Guild Wars 2

Ahem….

Tha maximum extra damage you can get out if lingering attunements were to affect all the +% damage traits would be 20%.

Strength of stone you are reworking.
Piercing shards is already being taken advantage of, by switching to water while the animation of desired skill is still playing (also 10 trait points)

Now you´d then need to
-spend 20 points in air, forgo traits like bolt to heart, or arcane lightning.
-spend 10 point in fire
-You´d have to rotate trough 3 attunements to achieve the damage, casting basicly nothing (auras maybe, or some low cast time skills)
-you´d take atleast 2.5 seconds to set up the skill + cast time of the given skill you wanted to buff, leaving you window of at most 2 seconds to utilize the combo. in other words you´ll get off 1 skill with this OP damage.

Shame that the big ele skills don´t have huge tells and/or require other types of setups that don´t allow to spend 3 attunements just for gaining damage….oh wait.

Let´s recap.
-40 trait points spent, 3 major traits.
-13-15 out of 20 skills wasted, leaving you rather out of options
-gain +20% damage compared to what you can get now, for 2 seconds.

If anyone still thinks this is far too OP for an ele to have…
“Lingering attunements: your attunement bonuses linger for 3 or 4 seconds.”
There, with 3 it´s impossible to stack more than 2 attunements, with 4 you can get off 1 skill with the imba +20%.

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, what do you think about this proposal? It will increase build diversity a lot by allowing people to have 0 points in Arcana. I think it’s an idea that’s worth considering.

Sunshine.5014:

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Please swap Air II – Zephyr’s Focus and Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina instead.

Renewing Stamina depends on Crit, and is out of place in the Arcana line, while Zephyr’s Focus belongs to the Arcana line (although it’s nearly useless since only Meteor Shower counts as a channelling spell). Swap it, put Renewing Stamina in Adept tier for Air, and put Zephyr’s Focus in Master tier for Arcana, and maybe buff it a little bit.

Arcana has too many good traits, swap it to other line like Air will help builds diversity.

dude,they don’t want renewing stamina in air or fire or earth or water, they want renewing stamina in arcana trait line,50 ppl wrote to them that mesmer and guardian have got 5 minor trait vigor and it should be the same with ele but devs haven’t said nothing about it(they are ignoring us) and don’t understand that renewing stamina is the trait that will help a lot ele for build diversity and to escape from the sea of mud where is atm.
And yes they are trying to find a way to nerf again the d/d build,they could do it with putting renewing stamina in air adept trait(instead zephyr’s focus or other),so d/d should decide to put the new renewing stamina or zephyr’s boon.

Dingle.2743:

The Game Slayer.7632:

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 1 condition on attuning to earth, earth attunement is recharged when afflicted by a condition when not in earth attunement, 6sec CD

The way the dev’s see this trait to be, it wouldnt begin to scratch to fit the role its supposed to be. This trait would be hard-countered by condi duration on the opposing side, rendering this useless for a DPS ele looking to be immune to blind/weakness/cripple/chill/immob. All it takes is a little counter- play on the enemies side. You really under-estimate the raw damage put out by a complete condi based build.

Necromancers have incredibly low direct damage on their condition weapons; without conditions they can average at best around 500 damage per second until they break through Diamond Skin, and that’s if they’re blowing all their cooldowns, meaning they won’t have much of a condition burst when they break through.

So with DS being 90%, we’re looking at the necro needing around 3 seconds of uninterrupted DPS on an ele with x/x/30/30/x and no vit on gear. Presumably the elementalist has defensive capabilities as well; all weapon sets possible have crowd control, staff and scepter/x have blind, the elementalist might have near-permanent regen (with no poison to bring it down because Diamond Skin!) and a source of protection. If the ele is not in water attunement they can heal 1.5k+ instantly if they drop below the line. Can’t forget dodges either; luckily for the necro in this matchup, projectile reflect doesn’t do much to him. Soothing Mists + Regeneration alone bring the necro’s effective DPS down to 290. We’re getting close to the point where the ele just needs one 1.5k heal every 5 seconds to stay immune to conditions, and that time is increased by 1 second every 10 by dodges. Protection gives the ele 7.5 seconds between heals, but it’s not necessarily permanent.

Heck, Ether Renewal renders the necromancer entirely pointless until the cast finishes, and that’s on a 15 second cooldown, so just that, regen and the free heal for attuning to water could probably wall off the Necro forever. Doubly so if the ele is running gear with any defensive stats at all.

It might be easy for some professions to break through Diamond Skin, but it’s pretty much a hard counter to the entire condition necromancer build at present. Using a utility slot for a minion is just about the only thing a condimancer can do to get enough DPS to break through, and that just makes the minions an ele’s prime target.

Immunity to conditions is a strong effect, and while it might have a place, the threshold shouldn’t be based on damage received. Maybe hits taken, or conditions blocked, with the trait recharging over time when above 90% health, but not purely “immune to conditions until X damage taken”.

I really want to suggest this variant:
Diamond Skin: Gain a stack of Diamond Skin every [x] seconds, up to a maximum of [y] stacks. Each stack prevents one condition from being applied to you, and is then removed.

This remains relevant throughout the entire fight, would be visible to opponents before they attack, has a degree of counterplay (don’t blow a big cooldown if you think the ele’s about to gain a stack or has one, use an auto-attack to remove it first), and can be broken through by all condition builds given enough time.

