Guild Wars 2

In Guild Wars 1 you had a huge amount of skills on your disposal, unfortunately GW2 is really poor on skills.

Every character has only 3 elite ( plus 3 useless common ), and aside that they are not that useful… You should add many skills for every class, and you should add quests in order to get them, or Signet Of capture, like GW1 it was sooo much fun!

And weapon skills are so bad, you cant arrange them in the order you want, and they dont give you many options. Every weapon (main or off) should have many skills, and you may choose those that suit you the best, like you choose from the right side.

When it comes to utility skills (right side ) , I can say thy are really bad! I barely use them… At the end just copy the skills from GW1 in to GW2.

Mesmers dont have conjure phantasm, no echo! Necromancer dont have Spiteful Spirit, Toxic chill, spoil victor! And I imagine people that play other classes may feel the same disappointment!

Necro’s don’t have SS skill but they have the SS trait now. And if you think Mes and Necro have it bad missing GW skills, try Ranger. All of our good skills were given to the Warrior and Thief.

I understand and appreciate the OP’s opinion, but GW2 is a radically different game from GW1, and it’s on purpose. They brought a flavor of GW1 over to this game, but it really is doing it’s own thing. There really isn’t a reason to change it to that or it would just be too much of the same. I understand wanting a ton of diversity, but that comes in trait assignment really. Build changes can range from subtle to pretty drastically different. Hey, if you like GW1’s combat it is still around to play! That’s a great thing.

This game was for a different audience sadly…
I dont think the old devs made anything here either.

Agree that we need more skills, but I don’t think there was more on prophecies when it was released (or until factions, nightfall and gwen), didn’t count but I think there is about the same amount of skill on gw2 than on prophecies.
The thing is on gw we had a double profession, so acces to much more skills.

In the future, maybe an expansion it would be awesome if we see more skills per weapon type. 3-5 per weapon would be awesome.

Even if each weapon has 2 sets and you could pick one skill from each set that would go a long way.
I’d also like all utilities to be able to be placed in the elite slot which would then make them ‘elite’. So like their normal versions but with more damage or a shorter cooldown.

Gunsnroll.2657:

Agree that we need more skills, but I don’t think there was more on prophecies when it was released (or until factions, nightfall and gwen), didn’t count but I think there is about the same amount of skill on gw2 than on prophecies.
The thing is on gw we had a double profession, so acces to much more skills.

In Prophecies we had 200 skills per profession. So with the dual-professions we got 400 skills to choose from. Right now we have 5 set skills per weapon, 3 Elites, and about 40 utility skills. I think Prophecies had more.

Galphar.3901:

In Prophecies we had 200 skills per profession. So with the dual-professions we got 400 skills to choose from. Right now we have 5 set skills per weapon, 3 Elites, and about 40 utility skills. I think Prophecies had more.

Now I counted. There is about 80 skills per profession, not 200. (Core + Prophecies)
So yeah, a little more on prophecies than on GW2. I counted 78 skill for warrior (without chain skill, or modified skill, drowned, downed skills). Ok, warrior have lot of weapons availlable, guardian have 68 skills.

So yeah, basically th esame amount of skill on prophecies and gw2.

More doesn’t equal better. Only 10% of the Guild Wars 1 skills were awesome, and only 30% really useful. And balancing was a pain.

However, if you must have more skills, play an Elementalist.

You get 5 weapons with 20 skills each (100 total), 60 traits, 3 healing skills, 20 utility skills, 4 elites, 25 skills from conjured weapons, 4 skills on attunement swap, 4 skills on dodge, 4 skills when falling. That’s 224 skills and THEN you can also combo with your fields of those of other players for even more options or pickup environmental weapons, siege engines or racial skills.

There’s variety there dude. Just gotta know where to look.

Edit: My humble apologies, I forgot the 16 skills you get while underwater. Sorry for that.

I too would like to see a number of new skills or at least other classes having access to 25 skills like the Elementalist.

The problem is that there is no counter-play.

All builds are designed around a certain trick or skill and there is no variety. I play the same way against pretty much every class I come up against since my build is only really designed to do one thing well.

That’s why unfortunately combat feels very shallow as I’m always performing the same moves.

It also means that may class or build isn’t equipped to deal with all situations and that you end up with “hard-counters” at times, aka. fights you simply cannot win because of your build.

