I feel its to easy to play around Diamond skin with single stack effects that are easy to spam this is due to it only removing 1 condition ever sec on hit. I think the icd should be moved to 3 sec but it should remove 3 condition each trigger. I think this would put it inline with Stone Heart where you chose to counter power dmg or condition in earth line.
The trait is so useless…and people don’t even realize it..it’s completely useless against what brought the trait up in the first place : “condi bombs” , you know like 6-7 condis dropped on you…now on ele you can’t do nothing but firing several CD trying to clear to clear that confusion/torment stack…
I think the trait is still worth taking. I liked the old version better (no conditions while above 90% health). The new trait (which isn’t so new anymore) is still good with a threshold of 75%. The 1s cooldown sucks in large groups, but is adequate in 1v1 situations.
Although I’m not sure the other traits provide much competition. I’d love to use signets but there are other good utilities instead.
not a big fan of the trait IMO. As been mentioned it won’t save you at all vs condi bombs and once those condis tick you down below 75% that’s all she wrote.
I think it is the 75% health threshold mainly that turns me off from the trait.
The trait is worth taken because the other traits are worthless. Main reasons to go earth traits is for protection on auras and stability when you are about to stomp. The ICD makes it so you can not remove any conditions that matter after condi bombed.
Now with the resistance mechanic, it would be cool to change Diamond Skin to:
Gain Resistance (5s) while health is above 90%. Interval: 5s
The numbers can be tweaked of course. You could even go with:
While attuned to Earth, gain Resistance (5s) while health is above 75%. Interval: 5s
The last one is interesting because it allows you to apply resistance by switching to earth attunement while above the health threshold. So there’s an active mechanic to it.
By making it Resistance with a duration and interval, it allows for the following:
I was thinking something like gain 3 seconds of resistance when attuning to earth and then perhaps an additional bonus like condi damage is reduced by 10-20% while in earth.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
My is almost an exact rip off of the Death Magic Necro trait that applies toughness and condi damage reduction after applying a condition. Numbers can be tweaked and this is only a basic idea that could allow DS to be decent while removing the health threshold.
Diamond Skin: For each stack of a damaging condition you apply, you gain one stack of Diamond Skin for 10 seconds. This reduces the damage and duration of conditions on you by 2% per stack, up to 10 stacks.
Maybe to make it more suitable for Earth while also making it more powerful, it could be:
Diamond Skin: While attuned to Earth, for each stack of a damaging condition you apply, you gain one stack of Diamond Skin for 10 seconds. This reduces the damage and duration of conditions on you by 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks.
This would offer 50% condition damage reduction and duration as long as you can attack while attuned to Earth.
Mainly, my goal is to remove the health threshold that Anet is so stubborn to remove. It’s a freaking GM trait. It shouldn’t be mildly powerful above 75% hp and 100% useless below 75% hp. If they want to keep a health threshold, they need to make it useful somehow all the way to 0%. Maybe something like:
Diamond Skin: Based on your health percentage, you remove a number of conditions each time you are struck.
75-100% is 1 condition, 50-74% is 2 conditions, 25-49% is 3 conditions, and 0-24% is 4 conditions.
It becomes significantly more powerful the lower your hp goes. This could create some risky play if you want to deal with a condi bomb by popping some heavy damage reduction below 25% hp. I don’t know. These are just ideas. Maybe an ICD of 3 seconds would work better for removing 4 conditions at such lower hp.
For something fancy, maybe between certain percentages, conditions would affected differently.
50-100% reduces condition duration by 33%, 25-49% reduces condition damage by 33%, and 0-24% removes 3 conditions when struck with a 1-2 second ICD. Again, these are just ideas I’m throwing out there. They haven’t been thought through obviously. I’ll leave the thinking to those who do it best.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
^This!
Maybe to make it more suitable for Earth while also making it more powerful, it could be:
Diamond Skin: While attuned to Earth, for each stack of a damaging condition you apply, you gain one stack of Diamond Skin for 10 seconds. This reduces the damage and duration of conditions on you by 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks.
This would offer 50% condition damage reduction and duration as long as you can attack while attuned to Earth.
Mainly, my goal is to remove the health threshold that Anet is so stubborn to remove. It’s a freaking GM trait. It shouldn’t be mildly powerful above 75% hp and 100% useless below 75% hp. If they want to keep a health threshold, they need to make it useful somehow all the way to 0%.
I like this one. Except I would like it to retain the factor that it procs when a condi hits you, not the other way around as it is on necro, and reduce damage only, not duration. Although it could have a solid duration reduction component as in like 20% shorter.
