Guild Wars 2

That’s why I would like to see them add 5 or so skills to all weapon sets and have us chose which ones we want to use, like utilities. I don’t care how hard it is to balance, just disable it in sPvP. Fun>balance for me in pve atleast.

I wouldn’t even go that far. Simply tweaking damage balance slightly down on autoattack and moderately up on other skills would alone do wonders. Savage Leap doing more damage and Hamstring applying 2 stacks of bleeding would alone be enough to fix sword in this regard. Offhands aren’t quite so much a priority as they have longer cooldowns for stronger effect anyway. If skills 1-3 on all weapons in the game were balanced in this regard everything would be so much more interesting.

I agree 100% on what the op says. Good point, there are to many ‘dead skills’ in the game.

In trying to make SPVP balanced and an esport, our skill bars are small, dull and boring. The sad thing is that there’s like 12 people playing SPVP.

Calae.1738:

In trying to make SPVP balanced and an esport, our skill bars are small, dull and boring. The sad thing is that there’s like 12 people playing SPVP.

If SPVP is the limiting factor here then Anet needs to take their own advice and split more skills. I feel like its largely being balanced with these sort of small PvP encounters in mind and not so much for WvW or events.

So you want utility skills (like crippling shot) to do more damage in addition to providing that utility?

Awesome.6120:

So you want utility skills (like crippling shot) to do more damage in addition to providing that utility?

Since in so many situations said utility is of no use, yes. No matter how easy the encounter its no fun to just stare at your character autoattack with minimal input. GW2 is wonderfully designed in situations where you face the risk of death. With dodging and all the different boons and conditions you can apply it is rather well designed.

The problem is you aren’t always in SPVP, a dungeon, or the most difficult of events. The act of doing damage in ordinary scenarios should be more than simply activating autoattack and the occasional skill that is actually worth using.

I would be happy if i could just put the weapon skills where i wanted them…

Lifeson.4352:

That’s why I would like to see them add 5 or so skills to all weapon sets and have us chose which ones we want to use, like utilities. I don’t care how hard it is to balance, just disable it in sPvP. Fun>balance for me in pve atleast.

The sec you add in one ppl will ask for another and another soon it will not mader what weapons your using because every one will be running the same set of skills with any weapon.
The skills 6 to 10 are the ones you chose from but at the same time skills 1 to 5 are chosen by you too if you swish your weapons. You must chose how to play your hero in a frame or you will just have pure randomness at the start becoming every one running the same thing in the long run. Its the same reason why artist tend to only let them self to work with a set number of colors because true “good” works of art and made with in a set of idea and not out of randomness.

Draehl.2681:

Awesome.6120:

So you want utility skills (like crippling shot) to do more damage in addition to providing that utility?

Since in so many situations said utility is of no use, yes. No matter how easy the encounter its no fun to just stare at your character autoattack with minimal input. GW2 is wonderfully designed in situations where you face the risk of death. With dodging and all the different boons and conditions you can apply it is rather well designed.

The problem is you aren’t always in SPVP, a dungeon, or the most difficult of events. The act of doing damage in ordinary scenarios should be more than simply activating autoattack and the occasional skill that is actually worth using.

If you are only using auto-attack you are doing it wrong and need to L2P. Crippling shot is there to either prevent the mob of getting near you or to prevent the mob from getting away. Rifle skills are fine.
Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be using a greatsword?

I think you’re approaching combat wrong.

When facing non-elite mobs, I will typically make it a contest of how much damage I can avoid while killing my foe.

nekos.2584:

I would be happy if i could just put the weapon skills where i wanted them…

I second this!!!!! Customization is a good thing.

So you’re attached to using a couple of weapons and ignore the rest of them on offer? I don’t get it.

I used to use the rifle on my engineer and for a long time it served me well. It was a great weapon to solo with but as I got deeper in the game I realized I wasn’t killing things fast enough with it. You get to Orr, and the game changed. Things were spawning faster than I could kill them. So I swapped to pistol and shield, Completely changed the game for me.

