Guild Wars 2

Lets go through all of the proposed changes, shall we?

Fire:
Fire II – Burning Fire – This trait has a new effect. Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown.
Moved to Master tier.

Not bad, the condition removal is nice… but it requires investing at least 20 in fire. Furthermore, it’s on a 40 second cooldown and is something which you cannot control. This promotes more AI-like play and I don’t like that.
Notes: You can trait this to provide vigor, regen, and might every time this procs.
This will clear fear and immobilize.
AoE Burn which might synergize with the rest of the Fire tree. (Will have to look at this later)

Fire VIII – Conjurer – Moved to Adept tier.

Unfortunately conjures are still very situational and not worth giving up the 20 primary weapon skills on the elementalist . Not worth the 10 in fire.

Fire III – Ember’s Might. The effect of this trait has been changed to Burns you apply last longer. 25%.
Burning Rage 25– Increased damage dealt to burning foes from 5% to 10%.

Nice buffs, now only if we can have decent ways to apply and maintain burns; I can start to see a Burning Condition Ele build in the making here. (I’m not sure if it would be viable)

Final Thoughts: Fire Magic
There are a few nice buffs to Fire Magic, especially burning fire which provides condition removal to a trait-line other than water; this reduces our dependence on Water Magic.
I have been approached by multiple people asking me to develop a Condition Elementalist build;I haven’t been able to because of lack of synergy. Maybe with the upcoming changes that could be a possibility.

Air Magic

Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
I’ve always felt that this trait wasn’t very effective. The 2% bonus doesn’t make much of a difference. Even with 1000 Precision this would only provide +70 Healing Power which is a pittance and is not worth it at all when there are much better traits to pick from.

Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.

All I can say about this change is that fighting an elementalist with this trait could be very annoying. The truth of the matter is, the shocking aura will only be able to stun an enemy once because of it’s short duration and it’s internal cooldown. Furthermore we’ll still get eaten alive by anything with stability. We don’t have enough stuns or knockdowns of our own to be able to take advantage of the damage aspect of this trait as we should a grandmaster trait. This trait is very underwhelming and is a bad choice when we have better traits available.

Final Thoughts: Air Magic
These are very minor buffs to Air Magic that no one will use. One thing I’ve noticed is that Air Magic seriously lacks synergy and the traits don’t interact with each other very well. (In some cases)

Earth Magic
Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – Increased toughness while attuned to Earth Magic to 1.5/level (120 at level 80).

Nice; bonus toughness is nice considering how squishy we are.

Earth VII – Strength of Stone. This trait is now Gain condition damage based on your Toughness. 10%.

Bringing this trait down was a great move. This was not a grandmaster trait and now it can play a part towards building reliable Condition Elementalist builds.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

I’m pretty sure that this skill is a little over-hyped. Most elementalists have from 10k-15k health; the health can be maxed out around 20k. That means that an elementalist only needs to take around 2k before he is vulnerable to conditions again.
It should be noted that ele’s are able to heal up to full health regularly but that is only if they invest in Water Magic and healing power.

Final Thoughts: Earth Magic
The changes to Earth Magic are very well done. They have substantially improved the trait-line and made it more attractive. The have provided good synergy between condition damage, condition protection, and toughness. I feel that elementalists still need better ways to apply conditions and the Earth Magic tree is where it should go.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Water III – Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.
Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. Moved to Adept tier.
Water IX – Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.

I understand why these changes were made; the perma-vigor up-time because of Soothing Disruption needed to be brought up a little bit. Cantrip mastery was a nice trade-off for it. Not too upset about these changes.

Water X – Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incoming critical hits. 10s recharge. Moved to Adept tier.

Thank god this useless trait got fixed! This is significantly better, but I don’t know if it would be an effective choice. Since Elementalists have a low health-pool, we need to avoid damage instead of tanking it. I don’t know how effective 3 seconds of regeneration would be after taking crit damage. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

Final Thoughts: Water Magic
I feel that Water Magic is a little underwhelming right now. Just because it was highly used doesn’t mean it was overpowered at all. It used to have amazing synergy which just isn’t there anymore. These changes aren’t very impressive.

Arcana
Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.

Not sure how much this will be used. This is still not very effective.

Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s._

(Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.*
I get it, this was a very powerful trait, it needed more of an investment in the Arcana tree to obtain it. At least we don’t need to decide between Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina (which would have been bad).
Arcane II – Arcane Resurrection. Moved to Master tier.
Ok
Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
Great, Renewing Stamina is still twice as good; this need some kind of additional bonus. (Grants a boon on dodge?)
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
Nice, much needed.
Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Functions outside of combat. Moved to Adept tier.
Good

Final Thoughts: Arcana
The changes in Arcana are fair. I see a lot of people complaining about these and I see their point, but in order to get rid of our
dependency on this trait-line, some of this stuff needs to change. I still feel like our 15 and 25 bonuses need to be fixed because I’m not able to detect the effects of them.

