Guild Wars 2

Take this with all the disclaimers that normally come with leaked notes.

Notably (bad pun is bad), there are really no improvements to non-bunker damage (air/fire) and virtually no improvements to non-bunker survivability (tempest defense lowered to 60sec, from 90. wooooooo…).

Build diversity achieved: nope.

Edit: I suppose arcane lightning could be seen as a really, really small dmg boost. while fresh air could potentially be used for more lightning-strike-on-attunement-swaps (lol at swapping early and finding your skills still on cd), but that is mutually exclusive with the new Tempest Defense.

http://pastebin.com/2rrFg9pS
Elementalist

Arcane Wave: This skill now hits 5 targets instead of 6.
Signet of Air: This skill is now a stun breaker. Cooldown increased to 30s.
Lightning Flash: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Damage increased by 50%. Cooldown reduced to 40s.
Cleansing Fire: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Decreased recharge to 40s.
Glyph of Elemental Power: This skill is now a stun breaker.
Gust: This skill now passes through enemies striking multiple foes in a line.
Windborne speed: Reduced aftercast by .2 seconds.
Chain Lightning: Reduced the aftercast by .1 seconds.
Static Field: Reduced the aftercast by .3 seconds.
Eruption: Reduced the cast time of this skill from 1.8s to 1.2s.
Unsteady Ground: Increased duration from 9s to 10s.
Shockwave: Reduced the aftercast by .3 seconds.
Lava Font: Reduced the cast time from .36 seconds to .2 seconds. Reduced the aftercast from .34 seconds to .2 seconds.
Meteor Shower: Reduced the cast time from 4.2 seconds to 3.8 seconds.
Water Blast: Reduced the aftercast by .1 seconds. Increased the size of the effect to more accuratly show the area healed.
Geyser: Reduced cast time from 1.1 seconds to .6 seconds. Reduced aftercast from .25 seconds to .2 seconds.
Frozen Ground: Reduced the cast time from .36 seconds to .2 seconds. Reduced the aftercast from .34 seconds to .2 seconds.
Healing Rain: Reduced the aftercast by .3 seconds.
Gale: Reduced aftercast by .4 seconds.
Flamewall: Reduced cast time from 1.1 seconds to .6 seconds. Reduced aftercast from .25 seconds to .2 seconds.
Freezing Gust: Reduced the aftercast by .35 seconds.
Tornado: Cooldown reduced to 150 seconds.
Phoenix: Doubled the velocity. Added an unblockable skill fact.
Glyph of Elemental Power: Reduced weakness duration to 3 seconds.
Stoning: Reduced weakness duration to 2 seconds.
Lightning Touch: Reduced weakness duration to 3 seconds.
Meteor Shower: Increased the size of the area that each meteor strikes.
Magma Orb: Damage increased by 33%.
Detonate on ice wall: chill 2s – > 3s
Forked Lightning improved from .3 -> .4
Electrocute .8 – > 1.2, Recharge 5 s – > 12 s, now applies 5 stacks of vulnerbility for 6 s
Murky water recharge reduced from 45 to 40.

Air Magic
Arcane Lightning: This trait now grants a non-stacking 10% bonus critical damage for 15 seconds after using an arcane utility skill.
Grounded: This trait has been merged into Tempest Defense.
Tempest Defense: Internal cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Damage to stunned and knocked down enemies is increased by 20%.
New grandmaster trait – Fresh Air: Critical strikes will now recharge Air Attunement. This effect can only occur once every 5 seconds.

Arcane
Windborne Dagger: Movement speed in combat is increased by 15% for the main-hand, 10% for the off-hand, with 25% total for both.

Earth
Obsidian Focus: Toughness is increased while channeling from 170 at level 80 to 300 at level 80.
Salt Stone: This trait has been merged into Stone Splinters.
Stone Splinters: Moved to Adept. This trait now deals 5% bonus damage to bleeding opponents and increases outgoing bleeding duration by 20%.
Rock Solid: This trait has been moved to the master tier.
New grandmaster trait – Diamond Skin: 10% of your total toughness is converted into condition damage.

Fire
*Lava Tomb: This trait’s internal cooldown has been reduced to 10 seconds, damage from the lava font is increased by 33%. Damage dealt while in the downed state is increased by 33%.
Persisting Flame: Updated this trait to also allow Blast finishers you do to give Fury(10s) as well as might.

