Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is the only MMO I’ve played in which in-combat and out-of-combat movement speeds are the same stat. It also has a lot of running to be done in the open world (chasing events, exploring, WvW roaming). As a player who enjoys these activities, it makes me feel forced to trade character power or flexbillity for movement speed:

- My Guardian can never be without his Runes of the Traveler, even though they nerf his damage and build possibilities.
- My Revenant is pigeonholed into Herald, for the swiftness.
- My Engineer is similarly pigeonholed into some trait line that I forget.
- I am sad that my Thief, Necromancer and Elementalist get so much easier access to out-of-combat movement speed, because I don’t enjoy those professions nearly as much.

I humbly suggest that making in-combat and out-of-combat movement speeds different stats, with out-of-combat movement speed no longer something you give up combat ability to gain, would make for happier players with more diverse character builds and improve the health of the game.

For example:

- Out-of-combat movement speed bonuses between 0% and 25% become a reward for leveling up, with the greatest bonus granted at level 80.
- Higher out-of-combat movement speed bonuses up to maybe 40%, and other world traversal things (out of combat blink and portal) could become a Pact Tyria mastery line. (I’m sure some new mastery points could be added to Tyria.)
- Swiftness, superspeed and things that currently grant +25% movement speed are changed to only grant their bonus in combat. To make up for what will now be lackluster abilities, consider increasing the in-combat movement speed bonuses, or adding extra effects to swiftness, superspeed, and the movement speed traits and runes.

Love your idea,i play guardian and it feels like your running through treacle,its so slow compaired to other classes like the elementalist,im fed up of having to have retreat skill on my bar all the time.

You do know that you already have a movement speed bonus when out of combat? Movement while infight is 30% slower that outfight. In other words when outfight you move 43% faster than infight. What you’re asking for is to increase that number to 90% (equivalent to swiftness while outfight).

Movement speed is opportunity cost. Just like it costs opportunity to wear a staff as a thief, to take reduced fall damage as any class or to have some other fancy special effects, it costs opportunity to have a reliable movement speed increase. You need to decide wether the pros outweight the cons / cost and maybe even switch builds for different content. It was never intended that you just play one build everywhere.

Locking central tyria bonuses behind masteries is a very bad move, because those are only accessible for HoT owners. While allowing elite specialisations and the new class in the old content is already questionable, those are supposed to be balanced and not give any bonus over players that don’t own HoT. Permanent movement speed increase however is a clear bonus that a normal player would have no access to without buying HoT. Central tyria masteries need to be balanced in a way that they don’t give a significant advantage over players that only bought GW2.