+Last Words on the Elementalist+
This is a step in the right direction for ANet.
Currently we are dealing with two issues:
1. Dependence on Arcana
2. Lack of Survivability

The dependence on Arcana is focused around the fact that the rest of the traitlines do not provide as much utility as Arcana. The changes to the Fire and Earth Magic traitline is a good start, but Fire Magic will still need a lot of help. Nerfing certain parts of the Arcana traitline will work, but it will destroy the few builds that are currently in rotation. It will take time for the dust to settle after this balance patch, but I feel like we are going in the right direction.

Lack of survivability is another issue that Elementalists have to deal with. As a class with the lowest health pool in the game with the lowest base armor , we were bound to have issues surviving. Most elementalists are FORCED to take different cantrips just to survive from a few hits. We are forced to trait into high amounts of vigor uptime, and healing. This shuts down our build variety even more. I could never even THINK about speccing into fire because if I don’t spec into water, I would just fall over and die every time someone looks at me. All trait-lines need a trait for some sort of damage mitigation or condition removal. The Cleansing Fire trait which is going to be added during the next patch is a GREAT start! I can finally start depend on a trait other than water to clear my conditions. There should be traits which fit the core needs of a class in all traitlines so they’re not forced into certain specs.

All in all, these were a couple of good changes from ANet and I look forward to see the patch and let the dust settle. I will be making another post about my recommended changes for the ele and my extra thoughts later so keep your eyes peeled for that!
-Gasmic

This is a good write up I disagree with some of your points like soothing wave. Other people also seem to be down on soothing wave but I think it is a fantastic trait at adept tier. Right now normal Ele builds go into water then they get regen and that is the best HOT you receive from standard builds with 15 water and 20 Arcana. Not only will the trait proc cleansing water but it would also allow you to stay out of water attunement a bit longer. I think 5 sec base with 10 sec cd is better than the 3 seconds they are talking about now.

Ember’s Might is a good trait and it is adept they should take that and merge with burning precision that would look better.

Mash Hog.5672:

Even with 1000 Precision

You do realize that it only takes 84 precision above base to hit 1000, right?

Anyway, I disagree with some of your overall assessments and can’t wait for the absolutely amazing buff to burning fire

oZii.2864:

This is a good write up I disagree with some of your points like soothing wave. Other people also seem to be down on soothing wave but I think it is a fantastic trait at adept tier. Right now normal Ele builds go into water then they get regen and that is the best HOT you receive from standard builds with 15 water and 20 Arcana. Not only will the trait proc cleansing water but it would also allow you to stay out of water attunement a bit longer. I think 5 sec base with 10 sec cd is better than the 3 seconds they are talking about now.

I usually maintain permanent regen from Water Attunement and Soothing Disruption. The thing is that I also get vigor from Soothing Disruption which is something I would have to give up to take Soothing Wave. There is no telling how this will play out in an an actual match until I actually use it.

oZii.2864:

Ember’s Might is a good trait and it is adept they should take that and merge with burning precision that would look better.

I was going to suggest this in my suggestions post!

reikken.4961:

You do realize that it only takes 84 precision above base to hit 1000, right?

Anyway, I disagree with some of your overall assessments and can’t wait for the absolutely amazing buff to burning fire

Valid point, I forgot to take into account the base precision, I might have to reconsider my opinion about this trait.

This leads me to a question: How much precision can an elementalist max out on?

I really am looking forward to the burning fire change; it is much needed.

I hate the cleansing wave change =(

The burning elementalist sounds interesting. Been looking at it and realized you can boost your burning duration by 100%.
Ember’s Might (25%), 3x 15% burn duration from runes (45%) and 30 points in fire (30%).

18 seconds of burning with Signet of Fire for around 12.000. Nothing to take too seriously with condition cleansing.

Mash Hog.5672:

(Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.*
I get it, this was a very powerful trait, it needed more of an investment in the Arcana tree to obtain it. At least we don’t need to decide between Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina (which would have been bad).

Wait, aren’t they putting Renewing Stamina in the Master tree, too?

Joseph.7213:

Mash Hog.5672:

(Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.*
I get it, this was a very powerful trait, it needed more of an investment in the Arcana tree to obtain it. At least we don’t need to decide between Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina (which would have been bad).

Wait, aren’t they putting Renewing Stamina in the Master tree, too?

No not anymore

Arcane Ressurection. Who uses this? I mean really? Putting it on a higher tier and will compete with Elemental Attunement is like saying please forget that this kind of trait exists. It needs some serious serious buffs or redesign.

