Guild Wars 2

The Idea: This trait tries to get warriors to play a bursty eviscerate-based dual axe build. With this trait, a warrior could, with 100% crit chance, to go from 0 – 30 adrenaline using only Axe 5 (which is also the skill that would benefit the most from the -20% cooldown). That kind of crit chance is best obtained by also taking the trait Signet Master (also makes eviscerate unblockable at 50% hp), which would also open up option of taking Dual Wielding (for faster auto attacks/Axe 5 channel) or Burst Precision (for guaranteed Eviscerate crit). If all goes well, each of those hits will be doing +20% damage thanks to the ferocity bonus. Taking the discipline line in addition to all that would allow for even stronger, and more frequent Eviscerates.

The Problem: While the above combo is potent on paper, in practice a warrior would have to give up too much to make it work. Without Defense, survivability is significantly reduced, so it becomes a true kill or be kill build – one where you have to land your bursts in order to win. The biggest issue there is that axe, dual axe especially, has neither utility nor survivability. It has no gap closers, no CC apart from Axe 3’s pathetic 4s cripple, and is easily countered by simple kiting. Throw in all the blocks/blinds/evades in the game right now, and other professions will laugh at your attempts to go full melee YOLO. In other words, all that damage is useless because you can’t consistently deal it.

Suggested Improvements: In addition to its current effects, Axe Mastery should at least try to eliminate some of the weaknesses of the dual axe setup if it wants to see any serious play. These can include one of the following:

• Makes Eviscerate unblockable (eliminates some risk) OR
• Critical hits with Axe apply vulnerability with no ICD (increases reward by giving axe a non-selfish damage buff)

The Idea: This is a trait that doesn’t so much buff a weapon as make it viable. Both the piercing (which I believe rifle is next to worthless without) and the cooldown reduction serve to help make rifle a more effective and consistent damage dealer. Higher uptime on vulnerability through Rifle 4 also makes for faster adrenaline gain through Rifle 1, which in turn makes for faster Killshots.

The Problem: Like most warrior weapons, rifle is good for only one thing – in this case, single target ranged damage. As such, anyone using rifle is using it purely for the burst potential of Rifle 3 and Killshot. While this trait is straight-up mandatory for a rifle warrior because of piercing, it doesn’t do much to actually help the weapon become anything more than viable.

Suggested Improvements: In addition to its current effects, Crack Shot should at the very least improve on rifle’s ability to do the one thing people use it for. This can be done by applying the following buffs:

• Apply stability while channeling killshot (eliminates some risk) AND
• Critical hits with rifle generate extra adrenaline (makes it easier to get to the reward with just the rifle)

The Idea: Hammer is well-known as the CC weapon. This trait aims to reward warriors that successfully land hammer’s CC with additional damage, and allows warriors to have access to those CC skills sooner by reducing their cooldowns.

The Problem: Too little payoff for too much work. The damage increase is negligible because no CC lasts long enough to make use of it with hammer’s unbelievably slow weapon skills. The cooldown reduction is laughable as well. The cooldowns on hammer’s skills are simply too long for -20% to make much of a difference.

Suggested Improvements: Let’s face facts – unless hammer undergoes a heavy overhaul with significantly lowered cooldowns and faster/stronger damage dealing skills, no one is ever going to camp hammer no matter what effect is put on this trait. There is, however, one change that could make all the difference. In addition to its current -20% cooldown reduction effect, hammer should have an ability that capitalizes on the fact that everyone wants to switch out of it as soon as possible:

• Critical hits with hammer recharge weapon swap (with this, someone can switch to hammer, land a CC, and switch back to the weapon they actually want to use immediately)

The Idea: Sword is a hybrid weapon, so its trait has to provide incentive to both power and condition builds. This trait tries to accomplish that by giving both build-types access to more consistent critical damage. This way, someone built for condition damage could still deal some decent physical damage, while someone built for power has a straight +20% crit chance thanks to Sword 1 while also getting a lower cooldown on the hard-hitting Sword 3.

The Problem: On a weapon with such “meh” damage, increased critical chance is simply not enough to matter, especially considering other traits in Arms provide more than enough critical chance already. The trait does nothing to address the problems condition users face with Sword 3 and 4 (Rip) or those direct damage dealers face with Sword 1 and Flurry.

Suggested Improvements: The sword needs a trait that would buff its effectiveness in dealing both direct and condition damage. It needs some way to capitalize on the crits that the Arms tree is giving out like candy. It needs:

• Gain might on critical hit with no ICD (Gives condition builds might stacking and power builds a reason to actually channel Flurry)

The Idea: Longbow is another hybrid weapon, but one lacking in continuous condition pressure. With this trait, longbow gets a condition on AA, but not just any condition – burning. Burning is one of the strongest conditions in the game and can still be a noticeable (if very slight) damage increase for power builds. Add to that a -20% cooldown reduction on all the other skills and the utility they bring, and you have what looks like a decent trait.

The Problem: Unlike some other weapon traits, this trait does actually help longbow in a noticeable way, but the problem is that it doesn’t do quite enough to stand out and make itself a strong pick for longbow users, especially those that aren’t running condi builds. Power builds can safely ignore this trait, and considering that longbow does have its fair share of uses in power builds, that’s a big problem.

Suggested Improvements: In addition to its current effects, Burning Arrows should apply one more additional buff to be useful across the board:

• Increase projectile speed (helps every kind of build and makes it easier to land the telegraphed skills also arrows on fire are red and everyone knows red goes faster)