Guild Wars 2

This trait has never been touched (afaik), nor do I often see people bring anything up about it. I’ve always had a dislike for this trait, mainly because of 1) the high threshold and 2) it seems kind of backwards.

After 90% health you lose 120 toughness, which means you die a little faster. Also, anyone in the habit of using the build editor (as well as in game) will note that the 120 toughness is automatically applied. So if you’re aiming for a certain amount of toughness/armor, you’ll be short of that because really, unless you’re fighting extremely bad people, you won’t stay above 90% health, especially in this zerker meta.

Personally I would like to see a re-work in this trait. For example, changing it to:

Gain toughness while your health is under the threshold – with the threshold being at 75%, or even 50 and bumping up the toughness value to 180 perhaps.

I know this is really a minor QoL kind of thing, but this one single trait in the Defense line has always irked me since day 1. Does anyone else feel this trait needs a change? Or am I just being way too nitpicky.

My sentiments exactly on how backwards and useless this trait is. Thick skin is always mentioned whenever anyone suggests traits for removal.
I do feel that your suggestions would be a step forwards, however I think most Warriors would prefer the trait gone altogether, replaced with something that actually makes a difference. Even Rousing Resilience’s +1000 toughness still gives less damage reduction than Protection.

It is perhaps on the weak side, but it is not backwards.
The point of extra toughness while above a threshold is to counter initiations/opening bursts.
It could use a buff in potency, but not a change in effect. Above the threshold is fine.

120 toughness isn’t much. Like 5% reduction (I don’t wanna do the math right now for exact). That means instead of a 7k backstab u only get a 6,650 backstab.

I would like to see Embrace the pain being the new adept minor. Remove it from Cleansing Ire.

• Gain adrenaline when hit.

it seems would be more useful if it applied 2 seconds of protection when hit over 90 percent health with a 10 seconds cooldowns. the way its setup now will not stop any real opening bursts at all.

They should add another effect to Thick Skin along with giving more toughness. The term Thick Skin also implies you are immune to verbal attacks. So with this trait, you should be immune to any form of negative shouts. Like when other warriors shout “Fear ME” you should be immune to it if your health is above the threshold. So basically Thick skin should prevent any form of mind altering move, such as fears and confusions.

Replace Thick skin with the old trait we had that got removed/replaced with Dogged.

Turtle’s Defense; Gain +200 toughness when crippled, chilled, stunned, or immobilized.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Turtle's_Defense

The mechanics on this trait aren’t flawed or useless. It does two things.

1) Reduces burst when you’re at full health.
2) Helps you shrug off incidental damage when combined with regen effects like healing signet, helping to keep you topped off.

That said, 120 toughness is not nearly enough to make this have any sort of impact and the threshold is a bit too tight.

If it was something like 10-15% damage reduction while above 75-80% health it would do its job better.