The current state of Diamond Skin makes it far too strong against condi classes. If you run Carrion or DIRE, forget about winning against an Elementalist using Diamond Skin. Then at the very least it would be more balanced in a 1v1 scenario yet provide eles with more toughness during zerg fights and small battles.
So? Condition builds destroy anybody that doesn’t spec heavily into condi removal. Even if somebody takes as much condition removal as they possibly can, they still won’t keep up with a necro or engi who just spams skills. Everybody has to spec just to have a chance against a condition build. On top of that, fighting a condi build in a 1v1 means potentially hundreds of points in toughness amount to absolutely nothing. Condition builds are op as hell in 1v1 fights, and they’re only slightly less op in groups.
Diamond skin was a terrible trait idea for many reasons, but it’s so pathetic that people using condition builds are actually taking their gripes to the forums. Honestly, tons of other builds have zero chance against conditions in a 1v1, but condition players start whining the second a single trait in rarely used trait line on a profession that isn’t even meta can hard counter them…….only in a 1v1 fight.
Frankly, eles should have never been threatened by a pure condition build. Eles have always had a lot of strong condition removal options and good sustain; on paper that should make pure condi builds pretty trivial. The old 30 water/30 arcana ele actually devotes 2 grandmaster traits for condi removal, but can still lose easily to a necro or engi. You spend 60 trait points to counter them, and you still have to play way better than them to win.
A pure PU mesmer with staff is going to have a hard time with Diamond Skin because the staff does trivial direct damage with the auto attack. In addition the iWarlock damage scales with conditions, so it’ll just tickle while Diamond Skin is active.
The mesmer scepter however is a hybrid weapon (if you look at the power coefficients). You might be able to pop thru the 10% barrior with the confusion beam but it would still be an uphill fight.
I can see where Diamond Skin shuts them down. That being said I have little sympathy as the PU build is extremely strong in WvW. No tears if the PU mesmer has to run away in frustration.
Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”
So far, what I have seen from this on the forums is that it works rather well with SoR, and sort of falls off for everything else. Firstly, it is a good thing that this skill is finally being used. But on the other hand, you have to consider that in order to have diamond skin, you have to sacrifice the only really good signet trait, written in stone.
Basically, what this means is that once the ele loses the roughly 1.5-2k hp, he is even more horribly boned because 1) active heal on SoR sucks and 2) Once the active heal is used, he no longer has a passive heal for the next 20 seconds, assuming it’s traited.
This ends up that the elementalist is making huge sacrifices in order to be a direct counter to roughly three builds: Condition necros, PU mesmers, and Condi engineers.
Not really broken.
A pure PU mesmer with staff is going to have a hard time with Diamond Skin because the staff does trivial direct damage with the auto attack. In addition the iWarlock damage scales with conditions, so it’ll just tickle while Diamond Skin is active.
The mesmer scepter however is a hybrid weapon (if you look at the power coefficients). You might be able to pop thru the 10% barrior with the confusion beam but it would still be an uphill fight.
I can see where Diamond Skin shuts them down. That being said I have little sympathy as the PU build is extremely strong in WvW. No tears if the PU mesmer has to run away in frustration.
Also, PU is a bunker build of sorts, that also happens to do insane condition pressure. It is a worthless/stupid cheese build, requires no skill, and needs to be nerfed anyway. Even as a fresh 80, I can 2v1 or 3v1 with PU just by spamming ports, clones, and stealths. Its almost impossible to know where I am by actually staying still and autoattacking often.
There are always complaints that condi classes can build for very high damage and be very tanky, unlike power-damage which needs to give up toughness/vit for prec/crit. Perhaps taking something like carrion that actually does some power damage is a solution to both problems.
Despite that, it would be better if diamond skin was “above 80% health, reduce duration of condis by 80/90/100%” (and actually worked that way) so that when your opponent has +condi duration, they can still get some duration through.
But aint’ that the beauty of every other class except Ele? They can swap weapons with a button press in combat!
PU Staff Mesmer can keep something like Sword Pistol or Scepter Pistol in the wings; iDuelist will knock that Ele’s health down to size. Or better yet, GS — one of the best long range weapons in the game which has fantastic range to snipe the Ele, and summon iZerker to deal the pain.
But aint’ that the beauty of every other class except Ele? They can swap weapons with a button press in combat!
