Guild Wars 2

As far as I understand, post-HoT you’ll be forced to select 3 categories (currently trait lines) to specialize on and it will basically force you to go all the way into that trait line. And as most professions’ trait lines are currently structured, we’ve been able to distribute our trait points in order to gain access to extra damage multipliers and group wide damage buffs.

It’s still early to provide any meaningful speculation, however it’s not looking very promising for those of us that enjoy doing ridiculous amounts of damage.

Why? With a good portion of the stats from trait going into gear, a full zerker gear will make sure he have the maximum power, precision, ferocity stats.

Lets take the guardian for exemple. With a 6/6/2/0/0 build I miss on 200 ferocity and now i’ll probably be able to get it fully. The improvement of basic stats will probably make me lose a bit of power, precision and gain a bit more vitality, healing power and boon duration. You lose a bit and gain a little bit, overall it will be similar. Now take trait. With the new system I will have the equivalent of a 6/6/6/0/0 build now. I could take Mace of Justice and maybe the the new Meta would be now GS + M/F with an overall better dps.

I guess that yes, some build could have a bit less dps, but other build will have more. Overall, I don’t think we’ll see a lot of difference in dps.

Thaddeus.4891:

Why? With a good portion of the stats from trait going into gear, a full zerker gear will make sure he have the maximum power, precision, ferocity stats.

Lets take the guardian for exemple. With a 6/6/2/0/0 build I miss on 200 ferocity and now i’ll probably be able to get it fully. The improvement of basic stats will probably make me lose a bit of power, precision and gain a bit more vitality, healing power and boon duration. You lose a bit and gain a little bit, overall it will be similar. Now take trait. With the new system I will have the equivalent of a 6/6/6/0/0 build now. I could take Mace of Justice and maybe the the new Meta would be now GS + M/F with an overall better dps.

I guess that yes, some build could have a bit less dps, but other build will have more. Overall, I don’t think we’ll see a lot of difference in dps.

Personally I’d go for 6/6/0/0/6 on guardian for unscathed contender and power of the virtuous.

Now I’m thinking about 6/6/0/6/0 warrior, max DPS output combined with phalanx would be ridiculous lel.

- Normalized stats and separate them from traits is fair, bringing certain stacked builds down from being too OP.

- Revert the trait unlocking system is in line with demands and expectation

- Culling underused traits (from 13 to 9) and integrating them to skills is a great change. I applaud.

- Assigning family for certain skills so they can benefit from traits and sigils. I totally love it.

- Elite specialization of ele is named Tempest. OMG, HYPE!!! @@

- Don’t use any skill points now if you want to cash in for crafting materials.

- Confused: How many trait point will we have in total? Do we have trait templates (yes, please!)? Can you name all the traits of ele from the spoiler image?

It looks like the classes that previously didnt invest in power/prec/ferocity lines in their meta builds will get an overall buff to stats. And the others will just get a bit more freedom without having to worry about stat distribution. I really like the change. My only concern is how well they combine and organise the traits.

It looks like from the water magic example it has preserved eles current water magic using builds quite nicely. The only exception is you can no longer invest 2 points just for vital striking on a staff build. Also looks like staff ele might be the only meta build that suffers in a meaningful way because it invests in 4/5 lines. Most builds dont invest in more than 3 traitlines. So they will remain unchanged/buffed.

Things are definitely going to be moved around Thief and Warrior DPS specs are ridonkiculous in their current form.

66060 warrior for groups will be insane. 66006 warrior for solos will be insane.

The only current meta build that isn’t really improving a lot is staff ele. You’re gonna be forced to pick between DPS modifiers in Earth or Blasting Staff and some useless stuff in Arcana. When you consider that 66060 scepter hammer will be REALLY powerful and 66600 D/F will be really powerful it will make them a lot closer to staff.

Thief and Guardian are improving a lot, though Guardian a lot less so than Thief.

also pretty sure 66060 thief in group will probably be better in future"challenging" encounters Fluid Strikes >> Lead Attack. Go in fights by wasting all your dodges, pop haste when your endurance goes back up, its gonna be sweet.

