Guild Wars 2

I’ll take either casual or hardcore content and run with it.
Grind? I’ll take it or leave it.
Gear progression/power creep? I see merits for and against either loot system.
Massive gold sinks? Doesn’t bother me one way or the other.

These among a few others are the pressing issues of the forum yet I see very little, if any, commentary on a core facet of the combat system of GW2. *Combat being interesting is wholly dependent upon trying not to die.* The combat in GW2 is deep and engaging when you are involved in a situation where you’re an inch from death. Between dodging, defensive skills, managing conditions on you, etc. it’s a LOT of fun. The problem with this being that you’re not always in a constant state of near death. In many scenarios you’re fighting a single non-threatening enemy. Or wailing on something that is currently attacking another player. Doing damage in most cases simply boils down to popping a long cd utility skill, maybe (if you’re lucky) using a weapon skill or two for some damage. The vast majority of time, however, autoattack is doing a huge portion of your damage and combat is non-engaging.

Now, I hate to bring WoW up, but it’s a relevant example so I’ll take the plunge. I primarily played an Affliction Warlock and Fury Warrior. The priority systems with these classes were supremely executed. With Fury you rarely were not using a rage dump. Even when soloing a lowly non-threatening enemy the rotation was interesting and fun cycling between the various damage skills. Affliction wasn’t quite so engaging against a single foe, but when you pulled 2-3 enemies it became rather fun to manage your various DoTs between the targets, making sure you were doing optimal damage to each target.

These opportunities for interesting damage/skill priorities simply doesn’t exist in GW2 (again, a game that I find superb in nearly every other way) Don’t get me wrong- something that complex simply wouldn’t work in GW2 because of the emphasis on defense and dodging. Could there not be some sort of middle ground between a game obsessed with maximizing DPS (lol dmg meters) with complex damage rotations and the other extreme where most skills are situational and you spend most of your time staring at your character autoattack? I may be hyper sensitive to this as I play a Dagger/Staff Necromancer, but the issue seems relevant across the whole of the game. Even Warriors (at the other end of the spectrum) are only mildly interesting in non-threatening scenarios.

TLDR:* Combat is interesting and fun when you’re worried about dying. Combat is dull and non-interactive the other 70% of the time. There is too much dead space between skill activations because a skill is either saved for a particular defensive purpose, it does less damage than autoattack, or if it’s a higher damage output than autoattack you’ve already used it and it’s on cooldown. I would very much like to see a balancing of defensive and offensive combat focus in this game. Combat should still be engaging in non life-or-death combat situations. I would point to increasing the damage output of the 2-5 skills (while lowering autoattack) and/or lowering cooldowns of the the 2-5 and 7-9 slots. I leave the specifics beyond that to discuss here.

Thanks for reading.

Lets take guildwars into example.
Not guildwars2 the first one.

Spell casters, Auto attack…. do you actually use your weapon as a spell caster as in wanding them or striking a target with a martial weapon which yields you no damage…

Because as a mesmer a necro and an ele I did not.

As a martial class like an assassin or a warrior did I mindlessly use auto attack?

I didn’t, even though there was press spacebar to move to target and start whacking away, I still understood the mechanics of kiting, as in if a hammer warrior was about to KD me, Id move away run around and get back in the fight.

And this would greatly help as melee with melee weapons as servers have different lag responses to people from different part of the worlds. So what may look like somethings infront of you, might be by your side.

Does auto attack make people stand in one spot and whack away with attacks?

Yes if they’re bad players, no if they’re not, All it does is allow you as a player to release your middle finger from the W key and place it on a number key getting ready to use an attack when its inrange.

Rizzy, I think you misunderstand my meaning. I don’t have a problem with autoattack. I have a problem with autoattack outshining the other skills. When I’m fighting something that isn’t a threat to kill me combat is boring because most skills are so defensively focused.

