Playing Different Classes and Other Ways to Improve Game Skills

IrishGirlGamer · November 2016

Last night several of us in guild were discussing ways to improve players skills. During the discussion I admitted I had never played a sorcerer class and never used either a two-handed weapon or a staff. I have nothing against either of these things, these are just not skills I'm interested in playing. Most of my time has been spent as a dual wielding Nightblade class (in fact, most of my characters have DW on the skill bar). Several people suggested I was limiting myself and playing these classes, even if I didn't like them, would make me a better player.

Do you find that playing different classes and skills makes you an overall better player or do you just play your interest?

As a second discussion point: do you do anything to improve muscle memory? One player last night [I think (s)he may be on the forum so I'll let them speak in detail for themselves] said they move their skills around the skill bar so they don't get locked into the same finger movements. I noted it sounded confusing to me, but this player swore it makes them faster and better. I'm curious if anyone else has tried this or something similar to improve their game performance.

idk · November 2016

For PvP understanding the other classes helps. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses is a plus.

However, in PvE and PvP a player that focuses on one will become better at that one that another player that hops around.

It's why a player is generally better on their main than an alt.

UrQuan · November 2016

I think that playing all different classes and weapon types makes me a better player in groups (for group dungeons etc), because I have a better understanding of why that guy's over there doing X, or why that guy's hanging out beside the tank doing Y. As I'm usually either tanking or healing, it helps me understand what type of support is most helpful to which players, and which type of support is always useful vs which type is more niche.

As far as moving skills around on skill bars goes... Well, I play so many different characters, and many of them have multiple skill setups (for doing different roles), so it's rare for me to get too used to exactly where individual skills are on my bars. Having said that, I tend to place skills on my bar based on the type of skill that they are.

Toggles tend to go in the 5 slot. The "oh crap, survival is needed" skills (typically heals or shields of some sort, but sometimes resistance buffs like Hardened Armour) tend to go in the 4 slot, the 3 slot is usually either an opener (like Snipe or another long-range skill that I would usually use as the first attack and then possibly not again in a battle), a closer (like Crit Rush), or a CC and/or AOE skill (like Talons or Elemental Ring). The 1 and 2 slot are usually my spammable skills (including taunts for my tank setups - sometimes these are AOEs, sometimes they are single target), or Crystal Frags for a sorc (I don't know why, but that particular one always needs to go in the 1 slot for me, even though it's not spammable and only gets used when it procs or when I accidentally slip and hit the wrong key).

My healer setups are exceptions to the above, as I usually have 1 bar that's a mix of DPS and support skills, while the other bar is packed with different heals and support skills. Oh, and sometimes I'll have a setup where I really stay on 1 bar the vast majority of the time, and the other bar is full of buffs, so I periodically swap bars, renew buffs, and swap back. So in those cases the buff bar doesn't follow the logic I listed above (although the main bar usually does).

Nestor · November 2016

Yes, I think it make for a better player, no matter if your doing PvE or PvP. Also, playing different classes and builds keeps the game fresh.

What I do to help with the character confusion is set my bars up the same way functionally between classes. As an example:

1. Opener/Buff Skill
2. DoT or Skill that Buffs next attack
3. Spam Damage Skill
4. Spam Damage Skill
5. Shield/Recovery Skill

Of course there is some variance on this, and some group dungeons I will slot different rotations. But for most content, I can at least rely on muscle memory for combat as I log to a new character that I have not played in a while.