Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Diamond SkinThe strength of this build is going to be the ability to quickly string small heals together to maintain that condition resistance.

What small heals? The vast majority are in water/arcana/weapon sets, meaning that this trait requires flawless play and the usage of staff or offhand dagger in combination with other survivability traits to even maintain moderate efficiency for its investment.

In this case if this trait is not powerful enough to be a grandmaster…

And the trait still won’t be worth its slot. Changing its tier has minimal effect because the resource it operates with is going to forever be at lowest tier. This trait is never going to be numerically considerable because it will never operate in a feasible setting for the elementalist.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity
We moved this trait because all profession cooldown traits are in master tier, and because that is a good investment for this type of improvement…

The reason these traits speak so much to elementalists when we invest in their lines is partially because of the arcana problem, which the proposed changes are not going to sufficiently fix. If I can’t swap to my attunements as much as I should be reasonably able to, I’m going to at least guarantee that some of my skills are recharging faster.

Cleansing Wave
This is the one I am most on the fence about of all of the elementalist changes. It is a borderline master level trait…

Its borderline status is due to its aoe function. There doesn’t seem a be much of a happy medium with these kinds of effects. You have the same problem with Elemental Attunement. Boons and small heals/utility spells are a base-level necessity for eles, but you make them aoe, which exponentially increases their numerical value. You can keep their inherent value to eles by leaving their tiers alone and either reducing/removing aoe functions. There are myriad aoe effects the elementalist has access to in master/grandmaster traits, as well as across weapons sets.

Arcane Abatement

Globally decrease fall damage and remove/rework fall damage traits. They mean almost nothing in the vast majority of real-combat situations.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery

The increasing inferiority of cantrips won’t make switching Cantrip Mastery to adept that much better, especially since most eles already delve 15 into water magic for the heal/condition removal at this point and ignore cantrip-related traits because of the aforementioned neutering. Continuing use of things like Lightning Flash doesn’t mean you guys made a good change; it means we cannot function without the mobility.

Arcana
I see the logic in not wanting the two changes in this line to counter each other.

The problem is that it’s almost perfect logic. If you counter a productive change with another one of almost equal magnitude, you’ve essentially accomplished nothing.

That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait…

No, it’s just base-level operating for most eles. We need boons.

That could leave some interesting builds such as: 0/30/30/0/10…

This kind of setup is blatantly inefficient because the ele gains no trait-based vitality to make Diamond Skin work better, severely restricting our equipment choices if we want to even try to justify the 30 point investment. You are also suggesting that we burn 40 trait points for basic access to protection on stun.

I would like to suggest moving our Vigor on Crit to Air 5 to replace Zephyr’s Speed … and a new 10 point trait in Arcane that converts 4% of our Precision and 6% of our Power into Vitality.

That is the only way that builds like 0/30/30/0/10 would work.

Afterall … what is the point of making Ele less dependent on Arcane just to make them dependent on Water for hitpoints.

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

With what Jon said renewing will stay adept and elemental attunement will move to master. So the standard 30 arcana d/d build is still possible.

Renewing Stamina and Cleansing Wave at adept tier is a good compromise. They’re certainly strong enough for master tier (and EA for grandmaster), but those traits are also the main reason to spec 10 points into the respective lines in many situations.

I still stand by my opinion that elemental shielding could get a slight buff, and that arcana’s dagger (and scepter) trait a re-thought.

To tone down dodge spamming, I think all vigor traits should be moved to master tier (the same logic applies to guardian or mesmer), and weaker “endurance regenerates 50% faster” should exist at adept. Renewing Stamina at master would open up space to use scepter’s trait, but I also think scepter trait’s effect would be more important to dagger. That being said, is the elementalist class, being the squishiest class in the game, guilty of “dodge spamming luxury”?

Aquamancer’s Alacrity

I personally would like to see a more creative bonus to the recharge traits. Other professions have recharge traits with extra bonuses, and the affected skillsets are 1/2 of their entire weapon skillsets, while for elementalists, it only affects 1/4.

However, considering how long our skill recharges usually are, maybe 25% (or more) is not a bad idea. It would be very interesting to test a – for example – 33% recharge reduction for ride the lightning, updraft, swirling winds, etc. Would it be too strong? Maybe, not sure, but they would be pretty cool utility additions for Fresh Air and any other similar grandmaster traits that might ever appear.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery

I’m unsure.

Let me share my pvp experience with those two traits. When I go with cantrip builds, I always prefer SD over mastery. At the start of each match, I always check my opponent’s team to see if there’s too many condition builds or not. If yes, I pick Cleansing Wave. If not, I go for mastery for easier access to stability from armor of earth.

To be honest, I see cantrip mastery more as an add-on to SD, although that certainly means that SD is the better one. And mastery at adept would certainly open new possibilities for Lightning Flash, etc, especially for glass cannon builds that already have vigor and don’t have enough boon/ healing stats to care about the regen (especially if only using two builds).

I’d say that this change should be done alongside Renewing Stamina. If one vigor trait ends at master tier, the other should remain at adept. Good compromise?

Other thing to consider is any new cantrip build with 20 points in fire for might on cantrips and auto cleansing fire. This kind of build will certainly want SD for vigor and regen. :P

One question: does the cantrip recharging trait affects cantrip traits, or only the skills?

Arcana

Final Shielding is not good enough to be at master tier. Unless… it is affected by the arcane recharging adept trait?

oZii.2864:

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

With what Jon said renewing will stay adept and elemental attunement will move to master. So the standard 30 arcana d/d build is still possible.

I would even be o.k. if they wanted to change the ICD of renewing stamina (and do the same with mesmers/guardians for cripes sake), but please don’t just take it away from us and kill d/d!

IF they do have to move both renewing stamina and elemental attunement up, then Guardian and Mesmer traits need to be moved up to Master-level. Any argument you make about it being too strong on ele applies even more on those classes, who have plenty of other survivability options. We will just feel slighted if the treatment is even more unequal.

How will the new Diamond Skin trait calculate the 90% health threshold? If an attack does both direct damage as well as applying a condition (bleed for instance) will the health threshold be calculated on the direct damage portion or the condition application to determine if you are immune to the condition application? Just curious…

I’m not sure if anyone is going to take anything I say into heart because I’m a PvE player that dabbles in WvW but…

I usually use scepter/dagger but also swap to staff in WvW. I use the +all stats accessories and I’m pretty sure I switch to my staff as one as well. There are currently a few things I consider mandatory:

Signet of Air because the movement is otherwise ungodly slow, and seems even slower on a Charr. I pretty much only play profs that have this passive movement boost (ranger, ele, necro). I wish all professions had option for a passive out-of-combat movement speed increase.

30 Arcana. As long as evasive arcana is grandmaster it’s going to be 30 arcana for me.

20 Water. Healing ripple & cleansing wave are currently mandatory as far as I’m concerned. Sure I could get this with 15 but 20 allows me to get arcane abatement with it (though I’m also currently testing shards of ice as I use only signet + arcane).

