Guild Wars 2

I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff lately in GW2 but the more I think about this game compared to the first one, I think one of the biggest things I miss from the first was the massive amount of skills even just one class would have available to them in the first game. And I know, it got to be a real problem in terms of balancing for ANet. But honestly? I think the skills inevitably balanced themselves out in the end since the competitive scene was ALWAYS changing. New builds coming out EVERY DAY.

It seems like, in GW2, for better and worse, someone can just easily, say, pull a standard issue bunker build off the ‘net for their guard, and do reasonably well for themselves. Or a dagger/dagger ele build. Now there are definite advantages to this kind of system GW2 has now. For one, I’m sure it’s MUCH easier for ANet to keep track of and balance. The second thing is that it’s friendly to new players. Anyone can see these builds and start using them immediately with little to no hassle.

But the problem is, with less options comes… Well, less options. :P Less needed creativity in builds. Less fun stuff that can be done. Anyone remember the 55 monk in GW1? I don’t think we may ever have a build as quirky and cool like that in GW2.

Now, I should say, I’m not a pro PvP player at all. By any stretch. These are just my observations. And my observations are… That we should have more skills for each weapon and a choice of which weapon skills we want to use for the weapon in hand. That alone, I feel, would greatly liven things up even more. But that’s just me.

The game was designed to reduce the number of skills, to cater to more potential players as well as making it easier for the developers to balance.

I main an ele so no

Honestly, this was one of the main selling points for me. I was sick of the crazy amount of skills in GW1, and that 90% of them where useless. Hole bunches of them was barely situational, or worked only in incredibly specific combos etc.

And I *hated* the entire MtG style "combo build" concept they had in that game. The reduction of skills was a large step forward for my part.

On that note, notice how the revenant gives you 3 utility skills, but you can change the order of them etc. I wouldn’t mind something like that on weapons, and it might mean we could get 1 more skill for each weapon in the future, and get to select which ones we wanted etc. That could become a very interesting mechanic.

Oh yeah, and just in pure spite: Nerf D/D Ele

Behellagh.1468:

The game was designed to reduce the number of skills, to cater to more potential players as well as making it easier for the developers to balance.

But I did address this more in my post.

“But the problem is, with less options comes… Well, less options. :P Less needed creativity in builds. Less fun stuff that can be done. Anyone remember the 55 monk in GW1? I don’t think we may ever have a build as quirky and cool like that in GW2.”

joneirikb.7506:

Honestly, this was one of the maim selling points for me. I was sick of the crazy amount of skills in GW1, and that 90% of them where useless. Hole bunches of them was barely situational, or worked only in incredibly specific combos etc.

And I hated the entire MtG style “combo build” concept they had in that game. The reduction of skills was a large step forward for my part.

Well, it honestly sounds like GW1 just wasn’t the game for you. I know a lot of people who liked it because of the crazy amount of skills and customization. And also, I have seen a whole bunch of builds in GW1 and while it’s true that there are some popular skills, every skill had a use that you could take advantage of somehow. It may never really be clear to you all at once at all but with the massive range of builds I saw of GW1, it’s pretty darn varied.

But I do agree very much with increasing the amount of skills weapons have available to them and being able to choose which weapon skills you want in the weapons bar. Again, I suggested this in the OP.

I have a crazy hankering for the ability to craft my own weapon, which would include the skills I choose. E.g. drake’s breath + meteor shower on the same weapon. I could craft an uber weapon that suits me in all situations and not have to carry around five or so weapons for different situations, none of which are entirely pleasing. It’s crazy, I know, but a man can dream.

The problem with GW2’s weapon system is that each weapon has a variety of skills that are pre-set, rather than having any kind of focus or specialization. Good for a variety of situations, bad for when those circumstances never arise.

Lets take necro dagger MH for example …

1.) Auto attack
2.) Channeled life drain. Good for if you need a ranged attack or some health back, but less DPS than auto-attack.
3.) Immobilize

So what happens when you don’t need 2 and 3 (Which actually happens very often)?

Coupled with utility being very weak compared to GW1 (Typically 1/8th to 1/10th uptime on any kind of control related skill) and them not working on champs, leads to there being very few skills that are actually useful.

