Guild Wars 2

Velimere.7685:

Sorry, Chris, but it looks like Laraley is declining your suggestion for us. Hopefully this will wrap itself up soon enough.

Laraley.7695:

All you do is saying how my argument is invalid and what an idiot I am that I’m considering possible scenarios. All you do is saying how nothing will touch you 1v1. Right.

Rather, you’re stipulating upon convenient situations in which your argument can hold at least some amount of water as opposed to me arguing from a controlled perspective.

Following your own method here, let’s break it down:

Me: Elementalist can easily stick to a Mesmer or a Ranger.
You: Mesmer or Ranger can camp a ledge or a roof in a team-fight.
Me: Another Mesmer or Ranger can counter-camp a ledge or a roof in a team-fight.
You: A second Mesmer or Ranger can counter-counter-camp a ledge or a roof in a team-fight.

…And so on. This kind of arguing goes nowhere and proves absolutely no point whatsoever. For further example, see below for point in case:

Ehecatl.9172:

Also in the very team fight you suggest the ele also has team members. Ideally if there is someone perched and sniping you your allies should respond by pressuring the sniper in return.

That noted, Laraley, as for your inferences concerning me voicing pejorative language against you and being self-important, the irony is that such in and of itself is pejorative and places you above me in the first place (read: self-important); you dishonor yourself in your dishonor of me by putting words in my mouth.

It’s pretty easy. Your argument is built on 1v1 situations. Your precious trait will depend on people on your team to actually be good, gl with that. Never said anything about second mesmer/ranger. 600 range is not that great, fact. I never said it’s useless in the general meaning, I said there will be situations when this trait won’t give you its benefits, which is another fact. The argument was that this trait will be as good as having both Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement, that’s just silly.

I’m not sure why you people are surprised. Did you think we’d get nigh invincible earth, water, arcana specs with no changes? It was either going to be an arcana nerf or an earth nerf.

Every traitline is getting buffed defensive options besides arcana. Blinding ashes can more than make up for a 2k heal and condi cleanse every 10 seconds. One with air will make kiting melee enemies and running circles around ranged enemies extremely easy. Earth’s defensive value is even more obvious.

Plus, skills are being changed too. The actual cleansing wave skill could just get a cooldown reduction. Flamewall might become a skill with an actual effect. New sigils and runes will have an impact.

Laraley.7695:

It’s pretty easy. Your argument is built on 1v1 situations.

Rather, your argument is built on introducing more variables which in turn allows other people to do the exact same against resulting with absolutely no resolution as proven within this very topic.

Laraley.7695:

Your precious trait will depend on people on your team to actually be good, gl with that.

One doesn’t need luck to get good at PvP or have a team that is also good at PvP. Feel free to reserve that luck for yourself, however. Some of us have the luxury to only play with organized teams. In fact, is it not more intelligent in the first place for a serious PvP player to put themself in that position in the first place?

Laraley.7695:

Never said anything about second mesmer/ranger.

The point is that if you don’t, you lose the argument because as Ehecatl and myself have demonstrated, your point is moot given an equal amount of variables on both sides. You either have to keep going fueling this vicious cycle or you’re just done plain and simple.

Laraley.7695:

600 range is not that great, fact.

It’s great enough to cover an entire point and then some: fact.

Laraley.7695:

I never said it’s useless in the general meaning, I said there will be situations when this trait won’t give you its benefits, which is another fact.

Given your point of narrow convenience, these situations are also fewer than the situations where this trait will give you its benefits which is another fact.

Laraley.7695:

The argument was that this trait will be as good as having both Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement, that’s just silly.

That is not the argument. The argument is that it will overall be better than having both Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana: That’s another fact as Geomancer’s Defense can mitigate far more damage in combat that Evasive Arcana can heal.

Elemental attunement and evasive arcana are what make playing a d/d ele fun, dancing around attunement etc. They are also the traits that make d/d even viable, the boons and condi removal are essential to d/d. Yes the new builds can be really powerful but they are not fun, all you have to do now is swap earth and water, pop some auras and sometimes air for aura and auto. There is no more build diversity, it narrows it down to one thing: 00666

To get back on the actual topic: ofc they have buffed the defensive traits and lines but at the same time it’s gonna be lot more boring to play an ele or to fight one as camping water and earth isn’t difficult at all.