You bring up GW1 but I would say you could make very interesting builds there. I played a Blood Necromancer with Dark Pact, Vampiric Gaze, Offering of Blood, Shadow Strike, Unholy Feast, etc. The cooldowns on these skills were rather low and the ebb and flow of sacrificing and expending health was interesting. You were nearly constantly activating one skills or another. This simply is not the case in GW2. And yes a certain credence should be given to avoiding damage, but you aren’t always being attacked, endurance runs out, and not all enemies are going to kill you if you don’t dodge. There’s a gap of interactiveness here that bores me more than a lack of “endgame” content ever could.

This is exactly what i miss. In raids etc, part of the fun for me was getting my dps priority right, and it was exciting seeing the numbers, at the same time as trying to get the tactics right.
In GW2, as you say, general gameplay as in doing the quest hearts and running around literally only takes auto attack and the target is dead, very rarely do you even need to use any other skills.

My personal opinion, is have more weapon skills, not lots, maybe another set, and allow us to switch out each individual skill, so i can at least have 4 of the 5 skills as required dps rather than auto attack. At the minute 2 maybe 3 of most of the skills are CC which is utterly pointless and useless outside of dungeons.

This is one of the main reasons the meatwalls in dungeons are so irritating. Since they’re not threatening to kill you all the time, you just kind of stand there. Good post, though I don’t know how to go about fixing it. Seems pretty ingrained.

i really dont understand what the OP is about…on my guardian, mesmer and engineer, i use all 15 of my skills. i do it to maximize efficiency and dps. my rotation for guardian will be the following with hammer: swing twice with #1, on third, hit F1 and smash for burning and might boon; smash with mighty blow; hit purging flames to continue burning (+10% dps), smash with #2 again for might boon; hit #5 for light field, smash for retaliation; hit save yourselves for fury, do some more juggling if im fighting 4-5 mobs.

i will agree with you on ONE thing: doing a DE in a large group as a ranged profession/spec requires nothing more than autoattack spam. DE’s are too easy for large groups right now, and that near-death situation you speak of rarely exists. ANet is aware of this.

dungeons, on the other hand, are entirely different. i find them engaging and hella fun because u gotta be on your toes all the time. personal story, some DE’s, and general questing – also very engaging and fun.

i also hate that you brought WoW up, because it brings back memories of boredom. while resource management and dps prioritization was more “in depth”, it didnt matter. while GW2 has that near-death experience about 30% of the time as u say, WoW had it maybe 1-2% in bad pug raids. organized raids and 5-man groups stomped all content once they figured out the fight. in GW2, you always have to be responsive. AC dungeon is the most fun i ever had in pve, and im sure it gets better.

I agree somewhat with the OP but at the same time I think MMOs that required having an overly abundant supply of abilities and cooldown to manage meant that I spent more time watching my toolbar than anything else. Me, personally, that takes away from the overal thrill and enjoyment that comes from engaging in combat.

The theory crafting behind setting up solid rotations using your abilities, utilities, elites and sigils and weapon swaps does exist in this game. It’s just that we don’t have 30 other useless or very situational abilities getting in the way.

jonG.8369:

I agree somewhat with the OP but at the same time I think MMOs that required having an overly abundant supply of abilities and cooldown to manage meant that I spent more time watching my toolbar than anything else. Me, personally, that takes away from the overal thrill and enjoyment that comes from engaging in combat.

The theory crafting behind setting up solid rotations using your abilities, utilities, elites and sigils and weapon swaps does exist in this game. It’s just that we don’t have 30 other useless or very situational abilities getting in the way.

Agreed. And I wouldn’t even touch on suggesting adding more skill slots because it’s perfect on this front. The cooldown and damage of the 2-5 (and to a lesser extent 7-9) slots could use some adjusting. Obviously while bringing down the damage of autoattack.

