Hello there!
I’ve taken some time to make a complete list of ele-traits and state my opinion (which I think is a good reflection of the general opinion) on each of them. I hope it helps devs to identify traits that are bad (I usually added a short description why specific traits are rarely used) and that we’ll see some changes in upcomming patches based on this feedback. Of course opinions vary and therefore I’ll try to edit my list based on player-feedback. I also want to point out that this shouldn’t be a discussion-thread on specific ideas for new traits or how to change existing ones (though I postet some suggestions) – this thread is about currently existing traits and why they’re good or bad.
Since it’s a wall of text I made a formating-code to make it easier to identify bad/rarely used traits and you don’t have to read it all (bold and underlined are worst, bold alone are mediocre/bad). Colors would have been better for this but they seem not to work in this forum.
Anyways, here’s my list:
Fire:
Fire-Traits are imho fine for PvE since there are many simple traits that directly increase damage – which suits PvE perfectly. For PvP there aren’t many viable choices though since there are no traits (except burning fire which was added last patch) that boost survivability which is something we usually always have to build for in PvP.
5-Flame Barrier: Worst adept minor trait. Usually we have to avoid being hit at all costs (especially when we build into fire and are glassy). Even when hit the procc is extremely weak.
15-Sunspot: not that bad but the radius should be increased in addition to the damage it deals. Compared to the equivalent in air this is underwhelming.
25-Burning Rage: Good trait. Makes it worth speccing 25P into fire in PvE and also harmonizes with the condi-duration you get from the Fire-Traitline.
I-Lava Tomb: Ironically this is one of the best PvP-Traits in fire but who seriously makes a build assuming that he will die a lot to benefit from this trait? Maybe it should boost the damage from Lava Font even when it’s casted normally with staff to make it a better choice for PvP.
II-Conjurer: Useless for PvP, fine for LH-Build in PvE. Overall ok for an adept-trait since it has its niche.
III-Ember’s Might: Since burning stacks only in duration this trait is bad for PvE and since conditions aren’t a viable option for eles in PvP it’s also useless in PvP.
IV-Spell Slinger: Actually pretty good for might-stacking builds especially with staff. Maybe add some fury but imho it’s not that bad.
V-Burning Precision: Bad trait. Nothing more to say. Either boost the burning duration or completely rework it.
VI-Internal Fire: Solid PvE-trait (only for staff though) but not really usefull for PvP since you constantly have to rotate through attunements and therefore you won’t benefit much from it. May be worth the points if it worked with Lingering Elements.
VII-Pyromancer’s Alacrity: Good PvE-Trait for Staff-Zerkers to increase damage. Worthless in PvP. Boring design though.
VIII-Burning Fire: Needs to be fixed so that cantrip-related proccs work with it. Otherwise a pretty solid trait for PvP but nobody speccs 20 into fire because of the lack of defense. Lower CD and I might consider using it.
IX-Fire’s Embrace: Signets are bad so this trait is pretty worthless. In theory it’s good for Aura-Share but that build isn’t viable in PvP and for PvE there are better support-options. Additionally fire-shield isn’t really strong. Maybe this should give you a shield based on attunement you’re currently in.
X-One with Fire: Flame Barrier is bad, so is this trait.
XI-Persisting Flames: Very good trait for PvE. May be usefull for PvP but speccing 30 into fire is not viable in PvP.
XII-Pyromancer’s Puissance: Useless for PvP and also PvE (due to constant attunement-rotation) and in PvE it’s worse than Persisting Flames even on staff. Needs rework or buff.
Air:
Because of Fresh Air it’s viable in PvP to invest up to 30P here. There are also some good traits for PvE but the range of viable traits is pretty small.
5-Zephyr’s Speed: Meh. Doesn’t stack with other traits. Perma-Swiftness is easy to obtain in PvE and WvW and there are better traits like Windborne Dagger or Signet of Air if you really want more movement-speed.
15-Electric Discharge: Perfect trait. Good synergy with Fresh Air and air-traitline in general.
25-Weak Spot: Not that bad in PvE (again good synergy with the traitline it’s in), nothing I’d invest 25P for in PvP though. Could use a boost in duration (maybe one or two seconds longer).
I-Zephyr’s Boon: Pretty solid trait for D/D and Aurashare-Builds. But since Aurashare isn’t really a viable build this trait could use a little boost (maybe add 2 might-stacks or something) to make this build better.