The thing that made ele fun and interessting was changing attunements upon situation and buffing yourself by doing so. The old setup allowed you to be in any attunement at any time be it in WvW or PvP and if you are/were attacked you could swap attunement to gain regen and protection and at the same time to get some active gameplay in by blasting your own water- or firefield.

With the changes ANet has in mind this kind of gameplay won’t be possible anymore. Sitting in one attunement all the time just receive less damage is easy but sadly does not enhance build diversity whatsoever.

While D/D eles haave the possibility to work around these changes, staff eles can’t as much. If a ranger is pewpewing me I’d be stupid to blink in to make my earth trait actually work out. Sure I can move away but overall these changes are a lot worse for players that enjoy using staff (and everyones else who doesn’t use full celestial cough)

i look forward to the changes. Going air, earth and water is gonna make a mean aura build. elemental attunement is only good for the regen and protection uptime. You get protection from elemental contingency still and you can get more than enough regen from water.

quite funny how 99% of the forum posts are about the D/D while D/D has a viable alternative (boring though) scepter+staff don’t get nearly as much benefits from geomancer’s defence

Chris.5720:

To get back on the actual topic: ofc they have buffed the defensive traits and lines but at the same time it’s gonna be lot more boring to play an ele or to fight one as camping water and earth isn’t difficult at all.

For the record, Geomancer’s Defense isn’t attunement-bound, and camping Earth Attunement for more than burst-protection (e.g., against Rapid Fire) via Stone Heart is ill-advised in my opinion. Also, I can’t see why one would camp Water Attunement in the first place.

Maybe camping was the wrong word but I am pretty sure that the majority of players would stay in earth and water more than they are now simply because some part of self sustain is simply gone.
Personally I enjoy playing staff ele (be it cele or zerk) in pvp and the reason these build are somewhat viable (in comparison to d/d) is because while d/d has for example auras and the normal traits to reduce incoming damage, staff users were bound to swap attunements for the boons and use evasive arcana for sustainability. By changing this combination the spec would be a lot less viable in pvp (not even gonna start about WvW).

Atm it is possible to use 60066 or 06066 on staff without any issues, however if this change goes life it’s gonna be very situational to use the air or fire line as you’d need the defensive traits of earth.

Chris.5720:

Maybe camping was the wrong word but I am pretty sure that the majority of players would stay in earth and water more than they are now simply because some part of self sustain is simply gone.
Personally I enjoy playing staff ele (be it cele or zerk) in pvp and the reason these build are somewhat viable (in comparison to d/d) is because while d/d has for example auras and the normal traits to reduce incoming damage, staff users were bound to swap attunements for the boons and use evasive arcana for sustainability. By changing this combination the spec would be a lot less viable in pvp (not even gonna start about WvW).

Atm it is possible to use 60066 or 06066 on staff without any issues, however if this change goes life it’s gonna be very situational to use the air or fire line as you’d need the defensive traits of earth.

I see now. I’ve only ever played staff in dungeons where one starts in Earth Attunement for might-stacking before engagements and then proceed to camp Fire Attunement thereafter, so I admit I’m not well-versed in active defenses or sustain that staff has to offer in Earth Attunement and Water Attunement. As for Celestial D/D, combat rotations won’t change at all.

I guess taking a step back and looking at everything as a whole, it seems that they really only had Celestial D/D in mind…

Phantaram.1265:

I think elemental attunement should be base line. After making it base line balance from there. Both Evasive Arcana and elemental attunement are really fun and skillful abilities. Why take one away?

Besides that. Let’s take a look at the big picture for a second.

Removing conditions upon gaining regeneration: Dropping evasive arcana or elemental attunement with this trait drops condi removal from 2 every ~9 seconds to 1 every ~9 seconds(everytime you swap to water you gain regen + Evasive arcana for 2 condi removal). That’s a pretty big nerf to condi removal. On top of this we can assume the new “Soothing Ice”, which is the old regen proc trait with frost aura tide to it, will not be a 10 second icd anymore. That’s even less condi removal with the predicted icd being around 25-30 seconds (imo). The only way we’d get regen without healing rain would be from cantrips at this point, which is completely selfish condi removal.

Condi removal is extremely important for survivability these days even against non condi classes. Poison, weakness, chill… they will all be elementalists death without the amount of condi removal we currently have.

