Guild Wars 2

With all the named documents and named threads hanging around the pvp forum in the last weeks I’d thought I’d chime in with my own.

Elementalists have a few high-tier “must-have” traits, and a lot of mediocre, bad or just extremely situational traits that don’t get used much. The same is true for utilities. Cantrips find heavy use in pvp, lightning hammer rules pve, but other conjures, signets and glyphs tend to be sidelined.

Goal of this thought experiment was to make cantrips a bit more interesting now that they lost stunbreaks and mistform healing, bring the other utilities up to cantrip level, and upen up more new build options through new traits. Also do away with passive traits like diamond skin and give eles more options for combo fields to leverage (though water fields are still staff exclusive). Last but not least the arcane skills were changed completely, doing away with the cheap instant burst that is a) not good for the game and b) probably holding ele balance changes back.

Don’t become fixated on the exact numbers, they are more or less placeholders.

This is not the greatest post in the world, no, this is just a tribute.

SKILLS:

Armor of Earth:
- Cooldown reduced to 60 seconds
- Duration reduced to 4 seconds

Mistform:
- Cooldown reduced to 50 seconds
- Removes crippled, chilled and immobilized when cast
- Duration reduced to 2.5 seconds

Cleansing Fire:
- Reworked
- Burn your open wounds and extinguish the flames, curing all conditions and leaving behind a smoke field for 2 seconds that blinds enemies
- No longer burns foes
- Cooldown increased to 45 seconds
- Casttime increased to 0.5 seconds

Lightning Flash:
- Range increased to 1200

Arcane Shield:
- Cooldown reduced to 50 seconds
- Does not automatically crit anymore
- Now a blast finisher when it explodes

Arcane Blast:
- Damage slightly reduced
- Does not automatically crit anymore
- Cooldown increased to 25 seconds
- Range reduced to 1200
- Does damage and causes different conditions depending on the attunement it was cast in:
- Fire: Burning, Water: Torment, Air: Weakness, Earth: Immobilize

Arcane Wave:
- Does not automatically crit anymore
- Cooldown increased to 40 seconds
- Casttime increased to 0.5 seconds
- Range increased to 1200
- Does damage in the target area and leaves behind a combo field for 4 seconds, depending on the attunement it was cast in:
- Fire: Fire field, Water: Ice field, Air: Lightning field, Earth: Smoke field
- No longer a blast finisher

Arcane Power:
- Reworked
- Empowers your current attunement, granting you a different boon depending on the attunement it was cast in:
- Fire: Fury, Water: Retaliation, Air: Vigor, Earth: Aegis
- Cooldown still 45 seconds

*Whirlwind: *
- Removed
- Replaced by Signet of the Elements

Signet of the Elements
- Replaces Whirlwind as a new elite skill
- Signet Passive: Increases boon duration by 20%
- Signet Active: Inflict burning, torment, weakness and bleeding on your foe
- Range: 1200
- 1.25 seconds casttime
- 60 seconds cooldown

Signet of Restoration
- Increased passive healing per cast to 310
- Increased active heal to 4300

Signet of Water
- Active now causes torment instead of chill

Glyph of Storms:
- Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds
- Range increased to 1200
- Firestorm now causes burning, Icestorm chills, Lightningstorm blinds, Earthstorm bleeds

*Glyph of Elemental Harmony: *
- Increased base healing to 5100

Glyph of Elemental Power:
- Reworked
- Grants you an aura depending on the attunement it was cast in:
- Fire: Fire aura, Water: Frost aura, Air: Shocking aura, Earth: Magnetic aura
- Instant cast
- Cooldown reduced to 35 seconds
- Breaks stuns

Glyph of Renewal:
- Cooldown reduced to 135 seconds

Glyph of Lesser Elementals:
- Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds

Glyph of Elementals:
- Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds

TRAITS:

Fire Adept Minor – Cauterization
- Replaces Flame Barrier
- Condition duration of conditions on you is reduced by 10% while you are attuned to fire. Does not stack with Melandru or Hoelbrak runes 6 set bonus.

