Would you like more skill slots...for slot skills ?

Currently, I find the customization of slot skills to be quite limited. There are tons of fun options, but you can't pick any of them because there are only 3 slots so you want to pick the most efficient ones, which may not always be the most fun to use.I'm talking about more slots for "normal" slot skills here, not the healing and elite ones. So, that's 3 skill slots as of now.I think it could be fun to have more options, and it would allow us to pick both "meta" talents, the efficient ones that you just can't go without, as well as fun ones like teleportation spells or whatever.I think having one ore two more slots (so the healing skill, 4-5 "normal" skills and the elite skill) wouldn't hurt, but that's just my opinion of course.I can see PvP players being against it, so the new slots could be disabled in PvP if they're found to be a gamebreaking issue in this context, the way mounts are.What about you ? Would you want more spell slots ?

Slots for food, elixier and so on would be nice

@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:Slots for food, elixier and so on would be nice

having a slot for toys would be fun too.

I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

Abillity to put any skill in any slot

The skills you are talking about are called utility skills. I disagree with you. I think that three is enough for me. Plus, if there were less limits on how many slot skills we can have, balancing would be harder. Also, all builds in this game have a minimum of 15 skills. While I'm just fine with the builds that have 40+ skills, I know that a lot of new players find 15 to be overwhelming. You increase the minimum number of skills per build, and you make it harder for such players to get into the game.

Game is already about spamming everything on cooldown, no matter which mode, so why not?

You increase the minimum number of skills per build, and you make it harder for such players to get into the game.

Meh. This is the mindset that has led WoW to ruin its gameplay by removing half the spells. We were all new players once, we've learned, slowly but surely and it's no big deal. Having one or two more spells isn't a huge deal, I'm not asking for 10 of them.

Abillity to put any skill in any slot

Would you include the ability to pick multiple healing skills in there ?

You already have the ability to change the slotted utility skills as long as you are out of combat. I frequently change mine around depending on the situation at hand. Why not make use of that?

Personally, I have come from a game that had 40+ skills per class at endgame, and all of them available at all times. It didn't make me use more of them than I do in GW2, it just required me to memorize the placement/keybind of all of these on my character. It took a bit of getting used to the way GW2 handles skills, but after playing this game for almost 6 years I have come to appreciate the way this game makes me think which utility (and weapon set, healing and elite skill) could be useful for what situation, and requires me to consider trade-offs in preparation rather than just taking along everything.

If you find yourself only using "meta" skills then you are missing out on a huge amount of customization that this game's skill system allows. Think ahead, re-slot different utilities depending on what you're up against (and who you are with), and if you find that you've chosen the wrong set of utilities then just put it down as a learning experience and pick different utilities next time that work better (or are more fun, or possibly both).

You can do a lot with the limited utility slots available, but you can do even more if you are open-minded about switching out your utility skills as needed/preferred. Sorry to say this, but more utilities slotted at the same time to me sounds more like a "too lazy to thing about what's helpful now" situation than a real need. You've got the option to get out of combat to change your utilities almost everywhere (except raids, but having a specialized selection of characters synergizing with each other is actually wanted there), use it.

Personally, I prefer to stay with current amount of slots.

The skill bar is not a standalone: It is the skill bar + the special action key (when applicable) + The Fx keys + all the other things we need to monitor on screen simultaneously: Mini map, targeting, AOEs, info about enemies (health, break bar, ....), traps, turrets, diverse mechanics around (like in fractals and raids), and so on. That's a lot and - at least for me - more than enough. :3

Side note: The only change I would like about the skill bar, is to be able to move it, like it was possible in GW1.

I would rather go to a weapon-independent skill system like the original games had. This allows for much further customization and much more creative build crafting.If we would just get more slot skill, I would probably fill them with a few signets for some passive bonuses.