Personally I think you need at least 20 skills per character to really have deep and interesting counter-play.

I think most of what you mention is actually intentionally designed that way. In a sense, Guild Wars 2 is costume brawl 2.0 where you pick a weapon and that decides most of your strengths and weaknesses. The benefit of ‘no build has counters to everything’ is that nothing becomes unbeatable, making balance a lot easier. As for combat stagnating, you could try some less obvious combinations and try to make them work.

Or just play engineer or elementalist.

Dee Jay.2460:

Personally I think you need at least 20 skills per character to really have deep and interesting counter-play.

Or 8 like we had in GW1, and there, we really had to think what skill we have to bring with us because we couldn’t change them in instance.
Now you can take whatever you like, you can change them depending the fight.
The time when we have to think about all the dungeon and not only one fight is over.

They need more skills.

They need to make the traits that increase damage a standard for the five point traits so that we can pick and choose from the traits that make a difference in the skills and how they function rather than wasting some choices just to get that extra 5%.

They need to make condition damage a non-automatic thing that is only added to the skills for damage when a character chooses a trait line that’s heavy into condition damage. For example, remove all bleeds until that character is traited into grandmaster condition duration/damage trait line.

They need to make all damage equalized for the purpose of keeping the game honest. For example, engineer #1 rifle shot shouldn’t do less damage in an equal burst zerker damage build with the same gear as a warrior #1 shot.

They need to stop adding more and more hitpoints to pets and finally just buckle down and give them a 90% AOE immunity and the ability to rez their owners even if they are in the non-combat stage, and allow summons and turrets an immunity those few seconds of summoning (2s would do).

There’s just alot that needs fixing to make the diversity in combat a real feature in this game.

tigirius.9014:

They need more skills.

No they don’t.

They need to make the traits that increase damage a standard for the five point traits so that we can pick and choose from the traits that make a difference in the skills and how they function rather than wasting some choices just to get that extra 5%.

Not all +damage traits are simply +damage. Many function in a different way (when endurance is full or when endurances is not full are just one of many examples). They want you to choose between more damage and more utility.

They need to make condition damage a non-automatic thing that is only added to the skills for damage when a character chooses a trait line that’s heavy into condition damage. For example, remove all bleeds until that character is traited into grandmaster condition duration/damage trait line.

And modify half the game to do so. Not viable at this point.

They need to make all damage equalized for the purpose of keeping the game honest. For example, engineer #1 rifle shot shouldn’t do less damage in an equal burst zerker damage build with the same gear as a warrior #1 shot.

Balancing individual skills only makes sense when a player can choose between those single skills. In this case, not only does the player choose between 2 sets of 5 skills, they choose between 2 different professions. Factor in the engineer’s other rifle skills, his utility skills and then compare them. At the very least, compare builds, not individual skills.

They need to stop adding more and more hitpoints to pets and finally just buckle down and give them a 90% AOE immunity and the ability to rez their owners even if they are in the non-combat stage, and allow summons and turrets an immunity those few seconds of summoning (2s would do).

This isn’t World of Warcraft. AoE skills function very differently from those in WoW. You can hit stuff in GW2 with your melee weapons without ever targetting them. Many melee weapons have AoE too. You cannot distinguish between them as easily as in WoW, where there were only 2 skill types: directly targetted and a small area in the game. So that solution wouldn’t work.

There’s just alot that needs fixing to make the diversity in combat a real feature in this game.

The diversity isn’t smaller than other games either. They often seem like they have a lot more variation, but often it’s just a bunch of alternatives you’d never use because they’re not viable. When you compare the WoW hunter to the GW2 ranger, you’ll notice that the variety in skills between the Shortbow and Longbow is larger than that of the Survivalist and the Marksman.

Galphar.3901:

Necro’s don’t have SS skill but they have the SS trait now. And if you think Mes and Necro have it bad missing GW skills, try Ranger. All of our good skills were given to the Warrior and Thief.

Yes they were and some good skills just didnt make the jump from Gw1 to GW2 at all

ThiBash.5634:

More doesn’t equal better.

Less doesn’t equal better, either.

ThiBash.5634:

Only 10% of the Guild Wars 1 skills were awesome, and only 30% really useful.

