Guild Wars 2

So the game has been out for 3 months now, and the original intent of traits was to give players interesting choices to radically change their playstyles. However, aside from a very select few of traits, the majority of these traits either serve as damage boosters or cooldown reduction. The problem with these traits is that they become completely mandatory to use which eliminates A LOT of the potential variety (and fun factor) that could be had within the game. Examples of these traits include:

Elementalist: Deal 5% extra damage to burning foes, Deal 10% more damage while attuned to fire, Fire skills recharge 20% faster, 5% of precision is converted to healing, bleeds you apply last 20% longer…etc
Warrior: Longbow damage increased by 10% against burning foes, Shouts recharge 20% faster, Increased longbow range…etc

In addition, many of the “interesting traits” (Gain 5 stacks of might and 1 strike of adrenaline when blocked, create a lava font when downed, When you are downed, your pet gains quickness…etc) are far too niche and weak and not actively supported by most weapon skills/utilities.

Proposal: What I propose is a pretty simple and elegant solution to the problem which doesn’t require a massive overhaul to the current system and supports the original claim of traits enhancing playstyles. In addition, this also makes it much easier for Arenanet to balance/add additional grandmaster traits should expansions and the need arise.

1. Remove all MANDATORY adept and major traits. Buff and incorporate existing mandatory traits into baseline abilities. Examples of this would be:
a) Deal 10% more damage while attuned to fire = Increasing all fire weapon skills’ damage by 10%
b) Increased longbow range = Buffing base longbow range to 1200
c) Increased Mark radius and marks are now unblockable = Buffing Necromancer marks so that they are now all inherently unblockable and larger.

2. Keep all minor traits and allow players to still invest into individual trait lines to gain their necessary stat bonuses and minor traits. At level 80, players will still have 70 trait points to spend.
An example would be an Elementalist allocating 30 Water Magic and gaining 300 Healing, 300 Vitality, Soothing Mist, Healing Ripple, and Bountiful Power; 30 Arcana to gain 30% Boon Duration, 60% Attunement Recharge, Arcane Fury, Lingering Elements, Arcane Precision; and 10 Earth Magic to gain 100 Toughness, 100 Condition Damage, and Stone Flesh.

3. Allow players the option to choose three grandmaster traits from a list of 12. Players get to pick one grandmaster trait at level 30, another at 50, and the last one at level 70. In addition, merge interesting adept and major traits into existing grandmaster traits. Grandmaster traits can and should include: One Trait for each Utility Skill Type, One Dodge Trait, One Jumping/Falling Damage Trait, and One Spike Protecting Trait. Examples of these are on the second page (not a complete list, just a few rough ideas):

ELEMENTALIST:
a) Elemental Shielding- Gain protection and fury for 3 seconds when applying an aura to yourself or an ally. In addition, you and all nearby allies gain an attunement-based aura when attuning to an element for 3 seconds:
Fire: Fire Shield.
Water: Frost Aura.
Air: Shocking Aura.
Earth: Magnetic Aura.

b) Evasive Arcana- Create an attunement-based spell at the end of your dodge. Each spell can only be triggered once every 10 seconds.
Fire: Flame Burst.
Water: Cleansing Wave.
Air: Blinding Flash.
Earth: Churning Earth.

c) Descent of Elements- Create an attunement-based spell whenever you take falling damage or jump. Take 50% less damage from falling. All spells share a global cooldown of 10 seconds.
Fire: Dragon’s Tooth.
Water: Frozen Burst.
Air: Updraft.
Earth: Earthquake.

d) Master Conjurer- Conjured Weapons have 10 more charges. In addition, their passive effects are increased by 50% and shared by all nearby allies.

e) Written in Stone- Signets may now be used twice before going on cooldown. In addition, maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them and gain a boon based on your current attunement for 6 seconds.
Fire: 3 stacks of might.
Water: Regeneration.
Air: Swiftness.
Earth: Protection.

f) Cantrip Mastery- Cantrips grant you vigor, fury, and 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds. In addition, whenever you use a cantrip, you apply the effects to 5 nearby allies as well.

g) Tempest’s Protection- Whenever you are disabled or take more than 15% of your health as damage in a single strike, surround yourself in a Shocking Aura and gain stability for 3 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 60 seconds.

NECROMANCER:
a) Circle of Life- Whenever you kill an enemy, you have a 40% chance to summon one Bone Minion (Putrid Explosion may be used on these minions). In addition, your Putrid Explosion removes one boon and grants an additional effect based on your highest secondary attribute. You may only gain up to 3 Bone Minions from this trait.
Healing Power: Heal yourself and up to 5 nearby allies for 495 + 15% of your Healing Power for each exploded minion.
Condition Damage: Poison and weaken up to 5 nearby enemies for 3 seconds for each exploded minion.
Critical Damage: The damage from Putrid Explosion always critically hits.

b) Deathly Invigoration- Upon entering Death Shroud, grant you and all nearby allies a spell based on your highest primary attribute. In addition, your Death Shroud Skills are enhanced based on your highest primary attribute.
Power: 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds. Life Blast and Plague Blast grant 1 stack of might to yourself and all nearby allies for 5 seconds.
Precision: Fury for 5 seconds. Dark Path and Dark Water also cause 5 stacks of vulnerability to all targets affected.
Toughness: Protection for 5 seconds. Doom and Wave of Fear may be used twice before going on cooldown.
Vitality: Heal nearby allies for 1302 + Healing Power at level 80. Life Transfer heals you for 256 + 0.1 Healing power per tick and Gathering Plague also removes all conditions off of you.