Water
Bountiful Power: Damage increase per boon on the elementalist has been reduced from 2% to 1%.

Grain of salt taken, but if this is true, these are some ugly changes and I was expecting more after months of tiny changes to core issues that still affect this profession.

If this is true, I won’t be changing a single utility and a single trait. Staff got buffed but; far less potent than double dagger.

Fresh air is awesome.

huh? Are bunkers running 30 points in air now? Bunkers are running scepter now?

If you want to maximize damage you will go something like scepter/dagger 30 air. 10 earth for the salt stone/stone splinters merge, 25 water. Cause you know vitality and tougness increase survivability o.O and that is earth magic and water.

Or something like 30 air 20 earth for for +10% attuned to earth and stone splinters for +5% to bleeding foes which is earth 1 with extended bleed duration added to the trait earth air swaps with do a ton of damage thats with out running a arcane skill. You could be looking at a consistant +15% damage boost just being in earth swapping to air and having a +15% damage boost there if you want to really juice it up take vital striking or bolt to the heart that would be on average +25% damage when you open.

If you are talking d/d glass then well d/d glass is bad glass just works better with s/d

You still need 30 in arcana. The new builds

0-30-0-10-30 – dps
0-20-0-20-30 – dps/heals
0-0-20-20-30 – bunker

Fire still 0 =(

Rerroll.9083:

Fresh air is awesome.

It would be awesome if it recharged the weapon skills in air, but it doesnt say or imply that. i mean, THAT would increase our mobility and survivability in a dps spec, which we could really use.

but what you are really getting is a faster swap back to see that, yes, Air3,4,5 are all still on cooldown. and its going to cost you big: either Evasive arcana, perma vigor and 1 second of swap speed, or heal-on-water-attune, bountiful power and your choice of awesome water traits.

oZii.2864:

huh? Are bunkers running 30 points in air now? Bunkers are running scepter now?

I am not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. the point of the post was that most ele’s run at least 15 water/30 arcane, leaving near zero build diversity. dps specs are basically non-viable because we have to compensate for the lowest base surviability in the game, which comes at cost to dps traits/gear. the fix for this, naturally, would to be either make the damage from going dps worthwhile, or to add some survivability to dps trait lines. neither of those things appears (leaked notes disclaimer) to be happening.

Raven.9603:

Rerroll.9083:

Fresh air is awesome.

It would be awesome if it recharged the weapon skills in air, but it doesnt say or imply that. i mean, THAT would increase our mobility and survivability in a dps spec, which we could really use.

but what you are really getting is a faster swap back to see that, yes, Air3,4,5 are all still on cooldown. and its going to cost you big: either Evasive arcana, perma vigor and 1 second of swap speed, or heal-on-water-attune, bountiful power and your choice of awesome water traits.

oZii.2864:

huh? Are bunkers running 30 points in air now? Bunkers are running scepter now?

I am not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. the point of the post was that most ele’s run at least 15 water/30 arcane, leaving near zero build diversity. dps specs are basically non-viable because we have to compensate for the lowest base surviability in the game, which comes at cost to dps traits/gear. the fix for this, naturally, would to be either make the damage from going dps worthwhile, or to add some survivability to dps trait lines. neither of those things appears (leaked notes disclaimer) to be happening.

15 in water/30 arcane doesn’t make you a bunker

To take 30 in AIe, you would have to sacrifice point in water or arcana. However, the dmg increase will be ridiculous, especially for S/D. Double Air Burst is a nightmare

I’m sorry but no…simple no
This will be the greatest change ever for non-bunker build:

1) Phoenix= double speed O_o (FTW)
2)GM Air Trait= refresh all air attunement on crit…every kittening 5s..(Collapse laughing hysterically on the floor)
3) New earth traits = Immortal Arch mage build
4) New persisting flame Ultimate nuker build

Come to think of it I will probably swap 10 points from water into air for Grounded. Will probably be able to do some nasty burst.

oZii.2864:

15 in water/30 arcane doesn’t make you a bunker

no, it doesnt. but it does eat 45 trait points preventing you from reaching any GM trait in any dps line. likewise, the concept behind those 45 points is to achieve healing (read: survivability) through perma-vigor+EA(water)+healing-ripple; which is going to lend even further towards gearing for healing/toughness.

