Guild Wars 2

With the new feature pack, we will be getting grandmasters.

One example out of 5 is the following:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/

Guardian: Force of Will
With the current traits available to the guardian, their Honor line has multiple support traits that heavily assist allies but have less individual benefit for the guardian. With this patch, guardians will have the option to unlock Force of Will, a trait that grants three hundred extra vitality when slotted (which amounts to three thousand health at level 80 from this trait alone). The result is a guardian that is much more durable when facing conditions and physical attacks.

Anyone wish to speculate what kind of grandmasters you’d like to see from the other trait lines?

This…kinda looks pointless to me, 3 thousand more hp means nothing in pvp or pve.
In pve hp means nothing to a bosses,1 shot hit will still kill you no matter what hp you have and its not like you can tank mobs and get heald so why are we getting this?
In pvp all they have to do is kite and put constant conditions on you, sure with more hp it might take longer but to me is looks pointless.
Never on my guardian have I needed more hp, but I think that might just be me.

Hopefully something a little bit more imaginative than 3,000 health. Who is seriously going to invest into this? If you have 30 points in Honor just a few dodge rolls will most likely heal you (and your team) for that amount. A lot of the traits look very interesting, Power Block for example, but this is just another example of the lazy design that I was hoping Arena Net was trying to get away from.

It’s a shame too because I don’t see Absolute Resolution or Indomitable Courage being surpassed by anything due to how strong they are, and the entire point of spending 30 points into Valor is playing Meditations. Honor was the one trait line that actually had a slot for a Grandmaster trait after Pure of Voice was nerfed and became debateable, but I wouldn’t even pick up 300 Vitality in place of my Adept or Master trait at this point.

the problem is that this trait in honor line and not in valor line.
i have to chose between battle presence / pure of voice between this new trait.
it is not that good for a healing tree, it should have been in the tanking tree instead
(valor)

a good honor grandmaster is , aegis grants 5 seconds of protection and regeneration on removal, so you can buff your party a little with retreat, good synergy with shouts and some pure of heart

3000hp is nothing. Whoever created this does not play a Guardian.

It should have been a sustain boost, something like “Heal X ammount of health per second for each condition you have”. A flat +300 vitality, that’s just worthless.

It’s an ok trait, the problem I see it’s in the Honor line. Honor already increases vitality. The people that complained about Guard not having enough hp are dps builds, and dps builds rarely go that deep into Honor.

Geezus, only a few hours in and already you’re QQ’ing about how this isn’t a 500 buff to healing power or something silly.

This means that if you drop your current trait which is likely PoV, you can get 300 free vitality, which in turn means you can grab gear with much better offensive stats. This trait is big, it can make otherwise invalid builds completely valid!

Harbinger.8637:

It’s an ok trait, the problem I see it’s in the Honor line. Honor already increases vitality. The people that complained about Guard not having enough hp are dps builds, and dps builds rarely go that deep into Honor.

This is the only legitimate remark so far. The honor line is rarely used by offensive guardians.

Ele gets support/healing.
Guards get to spread vitality
Thiefs get to regen health on crits

Doesn’t make much sense to me.

I can’t see ever taking that trait. Its about as unimaginative as you can get. What worries me is that they chose it as the first one to preview. And if that’s the best….

What about fixing the useless traits we have first before adding more useless ones? Kindled Zeal anyone? Spirit weapons?

Althalos.6734:

It should have been a sustain boost, something like “Heal X ammount of health for each condition you have”. A flat +300 vitality, that’s just worthless.

Yep, I’d really like to know how this is going to, and I quote, “give existing builds a much more defined role”.

Aedrion.6483:

This means that if you drop your current trait which is likely PoV, you can get 300 free vitality, which in turn means you can grab gear with much better offensive stats. This trait is big, it can make otherwise invalid builds completely valid!

