Guild Wars 2

What do people think about the idea of expanding the skill bar to 12 to accommodate 5 standard utility skills instead of 3? It could help build diversity and helm make combat a little more engaging. They could just move the healing skill to the right of the weapon skills.

It would help builds do more things but not really more diversity. I honestly believe that 3 slots acctually gives more diversity because there is more choices and less room for all of them.

nope, it would only affect how often you look at utilities instead of combat. any diversity would be squashed by everyone using 1 or 2 of the same skills per class.

Well, the idea is that (I assume) they are gradually going to add more skills to the game, and 5 slots hardly gives you room for everything, it just gives you a little more room for experimentation.

What I notice is that players usually specialize on 1 utility set (ie. shout warrior) to synergize them with their traits. Adding more slots will just will add those with more of the same utility.

For this to work, they need to spread the popular utilities among different utility sets.

You’re not supposed to have everything. You’re supposed to pick and choose what’s supposed to be appropriate for each encounter.

Although personally, I think signets should go in their own slots, as having a skill which is often there to not be activated is a boring concept.

I wouldn’t mind having the ability to use the Elite slot for either Elite or Utility skills. Some professions have horrid elites compared to some good utility skills.

Xae Isareth.1364:

You’re not supposed to have everything. You’re supposed to pick and choose what’s supposed to be appropriate for each encounter.

Although personally, I think signets should go in their own slots, as having a skill which is often there to not be activated is a boring concept.

Geez what a bunch of hyperboles. Last time I checked, all classes had at least 25 utility skills, 5 utility slots allows for 1/5 of the total skills available.

sanictoofast.9317:

nope, it would only affect how often you look at utilities instead of combat. any diversity would be squashed by everyone using 1 or 2 of the same skills per class.

By that logic, then everyone should only have 1 utility. But it’ll still have the problem you speak of.

Diversity comes from having viable choices and not from skill set limitations. If people are picking the same things, whether they’re traits or utilities, it’s telling you the game is not optimally balanced because all choices are suppose to be good, but clearly they’re not so people gravitate towards the better stuff.

Looking more at your utilities is a good thing. This game has LOL low skill cap due to the lack of counter play and skill rotation because of how few utilities are given to players and the ones that are given to them have god awful cool downs.

I don’t think you understand how ungodly powerful my warrior would be with two more ulitily slots

The game seems pretty comfortably balanced around 3. You’d have to mess with all the cooldowns to make sure people’s resources still get stretched. Not sure what you’d get out of it, other than a more bloated skill bar.

Right now lots of classes have tons of options. Elementalists, engineerings have crazy options for buttons to press.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

You’re not supposed to have everything. You’re supposed to pick and choose what’s supposed to be appropriate for each encounter.

Although personally, I think signets should go in their own slots, as having a skill which is often there to not be activated is a boring concept.

Geez what a bunch of hyperboles. Last time I checked, all classes had at least 25 utility skills, 5 utility slots allows for 1/5 of the total skills available.

Unfortunately, traits often pigeonhole builds into using one type of utility skill, moving choice from the skill slot level to the trait level. Utility skill types usually include only 4 options. Allowing players to slot all 4 simultaneously removes some degree of forced choice and opportunity costs from the game — and there is not enough of either with the simplified build system in the game.

Someone above posted about shouts. Warriors only have 4 shouts. If your suggestion were implemented, a shout warrior would probably slot all 4, all the time, and just change out the 5th slot as needed. With 3 utility slots, a shout warrior is probably always going to slot Shake it Off and FGJ. Their only choice is whether to use Fear Me, On My Mark, or venture outside of shouts in the third slot.

If there were 8 choices of each type of utility skill rather than 4, then adding slots might not remove what little opportunity costs exist in various builds under the current system. That’s unlikely to happen.

Honestly, I’d prefer increasing options by increasing the available weapon skills. Leave utility slots at three, but allow me to substitute various weapon skills situationally rather than being stuck with useless skills 3 and 5 because I want 1, 2 and 4.

I like the controlled system we have now. I do not want it to change. The fewer slots we have, they more important our choices for them are. I prefer not to cheapen their value.

if you implement 5 utilities instead of 3, some warriors will ask for 2 more signets

One of the things that’s bounced around in my head (not saying it’s a good idea, but it is an idea) is having two skills per slot. So you get six utilities and two elites. But if you use one or the other, both skills go on CD. So you do get more choices, but you have to be a little smarter in how you use them.

Like I said, it’s an idea.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Honestly, I’d prefer increasing options by increasing the available weapon skills. Leave utility slots at three, but allow me to substitute various weapon skills situationally rather than being stuck with useless skills 3 and 5 because I want 1, 2 and 4.

This is a terrible idea. Weapons are choices just like skill slots, and being able to pick and choose what you slotted into a weapon skill would be pure insanity.

I say no because I don’t have enough buttons on my mouse. Seriously though balancing nightmare

Change the ability to slot out your heal and elite skill for a utility? Sounds interesting.

Simply just slap on two extra utility skills? Hell no.

Azure Prower.8701:

Change the ability to slot out your heal and elite skill for a utility? Sounds interesting.

Simply just slap on two extra utility skills? Hell no.

This right here. I wouldn’t mind being able to shelf Elites I know won’t work in a certain circumstance (such as Lupicus) for a utility I know will work.

nah. 3 utilities are fine.
people need to make choices.

5 is too much.