Guild Wars 2

I am only going to talk about the specialization traits, since they are what has been more concretely covered on stream.

Elementalist

Arcana
Minors

• Lingering Elements – which the changes that are being done and the fact that it will be literally impossible to trait for all the linger traits I would highly suggest to revamp this trait to include the passive traited buffs, reduce duration to 3s.
  • You have the reduce the duration since streamlining attunement recharge to 10s base makes 5s uptime ridiculous.
  • Eg, if you trait for Stone Heart, it will linger for 3s after you swap out of Earth.
• Arcane Precision – this is a very weak minor, since the proc % is so low. Maybe give it a bit of a boost. The output condis are fine, though.

Adept

• All of these are fine.

Master

• Elemental Contingency – the ICD is a bit long for how low the duration of these boons are. Considering nobody is going to be lingering in an attunement for that long, I would suggest lowering this ICD by a little bit.

Grandmaster

• All of these are fine. I particularly liked that there is a big choice to be made between Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana. To be quite honest, I see Elemental Attunement being picked over Evasive Arcana in 80% of builds. The boon durations, along with the new ~8s attunement recharge, is too good.

Earth
Minors

• These are all fine.

Adept

• These are all fine.

Master

• I would like to see Rock Solid Give 2 stacks of stab instead of 1. Otherwise these are all fine.

Grandmaster

• Diamond Skin – I can’t give any informed judgement on that at the moment, but this might be dangerous depending on how the stats have been redistributed.

Water
Minors

• These are fine.

Adept

• Soothing Ice – You cannot, CANNOT give this trait Frost Aura, no matter how short the duration, the consequences are catastrophic. Frost Aura gives 10% damage reduction and 2s chill, 1s ICD. If traited, with other aura traits, it will also give 3s protection, 5s swiftness and fury, and don’t even get me started on aura sharing this.
  • I strongly suggest this becomes something like “Gain regeneration and chill your attacker (2s) when you are critically hit,” and even that is kind of strong. The original Soothing Wave is perfectly fine.
• The rest are fine.

Master

• There are all fine, though I’d suggest potentially lowering the HP threshold on Aquamancer’s Training (presently Vital Striking), depending on how stats are adjusted.

Grandmaster

• These are all fine, though I’m slightly impartial to Bountiful Power being a major trait now—and a GM at that. Even at 9x, +18% damage isn’t that significant considering you have to trait into Water for this. Just my 2c

Air
Minors

• All fine.

Adept

• I like the slight buff to One with Air, some people might actually take it now. You briefly mentioned maybe going another direction with Ferocious Winds (which is a good idea seeing how bad Ferocity scales with small amounts). Fine otherwise.

Master

• I really like that you finally put Tempest Defense in a place where it’s worth selecting over other traits. These are fine.

Grandmaster

• These are fine.

Fire
Before I go into these, I want to mention that there is a LOT of Fire Shield spam potential. It should probably be toned down.
Minors

• Largely fine. Though, I would suggest reducing Flame Barrier duration to 2s, down from 3s.

Adept

• Conjurer – Interesting boost to this trait, though, without a serious revamp of all conjured weapons, it is still not a good enough incentive to ever take them over cantrips or signets.

Master

• Burning Fire – This is one of those traits that you should’ve done away with and reworked entirely. Nobody in their right mind will ever take this, it is just too ineffective.
• The rest are fine.

Grandmaster

• These are also fine.

Overall, I think ele changes are mostly good, though there were a couple crazy things cough Soothing Ice cough that should definitely get redacted.

Reserved for future theory crafting section.

what you miss out on soothing ice is that it replaces some of the lost protection from not taking elemental attunement on berserk builds as you want damage (air), cleanse (water) and now the damage mitigation from earth.

you already have the 100% uptime +20% reduction from the earth minor gm so you will go for evasive on d/d.

i agree on minor air, the 3s superspeed is awesome.

fire shield spam is fine imo as the damage has been tuned down anyway and it was always possible to get a high prot uptime with signet aura builds, if you go into fire that’s what you wanna do, problem is just that nobody will go into fire i guess, even if blinding ashes is 3s icd now the rest is just not worth it.

