Elementalist's new trait discussion
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To lose “perma” is vigor is not a problem at all….because it should have not be allowed in the first place.
Look I’m an ele main and I have been fighting my fair share of d/d eles who survive solely because of the trait set up, if you go tank you should be allowed to survive yes….but not survive indefinitely regardless of the number of mistakes you do.
Between 2 eles if one takes 5-6 burning speed in his face, the match should end already, it shouldn’t go one forever because the skill difference has already been established, one waste dodges because he can, the other save his dodges, the latter should be rewarded with victory
If this would be allowed then the would be no point for any player to try and attempt to improve himself.
I believe this is what Anet think also, reason why feline grace was nerfed, so unskilled thieves can’t survive by simply dodging ghosts
Er, just to be clear, D/D eles will not lose perma vigor because they can still go earth/water/arcana. And the reason your D/D vs D/D ele duels go on forever is because both of you chose to play a bunkery-spec. A fresh air d/f zerker ele can take out a celestial d/d ele pretty quickly.
Glass ele builds will still want vigor for the same reason mesmers and acro thieves want vigor — they need to avoid damage to survive. In any event, most glass ele builds will still have to go arcana because it offers the most reliable access to fury, so they’ll be picking up arcana anyway.
one with air was always the same way – superspeed when attuning to air. nobody took it because 1s was not useful enough so what they did with it now is pretty good.
and no, a d/f berserk ele will never take out a d/d ele that knows how to play, he will simply outsustain and kill him. you will just eat all the damage because it is a berserker spec with 15k hp and 1800 armor in melee range.
Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.
The idea that bruiser D/D eles will suddenly require skill to play well seems wildly incorrect to me.
Due to the new water/earth traits & synergies, bruiser celestial eles will become way more tanky. On top of that, all of their tankiness will become passive.
Currently, a d/d ele needs to time his earth attune and usage of auras to gain and maintain protection. With the proposed HOT changes, the ele will just facetank damage with a passive 20% damage reduction and passively triggered frost auras (which grant more protection), and elemental contingency passively triggering more buffs.
Also, eles can take written in stone to be able to spam their heal signet every 16s (which works out to more HPS than evasive arcana), without having to burn a dodge (but at least it is interruptible). Or heart of stone to just be immune to crits while in earth.
All this means that “bruiser” D/D ele builds (like the current celestial D/D build) will still be able to recover from a lot of mistakes — just like every other bruiser build. All the proposed HOT do is make the build even easier to play.
Also, separate from the whole “is this a nerf or a buff” discussion — which will change drastically depending on what the ICD for Soothing Ice is set to — the proposed HOT changes are reducing the fun, active traits that ele has, and adding in more passive traits. Timing evasive arcana and elemental attunement, and placing your dodge rolls correctly, in order to best benefit your teammates was fun. Air-dodge-rolling to blind a downed body to give your ally a safestomp was an interesting mechanic. Being able to just passively soak more damage doesn’t seem fun to me. I might as well just play a warrior in that case.
So separate from all the “nerf/buff” discussions, I would love if A.net retooled some of the traits to be more skill-based. Here are some examples:
Make “One With Air” a minor trait and make it trigger only when you successfully dodge an attack while in air (with a 1s duration or so). So when you dodge an attack, you get to briefly reposition yourself.
Make air training give you a stacking dmg boost and CD reduction (for air skills) each time you cause an enemy to miss via blind or dodge.
Give the fire adept minor trait a more active trigger for applying flame aura, such as a chance to trigger when you damage an enemy that is suffering from burning.
You forget they’re removing the stats from the trait lines, no more healing power and vitality from going 30 water, no more 30% boon duration from going 30 arcana and celestial is getting nerfed by 10%.
Between the buffs and nerfs, I think the 10% overal nerf will remain, assuming the remaining stats will come from buffed runes then we’re looking at a cele ele with :
-15k Hp
-1.3k toughness
-300+ healing power = SoR healing for 230 Hp for second, respect to 276 like now
Rest would depends on rune set that you chose, but as base I don’t see the current cele ele make a return, want a tanky or power cele? Well any of the two won’t have huge sustain with SoR alone so you won’t be face tanking anything in the end.
You can’t facetank anything with toughness/protection alone and that will be the case with the upcoming changes, by the way facetanking for me means to simply eat all dmg you receive without flinching and that something not even current cele ele can really do at 100%
You forget they’re removing the stats from the trait lines, no more healing power and vitality from going 30 water, no more 30% boon duration from going 30 arcana and celestial is getting nerfed by 10%.
Between the buffs and nerfs, I think the 10% overal nerf will remain, assuming the remaining stats will come from buffed runes then we’re looking at a cele ele with :
-15k Hp
-1.3k toughness
-300+ healing power = SoR healing for 230 Hp for second, respect to 276 like nowRest would depends on rune set that you chose, but as base I don’t see the current cele ele make a return, want a tanky or power cele? Well any of the two won’t have huge sustain with SoR alone so you won’t be face tanking anything in the end.
You can’t facetank anything with toughness/protection alone and that will be the case with the upcoming changes, by the way facetanking for me means to simply eat all dmg you receive without flinching and that something not even current cele ele can really do at 100%
I think you misinterpreted my post, or maybe I wasn’t clear. You suggested earlier that these changes would make ele require more skill to play. I explained why that’s not the case.
For example, you specifically stated that your duels with a D/D ele (presumably a bruiser ele) would last indefinitely even if the other ele ate 5-6 burning speeds (i.e. “facetanking”). You then suggested that this won’t be the case with the HOT changes. I’m explaining to you that even with the HOT changes to ele traits, you’ll still run into the problem you described because of geo defense and soothing ice. The only difference now is the ele bruiser playstyle will become even more passive.
Edit: For your convenience, here’s the post I was referring to:
Look I’m an ele main and I have been fighting my fair share of d/d eles who survive solely because of the trait set up, if you go tank you should be allowed to survive yes….but not survive indefinitely regardless of the number of mistakes you do.
Between 2 eles if one takes 5-6 burning speed in his face, the match should end already, it shouldn’t go one forever because the skill difference has already been established, one waste dodges because he can, the other save his dodges, the latter should be rewarded with victory
Again, the point is that the new traits won’t prevent what you just described from happening. If anything, it’ll make it worse because there’s even less counterplay to a trait that passively reduces damage and a trait that procs frost aura when crit.
In your latest response, you’re saying that eles can’t literally sit still and eat every single attack thrown at them. Of course they can’t. I know you were exaggerating when you said an ele could eat 5-6 burning speeds in a row. My use of the word “facetanking” was also hyperbolic. But its an appropriate way to describe a build that revolves around getting hit to proc auras + protection (either via soothing ice or flame barrier w/ ele shielding) while also relying on geo defense’s passive 20% dmg reduction.
Next, your point about A.net nerfing celestial stats — which we’re already aware of because the devs made a post about it — has nothing to do with whether changes to ele bruiser traits will make ele more or less skill-based. The playstyle will remain the same regardless of the amulet stats. The only difference is how effective the overall build would be. If celestial turns out to be a bad choice stat-wise, maybe bruiser eles will go back to valkyrie or cleric. Either way, the trait changes favor a more passive playstyle.
Also, if you watched the Ready Up, A.net didn’t say they’re removing boon duration and condi duration. They indicated that they haven’t figured out what they plan on doing with those stats yet. So any speculation about how those stats will play out is a bit premature.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
one with air was always the same way – superspeed when attuning to air. nobody took it because 1s was not useful enough so what they did with it now is pretty good.
Again, my suggestion was to make One With Air trigger when you evade an attack, not when you attune to air, and to make it a Minor to replace Zephyr’s Speed. It’s completely different from the old One With Air that no one took.
An “on successful dodge” trigger can potentially occur more frequently, but requires more skill to pull off. The trigger also fits with the theme of the trait: dodge an attack, and you get a temporary burst of speed to reposition yourself. The nerf to duration is to compensate for the trait being made a minor.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
You forget they’re removing the stats from the trait lines, no more healing power and vitality from going 30 water, no more 30% boon duration from going 30 arcana and celestial is getting nerfed by 10%.
