Guild Wars 2

The 2 aspects that make a condition spec viable is the ability to stack bleeds fast or the ability to syack multiple damage conditions. Condition spec eles lack the ability to do both. It take dagger and scepter condition spec eles 12.5sec to get a max stack of bleeds, so elemental lack the ability to stack bleed at a fast pace. The only other damage condition damage eles have is burns. In order to make condition spec ele viable one of aspects needs to be buffed. Elementalist should not be the best at condition damage but if they spec for it they should not be the worst.

For condition spec eles you lose a majority of your condition damage when you swap out of earth. The 2 way this can be improve by either reducing the amount of time needed to be in earth to stack bleeds or improve the condition damage aspect of the other attunements if traited. If both are added it would mess up the overall meta of a elementalist making them a top condition spec class.

1. A simple solution is to reduce the time needed to stack bleeds in earth. Make a trait that adds a passive double bleed effect 20~40% chance to proc. Instead of 12.5s to max stack bleeds it would take 7.5-10s to max stack bleeds. This would reduce the amount of time eles need to stay in earth and it would enable condition spec staff eles the ability to get upto 25 stacks of bleeds. Then add a trait that gives bleeds to utilities skills like:

Shard of Ice(changed to master and swap with stop drop and roll) – Arcane and signet now apply 3 stacks of bleeds. (this would enable you to keep bleed stacks on as you are swapping to water to heal)

2. The more complex solution to make condition spec eles viable is to improve the condition damage aspect of the other attunement/utilities if you trait for it. These are just idea that would improve the overall condition damage aspect of other attunements. Suggested traits:

Flash Fire(grandmaster)- Reduce the duration off all burn by 50% increase burn damage by 40%. ( with signet of fire alone it is easy to perm burn someone that does not have condition removals. This skill would prevent a 30s burn from not going the full duration.)
Dazed, Blind and Confused(master) -Blinds now add confusion. Disables add 3 stacks of confusion.
Tormenting movement(adept) – All slows and immobile skill now apply 2 stacks of torment. Chill, cripple and immobile. ( this would make swapping to water not as big of a lose in condition damage)

I doubt ANet would add confusion and Torment for us. That would simply add complexity to this class that’s already difficult to balance. Since they love small changes, I’d suggest 1 or more of the following:

Add bleeding to Water auto-attack for Piercing Shards trait.
Add burning to Fire Shield to affect everyone around you.
Change Flame Barrier minor trait to have a chance to burn on every hit you make.
Increase chance to burn on Burning Precision, or increase damage of burn
Redesign One with Fire. Staying in fire with Scepter (a major condition weapon) with horrid auto attack is just not good.
Move Weak Spot minor to Adept. Decrease proc chance to off-balance a little, maybe 40%
Increase proc chance on Arcane Precision to at least 20%. 10% is just… wth man…

1 problem is all 3 condition-based minor traits are in Grandmaster-tier, and our most-used condition stacking is in Earth and maybe fire, which is why I’d really like Weak Spot to be moved down to Adept to give air some way to help in nondirect condition damage via vulnerability.

Yea before I stopped played gw2 for awhile I tested a condition spec in wvw. Having to stay in earth to do a majority of my condition damage is the opposite of how I play my elementalist. I have never had an issue with keeping a burn on my target when I was in wvw, so I have always seen the new traits that improve burns proc/durations to be useless.

I can understand them not adding confusion but not torment since it is already limited. The only class that can place stacks of torment is a thief and it does not work out well for them. Even when you focus on torment.

Vulnerability is not a condition damage skill that is why it is high up in the air trait line. With my fresh air build I can randomly get 15-19stacks of vul on a single target with weak spot. That helps alot for a direct damage build. I like the other suggestions on how to improve condition built eles.

To me it feels like the elementalist was never designed to be either a supporter, damage dealer or condition spammer, but rather a mix of all at any given time.

However, regarding staff eles, if there’d be anything I’d change for conditions to be more effective it would be to make eruption deal it’s damage over its duration rather than all at the end. That would make it much easier to apply bleeds for staff eles, without adding more power to the skill overall. It would also be the thing that would make celestial gear equal in dps to soldier’s.

Note that erution could still retain it’s blast finisher, and maybe the damage/bleeds could be higher at the end and lower at the start. But staff would need a second semi-reliable condition source for condition damage to be viable rather than an afterthought.

Ugh I was thinking vulnerability increases condition damage lol. So scratch what I said about Weak Spot.