Thoughts about traits

I’d consider changing that 20 water setup if we got something that comes even close to healing ripple+cleansing wave combination in effectiveness. You would need to significantly improve other trait lines or toughness of the elementalist for me to consider the tradeoff worth it.

Soothing speed. Now if soothing winds converted 10% of perception to healing and Zephyr’s speed or One with the Air was set to instantly remove immobilize, crippled and chilled (like windborne speed) the moment they are applied I’d at least consider dabbling a bit in the air. I doubt even this would be enough but it’s an etertaining thought.

Air Traits. Honestly the only interesting trait in air line is Zephyr’s Boon and maybe Bolt to the Heart. Quick Glyphs is likely to be useful for Glyph users but inscription just feels too weak for its tier. The rest are either outright bad, too situational or options in other trait lines significantly outshine them. For example why would anyone pick One with the Air because air has horrendously low damage. Similarly I can’t think of any spot where Zephyr’s Focus would be useful.

Alacrity traits. Alacrity traits are not really good for ele since you don’t really spend much time in a single attunement. I’d only pick this for fire as that’s the attunement you end up spending most time in.

Damage Traits. Honestly you should combine the 10% damage increase from current Strength of Stone with what you are proposing as I certainly would not pick a master tier trait just to increase my condition damage by 10%. Combine One with the Air and Air Training and I start consider picking the trait but only if you also improve air damage which is pathetic. Combine Piercing Shards with Vital Striking and I again might be persuaded to pick the trait. On their own all these traits are undesireable.

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

Right now, D/D is horrible. These changes are not going to make it stronger. The best we can hope for is to adjust the changes so that D/D at least isn’t made weaker, and hope that the nerfs other classes are receiving result in it being at least moderately viable. But it still is going to be a subpar build after this patch, so if that’s a problem, I’d go for something else.

dreztina.4820:

Right now, D/D is horrible. These changes are not going to make it stronger. The best we can hope for is to adjust the changes so that D/D at least isn’t made weaker, and hope that the nerfs other classes are receiving result in it being at least moderately viable. But it still is going to be a subpar build after this patch, so if that’s a problem, I’d go for something else.

If Renewing Stamina stays at adept tier, D/D aura (without aura-sharing) elementalists can potentially become slightly stronger than what they are now, because of the buff to tempest defense. It won’t work in PvE, though, because of the lame Defiance mechanic, but fresh air D/D is already fine there.

The problem with the new tempest defense and aura sharing, is that taking both and elemental shielding from earth comes at the cost of renewing stamina. Elemental Attunement is a much, much stronger trait than elemental shielding even in an aura build. For that reason, I can argue that an aura-sharing build today is stronger than an aura-sharing build after the 10 dec patch with the new tempest defense and the master tier elemental attunement. And considering that aura-share eles aren’t exactly top-tier today…

This is important for Anet to consider. Spending 20 points for elemental attunement is a better deal to apply protection to the party than 30 in water and 10 in earth with auras. This, however, would mean sacrificing the new tempest defense, which in turn would mean that aura-share eles wouldn’t get any buff from this patch. Else, an elementalist is probably just better ignoring 30 water and going for a more 1v1 dueling aura build and offering party support with the arcana traitline.

The key here to fix all that is elemental shielding. For an “optimized” aura-sharing build, elementalists won’t be able to ever get Renewing Stamina (30 air, 10 earth, 30 water). This will put them at a situation close to staff eles: good support at the cost of very poor survival. For that reason, I really think Elemental Shielding should be buffed in duration from 3s protection to 5s. :P I’ve already offered several arguments in favor of this buff, so that’s one more.

oZii.2864:

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

With what Jon said renewing will stay adept and elemental attunement will move to master. So the standard 30 arcana d/d build is still possible.

Hm, but is that final though? He just said he saw the logic of it… which means fig tbh.

dreztina.4820:

Right now, D/D is horrible. These changes are not going to make it stronger. The best we can hope for is to adjust the changes so that D/D at least isn’t made weaker, and hope that the nerfs other classes are receiving result in it being at least moderately viable. But it still is going to be a subpar build after this patch, so if that’s a problem, I’d go for something else.

Really? I mean strictly for WvW/PvP purposes now, where they’re still pretty good.

Mikhail.4961:

oZii.2864:

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

With what Jon said renewing will stay adept and elemental attunement will move to master. So the standard 30 arcana d/d build is still possible.

Hm, but is that final though? He just said he saw the logic of it… which means fig tbh.

dreztina.4820:

Right now, D/D is horrible. These changes are not going to make it stronger. The best we can hope for is to adjust the changes so that D/D at least isn’t made weaker, and hope that the nerfs other classes are receiving result in it being at least moderately viable. But it still is going to be a subpar build after this patch, so if that’s a problem, I’d go for something else.

Really? I mean strictly for WvW/PvP purposes now, where they’re still pretty good.

D/D is trash right now.

In the 1600hrs of playing ele in this game, and never complaining on the forums about changes, has just ended for me. This Dec 10 preview changes has actualy motivated me to speak to anet for once.

Dec 10 possible changes:

• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier
• Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier

My first thoughts on this specific change: Can anet unbind my 2 incinerators so i can sell them. But to be serious this has a huge impact on the current d/d meta build. Which is the not only the most viable way to play ele but THE FUNNEST WAY to play ele to. Now I haven’t had time to read over the forum post of other players but I’m sure this should have been brought up. Everything else changing is ok boderline meh, but I want to add something fundementaly core which can’t be overlooked anymore.

Core features that cannot be overlooked anymore.

• Utility skill 7-9, cantrips have been getting heavily nerfed, but still today the most viable utility skills(arcane is also fun to use). In 1600hrs of playing I have yet to use 1 glyph, 1 signet. Buff them or take them out. And please dont take away ability that cantrips did and put them on the sigents like last time (summer balance patch) give the utility skills you wanna buff NEW abilities.

• Conjures; I really liked how you pushed those in last balance patch, but seems like it ended there. Either take them out of the game or make them semi broken. Why? Because your losing the ability to use of 15 of your skills the minute u pick one up. And the skills a conjure weap. provides are not strong enough to justify picking one up. In pvp if you a conjure weapon and someone goes to engage you, you basicly need to drop the conjure weap. right away because it is not strong enough to pvp with.

• Still many random traits that are useless, to many I can’t reacall at the moment(basicly most of the fire line). It would be nice if you guys could rework those instead of changing current trait lines, and giving us time playing the new changes. Now we are stuck spending time changing the current meta trait lines to fix the changes in the new patch. No time to really explore the other changes. Not sure if this make sense, comment and I wil ltry to re explain.

• Base weapon skill sets, again gona try to keep it short. But to this day there are scepter skills, focus skills, staff skills and dagger skills that have overly long cooldown or are just useless/out of place. Example some of the off hand dagger skills like ride the lightning have extremly long cooldowns which to me seems out of place for what the skill actualy delivers. Staff/Scepter number 1 skills are all just awkward, to weak maybe, they just feel wierd. Some weapon skills like dagger main hand water our extremly weak, other weapons also feature the fire/earth etc. weak attunement section.