Arcane Retribution CD cut in half is a really really delicious buff for my staff zerker elemental surge ele. This is awesome!

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Arcane Ressurection. Who uses this? I mean really? Putting it on a higher tier and will compete with Elemental Attunement is like saying please forget that this kind of trait exists. It needs some serious serious buffs or redesign.

Arcane Retribution CD cut in half is a really really delicious buff for my staff zerker elemental surge ele. This is awesome!

Pair this with runes of mercy and a bunker/healing spec and this could be a pretty awesome team fighter!

Mash Hog.5672:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Arcane Ressurection. Who uses this? I mean really? Putting it on a higher tier and will compete with Elemental Attunement is like saying please forget that this kind of trait exists. It needs some serious serious buffs or redesign.

Pair this with runes of mercy and a bunker/healing spec and this could be a pretty awesome team fighter!

That sounds good on paper. But I really think I’ll get more bang for the buck from Elemental Attunement than from Arcane Retribution. I know it’s personal preference. But would you really pick this over EA any day??

Edit: Arcane Ressurection not Retribution

Good write up, though I feel the changes to Tempest Defense and Conjurer are a bit stronger than you make them sound. Tempest Defense in particular sounds like a good defense against stunlock/burst builds, giving you a chance to react. With a 25 second recharge, it should be ready for the next burst. As for Conjurer, it’ll allow for people to use conjures in existing builds more easily. With the recent changes to conjured weapons, there could be some room in current builds for a conjure weapon now.

But other than that, very nice post. You obviously took some time to write it.

Honestly, the Soothing Wave prob isn’t gonna be so great. Even with it popping Regen, it’s not gonna be enough unless you’re a full bunker spec. Now if it were something like “Instant-cast Cleansing Wave (the Water Dagger 5 skill) when crit, 10-15 sec CD” then we might have something. It wouldn’t proc too often, it wouldn’t be an “on-demand” condition cleanse like the CW trait is, and it’d be a nice bit of burst heal in response to the crit, instead of the small heal over time from the Regen.

Possibly could crank it up to 20 sec CD, the healing from the CW skill is 1302 + HealPow at Lv 80, while Regen is… 130 + (0.125*HealPow) at 80. There’s no denying that my proposed option would be better, so a longer cooldown would make sense. Could even potentially give it a health threshold. Something like it doesn’t proc unless you’re below 80% HP after the crit. This could give it good synergy with Diamon Skin as well.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Mash Hog.5672:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Arcane Ressurection. Who uses this? I mean really? Putting it on a higher tier and will compete with Elemental Attunement is like saying please forget that this kind of trait exists. It needs some serious serious buffs or redesign.

Pair this with runes of mercy and a bunker/healing spec and this could be a pretty awesome team fighter!

That sounds good on paper. But I really think I’ll get more bang for the buck from Elemental Attunement than from Arcane Retribution. I know it’s personal preference. But would you really pick this over EA any day??

I would never take this over EA. I feel that the fast res does have it’s advantages somewhere in PvE land though.

I’d love to see builds after this nerf- I hope this is just for PVP & not PvE

Chasind.3128:

I’d love to see builds after this nerf- I hope this is just for PVP & not PvE

What do you feel is getting nerfed?
And how will that effect gameplay?

here’s what I think about the changes (not 100% up-to-date because I posted this before the DEVs acknowledged some of our feedback): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview-Updated-Nov-6th/page/15#post3137500

Mash Hog.5672:

Chasind.3128:

I’d love to see builds after this nerf- I hope this is just for PVP & not PvE

What do you feel is getting nerfed?
And how will that effect gameplay?

The nerf is in the availability of key traits players could splash for 10 points in both water and arcane, & that now our options are going to be even more limited. To reduce our dependency on arcane they butchered the adept tier, when they should have been focusing on improving the others. In fact, the adept tier is now butchered across the board, making 30 of our 70 points nearly worthless.

Their thinking that strong talents should be in master or grandmaster is nonsense and any class they apply it to gets broken by it. Every tier needs strong traits. What determines which tier a trait goes in should be determined by its role. Traits with broad roles worthwhile in any build should be in adept. Traits that contribute to a more specific theme work well at master, and traits that add a lot of power to specialized builds but will be awkward in others should find their home in grandmaster.

Let me put their changes to our over-dependence on arcane and water in the form of a metaphor. If someone’s overly-dependent on public transportation, the answer isn’t to remove bus routes to make it harder to get to their destination and waste more of their time. They’re still going to depend on it, and just be directly worse off for it, or they’ll have to invest in a car, and live with less spending money.

We’re still going to have the same problems, and dealing with them just got harder.

