Guild Wars 2

As a Guardian main, if you don’t want those low damage cripples, I will take them in a heartbeat.

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Sarrs.4831:

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Rotations in GW2 consist of . (As a hammer guardian)

1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1

You get the idea, it really isn’t much different than other games with rotations just a lot more simplistic. I made a warrior and leveled him to 35 by that time most of my PVE encounters consisted of pressing the 1 and 2 key as 3, 4 and 5 where soley situation and actually made killing things take longer.

There are several classes in this game who can effectively survive with there heal skill and the 1 key.

I wish all professions were built like the Elementalist.

Here’s my rotation for D/D elementalist.

start rotation

Air 4, Air 3
-switch to Fire
Fire 2, Fire 3, Fire 5, Fire 4
-switch to Earth
Earth 4, Earth 2
-switch to Water
Water 4, Water 2
-Switch to Air
Air 1 until Fire finishes cooling down
-switch to Fire
Fire 2, Fire 3, Fire 4
-switch to Earth
Earth 5, Earth 2

end rotation

Auto attack, whats that?

The complaint here seems to be that the weapon you want to use isn’t suited for the task you are currently undertaking? You’re not bound to dagger, so why not use Axe for your 1v1 PvE damage, and use your Dagger for when you group?

It seems that each weapon set has a specified purpose, so of course you would need to use the right tool for the job. I mean, this feels like demanding that ShortBow thieves don’t do enough single target damage when it’s pretty clear that it is meant for AOE damage.

Kakeru.2873:

Sarrs.4831:

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Rotations in GW2 consist of . (As a hammer guardian)

1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1

You get the idea, it really isn’t much different than other games with rotations just a lot more simplistic. I made a warrior and leveled him to 35 by that time most of my PVE encounters consisted of pressing the 1 and 2 key as 3, 4 and 5 where soley situation and actually made killing things take longer.

There are several classes in this game who can effectively survive with there heal skill and the 1 key.

Try that rotation in some dungeons and let me know how that goes for you.

The idea is that most simple world stuff you can get away with doing that, but it’s not so easy to do that and survive in most dungeon situations, or in fractals.

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.

D/D thief (for non-lolburst builds) and shortbow thief definitely don’t suffer from this, at least not for content that’s not just faceroll open world stuff. In any given fight with either of those weapons, you should likely be using 4 of the 5 skills at least once.

It seems a lot of the complaint in this thread can be summarized as:

I created a build that focused on making my auto-attack the best skill to use and now my auto-attack is the best skill to use.

Maybe there should be some adjustment for some weapon sets (I’m looking at you shortbow ranger) but it seems to me that many of the issues would be solved just by trying out a different build or by experiencing some of the more challenging content in the game. Sure my ele never leaves fire attunement in open world fights when I’m using a staff, but that’s because the content is so easy that I never have to switch. But if I want more dynamic fights I’ll swap to D/D or go to a part of the game where I can’t get away with eating pizza and watching TV while I play.

Vayne.8563:

Kakeru.2873:

Sarrs.4831:

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Rotations in GW2 consist of . (As a hammer guardian)

1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1

You get the idea, it really isn’t much different than other games with rotations just a lot more simplistic. I made a warrior and leveled him to 35 by that time most of my PVE encounters consisted of pressing the 1 and 2 key as 3, 4 and 5 where soley situation and actually made killing things take longer.

There are several classes in this game who can effectively survive with there heal skill and the 1 key.

Try that rotation in some dungeons and let me know how that goes for you.

The idea is that most simple world stuff you can get away with doing that, but it’s not so easy to do that and survive in most dungeon situations, or in fractals.

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

Veldan.4637:

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

…Not using your adrenaline move at all? That’s a bit weird.

Sarrs.4831:

Veldan.4637:

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

…Not using your adrenaline move at all? That’s a bit weird.

Nor his heal, nor any utilities (please say it’s not another 5-sig warrior).

Sarrs.4831:

Veldan.4637:

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

…Not using your adrenaline move at all? That’s a bit weird.

While I can’t speak for max level Warriors, my level 30 Warriors Rifle adrenaline skill (Kill Shot) does less damage than the two autoattacks you can fit into the same timeframe. It may be a low level scaling issue, but this is a problem…

Veldan.4637:

Vayne.8563:

Kakeru.2873:

Sarrs.4831:

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Rotations in GW2 consist of . (As a hammer guardian)

1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1

You get the idea, it really isn’t much different than other games with rotations just a lot more simplistic. I made a warrior and leveled him to 35 by that time most of my PVE encounters consisted of pressing the 1 and 2 key as 3, 4 and 5 where soley situation and actually made killing things take longer.

