Since the release of Guild Wars 2, players have been wishing for features to save their builds and equipment. This wish is now coming true, but not completely for free.
What’s new in the game? In a blog post, the developers introduced build and equipment templates that have already been announced in the roadmap for upcoming updates. With these, you can save skills, traits, and equipment, and share the codes with other players.
A small number of storage slots is free. For more templates, you will need to spend Gems.
When will the build templates arrive in the game? With a patch on Tuesday, October 29, the save feature is expected to be implemented in the game.
Before that, you can look forward to a balance update that will be released today, October 1, and the Halloween event, which is expected to return in two weeks.
Templates save builds and equipment separately
How do the templates work? ArenaNet introduces two templates that are saved separately:
- The first template handles skills and traits.
- The second template saves your equipment.
Both templates function separately. While the codes for skills and traits can be shared with other players, the equipment template is only for your personal use.
How do you save builds? Each character has free access to three saved builds. Initially, these contain the current skills and traits from PvE, PvP, and WvW. However, you can fill these three slots as you wish.
If you don’t have a skill or trait yet, you can still save the build, and those positions will simply remain empty when loading the build.
The build templates also save tier companions and the legends of the Revenant class.
In addition, there are three account-wide storage slots that you can access on every character. In these, you can save builds whose codes you want to access regularly or that you just received from other players.
How do you save equipment? Besides the option to save the builds, you can also save your equipment. There are several tabs in the hero menu where you can place the corresponding armors and weapons.
With these tabs, you can easily switch between them. The catch is that equipment in inactive tabs does not take up inventory space. You have two tabs available for free per character.
How is it in PvP? The equipment in PvP works a bit differently and currently has some issues. However, ArenaNet did not want to hold back the build templates any longer.
Save features will initially only appear for PvE and WvW and will be added for PvP later.
Monetization of the build templates annoys players
How are the build templates received by players? Many players welcome the introduction of the build templates. Particularly the fact that the codes can be exchanged and that the saved equipment does not take up inventory space is positively received.
However, the monetization bothers some players. Only three builds per character and even only two equipment templates seems too little for many. As the Reddit user AiryAerie writes:
I’m disgusted. This is the greediest step I’ve ever seen from ArenaNet.
Three build templates per character – If you play a character in all three game modes, then congratulations, that’s all the slots.
Three account-wide templates are still the least objectionable, mainly because many players do not play multiple characters.
Two equipment templates per character – most players I know have at least two sets of equipment per character, and usually more. What’s the point of legendary equipment when I have access to all stats if I can only save two templates? […]
AiryAerie is not alone in his opinion. Many other users are also dissatisfied. For raids, three to eight different builds are used per character, and the open world and WvW are not even taken into account.
Particularly the legendary equipment, which was recently supplemented by legendary runes and sigils, is not optimally utilized in the new system.
How much do additional storage slots cost? The blog post does not currently reveal what additional storage slots will cost. It only states that you always get three account-wide templates in a bundle.
Immediately upon the release of the build templates, there will be a limited-time special offer. You will receive three of the account-wide slots for 0 Gems.
If you want to take a look at the feature, you can do so today, October 1, in an official livestream at 9:00 PM.
In Guild Wars 2, something exciting is expected to happen every month now. In September, there was the prologue “Bound by Blood”. The next episode could already come in November:
