Guild Wars 2

Another whole season playing healbot yay so fun!))

I wanted to play my scepter fresh air build but after a 8 game lose streak I gave up.

I’m content that we at least have a competitive build, I would love to play FA but I do love playing support/tank as well, and ele is the best at it. I play more than one class so I can get my DPS fix elsewhere

I will be playing a different class again this season, not positive which one, but it will not be ele. I can’t stand the heal bot build and everything else is trash.

Very unhappy about the shout CD nerfs. It makes non healbot ele even harder…
And i dislike being a pure healbot ….

I feel like eles are being pushed far back into the “support or bust” build before the april 15th patch that made celestial ele viable.

What the hell anet. Why.

You get a good ele playing a build people call for nerfs. You have the same good ele playing a support build, people say its too much cleanse because “heavens forbid” someone actually knows how to rotate an ele.

I guess all eles should just stand there, do nothing and let people beat up on them for free points and I guarantee people will STILL cry for nerfs.

SPVP will always force you to play x spec or x class, just the nature of it’s design. Sucks but whatever.

I’ve been playing D/F Auramancer all this time and going with the meta. But yesterday I said kitten it and went with my trusted staff. Tbh I had my first easy winstreak.
Tbh it’s all about the way YOU wanna play.

Tbh it’s all about the way YOU wanna play.

This:

My non metabuild (scepter/focus) runs havoc on my oponents. Shure i have weaknesses like focus fire with a boon corupter kills me fast or mesmers are a pain, but i have fun and can even carry my team.

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

I hear ya man. I am finding myself less and less motivated to log onto GW2 these days. The elementalist has the worst sustain out of all classes, if they are trying to build anything other than a bunker. Dapheonix was the reason I even created an ele. Spent 2 years trying to master d/d and then its not viable anymore.

I don’t think we are one of the worst designed though. In fact, I think we are one of the most well thought-out concepts. We suffer like guardians because we have outdated traits and utilities.

I have tried posting suggestions to improve the Fire and arcane traitlines, but Anet only buys in to simple number fixes. Hell, I have even tried asking the community what they wanted in posts, but no one seemed to have much interest in replying.

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

You know, if you can read between the lines you’ll realize that somewhere in that long wall of text that I posted, I actually pointed out that Ele sustain is too strong on bunker builds, which obviously means putting all traits and stats into defense, and buffing that sustain in general to help glass eles will only result into making bunker builds more powerful and more “meta” thus not helping the offensive side of the class at all.

And can you please elaborate how and why do you think Eles has the worst sustain in the game? All weapon sets have the ability to heal paired with some traits/combos which is why I was able to play zerk-ish D/D and S/D in the past. The problem now is the super power creep, super Condi Spam, and AoE spam that melts non-bunker Eles as soon as they get hit. I can’t even imagine how a non-bunker mesmer or any build of necro can outsustain a non-bunker ele in terms of HP regen/heals.

So before you go typing things in bold text, hold your horses and FOR GOD’S SAKE read and understand the context.

EDIT: IIRC 200~300 was the “standard” healing power DD Eles needed in the past and that is not literally “putting all stats into defense”. Below are the builds I used for D/D and S/D in T1 duels and solo/2~5 man wvw roaming pre-HoT and I could say Ele sustain is great (not worst, not best) based on these (Not all traits are accurate as some were changed/moved tiers). Don’t forget that there were guard stacks in the past (+250 vit)
D/D: http://tinyurl.com/hh68egl
S/D: http://tinyurl.com/j98429g

The reason why I said that I think there would be no chance of making Ele DPS meta again in PvP/WvW roaming is that for example, buffing Ele’s base HP/armor will just make bunker builds stronger. If you compare the trait lines, Ele’s offensive trait lines have some defense in it but are way underwhelming compared than other classes’ defensive traits in offensive trait lines. Look at Tempest Defense, it can be ignored if you have stability. Only way to make it really “defensive” is by taking Earth trait “Elemental Shielding”. “Burning Fire” in Fire trait line is not very reliable as it pops as soon as you get any 3 condis on you. However, let’s look at other classes’ offensive traits. Warrior’s “Great Fortitude” in Strength give a static 10% bonus HP based on Power. Rangers’ “Enlargement” is also on an offensive traitline. Necro’s “Path of Corruption” and “Parasitic Contagion” are on offensive trait lines as well. Thieves have “Mug” and “Invigoration Precision”. Mesmers have “Desperate Decoy”, “Blinding Dissipation”, and “Evasive Mirror”. Revs have “Replenishing Despair”, “Demonic Defiance”, “Close Quarters”, “Eye for an Eye”, and “Versed in Stone”. So far, Engi and Guardians are the only classes who don’t have defensive traits on offensive trait lines.

There is no way for DPS eles to get back into meta without buffing its current core abilities/traits in a way it won’t make bunker builds stronger unless they completely rework our offensive traits and that’s why I suggested that it would be possible if we were given a new offensive specialization with new traits and utilities to tinker around with.

Bunker ele doesn’t even have great survivability considering how much it invests in defenses. There are still several builds that can solo it reliably, and with 13k hp and no on demand stunbreaks it isn’t too hard to burst down in a team fight. The only reason why it is decent is all of its defense is aoe so it can be classified as a support. So they could definitly tone down the aoe healing in favor of improved selfish survivability.

Kyon.9735:

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

You know, if you can read between the lines you’ll realize that somewhere in that long wall of text that I posted, I actually pointed out that Ele sustain is too strong on bunker builds, which obviously means putting all traits and stats into defense, and buffing that sustain in general to help glass eles will only result into making bunker builds more powerful and more “meta” thus not helping the offensive side of the class at all.

And can you please elaborate how and why do you think Eles has the worst sustain in the game? All weapon sets have the ability to heal paired with some traits/combos which is why I was able to play zerk-ish D/D and S/D in the past. Only problem was that I die so fast before I can fully execute that healing combo. I can’t even imagine how a non-bunker mesmer or any build of necro can outsustain a non-bunker ele in terms of HP regen/heals.

So before you go typing things in bold text, hold your horses and FOR GOD’S SAKE read and understand the context.

EDIT: IIRC 200~300 was the “standard” healing power DD Eles needed in the past and that is not literally “putting all stats into defense”. Below are the builds I used for D/D and S/D in T1 duels and solo/2~5 man wvw roaming pre-HoT and I could say Ele sustain is great (not worst, not best) based on these (Not all traits are accurate as some were changed/moved tiers).

D/D: http://tinyurl.com/hh68egl
S/D: http://tinyurl.com/j98429g

The reason why I said that I think there would be no chance of making Ele DPS meta again in PvP/WvW roaming is that for example, buffing Ele’s base HP/armor will just make bunker builds stronger. There is no way for DPS eles to get back into meta without buffing its current core abilities/traits in a way it won’t make bunker builds stronger and that’s why I suggested that it would be possible if we were given a new offensive specialization with new traits and utilities to tinker around with.

First off, I would like to say that this game is not balanced on small man/solo roaming. Thats why you have some of the cheesiest builds in the game that is only viable in small fights, carried by their stats and food.

Buffing the sustain of dps builds is quite easy. Make traits in fire/arcane better.

Add an effect to Persisting Flames. As long as you are in a fire field lose conditions. Does not affect allies.

For arcane improve the traits to better synergize with arcane utilities. Arcane shield in its current form needs to go. I thought about making it pop after 3 seconds regardless of hits, but it would be very strong in wvw large scale if a CD reduction was added to it. Anet could buff it to 6 hits for 5 seconds, however add a second affect when used to pop it whenever you want. It also requires a CD reduction. Improving arcane shield alone would help with the sustain of dps builds, but would not do much for bunker builds.

And as for the worst sustain in the game, its because their is too much damage going around in melee range these days. Other classes have reliable blocks (guardian), high sustain (Warrior), Tons of dodge and mobility (thief). D/D and even Sc/D ele for that matter does not have much to avoid damage (other than 1v1 situations) and only receives the benefits of healing from playing bunker.

FrownyClown.8402:

Kyon.9735:

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

You know, if you can read between the lines you’ll realize that somewhere in that long wall of text that I posted, I actually pointed out that Ele sustain is too strong on bunker builds, which obviously means putting all traits and stats into defense, and buffing that sustain in general to help glass eles will only result into making bunker builds more powerful and more “meta” thus not helping the offensive side of the class at all.

And can you please elaborate how and why do you think Eles has the worst sustain in the game? All weapon sets have the ability to heal paired with some traits/combos which is why I was able to play zerk-ish D/D and S/D in the past. Only problem was that I die so fast before I can fully execute that healing combo. I can’t even imagine how a non-bunker mesmer or any build of necro can outsustain a non-bunker ele in terms of HP regen/heals.

So before you go typing things in bold text, hold your horses and FOR GOD’S SAKE read and understand the context.

EDIT: IIRC 200~300 was the “standard” healing power DD Eles needed in the past and that is not literally “putting all stats into defense”. Below are the builds I used for D/D and S/D in T1 duels and solo/2~5 man wvw roaming pre-HoT and I could say Ele sustain is great (not worst, not best) based on these (Not all traits are accurate as some were changed/moved tiers).

D/D: http://tinyurl.com/hh68egl
S/D: http://tinyurl.com/j98429g

The reason why I said that I think there would be no chance of making Ele DPS meta again in PvP/WvW roaming is that for example, buffing Ele’s base HP/armor will just make bunker builds stronger. There is no way for DPS eles to get back into meta without buffing its current core abilities/traits in a way it won’t make bunker builds stronger and that’s why I suggested that it would be possible if we were given a new offensive specialization with new traits and utilities to tinker around with.

First off, I would like to say that this game is not balanced on small man/solo roaming. Thats why you have some of the cheesiest builds in the game that is only viable in small fights, carried by their stats and food.

Buffing the sustain of dps builds is quite easy. Make traits in fire/arcane better.

Add an effect to Persisting Flames. As long as you are in a fire field lose conditions. Does not affect allies.

For arcane improve the traits to better synergize with arcane utilities. Arcane shield in its current form needs to go. I thought about making it pop after 3 seconds regardless of hits, but it would be very strong in wvw large scale if a CD reduction was added to it. Anet could buff it to 6 hits for 5 seconds, however add a second affect when used to pop it whenever you want. It also requires a CD reduction. Improving arcane shield alone would help with the sustain of dps builds, but would not do much for bunker builds.

And as for the worst sustain in the game, its because their is too much damage going around in melee range these days. Other classes have reliable blocks (guardian), high sustain (Warrior), Tons of dodge and mobility (thief). D/D and even Sc/D ele for that matter does not have much to avoid damage (other than 1v1 situations) and only receives the benefits of healing from playing bunker.

I edited my post before reading this and I believe we’re on the same page regarding the issue that the defensive traits in our offensive trait lines are way too underwhelming. I mean by simply playing other classes and looking at the traitlines, it’s not that hard to notice what makes the offensive traits of Elementalists so weak.

In that regards, I noted earlier that I am talking only in a PVP/WvW perspective. Buffing the Elementalist Class in general by giving it more self sustain will only improve the current meta Healer/weak version bunker Eles. That’s why I suggested that we get those in the new specialization (which could take ages). So then, I totally agree with you that our offensive traitlines needs to be buffed for the defensive traits they have.

