ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Passive skills

Having a passive skill bar (Discussion)
Along with having a skill bar for activation skills, having a branch below it with 3 to 6 slots (depending on race) for passive skills with constant effects. Some examples could be:


 * Moving faster depending on your profession, race, or possibly, your title
 * Skills with a jump requirement gaining an increased chance to cause a critical
 * Having a minor chance to ignore a status effect
 * Recovering energy at a slightly faster rate
 * Attacking slower with higher damage
 * Adding elite passive skills with powerful effects like decreased energy cost for all skills.

Buying multiple of a passive skill (but not for elite skills) would allow you to stack the effect, but being capped at having 3 of the same kind. Asura would likely be the only race to have the maximum of 6 slots, with Charr having 3, Norn having 4, and Humans and Sylvari having 5.


 * Why this is a good idea
 * Increased customization and tactical planning
 * Rewarding players that know what they are doing


 * Why it may not work out
 * Cheap combos causing flavor-of-the-month builds, along with complexity to builds
 * Lots of testing would be required to properly balance how large their effects should be
 * Players not being Charr or Norn due to lower usefulness.
 * Sounds like permanent, PvP-valid consumables.
 * Would be excessively difficult to balance.
 * Races with less slots would need something to compensate for it.

Replace fixed primary attribute effects with selectable buffs
Rather than having a fixed primary attribute effect which shoehorns each profession into certain roles, each profession could have a selection of permanent passive buffs and one or more buff slots (all characters would receive the same slot count), allowing them to specialize. For example monks could have a healing-related buff like Divine Favor, a protection-oriented enchantment duration buff and a damage-related buff which their holy damage and the duration of their hexes. Some buffs could be unique to a single profession, while multiple professions could have their own versions of more generic buffs. Title buffs and some secondary attribute based buffs (such as attunements) could also be incorporated into the buff slot system.


 * Why this is a good idea
 * Allows professions to have build and role diversity while preventing the "jack of all trades" problem.
 * Frees up skill slots for active skills.


 * Why it may not work out
 * Could make it harder to balance professions.