Guild Wars 2

What do you think about this skill?
As for me, I find it very confusing to use – it’s a skill with a long and not impactful enough effect that also breaks stun for some reason. I tried to test it in some condition build but never really felt it’s presence.
If I was in charge of skill changes, I would make this this skill look like this:
Glyph of Elemental Power (40s CD) – Gain an aura based on your Attunement. Breaks stun.
This change can expand the use of aura traits beyond dagger/dagger and signet builds. What do you think?

This would really feel like a stunbreaker

Your suggestion lacks RNG crit procs it’s preposterous.

It is one of those utilities that has to have talents to be worth anything, in my opinion. With talents you can use it to get regen and clear a condition. It does require 2 talents to do this, though.

Auras are quite strong by themselves. Especially Shock and Magnetic auras. And a stunbreaker never hurts.
Traits will only make this skill better – not only aura traits, but all the glyph traits in Air as well. But anyway, it’s just a suggestion.

Mendax.9506:

Auras are quite strong by themselves. Especially Shock and Magnetic auras. And a stunbreaker never hurts.
Traits will only make this skill better – not only aura traits, but all the glyph traits in Air as well. But anyway, it’s just a suggestion.

I was referring to the glyph as is, not as an aura. Sorry for the confusion there (I should have stated that more clearly). The glyph as an aura wouldn’t be as dependent on traits as the current version is (since you can pick and choose which traits you want).

Oh, I see.
That’s right.

The problem is the skill should be used preemptively for the effect (i.e. the add XXX when using skills effect). This contradicts the use of the skill as a stun breaker.

You don’t need “25% chance to trigger burn on fire attunement” after you break a stun. You want that effect at the beginning of a fight. However if you do one, you lose the other.

The stun break was moved to this skill to promote skill diversity (i.e. something other than cantrips providing a stun break). However the stun breaks fit nice on a cantrip because a cantrip is something you’d like to use AFTER you get stunned.

I would recommend moving the stun break to another glyph, and redesigning said glyph to be “reactionary” in it’s nature.

It would probably make more sense to just redesign the current glyph because as it currently is most of the utility comes from the traits that affect all glyphs, not just elemental power.

I have very rarely found the stunbreaker to be useful because of the preemptive nature of the buff, and would love to just see it on another glyph. But as for a redesign of the basic mechanic, absolutely not.

I have used this skill consistently in PvE, dungeons, and WvW for over six months now. And you do not know the power… With no condition duration this is a 45 second cripple or weakness. Cripple is good for any situation, weakness is the WvW anti-thief, I haven’t been killed by a thief in months (though I admit because of stealth-spam they usually get away)

With condition duration it alone can provide constant burning, chill is the only condition you can’t have 100% uptime on. I have literally solo’d dungeon bosses with this thing when the rest of my party wiped, just by keeping them crippled or frozen and needling them to death with the scepter auto-attack.

Mendax.9506:

What do you think about this skill?
As for me, I find it very confusing to use – it’s a skill with a long and not impactful enough effect that also breaks stun for some reason. I tried to test it in some condition build but never really felt it’s presence.
If I was in charge of skill changes, I would make this this skill look like this:
Glyph of Elemental Power (40s CD) – Gain an aura based on your Attunement. Breaks stun.
This change can expand the use of aura traits beyond dagger/dagger and signet builds. What do you think?

That’s good.
I was actually a really big fan of the concept behind it when I started playing GW2, I was gonna have this crazy near perma chill d/f ele build that just sat at 300~ units away (auto attack is only 130) and spam lightning lash and whatnot on you.

Anyways, gw2 isn’t a sustains game short of from condi setups so it was obviously trash… most notably since I couldn’t run fit in the euber self healing that eles had going for themselves.

Anyways, more auras is cool. If fire armor got a buff, like it lasts a lil longer and gives 4~ might stacks for 3~ seconds with an Internal CD of .5~ seconds; then I could see it really being nifty.

The idea behind the glyph is that you use it in combination with your other condition skills to fill in the gaps. having said that, snaring is a big deal for eles and constantly having a chance to cripple or chill foes is huge…especially when you consider it can proc off things like meteor shower too.

Yeah, it always just felt a bit too rng for me, though. I’d prefer it work a bit more like arcane power or put an aura up so the person has to be hitting you but will always get the condition if they do.

