Guild Wars 2

I think there needs to be a discussion on diamond skin, and the ability elementalists have to remove conditions as a whole.

Firstly, eles are super susceptible to conditions. With our base HP, and our trait lines, we have to pick our poisons. Take vitality, and you’re missing out on vital power. Invest in 30 water or 30 earth, and you cripple your offensive abilities.

These are tough choices, and I think we need reforms to certain skills to make them a little better.

-If cleansing water wasn’t going to be fixed in spvp, I’d riot. That was a mistaken nerf in the first place.

-Diamond Skin is awful in that you go all out tank or the trait is wasted, but by being a tank, is your utility wasted?

-Diamond Skin is super passive, should it be like that?

-Cleansing fire is on a super high cooldown, especially given that when it was nerfed, it got no cooldown reduction. Is it fine, or should the cooldown be shaved down since the stun break was removed?

-Ether renewal is one of the worst heals in the game (In my opinion) I don’t see skillful eles using it, as A, it takes you away from DPSing and B it is a “CC on me” beacon. Not to mention that if it is interrupted and you haven’t even used one pulse, the cooldown is completely triggered. That needs to be changed to a gradual cooldown when interrupted. IE, you use half the heal, you get half the cooldown.

Those are some of the topics to be talked about, and I’ll additionally tack on some of the discussion from another thread of mine.

Thanks for everything, guys.

Just some of the discussion.

Ryld.1340:

Mbelch.9028:

I don’t care to drag other classes into this, I just want it fixed for us; no need to drag them down to our level.

I love and appreciate the non eles jumping in and speaking for us here. Thank you.

Additionally, it would be cool if there was an arcana trait (maybe merge with elemental attunement to make it worth it) that did the one conditional cleanse if you swap to that attunement. All your attunement/condi pairs make sense.

I still like this idea.

Attune Fire = Cleanse Chill
Attune Water = Cleanse Burning
Attune Air = Cleanse Immobilize
Attune Earth = Cleanse Bleeding (This one was harder. Going for the stone approach.)

MonMalthias.4763:

Mbelch.9028:

That trait was brought up before I think on page two.

It’s an interesting idea, but not necessarily a fix for what I perceive this problem to be.

If the trait were to work, I’d say it would need to cure X condition and make you immune to it while in that element.

Air should be less powerful like blind. (This would also help a little with missed RTLs, blind can be applied while riding the lightning)

But earth should definitely be immobilize I think.

If it worked with lingering elements it’d be even better.

At the risk of going off topic

Personally, any immunity trait, no matter how situational, is just asking for abuse. If not at the time of implementation, then far, far down the track. Automated Response for Engineer as an example was an Immunity trait since launch. Yet only now is it seeing use and abuse given the proliferation of Rabid or Dire setups with little Power damage output – and this is even with the fact that pre-existing conditions are not cleansed. AR abuse has led to the Decap Engineer setup that aims to sit at around the 25% threshold with regeneration and other slow healing traits. The same thing could well occur with Diamond skin if left untouched and Signet of Restoration is ever buffed, or Stow Weapon+1 spam to eliminate aftercast is exploited to increase effective HPS.

Even if only situational immunity exists such as to particular conditions on particular attunements, the potential for exploitation will remain. I would rather that traits like Diamond skin or AR or any other immunity trait discard immunity entirely in favour of a different mechanic.

One of the persisting issues with Elementalist is that specialisation within trait lines is still very much prevalent. Fire works off of Burning procs or Fire Fields and lacks Cleansing (Burning Fire is terrible before you start, adept tier at best), Air lacks defense (Fresh Air would be less abusable if Air 15 was Blinding Flash instead of Lightning Strike), Earth lacks offense, and Water’s meagre offensive abilities are entirely overshadowed by the defensive abilities, especially now that Bountiful Power has been nerfed. Only Arcana has enough broad base applicability that it is the de jour line for investment.

I would rather that Diamond Skin as a GM Major trait instead be:

• 10% of Toughness becomes Condition damage, 10% of Toughness becomes Power (Combining old Diamond Skin with Warrior’s Armoured Attack for a hybrid tanky DPS)
  or
• When you are afflicted with a condition by a foe within 600 units, your foe suffers it also. Gain 1 stack of Might for 5 seconds for each incoming condition. ICD of 1 second. (Getting into Mesmer Territory with Mirror of Anguish ) but removes the hard counter gameplay and makes Elementalist get stronger the more conditions are spammed against its low HP pool.

All of this discussion is off topic, however. I would recommend that a new thread discussing Diamond Skin and associated traits be created instead.

The problem with Diamond skin is that it merely takes a few auto attacks from most classes to get us below the required health point. So even against other Condition classes – it is rather useless as they can all still do enough damage to get us below it, once that happens we are dead.

