Guild Wars 2

The combat would feel so fluid if i could swap back and forth between my weapons quickly. The dps rotations would be more intricate, active and fulfilling.

obviously there would need to be some balance changes that come with it, but it feel better overall. I often find times when i need to switch to my other weapon but cant. opening this up would give so many more options give me more utility. and make it more fun.

it would also make dps rotations feel more freeform. instead of following the same pattern over and over, you could freeform you combos a little more and would up the skill required to have good dps.

just my 2 cents about the combat.

Edit: it doesnt have to be 0 seconds, but even 1 2 or 3 second. Just way shorter than what it is now.

Ele and engi have the most intricat, fun and most skill oriented rotations right now and they both have swaps with attunements and kits that would be similar to how a quick weapon swap would work. It would bring all other classes rotations up to par with these classes. Balance changes would be required on a lot of things. But the combat would feel so much more fluid and less stagnant.

It does. Its called the Engineer.

I don’t know about zero, but how about this, have an available trait that reduces cooldown on swap by 1s each time you make a non-1 weapon attack? Between that and the animation time of the attacks themselves, you could likely switch to a weapon, burn all abilities, and then immediately switch to the other, or almost that. It would prevent you from just using one ability on the alt weapon and flipping back though, which might be more exploitative.

Would make the fresh air part of fresh air tempest kind of pointless.

weapon swap are a big part of many builds.

Would also mean rework of sigils like geomancy

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t know about zero, but how about this, have an available trait that reduces cooldown on swap by 1s each time you make a non-1 weapon attack? Between that and the animation time of the attacks themselves, you could likely switch to a weapon, burn all abilities, and then immediately switch to the other, or almost that. It would prevent you from just using one ability on the alt weapon and flipping back though, which might be more exploitative.

this would be a good idea. i just want a little more to do while attacking

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Would make the fresh air part of fresh air tempest kind of pointless.

weapon swap are a big part of many builds.

Would also mean rework of sigils like geomancy

obviously a lot of things would need tobe reworked… but i honestly think it would be for the better

Dawdler.8521:

It does. Its called the Engineer.

That still has a 0.7s cooldown :P

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Would make the fresh air part of fresh air tempest kind of pointless.

weapon swap are a big part of many builds.

Would also mean rework of sigils like geomancy

All on swap sigils already have a 9s cooldown.

Khisanth.2948:

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Would make the fresh air part of fresh air tempest kind of pointless.

weapon swap are a big part of many builds.

Would also mean rework of sigils like geomancy

All on swap sigils already have a 9s cooldown.

True, but you’d be able to activate 2 unique sigils in a quick burst.

Typing this has made me realize that it’s also op on any class with heavy burst skills.

Khisanth.2948:

Dawdler.8521:

It does. Its called the Engineer.

That still has a 0.7s cooldown :P

you sure its not that other tool they like to use?, lagdown.

Khisanth.2948:

Dawdler.8521:

It does. Its called the Engineer.

That still has a 0.7s cooldown :P

Rounded integer thats 0 seconds.

They can’t use 0 cd on anything because it would allow for crazy exploits and possibly lag-bugs. There is a reason those kits have a small cooldown too. Plus it gives you a bit of risk/reward for changing weapons in combat. The cooldown is fairly short, especially if traited for it on ranger/warr for example.

Dawdler.8521:

Khisanth.2948:

Dawdler.8521:

It does. Its called the Engineer.

That still has a 0.7s cooldown :P

Rounded integer thats 0 seconds.

it would be rounded up to 1 given ping exist and i sincerely doubt you live in the server.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Would make the fresh air part of fresh air tempest kind of pointless.

weapon swap are a big part of many builds.

Would also mean rework of sigils like geomancy

Geo sigil has a 9s icd. This is regardless of weapon swap ( still only procs max 1/9s on an engi with toolkits for example).

Not saying I support the idea – just that the sigil point is moot.

