Guild Wars 2

Shouts and Stances are some of the least interesting skill types in the game. This is why i believe many people are fearful of their class’ s Elite Specialization, being that one class that gets stuck with 5 of these type of skills.

I will be honest, i thought the same regarding “TRAPs” in terms of their crappieness, but Anet did manage to make some interesting traps with the DragonHunter Elite spec.

but this here will be the true test. Making Shouts and Stances equally as interesting and exciting as the cool new skills other elite specs are getting.

right now, stances and shouts act as simple self boon buffs or condition appliers. Nothing really interesting there in how they are used except for a few exceptions here and there.

well do you believe Anet can pull this off? Making a FULL SHOUT
or FULL STANCE
elite specialization that has interesting skills?

Share your thoughts on this subject below…

I agree that these mechanics are quite boring. Stances in particular are not as unique as we make them out to be. Many classes have skills that are self only and when cast provide a short duration buff. Take Necromancer and Spectral Armor for example. Spectral Armor could just have easily been Spectral Stance. It’s my hope that stances aren’t spread around to other classes.

Shouts could be made interesting though. Not all of them are passive party wide buffs that you use every time they’re off cooldown. Things like Sic ’Em or Fear Me have some responsive play to them, but even these are quite 1 dimensional. I think it would depend on what class got them. Elementalist for example, if each shout did something different depending on the attunement they were in could add a lot of flexibility to the skills. Or if they change Necromancers to be able to use utility and elite skills while in deathshroud and they had different effects depending on if you were in and out of deathshroud.

What I’m more concerned with are the unfortunate ones who get stuck with minions or spirit weapons. ANet has done a horrendous job with the AI these mechanics use and have designed 2/3rd of their game ignoring these mechanics exist to the point they’re nearly useless in PvE and WvW.