Missing Core Skills

[LouWolfskin.3492]

So, considering that over the last year we not only got more underwater skills for the revenant, including a new weapon. And now even another redesigned elite skill complete with unique animations.

What is still the excuse to not give us the missing Core skills? Like a selfheal meditation or an elite necromancer well.

[joneirikb.7506]

This request always struck me as strange, because we still have just as many skills as we had at launch, no skills been removed, so how can they be missing (Except anti toxin heal, that got added in LS1 and then removed).

So what you're requesting would be: "ANet can you please make some more new skills for core classes, so that we have 1heal, 4 util, 1 elite of each skill type available for each class." Then sure.

Personally I'd be much more interested in ANet getting the balancing right on existing skills before adding new ones (which includes elite specs btw, we're still not balance dout since HOT...). And just adding a bunch of skills for no other reason than adding skills (and satisfying some of our OCD, can relate to that), creates potentially more balance issues. So while not technically against it, because not really against more stuff.... I want it put far down on the priority list myself.

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To clarify: Revenant was barely half finished in water when released in HoT, It had a single weapon that had both melee an ranged AA on 1 and 2 to compensate for not having 2 weapons, and only 2 legends available underwater. Simply put it couldn't even fill out its minimum amount of skills (2 legends and 2 weapon slots). It needed a fix, never before has a class been that unfinished in the game. It was half a core class on release.

Skill and Trait redesigns happens every here and there usually because of balancing, ANet finding that something just isn't useful in its current iteration. This should have a higher priority that adding new skills. The alternative is just more useless skills that no one wants to pick/use, which doesn't benefit anyone. Make all the existing skills useful before adding new.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"LouWolfskin.3492" said:So, considering that over the last year we not only got more underwater skills for the revenant, including a new weapon. And now even another redesigned elite skill complete with unique animations.

What is still the excuse to not give us the missing Core skills? Like a selfheal meditation or an elite necromancer well.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite_skillEvery class gets 3 core elite skills (except revenant due to their unique design who get 4), 3 racial elite skills (except Norn who get 4 due to thematic reasons) and 1 per elite specialization for a total of up to 9 (in case of a norn non revenant character).

What exactly made you believe there was any elite missing?

The same goes for healing skills with 4 base per core class and 1 per elite specialization (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_skill). I can't recall Arenanet ever mentioning that they would add to those base skills.

[LouWolfskin.3492]

The fact that each elite spec has a complete set of skills is a big indicator. And while i'm not sure where it was exactly, it was on this forum, Arena-Net called it missing skills themselves quite often way back when.When the skills got equalized to make it all more consistent, because parts of the elites didn't have a skilltype at first, that would have been a perfect opportunity.

It would just make sense to have a selfheal for each type, an elite for each type. And some classes even have that while other's don't.The engi for example has a selfheal of each core type, why not the guard?

EDIT: Water Spirit was added later on if i remember right. And so, we have suddenly a complete core skillset. The same could be done for other skillsets just as well.

[joneirikb.7506]

At launch practically no skills had any type at all, iirc the only skills with a type for guardian was Signets, all 5 of them. And the 2 Tomes. I don't think anything else had "types". Which probably explains why they didn't even think about it back then, they likely just made XYZ skills for each skill type, to have a good enough variety for each class, and especially for sPvP which was the focal point for balancing back then. (I miss that)

So at that point there wasn't any "Skill Types" worth mentioning, Guardian had 4 heals 1 was a signet rest un-typed. 3 elite skills where 2 was tomes and the last one was un-typified. 20 Utility with only the 4 signets typified. And it was similar for all the others. But the main point here is that they had locked down the skills themselves at this point, as what they felt they needed for the combat system and sPvP, design decision.

Forgot how long after they started updating and changing skills to get types, just remember that they did it in a couple of big batches. First most of the heal/utility that was easy to just port over, then later they did a large change to more or less force the elites in and the last skills that didn't make sense (like the guardian cone heal that got changed around and became a shout), and our 2 tomes got changed the current signet and shout.

But I've never seen ANet show any particular interest in expanding the number of skills, they might have said that somewhere that I haven't seen. But it would be a weird decision from a design perspective. They already have more skills than they can balance, and adding more will only give them more work to balance things out and make all relevant. And personally I don't want to go back into GW1 waters with 200+ skills that just never gets used, because they're just weaker versions of other stuff.

