Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

How will the new stats & trait changes affect zerker?

Base player stats will be increased from 926 to 1000.

Base attribute points on equipment will be increased so that all the gear in the game will give higher stats than it did before. This should account for most of the missing points.

Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.
For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped.

I think its going to make zerker builds more glass it may push them to too much glass so fights with aoe that you cant avoid start to become full blow death traps.

It will effectively make gear even more important as now you won’t be able to trait extra defensive stats to keep yourself from dying as often. Berserker will be even more potent however because now you can acquire any trait abilities you want without having to sacrifice any power.

Doing some math: Currently you gain 1600 attribute points (primary and secondary) from traits. 74×5=370 (only primary stats and class mechanic is getting increased). This leaves ~1230 stat points being destributed across the entirety of armor set. Primary stat gets 50% more than secondary stats, so about 360 360 540 (not quite, but gives a rough estimate).

So the change will allow you to specialize more into a chosen field. Zerk armor will actually be even more beneficial (and usually no less suvivable) than before. The loss will come from things like condition damage/duration/boon duration/HP whatever you had from traits (other than power precision ferocity which you will experience net gain in).

This will allow even stronger specialization as a ‘zerker’ won’t have to waste points in things like condition damage or duration because he/she needs a trait from that line.

You won’t be able to use full zerk armor then points in the vitality line to make up for the lack of health. If you want to add some health you will have to mix/max armor sets.

I expect mixing armor sets to be much more popular but we will see if people can survive on their zerk characters with base health.

Zania.8461:

So the change will allow you to specialize more into a chosen field. Zerk armor will actually be even more beneficial (and usually no less suvivable) than before. The loss will come from things like condition damage/duration/boon duration/HP whatever you had from traits (other than power precision ferocity which you will experience net gain in).

as a zerker engi, i will gain 74 toughness and vit at the expense of some power and precision because i dont get any tank stats from my trait lines. similar for ele.

insanemaniac.2456:

Zania.8461:

So the change will allow you to specialize more into a chosen field. Zerk armor will actually be even more beneficial (and usually no less suvivable) than before. The loss will come from things like condition damage/duration/boon duration/HP whatever you had from traits (other than power precision ferocity which you will experience net gain in).

as a zerker engi, i will gain 74 toughness and vit at the expense of some power and precision because i dont get any tank stats from my trait lines. similar for ele.

If you are specced explosives/tools/firearms, and use zerker armor, you will gain power/precision/ferocity at the expense of condition duration and condition damage from explosives and firearms trait attributes.

How do you know the changes to the engineer? Were they released somewhere?

Zerker builds that used traits in ‘defensive’ lines like the PSEA2banner warrior will now suddenly hit even harder in full zerker.

Zerker builds that used traits in ‘offensive’ lines like the DPS warrior will now suddenly hit less hard since they’ve had the equivalent of having their weapon forcibly converted to Celestial with the base stat change.

Expect metas to now start adding traits formerly in ‘defensive’ lines, and for some of the current full offense types to drop in popularity, depending on the class. Since you can’t change stats anymore by retraiting defensively, we might also start to see people carrying multiple sets – a Soldier set for uncrittables/hard-to-survive fights and a Berserker set for standard fights might become common.

The gap between Exotic and Ascended widens since the base amount of stats it’ll be multiplied by will now increase, making it harder to multiset unless you make one set of each type – or you can survive in full glass for everything.

Min-maxing armor sets sounds like fun!

Hayashi.3416:

Zerker builds that used traits in ‘offensive’ lines like the DPS warrior will now suddenly hit less hard since they’ve had the equivalent of having their weapon forcibly converted to Celestial with the base stat change..

This statement is actually incorrect from the prespective of pure direct damage. See my back of the hand calculations above. Even if you are in the offensive lines, part of your stats are allocated to condition damage/duration which you will lose. These will be converted to zerker stats on the armor, giving you a slight damage boost even in this scenario.

Zania.8461:

Doing some math: Currently you gain 1600 attribute points (primary and secondary) from traits. 74×5=370 (only primary stats and class mechanic is getting increased). This leaves ~1230 stat points being destributed across the entirety of armor set. Primary stat gets 50% more than secondary stats, so about 360 360 540 (not quite, but gives a rough estimate).

You get 1 400 stats points from trait, not 1600.

Basic stats will increase by 296 points. So there will be 1104 points that will be distributed accross an armor set. For now a full ascended set will give you 1087/745/745 stats. It will be 1553/1064/1064.

Actually you only have 14 trait points at present, so the total is 1400 points. After deducting the 370 points, there remains 1030 points to allocate. At present, points are allocated to equipment in the ratio 1.4:1:1 – so approximately 303 per minor and 424 for the major stat.

That said, your point is correct; if you want only three stats, 424 for a major and 303 per minor is greater than the maximum possible of 300 in all three under the current system.

Short Answer: It won’t.

Long Answer: It won’t change the meta.

370 points? There is only 4 primary stats : Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitalily. Only those 4 stast will be increased from 926 to 1000. All of the other stats have no basic stats. They are zero until you put point in them.
1000-926 =74

74*4 =296

Traitlines currently also include endurance regeneration, virtue regeneration, attunement recharge, life force pool, etc. It was likely Zania’s guess that since these stats will now be implanted into the baseline for the class, they will not be replaced – something I thought to be a reasonable assumption (otherwise, it would be unequivocally a buff).

Still, the wording of this {’Base attribute points on equipment will be increased so that all the gear in the game will give higher stats than it did before. This should account for most of the missing points.’} implies that the replacement is not total – ergo, the total number of points will go down slightly.

We are, of course, speculating… and chances are that exactly none of our guesses will actually be correct.

