Guild Wars 2

Arena Net changed the original skill system in order to achieve more “balance” in GW2.
And, the question is, did they succeed?
Are all professions equally balanced and viable both in PvE and PvP?
The answer is no.

So, was it worth it?
Was it worth scrapping arguably the best aspect of the original game and customization to achieve nothing but limitations?

It is at least way more balanced than Guild Wars 1 ever was.

Personally, I’d rather have diversity than restrictions.

Although I loved the skill system of GW1 to death and I’m pretty sure I’ll never see something so unique in an MMO ever again, I have to say: GW2 might not be balanced, it’s still more balanced than GW1 ever was.

GW1 had hundreds and hundreds of useless skills no one ever used. The META was always approximately the same.

Did you ever do Codex arena after the update? Because me and some guildies used to do it a lot, because it was pretty fun, but the fact of the matter was, whenever the codex changed, you could just look at the available skills and predict the new META pretty quickly because you knew what skills were most valuable and which weren’t. We would run whatever OP meta we could throw together for a while. Once we saw other people were running it and we couldn’t win often enough, we’d make a counter meta etc.

Not to mention the fact that in the GW1 system, you had the potential of insane builds. I don’t know if you remember this but it’s the only build I know of that was so OP it got nerfed within 24 hours of it coming to life.

The current system is more transparent, probably more balanced and has far less junk skills. Currently that comes at the cost of build diversity which reduces real metagames.

The game needs far more utility and elite skills, while keeping weapon skills as they are

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Though the end result is the same. People all running the same cookie-cutter builds. I don’t mind how people play if it’s fun to them, but I would say that limited or not, everyone gravitates towards a few select builds regardless of how many you started out with.

Why ask the question if you don’t want to accept people’s answers, Nick.

Guild Wars 2 is far more balanced than Guild Wars 1…but that’s not even the issue. The question isn’t how hard it is to balance now. The question is moving forward, after expansions, how hard would it be to balance.

I get it. You liked the old system. You loved the old system. That’s great. I liked it too, but there is no way anyone could genuinely compare the imbalances in this game to what Guild Wars 1 became.

Anet has reduced the chance of Guild Wars 2 becoming that.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Though the end result is the same. People all running the same cookie-cutter builds. I don’t mind how people play if it’s fun to them, but I would say that limited or not, everyone gravitates towards a few select builds regardless of how many you started out with.

Bad players will always go on internet and search or the best viable cookie cutter build and copy paste it while good players will try innovating and creating new meta builds.

Play a gimmicky build and watch your opponent think “What the hell is this? I’ve never seen this before.” The more skilled player with self made build will certainly win.

In BF3, M16 is the best weapon, however, a skilled player will also be able to score good playing a sub par weapon.

Nick.6972:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Though the end result is the same. People all running the same cookie-cutter builds. I don’t mind how people play if it’s fun to them, but I would say that limited or not, everyone gravitates towards a few select builds regardless of how many you started out with.

Bad players will always go on internet and search or the best viable cookie cutter build and copy paste it while good players will try innovating and creating new meta builds.

Play a gimmicky build and watch your opponent think “What the hell is this? I’ve never seen this before.” The more skilled player with self made build will certainly win.

In BF3, M16 is the best weapon, however, a skilled player will also be able to score good playing a sub par weapon.

And people go and look up their build and copy it … you see where I’m going with this? the meta will change, of course, but everyone else will follow. At any one time, there are usually only one or two builds per profession (in ANY game) that the majority of people run. Naturally, there are wonderfully creative folk out there (I object to you suggesting it’s only skilled players who do this) who work out great, random builds, but these are by human nature usually the minority.

To use your BF3 example, of course a skilled player would do great with a different weapon, but how many of them actually use the M16 most of the time? I would say most of them. I play a fair few FPS games, and no matter how many people post on forums saying “why don’t people change it up” etc, they’re all doing the same thing. In the end, people tend to look for efficiency and speed etc. Sure, they’ll bust out the random build every now and then, but generally, everything boils down to the select few.

Nick.6972:

Bad players will always go on internet and search or the best viable cookie cutter build and copy paste it while good players will try innovating and creating new meta builds.

