Guild Wars 2

This forum mod and I both know i have much shorter and descriptive term for the issue at hand, but if my topic is to survive i have to be more descriptive.

I like customizability of my build, and “playing my way”. But the “specializations” go the Titanic route of “we know better then you!”.

Result?

I. can’t go into more then 3 lines, even for one measely adept trait.
II. can’t choose a traitline only partially, because grandmaster traits are of no use to my build.
III. can’t select lower tier traits in higher one’s slot – again killing my choice and diveristy. (yes i have a build that runs on 3 adept tiers from one line and does just fine).

I get this whole condensing traits and making them less but more viable, but that doesn’t change the fact, that our build options are getting severely butchered, and we’re supposed to be happy about it. Well, i’m not.

Yah, for sure we are losing flexibility with 3 lines system. I enjoy changing traits within same build to suit situations. These 3 lock on looks gonna be painful. You have to redo everything depending on circumstances. If only they were to introduce a way to save a preset build along with this new system or perhaps even with gears, it would mean a lot.
I’ve always felt Anet decision making has been poor and on down hill slide ever since the introduction of NPE, perhaps even further before that.
Looking at HoT, i’m not sure it will be up to the hype. We’ll be seeing more Maguuma stuffs that we’ve been seeing for the past couple of stagnant months. Masteries are nothing but content gating smoke screen imo. I’m not looking forward to the next trait patch and i’m starting to have serious doubt about the depth and quality of HoT.
We can only wait and see i guess.

yeah, recently it’s one bad decision after another, though you didn’t have to bring out the NPE boogie man, some of us still have nightmares…

But yeah, random boon conversion (0 skill, 100% luck), leaps independent from movement speed value (there goes movement condi and boon game) etc and so on.
I wonder of the last one is tied in some way to HoT maps being smaller, since nobody can tell me that our curret huge pve maps “are too small for leapers”.

Anyway i can swear they’re reading “101 ways to sink a game” in recent times. Someone must’ve told them “sreamlining is hip” and they bought it….

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

No one can really say it will be better or worse. I am afraid we must wait around to see just how it will effect the game, if you are not calm enough or patient enough for that then…. carry on ranting.

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Less choices, yes.
Less flexibility, debatable.
Less pointless choices, yes.
Dumb down, yes; Simplified, yes. From a balancing standpoint, this is far superior
“For the simple minded”, ad hominem, no.
NPE’s effectiveness is weird, but debatable. Leveling 1-20 is very fast. Leveling alts is easy with tomes.
Nerf bats, no, this is only an opinion.

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

current example:

I want a trapper condi thief (yes it’s a thing). Right now i got full acrobatics, fulll trickery and 10 into shadow arts so i can condi cleanse when in stealth.

Post specializations:

Traps are deadly arts. Sure i can get full deadly arts, acrobatics and trickery. But i can’t get 2 pts into shadow arts for that cleanse. And i would love to, since there’s nothing in deadly arts grandmaster that would interest me, unlike that adept tier condi cleanse in shadowarts. But guess what? I can’t.

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

current example:

I want a trapper condi thief (yes it’s a thing). Right now i got full acrobatics, fulll trickery and 10 into shadow arts so i can condi cleanse when in stealth.

Post specializations:

Traps are deadly arts. Sure i can get full deadly arts, acrobatics and trickery. But i can’t get 2 pts into shadow arts for that cleanse. And i would love to, since there’s nothing in deadly arts grandmaster that would interest me, unlike that adept tier condi cleanse in shadowarts. But guess what? I can’t.

Theres condi cleanse in trickery….

so the need to go SA is now pointless when we have multiple lines with some form of condi cleanse

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

I think in this case it’s more like they wanted to prevent certain combinations, and also get rid of some of the choices that were never taken.

If nobody likes your pineapple zucchini sandwich and nothing else on your menu has zucchini in it, you take it off the menu so that you stop having to order zucchini. It might be reducing your choices, but there’s no real point in keeping objectively bad choices around or making too many of them (why do you think most restaurants only have a couple of pages of food?). One of the problems with GW1 that I think they’re trying to avoid is that there were significant numbers of skills that just weren’t used, period.

On top of all this, it makes the game easier to balance by making sure you don’t have to balance every trait with every single other trait, so that they can manage the traitlines more individually without worrying about unintended combinations that end up being too strong.

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

Actually, if you watch some of those shows where they fix-up failing restaurants (Restaurant Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc), one of the most common things they do is remove the under-performing items from the menu, because having too many options a.) overwhelms customers and makes them take more time make a selection and b.) complicates the operations of the kitchen by having to maintain rotating stocks of several different ingredients that often go to waste.

Having a ton of choices doesn’t matter if, to be viable, you have to disregard most of them (like not ordering the obviously kittenty items from a menu). It’s not true choice—it’s the illusion of choice.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

I think in this case it’s more like they wanted to prevent certain combinations, and also get rid of some of the choices that were never taken.

