Guild Wars 2

Seems like a shame to leave them behind, when they could add more builds to the ele repetoire. There should be ways to increase their usefulness, ways to create synergy like you see with Cantrips.

Current issues with signet builds, is probably the severe lack of condition removal and survivability. As arcane and water offer you survival, there are limits to what you can spend your traits on, when delving 30 in earth. If you wish for aura synergy, you must spend 20 points in fire, which leaves you with little for arcane and water traits that are life saving and necessary if you wish to survive; condi/celestial specs demand time to take someone down (slow condi/baby bursts), time signet builds doesn’t grant you.

While there are skills to support signet builds, they aren’t currently making it viable.

Traits that support signets:

• Signet Mastery: Cooldown reduction on signets: 20%.
  A must have for a signet build.

• Written in Stone: Maintain signet passives at all times.
  Something you’d want to have, a must have in my book.

• Shard of Ice: Vulnerability x3 for 8 seconds.
  This trait won’t do you much good, as signets and earth appeal to condition or celestial builds and 3% won’t make a significant change. Appears to be an unnused trait.

• Arcane Energy: Endurance gain: 25.
  Potentially usefull, except the fact that it lies in master arcane. If you go this deep, you’d pick Elemental Attunement. A quarter of energy is nothing when you have energy sigil + Renewing Stamina. I have never seen anyone use this trait.

There is better synergy to be found, but it has its costs.
With 20 points in fire, you get:

• Fire’s Embrace: Using a signet creates a fire aura.
  If this trait is used, three traits are unlocked to create synergy

1. Zephyr’s Boon: Fury and swiftness for 5 seconds.

If not using Signet of Fire, fury has more value. Swiftness is good, but you’ll likely be using Signet of Air for the stunbreak, AoE blindness and 25% speed increase, and with Written in Stone is doesn’t become a necessity.

2. Elemental Shielding: Protection for 3 seconds.

Important if you can’t afford 20 points in arcane for elemental attunement. The duration is short though. Taking this will leave you without Rock Solid.

3. Powerful Auras: Share auras with up to five allies.

Useful, but you’ll have to sacrifice Written in Stone, which in itself is problematic.

My suggestions to improve signet builds.

• Fire’s Embrace: Moved to adept.
  This would allow you to spend 10 points in defensive traitlines and allow a variety of builds without sacrificing everything (Written in Stone mainly). This is a very important change.

• Soothing Disruption: Cantrips grant you regeneration and vigor: 6 seconds. Signets grant you vigor: 6 seconds.

This suggestion would grant signets needed vigor without the need to go into arcane, should you want to head for 30 water. This would also benefit you if you toss one cantrip in the mix for mobility, extra cleansing/burning, invulnerability or stability/protection.

• Shard of Ice: Signets of Restoration and Signet of Water cure 2 conditions when used.

Signets severely lack condition removal tools, especially condition removal on command. This, with my suggestion to Signet of Water (below) would make more of an impact without forcing you deep into water, allowing for build diversity.

• Signet of Water:
  Passive: Cures a condition every 10 seconds.
  Active: Chills your foes and cures a condition.
  Cast time: Instant (Like Signet of Air)
  Damage: 211
  Chilled: 3 seconds.
  Radius: 240

This change would allow you to escape horrible situations like being immobilized and jumped, while chilling nearby attackers briefly. Such an effect would lessen the need for cantrips and make you focus on signets, which a signet build should.

Continued below..

The current passive condition removal is too random and won’t help you when it matters, especially in such a condition heavy meta. Making it a PBAoE would not require you to have a target, which can waste some effect of your skill, much like Signet of Air, when jumped and not being able to target anyone in time.

With all these changes, you could spec for aura sharing easier without giving up everything and be useless. You can spec selfish for sustain and condition removal with x/x/30/30/x – x/x/30/20/20 (bunker) – 10/0/30/30/0 (anti condi aura bunker) – 30/0/30/10/0 (aura blindness fun) – 10/10/30/10/10 (celestial goodness with auras), 0/0/30/10/30 (condi fun with decent condi removal) etc.

I believe these changes would be sufficiently effective without being useless or OP, and allow signets to gain a foothold in PvP with individual roaming builds, bursty builds, bunker builds and support, being useful with every weapon set, depending on your setup.

TL:DR: Signets needs condition removal and better synergy with traits to become effective and viable. Sorry, but you need to read some of the wall of text to see what I mean.

i agree that fire’s embrace should be dropped to adept tier. fire aura’s are the same as the adept minor, and frankly in my opinion are TOO melee defensive oriented (and too weak) for the power line. i’d rather gain retaliation instead of burning, because at least retaliation affects ranged attackers as well, and scales with power. retaliation has much better synergy.

also consider that elementalists traited heavily in fire can so easily cause burning that anyone attacking the ele in melee is probably already burning. since burning stacks in duration and not intensity (unless you’re using a torch offhand on OTHER classes for the 8-stack burning) it’s still practically worthless.

but i definitely see how these suggestions would add to signet and aura synergy. and maybe finally make them fun to play.

