Idea- WvW only movement skills
Swagger.1459
Member ✭✭✭✭
I have a post coming soon about “balancing” professions, but I wanted to post this first because it is one of the “balancing” ideas I have that will need greater explanation.
The developers of City of Heroes did a really great job at making sure each class had access to certain features that made all classes more balanced, and one of those features were movement based skills. Having equal access to various movement based skills made it so each player could be competitive in player vs player modes, and across the game for that matter.
We all know there are unnecessary disparities with movement and positioning skills among professions, and we need not look any farther than the difference between a thief and necromancer… It’s these types of unnecessary disparities that need to be addressed, so I bring to you a combination of ideas from both City of Heroes and Guild Wars 2…
Inspiration 1- CoH power pools
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Power_Pools
“Power Pools are supplemental power sets available to all archetypes, beyond the primary and secondary power sets selected during character creation. A character may select powers from up to four power pools per build.”
Inspiration 2- Zephyrite Aspect Skills
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-bazaar-of-the-four-winds/
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aspect
”What are Aspect skills?
The citizens of the Zephyr Sanctum (“Zephyrites,” as they call themselves) have developed a unique understanding of wind, lightning, and the sun. They have learned how to utilize these Aspects in their daily lives. By imbuing crystals with the energy of the Aspects, the Zephyrites are able to share a taste of this knowledge with others.”
The combined inspiration…
Aspect Skill Pools
Aspect Skill Pools are supplemental slot skills available to all professions, beyond the normal set of slot skills for each profession. A character may select skills from up to two Aspect Skill Pools per build. Aspect Skill Pools and skills can be changed out of combat. (Important notes: Unless otherwise noted, all utility skills do not have cooldown for usage. No outgoing damage. No stun break. No evade… Elite dodge skills will override normal dodges, similar to how the Daredevil Grandmaster Traits function. These new dodges have unlimited use, but do NOT make use of evade as we know it. These elite dodges are designed to only provide a 50% damage reduction to all sources, and do NOT have any extra effects such as outgoing damage or stun breaks tied to them.)
Aspects of the Zephyrites
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyrites
Utility Skills
*Aspect of Lightning- Passive skill. Global 25% cooldown reduction to all weapon and slot skills. Does not stack with other cooldown reduction traits.
*Aspect of Sun- Passive skill. In combat forward, strafing and backpedaling movement speeds are all 210 units.
*Aspect of Wind- Ground target skill. Gust of wind pushes you 600 units.
*Elite Dodge Skill- Whirlwind when you dodge. 300 units. 50% damage reduction. No evade
Aspects of the Nuhoch
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nuhoch
Utility Skills
*Aspect of Balance- Passive skill. 25% chance to be immune to float, knockback, knockdown, launch, pull and sink effects.
*Aspect of Nuhoch- Passive skill. Jump forward 600 units.
*Aspect of Potoni the Massive- Ground target skill. Jump 600 units. Jump height is doubled.
*Elite Dodge Skill- Leap when you dodge. 300 units. 50% damage reduction. No evade.
Aspects of the Itzel
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Itzel
Utility Skills
*Aspect of Whatever- Passive skill. 25% reduction to all critical hits.
*Aspect of Itzel – Passive Skill. Stealth perception 600 units.
*Aspect of Bladedancer- Ground target skill. Teleport 600 units.
*Elite Dodge Skill- Teleport when you dodge. 300 units. 50% damage reduction. No evade
Aspects of the Exalted
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exalted
Utility Skills
*Aspect of Flight- Passive skill. 25% reduction to all AoE ground target damage
*Aspect of Exalted- Passive skill. “Water walking” and no falling damage.
*Aspect of Tarnished Sage- Ground target skill. Hover 600 units.
*Elite Dodge Skill- Become a golden ball of light when you dodge. 300 units. 50% damage reduction. No evade
Aspects of the Dwarves
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dwarf
Utility Skills
*Aspect of Stone- 25% reduction to all condition damage.
*Aspect of Dwarf- 25% Increased skill speed.
*Aspect of Jalis Ironhammer- Ground target skill. Charge 600 units.
*Elite Dodge Skill- Charge when you dodge. 300 units. 50% damage reduction. No evade
…These are just the core concept ideas and names, just wanted to toss it out there. Will have some edits as well.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9804/idea-wvw-only-movement-skills
Comments
Can you elaborate on how this would 'maybe' be implemented?