PU Staff Mesmer can keep something like Sword Pistol or Scepter Pistol in the wings; iDuelist will knock that Ele’s health down to size. Or better yet, GS — one of the best long range weapons in the game which has fantastic range to snipe the Ele, and summon iZerker to deal the pain.
PU mesmer builds for condis, so sword/pistol would be a wasted slot most of the time. Also, you are used to iZerker and iDuelist hitting so hard because they are used by mesmers in zerker gear. In rabid/dire gear, they won’t hit any harder than your water heals/regen won’t be able to counteract.
Also, they aren’t going to change their gear b/c one fight ends up in a draw (where they eventually leave or someone else comes and taps the ele down to 80%).
Yes, no weapon swap can be terrible in some situations, but if you really need range with d/d, take flame axe (a great kiting tool). If you want to 1v1 with staff, learn to use lightning hammer, or just learn to run (you should be able to get away, esp. with buffed fiery GS).
^Taking crappy conjures is nowhere near the same as having an actual weapon swap, so don’t even compare the two. Ele is forced to take certain utilities just to survive, so we don’t have the option of taking the conjures even if we wanted to for anything serious. Mesmers DO have the option of swappign weapons. If they choose not to have another weapon that does something besides cheesily spam even more conditions, that’s on them.
The current state of Diamond Skin makes it far too strong against condi classes. If you run Carrion or DIRE, forget about winning against an Elementalist using Diamond Skin. Then at the very least it would be more balanced in a 1v1 scenario yet provide eles with more toughness during zerg fights and small battles.
So? Condition builds destroy anybody that doesn’t spec heavily into condi removal. Even if somebody takes as much condition removal as they possibly can, they still won’t keep up with a necro or engi who just spams skills. Everybody has to spec just to have a chance against a condition build. On top of that, fighting a condi build in a 1v1 means potentially hundreds of points in toughness amount to absolutely nothing. Condition builds are op as hell in 1v1 fights, and they’re only slightly less op in groups.
Diamond skin was a terrible trait idea for many reasons, but it’s so pathetic that people using condition builds are actually taking their gripes to the forums. Honestly, tons of other builds have zero chance against conditions in a 1v1, but condition players start whining the second a single trait in rarely used trait line on a profession that isn’t even meta can hard counter them…….only in a 1v1 fight.
Frankly, eles should have never been threatened by a pure condition build. Eles have always had a lot of strong condition removal options and good sustain; on paper that should make pure condi builds pretty trivial. The old 30 water/30 arcana ele actually devotes 2 grandmaster traits for condi removal, but can still lose easily to a necro or engi. You spend 60 trait points to counter them, and you still have to play way better than them to win.
No, they die when they don’t spec in condi removal AT ALL. And it’s really not 15-2000 HP when you account all the massive heals that eles have. Saying it’s a flat 1.5-2K threshold is bullkitten. I’ve done alot to make my P/D build work around this. Stopped using DIRE, tried Carrion again, DPS still isn’t high enough, especially since condition thieves don’t “burst lol wtf 25 stacks of bleed” but rather a sustained condition tick. I’ve even tried running a D/D offhand using sigil of intelligence to break the ice. Nope. 3.5K backstab? No problem, I’ll just heal back to 100% instantly.
And no, I wouldn’t expect neither mesmers or warriors who spec into heavy condi to have trouble with elementalists due to all the DPS from phantasmals/raw warr DPS.
The problem is condi thieves/necros/certain engis no longer can kill DS elementalists unless they get some lucky crits and assuming the elementalist is too stupid to heal.
Just here to point out that you’ll lose out on a lot of healing if you chose to spec for Diamond Skin.
Other then that I’ll reserve judgement because I haven’t sufficiently tested it yet.
Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam. I still say its waytoo weak for a gm trait and either needs a buff or needs to move down to master tier. ANY player with even half a brain even using a pure condi build can easily knock an ele below the health threshold rendering it useless.
Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.
I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.
Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.
But aint’ that the beauty of every other class except Ele? They can swap weapons with a button press in combat!
PU Staff Mesmer can keep something like Sword Pistol or Scepter Pistol in the wings; iDuelist will knock that Ele’s health down to size. Or better yet, GS — one of the best long range weapons in the game which has fantastic range to snipe the Ele, and summon iZerker to deal the pain.