The fire auras and adept minor will be much more useful with the new burn/blindness grandmaster trait on the horizon though. I understand that retaliation would be universally good and fits into the power traitline, but I doubt we’ll be given it beyond the new arcane grandmaster trait.

Not sure which I’d prefer.

I like. But the accessability to condition remove is too much. I general, my opinion is that anet should decrease condition spam and slightly reduce the condition cleanses so that conditions would still be viable. But if they dont, this suggestion is ok.

Malcastus.6240:

The fire auras and adept minor will be much more useful with the new burn/blindness grandmaster trait on the horizon though. I understand that retaliation would be universally good and fits into the power traitline, but I doubt we’ll be given it beyond the new arcane grandmaster trait.

Not sure which I’d prefer.

I do agree with moving Fire’s Embrace into Adept Tier as by itself, Fire Aura is pretty underwhelming. It really does require Elemental Shielding to be strong. Taking hits to gain Might sounds like a bad idea on the lowest EHP class in the game.

Fire Aura’s effect in general should be made stronger. I would rather Fire Aura’s mechanic be that for every enemy Burned, a condition is Cleansed, ICD 1 second, maximum 3-5 conditions. In this way, Fire Aura becomes a deterrent towards autoattacks applying crit-proc conditions, which is what overwhelms Elementalist cleansing capability at the moment (Incendiary Powder being one of the main culprits).

This would also address Signet lack of condition clear indirectly (Trait dependant).

To specifically address Signet’s lack of condition clear, I do feel that Signet of Water should be made more active. Perhaps one of these:

• Cleanse a condition when you dodge and heal a small amount (ICD: 10 seconds). If you successfully dodge an attack, cleanse an additional condition.
• Cleanse a condition and heal a small amount when you dodge. (ICD: 10 seconds) (less of a skill floor and therefore should not scale as high. Still a straight buff to Signet of Water.)
• Cleanse a condition when you dodge (ICD: 5 seconds) (This is pre-nerf ele level and possibly too strong)
  • This would tie Signet condition clear proc control to the dodge mechanic. Most importantly it is to serve as a replacement for Evasive Arcana/Cleansing Wave, which is a bare minimum for Signet of Water to be competitive.
  • Unlike most other Signet passives, this one does have a counterplayable weakness, which is Immobilise. Good for the game, possibly bad for the Elementalist.

The Signet of Water active, as well as the Fire active should also be re-examined. A utility slot for…Condition application is quite underwhelming.

• Signet of Water should create a 3 second Ice Field that cleanses 1 condition after 2 seconds. Foes passing through the Field are Chilled for 1 second every second, so it has dual purpose. Also blastable for Frost Armour.
• Signet of Fire should create a 3 second Fire Field that Burns foes for 1 second every second.

Overall the aim should be to not only make the Signets a stat buff but also to make the actives more compelling.

All the ele signets are just plain bad. Once skills and traits are smoothed in the other areas, it would be great to see a complete overhaul in this department.

MonMalthias.4763:

Fire Aura’s effect in general should be made stronger. I would rather Fire Aura’s mechanic be that for every enemy Burned, a condition is Cleansed, ICD 1 second, maximum 3-5 conditions. In this way, Fire Aura becomes a deterrent towards autoattacks applying crit-proc conditions, which is what overwhelms Elementalist cleansing capability at the moment (Incendiary Powder being one of the main culprits).

Sounds like a decent idea. However, it will affect every other class able to produce fire auras as well. Not sure how much that would change the meta scene for other professions.

MonMalthias.4763:

To specifically address Signet’s lack of condition clear, I do feel that Signet of Water should be made more active. Perhaps one of these:

• Cleanse a condition when you dodge and heal a small amount (ICD: 10 seconds). If you successfully dodge an attack, cleanse an additional condition.
• Cleanse a condition and heal a small amount when you dodge. (ICD: 10 seconds) (less of a skill floor and therefore should not scale as high. Still a straight buff to Signet of Water.)
• Cleanse a condition when you dodge (ICD: 5 seconds) (This is pre-nerf ele level and possibly too strong)
  • This would tie Signet condition clear proc control to the dodge mechanic. Most importantly it is to serve as a replacement for Evasive Arcana/Cleansing Wave, which is a bare minimum for Signet of Water to be competitive.
  • Unlike most other Signet passives, this one does have a counterplayable weakness, which is Immobilise. Good for the game, possibly bad for the Elementalist.

