Guild Wars 2

I think Traits need a little more granularity and customization.

Some of the Minor or Major Traits are really lackluster, and not in the sense that they need to be buffed, but their functionality is gimmicky, making them feel like filler Traits.
You can easily find yourself trying to get to a useful Trait while trying to be creative in your build, only to find you’re forced to go through useless Minor or sometimes even Major traits (for your build) in the process.

Superior Traits
So I think Traits shold be separated into 3 Types:

• The currently useful Major Traits would become Superior
  - Accessible at 10, 20 and 30 points
• The currently useful Minor Traits would become Major, and no longer fixed.
  - Accessible at 6, 16 and 26 points
• The remaining Traits would become Minor.
  - Accessible at 3, 13 and 23 points

Using Guardian’s Zeal Adept Traits as an example:

• Adept Minor
  - Protector’s Impact (reduced fall damage, create symbol on taking fall damage)
  - Revenge of the Fallen (extra damage while downed)
• Adept Major
  - Zealot’s Speed (create symbol on 25% health)
  - Binding Jeopardy (vulnerability on immobilization)
• Adept Superior
  - Shattered Aegis (burn when aegis breaks)
  - Fiery Wrath (extra damage against burning foes)
  - Spirit Weapon Mastery (extra spirit weapon damage)

Another example would be the Writ of Exaltation (Symbols are larger) and Writ of Persistence (Symbols last longer).
WoE is better suited for Major, while WoP is better suited for Superior.

That said, a couple more Traits would need to be created.
Instead of 1+1+1=3 Minor and 6+4+2=12 Major, you’d have roughly 3+2+1=6 Minor, 3+2+1=6 Major and 4+2+2=8 Superior.
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Elite Traits
It would be interesting to have an Elite Major Trait Slot, wich would essentially allow you to pick a single Trait from any Tree.
This would allow you to pick a Trait from a Tree where you have 0 points invested.

In the case of the above suggestion, it might include Elite Minor, Elite Major and Elite Superior Trait.
Restrictions:
- To access Elite Minor Trait Slot, you’d need to have a Minor Trait in at least 1 Tree.
- To access Elite Major Trait Slot, you’d need to have a Major Trait in at least 1 Tree.
- To access Elite Superior Trait Slot, you’d need to have a Superior Trait in at least 1 Tree.
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Trait Stats
I think Stats granted by Traits aren’t balanced, and most aren’t interesting.

Interesting Existing Stats:
- Boon Duration
- Condition Duration
- Main Mechanic (Virtue, Steal, Shatter) Recharge Rate

Uninteresting Stats:
- Everything else (Power, Condition Damage, etc)

Suggestions:

1. Instead of having Major Traits like Guardian’s Retributive Armor (5% of toughness is given as a bonus to precision), Trait lines could provide that as a investment bonus.
   Example:
   - Guardian Valor currently gives Toughness and Critical Damage.
   - Instead, it could grant Toughness equal to (Trait Points)% of your Precision (or vice-versa).
   So if you have 20 points invested in Valor, you get Toughness equal to 20% of your Precision (or vice-versa).
2. Instead of having Minor/Major Traits like Guardian’s Radiant Power (Deal more damage to foes inflicted with conditions) or Fiery Wrath (Increases damage by 10% against burning foes), or Necromancer’s Barbed Precision (Critical hits have a 66% chance to cause bleeding), Trait lines could grant that as an investment bonus.
   Example:
   - Necromancer’s Curses currently gives Precision and Condition Damage.
   - Instead, it could:
   a) give your Critical Hits a (3,3 x Trait Points)% chance to cause Bleeding (replacing the Adept Minor Trait Barbed Precision)
   b) increase your Condition Damage by (3x Trait Points)% of your Critical Chance.
   So if you have 20 points invested in Curses, you would a) cause Bleeding on 66% of your Critical Hits, or b) increase your Critical Damage by 60% of your Critical Chance.

Added Elite Traits to the suggestion.
Essentially, the possibility to pick any of the Traits, regardless of whether you have any investment into its respective Tree or not.

Additionally, discussing how to replace the currently boring stats granted by Traits, with something more interesting.

Regarding Trait line Stats, the basic idea is that bonuses like Power or Condition Damage do not scale properly with gear.

As your gear grows, those bonuses become weaker.

Traits like Condition Duration scale with gear, but also scale with non-damaging conditions.
Same with Boon Duration.
Same with Main Mechanic Recharge (Virtues, Shatter, etc).

So all bonuses should be like those – interesting.

Proof of what I’m saying is that most builds completely ignore the bonuses of at least 3 out of 5 Trait lines, and only care about the Minor and Major Traits.

Specially since with Exotic gear 3 out of 5 Tree lines have neglegible bonuses.

Under the latest changes, now that the game is a little more seasoned, and the initial allure of graphics is giving the spotlight to gameplay, I imagine there is a bigger concern regarding the customizability Traits offer (or lack thereof).

Any comment on that?