Does anyone else think that combat abilites suck in this game?

[Itisamuh]

Honestly, that's what I like about GW2. Similar to Diablo, in the sense that game says "Here's your toys, but you can't play with them all at once."

I was so sick and tired of the bloat in WOW. I've played almost every class to level 80, most to 85, and 3 to 90 before I quit.... every single class virtually required a custom UI with ability (dot/hot/proc etc) tracking, multiple action bars with a stupid number of keybinds + macro's. How is that fun?!

I could play any class just fine with the default UI and no addons...but your point still stands, WoW is getting a bit silly.

[Amanaki]

Try the Backstab thief or just thieves in general and you will have buttons to push, and you must do quickly before you are annihilated... Or perhaps try Elementalist as they have twice the weapon abilities beside the utilities....

Thief is the most fastpaced atm though... Not saying it is hardest though...

[Chrno]

Guardian hammer user here:

skill 1: auto attack'ish
skill 2: heavy AoE hitter
skill 3: chain mob down (situational)
skill 4: knockback (situational)
skill 5: bubble (to trap mobs from escaping, situational)
skill 6: heal (situational)
skill 7: Spirit Hammer (situational, pretty long CD)
skill 8: Teleport to mobs (Situational)
skill 9: Sprint + all boons (Situational)
skill 10: Summon gohstwolf (Situational, long ass CD)


personally i end up using every skill in almost every fight (except gohst wolf due to CD). And i love the combat however
It usually comes down to only skill 1&2 wich you use reguarly. Personally i would've like 1 or 2 more skills for pure DPS pleasure.

ps: Remember there is also weapon switching giving you acces to allot more skills =)

[Berethos08]

Am I the only person here who actually disable the auto attack?

I do for things like 1h sword on my Ranger, or when I want more control over the staff necromancer attack. Having that go through the mob at the wrong angle and tag something I didn't want to pull is annoying, particularly in higher level areas where mob density is higher.

It's a situational thing. Kinda like many of the other weapon and utility abilities - it depends on what profession I am, what weapon I'm using, the type and number of enemies I'm facing (or if it's PvP or PvE), and any particular variable of the fight that needs to be handled.

[melodramocracy]

Honestly, that's what I like about GW2. Similar to Diablo, in the sense that game says "Here's your toys, but you can't play with them all at once."

I was so sick and tired of the bloat in WOW. I've played almost every class to level 80, most to 85, and 3 to 90 before I quit.... every single class virtually required a custom UI with ability (dot/hot/proc etc) tracking, multiple action bars with a stupid number of keybinds + macro's. How is that fun?!

Some folks enjoy a level of micromanagement in games like this.

[smrund]

Some folks enjoy a level of micromanagement in games like this.

Sure, it's a given that some folks like pickles and some folks like icecream and pregnant women like both.

I like the fact that some games cater to one audience, and others to well, the other. Some games cater to both. I don't feel all my games need to be pickles and icecream, it's nice when they are, but sometimes it's good to just have one and not the other.

[Enosh]

Please OH please tell me how "long" was your rotation on WoW... it was interesting? no, it was a ROTATION, and that is mechanically boring, sure you get to PRESS MOAR BUTTONZ, but it's not deep at all. This game relies on good control, on WoW you could do it too, and you should do it, but once you were finished with it, pillar and redo rotation, wait for my PoM-Pyro huehue (TBC doublepyro lololol)

rotations don't exist in wow anymore for quite a long time
it's all about a priority system now with various procs changing up said priority system

[Fencers]

it's all about a priority system now with various procs changing up said priority system

That's still a rotation...

[Glytch]

rotations don't exist in wow anymore for quite a long time
it's all about a priority system now with various procs changing up said priority system

pretty sure even when the devs refer to priority systems as "rotations" we can safely get away with calling them that

[Enosh]

That's still a rotation...

no it's not, a rotation is what existed in vanilla, you press A then B then C then back to A then b etc etc until the end of times

now it's: you press A if available, if not B and if not B then C, if X procs then you press D which you wouldn't use otherwise and if Y procs then you use B even if A is up

for example of my frost Dk since it's the class I play
it's OB>FS>HB for 2H, OB sounds like the logical choice for KM procs, but if your RP is on lets say 85+ish then you use it on a FS even if 2 runes are up since otherwise you would go over the RP cap and it would be a dps loss, HB isn't worth pressing outside of aoe situations unless you get a rime proc, now from the priority above if you have a rime proc and get a KM proc you should use OB right? well no because you are wasting a potential rime proc, so you HB first then OB, if you aren't near the RP cap that is

to say this is the same as old vanillas A to B to C and repeat rotations is simply completely wrong, it's a much more engaging system that requires more thinking about what to use when, especially with classes that have 2 resource systems

pretty sure even when the devs refer to priority systems as "rotations" we can safely get away with calling them that

what the devs use to refer to it has no meaning on anything, fact is most people in this thread used a "oh wow has just a simple press 123 rotation over and over" argument, which wasn't relevant to wow for a few years now since it moved away from such a system

[Fencers]

no it's not, a rotation is what existed in vanilla, you press A then B then C then back to A then b etc etc until the end of times

Rotations are just hierarchical systems.