Look, this build that youre talking about for ele is looking like a 0/0/30/30/30 build.
With the nerfs to arcana and water, you cannot effectively survive like the image you have in your mind of an ele if they dump 30 into earth.
Not only is this build you’re talking about non-existent due to in-adequate trait allocation, but if an ele did such allocations even a 0/0/30/30/30, he would still hit like a grandpa with a rolled up newspaper.
Then if you manage to directly refute my points, then this is what you call a counter-build to a completely condi necro. Something this game has little of, and needs more.

JonPeters.5630:

I hope you all understand why that trait would be wildly overpowered if it carried over everything particularly all 10% damage bonuses. You could simply slam through all attunements and then get 50% bonus damage.

To me, that is a better starting point for discussion than attempting to balance all of these effects with how they might work with a minor trait in Arcana. That would predicate the entire profession around that trait which is not what we want out of our minor traits.

Jon

Since you don’t seem familiar with the ele, there is a 2s internal CD on attunenemt swapping.
At best you could get that 40% bonus after 4~ seconds of prep (with 4 traits required) for a fraction of a second by putting literally every attunement on CD.

That is leaps and bounds from OP with only ‘fresh air’ + arcanes ever making it come close (abilities that already should be changed, as it is).

Kaleban.9834:

Avatara.1042:

Also for those bagging Lava Tomb, it is the best staff zerker trait we have.

You do realize that saying this, that the best trait in an entire line is one that functions when DOWNED, shows just how sorry a state the Ele is in right?

Well yeah, that was the entire point. I guess I was too subtle.

JonPeters.5630:

I think this trait needs better wording. I hope you all understand why that trait would be wildly overpowered if it carried over everything particularly all 10% damage bonuses. You could simply slam through all attunements and then get 50% bonus damage.

Please, held everyone in here and give some numbers. With the global attunements CD when switching, and the 5s duration of the trait, what possible feats would be possible?

Could for example, someone get a skill over 5k damage (with full berserker armor)? For how long, and how tricky would it be? How often? Please, show rather than tell what the wildly overpowered effect would be.

BlackBeard.2873:

Phoenix Touch
Gain 5s of vigor on applying a burn to an opponent. ICD: 5s

With this, Fire trait-line has a lot more usable skills, you reduce the necessity of arcana, you don’t have perma-vigor without jumping through a lot more hoops, and even fire aura/the 5-point minor are useful.

1: Its active
2: It easy to implement
3: It fits thematically
4: It fills a critical need to break arcana-dependence by providing a bit of defense outside of water/arcana.
5: Its actually good

You forgot to mention that it can also trigger outside of fire attunement assuming players apply burning through sigil/trait/ally abilities (such as the guardian’s virtue of justice).

This sounds like a really nice trait. The name could use a bit more work though.

Stuipd ideas from convos with a friend for the Earth/Fire 5-point traits.

Earth: Apply Protection for 3 secs while in Earth attunement, this happens every 12 seconds.

Fire: Gradually gain Might while in Fire attunement, probably should cap it at 3 Might stacks maximum before Boon Duration?

BlackBeard.2873:

Phoenix Touch
Gain 5s of vigor on applying a burn to an opponent. ICD: 5s

With this, Fire trait-line has a lot more usable skills, you reduce the necessity of arcana, you don’t have perma-vigor without jumping through a lot more hoops, and even fire aura/the 5-point minor are useful.

1: Its active
2: It easy to implement
3: It fits thematically
4: It fills a critical need to break arcana-dependence by providing a bit of defense outside of water/arcana.
5: Its actually good

Please no … the majority of all our traits are just attunement copies of our other traits. We may have double the available abilities of other classes, but we have half the kitten traits other classes have as well. The biggest mistake ANet made in the design of the Ele was this whole attunement focus deal on a class where you can’t focus or you end up completely non-viable. The second biggest mistake was this whole condi focus in fire and earth on a class that can’t do a condi build due to mechanics.

5 point fire trait remove a condi every 10s while attuned to fire.

I feel mostly good about the new traits changes.

It would be nice if the changes for once were really noticeable (2-3% variations on boons have absolutely no impact on the gameplay – like the toughness boost on earth trait 5, it’s clearly not enough). Also I’m not talking about the Ride The Lightning dramatic-&-catastrophic-nerf noticeable, I’m talking positive things, like a trait extending Chain lighting to 5 targets instead of 3 for example.

After focusing on traits will you consider improving some of the utility skills? Because as it stands right now, using cantrips in WvW is a necessity. The ele has no survability as soon as it leave it’s water attunement, so we can only use defensive utility in WvW or pvp.

The damaged made by the conjured weapons is still too low, with the exception of the fiery great sword and the Frost bow. However I think the frost bow range should be increased to 1200, to give it some sort of validity against rangers.

The summoned creatures are still useless in WvW as well. If they could last 5 minutes instead of 1 perhaps they would serve a purpose. They are so slow however that by the time they attack usually the fight is over.

Many thanks for this initiative to improve the ele traits.

DanteZero.9736:

BlackBeard.2873:

Phoenix Touch
Gain 5s of vigor on applying a burn to an opponent. ICD: 5s

With this, Fire trait-line has a lot more usable skills, you reduce the necessity of arcana, you don’t have perma-vigor without jumping through a lot more hoops, and even fire aura/the 5-point minor are useful.

