Guild Wars 2

I think a lot of people would agree that some of our traits are lackluster and could use some help. I knew something was up when I had a very easy time selecting my traits for the Ele. One choice would just blow all the others out of the water. The problem is, a lot of our traits aren’t very appealing.

So, as a fun exercise, I’m going to go through all of the traits and offer suggestions as to what changes I feel could be made. I’ve tried everything to an extent, but some traits and weapon sets I have more experience with than others. I welcome any and all feedback, and would love to hear what suggestions other players have.
Use this as a reference: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_traits

FIRE

I think everyone will agree that fire could use some love. We love the skills, but the traits aren’t as game changing as the others.

—MINOR TRAITS—

Adept – Flame Barrier: You have a 20% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.
Even for a minor adept, this feels a bit too weak. I would add 5% to the chance to make it a little more noticeable.
Suggestion: You have a 25% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.

Master – Sunspot: Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire.
As a D/D Ele, I have no complaints personally. However, I wouldn’t argue with changing this to erupt on target so the ranged Eles can make use of it too.
Suggestion: Inflict damage at target’s location when you attune to fire.

Grandmaster – Burning Rage: Deal 5% more damage to burning foes.
Come on guys, we’re at grandmaster here. We can do better than this. Double the damage bonus, and now you’re talkin’!
Suggestion: Deal 10% more damage to burning foes.

—MAJOR TRAITS—

-Adept-

Lava Tomb: Create a Lava Font when downed (can trigger every 30 seconds.)
This one’s rough. It should be made more appealing since taking a trait to enhance your downed state is not something most players would consider, but lava tomb is nice. I would either add a damaging blast (like the sunspot trait) in addition to the lava tomb, or I would remove the cooldown so that falling after using vapor form makes another lava tomb.
Suggestion 1: Inflict damage at your location and create a Lava Font when downed (can trigger every 30 seconds.)
Suggestion 2: Create a Lava Font when downed.

Burning Fire: Cleansing Flame, Signet of Fire, Conjure Flame, and Conjure Fiery Greatsword inflict 3 seconds of burning.
This trait seems silly. Not only do these skills already inflict burning, they’re unlikely to be used together. I suggest something a little more universally useful.
Suggestion: Burning inflicted lasts 25% longer.
Simple, good for an adept trait, and a little boost to any fire user.

Ember’s Might: Deal 5% extra damage to burning foes.
I can’t really argue with this. It’s not a huge boost, but this is an adept trait.

Spell Slinger: Cantrips grant you 3 stacks of might when used.
This trait is a great addition to any cantrip build. Can’t argue with this either.

Burning Precision: 30% chance to cause burning on a critical hit.
A nice bonus for any crit build. Not too overwhelming, but it’s an adept trait. Wouldn’t change.

Internal Fire: Deal 10% more damage while attuned to fire.
A solid boost to fire damage. Always tempting. As an adept trait, I don’t see a need to change this.

-Master-

Pyromancer’s Alacrity: All your fire weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
More recharge for our damage dealing attunement? Yes please!

Conjurer: Conjured weapons have 10 more charges.
Oh dear…conjured weapons. I think conjured weapons are awesome, despite their current lack of usefulness. Hopefully some good trait buffs could get people looking in the conjured weapons direction. I’ll take a crack at it but I’m really curious as to what other people would suggest.
Suggestion: Conjure Armory: Conjured weapon spells summon four weapons instead of two. Conjured weapons have 10 additional charges.
This is a drastic suggestion, but I think it’d be a cool one. Arm the majority of your party with conjured weapons and see how it stacks.

Fire’s Embrace: When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield for 3 seconds.
I can see this for anyone that has an aura build with signets. It’s a little far in though, and an aura build doesn’t have much reason to go into fire beyond this. I suggest a small tweak.
Suggestion: When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield for 4 seconds.

One with Fire: Flame Barrier’s chance to burn foes goes up the longer you are attuned to fire.
One of the biggest problems with the trait system is traits like this. It’s impossible to weigh its value since we don’t have any numbers to work with. My first suggestion is to elaborate on this trait’s description…THEN we can even see if it’s worth it or not.

-Grandmaster-

Persisting Flames: Fire fields last 30% longer.
Come on, this is a GRANDMASTER trait…this would be ok for a master trait, but we need something drastic for a grandmaster.
Suggestion: Fire Fields last 50% longer.
NOW I’m listening. Those are long fields. Much more worthy of a grandmaster trait.

