Guild Wars 2

The skills in this game are organized by cool down, which is why SoW was moved back. There is a reason for this change, and no number of requests can get your old skill bar back without changing the cool downs again.

To all the people posting about the skill bar haters, understand a lot of the issues have nothing to do with the skill bar change.

Hint.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestion-Please-fix-guardian-Zeal-trait-line/first#post381980

This is the issue.

Thanks for stating the obvious. Thanks for making your opinion public. And I would thank you even more if your opinion would be an informed one, taking the aspects discussed in these forums into consideration.

Like what? I am addressing only the people that are hating on the order of skills, not the other issues, although please do mention these. I play Staff + Mace/Shield and have not used Greatsword for a while. I know that certain traits like the ones in the honor and zeal trees are only half as useful because of it, but then again you get more blinds out of the leap because that CD was shortened.

Leap does not function half of the time, erratically placing you above your target or wherever. And in those instances the blind is not applied. So maybe they should start fixing the bugs instead of continuously nerfing us towards less damage and more buff-bot state…

As to the skill order: sure, in a couple of days or weeks I will have adapted. But why create discomfort needlessly? Just not understandable. Only to have the cds in proper order? Not good enough for me!

I read that thread earlier, and I’m aware of that problem. I do agree that the change has negatively impacted Greatsword users who didn’t take advantage of retaliation, but I am once again only getting it out there that skills are ordered in order of cool down from shortest to longest, which people don’t seem to realize. Many people that don’t take advantage of those traits are just complaining about the skill order and constantly asking for the old skill order.

Dolothane.4306:

I read that thread earlier, and I’m aware of that problem. I do agree that the change has negatively impacted Greatsword users who didn’t take advantage of retaliation, but I am once again only getting it out there that skills are ordered in order of cool down from shortest to longest, which people don’t seem to realize. Many people that don’t take advantage of those traits are just complaining about the skill order and constantly asking for the old skill order.

Not even true. Mesmers had their recharges changed on staff with Chaos Armor and Chaos Storm and that did not even change position on the bar. Invalid argument.

Also, please stop clicking and keybind your abilities. Dragging a mouse around the UI is slow and won’t do you any good in competitive pvp.

zuleo.7863:

Also, please stop clicking and keybind your abilities. Dragging a mouse around the UI is slow and won’t do you any good in competitive pvp.

Your suggestion would be appreciated if this game keybinding were better.
The current keybinding system affects every single weapon bar, including your other weapon set and underwather weapon sets.
So you are actually unable to keybind all your weapon skills as you wish unless you play using a single weapon set.
An example: before this patch both the greatsword and the mace (the two weapons heavily based on their symbols and so commonly paired in any symbol build) had their symbol skills as their 2nd weapon skill.
This was very helpful and user-friendly, because when recasting a symbol you just had to press wichever keybind you had set for the “2” skill redgardless of wich weapon was currently equipped.

Now the symbol on the mace is still the 2nd skill, but the greatsword one is the 4th.
Since keybinding affecta all your weapons at the same time, it is impossible to recreate that intuitive simplicity (swapping the keybindings for the greatsword would mess up the keybindgs of your mace).

The whole issue could be avoided with an improvement of the binding UI or the ability to customize the weapon skill bar.
If you would care to read the main topic from the beginning you would notice that it’s one of the most common request the community has made in response of the whole greatsword issue.

I’d like to think that most people would consider the complete rearrangement of skill bars every time a cooldown gets adjusted a problem.

So what if the skills are organized by CD? That’s fine. Keep that as a default setting for new players coming into the game or for players learning that profession. But, if game updates are going to shift player buttons around every time such a patch comes in, then it’s going to introduce needless frustration to one’s gaming experience, and that’s not fine — especially if you take into account casual players that play once a week on a so called “game night.”

Do you really think they want to deal with re-learning their keys every time they play?

Let me put it this way: I’m sure we’re all accustomed to using QWERTY keyboards. Now, imagine if each time you upgraded your PC, that you would have to deal with a new key board layout. It doesn’t matter how open you are to that idea, your response time and performance is significantly reduced until you re-learn the key positioning. And, such a change is going to affect anything you have scheduled for that day — which leads to needless frustration.

And, is that really necessary?