Yeah, that’s a problem totally exclusive to Guild Wars 1. I mean, just look at all those engineers running Throw Mine.

ThiBash.5634:

And balancing was a pain.

That’s why we pay them the big bucks.

ThiBash.5634:

However, if you must have more skills, play an Elementalist.

You’re missing the point. It’s not about having a bunch of skills, it’s about having the a choice when it comes to skills. If you want to play a hammer-wielding, damage-dealing warrior you’re out of luck. It’s crowd control or find another weapon.

ThiBash.5634:

You get 5 weapons with 20 skills each (100 total), 60 traits, 3 healing skills, 20 utility skills, 4 elites, 25 skills from conjured weapons, 4 skills on attunement swap, 4 skills on dodge, 4 skills when falling. That’s 224 skills and THEN you can also combo with your fields of those of other players for even more options or pickup environmental weapons, siege engines or racial skills.

See above.

ThiBash.5634:

There’s variety there dude. Just gotta know where to look.

Sure there is. But the variety is restrictive. You can build your character to fill one of several roles, but there’s no variety once you pick that role. You’re always going to be rocking swords and longbows if you want to be a condition-damage warrior. It doesn’t matter if you dislike swords…it doesn’t matter if you really like The Moot…it’s swords or find another role to fill. Period. That’s inflexibility at it’s finest.

ThiBash.5634:

Edit: My humble apologies, I forgot the 16 skills you get while underwater. Sorry for that.

Apology accepted.

When is the new soldier profession that has unfixed weapon skills going to be released?

Iason Evan.3806:

I understand and appreciate the OP’s opinion, but GW2 is a radically different game from GW1, and it’s on purpose. They brought a flavor of GW1 over to this game, but it really is doing it’s own thing. There really isn’t a reason to change it to that or it would just be too much of the same. I understand wanting a ton of diversity, but that comes in trait assignment really. Build changes can range from subtle to pretty drastically different. Hey, if you like GW1’s combat it is still around to play! That’s a great thing.

It’s not about having GW1’s combat, it’s about having the diversity, there’s VERY little in this game.

Using the “It’s a different game” card is wrong, all you’re saying is “It’s inferior but it’s on purpose! For the sake being different!”, that’s just, ugh.

I think the skill system is the defining factor that made gw what it was. I am surprised that the system the had wasn`t carried over. I liked being able to load my bar with exactly what I wanted.

I see that you are new in this game.. Why did you bought this game if you dont like it ?

Biohazard.7523:

I see that you are new in this game.. Why did you bought this game if you dont like it ?

More flawed arguments.

“I dislike this one thing in this game”

“Why do you hate this game?”

Lol.

I don’t think the game desperately needs more skills. Playing a norn ranger, it’s obvious that we need quality over quantity.

Yes, this includes racial skills. I understand the risks of empowering some races over others, but that’s already been the reality. Overall, every player is saddled with “cute” skills that cannot be taken seriously and have no business being on the bar other than faffing about.

Re-visiting racial skills will give new build options and would make use of the existing skills that have been suppressed.

I felt like the GW build system was intuitive, diverse, and fun. It was one of the features that made the game unique.

One of my biggest disappointments in GW2 was that the original skill/traiting system from GW did not cross over.

We know, they know, we know, they know.

Colin said they have an optimisation team working on the game but a certain thread about optimisation was closed without a “We’ve just done this guys, working on this next” so I have my doubts about his tales of new skills coming into the game.

Elite skills need a 100% overhaul (well, maybe 89%).

ThiBash.5634:

More doesn’t equal better. Only 10% of the Guild Wars 1 skills were awesome, and only 30% really useful. And balancing was a pain.

Perhaps you should take a closer look at GW2 skills – they aren’t in any better situation. And i’m not even going to touch the can of worms that is GW2’s skill balance.

Paul.4081:

Elite skills need a 100% overhaul (well, maybe 89%).

Yeah. I found it really funny (not!) when the most common argument against letting people use normal utility skills in elite slot was “that would be too OP”.

darkace.8925:

ThiBash.5634:

More doesn’t equal better.

Less doesn’t equal better, either.

Actually, psychological studies have indicated that people get happier if they have less choices.

ThiBash.5634:

Only 10% of the Guild Wars 1 skills were awesome, and only 30% really useful.

