of the North/South/East/West winds / Onyxian Drake / All timewalking mounts / Raven Lord / X-53 Touring Rocket & soooo many more farmed low chance mounts. (no gladiator or pvp mounts at all)
Tonnes of random pets, nothing extreme though.
243 Toys, a handful of rare and expensive ones
over 16k Achievement Points
The main appeal of the account is the insane mount collection, this account is worth a LOT of $$
Serious buyers only please
Open to Trades
DM for screenshots or any other info, thank you~

Now trialing for Season 2 (and working on Dathea), come talk to us!
MISSION:
Stardust was created to give mature raiders access to high end raiding content in a friendly environment and on a limited schedule.
GOALS:
We will complete Normals and Heroics as fast as possible before defeating as many mythic encounters as we can prior to the new content release.
RAID TIMES:
Wednesdays & Sundays 8:30p-11p EST
SERVER:
US-Stormrage: a high-pop, EST, PVE server.
RECRUITMENT:
DPS: Warrior, Enhance Shaman, WW Monk, Shadow Priest
APPLICATION:
Please submit our really short application to get the process started: https://forms.gle/JhrqDu3Vh6duupvL9
Good luck in your guild search!

Hello!
I would love for you to join my team!
About Us: 4/8 Mythic, 8/8 Heroic
What we offer:

1. Mythic + (multiple groups run +20-27 keys)
2. Alt raiding, transmog runs, and other guild activities
3. AmongUs/Streaming Parties
4. Guild repairs
5. Potentially PvP nights in the future

What we want:

• Proactive raiders
• Raiders that also run M+ regularly

Current Needs:
DPS: Enhancement Shaman, Balance Druid, or Other Solid DPS
Heals: Resto Druid/Prevoker
Tanks: None
For more information, add the following or click the application link below: Recruiter: Malideon#6527 -Discord Apply: https://apply.wowaudit.com/us/zuljin/end-of-line/mythic?preview

We are an Australian based guild, formed from friends who originally played in WOTLK together. We value progression while maintaining a friendly fun atmosphere.
We raid two nights a week, Wednesday and Thursday from 7:00 PM to 10:30 PM ST, we also have multiple 10-man groups running each week on an informal basis.
Our progression is 9/9 HM on 25 man and 9/9 HM + Algalon on 10 man. We use a Loot Council system with the RC Loot Council addon and thatsmybis.com. We endeavor to spread loot across the raid group to ensure the best return on raiding. We also include raid members in the voting process to ensure transparency.
We want full-time raiders who can commit to coming both nights most weeks, with the understanding that sometimes real life comes up.
We are looking for an enhance shaman and 1-2 ranged DPS to fill out our roster. If this sounds appealing to you, please visit our recruitment channel here - https://discord.gg/dzGc5bHJZ9

