Guild Wars 2

Roe.3679:

Guardians are not broken. Guardians are among the most balanced classes of any MMO I’ve ever played. The deva should be proud of what they’ve done with them and move to make every class more like them.

So essentially guardian receives no updates, no changes, nada.

All the while other classes go through “amazing” transformations to try and bring then closer to guardian… Bland with a few top meta builds (that have been there since beta) for each game mode.

Fantastic~ Guardians are “in a good place.”

Dunno whether it was mentioned or not..
But dungeon runes are still soulbound for whatever crazy reason.

Randulf.7614:

This has been discussed at length in the main wardrobe thread. Not sure why a new thread was needed, but if you are concerned, I’d post there since that is the feedback thread that matter.

For the record, whilst I understand the frustration, I personally still prefer the wardrobe as it is than what we had before.

I didn’t know about this till today.
Another disappoint….

Here’s another interesting take.

How does this affect WvW? Megaservers aren’t implemented on them but with there essentially being “one server” now, what’s to keep players from moving to a higher tier server?
For those that play out both PvE/WvW, it’s much more reasonable to move up for a “better” WvW experience. Especially, if you’re on a low tier server that doesn’t do to well in WvW.
What does it do? It provides incentive to purchase GEMS (or sink gold) to move to a better WvW server.
This would severely skew the WvW in favor of high population servers and as they continue to “improve” upon the megaservers…
This will only become more apparent…

Well there’s my doom prophecy for today.

Op, you’re going to attract sharks.

Peace op, see ya around at the “next big whoop” anet gives us.

Definitely more suited towards players with high level characters and “lots of gold” as to bypass leveling through crafting w/boosters.

I find the only way I can even remotely enjoy leveling now is through eotm… Having to ride the exp/karma train….
Not very exciting at all…

And don’t people understand what rhetoric is here???
When did things get so personal…

Well they stuck a dagger in the trait system with the free traits change and no cost being the only good things coming out of it.

It really cut down on my desire to make new builds with any of the new traits or even play any of my low-leveled characters.

Chokolata.1870:

As the title says. I am sick and tired of playing against no brain ultra safe stealth and teleport spammers. It is bunker up or die. I know that the condition/sustain metagame is rampant at the moment, but there is a reason for that.

Namely, the THIEF counters every single glass cannon build. To a lesser extent the mesmer as well. This led to bunker conditions which led to overbuffing of warriors. The thief is toxic and backstabbing, stealth spamming and heartseeker is totally dumb to play against.

Ty for reading

Let put the bold in perspective.

YOU ARE MADE OF GLASS! How are you not going to be destroyed by a thief or rather any other competent player for that matter?

If you know how thieves play wouldn’t it be a good idea to come up with some of stratagem to out do them?

Toryne.9120:

Honestly I have been rolling this build in sPvP and it is SO much fun to use, its a nice Bunker style build that is lovely for dealing with the condition meta, its not a OMG SO MUCH DAMAGE Build sure, but honestly If you go into this build slowly sticking to your teammates running support style you’ll be surprised.

I find that this works best in team fights, especially when you aren’t being focused. I just run into my allies drop HG to halt any CC spammers, buff up, switch to GS and go to town.

Because devs don’t care about underwater.

@those comparing Gw2 trait gathering to Gw1 skill capturing

Theses two systems are vastly different from each other. I don’t even understand how people can even compare the acquisition methods….

Get a guardian that carries Hallowed Ground.

It’s a skill that works as a fire field and increases boon duration for those standing in it by 20%.

I’ve tried something else.
80% BD + Hallowed Ground

I sacrificed a lot less than the previous build. It becomes perfect for max duration might stacking. Do mind that this is a primarily WvW build. I don’t know whether it could work so well in other game modes. In sPvP at the most you can get is about 70% BD.
edit: Made this a couple days before the builder was updated so sigils aren’t right

dancingmonkey.4902:

foste.3098:

now i feel like i have to swap alot of it for more zerker stuff to make up the loss of damage with higher precision.

