Guild Wars 2

morrolan.9608:

Actually it is crystal clear that we will lose diversity in the way the OP describes, the medi guardian build will be impossible, yes builds will be adapted but there will be inherently less build diversity and less choice.

Not true. The exact same medi guardian as we know it won’t be possible, that doesn’t mean that there will be less build diversity. Yes the 3 traits and the fact that you can only take grandmaster trait on the third slot decrease build diversity, but at the same time the removal of stats for trait line and the fact that you can now take 9 major trait will increase the build diversity.

Sure ideally they should leave the system like it is now, rework trait like they plan to do to eliminate useless trait and make all trait meaningfull, remove trait stats and give use 18 traits points (or leave it at 14 if they want). But the system they propose won’t give us ‘’inherently less build diversity and less choice.’’

RabbitUp.8294:

That’s not the point, in this case, though. The point is that if you are completely free to choose, options like picking 2 rare dyes become available and overshadow the rest.

Ignoring price, they don’t overshadow anything. They are just colors, the rarity is just an artificial means of giving gold value to some over others.

They are all equally useful. It’s just a matter of which ones the player desires.

3 full trait lines – maybe good.
Smaller amounts of traits (and build variabilities) – bad.
Impossible to replace Grand Master trait with the Lesser One – bad.
Separating Traits and Stats – maybe good. Where can we find our 30% Condi/Boon duration? Will it be implemented on our gear or just lost?

mrstealth.6701:

RabbitUp.8294:

That’s not the point, in this case, though. The point is that if you are completely free to choose, options like picking 2 rare dyes become available and overshadow the rest.

Ignoring price, they don’t overshadow anything. They are just colors, the rarity is just an artificial means of giving gold value to some over others.

They are all equally useful. It’s just a matter of which ones the player desires.

I meant ignore the significant price difference of the two rare dyes.

In your example, even if they are just colours with no monetary value, there’s still a reason to pick the rare dyes as those are the ones you have less of a chance of acquiring in the future. This is the reason people are paying more for them right now, combined with the actual desire for black and white dyes, which won’t change if those bundles were real.

RabbitUp.8294:

Yours, on the other hand, was false. You keep repeating an imaginary scenario that you had 10 different things to choose from and you are now are left with 5, which is not what happened.

A more accurate example would be 9 choices versus 3 choices.

Currently, a master tier major trait slot can be occupied by either a master trait or an adept trait. Right now that means 9 choices for that slot (4 major traits, plus the 5 remaining adepts). Under the proposed new system, that is cut down to only 3, because traits from the adept tier are no longer an option.

Should we really expect the flexibility of 9 options to be compressed into 3?

You can’t really discount a trait any more than you can discount a color. Just because a trait doesn’t fit your idea of a useful choice, or a meta build, you can’t simply consider it useless.

RabbitUp.8294:

In your example, even if they are just colours with no monetary value, there’s still a reason to pick the rare dyes as those are the ones you have less of a chance of acquiring in the future. This is the reason people are paying more for them right now, combined with the actual desire for black and white dyes, which won’t change if those bundles were real.

That is making the assumption that they are desired by the person they are offered to. Value aside, if someone doesn’t like the color, they are less likely to choose it when given other options. I don’t care if it’s the most rare dye in the game. If I don’t like, I won’t use it, and there is no reason to choose it outside of gold value.

It’s rather close to the situation of picking a lower tier trait for a slot. As with the more rare dye, the game is presenting the higher tier trait as if it is “better” in some way. But is it really better if you have no use for it?

what you need to realize rabbit is the actual purpose of the new system is this
“existing system and break them down into a similar system that is clearer and easier to use.”
compare the old water to the new water,

do you see any new applications? any meta changing ?

the purpose is just simplification.

phys.7689:

what you need to realize rabbit is the actual purpose of the new system is this
“existing system and break them down into a similar system that is clearer and easier to use.”
compare the old water to the new water,

do you see any new applications? any meta changing ?

the purpose is just simplification.

This is exactly it. Simplifying something, making it easier to use, is to remove the complexity and choices that are making it “difficult”. Removing variety and freedom to choose parts of your build. Removing the freedom to screw up and learn from it.

Is the system we have now really too hard?

It feels a lot more simplistic than most other MMOs/RPGs I’ve played. We don’t even have free choice for most of our skillbar.

