Guild Wars 2

I tested the difference between attunements and found out following. No matter which attunement, the base damage was the same meaning with my char’s build, it did 300 damage on 1 hit and 650 damage on 1 critical hit on a target. However the differences I found makes me think fire and air pretty much useless. Earth is by far superior and water can be useful if you want to chill them.

Do you think Glyph of Storm needs adjustments or it is fine as a skill as a whole?

Fire:

• 9 sec duration and hits every second
• Hits all targets within AOE
• No condition

Air

• 6 sec duration and hits randomly (On single target, this hits 4~7 times)
• 1~3 targets at a time
• No condition

Water

• 12 sec duration (On single target, this hits 2~5 times)
• 2~3 targets at a time
• Chill

Earth

• 10 sec duration and hits every second
• Hits all targets within AOE
• Bleed & Blind

I personally like to see
Fire: down to 4 sec duration but add burning
Air: add daze or stun
Water: maybe 0.5~1 sec more chill duration

air should blind and inflict weakness
earth should bleed and cripple
fire should burn and do way more base damage
water should chill and inflict vulnerability

I’ve never used it in pvp before. The only thing I can picture using it with is S/D for even more burst. It’s the 60s cd that makes almost no one use it. I can see using it in pve, because you can easily swap out a utility there. In pvp you mostly side with what helps you survive or burst hardest. I don’t really feel that arcane wave is all that great unless you’re running zerkers or a using a staff. Basically you get an extra heal, or help stack might easier instead of gain something like a teleport. Storms seems like it suits staff, and nothing else. Meteor shower + Earth bleed and blindness seems like it’d be really effective against a zerg. Or chill leading into a meteor shower. I’m gonna test it.

I’d like all of the different Glyph of Storms effects to become full damage AoE (like Earth is currently) rather than keep the meteor storm “random hits” type of effect. The skill already relies on attunement to alter its effects, and having randomness on top of that doesn’t really gel that well IMO, plus the random hit thing makes Fire and Water storms too similar to other attacks (Meteor Storm and Ice Bow #4).

Fire could be a burning cylinder or perhaps just an intense ray of sunlight (might be stretching “storm” but meteors isn’t really much of a proper weather-related storm either). Ice would be a blizzard / snowstorm (I find it kind of odd that Elementalist has absolutely no snow or blizzard attacks). Air could be an electrified tornado. Earth as-is, of course.

Fire and Air also need to pick up a debuff, since Water and Earth have one already. Air would be weakness or vulnerability (I’d go with the latter personally). Not sure about Fire, Burn would be the obvious choice but Fire attune has an overabundance of burns as it is. Or maybe Fire could have no debuff but do more damage to compensate, so you have a choice of 3 storms with different debuff effects or just raw damage with Fire.

Razor.6392:

earth should bleed and cripple

No, that would take away the only current use of this glyph. I would rather have the blind working just the way it is than to get yet another cripple.

Electro.4173:

I find it kind of odd that Elementalist has absolutely no snow or blizzard attacks

Water focus 4 would like a word with you.

Razor.6392:

Electro.4173:

I find it kind of odd that Elementalist has absolutely no snow or blizzard attacks

Water focus 4 would like a word with you.

I suppose that kind of fits the bill, but I was thinking more along the lines of a powerful AoE blizzard, not a single-target chilled wind.

Plus, that attack is so mediocre I tend to forget it exists.

I’ve been running a Glyph based S/D crit damage tank build and have been experimenting with Glyph of Storms. I find Fire actually does more DPS because it hits everything in the AoE instead of hitting randomly.

The blind and chill is fantastic for small group fights and fire is great for zergs. Even in 1v1s it can be used to create pressure and make your enemy back off.

The only buff I’d really like to see for this utility is so that the Inscription trait works the same asb our Glyph heal does in Fire. (3 stacks of might when using a Glyph in Fire instead of 1)

Electro.4173:

I’d like all of the different Glyph of Storms effects to become full damage AoE (like Earth is currently) rather than keep the meteor storm “random hits” type of effect. The skill already relies on attunement to alter its effects, and having randomness on top of that doesn’t really gel that well IMO, plus the random hit thing makes Fire and Water storms too similar to other attacks (Meteor Storm and Ice Bow #4).

Fire already does hit all inside it’s AoE every pulse. Basically, Fire and Earth work the exact same but Earth causes blindness and bleed while Fire does more direct damage. I think fire should be improved a bit to add burning or perhaps immobilize (magma or something) to give it more utility.

I wouldn’t want Ice or Lightning Storms to be changed to the same effect. Currently, both can do more damage than either fire or earth if the target is large enough to take multiple hits. It also helps that Lightning has a smaller AoE resulting in the increased likelyhood of hitting foes inside more often.

Fire and Air also need to pick up a debuff, since Water and Earth have one already. Air would be weakness or vulnerability (I’d go with the latter personally). Not sure about Fire, Burn would be the obvious choice but Fire attune has an overabundance of burns as it is. Or maybe Fire could have no debuff but do more damage to compensate, so you have a choice of 3 storms with different debuff effects or just raw damage with Fire.