As I see it, this is exactly as it is intended. You can either build for all out direct damage, all out condition damage, mediocre damage with tankiness, mediocre condition damage with tankiness, support/healing, or a combination of any of those. You no longer get to do the massive damage without investing fully in it. Working as intended.

So there’s no more hybridization. Zerker or get out.

Build diversity.

Guardians need their perma-retal builds back.

Wow…
I believe the trait changes are horrible as well, but yet people are trying to go with this idea that “it was a good thing.”
Anet initially wanted player to “play how they want” but now they swiftly are heading into a direction that favors group content, as in they are overdoing it.

A poster earlier said they started a new toon but leveled by playing with their spouse and their guildmates. Some people can’t play being grouped up all the time, especially in the open world. So is this game not for them anymore? Because it seems like the trait system flip is largely against them.

Mobs being easier is terrible because of the trait system was a bad idea. Many players have called for more challenging mob AI but now they are no more fragile than glass.

I get people are trying to be overly optimistic but they are also talking as if their are no faults to the system or the decision to change. They rather just say “well sorry the game changed and it ain’t for you anymore.” Just how the hell is that even acceptable?

Dunno whether this has been tried or not before…
But I’ve been testing out this guardian might/support build. I pretty much just thought up about 30 mins or so ago. This condition meta is crazy so I might have to get a little loco too.

Plays out very nice:

0/4/0/4/6
Radiance – Basically use virtue of justice whenever I can. It will additionally remove a boon and blind nearby foes.

Valor – Roll heals, Aegis heals and 2h mastery for having empower on demand.

Virtues – MofC for both Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames. Cheap heal and tri-condition removal. Lower CD on virtue of courage gives me better access to the aegis heal.

Healing power is essential here. With both cleric’s gear and water runes I build up a decent amount of it for all the ways I have to recover damage for my allies and I.

Contemplation of Purity is the “oh crap” utility on the bar. Hallowed Ground works well for stability stomping and you can switch to staff afterwards and empower with 70% boon duration (HG provides an additional 20%). Purging Flames is an amazing ability! Not only does it take out 3 conditions it reduces incoming condition’s duration by 33%.

Sigils on the GS are sigil of battle and sigil of purity. Battle is on the GS because usually after empower, you’d switch to GS for additional might. Sigil of purity can proc easy due to the nature of the gs.
For the staff I slotted sigil of water and sigil of renewal. This allows me to switch out to staff in emergency situations where either I’m dying or my allies are dying . Sigil of water can easily proc hitting up to 5 targets.

It’s a relatively simple build for dealing with the condition meta and shouldn’t be all that difficult to utilize effectively.

Any constructive criticism is appreciated.~

I feel ya man…
I recently started PvPing again with my pow/pre/fero guardian and I just hate when an engy and necro have to show up together.
I basically just lie on the ground and give them the green flag to melt me with conditions…
I’m constantly having to look down at the UI to see what conditions are on me to know whether I can still kill them or give up fighting.
Usually if I have all 4 damaging conditions my goose is cooked…

I even have to change the way I play some.
I might go find a place or corner to hide if I have stacks of torment…
If I have confusion I’ll smash the ESC to cancel actions or turn from my opponent so I don’t kill myself in 2-3 swings…

It’s just nuts….

All I can say is that I’m glad at least one of my lowbies got grandfathered in…

I will not be making any new characters under the current system….

skoezi.9472:

Seras.5702:

Victory.2879:

Lvling without traits isn’t fun.

Agreed. That’s what I meant about the “trait situation.” I hate that Anet feels the trait progression was too advanced for apparently stupid players and had to push everything back 20 levels. I lost access to my GM traits on my most recent alt. And my buddy who’s new to the game lost access to ALL of his traits for another half dozen levels. So much for him getting the hang of experimenting with traits.