And the numbers of those ‘good’ players are in the low thousands, at most, and many are in the hardcore guilds that keep their builds a secret.

Fact is, in all MMOs, there’s a very small minority of players who do the theory-crafting, the majority of the rest are the sheep that follow blindly what these min/maxers dictate .. trying PUGging on a build you’re ‘innovating’ and see how long you’re in that group .. a few will play the game like they want to and thus deny themselves access to content controlled by the min/max worshipers.

MMO players are their own worst enemy, it’s the players mentality that kills off “innovation” and it’s their incessant demand for ‘efficiency’ that means the min/maxers decide how 95% of players play .. that is, if they want to do group content with others.

And what happens when you get bored of running the same build all the time?
You change your skills and try something now.
I want to play a new GS Guardian build in GW2, I can’t do that, Traits don’t change my skills.

Nick.6972:

And what happens when you get bored of running the same build all the time?
You change your skills and try something now.
I want to play a new GS Guardian build in GW2, I can’t do that, Traits don’t change my skills.

Lol, people have a remarkable ability to NOT do this though. Just look at how many people are complaining because the build they have created is nerfed in a way. You might say they could simply change build? Surely they can’t run the same build the whole time? I think you’d find that actually, then can.

I would like to see GW2’s building streamlined. That means no money sinks behind trait changes, and it also means build templates for both pvp AND pve. Let people change their builds without so many restrictions. Stats linked to equipments is already a bad enough restriction, and a bad enough money sink, but it’s too late to revamp that one.

My biggest problem with GW2’s skill system isn’t how different it is from GW1’s, but how anet somehow decided that they should do everything to remove the fun out of build experimentating, even when there was no balancing reason to do it.

Also, leveling up or doing generic skill quests to get new skills is not as interesting as exploring the world for specific bosses and learning to use their own skills. It would have made world exploration much more interesting, if certain areas had specific skills to capture.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

And what happens when you get bored of running the same build all the time?
You change your skills and try something now.
I want to play a new GS Guardian build in GW2, I can’t do that, Traits don’t change my skills.

Lol, people have a remarkable ability to NOT do this though. Just look at how many people are complaining because the build they have created is nerfed in a way. You might say they could simply change build? Surely they can’t run the same build the whole time? I think you’d find that actually, then can.

Since I’m one of those he’s referring to .. since we’ve exchanged views on the Ranger nerf in another thread .. I can, let me tell you why.

There are times when I do change playstyle, it’s call being an ‘altaholic’. I don’t like one style unchanging. However, I play this sort of game largely for the ‘adventuring’ if you want to call it that. For me, the best time in any game is the first time through it, exploring, seeing what’s to be seen.

So, I now have 4 × 90s and since I don’t PVP or do instances the only content left is open world events and the like. I use the Ranger, because I want to experience the content, the playstyle I use is irrelevant, whatever works best for me is what I use: and ‘best’ means ‘easiest’.

I have thus for a pet-using class .. in all MMOs they’re the easiest for obvious reasons usually .. and the Ranger is .. or I now should say WAS .. a very powerful pet-using class.
I don’t want to ‘change it up’, I was perfectly happy with it as it was, it did what I needed it to do.

I have never understood the continual demand from a section of the playerbase for change for changes sake, nor for the incessant call for ‘balance’ where there’s no meaningful competition for ‘balance’ to have any purpose.

So Nick, while YOU may get bored with playing a spec unchanging, please don’t try to say everyone else thinks like you and thus feels the need to endure change when they see no reason for it.

I don’t need to be ‘challenged’ all the time, at times I want it to be easy, especially when it’s time-limited content. If I want a ‘challenge’ there are many things I can do without having to sacrifice my ‘eZmode’ option; sadly that’s exactly what I’ve had to do to satisfy others’ calls for ‘challenge’ it seems.

Personally I much prefer the system in GW2 to GW1. Though the GW1 system was very good, it just have too many unused skills and the way skills worked meant that your success was heavily reliant on your build more than your own skill. Not that skill didn’t help of course, but a good build could dominate a skilled player, if their build was not up to scratch.

In GW2, while the build is still very important, your own skill also plays a very big part in how well you do. And that is much better in my opinion.

