Guild Wars 2

It’s not even close to how good Evasive Arcana is… imo Elemental Attunement should be baseline without even traiting for it.

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

EA is a GM worthy trait lol…

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Everything this guy said sounds awesome and perfect.

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

This is actually a pretty good idea.

morrolan.9608:

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

This is actually a pretty good idea.

I agree. Do this please, it will solve a lot of anger over the issue.

Or we can replace “Lingering Elements” with “Elemental Attunement” instead.

And add something new to GM trait.

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs. .

Because they want us to have more than one build beyond the standard water/arcane cantrip bunker we’ve been stuck with for two years.

It isn’t going to work of course, except in maybe giving us no builds at all, since all of our attunement specific traits are still designed with too little reward to warrant staying for any substantial amount of time in any one attunement, and we still have the lowest tier of both health and armor with no defense in our class mechanic, making a build that takes advantage of madcap swapping with heavy investment in sustain and escapes as our only viable option.

Moving Ele attunement to GM is hilarious. In an effort to give “build diversity” you are just pigeon-holing the class more. Ele currently tanks up b/c base defense is bad. Nerfing one of the primary means of defense just exacerbates the problem.

It’s kind of like saying “all the food except for the bread is terrible, so throw that bread in the trash then there will be more options for people to eat!”

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Its rly bad to compare IP to Eva and Attument.. both EVA and Attuemnt have great AoE Wide effect, and are supperior to IP.

Im sure on 100% thats is pure PVP change. So yea, Eva and attument higly oversahdow IP in PVP, so thats why they did it. If you dont see why, its bcos you dont care about balance.

With new Traits when you can go 6Earth/6Water/6Arcane you dont need both of them. You dont need cond clear bcos of Diamond skin, and you dont need 3s protect bcos you can tank whole party in Earth attument. Stop cry about old builds, start think how you can abuse new one.

Michal.4513:

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Its rly bad to compare IP to Eva and Attument.. both EVA and Attuemnt have great AoE Wide effect, and are supperior to IP.

Im sure on 100% thats is pure PVP change. So yea, Eva and attument higly oversahdow IP in PVP, so thats why they did it. If you dont see why, its bcos you dont care about balance.

With new Traits when you can go 6Earth/6Water/6Arcane you dont need both of them. You dont need cond clear bcos of Diamond skin, and you dont need 3s protect bcos you can tank whole party in Earth attument. Stop cry about old builds, start think how you can abuse new one.

yep we know the 00666 invincible build sherloc, it’s about ruining the gameplay for D/D by switching to a passive low skill required tank build. Also the earth traitline is not really interesting to pick as staff or scepter so you can’t compensate the loss of EA with that. All we get in return is useless minors and weak adept/master traits in return (only fire+water offer decent master traits)

Considering they didn’t touch thief’s trickery traitline, AND made them not have to choose between panic strikes or executioner…something doesn’t seem right about eles.

Even mesmer got many baseline changes, and one of the go to traits for [shatter] mesmer (illusionary persona) became baseline. However elementalists had very few baseline changes, and their major traits forced to split (EA vs Evasive arcana).

The arcane master traits just seem like fillers at the moment, with nothing particularly attractive. I really hope arenanet revert this change, I would even be happy with EA just applying to 3 targets instead of 5, but this is a bit too much in my opinion.

For balancing you either solely nerf the out of line specs (d/d in this case), or buff everything else to put it in line with said “out of line spec”. In this case they did both – nerfed cele and elementalist traits, and buffed thieves and mesmers.

Hoping this will be like deceptive evasion revert if everyone is against the idea from the devs, otherwise expect to see a lot of heavy tanks or condi fire-earth tanks – which is not fun nor exciting to play and/or watch.

SDZz.8260:

Considering they didn’t touch thief’s trickery traitline, AND made them not have to choose between panic strikes or executioner…something doesn’t seem right about eles.

Karl is the “mastermind” behind ele balance, and he thinks Zephyr’s speed (+10% speed, non-stacking with all the other speed buffs you get in air) is a good trait. I think this says alot as to why ele received the changes it did.

Michal.4513:

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Its rly bad to compare IP to Eva and Attument.. both EVA and Attuemnt have great AoE Wide effect, and are supperior to IP.

Im sure on 100% thats is pure PVP change. So yea, Eva and attument higly oversahdow IP in PVP, so thats why they did it. If you dont see why, its bcos you dont care about balance.

