Guild Wars 2

a fun game post screen and the next guy need to guess where the picture is from so heres my screen

As far as goes for druid healers in raids and instance would you recomand zealot (Power precision healing)
against Cleric (Power thoughness Healing)

Reason for this is thoughness brings the agro on the healer a lot to

as this topic subjest my darevil is doomed to deal 0 damage with all her staff attack and i dont mean it as in dealing light damage but as in dealing the absolute 0 me and a few character have been checking it out and confirmed that the character damage was indeed doing nothing to their hp bar no mather how much i smashed them with it… weirdly enought the daredevil damaging dodge deals damage however. Its been confirmed that the 0 damage only happens when i use a staff

Edit: seems the berzerker Lightward staff is a bugged weapon and cannot deal damage because i could hit with the bo staff

Character Name: Agent Doxa

Are they gunna bring back the scythe staff skin because i mean thats a skin thats gone way to overpriced considered it couldve just went back every once in a year in the black lion boxes

Will the scythe staff skin be back again this year?

Muahahahah Glory to the pets! petmaster ranger specialist will finaly get its place back as topgun dps/mob tanker ahahah

as for necromancer it gets back its well deserved place as masters of zerging!

GLORY TO THE PET! Beastmasters place as Top guns DPS is now assured for the future!

Im gunna be hated for daring to say this but a guy using necromancy wearing shady clothes and using a greatsword is generaly called a death knight or a blackguard.
Tanky+necromancy+big edged weapon generaly = to this result i expect no less

I love how Teyo gives a hint joke about it in asuran personnal story.

Honestly other topic was locked before anything was said or worded is the DK word so freakish that people must ban it from all text? The moment i see a guy using necromancy or just any form of black magic and a bladed weapon the first word that comes to mind is antipaladin/death knight/black knight/dark knight/shadowknight or whataver name of a class that fits that theme. Everyone tought it the moment they heard necro got greatsword and weither you like it or not the idea stick like a plague (ahaha the pun). Necromancer behing tanky by default thanks to death shroud doesnt help removing the quite seductive idea either.

A death knight doesnt necesarily needs to wear heavy armor that is a way to single minded judgement. As far as it goes light armor with a good hood in the good oll nazgul thematic fits the character perfectly. I easily see a guy in full orrian wandering around swinging that blade and still having the look of a nazgul dark rider. As far as it goes if the off class runs on abilities wich aims like the warrior stance at making the player more tankish then god sake its a given.

MUAHAHAH MORE PETS!

dual wield sword?

MORE PETS CONTROL MUAHAHAHHAA

Now with twice as much magic

Nah i think drink will be some kind of minion master and pet spammer less inclined toward physical combat itself.

Well what do you think is a guy in clothing whos uber tanky and use a greatsword along with death related power?

I never said you werent right about kholer. Now what about that giant gorrila and the flame shaman miniboss on bridge that everyone totaly ignore. Im sure you can bring in constructive idea.

Even if kholer gained a bonus loot upon kills as an optionnal boss just what do you have to lose?

hybrid.5027:

kyubi.3620:

hybrid.5027:

kyubi.3620:

Honestly you may not understand that feeling because you may or may not have played the first game but when your used to deal massive damage with pet and be loved in teams (guild wars 2 minion master and beastmasters or spirit spammer) You just cant go back to behing some kind of dismal damage specialisation who spam an auto attack.

Many nostalgic build died with the new game or became close to useless due to how the game stat were attributed. Those who still seeks those nostalgic feeling are simply put given a punch to the face.

SoS ritualist and the true minion master rest in peace.

I played GW1 and minion master and ranger beastmasters were horrible there too.

So Kyubi wants tanky stats to be good for “nostalgia” purposes.

Mesket wants tanky stats to be good because of some bizarre notion of design symmetry.

It’s really good to know that my conclusion (people wanting tanky stats to be good have irrational reasons) is correct.

Because Aura of the lich and signet of spirit doesnt get stuff done everywhere? Troll spotted. I dont give a heck about tanky stat i want a glass cannon summoner style with 0 armor and pure damage.

Also horrible damage to beastmaster? Say that again to my 200 damage hits. I dont think youve played realy long if thats the conclusion you got because BM can easily compete with dervish and sins on a single target damage basis all while providing a somewhat immortal unit that has no death penalty and can be rezed at will.

Theres a good reason why signet of spirit ritualist and minions masters where near mendatory to successfull group runs.

