Guild Wars 2

Hi Community, hi Developer-Team!

For everyone who hasn’t read it yet:

I think this trait needs better wording. I hope you all understand why that trait would be wildly overpowered if it carried over everything particularly all 10% damage bonuses. You could simply slam through all attunements and then get 50% bonus damage. Similarly making other things work with this would requires those traits get lowered in the base case as well. I think this is a fine 15 point minor trait on its own and we can reword it and then discuss the merits of the other traits on their own.

To me, that is a better starting point for discussion than attempting to balance all of these effects with how they might work with a minor trait in Arcana. That would predicate the entire profession around that trait which is not what we want out of our minor traits.

Jon

I’m really sad to hear this, so let me try to explain you why this wouldn’t be overpowered at all, but instead would be extremely fun to play with:

Here’s a list of stuff that is currently bound to one attunement but could work with Lingering Elements:

VI – Internal Fire – 10% more dmg when attuned to fire
X – One with Fire – Flame barrier proc chance increases while attuned to fire
XII – Pyromancer’s Puissance – since it doesn’t work like described (every spell you cast in fire grants might, not only your fire-weapon-spells)

X – Air Training – 10% more dmg when attuned to air

VII – Strength of Stone – 10% more dmg when attuned to earth

IV – Piercing Shards – 20% more dmg to vulnerable foes when attuned to water

First off we can’t even specc all of them at once, since we also need 15P in Arcana. Second such a build wouldn’t be viable at all (it lacks severe defense and synergy) nor would it deal good damage. Why? – To make use of all of them (+40% damage max when you specc stone splinters which isn’t restricted to an attunement) at once you would have to rotate through all of your attunements at once without casting spells in each attunement. Then you would have all attunements lingering for about 1s before the first one vanishes. In this one second you can hardly cast one single spell while you’re locked out from all other attunements for about 13s which would be devastating in PvP (like it’s the case when using conjures). So in a more realistic scenario we would at best only have 2 of the effects active at any time, meaning +20 or +30dmg (though +30 has the restriction of vulnerability). Now take a look at other classes or even the elementalist itself: +20% damage can be obtained much easier. Warriors have Unsuspecting Foe – one single trait that boosts overall damage of CC-warriors by more than 20%. Eles could Just take Stone Splinters and Burning Rage for example or any other trait that boosts damage +10% in its attunement. So I think we can all agree that +20% or 30% damage aren’t considered as overpowered.

[continued in post 2]

Now let me explain why making Lingering Elements work with listed traits would be fun. In general Elementalists have to use all of their Attunements to be effective. Everything that restricts them to do that is bad for elementalists. Best example is (was) the 16s attunement CD which makes (made?) Arcana absolutely necessary. The second thing are the huge amount of traits and utilities that only buff one element (including all -20% CD reduction and +10% damage-traits) – they never see any play (in PvP). So here are some things that a reworked Lingering Elements could promote:

• it would revive a huge bunch of currently useless traits, including all +10% damage traits that are restricted to their attunement and Lingering Elements on its own. Spending 15P in Arcana might be considered, but as it is now it’s a waste of points since the 5P minors aren’t worth it.
• not only the +10% damage traits would be usefull even other traits might see some play: Shard of Ice for example to enable the +20% damage from Piercing Shards – I could totally imagine to make a new build around this. Heck, I’d even test 30P in fire for a might-stacking-build. Build-variety all over the place!
• By making it work with stuff like Elemental Surge or Arcane Precision (this trait needs a buff urgently btw.) you could possibly make condition-Elementalists viable. The greatest problem for condi-eles is that they can’t apply more than one condition at once and conditions are always bound to specific elements so you’re locking yourself out of conditions as soon as you switch attunements (and truth to be told: Signets suck). Elemental Surge has much potential but is extremely useless as it is now. Burning for 5s that other classes can have everytime they crit is not worth a 30P-trait. However when you can apply two or even three conditions with it, I might consider taking it and make a condition build.
• Same goes for Glyphs (especially Glyph of Elemental Power or Glyph of Storms). Glyphs don’t see any play right now. Not in PvP and they’re quite rare in PvE too. You could lower the damage of Glyph of Storms and make it apply more conditions AND make it work with Lingering Elements. That would be an appropriate spell with 60s CD in PvP. Glyph of Elemental Power may finally be used and we can make use of our “lost” stunbreak from Cleansing Fire again.
• I’m sure there are more funny synergies that I haven’t thought of – be creative!