Hayashi.3416:

Zerker builds that used traits in ‘defensive’ lines like the PSEA2banner warrior will now suddenly hit even harder in full zerker.

In my opinion this would be a buff for PS/EA. PS/EA has to dive into a vitality line without maxing the precision line, which Forceful Greatsword needs. This smells more like PS/EA getting a flat DPS stat buff along with its existing utility.

THAT SAID, WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE TRAITS LOOK LIKE. WE CAN’T SCREAM NERF OR BUFF UNTIL WE GET OUR HANDS ON THEM.

Hayashi.3416:

Zerker builds that used traits in ‘offensive’ lines like the DPS warrior will now suddenly hit less hard since they’ve had the equivalent of having their weapon forcibly converted to Celestial with the base stat change.

This is assuming celestial stats are being sprinkled onto everything. We don’t know the stat distribution.

Hayashi.3416:

Expect metas to now start adding traits formerly in ‘defensive’ lines, and for some of the current full offense types to drop in popularity, depending on the class. Since you can’t change stats anymore by retraiting defensively, we might also start to see people carrying multiple sets – a Soldier set for uncrittables/hard-to-survive fights and a Berserker set for standard fights might become common.

Some of us already do this. On my main I have a Fractal Zerker set, a WvWvW set and a condi set.

Hayashi.3416:

The gap between Exotic and Ascended widens since the base amount of stats it’ll be multiplied by will now increase, making it harder to multiset unless you make one set of each type – or you can survive in full glass for everything.

The gap between exotic and ascended armor is not so vast as it stands. The power difference between exotic and ascended zerkers armor (full set!) is 14. 14. Less than 1/5th of a food buff.

Weapons have always been better because of the base damage increase, the stat gains have always been negligible.

Everyone keep your heads on straight. Until it ships, this is all hyperbole. Give good feedback with the information we’re given.

What i’m really not sure is Boon Duration and Condition Duration.

We already know that Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitality will be provided by base points and equipment.

Condition Damage, Healing Power and Ferocity will be from gear alone.

For profession unique stats, the base amount will be increase and the rest will come from simply taking the right trait line.

But what will happen for Condition Duration and Boon Duration. The other stats are pretty fairly distributed accross different stuff. But for boon and Condition duration it,s all over the place.

You don’t have condition from armor, no boons duration from weapons and neither of them in ascended quality. Will we have proper boons duration and condition duration gear? Will we have more than 1 kittenty stats distribution? Because giver is seriously stupid.

It would be a good way to introduce Condition damage, Condition Duration, Precision gear.

It’ll have no effect at all for me. I already have to choose trait lines with worthless defensive stats and I’ll still be getting them anyway in the new version.

Strill.2591:

It’ll have no effect at all for me. I already have to choose trait lines with worthless defensive stats and I’ll still be getting them anyway in the new version.

?? Trait line won’t give you stats so no.

Thaddeus.4891:

Strill.2591:

It’ll have no effect at all for me. I already have to choose trait lines with worthless defensive stats and I’ll still be getting them anyway in the new version.

?? Trait line won’t give you stats so no.

Read the post. They’re giving everyone a boost to all base stats.

Cuddy.6247:

Short Answer: It won’t.

Long Answer: It won’t change the meta.

Longer Answer: It won’t change the meta, which will only be truly relevant in dungeon speedruns.

I do not think it will influence the meta, unless condition dmg will get a HUGE buff… In whcvihc case power/condi hybrid might get viable,

This all depends on how the encounters are also changing. For reference please see below.

Strill.2591:

Thaddeus.4891:

Strill.2591:

It’ll have no effect at all for me. I already have to choose trait lines with worthless defensive stats and I’ll still be getting them anyway in the new version.

?? Trait line won’t give you stats so no.

Read the post. They’re giving everyone a boost to all base stats.

They will give you 74 power, 74 precision, 74 toughness and 74 vitality that’s all. 1104 of the 1400 stats points you get from trait now will be from gear. I guess that for some specific build you will lose some stats, but overall for the vast majority of build you will have more control over your stats.

Thaddeus.4891:

Strill.2591:

Thaddeus.4891:

Strill.2591:

It’ll have no effect at all for me. I already have to choose trait lines with worthless defensive stats and I’ll still be getting them anyway in the new version.

?? Trait line won’t give you stats so no.

Read the post. They’re giving everyone a boost to all base stats.

They will give you 74 power, 74 precision, 74 toughness and 74 vitality that’s all. 1104 of the 1400 stats points you get from trait now will be from gear. I guess that for some specific build you will lose some stats, but overall for the vast majority of build you will have more control over your stats.

That’s about how much I get from defensive stats currently. Most of my traint stat points are in useless crap like condition damage, condition duration, boon duration, and virtue cooldown reduction.

Rauderi.8706:

Cuddy.6247:

Short Answer: It won’t.

Long Answer: It won’t change the meta.

Longer Answer: It won’t change the meta, which will only be truly relevant in dungeon speedruns.

Does look like the core of specializations and these changes will improve the rest of the game though, especially for people who want more options. Water won’t suddenly give fire a run for its money in DPS, but it’ll be compensatory enough to not be worthless.

Akusokuzan.6790:

It will effectively make gear even more important as now you won’t be able to trait extra defensive stats to keep yourself from dying as often. Berserker will be even more potent however because now you can acquire any trait abilities you want without having to sacrifice any power.

Zerker builds were already not doing this. Perhaps individuals were, but the META certainly didn’t include this.

The stat changes are minor compared to the trait redesign. Depending on how much gets moved around and changed, builds may be quite different. Zerker (or assassin in some cases) should still be optimal.