Yeah, that’s a problem totally exclusive to Guild Wars 1. I mean, just look at all those engineers running Throw Mine.

True, but for Guild Wars 1 that’s hundreds of skills. Here’s it’s just a handful. And all weapons are viable at least.

ThiBash.5634:

And balancing was a pain.

That’s why we pay them the big bucks.

Given the fact that Blizzard couldn’t (didn’t?) even balance WoW for the insane amount of money they got each month, I really doubt this is a money issue. In general I mean.

ThiBash.5634:

However, if you must have more skills, play an Elementalist.

You’re missing the point. It’s not about having a bunch of skills, it’s about having the a choice when it comes to skills. If you want to play a hammer-wielding, damage-dealing warrior you’re out of luck. It’s crowd control or find another weapon.

So that means we don’t need more skills, just more choices? I think the real issue here is that people want to play a damage dealer in a game that’s about more than just damage. It’s like wanting to fly an X-Wing through Star Trek Online.

ThiBash.5634:

There’s variety there dude. Just gotta know where to look.

Sure there is. But the variety is restrictive. You can build your character to fill one of several roles, but there’s no variety once you pick that role. You’re always going to be rocking swords and longbows if you want to be a condition-damage warrior. It doesn’t matter if you dislike swords…it doesn’t matter if you really like The Moot…it’s swords or find another role to fill. Period. That’s inflexibility at it’s finest.

So how is this better than games where you have a random weapon that only matters for the attack animation?

The thing you’re forgetting here is that all of this was design intent. The the devs intended to do things differently and wheter you agree with them or not, they’re not gonna change their game design because it’s a LOT of work and would essentially just turn the game back into a WoW clone.

ArenaNet made the choice to make skill sets instead of skill slots. Personally, I think it has worked out relatively well.

ThiBash.5634:

Actually, psychological studies have indicated that people get happier if they have less choices.

This is a game not life. Games that give much more player customization are always better well received.

ThiBash.5634:

True, but for Guild Wars 1 that’s hundreds of skills. Here’s it’s just a handful. And all weapons are viable at least.

Exactly, if only 30% of the skills in a game are useful, then statistically having 1000 skills gives 300 useful skills, where as a game with 100 skills only has 30.

GW1 may have had a lot of duds, but a lot more viable options as well. I spent HOURS upon HOURS constantly customizing builds on a single character just playing PvP casually, silly builds, gimmicky builds, w/e. I had a ton of fun doing that, I don’t care if top level of pvp or dungeon only had X builds.

IMO having more customization would have been much better for “esports” just by simply making the casual pvp more fun, that’s what’s important for an esports is the casual playerbase that plays/watches. And would even make top level of play deeper. Not to mention so I don’t get bored after 100%‘ing 2 zones on a single character since there’s only a handful of useful abilities/weapons there lol.

ThiBash.5634:

Given the fact that Blizzard couldn’t (didn’t?) even balance WoW for the insane amount of money they got each month, I really doubt this is a money issue. In general I mean.

Just because it’s hard to perfectly balance a game doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. And just because it’s hard to balance a game doesn’t mean you should reduce peoples’ options. Look where that got us. Way less skills/builds and the balance is a mess a year in, might as well go all out and let us atleast have fun with more skills/build options.

It’s a bad idea to dumb down a game to make it easier for people to play, instead you should make it more intuitive and easy to learn for new players. When I first started playing GW1, the amount of abilities (besides being incredibly exciting) was intimidating, atleast going into PvP, but it was really easy to learn all the abilities just because of how simple/intuitive they were, and because a very clear cast bar UI told me which abilities were being used and I could even read their tooltips lol, I got the hang of it quickly.

ThiBash.5634:

So that means we don’t need more skills, just more choices? I think the real issue here is that people want to play a damage dealer in a game that’s about more than just damage. It’s like wanting to fly an X-Wing through Star Trek Online.

Yeah, but it’s kind of the same thing. There just needs to be more ways to customize your playstyle, whether that’s alternative weapon skills for weapons, or a redone trait system to allow more options, or new traits that change how skills work, or new traits that give AND take so they’re meaningful decisions.

Also I think you have that backwards, people want to play something other than a pure damage dealer in a game that’s ONLY about dealing damage lol.

ThiBash.5634:

So how is this better than games where you have a random weapon that only matters for the attack animation?