Oniyui.8279:

Mash Hog.5672:

Chasind.3128:

I’d love to see builds after this nerf- I hope this is just for PVP & not PvE

What do you feel is getting nerfed?
And how will that effect gameplay?

The nerf is in the availability of key traits players could splash for 10 points in both water and arcane, & that now our options are going to be even more limited. To reduce our dependency on arcane they butchered the adept tier, when they should have been focusing on improving the others. In fact, the adept tier is now butchered across the board, making 30 of our 70 points nearly worthless.

Their thinking that strong talents should be in master or grandmaster is nonsense and any class they apply it to gets broken by it. Every tier needs strong traits. What determines which tier a trait goes in should be determined by its role. Traits with broad roles worthwhile in any build should be in adept. Traits that contribute to a more specific theme work well at master, and traits that add a lot of power to specialized builds but will be awkward in others should find their home in grandmaster.

Let me put their changes to our over-dependence on arcane and water in the form of a metaphor. If someone’s overly-dependent on public transportation, the answer isn’t to remove bus routes to make it harder to get to their destination and waste more of their time. They’re still going to depend on it, and just be directly worse off for it, or they’ll have to invest in a car, and live with less spending money.

We’re still going to have the same problems, and dealing with them just got harder.

You do know that they reverted a few of the changes that they were planning on making so that they don’t effect current builds yes?

I think you are heavily undervalueing Air XI – Tempest Defense.
Shocking aura is very very good skill and with Dagger/focus you have great source of stuns/knockdowns, when combined with that trait. Plus the survivability from focus, which you would miss on dagger offhand.

Add a warrior friend for additional CC and you will be golden. Don’t count this trait out for calculated and planning burst ele. 20/30/0/0/20 experimental, 10or/30/10or10/30.

Tempest defense is rarely used atm, that’s why Anet tried to boost it. But the lower ICD of the procc won’t change much because the procc isn’t the main reason for people to pick this trait. I already stated that the procc is unreliable and often comes when it’s not needed at all (downed-state-CC, fears, ranged CCs, Pet-CCs, etc.) Shocking Aura isn’t that powerfull as some people might think. It’s good against melee burst from warrior, thief and D/D-eles but besides that it’s a rather useless spell/trait if not otherwise boosted by traits.
The bonus-damage on stunned and knocked down opponents is also rather weak. The stun from shocking aura doesn’t last long enough to land a hard-hitting spell. There’s also the problem that you’re CCed when tempest defense proccs so that you can’t make use of the bonus-damage either when the aura proccs and the enemy is dumb enough to keep hitting you. It offers an option for kamikaze-eles with Earthquake but this kind of playstyle isn’t really usefull for your team and besides that also not really efficient when enemies aren’t braindead. Besides those two spells (with rather long CD) there’s only gale on focus and static field on staff that work with tempest defense. Not really efficient if you compare it to unsuspecting foe from warriors. I might give it a try if they change the bonus-damage to apply on CC in general but not like it is now.
Fresh Air would always be a better choice regardless how you see it, even with D/D.

Sabull.5670:

I think you are heavily undervalueing Air XI – Tempest Defense.
Shocking aura is very very good skill and with Dagger/focus you have great source of stuns/knockdowns, when combined with that trait. Plus the survivability from focus, which you would miss on dagger offhand.

Add a warrior friend for additional CC and you will be golden. Don’t count this trait out for calculated and planning burst ele. 20/30/0/0/20 experimental, 10or/30/10or10/30.

Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, or sink). Deal more damage to stunned or knocked-down foes. (25 second cooldown)

I agree with you when you say that shocking aura is an amazing skill, it has saved me from many backstab thieves and the such. After 6 months of playing D/D, I would be crazy to say that Shocking Aura isn’t a godsent gift to elementalists.

My issues with this trait is:
1. The elementalist is a rather dynamic class built around clutch plays and split second decisions. A shocking aura is devastating when used at the right time by a smart elementalist, but is useless on many occasions. The Shocking Aura is something that will proc with or without the user’s approval which promotes more “automatic” play which really doesn’t work for elementalists.

2. Shocking Aura is a l2p kind of skill. Most experienced players know that when shocking aura is up, hit them from ranged!

3.
Stun Duration: 1s
Aura Duration: 4s
Internal Cooldown: 2s
This means that someone can be stunned a maximum of two times by Shocking Aura if they hit you the same second that the shocking aura procs. This is rarely going to happen because the Shocking Aura proc had to be triggered by another skill which is still probably going off. This means that Shocking Aura will only stun someone once (for one second) when it goes up.

4. When your opponent is stunned, you still wont be able to take advantage of it because you’re either going to be on the ground or running away or standing there daftly.

