Guild Wars 2

Alot of people have commented on this problem with the combat system in PVE and yes we know that Colin has said they will be adding new skills to the mix and new weapons in the future but will that actually solve the problem?

Unless they change the fundamental way in which the other skills work I don’t see the #1 spam going anywhere anytime soon.

In the engineer forum there’s been talk in the past about increasing the damage of the #2-5 skills and utility skills so that they make a huge difference compared to the #1 slot, improving the combination of skill uses would greatly improve the combat in this or any other game. Conditions as combinations just don’t cut it and the system of AOE fields was a great idea but is hardly impressive when it comes to damage output in the end.

Also the problem with pets is that even before their nerf on rangers there’s no real damage benefit from them. There should be options built into the master and grandmaster traits that while improving overall skills with pets it also improve the pets damage and pet immunity to AOE damage tremendously. That way pet heavy builds would be useful again. (this would be true for turrets, pets and summons improving the three classes that benefit from these the most) Other games have had solutions for these same problems for a long long time and then made adjustments for newly discovered imbalances later.

Timing is everything as well, some classes #1 skills are on a large delay while others are really quick, I can see this being okay if the other skills on those same weapons weren’t gimpt in the damage department.

I agree.

All the flashy particles and huge zergs filling your screen are doing JUST what Arena Net wants:

Masking the extreme shortcomings of the combat system from their players.

All these events lately resemble one thing: mice running on a spinwheel. Over, and over, and over again, ignorant of their hopeless position and blinded by thoughts of reward.

And the players are the mice.

My issues with GW2 combat have been the same as day 1.

Abilities will still fire and incur cool down when no target is in range. I can almost face completely away from the target and hit it in melee, it falls into the realm of shadow boxing too much at times.

I would prefer abilities had lower cool downs, long cool downs being reserved for the right action bars. I like my thief the best because I can budget abilities far easier – or at least it feels that way.

There really needs to be more consistency between classes, getting similar abilities within the same number of trait or slot points spent. One irritation I have found in their system is that the teams seem to work in separate worlds. The easiest means to point this out is with run buffs, its amazing annoying to move from a prof with one to one that has one on CD only. ARGGGGHHH. Just like combat abilities, some classes just flow

but what do you expect? When playing in small groups every skill is absolutely usefull. When in a zerg 100 people are bashing an enemy, of course it doesn’t matter if 20 people spam 1. If every player could CC a champion, no single champion would be able to do any action at all anymore. Defiance is there for a reason.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

but what do you expect? When playing in small groups every skill is absolutely usefull. When in a zerg 100 people are bashing an enemy, of course it doesn’t matter if 20 people spam 1. If every player could CC a champion, no single champion would be able to do any action at all anymore. Defiance is there for a reason.

Defiance could be adjusted it’s been said before.

CC could be easily improved even for players. Know that feeling you get when twenty things take turns in Orr hitting you with their 1 hammer attack each? Yeah. They need an immunity with a short cooldown. 1 for stun and 1 for holds. It’s been hashed in every mmo in history this same problem. It even happened in SWTOR as I recall.

As far as everyone hitting the #1 key improving the damage for the other skills even those that typically do no damage now would be a start.

In a lot of other MMOs, doing continuous, unbridled damage will only result in you pulling aggro and getting dropped. Since aggro in this game is seemingly random, there is no reason to ever stop auto-attacking.

I don’t know if there is anyway to resolve this to help with the issue of spamming #1, but i do believe this factors into the problem.

edit; also, is there even a button to stop auto attacking? I just deselect my target if i start getting beaten by retal or confusion

Shivetya.9278:

My issues with GW2 combat have been the same as day 1.

Abilities will still fire and incur cool down when no target is in range. I can almost face completely away from the target and hit it in melee, it falls into the realm of shadow boxing too much at times.

I would prefer abilities had lower cool downs, long cool downs being reserved for the right action bars. I like my thief the best because I can budget abilities far easier – or at least it feels that way.

Same here .. i really hate that the cooldown starts even if you haven’t any target at all, and i also am no fan from overlong cooldowns, because i seldom use these skills because i always think : nah better not now .. you maybe really need it later.

And the worst are skill with overlong cooldown and a so short duration that you mostly can’t even time them right. Ahh .. that guy will knock me down with his hammer .. now stability .. oh he holds back 1-2 seconds … to late stabilty gone .. knocked down. Next try in 90 seconds or whatever.

