Guild Wars 2

I just thought this deserves more attention and praise than it’s currently getting.

New skills (and skill balancing) are things that I personally and many other players have been wanting in the game since day one.

Although there’s some controversy to the usefulness/balance/overpowered nature of some skills I really loved them all for what they are; beautiful little specks of hope and love.

It’s fantastic how the new skills aren’t just “another +1 to my skill list” generic skill, but instead manage to individually change whole builds around. They do this in such simple ways too.

I’ve been catching myself in game a lot more, and I’m just generally more excited to play through all parts of the game for the sole purpose of enjoying this one new skill.

I think if Anet did some sort of constant skill release every X weeks, much like they do their LS, I’d be a lot more interested in just playing the game.

My main is a Necro.

I must admit though, the Necro’s healing skill to me was the biggest let down among all the new healing skills.

Now it’s not useless, not at all, but it’s only nice and useful with a very specific few types of builds which are built almost entirely around the signet.

You can easily see what the devs had in mind when they built this skill but it feels like it was badly nerfed along the way.

It’s useful for siphon/attrition builds in which either you have various health regen on you at all times, thus this adding to the pile of constant healing you have available. The skill as such adds well with the thought we can keep constant attrition on the foe to wear them down while keeping our health up.

On top of that you also have a soft party heal and some decent damage on your heal skill.

In theory it’s a pretty nice skill that makes way to a new play style, and while it doesn’t fail in doing so, it’s clearly underperforming.

I think something anet didn’t take into account is the fact those using these skills are human players and can’t time their attacks perfectly in the middle of a fight to all match exactly 1 second from each other, thus consuming all stacks.

I’ve used this signet in dungeons a lot now and not once have I seen the stacks go down to zero in a 5 man team. I alone am able to remove 3 stacks most of the time, I’ve never been able to remove all 5.

There’s obviously a lot of fixes that need to go into this skill but honestly I don’t doubt they’ll be happening soon. It’s obvious anet realized they’d have to tweek these skills, some might be a bit too OP (warrior, ironically) while some might not shine as bright as they imagined (necro… ironically).

All in all, even though some of these new skills might not make for the most ideal of builds ever, they certainly spice things up and add diversity to the builds we see players using.

It’s been really fun messing with my build and I think having a regular skill release would be fantastic.

I am not sure they should cost so many skill points each time though

Guess which skill is surprisingly the most amazing one… Warrior’s, of crouse.;) On the other hand, ranger’s healing spirit which heals you approx. every 10 s for around 8xx hp is a joke, imo. Its active is not strong enough to compensate for that pathetic few hundred hp/10s. Sorry to say that.:/

I like the introduction of new skills as well.

BUT Anet have made the new healing skills underpowered and been far to cautious with them, so players are not desiring the new skills. Indeed a lot of players are looking and not bothering with them because current skills are same/much better.

Anet need to make those new skills HIGHLY DESIRABLE, ie…a little OP and then later on after everyone has had fun with them balance them/tone them down.

No point in new skills if they are…meh, nothing special.

Meglobob.8620:

Anet need to make those new skills HIGHLY DESIRABLE, ie…a little OP and then later on after everyone has had fun with them balance them/tone them down.

..so that everyone can spend the following year screaming about nerfs and how they want their 25 skill points back.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Guess which skill is surprisingly the most amazing one… Warrior’s, of crouse.;) On the other hand, ranger’s healing spirit which heals you approx. every 10 s for around 8xx hp is a joke, imo. Its active is not strong enough to compensate for that pathetic few hundred hp/10s. Sorry to say that.:/

The new healing spirit is never going to see my bar. It’s just a very bad heal when compared to HS or TU…. or even HaO.

Qaelyn.7612:

Meglobob.8620:

Anet need to make those new skills HIGHLY DESIRABLE, ie…a little OP and then later on after everyone has had fun with them balance them/tone them down.

..so that everyone can spend the following year screaming about nerfs and how they want their 25 skill points back.

Vs

How players are laughing at how bad they are and not even bothering to get the skill points to get them now, because unless buffed they won’t get on players skill bars…

Really, if they said they were aiming at being slightly OP to begin with and would be balanced in the next balance patch would be a better way to go. New skills are mean’t to be exciting not inferior to what you already have.

Delryn.7235:

Now it’s not useless, not at all, but it’s only nice and useful with a very specific few types of builds which are built almost entirely around the signet.

