Guild Wars 2

This thread will be just 1 post to explain the main problems I have with the new specializations and explain why I don’t have much faith in them.

I will begin with the main problem that I have with a few examples of it:

1)
Due to being forced into 3 traitlines, we’re being forced to take traits we don’t want just to get a trait we do want. This was somewhat the case last time, but only if you were diving into a traitline with the intention of getting only a GM trait. Now we have this problem even if you only want an adept level one.

I will give a few examples of this:

On a warrior when I want both Forceful Greatsword and Berserker’s Power, I have no relevant adept level traits, Restorative Strength is only relevant if I use the “To The Limit” heal, but not when I use either Healing Signet or Defiant Stance.

Also on a warrior if I want Burst Mastery or Heightened Focus, I’m forced to take irrelevant adept level and master level traits. Literally all of the adept level and master level traits are niche except Inspiring Battle Standard which isn’t really meaningful or something I’d willingly pick over anything else in the old system.

On an elementalist if I want both Piercing Shards and Aquamancer’s Training, I have nothing at the grandmaster level that’s relevant for me in the water specialization.

Additionally for elementalist, I want Bountiful Power but I don’t care about any of the master level traits for the arcane specialization. Previously this trait was a grandmaster minor trait, and both the adept and master level traits were relevant damage modifiers.

So you see… in the past, every single trait I would pick was relevant towards what I was trying to achieve. If I wanted to spec for optimal DPS on an elementalist, I’d go 66200, 66002, 64220, 64202 depending on the encounter and what was being used. If I was in a low man setting and needed vigour for whatever reason to dodge more often I’d go 64004 to sacrifice some of my personal damage for sustain.

In any case, I was able to trait for exactly what I wanted/needed. This is no longer the option now and I’m forced to pick many things that are irrelevant to what I am doing, just to get 2 or in some cases, 1 thing.

2)
I think there should be an option to have specializations save the trait selections you last had when you swap them out. It shouldn’t always save them, no. I just think it would be nice if we had a clickable icon somewhere on the interface where we could toggle it on or off.

3)
Changing specializations is kind of irritating because I need to memorize the pictures that represent each specialization. For example all of the warrior specializations have pretty bland images and I need to remember for example “the slightly lighter-coloured image is tactics, the slightly darker ones are either strength or defense” which is just inconvenient. In my opinion the order of each specialization needs to be the exact same when you click the icon to change them. This would relieve annoyance with it.

4)
In general these specializations just don’t really feel all that special due to the fact that so much less customization is available. While I understand there are some benefits to merging some traits and allowing us to pick an extra grandmaster trait, some of our grandmaster trait options quite franky suck and due to the fact that everybody is shoehorned into just 3 lines with only 3 options at each pick, it’s a much less complex and much less satisfying experience to customize builds now.

In the past when I first was learning the trait system, back during the 30 trait points per traitline days, it felt a lot more fun trying to learn about all of the options available to each class and all of the ways I could achieve the best output for each scenario.

Less customization results in less effort into having to balance things, but I’ll be honest about my opinion here too; with all of the alarmingly horrible problems that exist in the game now since the patch on the 23rd, the game feels much more broken than ever as a result of these changes. I’m sure that eventually they will start fixing the worst ones, such as the engineer grenadier and guardian symbolic avenger bugs, but do I believe they will fix most of the problems?

Eh, probably not.

I agree with no. 2 and have a suggestion for no. 3: Goold ol’ pencil and paper. Like so:

Arms 2, 2, 1
(Meaning that you’d take the second, second and first trait of each tier.)

Oh no I think you misunderstand what I meant for #3 – it’s not selecting each trait in the specialization that bugs me, it’s changing the actual specialization itself. For example changing a warrior’s specialization from Tactics to Arms.

The actual trait changing itself is significantly quicker than previously because you can change them each with a single left-click.

Purple Miku.7032:

Oh no I think you misunderstand – it’s not selecting each trait in the specialization that bugs me, it’s changing the actual specialization itself. For example changing a warrior’s specialization from Tactics to Arms.

The actual trait changing itself is significantly quicker than previously because you can change them each with a single left-click.

