TL;DR Replace elite skill slot with regular skill slot, add all elite skills into regular utility skills pool.
Guild wars 2 is a game about choice. Choice of play style, choice of outfits, choice of everything. So if we have a decision about game design, that gives players more choice without or with very little drawback we should make this decision. As of now elite skills are supposed to be super-powerful skills. The problem is, this does not mean that they deserve a special slot. They can easily be regular utility skills that are balanced with their cool downs(and they already are!)
Lets discuss reasons not to make this change:
1) Giving respect to GW1. Elite skills represented a build-defining choice, lets keep them.
Rebuttal: They did indeed represent a very important choice, and i can deeply appreciate the concept. But they do not represent a build-defining choice anymore. Do not be upset, because in GW2 we have weapons! They now serve a purpose of an elite skill from GW1 and serve it even better, since they define from half to 80%(elementalist) of skills on our bar
2) It will be OP!!
Rebuttal: Even after recent chronomancer reveal, that can potentially use every skill on their skill bar twice in a flash, i DO NOT SEE a character with full skill bar of elite skill as super powerful. So it will be ok.
Based on the base classes currently, I’d love to just use a utility in place of most of the elite skills. But with what they’ve shown with the Revenant and the Chronomancer, this is definitely not the case.
The issue is that at the moment, elites are powerful skills that can change the flow of a battle. Moa form disables a player no matter what for a duration and can be used to gain a powerful edge. Lich form, well, deals massive damage. If you were able to put any of them in any slot they’d need to be nerfed, and I enjoy having this kind of skill around. It makes battles more dynamic. Also, what? No weapons don’t serve the purpose of an elite skill. They don’t have the same power as an elite. Just cause they’re a large portion of your skills doesn’t mean they’re the same as an elite.
Would be better to just make the elite skill flexible. Leave all the others as utility only.
The elite skill would be elite OR utility.
On the one hand I agree with you (if by ‘elite skill’ you mean ‘elite skill slot’) since I often dislike the options for elite skills for various builds (for example Guardian elites…). On the other hand, I imagine that doing this would mean several traits and skills would have to rebalanced since it would open up a lot of additional options.
The issue is that at the moment, elites are powerful skills that can change the flow of a battle.
You are just repeating their advertising materials. You have to judge the game independently of what arena.net’s marketing department tells you.
There is not a single class in the game that will become OP and require major nerfs after proposed change. That is because elite skills are already balanced with cool downs.
And weapons DO serve this functions. They both are build-defining part of a character and they both majorly affect flow of the battle(choosing great sword over longbow changes flow of the battle).
Lich Form is probably the only elite in this game that I’ve used that really feels like an elite skill. Big, dangerous looking transformation that produces insane damage output and can conjure a small horde of undead rats… Very elite. Supply Crate is also a good contender as it’s a fight ender more often than not.
I suppose Entangle could also count but it honestly feels more like a strong utility skill than an elite. But at least it’s USEFUL. Unlike two of my elementalist elites that actually make me weaker than I was before I used it.
LOL can just see it the mesmer of the spvp team putting a veil down so the enemy dont see them coming, while their whole team still under stealth, moa the biggest enemy threat, and pop a TimeWarp after that and obliterate the 4 others players, nope not OP at all…. Heck the veil not even needed to make that ridiculous really, and add in the new chronomaner spec’s time shift and you can effectively make it into a 3 vs 7 in terms of effective dmg on each side
You are just repeating their advertising materials. You have to judge the game independently of what arena.net’s marketing department tells you.
There is not a single class in the game that will become OP and require major nerfs after proposed change. That is because elite skills are already balanced with cool downs.
And weapons DO serve this functions. They both are build-defining part of a character and they both majorly affect flow of the battle(choosing great sword over longbow changes flow of the battle).
I’m doing that because the marketing material is (in this case) accurate. I don’t just repeat it (see: Necromancer). Swapping weapons isn’t a major thing to watch out for, unlike an elite. It affects the flow of battle, but not in a major way, unlike elite skills. And they would certainly be unbalanced. Imagine if I could combo plague into lich form. Extreme durability or power for 20% of the fight, whereas right now it’s only 10% and I must choose one or the other. Utility skills would certainly still be used, but they aren’t as extreme as elites. In addition, look at Gummi’s comment. There are certainly elite skills that don’t make a major effect on the battle (see: Renewed Focus). Those should be changed to have bigger effects (though not necessarily better).