I did previously think about a 129 base healing at the end of each dodge, similar to guardian. However, I thought it be too much, combined with Signet of Restoration and Evasive Arcana, plus heals from skills.

Having the active be a condition cleanse with an additional effect appeals more to me, as you can control it without the need for a stopwatch. The higher the ICD, the harder it will be for players to know when to use it without any visual representation. A simple 10 ICD that isn’t bound to an attunement can be hard to keep track of in prolonged fights and would likely frustrate people, much like the current Cleansing Water + Soothing Disruption + Elemental Attunement and what other sources of regen there might be thrown into the mix.

MonMalthias.4763:

The Signet of Water active, as well as the Fire active should also be re-examined. A utility slot for…Condition application is quite underwhelming.

• Signet of Water should create a 3 second Ice Field that cleanses 1 condition after 2 seconds. Foes passing through the Field are Chilled for 1 second every second, so it has dual purpose. Also blastable for Frost Armour.
• Signet of Fire should create a 3 second Fire Field that Burns foes for 1 second every second.
  Overall the aim should be to not only make the Signets a stat buff but also to make the actives more compelling.

I like several of your ideas, the ice field especially. So you’re saying the solution would be..

1. Fire auras: When hit, you lose a condition (ICD: 1 second). Partially takes care of condition issues in melee, mainly re-applying conditions for foes. It does not help in any way against ranged attacks. Not likely to be implemented, as other professions are bound to this as well.
2. Signet of Water: Can cleanse rarely, much like the current passive cleanses 1 condition every 10 seconds, but on command, potentially with a bonus cleanse/heal on evades. This I don’t see helping out much, admittedly. ICD is a bother in most cases, I mentioned why earlier.
   It should however be a signet that allows you to cleanse conditions to a greater extent than it does currently. Ice field + condition cleanse would likely not go well with the devs, as it becomes a very strong 24 (traited) second combo field. Even an ice field alone might be doubtful.
3. Signets actives should be more compelling. I agree. Several of them could use work.

My original ideas were an attempt to address condition cleanses and lack of aura build options. Both of which would hoist the sails for signet builds, imo. It makes it a bit confusing looking at your suggestions (some of which I like), because the overall goal is blurry. By that I mean synergy between ideas to address the main issues signet builds has, from a somewhat realistic pov. I don’t believe fire auras will see the changes you propose, as it isn’t only ele related but could tip the scale for other professions, so I take that idea out of the equation. Suddenly, when looking at your other ideas, I find that condition cleansing problems still would exist, especially if you aren’t going for Evasive Arcana.

My bad if I made the explanation look muddled and confusing. I hope it makes sense to you, though.

Phaeton.9582:

All the ele signets are just plain bad. Once skills and traits are smoothed in the other areas, it would be great to see a complete overhaul in this department.

How about people comment on the likes and dislikes of the current signets, so we can pinpoint which ones are hindering signet builds and which ones might work?

• Signet of Restoration:
  Passive: Fine, once reverted in PvP.
  Active: Fine.
• Signet of Water:
  Passive: The only condition cleanse currently. Very lacking. Wouldn’t mind if it was replaced. Something related to healing/condi cure/vitality/chill would be appropriate.
  Active: Strange and lackluster currently. Definitely needs to be changed. Instant or 1/4 cast condi cleanse would be appropriate.
• Signet of Earth:
  Passive: Fine.
  Active: Ok, but should be increased to 4 seconds. Overhaul works too.
• Signet of Fire:
  Passive: Good. Helpful when creating builds (with Written in Stone), as you are very limited when making builds, due to lack of amulet stat variation/customization.
  Active: Meh. The short CD of the skill is good, something that should remain. The active should be changed however.
• Signet of Air:
  Passive: Good.
  Active: Fine, although it should be PBAoE when triggered.

Overall I like the CD of the signets, which grants good synergy with Fire’s Embrace, although it should be adept. The shorter CD of the utility, the less powerful it’ll be.

I can think of a few mechanics would be interesting in regards to condition clearing, rather than outright clearing them (not saying it’s specifically related to signets). However they’re all passive, so all usable on signets:

• Cap maximum number of different conditions.
• Cap maximum stack count of a condition.
• Cap maximum duration of a condition.
• Condition damage/effect decreases the longer it is on your uninterrupted.
• First X damage by conditions is mitigated, refreshes like health, out of combat. Or partially via overhealing.
• Cushion up to Y damage of conditions once you hit 0 health, only once used up or when direct damage hits you will you get downed.
• The lower your health, the lower the maximum stacks conditions on you can have.
• The higher your health, the shorter conditions on you will last.