We simply do not have the condition removal potential. Sure ER is decent, except the heal is rather low and it is VERY easily interrupted so it can’t always be used to any decent effect having to use high cool down defense skills JUST to get the heal off says it all.

Cleansing Wave is a JOKE. A 40second cool down to remove one condition and heal for a tiny amount.

Cleansing Fire 3 conditions removed every 40 seconds!? Really, sure a tiny Burning but again an insane cool down which the ele suffers with on pretty much EVERY weapon, EVERY heal, EVERY Utility and EVERY Elite for no good justifiable reason at all.

Signet of Water, Cure a condition every 10 seconds? Not to shabby, i mean its not amazing and it wont save us but still. Now if only the active was WORTH using.

My Ideas:

Ether Renewal Channel time reduced. It should be like 33% faster at least. 2 second channel to remove 1 condition every tick, increase the pulses to 10 for a tiny bit more condition removal. So 10 ticks in 2 seconds to remove 10 conditions and a little bit better heal, Maybe increase the cool down a tad to counter its better use.

Diamond Skin: Make it so that its 75% health before Conditions are applied but give it say a 20-30second cool down. So once below that 75% mark you will have to survive for 20-30seconds before it works again or something? Though i do like the idea of making it a GM minor trait, the second idea for the conditions to be mirrored back at the target would be great as well. If it was a choice between the 2, i would go with that one.

Cleansing Wave: Make it a channel – That removes Conditions and heals for each pulse. Say 1 second channel, 2 conditions removed per a pulse, 4 Pulses and 500 health healed per a pulse (at 0 healing power) This would make it worth the 40second cool down.

Signet of water: Keep the passive, change the active to a 90second cool down that turns all conditions into boons for the duration of what the condition would have been. Much better than the current active.

Cleansing Fire: Cure 3 conditions and another 2 conditions per target that is hit by the burning. Decrease cool down to 20seconds.

Thanks for your reply. My comments in bold.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem with Diamond skin is that it merely takes a few auto attacks from most classes to get us below the required health point. So even against other Condition classes – it is rather useless as they can all still do enough damage to get us below it, once that happens we are dead.

One problem I have with it is it stimulates passive gameplay. I’d prefer it be a more active trait. One great thing about ele is the complexity of our class. I’d preserve that if possible.

Cleansing Wave is a JOKE. A 40second cool down to remove one condition and heal for a tiny amount.

I think the skill is fine. It just needs it’s cooldown cut in half.

Cleansing Fire 3 conditions removed every 40 seconds!? Really, sure a tiny Burning but again an insane cool down which the ele suffers with on pretty much EVERY weapon, EVERY heal, EVERY Utility and EVERY Elite for no good justifiable reason at all.

Could not agree more. It needs to be on a 20-30 second cooldown. So does LF.

Signet of Water, Cure a condition every 10 seconds? Not to shabby, i mean its not amazing and it wont save us but still. Now if only the active was WORTH using.

Passive. So useless. Also has the same condi removal of cleansing fire. (I trait for Cantrips)

My Ideas:

Ether Renewal Channel time reduced. It should be like 33% faster at least. 2 second channel to remove 1 condition every tick, increase the pulses to 10 for a tiny bit more condition removal. So 10 ticks in 2 seconds to remove 10 conditions and a little bit better heal, Maybe increase the cool down a tad to counter its better use.

the skill scales great with healing power. So it doesn’t need more healing. I wouldn’t be opposed to your change but I’d prefer it to have a gradual cooldown.

Diamond Skin: Make it so that its 75% health before Conditions are applied but give it say a 20-30second cool down. So once below that 75% mark you will have to survive for 20-30seconds before it works again or something? Though i do like the idea of making it a GM minor trait, the second idea for the conditions to be mirrored back at the target would be great as well. If it was a choice between the 2, i would go with that one.

Cleansing Wave: Make it a channel – That removes Conditions and heals for each pulse. Say 1 second channel, 2 conditions removed per a pulse, 4 Pulses and 500 health healed per a pulse (at 0 healing power) This would make it worth the 40second cool down.

No thanks on that.

Signet of water: Keep the passive, change the active to a 90second cool down that turns all conditions into boons for the duration of what the condition would have been. Much better than the current active.

Love it.

Cleansing Fire: Cure 3 conditions and another 2 conditions per target that is hit by the burning. Decrease cool down to 20seconds.
Love it.

I think Eles have to tools to handle conditions better than most other classes, but to really counter condition builds Eles have to equip themselves to be glassy with high burst, which most don’t seem to be willing to do, since it opens them up to classes like Thieves even more.

But I dont think classes should have it both ways anyway, just look at Warrior or pre-nerf Ele as an example of what happens when a class can package too much of everything.

Maybe a 20second cool down on Cleansing Wave would be enough, i do think that it needs a slight tweak in healing done, Maybe have it remove 2 or 3 conditions instead of 1 even if its just on us as with our very low health Conditions are simply a killer.