I use the glyph in my freezementalist build. I use all chill duration runes, knights armor, 0 10 0 30 30. The freeze proc really makes the build complete. It can shut down smaller roaming groups and is great in gvg setting.

juno.1840:

The problem is the skill should be used preemptively for the effect (i.e. the add XXX when using skills effect). This contradicts the use of the skill as a stun breaker.

^ This. The active effect does not mesh well with reactive stun-break. Unfortunately, the only two reactive signets are Glyph of Elemental Harmony and Glyph of Renewal.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony would undoubtedly have its cooldown increased dramatically to not have an OP stun-break, which would negate its usefulness as a heal. I honestly like this skill a lot as-is, so I’d rather not see it changed.

Glyph of Renewal’s cast time would negate the whole purpose of a stun break right off the bat, and the revive aspect of this skill makes it difficult enough to use effectively without a stun-break consideration.

Honestly, I’d prefer that Glyph of Renewal got an overhaul to make it a more useful skill that included a reactive function and the stun-break. As its name implies, it could be something to do with resetting skill or attunement recharges.

GoEP is a good skill, but has to be used in the right spot:

Any ele should take this skill against power-based enemies. Perma-weakness REALLY puts a damper on them.

If you build condi/control it can have use to chill/cripple (if you want to build a kite-a-holic build).

In a condi build, you use it in one of two ways:
1. Get burning while outside of fire, to be paired with your bleeds in earth
2. Get chill/cripple procs to cover up your burns/bleeds.

That being said, an aura-stunbreak skill would make aura builds more viable. I would probably take it if it had a reasonable CD as D/D doesn’t have a lot of good options TBH.

Example

Glyph of Elemental Power – Activates a spell at your location based on current attunement (breaks stun)

Fire: Damages and burns adjacent foes (max 5) for x seconds.

Air: Knocks adjacent foes (max 5) back x distance with a gust of wind and weakens them for x seconds.

Earth: Damages and applies cripple/torment to adjacent foes (max 5) for x seconds.

Water: Dazes adjacent foes (max 5) for x seconds and applies chill for x seconds.

Its a nice pin down skill if your chasing some one and your in earth or water. Its a great added fire dmg for high condition builds. The only thing that its bad for is running a high crit build where most of ele is made to be high crit dmg its the one skill that made for high condition / cc builds.

I’ve actually been coming to like Glyph of Renewal. The cast time is a still a tad long considering how long the cooldown is and how it will fire even if you don’t rez anyone and the lack of a ground target for the thing now that it is ground targeted is just annoying. But in certain situations it can actually really help.

with all this being said about glyphs, does any1 think glyphs should get a buff?

Glyph of Elemental Power

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Recharge your elemental attunements and unleash a wave of energy at your location that damages nearby foes. The next time you swap attunements, you morph the ground around you according to that attunement.
• Wave damage: 185
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Breaks stun.
  • Swap to Fire attunement: Create a [Ring of Fire] at your location.
  • Swap to Water attunement: Create a [Geyser] at your location.
  • Swap to Air attunement: Create a [Lightning Storm] at your location.
  • Swap to Earth attunement: Create [Unsteady Ground] at your location.

Swagg.9236:

Glyph of Elemental Power

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Recharge your elemental attunements and unleash a wave of energy at your location that damages nearby foes. The next time you swap attunements, you morph the ground around you according to that attunement.
• Wave damage: 185
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Breaks stun.
  • Swap to Fire attunement: Create a [Ring of Fire] at your location.
  • Swap to Water attunement: Create a [Geyser] at your location.
  • Swap to Air attunement: Create a [Lightning Storm] at your location.
  • Swap to Earth attunement: Create [Unsteady Ground] at your location.

Satisfies my requirement that a stun breaker be a “reactionary” skill, which is exactly what you described. I think we could eliminate the swap-effects, and make them effects of the skill itself.

Or, how about for the duration of GoEP the next stun used against you is automatically broken?

If this happens, GoEP ends. It keeps it’s current “use it before the fight” functionality, and the stun break isn’t wasted.

Makes the enemy think twice if they see it on you. They have to wonder if it’s worth using a stun to break your glyph.

It’s pretty obvious when someone has it active, you’ll see it in their status bar so they can’t say it’s not telegraphed.

It also encourages people to use the skill the way it was intended to be used. That said, I really like Swagg’s idea.

But if we’re going for low hanging fruit, just making the stunbreak auto-fire on stun while GoEP is active seems a much simpler solution.

CETheLucid.3964:

Or, how about for the duration of GoEP the next stun used against you is automatically broken?