It should be a consideration whether or not to use a 2-5 skill for the damage it provides OR for the defensive/utility it provides. This I feel will add a whole other level of skill. “Do I save this blind for the boss to avoid that hit OR use it for a modest damage increase?” In the direst of circumstances you’ll save it for the blind. When soloing mobs you’ll use it for damage. It’s the fringe cases where it becomes much more interesting =D

I think OP is just above the learning curve and is yet to actively engage challenging mobs on a regular basis. The difficulty does increase a lot especially if you’re not a heavy armour class.

Unless he’s max level already. Then he’s probably on a warrior.

In regards to GW1, builds ultimately depended on your team set up. Each build complimented each other. Not that long after it was realised, 8v8 PvP saw that if players built into specific roles, the whole team would be more effective, which is why you rarely saw warriors with healing skills because it would split up their attributes and limit their damage output/skill usage. It was the same for monks, having 1 healer and 1 prot monk meant higher efficiency as well as not overlapping each others skills and heals.
Also known as synergy.

GW2 on the other hand makes it possible to solo content and at the same time combo everything with everyone, with everybody having some sort of capacity to support their party or allies. It’s up to you as a player to utilise your skills. Yes it’s possible to just auto attack an enemy and just dodge. But this takes ages.

It’s funny really, many people will complain that there aren’t enough skills on weapons and yet right now we’re discussing how some people don’t even use the “few” skills that they have and still want more variety.

Fate.8034:

I think OP is just above the learning curve and is yet to actively engage challenging mobs on a regular basis. The difficulty does increase a lot especially if you’re not a heavy armour class.

Unless he’s max level already. Then he’s probably on a warrior.

Max level Necro. And contrary to making a thread about optimal damage I actually play a very defensive spec in dungeons focused solely on fearing, chilling, immobilizing, healing allies. Etc. Damage is of no concern in dungeons. But one also solos and runs events. The game should still be compelling when you’re not having to fight for dear life or CC mobs off allies.

I agree that when there are a large number of players doing an event they get pretty boring in general due to not really needing to use defensive or supportive abilities that much. Players aoe/cleave mobs down too easily, and the mobs don’t know how to aoe back. Perhaps this will fix itself somewhat over time just due to lower concurrent players in the world as the game gets older.

There is a significant difference among the classes still. Try playing an elementalist, engineer, or mesmer if you want a bit more activity just doing offense. I just deleted my warrior because he was so boring and shallow to play, but have lots of fun with the more complex classes.

The answer though, is NOT to homogenize the complexity/difficulty of the pure offense toolkit of the classes like WoW did. WoW moved in that direction too far, it’s surprising how much you could apply a generalized “how to play” to all the dps specs:

This is your dot, keep it up as often as possible.
This is your harder hitting ability/spell, use it on cooldown.
This is your random proc ability/spell, use it as soon as it lights up.
This is your filler, spam it when none of the above are applicable.
This is your 1.5-3 min dps booster cooldown.

I played that game for 6.5 years, I don’t want to play it here too.

The answer is to always make sure the defensive, survivability, and control matter. I think for the big zerg DEs they need to start spawning more veteran/champion mobs, not just increase the number of normal aoe/cleave fodder that comes running at you.

it’s just a matter of preference. as a twitch gamer, i find plenty of depth in gw2’s combat.

and de’s need to get buffed.

I think you need to learn switching weapons. Feels like IM playing a rts on engineer. Necro i constantly switch too. Its there for a reason.

Undertow.2389:

I agree that when there are a large number of players doing an event they get pretty boring in general due to not really needing to use defensive or supportive abilities that much. Players aoe/cleave mobs down too easily, and the mobs don’t know how to aoe back. Perhaps this will fix itself somewhat over time just due to lower concurrent players in the world as the game gets older.

There is a significant difference among the classes still. Try playing an elementalist, engineer, or mesmer if you want a bit more activity just doing offense. I just deleted my warrior because he was so boring and shallow to play, but have lots of fun with the more complex classes.