If A, B.
If B, C.
If C, D.
If not C, then A.

[Dakara]

no it's not, a rotation is what existed in vanilla, you press A then B then C then back to A then b etc etc until the end of times

now it's: you press A if available, if not B and if not B then C, if X procs then you press D which you wouldn't use otherwise and if Y procs then you use B even if A is up

for example of my frost Dk since it's the class I play
it's OB>FS>HB for 2H, OB sounds like the logical choice for KM procs, but if your RP is on lets say 85+ish then you use it on a FS even if 2 runes are up since otherwise you would go over the RP cap and it would be a dps loss, HB isn't worth pressing outside of aoe situations unless you get a rime proc, now from the priority above if you have a rime proc and get a KM proc you should use OB right? well no because you are wasting a potential rime proc, so you HB first then OB, if you aren't near the RP cap that is

to say this is the same as old vanillas A to B to C and repeat rotations is simply completely wrong, it's a much more engaging system that requires more thinking about what to use when, especially with classes that have 2 resource systems


what the devs use to refer to it has no meaning on anything, fact is most people in this thread used a "oh wow has just a simple press 123 rotation over and over" argument, which wasn't relevant to wow for a few years now since it moved away from such a system

Semantics.

Priority, Rotation, call it what you will. We've all been calling them rotations for years and most of us kept calling it that after they changed to priority rotations. It doesn't change the fact that every expansion WOW simply added more abilites into the mix for each class, requiring another macro/keybrind and/or proc to watch. It didn't add depth, it added bloat... and even the Dev's have agreed they 'failed' to reduce the bloat.

[Bovinity Divinity]

Not that I'm defending WoW or anything, but if the whole game revolves around just standing still and mashing 1-2-3 over and over...then a whole lot of people - including people right here - must have found that task pretty daunting seeing as how few people manage to pull it off.

But we've had the oversimplification argument before. I could just as easily say that GW2 is all about turning auto attack on and mashing your dodge key every now and then.

[Himora]

I could just as easily say that GW2 is all about turning auto attack on and mashing your dodge key every now and then.

for the most part, it kinda is..

[Durzlla]

Not that I'm defending WoW or anything, but if the whole game revolves around just standing still and mashing 1-2-3 over and over...then a whole lot of people - including people right here - must have found that task pretty daunting seeing as how few people manage to pull it off.

But we've had the oversimplification argument before. I could just as easily say that GW2 is all about turning auto attack on and mashing your dodge key every now and then.

Lol how could you NOT pull off a rotation? Maybe it's just me, who played a boomy/fire Mage but my rotation was pretty bland lol, hit 2 until moon goes over head, then hit 4, 3, and hit 6 until a sun goes over head, 4, 3 and then do 2 rinse and repeat, it was so simple, at least in GW2 I get to use a little more skills then I even looked at as a boomkin...

[Bovinity Divinity]

Lol how could you NOT pull off a rotation? Maybe it's just me, who played a boomy/fire Mage but my rotation was pretty bland lol, hit 2 until moon goes over head, then hit 4, 3, and hit 6 until a sun goes over head, 4, 3 and then do 2 rinse and repeat, it was so simple, at least in GW2 I get to use a little more skills then I even looked at as a boomkin...

I mostly played tanks and healers, so eh...didn't do a lot of plain rotations in my WoW time. Maybe that's why it never seemed as bland as "1,2,3, repeat" to me. =D

[Kittyvicious]

Rotations are just hierarchical systems.

If A, B.
If B, C.
If C, D.
If not C, then A.

That's pretty much the complete opposite of a rotation. Rotation is circular in nature. You may insert something into the rotation, or take something out, but that means several iterations of the rotation will be affected by that change.

The term literally means a return to, or succession in a series. People can claim this is semantics, but it's not...it's literal language. Devs calling a hierarchy a 'rotation' is lazy nerd speak. Priorities only make some things mildly more engaging than rotations, but it's not a rotation.

I will give you that there might be a rotation inside of a hierarchy, but a part does not make a whole.

[nocturnus]

A priority system is marginally different. You're still pressing the same 3 buttons. The order you press them in varies from time to time, because some abilities' side effects dissipate sooner/later than others. It's a cheap way to disseminate the statement that wow doesn't have fixed rotations anymore.

There's a reason GW2 has an auto-attack. GW2's game play is ever changing and requires you to make full use of your entire toolbox. You don't have a fixed rotation/priority list because your situation is constantly changing.

Is GW2's method superior to wow's? Subjective, like pickles and icecream.

[Naidia]

Not really no, double dagger elemntalist, usually wrecks things. Plus the combat to me is fun and I find myself staring more at the screen than the cooldowns, because watching numbers tick down is pretty fun than watching a boss just cast his abilities, clearly not trying his hardest to murder you.

[zurgs]

The combat abilties are fine on the surface or if you don't mind playnig one way (with minor variations), however overall the classes lack variety in playstyles, largely because they are all pretty much DPS with a bit of a litle support, utliity, healing, CC stuck on, so essentially you always end up with a DPS playstyle (and not hugely varied at that) with a small variation in the level of support/utlily/heals depednign on traits, skill selection and gear, overall though it is all a bit samey, all a bit simplistitic.