Guild Wars 2

On Saturday, I made a post on the necromancer forums (Here). The result was over 300 posts, a 30 minute video and tons of links to other posts. I’ve sent in that report and I’m still monitoring it, but I wanted to move on to another class and get their feedback. It looks like the next most upset would be the elementalist.

So again, I’ll be posting my report on the forums as I make it. I’m just recovering from a pretty bad fever, so there’s nothing to post just yet!

Here’s what I want to see:

1. If you have old posts with suggestions, link to them and I’ll include it.
2. If you have ideas for reworks, post them here.
3. If you have a build type that you’ve always wanted to see for elementalist, post it!
4. You don’t need to work with what they gave you. Feel free to completely make up your own traits!
5. While I am the PvP Forum Specialist, I’ll try to include everything I can, even if it dips into PvE and WvW.

There is literally no better time to get your feedback in. These traits are prototypes. Engineer wasn’t even in the GAME when they showed it to us. If you want to shape elementalist, now is the time to do it.

This is a list of posts I strongly believe deserve the dev’s attention, all for a better future of this profession:

Diamond skin Rework
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Rework-to-Diamond-Skin/first#post5015890

Elemental Attunement should not be a GM
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elemental-Attunement-should-NOT-be-a-GM/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/No-more-Elemental-Attunement-Evasive-Arcana/first

Ether renewal as cantrip
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Theorycraft-Ether-Renewal-as-Cantrip/first#post5014309

Powerful Aura
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Theorycraft-Auramancer-Unbound/first#post5008264

Signets Rework
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Small-Signet-Rework-Idea/first#post5016645

Glyph Rework
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/What-will-fix-glyphs-for-you/first#post5016764

Powerful Aura should also include giving aura whenever you switch attunement.

Because the traits that grants aura, tempest defense and frost aura, requires being hit which isn’t what support ele should be about. It is also passive and I can’t control when I get an aura.

If I can get an aura whenever I switch attunements, I feel that aurashare will be much more competitive.

I actually think now that AE is Grand Master and Aura share in general, to be really effective in their real place of use (PVP, since most pves end up sticking in fire and blasting for might) the range really needs to be bumped up to 480-600 on both Elemental Attunement and Aura Share. Having to melee-support your guys would be fine in PVE were its normal to stack, but realistically for them to be useful they should get a bit of a radius boost.

Good guy, The Gates Assassin. Thanks for doing this.

My analysis of the changes from multiple perspectives:

Fire line: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion/page/2#post5015296

Air line: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion/page/2#post5015443

Earth line: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion/page/2#post5015484

Water line: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion/page/2#post5015517

Arcana line: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion/page/2#post5015562

Analysis of weapon capability: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalists-Specializations-Trait-Changes/first#post5002890

Proposed changes to Diamond Skin: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Rework-to-Diamond-Skin

Request: Please give us more active and useful traits. You are making the class braindead to play b/c a staggering number of traits are auto-procs on-hit/crit (3), on reaching a health/condition threshold (3), on delivering a hit/crit (5), or straight passive increases (14). Compare these to how interactive and fun warrior traits, which open up new doors and stimulate the imagination. At the same time, you are removing the ability to take both Elemental attunement and evasive arcana, which are very active.

Elemental attunement-gate v3: In regards to the whole “elemental attunement at GM” vs Evasive Arcana: this change doesn’t represent 2 different play-styles. Both traits fill the same role of defense +utility, and choosing them will simply be min/maxing rather than opening up new doors. Elemental attunement is GM-level in terms of power, but its 100% core to how the class should play. Not only does it feel wrong not to have it, but it gives some of the base survival capabilities to make up for the low health/armor. The BEST option is to make the boons from ele attunement given baseline at a lower duration than currently. The GM-level minor should make them aoe and slightly longer duration. This makes attunements have an actual benefit given all the negatives having 20 weapon skills causes (they have longer CD’s and less power than average classes, all utilities have unreasonably long CD’s b/c of “so many weapon skills”, and most auto-attacks are so bad because eles can “just constantly spam weapon skills”).

Later I’ll post suggestions for some trait changes and additions, meanwhile I leave my suggestions to make our elite more meaningful in PvP:

Tornado

-Currently the knockback occurs every 3s , reduce the pulse to 2s
-Add a 4th skill on tornado bar : 2s CD – Pull foes
-Add a 5th skill on tornado bar : 4s CD – Reflect projectiles for 2s

Glyph of elementals

-Water elemental = remove the long casting animation, the elemental will be dead before doing anything or you[’ll be dead way before the healing get off
-Earth elemental = increase radius of stomp from 240 to 320

There is no reason why the class with the lowest HP, armor should need ON hit trait.
Mesmer have their clones.
Thieves have their stealth
Elementalist currently have nothing except aura on a long CD and in theory boons. This means elemental attunement should be slightly weaken but class baseline just like what mesmer currently have. Aura traits should reduce the CD for auras significantly and add more weapons to gain aura.

The effects of signets and gylph should be improve they currently do not provide any significant benefits for cantrip.

Fire and air trait line should be improve.

For lulz why not improve the projectile speed for the elementalist staff and reduce CD for all skills. Thanks to Stronghold, staff ele might finally have a chance.

Most of the new traits only seem beneficial to playing d/d and not staff or scepter.

Ele is going to be really badly broken in upcoming changes

• Upcoming GM trait line of AIR is broken

• Upcoming GM trait line of Arcane is broken

Proposed changes are a serious nerf to the Elementalist in WvW/PvP/PvE

silvermember.8941:

There is no reason why the class with the lowest HP, armor should need ON hit trait.
Mesmer have their clones.
Thieves have their stealth
Elementalist currently have nothing except aura on a long CD and in theory boons. This means elemental attunement should be slightly weaken but class baseline just like what mesmer currently have. Aura traits should reduce the CD for auras significantly and add more weapons to gain aura.

The effects of signets and gylph should be improve they currently do not provide any significant benefits for cantrip.

Fire and air trait line should be improve.

For lulz why not improve the projectile speed for the elementalist staff and reduce CD for all skills. Thanks to Stronghold, staff ele might finally have a chance.

Most of the new traits only seem beneficial to playing d/d and not staff or scepter.

I think Ele should have on hit traits, but on the Earth Magic tree. That line is made for defense and tankiness.

