Guild Wars 2

It’s bad enough you only have access to 15 abilities at a time but when those 15 abilities are uninteresting, recycled abilities you’ll see in any other MMO it gets really boring really quick. The abilities don’t even attempt to be interesting. We’ll take the warrior’s rifle for example:

• Aimed Shot – Small damage and cripples… yay?
• Volley – Pretty much a channeled auto attack that shoots faster… Also in just about every MMO
• Brutal shot – Slightly more damage than an auto attack and makes the target take 5% more damage. Boring standard MMO ability.
• Rifle butt – Knocks back.

You only get 5 abilities on a weapon. This kit is completely uninteresting. Things like cripples and vulnerability should be tied to other interesting abilities. They shouldn’t be abilities all on their own.

This problem isn’t just for the warriors rifle. Its practically for every weapon in the game. I feel like that’s why this games combat feels so stale. Theres not really any original ideas, just a bunch of sub par, one purpose recycled abilities from every other MMO.

I say these things because I do love guild wars 2 and I want to see it get better and become the amazing game it could be.

Thank you for sharing your opinion.

Go fit a pvp drake and head out to VFK.

Yeah it was the one thing that Anet really let me down on. Probably my biggest dissapointment considering the skill creativity in GW1 was outstanding and I think should be the standard for any MMO nowadays.

I’m assuming they kept it simple because traits were supposed to be there to make them more interesting and synergize with each other, although traits atm sort of fail at that and is something I’m looking forward to see improved.

Traits are another disappointment. Most of the traits are just stat increases like “6% extra damage against burning foes” or something generic like that. Every class has the “20% reduced cooldowns” trait for nearly every weapon. Nothing really too interesting.

To this day, I just don’t understand why they didn’t just go with the same skill system they used in GW1.

It’s a proven system. Basically, it’s the system from Magic the Gathering. Huge bank of possible skills, but only 8 to choose. And then there was the Elite slot as a limiter that actually make it more intriguing.

And thus GW1 had the same replayability that Magic does because there’s always a “build” to experiment with. That was the core endgame for most people.

People say there’s no Endgame in GW2, this is one of the primary reasons why.

We need that system back, or at least the ability to swap out weapon skills. This game will not survive the year otherwise; people will just go back to playing pandas.

ecthelion.6794:

To this day, I just don’t understand why they didn’t just go with the same skill system they used in GW1.

It’s a proven system. Basically, it’s the system from Magic the Gathering. Huge bank of possible skills, but only 8 to choose. And then there was the Elite slot as a limiter that actually make it more intriguing.

And thus GW1 had the same replayability that Magic does because there’s always a “build” to experiment with. That was the core endgame for most people.

People say there’s no Endgame in GW2, this is one of the primary reasons why.

We need that system back, or at least the ability to swap out weapon skills. This game will not survive the year otherwise; people will just go back to playing pandas.

Yeah I didn’t see myself getting bored of guild wars 2 one month into launch but I am… It feels like there was no real attempt to come up with interesting abilities and only being able to use 15 abilities at once really emphasizes on how boring they are. Also its not like you can pick any set of abilities to use. No you’re locked down to whatever abilities are on that weapon. Hammer = CC, greatsword = damage, ect. Wouldn’t be as much of a drag if they were some interesting, creative, and fun abilities… But they really are just sub par, recycled abilities.

Spiteful Spirit, Spirit Weapon, Tainted Flesh, Illusionary Weaponry, Chillblains, IWAY etc etc
I don’t remember much about GW1, but I still have these skill memorized cause they spawned some brilliant builds, really works of genius.

In GW2 it’s a non-starter. Feels almost like a 3rd person shooter.

let’s not forget the score of useless skills GW1 had as well. Not saying GW2 is “perfect” but let’s take off the rose coloured glasses

On the contrary, compared “that” other MMO (as that was the one I had played for years before GW2, and so is a fine candidate for comparison), combat feels very fluid and dynamic. I don’t miss the loads of other abilities my “Rogue” had back then, as I had a set rotation which rarely changed.