Fire V – Burning Precision
- Moved to Master tier
- 100% chance on crit to burn for 4 seconds
- Cooldown increased to 10 seconds

Fire VII – Pyromancers Alacrity
- Now also increases fire attunement recharge by 20%
- Now also reduces cooldown on weapon skills gained from conjured flame axe and fiery greatsword

Fire IX – Fire’s Embrace
- Moved to Adept tier
- When you activate a signet you gain a fire aura

Fire X – One with Fire
- Reworked
- Gain 3 seconds of retaliation whenever you take more than 10% of your maximum health in damage in a single hit

Fire XI – Kindle the Flames
- New grandmaster trait
- Applying burning now also applies poison

Fire XII – Pyromancers Puissance
- Merged with Persisting Flames
- Fire spells grant you might and blast finishers on your fire fields also grant Fury for 10 seconds in addition to might
- No longer makes fire fields last longer
- Now also includes weapon skills gained from conjured flame axe and fiery greatsword as fire spells that grant you might

Air Adept Minor – Zephyr’s Speed
- Reworked
- Gain 5 seconds of vigor when you deliver a critical hit.
- 10 seconds cooldown

Air IV – One with Air
- Increased Superspeed duration to 2.5 seconds
- Now also removes crippled, chilled and immobilized when attuning to air.

Air VII – Arcane Lightning
- Reworked
- Inflict blind when you deal damage with an arcane skill
- Blind enemies around when you gain Arcane Power

Air IX – Aeromancer’s Alacrity
- Now also increases air attunement recharge by 20%
- Now also reduces cooldown of weapon skills gained from conjured lightning hammer

Air XI – Tempest Defense
- Now also increases damage against launched enemies and enemies knocked back by 20% so more abilities (e.g. Updraft) can enable the bonus.

Earth IX – Geomancer’s Freedom
- Now also grants 2 seconds of protection when you are crippled, chilled or immobilized.

Earth X – Geomancer’s Alacrity
- Now also increases earth attunement cooldown recharge by 20%
- Now also reduces cooldown on weapon skills gained from conjured earth shield

Earth XI – Diamond Skin
- Reworked
- Attuning to earth converts 2 conditions into boons
- 20 seconds cooldown

Water II – Shard of Ice
- Reworked
- Automatically cast Frozen Ground (Staff Water #4) around you when attuning to water.

Water VIII – Aquamancer’s Alacrity
- Now also increases water attunement recharge by 20%
- Now also reduces cooldown on weapon skills gained from conjured frost bow

Water XI – Cleansing Water
- No longer has a cooldown in pvp

Arcane II – Arcane Potency
- Replaces Renewing Stamina
- Your combo fields last 20% longer

Arcane III – Final Shielding
- Reduced cooldown to 50 seconds

Arcane IV – Arcane Focus
- Replaces Vigorious Scepter
- Focus skills grant you 1 stack of might for 5 seconds

Arcane VI – Windborne Dagger
- Increases movement speed by 25% while wielding a dagger in the mainhand OR offhand

Arcane XII – The Conjuring
- Replaces Elemental Surge
- Your conjured weapons now only replace their respective attunement skill instead of all your weapon skills
- You can instantly conjure weapons but you no longer spawn a second weapon for allies

Mostly agree. Nice ideas.
May be better do arcane heal to field generator (as def skill), and safe nice arcane-blast.
Geomancer’s Freedom is not bad now, but can be better o"couse
Idea for Alacrity skills is great, really

lolwut dude over the last months I suggested or was thinking about more than half of your ideas (literally exactly the same) in several threads can you read my mind?

+ kittening 1

Gorni.1764:

can you read my mind?

Linver.5897:

Man, you are reading my mind! You have some mesmer levels! xD

Drizty.3872:

I feel as tho you read my mind

Xhaiden.3891:

You read my mind.

Kodiak.3281:

It’s like this post read my mind and put it out in words.

Soon all eles will have distributed intelligence, and we will take over the world.
It is a dark side of Arena xD

I’ve had the same idea of reducing arcane spell damage and giving them elemental surge as default. Solves the problem of elementalists 1 shotting people with extreme instant burst and increases the skill cap all at once.

I used elemental surge for a few months at release until switching to evasive arcana and just a few months ago I switched back to elemental surge just for funzies and I was wow’d that I ever used it as well as I did lol. Definitely skillful.

Some cool ideas in here. This one’s probably my favorite:

Air XI – Tempest Defense
- Now also increases damage against launched enemies and enemies knocked back by 20% so more abilities (e.g. Updraft) can enable the bonus.

Would you please explain why arcane skills as they currently stand are bad for the game? I for one liked the little bit of depth the auto crit aspect brought to buildcraft, and would hate to see it go. Are eles oneshotting people really so common that they have started to make people mad?

