Guild Wars 2

Firstly i am relatively new to forums and have been known to accidentally place things in the wrong place so please forgive me if i do that again :p.

I am making the post as a constructive feedback post shall i say, not a rant about wanting more power for my elementalist as personally i think since the last balance patch elementalists are in a decent position in all aspects of the game.

I will only mention the traits i have a problem with and what i (personally) think will be an improvement. Any traits that are not mentioned you may assume that i personally feel that it is an acceptable trait for the number of trait points spent in that field.

Overall improvements:

- Lingering elements: been mentioned a few times about changes to it however i personally like this ability. However i think a better description is needed on the skills and traits that are affected by it. For example: Flame barrier- should have a note at the bottom of the trait saying that it affected by lingering elements. This trait is exceptionally confusing for new players.

- Traits that reduce the CD on spells: If that doesnt make sense i mean for example pyromancers alacrity in fire trait line (20% reduced CD on fire spells) and the equivalent in the other 3 trait lines.

Regardless of the build you run whether its support or burst each attunement is as vital as the next and by reducing 20% cooldown in one attunement it is not the same as a 20% reduced cooldown in your build. It is a 20% reduced CD in a quarter of your build thus a 5% cd overall. These traits cannot be merged together and thus i propose that on top of a reduced CD on skills, that the specific attunement recharge rate is reduced by X amount of seconds (probably one second). This X amount of seconds change should not be affected by the arcana trait line. Thus arcane attunement recharge rate (in arcana) should only apply the percentage to the maximum attunement recharge rate and not the new one this change would create.

This would mean that an elementalist that wants to make more use of a certain attunement can really make use of it. I do not believe that a 1 second less CD in any 1, 2 or even 3 trait lines would produce OP elementalists. As to get reduced CD’s on 2-3 attunements you sacrifice far more powerful traits.

Fire magic: generally ok.

Air magic:

lightning rod- A little weak for a grandmaster trait as elementalists do not have many interrupts and the little they have are on large cooldowns. The only reason i can see for it being this high in the trait line is due to tempest defense. Maybe merge the two together and increase the CD of the tempest defense part to 45 seconds. As a result reduce the damage done to stunned foes to 10%.

-One with air – Personally i think this should be removed entirely. Considering this costs the same amount of trait points as some of the most powerful traits to an elementalist it is no suprise that i have never seen this used. However that is me.

-Zephyr’s speed – I do not believe that the speed buff is considerably noticable and that a person building an elementalist with 1 point left to spend would place it in here. Elementalists have a decent up-time on swiftness and any that do trait for swiftness have to pick up this trait that becomes useless when they do have swiftness. However i am at a loss as to what could replace this. Maybe an increased duration of swiftness at around 15-20% increased duration? This would apply to the elementalist only but would affect swiftness from other sources that are applied to the elementalist.

Earth magic:

- diamond skin- If this type of trait is to remain in the game (as with engineers) then i personally think with the elementalists low health pool this needs to be active much longer. Maybe a 85% health cap first to test the water.

-Serrated stones – Regardless of the weapons elementalists do not cause bleeding enough to consider this trait to be effective. Might i suggest replacing with a 10% increased condition duration to all conditions? Or even replacing with a 100% chance to apply X stacks of bleeding when blinding a foe to provide blinding ashes slightly more incentive to be used?

Water magic:

- Aquatic benevolence – When it was first mentioned it was said that this wasn’t meant to be a selfish trait and indeed it is not but i would think it would be nice to have a selfish grandmaster trait in this line as elementalists cannot help but be generous with boons and healings. Due to survivability issues a support elementalist would consider far more traits over this one and i personally think that extending this trait further by placing a new part to it that would give 5% of direct (not regeneration) heals recieved by allies back to the elementalist. When you think about it this would balance well as the benefit would only work with allies around you and would encourage support play further as the more heals that affect allies the more heals you get. And i think this slight increase in this trait would finally make a contender to the bunker guardian in spvp.

-shard of ice- increase vulnerability stacks from 3 stacks to 5 stacks.

Arcana:

-Lingering elements AND arcane fury- i mentioned lingering elements above but to add another note these should swap places (as the first one point traits all are affected by lingering elements thus it makes sense to be able to get lingering elements with one trait point) as a result increase arcane fury from 2 seconds of fury to 3 seconds of fury as it now costs 3 trait points.

Ok so that is all i would like to hear from other players about your thoughts. Like i said i do not wish to create an overpowered elementalist hence why some changes are very conservative some you may think overpowered, please explain why you think they are good/bad and add any thinks you would like to see.

Also when commenting please do consider ALL aspects of the game ( WvW, PvE and sPvP) not just the part you play. As well as considering ease of understanding to new players.

Finally i do not necessarily recommend all of these changes to occur all at once, please consider them as a change to that individual trait with no changes to any other trait.