PU mesmer builds for condis, so sword/pistol would be a wasted slot most of the time. Also, you are used to iZerker and iDuelist hitting so hard because they are used by mesmers in zerker gear. In rabid/dire gear, they won’t hit any harder than your water heals/regen won’t be able to counteract.
Also, they aren’t going to change their gear b/c one fight ends up in a draw (where they eventually leave or someone else comes and taps the ele down to 80%).
Yes, no weapon swap can be terrible in some situations, but if you really need range with d/d, take flame axe (a great kiting tool). If you want to 1v1 with staff, learn to use lightning hammer, or just learn to run (you should be able to get away, esp. with buffed fiery GS).
Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.
I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.
Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.
You can’t really take DS in a vacuum like that. Examining DS vs only condi builds will definitely come out in favor of DS — that’s what it’s designed for. In the entire spectrum of builds, DS is not god-mode.
Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”
Personally if you guys think DS is overpowered, that’s great! Ele needs to have an overpowered trait or two for a change. I’m sick of being on Hard Mode all the time.
Imo diamond skin is fine. Lately I have seen a lot of complaining about dire stats and stats similar to it in that they allow you to still do loads of damage while being bulky, whch is true compared to power based bulk armor. So in response, condtions get more hard counters, yes you can still run around melting people but if you meet a diamond skin eele or ar engie then you have met your match. Now those condi users will have to think about using rampagers stats or a similar prefix if they want a chance against such users (stats and builds that would never have become viable otherwise), but then would give other classes a fighting chance at condi users. Its a fair choice.
To the op: I play a condi engi myself and sure, i can notice an ele using the trait but c’mon its 10%. I use full rabid gear and all it takes is managing to hit a few skills and putting some pressure on and suddenly the ele is no longer immune to conditions so I have no idea what you are talking about and I dont like it when you sound as if you speak for all condi engineers. Im quite sure most of us dont feel the way you do. About your thief build I can’t say as i don’t play one.
Even with full rabid condi build I can manage to get the 10% off although it might take a little longer which is only a good thing. In roaming most elementalists i’ve met have been pushovers and i’ve only run into a couple really good ones. We all know they needed something nice. Don’t be upset just because a class isn’t a free kill like it was before.
ps. someone here mentioned how it affects PU condi mesmers. While I agree that it does (only a good thing imo)when I roam with my mesmer I often prefer PU condi using sword/pistol in addition to scepter torch and although I also use hybrid gear, I have used it with full rabid and the dmg you can do with blurred frenzy or the iDuelist is easily capable of knocking off 10% even with pure condi dmg armor. Yes it makes it harder for condi builds but so what. I find it waaaaay less op than necro’s insta, non dodgeable cast that transfers every condition from him to me, basically killing me with the press of 1 button. Diamond skin counters condis that are very popular atm anyway it might not be a bad thing if the new meta wasn’t mostly condi builds. Hybrid builds could actually make pvp a lot more interesting.
Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.
I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.
Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.
So what in the F—k is the difference between a d-skin ele not dying to your cheese condi spam and a thief pressing 5 for cloak and dagger to run away..??!?!?!?!?!! both are not going to die if they dont want to. I don’t see the problem. Nerf D-skin, then nerf stealth and mobility. For once we get a half-way decent survivability tool and you jump down the throat of it as if stealth and 3 health pools WERENT op at all.
okay that was lame but after testing the trait i can say its just temporary(emphasis on the temporary) shut down “PURE” cond builds and…
theres no problem with that if you build so heavy on cond there should be a price to pay finally some risk for the all reward gameplay that is cond dire builds.
And honestly the trait is mediocre at best people probably gonna to return to the old water/arcana builds after the novelty wears off…
This trait needs to be looked at. It’s not just the trait but the build people are running with it. If you are playing any condi class beside say a warrior you simply cannot do enough damage to ‘break’ the diamond skin and eles know this. The trait should be reduced to 97% hp or just simply removed all together. The ele will just be immune, immune, immune. I dueled a diamond skin ele for 15 mins on my condi engi was only able to finally win by using smack when he was close enough and had his blink on CD.. otherwise he would just run away heal and come back into the fight. If people wonder why this game is dying its because of the people developing it. You guys need to fire the people that are working on your classes because seriously some of the things in this game are just straight kittened.
“Hey lets make a class completely immune to conditions that’s balanced.”
