Guild Wars 2

The big issue with mantras right now is the casting time – you could be doing a ton of things during it (weaponskills, other utilities, setting up clones, etc.), to where it feels pointless except when preparing them before a fight. Recasting mid battle just screams inefficiency (I mean, why charge up attacks for 3 seconds instead of just hacking the enemy apart for similar damage while not taking hits? Yes, I know there ARE mantra builds in use, but I feel that it’s a horrible opportunity cost to use them)

To that end, I propose reworking mantras to passively reload. As an example, getting a charge of Pain every 4-5 seconds (still maxing at 2/3). Healing every 6-8, etc.

Obviously, the traits would also need to be reworked.

Harmonious – increases max charges to 3
Empowering – 2% damage for each stored charge (If it’s 4% per type, everyone’d just leave one hanging and only cast the second for massive +damage)
Mastery – increases reload speed
Protected – +armor or -% damage per stored charge
Restorative – Heal allies each time a charge is loaded. (Or used, but loaded keeps it as a steady stream instead of a massive health spike)

Thoughts?