Rate skill types - thoughts and discussion!

[Cerioth.7062]

I wanted to bring up a topic - skill types! Skills in this game are split across different types, most notably in utility skills. Examples of these include shouts, traps, mantras, stances as well as class specific skill types such as kits (engineer) or commands (ranger).

Which skill types, across the board, do you think are the best and most balanced? Which are your favourite flavor wise? Which do you like the least? Which tend to be most boring? Which are hardest to balance? Feel free to answer any thoughts on them that you have, and tell what kind of skill types you'd like to see used more in the future for new elite specs, and which you think deserve some rework.

I always found signets to be rather... complicated as far as gameplay goes. The concept of passive and active effects is nice and there is a lot of trait synergy to be had, but for the longest time there's been little to no reason to activate most signets. I think the balance of play between using a signet actively vs passively has been hard to achieve. It seems most signets will either only be taken for their active effect, or passive effect. Rarely both.

My favourite skill type is probably stances (weaver, soulbeast, warrior). They offer fun and varied gameplay options and are the keystone of many builds especially in the competitive game modes. My favourites conceptually, however, are probably conjured weapons as well as kits. Lot of fun new toys to play around with. I am also a huge fan of glyphs and hope to see more of them in the future.

One of the most underused but interesting skill types to me are wards - specific to guardian.

What are your thoughts?

Here are all the skill types:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skill#Skill_types

[bambi.6214]

So on engi we have a hard split.

We have turrets that are absolutely useless, except healing turret (place down, wait for the burst and either explode or pick up for faster cd, nobody would just leave it there so it pulses or whatever, so it's not even being used as a turret), we also have gadgets that are useless with exceptions of some borderline cases like "throw mine". Turrets just need to be removed from the game and replaced with something similar, akin to thief's traps got. Gadgets I could see being useful after some tweaks to both the skills and related traits (right now it's just grandmaster trait in tools, so requires a very heavy commitment for very medicore skills).

On the other hand we have elixirs, having an entire traitline commited to them, each one of them with very clear purpose, relatively low cd, decent effect. Engineer also has kits in their arsenal, another unique skill type that was given to compensate the lack of weapon swap. Each its similarily to elixirs has a relatively clear purpose and all kits present a universal arsenal, maybe lack a specific "condi" kit. Another flaw is kits' traits are all over the place, but then again kits are quite well enough without traits.

Exceed on holo is yet another unique skill type, and ever more so, they don't have an associated trait. ANet explained the heat mechanic acts as a trait itself thus there's no need for that, IMO this is a mistake and each Exceed skill should get a >100 heat effect, making Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit into trait associated with this skill type.

And finally gyr... excuse me, wells on scrapper, quite (pun intended) well (re)designed skills that even go nicely with an associated Rune of the Chronomancer, can be buffed via traits and similarily to elixirs offer a wide variety of effects, for me the weakest link being probably the healing gyro.

[Dadnir.5038]

Flavor wise I like glyphs. I find it fun to have skills that have different effects based on the magic channeled.

Signets might be the most interesting one yet often seem to be difficult to finely balance. I like the idea of having a passive effect and having an active effect worth sacrificing the passive.

Corruptions is the skill type with the most potential in my eyes, yet I think it's potential is still wasted right now.

Stealth attack is the unbalanced skill type. It's a big part of the thief dynamic but it's also one of the most toxic thing in the game. I find it hard to accept increased damage from stealth, there is no drawback for "power" in this.

The worst skill type have to be necromancer's minions (well, ranger's spirits are not far behind). Actives are mostly weak when not totally useless while traits focus on buffing a poor "passive" strength. The fact that it's one of the draw to the necromancer's thematic make it even more unfortunate.

Mantra used to mostly be stance in gw1, I'm not a fan of what they became in gw2.

[Yasai.3549]

I like Signets with their passive/active effect style.Are all Signets equal tho? Definitely not.

Some Signets are just straight up better due to how each Profession's Signet traits make them so.

