Guild Wars 2

-“Salt Stone: This trait has been merged with Stone Splinters.
Stone Splinters: This trait has been moved to the Adept tier. It now deals 5% bonus damage to bleeding opponents and increases outgoing bleeding duration by 20%”
-Quote from patch notes.
-It says Salt Stone was merged into Stone Splitters, and Stone Splitters was moved to adept.
-In trait Stone Splitters Tool tip says “Deal 10% more damage when you are within 600 range of your target.” and Serrated Stone says “Bleeds you apply last 20% longer and deal 5% more damage to bleeding foes.”
-My question is did you get these two trait mixed up?
-I also Tested the 10% damage in Stone Splitters
-What I found was I hit 243-257 with a single dagger base stats(no amulet no traits no runes) in sPvP on a Heavy Golem and then added 10 points in earth for Stone Splitters, and I hit 255-270 which is only a 5% increase.
-So another question I have is:
-Is the tool tip wrong? Or is the game mechanics not increasing to what it is suppose to be?
-One more would be the Arcane Minor 25th trait. Is it that powerful enough to be that high in the trait line? A small chance to cause some condition in an attunement that your class already does. I personally think it should be replaced with Bountiful Power since Arcane has to do with boon duration, so it would only make sense to have a boon minor trait. After moving Bountiful Power out of water I know you need something to replace it with. I was thinking maybe a Regeneration at a certain health percentage. Or move the 25th minor trait in air to water since water is our main source of vulnerability. Then add a 25th minor trait to are like “30% chance on critical to apply weakness while in air attunment.” This last one was just food for thought really but it would make Arcane 25th more desirable and it would make sense to have a damage increase in a damage tree.

-Edit: Where will this stream be?
-2nd Edit:Signet of Air now being a stun breaker can not be used while knocked back. I was fighting an elementalist today in WvWvW as fight night while running Signet of Air and when he Updrafted me i was not able to cast Signet of Air as it went on CD like all my other skills. Was this done on purpose? O does it need to be fixed?

Tips
Don’t Equip Focus
Always have 10pts in Arcana for Elemental Attunement
15pts in water for Healing Ripple
Start fights in fire attunement so you can swap to the other 3 for better boons depending on whats needed.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

“Salt Stone: This trait has been merged with Stone Splinters.
Stone Splinters: This trait has been moved to the Adept tier. It now deals 5% bonus damage to bleeding opponents and increases outgoing bleeding duration by 20%”
Quote from patch notes.
It says Salt Stone was merged into Stone Splitters, and Stone Splitters was moved to adept.
In trait Stone Splitters Tool tip says “Deal 10% more damage when you are within 600 range of your target.” and Serrated Stone says “Bleeds you apply last 20% longer and deal 5% more damage to bleeding foes.”
My question is did you get these two trait mixed up?
I also Tested the 10% damage in Stone Splitters
What I found was I hit 243-257 with a single dagger base stats(no amulet no traits no runes) in sPvP on a Heavy Golem and then added 10 points in earth for Stone Splitters, and I hit 255-270 which is only a 5% increase.
So another question I have is:
Is the tool tip wrong? Or is the game mechanics not increasing to what it is suppose to be?

Edit: Where will this stream be?

On the official ArenaNet/Guild Wars 2 twitch channel
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

@LiveSpartan:
Thank you

[Question for Devs]
Is there any love intended for the focus. The focus being one of my personal favourite weapons from the elementalist arsenal. Currently there are some skills that most of us focus users believe could use some changes.

Fire 5, Fire Sheild has such a long CD for such a mediocre skill. Fire 4 Flamewall is currently bugging out.

Water 5, Comet is a daze and thus a interrupt but its time to hit makes it require you to predict interrupt or use it as a daze (and hope the foe doesn’t walk out of the way).

Air 5, Gale is not in line with the other weapons 5 air ability. A blowout dodge on 40 second in dagger, an aoe 2sec stun field for 4 second on 40 sec cd on the staff. This is a 2 sec kd but on a 50 sec cd. Is that due to the 30 Air trait Grounded?