Thank you for doing this! Copy-pasting my thoughts from another thread:

Fire: This line gets a lot of hate, but I think it’s pretty solid, and has potential. Especially love the changes to Blinding Ashes and One with Fire. My biggest issues with it are the minors:

Flame Barrier: I like the new functionality, but this needs to be refined to work with Lingering Elements.

Sunspot: I’d like to see this have its radius significantly increased, so that non-melee Eles can get some use out of it too.

Air: This line is taking a substantial nerf with Bolt to the Heart becoming a Grandmaster. There are a few problematic traits IMO:

Zephyr’s Speed: Redundant. With Eles’ ease of access to Swiftness and the ubiquity of Signet of Air (which will undoubtedly be used more due to how awesome Earth Magic now is,) this trait is a waste of a minor. Needs to be reworked, and needs to play well with Lingering Elements.

Ferocious Winds: This trait is very pointless, and IMO one of the worst traits in the entire game. An Ele specializing in Healing will hardly ever need Ferocity. What combination would such an Ele even use? There is no Healing Power/Precision/Ferocity combination, and even if this existed, it’s not like heals can crit (although IMO that’d be awesome.)

Inscription: Glyphs granting a boon on use is a mediocre effect on a class that has decent access to boons already. If it were changed to Glyphs remove a condition on use (including the Elemental command skills,) I think it would go a long way towards making Gylphs usable; however, even this is problematic because Glyphs are meant to be used often, while you would typically want to save condi cleanses. This trait still needs a bit of refining either way IMO.

Bolt to the Heart: To compensate for being moved to Grandmaster level, I think the health threshold should be 50%. This would make it the Ele version of Executioner, and would be balanced by the fact that you can’t also take Fresh Air anymore.

Earth: This line is amazing now! Besides the fact that I hate Diamond Skin, I only have one minor suggestion:

Rock Solid: This is a great trait, but I’d like it to grant more than 1 stack of stability for just the Ele. 2 is probably best.
(continued)

(continued from above)

Water: Continues to be a great line. Love Soothing Ice.

Piercing Shards: I’d love to see the damage modifier work in all Attunements. This would promote synergy with Weak Spot and burst builds in general, and also helps promote Water Magic as a DPS line, complementing Bountiful Power.

Aquatic Benevolence: I hate that this is a minor trait. It has absolutely no benefit for the Ele itself, while being a build-defining trait. This, to me, is the essence of a Grandmaster MAJOR trait. Any Ele who doesn’t spec into Healing Power (i.e. the vast majority of Eles) will have absolutely no benefit from this trait. Even Healing Eles will not be able to benefit from the increased healing. So I don’t know why we’re being forced into taking this waste of a trait slot. Better to leave it as a major trait, and reinstating Bountiful Power as the Grandmaster minor.

Powerful Auras: NEEDS to affect auras gained from ALL sources and not just weapon skills; otherwise, Auramancers will never really be a thing.

Arcana: Taking a big nerf with Elemental Attunement becoming a Grandmaster, competing with Evasive Arcana. The Master tier is severely lacking for good options.

Lingering Elements: I’m very torn about this trait. On the one hand, I love how cohesive it makes the class feel: swapping attunements feels very good when you have the lingering Adept minor from the previous attunements still active. On the other hand, this one trait makes all our Adept minor traits fairly crappy to avoid power creep. Besides, the new Flame Barrier doesn’t even work with Lingering Elements. I’d be in favor of buffing/reworking our other minor Adepts and doing away entirely with Lingering Elements, but this may be hard to do at this point.

Elemental Contingency: On-hit traits for the class with the lowest health and armor in the game is a bad, bad idea. This trait also discourages active defense. Rework it entirely.

Final Shielding: The cooldown on this could use shaving.

Arcane Precision: I think this is a joke of a Grandmaster minor trait. Abysmal trigger chance on top of only triggering on crits. Builds that don’t stack Precision will almost never see a benefit from this trait. I suggest upping the trigger chance for any attack (not just crits.)

Other thoughts:

-I really think that a self-only version of Elemental Attunement should be a baseline mechanism of the class, possibly with shorter prot/regen boon durations. The argument Anet made was that they believe both EAs are build-defining traits and therefore need to be mutually exclusive. Yet (not to pick on the Mesmer, but), they made Illusionary Persona (a build-defining trait) inherent to the Mesmer. A self-only Elemental Attunement would in no way be build-defining, and would give the class an in-built active defense mechanism. The Grandmaster version could then extend the duration of the boons conferred, and extend the effect to allies. Alternatively, the self-only version of Elemental Attunement could replace Arcane Precision.

-We need a good trait to replace the Vigorous Scepter and Windborne Dagger traits.

-Please consider making Attunement swap (only) immune to Chill. Chill does not affect weapon swap for any other class. Yes, we have good access to condi cleanses, but with classes like Reaper getting spammable Chill, I am afraid our condi cleanses will simply not be able to keep up.

Skill Feedback:

Conjures: Clunky and gimmicky to use, and with the upcoming nerfs to LH and FB, in danger of never again being slotted. I get why the nerfs were needed, but all they will do is make sure no one ever equips these again. They are useful precisely because of certain “OP” fire-and-forget skills (LH 1, FB 4+5); holding onto them for any of their other skills is worse than just using our Attunement skills. Not to mention, the weapons have a cast time and do not break stun/cure condis, so are automatically inferior to other utilities.
-Not to mention, the supposed damage buff to FGS skill 4 only affected the tooltip, and not the actual damage.

Gylphs: Storms seriously needs a cooldown reduction, as most people in PvP are smart enough to stay out of AoE. Elementals besides the Earth elemental need survivability buffs.

Fire Shield (Focus Fire skill 5): does not deserve its long cooldown; the reworked Flame Barrier is better than this skill now. Either reduce its cooldown or give it additional functionality (block? boon strip when struck?)

Phoenix (Scepter Fire skill 3): could use improved pathing; if used on an enemy above/below you, it never returns to you

Shatterstone (Scepter Water skill 2) and Ice Spike (Staff Water skill 2): WAY too easy to walk right out of. Either lower casting animation time or have them do an AoE chill while charging up.

Magnetic Grasp/Leap (Dagger Earth skill 3): Misses easily.

And last but not least:

RIDE THE LIGHTNING (Dagger Air skill 4): PLEASE remove the cooldown penalty! Or at least remove the penalty if it is dodged/evaded/misses (i.e., penalty only applies if used as an escape, NOT as a gap closer.)