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The Elite specs are made using a completely different design, which has to bring X new things into a class, and basically be able to run its own new thing. It go to have enough to be able to feel like an almost new class. They where designed several years later when they already had skill types in the game, and could design around it.

On the other hand, continuing the example of Guardian, they already got a complete set of meditation, signet, and shouts (thanks to the old elite skill re-shuffle where we lost our tomes, and I still struggle seeing Renewed Focus as a Meditation). So the only ones we lack are Consecration's and Spirit Weapons. With 1 untyped Heal (Shelter). Would anyone even use a heal/elite spirit weapon/consecration ? Spirit weapons been under-performing and considered weak since launch, despite how much work they've put into them last year or so. And Consecrations have the problem of being stationary by design, in a game all about mobility and action combat. Both of them already have an Util skill that is almost a healing skill (Bow of Truth and Sanctuary), and Consecrations got an almost elite skill already (Sanctuary was considered for elite skill beck under development).

So if they added 2 more Heals and Elites for guard to fill out those last, would they be used ? or would it just be more skills that people ignore and keep picking the "strongest" because the others aren't up to par ? This is one of the problems with the current PVE design as well, since the only thing a majority of players care about is damage, they will typically only look at what skills increases the dps, which makes it really hard to design a system that gives many balanced options simply because the representation numbers will always be off.

I guess I just don't see the point, I can't possibly imagine myself using a spirit weapon or consecration heal/elite, because I've never enjoyed spirit weapons and their mechanics, and consecrations are just too static and locks you down in one place as well as generally too long recharge times. And I'd really wish they actually balanced out their existing skills, especially including their Consecrations and Spirit weapons first, to make them interesting enough to use, before adding more of them. To do otherwise would just be bloat.

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Edit: why the heck did this thread get moved to Profession/Revenant ? That's like the one single class this doesn't affect at all! o_0

[LouWolfskin.3492]

Considering i'm almost trying to actively stay away from the meta, enjoy playing supportive builds in open world and what not: Maybe i'd just like to see the options considering a lot of skills were already added.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The problem with what you’re suggesting is that they would have to either add an additional legend or rework how the current legends work to accommodate an additional skill each. Revenant doesn’t work the same way as other classes so they can’t just give us a “selfheal meditation” or “Necromancer well.” We have ZERO skills that are classified the way your post speaks of due to our legends mechanic. Additionally, Anet has never said that Revenant is missing skills with the exception of when they added the underwater trident and the core F2 and they were only speaking of those specific additions.

[derd.6413]

why is this in the rev forums?

[joneirikb.7506]

@derd.6413 said:why is this in the rev forums?

I'm wondering the same thing, some mod quickly glanced through the top and noticed the comments about Revenant underwater skills, and ust dropped it here ? @ANet "Put me back where I belong!"

@"LouWolfskin.3492" said:Considering i'm almost trying to actively stay away from the meta, enjoy playing supportive builds in open world and what not: Maybe i'd just like to see the options considering a lot of skills were already added.

Ok sure, so you ignore all the balance and gameplay design considerations. That doesn't mean that ANet can.

For one think "support" builds are primary used/useful for Fractals, Raids, PvP, and WvW, the same areas where balance matters, and meta matters (for good and bad). So any kind of skills resolving around a support theme would have to be strongly aligned with the balance of those.

For Open World, sure if that was the only consideration I'd see no problem with it. Open World doesn't really care about balance simply because it allows you to trivialize most difficulty etc. But Open World is not the only content in the game, and for a game like GW2 that originally had its entire combat system designed around sPvP, and later shifted over to try to balance for Fractals/Raids, those are (and have to be) the primary driving factor for balance, and thus skills.

You might get better results requesting more pure PVE related skills (that could/would get disabled for Fractals/Raids) similar to the old "PvE skills" in GW1, that you could actually quest for and then reputation grind to improve upon (forgot the specifics, been way too many years since I touched that).

[LouWolfskin.3492]

I gave playing support in Open World as an example. I try to play in every game mode and even in PvP and WvW i'd like to see an elite consecration or a selfheal spirit weapon.

To the people asking why this is in the revenant forums: No idea, it was moved by a mod.

[Knighthonor.4061]

Ok that explains everything. This was a moved thread