The more I’ve played with my thief, and reading learned people’s thoughts – I have different weapon sets for different situations… I combine skills together to get maximum effect, I dodge, I stay alive and I go toe-to-toe with mobs in a glorious fashion.

I really don’t think “stale” is appropriate.

Here is the way I see it…

Guild Wars 1 was a process of ‘ricing’ up a car and seeing how it runs. The actual driving isn’t spectacular.

Guild Wars 2 has a lot less in the process of ‘ricing’ up the car, but the driving is just a tad more fun.

Let’s not pretend Guild Wars 1 had fantastically fun (I said fun, not deep, OK?) combat at every twist and turn. Especially if you played an assassin, and possibly a moebius strike assassin.

Considering GW1 was release in 2005 since then a lot of MMO’s pretty much had the same things since then. I mean you really can’t get too different.
Ele’s/Mages have the same fireball spell.
Archer/Rangers saaaame arrow rain type thing. What do you guys want different?
[Serious question, not tryna be mean. Like what type of skills would you want to see. I really can’t think of anything.]

If you feel a lack of variety in combat, I suggest you roll a kit heavy engineer or an elementalist.

Complaining of a lack of variety and then citing warrior skills….speaks volumes imo.

I know OP just gave it as an example, but it is interesting that my party buddy/friend last night was just telling me how he loved playing a ranged warrior, and that set of skills was really cool.

Yeah, I loved the GW1 skill setup, and was disappointed with the way GW2 went, but in the end I don’t really mind. I guess I would love a move back to a GW1 skill setup, but I don’t really mind the way it is now either. Maybe in a few months I will not feel the same?
I think we need to see what Anet brings to the table during expansions. Hopefully constructive feedback will help, but if this is a minority that comment, I guess it will be difficult to make change.

The game is still relatively new. They could just revamp the classes weapons to have a lot less abilities like aimed shot and brutal shot that really only do one thing and are completely uninteresting. Who would complain? I strongly feel like conditions and buffs should be incorporated with interesting abilities and not just be abilities on their own.

In your opinion, of course.

Trying to move, dodge and spam 25 more buttons would be an enormous pain in the patookas in my opinion.

Combat system works okay for me.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

If you feel a lack of variety in combat, I suggest you roll a kit heavy engineer or an elementalist.

Complaining of a lack of variety and then citing warrior skills….speaks volumes imo.

LOL…all my other toons lay around gathering the equivalent of digital dust while I try to learn the Engineer class. So many choices.

My favorite class so far.

I agree with a lot of the points… Although I can’t quote for some reason, I will address a few major counter arguments

A lot of skills were useless: This is correct, but this is mostly because they needed to add fluff between expansions and a lot of skills were introduced to compensate for profession combinations. IMO, the card system works better in Guild Wars 2 because without secondary professions, players are limited to a certain set of skills. This gave ArenaNet a chance to create something special. For example, healing skills could’ve been shared among all classes, with classes having one special healing skills only available to them! Like Healing Signet for warriors, or Word of Healing for Monks, etc. This would’ve created a much better balancing issue, as now they no longer need to tweak heals for every class, and instead tweak heals across the board!

Use other professions: This makes NO sense. This one of the few reasons why they removed secondary professions: so you can play any profession and have fun playing it. Why would you tell people to drop what they like playing? You can add variety to a warrior and a guardian… hell you can even add variety to a thief. It just needs to be implemented correctly.

The skill and trait system right now, IMO, is garbage, even if it is better than WoW rotational-style gameplay. The reason being that weapons have skills that don’t make sense, function weird or just aren’t very creative. We should have the option to select what skills we can use on each weapon, each that make sense. For example, Guardians get a skill on the mace that gives a chance to block! WHY?! This belongs a shield! Give me an option to change my shield skills to incorporate this option!

Also, traits are so bland and this is mostly because its just a lot of filler. Like, why are they laid out like this? Why does one trait increase vitality and healing power? Why does another increase toughness and condition damage? WHAT?!? This makes no sense! Give me a straightforward system that makes sense, like the attribute system!

They really need to work on the skill system because it’s going to become boring quickly.

