Play your way - John Peters on traits and attributes

[shawn]

Just how much experimentation do you need to decide on traits? I mean.. wow. Just.. read them. You input points in something that's going to causes a higher percentage of critical hits, and when you play that build you'll find... you'll do more critical hits.

Let's just take a look at the guardian zeal traits, because they happen to be the first ones on the wiki table:

• 10% of power is given as a bonus to healing.
• Your spirit weapon is not destroyed when commanded.
• You deal 10% more damage against burning foes.
• Smite conditions when health reaches 25%.
• Your damage with scepters is increased by 5%.
• Your damage with two handed weapons is increased by 5%.
• Spirit weapons do 10% more damage.

They all do exactly what they say they do. Personally I'd go for the 10% bonus to healing, the spirit weapon not destroyed on Command, and 10% more spirit weapon damage.
Easy!


And using the warrior examples on the blog:

• Gain adrenaline whenever killing an enemy.
• Reduced signet-recharge time.
• Movement skills break out of the Immobilize condition.
• Reduced burst-skill recharge time.
• Gain adrenaline when inflicting a critical hit with an axe skill.
• Increased movement speed while wielding a melee weapon.
• Reduced burst-skill adrenaline cost.
• Chance to rally whenever killing an enemy while under the effects of Vengeance.
• Improved critical chance for each full level of adrenaline.

For me; reduced burst skill cooldown, increased movement speed, and adrenaline on axe crit.
Again, easy!

[RD]

It's kind of funny how bent out of shape people are getting over this, like they're talking about charging you real world money for doing it.

Seriously, if it turns out to be 10 gold or something super tiny, we're gonna feel pretty silly.

[Lensor]

Just how much experimentation do you need to decide on traits? I mean.. wow. Just.. read them. You input points in something that's going to causes a higher percentage of critical hits, and when you play that build you'll find... you'll do more critical hits.

For me I guess "experimentation" is the wrong word. It is more the freedom of having a pool of builds for different situations ready at my fingertips. I would just like to be able to - at a push of a button - swap between Build X that I like to use in Dungeon A where there are loads of undead and Build Y which I like to use when fighting off a centaur invasion in DE B or whatever.

It does not have to be free (even though I prefer paying for unlocks over per swap). And it does not have to be available everywhere (even though I prefer area effects over specific NPCs). But I would be seriously bummed out if I had to do it manually every single time.

[shawn]

You're still thinking about the game in gw1 terms.. you shouldn't want to have a different build for different dungeons, because if the dungeons are designed properly there shouldn't be any advantage of using one build over another for any particular dungeon.

Although, truth be told, there probably will be. And that's exactly why you can't swap builds on the fly. Could you imagine? "Okay, this boss does such-and-such and causes burning, so swap to your burning negation set and spec frost." / "Okay, that boss is down, now everyone switch to boon extending skills and anything that increases lightning.."

These traits only seem to be slight increases of damage, or neat little effects that are a matter of personal preference.


But I'll admit, I just found that gwtools site about a half hour ago, haven't found anything terribly broken yet, but I'm still theorycrafting. Nemeon Lion linked it earlier, but I'll draw some more attention to it right now:


Hey!
You can create trait builds at this site ---> http://www.gw2tools.com/

[Lensor]

I know that GW1 build wars will not be as prominent at all in GW2, but I still do expect there to be areas full of, lets say, mobs resistent to critical strikes. Traits adding to criticals would thus be suboptimal there. Also, I am pretty sure ArenaNet never said that all builds would be of the exact same efficiancy in every possible situation, just that all the professions (in any combination or mix, as long as put together in a well-rounded team) would be able to complete all content.

And yes obviously being able to swap builds for every single encounter would be broken and also quite annoying. But that does not mean that it is a bad idea to be able to load builds back and forth with a push of a button. One can just limit where this is allowed to take place (enter the NPC in the blog post, even though I as said prefer having it as an area effect, like maybe major cities, your home instance and the future GH).

[RD]

Nemeon Lion linked it earlier, but I'll draw some more attention to it right now:

Hey!
You can create trait builds at this site ---> http://www.gw2tools.com/

AH! This is awesome!

Oh my god, there's a Warrior tactic that makes shouts heal.

Yeah, I'm playing War.

[Gorani]

A first glance at the Arena.net blog post and ... Huh? ... way too complicated.

I do not like the "refund points" in terms of gold. Seriously. We had them in GW1 (linked to XP) and they where stupid.
Paying once (like when unlocking another secondary in GW1) is fine, but paying every time I feel the need to respec is annoying.

[shawn]

I still do expect there to be areas full of, lets say, mobs resistent to critical strikes. Traits adding to criticals would thus be suboptimal there.

But that does not mean that it is a bad idea to be able to load builds back and forth with a push of a button. One can just limit where this is allowed to take place (enter the NPC in the blog post, even though I as said prefer having it as an area effect, like maybe major cities, your home instance and the future GH).

And I would be absolutely shocked if I came across any crit-resistant monsters that were not bosses. Some may have crit protection from skills, sure.. but I doubt that any would have it inherently built in. Typically monster abilities are focused on unique offensive properties, rather than defensive. Just remember how annoying it was to chase down enemies that flee from you in WoW or D2, or those mobs in WoW and GW1 that self heal to full with just one spell..

As to the trait swapper, I already thought of a workaround for experimentation. All you have to do is go into any pvp area and play around with your traits in the outpost there rather than using an external site. Once you've come up with something, have a chat with the npc (who could offer to load out your previously saved traits), plug it into your pve char, and away you go.

[Lensor]

That assumes that you can load builds in to your PvE char. Which seems unlikely with the information we have thus far.

[Gorani]

BTW, this is how the attribues will look on an Elementalist:

Attributes

Power — Each attribute point put into this attribute increases the attack statistic by one, which increases damage for all attacks. 1 trait point in Fire Magic increases Power by 10 points.

Expertise — Each attribute point put into this attribute improves the duration of all conditions inflicted by the character. 1 trait point in Fire Magic increases Expertise by 1 point.

Precision — Attribute points put into precision increase the chance of a critical hit for the character. Many of the conditional effects of a skill or trait trigger on a critical hit. 1 trait point in Air Magic increases Precision by 10 points.

Prowess — Attribute points put into Prowess improve the damage multiplier on critical strikes. 1 trait point in Air Magic increases Prowess by 1 point.

Toughness — Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. 1 trait point in Earth Magic increases Toughness by 10 points.

Malice — Each attribute point put into Malice improves the damage done by conditions like burning, poison, confusion, and bleeding. 1 trait point in Earth Magic increases Malice by 10 points.

Vitality — Each attribute point put into vitality increases the maximum health of the character by ten hitpoints. 1 trait point in Water Magic increases Vitality by 10 points.

Compassion — Each attribute point put into Compassion improves all outgoing heals that your character does, including self heals. 1 trait point in Water Magic increases Compassion by 10 points.

Concentration — Improves the duration of all boons applied by the character. 1 trait point in Arcane Power increases Concentration by 1 point.

Intelligence (Elementalist exclusive) — Reduces the recharge of the four elemental attunements. 1 trait point in Arcane Power increases Intelligence by 1 point.


So many variables ....