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would rather go to a weapon-independent skill system like the original games had. This allows for much further customization and much more creative build crafting.If we would just get more slot skill, I would probably fill them with a few signets for some passive bonuses.How do you envision a weapon-independent system that is more customizable and creative? The only thing I could think of would be putting all weapon skills we have now into a pool of skills that you can choose from, and that in my perception isn't really more creative, just more cherry-picking. Right now choosing weapons (just like choosing a limited number of utility skills) comes with certain strengths and drawbacks that you have to choose between.

Opening up all weapon skills for use in any combination would eliminate the drawbacks the weapons have built in and lead to more min-maxed builds. While that might sound preferable to some, to me it sounds like it will actually restrict creativity as game content has to be balanced to the strongest combination of weapon skills and would make the niche skills even more forgettable than they are now.

@"Aodlop.1907" said:

You increase the minimum number of skills per build, and you make it harder for such players to get into the game.

If you really want a game with all that apparent complexity, even though it is mostly meaningless, Path of Exile is your best current bet. Everyone else has learned the lesson: twenty actions that do more or less the same thing brings no real value. Having to use a fifteen button rotation rather than a five button rotation isn't a significant improvement.

Better, instead, to focus on player skill, rather than apparent complexity that, ultimately, still devolves into "hit things in this priority order".

@"Plautze.6290" said:I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

Continuum split & Signet of Humility combo would like a word. Just RUINS any defiance bar.

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Aodlop.1907" said:

You increase the minimum number of skills per build, and you make it harder for such players to get into the game.

This is true for PvE only though. As someone who was in the very top of the ladder in WoW, I can tell you, having lots of utility and CC spells separated from each other and using them in a meaningfull way created depth in the gameplay. If you were good back then, you could do 1v3 because you had so many tool to use, to use correctly, and to outplay your opponents. Now it's a 10 buttons damage race, sadly, and so I've quit the game.GW2 does manage to have an interesting and decently complex gameplay for its low spell count, but still, I think one or two more wouldn't hurt.

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would rather go to a weapon-independent skill system like the original games had. This allows for much further customization and much more creative build crafting.If we would just get more slot skill, I would probably fill them with a few signets for some passive bonuses.How do you envision a weapon-independent system that is more customizable and creative? The only thing I could think of would be putting all weapon skills we have now into a pool of skills that you can choose from, and that in my perception isn't really more creative, just more cherry-picking. Right now choosing weapons (just like choosing a limited number of utility skills) comes with certain strengths and drawbacks that you have to choose between.

I envision it just like the original Guild Wars had. Disconnect the skills from the weapon and utility slots. No more healing slots and every expansion brings new skills to choose from. This will allow for a much greater flexibility than we can ever have with the existing weapon-based skill system. More flexibility means more room for niche builds which i would love to try.

@"Plautze.6290" said:I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

Same here. Not just the elite slot, but I'd like for skill slots #6 through #0 to just be open for whatever, but limit to a max of one healing skill and one elite skill per skill bar. So for example if I wanted no heal skill and no elite skill and have five utility skills, I could do that. Or if I wanted a heal skill, I could put it in any numbered slot I wanted, as long as I only could slot a maximum of one heal skill on my bar.

@Orion Templar.4589 said:

@"Plautze.6290" said:I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

I like your idea ^-^ But what I would really love (this one's a bit crazy) was to swap slot skills (with 'Enter', for example). The 'main' group of skills would be what we have right now (1 healing, 3 utility, and 1 elite), but swapping would give us 5 additional utility skills. Crazy, I know, but I would love this.

for PvE I absolutely agree, it shoudl be part of Character Progression, that if you learn some kind of Combat Mastery for that, that you can increase the maximum amoutn of SKill Slots.

for PvP/WvW it should stay the way how it is with maximum 3 Utility Skills only... but as a Pve only feature for more fun and improved Character Progression absolutely yes... PvE is about having fun, not about beign balanced and limitating the amount of your skills...

