Guild Wars 2

Air is currently a redundant and often underwhelming trait line – it certainly has its merits, especially on a scepter build, but it fails to complement other weapons past the 10-15 point mark. It also suffers from excessive use of non-swiftness speed boosts that generally serve no purpose in most Elementalist builds. My redesigned line is as such:

Minor Traits

Adept – Zephyr’s Strength (Replaces Zephyr’s Speed)
While attuned to air, you deal 5% more damage while moving.

Master – Electric Discharge
(Unchanged)

Grandmaster – Weak Spot
(Unchanged)

Major Traits (Adept)

Zephyr’s Boon
(Unchanged)

Zephyr’s Focus
Reworked to grant pulsing Vigor to yourself and nearby allies while channeling skills. The duration of the boon is identical to the time spent channeling.

Bolt to the Heart
(Unchanged)

Tempest Defense (Swapped with One With Air for Grandmaster and weakened).
Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled. 60 second cooldown.

Soothing Winds (Buffed)
10% of your Precision is converted to Healing Power.

Air Training (Moved from Master)
Deal 10% more damage while in Air Attunement.

Master Majors

Glyph Mastery (Merged)
Gain a boon associated with your current attunement when you cast a Glyph. Glyphs recharge 20% faster.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity
(Unchanged).

Arcane Lightning
(Unchanged)

Storm Chased (New)
Deal 5% more damage to moving foes.

Grandmaster Majors

Fresh Air
(Unchanged)

One With Air (New)
You move 10% faster. Stacks with other speed boosts.

Summary of changes

Zephyr’s speed replaced.
Glyph traits merged into Master tier.
Tempest Defense is now an Adept trait and has been somewhat nerfed to compensate.
One with Air is now a completely reworked Grandmaster trait.
New trait in Master line.
Soothing Winds buffed.

Zephyr’s Strength- A very much needed change, and a nice mechanic.

Soothing winds buff- agreed, 5% to healing power is quite weak

Zephyr’s focus- Granting 1 second of vigor to yourself and allies each second you are channeling is a nice little buff and a good source of vigor without having to spec arcana.

Tempest Defense is too strong for an adept trait, even if changed to 15%. Also your summary says it’s a changed into minor trait for some reason.

Glyph Mastery- I like this quite a bit. Glyphs don’t seem to be very commonly used at the moment, and it’d be very good for pve.

Storm chased may be a bit too strong, seeing as enemy players will nearly always will be moving.

While it could be okay, I’m not sure if devs would really consider the new One With Air, since they don’t seem to want eles to be mobile
It seems more like a trait for running away though, as well as pretty unfair to have a 30% higher speed cap than other professions, so I doubt it will happen.

Well at least you’re traited to run away in stead of using weapon skills. And I agree the grounded trait is to strong for adept. But overall pretty solid traits. Air line is mainly focussed on dmg and movement and I think you stuck to the theme.

Removed damage bonus effect from Tempest Defense to bring it in line with other profession’s disable trigger adept/master traits.

Nerfed Storm Chased to 5%.

Reworked One With Air. Same basic concept, more simple, balanced effect.

I like it. Seems pretty balanced and would open up a lot more build options. Do you think you could do one for fire as well?

Nikkinella.8254:

I like it. Seems pretty balanced and would open up a lot more build options. Do you think you could do one for fire as well?

Air is relatively easy because it’s issues are relatively limited, if severe. Fire is rather difficult to fix because frankly, what isn’t wrong with it? But I’ll try.

Fire Magic

Fire Magic as a line is very selfish and tends to synergize poorly with other trait lines, with the exception of Fire’s Embrace for the two signet builds (20/x/30/x/x and 20/x/x/30/x). The goal here is to solidify Fire Magic as a line by focusing on Combo Fields and Conjures.

Minor Traits

Adept – Noxious Fumes (New)
While in Fire Attunement, poison the target and nearby foes for 1 second every time you inflict burning.
(Goal – Solidify Fire Magic as a great choice for condition damage + anti-bunker. Synergize better with Lingering Elements and with non-melee weapons.)

Master – Sunspot (Improved)
Now constitutes a blast finisher.

Grandmaster – Pyromancer’s Puissance (Moved and Reworked)
Gain 1 stack of might for 5 seconds when you strike a burning foe.