Ah, okay, yes, I agree. Those symbols are definitely a bit hard to read.

1. as you point out, it was fairly common in the old system as well. But you were never able to trait exactly what you wanted, especially because you were usually taking a stat hit to get whatever stupid minor you wanted. Just think about all the traits that got merged into baseline. My ranger was always going 2 traits into nature magic just to make 1 skill (frost spirit) useful. Now I am free from such spiritual oppression.
2. we have been asking for build savers since launch, this is an unrelated issue.
3. I just always select them in same order. If you hold your mouse over them, it gives you the name. For the individual traits, I draw 3 bubbles on a paper and full in the ones I want.
4. I’m not entirely sure about what your problem is here? At worst we seem to be looking at a problem of “tons of potential, but mostly useless builds vs a smaller number, but all viable builds” I actually feel empowered for the first time to REALLY experiment, looking for the synergies between traits lines.

I don’t know why so many people claim that most of the build choices we had previously were useless but now everything is viable.

Everything always was viable, just we had a greater variety and because of it, it was common to find better options for a given circumstance.

There’s way less to experiment with now which is the point I was making. Because of the fact that we have so much fewer of options to choose from and due to the fact that we’re forced to go with traits we don’t want more often than before, we have less of an option to create builds specifically geared towards what we want.

Some QoL on items 2 and 3 would be nice.

And I wish more playtesting had happened. It’s not a knock on the specialization system, but the content within it that leaves a few things being lackluster or frustrating.
Some classes losing up to 30% boon or condition duration when those attributes were supposed to be rolled into the trait lines is a terrible blow to recreating builds. And yeah, at least one of my builds got stung hard or destroyed by some of the changes. I don’t blame the specialization system so much as oversights by the dev team.
Or actual design decisions by the dev team. The few times I look at the traits and go “Aw man! I wish I could have both!” I actually grin, because the game is actually challenging me to make a decision. And that decision isn’t permanent, so it’s okay to explore.

But yes, making builds easier to compile/recompile and not having to decipher black & [color] images would certainly make swapping traits less irritating.

Yep that boon duration loss is pretty big. It’s made it so that strength runes are pretty much mandatory for warriors in groups, for example.

But considering the loss of attributes from stats, I’m not really sure what they could have done about the boon duration loss.

Purple Miku.7032:

Yep that boon duration loss is pretty big. It’s made it so that strength runes are pretty much mandatory for warriors in groups, for example.

But considering the loss of attributes from stats, I’m not really sure what they could have done about the boon duration loss.

What borders on insulting about it is that some of the support lines in classes have a +boon duration embedded in the 2nd or 3rd minor trait. Other classes, like warrior, got completely abandoned on it.

My personal gripe is how banners were gutted, but.. eh. I could put up some strong words about it for the devs, but I’m willing to wait out this first wave of new decisions.

Being that this is an MMO, I’m sure they’ll revisit trait content. Eventually. I expect a lull of about 3 months before any big changes get made to them.

About the warrior banners – I was linked to a livestream past broadcast where they intended to merge Inspiring Banners with Inspiring Battle Standard. Apparently they forgot about it…

So, yeah. That’s where it’s supposed to be.

Now the question is, how long is it going to take for them to remember to add that back in? xD

Purple Miku.7032:

About the warrior banners – I was linked to a livestream past broadcast where they intended to merge Inspiring Banners with Inspiring Battle Standard. Apparently they forgot about it…

So, yeah. That’s where it’s supposed to be.

Now the question is, how long is it going to take for them to remember to add that back in? xD

o_O That’s a relief! The warrior forums glanced at it, shook it off, and marched on, but I was still really annoyed.

But yeah, good luck on them remembering in short order. >_>

Aside and more toward your original post, there’s an element of the training system that bugs me. I hadn’t noticed until a little recently, because I’m floating mostly 80s at this point, but each trait has its own unlock. Not trait tier, but trait.

I’d rather they have grouped each tier and applied a blanket cost, rather than delaying parts of a tier behind other traits I probably won’t use. It’s a minor gripe, but it still feels wrong, similar to how some skill groups feel arranged haphazardly in order to make them linear.