Pyromancer’s Puissance: Each fire spell you cast adds might for 5 seconds.
Very good, very tempting…but it’s just not enough to warrant the 30 points in my book. Maybe I’m overdoing it but this is what I’d like to see.
Suggestion: Each spell you cast adds might for 5 seconds.
Straight up might for all. Now we’re hitting harder! I know might with every spell sounds like a lot, but this is a Grandmaster trait. Also, realistically, you can probably stack 5 seconds of might about 4 times, if you’re spamming.

AIR

Air is also suffering. Not as much as fire, but air could use a little help too.

—MINOR TRAITS—

Adept – Zephyr’s Speed: Move 10% faster while attuned to air.
Mmm… If this were any other place besides minor adept, I’d be more gung ho about changing it. However, it’s really useless as is. Let’s try this.
Suggestion: Run 6% faster when attuned to air. Stacks with swiftness.
Smaller boost, but I feel like these speed buffs should be stacked. Otherwise, the speed traits are worthless.

Master – Electric Discharge: Strike your target with a bolt of lightning when attuning to air.
Love it. Wouldn’t change it.

Grandmaster – Weak Spot: 60% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.
Great idea. But let’s give it a little love. This IS a grandmaster trait.
Suggestion: Cause vulnerability on critical hits.
Not as huge of a buff as you’d think, but it’ll help.

—MAJOR TRAITS—

-Adept-

Zephyr’s Boon: Auras grant fury and swiftness when applied.
So good. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Zephyr’s Focus: Your endurance regenerates 100% faster while channeling skills.
Not really a D/D skill. I can see this being very nice with scepter and vigor. I won’t touch it, but am curious as to what others think.

Quick Glyphs: Glyphs recharge 20% faster.
Not bad. Good for anyone who likes to use 2 or more of our glyphs.

One with Air: You move 5% faster every 10 seconds you are attuned to air. Maximum of 25% bonus movement speed.
The problem with this trait is multifold. Having us stay in Air is a lot to ask, compounding with the fact that it doesn’t stack with swiftness, makes this trait a complete waste. We have plenty of swiftness to go around. Now, as far as my solution to this goes…I dunno. Balance wise, this may be way too much speed. But we need something for staying in air for so long.
Suggestion: You move 5% faster every 10 seconds you are attuned to air. Maximum of 20% bonus movement speed. Stacks with swiftness.
It would have to be something like this. Otherwise, scrap the trait and make something else entirely.

Soothing Winds: 5% of your precision is converted to healing.
Ok. I’ve got around 2000 precision. 5% of 2000 is 100. Not too strong if you ask me. However, 10% is a little too strong. So, I propose this.
Suggestion: 5% of your precision is converted to healing and vitality.
I think this makes it much more considerable without being too much.

Bolt to the Heart: Deal 20% more damage to foes with less than 25% health.
People either love it or hate it. I’m not a fan, but if some people pick it, then it’s doing its job.

-Master-

Arcane Lightning: Gain 3% more critical-hit damage for 10 seconds when you use an arcane skill.
I don’t really like this one that much. The bonus just doesn’t justify.
Suggestion: Gain 5% more critical hit damage and critical chance for 10 seconds when you use an arcane skill.
Sounds like a lot, but think about it. If you use up your utility slots with arcane skills, you’re really sacrificing to stack this. The cannon portion of our glass cannon really needs help. I actually still wouldn’t take this, but I’d think about it more for sure.

Inscription: Grants a boon associated with your current attunement when you cast a glyph.
Ok, for the glyph lover. Could be better though.
Suggestion: Grants a boon associated with your current attunement when you cast a glyph and when a glyph recharges.
Not that big of a buff, considering you can’t really plan that far in advance in a fast paced battle, but it’s a nice little buff for the trait that might make a glyph build more attractive.

Aeromancer’s Alacrity: All your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
Yay! No problems here.

Air Training: Deal 10% more damage while attuned to air.
It’s okay…but considering we go to fire when we want serious damage, I think it needs a bit more.
Suggestion: Deal 10% more damage and 10% more critical damage when attuned to air.
If you’re speccing air, you probably like crits. It’d probably take it now.

-Grandmaster-

Tempest Defense: Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, sink.) This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.
This is such a good anti-melee trait. The only thing I would change is the cooldown.
Suggestion: Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, sink.) This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.
This way it’ll have a chance to occur every fight. It’s already good, but this is a grandmaster trait here!

Grounded: Deal 20% more damage to knocked down and stunned foes.
Eww…no. Just no. This skill is not that great. 20% isn’t all that much considering just how short of a window you have to capitalize on it. Come on! Maybe, MAYBE as a master trait, it’d be ok, but not here.
Suggestion: Deal 30% more damage to disabled (fear, stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, launch, float, sink) foes.
This makes it feel more like a grandmaster trait. I still wouldn’t take it over Tempest Defense, but now I’d consider it.