Then I started playing more with some of the kits.

Being attached to one weapon, saying it’s better for support but sucks when I’m alone, tranlates to me to mean it’s a support weapon. Clearly a support weapon isn’t really meant to be used solo. I mean you can, but why would you? So you switch weapons around depending on your situation. It’s part of the game.

I don’t think making every weapon viable in every situation would make this a better game. On the contrary, I think it would make the game worse.

Vayne.8563:

So you’re attached to using a couple of weapons and ignore the rest of them on offer? I don’t get it.

I used to use the rifle on my engineer and for a long time it served me well. It was a great weapon to solo with but as I got deeper in the game I realized I wasn’t killing things fast enough with it. You get to Orr, and the game changed. Things were spawning faster than I could kill them. So I swapped to pistol and shield, Completely changed the game for me.

Then I started playing more with some of the kits.

Being attached to one weapon, saying it’s better for support but sucks when I’m alone, tranlates to me to mean it’s a support weapon. Clearly a support weapon isn’t really meant to be used solo. I mean you can, but why would you? So you switch weapons around depending on your situation. It’s part of the game.

I don’t think making every weapon viable in every situation would make this a better game. On the contrary, I think it would make the game worse.

I agree with this.
I had the problem where I insisted on only using my favorite weapons and it did result in me watching cd and auto attacking.
It was boring and I started swapping out weapons just as a kick because I was bored.

I was so surprised to realize that you can equip different weapons for a reason.
It totally changes the situation.
I now carry most weapon types in my bag and swap at need.

Thief Sword/Dagger has this problem as well. /Pistol does as well against anything you cannot blind.

The majority of time on my Thief, I’m am spamming on the 1 key. Why? It cleaves and does more DPS than any other move I have. 2 is used to simply get to an enemy faster or clear a condition on the rare moment I need to. 3 is…well…worthless would be a nice way of putting it. 4 is decent if I need to cripple or if there is multiple mobs. 5 is, again, completely useless for my build.

A ton of spamming 1.

This is part of the reason I never use dagger as a necromancer.

Is it the best weapon for solo’ing? Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. Is it the best weapon in groups? That’s a lot more debatable since it leaves you very vulnerable… but a solid argument could be made for it being the best there too.

However… it’s also incredibly, absurdly boring to spend 90% of your time autoattacking because every other move on your bar is not worth using.

The solution is to make the basic 1 attack more interesting.
If that was the case, then it’s fine that most of your weapon skills are situational and useless for general combat.

ANet should take a lesson from action games like Devil May Cry or Dark Souls.
These games have special skills, but they arent the focus of combat, because the basic attacks are interesting and varied.

For example, in DMC, by adjusting the timing of your attacks, you will get different combos with different tradeoffs.

hit-hit-hit-hit-hit will get you a normal attack sequence.
hit-hit-(pause)-hithithit will get you more damage but slower and more vulnerable.

Stopping during a combo to dodge means you have to start from the beginning, and the later hits are more damaging, etc.

So if ANet removed “autoattack” and made the 1 attack something you have to consciously choose different options to use, then it wouldnt matter if the other skills are situational.

Dark Souls is another example. Each weapon only has 2 main attacks and some variations (eg. attack after a dodge, attack whilst running, etc.)
But mashing attack in that game gets you killed. The tension and choices in the game come from the balance between defense and offense. Attacking leaves you vulnerable, so you have to choose the right moment.

Circling around to get the best position, slipping in and out of range, dropping your guard to tempt the enemy… Dark Souls gets a lot of mileage out of very few different moves.

The old-fashioned MMO method of loading you up with 20+ skills on 2 different bars, each with long cooldowns, is just a waste of development effort. It’s better to have short (or no) cooldowns, and a reasonable set of moves that make for interesting choices, tradeoffs and gameplay.

