Guild Wars 2

Delmain.5167:

Leuca.5732:

Delmain.5167:

as for Elemental Attunement, I have yet to see an argument that could have a chance at reverting that decision, mostly because they defeat their own argument when they state how important the trait is which can also be seen as how powerful this trait is.

Actually, the reason it’s so important is that Elementalists run off of boons; a great deal of their skills were obviously balanced around having decent might stacks, and protection is an absolute must for a low health profession.

You could completely remove its aoe and cut the protection duration in half and it would still be brought because the boons are base level operating for Elementalists.

More traits should have the synergy Elemental Attunement does; simply nerfing/raising tiers does nothing to help the viable trait option problem.

But part of the developers jobs is to balance the traits. People may just get Elemental Attunement just for the protection, but the fact still remains it grants might, regeneration, swiftness, and protection to you and 4 other people at most. This trait has been stated by developers as being too strong for an adept trait and they are completely right on that issue. While this does nothing to improve our trait options, it does not give an excuse to have powerful traits early. As an adept trait, Elemental Attunement was the best choice among most of the adept and master traits. It is unreasonable for people to expect this trait to stay in adept, not to mention the outcry the developers would get if they weakened the trait to fit in adept.

Given how weak elementalists are in general, it shouldn’t even be a trait to begin with. It should just be something we have inherently whenever we swap attunements since attunement swapping is our big thing. Why not? Guardians have bonuses for their virtues without having to trait for it. They can trait to get even more bonuses than they already get, although the passives are kinda blah on resolve and courage. Resolve in particular is very weak, but that’s another discussion entirely.

Give elemental attunement boons on swap to self naturally, make the trait give these boons to nearby allies. Tadam!

Zelyhn.8069:

Give elemental attunement boons on swap to self naturally, make the trait give these boons to nearby allies. Tadam!

I would also add an increase duration to boons on the trait in addition to sharing. Make it a 2 second increase.

Delmain.5167:

But part of the developers jobs is to balance the traits.

So attempt to balance it before nerfing it by moving it up a tier when you’re trying to decrease dependence on its traitline.

People may just get Elemental Attunement just for the protection

Protection is the most universally useful buff it provides, but it’s not even close to being the sole reason many eles take it.

but the fact still remains it grants might, regeneration, swiftness, and protection to you and 4 other people at most.

Remove aoe. Cutting a trait’s potential numerical output by 80% while letting it remain useful to its profession is bad how?

This trait has been stated by developers as being too strong for an adept trait and they are completely right on that issue. While this does nothing to improve our trait options, it does not give an excuse to have powerful traits early. As an adept trait, Elemental Attunement was the best choice among most of the adept and master traits. It is unreasonable for people to expect this trait to stay in adept, not to mention the outcry the developers would get if they weakened the trait to fit in adept.

Most of the adept and master traits are garbage; saying EA is the best isn’t saying much, though it is definitely good. It’s hardly unreasonable for people to expect some semblance of this trait to stay at adept tier because boons are base-level operating for Elementalists. I’m pretty sure more people would be more upset by a tier change than an efficacy nerf, because removing aoe and decreasing the protection duration would still allow for the Elementalist to function while also ensuring that defensive lines are actually utilized when one wishes to go for a support role.

The fact is that eles are a boon-hungry class. Removing our access to them without compensation does nothing to help build versatility, and counteracts changes made that try to accomplish this goal.

Zelyhn.8069:

Give elemental attunement boons on swap to self naturally, make the trait give these boons to nearby allies. Tadam!

ZELYHN STAHP. LOGIC TOO STRONK.

Zelyhn.8069:

Give elemental attunement boons on swap to self naturally, make the trait give these boons to nearby allies. Tadam!

This would make the most sense, elemental attunement is the base of elementalist survivability and alone with such a low healthpool it isn’t enough but yet it is still a must have in any elementalist build.

This should by all means be a natural part of the elementalist attunement swamping mechanic. But no they want us to trait 20 points into arcane for it now, what?

Leuca.5732:

Delmain.5167:

But part of the developers jobs is to balance the traits.

So attempt to balance it before nerfing it by moving it up a tier when you’re trying to decrease dependence on its traitline.

People may just get Elemental Attunement just for the protection

Protection is the most universally useful buff it provides, but it’s not even close to being the sole reason many eles take it.

but the fact still remains it grants might, regeneration, swiftness, and protection to you and 4 other people at most.

Remove aoe. Cutting a trait’s potential numerical output by 80% while letting it remain useful to its profession is bad how?