Arheundel.6451:

I’m sorry but no…simple no
This will be the greatest change ever for non-bunker build:

1) Phoenix= double speed O_o (FTW)
2)GM Air Trait= refresh all air attunement on crit…every kittening 5s..(Collapse laughing hysterically on the floor)
3) New earth traits = Immortal Arch mage build
4) New persisting flame Ultimate nuker build

You forgot Phoenix will be unblockable also

oZii.2864:

Arheundel.6451:

I’m sorry but no…simple no
This will be the greatest change ever for non-bunker build:

1) Phoenix= double speed O_o (FTW)
2)GM Air Trait= refresh all air attunement on crit…every kittening 5s..(Collapse laughing hysterically on the floor)
3) New earth traits = Immortal Arch mage build
4) New persisting flame Ultimate nuker build

You forgot Phoenix will be unblockable also

-Drop dead on the floor…foam forming around the mouth-

Raven.9603:

oZii.2864:

15 in water/30 arcane doesn’t make you a bunker

no, it doesnt. but it does eat 45 trait points preventing you from reaching any GM trait in any dps line. likewise, the concept behind those 45 points is to achieve healing (read: survivability) through perma-vigor+EA(water)+healing-ripple; which is going to lend even further towards gearing for healing/toughness.

30 arcane isn’t necessary. You can run 20 arcane 20 water 30 air many burst builds run 20 arcane especially with s/d.

toolkit engie popin his block thinking he is tough..hehe
Btw when you say double air burst you mean double 15 minor trait proc and two air 2 every 5 sec ,right?Cause it doesnt say anywhere anything about recharging the actual skills so you still have to wait for lighting strike recharge .. :P
I wonder what will happen with swiftness buff but i guess extra swift nerver hurt anybody.Also airomancer alacrity should be merged with air training imo..it would really complements the new trait.
The question now is: If you do go for that new air trait which is better?
1) 20 in water and healing ripple
2) 30 in arcanae for ea ?

oZii.2864:

Arheundel.6451:

I’m sorry but no…simple no
This will be the greatest change ever for non-bunker build:

1) Phoenix= double speed O_o (FTW)
2)GM Air Trait= refresh all air attunement on crit…every kittening 5s..(Collapse laughing hysterically on the floor)
3) New earth traits = Immortal Arch mage build
4) New persisting flame Ultimate nuker build

You forgot Phoenix will be unblockable also

Phoenix was always unblockable the tooltip just never mentioned it.

To OP two words FRESH AIR….that is all.

also faster Phoenix.
Look out world I’m a nuke.

Benji.9203:

Phoenix was always unblockable the tooltip just never mentioned it.

To OP two words FRESH AIR….that is all.

can you just pretend im really stupid (i know, hard) and give me more than 2 words?
fresh air is not doing anything about the cooldowns for the actual weapon skills. yes, you can get more Electric Discharges to fire, but what is the point if the skills in air are all still going to be on cooldown?

If this really is the case, which I doubt, I am pretty excited for a Condition based Elementalist with the new Earth tree changes.

Raven.9603:

Benji.9203:

Phoenix was always unblockable the tooltip just never mentioned it.

To OP two words FRESH AIR….that is all.

can you just pretend im really stupid (i know, hard) and give me more than 2 words?
fresh air is not doing anything about the cooldowns for the actual weapon skills. yes, you can get more Electric Discharges to fire, but what is the point if the skills in air are all still going to be on cooldown?

We’re assuming it’ll do so…I see no logical reason for it to simply refresh a single attunement

Arheundel.6451:

We’re assuming it’ll do so…I see no logical reason for it to simply refresh a single attunement

Except that it specifically (and only) says it recharges “Air Attunement”, and that adding a grandmaster trait that is somewhat lackluster is exactly what Anet would probably do.

Edit: but i hope you guys are right. it would be pretty kitten if it was a full air-weaponskill-refresh.

Arheundel.6451:

Raven.9603:

Benji.9203:

Phoenix was always unblockable the tooltip just never mentioned it.