EARTH

Gonna be honest, haven’t done too much in earth. Most of this will be theoretical and I would like the most help here.

—MINOR TRAITS—

Adept – Stone Flesh: Gain 1 toughness per level while attuned to earth.
One toughness per level isn’t very strong. I’d change this to be a little more universal.
Suggestion: Gain 1 toughness per level.

Master – Earthen Blast: Damage foes and cripple them for 3 seconds when attuning to earth.
Gotta love the attunement attacks. Wouldn’t touch.

Grandmaster – Enduring Damage: Deal 10% more damage when your endurance is full.
Wait…we’re being rewarded for NOT dodging? I seriously don’t get these kind of traits.
Suggestion: Deal 10% more condition damage when attuned to Earth.
Just a thought. Would be open to suggestions on this one.

—MAJOR TRAITS—

-Adept-

Obsidian Focus: Gain toughness while using a channeled skill.
This looks ok in my eyes, but I’m out of my domain here.

Signet Mastery: Signets recharge 20% faster.
For a signet build, good trait. Wouldn’t touch.

Earth’s Embrace: Gain Armor of Earth when health reaches 50% (90-second cooldown).
Looks good. I’d still like to see the cooldown lowered.
Suggestion: Gain Armor of Earth when health reaches 50% (60 second cooldown)
90 seconds seems like way too much to me.

Salt Stone: Deal 5% more damage to bleeding foes.
Makes sense to me. Don’t feel like it needs any help.

Elemental Shielding: Gain protection for 3 seconds when applying an aura to yourself or an ally.
This trait can be really powerful for an aura based build. Leave it be.

Stone Splinters: Deal 5% more damage when you are within melee range of your target.
Being within melee range is a lot to ask of most Eles. Also…melee range is kind of a broad term.
Suggestion: Deal 10% more damage when within 300 range of your target.
Still have to be close, but this way you’re more likely to take advantage when using D/D

-Master-

Strength of Stone: Deal 10% more damage while attuned to earth.
Condition builds, go nuts.

Serrated Stones: Bleeds you apply last 20% longer.
Another obvious choice for the bleed build. No issues here either.

Geomancer’s Freedom: You recover from crippled, immobilized, and chilled 33% faster.
Eww…come on. In a game where we’ve been trained to keep our condition cleansers with us…why would anyone want this? I say wipe this thing and give us our fall damage trait here.
Suggestion: Earthly Impact: Create the Churning Earth spell when you take falling damage. Take 50% less damage from falling.

Geomancer’s Alacrity: All your earth weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
Always gotta have one of these traits.

-Grandmaster-

Rock Solid: Grant stability (2s) to nearby allies when attuning to earth.
Two seconds? Laaaaame.
Suggestion: Grant stability and protection (3s) to nearby allies when attuning to earth.
Now that’s a grandmaster trait!

Written in Stone: Maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them.
The ultimate goal of a signet build. Wouldn’t touch it.

WATER

Water is pretty solid right now. However, it does have its share of meh traits. Let’s see if we can’t make it harder to choose.

—MINOR TRAITS—

Adept – Soothing Mist: Regenerate health while attuned to water.
A little bonus regen for everyone? Very solid.

Master – Healing Ripple: Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.
A heal just for preparing to heal? Awesome!

Grandmaster – Bountiful Power: Deal 2% more damage for each boon on you.
Considering how many boons you can stack, this is a nice little bonus.

—MAJOR TRAITS—

-Adept-

Aquamancer’s Alacrity: All your water weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
Interesting how this is an adept trait when all the equivalents are master level. Still wouldn’t change it.

Shard of Ice: Arcane and signet skills cause vulnerability when activated.
Now, you’d think this ability is kinda lame, but it’s not bad for a signet or an arcane build. The trait’s description doesn’t mention that it causes 3 stacks of vulnerability. Another example where more descriptive descriptions would help us out a lot.

Soothing Disruption: Cantrips grant you regeneration and vigor.
I never leave home without this trait. It’s incredibly strong.

Piercing Shards: While attuned to water, your spells deal 20% more damage to vulnerable foes.
Umm…I’m not sure about this one. I mean, 20% more damage is a lot, but who the heck uses water to put out damage? Maybe it’s viable if you spec for it?
Suggestion: Your spells deal 10% more damage to vulnerable foes.
That’s the suggestion I would make IF I were to change it. I’m not sure I would though, so take it for what it’s worth.