With new Traits when you can go 6Earth/6Water/6Arcane you dont need both of them. You dont need cond clear bcos of Diamond skin, and you dont need 3s protect bcos you can tank whole party in Earth attument. Stop cry about old builds, start think how you can abuse new one.

…which is why I’m asking for a non-AoE version of EA to be made baseline.

IP, if you have good positioning, can also have powerful AoE effects. I’d argue that its AoE effects can be just as impactful than anything Elemental Attunement can achieve (depending on the situation, AoE confusion/daze is as effective as a few seconds of prot or regen.)

IP is also a build-defining Grandmaster (Shatter.) Anet’s reasoning for making us choose between EAs is because apparently they’re both build-defining, yet they make IP a baseline functionality.

Pigeonholing us into Earth is lame, because the traits that “make up” for the lack of Elemental Attunement are passive and boring. Diamond Skin should just not exist. And I’d rather not be forced to camp Earth Attunement to “tank whole party” with Stone Heart, as attunement switching is supposed to be a core mechanic of the class.

These guys pretty much hit the nail on the head, this isn’t going to increase build diversity, you are just destroying elementalists.

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

It is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I would say illusionary persona was more powerful, but that’s just going to be mesmer baseline going forward, so I guess it doesn’t count.

However, the real problem is the perceived viability of the elementalist class after the patch. With the upcoming change they have nerfed every meta-elementalist build.

And these changes immediate follow the might nerf from a month or so ago.

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

Considering that the elementalist is the squishiest class and cannot survive without the protection and regen given by elemental attunement we have all the reason to contest the new nerf, that will make us lose our Arcane GM trait in order to keep our survivability. It is a massive nerf. I can see why the balance guy was shy of revealing it, it is a huge class-breaking mistake.

It also makes the bonus of having 3 full trait lines not a bonus at all.

Xillllix.3485:

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

Considering that the elementalist is the squishiest class and cannot survive without the protection and regen given by elemental attunement we have all the reason to contest the new nerf, that will make us lose our Arcane GM trait in order to keep our survivability. It is a massive nerf. I can see why the balance guy was shy of revealing it, it is a huge class-breaking mistake.

It also makes the bonus of having 3 full trait lines not a bonus at all.

Eles are getting a new minor Earth trait – Geomancer’s Defense – which gives 20% damage mitigation against foes within 600 units. I don’t think they misunderstand at all. They’re just trying to push different trait lines and get us out of always relying on Arcana for everything.

Neko.9021:

Xillllix.3485:

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

Considering that the elementalist is the squishiest class and cannot survive without the protection and regen given by elemental attunement we have all the reason to contest the new nerf, that will make us lose our Arcane GM trait in order to keep our survivability. It is a massive nerf. I can see why the balance guy was shy of revealing it, it is a huge class-breaking mistake.

It also makes the bonus of having 3 full trait lines not a bonus at all.

Eles are getting a new minor Earth trait – Geomancer’s Defense – which gives 20% damage mitigation against foes within 600 units. I don’t think they misunderstand at all. They’re just trying to push different trait lines and get us out of always relying on Arcana for everything.

Well that one may be interesting specially against melee classes. Personally if we can stay away from arcana its going to be better, but we will still need water for healing, so we are still stuck with 2 defensive lines (for anything that isn’t a pure burst build).

Shame that other professions gets so many traits as baseline (I cried seeing engineers having like 5-6 traits incorporating into traitless character), e.g illusionary persona or dagger training yet ele gets blasting staff…

Maybe we should get lingering elements as baseline to prolong this joke of a trait.

Neko.9021:

Eles are getting a new minor Earth trait – Geomancer’s Defense – which gives 20% damage mitigation against foes within 600 units. I don’t think they misunderstand at all. They’re just trying to push different trait lines and get us out of always relying on Arcana for everything.

That trait might be working for D/D but for every other spec that can’t close gaps rather quickly, this trait isn’t really viable.

Other than that, Elemental Attunement should just stay where it is right now and in the best case go as baseline and make the boons shareable via a new trait.

the krytan assassin.9235:

Michal.4513:

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Its rly bad to compare IP to Eva and Attument.. both EVA and Attuemnt have great AoE Wide effect, and are supperior to IP.

Im sure on 100% thats is pure PVP change. So yea, Eva and attument higly oversahdow IP in PVP, so thats why they did it. If you dont see why, its bcos you dont care about balance.