5. Easily countered by stability.

6. Even when they attack you when you have shocking aura up, you still take the damage. (Usually enough to kill you)

7. Lets talk about roles for a second:
What kind of elementalist take 30 in air?
Air Magic, as the Precision/Crit Damage tree would be perfect for a Burst Elementalist.
High DPS/Pretty glassy, the ele will need to avoid being focused and stay out of the middle of big team fights. If an elementalist gets cc’d in a big team fight; he/she is dead with or without shocking aura.

If Tempest Defense made it so that elementalists recovered from CC faster or even made us immune to CC (like that ranger trait) it could very well serve to save our life and be an effective trait. Tempest Defense is a trait which uses a skill for you. You cannot control when it procs and this makes it unattractive. The idea of making a grandmaster investment on a trait which you have little control over turns me off at the very least. The trait doesn’t effectively serve the kind of play-style that the tree is designed for and will be out-shadowed by its colleague trait “Fresh Air” because it will provide a better source of burst damage.

Mash Hog.5672:

Sabull.5670:

I think you are heavily undervalueing Air XI – Tempest Defense.
…
Don’t count this trait out for calculated and planning burst ele. 20/30/0/0/20 experimental, 10or/30/10or10/30.

Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, or sink). Deal more damage to stunned or knocked-down foes. (25 second cooldown)

I agree with you when you say that shocking aura is an amazing skill, it has saved me from many backstab thieves and the such. After 6 months of playing D/D, I would be crazy to say that Shocking Aura isn’t a godsent gift to elementalists.

My issues with this trait is:
1. …

It’s fine reasoning, although I don’t second on this ‘if you get cced even once, you are insta killed anyway’ type of idea. Best thing about it is that it always interupts something. And due to low cd I think it’s solid trait even as GM. Just saying don’t count it out.

Sabull.5670:

Mash Hog.5672:

Sabull.5670:

I think you are heavily undervalueing Air XI – Tempest Defense.
…
Don’t count this trait out for calculated and planning burst ele. 20/30/0/0/20 experimental, 10or/30/10or10/30.

Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, or sink). Deal more damage to stunned or knocked-down foes. (25 second cooldown)

I agree with you when you say that shocking aura is an amazing skill, it has saved me from many backstab thieves and the such. After 6 months of playing D/D, I would be crazy to say that Shocking Aura isn’t a godsent gift to elementalists.

My issues with this trait is:
1. …

It’s fine reasoning, although I don’t second on this ‘if you get cced even once, you are insta killed anyway’ type of idea. Best thing about it is that it always interupts something. And due to low cd I think it’s solid trait even as GM. Just saying don’t count it out.

I agree, I can see this being used from time to time…
but it will be more like a “Lol, What is this guy even trying to do?” moment for me.

all I can think of is 0-10-30-0-30-0 with aura-share but I somehow doubt that it’ll be any good

Fire-air-earth-water-arcane-whaaat?

kitten did I write of course I meant

0-30-10-30-0

Heart! Go Planet!

I like auto-cleanse as a boost to staff specs in wvw. It’s typical to use a 20 point spread in fire for max meteors while still holding onto 30 air, and 20 arcana. I never use dagger/focus, or s/f more than once a month.

@OP Why did you say that auto-cleansing fire was also a stun breaker? They removed stun break from Cleansing Fire several patches ago.

However with III in water 10, the auto-CF becomes really worth having as a defensive spec. Extra condi duration makes celestial builds a lot more fun. I can see playing 20 fire in D/D, but you’d have to run the burn duration or boon duration runes to get the most out of it. Still, those kinds of specs will pale in comparison to 30 earth, 20 water, 20 arcana.

My goto specs will be 0/30/0/10/30 for fresh air with reduced cd timers on zerker/knight sets. And 0/0-10/30/0-20/10-30 on zerg pvt/knights/clerics. With the latter spec, having 30 water seems like it’d be the most tankiest version of a spec you can pump out, but you’ll probably want traveler runes, because playing without 10 in air means you won’t be able to break away for diddly-squat, unless you have stab/FGS available.

The only thing I really care about from the patch is our ability to play front liner again with respectable sustain. I hate having to run Ether Renewal. That is not good sustain at all.

Tempest Defense’s shocking aura effect is pretty much like the grandmaster Powerful Auras trait. You’ll need to build around it.

Tempest Defense can offer you swiftness, fury and – especially – protection on cc. This will not only allow you to better survive against a sudden burst, but also strike back harder or escape more efficiently. If coupled with Powerful Auras, that’ll be a free shocking aura/ protection/ fury/ swiftness to everyone around you, which can be devastating at times. That’ll also be the best time to take advantage of the damage boost, as opposing players can get stunned by hitting your allies.