Between the buffs and nerfs, I think the 10% overal nerf will remain, assuming the remaining stats will come from buffed runes then we’re looking at a cele ele with :
-15k Hp
-1.3k toughness
-300+ healing power = SoR healing for 230 Hp for second, respect to 276 like nowRest would depends on rune set that you chose, but as base I don’t see the current cele ele make a return, want a tanky or power cele? Well any of the two won’t have huge sustain with SoR alone so you won’t be face tanking anything in the end.
You can’t facetank anything with toughness/protection alone and that will be the case with the upcoming changes, by the way facetanking for me means to simply eat all dmg you receive without flinching and that something not even current cele ele can really do at 100%
I think you misinterpreted my post, or maybe I wasn’t clear. You suggested earlier that these changes would make ele require more skill to play. I explained why that’s not the case.
For example, you specifically stated that your duels with a D/D ele (presumably a bruiser ele) would last indefinitely even if the other ele ate 5-6 burning speeds (i.e. “facetanking”). You then suggested that this won’t be the case with the HOT changes. I’m explaining to you that even with the HOT changes to ele traits, you’ll still run into the problem you described because of geo defense and soothing ice. The only difference now is the ele bruiser playstyle will become even more passive.
Edit: For your convenience, here’s the post I was referring to:
Look I’m an ele main and I have been fighting my fair share of d/d eles who survive solely because of the trait set up, if you go tank you should be allowed to survive yes….but not survive indefinitely regardless of the number of mistakes you do.
Between 2 eles if one takes 5-6 burning speed in his face, the match should end already, it shouldn’t go one forever because the skill difference has already been established, one waste dodges because he can, the other save his dodges, the latter should be rewarded with victory
Again, the point is that the new traits won’t prevent what you just described from happening. If anything, it’ll make it worse because there’s even less counterplay to a trait that passively reduces damage and a trait that procs frost aura when crit.
In your latest response, you’re saying that eles can’t literally sit still and eat every single attack thrown at them. Of course they can’t. I know you were exaggerating when you said an ele could eat 5-6 burning speeds in a row. My use of the word “facetanking” was also hyperbolic. But its an appropriate way to describe a build that revolves around getting hit to proc auras + protection (either via soothing ice or flame barrier w/ ele shielding) while also relying on geo defense’s passive 20% dmg reduction.
Next, your point about A.net nerfing celestial stats — which we’re already aware of because the devs made a post about it — has nothing to do with whether changes to ele bruiser traits will make ele more or less skill-based. The playstyle will remain the same regardless of the amulet stats. The only difference is how effective the overall build would be. If celestial turns out to be a bad choice stat-wise, maybe bruiser eles will go back to valkyrie or cleric. Either way, the trait changes favor a more passive playstyle.
Also, if you watched the Ready Up, A.net didn’t say they’re removing boon duration and condi duration. They indicated that they haven’t figured out what they plan on doing with those stats yet. So any speculation about how those stats will play out is a bit premature.
I think ele will become more harder to play because the room for error will decrease in size, I believe that healing/sustain is the biggest contributor to ele sustain, all of which will be greatly reduced once the changes kick in.
I use numbers to formulate opinions, and the numbers are these:
-Current d/d ele: SoR 276 + regen healing at 1500 + 18K Hp ( 300 healing power/vitality + 30% boon duration)
-Future d/d ele: SoR 232 +regen healing at 900 + 15k HP (boon duration for now gone, no more 300 healing/vitality)
There is a drop in passive sustain, now hoping that geomancer defense remains as it is ( it could still be nerfed mind you), then the oveall survivability of the ele will remain mostly the same…..but it won’t increase in terms of passive play ( this also because you can’t hope to use Stone heart passively)
I think ele will become more harder to play because the room for error will decrease in size, I believe that healing/sustain is the biggest contributor to ele sustain, all of which will be greatly reduced once the changes kick in.
I use numbers to formulate opinions, and the numbers are these:
-Current d/d ele: SoR 276 + regen healing at 1500 + 18K Hp ( 300 healing power/vitality + 30% boon duration)
-Future d/d ele: SoR 232 +regen healing at 900 + 15k HP (boon duration for now gone, no more 300 healing/vitality)
There is a drop in passive sustain, now hoping that geomancer defense remains as it is ( it could still be nerfed mind you), then the oveall survivability of the ele will remain mostly the same…..but it won’t increase in terms of passive play ( this also because you can’t hope to use Stone heart passively)
So they decrease sustain via healing — which was semi-passive — and increase sustain via geomancer defense and soothing ice, which is pure passive. I don’t get how you go from there to saying that the overall survivability of ele will stay the same but won’t increase in terms of passive play.
At least you can CC and apply poison to reduce healing. Unless you’re a ranged class, there’s nothing to be done about geo defense or soothing ice. You’re right that the stone heart trait isn’t purely passive, but it definitely isn’t more active than the current ele playstyle.
What do you currently do when you know you’re about to eat a burst that, for whatever reason, you can’t avoid? You pop earth for protection or pop an aura for protection.
What will you do with the new build? You pop earth for stone heart, or pop an aura for protection. The same in terms of active vs. passive. Except now you also just eat the burst at -20% dmg from Geo Defense, and hope that the first crit procs soothing ice + elemental shielding, so you get another ~43% dmg reduction for doing nothing -- the definition of passive.
What will you do with the new build? You pop earth for stone heart, or pop an aura for protection. The same in terms of active vs. passive. Except now you also just eat the burst at -20% dmg from Geo Defense, and hope that the first crit procs soothing ice + elemental shielding, so you get another ~43% dmg reduction for doing nothing -- the definition of passive.
It is probably more net sustain, WAY more passive (boons on-hit, aura-on hit, -20% damage automatically, no need to actually even use dodges for reasons other than dodging) and less engaging. Also…DIAMOND SKIN!!! THE definition of passive – do nothing to auto-win vs. any condi build.
If you liked the active playstyle, seriously just play engie. They will have MORE fields (including healing turret) and more blasts (for self-boon stacking AND team support), no sacrifice for extra dodge utility, and you don’t have to deal with being vulnerable during the periods between attunement swaps b/c kits have no ICD. Plus, you have big poppa Grouch ensuring the class stays near the top, rather than a dev who thinks “zephyrs speed” is a great trait.
I think ele will become more harder to play because the room for error will decrease in size, I believe that healing/sustain is the biggest contributor to ele sustain, all of which will be greatly reduced once the changes kick in.
I use numbers to formulate opinions, and the numbers are these:
-Current d/d ele: SoR 276 + regen healing at 1500 + 18K Hp ( 300 healing power/vitality + 30% boon duration)
-Future d/d ele: SoR 232 +regen healing at 900 + 15k HP (boon duration for now gone, no more 300 healing/vitality)
There is a drop in passive sustain, now hoping that geomancer defense remains as it is ( it could still be nerfed mind you), then the oveall survivability of the ele will remain mostly the same…..but it won’t increase in terms of passive play ( this also because you can’t hope to use Stone heart passively)
So they decrease sustain via healing — which was semi-passive — and increase sustain via geomancer defense and soothing ice, which is pure passive. I don’t get how you go from there to saying that the overall survivability of ele will stay the same but won’t increase in terms of passive play.
At least you can CC and apply poison to reduce healing. Unless you’re a ranged class, there’s nothing to be done about geo defense or soothing ice. You’re right that the stone heart trait isn’t purely passive, but it definitely isn’t more active than the current ele playstyle.
What do you currently do when you know you’re about to eat a burst that, for whatever reason, you can’t avoid? You pop earth for protection or pop an aura for protection.