In that sense, your suggestion for Arcane Shield is similar to what I suggested in another thread except I overlooked the fact that 3 hits would be too small. I totally like your ideas so let’s talking because I think we’re headed to the right direction. Let’s just hope we can deliver this to a sensible ANET staff.

@:Kyon.9735

You don’t get what I mean by “worst sustain”, a more clear explanation has been given by @FrownyClown.8402…and by all means I like to use bolded text where I think it’s necessary.

Back on the worst sustain subject, yes for the love of god, ele got the worst one out of all professions : you have no ways to avoid damage

-You can’t kite for days like mesmer or thief or even revenant…even a GS warrior has more in combat mobility than an ele
-You have no blocks, stealths or short CD teleports

This was ele before Daphoenix “introduced” the glorified super bunker triple cantrip arcana/water build

All your weapon sets offer healing options? AND?
You need min 500+ healing to make them useful at all, this on top of the necessary vitality and the freaking toughness needed to allow you to facetank dmg as you can’t avoid it.

You have the worst sustain because you don’t need to go bunker on other professions to actually play the freaking profession

People can play whiteknights all they want..but I’m simply comparing stats between professions

Supreme.3164:

@:Kyon.9735

You don’t get what I mean by “worst sustain”, a more clear explanation has been given by @FrownyClown.8402…and by all means I like to use bolded text where I think it’s necessary.

Back on the worst sustain subject, yes for the love of god, ele got the worst one out of all professions : you have no ways to avoid damage

-You can’t kite for days like mesmer or thief or even revenant…even a GS warrior has more in combat mobility than an ele
-You have no blocks, stealths or short CD teleports

This was ele before Daphoenix “introduced” the glorified super bunker triple cantrip arcana/water build

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

All your weapon sets offer healing options? AND?
You need min 500+ healing to make them useful at all, this on top of the necessary vitality and the freaking toughness needed to allow you to facetank dmg as you can’t avoid it.

You have the worst sustain because you don’t need to go bunker on other professions to actually play the freaking profession

People can play whiteknights all they want..but I’m simply comparing stats between professions

I agree with you that post-HoT Ele has been hit hard and requires that minimum 500 healing raised up from the standard 200-300. However, we are talking about sustain in general which means the ability to regenerate/heal your lost HP. Even with low healing power, these skills still heal for a decent amount of HP based on our base HP pool. What you are complaining about having no ways to avoid damage is a completely different matter and does not fit “Sustain” at all. I still firmly believe that Ele HP sustain is good (not best) but the problem lies on the ability to avoid and mitigate damage.

With that regards, I completely agree with you regarding the problems of Eles outside sustain which is why I’m discussing it with FrownyClown so if you’re ready to talk in a civilized manner without any ounce of saltiness, hop on.

@FrownyClown
I think these traits should be reworked and I believe you have good ideas for them:

• One with Air – barely used, mostly only by scepter builds in duels against melee classes.
• Tempest Defense – Not really defensive aside from thieves, mesmer and classes who have no/bad access to stability.
• Lightning Rod – I believe the weakness effect should be moved to Tempest Defense while another effect should be added when disabling foes.
• Burning Fire – too passive and random.
• One with Fire – too lackluster. Fire auras aren’t defensive at all without Elemental Shielding. Foes won’t stop hitting you just because they get a puny burn damage and give you might.
• Persisting Flames – I love your idea of removing condis while staying on a fire field.
• Bountiful Power – I don’t see any builds using this as EA and ES are way better in general.

• Arcane Power – who uses this in any game mode, really?
• Arcane Wave – mostly/only used as a blast finisher.

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

Pretty much agree with all you wrote. Elementalists’ utilities have been left in the shade of oblivion and no dev has paid the proper attention to them. Most of our utilities’ cooldowns are way too long because it looks like that devs have the stupid impression that our survavibility is godly. Most players do think the same as well. They have that we’re ultimately strong cause we’re healbots currently. But what are our true capabilities? Where’s the so-called “jack-of-all-trades”? Personally I don’t like that concept but weapons like staff suffer a lot due to long CDs and really bad damage output.
People think that there’s not a single problem with staff because they have the wrong idea that it’s the most damaging weapon in the game. But that just regards pve where you fight brainless pokemons which STAND on your lava fonts forever! I don’t fk*** care about pve. Every **** works on pve. I’m talking about the pvp scenary: WvW is just another “PvE-masked” scene. And staff is not actually the only bad weapon for elementalist: scepter, oh my, scepter! Both of these weaps are slow in dealing reliable damage (condi dmg is the worst for staff). Lava font is weak at pvp and the dmg isn’t even instant BLOODY HELL how can I spare my foes some time to get away? And the cooldowns? We have the worst hp pool and armor in the game! We have no time to keep changing attunement just to wonder if we can survive. Scepter is worse than Harry Potter’s wands…

Our utilities also have long cooldowns and most of their functionality is clunky. I was going to comment about conjures…but, welll.

Guizao.4167:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

Pretty much agree with all you wrote. Elementalists’ utilities have been left in the shade of oblivion and no dev has paid the proper attention to them. Most of our utilities’ cooldowns are way too long because it looks like that devs have the stupid impression that our survavibility is godly. Most players do think the same as well. They have that we’re ultimately strong cause we’re healbots currently. But what are our true capabilities? Where’s the so-called “jack-of-all-trades”? Personally I don’t like that concept but weapons like staff suffer a lot due to long CDs and really bad damage output.
People think that there’s not a single problem with staff because they have the wrong idea that it’s the most damaging weapon in the game. But that just regards pve where you fight brainless pokemons which STAND on your lava fonts forever! I don’t fk*** care about pve. Every **** works on pve. I’m talking about the pvp scenary: WvW is just another “PvE-masked” scene. And staff is not actually the only bad weapon for elementalist: scepter, oh my, scepter! Both of these weaps are slow in dealing reliable damage (condi dmg is the worst for staff). Lava font is weak at pvp and the dmg isn’t even instant BLOODY HELL how can I spare my foes some time to get away? And the cooldowns? We have the worst hp pool and armor in the game! We have no time to keep changing attunement just to wonder if we can survive. Scepter is worse than Harry Potter’s wands…

Our utilities also have long cooldowns and most of their functionality is clunky. I was going to comment about conjures…but, welll.

