Guild Wars 2

I thought a lot about the new traits and i am starting to think that they could really use a 4th master and adept trait, or maybe just add a 4th major trait group ( not grandmaster for reasons that follow).

TL;DR: More room might be safer because it will avoid bottleneck for micromanaging traits.

Premise

Being not stat-bound anymore, many specializations ( both the old core “trait lines” and the new Elite specializations as Reaper and ChMancer) will be more open for diverse gear build. While this will not be universal and absolute for obvious reasons i think the current system of "pick 3 " does not help at all for the matter.
This is not an absolute statement since we need to see live to judge, but since we are in time and preventing is always better than mending maybe some discussion is healthy.

First of all let’ s considerate what purpose serve the traits on a specialization: minors are a forced power in order to characterize the specialization itself, and will take the combined role of stats per point and old minor traits (while hopefully being the most versatile possible); Grandmaster traits are, by developer’ s choice, traits that fulfill a greater strategic role compared to others, and this is fine; is then left what role serve adept and master traits, and that is generally speaking giving a choice under a certain theme on how to develop your power.

This will be the fulcrum of buildcrafting: while taking the same Grandmaster, taking different adepts and master will and needs to be impactful and flexible, else we have no-brainer builds where somebody is “guided” to pick determined traits on a specialization just because of the stats, the weapons and the choice given.
Sure, picking the right combination of specialization will be a big thing, but also micromanaging inside the specialization itself should be not disregarded.

What leads me believe that it is not enough what we have shown?

Because we have many restrictive traits: traits that benefit some kind of skills, traits that benefit some weapons, some strict battle requirements… traits that are cool and have a proper place, but “eat” space to other builds: for example, if in a specialization i have traits that improve foci and signets and i put them both on the same adept group 2 of 3 traits are linked to very specific builds, and if i want to get other weapons or skills i have to ignore them and get the 3rd… that might or might not be what i need. If i put them on a separate group then i have only 2 for each group i can pick from… and those might or might not have other weapon/skill bound traits that i am not interested with, or they might be. This is not an issue with live traits because we have always, at least, 4 traits to pick from in adept and master.

This is not a terrible problem, but it can lead to a lot of discomfort while building since it will lead to a lack of space, both for safety ( maybe something does not work well and “bottlenecks” the whole specialization), creative and balance matters too.

Grandmaster traits does not have this same problem because, as i said before, they have a higher role in build creation, and the player that wants to macro manage his power is ready to accept the final choices he is going into.

What do you think?

Your TL;DR is bigger then your first paragraph))

My TL;DR is just a line and a tip

Ok gonna format a bit of stuff

EDIT: edited first post format. If it keeps going this way i will add chapters and an index too u.u

What you’re mainly clinging to (from what I understood) is that a weapon choice shouldn’t dictate my build I need for my gameplay, for that, I couldn’t agree more but the issue would just be that part of the main point of specializations themselves is to unlock new weapons..

I could use Chronomancer spec and still not use a shield, that’s a free option, but if I wanted to use a shield with, say, Dom/Dueling/Illusions I won’t be able to do that, as I’d be bound to use Chronomancer spec just for the shield…
Similarly, I don’t want my focus traits being bound to Inspiration (because I want focus reflections, but can’t afford to use Feedback all the time), Staff to Chaos or Sword/Pistol in Dueling.

I’m not a fan of such “bottlenecks” myself, but I think it’ll be more manageble as new specializations will come out. Time ago someone pointed out something like this and said that the expansion should’ve covered 2 elite specs for each class if weapons were to be bound to the elite specs..
I still think that we should be allowed to, say, a single major-master/adept trait from other specs that we didn’t pick from, like a weapon mastery or a specific trait that’d give us a missing synergy, but that might give a broken edge to some classes, so we’re probably going to suck it up either way.

Shirou.4862:

What you’re mainly clinging to (from what I understood) is that a weapon choice shouldn’t dictate my build I need for my gameplay, for that, I couldn’t agree more but the issue would just be that part of the main point of specializations themselves is to unlock new weapons..

I believe you misunderstood something…

1) Specialization is the generic name for trait lines. Elite specialization is what we called specialization few time ago, like Reaper and chronomancer.

2) Weapons are just an example of that, anything that restricts power is part of the problem if overused/misused.
The case you quoted about unlocking new weapons ( and skills) is not a problem at all since it’ s part of a massive bulk of stuff unlocked, and since its power is not necessarly higher that core stuff you may ignore it and focus on something else, always keeping in mind that it’ s a choice you paid for obviously.
So yeah, i agree that on this last matter the problem is not that big, but the focus was an other totally.

I am gonna edit again the text to specify what i mean for specializations ( proof: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specialization )

hennrick.4623:

1) Specialization is the generic name for trait lines. Elite specialization is what we called specialization few time ago, like Reaper and chronomancer.

2) Weapons are just an example of that, anything that restricts power is part of the problem if overused/misused.
The case you quoted about unlocking new weapons ( and skills) is not a problem at all since it’ s part of a massive bulk of stuff unlocked, and since its power is not necessarly higher that core stuff you may ignore it and focus on something else, always keeping in mind that it’ s a choice you paid for obviously.
So yeah, i agree that on this last matter the problem is not that big, but the focus was an other totally.

For 1:
I know, it’s simply that spelling “elite specialization” everytime would tire me out, so tried to cut it up hoping you’d understand. Since nothing is going to change our trait system radically (3 minor, 3 major traits), I casually adressed elite specs like that.

As I believe to understand your point now, that although we do gain more skills available to us, it’s likely to be less builds with perhaps slightly more variations, as builds with strongest synergy will be on top while builds that had points allocated across several trees will be no more.
If that’s the case I would disagree as I believe it was stated somewhere that the very design of these 3 locked specializations was also meant to adress balance issues more effectively. Although we have yet to see how specializations will effectively vary.

It will be easier to buff/nerf/reallocate traits this way without necessarily crippling the whole class because of a single build.

Shirou.4862:

If that’s the case I would disagree as I believe it was stated somewhere that the very design of these 3 locked specializations was also meant to adress balance issues more effectively. Although we have yet to see how specializations will effectively vary.

It will be easier to buff/nerf/reallocate traits this way without necessarily crippling the whole class because of a single build.

The system by itself it’ s a nice idea, but i am worried about execution.
While in paper the concept looks great there can be issues where, due to the lack of pick room, only some builds will be actually viable.

I don’ t talk about synergy and optimization – there will always be the most efficient build for something, i am worried about having less builds not compared to live, but compared to what could be possible, because with only 3 traits will probably be forced unwanted solutions ( and i say probably, mine is a speculation based on history).

In few words: would you be satisfacted if, in order to mkake a build working as you like, you have necessarily only 1, luckly 2, choices on a specialization you have to pick?