Curse

Mercury Angel · May 22, 2005, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Rather than a handful of cookie-cutter characters with pre-determined skills and attributes, why not instead have each pre-made template have 8 reccomended (and already set skills), but also a handful of alternate skills as well.

For the premade's, I often use them when they have an elite I haven't unlocked yet, and totally change around everything else, and I believe people would have a lot more joy out of the pre-made templates if they could perform a similar, although more limited act.

For example, the IVEX Trapper has Distracting Shot, Pin Down, Flame Trap, Storm Chaser, Poison Arrow, Throw Dirt, Barbed Trap, and Troll Unguent.

Why not also unlock Healing Spring and Dust Trap, which are actually traps, and possibly even Spike Trap, as an alternative to Poison Arrow. The character is mesmer secondary, and yet has no mesmer skills. Mantra of Resolve would be a great skill to introduce to the build as an alternative, along with a couple of other inspiration skills to make use of the secondary.

Just another 8 or so skills unlocked would be a great compromise between giving PvP characters everything, and leaving them with builds that get stale after a couple of matches.

And Resurrection Signet is really a must to have unlocked for PvP from the start. I don't know if it is already, really, but it seems like so few people actually bring it, or know what it is. They seem to pick a pre-made, and use it exactly as-is, as if it were unchangeable in it's entirety, another thing that'd be changed by actually encouraging people to mix and match a couple of skills.

Another benefit to this is not having to have quite so many pre-made templates to encompass a wider variety. One pre-made template could offer skills from 1-2 currently unused attributes unlocked, and the person would have the ability to consider them. No need for 140 different templates (and that's just mixing and matching 2 attributes >.>) to cover all possible attribute combinations to still grant the ability to try most of them.
The lack of an Aeromancer and Geomancer is dissapointing for elementalist.
There're no monks that use the smiting attribute.
Necromancer blood skills aren't represented at all. (unless you count Offering of Blood on a monk), and there are all of 3 whole curses.
No axe weilding warrior.
Only 1 mesmer primary, and while across the necro/mesmers, and the mesmer/warrior, it has a couple of skills from inspiration, domination, and illusion, most of the real staple mesmer skills aren't even present. A lot of people don't even know what Diversion or Blackout are or do, or what's going on when they get hit by them.
No Beast Master rangers.

There're so many of the games most basic skills not being covered by the existing templates, and adding more won't solve that, unless you plan on having 3+ pages of them, but giving a little more flexibility will. And it'd be nice not to see quite as many people running around using the 100% exact same builds >.< A little change is always refreshing to see.

eA-Zaku · May 22, 2005, 07:23 AM // 07:23

I agree, but then I feel the game would have less of an emphasize on the RP unlocking of skills.

Also, I'd add Oath Shot to the IVEX Trapper

Mercury Angel · May 22, 2005, 07:28 AM // 07:28

With the repeats, and even without, it wouldn't cover every skill in the game, let alone all of the elites, to simply double the skills available to each template.
Besides, you'd still be limited in your choice through the secondaries available to the primary you want.

I haven't gotten my necro far at all yet, and if I want to do death magic, there're a couple of skills I have to use from the ne/me, but I'd LIKE a ne/mo. Indeed, I'd love to try a ne/mo minion build, with skills like Vengeance in it, but I wouldn't be able to, even with more skills unlocked, so instead, the only thing I could manage is getting a hang of various skills, understanding them, and playing the RP game to unlock them so that I have them available in my own custom build.

However, that'll have to take a backseat to my elementalist, as I'm still unlocking skills there.