Guild Wars 2

I’m fairly new to gw2, so all the patch changes mostly went over my head. I have a lvl 27 Warrior and with the new patch I didn’t get to pick any spec it just maxed out my defense spec for me. Is there any way I can change that now or am I forced to wait until later in the game?

Yes you can. Just click to the left of the specialization to open a window that will let you pick another specialization

No, you cannot. You are fully speced in Defence and stuck with it same as my level 30 Ele is now fully speced in Earth and I can’t do kitten about it.

Aerlen.5326:

No, you cannot. You are fully speced in Defence and stuck with it same as my level 30 Ele is now fully speced in Earth and I can’t do kitten about it.

Yes, you can. You may have to train more lines to open that possibility.

There’s a little arrow to the left of the spec line that you can click to switch out the specilization.

Depends if you have any hero points left to open up another core specilization if not…. go out in the 5 dif race starting areas and grab all the hero point challenges to get some skillpoints quick.

You can’t refund the traits though. I’ve tried. Over and over.

Aerlen.5326:

You can’t refund the traits though. I’ve tried. Over and over.

No, but once you open up another specialization line, you should be able to SWITCH to the new trait line.

So you may need to level up or do more hero challenges to open another specialization line.

I should also say that them auto-placing the hero points was not the best idea they’ve ever come up with.

But you can switch out your specialization lines once you’ve spent hero points on unlocking them.

facepalm I don’t feel like grinding because anet decided all eles need 100% earth. That’s 60 points in something I don’t want and can’t switch out of until I gain 60 MORE points.

All they need to find this is a “refund traits” button. We had it before, it’s not hard >:(

Fix, not find. Fingers..

The points were allocated based on what traits and skills you had equipped when the patch happened. You don’t need to grind with the intent of unlocking stuff, as by the time you hit 80 you will be able to unlock everything.

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

It was worse in the previous system since you had to unlock the traits one by one (you could only respec trait points not traits and if you didn’t have traits unlocked then trait points are worthless). Skills were just like they are now (no refunds). Keep in mind that getting to 80 gives little less than 400 hero points so 60 per line isn’t a lot and can be further increased by doing hero challenges (which you would have done anyway to unlock skills and get map completion).

It is objectively an improvement. You might not feel it now because you may not have gotten to 80 and have most of your traits still locked.

Probably just a coincidence.

And looking in the ele subforum does put Earth as one of the possible lines for the new meta so it’s not as bad as it could be.

KngGilgamesh.3481:

It was worse in the previous system since you had to unlock the traits one by one (you could only respec trait points not traits and if you didn’t have traits unlocked then trait points are worthless). Skills were just like they are now (no refunds). Keep in mind that getting to 80 gives little less than 400 hero points so 60 per line isn’t a lot and can be further increased by doing hero challenges (which you would have done anyway to unlock skills and get map completion).

It is objectively an improvement. You might not feel it now because you may not have gotten to 80 and have most of your traits still locked.

The system itself is an improvement. The implementation of it was not the best. ANet should have just let everyone choose where to assign their hero points. It’s not the end of the world since it’s not too terribly hard to get hero points, but no where near ideal.

Palindrome.8904:

The points were allocated based on what traits and skills you had equipped when the patch happened.

That’s what they claimed, truth/reality is different. My elementalist prior to patch had all trait points in fire line, yet after the patch it’s the earth line that was maxed out!?

The skills it unlocked were actually the same ones I was using before, so that was done correctly. However the trait line completely changed from what I had to something completely different… so now, if I want to use the same line/traits/trait-abilities I had before… I need to level & do hero challenges.

Note – the system itself is an improvement over the previous one. I just wish that rather than auto-allocating the hero points, they had let players decide where to allocate them. Or have a way to refund points (even if just a once off refund from the auto-allocation).

Palindrome.8904:

The points were allocated based on what traits and skills you had equipped when the patch happened. You don’t need to grind with the intent of unlocking stuff, as by the time you hit 80 you will be able to unlock everything.

