Guild Wars 2

(This is a lot of copypasta from a previous post of mine)

I, for one, am heavily in favor of UNLINKING the Traits with Stat lines.

Many of the traits and stats are a huge mess, and dont really fit together very well at the moment, limiting the “play your way” style pushed by the devs, and helping to push the meta, instead of helping people break away from it.

Here are some examples. All of them are from a Warrior perspective, since it is the class I know best. I know all the various classes have this to some degree.

-Want those Longbow traits? Take the tactics tree, and enjoy your +boon duration. What? Longbow has no boons? Tough.

Lets try a shout-healing build! Wait, healing+ isnt in that stat line at all. Banner healing build? Nope. That’s up in defense.

Greatsword power build? Well the Greatsword trait is in arms, so enjoy your +200 condition damage on a weapon with literally 0 damaging conditions.

Better still… want to make a shout Warrior who wields a longbow? Well unfortunately thats 4 traits that happen to exist in the same tree, even though they’re completely unrelated.

However, I understand that TOTALLY unlinking them may encourage min-max so here is what I consider a perfect solution:

Solution
You can pick any 6 traits you want from your class. Each has a stat bonus attached for slotting it, in addition to its current standard effect.

Examples:
Forceful Greatsword: 50 prec/5% boon, plus the current functionality
Shield Master: 50 tough/50 vit, plus the current functionality

And for the minor traits? You get them based on what your stat bonus from traits work out to be.

Example:
If you have +50 prec and +50 condi, you get the Precise Strikes minor trait.
If you have +150 tough and +150 healing, you get Adrenal health minor trait.

+1
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I think everyone know about this and I also think it’s part of the trait balance and complexity… why should we even have stats on trait lines if we could choose them without any dependency on trait lines? it would be just like one more armor part which you can choose… this way you need to consider not just traits themselves, but the combination of gear stats, trait line stats and specific traits

Could be interesting. You wouldn’t get trait points anymore, just another trait slot.

To prevent the player from slotting 5 Grandmaster traits and two Master traits (Arena Net previously made a change specifically to stop this around launch time), each slot would have a tier (the old tiers). Each slot can contain a trait at it’s tier or below. At level 80, a character will have two Grandmaster-tier slots, two Master-tier slots, and three Adept-tier slots, matching the current system.

The timing of unlocking of tiers and trait slots is an exercise I’ll leave to the reader.

Stats need to be removed from traits. Keep them on gear if you want, preferably the accessories/amulets mostly.

The fact that you lose to the tune of 300 power just to trait into supportive tools neuters a lot of the supportive build options.

A mesmer for example has some pickings on inspiration, as does a necromancer in blood magic, but losing 300 power on top of the offensive traits on the power/precision line makes these non-starter positions. You simply never want to give up damage for anything else.

Guardian trait “Scepter Power” is a Master trait in the Zeal line. The Zeal line is mostly about Symbols. Scepter has no Symbols and no Offhand has Symbols, so you end up with
a weaponset without any Symbols.

Trait lines never made sense…

Before you say that it makes sense to put increased damage for a weapon into the Zeal(Power) trait line, then why is Powerful Blades(The Sword version of the trait) in Radiance(Precision) trait line?

Really, trait lines never made much sense. The devs seem to have a list of traits, put in traits that deal with specific skill types into certain trait lines, then fill in the leftover traits in whatever trait line that isnt full yet.

Same reason thief has assassin’s reward in acrobatics, and assassin’s retreat in acrobatics, and power shots in shadow arts, and traits that literally only affect 1 skill.

I could list more for ranger guardian warrior necro and engineer but that’s despite the point, everyone has some really, REALLY odd trait locations and odd traits in general.

My dream build would have pools of choices that you slot into any line you choose. All adept, all master, all grandmaster, each in its own pool that you can use in any trait line.

Ah, well. Never will see this as too powerful I guess.

Dand.8231:

Longbow has no boons?

You sure about that m8?

As an alternate solution to my first one, ANet could just split the Stats/Traits into their own lines.

One for traits, and one for stats.

I would suggest dropping the stat bonuses from the game entirely, but that might hurt certain builds which rely on unique stats, like Boon+, and throw things a bit out of whack.

Aktium.9506:

Dand.8231:

Longbow has no boons?

You sure about that m8?

If im wrong, by all means, correct me!

Dand.8231:

As an alternate solution to my first one, ANet could just split the Stats/Traits into their own lines.

One for traits, and one for stats.

I would suggest dropping the stat bonuses from the game entirely, but that might hurt certain builds which rely on unique stats, like Boon+, and throw things a bit out of whack.

Aktium.9506:

Dand.8231:

Longbow has no boons?

You sure about that m8?

If im wrong, by all means, correct me!