I hope this read out clearly and anet pay attention to what the ele community has to say about the state and future state of the class

I’m not seeing how Tempest Defense is that great even after the proposed change. I mean it looks okay especially with the +damage against stunned or otherwise controlled foes but that has been there for a while.

Shocking aura itself stuns in melee only. Does it not? And judging from the description it doesn’t actually counter the stun effect targetting you? Merely tries to turn the table so you still need to use condition removal to get rid off of the effect and even then you only stun the melee guys.

If it actually also counters the effect then I’m likely to agree that it’s really powerful. Currently it looks like a skill that is more useful in PvP than for example PvE or even WvW.

Edit: ok. apparently I’m not allowed to write doesn’t it after a dot or something as it turns into a kitten.

JonPeters.5630:

JonSnow.5610:

“Only Air and Water have good grandmaster traits right now”

While I don’t disagree, have you overlooked Evasive Arcana in Arcana tree?
Even with the moving of traits most people will still go 30 into this tree just for this trait, because its that good.

Let me clarify that I meant those are the two lines where when you put in 30 points you actually have a hard choice.

Oh that way, yes I completely agree with that statement.

As for renewing stamina and elemental attument. Yes elemental attunement is strong for an adept trait, so I agree it should be moved up. But don’t move both up.
CmC had an interesting suggestion of keeping renewing stamina in adept but double the internal cooldown on it.

You also posted earlier that Final shielding could be moved up instead of renewing stamina. I for one like this more, since it leaves more open for build diversity. If move up renewing stamina, you’re stuck with a useless adept trait on a D/x build.

I like the option of having cantrip recharge early up on the water tree, some squishy builds need it but on the other hand Armour of Earth and mist form have a very long CD. But it’s definitely an interesting option to look at.

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

This may make my dagger/force condition ele work nicely it means you can walk over necro well for a time and they will do nothing to you. Its going to make ele able to push first with the war with out too much fear of being locked down. Over all this may make ele into a viable melee class for wvw beyond the solo roamer d/d builds.

Northlander.4619:

I’m not seeing how Tempest Defense is that great even after the proposed change. I mean it looks okay especially with the +damage against stunned or otherwise controlled foes but that has been there for a while.

Shocking aura itself stuns in melee only. Does it not? And judging from the description it doesn’t actually counter the stun effect targetting you? Merely tries to turn the table so you still need to use condition removal to get rid off of the effect and even then you only stun the melee guys.

With only 25s cooldown for Tempest Defense’s stun aura, a mh dagger elementalist (the best candidate for aura builds) can not only get more reliable defense, but more fury/ swiftness/ protection more often from traited auras. And within that precious 1s stun, an elementalist can always use its arcane skills + swap to air for a massive burst.

I fear it won’t have enough survival, though. At least the aura-sharing variant. With powerful Auras to support allies, and perhaps cleansing wave, what left is there to help eles survive? Cantrip traits won’t be very good here, unless the aura ele doesn’t takes arcane skills. But by doing so, it’ll be hard to take advantage of the +20% damage (outside of lightning flash).

That’s why I defend a slightly stronger elemental shielding. That trait is only good for aura elementalists, which is pretty much a variant of mh dagger builds, and mh dagger builds are the builds that most need the extra survival out of all elementalist’s builds. 1+1=2. :P

It doesn’t works very well in pve because bosses can’t be stunned. Unfortunately. If only the stun got applied on bosses, even if it did nothing, for the sake of activating this trait…

I dont think d/d is really in that bad a spot right now…. if they bring condi classes damage down a bit it should be pretty strong again. but seriously…. RTL 20 seconds CD .. i mean cmon… do it… just do it.

Fishbones.6914:

I dont think d/d is really in that bad a spot right now…. if they bring condi classes damage down a bit it should be pretty strong again. but seriously…. RTL 20 seconds CD .. i mean cmon… do it… just do it.

I would personally like to see a buffed version of One with Air trait, and have RTL activate the half cooldown duration if the hit is blocked or evaded. If the double cooldown was to prevent too much escaping, then why does it still activate in some situations when we use it against players? :P

one with air has nice potential, and I like it alot. not much room for it with d/d builds though (amazing with s/d) . I honestly think the nerfed range on RTL was enough.. its quite difficult to get away from many classes since it doesn’t just put you out of combat immediatley after using it now. I really dont think giving it a 20 second cooldown again will cause any problems, it will resolve alot though!

One With Air has a lot of potential with d/d because the massive speed can be used to chase moving foes. Fresh Air is also not too bad with mh dagger because lightning whip is the best auto-attack for elementalists.

JonPeters.5630:

Summation of high risk concerns for elementalist.

Diamond Skin
Of course if you are just an elementalist you just want us to raise these, but balance must work around some fixed things and profession health and armor are an important part of defining what a profession is so that we can create powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses. In this case if this trait is not powerful enough to be a grandmaster, I believe the right answer is going to be to lower the threshold, not to increase elementalist base health.

First, thank you for posting.

Actually, I don’t like the idea of increasing ele base hp. I want active defenses, and the ele already has that. The issue is that all the active defense is in water and arcana. The proposed earth trait changes are all passive. Burning Fire is going to be a condition removal you can’t control. Honestly, ele would probably be more balanced if some current traits were just given for free. Ele has the lowest innate defense or fewer defensive weapon skills than other professions except when using a focus, which offers limited damage, control, support and no mobility at all. Attunement swapping is also the only profession mechanic that can’t be used for defense without any trait investment. You either go with defensive traits and cantrips or you have the most limited defense out of any profession. If eles got attunement swap traits for free, it would help build diversity a lot.

Healing Ripple- standard but at 60 or 50% its current strength. The 15 point water trait brings the heal up to what it is now. No change for eles already using the trait, but a bit more defense for squishier eles.

For a few seconds after attuning to earth, you could weaken enemies that hit you. The 15 point trait could turn that into an aura. If making it an aura isn’t enough (as it would only matter when using aura traits), it could also cripple or bleed enemies near the ele when activated.

Electric discharge gets a similar treatment to healing ripple, still the same function with less power. 15 in air makes it apply aoe blind centered around the target. It could also again vulnerability from the 15 trait so people that already spec into air don’t just lose damage for blind.

I don’t expect you to ever implement something like those, but it’s something to consider regarding giving ele more active defense in the future.

JonPeters.5630:

Diamond Skin
We really love this trait as it opens up some very powerful potential in the earth line to run a defensive elementalist without relying on healing power. The strength of this build is going to be the ability to quickly string small heals together to maintain that condition resistance. I think it could see use in both high damage builds looking to avoid weakness and blind, as well as in defensive builds looking to tank condition heavy classes and condition heavy mobs. I think the big question here is the base health/armor of the elementalist. Of course if you are just an elementalist you just want us to raise these, but balance must work around some fixed things and profession health and armor are an important part of defining what a profession is so that we can create powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses. In this case if this trait is not powerful enough to be a grandmaster, I believe the right answer is going to be to lower the threshold, not to increase elementalist base health.

