Guild Wars 2

Anyone else miss some of the cooler skill names we had from GW 1. Migraine, Guilt, Shame, Mistrust, Ignorance, Arcane Languor, Crippling Anguish, Conjure Nightmare, just to name a few. Also, I feel that the skill effects in GW 1 were simpler but more varied. I mean, currently we have some nice effects, but I miss some of the simpler and subtler yet beautiful effects from the first game. Alot of the spells now are pretty much “illusionary this” and “illusionary that” and consist of there’s a repitition of effects. I just feel that there was more variety and more care put into making each skill unique in GW 1, something that’s not as apparent in this game.

As this is a rather subjective topic, I’d like to see what others think.

I agree that it is subjective. =)

I personally like the whole phantasm motif (gameplay wise) very much, and I think that the difference we see to the plethora of unikittenfects we had in gw1 is not really a bad thing. I remember when I started to pick up gw1, I had to constantly look up tool tips of all the weird hexes and buffs affecting me so that I could get a grasp of what’s going on, and I feel that this was an unnecessary barrier really, because “translating” the effects to a more coherent ruleset would have been almost as varied, while being less complicated.

As it seems, the devs consciously decided to reduce the amount of different gameplay mechanics (notably those of other classes) affecting individuals, so the split up their functionality to the different boons and conditions we have now.

The aesthetics of it appear a bit questionable to me as well though, the gw1 mesmer seemed to have a bit more of a menacing vibe to his skills, twisting the nightmares of an opponent against him, making him suffer under imagined burdens and all that. Somehow the way the phantasms explode in pink butterflies does not make me feel like that.

I would love to see a way to customize some of those visuals in the future (and this would be something I’d have no problem if it were store exclusive hint hint), but I have no high hopes for it in any case.

If someday professions evolve, I can see a “Dark Mesmer” in the future.

ha, for some reason I read it as Dork Mesmer and imagined a huge nerd with ridiculous glasses