On top of all this Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are both group utility traits. People are already not taking Elementalists for team fights because there are much better group/team fight classes out there. Taking one of them away just greater pigeon-holes ele into a selfish 1v1 category.

I think overall making Elemental Attunement baseline and balancing from that point is a much healthier direction to take elementalist.

Agree with all of this, the interaction with cleansing wave means that elemental attunement will pretty much rule out evasive arcana in most cases. This saddens me greatly as I loved all the explosions, and trying to maximize the effectiveness of the extra 4 skills I got with evasive arcana.

This is a massive nerf, probably a slight buff overall from how the class is today, however with every other class getting massive power creep from what I can tell, Ele is going to fall behind fast. It is like anet doesn’t realize how close to balanced this game’s pvp is and decides to just throw around massive balance changes all of a sudden with Ele getting the only real heavy nerf.

What they are doing would be the equivalent of forcing warriors to choose between fast hands and cleansing ire, or mesmers to choose between deceptive evasion and illusionary persona (lol they got it baseline instead), or engis to choose between grenadier and incendiary powder, thief between sleight of hand and bountiful theft…. Only ele seems to be forced into this choice, while they massively buffed every other class.

There was a forum topic a bit ago about each classes crutches, every class has them. Anet decided to help some classes by giving several classes their crutches for free, while ele now has to choose between its two most important ones.

Please nerf the completely permanent extremely passive and quite op 20% damage reduction trait. Using this to cover the lack of protection, would be a change, but not one for the better. It is a stupidly passive permanent trait with no counter play other than to range. With elemental attunement you could time your protection for when you needed it and had to worry about boon strip making it much more interesting to play. Reduce the trait to 10-15% and give back elemental attunement at master tier or better yet baseline as it should have always been.

ArthurDent.9538:

Phantaram.1265:

I think elemental attunement should be base line. After making it base line balance from there. Both Evasive Arcana and elemental attunement are really fun and skillful abilities. Why take one away?

Besides that. Let’s take a look at the big picture for a second.

Removing conditions upon gaining regeneration: Dropping evasive arcana or elemental attunement with this trait drops condi removal from 2 every ~9 seconds to 1 every ~9 seconds(everytime you swap to water you gain regen + Evasive arcana for 2 condi removal). That’s a pretty big nerf to condi removal. On top of this we can assume the new “Soothing Ice”, which is the old regen proc trait with frost aura tide to it, will not be a 10 second icd anymore. That’s even less condi removal with the predicted icd being around 25-30 seconds (imo). The only way we’d get regen without healing rain would be from cantrips at this point, which is completely selfish condi removal.

Condi removal is extremely important for survivability these days even against non condi classes. Poison, weakness, chill… they will all be elementalists death without the amount of condi removal we currently have.

On top of all this Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are both group utility traits. People are already not taking Elementalists for team fights because there are much better group/team fight classes out there. Taking one of them away just greater pigeon-holes ele into a selfish 1v1 category.

I think overall making Elemental Attunement baseline and balancing from that point is a much healthier direction to take elementalist.

Agree with all of this, the interaction with cleansing wave means that elemental attunement will pretty much rule out evasive arcana in most cases. This saddens me greatly as I loved all the explosions, and trying to maximize the effectiveness of the extra 4 skills I got with evasive arcana.

This is a massive nerf, probably a slight buff overall from how the class is today, however with every other class getting massive power creep from what I can tell, Ele is going to fall behind fast. It is like anet doesn’t realize how close to balanced this game’s pvp is and decides to just throw around massive balance changes all of a sudden with Ele getting the only real heavy nerf.

What they are doing would be the equivalent of forcing warriors to choose between fast hands and cleansing ire, or mesmers to choose between deceptive evasion and illusionary persona (lol they got it baseline instead), or engis to choose between grenadier and incendiary powder, thief between sleight of hand and bountiful theft…. Only ele seems to be forced into this choice, while they massively buffed every other class.

There was a forum topic a bit ago about each classes crutches, every class has them. Anet decided to help some classes by giving several classes their crutches for free, while ele now has to choose between its two most important ones.

Please nerf the completely permanent extremely passive and quite op 20% damage reduction trait. Using this to cover the lack of protection, would be a change, but not one for the better. It is a stupidly passive permanent trait with no counter play other than to range. With elemental attunement you could time your protection for when you needed it and had to worry about boon strip making it much more interesting to play. Reduce the trait to 10-15% and give back elemental attunement at master tier or better yet baseline as it should have always been.