Didn’t think I would ever see low base health and armor acknowledged; that alone is appreciated.

That said, where are these “powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses”? Did you mean the cantrips? Healing? Boons? Dodging? It seems these tools were and still are repeatedly being taken away instead.

Stringing together small heals to maintain a health pool?

Do you mean something like signet of restoration that was nerfed in sPvP? I’ll also note that 1900 healing power with the pre-nerf or PvE signet of restoration is the equivalent of healing signet. I know different classes require different tools but the disparity is quite significant here.

Perhaps you meant regeneration. Unfortunately, outside of external sources, you don’t get any without any points into water or healing power to make the regeneration have any significance. You are also highly considering moving a significant source of regeneration (elemental attunement) into master tier.

Another issue is that if you don’t spec into water, you will also lose out on a significant chunk of hp with respect to elementalists. This will also lower the threshold of traits that operate based on the total hp pool such as diamond skin. If someone decides to take diamond skin (supposedly a build-defining grandmaster trait), the next logical step would be to increase that threshold by increasing your hp pool with water and topping up your hp with heals. Balance really is difficult

I feel like these changes only force us to go deeply into Arcane and Water. I am talking from staff WvW ele perspective.

Arcane. Now Im forced to have at least 20 in Arcane instead of 10 prepatch
Elementalist is forced to go into Arcane not because it reduces attunement swap cooldown but because of traits V, VI, XIII (must have if you staff), XI. While XI is debatable and only used to full potential if you are very experienced player, V is an absolute must have. Moving it to Master tier you forcing us to invest at least 20 into arcane (it was possible to go 10 prepatch)

Water You moving two essential traits into master tier: V and I. So now im forced to choose – either I reduce cooldown on water skills or remove condition while attuned to water. This hurts WvW staff ele a lot actually. Basically again – you forcing us go deeply into Water, at least 20 points.

Other 30 points can be put into earth to get AoE stability and diamond skin.

So basically new WvW meta build might be 0/0/30/20/20. We trade AoE condition removal for AoE stability, and Adept Water trait becomes useless.

Conclusion and Suggestion:
- Do not put both water V and I into master tier.
- Move Arcana V trait into minor Arcana 5 or Arcana 15 since this trait is the main reason why people even invest into Arcana, its not negotiable and its not a matter of “choice” at all.

Any info if Zephyr’s Speed would be changed? It’s pretty much useless…

Skady.5916:

- Move Arcana V trait into minor Arcana 5 or Arcana 15 since this trait is the main reason why people even invest into Arcana, its not negotiable and its not a matter of “choice” at all.

Also pretty much that. Master Elemental attunement will still force ppl in at least 20 arcana…

I just wanted to start off by saying, Thank you! Thank you for coming into this forum and getting OUR feedback directly. Hopefully other devs are doing so with their respective professions.

now then…

• Earth trait line and Diamond Skin
  This is actually a really nice idea. But the implementation of the earth trait line and DS being a GM trait doesnt work for what earth currently represents.
  Earth works really well with signets condition dmg with written in stone and signet CD, etc. That being said i think it would work better if…
  -> Passives on all signets were increased and made better
  —-> SoW, increase the passive condi cleanse from 1, to 2 conditions every 9 seconds. Also giving the activated effect chill go from 4—> 6s + confusion for 2 seconds.
  —-> SoF, the passive +crit chance is good in essence, but since signets and signet build often revolve around condition dmg its a useless trait for a condition build. Instead youd be better off going with something like +condition duration/ condition dmg. The activate is a nice burn, i would say increase the burn dmg and duration by atleast 1 second and add a cripple of 1-2 seconds.
  —-> SoA, yes the passive is nice with 25% run speed. But after that the activated effect , aside from the stun break, is pointless. Keep the blind and stun break(since a signet build running all signets would currently have none) But maybe Also add 3 seconds of protection.
  —-> SoE, passive is nice with the extra toughness, thats good as is. I actually like the immobilize, But i would go to say that staying with the condi/signet type build, add something like Torment OR bleeding with the immobolize.
  —-> SoR, the passive is nice, but it needs to be increased by atleast 100-150 per cast/channel. Currently the SoR is only viable with a d/x build. The passive is ok but i think to compete with ER, there needs to be atleast 1-2 condi cleanse on activate.

I feel like being able to go with a signet build with any weapon set we have would be great! doing something like i have above would allow us to use signets and also have a viable condition build available to us. It would also allow us to get out of arcana AND water by allow us to have the added effects of the passives of the signets aswell as the condition mitigation.

Going with an x/x/30/x/x signet/condition build would allow us to have multiple options in fire and air for a more offensive build OR water and arcana for a more bunker defensive build.

• Aquamancers movement… i see your point and i like it. But i dont think that would change the fact that almost no one would take the skill recharge option over something else, ESPECIALLY if it was a master trait.

• Cleansing wave, i agree 100%, it IS a powerful trait, but its definitely NOT worth making us spend 20 points into water JUST for that trait. its doing the exact opposite of what you guys want by putting us further into water. I honestly think the water line is near perfect as it is. With cleansing wave at adept were now able to only spend 10 points in water and allocate our other traits and still have SOME kind of help with condition mitigation. I agree that the master traits need to be worked on to be more enticing. Soothing wave and Arcane abatement are both pointless traits that no one uses. Since water is such a group and support friendly line, stay with that. With cantrip mastery at the master tier, i feel it fits there. Our cantrips are already on atrociously long CD’s. So if were running a support build were more than like going to be running 30 in water with V, IX, XI or if conditions are a big threat, III, IX, XII. But i also feel that the trait III should be a group buff not just the user. You need to give us viable options for us to CHOOSE over going with water V for some condition mitigation, in the other lines. The burning fire is a good idea for the fire line, but the ICD of 40 is insanely long and needs to be more like water V to compete with it. Maybe change up cleansing wave entirely and make it only remove burning and poison… then going with that give every other elemental trait the same condition based cleanse in their adept tier upon attunement.
  —-> Water, Fire/Poison/Tourment
  —-> Fire, Chill/Bleeding/Weakness
  —-> Air, Confusion/Blind/Vulnerability
  —-> Earth, Immobilize/Cripple/Fear

(continued)

(continued from above)

• Arcana this line is a D/D eles only saving grace. Even with it having a kitten EA. What i would like to see happen here.
  —-> Make all attunemets recharge at a set 10 seconds. No one specs into arcana for the attunement CD, its for what arcana offers as a D/x build. Instead of attunement recharge as the traits “passive” i would suggest something along the lines of a celestial +to all stats. Giving us some actual incentive to go into the arcana line aside from needing it to survive as a d/x ele.
  —-> Keep Elemental attunement at adept, it lets us free up 10-20 points from the arcana line while going with other trait lines.. for example my FA s/d build uses a 10/30/20/0/10 build. The swiftness is crucial for us as an ele to stay mobile, along with the other boons on attunment.
  —-> I can see moving Renewing Stamina to the master tier, BUT at the same time. I simply cannot wrap my head around why a class like the ele, with the lowest hp and armor in the game that REQUIRES the ability do dodge as much as possible, to have this trait at 10-20 points when classes like the mesmer and guards can have said skill with only 5 points. If you want to go that route, then remove the Arcane Fury 5 trait in arcana and replace it with renewing stamina. That way if we want to go for that extra vigor we can spend just 5 points in arcana and free up a lot of extra choices. Then since you put renewing stamina as a 5 point trait, you could replace the master tier choice with something that adds to either arcane skills for some more burst options OR some type of fury on crit essentially just switching renewing stamina and arcane fury.
  —-> Evasive Arcana, needs to have NO internal CD. Like i already said the ability to dodge and make it worth going 30 deep into arcana should be rewarding. The only builds that are going to use Evasive Arcane are D/x builds. If were up close in melee range as the squishiest class we need to mitigate the dmg as much as possible.

