Guild Wars 2

It seems anytime I mention GW2 to some one they tell me yea but, the skills are so boring? GW2 characters do seem to have fewer skills than other MMO’s but, do we really need 10 rows of skill sets?

When I compare GW2 to any other MMO that has tons of skills to pick from, they’re usually lackluster in comparison. They mask the repetitiveness by allowing you to use all of the skills, thus giving you 30 bars of skills so you can rotate through all your skills and never stop casting. GW2, however, focuses more on picking your skills to fit your needs, and picking wisely.

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

Are you kidding me? I find they’re mostly fun. I find almost all classes fun to play, because of how the skills are done. I’m not talking about efficiency or balance here, just sheer fun. Leaping, blinking, knocking back, spinning, dodging…

In my opinion, you can say a lot of things about GW2, but not that the skills are not fun.

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

There are a lot of hidden skills that do not show up on players bars they are environmental skill. Also most classes have 13 skills do not forget the f1-f3 some times more some times less that and the added 10 more skill from your weapon switch and the 1 skill from the switch it self. More if you have an ele who is putting out weapons. You can also count rolling if you have it set up to where you use a skill on roll. There the roll it self being an take no dmg from attks. If your in wvw you have WvW weapons for more skills also traps from wvw. There always consumable items that are skill in them self for pve mainly not just heal x hp full on new skill sets consumable items (mind you ranger pig i think can dig up skill for your team to use).

Just how many skills do you think you need? There realty countless skills that you can use at any moment in GW2 they just do not show up on your own skill bar because its a TEAM game and having every skill you need with out any help from your team means your NOT in a team your just simply playing beside other ppl.

As an ele i have (using staff) i have 25 is the stander. I have it set up that every switch is buffs heals etc.. so that 4 more. Every roll is its own set of ability that 4 more. My 0 skill is tornado that 3 more skills. I have it set up that i give buffs when i use fire fields beyond just the attk power buff (fury) so that another 4 skills. So i have 40 skills i can use any time i want to with out any other players but i get more when i do have more players working with me.

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).

If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.

I remember when I showed my friend this game, he was like “I PLAYED GW1 FOR YEARS, AND I PLAYED WOW AND EVERY OTHER MMO.” He proceeded to hop around until he settled on Necro. He then said that Necro was really fun because it was engaging and really intuitive. I watched him play. He sat there spamming 1 with a Staff.

I don’t think he actually played GW1 for years. He probably played it years ago, but not for years.

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).

If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.

Nah. I run Dagger/X with Staff for utility. The main problem is dagger autoattack is too good compared to most everything else. So many situational skills- if the situation doesn’t arise you pretty much drop marks while engaging, jump into DS real quick for a DP, swap to dagger, drop WoS and then watch autoattack.

Dagger auto is good for leveling if you go Power, but if you’re endgame, you can always fiddle around with other combinations.

IMO most MMO games with multiple skill bars to hold all the skills, also have macro’s available, making them all the same game where you create a macro and just keep hitting the same button over and over. Less skills on the bar and more active involvement is much better to me.

I can’t even use most of my utility skills because I’m old and slow. I usually just use the passive skills in those slots and never accept an invitation into a party because I don’t want to get chewed out.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I can’t even use most of my utility skills because I’m old and slow. I usually just use the passive skills in those slots and never accept an invitation into a party because I don’t want to get chewed out.

Dude! The people who do that are appalling.

Are you NA or Euro? We should group up sometime if you ever want to have a run around with someone. I never cast aspersions on a persons skill level so you’d be safe

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).

If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.

Nah. I run Dagger/X with Staff for utility. The main problem is dagger autoattack is too good compared to most everything else. So many situational skills- if the situation doesn’t arise you pretty much drop marks while engaging, jump into DS real quick for a DP, swap to dagger, drop WoS and then watch autoattack.

This is actually a problem with a lot of skill-sets. Aside from a select few skills, auto-attack tends to tie or beat any damaging skills from 2-5, and the remainder tend to be utility.

The utility doesn’t work on champions and even then, has the same problem that 7-9 have – they have terrible uptime, or underwhelming magnitude. Why on earth would I want to launch a standard enemy into the air for 2 seconds every minute?

Servanin.5021:

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).

If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.

Nah. I run Dagger/X with Staff for utility. The main problem is dagger autoattack is too good compared to most everything else. So many situational skills- if the situation doesn’t arise you pretty much drop marks while engaging, jump into DS real quick for a DP, swap to dagger, drop WoS and then watch autoattack.