+1!
Can’t believe how much I agree..!

Any of you that say Anets change is going to be fine is completely and utterly wrong. If you pick evasive arcana over elemental attunement sure you can sustain for a few seconds, but you arent going to be able to sustain over long periods of time. If you pick elemental attunement over evasive arcana you are going to lack sustain AND damage. Once again sure you will be able to sustain for a very short period of time, but long term you will suffer. If you want to try and purposely blast your own fields in combat, you arent going to do it nearly as effectively as you once did. TLDR – they want to make you respawn more, and give up more bags in longer fights. They also want to FORCE you to have to run around with an engineer buddy to blast your fields like you once were able to do yourself. I vote we all stand up for ourselves like we did the last time they tried to change this, and we FORCE them to leave it the kitten alone. #ELES UNITE!

All we can do now is hope they see this and realize they’re doing the same thing they almost did last time with elemental attunement and renewing stamina. They listened to reason last time, so maybe there’s hope we can talk sense into them and stop them from doing this. This change will not promote diversity, it will limit it. I dont really feel like having to run around in a boring tanky earth, water, arcane build, like pretty much every ele will be running if this change happens. i’d rather just take arcane and go fire and air. It will be impossible to do that without both elemental attunement and evasive arcana together, because you will have close to no survival with that.

Is it me or we are all hoping that the Tempest spec will save us?

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Is it me or we are all hoping that the Tempest spec will save us?

one can only hope. start saving up mats to make your ascended sword now, since current ele will be crapped all over.

Elemental Attunement needs to be baseline or it needs to be put back in as a Master. Baseline would be my choice. It’s one of the traits that promotes active play for Eles. I’d be really curious as to what Izzy thinks about all of this. Most Elementalist builds use both EAs. They are core to the class when run together at this point. #5 Water staff—> Earth Attunement swap—> #2 Earth Staff—dodge roll double blast heal in PvP is a must for my bunker rotation.

I appreciate the change to Aquatic Benevolence. How about making Elemental Attunement the Base trait before the GM trait in Arcana?

Sans that, I think the changes to Arcana as they were in the stream yesterday take away a lot of what makes the Ele compelling to play.

I think we need more variety in our game play, but that doesn’t mean I want Ele to become less active in combat. It’s one of the most active classes when played properly. It’s very engaging and I would hate to see that change.

In my opinion, Elemental Attunement is too powerful to be a baseline trait. I would sooner suggest Evasive Arcana for such treatment.

I was thinking and I think it would be great if they got rid of Zephyr’s boon, as it’s pretty much useless, put Weak Spot on it place, keep LS where it is and bring back Air Training as a GM minor trait. It would make senese, since Burning Rage is similar and it is a GM minor trait, that would improve the air tree a lot.

Why not just delete elemental contingency and move elemental attunement to that spot and find some crap trait to fill in for the missing grand master because we all know we are going to take evasive arcana over any final trait in that line?

BATMAN.6794:

Why not just delete elemental contingency and move elemental attunement to that spot and find some crap trait to fill in for the missing grand master because we all know we are going to take evasive arcana over any final trait in that line?

Because since both EA’s are crucial for eles, they will have to choose. A great argument, right?

Goodbye Elemental Attunement! You’re not worth Evasive Arcana to me!

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

I have one problem with the principle though. The devs stated that they want to nerf Arcane because it is “too strong”. The truth is that Fire, air, and earth were always way too weak. With the proposed changes earth will be more interesting, arcana will be less interesting (although still very desirable) but fire and air are still lacking. By the same token, many of our skills are terribly weak.

What I wonder now is what my trait setup will be a combination of now. I will always use Evasive Aracana, but now I can spec all the way into water, earth, air, or fire as well. I’m not sure which two I’ll pick to accompany Arcana now.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

In both PvP and WvW (be it zerg fights or roaming) this isn’t really the case. Elemental Attuenment and Evasive Arcana allowed some active gameplay that will no matter how much they tweak the numbers for geomancer’s training be gone.

Other than that I do agree, the arcana line isn’t/wasn’t stupidly OP, it’s more like it’s needed to make most specs viable as most other lines are compared to other classes rather lacking.

| Please don’t make us choose between the two EAs. I’m begging you Anet. Have mercy. Grow a brain.