I like the efforts towards making the condi ele viable, but I feel like signets are a more apparent choice to steer towards being mainly condi-oriented, rather than arcanes, since written in stone is in the condi line, and condis promote a more bunkery playstyle due to requiring less stat investments.

The elite sounds cool, but still not very powerful. What about a signet that refreshes all you attunements on activation, or grants all boons, much like lyssa runes do. Feels like it makes a little more sense, although it would probably be too strong.

The SoR buff is absolutely too massive, but as you said, I won’t focus on numbers.

A good post overall! Definitely some less common suggestions too

Gokil.2543:

Would you please explain why arcane skills as they currently stand are bad for the game? I for one liked the little bit of depth the auto crit aspect brought to buildcraft, and would hate to see it go. Are eles oneshotting people really so common that they have started to make people mad?

If you use a all-out zerker fresh air build and use the whole instant combo, you’re pretty much oneshotting every class in pvp. Though the rotation is mostly macroed and of course makes you deadweight for the next ~50 seconds because all your air, earth and utility skills are on cooldown, you have no stunbreak and no more damage left.

It’s a dumb build that either gets countered by a lucky dodge that makes the whole instant combo fizzle and you die, or the enemy gets instantly downed and you’ll probably die trying to stomp or finish them.

When eles are capable of complete instant kills – no matter if they are deadweight after – other classes surely aren’t supporting our claims that we need defensive buffs.

Gokil.2543:

I like the efforts towards making the condi ele viable, but I feel like signets are a more apparent choice to steer towards being mainly condi-oriented, rather than arcanes, since written in stone is in the condi line, and condis promote a more bunkery playstyle due to requiring less stat investments.

The elite sounds cool, but still not very powerful. What about a signet that refreshes all you attunements on activation, or grants all boons, much like lyssa runes do. Feels like it makes a little more sense, although it would probably be too strong.

I tried to give signets and arcanes a mix of conditions to open up mix-and-match builds and honestly thought the elite signet was to powerful that’s why I gave it more than a second casttime (it IS 4 good conditions at the same time, though only single target at least).

The point was mainly to give ele a lower cooldown elite, something which IMHO all classes should have so that they can benefit from runes that have on-elite bonuses.

That’s way too much change
A lot of that is just change for the sake of change. Like taking arcane wave and… destroying it entirely and replacing it with a new skill that has absolutely nothing to do with the original (discounting “it does damage” as a similarity).

“If you use a all-out zerker fresh air build and use the whole instant combo, you’re pretty much oneshotting every class in pvp. Though the rotation is mostly macroed and of course makes you deadweight for the next ~50 seconds because all your air, earth and utility skills are on cooldown, you have no stunbreak and no more damage left.”

I’m following you on this one.

“It’s a dumb build”

And on this one.

“When eles are capable of complete instant kills – no matter if they are deadweight after – other classes surely aren’t supporting our claims that we need defensive buffs.”

But not on this one. You measure a build by its overall effectiveness, not by how spectacular its tricks are. I think its fine the elementalist, having the lowest stats in the game, can do the highest burst damage in the game, when completely disregarding all notion of defense. It gives PvP extra depth. In its current version, thieves absolutely rule any and all notion of this role, since they have a MUCH easier time escaping/resetting. Let thief be the ‘safe’ bet, and Scepter burst ele be the all-in bet. At least that’s a unique position the ele can fill. People would have to be aware of where the ele is at, and anticipate the burst (it’s never 100% instant or else it’s not 100-0), play on their toes. There is too much easymode in the current meta. Petting zoos, condispam, healing signet. Add this depth, this fear of getting instantly destroyed, ‘where is the ele and what is he doing’.

It’s easier to make ele be able to do something no other class can, than it is to make ele be able to do what other classes can, while not being either better or worse at them.

Not to mention this is SO awesome to watch. I know many have given up on the Esport thing, and I don’t mind, but the last time an ele played in a tournament I watched (something like a month ago), naturally he was getting all the attention, since he played ele in a competitive tournament. The gates opened on foefire, guardians on both teams went mid, some other splits I can’t remember. Meanwhile the mesmer and ele got onto mid in stealth and oneshot the enemy bunker guardian from stealth using coordination.