Off topic but still on topic, RTL needs to be reverted to its pre nerf. The “on miss” is ridiculous and needs to be at a set 20 seconds @1200 like before.

• Lingering elements, as long as it works like it should im fine with it being fixed for once. Its been broken since beta and we’ve had a useless 15 trait this entire time.

• Fire line, the fire line needs attention, but if you add in the changes i stated above, along with the changes you guys mentioned i think we could see some nice things in the fire line. Like you said, the GM traits still need something more worthwhile to go 30 into fire.

I propose the following:

Adept:
1) Arcane Mastery: Reduce ICD of Final Shielding (60) and Arcane Retribution (36).
2) Blasting Staff, 3) Vigorous Scepter, 4) Windborne Dagger: All weapon skills in the arcana trait line should be at the same tier.
5) Arcane Resurrection: No change.
6) Renewing Stamina: No change.

Master:
7) Elemental Attunement: No change.
8) Arcane Retribution: I think this is worthy of master status if the CD is reduced (as has been proposed), and if Arcane Mastery has synergy with this trait/Final Shielding. One interesting effect of this change is that it will make Elemental Surge more viable, thus giving elementalists a solid alternative to Evasive Arcana.
9) Final Shielding: Same reasoning as above. Also, increase threshold to 50%.
10) Arcane Energy: I’ve honestly tried to make this trait work in a variety of different builds, and to no avail. I think it would be far more effective, and far more deserving of master status if it restored 50% endurance rather than the meager 25% currently.

With this scheme, a number of synergistic trait alternatives are possible, such as 1) Renewing Stamina, Elemental Attunement, Evasive Arcana; or 2) Arcane Mastery, Arcane Retribution, Elemental Surge. With this scheme we wouldn’t feel forced to go 20-30 points deep into arcana, as there would be viable traits at each tier.

Concerning Diamond Skin, I think the threshold should be reduced to 85%. This is a grandmaster, it should be powerful enough to define an entirely new build (much like Fresh Air has done). Weakening it by reducing condition duration, or by maintaining an overly cautious threshold, will remove any incentive to use it. Elementalists deserve a powerful defensive trait. It’s entirely appropriate that it should be in our earth trait line.

<3 <3 <3 <3 on the proposed compromises. Those sound VERY reasonable, and with an 85% threshold for Diamond Skin, I am now tempted to give it a solid go when running high toughness.

JonPeters.5630:

Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits.

Thing is, if Elemental Attunement is master level, a very large proportion of Eles will feel compelled to spec 20+ arcane, and if you’re 20 into arcane, you might as well get Evasive Arcana as well, and we’re back where we are now.

A better solution IMO would be either:

• make a caster-only version of Elemental Attunement baseline to all Eles, and make an AOE trait for it in its place.
• to redistribute Elemental Attunement’s bonuses among all 4 elements, replacing or combining with the existing 5pt traits.

I think a good compromise would be to place Renewing Stamina back in the adept tier

Sure, but IMO Ele is not Ele without Elemental Attunement and refactoring/rethinking that change is the single most important thing in all the proposals after the switch timer reduction.

I was theorycrafting an aura-sharing build, looking for spots to increase their survival without relying on renewing stamina, and trying to find alternatives to my suggested buff to elemental shielding. Here’s a few issues I found.

Build
1) 30 air (for zephyr’s boon and tempest defense),
2) 10 earth (elemental shielding),
3) 30 water (powerful auras),
4) At least one arcane skill (wave being the best for damage AND support) to burst into a stunned foe, and at least Lightning Flash. Third slot for arcane shield, second arcane burst skill, or mist form.

That leaves us three free slots, two in a defensive traitline. Good.

Because it is a support build, cleansing wave would be a must. To ourselves, whom would lack condition removal, and to further improve our party support. That leaves us with two slots.

Now, here’s the issue. With 30 in water and enough precision/ fury, you could go for valkyrie amulet instead of berzerker, for similar damage input and better healing.

So the natural fit for this build would be… no less than the new Soothing Winds! But it has a problem. Soothing Winds is balanced around the adept tier level, while we have a free master slot. In this situation, it would be much better if soothing winds was at master level and with 10% precision>healing conversion (switch it with the trait that adds critical damage through arcane skills – it’s not very strong). Alternatively, Aeromancer’s Alacrity for more shocking auras, RTL, updraft and weakness! In this situation, I would wish for a buff to 25% cooldown reduction.

Finally, we would get a free water skill. Assuming that both water traits wouldn’t get moved up a tier (one of them staying at adept – very important), this would be a good opportunity for water alacrity. That would mean more access to frost aura and more access to cleansing wave (the skill). This would be the perfect situation to buff alacrity 25% cooldown reduction. This would put both skills at 30s cooldown, Cone of Cold at 7.5 and Frozen Burst at ~11? But would that be good enough? Alacrity is only used -if I’m not mistaken, in WvW to use water fields more often. A small buff to 25% would certainly be welcome, especially in this case, or perhaps an additional bonus to the current effect (even something as simple as “+ healing power while in water attunement”).

Cantrip traits could be interesting alternatives, but they would restrict the aurashare elementalist from arcanes, and thus from most burst potencial within that tiny 1s stun time from a stun aura. Still, it would bring the much needed survival, but would such a setup make full use of tempest defense?

Alternatively, this could be an opportunity to improve Shard of Ice, the adept water trait that adds vulnerability to signets and arcanes. Why? First, that’s some very cool (offensive) party support, which goes in line with this build. Second, it works with arcanes, and this build can easily go for triple arcane! So… what about adding some extra defense? Like, for example, a 1 or 2 second chill in addiction to vulnerability? Too strong? Put it in master tier for the 2s effect, as long as Cleansing Wave is at adept tier.

Food for thought.

Nerfing arcane traits will only further weaken D/D ele game play in WvW and Spvp. Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement are bread and butter in dagger ele fuzzy math. So now I have to place 30 points to obtain what I currently can with 20 points. And by doing this we lose Evasive Arcana!
How is this helping elementalist add less points in the arcane tree?
Guess I just have to work twice as harder finding those red shiney tags in wvw and flagging them more often before this nerf.

