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GW2 Thoughts on the new Skill System?

Z

Zakis

War Priestess
I have been reading the official forums this morning and aside from the drivel from cavemen unable to learn the game or unwilling to, there has been a lot of civilized debate/opinions on the new tiered skill system. So what are the thoughts of the Arcanix Legion?

At first I was a bit annoyed like most of us but honestly I have to say it all became clear when we hit the dungeon. I initially sat down and went through the skill tiers with my refunded points, picking what I had wanted in my general PvE build first. Then because I needed to unlock others to get to the next tier I spent time looking at the other skills and choosing them based on the fact that I thought they would be cool to try out and the possibility that they might come in quite handy.

Then we jumped into Ascalonian Catacombs and I realized how glad I was forced to spend time choosing extra skills. It was apparent the mobs tended to make my turrets a priority target, and couple that with my med turret's lacklust HoT and the AOE flying around and turrets became useless. So I replaced my medkit with my healing elixir, and my turrets with an elixir that removes conditions, goggles that break me out of stun, and my rocket boots for evasion. I am not sure that the other members of my group even had time to realize it because of the hectic nature of the dungeon and GW2 elite fights in general but I was tossing elixirs at them to remove conditions and heal them periodically. I felt that it was a lot more effective than just giving mobs something to take their anger out on. I had also tried my medpack but realized the odds of me throwing medkits on the ground and getting my other mates to take the time to run over it was slim, especially with the nature of the trash.

In closing, I agree with people about the fact they now are FORCED to choose more skills to unlock the next tier and possibly get what they really wanted, to a degree. They still give you the freedom within the tier to choose what you might need, and they have added skill points all over the place, mainly in WvW from what I can see. I have been converted I think its a nifty way of them urging you to explore your abilities, because your best friend's life may depend on it some day.
 
I liked the previous system more simply because I could choose traits I liked in any tree. This time around you can't, and traits 11/12 are mutually exclusive.
 
Still on the fence about the trait system.. while we pvped i found it limited really specialized builds where traits could be picked once twice or three times. This really is a good system in the long run however, and i can see how they want to future proof the game for next set of skills/traits to be released but i don't think they have enough variety ATM to restrict us so drastically so soon. For example the Tier3 traits were pretty basic more damage with a certain weapon or better cool downs with it ect..its really something that should be Teir1. That's what really annoyed with most of the tier3 traits noting sounded like a real "Elite Top Tier Trait" that you wanted to use to me so i ended up just dumping 20 points into some trait lines just be cause the tier3 skills weren't worth the extra 10 points needed.

I don't think the same about Tier'ed skills though i found everything was placed in the correct tier if you read the skills before unlocking and understand the situation that skill will excel in then people shouldn't have a problem with it, and it just comes back down to the lack of skill variety to me. Coming from a GW1 prospective i know they didn't want a balancing nightmare like the first game where every week the key skills in a FOTM build are being Nerfed i know i experienced it first hand. But they aren't exactly going in head first with the amount of choices you have ATM. I wouldn't be shocked if they end up releasing More Skills/Traits not soon after release.

When i think Guild Wars i Think this http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Strength#Strength_skills some of these skills have found their way into GW2 but a lot of them aren't and to me they would transition well if they are reworked.

And part of me is wishing they would do right with Weapon Mastery skills Alot of them are good but purely situational at best like Warrior axe skills besides auto attack and Eviscerate, i didn't click anything else i felt like my number 2 skill was a waste and would be great if you could swap out for something that might be slightly more useful by letting us use our fav weapon type you gain "Weapon Experience" allowing you to unlock more options and have them teir'ed the same way they did with the tier'ed utilities but that's wishful thinking.
 
Primarily looking at it only from Ranger, I didn't notice much of a change in the trait system. The build I had in the previous beta was actually the same as the build I had this time around, as my abilities were actually perfectly tiered to what I wanted. Granted, this is purely from my PvP and solo'ing builds. I'm very excited to experiment around for a group build after I experience it in a more structured way. I'm glad that all classes have "Pure Damage" and "Support" abilities. I'm sure all of us will start working together for a more synched support and damage structure as we level and play with similar people all the time. THAT is what I am most excited for. Not "OMG I have to spec that?!" but the "Hey, do you guys want me to ________ so you can _______ instead? That might work better this time around".

Now, the skills tiers are a little meh in comparison to before. I mean, mine didn't change in their usefulness, was just limited (while leveling) in their accessibility. That made me sad. I like being able to save my first 10 points for something more enjoyable than requiring 10 abilities (20 points) just for access in the third tier. SAD. But I can see why they do it. It can be overwhelming for people that don't read and research classes. At first I had the feeling of "Zomg conforming to casuals!" but, y'know what, it'll be better in the long run. I'd rather more people be educated on their own structure and playstyle than just willy nilly buying whatever. This way people can take in a bit more information before making their decisions. Plus, this only affects while leveling for the most part. The new system will hopefully let more people be more intelligent in their choices.
 
I think perhaps a "warning you are about to go into complex shit, why don't you wait till level XY before you precede"

I did feel the only 10 in all traits till 40 was a little weird. I figured if you hit 10 you could g to 15 specailly the way it is laid out. A bit confusing in that regards. I didn't know without asking someone that the rest unlocked at 40.

As for the Skills they were find in my opinion. They prioritized them well. But the traits did feel really weird. Specially on my Guardian. The Mesmer they made a little more sense.. kinda.
 
tr1age said:
I think perhaps a "warning you are about to go into complex shit, why don't you wait till level XY before you precede"

I did feel the only 10 in all traits till 40 was a little weird. I figured if you hit 10 you could g to 15 specailly the way it is laid out. A bit confusing in that regards. I didn't know without asking someone that the rest unlocked at 40.

As for the Skills they were find in my opinion. They prioritized them well. But the traits did feel really weird. Specially on my Guardian. The Mesmer they made a little more sense.. kinda.
Click to expand...

I know they changed a lot of the engineer traits around but that limiting factor was in the earlier beta with the books and all. It might have been at a lower level, cause I swear I remember buying another book to let me put more points in a trait line but idk. Glad we got impressions on both, as my original post was about the new skill tiers specifically. I agree some of the traits were a bit odd now, even lackluster, but not horrible. I was still able to use my pistol/shield/toolkits support/defense build to great success. It performed wonderfully in arena, especially our tournament matches.
 
Yeah, all my theorycrafting came from the fact that once 10 points were allocated to a tree, you had full access to all traits. I came up with some really funky builds that played off the minors and majors ending up with trees that looked like 20/20/0/20/10 stuff.

This time around, after playing with the trait system, the trees were so much more limiting in nature in that you must hit 30 to unlock the 12 accessible traits, and that tier 2 cant go in tier 1 etc., it really forced min/maxing even more so than it did last beta. So yeah it does kill a lot of different play styles and pigeonholes people into a specialized focus. Especially since many of the "better" traits were tier 2 or 3, which meant a mandatory 20/30 point into that tree or you aren't allowed to build with those skills/weapon set you chose.

Oh well... it's their game. Not gonna like the change but I'll live.
 
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