Guild Wars 2

Alright. I have some issues with the trait system. Namely almost the entire thing. And let me tell you why!

Structure: The trait system, in my opinion, is far too rigid to the point of impracticality. It is streamlined in the worst way. This become apparent when you look at lines like, say, the Mesmer Domination line:

• The tree is Power, and yet it provides Condition Duration as a secondary stat. Why? Power and conditions do not interact.
• The tree almost exclusively buffs the Greatsword, despite Mesmers also benefitting from Power when using a one-handed Sword or many other weapons.
• The tree buffs Signets, despite only one signet (Signet of Illusions) seeing any real benefit from Power. I do realize that this is only a 10 point trait, but really.

Those are just three examples. Let’s look at the Necromancer Death Magic line:

• The first two minor traits in this line only work in any real capacity for minion masters, though the major traits (along with toughness, itself) provide excellent bonuses to any other spec of necromancer. Why put spec-specific traits in the minor slots?
• Both of the 30-point major traits are minion-specific.
• This line has a near monopoly on staff traits (this is part of a larger issue).

Again, just another three. But let’s get down to some bigger themes.

Weapon Traits: There are many weapons in this game that many can use. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to tie particular weapons to particular stats. Some fit (Necromancer scepters with condition damage), but many don’t, or don’t have to in the way that they are (Mesmer swords with precision, Guardian hammers with toughness). All that this ends up doing is limiting player choice and creative/fun build variety.

Overall Locking: If I am a Guardian, why can I only have Greatsword attacks heal me by investing 30 points into the power line? If I am a Thief, why can I only gain initiative on Signet usage if I have 20 points into the precision line? If I am an Engineer, why do I need 30 points into toughness/healing to have longer ranged turrets with 15% more damage? A great deal of traits have no necessity of being where they are, or limit build variety just be existing in lines.

I’d like to keep this post short, so here is my proposal:

1. Remove the lines completely.
2. Starting at level 11, characters get 1 Primary Attribute Point and 1 Secondary Attribute Point per level. Each Primary Attribute Point can be spent for 10 of a primary stat, up to a maximum of 300. Each Secondary Attribute Point can be spent for the equivalent for each secondary stat as they exist in the lines. Important thing to take from this: Primary Stats and Secondary Stats are no longer bound to one another.
3. For the first 5 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, and every 10 thereafter, they may select 1 Minor Trait from the list of all Minor Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 25 points into an attribute to use any of the 25 point traits).
4. Similarly, for every 10 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, they may select 1 Major Trait from the list of all Major Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 30 points into an attribute to use any of the 30 point traits).
5. In the end, no player would have any more stats or traits than they would if they used the line system. They do, however, gain much more flexibility and creative options to truly make a character their own.

IMPORTANT DESIGN NOTE: Removing the lines would obviously make the Trait System very daunting for many players. For this reason, I recommend its removal be an option that is given to players who wish to have this level of customization, while allowing players who just want to play to keep their trait lines.

I am open to your opinions and input.

No. Wow... just no.

Absolutely terrible idea. If I could take a ranger and put power, precision, critical damage, and pet attribute bonus to 30 points, then grab 10% damage while flanking, 5% damage while full health, and survival skills recharge 20% faster, 10% more damage while endurance is full, increase longbow range, and signets also affect me.

That makes a ranger, with incredibly high power, precision, critical damage, and pet damage, who’s attacks from a longbow inflict 30% more damage while flanking, and can trigger signets to get another 25% damage increase and pop quickness. I can already kill someone outright with Rapid Fire as it is. 80% critical hit chance, +55% damage on all 10 shots from a significant distance, and a pet that’s capable of surviving?

Or... let me see....

Guardian:
300 healing power, 300 power, 300 toughness, 300 precision. Greatsword attacks heal me, signet passive effects improved, greatsword damage is increased 5%.

Grab some signets to boost my base stats even farther, heal myself pretty well with every attack, do great damage, and be incredibly hard to kill...

The problem with your suggestion is exactly this: I could grab three grandmaster major traits, and three grandmaster minor traits, and stack my stats to new heights.

Rangers with good pets and power, without the wasted space? Anyone able to grab precision and crit, the two highest damaging stats, and skip anything else? This wouldn’t free up character creation, because the gap between the worst build I can think of, and the best, is simply huge.

It would make it so that min/maxing would be absolutely required. Cookie cutter builds of only the most powerful, exploitable traits would ever be chosen, and all the others would simply fall away.

My post has already been edited to remove the possibility of those scenarios, probably while you were typing.

That said, I knew the argument of “Min/Maxing would be required” would come up. Allow me to show you why that is not true: horrible builds are capable of running the hardest content in whatever team composition imaginable.