To sum up this trait has endless potential to create new builds and even completely new playstyles for eles. I really don’t get why DEVs don’t want to change it to work with all mentioned stuff. I don’t think it would be overpowered at all (if you think so, you could lower the duration or at least consider changing and testing it).

Discuss!

Don’t forget arcane precision for multiple-attunement procs (it is worthless at the moment, it requires a buff), and evasive arcana for multiple-attunement dodge spells.

I wholeheartedly support this thread and I really hope the devs will read this with a more open mind than “50% damage bonus is OP”.

To the entire elementalist community, please post here to support this idea. We need the devs to understand our concerns and we need them to understand how we play.

For better lingering elements!

This would be pretty good and it would make for FUN gameplay. It would also raise the skill cap on ele even higher with some of the combinations you would be trying to use.

Not to mention this could make glyph builds finally viable.
Get all the effects from all the lingering elements when you activate the glyph.
This could create some fun gameplay, and the best part is that it has it’s drawbacks and counters.
See someone switching trough his attunements in rapid succession? Stun / daze him for a second and he’ll miss the chance to get a tripple effect on the glyph.
You’re also handicapping yourself by putting cooldowns on unused skills by switching trough the attunements fast, so you’re sacrificing efficiency to get the stronger effects.
I’d say, get this done!

As i would love to see this skill work finally, i dont thing we will ever see it at full power.

I mean it will lead to a mandatory for all ele builds, and they wont do it.

Imagine eles to have the power to throw 4 glyph of storms at once, oh man that would be cool.

Vissarion.6509:

As i would love to see this skill work finally, i dont thing we will ever see it at full power.

I mean it will lead to a mandatory for all ele builds, and they wont do it.

Imagine eles to have the power to throw 4 glyph of storms at once, oh man that would be cool.

I don’t think that’s gonna happen with glyphs since they inherit the element you were attuned in until the Glyph fired AFAIK. I don’t think it would work differently with Lingering Elements other than the added procs and damage bonuses tied to a specific element if you traited LE. Glyphs usually cast the specific element you were last in when the Glyph fired. I don’t think Glyph of Storms would instantly change into different elements when you change attunement with Lingereng Elements traited.

As how I understood it, Lingering Elements will affect traits that are attunement bound and are usually in the form of procs or damage bonuses like the 10% damage bonus when you’re in this element or crit chance proc X condition when you’re attuned to Y attunement like Arcane Precision and Elemental Surge.

This might sound OP but bear in mind that you have to trait 15p in the arcana tree first. And then spread out the rest of the points in all of the four other traitlines to maximize the said bonuses if ever you even reach that far into each specific trait lines. As another has mentioned above, the maximum attunement bonuses you can probably have is two perhaps three. And the trait effect itself only lasts for 5 seconds add to the fact that you have attunement recharge of at least 9-10ish seconds. It does promote a more fun and interesting play when you build around it, however, the drawback you get is that you are happily wasting your attunement recharge to obtain element bonuses.

And as the OP mentioned, it does somehow promote some sort of viable condi build for elementalist if tied with a buffed Arcane Precision (since it’s currently negligible) and Elemental Surge which is rarely ever used because of everyone’s dependence on Evasive Arcana.

Furthermore I don’t think that every ele-build would revolve around that trait if it was buffed. Bunkers don’t need it, supporter don’t need it, Aura-Share-Builds don’t need it, etc. But there could be 2-3 new builds that can make use of it (like said before: condition builds or a build that includes +10%dmg traits) and we would finally have some good synergy in our builds (imagine fresh air + air training + lingering elements and stuff like that).

They want to buff the bad 5-point minors. Look at it this way: by limiting to just those skills, we can get something better there.

I am really o.k. with this only work with those skills:
Water: Take 5-points to gain a constant non-strippable regen
Earth: Take 5-points to essentially become a medium-armor class
Fire + air need a bit of work, but they will get to it. They are really making a concerted effort and I am excited to see the outcome.