Part of the problem, I think, is that many lock down on 1 weapon set (or 2 if you toon can swap) and call it a day. I have started to carry different weapons to switch them around for diff situation. Also combos are nice to pull off and give variety since they change depending on how you accomplish it.

I think the possibilities are there.

all they need is the ability to change to more than just one weapon set…if we had 3-4 weapon sets, things would amp up quite a bit

ecthelion.6794:

To this day, I just don’t understand why they didn’t just go with the same skill system they used in GW1.

It’s a proven system. Basically, it’s the system from Magic the Gathering. Huge bank of possible skills, but only 8 to choose. And then there was the Elite slot as a limiter that actually make it more intriguing.

And thus GW1 had the same replayability that Magic does because there’s always a “build” to experiment with. That was the core endgame for most people.

People say there’s no Endgame in GW2, this is one of the primary reasons why.

We need that system back, or at least the ability to swap out weapon skills. This game will not survive the year otherwise; people will just go back to playing pandas.

Yeah I’m not quite sure.

Removing dual-professions alone would’ve made balancing a billion times easier.

Raf.1078:

In your opinion, of course.

Trying to move, dodge and spam 25 more buttons would be an enormous pain in the patookas in my opinion.

Combat system works okay for me.

No one said anything about having more active skills. Are you even reading. Oo

A Warrior with a rifle is a kiting machine.

Add bola’s and charge as two of your skills and you can effectively make a champion chase you around never getting a swing in (while applying vulnerability).

I did this very thing with a Jotun Champion in Dreadnaught Cliffs. I basically had him chase me around in a circle while 3 other players killed him.

Your issue may be with the job not the tool.

In a way I am agreeing, as I am not a fan of every professions abilities. Warrior is great for me as I can control my abilities thru my weapon selection and that is a huge pool to choose from. But elementalist or engineer with such a limited selection can be a bit boring (though engineer does make up for this with kits).

Cancer.9065:

Part of the problem, I think, is that many lock down on 1 weapon set (or 2 if you toon can swap) and call it a day. I have started to carry different weapons to switch them around for diff situation. Also combos are nice to pull off and give variety since they change depending on how you accomplish it.

I think the possibilities are there.

This is a horribly annoying system. If the game was meant to be played this way, give us more slots to equip weapons of kind. If not, we need to do inventory management every time we want to switch weapons around.

dimgl.4786:

Cancer.9065:

Part of the problem, I think, is that many lock down on 1 weapon set (or 2 if you toon can swap) and call it a day. I have started to carry different weapons to switch them around for diff situation. Also combos are nice to pull off and give variety since they change depending on how you accomplish it.

I think the possibilities are there.

This is a horribly annoying system. If the game was meant to be played this way, give us more slots to equip weapons of kind. If not, we need to do inventory management every time we want to switch weapons around.

Try playing and ele, one weapon set, thats it. Running around d/d and want to help defend/take a keep? bust open the ol back pack, hope you are not in combat, and switch in the staff. Love then trying to hunt down my other dagger that is now no where near my first one because of the drops from loot bags. This is annoying at best.

Ordika.9513:

A Warrior with a rifle is a kiting machine.

Add bola’s and charge as two of your skills and you can effectively make a champion chase you around never getting a swing in (while applying vulnerability).

I did this very thing with a Jotun Champion in Dreadnaught Cliffs. I basically had him chase me around in a circle while 3 other players killed him.

Your issue may be with the job not the tool.

In a way I am agreeing, as I am not a fan of every professions abilities. Warrior is great for me as I can control my abilities thru my weapon selection and that is a huge pool to choose from. But elementalist or engineer with such a limited selection can be a bit boring (though engineer does make up for this with kits).

Its a cool kiting tool yes. But is it fun? In certain people’s eyes, yes. But its not an interesting weapon. Two of the weapon’s abilities only apply conditions (and do a little damage but what doesn’t in this game?). There should not be abilities in this game that only apply conditions… Conditions and buffs are something that should be incorporated into interesting abilities, not be abilities on their own.

pray, what is an “interesting ability” in your eyes?