If nobody likes your pineapple zucchini sandwich and nothing else on your menu has zucchini in it, you take it off the menu so that you stop having to order zucchini. It might be reducing your choices, but there’s no real point in keeping objectively bad choices around or making too many of them (why do you think most restaurants only have a couple of pages of food?). One of the problems with GW1 that I think they’re trying to avoid is that there were significant numbers of skills that just weren’t used, period.

On top of all this, it makes the game easier to balance by making sure you don’t have to balance every trait with every single other trait, so that they can manage the traitlines more individually without worrying about unintended combinations that end up being too strong.

its mostly done so its easier for them to create/balance new specialisations.

its not true that they just eliminated bad combinations/traits, they streamlined the design.
until we start to have 2+ elite specializations, there will be substantially less variation.

stream lined screwdriver
http://images.clipartpanda.com/screwdriver-clipart-free-vector-bigredsmile-a-screwdriver-clip-art_115848_Bigredsmile_A_Screwdriver_clip_art_hight.png

more option screwdriver
http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/productImages/300/a2/a2164953-aa2c-439b-b36e-8fe8b0284a92_300.jpg

the second one is a better tool, the first one is more streamlined. streamlined doesnt mean better

MattyP.6954:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

Actually, if you watch some of those shows where they fix-up failing restaurants (Restaurant Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc), one of the most common things they do is remove the under-performing items from the menu, because having too many options a.) overwhelms customers and makes them take more time make a selection and b.) complicates the operations of the kitchen by having to maintain rotating stocks of several different ingredients that often go to waste.

Having a ton of choices doesn’t matter if, to be viable, you have to disregard most of them (like not ordering the obviously kittenty items from a menu). It’s not true choice—it’s the illusion of choice.

bull

more options doesnt hurt consumers.

it does however help restauranters. that i agree with.

this whole idea of getting rid of bad options is a lie, very rarely are options bad, they are generally subjective. There is nothing objectively inferior or superior about curry goat, hamburgers a salad, jerked chicken or spagetti.

a streamlined store may only sell hamburgers, that doesnt mean hamburgers are the best food.

Customization is too confusing to players.

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

I call bull. There is no meaningful increase in usable traits, and you can’t back choose good ones if one of the so called higher traits aren’t actually better (which is often the case, especially in certain professions). So cut out pointless choices, yes (in some cases cut out or blocked good choices in the doing!). But increase in valid choices, no. This is also a decrease.

While the OP’s I. and II. are essentially two sides of the same coin, he is technically correct in spelling out what is possible now, but will not be possible with the new system. Whether the new system will be better for more people than it will be worse for remains to be seen.

I tried going through the professions yesterday, and ended up quitting after 3 of 8. Too many times, I found myself asking what the actual numbers are going to be (e.g., will Backpack Regenerator be the same amount of passive heal as it was? Less? More?). Until I see those numbers, I’m not going to be able to evaluate whether I’ve got more interesting choices or less. Sure, there was greater volume of choice in the outgoing system, but it’s not as if there were great options for all builds at each choice point — just as there will not be great options at each choice point in the new system for all builds.

I’m not particularly pleased that the issue of three of three highly niche choices in a given line/tier has not in all cases been addressed. I’m all for opportunity cost, but in some cases taking a desired option means being faced with undesired options with the other two tiers in a line. This means that the opportunity cost of some traits will be much higher than the opportunity cost of other traits.

phys.7689:

MattyP.6954:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

Actually, if you watch some of those shows where they fix-up failing restaurants (Restaurant Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc), one of the most common things they do is remove the under-performing items from the menu, because having too many options a.) overwhelms customers and makes them take more time make a selection and b.) complicates the operations of the kitchen by having to maintain rotating stocks of several different ingredients that often go to waste.

Having a ton of choices doesn’t matter if, to be viable, you have to disregard most of them (like not ordering the obviously kittenty items from a menu). It’s not true choice—it’s the illusion of choice.

bull

more options doesnt hurt consumers.

it does however help restauranters. that i agree with.

this whole idea of getting rid of bad options is a lie, very rarely are options bad, they are generally subjective. There is nothing objectively inferior or superior about curry goat, hamburgers a salad, jerked chicken or spagetti.

a streamlined store may only sell hamburgers, that doesnt mean hamburgers are the best food.

I don’t think you’re addressing what MattyP brought up there. The reason that menu items might be cut from a particular restaurant is because they are either:
1) Underperforming
or
2) Have low order frequencies and stocking the materials costs more than the revenue from sales

Sometimes having more options does hurt consumers. If you go to a restaurant and they hand somebody a menu with 20 pages, a lot of people don’t even know where to start. Similarly, if you hand them a sheet of paper with 3 options on it, they probably will be wondering why so little is offered. With that in mind, having too few options can also negatively affect the performance.