As for ER, maybe just a reduction in Channel time. Currently it is simply to easy to interrupt. Maybe even have it so it grants us 1 second Stability every 1second or something, i mean after all we are doing NOTHING else for the duration which gives the enemy(ies) time to get sorted and get ready. Or they could still be blasting us with conditions and reapplying the ones that we are removing.

Signet of Water, the passive is rather weak, but better than nothing. Maybe a good idea would be that it would turn the condition into the opposite type Boon every 10seconds? I mean still not amazing but would be better than it is now. Make it so it lasts the duration of the condition and then have it so that it is then increased by our Boon duration.

Another idea could be for Diamond Skin – make it so that it gives us “immunity” to conditions for X number of seconds after removing one. In the case of Ether Renewal it would stack in duration. Or maybe make it so that we somehow can make it turn conditions into Boons?

roamzero.9486:

I think Eles have to tools to handle conditions better than most other classes

The problem is, we would have to take specific heal, as well as all the right Utilities and take the right trait load out as wel otherwise no matter how much damage you can do, you will die to most Condition builds

ER sounds solid with just a 15second cool down, the problem is within 2-3seconds ALL the conditions you removed will be back on you and then you are dead because you will have NO other way to get them all off in time.

So while we MIGHT be able to handle them in certain situations. In most cases, we will just be worn down until the inevitable happens and we die.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

[…]
Signet of Water, the passive is rather weak, but better than nothing. Maybe a good idea would be that it would turn the condition into the opposite type Boon every 10seconds? I mean still not amazing but would be better than it is now. Make it so it lasts the duration of the condition and then have it so that it is then increased by our Boon duration.
[…]

Too strong. Engineers need 15 points in Alchemy to get the same effect with 15s CD. But i like the active effect you proposed:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

[…]
Signet of water: Keep the passive, change the active to a 90second cool down that turns all conditions into boons for the duration of what the condition would have been. Much better than the current active.
[…]

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

To each their own, I guess.

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Sorry. Everybody uses that “armor of earth” BS.

No. Ether renewal is utter crap for a large scale fight. It can be OK for dueling, and if you have rock solid sure you can arrange it so it heals you OK. But the 3 seconds you’re not pressuring is just a groove killer. Good luck stacking might.

Oh and when a good player comes around (yes every class has CC in their wep sets) you won’t get that heal when you need it.

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Do you play ele Razor? Since you would know 90s is twice as long as most CC so in comparison you have less on-demend use.

This is the problem with Ether Renewal, that and it taking you out of combat for 4 seconds due to the 3.5 casting time and the .5 after cast. Top that off with canceling it or getting it interrupted before the first pulse sticks it on the full 15s recharge and you have the most broken healing skill in the game for bad reasons. The worst part is it is sadly one of the best heals they have in the current meta…

So why is it wrong to want the skill reworked somehow? Guardians closest skill to this is Shelter and Mesmer has Mirror, both of those have their full heal and ability to cancel the channel, but you cancel the ele on and you lose everything. If it worked like those I wouldn’t have a problem with the condi cleanse being on ticks, but why is the healing? That makes no sense for an active combat game where every other healing skill you can stay in combat but this one.

Klocknov.8219:

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Do you play ele Razor? Since you would know 90s is twice as long as most CC so in comparison you have less on-demend use.

This is the problem with Ether Renewal, that and it taking you out of combat for 4 seconds due to the 3.5 casting time and the .5 after cast. Top that off with canceling it or getting it interrupted before the first pulse sticks it on the full 15s recharge and you have the most broken healing skill in the game for bad reasons. The worst part is it is sadly one of the best heals they have in the current meta…

So why is it wrong to want the skill reworked somehow? Guardians closest skill to this is Shelter and Mesmer has Mirror, both of those have their full heal and ability to cancel the channel, but you cancel the ele on and you lose everything. If it worked like those I wouldn’t have a problem with the condi cleanse being on ticks, but why is the healing? That makes no sense for an active combat game where every other healing skill you can stay in combat but this one.

Ahh you get it. Thank you. I’d love to see this changed.

I don’t and won’t use it, but for the good of eles, I hope it is changed.

Diamon skin should affect your party within a 600 radius to enter back into power meta. Conditions would still be viable but would require a little more thought before spamming.
And it creates a new role for power builds to get that ten percent down before condi finishes em. You know you want it don’t lie :P

Diamond skin is ok in some situations but, i’d like it if they made water signet not so useless. Make it a stunbreak that reduces condition duration on you by 33% and transfers a random condition to the enemy when you activate it. Even if it had a ridiculous cooldown like armor of earth, that change alone would actually make it worth taking over something else. or if that’s too powerful for a utility, turn water signet into an elite that does that.

A 30 point investment shouldn’t be so situational.

I like the water signet suggestions though.

Mbelch.9028:

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Sorry. Everybody uses that “armor of earth” BS.