This trait has been stated by developers as being too strong for an adept trait and they are completely right on that issue. While this does nothing to improve our trait options, it does not give an excuse to have powerful traits early. As an adept trait, Elemental Attunement was the best choice among most of the adept and master traits. It is unreasonable for people to expect this trait to stay in adept, not to mention the outcry the developers would get if they weakened the trait to fit in adept.

Most of the adept and master traits are garbage; saying EA is the best isn’t saying much, though it is definitely good. It’s hardly unreasonable for people to expect some semblance of this trait to stay at adept tier because boons are base-level operating for Elementalists. I’m pretty sure more people would be more upset by a tier change than an efficacy nerf, because removing aoe and decreasing the protection duration would still allow for the Elementalist to function while also ensuring that defensive lines are actually utilized when one wishes to go for a support role.

The fact is that eles are a boon-hungry class. Removing our access to them without compensation does nothing to help build versatility, and counteracts changes made that try to accomplish this goal.

Since I don’t know how to speak between quotations, I’ll just have to make do.
1. In the end, you are still saying “nerf it” and I mentioned that a majority of people would get mad about this trait getting hit like that.
2. I know. I use Elemental Attunement for the protection, swiftness, and regen. The might is just extra to me.
3. Removing the AoE portion might have helped, if we Elementalists wouldn’t take a hit on its group playability (even with its rather low radius, a well-timed protection can change everything).
4. a good portion of the adept and master traits are indeed worthless which is another reason as to not reducing the effectiveness of Elemental Attunement, why make a good trait worth less when we already so many worthless traits? Also lets see what are now in the arcane adept. Vigorous Scepter, Blasting Staff, Windborne Dagger, Renewing Stamina, Arcane Resurrection, and Arcane Mastery. Can you honestly say Elemental Attunement is weaker than any of these?

The developers have to start somewhere and they are starting at both ends. Reducing the reachability of good traits, and improving weaker and less-used traits. Also if all our good traits were on the bottom, why would anyone want to go further in the traitlines? One OP build is just as bad for build variety as one viable build, and the developers know it.

So, where are the devs talking on this forum? Been a while since they’ve said something about how ‘’OP ele is still’’ and how ‘’they destroy everything with the 0-30-30-10-0 build they run’’.
Like for real, I like the effort you guys are trying to put in the game, but you’ve been failing on ele since day #1.
Where are those times when people rolled ele to actually be better just because of the profession? Oh right… there are none. Now even ranger got higher than ele.
Where’s our survivability? Where is our massive 4k rofl #1 spam till you kill someone while having 30k hp and 9562350armor? Oh right, we never, ever had those times.

And now what? You gonna even NERF the elementalist more till it becomes useless throughout the whole game?
Saying: ‘’It just seems fine for me with the new patches.’’ because YOU tested it against a few players that got 0 skill is not, I repeat, NOT an argument for the patches you guys are trying to do
For gods sake, listen to the players once. These bullkitten conjure weapons are not gonna bring us up in any part of the game. Especially while even nerfing the rest of our skills/traits.

Delmain.5167:

Since I don’t know how to speak between quotations, I’ll just have to make do.
1. In the end, you are still saying “nerf it” and I mentioned that a majority of people would get mad about this trait getting hit like that.
2. I know. I use Elemental Attunement for the protection, swiftness, and regen. The might is just extra to me.
3. Removing the AoE portion might have helped, if we Elementalists wouldn’t take a hit on its group playability (even with its rather low radius, a well-timed protection can change everything).
4. a good portion of the adept and master traits are indeed worthless which is another reason as to not reducing the effectiveness of Elemental Attunement, why make a good trait worth less when we already so many worthless traits? Also lets see what are now in the arcane adept. Vigorous Scepter, Blasting Staff, Windborne Dagger, Renewing Stamina, Arcane Resurrection, and Arcane Mastery. Can you honestly say Elemental Attunement is weaker than any of these?

The developers have to start somewhere and they are starting at both ends. Reducing the reachability of good traits, and improving weaker and less-used traits. Also if all our good traits were on the bottom, why would anyone want to go further in the traitlines? One OP build is just as bad for build variety as one viable build, and the developers know it.

Apologies; I’m rather used to bb code.

Yes, I am saying nerf it. I agree that it’s too strong, but I also think its function is too core to the Ele itself to be master level. It needs to be toned down while remaining accessible. The Eles that are actually gearing their builds towards support have myriad tools that affect areas besides Elemental Attunement. Eles can already trait to give protection to allies with Auras, and aoe stability with one trait that’s at master tier.

