Guild Wars 2

TL;DR at the bottom. Warning: this is a long one!

So I saw all four+ hours of the Specialization AMA. I really like how the system is moving forward and I appreciate that there is some real decision-making involved now with trait choices. However, I’d like to make the following suggestion:

Make Aquamancer’s Training (deal 10% extra damage when your health is above 90% and reduces recharge on all water weapon skills) a Grandmaster Trait, boost the damage bonus to 20% (or 15% with another bonus effect), and turn Bountiful Power (deal 1% extra damage for every boon) into a Master Trait.

Why? Well the new Specialization system is mainly focused on how Grandmaster Traits define/change the player’s play style in a significant, meaningful way. As it stands now, Bountiful Power is, quite frankly, boring and passive. It adds a marginal stat boost (at any given time an Ele generally has only 4-5 boons), and does not promote any new type of playing. Heck, even the Ranger’s equivalent, Bountiful Hunter, is only an Adept Trait! Although I understand that comparing similar traits between classes is not completely fair due to how different their play styles are, I really don’t believe Bountiful Power is deserving of Grandmaster tier.

The only sort of play style that Bountiful Power promotes is to have as many boons on your character at a time. However, there are currently only 9 boons total in the game, and Eles don’t have reliable access to Retaliation or Aegis. Protection, Stability, and Vigor are difficult to maintain, leaving only four (Might, Fury, Regeneration, and Swiftness) boons to have near-constant uptime. These four boons, however, are already at near-constant uptime on almost all Elementalist builds!. They are simply too important and helpful to go without, as any competitive player would agree. They are also very easy to maintain, whether it be through blasting fields, weapon skills, or through traits such as Elemental Attunement or Zephyr’s Boon. That is, no Elementalist, even if they chose Bountiful Power, would significantly change their play style (boons should already be up whenever possible), or their builds (purposely choosing a Trait/Rune that provides a unique boon for a 1% damage bonus is wasteful). Ultimately, Bountiful Power fails at being a Grandmaster Trait.

I understand that the intention of Bountiful Power was to give Eles who went into Water a damage option. Whereas Cleansing Water encourages group-wide support builds, and Powerful Aura encourages Auramancer play, Bountiful Power, however, offers only a pure damage boost with nothing else interesting about it. It also suffers from the fact that it can be rendered useless when fighting an enemy that can remove conditions. When a Mesmer can nullify your Grandmaster Trait just by using their sword auto-attack, or a Thief spamming S/D 3, it seems like bad game design and leads to a bad player experience.

Let’s talk about Aquamancer’s Training, though. Aquamancer’s training does encourage a simple, but strategic minigame. Try to keep your health above 90% to do more damage. The % health mechanic is especially interesting on Elementalists due to them having the lowest base Health/Armor combination, yet extremely high damage potential. By pumping up the damage bonus to, say, 20%, not only is it highly enticing as a Grandmaster Trait (thus fairly competing with Cleansing Water and Powerful Aura), but whole new builds will be designed around keeping your health above 90%, lest you lose a huge part of your potential damage output. It would force glass cannon Eles to put major investment into Weapon Skills/Utilities that prevent damage such as Arcane Shield or Obsidian Flesh, or force them to play a strike at full health, retreat and heal, and strike again play style. Or, you could focus solely on the 90% health part and focus on building Vitality and Toughness, while still having a helpful damage boost. Aquamancer’s Training also heavily synergizes with the Earth Grandmaster Traits Diamond Skin and Stone Heart, due to the nature of their damage-preventing effects. Synergy between Specialization lines is a great thing and was heavily emphasized as such during the stream. Ultimately, by increasing the damage increase portion of Aquamancer’s Training, it becomes a highly attractive Trait that would compete with other Grandmaster Traits while at the same time encouraging unique builds and/or play styles to capitalize on said damage increase. Basically, it would envision everything ArenaNet wants in a Grandmaster Trait.

TL;DR
Bountiful Power doesn’t encourage unique play styles or builds. It is boring, weak, and should not be Grandmaster tier. Aquamancer’s Training encourages making builds and having combat that plays around the 90% health point. It competes well with the other Grandmaster Traits and has synergy with other trait lines (Earth). Buff the % damage bonus to make it Grandmaster-worthy and swap the two.