Some of the things I’d suggest for changes to GoS (I use it quite often):

Fire Storm – Increase it’s AoE and keep its damage. Currently it works fine as an AoE attack since it hits everything in its AoE for a bit more damage than Sand, but making its range wider would mean it can hit more dispersed foes for similar damage.

Ice Storm – Make the ice projectiles 2x bigger so they hit a wider area for each projectile. Slow the frequency of the ice shards while extending the duration of the storm. Increase the chill. I’d like to use this skill as a more persistent AoE chill that can keep stacking chill for longer periods of time, kiting foes through the storm until it eventually dissipates.

Lightning Storm – Actually my favorite storm because it looks and sounds cool. Keep everything the same, just add Daze to its hits. Use it to eat through a boss’s defiance and apply an area of pressure in a quick instant against other players.

Sand Storm – Perfect, IMO. Maybe increase the bleed duration some. It is currently the best of all the storms as its damage is solid, constant has a great secondary effect.

skinnyb.5920:

I’ve been running a Glyph based S/D crit damage tank build and have been experimenting with Glyph of Storms. I find Fire actually does more DPS because it hits everything in the AoE instead of hitting randomly.

The blind and chill is fantastic for small group fights and fire is great for zergs. Even in 1v1s it can be used to create pressure and make your enemy back off.

The only buff I’d really like to see for this utility is so that the Inscription trait works the same asb our Glyph heal does in Fire. (3 stacks of might when using a Glyph in Fire instead of 1)

Could definitely go with that (the inscriptions part) along with making Glyph of Elementals affected by this trait. Currently, Inscriptions is really nice with a glyph build or even just GoEH. Getting 6 stacks of might from fire attunement GoEH would make this a decently offensive build.

Electro.4173:

Razor.6392:

Electro.4173:

I find it kind of odd that Elementalist has absolutely no snow or blizzard attacks

Water focus 4 would like a word with you.

I suppose that kind of fits the bill, but I was thinking more along the lines of a powerful AoE blizzard, not a single-target chilled wind.

Plus, that attack is so mediocre I tend to forget it exists.

Frost Aura, Frozen Ground, and Frozen Burst, none are better than the Focus’s Freezing Gust. It’s chill for 3 seconds, a 66% reduction in movement and skill recharge rate, at a selected targetable 900 range with a 25 second recharge rate and is pretty good.

I understand your point though. The Focus is at the bottom of the popularity list but if that skill was on a dagger it would be OP.

Fire already has consistent AoE damage? Huh. It certainly doesn’t look like it would, but I’ll take your word for it as I tend to rarely use Fire GoS (usually Earth and occassionally Water). Maybe I should use it more often, though it sounds like Earth is still better.

I guess its personal preference whether you want random with a chance to do more damage or whether you want consistent damage. I definately prefer consistency personally especially in this case, and would happily see all 4 Glyph of Storms options become consistent. I’ll run Ice Bow if I want a random AoE with a higher chance of murdering large enemies.

Daze on Air Storm seems like it’d be broken. Large AoE dazes are extremely rare as it is (I can’t think of one off the top of my head) probably because of how good they could potentially be , and having it apply multiple times while you can act in the meantime would make it even moreso. Allowing you to eat through multiple stacks of Defiant would kind of defeat the purpose of Defiant in the first place.

The blind in earth attunement with Sandstorm is very effective from what posters have said in the forums and has been enough of a reason to carry the skill all by itself. I wish a version of this was available as an elite. I find I am running all defensive oriented utility skills and can’t seem to get away from those.

Baladir.2736:

The blind in earth attunement with Sandstorm is very effective from what posters have said in the forums and has been enough of a reason to carry the skill all by itself. I wish a version of this was available as an elite. I find I am running all defensive oriented utility skills and can’t seem to get away from those.

Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

It’s not hard to skip out on most (or in my case, all) defensive utilities when you use a Focus because of the defensive nature of the weapon. Staff works similarly in that you can take fewer defensive skills for utility or damage utilities. Dagger is an aggressive weapon mainly due to its close range. Defensive utilities are better suited for it but Glyph of Storms can double as a defensive utility.

In short, if you want to use offensive utilities more, you have to compensate defensively somehow. Pick a more defensive weapon or improve your dodging capabilities…

But really, you could probably be swapping your utilities around for better application of utilities. Some arcane skills here, a conjure there…

I think it needs some beefing up too.

Yeah, it defiantly needs balanced between the four attunements. I find that I pretty much only use this on earth. If they nerfed earth then it would be useless. It would be nice to see water, fire, and air brought up to the same level as earth.

If they were all moved to the earth model (10 seconds, deals damage + effect every second to targets in the area instead of the “meteor shower” pattern) then it would be much better. That would be all the changes you’d need made to water (the chill being consistent would be good enough)

The fire and air storms would need something though. The fire one could add a burn every 1-3 seconds and the air one could cause cripple and weakness.