Guy who can’t read spotted. I didn’t say SoS was bad. SoS is party of the meta. Ranger beastmaster and aura of the lich builds are not. besides this is off topic anyway. Who cares about your AFK to win gw1 builds we are talking about gw2.

Doesnt seem like im the only one who cant read because you asume witheout reading or so it would seem that i want tanky stat builds when i clearly stated i want glass cannons summoners.

Well then all pugs are bads :P

Yet kholer is a single exemple amonst the list what do you have to say for the others.

brutal strike with increased attack speed, damage bonus and heal as one life leech damage bonus per hit does wonders you know. Brutal strike like final trust deals very high damage http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Brutal_Strike and as a mather of fact has only 5 second cooldown.

heal as one adding a good 21 damage and adding feral agression +10 base damage to the formula you got an axe warrior on steroids that heals like crazy has the maximum attack speed bonus and cause conditions while behing able to ressurect every single 8 seconds.

hybrid.5027:

kyubi.3620:

Honestly you may not understand that feeling because you may or may not have played the first game but when your used to deal massive damage with pet and be loved in teams (guild wars 2 minion master and beastmasters or spirit spammer) You just cant go back to behing some kind of dismal damage specialisation who spam an auto attack.

Many nostalgic build died with the new game or became close to useless due to how the game stat were attributed. Those who still seeks those nostalgic feeling are simply put given a punch to the face.

SoS ritualist and the true minion master rest in peace.

I played GW1 and minion master and ranger beastmasters were horrible there too.

So Kyubi wants tanky stats to be good for “nostalgia” purposes.

Mesket wants tanky stats to be good because of some bizarre notion of design symmetry.

It’s really good to know that my conclusion (people wanting tanky stats to be good have irrational reasons) is correct.

Because Aura of the lich and signet of spirit doesnt get stuff done everywhere? Troll spotted. I dont give a heck about tanky stat i want a glass cannon summoner style with 0 armor and pure damage.

Also horrible damage to beastmaster? Say that again to my 200 damage hits. I dont think youve played realy long if thats the conclusion you got because BM can easily compete with dervish and sins on a single target damage basis all while providing a somewhat immortal unit that has no death penalty and can be rezed at will.

Theres a good reason why signet of spirit ritualist and minions masters where near mendatory to successfull group runs.

I dont think a orange box with a few green is actualy worth the while even with high magic find and god knows i do have enought to obtain exotic from these. From what you say here only the waypoint is actualy a real good reason for taking him down. If its just for a waypoint i can just skip and run my way trought it will just take 5 or 10 second of travel. Kholer may take 15 second if your team actualy has a meta composition to it but thats not always the case, if your team is actualy a pugged one with random players you may actualy have a longuer fight, you need to consider the fact that even in speed runs idiots and noobs happens and that it is the pug reality, unless im running with guild and im 100% sure of everyone build and skill i wouldnt bother doing an optionnal boss to save a 15 second i might loose in minutes for a failed fight (since kholer buff pugs have kept disapointing me and the quality of the player base dungeonwide is somewhat obviously low).

Fractal rewards are not bad if you consider the fractals token/daily chance for a ascended item. I dont do fractals for the mobs drop altrought the tier 5 and 6 mats always a + and fractal is one of the only dungeon that drop lodestone this much.

well time to build stuff like these i guess http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAod4Yjc0UbblNe2whbCchayhIJg8NDAqPj24ZB-TZRBwAiLD05gAQc/hFnAAAPBAA

More loot yet less gold and token on the same time scale. Sure if they kill boss slowlier they should make money slowlier but killing optionnal bosses in dungeon should provide significant reward for the time spent. As i said people are punished in some way for not skipping stuff rather then rewarded for their job. Its all about how worthwhile it is to ignore content or not.

What point is there for instance to killing kholer. truth is there is none you get a lovely golden box find a few greens or if lucky a yellow and keep going. The system poorly reward people who actualy try and care and that is kind of wrong. Wouldnt you like too to have optionnal bosses give a better reward or an extra reward for killing? At this point what you gota ask yourself is what do you have to lose if an optionnal bosses give some decent reward. You likely wont do it anyway but those that do will still reap something nice for their trouble.

As an exemple in AC explorable killing the end boss provide 60 token. If the group killed troll it gains an extra 20 and a little gold upon kill completion, If kholer is killed too the group get another extra 20 and a little gold upon kill completion up to a total of 100 token. this can be redone in Arah by turning stuff like the giant gorrila into a event wich upon kill grants 20 token and or with the giant champion spider as well.