1: Its active
2: It easy to implement
3: It fits thematically
4: It fills a critical need to break arcana-dependence by providing a bit of defense outside of water/arcana.
5: Its actually good

You forgot to mention that it can also trigger outside of fire attunement assuming players apply burning through sigil/trait/ally abilities (such as the guardian’s virtue of justice).

This sounds like a really nice trait. The name could use a bit more work though.

Yea, the point is that you can get perma-vigor sticking in fire if you wanted, but that is giving up swaps. You could continue to get vigor with glyph of elemental power (if you popped it in air), cleansing flame, burning precision (trait), flame barrier with lingering elements, signet of air, cleansing flame, and lava axe/fiery GS.

The point is that it fulfills ele defense outside of arcane/water, fits in fire (Phoenix give vigor), and enhances a lot of weaknesses ele skills have.

You would see a lot more fire usage if this were in the line somewhere (adept or master).

Sounds also much better than a 25% increase in burning duration.

vigor in earth maybe?

vigor on crit as a 5 point air replacement. Because you’ll never convince me that guards and mesmers need perma vigor more than eles

Insanity.5174:

vigor in earth maybe?

Again, please no.

Listen … Jon wants to help out fire and this is how I suggest he does it.

1. Move Renewing Stamina to 5 points in Air.
2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).
3. Move Persisting Flames to Fire Master.

Ta-Da … room for a brand new Fire Grandmaster without any decisions that don’t make sense.

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, what do you think about this proposal? It will increase build diversity a lot by allowing people to have 0 points in Arcana. I think it’s an idea that’s worth considering.

Sunshine.5014:

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Please swap Air II – Zephyr’s Focus and Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina instead.

Renewing Stamina depends on Crit, and is out of place in the Arcana line, while Zephyr’s Focus belongs to the Arcana line (although it’s nearly useless since only Meteor Shower counts as a channelling spell). Swap it, put Renewing Stamina in Adept tier for Air, and put Zephyr’s Focus in Master tier for Arcana, and maybe buff it a little bit.

Arcana has too many good traits, swap it to other line like Air will help builds diversity.

Don’t like this idea then it forces a choice between Zephyr’s boon and Renewing stamina. Arcana has good traits because everyone can make use of them. Moving it to 10 points in Air means traditional D/D 0/10/0/30/30 now would have to go 0/20/0/30/30.

5 points in Air as a replacement could be ok but I don’t know about that one either. It is more shuffling for no reason. I would rather it stay where it is and a better 5 point trait in Air that is a buff. Nothing changes but something is improved instead of moving traits for the sake of moving them.

Edit: After thinking it over a bit more:

Also 5 points in air means you need to be in air to get your vigor in the first place. If you look at the theme for the rest of the attunement traits at 5 points they require you to first attune to it anyway. None of them effect you while your in another attunement and they only do (water, fire) if you run lingering elements.

So for this one trait you asking it to be the exception to the rule? A trait in Air that you benefit from no matter the attunement? Reshuffling for no reason right now anyone gets benefit from it no matter the attunement (why it is popular) moving it to air will mean less dodging if Air is on cooldown and your vigor was stripped or corrupted into cripple.

Taldren.7523:

Insanity.5174:

vigor in earth maybe?

Again, please no.

Listen … Jon wants to help out fire and this is how I suggest he does it.

1. Move Renewing Stamina to 5 points in Air.
2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).
3. Move Persisting Flames to Fire Master.

Ta-Da … room for a brand new Fire Grandmaster without any decisions that don’t make sense.

dude…this is what i wrote to them in the other topic,other ppl are saying the same about 5 points trait in air from months,no devs answered us for this change and they will not,because they like ele in downed form.

Insanity.5174:

In the past 12+ months Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina supported all of ele builds,if this 2 traits would go in Master Traits you will kill again Elementalists.

Zephyr’s Speed should be replaced with Renewing Stamina(Guardians and Mesmers have got vigor putting ONLY 5 points, and Guardians don’t need to dodge to evade the damage like Elementalists).
In the past months you nerfed our mobility,our survability but PLEASE don’t nerf also our dodge capacity,the class is not made to TAKE all the damage in the face.
Let Elementalist DODGE,PLEASE.

Lingering Elements should be replaced by Elemental Attunement(maybe with a lower boon duration).
Lingering Elements is bugged since beta,if something doesn’t work correctly,PLEASE replace/delete/change it.

In the Arcana Traits line there are 2 traits that should be merged :
Arcane Mastery and Arcane Energy OR Arcane Mastery and Arcane Retribution,if you merge them these traits will be more usefull and viables.

One With Air #4 Air : 1,5 sec of superspeed is not so helpfully to escape from certain circumstances,PLEASE buff 1,5 sec to 3/4 secs to be really helpfully and viable.

Arcane Shield should reflect projectiles.
Tornado #Elite should destroy projectiles as Swirling Winds Focus #4 Air.

Please don’t put Elemental Attunement and Renewing stamina to master trait,never.

oZii.2864:

juno.1840:

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

Nothing replaces it — it’s fine. We said dump “Lingering Elements”… not the individual element buffs themselves.

You then need a new trait to replace Elemental Attunement then if it would move to 15 points in Arcana.

To make it even better and a moot point on the RS trait..

5 arcana = Renewing stamina
10 arcana = adept traits as proposed by anet
15 arcana = Elemental attunement
Make the original fury on attunement a master thats combined with say arcane retribution or windbourne dagger… then make Windbourne dagger like the wars current 25% speed boost while wielding a melee weapon…

Taldren.7523:

2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).