With new Traits when you can go 6Earth/6Water/6Arcane you dont need both of them. You dont need cond clear bcos of Diamond skin, and you dont need 3s protect bcos you can tank whole party in Earth attument. Stop cry about old builds, start think how you can abuse new one.

yep we know the 00666 invincible build sherloc, it’s about ruining the gameplay for D/D by switching to a passive low skill required tank build. Also the earth traitline is not really interesting to pick as staff or scepter so you can’t compensate the loss of EA with that. All we get in return is useless minors and weak adept/master traits in return (only fire+water offer decent master traits)

Because evidently the Cele Ele D/D bunker/bruiser spec is so high skill now. It is the easiest and most entry level Ele build right now, the worst that can happen is there won’t be any change.

I understand this is major, but the man is right in essence, wait and see, something better might come out of it. For one the S/F Zerker spec might be even stronger now because of 2 extra traits, and it might become a viable high mobility spiker which can compare to thief but with utility? Let’s see how it pans out first.

EDIT:

Also +1 to the idea that EA should be baseline for self, and a trait to make it effect allies. That is a great idea, and it seems fair. In today’s meta I would dare say it is an OP idea, but we must remember everything is getting a buff somewhere, who knows what the meta will look like after patch. I think this is a rational proposal.

Some good ideas here about more subtle and gentle changes.

My skepticism about Ele Attune is as follows:

1) without the 30% boon duration it’s not as strong.
2) lingering elements is still bad
3) there isn’t a good trait at the master level unless you are a tank.

Expanding on (3), much like what was said in the mesmer discussion “you dont want retal on hit cuz you are squishy”… well elemental contingency seems pretty bad for the a zerker ele and also for the aformentioned playstyle of “dodge ele”. Yes a dodge ele that is forced to be hit to have a useful trait. If there were something more reasonable to take as a master trait, I would be more willing to try out the GM Ele attune.

Going on what was said above, I’d like to see the “condition on crit trait” replaced with a personal weak Ele attune and have the GM buff the duration(multiple boons perhaps?) and apply to allies. Then please do something about lingering elements either replacing with the condition on crit one, or rework it in some way to be more compelling. I’d like to see the condition on crit as a master which helped out elementalist condition builds somehow, but as a minor grandmaster it just seems too weak/specific to one playstyle (if you have really low crit, 10% chance on crit will never happen).

Just my thoughts on what I have seen so far.

Sirendor.1394:

It’s not even close to how good Evasive Arcana is… imo Elemental Attunement should be baseline without even traiting for it.

I’d wait and see what number adjustements they make to the trait to go along with the move before making that call. It is more than likely they will be changing durations/stack numbers or ever the effects triggered on the swaps to make the trait grandmaster worth.

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

This is absolutely true. However, this trait is so fundamental to the identity of the ele up to this point, it just feels absolutely wrong to NOT have it (esp. from a pvp perspective). The class is balanced (weapon-skills, traits, utilities) with the assumption that 100% of eles have it, thus why it was originally Adept just a short time ago. Unless EVERYTHING about the class is going to change, changing a major underlying assumption at this stage is like designing a car with the assumption that it has 4 wheels and having someone come to you after you are done and tells you “you know what, 3 wheels is what we really need.” Its just a different beast.

Elemental attunement turns our class mechanic from a burden into a benefit, and is central to the “stance dancing” play-style that has been enforced. Evasive arcana, likewise, adds such a dynamic set of options to the class and impacts its fun.

Most eles who play the class for its play-style would never give up this in favor of some boring (and OP) passive damage reduction. Like the nerf to RtL before, it hits so hard at the core of what makes the class fun.

What they should do is this:
1. Scrap lingering elements, it has never worked with air/fire (and forced terrible minor traits there since day 1), it won’t work with tempest, and is not all that great.
2. Give elemental attunement as the trait in this spot, with 66% of the GM duration.
3. At master (or GM level) make a trait that makes these boons AOE and increases the duration by 50% (up to current levels 0.6667*1.5 = 1).

Alternatively, all the eles upset about the change in playstyle from active to reliance on in-built passives and auto-procs, just roll an engineer. It is becoming everything loved about ele without all the stuff you had to deal with.

Neko.9021:

Elemental Attunement is one of the most powerful traits in the game. I can totally understand why they shifted it to GM Tier.

