Guild Wars 2

I’m (cautiously) excited about the upcoming specialization changes, and while there are a number of issues that will be hotly debated, there’s one thing I saw from the AMA notes that worries me.

Reviving traits are still a thing under the proposed plan.

I don’t consider it a good thing to plan for failure, and revival traits are ignored because they’re too conditional and just not that useful:

• A short, minor buff
• Measly 10% increased revival time
• …and that’s about it, really.

If these revive skills are going to be used out of the significantly more buffed options that are coming to other traits, some or all of the below are going to need to happen.

1. Merge revive traits with on-down traits. It fits a theme of being prepared to deal with defeat and keeps the on-down traits from floating their uselessness elsewhere.
2. Increase the revive speed significantly, to 25% or more. I realize it’s going to be a thing with PvP, but do PvPers honestly use revive traits?
3. Benefits should be added to the during-revive phase instead of/in addition to successful revival. Boons on a 3-sec pulse would be more beneficial than a one-time burst on a cooldown.

If players take one of these traits, they expect to use them for some actual benefit. It was easy to ignore them before, since there were so many other options. If revive-speed traits remain in the trait plan, they really need improvement, or they will continue to be ignored. Then will have to be benefit-rich, powerful abilities that justify the risk of helping a downed/defeated ally and serve as a suitable comeback mechanism.

They should just make all the revival traits baseline.

Invictus.1503:

They should just make all the revival traits baseline.

I would also accept this.

There’s some potential in having each trait line have a really dense 1st minor trait.
In addition to the normal minor, add in those things the trait lines often had with them: condition duration, boon duration, class mechanic bonuses (cooldowns, necro life, etc).

Invictus.1503:

They should just make all the revival traits baseline.

Not even a little true.

There are modes where revival is a HUGE advantage. Having some people be good at it (by choice) and others not is a place where the system does and continues to separate roles and create a difference between team-minded support builds and self-sufficient lone wolves.

Believe me, we don’t need to be homogenized even more than we have been.

You think those by themselves are bad they left one completely untouched on ranger trapper’s defense is looking to just be place a spike trap while reviving. The increased speed is on a different trait in a different line (it grants swiftness so…)

^ Yup.

/15chars

@Nike
I wish I had actual data for how many people in PvE, WvW, and PvP run with those revival traits. If there is enough value in it, I see no problem keeping a slightly buffed version. But then there’s situations like Bran points out, that these traits should at least be merged to make them more laterally useful.
Incorporated into the baseline might be a tad over-reactive, I’ll admit, but revive speed could be considered one of the benefits of a trait line in the way that cooldown reduction or boon/condition duration are.
The simplest and most even-handed solution would be merge enough traits to make it feel like a decent option.