Guild Wars 2

I’m creating this thread so that we, the Elementalist community, can analyze our traits, pick out which ones are useful, which ones need help, and maybe help other Ele’s find new uses for traits.

What I am going to do to start is reserve 5 posts here, one for each trait line. And then fill them in with MY analysis of each trait. I would like others from the community to give their take on traits, correct me where they feel I am wrong, or add their input.

Unlike my previous thread like this…I will be reserving enough posts so we shouldn’t run into any problems.

Also, I am going to try to rate traits using the following scale:

Terrible
Poor
Okay
Good
Excellent
Amazing

FIRE

Stat Bonuses: Okay. Power is alright but you can easily substitute for its absence with gear, might stacking, or food. Condition duration isn’t bad, especially since fire has so much burning.

Minors:

Flame Barrier: Poor. It can cause some burning, but so can so many of your fire skills…and since it is ONLY effective in fire attunement, and you likely be causing burning in fire attunement anyway, I don’t think it’s that good.

Sunspot: Okay. It’s a little damage boost…not much on its own, but it’s essentially instance and every little bit can help.

Burning Rage: Okay. 5% damage increase isn’t terrible, but your foes are not always going to be burning. All in all, this trait is overshadowed by other traits like water 25 that are much, much better. Since this trait is in the DPS tree…I feel like it should increase damage more than the 25 point trait in the healing tree.

Majors:

Lava Tomb: Good for PvE, Poor for PvP. For PvE, this one can be useful just because it gives you a much greater chance of getting up from downed. For PvP, I don’t think it’s very useful at all…most players can heal up that damage fast, and since you will want to move with vapor form, they probably won’t even be in your lava tomb for long.

Burning Fire: Poor. This causes more burning…but only on VERY SPECIFIC utility skill uses, two of which are conjures, and the other two cause burning already! I dunno, maybe it would be okay if you were a condition damage build and were just trying to keep burning up at all times, but a 3 second increase just seems not good enough to me.

Ember’s Might: Okay (Disputed). For an adept trait, 5% extra damage to burning foes really isn’t that bad. If you are stacking power, a percentile increase can be a big deal.
—A few posters feel like the damage increase here just isn’t that significant, and you won’t always have burning up, so I can see their points.

Spell Slinger: Excellent. Cantrips are great, getting might when you cast them is even better!

Burning precision: Good. Haven’t used this one, but this seems like a FAR superior way to keep burning up than the other skills that enhance burning we have discussed so far. Critical hits happen fairly often, especially since many of our skills cause multiple hits, not just one, and a 30% chance to cause burning on critical ain’t bad.

Internal Fire: Good, situationally Excellent. As an Ele, a very large percentage of your damage comes from your fire attunement. So a flat out 10% increase in damage in your most damaging attunement is seriously not bad. Couple this with the fact that you can use a conjured weapon in fire attunement and still reap the benefits and this trait can become excellent.

Pyrmomancer’s Alacrity: Okay. All our skills that reduce cooldowns suffer from the fact that you WILL want to switch attunements, so your cooldowns are essentially governed by the overall attunement recharge rate. Nonetheless, this trait can be alright as it will let you do your big fire bursts like fire grab more often. And if you are building for something specific like a siege Ele that meteors all the time…I would definitely take this.

Conjurer: Good. Right now, conjures aren’t used much…but for those people that DO use them, this trait is basically necessary.

Fire’s Embrace: Okay. Man, this skill sounds awesome for an auramancer. But the fact is that it’s so deep in the fire tree, that an auramancer would have to give up way too much to use this effectively.

One with Fire: Terrible. This is one of those traits that seeks to lock you in an attunement. This is almost always bad. And really, the benefit ain’t even all that great. As an Ele, you really don’t want to let a whole bunch of people bunch you in the face so they get burning when you can just use fire 5 to cause burning on criticals.

Persisting Flames: Poor. I really don’t think this is good. Any player is not going to stand in your field long enough for it to matter…and for a GM trait, it’s just sad.

Pyromancer’s Puissance: Terrible. There are WAY, WAY better ways for an Ele to stack might. This trait is a GM trait and inferior to freaking Fire 4 (adept) in might stacking.

Air

Stat Bonuses: Excellent. 30% more crit damage is freaking awesome. Especially considering that you will have a very high crit chance from the perma-fury you will get from Zephyr’s boon.

Minors:

Zephyr’s Speed: Terrible. Absolutely useless, doesn’t stack with swiftness, you will have perma-swiftness, so this trait is null and void.

Electric Discharge: Okay. Doesn’t do much damage, but once again, it’s instant and every little bit helps.

Weak Spot: Excellent. Okay so you’re at least 25 air, you probably do crits all the time…you will be stacking vulnerability like nobody’s business!

Majors:

Zephyr’s Boon: AMAZING. Okay, it’s an adept trait that can give you PERMA fury AND swiftness (with D/D). Oh and wait, that’s not all, if you are an auramancer, it gives perma fury and swiftness to your entire group! kitten

Zephyr’s Focus: Okay. You really don’t channel skills enough to justify this, and Ele’s have better ways of getting endurance.

Quick Glyphs: Excellent. One of your heals is a glyph, and your best elite is a glyph…that is 20% more healing and elite skill use. Good? I think so.

One with Air: Terrible. Much like Zephyr’s Speed, this one is absolutely useless…doesn’t stack with swiftness.
—Some posters have pointed out that this trait can be useful for jumping puzzles or whatever, because it is constant and you don’t have to keep spamming swiftness skills. It is still fairly useless in any real combat scenario though.

Soothing Winds: Okay. I wouldn’t really take this one…as an Ele, you probably aren’t going to stack precision gear due to the perma-fury you will have, so it seems like it would only be of limited effectiveness…this would be better as a minor trait IMO…replace Zephyr’s Speed with this.

Bolt to the Heart: Good. Great skill to finish people off with, and works in all attunements. Only drawback is that they must be under 25% to do it, and most players are either go to go down anyway when they are that weak, or will heal up soon…still, not bad though.

Arcane Lightning: Poor. It’s only 3% more crit damage, you get that for spending 3 points in air lol…AND it’s only triggered when you use an arcane skill. This is overshadowed by other damage percentile increasing traits.

Inscription: Okay. Seems like a worse version of Elemental Attunement…still, not horrible for a boon stacking build I guess.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity: Poor. Basically same reasons as the fire skill, but I find air to be a more “situational” attunement than fire, so I gave this poor.

Tempest Defense: Excellent. For a build that doesn’t use a dagger in the MH, this is awesome. Staff users are fairly vulnerable to thief burst, and this skill fixes that problem.
—Arheundel feels that this skill is too situational to be considered that good.

