GW2's 8th Profession???

[mstngmusic]

I don't know if anyone else picked up on this, but on the FAQ's on the official GW2 site, they indicate that there are 8 professions. So far, we have only seen 7...

Original Quote...
"How many professions does Guild Wars 2 have?"
"Guild Wars 2 will have eight professions with very distinct play-styles and skills. We have currently announced the elementalist, the warrior, the ranger, the necromancer, the guardian, and the thief, and we will continue to unveil new professions in the coming months."

Anyone have a clue what the 8th profession will be???

I say a Monk...

[ComplexNuber]

It's almost certainly going to be a Mesmer. I'd be here until tommorow if I went to collect all the hints that they gave us for this, but I'll explain some. A while ago, Anet revealed that the last profession will be from GuildWars1. They have guaranteed there will be no monks or anything which shares the same dedicated healer/support role. This leaves us with: Ritualist, Assassin, Dervish, Paragon and Mesmer. Ritualist - The Engineer replaced this role. Assassin - The Thief replaced this role. Paragon - The Guardian replaced this role (arguably, but they're just too similar to both be in). This leaves the Dervish and Mesmer. There are no enchantments in GW2 and Dervish are from Elona while GW2 is in Tyria.

Also, Queen Jenna from the the GW2 book Edge of Destiny is a Mesmer. This isn't the first time a profession was revealed in a GW2 book. Ghosts of Ascalon was the first mention of Necromancers in GW2 and Edge of Destiny also had some references to Guardians (although no one seemed to think much of it at the time).

Last but not least, Mesmers are somewhat of a symbol of what the Guild wars series are all about. Knowing the enemy's build, fine tuning your build, interrupting, hexing and playing strategically in general as opposed to having a pre-set order of skills to cast (press keys 1-2-3-4-5 "I-win"). I don't think Arenanet would get rid of them, simply because of how unique they are.

[mstngmusic]

I would say that I agree with you totally... Thanks for sharing

[Risugami]

I have to disagree with you about the Engineer taken in the role of the Ritualist.
If one reavealed profession comes near to Ritualist, for me it's the Guardian, but even this profession doesn't come close to Ritualist.
And for the exclude of the Dervisch you can add that they were light armor, while the last profession will most likely be cloth armor.

And most of the mesmer function won't be available in GW2 (like mana or life drain or movement discontrol)
Which lets me think the last profession will be the Ritualist.
But I would rather like an Alchemist for the last profession. Creating Poisons to throw at the enemy and unsing the enviroment elements to create unique weapons would be nice.

[Centaur]

Well, there was an old Factions era interview in which they stated:

"The Ritualist would be the Guild Wars equivalent of an FPS engineer: a great support character, able to help defend allies, excellent at ground control. We could use bound Spirits as the fantasy version of a gun turret and introduce new "weapon spells" to give him a way to provide offensive and defensive enhancements to allies. We realized quickly that the Ritualist gave us an opportunity to take some pressure off of the Monk, which as the lone healing profession in the original Guild Wars Prophecies campaign, is always in high demand."

So yes, the Ritualist was definitely the GW version of the engineer, and now that the engineer class is possible (due to the 250 years technological development) the Engineer is definitely a GW2 variation of the Ritualist, just like the Thief is a variation of the Assassin. There's no guarantee that future expansions (when we do get to revisit Cantha) will not have an Assassin and a Ritualist class, but at the moment, these are the parrallels.

As for the final class.. I know some people would prefer something different to the Mesmer, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. As ComplexNuber already indicated, they have repeatedly said that the last profession will be a returning one (ie with the same name and playstyle) from the original GW. They have also indicated that they won't be visiting Cantha and Elona at this time yet, so they don't want to draw any parallels to Factions and Nightfall. So we won't have Assassin, Ritualist, Dervish or Paragon classes. Which means only original Prophecies classes remain... we already have Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist and Necromancer, and there won't be a Monk. Which only leaves the Mesmer.