I know that you are right about that, but when megaserver is over the whole game, you can do everything with more players, so more players, less hard to do.
So without traids wouldn’t be that bad.

So what now, zerg everything?
Is zerging all content the solution anet has given us?

It seems there was some miscommunication here…

I believe they intended it to be one piece but due to how the text was phrased, people assumed it was a whole set.

They really have to double check these things…

Nerelith.7360:

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Lothirieth.3408:

Have you all seen this?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I can’t believe what they’ve locked traits behind during the whole leveling process.

Multiple story modes, multiple events around the world, multiple world events (some that have no schedule such as the fire shaman and dredge commissar) all the temples and the best:

Complete the Obsidian Sanctum jumping puzzle.

You have got to be kitten kidding me ANet devs.

I am not a casual player or a solo player but I find that list terrible. Personal character progression should NOT be locked behind unsoloable things!

And seriously: how on earth are we supposed to know when these events are up considering the megaservers and the removal of API?? Most maps I’ve been mapping into in Orr have had all temples and Arah open. How am I supposed to know my server is making a Balthazar attempt when I’m no longer being put on maps with primarily my server?

I’m sorry that this is worded so strongly, but this is just an absolute mess and I honestly can’t believe how you thought this would be good for the majority of your players. Yes, people enjoyed skill hunting in GW1 but it could all be done solo. That’s the type of system you should have emulated and put in place: personal skill challenges that could be done whenever the player chose to do so.

I suppose maybe this is yet another push for players to use up their gold in order to try to make them buy gems and convert to gold and completely drain them of skill points.

What is wrong with simply doing the events you feel like doing because it is things you enjoy doing anyway? And paying Gold + skill points for the things you don’t?

PS: Unless you are a completionist as I am, do you need EVERY Trait? My understanding is, that many people look up a Build, and stick with that, maybe there are some options..but Mostly stick to the same Build , so 80 % of their game play can be summed up to a few traits, not ALL traits.

Most people also do either " Look at ALL the events you need to do to get ALL the traits OMG this is HORRIBLE!" or do " Look at How expensive this is if you buy ALL these traits with Gold + Skillpoints …This is HORRIBLE!"

As I see it, Most people will NOT take EVERY trait. Most people will do SOME events because it’s doing things they enjoy anyway, or consider worth the effort for the trait they get, and ,… Most people will use cash + Skillpoints to buy those traits they feel they want..but don’t feel like doing the content to unlock.

It’s only when you go to ALL EXTREMES that it seems Horrible. But come on…How many people will take ALL TRAITS and either ONLY Pay for ALL of them with cash…. One extreme, or… ONLY Unlock ALL traits with content…. the other???

It’s something people complain about quite often.
There’s aren’t enough trait options without having to jump through some flaming hoop, drenched in oil, while dangling on a tightrope over a pool of piranhas.

Then there’s build diversity. Of course people can dump gold on the npcs to get all the traits. Then you have those that don’t have the money to do it, in particular new players. More than likely they’ll look up the “best for xxx build” and only scrap those traits up needed and stick to their environment. That’s it. I’m not sure what anet was aiming for here.
Maybe by gating the traits behind tedious, arduous content, players would some how want to experiment…? I’m not seeing how this works out….

Nerelith.7360:

Kallandra.2610:

I have a level 22 character, who i’d unlocked the first tier of traits using a manual. I’d spent at least 5 traits. Now it’s greyed out and says it won’t unlock till level 30. So I’ve lost everything that was there.

I’m sure I read somewhere that characters who had unlocked traits would not be affected, and only new characters would have to wait till they reached level 30?

You read wrong. ALL the traits are unlocked for old players created before the patch. BUT all that means is, you do not have to pay for the traits at the Traits vendor. ALL have to wait til level 30 to accrue trait points.

The difference is, that OLD players will have immediate access to traits once they start accruing trait points… NEW characters need to pay for the manuals.