The NPE has already been dumbed down greatly. Most of the friends I play with think it’s already gone too far, and now they want to take another huge step down.

I’m surprised by how little people value the idea of taking a third grandmaster trait.

phys.7689:

MaXi.3642:

better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways

removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.

say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancel

are the 5 left somehow better than before?

That’s not what’s happening. It’s more like, you have 10 dates to choose from. Your friends point out that 8 of them are neo-kittens, and suggest two new ones. You now have only four to choose from, but they’re better than what you had before.

Softspoken.2410:

I’m surprised by how little people value the idea of taking a third grandmaster trait.

That’s because ANet did a terrible job at balancing them. Many are greatly outclassed by Adept traits.

Strill.2591:

phys.7689:

MaXi.3642:

better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways

removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.

say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancel

are the 5 left somehow better than before?

That’s not what’s happening. It’s more like, you have 10 dates to choose from. Your friends point out that 8 of them are neo-kittens, and suggest two new ones. You now have only four to choose from, but they’re better than what you had before.

why not just have your friend suggest two new ones.

some people prefer the girls others dont like.

you get 4/12 guy who likes something you hate has 3/12 etc.

phys.7689:

why not just have your friend suggest two new ones.

some people prefer the girls others dont like.

you get 4/12 guy who likes something you hate has 3/12 etc.

Let’s stop with bad comparison. We can see what’s the real implication with Water.

We had 3 Minor trait and 13 Major Trait.

- 2 Minor trait stay the same. 1 Minor trait exchange place with a grandmaster trait.
- Trait 4 and 5 stay adept and get buffed.
- Trait 7, 10, 11 and 12 stay the same
- Trait 6 and 8 are now merge together as a Master trait.
- Trait 3 and 9 are now merge together as a Master trait.

What did we lost? Trait 1 and 2 only. Trait 1 is a falling damage trait. I’m not sure what they will do with it, but i’m sure they won’t just delete it. Maybe they will transfer it to another trait line, or do something else with it. Trait 2 was absolute crap and nobody in the history of gw2 was using it. So in reality we didn’t lost much, if anything at all.

This change rexts my Ranger build I have been using for awhile. I won’t be able to use my 6/5/1/2/0 build anymore… Such shame

Strill.2591:

Softspoken.2410:

I’m surprised by how little people value the idea of taking a third grandmaster trait.

That’s because ANet did a terrible job at balancing them. Many are greatly outclassed by Adept traits.

Yup… That’s why I’m not excited about it. Most of the grandmaster traits of Ranger are terribad. What makes them terribad? Well, IMO, if they aren’t about increasing damage they’re bad because in PVE its about either increasing your own DPS or increasing your parties DPS. I’m also referring specifically to PVE, not WVW or PVP.

Thaddeus.4891:

Let’s stop with bad comparison. We can see what’s the real implication with Water.

We had 3 Minor trait and 13 Major Trait.

- 2 Minor trait stay the same. 1 Minor trait exchange place with a grandmaster trait.
- Trait 4 and 5 stay adept and get buffed.
- Trait 7, 10, 11 and 12 stay the same
- Trait 6 and 8 are now merge together as a Master trait.
- Trait 3 and 9 are now merge together as a Master trait.

What did we lost? Trait 1 and 2 only. Trait 1 is a falling damage trait. I’m not sure what they will do with it, but i’m sure they won’t just delete it. Maybe they will transfer it to another trait line, or do something else with it. Trait 2 was absolute crap and nobody in the history of gw2 was using it. So in reality we didn’t lost much, if anything at all.

First of all, that’s only 1 trait line out of the 40 in the game. We don’t know how the other 39 are going to be changed.

And what we are losing, as pointed out many times already, is the ability to partially invest in a line for only the traits we want. And being able to use extra lower tier traits when the higher tiers are not desired.

Looking at new water line, the trait selections there don’t look too bad, but I can’t say I’d be inclined to invest in that line because the grandmasters aren’t worth it to me. I would use cleansing water with a tanky DD/cantrip build, otherwise it would be a wasted investment of points. I could at least make up for that now by choosing an extra adept/master trait for that slot, but that is no longer an option.

Full phantasm build spreads traits over 4 lines (2/2/0/6/4). And all of them are essential traits (+15% dmg, perma fury, attack speed, and the rest on Inspiration). With the new system, I can choose to go full inspiration. And then what? sacrificing dmg, fury or attack speed is all a bad choice. And do I seriously believe they would simply make one of those traits inherent to phantasm?