EDIT: Also, this: “300 healing power, 300 power, 300 toughness, 300 precision” is not possible. That’s 3 primary attributes at 300.

EDIT2: AND, if you have a problem with the system that can very easily be tweaked out, then say so. I’m not saying “ARENANET THIS IS THE IMMUTABLE SYSTEM WHICH YOU MUST USE.”

EDIT3: Sorry if I sound confrontational.

So the overpowered guardian wouldn’t be possible, but the overpowered ranger still is?

Way to achieve balance.

as Nels Said, would be hugely overpowered, the lines need to stay. However i could see it work for just being able to choose at which stats you want in what line (but so you still need to associate the stats with the lines, but you have a bit more choice where (but still keeping minor and major, so that again for mesmer you can put power and precision at the same line since those would be “major stat”), like you said the mesmer domination giving power/condition duration. Now condition duration can work VERY well for a power build, since it affect non-dmging condition too like cripple etc, which is VERY helpful for a power build, however on my pure condition dmg power is very bad and i would love me some condition duration

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

So the overpowered guardian wouldn’t be possible, but the overpowered ranger still is?

Way to achieve balance.

Looking at it again, no. Pet Attribute Bonus is a primary stat.

Please read my post more carefully before jumping to incorrect conclusions.

EDIT, and while those stats of the guardian he mentioned might not be possible the traits alone would be the major factor to breaking balance. In fact in the first BWE it used to be possible to take any trait just of its line at 10 pt’s meaning 50%+ of traits wouldnt ever be used, and ppl were just doing builds like 10/20/20/10/10 or so ALWAYS and taking the best trait of all the lines, there was a reason they changed it to what we have now i think

GummiBear.2756:

EDIT, and while those stats of the guardian he mentioned might not be possible the traits alone would be the major factor to breaking balance. In fact in the first BWE it used to be possible to take any trait just of its line at 10 pt’s meaning 50%+ of traits wouldnt ever be used, and ppl were just doing builds like 10/20/20/10/10 or so ALWAYS and taking the best trait of all the lines, there was a reason they changed it to what we have now i think

Ok, apparently people are missing this part. A lot. Bolded and italicized.

For the first 5 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, and every 10 thereafter, they may select 1 Minor Trait from the list of all Minor Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 25 points into an attribute to use any of the 25 point traits).

Similarly, for every 10 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, they may select 1 Major Trait from the list of all Major Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 30 points into an attribute to use any of the 30 point traits).

Pet Attribute Bonus isn’t a primary stat. It’s a secondary stat, or more technically a profession mechanic, which is neither.

If profession mechanics count as primary stats, though, then Thieves could go Power, Precision, Condition Damage, and Critical Damage, skipping their profession mechanic (which is useless) completely, and stacking more fast damage than they’re already capable of.

Then grab Grandmaster traits: Preparedness, Lead Attacks, First Strikes, for a total of 15 initiative. 25% increased damage on backstab and the first heartseeker, 22% increased damage on the second Heartseeker, 19% increased damage on the third, and 16% increased damage on the fourth.

So, neither the guardian or the ranger could get quite that overpowered, but the thief could.

A huge, basic part of your issue here is allowing people to choose any set of grandmaster traits, without any previous traits. And, most professions have the stat pairings like they do for a reason, because if you can combine them, it becomes insane.

A thief with all the traits, and condition damage from Trickery, with stats from Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes is overpowered.

Now, for a 20/15/20/15 build roaming ranger... 200 pet attribute bonus, 200 precision, 150 toughness, 150 power, 20% critical damage, 20% condition duration, 15% boon duration, 150 healing power.

I’d usually get 8 minor traits, and 6 major traits.
Grab all the first two minor traits from every line except Marksman. For the six major traits, I’d get Two Handed Training, Martial Mastery, Eagle Eye, Quick Draw, Wilderness Knowledge, and Shared Anguish.
Now, I’ve got my usual overpowered self. Six seconds of quickness, 11 seconds of CC. But I also can’t be CCed, get a 5% damage buff, and all my skills cooldown 20% faster.

The problem here is, I’ve got a pick of multiple traits that are usually mutually exclusive. This allows me to exploit synergies that were never meant to exist in the game.

Try again.

Ah, cool, you’ve found something that works. That’s pretty cool, actually, and I’ll concede that point. Anyway, let’s go over something. Would this lead to min/maxing? Yes. Is there currently min/maxing going on? Yes. Is this current min/maxing less effective? Yes. Is it also incredibly stifling? Yes.