If you trait in Honor 300 Vitality is going to be just as useless as whatever Vitality you put on your gear. The Vitality you get just from putting 30 points into Honor is by far enough for the type of Guardian you are going to play.

Harbinger.8637:

It’s an ok trait, the problem I see it’s in the Honor line. Honor already increases vitality. The people that complained about Guard not having enough hp are dps builds, and dps builds rarely go that deep into Honor.

Correct. We don’t want to have to trait for it. It should be part of the base. Another case whereas the development team listened but didn’t hear. Sort of like that video on youtube about the nail in the womans head and her husband not listening…go figure.

Ugh. This “trait” should just be included into the Guardian base hp. It’s hardly worthy of a Grandmaster trait.

It’s a good, if not boring trait. It’s about a 15-20% health increase. Would have been better if it was 300 toughness. It seems nice for a 0/0/10/30/30 build that doesn’t use PoV (consecrations).

Honor line has multiple support traits that heavily assist allies but have less individual benefit for the guardian.

Great… now I have an extra 3K HP for all those times when I’m playing this “Massively Multiplayer Online” Game alone…. in a support spec.

Like seriously are we all playing the same game here? Bizarre. If you think Guards need more HP just adjust the base HP and be done with it, or do something with the healing stat to make it most interesting.

Once a long time ago, before all the “improvements” we all thought Guardians were one of the best balanced classes. Fast forward to now and we’re getting the least inventive, least interesting, passive play, Grandmaster trait to grace the game.

I can only assume because they don’t want to “unbalance” guardians. Make your own joke for that one. Not keeping pace isn’t the same thing as staying balanced.

ACTIVE PLAY should be your goal Anet, static stat boosts appeals to the lowest common denominator. Bad game design.

ArchonWing.9480:

It’s a good, if not boring trait. It’s about a 15-20% health increase. Would have been better if it was 300 toughness. It seems nice for a 0/0/10/30/30 build that doesn’t use PoV (consecrations).

Maybe but conditional damage gets a free pass on toughness, right?

I really wonder what the other 4 Grandmaster traits will be.

Zeal
Spirit Summoning
Spirit Weapons are now permanent until killed.

#yolo

Wow, after reading the other new class traits, I’m kinda even more kittened off about the Guardian’s!!

Crapgame.6519:

ArchonWing.9480:

It’s a good, if not boring trait. It’s about a 15-20% health increase. Would have been better if it was 300 toughness. It seems nice for a 0/0/10/30/30 build that doesn’t use PoV (consecrations).

Maybe but conditional damage gets a free pass on toughness, right?

It certainly does, but you’re not taking this trait anyways if you still have problems dealing with conditions and going 30 deep into honor. Toughness is still what gets you through long fights though. Health is just the buffer to save you from spikes in damage.

Interesting to note:

Superior Rune of Exuberance

• (1): +25 Vitality
• (2): 3% of Vitality is converted to Healing Power
• (3): +50 Vitality
• (4): 3% of Vitality is converted to Precision
• (5): +90 Vitality
• (6): 3% of Vitality is converted to Power

Hopefully the other traits are actually useful (aside from Zeal; I don’t think that line will ever be viable). No decent player is going to take this slapped-together mess of a trait over PoV, especially if the issue is conditions or organized WvW.

Nike.2631:

Interesting to note:

Superior Rune of Exuberance

• (1): +25 Vitality
• (2): 3% of Vitality is converted to Healing Power
• (3): +50 Vitality
• (4): 3% of Vitality is converted to Precision
• (5): +90 Vitality
• (6): 3% of Vitality is converted to Power

Granted, we don’t know exactly what is going to happen to runes with the next patch, but 9 Precision, Power and Healing Power won’t have anything against even 15% Boon Duration, let alone 45%.

