Guild Wars 2

I think this would mainly help in dungeons along with making the game feel more polished as a whole.

For instance, right now when I am running dungeons (which i love) but one of my only suggestions is having more unique class specific abilities. During the dungeon you can hardly tell who is doing what, and what others are actually doing to help the group.

Example of this is during fights you really can’t tell if I am doing enough to help the group or if it’s someone else, all you see is boons, going off, spells being cast and trying to keep yourself alive. Rarely can I figure out, or see what anyone else is contributing with their specific build, other than we survived the fight and we are continuing to progress through the dungeon.

What would honestly be nice is to see how players builds are helping the group. Is the thief doing a good job with his CC abilities? How is the guardian doing with his support, what about the engineer who is also playing a support build doing?

If the great minds that made this game can just think about a way to differentiate each of the classes so we can say “yep that ranger is using some really good CC” or “wow that necro is pulling off some really good heals with his abilities”. I think it would help the players really like their profession a bit more as well as the group seeing the results of a good player instead of a mish-mash of people casting tons of random spells.

What are other peoples thoughts and opinions?

As someone who’s played 5 different classes, I can usually spot the actions of the professions I play quite easily. Its obviously much easier to spot the different animations when you’re more intimately familiar with them, which is the case if you play the class. On the other hand, when its one of the other 3 classes I haven’t played (Warrior, Necro, Thief) I pretty much haven’t a clue which profession I’m witnessing in action or what attacks are being used, other than knowing staff Necro’s for the scythe staff effect (and I can always tell an axe Necro from that sound effect >.>).

Of course, in massive groups or situations where you’re focused on heavy dodging or something (as in a hectic boss battle) you’re going to notice it less, because your attentions are elsewhere, you’re focused on yourself and what you need to do and not “wow, that guy next to me just used his skill really well”.

I don’t really think further “recognizability” is nessicary on a whole. As long as you’re familiar with the profession it feels pretty recognizable as it is, and I really don’t see the need for all that recognizability anyway, why do you need to know what everyone else is doing unless you’re going to yell at them and tell them to stop sucking?

There are certain skill trees / weapon sets that could use a bit of work, though. Ranger bows seem awfully generic, especially compared to the “animal spirit” concept / visual effects of stuff like the Greatsword or Warhorn, what happened to that idea when it came to the ranged weapons or even the second half of the GS moveset?. I hear Necro’s don’t have very many unikittenfects to thier attacks in general. Engineer elixirs seem pretty low-key, thrown ones are barely noticable (need a larger bottle and a bigger splash) and self-used ones don’t even get a graphic at all, just a drinking animation with an invisible bottle.