I can see this working in a 30 water build with valkyrie amulet and berserker jewel setup. You’ll have enough toughness (+ from 10 points in earth), decent vitality, nice access to protection, and still high power, critical damage, and decent enough precision with 30 in air, fury and perhaps sigil of accuracy. Can have decent survival, some nice burst potencial, and will certainly offer great party support.

However, I agree that it’s hard to synergy both trait’s effects with one and the other. Would be much better if shcoking aura’s stun lasted two seconds, but then it could be way too strong. Alternatively, I agree that Tempest Defense should work versus all disabled targets, to that it can work with updraft and underwater.

Using arcane utility skills can perhaps do the trick. Load both at the time someone gets stunned, and that’s worth an extra 40% damage. If your arcane spells would normally hit for, say 2k each, that’s 800 extra damage from the burst. If you happen to not be in air, you can always switch to it, but it’ll probably be very hard to time out everything. And of course, add sigil of fire to it.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Tempest Defense’s shocking aura effect is pretty much like the grandmaster Powerful Auras trait. You’ll need to build around it.

Tempest Defense can offer you swiftness, fury and – especially – protection on cc. This will not only allow you to better survive against a sudden burst, but also strike back harder or escape more efficiently. If coupled with Powerful Auras, that’ll be a free shocking aura/ protection/ fury/ swiftness to everyone around you, which can be devastating at times. That’ll also be the best time to take advantage of the damage boost, as opposing players can get stunned by hitting your allies.

I can see this working in a 30 water build with valkyrie amulet and berserker jewel setup. You’ll have enough toughness (+ from 10 points in earth), decent vitality, nice access to protection, and still high power, critical damage, and decent enough precision with 30 in air, fury and perhaps sigil of accuracy. Can have decent survival, some nice burst potencial, and will certainly offer great party support.

However, I agree that it’s hard to synergy both trait’s effects with one and the other. Would be much better if shcoking aura’s stun lasted two seconds, but then it could be way too strong. Alternatively, I agree that Tempest Defense should work versus all disabled targets, to that it can work with updraft and underwater.

Using arcane utility skills can perhaps do the trick. Load both at the time someone gets stunned, and that’s worth an extra 40% damage. If your arcane spells would normally hit for, say 2k each, that’s 800 extra damage from the burst. If you happen to not be in air, you can always switch to it, but it’ll probably be very hard to time out everything. And of course, add sigil of fire to it.

The issue is that I don’t see what use Swiftness and Fury is when you’re on the floor.
On your basis that Tempest Defense would work with Powerful Auras, Zephyr’s Boon (swiftness/fury on Aura), and Elemental Shielding (Protection on Aura); you’re describing a 0/30/10/30/0 build.

Fire: 0
Air: 30-
Adept: I (Zephyr’s Boon)
Master: ?
Grandmaster: XI (Tepest Defense)
Earth: 10
Adept: V (Elemental Shielding)
Water: 30
Adept: ?
Master:?
Grandmaster: XII (Powerful Auras)
Arcane: 0

That leaves you with 0 trait-points left with your traits going into Critical Hits and Healing. Those two typically don’t work well with each other. With the suggested trait setup, we still have 3 traits left to pick:
Master Air, Adept Water, and Master Water none of which have traits which can define a build.

Furthermore these boons that we get from Auras: (Swiftness, Fury, and Protection) are effective now because we have 30 points in arcane and they last 30% longer. With said build, we don’t have any traits in arcane and these boons wont last long enough to make too much of a difference.

I am starting to see the development of a bunker build here as I’m refuting all of this, but my points are still valid and there are lots of weaknesses and flaws in this build so far.

I don’t like the fact of building around something that you don’t have too much control over.

Mash Hog.5672:

The issue is that I don’t see what use Swiftness and Fury is when you’re on the floor.
On your basis that Tempest Defense would work with Powerful Auras, Zephyr’s Boon (swiftness/fury on Aura), and Elemental Shielding (Protection on Aura); you’re describing a 0/30/10/30/0 build.

Fire: 0
Air: 30-
Adept: I (Zephyr’s Boon)
Master: ?
Grandmaster: XI (Tepest Defense)
Earth: 10
Adept: V (Elemental Shielding)
Water: 30
Adept: ?
Master:?
Grandmaster: XII (Powerful Auras)
Arcane: 0

That leaves you with 0 trait-points left with your traits going into Critical Hits and Healing. Those two typically don’t work well with each other. With the suggested trait setup, we still have 3 traits left to pick:
Master Air, Adept Water, and Master Water none of which have traits which can define a build.

Furthermore these boons that we get from Auras: (Swiftness, Fury, and Protection) are effective now because we have 30 points in arcane and they last 30% longer. With said build, we don’t have any traits in arcane and these boons wont last long enough to make too much of a difference.

