'Tis Secondary - A Variant Idea

[Lurker Wyrm]

The builds and PvP subs seem to be getting all the love lately, so I thought I'd spruce things up around here and add a variant I came up with a while back.

The rules are simple, you're only allowed to use your secondary profession. You can not use any skills, attributes, runes, insignias, or items associated with your primary profession. Like using ranger primary to spam attack skills from another profession thanks to expertise? Forget it. If you go ranger primary you can't use expertise, and the same goes for the other classes and their primary attributes.

You can upgrade your armor to the max defense possible for the class, but you're not allowed to use any primary profession runes (i.e. no stonefists if you're war primary). You are allowed to use generic runes and insignias (i.e. radiant/survivor insignias and runes of vigor/vitae/clarity).

Not sure there's much else to say. There aren't any restrictions on storage and merchants or any other NPCs, which is probably why this write-up is a lot shorter than the others. Aside from not having access to anything to do with your primary prof, it's a rather unrestricted and straightforward variant.

[Hawkmoon]

Isn't this going to make all characters that follow the variant either Warrior or Paragon primaries? The reasoning behind that being that you get max armor with either of those classes, and if you're not allowed to use the special attribute of your primary, then there's no reason to choose anything other than the primary that will give you max armor. I guess the question is, do you mind that lack of diversity?

[FoxBat]

No, because you need the energy regen from 60-AL classes to support heavy spellcasting. Or do you really want Koss playing monk for you?

On the other hand, dervish armor pretty much obliterates the competition in that department. I'd just about always trade 5 energy for 25 health and 10 more armor.


I'd like KISS but I think you need some additional rules. Mesmers, Resto/Channeling Ritualists, somewhat Elementalists, and even curse necros just aren't that different when played as a secondary. (Neither are smite monks, but they suck outside of Zfire. ) These are characters that aren't reliant on their primary nor high armor. Needs a small dose of more masochistic challenge while you're at it. I want a variant where warrior healers and melee necromancers are the exemplars!

Unfortunately, that would probably mean every 4-pip energy primary should be banned from picking a caster secondary. But we could allow this under the condition you "play something that would be good if you had your primary, except you don't." Like spirit spammers without spawning power, minon masters without soul reaping, healing/prot without divine favor. You might be able to get away with these restrictions along attribue lines. So for example:

A 4-pip primary playing a....

Ritualist: cannot use restoration or channeling.
Monk: cannot use smiting
Necro: cannot use curses
Mesmer: cannot use skills with < 1 (< 2?) second cast time
Elementalist: ...tough one. E-storage isn't that good. Banning attunements or glyphs could be rough though.


I don't know if this is the best way of doing that when all is said and done.

[Lurker Wyrm]

I have to say I'm not in favor of limiting the attributes of secondaries that people can use. If someone wanted to further challenge themself in that way it's up to them. Get too carried away and you'll have a completely different variant.

Just being a 4-pip primary doesn't mean you're going to be a good caster. I would gladly take the 5 energy of mesmer or ele armor over the extra 10 armor of a dervish or assassin. However, that's not to say that primary attributes aren't a big deal either. Me/E was only a popular combination because it let people get the slow fire spells off quickly. E/N minion masters aren't really all that common either because it's hard to maintain the energy without soul reaping, which is also the attribute that allows N/Mo to work.

It's true that some attribute lines don't get much of a bonus at all from their primary attribute, like tactics or restoration, but it's also true that there's a very noticable difference between 12 and 14 in those attributes since 14 is where a lot of breakpoints are. Granted, running 14 tactics is pretty much unheard of since 9 is a good place for it, but there are a lot of people out there who run it at 8 and use a minor rune (or run something else with a minor so they can have 9 in it) so they have a better balance among their attributes.