As it stands, the nerf to Elemental Attunement is going to completely wreck the class build diversity, but it’s there to address a core issue of it being somewhat overpowered combined with the cele ele build.

What I’d suggest as an alternative to simply forcing us to drop one active trait in favour of passive ones, is that the trait be removed altogether.
As a replacement, attach each boon proc to the grandmaster minor trait in it’s respective trait line, thus limiting our access to 3 of them, or 2 of them + Evasive Arcana.
What this will do is take the defensive boon procs away from burst specs, while allowing hybrid/bunker builds to maintain their defensiveness, while limiting their access to offensive/utility boons.
It’ll also allow PvE players to have access to the swiftness proc without going deep in arcana, something that i’m going to guess would be a pure QoL improvement for them, with no real balance impact.

All in all, I think changing Elemental Attunement to be tied to the individual lines would help define ele builds to a greater extent, without forcing every ele into passive auto-proc based builds.

The obvious counterargument to this is that protection and regen (combined with cleansing water) are both far more powerful than might or swiftness.
This is a truth with some modifications, swiftness is incredibly important to maintain, both for map mobility in sPvP, and as a cover boon, helping to ensure thieves don’t get at your might using Steal/Sword 3.

Hi Raine! Thank you so much for doing this. It means a lot to us to know that there is some one listening. I have a long post about Ele Weapon Skills. Please take a look. I don’t expect you to implement everything, however, I hope that you can improve a few things:

• Staff animations must be faster to be viable in pvp
• Staff should have more burst combo
• Scepter should have more mobility/some way to disengage
• Ride the Lightning should be based on whether a target is selected, not based on whether the skill missed/evaded/blocked

Full text here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Ele-Weapon-Skills-A-constructive-feedback/first#post5017379

Agreed with most things above, but if I had to pick few that hurts me most(of the top of my head) are:

Elementalists needs ELITE skill that is worth calling ELITE none of things we have now comes even close to it, we’ve been on it since release or even before! And our calls were not heard.

We have 2x more skills then other classes, but what good does it make us if they have twice the cooldown and half of them are just bad(for example firewall, fireshield, most auto attacks, scepter water 2)

RTL – used to be fun skill, almost signature ele skill. As it is now its just meh. Cooldown needs to be reduced

Minor traits: make them matter, they have to be useful for ele that has them, not dead weight(Zephyr’s Speed, Aquatic Benevolence)

General Trait Feedback

The biggest frustration I have with the new trait system is that we continue to be balanced thematically.

What that means is instead of having a very clear “This is the Condition line. This is the Aura line. This is the…” that most classes seem to have many traits we have are spread out all over because they go with their respective Attunements. Burning must be Fire. Bleeds must be Earth. Protection on Auras is Earth. Auras and traits that boost Auras are spread out over four specializations two of which (Air/Earth) are just boons on Aura.

This is incredibly frustrating as a player and I don’t think you should continue to balance this way. Elementalist should be looked at and each line made consistent with two Focuses and a utility trait per tier. Water is probably the best example of this and bravo to the design on the new Water line. It has two focuses: Damage (Piercing Shards, Aquamancer Training, Bountiful Power) and Defense (Soothing Ice, Cleansing Wave, Cleansing Water) and Utility (Stop Drop and Roll, Soothing Disruption and Powerful Aura). Beautiful and you guys did a fantastic job with this line.

What needs to happen is this same kind of design needs to happen in the other Specs of two focused areas and then utility.

1. Earth or Fire should be made the Condi line and the rest moved out. There are many ways to do this and keep the spirit of things. For example if you choose Earth, you can easily make Burning Precision now called “Molten Slivers” that X% chance on applying Bleed you also apply Burning and Y% chance on Burning you apply Bleed. You can swap out “Written in Stone” (now “Seared Sigils”) and “Blinding Ashes” which provides greater synergy with Conjurer. “Strength of Stone” could be renamed “Toxic Earth” and add in a Poison effect to the mix. Elemental Shielding should be merged into Powerful Auras (creating a clear Fire/Air/Water Aura build).

2. This is going to sound crazy but I think Inscriptions should be in the Arcane focused line and Arcane Skill boosts in the Air line. The reason for this is simply that Glyphs are all attunements where Arcane skills are primarily Crit damage and it’s more a matter of functionality than theme. This is going to be a bit of a ride but follow me here: First we take Bolt to the Heart out of GM and move it down to Adept with it being 150 Ferocity when target below 33% health (even at 50% crit that’s roughly a 5% damage increase which is a T1 trait worthy for only 1/3rd health). We remove Inscription and replace it with Final Shielding (add something else to it, cause it’s a poor choice at the moment regardless of where it is). Then we take Arcane Energy, put it as a the GM Trait but now make it so Blast Finishers now add Fury and removing this benefit from Persisting Flames (which is a Power based line).

3. Oh Fire, we’ve taken so much from you! Persisting Flames can be dropped to Adept now (Lava Tomb + 2s fire field). Conversion Trait should be more Power focused rather than Condi. One with Fire is moved to Grandmaster tier and now adds a pulsating Fire effect to Fire Aura (think Grawl Shaman Fractal kinda effect only against enemies!). A new Master trait is added to Master line that’s Conjure related (see below for Conjure revamp link). This turns the line into a Signet/Aura and Power based line with a few utilities here and there.

4. Arcane. So long as Renewing Stamina is a trait, it’s going to be picked and really should just be made into a Minor such with Arcane Precision and then the 15% reduction added to Lingering Elements. Inscription would go in place of Final Shielding. A new boon focused trait should go in place of Renewing Stamina. The big change is Lingering Elements and making it work with all skills and utilities. The biggest example is Glyphs. If you are in Fire and swap to Water, using Glyph of Storms will produce a storm that is a mix of Cold and Fire (but same max total of bolts). If you do the same and use a Lesser Elemental you would summon a Fire and Ice elementals (but only half the duration). This breathes life into something like Glyphs and makes Lingering Elements useful and a kind of new way to play the character. This is consistent and makes everything Crit, Arcane and utility focused.

Regardless of what is decided, the class lines need to be made consistent. I realize this may not always jive thematically but skills can always be renamed after the fact.

Conjures
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Problematic-Conjures/first#post5006424

Basically remake Conjures into buffs rather than throw away weapons because no matter what they do their current design they are problematic.

