Guild Wars 2

Great changes. Just not sure of the value of this change: Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.

I have tried using various thief healing skills, and noticed that Leeching venoms/shadow rejuvination do much more healing per game (and simultaneous damage in the case of venoms). Plus, Acrobatics tree does not provide healing benefits in its line which the trait buff relies on. To invest 30 points into acrobatics and then either take another trait line or get gear purely for healing would sacrafice a lot of what the thief is about: burst damage, quick action. I’m sorry I don’t have a good plan B to offer, but maybe this change could use another look?

I have tried making nontraditional builds and some of them are quite viable in certain places. Even this thief build works well against mesmers, minion necros, spirit rangers as long as it is used more as a point defender and not an assaulter (something very different from what you may expect from thieves) in 1 v 1 or 2v2 situations :http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoa6YlcmaPXeS6E/5EB3Dny0m6p4rjVTBNlJA-TwAAzCuIgR5jzHzMyZswMqYFwOgpIA

At the same time, I do hope that the trait system will create opportunities for creativity. I am very satisfied that developers differentiated traits by ranks (1,2,3) as some traits are clearly superior to others. It also helped new players get acquainted with the game. Now, as players are maturing (or maybe at least from them reaching a certain pvp level such as 10 or 20), a person could gain more flexibility. For example, letting a person place a rank 1 trait from any trait line. Specifically, if you are going into the power train line for a thief (because you want power and/or condition duration), and you place 10 points in the trait line and therefore unlock the first choosable trait, you would be able to choose traits that are currently held in other traits lines (such as condition damage line) as well as the 6 traits that currently belong to the power line. This would make the game more complex, but it gives a lot of possibilities for developers and players. Developers would know which traits are not chosen (or chosen too often) and maybe act on it. Now developers also know that some traits are hardly used, but it is harder to know if they are not chosen because the trait itself is inferior or is it because it is inferior for that specific trait line. Players could gain a lot of freedom and seek to make their own, more personal builds.

Of course, such changes are difficult and demanding but they might be worth considering again for the future.

Well, if they indeed are using Glicko rating system, that would be nice.

Glico calculates the rake and the uncertanty of the rank.

To calculate the rank, the rank of the opposite team and the outcome of the game is considered. Since the outcome of sPVP games can be anywhere from 0 to 500 point difference, sPVP may take into account not just win/loss but also by the number of points one team won against another.

The uncertanty is based on the last time that someone has played a game. This makes sense, since a great player 1 month ago may not be number 1 anymore. So while playing many games does not make you the best, it will refresh the information more often and reduce uncertanty.