Do you have any plans to make the fire trait line more viable? If so, what might they be?

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Hey everyone I’m doing a live stream tomorrow on the Elementalist. If there is any topics, questions, tips, tricks or strategies you think would be helpful for other Elementalist to know please post them here, and I’ll try and bring them up!

Thanks : )

~Izzy @-’——

Best tip for an elementalist is to reroll another class since you guys wont stop nerfing us.

I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying they nerfed elementalist. This dev is here to help us and you laughing in his face. Then you wonder why they never write on our fourms or answer our questions.
This patch got 1 nerf and the rest were all buffs.
-1 nerf Bountiful Power

Please explain if the fresh air trait description is wrong or the trait is broken at the moment. There seems to be no cd after switching from air to another attunement from the second and continued times.

Nerf doesn’t necessarily mean a direct change to a class. It could also mean what was given to other classes. For example look at torment which causes damage upon movement….. mobility is one of the main defenses of an elementalist yet these skills have been given to the two classes who cause the most trouble for them.

Wouldn’t you call that a nerf?

Why was Lightning Flash nerfed? It served as a popular stunbreak in most builds and was hardly ever used to conduct damage. Compared to Mesmer’s Blink which has a 30 second cooldown and is a stunbreak, Lightning Flash is now a useless utility as it no longer stunbreaks.

Are you going to be streaming in WvWvW? Or is this going to be strictly PvE content?

During Beta period I remember watching a few streams of some Developers going over a variety of builds for the Engineer (Condition build) and Guardian (some Fire Condition based builds). With the new trait options can you go over say 1-4 different build ideas you guys have or intended with these changes?

Can you address the common viewpoint on 20+ Arcane being mandatory for Elementalist builds in regards to Attunement timers? Is Fresh Air your way of admitting this is a problem and seeking to address it by adding in an option to reset the attunement timer?

Rangers have regeneration style defenses with a medium hit point pool. Thieves on the other hand have a lower hit point pool but more escape style moves and high burst. However in the Light Armor classes Elementalists have regeneration style defenses with a lower hit point pool but Mesmers have escape style moves, high burst AND the medium hit point pool. What was the design thought behind this discrepancy? Are these design thoughts still valid with the current state of the Elementalist?

I honestly do not expect those last two questions/points to be answered or addressed.

Jaytee.9513:

Nerf doesn’t necessarily mean a direct change to a class. It could also mean what was given to other classes. For example look at torment which causes damage upon movement….. mobility is one of the main defenses of an elementalist yet these skills have been given to the two classes who cause the most trouble for them.

Wouldn’t you call that a nerf?

No i would not call that a nerf but Elementalist also have one of the most ways to cleanse conditions.
Do i agree that torment should have been given to mesmers or thieves?
No i do not, personally i think guardians should have recieved it.
Healing, Cleansing, and Mobility are our biggest defenses.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying they nerfed elementalist. This dev is here to help us and you laughing in his face. Then you wonder why they never write on our fourms or answer our questions.
This patch got 1 nerf and the rest were all buffs.
-1 nerf Bountiful Power

An elementalist who stops moving dies. 4 things helped an elementalist keep moving; Ride The Lightning (NERFED), Mist form (NERFED), Lightning Flash(NERFED), and
Cleansing Fire(NERFED).

So don’t give me this one nerf nonsense. Read the patch notes, play the class… actually don’t play the class. Your hero the OP just wants to stream himself hitting a mob for 4k twice in a row and then nerf us some more.

Is there any reason why Diamond Skin (Grandmaster Trait) does not give bonus condition damage from bonus toughness? I feel like this kind of interaction would make the Earth traits feel more synergized, as being in Earth Attunement gives more toughness, as well as Rock Barrier (Scepter 2), and Obsidian Focus (Adept Trait).

Edit: I also find it strange that the Earth Traits give +% damage, but +% damage never affects conditions. Is there a reason for that?

Can you talk about dueling with staff? 1v1 is such a huge part of this game and we have no weapon swap. Can you explain why we can’t have a reduction of base attunement cooldowns? Is there any hope for a 0 Arcana Ele?