I know you said the idea is to balance the disparities between professions.
But alot of us are looking at this saying "why on earth do we need people moving faster around a map than they are already...". Cause we would have to give all classes access to these skills, and in order to provide balance these skills would have to be on par with the worst of the existing movement skills....so it would then bring everyones speed up to a certain point, but then some professions could stack it with existing skills and surpass the existing limits even farther...and were back to square one and arguably in a worse off position.
The way I see it, different classes have different roles. Some are agile and fast, others lack proper AoE damage or ranged skills or group utility. That is how they are suppose to be, it is not design failure. Saying every class must have acces to the various movement skills is easily continued by demanding every class to have access to the ranged AoE. Or ability to boost group members. Or strip boons from enemy.
In the end, you just finish up with single class allowed to enter WvW. Which, personally, I would not mind trying, but I do not believe most of players would accept it.
saying classes should sacrifice one thing for another goes against ANet class design & concept.
Sadlyi dont see Anet take this design since it means do what they dont want to do... balance and fix the existent kitten,
Most of the mobility issue with most classes would go away if ANet made a single "common" skill, available to all classes the moment they unlocked utility skills. A General signet giving passive 25% move speed, and a small teleport on active. With a long CD.
Then just make up something else for the existing 25% move speed signets (or keep them as better alternatives).
This would then become meta for all PvE, and large parts of WvW. And people would then complain that they play with a utility skill down, because they "have" to have the "common signet". And then there would be (again) petitions to just up the basic move speed to be the same as the current +25% move speed, which will as usual be ignored.
Also, for PvE, mounts solves this anyways, without taking up a "build-slot" (util, trait, rune, etc).
Alternatively, something interesting along the line of what the OP suggested:
Make all "Signets" into a "common skills" unlockable for each class. It would need some rework for sure, but essentially having a own Signet unlock line for all classes, that would be identical (which would remove some of the uniqueness of the current signet systems), but also let people access some of the same things for each class. This again would have to be balanced (aka nerfed) to not out-shine any of the other available skills etc.
This would unfortunately have the consequence of even more people running all "signet builds" and not really learning to play -_-' (clarification: Not everyone running a pure signet builds are bad, but it is the most common type of build used by people that doesn't try to learn the combat system, is the dreaded "all signet build")
Elrik Noj (Norn Guardian, Kaineng [SIN][Owls])
"Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth." - J. Michael Straczynski
Currently playing: One Must Fall 2097, CODEX (cardgame)
Mobility is part of the game. If you want mobility spec for it and sacrifice something to have mobility. If we are giving mobility "for free" to every class, than let's also give warriors HP and high armor for all the classes.
If every class could get everything at the same time everyone would end up been the same and there would be no variety on the game. Super mobility, super hp, super armor, super damage, etc. You can't have all.
I want the survivability of a nomads warrior on a zerker thief then. Why should I sacrifice the thief's damage to have survivability? If Anet start giving mobility "for free" also give 30k HP and and 3.5k armor for everyone. Oh, I also want backstab to hit 1500 range. Why should I sacrifice range to have melee damage?
Years ago there was a lack of movement speed for some classes. Anet then added many swiftness or +25% speed via traits and skills to fix that. They also created a rune set that gives +25% movement speed: runes of the traveler. They were popular years ago. Nowadays pretty much every class has access to swiftness via weapon skill or utility or traits. Any class can slot runes of the traveler and get the +25% movement.
movement is something sensible in WvW mechanics and playstyle, see the war to bring gliders. im kinda skeptical: today moviment buff, and later, free ports on all map?
Except in desert BL, is kinda rare see complaints about movement speed, there are more complaints about respawn area spam.
Tannhauser Engineer(SoS) | Atlantean Sword | Khel the Undead
Certain classes have certain weak spots. So comparing thiev and necor is not working. Therefore i would say no to your idea. Giving a necro more movement would completely power creep him.
and in this scenario... thief still has access to the most mobility.
Edit- The point is that everyone gets to move, some still do it better. Also, yes, we have PVE designed professions, combat mechanics, weapons, slot skills, traits and "weak spots"... "balance" patches are mostly done with PVE in mind... so... things need to change if we want to have an improved experience in wvw.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9804/idea-wvw-only-movement-skills
The problem with wurm is that it takes too long to cast. Thief can do instant teleports with steal, shadowstep, etc...