Staff is fine. It is the best weapon for large scale wvw and does alot of damage while still supporting your frontline.

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 10% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleansing Fire – Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. This will make Burning Fire trait more useful but still random. At least it won’t go on CD uselessly when 3 random conditions are applied to you. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 15% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

Yeah I thought it would be too strong too. Removing just one boon from an arcane skill doesnt seem worth it though. You could probably just get rid of the “next 5 attacks are arcane skills” thought and have it just heal you. Reduce the CD to 40s (32s traited).

Your changes to Armour of Earth are very good and I think healthy for the game. It gives frontline Ele what it needs to be be frontline; reliably stability on a decent cooldown.

The Cleansing Fire change might be too strong. Its strong removing 4 conditions (because of regen) and applying burn. I often used this skill offensively back in the cele ele days.

As for the might on all auras. I think it could be considered too strong. Especially if the changes to Persisting Flames happened as well. Basically you would have people going Fire instead of water, while taking advantage of cleansing flame trait and Persisting Flames for condi removal. However, I think the trade offs are worth it. Bunkers lose the condi cleanse from auras since they dont have cleansing water. You would also have to change the rune to a might duration one to take advantage of the might stacks, losing even more condition removal. Basically I can’t see people using the trait at all in a bunker build and it would be better suited for more bruiser style play.

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

This is bad design. Why I can’t use staff in pvp? Because devs can’t really do their jobs at balacing and promoting that so called build diversity. I remember when they said that staff is a supportive weapon…LMAO! This is so tragic.

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

This is bad design. Why I can’t use staff in pvp? Because devs can’t really do their jobs at balacing and promoting that so called build diversity. I remember when they said that staff is a supportive weapon…LMAO! This is so tragic.

Have you tried staff with the traditional meta build? Its pretty decent if played well, though I don’t think its quite to the level of d/f.

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

This is bad design. Why I can’t use staff in pvp? Because devs can’t really do their jobs at balacing and promoting that so called build diversity. I remember when they said that staff is a supportive weapon…LMAO! This is so tragic.

Have you tried staff with the traditional meta build? Its pretty decent if played well, though I don’t think its quite to the level of d/f.

I have played but I try to find other builds with staff to suit my playstyle.

Staff is nowhere near comparable to dagger/focus because you need focus earth 4/5 to not instantly die to condi warriors and mesmers. Also helps a ton vs thieves and trap DH’s.

I actually don’t see it possible to play anything not x/focus because of condi warriors. Not actually survivable without earth focus at all, you’re just fall over in every team fight regardless of your or the warriors skill the second they chase you around.

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled Pokemon)

Because it’s all balanced out by its great versatility and strong zoning and booning potential. Aurashare is very powerful and if you take Mender’s over Cleric’s you’ll have good offensive potential. Fire and air are especially good for making rezzes unsafe for the opponent. Eye of the Storm and Lightning Flash also give Ele good mobility for disengaging or even offensive potential when paired with shocking aura. It’s simply the best class in the game if you can play it well.

Why I can’t use staff in pvp?

You can. It has good AoE CC though gust has a long charge with impractically slow speed. Fire staff is amazing for cleaving rezzers and creating burning combo fields for your teammates to help you stack burning while water has an AoE chill field and two healing skills, a smaller radius burst and a larger radius skill that grants regeneration and cleanses conditions. Earth also has magnetic aura, and on top of aftershock and earth overload is lots of reflects if you need it.

With that said dagger/focus is usually better, but staff still finds its uses between zoning (creating don’t go there areas so the opponent stays away), CC, and general support.

FrownyClown.8402:

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 15% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

Yeah I thought it would be too strong too. Removing just one boon from an arcane skill doesnt seem worth it though. You could probably just get rid of the “next 5 attacks are arcane skills” thought and have it just heal you. Reduce the CD to 40s (32s traited).

Your changes to Armour of Earth are very good and I think healthy for the game. It gives frontline Ele what it needs to be be frontline; reliably stability on a decent cooldown.

The Cleansing Fire change might be too strong. Its strong removing 4 conditions (because of regen) and applying burn. I often used this skill offensively back in the cele ele days.

As for the might on all auras. I think it could be considered too strong. Especially if the changes to Persisting Flames happened as well. Basically you would have people going Fire instead of water, while taking advantage of cleansing flame trait and Persisting Flames for condi removal. However, I think the trade offs are worth it. Bunkers lose the condi cleanse from auras since they dont have cleansing water. You would also have to change the rune to a might duration one to take advantage of the might stacks, losing even more condition removal. Basically I can’t see people using the trait at all in a bunker build and it would be better suited for more bruiser style play.

I think Removing 2 boons would only be OP on Arcane Power. It’s definitely balanced for me as far as Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Shield goes.

The suggested changes to Persisting Flames are really good and I believe it will make Fire Trait Line more than Viable with those changes. I’ll definitely use something like Tempest/Arcane(or water for hp sustain)/Fire.