Most of the traits Eles don’t use are either redundant (Windborne Dagger, Vigorous Scepter) or useless the vast majority of the time (Arcane Resurrection). This has almost nothing to do with Elemental Attunement being a solid trait and almost everything to do with the developers not adequately testing their trait library before launch. When you take a trait that is useful in nearly all situations and compare it to a trait that is effective in few situations, the former will always win out.

There are a few traits in each tier that possess this quality, and that’s why those traits become part of the meta. Unless something is buffed/changed to numerically compensate for the self-sufficiency Eles will lose by moving EA to master tier, the only thing this update will do is shove Eles further into Arcana or further into glass cannon builds.

BlackDevil.9268:

For gods sake, listen to the players once. These bullkitten conjure weapons are not gonna bring us up in any part of the game. Especially while even nerfing the rest of our skills/traits.

Not true. Lightning Hammer is incredibly useful in PvE, since it compensates for the low damage of scepter autos and it gives regular blasts/blinds/aoe. There are a few great S/D + LH builds out there, and the update’s going to allow 10/10/25/25/0 with Conjurer trait, which I’m happy about.

On the subject of useful conjures, no sane person will ever say Fiery Rush isn’t useful.

Plus, every single PvE staff and S/D + LH build is going to get buffed by the Dec 10th update, since they invest either 0 or 10 in Arcana. So overall, I’m quite happy with the update. And you should be too; even if you’re not, raging at the devs isn’t going to do any good.

Anierna.6918:

BlackDevil.9268:

For gods sake, listen to the players once. These bullkitten conjure weapons are not gonna bring us up in any part of the game. Especially while even nerfing the rest of our skills/traits.

Not true. Lightning Hammer is incredibly useful in PvE, since it compensates for the low damage of scepter autos and it gives regular blasts/blinds/aoe. There are a few great S/D + LH builds out there, and the update’s going to allow 10/10/25/25/0 with Conjurer trait, which I’m happy about.

On the subject of useful conjures, no sane person will ever say Fiery Rush isn’t useful.

Plus, every single PvE staff and S/D + LH build is going to get buffed by the Dec 10th update, since they invest either 0 or 10 in Arcana. So overall, I’m quite happy with the update. And you should be too; even if you’re not, raging at the devs isn’t going to do any good.

You’re talking about pve, you can run anything in pve. And even if, ele is far from being the best in pve. Just roll war and faceroll 1-5.
The balances arenanet makes are around spvp/tpvp, not PvE.
I don’t see I should be happy with this patch. I don’t even PvE.
And what? Raging, after waiting 1 year for the devs to clear their mind and actually improve elementalist instead of nerfing it time after time, is wierd? Wow, guess I’m impatient.

Elementalist is a viable option in PvE thanks to LH, and it’ll apparently get further buffed in the upcoming patch with the buff to fire #25, earth #5 and lower base attunement cooldowns.

In my opinion, auto-attacks (= sustain damage) is the third big issue with elementalists, behind base survival and base attunement cooldowns. Arc Lightning, Lightning Whip and Fireball are the only good auto-attacks we have, and the first one is underwhelming to built around it in PvE. Meanwhile, LH has a godlike auto-atack against the AI.

BlackDevil.9268:

You’re talking about pve, you can run anything in pve. And even if, ele is far from being the best in pve. Just roll war and faceroll 1-5.
The balances arenanet makes are around spvp/tpvp, not PvE.
I don’t see I should be happy with this patch. I don’t even PvE.
And what? Raging, after waiting 1 year for the devs to clear their mind and actually improve elementalist instead of nerfing it time after time, is wierd? Wow, guess I’m impatient.

You can’t run just anything in PvE; there are metas, and running a meta does make a huge difference to group performance. Ele’s running something other than zerk/assassins get kicked; Ele’s traiting further than 10 into Arcana get kicked; Ele’s not traiting into damage modifiers get kicked; Ele’s not stacking might get kicked. And fyi, Ele top damage is higher than warrior top damage.

Devs DO make decisions around PvE; their decision to keep Arcana VI at Adept was PvE-motivated. EA is useless in PvE, since Ele’s are staying in a single atunement the majority of the time for damage modifiers, but VI is useful in certain circumstances. Both are useful in PvP. Therefore, the devs made the right call in keeping a trait that’s useful in more situations at the adept tier, and moving a trait that’s useful in fewer situations to the master tier.

Anierna.6918:

BlackDevil.9268:

You’re talking about pve, you can run anything in pve. And even if, ele is far from being the best in pve. Just roll war and faceroll 1-5.
The balances arenanet makes are around spvp/tpvp, not PvE.
I don’t see I should be happy with this patch. I don’t even PvE.
And what? Raging, after waiting 1 year for the devs to clear their mind and actually improve elementalist instead of nerfing it time after time, is wierd? Wow, guess I’m impatient.