When I was reading it, I heard “Honor is generally a supporting line, so we gave it something not really supporty”. It’s kinda odd, unless they want to add Grandmaster traits that really change the “taste” of a line, which is quite welcome. It’s very plain, sure, but it seems like it likely definitely has some uses. The first thing that comes to mind is running full Zealots with the (now 6) in Honor for this trait. That’s 3k from Honor, 3k from trait (should be ~17k hp), and 892 hpow from gear and Honor. Then you could add longer symbols or healing symbols. We could pair that with Zeal for power and symbol traits, and we have a somewhat meaty symbol dps build. It might not be the most beautiful build, but it should be fairly decent. Also, if you’ve seen the feature patch page on the official site, they’ve got a whole separate blog post coming up for criticals, so they might really change how precision and now ferocity interact (which may allow these non-crit damage dps builds to really excel).

We’ll really have to see what the other 4 GM traits are per profession, but for now there’s plenty of potential to be had (even if it doesn’t sound cool).

(also, why couldn’t they just call ferocity “prowess”? They already had names for all of these stats in beta. Healing Power was called Compassion, which would lessen the confusion between hit points and healing power. Malice for Condi duration etc. w/e)

The only place where this trait would be welcome is WvWvW where there is a reason that Applied Fortitude is a “Must get” trait. 2500 extra health is quite a bonus and now we can throw another 3000 on top of that.

That being said….I’d love the rangers “Read the wind” instead. Imagine. Orb’s of Wrath at twice the speed? /faint.

Now curious about the upcoming virtues grandmaster trait. With honour it already felt like there were a ton of great traits.

Virtues grandmaster is one I’d like to see though virtues adept is sadly do nothing traits if you’re not doing consecrations and have boon duration =(

Aedrion.6483:

Geezus, only a few hours in and already you’re QQ’ing about how this isn’t a 500 buff to healing power or something silly.

This means that if you drop your current trait which is likely PoV, you can get 300 free vitality, which in turn means you can grab gear with much better offensive stats. This trait is big, it can make otherwise invalid builds completely valid!

Harbinger.8637:

It’s an ok trait, the problem I see it’s in the Honor line. Honor already increases vitality. The people that complained about Guard not having enough hp are dps builds, and dps builds rarely go that deep into Honor.

This is the only legitimate remark so far. The honor line is rarely used by offensive guardians.

To be fair, a 500 buff to healing power in that line would actually be better, would be able to have 800 healing power for selfless daring without having to put any into gear… Would help sustainability far more than just a flat 3000 health increase.

Anyways. Really disapointed with that preview. 3k health in the tree that already gives health, and is generally taken for it’s support is pretty much a waste. Even more so compared to the current grandmaster traits in that line. The guardian’s that would need it the most are WvW DPS guards, and even then 3k health is not going to help, giving us some soft CC and a couple condition cleanses would go a long way. Hopefully the other traits cover those issues, if they do I could care less about a crappy trait in a line that already has plenty of good ones.

All the other ones look rather interesting, Though I think the Necro one might be a bit OP since they already get a free second health pool along with minions…

Strictly from a WvW perspective we can already get a health buff via ranks. So technically again I think this trait offering is silly.

Not sure if this helps the PvE crowd or not (the extra health from the trait) but from what little I do it doesn’t seem to matter again since once you know the fight, you know not what to stand in, etc.

So…can we please have a re-do or do-over?

Kumu Honua.2751:

The only place where this trait would be welcome is WvWvW where there is a reason that Applied Fortitude is a “Must get” trait. 2500 extra health is quite a bonus and now we can throw another 3000 on top of that.

That being said….I’d love the rangers “Read the wind” instead. Imagine. Orb’s of Wrath at twice the speed? /faint.

The only reason why Applied Fortitude is a must is because other players are running it without sacrificing anything in return.

grr, I was like YES b/c guardians actually need a 3k increase in base health

then I was like NO, because its in honor, which is a bad trait line unless you’re going healway

Ridiculously boring trait. Grandmaster traits are supposed to be interesting and build-defining, not “Here’s some stat points”. This is the sort of thing I’d expect from a minor trait, not a major.