No. Ether renewal is utter crap for a large scale fight. It can be OK for dueling, and if you have rock solid sure you can arrange it so it heals you OK. But the 3 seconds you’re not pressuring is just a groove killer. Good luck stacking might.

Oh and when a good player comes around (yes every class has CC in their wep sets) you won’t get that heal when you need it.

It’s the other way around for me. ER is bad for dueling because people only have to focus on one target to cancel the heal. It’s more noticeable and easier to pull off as opposed to doing it in a huge zerg.

I always use ER though I admit that in some situations the signet would be better. I find ER better in general however. I can’t count how many times it has saved me from multiple conditions being spammed on me.

It has counterplay, yes. But that’s better than simply being a sitting duck whenever you get more than 3 conditions at once. Also not everyone runs 30 in water.

Razor.6392:

Mbelch.9028:

Razor.6392:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Razor.6392:

Ether renewal is great fyi.

Until people learn to interrupt it or DPS harder during it because you can’t dodge.

Not everyone has disables on demand. Also armor of earth helps for that one time where you must not get interrupted no matter what.

Sorry. Everybody uses that “armor of earth” BS.

No. Ether renewal is utter crap for a large scale fight. It can be OK for dueling, and if you have rock solid sure you can arrange it so it heals you OK. But the 3 seconds you’re not pressuring is just a groove killer. Good luck stacking might.

Oh and when a good player comes around (yes every class has CC in their wep sets) you won’t get that heal when you need it.

It’s the other way around for me. ER is bad for dueling because people only have to focus on one target to cancel the heal. It’s more noticeable and easier to pull off as opposed to doing it in a huge zerg.

I always use ER though I admit that in some situations the signet would be better. I find ER better in general however. I can’t count how many times it has saved me from multiple conditions being spammed on me.

It has counterplay, yes. But that’s better than simply being a sitting duck whenever you get more than 3 conditions at once. Also not everyone runs 30 in water.

Not everyone runs 30 in water which is why I’m trying to get a buff for this for people like you who don’t.

ER could be a great heal if it’s cooldown wasn’t so punishing. I’d even be happy if it was a 20 second cooldown but had a gradual step cooldown when interrupted.

I doubt they’ll buff it. It’s already frustrating to deal with it when you don’t have a cc available in those 3.5 seconds.

If they reduce the counterplay window they’ll need to nerf the condi removal / heal or it would be overpowered.

Saying that ER is garbage implies that the other heals are better. Which is just not true. Glyph sucks and signet can be decent if it wasn’t so useless in multiple situations involving conditions.

Edit: Forgot about arcane brilliance but it’s ok because it’s not even worth mentioning.

To all of you, if you want to become good with Ele, IE; learn to manage what you here claim to be issues, you should play a ranger in WvW Roaming.
WHY?
Just like ele, the ranger is somewhat squishy, so you are forced to dodge. You cannot mistform, you cannot blink/teleport or use RTL. You are forced to deal with it in a close quarter battle. Trust me, a few weeks on a ranger and you know what i mean.
Secondly, rangers has less and worse condi removal then Eles. Thus if you think you are in a bad spot, now, you will learn to take care of yourself with even less luxuries then you have already.
Thirdly, Glass Ele, Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro or Guard is nowhere near as glass as rangers is, as ranger glass builds (thanks to how traitlines work) makes them super glassy. Yes the DPS is awesome, you can do 6-7k crits with a LB on AA alone, however, you’ll get downed if someone as much as farts in your general direction.
In other words, with time, you learn to survive while being left with fewer survival tools then you have on ele.
A thing you should NEVER do is run trap ranger. Not because its hard to use, but because once you learn what real condition pressure is like on other roaming professions, you get sad when you try to do it on your ele. Just doesn’t come close to that pressure, like ever.

Why do i say this?
Because iv’e mained a ranger for over a year, and once i started leveling my ele i found it to be the easiest profession (apart from attunements, they still kitten me off royally) to keep alive. So many tools, cooldowns a kitten but thats ok.

Oh and forgot to say; Conjuration DF roaming FTW.

I just wanted to chime in about a common misconception: Diamond Skin does not promote passive play.

It is, on the contrary, quite active. You actively have to make it a point to try to stay above the 90% threshold, and your opponent actively tries to whittle you out of that 90% threshold to again be able to apply conditions. This is nothing like Healing Signet, which does promote passive play, whereby Healing Signet simply does the same thing regardless and has no play or counterplay at all (at the moment). Diamond Skin invokes a lot of play and counterplay, and although it’s rudimentary in the form of “stay above a certain amount of life”, it’s still very much active.

That’s all. Carry on.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I just wanted to chime in about a common misconception: Diamond Skin does not promote passive play.