About staff being decent at conditions, don’t count on it. It’s simply not a condition weapon and only 2 skills apply them – flame burst and eruption. Dagger on the other hand, makes for a good alternative to scepter.

ThiBash.5634:

snip

That is an interesting idea to make eruption apply its damage over the duration but that would make eruption like necro wells. Which is suppose to be unique to necros. I would prefer a instant cast eruption.
@Biomanz
Main hand dagger does more bleeds per tick than scepter. Scepter’s has the easier time of dealing with condition removals since you are always at range. While staff condition damage is just the best for AE.

A while back ANet said that they were going to continue adding further spec options through runes and sigils. Here’s a build that uses every damaging condition, shouldn’t be a surprise which runes/sigils it utilizes.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJAoYlEGSuHcw5APyAA5hLwwSowBlH0MjNA-jUCBIiCh0CIk3gUHAppFRjtsuIasaZER16jY2zFRrWKAYWWB-w

Well to bad those sigil do not work together since all sigils shard cds.

One way you fix condition Eles is 3 new traits. One in Fire can be Toxic Fumes: When you apply Burning, you also apply 5 secs of Poison, 10 sec CD. Another for Earth can be Tormenting Pain: When you apply a Bleed, apply Torment of equal # of stacks/duration, 3 sec CD. Finally one for Water can be Frostbite: Chill now deals damage, similar to how Fear can for Necros with Terror.

This way the Ele can spec into being a powerful condition build, but they have to trait for it, potentially DEEP into a trait line (I could see the Earth one being a GM and moving Written In Stone down to Master, myself, same with Frostbite and moving Powerful Auras?) to get full use of it. Ele is a jack of all trades, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t have the option of focusing how they play via traits into something like full condition damage.

There needs to be new amulets as well. Rabids is a very poor choice for the ele, as you will be extremely vitality starved.

Speaking staff here I’ve never understood why flame burst is the only skill in the entire fire line to add a decent duration burn. Lava font should apply burn as well, since it takes so long to tick I’d love it to apply burning on cast and then in between each damage tick.

I really like Kamui’s suggestions as well and totally agree that it takes too long to get our bleed stacks up.

Ulion.5476:

That is an interesting idea to make eruption apply its damage over the duration but that would make eruption like necro wells. Which is suppose to be unique to necros. I would prefer a instant cast eruption.

Maybe, but its main purpose is to be a blast finisher which you’ll later place a field on top of…so an instant eruption would be a nerf. Besides, they wouldn’t be exactly the same because the wells are combo fields while eruption is a finisher.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Speaking staff here I’ve never understood why flame burst is the only skill in the entire fire line to add a decent duration burn. Lava font should apply burn as well, since it takes so long to tick I’d love it to apply burning on cast and then in between each damage tick.

I really like Kamui’s suggestions as well and totally agree that it takes too long to get our bleed stacks up.

Funny thing about the other skill in Staff that can do Burn, IE Burning Retreat? It only applies its Burn if the enemy isn’t ALREADY Burning. So it’s completely useless if you have any sort of +ConDur.

As far as Eruption goes, one thing they could do with it would be to have it be one press to place, at which point it pulses 2 stacks of Bleed for 2 secs (plus the 2 stacks it’ll apply right when it’s placed, and 2 more when the final explosion applies). At any time during the pulses, you can hit the button for it again to instantly explode it, applying the 2 Bleed stacks for that, as well as the Blast finisher, in exchange for giving up the pulse stacks of Bleed. Naturally this can only be done if you stay in Earth, so you can’t lay it down and then add a field on top of it.

Ulion.5476:

Well to bad those sigil do not work together since all sigils shard cds.

Lucky for me, superior sigil of doom doesn’t have an ICD.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Lucky for me, superior sigil of doom doesn’t have an ICD.

Is that true? Might be another build change in my future if it is.

I pray you didn’t just get my hopes up because the Building Tool doesn’t list one.

Cookamatic.4316:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Lucky for me, superior sigil of doom doesn’t have an ICD.

Is that true? Might be another build change in my future if it is.

I pray you didn’t just get my hopes up because the Building Tool doesn’t list one.

I’ve tested it multiple times in the Mists and both seem to function completely separately. The wiki doesn’t list an ICD either.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve tested it multiple times in the Mists and both seem to function completely separately. The wiki doesn’t list an ICD either.

