Guild Wars 2

I’ve been lurking the Elementalist forums for a while and I have always wondered why no one has ever taken into consideration these 2 Major traits of Arcana and Earth.
I mean, Arcane Shield & Armor of Earth are 2 of the best defensive spells we have, and we could get them for free (albeit not on demand).
Are they total crap? Maybe they are bugged (Final Shielding triggers at 10% Health, but still triggers)?
I seriously can’t understand why no one even talks about them. Sure there could be better choices, but I have lost count of all times these two spells have saved my life, both in PvE and in WvW. You could also forget taking a stun breaker with you, since they are both skills which break stun.
I would love to know your opinion on these tratis, because there has to be something I am missing.

For the record, I usually run a S/D build with 0/10/0/20/30, with the last 10 points either or Earth (for Earth’s Embrace, when I feel I need to be more tanky) or on Air.

Traits that apply when you reach a certain health percentage have some issues in predictability for when they proc and are often overshadowed by more powerful traits.

In regards to when they proc, it can seem inconsistent as (last time I checked anyway) they trigger on a percentage of your base health rather than the percentage of your total health. There is also some unpredictability of when they actually trigger when reaching that health point, as they do not prevent being one-shot or simply being burst rapidly down in a short time frame.

In general, if you find them useful, use them and don’t worry about it so much.

If I had to guess it’s because if people are putting 10 points into Earth, they’re usually doing so for the protection on Auras, 10% damage increase or because they are doing some Condition build and take the 20% bleed increase. Same goes for Arcana line. Arcana V and Arcana VI are very popular and common choices because they fill other parts of a build.

Final shielding is quite good and I use it off and on. Given our already great survivability it makes us just that more resilient (and adds damage on explosion). It’s the easiest of the two to take since almost all eles run 30 in arcane anyways.

Earth’s embrace is kinda meh since stability is really something you like to time and most take 10 in earth max (with many competitive adept abilities to choose from, earth’s embrace is low priority).

Vigor will net you far more damage avoidance than final shielding. Embrace trait is really good but the problem is the CD.

It triggers when you may not really need it, so an opponent can essentially force you to waste it.

I tried a duel build in which I would take + 3% crit damage for 10s from casting arcane spells (air trait) and all the arcane spells traits (arcane power on 75% health, shield on 25% health), as well as elemental surge. It was fun

But we can’t do this anymore.