COUNTERARGUMENTS:

• But the water skill recharge shouldn’t be on a Grandmaster Trait!
  Ok, then put it on Bountiful Power in the Master tier.

• But why not just buff Bountiful Power to give X% more damage per boon?
  This change would make Bountiful Power more enticing and have more of an impact, but the fact that it fails to change player builds or play style still exists. That is, it would become a better Trait, but it wouldn’t become a better Grandmaster Trait.

• But 20% on Aquamancer’s Training is too high!
  The 20% is merely a suggestion, a number that can be changed and balanced. The inherent health-maintenance minigame still exists, which is why it has so much more potential as a Grandmaster Trait. In addition, the number can be changed to something like 15% and another bonus effect such as “water skills recharge 30% faster while above 90% health,” or “create a Frost Aura upon successful evade while above 90%.” There’s really a lot of creative space here.

• But why not just keep the 10% on Aquamancer’s and swap it as-is?
  A 10% damage boost on a Grandmaster Trait with such a difficult to maintain condition just doesn’t seem Grandmaster-worthy. Especially when there are super easy boosts like 10% to burning enemies or 10% while attuned to Fire in Master/Minor tiers.

• But there will be more boons in HoT! Bountiful Power will be OP!
  Sorry, a 2 or 3% boost still doesn’t solve the issue of Bountiful Power being a poor Grandmaster choice (assuming Elementalists could even maintain boons like Quickness and Resistance).

I agree with you there. Bountiful Power just doesnt feel like a Grandmaster trait that changes your playstile.

very well thought out and presented. i would actually support this change., considering that this trait currently is exactly the same functionality as Superior Runes of the Scholar, it should be changed to promote build diversity.

Or change the trait so that it is a build-defining trait?

For example, Conjured weapons seem to have only one trait:

Bountiful Conjure

• Conjuration skills produce an extra weapon.
• Gain Might / Health / Condition Removal / [Insert other effect here] when using a Conjured weapon charge.
• Increase stat bonuses when wielding a Conjured weapon (50%).
• Reduce cooldowns on Conjured weapon skills by %.
• Gaining a boon also restores 1 conjure charge (x sec ICD)

Well thought out and well presented, both the initial argument and the counterarguments. I strongly encourage Anet to do something like this, it can’t stay the way it is now.

Spectrum.4985:

TL;DR at the bottom. Warning: this is a long one!

A little hint about persuasive writing… Put your clear, concise summation AT THE TOP. The place where people might actually read it. If my eyes glaze over I’m not going to scroll down to find out if you have a point to make, I’m going to go read another thread.

I’d say go even further with it if you want to make it a grandmaster. It’s current iteration as a master is actually pretty impressive number-wise, yet it has never seen use, because you don’t go in to the water tree for damage thanks to how the water skills that play off the water traits deal little to no damage anyway.

To fix that, I would say keep it at 10% more damage for all skills while you are above 90% health, but 30% more damage for water skills while you are above 90% health.

i would never take this even if it was 20% damage, 10% of an ele’s health are an auto attack of any class

Jekkt.6045:

i would never take this even if it was 20% damage, 10% of an ele’s health are an auto attack of any class

Yes, it’s true that Elementalists are the squishiest class in terms of base stats. But like I pointed out, they also have some of the best defensive utilities in the game. Armor of Earth and Arcane Shield are amazing at preventing incoming damage. Obsidian flesh provides a full 4 seconds of invulnerability with no drawbacks (I could totally see a Scepter/Focus build where you unleash hell for the first 4 seconds and then play defensive). Specializing into Water also provides neat healing effects to get you healthy again if you do take damage. Diamond Skin in Earth removes any threats from conditions. And with stats being no longer tied to trait lines, you can be as tanky as going 0/0/30/30/10 while having all the offensive traits of Fire and/or Air.

The point is, there really are a lot of ways for Elementalists to stay above the 90% mark, you simply have to adjust your build to accommodate that style of play. Which is what a Grandmaster Trait is all about. And like I pointed out, the 20% really is just a number. I’m sure there’s a value between 1 and 1,000,000 that satisfy the majority of players