I think that the change will be very interesting. With the assumed defiance change maybe icebow 5ving bosses wont be a thing anymore, so have an engineer in the party to perma imob everything will be nice, as well as getting sustained vuln it will allow the warrior to run 66060. 66060 is a massive DPS boost over the current PS build, it requires others to bring vulnerability stacking for longer fights which could be achieved with glyph/ranger/engi for longer fights. Elementalist looks like staff will be getting a kick in the kitten seeing as if you want blasting staff you have to put 4 extra points into a fairly useless trait line. But on the other hand dagger focus and scepter are both getting a nice buff, enough to compete with staff and maybe put PS out of the meta or make them good enough to use including the PS warrior. The warrior could bring inspiring banners and empowered but i think for general reliability it would be better just having PS even with a scepter/d/f ele. 66060 for scepter and 666 for d/f look like pretty good options also. But with the warrior change I can’t imagine that you ever take fast hands anymore seeing as you would loose so much. This may shift the meta to something more along the lines of warrior 66060 gs camp, ele 66060 scepter-666 d/f or some staff build idk, engi 66006 rifle, guard on 66006 gs-s/f and one spot free up, maybe thief or ranger, will have to see. Sorry for long reply just a lot of ideas to spill

I didnt understand the separation traits-stats. Does that mean we will choose weather we want more or less power, precision or ferocity independently of the trait line?

Not just engi for the immob, but slick shoes might be a thing as well, should potentially drop any “breakbar” quite quickly. I see them having a few opportunities to sneak into the meta.

My attempt to decipher the new traits of ele from the spoiler image:

Fire line:

• Minor:
  - Flame Barrier
  - Sun Spot
  - Burning Rage

• Major I – can’t really tell the distinction of any of them. They are possibly newly reworked traits
  - Lava Tomb (-,-")
  - Burning Fire
  - Spell Slinger (??? – the explosion icon, or Internal Fire)
• Major II
  - Conjurer (the Hand icon)
  - Pyromancer’s Aclarity
  - Ember’s Might

• Grandmaster:
  - Blind Ash
  - Persisting Flame
  - Pyromancer’s Puissance (??? – possibly NEW)

Air line

• Minor:
  - Zephyr Speed
  - Lightning Strike
  - Arcane Lightning (??? – look like Arcane Power icon, could be NEW)

• Major I
  - Tempest Defense (??? – The tornado icon, possibly NEW)
  - Zephyr’s Boon
  - Lightning Rod (or possibly NEW)

• Major II
  - Air Training
  - Aeromancer’s Aclarity
  - Weak Spot

• Grandmaster
  - Fresh Air
  - Bolt to the Heart
  - Tempest Defense (??? – or possibly NEW)

Water line – confirmed

• Minor:
  - Soothing Mist
  - Healing Ripple
  - Aquatic Benevolence

• Major I
  - Soothing Ice – NEW!
  - Piercing Shards
  - Stop, Drop, and Roll

• Major II
  - Soothing Disruption
  - Cleansing Wave
  - Aquamancer’s Training – NEWly combined

• Grandmaster
  - Cleansing Water
  - Powerful Aura
  - Bountiful Power (???)

If it’s accurate, the current ele meta will be no longer the same.

Also from the same image, we will possibly have 15 trait points (6-5-4) instead of 18. So there won’t be likely a 66060 or 66006.