Can we please get some changes to our elite skills to make them actually worth using? There’s nothing elite about them currently. In duels, i’ll always take my racial skills instead because they’re just flat out better than the class elites. Racial elites are better than our class elites! Elite skills on other classes are game changers. They can shift the odds in your favor in an outnumbered fight. Ours…..not so much.

FGS is terrible in an actual fight, it lowers your dps by using it. Its only good for running away. An elite that lets us run away the way a warrior can without having to burn an elite skill hardly feels elite worthy to me. The damage needs a buff. the #2 is pretty crappy. Maybe you can change it to make a lava font or a fiery 100b that also burns?

The elementals are crap too. They die way too easily and barely do any damage. They need health and damage pumped up.

Tornado is just a big suicide button. Maybe you can change it into a glyph and make it an elite glyph of storms? Its terrible as a transformation skill since it just makes you a gigantic target. I’d rather have a ground targeted tornado i can drop somewhere as an area denial spell. If you insist on keeping it a transform though, you should be invulnerable or atleast take reduced damage and reflect projectiles while doing it. And it should suck things in as well just not knock down, its a tornado after all.

Right now our elites are just the worst out of all classes. They need to be game changing skills that shift the battle into your favor like supply crate, or moa, thieves guild, or rampage which are pretty much instant win buttons in a 1 on 1 fight.

At the risk of being too qq about it. I feel like the entire rebalance is designed to really push auras and random procs. My perspective is entirely as a WvW player.

Active vs. Passive
No one plays an elementalist because they want to sit back and let things happen. Instead, playing elementalist is a quick dance across the keyboard and mouse all the time. The change have way too many passives.

Random Procs
Random procs are terrible for gameplay. 20% chance to get a fire aura when you go into fire is only reasonable in a big unfocused WvW zerg, it’s just bonus damage. You can’t rely on it. For PvP and roaming, it’s useless (note: mesmers have a random procing problem much more than ele’s.)

Auras
As people have pointed out, ele’s are the squishiest class. You don’t want to take hits at all. Aura’s only work if you get hit. The only way an aura build makes any sense at all is with the protection on aura trait and / or the 20% damage reduction in melee. But that means a heavy investment in the earth line. To be useful, I think Aura’s need to be enhanced as a base to provide some kind of damage mitigation while they are up.

Trait Lines
I hadn’t thought of this before, but I want to +1 the mess that is the elementalists trait lines. It does make things really spread out (look at the aura traits, for example). It hasn’t been a problem so far because either people took traits to maximize damage multipliers or to go tanky.

Conjure Weapons
Nerfing the only conjure weapons that anyone uses only means that no one will use conjure weapons. I mean, why bother if it’s no better than what you already have. The weapons could be reworked to make up for something lacking the elementalist core build (as we only get 1 weapons). For example, Dagger elementalists lack a ranged attack. Scepter elementalists lack cleaving attacks. Staff elementalists lack close melee abilities. The ice bow gives range. The Hammer has a cleave and is melee. The flame axe can be a hybrid fast melee / short ranged weapon. However, as it stands, the charges and cooldown makes it unviable to use the weapons this way.

Edit: however, for the conjure to work, they need to be treated like real weapons, with fields, finishers, utility, and cooldowns consistent with those other classes have.

Mostly aimed towards playing ele in PvP and WvW: playing elementalist should involve active gameplay. The thing that makes playing ele fun is that the class is so versatile. We have the lowest health and armor pool of all the classes in GW2 and also our damage isn’t as great as it used to be and yet thanks to boons we can temporarily improve our damage/tankiness/sustain.
This is something I want to see more off. Eles don’t have any real defensive mechanisms like stealth or blocks so more active gameplay is needed that grants boons or similar stuff.

While d/d is atm in a fairly good spot in PvP, staff lacks. I personally love playing staff elementalist and I’d love to see some incentives to play this spec more often.

@Traits: Adding a few new traits for survivability (which aren’t even viable for like half the weapon sets in the first place) and making these traits totally needed on most setups doesn’t enhance build variety. While a trait that reduces damage within 600 range may be nice for d/d, specs like staff elementalist can’t really use that.

In addition, the “proc on hit” traits need a rework. Traits that activate something upon being hit don’t make a lot of sense on the squishies class. How much is a trait like this gonna do against any class that can take like 1/3 or even more of your health with one attack..? This traits should be on warriors or guardians, not on eles. I’d much rather see more traits that activate upon me hiting/criting something.

@Elites: We need buffs here: Tornado is, especially after the stab changes really underwhelming. 1 stack of stab every 3 seconds makes it unuseable in PvP and WvW and the skills within Tornado are very week aswell. Stronger attacks would be amazing.

Fiery Greatsword: While FGS is in a better spot than Tornado I’d prefer if there was another real use other than for mobility. The AoE attack is weak and the radius too small. Increasing the damage to match it with the elites of the other classes would be great.

@Arcana Line: Elemental Attunement should be baseline and only give boon to yourself. In addition to that a new trait that makes the boons being applied within a radius with maybe a longer duration. EA and Evasive Arcana have so much synergy and allow the awesome active gameplay us eles need and love.

@Conjure Weapons and Glyphs: Glyphs are too weak for their long c/ds and most conjure weapons are hardly being used due to not being as effective as they could be. With Icebow and Lightning Hammer being nerfed, the last two decent conjure weapons will probably disappear out of most builds.

That’s what I suggested initially, too. Since elementalists are so squishy to the core and Arcana was the boon line I suggested something like:

Attunements grant Might/Regen/Swiftness/Protection baseline (slightly lower duration).

Elemental Attunement: Increase boon duration by 20% and attunements also grant their boons to allies in a 480 radius. (240 radius is a joke).

Also, bump the Aura share to 480 so its more useful, and primary buff traits would have consistent ranges and a decent enough reach to be useful in PVP.

I’ll be adding WAY more to this later when I get home.

• Ride the Lightning needs to be reverted to the standard 20 second ability with no hit/miss mechanic. Even brought to a 25 second cooldown so that the Air skill recharge trait wont bring it lower would give the fun back into the elementalist.

• Proposed changes to Elemental Attunement will pigeon hole builds more. The proposed change to making the trait GM is based upon the fact that the trait is powerful, which it indeed is. However, it is only powerful because the class requires the boons that the trait generates for basic survival, damage and healing. This change will not bring the build diversity we seek, but will make players choose traits they will not necessarily want (staff elementalist for instance does not need Renewing Stamina) just to get the boons the class so desperately needs. The boon generation from Elemental Attunement defines how the class plays and feels. There is no elementalist without Elemental Attunement. The trait should be made baseline and ONLY affect the elementalist with the GM trait buffing the duration and power of the boon and making it AoE.