Some of you compared this to engi’s but it’s completely different. With engineer you can pile on conditions at 30-40% hp and its gg. The eles will simply just out heal any condition based class’s power dmg. If you do break their skin they just run away heal and come back into the fight.
You devs need to stop the PVE focus and focus on the actual classes in this game before you find yourselves without a job because your game died. With wildstar, eso and other mmos coming out I don’t think you can afford to introduce these types of builds into the game.
Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.
I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.
Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.
So what in the F—k is the difference between a d-skin ele not dying to your cheese condi spam and a thief pressing 5 for cloak and dagger to run away..??!?!?!?!?!! both are not going to die if they dont want to. I don’t see the problem. Nerf D-skin, then nerf stealth and mobility. For once we get a half-way decent survivability tool and you jump down the throat of it as if stealth and 3 health pools WERENT op at all.
How are you comparing stealth to immunity to damage? Hmm lets give thieves immunity to condis while they are in stealth because that would be the same thing as the current state of diamond skin.
With pure condi classes ,yeah it’s work well in 1v1 ,but not team fight . with Dps hybird condi classes like venom thief or 2k death shourd auto atk necro ,totally useless .they take that 10% down easy ,no problem.
I have to seriously disagree with it being “too powerful” It is not powerful enough for a grandmaster trait. You can still get killed by condition classes with it due to the fact that its only 10% health. That even on my previous full Condi Necro was easy to get down, a few Life Blasts would easily deal about 2k damage EACH against Ele.
How about its changed to rather that immunity when above 90% health its a duration decrease 50% at all times. THAT is a grand master trait. All condition builds run 40% duration food as well as points into there duration tree anyway.
Or don’t run around in full dire/rabid gear if you want to take down a diamond skin ele.
DS is bad anyway, the way I play ele I need atleast 15 air, 20 water and 30 arcana. My old build before the nerf to our traits, exuse me that was an uncalled for statement I could get banned for insulting the developers ahem buffs was 15 air 10 earth 15 water 30 arcana that universally worked well with both a scepter mh build or dagger.
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Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.
I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.
Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.
So what in the F—k is the difference between a d-skin ele not dying to your cheese condi spam and a thief pressing 5 for cloak and dagger to run away..??!?!?!?!?!! both are not going to die if they dont want to. I don’t see the problem. Nerf D-skin, then nerf stealth and mobility. For once we get a half-way decent survivability tool and you jump down the throat of it as if stealth and 3 health pools WERENT op at all.
How are you comparing stealth to immunity to damage? Hmm lets give thieves immunity to condis while they are in stealth because that would be the same thing as the current state of diamond skin.
Let’s get this straight. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to abuse stealth to reset fights or stay alive and avoid damage. “DAMAGE” IS NOT CONDITION DAMAGE. DAMAGE IS DAMAGE. CONDITION DAMAGE IS CONDITION DAMAGE.
Yes, condition immunity is perfectly fine in this game because complete condition builds do ludicrous amounts of damage while stacking bunker stats. How are you going to be a condition build and say diamond skin is ‘cheese’ or ‘too strong’ when in reality anyone who runs a condition build is full of cheese and too strong. Glass cannons do nearly the same amount of damage as condi specs but they are nothing when it comes to defense.
If you run condition specs, that means you are stacking BUNKER stats. YOU SHOULD HAVE THE RISK OF RUNNING INTO DIAMOND SKIN SPECS OR AUTOMATED RESPONSE SPECS IF YOURE GOING TO RUN CHEESE CONDI META
Thieves have: Built in evades everywhere, built in blinds everywhere, built in stealth everywhere, no cooldowns.
Elementalists have: Double the weapon skills (which are accompanied by ludicrous cooldowns, sub-par quality and effectiveness). If you don’t trait for water healing, you literally only heal for 800 health every time you go into water (ASSUMING YOU CAST YOUR HEALS).
Don’t you dare compare diamond skin to some made up trait to where “everytime thieves go stealth they should have condi immunity”. That is NO WHERE NEAR the same state as diamond skin.
Why are you even complaining anyway? You revive an old thread from 2 months ago. No eles even use diamond skin. Insert jackie chan meme.
negativeview, what you seriously fail to understand is that most condition specs arent balanced. condi spec beats everything. Glass cannons and bunkers can just go home, condi wins on equal skill levels all the time. Thats the truth. Anet wants to change that.