What does this do? Well your 100% free to skip those boss or not but killing them as optionnal objective grants a bonus loot to your dungeon run. Those event should obviously grant their bonus loot only once per day as with the main dungeon bonus loot.

Tanky gear is meaningless what should be meaningfull would be the ability to play glass cannon on just any build. Why cant i run glassy with everythiiing whyyyyy x.x

Honestly you may not understand that feeling because you may or may not have played the first game but when your used to deal massive damage with pet and be loved in teams (guild wars 2 minion master and beastmasters or spirit spammer) You just cant go back to behing some kind of dismal damage specialisation who spam an auto attack.

Many nostalgic build died with the new game or became close to useless due to how the game stat were attributed. Those who still seeks those nostalgic feeling are simply put given a punch to the face.

SoS ritualist and the true minion master rest in peace.

what dress is that for god sake i need to aquire it! Oh wait this is the vampire dress they anounced! i must have one right away!

very funny but hes still right ranger should by default be the major bloodhound. Stuff like mud pet call etc could indeed prove a stealthing thief undoing.

I prefer S/D for pvp purpose if anything. It has high access to constant dodge and can global targets witheout getting hit. S/D likely is harder to play then D/P when it comes to maximum skill floor because yes you got dodge yet do you use them correctly? A player isnt just as predictible yet as a AI.

Im not saying i cant kill them but i take a perverse pleasure on punishing them to the point if one is realy bad at its build ill even spawn point farm him till he ragequit the match (who cares if i loose that hotjoint i got a jerk to torment and god know ill ENJOY it). The defrence between other class and D/P is they take way longuer to chase or to kill due to constant excape and thats anoying i dont like when my prey runs away constantly.

You see its all anchored in the fact i used to run D/D shadow arts, I respect the fact a stealth thief needs to connect cloak and dagger to actualy stealth constantly as it force the thief to melee contact and allows the player to actualy score a few hits between stealthing phase, however blackpowder makes a joke out of d/d glorious backstab set because it doesnt even need a blow to connect or to actualy strike something to stealth constantly from smoke fields and i realy cant stand that.

No realy there are kind of players who deserve a long painful agonising death and i consider it a duty to punish them accordingly when given the chance. You heard me all of you D/P thieves? I want to hear you scream!

Let me guess? someone stole your sweetrolls?

Dont expect to be carried expect to have to carry the team at all time. This is what ive got to expect from pugging team and i actualy dont mind it. People in pug are less mindful of builds and composition then meta team as a general rule so this kind of flexibility suits me well.

Simple way would be to make the party leader actualy able to transfer dungeon lead to another upon disconecting?

Ive rarely got kicked in any way despite running anormal builds such as axe rangers. Im generaly the one kicking people when they are real jerks. When im realy mad about a guy ill sometime ponder if other people think the same and issue a votekick (this was true even back when host still existed and has not changed). Thing is some guys REALY deserve the boot out of party because who has not met a jerk once in a while that actualy ruined the instance ambiance. I generaly issue votekick only when the guy is a serious anoyance (I dont care if you die a thousand time, just dont be a prick). It doesnt mather how good you are, you could be in Rt for all i care but if you start insulting the team members or anoying everyone no skill or achievement tag is gunna save you from a vote kick.

Running a triple vote wont mean much if the team actualy has 3 friends togueter and trust me griefers will likely not go witheout less then at least one friend in a team.

Talyn.3295:

Rewards are always the issue, anything that takes a while to do needs to rewards better. Its why some paths don’t get done, Rewards per Run have to be there.

That plus the fact most people abuse glitches in path to make them even faster. To the point it becomes useless to run the others.

Note: Im not saying some glitch arent VERY usefull for exemple magg lava walk from citadel of flame wich just is the most stupid gimmick ever done but crusher skipping in arah were clearly not intended.

Because the previous topic about actualy fixing dungeon reward for everyone to benefit from their way of running an instance has been shut down due to ‘’angry topic OP’’ im making another hoping people intend to talk it out.

Heres the current issue, speedrunning versus doing the dungeon vannila helds up more reward at the end. While it is not in theory a bad thing lot of people feels frustrated if not penalised that the system does not reward them actualy doing fights one by one as dungeons would normaly be intended as,

Please take note i am in no way suggesting that every dungeon is unbalanced however many spot are speedrunned that normaly should not due either to a glitch or a lack of path blocking. Ill point out 2 defrent location.