• Weapon skills require passing over. Things have ridiculously long cooldowns (such as Fire Grab) that are also still having wonky effects on the z axis. Also, with proposed changes to Fresh Air/Bolt to the Heart/Air Training things like Scepter will have their power gutted from them.

• Aura Share and Elemental Attunement range are a joke. Bump this up to 480.

• Burst builds were already a joke in WvW. The change to RTL made it so that elementalist could no longer roam properly. These new changes make it so the burt builds will be gutted with the lack of modifiers and actually useful traits.

• Condition builds still suffer. Condition traits should be all about adding other conditions, currently an elementalist can only give out burning and bleeding.

• Glyphs are terrible. They always have been terrible. Long cooldowns, terrible effects.

• If you want to add in defensive traits in the Air or Fire line to promote build diversity, the answer is to add interesting mechancis to them such as on crit gain an absorption shield based on the damage done. This makes a DPS elementalist want to do what it’s supposed to do, do damage and go after its next fight to stay in the fray. Not back off and run away while whimpering in water for regen.

• Remove all the on hit mechanics and put them into the earth trait line. No other spec save a tank elementalist will want to be constantly hit to generate boons.

• A chance on a chance to gain stuff, fire aura that is terrible to begin with and adds nothing, a cleanse that is 1 time every 40 seconds that can be triggered off of vulnerability. This line needs help and cleaning up. This is the line that needs damage modifiers such as under might deal more damage, burning foes take more damage. Crits now make your opponent explode in a cleansing fire which grants you regen/cleanses/does damage.

• Air line needs damage modifiers as well and the useless skills cleaned up. Traits like Zephyrs Speed needs to be removed and reworked completely, it’s a joke. Don’t get me started on Ferocious Winds I can’t believe it was ever a thought to make this scale off of healing power. Introduce talents such as after every 5th air skill cast your next non-air skill (to prevent using it on the air lightning strike) is an automatic critical hit.

• Glyph of Elemental power is a stun break – change this it was not necessary. I understand you wanted to give glyph builds a stunbreak without going into a cantrip but its counter intuitive to the usage of the glyph. There is no “hmm do I choose this for damage or do I save it for a stun break”. People just won’t run it. It’s not dependable, it’s not fun. The glyph gives nothing that you as an elementalist can’t already generate, but since it only adds a little more extra it will just sit there waiting for use. Lower the cooldown and buff the effect it does and MAYBE it could be that item you want. As is, it’s useless.

Raif.9507:

• Proposed changes to Elemental Attunement will pigeon hole builds more. The proposed change to making the trait GM is based upon the fact that the trait is powerful, which it indeed is. However, it is only powerful because the class requires the boons that the trait generates for basic survival, damage and healing. This change will not bring the build diversity we seek, but will make players choose traits they will not necessarily want (staff elementalist for instance does not need Renewing Stamina) just to get the boons the class so desperately needs. The boon generation from Elemental Attunement defines how the class plays and feels. There is no elementalist without Elemental Attunement. The trait should be made baseline and ONLY affect the elementalist with the GM trait buffing the duration and power of the boon and making it AoE.

I love how as a class dependent on boons the developer constantly find ways to take away all our toys w/o giving us other ways to get it like boon stealing.

Idea for Conjure weapons

Completely overhaul it.

Instead, when you press Conjure skills, it automatically uses the skill and then drop a single conjure weapon. When an ally picks it up, there will only be one skill and it will consume only one charge. That means, if the ally uses the only one skill on the bar, the conjure weapons will break.

Conjure Fire Axe- Uses Explosive Lava axe
Conjure Ice Bow- uses Deep Freeze or Ice storm.
Conjure Lightning Hammer- uses Static Field or lightning storm.
Conjure Earth Shield- Uses Fortify.
Fiery GS- Uses Fiery Rush Which the leap distance would be buffed.

Traits- Conjurer: Gain a Fire Aura for 5s when an ally picks up a conjurer weapon or you use a signet; there will be an Altar for Conjure weapons dropped on the ground that would last 20 seconds. Infinite amount of allies can pick up a conjure weapon from that.

However, the activated skills have a long cooldown(60 secs). So the same ally or you cannot pick it up and then use Explosive Lava axe again. But if five allies uses it, it will bring powerful effects. Most people use conjure weapons for one skill only and then they drop it.

For PvE, this would bring a Conjure ele playstyle depending on if the damage is good. Five players using Ice storm/Lightning Storm + Lava axe + Fiery gs leap. Five party members uses it and then do devastating damage. In PvP, a ele could drop a earth shield to keep a friend alive.

Here are my ideas. There is a comment on all changed trait explaining what I did.

improvement of scepter skills and traits for berserk ele

elementalist:

flame strike (scepter auto: fire):
casting time reduced from 1.25s to 0.75s, burning duration reduced from 2s to 1.5s.

dragon’s tooth (scepter #2: fire):
this skill is a ground target skill now.

shatterstone (scepter #2: water):
applys 1s second of chill per pulse (3 pulses) in the area. cooldown increased to 10s from 2s.

lightning strike (scepter #2: air):
the skill will stay instacast but will get a 0,25s wind up time before it hits the target, producing black clouds around the target.

stone shards (scepter auto attack: earth):
casting time reduced from 1.5s to 0.75s, bleeding duration reduced from 6s to 3s.

obsidian flesh (focus #5: earth):
cooldown reduced to 45 from 50s.

arcane shield:
cooldown reduced from 75s to 60s.

mist form:
cooldown reduced from 75s to 65s.

glyph of elemental harmony:
cooldown reduced from 25s to 20s, casting time reduced from 1.25s to 1s.
protection duration increased from 3s to 6s.

cantrip mastery: water III
(currently cd reduction of cantrips) new: additionally increases the range of lightning flash from 900 to 1200.

fresh air: air XII
when this trait activates, black clouds will be generated around the player to indicate that the air attunement is off cooldown now.

feel free to discuss

Jekkt.6045:

dragon’s tooth (scepter #2: fire):
this skill is a ground target skill now.

Alternatively, keep the same windup animation, but just give it a 0.25 or 0.5s cast.