Phantasm/Illusion/Shatter.Oh boi.They need to make the clones and phantasms just not be killable already.Mesmer suffers so much having their skill essentially go on cooldown for no effect because the illusion or Phantasm performing it dies

I don't like Exceed.Exceed rewards the player for just doing Elite spec things.Oh yu use forge and have bonus heat? congratz yu get even stronger utilities out of it.

Might as well have the skills already do the upgraded version off the bat, because it's a matter of just going into forge and pressing 3 buttons in order to get enough Heat to perform the stronger variant of the skill.

[Tseison.4659]

So for my thoughts, I’m gonna list off a couple of skill types that I like and also ones I think need to be improved/changed a bit.

Deception: Mainly in terms of the Mirage, I think crystal sands needs to be changed into something else. Preferably something like a burst of sand at the target location that confuses, blinds and stealths you and your allies. Additionally, I think Sand Through Glass’ evade could be extended just a tad.

Mantra: Again, mainly in terms of the Mesmer profession, I think they need a final charge just like what Healbrands get. I understand that Mesmers get a buff when the Mantra is prepared, but I would rather opt for a final charge that has a powerful effect/boon/condition because as an example when I’m taking Mantra of Pain, I charge it once and then that’s it. I only use one pip of the charge and then wait until another comes up as that’s apart of my rotation. Additionally, when I’m doing group content, I already get sufficient Might.

Signets: I like them, but sometimes I wish certain professions got the same treatment as others because there are signets professions have that surpass others.

Wells: I love wells but I wish their affected targets were increased from 5>10 and had a larger radius 240>300 at least. Additionally, I’m throwing the Mesmer in here as per usual since they ALWAYS get the short end of the stick. For their wells, they do not work in underwater scenarios while Scrappers and Necromancers can. This needs to be fixed.

Spirit Weapons: I like the idea but I think its time to chuck the a.i minions and just have the spirit weapons become an actual bundle that you can use in combat. It will give that Ritualist Weapons feeling too.

Turrets: Since EoD is approaching and will likely have some underwater content (unless they’re completely scrapping that), Engineers or at least those players who want to play a turret build should be able to use them underwater, which currently isn’t the case. A solution would be mobile turrets?

Glyphs: Mainly in terms of the Druid. I feel that their glyphs don’t have an identity. My suggestion would be to have the “Normal” Glyphs they use be more plant/nature-based – roots, poison, vine wall, whatever, something that affects the land and then have the “Avatar” Glyphs be strictly healing/astral-like.

Clones/Phantasms: There are too many issues with them that I won’t bother getting into it. But to make a long post short, I think clones/phantasms should only be utilities and then give back the Mesmers “Original” identity which was a focus on Hexes.

Glamours: For Mesmers, are not exactly “Glamours” and act more along the lines of Wells and I think a 2 or 3 of these skills need to be moved to another skill type. Glamour magic is subtle and allows you to shift how others see you. It’s a combination of Tricks + Deception and so far the skills that are labelled as Glamours are not. But with that said, I personally think Veil needs its stealth increased by a second because a 2-second stealth on a 72-sec cooldown is a waste of a utility REGARDLESS if it’s used in WvW.

Null Field, isn’t THAT impactful in WvW scenarios as opposed to the Phantasmal Disenchanter who removes a whopping FIVE boons. So, I definitely would remove the pulse effect off Null Field and just give it a one time remove 5 boons.

Other than that, here’s hoping we get something interesting from EoD.

[Kodama.6453]

@Tseison.4659 said:Spirit Weapons: I like the idea but I think its time to chuck the a.i minions and just have the spirit weapons become an actual bundle that you can use in combat. It will give that Ritualist Weapons feeling too.

These skills are no AI minions for quite some time now. They reworked them and now they are basically just AoE skills with the spirit weapons just being a fancy animation for them.