Purple Miku.7032:

About the warrior banners – I was linked to a livestream past broadcast where they intended to merge Inspiring Banners with Inspiring Battle Standard. Apparently they forgot about it…

So, yeah. That’s where it’s supposed to be.

Now the question is, how long is it going to take for them to remember to add that back in? xD

I hope this happens soon, I didn’t really appeciate that trait until it was gone. Feels really clunky now with the downtime and tighter effect radius.

More OT, I agree with all the points. I’m just not hopeful that the regular, small balance/bugfix/tuning patches we need are going to happen, in favour of the current “hit it with a sledgehammer every few months” approach. I don’t see a consistent or deep understanding of game modes or design philosophy behind any of it…

OTOH, I do really like the new UI and art for the specializations. I think an ordered list with text labels would solve #3 completely.

tairneanach.8427:

Purple Miku.7032:

Oh no I think you misunderstand – it’s not selecting each trait in the specialization that bugs me, it’s changing the actual specialization itself. For example changing a warrior’s specialization from Tactics to Arms.

The actual trait changing itself is significantly quicker than previously because you can change them each with a single left-click.

Ah, okay, yes, I agree. Those symbols are definitely a bit hard to read.

I can agree on this. The images all use the background art that all have very low contrast. Increasing the contrast would help, but they really need to highlight and stylize the main icon. The Image style they use on the Signets, or modeling them to be more like notch or carved symbols would go a long way to this.

Current
!http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/62/Specializations_interface.jpg!

Signet examples
!http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/7/75/Signet_of_Resolve.png!
!http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/c/c1/Signet_of_Fury.png!
!http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/b0/Signet_of_Fire.png!

1. I tend to agree. I once thought that ANet was going to expand traits. However, what they’ve done now is contract them. As a result, I believe that rather than adding options to the existing lines and tiers (e.g., having 4 options at each decision point rather than 3), we will not see more choice going forward. This belief is strengthened by the fact that there are so many niche traits as it is, even with the combinations and removals in this iteration. There are also too many wasted traits, as the OP says.
2. QoL is always nice.
3. See #2.
4. While I don’t know how special the lines/traits are for anyone else, I have to say that on some professions I’ve found combinations I like a lot. Even with those, though, I still end up taking one or two traits that I dislike least rather than a full nine that I really want. If I were to comment on why anyone might feel that specializations do not feel special, I would probably point to what seems like haphazard placement of traits. It looks to me that, in some cases the lines represent solid options to do build type X (bleed/sword warrior and Arms). In other cases, though, build type Y requires two lines (Mesmer mantras), and in still other cases, build type W cannot be done at all, at least not at the same level as in the prior iteration (Power Engi FT was never a great option, but it is worse now than in traits 2.0).

Indigo, about that bleed/sword warrior in Arms… I definitely have to comment on that.

So the GM trait Furious for that line is an absolute essential for Berserker’s Power to work 100% of the time unless the warrior uses Burst Mastery in Discipline along with weapon swapping basically off cooldown. Meanwhile, they have to take pretty much useless master level trait for the master level. All 3 options are terrible unless you’re a condi warrior…

In the old system we had Forceful Greatsword, Blademaster, and many others. The fact that we were also able to pick multiple adept level traits instead of a master level one meant that there was always a way to ensure that every single trait you picked would be relevant to what you were trying to achieve with your build.

So yes, I completely agree with you about the traits being haphazardly placed. I understand you were trying to get the point across that it’s nice that each specialization is supposed to represent traits geared towards specific weapons, but yeah… this system doesn’t really do that too well. This is especially evident in that eles are still going into the water traitline for the damage modifiers, rather than for healing traits.

Thanks for your input.

Purple Miku.7032:

Indigo, about that bleed/sword warrior in Arms… I definitely have to comment on that.

So the GM trait Furious for that line is an absolute essential for Berserker’s Power to work 100% of the time unless the warrior uses Burst Mastery in Discipline along with weapon swapping basically off cooldown. Meanwhile, they have to take pretty much useless master level trait for the master level. All 3 options are terrible unless you’re a condi warrior…

In the old system we had Forceful Greatsword, Blademaster, and many others. The fact that we were also able to pick multiple adept level traits instead of a master level one meant that there was always a way to ensure that every single trait you picked would be relevant to what you were trying to achieve with your build.