Not necessarily. In order to get all your traits unlocked prior to the patch you had to had been at least lv 60 and already used all 3 trait books. If you didn’t, you only unlock up to the tier you had pre-update.

An example would be that I had a lv 40 after the patch. I unlocked the master tier before the patch so I get all of those traits post update due to being grandfathered in. Yet when I hit 60 post-update I won’t unlock the GM tier, I’ll only be unlock master tier which I already had pre-update. So I’ll have to trudge through 20 level with no access to master traits until 60. To add further to the burn, Gm doesn’t unlock till 80. Since I didn’t reach 60 to unlock GM traits before the update hit I have to either pay or travel all over the universe to unlock traits. Traits I can’t even use till level 80…
As you can see…this is a pretty big setback and sorta reduces the incentive to even play alts under this new trait system.

Although, it’s worse for newer players that came in just before the update as they are still learning the game or may have become used to the older system only to have it suddenly flip and find themselves very much setback.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

30 levels with no traits after unlocking all of your weapon skills by level 2? LOL, please…What were these people thinking? (Protip: Buy level 20 scrolls).

Lol when will those be in the gem shop…

Let me help you out here!
I might actually get back into it again.
It was the only activity I really liked!

I have 2 alts under level 30. With the new trait system I’ve nearly lost all motivation to even play them…
Makes me feel worse all those folks who bought the discounted character slots only to have their characters scaled back into nothingness.

I already had to scrap the gear of 6 of my 7 lv 80s because of the ferocity changes, so I only have my alts that are mediocrely gear with 2 being virtually unplayable…

I might just give up at this point….

Awbee.8405:

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Kalavier.1097:

The game isn’t that hard. If you need help, ASK. if you are in a guild, ask for help. Instead of complaining about it being too hard, look at what you are fighting (Is it a champ? a group event?) and ask for help to take it out in guild or map chat.

If you are having a hard time but not asking for help or advice, you are ruining the game for yourself, it is an MMO, not a single player game.

You say you aren’t ragequitting, but you are quitting. You are giving up without a try. Instead of taking a breath, asking for help, you delete everything.

“calmquitting”? Maybe. But you are still letting a bit of trouble and adversity tear you apart. I hope you don’t treat real life issues the same way.

It’s not about hard or easy, it’s about a feeling of progression, of reward, and it’s about boredom. If you could auto-attack to max level with ease, without ever gaining any additional skill, weapon abilities or traits, would you enjoy that? Why not? It’s easy!

While leveling, we used to have access to a wide variety of playstyles, letting us get to know the profession and the ways it can be played, letting us try out different ways in how we can kill mobs, and how we can make the gameplay more interesting for us. Do I want to hit harder with my axe, or do I want to heal myself each time I hit with my sword? That’s interesting.

This has been taken away, or crassly postponed. Why? There is absolutely no remotely good explanation for this.

That chinese release man…

I knew this trait system was a bust…

Why couldn’t they design Na/Eu versions separate from the Chinese release?

Oh that’s right not even the Chinese player would stand that mess….So they had to make sure we all drown too.

dancingmonkey.4902:

So? If you want to maximize damage, you have to trade off all of your survivability. If you want maximum survivability, you have to sacrifice all of your damage.

Personally, I have no problem with the duration of buffs that I can comfortably reach. And I am saying that as a player who mains one of the professions you listed. I have spent all day testing the various builds, and I have no complaints with my buffs duration.

Awesome. Hopefully more will understand that unless you gut yourself 100% (or anything close) isn’t coming back.
On the other hand I’m going to test a few of these builds for fun and maybe work them over time to become batter.

dancingmonkey.4902:

fadeaway.2807:

The problem isn’t that you cannot get boon duration up high anymore. The problem is the methods for doing it leave you totally kitten.

It is not like it is some big surprise. You have to give in one area to take in another. Thee were a great many threads that were full of posters who apparently felt the duration that players were stacking boons were too high.

