Guild Wars 2

While I have one of each class at 80, two of the three classes I “main” are Guardian and Necromancer. For this reason I spend a lot of time thinking about the combo system (four of the Guardians weapons generate light fields as part of their rotation, one of which creates perma light fields, while the dark field Well of Suffering is part of the staple of a power necros burst damage. That’s not to mention other various utilities like Wall of Reflection, or Well of Corruption/Power that also generate fields). While every game mode has its own “ideal” field set ups, it’s basically fair to say that anything that interferes with Fire/Water Field + Blast Finisher is considered a nuisance at best, or an outright hinderance at worst.

So basically I spend a lot of time thinking about how to best allow players the freedom to bring/use the weapons, skills, and rotations they want, while also preserving the design goals of teamwork, communication, and coordination at the core of the combo system.

Now my current understanding is that the first field to get placed down is prioritized by finishers, but I now present to you my main query: what if there was a menu option that players could select that would instruct the game to always prioritize their own fields?

My reasoning behind the idea was that (most?) players would simply continue to use the system as is, however those certain proffessions/builds that rely on, and jump through hoops to pull off, particular field+combos could do so without fear of being [inserting text to avoid over aggressive kitten censors here] impeded at the cost of potentially missing out on providing a clutch water field burst, or a zerg swiftness buff, retaliation buff, or condition cleanse, etc…

Now I’ve been playing this game for a long, long time, but I’m by no means an expert. So I ask you proffessionals out there (dedicated WvWers, high level fractal runners, Teq/Wurm commanders, PvPers, the lot of ya), how would this impact the game? Would it fundamentally undermine the combo system? Could it potentially create breathing room for new proffessions and builds? Or are fire/water fields + blast finishers so much stronger than anything that it wouldn’t even be worth the effort?

Too confusing to players. I’m not kidding, that is what they said.

Given the last feature patch, I’m not surprised to hear they’ve said something like that :/

Oh well… Still, it’d be nice to have some way of easily and peaceably resolving the problem of conflicting fields. Maybe one day… Maybe one day…