This is actually a problem with a lot of skill-sets. Aside from a select few skills, auto-attack tends to tie or beat any damaging skills from 2-5, and the remainder tend to be utility.

The utility doesn’t work on champions and even then, has the same problem that 7-9 have – they have terrible uptime, or underwhelming magnitude. Why on earth would I want to launch a standard enemy into the air for 2 seconds every minute?

Yep. Dagger Necro is one of the more pronounced examples of it, but there are plenty of others guilty of this as well. Of course, we don’t want the damage on the 2-5 skills to be so good you just use them for damage, but ultimately they should be worth using over autoattack if their primary purpose isn’t required in the situation.

if i could use all my mesmer utility skills i probably would use them at every possible situation, they are too good to be true and i never get to decide what to give up when i have to chose my 7,8,9,0

I think the skills are more fun to use than any other MMO I have played. Many of them serve multiple purposes, and require more than a simple button-push to effectively use.

The thing that worries me though is the overall GW2 combat/profession design. I fear that we will not be able to see many new skills introduced, at least not the amount that we had in GW1 or other games. The great amount of skills (and ability to cross-profession) was one of the strongest features in GW1 that is really lacking for player skills here.

Sola.7250:

It seems anytime I mention GW2 to some one they tell me yea but, the skills are so boring? GW2 characters do seem to have fewer skills than other MMO’s but, do we really need 10 rows of skill sets?

When doing dungeons you will tend to swap out skills so you’re not just using the ones which are visible to you. For example in COE as a guard I’ll start with hold the line, retreat and save yourselves, then for alpha spec in purging flames, for golem, spec in wall of reflection, stand your ground, and should probably try out shield of the avenger so that’s seven abilities.

Personally I think the GW2 skill system is great. Then again I do main as an Elementalist which means I have 20 weapon skills at my disposal

Skills are too dps-centric, and by that I mean that design is too focused towards numerical values rather than the factors of their execution. It’s thoroughly designed with the mentality of MMO combat. It tries to be actiony by removing self rooting and making it so that new skills don’t phase out old ones, but all it ends up doing is removing the fat that made MMO combat interesting.

Games like Vindictus of DFO do action combat correctly because a skills in those games are balanced through the nuances of their execution- the hitboxes, windups, frames and so forth. There’s depth of execution of each skills and, consequently, the games I mentioned have even fewer overall skills, and little to no phasing of older ones.

TwoBit.5903:

Skills are too dps-centric, and by that I mean that design is too focused towards numerical values rather than the factors of their execution. It’s thoroughly designed with the mentality of MMO combat. It tries to be actiony by removing self rooting and making it so that new skills don’t phase out old ones, but all it ends up doing is removing the fat that made MMO combat interesting.

Games like Vindictus of DFO do action combat correctly because a skills in those games are balanced through the nuances of their execution- the hitboxes, windups, frames and so forth. Consequently those games tend to have even fewer overall skills, and little to no phasing of older ones.

And yet games like Tera and Vindictus who have ‘true action combat’ feel really really horrible (to me). GW2’s combat is exactly how it needs to be to avoid animation locks, which I love it for. If there is one thing I cant stand as a caster it is being forced to stand still to cast all of my skills, GW2 treats stationary skills properly by using them sparingly.

I think people just need to accept GW2’s combat for what it is. It is intended to please action combat lovers because that isn’t a gameplay style everybody enjoys. It’s quite simply meant to be a step up from traditional MMO combat, which it is. Even then there are a lot of people who complain about having to move while fighting, so you can’t win over everybody.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

TwoBit.5903:

Skills are too dps-centric, and by that I mean that design is too focused towards numerical values rather than the factors of their execution. It’s thoroughly designed with the mentality of MMO combat. It tries to be actiony by removing self rooting and making it so that new skills don’t phase out old ones, but all it ends up doing is removing the fat that made MMO combat interesting.

Games like Vindictus of DFO do action combat correctly because a skills in those games are balanced through the nuances of their execution- the hitboxes, windups, frames and so forth. Consequently those games tend to have even fewer overall skills, and little to no phasing of older ones.

And yet games like Tera and Vindictus who have ‘true action combat’ feel really really horrible (to me). GW2’s combat is exactly how it needs to be to avoid animation locks, which I love it for. If there is one thing I cant stand as a caster it is being forced to stand still to cast all of my skills, GW2 treats stationary skills properly by using them sparingly.

