Guild Wars 2

You see people are looking at this all wrong. Forcing people into 3 lines instead of allowing people to spread their points around actually leads to more diversity between builds in the community.

In the current system people spend their points in order to overcome as many weaknesses in their build as possible. This leads people taking very similar builds as to minimize their short comings.

In the new system you will have to make a decision as to what you character will be strong in and what he will be weaker in. This means there will be more skill involved as you will be strong in a few areas and have to make up your short comings in you build with skill rather than just picking traits to get yourself out of it. Alternatively, you will be forced to rely more on your team to make up for those short comings. This makes support builds actually viable in the game.

The new system should make your character weaker in a few areas. This is what leads to diverse builds in the community. Rather than everyone picking the go to build, they have to decide, do I want a max dps build, do I want to be harder to kill to hold points in PVP or do I want to be a support build to help keep the DPS up during dungeon fights.

Think about this, currently the go to build for pretty much every class is DPS. The reason for this is it’s too easy for a pure DPS build to get enough survivability while spreading out their points. If in the new system you have to sacrifice more of that survivability in order to get the best possible DPS then it will create incentive for other people to actually run a support build. As they will be needed in the team in order to make up the difference on the survivability of the DPS in the group.

This will actually make other builds viable in the system. Will this new system destroy some of the current builds? Most likely yes, and that is the beauty of it. People will be forced to come up with new builds in order to be relevant. This new system should allow more builds to be viable, rather than everyone just going straight DPS all the time.

People seem to be looking at these changes all wrong. Reducing choices sounds bad but it in turn makes each choice you make much more meaningful and leads to more diversity in the community.

It’s way too soon to declare that support builds are viable in PvE, and support builds have always been viable in other game modes – look at shout heal warriors and water eles in WvW. Also, what’s stopping players from picking two dps lines and a support/defensive tree? You get 3 full lines now – more traits – which renders much of what you speculate here dubious. I’m excited about the magnitude of the changes and look forward to the xpac, but I don’t see how you can possibly conclude that support builds will be viable in PvE with the information we have so far.

Separating stats from traits will increase diversity right there. If more traits are made more viable that will also help.

Anyway, it is fun to shuffle the deck from time to time.

I’m not declaring my view as the end all be all. We don’t have all the information yet. I’m just saying people look at this and say “No diversity in builds now”, which is way off base.

I’m just trying to get people thinking about this a bit differently, it’s not all doom and gloom.

Kenwe.8314:

I’m not declaring my view as the end all be all. We don’t have all the information yet. I’m just saying people look at this and say “No diversity in builds now”, which is way off base.

I’m just trying to get people thinking about this a bit differently, it’s not all doom and gloom.

Community diversity in builds is what I take from this, players will have to actually rely on their party/friends/guild to overcome certain combat scenarios. This sounds great to me.

I agree. Everywhere you can find people cursing on everything. We just have to look at it from the right side.

Well, active defenses are really the reason DPS is so viable, but this system should absolutely encourage diversity. The point of removing and reshuffling the traits is to make each one an important decision, rather than having loads of traits that are almost never used but requiring you to invest in that line just for the stat bonuses, and picking another trait that’s kind of useful but not your ideal choice.

Look, separating stats from traits is a good thing. This will help with build diversity.

Reducing the available trait choices may be good, might be bad. I would rather see a balancing pass on the existing traits than a cull, as there are definitely times I have found some of those odd, never used traits exceptionally useful. Reducing choices for players is usually a bad thing, and it’s not like GW2 in its current form has an unreasonably high number of skills or traits.

Third, streamlining choice between which trait lines to invest in is just a horrible call. There is no reason this is a good thing. It reduces player choice, reduces player investment in creating their build, and lowers build variety. Yes, I’m biased since this is going to kill my current Ele, Engi, Mesmer and Guard builds. But I see all of those builds as fun, very viable and not really meta following. Telling me I can no longer play my style is a good way to get me to leave the game, and I don’t think that is an uncommon view.

The reason we see a lack of builds being used right now is not trait design. It’s dungeon and PvE design. The meta builds are all one way because dungeons are predictable and rely on spike damage for difficulty. This lends everyone to try and go glass cannon, since defences have to be stacked to an absurd level to really help any, and it’s better just to kill faster. If you look at PvP or WvW, suddenly there are a lot more different builds being used successfully. Present players with varied situations, and a lot of the “useless” traits actually do have a place and a use. The main problem is every dungeon has only one scenario: kill it before it one or two shots you.

I’m no white knight, but I support this new trait approach. The pros greatly outweigh the cons, and im eager to see how it plays out.

As a bit of feedback: I’d like to see all flat damage+ traits go out the window, and be replaced with something a bit more enjoyable.

For example:
Warrior Forceful greatsword is a GOOD master trait! Shorter cooldown to let you access your skills more often, and a neat might proc effect which you can build around (strength runes, phalanx strength, etc).

Warrior Slashing power, on the other hand is a flat +10% damage boost, which is highly useful mechanically, but doesn’t add any fun gameplay, and thus I consider a BAD master trait.

