Guild Wars 2

Currently, you are playing not at full potential when using Glyphs over Cantrips (or other utility types like Signets & Arcane skills to a lesser extend). Here are some ideas to tweak Glyphs a little bit to make them more viable:

Traits:
Inscription: The Might boost from attuning to Fire should be 3 stacks (like with GoEH); the bug with not working on Glyph of Elementals is still unresolved, right?

Quick Glyphs: The 20% reduction is fine; Some glyphs need a recharge tweak though. See below.

Skills:
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Fine, no changes

Glyph of Elemental Power: As it is useless as a Stunbreaker at the moment (compared to e.g. Signet of Air), I would like to see its recharge going down to 30 seconds and the duration reduced to 20 seconds. This will still keep the current uptime ratio (30/20 compared to 45/30), but would allow a calculated use of the Glyph either as a stun break or as a pre-fight damage boost via its conditions.

Glyph of Renewal: It currently takes way too much time to revive a downed foe before a stomp, so reducing the casting time to 1 second is the only option for me to make it more viable. The recharge should go down to 120 seconds and it should heal like GoEH (without the boons). This way the skills gets out of the corner of being a highly situational skill that is dead weight on the skill bar most of the time.

Glyph of Storms: Fine

Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Fine, I just wish they would not die under water, so I can swim small distances after I have summoned them. Just make them invulnerable as long as they are in the water and use the “passive” setting from Ranger pets. They can’t attack or can not be attacked.

Glyph of Elementals: same as GoLE

Do you see any alternatives? Discuss.

Regarding GoLE and GoE, I’d personally like them to have the summons work more like Necromancer minions. Don’t have them on a timer, and let us use their more powerful skill on command. For the GoE Elementals which have two skills, tapping the button can be one skill, while holding it can be another skill. Frankly I think all autonomous summons should be this way, makes them far more user friendly, and we don’t lose our Elemental right in the middle of a tough fight.

For everything else, I support 100%. They did fix the bug where Inscription didn’t work with GoE, though, so that’s good at least.

About your Glyph of Renewal suggestion, I don’t think they’ll change. I am suggesting this about long ago to all classes that have a resurrect skill (Guardian, Elementalist, Necromancer and Mesmer) where all skills are useless becouse their cast time and insane CD. All of them should be 1~2 sec cast time and 90~120 sec CD (Except Mesmer which should be faster cast or lower CD). They really need to change this to make those skills viable.

By the way, good suggestions.

Gorani.7205:

Currently, you are playing not at full potential when using Glyphs over Cantrips (or other utility types like Signets & Arcane skills to a lesser extend).

Glyph are pretty neat in the fact that they give you a lot of options. You can switch between control, damage and defense based on your choice at that time. I prefer them over cantrips personally, although I usually bring Armor of Earth alongside them.

Inscription: The Might boost from attuning to Fire should be 3 stacks

Would be nice, but combined with fire attunement and altruism this could make GoEH give 9 might (maybe a bit too much?).

Glyph of Elemental Power: As it is useless as a Stunbreaker at the moment (compared to e.g. Signet of Air), I would like to see its recharge going down to 30 seconds and the duration reduced to 20 seconds. This will still keep the current uptime ratio (30/20 compared to 45/30), but would allow a calculated use of the Glyph either as a stun break or as a pre-fight damage boost via its conditions.

I’m a bit on the fence about this one. I can understand what you’re saying, but on the other hand, I view glyphs as ‘multiple options based on choice’. In that sense, the stunbreaker actually fits: you can either choose for a condition, OR use it as a stunbreaker. To me, the stunbreaker is just one of the 5 options you can use it for. Guess it’s a point of view.

Glyph of Renewal: It currently takes way too much time to revive a downed foe before a stomp, so reducing the casting time to 1 second is the only option for me to make it more viable. The recharge should go down to 120 seconds and it should heal like GoEH (without the boons). This way the skills gets out of the corner of being a highly situational skill that is dead weight on the skill bar most of the time.

Agreed. A lower casting time would be fine, but 1 sec is probably too short. Maybe 2 seconds? And maybe the fire effect could last a bit longer.

Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Fine, I just wish they would not die under water, so I can swim small distances after I have summoned them. Just make them invulnerable as long as they are in the water and use the “passive” setting from Ranger pets. They can’t attack or can not be attacked.

Glyph of Elementals: same as GoLE

Good suggestion.