I can only see getting 2 Might from applying auras as overpowered when paired with Tempest specialization and possibly Fresh Air as well, other than that it’s pretty balanced as non-Tempest builds cannot Aura spam reliably. I can see a possibility of semi-bunkers with Fire/Water/Tempest who would rely on might stacking to get damage as well similar to the old celestial meta. While these changes to One with Fire are perfect for non-aura spamming builds, I assume it would benefit bunker-ish ones more. What do you think of getting a flat damage increase while an aura is active? Probably gain increased 10% damage(I think 20% might be too strong) while an aura is active. It definitely helps the sustain damage of bruiser builds while gives scepter builds more burst when swapping to fire (Empowering Flame + gain Fire Shield from Sunspot).

As for Cleansing Fire, it already cleanses 4 conditions with Soothing Disruption right now but with the amount of condi spam in this meta, I still think it’s not enough so I suggested adding max 3s of Resistance.

I also think Signet of Restoration’s active effect is too weak compared to other classes’ signet heals. I mean take a look at Warrior’s Healing Signet. As passive as my grandmother is, grants Resistance upon activation, and even has lower cool down. I suggested in another thread to buff Signet of Restoratin’s Active effect by creating a 3s water field around you that grants regeneration. I can see this as a more reliable heal for non-tempest builds. Being able to blast it would help non-tempest DPS builds more as you can get a reliable 1.3k heal per blast (without healing power) and its active is still good sustain. I don’t see tempest bunker/support builds taking this because I think Wash Away the Pain is still better overall.

Edit: Well I think my suggestion to One with Fire is more useful to D/X builds more than S/X builds.

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 15% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

Yeah I thought it would be too strong too. Removing just one boon from an arcane skill doesnt seem worth it though. You could probably just get rid of the “next 5 attacks are arcane skills” thought and have it just heal you. Reduce the CD to 40s (32s traited).

Your changes to Armour of Earth are very good and I think healthy for the game. It gives frontline Ele what it needs to be be frontline; reliably stability on a decent cooldown.

The Cleansing Fire change might be too strong. Its strong removing 4 conditions (because of regen) and applying burn. I often used this skill offensively back in the cele ele days.

As for the might on all auras. I think it could be considered too strong. Especially if the changes to Persisting Flames happened as well. Basically you would have people going Fire instead of water, while taking advantage of cleansing flame trait and Persisting Flames for condi removal. However, I think the trade offs are worth it. Bunkers lose the condi cleanse from auras since they dont have cleansing water. You would also have to change the rune to a might duration one to take advantage of the might stacks, losing even more condition removal. Basically I can’t see people using the trait at all in a bunker build and it would be better suited for more bruiser style play.

I think Removing 2 boons would only be OP on Arcane Power. It’s definitely balanced for me as far as Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Shield goes.

The suggested changes to Persisting Flames are really good and I believe it will make Fire Trait Line more than Viable with those changes. I’ll definitely use something like Tempest/Arcane(or water for hp sustain)/Fire.

I can only see getting 2 Might from applying auras as overpowered when paired with Tempest specialization and possibly Fresh Air as well, other than that it’s pretty balanced as non-Tempest builds cannot Aura spam reliably. I can see a possibility of semi-bunkers with Fire/Water/Tempest who would rely on might stacking to get damage as well similar to the old celestial meta. While these changes to One with Fire are perfect for non-aura spamming builds, I assume it would benefit bunker-ish ones more. What do you think of getting a flat damage increase while an aura is active? Probably gain increased 10% damage(I think 20% might be too strong) while an aura is active. It definitely helps the sustain damage of bruiser builds while gives scepter builds more burst when swapping to fire (Empowering Flame + gain Fire Shield from Sunspot).

As for Cleansing Fire, it already cleanses 4 conditions with Soothing Disruption right now but with the amount of condi spam in this meta, I still think it’s not enough so I suggested adding max 3s of Resistance.

I also think Signet of Restoration’s active effect is too weak compared to other classes’ signet heals. I mean take a look at Warrior’s Healing Signet. As passive as my grandmother is, grants Resistance upon activation, and even has lower cool down. I suggested in another thread to buff Signet of Restoratin’s Active effect by creating a 3s water field around you that grants regeneration. I can see this as a more reliable heal for non-tempest builds. Being able to blast it would help non-tempest DPS builds more as you can get a reliable 1.3k heal per blast (without healing power) and its active is still good sustain. I don’t see tempest bunker/support builds taking this because I think Wash Away the Pain is still better overall.

Edit: Well I think my suggestion to One with Fire is more useful to D/X builds more than S/X builds.

The reason I think adding resistance is too strong is because it will be bad for balance. If the meta shifts to a power meta, it would eventually see a nerf.

I don’t like the idea of flat damage stacks from auras. Giving might will keep the boon sharing from auras persistent, like the other traitlines. These changes would probably give people the option to play something like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYn0XCNOgdOAGOAcYilCAj4KUEeCun2V7sNYA0ACAA-TJBFABls/QDnAAAeAA/XGAA

The build would offer superior condi cleanse, high fury uptime, and acceptable might stacks. The might stacking will not be at the level of pre-hot builds, which offered 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds when using a cantrip or blasting a fire field.

Signet of Restoration could use some buffs for sure, but its the same for every signet. I think the best way to improve its overall healing potential is to have skills like sunspot and applying auras count as a spell cast (if they dont already).

@ FrownyClown and Kyon

Buffing cantrips further is not the way to go, do we really want an ele with bigger stability uptime? If built for it, enemies can have a hard time CC the ele, furthermore the cantrips already trigger soothing disruption and for this reason also any buff to burning fire cannot be justified; warriors have a similar trait “shrug it off” and it’s master tree

We must keep trade offs while giving out suggestions, it’s the only way to find the optimum balance, any exaggerated buff will inevitably bring a disastrous nerf

Cleansing on ele is fine, only you need to specifically tailor your build to counter full condi specs, we can neutralize them but hardly beat them and I’d say this should not change for the sake of balance

All the proposed buffs seen so far would make bunker specs even stronger, we must buff those elements that can’t benefit a bunker spec at all

This means to leave out of the conversation things like : cantrips, aura and Signet of restoration. So let’s see how we can come up with a viable dps build for PvP, that won’t create “monsters” in WvW or PvP alike.