Why do Elementalists have the lowest health and armour?
Why can I not be an earth tank or fire specialist?
Why was Arcane Attunement Recharge (the Arcane points bonus) made so necessary?

Tips:
There are many skills you can use while channeling another. Find out what they are; these skills are usually the ones that you can also cast while stunned and dodge rolling.
Evasive arcana Earth element dodge roll is a blast finisher.
Eruption (Staff Earth 2) is a blast finisher that you should cast before laying down a combo field. If you lay down the combo field first, it usually runs out before eruption pops.
Unless you are playing a fire staff zerker or lightning hammer water zerker build, you should be switching attunements constantly. 20+ in Arcana HIGHLY recommended.
Do not pvp solo with a staff. Just don’t.
Fiery Greatsword is one of the best escape skills in the game. 3 and 4 travel ~2000 (whatever the units of distance are called) on a 5 second cd (turn off autotarget for 4 to work).
The fire elemental elite has a stupidily strong burst, can do half of a zerker thief’s hp in one swoop.
Don’t hate on D/F especially earth focus. Obsidian flesh is extremely strong and magnetic wave is a blast finisher that reflects projectiles, cripples, and cleanses 3 conditions.
Focus air 4 makes stomping a warrior a joke.
Obsidian flesh is an unstoppable stomp.
D/D isn’t the only viable style out there for pvp.
In the middle of a dodge roll you can change attunements to trigger the evasive arcana effect of a different element.
Currently focus fire 4 is broken because of after cast readjustments.

ARM.3912:

An elementalist who stops moving dies. 4 things helped an elementalist keep moving; Ride The Lightning (NERFED), Mist form (NERFED), Lightning Flash(NERFED), and
Cleansing Fire(NERFED).

So don’t give me this one nerf nonsense. Read the patch notes, play the class… actually don’t play the class. Your hero the OP just wants to stream himself hitting a mob for 4k twice in a row and then nerf us some more.

Are we talking this patch or every pacth that has ever happened? Both Cleansing Fire and Lighting Flash got buffed. Reduced CD and still able to use with stunned might have lost stun breaker, but since you can still use them while stunned I do not see how it becomes a nerf. I am not going to argue with you on the RTL nerf because I will agree there. I personally think Mist-Form needed that nerf but if you actually played that class you would realize you can still heal in Mist-Form just not use your 6 utility.
So yes there was only one nerf this patch. With more than I can count nerfs since meta came out.

Tips:

Conditionmancer D/D can be devastating , new trait : Diamond skin is godly

Yes, I have a few questions!

1. Do you think having 500 traits to balance would be easier than > 600?
5 Adept 3 Master 2 Grand Master (Approximate math)

2. Why combine 2 previously separate GM Air traits into one? What is the reasoning for Grounded to just merge and become part of a defense trait, when it was apparently an offensive trait before?

3. How come Arcane Abatement (fall damage reducer) is a Master Major trait in the water line? All other fall damage reducers are Adept and have some sort of theme. I’d think falling to the GROUND would go well in the EARTH line.

4. Do you think ele’s deserve skills that grant Retaliation or Torment?

5. Traits that benefit the focus? Focus skill changes (not just number shuffling).

6. More traits that benefit conjures? (the earth shield, lightning hammer have none)

Check this! Two conjures at the same, Lava Ax main hand, Earth Shield off hand. Or no no, get this (and prepare your body!) Earth Shield main hand, Lava Ax off hand. Ohhh! Dual wielding Lava Axes, only the third skill changes!!! Whatever… ax/ax ele op already im sure.

Thanks in advance! Hoping for a good show. Cheers!

Vic Viper.1986:

Yes, I have a few questions!

3. How come Arcane Abatement (fall damage reducer) is a Master Major trait in the water line? All other fall damage reducers are Adept and have some sort of theme. I’d think falling to the GROUND would go well in the EARTH line.

^THIS
also what in the dat file do i need to edit to get the old air elemental back?