So TL;DR:

For the sake of depth and an interesting pvp experience, this build should not be deleted. Even if other professions complain, they have been and always will be complaining about backstabbing thieves for all eternity.

My words were all over the place on this one, hope you get what I mean.

About the elite: I’d just like for it to have an active useful for non-condi specs, but I’m fine with how you propose it.

I completely disagree that instant kill burst that is made up for by pretty much 100% chance to die after is interesting or adds depth to pvp.

First, the point that it gives ele a unique role in pvp. It doesn’t really because even full zerker fresh air borders on being unviable for tpvp (I’d say it is and I’d much rather have a balanced ele that doesn’t insta-die on my side if I must have an ele). Mostly because other glasscannons simply do it better. A thief has maybe 70-80% of the burst a full zerker fresh air ele has, but that burst is repeatable every ~10 seconds and that thief also has like 90% more defense because of stealth and/or evades and blinds while the ele has nothing after he did his 1 combo. So thief is preferred because he doesn’t transform the game in a 4vs5 for the next ~50 seconds after he used his burst (that while less than fresh air is still more than good enough).

Second, the point that it adds depth to pvp. I’d say it does the complete opposite. Too much instant cast spells are always bad for MMOs because they simply have no counterplay. You either are lucky and dodge at the right time and live (and the ele dies most probably) or you aren’t and you’re instantly down without any chance to react.
That’s simply not fun game design and, while the ele combo if not macro’d might take some form of skill, the whole binary state of the gameplay takes away a lot of skill through counterplay and the usual back-and-forth of 1v1s and teamfights.

And again I think that binary state is what makes it boring to watch in a tournament too. You can assume that top players have a 100% chance of landing the combo through muscle memory, so the only variable in the gameplay is wheter the enemy happens to hit dodge at the exact moment he needs to live of not.

I think arcane spells should remain as burst utility skills, even if with some tweaks to tone down the instant air burst sequence.

One of the cool thing about arcane spells, is that they offer more reliable damage to staff or to focus builds. Yes, those are not commonly used in pvp, so this is not very noticeable yet. For d/d or s/d users, arcane spells might feel “more of the same”, but please, keep in mind what will be if focus or staff become more viable someday. Because they’re highly focused on utility, putting burst skills on our utility skills is an appealing option, and should remain viable. This is already happening with some niche s/f fresh air builds in pvp.

Another interesting niche about the auto-crits, is that they allow for some unique build setups, like bursting without high precision investment. If Arcane Power was more effective at what it does, it would pretty much be the elementalist’s version of warrior’s unsuspecting foe trait.

I can understand that people want more utility in their utility slots, but arcanes fill some interesting niches as they are, and I think they should be left at that (except, again, tweaked to tone down the instant air burst sequence). It’s our other utility skills that need to be buffed. Glyphs, conjures, signets. If we want more utility, we should look at those, instead of revamping the current arcane’s niches.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

I completely disagree that instant kill burst that is made up for by pretty much 100% chance to die after is interesting or adds depth to pvp.

First, the point that it gives ele a unique role in pvp. It doesn’t really because even full zerker fresh air borders on being unviable for tpvp (I’d say it is and I’d much rather have a balanced ele that doesn’t insta-die on my side if I must have an ele). Mostly because other glasscannons simply do it better. A thief has maybe 70-80% of the burst a full zerker fresh air ele has, but that burst is repeatable every ~10 seconds and that thief also has like 90% more defense because of stealth and/or evades and blinds while the ele has nothing after he did his 1 combo. So thief is preferred because he doesn’t transform the game in a 4vs5 for the next ~50 seconds after he used his burst (that while less than fresh air is still more than good enough).

Second, the point that it adds depth to pvp. I’d say it does the complete opposite. Too much instant cast spells are always bad for MMOs because they simply have no counterplay. You either are lucky and dodge at the right time and live (and the ele dies most probably) or you aren’t and you’re instantly down without any chance to react.
That’s simply not fun game design and, while the ele combo if not macro’d might take some form of skill, the whole binary state of the gameplay takes away a lot of skill through counterplay and the usual back-and-forth of 1v1s and teamfights.

And again I think that binary state is what makes it boring to watch in a tournament too. You can assume that top players have a 100% chance of landing the combo through muscle memory, so the only variable in the gameplay is wheter the enemy happens to hit dodge at the exact moment he needs to live of not.

