I’ve spent the vast majority of my time on Guild Wars 2 playing an Elementalist, and although I originally thought of these issues with how they directly pertained to my Elementalist, I’ve realized how the change I’ve envisioned could benefit all players.
For those of you who may not know much about structured PvP, when you go into the Hearts of Mist your trait line and equipment are all completely changed, and entirely separate from your PvE set-up. This is to ensure fair competition among the players.
In everything else (PvE, WvW, dungeons), however, you have one set-up for your traits, and if you’d like to try something else you need to go to a profession trainer and relearn your trait points for a small fee. Here’s where I ran into my problems, and where my solution comes into play.
While doing normal quests in PvE, I preferred a D/D condition-build, with Carrion gear. However, this wasn’t the most effective set-up for me in dungeons or WvW and I was much less beneficial to my teammates than I could have been. To become more effective, I would have to retrait and purchase a new gear and accessories set, and then retrait again to go back and keep my second set of gear in my storage. The same problem would occur while going into WvW, depending on what activity I wanted to engage in. I didn’t have the freedom to effectively participate in everything.
The second part to this problem, and although this mainly pertains to Elementalists other professions may my solution as well, is weapon limitations. Elementalists have three main-hand weapons: dagger, scepter, and staff. These are, respectively, short-range, mid-range, and long-range weapons. If I trait into a staff build for WvW so I can defend keeps well, I don’t have the luxury of a weapon switch to then fight in closer range effectively. I have to choose a range in which I would like to fight, and have to stick to that. Our attunements are supposed to be our version of weapon swithces, but the different attunements are all the same range depending on your weapon choice.
My solution is to sell in the Gem Store different character build slots. Characters would initially start with one, and they could purchase more through the store for gems (say up to 5 or so, for a price ArenaNet feels is fair). Players could cycle through these character builds when they were not in combat, just like equipping a piece of gear through your inventory. These builds would hold the pieces of armor that have stats relevant to the build the player wishes to use, as well a trait line specific to that set-up. Players would be free to change the set-ups of each build as they are with their character now. This would allow all professions to take full advantage of the weapons they have to choose from, as well as different possible builds. If players don’t feel this offers them any benefit, they don’t have to purchase the slots.
Thank you for reading, and I apologize for the length of the post. I wanted to be sure I described my idea well enough for others to understand. I appreciate any feedback and constructive criticism, so feel free to voice your thoughts.