It is, on the contrary, quite active. You actively have to make it a point to try to stay above the 90% threshold, and your opponent actively tries to whittle you out of that 90% threshold to again be able to apply conditions. This is nothing like Healing Signet, which does promote passive play, whereby Healing Signet simply does the same thing regardless and has no play or counterplay at all (at the moment). Diamond Skin invokes a lot of play and counterplay, and although it’s rudimentary in the form of “stay above a certain amount of life”, it’s still very much active.

That’s all. Carry on.

This is only a thing against hybrid condi/power, which is rare enough that it isn’t much of an issue. The problem is that technically eles don’t have enough healing to keep health above 90% for any pure power build, and any pure condition build doesn’t have enough power damage to take you below 90%.
That’s why it’s passive. It either works without you doing anything, or just doesn’t work whether you do anything or not. This would be entirely different if hybrid was meta, but sadly hybrid builds are few and far between and aren’t particularly viable as you generally gain more through specialization.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I just wanted to chime in about a common misconception: Diamond Skin does not promote passive play.

It is, on the contrary, quite active. You actively have to make it a point to try to stay above the 90% threshold, and your opponent actively tries to whittle you out of that 90% threshold to again be able to apply conditions. This is nothing like Healing Signet, which does promote passive play, whereby Healing Signet simply does the same thing regardless and has no play or counterplay at all (at the moment). Diamond Skin invokes a lot of play and counterplay, and although it’s rudimentary in the form of “stay above a certain amount of life”, it’s still very much active.

That’s all. Carry on.

This is only a thing against hybrid condi/power, which is rare enough that it isn’t much of an issue. The problem is that technically eles don’t have enough healing to keep health above 90% for any pure power build, and any pure condition build doesn’t have enough power damage to take you below 90%.
That’s why it’s passive. It either works without you doing anything, or just doesn’t work whether you do anything or not. This would be entirely different if hybrid was meta, but sadly hybrid builds are few and far between and aren’t particularly viable as you generally gain more through specialization.

Even against pure condi users, it’s necessary to put in some effort to maintain that 90% – the only setup that I can probably passively outheal is a s/f-staff necro with spite, wall, walk and plague form, and even then a few life blasts is enough to get me below that barrier (and death shroud has that handy fear to stop the ele from immediately healing up again).

Prysin.8542:

To all of you, if you want to become good with Ele, IE; learn to manage what you here claim to be issues, you should play a ranger in WvW Roaming.
WHY?
Just like ele, the ranger is somewhat squishy, so you are forced to dodge. You cannot mistform, you cannot blink/teleport or use RTL. You are forced to deal with it in a close quarter battle. Trust me, a few weeks on a ranger and you know what i mean.
Secondly, rangers has less and worse condi removal then Eles. Thus if you think you are in a bad spot, now, you will learn to take care of yourself with even less luxuries then you have already.
Thirdly, Glass Ele, Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro or Guard is nowhere near as glass as rangers is, as ranger glass builds (thanks to how traitlines work) makes them super glassy. Yes the DPS is awesome, you can do 6-7k crits with a LB on AA alone, however, you’ll get downed if someone as much as farts in your general direction.
In other words, with time, you learn to survive while being left with fewer survival tools then you have on ele.
A thing you should NEVER do is run trap ranger. Not because its hard to use, but because once you learn what real condition pressure is like on other roaming professions, you get sad when you try to do it on your ele. Just doesn’t come close to that pressure, like ever.

Why do i say this?
Because iv’e mained a ranger for over a year, and once i started leveling my ele i found it to be the easiest profession (apart from attunements, they still kitten me off royally) to keep alive. So many tools, cooldowns a kitten but thats ok.

Oh and forgot to say; Conjuration DF roaming FTW.

Are you not getting Enough attention in your ranger threads lately? Please carry on, troll.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I just wanted to chime in about a common misconception: Diamond Skin does not promote passive play.

It is, on the contrary, quite active. You actively have to make it a point to try to stay above the 90% threshold, and your opponent actively tries to whittle you out of that 90% threshold to again be able to apply conditions. This is nothing like Healing Signet, which does promote passive play, whereby Healing Signet simply does the same thing regardless and has no play or counterplay at all (at the moment). Diamond Skin invokes a lot of play and counterplay, and although it’s rudimentary in the form of “stay above a certain amount of life”, it’s still very much active.

That’s all. Carry on.

Hey I hear what you’re saying about needing active play to maintain it. It’s just not a great trait in my opinion. The threshold is too low, and I don’t support 100% counters.

