Guild Wars 2

Been playing since release and I’m constantly theory crafting to this day, and looking for synergy in my chosen profession the guardian. That said, I’m also constantly looking to other classes to understand how to combat them better.

Would it be safe to say that the trait lines “meaning” is consistent throughout all the professions? I.E The toughness tree for each profession contains the “best” utilities for survival?

In taking that a further step, would the auxiliary stat be a tell tale sign of what you were intended to do while being defensive?

Ele – Tanky with condition damage
War – Tanky with healing
Rng – Tanky with condition damage
Ncr – Tanky with boons (boon duration??)
Grd – Tanky with high crit damage
Thf – Tanky with healing
Eng – Tanky with healing
Msm – Tanky with boons

Or does this not really follow the meta and builds that everyone has been running? Granted there is another 30 points you can use to run a secondary tree to supplement, like power/precision together does physical damage. Condi dmg and duration are condi builds…so on and so forth.

Bunker guards don’t give a kitten about crit damage and more about healing and boons, so that doesn’t seem to persist for guards at least.

Just some Sunday morning theory crafting and ideas while I try to find that hidden secret that no one ever found in builds before

Really the stat bonuses on the traitlines aren’t relevant unless it’s some %, since those are hard/impossible to get elsewhere. Crit damage, boon duration, attunement recharge, etc.

I think the intent is for all professions to have some basic symmetry in the traitlines like this:

Damage
Damage
Defense
Defense
Profession Mechanic + General Utiltiy

There’s slight deviations, and the actual usefulness of the traitlines is also in question, but all the classes follow this basic idea. You could go even farther, and say that one traitline is mostly personal defense, and the other group support. For several classes, that is true too.

A warrior fills this very nicely. Strength/Arms are mostly offensive in nature with slightly different themes. Defense is almost entirely selfish survivability. Tactics is group support. Discipline has a lot of general utility and traits to do with adrenaline.

Thief is a possible counterexample, since it doesn’t fit this perfectly. Acrobatics has very little support, and Shadow Arts is very selfish too other than Venom Share.

I agree with the dmg dmg def def flavor break down.

While stats are not everything per say, I was trying to look deeper into the breakdown and logic that the devs may have used when assigning different secondary stats to each profession tree.

Maybe it was random, but I doubt that.

For instance Power is always augmented with condition duration for all professions.

Precision on the other hand either comes with condition damage or critical damage.

Logic would then surmise that those professions would be a mix of either raw damage oriented build or conditions on crit builds.

Those would be damage.

Toughness and Vitality are obviously defensive, but would what mechanic would benefit each of those professions in utilizing that defensive posture?

As broken down above you have a mix of condition damage, healing power, boon duration…and crit damage randomly in a defensive tree.

So maybe the crit damage and condition damage are supposed to be viable ways to do damage while defensive?

Vitality has a mix of healing and boon duration. Seems to be all survival oriented for every class.

Then for class specific you have a mix of boon duration, crit damage, healing power, condition damage.

So I guess back to my original question, do the themes of the trait lines match the stats and give an idea of “how” to be offensive and defensive with each class? Or is it like you said, mostly just ignore it and trait for mechanics then drop either zerker, clerics, or even rabid/carrion in and screw the rest.

I think that the stat bonuses for each trait line hints at the intended build type for that line, however there are certainly lines where the effectiveness of such bonuses is arguably low.

E.g. Within the Guardian’s Valor line, there are traits like Retributive Armour and Focused Mind (since rework) that aim to make the most of the Crit Damage received through the trait line, allowing a more defensive build to contribute offensively to their team as well. Traits like Monk’s Focus (same line), also help solidify this through the fact that using Meditations (typically offensive utilities), offer something defensively through healing (which also synergises far better with Toughness than Vitality).

Another example would be the Thief’s Shadow Arts and Acrobatics lines (keeping to what has already been mentioned above). There is no doubt that thieves are intended to be an offensive profession. Within the Shadow Arts line, we see traits that either help the thief withstand damage sustained whilst attacking such as Shadow’s Rejuvenation, Shadow’s Embrace or Leeching Venoms, or further improve their offensive capability through the likes of Hidden Thief, Infusion of Shadow, Patience, and Power Shots. The Acrobatics line is similar, but rather than focusing on stealth, focuses on evades and fighting without stealth.

TL;DR: I believe that the traits could still use a bit of work, but I think that the intention is certainly as you described, and the stat bonuses of each trait line hint as to the trait lines intended use within a build.