Exception: Minor traits are fine with small flat bonuses. Slashing power would make for decent minor trait. It’s the PICKED traits that should add/change gameplay.

Dand.8231:

The pros greatly outweigh the cons

Quoting this for emphasis.

Agreed with OP. People just like to complain about everything. The only thing that I kind of dislike about this system the ability to get 6/6/6. IMO it would be more interesting with less traits, so that you have to make a decision between different specialization lines – 16 traits (6/6/4) or even the current 14 (6/4/4 or 6/6/2) would give us more choices

Support builds are only going to be viable when damage to mobs does not define loot drops.

I’d want to see this in practice before I gave an opinion either way. Heck, it might be the best thing since sliced bread. You never know. . . .

But, I will admit, I had a huge World of Warcraft flashback from what they did, with their skill trees, way back in the day.

And that wasn’t good.

I hope I wasn’t misreading but…

“Finally, these reward tracks unlock everything for an elite specialization: weapon, unique mechanics, skills, and traits. They’ll also reward items, including new runes and sigils, a fancy weapon skin for your new weapon type, and an armor skin for a single matching piece of armor (usually headgear or shoulders). As long as you’ve purchased Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, you’ll automatically unlock access to all elite specializations in PvP.”

Does this mean elite specializations are another way for Anet to try and force PvE’rs to play a game they don’t like to get content? I for one will be ultra salty if this is the case, I want nothing to do with PvP.

ainekitten.9517:

Does this mean elite specializations are another way for Anet to try and force PvE’rs to play a game they don’t like to get content? I for one will be ultra salty if this is the case, I want nothing to do with PvP.

No, it just means you don’t have to PvE to be able to use the specializations in PvP.

The thing that i find funny is that the people that were saying “theres only 1 specialization per class, how is that a choice? etc…” have to stop griping (at least with that arguement), because there will be 6 specializations per class in HoT (5 core, 1 elite).

I really got the impression that skills were tied to the specializations, but i might need to wait a few weeks and see if this is actually the case (it seems to be that way for elite specializations for sure, not sure about the others though).

ainekitten.9517:

I hope I wasn’t misreading but…

“Finally, these reward tracks unlock everything for an elite specialization: weapon, unique mechanics, skills, and traits. They’ll also reward items, including new runes and sigils, a fancy weapon skin for your new weapon type, and an armor skin for a single matching piece of armor (usually headgear or shoulders). As long as you’ve purchased Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, you’ll automatically unlock access to all elite specializations in PvP.”

Does this mean elite specializations are another way for Anet to try and force PvE’rs to play a game they don’t like to get content? I for one will be ultra salty if this is the case, I want nothing to do with PvP.

All that means is that they don’t want to force PvP only people into playing PvE to unlock the elite specializations, skills, and traits. While in PvE, you will have to earn the specialization, skills, and traits through the reward tracks.

Invictus.1503:

ainekitten.9517:

I hope I wasn’t misreading but…

“Finally, these reward tracks unlock everything for an elite specialization: weapon, unique mechanics, skills, and traits. They’ll also reward items, including new runes and sigils, a fancy weapon skin for your new weapon type, and an armor skin for a single matching piece of armor (usually headgear or shoulders). As long as you’ve purchased Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, you’ll automatically unlock access to all elite specializations in PvP.”

Does this mean elite specializations are another way for Anet to try and force PvE’rs to play a game they don’t like to get content? I for one will be ultra salty if this is the case, I want nothing to do with PvP.

All that means is that they don’t want to force PvP only people into playing PvE to unlock the elite specializations, skills, and traits. While in PvE, you will have to earn the specialization, skills, and traits through the reward tracks.

Oh ok. I didn’t have a lot of time to read the article itself so that stood out when I was skimming and raised a red flag for me but thanks for clarifying

Gobble D Goop.4081:

I really got the impression that skills were tied to the specializations, but i might need to wait a few weeks and see if this is actually the case (it seems to be that way for elite specializations for sure, not sure about the others though).

Skills are earned along the way to completing the profession reward tracks. In the water magic example, you can see “Signets”, “Conjuration”, “Cantrips”, “Glyphs” and “Arcana”.

Looks like in order to get a certain skill, you will be spending Hero points unlocking all of the other skills along the track until you get to it.

ainekitten.9517:

I hope I wasn’t misreading but…

“Finally, these reward tracks unlock everything for an elite specialization: weapon, unique mechanics, skills, and traits. They’ll also reward items, including new runes and sigils, a fancy weapon skin for your new weapon type, and an armor skin for a single matching piece of armor (usually headgear or shoulders). As long as you’ve purchased Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, you’ll automatically unlock access to all elite specializations in PvP.”

Does this mean elite specializations are another way for Anet to try and force PvE’rs to play a game they don’t like to get content? I for one will be ultra salty if this is the case, I want nothing to do with PvP.

I would like to think that anet have enough experience to know that players favour drops rather than specific chains. If not magic find would be a complete waste of time ( not that it doesn’t feel that way already)