Guild Wars 2

I submit, that GW2 is currently rather bland and stale when it comes to traits and skills.

Most things have very short/weak/minor effects, and are on pretty long cooldowns.
There’s a handful of interesting and good stuff out there that are fun to use. (like the old Arcane Evasion, which didnt really need its nerf.)

I believe that GW2 needs to have buffs all around before worrying about nerfing “OP” stuff. Anything that is rarely used should get a buff. Weak skills, weak weapons, weak traits, weak trait lines, they should all be buffed or reworked.

Additionally, health should probably be buffed too, as this will reduce the power of burst (burst wont be buffed since it’s not weak) and even out the gap between burst and health.

When everything is else buffed, then the currently OP stuff will probably be “balanced”. When that time comes, ANet can then look at things that are still too strong and nerf those.

Great idea! Let’s buff health and damage, and end up with the exact same game, except with slightly higher numbers.

And if they just add more and more effects to every ability, you eventually end up with a game like DoTA, where it comes down to four players building utility and one building damage. And the only effective strategy is stunlock comboing enemies for the glass cannon carry to kill.

Ah, but you’re wrong – you won’t end up with the same game.

The reason is we are buffing traits and skills. (Health is a last resort.) Rather than base stats.

Traits and skills are things you actively choose on your character, so they are the difference between doing/having nothing and doing/having something.

By buffing traits and skills, you are increasing the gap between base stats and “doing stuff.”

This is what I mean by “bland and stale” – currently in the game, equipping a trait or using a skill, in many cases, does not really have a noticeable effect on your performance. It’s a game of 10% increases.

By buffing weak traits and skills, not only are you improving balance (the same way as nerfing strong stuff), but you are also making those traits/skills more effective compared to not having them, which is a positive effect that nerfing does not offer.

As for your DoTA example, it’s a ridiculous strawman.

Conncept.7638:

Great idea! Let’s buff health and damage, and end up with the exact same game, except with slightly higher numbers.

And if they just add more and more effects to every ability, you eventually end up with a game like DoTA…

You really haven’t understood the title. The idea is to make a lot of the active traits simply better, so that they’re actually used and a passive meta is discouraged.

For example Engi’s acidic coating trait. It’s clearly designed to allow close range viability but frankly it sucks. Something along the lines of ‘The next melee attack you recive poisons the attacker for 10 seconds and you recieve 10% damage protection from foes with conditions for 10 seonds’ (cd still at 20 secs) would make it interesting and viable. It’s less passive in the sense it’s something that helps make a build rather than a generc +5% of a stat.

Maybe you should read your own post…

First post…

Anything that is rarely used should get a buff. Weak skills, weak weapons, weak traits, weak trait lines, they should all be buffed or reworked.

Compare to…

The reason is we are buffing traits and skills.

Trait lines and traits are two different things, trait lines give stat bonuses, traits do not. What you suggested in your first post, was a buff to stats by way of trait lines, which would do exactly what I said. And I don’t see what the title has to do with it, unless ‘stuff’ somehow directly translates to ‘underused traits’.

And again…

Additionally, health should probably be buffed too, as this will reduce the power of burst (burst wont be buffed since it’s not weak) and even out the gap between burst and health.

Compare to…

(Health is a last resort.)

Umm… if you can’t write what you mean clearly, it’s not the fault of the person reading it.

And my dota example is perfectly adequate, look at LoL. They just added 15 or so activated items to the game in the last few months. Tanks and all defensive strategies have gone completely out the window in that time, the surest way to win is building the new utility items to ensure that you win in the one or two clutch situations spread throughout the match, rather than through a concetrated effort for the entire duration of the match. Adding more utility to a ton of abilities would do exactly that to GW2 PvP.

Now granted that is a very simplified example because this is a way more complicated game than DoTA or LoL, but it’s still very much applicable.

What I’d really like to see is a reduction in cooldowns. The fact that some abilities last for 5-8 seconds but have a 60-90 second cooldown is silly.
I really enjoy using Bull’s Charge to rapidly switch targets and knockdown enemies as they charge up big damage skills. But I hate the 40 second cooldown, which basically means you get to use the ability once per combat. Compare this to Bull’s Strike in GW1: 10 second cooldown and you actually need to use skill and timing to get the effect.