Exactly and in order to get even close you get dealt a pretty severe trade off. :s

But you gotta work with what you’re given…

fadeaway.2807:

The problem isn’t that you cannot get boon duration up high anymore. The problem is the methods for doing it leave you totally kitten.

I wouldn’t recommend giver’s trinkets or doubloons. They have horrible itemisation. You’d be totally gimping yourself just to get more boon duration.

I’d stick to your traitline + food. That’s the best bang for your buck by far.

Well before patch people primarily used the rune+food+trait combo to max out and now people have to rely on just food and traits which is at the most 50% BD. It’s not feasible (other than I’ve shown) to raise BD any other way.

For those that still want to do it, I’ve shown how you can get there. :s

At least warrior and engy look worth trying for WvW, imo.

I’ve taken a look at our “boon duration” situation.
High BD after patch
It’s still obtainable…but you have to give up quite a bit. Hope this helps.

I’ve been thinking about it but the fact is in order to obtain high boon duration again you gotta take some losses…

High BD after Patch

So I was kinda down about the boon duration nerf and I decided to just start throwing builds together. I didn’t really try so, none of theses are optimized or likely even viable but I wanted to at least show folks thinking outside of the box can work. The build editor isn’t updated yet so some of the results may be skewed. I’ll include each of the sources of BD and total BD. For the ones I came up with I could get between 89-99% BD depending on the rune set used.

99% BD guard
Virtues 30% + Full Giver’s Trinkets 5% + Plat Doubloon 24% + Rune of Water (updtd) 20% + Choco Omnom Cream 20% = 99% BD

99% BD mesmer
Chaos 30% + Full Giver’s Trinkets 5% + Plat Doubloon 24% + Rune of Altruism (updtd) 10% + Choco Omnom Cream 20% + Signet of Midnight 10% = 99% BD
(You can take out Signet of Midnight if 89% is alright)

89% BD engineer
Alchemy 30% + Full Giver’s Trinkets 5% + Plat Doubloon 24% + Rune of Altruism (updtd) 10% + Choco Omnom Cream 20% = 89% BD

89% BD wammo
Tactics 30% + Full Giver’s Trinkets 5% + Plat Doubloon 24% + Rune of the Monk (updtd) 15% + Choco Omnom Cream 20% = 94% BD

High BD is obtainable but you see the setup is nearly the same across each one so some (a lot) sacrifice has to be made to get this high. I neglected to flesh out engineer and warrior because it looks like you can customize them several different ways.

So what do you guys think?

imo, I think things aren’t so bad in the shadow of the boon duration nerf. There are some things that came be worked out.

Guess boon duration nerf wasn’t enough for these guys…
Just wow…

I know this has been talked about in the past but it has fallen out of discussion. So just when will these two weapons get symbols?
I would include spear and trident too, but not sure about how that would work in a 3D environment and I’m certain underwater has been abandoned altogether.

Spiuk.8421:

I’d love to see a Guild Wars sequel.

Ha, I see what you did there.

Without WvW?
I would have burned out the PvE and left this game already.

Adahilia.3678:

blakdoxa.7520:

A few of you are in the line of thinking “since I have my lv 80, that I use for WvW already, I’m not affected at all.”
There are a lot of people who would rather not waste their time bumbling through PvE. WvW was another option that Anet gave us for people that wanted an alternative to all out PvE. Now anyone below level 30 is shunted because they have no traits as opposed to before when you could have at least 2 major traits by 30.
Even more dirt in the face is that from 30 and up you only gain a “point” every 6 levels.

Try to open up your perspective. I understand that you aren’t “viable” till level 80, but for the many that can’t stomach PvE, including new players, this is really a setback.