I also hate the dodging mechanic and the downed system. But that’s just me. Call me old fashioned but I don’t think the gameplay should focus around a mechanic where you call for help and just magically become healed when you kill a monster.

dimgl.4786:

Cancer.9065:

Part of the problem, I think, is that many lock down on 1 weapon set (or 2 if you toon can swap) and call it a day. I have started to carry different weapons to switch them around for diff situation. Also combos are nice to pull off and give variety since they change depending on how you accomplish it.

I think the possibilities are there.

This is a horribly annoying system. If the game was meant to be played this way, give us more slots to equip weapons of kind. If not, we need to do inventory management every time we want to switch weapons around.

Yeah you could have it set up so you can keybind what weapons you want to switch. Like for example F1 could be greatsword, F2 could be sword and shield, F3 could be hammer, F4 could be sword and mace. (Weapons would be completely customizable of course and you could pick what weapons you want in each of the slots.)

This would make the combat more interesting and skillful. However, it doesn’t negate the fact that a lot of the abilities in this game are stale and overused and uninteresting and some only do things like cripple.

Another fix could be to make weapons have 10 abilities instead of 5 and keep the current 2 weapon swap system.

I’m going to go a little off topic here so try not to make the rest of this thread about whats below

People keep saying “Oh, play an elementalist” or “Oh, play an engineer.” I have a level 80 elementalist and a level 80 engineer. Engineer kits don’t well on their own because their abilities don’t work together as a kit. They don’t. You have to use an all kit build or don’t use kits at all. Because of the way kits are designed (very poorly I might add) you need to constantly be switching kits to get what you want from each one because the kits can’t stand on their own because the abilities don’t work together as a kit. They are all random scrambled abilities that don’t really work with eachother. You can’t have a toolkit, elixer, turret build because tool kit (and every other kit) doesn’t really do anything on its own. You either need to have all kits or no kits at all unless you wanted one kit for a very specific situation (I.E. Grenade kit for WvW tower fights).

The elementalist is a bit more interesting but I just don’t like how its designed really…. Its also very specific and its not like i can go from staff to dagger dagger in combat. If you’re playing staff in WvW and then you get into a small skirmish its going to be nowhere near as effective as dagger dagger. I mean this is understandable but the weapons are extremely situational and with the situation constantly changing you don’t have time to go into your inventory and switch weapons on the fly…

Fiennes.9568:

On the contrary, compared “that” other MMO (as that was the one I had played for years before GW2, and so is a fine candidate for comparison), combat feels very fluid and dynamic. I don’t miss the loads of other abilities my “Rogue” had back then, as I had a set rotation which rarely changed.

The more I’ve played with my thief, and reading learned people’s thoughts – I have different weapon sets for different situations… I combine skills together to get maximum effect, I dodge, I stay alive and I go toe-to-toe with mobs in a glorious fashion.

I really don’t think “stale” is appropriate.

This is how I feel, and I’m definitely no fanboy – I have my own serious gripes with the game. Combat, though, is not one of them. I like that I can actually move around pretty fluidly and set up strategy around movement combined with my skillset, but those mechanics don’t revolve around skill variety as much. The OP has more of a beef with skill variety than the actual combat itself, it seems.

I don’t have a problem with either. I play an Engineer as my main, which means a truckload of variety, but I’m not disappointed in my Ele or Ranger, either. I work with what I’ve got, and I enjoy it.

Though, yes. If you really want tons of skills, go with an Engineer. Weapons are very limited, but each battle is constant motion and frequently changing kits.

GW1 vets get real nostalgic about the awful “Magic” system. Personally, I found that system just terrible since it creates a huge barrier to entry. It’s like trying to get someone into a card game, if you haven’t been collecting the cards fit years you will never enjoy it.

Egon Vidar.9125:

Fiennes.9568:

On the contrary, compared “that” other MMO (as that was the one I had played for years before GW2, and so is a fine candidate for comparison), combat feels very fluid and dynamic. I don’t miss the loads of other abilities my “Rogue” had back then, as I had a set rotation which rarely changed.

The more I’ve played with my thief, and reading learned people’s thoughts – I have different weapon sets for different situations… I combine skills together to get maximum effect, I dodge, I stay alive and I go toe-to-toe with mobs in a glorious fashion.