Well it does make my armorless build pretty funny -pokes sig-

Bash.7291:

All the other ones look rather interesting, Though I think the Necro one might be a bit OP since they already get a free second health pool along with minions…

Not free. They have to build it up first. Plus, death shroud is only a delay tactic for survivability as right now, they cannot, under any circumstances, gain health in death shroud.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bash.7291:

All the other ones look rather interesting, Though I think the Necro one might be a bit OP since they already get a free second health pool along with minions…

Not free. They have to build it up first. Plus, death shroud is only a delay tactic for survivability as right now, they cannot, under any circumstances, gain health in death shroud.

In the course of a fight, you are going to fill it up regardless. I consider that free. Also, how is a delay tactic something that can actually net a large chunk of damage? Our renewed focus is a delay tactic, since if we have to use it for defense, there is a good chance we are screwed regardless. DS can easily be used both offensively and defensively. Also, your heal cool down still ticks while in DS right? Effectively you are still healing, as it is giving you more time to be able to activate your heal.

I am very curious about the other grandmaster traits though, especially Valor. It has to be good enough to give up AH or MF, since that is the life blood of many WvW/PvP builds. It also might make 30 into Valor viable for PvE.

So the class that focuses a lot of its power on healing is one of the few that doesn’t get a healing grandmaster trait, and instead gets a tank’s trait in the supportive line.

Bash.7291:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bash.7291:

All the other ones look rather interesting, Though I think the Necro one might be a bit OP since they already get a free second health pool along with minions…

Not free. They have to build it up first. Plus, death shroud is only a delay tactic for survivability as right now, they cannot, under any circumstances, gain health in death shroud.

In the course of a fight, you are going to fill it up regardless. I consider that free. Also, how is a delay tactic something that can actually net a large chunk of damage? Our renewed focus is a delay tactic, since if we have to use it for defense, there is a good chance we are screwed regardless. DS can easily be used both offensively and defensively. Also, your heal cool down still ticks while in DS right? Effectively you are still healing, as it is giving you more time to be able to activate your heal.

That’s also assuming you stay in DS for most of the duration. Usually a Necro gets snapped out of it pretty quickly.

Regardless, I think it’s fairly agreeable that the new Grandmaster Trait is a rather disappointing. As Styx says, let’s be hopeful for the other traits. I’m personally hoping the Virtues Grandmaster makes passive Virtues actually worthy of keeping them on passive.

Harbinger.8637:

I am very curious about the other grandmaster traits though, especially Valor. It has to be good enough to give up AH or MF, since that is the life blood of many WvW/PvP builds. It also might make 30 into Valor viable for PvE.

I wouldn’t count on that… and yes I am being a negative nancy lol.

Bash.7291:

Harbinger.8637:

I am very curious about the other grandmaster traits though, especially Valor. It has to be good enough to give up AH or MF, since that is the life blood of many WvW/PvP builds. It also might make 30 into Valor viable for PvE.

I wouldn’t count on that… and yes I am being a negative nancy lol.

If I had to guess, it will be following a similar pattern as force of will in honor. The trait was made to give guardian options that focused on self more than allies. So valor may get a trait that focuses on allies more than self.

Aza.2105:

Bash.7291:

Harbinger.8637:

I am very curious about the other grandmaster traits though, especially Valor. It has to be good enough to give up AH or MF, since that is the life blood of many WvW/PvP builds. It also might make 30 into Valor viable for PvE.

I wouldn’t count on that… and yes I am being a negative nancy lol.

If I had to guess, it will be following a similar pattern as force of will in honor. The trait was made to give guardian options that focused on self more than allies. So valor may get a trait that focuses on allies more than self.

Which is pretty stupid in my opinion, because guardians that want to focus on helping allies would go into the line specifically made for guardians that want to focus on helping allies, and the same goes for valor. Supportive traits should go into the support line, and tanky traits should go into the tank line. I would think this to be common sense.