The answer though, is NOT to homogenize the complexity/difficulty of the pure offense toolkit of the classes like WoW did. WoW moved in that direction too far, it’s surprising how much you could apply a generalized “how to play” to all the dps specs:

This is your dot, keep it up as often as possible.
This is your harder hitting ability/spell, use it on cooldown.
This is your random proc ability/spell, use it as soon as it lights up.
This is your filler, spam it when none of the above are applicable.
This is your 1.5-3 min dps booster cooldown.

I played that game for 6.5 years, I don’t want to play it here too.

The answer is to always make sure the defensive, survivability, and control matter. I think for the big zerg DEs they need to start spawning more veteran/champion mobs, not just increase the number of normal aoe/cleave fodder that comes running at you.

The best dissenting opinion so far. And more likely what is to actually occur (in your last paragraph) I still think Necro at the very least needs more damage transferred off the autoattack, but from most responses this seems pretty much a Necro problem if you all aren’t running out of things to do for damage with the other profs.

bump for further discussion.

Undertow.2389:

I agree that when there are a large number of players doing an event they get pretty boring in general due to not really needing to use defensive or supportive abilities that much. Players aoe/cleave mobs down too easily, and the mobs don’t know how to aoe back. Perhaps this will fix itself somewhat over time just due to lower concurrent players in the world as the game gets older.

There is a significant difference among the classes still. Try playing an elementalist, engineer, or mesmer if you want a bit more activity just doing offense. I just deleted my warrior because he was so boring and shallow to play, but have lots of fun with the more complex classes.

The answer though, is NOT to homogenize the complexity/difficulty of the pure offense toolkit of the classes like WoW did. WoW moved in that direction too far, it’s surprising how much you could apply a generalized “how to play” to all the dps specs:

This is your dot, keep it up as often as possible.
This is your harder hitting ability/spell, use it on cooldown.
This is your random proc ability/spell, use it as soon as it lights up.
This is your filler, spam it when none of the above are applicable.
This is your 1.5-3 min dps booster cooldown.

I played that game for 6.5 years, I don’t want to play it here too.

The answer is to always make sure the defensive, survivability, and control matter. I think for the big zerg DEs they need to start spawning more veteran/champion mobs, not just increase the number of normal aoe/cleave fodder that comes running at you.

In a nutshell, yes. In practice its not that simple.

- MoP fury always wants to have either bloodsurge or two raging blows ready for every Colossal smash, but you don’t want to delay CS.

- Sub wants to have HAT take care of the 4th and 5th CP to prevent overflow, but due to the inconsistency of it you might energy cap while waiting for it.

Its all these little things that it has, that other MMOs don’t. Rift and SWTOR have tried to emulate it with procs and cooldown resets and such, but they kind of missed the point.

As far as GWII goes, I think combat complexity is screwed by design. WoW rotations only use 5-6 low cooldown attacks on average, but in GWII those slots are taken by utility instead, leaving 1 slot for auto-attack, 1 for a damaging attack, and 3 variables.

Short of Anet turning their back on the philosophy of GWII and letting people swap out weapon skills for other weapon skills, its not going to happen.

there is no “dps priority” in GW2 simply because youre too busy trying to maximize your performance (dodge, reposition, buff, cleanse conditions, smash a combo field). hitting little pictures on the bottom of your screen in a specific order is something i never wish to do in my MMO. this is why i never raided in WoW. it was…really silly to me.

did ANet ever advertise an in-depth “dps priority system”? indirectly, they called it combo fields. set them up, coordinate and watch your dps and survivability improve. profit.

Servanin.5021:

As far as GWII goes, I think combat complexity is screwed by design. WoW rotations only use 5-6 low cooldown attacks on average, but in GWII those slots are taken by utility instead, leaving 1 slot for auto-attack, 1 for a damaging attack, and 3 variables.

combat complexity is improved by design, actually. let me take you through what my hammer guardian does in a dungeon.

