PvP will still be Water + Arcane
Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement are still core traits. And unless you love having to 100% rely on Ether Renewal, you still need water for conditions. So nothing much has changed.
There does seem to be an air/earth/water auramancer d/f build that will be able to get by with a good amount of prot (due to prot on aura), fury and swiftness, and automatic air procs. However, this build will rely a LOT on passives and probably not appeal to many eles. You MIGHT be able to take air/earth/arcana, but there isn’t a lot of synergy there.
The biggest problem will be that everyone will want water because cantrips are more necessary than ever, and water has the BEST traits in it. Air is missing a minor trait and doesn’t bring much damage, while fire has some pretty weak traits all around.
Same old same old.
I see a lot of people going with Earth/Water with Arcana/Fire/Air/Tempest being the optional lines for PvP/WvW. Most likely Fire/Air/Water for PvE DPS depending on what the Tempest lines bring DPS wise.
Real question is does Aquatic Benevolence make up for the loss of Healing power gained from specing Water (300) and if so does that mean Healing can be skipped on gear? Lotta gearing questions that will be interesting to see how they play out with how much we’re getting. Stat lines used to give a lot of benefits like boon duration, condi duration, condi damage and condi healing that aren’t included in base stats (power, prec, vit, etc) that the +74 won’t cover.
I also agree that Water is without a doubt the best line. It has offensive and defensive traits in it that simply make it superior to other options. The Air/Fire lines are like the worst options for DPS except for every other line we currently have. Which is sad, they’re just badly designed. Just awful lines that aren’t consistent with anything they showcased (crit focused ability in Power line? No DPS trait in Air minor? What?).
Kodiak X – Blackgate