Play your way - John Peters on traits and attributes

[Alaris]

Well... maxing a trait would be good to get the grandmaster minor trait, or to get more major traits for it. I wonder how viable a balanced build would be though...

[Gorani]

Yes, the trait calculator works like that. Maxing a trait line would also be desirable if there are three major traits you want to use.

I can only speak for the Elementalist so far, but I see a drawback on the Ele's attunement swapping. Filling one line up to the max will specialize you e.g towards lasting burning & high base damage, but once you swap, your other elements kind of lack a little bit of sweet extra stuff. Not sure if those drawbacks seem to be that obvious at other classes who have at least a weapon swap in combat.

With your 70 points, you can have two lines set at master's level and three at adept for a pretty balanced experience.

[Alaris]

Quick analysis:

At 80, you can specialize and max 2 and bring the 3rd at 2/6. This gives you 7 minors and 7 majors. You can easily get 7 minors and 7 majors with different point distributions, even more balanced ones.

Or you can balance with all except one at 3/6, the last one at 2/6. This gives you 9 minors and 5 majors. You can generally get more minors than majors if you want.

I don't see a pattern where the grandmaster minors would be better than others. Seems like balanced builds are not at a disadvantage.

[Gorani]

Seems like balanced builds are not at a disadvantage.

As you get one trait whether minor or major each 5 trait points, you will have a maximum of 14 traits at maximum level, no matter where you have put your points.

Balancing between all five trait lines as well as specializing can both have advantages if you chose the right skills on your skill bar: E.g. adding a Conjurer & Enchanted Evocations to a skill bar with no Conjures are two completely wasted traits. Just add Signet Mastery & Written in Stone and you can waste another 20 trait points and two major slots if you take no signets with you. If you fill your utility bar with Signet of Restoration, Signet or Fire, Signet of Earth, Conjure Flame & Conjure Earth, those traits might be well spent.

[Alaris]

You have a maximum of 9 minor traits, because once you fill in your firs 5 minors, you need to get a major in order to access every 2nd minor.

You make a good point about wasted points though, I think it's terrible that you can have wasted points whenever you change build.

[Nemeon Lion]

You have a maximum of 9 minor traits, because once you fill in your firs 5 minors, you need to get a major in order to access every 2nd minor.

You make a good point about wasted points though, I think it's terrible that you can have wasted points whenever you change build.

You're wrong.

Your traits are not wasted. You can freely change Major Traits for free. You brought conjures with you this fight but feel like not using them? No problem, just change the major conjure traits for something more general.

Sure, you might not be able to fully specialize in signets now since they may be from other trait lines, but the points you already invested have not gone to waste, since you always get the benefits from the Major traits and each trait point is still powering you up.

People are freaking out. Nothing to see here, move along.

[Egg Shennn]

When the game comes out - will you lend me your (in-game) crystall ball that let's you know in advance how you feel with this build or that?

I admit my psychic abilities are limited - I often need to actually TRY something before I know if I feel OK with it or not.

Descriptions are often misleading. Sometimes because the Devs are stupid, sometimes because the player is stupid, sometimes because no two people think exactly alike. In any case, it often is necessary to adapt a build just to see what is most comfortable.

Also, because I'm sure this will come up, I don't think saying "There are websites telling you what build is the best for X" is a suitable answer. Anything I need a third party for is a fault of the system(game).
Besides, just because others think that build Y is the best for X doesn't mean I agree. Even so I might want to try different builds.

I would hazard to guess I'm one of the people who has experimented more than most with build variety, it's what I loved so much in GW1. That's fine if you're good at it, but if you aren't, like so many players we've all run into in pugs, you end up with players with the most horrible builds imaginable. Which is why I said, to that taking time to actually learn a build may help the players that would be randomly throwing builds together everytime they could and never have a clue how any of them may work.

The reality is, to truly experience whether a build to it's fullest, you'll need to be near max level (because of trait points and being able to access the max benefits). If we as players, upon getting to those high levels, can't afford a small fee to respec, then we've played incredibly poorly. By those high levels, a small fee should be of no consequence to us.

It doesn't mean I like the idea, because I prefer the open system of GW1, I love crafting builds.

[Alaris]

You're wrong. (points out a minor flaw in the argument)

Pointing out a minor flaw doesn't make me wrong. In fact, my point is still valid because if I spec for fire for example, and then I join a dungeon as water, then I pretty much have to respec otherwise I have a LOT of wasted trait points, minor AND major.

Yes, the current system allows for free respec moreso than most MMOs, and the cost will likely be small and hence not really worth mentioning. Those would be good counter-arguments. BUT, I am still right on the argument I made, which was that in many cases, you would need to pay the respec fee if you want to have traits that work well with your changed build.

In practice, that means that for a player like me who loves to change build regularly (for many good reasons), I have to either accept wasted trait points, adopt a general-purpose trait distribution (that would be sub-standard in many cases), or pay the respec fee and re-assign the points each time.

[Nemeon Lion]

Pointing out a minor flaw doesn't make me wrong. In fact, my point is still valid because if I spec for fire for example, and then I join a dungeon as water, then I pretty much have to respec otherwise I have a LOT of wasted trait points, minor AND major.

Alaris.

Stop.

Go read what every minor and major trait and what each trait point in every trait line does before spouting nonsense. I'll break down the work for you.

They are not specialized things. The major traits in fire magic? They affect your overall offensive style. Not your spells while you're in fire attunement. Yes, there are some major traits that specialize an ability here and there, but you always have the choice to bring general Major traits that are always usefull all the time. Like the major trait that increases your dmg when you're inside allied fire fields (that means engineer/ele firewall, warriors' longbow adren skill, you name it). You also have support traits in fire magic, like the one that gives Might to allies when you change to fire attun.

Your "minor" flaw as you call it, is that you think that investing in Fire Magic means only fire magic will be powered up. You're wrong. You invest in Fire Magic if you want a more offense role, be it with whatever attunement you're using.

In fact, you're not even supposed to play water in groups. As an elementalist, you're supposed to cycle constantly between attunements all the time. It's the design of the class! Having trait lines that forced you to specialize in a single attunement would be completely counter-productive.

Traits are not there to pidgeon-hole you into playing only a handfull of specific skills. They are there to augment your favourite playstyle. And you can prove this by actually reading what every minor and major trait is. 80% of them are not bound to any specific skill or attunement.

[Sagelikeone]

And here is the short video summary.