Guild Wars 2

Hey people!
Nowadays, the only build we can use competitively is the Cantrips- build. This is because Cantrips are sadly the only utility skills the elementalist has which allow him to effectively prevent incoming damage (well, aside from Arcane Shield). And the elementalist NEEDS those skills to prevent damage since this profession has the lowest base health and armor of all classes.
Cantrips are also coupled with a trait that gives the elementalist regeneration and vigor upon activation, (two boons which really help compensate the elementalists weaknesses) making Cantrips an even better choice over all the other utility skills.
But as if this wasn’t enough, now that Cantrips cause regeneration, they will also remove a condition upon activation if the trait Cleansing Water (XI) is chosen…
As a result, Cantrips are now so good, it is not even an option anymore to not choose them! All the weaknesses that the elementalist has are far outweighed by the benefits of a build around Cantrips. No other build can do this. (Or to be specific, no other build comes even with the basic features which would make the elementalist playable in PvP)

Well, you probably knew that already. If you didn’t, then you are welcome. I just wanted to substantiate the problem and show the reasons why the Cantrips build is the only one currently played, in order to suggest my ideas how to solve this imbalance of builds.

Making Conjures viable:
*cut the charges and the time limit for the elementalist, leave it like that for other group members
*introduce a trait which causes different effects depending on the current attunement while holding a conjured weapon (e.g. 25% less damage while in earth attunement; …)

Making Arcane abilities viable:
*introduce a trait which adds some defensive potential to Arcane spells (e.g. the Arcane Shield pushes enemies back upon explosion; …)
*make Arcane spells visually more appealing
*make Arcane “cool”: An ability in an MMO can be cool either because of its visual effect (which I noted above) or because it has a cool mechanic. A good example for a cool spell is Churning Earth. A cool looking big-hitter. A slow cast, something rare and special in GW2. It doesn’t necessarily have to be uber strong though.
My idea concerning Arcane’s coolness: Arcane Scent. (Arcane Grandmaster trait) Upon activation of an Arcane ability, the elementalist will be steeped by a residuum of arcane magic for 15 seconds. (visualized by a whirling cloud around the elementalist, leaving a small trail while moving) Arcane Scent should also have an effect, ideally one that fits the image of a squishy guy with a lot of power. (e.g. Arcane Scent deals damage to nearby foes; A.S. steals boons from nearby foes; A.S. heals you for 25% of the damage you cause; …)

Nerfing the Cantrips build:
*leave alone Ride the Lightning! (besides all the crying, the community already gave plausible explanations why nerfing RTL is not a good idea)
*nerf Cleansing Waters, which is apparently what ArenaNet is about to do
*lower the duration of regeneration gained by Soothing Disruption (III) down to 5 seconds

I’ll write about other builds which could be made viable later today! For now, I hope for your own suggestions and opinions on the matter.

Greetings,
Gugus

my suggestion to buff glyph builds

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Elementalist-Cleansing-fire-balance/

Buff Arcane:
- Make Arcane Lightning 10% (up from 3)
- Change intelligence to make it an improved scaling version of Arcane Precision (from 0 to 60%)
- Make attunement cooldown linked to the number of points invested in the line (ie you can go back to water faster if you have more points in water)

Buff Glyphs:
- Make Elemental Power proc more
- Make Inscription in the line of Glyph of Elemental Harmony (ie 3 Might)
- Make all pets (in the game) immune/resilient to AoE

Buff Fire line (water brings more damage!)
- Burning Precision burns for 5sec
- Persisting Flames also reduce cooldown of field by 30%

Nerf Boontyfull Boons for self, buff for support
- Your boons gives also give 1% damage per boon to you or friends

Nerf Cantrips:
- Soothing Disruption give vigor and protection to self and 5 allies
- Make RTL a cantrip and Lightning Flash the /D #4

Conjured Weapons:
- Let us drop and pick Conjured Weapons like all environemental weapons in the game

Buff Elem Elites
- Let us use utility skills in Tornado
- See Glyphs and Conjure for other Elites

The problem is actually a core design flaw, rather than any particular trait.

Eles have the lowest hps, the lowest armors, and general lack of evasive mechanics on their weapons that keep them in the fight (no mesmer sword 2, ranger evade type stuff, going into stealth to set something up etc). So they have to give traits that fix all these core weaknesses. Of course…if you don’t take them, you’re just a kitten profession.

Anyone that’s leveled an ele knows that, the profession is probably the worst in the game as a newbie. You level up and get traits and think “okay that’ll fix that…then in 10 levels I can fix that…10 more to fix that etc”. New players notice it immediately. Every other day there’s a post on here from a new ele player saying “Hi guys, I’m dying alot, what am I supposed to be doing?”. Of course when you’ve been playing the game for a while and then start an ele it’s not a big deal, because PVE AI in this game is so limited, but it’s still definitely something you notice.

The traits fix problems that seem to be intentionally designed into the profession, instead of enhancing strengths. In fact, they CANT enhance strengths because the core profession HAS no strengths. Elementalists don’t have good condition removal, the water traitline does. They don’t have lots of boons, the arcane traitline does. The closest thing to a core class strength was RTL, on one offhand weapon. 15s cooldown, 1500 yard travel. That’s a strength. So it was nerfed to 20s. Now it’s being nerfed to 1200 range and an even longer cooldown. Sure, you have more buttons to press on your weapons, but each button is suitably kitten in most cases so you have to hit a couple of them to achieve what you do hitting one on another profession.

It’s impossible to have any real build diversity when the system is designed like that. You have to fix all the problems the profession has first. Then when you do, you’re almost out of trait points already.

Hey Minion. I’ve never thought about it like you did but it makes sense what you write. Yep, I agree with that. Mesmer is a good example, they got everything within their weapon skills, their traits just enhance what is there. While I think bigger additional stuff on the trait system is not a bad thing, a class really shouldn’t be completely useless without (m)any traits.
How is the situation with the other classes, by the way? (Elementalist and Mesmer happen to be the only professions I play)