NOT.

They better be real careful with trait removal/consolidation. If they kitten this up. I will really be UPSET.

mrstealth.6701:

RabbitUp.8294:

Now I’m offering you these bundles, and you need to pick 1:

Abyss+Pink Ice+Citrus
Summer Grass+Lilac+Sunrise Breeze
Celestial+Sea Ice+Citrus

Now, you have more than 1 viable choice, even if the number of possible choices is greatly reduced.

There is only 1 viable choice there. The set that includes celestial, because its value is higher than all others combined. If you need/want celestial, you now have it. If you don’t need it, you can sell it, buy all the others and still have a considerable amount of gold left over.

It’s a flawed comparison because dyes have a point of absolute comparison, their value in gold. Traits have no direct comparison.

The truth is that we don’t know how things are being reworked or combined. A trait is still “lost” if it’s combined with a trait in another line that is not useful for a build. We have no reason to assume that traits will be changed in a manner that retain the current amount of viable options.

We know they won’t be combined in a way that will preserve ALL current viable options. To do that they would need to NOT change anything. They have said they are trying to preserve as many as possible (that is in the blog post.)

I’m a little confused by the "A trait is still “lost” if it’s combined with a trait in another line that is not useful for a build" remark.

Are you suggesting that, for example, a trait for the fire trait line will be merged with one for earth? We’ve seen now evidence that this will happen yet.

If you are saying a trait is lost if, for example, an adept is merged with a master and kept at the master level, then that is possible, but only if there is a more appealing Master option.

Finally if you are saying that you are losing a trait because you can’t sink the one or two points into a line to pick up a minor trait or an adept level trait only, then yes that is lost. But I believe that for many (but not all) of those builds, losing that trait would not be “build-breaking” and that the build can adapt to still exit with new functionality given by additional Master/Grandmaster trait choices (of course this is based on my own personal belief and not facts since we do not have enough details on the new trait system yet.)

It just depends on the individuals willingness to adapt to change (and if you are not willing to adapt to change why’d you choose to play an MMO that has a living story that changes the world?)

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

why not just have your friend suggest two new ones.

some people prefer the girls others dont like.

you get 4/12 guy who likes something you hate has 3/12 etc.

Let’s stop with bad comparison. We can see what’s the real implication with Water.

We had 3 Minor trait and 13 Major Trait.

- 2 Minor trait stay the same. 1 Minor trait exchange place with a grandmaster trait.
- Trait 4 and 5 stay adept and get buffed.
- Trait 7, 10, 11 and 12 stay the same
- Trait 6 and 8 are now merge together as a Master trait.
- Trait 3 and 9 are now merge together as a Master trait.

What did we lost? Trait 1 and 2 only. Trait 1 is a falling damage trait. I’m not sure what they will do with it, but i’m sure they won’t just delete it. Maybe they will transfer it to another trait line, or do something else with it. Trait 2 was absolute crap and nobody in the history of gw2 was using it. So in reality we didn’t lost much, if anything at all.

except, before i could have just jumped in for cantrip reduction and got out of the line.

but as you say, no increase in viability here.
now in the old system, them buffing or changing some traits could have created more options. but since the options are so limited, nothing really changes, except you must fully commit to water now for cantrip buffs.
There can never be more options for this trait line. it basically has one dps option, one healing option and one utility option.

Weyrd.2794:

I’m a little confused by the "A trait is still “lost” if it’s combined with a trait in another line that is not useful for a build" remark.

Are you suggesting that, for example, a trait for the fire trait line will be merged with one for earth? We’ve seen now evidence that this will happen yet.

This seems to have already happened with water magic. Arcane Abatement is not among the traits listed in the new water magic specialization. Shards of Ice is also missing.

If you are saying a trait is lost if, for example, an adept is merged with a master and kept at the master level, then that is possible, but only if there is a more appealing Master option.

Finally if you are saying that you are losing a trait because you can’t sink the one or two points into a line to pick up a minor trait or an adept level trait only, then yes that is lost.

The latter seems likely to be the more common scenario, and I think that is one of the biggest problems with these changes. The worst being the inability to use a lower tier trait in a higher tier slot.

It just depends on the individuals willingness to adapt to change (and if you are not willing to adapt to change why’d you choose to play an MMO that has a living story that changes the world?)