That’s personal opinion. “Feel” and “depth” are two different things, and guildwars2 tends to sacrifice the the latter for the former. PvP is almost illegible because of the speed of attacks and the fact that you can cancel all attacks into another. Personally I find kiting and spamming autoattacks tiresome, especially since the lack of restriction and lack of tightly tuned animations reduces the overall depth of execution and challenge of the game.

I’m really sorry. I have so wanted to enjoy GW2. I spent a small fortune by my meagre wage buying it. The skills are vapid and require no thought. Just a few time constrained buttons that make some pretty effects. The graphics are beautiful in this game, they really are. The problem is the combat is so poor, the board game hungry hippos outstrips it with only one button. I’m a bit sad about it, I do go back and see if I can get back into it but…. meh. It’s lost me. Another thing is that although the characters look very well designed and pretty, I don’t feel at all connected. Oh well. That’s my big whinge for the day.

I find it difficult to ‘get into’ guild wars 2 combat.. simply because I’m used to play a healer, which for some reason feels a lot more engaging than pure DPS… or DPS with a few utility skills thrown in there.

Coming from Vindictus and SWTOR.. I just don’t find the combat as enticing.. not sure why exactly. Anyways, the game itself is beautiful and the Living Events are a neat touch so I’m still here

I found core mechanics (skills & combos) were quite awesome, but there were simply too few of them to keep me entertained for more than 2 monthes. I’d say it would require 2-3 x more skill variety (not necessarly more bars, but for example switchable weapon skills), plus 2 x more traits depth to bring me back. I’d simply like more intelligent class mechanics, with far more choice.
In a word, they need to reach a WoW-like skill mechanics level (let’s be honest, a lot of them are really clever).

Draehl.2681:

Esplen.3940:

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D

I assume this is for PvE?

If so, the problem is the design of the dungeon. Chilling or fearing enemies when they chase your friend that is dying is impactful.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I can’t even use most of my utility skills because I’m old and slow. I usually just use the passive skills in those slots and never accept an invitation into a party because I don’t want to get chewed out.

That’s me all over. The not-joining-party-for-fear-of-being-chewed-out part. Not the chewer. Same reason I don’t do dungeons any more. Sad that people have to be so mean spirited and competitive in PvE.

You can start l2p after skills start to feel extremely boring.

I enjoy GW2 for the most part, especially when compared to other MMOs, but when I think back to the dynamic skill and build system in GW…

GW2 just doesn’t even come close.

No, we don’t need multiple rows of skills to use all at once, but a substantial part of why GW was a great game was the huge selection of skills PLUS the limitation of only being able to use eight at a time.

And, yes, I’m aware of ANet’s “because it’s easier to balance” argument against GW’s system, but they’ve done a far worse job with balancing GW2 (and making its skills engaging) than they ever did with GW.

Sola.7250:

It seems anytime I mention GW2 to some one they tell me yea but, the skills are so boring? GW2 characters do seem to have fewer skills than other MMO’s but, do we really need 10 rows of skill sets?

I actually thought this at first as a long time WoW player, as I was used to having my screen COVERED with skills, far more than Guild Wars 2 ever had.

However, the main selling point is that Guild Wars 2 focuses much more on action rather then just watching animations play out. The addition of introducing different skills based on what weapon you choose is also a huge deal, as it makes players who even role the same class feel different in how they fight.

It totally depends what class (profession) you play.

This game has some of the easiest and some of the hardest/most complex classes of any MMO. On my engineer i have 29 abbilities/swaps. And its quite common that i rotate through all of them in a single fight. And on top of that you have abbilities that do multiple things, like comboing. You have nothing in wow that is as complex/hard to play well as engineer or elementalist.

And thats coming from a guy (me) who played 7 classes up to 2200-2600 in the arena in wow.

Whenever we look at traditional MMOs its easy to start staring at the number of hotkeys. But people need to realize that most of them are fillers…stuff that isnt used in combat.

Here is a standard PvE rotation and its cooldowns for my old main class in wow:

http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pve/mage/frost/dps-rotation-and-cooldowns

17 keys including all CDs. All of them are one dimensional aswell. And mage isnt even the easiest. There are specs that have 4 abbilitie rotations like moonkin (outside of CDs).

I just want a 2nd hotbar for food, other consumables (ie bundles/fire ele powder).
Macros to swap weapons out of combat more easily would be nice too.

I don’t have any real complaints about the skills. I want more options.