So yes, I completely agree with you about the traits being haphazardly placed. I understand you were trying to get the point across that it’s nice that each specialization is supposed to represent traits geared towards specific weapons, but yeah… this system doesn’t really do that too well. This is especially evident in that eles are still going into the water traitline for the damage modifiers, rather than for healing traits.

Thanks for your input.

Yeah, I opted for brevity in my comment about Arms, addressing that it is a good line for sword/bleeds but neglecting to point out, as you just did, that the line also contains traits very useful to direct damage and burst builds, but that the master options are a waste along with the minors for that DD build.

I’ve been looking into coming back with the expansion, but after trying to set my traits and seeing how dumbed down the new system is … I’ll pass on GW2.

I just can’t accept the fact that I can’t select two or three [Tiers 1] traits. The Warrior has many nice early tiers combos that work well together and gave my GW2 Warrior FLAVOUR even if not optimal.

Abandoning GW2 feels bad, but give me Trait Liberty or give me Death.

I definitely recommend taking a break, but don’t bother uninstalling GW2 completely because I have a hunch that the expansion isn’t that far away.

We’re all growing tired of this crap, believe me. xD

But yeah I hear you Carmedil, the new system really is dumbed down. Something I’ve noticed with Anet and their updates is they always go from one extreme to another. I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be something they prefer to do with their game.

A good comparison would be Youtube. I remember like 5 years ago how much more enjoyable and customizable the channel pages were, then Google started kittening everything up and forcing everybody’s pages to be homogenized, changed fonts randomly, moved things to inconvenient locations and now our personal inboxes on there are completely hidden. What it is is just change for the sake of change… even if it’s not even doing the game better.

We’ll just have to see where they go with these changes as time passes by. There are, afterall, some positives to the new system… just… so many negatives as well ._.

The whole trait/specialization thing is blown out of proportion by many.
Yes the issue raised in #1 in the OP is true, that is the point of making your build now. You have to make some choices, traits are more build-defining.

But to be fair, you could say that about the old system too because sometimes you ran out of trait points while trying to go for certain traits. Then you’d end up with the same question… what do i take and what do i drop?

The only real limiting factor now is that you cannot take two traits of the same tier.
No, the system is not “dumbed down”, it’s different.

Some trait lines are just poorly laid out, and with the new restrictions it’s much harder to work around that.

Mesmer traits were a mess and still are. Lots of adepts I want, few GMs. Old scheme you just spread out into 4 trait lines. New scheme isn’t so forgiving…

@serenke.4806

“You have to make some choices, traits are more build-defining.”

Point is there’s less choices to make now, resulting in less ways to for my trait selection to define how my character will function. Less options for customization results in lesser chance of being able to create a build all with traits that are relevant to my needs.

“No, the system is not “dumbed down”, it’s different.”

It is definitely dumbed down, because part of the whole point of them doing it was to make it easier for newer players. Ever since the days with 30 trait points per line and when they released the NPE as well they’ve been trying to simplify the customization as much as possible because the average player didn’t put enough thought into making their builds and chose random stuff that wasn’t worthwhile.

At this point they force you to go all in on 3 specializations and reduced the variety of options. This is pretty much exactly what it means to “dumb down” a character’s build customization in a game.

When you hit level 80 an Advanced button should appear. Clicking that lets you spread out into 4 or 5 trait lines, and take 2 Adept or Master traits by giving up something higher.

And then I could have my mesmer back.

Ah yes, mathematically this system has fewer possible builds. Aside from a few cases not many builds used more than 3 lines before either. And the 30 traits per line? They forced you to use 5 points at once, so that was more of an illusion of 30 and actually 6.

I’m not sure you are actually complaining about the new system or the fact that to get some traits you want you have to take others you don’t want. Which was the case before too as you said.

And you can still take the same traits, as traits have been merged (not removed) to provide the same functionality.