To OP two words FRESH AIR….that is all.

can you just pretend im really stupid (i know, hard) and give me more than 2 words?
fresh air is not doing anything about the cooldowns for the actual weapon skills. yes, you can get more Electric Discharges to fire, but what is the point if the skills in air are all still going to be on cooldown?

We’re assuming it’ll do so…I see no logical reason for it to simply refresh a single attunement

oh..
Its certainly not gonna refresh the skills.Imagin 5 sec cd rtls..lol that would be so broken.But its still a big deal.
Skills that had less than 12 sec cd will benefit more of less from this,so you get the lightning brst every 5 sec instead of 10.
Also you need to see it not only as having more of air att availability, but also more access to the other attunements.
Right now if you dont invest heavy in arcana(and even then) you frequently end up on an att with every else on cd and many times its water or earth which is really bad.
With that trait air will be your "go to " att so that you spend the minimum time at the important ones. If before was air->fire->earth and stay there until air is back now it will be something like air->fire->(air)->earth-> air and you avoid losing the prot on switch uptime cause you stayed in earth for too long
Lastly it completely bypasses chill effect which destroys att recharge rate..
In the end its just a very good trait

It wont not reset the skill in Air Attunement. I dont want to see Perma Shock Aura Pls.
Refresh Air Attunement means a few thing:
More Swiftness which S/D and S/F need
More Fury uptime.
More Static Discharge and Lighting Strike in Scepter because it has 5 s CD.

Because Fresh Air only has 5 sec CD, you Air Attunement will barely on CD and it will compensate the lack of auto attack damage.

Raven.9603:

Arheundel.6451:

We’re assuming it’ll do so…I see no logical reason for it to simply refresh a single attunement

Except that it specifically (and only) says it recharges “Air Attunement”, and that adding a grandmaster trait that is somewhat lackluster is exactly what Anet would probably do.

Edit: but i hope you guys are right. it would be pretty kitten if it was a full air-weaponskill-refresh.

Ha silly of me to think, guess you’re right , in which case yeah the GM will be rather lackluster but still not awful

Vanillea.5764:

It wont not reset the skill in Air Attunement. I dont want to see Perma Shock Aura Pls.
Refresh Air Attunement means a few thing:
More Swiftness which S/D and S/F need
More Fury uptime.
More Static Discharge and Lighting Strike in Scepter because it has 5 s CD.

Because Fresh Air only has 5 sec CD, you Air Attunement will barely on CD and it will compensate the lack of auto attack damage.

Yeah quite few good pts, it’s worth the GM fix after all

Rerroll.9083:

You still need 30 in arcana. The new builds

0-30-0-10-30 – dps
0-20-0-20-30 – dps/heals
0-0-20-20-30 – bunker

Fire still 0 =(

You can skip evasive arcana. I far prefer 0/30/0/20/20.

Topic creator: I recommend you to remove the link, if you don’t want anet to delete this thread.

Air attunement recharge can be pretty good for the s/d valkyrie burster eles. Imagine making a huge air burst (instant air skills + air 15 trait + fire sigil + arcanes), switching to another attunement, and switching back to air for a huge burst. Usually, this would require investment in arcana so you can switch back to air quickly, but the grandmaster trait would allow you to override the “advantage” of investing in arcane. Yes, it would mean less acess to other attunements, but you would burst (=kill) faster with air, and have vulnerability on critical + more precision and critical damage. Pretty big.

Tempest Defense would become awesome. The shocking aura synergies itself with grounded, it would be a strong trait both offensively and defensively, and synergy well with aura traits. If someone striked you, they would get stunned, and you would get fury, swiftness, protection (maybe) and deal 20% more damage to them. That IS good.

Fire’s grandmaster trait change is awesome, but everything else in that traitlibe is still rather lame and the change to lava tomb is too niche.

Zenith.7301:

Rerroll.9083:

You still need 30 in arcana. The new builds

0-30-0-10-30 – dps
0-20-0-20-30 – dps/heals
0-0-20-20-30 – bunker

Fire still 0 =(

You can skip evasive arcana. I far prefer 0/30/0/20/20.

Yea 30 in air is looking far more attractive than 30 in water.

Raven.9603:

Benji.9203:

Phoenix was always unblockable the tooltip just never mentioned it.

