Guild Wars 2

Dingle.2743:

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.

Fire’s theme is Might Stacking, Damage, and Burning. I can’t accept that Fire gets a theme by default any more than it gets a theme for having one more extra spell of a type that every other attunement has. That just seems like lazy thinking/development to me.

Its kind of funny. They’re attempting to open up new builds and move people out of arcane and water, but if this patch stays as is now, people who only spec 10 points into arcane or water will be forced to spec even further into arcane and water. They’ll be doing the exact opposite of what they intend to do by moving cleansing wave and renewing stamina and forcing people who don’t rely on arcane and water to spec even further into it destroying several niche builds in the process. These 2 traits should both stay where they are.

Best changes you could make is to turn renewing stamina into a 5 point trait. no reason it cant be combined with our current 5 point trait in arcane, or even replace it and then combine our current one that gives fury on attunement with something else at adept. I still think the cleansing wave from evasive arcana should be combined with stop, drop and roll and water in evasive arcana replaced with frozen ground. It makes evasive arcana more of an offensive/control type of trait and will make a skill that’s never used (stop, drop and roll) actually used in some builds. These small changes would open up room for a lot of different new builds without completely destroying several current builds.

The elemental attunement trait should also be removed and just become standard for all elementalists. it wouldn’t be overpowered. we should just always have it as part of our class mechanic. almost every elementalist uses it now anyway, and ele is still the weakest class in the game. So your logic is flawed if you think just giving us this trait as part of our mechanic would be overpowered. It does not belong in master or grandmaster, you are wrong about that. It should just be part of our class mechanic.

Jon please read this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Lingering-Elements-5/first

Well, I still can’t understand the idea of “reduced” attunement recharge CD as it is in the planned patch notes.
What’s the real difference between 16/10 secs and 13/10 secs? If I want to have my actual recharge rate to use the class as intended, I still have to invest maximum points in arcana traits.
Wouldn’t it be better like 13/7 secs? Or just 10 secs flat and give arcana points another meaning? That would be reason to differenciate the point distribution without be forced to 30 arcana just for the lowered CD (mechanic of our class), don’t you think?

regarding the cond immunity traits.

This could be in the future the cause of nerfs to other things that are balanced or underpowered currently.

And since we already seen stuff nerfed due ot other causes….just remember if something goes wrong WORK on the guilty trait rather than nerfing to the ground everything else…

As happened with D/D ele in the past.

I already see the nerfs on arcana/water is caused by this trait, because i don t see any other point in nerfing current ele as it is.

(also because makes sense just considering 70 points -30 in earth and 40 left for water+arcana)

Thus i doubt the necessity to release a trait that is causing balance issues even before its released…..expecially in earth that is a traitline mostly focused on defense (except a single trait).

Ele still lacks sustained dps with a bearable survivability.
That is why we need one more healing (EA), more evasions etc.
Nerfing them is not the answer……they are our survivability mechanics mostly.

STRanger.5120:

Well, I still can’t understand the idea of “reduced” attunement recharge CD as it is in the planned patch notes.
What’s the real difference between 16/10 secs and 13/10 secs? If I want to have my actual recharge rate to use the class as intended, I still have to invest maximum points in arcana traits.
Wouldn’t it be better like 13/7 secs? Or just 10 secs flat and give arcana points another meaning? That would be reason to differenciate the point distribution without be forced to 30 arcana just for the lowered CD (mechanic of our class), don’t you think?

Totally agree on that. Base attunement should just be 10 or even 7 seconds and arcane line should give boon duration and aura duration. Nothing really increases the duration of our auras and they last for too short of a time to try to make a build based around auras, which is something i’ve always wanted to try, but it’s just not possible now. well, there is the aurashare build but its kinda situational. it just never seemed that great to me. It’s nice, but not as good as it could be.

But i’m thinking more along the lines of a selfish aura build anyway since I don’t spec fully into water anyway. I’d like to make enemies regret attacking me. It would be something along the lines of a guardian retaliation build where they have perma retaliation. except i’d have perma auras.

After reading most of this thread and it´s good suggessions and arguments, here are my 2 cents (and sorry for my bad english, it´s not my native tongue):

1. Attuments:
Remove Lingering Attunement, base recharge time down to 10 sec with 1,25 sec global cooldown after swap, add old Water and Earth 5 Point Minors as passive bonusses, add new one for Fire and Air. Each Bonus is of course only active as long you stay in that Attument and only one bonus per Attument in gerneral.
My ideas:
Fire:
- Corrupting Fire: each time you deal damage there is a 20% chance that your target also gain 1 stack of Torment (1 or 2 sec).
- Consuming Flame: Increase damage dealt by 5/10%. (Good for Conjured Weapons also).

Air
-Zephyr`s Blessing: each time you´re hit in combat there´s a 50% chance to apply blindness (2sec) to your foe. This cannot occur more than once every 5 or 6 sec per target (to the same target i mean, if it´s bad worded).
-Zhephr´s Strike: While hit in Combat, there is a 20% chance striking your enemy with a Lightning for 328 damage. (More or less old Flame Barrier).
-Zhephyr´s Boon: Increase running speed by 10-25% (Same as the 5 point minor now).

Water
-Soothing Mist: Heals 1200 (currently 800) + 0,5*Healing Power (unchanged) over 10 sec.

Earth
-Stone Flesh: Increase toughness by 1/1,5/2 per level. (@80: 80 (now)/120 (planed)/160)

Maybe there can/should be a Major Trait (Adept or Master) or the Minor in Master in Arcana to get the 5 sec of Attument carring over effect.

2. Arcana Trait line:
Replace Attunement Recharge Rate with Attunement Potency (increasing the new passive effect) with 1 or 2% per Point.
With 30 points in Arcana this would be:
- Corrupting Fire: chance goes up to 26% (1%/point) and 32% (2%/point).
- Consuming Flame: Increase damage dealt by 5% goes up to 6.5% respectivily 8% and 10% would go to 13% respectivily 16%.

-Zephyr`s Blessing: 50% chance on hit would become 65% or 80%. Duration and ICD are NOT effected.
-Zhephr´s Strike: Ether increase the damage OR chance to procc (would be identical to Corrupting Fire).
-Zhephyr´s Boon: Running speed increasing would become insane with 25%@60% bonus (+40%), for lower numbers it works fine (10% goes up to 13% or 16%; 15% goes up to19,5% or 24%)

-Soothing Mist: Scaling and duration unchanged, base healing goes up from 1200 to ether 1560 or 1920.

-Stone Flesh: Increase toughness by 1/level = 104 / 128 toughness (80). Increase toughness by 1,5 per level = 156 / 192 toughness (80).
Increase toughness by 2/level = 208 / 256 toughness (@80).
(note: @level 80 for exotic armor the difference between light and medium are 144 and between light and heavy are 291 Armor Rating).

3. The 5-points-Minor-Traits
Put the current Elemental Attunement Boons in this place (ecception: Fire):
Fire: Fury 5 sec.
Air: Swiffness 5 sec.
Earth: Protection 5 sec.
Water: Regeneration 5sec.
Arcana: Vigor on crit (5 sec duration and ICD).

4. Other Traits
-Diamond Skin: when hit in combat (? for more than 10% of your maximum HP ?) you gain…
a) Protection for 5-8 sec. This cannot occur more than once ever 20-30 sec.
b)Aegis for 10 sec; 20-30 sec ICD.
c) Obsidian Flesh (total invulability) for 1 sec; 15-20 sec ICD.

- remove the +X% damage in an Attunement traits (Internal Fire, Air Training, Strength of Stone and Piercing Shards) and increase the base damage of our weapon attacks/spells (especially the auto-attacks/key 1 abilities).

- remove the “Reduces recharge on all Attument based weapon skills”-traits and put the decrased recharge of Weapon skills into the Weapon specific Traits (Windborne Dagger, Vigorous Scepter and Blasting Staff), maybe add one new for Focus (the Weapon) and replace the word Focus in Zephyr’s Focus and Obsidian Focus with discipline to prevent confusion. Or change the existing Weapon traits to be Mainhand, offhand and two-handed or short range, medium range and long range to fit if new weapons are added to our list (and the underwater weapon).

Dear Santa Jon Peters,

All I want for Christmas is to be able to keep my healing Elementalist in WvW -which already has significant trouble surviving. Pleassssse do not move both Elemental attunement AND Cleansing Wave up in tier which would make it almost impossible to allocate points in order to be AS effective. Some of us, believe it or not, do not place emphasis on damage dealing. We do NOT get numerous wvw badges for our efforts as healers and very seldom do we get thanks. But at least we feel we contribute to the server and play an important role. So all I ask is that you keep us staff healers of WvW in the back of your mind before this patch becomes official. Thank you

Spent some time thinking about this.
My build is 10/15/0/15/30
It’s a might on cantrips and healing on cantrip staff build.

Thank God you are not moving Soothing Disruption to master, else I would be mad as hell.

Evasive Arcana is so much better than any other Grandmaster trait (as it gives you an extra blast in combat that doesn’t take 4 seconds to cast) I don’t see myself removing points from arcana after this patch.

Nerfing arcana (diminishing the recharge gain from 2% to 1% per points) is not going to make other traits seem more interesting. It should be 1.5% per point and bring us to 13/8 instead of 15/10. But we need much better traits in the other lines, including some blast finishers (like evasive arcana in earth).

Lowering cantrips 20% recharge to Adept will improve slightly my damage for my build but decrease my survability if I choose it over Soothing Disruption.

Giving us only 1 interesting skill in Earth (Diamond skin) will not make me change my entire build.

After the patch I’ll try 20 less points in arcana, maybe to something like : 10/30/0/20/10
It’s like my old fresh Air build build that I ditched for evasive arcana/might. Losing Evasive arcana Ill lose all my field blasting… Which sucks.

I appreciate the work but it seems like a half-way patch.

Dingle.2743:

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%

I like there being a cooldown reduction, but I’m not convinced instant cast* is a good idea. It occurred to me last night that Flame Axe + Pyromancer’s Puissance may be able to produce 18 stacks of might. That might be a bit much at with instant cast. (I haven’t been able to get into the game to test it though.) In short, I’m concerned that stuff they would allow with a 60 cooldown, they would remove at instant cast.

*I’m treating this as the conjures are the ele’s kits idea. If that’s incorrect, please disregard.

There is a potential alternative to instant cast. Fiery Greatsword does damage when it gets conjured. What if all of the conjures did that? Like Frost Bow would apply chill/vulnerable to enemies around it. Just realized you had this with Greater Conjuration idea. I’m not sure I like increasing the size of the weapon, but I suppose that’s a minor issue. Increased Conjure damage would be really nice.

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

I’m not sure I like basing it on attunement. We get a lot of that already as is. Maybe based off of weapon type?

Flame Axe: Might
Lightning Hammer: Swiftness
Earth Shield: Protection
Frost Bow: Regeneration
Flame Greatsword: Fury (since it’s elite)

This way the ele could mix conjure buffs and attunement buffs together, but only as long as they have the weapon. An option would be to have the conjure produce the buff on attack. Fire does like attacking after all.

Taldren.7523:

Fire’s theme is Might Stacking, Damage, and Burning. I can’t accept that Fire gets a theme by default any more than it gets a theme for having one more extra spell of a type that every other attunement has. That just seems like lazy thinking/development to me.

Dingle is correct. I was off on a tangent.

The reason conjures are fire is simple. They give the player addition attack options. I use Frost Bow to attack from a range I couldn’t. Fire is about attacking. Attacking is the theme that binds conjures to Fire. If your looking at conjures for reasons other than “does this give me attack options I want,” you will likely be disappointed no matter how low the cooldowns get.

Thank you John for your compromise for Water trait line and Arcane trait line.If it changed like preview,it’s a big big nerf to all ele.

to me the stupid thing about the ele changes is d/d will still be going 30 into arcana but the trait changes turned arcana 10 into a junkyard for them. i didn’t think d/d needed another nerf, i thought it’s been a while since they were relevant?

An odd thought. One of the major issues with d/d is defense since d/d has to get close compared to other weapons. There’s no quick way to counter this. Given that, would this be ok as an adept arcana trait?

Windborne Dagger
Increases movement speed by 25% while holding a Dagger. Does not stack with other passive movement speed effects.

While holding two daggers, increases toughness reduce damage taken by 25%. Stacks with other defensive buffs.

This could be changed to something like endurance regen, but that would kind step on Vigorous Scepter’s toes.

Fenrina.2954:

An odd thought. One of the major issues with d/d is defense since d/d has to get close compared to other weapons. There’s no quick way to counter this. Given that, would this be ok as an adept arcana trait?

Windborne Dagger
Increases movement speed by 25% while holding a Dagger. Does not stack with other passive movement speed effects.

While holding two daggers, reduce damage taken by 25%. Stacks with other defensive buffs.

This could be changed to something like endurance regen, but that would kind step on Vigorous Scepter’s toes.

Passive defense like that is bad and goes against what the ele is. Mindless godmode should be left to the warriors. Ele survivability should be based on skill and active play, not your build.

Speaking of which, if you’re still reading this Jon Peters, can you please, please, pleeeease say something about the current state of RTL? Are you happy with it going on full cd when blocked/evaded/invuln? Is the full cd acceptable? Are there any changes coming to make it less frustrating?

dreztina.4820:

Passive defense like that is bad and goes against what the ele is. Mindless godmode should be left to the warriors.

I fail to see how that is “godmode” any more than the passive effect of Signet of Earth is. The idea is to compliment more active defenses; not replace them. Get and forget, I’ll give you that one.

Ele survivability should be based on skill and active play, not your build.

Ele is far from that since traits like Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement pretty much define “build.”

25% passive, unstrippable damage reduction would be ridiculous.

Jon, if you are still reading:

• Please consider amending Staff Air to be better against single targets with more instant abilities (like scepter)
• If you want build diversity Elemental Attunement and Cleansing Wave need to be easily accessible as they are essential
• We are over reliant on Water partially because of our low base health
• As an alternative, consider making the Elemental Attunement bonus’ as baseline to be applied to us and applying them AoE as a trait or as part of our 5 point traits
• -25-35% condition duration would be preferable for Diamond Skin over the immunity, even if the immunity ends up balanced stronger. It would be more fair for all sides

Xernth.8561:

25% passive, unstrippable damage reduction would be ridiculous.

Fine, I removed it and put toughness in it’s place. Is it any better? Given the reactions probably not.

Fenrina.2954:

Fine, I removed it and put toughness in it’s place. Is it any better? Given the reactions probably not.

Sure, toughness is quite a bit more limiting than pure damage reduction, some amount of it would be fair, but Earth already has a pure toughness adder (as well as adding toughness per trait point).

If the goal is to give us help against conditions in the Earth line, doesn’t reduced condition duration fill the need nicely?

Fenrina.2954:

It occurred to me last night that Flame Axe + Pyromancer’s Puissance may be able to produce 18 stacks of might.

I just tested this. It’s possible to get 21 stacks of might this way (Ring of Fire → Explosive Lava Axe → Lava Axe (repeat)). It doesn’t last very long, but the test build didn’t have arcana so. Also, getting more than one combo might off with this requires Conjurer.

Xernth.8561:

Sure, toughness is quite a bit more limiting than pure damage reduction, some amount of it would be fair, but Earth already has a pure toughness adder (as well as adding toughness per trait point).

Kinda the problem; it’s why I went to damage reduction in the first place. Another weapon trait has endurance regen. HP Regen is water, Defense is earth. How does dagger protect itself via a trait? Movement Speed is nice, but it’s not that great when stuck at fairly close range.

If the goal is to give us help against conditions in the Earth line, doesn’t reduced condition duration fill the need nicely?

Is this aimed at me?

In any case, I recall people saying reduced condition duration could be stacked to the 90% range if Diamond Skin worked that way. I don’t know how accurate that is though.

Fenrina.2954:

The reason conjures are fire is simple. They give the player addition attack options. I use Frost Bow to attack from a range I couldn’t. Fire is about attacking. Attacking is the theme that binds conjures to Fire. If your looking at conjures for reasons other than “does this give me attack options I want,” you will likely be disappointed no matter how low the cooldowns get.

So Fire is about attack … and yet all elementalists use Air for attack. You see a disconnect with your logic? All Conjured weapons are about attack and all (well less so with water) attunements are about attack as well. You really have to go out of your way to make some 6 degree connection why Conjuerer is a fire trait.

Still my solution:
Make Conjurered Weapons act as weapon kits. When you activate conjured weapon you will have a F5 ability to drop a weapon that would act like the current conjured weapons for other players, but it will have charges and a duration just like the current weapons.

Done. No more Conjurer trait and everyone gets what they want.

Fenrina.2954:

Xernth.8561:

25% passive, unstrippable damage reduction would be ridiculous.

Fine, I removed it and put toughness in it’s place. Is it any better? Given the reactions probably not.

Hmm not sure how I feel about this suggestion. Right now with what Jon said and Windborne working OOC you are no longer punished as D/D for not taking zephyr’s just for extra swiftness and can think about not stacking boon duration. You only need 30 points in arcana to keep up swiftness if you have 10 in air. Without it you are slow unless you use the signet.

I see what you are getting at though that d/d should get some extra defense somewhere to help it since it is close quarters. Scepter gets rock barrier but it still has range options. Maybe a inherent +100 toughness while wielding 2 daggers?

What if the earth minor trait did something like stone splinters, but for defense?

While attuned to earth, damage you receive within 600 range is reduced by 10%

And I still think that a passive endurance regeneration for air 5 is perfect. At 25% regen, it wouldn’t be too strong, yet it would give to squishy glass cannons some of their much needed basic survival, while also being flavorful to air magic (speed, timing and agility).

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. Similarly making other things work with this would requires those traits get lowered in the base case as well. I think this is a fine 15 point minor trait on its own and we can reword it and then discuss the merits of the other traits on their own.

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

You could just make Lingering Elements linger 2 attunements at maximum. So it would be a dmg increase of 20% and a dmg increase of 30% if you leave or enter water attunement with piercing shards. Would be pretty decent and rather balanced, as the elementalist’s dmg is rather low in comparison with other classes. Additionally you could think about decreasing the duration, so it would only increase your burstdmg, not your overall dps.

Taldren.7523:

So Fire is about attack … and yet all elementalists use Air for attack. You see a disconnect with your logic?

Taldren, look at your own comments for a moment.

Taldren.7523:

Fire’s theme is Might Stacking, Damage, and Burning.

What do these 3 things have in common? They’re about attacking; they’re about doing damage. They’re about going on the offensive. Fire focuses on it to an extent that the other 3 do not. That’s what the conjures do, they let people go on the offensive in ways they could not before.

If you can’t see this, then we have nothing more to discuss.

Make Conjurered Weapons act as weapon kits. When you activate conjured weapon you will have a F5 ability to drop a weapon that would act like the current conjured weapons for other players, but it will have charges and a duration just like the current weapons.

Done. No more Conjurer trait and everyone gets what they want.

I just figured out how to get 20-25 stacks of might and maintain it for a little bit (~11 stacks for non-eles). If Conjures were changed to be like weapon kits, this would get nerfed into the ground. I suspect there are other skills or tricks out there that would get nerfed if they were weapon kits. Also, there is 0 chance they would allow weapon kits to provide weapons to other players. It would be trivial to drop 5-10 of them on the ground.

Edit:
Just realized there could be an adept conjure trait like this.

Burning Conjures
“Attacks with Conjured weapons have an X% chance to inflict burning”

Edit2: I kinda want something like that, or a general version, for Fire 5, but I’m doubtful that’ll happen.

I don’t know if you guys saw Jon posting this:

ELEMENTALIST

• Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.
• Windborne Dagger is going to function outside of combat.
• Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.
• Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.
• Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.

but why is arcane resurrection going up to master tier? How would I revive zerkers floor sniffers now that it’s going to be master tier? Can anyone explain that? God kitten zerkers.

Fenrina.2954:

Taldren, look at your own comments for a moment.

Taldren.7523:

Fire’s theme is Might Stacking, Damage, and Burning.

What do these 3 things have in common? They’re about attacking; they’re about doing damage. They’re about going on the offensive. Fire focuses on it to an extent that the other 3 do not. That’s what the conjures do, they let people go on the offensive in ways they could not before.

If you can’t see this, then we have nothing more to discuss.

I just don’t get it. All elementalist lines are about attacking. Fire is about pure damage while the other lines are about damage and something else. Conjurer does not fit in with that theme as it does nothing but disrupt the flow of all but PvE combat which is only 1/3 the game.

Fenrina.2954:

I just figured out how to get 20-25 stacks of might and maintain it for a little bit (~11 stacks for non-eles). If Conjures were changed to be like weapon kits, this would get nerfed into the ground. I suspect there are other skills or tricks out there that would get nerfed if they were weapon kits. Also, there is 0 chance they would allow weapon kits to provide weapons to other players. It would be trivial to drop 5-10 of them on the ground.

I already do this on D/D ele. Ring of Fire -> Earth -> Evasive Arcana -> Arcane Wave -> Earth 4 -> Earth 5 -> Lighting Flash to a target while swapping to water for the +20% damage on vulnerable targets. You will have 16-19 stacks of Might on the Earth 5 AE if you were solo. Full 25 if you are in a team.

You would be dead before you hit your 20-25 with your combo in any sort of PvP, especially given your lack of survivability in the build required to achieve it. Not sure why then it would be nerfed into the ground.

haviz.1340:

I don’t know if you guys saw Jon posting this:

ELEMENTALIST

• Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.
• Windborne Dagger is going to function outside of combat.
• Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.
• Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.
• Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.

but why is arcane resurrection going up to master tier? How would I revive zerkers floor sniffers now that it’s going to be master tier? Can anyone explain that? God kitten zerkers.

Hopefully they take some more of our suggestions!!

I’m glad they posted that, but them not saying anything about elemental attunement, cleansing wave, renewing stamina… Doesn’t mean that they’re not still going to move those to master tier… Unless we can get confirmation on more of the things we’ve discussed…?

That soothing Wave Redesign though! With cleansing water trait! Yes please.

You wont as forced to blow cantrips to wipe condis if you are taking light condition pressure. That is awesome!

oZii.2864:

That soothing Wave Redesign though! With cleansing water trait! Yes please.

You wont as forced to blow cantrips to wipe condis if you are taking light condition pressure. That is awesome!

Cleansing Water has an ICD in pvp. Not sure I’d want to have the procs tied to random chance of the opponent critting.

Elsewhere, it’s definitely viable, although mob crits are pretty few and far between except for mobs that grant themselves fury.

Just a few trait ideas for Fire 5. Are they any good?

Flame Barrier
While in Fire Attunement, take X% less damage from enemies that are burning.

Using burning as the trigger helps d/d since it has the longest burn duration (Drake’s Breath). Also, burning can be removed so others do have a way around it.

Smokey Spell
While in Fire Attunement, attacks you make* have an X% chance of inflicting Blind for Y seconds.

Tried to find any defensive debuffs that can be linked to Fire. There are two: Blind with Steam and Smoke Vent (granted smoke is a engi flamethrower skill), and Cripple coming from Lava Chains and Fiery Whirl. Cripple seems like a weird thing to use for a general fire trait. (Shouldn’t that be an Earth thing?)

*Can be “when you are attacked”

Taldren.7523:

I just don’t get it.

Then I don’t think you ever will. Perhaps conjures aren’t good for your playstyle.

You would be dead before you hit your 20-25 with your combo in any sort of PvP, especially given your lack of survivability in the build required to achieve it. Not sure why then it would be nerfed into the ground.

The second iteration of the test build was 30 Fire, Arcana 30 with 10 leftover (probably Water). I only needed Arcana for the buff duration so any traits from there could be used. It’s not that much worse than a typical build. It’s also achieving it with far less effort than your 3 element dance, without a party, without d/d, at greater range, with just auto-attacks*, and letting me use Lightning Flash whenever I want. The downsides? Cooldowns and someone else picking up the backup weapon, and Fire 30.

If you don’t like for pvp, then so be it. But being able to get 23 stacks of might on demand with auto-attack in pve is a bit silly.

*23 stacks consistently. 24 sorta, 25 not possible without runes/Giver’s

Treborlavok.3504:

Hopefully they take some more of our suggestions!!

I’m glad they posted that, but them not saying anything about elemental attunement, cleansing wave, renewing stamina… Doesn’t mean that they’re not still going to move those to master tier… Unless we can get confirmation on more of the things we’ve discussed…?

Renewing stamina stays at adept according to this.

Treborlavok.3504:

Hopefully they take some more of our suggestions!!

I’m glad they posted that, but them not saying anything about elemental attunement, cleansing wave, renewing stamina… Doesn’t mean that they’re not still going to move those to master tier… Unless we can get confirmation on more of the things we’ve discussed…?

You might’ve missed this:

“Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.”

Doesn’t change anything for me (staff build), but yeah. You’ll still be able to pack EA and RS in one build with this.

I’m just hoping they’re going to get the go-ahead for keeping Cleansing Wave at adept, and the only reason it’s not listed is that they haven’t confirmed it.

Taldren.7523:

Fenrina.2954:

The reason conjures are fire is simple. They give the player addition attack options. I use Frost Bow to attack from a range I couldn’t. Fire is about attacking. Attacking is the theme that binds conjures to Fire. If your looking at conjures for reasons other than “does this give me attack options I want,” you will likely be disappointed no matter how low the cooldowns get.

So Fire is about attack … and yet all elementalists use Air for attack. You see a disconnect with your logic? All Conjured weapons are about attack and all (well less so with water) attunements are about attack as well. You really have to go out of your way to make some 6 degree connection why Conjuerer is a fire trait.

Still my solution:
Make Conjurered Weapons act as weapon kits. When you activate conjured weapon you will have a F5 ability to drop a weapon that would act like the current conjured weapons for other players, but it will have charges and a duration just like the current weapons.

Done. No more Conjurer trait and everyone gets what they want.

Or you could perhaps make the conjured weapon a single utility slot to be based on attunement so that u can chose weapon that is summoned. Make the CD on the shorter side (because it displaces your 20 weapon skill set) so you can use it more regularly as situations arrive.

I did realize DiogoSilva brought it up in the other thread. At least for sPvP purposes the soothing wave is interesting since there Cleansing Water has the ICD on it.

I like the change I can see the issue with the icd on Cleansing Water though if you are infact popping a cantrip with soothing disruption and or elemental attunement synergy you would have issues.

From a WvW perspective though I am very pleased with that trait. 30 in water Soothing Wave(assuming soothing wave is adept), cantrip mastery, cleansing water. Is better condition management then the normal water setup. I won’t feel I have to have soothing disruption with cantrips and their long cooldown.

If it stays at master their and cleansing wave stays adept I will still pick that over cleansing wave.

Jon answered this making it even better!

JonPeters.5630:

The design for soothing wave is that it won’t trigger the ICD unless it actually removes a condition.

This is a increase in elementalist sustain

Jaytee.9513:

Or you could perhaps make the conjured weapon a single utility slot to be based on attunement so that u can chose weapon that is summoned. Make the CD on the shorter side (because it displaces your 20 weapon skill set) so you can use it more regularly as situations arrive.

If a person is only interested in only one conjure, this makes it harder to access it quickly. I don’t need to pull out a Lightning Hammer or Earth Shield if I want Frost Bow for 900 range attacks.

Biggest problem seems to be Charges vs Cooldown. 25 Charges is fine for 30 second cooldown. 50 Charges works best for 60 second cooldown. Instead, we’re given 25 Charges for 60 second cools. Sure, we can pick up the second weapon, but frequently, it’ll get snatched.

Oh my god, Jon Peters listened to my suggestion to make windborne daggers function outside of combat! Thank you! This is huge in WvW since an extra utility slot (from saying goodbye to signet of air) is worth more to me than most traits. My only qualm is that it requires two daggers for 25% speed, so for d/f (an incredibly fun set that wrecks projectile classes) it’s still not really worth it. I’ll take what I can get for now though. I just hope they make sure not to remove the buff when using a conjure.

Still hoping cleansing wave remains adept, because being able to clear blind at the end of churning earth channel is often vital. With the change to soothing mist, it sounds like that may be the case?

Cleansing Wave nerf. GG

Fenrina.2954:

Jaytee.9513:

Or you could perhaps make the conjured weapon a single utility slot to be based on attunement so that u can chose weapon that is summoned. Make the CD on the shorter side (because it displaces your 20 weapon skill set) so you can use it more regularly as situations arrive.

If a person is only interested in only one conjure, this makes it harder to access it quickly. I don’t need to pull out a Lightning Hammer or Earth Shield if I want Frost Bow for 900 range attacks.

Biggest problem seems to be Charges vs Cooldown. 25 Charges is fine for 30 second cooldown. 50 Charges works best for 60 second cooldown. Instead, we’re given 25 Charges for 60 second cools. Sure, we can pick up the second weapon, but frequently, it’ll get snatched.

Just saying that these weapons are highly situation, being able to access all of them with one utility slot maybe more enticing for players to use it. A lower cd would allow tossing them to get weapon skills back not as costly (60 seconds is too long imho). This would also help break range lock on ele’s weapon sets.

Switching attunement should be second nature for any elementalist…it would work like summon elemental skill.

Jaytee.9513:

Switching attunement should be second nature for any elementalist…it would work like summon elemental skill.

In my case, I want to stack might and damage multipliers for use with Ice Storm. Having to switch to Water means I have to wait for Fire to finish cooling before I can generate might with the Bow. (Burning isn’t a big deal since I can inflict that via a signet if needed.).

@Jon:

The thing is Jon, because of our low base defense and no stealth or clones, we Elementalists are crazily vulnerable to immobilize and stun. Until that changes, condition removals and stunbreakers are a neccesity on elementalists. Thus any plans you have to make water less attractive will fail because we don’t take it because we want to, we take it because we must.

You may not like the idea of increasing our base health, but it seems to be the only viable option. Traits like Diamond Skin won’t solve the issue, if anything, they will force people into Water even more just so they can keep their health up.

Another suggestion I would like to give is to make weapon sets assignable to each attunement.

We have 3 or 4 weapons in our set which we can then assign to each attunement eg. staff assigned to fire and air, dagger/focus on water and and earth etc.

We could then have way more flexibility with our builds (not getting range locked, builds for single target busts, or better defense/escape set ups.)

Jabberwock.9014:

Oh my god, Jon Peters listened to my suggestion to make windborne daggers function outside of combat! Thank you! This is huge in WvW since an extra utility slot (from saying goodbye to signet of air) is worth more to me than most traits. My only qualm is that it requires two daggers for 25% speed, so for d/f (an incredibly fun set that wrecks projectile classes) it’s still not really worth it. I’ll take what I can get for now though. I just hope they make sure not to remove the buff when using a conjure.

Still hoping cleansing wave remains adept, because being able to clear blind at the end of churning earth channel is often vital. With the change to soothing mist, it sounds like that may be the case?

With the new windborne and fix on lingering elements D/F should be able to get the same movement bonus of 25%

ThiBash.5634:

@Jon:

The thing is Jon, because of our low base defense and no stealth or clones, we Elementalists are crazily vulnerable to immobilize and stun. Until that changes, condition removals and stunbreakers are a neccesity on elementalists. Thus any plans you have to make water less attractive will fail because we don’t take it because we want to, we take it because we must.

You may not like the idea of increasing our base health, but it seems to be the only viable option. Traits like Diamond Skin won’t solve the issue, if anything, they will force people into Water even more just so they can keep their health up.

I think they just want to make bad traits better not necessarily make good traits less attractive. Though it did seem like that in the past before they started the Collab and This balance patch discussion I sometimes thought that was how they looked at traits sometimes.

Cleansing wave could stay at adept and soothing wave with the change could stay at master so people looking for more management don’t have to go far into water. I see what you are getting at though but they did add the condition removal trait into fire. That will make people not so worried about going deep into the fire line.

The only way to make water less attractive is to have condition removal in every line which I just don’t see happening. Ele’s condition management is some of/if not the best in the game along side guardians. Just like guardians a necro can ruin your day also as a counter.

The all around cleaner regardless of how you spec is Ether Renewal that is what puts Ele over the top of Guardians for personal condition management. Though it has a extremely long cast time but is extremely good if you can get it off.

I am sure they factor Ether Renewal into their balance talks my guess is that skill has more to do with how they look at ele’s condition management resources than any of the traits.

Fenrina.2954:

Jaytee.9513:

Switching attunement should be second nature for any elementalist…it would work like summon elemental skill.

In my case, I want to stack might and damage multipliers for use with Ice Storm. Having to switch to Water means I have to wait for Fire to finish cooling before I can generate might with the Bow. (Burning isn’t a big deal since I can inflict that via a signet if needed.).

Stack might first with fire/earth attunement then switch to water/ hit summon conjure (if you have sigil of battle it also adds might also). I think Might added thru EA is not that large (1 stack?).

The thing I just don’t get is why the Elementalist’s defense must be nerfed in the first place. I haven’t seen any complaints about it recently, quite the opposite.

oZii.2864

The all around cleaner regardless of how you spec is Ether Renewal that is what puts Ele over the top of Guardians. for personal condition management. Though it has a extremely long cast time but is extremely good if you can get it off.

When you get immobilized, you need an instant cleanse, not somethign that may or may not work over the next few seconds. Immobilize is pretty much a death sentence for eles an it’s getting spammed around for free. An engineer can spam immobilize every 8 seconds (without the turret even) while Cleansing Wave has a cooldown of 10 minimum. There’s no good reason to move it up a trait and Jon knows it, because he’s admitted as much. But it still goes through even though we all know people will bring more water, not less.

Since we are asking for wishlists in an attempt to make other trees more valuable here is something I have been thinking of for the fire line.

Swap Flame Barrier with Sunspot. Change Flame Barrier to gain fire aura for 3 seconds when attuning to fire.

Sunspot in the Adept Minor mirrors well with the Water Minor. Fire burns, water “soothes.”

Changing flame barrier to a guaranteed “you gain fire aura on fire attunement”which will allows eles to have good access to fire aura and synergies with the other aura traits.

Move conjurer to adept level and combine with burning fire. Conjured weapons just got a huge boost and makes them more accessable. Make a new master level trait that would synergize with auras. Aura’s grant 3s of retaliation.

Now an offensive style D/D build would be more viable. I don’t think such a change would be OP since it would now force a choice between aura traits or evasive arcana.

ThiBash.5634:

The thing I just don’t get is why the Elementalist’s defense must be nerfed in the first place. I haven’t seen any complaints about it recently, quite the opposite.

I just think they look at traits a little bit differently. I can’t fault them for realizing there are bad traits and then admitting to a trait that is bad and trying to make that trait good instead of dismissing it as a bad trait. Once that trait is changed then it has to be considered as to what tier it is best placed at. I have a feeling that soothing wave change will become a really popular trait.

I think the 30 Earth Diamond skin change really impacts the Cleansing Wave decision to keep it moved to Master.

Someone puts 30 into earth, 10 into water for cleansing wave, Then where do they go for damage with 30 points left over? 20 in fire to grab even more condition removal long with +200 power, where to next? 10 in air for mobility with zephyr’s boon or I go a full 30 into power and blast finish to maintain fury while stacking crazy might. Load utility bar with cantrips to include cleansing flame, maybe throw on signet of water also. A ele doesn’t necessarily have to spec deep into precision.

I think that is the kind of builds they worry about.

Jaytee.9513:

Stack might first with fire/earth attunement then switch to water/ hit summon conjure (if you have sigil of battle it also adds might also). I think Might added thru EA is not that large (1 stack?).

All that just to snipe an enemy at 900 range? I could understand it if one was preparing for a big Churning Earth or similar, but that seems a bit excessive to me for sniping.

Edit: Just dawned on me, by “snipe” I mean get first strike and keep them down while I attack at range. I cannot be in combat when I strike. Any might stacking that requires combat will not work.

My only concern with diamond skin is that when pair with Ether Renewal, it can be too powerful against classes that rely on condition as their main source of damage.

Ether Renewal is already a very powerful healing skill that remove a total of 8 conditions every 15 seconds. When pair with diamond skin, it not only cleanse all the remaining condition on the ele, it also constantly heal ele so it can maintain above 90% hp when channeling, so a total of 4 seconds immunity to condition every 15 seconds.

This would be very unfair in 1 on 1 situation to necro and engineer who rely almost entirely on condition damage as their main source of damage.

So if I want to use a ranged build I’ve still gotta go Fresh Air, but I can drop ten points in Arcana to put in Water if I feel like it.

Are eles ever gonna get a ranged option that doesn’t require squishiness?

The vast majority hate the way conjurers are implemented for the very reason I keep telling you, but you think your little trick you just found is somehow validation to keep every other aspect of the game locked out of using so many of our abilities. A little trick that is done far easier other ways.

Fenrina.2954:

The second iteration of the test build was 30 Fire, Arcana 30 with 10 leftover (probably Water). I only needed Arcana for the buff duration so any traits from there could be used. It’s not that much worse than a typical build. It’s also achieving it with far less effort than your 3 element dance, without a party, without d/d, at greater range, with just auto-attacks*, and letting me use Lightning Flash whenever I want. The downsides? Cooldowns and someone else picking up the backup weapon, and Fire 30.

Far less effort? Takes me 5 seconds solo to build 16-19 stacks of might (13-16 on up to 5 other people) … and I am using Lighting Flash for exactly what I want it to do … put me in range for the 8 – 15k hit with Earth 5.

What you are describing will never work in any sort of PvP situation (WvW Roaming, WvW Zerging, sPvP, and tPvP). As I keep trying to remind you … PvE only is only 1/3 of the game … so having so many abilities (and laying claim to an entire spec line theme) dedicated to this is … well … silly at best.

My method for might stacking is easier without needing to kitten a class (or keep it that way in the first place).

In order for conjures to be usable to the masses it needs to function as kits … and if you want to keep your companion weapon with charges/duration do it by adding a F5 drop weapon ability that has its own cooldown.