[suggestion] A Fourth Traitline

[Vanilla Vamp.2607]

The concept I had was a non profession specific traitline that unlocks in tandem with the other three. My idea was to give a vector for consolidating the typically unused or begrudgingly taken traits and a few skills such as the reduced falling damage, increased movement speed, and weapon master effects. I was going based on the idea that the effects of these traits/skills are not things that Anet wants to make baseline, and would rather have players make a choice on some of the effects provided. The focus is mostly on the major traits, which are separated into the categories of combat, movement, and utility, and the minor traits were more spur of the moment ideas that could cause more problems than they solve.

Section one: Combat, unlocked at level 21

Minor trait: weapon proficiency

Gain a bonus based on the weapon you are currently holding.Pros: allows for more active play and better definition of a profession’s use of a weapon that might be lost with the weapon master traits going away. With all weapons gaining a unique effect, there would be another avenue for balance and changes to over or under tuned weapon sets.Cons: It could be labor intensive to devise a buff for every weapon currently in game for each profession and any new weapon that a class is given with elite specs. There is also the issues of adding more complexity to otherwise simple play styles and the potential for massive changes in inter and intra class balance.

Major traits: Lore keeper, lightbringer, warmaster

Lore keeper: Reduce weapon cooldowns by 20%Pros: This trait would cover the main effect of the weapon master traits and provide that option as a utility effect for all weapons on all classes. It might be easier to balance weapons if there is not trait directly associated with them and only them.Cons: Weapons that were not designed with cooldown reduction in mind now have access to this effect. Thief weapon skills don’t have innate cooldowns, and this trait would not work for them unless it increases passive resource generation by an equivalent amount.

Lightbringer: Increase physical damage from weapons by 10%. Increase base condition duration on weapon skills by 10%.Pros: A hybrid choice for those that want more power without worrying about cooldowns.Cons: It may not stack up to reduced cooldowns, or could eclipse that trait entirely based on condition effects.

Warmaster: Reduce incoming physical and condition damage by 15%Pros: This trait provides an option for more direct defense and could provide some degree of benefit to players that prefer the tankier playstyle.Cons: Another layer of complexity to damage calculations. This effect could also be abused if it turns out too strong by power based builds to further their life without sacrificing much defense.

Section two: Movement, unlocked at level 45

Minor trait: Mobile Combatant

Halves the in combat movement speed reductionPros: faster paced and more mobile combat.Cons: mobility creep becomes far worse. This would undoubtedly be a huge issue in WvW and sPvP, but it was more of a filler concept that would easily be scrapped.

Major traits: Fleet of foot, feather fall, scout’s swiftness

Fleet of foot: Increase movement speed by 25%Pros: clears up the other traits and skills that have this effect.Cons: Mobility creep and this trait is less useful in PvE where mounts are available.

Feather fall: Reduce falling damage by 50%. Create an AoE effect upon taking falling damage.Pros: same as above, it allows for easier traiting into this effect that only has situational use.Cons: Potentially some problems in WvW perhaps.

Scout’s swiftness: strafing and backpedaling use the same speed as forward movement.Pros: Freer character movement.Cons: If it is allowed in combat the effect could be devastating on ranged classes that now have much more freedom to kite.

Section three: Utility, unlocked at level 71

Minor Trait: Medic’s aid

Revive allies with 10% more healthPros: better incentive to reviveCons: comebacks could be easier, making some fights more frustrating in PvP content.

Major traits: Resurrection, intervention, stand united

Resurrection: increase revive speed by 10%. Gain a bonus when you begin reviving an ally.Pros: frees up some of the less useful revive traits and brings them together.Cons: More potential for reviving players in situations that could have otherwise resulted in a wipe. Challenging situations less challenging.

Intervention: Revive affects all downed/defeated allies in a small radius.Pros: situationally useful for large group content or when several players are defeated close together.Cons: generally less useful, bot potentially harder to balance when in group situations.

Stand United: Increase revive speed by .5% for every ressurrectorPros: Groups can coordinate to bring allies back into the fray quicklyCons: least useful for solo players. With multiple allies taking this trait it could lead to issues with mass revival.