Adept Majors

Lava Tomb
(Unchanged)

Ember’s Might
(Unchanged)

Burning Precision
(Unchanged)

Internal Fire
(Unchanged)

Spell Slinger (Reworked)
Gain 2 stacks of might for 10 seconds when you use a utility skill.
(Goal – By nerfing the numbers and making it apply to all utilities, more build variety could be created).

Fire’s Embrace (Moved from Master)
Gain a Fire Shield for 3 seconds when you use a Signet.
(Might need to be nerfed to 2 seconds with the move).
(Goal – To create more variations on Signet builds and Signet Aura Share builds).

Master Majors

Pyromancer’s Alacricity
(Unchanged)

Conjurer (Reworked)
Conjure weapon bonus stats are increased by 50%. Conjures recharge 20% faster.
Note ~ Stat bonus also applies to allies who pick up the extra conjure.

Field Mastery (New)
Skills that generate Combo Fields recharge 20% faster.

Burning Agony (New)
Apply 1 stack of Torment for 2 seconds when you inflict Burning.

Grandmaster Majors

Field Expert (Reworked from Persisting Flames)
All combo fields you create last 20% longer. When allies enter one of your combo fields, they gain a boon based on the field:
Fire = Might
Lightning = Fury
Water = Vigor
Ice = Protection

Cauterize Wounds (New)
Heal slightly when granting might to yourself or an ally.
Note – Roughly 100 base, with a very low scaling.

That would actually make fire worth playing around with. I always wanted to mainly invest in fire, till I discovered how much it sucked. None of the current traits really work well with anything, besides fire. The traitline is basically a self nerf the way it is now. You’re pretty much forced to stay in fire to make the most out of the majority of the traits which cuts down your potential a lot by not using the other elements as often.

Would be nice if Field Expert made fields that look like fields but aren’t into 1 sec fields (such as dagger water 3 and hydromancy sigil).

Air changes seem mostly good, though a grandmaster trait to move 10% faster than normal seems like a massive waste of a grandmaster trait. Even if it does stack with speed effects.

I like some of your fire suggestions like noxious fumes and pyromancer’s puissance becoming a minor trait. Sun Spot being a blast finisher especially as it leads to more interesting elemental combos. Though completely changing Persisting Flames would utterly wreck my heavy fire build. Honestly Persisting Flames is a pretty solid grandmaster trait overall, it gives access to loads and loads of Fury in a trait line that normally doesn’t have it. And while I could still get Fury with your change, I’d have to physically run into my Static Field, and this is a skill I typically want to use on a ranged group.

Field Mastery might also be a bit awkward, as it’d stack with traits that also reduce said skill’s cast time. Might be prudent to give it an effect instead, like perhaps what you had for Field Expert minus the extended field duration?

Your other fire changes would certainly make it an effective condition line however. Combining Burning Precision and Burning Agony would give us near constant Argony up time, which is only made stronger with the line’s access to fury. Cauterize and Burning Agony could be switched in position though. Give Fire a grandmaster condition trait similar to the necro’s Dhuumfire. And give offensive support eles an option in the master tier to increase their own survivability.

You, sir, just spoiled those 2 lines in my play.

I want dat freaking Fire line now.

/thumbs up

Ehecatl.9172:

I like some of your fire suggestions like noxious fumes and pyromancer’s puissance becoming a minor trait. Sun Spot being a blast finisher especially as it leads to more interesting elemental combos. Though completely changing Persisting Flames would utterly wreck my heavy fire build. Honestly Persisting Flames is a pretty solid grandmaster trait overall, it gives access to loads and loads of Fury in a trait line that normally doesn’t have it. And while I could still get Fury with your change, I’d have to physically run into my Static Field, and this is a skill I typically want to use on a ranged group.

Field Mastery might also be a bit awkward, as it’d stack with traits that also reduce said skill’s cast time. Might be prudent to give it an effect instead, like perhaps what you had for Field Expert minus the extended field duration?

Your other fire changes would certainly make it an effective condition line however. Combining Burning Precision and Burning Agony would give us near constant Argony up time, which is only made stronger with the line’s access to fury. Cauterize and Burning Agony could be switched in position though. Give Fire a grandmaster condition trait similar to the necro’s Dhuumfire. And give offensive support eles an option in the master tier to increase their own survivability.