There are several classes in this game who can effectively survive with there heal skill and the 1 key.

Try that rotation in some dungeons and let me know how that goes for you.

The idea is that most simple world stuff you can get away with doing that, but it’s not so easy to do that and survive in most dungeon situations, or in fractals.

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

Glad I don’t run dungeons with you. lol

Sarrs.4831:

Veldan.4637:

As a warrior, I can say my 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 rotation worked perfectly well in dungeons and fractals, except I had to fit some dodges in sometimes. But I would say 1-dodge-1-1-1-1-1-1-dodge-1-1-1-1 is still not exactly a fun way to play (though very effective).

…Not using your adrenaline move at all? That’s a bit weird.

because of the 12% dmg and 9% crit from traits that work only when you got adrenaline filled, using your ability is actually bad for dps

Syeria.4812:

Nor his heal, nor any utilities (please say it’s not another 5-sig warrior).

Of course I did not play only 111111 all the time. I’m just saying it’s possible and not bad at all.

Yes it’s better to use FGJ than passive power signet, but when I used a signet, nobody cared and the dungeons were smooth and fast anyway. Same for heal skill. The difference is there, but small. Also apart from FGJ, signets are pretty much the only warrior skills that are not situational, giving them an advantage, and promoting passive play even more.

Even if I think a skill isn’t that great I still use it since pressing all the buttons makes me feel like I’m doing something useful. Still, I agree and it would be nice to be able to switch out weapon skills the same way as utility skills.

Having additional damage on skills designed for control won’t really help you – you’ll just use them as soon as they become available, and be back to auto-attacking.
You say that if SL did more damage than AA “good play would still dictate you save it for closing distances”, but it really wouldn’t. You’d be better off using it on recharge, because that means you get the most number of uses of it out of any given timeframe. The only way to balance it would be to extend the recharge, and guess what that means? Back to AA.

The problem is that the open-world enemies are so non-threatening that anything but damage is useless. Aimed shot (I’m assuming that’s what you meant, since Crip shot is a Ranger bow skill) is great when you need to keep a distance. When fighting really tough melee enemies, it’s great for keeping out of their reach. If all you’re thinking about is “This enemy is taking too long to be dead”, the combat is clearly too easy.

Open world mobs non-threatening? Perhaps 1 on 1, but if they come in groups of 2+ they suddenly become a issue unless you enjoy running like benny hill all day. And when constantly being on the move the auto attack becomes even more used, as others that actually do damage are likely to be ground targeted or have some other convoluted mechanic that makes them a royal pain to use while “kiting”.

Now if CC actually did CC, and not claim to be CC while actually being fighting game style combo breaking interrupts, maybe half those bars would not be so dead.

It does seem that the general theme of weapon skills is #1 is for damage, #2-#5 are for control, aoe, conditions, combos, effects, etc. This isn’t a bad theme if all combat forces us to use these mechanics (like PvP). But often times when solo PvE combat doesn’t require these effects. Might need a single dodge against an ettin, or a cripple against a fleeing, nearly-dead stag. But a lot of times you can just auto-attack and make it through.

Having said that, there are still plenty of PvE combat scenarios that require an assortment of mechanics. But, the fact still remains that (generally speaking) #1 for sustained damage, #2-5 for effects.

This doesn’t seem like a valid complaint. The only weapon I really think is a dead weapon is the ranger shortbow. 2,3,4,5 don’t really add all that much in terms of dps, but are good situational uses.

Weapons are specific to certain areas or goals. Some weapons are more defensive, some offensive, some utility, etc. Don’t blame anet just because you’re too lazy to switch weapons.

Dagger isn’t helping during events kitten use a staff. Problem solved.

digiowl.9620:

Open world mobs non-threatening? Perhaps 1 on 1, but if they come in groups of 2+ they suddenly become a issue unless you enjoy running like benny hill all day. And when constantly being on the move the auto attack becomes even more used, as others that actually do damage are likely to be ground targeted or have some other convoluted mechanic that makes them a royal pain to use while “kiting”.

Now if CC actually did CC, and not claim to be CC while actually being fighting game style combo breaking interrupts, maybe half those bars would not be so dead.

2+ being threatening is extremely situational and dependent upon class and build. I can get my guardian into a fight with 3-4 mobs and as long as I push 1 to resume auto-attacking when my target dies, I don’t need to actually interact with the game at all to kill them all. The same is true for certain warrior builds as well as for my ranger (assuming the aggro and stay aggroed on my pet like they usually do).

