Intersting vid about GW1 and GW2 Skills..

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/guild-wars-2-skill-choice/

that guy didnt pvp at end game when gw1 was at its pinacle!i dont know if traits will affect the pve side .but traits was always the reason some were number one and other were last!it is a shame we cant see photage of gw 1 ranked top player (since they had their own stream system)but  i can assure you the top team always included traits in their team build and for good reason!it affected the beat of the fight so much and it was so subtle it often took other team a long time to understand what really had happened and by then the team had moved on to another team build etc!men i cant wait to see this game released!less bad build alone will remove a lot of frustration!

I was super excited when I heard we were getting 10skill bars, and then super let down when I learned half the skills are set by weapon, and you get 1 healing skill 1 elite and you only get 3 others to choose from.

Customization may have been the single greatest part of GW1, not only with subclasses but how skills from different classes worked well with each other.  I'm sad to see that feature get cut back rather than fleshed out in GW2, but I don't think it'll be a complete wash.

What I found unbelievable was how many choices GW1 had, thinking this was going to be restrictive.

Then I sat down to plan out my GW2 Ranger last month usingthe tool calculator, and I sat there in complete hair pulling mode complaining it was too overwhelming on how many ways to approach the game. Then I had to consider WHO I was going to playing with...

There will never come a time you run across a class, and know exactly what you are up against. The changes you can make will make no build or setup, dominating. The trick will be how fast you can change setups on the fly to adjust to changing circumstances.

FYI, the Ranger will not be the best bow class unless you build yourself to be so. But a thief vs ranger (both melee) in PvP will be something to watch. And a thief bow setup is far from being the worst choice. This is the only game where running an alt may be a must just to know what you are up against.

Originally posted by Majinash

I was super excited when I heard we were getting 10skill bars, and then super let down when I learned half the skills are set by weapon, and you get 1 healing skill 1 elite and you only get 3 others to choose from.

 

Customization may have been the single greatest part of GW1, not only with subclasses but how skills from different classes worked well with each other.  I'm sad to see that feature get cut back rather than fleshed out in GW2, but I don't think it'll be a complete wash.

Originally posted by Scopedog

Originally posted by Majinash

I was super excited when I heard we were getting 10skill bars, and then super let down when I learned half the skills are set by weapon, and you get 1 healing skill 1 elite and you only get 3 others to choose from.

 

Customization may have been the single greatest part of GW1, not only with subclasses but how skills from different classes worked well with each other.  I'm sad to see that feature get cut back rather than fleshed out in GW2, but I don't think it'll be a complete wash.

I agree, but one thing I like about the weapon-skill feature is that in combat, it gives possibilities of a lot of cool combos or mixing with skills by switching weapons on the fly.
 

Changing utilities isn't that hard to do either.

Originally posted by Bunks

 [...]

FYI, the Ranger will not be the best bow class unless you build yourself to be so. But a thief vs ranger (both melee) in PvP will be something to watch. And a thief bow setup is far from being the worst choice. This is the only game where running an alt may be a must just to know what you are up against.

I definitely agree to that, because they only way to truly understand and learn something, is to do it yourself.

Good video I thought. Could have gone a little farther, for example the elementalist being able to change affinities on the fly for some 20 odd skill choices, but I think he did a good job explaining things.

If you really want to see the possiblities the choices you have are, you must first see a person who knows how to play the game. We are all noobs right now, so the only ones with any insight into higher skill play are the devs themselves(yeah, Anet actually have devs who play their own game).

This is my all time favorite vid of an Elementalist PvP

http://youtu.be/zNAITjKJusw

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Bunks

 [...]

FYI, the Ranger will not be the best bow class unless you build yourself to be so. But a thief vs ranger (both melee) in PvP will be something to watch. And a thief bow setup is far from being the worst choice. This is the only game where running an alt may be a must just to know what you are up against.

I definitely agree to that, because they only way to truly understand and learn something, is to do it yourself.

I'am a great believer in this attitude as well.

Lol, this is actually kind of funny now that I think about it.  In the video the guy just throws out there that "99%" of GW1's builds were bad.

In an earlier thread I computed that for one dual class combo in GW1, with 1 elite and 7 nonelite, you'd have approximately 150 trillion possible builds.  I also computed that if you include weapon traits, a warrior in GW2 has approximately 10 billion possible builds.

What this means is that if 99% of GW1's builds are bad, and ALL of GW2's builds are viable, there would still be 150x as many viable builds in GW1 than in GW2.  :)

Fortunately for GW2, the reality is that probably 99.9999999999999% of GW1 builds are bad.

I'm guessing it's not the quality of builds that is in question but the freedom of choice.

Even though GW2 will have much better overall builds there is still a feeling that they are taking something away. But I've come to grips with it, just like I have with no collision detection (other than targeted enemies).

I agree to a certain degree, but they could easily have made the different weapons have 15 different skills to choose from instead of just 5. Where every skill slot would have 3 different skills to choose from.  Why can't I play a Warrior for example wielding a hammer and bash out the same DPS that an axe would do? But in a different way, we all know hammer will be CC heavy, which is ofc what it should be. But if I want to play pure DPS hammer why can't i? 

