Guild Wars 2

I did documentation for a software company and it was honestly a nightmare. Half the time a programmer could make something but if you asked them to explain what exactly it did or how it worked in terms a user could understand, they couldn’t. I’d have to wrack my brains trying to explain extremely complicated concepts in sentences that were easy to understand.

I’m not trying to say that it’s excusable not to have everything documented as well as it should be. I’m of the opinion that things should be properly documented BEFORE they get released even if it means the customer has to wait a bit longer….but since I’ve worked for a software company before who is doing the same things ANet is as far as documentation goes (and from seeing how the OTHER game company does it), I guess it’s SOP in the gaming world to release first and document later.

it is my impression that the trait descriptions are intentionally left unclear to obfuscate the fact that most of them are utter garbage.
there would be a huge outcry if players would know that their supposedly game changing decisions in the trait lines matter so little.

to give two examples from the necromancer traits:
Barbed Precision (“Critical hits have a 66% chance to cause bleeding”)
the trait in the curses line makes a lot of players believe precision can be a worthwhile stat for necromancers focusing on conditions. it turns out though that the trait only applies a 1 second bleed, thus a single damage tick and even with 50% crit and maxed condition damage only roughly 40 damage per attack at lvl80
Vampiric (“Siphon health whenever you hit a foe”)
the trait in the blood line makes a lot of players believe healing power can make a decent impact for necromancers and speccing into blood will considerably improve your durability. it turns out though that the trait is not affected by healing power at all and always returns 25HP @ lvl80. considering healthpools in the 25000 range a more than pathetic value. you would have to land 20-30 attacks to mitigate a single #1 hit of any profession.

Xyvius.1679:

Agreed 100%. As a shout warrior, I can’t even tell how much my shouts heal, I just know that “they heal”.

1’500 per shout. This means 3 shouts do 4’500 healing with base healingpower. With max healing power you do 6’500~ healing with 4 shouts.