I am starting to see the development of a bunker build here as I’m refuting all of this, but my points are still valid and there are lots of weaknesses and flaws in this build so far.

I don’t like the fact of building around something that you don’t have too much control over.

I think some people over estimate how much boon duration you get from Arcana 30% boon duration isn’t much on a short duration boon. Its real impact is on long duration boons like Might from blast finishers.

With 30% boon duration you look like

Zeyphyr’s boon – 6.5 secs Swiftness + Fury (up from 5 secs)
Elemental shielding – 3.9 secs of Protection (up from 3 secs)

But might blast finisher – 26 secs (up from 20 secs)

The boon duration from 30 arcana boon duration isn’t vital to using alot of the eles boons unless you are speccing boon duration with runes. The only place on elementalist I personally feel stressing boon duration on a short duration boon is rock solid so you can guarantee a full ether renewal unless your stab is stripped.

Protection is an anti-burst boon and fury a burst boon. By their very own nature, they don’t need extra boon duration, they only need to be applied at the right time. Swiftness is not very important here.

You won’t be able to control tempest defense’se aura, true. But whenever you get disabled, chances are, the auto-protection proc will always be helpful. Thieves, Mesmers, Warriors, Elementalists, all of them will unload their burst sequence the moment they disable you, and 3 seconds should be enough to last their burst sequence duration (if they don’t get stunned in the meantime).

If you are in a crowded area, you might not make use of that fury while on the ground, but your allies will, and the aoe protection + fury + swiftness might change the tides of the battle to your favor. It’s your team that is chasing harder and bursting harder, and their team that is bursting softer, for 3-5 seconds. That’s the difference between your opponents escaping or not, or your allies being bursted to downed status or not.

Now, I don’t know if that build will be any good or not, but I do see potential in it, and I do believe there’s more synergy between those traits than what you think. Take a look at the stat bonus with Valkyrie Amulet and Berserker Jewel:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k3c;0J0B2-P0w4gM-Z0;9;5T9T;205A4;049B;14N0;0N;0sV2DsV2D4Bu

I’m using focus here, but it could very well go for oh dagger. Focus because it has more condition removal, anti-projectiles, an aura that can be used during a fire burst, a ranged KD, and invulnerability to compensate for the offensive utility skills.

We’re talking about a build with a lot of power and critical damage, 30% base critical chance that goes to 50% with fury, decent healing power, decent health and a nice amount of toughness. Getting bursted down means an automatic 3s self regen, and aoe shocking aura, protection, fury and swiftness. You can unload between 2 and 5 instant attacks, two of them which will automatically critically hit, for a near instant burst that can go up to 6-12k damage by itself, while excluding your other skills. I’m talking about a sequence where you are caught in earth, and shocking aura activates. That’s two arcane skills, magnetic wave, sigil of fire, and switching to air, but it might be hard to do it in a whole second for the bonus damage from tempest defense.

OH dagger would offer more burst, though, so I’m unsure which off-hand weapon would be the best. I do like the idea of aoe shocking aura + swirling winds in the same build.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Protection is an anti-burst boon and fury a burst boon. By their very own nature, they don’t need extra boon duration, they only need to be applied at the right time. Swiftness is not very important here.

You won’t be able to control tempest defense’se aura, true. But whenever you get disabled, chances are, the auto-protection proc will always be helpful. Thieves, Mesmers, Warriors, Elementalists, all of them will unload their burst sequence the moment they disable you, and 3 seconds should be enough to last their burst sequence duration (if they don’t get stunned in the meantime).

If you are in a crowded area, you might not make use of that fury while on the ground, but your allies will, and the aoe protection + fury + swiftness might change the tides of the battle to your favor. It’s your team that is chasing harder and bursting harder, and their team that is bursting softer, for 3-5 seconds. That’s the difference between your opponents escaping or not, or your allies being bursted to downed status or not.

Now, I don’t know if that build will be any good or not, but I do see potential in it, and I do believe there’s more synergy between those traits than what you think. Take a look at the stat bonus with Valkyrie Amulet and Berserker Jewel:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k3c;0J0B2-P0w4gM-Z0;9;5T9T;205A4;049B;14N0;0N;0sV2DsV2D4Bu

I’m using focus here, but it could very well go for oh dagger. Focus because it has more condition removal, anti-projectiles, an aura that can be used during a fire burst, a ranged KD, and invulnerability to compensate for the offensive utility skills.

