Guild Wars 2

At every player’s home instance (in the living world) and the server’s borderlands (in WvW), there will be a chest that, when opened, will act as a bank tab for a new kind of unlimited-use item. This item can be purchased at the gem store, but cannot be put into the character’s inventory. When you activate the item, it exchanges your armor, weapon-sets, accessories, skill selections and trait selections with whatever is stored in the box.

Initially, this will leave your character naked, but if you re-equip yourself, you can swap back and forth between two builds, or more if you buy more boxes at the gem store. A PvP version of the build box would also be convenient, but it should cost less because it’s free to make new builds in PvP.

This has several benefits:

1. Increased demand for gems.
2. Creates unlimited character progression.
3. Creates a better economy through more demand for items.
4. Compliments the existing trainer/refund system.
5. Keeps a feel of semi-permanence in character stats.
6. Makes the character’s home instance more relevant.
7. Allows easy switching between PvE and WvW setups.
8. Increased convenience in PvP when switching between a few standard builds.

I would love this with 2 changes:
1. lemme put it in my inventory! So long as I can only use it out of combat that shouldn’t be OP, just less of a nuisance. Making it more convenient would boost sales, and the gem store would make even MORE money from all the additional bag slots people bought to fit their spare builds in.
2. Allow me to leave slots blank, so if for example I had 2 builds that used different elite skills, I could have a third that only changed my utilities and armour, leaving the elite skill as whatever it was before.

Silverdawn.8947:

Keeps a feel of semi-permanence in character stats.

Why is this a good thing? I’d rather be able to change all the time when I’m out of combat – that would promote build diversity.

Silverdawn.8947:

Makes the character’s home instance more relevant.

…except it’s a lot quicker to press B and go to the borderlands instead of wasting money on a waypoint? If you’re adamant about limiting its use, ONLY put it in the home instance.

Semi-permanence in character stats is a design decision made by the developers that I don’t think they’ll change any time soon. This is also why I suggested that build changes only happen at restricted locations – I don’t think the devs want people swapping builds every other encounter. I ask for what I think I can get

I like your “blank slot” idea, but it could pose a problem if you have more than one build box. You might get armor mixed up and then have to untangle it by opening build boxes in a specific order, sort of like a rubix cube. You could also take everything out of every affected build box and re-do everything from scratch to set things right. Either way is just more trouble than it’s worth. A possible solution would be to always return to your original set before activating another build box. This would also lessen the demand for new items. I think it’s best to have a complete build in a box.