At the same time, Phoenix should have a slightly longer cast time, perhaps with faster travel speed. This would could keep it powerful at range, but reduce its melee power. Giving it a cast time that is too high, however, removes one of the biggest defenses (through offense) against thieves.

the problem with dragons tooth is that it sucks against everything because you need to target it.

thief in stealth? np can’t use dragon’s tooth
stack might? np cast it 900 range away from you, run there, place fire field
cleave a downed player? np target first to use the skill
moving target? don’t even bother casting it

keep phoenix as it is, that’s the counter when some classes try to melee you. gotta punish them somehow.

Change in traits:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Suggestion-Change-few-traits/first#post4850240
Earth Conjure Shield:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Suggestion-Conjure-Earth-Shield-Skill-5/first#post4812840
Autocast on mobility skills:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/kittened-Autocast-for-mobile-skills-ele/first#post4804402

Another thread to include:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/IT-IS-TIME-Bring-Back-RTL

my comments in another thread:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i’d like to see
a) gust apply 5s of torment, since torment synergizes with the concept of control
b) unsteady ground should actually knockdown anyone who runs into it. (this would create more synergy with tempest defense trait)
c) eruption needs to apply bleeding every second instead of only at the end, and then apply 2-5 seconds blindness and 2-5 seconds of poison at the end, due to how difficult it is to land this ability on foes. (and it would finally be worth the name “eruption” since all those particles exploding into the air in such close proximity would be harder to breath, like a poison, and the blast would also naturally cause momentary blindness)

i’m looking for more conditions for elementalist, too. i reckon, that ele’s have access to weapon sigils and armor runes that can proc any condition, so why not add a condition or two to skills that would match a theme? gust is a movement-position denial skill, so why not also apply a few seconds of torment? a real life eruption spews a big cloud of ash and dust into the air, so why not apply short blindness and poison (to simulate breathing in the ash and dust)

these are intended as examples for staff. i’m sure one of two skills in the other weapons could be adjusted this way , too.

Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are core to the Elementalist (ANet has stated this in the past as well). We should not be forced to choose one or the other. If they need to change Elemental Attunement to self only and make it baseline – that would be acceptable. A self only Elemental Attunement would not be build defining and would give us an active defense mechanism. If ANet really wants they could do the Grandmaster version with the durations and effects extended to allies.

All Elementalist builds will be relying on passive mechanics (on-hit, on-stun, or just passive -20% dam) on their traits. This reduction of active traits and increase in passive traits removes a lot of the fun of this class.

Finally, Elementalist Elite skills are just not elite… frankly they are underwhelming and mostly unused.

Elemental attunement should be baseline.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elemental-attunement-should-be-baseline

Forgotten Legend.9281:

my comments in another thread:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i’d like to see
a) gust apply 5s of torment, since torment synergizes with the concept of control
b) unsteady ground should actually knockdown anyone who runs into it. (this would create more synergy with tempest defense trait)
c) eruption needs to apply bleeding every second instead of only at the end, and then apply 2-5 seconds blindness and 2-5 seconds of poison at the end, due to how difficult it is to land this ability on foes. (and it would finally be worth the name “eruption” since all those particles exploding into the air in such close proximity would be harder to breath, like a poison, and the blast would also naturally cause momentary blindness)

i’m looking for more conditions for elementalist, too. i reckon, that ele’s have access to weapon sigils and armor runes that can proc any condition, so why not add a condition or two to skills that would match a theme? gust is a movement-position denial skill, so why not also apply a few seconds of torment? a real life eruption spews a big cloud of ash and dust into the air, so why not apply short blindness and poison (to simulate breathing in the ash and dust)

these are intended as examples for staff. i’m sure one of two skills in the other weapons could be adjusted this way , too.

Eh, I do agree that Eruption could us a little change and your suggestions would really fit. Gust applying torment however is a bit meh and doesn’t really fit the other air skills either.
Earth is already more condition heavy and air is more linked to burst in CC. Unsteady Ground is fine as it is aswell imo..

angellips.9753:

Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are core to the Elementalist (ANet has stated this in the past as well). We should not be forced to choose one or the other. If they need to change Elemental Attunement to self only and make it baseline – that would be acceptable. A self only Elemental Attunement would not be build defining and would give us an active defense mechanism. If ANet really wants they could do the Grandmaster version with the durations and effects extended to allies.

Finally, Elementalist Elite skills are just not elite… frankly they are underwhelming and mostly unused.

Pretty much sums it up!

I expect to get a lot of rage for saying this but here it goes :P

A counter style – much like that of GW1 where ele’s could keep to a single element and not have detrimental effects

My solutions would be to have various minor traits in relation to each element sans arcane of which to draw additional power to the element your staying in

Now people will say it is against the core design philosophy – but why not have the design of the old ele of GW1 and that of GW2 to be compatable?

As one whom doesn’t really have the reflexes to keep moving between elements – I’ve taken to WvW roaming camping in air
I’ve won about half my battles – it’s rather enjoyable to be a off meta air signet/aura build because it off takes my enemies by surprise about the lack of juggling

An extra CD to specific elements as a minor to selected with added buffs – preferably around the second tier minor traits which favour bouncing between attunements would to well for some build diversity – along with possible buffs for staying in one attunemt and majoring in two others

Ie. Stay in fire – but select air and earth trait trees to max
At T2 of the the trait line – take minor specific to camping that tree which will boost up other elements of which are about staying in one attunemt

Alternatively – have all minor traits sans T2 be taken with lines you wish to specify in effecting you if you wish to camp in a single element

I’ll put up a link to some prior ideas which could work into this new system of traits working

#hopeandoptimismthatsomethinglikethiswillbeeventuallyimplemented

My review and suggestions are here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/suggestion-Eles-specs-and-playstyles/

Fire aura rework to be more in line with other auras:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/suggestion-Fire-Aura-rework/

Lava axe auto attack needs to bounce around, providing might for every hit. This could make it a good option for might stack (it got blast, leap, fire fields and might on auto)

We could use an elite signet (arcane signet) that gives haste on attunement swap (2s, 5s cd) and recharges all attunements on use (45s CD)

Change the summoning glyph (no the elite one) to be the stun breaking glyph, make it instant cast and turn it to give you an aura based on attunment instead of a summon. Would have a great synergy with a lot of builds and would free GoEP to be used pre-combat, as its supposed to be.

RTL needs to be looked at. It should have it CD reduced and it needs to be an better AoE (doesnt hit anything even when it lands) or no need to hit to have a decend CD.