If i play a ranger, why can't I choose to play a purely DPS ranger with a bow and have zero CC? These were choices in GW1 which made the game great, and they could easily have done this in GW2 and still kept it all in balance. 

"Then I sat down to plan out my GW2 Ranger last month usingthe tool calculator, and I sat there in complete hair pulling mode complaining it was too overwhelming on how many ways to approach the game. Then I had to consider WHO I was going to playing with..."" "  from a post above"

Ok, this is too funny, I, too, am looking forward to the game, but I will apparently be way behind on day 1...

Originally posted by Fierytex

"Then I sat down to plan out my GW2 Ranger last month usingthe tool calculator, and I sat there in complete hair pulling mode complaining it was too overwhelming on how many ways to approach the game. Then I had to consider WHO I was going to playing with..."" "  from a post above"

Ok, this is too funny, I, too, am looking forward to the game, but I will apparently be way behind on day 1...

 

No you won't, they already changed the traits and probably half the skills will change a bit on launch. Im just trying to get familiar with what types work best with styles. most of us will be blind leading the blind the first few weeks.

Im just happy to have settled on a choice of profession, that took a week alone. Ranger, no thief, no warrior, no no...ele. My wife said it was like listening to a Monty Python skit.

Originally posted by andre369

I agree to a certain degree, but they could easily have made the different weapons have 15 different skills to choose from instead of just 5. Where every skill slot would have 3 different skills to choose from.  Why can't I play a Warrior for example wielding a hammer and bash out the same DPS that an axe would do? But in a different way, we all know hammer will be CC heavy, which is ofc what it should be. But if I want to play pure DPS hammer why can't i? 

If i play a ranger, why can't I choose to play a purely DPS ranger with a bow and have zero CC? These were choices in GW1 which made the game great, and they could easily have done this in GW2 and still kept it all in balance. 

 I think for a couple reasons.

The first is so to make PVP and to a lesser extent PVE more visual.  You see a guy with a hammer, you know what he's got available (though the right side of the bar and the other weapon might surprise you).  It'll help set up cross profession combos too.

Another reason is because I don't think additional weapon skills are going to add that much to the game due to FOTMism.  If a Hammer has 10 skills that you can choose 5 from, it's a lot more work for ArenaNet, both to make them and to balance them, and in the end people are going to conclude that a certain 5 are the best anyway.  Besides, any 5 extra skills can practically be an entirely new weapon like a 2h axe or a polearm.

I for one also really like the idea of being able to completely change up the play.  Other games, every encounter is just 12345 dead.  But with GW2, I can play with a hammer and enjoy that for a while, then switch to a greatsword and have to play a different way.  If every weapon can do everything, then we'll all just want to level with our max DPS build I think.

Traits and utility skills will also help enable a "pure DPS" or a "CC heavy" build as well, so you do have some control.

I'd probably like your wife, lol.  Dead parrots anyone?

waitwaitwait...Wait!

In GW1 plus all their addons they had 1319 skills and dual classes.

In this video they market, why it is better to have no dual classes and by far less skills.

Is "dumbing down" the wrong word?

Originally posted by Herodes

waitwaitwait...Wait!

In GW1 plus all their addons they had 1319 skills and dual classes.

In this video they market, why it is better to have no dual classes and by far less skills.

Is "dumbing down" the wrong word?

 I think it's the wrong word.

For one thing, GW1 had something like 450 core skills at release.  GW2 will have approximately the same amount of skills, so it's not like the game is being dumbed down at all compared to GW1.

Where GW1 arguably went wrong is that their number of skills ballooned up to 1300+ over the course of the expansions.  This, coupled with the dual classing made things easily spiral way out of control.  As I posted earlier, for just one class there's 150 trillion combinations, of which the vast vast vast majority are terrible.

GW2 does a couple things.  For one, the number of skills you can use at any one time is doubled, as it's 15 plus the F1 keys, so the actual play will be a lot more exciting than repeatedly using the same couple skills.  You can also change them anytime outside of combat, rather than just at an outpost like GW1.

With GW2, you have a lot more viable builds.  In fact, almost all of them, if not literally all of them are viable.  You'll always have a weapon with 5 skills and a heal.  Maybe you could have picked different utility skills, but the ones you pick will have some use at least.  This makes it a lot easier for new players.  What they found with GW1 was that some people are just bad at making builds, and if you want to be good you pretty much have to go to a website and copy something.  There's too many choices.

The other thing too is that this makes the game much much easier to balance.  They did the best job they could with GW1 and tweaked it every week, but it's just too massive to do correctly.

Another way to look at it is in GW1, you had 8 choices of skills.  With GW2 you have (2 MH, 2 OH, 1 heal, 3 utility and 1 elite), so that's 9 choices to make (slightly less if you choose 2H or an elementalist/engineer) just with the skills, and then you also have traits to pick on top of that.  So in that way making a build is even more interactive than GW1.

Originally posted by DJJazzy

I'm guessing it's not the quality of builds that is in question but the freedom of choice.

Even though GW2 will have much better overall builds there is still a feeling that they are taking something away. But I've come to grips with it, just like I have with no collision detection (other than targeted enemies).

Wait wait wait.. what do you mean "other that targeted enemies?" Is that a fact?