If this happens, GoEP ends. It keeps it’s current “use it before the fight” functionality, and the stun break isn’t wasted.

Makes the enemy think twice if they see it on you. They have to wonder if it’s worth using a stun to break your glyph.

It’s pretty obvious when someone has it active, you’ll see it in their status bar so they can’t say it’s not telegraphed.

It also encourages people to use the skill the way it was intended to be used. That said, I really like Swagg’s idea.

But if we’re going for low hanging fruit, just making the stunbreak auto-fire on stun while GoEP is active seems a much simpler solution.

It makes the skill inefficient for eles who actually watch for priority stuns.

Example: Warrior sees animation/effect indicator for GoEP, makes sure to smack ele with Pommel Bash before going for a Skull Crack. Ele burned his stunbreaker before the fight even started, and is unable to properly react unless he brought more stunbreakers.

Leuca.5732:

CETheLucid.3964:

Or, how about for the duration of GoEP the next stun used against you is automatically broken?

If this happens, GoEP ends. It keeps it’s current “use it before the fight” functionality, and the stun break isn’t wasted.

Makes the enemy think twice if they see it on you. They have to wonder if it’s worth using a stun to break your glyph.

It’s pretty obvious when someone has it active, you’ll see it in their status bar so they can’t say it’s not telegraphed.

It also encourages people to use the skill the way it was intended to be used. That said, I really like Swagg’s idea.

But if we’re going for low hanging fruit, just making the stunbreak auto-fire on stun while GoEP is active seems a much simpler solution.

It makes the skill inefficient for eles who actually watch for priority stuns.

Example: Warrior sees animation/effect indicator for GoEP, makes sure to smack ele with Pommel Bash before going for a Skull Crack. Ele burned his stunbreaker before the fight even started, and is unable to properly react unless he brought more stunbreakers.

Bringing less than two in any kind of WvW/PvP situation is silly.

At that, we’re talking about GoEP. If you’re only bringing one, you would pick the present GoEP over Armor of Earth, MF, or SoA?

But alright. I suppose that is a valid criticism. So, are you saying it’s fine the way that it is now?

I think any other stunbreak + GoEP with autobreak would make it pretty awesome. Just the fact that it would work as an autofire stunbreak would mess most people up.

It’d be a unique function for this particular glyph.

CETheLucid.3964:

Bringing less than two in any kind of WvW/PvP situation is silly.

At that, we’re talking about GoEP. If you’re only bringing one, you would pick the present GoEP over Armor of Earth, MF, or SoA?

But alright. I suppose that is a valid criticism. So, are you saying it’s fine the way that it is now?

I think any other stunbreak + GoEP with autobreak would make it pretty awesome. Just the fact that it would work as an autofire stunbreak would mess most people up.

It’d be a unique function for this particular glyph.

I think that he’s saying that being unable to trigger one’s own stun-break is a little unwieldy. Countering a stun feels more organic when you are able to break-stun yourself so you can have a better feel of what you are doing and what you are going/should do directly after the stun-break.

That said, it could be an interesting idea to have a skill that sort of gives you a free instant-stun break on a long-recharge or something. I mean, there are several traits like that already (warrior and ranger have ones respectively if I recall correctly).

However, I’m personally in the camp of stun-breaks being something that one triggers one’s self.

I like it more as it is. Auras are much less useful to me. If it doesn’t feel defensive to you (despite its ability to put space between you and your pursuer and make their abilities fail to weakness or slowed with chilled) you can also run it with Inscription, a frequently overlooked and powerful trait.

There is, however, a decent amount of support for auras in the traits. However, the duration of auras seems entirely too short. I could see it as a new glyph though on something like a 30 second cd.

I don’t think that the GoEP requires a complete rework, although I do concede that it seems unusual that a Glyph designed for control would also be purposed for reaction (i.e. stun breaking). In saying that, an Aura based on your attunement is one way to try and keep it in line with the “feel” of a stunbreaker although something akin to an Aura can be obtained on Glyphs by traiting Inscription.

The same could be said for Cantrips too. In and of themselves Cantrips are simply atrocious. They give very little back to players (save a micro heal, maybe a few more dodges) because they have such long cooldowns and such short uptimes. I am not advocating reworking Cantrips, by the way.

CETheLucid.3964:

Bringing less than two in any kind of WvW/PvP situation is silly.

Problem with game design.

But alright. I suppose that is a valid criticism. So, are you saying it’s fine the way that it is now?