JonPeters.5630:

Right now I am thinking 85% on diamond skin as high health eles could break this at 80% imo.

There is another alternative:
instead of 100% immunity go for something along the lines of:
75% condition duration reduction while above 75% health

Personally I’d still prefer to see GM traits be actives not passives, eg:
Reflect 1 condition on attuning to earth, earth attunement is recharged when afflicted by a condition when not in earth attunement, 6sec CD

mjharrison.3209:

JonPeters.5630:

Right now I am thinking 85% on diamond skin as high health eles could break this at 80% imo.

There is another alternative:
instead of 100% immunity go for something along the lines of:
75% condition duration reduction while above 75% health

Personally I’d still prefer to see GM traits be actives not passives, eg:
reflect the next 2 conditions on attuning to earth, earth attunement is recharged when afflicted by a condition when not in earth attunement, 6sec CD

If you think about it, 90%/ 85% health makes the trait very active, because it demands from the elementalist to actively prevent as much damage and heal as often as possible to maintain it.

Taking 10% health off an ele is like 1.5k-2k dmg. So any class can do that with 1 skill, maybe 2 in a condition build. You won’t be safe for long. I feel that Ele is getting nerfed this patch with the changes in arcane line, we are already terrible with no meta in spvp and now we are even worse.

Honestly the only thing I hate is moving renewing stamina to master, keep it adept and ele will be in a good place.

DiogoSilva.7089:

mjharrison.3209:

JonPeters.5630:

Right now I am thinking 85% on diamond skin as high health eles could break this at 80% imo.

There is another alternative:
instead of 100% immunity go for something along the lines of:
75% condition duration reduction while above 75% health

Personally I’d still prefer to see GM traits be actives not passives, eg:
reflect a condition on attuning to earth, earth attunement is recharged when afflicted by a condition when not in earth attunement, 6sec CD

If you think about it, 90%/ 85% health makes the trait very active, because it demands from the elementalist to actively prevent as much damage and heal as often as possible to maintain it.

Yes I don’t mind it… the things I dislike is that it’s a powerful effect (unmitigated 100% immunity) which is mostly passive. It has zero effect below 85% health.

In short, it will be OP versus strong condi specs 1v1 and virtually useless in anything bigger than 3v3, definitely not a good way to go IMO.

My suggestion is a similar theme, more active than passive, scales well with skill, and encounter size, and adds more arcane dependence in the style of fresh air.

JonPeters.5630:

Diamond Skin
-Great new Idea, also agree with reducing the Health threshold, or have the trait also increase Vitality.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity
+1 for 25% change. … Maybe add “Focus Water skills heal”

Cleansing Wave
+1 to leave as adept, 10 in water seems reasonable for the cleanse. Plz do rework Soothing Wave, I’d say keep the Mist Form aspect and add “Focus Water skills now heal, grant regen or have an improved damage/aoe effect.”

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery
-On the fence as well… Now if Cantrip Mastery also granted say 2 secs of vigor, the move would be good.

Arcana
+1 for Renewing Stamina staying Adept… Before I read the P.S., I was thinking “Move Arcane Shielding to the 15 point Minor”, but have to give lingering elements a shot if it works.

.

Yes, people, including myself, complained about over-reliance on water and arcana.

NO, the answer is NOT nerfing water and arcana.

YES, the answer IS giving us viable traits in the other three trait lines so that we have OPTIONS.

Why does ANet not understand that having FIVE VIABLE trait lines is not inherently OP?

It’s not as if we have 150 trait points…

Hi Jon, thanks for for sharing your thought about the ele and discuting with us about it! Especially the weekend.

JonPeters.5630:

Cleansing Wave
This is the one I am most on the fence about of all of the elementalist changes. It is a borderline master level trait and I think a better solution would be to leave it at adept tier and instead of moving Soothing Wave (which is only moving because it is better to have a 100% worthless trait at adept tier rather than master tier) we would redesign Soothing Wave into something worthy of master level.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery
This one was debated internally for a while as well. I think swapping these traits would also help build diversity as it would let you splash 10 points in water to get Cantrip recharge, but would make you really consider going into water magic for the Regen and Vigor which is much more flavorful. I would love to hear some elementalist thoughts on that potential change.

Last but definitely not least.

Arcana
I see the logic in not wanting the two changes in this line to counter each other. Moving good adept traits to master level is contrary to reducing the need to spec into this line. That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits. I think a good compromise would be to place Renewing Stamina back in the adept tier, placing is where the other professions get this type of trait, and instead move Final Shielding to the master tier where it could live alongside Arcane Retribution as two good choices in arcane builds that take Arcane Mastery in the adept tier. That could leave some interesting builds such as: 0/30/30/0/10 for fresh air, diamond skin, and renewing stamina. It also still leaves builds that put only 10 points in Arcana a chance to gain Protection by going 30 air for Tempest Defense, and 10 Earth for Elemental Shielding and still have 30 points leftover.

Wow, these changes would be exactly what I was hoping for, after reading the first preview.

Now about the Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery, I would like to give my thought, based on my experience:

I like Soothing Disruption especially with Armor of Earth (with the skill and with Earth’s Embrace). In any case, Soothing Disruption will provide you great benefice as Regen/Vigor combined with Stability/Protection are both convenient for engaging or to get out of a difficult situation.

However, with Mistform and Lightning Flash, I find Soothing Disruption less useful because I use these cantrip mostly for escaping. With my current spec (00/20/00/20/30), I use these two cantrip, Arcane Wave being my third utility, so I prefer Cantrip Mastery over Soothing Disruption.

Now, that being said, I think most ele would choose Soothing Disruption rather than Cantrip Mastery, if they were to put only ten points in Water.

And finaly, I see some ele saying that D/D is weak/trash/blabla… Stop whining, that’s not true. Some other class are definitely strong, and you may say, over the top. But the D/D isn’t trash. -_-

Thedenofsin.7340:

Jon, this is insane talk. Damage immunity is incredibly powerful and hard counters many builds. It’s not good gameplay.

If you’re insisting on doing this, then be equitable and make direct damage immunity traits available at the grandmaster levels for necromancers and engineers.

See how silly that sounds?

Damage reduction is one thing, but complete immunity..? Why are you doing this?

Debuffs
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness

Buffs
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protection
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation

Guardian
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Courage
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Wrath
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shelter
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sanctuary
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Retreat!%22
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewed_Focus

Warrior
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Counterblow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Riposte
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain

Engineer
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Shield_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Shield
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_S
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gear_Shield

Ranger
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Counterattack
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Stab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hornet_Sting
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent%27s_Strike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Defense
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stalker%27s_Strike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Protect_Me%22
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Stone

Thief
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Disabling_Shot_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Blossom
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Strike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Withdraw
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Roll_for_Initiative
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dagger_Storm

Elementalist
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Retreat
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Wave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_Flesh
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Shield
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_Form
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vapor_Form
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortify

Mesmer
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Distortion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Counter
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Riposte
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Warden
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirror
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feedback
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mimic

Necromancer
???
Nothing that makes them invulnerable but effectively 2 life bars.

