Guild Wars 2

suggestion/seeking advice TL;DR at bottom

Even when you spec 0/10/0/30/30 you still have a 9 second cooldown on attunements. For a good Elementalist, this cooldown is not a problem. However, this is the main reason why we have to spend 30 trait points in Arcana if we want to have what resembles free access to all of our skills. A luxury which many players in the Elementalist community agree is a necessity for versatility and meeting our full potential.

The problem arises when a player wants to build outside of the 0/10/0/30/30.

For example,

Many players agree that if you play staff you have to accept either very low burst or very low hp. Imagine, as a staff player, if you had decent long range burst (pyromancer’s puissance, etc.) and could switch to good CC and back INSTANTLY. As a glass cannon, good CC is your only method of survival once focused.

It’s difficult to kite with a 15 second cooldown on your attack skills

The point is, many players are complaining about “bunker D/D or go home.” Some players are even seeking advice on a play style that allows them to sit in a single attunement. Maybe we don’t need buffs or nerfs, maybe we need a change in mechanics?

If I could spec 30/0/30/0/10 -or- 30/30/0/10/0 or any number of high-burst-low-health builds, I, and the majority of other Elementalists, could develop a playstyle of nuke-CC-nuke-and back again that would easily mitigate if not ELIMINATE the problem of our non-flexible trait lines.

Am I playing the class wrong? Is there a way to play outside of Arcana without losing all versatility?

Everyone knows about this already. There must be balance problems with this suggestion that I am missing because Anet would have done this or something similar by now. Insta-stacking boons with our insta-attunement swaps? Keep a 9 second internal cooldown on boons that you get from swapping?

TL;DR
By eliminating attunement cooldowns Elementalists (regardless of build or weaponset) are given free reign over all of their skills, allowing more creative gameplay combinations and the ability to build around any of the other 4 trait lines outside of Arcana

I’d say not eliminate, but reduce them drastically, to maybe 4 seconds.

Change the Arcane line to Boon duration and non-channeled weapon skill recharge, with the skill recharge maxing out at 30% (so it’s nice if you can spare the points, and not too consequential if you can’t.) This would also give some help to the abysmally slow recharge rates on staff/focus.

My thinking is that staff user’s generally want about 20 in arcane anyway, for blasting staff – if that allowed for 20% reduction on your non-channeled skills, it’s a bonus all around.

stale.9785:

I’d say not eliminate, but reduce them drastically, to maybe 4 seconds.

Change the Arcane line to Boon duration and non-channeled weapon skill recharge, with the skill recharge maxing out at 30% (so it’s nice if you can spare the points, and not too consequential if you can’t.) This would also give some help to the abysmally slow recharge rates on staff/focus.

My thinking is that staff user’s generally want about 20 in arcane anyway, for blasting staff – if that allowed for 20% reduction on your non-channeled skills, it’s a bonus all around.

Excellent ideas, I like it.