Well, in a sense it is powerful and has great utility. The problem is that it should not be in GM tier because it was one of few viable minor traits… Also, I saw they buffed the duration of the boons, which make it sort of better, yet I still would prefer Attunement being in Master or Adept, leaving more powerful options like Evasive Arcana open. On top I believe that (like Blackbeard states above) Elemental Attunement is such a basic function of elementalists, that you must have it in virtually any build, and that to me is reason enough to make it baseline.

I wouldn’t have a problem with this, if I didn’t see huge bonuses to other classes either… but just watch thief and mesmer… that is some huge buff.

Bran.7425:

Sirendor.1394:

It’s not even close to how good Evasive Arcana is… imo Elemental Attunement should be baseline without even traiting for it.

I’d wait and see what number adjustements they make to the trait to go along with the move before making that call. It is more than likely they will be changing durations/stack numbers or ever the effects triggered on the swaps to make the trait grandmaster worth.

That is of course possible. But as they feature it now, it looks like a really bad trade-off for elementalists.

Sirendor.1394:

That is of course possible. But as they feature it now, it looks like a really bad trade-off for elementalists.

That could be said about every trait the just move into a higher category, it is kind of the point of them continually stating that numbers are not to be looked at just the functionality and work in progress inbetween. But that might have been their fault for presenting it that way. Might have been better to have just show the changes in a power point style and used shown brief bit of game to the UI or whatever else they felt they could share.

This is bad for eles indeed, but it is also absolutely needed. Arcane needs to not be 100% necessary. For sustain, look for example at soothing ice .

“Soothing Ice: Gain regeneration and Frost Aura when you are struck by a critical hit.”

Or geomancer’s defence: 20% damage reduction when closer than 600 range- absolutely crazy vs thief and mesmer for example.

Or elemental shielding for protection on aura application.

Again there are many ways try try replacing the sustain of arcana.

Quadox.7834:

This is bad for eles indeed, but it is also absolutely needed. Arcane needs to not be 100% necessary. For sustain, look for example at soothing ice .

“Soothing Ice: Gain regeneration and Frost Aura when you are struck by a critical hit.”

Or geomancer’s defence: 20% damage reduction when closer than 600 range- absolutely crazy vs thief and mesmer for example.

Or elemental shielding for protection on aura application.

Again there are many ways try try replacing the sustain of arcana.

But here is one MAJOR difference. Current arcana builds have good sustain, but they are also fun because it requires constant action and properly timing skill usage to get sustain. They are nerfing active defenses/capabilities, and throwing on some disgustingly strong passive defenses, which might just move the “necessary for every build” line from arcana to earth/water.

I for one, don’t want to play the class if it is just as brainless as a turret engie and relies on instant trait procs and other passive defense. I want to think, react to my enemies, and explore different ways to use combinations of skills. I guess I should play an engineer. Ele will be the new answer when someone says “what is a good class for a beginner” because you don’t have to do squat and you just get all this sustain.

It should be now that its going to be on a 8.7sec cd (more then likely have a longer base duration ontop of that too.)

Buff it to 600 radius!

Don’t you get it? Making EA unreachable or fighting a strong trait is just a cheap trick to nerf a bit might stacking on Ele. Nothing more, nothing less. They can’t afford to keep ele in this state where they can build strong defense/support/offense while still having huge survivability and at the same time allowing the use of 3 GM trait per build. They are simply nerfing boon generation because it’s to effective in the current meta.

Seriously, I just don’t get the thinking behind this. “We know almost every ele in the game uses this trait, so we are not gonna make it baseline so you dont have to waste a slot on it, but we are going to put it as a GM so you have to chose a utility trait that should be baseline over other traits that that actually impact play. BALANCE!”

Aaron.4807:

Seriously, I just don’t get the thinking behind this. “We know almost every ele in the game uses this trait, so we are not gonna make it baseline so you dont have to waste a slot on it, but we are going to put it as a GM so you have to chose a utility trait that should be baseline over other traits that that actually impact play. BALANCE!”

I think you took for-gratin how often you HAD to take it and you HAD to go 6 in ar. It was not a balanced trait it had not been one for some time. It made staff ele and d/d eles unkillable and unable to build any thing beyond 6 ar (you would be called a witch and burned if you did not.) That and ppl are forgetting every thing else being changed about ele there a lot more then just the one trait there a lot more going on here. So yes blasting staff build in IS a good thing for ele’s build chose it lets non 6 ar eles play staff its also good to have atument and evasion as a chose becuse it dose not make the ar line the end all be all (or another way to put it, it lets ele play and build in such a way that dose not make them NEED to be 6 in ar.)