Painbow.6059:

I think that the change will be very interesting. With the assumed defiance change maybe icebow 5ving bosses wont be a thing anymore, so have an engineer in the party to perma imob everything will be nice, as well as getting sustained vuln it will allow the warrior to run 66060. 66060 is a massive DPS boost over the current PS build, it requires others to bring vulnerability stacking for longer fights which could be achieved with glyph/ranger/engi for longer fights. Elementalist looks like staff will be getting a kick in the kitten seeing as if you want blasting staff you have to put 4 extra points into a fairly useless trait line. But on the other hand dagger focus and scepter are both getting a nice buff, enough to compete with staff and maybe put PS out of the meta or make them good enough to use including the PS warrior. The warrior could bring inspiring banners and empowered but i think for general reliability it would be better just having PS even with a scepter/d/f ele. 66060 for scepter and 666 for d/f look like pretty good options also. But with the warrior change I can’t imagine that you ever take fast hands anymore seeing as you would loose so much. This may shift the meta to something more along the lines of warrior 66060 gs camp, ele 66060 scepter-666 d/f or some staff build idk, engi 66006 rifle, guard on 66006 gs-s/f and one spot free up, maybe thief or ranger, will have to see. Sorry for long reply just a lot of ideas to spill

Having tested on the Hero (Legendary type) in Stronghold, Line of Warding and Ring of Warding take approximately 25-30% the Defiance Bar, while Deep Freeze takes 70% of it. Icebow is confirmed still OP.

I’m excited for thief. Just started playing it and its already pretty awesome.

I really hope they force us to spec into defensive traits with HoT content.

I’m not so much for defensive traits but I hope they have some new and different kinda content that makes people have to really think about what to do and when. I have a lot of pipe dreams tho

Engineer will probably be a bit easier to play. 6/6/0/0/6 will probably be the meta with improved endurance regen as grandmaster trait. Tool kit will probably be a better choice with the Master trait Power Wrench. Especially since we won’t be able to take both Precise Sight and Fireforged Trigger, decreasing a little bit the Elixir gun and Flamethrower. I guess that rifle mod will be the master trait of choice in Firearms now. Perma Vigor will be a harder choice to make now since you gonna need to sacrifice Precise sight to get it.

For Warrior, we won’t be able to have it all. 6/6/0/6/0 won’t have the reduce cooldown on weapon swapping. 6/6/0/6/0 will be a GS camping build now and won’t give much Vulnerability. 0/6/0/6/6 will be the most supportive as it will give both Might and Vulnerability. While 6/6/0/0/6 will give the best DPS.

For guardian both 6/6/6/0/0 will probably be a solo build, but 6/6/0/0/6 will for sure be the new meta with both the best dps and support. 6/6/0/6/0 will be more like a pug build with decent dps, vigor and might.

I don’t see the thief change much. 6/6/0/0/6 will be the best dps setup. 6/6/6/0/0 will be the group stealth build and 6/6/0/6/0 will be the survival build. Not much different than the 6/6/0/0/2, 5/6/3/0/0 and 5/6/0/3/0 build of right now that does the exact same thing. You just have to sacrifice less dps to get the ’’stealth’’ or ’’survival’’ build.

For Ranger 6/6/0/6/0 will probably be the best setup and will allow your Frost Spirit to follow us without sacrificing something else, which will be a nice QoL feature in dungeons.

But it may change much with change in trait themselves.

The meta is definately dead.

less traits
can only use a teir in its proper teir
can only fully spec in.

numerous traits will be moved, merged changed.

most likely some profitable combos will now be exclusive.

however, old meta dying just means things change.

a new meta that probably isnt that different will likely emerge.

A new meta will surely emerge as soon as we get full details of the changes. I’m sure there are those with their spreadsheets waiting just to plug in new combinations.

HoT will lead to new meta builds, that was expected once they released the information that it will be an expansion.

The removal of stat points from trait lines will allow for more different builds one will have to sift through to find the optimal one. Currently almost all builds go heavily into the first 2 lines because they give the offensive stats, this makes analysing a build in terms of offensive power “easy”, will be harder in HoT.
On the other hand, the new trait lines reduce the numbers again, only 3 choices per step and you cant take 2 from the same step (like some current meta builds do).

