Guild Wars 2

A thing which often caused a player to choose a certain traitline was that it contained "x weapon gets 10% dmg boost " or “x weapon gets larger damage radius”. Those traits became the go to traits along with “general 10% damage boost” in PvE.

The issue is that the above traits aren’t interesting as choices, because they often leave the other choices in the dust when it comes to value added to build. You also have to use said weapon to benefit from them and so if you aren’t going to use said weapon you have only subpar choices.

It seems like you are moving away from weapon-specific traits, and that’s a VERY good thing; because it promotes variation. I am seeing that some professions still have suggested weapon-specific traits and that’s a shame because moving away from them completely would be the best thing.

Without them there’s the possibility of seeing people with different weapons but the same builds, or with different builds but the same weapons.

Similarly, I would advocate for moving away from the x% damage increases, or make them uniform across certain specialisations for every class and make them minor traits.

That said, having melee specific traits or ranged specific traits could be interesting.

TL;DR: Weapon-specific traits are bad. “X% dps increase” traits are not very cool either.

I agree with the weapon specific traits part. It does feel very restrictive on certain classes.
Especially when you’re duel wielding on two weapon sets… your weapon choices basically lock you into certain trait lines/traits. Getting rid of them would probably involve heavy nerfs to some of the traited additional effects though, which would be really unfortunate.

I am in agreement that weapon specific traits are a hindrance. I wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to say they are “bad” necessarily, but there is truth in saying that some people feel locked into choosing a line because they desire the weapon bonus contained within it.

Right now I’m looking at the proposed mesmer trait changes, and the change of greatsword to grandmaster while all the rest of the weapon traits are simply master level is frustrating and saddening. I play with a greatsword, because I enjoy the range. However, it really doesn’t have much in common with the domination line…as it stands, or what they seek to turn it into. Add to that the traits its theoretically in contention with – if I’m running shatter, I’d take Mental Toment, if I’m aiming for interrupt, I’d take Power Block. How does greatsword training even begin to compete? I hit a little bit harder and my cooldowns are potentially lower? It’s not even a contender, which is saddening.