Field Expert could be reworked to work with Blast Finishers instead of with entering combo fields. It would probably be better that way anyway. The goal was to create synergy between Fire Magic traits and all attunements, which is why I reduced the effect and made it apply bonuses to all combo fields. The reason I didn’t originally write is as a Blast finisher trigger is that a likely result would have been the need to create boon bonuses for all combo field types – not just those the Ele has access to.

I rather like the idea of swapping Cauterize and Burning Agony, though I was more afraid of Cauterize being OP in combination with current sustain options than I was about Burning Agony – worst case scenario is that Burning Agony could be given a 1s cd to prevent Burning Precision crits with a scepter triggering frequent double stack Torments.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Field Expert could be reworked to work with Blast Finishers instead of with entering combo fields. It would probably be better that way anyway. The goal was to create synergy between Fire Magic traits and all attunements, which is why I reduced the effect and made it apply bonuses to all combo fields. The reason I didn’t originally write is as a Blast finisher trigger is that a likely result would have been the need to create boon bonuses for all combo field types – not just those the Ele has access to.

I rather like the idea of swapping Cauterize and Burning Agony, though I was more afraid of Cauterize being OP in combination with current sustain options than I was about Burning Agony – worst case scenario is that Burning Agony could be given a 1s cd to prevent Burning Precision crits with a scepter triggering frequent double stack Torments.

That would be an interesting trait then, giving all our fields a little extra boon associated with it’s blasts. Though the duration extension reduction might hurt. At 30% my fire fields last juuust enough that I can cast Lava Font and then switch to earth, throw on Eruption, dodge roll into it with Evasive Arcana, and then finish with Arcane Wave just as eruption blows. Getting me upward 15-20 stacks of might and a good 30 seconds of Fury in a few seconds, that is then given to my whole group. And then 9 seconds later I can throw down Eruption and go back to fire for more Might and Fury. Having all those extra boons would be great, but would it compensate for the sheer intensity I get from all those combos? It should also be mentioned that fire fields are the only field that every single weapon an ele can equip has access to, making Persisting Flames potentially good for any weapon set. It’s just the rest of the line that needs to be reworked so getting it isn’t so costly.

And while Cauterize would be quite powerful, I don’t think anyone trying to bunker would go 20 points in fire just for that. It would however be an option for Burst and Sustained Damage builds that want to leave water. Say, 20/30/0/0/20 perhaps. At most you might see 20/0/0/20/30. But the fire line doesn’t have anything a bunker would want other than Cauterize so Earth would still likely be preferred.

Alt ideas for Conjurer and for a new Grandmaster Major trait could be for Conjurer to no longer deduct a charge for the 1 slot skills, and the new GM M trait could be something like Burning Wrath, or something. Idea is that your burns deal the same amount of damage per tick, but said ticks occur every half second, and burn duration itself is halved. Another idea I’ve liked is for the “Reduce cooldown of <element> skills by 20%” abilities to also reduce the cooldown of the utilities tied to that element. So Pyromancer’s Alacrity would also reduce cooldown on Cleansing Fire, Conjure Flame Axe, and Signet of Fire (unsure if Fiery Greatsword should be included here).

Will say that on the whole I love these new traits, pretty good, without being OP. Especially like the new Adept Minor on Air, since +10% Move speed is NEVER gonna get used, and doesn’t make a bit of difference. Same as the current One With Air, it’s just silly, IMO. And if ANet wants us to constantly be swapping Attunements, having a trait that requires you to spend an extended time in a single one is bad design.

^ I really think Conjure’s 1-skill not burning charges should be baseline, not a trait.

^Frankly, I agree. Mainly figure that ANet is stubborn about Eles getting too much at once, so having it as a trait might be more palatable. Ideally though, yeah, I’d far prefer the 1 skill to be cost-free, even if the base charges on a Conjure were to be reduced to 10 base or something similar.

Earth Magic

Earth is mostly solid, aside from its rather underwhelming minors and a bad grandmaster. I focused on these things while also moving some traits around, merging a couple traits, and making a few new ones that should solidify Earth as an alternative durability line.

Minor Traits

Adept – Like A Stone
Gain a shield that absorbs 2 damage per level (160 at level 80) when you put an ability on cooldown while in Earth Attunement.

