Guild Wars 2

Hello there.

I run the game as a Guardian, and found lately I barely use the 6th button.
Many profession can build to heal a bit using several tricks, outside the full 6th slot heal.
And If you’re careful about what you’re doing, you find that it’s not an obligation to have such a skill.

In parallel, many elite skills are only for some kind of decoration in the build, especially regarding their high recharge rate…

So crafting your very own build comes down to choose 3 Utility slots.
It’s a bit low in my opinion (not counting the weapon slots, of course).

To improve build variety and research…
I think it would be cool the free the 6th slot as another Utility slot, If the player wants to.

You would still have a restriction about having only one potent Healing skill equipped, although.

What do you think about it ?

As a Ranger, I gotta say: I need my #6 heal skill. Rangers don’t heal as they attack, they evade and let their pet tank. I need my Healing Spring for when things don’t go as planned.

As a thief I very much need my heal skill when I’m facing multiple mobs.
On my guardian I need my heal only half as much, but I still have to use it sometimes. Though I do understand your point, I doubt it’d be a good idea… I can already see people running around at championfights who spam-die because they don’t have a heal slotted, and can’t change it due to being in combat throughout the fight ._."

Seras, I don’t think the OP was suggesting taking away the ability to have a heal on that key, simply opening up the option of replacing it with something else if you want.

I’d support this in theory. It might be a lot of work to figure out if some builds would suddenly become insanely OP, but giving up a heal is a pretty big deal. I think the major benefit would be farming or, like you say, a class like Guardian with a ton of self-support. As a Mesmer, I don’t need my heal that often but I probably wouldn’t want to be without it either.

The game needs to have restrictions, to prevent players from stacking 1 type of skills – to prevent players from going into the Holy kitten Trinity of glass cannons, brick tanks and… sponge healers.

You are meant to have at least 1 healing skill.

I could agree with you that skills should be given distinct categories, and be interchangeable in their slot positioning as long as they meet the criteria.

Example: Slot #6 is Healing, Slot 7, 8 and 9 are Utility.
Some skills might be categorized as both Utility and Heal, and thus fit any of those 4 slots.

But being able to have something other than a Heal in slot #6 is a no-no.

Just add +2 Utility skill slots to the game.
So you’d have 5 weapon, 1 healing, 5 utility and 1 elite skills.