Looks like we’ll find out tomorrow, they’re doing a live stream to discuss them all.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dev-livestream-Ready-Up-Mar-21-12pm-New-Traits-Map/first#post3785332

I’m not going to speculate because if this is any indication, my expectations for something creative and worthwhile are much too high. I won’t slam 3K HP because there’s ALOT of QQ about low HP (mostly from noobs) but … if I’ve already invested 30 trait points into Honour, didn’t I already get 300 vitality from that? Do we really need 300 more? Granted, I think people overhype the other GM traits in this line but this seems to just serve a small majority of struggling players. Do we need or want traits that dumbs down the class, especially as a GM trait?

Low HP is probably Guard’s biggest drawback, and going 30 Honor grants 6000 health now; that’s a fricken lotta health. No matter how people hate on it, a bigger health pool is crazy useful for surviving through burst and heavy condition pressure (Not that it’ll come close to Pure of Voice…).

But a passive stat bonus as a grandmaster trait?
And why is it in Honor?

argh

It’d be cooler if they dropped it somewhat and had us grant a portion of it to nearby allies, like Strength in Numbers. Group vitality buff, even though its also passive, would be pretty snazzy.

Their reasoning is completely baffling to me. “Here’s this great support line, let’s water it down with non-support.” Really? That’s your big, game-changing idea? Water down the traitline?

Tbh i think it’s a okay trait. it may be boring and very plain, but we have 4 other new grandmasters we don’t know about, and we don’t know what other traits they’re changing. Before I’d have no reason to spec 30 in Honor when running a DPS meditation build, but with this I will. Either a toss up between virtue activation boons, or 3k free health for me.

Edit: Also Honor isn’t a support line, Honor is a survival line, with symbol traits and enhancing shouts. The two grandmasters in honor are just support based, Force of Will will be more of a selfish trait for roamers and duelers. The Support line is Virtues, i mean look at the minors!?

From a purely PVE perspective, the trait is trash

Obtena.7952:

ALOT of QQ about low HP (mostly from noobs) but …

I don’t think you are being reasonably fair with this assessment or statement. There are people on both sides of the fence that say it is a weakness of the class. From a world vs. world perspective it probably isn’t going to matter outside a solo or duo roaming party and even then those players already have that extra HP because they spent their rank points to get it…

Larger world vs. world fights it isn’t going to help either because the condition damage will just eat through it like a hot knife through butter. If the trait was going to be more defensive in nature then it should have mitigated conditional damage so you can actually push or hold the line so those behind you can do the DPS. Hell, it could have offered a form of CC or extended those we already have by duration.

I don’t see any reason why a supportive class by nature doesn’t offer more ways to direct the course of the fight…either by direction or slowing them down in place. Just my opinion.

I really do not think the lower health pool is a true weakness, I think the main issue is that our supposed “amazing base defenses” have turned into garbage due to the power creep and buffing of other classes. But yeah, that is another discussion.

Painbow.6059:

From a purely PVE perspective, the trait is trash

From a purely PVE perspective anything that’s not ‘moar deeeps!’ is trash because nothing in PVE is dangerous.

Yea, Honor is irrelevant in PvE except the first 10 points— some would say 5.

Obviously triple shout builds will still be better off with PoV. However, if you don’t sport triple shout, it may have some relevance.

Ironically, I’ve been playing without PoV or Absolute Resolution a bit before this announcement to test a few things. Sometimes it’s nice to play out of your comfort zone, though I admit that I’m using the “selfish” melandru rune set since I found burning all my cooldowns to clear off constant condi pressure to be utterly futile.

Bash.7291:

I really do not think the lower health pool is a true weakness, I think the main issue is that our supposed “amazing base defenses” have turned into garbage due to the power creep and buffing of other classes. But yeah, that is another discussion.

Actually, your point here would be a valid argument, point, and discussion.