F1 then LB3 = Might

Nate.3927:

Dand.8231:

As an alternate solution to my first one, ANet could just split the Stats/Traits into their own lines.

One for traits, and one for stats.

I would suggest dropping the stat bonuses from the game entirely, but that might hurt certain builds which rely on unique stats, like Boon+, and throw things a bit out of whack.

Aktium.9506:

Dand.8231:

Longbow has no boons?

You sure about that m8?

If im wrong, by all means, correct me!

F1 then LB3 = Might

^ I mean that is longbow boons.

Anyway.
I think this would lead to a lot of powerful, broken combinations.
Like having shadow arts + preparedness and Hidden Killer.

It would be intersting, But kitten-awful to balance.

Ok, I guess you could argue for the AoE might on a firefield, but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers, and be affected by THEIR boon duration, not yours. You’re just making the ring.

Solori.6025:

I think this would lead to a lot of powerful, broken combinations.
Like having shadow arts + preparedness and Hidden Killer.

It would be intersting, But kitten-awful to balance.

I think you misunderstood. I didn’t suggest removing adept/master/grand tiers. I only suggested we remove the associated stat bonuses with each trait line.

Suggestion 1
Remove stats from the trait lines themselves, and link them to each individual trait in a way that makes sense (ex: Warriors trait Forceful Greatsword adds 50 power/50 precision, while Engineer trait Incendiary Powder adds 50 condi/5% condi duration, and Elementalist trait Elemental Attunment adds 5% Intelligence/5% boon duration)

Suggestion 2
Remove stats from the trait lines, and just create a second stat line, where you independently assign points as you please.

The end result of either would be the same exact amount of stat points and trait restrictions as we have present, just with more flexibility to assign them without ending up with useless stats, or fear of missing out on 300 of a key stat.

Dand.8231:

but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers

You don’t actually play Warrior do you? Hambow and Shoutbow both maintain 20+ stacks of might on their own.

Dand.8231:

Ok, I guess you could argue for the AoE might on a firefield, but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers, and be affected by THEIR boon duration, not yours. You’re just making the ring.

Solori.6025:

I think this would lead to a lot of powerful, broken combinations.
Like having shadow arts + preparedness and Hidden Killer.

It would be intersting, But kitten-awful to balance.

I think you misunderstood. I didn’t suggest removing adept/master/grand tiers. I only suggested we remove the associated stat bonuses with each trait line.

Suggestion 1
Remove stats from the trait lines themselves, and link them to each individual trait in a way that makes sense (ex: Warriors trait Forceful Greatsword adds 50 power/50 precision, while Engineer trait Incendiary Powder adds 50 condi/5% condi duration, and Elementalist trait Elemental Attunment adds 5% Intelligence/5% boon duration)

Suggestion 2
Remove stats from the trait lines, and just create a second stat line, where you independently assign points as you please.

The end result of either would be the same exact amount of stat points and trait restrictions as we have present, just with more flexibility to assign them without ending up with useless stats, or fear of missing out on 300 of a key stat.

AHHH
You’re looking for a complete trait reassignment.

You’re asking Anet to do extra work…

You cray yo.

I think a much simpler solution would just create a pool of stats, say 300 or so points, that you individually assign in blocks of 20 or 30. People who like the “stats are linked to traits” system or have concerns that unlinking them would create balance issues are happy, people who want more freedom in builds are happy. Things like NPCs in the game would also be scaled up a little to compensate.

I got easier solution.
Remove stats from traitlines.
Do nothing more.

And no one the wiser ;-)

Aktium.9506:

Dand.8231:

but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers

You don’t actually play Warrior do you? Hambow and Shoutbow both maintain 20+ stacks of might on their own.

You’ve got a valid point there. Even so, overall, traits and stats still do not match up well.

bigbobpataki.4796:

I think a much simpler solution would just create a pool of stats, say 300 or so points, that you individually assign in blocks of 20 or 30. People who like the “stats are linked to traits” system or have concerns that unlinking them would create balance issues are happy, people who want more freedom in builds are happy. Things like NPCs in the game would also be scaled up a little to compensate.

Thats basically my Suggestion 2:

Suggestion 2
Remove stats from the trait lines, and just create a second stat line, where you independently assign points as you please.

Justine.6351:

I got easier solution.
Remove stats from traitlines.
Do nothing more.

And no one the wiser ;-)

I’ve actually considered this, however, it creates two problems.

1. Mobs all got stronger relative to players. This can be fixed by tweaking them ALL, but thats a lot of extra work.

2. Some stats like Boon Duration+ and Condi Dur+ are harder to come by on gear than Power+ and Precision+. Additionally, the class specific stat does not exist anywhere else at all.

It’s for this reason that I think Suggestion 1 is the cooler of the two, but Suggestion 2 is far more realistic and do-able.