You can’t run just anything in PvE; there are metas, and running a meta does make a huge difference to group performance. Ele’s running something other than zerk/assassins get kicked; Ele’s traiting further than 10 into Arcana get kicked; Ele’s not traiting into damage modifiers get kicked; Ele’s not stacking might get kicked. And fyi, Ele top damage is higher than warrior top damage.

Devs DO make decisions around PvE; their decision to keep Arcana VI at Adept was PvE-motivated. EA is useless in PvE, since Ele’s are staying in a single atunement the majority of the time for damage modifiers, but VI is useful in certain circumstances. Both are useful in PvP. Therefore, the devs made the right call in keeping a trait that’s useful in more situations at the adept tier, and moving a trait that’s useful in fewer situations to the master tier.

That 1 sentence already describes how broken elementalist and PvE is in this game.
And yes, you can run anything in pve. Meta or not, you can beat pve with every single build, being kicked out of a party because you dont got the right gears does not mean you can’t beat it.

You can do PvE with stockpiled environmental weapons. Although there is something to be said for that, because frankly, I’d probably have more fun spamming Mini Golem Bomb than I do with the effective builds eles have for PvP settings.

Leuca.5732:

Apologies; I’m rather used to bb code.

Yes, I am saying nerf it. I agree that it’s too strong, but I also think its function is too core to the Ele itself to be master level. It needs to be toned down while remaining accessible. The Eles that are actually gearing their builds towards support have myriad tools that affect areas besides Elemental Attunement. Eles can already trait to give protection to allies with Auras, and aoe stability with one trait that’s at master tier.

Really? You would rather elemental attunement be nerfed and left at Adept than moved to master and staying the same? Renewing staming is more important than elemental attunement Vigor>every boon from elemental attunement.

Back to you saying it should be toned down. It sounds like you are saying that just to “be right”. My apologies if I am in correct in my assumption but really? 5 secs of protection, swiftness, regen, and 15 secs of might is to strong?

I also don’t think it is master tier because the options at adept are weak therefore it is master by default. Popularity of a trait does not make it to strong or op. You can’t even keep any of the boons up perma besides might even with 100% boon duration because of the GCD.

At adept I would like to hear a reasonable Adept tier Elemental attunement that would make people take it because 5 seconds is pretty borderline. I think the trait is good but it is far from OP or broken or to good it is just the best adept/master choice when you weed through the choices.

oZii.2864:

Leuca.5732:

Apologies; I’m rather used to bb code.

Yes, I am saying nerf it. I agree that it’s too strong, but I also think its function is too core to the Ele itself to be master level. It needs to be toned down while remaining accessible. The Eles that are actually gearing their builds towards support have myriad tools that affect areas besides Elemental Attunement. Eles can already trait to give protection to allies with Auras, and aoe stability with one trait that’s at master tier.

Really? You would rather elemental attunement be nerfed and left at Adept than moved to master and staying the same? Renewing staming is more important than elemental attunement Vigor>every boon from elemental attunement.

Yes, I would rather it lack aoe and remain adept. I have plenty of other abilities to support allies.

Back to you saying it should be toned down. It sounds like you are saying that just to “be right”. My apologies if I am in correct in my assumption but really? 5 secs of protection, swiftness, regen, and 15 secs of might is to strong?

Honestly I think the main problem EA has that makes it worth moving to master tier is the duration of protection and the fact that it’s aoe. These two factors make it numerically very strong in comparison to other adept traits that apply boons. If the protection was short enough to be a significant anti-spike measure and the aoe was reduced/removed, this trait would keep the bulk of its relevance without forcing Elementalists further into Arcana.[/quote]

Leuca.5732:

Honestly I think the main problem EA has that makes it worth moving to master tier is the duration of protection and the fact that it’s aoe. These two factors make it numerically very strong in comparison to other adept traits that apply boons. If the protection was short enough to be a significant anti-spike measure and the aoe was reduced/removed, this trait would keep the bulk of its relevance without forcing Elementalists further into Arcana.

You make some good points when I look at protection application across the game the AOE of it does give it a bonus compared to a few other traits. The 5 seconds of it is a bit more than what is available early to other classes. Looking at most traits it looks like 3 seconds is the base there at adept.

