Guild Wars 2

I feel like our aura builds should be stronger.. Why can’t we access each aura a different way on each weapon set?

For example allowing us to get magnetic aura by EA-earth dodge rolling through a fire field.

I know there’s a rune set that affords you magnetic aura, but I feel like it gimps you, especially since it’s an automatic, not an on demand thing.

The major issue I see here is we get no support trait wise for auras. Our two traits are grandmaster traits, one which gives us an aura and one which shares auras. Both are pretty weak in my opinion, but I’ll touch on that later.

In both those trait lines we have no real ‘support’ for the grandmaster trait. Look at evasive arcana. It has support with several minor traits, and huge support with the “Crits=Vigor” trait. There are no methods of strengthening the grandmaster traits, which make them useless in my opinion. Although I realize you could take an aclarity trait, you’d be gimping yourself to do so JUST for an aura build.

I believe we should have aclarity traits merged with several other traits to make room, and we should have aura boosting traits like auras have a 30% chance to trigger when critted. And a good grandmaster trait could make auras last twice as long.

These really are our strongest active defenses, I just feel like we don’t have enough access to them. I also believe we should have an earth skill, perhaps earth 2 on D/D that throws gunk, and that would give us access to chaos armor — The ‘forbidden ele aura’

I agree we need some aura related traits. Having to go 30 into a trait line without aura-boosting traits just to pick up powerful aura is very strange to me. Things like ‘auras last one additional second’, or ‘auras grant regeneration’.

The problem is that with the existence of powerful aura anet is very afraid to boost auras, since we could spread whatever defense it gives us to an entire party, so they have to find a way to make auras viable for solo play, without making them OP in group combat.

The thing I would love to see fixed the most is being able to share the fire aura from a fire leap combo. I hope to someday see that happen, since it’s technically an aura with a 10 second cooldown.

Hey thanks for commenting, Gokil.

I would honestly rather they removed the powerful aura trait, and allow us to strengthen our own auras.

Eles are a boon to the party in that they share boons, they are targeted down first or second, depending on if a necro is in the vicinity, so we need defenses that make us stand up to that first target fire.

I’d love to see those aura supporting traits, and I’d love for every wep set (sorry I only consider myself an expert at D/D, I’d consult Nikki or Heidia for staff and Scepter respectively, on how to incorporate them into those wep sets.) by allowing more field combos. Ele has some great field combos, but I feel like as the class with the highest skill cap, we aren’t rewarded nearly enough for our combos.

So TL;DR I’d like chaos aura, magnetic aura to be also achievable on D/D, and all weapon sets.

I don’t. As the squishiest class there is, why shouldn’t we be made stronger by buffing our best active defense so we can make viable builds around it?

After all, don’t they value ‘build diversity’?

I’m personally against sharing auras. I’ve only run it once when I was running D/D ele for Agg, and I’ll likely never run it again.

It would be rather strange to adapt the combo system for elementalist only, although looking at the fire grandmaster trait persisting flames, it’s not impossible.

I really like aura sharing to be honest. I’ve been running 030/10/30/0 tempest defense aura sharing with protection on aura, and let me tell you, it’s insanely strong. Lacks durability, makes up for it in raw damage and team support. Tempest defense procs even when you negate the cc with stability. Very strong indeed.

By the way, chaos armor is technically not an aura, so don’t get your hopes up.

I’d like to see auras boosted through a change in Fire’s Embrace.

As it stands now if you spec for Fire’s Embrace and you use a signet you gain a Fire Shield. I would rather they have it work 1 of 2 ways to really allow some cool aura builds……

1. When you use a signet you gain an aura based on your current attunement.
a. Fire = Fire Shield
b. Water = Frost Armor
c. Air = Shocking Aura
d. Earth = Magnetic Aura

or 2. When you cast a signet you gain an aura based on that signets elemental attunement.

a. Signet of Fire = Fire Shield
b. Signet of Water = Frost Armor
c. Signet of Air = Shocking Aura
d. Signet of Earth = Magnetic Aura

maybe even throw something new in there….
e. Signet of Restoration = Healing Aura (heals the player for x amount when struck)

Personally I’d enjoy a change like this. And considering Fire’s Embrace is a Master level trait, you could not get Fire’s Embrace, Tempest Defense, and Powerful Auras in the same build.