Grounded: Poor. I have seen multiple reports that updraft does actually NOT benefit from this trait. This has made be downgrade it from excellent to poor. Without being able to benefit from this with updraft, we only have shocking aura and earthquake to synergize with this, and those skills don’t really lend themselves to a burst opener. As such, unless you are in a group situation where someone is just laying down tons of CC for you…this is pretty bad, and doubly bad to be a GM trait.

EARTH

Stat Bonuses: Good. Toughness is great for the low armor Ele, and since Ele’s will ALWAYS be using condition damage, that isn’t bad too. While the stat bonsues here aren’t amazing, they provide offense and defense in one package.

Minors:

Stone Flesh: Okay. 80 toughness while in one attunement…you get 300 from 30 earth…meh.

Earthen Blast: Excellent. On attune skills are typically great, and this is one of the best of the “damaging” on attune skills, it does AoE AND it cripples…not bad for a minor!

Enduring Damage: Good. 10% more damage with full endurance…you will have full endurance when you start a fight, so that’s 10% more damage to your opening burst. Not bad! Still, it’s a 25 point investment, and you will have non-full endurance for most of the fight, so it could be better.

Majors:

Obsidian Focus: Okay. 170 more toughness when channeling. It’s okay, but nothing to write home about.

Signet Mastery: Excellent. Great synergy with a 30 earth signet build, probably required.

Earth’s Embrace: Excellent. Armor of earth is a great skill. This trait is just a 10 pointer and lets you save on a utility slot. I think you get all your cantrip bonuses when it procs as well, but not sure.

Salt Stone: Okay. 5% increase, very conditional, just okay.

Elemental Shielding: Good. For an auramancer, this is great. Otherwise, it’s decent, but I would go with earth’s embrace over it.

Stone Splinters: Good for D/D. With D/D, you will be melee nearly all the time, so this is more or less a 5% damage increase.

Stength of Stone: Okay. Earth can do a lot of damage with certain abilities, but it’s second string to fire. I wouldn’t take this one…too limited, I think stone splinters would be better.

Serrated Stones: Okay. This one sounds great on paper, 20% more bleeding! But you are not going to want to make a pure bleed Ele build…instead you will be mixing bleeding, burning, DD, and all your utility stuff. Couple this with the fact that bleeds can be purged, and it’s just…meh.

Geomancer’s Freedom: Good. Haven’t used this, but it sounds decent. Immobilized is KILLER for Ele’s. Yes, we have a lot of condition removal, but you don’t ALWAYS have one available

Geomancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire one.

Rock Solid: Poor. For a GM trait, this is lacking. 2s of stability every (min) 10s isn’t all that amazing, and it’s WAY overshadowed by Elemental Attunement.

Written in Stone: AMAZING. The cornerstone of a signet build.

WATER

Stat Bonuses: Okay. Vitality and healing power. Both good for Ele, but both can easily be stacked with gear.

Minors:

Soothing Mist: Excellent. A regen that stacks with regen! Adds a bit of healing to your entire group, not bad at all for a 5 point trait!

Healing Ripple: AMAZING. This is a pretty BIG heal, AND it triggers on attunement, AND it’s AoE, AND it’s a 15 point trait. Need I say more?

Bountiful Power: AMAZING. For D/D, this is HANDS DOWN our best 25 pointer. We will normally have a MINIMUM of 5 boons up, so this is a 10% (at least) damage increase to ALL of your skills, nearly ALL the time. And wait, wait…it’s in the healing tree!

Majors:

Aquamancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire.

Shard of Ice: Okay. It’s not terrible, but Air 25 is a MUCH superior way to stack vulnerability, as this one depends on utility skill use.

Soothing Disruption: Excellent (AMAZING with water 11). More healing, uses cantrips which are already awesome, and makes for some AMAZING condition removal with Water 11.

Piercing Shards: Good. This one used to be “Poor” but TwoBit pointed out that you can switch to water attunement during the channel of another, heavy-hitting skill (meteor swarm, churning earth), and get the +20% damage increase on your heavy hitting skill when foes are vulnerable. This is situationally decent, but as TwoBit also points out, this trait competes with some of the best traits we have available to us, so it would be hard to forego them for this guy. Others pointed out that this is good for a conjure build since you can just stay in water all the time!

Cleansing Wave: AMAZING. AoE condition removal on attune…uh yeah.

Vital Striking: Good. 10% extra damage to your opening burst. Ain’t bad, and you can actually spend a long time above 90% health because of all your heals.
—Arheundel Feels that this trait isn’t that good since you spend a lot of a fight under 90% health.

Stop Drop and Roll: Poor. Anyone 20 points deep into water is already gonna have a lot of condition removal. This thing only removes two conditions on dodge…not necessary.
—Arheundel feels this trait is pretty good because it can remove chill which can be a lifesaver…personally, I think there are better ways to do condition removal.

Icy Mist: Terrible. The man himself (jon Peters) says it, and I agree! Vapor form is only downed, and mist form is a long cooldown…yeah, not useful.

Cantrip Mastery: Excellent. Cantrips are great, reducing their cooldown, also great.

Soothing Wave: Poor. We have MUCH better ways of granting regen, like soothing disruption or elemental attunement.

Cleansing Water: AMAZING (Disputed). This skill is a beast. This will infuriate so many players because it allows you to have some of the best condition removal in the game!

—Some posters have pointed out that this skill requires you to have certain other traits and skills in your build to be effective so they don’t feel it’s that powerful. But I actually disagree. Fact is, that with Elemental Attunement, soothing disruption, glyph of harmony as your heal, and 2 cantrips on your bar, you will have FOUR more condition removals, and one of them is AoE. I mean, everyone thinks that Cleansing wave is great…this trait does THE EXACT SAME THING as cleansing wave if you have Elemental Attunement (no brainer) IN ADDITION TO making any cantrip a condition removal with soothing disruption.
So, IMO, I don’t really think this trait should be downgraded just because you need to build for it.

Powerful Aura: AMAZING. You not only share your auras with your group, but also all their ancilliary buffs! Perma-fury and swiftness for your group, and a decent amount of Prot??? Heck yeah!

ARCANE

Stat Bonuses: AMAZING + 1. +30% boon duration is awesome by itself, but that ain’t the reason why this is so good. The attunement recharge rate bonus will bring your attunements from 15s CD at 0 Arcana to a 10s CD at 30. This is SOOOO good it borders on being broken, and many Ele’s complain that they feel forced into the Arcana tree because of it. For now though, I would HIGHLY recommend investing some points here.