Shamanism has a ton of potential, in this post I’ll outline some of my ideas of some elements it could contain. I know we haven’t voted yet but I think compiling a list of my ideas alone would open minds to the expansive list of possibilities that could await within this skill if we decide it’s the one to explore. I’m just one mind and I’m sure everybody has their own ideas for what this skill could be. I’m excited to hear what your ideas are and any opinions regarding mine are welcomed.
Time limits entering the Spirt World:
When you enter the Spirit World, you must burn some sort of incense or use another item like drink a potion that gives you a specified amount of time exploring the space. These items are crafted using gathered materials specific to Shamanism. As you level your Shamanism skill, you will have access to higher tiered items that you may craft that allow you to spend more time within the Spirit Realm.
I think there should be a distinction between being in the Spirit Realm and outside of it while still being able to train and get xp in Shamanism from both places. Being IN the Spirit Realm is a new place to explore, where maybe your xp rates are higher but at the cost of producing and using items that grant you time there. Outside of it, you would largely gain most of your xp by producing items at the Ritual Circles proposed in the blog.
Expanding your Spirit Realm:
Hidden within the Spirit Realm are Shamans who offer a wide variety of knowledge. Among other things they provide to the skill (I’ll expand later), these Shamans have camps set up in the Spirit Realm. Revitalizing these camps will allow you to expand your presence into the Spirit World, serving as a place that pauses your time and also allowing you to reset or add to your time limit (up to a point). One idea is to make time between each Camp be longer and longer, blocking players from proceeding to deeper levels until they have unlocked the required level to use the items that allow more time that’s required to travel the extra distance. It can be sort of related to tile-man-mode in a way.
I can imagine a sprawling network of pathways with twists and turns that make their way toward other Camps or dead ends or boss lairs or infectious zones; a giant maze within the Spirit Realm that will take a long time to discover all of the little nooks and crannies hidden there. Once a pathway that directly connects two Shaman Camps together is unlocked, fully explored ,and ‘cleared’ per se, teleportation between them can occur at the Ritual Center of each camp. This would require some sort of ingredient cost, maybe, or Spirt Fragments obtained by killing Spirt Creatures (who might need a Slayer Level to kill depending on their type or level?).
A bit of a stretch idea maybe, but the idea of finding a tree, rock, or other object on the surface level that might provide access to the Spirit Realm.. Requiring, in addition to a Shamanism level, other skills to craft the portal or entrance method. These could be ‘unprotected areas’ where the Shamans are unable to reach you nor offer assistance should you die… Weird idea maybe lmk your thoughts.
Shamans:
Shamans can be viewed similar to Slayer Masters in a sense. Each of them are located at each of these ‘Disturbed Sites’ within the Spirit Realm, perhaps under duress or imprisoned by some ulterior force that can be explained through lore (Mod Ed cough cough). Freeing the Shaman allows you to enter the Spirit Realm directly through these zones which are scattered across the world of Geilenor. This allows you to trek along multiple pathways that may be severed or blocked by obstacles requiring higher Shamanism levels or inaccessible altogether.
In order to depart along these pathways, you must first help the Shaman restore his camp. Similar to fossil island, but more complex than simply bringing planks and rebuilding it. The immediate area surrounding the Camp could contain materials that the Shaman tasks you with gathering. Surface world items could also be a requirement, aiding in an item sink if necessary. Things like low level herbs jump out immediately along with logs, ores/bars.
A Protection Ritual must be performed at each of these sites by the Shaman which unlock Pathways, defined travel areas for a player to explore and defend from Spirit Creatures. These may be outlined by a series of tiki torches to fit the tribal theme. Torches could be upgraded as your level increases to provide various buffs in their area of influence. Higher level Protection Rituals may be available as well, allowing for a camp to have several pathways for you to travel and explore from the same central Shaman Camp. Aside from the default unlocked pathway, the Shaman could require a certain Spiritual Component in the ritual that might not be found in this area or can’t be obtained until a certain level.
Equipment:
Equipment restrictions prevent you from taking anything of combat significance into the spirit realm, similar to Entrana. Gathering ‘nature-y’ resources within the Spirit Realm along pathways will allow you to craft equipment specific to the Spirit World, useful for combat or any spirit-draining effects that Spirit Creatures might inflict upon you. Harming Spirit Creatures could require these special weapons, enchanted with Spiritual Essence harnessed and imbued within Tribal Rituals.
Hear me out: if there are Spirit Bosses to fight, do you really want to cheese it with your BIS weapons? It’s a new skill after all, it should take more than having your best weapons available to breeze through the skill and obtain what rewards it could potentially bring. Imbuing your equipment, though, could allow you to take your treasured items into the Spirit Realm. Tier 70 items like a whip could require a level 70 Shamanism level to imbue, if you really felt the need to bring these items to the Spirit Realm. I don’t see a point in excluding the entire game from the skill entirely, just requiring proper leveling first. Although some tradeoffs might have to be made, like not being able to have certain effects that might be reserved for Shamanism-specific-crafted weapons.
Likewise, Shamanism-specific gear wouldn’t have much use in the surface world. Although a case could be made for it, specifically when gathering “Natural Components” as described in the blog. Or maybe it does, who knows…
Furthermore, I feel like this would provide better integration to the current skills as you’ll need levels in crafting, smithing, fletching, herblore, etc. to construct these. Or you could always buy them from other players if you don’t have the levels, making this a skill that can be profitable.
A thought to explore, let me know your ideas. Personally I feel like it would make the skill feel deeper and provide a larger level of incentive to train, especially if that Tbow could make the difference in a big boss fight…
World events:
High level tribal circles might cause a world event where the circle is under attack by Spirits escaping the Spirit World. Players nearby can join in and help defend the circle to get an xp reward. This helps to achieve the social interaction focus as displayed by the Forestry Expansion. It also provides a more dynamic aspect to OSRS, knowing that at any moment you might come across an adventurer that could spawn a chaotic event you can either opt into or watch from the sidelines. I think this further enhances the mysticism and magical feeling of the game if players can pop off events like these.
Buyable vs Untradable items:
IMO, almost every item should be able to be bought and sold… WITH THE EXCEPTION that using said items could have certain level thresholds. For example, let’s say there is an incense required to be burned that allows you an allotted time in the spirit realm (or along pathways). To make the incense, it requires level 60 Shamanism for 2 minutes of time. It would require a level 50 Shamanism skill to burn. This way you can still get a buff from a higher level item if you’re willing to pay, but still be required to have leveled the skill yourself. The increase is marginally better as to help you level faster, but at a cost from a market decided value.
This makes it so it can still be a profitable skill for players where we aren’t just introducing gp rewards or alchs or whatever. If somebody would rather gather materials for xp and sell them, let’s let them do so. If they want to buy materials and craft equipment or other products before selling them, let’s do it. I fear that making most of the items in the skill untradable leaves the skill hopelessly lonely. We have ironman mode for those that wish to do the entire game on their own, why make a skill designed to be an ‘ironman skill’?
Just an option, let me know your thoughts.
Random idea blurbs:

• Players in the Spirit Realm can be seen as ghosts or tribal spirits from the surface world and vice versa.
• By having pathways, it reduces the need for the ENTIRE world map to be converted into a Spirit Realm and thus less development time required.
• Skillers would be able to ward off Spirit Creatures entirely by improving their tiki torches along pathways to have a Spirit Silencer buff.

_____________________________
I could probably go on for hours with ideas, but this is already rather long. The idea of this skill has really captivated me and I think it’s something that could really add to the flavor of OSRS while still remaining true to its roots. Depending on how it’s done, it could be a nostalgia kick all over again where you’re discovering Runescape again for the first time but with a strange twist.
If OSRS will only be getting ONE new skill, this would be my choice personally. But for the record, I think the natural progression of skills introduced should be Sailing and then Shamanism. I can imagine sailing to some distant island which unleashes some spiritual entity that begins to corrupt Geilenor or something crazy like that. Not to mention some engine work they’ll (admittedly) need to do with Sailing which could further enhance any skills that were to come out afterwards.
If only there was an option to vote for Sailing with the promise of Shamanism to launch shortly afterwards… Where we could flesh out the design as the dev team works on bringing Sailing to the game...

Shaman immediately concerned me seeing that its potential rewards could accelerate powercreep into the game. Oils and enhancements to the existing BIS gear, on top of new prayers sounded like too much.
Sailing on the other hand would not impact power creep as the rewards wouldn't directly impact combat. So I was more "on-board" with it, initially.
But after much deliberation, I came to a different conclusion.
Fast forward 2 years to winter 2025 when sailing is in the game. We will eventually need some new BIS gear. But most of our equipment is already so good and there is only so much existing content we can squash. Can you fathom a T85-90 replacement to Tbow, Scythe or Shadow coming from the next raid? I cannot.
Let's think of the Shaman skill in 2 years. Shaman proposes a spirit realm, an alternative version of the existing game with new content. There could be spirit realm versions of every boss currently in the game with new more challenging mechanics. As players, we could have insane enhancements applied to equipment to match these bosses, that only impacts the spirit world.
This means that the new skill could bring less powercreep to the main game by gatekeeping the more OP rewards to the Spirit realm. Which is something sailing cannot do as it wouldn't make sense to lock new gear from new islands from coming into the mainland.