FGS needs its dmg back! At least some of it. Right now its only useful to run away from things, and even for that, norn racial elite is better.
(really, when I see a necro using lich form, I know I need to run for cover, when I see a engy using supply crate, I know I need to get back away from it, A warrior in rampage? kite it untill you can fight him again… An ele casts FGS, You won – he is running away)

increase aura range and change rtl cd to a static 20s.

A great suggestion on how to make Elemental contigency useful.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Proposed-Elemental-Contigency-Buff/first#post5024148

lLobo.7960:

FGS needs its dmg back! At least some of it. Right now its only useful to run away from things, and even for that, norn racial elite is better.
(really, when I see a necro using lich form, I know I need to run for cover, when I see a engy using supply crate, I know I need to get back away from it, A warrior in rampage? kite it untill you can fight him again… An ele casts FGS, You won – he is running away)

FGS isn’t that bad, like, with a lucky crit you can still do some damage with the leap of FGS 4 but yeah apart from that there isn’t really much you can do with FGS anymore. Same goes for tornado though as with the lack of stab the moment you pop it, you are just gonna get stunned..

Also, there is one thing I have been wondering which is once these changes go life and stats aren’t linked to trait lines anymore, is there any idea on how eles are gonna get more boon duration in? Right now we get 30% boon duration if we invest 6 points into the arcana line which is quite vital at times, especially if combined with Elemental Attunement. While the elemental attunement cooldown will be reduced with the patch (right now the elemental attunement recharge rate is also linked to the arcana line) it’d be awesome to get some clarification as to what’s gonna happen to the boon duration.

Another thing would be to remove Ferocious Winds from the Air Adept as even if you fully invest into healing power you get hardly any ferocity out of it. Instead I’d replace the trait with Zephyr’s Focus (Endurance regenerates faster while channeling skills) or something similar that either gives vigor or generally regenerates endurance a little quicker.

Another thread with some good ideas: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Ele-Weapon-Skills-A-constructive-feedback/first#post5020990

Personally, I’d also love to see Shockwave (Staff Earth 5) being reworked. Currently, all #5 skills on staff are a big AoE, except for Shockwave. While it potentially can hit up to 5 targets, they need to stand very close to one another. Apart from that, imobilizing your enemy with a shockwave doesn’t really fit either. Personally I’d love Shockwave to be more of an AoE skill, like a proper wave, maybe line that’s like 180 wide and knocks down and stuns enemy for maybe 2 seconds on impact.
This change would both fit the staff as more of an AoE weapon and at the same time would fit a real shockwave.

Elementalist Trait Discussion: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion

Here are my thoughts, from a mostly casual staff ele:

First EA should definitely be a GM trait, its just too powerful. A compromise id do would be to make lingering elements give the ele the boons, and have the gm trait make them shared and + 25% longer duration. Then thered at least be a choice involved, and you wouldnt get the unshared boons for free without any spec (which would be unfair imo, even with our low hp/armor)

Other arcane traits need some more work, lingering elements and arcane precision (minus the new 15% recharge) are mostly garbage and can be replaced with almost anything (plenty of ideas for them on this forum). Elem contingency is also really bad, again id trade it for anything, as long as its not an on hit proc (eles not wanting to be hit is something the devs should know by now)

I love the changes to water, though id prefer if soothing ice (the aura part of it, not the regen) wasnt based on crits, maybe tie it to our heal so its not so random (please less RNG!). Itd be good if SDR removed poison too.

For earth geomancers defense seems TOO good, and depending on buffs other classes get I can see it either being imba in pvp (so everyone will yell for it to be nerfed), or just enough to make us be balanced in pvp (so eles will be forced to run it = less build diversity). Maybe im wrong, but its still something to consider.

The rest of earth is decent, Id love rock solid to give more than 1 stack of stab so its not so easy to remove. I also dont like earths embrace being 25% now instead of 50%, 25% health is like 3k in some cases, so at least make it 33%. Diamond skin also needs work, but other people have addressed it better than I could so just see those posts.

Air changes arent bad. I dont think the BTTH change is the end of the world, but if it is going to be a gm it ought to be a 50% threshold instead of 33. Im almost worried that tempest defense moved to master will be imba in pvp (seriously is anyone not going to be running that + lightning rod + aurashare in wvw?), but like geomancers def we will probably have to wait till launch to see how it really is.

Ferocious winds should stay as healing from prec (at least its useful to a few builds) or be redone to something worthwhile. Also give us anything in place of zephyrs speed. Really, anything. A trait that turns you into a moa at 1% health would be better than that is.

Fire changes are also solid with a few exceptions. Power overwhelming is unnecessary (we already have a condi damage from stats trait!), maybe make it have burning do 10% more damage instead, like a weaker version of that guardian gm, condi eles would love that. And I still dont see why anyone would ever, ever take pyromancers puissance over persisting flames even with its slight buff (have it give 2 stacks of might for 15s per spell and it will be more GM worthy, that or have it do something new unrelated to might stacks, which we have enough ways to get anyways)

Id also love sunspot to be burning instead of damage (even if its 1s) so it works with blinding ashes. And the random part of flame barrier makes it almost useless, if it works with lingering elements it will be better but still too much RNG. Instead id make it give the 33% fire aura duration from one with fire, and give that trait a guaranteed fire aura on attunement swap (which would also help one with fire be a viable choice compared to the other 2).

Other changes would be on weapon skills. Gust and shockwave absolutely need to work better, at the very least make them faster and able to hit moving targets, and a bigger aoe on them would be cool (itd also be nice to have them on a 20s cd, but that might be too much with the new merged cooldown traits). The staff autos could also use a speed increase, and it would be nice to see a small bleed (2-3s) on stoning and a damage increase on water blast (not much, but at least put it in line with stoning), but thats more wishful thinking than necessary. Scepter abilities could use a little love too (especially to compete with the d/d aurashare eles that will be everywhere), but I dont play those specs much, so others can say it better.

Other stuff id like (this is also mostly wishful thinking): our good stun breaks on a 60s cd instead of 75s, because there are basically no other stun breaks in the game on a 75s cd. The glyph heal should go down to 3/4 or even 1/2 cast, and the protection should go to 5s. I wouldnt mind the signet heal to go down to 3/4s either. Arcane brilliance fixed to blast where you are and not on your target would be great (more of a bug but its still an issue). Arcane power could also use work, I always thought it should just give the next 5 attacks +15% damage because its basically never used as it is now.

