Guild Wars 2

Confusing Combatants and Debilitating Dissipation. Why were these traits removed? They were such great traits for those looking into the condition way of things!

Used to give 2 stacks of bleeding, 3 stacks of vulnerability, and 3s of vulnerability per clone destroyed for DD

And CC used to give 1 stack of confusion per clone destruction

It was seen as a passive playstyle that made the game unfun. All clone death traits were removed from the game several patches ago (though similar traits in other classes still persist).

They were removed after a dev lost to a player running a condi clone death build. He complained about it on the GW2 stream and it was gone.

expandas.7051:

It was seen as a passive playstyle that made the game unfun. All clone death traits were removed from the game several patches ago (though similar traits in other classes still persist).

Which other traits still exist on other classes?

Traits like the necromancer on-minion-death ones are a bit different than our clone death ones. Necromancer minions don’t contribute to the profession’s mechanic (death shroud).

In the case of the Mesmer, those traits directly discouraged use of the class mechanics by providing an alternate way to spend the required resource (illusions).

I liked them as a way to even the playing field when shattering was impossible/unlikely, but I agree with ANet that it was a bit counterproductive to have builds which discouraged shattering.

Kelthien.8593:

Necromancer minions don’t contribute to the profession’s mechanic (death shroud).

They do?
They give Life Force to the Necromancer on death which fuels Death Shroud, so they “contribute to the profession’s mechanic”, even if less than clones to our shatters ( even tho afaik shattering was counterproductive with clone-death traits).

Maybe they’ll reintroduce them with our next elite spec, kinda like old acrobatics => Daredevil for thieves :0

Ithilwen.1529:

They were removed after a dev lost to a player running a condi clone death build. He complained about it on the GW2 stream and it was gone.

[Citation needed]

Bubi.5237:

They give Life Force to the Necromancer on death which fuels Death Shroud, so they “contribute to the profession’s mechanic”, even if less than clones to our shatters ( even tho afaik shattering was counterproductive with clone-death traits).

True, but you can’t make a self sustaining Necro spec built around generating life force from minion deaths.

The bigger point is, Shatters are the main Mesmer profession mechanic. Phantasm builds were also in the sand boat where using your mechanic was counter productive and so we saw the changes to phantasm traits, especially in the Chronomancer line. This wasn’t just a change against the clone death factory playstyle, but a change across the whole class to encourage shattering more.

As to citation, “grouch” complained about the build and having lost to it on an episode of ready up. The removal was announced shortly afterward. I don’t know, offhand which episode.