Scale off other stats? There is a reason why ArenaNet has it so Attribute Points and traits are tied together. It’ll prevent build that can be very tanky and very offensive at the same time.
But why don’t have it so traits scale with other things than Power, Condition Damage, Condition Duration and Healing Power? Wouldn’t it make it easier to balance and offer more build types?
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For example, I’d love to build a glassy, supporting, venom thief for PvE.
I want Venomous Aura, Improvisation, Sleight of Hand and Bountiful Theft. Getting a 20% chance for Venoms to recharge, giving my allies boons when I steal as well as when I activate a venom, etc.
My attributes are all over the kitten place! 200 condition damage, 20% of stealing recharge, 300 Toughness and Healing Power, 200 Power and 20% Condition Duration.
It’s so kitten lop-sided!
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But it would be a bit broken if you can go 300 power, 10% Boon Duration, 30% recharge reduce on stealing, 300 precision and 30% critical damage.
Dealing an insane amount of damage while giving your allies a ton of extra damage.
To fix this, why don’t traits scale off more attributes? Rewarding diversity without it being either overpowered or underpowered.
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For example:
Improvisation, 20% chance to instantly recharge a utility type? Pretty weak. Why not when you steal it’ll simply shave off the duration?
- Improvisation: When you steal, reduce recharge of your utilities by 0+(Vitality*0.003) seconds.
(Since thieves already have a min. ~1200 vitality as a thief, the lowest amount the of seconds that can be reduced is 4, technically not 0)
So if you had 2000 base Vitality with gear, it’ll scale to (2+6) 8 total seconds, as a thief you already have a naturally low health, so having it scale from something like Healing Power would probably make the trait utterly worthless.
Now, you don’t have to built high vitality for this trait to be viable, you can put 300 vitality into Attribute points to increase the reduction to 5 seconds while still having glassy armor and an extra 3000 health.
So this trait can be viable for both glassy and bunker/supporting thief builds.
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Look at Warriors Spiked armor, it’s worthless. Not only do you rely on critical hits but you also rely on Retaliation, which scales off Power. So you can’t be very tanky without good power and deal decent damage back with this trait.
That is so stupid! As you can easily build a viable, balanced Warrior that has a good defense and good offense plus be better without this trait.
Why isn’t it something like,
- Spiked Armor: When you take damage, reflect 0%+(toughness*0.0075) of the damage you took around you. (1 second cooldown, range 90)
(Warriors have a natural 1,200 toughness, the amount reflected will always have a min. of 9% reflected back, technically not 0)
There. Not only do you no longer have to rely on critical hits for the trait to trigger but the trait can be more effective if you have toughness which is a double edge sword as you’ll take less damage but the trait will also reflect less.
This would prevent building high vitality and healing power so the trait can trigger harder while remaining very tanky, you can still use it with high health and healing power, the difference is if you get hit 5k damage, you’ll dish back 450 damage with 0 additional toughness, rather than 750 if you built 2000 toughness.
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Last but not least Deathly Perception, instead of it granting +50% critical chance while in Death Shroud, you can have it scale off your life pool.
- Deathly Perception: While in Death Shroud, gain a .7% critical chance for every 1% percentage of maximum Life Force.
Wouldn’t it make more sense this way? It’s more powerful above that the current Deathly Perception above 71% life force but the critical chance drops when your max life force is below 71%. Rewarding careful use of Death Shroud, good timing to swap out.
A Necromancer can build less precision if you build some defense and relying on high life force for the critical hits, swapping in and out often or more precision if you want to depend on being in Death Shroud more.
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Now those are just examples of me trying to put my point across of how different modifiers and aid in balancing.
The point is the mechanics are there to help balance and add more interesting traits. Allowing more builds and diversity in play styles without locking traits with attributes.
(edited by Nova Stiker.8396)