I’m sure Anet will improve things as time goes on, and we will get more viable builds. The problem is not that there are very few builds, it is that a small number of build seriously outshine others. I’m sure that we will get more options at some point. At the end of the day, having thousands of skills to select from is not necessarily the best answer. All that really matters is that players can find a build that suits them and works effectively, and for me, so far, I have found builds that work well and fit my playstyle on every profession I’ve played (and I’ve played most of them to a fair degree).

Edit: With regards to changing playstyles, on my two mains (Thief and Guardian) I have two different builds I swap between often. I would like more, but I am confident Anet will provide eventually. In the meantime I am happy with the builds I use, and can chop and change things about when i fancy something different. There is a fair amount of flexibility in GW2 already and it has potential to get much better.

In Guild Wars a build’s performance revolved around its skills’ functionality and commonly the elite as well. Gear mattered much less with the exception of niche builds like invincimonks. In constrast Guild Wars 2 centres much more on gear and stats which I find a shame because it lacks flexibility.

If you try to play different builds in GW2 you are inconvenienced in every way with regard to gearing.

Example 1
I have 4 sets of armour on my guardian
Soldier + Shout runes
Soldier + Boon duration runes
Soldier + Melandru runes
Knight + Shout runes
This isn’t even counting jewellery and weapons. All this needs storage space which I’m struggling with so I can’t afford to try any other setups.

Example 2
I grinding full condition gear for my mesmer which was rendered useless through confusion nerf in WvW. Do I keep a hold of it in hopes of it might become useless later? Do I get rid of it? But what if I get rid of it and later on mesmer is changed so the conditio gear is useful. I can’t even salvage this stuff because it is karma and dungeon gear.

Basically the more you experiment with gear setups, the more of a storage burden you put on yourself. Better off pre-planning a build on a website and acquiring exactly what you need. At least if we had a wardrobe system I would have whatever I experimented with unlocked.

Actually, I will admit that the gear thing is the only blemish on an otherwise good system. Anet wanted to provide a flexible system that reduced the potential for players to kitten themselves with a bad build, but then ruined it by making gear a key part of a build’s success.

Personally, I would like to see gear play a much smaller role in how well your build works and increase the influence trait points have. It seems to me that they have got these two things the wrong way around.

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Was more like 10 overpowered, 500 acceptable and 1000 worthless skills. You could really count the important skills on the fingers of two hands.
- shadow form
- protective spirit
- save yourselves
- hundred blades
- searing flames
- iway
- discord
- pet gimmicks

probably missing a few. Feel free to help.

eventually most popular builds revolved around at least one of those. That goes for pvp and pve alike.

Nick.6972:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Though the end result is the same. People all running the same cookie-cutter builds. I don’t mind how people play if it’s fun to them, but I would say that limited or not, everyone gravitates towards a few select builds regardless of how many you started out with.

Bad players will always go on internet and search or the best viable cookie cutter build and copy paste it while good players will try innovating and creating new meta builds.

Play a gimmicky build and watch your opponent think “What the hell is this? I’ve never seen this before.” The more skilled player with self made build will certainly win.

In BF3, M16 is the best weapon, however, a skilled player will also be able to score good playing a sub par weapon.

Not necessarily. Effective gimmicks such as iway were far stronger than many balanced builds due to ease of use.

Kerin.9125:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

And what happens when you get bored of running the same build all the time?
You change your skills and try something now.
I want to play a new GS Guardian build in GW2, I can’t do that, Traits don’t change my skills.

Lol, people have a remarkable ability to NOT do this though. Just look at how many people are complaining because the build they have created is nerfed in a way. You might say they could simply change build? Surely they can’t run the same build the whole time? I think you’d find that actually, then can.

Since I’m one of those he’s referring to .. since we’ve exchanged views on the Ranger nerf in another thread .. I can, let me tell you why.

There are times when I do change playstyle, it’s call being an ‘altaholic’. I don’t like one style unchanging. However, I play this sort of game largely for the ‘adventuring’ if you want to call it that. For me, the best time in any game is the first time through it, exploring, seeing what’s to be seen.

