Guild Wars 2

While I’m genuinely loving Guild Wars 2, I have to say that unfortunately the skill system quickly gets very dull.

It makes me miss the skills from GW1, where we had hundreds to pick and choose from at our leisure, as opposed to the 5 combat ones per weapon we have now. I miss being able to choose from a large variety and see what combinations work and what combinations lead me to a shallow grave.

Unfortunately with the way the skills ARE set up, I find myself falling into a run when I play. I enjoy all the skills at first but then I find that I’m just doing the same thing over and over again every fight because… well, there’s not much else I CAN do.

I don’t know how many others feel the same way or if there’s already a topic for this, but that’s just how I feel.

We’ve even had comics on the subject.

I like the pared down approach – GW1 probably had too many by the time all the expansions came around – but unless I’m missing something, I’m not really sure I see the value in unlocking the few meagre skills we get in the first few levels combined with that being the (almost) total skill set for the next 70 or so levels.

I must admit I was expecting a few more over time.

Personally I don’t really have a problem with the amount of skills there are in the game atm. I will say I have to agree with Grammarye, More skills over time would be nice. Although, I never did use that many skills in the last game anyways. Once I got the skills I wanted, I very RARELY changed my skills unless I need to for a specific tasks or pvp reasons.

I think having more weapon skills to be able to chose from would be a great idea. You could choose which skills you could take based on your weapon choice (currently you are given a set 2-3-5 skills, you could chose what these skills would be based on a given list)

I tend to agree with the fact that it only takes 15 minutes to complete a weapon. I mean, what is the point of that? Honestly. May as well just give me the skills right off the bat. More skills to unlock would be a good idea, you master your first 5 quickly but just make the rest of the skills longer to unlock. So you can keep mastering a weapon up until you get to level 80 or something (just being vague).

I have no idea how to implement this so that the skills are balanced and useful throughout the game. Maybe just make a weapon have 10 skills so the first 5 are just your 15 minute warm ups and eventually by say 20 or 30 you get all the skills (that you can swap in the slots) and these skills can change up the way to do things? They wouldn’t be more or less useful compared to the first 5 but maybe one deals damage more in bleeds rather than burns or something. The skills wouldn’t interfere with what the weapon was meant to do (Like the bow for the thief will be crowd control even after the 10 skills and not crowd control and dps by the end).

I would think this would make sense. I really like playing D/D as thief and would love to do get more mastery from using them the most.

Maybe even give weapon mastery to the system? The more you use a weapon the more accuracy you can get? Something passive but not game breaking.

- Now I’m not saying that the skills we have right now don’t take skill to use. I do rather appreciate how much practice I have to put into the sets in order to really get good at using them. I just wouldn’t mind having little “presents” for using a weapon for a long time.

We’ll probably see more in the upcoming expansions.

FYI—There’s no such thing as having “too many” skills. Having more skills available only increases the replayability of the game.

Well more weapons and skills are bound to happen in expansions but I feel maybe a bit more is needed at the moment until then? Either giving passive bonuses for using a weapon set for a long time or 5 skills that take a bit longer to unlock.

As I said above. Not looking for “Skill A is much Better than skill B” unless of course you Trait for a certain build. Just more like “B does the same as A but in a different way” kind of thing.

I’d like to see more skills to. Not as much as in GW1 and they should take their time thinking about new skills.

If anything, I think there should be more skill sets per weapon, not just one. But I’m pretty sure Anet will release more skills in the future. They just want to start off with a low number of skills, and balance the game as much as they can, then they will work their way up.

Plus, there is the trait, rune, and sigil system that is actually pretty in depth with creating builds for your character.

Having so many skills can create problems balancing out pve and pvp. I remember in the first GW, there were IWAY builds that were completely OP in PVP, and it was impossible to win against that team. Then there was the annoying touch ranger in RA/TA. I mean, it was all really fun to create those unique builds..but i think its smart for Anet to start with a low number of skills now, then add on later.

Anet has made over 1200 skills for the GW, so im sure they have a lot in mind to bring into gw2, once they fix all the issues with the game.

The only issue with many skills is balance but thats what a good dev team is for. Test things out, see how it plays in pve and pvp and adjust accordingly. In GW1 many of the skills were just repeats but they looked different or had a diff condition effect. Even if the dmg is the same, atleast the look was different.

I’d love to have more skills, but I’d prefer if more skills had either better combo finishers, combo fields, or had more complex skill effects. IE. Mesmer Greatsword – spam attack skills, and then when enemy come close – just blow them away with the skill ‘illusion wave’; honestly 80% of the mesmer’s GS skills don’t got any combo finishers or combo fields (the one exception is with mirror blade, but even the extra might isn’t really worth it wasting your glamor skills just to get 2-3 stacks of might when you combo them with mirror blade).

I’d prefer more profession/weapon combos myself. Not sure about adding more skills to current weapons, that feels like slippery slope because you know someone else is just going to ask for even more down the line.

CureForLiving.5360:

I’d prefer more profession/weapon combos myself. Not sure about adding more skills to current weapons, that feels like slippery slope because you know someone else is just going to ask for even more down the line.

This, I have to agree with – in terms of thinking ahead & preventing going down the less potential path :: 10 weapon skills (5 ea. weapon) to choose from at a time is definitely already a good enough balance IMO.