Flexibility of professions: skills, equipment, and combos

[Gorani]

I think traits work on a per weapon basis, so you can setup a set of traits for each weapon, and only those of the equipped weapon apply. Not sure how that works with elementalist, if it's also per element (so you get 4 sets of traits per weapon).

I have no idea how traits (or how many) can be assigned. I vaguely remember that the staff had more trait slots.

[Akirai Annuvil]

Are you planning to take advantage of your profession's flexibility?
If so, how?
How will that impact gameplay?
Will players who don't take advantage of this be gimped?
Are some professions really not that flexible?
Will this make gameplay too complex?

If the game is designed to reward me for taking advantage of my profession's 'flexibility', I will.

Lack of information; impossible to answer.

Impossible to answer.

Yes. If you don't 'take advantage' of a common skill, you'll be 'gimped' or of lesser effectiveness, efficiency or worth. Ea. 'I can read, but I choose not to.' or 'I can use Attunements, but I choose not to.'

I suspect all professions to be too flexible.

No. Complexity is never a hindrance; accessibility and understanding often are. With the very slow progress they currently have planned, I expect the complexity to be easily handled.

[Gorani]

I suspect all professions to be too flexible.

At first we all thought "so few skills" when half of the skill bar is fixed by the weapons!
But if you take a closer look, the diversity and flexibility of the professions is much higher than in GW1.
And, since ArenaNet has no secondary profession to balance for all skills, the balancing should be easier, at least to reduce OP builds and combos.

[Simply Kedde]

Too few skills to me has little to do with the flexibility they give the classes. You could easily have every skill out there have 7 different functions and work differently under certain weather conditions and then only have 20 skills for each class. It'd still be few, but they'd be flexible anyways.

[Ringsgold]

Are you planning to take advantage of your profession's flexibility?
If so, how?
How will that impact gameplay?
Will players who don't take advantage of this be gimped?
Are some professions really not that flexible?
Will this make gameplay too complex?

Yes.
Kill everything.
I will kill more things.
Yes, they will be dead.
We'll see but I think it's how you play them that makes them flexible.
Nope.

[Alaris]

I think flexibility is less defined in how many skills you can bring (or how many of them have multiple functions), and more in how many ways you can use them.

A snare can be used defensively (to keep foes away), offensively (to keep your foe from running away or out of AoE's) or in other ways (to win a race).

Similarly, a wall of flame can be used to damage foes, to buff allies' projectiles, or to prevent foes from getting to you (else they take damage).

[BrotherGrimm]

While GW1s "flexibility" allowed for a myrid of skill combinations and builds that delighted the tinkerer in some of us, it's stating the obvious to point out that this same aspect of the game made properly balancing PvP (and PvE for what that's worth) nearly impossible.

I think we should all be enthusiastic that ANet appears to have learned from these issues and is having some forethought this time around. No doubt that the new Classes will be more confined and focused than what we currently have in GW1 but don't forget that the level of flexibility we had generated Touch Rangers and Perma-Shadow Form Sins.....

[Simply Kedde]

How is that not several functions out of the same skills?

[Gorani]

The flexibility is brought to another dimension when we consider cross-profession combinations, and how players will support each other. This, I'm sure, is something which will be difficult to master and will require experience and skill.

Does anybody (either from demo videos or participation at Gamescom/PAX) know how the cross profession synergies actually work?

e.g. a ranger will shoot his Crossfire short bow skill through an Elementalists Flamewall.

Does the arrow "pick up" damage from the Flamewall and add it to its damage? Will it pick up the "burning" condition in addition to the "bleed" effect?