The Elite Conjure is a fire sword and Fire/Water are the only trait lines that do anything with Conjures anyway. Also, if you want boost Conjures damage, there aren’t many methods beyond increasing attack or the % damage boost traits. Fire has both while other lines have one. Arcana has none offhand.

Besides, they can just toss One with Fire if they wanted to move Persisting Flames down to master to free up a grandmaster slot.

Taldren.7523:

Insanity.5174:

vigor in earth maybe?

Again, please no.

Listen … Jon wants to help out fire and this is how I suggest he does it.

1. Move Renewing Stamina to 5 points in Air.
2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).
3. Move Persisting Flames to Fire Master.

Ta-Da … room for a brand new Fire Grandmaster without any decisions that don’t make sense.

to make fire be able to compete with water… they need to give that new burning fire condi cleanse a better appeal…

3 or more conditions on you automatically casts burning fire… CD 12 seconds.

Make the GM traits more appealing to actually warrant us wanting to sacrifice survivability to get them.

Treborlavok.3504:

oZii.2864:

juno.1840:

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

Nothing replaces it — it’s fine. We said dump “Lingering Elements”… not the individual element buffs themselves.

You then need a new trait to replace Elemental Attunement then if it would move to 15 points in Arcana.

To make it even better and a moot point on the RS trait..

5 arcana = Renewing stamina
10 arcana = adept traits as proposed by anet
15 arcana = Elemental attunement
Make the original fury on attunement a master thats combined with say arcane retribution or windbourne dagger… then make Windbourne dagger like the wars current 25% speed boost while wielding a melee weapon…

This is pretty good the fury on swap combined with retribution is pretty good suggestion I like that idea alot actually. Well Jon posted in the thread in General that he thinks Windborne working OOC is a good acceptable buff. So looks that one is going to happen.

I still am on the fence about the lingering elements suggestion being replaced by elemental attunement. That is unstrippable regen with better scaling. Ele needs all the healing it can get. It would still be there but you would lose out on that extra 9 seconds of healing once you leave water it is sustain nerf if lingering was replaced by elemental attunement.

Looking at my tooltip soothing provides me with 1009 hp over 10 seconds. After I leave water that is still 1009 hp I am getting after I leave water.

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

oZii.2864:

juno.1840:

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

Nothing replaces it — it’s fine. We said dump “Lingering Elements”… not the individual element buffs themselves.

You then need a new trait to replace Elemental Attunement then if it would move to 15 points in Arcana.

To make it even better and a moot point on the RS trait..

5 arcana = Renewing stamina
10 arcana = adept traits as proposed by anet
15 arcana = Elemental attunement
Make the original fury on attunement a master thats combined with say arcane retribution or windbourne dagger… then make Windbourne dagger like the wars current 25% speed boost while wielding a melee weapon…

This is pretty good the fury on swap combined with retribution is pretty good suggestion I like that idea alot actually. Well Jon posted in the thread in General that he thinks Windborne working OOC is a good acceptable buff. So looks that one is going to happen.

I still am on the fence about the lingering elements suggestion being replaced by elemental attunement. That is unstrippable regen with better scaling. Ele needs all the healing it can get. It would still be there but you would lose out on that extra 9 seconds of healing once you leave water it is sustain nerf if lingering was replaced by elemental attunement.

Looking at my tooltip soothing provides me with 1009 hp over 10 seconds. After I leave water that is still 1009 hp I am getting after I leave water.

I agree, but thats the only thing LE is good for, even if they fix it. If they were to buff our SoR to be on par with the wars passive healing without having to attack(so staff and scepter can actually use it too) It could make up some of that extra healing.

or they could even add in LE as a selectable trait in fire. Fix it so it will carry over the dmg bonuses as well so that way by going into fire for dps and loosing out going for more survivability from water or arcana we still have a little bit of a boost from LE and the new cleansing fire…

Fenrina.2954:

Taldren.7523:

2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).

The Elite Conjure is a fire sword and Fire/Water are the only trait lines that do anything with Conjures anyway. Also, if you want boost Conjures damage, there aren’t many methods beyond increasing attack or the % damage boost traits. Fire has both while other lines have one. Arcana has none offhand.

Besides, they can just toss One with Fire if they wanted to move Persisting Flames down to master to free up a grandmaster slot.

You increase Earth shield by increasing condi damage for the bleeds … and everything gets more damage from crit and crit damage. No one element dominates conjuered weapons, so Arcane is a good place for Conjurer.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Attunement Recharge:<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Goes into the right direction, making the arcane tree less mandatory for some builds.
Keeping the 2% per invested point would have been nice though.
So the Attunement Rechargetime would vary from 13 to 8.0xx

Still a step into the right direction going from 16-10 to 13-10.

Global CD as well.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CD- Reduction:<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Thats nice.

But seeing how DRASTICALLY A-Net lowers the CDs on a lot of those traits, shows how ridicolous high they are right now.

>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<>Traitline Rearangement <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Dunno how to feel about that, but we’ll see about that

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Closing Remarks (for now that is) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The changing of Diamond Skin looks nice, though the Threshold of 90% seems a bit high cause thats only one autoattack most of the time.

Maybe still worth being looked into, having some 0/0/30/30/10 build in my mind with conjuring earth shield.
Could be worth being looked into against conditions.

Lucky for me to have dumped my Elementalist in the garbage in favor for my Thief. It seems the more they touch this profession the worse it gets.

Calae.1738:

Lucky for me to have dumped my Elementalist in the garbage in favor for my Thief. It seems the more they touch this profession the worse it gets.

You have seen the thief changes right? It is going to completely change the way thief is played currently. They even acknowledged that the thief changes will have the most impact to the profession than any of the other changes proposed.

Ozoug.4158:

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.

I can live with this. Most true support-minded staff users had these two traits anyhow. I see why that’s a powerful 10 pts for cheap support I guess.

Ozoug.4158:

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

I don’t D/D, so I won’t dwell on why this doesn’t just force D/D to use end-regen food and forgo this trait. I suppose that will happen, and they’ll just miss the other food they used. I see the D/D folks don’t like it.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.

This one hit the true staff support players hard, and leaves no useful minor water trait for a support staffer. I understand the argument behind moving Alacrity, and I won’t presume to know the impact to non-staff builds. I would find this less painful if there was anything interesting in minor water. I would miss the lowered recharge on the water fields, but that’s it – or I’d miss the extra cond removal for support…. but I could get over it if you made something useful in minor water. Or, like you said, leave them and just change that weak master trait.

Ozoug.4158:

The base cooldown of the attunement that you just left is now reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. Attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now Attunements go from 13s to 10s instead of the old range of 16s to 10s.
Base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. Global attunement cooldown rate now decreases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now global attunement cooldown goes from 1.625 to 1.25 instead of the old range of 2.0 to 1.25.

So a support staff ele going 20 arcane for the same blasting staff / Elemental attunement goes from 9.6s swap to 10.4s. The overall swap cooldown goes from 1.2s to 1.3? That’s not terrible and its an extra nerf to Elemental Attunement which I suppose is OK if people really see it as borderline Grandmaster. It’s going to make it more obvious than before that I rarely swap to an attunement for more than 2 skills in that attunement but it’ll challenge me to learn to get more out of each attunement’s less powerful skills I guess.

TBH I’m mentally pretty committed to the support staff builds, but if you wanted to reduce the heavy focus on water/arcane, try putting some interesting and powerful traits in the other lines for the various roles… e.g. find a supportive skill in air that would attract a support style player to try that line. Try a tanky-type skill in fire. Just make them such that you can’t get the air support skill alongside all the existing support skills in water and arcane, or the tanky fire skill and still have water and earth pumped for that…. stop being so pigeon-holed by the idea that fire must be AoE DD, Air must be single target DD, water must be healing/support, earth must the tank/conditions…. give a player with a given playstyle a variety of types of options in the different lines.

I’m never straying too far from ~20 water and ~20 arcane because my support mindset dictates those lines, and the recharge reduction that allows me to use the fields in each line rapidly.

Taldren.7523:

No one element dominates conjuered weapons, so Arcane is a good place for Conjurer.

The same can be said for Signets (Earth), Glyphs (Air), and Cantrips (Water) in the form of -recharge traits. Moving Conjurer would give Arcana two skill-type specific traits (Arcane Mastery is adept arcana trait). Unless there is a specific reason for Conjurer to be in Arcana, it doesn’t make sense to move it. In addition, it would require a trait from arcana to be removed. Why do that when fire already has useless master traits that can be removed (like One with Fire)?

Fenrina.2954:

Taldren.7523:

No one element dominates conjuered weapons, so Arcane is a good place for Conjurer.

The same can be said for Signets (Earth), Glyphs (Air), and Cantrips (Water) in the form of -recharge traits. Moving Conjurer would give Arcana two skill-type specific traits (Arcane Mastery is adept arcana trait). Unless there is a specific reason for Conjurer to be in Arcana, it doesn’t make sense to move it. In addition, it would require a trait from arcana to be removed. Why do that when fire already has useless master traits that can be removed (like One with Fire)?

Because it doesn’t make any sense to be in Fire either? And fire is what they said they are looking to improve so we have to make a spot for new fire traits? Personally I wish they would do away with charges and just make conjured weapons act like Engineer kits and do away with the kitten trait … but if they must have it at least put it somewhere else. Its a win-win-win. Arcane 5 gets Renewing Stamina and loses that useless Zephyr’s Speed. Fire gets an opening for a good trait. Conjurer still exists in an even easier to access spot for those that want it.

Edit: Read Dingle’s post below. He explains it better than I did.

Taldren.7523:

Because it doesn’t make any sense to be in Fire either?

Fire has two conjuration skills: Flame Axe and Fiery Greatsword. All other elements have 1 conjuration: Frost Bow, Lightning Hammer, and Earth Shield. Fire traits already reference this via Burning Fire trait. As such, Fire has a decent claim to Conjurations. Arcana has 0 claim to Conjurations. There isn’t a non-elemental Conjure.

And fire is what they said they are looking to improve so we have to make a spot for new fire traits?

And why can’t they do that by helping conjure skills out? Improving Conjurer can be done without moving it.

Personally I wish they would do away with charges and just make conjured weapons act like Engineer kits and do away with the kitten trait …

I dislike making them kit clones because I like being able to give them to a friend. It’s something kits are not able to do. What I dislike is needing 50 charges to keep the conjure up all the time. If you want charges to be removed and then Conjurer changed to something that better helps conjures, I will not argue against that.

if they must have it at least put it somewhere else. Its a win-win-win. Arcane 5 gets Renewing Stamina and loses that useless Zephyr’s Speed. Fire gets an opening for a good trait. Conjurer still exists in an even easier to access spot for those that want it.

Truthfully, I would not be able to access it now if it were in Arcana. It has too much competition from other Arcana traits. In addition to that, they are moving Blasting Staff and Windborne Dagger down to adept with WD having a chance of being improved. The odds of anyone picking Conjurer over those are not that good.

It’s actually fine in fire as an adept trait. If Flame Barrier is improved/replaced, fire 10 for it isn’t that big of a deal. If charges are removed, they don’t even have to worry about that.

So even with what the devs consider borderline op ele is still widely underrepresented in high rank spvp and then they want to nerf it? Build on it, not tear it down and create a new field of misconception.

If anything timings and cooldowns need a look at besides those 50%+ useless traits (making whole arcana adept tier useless, even worse than individual kittenty traits) and damage multipliers.
Reward thoughtful attunement swapping not mindless spamming for a short term damage boost, that brings ele on par with what other classes have baseline. Show me one serious spvpers who will bring 3 attunements on insta cd just to get an additional 20% dmg boost for what will prolly average on 2-3skills.
You want ele to be less of a boon giver, where are the baseline changes (not traits, actual skills, dmg, after cast, cooldown etc) to make up for that?

It’s not only certain builds that need help via trait modifications, it’s the class. Baseline changes are required, not trait cosmetics.

How will an ele sustain w/o water? Perma prot needs maxed boon duration, vigor needs 20 arcana (=no more prot unless you give up XI), no regen, no 5, no 15. Do you really think Eles got the damage to make up for that? Being defenseless like that, Ele needs to be on thief level in terms of burst (outside the usual earth/air/arcane combo and outside of using scepter).

You have 4 traitlines that focus on staying inside that very attunement, however your postulation since alpha is to make swapping the favorised gamestyle. How does that work together with upcoming changes?

To me the changes are totally worthless and show that the devs lack understanding of what is wrong with the ele.

For conjures I think it should be charges or time limit not both. I would prefer it just be the time limit though.

funneh but true and unfortunately pathetic story…as a wvw lover I felt my ranger just couldn’t keep up and contribute enough so I though to myself…how can I be more useful in WvW? So I rolled a healer type Elementalist build. With this patch…yeh, now what? lol

Well, I guess it’s time to quit my elementalist and main a new class.

MyBigToe.7930:

Well, I guess it’s time to quit my elementalist and main a new class.

Making more people quit ele with this patch it seems like. You’ll be lucky to see them anywhere in pvp pretty soon.

Fenrina.2954:

Fire has two conjuration skills: Flame Axe and Fiery Greatsword. All other elements have 1 conjuration: Frost Bow, Lightning Hammer, and Earth Shield. Fire traits already reference this via Burning Fire trait. As such, Fire has a decent claim to Conjurations. Arcana has 0 claim to Conjurations. There isn’t a non-elemental Conjure.

Does that actually make sense to you? That because a line has one extra ability over all the other lines that have the same ability that it becomes the defining line for that ability type ? Arcane is the line that the vast majority of all elementalists use for one reason or another … so putting this common to every other line ability as the entry trait of arcane makes sense to those that want to use conjure weapons. I can’t make it any more clear to you. Specing Fire to make frost bow better is asinine.

Fenrina.2954:

And why can’t they do that by helping conjure skills out? Improving Conjurer can be done without moving it.

Ug, I refuse to believe that a line have one extra spell that every other attunement line has makes it a ‘conjuring’ line. They can help fire by giving it what fire is about … DAMAGE.
As for fixing conjuring … the only way to make it useful in any sort of PvP is to make them like weapon kits in which case this trait won’t exist.

Fenrina.2954:

I dislike making them kit clones because I like being able to give them to a friend. It’s something kits are not able to do. What I dislike is needing 50 charges to keep the conjure up all the time. If you want charges to be removed and then Conjurer changed to something that better helps conjures, I will not argue against that.

In the other 2/3rds of the game Conjures destroy flow of combat which is why making them like weapon kits is the only way they would fit in with PvP combat. Especially when there is water deeper than my waist around.

Fenrina.2954:

Truthfully, I would not be able to access it now if it were in Arcana. It has too much competition from other Arcana traits. In addition to that, they are moving Blasting Staff and Windborne Dagger down to adept with WD having a chance of being improved. The odds of anyone picking Conjurer over those are not that good.

The odds of anyone picking it in the first place is not good. The only time it is used now is in PvE in which case the other traits wouldn’t matter as much.

Taldren:

Note the theme carries through in all lines.

Water → Cantrips. There is only one water-themed cantrip.
Earth → Signets. There is only one earth-themed signet.
Arcana → Arcane.
Air → Glyphs.
That leaves Fire → Conjures, as far as traiting is concerned.

As to why, let’s look into them:
The water line is primarily filled with reactive defensive traits. Healing Ripple, Cleansing Wave, Healing Waters, Arcane Abatement, Stop Drop and Roll, Soothing Wave are all defensive effects that are triggered after you reach a situation where you need them. Cantrips, likewise, are defensive effects the player triggers on demand.

The earth line is primarily filled with passive defensive traits. The new Diamond Skin, Geomancer’s Freedom, Rock Solid, Elemental Shielding, Earth’s Embrace and Stone Flesh are all traits have a primary effect of providing an ability which prevents damage or an effect, usually passively. Signets, similarly, are also passive in nature.

Arcane and Glyph skills have the most overlap for which should go in a specific line; I’d argue if the theme of the Arcane skills wasn’t “non-elemental” effects related to them would be better placed in the air line. As it is, both glyphs and arcane skills provide utility, which is the primary goal of the Arcana line. Arcane skills also provide burst, whch is why I feel they’re better suited for air traits (air being the burst line) while glyph skills have utility based on the element they’re used in, which is primarily a feature of the Arcana line.

But the conjures, this is what it comes down to: They’re offensively-oriented utility skills, in an offensively-oriented line. Their use isn’t to provide utility, it’s to provide weapons and skills to defeat enemies, and that theme matches fire perfectly; far more than arcane or glyph skills could.

In essence, Arcane traits being in the Arcana line is the only place where the elemental theme of the skill set is what’s placed it in the line. Conjures, Signets and Cantrips have their traits in the lines they’re in because the gameplay theme of those trait lines match the gameplay theme of the utility set. Glyphs are in the line they’re in purely because Arcane skills already took their spot in the trait line that would most exemplify their gameplay.

Dingle.2743:

snip

That’s cool.

Although I’m fine Conjure traits being tied down to the Fire tree however, there’s only one trait that enhances conjures (all of them) and that’s Conjurer. They’ve finally decided to put it down from Master to Adept tier because Fire isn’t worth squat investing in and they are really pushing people to use Conjures. There are some (I think two?) other traits that buffs individual conjures along with other abilities like Soothing Wave and Burning Fire (and one is even bugged) but they are very lackluster compared to other traits in their respective lines. They need to add more unique and exciting traits that change the way Conjures are treated. Because right now, they only have very niche uses and these uses can pretty well be performed without even traiting Conjurer (except for LH auto-attack spam builds) because in reality, they’re just there to cast a skill or two and then get rid of instantly.

Some ideas would be some sort of effect while conjuring an elemental weapon when attuned to that conjured weapon’s element:

Fiery Greatsword and Lava Axe on Fire Attunement = cast mini Meteor Shower
Frost Bow on Water Attunement = cast Frozen Ground or Chilling Burst
Lightning Hammer on Air Attunement = cast some sort of aoe blind or something
Earth Shield on Earth Attunement = stunbreak and 2 seconds invuln like Ob Flesh

Or reduction in charge consumption to zero for the ability to hold the weapon until the very last second of it’s duration (but yeah it would be too good for Lightning Hammer and FGS) :P

Or the ability to drop the conjured weapon you are holding and not lose it when you decide to switch back to your main weapon so you could pick it up again. This could also lead to a situation where you will have two dropped conjured weapons for your allies and not just one for you one for them.

Something that changes playstyle a little bit. And not just passive immunity here and there and AI pets doing all the work for you of some sort.

JonPeters.5630:

I do agree that the 5 point minors need looking at. I think the Earth and Water ones are in an ok place right now but Fire and Air need work.

Jon

Hello.
1)Aquamancer’s Alacrity is very important for full support ele(very rare kind of elementalists) and if u move this trait to master tier,then we will have problem with survive ability.Elementalist have lower hp and lower armor,but we can descrease this problem with using our cantrips skills,so Cantrip Mastery are important too.We need both this traits for support and survive.Its not unbalance,so please let us to take both this traits.Doesnt matter which will be on adept/master tier.
2)Elementalists take arcane traits for survive and lower cooldown on Attunement are good,but not so important.
3)New diamond skin are usless at wvw.For example at my build i have 20k hp(wvw trait,food etc),and if i loose 2 k hp=>it will be doesnt work.If some warrior just auto-attack me 2 times=>this trait will not work.Its not bad trait for spvp,but it usless at wvw.Also we dont have usefull traits at Earth.Stability when we change attunement too low,fast recharge on skills not so importent because earth dont have important skills.(They good,but not so important).Arcane and water traits good not only for elementalist,but also for his group.Earth dont have this something like Elemental Attunement or Healing Ripple.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Stuff

I guess we could take the idea of conjured weapon traits a little further, see what we can come up with. The Fire line has a lot of dud traits which could be removed for something else.

I’ll throw out a couple possibilities:

Speedy Conjures Master Tier, probably to replace One with Fire
Conjured weapons are instant cast. Reduce the cooldown of skills of your conjured weapons by 20%

This idea touches on something players have been asking for (instant conjured weapons) with something conjured weapons don’t have right now (a cooldown reduction on their skills. It’d help make conjure builds less predictable.

Conjured Affinity not sure which tier this could go in
Conjured weapons grant the wielder boons if the caster is in the matching attunement.
Fire: Might x5
Air: Fury
Water: Regeneration
Earth: Protection
The boon would be refreshed every 5 seconds, up to (5 seconds * boon duration) if they’re below that amount

This grants a bonus for using LH while in air, FGS while in fire, and so on. It brings some defensive capabilities into the fire line if the player is running Ice Bow or Earth Shield, and improves DPS to some degree for FGS, Flame Axe and LH. The boons affect allies that use your weapons, and the duration mechanic means you can switch attunements and maintain the effect for a few seconds, so the offensive buffs in fire/air aren’t totally overshadowed by the usual Piercing Shards trait in water. I have a feeling this would be top-end Master tier, possible Grandmaster.