Master – Rock Solid (moved from Master Major)
Grant stability for 2s to nearby allies when attuning to Earth.

Grandmaster – Rolling Stone
Gain might when you perform a dodge roll.
Notes – 2 stacks for 5 seconds.

Adept Traits

Obsidian Focus
(Unchanged)

Earth’s Embrace
(Unchanged)

Serrated Stones
(Unchanged)

Elemental Shielding
(Unchanged)

Stone Splinters
(Unchanged)

Strength of Stone
(Moved from Master tier).

Master Traits

Geomancer’s Alacrity
(Unchanged).

Geomancer’s Freedom
(Unchanged).

Diamond Skin (moved from Grandmaster)
Gain 10% of your Toughness as Condition Damage.

Anemia
When you inflict bleeding on a target below 50% health, inflict an additional stack of bleeding for 3 seconds.
Note – Once per hit, not per stack of bleeding inflicted by said hit. For example, Churning Earth can proc one stack off of this, while Stone Shards can proc up to 3.

Grandmaster Traits

Written In Stone (Merged)
Keep passive effects of signets when you activate them. Signet cooldowns are reduced by 20%.

Sandstorm (new)
Swapping to earth creates a cloud around yourself that blinds and inflicts a stack of bleeding on foes for 5 seconds with each pulse. Pulses 3 times in 3 seconds.

@Duke Blackrose
Interesting earth traits there. Not sure on the merging Signet CD with written in stone yet though. I guess no one really runs one without the other though (atm not many run it at all afaik).

How about adding a trait somewhere that makes signets(either the passive, the active, or both) aoe? That would make them far more popular.

Cauterize Wounds (New)
Heal slightly when granting might to yourself or an ally.
Note – Roughly 100 base, with a very low scaling.

Also, was this healing per stack or per application? Because it’d be rather weak of a GM major if it’s per application.

Wouldt it be better to merge strenght of stone with geomancers alacrity and add another trait or would that be too strong?

I really like your changes and ideas. I actually feel a bit thrilled when I imagine my ele having these traits.

I’ll skip to earth since nobody has reviewed them yet.

Unfeeling stone – This is a good idea for sPvP, but would make anti-condition eles OP in WvW. With melandru runes, Lemongrass food and Geomancer’s freedom, it would be possible to have 100% condition reduction at least for cripple/chill/immobilize.

Sisyphus – I’m not sure how to comment on this. As a D/D Ele I like it but some people might find it a bit OP when people use it on Scepter. You get:
250 toughness (25 points in Earth for this minor trait)
250 toughness from Rock Barrier
X toughness from Sisyphus.

That’s instant 500 + x toughness already. If i’m down to 50% HP, I’ll get a total of additional 750 toughness which is pretty huge. Additionally, I’ll trait 30 points into earth to get GM traits for Written in Stone and possibly get Signet of Earth(+180 toughness at lvl 80) if I want to stack more toughness. Now that’s a total of 730 + x toughness based on your HP. At 50% HP you’ll easily get an additional 980 Toughness.

TL;DR – It stacks up an insane amount of toughness even without using armors that give you toughness. Bunker eles can simply go x/x/30/x/x (I’m thinking of 0/0/30/10/30) and get Vit + Condition damage armor sets to compensate for the damage. Bunk an area, stay in earth, spam #1 for a decent damage of bleeding while rarely switching out to other attunements based on the situation. This new trait can revolutionize S/D eles as the new ultimate bunker/semi-condi build for elementalists.

Very high armor
Decent HP given that you get +Vit armors
Ultimate Anti-Condition build (Melandru, Lemongrass, Geomancer’s Freedom)
Decent Condition damage (you only get bleed though. But as a bunker having, decent condition damage is a bonus already)

Like A Stone – Can you please elaborate the damage absorbing shield? Duration/internal cooldown/how much damage it absorbs?

Earthquake – people will cry that we’re OP again if we get a CC every 10s (x/x/x/x/30 build). Maybe add an internal cooldown for the knock down?

Overall, Elementalists are supposed to get DPS from conditions when attuned to earth (As the tooltip says). Going full defensive is against Earth Attunement’s original function.

Don’t let my review get you down. You’re doing an awesome job overall. Your ideas make a whole bunch of possibilities for new builds. Eles might find a reason for not running 3 cantrips anymore. Devs should definitely take a look and consider your ideas for trait changes.

