Guild Wars 2

I am having trouble understanding the value of Lingering Elements (arcane trait).
Theoretically, according to the tooltip it should affect the following skills:

Flame Barrier (Fire 5): 20% chance to burn melee attackers while attuned to fire
Internal Fire (Fire 10): +10% damage while attuned to fire
One with Fire (Fire 20): Flame Barrier’s chance goes up the longer you are attuned to fire
Zephyr’s Speed (Air 5): Move 10% faster while attuned to air
One with Air (Air 10): Move 5% faster every 10 seconds you are attuned to air (max 25%)
Air Training (Air 20): +10% damage while attuned to air
Inscription (Air 20): Grants a boon associated with your attunement when you cast a glyph
Stone Flesh (Earth 5): +1 toughness per level while attuned to earth
Strength of Stone (Earth 20): +10% damage while attuned to stone
Soothing Mist (Water 5): Regenerate health while attuned to water
Piercing Shards (Water 10): Your spells deal 20% more damage to vulnerable foes while attuned to water
Arcane Resurrection (Arcana 10): When you revive an ally, you both gain an aura based on your attunement
Evasive Arcana (Arcana 30): Create an effect based on your attunement when you dodge
Elemental Surge (Arcana 30): Arcane skills cause a condition based on your attunement

But, it only affects minor adept traits in fire, air, and water, not even earth!!

I think this is not only bugged, but also incomplete. The elementalist gameplay would be so much more interesting if we could make use of several attunements at the same time.

Totally agree with you. Compared to other 15P-traits this is by far the worst in the current state.

It would definitely make that trait quite powerful if it did work on even half of those traits.

At the very least, Lingering Elements could enhance what 5 point traits you have as well. So like, Zephyr’s Speed could be like a 20% buff to speed and linger 5 sec after, Stone Flesh could grant 170 toughness and linger (currently it doesn’t), Soothing mist could last 16sec instead of 9…Flame Barrier probably just needs reworking…

Maybe reduce the duration of the lingering but make it work with more traits? As it is now I don’t think anybody would invest 15P just for that trait – other than it is the case with 15P in air or water, which are quite strong traits. I’d rather take only 10P or no points at all if I don’t need arcana. If it was buffed propably there would be more viable builds. I would totally try to make use of it.
25P arcana could also be buffed a little bit, since it’s quite weak for a 25P trait and compared to the others.

arcana tree doesn’t need to be any more mandatory :P I just hope they fix all the bugs and then we can see if things need buffing or not.

The main reason to use it the way it works at the moment is because it gives near-permanent Soothing Mist.

And while I agree that on paper it should do all the things you’ve listed, I also realize that if it did, it’d be grossly overpowered.

Theoretically it should also double the effects of glyphs if you cast those while under the effects of 2 (or more) attunements.

A rework might be the bet option for this trait though. Either that, or specifically make it work on the 5pts traits only, and add that to the description.

ThiBash.5634:

Theoretically it should also double the effects of glyphs if you cast those while under the effects of 2 (or more) attunements.

Instead the reverse happens for some glyphs, which simply can’t decide which function to use and don’t do anything (Elemental Power does this, and possibly Renewal)

Glyph of elemental power is pretty much useless anyway (5s internal cd, yay!).

I agree that if it worked with just half of the list it would be so overpowered.

Apart from in PvP where we have ONE viable build, arcane isn’t so necessary.

I can only imagine the combos: rez glyph for 3 people max health, sandstorm that chills, stacking +20% dmg on vulnerable target with +20% dmg on kded target and +10% dmg in air … this would really make a huge push towards the feeling of being an elementalist, not just a visual effect machine.

Of course some balance would be required then.

Zelyhn.8069:

Glyph of elemental power is pretty much useless anyway (5s internal cd, yay!).

At least the cooldown is per-target, which makes the utility somewhat interesting. Still, a 25% chance to proc and an unavoidable 25% down time untraited (assuming you refresh the skill as soon as it comes off CD) and a five second internal cooldown is a few too many restrictions for one utility skill. It basically ensures it’ll never work when you actually want it to.

I know it’s not technically on-topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine. If they wanted to restrict the use of this utility they should have just decreased the proc chance rather than add arbitrarily stacked hurdles.

PinCushion.7390:

Zelyhn.8069:

Glyph of elemental power is pretty much useless anyway (5s internal cd, yay!).

At least the cooldown is per-target, which makes the utility somewhat interesting. Still, a 25% chance to proc and an unavoidable 25% down time untraited (assuming you refresh the skill as soon as it comes off CD) and a five second internal cooldown is a few too many restrictions for one utility skill. It basically ensures it’ll never work when you actually want it to.

I know it’s not technically on-topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine. If they wanted to restrict the use of this utility they should have just decreased the proc chance rather than add arbitrarily stacked hurdles.

It’s been balanced assuming that your build complements it. If cast in earth, it causes 5 seconds of cripple; I have 90% condition duration (PvE), so that extends to 9.5 seconds. In a 1v1 situation I attack fast enough to proc it again reliably within 4.5 seconds of the ICD expiring, leading to more or less permanent cripple once the first proc goes through.

It’d take a specialized rune/sigil set and 30 points in fire to get close to 90% cripple duration in PvP (closest I could get was 70%) – so it really is something you need to build for if you want it. You can also reach 100% weakness uptime fairly easily (30 in fire is enough), but the base chill and burning on the glyph are too short to make reliable. Of course, these are still conditions and they can still be removed, but you’ll be reapplying them sometime in the next 8 seconds… the biggest weakness as far as pvp is concerned for the glyph is that making it work requires a build that can’t possibly have x/x/x/30/30. In my opinion, anyways.

In PvE, it works very well just because it’s also benefitting from my ele’s condition build. Nothing like a permanently crippled mob slowly bleeding out and burning to death while it can’t reach me.

Zelyhn.8069:

Glyph of elemental power is pretty much useless anyway (5s internal cd, yay!).

I agree that if it worked with just half of the list it would be so overpowered.

Apart from in PvP where we have ONE viable build, arcane isn’t so necessary.

I can only imagine the combos: rez glyph for 3 people max health, sandstorm that chills, stacking +20% dmg on vulnerable target with +20% dmg on kded target and +10% dmg in air … this would really make a huge push towards the feeling of being an elementalist, not just a visual effect machine.

Of course some balance would be required then.

To me, that sounds like a way to make glass cannon builds truly viable for ele, as well as giving you a reason to swap to an attunement other than “my cooldowns in this attunement are all up”. Keep in mind that at the moment, few elementalists have all of those traits because of how effective cantrips-based builds are.

Dingle.2743:

ThiBash.5634:

Theoretically it should also double the effects of glyphs if you cast those while under the effects of 2 (or more) attunements.

Instead the reverse happens for some glyphs, which simply can’t decide which function to use and don’t do anything (Elemental Power does this, and possibly Renewal)

Well that sucks, but it would explain why I’m not getting attunement swap boons when switching when it’s on my bar. I just came in here to find out if a new bug had been introduced in the last patch but it seems I’ve now got the answer.

EDIT: scratch that, I’ve just noticed I borked my traits up, nothing to see here.