TwoBit.5903:

Skills are too dps-centric, and by that I mean that design is too focused towards numerical values rather than the factors of their execution. It’s thoroughly designed with the mentality of MMO combat. It tries to be actiony by removing self rooting and making it so that new skills don’t phase out old ones, but all it ends up doing is removing the fat that made MMO combat interesting.

Games like Vindictus of DFO do action combat correctly because a skills in those games are balanced through the nuances of their execution- the hitboxes, windups, frames and so forth. There’s depth of execution of each skills and, consequently, the games I mentioned have even fewer overall skills, and little to no phasing of older ones.

Pretty much exactly how I feel. For MMO combat? Sure, it’s pretty okay. For “action game” combat? I personally feel that it borders on the edge of abysmal even in comparison to some of the worst action games out there.

But back on topic, there are a few pretty spells, but yeah, for the most part they’re all kinda boring. It doesn’t help that you can unlock pretty much every weapon skill almost right out the gate if you wanted to. So, by level 80, you’re still using the exact same skills you were using at level 1 except with a prettier weapon. It feels stale very early on.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I can’t even use most of my utility skills because I’m old and slow. I usually just use the passive skills in those slots and never accept an invitation into a party because I don’t want to get chewed out.

surely you could get into a guild party with reliable and friendly guild members right? O_O

It’s less that the skills are “boring”, rather that half the skill bar can’t be edited. I was also really looking forward to way more elites to choose from.

The idea of having GW2 gameplay + GW1 customization makes my mouth water.

The people who say that GW2 has “fewer” skills typically play something like guardian, warrior or spriritranger.

This lack of depth doesnt apply to all classes (professions).

Ele and engineer are probs some of the hardest classes (to play well) ive ever played in any MMO.

The problem isn’t the skills themselves, or even the number available. It’s the ridiculous recasts on many of them, which in some cases like the guardian shelter, makes them completely unusable.

The weapon skills seem pretty typical, but the class skills often are boring.

Stability, regen, protection, fury… yawn.

I miss the days of spellbooks and finding a seemingly useless spell and working out a way to use one to overcome a boss or area.

Araris.7839:

The problem isn’t the skills themselves, or even the number available. It’s the ridiculous recasts on many of them, which in some cases like the guardian shelter, makes them completely unusable.

Guardian seems to be the worst for this. Often I have everything on cd and feel just useless.

It’s just the lack of options that makes it boring.

Knote.2904:

It’s just the lack of options that makes it boring.

Exactly. The skills and number of slots are fine but we have very limited options with what we can do from 1-5 depending on which weapons we use. While picking up a class, it may not be so bad; but after, it starts to get repetitive somewhat. And it really feels like we’re playing an action game in the wrong format.

And goodness, I really hope ANet implements some character-specific key-binding feature.

Hard to say, if I compare my playstyle with a rogue in WoW it is way more fun and engaging (both PvE and I only played WoW Woltk), sure you can have 3 bars full of skills but some of them are highly situational and won’t be used in normal PvE sometimes I also had 2 skills combined on 1 button via the macro function.

In GW2 every skill seems to be viable, except the revive skills, in every aspect of PvE which is pretty awesome.

Relentliss.2170:

Araris.7839:

The problem isn’t the skills themselves, or even the number available. It’s the ridiculous recasts on many of them, which in some cases like the guardian shelter, makes them completely unusable.

Guardian seems to be the worst for this. Often I have everything on cd and feel just useless.

Pretty much this.

As a control character (the replacement for old school tank), you shouldn’t have to be running away from mobs while all of your skills are on cooldown. I made a perma-protect hammer guard… but the playstyle of putting down a symbol and just standing in it gets boring after a while.

I wish that GW2 had a playstyle similar to the Guardian Fighters in NW. The shield mechanic may not be perfect. But at least I feel like a tanky-type (instead of running away from mobs like a dps).

Depends what class for me, Guardian bores me to tears but mesmer is quite engaging. Still, the gameplay in GW2 generally is pretty dull.

Oh, and could we get elite skills that actually had synergy with and enhanced our build… or gasp created a build on their own?

Leveling in terms of character progression is boring and unlocking the fixed weapon skills is short lived. Ascended gear was added as a Oh Shhh form of progression proving that an mmo’s form of character progression cannot solely be in the form of aesthetics.

That thing that was in gw1 when gw2 said they wanted to be different.

Now, once we all get new skills to play with do you only want to unlock the second half of your skill bar with some new traits? Or would you rather have pools of unfixed weapon skills to choose from for each set/profession?

