Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I haven’t created a new toon since the new trait system was implemented. If I were to create a new character, would this new character have to ‘learn’ all the traits or does having them unlocked on one toon allow them to be accessed by all the others? In other words, are the traits account bound or soul bound?

Having to go and search out each individual trait may be fine for someone brand new to the game, but to require each new character to have to do it will make me re-think getting another character slot.

I’m sure this has been discussed to death on the forum already, but since there isn’t a search function here…

You have to go out and get them on any new character now. Or buy them.

Traits are unlocked on a per character basis, meaning with each new character, you will have to unlock their traits. Unless you are power leveling, you can get most of them just playing the game and exploring. Also you can buy them for gold and skill points via your professions trainers.

I recently power leveled my ele, and then went back to unlock the traits. Most of them are fairly easy to get, and don’t take much time. Although there are a few that you have to wait for a meta event, but if you are lucky, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Thanks.. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the traits discussion when it all happened as I had all my characters to 80 and didn’t really care about it. Started thinking about getting another character slot and power leveling it up, and only then started wondering about the traits. Guess I had assumed that we wouldn’t have to go out and re-find all the traits again.

Bummer – might just stick to my other toons a while longer.

Even when you’re power-levelling a character it’s not that bad. I did it recently when I wanted a new level 80 ASAP to see the story changes and I got some without even trying because I happened to do whatever’s needed to unlock them. Others were just a matter of going to the right map and finding the event.

The only one I had a problem with was one where I had to beat a champion in Harathi Hinterlands, but that’s because I decided to get it about 11pm UK time, right when everyone on EU servers is going to bed. I logged on again the next day at peak time and got it on the first try.

I didn’t bother going for some traits which require you to finish story dungeons, but only because this was a temporary character and levelling quickly was more important to me than getting exactly the right build. For a permanent character doing the dungeons (or buying those for a few gold) shouldn’t be an issue.

last night, I captured a tower in EotM on an alt, then a little icon appeared in the bottom right that said I unlocked the trait: Master of Manipulation, would I like to view the details? [Yes] [No]. [Yes] was greyed out so I couldn’t click it because I was level 22 and get traits at level 30. So my only choice was [No]. Just wanted to share a NPE experience that would hella confuse a new player.

Keep in mind there is little reason to try and obtain ALL the Traits (certainly not while leveling). Most players never use more than 25 Traits out of the possible 65. Depends greatly on how much you experiment with different builds.

I suggest buying the ones that you will use (or at least check and see how hard they would be to obtain while leveling) and then making it a long term “goal” to unlock them all later (I am doing this on a new character while doing Map Completion).

You are not alone in being “confused” and non-plussed about the current state of the Trait System. Anet altered it back in April and it’s been questioned by players ever since.

I’m not apposed to the “go earn Traits” rather than buy them philosophy (note that before the change , you had to purchase a book that opened the Tiers and all Traits n that Tier were immediately available for use), but the various tasks required to gain them varies WIDELY in both difficulty and when and where they are available (access).

They have tweaked a few of the most problematic ones, but the entire system just seems (IMO) to be rather poorly done….I ended up just buying the ones I felt I needed for my New Characters.

The other downside with the new system, when you’re not powering the character to 80 that is, is using bad traits or having nothing set simply due to limited options. A stack of skill point scrolls will also be rather handy..

Simply EotM’ing to 80 then buying them will cost a fair amount too.