I've been thinking of picking up TSW.  A friend of mine who plays says that with most builds, there ends up being one or two overpowered abilities that are spammed over and over.  Is this true?

When it comes to skills, mostly yes. Basically you have builder and finishers, usually with most builds you spam one or two abilities (builders) that build up weapon resource, you can get away with using only one since they usually build resources for both weapons equipped, but they also give secondary effects. Personally I use two intermittently, one gives me a stacking shield, the other stacks a debuff that weakens the target (I'm mostly a tank).

Then you have finishers, skills that use the resources created with builders and that do lots more damage and other effects, Ideally you'd have two, one for each weapon equipped. Their damage scale with resources used, so combat usually works with spamming builders until you have 5 resources for each weapon (the max resources you can have), use the finishers, repeat.

That uses 3 or 4 slots out of 7 active you can use, the other three usually are filled with situational abilities on long cooldowns, in my case I use one that makes me evade more (I heal anytime I evade because of a passive skill), block more (and also gives me a HoT when active) and another one that stuns all mobs around me for a few seconds.

So, in short, you have one or two skills you'll spam continously, two that you'll use every 5th or so attack of the previous ones, and 3 or 4 you'll use sparingly. Basically combat can be a little reperitive at times, but also there will be lots of times where you won't notice, because you also have to look out for the big attacks (usually marked on the ground) and move around to avoid them. Some mobs you can do it like other MMOs and just stand there spamming attacks, but lots of them need you to keep moving around, and when it comes to dungeons it's the norm.

Big part of the game is also not on the combat itself, but on building decks that work, specially when you use two weapons and look for ways to make them interact with each other. One weapon might have a passive effect that heal you when you evade, for example, so it would work good paired with another weapon that increases your evade chance, and so on, plus you can have LOTS of different builds and decks with the exact same weapons.

Some people like to reduce it to the lowest common denominator.. so yes you could go 1 builder 1 finisher.

However once you get access to more abilities and passives you may decide that you want additional builders/finishers included on your bar to apply or exploit other various debuffs that you or your team mates apply.

It's still a button press MMO but it's not like GW2 where you have an auto attack.  There is no auto attack in TSW so you have to build resources manually (resources are used to power finisher abilities that have effects multiplied by number of resources used to power them).

With time investment you can play how you want though since there are 9 weapons (you can equip 2 weapons at a time) and 525 active/passive abilities currently available.  Actives require a specific weapon but passives can be used with almost any weapon.

If you're on the fence, the weekend of August 3rd they're having a free weekend for anyone that wants to try the game.  Give it a try for the weekend and then decide if you want to invest in the game.

Originally posted by vigg2004

I've been thinking of picking up TSW.  A friend of mine who plays says that with most builds, there ends up being one or two overpowered abilities that are spammed over and over.  Is this true?

OK, thanks for the help.

Well the game uses ability builders and resource spenders and a mechanic.  There are no mana pools or stamina bars to limit your combat.

Basically your going to need at least one skill to build 5 resources and then you can use your finisher for a big burst of damage.

There are some builders that apply resources to both equipped weapons, meaning you can use two finishers one after the other...there are also some specific builders that can work better in certain situations but will only ally resources to the one weapon.

Theres no GCD to deal with...and you can set your build up to be more spammy or have a lot of buffs and non-resource spending damage skills with a cast time that work best with more resources built.

Theres some variety but the basics are resource building then using a finisher to spend those resources.   Combat is more about mobility (you never have to stand still for any skill, casting or not) kiting and strafing...lots of ground effects to dodge ect.

Also passives are very important to combat as it will determine what effects proc on crits or penetrating shots ect...

This combat mechanic of pressing one button 5 times ruins the game for me.

Over the past few weeks I have come to hate it.

Whoever thought of it over at Funcom should be fired.

Then to make matters worse - it is not a true open skill system.

You are still limited by what 2 weapons you choose to equip, you are limited by what gear you wear.

I could make a long post about it - but quite honestly I don't care enough to.

As soon as GW2 comes out I will be quitting TSW.

Too bad the combat system ruins the game, the dungeons and quests are amazing.

