Guild Wars 2

I main the Elementalist, I know the class inside and out the buff to attunement recharge is nice and much needed.

However, you are trying way to hard to make unused traits viable with increased damage, toughness, healing power, whatever.

That is not the answer.

I made a thread, took me 8 hours to make, redesigning the Elementalist traits.

My goal is to make every trait tree feels different, if I put 30 points into Fire, it will feel different than if I put 30 points into air, etc.
With a focus on play style diversity, not build diversity.

TL;DR
Is this increase in more traits power the answer?
Or should the answer be more creative traits?

You bring some good arguments, and I could see how you came to these conclusions, but I must disagree slightly.

Although the traits really do need to be tweaked, if you go too far, you would either run the risk of making elementalists extremely OP or completely useless.

One would also be able to see that there would be more polarizing builds, and more “leet” idiots who want specific builds or your ele is out in the cold, so to speak.

There is already a bit of this going on, as I have seen people who play the “L2P” card when they see that certain ele’s aren’t running d/d zerker (example.)

If Anet took your advice the builds would actually be more pigeonholed than they are now.

I guess but i do not see how this even relates to power creep it seems more like your using it as a buzz word.

Google power creep before using it as a thread title to a topic that isn’t about power creep.

GOSU.9574:

Google power creep before using it as a thread title to a topic that isn’t about power creep.

Do I have to explain this?

A lot of traits and skills are being buffed next update to match the current level of other skills.

Why are they getting buffed?

Because the other, stronger traits were ‘slightly’ buffed in a previous update.

Before Torment, the game was at it’s prime for balance.
Now everything is getting more damage, more defense, more control. You got ascended accessories, now ascended weapons and soon ascended armor in a game originally balanced for exotic gear.

This update, traits are following the same higher stat path.
That is the point, that is power creep.

Actually, most of the strongest traits in this game are getting nerfed for the december 10 patch, either by moving up a tier or simply losing some effectiveness.

If anything, even though the patch will get many buffs (mostly for useless stuff), it seems there’s a careful attempt to avoid power creeping or to avoid the new buffs from getting to the level of the “too strong” stuff.

The balance team either 1) doesn’t know how to nerf abilities or 2) are so scared of nerfing things they previously buffed that they would rather buff /nerf other things to mitigate the effects of their overbuffing.

A great example is the condition meta. Nearly no nerfs to condition application which is the core problem, while they (in the case of the elementalist) try to slap condition hate on every trait they can imagine.

So yes, there is a painfully obvious power creep in GW2 and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop.

Power creep. I do not think this means what you think it means.