First it’s the main healing skill, my suggestion :

Glyph of elemental harmony
-1/2s cast time
-removed boon application
-added “Mist Armor” = incoming dmg reduced by 33% , duration 2s

Arcane Brilliance
-Base dmg increased by 150% ( from 250 to 625)
-Base healing reduced from 3500 to 3000
-Radius of attack increased from 240 to 480

Now the utilities:
Arcane skills
-Added 1s daze to arcane blast
-Added 2s stun to arcane wave
-Arcane shield CD reduced from 75s to 40s, now blocks 5 attacks
-Arcane Power “your next 5 attacks are unblockable”

Glyphs
-Glyph of elemental power CD reduced by 5s from kitten
—Removed effect recharge
—Removed chill effect from water, now applies torment 1 stacks for 4s
—Weakness duration reduced from 6s to 3s

-Glyph of Storm
—CD reduced from 60s to kitten
—Base dmg increased by 33%

-Glyph of Lesser Elemental
—CD starts from the moment of summoning not the death( like necro minions )

Signets
-Signet of Fire
—Removed casting time
—PBaoe effect, you require no target
—Removed burning application
—Added new effect Immolation: set yourself on fire, you suffer from 1 stack of burning based on your condi dmg level for 10s, gain an Immolation aura that applies 3 stacks of burning for 2s to every enemy that attacks you every second, effect last 4s

-Signet of Water
—Removed Chill application
—Added new effect : Hibernation : launch an icy shuckle at the enemy, chilling him for 1s every 2s for the whole duration 6s
—2nd effect Freezing Subjugation, shatter the shuckle to teleport at the enemy location, causing a 3s aoe chill bomb with 240 radius

Elites

-Tornado
—Condition dmg deal 50% less dmg
—Added skill 4 “Force of Nature” applies a 3s projectile denial, 6s CD
—Added skill 5 “Violent Storm” 2s channeling PBaoe , 1800 base dmg, 10s CD

Conjures
-Removed the environmental aspect, now only the ele can use conjures
-Duration reduced from 60s to 30s

Finally the traits:

Fire Trait line
-Adept: Conjurer = Renamed to “Summoning Rift”
—Removed the fire aura application
—Now add 15 charges

-GM: Pyromancer =Renamed to “Conjurer”
—Reduce CD of conjure by 33%
—Conjure skill replace the respective attunement : EX conjure flame axe will replace Fire attunement for the whole duration of 30s

-Blinding ashes
—Applies 3s blind every 5s when you burn enemy

Air Trait line
-Inscription
—Removed the boon application aspect
—Increased effect of the glyph used by 100% ( EX glyph of elemental power trigger chance increased from 25% to 50%, elementals HP/armor doubled )

Earth Trait line
-Adept: Serrated Stones = changed to “10% Condition dmg duration”

-GM: Diamond Skin= Conditions duration on you reduced by 10% (stackable effect)
Right now the trait is useless to anything not built to bunker, my suggestion would benefit everybody and the stackable effect is the reason : EX geomancer+DS+- duration runes( + food in wvw), you could reach min -60% condi duration

Arcana Trait line

GM : Elemental Surge: Renamed to “Arcane mastery”= After the usage of any arcane skill you gain “Arcanist Aura” reduce inc dmg by 25% for 5s, 15s CD
—Removed the ferocity effect
—Added new effect “Arcane Retaliation” = increase your dmg output by 50% when HP is below 25% threshold

..So hope you guys will enjoy reading my wall of text and let’s see what’s on your mind

Supreme.3164:

@ FrownyClown and Kyon

Buffing cantrips further is not the way to go, do we really want an ele with bigger stability uptime? If built for it, enemies can have a hard time CC the ele, furthermore the cantrips already trigger soothing disruption and for this reason also any buff to burning fire cannot be justified; warriors have a similar trait “shrug it off” and it’s master tree

We must keep trade offs while giving out suggestions, it’s the only way to find the optimum balance, any exaggerated buff will inevitably bring a disastrous nerf

Cleansing on ele is fine, only you need to specifically tailor your build to counter full condi specs, we can neutralize them but hardly beat them and I’d say this should not change for the sake of balance

All the proposed buffs seen so far would make bunker specs even stronger, we must buff those elements that can’t benefit a bunker spec at all

This means to leave out of the conversation things like : cantrips, aura and Signet of restoration. So let’s see how we can come up with a viable dps build for PvP, that won’t create “monsters” in WvW or PvP alike.

