So, pretty much everyone that’s played a Guardian can tell there’s only a couple builds that are any good if you intend to live long enough to have fun. The 30 Valor/ 30 Honor synergy is off the charts, especially after the changes to Greatsword’s skill set effectively killed the Zeal trait line. There’s very little reason for a Guardian to consider a build without spending 60 of their traits in these lines unless they specifically aim to be Boon Machines/get maximum up-time out of Retaliation (too bad that Greatsword change didn’t affect it, amirite?)
I’d like to discuss ways to re-allocate some traits that are in disadvantageous places in their respective Trait lines.
For example, our Two-Handed Mastery trait. It’s a Master trait in the Honor line and (unsurprisingly) synergizes extraordinarily well with any build utilizing Altruistic Healing, but not on its own. It takes another Master Trait from the Honor line to synergize at all- Empowering Might. Since they are both Master traits, one needs to put the full 30 Trait points into Honor to get both, and then 30 in Valor to get the synergy. If we move Two-Handed Mastery down to an Adept trait (much like an Elementalist’s 20% elemental recharge rate increase) we effectively create more room for Guardians who want this synergy to experiment with traits outside the Valor and Honor line by freeing up 5-10 trait points, as there would no longer be a reason to pigeon-hole valuable points into a near-worthless Grandmaster slot. Suddenly we have room to give Zeal a chance, or increase our Boon efficacy further. Not only that, but it opens up opportunities to experiment with new builds altogether to get new Synergy for the two-handers without feeling so suboptimal by not immediately filling the Valor line. There are numerous possibilities that open up just from aligning one Trait to the same slot that other Professions have it in! This particular example has more relevance than it should have due to the excessive number of people that favor 2-handed weapons. At the very least it will create some build variation instead of forcing 30 Valor/ 30 Honor. I realize a lot of Altruistic Healing’s synergy can come from Shouts as well and people who opt to use it that way don’t suffer the same opportunity cost. This particular example levels the field between Guardians that use shouts and those that would rather not.
Another example is the Guardian Inner Fire trait. It has mislead many a player into believing their Torch skill Zealot’s Flame activates the trait’s effect. And why shouldn’t it? The Boon lasts for 3 seconds, so even if one were to fill their Virtues trait line to 30, the duration might reach a 4th second at best. By changing nothing about Inner Fire except allowing it to synergize with Zealot’s Flame, more incentive to trait into Radiance and try out 1-handed weapons is created. Plus, you know, it wouldn’t just be thematically appropriate, it would be INSANELY COOL!
I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to alter Guardian traits just a teensy little bit to create more viable build options without making up new traits or skillsets at all. I believe it should be looked into and hopefully adjusted as such (and for this idea to be extended to other Professions that suffer a distinct lack of Trait::Profession synergy).
Any discussion/criticism is welcome so long as it is kept in mind that I am not making up new traits or asking for unreasonable adjustments such as moving Altruistic Healing to an adept slot. If a discussion arises I would like for it to only be about reasonable adjustments of existing traits to create a wider variety of effective builds (if this inspires other Professions that suffer a low number of synergistic builds to take a glance at their own traits for similar ideas I encourage you to make your own suggestion thread on it).