So far, I am enjoying my time in GW2. One thing I have noticed, and seen a few complaints about, is that the weapon skills (first 5 skill slots) are acquired relatively quickly. Once you have them, they remain rather static over the course of the rest of the game. I personally acquired all of my weapon skills before I hit level 10 on all of my characters. Some people complain that they would like to have the skill system from GW1 back where you could select the skills you like to fill your bar. I personally like the weapon swapping functionality, but I do agree that once you have all your skills opened by level 10, it can get boring using the same skills over and over again.
So my suggestion is this: What if there were NPC’s around the world (unmarked to increase that exploration feeling that ANet has tried to include into everything) that were weapon masters? These weapon masters would be associated to a particular weapon type (e.g. axe weapons master). You would maybe perform some quest(line) for them and they could provide an alternate set of skills for that particular weapon. For example, lets say I found this axe weapon master and completed the questline required. That axe master would then provide me with an alternate “Berserker Axe Style” that would replace the original 5 skills (main hand/off hand when applicable) with a different set. This new set of skills could be themed based on the style learned. I think by allowing different styles of weapon use, you could get more diversity in skill use. I would, of course, increase the difficulty of balance, but not any more so than adding new utility skills or a new weapon type.
Speaking of new weapon types: I would like to see some hand to hand type weapon type (say brass knuckles). That would work great with my suggestion of different styles. For example, normal skills would be themed like a “Boxer”, but maybe a weapon master would teach you “Exploding Palm” style.
Also, another issue I have is that I find underwater combat to be less enjoyable than ground level combat. I think some of the problem is that, for ground level, we can swap weapons for fluidly, with more options. Underwater combat, IIRC, only has 3 possible types of weapons; Trident, Spear, and Speargun. If they added some new weapon types so that you could meaningfully change out weapon skills, it would add to the fluidity of underwater combat (no pun intended) and make skill selection meaningful for underwater combat.
What do you guys think about any of these suggestions?