So, I now have 4 × 90s and since I don’t PVP or do instances the only content left is open world events and the like. I use the Ranger, because I want to experience the content, the playstyle I use is irrelevant, whatever works best for me is what I use: and ‘best’ means ‘easiest’.

I have thus for a pet-using class .. in all MMOs they’re the easiest for obvious reasons usually .. and the Ranger is .. or I now should say WAS .. a very powerful pet-using class.
I don’t want to ‘change it up’, I was perfectly happy with it as it was, it did what I needed it to do.

I have never understood the continual demand from a section of the playerbase for change for changes sake, nor for the incessant call for ‘balance’ where there’s no meaningful competition for ‘balance’ to have any purpose.

So Nick, while YOU may get bored with playing a spec unchanging, please don’t try to say everyone else thinks like you and thus feels the need to endure change when they see no reason for it.

I don’t need to be ‘challenged’ all the time, at times I want it to be easy, especially when it’s time-limited content. If I want a ‘challenge’ there are many things I can do without having to sacrifice my ‘eZmode’ option; sadly that’s exactly what I’ve had to do to satisfy others’ calls for ‘challenge’ it seems.

Lol, hello again!

This time, we’re in agreement on this topic.

Oh, and just to be clear, I didn’t mean my comment about people not changing their builds negatively at all.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Though the end result is the same. People all running the same cookie-cutter builds. I don’t mind how people play if it’s fun to them, but I would say that limited or not, everyone gravitates towards a few select builds regardless of how many you started out with.

Negative Ghost Rider

marnick.4305:

Nick.6972:

10 overpowered, 500 good and 1000 mediocre skills is still better than having close to no skill customization at all.

Was more like 10 overpowered, 500 acceptable and 1000 worthless skills. You could really count the important skills on the fingers of two hands.
- shadow form
- protective spirit
- save yourselves
- hundred blades
- searing flames
- iway
- discord
- pet gimmicks

probably missing a few. Feel free to help.

eventually most popular builds revolved around at least one of those. That goes for pvp and pve alike.

Elites – Eviscerate, Triple Chop, Backbreaker, Devastating Hammer, Earth Shaker, Enraged Smash, Battle Rage, Defy Pain, Primal Rage, Crippling Slash, Hundred Blades, Quivering Blade, Heal as One, Rampage as One, Barrage, Burning Arrow, Broad Head Arrow, Punishing Shot, Incendiary Arrows, Melandru’s Resilience, Blessed Light, Healer’s Boon, Peace and Harmony, Unyielding Aura, Glimmer of Light, Word of Healing, Light of Deliverance, Life Sheath, Restore Condition, Shield of Regeneration, Shield of Deflection, Life Barrier, Zealous Benediction, Ray of Judgment, Shield of Judgment, Blood is Power, Life Transfer, Spoil Victor, Well of Power, Corrupt Enchantment, Spiteful Spirit, Discord, Animate Flesh Golem, Jagged Bones, Tainted Flesh, Toxic Chill, Virulence, Reaper’s Mark, Panic, Power Block, Psychic Distraction, Visions of Regret, Keystone Signet, Ineptitude, Migraine, Energy Drain, Power Leech, Tease, Echo, Blinding Surge, Gust, Ride the Lightning, Obsidian Flesh, Sandstorm, Shockwave, Unsteady Ground, Elemental Attunement, Ether Renewal, Mind Blast, Savannah Heat, Searing Flames, Icy Shackles, Shattering Assault, Moebius Strike, Assassin’s Promise, Shadow Prison, Shadow Form, Beguiling Haze, Wastrel’s Collapse, Destructive Was Glaive, Offering of Spirit, Signet of Spirits, Preservation, Spirit Light Weapon, Weapon of Remedy, Vengeful Was Khanhei, Xinrae’s Weapon, “Incoming!”, Defensive Anthem, Focused Anger, Soldier’s Fury, “It’s Just a Flesh Wound.”, “The Power Is Yours!”, Song of Purification, Song of Restoration, Cautery Signet, Stunning Strike, Ebon Dust Aura, Avatar of Balthazar, Vow of Silence, Wounding Strike, Reaper’s Sweep, Grenth’s Grasp,

Only Elite skills, I might have missed some.