Guild Wars 2

Something I find frustrating about traits is there are some traits that are pretty much required to a weapon good. So you are forced to take an entire specialization line because you use a certain weapon even if you don’t really like that whole line.

Examples:

Necro Axe – I don’t use it but if I did I would be forced to take Spite for the 20% damage trait. I take Spite anyway, but in a hypothetical world where I didn’t like Spite too much, and I wanted to use Axe, this would be a huge problem.

Warrior Longbow – I really like the Longbow and the trait for it is great. The problem is I don’t necessarily want Tactics. It has some other nice things but I still don’t want to be forced to take it just because I use Longbow.

Warrior Rifle – I really don’t like Rifle without piercing. Unfortunately you need to take Discipline to have piercing. Again, it has cool stuff but you shouldn’t be forced into it for your weapon.

For my Warrior it’s the most frustrating because I really want to use a ranged weapon swap so I need to use either Rifle or Longbow, therefore I’m forced into Tactics or Discipline.

I don’t feel like I’m making interesting choices in my build. I feel like I’m cornered.

How would you suggest solving this?

• They could remove all weapon traits and make their effects baseline. However, this would remove opportunity costs, and tend to homogenize builds even more than the current system already does.
• They could remove lines entirely, and just allow players to choose 3 of 15 in each tier from a single pool. This would also remove opportunity costs and allow much more cherry picking than the current system allows for. It would also derail the progression system via Elite Spec lines they’re putting in.
• They could try to read peoples minds to learn what traits “everyone” would like to see in what line and then move them all around. However, this would result in one line being much better than the other four in most cases.

Honestly, I’m not seeing how ANet could give you what you want without sacrificing way too much in thee way of opportunity costs and pushing the game towards a point where more builds are the same than is already the case. Maybe you’ve got some ideas I haven’t considered?

IndigoSundown.5419:

How would you suggest solving this?

• They could remove all weapon traits and make their effects baseline. However, this would remove opportunity costs, and tend to homogenize builds even more than the current system already does.

The opportunity cost is you’re not using the other weapons. Hello?

Removing the weapon traits is good and is exactly what they should do. The rest of your post seems like a huge strawman once we acknowledge the obvious reality that the opportunity costs are inherent in the weapons themselves.

I completely agree. It’s an illusion of choice. The traits are mostly dictated by the weapon you choose and not by your preferred playstyle as it should have been.

Breaking Bad.6241:

I completely agree. It’s an illusion of choice. The traits are mostly dictated by the weapon you choose and not by your preferred playstyle as it should have been.

The weapon you choose is part of your preferred playstyle and you are not forced in any way to pick the traits related to it. My hybrid warrior for instance only has the dual shot augment that add’s burning to the auto attack, and i can switch to empower allies at any moment depending on how i want to play it.