Thieves have comparable burst, but do it far slower. They need a second or two, while an elementalist needs less and can therefore bypass the usual ‘clinging onto life’ with endure pains/mist/renewed focus/……

You oversimplify. As I said before, the combo always has some form of telegraph.

The counter to it is not in reactive play but in proactive play. Focus the ele, be aware of where he is, bring strong resurrect abilities,…

The 100 percent chance to die is ridiculous ofcourse, but the fact that there is a high chance again adds depth. Can I stomp the person the ele nuked in time? Can I provide enough support/peel to keep him alive.

Saying the combo will be landed 100 percent of the time is equally silly, as with a better ele comes a better opponent.

Since it is an entirely unique build on the scale of risk/reward, it’s hard to defend that taking it away would not be removing depth. You now have a person running around in the game that can instantly flip the back and forth teamfight in anyone’s favor.

I don’t think the ‘dodge or die’ mechanic is necessarily bad. If anything I feel like there’s too much prolonged bunkering and extended cluttered teamfights, but I’ll admit that’s highly subjective.

We’re not gonna agree on this, and that’s not a problem. You feel like having the possibility of an instant kill, no matter how gimmicky, is bad game design due to it bypassing so much of the regular fight, I feel like it’s interesting game design due to it being insanely high risk/reward, and also (not gonna lie) because it’s very spectacular.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think arcane spells should remain as burst utility skills, even if with some tweaks to tone down the instant air burst sequence.

One of the cool thing about arcane spells, is that they offer more reliable damage to staff or to focus builds. Yes, those are not commonly used in pvp, so this is not very noticeable yet. For d/d or s/d users, arcane spells might feel “more of the same”, but please, keep in mind what will be if focus or staff become more viable someday. Because they’re highly focused on utility, putting burst skills on our utility skills is an appealing option, and should remain viable. This is already happening with some niche s/f fresh air builds in pvp.

Another interesting niche about the auto-crits, is that they allow for some unique build setups, like bursting without high precision investment. If Arcane Power was more effective at what it does, it would pretty much be the elementalist’s version of warrior’s unsuspecting foe trait.

I can understand that people want more utility in their utility slots, but arcanes fill some interesting niches as they are, and I think they should be left at that (except, again, tweaked to tone down the instant air burst sequence). It’s our other utility skills that need to be buffed. Glyphs, conjures, signets. If we want more utility, we should look at those, instead of revamping the current arcane’s niches.

Agreed on interesting buildcraft and being an addition to weapon skills when running with focus since focus offers utility by itself.

I can see the point that it opens up burst capabilities for builds that have low precision or low damage weapons.

It’s just that Elemental Surge is SUCH an interesting mechanic, especially on instant skills, so baking it into the skills seemed natural. But nobody will ever take Elemental Surge because it competes with Evasive Arcana which is just leaps and bounds better at granting you offense, defense and soft cc. Maybe if Elemental Surge moved down to master tier…

It’s still possible to make elemental surge a very viable trait.

Arcane Power procs elemental surge five times. You can get arcane power from two sources (one of them being the master arcana trait: arcane retribution), and anet is planning to bux fix the arcane mastery trait, so it can affect the two other arcane proc trait’s cooldowns (final shielding and arcane retribution).

If we want elemental surge to be more viable, all we need is the trait arcane mastery fixed and skill arcane power improved.

What would be the best way to improve arcane power in your opinion, while taking all this into consideration? Perhaps a much lower cooldown?

The best way to improve arcane power? Fix all the bugs so that it actually lets the 5 next skills crit instead of just burning speed because the flamedrops take up all 5 crits. Some skills take up a charge, some take up 2 some take up 5 it’s completely obscure.

And what about the best way to improve arcane retribution? It currently procs when health is bellow 75%, which is not under our direct control. What if it procced like warrior’s unsuspecting foe, upon a specific state we have control of? Unsuspecting foe procs at stunned foes, which is very much like our Tempest Defense.

What about:
Tempest Defense
1. Auto stun aura as it is.

2. If you hit a stunned/ KDed foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.
or
2. If you KD or stun a foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.

I GREATLY disagree with a lot of these changes.
I main an Elementalist, I am the strongest Elementalist and I have NEVER lost a duel against another Elementlist.
I know this class like the back of my hand.

I’m not saying these changes are bad as in they are to powerful or weak.
I’m not looking at things that can be pretty broken or making things useless.

