Guild Wars 2

By the title i mean elementalits, kit using engineers, and necromancers.

What seems to be the trend with all of them is that for them to competitive, never mind shine, they have to be constantly jumping between “modes”.

This then drives the workload for the players thru the roof compared to professions with no such mechanic.

Why is it that it seems impossible to remain in one mode and maintain competitiveness? I can understand having constant switching as a alternative, but right now it seems to be a requirement. Is that because of the potential inherent in mode switching ANet fear bringing any one mode up to stand-alone competitiveness, less mode switching becomes overpowered?

If so i wonder if ANet needs to reconsider the trait system so that it becomes more of a tradeoff. That taking certain traits and such Not just greatly improves a single mode, but also greatly increase the cost of switching.

How do they make a static mode solid enough to stand alone without making those who efficiently switch between multiple modes not broken as hell?

The better question is – why would you want this? Mode jumping is fun. Static play is not.

Gamble.8654:

How do they make a static mode solid enough to stand alone without making those who efficiently switch between multiple modes not broken as hell?

It’s pretty easy actually, and in some cases already present in the game.
For instance Ele gets faster the more he’s attuned to air; similarly you can make a class get stronget at X the more time he’s been using X by simply slotting a trait that makes it happen just like Ele air trait.

I completely agree with OP btw.
The reason Ele has only 3 builds is because he can’t specialize into an Element.

Good design is having a player switch to a “stance” according to the situation.
Bad design is making a class only viable if switching constantly and spamming everything on each stance’s skillbar.

The way Ele plays currently is classic WoW “rotational” skill usage, which is a pretty bad way to play in a game based on reactionary combat.

There is a point – the more involved the gameplay the greater the output ought to be, tested over years and loved by gamers.

I don’t think we have that yet, nor do I think anyone is fairly defining “output” (including me) in this thread.

I would actually like to see the other classes be more like the Ele/Eng in that each class can switch between 4 weapon sets instead of the current 2. It could really open up combat and boss fights and at the same time speed up engagement by reducing or eliminating weapon set swaps between fights.