Guild Wars 2

Hello, I really enjoyed watching the whole livestream, and I really like the new system of picking 3 lines and committing to all the traits in them and letting them identify your character. I also love that traits were combined so that I don’t have to make a build sprawling over a whole page of 6 lines to enhance one feature of my playstyle. I.E.: if I like one set of utilities, then I get the most out of them with very few trait points, and the rest allow me to do other interesting things while those utilities are on cooldown, or to have a backup mechanic that saves my life.

For ele specifically, It felt good, but after seeing the new ranger, engi, and mesmer traits, I did get a bit jealous of all the shiny newness. I do remember that ele’s have some of the greatest traits in the game like arcane evasion for completely revolutionizing a play style, so I try not to request “new” for it’s own sake. Also, I am okay with making that a very hard choice with elemental attunement in the same slot. One is not needed for the other, and it makes 2 play styles.

Traits:
I still see some traits that could use a second mechanic or something to make them interesting choices.

Arcane Resurrection- Aura is nice, but it doesn’t actually help secure the res like thief stealth, ranger immob trap, or guardian shelter. Maybe we could get like a static field and throw this into air? It could go with that Healing Power/Ferocity trait or replace it.

Serrated Stones- Maybe also bleed when you cause X (CC, blind, chill, vuln?) I’m really rooting for a condi build.

Earth Master tier – All 3 of these seem bland to me still. Every time I trait into Earth now, I use 2 adepts. Maybe add Stone Splinters effect to one of them since it was removed? Maybe this is where we get the new resistance boon? I do love all 3 Grandmasters though. All are interesting and valuable if you play right.

Bolt to the Heart – Numbers still not finished, of course, but I did notice it’s identical to a thief GM trait, but our health threshold is 33%, theirs is 50%. Still, I love the Air line. There is a lot of cool play with CC bonuses, and that is fun.

Powerful Aura- Really hope it’s all auras

Conjurer – Could this just remove stacks and have the one minute duration? If you want to encourage sharing them, it might be better than the aura and not over power the above trait. Anyway, the FGS auto-attack is so long, that it’s the only one that can go about a minute without using up 25 stacks, so the stack limit, traited, mostly affects the weaker ones with fast autos, most of all the flame axe. More about conjures below and a more daring conjure trait idea…

Burning Precision – Very strong with GM minor trait, and I would like to see it swapped with anything in master tier except One With Fire. Also, If I use LH or something, I would like to trait for conjures in adept, but still have this burn chance to take advantage of that GM minor trait. If I’m dedicated to conjures as a build, then it’s a hard choice, but still with only one outcome which kind of feels bad. Still, in a group, someone will have burning, so this is an issue for solo play.

Pyromancer’s Puissance – Should be the best trait ever, but easily passed over so often. If there were a trait somewhere, anywhere, Tempest maybe, that had “gain/inflict X for 2-3 seconds when you grant yourself might” or “% chance to gain/inflict X for 2-3 seconds when you grant yourself might”, then it would be harder to pass up. I say “for 2-3 seconds” so that PP would be the best source for this and not a big fire field stack before the fight. It would have to be something that drops somewhat quickly.

Skills:
Conjures-

There was a conjure nerf mentioned, and I love conjures, so:

For Lightning Hammer and Flame Axe – I think with charges and blocking off attunements, they should hit harder than normal weapons since they can be a hassle to summon and take up a utility while trading 20 skills for 5. However, for both, the auto-attack has the most desirable features like blinds, blasts, and might. What if hammer had the blind on 2, and like a stun on 4? Would make it a great control wep to synergize with all the coolest air traits. For auto attack, it could maintain the damage, but the 3rd hit blast could use the longer Guardian hammer animation on 3rd auto hit. Any buffs to Flame Axe will be welcomed

For Ice bow and Earth Shield – I really like that these are not for heavy damage and have themes of their own. Still, what good is all of the Earth Shield defense if nothing wants to hit you? This weapon needs taunt with a short enough CD and long enough duration to rival whatever taunt is given to the tankiest specs of other classes. It could be single 1.5-2 sec taunt on skill 2 and 5-target AoE taunt on skill 5 for the duration of the invulnerability. Ice bow needs more support, but I know that we don’t want out of control healing in a gear and specs. However, with dps gear, auto attack feels too weak, and with healing gear, auto attack heals feel too weak. What if auto attack also pulsed a 1-second Resistance to allies around the target? What if skill 4 damage was nerfed, bleeds changed to short chill or medium vuln, but it also created a water field OR condi 1 removal from each impact? What if skill 3 had a longer chill so it would be more useful as an aoe at a distance instead of point blank? In PvP a long chill can be punishing, but even if it hit point blank, then it’s just a question of condi removal to counter play it. Finally, for usability and to deal some damage, what if it had 1200 range and the skill 2 did more damage based on distance? Like at 900-1200, it could hit as hard as a ranger’s longbow 2, but you are weaker close up so you can’t exactly mimic one of a Ranger’s best skills.

Wackadoodle idea for a conjurer trait – Having a conjure on your bar replaces your weapon automatically while in the associated attument, and the skill on the bar creates a wep with charges for allies and grants a boon. I.E: I run daggers, but in earth attunement, I am auto-swapped to the earth shield cause I have that skill on my bar. I can run 3 conjures and replace 3 attunements that I choose. FGS would have to not be affected by this though. Without cast time, Earth Shield on attunement swap could become a stun break with an internal cooldown separate from earth attunement CD and finally give a stun break to conjures. (if possible, only start stun break CD when a stun is broken, and I don’t think this is out of line with some of the traits that shrug of 1 CC every once in a while)

This would also be an alternative solution to what I said earlier about making flame axe/lightning hammer hit harder because of limitations on attunement swapping and skill bar space. They could be balanced to match normal weps like engi kits are, but they would not be an exact copy of the engi kit mechanics.

Glyphs

These are good skills that no one makes builds around. I think of them now like Guardian Meditations. You can trait for them to grant a boon on use, like meditations with Fury trait, but that’s where the similarities end for now. Meditation used to also have cast times, but they were removed, and they also have a trait that makes them do tiny heals. These just need the CD removed or be made to do just one more cool, even gimmicky, thing. They could have a trait that makes them give a new boon, Resistance or Quickness for 1-2 seconds in addition to the attunement boons, OR the Elemental Surge trait could also affect glyphs as well as arcane skills, OR let them remove a condition.

For now, that’s all of my thoughts, and I’ very sorry there are too many. I trust the balancers know better than I, but creativity can be a burden, and I hope that community input is more a relief than annoyance. I do not want to see ele overpowered or stealing too much from other classes, but hopefully, my favorite things about the ele’s flavor come to shine and make an ele something special and interesting for gameplay.

TLDR It’s long, Just try to find a specific headline that interests you and read that paragraph.