We’re talking about a build with a lot of power and critical damage, 30% base critical chance that goes to 50% with fury, decent healing power, decent health and a nice amount of toughness. Getting bursted down means an automatic 3s self regen, and aoe shocking aura, protection, fury and swiftness. You can unload between 2 and 5 instant attacks, two of them which will automatically critically hit, for a near instant burst that can go up to 6-12k damage by itself, while excluding your other skills. I’m talking about a sequence where you are caught in earth, and shocking aura activates. That’s two arcane skills, magnetic wave, sigil of fire, and switching to air, but it might be hard to do it in a whole second for the bonus damage from tempest defense.

OH dagger would offer more burst, though, so I’m unsure which off-hand weapon would be the best. I do like the idea of aoe shocking aura + swirling winds in the same build.

Lets give this a chance;
The way I pictured this build was as more of a healing bunker with lots of support.
I actually was working on this last night and I think I can find a build that might work.
The way I pictured this build was as more of a healing bunker with lots of support.
(Provides Healing, Might, Fury, Swiftness, Protection, and Auras. Coupled with some great damage) Since we don’t need to dump points into arcane, we’re able to dump points in another line which would allow us to up our damage.

Without Further Ado, the build:

0/30/10/30/0
Air:
Zephyr’s Boon- Swiftness and Fury on Aura
One with Air- Gains Super Speed when switching to Air Attunement
Tempest Defense- Shocking Aura on CC/Bonus damage on stun.

Earth:
Elemental Shielding- Protection on Aura

Water:
Cantrip Mastery- -20% Cantrip Cooldowns
Soothing Wave – 3 seconds of Regeneration on incoming crit.
Powerful Auras – Auras are shared with teammates

Let us quickly discuss what we’re giving up by NOT taking the Arcana Trait-Line.
Our Attunement Swap will be increased
No Fury on attunement swap
We won’t have Vigor on critical hits (We might still have vigor on cantrips though)
No Evasive Arcana
No Condis on critical hit (I rarely notice this)

In conclusion we will won’t have Fury on swap, but we will have fury on auras.
We won’t have much vigor at all, but we won’t have to dodge as much because we don’t have Evasive Arcana.

So the build kind of balances itself in terms of most of the utilities.
The build will be using triple cantrips for decent survivability.
It should be able to run both zerker amulet (For decent DPS) and cleric’s amulet (for more team heals and bunkerishness)

The role:
The role of an elementalist running this spec would be the roaming support. The auras would be amazing during team fights and the protection and fury would provide great support. The AoE swiftness would greatly contribute to their group moving around quickly.
It would provide healing for the whole team and will be able to stack might and provide fire fields.

It doesn’t have much condi removal though.

The problem I see with a 0/30/10/30/0 build isn’t boon duration, as I think other posters here have reasoned well that the boon uptime (especially during Tempest Defense) is likely enough and at the right time to help diminish burst. The problem is having 0 in Arcana means we have 13 second (after Dec. 10th) attunement swaps. Playing D/D with a 13sec attunement swap sounds like a very clunky way to play, and really limits your burst/support options when you need to make dynamic changes to your play in combat.

Bhima.9518:

The problem I see with a 0/30/10/30/0 build isn’t boon duration, as I think other posters here have reasoned well that the boon uptime (especially during Tempest Defense) is likely enough and at the right time to help diminish burst. The problem is having 0 in Arcana means we have 13 second (after Dec. 10th) attunement swaps. Playing D/D with a 13sec attunement swap sounds like a very clunky way to play, and really limits your burst/support options when you need to make dynamic changes to your play in combat.

I was thinking about that too…
but when I thought about it 13 seconds is a perfect time for our Might Stacking rotation. I always ended up switching back into Fire and having to stall a few seconds to get it off the cooldown.

Arcane Resurrection should stay in the Adept tier. There is no reason to move it.

@Powerful Aura theorycrafters

In regards to Powerful Aura , what effects share an aura are not uniform. If I’m remembering correctly this does not apply to aura’s generated through passive effects such as Tempest Defense and the 6th bonus of Runes of Earth and also does not work with combo effects. It does, however, work with Fire’s Embrace.

Random Question(s)

Should Powerful Aura as a grandmaster trait warrant working with these other auras?

Would it be horribly overpowered if it was able to work with all auras?

It does not works with combo fields and runes, but it should work with all traits, tempest defense included.

dukevonart.2691:

@Powerful Aura theorycrafters

In regards to Powerful Aura , what effects share an aura are not uniform. If I’m remembering correctly this does not apply to aura’s generated through passive effects such as Tempest Defense and the 6th bonus of Runes of Earth and also does not work with combo effects. It does, however, work with Fire’s Embrace.

Random Question(s)

Should Powerful Aura as a grandmaster trait warrant working with these other auras?

Would it be horribly overpowered if it was able to work with all auras?

I think that powerful auras should work with ALL auras and not just those you get from your skills/traits. This would make it much more formidable to build around and make it worthy of being a grand master trait.