are you satisfied with the amount of good or viable skills/ traits/ weapons?

[Stand The Wall.6987]

certain skills/ traits (even entire trait lines)/ weapons are only usable in certain modes, while the ones that are usable are vastly under powered compared to alternatives. while the amount of possibilities has gone up simply cuz of xpacs, said variety is not as good as it can be imo. anyone else agree?

[Jemmi.6058]

Personally, I find that there is a severe lack of good ranged options for many classes. On my Ranger, I feel the need to run Greatsword. On my Mesmer, I feel the need to run dual sword. On my Elementalist, I feel the need to run sword/dagger.

I could respect melee having slightly higher damage, due to increased risks; however, I find the difference between a ranged build and melee build too large. Even if they were good, there is still usually more melee than ranged options available per class.

[Jski.6180]

O god no the ranged lock for ele over all is so badly done on all of its wepon you effectively have maybe 5 usable skill from a set of 20+.

[Khisanth.2948]

... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

[kharmin.7683]

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

Exactly. This is a very subjective poll.

[DeanBB.4268]

I'm okay with how things are, but there is always room for improvement, additional elites, whatever Anet looks to add.

[sorudo.9054]

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

minions are done horribly and that's from a necro main, in GW i could at least make my personal meat shield, in GW2 i can barely make a party worth using.

[Arzurag.7506]

I won't vote because the term "viable" is very subjective, when it comes to judge abilities and their usefulness.

What's viable in wvw differs from what's considered good in raids, fractals or even open world. Each mode requires different setups and different abilities.Sometimes it varies more, sometimes less but overall, in order to get proper results, you should first determine a game mode, a role and purpose. A support uses a different setup, compared to a DD.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Arzurag.7506" said:I won't vote because the term "viable" is very subjective, when it comes to judge abilities and their usefulness.

What's viable in wvw differs from what's considered good in raids, fractals or even open world. Each mode requires different setups and different abilities.Sometimes it varies more, sometimes less but overall, in order to get proper results, you should first determine a game mode, a role and purpose. A support uses a different setup, compared to a DD.

Also good and reliable in relation to what? That is a little easier to answer for traits because it's pretty clear what the other two traits it is competing for but it is still just a little easier and not a clear cut answer because you have to consider the bigger picture. Some trait lines suffer from poor synergies because of weapon traits. The recent changes have alleviated those cases.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@kharmin.7683 said:Exactly. This is a very subjective poll.

yes. yes it is. there are very obvious choices tho that are undeniable and pretty much necessary, whereas others simply can't compete.

@"Arzurag.7506" said:I won't vote because the term "viable" is very subjective, when it comes to judge abilities and their usefulness.

What's viable in wvw differs from what's considered good in raids, fractals or even open world. Each mode requires different setups and different abilities.Sometimes it varies more, sometimes less but overall, in order to get proper results, you should first determine a game mode, a role and purpose. A support uses a different setup, compared to a DD.

all of this goes without saying.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

@sorudo.9054 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

minions are done horribly and that's from a necro main, in GW i could at least make my personal meat shield, in GW2 i can barely make a party worth using.

I blame the shift from instanced to open world for this.

I remember running the typical MM in GW1 before they capped the max amount of minions and you basically had an army of up to 20+ minions. Good times.

[sorudo.9054]

@ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

minions are done horribly and that's from a necro main, in GW i could at least make my personal meat shield, in GW2 i can barely make a party worth using.

I blame the shift from instanced to open world for this.

I remember running the typical MM in GW1 before they capped the max amount of minions and you basically had an army of up to 20+ minions. Good times.

they could've at least allow extra summoning depending on corpses, even in diablo 3 they did the necromancer better than in GW2.

[Khisanth.2948]

@sorudo.9054 said:

@ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

minions are done horribly and that's from a necro main, in GW i could at least make my personal meat shield, in GW2 i can barely make a party worth using.

I blame the shift from instanced to open world for this.

I remember running the typical MM in GW1 before they capped the max amount of minions and you basically had an army of up to 20+ minions. Good times.

they could've at least allow extra summoning depending on corpses, even in diablo 3 they did the necromancer better than in GW2.

Reliance on corpses can be an issue too. PoE solved that by having a skill that creates corpses. GW2 could probably do a similar thing where one of the minor Death Magic traits has a proc to do that.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Satisfied, yes.If course.However, we're still short on variation if you ask me.

For example, water elementalists lack in offensive prowess.Most is related to control via ice, or slowing and healing via water.Ice can be as dangerous in combat as fire, but has been heavily neglected.