So yes, you have a more simple system but it’s not more limiting than before – aside from the occasional case where you really wanted to go into 4-5 lines.

I actually like specilizations. Many of the traits we had were useless, or too mandatory, or just in a bad spot. We got most of that fixed. It seems like (warrior for example) just needs to keep posting trait suggestions to make the traitlines flow better by swapping a few more traits around.

While I agree there is less choice technically, there’s by far more viable choices, and will make the game much easier to balance around in the future, hopefully not taking 4+ months between balance patches.

Also we now get 3 traitlines to max and many people in PvP have seen just how much more powerful builds can be with that alone.

I really enjoy this post because it does address things in an informative way, not just generalizations, like oh old traits were useless with no examples of what ones. ( i bet we had a use for it ) Dumbed down responses for people who can’t think for themselves, just like specialization templates. I find a lot more well i really want this trait so i guess i end up with a gimpy one . I don’t give a kitten if it was buffed 10x over i wanted a different one !!!! Removing stats from lines is awesome i have to admit!

There is something I’ve noticed from having a fair number of alts. At least two of each class. Now that I get three full trait lines, I find myself overlapping their chosen traits. It’s hard to not justify going Illusions for Mesmer. They also killed my old death-punishment build (with intent, seemingly), which used a lot of lower traits.

I’m not ticked about it, per se, but I noticed it. I’ve since moved to an experimental blind/confu build which could be fun.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Some trait lines are just poorly laid out, and with the new restrictions it’s much harder to work around that.

Mesmer traits were a mess and still are. Lots of adepts I want, few GMs. Old scheme you just spread out into 4 trait lines. New scheme isn’t so forgiving…

On a mesmer? :O I think you’re making some very wrong choices, then. Especially given that most of the new trait lines have both immense internal synergy and obvious cross-overs with other lines.

~

Mostly what I’m getting from threads like this one is that PvE (or at least the PvE meta?) must be terribly bland if y’all are labeling nearly any trait that involves actually doing something beyond executing a rotation as “useless.”

My biggest beef with mesmer is that they moved clone on dodge to a grand master and put it in the same line as 3 charge mantra. Any mesmer worth a pinch of salt would know 3 charge on the heal is highest per second and gives 6 condi clears with the minor. But man i can’t get used to playing with out clone on dodge so i have to take a sub-par heal and use an ability slot for clears. Is a total rip off !!

Storm.1653:

My biggest beef with mesmer is that they moved clone on dodge to a grand master and put it in the same line as 3 charge mantra. Any mesmer worth a pinch of salt would know 3 charge on the heal is highest per second and gives 6 condi clears with the minor. But man i can’t get used to playing with out clone on dodge so i have to take a sub-par heal and use an ability slot for clears. Is a total rip off !!

I was worried about this. Then I started shattering without DE. It’s pretty amazing anyway. You have fewer clones, yes, but Harmonious Mantras compensates for the damage output in other ways (with 2x stacking thanks to Mender’s Purity). There’s trade-offs to be made there, but either of those two traits can melt faces. I personally prefer HM, especially now that clone death isn’t a thing anyway (before going six points into Dueling would give you confusion-on-clone-death, IIRC).

Asp, with fewer clones you are doing less damage. If your using any form of shatter build,more clones =higher damage Period!

Storm.1653:

Asp, with fewer clones you are doing less damage. If your using any form of shatter build,more clones =higher damage Period!

The core “quick shatter” combo is just you + Mirror Blade, though (dodging for another clone doesn’t help that much because you can also just be Mind-Stabbing in place during that time instead — the key thing here is time compression just as much as damage output, because the more you “drag it out” the more half the damage just goes nowhere because your opponent dodged).

You get up to +20% damage from HM without stacking Mantras too hard (averages out to more like +8% to +12%, probably).
You get a big packet of damage just from connecting Mirror Blade itself (this also benefits from HM).
Oftentimes your first shatter also includes a bonus Phantasmal Defender.