First it’s the main healing skill, my suggestion :

Glyph of elemental harmony
-1/2s cast time
-removed boon application
-added “Mist Armor” = incoming dmg reduced by 33% , duration 2s

Arcane Brilliance
-Base dmg increased by 150% ( from 250 to 625)
-Base healing reduced from 3500 to 3000
-Radius of attack increased from 240 to 480

Now the utilities:
Arcane skills
-Added 1s daze to arcane blast
-Added 2s stun to arcane wave
-Arcane shield CD reduced from 75s to 40s, now blocks 5 attacks
-Arcane Power “your next 5 attacks are unblockable”

Glyphs
-Glyph of elemental power CD reduced by 5s from kitten
—Removed effect recharge
—Removed chill effect from water, now applies torment 1 stacks for 4s
—Weakness duration reduced from 6s to 3s

-Glyph of Storm
—CD reduced from 60s to kitten
—Base dmg increased by 33%

-Glyph of Lesser Elemental
—CD starts from the moment of summoning not the death( like necro minions )

Signets
-Signet of Fire
—Removed casting time
—PBaoe effect, you require no target
—Removed burning application
—Added new effect Immolation: set yourself on fire, you suffer from 1 stack of burning based on your condi dmg level for 10s, gain an Immolation aura that applies 3 stacks of burning for 2s to every enemy that attacks you every second, effect last 4s

-Signet of Water
—Removed Chill application
—Added new effect : Hibernation : launch an icy shuckle at the enemy, chilling him for 1s every 2s for the whole duration 6s
—2nd effect Freezing Subjugation, shatter the shuckle to teleport at the enemy location, causing a 3s aoe chill bomb with 240 radius

Elites

-Tornado
—Condition dmg deal 50% less dmg
—Added skill 4 “Force of Nature” applies a 3s projectile denial, 6s CD
—Added skill 5 “Violent Storm” 2s channeling PBaoe , 1800 base dmg, 10s CD

Conjures
-Removed the environmental aspect, now only the ele can use conjures
-Duration reduced from 60s to 30s

Finally the traits:

Fire Trait line
-Adept: Conjurer = Renamed to “Summoning Rift”
—Removed the fire aura application
—Now add 15 charges

-GM: Pyromancer =Renamed to “Conjurer”
—Reduce CD of conjure by 33%
—Conjure skill replace the respective attunement : EX conjure flame axe will replace Fire attunement for the whole duration of 30s

-Blinding ashes
—Applies 3s blind every 5s when you burn enemy

Air Trait line
-Inscription
—Removed the boon application aspect
—Increased effect of the glyph used by 100% ( EX glyph of elemental power trigger chance increased from 25% to 50%, elementals HP/armor doubled )

Earth Trait line
-Adept: Serrated Stones = changed to “10% Condition dmg duration”

-GM: Diamond Skin= Conditions duration on you reduced by 10% (stackable effect)
Right now the trait is useless to anything not built to bunker, my suggestion would benefit everybody and the stackable effect is the reason : EX geomancer+DS+- duration runes( + food in wvw), you could reach min -60% condi duration

Arcana Trait line

GM : Elemental Surge: Renamed to “Arcane mastery”= After the usage of any arcane skill you gain “Arcanist Aura” reduce inc dmg by 25% for 5s, 15s CD
—Removed the ferocity effect
—Added new effect “Arcane Retaliation” = increase your dmg output by 50% when HP is below 25% threshold

..So hope you guys will enjoy reading my wall of text and let’s see what’s on your mind

I honestly don’t really like any of your ideas, nor do I see how it would make them viable.

Agemnon.4608:

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled Pokemon)

Because it’s all balanced out by its great versatility and strong zoning and booning potential. Aurashare is very powerful and if you take Mender’s over Cleric’s you’ll have good offensive potential. Fire and air are especially good for making rezzes unsafe for the opponent. Eye of the Storm and Lightning Flash also give Ele good mobility for disengaging or even offensive potential when paired with shocking aura. It’s simply the best class in the game if you can play it well.

Why I can’t use staff in pvp?

You can. It has good AoE CC though gust has a long charge with impractically slow speed. Fire staff is amazing for cleaving rezzers and creating burning combo fields for your teammates to help you stack burning while water has an AoE chill field and two healing skills, a smaller radius burst and a larger radius skill that grants regeneration and cleanses conditions. Earth also has magnetic aura, and on top of aftershock and earth overload is lots of reflects if you need it.

With that said dagger/focus is usually better, but staff still finds its uses between zoning (creating don’t go there areas so the opponent stays away), CC, and general support.

This again!!!!!!!!! >=(
We only have “great versatility” if you spec as a healbot, otherwise we won’t have many things to support ourselves. This is bad because it obligates the ele to just run one kind of build.
This is another flawed design: put a lava font here and there so your enemies stay away from you…BAAHAHAHAHA dude…CC is the way to go to keep your enemies at bay. Staff isn’t meant to be purely support. Currently, this meta mind is killing the diversity.

@Supreme
Thank you. Finally we’re in the same page.

We are trying to buff Offensive Traits and self survivability by buffing traits and utilities that have small or no probability of being used by the meta support eles.

In a PvP point of view, Eles are mostly taken for their ability to support their team, not for their ability to stay alive when focused in a 1vX situation. Getting any cantrip aside from Lightning Flash (if they don’t replace it instead) will lose them 1 support shout resulting into less heals and condi cleanse. Sure they can still get Armor of Earth by replacing Lightning Flash but it will still have pros and cons and mobility is a big thing in PvP. They might also have a dilemma choosing between AoE cleanse and reduce Cantrip CD. Same goes for Cleansing Fire wherein there will be more cons than pros in regards to its role as a support.

However, it will be more advantageous for other builds like the bruiser DD/DPS as they need self survivability instead of team support. Also, take into account that the suggestions for Auras will be on the Fire trait line which offers a lot less team support compared to Earth and Water.

As for your suggestions I think it requires a lot more of rework on a dev’s point of view compared to FrownyClown’s ideas which can result into being way too overpowered or underwhelming. How about giving us how your suggestions work together like FrownyClown did so we will have an idea of how they synergize?

No long buff lists are needed.
I think smart eles know what to do and it´s buffing traits that don´t buff bunker ele.
Only picking a few traits might be easier then starting to look at each skill. Of couse a lot of small changes to utilities can be done but i think a good first step would be focus on traits and do this:

My suggestions:

Arcane:
Elemental Surge: -33% CD reduction.