Under the assumption that we get 18 points (picture only shows 15), the number of possible trait combinations can be calculated as follows:
6!/((6-3)!*3!) = 20 (different traitline combinations including elite spec)
(3^3)^3 = 19683 (trait combinations)
so total: 393 660 possible differnt trait builds (as long as i remember my stochastic class correctly)

For only 15 points it’s far less:
combinations of 654: 3^3 * (3^2) * 3 = 729
combinations of 663: (3^3)^2 * 3 = 2187
so (729+2187)*20 = 58 320 possible trait builds.

Currently it’s not assured if pure damage groups will be possible in HoT, but I expect it will only take some time till new content is studied enough to know where more or less defensive skills/traits are needed.

Personaly I welcome the coming change. I always though it strange the some damage centric traits were in heal centric lines. This could actually allow Ele builds/weapons where fire is the best heal, air the best defense, water the best single damage, earth the best aoe damage.

edit: removed one error.
edit2: forgot elite spec.
edit3: should have really looked at the picture

Jerus.4350:

A new meta will surely emerge as soon as we get full details of the changes. I’m sure there are those with their spreadsheets waiting just to plug in new combinations.

This.

As soon as HoT launches, there already will be players asking for specific specializations which will, and i’m 100% sure of that, involve max DPS, when creating their PUGs.

Then we’ll see threads asking for trait-line inspections in-game and all that shabam.
And then, i’ll be sad, because i still can’t PHIW (or at least be more versatile/experimental with my build/weapons) and be useful at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong, there always will be builds/setups superior to others and there always will be a “meta” but the difference right now between “meta” and “anything else” is like day and night.

I don’t want a nerf to zerker and DPS builds overall – all i want are equal (or almost equal) options next to that.

I just realized, how pessimistic i am today, but who knows, maybe HoT brings back the feel of discovery, experimentaion and breath of fresh air into GW2, which i’ve had during the first 6 months after launch.

wauwi.9162:

I don’t want a nerf to zerker and DPS builds overall – all i want are equal (or almost equal) options next to that.

Equal how? I’m curious to know on what spectrum you want equality on.

Bolt to the Heart and Fresh Air will not be together anymore. Same with Air Training and Weak Spot. A certain build will require some decision making.

I don’t think you can say with certainty, beside BttH, what those icons represent or how the traits will be merged.

It’s could easily be Fresh Air and Aeromancer Training are merged into one trait.

edit: It could also be speculated that BttH is going to be buffed as befitting it’s GM status. You don’t think that Bountiful Power is going to stay at 1% and be a GM trait, do you?

I wouldn’t be surprised by BttH being moved to GM tier. Thief and Necro have comparable GM traits already; BttH was ridiculously strong for an adept trait.

That being said, I would still be sad if BttH and Fresh Air have to compete. :’(

True, but at the same time they kept Piercing Shards into a adept tier and it’s similarly powerful.

I don’t really see why BttH is so powerful. 20% is nice but only under 33% is quite the limiting factor. For overall that’s a 6-7% increase, compare that to vital striking or stone splinters. /shrug I think I’m missing something.

The whole thing seems like a slight power creep for me.

Thaddeus.4891:

True, but at the same time they kept Piercing Shards into a adept tier and it’s similarly powerful.

We all know how powerful ele’s water spells are :’(

@Nike: Regarding my (possibly terrible) guess, Weak Spot applies Vuln on Crit, it share similar icon to Vuln (broken shield). The icon with the Tree is imo Fresh Air (Tree -> Oxygen -> Fresh Air= layman’s logic). Fresh Air is way too powerful to be anywhere else but Grand Master tier. It could be improved but still the best of the line. Bountiful Power could be reverted back to its original form +2% per boon – not essentially a buff, to be honest, but at the same time, make D/D cele become too strong… ugh… On the other hand, Tempest Defense (Tornado icon) and Lightning Rod (Lightning with simplified sword icon) are moved to Adept. Swapping Tempest Defense and Bolt to the Heart makes sense to me, as TP is not as powerful as BttH (5 sec + conditioned compared to possibly longer duration).

