Guild Wars 2

So ive been generally thinking about combat and why i feel its lacking and not very fun in the long term. The major problem i see is that there is barely any requirement from the player to react to anything aside from using the heal skill and the dodge button every now and then (mostly to kite and sometimes to dodge a telegraphed attack). I think one way to improve this would be to include a block ability for all classes and change certain attacks so they can only be blocked and not dodged and vice versa (logically AOE attacks shouldnt be blockable for example). Blocking would use the dodge button without directional movement commands (now does a backwards dodge), root the player in place and use up endurance for every hit the player would take making blocking impossible after its used up (or make blocks less effective maybe?).

All in all i think this would make PVE more interesting, make tanking more viable and give the dungeon designers more possibilities to make interesting boss-fights.

Aside from that idea i just wanna express my dissatisfaction with combat in general, I think there should at least be a lot more telegraphed hard-hitting attacks in PVE to keep players on their toes. Ideally i would even suggest taking the whole system back to the drawing board and start from scratch. Making a MMO with fun challenging combat would be some kind of holy grail by now.

Im all for blocking. Trying to give the ability to everybody might be abit to much but I would like to see something that can frequently be used on shields. A good example would be guardians, Their shield has a buff and a knockback/heal but its their focus that has the block….wait what?

The ranger has a block on the long sword (#4). Makes perfect sense for such a large weapon.

So, would this “block” be some general skill regardless the weapon? (I can’t imagine blocking with a short bow, longbow or dagger.)

I’m curious about how the mechanics would work for a mesmer’s and elementalist’s block.

I would second that suggestion. Better combat draws more people to play the game.

Nix Vixen.1604:

So, would this “block” be some general skill regardless the weapon? (I can’t imagine blocking with a short bow, longbow or dagger.)

I’m curious about how the mechanics would work for a mesmer’s and elementalist’s block.

yes it would be a general ability just like the dodge move. Different weapons would of course get a different block “stance”, i could imagine staffs and scepters getting some kind of force-field to keep the magic aspect for example.

Its just something i think would give combat some more depth as of now players options are just move, dodge and attack which is rather limited when compared to “real” action combat you see in other games (yes Im simplifying but thats what it comes down to once you got used to the skills available).