1. Citadel of Flame path one
Post first boss there is a bridge with a champion level firestorm shaman wich triggers a nice cinematic. Clearly that minibosses isnt meant to be ignored yet we simply put rush straith trought it and ignore everything to go save the caged enginer.

2. Arah many path
While many area in arah where clearly meant to be ran trought player just dont bother filthering what they run and what they dont and just ignore every single content between the major instance boss so to make it as painless as possible. Ill just mention that it sometime include skipping crusher etc for the sake of effectiveness, while trash skipping should be possible thanks to thief there is absolutely no way why boss skipping should be possible. Ill also mention that later on in the dungeon there is a gigantic gorilla champion that is litteraly ignored at all time.

Many boss or miniboss should actualy opose the players with some kind of natural barrier that block progression until defeated. The bridge shaman for exemple could simply put block the path with a flame legion magma wall. As for in arah the gorilla could block the path with a boulder and crusher etc could actualy have locked gates. Im more then aware arah has tons of shortcut that were or were not fixed trought its release. To some point in history it was that bad that we could start the quest and kill lupicus straith up using a mesmer portal at entrance.

Now about balancing dungeon rewards for player who kill things several ideas have been proposed before.

1. Make mobs drop token lootbag: Lesser mob may drop material bags but these bags can actualy contain up to 2 token of the instance inside.

2. Split dungeon reward amongst bosses: While dungeon reward curently is fully awarded upon dungeon completion the game used to have a system where each boss granted a select amount of money and token. While that system was highly abused to farm token quickly (aka arah crusher farm) it at least had the virtue of making every bosses important. Maybe if they could make the dungeon end reward based on the number of bosses killed rather then static with a bonus if all bosses and miniboss are dead.

Does any of you got other constructive ideas about how to provide extra reward to doing the full dungeon witheout penalising speedrunners?

In all honesty when i see a d/p thief in pvp i take a malign pleasure farming it. I guess its a way to avenge all the frustration these guys do me when im not running my thief. As far as im concerned SD easily destroy DP when played right.

D/P is good until paired against a spec that can outsmart its bursts.

well thats somewhat soothing to know

well you likely need the explomode turrets :/

i dont mind S/D and P/D but i must admit that D/P makes me mad to no end. I dont mind dealing with heartseeker spammer i dont mind D/D backstabs and i actualy wouldnt mind backstabs in the first place if it wasnt for the fact this build is constantly hiding in stealth and avoiding chains while running away and escaping with like 20 seconds stealth the moment its about to die. Like holy crap you darn coward come here and fight already stop hiding i didnt sharpen that edged weapon just so you could heal yourself fully by hiding like this!

Behing myself a S/D thief wich practicaly nearly never rely on stealth save for refuge and cloak escape i find fighting d/p thief who constantly stealth spam with blinding powder utherly frustrating. There is no counterplay to that its just called endure the constant stealthing phase and avoid getting stabbed in the back. At least D/D needs to connect a blow to go invisible D/P does not and has easy access to blind making it into some kind of glorified version of D/D stealth spam. do all the darn backstabs you want but god sake stop constantly stealthing like this its makes fools out of people who actualy works their head off building stuff. There is no counter to a constantly stealthing thief save for a bunker build a mass turret enginer or a tanky guard and that alone is a hint that something is utherly wrong.

I dont mean to say that D/P is easy mode it might just be difficult to place damage with since BS work only on back or side but if playing thief meant behing a ’’BLEEP’’ then likely it exemplify it.

Like they say… there is no honor amongst thieves. Those that do fight honorably generaly gets killed by other thieves that do not.

i actualy played like an addict for several months until flame and frost hit wich is when i got disgusted with the current class setting and left the game for like nearly half of the year. My main character got quite the age.

Id like to mention daily quest where implemented after i left so many people got a lot of free achievement point from them that i didnt benefit from. funny fact when i left dusk was behing sold for about 200 gold max.

what about a warpriest class

Running on monk smithing ability dervish mysticism and ritualist weapon enhencement i see weapon enhencement easily as the class mechanics.

Ill put it bluntly i had this game since open beta did all dungeon went to fractal level 40+ and got 8 characters all equiped in exotics and some ascendant most of them running a meta got 2 craft to 500 and i still got only 5970 achievement point. Do i need to feel guilty for having left out of game during the whole tomato scarlet period? Am i bad actualy not having 10k achievement point yet despite having had my dungeon master and other stuff like 60 day after release?

WyldKat.4712:

You say demon kitten like it’s a bad thing… mewr.

because turning into a succubus queen after having a demon lord toy with your body for hours is a good thing? Well i guess long as i keep my free will and alignment why do i care ;P.