Lol! This is the most hilarious garbage post I’ve seen. Take diamond skin, no one will notice when it’s gone. The health threshold is crap and will always make this skill worthless as is.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure nobody who plays ele would object to Diamond Skin being taken away and replaces. Not sure what everyone is arguing about, it’s pretty awful for everyone involved.
I would only be okay with Diamond Skin getting taken away if we then had some way of dealing with conditions outside of the water trait line or cantrips. Right now... we don’t, and our low health pool means that condi users are far too powerful against the Ele.
As I’ve said before: I don’t like that it has to exist, but as long as condi is this terrible I’m won’t feel bad for running it.
As for the trait being useless: it’s definitely not, since most folks gearing for condi will go the whole hog and be left with very low power damage. High regeneration and protection uptimes, regular heals (as a Staff), and watching out for the bursts of direct damage (Life Blast, Flesh Golem or maybe Lich Form for necro) make it a very useful defence that still takes effort to maintain.
Definitely can’t faceroll with it, and that 10% health will vanish in moments if I stop paying attention, but it gives me much-needed assistance in 1v1s while losing its usefulness in group fights.
I agree that diamond skin is too powerful.
I’ve only encountered it once when playing a condition character, and overcame it easily, but it is still too powerful. No, this is not sarcasm.
Once ele gets the buff it needs, diamond skin will become impossible to win against with any condition build.
My prediction is that our future ride from useless to balanced will be cut short by getting a major nerf because of diamond skin, instant lightning bolts, and instant arcane spells. With the nerfs only possibly hitting those culprit skills and traits.
Diamond skin is a failure. It is always overpowered or underpowered. I hope they haven’t gotten too attached to that trait to change it to something else.
If i am going to hear another Eles are too powerfull in something,heads are going to roll.
Have you even played the class guys?Have you dueled engis/mesmers/warriors/thiefs that play builds that destroy elementalist no matter how well you play?And you complain about one build that can counter your powerfull conditions?I hope they never change that trait and that they give me the chance to retrait every time i face a guy like you relying to his uber conditions.
Here is the bucket for the tears hands bucket over
Yeah, I’m pretty sure nobody who plays ele would object to Diamond Skin being taken away and replaces. Not sure what everyone is arguing about, it’s pretty awful for everyone involved.
I don’t care about diamond skin being changed or taken away, but you have to remember we took some pretty moderate nerfs when we got diamond skin.
Been playing Engi for about a week now 1 prybar is usually enough to get the ele down below the threshold and I’m in full dire with rabid/apothecary trinkets I think I have like 1225 power and 20% chance to crit 15 crit damage. If I miss that prybar though I am in for a world of hurt until it comes up again. Prybar has good direct damage though.
I think on the Necro side if diamond skin become a thing more condi necros will run focus for the boon strip and extra damage since it can hit pretty hard. Dagger off hand doesn’t have the necessary direct damage to get through it.
I suspect any condi build running rabid can get past it. The thing is if a diamond skin Ele build could be made that does enough damage and has enough vit I don’t think there really is one though not one that makes people give up zephyr’s boon.
A ele can bunker with the trait if they like though but I don’t see it being a difference maker if your build is designed to burst/do damage since you probably have a low hp pool to begin with.
I get through diamond skin with this to be exact I don’t know exactly what they are running but every ele I found I have been able to get through it with this in WvW. If I can’t hit prybar then I have to kite till it’s up again can’t say how I feel about that overall. Sure it’s there if your fighting only condis or dueling but does nothing against power builds but the same can be said about automated response and people call that trait OP. So I don’t know I think both are fine and they work if you can chose your battles.
I suspect any condi build running rabid can get past it. The thing is if a diamond skin Ele build could be made that does enough damage and has enough vit I don’t think there really is one though not one that makes people give up zephyr’s boon.
A ele can bunker with the trait if they like though but I don’t see it being a difference maker if your build is designed to burst/do damage since you probably have a low hp pool to begin with.
Actually I specifically build for low hp when running Diamond Skin, with high toughness (and good protection uptime) and regular, powerful healing.
It means I really can’t bunker down in a team fight (though I can give great pressuring damage and supporting heals/boons from nearby if someone sturdier’s in the fray) and someone with reasonable CC and power damage is a dangerous opponent (though the protection + heals can really help there, and I have mobility enough to run away if I get scared).