Adapting to change is fine, but that is not a reason to simply accept all forms of change. The change proposed is less of a change of existing systems, and more of having restrictive limits imposed within the current system.

Changes within the current trait system have been give and take. If an adept trait gets moved up to the master tier, something moves down or is created to replace it. If traits gets merged, we get some new trait to fill the empty space. Even if a vital trait moves from adept to master, we only have to spend enough points to get that trait again. Not wasting them on a higher tier we don’t need or want.

The new system is almost entirely take. The only consolation we get is the ability to have an extra master and grandmaster trait…in a line that we have already decided to not invest our limited points any further into. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s nice to have the ability to take a third grandmaster, but it’s not worth losing the ability to spend the trait points as I wish.

phys.7689:

except, before i could have just jumped in for cantrip reduction and got out of the line.

but as you say, no increase in viability here.
now in the old system, them buffing or changing some traits could have created more options. but since the options are so limited, nothing really changes, except you must fully commit to water now for cantrip buffs.
There can never be more options for this trait line. it basically has one dps option, one healing option and one utility option.

I agree about the fact that being limited to 3 lines suck, but you were talking about the 9vs13 choice of trait. That particular change I found wonderful. The 3 lines, that’s another story.

But even that. The number of build using 4 or 5 trait lines is really rare. It exist and it suck that you can’t do that anymore, but that’s not a huge decrease in build diversity. It doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s a mistake, but the new system overall will provide more build diversity, it’s not a perfect system and I hope they will change it a little bit, but it will still be an improvement compare to the current system in my opinion.

Thaddeus.4891:

I agree about the fact that being limited to 3 lines suck, but you were talking about the 9vs13 choice of trait. That particular change I found wonderful. The 3 lines, that’s another story.

The limited trait choices wouldn’t be nearly as bad if we could still put adept traits in master slots, and master traits in grandmaster slots.

This new system is too little real change, and way too much dumbing down.

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

except, before i could have just jumped in for cantrip reduction and got out of the line.

but as you say, no increase in viability here.
now in the old system, them buffing or changing some traits could have created more options. but since the options are so limited, nothing really changes, except you must fully commit to water now for cantrip buffs.
There can never be more options for this trait line. it basically has one dps option, one healing option and one utility option.

I agree about the fact that being limited to 3 lines suck, but you were talking about the 9vs13 choice of trait. That particular change I found wonderful. The 3 lines, that’s another story.

But even that. The number of build using 4 or 5 trait lines is really rare. It exist and it suck that you can’t do that anymore, but that’s not a huge decrease in build diversity. It doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s a mistake, but the new system overall will provide more build diversity, it’s not a perfect system and I hope they will change it a little bit, but it will still be an improvement compare to the current system in my opinion.

the other difference if you dont desire a trait, you only have two options.

Fewer choices don’t automatically mean more meaningful choices.

Rather, fewer, more meaningful choices (as a package) is more useful than a larger number of meaningless or false choices.

I think the quality of the system shouldn’t be measured on possible choices or the restrictions it has, but on how it actually turns out.

If they set up a system where I actually want to use all 3 options per line in a trait tree, well that’s a success to me.

Currently I feel like I have half a dozen at most trait choices before I start going to just silly stuff for the heck of it.

If this all turns out to have me looking at more options as being a reasonable selection, well I have nothing to complain about.

i actually had to go through all my builds recently(Because i dont change the build very often after i get what i want) just to see what “Variety” im using… I dont go to any outside website, i make the builds in game on my characters of which i have 12 some are obviously repeats.

Ranger. One is 4/0/4/0/6 the other is 2/6/0/0/6.
Elementalist. One is 6/0/2/0/6 the other is 4/0/6/0/4
Mesmer. One is 2/6/0/2/4 the other is 0/4/0/4/6.
Warrior. 2/6/0/0/6
Guardian. 6/2/6/0/0
Thief. 6/6/0/2/0
Necromancer. 4/6/4/0/0

Well after seeing that, i cant wait for this, even though i lose one build on one of my characters the rest of my characters are going to get more things!!!

Well, after looking through the actual changes from yesterday’s stream, I can say that I still have the same issues and concerns. It’s a mixed bag for the builds I use, some not being effected much, but others being hit fairly bad with poor options for replacement.

It’s the same two problems I saw from the start. Being forced into terrible options in high tier traits, just to get desire low tier ones. And not being able to offset that at all by putting lower tier traits into a slot.