Lethalvriend.1723:

They can’t use 0 cd on anything because it would allow for crazy exploits and possibly lag-bugs. There is a reason those kits have a small cooldown too. Plus it gives you a bit of risk/reward for changing weapons in combat. The cooldown is fairly short, especially if traited for it on ranger/warr for example.

It doesnt have to be 0… it could be 1, 2 or 3 seconds long… just way shorter than what it is now.

Which classes have the most fun dps rotations? Elementalist and engineer, and those are both the classes that essentially have a skill bar swap similar to weapon swap. (The ele has attunement swap cooldown but they also have 4 attunements that make the cooldown seem less harsh). Pretty much every other class has mind numbingly boring rotations due to being stuck with 5 weapon skills for far too long.

Make classes that allow 2 weapon slots swap a lot faster and then you have 9 classes that have intricate dps rotations.

The ele and engineer are also the classes that you dont have to stick to a rotation as much and you can freeform your rotation after a certain point. Coincidentally most people would agree that ele and engi are most fun and require most skill.

I just really think this would add so much more depth and fun to each class. Its really something arenanet should loook at even if the required balance changes would be a lot

Having a cooldown forces you to weight the current needs against future needs. Removing the cooldown would mean there is no longer a need to consider that at all. That seems more like removing depth rather than adding depth.

Khisanth.2948:

Having a cooldown forces you to weight the current needs against future needs. Removing the cooldown would mean there is no longer a need to consider that at all. That seems more like removing depth rather than adding depth.

I disagree. Engi doesnt have cooldowns on kit swaps and theres definitely more depth of skill useage with him. The ele has cooldowns but also has 4 attunements which would be like having 4 weapon slots instead of 2 and there is plenty of depth and weight in your decisons.

Dont forget, skill cooldown and class mechanics like initiative and energy on the revenant add to that weighted decision making.

So many times i just need to use one or two skills on my other weapon but then I’m stuck there for 10 seconds and it just completely ruins the flow of combat. The daredevil dps rotation is so incredibly bad and boring, imagine what you could do and what combo options open up by being able to swap quickly between weapons. But its not like youre just gonna be keyboard mashing either because you still have your initiative to limit what you can do. This could be said about every class aside from ele and engi

It was a design choice and that’s what we have. Its a gate for us to learn to play with as a component of gw2 combat.

Ele offers 4 skillbars to rotate through,
warrior offers -50% weapon swap cd,
rune of the warrior offers -20% weapon swap cd,
classes like druid and necro offer an alternate weapon bar,
ele and engi offer kits with swap in skill bars,
guardian, Mesmer and engi offer a lineup of f# skills to weave with the weapon bar.

You don’t really need zero weapon cooldown tbh, there are a lot of skills available already you just need to learn to make them sing together.

I main an Engi and as such I am soooo used to the zero swap time because of my kits. Just the other day while playing on one of my alts I was thinking about this and thought “would it really be a negative thing to have a zero cooldown on weps for every other class?”

I am not sure it would be and heck I think it would make the game far better. Think of it as a QOL thing. The only reason I can think of it even existing is because of traits/runes/sigils that pop when swapping weps. But there is already a secondary safety built in here and that is the cooldowns on wep skills and those traits/runes sigils etc. So again, I think this could only benefit the game.

Justine.6351:

It was a design choice and that’s what we have. Its a gate for us to learn to play with as a component of gw2 combat.

Ele offers 4 skillbars to rotate through,
warrior offers -50% weapon swap cd,
rune of the warrior offers -20% weapon swap cd,
classes like druid and necro offer an alternate weapon bar,
ele and engi offer kits with swap in skill bars,
guardian, Mesmer and engi offer a lineup of f# skills to weave with the weapon bar.

You don’t really need zero weapon cooldown tbh, there are a lot of skills available already you just need to learn to make them sing together.

Design choices are not always right and can be changed. Its not something we just have to live with when there are better options available.