I think they put the fall damage reduction in water because everyone has 20 in water. And it’s a defensive trait really…

*shrug

I would like it to stay there fore purely selfish reasons (not having points in earth)

O, hello there.
I will start by saying that overall (somehow) this patch wasn’t nerf for elementalist (as for class) despite what people say.
There are few builds now, mostly between cannon and tank (which stays as it was) and stunbreakers being added to non-cantrip skills.
As to question.
Please mention why it’s beneficial to swap attunements while you have some points in water/arcane. Mostly talking here about PvE and newbie WvW elementalists who are using fire and fire only 95% of the times casting auto-attack. It’s simply wasting of elementalist’s potential.
Another thing new elementalists are not familiar with are combos. Insane might stacking with S/D by swapping from fire to earth, decent with D/D and many odds with staff (aura by water4 + blast, healing blast with water 5/3, might stacking and swiftness with air5+blast).

1. Is Dragons Tooth being looked at for changes to improve its utility?
2. Scepter still has some weaknesses is it being reviewed for possible improvements across its abilities?
3. Focus is kind of weak is it being reviewed for possible improvements across its abilities?
4. Conjured weapons are fun but have some severe restrictions which stop them being more widely used. Are you looking at making improvements to them eg. the suggestion that the no. 1 ability on all of them not use a charge.

I just want ANet to explain their logic behind:
1. RTL nerf (made WvW roaming brutal. You can’t run from or catch most other roamers now)
2. Removing stun breaker from Lightning flash and cleansing fire without significant buffs.
3. Cleansing water’s internal cooldown which did nothing to cantrip bunkers and destroyed inscription glyph builds.

Discussing your vision for the future direction of the class would obviously be appreciated.

Before the patch (since flamewall is now bugged) i would be able to do 4 firecombos very often wiht scepter and focus by doing as follows:
-eventually use signet of earth to root the target
-cast dragontooth
-cast firewall on the target of dragontooth 1stcombo(dragontooth lands)
- (here i had time for fireshield)
-cast phoenix on firewall ( the increase in travel speed won’t affect the combo) 2ndcombo
-now recast dragontooth 3rd combo
-swap to water and cast 5 4th combo

And this is why i play with rune of strenght in pve. (+20% might duration)

You could eventually do two more with the arcane spell and the 4 of earth within those ~8sc (basically i would now play with the XI instead of XII of fire so it should be 10,4sc).
And with the new trait that gives fury… you give fury to your entire group for a uptime of 100%.(considering no ones trolls you and put a poisonfield ahahahah)
That is huge.

So please fix firewall. I really like the current elementalist (apart from bugs) and i think those cast reduction time make elementalist even more enjoyable to play, thanks a lot.

(Ps: i don’t think either focus or scepter spells are weak, i use it everytime in fractals, even at lvl 40, it just has so much potential used properly.
Also fire trait line is far from not being viable LOL)

• Please discuss some plans for future defensive trait improvements in fire and air.
• Focus cooldowns are ridiculous, any changes?
• Fire aura is not a deterrent to being attacked, like the other auras are. any changes?
• ^^This is especially important because if Fire Aura becomes a good defense mechanic, the entire Fire tree becomes viable through Signet Aura’s.
• RTL cooldown on miss (40sec) is harsh, compared to Swoop(12s) and Rush (20s)

Yes I’ve got a question… Do you think it was a good idea to gut a build so badly that it is not viable anymore? I’m doing wvw only, and I’ve been using d/d for a long time, being viable in most raid situations for my old guild. Now with my old guild sadly inactive, when trying to apply to wvw raid focused guilds with a d/d elem usually result in the application getting denied because “d/d elementalists doesn’t bring anything to a raid post patch”. Many top guilds considers removing their existing d/d elems too. I’m sorely disappointed by these changes and I think it has alienated more dedicated players than just me.

Is that what you intended it to be? To force a dedicated (albeit mayhaps small percentage) of wvw oriented d/d elementalists to change spec away from their preferred playstyle? And of course I assume that you will play a d/d specced elementalist during your PR stream because that is where it has been hit the hardest. Good luck.

