Guild Wars 2

TL;DR – My crazy suggestion is to change many of the transformation skills to function like engineer kits.

Hear me out here.

Playing on my friends engineer recently has gotten me really thinking about how some of the transformations in this game work. Playing with Engy kits is a lot of fun. You can swap into and out of the Kit, and unlock a whole slew of fun abilities. Other races and professions have skills somewhat similar, but none of them quite work out, and I think a big part of the reason why is simple:
Cooldown vs Duration

With the Engy kits, they’re always available, allowing for quick and easy swapping. The rest of these types of skills on other classes are often Duration/Cooldown based.

For example:
Char Racial Charzooka
Guardian Elite Tomes
Even the Engineer Mortar
Ele Conjured Weapons
Warrior Banners

Thus, my crazy suggestion, change how transformations work to function more like engineer kits.

Obviously this would require a little re-balancing. Many of these skills are designed to be powerful enough to justify a 15-20% uptime. Some elements might have to be removed and reworked. But I feel it’s both possible, and plausible, and would really enhance these sorts of skills.

Lets look at Guardian Tomes
Tome of Courage/Wrath, both with 20s Duration, and 180 Cooldown.
Obviously making them able to be toggled on/off would result in every Guardian running around with them out 95% of the time. But what if they were numerically weakened to be more in line with the power available on regular weapons?

Better still, what if there was a second variant version of these skills that were a numerically toned down copy of it, but instead of Duration/CD, it was a toggle? In theory, it should be a balanced alternative, and still leave the original Dur/CD version for those that like the skill as-is.

What about Char Charzooka? The skill is a joke as is, it probably wouldn’t even need to be tweaked very much if it were made toggle on/off.

Human Avatar of Melandru? I have yet to see anyone use this. Ever.

Norn Shapeshifts? Probably just needs some minor tweaking, like increased cooldowns on some of the skills.

Ele Conjured Weapons? Probably only the fire sword needs tweaking, a tiny DPS nerf.

Warrior Banners and Rampage? Rampage would have to lose stability but otherwise would probably be fine as is, banners would likely be fine as is.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

PS: It was mentioned that there will be (New Discoverable* skills appearing in the future. Perhaps new toggle-versions of these sorts of skills would be possible?

and what about the classes that dont have Transformation elites/skills. Sorry i would have to say a BIG no to this.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

and what about the classes that dont have Transformation elites/skills.

It’s not like I’m saying give free buffs to the classes that do, and ignore the classes that dont. I’m suggesting that the new skills getting added to the game potentially follow this toggle on/off model.

In all likelihood, the classes that dont have these sorts of transform skills will be getting some at some future point as well.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Sorry i would have to say a BIG no to this.

Ok…. do you have any reasons why? Constructive feedback? Why you feel it’s a bad idea? Perhaps what parts of the idea you DID like? What could be done to improve upon it? For all I know, “no” could mean you’re simply cranky cause you missed your afternoon coffee

Dand.8231:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

and what about the classes that dont have Transformation elites/skills.

It’s not like I’m saying give free buffs to the classes that do, and ignore the classes that dont. I’m suggesting that the new skills getting added to the game potentially follow this toggle on/off model.

In all likelihood, the classes that dont have these sorts of transform skills will be getting some at some future point as well.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Sorry i would have to say a BIG no to this.

Ok…. do you have any reasons why? Constructive feedback? Why you feel it’s a bad idea? Perhaps what parts of the idea you DID like? What could be done to improve upon it? For all I know, “no” could mean you’re simply cranky cause you missed your afternoon coffee

These transformation skills such as Tornado, Lich and such are meant to be a sort of “amazing” “OMG” moment and for them to be able to go in and out of them at will would take alot away from that.

Then you have the balancing and it would require new transformation skills for classes that dont already have them, they would have to be worked to fit into the class mechanics, would have to balanced and everything else/

I just prefer having the transformation skills the way they are – seriously strong (mostly) can win fights but also come with a long cool down. All i want is something for Mesmer, maybe turn us into a sick giant purple butterfly ^^