I think they should give protection to all aura’s then if you want to share it you trait powerful aura’s and it actually makes powerful aura’s look good at GM. I think this would alleviate the feel to need to grab Elemental attunement at Master for those that don’t want to go deep in Arcana. With the elementalists base stats if they really want to keep it that way I think inherent protection for aura’s would really help open up builds then replace elemental shielding with something else.

oZii.2864:

I think they should give protection to all aura’s then if you want to share it you trait powerful aura’s and it actually makes powerful aura’s look good at GM. I think this would alleviate the feel to need to grab Elemental attunement at Master for those that don’t want to go deep in Arcana. With the elementalists base stats if they really want to keep it that way I think inherent protection for aura’s would really help open up builds then replace elemental shielding with something else.

Perhaps a 10% damage reduction that stacks additively?

Zelyhn.8069:

Give elemental attunement boons on swap to self naturally, make the trait give these boons to nearby allies. Tadam!

This, so much this. Please Anet, listen to this guy.

One With Air. i really like this idea. if you add +1 sec duration and make it to remove chill,root and cripple (or just to remove root – the worst elem. enemy) it would be one of the best air trait ever. When I use it in pvp I see how it strong and has good potential.

even with 1 sec dur. it has good synergy with fresh air, plz make more viable.

Replace “Blasting Staff” with “Blast Radius” to improve aoes with all weapons.

I don’ t think they will ever balance the Elementalist. I think they have a fundamental problem in understanding how this profession actually works.

They put so much value in the fact that they have 20 skills instead of 10. They realize that Elemental attunement has become a necessity due to quick access to the protection boon and the regeneration/condition removal synergy with the Water traits. Arcane and Water have so much synergy it’s almost like they were designed to be together by accident. Water increases healing and health which strengthens the Elementalists weak defences and also includes Cantrip recharge reduction, which happen to be the best utility skills to use.

If Fire, Earth and Air could have a similar synergetic relationship, how would running around with low healing, low health, no protection, reduced regeneration/condition removal skills, higher Cantrip cooldowns and slower attunement swapping benefit the profession with the lowest health and armor in the game?

HOW?

Can our FOCUS get a 20% faster recharge trait? Like other professions have.

I see some great and some terrible things suggested in these posts here.

I’d really love to see, though, some Dev comments. It’s been over eight pages without a comment one way or another.

Conversation is all over the place, and some comments for us to bounce off of would be nice.

ive said it once and ill say it again!!!! 20 second RTL —- DO IT please!!!!!!

Fishbones.6914:

ive said it once and ill say it again!!!! 20 second RTL —- DO IT please!!!!!!

15 seconds. it should just be reverted back to original recharge time. the reduction in range was more than enough of a nerf.

And here we go, all this discussion to come back around to an obvious mistake:
The epic fail nerfing of Ride the Lightning and Mist Form.

They nerfed everything that made the bunker strong, smashing build diversity in the process, sadly.

Revert RtL to a flat 15 second cooldown and remove its immunity to movement impairing conditions.

Here’s an idea:

Balance the Elementalist.

I know, crazy right? There are many skills and such that are “DUH” obvious in need of buffs or changes. This thread and many others have laid them out in exhaustive detail, some with very excellent ideas.

And yet, what do we get? Hey we’re going to nerf survivability and mobility skills, not really increase damage, oh and here’s some rather blah changes to conjures to not really make up for it, which, incidentally locks you out of your class defining 20 skills and STILL has both a cooldown and charges.

Then we’re going to ignore the fact that nearly every other profession has some form of inherent survival technique such as Stealth or Death Shroud or a Pet or Minions or higher armor or higher health, etc., etc. and make the survival aspect of the Ele based on small heals and regen, and then nerf that too! HUZZAH!

What ANet needs to do is figure out what every Ele player already has, that the lightest armored, lowest health profession needs some inherent defense so that the Ele CAN be built for more offense to increase build diversity. Much like a Mesmer can be built with full power/crit and Zerker, because the class mechanics and skill combinations (clones and phantasms, invisibility, teleports, diversion, blurred frenzy, etc.) allow for it, an Ele needs the same access. Scholar professions in general should be designed with a high active defense but low passive defense, which relies upon the player’s ability and reaction timing. Contrast the Soldier professions, which should have a lower active defense and high passive defense, as they rely more on armor and health to mitigate incoming damage (or other mechanic such as Aegis and blocking for the Guardian, but these are still “passive” for the most part).

