Guild Wars 2

So I have gone through and restructured our traits to have a bit more synergy and make more sense thematically.

I have structured each trait line starting with the minors in order from first to last, and then groupings (according to theme), of adept, master and grandmaster traits. If this isn’t clear I have labeled the first set so you can see the pattern.

Where I have labeled a trait with just a name, that means it is already an existing trait and I don’t want to make any changes. Although I may have moved it.

This is post is only about traits. I will get to weapon skills and utility skills another time. This has turned out to be longer than I thought it would be.

I reckon there are some really cool new traits in there, and I really hope we can get these in the future.

Spite (aka DPS)
Minors

• Gain 3s of might when you strike a foe below 25%.
• Deaths embrace
• Close to death

Vulnerability

• Bitter chill (adept)
• Decimate defences (master)
• Wells also chill for 1s on every pulse, 20% recharge reduction (grand master)

Might

• ???
• For every stack of might on you ??? (gain increased?)
• When activating a signet you rip might from 3 nearby foes and grant it to your self. 20% cool down reduction.

Weapon dps

• Spiteful talisman
• Unholy fervor
• Quickening thirst – 15% faster attack speed, 25% increase in movement speed, and 15% cooldown reduction

Curses (aka condis and boon corruption)
Minors

• Every condi duration is increased by 5%
• Gain +20 condi dmg per condi on your foe
• Generate 0.5% LF every 3s for each condition on you (or cure a condition and gain LF every ##s)

Condis

• Inflict 4s of weakness on hits 10s ICD
• Scepter attacks have a 75% chance to inflict 3s of torment on hits if the target already has 3 or more conditions
• Dhummfire – Does more damage and has a 1s ICD per target (or just made to work equally with death and reapers shroud)

Corruption

• Path of corruption
• Corruption skills corrupt one (or two?) boon(s) on your target. And 33% faster recharge
• When you fear someone you corrupt 2 (or 3?) of their boons

Condi sending

• Plague signet passive ability (should increase the frequency? – also it should stack with plague signet)
• Master of corruption
• When you enter shroud, draw condis (2,3,4 or more?) from all nearby allies (and foes?) and send those condis, and your own, to your target. Unblockable.

Blood magic (aka healing and support)

Minors

• Mark of evasion
• Regenerate health while in shroud
• Last rites

Siphoning

• Vampiric – not including minions
• Vampiric presence – nearby allies siphon health (including minions)
• Nearby allies (includes minions) siphon health to you when they attack

Blood

• When you take falling damage summon a well of blood
• Barbed precision – hits have a 33% chance to inflict bleeding for 3s. Bleeds last 20% longer.
• Your bleeding damage heals you, scales from healing power and condi damage (replacing parasitic contagion in curses).

Revivals (and healing)

• Ritual of life
• Life from death
• Transfusion

Death magic (aka minions and tank)

Minors

• Armoured shroud
• Summon a jagged horror when you kill an enemy (15s ICD) 30s duration
• Near by deaths generate life force (increased 50% LF and includes minions deaths – without this trait you do not generate any life force from nearby deaths) This gives a nice way of generating LF without having to use soul reaping.

Minions/Tank

• Flesh of the master
• Necromantic corruption
• LF pool and minion toughness is scaled from your toughness

Minions/Condi

• Putrid defence
• Minions attacks have a 20% chance to poison foes for 3s when they attack
• When minions die they explode, dealing damage and acting as a blast finisher. They leave behind a poison field that lasts 5s.

Bunker/punching bag

• Unholy sanctuary – with a lot less (or no) healing in shroud
• When you are CC’d you gain 10s of retaliation and 10% LF – 30s ICD (note that it doesn’t break the stun). (This works kinda well with unholy sanctuary)
• Foot in the grave

Soul reaping aka class mechanic improvements

Minors

• Gluttony
• Speed of shadows
• Shroud skills recharge 20% faster and ???

Life force (sustain)

• Soul marks
• Spectral mastery
• 15% LF pool increase and 50% LF degeneration decrease

Fear (control)

• Terror – Fear deals damage. (not based on condis on your foe)
• Fear of death
• AoE fear when entering shroud (like thieves stolen skill)

Shroud damage (dps)

• Unyielding blast
• Reapers might – but grants 2 stacks
• 50% crit chance in death shroud

Reaper

Minors

• Shroud knight
• Shivers of dread
• Cold shoulder

Chill

• Chilling nova
• Chilling force
• Deathly chill

Brawler

• Augury of death
• Soul eater
• Blighters boon

Unstoppable

• Relentless pursuit
• Deaths charge cooldown is reduced to 3s, must have an enemy targeted and within range.
• Reapers onslaught

Still need a trait/spot for for warhorn. It just doesnt seem to fit well anywhere

Feel free to ask questions, I am happy to explain any of my reasoning.

