Guild Wars 2

I’ve been just checking traitline/specialization changes in store for ranger, including grandmaste…yyyy….what again?

With the new way of “whole traitline or none” just what are these…“grandmaster” traits?
No matter how i look at it what i got are 3 sets of 3 traits each that let me choose only one trait per set. There’s absolutely no difference wheather the grandmaster set would be in adept tier and vice-versa, because from get-go i get whole line and there is no sacrifice at all associated with going balls to the wall all the way to grandmaster tier.

Before & now it makes much more sense – i choose how deep i got into the line and going all the way to grandmaster tier costs me ability to access other lines more deeply. That is what grandmaster tiers are about. In this new trait setup i see nothing thta would justify the old order of traits. Might as well call them “set1, set2, set3” since technically that’s what they are…

It still matters for leveling though. It gives a sense of progression. Furthermore, grandmaster traits are meant to be more ‘build defining’ than other traits.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean. Let me know if I misinterpreted you

Current Trait System: Investing in a grandmaster trait prevents you from delving further in other lines, so it’s a tradeoff. In this system, there’s a decision you have to make to either invest into these grandmaster traits, or not invest in a grandmaster trait and get the ability to invest in lesser Adept and Master traits that aren’t (arguably) as powerful.

Specialization System: There’s no investing into a grandmaster trait because it’s given to you when you select a trait line. This means it costs me nothing (there’s no tradeoff) to invest into these grandmaster traits, and no reason to call them grandmaster because they’re comparable to adept or master traits.

I think that with the specializatiom system, there is still a tradeoff, but it doesn’t sit with the grandmaster traits. Instead of deciding whether or not to invest into a grandmaster tier to gain or lose access to more or less lesser traits, you now just have to decide what trait lines you want to use.

What I’m noticing with the Specialization system is that the updated Grandmaster traits, for the most part, are more build defining than they are now. Although we lose the ability to decide how far into a traitline we want to go, the Grandmaster trait makes up for it. Not sure on how many, but some of the Grandmaster traits are a couple Master/Adept traits mushed together.

I assume the only reason they’ll be called gm traits is because they would require a couple extra points to unlock

I also see a potential for them to zap some fun from the game, similar to when WoW locked players to 1 specialization and things like Blue/Green DK builds were killed. They argue that the choices are more “meaningful” but they are also much more constricting. My thief only currently goes to 1 GM trait so he can max out his combo attack and still have Ricochet (Yep, I SPAM Unload; Deal with it!!!). But I guess if I can go ALL THE WAY with all three traits it’s okay.

I see the bigger issue being balance between class builds and the elite specs. Because the first minor trait of each elite spec so far looks like a straight massive buff far exceeding what most current GM traits can do, I"m worried that elite specs will become mandatory!