I vote for Elemental Attunement as Master Trait.
I’m sick with that policy to obliterate elementalist.
I was happy when I first saw the new three GM Traits in one build until I saw Arcana.

† RIP Elementalist †

It does seem like they are beating the elementalists to death with the nerf bat.

I am very glad that these changes will be released before the expansion. TBH, I’m not so excited about it anymore…

I’ve said this before, but here goes:

Renewing Stamina should be the Air Adept Minor trait. Just like Mesmer or Guardian, who get vigor on crit traits as a minor. Who even notices a 10% speed increase? Especially when Signet of Air gives 25%, and near or perma swiftness gives 33%. Zephyr’s Speed is the very definition of a useless trait. Call it Zephyr’s Stamina.

Elemental Attunement should be a baseline ability for the profession, since reliable boon application is the Ele’s only defensive ability, especially since healing nerfs. Unlike every other profession, the Ele has no inherent defensive ability (Stealth for Thieves, illusions for Mesmers, etc.). The trait should modify this inherent ability to spread it to a group. So the Ele inherently generates boons, but has to trait for sharing.

In fact, they could just combine Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement (group) into a single Grandmaster trait, assuming ANet made the logical choice and granted boons on attunement switch a baseline ability.

Laraley.7695:

Velimere.7685:

the krytan assassin.9235:

Elemental Attunement is just a must for D/D builds, evasive arcana is a big loss, but won’t destroy the class.

That is correct.

the krytan assassin.9235:

To compensate for the surviveability lost taking 6 in earth would be the only viable option, so 00666 RIP build diversity.

That is also correct.

the krytan assassin.9235:

Also compared to other classes the ele becomes alot weaker by seeing the all powerful traits of other professions.

This is however incorrect. A flat 20% damage-reduction more than negates the power-creep other classes will experience and will further solidify Celestial D/D into the meta.

Furthermore, even if Elementalists could take both Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana, 00666 Celestial D/D would still be the top PvP spec outshining all other Elementalist specs regardless just because of that flat 20% damage-reduction.

That said, I’m in no way advocating both Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement being Grandmaster traits. It’s my personal opinion that Elemental Contingency should be merged into Elemental Attunement with Evasive Arcana replacing Elemental Contingency as a Master trait.

That is just a potential for 20% damage reduction. Mesmers and rangers will be able to completely bypass that. Compared to other classes, ele got nothing.

It isn’t going to be much use for those of us who play staff either. I try to avoid being in 600 range…

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

I have one problem with the principle though. The devs stated that they want to nerf Arcane because it is “too strong”. The truth is that Fire, air, and earth were always way too weak. With the proposed changes earth will be more interesting, arcana will be less interesting (although still very desirable) but fire and air are still lacking. By the same token, many of our skills are terribly weak.

Geomancer’s defense is situational; I play staff and don’t want to be in 600 range.

The ready-up dev-speak sounded like they want to nerf D/D and are taking a ham-handed approach that will affect everything else by forcing a choice between EAs.

Laraley.7695:

BATMAN.6794:

Why not just delete elemental contingency and move elemental attunement to that spot and find some crap trait to fill in for the missing grand master because we all know we are going to take evasive arcana over any final trait in that line?

Because since both EA’s are crucial for eles, they will have to choose. A great argument, right?

That’s the sorry excuse they used for this nerf for eles, yet contradicted themselves by giving other crucial, always picked traits on other classes as BASELINE or moving the traits around so you didn’t have to decide between 2 good traits and get to take both (like thief being able to take hidden killer AND executioner together now, mes with IP baseline), yet we get to CHOOSE between our crucial traits. Real fair right? Given the changes to other classes, it absolutely should be baseline for ele. That would be more than fair considering the buffs to all the other classes. At the very least, a self only version of it should be baseline and maybe make a stronger version a gm trait that affects allies. Any kind of DPS ele will die with this change. Be prepared to play nothing but boring bunker specs if this goes live, as it will be the only viable thing to play if we cant have both Evasive Arcana and Elemental attunement together. Yay for build diversity! back down to 1 build for eles.

GreyWraith.8394:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

I have one problem with the principle though. The devs stated that they want to nerf Arcane because it is “too strong”. The truth is that Fire, air, and earth were always way too weak. With the proposed changes earth will be more interesting, arcana will be less interesting (although still very desirable) but fire and air are still lacking. By the same token, many of our skills are terribly weak.