II-Zephyr’s Focus: Would only trait this when running a Scepter Fresh-Air Build (Air AA) + Ether Renewal. Pretty weak on other weaponsets. Inferior to Renewing Stamina in Arcana in my opinion.
III-Quick Glyphs: Glyphs are bad; the only spell making this trait worth would be the heal-glyph. But traiting this only for the heal is a waste of trait-points since there are better alternatives.
IV-One With Air: Would need a dramatic increase in duration (up to ~3s) to be usefull. Maybe rework it so you loose all movement-impairing conditions when attuning to air. Would help squishy eles a lot since roots and chill are cryptonite for eles.
V-Soothing Winds: There are way better alternatives. Heal-spells all have a very low scaling in GW2 so I doubt that you’ll notice +/- 100 healing power. When you spec into Air you’re very squishy … a little healing-power won’t ever safe you – you’ll need active defenses like auras to survive when running zerker.
VI-Bolt to the Heart: Very good trait for both PvE and PvP. Sadly the only real good adept-trait.
VII-Arcane Lightning: Don’t really know what to think about that. For PvE there aren’t any alternatives so you have to take it but that alone doesn’t make it a good trait. At least make it stack in duration. Or maybe increase the increase to 15%.
VIII-Inscription: If glyphs themselves would be good spells this trait would be in a good place.
IX-Aeromancer’s Alacrity: Would only use this with dagger-offhand in PvP. Useless in PvE and in general boring design. It only lowers the CD of 1/5 of our spells (not counting utilities) so it’s way worse then equivalents on other classes.
X-Air Training: Only good for Fresh-Air builds – useless everywhere else. Maybe rework it so that it doesn’t only work in Air but maybe when the target is more then 600 range away from you.
XI-Tempest Defense: Flawed design. The bonus-damage only works on shocking-aura-stun and Earthquake. These are spells with high CD so you will almost never profit from the bonus-damage. It only enables cheese-builds like oneshot-instant-burst-eles that combine arcane-spells with earthquake lightning flash and Scepter-Instant-Casts. When the aura proccs you’re disabled so then you can’t benefit from the bonus-damge either.
XII-Fresh Air: Ingenious trait – eredicates both the problem of high attunement-recharge and low sustained damage. I’d like to see something like this for all attunements.
Earth:
Some good defensive traits here but in general there aren’t any viable condition-builds for eles so many traits and the condition-damage you gain from it are useless.
5-Stone Flesh: Nice minor-trait, even more now that it works with Lingering Elements.
15-Earthen Blast: Same as the equivalent in fire. Could use a boost in damage or maybe replace the cripple with a 1-2s root – that’s something I’d invest 15P for. Would enable a lot of funny combos.
25-Enduring Damage: I don’t get how a guardian with very good defense benefits from low endurance while squishy eles that have to dodge permanently to survive need a full endurance bar for this trait. Make it vice versa so we get damage when endurance isn’t full. Traits shouldn’t handicap but help you.
I-Obsidian Focus: Compared to the Equivalent in Air this is nowhere as good. There are also way better alternatives in Adept-Tier. Maybe remove the toughness and add a direct decrease of incoming damage by about 20%. Would boost Ether Renewal a lot and therefore help squishy eles to mitigate burst (for example from thieves). Ether-Renewal can be easily disrupted so it’s high risk – high reward and not OP.
II-Signet Mastery: Same as the Glyph-equivalent. Signets are bad and this trait is kinda boring.
III-Earth’s Embrace: Perfect. Would love to see a decrease of the CD to 60s (I’d also like to see this on Armor of Earth itself) but this still is a very good trait.
IV-Serrated Stones: Would be nice if there were viable condi-builds for eles – but there are none.
V-Elemental Shielding: Nice for Aurashare. Maybe increase duration by 1-2s or rework it so that it makes auras stun-breaker (genious synergy with Tempest Defense).
VI-Stone Splinters: Nice trait for both PvE and PvP – especially with D/D but any weaponset can profit from that.
VII-Strength of Stone: See Serrated Stones.
VIII-Rock Solid: I love this trait for PvP. Perfectly fine.
IX-Geomancer’s Freedom: Bad for a master-trait. Either boost the decrease to about 66% or make the trait remove those conditions when you attune to earth. (Same thing I proposed for “One With Air”).
X-Geomancer’s Alacrity: Useless in PvE, and in PvP only usefull maybe with focus. Boring design. Add something to it to make it more interesting.