Minors:

Arcane Fury: Excellent. You put points in Arcana, you will probably have good boon duration, and be switching attunements frequently…this trait will give you A LOT of fury, and it’s a 5 pointer!

Lingering Elements: Terrible now, potentially Excellent. I thought that this trait would buff all of your attunement bonuses like Elemental Attunement, but it looks like it only affects the 5 point attunement bonuses like Stone Flesh, Zephyr’s Speed, etc. Many of them are useless, and you need an investment in other trees to even get them, so this is actually pretty bad. If it is changed to buff Elemental Attunement, it will be excellent.

Arcane Precision: Good. A 7.5% chance to apply an attunement specific condition on critical, ain’t bad. Not the best of our 25 pointers, but not bad.

Majors:

Arcane Mastery: Okay. Arcane skills are good, but you really have to sacrifice a lot of defense to have more than 1 on your bar. So I think this is limited in usefulness.

Arcane Ressurection: Good. If you’re in air, this can stop people from beating the crap out of you when you revive, because they will get stunned on every hit. definitely not as good as the thief’s stealth on revive, but not horrible.

Arcane Retribution: Okay. Problem I have with this is that Arcane Power is a skill that requires planning (you want to use it before your big hits) and this is triggered reactively, so you can’t really plan for it.

Final Shielding: Excellent. A life saver, uses arcane shield just when you need it! Note, this was once bugged so it triggered at 10% health instead of 25%…not sure if this is still the case.

Elemental Attunement: AMAZING + 1. This trait…this trait. It is good. It will give you AND your group TONS of boons. It is only a 10 pointer. It will make you MUCH more powerful. Take it. Take it now.

Renewing Stamina: AMAZING. Perma-vigor! By far our best endurance regen trait!

Vigorous Scepter: Terrible. This gives a 25% endurance regen when wielding scepter. Renewing Stamina will give you almost permanent vigot uptime that gives you 100% endurance regen. Easy choice? I think so.

Blasting Staff: AMAZING. Unlike the scepter and dagger traits, this one rocks. It makes nearly all of your staff attacks affect a significantly larger area. This is a really big deal and allows for much larger area denial for staff users.

Windborne Dagger: Terrible. Doesn’t stack with swiftness, useless…and I think it’s bugged anyway.

Arcane Energy: Poor. Completely overshadowed by Renewing Stamina.

Evasive Arcana: AMAZING. Not only do you get an AoE blind on dodge in air, burn in fire, condition purge in water, and bleed in earth…you also get another blast finisher in earth! And since you will likely have perma-vigor due to Renewing Stamina…you get to use this A LOT.

Elemental Surge: Excellent (maybe AMAZING). I used to have this as poor, but revised it to Excellent. Many posters have pointed out that when you use this with arcane power, it causes your next FIVE attacks to impart a condition. And this could really be absolutely amazing. For example, I would be interested to see if an Ele could fire multiple AoE immobilizes if they trigger arcane power and then fire a bunch of AoE or bounce (chain lightning) abilities. THAT would be brutal in PvP…same with multiple AoE blinds…let me know if anyone has experience with this.

Cool thread. Would be good if you could remind people to not talk about bugged traits too much as we allready have sticky devoted for those. I take it you wanted to talk more about the actually effects of the traits and the synergy.

Lol fall damage reduction traits are useless aswell xD I rather have a: “remove all conditions when activating mist form trait.”

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

It’s about time!

Fall reduction traits are not worthless to everyone. They are quite helpful in WvW, as those maps tend to feature many cliffs that elementalists have a tough time with.

Creslin.1758:

Grounded: Excellent (for D/D). For a D/D burst build, this skill is probably a must. D/D’s almost always open with a KD (updraft), so their initial big burst will benefit from this, and 20% increased damage is no joke.

Updraft is technically a launch/blowout and doesn’t benefit from grounded.

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

Hallelujah!

And I thought we’ll never see this trait implemented! I feel something inside me being brought to life. ^^

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Creslin.1758:

Grounded: Excellent (for D/D). For a D/D burst build, this skill is probably a must. D/D’s almost always open with a KD (updraft), so their initial big burst will benefit from this, and 20% increased damage is no joke.

Updraft is technically a launch/blowout and doesn’t benefit from grounded.

Really??? I would like to see this tested, that’s interesting. I will add your dispute to the OP though. Let me know if you find out more.

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

Ah…

A little faith has been restored.

Humposaurus.5764:

Lol fall damage reduction traits are useless aswell xD I rather have a: “remove all conditions when activating mist form trait.”

you obviously never played WvWvW. Falling damage reduction is a must have to get around quickly in borderlands.

As Ele lacks a fall damage reduction, I got a better proposal:
Zephyrs Speed is poor as it is. Make it reduce falling damage while attuned to air on top of giving the 10% move speed :>

Humposaurus.5764:

Lol fall damage reduction traits are useless aswell xD I rather have a: “remove all conditions when activating mist form trait.”

Fall damage talents are insanely good in WvWvW, great in spvp for their effects, awesome for jumping puzzles, and useful for other PvE stuff. I think you are just completely clueless, to be honest.

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

this skill was sooooo much better in the beta. anyway mistform is primarely used to avoid damage so why would you stay close to the damage source? its useless yes

Toversletje.9345:

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

this skill was sooooo much better in the beta. anyway mistform is primarely used to avoid damage so why would you stay close to the damage source? its useless yes

Personally, I usually use my time in Mist Form to heal myself. It gives me a bit of time to do that without interruption, which is extremely useful. If I can also damage and chill enemies while I’m doing that, then all the better.

Very nice trait list here, excellent work Creslin ^^

A small typo problem: Burning Rage is a minor trait (Grandmaster) not a Major

About Zephyr’s Boon, I might sound like a total noob here but how do you keep perma-fury on?

Avatara.1042:

Humposaurus.5764:

Lol fall damage reduction traits are useless aswell xD I rather have a: “remove all conditions when activating mist form trait.”

Fall damage talents are insanely good in WvWvW, great in spvp for their effects, awesome for jumping puzzles, and useful for other PvE stuff. I think you are just completely clueless, to be honest.

It’s also a bit embarrassing that the master of the elements can’t figure out some way to deal with the Air/Earth transition.

;GW2.com Elementalist

Fire, Air, Earth and Water. I can deal death with any of them *

• Specifically, my own death, where Air meets Earth.

maddoctor.2738:

Very nice trait list here, excellent work Creslin ^^

A small typo problem: Burning Rage is a minor trait (Grandmaster) not a Major

About Zephyr’s Boon, I might sound like a total noob here but how do you keep perma-fury on?