The options you listed are not the same as what an engi has in versatility and difficulty of rotation.

No cooldown raises the skill ceiling of this game a ton. But i guess autoattacking and the occasional weapon swap on thief for example is just so much fun and full of depth.

If everyone was as complex as an engi, this game would feel way more rewarding in combat

coltRG.6250:

Justine.6351:

It was a design choice and that’s what we have. Its a gate for us to learn to play with as a component of gw2 combat.

Ele offers 4 skillbars to rotate through,
warrior offers -50% weapon swap cd,
rune of the warrior offers -20% weapon swap cd,
classes like druid and necro offer an alternate weapon bar,
ele and engi offer kits with swap in skill bars,
guardian, Mesmer and engi offer a lineup of f# skills to weave with the weapon bar.

You don’t really need zero weapon cooldown tbh, there are a lot of skills available already you just need to learn to make them sing together.

Design choices are not always right and can be changed. Its not something we just have to live with when there are better options available.

The options you listed are not the same as what an engi has in versatility and difficulty of rotation.

No cooldown raises the skill ceiling of this game a ton. But i guess autoattacking and the occasional weapon swap on thief for example is just so much fun and full of depth.

If everyone was as complex as an engi, this game would feel way more rewarding in combat

Removing a throttle mechanic like weapon swap cd wouldn’t raise skill ceiling, it would raise the floor. HoT did enough of that already with mindless aoe everything spam. I’m not against removing weapon swap cd, I just don’t think it would benefit gameplay as much as people think other than to make the game more faceroll. But hey if we want that then whatever I guess lol.

coltRG.6250:

Khisanth.2948:

Having a cooldown forces you to weight the current needs against future needs. Removing the cooldown would mean there is no longer a need to consider that at all. That seems more like removing depth rather than adding depth.

I disagree. Engi doesnt have cooldowns on kit swaps and theres definitely more depth of skill useage with him. The ele has cooldowns but also has 4 attunements which would be like having 4 weapon slots instead of 2 and there is plenty of depth and weight in your decisons.

Dont forget, skill cooldown and class mechanics like initiative and energy on the revenant add to that weighted decision making.

So many times i just need to use one or two skills on my other weapon but then I’m stuck there for 10 seconds and it just completely ruins the flow of combat. The daredevil dps rotation is so incredibly bad and boring, imagine what you could do and what combo options open up by being able to swap quickly between weapons. But its not like youre just gonna be keyboard mashing either because you still have your initiative to limit what you can do. This could be said about every class aside from ele and engi

Engi has more buttons to press. That doesn’t automatically equal to depth. Attunement changing is essentially the same as weapon swapping since they have the same lockout and decision making required. They should not be lumped together with engineer kits.

Eliminating this one decision to make would certainly make the game easier to play but I don’t think that would be adding depth. You can’t be adding depth when you are removing a layer of decision making. There is no longer any need to consider the consequences being locked out of one of your weapon set. On the other hand at least for PvE this wouldn’t make much difference. In 4 years of playing there has been maybe 3 times where I actually felt the need to play to a level where that kind of decision was being made.

Waste of time to talk about this. It would mean every single profession has to be completely reworked for a questionable feature. This would take AT LEAST a year to get the professions in the fairly balanced state again that we currently have.

I previously proposed a similar idea to remove weapon swap cd. The weapon swap cd seems arbitrary and GW2 has way too many cooldown-regulated combat functions already.

However, in removing the cooldown, I think we should model FPS games. Weapon swap should have a small cast time. In a FPS game, it’s not called a ‘cast-time’ but rather it’s the animation of pulling out a second weapon, during which you cannot fire.

I propose a 1/2 second cast time on weapon swap and no cooldown. Warrior’s fast hands could reduce the cast time to 1/4 second and Rune of the Warrior could still reduce cast time by 20%.