What will you do with the new build? You pop earth for stone heart, or pop an aura for protection. The same in terms of active vs. passive. Except now you also just eat the burst at -20% dmg from Geo Defense, and hope that the first crit procs soothing ice + elemental shielding, so you get another ~43% dmg reduction for doing nothing -- the definition of passive.
You’re assuming that geomancer defense will make up for the loss in direct healing, you’re assuming that ele survivability will be easier to achieve….you’re assuming and you have no numbers.
You don’t know by how much the dmg in game overall will increase and neither by how much the loss in vitality and healing will affect the ele, so I don’t see how you state that ele sustain will increase, or rather become worst for the opponent to deal with.
To put this in numbers:
If a 5k dmg source reachs an ele with current dmg reduction of 33%+500 healing, then the total dmg received in the end will, let’s say, 2k with the current level of HP, which is 18k HP, the dmg can be easily overshadowed
After the changes that dmg source will increase ( zerker stats increase, professions able to stack several dmg traits : thieves-mesmer-war) while the ele healing will be reduced by more than half, vitality will decrease by 20% more or less and only dmg reduction will increase by 20%
At this stage it is safe to assume that more than everything the survival will remain more or less the same, because in terms of numbers I don’t see how it’s possible for that 20% alone to make up for loss in healing and vitality against increased dmg, therefore I don’t see how the situation could potentially get worst as you seem to imply
(edited by Supreme.3164)
You’re assuming that geomancer defense will make up for the loss in direct healing, you’re assuming that ele survivability will be easier to achieve….you’re assuming and you have no numbers.
You don’t know by how much the dmg in game overall will increase and neither by how much the loss in vitality and healing will affect the ele, so I don’t see how you state that ele sustain will increase, or rather become worst for the opponent to deal with.
To put this in numbers:
If a 5k dmg source reachs an ele with current dmg reduction of 33%+500 healing, then the total dmg received in the end will, let’s say, 2k with the current level of HP, which is 18k HP, the dmg can be easily overshadowedAfter the changes that dmg source will increase ( zerker stats increase, professions able to stack several dmg traits : thieves-mesmer-war) while the ele healing will be reduced by more than half, vitality will decrease by 20% more or less and only dmg reduction will increase by 20%
At this stage it is safe to assume that more than everything the survival will remain more or less the same, because in terms of numbers I don’t see how it’s possible for that 20% alone to make up for loss in healing and vitality against increased dmg, therefore I don’t see how the situation could potentially get worst as you seem to imply
Maybe it’s a language barrier, but I feel like we might be speaking past each other.
I’m not assuming anything, I was using your own assumptions about survivability. You’re the one throwing in numbers — I’m just going along with it because there’s no point arguing specific numbers at this early stage.
You wrote:
Supreme.3164:
There is a drop in passive sustain, now hoping that geomancer defense remains as it is ( it could still be nerfed mind you), then the oveall survivability of the ele will remain mostly the same…..but it won’t increase in terms of passive play ( this also because you can’t hope to use Stone heart passively)
(Underlining added for clarity)
So I used your own assumptions when I replied:
ResJudicator.7916:
So they decrease sustain via healing — which was semi-passive — and increase sustain via geomancer defense and soothing ice, which is pure passive. I don’t get how you go from there to saying that the overall survivability of ele will stay the same but won’t increase in terms of passive play.
I’m structuring my argument around your assumptions in order to be constructive. Otherwise, we’d just be arguing about who’s assumptions are right. Your latest post makes the following assumption:
At this stage it is safe to assume that more than everything the survival will remain more or less the same
This assumption again perfectly supports my point, which I’ll repeat again for clarity:
ResJudicator.7916
So they decrease sustain via healing — which was semi-passive — and increase sustain via geomancer defense and soothing ice, which is pure passive. I don’t get how you go from there to saying that the overall survivability of ele will stay the same but won’t increase in terms of passive play.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what assumptions you want to use. The whole active vs. passive trait discussion is separate from whether the changes end up being a net buff or nerf to sustain. Because, as you now recognize, we don’t know how the numbers will pan out. As I stated in one of my previous responses:
Also, separate from the whole “is this a nerf or a buff” discussion — which will change drastically depending on what the ICD for Soothing Ice is set to — the proposed HOT changes are reducing the fun, active traits that ele has, and adding in more passive traits.
So you can see that I’m not making any of my own assumptions about whether the ele is getting a net nerf or buff. It doesn’t matter.
The issue pretty much boils down to this: would you rather play a build that rewards careful positioning and timing on dodges and attunement swaps? Or would you rather play a build that has built-in passive damage reduction? At this point, no one knows which build will be stronger b/c we don’t know how the numbers will pan out. But just in terms of fun, which playstyle would you prefer? (This is a gross oversimplification, but it gets the point across)
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
Very well said ResJudicator, I’m not a fan of passive play either… I hope “face-tanking” doesn’t become the ele meta, I’d prefer a more active role.
Could CC spamming ele with Lightning Rod, Tempest Defense, earth shield(skill3,4), berserker D/F with fire+air sigil become the new meta? If they pick aura share too while they have more of thess eles for longer Shocking Aura uptime…
Just imagine a teamfight against 5 such eles… Thoughts?
-snip-
This is not a matter of nerf of buff, I don’t know why you’re so hung up on geomancer defense, yes Everybody understand that the trait is a passive defensive trait.
You keep saying that this trait alone will make eles even more tanky than now with a more passive playstyle, if you take a look at other professions..you’d see that they won’t be that much harder to play either( especially engi and warrior).
Yes you can be a super tank on ele, and arguably this has been made even easier…and so what? There won’t be any more cele super tanky bruiser, you won’t be able to stack might as easily, you won’t have as much healing power to boost SoR.
Yes you can still be tanky…and so what?. They removed healing power…no more 276 SoR, do you understand?.
Yes you can tank dmg, trigger frost aura, elementasl shielding…whatever…then what?
You have no enough freaking healing power to recover, do you understand?
Yes you go now in game and buff yourself to 9000 toughness(random number), you then absorb that 10k hit like nothing…then what? You can’t recover for it, you’ll go down in 4-kittens anyway, so your 9000 toughness serves no purpose, you have nothing to back it up.
Right now a cele bruiser can recover indefinitely while being tanky, do you understand?
They removed stats and moved elemental attunement to GM, so no matter how much dmg you can absorb…you won’t be able to recover from it efficiently unless you equip a specialized amulet like cleric and go bunker role, but you won’t have the dmg of current cele bruiser.
Yes, you use my example of cele d/d vs cele d/d and then state that the upcoming changes will make things even more boring and I explained several times ( including now) that this won’t be the case,yes everybody can see the passive defense aspect, but my point is that a specialized role will be imposed on you so no matter how tanky you hope to be, the infinite war of cele d/d vs cele d/d won’t happen.
The choice between offense or defense will make the game, harder, you won’t be able to have both offense and defense on the same build, not at the level of current cele d/d.
Let’s leave this discussion, I run out of steam, if you understand, good, if not..fair enough
…
Yes you can be a super tank on ele, and arguably this has been made even easier…and so what? There won’t be any more cele super tanky bruiser, you won’t be able to stack might as easily, you won’t have as much healing power to boost SoR.Yes you can still be tanky…and so what?. They removed healing power…no more 276 SoR, do you understand?.
Yes you can tank dmg, trigger frost aura, elementasl shielding…whatever…then what?
You have no enough freaking healing power to recover, do you understand?Yes you go now in game and buff yourself to 9000 toughness(random number), you then absorb that 10k hit like nothing…then what? You can’t recover for it, you’ll go down in 4-kittens anyway, so your 9000 toughness serves no purpose, you have nothing to back it up.
Right now a cele bruiser can recover indefinitely while being tanky, do you understand?
If you read the above posts more carefully, you’ll see that you aren’t disagreeing with anything I’ve actually written. You’re misreading what I’ve written and then arguing against your own misinterpretations.