Maybe a trait that increases condi dmg by x for 20 sec when using a signet. Kinda the earth version of arcane lightning

I redid the earth traits. What do you think?

I am going to borrow an idea I saw in the PvP forum by DiogoSilva and say we merged and create the following traits:
Pyromancer’s Alacrity + (fire equivalent of fresh air) = 20% CD reduction+ recharge on crit.
Aeromancer’s Alacrity + "fresh air*= 20% air + recharge on crit
Aquamancer’s Alacrity + (water equivalent of fresh air) =
Geomancer’s Alacrity+(earth equivalent of fresh air) = 20 spell reduction + recharge on crit.

so that it benefit other weapons set and people that want to focus on specific attunements.

silvermember.8941:

I am going to borrow an idea I saw in the PvP forum by DiogoSilva and say we merged and create the following traits:
Pyromancer’s Alacrity + (fire equivalent of fresh air) = 20% CD reduction+ recharge on crit.
Aeromancer’s Alacrity + "fresh air*= 20% air + recharge on crit
Aquamancer’s Alacrity + (water equivalent of fresh air) =
Geomancer’s Alacrity+(earth equivalent of fresh air) = 20 spell reduction + recharge on crit.

so that it benefit other weapons set and people that want to focus on specific attunements.

Even as grandmaster traits, some of those could be stupidly strong – namely water and earth. Essentially permanent stability or constant spam of AoE heals (in fact, you could do both in the same build).

Going to have to pass on that idea, even if it sounds cool.

Having them ALL be “Recharge on crit” is kinda a bad idea as well. It works with Fresh Air since you’re already at least +300 points into Precision. And it’s also kinda silly to have them all have instant recharge abilities as well, at least IMO. Main issue with the Alacrity skills is that they’re really limited since they only work on one attunement, and aren’t going based on equipped weapon. Eles get stuff in the Arcane line for their weapon specific stuff (except for Focus, which is something that could help it somewhat). I have some general guidelines that probably should be followed for the 20% CD reduction traits. If it’s JUST the -20% CD? It can be Adept, if it’s -20% CD and some special ability (e.g.: Warrior’s “Axe Crits give bonus Adrenaline”), or it works for multiple weapons, then it can be a Master trait, IMO you shouldn’t have a -20% CD trait EVER as a GM trait unless it’s something really kitten. A good example of this? Written in Stone. The way it is in Blackrose’s merged bit above is a good example. Something like the “Glyphs give you a boon based on attunement” one could probably do fine in Master tier.

I still stand by my idea that the Alacrity skills, if they’re going to remain a Master tier trait, should also work for any utility skills also aligned with that element. Potentially you could also have them boost the attunement recharge rate of that element by 20% as well, but it may be too powerful with both of those.

Kamui.3150:

Having them ALL be “Recharge on crit” is kinda a bad idea as well. It works with Fresh Air since you’re already at least +300 points into Precision. And it’s also kinda silly to have them all have instant recharge abilities as well, at least IMO. Main issue with the Alacrity skills is that they’re really limited since they only work on one attunement, and aren’t going based on equipped weapon. Eles get stuff in the Arcane line for their weapon specific stuff (except for Focus, which is something that could help it somewhat). I have some general guidelines that probably should be followed for the 20% CD reduction traits. If it’s JUST the -20% CD? It can be Adept, if it’s -20% CD and some special ability (e.g.: Warrior’s “Axe Crits give bonus Adrenaline”), or it works for multiple weapons, then it can be a Master trait, IMO you shouldn’t have a -20% CD trait EVER as a GM trait unless it’s something really kitten. A good example of this? Written in Stone. The way it is in Blackrose’s merged bit above is a good example. Something like the “Glyphs give you a boon based on attunement” one could probably do fine in Master tier.

I still stand by my idea that the Alacrity skills, if they’re going to remain a Master tier trait, should also work for any utility skills also aligned with that element. Potentially you could also have them boost the attunement recharge rate of that element by 20% as well, but it may be too powerful with both of those.

It could be a merged trait in the master tier – 20% faster recharge + 5% damage increase in that attunement or 10% damage increase and 10-15% faster recharge.

I was really considering merging, upgrading, or outright removing all +damage% in x attunement or +recharge% traits in x attunement traits.