Not at all. I posted a concept change for the skill on this page for how I think it could work. This skill hasn’t touched my utility bar since.. ever.

Leuca.5732:

Problem with game design.

Nah.

Leuca.5732:

Not at all. I posted a concept change for the skill on this page for how I think it could work. This skill hasn’t touched my utility bar since.. ever.

Kinda making my point for me. If it were made an autobreak like I described, I’d bet it would see a lot more play. It’s a low hanging fruit/QoL solution.

GoEP isn’t actually a bad skill as is, it’s incredibly useful for fields. It’s just a very poor choice for a stunbreak due to the nature of the skills use.

You wanna use it before combat, to plan out what effect you want. Or else it’s simply a stunbreak with a bonus idontevenknowwhatijustprocdtryingnottobedead.

If we’re going for elaborate redesign, I actually really like your idea.

Has anyone ever given it any extended use? I’ve found it immensely handy in inscription builds. You need only anticipate the stun to be in an appropriate attunement. Which, most of the time, you’ll be in instinctively from trying to get an Elemental Attunement buff. From there, you’ve got a very unique control proc for a really nice duration.

It’s different and perhaps awkward, but with a little effort can be quite useful, versatile, and fun.

I do like the idea of having it give 2 stacks of defiant.

( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant )

Rather than stability making you immune to as many stuns as people throw at you over a short duration, immunity to only 2 stuns over a significantly longer duration. (immunity to 1 stun would just be… a worse version of stability)

CETheLucid.3964:

Nah.

The excess of stuns in this game is a core design flaw.

Kinda making my point for me. If it were made an autobreak like I described, I’d bet it would see a lot more play. It’s a low hanging fruit/QoL solution.

It would continue to never touch my bar if it was changed to function like that. I have no desire to bring a stunbreak that I can’t completely control. It would have marginal use if you were fast/reliable enough to precast it before key stuns, but not all of them are telegraphed enough to do this.

Oniyui.8279:

I do like the idea of having it give 2 stacks of defiant.

( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant )

Rather than stability making you immune to as many stuns as people throw at you over a short duration, immunity to only 2 stuns over a significantly longer duration. (immunity to 1 stun would just be… a worse version of stability)

I didn’t even think of the defiant thing, that’s interesting. It’s a neat idea but not practical at all.

Two stun immunities that apply ala defiant on a 30-45 sec CD, on a skill that lasts 30 seconds.

That’s two stunbreaks in one skill along with immunity to all CC skills until they remove the GoEP. That is ridiculously OP.

Stunbreak != stability/defiant. All stunbreaks break the effects of one disable.

My proposal is to simply let the current stunbreak on the glyph autofire when stunned while within the 30 sec duration of the skill.

If the stunbreak is applied, the glyph effect ends.

GoEP is a precast skill, and this just makes the stunbreak aspect of it a kind of precast stunbreak as well.

Leuca.5732:

The excess of stuns in this game is a core design flaw.

Nah. Stability along with stunbreaks are the counters.

Plenty of the later, several of the former with stability being a hard counter. All of them are on long cooldowns.

It’s not broken.

Leuca.5732:

It would continue to never touch my bar if it was changed to function like that. I have no desire to bring a stunbreak that I can’t completely control. It would have marginal use if you were fast/reliable enough to precast it before key stuns, but not all of them are telegraphed enough to do this.

Which would be an improvement from where it is now.

If people can use stability wisely enough, they can use GoEP as it works now with an added autobreak function.

It’s forcing somebody to waste a disable if they want to get you within the duration of GoEP. That’s very valuable.

People that didn’t have a use for the non-stunbreak aspect of it won’t find it that much more appealing with the addition of an autobreak.

For those who do use it, it would be a boon to be able to choose your active effect without losing the stunbreak aspect of it. Makes it less clunky of a skill.

CETheLucid.3964:

Nah. Stability along with stunbreaks are the counters.

Plenty of the later, several of the former with stability being a hard counter. All of them are on long cooldowns.

It’s not broken.

I guess I have to respectfully disagree on this point then. I don’t think it’s particularly productive to have so much of your combat revolve around stuns and breaking them, regardless of whether or not the current implementation is “broken.”

Which would be an improvement from where it is now.

Almost anything would be an improvement from where it is now, but what you’re proposing has a lot of potential to be very unwieldy even to experienced players despite that.

If people can use stability wisely enough, they can use GoEP as it works now with an added autobreak function.

