Guild Wars 2

The main problem with our trait trees is that many (and I really do mean many) of the traits only apply when you are in that element. So basically, each trait is only 25% as useful as it could be. OR you can stick with a couple of attunements and get rocked by any monkey with a quick finger.

Fire: I seriously find it difficult to find reason to go over 10 points in this tree. Cantrip might stack is nice but everything else just seems so trash. Even the 30 point trait that everyone wants (the might stack per fire spell cast) is kinda bad since the buff is only for 5 seconds and most fire skills are burst anyway so you wont be casting spells at a very high frequency

Air: Just all around bad. Glyph recharge rate and boon on glyph activation (which doesn’t work with glyph of elementals elite) are nice. Zephyr’s boon is good if you’re running dagger/dagger with oriented around auras. Everything else seems to have so little use.

I could go on but my fellow eles know what im talking about.

I highly dissagree with you. My build, for example gives me, thoughness, healing regeneration, movementspeed boost and fury EVERYTIME I either change attunment or use some kind of shield. I’m using two daggers so I have one shield in Air, water and I can combine the “fire ring” in fire and then switch to earth and use the uhm….“3” skill which gives me the fire shield. So what you are saying here is that as an elementalist you “must” focus on one attunement which i have proven to be false. All my attunements are strong and nwo I’m a “tank” elementalist in all diffrent attunments.

Yeah, I actually find it a problem picking traits because I find them all to be really useful in certain situations, I hate only having 70 trait points, but it makes sense I guess.

agreed, i usually use the same traits over and over and skip more then 50% traits because they are quite useless :/ mainly fire needs a change, maybe even lower tier of air, not sure about earth and water… but arcane is quite fine imo

Ohdear.7286:

I highly dissagree with you. My build, for example gives me, thoughness, healing regeneration, movementspeed boost and fury EVERYTIME I either change attunment or use some kind of shield. I’m using two daggers so I have one shield in Air, water and I can combine the “fire ring” in fire and then switch to earth and use the uhm….“3” skill which gives me the fire shield. So what you are saying here is that as an elementalist you “must” focus on one attunement which i have proven to be false. All my attunements are strong and nwo I’m a “tank” elementalist in all diffrent attunments.

So your build relies on clicking attunements for boons and specifically using air/water attunement shields for more boons? How does this encourage actual use of every attunement and every skill?

The problem with our traits isn’t that they’re that bad, but that for the most part our trait trees are built the wrong way around.

Face it, if you spend only a few points in fire, you’re most likely doing it to get some trait that synergizes with the rest of your build. If you go deep in a air, you’re most likely going to focus on that element, because the air tree synergizes best with the focus of the air attunement spells (crits, spikyness, etc).

However, in the Elementalist’s trait trees, the traits that boost that element the hardest are very early in that tree, and the traits that synergize best with other trees are at the top.

I dunno, it just seems weird to me.

For major traits I could understand, or at least accept that it just works this way. Major traits are a choice, and most people choose to specialize. A warrior might specialize in using hammers for instance, and when he does that, he doesn’t really get to complain that his other weaponset isn’t as powerful, unless he wants to be told to spec for that if he wants it.

For minor traits, though. This is what I believe to a pretty large issue. I feel that our Grandmaster and Adept minor traits should be switched around for the element trees, and then those minor traits should be tinkered with to validate their new spots.

Here’s what I would like to see our minor traits changed to (all trees, save Arcane, which is fine):

Fire

• Adept -Burning Rage – Deal 5% more damage to burning foes.
• Master – Sunspot – Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire.
• Grandmaster – Flame Barrier – You have a 35% chance to cause burning for three seconds whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.

Air

• Adept – Weak Spot – 30% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.
• Master – Electric Discharge – Strike your target with a bolt of lightning when attuning to air.
• Grandmaster – Zephyr’s Speed – Move 20% faster while attuned to air.

Earth

• Adept – Enduring Damage – Deal 5% more damage when your endurance is full.
• Master – Earthen Blast – Damage foes and cripple them for 3 seconds when attuning to earth.
• Grandmaster – Stone Flesh – Gain 2.5 toughness per level while attuned to earth.

Water

• Adept – Bountiful Power – Deal 1% more damage for each boon on you.
• Master – Healing Ripple – Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.
• Grandmaster – Soothing Mist – Regenerate health while attuned to water.

You’re absolutely right, many of the traits are either just awful or are extremely situational. Some are quite nice for example elemental attunement. Some can combo quite well such as the aura stuff. Which Ohdear mentions

Otherwise, there are far too many that state ‘you gain a small bonus if you stay in the same attunement for 3 years’. Or ‘there is a small percentage chance that something completely useless may happen if you put yourself in danger’ cough flame barrier cough. If anything I think flame barrier deserves an award for most dire trait imaginable.

“You have a 20% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.”

