There's no reason for Weapon skills to be locked in place anymore

[Aodlop.1907]

I remember the early days of GW2, you actually had to unlock your weapon abilities by killing some monsters and gaining some XP. Back then, it made sense for weapon slots to be static since you had to unlock them in a specific order.

Now though? 

If I feel like "3" is the right hotkey for the third spell of my mesmer, but doesn't quite fit the third spell of my guardian, I'd very much like to swap the spells in my guardian's bar. But I can't.

 

An alternative solution would be to enable an option to have different hotkeys for each new character. 

[Jin.8501]

Would be lovely. My charge/leap abilities are always on side mouse button except in GW2 weapon skills ....

[kharmin.7683]

Wonder how convoluted a change would be to the code to implement such a request?

[Kyon Sama.8301]

Okay, I don't know about changing weapon hotkey spots. But different hotkeys for different characters is something I'd love to see. My "F" key skills are different on different classes. Like druid feels different from engineer. I'd love to be able to rebind them separately.

[Danikat.8537]

I think skills might be locked in place because of weapon swapping and other things which replace the skills. This game is built on a modified version of the GW1 engine and I know in that game if you moved the skills for something like the Junundu wurms or the snowball arena it would also move your normal weapon skills. I've noticed the same thing occasionally in GW2, for example if you have the same utility skill on your main and aquatic bars it has to be in the same place or it will keep moving.

 

So it's possible the same would happen with weapon skills: if you have a character using staff and greatsword and you swap the staff 2 and 3 skills it will also swap greatsword 2 and 3.

 

There might be a way to fix that but it might be a lot of work to do and could introduce new bugs, so Anet might consider it not worth the time required, or it might be pretty much impossible without re-doing large parts of the engine. (Or it might be a really simple change, I don't know.)

 

If they could do it I'd find it useful, I'd especially like to make sure all the skills which move my character are on the same key/s. I keep messing up on my guardian because greatsword 3 is a leap to your target but sword 2 is a teleport to your target, and I keep forgetting which is which.

 

Allowing separate key bindings for each character could be an alternative but if they do that I'd want it to be optional. By which I mean if you don't enable it any changes you make to your keybindings automatically carry over to all your characters like they do now, not "Oh that's ok, if you want the same controls on all your characters just make sure to log into each of them to make the same change 5 - 70 times".

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

53 minutes ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

I remember the early days of GW2, you actually had to unlock your weapon abilities by killing some monsters and gaining some XP. Back then, it made sense for weapon slots to be static since you had to unlock them in a specific order.

Now though? 

If I feel like "3" is the right hotkey for the third spell of my mesmer, but doesn't quite fit the third spell of my guardian, I'd very much like to swap the spells in my guardian's bar. But I can't.

 

An alternative solution would be to enable an option to have different hotkeys for each new character. 

 

Do you have any kind of gaming KB? As this is just a matter of setting up a profile in software that can be hot swapped with a single button when you move from mes to guard. The location on bar and key remain the same, but on your psychical KB "3" can be assigned to any key you want.

 

In game fix for anet would be for them to make profiles for each toon, so key binds and other settings of that toon are only changed when you are on it. For me I change settings for stuff like blink vs F2 on DH or other ground targeted skills, I hate having to go into settings to change this from instant to fast with range indicator etc etc. as this can't be changed in a gaming software profile.

 

Lots of QoL changes they could do here.

[Omega.6801]

I'd rather have ANet spend reasources on something else.

[Astralporing.1957]

Oh, there's a reason. If you want to know what that reason is, just look at revenant problems with templates. Then think that the same problems might happen to all classes with weapon skills.

[Schimmi.6872]

2 hours ago, Kyon Sama.8301 said:

Okay, I don't know about changing weapon hotkey spots. But different hotkeys for different characters is something I'd love to see. My "F" key skills are different on different classes. Like druid feels different from engineer. I'd love to be able to rebind them separately.

arcdps offers profession keybinds, maybe this can help

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

My biggest problem with the weapon skills being locked is that some have very similar functions to other classes and their weapons, but they don't put them in the same numbered slot.

[Einlanzer.1627]

I'll take it a step further and suggest that it's actually time to introduce alternate weapon skills that can be moved around on a given weapon. Even just 1 or 2 extra skills per weapon to allow some customization would be huge IMO. 

 

I've long thought that having fixed weapon skills was a bad design choice - over-sacrificing player choice for the sake of balance when it does very little to ensure good balance is usually a bad move in an MMO.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Einlanzer.1627

[Ashen.2907]

I would love this.

[Westenev.5289]

I would love this update. So many skills are useless filler, and removing them or relegating them elsewhere (like the 6-0 keys) would make keybinding and combos easier. Being able to move utility skills to the 1-5 keys would be a bonus.

[Fueki.4753]

I'd very much welcome more weapon skills.

 

I'd love more sandy Earth skills,

The animations of Togonn Windmane's abilities look really good (minus the reuse of Armour of Earth and Earth Elementals).

The lackluster Earth Attunement skills simply pale on comparison.