I really don’t think “stale” is appropriate.

This is how I feel, and I’m definitely no fanboy – I have my own serious gripes with the game. Combat, though, is not one of them. I like that I can actually move around pretty fluidly and set up strategy around movement combined with my skillset, but those mechanics don’t revolve around skill variety as much. The OP has more of a beef with skill variety than the actual combat itself, it seems.

I don’t have a problem with either. I play an Engineer as my main, which means a truckload of variety, but I’m not disappointed in my Ele or Ranger, either. I work with what I’ve got, and I enjoy it.

Though, yes. If you really want tons of skills, go with an Engineer. Weapons are very limited, but each battle is constant motion and frequently changing kits.

I can see how coming from more stationary games can make combat a big improvement, but coming from Guild Wars the combat is a big letdown. A big selling point of Guild Wars how incredibly in depth the skill system worked.

It’s also not a valid argument that a more complex profession should be played because this is not the essence of Guild Wars. All professions have the potential to be complex and meaningful classes; we simply have a poorly designed skill system at the moment that needs a lot of refinement.

dimgl.4786:

I also hate the dodging mechanic and the downed system. But that’s just me. Call me old fashioned but I don’t think the gameplay should focus around a mechanic where you call for help and just magically become healed when you kill a monster.

I really like the dodging mechanic. It adds a lot more skill to the gameplay. You have to keep in mind how many dodges someones used and you can dodge roll and completely negate someones burst. It makes it so you really have to pay attention to whats going on for both the person dodging and the person attacking. I think it adds a whole other level of skill and thought into the gameplay.

dimgl.4786:

I also hate the dodging mechanic and the downed system. But that’s just me. Call me old fashioned but I don’t think the gameplay should focus around a mechanic where you call for help and just magically become healed when you kill a monster.

After getting used to it, I like the dodging mechanic now. However, I hate the downed system. It’s just dumb.

Also, agree with the general sentiment here. I like that they wanted to keep the number of active abilities at a manageable number, but locking you into a select set of abilities, many of which are boring, was a poor decision.

Knote.2904:

ecthelion.6794:

To this day, I just don’t understand why they didn’t just go with the same skill system they used in GW1.

It’s a proven system. Basically, it’s the system from Magic the Gathering. Huge bank of possible skills, but only 8 to choose. And then there was the Elite slot as a limiter that actually make it more intriguing.

And thus GW1 had the same replayability that Magic does because there’s always a “build” to experiment with. That was the core endgame for most people.

People say there’s no Endgame in GW2, this is one of the primary reasons why.

We need that system back, or at least the ability to swap out weapon skills. This game will not survive the year otherwise; people will just go back to playing pandas.

Yeah I’m not quite sure.

Removing dual-professions alone would’ve made balancing a billion times easier.

Raf.1078:

In your opinion, of course.

Trying to move, dodge and spam 25 more buttons would be an enormous pain in the patookas in my opinion.

Combat system works okay for me.

No one said anything about having more active skills. Are you even reading. Oo

Here Knote…let me try and explain this to you. The opening statement of any well written treatise generally sets the tone and subject of the material to follow.

OP wrote:

“…..It’s bad enough you only have access to 15 abilities at a time but when those 15 abilities are uninteresting, recycled abilities you’ll see in any other MMO it gets really boring….”

So we only have 15 abilities to choose from? Is that not a blatant comparison to most of the other MMO’s out there? What would be the obvious cure for such a statement? I would suggest more buttons to spam might make OP happier (though I doubt it)

Op again wrote:

“…..You only get 5 abilities on a weapon…..”

Note the use of the word “only”…..so then the obvious suggestion for this statement would be that OP want more abilities? Thats what I take from it in any case.

So my comment was well within the parameters of OP’s original statement. Too kitten bad if you don’t agree.

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

GW1 vets get real nostalgic about the awful “Magic” system. Personally, I found that system just terrible since it creates a huge barrier to entry. It’s like trying to get someone into a card game, if you haven’t been collecting the cards fit years you will never enjoy it.