I’m a Necro and I can vouch for this. This is the ONLY thing that I didn’t like as far as changes from original GW are concerned. They took the build-building and just added things like combos (which most of the time aren’t planned as far as when to drop them down is concerned). I don’t care how man skill “duplicates” we had in GW, I’d like those skills back.

Rieselle.5079:

The solution is to make the basic 1 attack more interesting.
If that was the case, then it’s fine that most of your weapon skills are situational and useless for general combat.

ANet should take a lesson from action games like Devil May Cry or Dark Souls.
These games have special skills, but they arent the focus of combat, because the basic attacks are interesting and varied.

For example, in DMC, by adjusting the timing of your attacks, you will get different combos with different tradeoffs.

hit-hit-hit-hit-hit will get you a normal attack sequence.
hit-hit-(pause)-hithithit will get you more damage but slower and more vulnerable.

Stopping during a combo to dodge means you have to start from the beginning, and the later hits are more damaging, etc.

So if ANet removed “autoattack” and made the 1 attack something you have to consciously choose different options to use, then it wouldnt matter if the other skills are situational.

Dark Souls is another example. Each weapon only has 2 main attacks and some variations (eg. attack after a dodge, attack whilst running, etc.)
But mashing attack in that game gets you killed. The tension and choices in the game come from the balance between defense and offense. Attacking leaves you vulnerable, so you have to choose the right moment.

Circling around to get the best position, slipping in and out of range, dropping your guard to tempt the enemy… Dark Souls gets a lot of mileage out of very few different moves.

The old-fashioned MMO method of loading you up with 20+ skills on 2 different bars, each with long cooldowns, is just a waste of development effort. It’s better to have short (or no) cooldowns, and a reasonable set of moves that make for interesting choices, tradeoffs and gameplay.

Just FYI some melee 1 skills already work like this. thats why i don’t us auto attack
and actualy have it set to one of my mouse keys

Anet should have took the advice along time ago and split sPvP off and move that part well away from the PvE aspect of the game, even WvW does suffer too. GW2 unfortunately is really a hit and miss game, its not really the break out and the reason for that is for all the good ideas the game has, there are an equal if not more bad ideas or issues dragging it down.

I think GW2 needs skill captures like in GW1, so we can replace alot of the highly situational or just plain dead skills with ones we’ll actually use, or be useful in more situations.

Eventually they’ll split PvP & PvE skills like they did for GW1, perhaps then there will be more useful skills in PvE.

You should learn to use all weapons with your class.
Some are more suited to specific situations than others, learn what works best where.

Just because you like dagger on Necro or Sword on Warrior, it does not mean they are most suited to killing trash mobs while roaming the world, therefore resulting in lack of satisfaction from the process of killing them.

Draehl.2681:

Awesome.6120:

So you want utility skills (like crippling shot) to do more damage in addition to providing that utility?

Since in so many situations said utility is of no use, yes. No matter how easy the encounter its no fun to just stare at your character autoattack with minimal input. GW2 is wonderfully designed in situations where you face the risk of death. With dodging and all the different boons and conditions you can apply it is rather well designed.

The problem is you aren’t always in SPVP, a dungeon, or the most difficult of events. The act of doing damage in ordinary scenarios should be more than simply activating autoattack and the occasional skill that is actually worth using.

Strange, I didn’t realize I was the only one to swap utility skills based on the situations at hand. Still, I find that crippling a player or non-player foe can indeed be beneficial.

I think this is one of the major flaws of the way they locked skillbars to weapon sets in this game, which imho was a terrible decision. I feel I often have to go with one particular weapon because of either autoattack and one or two skills on it, which means the rest of the set is pretty much dead weight at that point. There are only so many viable choices for your build, and artificially limiting the way in which you can combine them doesn’t help.

If we at least had some way to swap out single skills on weapons, that would probably help already, and also I’d really like to see some of those completely worthless utilities + elites changed so we could actually have some choice in what we bring.