Kamui.3150:

Regarding GoLE and GoE, I’d personally like them to have the summons work more like Necromancer minions. Don’t have them on a timer, and let us use their more powerful skill on command. For the GoE Elementals which have two skills, tapping the button can be one skill, while holding it can be another skill. Frankly I think all autonomous summons should be this way, makes them far more user friendly, and we don’t lose our Elemental right in the middle of a tough fight.

Don’t really see the point in that to be honest. I think they’re designed like this on purpose…less controllable, but you can choose more variants. Also, even the lesser variants often have more than 1 ability. And given that the skills already change based on attunement, it may be rather hard to code.

Mikau.6920:

By the way, good suggestions.

Agreed. Most of them are solid, with a few nitpicks here and there.

Glyph of renewal should easily have a 1 second cast considering the cooldown and you have to drop survivability by taking up a utility slot. And not to compare classes that are totally different but look at some of the other rezzes (engy one is 1/4s cast on 120s base cooldown that can be specced down to 90s), ofc eles get different buffs on theirs but even so 3+ second to cast is way too long.

The other glyphs seem ok but just too mediocre to replace something with. Elemental power is the only one that id ever use in a roaming build and its still hard to drop survivability for it, a lower cd/duration would help a little though.

Sizer.5632:

Glyph of renewal should easily have a 1 second cast considering the cooldown and you have to drop survivability by taking up a utility slot. And not to compare classes that are totally different but look at some of the other rezzes (engy one is 1/4s cast on 120s base cooldown that can be specced down to 90s), ofc eles get different buffs on theirs but even so 3+ second to cast is way too long.

Good point, but consider that it’s a ranged res that you can use while moving. If it can also prevent a stomp from range then it may be a bit too much. The 2 seconds would give the stomper a chance, while still giving the caster a chance to res.

Personally, my main issue with the skill was always that if the res didn’t work, the skill would still go on cooldown. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but if there’s anything I’d change to glyphs, that would be my first choice. Because there’s nothing as annoying as wasting a super long cooldown on an effect you never got.

ThiBash.5634:

Would be nice, but combined with fire attunement and altruism this could make GoEH give 9 might (maybe a bit too much?).

It requires you to haver at least 2 Sup runes of Altruism, so a specific setup. And of course you are giving up speed (Air) or Protection (Earth) from GoEH. I think its OK, but it is probably a thing you have to do maths on to see how “OP” this might get.

I’m a bit on the fence about this one. I can understand what you’re saying, but on the other hand, I view glyphs as ‘multiple options based on choice’. In that sense, the stunbreaker actually fits: you can either choose for a condition, OR use it as a stunbreaker. To me, the stunbreaker is just one of the 5 options you can use it for. Guess it’s a point of view.

45 seconds for a stun break skill that is conditional anyway (are you in the “right” attunement for the condition effect you desire when you hit the “panic button”?) is too long IMO – POV like you said (that’s why I reduced the duration to make it more active to manage).

Agreed. A lower casting time would be fine, but 1 sec is probably too short. Maybe 2 seconds? And maybe the fire effect could last a bit longer.

From a WvW POV, I have to say it takes a while to see the downed ally, click him and hit the glyph. Anything that is beyond 1 sec makes this skill a gamble & not an option to me.

I wouldn’t ever consider Glyph of Renewal except as part of a troll build with a group of tanky friends, or during important keep defenses. Need that lord back on his feet? Glyph of Renewal will get the job done!….

….Provided I can find the bugger in the pile of bodies, first.

People actually use Glyph of Renewal? I canned that useless skill ages ago.

Gorani.7205:

45 seconds for a stun break skill that is conditional anyway (are you in the “right” attunement for the condition effect you desire when you hit the “panic button”?) is too long IMO

I’d like to think of the stun breaker as a fifth option, not something to neccesarily combine with the condition of your choice…but that’s just a POV.

What I’m more concerned of is that if you reduce the cooldown, you may end up paving the way for an ele build that’s effectively immune to cc skills: with Melandru’s Rune, Geomancer’s Freedom and food the ele can already be pretty much immune to immobilize. They could then add this skill together with some more stun breakers and effectively become unsnarable. That’s a pretty big thing for eles, given that stuns and snares are our main counter play.

Mochann.5298:

People actually use Glyph of Renewal? I canned that useless skill ages ago.

It’s actually useful against Giganticus Lupicus when you need to keep moving and one of your team goes down. But I’ll admit, that’s the only place I’ve ever found it truly useful. That fight lasted so long that I actually got to use it twice.