This seems to be the theme for a good portion of the new heals, or so I’ve been reading in the sub forums.

Also, in my tiny brain, they need to add a handful of skills at a time to actually stir things up and get people excited and discussing them. One kinda meh heal for everyone in a place where builds are kind of set in stone is not very interesting.

I don’t agree the skills should be a bit OP. I think they should be on par with the ones we have now, and for the most part they are.

Although some of them need to be looked at and tweaked slightly they’re pretty fine.

If they made the new healing skills OP then the meta would be to have those skills, and new players who don’t have the points would be forced to save up for one skill that now everyone must use if they wanna stay competitive, that’s the worst thing they could have possibly done.

As far as the ranger’s healing spirit; I was also a bit shocked at how huge the interval between each heal was, 10s is a bit too much for an 800 heal.

You can compare it to the mesmer’s signet which can potentially heal him/her for about 1000HP every 3 seconds. However you shouldn’t compare the two cause they each serve completely different purposes.

Mesmer’s heal only affects himself while the ranger’s affects a party. On top of that the spirit’s passive heal isn’t meant to be something you rely on, it’s meant to be a comfortable heal which keeps your health up when you don’t need the heal.

Also the spirit’s active is pretty nice, if you position yourself proper you can double heal yourself and heal your allies for quite a nice amount.

Either way I still think the 10s interval between each passive heal is a bit much, but what do I know, I haven’t played with it yet to see how it is.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Guess which skill is surprisingly the most amazing one… Warrior’s, of crouse.;) On the other hand, ranger’s healing spirit which heals you approx. every 10 s for around 8xx hp is a joke, imo. Its active is not strong enough to compensate for that pathetic few hundred hp/10s. Sorry to say that.:/

Only in a very specific situation in wvw. For most pve encounters and pvp it’s complete garbage.

I’d rather have a skill I can use in every part of the game instead of one I can only use in a specific part of the game. And in a specific situation in that specific part of the game, at that.

Delryn.7235:

I just thought this deserves more attention and praise than it’s currently getting.

New skills (and skill balancing) are things that I personally and many other players have been wanting in the game since day one.

Although there’s some controversy to the usefulness/balance/overpowered nature of some skills I really loved them all for what they are; beautiful little specks of hope and love.

It’s fantastic how the new skills aren’t just “another +1 to my skill list” generic skill, but instead manage to individually change whole builds around. They do this in such simple ways too.

I’ve been catching myself in game a lot more, and I’m just generally more excited to play through all parts of the game for the sole purpose of enjoying this one new skill.

I think if Anet did some sort of constant skill release every X weeks, much like they do their LS, I’d be a lot more interested in just playing the game.

I have to disagree. Most of the new heals are niche and that puts them in the trash bin. Most of the heals also don’t change the builds at all they are built to fit into them. A spirit heal for rangers just goes right into the spirit ranger build, of course assuming it actually healed decently. The necro signet only fits into the leeching build and even with it that build subpar on anything that does some decent damage. The only heal I’ve seen that is actually a step forward is the Mesmer one since it fits into pretty much all builds and actually heals for a good amount.

The heals have the same problem that the rest of class balance has, the devs do not have a formula for balancing AT ALL. There are just extreme inconsistencies between cooldowns, healing numbers, utility, and usefulness. If you need to be shown what I’m talking about just look at the new thief heal skelk venom, even landing all your attacks it heals <200 hp/s which compared to warriors healing signet 400 hp/s is a joke, even the new mesmer heal will do ~333 hp/s. The cooldown does not make sense for what it does and it is zero utility unless traited and even then it’s not that great of a heal. The devs need to start creating a formula for balancing or they will continue to flounder and look foolish with these inconsistent changes/additions.

Meglobob.8620:

Qaelyn.7612:

Meglobob.8620:

Anet need to make those new skills HIGHLY DESIRABLE, ie…a little OP and then later on after everyone has had fun with them balance them/tone them down.

..so that everyone can spend the following year screaming about nerfs and how they want their 25 skill points back.

Vs

How players are laughing at how bad they are and not even bothering to get the skill points to get them now, because unless buffed they won’t get on players skill bars…

Really, if they said they were aiming at being slightly OP to begin with and would be balanced in the next balance patch would be a better way to go. New skills are mean’t to be exciting not inferior to what you already have.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I have 496 spare skill points on my Necro and I’m not buying the new skill. It’s more fun to make it to the 500 mark than get the skill.