Guild Wars 2

Do we know yet how boon duration will be impacted from the removal of stats from trait lines? Boon duration builds are pretty much dependent on that stat line.

Thanks in advance if anyone knows.

I’m wondering if their replacing the increased Boon/Condi Duration from the trait lines with traits that provide more specific bonuses. From the AMA I’ve found:

The Ele burning Duration trait being rolled into Burning Precision, and both it and Serrated Stones (which buffed Bleed Duration) getting their duration % boosted.

Mesmers getting a minor trait in Chaos that increased outgoing boon and condition duration depending on how many boons were on them

Guardians getting a new staff trait that increased boon duration while using a staff.

Necros Lingering Curses getting a massive boost, from an extra 33% condi duration for scepter condtions to an extra 100% Condi duration (as well as extra condi damage) while wielding a scepter.

Thief Potent Poisons getting bonus poison damage and moved to a GM trait

Warrior Deep Cuts (+ bleed duration) getting rolled into a minor Arms trait.

Rangers actually getting boon Duration as a Nature magic minor trait (and their pets get even more!) Traps will also get a trait that gives them double condi duration.

…and probably a couple more I’ve missed. Engineers were the only one that I couldn’t find a new/improved condi/boon duration trait for, though considering that all we got was a powerpoint with at least 5 TBDs in it, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple duration boosting traits in the pipe for implementation/testing. I suspect that they are also looking at the base duration of skills and some of the bonuses from Runes/Sigils and thinking if they want to boost those as well.

Though now that I think about it, what’s your build that takes advantage of that boon duration?

Translation: We’re taking away boon/condi duration stats from traitlines, but don’t worry!, you’ll be able to get these stats with new gear such as Pow/prec/boon dur, or Condi dmg/vit/condi dur exclusively found in the new HOT expansion.

Did we mention exclusively? Rev up those preorders!

Specialized boon durations seem to be the way they want to go.
Don’t like that a few are only in specific situations. Example, Guard staff is ok but hammer has far more useful boons/blast finisher. The swiftness can be handy but the might duration is so low even with an extended duration.

And boon duration gear is.. well.. not the best, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Giver-s-Armor-reminds-me-of-the-old-MF-armor

I would like to ANet add boon and condition duration boosts to the Celestial gear. Give a flat 2% boost to all pieces except chest, make that +3% and the total for going full Celestial would be +25% total (6 armor +13% + 6 trinkets etc. +12%). Might bring back Celestial as a more viable option for some builds and actually makes some sense in that Celestial gear would boost all primary AND secondary attributes (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute).

Better stock up on platinum doubloons and get your recipes for bountiful nourishments while they are cheap.

I was going to post asking this very same thing. Boon and Condition Duration tend to come almost exclusively from investment in the relevant trait lines. While it may be that stats lost from the change will be replaced by gear increases for the most part, boon/condition duration gear tends to be lackluster, given the small bonus (1% per armor item, 10% per weapon) and large sacrifice (a better third stat). I recall that a few of the traits presented in the AMA contained duration modifiers. Will this be the only way to gain these stats now? That’s a rather significant change.

On a related note, simply boosting the base character attributes and gain from gear is not quite a replacement for stats in the trait lines. The rule always was: “Trait for abilities, gear for stats.” However, the attribute gains from trait line investment did inform gear selection. After all, 300 Power or Toughness is nothing to sneeze at, and knowing that one had it from the traits allowed one to make certain decisions with equipment. The pairing of certain stats; the stats being in lines with certain traits — there were imperfections, sure, but overall there were nuances that really made for a beautiful system. If nothing else, we might take a moment to consciously admire the design that is being undone: It was great and it’s part of what made this game great.

That said, I suppose what I’m asking relates to gearing. If, say, everyone is gaining 5% Power and 5% Vitality from gear, but I (in this example) am losing 300 Vitality from the trait line, then my net survivability will have dropped, because those 300 points represented some 50% of my Vitality over the baseline. Conversely, a Power build might be losing 25% of its Power. The sample me is going to be dying faster than it currently is. Should we expect to adjust to entirely new numbers? I guess the question is: Are we going to have to make whole new sets of Ascended gear to replace the lost stats?

Ocosh.5843:

I was going to post asking this very same thing. Boon and Condition Duration tend to come almost exclusively from investment in the relevant trait lines. While it may be that stats lost from the change will be replaced by gear increases for the most part, boon/condition duration gear tends to be lackluster, given the small bonus (1% per armor item, 10% per weapon) and large sacrifice (a better third stat). I recall that a few of the traits presented in the AMA contained duration modifiers. Will this be the only way to gain these stats now? That’s a rather significant change.