To OP two words FRESH AIR….that is all.

can you just pretend im really stupid (i know, hard) and give me more than 2 words?
fresh air is not doing anything about the cooldowns for the actual weapon skills. yes, you can get more Electric Discharges to fire, but what is the point if the skills in air are all still going to be on cooldown?

I’m sorry I did not mean to sound condescending or anything like that. I’m just super excited if this is real. I do not assume it will refresh lightning skills (my initial reaction) I now assume it will refresh air attunement.

An air attunement recharge would be insane on a s/d dps ele. Lightning strikes can hit for an instant 2k+ on crits. With with 15 point trait electric discharge you can proc a lightning strike whenever you switch into air. In addition the scepter # 2 is an instant lightning strike on a 5 second recharge (another 2k+ damage). In a course of 10 seconds within a fight it is possible to deliver 8k damage just by using lightning strike procs from switching attunements and scepter #2.

A true glass eles biggest issue is the restriction of the arcane line (excluding survivability issues). Not only does going without arcane hamper dps and survivability but overall it’s rather impractical and made builds like a 30/30/0/0/10 ele gimmicky and unsound.

Fresh Air not only allows eles the unpredictability in rotation but it also creates a means to perform rotations at a faster pace.

Example of the typical: Air > Fire > Earth > Water (repeat or play off the situation)
can become…
Example of Fresh Air: Air > Fire > Air >Earth > Air > Fire > Water > Air
Basically air attunement is on a 5 second cooldown regardless of your points in arcane. The effectiveness is left alone to the imagination.

Fresh Air does not solve all the issues but its a great place to start. Again i did not mean to sound like a jerk (I Apologize). It’s just that I want to share in my excitement if these notes are real.

Edit: IMO Ele grandmaster traits should change the way you play the class completely and I think Fresh Air does just that.

Look anet that wasn’t so hard eh giving us some more options:P

Why would they nerf bountiful power? We already do crap damage, If anything they should have buffed it up to 5%. Not even worth taking now. And why remove the stunbreaker from cleansing fire and lightning flash? I get that they want stunbreakers on glyphs and signets, but why not just add them and not remove 2 of the already existing stunbreakers?

Nikkinella.8254:

Why would they nerf bountiful power? We already do crap damage, If anything they should have buffed it up to 5%. Not even worth taking now. And why remove the stunbreaker from cleansing fire and lightning flash? I get that they want stunbreakers on glyphs and signets, but why not just add them and not remove 2 of the already existing stunbreakers?

It allowed bunker eles to deal too much damage. If you wanna deal more damage, in theory, you shouldn’t spec in water, which is the ele’s most defensive traitline.

Well they should up our healing power and base hp then so i wont have to spec into water at all and can put more into fire and air without dying when a light breeze hits me.

New stun breakers:
Mist form (no change)
Signet of Air
Glyph of Elemental Power
Armor of Earth (no change)

No longer a stun breaker:
Lightning Flash
Cleansing Fire

Seems fair, and since Signet of Air breaks stuns, I can now run Ether Renewal to replace Cleansing Fire, while maintaining permanent (pseudo) swiftness while in WvW.

However, I don’t understand the change to the Air GM trait. Shouldn’t this trait really be in Earth as well?

Condition builds need to maintain bleed and burning (or poison/confusion) to put out good damage. Whenever you swap out of Earth, you are locking yourself out of your main damage source. It would be a good trait for the 30 point Earth tree.

In any case, there are so few condition builds for Eles that I doubt anyone will be annoyed that these builds are still bad.

(Also, why is the anti-movement condition given to Thieves and Mesmers? Are we supposed to only use these two classes for PvP? Good thing I got them both to lv 80 :/ )

They should have given eles the anti movement condition instead of thieves. Would make staff ele a hell of alot better. Right now it’s still a free kill. That would atleast make it somewhat of a threat. Giving it to thieves was the stupidest idea ever. Standing still against a thief is suicide. now moving away from their stupidly OP burst damage will get you killed too thanks to a new condition. great job once again at balancing things Anet. And why still no reduction in our attunement recharge rate? we still have to spec into arcane because of that.