[Jethro.9376]

To become viable some choices/comparisons have to be made.

Sometimes there is only 1 viable weapon because there is no real contestor. Scepter on necro for example.

[Random Wax Orc.7695]

Down-state skills are horribly imbalanced across the classes, ranging from "essentially useless" all the way to a near guaranteed "free 50% health recovery on rally".

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Far too many useless filler traits. The filler traits all should have been changed by now considering how many years the life of the game has had. Some traits are literally useless. This applies to all classes. Their are a lot of skills as well that are obviously underperforming as well as overperformingThat go untouched for far to long. Imho the balance team and team that works on skill design etc needs expanded to allow for more pre testing of changes as well as more frequent changes as needed.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?Not much. Yeah, some choices may be subjective, but many skills/traits are simply objectively underpowered compared to alternatives.

I mean, yes, you may prefer some inferior skills/traits for aestethic reasons, but that doesn't make them any less inferior.

[Naxos.2503]

In -General- ? Yes. I can generally pick almost any class and have it perform any role to a decent degree through proper traiting and gearing, which is kind of saying something.

On a case by case basis, some classes still lack a -little- more versatility for the sake of it. Other classes are often pidgeonholed into roles. Warrior cannot heal anyone beside himself, Thief is almost all offense or evasive/stealth (and rarely ever support). Mesmer is limited in it's Healing to groups, Necromancer is limited in it's buffs to groups.

Meanwhile : Engineer, Ranger, Guardian, Revenant, Elementalist, can fill any role. It's a disparity that always struck me as odd, but one that doesn't stop me.

There are Always improvements possible when it comes to underused traits and traitlines. Engineer turrets are still de-facto obsolete, traited or not, since they can be avoided by staying outside their relatively short range (except rocket turret), and even then, they can be destroyed in less than 5 hits in most cases. That's just one example of such obsolete trait.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I actually had a series back on the old forums, before my brains turned to mush. It was called "I hate the X" wherein I would go through a series of traits and skills, and go over how they're terrible they are.

Even with my brain fried with this disease, I can still go over the weapons, skills, and traits of a class and complain about it. I don't have a solution, because my brain zones out and I get a headache every time I try to think of one, but I can still see the problems where they lie.

[Jemmi.6058]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

Exactly. This is a very subjective poll.

Aren't all polls subjective?

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Khisanth.2948" said:... and how much of that is actually down to personal preference?

I think the necro minion skills mostly suck but judging from what I see in game I am sure plenty disagree with me.

Exactly. This is a very subjective poll.

Any poll that solicits player opinion is subjective. The biggest downside of the poll wording is that there are too many options linked by "Or." This makes it impossible to look at numbers and determine what the sample thinks needs improvement, even if there was a unanimous "yes" response (which there obviously isn't).

I chose to focus on "good" and "weapon" only. Viable is highly dependent on where the weapon is to be used. It's viable to use Ranger Shortbow with Soldier Gear in open world, but it would not be viable to use that combination in WvW roaming. Sticking with Ranger, if I want to run a condi build on core Ranger (or Druid for that matter) there is no main hand weapon choice (to use opposite Shortbow) that offers more than one skill out of three skills that applies a damaging condition.

[Tails.9372]

I like fast paced power based mid ranged gameplay which is based on more of a mana like system instead of the CD system most classes are using. Unfortunately there's only one class / weapon combo in this game that fits these criteria and thats P/P thief. Problem is this weapon set suffers heavily from fundamental design issues mostly caused by how the dual wielding system "creates" new weapon sets.

Summons are also quite usless for the most part even if you just want them as meat shild. They do no damage, are easily killed by AoE spam (something PoF metas seem to specialize in) and have unreasonably long cooldowns. It's obvious that they were designed to fight trash mobs in core tyria. Problem is: enemy desin has evolved since they lauched the game back in 2012 and most of the summons are simply "out of date". At least they should make them "always active" like the neco or the rune summons.

[PlagueParade.7942]

I've made a post about this before BUT I would like to see CORE classes get another weapon instead of a new elite. THis new weapon that the core class gets then would also be able to be used by the 2 elite specs each class has and future elites that we would get. Adding a new weapon then would add possibly more diversity in builds for not just core but also said elite specs.

[aspirine.5839]

No, i sometimes rather have the option to use another utility skill than my so called elite. I find elite skills in gw2 weak as fuck compared to gw1 ones.