I agree not because I know anything about the game but because I must support and unban acandis.

-DFTC

Jekkt.6045:

what you miss out on soothing ice is that it replaces some of the lost protection from not taking elemental attunement on berserk builds as you want damage (air), cleanse (water) and now the damage mitigation from earth.

you already have the 100% uptime +20% reduction from the earth minor gm so you will go for evasive on d/d.

i agree on minor air, the 3s superspeed is awesome.

fire shield spam is fine imo as the damage has been tuned down anyway and it was always possible to get a high prot uptime with signet aura builds, if you go into fire that’s what you wanna do, problem is just that nobody will go into fire i guess, even if blinding ashes is 3s icd now the rest is just not worth it.

I agree with fire line just not being worth it.
Air line is ok, but Water and Earth are just too good.

And I really don’t think Arcana is as bad as people think it is, it got nerfed where it needed to.

That being said, on the topic of Soothing Ice, if you want protection when you get hit, you can take Elemental Contingency. I really don’t see a reason to give the class a skill that’s generally on a 40s CD for free every 10s.

Well, I definitely don’t agree with Zephyr’s speed being good, it’s pretty worthless. I would like too see some change there, too.

Also, they did say that Soothing Ice will have lower duration.

Laraley.7695:

Well, I definitely don’t agree with Zephyr’s speed being good, it’s pretty worthless. I would like too see some change there, too.

Also, they did say that Soothing Ice will have lower duration.

Keep in mind, I didn’t expressly say they are good, I simply said they are fine as they are. Could they use a slight boost? Sure
Are they absolutely worthess? No

And on Soothing Ice, I can’t stress enough how broken it would be to give a player a Frost Aura every 10s, no matter the duration. This is potentially an AoE Frost Aura + 3s Protection + 5s Fury + 5s Swiftness, every 10s. Any sort of Aura effect with that low of an ICD like this would be way too strong.

Overall the ele takes a buff to passive defense with geo defense (earth GM minor), and with soothing ice (water adept minor) + elemental shielding (earth minor). In return, ele gives up active defense (choosing between elemental attunement or evasive arcana).

Fresh air eles take a huge hit to damage due to air mastery being nerfed to +10% crit damage (rather than +10% pure damage), and bolt to the heart being moved to GM major. The air adept minor trait is still complete garbage. Some people are saying that Fresh Air ele can now be a lot more tanky by going air/earth/water, but I don’t think that’d actually work out. You’d give up fury-on-attune, which is absolutely crucial to fresh air ele (less crits = less sigil procs & fresh air procs & less air mastery damage). You’d also give up vigor and elemental attunement (which gives more protection than the current soothing ice + elemental shielding synergy). In return, you get a passive 20% dmg reduction within 600 range (worse than protection), stone heart(?) (doesn’t synergize with fresh air since you don’t want to camp earth), and lower earth CD (which is helpful, but probably not worth the above sacrifices).

It seems kinda weird that mesmer (IP), ranger (RtW), and engineer (grenadier’s 3 grenades) had GM traits made baseline because they were considered integral or too powerful. In comparison ele instead has a master trait bumped up to grandmaster, so you’re basically asking the ele to eliminate one (or both) of his core traits.

I think the new changes pidgeonhole ele into a more passive bruiser build. You’re making D/D eles choose between evasive arcana or elemental attunement, both of which are active, fun traits to use. In return, you give them passive buffs to survivability via elemental contingency, soothing ice, and geo defense. Overall, it’ll probably work out to a net survivability buff, but I wish the buffs rewarded active play instead. (Give us some powerful “on successful evade” and “on successful blind/block” traits!).

Some suggestions:
- Make “One With Air” a minor trait, and make it trigger on “Successful Evade,” with a duration of 1s. (Dodge an attack => get to reposition yourself). Zephyr’s Speed is 100% worthless. Add new air adept that converts power to precision or something.

- Make elemental attunement baseline, but nerf the boon uptime, or make it self-only. Make lingering elements restore elemental attunement to current functionality.

- Soothing Ice is probably strong enough to be a master or GM trait, especially given how well it synergizes with Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding. I’d swap it with bountiful power. So now you can choose between giving yourself more auras, or being able to give allies auras via powerful auras, or cleansing water.

- Revert air training damage nerf.

- Flame barrier (fire adept minor) should just give you a fire aura on attune, or give you a fire aura when you apply burning. The 20% chance on hit is too random and basically requires that you camp around in fire.

What I really don’t like is that we either have to trait for elemental attunement and evasive arcana. We can’t get both anymore ;_;

Acandis.3250:

Laraley.7695:

Well, I definitely don’t agree with Zephyr’s speed being good, it’s pretty worthless. I would like too see some change there, too.

Also, they did say that Soothing Ice will have lower duration.

Keep in mind, I didn’t expressly say they are good, I simply said they are fine as they are. Could they use a slight boost? Sure
Are they absolutely worthess? No

And on Soothing Ice, I can’t stress enough how broken it would be to give a player a Frost Aura every 10s, no matter the duration. This is potentially an AoE Frost Aura + 3s Protection + 5s Fury + 5s Swiftness, every 10s. Any sort of Aura effect with that low of an ICD like this would be way too strong.

Wait ?!? do they change aura share to proc through auras that arent applied through weapon skills?? How else will you be able to share that aura from soothing ice?
If they do change aura share like that.. that would be broken :O

Avead.5760:

Wait ?!? do they change aura share to proc through auras that arent applied through weapon skills?? How else will you be able to share that aura from soothing ice?
If they do change aura share like that.. that would be broken :O

Yes, they mentioned this was a nerf they didn’t like and are going to revert.
New Aura-share will not be limited to weapon skill Auras only.

Acandis.3250:

Laraley.7695:

Well, I definitely don’t agree with Zephyr’s speed being good, it’s pretty worthless. I would like too see some change there, too.

Also, they did say that Soothing Ice will have lower duration.

Keep in mind, I didn’t expressly say they are good, I simply said they are fine as they are. Could they use a slight boost? Sure
Are they absolutely worthess? No

And on Soothing Ice, I can’t stress enough how broken it would be to give a player a Frost Aura every 10s, no matter the duration. This is potentially an AoE Frost Aura + 3s Protection + 5s Fury + 5s Swiftness, every 10s. Any sort of Aura effect with that low of an ICD like this would be way too strong.

To get that synergy, you’d have to go air/water/earth. So you’d completely give up on Arcana, which means:

- No Renewing Stamina (for vigor),
- No Elemental Attunement,
- No Elemental Contingency, and
- No Fury-On-Attunement.

So the Soothing Ice synergy actually ends up with LESS overall AOE protection and swiftness uptime than arcana (bc elemental attunement is ~6.5s of each every 9s), and in return it gives a little bit more AOE fury uptime (but it wouldn’t be on-demand fury). Soothing Ice also requires you to be crit every 10s to ensure maximum uptime. So the on-aura effect synergy isn’t too OP considering what you’re giving up.

The frost aura itself is very strong, though, because it chills attackers and gives an additional +10% damage resist. That would have to be balanced duration-wise. I think the better course of action is to make it a GM trait (with current duration) so it competes with powerful auras. Or at least a master trait (with reduced duration) so it competes with soothing disruption (your other source of vigor + regen).

Acandis.3250:

Air

Grandmaster

• These are fine.

Stopped reading here. Not sure what kind of kitten Ele you want to see…

That is so good actually for support..But how would that even work.If i blast an ice field do i give them 2 times the frost aura if i get it also ? 1 from blast and 1 cause i got the aura from blast and then shared it.
What if i blast the field twice or 3 times which is pretty easy tbh?? LOL
And what if i get the arcane faster rezz trait and get a guy up from downstate while im on earth? Do i give them 8 sec of protection and a 10 sec lasting magnetic aura(5 by the rezz trait and another 5 cause i got the aura myself and shared it with everybody near me)??
This seems good even without investing in air for fury and swiftness!
You lose condi clear though but it depends on where the meta goes..you can still run around with 2 cond cleanses and ether renewal/rock solid for yourself
And 10 sec icd on that??IMPOSSIBLE it will definately change to something like 20+ but then you ll lose massive regen.. Iwish the regen trait in water wasnt tied to something that powerfull

Swim.6830:

Acandis.3250:

Air

Grandmaster

• These are fine.

Stopped reading here. Not sure what kind of kitten Ele you want to see…

What do you think is wrong with the Grandmasters. The Air line is nice now.

ResJudicator.7916:

Overall the ele takes a buff to passive defense with geo defense (earth GM minor), and with soothing ice (water adept minor) + elemental shielding (earth minor). In return, ele gives up active defense (choosing between elemental attunement or evasive arcana).
—snip—

This is actually a pretty solid analysis of what’s happening. Though, I disagree with a couple of things…

Fresh air builds are taking a pretty big hit as they’ll do at least 10% less damage, -20% from Bolt to the Heart. I don’t think this is a bad thing that’s being done, since currently Fresh Air eles have the potential to 100-0 many other classes in a fraction of a second. This really isn’t ok, and I’m glad it’s being addressed slightly. To keep the glass cannon feel of the build, I would go Water/Earth/Arcana. Like you mentioned the bonuses you get from Earth don’t synergize that well with the build.

Furthermore, I don’t think eles are being pigeonholed into any 1 specific role with this. With what’s been shown so far, I can think of at least 3 different builds (I will post these later) that could be effective, each of which serve a different role.

ResJudicator.7916:

Some suggestions:
- Make “One With Air” a minor trait, and make it trigger on “Successful Evade,” with a duration of 1s. (Dodge an attack => get to reposition yourself). Zephyr’s Speed is 100% worthless. Add new air adept that converts power to precision or something.

I like the idea of giving this a more skillful trigger. It would reward skillful play with better kiting uptime.

ResJudicator.7916:

- Make elemental attunement baseline, but nerf the boon uptime, or make it self-only. Make lingering elements restore elemental attunement to current functionality

I think having to choose between Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement is a good rebalancing. It opens up a couple other possibilities for builds rather that pigeonholing
every support build into taking both of them.

ResJudicator.7916:

- Soothing Ice is probably strong enough to be a master or GM trait, especially given how well it synergizes with Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding. I’d swap it with bountiful power. So now you can choose between giving yourself more auras, or being able to give allies auras via powerful auras, or cleansing water.

This is an interesting suggestion. Rather than having to nerf the skill so it doesn’t have crazy OP synergy with other traits, it could be made a GM. In that case, it could still use a slight duration reduction, because 40% uptime is still pretty high. I would suggest lowering it to 3s, maybe even 2s.

SobeSoul.6910:

Swim.6830:

Acandis.3250:

Air

Grandmaster

• These are fine.

Stopped reading here. Not sure what kind of kitten Ele you want to see…

What do you think is wrong with the Grandmasters. The Air line is nice now.

The air line is not any better than it used to be. Zephyr’s speed is basically worthless, with so much swifntess around you will rarely use its benefits. (Not that they changed it). Air training is gone. No one will use Bolt to the heart anymore. They nerfed the dps fresh air ele was able to get from Air line.

I think its easiest to look at it in terms of weapon-sets and how they can synergize with traits to understand how a build can be made.

Scepter/X builds. Scepter has absolutely pitiful sustained damage no matter what you do, so all it can do is burst. That works relatively well now in this pre-mega power-creep meta because you can get some great +damage modifiers in air to go with fresh air to get just enough offensive power to counter-pressure opponents and kill them before you are out of CD’s. With all the lost damage from air, scepter builds will be forced to go into water (damage from fire line is pretty bad, while water gives the best damage multipliers) and probably arcana. Going into earth nets you MORE defense, but without the high offensive output you are food for anybody with burst. Even in water-line, you don’t gain back the damage you had before and only get minimal offense. Net effect: you can’t even compete with (now buffed) burst from other professions… I think scepter is now dead as a weapon.

Dagger/X
Nerfs to arcane force you to tank-up, meaning earth/water/arcana, which gets better defense overall and less offense than before. With fewer blasts, you probably swap back to clerics amulet and just go full-bunker, but this will still kind of work. I think an aura build will work too taking air/earth/water to get high swiftness, fury, and prot, probably in a d/f build (condi cleanse is limited, so d/d won’t work).

Staff
Just play an engineer – more blasts, longer range, more cc, no ICD’s on swaps, great 1v1 potential, better innate defenses, and mortar kit + healing turret is like all the good parts of staff without the bad parts. Nerfing arcana hurts the most here. I think this weapon is dead by replacement by a build that just does everything way better. Its kind of sad that they want engineer to be the field+blast guy, which was sort-of all staff ever really had.

Fire overall just seems bad. Blind spam has potential, but isn’t going to cut it with all the OP stealth-burst mechanics that are going to hard-counter any damage build. In fire there just aren’t many good options for big damage or high survivability. The nerfing or arcana just forces most eles in water/earth. Overall, things look pretty bleak.

With regards to the Evasive Arcana v. Elemental Attunement issue, I think it’s worth bearing in mind that the Ele is the only class whose class mechanic doesn’t actually confer an inherent advantage (or at least not a large one). All attunements do at baseline is to give eles access to more weapon skills, and the ele’s weapon skills have all been balanced around this (i.e. slightly toned down).

In comparison, shatters give mesmers 4 additional skills which, with IP baseline, are now pretty strong even without any traits. Death shroud gives necros more skills + a second HP bar. Etc.

Making elemental attunement baseline makes the ele attunement swapping actually do something valuable as a baseline, which helps establish some parity in this regard.

ResJudicator.7916:

With regards to the Evasive Arcana v. Elemental Attunement issue, I think it’s worth bearing in mind that the Ele is the only class whose class mechanic doesn’t actually confer an inherent advantage (or at least not a large one). All attunements do at baseline is to give eles access to more weapon skills, and the ele’s weapon skills have all been balanced around this (i.e. slightly toned down).

In comparison, shatters give mesmers 4 additional skills which, with IP baseline, are now pretty strong even without any traits. Death shroud gives necros more skills + a second HP bar. Etc.

Making elemental attunement baseline makes the ele attunement swapping actually do something valuable as a baseline, which helps establish some parity in this regard.

This is a good point, but I think out opinions are falling on deaf ears. Anet clearly has no idea what makes eles tick, and are seriously hurting the class with their ignorance. Your opinions about these changes make a lot of sense, but they are too busy making engineers an elementalist 2.0, even down to the blasts on dodges and access to all the fields. I suggest you just start practicing with that class as that playstyle seems to be migrating there.

The good news is that engies aren’t plagued with all of the survival issues eles are baseline, and probably have higher base damage in general (without traiting for multipliers, which are going down the drain).

1. Nothing lingers except for 5 point minors. Stone heart will not linger. 10% damage buffs from attunements do not linger. If they mentioned this will change then I stand corrected.

2. Arcane precision is plenty strong if you go a fresh air build. Perhaps its not the greatest in a cele build but that’s fine. Maybe up the proc rate to 15% on crit at most.

3. I don’t like that Attunement and Evasive are choices between eachother. They are both really cool group utility that take a lot of skill to optimize and removing one from our kit just makes it a whole lot less fun. I have a lot to say about this issue but I’ll keep it short here.

Phantaram.1265:

1. Nothing lingers except for 5 point minors. Stone heart will not linger. 10% damage buffs from attunements do not linger. If they mentioned this will change then I stand corrected.

That’s why I suggested they add lingering for non-minor traits.

Phantaram.1265:

2. Arcane precision is plenty strong if you go a fresh air build. Perhaps its not the greatest in a cele build but that’s fine. Maybe up the proc rate to 15% on crit at most.

Sure.

Phantaram.1265:

3. I don’t like that Attunement and Evasive are choices between eachother. They are both really cool group utility that take a lot of skill to optimize and removing one from our kit just makes it a whole lot less fun. I have a lot to say about this issue but I’ll keep it short here.

I’d like to hear what you have to say on this issue as it is definitely a controversial design choice. As you said, optimizing the group utility that you get from having both of these is definitely high skillcap, but from another perspective using them non-optimally also presented very favorably outcome. (Even bad eles can faceroll their way through a lot of matchups because of the high sustain these 2 traits provide together)

Isn’t that the point? Having to choose between two strong traits instead of having access to everything? This is what diversity is all about.

Arken.3725:

Isn’t that the point? Having to choose between two strong traits instead of having access to everything? This is what diversity is all about.

Then they should make all classes to choose, thieves don’t for example. The traits are crucial to ele. I doubt it will bring more diversity, it will just kill one of the traits.

Laraley.7695:

Arken.3725:

Isn’t that the point? Having to choose between two strong traits instead of having access to everything? This is what diversity is all about.

Then they should make all classes to choose, thieves don’t for example. The traits are crucial to ele. I doubt it will bring more diversity, it will just kill one of the traits.

Having one example(thief) isn’t a strong enough argument for one profession to have access to a multitude boons, pressure, sustain and CC. There needs to be some give and this will make you choose what’s more important to you.

Edit: and this will still be the case after the changes are implemented.

Arken.3725:

Laraley.7695:

Arken.3725:

Isn’t that the point? Having to choose between two strong traits instead of having access to everything? This is what diversity is all about.

Then they should make all classes to choose, thieves don’t for example. The traits are crucial to ele. I doubt it will bring more diversity, it will just kill one of the traits.

Having one example(thief) isn’t a strong enough argument for one profession to have access to a multitude boons, pressure, sustain and CC. There needs to be some give and this will make you choose what’s more important to you.

Edit: and this will still be the case after the changes are implemented.

Every class has something, ele has boons, and sustain, thief has evades and stealth burst and mobility, engi has massive amounts of cc and alot of most things aside from condi clearing, guard has blocks healing boons burst, warrior has high health immunity from stances, massive healing and team condi clearing with shouts and a giant fire field that near permanently covers any point barring mid on foefir, mesmer has portal crazy burst from range, stealth and fantastic kiting ability, ranger has pew pew from massive range or possibly the best 1v1 on point fighting build with condi, necro has tons of health, and some incredible damage just from spamming 1 with dagger, life blast, or deathly claws or massive damage fear chains.

Every class has their things that make them “op” and now some of them get those for free with crucial traits being made baseline. Except ele, the only one I know of who is going to be forced to lose one of the key things that has anchored the class since launch. The double standard is rediculous. If they want to do this to ele they should do the same to every other class, force them to choose between their best 2 traits so no one can have their cake and eat it to.

As for “Ele so op nerf plz”, stop living in the past, top tier teams have slowly been dropping eles as the meta has transformed into something not nearly as kind to them. Perfect example being abjurd known for having two of the best elementalists in the game which both rerolled to other classes. In lower ranks, good eles are quite rare in my experience while medi guards, power rangers, power necros, turret engis, and shoutbow warriors are all a dime a dozen.

You are listing attributes to professions that need to have, quite literally, all tree’s maxed to obtain. Thief stealth burst and evades? Last I checked it’s one (acrobat) or the other(executioner/panic strike). Guard having long duration/consistent ones along with burst also doesn’t exist since you need to pick one or the other.