You were saying about physical damage immunity? This doesn’t count traits either or blind spams.

LuRkEr.9462:

Taking 10% health off an ele is like 1.5k-2k dmg. So any class can do that with 1 skill, maybe 2 in a condition build. You won’t be safe for long. I feel that Ele is getting nerfed this patch with the changes in arcane line, we are already terrible with no meta in spvp and now we are even worse.

Honestly the only thing I hate is moving renewing stamina to master, keep it adept and ele will be in a good place.

A condi necro would hit a valk or soldier ele with 30 in earth for about 200-300 damage per attack and necro has fairly slow attacks. A soldier amulet ele will have anywhere from 17-20k health. Knocking through that 10-15% health is going to take a really long time, and as soon as you cross the threshold, the ele just switches to water and pretends like nothing ever happened.

Meanwhile, basically all of the necro’s defense is condition based (fear, chill, cripple, weakness) and he can’t use any of it to stop the ele from beating on him.

This trait would be broken in a 1v1 against a condi build other than maybe engi which has decent power damage in a condi spec. Necro needs nerfs and ele needs buffs, but changing things from necro countering ele to the opposite is not the direction the game needs to be going.

So yeah, while we have some communication, any hints at what is going to happen to conjures? Basically all the conjure traits are worthless and the conjures themselves are only viable in certain instances because you’ve buffed their base so high. Nothing really works well with them.

Vick.6805:

Yes, people, including myself, complained about over-reliance on water and arcana.

NO, the answer is NOT nerfing water and arcana.

YES, the answer IS giving us viable traits in the other three trait lines so that we have OPTIONS.

Why does ANet not understand that having FIVE VIABLE trait lines is not inherently OP?

It’s not as if we have 150 trait points…

You’re ignoring some obvious issues with our traits. Not only do we have horrible traits that are useless (quite a few actually) but we have traits that are flat out misplaced. We have many builds that utilize multiple adept talents. How does that make sense? Yes, this means they need to nerf the trait line to fix this (either that or buff 90% of our traits which would make us OP). Now, not all of the trait changes were such a great idea or horribly balanced (see the dev basically admitting that). But that doesn’t mean some traits didn’t need to be moved up.

The mantra of just buff everyone to the same level sounds nice in theory but in reality is silly due to the nerfs sometimes being the easiest way to make sure balance doesn’t go completely bananas while you’re trying to fix something.

JonPeters.5630:

Of course if you are just an elementalist you just want us to raise these, but balance must work around some fixed things and profession health and armor are an important part of defining what a profession is so that we can create powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses.

I have yet to hear a coherent justification for variable base HP and armor values across classes. IMO, it is simply a trumped-up, inexplicable, meaningless, and ultimately futile attempt to add “definition” to classes that already HAVE identities. Don’t keep spewing the same nonsense. You guys keep saying you’re designing GW2 to think outside the MMO box, and yet now you’re stuck thinking inside your own ruts. Equalize HP across the board. Armor can stay as it is, if you need something to add extra “definition” to the classes.

I really don’t even know how to respond to Diamond Skin. The only incentive I’ve ever had to spend any points in Earth was for Written in Stone and the signet traits, which means I have absolutely no incentive to take Diamond Skin. Honestly, even the signet traits are mediocre because the signets’ active abilities themselves are mediocre, and everything you’re proposing is STILL ultimately going to force us to rely on cantrips for survival.

JonPeters.5630:

…I would rather increase the cooldown to 25% to get people to consider them than to have them be adept tier and allow elementalists to run all four of them.

I would rather see them stay at 20% skill CD reduction and add a small additional reduction to that particular attunement’s swap recharge.

JonPeters.5630:

Cleansing Wave
This is the one I am most on the fence about of all of the elementalist changes. It is a borderline master level trait and I think a better solution would be to leave it at adept tier and instead of moving Soothing Wave (which is only moving because it is better to have a 100% worthless trait at adept tier rather than master tier) we would redesign Soothing Wave into something worthy of master level.

I think your statement here would be the way to go. Moving it up would be an unnecessary nerf, considering that the Elementalist’s survivability options are still terrible, even with these proposed trait changes.

JonPeters.5630:

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery
This one was debated internally for a while as well. I think swapping these traits would also help build diversity as it would let you splash 10 points in water to get Cantrip recharge, but would make you really consider going into water magic for the Regen and Vigor which is much more flavorful. I would love to hear some elementalist thoughts on that potential change.

I would love to see the cantrip traits swapped with either the glyph or signet traits so that we have survivability options spread between multiple trait lines, instead of having the vast majority of them in Water Magic, which is extremely limiting. Right now, there are too many good traits in Water, and very limited options elsewhere.

JonPeters.5630:

Arcana
I see the logic in not wanting the two changes in this line to counter each other. Moving good adept traits to master level is contrary to reducing the need to spec into this line. That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits.

Equivalent to a Grandmaster trait? Really? For a single boon stack every 13-16 seconds? I think you need to reconsider that statement considering how easily other professions come by their class’s passive benefits that rival or surpass this trait and don’t have to trait for those benefits at all.

JonPeters.5630:

I think a good compromise would be…

…keeping Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement exactly where the are right now.

Vigor and boons are the only options Elementalists have if they don’t want to be chained hand and foot to the cantrips for survival. Changing the arrangement of either of those two traits has the potential to be a gigantic nerf to the class.

I apologize for the heat in some of these responses, but I’m tired of seeing this class continually kitten.

Jon is suggesting some good stuff. The diamond skin ability would be really great against a condi necro 1v1, but this is not really a 1v1 game. The skill is actually not that amazing but might make people reconsider condition builds. Maybe if I ran like a x/focus build and could really mitigate a lot of damage it would be something to invest in. I love that they are moving the 10% toughness becomes condition damage trait and might make me go 20 into earth for my condition build. Some things I think they should focus on is the grandmaster traits for fire and the second grandmaster trait in earth. They also need to make the 25 arcane trait worthwhile. Increase the proc chance or decrease the cooldown. I think a good grandmaster trait for fire would be something like 20% increase to damage while in fire. We trade off a lot of survivabilty for our damage. Personally, I want to say thanks to Jon for trying to improve us. This is a step in the right direction, but definitely not the end.

Jon, I know this might sound like an insane idea, but what about letting traiting into a line lower the cooldown for swapping back into that attunement and for skills of that attunement. Eles already have absurdly high cooldowns on lots of their skills, yet they are expected to use them in concert quite often (things like Ride the Lightning/Updraft and Burning Speed, for example) to have good damage output. You could do something as small as 1% per every 2 points into a line and it would be INCREDIBLY well received by Eles, perhaps even 1% per every 1 point in a line. Arcana could be given more Boon Duration or perhaps even a Celestial-ish function (boost all stats save +CritDam by 2-3 points?) to still make it usable even if it’s not used for attunement recharge.

