How to make xpac not core++ with little to no effort

[Eugchriss.2046]

Make it impossible to select the profession mechanic trait whenever an xpac trait is selected.

• No arcane for tempest, weaver, catalyst
• No discipline for berzerker, spellbreaker, bladesworn
• No beastmastery for druid, soulbeast, untammed
• No soulreaping for reaper, scourge, harbinger
• No virtue for dragon hunter, firebrand, willbender
• No trickery for daredevil, deadeye, specter
• No tools for scrapper, holosmith, mechanist
• No illusion for chronomancer, mirage, virtuoso
• No invocation for herald, renegade, vindicator

Obviously not all the specializations will be affected the same. Every xpac that is not heavily impacted by this change was probably designed with the idea of core++ and should be redesigned. Looking at Engineer, Revenant xpac specs mostly and honorable mention to warrior with bladesworn.

Your thoughts?

[Avatar.3568]

Make everything clunky?

[Eugchriss.2046]

You think it would be clunky because you are used to to having the advantages of core without playing core. 

[Crab Fear.8623]

No retribution for elite rev specs

[oscuro.9720]

At that point, why not just limit each class to 1 trait line?

[Sahne.6950]

At this point, why not just hand out sticks....

[Gotejjeken.1267]

My Druid doesn't use beastmastery? 

I actually read the OP like 3 times and still have no idea what the hell it is getting at.  You literally have to use a core traitline (two actually) with any specialization line.  

Cherry picking what you think is the line that defines the 'core' class is larp'ing at best.  

[wasss.1208]

Your title says "with little to no effort", but they would still have to put in balancing work. For example, you lock Tools on Engineer, to be core exclusive. Cool. No elite used it, because it is garbage. It will still be garbage, core picks it up every now and then, because of lack of alternatives. In short, your change needs an additional balance pass, to be worth anything. So they did had to put in some, or a lot of work, while making buildcrafting much worse, and rigid.

I would say, that instead of making a "core elite" traitline, they should focus on giving core lines strong inter-traitline synergies. Things, that would make a build strong, but only, of you pick 3 core lines, and you would lose something critical, if you pick up an elit spec. Look at the old bursty Hammer Guardian for example. Its high crit chance, damage, and boons came from three different lines, that let it run valkyrie amulett, to make it somewhat tankier. It was a niché build, but it was a nice alternative to the elit specs. Its playstyle was also unique on that profession, at that time, because none of the Guardian elit specs could replicate it, because it needed 3 core lines.

[Khalisto.5780]

We had a patch where one of rev traits would have like 50% effectivity when vindi traitline was equipped, i think that's the right direction. Not locking a full traitline

[Swagg.9236]

11 hours ago, Avatar.3568 said:

Make everything clunky?

Everything about GW2 is already outrageously clunky lol.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

You'd have to move any weapon traits out of said traitlines should this happen.

What this would do is allow Anet to really buff those core mechanic traitlines knowing that the Especs would be locked out of them. Tools for instance could buffed to the point that engis would actually take it. 

Unless other things changed in such a traitline rework, you'd see the warrior elite specs locked out of the banner role in PvE as they would not be able to access the banner trait, which might actually be a good thing as it would force Anet to reevaluate what each of them are supposed to accomplish.

But, to the OP, this wouldn't be no effort at all, it would actually require substantial work from Anet to make sure it is balanced properly in the end.

[Xyrony Shush.8457]

To be clear i don't like the idea at all and prefer core trait split balance depending on elite line equiped but if you would disable specific core traitlines for elites (and always the same for all elites)  it should be one of the defensive core traitlines, they cause always the biggest balance problems and provide too bunkery and low skill ceiling gameplay. That would mean you disable preferable Tactics for Warrior elites, Deathmagic for Necro elites, Inspiration for Mesmer elites, Inventions for Engi elites etc.

Or we just accept, that elites are the one and only step of vertical progression and don't mind that they provide something over core and that core is just a basis and not an own elite by itself. So we only need to balance the power lvl between elites and not between elites and core.

Also i think it is highly underestimated that losing a 3. core traitline to place an elite traitline with way less dmg or sustain traits instead (since they consume traits to etablish a different gameplay mechanic) is already a pretty big trade off. If you add higher skill cieling by higher mechanical complexity to elites you have already a second trade off.

Edited September 9, 2022 by ano nimo.3948

[Eugchriss.2046]

17 hours ago, Crab Fear.8623 said:

No retribution for elite rev specs

Retribution is to rev what acrobatics is to thief. 

[Eugchriss.2046]

10 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

My Druid doesn't use beastmastery? 

I actually read the OP like 3 times and still have no idea what the hell it is getting at.  You literally have to use a core traitline (two actually) with any specialization line.  

Cherry picking what you think is the line that defines the 'core' class is larp'ing at best.  

I am not cherry picking. Every trait line I mentioned enhance in some way or another the class mechanic. Why do think it s cherry picking? 

