I never quite understood the reason why I had to pay some no-name NPC in order to expand my character’s available traits. I wonder the same whenever I feel the need to re-order my invested trait points in PvE. Is GW2 really suffering this much for another mediocre gold sink? That’s all the Profession Trainers are at this point. It seems silly to try and justify them as a valid gameplay mechanic since not only do they not really have a solid effect on an individual player (What is 4 silver if I run just a single dungeon path?), but they do nothing but slow down play by forcing players to seek them out whenever they feel a need to adapt to an active change in long-winded combat or exploration (either in PvE zones or perhaps over the course of an extended WvWvW encounter). More importantly, considering Guild Wars 1 was the basis for this game, it feels like a huge slap in the face when I’m forced to pay gold to spend my own earned trait points and then, once more, to re-order them.
However, I also understand the balance that ANet is trying to establish with this mechanic. Obviously, you couldn’t just switch attributes and skills in GW1 outside of an outpost because everything was instanced—and to that effect, the system was balanced. It’s sort of the same thing in GW2 at the moment, but since there’s so much more going on in the world of Tyria now, I’d like to propose a middle ground:
1. Remove the “Pay to unlock traits.” You can’t justify that. It’s only 3.1g total (which isn’t a lot), but it’s the principle that matters. This is Guild Wars. I shouldn’t be paying to use my profession’s innate abilities. Those are a given as part of my development.
2. Introduce the “Hero’s Handbook” as a means of adding versatility to the current trait system. The Hero’s Handbook would be a level 80 item that could save up to 2 full trait builds between which a player could swap while out of combat. This allows a sort of “second weapon set” for traits and lets a player gear themselves around two possible play-styles that could serve a group in two very unique ways. I suppose a player could also just bring along two entirely unique sets of armor to really push build diversity as well. In order to initiate the build switch, the player would have to activate the Handbook and then “Meditate and Memorize” (for 5 seconds or so) their alternate trait set-up. This action would require a player to perform the “channel” animation similar to what someone would to do gain a “commune” skill-point. This “Meditate and Memorize” action could be interrupted, and in that case, would need to be restarted. A player’s trait swap would not be in effect until a player had fully completed the “Meditate and Memorize” animation.
3. Maintain the Profession Trainers where they are, but turn them into scribes that can either reset your traits entirely as they do now (for a small fee) or can allow a player to delete a previously saved trait build in their Handbook (again, for a small fee). This would allow players to edit their Handbook should they ever see fit after the initial build saves.
The Hero’s Handbook would represent the culmination of a player’s work getting to level 80 and unlocking all of his or her trait points. With that experience should come versatility, and I think that something like the Hero’s Handbook mechanic would really represent that without being outright unbalanced.