This would even bring some life back to signets as well.

Wraistlin.6072:

I’d like to see auras boosted through a change in Fire’s Embrace.

As it stands now if you spec for Fire’s Embrace and you use a signet you gain a Fire Shield. I would rather they have it work 1 of 2 ways to really allow some cool aura builds……

1. When you use a signet you gain an aura based on your current attunement.
a. Fire = Fire Shield
b. Water = Frost Armor
c. Air = Shocking Aura
d. Earth = Magnetic Aura

or 2. When you cast a signet you gain an aura based on that signets elemental attunement.

a. Signet of Fire = Fire Shield
b. Signet of Water = Frost Armor
c. Signet of Air = Shocking Aura
d. Signet of Earth = Magnetic Aura

maybe even throw something new in there….
e. Signet of Restoration = Healing Aura (heals the player for x amount when struck)

Personally I’d enjoy a change like this. And considering Fire’s Embrace is a Master level trait, you could not get Fire’s Embrace, Tempest Defense, and Powerful Auras in the same build.

This would even bring some life back to signets as well.

Thanks for the input. I am up for anything which buffs the fire line for regular use. I’ll say, though, in order to make something like this work, Anet would need to buff our signets. they’re terrible UP as a whole right now.

Gokil.2543:

It would be rather strange to adapt the combo system for elementalist only, although looking at the fire grandmaster trait persisting flames, it’s not impossible.

I really like aura sharing to be honest. I’ve been running 030/10/30/0 tempest defense aura sharing with protection on aura, and let me tell you, it’s insanely strong. Lacks durability, makes up for it in raw damage and team support. Tempest defense procs even when you negate the cc with stability. Very strong indeed.

By the way, chaos armor is technically not an aura, so don’t get your hopes up.

Hmm.. I always go by the “If it looks like, smells like, feels like, then it is.” rule. By all regards you’re right it isn’t an aura. But it has the look of an aura, it has the effects of an aura, it is obtained like an aura and it is from an ‘element’ in its own right.

It can be obtained from a blast finisher inside the throw gunk skill. It wouldn’t be a stretch to have earth 2 to release gunk, which would allow us access to it through blasting inside our new gunk field.

—

On your note on enjoying aura share, I am glad you do, but you pointed out one big thing to me, and that’s durability. While you have good utility and damage, I think you serve a larger purpose alive than dead, and a good team would focus you to death first.

I ran aura share too for group composition. It has some great utility, but I personally do not like it a single bit.

So I’m not arguing it is useless by any means, it just doesn’t jive with my own tastes.

Just like one of the players above me I like the idea of getting regeneration when activating an aura.

I think a very good spot would be the water grandmaster minor. It could give 5 seconds of regeneration when activating an aura.

Boontiful power should be moved to arcana and repace the abysmal arcane precision trait. That way boontiful power would be finally in the boon duration line, where it belongs.

Mbelch.9028:

Thanks for the input. I am up for anything which buffs the fire line for regular use. I’ll say, though, in order to make something like this work, Anet would need to buff our signets. they’re terrible UP as a whole right now.

Yes individually they do not scream out at you as powerful. However currently in the game you can make them each fairly impressive. More so to the amount of things you can have triggered from them than what the signet itself actually does.

For instance with Zephyr’s Boon (air minor), Elemental Shielding (earth minor), Shard of Ice (water minor), Arcane Energy (arcane major), and Runes of Resistance, you grant yourself fury, swiftness, protection, aegis, endurance regen, and you apply vulnerability to your target. And again the signet effect itself.

Shame the internal cooldown on runes of resistance is so absurd, I was looking forward to using a build like that one.

I like the bountiful power idea as well.

To the stacking of effects on signets, yeah, it looks good on paper, but I’ve tried it in practice without those runes, and they are still an underwhelming option. Now am I saying that would still be the case if auras were added to them in the fire line? No, I’m certainly not, especially if they were used with a few other signet traits we have.

I just don’t think that they’d make a complete build when thrown together. I feel like auras have the potential to be a very complete build if Anet gave us the option to do so, especially if they put an aura cool down trait, and a minor for them like you suggested in the water tree and arcana tree.