You’re logic re: sustain is also fundamentally confused. Sustain is a function of both healing and defense. This means that nerfing healing while buffing defense doesn’t necessarily result in a survivability nerf, unless you literally nerf healing to 0 health per second (which obviously isn’t happening). So you’re completely wrong about that.
As a really basic, simplified example: if you can heal 100 HP/sec, and your combination of armor/dodges/etc. is high enough that you only receive on average 100 Dmg/sec, then you could sustain indefinitely. If we nerf your healing to 50 HP/sec, but increase your defenses so you only receive on average 50 Dmg/sec, then you can still sustain indefinitely.
In any event, I think you basically understand the point:
Supreme.3164
This is not a matter of nerf of buff, I don’t know why you’re so hung up on geomancer defense, yes Everybody understand that the trait is a passive defensive trait.You keep saying that this trait alone will make eles even more tanky than now with a more passive playstyle, if you take a look at other professions..you’d see that they won’t be that much harder to play either( especially engi and warrior).
Yes you can be a super tank on ele, and arguably this has been made even easier…and so what?
Right! The changes are making the ele more passive. You’re apparently totally happy about that, which is fine. I’m not going to attack your preferences.
But not everyone shares your preferences. The fact that you think some other classes will be equally passive is irrelevant. Many of the posters in this thread enjoyed playing Ele because it was on average a more active class compared to, say, many warrior builds (but definitely not all warrior builds). And as you now recognize, these changes make ele more similar to warrior in terms of passive defense, which makes the class less fun for people who prefer the more active playstyle.
(Also, engie is a very active class, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from . . . unless you’re running turrets. And the HOT changes are making engie even more active — we should have a similar playstyle change for ele).
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
Yes.. please… I play my elementalist for the versatile playstyle, I don’t want to feel like I only win based on a bunch of passive traits.
Yes.. please… I play my elementalist for the versatile playstyle, I don’t want to feel like I only win based on a bunch of passive traits.
This is true. Let’s take a look at the traits with some more scrutiny to see what else we can deduce.
1. Every build needs SOME way to deal with condis, meaning Water is in every build. There aren’t really viable options otherwise. Ether renewal + rock solid isn’t viable (trickery thief). Further, you take water even if you are dps, because its the best line for picking up damage modifiers.
2. Ele is squishy without its boons, meaning you need a good deal of prot, meaning you take elemental shielding with a bunch of passive aura traits, or arcana still.
3. Your final line is fire if you want to build auras (air just doesn’t give you enough access to auras, and fire can still give you fury access at the GM level). If you are not playing auras, you can take air for fresh air (its comparable in damage to bolt to the heart, but with the utility of gaining access to air auto-attacks, which are the best). Maybe staff would take lightning rod, but staff is going to be SOO bad after the patch, and replaced by mortar engies.
4. Some people will say “what about that blind-spam thing, surely you can make a high dps build with that!” Nope…thieves will just wreck you so hard, unless you are a tanky build.
5. What will change is that ALL ele builds, be it auramancer, d/d ele, fresh-air ele, whatever will rely on PASSIVE mechanics (on-hit, on-stun, or just passive -20% damage) to get anything out of their traits. Looking at all the interesting traits other classes get…man, it really feels like the class was shafted big-time in terms of fun, active playstyles and choices.
Fist of all, I’m excited they made elemental attunemt basically non-existant: Not talking about balance, but I thinks it’s just dumb…. AoE-boonspamming that’s 90% of the time used completely without taking the boons you get into consideration. Yes, maybe I’ll try and switch to earth when I take physical DMG or give swiftness to allies when running around, but in most cases, I’m not gonna care about it.
I also really like the earth trait’s now, they could be a viable alternative to arcane now. I still think arcane is viable though, cuz I think elemental contingency, fury on switch etc. might make some low-precision builds a bit stronger (valkyrie-amulet how I’ve missed you!) and you still have access to the evasive arcana.
overall, I like the changes; might open ob some new builds. There aren’t any huge buffs that just jump into your face like on other classes, but it’s pretty decent.
guess what, there are eles around that use their boons in the right moment, just because you don’t doesn’t justify the nerf.
the earth traits and the loss of the aoe boons for your team make ele a hardtank, exactly what is not needed.
Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.
guess what, there are eles around that use their boons in the right moment, just because you don’t doesn’t justify the nerf.
the earth traits and the loss of the aoe boons for your team make ele a hardtank, exactly what is not needed.
Yepp, when you’re running a fresh-air build or even a cele-ele, you’r attunemt-switching isn’t governed by: what your opponent does, your mightstack-combos, CD’s of the big skills on the attunemts, what your teammates are doing, but by when exactly you want to give your teammates or yourself the swiftness or the 1 might-stack or the reg…. -.-°
As I’ve stated: there are situations where the switching is done deliberately because of the boons, (mostly the earth or the air out of combat) but they are few and far between.
—> Yes, elemental congingency isn’t THAT much better, but you still have the protection AND retal and fury, which probably will be used more carefully than the ones from elemental attunement.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
just because it’s the only “useful” trait in that slot doesn’t mean that it’s a good trait.
if you manage your rotation well and know how to go out and in of different rotations it’s not hard giving your allies what they need in the right moment…
and you don’t use any mightstack combos anymore other than the blast from water, battle runes and 20 might stacks are a thing from the past. it’s the same with people insta dodging when they go into water.. wasting a dodge when they could have dodged an actual damaging skill because you won’t stay in water for 10s anyway.
Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.
just because it’s the only “useful” trait in that slot doesn’t mean that it’s a good trait.
I’ve specifically stated that I don’t think the change to elemental attunemt is balance-wise the best choice or that elemental contingency is better, I just said that elemental attunemt wasn’t very skill-intensive and elemental contingency might be a bit more skill-intensive: I might actually hold on to the switch to fire in certain situations simply because i want the retal – that would’ve never happened with elemental attunemt.
just because it’s the only “useful” trait in that slot doesn’t mean that it’s a good trait.
I’ve specifically stated that I don’t think the change to elemental attunemt is balance-wise the best choice or that elemental contingency is better, I just said that elemental attunemt wasn’t very skill-intensive and elemental contingency might be a bit more skill-intensive: I might actually hold on to the switch to fire in certain situations simply because i want the retal – that would’ve never happened with elemental attunemt.
If you take a look at what people run at low/medium levels of pvp..you’d notice that there are no eles in the majority of cases, these days all you see is : engies(omni present with Iwin elite), well spammers necro and med guardian/thief( omni present) and ofc shout warriors…you don’t see eles that often, that should tell you a lot about the level of skill required to play ele respect to the rest…same(or better) result with far less buttons to press
just because it’s the only “useful” trait in that slot doesn’t mean that it’s a good trait.
I’ve specifically stated that I don’t think the change to elemental attunemt is balance-wise the best choice or that elemental contingency is better, I just said that elemental attunemt wasn’t very skill-intensive and elemental contingency might be a bit more skill-intensive: I might actually hold on to the switch to fire in certain situations simply because i want the retal – that would’ve never happened with elemental attunemt.
If you take a look at what people run at low/medium levels of pvp..you’d notice that there are no eles in the majority of cases, these days all you see is : engies(omni present with Iwin elite), well spammers necro and med guardian/thief( omni present) and ofc shout warriors…you don’t see eles that often, that should tell you a lot about the level of skill required to play ele respect to the rest…same(or better) result with far less buttons to press
So?
The only thing I talked about not requiring a lot of skill is the trait “elemental attunement”. Why do you generalize that to the whole profession, or rather, assume that I was doing so?
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
On a whole there a reasonable number of good changes to the elementalist skill trees. I think that there are a few things that don’t work well or make sense in the new elementalist skill trees:
Fire
Fire II
Combining a key trait for signet builds with the conjurer trait seems extremely awkward and out of place. Ideally there should be additional traits for conjure skills such as CDR, mechanics changes, boon on conjure, etc.
Fire III
Overwhelming Power is on the weak side for an adept numberswise. Additionally, condition builds generally don’t work well for elementalists in WvW/PvE.