Ele/Tempest already has improved Protection and a steady supply of Frost Auras, which makes it a bad idea to have more direct damage reducing components.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
Yes because having traits that read “gives passive immunity to condi builds” is such good design.
Diamond skin should supplement your condi clear. Not be the end-all-be-all of condi defense which is what the old version was.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
Yes because having traits that read “gives passive immunity to condi builds” is such good design.
Diamond skin should supplement your condi clear. Not be the end-all-be-all of condi defense which is what the old version was.
How was it end all be all to break 10% health on a low health character?
I liked the old Diamond Skin better. I built high toughness and used signet to maintain 90% HP to deal with condition builds. I walled off condition builds with it but struggled against power builds that hit hard. The only reason they nerfed it was because it made Tempests unkillable in PvP. The change should have been nerfed in PvP and left alone in PvE/WvW.
The nerf really killed the trait and its not worth taking mainly because you have to be struck while above 75% hp to cleanse 1 condition compared to the old immunity to everything above 90% health.
As for those who say it was OP. Then stop using your pure condition dire builds and then we’ll talk. That’s literally the only stat build that can’t deal with the old diamond skin because it has no power built in to break the 90%.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
Yes because having traits that read “gives passive immunity to condi builds” is such good design.
Diamond skin should supplement your condi clear. Not be the end-all-be-all of condi defense which is what the old version was.
How was it end all be all to break 10% health on a low health character?
Because Tempest exists. Condi builds simply don’t have the power damage to punch through the protection, aura, and healing output of tempest.
The only condi build that could possibly deal with old diamond skin is condi warrior because of all the hard non-condi based CC warrior has. Except of course that condi warrior didn’t exist till after the DS change.
It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.
Yes because having traits that read “gives passive immunity to condi builds” is such good design.
Diamond skin should supplement your condi clear. Not be the end-all-be-all of condi defense which is what the old version was.
Yes you say supplement…but how? Yes we can all agree that old diamond skin while necessary to combat post HoT power creep, it wasn’t exactly a fair design and maybe removal was a right call after all but now…ele struggles vs condi spec.
Both the old and new diamond skin require the ele to have some hefty toughness on top of great healing, something we don’t have access anymore, therefore all people are asking is for something better.
Something better doesn’t necessarily mean passiv immunity to condis, we just need something to deal with condis that doesn’t rely on huge levels of toughness/healing to function properly…that’s all, not biggy, we’re not here asking to “clear” all condi specs from the game.
I was thinking something like gain 3 seconds of resistance when attuning to earth and then perhaps an additional bonus like condi damage is reduced by 10-20% while in earth.
I like this suggestion best. The duration is fair, but I’d change the permanent bonus into something more in tune with the trait.
Diamond Skin:
When attuning to earth gain 3 seconds of resistance. Conditions applied to you last 20% less long.
Or they change it to give imunity to a specific condition. Bleed would fit ….
Simple and efficient.
This is the build i run, DS is quiet good if you know how to properly play. this build it does quiet well keeping team up. i can flash into middle of enemy zerg and condi bomb and flash out without taking any lethal damage. it provides great support with boons and auras on the front line. i’ve lived through many of out numbered fights with this build.
the earth trait converts toughness to condi, undead runes toughness to condi and then obviously your foods and oils will play a condi % too. sigil of purity for condi you get under 75% before heal up. and then sigil of moment for added toughness on kills to add to condi damage as well, its a very fun support pressure build.
@Zippidy — i would find a way to put Cleansing Fire into that build for the added burn pressure.
people can take the cleansing fire if they wish, honestly you would be missing out on the cleanse just for a little more burn. between flame dash, wall, dragon, aura and overload theres more then enough fire and might stacks as is for the leap in leap out especially with a quick CD. but thats the nice part of the game a build is only going to be as good as a person is comfortable with the play style. just because my perticular build works very well for my play and rotation doesnt mean someone can maximize the same build rotation. they may feel more comfortable with other skills and thats whats nice about choice.
my view and why i didnt take flaming cleanse.
1) i have DS and enough condi clear as is.
2) this is a support/aura build
3) just with leap in leap out you should be able to land 15-20 flame stacks in less then 3secs. (reason i say this is depending on numbers your going to have about 3 seconds to dump before you lose proc/stab which if happes you need to pop invul and get out.
i usually go in after air overload, run up in fire. drop over load swap earth proc/stab up and get out. from there to water to heal front line going in past me for the candy kills and continue the aura boon heal support till rotation is back up which will be about 5 secs.. over all you should be able to repeat leaps in and out every about 8-10’s with out taking lethal damage. biggest out numbered WvW fight ive been in and held was 8tc v25mag
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