The thing you’re forgetting here is that all of this was design intent. The the devs intended to do things differently and wheter you agree with them or not, they’re not gonna change their game design because it’s a LOT of work and would essentially just turn the game back into a WoW clone.

ArenaNet made the choice to make skill sets instead of skill slots. Personally, I think it has worked out relatively well.

I’m fine with the way they did weapons, but just adding alternative weapon skills would easily add more customization. And there are some weapons that are well designed enough to go either Condi or Power dmg fairly well. If there was a rework to how Condition Dmg scaled it could be done even better as well.

Also I don’t like the “will turn into a WoW-clone” argument. (Arguably it’s already a wow clone with the new gear grind hue hue). But adding new skills/choices/variety/builds/etc isn’t going to make the game a WoW-clone.

The way weapon sets are set up, and with the way traits are, there’s really not much you can do to customize your “PLAYSTYLE”, you could customize a build to a degree, but not really your “playstyle”, since a weapon set is always going to have the exact same playstyle no matter what. If there was customization/traits that actually CHANGED how abilities work, that may have been the case.

Astralporing.1957:

Yeah. I found it really funny (not!) when the most common argument against letting people use normal utility skills in elite slot was “that would be too OP”.

Yeah that’s pretty sad. I never liked what Anet did with elites in this game, the long CD “I Win” button was a terrible idea. I believe they went this route because of following League of Legends and was hoping elites would be that “epic” moment in combat, when that would only be annoying to play with.

Ultimates in LoL/DotA completely define their characters, you can’t have that here, where these 3 min Elites are just “tacked on”. And in making sure they weren’t too strong, they kitten a lot of them which just defeats the whole purpose. And as I said I never liked long cd I Win buttons.

I loved how Elites were in GW1, you could make a build around them, and they weren’t all just I Win buttons, they were more like regular abilities, just “stronger” in some fashion.

I really think they should’ve carried that idea over to this game, just make it so the Elite slot is just a 4th Utility Slot, except any abilties slotted there are “improved” in some way.

Like say an Elementalist had Glyph of Lesser Elemental, putting that utility skill in the Elite slot would make it Glyph of Greater Elemental instead. Then the current Elite skills would just be remade into normal utility skills, with an improved Elite version. That would’ve been way more interesting and added more customization.

But I’m afraid it’s a little too late for something that awesome.

If you could choose 5 two handed weapon skills out of a pool of 10, or 3 main hand weapon skills out of a pool of 6, and 2 offhand weapon skills out of a pool of 4 what are the reasons why you wouldn’t want to?

When this game gets its new skills to acquire by unlocking them through completing content do you think the heal, utility, and elite skills will be sufficient enough to not require an additional tier of gear as the main form of character progression?

Would you like to keep weapon sets fixed and unlock new traits through completing content instead?

Biohazard.7523:

I see that you are new in this game.. Why did you bought this game if you dont like it ?

I bought this game because I loved GW. Played it for 8 years. And the skill system was one of the things many GW vets thought would be in GW2 “according to the manifesto”.

ThiBash.5634:

The thing you’re forgetting here is that all of this was design intent. The the devs intended to do things differently and wheter you agree with them or not, they’re not gonna change their game design because it’s a LOT of work and would essentially just turn the game back into a WoW clone.

ArenaNet made the choice to make skill sets instead of skill slots. Personally, I think it has worked out relatively well.

How would using the same skill and traits design Anet used in GW make GW2 and WoW clone? Obviously you never played GW and aren’t familiar with the massive amount of viable builds we had.

Galphar.3901:

massive amount of viable builds we had.

To be fair it was the illusion of massive amount of viable builds because it was always changing, which not surprisingly is the same thing here with each balance patch. It’s about progression. Gw1 had the perfect bridge, casuals would be unlocking skills to better do content while the hardcore would grind for aesthetics. Ascended gear was implemented poorly because we didn’t have the skills yet. I’m curious as to what anet is thinking and the direction gw2 will be taking.