I know that these are some pretty drastic changes to how the game and general character progression is set up, and that they are not particularly refined, but I believe that the general concept of unbinding these effects from profession specific traits and skills is worthy of some discussion in terms of future balance of weapons and allowing for more useful abilities to make their way into the affected traitlines. This was more of a early conception/cursory look at what it could be, and me trying to point out all the flaws that might follow before the benefit is paid out.

tl;dr : a fourth, non profession specific traitline could help with future class balancing and accessibility of underused effects.

[JDub.1530]

@Maxwell.1203 said:tl;dr : a fourth, non profession specific traitline could help with future class balancing and accessibility of underused effects.

I disagree. This will actually make class balance near impossible. If you take very different classes and suddenly give them traits that are identical, you now have to balance the class differences as well as make sure they are not too strong taking a trait everyone shares, because you cannot change the shared traits without affecting the balance of EVERY class.

Not to mention adding new buffs to classes that don't have access to these traits now. For example, Guardian has no access to a passive speed buff. If they suddenly have one you face the possibility of them being too strong with this free mobility. If you nerf them to compensate for this power increase, you might put them in a state of making that trait MANDATORY to maintain their current power level.

The only way having common traits could work is if they were mainly utility based and not combat based. A fall damage trait NEARLY falls into this category, except in WvW where falling can be tactically relevant.

If a trait is underused or mandatory, then that trait or competing traits need to be reworked, not generalized or baselined.

[Vanilla Vamp.2607]

@JDub.1530 said:

@Maxwell.1203 said:

tl;dr :

a fourth, non profession specific traitline could help with future class balancing and accessibility of underused effects.

I disagree. This will actually make class balance near impossible. If you take very different classes and suddenly give them traits that are identical, you now have to balance the class differences as well as make sure they are not too strong taking a trait everyone shares, because you cannot change the shared traits without affecting the balance of EVERY class.

Not to mention adding new buffs to classes that don't have access to these traits now. For example, Guardian has no access to a passive speed buff. If they suddenly have one you face the possibility of them being too strong with this free mobility. If you nerf them to compensate for this power increase, you might put them in a state of making that trait MANDATORY to maintain their current power level.

The only way having common traits could work is if they were mainly utility based and not combat based. A fall damage trait NEARLY falls into this category, except in WvW where falling can be tactically relevant.

If a trait is underused or mandatory, then that trait or competing traits need to be reworked, not generalized or baselined.

I can understand the concern, and I did mention the issues of mobility creep and tactical advantage of reduced falling damage in WvW in the original post, but this concept was made predominately as a way of bringing a new approach to a percieved problem with several skills/traits, the movement speed being one of them.

I'll explain this stance with the weapons first. Many traitlines have traits that affect only a specific weapon, granting reduced cooldowns and typically another bonus effect in addition to that. Several of these are often taken only to make a weapon feel decent or competitive with other choices, and allowing a general path for something that's already offered would mean that balance can be done around individual weapons and skills that are overtuned rather than adminstering overarching nerfs that can effect the class as a whole. The values on this generic trait line aren't really meant to be changed so much as the individual professions that are affected by them. Specifically for these weapon effects, with those traits no longer tying down a build to that respective traitline, it might allow for more flexible build paths and more choice to the player base (though I understand there will always be the meta build that is ideal for its repsective setting).

As for the movement, I'm not sure what the overarching effects of providing classes with this movement speed bonus would be. it's hard to envision that this increase alone would have terribly significant impact on professions that typically have access to swiftness in most builds and that also have blinks/leaps on many weapons/utilities. If that ehanced movement does have such a devestating impact on the overall balance of the game it might point towards that profession needing a more significant rework in general, given how strong they must be without it, but I digress. I only wanted to offer a new perspective on the traits that and passive affects that are shared between all/most professions and the binding of weapons to specific traitlines, and if a fourth traitline is not the way to bring about a more streamllined player experience then I won't push for it.

[Khaliel.3918]

We don't need more powercreep. No. lol

[Brother.1504]

Primary and secondary professions like gw1 please!!!

[Blocki.4931]

Honestly I would love it but I know it won't ever happen, at least not full traitlines. Perhaps in the future we get a few additional slots lol

Too hard to balance in the end, sadly. Entire game is balanced around having three traitlines at this point and changing it again is out of question imo

[b k.1648]

Let's... not.

You have to choose between weapon flat damage mods and other traits for a reason. If everyone starts doing 15% more damage no strings attached, that's the definition of power creep.