Is this just a case of: “I want this one weapon-set that I always use to do this and that, no I do not ever what to change my build, weapons or weapon set.”?

wintermute.4096:

I think this is one of the major flaws of the way they locked skillbars to weapon sets in this game, which imho was a terrible decision. I feel I often have to go with one particular weapon because of either autoattack and one or two skills on it, which means the rest of the set is pretty much dead weight at that point. There are only so many viable choices for your build, and artificially limiting the way in which you can combine them doesn’t help.

If we at least had some way to swap out single skills on weapons, that would probably help already, and also I’d really like to see some of those completely worthless utilities + elites changed so we could actually have some choice in what we bring.

There are ways around that, but they’re kind of secret. I’ll tell you, but you can’t let anyone else read this post. OK? Shh…

1. Weapon swapping / Attunement swapping. Swapping weapons, attunements, etc. get you new sets of skills that are actually designed to work together and give you a broad range of damage, control and support. I’m working on a baby elementalist and it’s crazy… but I have twenty skills per weapon set. Yes, I have to change weapons out of combat, but BANG! Twenty more!

2. Traits. These can enhance your skills quite nicely to change not only how the skills behave, but how you play your profession. My mesmer is traited to create clones when I dodge. What a difference in playstyle that makes for something that seems so simple! Dodging becomes an offensive weapon and clones get more focus as a real piece of your arsenal of mind blowing doom. I love it. As a matter of fact, there was a now-fixed bug in Fractals in the Ascalon section where mesmers transformed as Fire Legion had this trait not working. When I dodged to create a clone, no clone! You have no idea how gimped that made me feel.

3. Utilities. Yep, you can swap these babies out when out of combat and again add a whole new bunch of effects to your character, customizing them even further for the situation at hand. Learn them, you’ll love them. Oh, don’t disregard a utility that seems uninteresting on the surface… often in practice they’re more potent than you realize.

Remember… it’s our little secret. Tell no one!

I’ve rarely ever felt my skill bar was “dead”, however the OP mentions Necromancer specifically, which is the one profession I’ve enjoyed playing the least. I never discovered much utility with the skills and really didn’t enjoy the overall feeling of the profession.

On the opposite end though, is just about every other profession I’ve tried, but especially the Mesmer, Thief and Ranger. I’m always active when I play those professions. It might be the continuous, irregular movement of the Thief, the micro-management of the pet with the Ranger or the setting up of my shatters with the Mesmer, but I’ve always got something on my plate while skills are cooling down (or initiative is recharging for my Thief).

Elementalist and Engineer aren’t far behind with their profession specific mechanics. Although I haven’t played either heavily enough to understand their intricacies, they still keep me busy. I do find Guardian and Warrior a little draggy, but doing a lot of weapon swapping helps a bunch there.

Necros though, I just don’t like ‘em. I don’t like the skills and don’t like the unique mechanics. I actually do find that one profession to be the least interesting and fun to play. Necro fans, I salute you. You must be pretty dedicated to squeeze real enjoyment from that game play.

TL;DR

OP should try other professions.

I feel a lot of skills past the first one weren’t really thought out, Many people like Engineer and say they are thought out, but i totally disagree, the rifle skills for me consist of

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Occasionally i’ll hit a 3 or 4 on my bar, but mostly i find 2-5 on most skills (of all classes) too be kinda useless 99%, either their cool downs are too long or the skill isn’t worth bothering with..

Dante.1508:

I feel a lot of skills past the first one weren’t really thought out, Many people like Engineer and say they are thought out, but i totally disagree, the rifle skills for me consist of

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Occasionally i’ll hit a 3 or 4 on my bar, but mostly i find 2-5 on most skills (of all classes) too be kinda useless 99%, either their cool downs are too long or the skill isn’t worth bothering with..

