There are several design issues with the elementalist. Base survival, weak auto-attacks, etc. One of them, which is the base attunement cooldowns, was improved upon in this patch, and so far based on my testings, it’s great as it now is. Playing with 0 arcana feels natural now (talking exclusively about attunement swapping).
This is a very important change. Elementalists are usually stuck to specific traits: those who give them survival, or those who are simple better than the remaining ones. Arcana traitline still has some of our strongest traits (renewing stamina, elemental attunement, evasive arcana), but now you can more freely substitute them for equally good traits (Rock Solid, Persisting Flames, Diamond Skin, Fresh Air) or other potentially strong combinations (full cantrip traits, aura traits) without having to worry about base attunement cooldowns. In fact, the main worries about not investing in arcana now usually revolve around the following questions: “are the arcana traits worth sacrificing for the other traits?”, which can be a yes/ no scenario depending on the context, and “do I need more boon duration?”
There were times where the arcana traits were potentially worth sacrificing for a few other good traits. But then there was a third problem: “I can’t still leave arcana or else the high attument cooldowns break my entire build”. Especially when we consider how other traits, like Rock Solid and Cleansing Wave, are so reliant on attunement swapping.
By fixing this problem, the patch was a great step in the right direction. Elementalists were not magically fixed out of all of their issues, of course, and they still need to invest on survival to exist (organized dungeon pve aside), and they still need to revolve around builds that do not depend on most of their weak auto-attacks to exist as well. However, now that they are no longer stuck to arcana’s attunement cooldown boost, traits like renewing stamina, elemental attunement and evasive arcana (and arcana’s #5) are now under a tigher competition with other strong traits from other lines.
Individually strong non-arcana traits:
- (Fire) Persisting Flames
- (Air) Zephyr’s Boon
- (Air) Fresh Air
- (Earth) Rock Solid
- (Earth) Diamond Skin
- (Water) Minor #15
- (Water) Cleansing Wave
- (Water) Soothing Disruption
- (Water) Cleansing Water
And (potentially) strong traits, most that become even better when combined with others:
- (Air) Tempest Defense, (Earth) Elemental Shielding and (Water) Powerful Auras
- (Fire) Spellslinger, (Fire) Burning Fire), (Earth) Earth’s Embrace, (Water) Cantrip Mastery
- All +damage traits across those four traitlines, including (Fire) Minor #25 and (Air) Minor #15
- (Water) Soothing Wave, (Fire) Conjure and (Fire) Cooldown decrease
- (Earth) and (Water) Minor #5, (Earth) Minor #15
When we consider that arcana’s minor traits are not that good outside of the #5 (fury on swap, which can be substituted by persisting flames or zephyr’s boon), and if we don’t desperately need extra boon duration, then it’s far more feasible to trade in the best arcana traits for the best of the other lines, depending on what type of build we want and on each situation.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)