c) Cultist’s Landing- Create a weapon-based spell whenever you take falling damage or jump. Take 50% less damage from falling. Each spell can only be triggered once every 10 seconds. Only main-hand weapons are considered for the spell.
Staff: Well of Power for 5 seconds.
Scepter: Toxic Cloud for 5 seconds.
Axe: Well of Suffering for 5 seconds.
Dagger: Well of Blood for 5 seconds.

d) Reaper’s Protection- Whenever you are disabled or take more than 15% of your health as damage in a single strike, surround yourself in Spectral Armor and fear nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 60 seconds.

e) Written in Blood- Maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them and gain bonuses based on which signet you have equipped.
Plague Signet: Shroud you and all nearby allies with a dark mist, granting immunity to all conditions for 5 seconds.
Signet of Spite: Your next attack after casting Signet of Spite also inflicts bleeding, crippled, poison, and vulnerability on your foe for 5 seconds.
Signet of the Locust: Up to 5 nearby allies steal health from nearby foes as well.
Signet of Undeath: Causes you to gain 50% of your Life Force pool immediately and grants your revived targets and yourself stability for 3 seconds.

Criticism is always welcome, and if you have any ideas of your own, please feel free to share. Try not to get too distracted by the numbers of the examples used…rather, focus on the general idea please

I see you stealthily undid the nerf on Evasive Arcana there. Unfortunately, that invalidates the whole post in my eyes.

Also, there is no such thing as mandatory trait. There are just some traits which are perceived as better than others. For Warriors, these traits tend to be Forceful Greatsword on the damage end and Vigorous Shouts on the support part.

Take a Warrior as an example. Let’s say you have 10 points in Discipline. For a GS warrior, they’re totally gonna pick Heightened Focus, because they don’t really use their burst ability. A warrior with Vigorous Shouts might pick Inspiring Shouts or Signet Mastery. Someone with a shield might pick Mighty Defenses. With 20 points in Discipline, WvW people love Sweet Revenge, whereas someone who does PvE with an Axe would probably pick Sharpened Axes. Someone with a Sword or a GS would most definitely pick Mobile Strikes.

Just as another personal example, I run 0/0/30/30/10 on my Warrior. The weapons that I carry are: 2 axes, 2 maces, a hammer, a longbow, a rifle, a shield and a warhorn. Out of the traits I get, there’s 5 out of 30 that boost my weaponry. Out of those 5, I only use 1. The rest of my traits? My Tactics and Discipline traits center on boons, whereas my Defense Traits support my Shield and defenses.

Heh, it was a really fun trait though. And why would that invalidate the whole post? That was one example of the 11 I provided. You could easily just remove the blast finisher aspect and still keep it there.

Forceful Greatsword seems to be a pretty mandatory trait (and one that overpowers most of the other traits in that tree)…and that also doesn’t include all the very niche/weak traits in Arms like: Gain fury when you immobilize a foe, 10% chance to gain swiftness on crit for 3 seconds, and critical hits grant an extra adrenaline strike.

And yes, support warriors are one of the trees that did it right in terms of radically changing your playstyle. That I agree with, no doubt. My suggestion was just to get rid of some of the more boring damage boosting/cooldown reduction traits and merge some of the more interesting adept and major traits into existing grandmaster traits. Generalizing those traits so that any type of class (Damage/Control/Support) can utilize them to their fullest potential was my ultimate goal.

KinkyPotato.4219:

Forceful Greatsword seems to be a pretty mandatory trait…and that also doesn’t include all the very niche/weak traits in Arms like: Gain fury when you immobilize a foe, 10% chance to gain swiftness on crit for 3 seconds, and critical hits grant an extra adrenaline strike which probably no one would ever pick.

The traits that no one uses are that way not because of some mandatory traits, but because they are outdone elsewhere. Gaining fury on Immobilize is largely made useless because of easy access to Fury from other sources, such as FGJ and SOR. Gaining Swiftness on crit is useless for the short duration and easier access to Swiftness via SOR and Charge.

And by the way, I could totally see a Sword warrior using Opportunist. Opportunist with Flurry means you get a free Fury on your burst. Opportunist with Leg Specialist means you get free Fury with Hamstring. Heck, I could even picture a Rifle Warrior using Opportunist+Leg Specialist to get Fury with Aimed Shot for a Kill Shot setup.

You could also add an alternative trait line that is solely based on boosting your weapon abilities (cooldowns, damage, swap duration) and dump all of those skills in that traitline. The only problem is that there are currently no weapon-related Grandmaster traits.

Olba.5376:

I see you stealthily undid the nerf on Evasive Arcana there. Unfortunately, that invalidates the whole post in my eyes.

No, the nerf was on the blast finishers. No where in this post are blast finishers mentioned as being included again.

Enigmoid.1264:

Olba.5376:

I see you stealthily undid the nerf on Evasive Arcana there. Unfortunately, that invalidates the whole post in my eyes.

No, the nerf was on the blast finishers. No where in this post are blast finishers mentioned as being included again.

That’s because he edited them out after I mentioned it.