Hey guys. That last patch actually did something that were waited for very long as Quality of Life and buffs/changes that were needed, I was hoping nothing as always. I recovered the trust on the Devs to make less viable skills/traits more viable once more.
In this post I wanna to make some suggestions to buff / change weak or useless traits. One of the problem is how Retaliation is undewhelming and the traits related to it do not bring much to make this boon more viable.
ZEAL – This line is mainly for damage increase. Nearly everithing is realted to increase damage. It could have a little more utility while still being damage oriented, but less boring.
- Wrathful Spirit [Major Adept]: Meged with Shattered Aegis [Major Grandmaster] and replaced by “Fire Symbols”.
- “Fire Symbols” [Major Adept]: In place of Wrathful Spirit. Your symbols become fire fields instead of light.
- Binding Jeopardy [Major Master]: Increase the duration of Vulnerability to 10 seconds from 8.
- Reasoning: Wrathful Spirit is a very weak trait and will never be taken over Fiery Wrath or Zealous Scepter on a damage build. Even if you spam Aegis in some way (to apply Retaliation to allies as well) I don’t believe you would ever take this trait. Also, as I said, Realliation is a very weak boon. In its place, the “Fire Symbols” would maintain the damage oriented focus of Zeal (through burning / might from finishers), but would bring more utility and diversity instead of just straight DPS increase.
- The suggestion on Binding Jeopardy is to make a little bit more interesting to take this trait.
RADIANCE – This line is mainly for critical chances and burning/condition. ANet tried to make this line as “Retaliation line” as well, but didn’t really worked out.
- Healer’s Retribution [Major Adept]: Merged with Retribution [Major Master] and replaced by Radiant Retaliation [Major Grandmaster].
- Radiant Retaliation [now Major Adept]: Keep the previous effect (gains damage from condition instead of power), but also pulse its damage every second on a 240 radius.
- “Searing Flames” [Major Grandmaster]: In place of Radiant Retaliation. The old trait that was abbandoned on the trait system revamp. It removes one boon when burning a opponent, 5~7 seconds of cooldown (10 seconds was too much).
- Perfect Inscriptions [Major Grandmaster]: Instead of ‘gaining light aura when activating a signet’, it now removes a condition when activating a signet (the effect of an old trait).
- Reasoning: The Healer’s Retribution sugestion is for increase its usability as both Healer’s Retribution and Retribution are a bit underwhelming.
- The Radiant Retaliation were moved to its place to open more possibilities as GM trait, that you would take Amplified Wrath even if you are not using a condition build because there are no choices (if you aren’t using a signet). With the pulse every second, Realiation would feel more like a condition some sort of the new confusion codition. It would still be hard to take this trait, considering that as condition build you don’t have many sources to get realiation on yourself, you might need to sacrifice traits / utility skills to get Retaliation.
- The “Searing Flames” would bring a way to play while maintaining the burning/offense theme of Radiance line. Would also be more viable to take this line outside of condition builds without being stuck on “no other choice for GM than Amplified Wrath”.
- The change on Perfect Inscriptions is to make Signets more viable and attractive. But the Signets themselves need some changes.
VALOR – This trait line is oriented for self sustain and bit of support. Even if there could have small changes, I don’t believe that have a much weaker trait like other lines.
HONOR – This line is oriented to heavy support and sustain.
- Protector’s Impact [Major Adept]: On top of the previous effect, also activates the Symbol of Protection when the health drops below 25%, cooldown increased to 20 seconds. (or activates when drops below 50%, 30 seconds of cooldown)
- Reasoning: Like all “on fall” traits, this trait is really underwhelming and is commonly used to troll people on WvW. Has no use on PvP and with gliding on PvE there is no reason to take, if it had a reason before. Not only that, but if you wanna to take the Honor line you are stuck with Protective Reviver if you are not using a mace, even if you don’t want to focus on support because Protector’s Impact is useless. All “on fall” traits of all classes should have an additional effect in my opinion.
VIRTUES – This line is oriented to support, utility and and Virtues improviments.
- Unscathed Contender [Major Adept]: On top of the current effect, also adds 25% move speed if Aegis is up.
- Battle Presence [Major Grandmaster]: This trait need and extra effect to be more viable. Maybe add 20% boon duation to Guardian as well? If the next elite specialization add a lot more effect on Virtue of Resolve passive, then it could be more viable.
- Reasoning: The change on Unscathed Contender is for the long waited +25% move speed, this change would have realistic no impact when on combat, considering how hard is to maintain Aegis. Also a buff to this trait, even if +20% damage increase looks very good, I do not hope to keep Aegis up (is really hard).
- Battle Presence really needs an extra effect, currently is too underwhelming. There is no reason to take it over Indomitable Courage for support. The healing is too low and even with Purity of Body (Honor – Minor GM) doesn’t do much.
Personal notes:
The Spirit Weapons need changes on the skills more than on their trait to be more viable. They can be made more viable without reworking them, I might make a post with suggestions.
I saw on other topic a suggestion to swap Zealous Scepter from Zeal with Glacial Heart on Virtues. That actually might make sense, I could take Zealouts Scepter on my burning build if this trait were on Virtues Major. And usually you want to take Zeal if you are using hammer because this is the highest symbol uptime weapon that Guardian have.
TLDR: Suggetions to make too weak/useless traits more viable.
(edited by Mikau.6920)