What the Elementalist needs most in balance, is other classes to be slightly toned down in terms of condition spam, being hit by 3 conditions with a single grenade, stuck immobilized for 10 seconds, is not acceptable.

What the Elementalist needs most in design, is more interesting traits.

Some of your suggestions are good and can offer some interesting play styles but some isn’t enough to help this class.

These changes don’t add anything much, only a handful actually shakes things up, they keep the major issue:
They are just BORING.

The suggested change to Diamond Skin is without a doubt stronger but it doesn’t change my play style at all, I’ll just be more resistant to conditions.

As an Elementalist, I don’t work with the traits, I just, have them.
That is what needs to change.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I am the strongest Elementalist and I have NEVER lost a duel against another Elementlist.

k

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

I can see the point that it opens up burst capabilities for builds that have low precision or low damage weapons.

It’s just that Elemental Surge is SUCH an interesting mechanic, especially on instant skills, so baking it into the skills seemed natural. But nobody will ever take Elemental Surge because it competes with Evasive Arcana which is just leaps and bounds better at granting you offense, defense and soft cc. Maybe if Elemental Surge moved down to master tier…

I don’t take elemental surge, not because it competes with evasive arcana, but because it’s deep into a defensive tree, and I’d only take it on an offensive build. If I could get offense out of the arcana line, I’d totally take elemental surge over evasive arcana.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I main an Elementalist, I am the strongest Elementalist and I have NEVER lost a duel against another Elementlist.

stopped reading here

On the topic of Arcane traits and utilities, I’d love to see Arcane Retribution proc’ing on stuns or auras. I’d also be content with refreshing Arcane Power at 50-75% health.

In my opinion, arcane skills should work similarly to mesmer mantras; e.g., you channel Arcane Power for 2 3/4 seconds to yield 5 unique charges, each with a 100% critical chance on your next attack. Alternatively, it could be redesigned with 2 charges of 2-3 attacks, which could be more useful for stacking conditions with Elemental Surge.

Similarly, Arcane Wave, Blast, and Brilliance would receive two charges. In return, their effective damage and/or healing would be halved. This again would enhance the utility of Elemental Surge, since it would proc its conditions more regularly.

An Arcane version of Harmonious Mantras could then be worked into the grandmaster tier, producing 3 charges instead of 2. At the same time, Elemental Surge would be moved down to master tier (replacing Arcane Energy).

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

On the topic of Arcane traits and utilities, I’d love to see Arcane Retribution proc’ing on stuns or auras. I’d also be content with refreshing Arcane Power at 75% health.

In my opinion, arcane skills should work similarly to mesmer mantras; e.g., you channel Arcane Power for 2 3/4 seconds for unique 5 charges, each charge yielding 100% critical chance on your next attack. Alternatively, it could be redesigned with 2 charges of 2-3 attacks, which could be more useful for stacking conditions with Elemental Surge.

Similarly, Arcane Wave, Blast, and Brilliance could receive two charges. In return, their effective damage and/or healing would be halved. This gain would enhance the utility of Elemental Surge, since it would proc its conditions more regularly.

An Arcane version of Harmonious Mantras could then be worked into the grandmaster tier, yielding 3 charges instead of 2. At the same time, Elemental Surge would be moved down to master tier (replacing Arcane Energy).

Good idea in itself, but I’d propose making arcane power have only 4 charges or have a very limited timeframe in which to use these charges. 5 on demand crits is potentially too strong if used on your big attacks only.

Otherwise cool idea

Alot of these suggestions are way too OP imo. Some make sense tho.

Here’s my two cents on the arcane skills, because I am okay with most of the other stuff.

The damage is fine. Full zerk in PvP, I hit for about 2.5-3 k with arcane wave. I should be hitting at least that much, because frankly, tankier classes can hit more with autos.

The problem is the lack of counter play. Just add a short delay and animation and they will be fine, with the exception of arcane blast which is still an inferior option.

I don’t think Mist Form should have its duration decreased, but if that were to happen, I would like to see it regain its previous functionality back, where you could cast utility and heal skills while in mist.

Signet of Restoration’s passive is nice. The active, however, should be stronger, perhaps by gaining an unique effect.

Signet of Water
Passive: Conditions end 20% faster on you
Active: Heal yourself and allies

DiogoSilva.7089:

And what about the best way to improve arcane retribution? It currently procs when health is bellow 75%, which is not under our direct control. What if it procced like warrior’s unsuspecting foe, upon a specific state we have control of? Unsuspecting foe procs at stunned foes, which is very much like our Tempest Defense.