Personally, I much prefer GW2’s use of weapon sets to determine the first half of our skills, with more customization options for the second half. I’d like to see more skills introduced, but I also think GW1 reached the point where it had too many options for its own good. GW1 took some influence from Magic: The Gathering with it’s heavy-customization system, and I think its telling that MTG’s healthiest formats are Modern and Standard (formats with limited card pools,) rather than Vintage (a card pool stretching back to when the game first launched.) Vintage has innumerably more options, but few viable options. I enjoyed Guild Wars 1 a lot, but I found the number of skills overwhelming, and found myself without any good way to process all the relevant number crunching, even after playing through two complete campaigns, and so I just had to settle into an unoptimized build that I liked, which I also knew was quirky and inefficient.

Setting aside my own preferences, however, I think this is one of the many areas where people need to keep in mind that no one answer is going to please everyone. It’s made even more complicated when you consider that some are playing sPVP, some WvW, some dungeon runs, and some just knocking about casually in PvE. Changing things for one group is going to change them the others, for better or worse. Neither “more choices” nor “fewer choices” is always going to be the correct answer; it’s a balance. Guild Wars 1 vets who are disappointed in the change in direction have an understandable viewpoint, and so do those who prefer the new direction.

What really baffles me are the people who act surprised about the change, including people who still quote the manifesto, but don’t seem to have followed any of the development or pre-launch previews before that. (Before anyone takes that personally, I mean that as a recurring thing I keep seeing, not directed at anyone in particular in this thread.)

I agree, I believe weapons shouldn’t be tied to conditions or stuns, etc. I think having the option to chose (even between 2 skills) would greatly increase my combat satisfaction. I would love sword for warrior that is full damage, as well as a hammer that could go DPS instead of stun.

I would rather have choices for my skills than more weapon choices, I want just a little more customization on my skill bar than what we currently have.

Redenaz.8631:

Personally, I much prefer GW2’s use of weapon sets to determine the first half of our skills, with more customization options for the second half. I’d like to see more skills introduced, but I also think GW1 reached the point where it had too many options for its own good. GW1 took some influence from Magic: The Gathering with it’s heavy-customization system, and I think its telling that MTG’s healthiest formats are Modern and Standard (formats with limited card pools,) rather than Vintage (a card pool stretching back to when the game first launched.) Vintage has innumerably more options, but few viable options. I enjoyed Guild Wars 1 a lot, but I found the number of skills overwhelming, and found myself without any good way to process all the relevant number crunching, even after playing through two complete campaigns, and so I just had to settle into an unoptimized build that I liked, which I also knew was quirky and inefficient.

That is describing cross profession skills. Gw2 warrior hammer is different from guardian hammer. If the amount of weapon skills were doubled and made unfixed additional weapon sets could be introduced as opposed to additional fixed sets.

They already said they’re working on new skills.
The question is – will we be finally able to switch out weapon skills or will we be bound to play with the same 5 GS skills till the end of the GW2? For 5+ years?

Ah, yes, that’s on me. The OP mentioned the huge number of GW1 skills, and my brain immediately jumped to the full-spectrum of cross-class options. If it’s just restricted to one class, the options aren’t as overwhelming.

I just wish they would let us use more than 10 skills at the same time. This adds more complexity, therefore has the chance to add more depth to the combat.

10 skills it far enough. Nothing to do about complexity, you can change them when you want anyway. You don’t have to think about the whole intance.
You didn’t play gw1, you don’t know how was the complexity with 8 skills.

I’m still with ArenaNet in the sense that there’s a lot more depth in this game than people give it credit. You can pick any utility you want, any trait and best of all, there’s combos that literally customize your attacks on the fly.

What I see here is mostly warriors that play their profession as a faceroll auto attacker and then complain about being bored.

How many of you play an elementalist or engineer and have the same complaint?

Knote.2904:

ThiBash.5634:

Actually, psychological studies have indicated that people get happier if they have less choices.

This is a game not life. Games that give much more player customization are always better well received.

The studies were about ice cream. Also, show me the statistical evidence of your ‘always’.

People think they’ll happier with more options, but often when they do they’re not happier.

Just look at the elementalist. It’s just as viable as a warrior, but people complain about having to do more for the same effort.

Why do I have to play Elementalist or Engineer to have access to more skills?
I want to play as a Greatsword guardian, but quite frankly, I’m bored of using same 5 skills since the beta, yes, since beta.

They couldn’t balance the skills in GW1, they can’t balance even lower number of skills in GW2.