And some of the new/reworked traits seem outright bad, highly situational, or completely out of place in their line. Which is basically what we have right now, only with unnecessary restrictions forcing us into unwanted traits. This isn’t an improvement. It’s dumbing down, oversimplifying, and limiting choice/diversity.

There are some good trait changes in there, though. Some are probably overpowered by quite a bit. Especially some of the merges of several traits into one. But the overall changes turn these into mere consolations for what has been lost.

There are even a couple traits that are designed in a way that will punish quick reflexes. Thief and ranger both have a trait(a rework of Feline Grace for thief) that gives vigor on “successful evade”. It’s entirely possible, and pretty common, to “evade” attacks without actually getting an “evade”. It’s incredibly easy to do this with a lot of melee attacks, because you react to their wind-up and dodge out of the way before the actual contact. It’s a quick reflex reaction, that is now being punished in favor of rewarding sluggishness.

Intentionally holding off the dodge to get a recognized “evade” is just not a good idea, and fairly unreasonable. That would require knowing every attack animation to a ridiculous degree. And would prove to be very risky due to server lag and the unpredictability of the starting point of the evade frames of a dodge.

Jekkt.6045:

currently you’re able to spend points in all the lines simultaneously, the most popular build using this would be medi guard with 0/1/6/1/6.

by forcing us to spend all our points in 3 lines only this will cut down build diversity and is imo not a good thing.

a response by a dev would be appreciated.

Good Luck….

I went through all the info we got yesterday, but mostly guardian since it’s my main. While trying to theorycrafting I end up using trait that i didn’t want just because it was the only option far too often. More often than I do now.

I think that the new system will work just fine. But they decreased build diversity for the sake of simplicity (was that a real problem?? It sound so made up, never heard the complain that trait are too complicated on the forum and people complain all the time about everything), but they improved it at the same time.

I still have the same opinion than before. If only they left the system like it is now, just remove stats from trait and rework/merge trait that are bad/useless.

I honestly think adept-adept-adept had to do. It made balance a nightmare, and as others have mentioned it really did encourage sameness… as did ele “Eeh I don’t really care so I guess bolt to the heart and stone splinters” decisions.

people need to realize that 1000 possible unique builds, 980 of which are complete rubbish is worse than let say (random number) 50 possible builds, all of which are viable.

Realistically speaking, how many people do you think currently run something like 4/4/2/2/2 or 5/5/2/1/1 or anything weird like that? I’m willing to bet less than 0.01% of players do that.

Yeah. This is super disappointing.

We are being severely limited in our build diversity. While they are taking some of the feedback from the community and getting rid of useless traits, combining traits so we can actually specialize in builds. However, limiting us to 3 trait lines is terrible. I’m going to be forced to choose something I have no interest in. My play style may favor having just the minor in 2 other trait lines. Or maybe, in WvW, having just the adept in 2 trait lines would be more complementary for the group.

I’ve been playing this game since launch and I still hear people discussing builds. This is a great thing. Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but, being limited to 3 out of 5 lines would mean we only have 10 possible builds. How is that better?

the 1 and 2 point takes were always super-boring but quite powerful anyways.

They weren’t things that defined a build, they were things that enhanced the power of any build.

They were boosts, but not meaningful.

Nate.3927:

people need to realize that 1000 possible unique builds, 980 of which are complete rubbish is worse than let say (random number) 50 possible builds, all of which are viable.

Realistically speaking, how many people do you think currently run something like 4/4/2/2/2 or 5/5/2/1/1 or anything weird like that? I’m willing to bet less than 0.01% of players do that.

That’s a pretty silly assumption. Almost all of my builds use adept or even just one minor in a line. My traits are usually spread across 4 trait lines. For example, My ele is 0,2,2,6,4. My guardian is 0,2,6,4,2. My warrior is 1,0,4,6,3. Many of these builds are common among my fellow players and are guild builds.

Windsagio.1340:

the 1 and 2 point takes were always super-boring but quite powerful anyways.

They weren’t things that defined a build, they were things that enhanced the power of any build.

They were boosts, but not meaningful.

And being forced to choose between 3 grandmaster traits that offer nothing to the desired build/playstyle, just to get that 2 point take, is somehow more meaningful?

In order to use One-Handed Strength on my guardian, I’m forced to choose between two grandmaster traits for condition damage builds (condi…on a guardian…round 723 of trying to push that idea) and one that boosts signets. Being forced to pick the one that sucks the least is not meaningful.