And yes, Mesmer is an iconic and very unique class to Guild Wars, and they would anger/disappoint a lot of people by leaving it out. A few more quotes that indicate the return of the mesmer:

"People who play a ritualist or a mesmer or a necromancer or any of the old, old characters, will feel like they have a home somewhere in Guild Wars 2."

(Jeff Grubb, at Gamescom 2010)

"What we've said at some point is people who enjoy that play-style will be happy, but no more than that."

(Jon Peters, when asked about the Mesmer)

"The people expect a lot and we know that many enjoy mind tricks and aspects like that. And we'll quite certainly not disappoint those people."

(Jon Peters, when asked about the Mesmer)

The only reason why they haven't revealed it yet, is that the new Mesmer is apparently an extremely complex class, and they're still having some issues getting all the mechanics right. So they are still tweaking and finetuning the mechanics, which could easily take several more months until they're completely satisfied with it...

So sorry, but at this stage your Alchemist is extremely unlikely. I fear that the class that comes closest to what you're looking for, will be the Engineer.

[Ruse]

I have to disagree with you about the Engineer taken in the role of the Ritualist.
If one reavealed profession comes near to Ritualist, for me it's the Guardian, but even this profession doesn't come close to Ritualist.

Yeah, I think the guardian did steal some of the ritualist's weapon spells, in a way. I agree with you there.

As for the mesmer, many people think the purple fan lady also supports its inclusion (as do I):

[ComplexNuber]

Yeah, I think the guardian did steal some of the ritualist's weapon spells, in a way. I agree with you there.

As for the mesmer, many people think the purple fan lady also supports its inclusion (as do I)

The Guardian weapon spells don't share much with Ritualist weapon spells aside from the name itself, though. From what I understand they're a lot more like minions than buffs. There are clearly many things the Engineer has that the Rit doesn't (all the more reason to play one ) and vice versa, but I still think the flavor of the classes is the same, not to mention the interview Centaur found.

I also forgot about the picture, good point. Looking back at it, it looks really similar to Gwen from GW1.

[Winterbay]

I'd say that the Guardian weapon spells are more like the Ritualists spirits in that regard. Stationary things that do damage (see also the Engineer and its turrets).

[Centaur]

Okay, I'll throw in a few quotes:

Jeff Grubb said:

I've seen the Guardian compared to the prot Monk, the Paragon, the Dervish, and the Ritualist, and there are bits and pieces of all of them in there, plus a lot of new stuff. The virtues in particular are a neat piece that makes the entire package work. It is not so much a replacement of any one profession but rather an evolution that uses the best parts of several earlier classes.

Regina posted in the Engineer Q&A:

Q: Is the engineer a replacement or a stand-in for the ritualist profession from Guild Wars? Are the play styles of the Ritualist and the engineer similar?

A: We’ve never considered the engineer a replacement or stand-in for the ritualist. While the engineer can adopt a play style that is superficially similar to the ritualist, the engineer is a much more versatile profession.

Jon Peters said:

In Guild Wars 1 the ritualist is pretty much an engineer in the style of how you’re playing, but is flavoured very differently.

So, in short:
Yes, in GW1 the ritualist is similar in playstyle to the engineer. Yes, both the engineer and the guardian have some elements from the GW1 ritualist. But no, neither of those classes are meant as a replacement for the ritualist.
So we may well get a true GW2 Ritualist at some point in the future...

[ComplexNuber]

I'd say that the Guardian weapon spells are more like the Ritualists spirits in that regard. Stationary things that do damage (see also the Engineer and its turrets).

I think Guardian weapon spells aren't stationary (turrets are, though). Maybe some are like Necro's Flesh Wurm but for the most part not.

Looking at the wiki, they're actually called spirit weapons (woops!) rather than weapon spells, so they don't even share the name, but rather the "ghostly" vibe. Just to kick in some other random facts: You can have up to 3, they cannot be attacked by enemies (invulnerable?) and they are considered pets just like minions are a Necro's pets,