Also absolutely agree to it, that this game needs to receive finally QUICK USE Slots so that you can put items from your inventory into it, so that you can use them in cobmat in PvE quickly, like Buff items, like environmental items you bought from NPCs for karma ect. to use, like Tonics ect.

A big quality of life improvement Anet missed to fix for 6 years now ...

Example:

Combat Experience Mastery

1) (1 MP) Adept Combat TechniquesWhen you learn this mastery, your Character will unlock in PvE only another 4th Utility Skill Slot.

2 (2MP) Expert Combat TechniquesDecreases the Time of Weapon Swaps in Combat for you if you can swap weapons with your Class in PvE only. If your Class can't swap weapons then this Mastery increases your Endurance Regeneration in PvE only.

3 (3MP) Master Combat TechniquesWhen you learn this mastery, your Character unlocks its last 5th Utility Skill Slot

4 (4MP) Grandmaster Combat TechniquesYou gain in in PvE only a Breakbar, making it for enemies significantly harder to stun you now.

5 (5MP) Sage Combat TechniquesAllows you to use for Elite Skills now either Healing or Utility Skills instead of the Elite Skill in the Slot of the Elite Skill in PvE.

Just an example of how it could look like ;)

A lot of discussion about something that's not going to happen and there's no demand for.

@"Aodlop.1907" said:Currently, I find the customization of slot skills to be quite limited. There are tons of fun options, but you can't pick any of them because there are only 3 slots so you want to pick the most efficient ones, which may not always be the most fun to use.I'm talking about more slots for "normal" slot skills here, not the healing and elite ones. So, that's 3 skill slots as of now.I think it could be fun to have more options, and it would allow us to pick both "meta" talents, the efficient ones that you just can't go without, as well as fun ones like teleportation spells or whatever.I think having one ore two more slots (so the healing skill, 4-5 "normal" skills and the elite skill) wouldn't hurt, but that's just my opinion of course.I can see PvP players being against it, so the new slots could be disabled in PvP if they're found to be a gamebreaking issue in this context, the way mounts are.What about you ? Would you want more spell slots ?

I think it's a great design. In game design, restrictions like these force players to make choices. When I used to play WoW, there were a great many more UI buttons than just the 10 we have here. And there were skills to fill them! Of course, trait choices (they called them "talents") would make this skill or that skill more or less useful to your build. But aside from those traited skill unlocks, a frost mage always had access to all the same skills as any other frost mage. The restriction, in this case, actually adds an extra layer to customization where one chronomancer will use X utility while another will use Y utility.

But you didn't ask about unlimited skill slots. You asked about adding more to the current number of 3. The same principle applies. While having 4 or 5 utility slots would be nice in many ways, it would also make each slot relatively less useful. Right now you're choosing the very best 3 skills you can for whatever your purpose happens to be. You can guess how this plays out, right?

The meta will likely shift toward a handful of critical skills, with any "excess" slots filled by damage boosters. How many mesmers already take damage signets for condi builds in PvE? Those slots will still be filled by damage boosters, but there's no need to choose with 5 slots. You can have your 3 critical skills and your damage boosting signets!

@chrisjfinlay.5614 said:

@"Plautze.6290" said:I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

A careful read of my post should clarify that I'm not trying to prove you wrong:

@"Plautze.6290" said:I only wish for the possibility to ditch the elite skill and pick up another "normal" skill instead as on some classes, all elite skills are just not worth it imho.

That being said, on Warrior for example the elites are fine but on core necro or core thief they're just meh. Necro and thief elite specs elite skills are fine, too.

Wouldn't the 'meta' be the top 4 or 5 efficient Utility Skills, then...instead of the top 3?Doesn't seem like it would make a difference; one can already choose 'fun and exciting' skills to use; or use the 'meta' builds.

A "device tray" for quick access items, food, and kits would be nice.

I would much rather have a "utility swap" function. Like how weapon swapping works. That way you could hot swap without having to click each button just to change skills.