Mbelch.9028:

Prysin.8542:

To all of you, if you want to become good with Ele, IE; learn to manage what you here claim to be issues, you should play a ranger in WvW Roaming.
WHY?
Just like ele, the ranger is somewhat squishy, so you are forced to dodge. You cannot mistform, you cannot blink/teleport or use RTL. You are forced to deal with it in a close quarter battle. Trust me, a few weeks on a ranger and you know what i mean.
Secondly, rangers has less and worse condi removal then Eles. Thus if you think you are in a bad spot, now, you will learn to take care of yourself with even less luxuries then you have already.
Thirdly, Glass Ele, Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro or Guard is nowhere near as glass as rangers is, as ranger glass builds (thanks to how traitlines work) makes them super glassy. Yes the DPS is awesome, you can do 6-7k crits with a LB on AA alone, however, you’ll get downed if someone as much as farts in your general direction.
In other words, with time, you learn to survive while being left with fewer survival tools then you have on ele.
A thing you should NEVER do is run trap ranger. Not because its hard to use, but because once you learn what real condition pressure is like on other roaming professions, you get sad when you try to do it on your ele. Just doesn’t come close to that pressure, like ever.

Why do i say this?
Because iv’e mained a ranger for over a year, and once i started leveling my ele i found it to be the easiest profession (apart from attunements, they still kitten me off royally) to keep alive. So many tools, cooldowns a kitten but thats ok.

Oh and forgot to say; Conjuration DF roaming FTW.

Are you not getting Enough attention in your ranger threads lately? Please carry on, troll.

nah actually i got tired of rangers the moment i saw the CDI thread, realizing that nothing positive will come out of it as the devs show little to no enthusiasm “now that they see what the players want.” As if they didnt know already.

So, i rerolled and started playing my ele. Good times.
Carry on haters. Nothing to see here.

Eles are good times. Your ranger rant doesn’t belong in this thread though.

Prysin.8542:

To all of you, if you want to become good with Ele, IE; learn to manage what you here claim to be issues, you should play a ranger in WvW Roaming.
WHY?
Just like ele, the ranger is somewhat squishy, so you are forced to dodge. You cannot mistform, you cannot blink/teleport or use RTL. You are forced to deal with it in a close quarter battle. Trust me, a few weeks on a ranger and you know what i mean.
Secondly, rangers has less and worse condi removal then Eles. Thus if you think you are in a bad spot, now, you will learn to take care of yourself with even less luxuries then you have already.
Thirdly, Glass Ele, Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro or Guard is nowhere near as glass as rangers is, as ranger glass builds (thanks to how traitlines work) makes them super glassy. Yes the DPS is awesome, you can do 6-7k crits with a LB on AA alone, however, you’ll get downed if someone as much as farts in your general direction.
In other words, with time, you learn to survive while being left with fewer survival tools then you have on ele.
A thing you should NEVER do is run trap ranger. Not because its hard to use, but because once you learn what real condition pressure is like on other roaming professions, you get sad when you try to do it on your ele. Just doesn’t come close to that pressure, like ever.

Why do i say this?
Because iv’e mained a ranger for over a year, and once i started leveling my ele i found it to be the easiest profession (apart from attunements, they still kitten me off royally) to keep alive. So many tools, cooldowns a kitten but thats ok.

Oh and forgot to say; Conjuration DF roaming FTW.

Lol. Seriously, lol. You don’t even know what glass ele is. Go back to the hole you crawled out of you 1 button spam wonder.

Stogzlol.4795:

Prysin.8542:

To all of you, if you want to become good with Ele, IE; learn to manage what you here claim to be issues, you should play a ranger in WvW Roaming.
WHY?
Just like ele, the ranger is somewhat squishy, so you are forced to dodge. You cannot mistform, you cannot blink/teleport or use RTL. You are forced to deal with it in a close quarter battle. Trust me, a few weeks on a ranger and you know what i mean.
Secondly, rangers has less and worse condi removal then Eles. Thus if you think you are in a bad spot, now, you will learn to take care of yourself with even less luxuries then you have already.
Thirdly, Glass Ele, Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro or Guard is nowhere near as glass as rangers is, as ranger glass builds (thanks to how traitlines work) makes them super glassy. Yes the DPS is awesome, you can do 6-7k crits with a LB on AA alone, however, you’ll get downed if someone as much as farts in your general direction.
In other words, with time, you learn to survive while being left with fewer survival tools then you have on ele.
A thing you should NEVER do is run trap ranger. Not because its hard to use, but because once you learn what real condition pressure is like on other roaming professions, you get sad when you try to do it on your ele. Just doesn’t come close to that pressure, like ever.

Why do i say this?
Because iv’e mained a ranger for over a year, and once i started leveling my ele i found it to be the easiest profession (apart from attunements, they still kitten me off royally) to keep alive. So many tools, cooldowns a kitten but thats ok.

Oh and forgot to say; Conjuration DF roaming FTW.

Lol. Seriously, lol. You don’t even know what glass ele is. Go back to the hole you crawled out of you 1 button spam wonder.

Yeah… 30/0/0/0/30 is my kind of glass, I don’t think it’s in anyway possible to exceed that level of squish or difficulty, especially on a medium armor/health class that is on the lower spectrum of skill to begin with.

Try 30/30/0/0/10 :P jk. But back on track guys.