This is a very big flaw of the Guild Wars system but this is simply not entirely true. Every campaign had enough skills from start to finish that allow you to get the job done. Maybe some builds were less useful than others, this is true. But many skills in the first Guild Wars were core skills that never changed and allowed the player to progress and even become a successful Guild Wars player.

The problem is that many builds became optimal and the player base did not accept anything but the very best builds. This is where Guild Wars 2 comes in. Guild Wars 2 aims to mitigate this problem but ultimately fails because the skills and traits just feel like a lot of filler.

If theres one thing I don’t want them to add its a resource to have to manage like mana. Please keep that out of this game.

Topics on this issue has been raised several times during the BWE’s, but were shot down by fanboys every time. Nice to see the general consensus changing. I hope ArenaNet does somehing to make the combat deeper. One of my personal favorite suggestions was having a skill tree for every weapon type, spending finite attribute points to unlock skills in a path that would fit the player’s playstyle.

@OP, instead of just saying these abilities are boring, I’d like to see you replace each of those skills with abilities that are “interesting”, without increasing the overall power of the kit.

Corian.4068:

@OP, instead of just saying these abilities are boring, I’d like to see you replace each of those skills with abilities that are “interesting”, without increasing the overall power of the kit.

Calling the OP out for not suggesting improvements does not invalidate his points.

Corian.4068:

without increasing the overall power of the kit.

I’ve said this multiple times, but this is the fundamental flaw in GW2’s combat system. The skill system has been lobotomized for the sake of PvP balance, leaving PvE players out in the cold.

lacrimstein.5603:

Topics on this issue has been raised several times during the BWE’s, but were shot down by fanboys every time. Nice to see the general consensus changing. I hope ArenaNet does somehing to make the combat deeper. One of my personal favorite suggestions was having a skill tree for every weapon type, spending finite attribute points to unlock skills in a path that would fit the player’s playstyle.

please stop using this stupid word. The monicker “boy” is really flattering when you are closing in on your 4th decade, don´t get me wrong on that, but the “fan” part is just silly. Isn´t a fan just someone who enjoys something enough to stick with it? Aren´t you a fan of the game? Why are you playing it if you dislike it? Or are you just playing the forum game?

I’m enjoying the combat more than I have in any MMO and more than some single player games. In fact, I’m finding I actually don’t mind when I go out to grind for crafting mats. I always stumble across some dynamic events and I end up having fun collecting crafting mats which is pretty darn amazing.

GW1 vets get real nostalgic about the awful “Magic” system. Personally, I found that system just terrible since it creates a huge barrier to entry. It’s like trying to get someone into a card game, if you haven’t been collecting the cards fit years you will never enjoy it.

I really disliked the Magic the Gathering system too but as others have pointed out GW1 could be somewhat playable with basic skills. I would say that the game wasn’t enjoyable that way, but I suppose that’s a matter of taste.

I thought a greater problem was that game was so non-intuitive that one had to do significant research to keep from making an unplayable build. And there were many more builds that were simply unplayable than good ones or even mediocre ones.

Removing the useless number of options that GW1 helped to make certain that people can at least play GW2 without needing to do research on wikis and forums.

The problem is that many builds became optimal and the player base did not accept anything but the very best builds.

This really should have been expected. Given the choice of deliberately handicapping themselves, most people would not choose to do so unless there was entertainment to get out of it. The combat in GW1 was just not fun enough to make that worthwhile.

lacrimstein.5603:

Calling the OP out for not suggesting improvements does not invalidate his points.

I didn’t say anything about invalidated points. I want to see what he thinks is interesting.

But if you do want me to say something, I suspect he says he wants “interesting” but what he really wants is “stronger”.

This is going to be a hotly contested topic, for sure. I absolutely love the combat. It’s a breath of fresh air after dealing with the doldrums of “the other game” for so long.

Algreg.3629:

lacrimstein.5603:

Topics on this issue has been raised several times during the BWE’s, but were shot down by fanboys every time. Nice to see the general consensus changing. I hope ArenaNet does somehing to make the combat deeper. One of my personal favorite suggestions was having a skill tree for every weapon type, spending finite attribute points to unlock skills in a path that would fit the player’s playstyle.

please stop using this stupid word. The monicker “boy” is really flattering when you are closing in on your 4th decade, don´t get me wrong on that, but the “fan” part is just silly. Isn´t a fan just someone who enjoys something enough to stick with it? Aren´t you a fan of the game? Why are you playing it if you dislike it? Or are you just playing the forum game?

