Guild Wars 2

Do you guys think it could be a good idea to remove the tiers on Traits? So going forward, there would be no more Adept, Master, or Grandmaster tiers, and instead, we would be able to pick any trait (that is specific to that tree) regardless if we invest partially or fully into that tree.

Essentially, it means that Grandmaster traits could be picked up if you invested 2 points in the tree, instead of the current 6-points of investment.

I don’t know if this would break the game or not, but I thought it would add a little more build diversity. Think about it. None of the Traits are particularly game-changing or spec-defining, and there is no single “best trait”. They all contribute incremental increases to either DPS, Control, or Support, but by very nature of the system in place, we are encouraged to use different traits for different situations.

Imagine if you could expand upon that even further, and produce unique Support builds that are still able to almost fully invest in Support, but are also able to pick up some DPS traits that might have been out of reach before. The same goes for all types of builds.

It wouldn’t be Power Creep either. You can’t get much more powerful than a full zerker build with 6/6/2/0/0. At the end of the day, current builds may not be able to benefit much from a change like this, but it would open up the opportunity for new builds that could take advantage of traits that were previously out of reach.

What do you guys think?

cletiscake.9173:

Essentially, it means that Grandmaster traits could be picked up if you invested 2 points in the tree, instead of the current 6-points of investment.

So basically a player could invest at least 2 points in every line to get the best traits in every line?

How would that not be broken? Think about it; a player could essentially slot every Grandmaster trait if they invest 6 points into a line.

cletiscake.9173:

Imagine if you could expand upon that even further, and produce unique Support builds that are still able to almost fully invest in Support, but are also able to pick up some DPS traits that might have been out of reach before.

Then you remove choice. In order for there to be depth in a system, the player has to choose.

If they can suddenly focus on being support while having top-tier damage / control traits as well with little investment, it removes a lot of the decision making the player does.

Let’s take the Warrior as an example.

They invest most of their points in trait-lines that increase their damage, then they put the last 2 points to get Phalanx Strength.

All of a sudden the Warrior also has access to powerful offensive group support (reliable Might granting) while sacrificing very little.

I don’t really mind the tiers, but I wish we could have the old trait system back. It worked just fine and there was no reason to change it.

I say keep the tiers,
but make it so that each tier is obtained differently.
Link a challenge/questchain to the new grandmaster traits introduced in Hot
(the higher the tier the more effort is required in obtaining them)

They had this before launch, during the betas. However they changed it to the current way and iirc it was because people were getting the best traits from each line and not selecting the others.

So they’ve already tried and discarded OPs suggestion.

I remember there were a lot of unhappy people who couldn’t get the best trait at the lowest trait level any more and the threads back then complaining about the change.

Honestly tiers aren’t really a problem, I’d be for scrapping the lot of them, if some diversity were added.

Maybe we could select from a wheel instead of a linear progression for each category, there are some other MMO’s that have this implemented…