What do we hope they change in this next patch for condi removal?

Also how did you all feel about the fake patch notes that changed condi dmg with auras?

Mbelch.9028:

Try 30/30/0/0/10 :P jk. But back on track guys.

What do we hope they change in this next patch for condi removal?

Also how did you all feel about the fake patch notes that changed condi dmg with auras?

I was actually quite pleased with some of the changes in the “fake” patch notes. The Tornado change was a MUST. Yet, it is still going to stay one of the WORST transformation skills in the game.

That was the one that stayed with me, i remember there was one about different Aura effects as well. Aura’s need to be redesigned in my opinion, they should be our main weapon based defence but currently they are rather weak compared to skills of other classes

They need the ICD removed and they need to have them be more punishing on people that just spam attacks without fear.

A few days ago I proposed a change to Diamond skin:

Diamond Skin: When you lose more than 20% of your current health in a single attack, you gain aegis and lose 2 conditions. (ICD: 2 seconds)

This would solidify Diamond skins role as a tank trait, reducing burst and conditions while under heavy pressure

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

A few days ago I proposed a change to Diamond skin:

Diamond Skin: When you lose more than 20% of your current health in a single attack, you gain aegis and lose 2 conditions. (ICD: 2 seconds)

This would solidify Diamond skins role as a tank trait, reducing burst and conditions while under heavy pressure

No thanks, that isn’t Grandmaster quality.

How about one that increases our toughness by say 50% of the damage taken, Lasts say 5-10seconds. Stacks 5 times Now THAT is a Grandmaster Trait.

This might stop us getting killed in like 2-3 hits as well…

That sounds too powerful Ash. I like the line of thinking from those proposals though. It’d be nice if each time you got hit with 4 or more condis, it cleansed them (30 sec ICD.)

Mbelch.9028:

That sounds too powerful Ash. I like the line of thinking from those proposals though. It’d be nice if each time you got hit with 4 or more condis, it cleansed them (30 sec ICD.)

Sounds like a a Grandmaster trait to me, for the class with the lowest health and lowest armor, okay maybe not 50% say 10-20%?

15 percent sounds good. But it doesn’t truly help handle a fight vs a condi spammer.

Mbelch.9028:

15 percent sounds good. But it doesn’t truly help handle a fight vs a condi spammer.

True, all in all, it being rather low would make it useless. We suffer against zerker burst and condition spamming, you cant get a defence against both in 1 trait…

Yeah that’s a good point but this is a condi thread :P.

I don’t actually think we suffer from direct damage much. I have 2500 armor and never really lose to direct damage classes. It’s always the ranged condi spammers that get me.

What i would like to see Mist Form turned into a skill where we have immunity to conditions during it and are allowed to still attack, use skills and such. We have a skill for Direct damage, i mean its on a terrible cool down and such but hey better than nothing but for conditions we actually have pretty much nothing.

Diamond Skin is a JOKE. Every condition build can do enough direct damage to take us below the 90% threshold within seconds anyway.

Question is would damage and condition immunity for 5 seconds (it needs a duration buff, 3 seconds is a joke) be overpowered? considering its cool down.

Mist Form previously did allow the use of skills, I believe. It was nerfed along with so many other things when D/D eles got wiped from the face of competitive gw2.

And Diamond Skin is most definitely not a joke, but it’s not a trait you can just chuck into your build and expect to instantly pwn condi users with - you’ve got to make some effort to reduce incoming damage and keep yourself healed up, and a well-timed Flesh Golem Charge is difficult to deal with, but these are reasons the trait can exist at all - if it was guaranteed 100% immunity to folks running primarily condition damage builds, it would most definitely be OP.

I run DS right now, on Staff, and am really pleased with how it works - I can still die to condi users in 1v1s if they outplay me or if I mess up, and DS does very little to counter a primarily power-based build (though it often helps stop the initial snare), but it means that I’m not downed the moment a terror necro sees me, and it really helps against decap engis when they can’t immobilise or apply any damaging condi to me.

If you’re taking that 10% damage from every condi user you meet, you’re either:
- not actually running DS and talking out your kitten based on vague assumptions
- running DS but not building around it, even though it’s pretty definitely a build-defining trait
- running DS, building around it, but not using your build well

I have plenty of Toughness and range between 1700-1900 most of the time, condition builds STILL hit hard enough to take you below the 90% threshold. The trait simply is not Grandmaster worthy.

I have run it, i removed it after seeing how little it actually helped me and my build. With it i had A LOT of toughness and still seeing as all you have to do is take 1-2k damage and boon you are under 90% health means it is rather useless against pretty much all Condition builds.

Now if you went for PURE condition counter sort of build then yes it would be okay but as it is, no it is not worthy of a grandmaster trait. Hell, even Condition Thief can BS you for 5k+

The problem is, to counter conditions we have to build to PURELY counter them and nothing else. We wouldn’t have the damage to kill them and in the end they WOULD win.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have plenty of Toughness and range between 1700-1900 most of the time, condition builds STILL hit hard enough to take you below the 90% threshold. The trait simply is not Grandmaster worthy.