I’ve been dueling without elemental attunement trait as zerker ele as an experiment and I can tell you this, I do fine. I win 95% of my duels still. Sure, I lost just because I didn’t have it or was a glassy spec. But here’s the thing, I reminded myself about the 600 range dmg reduction trait…It’ll make it easier. Not to mention the soothing ice trait that gives frost aura (If the icd is somewhat reasonable, it’s fair) and such. I seriously think you guys should start practicing pvping without the trait and get the feel for it now so when the patch hits, you won’t be so reliant on it. Sure, elemental contingency is like a bad rng version of EAT but hey, it has a 10s icd and you can somewhat figure out a pattern with it to the point where you can start controlling which random buffs you get from the rotations.

Personally I’m in favor that you are required to choose; the two of them together were too powerful and could be used in just about every build to add survivability without much effort.

The other traits we are getting are more than generous to compensate for this “loss” and offer a new form of synergy. Thinking of water and earth alone. 20% damage reduction from new GM, unconditional above a certain health threshold. Throw in the Earth contingency for protection, and then Frost aura from the new Water trait. Regen, Vigor, and cleansing will still come from Cantrips, and healing is still available from water attune. From this point a player will choose between additional dodging functionality (blinds, blasts, heal), or they can gain boon management through attunement.

How this will play out, we shall wait and see. Though it would seem that they are trying add an element of skill to the class with this particular change.

savacli.8172:

How this will play out, we shall wait and see. Though it would seem that they are trying add an element of skill to the class with this particular change.

Adding an element of skill by forcing eles to tank-up and rely on passives/auto-procs? Seems like they are making the class less skillful and less fun.

It’s skill in the sense that there’s not going to be a catch-all traitline or build anymore. If you invest in Earth, then yes, you should be granted that passive defence. Add water for more passives make it all the better; however, now you’ve left yourself without much offence. If you want to be a striker you’ll need to start making appropriate sacrifices for that extra power.

Right now I agree that the Cele Ele’s in PvP are very straight forward to play and don’t require much skill. That, and I find it broken that with this build a good follow through on your rotation lets you end up with 15+ stacks of might, good uptime on protection and fury, near perma uptime on regen and vigor, and multiple sources of cleanses and heals.

I understand that the theme of the build is versatility, but Cele ele’s are masters of the trades more-so than Jack is. Polishing and perfecting the build is one thing, but the entry skill for this class in PvP is very low and forgiving compared to other classes.

Edit: Soothing Ice mixed with Elemental Shield I can see compensate for loss of protection and regen.

Reduce it’s boon duration and make it minor trait.
Somewhat like boon from Guardian’s virtue activation.

triggerhappy.3871:

Reduce it’s boon duration and make it minor trait.
Somewhat like boon from Guardian’s virtue activation.

I’d just rather them increase the radius to 600 so its more effective in realistic situations. Its a very strong trait, and I like the idea of making harder decisions, frankly, so long as they fix the shortcoming of having such a narrow range.

ronpierce.2760:

triggerhappy.3871:

Reduce it’s boon duration and make it minor trait.
Somewhat like boon from Guardian’s virtue activation.

I’d just rather them increase the radius to 600 so its more effective in realistic situations. Its a very strong trait, and I like the idea of making harder decisions, frankly, so long as they fix the shortcoming of having such a narrow range.

The only problem with this change, and all the trait changes, is that elementalist as a class NEEDS a crutch for survivability. 80% of the class’s ability to play with the big boys comes from traits, which up until this point have resided in arcana. You could make SOME builds that avoided water because evasive arcana gave you at least 1 cleanse in water to go with the power-damage defense of protection from ele attunement. The net result here is this: You take either arcana for prot-on aura in an aura build or arcana for prot on-swaps. EVERY build takes water b/c it has the only condition cleanse options (outside of gimmicky and stupid diamond skin) and the best damage traits. So you are left with 1 other line to play with.

The same problem eles have always had because of their design, and we are given less-effective bandaids to patch it.

Also, just for those who will claim “you can get cleanse from ether renewal”….No, you can’t. Any build with ether renewal, even if you take rock solid, is hard-countered by trickery thieves (all of them). If you can’t even trade blows with a thief, you have no role.