Erastmus.3785:

Many top guilds considers removing their existing d/d elems too.

^ One of the high ranking members of a top WvW guild on my server told me he would rather be a man down than have a D/D ele in his group.

Would it be possible to introduce a kind of weapon swap between the attunements and the conjured weapon(s)?

One little small request : Please revert RtL as the way it is…

Questions:

1) Do ANet honestly believe that single attunement builds should be viable? There are a lot of traits to support a given attunement, but the general elementalist consensus is that single attunement builds suffer a lot due to our skill’s cooldowns being balanced around us having 4 skill sets, and sustain being mainly provided via traits that require us to switch to the water attunement (which isn’t viable for damage, and therefore we need 2 other viable attunements at any time)

2) For that matter, most elementalist sustain is currently in the water attunement – this means that we generally need two viable damage attunements besides that, as water is generally weak outside of its support. Any plans to boost the damage output of water?

3) Air attunement is presented as a high damage attunement, as far as the skill description for it states. However, on the staff, it’s pretty weak – a low damage auto-attack, a blind which can almost never be cast in reaction to an enemy attack due to the 1.5 second cast time, and static field which deals about as much damage as the auto attack. Would it be possible to increase the damage of staff air somehow?

4) Generally speaking only water attunement provides us with sustain, leading to most competitive builds incorporating the water traitline. Could other traitlines receive sustain, such as fire getting “heal [some amount] whenever you burn an opponent”?

5) Have ArenaNet considered changing the profession’s unique stat away from Attunement Recharge Rate? A lot of players feel that their playstyle just doesn’t work without a certain amount of points in Arcana, which is limiting choices in the other trait lines. I feel that either Attunement Recharge Rate should be removed, or available via other means (an elite signet that offers it as a passive? Traits that increase the recharge rate of specific attunements as part of their effect?)

6) Other professions often get additional benefits from their cooldown reduction traits for weapon skills. Any possibility elementalists may see something similar?

Why do we have the worst hp pool and armor in game but worse escape than thief and mesmer? Hit point buff in my opinion has been a long time coming, especially with all the recent nerfs to our escapability and bunker build (30 water and arcane bunker is the only build which gives us enough healing to compensate for super low hp and armor).

just one huge question that would help 90% of players…

In interview about sotg of 2 months ago, a dev clearly stated that Elementalist is adamantly uneffective at damage mitigation in PVE.

How can you exlpain to pve players the following 2 nerfs to pve D/D that is already the weaponsets that would need more help in PvE?
(for the usual reasons like being locked in short range with a cloth class with mediocre damage and exactly no damage mitigation in PVE)

Don t D/D (or ele in general) deserve a strong PvE dps buff at least just to compare to warrior that has less risk and way more reward comparing range and stuff?

P.S. please again revert RTL in PVE at least…its not OP and helps to make the game fun.

Just came to say thanks for the Staff buffs. I’ve been waiting on them since the release of GW2. The reduced aftercast really made some difference. Didn’t make it OP just viable to use. Thanks a bunch!

Hey Izzy, long time GuildWars player here, I think the last time I had the pleasure of speaking with you was back when you needed some people to test out the new MAT system, and we (PnH) happened to be playing at the time. I can still remember the thrill of having an actual Dev on our vent back then. That said I guess most of my questions are not entirely Ele-specific, but here goes:

Did you anticipate the staff to become a weapon that somehow leads to bad gameplay?
At least in PvE most staff eles are lazy, slow and don’t bother to use their arsenal correctly. Have you considered to allow ele players a weapon swap in PvE, to get those players to experiment more?

With all your experience from balancing GW1, what keeps you from balancing more ruthlessly for the different environments?
Especially considering dungeons vs. wubwub vs. tPvP, some changes to utility skills and apparent uselessness of certain utility groups in certain environments (signets in tPvP to name one example) would greatly benefit from more expansive changes.
I guess what I really want to know is this: With such a radically different, new, courageous approach to MMO as GW2, why do these patches not follow the same path? Why do they still feel as if you don’t want another Ether Renewal to happen? Changes can be reversed!