Gokil.2543:

Shame the internal cooldown on runes of resistance is so absurd, I was looking forward to using a build like that one.

Half of our better signets only have a 30s cooldown. Although a 25s cooldown on the runes would be nicer.

I don’t think buffing auras is the key to make elementalist players happy.

I personally was never relying on auras and I don’t really want to.

They should switch around traits abit and get rid of the useless ones. Nothing gamebreaking tho. Don’t want this class ending up being a warrior v. 2.0.

silvershadez.8421:

I don’t think buffing auras is the key to make elementalist players happy.

I personally was never relying on auras and I don’t really want to.

Well making elementalist players happy is impossible as implied by that statement. Everyone has their own opinion on what they would like the elementalist to do. I’m not suggestion we have to rely on auras, just that there is an option for a build that does.

silvershadez.8421:

I don’t think buffing auras is the key to make elementalist players happy.

I personally was never relying on auras and I don’t really want to.

They should switch around traits abit and get rid of the useless ones. Nothing gamebreaking tho. Don’t want this class ending up being a warrior v. 2.0.

You may not have been relying on them, but they have saved your life and won your fights more times than you can imagine.

silvershadez.8421:

I don’t think buffing auras is the key to make elementalist players happy.

I personally was never relying on auras and I don’t really want to.

They should switch around traits abit and get rid of the useless ones. Nothing gamebreaking tho. Don’t want this class ending up being a warrior v. 2.0.

Who said it was the key? No one thing will make all elementalists happy. I don’t think you’ve got an accurate idea of the topic we are discussing. I would like some traits merged to give us some aura buffing traits.

I also agree with Gokil, they’ve saved you a ton. Auras are super unique about elementalist. I love them and would like to make a build around them.

Mbelch.9028:

silvershadez.8421:

I don’t think buffing auras is the key to make elementalist players happy.

I personally was never relying on auras and I don’t really want to.

They should switch around traits abit and get rid of the useless ones. Nothing gamebreaking tho. Don’t want this class ending up being a warrior v. 2.0.

Who said it was the key? No one thing will make all elementalists happy. I don’t think you’ve got an accurate idea of the topic we are discussing. I would like some traits merged to give us some aura buffing traits.

I also agree with Gokil, they’ve saved you a ton. Auras are super unique about elementalist. I love them and would like to make a build around them.

Technically we do have traits already that boost auras but nothing in the water line it self to go along with Powerful Auras. We have 1 in fire(master) 1 in air(adept) 1 in earth(adpet) and 1 in water(grandmaster). So that just happens to be a full build around aruas already (20/10/10/30/0). Admittedly not a very useful build but a build none the less.

You don’t need Powerful Aura for aura boon sharing…just an ice field and some blast finishers. Staff has an ice field, as do the ice elemental summons. And we just got an additional blast finisher in our heal.

An aura that is shared using powerful aura shares any boons associated with it (for example when using zeyphrs boon or elemental shielding).

As far as I know the auras that are generated using a blast finisher in an ice field do not.

I would like to see how a fire aura saved my life, as I solely run S/F.

Haha point taken

I should stop forgetting this is not the D/D forum anymore

I think auras are good enough, the only thing is that they require a full 70pt investment – 20/10/10/30/0 – that’s all 70pts spoken for and even then, an aura build isn’t all that great.

I can live with the traits, the real weakness lies with the signets themselves. They don’t provide enough defense/mobility to be worth taking over cantrips.

Which is the core of the Ele dilemma – low base defense means everybody has to take 1-3 cantrips to have any chance of surviving damage.

IMO Ele needs a baseline defense mechanic that’s comparable to clones/stealth/aegis/evade-spam. Until then, PVP Eles are going to be bound to cantrips/water. A caster-only version of Elemental Attunement with soothing mist swapped with healing ripple IMO would do it.

This isn’t the D/D ele forum, but as I specialize in D/D, I wrongly assume most people also play it.

I did write my OP in the eyes of a D/D ele though.

I don’t think the issue is with cantrips. I take two, and both of those cantrips do damage, and have great utility. I think the issue is with our low base stats.

If we had higher base stats, we would be able to spec into other areas.

But yes, I completely agree, we need a baseline mechanic. I just think Auras could become that mechanic if they were reworked.

