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The Skill Bar Discussion
n3verendR
Member UncommonPosts: 452
So, a friend and myself are extremely excited for news about PvP and more so a release date, so we can start theorycrafting about PvP. Our current game is League of Legends and in case you don't know, LoL is a game based around a limited skill bar. Which brings me to todays discussion.
In DotA, there was a character that essentially had around 20 skills. He used Kael'thas model, and could mix and match the orbs he casted, essentially providing him with 20+ skills. Now, the other day my friend and I got to talking about how GW2 has a limited skill bar but he didn't quite understand the whole "Switching weapons" and in the elementalists case "Switching Elements".
My question for this forum is... how many abilities do you think each class will be available to them at any given time? It seems to me that based on the main hand and off hand of each class there will be a clear divide of skill number and a lot of players will base their choice on who has the most.
Now at face value every class has 10 skills, but looking deeper into it, every class has around 20+ due to switching weapons and elements and in some cases reaching 0 HP (Necro)
So? Based on what we think we know (and this is pure speculation) Who has the most skill choices available?
I mean Warriors can do stuff like:
Sword
2 Hander
Sword + Sword
Sword + Shield
Sword + Horn
Rifle
Bow
You see what I mean? Is there a discussion here? Will some of you actually base your class choice on well... choice?
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
Comments
Ele wep skills=4(attunements)*(5(staff)+3(MH dagger)+3(Scepter)+2(focus)+2(OH dagger)))=60 But in any given situation the ele has 5(other half of skillbar)+4(attunements have an effect in and of themselves, so I'm counting them as skills)+5(weapon)*4=29. This could be increased with a conjur skill, which make EWs.
Warrior, MH and 2h melee weapons have 2 additional skills because of chains, and 1 more additional skill from the Adrenaline skill. So 8(hammer)+8(greatsword)+6(longbow)+6(Rifle)+8(swords)+8(axes)+8(maces)+2(warhorn)+2(shield)=56 wep skills in total. At most at a time 2*8(melee wep sets)+5=21 avaliable at a time.
I could go on, but I really don't feel like it. Everybody should have at least 15 avaliable to them at a moment's notice, most likely more.
Disagreement Heirarchy
Greatsword (2H)
Hammer (2H)
Rifle (2H)
Longbow (2H)
Sword
Axe
Mace
Sword + Sword
Sword + Shield
Sword + Horn
Sword + Axe
Sword + Mace
Axe + Sword
Axe + Shield
Axe + Horn
Axe + Axe
Axe+ Mace
Mace + Axe
Mace + Sword
Mace + Mace
Mace + Shield
Mace + Horn
Look it offers a ton of weapon builds and remember that you have 5 other skills to chose of freely.
Isn't that 4 to choose from (3 Utility Skills & 1 Elite skill). Each profession is given their own specific self-healing skill.
I believe there are multiple heals to choose from.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Indeed, money says Mesmers (I am just going to assume they made it) would be pissed if one of their healing options wasn't Ether Feast.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
I wonder if certain kinds of weapon types will produce new skills. Like, will a rarer type of axe do some different skills than a noobish one?
I believe the answer to that question is no, they want the advantage players have over each other to be skill reliant rather than gear reliant.
However, you should know that your weapon choice great affects whatever bonus you have. We know that there are different weapon types, like Ghostly and what not - and they have different effects like more damage at night.
So, a rarer weapon won't provide you with new skills but will provide you with a more complex method in which you can choose to execute your damage. Also, picking up objects in the environment will likely play a role - considering they change your weapon slot abilities. I imagine picking up a rock and tossing it for a small stun would be viable =p
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
I didn't think about it that way. That puts my question out of the way.
What I really wanna see though, is how many traits there will be, and how in depth it will actually go.
Every class will basically have the same number of skills (if they are all fully equipped). 1handed weapons (like sword + shield) do not offer additional skill slots, but rather the type of skills that can be equipped (ie it acts the same as if you switched to a 2H weapon).
Also, every class gets a skill set for when they are KOed, so this is uniform as well. However, based on the classes we currently know about, the warrior technically has the most skills. This is due to the way his combo skills work (you equip the combo, which is a chain of multiple skills all within 1 slot). After the warrior, the ranger currently has the 2nd most skills (pet skills), with the elementalist & necro being last with the same number of skills.
I hope that clears things up as far as GW2 skills go. It'll be interesting to see if they do other special rotations (like the warrior combos / ranger pet) for some of the classes we haven't seen yet.
Slots: 1-5:
Profession
Total Skills
Available Range
2 Weapon Sets
Weapons
W_Comb
Sp Skills
Elementalist
60
(5*4)+4
24 same: has x1 weapon slot
4
5
4
Warrior
52
5+(3 from 3)
16
9
19
7
Ranger
31
5+(4 from 8/pet*3 from 12)
22 (19 for the swd combo)
8
11
4
Necromancer
20
5+(6 from 6 +"3")
16 (6+3 from minions)=25
6
10
4
Slots 6-10:
Per Profession: Heal: 1/2; Utility: 3/12; Elite 1/2 & no data on Racial pool of skills here to choose but each can choose 5. So total would be above + 5
SUMMARY skills per build per profession (approx):
E: 29, W: 21, R: 27, N: 25
Edit: Weapons/prof: from the 16 existing, w-combs is No of 2h, mh+oh combs/prof, sp skills = oddities such as combos, preps, wells etc just to flesh the numbers out with the oddities between profs. The use of brackets shows the peculiarities built into each prof using 1 set of weapons (available range) then doubled for the total per build for clarity.
Seems to agree with Fishbaitz, another beer beckons..