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Nate.3927:

people need to realize that 1000 possible unique builds, 980 of which are complete rubbish is worse than let say (random number) 50 possible builds, all of which are viable.

Realistically speaking, how many people do you think currently run something like 4/4/2/2/2 or 5/5/2/1/1 or anything weird like that? I’m willing to bet less than 0.01% of players do that.

That’s a pretty silly assumption. Almost all of my builds use adept or even just one minor in a line. My traits are usually spread across 4 trait lines. For example, My ele is 0,2,2,6,4. My guardian is 0,2,6,4,2. My warrior is 1,0,4,6,3. Many of these builds are common among my fellow players and are guild builds.

I’m not a theory crafter so I won’t bother trying to figure out the details of your builds, but are you telling me, that “reckless dodge” on your warrior is such a huge core part of your build. You use it so much to kill your enemies that losing that one trait and gaining 5 more traits is a net loss for your build?

mrstealth.6701:

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

what points are you wasting exactly? We get 4 extra points with the new system even if all 4 ends up used for traits you don’t need/want you’re still back where you started. You’re no worse off than before.

It’s more like you can’t take out those two trait points since trait points will be a thing of the past and you will only have 3 trait lines to utilize.

So say your a mesmer who has a 6/6/6/0/0 build and wants to take two points from domination and put them into illusions to get the torch trait. Too bad anet has screwed you over and you will just have to choose between a 0/6/6/0/6 spec or the previous one and have pathetic options for condition removal which makes you sacrifice utilities, sigils or runes.

That is just a small example, but the main point is simply anet taking away another tool we had control over which was “trait point investment”. The previous ones (bear in mind only for pvp) where the attribute tweaking that jewels provided/ear rings or the mixing of runes.

Nate.3927:

mrstealth.6701:

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

what points are you wasting exactly? We get 4 extra points with the new system even if all 4 ends up used for traits you don’t need/want you’re still back where you started. You’re no worse off than before.

Even if the desired build is a 6/6/2 split, and you’re not losing anything, those extra points/traits are still wasted if there are no useful traits gained in your previous 2-point line. It really does not matter that they are added points on top of what we now have. If they are unable to be used as desired, they are wasted.

And if your build is using more than 3 lines right now, you’re losing that build and being forced to fully invest in lines you don’t want.

Nate.3927:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Nate.3927:

people need to realize that 1000 possible unique builds, 980 of which are complete rubbish is worse than let say (random number) 50 possible builds, all of which are viable.

Realistically speaking, how many people do you think currently run something like 4/4/2/2/2 or 5/5/2/1/1 or anything weird like that? I’m willing to bet less than 0.01% of players do that.

That’s a pretty silly assumption. Almost all of my builds use adept or even just one minor in a line. My traits are usually spread across 4 trait lines. For example, My ele is 0,2,2,6,4. My guardian is 0,2,6,4,2. My warrior is 1,0,4,6,3. Many of these builds are common among my fellow players and are guild builds.

I’m not a theory crafter so I won’t bother trying to figure out the details of your builds, but are you telling me, that “reckless dodge” on your warrior is such a huge core part of your build. You use it so much to kill your enemies that losing that one trait and gaining 5 more traits is a net loss for your build?

mrstealth.6701:

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

what points are you wasting exactly? We get 4 extra points with the new system even if all 4 ends up used for traits you don’t need/want you’re still back where you started. You’re no worse off than before.

Since the new trait system will be shuffling the traits around a little bit, it’s sort of comparing apples to oranges, but there are very significant changes to the customizability of builds. From my post elsewhere:

MiniEquine.6014:

Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

There are currently 20,724,390 build possibilities that only use 3 trait lines (about 1/3 of the total)

Coming here to drop my 2 cents.

Many of my current builds are spread across several traitlines and pick up two masters instead of a grand master, or two adepts instead of a master.

I’m really sad about this change. I know that they are doing it because they seem to have difficulty balancing the game, but I’d prefer less balance and more build options rather than being shoe-horned into the same builds that everyone else runs. There are definitely some cases where there are no good grandmaster or good master traits and you want to pick up one of a lower tier.