- #1 attack chain for symbol on 3rd hit
- smash for retaliation
- F1 for might and burning
- dodge
- #1 attack chain
- consecration to keep up burning
- smash field for might
- signet to keep up retaliation
- #1 attack chain
- dodge, smash.
- virtues for retaliation, regen and protection
- smash mate’s field for chaos armor; watch mobs get lit up by random conditions
- immobilize the oncoming warrior mob
- knock back one ranger; cast wall of reflection in front of second ranger
- smash wall of reflection for retaliation
- shift into bear form because i feel like it; CC one mob for 10 seconds.
- roar for might
- ???
- profit

this isnt even my complete dps priority procedure. it’s like 60% of it. i didnt even mention the other two utility i have (maybe another fire or light field), in addition to the other weapon set that i constantly switch to in order to mitigate damage on my mates (mace/focus).

what im trying to say is: you dont need to be scrambling for you life to be having fun in combat. if you had a DPS meter and people to impress, you’d absolutely have to do all the things im doing above in other to maximize your dps and survivability. you dont have these requirements in GW2 though, so you can just dumb it down if you choose to. but expect longer and more tedious dungeon runs.

World of Warcraft:

- 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,1,1,1,1,5,2,3,1,1,1
- move 3 steps to the left because there’s a red circle underneath me for some reason
- look at my dps meter to feel good about myself; glance over other green bars
- look at boss’s red bar again
- 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,1,1,1,1,5,2,3,1,1,1
- ???

SO COMPLEX BRO

admittedly, zerg DE’s are a problem because theyre so easy now and the bosses are so dumb. however, in these zergs, youre still doing way more than you ever would in WoW by cleansing conditions, applying boons, creating fields for burning projectiles and such, and maintaining some simplified dps priority (maybe 3-4 abilities).

nerva.7940:

there is no “dps priority” in GW2 simply because youre too busy trying to survive (dodge, reposition, buff, cleanse conditions, smash a combo field). hitting little pictures on the bottom of your screen in a specific order is something i never wish to do in my MMO. this is why i never raided in WoW. it was…really silly to me.

Nerva, you are correct in what you post. The whole point that we’re trying to convey here is for situations where you are not busy trying to survive. The game shouldn’t be boring in these situations but it is. We’re not trying to take the focus away from needing to survive dangerous situations. We’re trying to make the game more interesting when you’re safe.

Play wrecklessly. Solved.

nerva.7940:

Servanin.5021:

As far as GWII goes, I think combat complexity is screwed by design. WoW rotations only use 5-6 low cooldown attacks on average, but in GWII those slots are taken by utility instead, leaving 1 slot for auto-attack, 1 for a damaging attack, and 3 variables.

combat complexity is improved by design, actually. let me take you through what my hammer guardian does in a dungeon.

- #1 attack chain for symbol on 3rd hit
- smash for retaliation
- F1 for might and burning
- dodge
- #1 attack chain
- consecration to keep up burning
- smash field for might
- signet to keep up retaliation
- #1 attack chain
- dodge, smash.
- virtues for retaliation, regen and protection
- smash mate’s field for chaos armor; watch mobs get lit up by random conditions
- immobilize the oncoming warrior mob
- knock back one ranger; cast wall of reflection in front of second ranger
- smash wall of reflection for retaliation
- shift into bear form because i feel like it; CC one mob for 10 seconds.
- roar for might
- ???
- profit

this isnt even my complete dps priority procedure. it’s like 60% of it. i didnt even mention the other two utility i have (maybe another fire or light field), in addition to the other weapon set that i constantly switch to in order to mitigate damage on my mates (mace/focus)

World of Warcraft:

- 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,1,1,1,1,5,2,3,1,1,1
- move 3 steps to the left because there’s a red circle underneath me for some reason
- look at my dps meter to feel good about myself; glance over other green bars
- look at boss’s red bar again
- 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,1,1,1,1,5,2,3,1,1,1
- ???

SO COMPLEX BRO

admittedly, zerg DE’s are a problem because theyre so easy now and the bosses are so dumb. however, in these zergs, youre still doing way more than you ever would in WoW by cleansing conditions, applying boons, creating fields for burning projectiles and such, and maintaining some simplified dps priority (maybe 3-4 abilities).