Just saying that by default some character are easier to break then others. Scarlet might have had a poor willpower from the starts and may have been more vulnerable then others.

Mesmers damage was entirely depending on how stupid their foe was. What im talking about? Domination had a defrent way to run, spells like empaty and backfire basicaly activated their damage only when a foe attacked using a specific type of action, Empaty for its whole 14 second duration dealth about up to 50 damage per attack done while backfire dealth about 150 damage per spell used both easily countering spellcasters and physical units. In pvp by default a domination mesmer would be king hardcounters against any other class but monks and monks only purpose in existance was behing the team healers. A mesmer that played smart easily could wreck any player however and as such lot of player resented them greatly. I personnaly had a high hatred of Vision of regret domination mesmer wich not only had empaty and backfire but also ran an hex that made all skill activation deal serious damage to the player. Whole point of a domination build? Force you into doing nothing and letting you get killed. Nowaday no mesmer can actualy imagine running itself witheout clones or shatter wich in some way are sooooo away from what GW 1 mesmers used to be.

Ritualist ran similarly to necromancer but had spirits and healing spell as well we called them the spirit spammers.

Paragon ran on party buff and where effectively the best support class in the game, i mean who the hell doesnt like having a teamwide 4 health regen toped up with other stuff like partywide block, Päragon was in some way what guardian would be later on save that guardian mixes paragon monk dervish and ritualist togueter to some extent.

A lot of viable team combination in GW 1 included necromancers spamming aura of the lich or bone fiends. Reason is bone fiends can easily do up to 80 damage each. You got to consider the maximum or near maximum damage an attack can do in GW 1 is about 200 damage and if you score such a hit its because your buffed like hell and got a scythe 41

some truth about damage in guild wars 1

Hammer warrior dont deal as much damage as they perma knockdown foes, axe deals insane damage but its main tool is deep wound. Warrior main way to kill is trought deep wounds.

Necromancers minion can be stacked up to a number of 10 but degenerate health over time, Running aura of the lich allows for exelent minion army size but somewhat ordinary dps (about 40 per minions) While running bone fiends is about 80 per minions wich means if you have 3 or 4 bonefiends you already do more damage per seconds then a high end dps scythe derv coupled with a good amount of availlable targets. Flesh golem behing near permanant and scoring heavy dps also helps making MM the heaviest damaging profession in guild wars but also the most limited as necromancer damage power depends on the number of minion up as well as constant slaughter wich means you cannot keep your minion squad up witheout corpse and need to gather fodder constantly to keep a healthy army up, witheout constant healing a necro minion dies from degeneration leaving nothing left behind. Funny thing is vampire necro aka blood specialist still deals ridiculus damage over time and got insane self healing.

Ranger damage was pathetic, by default ranger was focused on interupting ennemy skills and dealing damage over time from condition, As insane and funny as it is however pet not only had a HP bar the size of rangers but was also one of the few entities in game that could not have a death penality. Furthermore a well speced pet ranger could not only maintain 7 degeneration uptime permanantly but deal ridiculus damage over the top with brutal strike and heal as one making it one of the most damaging tool in the game (16 beastmastery14 expertise beastmaster ranger pet could outdo a warrior in a damage race due to constant attack speed increase and insane base damage aka +37 +37 on low health target versus the warrior final trust +40 +40 the defrence here behing that final trust cannot be spammed and waste all adrenaline upon use). Id like also to mention the freaking pet could be ressurected to half health every 8 second with no penality and could be speced into the 21 damage reduction and halved shared damage shout so to make the lovely thing near unkillable.

Assassin while similar to our nowaday thief didnt rely on stealth in the least as there was no stealth skill in guild wars 1, instead the glassy assasin had tons of teleporting ability as well as highly punitive finishers. Assassin ran on right hand left hand and dual strike abilities and their gimmick always forced them to run the first two before the third making them somewhat predictable. On a side not Assassin could easily permanantly crowd control a player into behing unable to defend itself and down a character from full health to nothing within a single combo wich is prety much what no other class save for hammer warrior could do. Its way defrent from the nowaday backstab thief who hide and strike constantly as the old assassin was easily slain outright the moment someone had a chance to land a hit on him (insane damage also mean easy to kill if focused in wich way assassin rarely rushed ahead of battle but waited for an oppening to land their one shot combo out witheout outside interuption).