Fixed! And with Zephyr’s boon…if you are using D/D, you have shocking aura and frost aura. Shocking aura gives 10s of fury with Zephyr’s boon, and frost gives 5. You will also be likely getting 2s of fury on every attunement switch from arcana 5. Couple this with some boon duration increases, and that is perma-fury!

maddoctor.2738:

Very nice trait list here, excellent work Creslin ^^

A small typo problem: Burning Rage is a minor trait (Grandmaster) not a Major

About Zephyr’s Boon, I might sound like a total noob here but how do you keep perma-fury on?

Perma-Fury can be attained by having at least 5 points in Arcana (you get 2 seconds of Fury whenever you swap attunements) and then Zephyr’s Boon in D/D. The more boon duration you’ve got, the better (I usually run with 30 Arcana, Superior and Major runes of the Water, Superior Runes of the Monk; I’m all about the boon durations). So then you just swap attunements often and use your auras (shocking and frost aura in D/D) when appropriate, and it’s easy to get permanent fury.

In any topic mentioning traits I feel the need to request a change to Windborne Daggers. Even aside from the fact that it plain doesn’t work ATM, its a redundant trait with all the passive movement speed buffs we already get and the Swiftness that Elementalists have access to. Staff users get bigger AoE which is great, Scepter users get more endurance which is… well, not nearly as impressive as Blasting Staff, but useful at least. More dodging is good, especially for a ranged weapon. Daggers, the weapon which already has plenty of gap closing ability, get a bit of movement speed. Oh boy.

My personal preference would be to change it so that it provides an attack speed increase (nothing ridiculous, maybe a 15% attack speed boost) which would still fit with the whole “daggers are fast” theme the trait already has while being useful and providing a benefit Elementalist has no access to otherwise. But honestly just about anything would be better than movement speed IMO.

Electro.4173:

In any topic mentioning traits I feel the need to request a change to Windborne Daggers. Even aside from the fact that it plain doesn’t work ATM, its a redundant trait with all the passive movement speed buffs we already get and the Swiftness that Elementalists have access to. Staff users get bigger AoE which is great, Scepter users get more endurance which is… well, not nearly as impressive as Blasting Staff, but useful at least. More dodging is good, especially for a ranged weapon. Daggers, the weapon which already has plenty of gap closing ability, get a bit of movement speed. Oh boy.

My personal preference would be to change it so that it provides an attack speed increase (nothing ridiculous, maybe a 15% attack speed boost) which would still fit with the whole “daggers are fast” theme the trait already has while being useful and providing a benefit Elementalist has no access to otherwise. But honestly just about anything would be better than movement speed IMO.

Yep, I gave ALL of the speed increase traits a “terrible” because they don’t stack with swiftness.

JonPeters.5630:

Can I start? Icy Mist. This trait is really bad and should be merged with Soothing Wave to make room for a fall damage reduction trait.

Awesome! Thanks for dropping in Jon! My hope is that this trait thread can get people talking constructively about traits instead of just complaining in general that “fire sucks” or whatever.

Ya, it is very shameful that the Elementalist cannot even soften the earth, slow the fall with fire, manipulate the air, or liquify the ground.

Anyway, the biggest issue BY FAR that the Elementalist faces is:

ATTUNEMENT RECHARGE RATE INCREASE FROM ARCANE.

Sorry for that caps, but I cannot emphasise this enough. Attunement recharge needs to be 9 seconds baseline, and this trait bonus changed to something else. It is ridiculous how powerful and essential Arcane is because of this bonus.

it’s great to know you guys are working on something for us
my only concern is that so far one of my key boon (Protection, through auras) has been nerfed, and since I am very squishy that’s not good for me, although I understand that skills descriptions were wrong. Is there any plan to give us some way to prolong Protection Aura?

Avatara.1042:

Ya, it is very shameful that the Elementalist cannot even soften the earth, slow the fall with fire, manipulate the air, or liquify the ground.

Anyway, the biggest issue BY FAR that the Elementalist faces is:

ATTUNEMENT RECHARGE RATE INCREASE FROM ARCANE.

Sorry for that caps, but I cannot emphasise this enough. Attunement recharge needs to be 9 seconds baseline, and this trait bonus changed to something else. It is ridiculous how powerful and essential Arcane is because of this bonus.

Personally, I think it should be 12s base, and reduceable to 10s via Arcane 30. But yes, I agree with you! And I even went into an aside about this when I talk about Arcane stat bonuses.

Toversletje , in some situations the swiftness from mist form can sometimes be used offensively. Adding chill and damage might be useful in this case, specially if it also granted the other bonuses from soothing mist.

Creslin.1758:

maddoctor.2738:

Very nice trait list here, excellent work Creslin ^^

A small typo problem: Burning Rage is a minor trait (Grandmaster) not a Major

About Zephyr’s Boon, I might sound like a total noob here but how do you keep perma-fury on?

Fixed! And with Zephyr’s boon…if you are using D/D, you have shocking aura and frost aura. Shocking aura gives 10s of fury with Zephyr’s boon, and frost gives 5. You will also be likely getting 2s of fury on every attunement switch from arcana 5. Couple this with some boon duration increases, and that is perma-fury!

I’ll give it a try, I’ve been mostly playing S/D at level 80 but I’ll try this out as perma-fury interests me and the runes required aren’t expensive, 2 x Superior Runes of the Monk + 2 x Major Runes of the Sanctuary give + 25% boon duration and are free (from dungeons) 2x Runes of the Water could be used but they might be more expensive.

Question: Does Bountiful Power give bonus damage for each stack of might or just for having might?

Does Lingering Elements do ANYTHING without Elemental Attunement? Seems pretty ridiculous to have a 15 point bonus trait do nothing without a specific skill.

Edit – it seems it does nothing to Elemental Attunement either. So it is for Soothing Mists only, which makes it quite a bad 15 point trait.

avatara, you can’t put all the points in without getting some attunement bonus.

Bountiful power is per unique boon. And it’s a bit of a shame auras aren’t boons anymore, losing 2% damage on auras :p

Creslin.1758:

FIRE

Stat Bonuses: Okay. Power is alright but you can easily substitute for its absence with gear, might stacking, or food. Condition duration isn’t bad, especially since fire has so much burning.

Minors:

Flame Barrier: Poor. It can cause some burning, but so can so many of your fire skills…and since it is ONLY effective in fire attunement, and you likely be causing burning in fire attunement anyway, I don’t think it’s that good.

Sunspot: Okay. It’s a little damage boost…not much on its own, but it’s essentially instance and every little bit can help.

Burning Rage: Okay. 5% damage increase isn’t terrible, but your foes are not always going to be burning. All in all, this trait is overshadowed by other traits like water 25 that are much, much better. Since this trait is in the DPS tree…I feel like it should increase damage more than the 25 point trait in the healing tree.

Majors:

Lava Tomb: Good for PvE, Poor for PvP. For PvE, this one can be useful just because it gives you a much greater chance of getting up from downed. For PvP, I don’t think it’s very useful at all…most players can heal up that damage fast, and since you will want to move with vapor form, they probably won’t even be in your lava tomb for long.

Burning Fire: Poor. This causes more burning…but only on VERY SPECIFIC utility skill uses, two of which are conjures, and the other two cause burning already! I dunno, maybe it would be okay if you were a condition damage build and were just trying to keep burning up at all times, but a 3 second increase just seems not good enough to me.

Ember’s Might: Good. For an adept trait, 5% extra damage to burning foes really isn’t that bad. If you are stacking power, a percentile increase can be a big deal.

Spell Slinger: Excellent. Cantrips are great, getting might when you cast them is even better!

Burning precision: Good. Haven’t used this one, but this seems like a FAR superior way to keep burning up than the other skills that enhance burning we have discussed so far. Critical hits happen fairly often, especially since many of our skills cause multiple hits, not just one, and a 30% chance to cause burning on critical ain’t bad.

Internal Fire: Good, situationally Excellent. As an Ele, a very large percentage of your damage comes from your fire attunement. So a flat out 10% increase in damage in your most damaging attunement is seriously not bad. Couple this with the fact that you can use a conjured weapon in fire attunement and still reap the benefits and this trait can become excellent.

Pyrmomancer’s Alacrity: Okay. All our skills that reduce cooldowns suffer from the fact that you WILL want to switch attunements, so your cooldowns are essentially governed by the overall attunement recharge rate. Nonetheless, this trait can be alright as it will let you do your big fire bursts like fire grab more often. And if you are building for something specific like a siege Ele that meteors all the time…I would definitely take this.

Conjurer: Good. Right now, conjures aren’t used much…but for those people that DO use them, this trait is basically necessary.

Fire’s Embrace: Okay. Man, this skill sounds awesome for an auramancer. But the fact is that it’s so deep in the fire tree, that an auramancer would have to give up way too much to use this effectively.

One with Fire: Terrible. This is one of those traits that seeks to lock you in an attunement. This is almost always bad. And really, the benefit ain’t even all that great. As an Ele, you really don’t want to let a whole bunch of people bunch you in the face so they get burning when you can just use fire 5 to cause burning on criticals.

Persisting Flames: Poor. I really don’t think this is good. Any player is not going to stand in your field long enough for it to matter…and for a GM trait, it’s just sad.

Pyromancer’s Puissance: Terrible. There are WAY, WAY better ways for an Ele to stack might. This trait is a GM trait and inferior to freaking Fire 4 (adept) in might stacking.

My analysis:

1) Ember’s might= terrible, why should I waste 20 pts in fire to get a 5% increase on direct dmg only? What about increase burning dmg by 50 pts or something?

I pretty much agree with the rest of your analysis regarding the other fire traits

Avatara.1042:

Does Lingering Elements do ANYTHING without Elemental Attunement or Rock Solid? Seems pretty ridiculous to have a 15 point bonus trait do nothing without a specific skill.

I believe this includes every 5 point minor trait. So water’s regeneration lasts 5 seconds, earth’s toughness, air’s movement speed, arcana’s fury, and fire’s burst-on-hit.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong though.

Creslin.1758:

Air

Stat Bonuses: Excellent. 30% more crit damage is freaking awesome. Especially considering that you will have a very high crit chance from the perma-fury you will get from Zephyr’s boon.

Minors:

Zephyr’s Speed: Terrible. Absolutely useless, doesn’t stack with swiftness, you will have perma-swiftness, so this trait is null and void.

Electric Discharge: Okay. Doesn’t do much damage, but once again, it’s instant and every little bit helps.

Weak Spot: Excellent. Okay so you’re at least 25 air, you probably do crits all the time…you will be stacking vulnerability like nobody’s business!

Majors:

Zephyr’s Boon: AMAZING. Okay, it’s an adept trait that can give you PERMA fury AND swiftness (with D/D). Oh and wait, that’s not all, if you are an auramancer, it gives perma fury and swiftness to your entire group! kitten

Zephyr’s Focus: Okay. You really don’t channel skills enough to justify this, and Ele’s have better ways of getting endurance.

Quick Glyphs: Excellent. One of your heals is a glyph, and your best elite is a glyph…that is 20% more healing and elite skill use. Good? I think so.

One with Air: Terrible. Much like Zephyr’s Speed, this one is absolutely useless…doesn’t stack with swiftness.

Soothing Winds: Okay. I wouldn’t really take this one…as an Ele, you probably aren’t going to stack precision gear due to the perma-fury you will have, so it seems like it would only be of limited effectiveness…this would be better as a minor trait IMO…replace Zephyr’s Speed with this.

Bolt to the Heart: Good. Great skill to finish people off with, and works in all attunements. Only drawback is that they must be under 25% to do it, and most players are either go to go down anyway when they are that weak, or will heal up soon…still, not bad though.

Arcane Lightning: Poor. It’s only 3% more crit damage, you get that for spending 3 points in air lol…AND it’s only triggered when you use an arcane skill. This is overshadowed by other damage percentile increasing traits.

Inscription: Okay. Seems like a worse version of Elemental Attunement…still, not horrible for a boon stacking build I guess.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity: Poor. Basically same reasons as the fire skill, but I find air to be a more “situational” attunement than fire, so I gave this poor.

Tempest Defense: Excellent. For a build that doesn’t use a dagger in the MH, this is awesome. Staff users are fairly vulnerable to thief burst, and this skill fixes that problem.

Grounded: Excellent (for D/D). For a D/D burst build, this skill is probably a must. D/D’s almost always open with a KD (updraft), so their initial big burst will benefit from this, and 20% increased damage is no joke.
DISPUTED — Grounded may not benefit from updraft, since updraft is technically a “blowout” not a KD…this will need to be tested.

My analysis:

1) Tempest defense = poor, the conditions required to trigger it are too easily replicated, making this trait activate when really not necessary, should be changed to something like activate at 70 % HP and 90s CD

2) Grounded= poor, the moment gale got changed from 3s to 2s KD, this trait become useless, why should I waste 30 pts in air to rely on a single 45s(earthquake) or 50s CD (gale)skill?