PS I will update this post as better ideas come along. So if you see an idea you posted in here, I am not trying to claim that I came up with your idea. I am just trying to make it clear to the devs what I (and maybe we?) think the best ideas are and thus hopefully convincing them to adopt them.

The first thing I noticed was traits pulled from the Reaper trait line. Since you have to buy HoT to gain access to the line, those traits shouldn’t be in the basic Necro trait lines.

Yea, but they could add different ones for the Reaper, those are not final. I mean we have already had a bunch of changes to Reaper’s traits over the beta weekends. And I think the changes I made fit a bit better?

Anyway, those traits are now in the Spite, or curses trait lines, and are therefore not reaper traits any more. So there is no problem?

Updating the Reaper traits is fine, but swapping out traits to give to the base Necro isn’t. I know it’s all hypothetical so it’s not legit but if it was, many Necro players would be annoyed to see the exclusive traitline for HoT being dished out to people who did not buy the expac. No reason to buy expac if it’s available to others for free.

But people who haven’t bought the expansion still don’t have access to the reaper traits. Instead HoT players will have other exclusive traits, the ones I have added. It would just be coincidence that some traits were once planned to be on the reaper but are not anymore. No big deal in my mind.

And I can’t see many people complaining if the traits work better, like I think they do in this format.

Lastly, I think that the Reaper is still the class it is meant to be, perhaps better, with the two traits I swapped out/in. A chilling, unstoppable brawler.

Just a small something:

You share 50% of your incoming damage with your minions and each minion shares 50% of its incoming damages with other minions and you.

that’s a terrible idea, especially the second part:

• minions are dumb: they don’t avoid damage. Taking this trait would kill you and you can’t do anything about it
• even if minions just share their damage together (i.e. not with you), that means that at the end, you will have all your minions up until they all die at the same time (essentially), leaving you completely vulnerable. Currently, you can have a rotation, with some minions alive while the other ones are on CD.

Except for that, I think some ideas make sense in your suggestions. Some I dislike (Signets of suffering without the boon corruption is near-pointless). In general, I love how they added 3 “thematic lines” on the elite spec and I find it sad they are not as clear lines in the core specs. Unfortunately, they constrained themselves to put most of the old traits in the new system to upset people the least possible. I would have preferred a big revamp like the one you suggest.

But I don’t see it happening in a foreseeable future. Maybe one or 2 trait swapped, a few tweaks but no major change.

Reaper is one of the most solid of the specializations right now.. it hits like a truck with some great stability and sustain.The traits are great imo they are some of the best of the bunch.

Silverkey.2078:

Just a small something:

You share 50% of your incoming damage with your minions and each minion shares 50% of its incoming damages with other minions and you.

that’s a terrible idea, especially the second part:

• minions are dumb: they don’t avoid damage. Taking this trait would kill you and you can’t do anything about it
• even if minions just share their damage together (i.e. not with you), that means that at the end, you will have all your minions up until they all die at the same time (essentially), leaving you completely vulnerable. Currently, you can have a rotation, with some minions alive while the other ones are on CD.

Except for that, I think some ideas make sense in your suggestions. Some I dislike (Signets of suffering without the boon corruption is near-pointless). In general, I love how they added 3 “thematic lines” on the elite spec and I find it sad they are not as clear lines in the core specs. Unfortunately, they constrained themselves to put most of the old traits in the new system to upset people the least possible. I would have preferred a big revamp like the one you suggest.

But I don’t see it happening in a foreseeable future. Maybe one or 2 trait swapped, a few tweaks but no major change.

Haha, I didn’t think about that properly, that is a terrible idea. I will see if I can come up with something else. Thanks

As to signets. I reckon they are a little OP at the moment and the boon corruption just doesn’t make any sense to me. Yea, I guess the signets dont really fit very well with my new spite trait line. Maybe I could swap the wells trait here instead, where they could pulse might to allies or immobilise??? I will have a think about this.

Yea, just had a few ideas and felt like I needed to write them down. I am not overly optimistic about getting many changes, but just maybe…?

Frightlight.3796:

Reaper is one of the most solid of the specializations right now.. it hits like a truck with some great stability and sustain.The traits are great imo they are some of the best of the bunch.

Which is why I have barely touched the reapers traits. And as Silverkey alludes to, how the devs designed the Reaper’s traits (thematic lines) has inspired me to apply the same pattern to the other trait lines.

On a positive note I do love the updated Quickening Thirst. Currently it is an underused trait mainly used for either mapping or just if you don’t have anyone giving swiftness. The attack speed increase is a much needed sight, putting our dagger auto attack in line with a buffed up thief’s daggers.