Guild Wars 2

The April 15th one, to be exact. I meant to type it up sooner, but I was lazy.

This may take a few consecutive posts. T.l.d.r. version at the end of each post..hopefully.

Trait changes:

- Being able to reset traits without having to go to the trait trainer every time is a great improvement. It always seemed odd that we could do that just fine in PvP but not in PvE. And it was annoying to switch my weapon/armor set out in the field or in a dungeon, only to realize I needed to rearrange my traits too. So, good change.

- Condensing the trait points from 70 to 14 was a nice way to simplify things as well.

- The new trait level limitations however, feel unnecessary to me. Compared to the old system, where you could start using them at Lv15 (technically Lv11, but Lv15 is when you had enough to get a trait), the new system blocks them off completely until Lv30 for beginner traits, Lv60 for master traits (previously Lv40), and Lv80 for grandmaster traits (previously Lv60).

- Also, they made the levels at which trait points were gained…somewhat odd. (1 point at Lv30 then another point every 6 levels until Lv66, where you’d gain 2 points at a time) To me, it would’ve been simpler to give your first trait point at Lv15, then another point every five levels after that, as well as keeping the level requirements on the trait tiers as they were in the old system.

- The new traits are..interesting, but not enough to make me want to buy them or fulfill the unlocking requirements for them. The new ones can be bough for 3 gold (meaning 15 gold per character if you choose to unlock them that way….sigh), or unlocked through each of these requirements below:

1) Killing the Risen High Wizard at the end of the Gates of Arah meta-event.
2) Killing the Risen Priest of Grenth.
3) Kill the Karka Queen.
4) Find the Grand chest in the Ship of Sorrows.
5) Kill the Risen Priestess of Lyssa.

Notice a problem? All except the 4th requirement involve killing a world boss, meaning you’ll have to find a zerg running that event at whichever boss you need to kill. If the requirements were still challenging/hard but doable solo, I’d be fine with this. But now this just makes me wonder “what if they put a trait requirement behind Tequatl or—-alchemy forbid—the Triple Bloodtide Wurm?” No thanks.

In addition to that, from what I saw of the traits, only about 2 or 3 on them on each profession are actually useful, so…meh. That’s just me, though. (shrug)

Too long, didn’t read?

Resetting traits anywhere is great! New trait level restrictions sucks though. And the new traits are meh.

The wardrobe? Awesome. Transmutation charges are much better than the old stone/crystal system. Now I can finally clear out all the skins crowding up the bank. Being able to use outfits in combat? Great! I actually got the Pirate Captain outfit because I can now use it wherever. And the methods of unlocking skins is nice and easy to do. Also, all the PvP locker skins being converted to the wardrobe was a nice perk for all the grinding I did to give my alts nice PvP gear as well. Transmutation charges are also easier to acquire as well. The only downside is now you can’t transfer upgrades from one weapon to another with stones/crystals, making the Upgrade Extractor more important if you want to keep runes/sigils. Aside from that however, the Wardrobe is a great improvement to the game, one of the greatest ones since the account wallet.

As for PvP changes…

- The UI was simplified down. It’s now designed so you can make a build all from the PvP Build menu, without having to run back and forth between merchants and/or the PvP locker (all of which is now gone). On the upside, it’s much easier to make a build.

- However…they removed the ability to mix and match runes, meaning you can only choose a rune and that counts as the entire set on you regardless of your armor, which now consists of your equipped PvE gear. Also, amulets now longer have jewels to equip to customize the stats a little more, which is a bit of a downer. On the upside, they’ve added an amulet for nearly every stat combo out so far, except for Dire and Sentinel. And for some reason, the Cavalier and Magi Amulets are locked, even though those two types don’t seem that good.

- In place of the old PvP rewards system, they’ve added reward tracks, based on regions, dungeons, and the exclusive Balthazar track. Each is filled with rank points you acquire from PvP matches, with 8 tiers with varying rewards. This is a good idea…except they placed a limit on hotjoin contribution. After a certain amount of rank points from hotjoins, the game just decides not to count them anymore for a while, making you have to go into solo/team queue to get around this. I suspect they did this to keep those modes relevant (as with the old PvP reward system gone, there’s no reason to solo queue, and team queue only if you want to fight with/against certain people), but it’s still annoying.

- Also, 8v8 hotjoins no longer exist. They also removed Raid on the Capricorn because they don’t care for underwater combat in PvP, while adding the Courtyard as a straight up death-match arena. So there.

Too long, didn’t read?

PvP’s kind of a mixed bag still. The reward tracks range from okay to meh, but they at least tried to make it better for the most part. Still, the restrictions on runes and no jewels for amulets anymore renders build crafting less interesting, and PvP is still a rather somewhat toxic to begin with, so…meh.

Hi there,
please make sure to post your feedback about “Feedback/Questions: MegaServer” in the dedicated main thread:
“https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer”
Thank you!