Guild Wars 2

I won’t be (too) longwinded here, but I feel the design philosophy and balance of the game clearly favors building glass cannon, doing high amounts of damage, and/or evading attacks. Aside from some niche Spvp bunker builds this is very much consistent across the entire game.

Dungeons/Champions? Build zerker and kill faster. You dodge/evade/block the big attacks. As a Soldier geared Necro with protection and full LF bar you want to eat the hit? Sorry, instant death. Liandri sends her regards. All that lifesteal, hitpoints, regen, toughness in the world can’t help you vs a one hit KO. Okay, so I can’t eat those large hits? Why don’t we instead blind/weaken/crowd control that boss? Nope, sorry. Defiant/Unshakable is having none of that. It would be one thing if evaders were forced to tank now and again, but how common is that compared to the plethora of one hit kill scenarios? Again. Build zerker and kill faster.

Open World? Nothing is dangerous enough to warrant defensive stats, conditions, boons, etc.

WvW? I find it ridiculous that a particular Thief build can do more damage while simultaneously taking less damage than their target and players around them. Be it over a short or extended period of time. Should they run into a less than favorable situation, be it a bad small group matchup, run into a zerg, etc. Just evade, disappear, and utilize great mobility to simply avoid the situation. A bruiser style warrior comes upon the same scenario? You have to fight it out and just die. No recourse.

Overall I just feel that pure tanks, bruisers, sustained damage types, etc. have a much lower value compared to the available spike damage/evasion options out there. The only legitimate argument I can see for this reasoning is they require a higher skill cap. I do agree in most cases that they do, but this need not be set in stone. If more effort were made towards increasing the skill cap while simultaneously improving the effectiveness of other builds this disparity would begin to fade.

Twitchy assassin/berserker type play need not be the only skillful endeavor available. Let us wade into battle and whittle down our foes should we see fit to do so. Let us stack healing power to assist allies. Why do all these others options even exist if this were not intended to be viable?

Let me elaborate on the title.

Too often I find myself watching my character autoattack, no, its not because I used up all my skill refreshes or am saving a skill for a “just in case” situation. No, too many skills are flat out useless if a particular situation doesn’t present itself. Let me lend you two examples of characters I’ve been playing the most lately. Necromancer & Warrior.

Necromancer dagger is absolutely my favorite weapon thematically, and works wonders in dungeons and any other sort of difficult content. But when I go out event hunting on my lonesome it’s pretty well a dead skill bar. Life Siphon’s damage is clearly worse than autoattack and Dark Pact’s is rather laughable it doesn’t compare to either. When I’m just out killing neither of these are of particular use. Lets talk offhands. I run Focus. The meager damage of Reaper’s Touch, even taking the Vulnerability into account isn’t worth using over autoattack. In a group? Sure. I use it all the time for supporting group damage. Dead skill when I’m alone. Chillblains is in the same boat as Dark Pact- great control in hairy situations, but a dead skill when you’re facerolling. The other offhands don’t offer much in this regard either, save Dagger’s Enfeebling Blood which pays its due in the Bleeding damage.

Warrior is another great example. I run Rifle + Sword/Warhorn. Crippling Shot… just cripples. The damage is less than Bleeding Shot not taking bleeding into account. Volley is good stuff. Brutal Shot, like the Necro example above, is great for groups, but isn’t worth its cast time to use when alone. I could go on, but the same problem exists for Sword as well as the burst skills for both weapons.

I will get flamed by some because players don’t want a slippery slope of damage rotations, but in reality it creates more depth to the game. There can be a middle point where using other skills can be better than autoattack, but you aren’t just spamming them in rotation. If Savage Leap did 2x the damage of autoattack good play would still dictate you save it for closing distances rather than use it for a mild damage increase while already in melee range. But when you are just sitting there slashing at an an object in some event it would make the game ever so much better to be able to sprinkle these other skills into the mix when they aren’t needed for their primary uses. Skill would come from recognizing situations where certain skill are/not needed and adjusting your play from there.

Thanks for reading.