I don't mind the idea of a fourth traitline for utility reasons, but it should not contribute anything at all to combat effectiveness... which would make it the traitline equivalent of racial skills. In other words, probably a waste of time.

[starlinvf.1358]

The problem with the whole premise is that the types of traits are considered equal across all classes.... and they very much aren't. If we look at both Gliders and Mounts, they function in exclusion to other skills, so they don't directly affect class performance. A lot of Bundle Skill sets they used as experiments also function the same way- Bloodstone Fen's Glider skills, Exalted Armor, Golem Suits, and to a lesser extent the WvW Banners. The WvW banner is a surprisingly example of this somehow working when it shouldn't. It allows a character to use their utility skills, but replaces their Weapon skills, disables their Class mechanics, and scales off their gear stats and traits. Yet, because of how their skills are designed, any person who takes a Banner is vulnerable on their own, but is consistently useful when run with a med or large sized group. Even with the variations of utility skills each class can bring, the banner's threat level is pretty consistent across the board.

The reason these new traits fail is how they directly scale weapon and utility performance of builds. Theres also a general inconsistency of how classes can benefit from the addition of, or losing access to, a single trait or utility slot. Because of those factors, and how they are currently woven into the exclusionary selection of traits, making this additive to current system will break balance on at least half the classes, and be somewhat inconsequential on the remainder. I'm not entirely sure how fully express this concept... but classes and Especs are loaded in specific directions. Engineers are Utility loaded because of kits- but the functionality of Holosmith's PF can replace most kits, which frees all of their utility skills. Mesmers are heavily loaded on Shatter and Traits, but have a lot of freedom on choice of weapon and utilities. But in Mirage, Axe ties directly into half of its available mechanics, and synergizes directly with their condition build slant.... Mirage itself also has weak group utility, where as Chrono is the polar opposite.

Core Guardian gets the bulk of its power from total Synergy, allowing the weapons to have a fairly high level of independence, but is split down the middle on traits and utility, while the active effect of core virtues are practically worthless unless specifically traited. With Dragon Hunter, the Virtues have much higher utility, but it gives the Class a trait shortage due to how the traits for its mechanical types (Virtues, symbols, boons, aegis, etc) are each spread across 3 trait lines each. Firebrand takes that to an extreme, where its power is heavily loaded into the Tomes and creates contention with the weapons; but it also inverts the Guardians stable sustain into burst, and majorly changes how they are vulnerable. Guardian has, what I would argue, to be the best example of overall build synergy; as each choice is not only nearly equally weighted, but focusing on one aspect naturally creates secondary and tertiary synergies as collateral benefits, along with tangible deficiencies in other areas.

But then you have classes which heavily focus into specific areas, which give it a universal weaknesses in all of its builds. Thieves are always near, if not completely glassly, because they lack traits and skills to sustain through damage. Necros don't have many burst damage options, gain most of their threat through overbearing pressure. All of the Ranger specs/builds demand complete trait focus into two complimenting areas for competitive performance. How would these new traits affect their general performance, and do some choices become obvious must-haves, while others would go completely ignored?

[Airdive.2613]

With mastery system in place, this was achieved.We have mounts for movement speed (even in combat unless you decide to fight back) that allow you to take any amount of fall damage; gliding for feather fall; faster revive; signet of agony to enhance our downed state. Any profession-specific buffs should remain profession-specific not only for balance reasons, but for flavour too.

That said, I would really like to see another sort of fourth traitline: a profession-specific traitline dedicated to underwater combat.Thus land and underwater combat could finally be separated, with buffs to underwater weapons moved to where they belong (with a few other new options). I imagine they might even go as far as make it the only traitline that works underwater (for balance and compatibility reasons). And make this one traitline change depending on your chosen "land" elite specialization so it would make sense.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

first, scouts swiftness and intervention are way too op.second, im confused. are you saying you want to take all of the weapon/revive/swiftness traits out of existing trait lines and put them in this new 4th one? cuz thats the only way i see this working. if so, then i like this.

i think you would have to have profession specific 4th trait lines for balance reasons. if that was the case then i would be for this. i never liked how some weapons are tied to trait lines you either dont want or the traits compete for something else. i would like to see all the utility traits go to the gm slot and get buffs for the most part. some are already there and are fine.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Like the concept, but first of all it will be horrible to balance as others mentioned and second of all I do not like the ideas you put in there although I recognize your self reflecting capabilities in this regard.