Guild Wars 2

This is a big topic. Please read carefully before posting. I suspect the end result would require a pretty big overhaul, but I wanted to start a discussion regardless about some general points in combat.

There are a few areas where I think combat suffers. I feel the areas are:
-Enemy design (What enemies do, and how they work together against players)
-Conditions & Boons general ineffectiveness (save for a select few instances)
-Utility/Elite Skill general ineffectiveness

I’m not really good at articulating my thoughts in a clever and persuasive manner, so I going to try to appeal to your GW2 experiences to illustrate why I feel these systems are a bit flat. These are for PvE and my experience is from playing a Guardian exclusively:

1. A group of 3-5 people could clear probably 90% of the map or more by grabbing a random weapon, sticking together and pressing 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, etc… the whole way through, occasionally dodging or using a heal.
2. It doesn’t matter what Utility Skills, Healing skill or Elite you use or in what order you use them in, in 90% of combat situations. A player who runs their fingers across their skill keys is only a little worse than a player who times their skills in most cases.
3. Most of your character is defined by their stats, which are passive numbers and not active abilities.
4. In most situations, it doesn’t matter what boons you’re facing or using. It doesn’t change how you play. (except for Stability in a number of cases)
5. You cannot reliably maintain or remove conditions/boons. (aka: counters!)
6. Conditions seem weak overall, despite a few CC ones being fairly powerful.

I see this as a big problem in the longevity of the game. Instead of trying to add new stuff as a band aide, I feel it’s better to take a look at the game’s base systems combat is built on.

Solution Possibility (for the sake of discussion!)
I’ll start with enemies because I feel they will be less of a touchy subject. In short, most enemies feel the same. (It’s not really until you see special enemies in dungeons that a few mechanics start to show, but it’s usually dodge the insta-kill attack or stay out of the AoE.) Sometimes enemies attack in a pattern or throw a powerful attack you roll from, but usually different enemies doesn’t mean fighting them differently.

Enemy synergy is lacking. For example, if we come across enemy A, we fight it one way. But what if enemy A and B were together? What ability does enemy B have that makes it different/unique/challenging to fight enemy A? Now what if enemy C is involved? Does this change how you approach them? Do you talk with your teammates on what Utility/Heal/Elite you should use to fight these monsters? This leads into the next part…

I feel in general (there are exceptions), boons and conditions are weak. I would personally like to see both Conditions and Boons stack in duration AND intensity. This would require some balancing and other changes, but it makes them demand your attention combat. I have 5 stacks of Cripple on me? Well crap, I can’t even reach an enemy! I need help removing Cripple! He has 4 stacks of Protection/Aegis? Change targets, we deal too little damage to him! Those enemies degenerate HP? Come close, I have AoE Regeneration!

Similar to boons/conditions, Utility and Elite Skills, on average, should be 2-3 times more effective. (Most weapon skills would need little or no changing!) Whether this means lower cool down, higher damage, longer effect, etc… whatever that numerical change is, they need to be more effective. So, if I am a Guardian and I bring a few Stability skills, we’re basically not getting knocked down unless you figure out a way to get us out of my fields or disable me. (Basically, think of something your class can do, but you can do it indefinitely, provided there is a fair counter to that behavior.)

This is how you make the individual meaningful to a team composition and make each person matter, because as it is now, it doesn’t matter who I am or you are. I’ll change any random person with any random person because there isn’t enough distinction between people.

Final Thoughts
This is NOT an argument to bring back the trinity, but the fact is you need roles in a game like this, even if every role is a combat role. (Which totally sticks with Anet’s paradigm!) Otherwise, what other function is there besides DPS? Degeneration, snares, damage reduction, stability, ‘scouts’/speed, specific conditions or condition combos, boon/boon combos, etc… all could be viable builds IF skills/boons/conditions allowed it. This would create some true diversity.

In summary:
Enemy synergy + More effective skills/boons/conditions + more effective counters to skills/boons/conditions = more interesting PvE gameplay & people bringing more to the table than just another head.

We don’t need new skills just yet. We just need effective ones!