Guild Wars 2

Knowing that ArenaNet is about to introduce new traits, I think it’s worth pointing which traits are good and which traits are bad. I would like to hear input from the community on traits about all professions; in order to begin the discussion, I’ll give some examples of my own. IMO, the best traits are those which have strong synergies with others in similar lines, which changes how a profession plays, which are comprehensive, and which reward skill.

Good traits:

1. Justice combination for Guardians:
• Justice is Blind – When activating Virtue of Justice, nearby foes are blinded.
• Renewed Justice – Virtue of Justice is renewed when you kill a foe.
• Blind Exposure – Applying blind also applies 3 stacks of vulnerability (10 seconds).
• Inspired Virtue – Virtues now also apply the following boons: Justice applies might

Why I like this combination:
• It has a strong synergy between those traits. Together, whenever a Guardian uses the Justice virtue, he will burn the target, blind and inflict vulnerability to all nearby foes, and apply Might to himself and all nearby allies. Justice renews itself whenever the Guardian kills someone, allowing those effects to be used often.
• It changes gameplay: Justice goes from being merely a tool to allow burning once in a while to being a strong source of utility that is powered by killing foes.
• It’s comprehensive, in the meaning that ALL Guardians ALWAYS have access to the Virtues.
• It rewards skill a little bit – it’s a bit spammy, but blind is something best used before specific attacks, not spammed blindly.

2. Attunement combination for Elementalists:
• Sunspot – Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire.
• Electric Discharge – Strike your target with a bolt of lightning when attuning to air.
• Earthen Blast – Damage foes and cripple them for 3 seconds when attuning to earth.
• Healing Ripple – Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.
• Cleansing Wave – Remove a condition from you and your allies when attuning to water.
• Arcane Fury – Grant yourself fury for 2 seconds on attunement.
• Elemental Attunement – When attuning to an element, you and all nearby allies gain:
o Fire: might
o Water: regeneration
o Air: swiftness
o Earth: protection

Why I like this combination:
• There is some synergy between those traits, as they all empower the change between attunements.
• It greatly changes gameplay: not only the attunements themselves become entirely new skills, but it favors a playstyle in which a player is constantly switching between the four elements.
• It’s comprehensive: ALL elementalists ALWAYS have access to the attunements.
• It rewards skilled play: the effects are useful, but they become incredibly powerful when used at the right time, and can be wasted since an attunement goes into a considerable recharge after it’s used.

3. Piercing Arrows for Rangers:
• Piercing Arrows – All arrow attacks pierce targets.

This is my favourite single trait. It massively changes a ranger’s gameplay as bows go from being single target weapons to doing full damage to all targets you can hit; it rewards skill by making how much damage you do a direct function of how well you can manipulate yours and the enemies’ positioning; and it’s somewhat comprehensive, since it works for almost all bow attacks (everything but Barrage) and rangers often use bows.

Bad traits:

• Instinctual Bond (minor Range trait) – When you are downed, your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds. 50 second cooldown.
…Why? Traits that change what happens after a character is downed have little utility – it’s very unlikely that the small boost those traits give are what will make the difference between rallying or not. This one is IMO the worst of them all – I guess the idea is that the pet under quickness would have an easier time killing an enemy, but with the nerf to quickness and the nerf to pet damage, the damage increase given by this trait is completely negligible. The long recharge doesn’t help, either.

• Inner Fire (Major Guardian trait) – When you are set on fire, you gain fury.
This one is extremely situational. Other than jumping into lava, players do not really control when they will be set on fire or not. This has no impact in how a Guardian plays, has no synergy with anything, and does not reward skill.

• Reanimator (minor Necromancer trait) – Summon a jagged horror whenever you kill a foe. 30 second cooldown.
This one is somewhat comprehensive, in that all Necromancers kill something once in a while. It does have some synergy with the trait that increases toughness per controlled minions. Unfortunatelly, it’s so annoying that it’s not worth either of those aspects. The Jagged Horror is borderline useless – it dies with a couple hits, it dies in a couple seconds even without being hit, and it does little damage. The minion can cause aggro issues in crowded areas. While having this trait, a Necromancer will keep repeating the minion dialogues (which is rather annoying). And, since this is a level 5 minor trait, unless you give up on the Death Magic trait line, you have no option but to keep this trait equipped all the time.

What are your own examples of good traits and bad traits?

I’m having a hard time getting interested of any of the Ranger traits save for the following: Steady Focus, Piercing Arrows, Eagle Eye, Quick Draw, Strength of Spirit. Other traits are in wrong trees and not very useful. Would you give up your 300 power or +30% Critical damage to have your greatsword skills recharge faster? It’s all about maximizing damage when your safe from harm with ranged character.

Perhaps even worse are the Ranger slot skills. The only skill that complements ranged gameplay is Quickening Zephyr. If you’re in 1500 range away from your enemies, do you need things like Protection or traps in the place that your enemies won’t reach?