Guild Wars 2

Is there any rhyme or reason as to why some skills are channeling skills and others are not? It seems that some skills that are almost identical in different professions but one is a channel and the other is not…

???

From what I can remember, most channeling skills in the game were actual skills you had to hold down their respective commands in order to have the skill go I to its full use. An example being the Elementalist’s Meteor Shower required the user to hold down, and channel the skill, to power it up. The more you held it down, the stronger the skill was. However, this form of channelling required the player to stand still, from what I saw in convention videos at least, so it was scrapped since it went against the “freedom of movement while fighting,” philosophy ArenaNet was saying as part of its development process. Mind you, this is just a combination of personal an alizarin and a few pre-launch forum discussions. I don’t remember any of the developers delving into the subject.

Anyway, the channelling we now see in game is just there to show the players that their character requires, in an in-world notion, to focus while using that particular skill(s). It doesn’t serve much of a purpose outside of adding that bit of flavor.

I just ask because I play staff Ele, and can’t seem to find a lot of reason to use the Earth trait that gives you armor while channeling.
There are a lot of skills at my disposal that seem identical in how they are cast to other skills, but one is a channel and another not. Are these just things ANet missed and never bothered to fix? Ex:

Engineer: Poison Dart Volley, Ranger: Rapid Fire, and Thief: Unload. All these skills fire a number of bolts at a target over time, basically function and are animated the same. All these are ‘channel’ skills. But then you whip out the Frost Bow and fire FB2 which essentially functions the same, and it is not a channel?

I could point out many more examples where the animations and output styles for different skills match, but one is a channel and then the other isn’t. I can’t speak for the other classes, but as an Ele this is directly relevant to one of my trait choices in Earth….

It’s a tell in PvP when you’re about to cast a big skill such as meteor shower, which does a ton of damage, so as to allow your opponents to counter.

Channel skills by their nature require you to NOT move. Frostbow 4 is a channel, fire staff 5 is a channel, guardian’s empower is a channel.

The reason eles have a trait that gives toughness during Channeling is because of that fact. If you’re standing still, you’re an easy target. If you’re channeling a big skill, your enemies know kitten well to kill you before it’s over (or use a control skill).

Frostbow 4 does not register as a channel skill. If you take Obsidian Focus, the Earth Trait I’m talking about, you do not get the armor bonus while casting Frostbow 4. =( Outside of the 2 Scepter channels, this Trait, like many others, is essentially useless. =(

Also you can move while casting Scepter L1 and E1, and the Do count as channel skills…