Guild Wars 2

Hello, im trying to find out more information about traits for low level professions. Just to make it clear, this isnt about lvl 80 or the higher levels, just how traits work when your leveling up.

Ive played many MMO over the years and the one thing Ive learned is that they all like to give you the illusion of choice. They may give you lots of choices of where to put points into things like talents, stats or abilities but in the end, because its the lower levels, its usually best to just focus on increasing your DPS since everything else will have only a barely noticable difference while leveling up.
Thats the same theory Ive applied to GW2 for applying traits.
So far, ive put all my trait points for every profession into increasing power(DPS)
It also doenst help that I have no idea what +10 does in relation to the stats it increases.
Does anyone have information about how much trait points increase stats?
Like how much +crit chance, damage mitigation, vitality, traits increase things?

For example, I am guessing that +toughness at lower levels decreases damage mitigation by such a small amount its not noticable, +condition damage is so small no point, +crit chance very small percentage increase, +vitality I am guessing you would have to put alot of trait points to see a large HP gain, points which would be better spent increasing DPS, same with +boon, or +healing. you wouldnt notice anything.

So are there any lower level traits worth putting points in that make a noticable difference? Or is power the best thing to put traits in for every profession?

Ive also noticed that you get extra bonus skills for the amount of points you put into a trait line, but so far, none of these seem to be strong enough to put points in just to get them.

It’s actually rather simple.

Vitality increases your health by a factor of 10. 1 vitality point gives you 10 health. One point in the vitality tree gives you 10 vitality which gives you 100 health.

Toughness works by increasing your armor stat in conjunction with your defense stat. Defense + Toughness = Armor. Armor is used to decrease enemy attack power (obviously), but it is a dividing effect, so the more you stack toughness, the less effective each concurrent point will be. It’s like increasing the denominator in a fraction. For example, 1/4 is closer to 1/3 than 1/3 is to 1/2, so the fourth point you get in toughness is less worthwhile than the third.

Healing power depends on the skill, some are increased by .25 per point and some are increased by .10 or something.

All the others are pretty much direct and self explanatory.

In my opinion, you’ll want to increase toughness and vitality while levelling. It helps you take on hearts and skill points that are above your level so that you don’t have to go to a different area for a while to level, then come back and finish that one later. It’s a lot easier to level if you don’t just run into a brick wall of defeat every now and then.

When you get to level 80, however, you might want to switch back to whatever your class is best at, seeing as at that point you won’t be taking on anything at a higher level than you.

Ok so in your opinion using traits to increase toughness and vitality makes a noticable enough difference that you can take on higher level enemies and not die?

I am still not sure, so far survivability doesnt seem to be an issue, with +power battles are short and enemies die fast, for example I have +100 power on my engineer and his bombs kill everything fast, no problems dying.
But ive only gotten to lvl 20 so far and im sure things get more difficult.

Power is better against things your level seeing as you will be able to take their damage easily. However, if fighting things above your level, you will most likely want to keep from taking their full damage without any toughness or vit.

Ignore the stats your trait lines give you. Instead, focus on the traits themselves. I know on my engineer I could care less about the toughness I get from the toughness line. I take it for better turrets.

Quote – “Ignore the stats your trait lines give you. Instead, focus on the traits themselves. I know on my engineer I could care less about the toughness I get from the toughness line. I take it for better turrets.”

Really? Ive always heard bad things about turrets. Wouldnt +Power be an overall better choice over just a buff to turrets? Are the bonus skills offered by traits that good that it doesnt matter what attribute they increase? Is it the same for other professions?

Perhaps the conflicting reports are evidence that the premise of your testing—that choice is merely an illusion—is flawed.

Everything is viable, because every stat helps you in some way. This is why you should ignore the stats and focus on traits you like—the stats always help, but the traits help make the gameplay match your preferred style.

Fildydarie.1496:

Perhaps the conflicting reports are evidence that the premise of your testing—that choice is merely an illusion—is flawed.

Everything is viable, because every stat helps you in some way. This is why you should ignore the stats and focus on traits you like—the stats always help, but the traits help make the gameplay match your preferred style.

I am always willing and ready to be proven wrong, which is why I made my post, to see if anyone can share stories of traits actually increasing things by a noticable amount.
every game is different and maybe traits as well.
like I am tempted to make a leveling build with a +toughness +vitality for a theif or elementalist to see if they dont die as fast.

but one thing I challenge anyone to dissaprove is that “everything is viable”
every MMO has pitfalls of useless skills and abilities you should not put points in.

Like so far no one has suggested stacking +healing or stacking +condition damage for a leveling build. I also think that +crit change traits increase your crit chance by such small amount you will never notice anything.
I bet if I stacked one my characters with +healing he would be kittened no matter what the bonus skill offered by that trait line.

So far it seems that the choices boil down to either +toughness or +vitality that has been mentioned is good for surviving higher level enemies.
And I think that +power is good when fighting equal or lower level enemies which will greatly increase how fast you kill things and level faster.

The stats you get from your traits from 11-20 are actually pretty nice, since no armor you get will be able to give you an instant +10 to vitality or power. However, trait for the traits, not the stats you get as a result of them. This is especially true the higher you get, since you can always gear for the other stats you aren’t getting. Not to mention that you should be getting beneficial stats for your build by investing into the accompanying traitline (ie – a power build will require traits in the same line that gives +power).

That being said, things like vitality & toughness are quite important, especially as you level. You may not need to trait for it, but definitely gear for it. My Ranger is quite hearty, having a tanking pet, evasion skills, and ranged attacks. However, as I neared ~40 I realized that I needed to add a bit more survivability to myself for when I did get hit. No point in being able to down an enemy in 4-5 hits if you get dropped in 3.

I stacked condition damage on my guardian. At 80, I still do. Burning has a nice rate of return on the investment, although multiple bleed stacks tend to out-perform burning in the long run. My ranger, thief, elementalist, and warrior all have a fair amount of condition damage on them.

Healing certainly has uses, as everybody has a heal, most people try to rez allies, and several classes have additional healing capabilities.

It is certianly posible to create a build that is so diversified it offers no real strength, but I would posit that such a build would remain viable.

A pure-healing build is not possible as you must diversify, especially while leveling. Also, +healing will be matched with another stat, so attempting to maximize +healing will maximize other values as well.