This situation has been highlighted for me of late. I’m currently leveling a shadow and guardian in swtor. I played that game for 3 months at launch, quit, and thought I’d check out the expansion. One of the key differences I notice is that the skill/abilities are more varied, there are more of them, and they feel more significant. I have CC’s that actually CC for up to 60 seconds. I have a variety of hard-hitting abilities that feel like hard-hitting abilities. The net effect is not to trivialize combat but rather to open more possibilities and make it more interesting. You simply feel like you have a proper kit at your disposal and it makes combat more interesting.

If I were making recommendations to Anet I would first focus on the word ‘significant’. Is it significant? Does it feel significant? And, I would extend that to the consideration of combat roles. Are they significant? Would it make any difference if I weren’t there, beyond a little loss of DPS?

Who in their right mind is going to sit there and just keep #1 skill on auto-attack without using all of those wonderful other skills we have(all of 4 other SKILLS). The only time I’m spamming #1 is while waiting on the cool-downs from all our other skills activations.

Beldin.5498:

And the worst are skill with overlong cooldown and a so short duration that you mostly can’t even time them right. Ahh .. that guy will knock me down with his hammer .. now stability .. oh he holds back 1-2 seconds … to late stabilty gone .. knocked down. Next try in 90 seconds or whatever.

Exactly why i run pistol/pistol on my engineer even tho i would love to run pistol/shield.

About the only time i really got a flow with the shield was fighting the branded devourer outside Ebonhawke. This because each time i tossed a rock on me i could see the circle come up on the ground and had just the right window for hitting either one of the two skills or dodge.

Rest of the time i have constantly found myself raising the shield a second too soon and have it drop just as the swing comes.

And that cooldowns on defensive skills are consistently 10-20 second longer than offensive ones just fuel the DPS mantra outside of SPVP.

Anyone play a ranger in Aion? Talk about #1 spamming…

I don’t even notice it in this game after playing that one for over a year.

Raine.1394:

This situation has been highlighted for me of late. I’m currently leveling a shadow and guardian in swtor. I played that game for 3 months at launch, quit, and thought I’d check out the expansion. One of the key differences I notice is that the skill/abilities are more varied, there are more of them, and they feel more significant. I have CC’s that actually CC for up to 60 seconds. I have a variety of hard-hitting abilities that feel like hard-hitting abilities. The net effect is not to trivialize combat but rather to open more possibilities and make it more interesting. You simply feel like you have a proper kit at your disposal and it makes combat more interesting.

Yep, i have had a blast playing Sith sorcerer as i could trait up the whirlwind so that it affected multiple targets and last long enough to be chained. Meant that even tho the sorcerer is a glass cannon, i had some measure of control as long as i picked the time and place to fight. I would then open by putting the biggest of the group on hold while taking out his companion.

Similar with LOTRO and the Lore-master, where various abilities can again be used to hold one or more mobs out of the fight.

In both cases it allows a “frail” class to handle a fight by the use of brain rather than brawn and reflexes.

Right now this is completely lacking from GW2, possibly because it makes for static and frustrating SPVP.

And we can’t have that if we are to have a audience worthy e-sport, now can we? /s

Im Mudbone.1437:

Who in their right mind is going to sit there and just keep #1 skill on auto-attack without using all of those wonderful other skills we have(all of 4 other SKILLS). The only time I’m spamming #1 is while waiting on the cool-downs from all our other skills activations.

I only spam one in zergs when it’s pretty pointless to try anything else.

Aerlen.5326:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Who in their right mind is going to sit there and just keep #1 skill on auto-attack without using all of those wonderful other skills we have(all of 4 other SKILLS). The only time I’m spamming #1 is while waiting on the cool-downs from all our other skills activations.

I only spam one in zergs when it’s pretty pointless to try anything else.

LOL! I use all my skills, zerg or no zerg, BUT I do spam 1 while waiting on the ST00PID skill cooldowns. Why is it pointless to use other skills? This puzzles me.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Who in their right mind is going to sit there and just keep #1 skill on auto-attack without using all of those wonderful other skills we have(all of 4 other SKILLS). The only time I’m spamming #1 is while waiting on the cool-downs from all our other skills activations.

Many thieves, main hand axe warriors have little else to do too.

As a dagger necro I certainly understand #1 overshadowing just about everything else. Autoattack does so much damage compared to everything else, meanwhile the other skills have very minimals effects. Why would I care about healing next to nothing while killing my damage with Life Siphon. Or Dark Pact- why do I care about an immobilize in PvE? Everything I’d care to immobilize is immune and everything that isn’t immune I have no need to immobilize. These skills need something extra to be worth using.

I’ve been saying this, they need to remove some dmg/emphasis on the auto’s and put higher dmg/reward/emphasis on the bigger skills and combo’s to reward better more tactical play.

This if for both pvp and pve.

Main hand axe warriors use their 2 skill on occasion, and that F1 ability sometimes too.