Because it would have a short cast time, we would no longer be able to swap weapons while stunned. I think this is okay. You could alternatively add the very short cd like engineer has while kit swapping, but I think the short cast time is a better solution. The cast time retains a cost (primarily that, for the next 0.5 seconds, you cannot perform any other action) which an instant weapon swap with brief cool down does not. Weapon swap should still have a cost, I think it would just be better if the cost were a cast time rather than an arbitrary cooldown.

Engi kind of has a no-cd weapon swap via kits. Stowing a kit (default `) places the kit you were using on a really short (1s I believe) cd, but another kit can be equipped right away. (Eg. If I’m in elixir gun, I can stow it via `, then immediately equip bomb kit)

fluidmonolith.3584:

I previously proposed a similar idea to remove weapon swap cd. The weapon swap cd seems arbitrary and GW2 has way too many cooldown-regulated combat functions already.

However, in removing the cooldown, I think we should model FPS games. Weapon swap should have a small cast time. In a FPS game, it’s not called a ‘cast-time’ but rather it’s the animation of pulling out a second weapon, during which you cannot fire.

I propose a 1/2 second cast time on weapon swap and no cooldown. Warrior’s fast hands could reduce the cast time to 1/4 second and Rune of the Warrior could still reduce cast time by 20%.

Because it would have a short cast time, we would no longer be able to swap weapons while stunned. I think this is okay. You could alternatively add the very short cd like engineer has while kit swapping, but I think the short cast time is a better solution. The cast time retains a cost (primarily that, for the next 0.5 seconds, you cannot perform any other action) which an instant weapon swap with brief cool down does not. Weapon swap should still have a cost, I think it would just be better if the cost were a cast time rather than an arbitrary cooldown.

Rip Engi DPS.

Also, Implementing a cast time for weapons swaps would render skills which use the weapon swap mechanic to break stun (empty vessel on rev, foot in the grave on Nero come to mind) useless. Also, it would make it impossible for necros to leave shroud while stunned.

archmagus.7249:

Engi kind of has a no-cd weapon swap via kits. Stowing a kit (default `) places the kit you were using on a really short (1s I believe) cd, but another kit can be equipped right away. (Eg. If I’m in elixir gun, I can stow it via `, then immediately equip bomb kit)

fluidmonolith.3584:

I previously proposed a similar idea to remove weapon swap cd. The weapon swap cd seems arbitrary and GW2 has way too many cooldown-regulated combat functions already.

However, in removing the cooldown, I think we should model FPS games. Weapon swap should have a small cast time. In a FPS game, it’s not called a ‘cast-time’ but rather it’s the animation of pulling out a second weapon, during which you cannot fire.

I propose a 1/2 second cast time on weapon swap and no cooldown. Warrior’s fast hands could reduce the cast time to 1/4 second and Rune of the Warrior could still reduce cast time by 20%.

Because it would have a short cast time, we would no longer be able to swap weapons while stunned. I think this is okay. You could alternatively add the very short cd like engineer has while kit swapping, but I think the short cast time is a better solution. The cast time retains a cost (primarily that, for the next 0.5 seconds, you cannot perform any other action) which an instant weapon swap with brief cool down does not. Weapon swap should still have a cost, I think it would just be better if the cost were a cast time rather than an arbitrary cooldown.

Rip Engi DPS.

Also, Implementing a cast time for weapons swaps would render skills which use the weapon swap mechanic to break stun (empty vessel on rev, foot in the grave on Nero come to mind) useless. Also, it would make it impossible for necros to leave shroud while stunned.

I’m not sure what would be done about Engi kits. I think they could get a cast time to equip, but I do agree that it might be horrible to play, so maybe the kits should not get a cast time. Ele attunement swapping is similarly difficult to decide on.

I do not propose adding a cast time to secondary profession mechanics such as the Rev legend swap or Necro death shroud that you mention. These should remain instant cast, IMO.

I see little reason to remove cooldown, just to have to rework all kinds of traits, sigils and runes that give effects based on it so they aren’t OP’ed.