Warmaster Blackhorn:

- Dodge linear charge, 1 second warning time, 2 mobs that do it
- Don’t stand in front of the mobs that are constantly moving and charging
- Get inside constantly spawning circles (Can miss a couple and still win)
- Gather inside periodic big circle (Wipe if no less than 6-7 out of 10 people stack in it)
- Kill the sapper (Wipe if hes not CCed, immune to damage until he re-appears right beside his objective)
- Meet strict DPS standard while doing so, or else everything is going to stack up

This is from what most WoW players seem to consider the worst, most boring raid ever on normal mode. Blizzard tends to leave 1 boss per tier for people to just sandbag on like what your example entailed.

Vallog – Butler route, Caudecus Manor final boss

- Sit on him, hit hundred blades every 6.5 seconds, auto-attack else wise because he doesn’t really do anything. If you are ranged, turn around when he puts his reflect up.

The difference between the classes in GW2 is really significant imho. Playing my ranger with a shortbow can be super boring. It only gets interesting if either I pull more mobs at once or if the mob ignores my pet and instead goes for me.

For me it’s more fun to play my condition thief. Since he’s very squishy he can die easily. Even more if I pull more than one mob. But if you use your mechanics properly it’s perfectly doable. However, if you make a mistake your dead. Which is cool imho.

as i outlined Draehl, if we had dps meters, we would need to use all of our abilities and combo fields to maximize our efficiency, thus making the rotation incredibly organic, spontaneous and more complex.

imagine WoW without dps meters. no dps chain priority because we could all just mash 1,1,1,1 and nobody would know =) in GW2, you could try doing that but the game just doesnt let you. if GW2 had dps meters, your rotation would be huge. i pretend there is, so my hands and mind are always busy

woeye.2753:

The difference between the classes in GW2 is really significant imho. Playing my ranger with a shortbow can be super boring. It only gets interesting if either I pull more mobs at once or if the mob ignores my pet and instead goes for me.

in dungeons? have you tried adding the torch to your rotation to set your arrows on fire? or adjusting your position to fire through other fields? do you switch between your SB and axe to maximize bleed stacks? do you set spike traps? is your pet alive, are you microing it? did you try axe/dagger or sword/dagger? these are complex melee builds that require a lot of evading.

the ranger is a very simple prof, and ive also decided that it’s not for me. BUT there’s still much to do

“The problem with this being that you’re not always in a constant state of near death.”

You should play a necro then. This happens to me if I have to deal with more than one enemy at my level.

Riles.4568:

“The problem with this being that you’re not always in a constant state of near death.”

You should play a necro then. This happens to me if I have to deal with more than one enemy at my level.

I don’t know what type of Necro you’re playing, but I’m running power/toughness/vit with 10/0/0/30/30 and Spectral/Well utilities and I’m rather hearty.

I too played a fury warrior in WoW, and I actually love the current system – for certain classes.

The main difference for us would likely be that I quit WoW before WOTLK, so fury dps consisted of a 6 second cooldown, a 9 second cooldown, and rage dump heroic strike or cleave if you had ample rage

I’m currently playing a daggers thief and a guardian. Both of which are fun even solo leveling for their skills other than auto-attack

Edit: I tried a necro as my first character and they seem more susceptible to what you’re experiencing than any other class I’ve tried. Much more engaging in PvP however

nerva.7940:

as i outlined Draehl, if we had dps meters, we would need to use all of our abilities and combo fields to maximize our efficiency, thus making the rotation incredibly organic, spontaneous and more complex.

imagine WoW without dps meters. no dps chain priority because we could all just mash 1,1,1,1 and nobody would know =) in GW2, you could try doing that but the game just doesnt let you. if GW2 had dps meters, your rotation would be huge. i pretend there is, so my hands and mind are always busy

Again maybe with another profession. Perhaps it is just the Necro. Apparently people aren’t having this problem with Elementalist in particular.