We’re not talking about subjective taste here either, at least exclusively. If data shows that 90% of players put trait III in their adept slot, 7% put trait II, and 1% put traits I, IV, and VI in, but nobody uses trait V for some reason, the data is indicating that something is wrong with trait V and possibly trait III. Trait III might be so good that hardly anybody feels like they even can take anything else, and trait V might be so niche that taking it for anything aside from that one event in the corner of the world where it sometimes helps is a bad decision.

A lot of what they seemed to do is merging traits, so now they buffed II and IV, then they merged III and V, II and I, and IV and VI. If they focus on smaller groups of them, they can balance the system better and will have it so more people could theoretically play around with the options they have instead of feeling forced to take that trait III.

People cry way too much

^Agreed^
Let’s eat something off the menu first, before we complain to the chef.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

^Agreed^
Let’s eat something off the menu first, before we complain to the chef.

So people on the forum can respond, “What, you ate it already. How can he change the recipe now?”

There’s really no good stage to complain about a change. Someone will always have a reason for why we should wait it out. I’ve seen the circle go round and round over the last three years.

1) ArenaNet announces a change: “Wait and see how it actually plays.”
2) Patch day: “They’re still fine tuning, I’m sure it will get fixed.”
3) A couple months later: “You’re still upset about that? It’s in for good, get over it and adapt.”
4) Information drought: “I’m sure they’re working on it behind the scenes, but they don’t announce anything until it’s almost ready, so just hang on and see.”

Gibson.4036:

3) A couple months later: “You’re still upset about that? It’s in for good, get over it and adapt.”

Do people really say this? I could see some people being so silly as to think this is a good argument, but this is the only one that is objectively bad. Code can be changed, it just takes some time. What’s true is that we haven’t seen these changes fully implemented yet so we won’t know how it will work in game, but if they need to change something later on then it is do-able.

MiniEquine.6014:

Gibson.4036:

3) A couple months later: “You’re still upset about that? It’s in for good, get over it and adapt.”

Do people really say this? I could see some people being so silly as to think this is a good argument, but this is the only one that is objectively bad. Code can be changed, it just takes some time. What’s true is that we haven’t seen these changes fully implemented yet so we won’t know how it will work in game, but if they need to change something later on then it is do-able.

No, not enough people say that. Thats why the forums are toxic and full of crying whining people that claim to quit everyday and then post 2 days later.

I’m not sure the problem is eliminating traits. The problem is you’ve just been back-doored by a Talent Tree system, and I don’t think most people realize it (yet).

Oh Talent Trees, how I loathe you. The last refuge of homogenized, uninspired, insipid MMO’s that have given up on guts and creativity. The safe design that gives you the illusion of meaningful choice. The design that caters to the lowest common denominator. What little balls GW2 had with it’s semi talent trees – it’s tiered, growing pool of traits you accumulated, but most importantly: could continue to pick from – has been neutered.

Oh, but wait – you get to choose your 3 trees out of 5 (or 6)…

sigh

Yet another aftershock of the seemingly irreparable damage done to the MMO genre by World of Warcraft’s popularity.

Torgaard.1864:

I’m not sure the problem is eliminating traits. The problem is you’ve just been back-doored by a Talent Tree system, and I don’t think most people realize it (yet).

Wah, i’ve never thought about it this way.
Now that you’ve mentioned it. Take a screenshot of the new trait, flip it anti-clockwise 90 degree. There we go, old school talent tree lol.
It is indeed being dumb down, being forced to take 3 of them make it even more obvious.
—
Actually being able to choose 3 out of 6 make it more like Rift Soul Tree system than wow’s old school talent tree. However, due to nature of guild wars 2 system when it comes to profession, there won’t be a clear cut change in role like Rift’s.
Disturbing, i came to GW2 from Rift back then, welcome to the past … i guess.

Going with the food analogy when I was a sandwich maker I would ask people what they wanted on their sub. Many times people would say " I don’t know, whatever you usually put on there". Most people didn’t even know what is in the food they ate. Same with the builds in the game. People pick builds without really knowing what’s in it.

I’ve got it! One of the devs must have found out I used to play Rappelz, looked at how that game did end game skill tree choice and then brought the idea here (and then ruined it even more).

Baldrick.8967:

I’ve got it! One of the devs must have found out I used to play Rappelz, looked at how that game did end game skill tree choice and then brought the idea here (and then ruined it even more).

I dunno what rappelz talent tree looks like, googling it up shows as a 2006 game. Pretty sure this is sarcastic post.
Torgaard brought up WoW’s talent/trait doesn’t mean it’s about WoW’s talent/trait. It’s pretty much generally he was using WoW as an example of what old days tree system looks like. From your words your Rappelz seems to fell into this category.
Bottom line is … gw2 is taking a huge step backward.