Geomancer’s defense is situational; I play staff and don’t want to be in 600 range.

The ready-up dev-speak sounded like they want to nerf D/D and are taking a ham-handed approach that will affect everything else by forcing a choice between EAs.

Yep, it seem like the devs make their design decisions entirely based on D/D, none of the proposed changes will benefit the other weapons. Staff, focus, scepter will still suck IF they go through with these proposed changes. Scepter wll finally be killed in PvP and Staff never had a chance due to slow moving projectiles and the lack of any defensive ability given how few built-in survival tools they have.

Guardians have their blocks, blinds and higher armor, mesmer they reflects, some stealth, clones and higher hp. thiefs have a lot of stealth. Elementalist got nothing other than terrible skills on terribly long CD, with each passing month getting weaker.

Ele seems to getting overnerfed all the time. Can’t even have a decent 1200 range gap closer. Ride the lightening is nerfed from 15 sec to 40 sec. So i have almost stoped playing ele cause of it. And now our evasive arcana which is pretty much mandatory to be able to stay alive with the lowest base health pool in the game.

Well i guess looking at this from a positive aspect, look how things turned out for us in the past. Ele got overnerfed when other classes got buffed, ele fell completely out of the meta, which WILL happen again when these changes go live. Ele was superbuffed surpassing other classes after being out the meta for a long time. It will happen again. We’ll be useless in the next meta, then after the next patch, they’ll overbuff us because they are too dumb to listen to people that actually play the class and change things that dont need to be changed just for the sake of change. Engi will replace staff ele, thief and mes have always been superior to burst ele. We’ll have no place so theyll need to buff us later on if they dont listen to us now.

I don’t like these changes.

I might stop playing the elementalist. Elemental attunement is essential for providing boons to allies, especially protection for when you’re about to push in WvW which is largely overlooked. Not having evasive arcana strips away the fun though, it’s like going from driving a manual to an automatic, you’ll feel like you aren’t doing anything.

If these traits are too powerful, I’d rather see something like a longer cooldown on evasive arcana and keep elemental attunement in a master slot, or have elemental attunement’s boons have a reduced duration, and not touch evasive arcana.

If you need to make a choice between one or the other, they both should be buffed.

If you gave me the option right now to have elemental attunement and evasive arcana, or a 6/6/6 traitline, i would still choose the current setup over an additional 4 traits.

Individually, ranger and guardian are getting potentially more protection uptime (especially meditation guardian, which is tough to fight solo even D/D or S/D), and we’re having to choose between that or evasive arcana.

Ceeps.3185:

Individually, ranger and guardian are getting potentially more protection uptime (especially meditation guardian, which is tough to fight solo even D/D or S/D), and we’re having to choose between that or evasive arcana.

Not only that, ele (not talking about d/d) is already struggling competing with other classes and now with basically every single class being buffed, taking away the most important traits from eles which not only nerfs cele d/d but basically every single weapon set, feels quite unfair imo..

Chris.5720:

Ceeps.3185:

Individually, ranger and guardian are getting potentially more protection uptime (especially meditation guardian, which is tough to fight solo even D/D or S/D), and we’re having to choose between that or evasive arcana.

Not only that, ele (not talking about d/d) is already struggling competing with other classes and now with basically every single class being buffed, taking away the most important traits from eles which not only nerfs cele d/d but basically every single weapon set, feels quite unfair imo..

thats only true in pvp.

FrownyClown.8402:

thats only true in pvp.

In pve anet is making sure staff is the only used weapon.

Our only hope is that they have something cool in the new trait line that compensate for the Arcana nerf.

Xillllix.3485:

Our only hope is that they have something cool in the new trait line that compensate for the Arcana nerf.

Ha…

Kaleban.9834:

I’ve said this before, but here goes:

Renewing Stamina should be the Air Adept Minor trait. Just like Mesmer or Guardian, who get vigor on crit traits as a minor. Who even notices a 10% speed increase? Especially when Signet of Air gives 25%, and near or perma swiftness gives 33%. Zephyr’s Speed is the very definition of a useless trait. Call it Zephyr’s Stamina.