Originally posted by zigmund

This combat mechanic of pressing one button 5 times ruins the game for me.

Over the past few weeks I have come to hate it.

Whoever thought of it over at Funcom should be fired.

Then to make matters worse - it is not a true open skill system.

You are still limited by what 2 weapons you choose to equip, you are limited by what gear you wear.

I could make a long post about it - but quite honestly I don't care enough to.

As soon as GW2 comes out I will be quitting TSW.

 

Too bad the combat system ruins the game, the dungeons and quests are amazing.

Pressing 1 button 5 times is a bit unfortunate, but it sorta comes with the genre. Whether I'm playing WOW or TSW or any other MMORPG, I'm spamming the same 3 buttons over and over again. I mean... it would be nice if they did something a bit more engaging, with more abilities... but then people would just macro it anyways. It's impossible to make a game that isn't abilitiy-spam UNLESS you make it such that it's a bit more interactive & counteractive. (Monster does A, I do B, Monster does C, I do D, etc.)

As for not being a true open skill system, I don't understand what you mean really. You can pick ANY weapon you want, and use the abilities available to that weapon. I don't think it would make much sense to use my assault rifle's abilities while using my hammer in my hands - that would be kinda absurd... will the bullets come out of my hammer or something? (Not to say that some of the abilities in TSW aren't already absurd.)

I've played GW2, and it's much of the same, so don't get your hopes up too high. At least in TSW there's 500+ abilties to choose from, and any 1 character can use them all. Not only do I get stuck with a limited number of abilities in GW2 at any one time, I'm stuck with them forever, for the life of my character.

Originally posted by vigg2004

I've been thinking of picking up TSW.  A friend of mine who plays says that with most builds, there ends up being one or two overpowered abilities that are spammed over and over.  Is this true?

Ask you friend what the hardest dungeon he's beaten by spamming 1 or 2 abilities.

In my experience, spamming 1 or 2 abilities works through most of the game's first (solo) zone and part of the second, after that, if that's all you're doing, you're screwed.  Then again, maybe I just don't have those two "right" abilities and am doing it wrong.  I use every one of my 7 actives on pretty much every fight except when I run with an "emergency defensive", which i only use situationally.

Also, there was a person above that said that you can only use abilities from your 2 weapons.  Please ignore that person as they don't know how the game works.  You can only use actives from the 2 weapons you have equipped, you can - AND SHOULD - use passive abilities from different non-equipped weapons.  Furthermore, the game is designed around - eventually - having more than 2 weapons in your set of decks.  

Originally posted by zigmund

This combat mechanic of pressing one button 5 times ruins the game for me.

Over the past few weeks I have come to hate it.

Whoever thought of it over at Funcom should be fired.

Then to make matters worse - it is not a true open skill system.

You are still limited by what 2 weapons you choose to equip, you are limited by what gear you wear.

I could make a long post about it - but quite honestly I don't care enough to.

As soon as GW2 comes out I will be quitting TSW.

 

Too bad the combat system ruins the game, the dungeons and quests are amazing.

It seems people stopped learning to read in the past 20 years.

Reducing TSW combat to mash 1 button 5 times and press second button one time is the totally wrong way of playing the game. Each weapon line has apply X skillto gain Y effect on target/self so you gain Z buff. So, playing TSW only by mashing 1 button only to unlock a second one is dumb.

The system is entirely open since after 5 days of playing I am able to make my own equipment presets (skill, weapon and clothing combinations) suited for a specific task or for a specific mission or situation/cluster of mobs. And that's with 8-10% of the entire skill wheel unlocked.

It's just like EVE's system where you have ships to fulfil various tasks.

Oh, if by open system people mean they want to stick with the same weapon/clothing they got when they started playing and get every skill opened from the start,they got it all wrong and should go back to reading what each skill does.

Open system usually means:

- you are not locked out of using items

- there are no profession/breed items

- everybody can look/play the same or be something different

And FC has a history with this. If you look at Anarchy Online, at least RK and AI items, +80% of all items (and there's quite a lot of them) are not profession/breed/level locked and they are free to use by anybody.