Hey everyone! It's me again. The big idea dude. This one is actually much simpler. My idea is called Tribe Primes. How it works is when you get a 100% rating at 3 or more crazy bots WITHOUT any of them locked, you get its Prime.
This part is just an idea, but maybe in addition to benefits in both single and multi-player, you get a free skin for that tribe (if available). There should also be a 'disable prime' button as a matchmaking filter.
Moving on from that small little throw in, on to what they do.
Idea #1: Stars
Plain and simple, you start a game with 1 or 2 more stars (haven't decided).
Idea #2: Specializing
Your starting unit type (Not starting unit; All of its type) gets a +1 to either attack or defense, depending on its specialty. (ex. Quetzali starting unit, Defender, would get +1 attack rather than defence because it focuses on defence, Vengir starting unit, Swordsman would get +1 to Defense because it focuses mainly on attack.
Exception 1: Warriors
The most common starting unit: Warriors. They do not get a bonus to anything, as that would be annoying to deal with. Two-tile movement for two stars? Boring, makes the whole 'prime' thing not special besides a small amount of tribes. And it has good defense and good attack? Yes, please! No. It takes the focus unit of said tribe and buffs that. Take Xin-Xi for example. Because it mainly focuses on swordsman, Xin-Xi would buff your Swordsman. Two movement instead of one, as it has both Defense and Attack sitting at 3. How about for Bardur? And that, ladies and gentleman, brings us to Conundrum 1.
​
Conundrum 1: What do we do with Bardur, that has two main unit focuses?
Normally, I would say Archery because it is more early-game oriented, but there is already a tribe that specializes in that, but we wouldn't want to be unfair in forcing mathematics. So how can we be fair? Again, I would say make a choice of what you want to specialize in permanently, but that would be weird and it just doesn't seem to fit the game. Plus, Bardur doesn't need a potential buff, with it already being ridiculously powerful despite it being a free tribe. Which I am not saying I disagree with, I love that it isn't pay to win. That was a complement to the devs. So actually, it is fair. Just not equal. So we are forcing Bardur Prime into Catapults. But, my fellow gamers, that would be overpowered, wouldn't it? The whole shtick of Catapults is that they have 0 defense and cannot retaliate. If they gain a defense and can retaliate, that is ridiculous. Two conundrums in one, I love it! (No I don't. I wish I could just transfer my ideas without problems. . .)
Conundrum 1, part 2: What do we do with Bardur Catapult retaliation possibility?
Sometimes I hate my self-procliaimed title and job as a video game idea generator. Can't I just let my brain rest? But no. . . So here is my idea. Bardur catapults, as stated, cannot get defense. Neither can they get attack without their power becoming ridiculous. And movement makes them essentially unkillable if you don't chain them and you play your cards right. Range is out of the question, no explanation necessary. So what do we do? We give them 18 HP.
This sounds crazy, please hear me out.
With zero defense, it is still only two hits to kill. From a warrior, if it had 20hp, it would take 3 hits. Same with archer, and I think also swordsman (maybe only two for swordsman). But with twenty HP, 2 HP always remains. (Source: here) I used it and found that 18 is perfect for Warriors and Archers, as they each leave the Catapult alive with 1 HP normally. Simple math, 9 + 9 = 18. Therefore, that is their HP. But then, what happens when they are veteranized? That gives them x1.5 MAX HP, and sets them to maximum HP after they upgrade the upper limit. That would set them to a 27HP maximum. Three hits- a bit strong, don't you think? Yes. So, again, another wall. Why does life have to be this way? So the only thing left is to change veteranize into grant an ability. And I have just the one in mind. . . Persist. So what do we do? We, of course, are scratching the idea that it gives the unit more HP. So, why did you read all that, you wonder? Because I had to explain coming to this conclusion one way or another. You were right if you thought that there was no way I was really gonna ask for 18 HP, such an awkward unit HP. So veteranization works as normal, granting 15hp, just Prime gives Bardur Persist to catapults. It can be bloody powerful if used correctly, but it only becomes an issue late game. But it is truly powerful - so there's more. Instead of the normal persist, we give a new ability, 'Three Strikes'. This makes it so that it has three strikes for persistence per turn, maximum. Don't judge me on the name, I was doing a Fantasy Baseball draft as I wrote this part.