I agree on all the rest

cznrhubarb.5946:

Avatara.1042:

Does Lingering Elements do ANYTHING without Elemental Attunement or Rock Solid? Seems pretty ridiculous to have a 15 point bonus trait do nothing without a specific skill.

I believe this includes every 5 point minor trait. So water’s regeneration lasts 5 seconds, earth’s toughness, air’s movement speed, arcana’s fury, and fire’s burst-on-hit.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong though.

I believe that was the main intent of the trait, yes, and it does indeed work that way. At the very least, soothing mist does a bit of lingering.

emikochan.8504:

avatara, you can’t put all the points in without getting some attunement bonus.

Bountiful power is per unique boon. And it’s a bit of a shame auras aren’t boons anymore, losing 2% damage on auras :p

You cannot just make up attunement bonuses you know. They have to actually exist (and be affected by Lingering Elements) for it to work…

MrQuizzles.6823:

cznrhubarb.5946:

Avatara.1042:

Does Lingering Elements do ANYTHING without Elemental Attunement or Rock Solid? Seems pretty ridiculous to have a 15 point bonus trait do nothing without a specific skill.

I believe this includes every 5 point minor trait. So water’s regeneration lasts 5 seconds, earth’s toughness, air’s movement speed, arcana’s fury, and fire’s burst-on-hit.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong though.

I believe that was the main intent of the trait, yes, and it does indeed work that way. At the very least, soothing mist does a bit of lingering.

Does that actually work, though, in practise? I cannot recall keeping any of the earth/fire/air 5 point buffs. The elemental attunement symbol stays for 5 seconds, but does anything else?

Creslin.1758:

EARTH

Stat Bonuses: Good. Toughness is great for the low armor Ele, and since Ele’s will ALWAYS be using condition damage, that isn’t bad too. While the stat bonsues here aren’t amazing, they provide offense and defense in one package.

Minors:

Stone Flesh: Okay. 80 toughness while in one attunement…you get 300 from 30 earth…meh.

Earthen Blast: Excellent. On attune skills are typically great, and this is one of the best of the “damaging” on attune skills, it does AoE AND it cripples…not bad for a minor!

Enduring Damage: Good. 10% more damage with full endurance…you will have full endurance when you start a fight, so that’s 10% more damage to your opening burst. Not bad! Still, it’s a 25 point investment, and you will have non-full endurance for most of the fight, so it could be better.

Majors:

Obsidian Focus: Okay. 170 more toughness when channeling. It’s okay, but nothing to write home about.

Signet Mastery: Excellent. Great synergy with a 30 earth signet build, probably required.

Earth’s Embrace: Excellent. Armor of earth is a great skill. This trait is just a 10 pointer and lets you save on a utility slot. I think you get all your cantrip bonuses when it procs as well, but not sure.

Salt Stone: Okay. 5% increase, very conditional, just okay.

Elemental Shielding: Good. For an auramancer, this is great. Otherwise, it’s decent, but I would go with earth’s embrace over it.

Stone Splinters: Good for D/D. With D/D, you will be melee nearly all the time, so this is more or less a 5% damage increase.

Stength of Stone: Okay. Earth can do a lot of damage with certain abilities, but it’s second string to fire. I wouldn’t take this one…too limited, I think stone splinters would be better.

Serrated Stones: Okay. This one sounds great on paper, 20% more bleeding! But you are not going to want to make a pure bleed Ele build…instead you will be mixing bleeding, burning, DD, and all your utility stuff. Couple this with the fact that bleeds can be purged, and it’s just…meh.

Geomancer’s Freedom: Good. Haven’t used this, but it sounds decent. Immobilized is KILLER for Ele’s. Yes, we have a lot of condition removal, but you don’t ALWAYS have one available

Geomancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire one.

Rock Solid: Poor. For a GM trait, this is lacking. 2s of stability every (min) 10s isn’t all that amazing, and it’s WAY overshadowed by Elemental Attunement.

Written in Stone: AMAZING. The cornerstone of a signet build.

Let’s talk about earth traits:

1) Salt stone= terrible, 5% dmg increase on bleeding target, useless

2) Stone splinters= terrible, another useless trait which require heavy investment for pathetic reward

3) Geomancer’s Freedom = poor, change it to cripple or weaken for 5s foes who immobilize/cripple/chill you

I agree witht the rest

Creslin.1758:

WATER

Stat Bonuses: Okay. Vitality and healing power. Both good for Ele, but both can easily be stacked with gear.

Minors:

Soothing Mist: Excellent. A regen that stacks with regen! Adds a bit of healing to your entire group, not bad at all for a 5 point trait!

Healing Ripple: AMAZING. This is a pretty BIG heal, AND it triggers on attunement, AND it’s AoE, AND it’s a 15 point trait. Need I say more?

Bountiful Power: AMAZING. For D/D, this is HANDS DOWN our best 25 pointer. We will normally have a MINIMUM of 5 boons up, so this is a 10% (at least) damage increase to ALL of your skills, nearly ALL the time. And wait, wait…it’s in the healing tree!

Majors:

Aquamancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire.

Shard of Ice: Okay. It’s not terrible, but Air 25 is a MUCH superior way to stack vulnerability, as this one depends on utility skill use.

Soothing Disruption: Excellent (AMAZING with water 11). More healing, uses cantrips which are already awesome, and makes for some AMAZING condition removal with Water 11.

Piercing Shards: Poor. Water is not a big DPS tree for us. Yes, foes will always be vulnerable if you are always in water…but I doubt you will be doing more damage to them in water than in fire or earth even with the 20% increase.

Cleansing Wave: AMAZING. AoE condition removal on attune…uh yeah.

Vital Striking: Good. 10% extra damage to your opening burst. Ain’t bad, and you can actually spend a long time above 90% health because of all your heals.

Stop Drop and Roll: Poor. Anyone 20 points deep into water is already gonna have a lot of condition removal. This thing only removes two conditions on dodge…not necessary.

Icy Mist: Terrible. The man himself (jon Peters) says it, and I agree! Vapor form is only downed, and mist form is a long cooldown…yeah, not useful.

Cantrip Mastery: Excellent. Cantrips are great, reducing their cooldown, also great.

Soothing Wave: Poor. We have MUCH better ways of granting regen, like soothing disruption or elemental attunement.

Cleansing Water: AMAZING. This skill is a beast. This will infuriate so many players because it allows you to have some of the best condition removal in the game!

