Guild Wars 2

Why I like the new trait system:

Core specializations open up more seemingly set in stone themes to RPers who have more than one of any profession. Not only that but now I get 3 grandmaster traits to try out when before, since I wanted stat bonuses more, I rarely put 6 into one line and if I did it usually went into whatever increased power. I think separating the traits from stats was a brilliant move to open up MANY more build varieties when combined with the armor. Before if you wanted max damage you put it all in power, now you can put it all in any of the traits you thought might have been interesting to try but sacrificed to get more power. Not only that, but with stats ONLY being on armor if a glass cannon wants to survive longer they’ll HAVE to lose their pure berserk armor instead of putting more into toughness/vitality trait lines, thereby getting rid of Zerk meta. Will this happen? Possibly, only time will tell.

Skills and traits are now unlocked by leveling AS WELL AS exploration, meaning that even if I Tome of Knowledge up to 80- not that I ever have or ever will- I’ll have hero points to unlock skills AND traits without having to run all over the world to get even one trait. So already this is way better than the current trait system that gives you a whopping ZERO traits if you level to 80 this way. Is it better than the current skill system? Depends on how much it costs to advance the skill lines and how freely the hero points are given (is it just SP that grant Hero Points- HP? HeroP? Heroints? Hoints? Peroes?- or will we get 1/4 or some other fraction for PoIs, Vistas, and WPs too?)

A purely cosmetic reason: There’s interesting art on the Trait/Skill lines and the Core Specializations.

This is also a step towards how traits worked in GW1. Nobody put traits into all magics and expected to be a decent Elementalist at anything. Instead you went at least up to 9 in fire (if you had a Req. 9 fire staff of course) but more than likely you maxed out fire, a bunch into energy storage and put a little into your secondary profession. So, at least as a GW1 gamer… Yay for nostalgia’s sake!

There are some downsides of course, 2048 hero points on that water page and to go from rank 10-11 is 25? That makes me worried that there very well could be a considerable grind to unlocking more than just the traits but skills as well. Not knowing how frugal the game will be with hero points, however, I will try to hold off on letting that bug me too much. Also, and as always with future features, the Jury is still out on if these changes will actually be better or worse than what we have now.

I’d rather have my ability to get traits for my alts tied to map completions I can do any time than to events that don’t necessarily spawn when I’m leveling in the area or events that no one bothers to do and can’t be soloed or cost an arm and a leg in gold, like they have now.