A weapon-swap cooldown is no more arbitrary than limiting us to two weapon sets or having differential cooldowns on skills.

fluidmonolith.3584:

I previously proposed a similar idea to remove weapon swap cd. The weapon swap cd seems arbitrary and GW2 has way too many cooldown-regulated combat functions already.

However, in removing the cooldown, I think we should model FPS games. Weapon swap should have a small cast time. In a FPS game, it’s not called a ‘cast-time’ but rather it’s the animation of pulling out a second weapon, during which you cannot fire.

I propose a 1/2 second cast time on weapon swap and no cooldown. Warrior’s fast hands could reduce the cast time to 1/4 second and Rune of the Warrior could still reduce cast time by 20%.

Because it would have a short cast time, we would no longer be able to swap weapons while stunned. I think this is okay. You could alternatively add the very short cd like engineer has while kit swapping, but I think the short cast time is a better solution. The cast time retains a cost (primarily that, for the next 0.5 seconds, you cannot perform any other action) which an instant weapon swap with brief cool down does not. Weapon swap should still have a cost, I think it would just be better if the cost were a cast time rather than an arbitrary cooldown.

Dazing yourself every time you try to weapon swap sounds like one of the worse ideas ever posted.

Khisanth.2948:

fluidmonolith.3584:

I previously proposed a similar idea to remove weapon swap cd. The weapon swap cd seems arbitrary and GW2 has way too many cooldown-regulated combat functions already.

However, in removing the cooldown, I think we should model FPS games. Weapon swap should have a small cast time. In a FPS game, it’s not called a ‘cast-time’ but rather it’s the animation of pulling out a second weapon, during which you cannot fire.

I propose a 1/2 second cast time on weapon swap and no cooldown. Warrior’s fast hands could reduce the cast time to 1/4 second and Rune of the Warrior could still reduce cast time by 20%.

Because it would have a short cast time, we would no longer be able to swap weapons while stunned. I think this is okay. You could alternatively add the very short cd like engineer has while kit swapping, but I think the short cast time is a better solution. The cast time retains a cost (primarily that, for the next 0.5 seconds, you cannot perform any other action) which an instant weapon swap with brief cool down does not. Weapon swap should still have a cost, I think it would just be better if the cost were a cast time rather than an arbitrary cooldown.

Dazing yourself every time you try to weapon swap sounds like one of the worse ideas ever posted.

I don’t think it is accurate to say “using a skill or ability with a cast time” is equivalent to “dazing yourself”.

That said, it is perfectly valid if you prefer the current weapon swap system (10 second cooldown and instant cast) over my proposal (cast time and no cooldown).

I wanted the cast time version without the cooldown because I like some of the action combat aspects of GW2. I think if players asks himself “do I have half a second to switch weapons?” makes it feel more action-oriented than “is weapon swap off cooldown”? But that is just my view (and OP’s too, apparently).

even with a 1-3 second cooldown, your dps rotation will be basically the same since you only have 2 weapons, specially if your goal is to have a similar fun eng/ele rotation. Better option would just be add more weapons to swap with at one time. There’s only a few classes that exactly use F1-4 so it would be harder on those ones to add in a few more weapon swaps. But for like warrior or thief it would be easy.

Odin the exiled.5764:

even with a 1-3 second cooldown, your dps rotation will be basically the same since you only have 2 weapons, specially if your goal is to have a similar fun eng/ele rotation. Better option would just be add more weapons to swap with at one time. There’s only a few classes that exactly use F1-4 so it would be harder on those ones to add in a few more weapon swaps. But for like warrior or thief it would be easy.

Having more weapons to swap to would be cool too, you would have a coulple dps weapons and some utility weapons. This would bring everyone more in line with what an ele feels like to play.

I just feel like there are way too many scenarios in this game where im just autoattacking or not pressing many buttons cause the rotations are so boring and i cant even swap to a new skill bar. Its not very engaging to the mind if my APM is low but still putting out max dps