On a related note, simply boosting the base character attributes and gain from gear is not quite a replacement for stats in the trait lines. The rule always was: “Trait for abilities, gear for stats.” However, the attribute gains from trait line investment did inform gear selection. After all, 300 Power or Toughness is nothing to sneeze at, and knowing that one had it from the traits allowed one to make certain decisions with equipment. The pairing of certain stats; the stats being in lines with certain traits — there were imperfections, sure, but overall there were nuances that really made for a beautiful system. If nothing else, we might take a moment to consciously admire the design that is being undone: It was great and it’s part of what made this game great.

That said, I suppose what I’m asking relates to gearing. If, say, everyone is gaining 5% Power and 5% Vitality from gear, but I (in this example) am losing 300 Vitality from the trait line, then my net survivability will have dropped, because those 300 points represented some 50% of my Vitality over the baseline. Conversely, a Power build might be losing 25% of its Power. The sample me is going to be dying faster than it currently is. Should we expect to adjust to entirely new numbers? I guess the question is: Are we going to have to make whole new sets of Ascended gear to replace the lost stats?

Only responding to the last part, but this seems to be the case. It’s going to be a new kind of horizontal progression, whereas we can longer rely on balancing our trait stats with our gear stats — my Warrior’s toughness is going to drop from 3.2k to 2.9k because I have no toughness on any of my armor. I’m expecting it’s going to take quite a bit of gold to get somewhat back to the way I had positioned all of my characters, probably even moreso than I’ve already calculated since we’re going to be expecting new players and lots of old players like us trying to sort out our target stats. Mat prices are going through the roof, make no mistake.

I’m not happy about it, honestly. I’m already going to buy the expansion, and now with all of my near-dozen characters I’m going to have to respec much of their gear. It’s going to be at least a thousand-gold change, assuming I don’t miscalculate.

Arrow.4619:

I would like to ANet add boon and condition duration boosts to the Celestial gear. Give a flat 2% boost to all pieces except chest, make that +3% and the total for going full Celestial would be +25% total (6 armor +13% + 6 trinkets etc. +12%). Might bring back Celestial as a more viable option for some builds and actually makes some sense in that Celestial gear would boost all primary AND secondary attributes (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute).

This would be fantastic!

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Only responding to the last part, but this seems to be the case. It’s going to be a new kind of horizontal progression, whereas we can longer rely on balancing our trait stats with our gear stats — my Warrior’s toughness is going to drop from 3.2k to 2.9k because I have no toughness on any of my armor. I’m expecting it’s going to take quite a bit of gold to get somewhat back to the way I had positioned all of my characters, probably even moreso than I’ve already calculated since we’re going to be expecting new players and lots of old players like us trying to sort out our target stats. Mat prices are going through the roof, make no mistake.

I’m not happy about it, honestly. I’m already going to buy the expansion, and now with all of my near-dozen characters I’m going to have to respec much of their gear. It’s going to be at least a thousand-gold change, assuming I don’t miscalculate.

Unfortunately to further complicate matters, ANET has already announced that they are going to release the trait changes some time before the release of the expansion. That means that TP prices are going to get as much an upheaval as they did with the release of Ascended gear, and then a second toss up when the expansion is released.

I only have 8 chars (9 with future revenant) but yes, getting new gear for many/most/all as my builds get turned on their heads is going to be burdensome. ANET has repeatedly declared that they don’t want to push a gear treadmill, but the functional result of these changes will be to do just that! On the one hand I can understand WHY they are revamping the system, but on the other hand the prospect of spending the next year or more re-equipping my characters to something perhaps sort of comparable to what they are now is truly disheartening. It has been proposed elsewhere that Ascended gear (at least weapons/armor) should be permitted the same option to change stats that legendaries can do. That might alleviate a significant portion of the cost of rebuilding, yet it opens a whole different discussion regarding the devaluation of legendaries and their uniqueness.

The OP’s question regarding boon duration is one that will impact a lot of builds, as will the related condition duration, as mentioned above. Specialized boon duration increases cannot replace the option for a lesser but generalized boon/condition duration.

With condition duration this may be somewhat intentional given the open secret that they will probably be reverting back to higher/no condition stack caps. But the reverse does not seem to be true for boon duration. At the present there has been nothing that I have seen so far that will compensate for the overall removal of boon duration as a trait stat.

Given the vast number of posts on the forum, I doubt that we will see a direct comment from the developers regarding these issues, but let us hope that they at least take note and provide solutions to these problems that they have created with their redesign.