Columbo.5924:

An aura that is shared using powerful aura shares any boons associated with it (for example when using zeyphrs boon or elemental shielding).

As far as I know the auras that are generated using a blast finisher in an ice field do not.

You are misinformed sir. Auras from ice field blast finishers DO share boons. What it doesn’t do, is if you use Powerful Aura and an ice field blast, is apply boons double.

I think aura builds could be viable with a single change: Move Fire’s Embrace (fire aura on signet use) to adept from master. This would enable 10/30/30 aura-signet builds with tempest defense and written in stone.

ThiBash.5634:

Columbo.5924:

An aura that is shared using powerful aura shares any boons associated with it (for example when using zeyphrs boon or elemental shielding).

As far as I know the auras that are generated using a blast finisher in an ice field do not.

You are misinformed sir. Auras from ice field blast finishers DO share boons. What it doesn’t do, is if you use Powerful Aura and an ice field blast, is apply boons double.

So, a combo field is as good as one of our grandmaster traits? Figures.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

So, a combo field is as good as one of our grandmaster traits? Figures.

Well, with the limitation that it only works for armor of frost. :-)

question: do auras from runes gain trait bonuses/effects when proc’d? like Rune of fire/Rune of Earth/ maybe Rune of Vampirism(Mist form?)

CMstorm.8679:

question: do auras from runes gain trait bonuses/effects when proc’d? like Rune of fire/Rune of Earth/ maybe Rune of Vampirism(Mist form?)

Yes, except for mist form.
Mist form is not an aura, silly.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

CMstorm.8679:

question: do auras from runes gain trait bonuses/effects when proc’d? like Rune of fire/Rune of Earth/ maybe Rune of Vampirism(Mist form?)

Yes, except for mist form.
Mist form is not an aura, silly.

Yeah, i know, but i was hoping you’d know what I meant, but i just threw it in there because y not

CMstorm.8679:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

CMstorm.8679:

question: do auras from runes gain trait bonuses/effects when proc’d? like Rune of fire/Rune of Earth/ maybe Rune of Vampirism(Mist form?)

Yes, except for mist form.
Mist form is not an aura, silly.

Yeah, i know, but i was hoping you’d know what I meant, but i just threw it in there because y not

I’m not sure if Rune of Vampirism mist form procs cantrip bonuses, actually.
Wiki says nothing.

Powerful auras should be a master level trait (or maybe written in stone, instead). It would create many more viable builds. Right now, signet-aurashare isn’t workable (despite signet buffs which make them somewhat okay now) due to the trait loadout making it impossible to take the trait which maintains the passives from signets after activation. Selfish signet-aura is kinda decent but not party oriented and doesn’t have the sustain or escape to solo, so basically need a party built to support you.

Tempest aurashare might be somewhat decent, but relying on getting stunned to proc auras is um, something…..

I find it best to drop powerful auras trait altogether and run with a staff if I want to support by sharing auras:

ThiBash.5634:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

So, a combo field is as good as one of our grandmaster traits? Figures.

Well, with the limitation that it only works for armor of frost. :-)

Which is actually quite powerful. A -10% damage buff that can’t be purged or corrupted, stacks with protection and chills anyone who attacks. The application rate competes with d/d aurashare rates with the right build (aquamancer’s alacrity, arcane brilliance and wave) and doesn’t require more than 10 points in water.

Two remarks, tempest defense will proc when you use stability to prevent the cc, which makes it a whole lot better. Also don’t forget the 20 percent damage modifier you can use on earthquake combos, or passively make use of by the numerous stuns from your auras.

Second: the area frost armor combo gives 3 seconds of frost aura as opposed to 7 from D/D. Ofcourse it doesnt stack in duration so ice field blasts are really only good to get the related boons on people from zephyr’s boon and/or elemental shielding.

Gokil.2543:

Second: the area frost armor combo gives 3 seconds of frost aura as opposed to 7 from D/D. Ofcourse it doesnt stack in duration so ice field blasts are really only good to get the related boons on people from zephyr’s boon and/or elemental shielding.

Good point. I suppose you could use another blast finisher to get up to 6 seconds duration. But I never realized it lasts much shorter. Thanks for the heads up.