Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running with We Heal as One and Strength of the Pack more often than I used to recently, and the repeated voice samples have started to wear on me. I understand, appreciate, and do not want to remove the mechanics currently available to shout builds but really preferred the old Heal as One and Rampage as One abilities when it comes to aesthetics. I believe the current version of these skills could be improved.

For We Heal as One, your character plays the same sound sample every time you use it and while you are running with swiftness that means listening to the words “We Heal as One” every 16 seconds. This gets old very quickly, as a voice sample is a far more intense sound than the original sound effect before the skill became a shout.

Strength of the Pack still plays the old sound effect which is already a voice sample at the same time as the new voice line. This isn’t just an issue of voice samples grating on the nerves after extreme repetition, it’s just sloppy. Such game changes deserve more attention to detail. Activating the skill causes your character to simultaneously and absurdly speak and grunt at the same time.

Shouts themselves have changed since the original game design. In particular, the names have become longer. The older shout skills are all one or two syllables, but now we have Reapers running around lecturing their enemies about their inadequacy while they kill them! I’d suggest looking back at the necessary brevity of shout skills in general to make them feel better, but I think that’s more important for Ranger at this time compared to the Reaper example as the latter class conveys a particular theme and feel by using the shouts.

The theme of ranger shouts was previously pet commands. Strength of the Pack sounds like someone in a cheesy kungkittenmovie announcing the name of their technique. We Heal as One is also an announcement. To fit the original theme of ranger shouts, the two newer shouts should also be commands if they must remain shouts with words to keep their current mechanics.

So, how could these skills be improved? First, and at the very least, the grunting effect from Strength of the Pack has to go, so long as it remains a shout with intelligible words. A loud angry sound without words would still qualify as a shout though in my book. With that out of the way, could we make the newer shouts fit the theme of pet commands? What would you suggest?

My suggestions:
“We Heal as One!” -> “Heal!” (Yes, as a pet command this is a pun and I will not apologize for it.)
“Strength of the Pack!” -> “Run Wild!”