Uplevels were always shunted in world. Why? Simply put.. RALLYBOTS EVERY WHERE. Personally I hate pve, but I’m not gonna put that extra burden on my group just cause I want to try a new toon. I can take myself to EoTM, doesn’t much matter there if I’m upleveled or not most days. I still get fights, tons of badges and karma for my new gear.

So you are downplaying the issue and how it affects you simply because of a different mechanic of the game, rally. Anyone can be a rallybot no matter what level they are.
I don’t like rallying in WvW either. I’d rather we all be sent straight to defeated state so people just WP instead. But it’s here to stay for the duration in WvW.

I don’t understand how it’s relevant in this thread about how the new trait system cripples up-levels compared to the old system, to the point of not even carrying them in till lv 60 (at least two traitlines).

With the new trait changes, we need this more than ever in WvW.

Being an up-level just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Since folks didn’t seem like they understood what I was getting at… Revised the OP.

A few of you are in the line of thinking “since I have my lv 80, that I use for WvW already, I’m not affected at all.”
There are a lot of people who would rather not waste their time bumbling through PvE. WvW was another option that Anet gave us for people that wanted an alternative to all out PvE. Now anyone below level 30 is shunted because they have no traits as opposed to before when you could have at least 2 major traits by 30.
Even more dirt in the face is that from 30 and up you only gain a “point” every 6 levels.

Try to open up your perspective. I understand that you aren’t “viable” till level 80, but for the many that can’t stomach PvE, including new players, this is really a setback.

Really good post man! Props.

Poor implementation, GG anet.

Weylin.6478:

I know a lot of people are upset with some of the changes, but try and understand the reasons from the developer point of view and allow for some things to be readjusted as necessary.

some of the changes that people aren’t liking will possibly be further tweaked with hotfixes, just give it time.

The best you all can do is provide calm and detailed feedback like some have already been doing. It is possible that they had overlooked some things and all of you will do a better job at finding the issues than a small team would be able to.

I’m sorry. It’s not the devs PoV that matters.

It’s NCSoft’s PoV. The “just business” PoV.

Whoa need to bump this back up so people see this….this…Hell I don’t even know….

@Roe It will become pretty noticeable with all the bodies lying on the ground when a zerg hits. You’ll definitely be able to pick out the weaker uplevels particularly ones for whatever classes you play.

@Jayden Ennok I think you’re in the wrong thread…

@arKRazor Wazzzup Halfpint!!

@Aggrostemma Seems more like anet want’s to draw people away from WvW… New players probably won’t even come unless their 80. Those with decent WxP are less incentivized to bringing any uplevel alts due to the trait changes.

NCS should have expedited their acquisition of UE4 for GW2…. We would have to deal with the plethora of issues we have now….

Smooth Penguin.5294:

blakdoxa.7520:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

blakdoxa.7520:

Anyone notice how this screws underlevels in WvW?
It’s basically making WvW an “endgame only” thing…

You shouldn’t be actively WvWing for your server if you’re an Uplevel. That just hurts your team’s efforts to win. You should consider leveling up, and mastering the new trait lines so that you can play efficiently.

Yeah and anet says play the way you want…
Personally I hate the PvE in this game with non-fract dungeons being really the only thing I actually want to do. Other than that I can’t stomach the DEs (which have been abandoned/nerfed), running the personal story more than once per race is insanity, crafting the same discipline that you’ve mastered on another toon is both costly and tedious, and mapping the same scenery over and over again is pretty crazy too.

WvW (and to a lesser extent PvP) and dungeoneering are the only things I like at this point.
Before you could have your traits from level 11 and up and you could at least steadily progress each level with the stats and eventually a minor and major trait.

Now it starts at level 30… and for any characters I have under 30, I have no traits. No extra stats. It is solely gear-dependant (“game not about gear” lol). Even then, you only gain stats every 5 levels. At least before it didn’t hurt as much to not be 80, fully spec, geared to the teeth and stocked on food buffs. Now it’s extremely detrimental to carry any sort of uplevel into WvW, especially those without traits.