…. then the fact that there is a major trait that ‘improves’ this awful trait if you stay attuned to fire. Why would you want to get hit? It only triggers on melee. It’s absolutely horrendous. When you begin comparing these traits to other professions, you begin to see how lacklustre they are.

Another example would be the ‘20% recharge reduction traits’, in which other professions receive an additional bonus.

They’re just extremely dull.

I agree. There are a number of useless traits. Maybe not useless… but unjustifiable when compared with some of the other traits.

I think elementalist trait trees and locations needs refinement. For example:

- Spell cooldown reduction trait should NOT be element specific.
There should be a trait slot within Arcana that reduces ALL spell cooldowns by X%. The percentage could be reduced to 10% as it would now be global but could also stack with other cooldown reduction traits such as “Cantrip Mastery” which reduces cantrips cooldowns by 20%.

- ALL traits (1-12) should be accessible in all 3 trait slots (Adept, Master, Grandmaster).
These should really just compliment whatever build you wish to use.

- Character/Build customisation is too linear
Less restrictions = more creativity. At the moment, its a fairly restrictive system. Also, the current system where, the further you go up a trait line the better the traits become (in theory anyway) has actually created this distinct line between GOOD and BAD traits.

- FINALLY, Re-mastering your traits should be FREE and customizable outside of battle.
I don’t understand why this needs to be another money sink. One of the reasons I LOVED Guild Wars 1 was how easy it was to customise your character and at no expense. Guild wars 2 has so many unforgiving systems set in place… and for what?
Character customisation should have not be one of these.

Sevati.6724:

Elementalist is very situational, imho. You have to spec for the situation and the weapon choice to be moderately effective. You also need a lot of gear to back it up.

I find it as a profession the poorest of all of them, and the most difficult to play well. Dagger/Dagger is a pleasure in PvE and sPvP. In groups its not very good, like in dungeons or WvW. It requires deft finger skills and near constant attunement changes. Staff abilities are poor and purely a support weapon for WvW and Dungeons for healing and for assorted buffs and aoe’s if you manage to get them off while someone is attacking you. You can’t move with all the abilities or they get cancelled. You don’t even have to dodge to avoid nearly every elementalist staff ability, you can just walk since the animations and cast times are so slow on all the good staff damage based abilities.

Others professions seem a bit more balanced in trait and weapon abilities and with respect to sloppy play habits, as well as, instant cast/hit times for dps moves. Their trait choices complement other professions across a wider range of builds and playstyles. This is not true for the elementalist, imho. I think most people assume it to be a nuking class, it can be with exotic gear, but anything less and its sub par.

The profession as a whole needs a serious make over from cast times and recharge times on skills, utility skills, and traits.

I could go on

No you couldn’t. We all know that 80% of air and fire traits are crap. On the other hand, 90% of all arcane traits are good, as are the majority of water traits and about half of the earth traits.

Scribbles.7493:

The problem with our traits isn’t that they’re that bad, but that for the most part our trait trees are built the wrong way around.

Face it, if you spend only a few points in fire, you’re most likely doing it to get some trait that synergizes with the rest of your build. If you go deep in a air, you’re most likely going to focus on that element, because the air tree synergizes best with the focus of the air attunement spells (crits, spikyness, etc).

However, in the Elementalist’s trait trees, the traits that boost that element the hardest are very early in that tree, and the traits that synergize best with other trees are at the top.

I dunno, it just seems weird to me.

That’s because with [Lingering Elements], the 15 points minor Arcane Power trait, you’re supposed to retain those boni after you swapped attunements; however that trait is currently bugged and doesn’t work on all boni.
You can either choose to spend more points into a specific trait line to get traits that affect all attunements, or spend 15 points in Arcane Power to make prior attunement-specific traits affect more than one.

Traits should works with 2 attunements, not only with 1.
Other classes have traits used by 100% of the game time (elem also) or by 50% – bonuses to a variety of weapons – but we have a bonus fot the 25% of the time game – bonuses while attuned to specific att.
So I think this is one of the reasons why elem traits are so bad.
sry fo my english

I agree. When I rerolled another class (my first and main is an ele) I was amazed at how every trait (both major and minor) seemed to make me go… “ooo”. Never got that with the ele traits. Most of the time with ele traits I say… “eh”.

Think that’s the problem.

Other classes got their weapon specific traits reworked at the very end of beta to be more versatile.

For example:

All offhand weapon cooldowns reduced by 20%, rather than mentioning a specific weapon.

or

Hammer abilities have a 20% reduced cooldown and deal 25% more damage to stunned (incapacitated?) opponents.

Shortbow and longbow cooldowns reduced by 20%

For ele, it’s just a 20% cooldown reduction to fire/water/earth/air for a major trait. Fire is one of our 4 weapons, compared to 2 weapons for most classes. So, not only do we get less of an effect, it only applies to 1/4 of our weapons.

Not only do we have a lot of bad traits and few truly synergistic options, but lets not forget the fact that a lot of our traits are extremely buggy. The whole situation is irritating to say the least.