Isn’t that just playing lazy though? And ineffective? Hip Shot does meager damage so why are you relying on it? You are squishy so why aren’t you kiting? And if you are kiting, why aren’t you using Net Shot and Overcharge for separation? Why aren’t you using Blunderbuss, your heavy hitter skill which gives you the greatest raw damage output for your weapon, plus it stacks bleed? Even Jump Shot is useful when used as a finisher, so long as it won’t leave you stranded in the middle of a furball. And where are your kit skills?

The point is, when you CHOOSE not to use the options you’ve been given, it’s your own fault for finding the game play lackluster. And you might get away with that on your own, but any group I’ve played with would kick you the moment they realized they were a man short because the Engi can’t be bothered to do anything but auto-attack.

I have been complaining about this for 4 months. Combat gets very boring after a while because of lack of skills. Auto attack is not fun.

I recommended in the Suggestions forum that they let us equip one of each weapon that our class can use and rotate between all of our weapons (with the same delay they have now). That would give us access to a large number of skills without really affecting balance since the game is balanced around being able to swap to a certain extent.

The only classes I have are Guardian and Thief, but I haven’t found many “dead skills” in my bars. Granted, both classes are melee-oriented and have to re-position themselves constantly (especially my D/D Thief), but I still find myself using all of my default weapon skills on a regular basis and, when playing my Guardian, I have found a use for just about every utility skill with the exception of the underwhelming spirit weapons (except the Avenger’s Shield, that skill is awesome in FotM).

@ OP: If they make skills the way you say way it will only create rotations and make the game less of an action RPG an more of a whack-o-mole game, me personally I hate having rotations, I like to look at my screen and what going on around me, not my skill bar waiting on cooldowns.

Remember WoW, all you get from that game is elitism and ego stroking min/max due to a rotation system.

Gw2 has found a way to get rid of all that and focus on what matters the most, and that’s that game not the action bar.

I like this system.
You don’t spam skills because they do “moar domoges”, all skills have a purpose.
For instance Warrior’s Axe/Axe: 1 is DPS, 2 is vuln, 3 is cripple, 4 is fury, 5 is aoe.

This isn’t a cheesy game where you spam a rotation and feel like you’re doing something skillful (hahaha really?), your 1 is damage and other skills are to be used in the correct situation.
Is this boring when DPSing trash to death solo? Yes.
Now tell me why killing a rat with 12345 is less boring than 11111.

I do not want another game based on rotations rather on using skills when needed.
If you want a fancy skill spamming MMO there are bazillions around, go ahead.

Since this is a PvP game. And PvP is won by burst, ae, and utility. The weapons should have an auto-attack, some burst, and some utility.

The problem is the vast majority of weapons in this game, these supposed burst skills are actually a net dps loss over auto attacking. Shortbow for Rangers for example loses damage from using anything but auto-attack. The poison does no damage and the utility is questionable at best. the other skills have no dps potential.

The longbow on the other hand gains a respectable damage increase from its abilities. However, the damage increase is pointless because the bow doesn’t do near the damage shortbow does.

I’m fine with some weapons being PvE and others being PvP focused, but they should all be useful at something. There are a great deal of weapons that simply aren’t ever worth using.

Ele focus and scepter.
Warrior off-hand sword and axe.
Ranger longbow and off-hand axe.

Atherakhia.4086:

Since this is a PvP game. And PvP is won by burst, ae, and utility. The weapons should have an auto-attack, some burst, and some utility.

The problem is the vast majority of weapons in this game, these supposed burst skills are actually a net dps loss over auto attacking. Shortbow for Rangers for example loses damage from using anything but auto-attack. The poison does no damage and the utility is questionable at best. the other skills have no dps potential.

The longbow on the other hand gains a respectable damage increase from its abilities. However, the damage increase is pointless because the bow doesn’t do near the damage shortbow does.

I’m fine with some weapons being PvE and others being PvP focused, but they should all be useful at something. There are a great deal of weapons that simply aren’t ever worth using.

Ele focus and scepter.
Warrior off-hand sword and axe.
Ranger longbow and off-hand axe.

Yikes, the swirlies on the Focus are one of the most used defensive skills in WvW at least.