Well, part of the problem is that auto-attack is just too good. Axe auto-attack is fairly close to Hundred blades, and will eclipse it during the cooldown. The 3rd part of most of them is so good that you won’t want to stop it until the chain is finished.

You have to take things like animation time and weapon swap cooldown into account too. While it looks like Cleansing Flame does a lot of damage, a sword auto-attack does about the same, maybe more in the same time it takes to perform that long channel.

I liken it to running out and charging for the free ravage for feral druids in cataclysm. It looks like it might be an increase because its a big crit, but it turns out that in the time it takes to do that you would have done the same damage just sitting there.

Draehl.2681:

nerva.7940:

as i outlined Draehl, if we had dps meters, we would need to use all of our abilities and combo fields to maximize our efficiency, thus making the rotation incredibly organic, spontaneous and more complex.

imagine WoW without dps meters. no dps chain priority because we could all just mash 1,1,1,1 and nobody would know =) in GW2, you could try doing that but the game just doesnt let you. if GW2 had dps meters, your rotation would be huge. i pretend there is, so my hands and mind are always busy

Again maybe with another profession. Perhaps it is just the Necro. Apparently people aren’t having this problem with Elementalist in particular.

yes necro still needs more work. theyve acknowledged this i think. there arent enough viable builds due to bugged traits, etc.

Servanin.5021:

While it looks like Cleansing Flame does a lot of damage, a sword auto-attack does about the same, maybe more in the same time it takes to perform that long channel.

as someone who uses sword/torch often, i can guarantee cleansing flame does multifold more damage than the sword autoattack. it’s a cone, and when traited, it crits. a lot.

on the hammer guardian, the autoattack chain is the main source of dps (one of the exceptions), but the spammable blast finisher completely changes your game. your job is not only to dps and cc, but also to smash fields to buff your mates.

Regardless of how the gameplay is when im not fighting for my life, im thoroughly enjoying leveling my ranger as i am quite new, but played the first GW. I find it a hell of a lot more fun to use a majority of my skills and switch weapons when i pull a couple mobs.. Compared to other mmos where you spam 1 1 1 1 2 while leveling.. no thanks, ill take this over wow anyday, this is just too much fun. I put in 6 hours that felt like nothing just after purchasing the game.

TL;DR – The fighting is fun for me in every scenario, solo or group.

What I noticed playing engineer, and then making a warrior alt that the classes can be very different on this front. On my engineer I use a ton of abilities even on critters and swap kits and there’s A LOT of things going on.

On my warrior however I find my self actually autoattacking a lot, I like one handed axe and shield. I use greatsword sometimes since I feel like using most of the skills in single fight, but with axe it’s really an autoattack-fest with few other abilities here and there. Somehow I felt like the signet way just felt the most practical for my warrior so that’s not helping either. I could say it’s partially my own fault, but then again, you can play very effectively a warrior with just right build and autoattack. Unlike engineer imo.

nerva.7940:

Servanin.5021:

While it looks like Cleansing Flame does a lot of damage, a sword auto-attack does about the same, maybe more in the same time it takes to perform that long channel.

as someone who uses sword/torch often, i can guarantee cleansing flame does multifold more damage than the sword autoattack. it’s a cone, and when traited, it crits. a lot.

on the hammer guardian, the autoattack chain is the main source of dps (one of the exceptions), but the spammable blast finisher completely changes your game. your job is not only to dps and cc, but also to smash fields to buff your mates.

Multiple Targets, yes. When you take into consideration the lengthy cast time, you could get in 5, maybe 6 auto-attacks in the time it takes to do that. Its definitely better than scepter and staff auto though – Works nicely to smite, then use cleansing flame.

Zealot’s defense is similar – For me at 30, i’ll see 200-200-500 with auto-attack and 800-900 with Zealot’s defense if i’m point blank. Although at least its not a loss in that case, its just not a gain.

For a lot of weapons its a loss to interrupt the auto-attack.