But let’s go over constructive things. An easy, eaassy way to fix your proposed issue is to simply have traits be structured into the lines for sPVP. In PvE and (dare I say) WvW, this wouldn’t be an issue. One, because PvE is not competitive, and two, because WvW is already home to great deals of natural imbalance, already.

As for “change something else,” you’ll note that the last time I edited my first post was before you even made your first one. I’ve changed nothing. You’ve simply misunderstood consistently.

So they’re structured in lines in PvP. But still terribly imbalanced in PvE and potentially WvW.

I haven’t even bothered pointing out the issues with this in casters yet, but I don’t want to start, as it’s pretty late.

If you fix this to only affect PvE, the already far too easy content becomes stupidly easier. That’s not something we want in a game that was, in its entirety, completed in a week of release.

These are better arguments, and I enjoy them. I agree that the game is lacking in challenging PvE content, and I regret that. However, I’d say that the ability of players to truly make characters their own (something that Arenanet touted quite a lot) outweighs the (relatively speaking) small portion of the player base that would min/max everything to the greatest efficiency.

Other options may exist than my entirely freeform approach, though. For example, removing weapon traits (+x% damage, -y% cooldown for z weapon) and making them separate. Can you make a compelling argument for forcing greatsword to power and sword to precision, etc.? That is truly a variety stifling agent.

The reason for "forcing" specific weapon traits to specific trait lines is simple balance.

Hammers on warriors is my favorite example:
Hammers have high weapon damage. Higher than a greatsword. They also give the best control abilities, and a good amount of AoE. If you add the Merciless Hammer trait, and put it on a warrior with high critical damage, precision, and power, you’d have an insanely overpowered character.

Longbows, much for the same reason. A warrior can already burn a foe for 12 seconds straight. 10% damage on their longbow while targets are burning, with stats that offer more synergy than the vitality/boon duration the line naturally gives, would get out of hand very quickly, easily making the ranger kind of bad.

On a guardian, the problems are less obvious, but here’s how it works:
Your greatsword is one of your best pure-damage weapons. As a defensive stat guardian, with boon duration, you can get 6 stacks of might (210 power) from your auto attack. If you could also get the 5% damage increase, and the self healing, along with more defensive stats, you’d be a bit overpowered.

So basically the idea would be to allow players to add up to 700 points to a spread of Power/Precision/Toughness/Vitality/Professional in sets of 10 points, with the unlocking for traits staying the same, except that you would unlock slots that you can fill with whatever rather than the current way?

Well, in that case I would like to have a Warrior with 300 in Power, 300 in Precision and 100 in Toughness, with Berserker’s Power, Slashing Power, Forceful Greatsword, Defy Pain, Heightened Focus, Lung Capacity and Signet Mastery. For my Minors, I would like Armored Attack, Fast Hands, Versatile Power, Stick and Move, Precise Strikes, Attack of Opportunity and Adrenal Health. Also, I’ll take that with +30% Boon Duration and +30% Condition Duration.

The thing is, there minors and majors are mixed up on purpose. There’s so many utterly imbalanced minor and major trait combinations that it’s not even funny. Similarly, the traits are spread all over the place to make sure that you cannot just pick everything that mixes perfectly.

Heck, the reason they do not just allow you to select any of the major traits you’ve so far unlocked is also because a lot of the 20 or 30 point majors are rather powerful.

The current system is fine. The only thing that I would argue is the limited amount of trait points. It should of started from Level 1-80 instead of Level 10-80.

Arguable but that’s my opinion.

DFAnton.5304:

The tree is Power, and yet it provides Condition Duration as a secondary stat. Why? Power and conditions do not interact.

Actually this fits quite well, tbh.
A lot of Domination is about applying Vulnerability or Cripple, too. Both are affected by Condition Duration.

The inconsistency is still prevailing everywhere in our trait system (reading other classes’ I think we show too much how far we’ve been retooled in beta/alpha), but this specific aspect makes sense.

In other words, I’d focus the lines like this:

• Domination: raw damage, binary conditions
• Dueling: overpowering, both in burst damage and in deactivation
• Chaos: random boons/conditions, personal defences (but of a randomized nature)
• Inspiration: healing support, more support to phantasms (instead of powering them up directly!)
• Illusions: shattering, damaging conditions

In parts we already have this. In parts. It clearly shows as the idea behind a lot of our traits and traitlines, but due to the constant shuffling the traits no longer line up (nor our GM traits particularly useful).

Olba.5376:

The thing is, there minors and majors are mixed up on purpose. There’s so many utterly imbalanced minor and major trait combinations that it’s not even funny. Similarly, the traits are spread all over the place to make sure that you cannot just pick everything that mixes perfectly.

Spot on.