Just make the game harder.

You’re saying that these skills only become useful when you’re in difficult scenarios like dungeons and sPvP right? Then the problem isn’t the skills, its that the game is too easy.

love ele sceptor/dagger, love ranger longbow with double axe, so maybe there are some things worth using. It is only on mesmer that I am sorry not to use all the weapons though, that is the best thought out arrangement in my opinion.

Alarox.4590:

Just make the game harder.

You’re saying that these skills only become useful when you’re in difficult scenarios like dungeons and sPvP right? Then the problem isn’t the skills, its that the game is too easy.

Probably the fairest assessment in this thread. Skills are boring because content is so easy facetanking mobs with a rifle creates a better outcome than crippling and kiting. Vulnerability in solo situations is still a problem in that the time you spend applying vulnerability isn’t worth losing autoatttack… but generally I think you’re very much correct in that combat should just be tougher to begin with.

Warjin.8942:

@ OP: If they make skills the way you say way it will only create rotations and make the game less of an action RPG an more of a whack-o-mole game, me personally I hate having rotations, I like to look at my screen and what going on around me, not my skill bar waiting on cooldowns.

I addressed this already. If it were a marginal enough a damage increase the primary purpose of the skill would far outweigh using it prematurely just for damage. If the skill has no use now or in the near future you use it for a slight damage bump over autoattack. I fail to see how that would create whackamole.

Blacklight.2871:

Dante.1508:

I feel a lot of skills past the first one weren’t really thought out, Many people like Engineer and say they are thought out, but i totally disagree, the rifle skills for me consist of

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Occasionally i’ll hit a 3 or 4 on my bar, but mostly i find 2-5 on most skills (of all classes) too be kinda useless 99%, either their cool downs are too long or the skill isn’t worth bothering with..

Isn’t that just playing lazy though? And ineffective? Hip Shot does meager damage so why are you relying on it? You are squishy so why aren’t you kiting? And if you are kiting, why aren’t you using Net Shot and Overcharge for separation? Why aren’t you using Blunderbuss, your heavy hitter skill which gives you the greatest raw damage output for your weapon, plus it stacks bleed? Even Jump Shot is useful when used as a finisher, so long as it won’t leave you stranded in the middle of a furball. And where are your kit skills?

The point is, when you CHOOSE not to use the options you’ve been given, it’s your own fault for finding the game play lackluster. And you might get away with that on your own, but any group I’ve played with would kick you the moment they realized they were a man short because the Engi can’t be bothered to do anything but auto-attack.

The problem is the most effective way of playing is the most dull. This should not be the case. He’s not kiting because he doesn’t need to. Just doing damage and killing the enemy is the most effective tactic so this is the one that is used.

Effectiveness and fun should not be mutually exclusive. This is the inherent design flaw.

Atherakhia.4086:

weapons that simply aren’t ever worth using…
Warrior off-hand sword..

But this gives you up to 8 20 second bleeds, has a block and has the single most damaging skill of a sword, rip… !

But I would say since the OP is using a Warhorn that it might synergise better with a mace using the plus dmg vs weakened foes and the mace speciality in the defence tree. And as much as it can bore me, I’ve got a GS for open world stuff for when I feel it would be more effective, though quite offten it feels slower than dual swords…

Using a mace and a shield in Orr is about the slowest way to solo open world content I’ve found, but I’ve never used a sword/warhorn combo.

Lifeson.4352:

That’s why I would like to see them add 5 or so skills to all weapon sets and have us chose which ones we want to use, like utilities. I don’t care how hard it is to balance, just disable it in sPvP. Fun>balance for me in pve atleast.

This might bring me back to GW2. Compared to GW1 where I had ultimate freedom in building my skillbar, to GW2, which almost completely locks my skillbar; the ability to customize is something I greatly missed in GW2. I couldn’t keep playing something that hampered my creativity and individuality.

More skills and more customizable skillbars would bring me back, personally.

