Guild Wars 2

Since there are so many traits that are utterly useless or outclassed by other traits, I’ve been thinking a lot about different trait ideas. I’ve seen a lot of great ideas on these forums, and I thought I’d add my own. I would also like to see everyone else’s (original) trait ideas!

Some of the, IMO, most useful, original and logical traits are these.
Keep in mind that the numbers may be changed, and it’s more about the idea behind the traits.

No Smoke Without Fire: Your Fire fields leave behind a smoke field for 2 seconds.
– Smoke Screen: Create a smoke screen that blocks projectiles and blinds foes.
– Duration: 2s
– Blind: 1 s
– Combo Field: Smoke

This is a utility trait that is a defensive option for elementalist while going into the fire trait line. Since every Elementalist will always have at least one fire field and a blast finisher, you will be able to gain stealth, while also reflecting projectiles and negating melee damage through blind.

Diamond Skin: When you lose more than 20% of your current health in a single attack, you gain aegis and lose 2 conditions. (ICD: 2 seconds)

Ele’s are extremely vulnerable to burst, and are (relatively) better at sitting out longer, lower damage fights, due to their healing powers (except ofc for full glass cannon fresh air spike).
Diamond skin would now be useful in almost every situation/build, and especially when at low health.

I think these could be cool additions and I would like the devs to think about replacing all the boring and useless traits with interesting, skillful and meaningful traits.

Please tell me what you think, and add your own ideas!

20% is a bit much for the proc, thief war evicorate, necro life blast, els fire grab/ drag tooth are only class i can see that can do 20% in 1 hit with out major survivability penalties. hundred blades counts as many attacks so does necro axe #2 and alot of others. most proc skills are 10% for this reason. smoke without fire is cool but maybe it should blind instead? having a smoke field for two attacks on dagger, then having the trail on fgs and conjure axe would seem strong, esp if running focus with the refelct and air field.

I was more thinking about Diamond skin: You can only be affected by 3 or 4 conditions above say 70% hp.
In this way it wont be a hard counter to condi classes but still protects the ele from condi spams. Don’t know if this would be overpowered but in my head it sounds kinda doable

Put Haste somewhere in the air trait line. It makes sense because lightning is quick!

Nerf tempest defense and send it to the 2nd trait line (delete inscription).

[Trait]
Gain 1.5 seconds of haste everytime you gain swiftness (no internal cooldown).

Grandmaster trait, done.

Balanced because 1. can’t get fresh air with it and 2. requires elemental attunement to be most effective. (so 20 in arcana)

Mystogan.4157:

20% is a bit much for the proc, thief war evicorate, necro life blast, els fire grab/ drag tooth are only class i can see that can do 20% in 1 hit with out major survivability penalties. hundred blades counts as many attacks so does necro axe #2 and alot of others. most proc skills are 10% for this reason.

Keep in mind that it’s 20% of CURRENT health. THis would mean, you’ll be blocking a lot of attacks when you are quite low on health!

Razor.6392:

Put Haste somewhere in the air trait line. It makes sense because lightning is quick!

Nerf tempest defense and send it to the 2nd trait line (delete inscription).

[Trait]
Gain 1.5 seconds of haste everytime you gain swiftness (no internal cooldown).

Grandmaster trait, done.

Balanced because 1. can’t get fresh air with it and 2. requires elemental attunement to be most effective. (so 20 in arcana)

This seems like a nice idea, with the quickness, but I think it would have to have an internal cooldown to not be OP. almost all quickness skills have 10% quickness uptime with downsides, so this should too. I think quickness can be very beneficial to eles with some long, telegraphed skills, but at the same time very hard to balance for the devs for the same reason. So I think your idea is not very realistic

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

Mystogan.4157:

20% is a bit much for the proc, thief war evicorate, necro life blast, els fire grab/ drag tooth are only class i can see that can do 20% in 1 hit with out major survivability penalties. hundred blades counts as many attacks so does necro axe #2 and alot of others. most proc skills are 10% for this reason.

Keep in mind that it’s 20% of CURRENT health. THis would mean, you’ll be blocking a lot of attacks when you are quite low on health!

Razor.6392:

Put Haste somewhere in the air trait line. It makes sense because lightning is quick!

Nerf tempest defense and send it to the 2nd trait line (delete inscription).

[Trait]
Gain 1.5 seconds of haste everytime you gain swiftness (no internal cooldown).

Grandmaster trait, done.

Balanced because 1. can’t get fresh air with it and 2. requires elemental attunement to be most effective. (so 20 in arcana)

This seems like a nice idea, with the quickness, but I think it would have to have an internal cooldown to not be OP. almost all quickness skills have 10% quickness uptime with downsides, so this should too. I think quickness can be very beneficial to eles with some long, telegraphed skills, but at the same time very hard to balance for the devs for the same reason. So I think your idea is not very realistic

Hmm, true. Maybe a can’t cure conditions debuff?

Also add: Can only gain Quickness from self casted swiftness. Swiftness gained from other nearby allies don’t count.

Delete Inscription? One of the few traits that make using Glyphs worthwhile? No thanks. Without that Trait Glyphs are useless. I think it should also be in Adapt, After all the cool downs the Glyphs have and make it bit of competition for the glyph reduction trait – of course i think Glyphs would need to be buffed as well.

Because without the trait they are all rather weak, with the trait they are nothing more than average.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Delete Inscription? One of the few traits that make using Glyphs worthwhile? No thanks. Without that Trait Glyphs are useless. I think it should also be in Adapt, After all the cool downs the Glyphs have and make it bit of competition for the glyph reduction trait – of course i think Glyphs would need to be buffed as well.

Because without the trait they are all rather weak, with the trait they are nothing more than average.

In soon to be 2 years of gw2, I’ve never found myself using inscription even once.

Bolt to the heart, % cooldown reduction on air, 10% damage on air, bonus crit damage after arcane and even quick glyphs have always been better even on those situational uses.

Maybe not delete it but put it into adept, then delete one with air or healing precision.

Razor.6392:

In soon to be 2 years of gw2, I’ve never found myself using inscription even once.

Bolt to the heart, % cooldown reduction on air, 10% damage on air, bonus crit damage after arcane and even quick glyphs have always been better even on those situational uses.

Maybe not delete it but put it into adept, then delete one with air or healing precision.

I have used it, its a great trait. I mean not the best but its very solid and great when used with the Glyph heal. Sure other than that its not that great, not because of the trait but because the other Glyphs are kind of crap.