I’m sorry I got you all worked up. I agree that “fanboy” was probably not the best word choice in this situation. Maybe… “proponents of the current system”? I don’t know, I’m no good with words…

Hickeroar.9734:

This is going to be a hotly contested topic, for sure. I absolutely love the combat. It’s a breath of fresh air after dealing with the doldrums of “the other game” for so long.

I guess either people love it because they came from rotational gameplay, or they hate it because they came from flexible gameplay.

dimgl.4786:

the skills and traits just feel like a lot of filler.

This is all combat games that do not rely on guns or simple hack and slash. Cooldowns, timers, fill bars, and resource management are nothing new and all games a just a variation on one or more of these mechanics.

Honestly the combat here is nothing revolutionary (even by MMO standards) but I have yet to feel bored in combat as I intentionally switch it up. I would probably stick with a particular ultimate build in dungeons or PvP, but when I am doing my own thing I like to play with whatever I have see if I can’t stumble on something new.

Ordika.9513:

dimgl.4786:

the skills and traits just feel like a lot of filler.

This is all combat games that do not rely on guns or simple hack and slash. Cooldowns, timers, fill bars, and resource management are nothing new and all games a just a variation on one or more of these mechanics.

Honestly the combat here is nothing revolutionary (even by MMO standards) but I have yet to feel bored in combat as I intentionally switch it up. I would probably stick with a particular ultimate build in dungeons or PvP, but when I am doing my own thing I like to play with whatever I have see if I can’t stumble on something new.

I honestly can’t agree with you. This is no excuse to make skills and traits that are filler. That is a developers job: to innovate. Come up with something fresh and new.

Yeah i got bored of the skills on mesmer in like 2 days.

And really theres nothing thats going to ever make pressing 3 buttons
interesting.

Theres just nowhere near enough abilities in this game. Also made even worse
by the fact that they have way too long of a cd, making you just run around
spamming whatever isnt on cd.

This is my first time to Guild Wars and I must say that I really love this game. I see some frustration with not getting to use some skills however the whole moving around while working with what skills (weapon) you chose at the time is kind of the fun in it for me. I’ve been playing games since the first Atari and this is one of the first games in a long time that has me up all night. I started an Engineer right off the bat and I’m no where near level 80, just got it two days ago, but I really love how the mechanics work here. To me every battle feels like a challenge and every battle feels like it could at any moment get ugly unless I’m fully aware of what is happening. I love that. And I think part of that is working within the limits set. If we had all skills to choose from at our disposal at any moment then people would just start finding one thing that works for most situations. I see the frustration but I’m sure loving the feeling of fighting with one arm tied. Of course once I get to 80 I’ll have to see how I feel but something tells me I’ll still like it the same.

Algreg.3629:

pray, what is an “interesting ability” in your eyes?

- Interesting abilities are those we had in the first Guild Wars:

• Ritualist’s Spirit Weapons, Spirits, Item spells
• Mesmer’s Diversion, Interrupts, Energy Burn, Migraine etc.
• Necromancers hexes, blood enchantments, Malaise etc.
• Ranger’s spirits and traps

Combat in the first Guild Wars had a lot of depth in it. You’d have to pay attention which enchantments you had and what order curses were applied. Skills could get interrupted with the intricate casting time system. When Ranger placed a spirit it became priority target, because it had strong impact on battlefield. Just compare how inconsequential GW2’s Ranger spirits are.

When you compare all this to Guild Wars 2’s system, this one’s a button masher. Your skills might apply poison or some damage or remove boon but it doesn’t create any meaningful decision point. Number of active skills is also a problem. It’s difficult to pay attention to 10 skills at one time. A popular game League of Legends has 4 skills per character and each of the skills has player skill dimension in them. Ten skills is too much and this is evidenced by Warriors and Thieves opting to run signet builds just for the passive bonuses they give.