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Its pretty much a given that we won't know the total number of skills until after launch, but there are a few things that we can analyze about the number of actual in-combat skills, and the number of weapon combinations.
As was said above the Ele has 25-29 skills (depending on if you count the innate boost upon switching attunes as a skill) and the War has roughly 21 skills while in combat. Its is also important to note that these include the mechanical effects of the profession; so profession mechanic skills should also be included in the counts for Ranger and Necro
Ranger: (5 weapon skills)x(two weapon sets)+(5 bar skills)+(4 pet skills)=19 skills assuming you have unlocked all four pet skill slots
Necro: (5 weapon skills)x(two weapon sets)+(5 bar skills)+(5 death shroud skills)+(3+ minion alt skills)=23+/- skills dependent on the total number of minion skills equipped.
Now for the consideration of weapons:
Ele: 6 weapon choices with 5 possible sets
War: 9 weapon choices with 19 possible sets
Ranger: 8 weapon choices with 11 possible sets
Necro: 6 weapon choices with 10 possible sets
Now if you are worried about variation between people of the same profession, I could get into the combinations of possible weapon combos for both weapon sets (excluding ele since it only has one set), but that goes into the realm of ridiculous number of possible variation. Aw hell, I'll do it anyway, but my math will probably be wrong so don't quote me unless you check the math first:
War: 190 unique two set combinations
Ranger: 65 unique two set combinations
Necro: 55 unique two set combinations
Now lets forget the unique combinations thing for now and calculate the number of known skills with the limiting factor of excluding utility/heal/elite skills since we have no way to know how many of those will be in the release.
Ele: (5 staff + 3 MH Dagger + 3 MH scepter + 2 OH Dagger + 2 OH Focus)x(4 attunes)+(4 attune innate)= 64 skills
Warrior: (6(or 8) 2H Greatsword + 6(or 8) 2H Hammer + 6 2H Longbow + 6 2H Rifle + 6 MH Axe + 6 MH Sword + 6 MH Mace + 2 OH Shield + 2 OH Warhorn + 2 OH Axe + 2 OH Mace + 2 OH Sword)= 52(or 56 depending on if the 2H melee weapons have chains or not) Skills
Ranger: (5 2H Longbow + 5 2H Shortbow + 5 2H Greatsword + 3 Mh Sword + 3 MH Axe + 2 OH Axe + 2 OH dagger + 2 OH Warhorn + 2 OH Torch)= 29 Skills + Pet skills*
Necro: (5 2H Staff + 3 MH Scepter + 3 MH Dagger + 3 MH Axe + 2 OH Focus + 2 OH Dagger + 2 OH Warhorn)+(5 Death Shroud + 1 Minion Alt Skill)= 26 Skills
*Pet Skills: (8 Pet Skills per pet type)x(12 Pet Types)= 96 pet skills (of course we don't know for certain if the pet skills are completely unique per pet type, just that there are 8 pet skills per the 12 pet types; e.g. wolf type pets may share the same skill with bear pet types.)
Now to answer the questions posed by the OP:
At any given time, I would say the number of available skills while in combat is in the ballpark of 20.
For the Profession with the most skills, based solely on data above, I would take the Ranger (most skills total), the Ele (most skills while in combat), or the War (most weapon skills)
Now, if I was a betting man, I would say that the professions will all have roughly the same number of proper skill (include weapon, burst, chain, utility, heal, and elite skills; exclude pet skills) available to them at release. For the ele and warrior, this would mean fewer utility/heal skills, and for the necro (and maybe ranger, you saw how many pet skills), more.
Also, I luv LoL, but I'm currently a little unhappy with Riot over the Irelia concept art vs. actual product gaff.
Wasn't there talk about combining different effect under the same skill depending on the condition of your target?
For example combining GW1 skills such as Sever Artery (causes bleeding), and the Gash (causes Deep Wound if target is bleeding) under one skill. The latter effect would be executed only if Sever Artery was used on the target (or it was bleeding for some other reason).
So you'd be having one skill instead of two and tapping one skill twice for the effect of two skills.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You are correct. Based on that discussion, this only applies to the warrior profession. I think they commented on having as much as 3 combo components equipped under a single skill slot.
That's not about skill combining but more or less about condition stacking. In that case you stated, using Gash after Sever Artery will just stack another bleed condition unto the current one. Thus increasing the bleed damage/sec.
As for the number of skills a Ranger has at his/her disposal and what I don't understand why are you even guessing when there are so many variables to consider. Like the fact that we don't know how many skills each pet can have (not the 4 unlockable slots), whether we can switch between the 3 pets in combat and how many pets will be available in the game.
You say potato...
It is about combining skills. In that example alone while Gash does cause further bleeding, Final Thrust, from the same chain doesn't. That and the skill does change name from "Sever Artery" to "Gash" to "Final Thrust". Then again, they could just give one name to the whole skill chain to simplify things. And I imagine skill descriptions could change before release.
So Gash doesn't cause Deep Wound anymore. The reason could be anything. Dismember + Axe Rake may still work the same way. Would you have made the same argument if I'd used that example instead?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Guess you're really just getting confused with the terminology...
Skill Combining (Skill Combos) is when one profession's skill combos onto another's for added effect. Like a Ranger shooting an arrow through an Eles fire wall or a Warrior firing a bullet through a static storm.
Skill Chains (not skill combining) is the example you've given when a sword-wielding Warrior's 1st skill chains from Sever Artery, to Gash, to Final Thrust. And using the wrong skill will break the chain.
Yeah, I think "combining skills" and "combos" are a different thing. ...and I didn't pay much attention with the terminology. The point was only that the idea behind chains was to combine skills under the same button and whatnot.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky