Guild Wars 2

Mbelch.9028:

Swagg, read through everything here. You’re not in touch with elementalist as it is now, and you’re suggesting a new elementalist all together. It won’t work.

People keep saying that. Truth be told, the only things that are truly game-changing are the scepter changes and maybe the updraft change.

Mbelch.9028:

Operate within the confines with which we have now, and you’ll receive better comments, and your ideas won’t seem so whacky.

I heard Phantaram put it rather well a little while ago with regards to “the elementalist confines” (I’ll paraphrase): the Elementalist is in a dangerous spot in which certain buffs or nerfs to anything would completely throw off the entire class.

Mbelch.9028:

At that, you’re giving a boat load of our skills cast times, ect. where they don’t need them. Mist form doesn’t need a damaging attack at the end..

You don’t damage someone with a chill-inflicting skill with a 61 base damage attack and a 0.2 damage coefficient; you make escapes with it. The [Mist Form] change is about giving the Elementalist more survivability by giving it some more in-combat mobility.

Mbelch.9028:

The change to cleansing fire is poor at best. Easily interruptible, and it’ll go unused just like ether renewal does for any D/D ele with a brain (in WvW).

Sure, but ether renewal doesn’t cure conditions on allies or knock back enemies. Having a knock-back and AoE condition removal that requires investment opens up the door to really neat plays for the Elementalist.

Mbelch.9028:

Lastly, I’ll end on the thing everybody is criticizing. The burning speed evasion. It is necessary, the skill already should have had it (continuity with burning retreat) and it gives D/D ele (such a fragile thing) a bit of an opener that can’t be stopped by a randomly swinging hammer warrior.

I’ll refer you back to what I’ve said below my [Burning Speed] comment. Truth be told, giving an offensive attack evasion frames is a DANGEROUS slope. It’s the reason why Thief is so stupid. ANet quickly realized that the Thief was a worthless profession because it couldn’t do anything without dying repeatedly, so, instead of actually designing a worthwhile profession that has a unique function or flavor on the battlefield, they just gave it huge damage, blind spam and evasion frames everywhere to make sure that it hit everything without instantly dying. It’s not a good paradigm. Giving [Burning Speed] evasion frames is step 1 on the way to making Elementalist into Thief 2.0 (as if scepter/arcane burst isn’t already that).

Mbelch.9028:

Best of luck,

Thanks.

Mbelch.9028:

P.S. Where the heck do you get the idea of changing nothing about Dragon’s Tooth but the base damage by a few points of damage? Please explain.

Being able to aim [Dragon’s Tooth] would be an enormous game-changer, the magnitude of which I don’t think that anyone truly comprehends. Because of that factor, having a targeted, 4-6k, 180-radius AoE damage bomb appear on the field once every 6—or even 4 3/4—seconds that also inflicts a hefty duration of burning is a scary thought from a balance perspective.

I’m not trying to make this into another Eles vs Warrios comparison but…

Whirlwind Attack [Warrior Greatsword] has a 3/4 second evasion frame on a 10 second cooldown. It’s an offensive attack and a gap closer like Burning Speed but I don’t think it has become a big issue that it has evade frames.

I’m supporting the evasion frames on both Whirlwind Attack and Burning Speed because it helps both melee builds to mitigate some damage while being kited.

I have given up on “Pro” players and their balance suggestion. I’ll post this here since you reference Phantaram. Also since many people seem to think the Devs don’t know what their doing. look at the video to stroll down memory lane. The devs wanted to bring other classes up. The players wanted nerfs I Posted this a while back in Ele forums. “Pro” players should have just as much weight as any other player so honestly I could care less what the words of phantaram are in regards to balance. Many of those people said they where quitting then came back and still stream GW2.

It was nerfed because partly because Top sPvP players at the time said that ele was to strong etc. etc. I can dig it up again but in the video when elementalist was brought up as to strong Joh Peters and Chap both seemed surprised.

Let us look down memory lane shall we in regards to Elementalist:

First SOTG – http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593 Elementalist discussion @ 45:51

Elementalist is first classed discussed. Jon Peter’s seemed to think at that time that ele was fine surprised people thought it was strong. Chap sounds like he would side with how we all feel now about Ele that is a high skill cap so it rewards you. The other players don’t seem to feel the same way influenced by the Players, changes/nerfs to ele happened after that video.

I think looking back at this video it was a l2p issue on the playerbase as a whole and people didn’t know how the ele worked or how to counter it. So ele was nerfed other classes brought up which seemed to be the devs initial intention anyway but for months it was Ele =OP on the forums so they nerfed Ele because players in the SOTG solidified the forums complaints. The better approach would have been to bring the other classes up to the levels that we see now that is what they seemed to want to do going by the video but somewhere it didn’t happen.

April 2013 – The Ele nerf patch!

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412 Elementalist @ 34:42

This is the RTL/Mist Form/ Cleansing Water(pvp) nerf patch. Even after the changes Symbolic states that he doesn’t think the Cleansing Water nerf will have much impact on how well Ele’s can deal with conditions. Chap states internally it showed other wise (which we all know is totally correct). If I remember Symbolic plays/played necromancer. Mist form change also hit engineers because they could go tiny mode and use their skills also.

I think it was listening to the players I think pushed them to make changes. The bases of the argument at the beginning of the first video was that Teams would bring 2-3 eles so there has to be a problem with eles.

If ele was never nerfed and the classes we have today are the classes that we had back then would Ele be OP? In my opinion nobody would think its op. It also would compete with warrior in the current meta and probably still wouldn’t have a place currently.

Appreciate your responses, but so as to not get into an argument or drawn out discussion, I’m going to again say I disagree with a majority of your changes, and I hope the Devs don’t take a majority of them.

P.S. I didn’t realize you aimed to make DT an aim skill, that would be an acceptable reason.

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

Swagg, read through everything here. You’re not in touch with elementalist as it is now, and you’re suggesting a new elementalist all together. It won’t work.

People keep saying that. Truth be told, the only things that are truly game-changing are the scepter changes and maybe the updraft change.

Mbelch.9028:

Operate within the confines with which we have now, and you’ll receive better comments, and your ideas won’t seem so whacky.

I heard Phantaram put it rather well a little while ago with regards to “the elementalist confines” (I’ll paraphrase): the Elementalist is in a dangerous spot in which certain buffs or nerfs to anything would completely throw off the entire class.

Mbelch.9028:

At that, you’re giving a boat load of our skills cast times, ect. where they don’t need them. Mist form doesn’t need a damaging attack at the end..

You don’t damage someone with a chill-inflicting skill with a 61 base damage attack and a 0.2 damage coefficient; you make escapes with it. The [Mist Form] change is about giving the Elementalist more survivability by giving it some more in-combat mobility.

Mbelch.9028:

The change to cleansing fire is poor at best. Easily interruptible, and it’ll go unused just like ether renewal does for any D/D ele with a brain (in WvW).

Sure, but ether renewal doesn’t cure conditions on allies or knock back enemies. Having a knock-back and AoE condition removal that requires investment opens up the door to really neat plays for the Elementalist.

Mbelch.9028:

Lastly, I’ll end on the thing everybody is criticizing. The burning speed evasion. It is necessary, the skill already should have had it (continuity with burning retreat) and it gives D/D ele (such a fragile thing) a bit of an opener that can’t be stopped by a randomly swinging hammer warrior.

I’ll refer you back to what I’ve said below my [Burning Speed] comment. Truth be told, giving an offensive attack evasion frames is a DANGEROUS slope. It’s the reason why Thief is so stupid. ANet quickly realized that the Thief was a worthless profession because it couldn’t do anything without dying repeatedly, so, instead of actually designing a worthwhile profession that has a unique function or flavor on the battlefield, they just gave it huge damage, blind spam and evasion frames everywhere to make sure that it hit everything without instantly dying. It’s not a good paradigm. Giving [Burning Speed] evasion frames is step 1 on the way to making Elementalist into Thief 2.0 (as if scepter/arcane burst isn’t already that).

Mbelch.9028:

Best of luck,

Thanks.

Mbelch.9028:

P.S. Where the heck do you get the idea of changing nothing about Dragon’s Tooth but the base damage by a few points of damage? Please explain.

Being able to aim [Dragon’s Tooth] would be an enormous game-changer, the magnitude of which I don’t think that anyone truly comprehends. Because of that factor, having a targeted, 4-6k, 180-radius AoE damage bomb appear on the field once every 6—or even 4 3/4—seconds that also inflicts a hefty duration of burning is a scary thought from a balance perspective.

Dragon’s Tooth targeted? no thanks. Just make it land 20% faster and add 6% more burning damage, and it’s perfect.

Grevender.9235:

Dragon’s Tooth targeted? no thanks. Just make it land 20% faster and add 6% more burning damage, and it’s perfect.

Skills that require the player to aim them are skills that possess a skill cap. This game deserves a higher skill cap than it has currently.

Making skills auto-aim for you just turns combat into a button-mashing fest.

Swagg.9236:

Grevender.9235:

Dragon’s Tooth targeted? no thanks. Just make it land 20% faster and add 6% more burning damage, and it’s perfect.

Skills that require the player to aim them are skills that possess a skill cap. This game deserves a higher skill cap than it has currently.

Making skills auto-aim for you just turns combat into a button-mashing fest.

I’d like to add, you miss the value of an aimable Dragon’s Tooth. When it’s aimable it can be used as a detourant. A Soft CC so to speak that will make your opponent steer around it.

Let’s start on the Signets, because in my opinion, most of the Signet skills across most of the classes are amongst the worst designed skills in the game.

Swagg.9236:

Utility skills (Signets)
[Signet of Air] (active)
snip

[Signet of Fire] (active)
snip

[Signet of Earth] (active)
snip

[Signet of Water] (active)
snip

There are 2 issues I find questionable about Signets:

1. Some bonuses that Signets give have no counterplay. They are just there.
2. The design of some passives will never be easily balanced as a numbers game; they will always be overtuned or undertuned (Signet of Restoration for Ele, Signet of Healing for Warrior, so many more examples)

I do like some of your proposals for the Signet Actives; they are useful enough to justify having them on the bar, however, it is the passives that are most needed to be addressed. In my opinion, Signet passives should be designed more like Trait effects and grant effects in the form of Boons ; or mechanical utility.

Now, that being said, let’s move on to the Signet passives:
Signet of Air: Increases movement speed by 25%

• Elementalist already has IMS traits in the Air and Arcana line – both lines of which figure popularly in most Elementalist builds. Yet this IMS boost has little counterplay, and Permaswiftness remains out of reach of some Elementalist builds outside of spamming Glyph of Elemental Harmony on CD; and/or moderate swiftness uptime through Elemental Attunement.
  The passive should therefore be reworked to ONE of the following:
• Signet of Air: Every 10 seconds, gain 10 seconds of Swiftness.
  • This allows the IMS to be counterplayed through Boon removal or Corruption; or simple Cripple application
• Signet of Air: When you dodge an attack, gain 10 seconds of Swiftness (cooldown: 5 seconds)
  • This makes Elementalists have to work for their Swiftness uptime. “Permaswiftness” is possible, but only obtainable through combat. One of the chief complaints against Elementalists pre-nerf was that they gained Boons mindlessly: their access to Boons was extraordinarily high, did not require additional player input, and most importantly did not promote a high skill ceiling as Boons were gained regardless of whether a player did well or not.

Signet of Earth: Improves Toughness by (2×10+cLvl ; or 180 at Lvl 80)

• Elementalist already has Toughness boosts when in Earth Attunement and when Channeling ; which are arguably redundant. The Toughness also cannot be counterplayed; yet, Elementalist does not rely on Toughness to survive but Protection which is counterplayable in today’s Condition and Boon Hate meta.

The passive should therefore be reworked to ONE of the following:

• Signet of Earth: Cleanse one of: Chill, Cripple or Immobilise when you attune to Earth. Cooldown: 10 seconds
  • Elementalist is remarkably vulnerable to Immobilise and other snares, especially when playing bruiser builds like D/x ; yet lacks targeted cleansing in lieu of overwhelming amounts of cleansing (until the nerfs came)
• Signet of Earth: Gain 2 seconds of Protection when disabled (Stun, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback, Launch) . Cooldown: 15 seconds
  • Elementalist is easily downed; even through Protection, as the base Vitality is low. Effective HP of Elementalist pre-nerf with Protection uptime was still low, but was propped up by a lack of Boon hate and “sticky” condition application. Post nerf with Cleansing water nerf and removal of stunbreaks from Cantrips, getting disabled is extraordinarily dangerous as an Elementalist.
• Signet of Earth: Gain 2 seconds of Protection when you dodge an attack. Cooldown: 10 seconds
  • This again, is intended to make Elementalists “work” for their Boons. In today’s “spammy” meta, an Elementalist being pressured slotting this signet will most likely have something like 40+% uptime of Protection (assuming Elemental Attunement is also taken) ; which relieves some but not all of the incoming damage. It’s also somewhat more skillful than say, Companion’s Defense .

Signet of Fire: Improves Precision by (2×10+cLvl, or 180 at Lvl80)

• Elementalists already have ample access to Fury across multiple trait lines in the form of Persisting Flames , Zephyr’s Boon , and Arcane Fury . This diminishes the role of Precision in a typical Elementalist’s build, which was why for the longest time, the ideal PvP Amulet for Elementalist was not Berserker, but Valkyrie as the Toughness and Healing Power over Precision and Vitality were a lot more efficient. Similarly, PvE and WvW gear setups favoured Cavalier’s and/or Celestial over Berserker’s pieces.
• Again, the presence of a Signet buff that has no counterplay interaction is not only lazy design but bad design.

The passive should therefore be reworked to ONE of:

• Signet of Fire: Gain 2 seconds of Fury when you Burn a foe. Cooldown: 10 seconds*
  • This increases the possible Fury uptime of a Signet Elementalist; whilst also opening the possibility of 0 Arcana Builds (as impossible as that may sound) due to negating even the minimum requirement of investment of 5 points into Arcana.

• Signet of Fire: Blasting a Combo Field Burns foes for 3 seconds within a 180 unit radius. Gain Fury for 3 seconds for each foe you Burn.
  • Elementalists should have more utility tied to Combo Fields and Finishers. This passive has some overlap with Persisting Flames ; however, this does encourage the Elementalist to place their Combo Fields close to the enemy instead of Allies. Strong for PbAoE Bruiser setups like D/x ; yet still usable for Staff; as it provides defensive counterpressure when the enemy closes; something that the Staff lacks.

Signet of Water: Cleanse a condition once every 10 seconds

• It’s strange to me that the only unique Signet Passive for Elementalist could be so overlooked. Even in a Condition meta where condition application is constant and overwhelming, I’ve seen very few Elementalists take it. There are a few reasons why:
  • Cleansing 1 condition where condition builds can regularly apply more than 1 condition even on autoattacks to cover Bleed or Burn can be considered insufficient. This is more a function of the zero sum Condition application vs cleansing arms race than a weakness of Signet of Water itself.
  • The Active is underwhelming. I do like your proposal on changing the Active and I would like to see that before changing the passive.

Swagg.9236:

[Signet of Water] (active)

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Conjure a font of chilling water at target location that heals allies and chills foes.
• Healing (3x): 1110 (0.5)
• Chilled (3): 1 second
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Combo Field: Water
• Range: 1200
  • The [Signet of Water] field is a light-blue colored [Geyser].
  • Now produces a red circle.

That said, there are ways to make Signet of Water more attractive to Elementalists by altering the passive. The most important thing is to give Elementalist more control over what is cleansed.
The passive should therefore be reworked to the following:

• Signet of Water: Cleanse 1 condition and Chill a foe for 2 seconds within a 120 radius when you dodge (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
  • This gives Elementalist more control over which Condition is cleansed. In addition, the Chill snare gives the Elementalist some defensive counterpressure within Melee range. For counterplay reasons, the Chill application should be presaged by a ring of Frost similar to that which precedes Frozen Burst ; although in this case there should be somewhat more delay before the Chill application than Frozen Burst

The aim of the passive changes is twofold: rework passives towards providing Boons; and/or to load utility into dodges.

• Loading Signet passives into boons are such that they can be stripped or played around by enemy players; and for combat legibility. No-one wants to mouse over an enemy player’s nameplate to read all their Signet passives; therefore, making the Signets provide Boons instead is not only fitting to the Elementalist design, but also provides players a combat legible effect on the Elementalist instead of some unseen buff to Toughness or Power that is intransparent.

• A dodge is a universally recognised animation in GW2, which is why I’ve chosen to work some of the Signet passives into dodges. Evasive Arcana has been the du jour GM Trait for Elementalists in Arcana because of the sheer amount of utility it provides – yet Elementalists should not be required to put 30 points in Arcana . These Signet Passives can give back some of that Utility.

Personally, rather than buffing/changing traits, skills and such. All they should do is start off by bumping up our Health and/or Armor. This alone would open up more options when it comes to be builds as players are pretty much forced to go into Toughness/Vit lines as well as getting Toughness/Vit gear thanks to the fact they start off with the Lowest health and Lowest Armor.

Of course at the start where they were pretty much unkillable that was an acceptable decision. Now with the nerfs to healing, defense, mobility and the insanely long cool down on Utilities i think it is about time that they were buffed up a bit in Health and/or Toughness so they CAN spend points and gear more damage rise.

MonMalthias.4763:

Points on signet passives; signet passive change suggestions.

More amazing ideas. The idea of tying signet passives to dodges remind me of some of the ideas I had for Engineer gadgets (there was a discussion about the possibility of giving them signet-like passive effects). Yes, honestly, I don’t quite understand why there aren’t more passive bonuses tied to active dodge. It’s an obvious animation, it breaks up combat by (typically) preventing a dodge-user from using offensive abilities, and it can’t really be spammed over and over again.

If you don’t mind, I’ll just slip your ideas right into my signet changes.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Personally, rather than buffing/changing traits, skills and such. All they should do is start off by bumping up our Health and/or Armor. This alone would open up more options when it comes to be builds as players are pretty much forced to go into Toughness/Vit lines as well as getting Toughness/Vit gear thanks to the fact they start off with the Lowest health and Lowest Armor.

Of course at the start where they were pretty much unkillable that was an acceptable decision. Now with the nerfs to healing, defense, mobility and the insanely long cool down on Utilities i think it is about time that they were buffed up a bit in Health and/or Toughness so they CAN spend points and gear more damage rise.

The trouble of buffing Elementalist base armor or hp is that its sustainability is balanced around its ability to heal up fast in a lot of situations. If we were to increase the Elementalist base hp and/or armor, there would have to be a load of other changes associated with it if we didn’t want to the profession to immediately become overpowered.

I still argue that the best option to bringing the Elementalist up to compete with other professions is by increasing its defensive mobility ([Burning Retreat] is an excellent example of defensive mobility) and soft CC on sets that have very little of this. I’ve also read the discussion about other proposals to scepter buffs/changes. While I’m wary of giving something like [Shatterstone] a chill, I do think that scepter is in dire need of some soft CC as a means of not only self-defense but also a means to hit targets with my skill shot redesigns of a lot of skills.

Dual.8953:

I’d like to add, you miss the value of an aimable Dragon’s Tooth. When it’s aimable it can be used as a detourant. A Soft CC so to speak that will make your opponent steer around it.

That’s another good point. Having big, well-cued danger zones floating above the battlefield can really affect the movement of enemy players. This kind of thing is really good in situations where someone (either an ally or enemy) goes into the downed state. I actually play my fair share of staff Elementalist in PvP and I cannot overstate the value of maintaining a lava font or casting a meteor shower on top of downed allies or enemies. This is actually an ability that scepter Elementalist sort of lacks (especially if someone drops a Shadow Refuge or something). By turning a lot of current scepter cheap shots into skill shots, the scepter Elementalist not only gains a higher skill cap, but it also gains more corpse cleave abilities.

Swagg.9236:

The trouble of buffing Elementalist base armor or hp is that its sustainability is balanced around its ability to heal up fast in a lot of situations. If we were to increase the Elementalist base hp and/or armor, there would have to be a load of other changes associated with it if we didn’t want to the profession to immediately become overpowered.

It has no sustainability. Without going defensive on traits and armor stats it has none. Also its healing requires them spending alot in Healing Power thus meaning they lose another stat that could have been put to a more offensive route.

I disagree, Buffing the Health/armor would not suddenly make the class overpowered. It might need a few tweaks here and there but the current fact is most Eles go for defensive options because the slightest mistake in a more offensive build means death thanks to the low health and low armor.

The only way it would become overpowered is if it got the Warrior Level Health and Armor and i am of course not saying that. It should be moved up one tier. Give it a couple of weeks and see how it is doing and then do tweaks to skills. Rather than just tweaking skills which is NOT the reason we have low sustainability

Swagg.9236:

I still argue that the best option to bringing the Elementalist up to compete with other professions is by increasing its defensive mobility ([Burning Retreat] is an excellent example of defensive mobility) and soft CC on sets that have very little of this. I’ve also read the discussion about other proposals to scepter buffs/changes. While I’m wary of giving something like [Shatterstone] a chill, I do think that scepter is in dire need of some soft CC as a means of not only self-defense but also a means to hit targets with my skill shot redesigns of a lot of skills.

That change while decent, solves nothing. We have no sustainability due to how how our stats are and how high all of our defensive cool downs are. All it would take is a few changes to our stats that would mean that players werent forced to go into defensive stats thus meaning they do terrible damage.

After that then sure, they could see the feedback but more importantly they should PLAY the class themselves see what it is like and then make tweaks.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Swagg.9236:

I still argue that the best option to bringing the Elementalist up to compete with other professions is by increasing its defensive mobility ([Burning Retreat] is an excellent example of defensive mobility) and soft CC on sets that have very little of this. I’ve also read the discussion about other proposals to scepter buffs/changes. While I’m wary of giving something like [Shatterstone] a chill, I do think that scepter is in dire need of some soft CC as a means of not only self-defense but also a means to hit targets with my skill shot redesigns of a lot of skills.

That change while decent, solves nothing. We have no sustainability due to how how our stats are and how high all of our defensive cool downs are. All it would take is a few changes to our stats that would mean that players werent forced to go into defensive stats thus meaning they do terrible damage.

After that then sure, they could see the feedback but more importantly they should PLAY the class themselves see what it is like and then make tweaks.

The reason that I personally like to play staff Elementalist so much is it has a play-style that says “I’m too good to take damage.” There is a lot of soft and hard CC available to the player in order to manipulate the movement of most opponents while still dealing out damage. Combined with [Burning Retreat], this makes the staff very capable in avoiding damage. [Burning Retreat] was actually my inspiration for the [Updraft] change. In the end, while still very vulnerable to attacks, staff Elementalist can come out on top in fights with keen timing, positioning and careful placement/use of CC in conjunction with its attacks. That’s what I’m trying to give to scepter. Dagger main-hand already is pretty solid in its play-style.

Giving the Elementalist more defensive movement (movement that puts space between the player and an enemy) is a nice way to increase scepter survivability while also increasing overall mobility. Adding soft CC to otherwise raw damage skills is another way to increase survivability. Making it harder for an opponent to hit you makes you increases your survivability if you specialize in ranged attacks. My changes to things like [Signet of Earth], [Signet of Water], the cantrips and dagger off-hand are all aimed at increasing an Elementalist’s overall survivability through means of CC and mobility. Hopefully, I can keep going with future changes to [Shatterstone].

Simply making numbers go up is a band-aid fix that wouldn’t add anything new to the Elementalist profession or its overall play-style. It’s not a proper fix.

So rather than buffing the class as a whole you just want specific weapons and skills buffed? Meaning the people that don’t use them don’t get any benefit…

…Where as Buffing the CLASS would benefit EVERY ele.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

So rather than buffing the class as a whole you just want specific weapons and skills buffed? Meaning the people that don’t use them don’t get any benefit…

…Where as Buffing the CLASS would benefit EVERY ele.

By buffing various skills (weapon and utility) across the board, we can change the class overall by opening up new ways to defend one’s self as an Elementalist. One of the biggest issues of S/D right now is its lack of defenses aside from healing in water attunement and updraft (which doesn’t even really clear much distance). We can address this with key weapon skill changes.

Buffing Elementalist hp or armor is signet-level design. Let’s try to keep it active.

Swagg.9236:

Staff skills

[Flame Burst] (Fire 3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 10 seconds
• Conjure an orb of flame at target location. After 1 second, the orb explodes, damaging and burning nearby foes.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 85 (0.3)
• Burning: 5 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 1200

[Lightning Surge] (Air 2)

• A ring of electricity appears around the target during the casting period.
• Cast-time reduced from 1½ seconds to 1¼ seconds.

[Gust] (Air 3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Channel a gust of wind that strikes foes two times in rapid succession. The first gust strike rips up to 2 boons from foes that it hits. The second gust strike knocks back foes.
• Boons removed: 2
• Knock-back: 400
• Range: 600
  • [Healing Breeze] cone.
  • Hits up to 5 targets.

[Windborne Speed] (Air 4)

• Now also grants Super Speed for 2 seconds.

Flame Burst:
I think your change would make it almost worthless in small scale pvp… sure you could catch people in a zerg but in 1 on 1 or small scale combat where there is not as much distraction you wouldn’t hit anyone with it.

Lighting Surge:
Not sure the point of this change other then to telegraph it even more?

Gust of Air:
I rather have knocks target back and down. Give some ability to try to get distance. So many melee have way to many gap closers on short cool downs while our escape ability’s have long cool down.

Windborne speed:
I don’t mind this but I rather have.

Teleport to target area giving speed to allies after landing.

This would give staff some mobility that it lacks.

Morgash.3165:

Flame Burst:
I think your change would make it almost worthless in small scale pvp… sure you could catch people in a zerg but in 1 on 1 or small scale combat where there is not as much distraction you wouldn’t hit anyone with it.

The cast-time might be unnecessary. The 1-second delay even with a 0 cast-time is an ample cue—especially if there’s a floating fireball with a red circle sitting there. Also, it’s very possible to hit targets in 1v1s with a 180 radius attack. You just have to lead your attacker by predicting their movement or use the loads of CC available to you on staff. It requires planning ahead a bit.

Moreover, going into a pvp situation with staff and not taking Blasting Staff is practically folly. That trait would make the radius 240 in width—an enormous reticle with which one should be able to land a hit on most anyone even if the player just haphazardly slapped the reticle on top of a moving target.

Morgash.3165:

Lighting Surge:
Not sure the point of this change other then to telegraph it even more?

Yes. I do kind of
Gust of Air:
I rather have knocks target back and down. Give some ability to try to get distance. So many melee have way to many gap closers on short cool downs while our escape ability’s have long cool down. [/quote]
A knock-back is strong enough since the cone-attack would make it easier to hit and the skill would also be removing boons. Both of those combined make for a very strong attack. Adding anymore would probably be overkill.

Morgash.3165:

Windborne speed:
I don’t mind this but I rather have.

Teleport to target area giving speed to allies after landing.

This would give staff some mobility that it lacks.

A teleport on a 30-second cool-down (possible 24-second) as a weapon skill is a scary thought. A weapon-skill teleport also works to eliminate something like keen positioning as a necessity. Two seconds of Super Speed can allow an Elementalist to quickly reposition or even escape without being quite as unfair as a teleport.

I honestly think — based on your responses and suggestions — that you have had a hard time fighting eles, and you’d like them to have no measure of unpredictability.

I know dozens of great duelers who see me LINE UP a certain way, and know what I’ll do. If you don’t see the same, that’s a user related problem.

Even knowing what attunement an elementalist is in is a great tell for the skills to come.

A certain response of yours triggered my annoyed post.

You said, “The cast-time might be unnecessary. The 1-second delay even with a 0 cast-time is an ample cue—especially if there’s a floating fireball with a red circle sitting there. Also, it’s very possible to hit targets in 1v1s with a 180 radius attack. You just have to lead your attacker by predicting their movement or use the loads of CC available to you on staff. It requires planning ahead a bit.”

A one second delay plus cast time is thinking ahead WAY more than a bit. And you don’t have this type of change for just one skill. You have them for a bunch. Do you know how far people can move in one second or more?

As a true elementalist who devotes all his time to the class, I know for a fact that a good ele is thinking about his movements not only two or three, but four or five steps ahead, and even then, we’re reserving the need to adjust to an intangible. We have to do this in order to make our mechanic work. Now, in addition to this, you’d like many of our skills to force us to wait around and see what happens.

I don’t think you have a sound grasp on this class.

Furthermore, you quote something in the beginning of each titled nerf thread you create.

For eles and guardians, apparently your decision was we’re, “Almost perfect.” I’m a journalist. In order to use quotations, you must be quoting from a source. As you have no source, I’m assuming you are quoting yourself. Why quote yourself? It is misleading.

We as elementalists don’t think our class is almost perfect. Can’t you tell by the responses you’ve had here? Or the several pages of changes you proposed to our skills?

Perhaps you’ve seen some of my positive themed forum posts, topics. I’m one of the more optimistic eles, and I’m even saying we’re not perfect — and no, not close to it either. We have the tools to be a good class with a high team contribution, but not to suit everybody’s style of play, and not to anybody who doesn’t have a high capacity to think ahead and make quick decisions.

My apologies for the rant, however it was bugging me. I tried simply responding without getting these thoughts out and I couldn’t. I don’t like your banner labeling us as “Almost perfect,” on the front page of the balance forums when in fact we aren’t. It gives Anet the wrong idea, especially when elsewhere we’re petitioning so hard to see some love.

Mbelch.9028:

A certain response of yours triggered my annoyed post.

You said, “The cast-time might be unnecessary. The 1-second delay even with a 0 cast-time is an ample cue—especially if there’s a floating fireball with a red circle sitting there. Also, it’s very possible to hit targets in 1v1s with a 180 radius attack. You just have to lead your attacker by predicting their movement or use the loads of CC available to you on staff. It requires planning ahead a bit.”

A one second delay plus cast time is thinking ahead WAY more than a bit. Do you know how far people can move in one second?

Since you’re just asking me personally about this sort of change, I can say that nailing people with the first tick of a [Lava Font] when that is buffed to 180 radius with Blasting Staff isn’t difficult. Often times, CC is involved, but we’re talking about staff here; it’s absolutely replete with CC. Moreover, as I’ve already said, running staff in PvP without the Blasting Staff trait is pretty folly. That trait then would increase the [Flame Burst] radius to 240, which isn’t something that someone should miss barring something like an opponent’s clutch dodge or snap movement—in which case, that’s their victory.

An issue with which many people can’t seem to reconcile is the idea that an opponent can ruin an attack with snap positioning or dodging. You seem upset or entitled saying that an Elementalist has to think ahead of an opponent. The goal of this initiative is to make a lot of skills more prone to missing and more dependent on player aim and timing. Across all professions, more skills that require precision, timing and prediction on part of the player using them: that’s the goal.

Mbelch.9028:

For eles and guardians, apparently your decision was we’re, “Almost perfect.” I’m a journalist. In order to use quotations, you must be quoting from a source.

It’s just a title, man. But, I must say that I do use this threads selfishly. Many times, I get into conversations that help me better convey how I truly feel about the various aspects that relate the state of this game. This whole thing is a constant process. Even so, I think that I’m coming closer to a better way to express

Mbelch.9028:

We as elementalists don’t think our class is almost perfect. Can’t you tell by the responses you’ve had here? Or the several pages of changes you proposed to our skills?

Elementalists possess many of the best skill designs in the game (talking about on-land here). Well-cued attacks; post-cast delays on single-hit AoEs; powerful CC that doesn’t inflict excessive damage or even damage at all; a single powerful skill that has a crippling wind-up that could spell death for the user if activated off-handedly without any situational awareness, planning and/or proper positioning; filled with these kinds of skills across weapon sets; this stuff is great. That’s the perfection—that the class as a whole could incorporate so many of these types of skills into its design.

Trouble is, a lot of those skills are focused on dagger and staff. Scepter instead got a poorly-cued burst rotation that wasn’t even that good until Fresh Air came in and decided that it would be OK to strike foes with double instant-cast/auto-aimed lightning bolts every 5 seconds. Focus got a bunch of throwaway skills and a kitten press-to-receive-invulnerability skill. That’s the kind of stuff that we should address.

Why do we have all these skills like [Lava Font] or [Ice Spike] with their clear cues that provide counter-play and then suddenly there is a weapon set on the same profession with a rotation that throws that entire concept out the window? Why should it be seen as a trademark of a specific profession to think ahead of an opponent as you say it is with the Elementalist? That’s not how it should be.

Mbelch.9028:

We have the tools to be a good class with a high team contribution, but not to suit everybody’s style of play, and not to anybody who doesn’t have a high capacity to think ahead and make quick decisions.

It’s a real shame that that’s how some players feel about this situation on the whole. Don’t play this class if you don’t like thinking ahead. In order to take something like thinking ahead away from the worries of the player, you make the Warrior; and many people can agree that the Warrior needs to be toned down in several respects.

We can create a game of teamwork, thoughtful encounters and rewarding play-styles if we continue to promote the best-designed skills in the game instead of encouraging or ignoring the ones that ignore the rules that govern balanced GW2 combat.

Morgash.3165:

Swagg.9236:

Staff skills

[Flame Burst] (Fire 3)
snip

• Conjure an orb of flame at target location. After 1 second, the orb explodes, damaging and burning nearby foes.

[Lightning Surge] (Air 2)

• A ring of electricity appears around the target during the casting period.
• Cast-time reduced from 1½ seconds to 1¼ seconds.

[Gust] (Air 3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Channel a gust of wind that strikes foes two times in rapid succession. The first gust strike rips up to 2 boons from foes that it hits. The second gust strike knocks back foes.
  snip

[Windborne Speed] (Air 4)

• Now also grants Super Speed for 2 seconds.

Morgash.3165:

Flame Burst:
I think your change would make it almost worthless in small scale pvp… sure you could catch people in a zerg but in 1 on 1 or small scale combat where there is not as much distraction you wouldn’t hit anyone with it.

My problem with Flame Burst is twofold:

1. It does no direct damage, which is not helpful for Power builds. As a single condition application it is powerful, but Fire attunement has no cover conditions. At most it is good for proccing the DPS boost on Burning Rage ; but people don’t put points into Fire for a reason (outside of PvE full berserker DPS builds running Persisting Flames)
2. Short cast time and short CD make it a “throwaway” skill that has little combo potential and interaction with other Fire attunement skills
3. Flame Burst is not very combat legible.

Flame burst would be stronger if it were one of the following:

• Dealing direct damage, with a secondary (3 second) Burning component
  • This gives Fire attunement somewhat stronger targeted damage. Meteor Storm and Fireball notwithstanding, it is surprisingly more difficult to burn your target down faster in Fire attunement than to do so in Air attunement
• A Blast finisher
  • Staff is Field heavy, but Finisher weak. This gives Elementalist Blast finishers in the 2 attunements associated with Blast finishers in other weapon sets for familiarity reasons (Scepter, /Dagger)

Morgash.3165:

Lighting Surge:
Not sure the point of this change other then to telegraph it even more?

• Lightning Surge should be made a Charge skill as it was back in the older iterations. Staff misses the clutch Blind capability of Scepter; whilst also lacking a strong single target bursting skill. Having a Charge skill gives the option of a low damage Blind to be used in clutch situations, while also having the option to “snipe out” opponents at full charge.

Morgash.3165:

Gust of Air:
I rather have knocks target back and down. Give some ability to try to get distance. So many melee have way to many gap closers on short cool downs while our escape ability’s have long cool down.

• Gust would be fine if it were better cued visually and had a better hitbox. The suggestion to make Gust a 600 range Cone AoE is pretty much all it requires. This would duplicate Illusionary Wave’s functionality, but as a class with few teleports, Gust is definitely going to be appreciated more on the defensive than as it is right now as a Piercing projectile.
• I’d actually argue that Swagg’s proposal of having a two-part skill that incorporates Boon rip is much stronger as it offers the potential to rip Stability before the knockback. In my opinion, this would make Gust too strong. The 600 range cone AoE is sufficient.

Morgash.3165:

Windborne speed:
I don’t mind this but I rather have:

Teleport to target area giving speed to allies after landing.

This would give staff some mobility that it lacks.

• Windborne Speed is fine as it stands. One often overlooked benefit of Windborne Speed aside from its Swiftness uptime is the fact that it is a targeted cleanse for Snares. Multiple snares, in fact. 2 seconds of Super Speed or Teleports are not required for Windborne Speed to be strong.
  • If additional mobility is still required for positional plays, have Windborne Speed chain into a 600 range Leap finisher with a 0.75 second cast time in the vein of Savage Leap . Only, not animation bugged to give 900 range. Staff already has Burning Retreat, Gust, Static Field, Shockwave and Unsteady ground to play keep-away.
  • A Leap Finisher also gives combo potential to inflict Dazing Strike through Static Field. With a dearth of reliable Interrupts on Staff, this may give Elementalist more tactical choices through clever use of Combo Fields.

Swagg.9236:

Since you’re just asking me personally about this sort of change, I can say that nailing people with the first tick of a [Lava Font] when that is buffed to 180 radius with Blasting Staff isn’t difficult.

If you change it to your ideal world’s type of skill, elementalists will be fodder. They’ll be killed by anybody who knows what a red circle is, and they’ll have seldom little they can do about it. If anybody who sees lava font come down knows the skill is useless if they sidestep it, then it is a pretty silly skill.

Swagg.9236:

An issue with which many people can’t seem to reconcile is the idea that an opponent can ruin an attack with snap positioning or dodging. You seem upset or entitled saying that an Elementalist has to think ahead of an opponent.

Oh I can reconcile it.. As a D/D, D/F player, I can tell you that without perma vigor, we’d be screwed. I seem entitled that ele requires so much forethought to use well? Then good, I came off the way I intended. It is extremely hard to play this class right. We don’t have a pool of initiative from which I can pull any number of instantly hit things, nor do we have a stealth get out of jail free card. We are crippled a little because of them, but that’s OK, because skills designed like we have them now reward us for proper use. You seem to aim to change that.

I can understand your initiative. But it is self motivated. A lot of this game already requires skilled use. Thieves without stealth require very skilled use. Every single ele spec requires skilled use, engineers who use three kits (while quite OP thanks to condis right now) require skilled use. If you want to correct the classes with the lower skill caps while raising the skill caps on the classes which require more skill to use, you’re doing it wrong.

Swagg.9236:

It’s just a title, man. But, I must say that I do use this threads selfishly. Even so, I think that I’m coming closer to a better way to express

Let me stop you right there. You’re not. We’ve got the tool belt, but there’s a wrench missing. We’ve got the knives, but a blade or two aren’t sharpened. We’ve got the think tanks, but a few of the members were hit in the head. I just described the best way to title elementalists. And its from information aggregated information, eked out of the ele forum over several months of watching.

Let me make your entire thread for you when I say this is what we want: We want some of our cool downs shaved down (Staff, focus, offhand dagger.) We want ride the lightning reverted on the cool down end, and we want several changes in SPvP reverted, such as cleansing water.

Finally, the community would like a reason to vary our builds. And that isn’t achieved by changing a single weapon skill, but by buffing other traitlines, while not changing water or arcane. The only change we need to see there ever again is if they change the aclarity traits to encompass all elements.

If all those things happened, guess what: you still have a class which requires a great amount of skill, but will be viable as a class to a community as a whole. You can leave it alone forever, and everybody will be happy ever after. None of what we’re talking about here is remotely necessary.

Swagg.9236:

Elementalists possess many of the best skill designs in the game (talking about on-land here).

Exactly. But we need some of these skills to be balanced by instant skills. D/D has a great balance, and I feel like aside from a few skills, so too does staff. You have a problem with scepter nerf, but like you said it is hard to dodge their skills. Wrong. Watch their rotation, learn it. It is the same in order to get off their burst skills. If you dodge right after they go into air attunement, you also dodge a bulk of their burst. So again, even by knowing our elements, you have huge advantages over an ele.

I’ll close this one by saying if this is true, how come I see more successful duelers dueling with D/D, D/F and even Staff, and living better than zerker burst Fresh Air builds? Yes I said that, staff builds can sustain better than burst S/D. I think it’s pretty balanced. You get so much burst, but not a lot of survivability. So if you see a high hitting ele using scepter, you know that if you put pressure on it, it’ll die, if you don’t, you’ll die. Team play? kitten who is in the team quickly, assault their back line — that’s where your S/D ele will be.

Swagg.9236:

Why should it be seen as a trademark of a specific profession to think ahead of an opponent as you say it is with the Elementalist? That’s not how it should be.

I think that IS how it should be. There should be several baseline classes, where you can hit a skill cap, but you have fun on them. You don’t have to try too hard. They’re effective to a point, but they’re for the lesser skilled players. That’s not a bad thing. I’ve seen people admit they don’t like to try too hard, so they play a ranger, or warrior. I’ve seen people admit, “I want to win my 1v1s, so I’m playing mesmer.” There should be several classes which have higher skill caps, but are harder to use. This caters to all players of GW2.

If you want to change what I said above, then you need to double or triple the weapons available to all classes, and make every trait line as good as the next. Not change the skills on weapons which are fine, but may need a bit of cool down adjustments.

Swagg.9236:

It’s a real shame that that’s how some players feel about this situation on the whole.

Why is it bad to say don’t play this class if you don’t like thinking ahead? Why is it sad? It is only sad if you want to play the class, but can’t think ahead. BUT I have a panacea for you: it’s called working hard. I sucked at elementalist for a good three months, and I finally started getting good. I’m still improving on a daily basis, and I’m nowhere near perfect. You really have to make ele your main class and stay dedicated to it, and if you do, you can achieve much higher results than you could elsewhere. I encourage you to try it.

MonMalthias.4763:

Let’s start on the Signets, because in my opinion, most of the Signet skills across most of the classes are amongst the worst designed skills in the game.

Sorry but I don’t like your signet changes for a few reasons:

Having options that are redundant to traits provides build diversity. Someone can have the IMS without traiting for it simply by slotting Signet of Air. Your changes provide advantages only to players that want signets AND also have the corresponding redundant traits. I personally like the Air and Fire signets because the complement my builds that don’t have IMS or high precision via traits/gear.

Secondly signet passives do not need a counter. Very few signets out there have passives that can be countered. In short passives are not epic enough to require a counter. It’s the actives that you should focus your attention on. The actives should be meaningful enough that you want to use them and your opponents want to counter them.

I salute your creativity, but please leave my signets passives alone. Focus your efforts on the signet actives and our other lack-luster traits/skills.

MonMalthias.4763:

Flame burst would be stronger if it were one of the following:

• Dealing direct damage, with a secondary (3 second) Burning component
  • This gives Fire attunement somewhat stronger targeted damage. Meteor Storm and Fireball notwithstanding, it is surprisingly more difficult to burn your target down faster in Fire attunement than to do so in Air attunement
• A Blast finisher
  • Staff is Field heavy, but Finisher weak. This gives Elementalist Blast finishers in the 2 attunements associated with Blast finishers in other weapon sets for familiarity reasons (Scepter, /Dagger)

Lighting Surge:

• Lightning Surge “should be made a Charge skill”: Staff misses the clutch Blind capability of Scepter; whilst also lacking a strong single target bursting skill. Having a Charge skill gives the option of a low damage Blind to be used in clutch situations, while also having the option to “snipe out” opponents at full charge.

Gust of Air:

• Gust would be fine if it were better cued visually and had a better hitbox. The suggestion to make Gust a 600 range Cone AoE is pretty much all it requires. This would duplicate “Illusionary Wave’s”, but as a class with few teleports, Gust is definitely going to be appreciated more on the defensive than as it is right now as a Piercing projectile.
• I’d actually argue that Swagg’s proposal of having a two-part skill that incorporates Boon rip is much stronger as it offers the potential to rip Stability before the knockback. In my opinion, this would make Gust too strong. The 600 range cone AoE is sufficient.

Windborne speed:

• Windborne Speed is fine as it stands. One often overlooked benefit of Windborne Speed aside from its Swiftness uptime is the fact that it is a targeted cleanse for Snares. Multiple snares, in fact. 2 seconds of Super Speed or Teleports are not required for Windborne Speed to be strong.

I agree with you on Flame Burst being a blast finisher. I did not put my idea for a change to it was more pointing out that making it a 1 sec delay orb would be a bad idea. Saying the OP’s idea saying just predict where there going to move I think show a total lack on his part on Staff ele’s lack of mobility.

lighting Strike I really think its already telegraphed enough as is…. unneeded nerf from the ops perspective. Staff lighting already lacks dps anyhow.

My comment on Gust in its current form. I like my idea if you keep its current targeting… its hard enough to hit with so I think a greater reward is fine. If you widen the arc so its much more easy to hit with then ya knock back + down would be excessive.

Windborne Speed is the only thing I really do not agree with you on. In spvp where friends are always close then ya you can say its ok. In WvW staff is in no way ok when it comes to mobility. Warriors, mesmers, thiefs… your not going to run away from them. They will catch you even if you hit with all your CC. The gap closing skills on there weapons are very short timer. You static field they are going to stun break it. Then what do you have? Burning retreat.. one skill on a long cool down. Their immobilize is also on a much shorter cool down then ours. Unsteady ground easy to avoid and gap close back on to you unless you have a choke point to drop it in.. and in open WvW that is not going to happen. Having a quick movement burst with Windborne speed would give direct mobility to staff that it very lacking. Also you are giving up your ability to do your hardest hitting attacks being in lighting. Given lighting already has 3 of its 5 skills with no damage potential.

Staff is not a super power house in single target dps, has very little mobility… it has support function and one very large hard hitting aoe with a smaller ok damage ground aoe. Most people you talk to do not fear 1v1 with a staff ele. but they do respect staff ele’s for there distruptive effect on zergs. All I’m suggesting is giving a little love to small scale 1v1 aspect of staff ele’s.

Ele’s should not have to run all there skills defensive… we should get some of that through are weapons skills so maybe we can take a offensive type skill. Right now there are just to many short cool down movement speed effects on other class’s weapons so unless your going to remove some of them the only other option is to give some to staff. As a ele your giving up your dps short term to get that escape mobility unlike other class gap closing skills.

Updates to staff, off-hand dagger and scepter.

Swagg.9236:

Focus off-hand
[Flamewall] (Fire 4-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Create a wall of flame at target area that damages and burns foes that cross it.
• Damage: 85 (0.3)
• Burning: 2 seconds
• Duration: 8 seconds
  • Now chains into another skill: [Breath of Fire].

[Breath of Fire] (Fire 4-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Cause your flamewall to rile up into a tall barrier of flames that foes cannot cross.
• Duration: 3 seconds
  • While this skill is active, the Flamewall riles into a tall wall of fire that acts similarly to the Guardian [Line of Warding].
  • This chain skill remains active for 8 seconds.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Flamewall]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately to into recharge upon respective use.

This change in particular could stand to take into account the usage scenarios of S/F or D/F.

• The damage is low. At 85 base and 0.3 coefficient, standing in Flamewall is still going to tickle. Contrast this with Lava Font which has a whopping 0.9 coefficient. People dodge when they see Lava Font come up for a reason. With such low damage and long cooldown, people will still laugh at Flamewall.
• With S/F, your attacks are ranged, and you lack strong PBAoE. Therefore, you are best staying at range. Breath of Fire gives you this zoning, which is fine.
• Now, with D/F, your attacks are melee, and you still lack strong PBAoE unlike /Dagger. You don’t need or want the Breath of Fire functionality, because you want the opponent to be standing in the Fire field.

For Flamewall to be equally appealing for both S/F and D/F usage scenarios, there should be two changes:

• Flamewall’s cooldown should be lower. At 8 seconds per 20 uptime, this is the hardest to hit with Fire Field for a sub-par uptime. Compare with Lava Font which is 4 per 6 (66%), Ring of Fire which is 6 per 15 (40%), Burning Retreat which is 6 per 20 (30%) and Burning Speed which is 4 per 15 (26%)
• Flamewall does more damage than it does now. It’s a line Fire Field, which is much harder to hit with than a circular AOE. DiogoSilva’s post has echoed my sentiments on this:
  [quote=3576133;DiogoSilva.7089:]
• Flamewall
  Casting time decreased from 3/4 to 1/4. Cooldown decreased from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. Burning ticks increased from 1 second to 2 seconds. Twice the direct damage power.
  This skill is insanely easy to avoid. For this reason, it should be more effective at what it already is “best” at: as an easily-accessible fire field that can punish foes who can’t move.[/quote]

As for Breath of Fire, I’m fine with it as it resolves one of the two outstanding issues with /Focus: Lack of Burst damage, and of ways to keep opponents off your back. So making it a mini-Line of Warding is fine.

Swagg.9236:

Focus off-hand
[Fire Shield] (Fire 5)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 35 seconds
• Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes and grants might each time you are struck (cool-down of 1 second per attacker). If you combo this skill with a fire field, you gain aegis and retaliation.
• Fire Aura duration: 5 seconds
• Burning: 1 second
• Might (1): 10 seconds
• Aegis: 3 seconds
• Retaliation: 4 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Whirl

Fire Shield is honestly the way it is right now due to the underwhelming effect for its long cooldown. Its ease of obtainability by leaping through Fire Fields also holds it back. Warriors, Rangers, even Engineers have easy and frequent access to Fire Aura. So keeping the cooldown at 35 seconds is hardly going to improve Fire Shield as a weapon skill. I am partial to DiogoSilva’s suggestion below:

DiogoSilva.7089:

But I’m going to put condition cleansing somewhere else. Guess what?

New Fire Aura/ Fire Shield

• Each time you get hit, you lose 1 condition and your opponent starts burning for 2 seconds.

Condition cleansing is usually found in fire and water attunements, with fire having most of the cleansing-burst options. This fits perfectly, and also makes this aura finally worthy of being the 5th fire focus skill and having a cooldown of 40 seconds. It can remove up to 5 seconds (the effect only procs each second) from a single source, and scales back. For 5 seconds, you can fight back as many condition builds as you want. But, of course, your opponents will only strike you if they want, the aura’s animation is pretty clear, and the cooldown is still high. It wouldn’t be too strong.

2 seconds of burning is needed so that you can increase its duration with “only” 50% condition/ burning duration.

• The Fire Shield skill as distinguished from Fire Aura effect could be given additional condition cleansing as DiogoSilva suggests.
  • This also presumes that some cleansing capability is removed from Magnetic Wave as part of DiogoSilva’s /Focus rework
  • Combo Finisher Whirl is one of the weaker Finishers available to most classes – Bolts generated in Fields are randomly scattered, and individual Bolt effects are weak.
  • That being said, granting conditional Boons like Retaliation and Aegis for Comboing into a Fire Field could be useful – I just feel that additional utility like this should be loaded into Traits rather than weapon skills.

Dude, this makes no sense!! You want to nerf everything about scepter burst, yet, this is the ONLY viable thing we have in high end pvp (where it still isn’t as accepted as other things) just because it’s burst is instant? You want it nerfed nerfed nerfed, because, why not? Ele’s are almost out of the game as it stands, this would be THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN!!! You want a counter to this burst? FIND THE ELE AND SIMPLY SNEEZE ON HIM, (wow really?) yes, really. He dies from a sneeze!!! No stealth, 10k health, nearly no mobility, lowest armor, no blind spam, no clones, no deathshroud!! Killing a burst s/d ele is THE EASIEST THING TO KILL IN THE GAME!

It’s funny reading:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/What-2-Classes-Should-ANet-Fix/page/2
And this thread. On the provided link there isn’t one comment about weapon or utility skills. But alas ele users and none users agree ele def needs help. And in regards to your “operator” comment; if you take a good “operator” of an class vs a good “operator” of an ele I will still base my bets on any vs an ele (except a ranger;they need help too).

Suggestion:
Instead of directly buffing flamewall or making it another version of unsteady ground, why not make it rip boons? That would add to versatility and improve the skill, while also giving eles something they normally don’t have. It would also make people really, really not want to walk through it.

This is all supposed to show ele’s some love lol. Yeah okay, that’s why the current skills we do have that are decent are being weakened. Arcane shield for example, look at its changes.

@Swagg.9236

how are dmg numbers calculated?

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Suggestion:
Instead of directly buffing flamewall or making it another version of unsteady ground, why not make it rip boons? That would add to versatility and improve the skill, while also giving eles something they normally don’t have. It would also make people really, really not want to walk through it.

That’s a pretty good idea, actually. /Focus really doesn’t have much going for it outside of Earth (Obsidian Skin, Magnetic Wave) and Air (Swirling Winds). It lacks damage overall, the CC setups are underwhelming, and it doesn’t have strong synergy with Dagger mainhand either. Boon rips would definitely be appreciated in both S/F (to rip Protection for burst) and D/F (to rip Stability and Vigor).

The problem remains that there isn’t a strong “ender” for /Focus. /Dagger has Fire Grab and Ride the Lightning; Staff has Shockwave + Eruption → Lava Font. Even S/F burst builds rely on the fact that Fresh Air exists and the huge damage of Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix – they wouldn’t be viable otherwise.

Dagger Focus would become more viable if:

• Damage for Comet was increased; OR Magnetic Wave did burst damage. I’d favour more damage being loaded into Comet. As a delayed Daze it’s hardly a reliable interrupt – Updraft and Earthquake on /Dagger are just so superior it’s no contest.
• Fire Shield could be chained into something similar to Fire Grab with bonus damage against Burning Foes.

• Freezing Gust did more than a long duration chill. I like Swagg’s idea of channeling Freezing Gust like Meteor Shower – although I’d prefer simple escalating AOE Radius and a single whirlwind over multiple, small whirlwinds. How well you hit your foe with skills like this should not be left to random chance.
• Perhaps a stronger idea would be something like this:
  • Channel Freezing Gust over target designated area to inflict Chill and Vulnerability. Vulnerability inflicted and area radius increases with channel duration. (3.25 second cast). 3 Pulses of damage at all levels.
  • 0-0.75 seconds: Level 1: 120 Radius, No Vulnerability inflicted.
  • 0.75-1.5 seconds: Level 2: 180 Radius, 1 stack of Vulnerability inflicted (3 max) Power Coefficient: 0.6 (Doubled at level 2)
  • 1.5-2.5 seconds: 240 Radius, 2 stacks of Vulnerability inflicted (6 max) Power Coefficient: 0.9 (Lava Font level coefficient, most efficient level for cast time and damage)
  • 2.5-3.25 seconds: 240 Radius, 3 stacks of Vulnerability inflicted (9 max). Immobilise foes for 1 seconds on third pulse. Power Coefficient: 0.9 (No additional damage scaling in lieu of CC on third pulse as setup skill)

Actually, that gives me an idea for a Fire Grab style ender for /Focus:

• Comet: Deals bonus damage to Chilled foes. If foe is also Vulnerable, Stun the target for 1 second instead of inflicting Daze.
  • This makes Level 2 Freezing Gust a minimum requirement to burst out the target
    With these two changes, /Focus now has both area control through Freezing Gust and Flame Wall, whilst retaining the burst damage potential of /Dagger and /Staff.

Updates to scepter. I’m going to work on focus next based on some of the ideas discussed lately in the thread.

Swagg.9236:

Scepter main-hand skills
snip

[Ice Shards] (Water 1) – Name changed to: [Ice Spear] (Water 1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Launch a fast-moving spear of ice that pierces foes.
• Damage: 204 (0.55)
• Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance)
• Range: 900
  • Piercing projectile.
  • This skill shares its projectile speed, behaviour and pathing with that of Engineer [Hip Shot].
  • After-cast adjusted to 0.35 second.

[Shatterstone] (Water 2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 2 seconds
• Conjure a shatterstone at the target area that deals damage as it grows. After 2 seconds, the shatterstone explodes.
• Growth damage (2x): 408 (0.55)
• Explosion damage: 314 (1.0)
• Explosion vulnerability (5): 10 seconds
• Explosion torment (3): 5 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 900
  • The first two bursts of damage occur at each “burst growth” animation of the Shatterstone.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast-completion: [Icy Shackles].

snip

[Hurl] (Earth 2-2)

• Each stone now inflicts 1 second of crippled.

Just going through the Scepter changes again; noticed that the Ice Shards Coefficient has not been changed despite 3 projectiles being reduced to 1. If kept at 0.55, this would be a 3-fold nerf to Scepter Water 1’s autoattack and would indirectly discourage staying in Water for any longer than necessary – even more so than right now. Your Shatterstone changes may not even be enough.

I’ve also mentioned before the dangers of putting multiple conditions on a single weapon skill. For Shatterstone, you’ve made its recharge 2 seconds yet made it inflict 2 conditions that stack in Intensity. Yes, Condition Elementalist is a joke build right now, but this would be the Dhuumfire equivalent skill for Elementalist with all the negative repercussions it brings. 1 Signet of Earth and/or Glyph of Elemental Power coupled with Torment on Shatterstone would be the equivalent of Necromancer’s Signet of Spite.

Keep it simple – make Shatterstone first pulse inflict 2 stacks of Vulnerability, second pulse 1 second Chill, and if after that the opponent still has yet to move out of it – have it inflict the full 3 extra stacks of Vulnerability for maximum 5 stacks.

Remove Torment and – if you must add Torment, put it on Rock Barrier → Hurl over Cripple to keep Fire and Earth the thematic Attunements for Condition application, Water and Air for snares and CC. As it was in GW1, so it should be.

Also, no mention of Phoenix despite its overloaded utility and role in S/x Fresh air burst builds for the triple hit?

MonMalthias.4763:

Just going through the Scepter changes again; noticed that the Ice Shards Coefficient has not been changed despite 3 projectiles being reduced to 1. If kept at 0.55, this would be a 3-fold nerf to Scepter Water 1’s autoattack and would indirectly discourage staying in Water for any longer than necessary – even more so than right now. Your Shatterstone changes may not even be enough.

I’m afraid of making an powerful auto-attack. The only other idea that I could maybe think of off the top of my head would be to make a replica [Fireball] for [Ice Spear] because [Fireball] is a very powerful, but mostly balanced auto-attack given its projectile behaviour and overall attack speed. Something like that would give a scepter Elementalist incentive to attack in water attunement because their auto-attack would deal high damage and have an AoE effect.

MonMalthias.4763:

I’ve also mentioned before the dangers of putting multiple conditions on a single weapon skill. For Shatterstone, you’ve made its recharge 2 seconds yet made it inflict 2 conditions that stack in Intensity. Yes, Condition Elementalist is a joke build right now, but this would be the Dhuumfire equivalent skill for Elementalist with all the negative repercussions it brings. 1 Signet of Earth and/or Glyph of Elemental Power coupled with Torment on Shatterstone would be the equivalent of Necromancer’s Signet of Spite.

Fair points. I guess I overestimated it.

MonMalthias.4763:

Keep it simple – make Shatterstone first pulse inflict 2 stacks of Vulnerability, second pulse 1 second Chill, and if after that the opponent still has yet to move out of it – have it inflict the full 3 extra stacks of Vulnerability for maximum 5 stacks.

I’M SO SCARED OF MAKING A SHORT CAST-TIME/RECHARGE SKILL INFLICT CHILL.

More importantly, though, I feel that Elementalist needs to have its constant DPS abilities preserved across weapon sets. Making [Shatterstone] innately inflict chill would REQUIRE a cast-time increase (something like 8 or 10 seconds) and that would compromise water attunement’s (and thereby scepter’s) overall DPS. This is the reason why I split the skill into two parts with a 4-second chill on an appropriate recharge. I was actually thinking of adjusting the recharge to 4 seconds, just to give the Elementalist a reason to auto-attack once or twice in between [Shatterstone]s while in water attunement as well as a buffer for the chain skill so that the Elementalist could maybe delay its use a bit instead of being forced to double-tap it upon casting [Shatterstone] due to the time constraint.

MonMalthias.4763:

Remove Torment and – if you must add Torment, put it on Rock Barrier -> Hurl over Cripple to keep Fire and Earth the thematic Attunements for Condition application, Water and Air for snares and CC. As it was in GW1, so it should be.

If we want to go the flavor route, Earth staff is a very CC-heavy weapon set, so I think that instead of trying to adhere to flavor, rather the main goal here should be to simply give the Elementalist scepter more access to CC across the board as a means of boosting its overall survivability.

Simply removing torment might be the best option. I’m not sure where I got that idea in the first place.

MonMalthias.4763:

Also, no mention of Phoenix despite its overloaded utility and role in S/x Fresh air burst builds for the triple hit?

I increased the cast-time from 1/4 second to 1/2 second and said that the audio cue should play the instant that the player begins casting the skill. I did originally have the cast-time increased to 3/4 seconds, but after playing with [Phoenix] and seeing other players use it, I think that a 3/4 second cast-time would cripple it when used from range (where it is most balanced) and force the skill to be some sort of PBAoE super spike in melee range (where it is most broken due to a lack of a strong cue) similar to [Arcing Arrow] or [Cluster Bomb]. I think simply doubling the very short cast-time and playing the audio clip instantly on cast activation would help clean that skill up enough for combat.

Updates to scepter (Phoenix; a few number tweaks), off-hand dagger (Earthquake), signet utility passives, [Lightning Flash] damage, and maybe a few others. It’s a little late and I may have forgotten to mention a few. Going to bed.

Updates to focus and a few number tweaks on scepter.

I support the new title. I believe eles are a model class which the game could be balanced around.

I still do not support a great majority of your changes which, I feel, promote WoW play, for the lower end of the skill spectrum.

Mbelch.9028:

I support the new title. I believe eles are a model class which the game could be balanced around.

I still do not support a great majority of your changes which, I feel, promote WoW play, for the lower end of the skill spectrum.

I do feel like some of his changes are right on, when it comes to making the game more skill vs. skill and less build vs. build.

A lot of major builds right now (warriors in general, mm necros, fresh air uberburst ele, dedicated backstab thief, spirit ranger, phantasm/pu mesmer even though it isn’t so popular anymore, and decap engie. Maybe even bunker guardian, though I don’t really know about that one) seem to be based around reducing overall player input by both sides, as well as having specific, easily engineered situations in which they excel.

What this translates to is attempting to reduce variability in combat situations by making builds that will almost always win/perform it’s function in a given situation, regardless of the skill level of either player. This happens by either making it impossible for the opponent to respond (backstab thief/hammer lockdown warrior, pu mesmer, uberburst ele, minion masters), or making that response meaningless (spirit rangers rely almost exclusively on autoattacks, making most active defense mechanisms nearly useless because all attacks are equally important. Decap engies have so much control and passive defense that it is very difficult for a single, and possibly more players to stop one. Warrior signets/stances remove large portions of counterplay). This essentially turns everything into metagaming for all but the very top level of players who are good enough to overcome these builds.

What Swagg is trying to do, as far as I can see, is reduce this type of play to promote more active combat that is usually not decided by build/class, but rather by the abilities of each player. As part of this, he is pretty much introducing counterplay to everything that doesn’t have it already, like instant hitters. This is why I like the vast majority of his ideas.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Mbelch.9028:

I support the new title. I believe eles are a model class which the game could be balanced around.

I still do not support a great majority of your changes which, I feel, promote WoW play, for the lower end of the skill spectrum.

I do feel like some of his changes are right on, when it comes to making the game more skill vs. skill and less build vs. build.

A lot of major builds right now (warriors in general, mm necros, fresh air uberburst ele, dedicated backstab thief, spirit ranger, phantasm/pu mesmer even though it isn’t so popular anymore, and decap engie. Maybe even bunker guardian, though I don’t really know about that one) seem to be based around reducing overall player input by both sides, as well as having specific, easily engineered situations in which they excel.

What this translates to is attempting to reduce variability in combat situations by making builds that will almost always win/perform it’s function in a given situation, regardless of the skill level of either player. This happens by either making it impossible for the opponent to respond (backstab thief/hammer lockdown warrior, pu mesmer, uberburst ele, minion masters), or making that response meaningless (spirit rangers rely almost exclusively on autoattacks, making most active defense mechanisms nearly useless because all attacks are equally important. Decap engies have so much control and passive defense that it is very difficult for a single, and possibly more players to stop one. Warrior signets/stances remove large portions of counterplay). This essentially turns everything into metagaming for all but the very top level of players who are good enough to overcome these builds.

What Swagg is trying to do, as far as I can see, is reduce this type of play to promote more active combat that is usually not decided by build/class, but rather by the abilities of each player. As part of this, he is pretty much introducing counterplay to everything that doesn’t have it already, like instant hitters. This is why I like the vast majority of his ideas.

You saved me a post, P Fun Daddy. Thanks.

To be brief, the goal of most of my changes is to incorporate more aim, timing, positioning and thoughtful skill chaining into play-styles across all professions. This goal is achieved by turning otherwise auto-aimed skills into ground-targeted skills and introducing things like post-cast effect delays or long cast-times.

I can get behind the concept here, guys.

What you both fail to see is you include no caveat in your suggested changes; insofar as these changes are awful if you consider them IN this game.

The entire game, each and every class, each build would have to be changed simultaneously, or this doesn’t work. None of it works.

It’s just dangerous. Anet could take any one of these changes on its own, and it would nerf ele, as the likely case is they would NOT take all the other ones for every other class.

But if they took them all at once, they’d be fantastic. Kudos for the success. But realize the chance of success, and realize that nowhere are you cautioning anet on how to make these changes.

See I can appreciate what you wish to do, but I think you’re approaching it in a dangerous manner.

I totally agree with the “title” change.

As much as we hate it, Elementalists are the epitome of a balanced class taking into account that every decision we make regarding gear and trait selection have distinct positives and negatives.

I haven’t stayed current on the proposed changes in this thread so won’t comment on them.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Mbelch.9028:

snip

snip

If there is one thing missing from this overhaul it is that there is barely any mention of Elementalist Traits. Weapon skills area already pretty well designed for Elementalist – all that remains is the execution of them supported by traits.

Historically the most “optimal” way to play Elementalist is to “dance” through all Attunements as each individual attunement was not a complete enough kit. For maximum damage and utility, the skills are balanced such that all of them should be used.

This would be fine, if not for the fact that Attunement dancing is the only optimal way to play Elementalist.

In addition, Elementalist has historically been built quite defensively. 30 points in Arcana and Water were the “best” way to put one’s points, as they provided both defensive and offensive utility through Boons and Condition cleansing (Elementalist’s low Vitality means Conditions hurt it a lot more than many other classes)

Changes to Elementalist traits should follow the following:

• Water and Arcana traits should not be further nerfed. After all the nerfs, one would think that Elementalists would shift their points elsewhere – yet many still do not. This can only be indicative of one thing: the other Trait lines cannot at present provide the same defensive utility.
• Fire traits should receive defensive counterpressure – Cleansing while Burning enemies, for example. Gaining Blinds in Fire Combo Fields. Making Blast Finishers have additional utility like condition cleansing, or giving off Fire Aura.
• Air traits should receive Interrupts and bonus effects that proc off interrupts instead of being always about all damage, all the time. Vulnerability on interrupt or knockdown, Dazing on Blinds or Weakened foes, these are things that Air should reward a CC focus on Elementalist.
• Earth Traits should provide CC and counter-CC pressure. Being able to cleanse snares on Earth attunement, reflecting projectiles with walls, and so on, or allowing Weakness to be comboed into Knockdowns.
• Some of the above utility should be folded into the Alacrity traits to encourage specialisation; although care should be taken to put multiple traits i.e. those concerning Blast finishers in the same attunement – into the same Tier to force choices.
• The 15 point traits for Fire and Earth are really bad. Some utility should be worked into those also.

After this, the following Arcana traits should be moved and/or reworked:

• Make Lingering Elements receive the Elemental Attunement Boon functionality on top of the current Lingering Elements functionality (Soothing Mist, Zephyr’s Speed, Flame Barrier, Stone Flesh). However, make boons gained for the Elementalist only. For Lingering Elements, the 5 point Adept Minors are the only bonuses that it functions with and that is a little too weak.
• Elemental Attunement should then be reworked to: Boons you gain are shared to allies within 240 radius.
  • The point of this change is to free up a third slot in Arcana. We all know that Elemental Attunement, Evasive Arcana and Renewing Stamina are pretty much locked in at this point, and further nerfs will not increase build diversity because the other Arcana traits are simply not good enough.

• Blasting Staff: Make the Radius increase 30 units. Increase baseline Staff skills by 30 units of Radius.
  • No-one takes Staff without Blasting Staff. It’s unthinkable at present. You do not create build diversity by making traits _mandatory for acceptable performance.

• Arcane Precision is the most uninspired RNG proc trait and amongst the weakest at 10% of Critical Hits. (Except for Air, the Weakness is nice) Presuming a Berserker’s Amulet (PvP) and 30 points in Air magic – 10% of 49% crit chance (10% of 69% crit with Fury) is practically negligible.
  • The whole crit-proc mechanic should be scrapped and instead be made: Your next attack after swapping to an Attunement inflicts a condition associated with that Attunement. The duration and/or Intensity of Conditions applied should then be extended

• Elemental Surge should instead have its effects made baseline on the Arcane Skills. There is only 1 god in Grandmaster Arcana and it is Evasive Arcana.
  • The freed slot should then be redesigned to make a real competitor to Evasive Arcana’s sheer utility. Perhaps by making every Utility cast proc a Blast Finisher at the Elementalist’s position.

Malthias, never in such detail, but I have also expressed the need for trait changes without ruining the ones we have currently. My fear is they will think “Ok buffed fire, to get them to use it, cut arcana.” I just don’t know how they’ll go about it.

One would hope that Arenanet would have realised by now that actually, cutting Arcana doesn’t shift points. In fact the best response they received was when they enacted a reduction in the need for Arcana overall – reducing the CDR each point of Arcana provided whilst lowering the base CD of Attunements.

Right now Elementalist needs 20+ points in Arcana even still. Shifting Elemental Attunement to Master ensured that.

One could even make a case for shifting Elemental Attunement into Arcane Fury, then making Boons gained being shared to Allies a Master level trait. It would reduce Elementalist reliance on Arcana even more. 5 Points in Arcana? Why not? The Protection uptime and the Fury is all that is required.

Of course, the only other way to shift Elementalist away from Arcana is to make Stone Flesh provide Protection upon attuning to Earth instead of the 120 Toughness at cLvl 80.

Overall the issue remains that Elementalist remains quite dependant upon Boons to survive.

This is a problem that can only be tackled by making defensive conditions – Blind, Weakness – more available to Elementalist through traits and/or increasing the availability of Elementalist CC by reducing keystone cooldowns such as Updraft, Earthquake, Gust, Shockwave, Comet and Gale – both of which were possibilities I discussed in my prior post.

Past that would be buffs to healing. 20-40% buffs should be considered in a vacuum if absolutely nothing else is changed. In the event of changes that reduce Elementalist reliance on boons, some of the buffs to heals should not be implemented.

• Water Blast should also heal the Elementalist, OR become Ground Targeted
• Ice Spike should become a Blast Finisher
• Geyser and/or Healing Rain have their Water Field durations increased or their cooldown decreased
• Water Trident does not receive the proposed 3 seconds of Regeneration and instead has its base heal improved by 40% from 1448 to 2027 and keeping its 1.0 coefficient to Healing Power
• Cone of Cold receives a similar 40% buff to healing from 740 to 1036 if each tick hits the target. An increase of 20% from 740 to 888 without hitting a foe should also be considered, but the important thing is that you heal for more if you hit something.
• Cleansing Wave receives a 20% buff from 1302 to 1562 while keeping the 1.0 Coefficient.

The reality is that underneath the Boons, Elementalist survival is in its heals. There’s not that many Evade frames (Burning Speed should not receive Evade frames because down that path the Thief lies); skills need to be chained to have appreciable effectiveness, and Elementalist sustained DPS counterpressure is severely curtailed by ineffectual autoattacks outside of Air.

Weakness application is rare – which is good, because Weakness is a “junk” covering condition in many builds, yet there are a dearth of skills and traits that leverage Weakness unlike the Earth Elementalist of GW1 . I’m still waiting for Stoning to be replaced by Glowstone as an Autoattack, and for Stoning to actually knock down Weakened foes as it did in GW1.

Blinds – again, for Elementalist, they are a clutch tool – yet cooldown on them outside of Scepter can be punishing. Giving utility for Blinds through traits should be the next thing explored. Blind on Interrupt, or making Interrupts inflict Blind, or making Vulnerability proc when a Blinded foe misses a skill should be enough to make a CC/Shutdown oriented build viable when coupled to Earth – while increasing Elementalist survivability by enabling kiting and shutting down the opponent. The tools for Air Magic in GW2 are almost universally revolving around DPS – yet Air Magic in GW1 provided a vast breadth of Interrupts and other shutdown utility that is conspicuously absent.

MonMalthias.4763:

One would hope that Arenanet would have realised by now that actually, cutting Arcana doesn’t shift points. In fact the best response they received was when they enacted a reduction in the need for Arcana overall – reducing the CDR each point of Arcana provided whilst lowering the base CD of Attunements.

Right now Elementalist needs 20+ points in Arcana even still. Shifting Elemental Attunement to Master ensured that.

One could even make a case for shifting Elemental Attunement into Arcane Fury, then making Boons gained being shared to Allies a Master level trait. It would reduce Elementalist reliance on Arcana even more. 5 Points in Arcana? Why not? The Protection uptime and the Fury is all that is required.

I’m not sure making Elemental Attunement into a Arcana minor adept trait is the most balanced idea. For only 5 points into Arcana, giving Elementalists 5.25 seconds of protection every time that they swap into Earth Attunement; or 5.25 seconds of regeneration for swapping into water seems like nothing more than power creep to me.

MonMalthias.4763:

Of course, the only other way to shift Elementalist away from Arcana is to make Stone Flesh provide Protection upon attuning to Earth instead of the 120 Toughness at cLvl 80.

I like the toughness because it’s something one can manipulate. Protection doesn’t stack unfortunately so we can’t incorporate Protection as safely into builds as we can additional Toughness. One way to make Stone Flesh more viable would be to maybe make it a temporary buff that one gains for maybe 5 seconds upon attuning to Earth but we increase the Toughness to a much higher level (not necessarily protection level, though).

MonMalthias.4763:

Overall the issue remains that Elementalist remains quite dependant upon Boons to survive.

That’s why I’ve been looking for places to sneak in additional CC and mobility for the Elementalist. Such additions give the Elementalist more active ways to react to incoming damage (aside from just healing) while also adding new dynamics into combat for opponents.

MonMalthias.4763:

This is a problem that can only be tackled by making defensive conditions – Blind, Weakness – more available to Elementalist through traits

I’m afraid to add too much to offensively-triggered traits because they’re all instant-activation, passive and potentially ranged procs that never provide any counter-play to an opponent. Your idea about a CC-oriented DPS support earth Elementalist sounded cool, though. I’ll try to drum up some ideas for it.

MonMalthias.4763:

and/or increasing the availability of Elementalist CC by reducing keystone cooldowns such as Updraft, Earthquake, Gust, Shockwave, Comet and Gale – both of which were possibilities I discussed in my prior post.

This is where we should really focus our efforts. Although, we still have to be wary of the already present damage and defensive abilities incorporated into the potential weapon sets associated with those CC options.

MonMalthias.4763:

Past that would be buffs to healing. 20-40% buffs should be considered in a vacuum if absolutely nothing else is changed. In the event of changes that reduce Elementalist reliance on boons, some of the buffs to heals should not be implemented. … The reality is that underneath the Boons, Elementalist survival is in its heals. There’s not that many Evade frames (Burning Speed should not receive Evade frames because down that path the Thief lies); skills need to be chained to have appreciable effectiveness, and Elementalist sustained DPS counterpressure is severely curtailed by ineffectual autoattacks outside of Air.

I argue that Elementalist heals are mostly fine and its just that every profession’s damage is out of control in the meta-game right now. That said, exaggeration does breed perspective, so it might not be a terrible idea to experiment with increasing Elementalist healing. While giving the Elementalist additional healing power in its skills might work in the current meta-game, I’m worried that it would just have to be nerfed again if we bring everything else that’s currently broken into line. Also, I’m just afraid that it would make bunker cantrip Elementalists outrageous. I’ll look to add your suggestions to the list, though.

MonMalthias.4763:

Weakness application is rare – which is good, because Weakness is a “junk” covering condition in many builds, yet there are a dearth of skills and traits that leverage Weakness unlike the Earth Elementalist of GW1 . I’m still waiting for Stoning to be replaced by Glowstone as an Autoattack, and for Stoning to actually knock down Weakened foes as it did in GW1.

It would be nice to see [Stoning] changed to a utility skill and serve a purpose identical to its functionality in GW1.

Blinds – again, for Elementalist, they are a clutch tool – yet cooldown on them outside of Scepter can be punishing. Giving utility for Blinds through traits should be the next thing explored. Blind on Interrupt, or making Interrupts inflict Blind, or making Vulnerability proc when a Blinded foe misses a skill should be enough to make a CC/Shutdown oriented build viable when coupled to Earth – while increasing Elementalist survivability by enabling kiting and shutting down the opponent. The tools for Air Magic in GW2 are almost universally revolving around DPS – yet Air Magic in GW1 provided a vast breadth of Interrupts and other shutdown utility that is conspicuously absent.[/quote]