Fire VII
I guess merging persisting flames, a key PvE trait with lava tomb doesn’t hurt the skill… on the other hand it also isn’t really useful. Similarly to Fire II, this is an awkward merging of traits.
Air
Air Minor 1
Zephyr’s speed is a very weak minor trait. 10% movespeed in air usually has no noticeable effect on gameplay and is not very exciting as a trait in general. Additionally, it is often made redundant by swiftness boons.
Air III
They mentioned on stream that this trait will likely be changed to scale on precision instead and for good reason. The skill with its current tooltip makes no sense. Niche healing builds don’t benefit from crit damage and standard damage builds don’t take healing power.
Air VII
Many people have objected to the shifting of bolt to the heart from adept to grandmaster. This cripples builds such as S/X fresh air PvP builds which were already niche in addition to D/F PvE builds. If it is to stay in this tier it should at least be raised up to par with similar grandmaster skills such as executioner aka 20% increase at 50% HP and below.
Earth and Water skill trees are well put together and will probably be core for PvP
Arcane
sigh… where do I start
This tree as a whole has become very underwhelming over the years and when the specialization patch hits, in my opinion will be undertuned compared to other specializations.
Arcane Minor 2
Lingering elements has always been an extremely weak adept that is often not noticed. Ideally it should be changed to something more powerful or interesting in terms of gameplay mechanics.
Arcane IV
This trait is really not very useful and I would be hard pressed to find someone who would take it in any game mode. Additionally, gaining an aura after the revive is somewhat redundant as you would want the protection while you are reviving.
Arcane VI
Final shielding seems to be underwhelming compared to other master level traits in the game. It is more on par with an adept trait in terms of power in my opinion.
Arcane minor 3
Arcane Precision is pretty underpowered for a grandmaster level minor trait. 10% chance on crit is laughably low for the effect that is applied to an enemy.
Arcane VIII
Elemental Surge is undertuned compared to other GM level Arcane traits that could be taken. Almost all players will take evasive arcana or elemental attunement instead.
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?
Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:
- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable and can easy be procced in a teamfight when it wouldn’t do that much, like with the fear on the nightmare runes, or even procs on CC like reapers protection.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”
Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.
So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make me do more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
While I know this falls on deaf ears, I just have to get my opinion of the actual individual traits while looking though the lines:
Fire Minors
Flame Barrier: An RNG fire aura is never skillful. It can help face-taking aura builds to have more aura uptime/boon procs, but only if they have very high uptime. This doesn’t allow fire-swaps to be used for defense, you just sometimes randomly get a benefit. This is terrible.
Sunspot: 180 aoe is garbage.
Burning Rage: Good trait in a terrible line.
Fire Adept
Burning precision: chance on a chance isn’t all that great, only good with weapons that have hit-rates.
Conjurer: this is actually just a signet trait. Conjures are garbage. Useful in signet aura builds, useless otherwise.
Power Overwhelming: This is garbage. Condition builds on ele don’t work. Classes with working condition builds get tons of random-procs that apply a million condis all over the place.
Fire Master
Pyromancer’s training: I guess its ok, but not really all that interesting. This doesn’t open up any new possibilities.
One with Fire: Nobody cares about fire auras having more uptime. Fire aura is terrible. 2 stacks of might isn’t really that great, even in glyph builds that just spam their utilities to get auras. Aura builds only use the auras for the boons from zephyr’s boon and elemental shielding.
Burning Fire: A terrible trait. An automatic cleanse every 40s doesn’t help vs. condi builds. Most of the time this procs on a single stack of vuln, a single bleed, and single poison stack. The might is also insignificant because of the long CD of cantrips. Cantrip builds are defensive, and aren’t going to into fire for a few stack of might (~6 on average) and a bunch of garbage traits.
Fire GM:
Persisting flames: Good for staff builds (due to low CD on fire fields). Decent on aura-builds to get fury, but mostly a pve trait.
Pyromancer’s Puissance: Nobody will ever take this, ever. This is worse than the crap at the adept level.
Blinding Ashes: Interesting, but if it is not per-target a net bad trait. Because of the design of ele, you either rely on RNG procs or being hit with fire aura for blinds (again, passive). This isn’t useful for burst builds (especially scepter) b/c its useless vs. thieves and mesmers.
Overall: Fire line is terrible and uninteresting. Taking the fire line gives up too much defense in exchange for very little real offense. The traits in this line don’t open up new possibilities. The only use for fire is to make signets into skills that give fire aura to get boon uptime. One of the biggest drawbacks to this approach is just how terrible fire aura is. For pvp, fire line is overall just bad.
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?
Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:
- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.
So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make have to make more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.
You can instantly manifest the boon you want with Elemental Attunement, you have to wait to be hit and stay in an attunement for a specific boon with Elemental Contingency. I’d rather summon the boon I want on command and then be able to freely swap to another attunement if need be. You don’t have to agree with me this is just my personal preference when it comes to EA vs EC.
On a side note if balancing the elementalist was completely up to me I wouldn’t make the class rely on long duration boons at all.
(edited by Grimreaper.5370)
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?
Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:
- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.
So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make have to make more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.
You can instantly manifest the boon you want with Elemental Attunement, you have to wait to be hit and stay in an attunement for a specific boon with Elemental Contingency. I’d rather summon the boon I want on command and then be able to freely swap to another attunement if need be. You don’t have to agree with me this is just my personal preference when it comes to EA vs EC
Again, ppl confuse it when I say “I like the trait” with “I think the trait is better”. I like EC more than EA exactly because it forces you to make those kinds of decisions and because the boons you get are more timing-based and because it will be harder to use effectively.
For me, a trait that requires you to play better, make decisions and opens up new ways to play a character is a better designed trait.
Is it better than EA – probably not, I still like it more, because numbers can easily be tweaked, but the core design of how the trait works is less likely to be changed.
Air Minors
Zephyr’s Speed: Just lol. This doesn’t exist, due to most access to swiftness or if you take One with Air. Maybe if it STACKED with swiftness. Literally ANYTHING is better.
Electric Discharge: One of the primary reasons you go into air
Weak Spot: Only truly good in conjunction with the water trait for conjure builds. 1-2 vuln every now and then is USELESS for a condi build. Take some inspiration from mesmers, who stack ~5 vuln. on activation to promote burst builds.
Air Adept
Zephyr’s boon: Good for aura builds, but I’m not sure they can afford to go into air. Aura traits are spread out all over the place.
One with air: decent from fresh air builds, useless for everyone else.
Ferocious winds: LOL.
Air Master
Inscription: Nice try, but glyphs are STILL terrible (1 is AI, 1 is a res utility, the glyph heal is terrible). The boons are way too short, this is barely even worth taking if you wanted to handicap yourself with a glyph build.
Aeromancer’s training: A little ferocity is nice, but only useful in pvp if you are zerker. If you went valk’s this STILL doesn’t help you get any precision. In NO WAY is this like 10% damage in air (10% crit damage was equivalent to 15-20% crit damage on crits and 10% extra otherwise). Net nerf to damage.
Tempest defense: A decent defensive choice, but the CD is too long to REALLY support aura builds wanting to go into air (they have to take earth for prot, fire for access to enough auras, and water for aura-share and low-cd aura on being hit). Other builds might like this.
Air GM
Fresh air: good.
Lightning rod: has potential, especially for staff.
Bolt to the heart: not an option, and way boring. Fresh air or lightning rod will give similar dps, with WAY more utility. This is wholly uninspired and doesn’t even inspire new builds. Terrible here.
Earth Minors
Stone Flesh: Good, but only with lingering elements.
Earthen blast: decent, but don’t call it a blast if its not.
Geomancer’s defense: the reason why most builds that go earth will do so.
Earth adept
Earth’s embrace: Not really great, but the best option if you aren’t dagger/x (and thus can’t take auras)
Serrated stones: Terrible even on condi builds. Eles need ways to apply condis outside of air. Take some inspiration from other classes and have this apply bleeds on crit, or when vuln is applied. Garbage if left as-is.