Its always bugged me that ANet has stated in the past that they want the Thief to be the most mobile, which makes little sense given the basic RPG design of rogue archetypes as “slow-movers” who utilize stealth, blinds and such to avoid damage, not teleporting. It also makes no sense from a game balance standpoint, as any person with common sense could tell you, the lightest armored classes by design will have the most mobility to avoid damage, and as you scale up armor, health and passive defenses, mobility is less and less. This is a standard carried across both single player RPGs and MMOs, and most players expect this sort of common sense in the design.

So the fact that Guardians, Warriors, Rangers, Thieves and to some extent Mesmers and Engineers all have better in combat chase/escape mechanisms and out of combat mobility, across both weapon and utility skills makes very little sense from a class balance and design standpoint.

The frustrating thing is, these kinds of issues are readily apparent to a large percentage of the hardcore Ele players, especially in PvP and WvW, where the relative survivability and DPS of Eles is woefully under-par compared to almost every other profession except maybe Rangers. How ANet doesn’t get it is still beyond me. Making Elemental Attunement a natural part of attunement switching seems obvious for example, with a Master Arcana Trait that makes it AoE for up to 5 players. That was a great suggestion, and one that would go a long way to putting the Ele back on competitive footing. But is it a likely change? Probably not. I don’t know what ANet has against the Ele, as the first profession to be showcased during development you’d think it would be the most polished, not bottom tier.

Hi all, I don’t post often but I am glad to see people speaking up about these changes. I usually roll with the punches of patch notes but there are a few things that I would really NOT like to see go through.

1) Moving Elemental Attunement to a Master tier trait really, really sucks. Quite honestly, that trait is very fun and feels like the core of the Elementalist. The trait is already a mandatory pick up for most builds it feels like but moving in to Master tier really hurts build diversity. Please keep it as an adept tier trait or just make it part of switching attunements tbh. It’s too fun of a trait to not have.

2) With Elemental Attunement now being moved to Master tier, it will share that spot with Renewing Vigor. As the profession with the lowest armor and hp, renewing vigor really helped to keep the dodges up to be used for surviving or utility via Evasive Arcana. As a Scepter user, having Vigorous Scepter as an adept solves my problem but my D/D brethren will take a giant hit in survivability while they are in such close range. Perhaps something can be done with Windborne Dagger to increase endurance regeneration as well?

3) Also, please consider keeping Cleansing Wave as an Adept tier trait. It is a very useful skill for removing pesky conditions out in the world like a cripple or poison from a random mob that is keeping you in combat. It is also a good pick up for any build to help a team but doesn’t feel mandatory (similar to Elemental Attunement). Moving in to a master tier would remove the option for builds that want to use their Water attunement as a debuff cleanser instead of a heal burst (15 points in water). I think that’s a bad change and one that limits the jack-of-all-trades capability for Elementalists.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope adding my voice to the conversation helps.

Sinnum.2690:

Hi all, I don’t post often but I am glad to see people speaking up about these changes. I usually roll with the punches of patch notes but there are a few things that I would really NOT like to see go through.

1) Moving Elemental Attunement to a Master tier trait really, really sucks. Quite honestly, that trait is very fun and feels like the core of the Elementalist. The trait is already a mandatory pick up for most builds it feels like but moving in to Master tier really hurts build diversity. Please keep it as an adept tier trait or just make it part of switching attunements tbh. It’s too fun of a trait to not have.

2) With Elemental Attunement now being moved to Master tier, it will share that spot with Renewing Vigor. As the profession with the lowest armor and hp, renewing vigor really helped to keep the dodges up to be used for surviving or utility via Evasive Arcana. As a Scepter user, having Vigorous Scepter as an adept solves my problem but my D/D brethren will take a giant hit in survivability while they are in such close range. Perhaps something can be done with Windborne Dagger to increase endurance regeneration as well?

3) Also, please consider keeping Cleansing Wave as an Adept tier trait. It is a very useful skill for removing pesky conditions out in the world like a cripple or poison from a random mob that is keeping you in combat. It is also a good pick up for any build to help a team but doesn’t feel mandatory (similar to Elemental Attunement). Moving in to a master tier would remove the option for builds that want to use their Water attunement as a debuff cleanser instead of a heal burst (15 points in water). I think that’s a bad change and one that limits the jack-of-all-trades capability for Elementalists.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope adding my voice to the conversation helps.

There have been a couple of change. Renewing stamina is staying at adept and elemental attunement is still moving to master tier.

Ele’s will still need at least 20 points in Arcana, right, regardless of build? And once you have 20 points in, who isn’t going to go the extra 10 for Evasive Arcana?

It appears to me that these changes will do very little to promote build diversity.

Oghier.7419:

Ele’s will still need at least 20 points in Arcana, right, regardless of build? And once you have 20 points in, who isn’t going to go the extra 10 for Evasive Arcana?