I think this could be at least something to consider to help Eles out, perhaps could replace the Alacrity traits with something else entirely (maybe keep them but have them lower all utilities of that element? So Pyromancer’s Alacrity lowers CD of Conjure Flame, Cleansing Fire, and Signet of Fire?).

Also, as a last note: Why does Armour of Earth have such a heavy CD when stuff like Stand Your Ground from Guardians and Balanced Stance from Warriors is far shorter in CD duration?

Kamui.3150:

Jon, I know this might sound like an insane idea, but what about letting traiting into a line lower the cooldown for swapping back into that attunement and for skills of that attunement. Eles already have absurdly high cooldowns on lots of their skills, yet they are expected to use them in concert quite often (things like Ride the Lightning/Updraft and Burning Speed, for example) to have good damage output. You could do something as small as 1% per every 2 points into a line and it would be INCREDIBLY well received by Eles, perhaps even 1% per every 1 point in a line. Arcana could be given more Boon Duration or perhaps even a Celestial-ish function (boost all stats save +CritDam by 2-3 points?) to still make it usable even if it’s not used for attunement recharge.

I think this could be at least something to consider to help Eles out, perhaps could replace the Alacrity traits with something else entirely (maybe keep them but have them lower all utilities of that element? So Pyromancer’s Alacrity lowers CD of Conjure Flame, Cleansing Fire, and Signet of Fire?).

Also, as a last note: Why does Armour of Earth have such a heavy CD when stuff like Stand Your Ground from Guardians and Balanced Stance from Warriors is far shorter in CD duration?

Armor of earth offers protection too. It could still use like a 10-15s shorter cooldown. The reduced cooldown thing you suggested would make the grandmaster air trait useless. Also, the majority of our skills have relatively similar cool-down to other classes. The only things that should be shaved is the 5 skills on all weapon sets.

Ok first of all, thank you so much for finally coming to our subforums and addressing concerns we have brought up again and again. I am especially glad you noted our low health and armor and are beginning to consciously design around it.

Going to try moving my condition build to 20/0/30/20/0… or possibly 10/0/30/0/30. I need at least one of healing ripple and evasive arcana. It remains to be seen if one alone will be enough… all depends on if diamond skin ends up being game changing or not.

However, I really want you to rethink the water trait changes. The current change would leave absolutely no good adept water traits for defensive eles. You say you are on the fence about both cleansing wave and cantrip mastery; in that case, please put one of them in the adept tier. Those are the two water traits I currently take. Because water 15 minor is such a huge part of our survival, it would be really unfortunate to have to take a useless adept trait just to get it.

I hope you still don’t completely throw away the idea of increasing our hp. Because I can see players qqing about diamond skin, causing it to get nerfed, in which case we will be in no better place as far as survivability is concerned.

And finally, with windborne dagger moving to adept, could you finally look at making it work out of combat? One of the reasons why war is so great to play in wvw right now is because you don’t need to slot a utility for 25% movement speed, and you can equip any melee weapon to do it. Our trait only functions fully with ONE weaponset period, yet it is infinitely worse since it only works in combat, which is honestly when I care least about speed. It would be great to finally free myself of the air signet handicap in wvw just to move around at a reasonable pace (which will be even more mandatory with elemental attunement moving to master tier now).

JonPeters.5630:

Summation of high risk concerns for elementalist.
Diamond Skin

I can’t see this trait being good for the game at any health threshold. A complete immunity as a passive effect is crazy. We have seen the terror that is Berserker Stance, but at least that has a large cooldown attached. Something like this is always there (given the parameters are met of course), and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about it looking from the perspective of condi classes. Sure your teammate can run over there and sneeze on the ele allowing you to apply your conditions, but how is he going to get to that ele in the first place? He can’t be chilled/crippled/immobed, so he can casually kite around, use some defensive cooldowns, maybe get some additional peels from his teammates, and if all else fails he can heal back above the threshold. Maybe a ranged attack would get the job done instead, but a lot of projectiles can be unreliable and focus offhand has some nice tools on top of that. Something like mesmer greatsword looks like a great option against this, but that doesn’t change the fact that this trait is a hard counter against condis.

Taking the existing Fresh Air build and adding this trait looks like a true nightmare. Swirling Winds and Magnetic Wave are great tools to keep those pesky projectiles from lowering your health. Gale and Freezing Gust will help kite melee foes. This is in addition to the two blinds from scepter, and of course the glorious Obsidian Flesh. All of this comes with that lovely condi immunity and massive burst potential. 25 Earth gives even more damage on top of the previous 0/30/10/0/30, which could already 100-0 squishy targets.

*tl;dr Yes you can deal damage to the ele. Yes he can heal. There is certainly a lot of play surrounding the health threshold, but none of that play involves the condi classes. They just get to sit and wait hoping for a chance to play the game. Most of my discussion was also in regards to teamfights, but what happens if the ele engages the condi class in a 1v1? Hard counters are generally unhealthy in games, and this trait is no different.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity
Cleansing Wave

I agree that cleansing wave is borderline master-tier. I can also see the power of aquamancer’s alacrity, mostly for staff builds. So in a vacuum I could agree with moving both of them to master tier. The problem is the remaining traits available in the adept tier. Vital Striking has always been the clear choice for burst builds, but if I am trying to make a tankier/support build with points in water, there is no longer a trait that I want at adept. The only one with any potential is Soothing Disruption, but that requires me to bring a lot of sub-par cantrips. For this reason I would hope that one of these two traits remains at adept, or some of the other water adept traits get revamped in this patch to provide at least one viable option for non-burst builds.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery

I think that with the current state of cantrips (massive cooldowns among other things), Cantrip Mastery is the trait I want more out of the two. Does that mean it should remain at master because it is more powerful? Or move down to adept to allow more options to cantrip builds? I could see it going either way, but I think that cantrips are pretty terrible right now and won’t be looking at a cantrip build regardless. I am planning to go more into detail about cantrips in another post that is in the works.

Arcana

Even as a D/D player, I 100% agree with the movement of both of these traits. Elemental Attunement is probably a grandmaster trait based on power level, and I could see Renewing Stamina potentially at grandmaster minor. I think a lot of people underestimate how absurd near perma-vigor is, and how easy it is for eles to trigger this even with little invesment into precision due to Arcane Fury. With that being said I don’t think Renewing Stamina can compete with Elemental Attunement for the master tier slot, and would prefer to see a weaker version remain at adept rather than lose the trait entirely. I think that the current version of the skill is too strong at adept, and doubling the ICD is probably fair. It would still be a lot better than other options existing at adept (arcane resurrection, final shielding).

*Before everyone leaps at my throat and brings up guardian/mesmer vigor traits, I would argue that those should be moved/increase ICD rather than leave the ele trait as is.

Finally I would like to thank Jon for taking the time to provide the reasoning behind these specific changes. The general overview of the class changes in the other thread was nice, but hearing the reasoning for each individual change is fantastic. Definitely something I would like to see more of in the future, although I understand it would be quite time consuming.

Can we get more information on the bugfix of Lingering Elements please?