Elemental Shielding: Good for d/x builds, including aura builds.
Earth Master
Strength of stone: Lazy and uninspired. More condition damage isn’t needed. Eles need more ways to apply condis that aren’t “burn in fire, bleeds in earth” if they aren’t going to get some OP buff like +33% burn damage that guards have.
Rock solid: 1 stack for 2s is just bad. Doesn’t secure stomps, doesn’t protect channeled casts. Even if it gave 10 stacks for 2s (equivalent to its old functionality) it isn’t going to be taken often.
Geomancer’s training: the only option at this tier. The -33% duration is good for all builds. The CD reduction is good for off-hand focus builds.
Earth GM
Diamond skin: one of the worst designed traits ever. Passive garbage. Its either OP or useless. Its not interesting for the user (“spam passive heals and trololol your condi build can’t do anything”) and its not interesting for the opponent (“well this is like bashing my head against a brick wall”)
Stone Heart: Interesting, but I’m not sure if it is GM-level worthy. Eles armor isn’t so high that major bursts aren’t going to force a heal anyway. Still, its interesting. I don’t think it will be taken, but it might
Written in stone: a good trait. Opens up signet-aurashare, and even non-aura builds might take it b/c SoR is our only viable heal. Fix the other useless signets (fire and water) and this get’s more exciting.
Overall: earth gives some good tanking options, but the condi choices are incredibly poor. There should be a GM trait that really opens up new options for condi builds.
why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.
first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….
Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?
Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:
- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.
So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make have to make more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.
You can instantly manifest the boon you want with Elemental Attunement, you have to wait to be hit and stay in an attunement for a specific boon with Elemental Contingency. I’d rather summon the boon I want on command and then be able to freely swap to another attunement if need be. You don’t have to agree with me this is just my personal preference when it comes to EA vs EC
Again, ppl confuse it when I say “I like the trait” with “I think the trait is better”. I like EC more than EA exactly because it forces you to make those kinds of decisions and because the boons you get are more timing-based and because it will be harder to use effectively.
For me, a trait that requires you to play better, make decisions and opens up new ways to play a character is a better designed trait.
Is it better than EA – probably not, I still like it more, because numbers can easily be tweaked, but the core design of how the trait works is less likely to be changed.
I think maybe you are misunderstanding me, I was simply stating my preference on a specific game mechanic and said you don’t have to be like minded. I personally don’t like the way EC is designed because I prefer to try an play an evasive playstyle. Again I am not arguing with you, I’m not trying to tell you one mechanic is “better” than the other. I am just stating my preference when it comes to mechanic function via attunement swapping vs being hit in a current attunement.
(edited by Grimreaper.5370)
Water Minors
Soothing Mist: good
Healing ripple: good
Aquatic benevolence: Good trait, but doesn’t do anything for the ele. Not many other classes have traits that do NOTHING for the user. +25% self-healing would be too much though.
Water adept
Soothing ice: the obvious choice, depending on CD. IF it is 10-15s, every aura build must take water. If it is longer, the trait is garbage.
Piercing shards: a bad trait. Water doesn’t do any damage. With inc. nerfs to LH (which they will make unviable for damage, see: fiery greatsword) this trait is dead.
Stop, drop, and roll: I really like this trait, but honestly it should be in FIRE. Having access to some usable condi removal outside water would be AWESOME. If soothing ice’s ICD is long, this might be taken
Water Master
Soothing disruption: great choice for most builds b/c cantrips are the ONLY option.
Cleansing Wave: a good choice
Aquamancer’s training: decent option for dps builds, but they will probably take cleansing wave b/c they still need some cleanse.
Water GM
Cleansing water: the obvious choice for 90% of builds. The only truly good option for eles to get reasonable condi cleanse.
Powerful aura: aura builds will be tempted, but the range is short. Also, they still need ways to cleanse.
Bountiful power: max-dps builds will take this, but its very boring and uninspired.
Overall: Water is one of the best dps lines (do to having lots of modifier) and has cleanse that most eles need. 90% of ele builds will take water b/c it fits in every build.
Arcana Minors
Arcane fury: the reason many dps builds still take arcana (with renewing stamina)
Lingering elements: garbage unless you are water/earth/arcana. Also, doesn’t work with tempest either. At this point, should just be scrapped b/c its too restrictive.
Arcane precision: A way to apply condis, but 10% on crit? Worthless if I don’t care about condi builds outside of air. Should probably be buffed and made a master-level major trait.
Arcana adept
Renewing stamina: Everyone takes this
Arcane energy: Arcane builds aren’t a thing. Those that are, build VERY offensive, meaning they still take renewing stamina.
Arcane abatement: LOL. I guess nice for jumping puzzles. Should be given something extra like thieves were (steal also makes them stealth, in addition to falls).
Arcane Master
Arcane resurrection: terrible. I want auras WHILE reviving, not afterwards while trying to kite away. Auras aren’t even that strong, and poor guy if you get stuck with fire aura.
Elemental contingency: good for face-tanking builds. Useless otherwise.
Final shielding: the only option for dps builds, but a very bad one. 75s icd isn’t warranted for only 3 blocks. DPS builds often skip straight from >25% to downed anyway.
Arcana GM
Elemental attunement – the choice for 90% of eles. Because you are still going into water, you still get the cleanse that is on water-dodge. The prot and swiftness are better than the blast + extra goodies in evasive arcana.
Evasive arcana – good trait, but does the same role as elemental attunement (utility + defense). Thus its just a matter of min/maxing which one gives the best benefit. Doesn’t present a different playstyle.
Elemental surge – arcana builds aren’t a thing, and certainly aren’t a choice for condi builds. This entire trait is entirely misleading. The only reason you EVER take this is for an instant immob in earth, and 1s is nothing compared to what other classes can get easier.
Overall: This traitline is now an absolute mess. It still gets taken in most builds b/c renewing stamina, arcane fury, and elemental attunement are core to how the class plays. At GM, there aren’t different playstyles, its just a matter of min/maxing (both are defensive and utility focused).
I don’t see this being mentioned yet, but Flame Barrier does not work in that slot at all. The Fire, Air, Earth and Water traits are all supposed to trigger “While attuned to X” instead of “When you attune to X” so that Lingering Elements works.
My thoughts:
Fire: This line gets a lot of hate, but I think it’s pretty solid, and has potential. Especially love the changes to Blinding Ashes and One with Fire. My biggest issues with it are the minors:
Flame Barrier: I like the new functionality, but this needs to be refined to work with Lingering Elements.
Sunspot: I’d like to see this have its radius significantly increased, so that non-melee Eles can get some use out of it too.
Air: This line is taking a substantial nerf with Bolt to the Heart becoming a Grandmaster. There are a few problematic traits IMO:
Zephyr’s Speed: Redundant. With Eles’ ease of access to Swiftness and the ubiquity of Signet of Air (which will undoubtedly be used more due to how awesome Earth Magic now is,) this trait is a waste of a minor. Needs to be reworked, and needs to play well with Lingering Elements.
Ferocious Winds: This trait is very pointless, and IMO one of the worst traits in the entire game. An Ele specializing in Healing will hardly ever need Ferocity. What combination would such an Ele even use? There is no Healing Power/Precision/Ferocity combination, and even if this existed, it’s not like heals can crit (although IMO that’d be awesome.)
Inscription: Glyphs granting a boon on use is a mediocre effect on a class that has decent access to boons already. If it were changed to Glyphs remove a condition on use (including the Elemental command skills,) I think it would go a long way towards making Gylphs usable; however, even this is problematic because Glyphs are meant to be used often, while you would typically want to save condi cleanses. This trait still needs a bit of refining either way IMO.
Bolt to the Heart: To compensate for being moved to Grandmaster level, I think the health threshold should be 50%. This would make it the Ele version of Executioner, and would be balanced by the fact that you can’t also take Fresh Air anymore.