Powerful Aura; AMAZING. You not only share your auras with your group, but also all their ancilliary buffs! Perma-fury and swiftness for your group, and a decent amount of Prot??? Heck yeah!

1) Vital striking= poor, it’s much easier to remain under 90% HP than above it, and 10% dmg increase is nothing in my opinion

2) Stop drop and roll = excellent, when suffering from chilling while from an other dozen of conditions, to be able to get rid of chill ( which increase CD on everything) can mean the difference between life and death

The rest I agree

Creslin.1758:

ARANCA

Stat Bonuses: AMAZING + 1. +30% boon duration is awesome by itself, but that ain’t the reason why this is so good. The attunement recharge rate bonus will bring your attunements from 15s CD at 0 Arcana to a 10s CD at 30. This is SOOOO good it borders on being broken, and many Ele’s complain that they feel forced into the Arcana tree because of it. For now though, I would HIGHLY recommend investing some points here.

Minors:

Arcane Fury: Excellent. You put points in Arcana, you will probably have good boon duration, and be switching attunements frequently…this trait will give you A LOT of fury, and it’s a 5 pointer!

Lingering Elements: Excellent. Makes the already ridiculous Elemental Attunement skill even better!

Arcane Precision: Good. A 7.5% chance to apply an attunement specific condition on critical, ain’t bad. Not the best of our 25 pointers, but not bad.

Majors:

Arcane Mastery: Okay. Arcane skills are good, but you really have to sacrifice a lot of defense to have more than 1 on your bar. So I think this is limited in usefulness.

Arcane Ressurection: Good. If you’re in air, this can stop people from beating the crap out of you when you revive, because they will get stunned on every hit. definitely not as good as the thief’s stealth on revive, but not horrible.

Arcane Retribution: Okay. Problem I have with this is that Arcane Power is a skill that requires planning (you want to use it before your big hits) and this is triggered reactively, so you can’t really plan for it.

Final Shielding: Excellent. A life saver, uses arcane shield just when you need it! Note, this was once bugged so it triggered at 10% health instead of 25%…not sure if this is still the case.

Elemental Attunement: AMAZING + 1. This trait…this trait. It is good. It will give you AND your group TONS of boons. It is only a 10 pointer. It will make you MUCH more powerful. Take it. Take it now.

Renewing Stamina: AMAZING. Perma-vigor! By far our best endurance regen trait!

Vigorous Scepter: Terrible. This gives a 25% endurance regen when wielding scepter. Renewing Stamina will give you almost permanent vigot uptime that gives you 100% endurance regen. Easy choice? I think so.

Windborne Dagger: Terrible. Doesn’t stack with swiftness, useless…and I think it’s bugged anyway.

Arcane Energy: Poor. Completely overshadowed by Renewing Stamina.

Evasive Arcana: AMAZING. Not only do you get an AoE blind on dodge in air, burn in fire, condition purge in water, and bleed in earth…you also get another blast finisher in earth! And since you will likely have perma-vigor due to Renewing Stamina…you get to use this A LOT.

Elemental Surge: Poor. For a GM trait, this is just bad. It’s only used on very specific utility skills (arcane), and it just causes one condition. COMPLETELY overshadowed by Evasive Arcana.

1) Elemental Surge= Amazing! It applies conditions accordingly to your current attunement( fire= 5s burning for arcane skill as for the rest, water= 3s chill, air= 5s blind, earth= 1s immobilize), only reason for me for using 2 arcane when I need

Ok I went to test Lingering Elements. The Earth 5 trait does NOT linger for 5 seconds when you attunement swap (no 80 toughness boost – not a big loss, but still a loss). Soothing Mist does gain a bit more time (variable amount), because it refreshes itself every 2 seconds if it detects the Water Attunement buff. I do not think Fire Shield lingers, but it is hard to test.

Oh and I am not sure why I thought Rock Solid was increased, because it stays at 2 seconds.

Arheundel.6451:

My analysis:

1) Ember’s might= terrible, why should I waste 20 pts in fire to get a 5% increase on direct dmg only? What about increase burning dmg by 50 pts or something?

I pretty much agree with the rest of your analysis regarding the other fire traits

Isn’t “terrible” taking it a bit far? I spec’ed fully into Fire and use Soldier’s gear so I have a significant amount of power, and after the initial RTL/Updraft burst, I pretty much keep whatever I’m targeting burning. I do wish it was something more like 10%, but even a 5% bonus is a pretty big chunk. I’d have to agree with Creslin’s ‘Okay’ rating, personally.

Avatara.1042:

Ok I went to test Lingering Elements. The Earth 5 trait does NOT linger for 5 seconds when you attunement swap (no 80 toughness boost – not a big loss, but still a loss). Soothing Mist does gain a bit more time (variable amount), because it refreshes itself every 2 seconds if it detects the Water Attunement buff. I do not think Fire Shield lingers, but it is hard to test.

Oh and I am not sure why I thought Rock Solid was increased, because it stays at 2 seconds.

I guess the question then is: Is this skill bugged or does it just have a terrible description and we cannot intuit what it is actually doing?

cznrhubarb.5946:

Arheundel.6451:

My analysis:

1) Ember’s might= terrible, why should I waste 20 pts in fire to get a 5% increase on direct dmg only? What about increase burning dmg by 50 pts or something?

I pretty much agree with the rest of your analysis regarding the other fire traits

Isn’t “terrible” taking it a bit far? I spec’ed fully into Fire and use Soldier’s gear so I have a significant amount of power, and after the initial RTL/Updraft burst, I pretty much keep whatever I’m targeting burning. I do wish it was something more like 10%, but even a 5% bonus is a pretty big chunk. I’d have to agree with Creslin’s ‘Okay’ rating, personally.

It is between okay and terrible. It is still pretty bad for a 25 point trait.

Arheundel.6451:

Creslin.1758:

ARANCA

Stat Bonuses: AMAZING + 1. +30% boon duration is awesome by itself, but that ain’t the reason why this is so good. The attunement recharge rate bonus will bring your attunements from 15s CD at 0 Arcana to a 10s CD at 30. This is SOOOO good it borders on being broken, and many Ele’s complain that they feel forced into the Arcana tree because of it. For now though, I would HIGHLY recommend investing some points here.

Minors:

Arcane Fury: Excellent. You put points in Arcana, you will probably have good boon duration, and be switching attunements frequently…this trait will give you A LOT of fury, and it’s a 5 pointer!

Lingering Elements: Excellent. Makes the already ridiculous Elemental Attunement skill even better!

Arcane Precision: Good. A 7.5% chance to apply an attunement specific condition on critical, ain’t bad. Not the best of our 25 pointers, but not bad.