[Kodama.6453]

Some of my favourites:

Venom: I like the idea of buffing x next outgoing attacks from allies, it kinda reminds me of some of the weapon spells which ritualists could use in GW1 and ritualist has been my favourite class back then. Unfortunately, the effects are kinda boring, the most interesting one is the healing skill skelk venom.

Corruption: The premise of getting powerful effects, but having to pay for it with self-harm, is really interesting. I would love to see this skill type added to engineer for a plaguedoctor elite spec, representing dangerous chemicals to apply conditions on enemies and buffs on allies, but having to pay with a flat health cost to use them.

Well: Especially the wells that scrapper received with the rework are great skills and really fun to use in my opinion. It is great how diverse this skill type tends to be across the different classes (scrapper, necromancer, chronomancer, all their wells feel hugely different).

Elixir: Alchemy is my favourite theme in the game (hence why I hope the next engineer elite spec is alchemy based), so I love elixirs. I also like that Anet tagged some skills outside of the actual elixir utility skill type as elixirs, notably on elixir gun and mortar kit. I think it would be great to add more of that in the future, maybe give engineer an alchemy based elite spec with a weapon skill tagged as an elixir as well?

---

But as an engineer main, gadgets and turrets are in deep trouble and need reworks desperately to become viable.

Turret: This skill type needs heavy changes. Personally, I would remove their ability to auto attack in favour of giving turret skills a more powerful burst. I discussed this idea in an own thread here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/104832/a-complete-turret-rework-is-long-overdue/p1

Gadget: This skill type is actually ok on a mechanical level, but some of them are just really underpowered. Who would ever to consider to slot in utility goggles in their current version?

[The Boz.2038]

Underbaked, but a good skeleton to build on.Some skill types are split into too many categories. Why are Commands not Shouts? How are Consecrations not Wells? Meditations and Cantrips could easily be merged.Some don't make thematic or mechanical sense. How can Stances stack with each other?Why do only very few skill types have additional synergies with runes?There is a lot of room to expand on in here.

[Tseison.4659]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Tseison.4659 said:

Spirit Weapons:

I like the idea but I think its time to chuck the a.i minions and just have the spirit weapons become an actual bundle that you can use in combat. It will give that Ritualist Weapons feeling too.

These skills are no AI minions for quite some time now. They reworked them and now they are basically just AoE skills with the spirit weapons just being a fancy animation for them.

Oh okay, thanks for letting me know! Not sure if people are more interested in kits/ammos/a.i

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Kodama.6453" said:Corruption: The premise of getting powerful effects, but having to pay for it with self-harm, is really interesting. I would love to see this skill type added to engineer for a plaguedoctor elite spec, representing dangerous chemicals to apply conditions on enemies and buffs on allies, but having to pay with a flat health cost to use them.

Don't holosmith already somehow give the engineer a taste of selfharm with "overheat"?

[Kodama.6453]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Kodama.6453" said:

Corruption

: The premise of getting powerful effects, but having to pay for it with self-harm, is really interesting. I would love to see this skill type added to engineer for a plaguedoctor elite spec, representing dangerous chemicals to apply conditions on enemies and buffs on allies, but having to pay with a flat health cost to use them.

Don't holosmith already somehow give the engineer a taste of selfharm with "overheat"?

Just and only if you are using the Photonic Blasting Module.

If you are using the other 2 grandmaster traits, then no, not really. Experienced holosmiths will not overheat at all to eat the penalty and even if they would overheat, then this is just a punishment for misplay and not rewarded with a great effect.

My idea is to build an utility type around that idea, which specifically would also aid the support playstyle I am aiming for with that elite spec. One of our major support grandmaster traits, medical dispersion field, has some really weird interactions. In some cases, it will just share the healing with allies if the engineer is not already at full hp. If we give this support elite spec utility skills which cost a flat amount of health, then they can create this "missing health situation" by themselves to enable more healing for allies from MDF.

[Dreamreaver.4908]

My favorites are physical skills for that visual flare of doing fancy feats. Or just kicking things. CCing is nice too.