It appears to me that these changes will do very little to promote build diversity.

Agreed somewhat on that point. What the change really does though, is prevent people from getting a really strong trait for only a 10 point investment into arcana. I’m sure the hope is to make elementalists less reliant on Elemental attunement, but it’s so integral to the ele’s overall survivability that people will do exactly what you describe.

This is all from a PvP perspective of course.

The real solution should be to give the elementalist other survival tools. Which appears to be what they are doing with diamond skin. I don’t think the upcoming implementation of diamond skin will work though, because it’s competing with Water and Arcana.

Look at what 30 points into the different trait lines offer when specing with the best traits available:

Arcana

• 10 second attunement cool downs
• +30% boon duration
• Fury on attunement
• Perma vigor
• Attunement bonuses apply cross attunement
• On demand AoE regen/prot/swiftness
• Dodge blind, cleanse+heal, blast+cripple+damage

Water

• 3k more health + 300 healing power
• AoE passive healing
• Numerous ways to apply regen
• Condition cleanse on regen OR -20% cantrip recharge
• On demand condition cleanse

Earth

• +300 toughness & +300 condition damage
• +120 toughness while in earth
• On demand aura protection OR stabilty+protection @ 50% health OR +10% dmg
• On demand close range 3 second cripple upon attunement
• On demand stability (not a stun breaker) upon attunement
• +10% damage while endurance full (not dodging?)
• Condition immunity while above 90% (not cleanse?)

If you look at the quality of what’s offered. Arcana and Water are going to be superior even after the update, plus those two synergize together. The real question is why would anyone take earth to deal with conditions and toughness when water is better at dealing with conditions, offers healing, and vitality > toughness in PvP.

It’s pretty much a no brainer that unless diamond skin provides a cleanse upon your health being > 90%, water will still be superior (aside from it’s synergy with arcana). Even if diamond skin had that, it’d still be inferior to Water or Arcana.

Kind of disagree with your assessment that Earth isn’t a good trait line when you listed 7 bullet points for it over the 5 from water without even including geomancer’s freedom in your earth assessment.

Didn’t account for synergy with other trait lines. Fire traitline while still lackluster after the update will have more synergy with earth. 30 fresh builds don’t even go deep into water usually. Many go 10 in earth for the +10% damage because thats a boss trait.

I think people should hold some judgement on 30 earth with diamond skin till after patch. The ones that will be able to test it fully right away will most likely be the ones running condition elementalist builds. They can just move points immediately to see what it is like and get max benefit because they are already running the gear for it.

For WvW something crossed my mind with runes of the elementalist you can get 45% burning duration just from those runes and the new burning fire trait. With an additional 10% with the new toxic sharpening stones if your hybrid setup or a full condi can get 95% just from 10 points in fire, elementalist runes, toxic focusing crystals, and +40% duration food. Thats not bad at all. There is a +15% burn duration and +70% precision food out there too. If they ever fix sigil of smoldering say hello to perma burning eles.

That’s not bad I must say. Even if you aren’t a condition build burning is strong even in a regular damage setup with the might stacking possible.

oZii.2864:

Kind of disagree with your assessment that Earth isn’t a good trait line when you listed 7 bullet points for it over the 5 from water without even including geomancer’s freedom in your earth assessment.

Didn’t account for synergy with other trait lines. Fire traitline while still lackluster after the update will have more synergy with earth. 30 fresh builds don’t even go deep into water usually. Many go 10 in earth for the +10% damage because thats a boss trait.

I think people should hold some judgement on 30 earth with diamond skin till after patch. The ones that will be able to test it fully right away will most likely be the ones running condition elementalist builds. They can just move points immediately to see what it is like and get max benefit because they are already running the gear for it.

True I did leave out geomancers freedom, but I’d never use it if I had to option to go get my health above 90% for a condition cleanse.

I honestly don’t see strong synergy between fire and earth, but I’m talking from a PvP perspective, and that’s clearly what the ele changes are intended for.

Nikkinella.8254:

Fishbones.6914:

ive said it once and ill say it again!!!! 20 second RTL —- DO IT please!!!!!!

15 seconds. it should just be reverted back to original recharge time. the reduction in range was more than enough of a nerf.

Nah. I want my range back. They can keep the current set up as long as they give back the original range.