Building with lots of vitality may sound like a good idea for Diamond Skin, because hey look it takes more damage to break the skin! This… isn’t really the case, though, because:
- you’ll have a harder time healing back up above that 90% when your skin is broken by a strong attack
- 1000 health increase only adds 100 to the skin threshold, which really isn’t very much
In sPvP right now I’m running Valk amulet (primary power, secondary toughness, shared secondary healing power/crit dmg) with Grove runes (for healing power, protection, and the hilarity that is randomly rooting people). My health is at 10.8k or 11.8k, depending if I’ve put my 10 points into Water or Air traits.
Yesterday in OS there was an overwelming amount of Necros/Mesmers/Engis playing with condition builds that literaly destroyed everyone in the arena.After they won some of them would make smug remarks about how good they were.I decided to give them a lesson.I went 0/10/30/0/30 Diamond Skin with Celestial armor.Had about 14k HP.The necros couldn’t do me anything and other players from their servers told me how much they hated me…so mission accomplished.
One player managed to defeat me though and even if it was a close one he played well.It was an engineer.They got enough tools to penetrate the 10% HP.The basic tactic i played for the build was when i lost some HP swap to water and go up again.If i lost more than 20% i would use Ether Renewal in Earth.This trait is only good for punishing Necros in duels who think that are godmode.
Honestly, change the skill. Every 25% health mark you hit, (75% 50% 25%) you remove 5 conditions from yourself. 15 sec cool down. It gives the benefit of condition protection and defense, but you aren’t over powering either side. No too heavy on preventing all conditions, allowing more conditions to be placed, no struggle to kill a target just to apply conditions, and a good balance to allow self sustainment for the ele to heal itself and not have to stay at a certain tier of health.
Thoughts?
If someone can do it, and you can’t, the problem is you, not the game.
Then it would be next to useless considering all the condition spamming. Maybe make it so that it removes ALL conditions when you reach 75%, 50% and 25% and it might be okay.
Even then i dont think it would be enough to stop being killed by a condition spamming build.
I have no problem with it. Seems like a learn to play or learn to make a build issue. First off diamond skin is only good in one situation. A 1v1 vs a full on dire or rapid gear condi user. It is almost useless in a team situation. If you are running into alot of DS eles maybe its time to switch to carrion or add some power precision crit dmg to your build instead of full on condi dmg. Last maybe try not opening up right away with all your big condi spamming abilities when you see an ele to make sure they are not DS ele’s. I have fought both necros who ALWAYS spam all of there big condi skills right away no matter what then have nothing left. I have also fought necros who knew to wait till DS wore off then do the big condi burst.
Honestly, change the skill. Every 25% health mark you hit, (75% 50% 25%) you remove 5 conditions from yourself. 15 sec cool down. It gives the benefit of condition protection and defense, but you aren’t over powering either side. No too heavy on preventing all conditions, allowing more conditions to be placed, no struggle to kill a target just to apply conditions, and a good balance to allow self sustainment for the ele to heal itself and not have to stay at a certain tier of health.
Thoughts?
I think would be more powerful than Diamond Skin — maybe OP as it should be easy to push your health back above one of those thresholds (and thereby gain the removal again when you tick back down from all the condi’s).
Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”
Honestly, change the skill. Every 25% health mark you hit, (75% 50% 25%) you remove 5 conditions from yourself. 15 sec cool down. It gives the benefit of condition protection and defense, but you aren’t over powering either side. No too heavy on preventing all conditions, allowing more conditions to be placed, no struggle to kill a target just to apply conditions, and a good balance to allow self sustainment for the ele to heal itself and not have to stay at a certain tier of health.
Thoughts?
I think would be more powerful than Diamond Skin — maybe OP as it should be easy to push your health back above one of those thresholds (and thereby gain the removal again when you tick back down from all the condi’s).
If they made it so that each “milestone” has a 30second cool down. Each one being separate of the others. So then if you fall below 75% you trigger the first and it goes on cool down, then you would want to try and stay as above 50% for as long as possible.
So in reality. It would be:
100% – 76% = nothing
75% = full clear 1 (30 second cool down)
74% – 51% = Nothing
50% = Full clear 2 (30 second cool down)
49% – 26% = Nothing
25% = Full Clear 3 (30 second cool down)
24% – 0% = Nothing
So you would want to stay in the “nothing” zones as long as possible so that the one above has time to come back off cool down.
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