What about:
Tempest Defense
1. Auto stun aura as it is.

2. If you hit a stunned/ KDed foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.
or
2. If you KD or stun a foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.

The latter option is much better in my opinion. Less randomness tied to the reward benefit of the trait. We could argue that an enemy could be stunned by an ally to coordinate with your trait for dealing more damage but we all know that would end up to the enemy being stunned for a completely different reason and the elementalist being rewarded indirectly.

So let’s place the reward in the direct actions of the elementalist itself.

2. If you KD or stun a foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.

DESERVES a sticky

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

DiogoSilva.7089:

And what about the best way to improve arcane retribution? It currently procs when health is bellow 75%, which is not under our direct control. What if it procced like warrior’s unsuspecting foe, upon a specific state we have control of? Unsuspecting foe procs at stunned foes, which is very much like our Tempest Defense.

What about:
Tempest Defense
1. Auto stun aura as it is.

2. If you hit a stunned/ KDed foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.
or
2. If you KD or stun a foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.

The latter option is much better in my opinion. Less randomness tied to the reward benefit of the trait. We could argue that an enemy could be stunned by an ally to coordinate with your trait for dealing more damage but we all know that would end up to the enemy being stunned for a completely different reason and the elementalist being rewarded indirectly.

So let’s place the reward in the direct actions of the elementalist itself.

2. If you KD or stun a foe, you gain arcane power for 3-5 seconds.

I agree. The first option would also require a cooldown to be balanced, I think, which would make the trait a mess (it already has a cooldown for the shocking aura).

A last change I would make, is to keep this trait at arcana’s master tier instead of revamping tempest defense. Both traits could combo together, but that would require a 50-60 point investment in mostly non-defensive effects, and a sacrifice to most of our defensive options. Of course, we could/ would compensate the lack of precision for a defensive stat.

Outside of shocking aura (which is not under our direct control), we can only stun or KD a foe once every 30-45 seconds. So keeping that in mind, I’ll take away the 3-4 second duration (the default duration is 30 seconds to use the 5 charges).

Arcane Retribution
Gain Arcane Power when you stun or KD an enemy.

Alternatively, if could be changed to “when you interrupt an enemy”, which would give to focus and to off-hand dagger setups twice the skills to proc it, and it would also work underwater, but demand more skill this way. Might be way too mesmery-like, though.

There are some very nice things between it. Few things between it I do not really like. Arena Net did mention something about new elite skills, I would prefer to see new elites without old elites disappearing. My main problem with the current elementalist elite skills is that they are situational, this will be the same for the elite you did come up with, however I can see it work very well in s signet build. Futhermore I see some problems with removing Renewing Stamina, because they replacement you give for it actually removes the access to perma vigor on an ele, which most profession still have in the higher tiers (as far as I know most professions who had it in the adept tier got it transfer to a higher tier). To end of with I see a small problem with

Arcane XII – The Conjuring
- Replaces Elemental Surge
- Your conjured weapons now only replace their respective attunement skill instead of all your weapon skills
- You can instantly conjure weapons but you no longer spawn a second weapon for allies

It is not the trait, but it is the place and it is in. There is allot of comment about eles being forced to got 30 in arcana, by placing this in the 30 pointer of arcana, this would still force eles to go 30 points in there, instead of making a conjured wep build that does not require that. Personally I would suggest to place it in the grandmaster of air and drop Tempest Defense for it, which is in my opinion still a very subpar master trait, even with the change you give to it. That would however leave the point that Elemental Surge is even worse, an idea might be changing attunement gives (aoe) agias for X sec with Y sec cd, since arcana already does have a few nice traits that could be used for a tanking spec.

Elemental Surge is not bad, really
I use it with staff:

• healing with angry melee enemy: place waterfield on low hp -> Air swap -> Arcane Brilliance -> Arcane Wave…
• or immobilize foe with arcane blast in one time with place aoe (it good work when damage at a second ago after activation when enemy is far). Look how enemy think what you are cheater
• And chill is very good if you want to keep distance and spend all cc. water field + Arcane Brilliance

(but EA is moar easy for use, give you healing, condi clear, and blast finisher)
so it should be a little better .. for example work with Lingering Elements