Guild Wars 2

Could we get more skill variety? Would be great to choose a weapon, say a great sword, and have 20 or so skills to choose from instead of the static 5.

And adding more skills will make it even more harder for Anet to balance and I guess many skills will be made usless like many skills we have in the utility and elite slots.

Have you played GW1 or WoW? both have many skills that never get touched or put on the skill bar. So for me we don’t need more skills until the ones we got are as close to balance and usless skills are made useful.

Gilgamesh VII.8690:

And adding more skills will make it even more harder for Anet to balance and I guess many skills will be made usless like many skills we have in the utility and elite slots.

Have you played GW1 or WoW? both have many skills that never get touched or put on the skill bar. So for me we don’t need more skills until the ones we got are as close to balance and usless skills are made useful.

Yep, played GW1, and that’s what I based the request on. The variety was fantastic.

GW2’s skill system was built deliberately to avoid the GW1 system. They specifically mentioned they wanted to avoid having to balance such a large number of skills as GW1 was pretty much impossible to keep on top of. It was also widely overwhelming for most players, where so many skills were fundamentally useless.

I admit personally some more skills would be nice, but with the current problems they are suffering with balance and things often going awry, I’d rather they not put additional work/pressure on themselves which would develop more issues down the line.

I think we need fewer skills. Let’s take a look at what all the classes can do:

Thief:

• Stealth

• Teleports

• High burst Damage

• Traps

• Venoms

• Mobility King

New and Improved thief:

• Teleports

• High burst Damage

• Mobility King

Warrior:

• Condition AoE

• Single target CC

• High passive (the best in the game, thief runs shortbow but it’s telling that warrior doesn’t run his equivalent the Knight or Barbarian Amulet amplifying his already high defense…maybe Spiritwatch meta if it enters ranked?) and active defenses

• Ranged DPS

• Stances

• Outright invulnerabilities (subset of number 3)

New and improved warrior:

• Single target CC

• Best active and passive defense in the game

• Stances

Engineer:

• Oozes passive procs

• Turrets and other gadgets

• Excellent CC AoE

• Excellent self-sustain

• Reflects

• Kits

New and improved engineer:

• Greater emphasis on turrets, bombs, and gadgets (active rather than passive play so maybe replace Function Gyro with a CA like form that requires energy build up and wears an exoseleton or exo-suit like in Call of Duty.)

• Reflects

• Kits

This rewards the engi’s strategic thinking by optimizing turret placement

Elementalist:

• An expert at nearly all an a master of healing and big AoE zoning fields (creating big no-go zones due to their damage like Air or Fire Overload)

New and improved ele

• Reasonably good at nearly all and a master of AoE zoning fields

The class just feels too strong sometimes, unless I’m on a thief or rev or even druid and manage to take one down. Then there are cleric ele’s who know how to make the most of their defensive resources so I disengage not wanting to waste time (it’s usually always the red names that +1 instead of my team anyway).

Maybe a surgically precise subtractive design is the unexpected direction they were talking about?

I don’t think we will see any new skills outside of Elite Specializations.

The only possible exceptions I see are the missing healing and elite skills (i.e. Guardian needs a healing and elite spirit weapon, necromancer needs an elite signet and so on), but even those are doubtful..

Maybe a surgically precise subtractive design is the unexpected direction they were talking about?

That was a quote from a narrative designer though, specifically talked about in the context of raids. So that seems highly unlikely.

I think the number of weapon skills are fine as it is. Honestly there are already plenty for all the classes. Especially when you think about Elementalist who always has access to 40 weapon skills, Revenant who always has access to 10 weapon skills and 10 utility skills, engineer who always has access to however many skills his kits give him.

I think you have a complete lack of understanding of the game’s mechanics.

Gw1 and gw2 are completely separate games.

Gw1 had a skill bar of 8, but weapons did not determine any of the 8 slots. All the choices were made by your professions. Which, while provided a much larger palate to work with, left tons of skills that were underpowered and underused some overpowered and overused. Which also translated into certain professions being completely garbage (see ranger).

Gw2 has a much tighter grip on the skill bar. Limiting the first 5 by the specific weapon to the profession. Which makes it much easier to balance but restricts immediate diversity especially for classes with only 1 weapon set. The last 5 are your professions unique utilities, heal and elite. Further explained:

Ranger’s utilities consist of:
Traps
Spirits
Shouts
Survival
Signet
Glyphs (druid)

The best and most efficient way to expand diversity is the way they are currently going by elite specializations. Each Specialization can give a new weapon (not always) and a new set of utilities. This way the base game stays balanced which expanding on the player’s ultility possibilties.

Simply “give me more weapons and let me choose all my skills” is a poorly thought out idea that would only lead to further imbalance as well as require a complete restructuring on the current game mechanics.

UnitedChaos.8364:

I think you have a complete lack of understanding of the game’s mechanics.

Gw1 and gw2 are completely separate games.

Gw1 had a skill bar of 8, but weapons did not determine any of the 8 slots. All the choices were made by your professions. Which, while provided a much larger palate to work with, left tons of skills that were underpowered and underused some overpowered and overused. Which also translated into certain professions being completely garbage (see ranger).

Gw2 has a much tighter grip on the skill bar. Limiting the first 5 by the specific weapon to the profession. Which makes it much easier to balance but restricts immediate diversity especially for classes with only 1 weapon set. The last 5 are your professions unique utilities, heal and elite. Further explained:

Ranger’s utilities consist of:
Traps
Spirits
Shouts
Survival
Signet
Glyphs (druid)

The best and most efficient way to expand diversity is the way they are currently going by elite specializations. Each Specialization can give a new weapon (not always) and a new set of utilities. This way the base game stays balanced which expanding on the player’s ultility possibilties.

Simply “give me more weapons and let me choose all my skills” is a poorly thought out idea that would only lead to further imbalance as well as require a complete restructuring on the current game mechanics.

Yeah, asking for my skills doesn’t in anyway indicate a lack of knowledge about mechanics. Stop trying to make balancing a game out as some herculean task. Its possible.

Calydro.7268:

UnitedChaos.8364:

I think you have a complete lack of understanding of the game’s mechanics.

Gw1 and gw2 are completely separate games.

Gw1 had a skill bar of 8, but weapons did not determine any of the 8 slots. All the choices were made by your professions. Which, while provided a much larger palate to work with, left tons of skills that were underpowered and underused some overpowered and overused. Which also translated into certain professions being completely garbage (see ranger).

Gw2 has a much tighter grip on the skill bar. Limiting the first 5 by the specific weapon to the profession. Which makes it much easier to balance but restricts immediate diversity especially for classes with only 1 weapon set. The last 5 are your professions unique utilities, heal and elite. Further explained:

Ranger’s utilities consist of:
Traps
Spirits
Shouts
Survival
Signet
Glyphs (druid)

The best and most efficient way to expand diversity is the way they are currently going by elite specializations. Each Specialization can give a new weapon (not always) and a new set of utilities. This way the base game stays balanced which expanding on the player’s ultility possibilties.

Simply “give me more weapons and let me choose all my skills” is a poorly thought out idea that would only lead to further imbalance as well as require a complete restructuring on the current game mechanics.

Yeah, asking for more skills doesn’t in anyway indicate a lack of knowledge about mechanics. Stop trying to make balancing a game out as some herculean task. Its possible.