Do you consider the average elementalist to be any good at actually understanding combat and/or the dynamic between weapon set, trait specc and play mode? This is not about insulting people or being elitist, but in recent years game devs have to deal with an insane amount of kittening from their own player base, without having the chance to call most of the people out on their understanding of the game. Considering how much thought actually went into designing the combat system and how many different mechanics interact at any given moment – most of them not apparent to even routine players – I am willing to bet that the majority of ele players complain about stuff without even coming close to the limits of their class.

With the dominating importance of the Arcana trait line, how can you expect ele players to experiment with playstyles by changing only top tier traits? You are stretching the rubber band that is our class even further. I suggest giving trait lines past 20 points a passive recharge bonus on that specific trait line. It would emphasize the feeling of being a master of that element and make players more likely to sacrifice some points in Arcana.

Have you considered at any stage to swap the secondary trait line bonus of fire and earth? Giving the fire line condition dmg and adding condition duration to earth might encourage more players to try and integrate more condition damage into their skill usage and gear choices.

What’s your opinion on elite skills? Greatsword means not casting other stuff and hurling yourself into midst of combat – as a clothie. Tornado has been nerfed and is the elite equivalent of sticking a KICK ME sign to your back yourself. Elementals are good in 2 attunements – fire and water – but cannot be controlled. Any chance you could revisit those skills or swap them out for different skills?

Will attunements ever deliver an additional stat boost during combat? It would add another customisation option for experienced players and add another element to gameplay. By giving additional points to main stats during combat players could diversify their utility slots.

Can we please make Fire Grab a targetable cone?

Are improvements to the UI, mainly the size/placement of boons/attunements, in planning? Seriously, that stuff needs to be draggable and resizable. What happened to the modular system of GW1?

Could tooltips please be more informative? I have to consult the wiki to learn how long the Vulnerability from Weak Spot lasts. Yeh I know, who cares, but forcing your players to leave the game and rely on crowdsourced information is not the best way of dealing with these things.

That’s just some questions off of the top of my head, I’m currently at work and all this multitasking is wrecking me. While I may come off as whiny I want you to know that I think the combat system in GW2 is really awesome, and that – given changes to map pools and features – tPvP could be an absolute killer. If you would dare balance for it exclusively for once. Keep up the good work, there are people out there who appreciate what you do.

What was your original vision for the Elementalist? It seems like a very conflicted class, with trait lines that focus on one particular element, and starting questions which ask “what’s your favorite element?” Did you imagine players would attunment swap as often as they do?

If you could redesign the ele from the ground up, what would you change?

What’s the one thing you think an Ele does better than any other class in sPvP?

GlamSight.9327:

So true, and people asking for a weapon swap makes me cringe as elementalist already got a good skill cap…

They want it for out of combat, to avoid playing inventory games when they need to do something different.

I think every Elementalist in the game was expecting a lot of work to be done on the Fire Trait since like pretty much all of them are terrible and the only thing you did are:

-Lava Tomb: This trait’s internal cooldown has been reduced to 10 seconds. Damage from Lava Font is increased by 33%. Damage dealt while in the downed state is increased by 33%.

I would have expected this trait to just disapppear, honestly buffing doesn’t do anything for Fire , since you don’t really wana buff your down state , since you’re trying to go down as less as possible.
-
Persisting Flame: Updated this trait to also allow blast finishers to give fury (10 seconds) as well as might.

This trait is kind of a good idea , but I feel like it would be interesting to be able to take advantage of this and the I in Air , but either weapons don’t have enough Fire field or not enough aura’s so, it’s a good idea, but putting this on another trait would have been better in my opinion.

So my question is , are you going to keep working on improving traits line? in particular Fire.

Any plans on a melee weapon with no conditions? Like a quarterstaff or a hammer?

Please remind all people they have a /focus to use in Harpy fractal.

If dev is already struggling to balance classes, why was a new condition thrown into the game – torment? Furthermore, what was the thought process for giving it to Mesmers and Thieves? Were they struggling to keep up with their opponents?