Elementalist unlike today dealth way better damage and relied more on their destructive aoe and single target spells then on their self healing, our days ele feels like some kind of healing tank while yesterday ele had very bad self healign capacity compensated with ridiculusly high instantanous ranged damage (lightning orb and ride the lightning builds are an exemple of this). In guild wars 1 behing blind also had a way defrent signification to it, By default a blind character had a 90% chance to miss all physical (non magical attack because magic could not be dodged save by standing out of aoe) attack for the whole duration of the effect wich means that for exemple a blinding surge elementalist could render a whole team of physical ennemy useless. Blind by default behing one of ele speciality it was expected ele were also the most direct counter to physical build such as assassins dervish warriors paragons and rangers or just anyone carrying around a melee or ranged weapon.

ill put it bluntly here…

sword dagger/shortbow teleport = get trolled hard because i hit you and you cant hit me back

Ive globaled players with 100% health in duel using that set because they just cant find the interval to strike back between my shadowsteps (lot of them behing turret enginers) so yea thief is actualy perfectly good witheout running any form of stealth related build.

Ill just point it out as a Sword dagger thief that longbow ranger STILL is lootbag material. Its all about dodging and reacting accordingly to situation. You can figure on your own that the ranger will use knockback or fear to place his rapid fire in and avoid loosing its main dps spike so break out or activate utility when crowd controled and start dodging. It doesnt take much skill to do that just a stun breaker or stability.

can i has vampire dress

in theory anything that has a self heal in it does the job there might be incompatibilities but as a general rules most build work out quite well.

DonQuack.9025:

kyubi.3620:

Happens I started playing arch age of late and it seems you can actualy get up to 120 deferent class combination and all of them can actualy be very usefull in a party.

haahahaaha

yep dude you can be what you want in that game and it happens nobody actualy will care long as you do the job because no mather the build dps is pretty much similar across all class its more about what utility and effect you do then what damage you do (you a warrior/occult/witch? Well nice you do the same damage as the warrior/archer/mage only defrence is the way you do it).

Guild wars 2 should’ve been that way from the start. That’s not even funny that’s actualy sad. I say they either need to bring in about 20 more skill per profession or delete stat on gear to balance things out definitively. There guys no more issue with tank/dps/healer/support we all do the same kind of damage no mather the build and we all can actualy pull our weights based on our ability sets.

I wouldn’t mind zerking behing the only stat set if running specific build in party didn’t become that much mendatory. Issue is the effectiveness gap between two build of a same class is so huge that its impossible to run anything else then the meta witheout getting finguer pointed as useless or noob regardless of how good you actualy are because the moment you don’t run the meta your actualy a reject. Where did anet lovely comment about ‘’you can be anything you want to be’’ gone to? Happens I started playing arch age of late and it seems you can actualy get up to 120 deferent class combination and all of them can actualy be very usefull in a party. Where did guild wars freedom to build trademark gone to eh? Choice of build and options been the trademark of this game for ages its anormal that the game limit you to the point you can no longuer play anything effective in a group but a single build. If I for exemple wanted to run a spirit weapon guardian effectively I should be able to do so same would go for condition enginers shortbow rangers blinding ashes ele and what not. Theres tons of possible build gimmick and this game and 99% of the available choice are bad just what is the guy who programmed this doing. If they actualy intended this game to be played monospec theyd have designed us like blizzard did world of warcraft and limited our build choice to a single one with predefined trait utility and weapon sets.

Its gone from play the build you want to go ahead and suck as any build you want.

Funny stuff is people will often bring in the argument that making all trait build viable force them to play how the others wants except all it does is allow people to actually have options of viable choice and allow some decent well needed variety in team (1 single viable build means you force people to play what you want or consider optimal).
If in a single instance a class can have 3 or 4 deferent build that can all perform a deferent duty effectively then we can indeed talk about class balance and variation of options.

maybe we should compare between gw 1 developement and guild wars 2 development

Gw1 transition from prophecy to faction
20 or more new maps
tons of new monsters
2 new class
tons of new skills

this took about 1 or 2 years

GW 2 over 2 years
Redesign of the game questing and lvling
Redesign of wardrobes
1 new healing skill
1 new map and 2 new dungeons
redesign of lion arch
constant new story arc

In the end on a developement timeline its prety much similar but they have shifted focus elsewhere then on class themselves.

Because scarlet briar = lvl 1 character with bad willpower check
Because player = lvl 80 character with great willpower check

its a simple mather of ‘’because im to powerfull for the machine to have an effect on me’’

rolled 20 on willpower check so not to change alignment from neutral good to chaotic evil on turning into a demon kitten