Conundrum 2: What if a unit specializes in movement?
Then it gets +1 to movement, because it makes the most sense for a Rider, which is the only movement-based starting unit. (No, archers do not get +1 range, that would be ridiculously powerful and instantaneously make Hoodrick Prime OP.)
Conundrum 3: What if a unit has an equal rating of both defense and attack?
The said unit gets +1 to its main focus, for example a swordsman gets +1 to attack because that is the main reason you get a swordsman, not to tank up damage. That makes it so that it balances it out and even if it has technically the same stats, it changes to fit its purpose. But that's if it has a three or below in both, if it has 4 or 5 in both then a +1 to movement, because imagine a 4 attack or 4 defense baby dragon. That thought terrifies me. And I shudder to think of a 5 attack or defense Navalon, for that matter.
Conundrum 4: What do we do with a Mooni?
You take away the Mooni's skate, so that it moves 2 spaces on land. An alternative idea is that you enhance its freeze to two squares, but the second square is for water and terrain only, not units.
Conundrum 5: What does a Shaman focus in?
That's not a conundrum, put that in because I knew it will be in the comments. Next time, learn the rules before questioning me, Shamans actually have 1 in both defense and attack and therefore gets +1 movement.
Whew! Big chunk of the entire . . . Article, at this point? Doesn't even feel like it's been that long despite the immense amount of research I have continuously had to do to make sure I didn't get anything wrong, and even then I have probably made many mistakes that more skillful and experienced players will laugh at. Remember, I'm kind of new. I spent the better part of an hour on just the warriors, about how they were going to be broken with two defense if they only had one, until I realized that they had two and should get movement, and only then did I spend another forty minutes writing what is currently known as Conundrum 1. Okay, you don't need to know my life story. Sorry.
Idea 3: Technological Advance
Simple, thank Zordon himself. What is considered the 'better' technological component of the technological route that the tribe is on, is unlocked for them. For example, Zebasi has farming. They would get Organization-- Just kidding, I'm not dumb. While that is good and all, something already specializes in that. That will be the new ground rule for these. Zebasi gets Construction. Similarly, Bardur does not get Archery; they are at a crossroads, so they can also go above. They would then normally get Mathematics, but that is worthless but for the catapults without Forestry, so they get Forestry. Especially considering that Mathematics Catapults are a strategy of game that you would be forced to commit to, if you want to play optimally. One more example/question: What does Imperius get? Farming is great. Diplomacy is great. Strategy is great. But Strategy is taken by Quetzali, so it's farms or Diplomacy. Again, farms is taken by Zebasi, so they are forced to go Diplomacy. This is a method that you can quickly use to shut down all conversation, which is the reason I chose for that to be a ground rule; it is clear and concise, no room for speculation and needless complications. Okay, scratch that last part, this entire post is a needless complication. My entire life is me adding needless complications. It's what I love and hate doing. It's my trademark.
I hope you all like this post and didn't find it too confusing or straight up idiotic. If you do, please be nice about it. Already bracing myself for the comments! This is Joyous Wolf, better known as KingFroggyIV, out!