These are just some examples of classes NEEDING to have every line maxed out (which is impossible) whereas the Elementalist obtains CC, Sustain, Pressure and boon application within 3 lines.

Arken.3725:

You are listing attributes to professions that need to have, quite literally, all tree’s maxed to obtain. Thief stealth burst and evades? Last I checked it’s one (acrobat) or the other(executioner/panic strike). Guard having long duration/consistent ones along with burst also doesn’t exist since you need to pick one or the other.

These are just some examples of classes NEEDING to have every line maxed out (which is impossible) whereas the Elementalist obtains CC, Sustain, Pressure and boon application within 3 lines.

What? He’s just describing the current meta panic strike build. 6 Deadly Arts, 2 Shadow Arts, 6 Trickery. With the new specialization system, that will be 6 Deadly Arts, 6 Shadow Arts, 6 Trickery. The build won’t lose anything. It picks up a free 5% dagger damage because dagger training is becoming baseline. It also picks up improved shadow arts traits for significantly better sustain and disengage. Oh yeah, improvisation will now have a chance to instantly recharge healing skills.

And if you look at shatter mesmers, the master and grandmaster traits they used to take in the illusion line (elasticity and IP) are being made baseline. That’s huge! You can go Dom/Dueling/Chaos now to get the benefits of both shatter and interrupt, which I actually support because of the high skill ceiling. But it’s another counter to what you just described.

Your whole argument about having to max out traitlines is inapplicable to the new specialization system. Every class will need to choose 3 specs, which will be fully maxed out. If you’re suggesting that eles can get access to everything with just 3 traitlines, then you need to take another look at the above posts and the ready up preview.

Arken.3725:

You are listing attributes to professions that need to have, quite literally, all tree’s maxed to obtain. Thief stealth burst and evades? Last I checked it’s one (acrobat) or the other(executioner/panic strike). Guard having long duration/consistent ones along with burst also doesn’t exist since you need to pick one or the other.

These are just some examples of classes NEEDING to have every line maxed out (which is impossible) whereas the Elementalist obtains CC, Sustain, Pressure and boon application within 3 lines.

Arken, he is listing innate mechanics, of which those classes will have at least some WITHOUT traits. Eles without traits have no innate defense (thus why they tank the heck up). It pigeon-holes the class, and now it is even less effective going in that direction, further enforcing that the class needs to tanky up bigtime.

I know you get very jealous of eles b/c they have a mix of soft and hard cc that is hard for a guardian to handle often, but the class has a lot of very-restrictive problems that have been patched by the holy arcana trifecta for years. They removed one of the pillars holding the class afloat, in doing so completely changing the play-style and making it seem like something else. It would be like if they said to guard’s "You can either choose access to between 90% less boon uptime (overall) or 50% of the healing you get from skills through AH, monk’s focus, etc. Its not the best comparison, but sort of similar b/c both classes share these aspects.

Completely forgot about the new system. Was still going back to the old one when I mentioned Thief as example of having both.

With all these changes, I hate that most of these do not change up play style at all or even builds.

- I still have no idea why Diamond Skin and Stone Heart still exists :\
Please just replace those entirely, there are tons of great suggestions on the forums.

- Bountiful Power, please just replace completely. It adds nothing to gameplay and is just inferior in the spot it’s in. There are tons of great suggestions on the forums already.

- Stop, drop and roll. I will now consider taking it, but for all the wrong reasons. If you are going to have Chill slow attunement recharge be sure it slows recharge for all weapon swapping too.

- Arcane Precision, why does it still exist? Please just replace it entirely, a 1% to 5% chance to cause a condition on any hit has absolutely no place in GW2.

_

Ugh, I can’t go on. Fixing problems which is great but ignoring others. I feel like it’s a step in the right direction but with the wrong shoes. You are getting somewhere, sure, but you are still tripping on all the problems.

I wish I could partake in the concept team, as I’m right now super curious of how ArenaNet is actually looking at all these traits.