Blacklight.2871:

Dante.1508:

I feel a lot of skills past the first one weren’t really thought out, Many people like Engineer and say they are thought out, but i totally disagree, the rifle skills for me consist of

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Occasionally i’ll hit a 3 or 4 on my bar, but mostly i find 2-5 on most skills (of all classes) too be kinda useless 99%, either their cool downs are too long or the skill isn’t worth bothering with..

Isn’t that just playing lazy though? And ineffective? Hip Shot does meager damage so why are you relying on it? You are squishy so why aren’t you kiting? And if you are kiting, why aren’t you using Net Shot and Overcharge for separation? Why aren’t you using Blunderbuss, your heavy hitter skill which gives you the greatest raw damage output for your weapon, plus it stacks bleed? Even Jump Shot is useful when used as a finisher, so long as it won’t leave you stranded in the middle of a furball. And where are your kit skills?

The point is, when you CHOOSE not to use the options you’ve been given, it’s your own fault for finding the game play lackluster. And you might get away with that on your own, but any group I’ve played with would kick you the moment they realized they were a man short because the Engi can’t be bothered to do anything but auto-attack.

Because pressing 1 does the same job 2-5 does only faster, i have a bleed sigil in my weapon so it stacks bleed every crit, i use the other when the need arises but on a whole Engi Rifle skill set is boring to me, i’ve actually shelved mine anyway since all the nerfs..
Warrior Axe and Shield..
1-2 are great 3 is selective at best 4 has such terrible cool down and 5 heh its a block that blocks random stuff over time, while im sure its handy i’ve not seen it give me benefit the 1-2 provide..i seldom use 5..

Warrior rifle smashed Engi rifle which is what makes me laugh, aren’t engineers the dedicated Rifle/Pistol specialists yet Warrior and Thief do both better…because the skills are less dead on those..

It’s a mixture of some shallow skills, and how many PvE fights are shallow.

Redfeather.6401:

It’s a mixture of some shallow skills, and how many PvE fights are shallow.

Couldn’t of said it better myself.

Also the probem the devs have run into with PVE content is that the systems and mechanics they’ve created have caused gameplay halt in challenge.
They’ve had to bring in additional mechanics to add challenaging gameplay, e.g the agony resistance seen in higher level fractals due to the game mechanics being so simple they’ve had to build on it by adding an extra tier of resistance to combat the shallow PVE fights.

Kakeru, you know I once thought it was hopeless… but there is something that can be done in 3 steps.
1. Higher level enemy behaviours in PvE need to be more thoughfully designed.
3. Higher up traits need to be redesigned to become the more conditional, reactive and strategic options. Right now they are often passive steroid effects.
3. Higher level PvE needs to be redesigned to favour a more reactive and thoughtful form of combat.

I kind of agree. I wish it was easier to switch between weapons and have proper traits to go with it.

Making content harder will just make it even more painful for the slightly disadvantaged professions we have right now.

You answered your own question. The reason we have weapon swapping and different weapons is to use the one that suits the situation, and is enhanced by skills, which can also be switched. Each weapon being the best for everything would get boring really fast. Sure there are some things that could be changed a bit.

As for the events, the reason autoattacking is the best is because there are too many people most of the time. I don’t see how anything can really fix this other than capping the event to a maximum number of people somehow, but then you might as well just be doing dungeons.

Rhysati.4932:

Thief Sword/Dagger has this problem as well. /Pistol does as well against anything you cannot blind.

The majority of time on my Thief, I’m am spamming on the 1 key. Why? It cleaves and does more DPS than any other move I have. 2 is used to simply get to an enemy faster or clear a condition on the rare moment I need to. 3 is…well…worthless would be a nice way of putting it. 4 is decent if I need to cripple or if there is multiple mobs. 5 is, again, completely useless for my build.

A ton of spamming 1.

Spamming 1? Cmon man GuildWars 2 has dynamic gameplay!

Don’t lie, just sit in denial like most of us.