It’s forcing somebody to waste a disable if they want to get you within the duration of GoEP. That’s very valuable.

People that didn’t have a use for the non-stunbreak aspect of it won’t find it that much more appealing with the addition of an autobreak.

For those who do use it, it would be a boon to be able to choose your active effect without losing the stunbreak aspect of it. Makes it less clunky of a skill.

I don’t think I’d be far off in saying that its current active effect is barely useful due to the fact that it can’t mix up its own condition application. Making a badly-designed, clunky skill marginally less clunky doesn’t change the fact that it’s clunky. It would have needed work even if it hadn’t become a stunbreaker; the fact that we gave up Lightning Flash/Cleansing Fire for this crap just makes it all the worse by comparison.

What I find a bit funny is that Arcane Shield already somewhat has this function. A stunbreak that provides blocks can essentially block more incoming stuns, though it doesn’t prioritize them.

Leuca.5732:

Almost anything would be an improvement from where it is now, but what you’re proposing has a lot of potential to be very unwieldy even to experienced players despite that.

New players will cast it and forget it. It’ll work and they’ll be happy.

Experienced players will use it to force a disable cooldown on the enemy. One less stun on the enemy.

I figure the concept of an autobreak is inherently user friendly.

I believe based on dev posts Anet’s trying to step away from auto-proc skills (and that’s a good thing!), but I think it works in this case.

Just throwing it out there for consideration at any rate.

Leuca.5732:

I don’t think I’d be far off in saying that its current active effect is barely useful due to the fact that it can’t mix up its own condition application. Making a badly-designed, clunky skill marginally less clunky doesn’t change the fact that it’s clunky. It would have needed work even if it hadn’t become a stunbreaker; the fact that we gave up Lightning Flash/Cleansing Fire for this crap just makes it all the worse by comparison.

Actually it can. Apply the effect you want to apply, switch attunements.

It’s an underestimated skill and because of the fact that you can mix it’s condition application, it’s excellent for staff CC.

If they wanted to go a step further, maybe buff condition eles, they could increase the chance for the condition to apply. That’d be nice.

This with the new auto-cleansing fire would be just perfect.

But if they just fixed the clunkiness of the stunbreak to synergize with the glyphs intended precasting as I suggested upthread, I’d be content.

If they wanted to go a lot further and redesign the skill to something along the lines you or Swagg suggested, even better.

I’m not asking for much myself.

CETheLucid.3964:

Actually it can. Apply the effect you want to apply, switch attunements.

I highly recommend you go test that in Heart of the Mists. Once you activate it, its effect is locked to the attunement the cast completed in.

Leuca.5732:

CETheLucid.3964:

Actually it can. Apply the effect you want to apply, switch attunements.

I highly recommend you go test that in Heart of the Mists. Once you activate it, its effect is locked to the attunement the cast completed in.

Yeah, Which is how most if not all Glyphs work. But I think it’s cool though, You activate the skill on the element that procs the specific condition you wanted to proc in that certain situation you wanted the skill to proc.

I said too many procs didn’t I? :/

Procbably. Is shot

But I agree with Gallrvaghn, I like being able to have a good degree of extra Burning when in Staff Fire, or when in D/D Air. It’s really good with a Fresh Air build, since you can get the attunement/effect you want, swap back to Air, and then use Sceptre to easily apply the effect VERY quickly. You’ve now got Fresh Air which is also applying Burns at a rapid pace.

Am I the only one that thinks Glyphs need a major overhaul or an overall new function? I’ve tried experimenting but most are on so long CDs with not so great effects if you ask me…

Lots of Ele skills are on far longer CDs than they need to be. There’s no real excuse for Armour of Earth having 90 sec CD when Guardians have Stand Your Ground for Stability to a GROUP for 30 sec CD.

Kamui.3150:

Lots of Ele skills are on far longer CDs than they need to be. There’s no real excuse for Armour of Earth having 90 sec CD when Guardians have Stand Your Ground for Stability to a GROUP for 30 sec CD.

Yeah I understand but glyphs in general are not so appealing.

Elemental power grants conditions with near negligible durations
Lesser elements give another pet that might die in the next 5 seconds
Storms do scratch damage unless your an object like Graveling burrows, and even then Ice bow is better
Renewal is a ress… ok long CD just like all resses but like every ress, it’s very situational

Also all Glyphals except the Harmony (heal) are on 40+seconds of CD, unoess traitedi guess