Greater Conjuration Master tier
Conjured weapons have a larger impact radius and deal more damage when summoned. Increase the size, range and damage of conjured weapons.
20% impact radius and skill range increase. 10% increased damage when summoned and from conjured weapon skills

Simply put, make the conjured weapons larger and more powerful. Generic statistical buff, but you can at least make it fun by actually increasing the scale of the weapons

I have to say, that Conjured Affinity trait I could REALLY see working well. I could see it turning into a Grandmaster trait and they could move something like Pyromancer’s Puissance down into Master tier. People other than LH users would have a really good reason to fully trait into Fire with something like that.

Suggested relocations/changes:

• Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
• Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Condition duration is lowered by X%. (25-30%?)
• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Staying at adept tier.
• Water X – Soothing Wave. Moved to adept tier. This trait has been redesigned. Signet of Water passive will remove two conditions instead of one. Signet of Restoration will remove one condition on use.
• Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Staying at adept tier.

I tink evasive arcana is a must have for any kind of build and 30 on water for more vitality and some good trait like cleasing like n 15 cantrip master so i have only 10 point to choose… i play zerker and imho a death ps is a bad dps usually i can stay alive only with this build so if they wanna change realy something they have to remake elementalist basic stats or move some defensive traits on offensive three… before and after patch will be no a real change… i ve played with some other eles with high ap 10k+ and i ve spent my time ress him every time cause of bad survivability on dps build.. best compromise atm is zerk equipment and defensive build…

Lian Olsam.9541:

I tink evasive arcana is a must have for any kind of build and 30 on water for more vitality and some good trait like cleasing like n 15 cantrip master so i have only 10 point to choose… i play zerker and imho a death ps is a bad dps usually i can stay alive only with this build so if they wanna change realy something they have to remake elementalist basic stats or move some defensive traits on offensive three… before and after patch will be no a real change… i ve played with some other eles with high ap 10k+ and i ve spent my time ress him every time cause of bad survivability on dps build.. best compromise atm is zerk equipment and defensive build…

Agree.
My build which i think balanced.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImkbwx5QlDAkHm4CLiCWUeMzO2A-jEyAYfACCQ6rIasFOiox2AquGT7KIriTqUARsMC-w

I deal good damage and i can survive.

Fire/air dps build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImgbyx4QlDAhHEwQCCFW0QRBO7A-jkxAYLg0XR0YrnFRjVXjpdFkVxJVIgRLAA-w

If i dont take water traits,i have only 15.5k hp(wurm rune for hp balance) but its not so good at survive.I have problem vs direct damage and vs condition,also i dont have Cantrip Mastery,its mean that i will not survive on lord room or long fights.

I suggest change glyph of storm and up his range to 1000-1200 from 900.Its very anoying that most skills with staff have range 1200 and if i want use glyph i must come closer to enemy melee/range group.

Diamond Skin : conditions taken below the 20% the health threshold are converted into boons?could be?ele survability?

Dingle.2743:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Stuff

I guess we could take the idea of conjured weapon traits a little further, see what we can come up with. The Fire line has a lot of dud traits which could be removed for something else.

I’ll throw out a couple possibilities:

Speedy Conjures Master Tier, probably to replace One with Fire
Conjured weapons are instant cast. Reduce the cooldown of skills of your conjured weapons by 20%

This idea touches on something players have been asking for (instant conjured weapons) with something conjured weapons don’t have right now (a cooldown reduction on their skills. It’d help make conjure builds less predictable.

Conjured Affinity not sure which tier this could go in
Conjured weapons grant the wielder boons if the caster is in the matching attunement.
Fire: Might x5
Air: Fury
Water: Regeneration
Earth: Protection
The boon would be refreshed every 5 seconds, up to (5 seconds * boon duration) if they’re below that amount

This grants a bonus for using LH while in air, FGS while in fire, and so on. It brings some defensive capabilities into the fire line if the player is running Ice Bow or Earth Shield, and improves DPS to some degree for FGS, Flame Axe and LH. The boons affect allies that use your weapons, and the duration mechanic means you can switch attunements and maintain the effect for a few seconds, so the offensive buffs in fire/air aren’t totally overshadowed by the usual Piercing Shards trait in water. I have a feeling this would be top-end Master tier, possible Grandmaster.

Greater Conjuration Master tier
Conjured weapons have a larger impact radius and deal more damage when summoned. Increase the size, range and damage of conjured weapons.
20% impact radius and skill range increase. 10% increased damage when summoned and from conjured weapon skills

Simply put, make the conjured weapons larger and more powerful. Generic statistical buff, but you can at least make it fun by actually increasing the scale of the weapons

These conjure suggestions are awesome. Really well thought out

Insanity.5174:

Diamond Skin : conditions taken below the 20% the health threshold are converted into boons?could be?ele survability?

Nope.20%=2,5~6k hp.Its not enough if u have low hp and imbalance if u have 20k hp.Also how it will work?For example i have stability and necro try to fear me,as result i dont get + stability time,i will be just immune to fear.It will be imbalance.Because if smb will try to poison me, i always will get regeneration and cure 1 condition(11 trait in water) which was on me before threshold.

Our stunbreaks need to be looked at btw. Glyph of Elemental Power is currently unacceptable and Signet of Air is only even taken because of the recharge. People kept Lightning Flash because they couldn’t give up the mobility; it has nothing to do with the skill really comparing to other teleports.