I don’t want to wait until I hit 80 to play my warrior the way I wanted to play him

Aerlen.5326:

You can’t refund the traits though. I’ve tried. Over and over.

You can’t refund them, because you’re only paying to unlock them now, like skills. Once they’re unlocked they can be changed freely. Once you reach level 80 you’ll have enough points, even doing no skill challenges, to unlock every skill and every trait.

If you want to go faster, find and do skill point challenges to unlock the traits you need.

Aerlen.5326:

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

Then go and play the game and do some hero point challenges. They are specifically for giving players the opportunity to unlock more skills/traits during the leveling process. No need to “rush” to 80 or grind since those are part of the leveling process anyway.

There, problem solved.

Aerlen.5326:

facepalm I don’t feel like grinding because anet decided all eles need 100% earth. That’s 60 points in something I don’t want and can’t switch out of until I gain 60 MORE points.

All they need to find this is a “refund traits” button. We had it before, it’s not hard >:(

One of the main purposes behind the specializations was that you had to work towards your progression. Essentially making your character’s abilities more “meaningful”. That said, a refund traits option would completely defeat the purpose of that and probably specializations in their entirety as well(down the line that is, when more specializations are added).

I don’t really know that much about it, but if a trait moved lines/specializations from one element to another, then when the automated system unlocked that trait, wouldn’t it unlock an unfamiliar line/spec?

Maybe that’s what happened for some players.

Cyninja.2954:

Aerlen.5326:

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

Then go and play the game and do some hero point challenges. They are specifically for giving players the opportunity to unlock more skills/traits during the leveling process. No need to “rush” to 80 or grind since those are part of the leveling process anyway.

There, problem solved.

I just don’t understand why they would spend my points for me though, defense was literally the last tree I wanted

TSquiggles.2169:

Cyninja.2954:

Aerlen.5326:

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

Then go and play the game and do some hero point challenges. They are specifically for giving players the opportunity to unlock more skills/traits during the leveling process. No need to “rush” to 80 or grind since those are part of the leveling process anyway.

There, problem solved.

I just don’t understand why they would spend my points for me though, defense was literally the last tree I wanted

Yeah, that I understand. It is unfortunate and I can imagine it’s frustrating.

Look at it this way though, at least now you can hunt down hero points and feel rewarded everytime you unlock a new trait/skill. More fun than having “all the good stuff at once” especially during the leveling process (more milestones this way). Who knows, maybe you’ll even find use for some trait/skill which you hadn’t even considered before.

Is it ideal, no, but let’s face it, it’s no end of the world scenario as some make it out to be.

Geneaux.9547:

Aerlen.5326:

facepalm I don’t feel like grinding because anet decided all eles need 100% earth. That’s 60 points in something I don’t want and can’t switch out of until I gain 60 MORE points.

All they need to find this is a “refund traits” button. We had it before, it’s not hard >:(

One of the main purposes behind the specializations was that you had to work towards your progression. Essentially making your character’s abilities more “meaningful”. That said, a refund traits option would completely defeat the purpose of that and probably specializations in their entirety as well(down the line that is, when more specializations are added).

I didn’t realize that more meaningful meant being forced to play my character in a way I didn’t intend him to be played. Their should not be a refund button I agree, however they should have let us allocate out points instead of doing it for us

TSquiggles.2169:

Cyninja.2954:

Aerlen.5326:

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

Then go and play the game and do some hero point challenges. They are specifically for giving players the opportunity to unlock more skills/traits during the leveling process. No need to “rush” to 80 or grind since those are part of the leveling process anyway.

There, problem solved.

I just don’t understand why they would spend my points for me though, defense was literally the last tree I wanted

They had to balance the decision. There are definitely people who want to control their build, and who are into builds. However, I believe there are far, far more people who don’t look at builds at all, hardly ever. I have a guild full of them.

Half my guild is probaby wandering around with no build anyway.

