Guild Wars 2

INTRO

So, while explaining the differences between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 to my fiancee, it suddenly hit me…

To my knowledge (and in my own personal experience), when there is a complaint about the Guild Wars 2 skill system it typically comes down to it being too bland. You know that the Guardian standing across from you wielding a Sword & Focus has the exact same weapon skills as the Guardian in your own party wielding a Sword & Focus. So the only thing differentiating those two (as far as the SKILL BAR itself goes) are their chosen Utilities and Elite.

Compare this with Guild Wars 1 where you could see a Warrior standing across from you wielding a Sword & Shield and using completely different sword-based skills from the Sword & Shield Warrior in your own party. The Warrior across from you may have specialized in the Swordsmanship Attribute and be wielding Swordsmanship skills focused on causing Bleed/Cripple/Deep Wound, whereas your own party’s Warrior may have focused on the Strength or Tactics line, focusing either on delivering hard hits via Strength or utilizing Blocks and Stances/Ripostes/Parries via Tactics.

There is a stark contrast in what can be done with weapons in Guild Wars 1 compared to Guild Wars 2, mostly due to the difference in skill systems between the games.

But what if we could alleviate some of the difference while expanding gameplay AND all while not destroying the current skill system at the same time?

IDEA/SUGGESTION

What if an aspect of the old Dual Profession system was brought back…so that you could choose a secondary Profession and wield the Weapon Skills (ONLY the Weapon Skills, not Utilities or Elites) of your chosen secondary class?

For example, let us say that I am a Guardian who has chosen Warrior as my secondary. Both the Guardian and the Warrior have many over-lapping weapons available to them. Let’s pretend that I wish to wield a Sword & Shield, weapons that are common to both Professions. Now, under this theoretical system, whenever I wield a weapon for which both my classes have skills, I would be able to choose which Profession’s skills I have on my bar for those weapons.

So, as a Guardian, I would have the option to either be using the:

(A.) Guardian’s 1-handed Sword Skills + Guardian Shield Skills
(B.) Guardian’s 1-handed Sword Skills + Warrior Shield Skills
(C.) Warrior’s 1-handed Sword Skills + Guardian Shield Skills
(D.) Warrior’s 1-handed Sword Skills + Warrior Shield Skills

This new system could potentially be intentionally limited to help preserve Profession weapon identities as well, simply by only allowing you to swap one of your equipped weapon’s skill sets to that of your secondary class (IE You can have either A, B, or C from the list above, but you can NEVER have D. Or in other words, one of your equipped weapons must ALWAYS be using the skill set of your main Profession, so that you can’t just be using an entire other class’s weapon set with your own Utilities + Elite slapped on).

CLOSING

Obviously this system would not be balanced in the current game. I’m not suggested something like this should just be slapped on. But imagine if the game was made this way from the start or if the weapon skills system was redesigned to implement such an idea?

In my opinion, this would bring back some much needed variety and build diversity to Guild Wars 2, particularly to the PvP side of the game (not to mention the slew of options it would open up in WvW small-scale combat encounters as well as PvE…though PvE is not difficult regardless, so the tactical variety offered by this system wouldn’t change much there unless PvE becomes more challenging).

This would bring back the Dual Profession mechanic of the first game in the form of Cross-Class Weapon Skills, it would bring variety to the gameplay (imagine seeing an Axe/Axe Warrior…but using cross class skills on his main hand…perhaps throwing the axes by using the Ranger main hand Axe skills while keeping his native Warrior off-hand axe skills!), and it would potentially spice up the game and build diversity in a great way that hearkens back to Guild Wars 1 without entirely destroying the new and separate system that Guild Wars 2 has.

I haven’t really sat and fleshed the entire post out as well as I like, and it may be a bit of a read, but thoughts anyone?

I’d say rather than dual professions, give each weapon slot a pool of, say, 3 skills (meaning you got a maximum of 9 skills on MH, 6 skills on OH, and 15 skills on 2H) that keeps with the theme of the weapon. I’d say it’d be also easier to balance cool-downs (say all of the skills in slot 2 have the same cool-downs, or marginally different depending on the effectiveness).

For example, Warrior Sword 5:

Riposte: As is.

Seeking Blade: Does damage. Also inflicts bleeding if the target is blocking (Sacrificing some defense for an attack against a defense).

Disciplined Strike: Does Damage. Also interrupts if in a Stance.

(Don’t take these as actual skill suggestions, they’re just examples).

ANet are not going to add skill variety, they avoid these threads like the plague and this would not bode well for their 2 man pvp team.

I love the idea, but yea… lost cause.

I didn’t quite have the patience to read your post very fully, but I do agree with the general concept and I think being able to ‘customize’ your class a bit with skills from other classes (I’d leave the exact design to Anet) has a lot of merit.

You mean. Kind of like a flamethrower ranger?

Yes this is why to many GW2 is the console version while GW1 was the PC version.. Sadly you’re right the game needs a massive overhaul and i doubt we’ll ever see one..

Best to look else where for actual builds and a game that has some variation.