Earth: This line is amazing now! Besides the fact that I hate Diamond Skin, I only have one minor suggestion:
Rock Solid: This is a great trait, but I’d like it to grant more than 1 stack of stability for just the Ele. 2 is probably best.
(continued)
Fear the might of SHATTERSTONE.
(continued from above)
Water: Continues to be a great line. Love Soothing Ice.
Piercing Shards: I’d love to see the damage modifier work in all Attunements. This would promote synergy with Weak Spot and burst builds in general, and also helps promote Water Magic as a DPS line, complementing Bountiful Power.
Aquatic Benevolence: I hate that this is a minor trait. It has absolutely no benefit for the Ele itself, while being a build-defining trait. This, to me, is the essence of a Grandmaster MAJOR trait. Any Ele who doesn’t spec into Healing Power (i.e. the vast majority of Eles) will have absolutely no benefit from this trait. Even Healing Eles will not be able to benefit from the increased healing. So I don’t know why we’re being forced into taking this waste of a trait slot. Better to leave it as a major trait, and reinstating Bountiful Power as the Grandmaster minor.
Powerful Auras: NEEDS to affect auras gained from ALL sources and not just weapon skills; otherwise, Auramancers will never really be a thing.
Arcana: Taking a big nerf with Elemental Attunement becoming a Grandmaster, competing with Evasive Arcana. The Master tier is severely lacking for good options.
Lingering Elements: I’m very torn about this trait. On the one hand, I love how cohesive it makes the class feel: swapping attunements feels very good when you have the lingering Adept minor from the previous attunements still active. On the other hand, this one trait makes all our Adept minor traits fairly crappy to avoid power creep. Besides, the new Flame Barrier doesn’t even work with Lingering Elements. I’d be in favor of buffing/reworking our other minor Adepts and doing away entirely with Lingering Elements.
Elemental Contingency: On-hit traits for the class with the lowest health and armor in the game is a bad, bad idea. This trait also discourages active defense. Rework it entirely.
Final Shielding: The cooldown on this could use shaving.
Arcane Precision: I think this is a joke of a Grandmaster minor trait. Abysmal trigger chance on top of only triggering on crits. Builds that don’t stack Precision will almost never see a benefit from this trait. I suggest upping the trigger chance for any attack (not just crits.)
Other thoughts:
-I really think that a self-only version of Elemental Attunement should be a baseline mechanism of the class, possibly with shorter prot/regen boon durations. The argument Anet made was that they believe both EAs are build-defining traits and therefore need to be mutually exclusive. Yet (not to pick on the Mesmer, but), they made Illusionary Persona (a build-defining trait) inherent to the Mesmer. A self-only Elemental Attunement would in no way be build-defining, and would gives the class an in-built active defense mechanism. The Grandmaster version could then extend the duration of the boons conferred, and extend the effect to allies. Alternatively, the self-only version of Elemental Attunement could replace Arcane Precision.
-We need a good trait to replace the Vigorous Scepter and Windborne Dagger traits.
Fear the might of SHATTERSTONE.
(edited by Glenstorm.4059)
i may be in the minority here, but i totally disagree with the assessment of Pyromancer’s Puissance. it may be useless to a d/d ele, but the trait gives an alternate method of might stacking for a staff ele besides being forced to take arcane blast and arcane brilliance.. and honestly? a staff ele doesn’t need longer duration fire fields. As for fury: with the new conjurer trait, combined with aura traits in air, there will also be plenty of fury for a signet build.
fire air earth is much more attractive to me than taking stupid arcana line. and now signets combined with aura traits look much more useful than cantrips, but something tells me that all the old school die-hards will still insist on cantrip-only builds or be kicked.
cantrips have to be the most boring skills available to eles. the only way i’d ever use them, is if there existed a GM trait in water or arcana to share the effects of my cantrips with nearby allies (say 900 range). otherwise, the cooldowns are still way too long to be worth it. (of course, in my own opinion)
as for sunspot? yeah i’ve always hated that trait. as a staff ele, i want to be nowhere near my target, so why would i want a melee range AoE spell? the radius needs to be 600… or better yet: make sunspot be a chance on crit against your target while attuned to fire. that would make a decent adept minor, and move the new flame barrier up to master minor. sunspot is really low damage to begin with, so making it a crit proc while attuned to fire makes much more sense.
and for the record: Fire is the power – offense line. i am really getting tired of defense and cleansing traits taking up space in the offense line. you want defense? go earth! you want more cleansing? go water! cleansing fire is acceptable for one reason only: it burns nearby foes. fire aura at least grants might, regardless of where the attacker is, compared to the old flame barrier, which only granted burning against melee attackers.
my assessment of fire line is that new version is far superior to the old (current LIVE) version, and it opens up far more build possibilities than what the current meta allows. the new version is less defense and more offense.
– The Baconnaire
I don’t see this being mentioned yet, but Flame Barrier does not work in that slot at all. The Fire, Air, Earth and Water traits are all supposed to trigger “While attuned to X” instead of “When you attune to X” so that Lingering Elements works.
The very first water minor (Soothing mists) and the very first earth minor (stone flesh) are the only minors this trait has ever affected.
I think its important to note that the 00666 build will have access to THREE heals (signet heal while maintaining the passive after use and 20second cd), which might be why anet decided to move Elemental Attunement to a GM trait…
If elemental attunement becomes baseline then I suggest dropping the protection time down to around 2 seconds upon entering earth(if you get hit in earth and have Elemental contingency that’s 4 1/2 seconds of protection) reduce the regeneration gained when swapping to water to about 3-4 seconds(we really need the regeneration to proc the condition removal when swapping into water with the Cleansing Wave GM trait in mind; in order for it to remain a good trait) reduce Healing Signets passive heal value by about ~3% to compensate for the regeneration boon gained and increase the cast time of Healing Signet by ~1/4th a second so there is a little more time to counter the active heal.
I think something like this would allow Elemental Attunement to become baseline while not creating a huge imbalance amongst the class. The Swiftness gained from swapping into air is also pretty important for any build not picking up the air trait line. If this was done then the first minor in air could become One With Air for that 3 second super speed buff*. It wouldn’t make any sense to gain swiftness(baseline) upon entering air, and have a 10% move speed minor trait while in air attunement… for the most part.
Since attunement recharge rates will drop to 8.7 seconds with the arcana trait line in mind, I believe its fair for Evasive Arcana, Elemental Contingency, and Elemental Attunement to also have an 8.7ICD opposed to the 10 second ICD (which is the current ICD for attunement recharge with 6 points in arcana)
(edited by Grimreaper.5370)
The elementalist uses each element to provide different roles.
Specializations in each element should increase the elementalists efficiency on such roles and provide ways of being able to perform what they are supposed to perform. in that element.
Arcana Spec in the other hand promotes a more varied playstile by making it more viable to quickly change attunements (att dance). That is why is so popular, makes the ele gameplay more fluid and action-packed while making the ele more balanced across elements.
Minor traits now should make the core of the spec, they are the baseline of a spec (no options) and should reflect the main spec idea"
Based on this I think:
Elemental specs should focus more on making each element more attractive. skill CD reductions should always be a minor trait in each line, just like att reduction needs to be a minor trait in arcana.
Att swap free-casts (current t2 minor traits) should be moved to arcana in a single trait. This fit more with the att dance, not with the elemental specs.
Here are my ideas:
Fire: – Fire is about sustain dmg. It should focus on high dmg and burns with defensive options to keep the ele in the fight to deliver its sustain.
Minors: Burning precision, Pyromancers training (20% CD reduction part only), Burning rage
This reflects the spec main goal, deal more sustain dmg and extensive burn.
