Guild Wars 2

Hello there,

In this thread i’ll be trying to provide a general idea of how traits could work. The main aspect is the balance between chosing and not chosing a certain trait.

The postulated Paradigms:

• A skill is considered to be useful, if it offers enough reason to use it without the need of a trait.
• A trait is considered to be useful, if it offers enough reason to use it
• A trait reduces build variety if it increases the main aspect of a skill.

Here’s the effect:
A skill that has a focus on dealing damage (that means any secondary effect of this skills doesnt offer enough reason to use that skill) should not have a trait increasing that damage any further. This would render the skill useless without the trait – or the trait useless. If the trait adds an additional, reasonable effect, it suddently becomes optional and therefore increases potential build variety.

Let me give you some practical examples:

Example 1:
Skill A deals damage in AoE and causes condition X.
Trait B increases that damage.
Trait C increases the effect of condition X.
Trait D adds a condition Y.

• If the damage is the main argument for using the skill, trait B becomes a must have. Trait C becomes useless.
• If the damage dealt is secondary, but the condition is the thing the player is aiming for, Trait B becomes useless and Trait C a musthave.
• If Trait D adds a condition useful enough to be traited, it would serve purpose in both of the cases.

Example 2:
Skill A stuns enemy in a range of X.
Trait B increases that range by Y.

• If this range is crucial to a build (read: if this is the main aspect of the skill), trait B will become a musthave and therefore kills build variety.
• If the range isn’t crucial, trait B becomes useless.

I want these paradigms to be discussed. You can also write down new example traits or argue about traits that currently don’t follow these paradigms and work or don’t work.

Note that these paradigms do not intend to BALANCE traits, but sure to increase BUILD VARIETY.