No, it’s not. And there is a very simple fix to it. Either you allow people to customize their hotkey placements in the hotbar, skill bar, or action bar — w/e you want to call it. And, if this is problematic because of the way weapons are unlocked and swapped in and out, and so on, then under the weapon skills tab in the hero menu, you allow people to arrange their weapon spells there. And, this function can be unlocked once the weapon spells are unlocked.

This will introduce consistency in people’s gaming experience.

More so, allowing this customization gives players various benefits, especially when it comes to players that play multiple toons. For example, it allows players to transition from one character to another much easier when their #5 key is their whirlwind button whether they’re on the warrior or guardian. Or, their #2 key is their gap closer.

Whatever the case may be, the thing is that where people want their buttons is very subjective. And, because of how the weapon/spell mechanic is designed in this game, allowing key bindings isn’t enough to accommodate people’s personal preferences. Essentially, the designers are forcing people into default keys that do not always fit into people’s play styles. But, even worse, these keys can change on the fly, so-to-speak, thus opening up players to a negative gaming experience.

And if the goal is to make the best game possible, then this needs to be addressed appropriately. As it stands, it has been neglected. Hence, all the frustration you’re seeing with this update.

Ah yes, yet another sheep blindly following the lead of a game company who they think can do no wrong. Seriously, why are there even people out there who think every change is ok, even when it’s a bad change and poorly thought out?

Dolothane.4306:

The skills in this game are organized by cool down, which is why SoW was moved back. There is a reason for this change, and no number of requests can get your old skill bar back without changing the cool downs again.

Really now? Go try out a dagger dagger Ele and tell me that the earth attuned 4 is short than the 5. It’s ok, I’ll wait. Oh? You can’t confirm that? BECAUSE NOT ALL SKILL BARS ARE ORDERED BY COOL DOWN.

changing the order of the skills two months in really messed up everyones comfort level when it comes to playing their class. Not only that but it really screwed up the effectiveness of a large portion of our traits

Organizing skills by cooldown in the beginning was a somewhat smart and good idea. However you cannot expect to keep this philosophy if skills continue to develop through balancing. ArenaNet’s big mistake was not releasing the option to customize your 1-5 abilities WITH the patch that totally kittened up the Guardian greatsword.

This is just poor implementation once again by ANet, which is a bit saddening. Can’t even bear to think that these thoughts wouldn’t cross someone at the companies mind. I GET that it was once listed by cooldown, but either stick with the release ability orders or allow us to change them at will. Everyone’s going to be kitten once you forcefully change their weapons and rotations (not just Guardians)

In all honesty the fact that a lot of complaints are stemming from the fact that great sword has lost support ability’s. Honestly my take on the great sword is that you are self reliant and don’t really provide anything to the party apart from self healing and dps or am I looking at it wrong

Dorps.8610:

In all honesty the fact that a lot of complaints are stemming from the fact that great sword has lost support ability’s. Honestly my take on the great sword is that you are self reliant and don’t really provide anything to the party apart from self healing and dps or am I looking at it wrong

I think you might want to check the greatsword abilities and a Guardian’s traits. Especially the ones that revolve around their symbol or applying Vulnerability on Blind etc.

You’d be surprised how much support they can provide with a greatsword when the boss focuses his big attack on you but misses because a Guardian did a leap of faith and blinded the boss or put down that Symbol to give everyone in it Retaliation (+ additional effects with traits) or did a Whirling Wrath inside his symbol that sent out cleansing bolts to remove your poison stacks or pull a mob away as you were trying to get back up from your downed state.

Is it possible to ask for away to customize the skill bar? It won’t take long to learn the new skillset but the synergy isn’t there anymore. It used to be

Combo field-finisher-finisher.

Now it’s

Finisher-Finisher-combo field.

How the kitteeeeen does this help perform combos?

legendde.9340:

Leap does not function half of the time, erratically placing you above your target or wherever. And in those instances the blind is not applied. So maybe they should start fixing the bugs instead of continuously nerfing us towards less damage and more buff-bot state…

In my experience, that only happens when you’re above your target. It’s not a bug, the skill just doesn’t work that way. It’s kind of annoying, but you just have to learn when you can and can’t use that skill effectively.

Boy OP you should rename yourself Captain Obvious. GJ taking 3 days what it took most of us seconds to realise.