I’m really against the idea of forcing people to run cookie cutter builds like this. We are supposed to be getting more build options, not less. I don’t mind them combining and trimming traits, but forcing only 3 lines and forcing adept, master, grandmaster is a huge mistake in my opinion.

mrstealth.6701:

Nate.3927:

mrstealth.6701:

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

what points are you wasting exactly? We get 4 extra points with the new system even if all 4 ends up used for traits you don’t need/want you’re still back where you started. You’re no worse off than before.

Even if the desired build is a 6/6/2 split, and you’re not losing anything, those extra points/traits are still wasted if there are no useful traits gained in your previous 2-point line. It really does not matter that they are added points on top of what we now have. If they are unable to be used as desired, they are wasted.

And if your build is using more than 3 lines right now, you’re losing that build and being forced to fully invest in lines you don’t want.

Exactly.

MiniEquine.6014:

Since the new trait system will be shuffling the traits around a little bit, it’s sort of comparing apples to oranges, but there are very significant changes to the customizability of builds. From my post elsewhere:
Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

There are currently 20,724,390 build possibilities that only use 3 trait lines (about 1/3 of the total)

Your first point I agree with. Which is part of why I don’t understand some people’s complaints. If the traits are getting moved/merged/removed, then yes your build will change, but it will not necessarily become worse.

With your second point, I don’t follow your numbers, and won’t bother trying since I’m not in the mood for maths right now, but I’ve said this before elsewhere. 20 million possible trash builds are just that, trash. How many of those do you think actually gets used? Very few.

Will builds change? Of course they will, every single balance patch changes certain builds. Will you be worse off? Based on the info provided so far, except for a few very specific builds that are run by almost no one, the answer is no.

I will use the example I used before with the other person’s build, is “reckless dodge” truly so core to his/her build that losing that minor trait and gaining 4 more a net loss to his/her build? The answer is most likely no.

Now if you guys have complaints about specific grandmaster or master traits that are worthless. That quite possibly valid (again I am not a theorycrafter), but that’s completely separate to the new trait/spec system.

Your complaints so far is basically along the lines of “Nobody should be allowed to wear armor, because some armor skins clip badly with Charr tails” . It’s a ridiculous complaint. Complain about the specific armor skins/traits that are causing clipping issues/are useless don’t complain about armor in general when it works perfectly fine for most things.

Rangers for example: now we must put points on trait lines with bad stats for the traits. After this they remove stats from trait lines, so now we have more points as we want

Nate.3927:

MiniEquine.6014:

Since the new trait system will be shuffling the traits around a little bit, it’s sort of comparing apples to oranges, but there are very significant changes to the customizability of builds. From my post elsewhere:
Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

There are currently 20,724,390 build possibilities that only use 3 trait lines (about 1/3 of the total)

Your first point I agree with. Which is part of why I don’t understand some people’s complaints. If the traits are getting moved/merged/removed, then yes your build will change, but it will not necessarily become worse.

With your second point, I don’t follow your numbers, and won’t bother trying since I’m not in the mood for maths right now, but I’ve said this before elsewhere. 20 million possible trash builds are just that, trash. How many of those do you think actually gets used? Very few.

Will builds change? Of course they will, every single balance patch changes certain builds. Will you be worse off? Based on the info provided so far, except for a few very specific builds that are run by almost no one, the answer is no.

I will use the example I used before with the other person’s build, is “reckless dodge” truly so core to his/her build that losing that minor trait and gaining 4 more a net loss to his/her build? The answer is most likely no.

Now if you guys have complaints about specific grandmaster or master traits that are worthless. That quite possibly valid (again I am not a theorycrafter), but that’s completely separate to the new trait/spec system.

Your complaints so far is basically along the lines of “Nobody should be allowed to wear armor, because some armor skins clip badly with Charr tails” . It’s a ridiculous complaint. Complain about the specific armor skins/traits that are causing clipping issues/are useless don’t complain about armor in general when it works perfectly fine for most things.

Also to note by your comment “but it will not necessarily become worse”. What happens if you have to make the choice between the power line or the primary attribute line to get some form of conditions removal?

Yes every class does not have condition removal within every tree. That is just an example for when you need something but have to sacrifice an entire trait tree in favour of another that you don’t need to use at all. Your then required to make a clear cut choice that you never had to with the current system.

This new system in the end will limit choices, which in turn forces you to use specific builds thus compounding the whole “meta spec” issue and hampering build diversity.

But hey some of us can’t be optimists like you since we see the truth and understand anets short comings (restraining btw).