Fire:
Burning precision: ICD 3 sec
One with fire: Change it to gain fire aura when using a heal skill instead of + duration.
Blinding ashes: ICD 5 or 6 sec.

Earth: change geomancers defence to geomancers offence and make it +10% condi duration.

Tempest: Add – 20% shout CD reduction to tempestious aria.

Then basically conures and glyphs need more work and a lot of good suggestions have been made and other traits are underperforming too, but the above changes would be a huge step to allow more offensive builds and not boost bunker. The geomancers change will actually nerf bunker …

We already have outstanding supportive capabilities via dmg mitigation and healing. Buffing traits that benefit those capabilities will just reinforce the bunker meta. Like Wolfric pointed out, we need to work towards the offensive traits and some of our utilities can also use some changes to buff them offensively.

My ideas are:

Fire magic

• Burning precision: lower the ICD to 3s and increase the chance to 50%~66%
• Burning fire: additional to the cleansing, gain 2 stacks of might.
• Conjure: rework ===> Conjurer’s Momentum: every time you cast a conjure weapon, trigger a spell. Conjures last longer and have decreased skill cooldowns.
  The spells are:
  flame axe -> when you summon flame axe, gain Fiery Determination, becoming immune to weakness for a short period of time (10s)
  frost bow -> upon summon, gain Fluid Blood (10s), decreasing the overall duration of poison, bleeding and confusion (reduction of 33%)
  earth shield -> when cast, receive Earth’s Foundation(10s), converting every movement-impending condition to resistance (1s per condition)
  lightning hammer -> gain Zephyr’s Vision, becoming immune to blindness (10s) while having an increase to critical chance (33% increase)
  fiery greatsword -> when cast, receive Destroyer’s Grasp(30s), converting all burning received into might (1 stack per 10s per burning stack) and retaliation (2s per burning stack). Deal more dmg while under the effect of retaliation (5% increase)
• Sunspot: inflict burning around you when attuned to fire. Deal more dmg to burning foes.
• One with fire: fire auras you apply last longer (33%) and damage foes around you when cast.
• Burning rage: attuning to fire grants you might (1 stack, 20s) and makes your attacks unblockable for a short period of time (5s | ICD: 8s).
• Bliding ashes: blind foes in an area around them when you burn them. ICD reduced to 6s.
• Persisting flames: executing blast finishers on fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last longer. Create a lava font when you go down. Additionally, deal increased damage to foes standing on your fire fields (10% increased)

I think some of my ideas are a bit too overpowered. I’ll review them later.

I believe buff to cantrip CD, especially Armor of Earth, at the very least are long overdue. Support Tempest is meta, not bunker. They will still probably go for 2 shouts 80% of the time even if the cantrips are buffed as long as the buff is not OP.

IMO what we need in Fire, Air, and Arcane lines are something that helps defense as well. Getting more offense won’t really help as Eles’s survivability without gearing up and traiting for it is close to none. What we need are defensive effects combined with offensive traits, like what FrownyClown has suggested. I’m really sold on his idea about Persisting Flames(anti condi) and the changes in Arcane trait(life steal) in general. I mean with just those changes, I can already imagine a lot of different offensive/hybrid builds that will not rely on Earth and Water.

I wish Ele devs were as creative as Scrapper Devs. I’ve been having a blast playing with my Charr Hammer scrapper as I find it really balanced in terms of DPS, utility, and survivability. On the darker side, most scrappers tend to go for 1 build which is the standard Inventions, Alchemy, Scrapper with Hammer, Elixir Gun, and any other utility skill.

@Guizao
Burning rage: attuning to fire grants you might (1 stack, 20s) and makes your attacks unblockable for a short period of time (5s | ICD: 8s).

This is probably the most overpowered suggestion you gave. WvW will be crying and hating staff Eles.

Persisting flames: executing blast finishers on fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last longer. Create a lava font when you go down. Additionally, deal increased damage to foes standing on your fire fields (10% increased)

More damage multiplier might make it overpowered in PvE.

Cantrips are fine as they are. The only thing I would like changed is Armor of earth. I like your suggestion of making it a lower cooldown with less stacks and duration. I would give up its stun breaker affect just for that.

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

Perhaps adding survavibility options to dmg traitlines would be great?

this is what many suggest. Lower CD for arcane shield or put the ICD of blinding ashes back to 5 sec (I know its unpopular because if its random/passive nature but it fits).
A stronger CD reduction of -33% on elemental surge and maybe -20% swap time red instead of -15% might give arcane a chance. It´s mostly in fire and arcane line to give back more offensive builds (air is in an OK spot except glyphs, and water is strong since i can remember …). Arcane is a more hybrid with all the boons, but it´s the line where you need L2P for getting most out of it. I recently did go back to arcane and enjoy it again, but it still lacks and leaves me with shouts.

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

Perhaps adding survavibility options to dmg traitlines would be great?

Yes,if the air trait line had access to protection dps ele would be in better shape.

What if weak spot was changed to give 3-4 seconds of protection on crit with a 10 second ICD instead of vulnerability on crit .I don’t think this would be unreasonable because bunker eles would not benefit at all from going air.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

Perhaps adding survavibility options to dmg traitlines would be great?

Yes,if the air trait line had access to protection dps ele would be in better shape.

What if weak spot was changed to give 3-4 seconds of protection on crit with a 10 second ICD instead of vulnerability on crit .I don’t think this would be unreasonable because bunker eles would not benefit at all from going air.

Air trait line is in a good spot and protection doesn’t work thematically with the trait line. If anything, I would rather weak spot apply weakness for 1 second every time you crit while in air (3s icd).

You also have to think about trait synergies with weak spot as it is now. Piercing shards for example has potential to work really well with air builds if water damage was made more relevent.