Put together, playing without DE is not nearly as big of a damage gap as I first thought it would be when I saw the new trait layout.

dodging for another clone does not help that much?? really?? not nearly as big of damage gap?? really?? i don’t give a kitten if they buffed the heck out of some trait to make you feel better about it in the short term. nerf will happen and you will be in the same position , with a kitten choice in that line PERIOD! sugar coat it all you want (anet employee of the month??) is bunk , end of story

And, if we’re talking about QoL fixes in this thread, give me a way to turn off the little red indicator that tells me I have Hero Points to spend. If I do not want to spend the few points needed to complete the Minions skill line because minions are like kittens on a boar, I should not have to constantly see that red attention-getter in my peripheral vision. How about letting it stop prompting me if I open the interface and leave it as is?

Storm.1653:

dodging for another clone does not help that much?? really?? not nearly as big of damage gap?? really?? i don’t give a kitten if they buffed the heck out of some trait to make you feel better about it in the short term. nerf will happen and you will be in the same position , with a kitten choice in that line PERIOD! sugar coat it all you want (anet employee of the month??) is bunk , end of story

This is really stupid.

Your argument is literally “Sometime in the indeterminate future, the devs will overnerf mesmers all over in this specific way I made up, and then I will be right and you will be wrong.”

Try it. Go and try it and see how it works now. Try these things. Takes five minutes of messing around with golems or the NPC dorks in the lobby or whatever:
1. (With DE) Point-blank Mirror Blade, dodge, shatter immediately.
1.b. As above, but throw in a Mind Stab as well. Note how long it takes to do the “full” combo — effective bursting is about compressing time, not just big damage.
2. (With HM instead) Single-clone shatter off a point-blank Mirror Blade, followed by Mind Stab (spam it some so it activates quickly).
2.b. As above, but with Mantra Strength stacks.

~

Also, you’re complaining about having to make an actual choice with serious trade-offs involved for a change…

… While, at the same time, crying about how the new setup is dumb and easy and designed for people who hate making interesting choices.

Make up your mind?

Purple Miku.7032:

In general these specializations just don’t really feel all that special due to the fact that so much less customization is available.

On this specific point I feel the exact opposite.

Or maybe it is just that Mesmer traits used to be terrible, and now some are not-quite-but-still-mostly terrible.

The new system actually has impact. The old one had… well… DE, IP, Reflecting Focus. Done. The rest was astoundingly powerful effects such as 6s retaliation on getting downed, a total game changer certainly.

That’s why the new system is so much better: Having merged so many traits, they actually feel meaningful. Instead of making 2-3 choices with all my 14 trait points, I make 7-9 picks between 3 traits each + choosing the lines themselves.

I think the biggest case of #1 is the ranger. The greatsword and axe weapon traits are in beastmastery. You’d think that given how much criticism the forced pets had, they’d know not to put weapon traits in the line that makes them even more crucial a part of the character.

Personally, I’m also a little surprised about Shattered Aegis getting put in the same slot as the spirit weapons trait for guardians. Their lowest cooldown source of aegis application was the spirit shield, thus limiting the frequency with which they can apply shattered aegis, as without the trait, the shield can only get off one command ability while it’s active.

i agree the dumb down is unsatisfying, i will not be purchasing HOT until i see drastic changes . I’ve not yet uninstalled. i still have hope. i wish they would just give the traits back so their customer base would be happier. everything seems to be focused on making it easier for new players, and forget the veterans of the game. the new specializations are nice but preferred traits are all gone for most classes which caused major upset to many current players. i wish they would really consider the vet players a little more in their choices. I was getting ready to throw major cash at the. for new accounts and expansions for old accounts. i was gearing up to have several new players join the game, but for now i sit back, log in daily, hope for change, log out. boy a game i loved went strait down hill fast.

IndigoSundown.5419:

And, if we’re talking about QoL fixes in this thread, give me a way to turn off the little red indicator that tells me I have Hero Points to spend. If I do not want to spend the few points needed to complete the Minions skill line because minions are like kittens on a boar, I should not have to constantly see that red attention-getter in my peripheral vision. How about letting it stop prompting me if I open the interface and leave it as is?

Yes, please. Once I back out of that screen, kindly don’t remind me until I get more hero points, or until I have something else to spend them on. 100+ HeroP after filling out all my core lines makes the reminder really pointless.