Don’t immediately make more weapons in order to make more “Weapon Skills.” Instead, make more skill options for Weapon Skill slots 4 and 5 from which players can choose as they would choose Utility Skills.
I can understand the reasoning behind defining half of a player’s skill bar based on which weapon he or she is wielding. It’s flavorful, it’s easy to balance and it also telegraphs to other players (both allies and enemies) possible attacks or combos to come. It makes for fast-paced combat that is somewhat predictable while still retaining a sense of tension given an opponent’s particular attack progression and choice of secondary skills.
That said, many times—even with the option of swapping weapons—this system proves to be limiting (especially when compared to GW1 standards). A locked skill slot in GW2 is an enormous commitment, and effectively denying full customization to half of one’s skill bar can really damper a profession’s ability to produce multiple playstyles. In the spirit of Guild Wars 1, I think that there can be room to grow within the current Weapon Skill system for each class while still maintaining not just the flavor of a weapon, but also a sense of balance.
Guild Wars 1 was known for releasing new skills at several intervals (typically at the outset of new expansions). I feel like a good target for new potential skills would be for the 4 and 5 Weapon Skill Slots (hereby referred to as “WS slots”). Those two slots, often more than the preceding three, truly help define a weapon or weapon combo’s flavor. In this light, I think it would be best to explore expanding the possibilities for the kinds of effects that Weapon Skills 4 and 5 generate.
This suggestion is for adding more skills to the individual 4 and 5 WS slots. For an example, we will take the Mesmer Greatsword. WS slot 4 is Phantasmal Beserker and WS slot 5 is Illusionary Wave. The ideal would be for ANet to add two more skills (perhaps another Phantasm and another utility ability of sorts or maybe just raw damage or an AoE). Then, a Mesmer who equipped a Greatsword would have his or her first 3 WS slots fixed for them, and then given a choice between the last two among the new four skills in a manner similar to how one chooses Utility Skills. One could even equip two Greatswords and then utilize two different combinations of 4 and 5 WS slots for each weapon. The only caveat about that would be that the recharges of each weapon would probably have to be shared (i.e. you can’t have Illusionary Wave selected on both Greatswords, use it on one, swap to the other and then use it again because it would still be on recharge; the same principle would apply for any skill on any shared weapon set in that instance, even slots 1-3).
WS slots 4 and 5 are sort of like psuedo-utilities in that they really expose the flavor of a profession in both their visual effects and in how they impact a battle. By opening up that crack into a profession’s identity between the Smash-Face/Damage/Condition WS slots 1-3 and the Utility Skill slots, I think ANet could really add a new dimension to GW2 combat with new levels of possibilities for individual and even large group encounters, the ends of which could vary wildly based on the 4 and 5 slot utility choices of individual professions.
(edited by Swagg.9236)