Yes .

Too few skills. I want to make a warrior with a sword and shield with a power build, not a Condi… too bad the same sword skills are are still basically the same.

And as it looks, they will never add new skills to swap out to them, so if you want to play a power sword build, don’t roll a warrior.

I do like having a limited set of slots, but hate the fixed weapon skills.

Arnox.5128:

I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff lately in GW2 but the more I think about this game compared to the first one, I think one of the biggest things I miss from the first was the massive amount of skills even just one class would have available to them in the first game. And I know, it got to be a real problem in terms of balancing for ANet. But honestly? I think the skills inevitably balanced themselves out in the end since the competitive scene was ALWAYS changing. New builds coming out EVERY DAY.

It seems like, in GW2, for better and worse, someone can just easily, say, pull a standard issue bunker build off the ‘net for their guard, and do reasonably well for themselves. Or a dagger/dagger ele build. Now there are definite advantages to this kind of system GW2 has now. For one, I’m sure it’s MUCH easier for ANet to keep track of and balance. The second thing is that it’s friendly to new players. Anyone can see these builds and start using them immediately with little to no hassle.

But the problem is, with less options comes… Well, less options. :P Less needed creativity in builds. Less fun stuff that can be done. Anyone remember the 55 monk in GW1? I don’t think we may ever have a build as quirky and cool like that in GW2.

Now, I should say, I’m not a pro PvP player at all. By any stretch. These are just my observations. And my observations are… That we should have more skills for each weapon and a choice of which weapon skills we want to use for the weapon in hand. That alone, I feel, would greatly liven things up even more. But that’s just me.

yes and no.

Take for example kit engi or ele, you can get more skills out of them then many of the more complex MMORPGs currently on the market.

however, there are things that I feel should have been seperated here into their own skills instead of being passive or procs. in addition, many skills here do too many things at once for example:

heal + reflect + cleanse
heal + block + cleanse
heal + regen (passive)
immobilize on a large damage ability
cleanse + apply burning
apply CC on damage abilities
etc. etc.

all those types should have been seperate skills or have at most 2 effects max, instead some have 3 or even 4+ when traited.

the more situational individual active skills you have, the more complex the game play becomes and more interesting, skillbased, as you have to pick which is the correct skill for a given situation and correctly execute it, instead of just spamming your damage and watch all the other stuff happen by itself.

I get the feeling specialisations were meant to give us more skills, but in a way they’re kind of overkill. For example, an ele has to choose the tempest specialisation to use the horn and get some new skills. That makes it feel like the horn is on a different level than the daggers or staff or scepter. I’ve wondered for some times why any profession can’t just use any weapon and get some unique skills with each, rather than being limited to just a few weapon types. That would make every weapon in the game useful to every profession, increase our options and it would take far less time and effort to implement, I think. Character and weapon animations could stay much the same, only the particles could do different things. Specialisations are still welcome, for the mechanics and whatnot they would add on top. Just some crazy ideas.

so they hav less work but apparently, they not good at having less work.

Arnox.5128:

But the problem is, with less options comes… Well, less options. :P Less needed creativity in builds. Less fun stuff that can be done. Anyone remember the 55 monk in GW1? I don’t think we may ever have a build as quirky and cool like that in GW2.

55 monk was creative for one person; everyone else copied its use. I prefer GW2’s system, where what matters is how I use the build.

And sure, mathematically, GW1 had a greater number of potential builds (by an order of magnitude or more). In practice, most of those were not usable options: they had counter-synergies, were minor variations of another (better) build, or otherwise weren’t worthy of serious consideration. Even for 7-hero parties, the subset of useful combinations was much smaller than the mathematical potential.

tl;dr I don’t think there are too few skills in GW2.

(Now, if you asked whether all of the skills/traits were interesting/useful/balanced, I might have a different answer.)

I see this topic come up a lot and it’s simply untrue.

If you take into account traits, since they function very similarly to many boons and buffs in GW1, you actually get a higher amount of “skills” than GW1, I believe it’s something along the lines of 1,600, though this number is debatable both ways since it depends on what counts as a separate.