Then there’s someone like me, who has 27 characters. I’m not going to rebuild all of them right away. Resetting trait points would mean my characters have no build. They wrote software that tried to guess.

Since it doesn’t affect characters below level 12 and it doesn’t affect 80th level characters, it’s only leveling characters that are affected and of those, only the ones who don’t like or notice their builds are different. Most people probably don’t.

Plus new characters lower than level 30, don’t have traits unlocked yet anyway. Seems to me, that it doesn’t affect nearly as many people badly as it might seem.

I was leveling a character earlier today, and when I hit a new level (can’t remember which it was off-hand), I was awarded something like 5 Hero Points to spend. So, one does not necessarily have to complete 60 Hero Challenges to accrue the ‘missing’ 60 points.

Good luck.

Cyninja.2954:

TSquiggles.2169:

Cyninja.2954:

Aerlen.5326:

I’m level 30. I have 50 levels until then. I do not power level or insta-80 with tomes because I prefer to enjoy the game via map completion. I’m real sure I had no points in Earth, my other ele didn’t either. He’s level 27 and fully specced to Earth. Other eles I asked were also autoed to Earth.

Being able to unlock everything at 80 doesn’t matter. I’m not 80. I have to play her until then with a handicap I didn’t even give her. Not my accident or mistake =/

Then go and play the game and do some hero point challenges. They are specifically for giving players the opportunity to unlock more skills/traits during the leveling process. No need to “rush” to 80 or grind since those are part of the leveling process anyway.

There, problem solved.

I just don’t understand why they would spend my points for me though, defense was literally the last tree I wanted

Yeah, that I understand. It is unfortunate and I can imagine it’s frustrating.

Look at it this way though, at least now you can hunt down hero points and feel rewarded everytime you unlock a new trait/skill. More fun than having “all the good stuff at once” especially during the leveling process (more milestones this way). Who knows, maybe you’ll even find use for some trait/skill which you hadn’t even considered before.

Is it ideal, no, but let’s face it, it’s no end of the world scenario as some make it out to be.

Yeah you’re right, it’s just such and easily fixed issue though, just give all players 1 refund or let them allocated their points on first log in post patch

Yay. Running all over nine maps to fix a mistake I didn’t make and get 60 hero points before I can enjoy playing my ele the way anyone else at level 30 with two maps completed could. How totally fun and great.

See, I like this new system. I do! It’s great. It gives back what the NPE stripped away and more. Traits are useful at an earlier level again. You don’t have to pay gold or complete certain tasks. Your character can have the feeling of growth again.

Except it’s like my ele is still using the NPE because she can’t take advantage of the 60 hero points she’s earned in a way that benefits her playstyle. She might as well not have them at all. So while I should be enjoying 60 points in air because that’s where her trait points were, I’m not, and it will take me a long time to fix that. When her second trait line opens up, instead of having what I’d like – it’ll be Air and Earth unless she’ll have 60 spare points from leveling on hand or unless I grind out 60 more hero challenges. Might as well go with the crap philosophy of “characters aren’t good until they’re 80 and traits don’t matter” then and go back to the NPE.

I’m sorry, this was implemented very very poorly.

TSquiggles.2169:

Geneaux.9547:

Aerlen.5326:

facepalm I don’t feel like grinding because anet decided all eles need 100% earth. That’s 60 points in something I don’t want and can’t switch out of until I gain 60 MORE points.

All they need to find this is a “refund traits” button. We had it before, it’s not hard >:(

One of the main purposes behind the specializations was that you had to work towards your progression. Essentially making your character’s abilities more “meaningful”. That said, a refund traits option would completely defeat the purpose of that and probably specializations in their entirety as well(down the line that is, when more specializations are added).

I didn’t realize that more meaningful meant being forced to play my character in a way I didn’t intend him to be played. Their should not be a refund button I agree, however they should have let us allocate out points instead of doing it for us

Post by Jon Peters seems to bring some insight to the decision.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first#post5199666