Those effects aren’t bad, I agree. But they aren’t worth 15P when I could take two grandmaster traits instead or something like Healing Ripple or Electric Discharge. You should also consider that in most builds (especially when you spec into arcana) you’ll only have 2 of those 5P traits.

What if Lingering Elements simply allowed you to switch back to your previous attunement. For example, imagine going from Fire to Air, and having a 5 second window in which you could ignore the attunement cooldown and go back to fire.

Healix.5819:

What if Lingering Elements simply allowed you to switch back to your previous attunement. For example, imagine going from Fire to Air, and having a 5 second window in which you could ignore the attunement cooldown and go back to fire.

That’s a pretty neat mechanic worthy of a Grandmaster Trait

While I like the idea behind allowing all attunement related bonuses to carry over they would have to limit the % damage bonuses or some pretty crazy burst builds would abuse them by doing something like:

Attunement shifting burster: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJArYhEmIblx5gjFAkCpEKQwoQHSGW4Q9QMA-jUyAYfhQCCCZBkKAk8KiGbxtIas6aMlLRUt9uIa1SBExYA-w

Notable aspects of the build:
10% dmg for fire and air attune
20% dmg for water attune + 1 vuln stack on target (1% dmg)
10% dmg within 600 range
11.5 sec attune cd, 16 sec Arcane blast (other utils for extra burst but honestly could be w/e)
20% dmg when target sub 33% hp
Scholar runes & force/fire sigil
Full ascended zerker gear with S/D – 113% crit dmg, 51% crit, ~2500 power w/o bloodlust (2700 /w bloodlust)

The burst: 1) Start in fire/water attune 2) swap to water/fire 3) Optional: Use some ability with less that 1.25 sec cast 3) Swap to air, trigger electric discharge 4) combo lightning strike & arcane blast (& arcane blast if you’re feeling saucy) 5) Pat yourself on the back, you just did about 20k-35k dmg (or downed pretty much anyone w/o 25k hp & 3k armor)

This burst is easy, non-telegraphed, and can be repeated every 16 seconds. There are a few variables: Scholar runes, 600 range, and 1 vuln stack on target. So its possible that one of your damage % boosters won’t be active but unlikely that all will be inactive. It is also fairly easy for all of them to be active, particularly in PvE but while less likely for all to be active in WvW it is still possible especially in a group setting. For WvW I would modify the build a bit; S/F and earth shield + FGS for survival while burst is on CD.

A bit of simple math to show that this combo can do obscene damage
Just pulling dmg from gw2skills (which factors in force sigil + 25 bloodlust stacks) & estimating ED base damage gives us:
ED ~ 1200, LS ~1450, AB ~1550, AW ~1550; total = 4200 w/o AW or 5750 /w AW

=> Add attune % dmg, 1 vuln stack on target, 600 range = 51% dmg increase
Total w/o AW = 4200*1.51 = 6342 & Total w/ AW = 5750*1.51 = 8682
=> Add all % dmg buffs = 80% dmg increase vs sub 33% hp target
Total w/o AW = 4200*1.81 = 7602 & Total w/ AW = 5750*1.81 = 10,407

Based on the 51% crit chance (71% /w fury) there is a 26% chance ED & LS crit w/o fury and 50% chance they both crit /w fury. Because of the cooldowns on attunement swaps the burst window is about 2-3 seconds long so fury will most likely be active for the whole combo. The tooltips say AB & AW crit so i’m going to assume that’s true although I feel like I have seen one or both not crit so for the sake of thoroughness I’ll add that the chance for 3 crits /w fury is 35% and 4 crits /w fury is 25%.

=> Add in crits for all attacks /w 50% dmg
Total w/o AW = 6342*(1.5+1.13) = 16,679 & Total /w AW = 8682*(1.5+1.13) = 22,834
=> Add in crits for all attacks /w 80% dmg increase vs sub 33% hp target
Total w/o AW = 7602*(1.5+1.13) = 19,993 & Total /w AW = 10,407*(1.5+1.13) = 27,370

The last factor is damage reduction which is a bit tricky as I don’t know how gw2skills calculated their damage values. I will assume the website does it how the game ui does it, using an armor value of 2600. 600 armor value would then be about a factor of ~23%.