Hello we are Pog News! A 2 night CE driven guild looking to kill the dumb bird before 10.1 patch. We are 7/8M looking for people to round out our roster!
High Priority:
- Enhance Shaman
- Off - Tank (dual spec capability preferred!)
- Healer
Will consider any exceptional DPS, feel free to message myself on discord or the GM. Looking foward to killing Ras!
Discord: (Recruitment Officer) Big Khahuna#4029 / (Guild Master) Cscov3#1564
BattleNet: (Recruitment Officer) Solcanis#1093 / (Guild Master) Corey#1734

I watched the livestream yesterday and the mods suggested a few roadblocks that they will run into during the development of each.
I’ll try to highlight a few that I thought about and share a few ideas. I’m curious to see what other people have come up with.
Taming Problem: “Will Taming interact with Combat?”
My answer overall would be no, but that’s the lazy way of going about this. I’d like to take the approach of trying to make it work first.
The mods seemed to stall on the idea of combat. They felt like it would be weird to have a pet like a wolf or dragon that could be very handy in combat stand there doing nothing, but also felt like it’d feel equally weird if they acted like Thralls, doing 1-3 damage when they do attack.
My idea would be to have a combat passive on the creatures, as well as a secondary special attack bar on creatures that can be tamed at level 60+ without having them attack normally to do damage.
Imagining a wolf in this case giving you a + bonus on slash weapons or a speed bonus with a spec that works similarly to the dragon daggeclaws would make sense in my mind. That way you’d have a satisfying weapon to time in combat thats maybe disabled from your pet taking a few hits of damage.
Sailing: “How will sailing work mechanically?”
The mods already mentioned how they’ve been brainstorming a couple of different ways to input movement for ships into the game. I feel a mechanic similar to how routes are drawn in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass could work well. Have a more intuitive map that allows charting a course for the boat to automatically follow and have the player’s focus on a camera angle set behind the boat instead of a top down one. It will add more of a unique feel while sailing and could also provide the opportunity to more accurately click on areas immediately around your vessel to make attacking approaching monsters or fishing out sunken loot easier.
The mods mentioned wanting to create more dynamic ocean tiles vs. the simple blue tiles that are currently in game, which I think is a great idea. Having islands that will pop up from time to time or ghost ships could be an interesting twist too.
As far as a passive way to level, perhaps providing your crew with resources to use throughout an expedition that they go out to do themselves would be good. The return would be xp and a variety of non-tradable loot/resources you can use for upgrading your vessel over time. The experience would be less than going out yourself, but would allow you to work on other things while they do some work for you.
Shamanism: “How will weapon enchantments work?” or “How will the spirit realm be implemented?”
I personally haven’t gotten to end game content, so I don’t feel informed enough to tackle the questions surrounding how they’ll balance the weapon enhancements. I’ll instead talk about what I’d like to see from the spirit realm.
The mods were spitballing whether to build an entirely new area or have a mirrored overlay of Gielenor that looks different in some ways. Think of it looking like a texture pack with a very similar layout, but with different content and NPCs rather than a different area entirely.
I personally would like to see an entirely new area built around the concept of a spirit realm. Perhaps with referenced passed away characters from the lore that lived in different eras mixed with unique races. It would be interesting to have shamanism as well as some other skills work differently in the spirit realm versus the over world with different resources to work with.
All this being said, shamanism definitely should be fleshed out a bit more before suggestions can be made. The mods expressed how they don’t want the elements of it being confused with druids or herblore and want it to be seen more as spiritual in the sense of being a different magic than the ones given from runes. We still don’t have a strong understanding of what it can potentially be versus the other two skills, which is both exciting and worrying.
Anyways, that’s my two cents. I was tunnel visioned on one of the three new levels when they were first announced, but after hearing what the mods have to say, I’m confident that whatever passes, if any at all, will be a very welcomed new piece of content to the game. What do you think?

Introduction: After reviewing Jagex’s pitch and community ideas, here is my proposal for the new skill Taming. Shamanism will a Support & Utility skill that requires raising monster companions to perform in-game tasks for both combat and skilling.
Gameplay: Involves players obtaining eggs or capturing monsters via the Hunter Skill, which can then be taken to the Tamer Sanctuary for further interaction. At this sanctuary, players can nurture the creature by feeding and training them to become a travel companion. The player's ability to tame creatures is dependent on their Taming Level, and if they lack the necessary expertise, the creatures will remain in the sanctuary. Successfully taming a companion will grant combat or support abilities based on their capabilities. For instance, bears can fight alongside the player, while mules can carry more items and monkeys can retrieve objects from the ground. Some creatures possess a mixture of these abilities at varying degrees and variety, with creatures being able to perform more at a higher Taming level. As the player tames more animals and utilizes them, they will acquire experience towards raising their Taming Skill. Additionally, after a certain period of usage, the companions will expect a reward, such as food, toys, or affection. Failure to comply with these requests can lead to negative behavior or the creatures returning to the Tamer Sanctuary.
Rewards: As you progress in Taming, you'll gain access to additional techniques that can help you tame creatures more quickly, as well as access to superior and more diverse companions with different skill sets. You can also improve your companion's abilities through training, which can decrease their demands for rewards, increase their combat effectiveness, and allow them to carry more items or undertake new assignments.
Conclusion: The Taming skill proposal adds a new dimension to gameplay in Runescape. By allowing players to raise and train monster companions, the Taming skill provides a unique way to support and aid players in their in-game activities, whether it be for combat or skilling. With a range of creatures possessing varying abilities and skill sets, players can create personalized teams to suit their preferences and play style. As players progress in Taming, they will unlock new techniques, companions, and abilities that enhance their gameplay experience. Overall, the Taming skill adds a fresh and exciting aspect to the world of Glienol and will undoubtedly provide players with hours of engaging gameplay.