It seems that Guild Wars 2 has deviated from its core concept with the HoT elite specs’ power creep. Efficient and deliberate cool down management and good timing are supposed to be the core concept of the game, but you can lay an AoE under an opponent or spam boon corrupt or do countless things where an inefficient use of a skill isn’t going to be punished, because hey, you hit someone and the cool down is short enough anyway.
Here we can distill classes into their core concepts and rework or even remove some traits that deviate from the game’s core concept.
General-
- Currently the game has many amulets and rune sets that do various things. I have compiled a list of amulets that can be removed as they no longer follow the game’s core concept:
- Any three stat amulet. They have fewer stats overall than the four stat ones.
- Wanderer’s Removed
- Rune of the Flame Legion reworked to give burning upon hitting instead of being hit
- Rune of the Ogre removed
- Rune of Vampirism removed
- Condition duration replaced with ferocity on Runes of Lyssa
- Rune of Rata Sum removed
- Rune of the Eagle buffed to 12% extra damage against foes with under 6% health (PvP only, would adjust if it became too strong)
- Rune of Earth removed
- Rune of the Dolyak removed
- Rune of the Forge removed
- Rune of Ice reworked to cause Ice Nova upon hit, cool down raised to 50 seconds
- Rune of Speed now gives power instead of vitality
- Rune of Rage removed, seems useless or simply redundant in light of certain traits and sigils
- Rune of the Flock also removes 2 conditions on each nearby ally
- Rune of Scavenging removed
- Rune of Orr poison proc now 4 seconds
- Rune of the Krait removed
- Rune of Nightmare removed
Warrior:
- Shield block has no cool down, instead holding it up consumes a modest amount of endurance. You press then release the button and only hold it up as long as needed (since it competes with dodges and dodges are superior to blocks anyway maybe it should have its own resource or slow endurance regen?)
- Tactics and Discipline traitlines were removed. This is part of an ongoing effort to remove different classes’ traitlines, perhaps taking elements from those and placing them in the remaining ones. All classes will have four traitlines now.
Elementalist:
- The Earth and Air traitlines were removed. Instead, Fire and Water will share a traitline along with Air and Earth.
Air and Earth will have these traitlines:
Minor- Zyphyr’s Speed
Major- Zyphyr’s Boon, Serrated Stones, Elemental Shielding
Minor 2- Earthen Blast
Major 2- Aeromancer’s training, Tempest Defense, Geomancer’s Training
Minor 3- Geomancer’s Defense
Major 3-Diamond Skin, Stone Heart, Fresh Air
Fire and Water:
Minor 1: Soothing Mist
Major 1: Burning Fire, Soothing Ice, Stop, Drop, and Roll
Minor 2: Sunspot
Major 2: Cleansing Wave, Pyromancer’s Training, Power Overwhelming
Minor 3: Aquatic Benevolence
Major 3: Powerful Aura, Pyromancer’s Puissance, Cleansing Water
Revenant:
- Invocation and Retribution were merged, Salvation and Devastation Merged
Invocation/Retribution:
Minor 1: Invoker’s Rage
Major 1: Cleansing Channel, Improved Aggression, Planar Protection (lol)
Minor 2: Unwavering Avoidance
Major 2: Equilibrium, Incensed Response, Dwarven Battle Training
Minor 3: Empty Vessel
Major 3: Rolling Mists, Steadfast Rejuvenation, Charged Mists
Devastation/Salvation:
Minor 1: Mutilate Defenses
Major 1: Vicious Lacerations, Ferocious Strikes, Blinding Truths
Minor 2: Targeted Destruction
Major 2: Nefarious Momentum, Assassin’s Presence, Eluding Nullification
Minor 3: Serene Rejuvenation, but has been reworked to increase power to allies too
Major 3: Dismantle Fortifications, Swift Termination (I personally run this), and can’t really think of something from Salvation to put here since it’s way too specialized for Ventari.
Engineer-
The engi can simply do so much and has lots of passive procs. I want it to keep some survivability but steer it in a direction where gadgets such as turrets are encouraged as that’s the core of its gameplay:
Tools/Explosives
Minor 1: Evasive Powder Keg
Major 1: Reactive Lenses, Glass Cannon, Granadier
Minor 2: Mechanized Deployment
Major 2: Takedown Round, Shaped Charge, Aim Assisted Rocket
Minor 3: Explosive Powder
Major 3: Siege Rounds, Shrapnel, Gadgeteer (reworked for striking instead of being struck)
Alchemy/Inventions
Minor 1: Cleansing Synergy
Major 1: Health Insurance, Over Shield, Auto-Defense Bomb Dispenser
Minor 2: Transmute
Major 2: Mecha Legs, Backpack Regenerator, Inversion Enzyme
Minor 3: Alchemical Tinctures
Major 3: Advanced Turrets, Stimulant Supplier, Bunker Down
That’s all I have for now. I seriously looked at the Firearms and Arcane lines and didn’t know what to do with them but I can definitely see them being underpowered after the change. The overall goal was to distill the classes into their core concept by trimming much fat by merging trait lines (and by necessity deleting certain traits, thereby forcing players to make decisions relevant to their class’s core concept) such as eliminating many of the passive procs and keeping those that enhance certain abilities. The engineer may no longer be able to proc Elixir S when struck below a health threshold, but with appropriate turret and kit buffs along with a scaling down of power creep across the board wouldn’t “need” the skill.
I have also merged offensive and defensive traits in Elementalist (besides being thematically opposites) so they can have a real choice between great offensive or defensive lines so they can get more out of the class. Diamond Skin is excellent vs. certain comps, but Fresh Air in some matchups can actually go farther for example and the changes aim to strike a better balance overall (not just with ele) between offense and defense within one traitline while also removing skills that detract from the core gameplay.
I obviously didn’t get to all the classes but I needed to start somewhere.
Sources:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/subtractive-design
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Power_Shiro
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retribution_
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_D/F_Auramancer
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_traits
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_warrior_traits
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Build#Runes
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inventions
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alchemy
(edited by Agemnon.4608)