[Eugchriss.2046]

8 hours ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

We had a patch where one of rev traits would have like 50% effectivity when vindi traitline was equipped, i think that's the right direction. Not locking a full traitline

This would be the optimal thing to do but takes too much effort. Anet would have to revisit almost every single trait. Too much work, hence the "little to no effort". 

[Eugchriss.2046]

6 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

You'd have to move any weapon traits out of said traitlines should this happen.

What this would do is allow Anet to really buff those core mechanic traitlines knowing that the Especs would be locked out of them. Tools for instance could buffed to the point that engis would actually take it. 

Unless other things changed in such a traitline rework, you'd see the warrior elite specs locked out of the banner role in PvE as they would not be able to access the banner trait, which might actually be a good thing as it would force Anet to reevaluate what each of them are supposed to accomplish.

But, to the OP, this wouldn't be no effort at all, it would actually require substantial work from Anet to make sure it is balanced properly in the end.

I didn't go into detail but yeah you're right about banners and xpecs. This suggest that banner Trait has nothing to do in that trait line. It should be in tactics imo. Discipline was supposed to be about F1 and adrenalin management. 

[Eugchriss.2046]

9 hours ago, wasss.1208 said:

Your title says "with little to no effort", but they would still have to put in balancing work. For example, you lock Tools on Engineer, to be core exclusive. Cool. No elite used it, because it is garbage. It will still be garbage, core picks it up every now and then, because of lack of alternatives. In short, your change needs an additional balance pass, to be worth anything. So they did had to put in some, or a lot of work, while making buildcrafting much worse, and rigid.

That's true for rev too. That s why I wrote 

19 hours ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

Obviously not all the specializations will be affected the same. Every xpac that is not heavily impacted by this change was probably designed with the idea of core++ and should be redesigned. Looking at Engineer, Revenant xpac specs mostly and honorable mention to warrior with bladesworn.

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

23 minutes ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

I didn't go into detail but yeah you're right about banners and xpecs. This suggest that banner Trait has nothing to do in that trait line. It should be in tactics imo. Discipline was supposed to be about F1 and adrenalin management. 

I know, group support belongs in the group support traitline.

At the same time there is a LOT of QOL traits in Discipline that locking SpB and Berserker out of it would rather hamper them. But like I said, it would also open up an opportunity to reevaluate the especs for each profession and how they function knowing that there is one traitline to no longer have to balance around.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

42 minutes ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

I am not cherry picking. Every trait line I mentioned enhance in some way or another the class mechanic. Why do think it s cherry picking? 

 

Because BM for Ranger isn't really a traitline that majorly enhances anything besides soulbeast stats. 

I could make an Untamed build that uses Marks/NM/Untamed and still have a role with fervent force CD reduction and spirits.  

Basically, Ranger may be the worst example for this as effectiveness is spread across every traitline we have.  

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Because BM for Ranger isn't really a traitline that majorly enhances anything besides soulbeast stats. 

I could make an Untamed build that uses Marks/NM/Untamed and still have a role with fervent force CD reduction and spirits.  

Basically, Ranger may be the worst example for this as effectiveness is spread across every traitline we have.  

Pets and pet swapping are the profession mechanic, and BM is the traitline that augments that much like how Tools augments the tool belt for Engi. Whether you have found value from it is a moot point.

[Crab Fear.8623]

1 hour ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

Retribution is to rev what acrobatics is to thief. 

That's fine, but still e specs lose access to it.

[Bazsi.2734]

I'm sorry but this list is just terrible. Thief is unplayable without trickery, engi is perfectly valid without tools etc... the game would need a huge rebalance patch(and then some) to get to a balanced meta(as balanced as we have now). So the "little to no effort" part is just bunk.
And if we already have to put in work to achieve tradeoffs and better balance of e-specs, we might aswell do it in a better way.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

52 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Pets and pet swapping are the profession mechanic, and BM is the traitline that augments that much like how Tools augments the tool belt for Engi. Whether you have found value from it is a moot point.

 

No? That's extremely oversimplified and might as well be balancing off the wiki. 

For instance, pet swapping CD is one thing that's in BM but as far as augmenting pet swapping, other tratilines do this as well (see: Marksmanship in current PvP meta).  

Same thing with augmenting the pets themselves...yes, BM gives stats, but NM gives boon sharing which in many ways is far more important.  

I'm sure similar arguments apply to the other professions; thought I'd just add Ranger ones since that is what I main. 

Essentially locking a class out of a cherry picked traitline will do nothing to make the elite specs less reliant on Core, because they have always simply been enhancements to Core (or should be). 

In an ideal world, the elites are sidegrades if you will.  

Edited September 9, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[GuriGashi.5617]

I can see this being a good idea

[Sinmir.6504]

Wouldn't choosing a random trait line and removing it for Elite Specs just nerf some builds while leaving some untouched? My favourite profession is Engineer. Looking at metabattle, only the Hand Kiter Scrapper in Raids would be effected.

 

21 hours ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

 

• No discipline for berzerker, spellbreaker, bladesworn

 

You want to make Elite Spec Warriors lazy and undisciplined? Things would need to change.