@Jerus: Bolt to the Heart at the current state is Powerful. It’s like Executioner on thief. The fact that you can stack it easily with other damage modifiers is too OP. Vital Striking is moved to Master tier. I think Stone Splinter will more or less share the same fate.

Wethospu.6437:

The whole thing seems like a slight power creep for me.

Care to share your insights?

Iris Ng.9845:

Wethospu.6437:

The whole thing seems like a slight power creep for me.

Care to share your insights?

I thought the same thing when they said they’re increasing base stats and weapon stats.

Low level dungeon bosses are going to blow up even faster now.

EcoRI.9273:

Things are definitely going to be moved around Thief and Warrior DPS specs are ridonkiculous in their current form.

Don’t you worry, they’re gonna nerf them
Jk, jk.
One thing I’m super happy about: they can’t POSSIBLY put rangers in a worse spot, since they have the kittentiest trait distribution among the classes. 6/6/0/6 (provided they dont’ nerf the hell out of everything, as usual) will be…
… will be and play exactly the same as ever.
God…
/bored

P.S. Mesmer is still my hope. Looking forward to seeing it crushed into the ground.

Their big mistake in this “revamp” was leaving in the % damage modifier traits in there. Those should have been deleted, make traits about utility and playstyle not some boring flat damage buff that just eclipses anything else competing with it.

Also I hope they finally make the ranger trait a single one for swords and put it in the kitten offensive lines.

I also think what screws over the ranger is that basic functionality like boons on pets needs to be TRAITED for. Why? It’s so dumb pets should get the boons you get baseline, and they all should cleave 3 targets baseline not just the drakes.

Same goes for spirits, why do you need to dump 2-3 traits just to make the spirits passable when warrior banners are invulnerable, provide unique benefits that aren’t made redundant by someone else’s utility skill (cross class), and can be moved around without a trait.

Then there’s that water trait for more damage to targets with vulnerability in water attunement. It’s a bad trait that only finds use with a lightning hammer build because non-conjure builds will NEVER want to sit in water attunement so long as water attunement autoattacks and skills do such pitiful damage (and really, besides water staff, all the other weapon’s water heals are so pitiful they don’t justify the massive loss to damage numbers and coefficients that water attunement is stuck with).

Iris Ng.9845:

…
Fresh Air is way too powerful to be anywhere else but Grand Master tier
…

Not really. If there’s no way to have nothing but full investment in the selected traitlines, there’s no need to allocate the most powerful effects at top tiers.
They can easily rearrange traits between tiers and prevent certain combinations from being possible without worrying on how powerful each isolated effect is.

Thief boys, thief <3

Vargamonth.2047:

Iris Ng.9845:

…
Fresh Air is way too powerful to be anywhere else but Grand Master tier
…

Not really. If there’s no way to have nothing but full investment in the selected traitlines, there’s no need to allocate the most powerful effects at top tiers.
They can easily rearrange traits between tiers and prevent certain combinations from being possible without worrying on how powerful each isolated effect is.

This. With the current idea of only being able to fully invest in each line. It really make no difference what tier the traits are and how powerful they are. The only important thing is what other 2 traits they place in that tier. You could move fresh air into adept if it made more sense with comparitive choices and allowed the preservation of more builds. Obviously they are going to keep traits of a similar level in the same tier. But it doesnt matter as much as it did before. Because theres no partial investments into lines.

Edit: I just realize the meaning of the context. So I agree with spoj.

Because they don’t want us to have both Fresh Air and Bolt to the Heart at the same time? And because it’s as “impactful” as it was designed to be?

Well yeah that could be a reason. But thats purely speculation. We dont know exactly where things are being moved. I dont think thats a good reason as it will prevent D/F from improving to catch up with staff.

PS. I believe we are getting shown every trait for every class in the livestream tomorrow. So that should be fun.

Potentially you could gain 5% when bleeding and 10% when full endurance in earth tree. I think that should pretty easily make up for the loss.

Or potentially water tree and make your ice bows get a 20%er while in water, 10% from vital striking to make up for the loss of stone splinters, and 1% per boon.

will be interesting to see the full details, but I imagine things will work out just fine thanks to the extra 4 trait points.