But this isn’t even my point

Look at the skills GW1 had. Look at what each skill did and how it could be used. It was extremely limited and all skills had a specific purpose behind them. They were niche. Things like damage types, preparations, etc are combined and compressed. Most enchantments are now boons, hexes are conditions, etc.

Guild Wars 2 skills are the opposite to GW1. Each skill has a very general purpose and can be used in a large number of ways, especially when augmented with traits. This is why you see very few builds. You don’t need a completely specific build for Arah and another for CoE because skills like For Great Justice or Wall of Reflection are very general purpose. A blind is a blind. Might is Might. Damage is Damage.

Guild Wars 2 is more about how you actually use those skills and mechanics, rather than what skills you’re bringing along. Yes, the numerical value of builds and skills is probably a little lower, but the actual things a skill can do in GW2 is far greater.

It’s a different game and using the logic of “I have less options for what a particular button does” does not equate to the game actually needing those skills. Don’t forget, half of GW1’s skills were quite literally useless or only used in very, very, very specific areas.

One of the reasons I say there are too few skills in game, is ranger sword for example.

Right now, a lot of people hate it, some people love it, the devs wont do anything about it because either they don;‘t want to, or they don’t want to ruin the experience for the players that love it.

If there was multiple weapon skills in game for individual weapons, it would be a simple matter of switching out those autoattack leaping skills.

On top of the fact that it can be a bit annoying to have certain weapons pigeon holed behind certain builds.

/shrug, oh well.

I’m just gonna focus on 1 point of your post. “the build copy/paste from internet”.
In GW1 the build share was exceptionnaly good, but it end up 99% of players playing pro builds when they have absolutely no idea how to play it.
On that point GW2 is exactly the same, but it is not link to some “lack” of spells.

Well even since the new traits was introuduse, I do feel like they should create some new skills to accomdation the missing skill sets.

E.g. there is no Elite shout for warrior and no elite signet for rangers etc. Granted I just want to make full used on the traits that reduce cooldowns on those specific skills (yes I know not all profession have the reduce cooldown skills like Revenant, Engi and Thief and I don’t meant the weapons skills).

I like it much more this way because it gives a reason for every skill on your bar to be there. I hate those mmorpgs where you have like 30 skills available at a time and in the end you just end up button mashing to victory.

GW2’s combat, though not very horizontal, is very vertical. There is more depth compared to other games I have played (been in mmo for 10 years +). Plus, since the combat in GW2 is very mobile and fluid, the number of skills available sounds about right because the game is designed in a way that you have to incorporate other elements besides using skills (like running, LOS, camping on defense, gauging opportunity, dodging, downed, finishing etc) . It’s not too much that you don’t even know what you’re doing and it’s not too low that you’re spamming 1 or 2 buttons. It makes the combat more meaningful and action oriented and it makes it easier for you to read your enemies in PVP, which makes the gamemode more strategic.

Also, the game is designed so that builds are more accented and clearly defined. The trait patch proved this even further. And considering the available technology (which by no mean I’m implying that it’s bad), there aren’t much you can add to the gameplay facets without making it redundant. Say, you can separate Purging Flames in to 3 separate skills: one cleans condis, one burns foes, and one reduces condi duration. But is it necessary?

GW2 skill system is fine. (although I agree we should get every type of skill for every category)

Arnox.5128:

But the problem is, with less options comes… Well, less options. :P Less needed creativity in builds. Less fun stuff that can be done. Anyone remember the 55 monk in GW1? I don’t think we may ever have a build as quirky and cool like that in GW2.

This point I strongly disagree with. Less skills does not mean less options. On the contrary, less but better balanced skills offer more options.

Just look at GW1, hundreds of skills, and maybe 1-2 meta builds per class per patch. So you have all those hundreds of skills, and players still endup using just 10% of them or less. Aside from wacking fun builds or super niche.

Another game that cut down on skills due to overloading players for example was WoW, and the revamp still ends up with a huge load of skills not used.

Skills and amount of skills is a quality over quantity approach. The illusion of choice through vast amounts of useless skills might be something some peopel enjoy, gameplay and balance wise it’s completely useless though.