WvW players get shafted again.

I still don’t see how the new trait system hurts your WvWing at all. From what I can tell, it’s your lv 30 characters fighting fully geared lv 80s is what’s actually hurting you.

At least with this system, there’s a sense of progression. The higher level you get, the more viable your character will be in WvW.

Before:
Traits started at lv 11 and by lv 30 you’d have at least 2 major traits. It helped to have 2 minors and 2 majors (or whatever combo) early on.

After:
Traits start at level 30 and you only fill one minor slot.

Before you’d have more stats and more traits. And who is it that determines how I feel about progression???
You?
Anet?
I certainly felt fine having 4 traits by level 30. I always felt a little closer to fully realizing my build even if it was step by step, level 11 to 80. Now there’s just this empty space where nothing is gained.

“At least with this system, there’s a sense of progression. The higher level you get, the more viable your character will be in WvW.”

That straight from you was what I already felt under the previous system. I don’t feel progression anymore between the levels. Just this empty, hollow space I have to trudge through to get the next point. I don’t understand making progression slower.
As this system is now my character only gets more “viable” at 30, 35, 40, kitten, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, and 80. So what about those in-between levels? What are they there for now?

New Revision
To all WvW-ers new and old, I know quite a few of you completely loathe PvE. Personally, I don’t like PvE in Guild Wars 2 besides an occasional dungeon and doing a few events with my guild. WvW was the alternative to “all-out” PvE Anet offered us where players can jump right into from lv 1. Before the features update, “up-levels” (players under 80 in WvW) weren’t in as bad of a spot as they are now. They had a few trait points to help them along in WvW, starting from level 11. After the update, the new trait system pushed back earning trait points to level 30 from level 11. A player now earns a trait point every 6 levels. This severely crippled up-leveled players in WvW and left any up-levels below lv 30 with any traits. Now it is pretty pointless to continue leveling an up-level in WvW with traits set so far back and it propagates the idea that WvW is “endgame-only” and any up-levels aren’t welcome.

Keynotes

Under the old system you would hit lv 30 and could have at least 2 major traits to help you out in WvW. To reach “at least two major traits” in the new system you have to reach level 48. You don’t reach the same effectiveness for at least 18 levels when you’d have at least another major trait by that time under the old system.###

Factor in that this makes gear more relevant for those with alts. Before, many players didn’t waste time trying to obtain their stat combos before lv 80, as they had trait points to provide a sort of cushion for whatever stats they needed. +

This update creates three issues:
1) Under lv 30 characters are solely gear dependant as they can no longer rely on the bonuses from traits, till lv 30. This affects players in both PvE and WvW. It’s a way of trying to force the importance (false) gear before lv 30. In other words, a gear check for PvE/WvW. +

2) Once you hit 30 you get your first “point” (the equiv. of 5 in the previous system) and every 6 levels you get another point. The new system fleshes out like this:
30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66, 72, 78, 80
1 point 30 to 60
2 point 66 to 80
A player’s overall effectiveness is reduced by a lot:
Old system at lv 60: 50 trait points (10 trait points under new system)
New System at lv 60: 6 trait points
The new system actually cripples you, though the effect is reduced the closer you get to 80. ###

3)For those that got grandfathered into the new system this doesn’t really affect you much unless you want to pick up one of the new traits (as if any would).
The updated trait system introduced a new way of obtaining traits….only in PvE. So what does that mean for new players? For those with interests only in WvW, they will be forced to do the personal story or PvE, in general in order to obtain the traits they need for whatever build they want for WvW.
I don’t see how it’s right to drag players into undesirable content, they have no interest in whatsoever for the sake of a trait.

It was already an uphill battle being an up-level in WvW with an incomplete build. But as an alternative to “all-out” PvE, it was definitely better to weather the storm and stick with WvW. As of now, it’s pretty much a battle lost for those under 30 and the battle is even more vicious for those between lv 30-80….