ThiBash.5634:

More doesn’t equal better. Only 10% of the Guild Wars 1 skills were awesome, and only 30% really useful. And balancing was a pain.

However, if you must have more skills, play an Elementalist.

You get 5 weapons with 20 skills each (100 total), 60 traits, 3 healing skills, 20 utility skills, 4 elites, 25 skills from conjured weapons, 4 skills on attunement swap, 4 skills on dodge, 4 skills when falling. That’s 224 skills and THEN you can also combo with your fields of those of other players for even more options or pickup environmental weapons, siege engines or racial skills.

…and yet in practise this game feels like there is a real lack of player choice. I think this is mainly due to:

• lack of a resource system (energy) and a distinct lack of skills with conditional effects (eg: GW1 hexes like fragility), and
• too many garbage traits, and
• traits lines being strongly tied to stats & weapon choices, ie: your weapon and utility choices usually determine your traits. Together with selecting the “msut-have” trait(s), there’s no real choice involved.

So even though numerically it would seem this game has as much choice as Prophecies, in practise it doesn’t, at all. In fact the lack of choice is stifling.

Attribute system seems less gimmicky than trait system to be honest.
Traits don’t FUNDAMENTALLY change your skills, they only add extra +x.

Nick.6972:

Why do I have to play Elementalist or Engineer to have access to more skills?
I want to play as a Greatsword guardian, but quite frankly, I’m bored of using same 5 skills since the beta, yes, since beta.

Because elementalist and engineer are designed to be the classes with a ton of skills. If every class got an increase in skill options, elementalist and engineer would have to have even more to retain that same quality. They risk hitting a ceiling, however, where that quality is not longer substantially useful.

I wonder how many skills would have to have “You can only use this with <weapon> equipped.” While I could theoretically use “Shield of Absorption” or “Mighty Blow” with a greatsword, they might seem a little awkward. And I’m certainly not going to be using Mighty Blow with a scepter.

Edit: This is probably obvious, but the above paragraph only applies if someone is wanting to totally decouple weapons from skill sets. If it’s a question of adding more skills to weapons, which can then be swapped out, but only with that weapon, to change the play style of that weapon, that’s a different thing entirely.

Copy Paste from GW1 with a new effect.
Guardian #3 GS skill.
Chilling Victory
Ground Targeting/ AoE. Deal X damage and Chill for Y time.

Tons of ideas for new Guardian skills here.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_dervish_skills

ThiBash.5634:

What I see here is mostly warriors that play their profession as a faceroll auto attacker and then complain about being bored.

So what your saying is warriors should get unfixed weapon skills? Why didn’t you just say so?

I main ranger and I’d love the option to have a “real” ranger like I had in GW. All the good ranger skills from GW were given to other professions and now ragers are forced to melee. We’re supposed to be THE RANGED CLASS.

Redenaz.8631:

Nick.6972:

Why do I have to play Elementalist or Engineer to have access to more skills?
I want to play as a Greatsword guardian, but quite frankly, I’m bored of using same 5 skills since the beta, yes, since beta.

Because elementalist and engineer are designed to be the classes with a ton of skills. If every class got an increase in skill options, elementalist and engineer would have to have even more to retain that same quality. They risk hitting a ceiling, however, where that quality is not longer substantially useful.

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I wonder how many skills would have to have “You can only use this with <weapon> equipped.” While I could theoretically use “Shield of Absorption” or “Mighty Blow” with a greatsword, they might seem a little awkward. And I’m certainly not going to be using Mighty Blow with a scepter.

Edit: This is probably obvious, but the above paragraph only applies if someone is wanting to totally decouple weapons from skill sets. If it’s a question of adding more skills to weapons, which can then be swapped out, but only with that weapon, to change the play style of that weapon, that’s a different thing entirely.

If you look at the GW skills (especially Warrior), you’ll see that most were tied to one or two weapons. ALL Ranger skills were tied to a bow, Warriors had 4 skill sets(Axe, Hammer, Sword, and shield), and the casters were stuck with Scepter/Focus and Staff. With Factions we got Daggers for Ninjas and with Nightfall we got Spears for Paragons and Scythe for Dervish. If you wanted to use a hammer as a Ranger you had to make your secondary Warrior(Hammer/BM build), If you wanted to use Staff you had to go with one of the caster professions(Trapper Ranger).

one word: casualization