XI-Diamond Skin: Very bad design. It’s all or nothing. Useless against most classes and team-fights due to low threshhold (meaning that it’s useless 90% of the time) and seriously OP and boring against pure condition-classes. Please rework this trait to something similar like the engi-trait.
XII-Written in Stone: Signets are bad, so is this trait. The passives aren’t worth a grandmaster-trait. May change with some severe signet-buffs.
Water:
Not only good but even necessary for PvP. Includes some of our best traits and even for PvE there are some nice ones.
5-Soothing Mist: Perfectly Fine.
15-Healing Ripple: Perfectly Fine.
25-Bountiful Power: Also fine, still can’t understand the nerf from 2% to 1% though.
I-Arcane Abatement: Standard-spell. Solid for WvW. Wouldn’t use it but there are some players that really like it so it’s fine.
II-Shard of Ice: Good synergy with lightning-hammer-build but nothing overwhelming. 3 Stacks of Vulnerability for 8s every ~20s isn’t that good (especially when compared to some weapon-spells that apply 10 stacks for a longer period or even some ele-spells that apply weakness)
III-Cantrip Mastery: Since cantrips are very strong, this is a nice trait. Should also lower the CD of traits like Burning Fire or Earth’s Embrace.
IV-Piercing Shards: Perfect for LH-Build. Would love if it worked with Lingering Elements.
V-Soothing Wave: Good for bunkers but inferior to Cantrip Mastery. Still good synergy with Cleansing Water so it seems fine for and adept-trait.
VI-Vital Striking: Solid for PvE and also PvP.
VII-Stop, Drop, and Roll: Meh … not worth a master-trait. Maybe let dodges remove a random-condition without any further restrictions.
VIII-Aquamancer’s Alacrity: The same as the equivalents in other elements. Usually not worth it and boring design. Make it more interesting.
IX-Soothing Disruption: Perfect. (Revert the nerfs pls)
X-Cleansing Wave: Also good. Wouldn’t change it.
XI-Cleansing Water: Good idea and good synergy but once again I’d like to see the nerfs reverted. Especially with that condi-spam everywhere.
XII-Powerful Aura: Could use a little boost. Maybe make it increase the duration of all auras by 1-2s?
Arcane:
Our best and therefore most popular traitline. It offers both offensive and defensive traits. Traits aren’t restricted to special conditions like attunements or weaponset so they boost the ele regardless of build and weapon-choice. Some of these traits make eles viable in PvP in the first place.
5-Arcane Fury: Nice one, good synergy with the boon-duration from arcana.
15-Lingering Elements: Make it work with all traits not only minors or rework it. When speccing into arcana you’ll have at best 2 minors in your build anyways so Lingering Elements will only work with 1 or 2 of these depending on your build. In addition fire and earth minors are bad so I’d never put 15P into arcana for this trait.
25-Arcane Precision: Would need a drastic increase of the procc-chance (50%?) to be worth a grandmaster-minor.
I-Arcane Mastery: Same as equivalents in other traitlines with the difference that arcane-spells are actually good. So this trait is kinda usefull. Still boring design though.
II-Renewing Stamina: Though some classes have this as a 5P minor trait it’s still one of our best traits. Good synergy with arcana’s boon-duration.
III-Final Shielding: Not bad, could use a further decrease of its CD. Very often this trait gets bypassed by high crits though (25% ele-HP is usually only ~4k HP) and then it won’t procc. Something has to be done about that.
IV-Vigorous Scepter: Worse than Renewing Stamina (especially because scepter is usually used in glassy builds). Would never pick this one instead of the better alternative.
V-Blasting Staff: Perfect.
VI-Windborne Dagger: Now that it works outfight it’s fine, I guess.
VII-Arcane Retribution: Random procc for a mediocre spell. No thanks.
VIII-Elemental Attunement: best. trait. ever. This is THE trait that makes eles viable in PvP. Very good synergy with arcana-traitline because of boon-duration.
IX-Arcane Resurrection: Should be in adept-tier. Used it a couple of times in WvW but now that it competes with Elemental Attunement I’d never pick it.
X-Arcane Energy: Never really used it so I guess it has no use. Now also overshadowed by Elemental Attunement.
XI-Evasive Arcana: Genious, nothing more to say.
XII-Elemental Surge: Good idea but not worth a grandmaster-trait, especially not when you can use Evasive Arcana instead.
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