I miss playing with thousands of different builds in GW1. How many build is there in GW2, maybe 60?

Anyway…great memories with the 55 monk, my ecto farming naked bald guy.

I DO think there are a few places where more skills would be awesome.
1 more selectable skill for 1handed weapons and 2 for 2handed ones (Per proffession) would be simply awesome. A couple more elites would be nice too.

But, I don’t think GW2 has too few skills. I think GW2 has too many useless skills, that should be tweaked to be competitive with the good ones, and a few ones that are too good for balance. (As an example, most elites are really weak, so the few ones that work are used by every build.)

Balance skills correctly and you will have much more build diversity.

I still think ,yes and that after 3 years

For more Build Diversity it would be absolutely great, if Anet could add for the future of the game a “Combat Style” System, that lets us players decide, if we want to use either an offensive, defensive or supportive Combat Style for our Weapon Skills.

Then I think the amount of Basic Healing Skills for all Classes should be increased to 10.
With 5 Elite Specializations per Class increased to a total of 15.

Every Class should have also in my Opinion like Healing Classes also 10 different Basic Elite Skills with a good mix of some, that are only on land useable and some that are everywhere useable. With 5 Elite Specializations again ,we would have then a total of 15 Elite Skills per class.

The amount of Utility Skills is in my Opinion the type of Skills, which should receive the biggest amount of useable skill opions, because Utility Skills are besides of the used Weapon the biggest part of the whole Build Diversity in this Game.

Currently has each Class without Elite Specs beign considered a total amount of 20 utility Skills (5×4 different Skill Types)
Exaple Thief:

• Signets
• Deceptions
• Traps
• Venoms
• Tricks

The amount of Utility Skills per class should get imo increased to 50!!
As in 5*10 Utility Skills or even as in 10*5 style to increase the spectrum of different Utility Skill Options for each Class, that that would be alot harder to do, than to make it work as 5*10 by increaing just the amount of Skilsl for each so far known Utility Skill Type, instead of addign new Utility Skill Types..thats more a kind of Elite Specializationg thing that works for them alot better to add via them for them unique Ulity Skill Types.

If we would have a 5*10 total 50 Utility Skill amount for each classs then, we would have alot more Build Diversity in the Game and not for sure such a hard stuck Meta right now.
I have more than enough creativity, that I could easily come up for all classes with enough Utility Skill Ideas to make it work based on their current 5 Utility Skill Types that each class has xD

If anet seriously wants to keep the game for a logn tiem interesting, they absolutely have to increase over time the total amount of skilsl to allow fpor more build Diversity.
Sure, it would make balancing a bit harder again..

But with a Total amount of by my proposal totals of (15+15+50 (=80)+Weapon Skill Combat Styles for exchangeable Weapon Skill Sets) we would we with all of this still be at a much lower total amount of Skills, than GW1 has had!!!

In GW1 had each class over 100 Skills that were mixable with each other .
GW2 would have with my suggestion then more than 100 Skills per Class via the Combat Styles, but it would still have not like GW1 a system, that allows simply to mix all Skilsl with each other, it would still limit your Healing, Elite and Utility Skill especially.
Your Build would still be defined by having maximum only 1 or 2 Weapons with you that limit your Weapon Skills possible to use.

But what would simply get increased the most with these changes are the Build Diversities that come together with your chosen Utility Skills and your chosen Weapons you take with you, because especially Combat Styles would increase significantly the Build Diversity, because then you will definetely know know anymore, if every Staff Ele you might fight against you might use against you the same Staff Skills, because Staff Ele A might fight against you maybe offensively, while Staff Ele B might prefer perhaps to fight against you with the defensive Staff Combat Style, while Staff Ele C might prefer even maybe to avoid to fight you completely using the supportive Staff Combat Style.

This paired together with the Element Attunements and with in increased amount of Healing SKills, Utilities and a bigger pool of chooseable Elite Skills would be the way, that ANet has to go for the next years to come together with adding more Elite Specializartions to make sure, that GW2 stays interesting in its combat system for many many years more.