I have run it, i removed it after seeing how little it actually helped me and my build. With it i had A LOT of toughness and still seeing as all you have to do is take 1-2k damage and boon you are under 90% health means it is rather useless against pretty much all Condition builds.

Now if you went for PURE condition counter sort of build then yes it would be okay but as it is, no it is not worthy of a grandmaster trait. Hell, even Condition Thief can BS you for 5k+

The problem is, to counter conditions we have to build to PURELY counter them and nothing else. We wouldn’t have the damage to kill them and in the end they WOULD win.

Sorry, what? You have up to 1900 toughness? Also: what’s your vitality?

My PvP build is on 2780 toughness, with only 100 vitality above base (from 10 points into Water Magic for a trait and the healing power).

The low vitality is an important part of the build - I have very low health, but moderate-high healing power (594 right now), meaning that while I can get below that 90% pretty quickly, I can also heal back up even faster. Without the healing power, and frequent heals, it’s very difficult to get back up past the 90% threshold.

I’m not sure how viable DS is on D/D or S/F or some combination of these, but it is workable on Staff, if you take blast finishing heal/utilities instead of the ER/triple cantrips. Remember that not every trait or utility is perfect with every weapon, though.

I have normally around 20,000 Health. This is with Buffs of course. Pretty much all my gear has Toughness and Vitality on it. Hell i have managed to go past 2,000Toughness with ease.

A trait shouldn’t be “workable” and for a Grandmaster trait it shouldn’t be a case of “oh you’re using the wrong weapon”

Yeah, your health pool means that folks need to do more damage to get through your skin, but you’ve sacrificed damage mitigation and healing power to get there - or you maybe have no power, so do almost no damage to your opponents who can just whittle down your health until you’re vulnerable to condi.

By ’workable’, I mean that I win more often than I lose and continue to climb the leaderboards in PvP, with this build, on a staff ele. I should’ve maybe said "I have success with it," sorry.

And I kinda expected you’d reply with something like "oh, you’re using the wrong weapon". That’s not what I said... but let’s look at other GM traits (though not all of them are in current meta builds, and not all are necessarily viable):
- Prismatic Understanding. Torch is the only Mesmer weapon with stealth, and just about everyone running PU takes torch.
- Right-Hand Strength. Guardian trait, "Critical-hit chance with one-handed weapons is increased." Not useful for a staff/hammer guard.
- Lingering Curse. Necromancer trait, "Conditions inflicted by scepter skills have increased durations." HMMMMM

Just because the trait doesn’t specifically state a weapon in its description doesn’t mean it won’t work better for certain weaponsets - and it’s worth noting that just because you can’t get a certain weaponset to do well with a trait doesn’t mean that that trait/weapon combo isn’t viable.

Skills:
Phoenix; 1
Magnetic Wave; 3
Cleansing Fire; 3
Burning Fire; 3

Traits
Cleansing Water; 1 pre 5
Cleansing Wave; 1 pre 9
Evasive Arcana; 1 pre 10

Say what again?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

A few days ago I proposed a change to Diamond skin:

Diamond Skin: When you lose more than 20% of your current health in a single attack, you gain aegis and lose 2 conditions. (ICD: 2 seconds)

This would solidify Diamond skins role as a tank trait, reducing burst and conditions while under heavy pressure

No thanks, that isn’t Grandmaster quality.

How about one that increases our toughness by say 50% of the damage taken, Lasts say 5-10seconds. Stacks 5 times Now THAT is a Grandmaster Trait.

This might stop us getting killed in like 2-3 hits as well…

Hell no. This is not enough.

How about one that gives us perma obby flesh?

I’m still a fan of Diamond skin being an immunity to two conditions based on what element you are in, regardless of health. That would be grandmaster worthy, and it would increase skill required by both you and your opponent (you would have to manage your attunements and their recharges with the conditions on you in mind, and your opponent would have to watch your attunement to make sure they can apply certain conditions). Make it so that it doesn’t actually remove the conditions, but makes you immune to their effects briefly, so that just spamming swaps off cooldown doesn’t make sense.

Diamond Skin is indeed easy for condition builds to penetrate if the ele is doing nothing to stop them. You build for frequent heals, though, and the pure condi build will get you to 91% before you heal up to full, repeating ad-nausea

I, too, like the idea of Diamond Skin being total immunity to a condition or two based on attunement. Makes it worthwhile against most foes, and requires skill from each player involved, constantly trying to counter the other’s tactics.

DS builds are getting an indirect buff with resto signet buff, it’ll be slightly easier for the Ele to keep themselves above 90% against pure-condi classes. Not sure if I like the sound of that though…really not a fan of DS.