The range is what made this skill so much fun. Light Dash from the Sun Crystal was a cruel tease after that nerf.

oZii.2864:

For WvW something crossed my mind with runes of the elementalist you can get 45% burning duration just from those runes and the new burning fire trait. With an additional 10% with the new toxic sharpening stones if your hybrid setup or a full condi can get 95% just from 10 points in fire, elementalist runes, toxic focusing crystals, and +40% duration food. Thats not bad at all. There is a +15% burn duration and +70% precision food out there too. If they ever fix sigil of smoldering say hello to perma burning eles.

That’s not bad I must say. Even if you aren’t a condition build burning is strong even in a regular damage setup with the might stacking possible.

Burning condition duration is mostly worthless, because most of our applications of burning already have massive duration (drake’s breath and signet of fire) and will 90% of the time be cleansed without cover conditions long before they expire, or can be reapplied shortly after expiration. It’s much better to take runes of perplexity for an extra cover condition, that also happens to be incredibly strong.

And you can get 40% condition duration just with koi cakes, which is more than enough.

If you wanna see more condi eles in pvp what we need is a poison.

Necros have
confusion, poison, burning, bleed, chill, cripple, torment, weakness,vulnerability,blind and immoblize (all extremely easy to apply and on very low cooldowns, some being spammable and fast casted)

Mesmers have
Confusion,bleed, torment, poison, chill, cripple, weakness, blind, burning, immoblize. (confusion being very spammable)

Engis have
confusion, poison, bleed, burn, chill, vulnerability

Condi eles do NOT have
confusion,poison, torment,vulnerability (unless u wanna count shatterstone which never hits anyone) we have weak cripples, our chills are on very long cooldowns for some reason and we have one immoblize if you are using mainhand dagger, not counting signet of earth because it has a 30 sec cd.

Our conditions are lackluster we rely fully on burn and bleed to do our damage. Which are just usually cleansed before any real harm is done by a competent player.

My idea~

Give us a trait in fire called (Toxic Fumes) Every time you burn an enemy you also have a chance to apply poison (2 seconds 30% chance)

Comet- Dazes enemy and applies confusion (3 stacks for 6 seconds)

Wall of flames- Let us pre-maturely consume our wall of flames (similar to mesmers pull) and get this ability (Toxic Gas, enemies in this cloud of gas get poisoned and crippled (1 second, lasts 5 seconds)

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Kamui.3150:

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Im not sure how anet justifies a 25 sec cd chill that only chills for 3 seconds and deals next to no damage. You know if that was an engy ability or a necro ability its cooldown would be 10-15 seconds tops. (focus chill)

just get rid of that ridiculous fire wall on the focus and make it a teleport or stealth!

and another thing!!!! whats up with our arcane utilities??? arcane wave is trash now…. 30 second CD and it hits for less than lightning whip … so what its a blast finisher? there is a reason cantrips are so popular….. they are just all around fantastic compared to our other options… i used to use arcane wave but now its damage is a joke for a utility slot skill on a 30 second CD

Fishbones.6914:

and another thing!!!! whats up with our arcane utilities??? arcane wave is trash now…. 30 second CD and it hits for less than lightning whip … so what its a blast finisher? there is a reason cantrips are so popular….. they are just all around fantastic compared to our other options… i used to use arcane wave but now its damage is a joke for a utility slot skill on a 30 second CD

I feel like there is no logic to how Arenanet balancing team does stuff, so you might as well give up.

Senjun.8149:

Kamui.3150:

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Im not sure how anet justifies a 25 sec cd chill that only chills for 3 seconds and deals next to no damage. You know if that was an engy ability or a necro ability its cooldown would be 10-15 seconds tops. (focus chill)

Take a look at what Rangers get: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter%27s_Bite

wolfer.1587:

Senjun.8149:

Kamui.3150:

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Im not sure how anet justifies a 25 sec cd chill that only chills for 3 seconds and deals next to no damage. You know if that was an engy ability or a necro ability its cooldown would be 10-15 seconds tops. (focus chill)

Take a look at what Rangers get: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter%27s_Bite

Not surprised.

Fishbones.6914:

and another thing!!!! whats up with our arcane utilities??? arcane wave is trash now…. 30 second CD and it hits for less than lightning whip … so what its a blast finisher? there is a reason cantrips are so popular….. they are just all around fantastic compared to our other options… i used to use arcane wave but now its damage is a joke for a utility slot skill on a 30 second CD

Ya, I dropped it and went back to triple cantrip. Cantrips are mediocre compared to other classes’ utilities, and the rest of our utilities are so pathetic they may as well not even be there.

I’m kinda wondering if Anet has put any thought into what a class is supposed to do while leveling. With the proposed changes, new elementalists get nothing until they get into the master tier.

Just another design flaw with putting everything useful at the master tier.