Majors:

Arcane Mastery: Okay. Arcane skills are good, but you really have to sacrifice a lot of defense to have more than 1 on your bar. So I think this is limited in usefulness.

Arcane Ressurection: Good. If you’re in air, this can stop people from beating the crap out of you when you revive, because they will get stunned on every hit. definitely not as good as the thief’s stealth on revive, but not horrible.

Arcane Retribution: Okay. Problem I have with this is that Arcane Power is a skill that requires planning (you want to use it before your big hits) and this is triggered reactively, so you can’t really plan for it.

Final Shielding: Excellent. A life saver, uses arcane shield just when you need it! Note, this was once bugged so it triggered at 10% health instead of 25%…not sure if this is still the case.

Elemental Attunement: AMAZING + 1. This trait…this trait. It is good. It will give you AND your group TONS of boons. It is only a 10 pointer. It will make you MUCH more powerful. Take it. Take it now.

Renewing Stamina: AMAZING. Perma-vigor! By far our best endurance regen trait!

Vigorous Scepter: Terrible. This gives a 25% endurance regen when wielding scepter. Renewing Stamina will give you almost permanent vigot uptime that gives you 100% endurance regen. Easy choice? I think so.

Windborne Dagger: Terrible. Doesn’t stack with swiftness, useless…and I think it’s bugged anyway.

Arcane Energy: Poor. Completely overshadowed by Renewing Stamina.

Evasive Arcana: AMAZING. Not only do you get an AoE blind on dodge in air, burn in fire, condition purge in water, and bleed in earth…you also get another blast finisher in earth! And since you will likely have perma-vigor due to Renewing Stamina…you get to use this A LOT.

Elemental Surge: Poor. For a GM trait, this is just bad. It’s only used on very specific utility skills (arcane), and it just causes one condition. COMPLETELY overshadowed by Evasive Arcana.

1) Elemental Surge= Amazing! It applies conditions accordingly to your current attunement( fire= 5s burning for arcane skill as for the rest, water= 3s chill, air= 5s blind, earth= 1s immobilize), only reason for me for using 2 arcane when I need

My problem with Elemental Surge is that it just doesn’t offer me enough as compared with EA. For example, chilling or burning as an Ele…really is not hard and there are plenty of ways to do that. Blind, is decent but EA gives you an AoE blind on dodge roll that you can do much more frequently, and uses zero slots on your bar. The immobilize I guess is okay, but it’s only 1s. I think that maybe Arcane Power is the only skill that this can be very useful for just because you get way more attacks.

cznrhubarb.5946:

Avatara.1042:

Ok I went to test Lingering Elements. The Earth 5 trait does NOT linger for 5 seconds when you attunement swap (no 80 toughness boost – not a big loss, but still a loss). Soothing Mist does gain a bit more time (variable amount), because it refreshes itself every 2 seconds if it detects the Water Attunement buff. I do not think Fire Shield lingers, but it is hard to test.

Oh and I am not sure why I thought Rock Solid was increased, because it stays at 2 seconds.

I guess the question then is: Is this skill bugged or does it just have a terrible description and we cannot intuit what it is actually doing?

I think there must be have been some proper innate boosts that each Attunement gave in the past, which were removed. Right now, Lingering Elements is basically just ‘4-6 more seconds of Soothing Mist’.

Arheundel.6451:

Creslin.1758:

Air

Stat Bonuses: Excellent. 30% more crit damage is freaking awesome. Especially considering that you will have a very high crit chance from the perma-fury you will get from Zephyr’s boon.

Minors:

Zephyr’s Speed: Terrible. Absolutely useless, doesn’t stack with swiftness, you will have perma-swiftness, so this trait is null and void.

Electric Discharge: Okay. Doesn’t do much damage, but once again, it’s instant and every little bit helps.

Weak Spot: Excellent. Okay so you’re at least 25 air, you probably do crits all the time…you will be stacking vulnerability like nobody’s business!

Majors:

Zephyr’s Boon: AMAZING. Okay, it’s an adept trait that can give you PERMA fury AND swiftness (with D/D). Oh and wait, that’s not all, if you are an auramancer, it gives perma fury and swiftness to your entire group! kitten

Zephyr’s Focus: Okay. You really don’t channel skills enough to justify this, and Ele’s have better ways of getting endurance.

Quick Glyphs: Excellent. One of your heals is a glyph, and your best elite is a glyph…that is 20% more healing and elite skill use. Good? I think so.

One with Air: Terrible. Much like Zephyr’s Speed, this one is absolutely useless…doesn’t stack with swiftness.

Soothing Winds: Okay. I wouldn’t really take this one…as an Ele, you probably aren’t going to stack precision gear due to the perma-fury you will have, so it seems like it would only be of limited effectiveness…this would be better as a minor trait IMO…replace Zephyr’s Speed with this.

Bolt to the Heart: Good. Great skill to finish people off with, and works in all attunements. Only drawback is that they must be under 25% to do it, and most players are either go to go down anyway when they are that weak, or will heal up soon…still, not bad though.

Arcane Lightning: Poor. It’s only 3% more crit damage, you get that for spending 3 points in air lol…AND it’s only triggered when you use an arcane skill. This is overshadowed by other damage percentile increasing traits.

Inscription: Okay. Seems like a worse version of Elemental Attunement…still, not horrible for a boon stacking build I guess.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity: Poor. Basically same reasons as the fire skill, but I find air to be a more “situational” attunement than fire, so I gave this poor.

Tempest Defense: Excellent. For a build that doesn’t use a dagger in the MH, this is awesome. Staff users are fairly vulnerable to thief burst, and this skill fixes that problem.

Grounded: Excellent (for D/D). For a D/D burst build, this skill is probably a must. D/D’s almost always open with a KD (updraft), so their initial big burst will benefit from this, and 20% increased damage is no joke.
DISPUTED — Grounded may not benefit from updraft, since updraft is technically a “blowout” not a KD…this will need to be tested.

My analysis:

1) Tempest defense = poor, the conditions required to trigger it are too easily replicated, making this trait activate when really not necessary, should be changed to something like activate at 70 % HP and 90s CD

2) Grounded= poor, the moment gale got changed from 3s to 2s KD, this trait become useless, why should I waste 30 pts in air to rely on a single 45s(earthquake) or 50s CD (gale)skill?

I agree on all the rest

I’ll put in your disputes, but I’m against you on Tempest Defense. For PvP, many burst classes will try to stun or otherwise disable you prior to bursting. I feel like it can really save oyu.

On grounded, can we confirm that the damage bonus isn’t added after updraft???