EA would be grandmaster worthy IF they increased the radius to 480-600.

Yea, ANet and their attempts of creating build diversity.. has certainly worked out AWESOME in the past. /s

I fear Ele build diversity is going nowhere before these guys finally realize the following: If there’s a handful of builds max for a given class with one build already outshining the others in a competitive environment, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them utilizes the exact same trait combination in a certain traitline, well what’s gonna happen if you screw that up? Nothing but the already strongest build becoming even stronger relative to the others. How that is supposed to create build diversity is beyond me, and how people who are getting kittenin payed for these kind of things still rely on that flawed logic irritates me to highest degree.

If it truly was about build diversity, they’d need to make both EAs baseline (as that is what any ele is running anyways right now), and then offer a solid choice of additional traits to go along with these.

you know what is funny? the irony that everyone uses elemental attunement because it’s such an important, awesome and strong trait, but everyone is so surprised when it gets moved to grandmaster… isn’t it where core strong traits belong? I remember it started as an adept trait and everyone was freaking out when they moved it up… it’s really kind of funny

MaXi.3642:

you know what is funny? the irony that everyone uses elemental attunement because it’s such an important, awesome and strong trait, but everyone is so surprised when it gets moved to grandmaster… isn’t it where core strong traits belong? I remember it started as an adept trait and everyone was freaking out when they moved it up… it’s really kind of funny

The problem is it’s so core, that it feels mandatory which is why many people are freaking out. I remember too when it was moved to master and the freak out, but doesn’t mean anything.

I myself haven’t used Evasive Arcana since… err… I think that Fresh Air was introduced. I’ve been running 06044 since fresh air was brought in with Scepter & Dagger. I get the freak out, hence I really think that Elemental Attunement should be made baseline with it only affecting yourself with a new GM making it AoE and increased effectiveness. It’s just TOO core.

MaXi.3642:

you know what is funny? the irony that everyone uses elemental attunement because it’s such an important, awesome and strong trait, but everyone is so surprised when it gets moved to grandmaster… isn’t it where core strong traits belong? I remember it started as an adept trait and everyone was freaking out when they moved it up… it’s really kind of funny

You didn’t really get the context. People are not upset/surprised Elemental Attunement gets moved to GM; people have issues with both Elemental Attunement AND Evasive Arcana being GM traits, since these two traits (and also Renewing Stamina for anything but Staff) are core to every single elementalist build (pvp, dunno about pve).

Put Evasive Arcana down to Master, and I’m sure nobody will complain about Elemental Attunement being GM. As of now, their planned changes are not just about putting Elemental Attunement to where it belongs, but also a flat out nerf to every single elementalist build out there.

and that’s the point, two very strong core traits are always picked and almost forcing everyone to go arcane… that’s the reason why they moved it to GM, they want you to choose or pick another line if you think it’s not worth it anymore…

crying that it’s so important and strong just proves they did it right and the trait belongs to the GM tier…

MaXi.3642:

and that’s the point, two very strong core traits are always picked and almost forcing everyone to go arcane… that’s the reason why they moved it to GM, they want you to choose or pick another line if you think it’s not worth it anymore…

crying that it’s so important and strong just proves they did it right and the trait belongs to the GM tier…

That’s not how it works. If Elemental Attunement is too core to the playstyle or idea of how an elementalist should function, the answer isn’t making it a GM trait in a line you might not be able to take due to builds not working. It does what has been happening since release, pigeonholing builds and elementalists in general to stay in Arcane, even if it means now taking 1 of those traits and having to put up with 2 crappy talents.

Elementalist as a class functions off boons that you generate, EAttunement generates said boons. Without them, you’re working at a lower efficiency compared to other classes who are not as boon reliant. Without EAttunement, the class feels as if it’s lacking something.

When a trait becomes too core to the philosophy and playstyle of a class the answer is not to lock it in the highest tier. It’s like Illusionary Persona, it makes sense that something like that is baseline, just like how a personal version of EAttunement should be baseline.

The real answer would be to make it baseline where it functions only for you and create other GM’s that are worthy of being GM’s that compliment the playstyle and are playstyle changing. Fresh Air changes how the elementalist feels, more bursty, more air line oriented. Diamond Skin makes you like a tank as you just ignore condis and can just go for that frontline. EAttunement isn’t game changing, it’s a trait that makes an elementalist FEEL like an elementalist, there’s a difference.