Blacklight.

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.
.

What’s not to like about wading into a bunch of mobs (or players), laying down a bunch of toxic AOE that poisons, cripples, chills and blinds, and then transforming into a diabolical creature that sucks the life out of everything around you? And your allies get heals and a bunch of combo fields at the same time.

And as an added bonus you can really annoy thieves.

Everyone saying “just switch weapons” is missing the point. Maybe Sword on Warrior isn’t the best choice, so you may have a point there. But Dagger on Necro is absolutely the best solo weapon. It does great damage and paired with the staff you really have your bases covered. It’s not an issue of the weapon being appropriate or not, its an issue of weapons not being interesting enough or the combat being too easy. Which of the two it is comes down to deciding whether or not 1) easy content should be interesting or 2) easy content shouldn’t be so easy.

Bump for great justice!

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.

True that. Wake up and give us a tiny fraction of what we had in GW1.

Being that they left out part of what MADE GW1 unique has always boggled my mind.
It was a very bad idea… Id like to at least see at a minimum of something poking at that spirit of things. Their old way of doing skills; Ways to obtain new skills etc.

And switching weapons gets to where it feels forced; im sorry but telling people to switch wpns for more variety is very “yesterday” when we were all so excited about the fresh breath of air with action game play…
I mean what did they think would happen. Everyone WILL get bored at some point with their weapon sets lol. And MANY skills are useless. More so are actualy utility then even an atk; which leads to even more staring at auto atks…

Also “not” having an ability to move said skills around on bar is silly… How you loaded your skills was ALSO a part of Gw1 lol… Its even more important in a faster paced game… And the excuse of change your binds around is also redundant…
1. It would be fine if it saved per character… It ends up being tedious just because of that alone. And then changing a bind for a move on weapon sets ends up wrecking your established fluency with other skills on the other sets.

When they swapped around the guardians 2hand Sword skills w/o warning us it threw me off for a week…Since I pvp I had to swap binds; which just threw me off on my other swaps lol.

I am a fan and will stick with it; its just its frustrating because whats the point of continuing to add the the game content when the game itself is to simple… Harder fights is not what people are looking for right now; its more flavor.

They do not know what the meaning of FUN is…

Its time to put a lil bit of what your already succeeded at in Gw1 into this game…

WtB test server:
They could start by letting players test the game like other mmo’s. Because their In-house team “always” misses lil things that end up being big. (That’s a pretty well established M.O now…)

The fact that almost 99% of PvE content is a facerole IS a problem.

You have to go 10 levels above to get those holy crap fights, and once you hit 80 all open world content is just a joke really…

plasmacutter.2709:

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.

This is what I try to do.

If you don’t like spamming 1 skill, try a class that discourages it such as elementalist, mesmer or engineer. On those professions (well, I don’t have an engineer) I have a different game: chain-burst. What skills land nearly at once to blow up foes before they notice. Yeah, you can sit there and press 1 and the mob will eventually die…or I can time Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatter Stone and Arcane Blast to burst them…that’s definitely not just spamming 1…more like 2, F1, 2, 3, 7…

And then run around in circles for 30+ seconds as bursting that one mob aggroed 2-3 others nearby and your big burst is on recharge.

digiowl.9620:

And then run around in circles for 30+ seconds as bursting that one mob aggroed 2-3 others nearby and your big burst is on recharge.

Well Dragon’s Tooth recharges in 6 seconds, Shatterstone in 2 and Phoenix/Arcane Blast in 20 (if nothing is traited). Also, with my build, the attunements recharge in 11 sec and this is only fire and water attunement. There’s still earth and air as well as other utility skills.

You’re trying to exaggerate, aren’t you?

The OP even mentioned Warrior. I happen to like warrior. Rifle? Probably not the best weapon you want to use if you don’t want to press 1, 3 and F1 most of the time. Longbow has skills, 6 of them, that you want to be using. It’s a very engaging and fun weapon but not great for single target damage. Rifle is much better at this.

As a Necro main… I make heavy use of Life Syphon in WvWvW as it targets Thieves even in stealth.

Leo G.4501:

digiowl.9620:

And then run around in circles for 30+ seconds as bursting that one mob aggroed 2-3 others nearby and your big burst is on recharge.

Well Dragon’s Tooth recharges in 6 seconds, Shatterstone in 2 and Phoenix/Arcane Blast in 20 (if nothing is traited). Also, with my build, the attunements recharge in 11 sec and this is only fire and water attunement. There’s still earth and air as well as other utility skills.