Agree with the consensus: the skills are OK, the issue is the lack of choices and customisation.

Weapon-specific skills are fine but there should be a pool of skills for each weapon from which you can choose your own slot 2-5 skills.

You should also be able to put a utility in the elite slot.

Sola.7250:

It seems anytime I mention GW2 to some one they tell me yea but, the skills are so boring? GW2 characters do seem to have fewer skills than other MMO’s but, do we really need 10 rows of skill sets?

the problem is when you compare it to other MMO fantasy games like GW2, the skills in GW2 are mostly just Boon/Condition appliers. Nothing more. Few skills of the bunch do unique stuff. thats the huge problem.

Compare GW2 Datebase skills to the skills in WoWhead site to see what I mean. Classes in WoW for example, even have non combat skills to make things more unique and interesting.

Well, most of the skills in GW2 seem to be rather… carefully made. There are few potentially overpowered ridiculous skills in comparison to GW1. (Mesmer portal is one of those though, as is time warp, stealth and reflection in general and I guess the tome of courage with its full party heal)

In comparison GW1 had quite a few skills that were at some point broken (insanely good) and needed several nerfs.

The most famous was probably Shadowform, which started out as a 60s recharge enchantment that would last for 16 seconds or so, made you invulnerable to everything and then took you down to like 5% of your health. Risky, but a lot of fun. (Until permanent shadowforming became a thing due to the other broken skills…)

Other memorable extreme skills:

Protective spirit. (Enchantment that reduced every hit you took to 10% of your health)

Bonds. (Maintained enchantments that a player could cast on another player to prevent up to 90% of the damage they took)

Spiteful Spirit. A hex that would have a foe deal damage to itself and other foes around it whenever he attacked or used a skill. This ended up being a LOT of damage. Often singlehandedly offering over 50% of the damage your build could do.

Echo. This spell gave you a copy of the spell that you would cast after it. Allowing you to use the same skill twice, or even more often.

Edge of extinction. Whenever a player or other creature died, this ranger spirit would deal damage to all other creatures of the same type. This lead to crazy builds that would even wreck havoc in PvP, having almost the entire team suicide in order to kill the enemy team by having one player use:

Mark of Protection. An enchantment that would revert all damage to healing instead for 10 seconds.

Blood is power. A skill that would enhance the energy regeneration of allies massively but sacrifice 33% of your health! (Real health sacrifices!)

Power Block. This interrupt could lock entire skillbars for 12 seconds.

Backfire. This single skill would equal about 15 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds on a spellcaster.

Distracting shot. This arrow would interrupt a skill and put it on a +20 second recharge.

Grenth’s Balance. This skill would balance the difference between your health and the health of the enemy. Giving you health and taking the enemy health away.

Frozen Soil. A ranger spirit that would prevent any player from using ressurection skills for as long as it was alive.

Melandru’s Resilience. A ranger stance that you could keep up indefinitely that would not remove your conditions, but counter their effects with more health regeneration AND energy regeneration. The more conditions you got, the better the skill became.

Mind Freeze, this skill would slow your opponent massively if you landed it on a foe with less energy than you had. We’re talking an 11 second 90% slow. (Which was buffable up to 20 seconds)

Dash. A stance that gave +50% movement speed for 3 seconds every 8 seconds.

Now these were just a few examples, there were loads more. But GW2 has these types of skills too. They just tend to last very short most of the time (Sanctuary/invulnerability/reflects/stealth/quickness etc…)

And probably for good reason. After all, we do have way more skills available. (Counting kits/attunements/other class specific tools)

Boons & conditions are much easier to balance out than the hex & enchantment system in GW1 I believe, but it does make skills look very much alike.

This daze doesn’t differ much from that daze, whereas in GW1, one interrupt could deal a lot of damage if it interrupted a spell, while the other could steal energy.

Confusion will trigger on both attacks and spells being cast. Blocking you from any action but condition removal. While in GW1 you could have backfire on you and stop casting spells but still attack. Or if you had empathy on you, you could still cast spells, but couldn’t attack instead. There were even hexes that would deal damage to you if you chose to do nothing!

I do wonder if this safer, more balanced approach is the more interesting one…

Combat does seem to move faster. More mobility, dodges all over the place. Kit-swapping/attunement changing, trait enhanced awesomeness. Although it does sometimes feel a bit spammy.

Oh well, the game is still young. They’ve already added one new condition so far…who knows what may come next.