Piercing Shards will still have the same problem in the new system that it has in the current system: it doesn’t make sense in a build that’s not pure conjure, or a niche’ situation. Earth would still be the better line for a D/F build.

Iris Ng.9845:

Edit: I just realize the meaning of the context. So I agree with spoj.

Because they don’t want us to have both Fresh Air and Bolt to the Heart at the same time? And because it’s as “impactful” as it was designed to be?

You should probably look at it from a sPvP standpoint, which is the main balance driving force.
Having to go all deep into Air makes the usual S/F Fresh Air eles quite glassy. With the new system, they’ll be able to max a couple of defensive traitlines (like DD eles do), so
having to choose between more deadly or more frequent (baseline attunement recharge is reduced, so Fresh Air becomes less build defining) spikes could be necessary balance wise.

More deadly spike as in Bolt to the Heart and more frequent spike as in Fresh Air?

The current version uses both Bolt to the Heart and Fresh Air though. In your words, the damage of Fresh Air is traded for the sustain of Water and/or Arcana trait line? If so, I’m a bit worried…

It’s going to be a looot easier to speculate when we know what traits are and aren’t making it through to the new system, and how they will be arranged, so I do hope we get all that information. It definently seems like eles will have a harder time stacking damage modifiers, but if that “frees” us to take utility and playstyle altering traits that could be nice. They mentioned necro wells will be ground targeted by default so I wonder if blasting staff will become default as well. (Maybe a bit of a long shot but I can hope :p).

Iris Ng.9845:

More deadly spike as in Bolt to the Heart and more frequent spike as in Fresh Air?

The current version uses both Bolt to the Heart and Fresh Air though. In your words, the damage of Fresh Air is traded for the sustain of Water and/or Arcana trait line? If so, I’m a bit worried…

It would be that way only if the player choses to invest on the defensive options provided by Water and Arcana. It’s still possible to pick completely different traits, like not going into water at all and looking for some burst increase somewhere else.

A Fresh Air build with defensive emphasis on Water and Arcana would be closer to a variation of the DD Ele.
On the other hand, Arcane Lightning could be moved to Arcana and merged with Arcane Mastery, and we could have a build with Tempest Defense, Bolt to the Heart and Arcane Lightning which can’t spike so often but is extremely powerful finishing off targets.

Builds are going to change and some balance changes should be expected (The current Fresh Air build with DD ele sustain sounds kinda crazy at first sight tbh).
We need to wait and see how it works. It’s not like they can’t move the traits around and make both Fresh Air and BttH compatible if it doesn’t play like expected (the system looks, in fact, way easier to balance).

I can see your point there. Hopefully tomorrow’s Ready Up will reveal more information about the trait change.

dlonie.6547:

Iris Ng.9845:

Wethospu.6437:

The whole thing seems like a slight power creep for me.

Care to share your insights?

I thought the same thing when they said they’re increasing base stats and weapon stats.

Low level dungeon bosses are going to blow up even faster now.

since more of the stats are on gear, the level down system can better nerf your damage just by nerfing your gear.

also, low level players may have more traits/skills even at low levels now, if they hunted a lot of skill points.

my guess is they will actually end up normalizing a lot of things, and you will be less powerful relatively than before.

no comments on some stats being profession specific? i would think that would effect dungeon meta maxers a lot.

Ryn.6459:

I didnt understand the separation traits-stats. Does that mean we will choose weather we want more or less power, precision or ferocity independently of the trait line?

Yes.

It means those classes with dps/defense stats in one trait line now will be able to go for zerker stats only and should see a dps boost in HoT.

phys.7689:

no comments on some stats being profession specific? i would think that would effect dungeon meta maxers a lot.

Those stats are hardly relevant. And half of them are getting implemented baseline. Thats a buff to most builds.

@Jayden. That will be a pretty buff for some professions.

I hope they incrase the difficulty for low level dungeons then…