From what I’ve heard, Fire Storm is technically much more potent for doing raw AoE damage, because each “meteor” counts as a separate attack (affecting up to 5 targets), and the rapid speed at which the meteors strike means that it can deal a lot more damage to a tightly clustered mob than Sand Storm (which only affects a total of 5 targets per second standing in the cloud). Traited with Elemental Surge, I believe each of those attacks also does inflict Burning, making it quite powerful indeed.

I do agree that Air is rather lacklustre though. Maybe give it a chance to Stun (1s) foes caught within the field, meaning that in combination with other AoE attacks, it can be a deadly trap.

I would change it to the following:

Cast ranges increased to 1200.

Fire: changed visual to represent that it hits on a wide, pulsing scheme rather than a “meteor shower lite” scheme, which the current visual represents. Damage increased by 20%, area increased by 30% of its current values. This is the go-to “i need area damage added to my spec” option.

Air: tighten the area to perhaps 50% of its current area, keep the same number of bolts or add more, but have the duration of the entire storm last only 4 seconds, and increase the damage by 30 or 40% (its really low currently compared to fire’s). Each bolt applies 10s Vulnerability. This is the go-to “i need some spike damage in a very small radius” option.

Water: keep area the same (or change to match Earth’s current duration) and change it to a area-pulse like fire and earth rather than a rain skill, with a sustained “blizzard” visual to match the theme. Have it apply Chill and damage foes with each pulse. This is the go-to “i need anti-movement” option.

Earth: keep it exactly as is, but slightly lengthen the Bleed duration to also make it more of a reasonable condition damage option.

As an elementalist who both runs pure conditions and pure critdamage/power builds, I’d find these changes much welcomed, particularly for Air. We need more single-target ranged damage potential and vulnerability stacking, and a revamped GoS:Air could really help in that area.

I noticed a long time ago that the air version of Glyph of storms was the weakest. This skill is long overdue for an overhaul.

Fire needs a buff, lighting serves as a second meteor storm (lightning edition), and then the ice one is pretty awesome against zergs to stop them in their tracks with the hail falling everywhere.

Although, wouldn’t it be awesome if lightning also dazed targets? OMG!

Leo G.4501:

Although, wouldn’t it be awesome if lightning also dazed targets? OMG!

Not denying the amazingness of that lol, but it may be a tad bit OP xD

Now if they wanna add 5stacks of vuln or something….

The biggest problem currently is the skill description. It only mentions that it creates a Firestorm, Ice Storm, Lightning Storm or Sandstorm. Important information an attunement based storm in fire attunement is a Firestorm. Beyond that you need to guess what it does and take some effort to observe its effect.

Secondly, Fire, Ice and Lighting share its name with skills on conjured weapons but not the effect!? Two skills, one name, different effect and no description!

Being an utility skill, 2 of 4 storms doing only damage is uninspired.

Sandstorm is excellent and maybe even overpowered. One might think, it is the only one specifically designed for the glyph.

Razor.6392:

air should blind and inflict weakness
earth should bleed and cripple
fire should burn and do way more base damage
water should chill and inflict vulnerability

Why should the Water Ice Storm be any different than the one on the Frost Bow 4? Although I do like the chill a bleed is nice on that too. The Fire Storm is already very near the Fiery Greatsword number 5. The Sandstorm is I think the best. It The animation and the Conditions make sense together. There is really no reason to change that, I would say. The Lightning Storm Definitely needs some help. It is very near the Lightning Hammer number four ability just prolonged. Overall I say the damage output needs balanced. I run this a lot because I like the Water and Earth storms enough to condone it.

TheBlueI.3486:

The biggest problem currently is the skill description. It only mentions that it creates a Firestorm, Ice Storm, Lightning Storm or Sandstorm. Important information an attunement based storm in fire attunement is a Firestorm. Beyond that you need to guess what it does and take some effort to observe its effect.

Secondly, Fire, Ice and Lighting share its name with skills on conjured weapons but not the effect!? Two skills, one name, different effect and no description!

Being an utility skill, 2 of 4 storms doing only damage is uninspired.

Sandstorm is excellent and maybe even overpowered. One might think, it is the only one specifically designed for the glyph.

Actually, firestorm, icestorm, and lightning storm all have THE SAME effects on the conjured and actual weapons except with some duration and AoE changes.

Well, i know firestorm and lightning storm do, but i’d need to check ice to make sure.

Durzlla.6295:

Actually, firestorm, icestorm, and lightning storm all have THE SAME effects on the conjured and actual weapons except with some duration and AoE changes.

Well, i know firestorm and lightning storm do, but i’d need to check ice to make sure.

Ice storm on Frost bow causes bleeding.

TheBlueI.3486:

Durzlla.6295:

Actually, firestorm, icestorm, and lightning storm all have THE SAME effects on the conjured and actual weapons except with some duration and AoE changes.

Well, i know firestorm and lightning storm do, but i’d need to check ice to make sure.

Ice storm on Frost bow causes bleeding.

Huh, that’s weird, i know lightning and fire are the same though, so there’s that… didn’t all ice storms used to do confusion and then they decided to split them in beta or something? I know the icebow one did because i had a confusion build based around it lol.