Elemental Attunement should be a baseline ability for the profession, since reliable boon application is the Ele’s only defensive ability, especially since healing nerfs. Unlike every other profession, the Ele has no inherent defensive ability (Stealth for Thieves, illusions for Mesmers, etc.). The trait should modify this inherent ability to spread it to a group. So the Ele inherently generates boons, but has to trait for sharing.

In fact, they could just combine Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement (group) into a single Grandmaster trait, assuming ANet made the logical choice and granted boons on attunement switch a baseline ability.

THIS THIS THIS.

Just put this guy on the payroll.

Really Elemental Attunment should have been put in as the master minor traits and have gotten rid of Lingering Elements since that trait does nothing but waste a minor trait slot.

But this is Anet they do stupid on a recurring bases…

Guys? If you have concerns about the Arcane line, please read this suggestion for Elementalists here.

It frees up a slot so that some existing builds could be made possible again.

I haven’t posted in this subforum in… almost a year and a half since I completely lost faith in Anets ability (actually, it’s Karl Mclain’s ability) to create a fun, balanced elementalist that is rewarding to play since it has a very high mechanical requirement to play and get results with.

That said, these upcoming trait changes make me want to say the same thing I said when they did a livestream by Isaiah Cartwright… this team/person who is in charge of the elementalist has no vision for this class, no passion, no understanding of how this class plays in the current metas in the multitude of playstyle types case in point getting on hit boons/buffs for a class with little to no inherent defense mechanisms. How this makes any sense for any version of an elementalist save a tank one, I do not know. This Lightning Rod + Tempest Defense as a burst elementalist makes no sense, why as a 10K health light armor would I WANT to get hit to to cause lightning strikes….

My points from then stand now (over a year ago):

• Arcana line was not too powerful, other lines were too weak. This has not changed.
• Elemental Attunement is too central to the class as it’s the elementalists crutch, defense mechanism and self buff to reach the damage/heal/survival potential other classes have inherently. This needs to be made baseline where it ONLY affects the player with another GM trait giving it to others and increasing it’s effectiveness (1 might stack to 3, regen from 3 seconds to 6 and so on).
• Other classes do what elementalists do better. This will not change in the upcoming class changes.

I foresee pretty much the same going forward. Tank/bruiser D/D elementalists in PvP/WvW roaming and staff gimmicky press 1/2 in fire for PvE and WvW zerg fests. Fun fun fun. Yes, the tanky/bruiser elementalist did indeed get some very nice buffs, I can see some new synergies between the changes for a good new tank, but that is really it. Being pigeonholed further into a line is just…. dissapointing.

Tempest better save this class. Otherwise, Hidden Killer + Executioner Thief + Greatsword + Sword+Torch Ranger or any meditation guardian here I come.

It’s been 3+ years Anet. I’m waiting for the change where I can have multiple lines on an Elementalist that actually are worth something.

Honestly, when I think about all these nerf I’m thinking: I’ll roll a revenant and will stop playing ele until they buff it again. Revenant has an amazing skill set, why play a class Anet is always bringing down.

I don’t feel the ele was so overpowered that would warrant this change, e.g. having to choose between those two traits. I was actively using both the same time and it gives a dynamic and versatile gameplay, but is by no means overpowered.

To be honest, I’m getting a bit demotivated to play, after seeing anet systematically going through things that I love in the game, and burying them with whatever fancy reason.

Gaab.4257:

To be honest, I’m getting a bit demotivated to play, after seeing anet systematically going through things that I love in the game, and burying them with whatever fancy reason.

I hate to say it, but I feel the exact same way. I have put some much time and money (gem store) into my elementalist. This potential change is just so disheartening, as everyone that plays this profession fully understands how essential both of these traits are. I don’t care if they have buffed Earth Line, losing either of these skills is game breaking.

How do we feel about this forced choice with the upcoming Arcana changes? Is anybody concerned about how Arcana will feel as a traitline once we cannot use both Elemental Attunement/Evasive Arcana? I think moving the Attunement baseline recharges down was a much needed change, but the line in itself feels a bit underwhelming now. Two of the traits right off the bat are too niche to really consider imo (related to falling damage and reviving allies), and there isn’t much incentive to use many of the Arcana traits over anything else that will become available once the changes hit.

If you’d read the forums at all, you’d know that this is unanimously considered to be a massive kitten up by ANet. Yet another in a long tradition of kitten ups with the class.