I apologize if I’m being thick-headed, but just for clarity’s sake;

Which are you saying?
1: Sigil of Doom HAS an ICD, but it does NOT trigger any other sigil’s ICD
2: Sigil of Doom does NOT have an Internal Cooldown

The first case would mean you could use SoDoom with another On-Swap and gain both effects on attunement, which is nuts.

The second case means you could: Attune > Poison > Attune > Poison > …etc. That’s also pretty insane.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Ulion.5476:

Well to bad those sigil do not work together since all sigils shard cds.

Lucky for me, superior sigil of doom doesn’t have an ICD.

It most assuredly does. I just tested it. Just autoing with 65% crit chance I proc sigil of earth often enough for it to stack to about 3 bleeds. Swap attunement immediately after a bleed proc = no poison proc. Ok, that’s expected. Stop attacking for a moment, and then swap attunement again = instant poison proc. Start attacking. no bleed procs until a few seconds after the poison wears off, after which the bleeds start stacking as usual. Stop attacking until bleeds wear off, swap attunements for a poison proc, and then keep swapping while attacking. no additional poison procs or bleed procs until a few seconds after poison wears off.

Yeah, no ICD didn’t sound right.

Also, I found the Wiki does list an ICD for the Sigil of Doom:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

TBH, Diamond Skin should have been the thing that made condi Ele viable, instead we got a crappy passive trait that’s OP in 1v1s and useless everywhere else.

My suggestion for a GM earth trait:
Apply 1 stack of torment (5sec) every time you apply burning or bleeding

Could also think about addition of bleeding or torment to focus (eg: fire #4) and other weak skills (eg: sceptre water #1, glyphs).

scerevisiae.1972:

My suggestion for a GM earth trait:
Apply 1 stack of torment (5sec) every time you apply burning or bleeding

if this has no ICD, it would be absolutely outrageous. considering you can potentially score 4 individual applications of bleed/burn in one hit

reikken.4961:

scerevisiae.1972:

My suggestion for a GM earth trait:
Apply 1 stack of torment (5sec) every time you apply burning or bleeding

if this has no ICD, it would be absolutely outrageous. considering you can potentially score 4 individual applications of bleed/burn in one hit

so 4 stacks of torment? seems fine to me…

could alternatively be a single stack of torment whenever you apply bleed/burn, but make it for a longer duration. point being, to allow Eles to reliably apply a 3rd damage condition. the specifics of #stacks/duration can be worked out later.

4 stacks of torment every 2 seconds seems fine?
I’ll give you that Ele needs quite a lot to become viable as a condition damage class, but that’s a lot of power for a single trait.

reikken.4961:

4 stacks of torment every 2 seconds seems fine?
I’ll give you that Ele needs quite a lot to become viable as a condition damage class, but that’s a lot of power for a single trait.

sceptre earth #1 stacks 3 bleeds every 2 sec, where are you getting 4 from?

3 stacks of torment per 2 sec with a duration of 3-4 sec per stack isn’t that strong. Seems about right for a GM trait IMO.

scerevisiae.1972:

reikken.4961:

4 stacks of torment every 2 seconds seems fine?
I’ll give you that Ele needs quite a lot to become viable as a condition damage class, but that’s a lot of power for a single trait.

sceptre earth #1 stacks 3 bleeds every 2 sec, where are you getting 4 from?

3 stacks of torment per 2 sec with a duration of 3-4 sec per stack isn’t that strong. Seems about right for a GM trait IMO.

Fire master trait is 30% burning on crit

and sigil of earth is 60% bleed on crit
and glyph of elemental power is 25% burn on hit
and elemental surge is burn on hit in fire

you can have a massive explosion of torment stacks, getting a ton in a very short time

condition ele is crippled by attunements… access to a limited amount of conditions in specific attunements is the real problem…

this could be solved by adding more on crit condition application (earth line procing bleeds) and increase duration or chance of the fire traint procing burn, thats the only way how to give ele enough condition access when considering how attunements work…

reikken.4961:

and sigil of earth is 60% bleed on crit
and glyph of elemental power is 25% burn on hit
and elemental surge is burn on hit in fire

you can have a massive explosion of torment stacks, getting a ton in a very short time

assuming they are all applied by scepter earth #1, that’s only 5 potential stacks (can’t apply burn with ES while in earth). seems in the ballpark of reasonable… just need to tune the torment duration into balance.

might be better for this potential GM trait to be more along the lines of “apply torment whenever you apply a condition”, as the core issue of condi Ele is the limited number of condis but also that you can only effectively apply damaging conditions while in earth attunement.