Is it just me or does it seem that the new GM air trait gets more effective the less points you have in arcana? Like devs giving hints: hey dont forget the air tree or somethingxd

The changes aren’t bad, but I was expecting more. I hope these are fake or incomplete otherwise they did a terrible job at creating “build diversity” for Eles. We’d still be required to place points into arcana for any viable builds, and the focus changes aren’t too impressive.

I can really imagine to swap from 0/10/0/30/30 to 0/30/0/30/10 in PvE. I don’t mind the high attunement cool downs if I can switch back to a damaging attunement quickly. Yes, not having perma-vigor and evasive arcane will hurt, but I can’t live without the option of aura sharing or crazy condition removal.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Hamartia-s-S-D-Elementalist-DPS-Leveling/first#post2251981

Goes from providing zero percent fury uptime to party to providing 100% fury uptime to party.

So huge utility buff to my (obviously) favorite PVE DPS build.

0/30/0/15/20 (with 5 extra points, probably for water) is going to be viable after this patch.

The new version of grounded is going to do this:
1. Cast Earthquake
2. Switch to air, make the burst sequence, +20% damage
3. Switch to fire, get hit, activating shocking aura, fury and swiftness
4. Ring of fire or Phoenix or Fire Grab, +20% damage

Imagine the extra dmg when bolt to the heart kicks in:P

It looks like a good day to be a staff elementalist.

Or rather, it will be in 5 days.

My excitement for the Staff improvements outweighs any disappointment I may have for other things.

Yes, excitement about staff eles.
I’m currently already running a 0/30/0/10/30 build and it works great for me. If Glyph of Elemental Power will be a stunbreaker it would be great to have a 36 sec cd stunbreaker (if traited Short Glyphs) + the chance on conditions.

Nikkinella.8254:

They should have given eles the anti movement condition instead of thieves. Would make staff ele a hell of alot better. Right now it’s still a free kill. That would atleast make it somewhat of a threat. Giving it to thieves was the stupidest idea ever. Standing still against a thief is suicide. now moving away from their stupidly OP burst damage will get you killed too thanks to a new condition. great job once again at balancing things Anet. And why still no reduction in our attunement recharge rate? we still have to spec into arcane because of that.

You don’t get OP burst AND condition damage in the same build.

Fresh Air is an awesome trait for Air scepter. Every 5 sec you can hit someoen with 3 instant cast 2-3k crit spells. Electric discharge on attunement swap, lighting strike 5sec cd(air scepter 2), and sigil of fire/air. This will help with Air burst damage.

Bah. If these notes are real, then my build is now dead.

It’s too bad, I was really starting to like it.

My take on this, I think we gained two builds, gained another option or two with a couple builds, and a couple builds (d/d specifically) will have to adapt.

Seriously if these are Legit I’m calling it for a 30/0/30/10/0 build.

Most of our conditions have tremendous base durations. When coupled with +Condition Duration it makes them simply fanatically huge. I’m just going to put this out there: Signet of Fire has a 16s cool down with Signet Mastery but it’s a 17 second Burn with 90% condition duration. You have no idea how many kills I’ve caught on people who thought they were safe in WvW with this over the last few days just messing around. No one expects a 17 second burn that ticks for 700 a tick.

If you add in some of these changes the whole build is going to fly wide open. Signet of Air as a stun breaker would be colossal since that’s by and far your biggest weakness on a Signet build. Conditions are reasonably managed via 10 in Water for Cleansing Wave and either Cleansing Wave (S/D) or Healing Rain (Staff) on top of the passive cleansing of Signet of Water. A near 8 second, targeted chill on demand every 24 seconds is incredibly powerful as well. Could play around with Ether Renewal vs Signet of Restoration as well.

Change would also open up lots of benefits from the bleed duration but also Earth cool down reduction. That will bring extremely powerful abilities like Earthquake or Churning Earth onto some very slick low cool downs (36s and 24s each). Various staff abilities (mostly on 30s) would also be lowered down to 24s each which would be very handy.

Be kinda fun to turn my Ele into a monster Condition machine with actual survivability and damage now.

WOOOOHOOOO!!!! AWESOME CHANGES!!!

Don’t know what it’d mean for the D/D elementalist but for Staff elementalist all of the above changes are just what we needed. Plus it allows for condition builds and we are not stuck in 10 air, 25 water, cantrips etc. etc.

Soooo looking forward to this!