Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I would like some feedback on this question:

Is traiting in Water still worth it when …. you have ZERO gear that gives healing power AND you are running a 0/0/30/20/20 condition/signet build ? Or, would that 20 in water be better elsewhere?

Scepter/Dagger
Earth: II, IX, XII
Arcane IV and VI
(almost full Carrion gear with a little Precision gear and 6x Melandru runes)
(also, constantly running -cond. duration food).

As you can see, my build does not remove conditions or break stuns, basically it eats them – so i dont use the traditional III, V, or IX most people spec in water for the D/D build. Instead i go II and VI in water (or VIII instead of VI when in WvW).

Regular PvE and Dungeons 85% of the time, WvW 15% of the time, sPvP never …

For example: assuming you have 20 points in water, that would be 200 total healing power (an almost unnoticable increase to your healing). Given my build, is water really THAT good where going 10 to 30 deep (100 to 300 max healing power) in that trait line makes more sense than moving that 20 to Air or Fire?

Thank you.

I’d argue that if the traits in the water line benefit you, then yes… if not, no.

I tend to trait my different ele builds based more around wanting certain traits instead of around the extra 100/200/300 pts in each line. It’s also nice if traits all work together… like vigorous scepter if you’re running s/d. Evasive Arcana if you’re using a lot of blast finishers. 30 in water and 10 in precision if I’m running a d/d aurashare. 10 in precision if I’m running a staff build with a lot of Glyphs and want the 20% CD reduction.

The nice thing about this game is you can tailor it to the style YOU want to play… so I’d turn the question around and ask, given how YOU want to play, do you think it’s necessary?

I am of the opinion the points in trait lines don’t make much of a difference. It’s the traits you get from them that do. I don’t understand why many players say “I run x-x-x-x-x build, what do you think?” when we know nothing about what traits they have.

You at least are talking about traits, but seem to be thinking that the Healing Power stat figures into the decision. I don’t think the little bit of healing power or vitality that 20 points gets you is a game breaker. I run 15 in water for Cleansing Wave and Healing Mist.

Having said that, I do think an Ele in GW2 needs at least 17,500 hit points in Pve to take hard hits and avoid getting one or two shot. If you are falling much below that you need to make some of that up, somehow.

Some may think 5 points in water primarily for Healing Mist is a waste. HOTs are in general undervalued, usually by those who have not played a healer in a game. Heals Over Time add up.

SlimGenre.6417:

I’d argue that if the traits in the water line benefit you, then yes… if not, no.

I tend to trait my different ele builds based more around wanting certain traits instead of around the extra 100/200/300 pts in each line. It’s also nice if traits all work together… like vigorous scepter if you’re running s/d. Evasive Arcana if you’re using a lot of blast finishers. 30 in water and 10 in precision if I’m running a d/d aurashare. 10 in precision if I’m running a staff build with a lot of Glyphs and want the 20% CD reduction.

The nice thing about this game is you can tailor it to the style YOU want to play… so I’d turn the question around and ask, given how YOU want to play, do you think it’s necessary?

Slim thank you for your response, but more importantly, thank you for responding like a mature adult.

In essense, I think I am considering 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace, and then adding Elemental Shielding to my Earth line. I’m just curious as to whether that will grant me greater survivabilty than the 20 in water I have now.

Once again, thank you.

Ision.3207:

SlimGenre.6417:

I’d argue that if the traits in the water line benefit you, then yes… if not, no.

I tend to trait my different ele builds based more around wanting certain traits instead of around the extra 100/200/300 pts in each line. It’s also nice if traits all work together… like vigorous scepter if you’re running s/d. Evasive Arcana if you’re using a lot of blast finishers. 30 in water and 10 in precision if I’m running a d/d aurashare. 10 in precision if I’m running a staff build with a lot of Glyphs and want the 20% CD reduction.

The nice thing about this game is you can tailor it to the style YOU want to play… so I’d turn the question around and ask, given how YOU want to play, do you think it’s necessary?

Slim thank you for your response, but more importantly, thank you for responding like a mature adult.

In essense, I think I am consider 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace, and then adding Elemental Shielding to my Earth line. I’m jusr curious as to whether that will grant me greater survivabilty than the 20 in water I have now.

Once again, thank you.

LOL… I’m in my 30’s, have a wife, a mortgage, a 401k… I’m too busy to be a childish kitten /p>

Water is always useful, whether it is as useful as the other options for you is only somehting you can really answer. It does give healing/vitality, which might not be mass amounts but over a while it does add up, other options might work out better (earth toughness might mitigate more damage over a given period of time than the equivilent health from vitality/healing). I would use “I have low healing power therefore I won’t take water” as a reason not to take it though, if anythitng, that’s more a reason to take water.

The minor traits are all pretty good in my opinion, healing while in water (soothing mist); healing when attuning to water and 2% damage bonus per boon (usually have 5 boons up). I don’t know if that adds to condition based damage but I see no reason why it shouldn’t (still somethings are funny like that). you get both survivability and damage.

There are plenty of major traits that wouldcould be used too.

Play which ever spec you wish to try, if you end up being unsuccessful then you have your answer. Every build I’ve done uses water because it’s generally a good choice but trying something new/different is always fun which is a point towards not having water.

I would say no based on your build. Most of Water’s big benefit is condition removal through Regen (which turns cantrips into condition removals) which also offers healing. Not needing the condition removal, the healing alone is fairly minor. Since you use Signets and not Cantrips there’d be very little benefit in that area. If you stay 20 in water you may get some slight benefit but nothing that your OH Dagger 5 can’t cover.

I don’t know what you do with your rotation, if you spend conciderable time with E1, but judging you use scepter and condition gear. I don’t too much use for Water II and VI traits.

They do nothing for your condition damage, and thats what you are geared for.