You’re trying to exaggerate, aren’t you?

After a fashion. Btw, Dragon Tooth is notorious for being difficult to use against a moving target, and shatterstone suffers from much the same issue (second or two windup). And this is why they are allowed to have such short recharges.

Kakeru.2873:

Sarrs.4831:

Is it still trendy to tell people to gb2wow?

All kidding aside, I kinda like that rotations vary in their practical applications, and that not every class presses every button to do a DPS rotation. I’m kind of a fan of not having to stay 100% on top of my rotation to play the game. It’s true that a complicated DPS rotation adds depth, but depth can be added in other ways.

Being able to click through a few potential buttons might be nice, though, like you can change between your skills? You should be able to click an arrow above your 1/2/3/4/5 and change it to something else. Like if you’re a necro with a tootyhorn, you can change your daze toot to a fear toot.

Rotations in GW2 consist of . (As a hammer guardian)

1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1

You get the idea, it really isn’t much different than other games with rotations just a lot more simplistic. I made a warrior and leveled him to 35 by that time most of my PVE encounters consisted of pressing the 1 and 2 key as 3, 4 and 5 where soley situation and actually made killing things take longer.

There are several classes in this game who can effectively survive with there heal skill and the 1 key.

Get a greatsword then

My personal experience (PvE wise) is that what we need is better utility skills. Some classes (er..warrior) seems to never have to use them.

Also, from the classes I’ve played, Ele looks like the more interesting, having to attune jugglin’ and finding rotations to avoid being caught in cooldowns and benefiting to self buffs from the arcana traits. It never gets boring playin an ele.

Depends, Ele gets boring after a while too. Your rotation is just longer than on every other class, but it’s still just a rotation. You end up with only spamming skills 2-5 of each element and cycling to the next attunement once all your skills are on cooldown. Oh, and don’t forget to dodge every 10 seconds to activate an additional blast finisher.

And thats only if you play an D/D Ele, staff Ele is actually worse. Biggest difficulty is to aim with the AoE skills, but apart from this is just rotation again. Or maybe even just autoattack, because on staff some atunements don’t make any sense in some situations.

Exterminans.9723:

Depends, Ele gets boring after a while too. Your rotation is just longer than on every other class, but it’s still just a rotation. You end up with only spamming skills 2-5 of each element and cycling to the next attunement once all your skills are on cooldown. Oh, and don’t forget to dodge every 10 seconds to activate an additional blast finisher.

And thats only if you play an D/D Ele, staff Ele is actually worse. Biggest difficulty is to aim with the AoE skills, but apart from this is just rotation again. Or maybe even just autoattack, because on staff some atunements don’t make any sense in some situations.

Heh… someone that still thinks rotations work best. No wonder you think the professions are boring.

My d/d elementalist doesn’t suffer from this at all. No I don’t sit there and go through the same exact cycle every fight. Different fights call for different usages of my attunements. I don’t feel like there is a single useless ability on my d/d elementalist and I use all 20 of them constantly when the situation calls for it.

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.

I’d like to see mutatable skills, so for example an attack could have high direct damage, low damage and a CC or low direct damage and a condition that perhaps deals more damage overall than the regular attack.

It’s be a PITA to balance but it’d be cool and add a lot of variety to the game.

I think instead of adding more slots or more abilities, give us the option to switch between more than 2 weapons.

I know for me the 4th fire attune skill on staff for elementalits is pretty much a suicide button for me. I never press it on purpose, Since a good old dodge does the trick with less work and more options. And when i do press it by accident I often go back flipping off a cliff to my death. Please make it target-able(pick witch way to go) or redesign it completely.

Another thing is the combat uselessness of air attunement for staff.
1)Aggro everything
2)blind then a 10 second recharge.
3)push someone back then 30 second recharge.
4)run fast.
5)stun ONLY if they leave/enter the circle. and 40sec recharge.

seriously 4 and 5 are the only useful skills on that bar, and those are mainly used out of combat. When im actually in combat, I rarely switch to air and when I do I just use 5 then switch to earth.

VOLKON.1290:

Heh… someone that still thinks rotations work best. No wonder you think the professions are boring.

Not you again…

Back on topic, yes, rotations make up 90% of general pve on most classes. You might have to break from them from time to time to dodge, but that’s it for most cases. I’m sure you will want to defend the design anyway though, so maybe I’ll just go have a talk with the wall here…