And last 2 things that need work are conjures and elites, but I assume thats already being done so theres not much else to say (but please let us dual wield flame axes so we look cooler!)

Sizer.5632:

Arcane power could also use work, I always thought it should just give the next 5 attacks +15% damage because its basically never used as it is now.

Honestly, I think all arcane skills could use a little work, but for different reasons:

Arcane power is worse than a single sigil…that needs to change. The CD could be like 15 s and it MIGHT get taken.

Arcane shield is great, but with them nerfing our survival traits a lot, it no longer deserves such a long CD. TBH, all of our defensive utilities should have more reasonable CD’s so that survivability isn’t so dependent on the same traits.

Arcane blast and Arcane Wave should be changed for entirely different reasons: sources of instant damage have a tendency to cause many balancing problems. Instead, these skills should do very low damage with a very low-CD (~8-10s), allowing them to be used as a low-CD combo finisher (although projectile finishers won’t be worth using alone, so that one should still have moderate damage). Not only does this mitigate the problem of instant damage with no counterplay, it also makes arcanes more useful in-conjunction with the arcane traits (such as the GM trait that is currently 100% unusable).

Arcane trait should be like this:

Reduce cooldown for arcane skill by 20%. Arcane skills grant one stack of Arcane Shield, last 5s.

Arcane skills right now is too weak because people rather go defensive with cantrips. One stack of Arcane Shield is not OP at all, but it helps giving arcane ele a little bit more of the needed survivability

Also, just repeating what others have already pointed out:

Give us Elite skills that are actually worth using!!!

-FGS is only used for its mobility and the damage buff to Skill 4 never made it into the game.
-Tornado is CRAP. It’s basically a huge “KILL ME” sign, and provides NO benefits for locking us out of our weapon skills. At the very least, it needs projectile destruction/reflection, increased movement speed and reduced cooldown. Or consider making it immune to conditions; how the hell do you burn, immobilize or poison a tornado????!
-Elementals are meh. All the non-Earth elementals need serious survivability buffs. The Glyph itself needs a much lower cooldown.

Glenstorm.4059:

Also, just repeating what others have already pointed out:

Give us Elite skills that are actually worth using!!!

-FGS is only used for its mobility and the damage buff to Skill 4 never made it into the game.
-Tornado is CRAP. It’s basically a huge “KILL ME” sign, and provides NO benefits for locking us out of our weapon skills. At the very least, it needs projectile destruction/reflection, increased movement speed and reduced cooldown. Or consider making it immune to conditions; how the hell do you burn, immobilize or poison a tornado????!
-Elementals are meh. All the non-Earth elementals need serious survivability buffs. The Glyph itself needs a much lower cooldown.

I agree. FGS is terrible. Look at Elites like Lich/Crate/Rampage, they are elite worthy. FGS should have a cool down of 30s to be elite worthy. It has low dps, and locks the ele out of other crucial weapon skills. Hardly elite worthy.

Tornado should be immune to conditions and reflect projectiles. It should also has a skill to pull in enemies.

Elementals should have toughness increase by 600, and HP increased 50%.

Sorry for quoting myself :P, but I really like this idea, and I hope a dev can see it.

I think Tempest should be about speed and control. Zapping around the field with speed, touching the enemies here and there sounds fun!
Trait: instead of swiftness, you gain super speed. Only works if the source of swiftness is from the ele.
Trait: while you’re affected by super speed, attacking the enemies gives them 0.1s daze. If you gets hit, you’re dazed 0.1s.
Something like that would be really fun to play. Zapping across the field, and touch people here and there, and trying to avoid being touched. It’s like super speed heroes xD.

This rewards skillful play from ele with a lot of flair! It’s also fun to play against the ele because timing suddenly become very important

Sizer.5632:

Here are my thoughts, from a mostly casual staff ele:

First EA should definitely be a GM trait, its just too powerful. A compromise id do would be to make lingering elements give the ele the boons, and have the gm trait make them shared and + 25% longer duration. Then thered at least be a choice involved, and you wouldnt get the unshared boons for free without any spec (which would be unfair imo, even with our low hp/armor)

Not really simply because

meanwhile, mesmers get their 2 strongest GM traits (PU, IP), plus a GM minor trait, 1 master and 3 adept traits as baseline. it’s all a bit WTF.

EA as a self-only version as baseline would be fair considering all the buffs to the other classes.

Chris.5720:

Sizer.5632:

Here are my thoughts, from a mostly casual staff ele:

First EA should definitely be a GM trait, its just too powerful. A compromise id do would be to make lingering elements give the ele the boons, and have the gm trait make them shared and + 25% longer duration. Then thered at least be a choice involved, and you wouldnt get the unshared boons for free without any spec (which would be unfair imo, even with our low hp/armor)

Not really simply because

meanwhile, mesmers get their 2 strongest GM traits (PU, IP), plus a GM minor trait, 1 master and 3 adept traits as baseline. it’s all a bit WTF.

EA as a self-only version as baseline would be fair considering all the buffs to the other classes.

I’d leave alone the buffs to other classes. It’s as simple as that the class as a whole is balanced around the assumption that it HAS those boons at all times. Low health and armor class due to high protection uptime, low damage due to high might access, low (relatively) scaling on heals due to high uptime and access to regeneration.

A baseline version that grants the boons only to the elementalist on shorter timers (protection from 6s to 4s for example) and having a GM make them AoE but higher uptime (6s to 7s) would make a great compromise. As is now, people will still spec into arcane for access to the boons.

Edit – Also, is there some update for this thread? Would like to see what the report has in it so far, even though I know as far as size it doesn’t near the necro one.

I wont add to much, so many things have already been said. As a staff ele, i’d like auto attacks to be a little bit faster. People don’t even need to actively dodge, just a step aside is enough… fire and earth mostly, but since fire is aoe i believe it’s balanced this way…

MyPuppy.8970:

I wont add to much, so many things have already been said. As a staff ele, i’d like auto attacks to be a little bit faster…

DnD eles get insane damage output from Air 1 auto attack with cone damage hitting multiple targets.

I would also like to see a buff in staff auto attack.

I post reasonable improving of the “Dragon tooth” skill wich is only use in PvE mode. I think Dragon toorth souhld be a ground targeted skill.

Click on the link to see more details and examples proving that this skill deserves a ground targeted system :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Improving-the-Dragon-tooth

I think that idea could give more gameplay to the scepter ele without making the skill too strong. I other terms I think that’s a realistic improvement of the scepter.