=> Crit combo /w 50% dmg vs 2k armor
w/o AW =16,679 1.23 = 20,380 & /w AW = 22,8341.23 = 27,900
=> Crit combo /w 50% dmg vs 3.2k armor
w/o AW =16,679 .77 = 12,758 & /w AW = 22,834.77 = 17,466
=> Crit combo /w 80% dmg (Scholar + below 33% hp) vs 2k armor
w/o AW =19,993 1.23 = 24,456 & /w AW = 27,3701.23 = 33,481
=> Crit combo /w 80% dmg (Scholar + below 33% hp) vs 3.2k armor
w/o AW =19,993 .77 = 15,309 & /w AW = 27,370.77 = 20,959

I don’t know if protection is additive or multiplicative but it would be stronger if it’s additive so best case scenario you get something like:

=> Crit combo /w 50% dmg vs 2k armor + protection
w/o AW =16,679 (1.23-.33) = 15,011 & /w AW = 22,834(1.23-.33) = 20,551
=> Crit combo /w 50% dmg vs 3.2k armor + protection
w/o AW =16,679 (.77-.33) = 7,339 & /w AW = 22,834(.77-.33) = 10,047
=> Crit combo /w 80% dmg (Scholar + below 33% hp) vs 2k armor + protection
w/o AW =19,993 (1.23-.33) = 17,994 & /w AW = 27,370(1.23-.33) = 24,633
=> Crit combo /w 80% dmg (Scholar + below 33% hp) vs 3.2k armor + protection
w/o AW =19,993 (.77-.33) = 8797 & /w AW = 27,370(.77-.33) = 12,043

If you add in full might or vuln stacks the numbers just get more and more ridiculous. 25 might stacks increases base dmg about 30% and 24 more vuln stacks would increase dmg by 24%. Put those together and while over 90% hp with 25 might stacks you get the 4 attack combo hitting a target with 2k armor, sub 33%, 25 vuln stacks for more than 51k dmg every 24 seconds. Add lightning flash dmg to the combo and you add about 20% base dmg and it’s not really that unbelievable to hit 4 zero cast time attacks in 2-3 seconds.

Tl:dr 30% dmg might not feel like that much but if you make a build to abuse it, it adds up pretty quick especially when you add in crits, might stacks, bloodlust stacks, vunerability, etc.

See elem swap from fire to water to air? one dodge. K thx bye.

also it is telegraphed as much as a marvel movie trailers tells you that the good guy wins in the end.

Also after the dodge you can proceed to rip that ele apart with the sheer power of your auto attacks: it’s not like he can do anything for the next 16 seconds.

30% boost is nothing.

“What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

We couldn’t get any closer to that.

Zelyhn.8069:

See elem swap from fire to water to air? one dodge. K thx bye.

this ^^

also this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJArYhEmIblx5gjEAkCoEKQwoQHiHWAgEA-w
et voilà:
10% from fire attunement
20% from knockdown or daze
20% from bolt to the heart
10% from 600 range
10% from >90% hp trait
10% from > 90 hp runes
5% from sigill
and we still have 10 points left

+ 85% damage without lingering elements and 10 points left. No need to waste all your attunements just for the lingering. If your weak spot doesn’t procc on the first two spells (or if they don’t crit oder gets cleansed) half of the burst from your build won’t even profit from +20% of piercing shards. So overall if I want to play a suicide build I’d take mine.

The burst is even easier than your rotation. Lightning Flash with Earthquake + Phoenix and Dragons Tooth and both arcane spells (or fire-grab instead of dragons tooth). Can in theory be repeated every 25s or even more often if you have other classes with you that are CC-heavy.

well put. The number of down sides to this “wildly overpowered” skill is way more then a counter balance.

Healix.5819:

What if Lingering Elements simply allowed you to switch back to your previous attunement. For example, imagine going from Fire to Air, and having a 5 second window in which you could ignore the attunement cooldown and go back to fire.

OMG, I actually love this idea…

I’d love some dev comments on this! Please keep talking to us, guys.