What was the reasoning behind placing a stun break on glyph of elemental power? It is an on use ability to add to one’s dps, but now it has to be saved as a get out of jail free card? It’s like a bad infomercial. Check out this great new tool wrench/pliers! No, you now have a tool that is a crappier version of its two originals.

Why are you trying to make lightning flash an offensive skill? In your experience, did you see elementalists teleporting TOO danger? Do you honestly think the added damage bonus is a sufficient incentive for elemental to start using this ability offensively?

Will there be any consideration to having an out of combat weapon swap?

Can the cooldown on Ride the Lightning be reduced for out of combat if it doesn’t hit a target?

What vision DOES dev have for the elementalist? Due to our low hit points, low armor, low damage output, nerfed mobility – what is your expectation of this class?

Simple answer, split PvE and PvP skills!. Trying to balance the two isn’t working. Question is why won’t you go the whole hog and actually do this?

And……… why is it you never seem to listen to your player base?

hi Isaiah:

- will you ever give us mobility back? we are currently crippled…
- do you plan to implement a counter for stealth? (something like “see invisibility” avaialable either as trait, combo finisher’s result or whatever)
- will Elementalist ever excel at something in the future or will stay in the sad realm of mediocrity forever?
- why in the world are we forced to have traits in water to just get fall damage protection? all trait lines should have a fall damage protection option
- conjured weapons aren’t effective yet, they need either extreme power (that would be an acceptable tradeoff for renouncing to healing, combo fields ecc of the normal skillbar) or the ability to have more functions (protection, healing or completely new effects)
- I express a positive opinion on the recent changes to traits, they are a first shy step toward a better Elementalist gaming experience, please keep up the good work.

(WvW perspective)

Right now, I feel very bottlenecked to use the staff and the focus has almost no use and this last patch made it even more so with all of the buffs to staff.

I would LOVE to see some real variety of gameplay by making the focus a viable option for support, but it simply isn’t the case. In all other attunements, personal defense is the focus of the focus (lol) but that isn’t the case for water. Why?

All abilities of the focus should be healing/defense and it should be AOE, and not just for the elementalist.

Flamewall – grant might to allies that run through it.
Fire Shield – AOE to 5 or 6 allies
Freezing Gust – add small regeneration to nearby allies
Comet – make this ground target and add aoe burst heal to those nearby.
Swirling winds – keep the same
Gale – keep the same
Magnetic Wave – AOE to 5 or 6 allies
Obsidian Flesh – AOE to 5 or 6 allies

Do all of those and the focus will very viable in many situations.

And out of combat weapon swap would be swell as well.

Hiya, Isaiah Cartwright.

Educating players on how to take advantage of some of the new traits, like Fresh Air builds, could be interesting to a lot of people. Also, showing combos with the might-stacking sequence for scepter, or the eruption combos with staff, and showing the importance of some of the minor 15th traits and Elemental Attunement coupled with instant-cast attunement changes (air burst with fresh air, changing to water for healing even while in mist form, earth for protection while being bursted dowm). Also some tricks that can be done with Lightning Flash, especially with MH and OH dagger skills (churning earth, earthquake, burning speed…), and maybe even pve’s Lightning Hammer build.

But this is mostly to newcomers or casual elementalist players who might not be aware of most of those tricks. To more veteran players, it would be very interesting if you could try to make some builds to work, like focus builds in general, staff in pvp, conjures, glyphs, signets, fire-traited eles, condition eles, etc. Yes, yes, we all know most of those are not viable, and it’s possible that you devs are well aware of that too, but it would still be interesting if you could show us your view on those skills, and how those were meant to be used, regardless of how viable or niche they might be or not be. For example, is focus supposed to have a might-stacking subtheme too, and if so, what’s the best way to take advantage of it? How can a solo-queue staff wielder be useful to their pvp team whenever they are alone? Which situations are good to make use of several conjures? Etc.

Where does Elementalist shine brighter than other classes? What does Elementalist do that is at the top or near the top of the list of the other classes for damage/control/support?