T1: Flame Barrier (Gain 3s fire aura while attuning to fire, 100% chance), Pyromancers inscriptions (signets give 3sec fire aura, deal 10% more dmg while in fire attunement), Power Overwhelming
T2: Burning Fire, One with fire(fire auras you apply last 33% longer and give 1 stack of might every 2secs), Conjurer (conjured weapons have 10 extra charges and increased attribute bonuses),
T3: Blinding ashes, Pyromancers puissance, Persisting flames
Air: Air is the burst dmg element. Specialization in air should increase burst dmg and provide ways to deliver that burst. Extra procs for more dmg, bonus dmg and hard CC and mobility are what this speacialization should provide, so that the air ele can get in the fight fast, deliver its burst, and move out of harms way.
Minors: Zephyrs Speed (move 25% faster while attuned to air), Aeromancers Training (Reduce air skill CD by 20%), Weak spot
T1: Zephyrs boon, One with air, Ferocious Winds (gain 10% attack speed while attuned to air)
T2: Inscriptions, Bolt to the heart (20% dmg against foes under 33% hp), tempest defense (Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled.)
T3: Lightning rod (Disabling an enemy causes them to be struck by a Lightning bolt, Deal 20% more damage to disabled enemies), Fresh Air, Lightning Inscriptions (glyphs are instant cast)
Earth: Earth is the defense element. Specialization in earth should boost the elementalist defense and provide it with ways of being more of an attrition fighter (conditions and control).
Minors: Stone Flesh, Geomancers Training (20% CD reduction to earth skills), Geomancer’s defense
T1: Armor of earth, Elemental Shielding, Serrated stones
T2: Strenght of stone, Rock solid, Ground training (You recover from crippled, immobilized, and chilled 33% faster and gain 3s protection (10s icd).
T3: Diamond Skin, Written in Stone, Stone Heart
Water:Water is the healing and support line. Specialization on water gives better and more ways of the ele to heal and remove conditions and act as a healer and support.
Minors:Soothing mist, Aquamancers training (reduce water skills CD by 20%), Cleansing water
T1: soothing ice, piercing shard, stop, drop and roll (dodge removes burn and poison)
T2: soothing disruption, cleansing wave, vital striking(gain 10% dmg while you are above 90% hp, cause vulnerability to foes you strike that are above 90% health)
T3: bountiful power, aquatic benevolence (Healing and regeneration are increased by 20%), powerful aura
Arcana: Arcana line promotes diversity. It makes the ele more flexible by granting small boons to all attunements, but for smaller periods. The idea is to grant the elementalist faster attunement swap and more versatility.
Minors: Arcane fury, Lingering elements (this works with all attunement exclusive traits), Arcane precision (20% chance, works with lingering elements)
T1: Arcane Energy (Arcane skills restore 33 endurance when used and have 20% lower recharges), renewing stamina, arcane abatement
T2: Elemental Contingency (10 ICD is per attunement), _Arcane attunement (Creates a spell at your location when you attune to an element – previous t2 minors traits spells), Final Shielding (Create an Arcane Shield for 5s and recharge all arcane skills when your health drops below 25%)
T3: Evasive arcana,elemental surge, elemental attunement
(edited by lLobo.7960)
A few things I believe the changes above would provide:
Fire spec would become more viable for a sustained dmg elementalist.
Be it one that focus on staying away from combat and needs to stack might without wasting his fields (by fire auras proposed changes and fire camping) or one that needs to survive longer in the combat (by reducing condition pressure with proposed fire aura change and blind on burns). It also split the conjurer and signet trait that was weird and makes conjured weapons stronger in what they are proposed to do.
The proposed changes give more clear paths to each playstile (auras, conjures, signets, dmg)
Air spec would provide more crit dmg and more attack speed. The proposed GM trait for glyphs make those a viable option and can give glyph eles a new way to generate boons. The proposed changes make more clear the different paths. The burst capacity is all there and fresh air paired with arcana line can provide great potential.
The synergy of bolt to the heart and tempest defense is transferred to lightening rod. It makes more sense to get a dmg bonus when you interrupt a foe, not when you get interrupted.
Earth line is very solid (no pun intended) as it is. A bit more synergy with proposed changes to stop, drop and roll and the proposed ground training. The possibility of earth attune camping to tank is very real now with all the added defense. Be it by using conjures to replace the dmg lacking earth skills or to use air spec to provide quick bursts before returning to the safe of earth element (with some help of arcana).
Water line, loosing the healing ripple, makes this line less mandatory and opens other options (with proposed changes). Keeping the water line with the new arcana trait (to get healing ripple back) will mantain the current playstile and get some bonuses. But options reside also on going into fire and earth to mitigate dmg (by blinds or dmg resistance). Cleansing water should be a minor trait as it gives the ele a source of cleanse that he can then improve by using the weapon skills on reduced cd or by traiting for further heals and condi cleanses.
This trait organization makes water spec very distinct for eles that seek to improve their dmg, to provide heals or buffs (auras) to allies.
Arcana line
Lingering elements need to work properly with attunement bonus (dmg bonus, defensive bonus and other traits) Otherwise its a useless trait, even more now, when the elementalist that specs in arcana can only pick 2 other elements to spec in.
By placing the on attunement (current t2 minor traits) spells on an arcana trait you help each elemental spec to improve its element (with the CD reductions as minors) and help arcana provide more than just vigor, promoting maximum att swap for extra spells (control with earth, dmg with fire and air, heal with water). This synergises well with evasive arcana and promote 2 playstiles (the buff on attunement and hits, or the spells on attunement and dodges)
The changes on the arcane skills traits might promote the arcane heavy ele a chance to shine, since it will improve the spells and grant it a last chance to heal and dmg when under heavy pressure.
One last thing:
Lava Axe auto attack should bounce 3 times to make it more viable.
(edited by lLobo.7960)
BlackBeard gets all my cookies. he covered everything I think about these changes.
Asharìa March – 80 Elementalist
Co-Guild Leader of Prime Defense on Sanctum of Rall – www.Primedefense.net
Co-Guild Leader of Prime Defense on Sanctum of Rall – www.Primedefense.net
As I put elsewhere the biggest frustration I have with the new trait system is that we continue to be balanced thematically.
What that means is instead of having a very clear “This is the Condition line. This is the Aura line. This is the…” that most classes seem to have many traits we have are spread out all over because they go with their respective Attunements. Burning must be Fire. Bleeds must be Earth. Protection on Auras is Earth. Auras and traits that boost Auras are spread out over four specializations two of which (Air/Earth) are just boons on Aura.
This is incredibly frustrating as a player and Elementalist should be looked at and each line made consistent with two Focuses and a utility trait per tier. Water is probably the best example of this. It has two focuses: Damage (Piercing Shards, Aquamancer Training, Bountiful Power) and Defense (Soothing Ice, Cleansing Wave, Cleansing Water) and Utility (Stop Drop and Roll, Soothing Disruption and Powerful Aura).
Other trees need similar focus. Why do we have two Condi lines on a class that only ever has had fringe Condi builds? Why are there multiple crit focused traits in a Power/Condi specialization? Signets in two lines. Cantrips in two lines. Auras in four lines. Conjures don’t even have their own trait. The biggest thing other classes got that we didn’t is cohesion and refinement in each of their lines while each of our lines continue to simply try to do too much in too many places.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Elemental Attunement is only a bit over the top because of the long protection duration it provides, the regen can come in pretty handy with a full bunker build too, the swiftness and might provided are not providing a huge outrageous buff. Reduce the protection and regeneration durations and test out how things go if this trait was to become baseline. Maybe something along the lines of 3 seconds of protection, 3-4 seconds of regeneration while keeping current might and swiftness values? Or perhaps the EA could maintain its current boon values if it was baseline + selfish.
I’m not simply asking for EA to become baseline because I want EA for free, this trait has become a huge part of the class, this trait is why this class can function at all with more bursty builds, as of now other traits such as Elemental shielding, Cleansing Wave, Zypher’s boon synergize far too well with EA to not take it. With its current design the Elementalist completely revolves around this trait. If you want to give this class diversity then I believe this trait must become baseline.
(edited by Grimreaper.5370)
bumping for more valuable input
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