Cleansing Wave: Remove a condition from you and your allies when attuning to water.
Not bad for an adept trait. Leaving it be.

Vital Striking: Deal extra damage when health is above 90%.
…huh? Deal how much extra damage? Is it fixed or is it a percentage increase? Again, need more help from the trait description.

-Master-

Stop Drop and Roll: Dodge rolling removes burning and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
I’m uncomfortable with traits that take dodge and make it do something else. In my mind, we as players should be conditioned to roll when we need to dodge something. This should be universal for all of our toons. Having dodge do anything else seems counterproductive to the dodging reflex we should all be striving to obtain. Beyond that belief, this trait still sucks.
Suggestion: Acidic Wash: Geyser, Healing Rain, Water Trident, Cone of Cold, and Cleansing Wave apply poison to enemies.
A little more offense for water to follow up that offensive adept trait. Also I find it interesting. I’d certainly try it.

Icy Mist: Deal damage and inflict chill and vulnerability to nearby foes while in mist or vapor form.
This seems fine to me. Gives you a bit of offense when working with mist.

Cantrip Mastery: Cantrips recharge 20% faster.
Hooray for cantrips!

Soothing Wave: Mist Form, Frost Bow, and Signet of Water grant 6 seconds of regeneration.
Another one that just seems odd to me. We get so much regen elsewhere and you’re unlikely to have two of these skills together, let alone 3.
Suggestion: Regen applied lasts 25% longer.

-Grandmaster-

Cleansing Water: Remove a condition when granting regeneration to yourself or an ally.
Very strong condition removal. Works wonders.

Powerful Aura: Auras are applied to nearby allies.
Powerful indeed. Another keeper for sure.

ARCANA

Arcana. THE trait tree. There’s some powerful traits in here. Let’s see what we have.

—MINOR TRAITS—

Adept – Arcane Fury: Grant yourself fury for 2 seconds on attunement.
Makes your openings when swapping attunements that much stronger. Love it.

Master – Lingering Elements: Attunement bonuses linger for 5 seconds.
…Meh. For one, it’s not clear. Two, it’s kinda lame in my eyes.
Suggestion: Swapping attunements adds an additional second to each active boon on you.
Not too strong, not something to sniff at.

Grandmaster – Arcane Precision: Skills have chance to apply a condition on critical hits.
I wish I knew what the chance was…because that’s probably what I would want to tweak if this trait needed a tweak.

—MAJOR TRAITS—

-Adept-

Arcane Mastery: Arcane skills recharge 20% faster.
If you like your arcane skills, you’ll want this.

Arcane Resurrection: When you revive an ally, you and the revived ally gain an aura based on your attunement.
This one’s tough. It’s nice for an aura build, but it relies on someone being down…I’ll leave it be, but I’d be curious as to what others suggest.

Arcane Retribution: Gain Arcane Power at 75% health.
It’ll be great once they fix Arcane Power.

Final Shielding: Create an Arcane Shield when health reaches 25%.
Some defense when you need it the most. Solid.

Elemental Attunement: When attuning to an element, you and all nearby allies gain…
Everyone loves this, including me. Keeper.

Renewing Stamina: You have a 33% chance to gain vigor on critical hits.
Very very strong for a crit build.

-Master-

Vigorous Scepter: Endurance recharges faster while wielding a scepter.
Scepters get some mad endurance recharge when they spec for it. Still wish they’d tell you how much though.

Blasting Staff: Area attacks with staff are larger.
Blast away. No problems here.

Windborne Dagger: Move 15% faster when wielding a dagger.
…seriously? This is what we get for Daggers? This is just wrong. Even if this trait actually did anything, why would we care when we have so much swiftness available to us?
Suggestion: Move 15% faster when wielding a dagger. Stacks with swiftness.
It’s the only way to make these speed traits desirable.

Arcane Energy: Arcane and signet skills restore 25% endurance when used.
It’s alright…but I wouldn’t take it even with an arcane build or a signet build.
Suggestion: Arcane and signet skills restore 33% endurance when used.
Now I’m paying attention.

-Grandmaster-

Evasive Arcana: Create an attunement-based spell at the end of your dodge. Each spell can be triggered once every 10 seconds…
This is gonna be my one nerf I think. It’s just too strong as is.
Suggestion: Create an attunement-based spell at the end on your dodge. Can only be triggered once every 8 seconds.
It just stacks way too well when it combos. I can’t see it lasting in its existing form.

Elemental Surge: Based on attunement, arcane skills cause…
In contrast, this one seems weak to me. Let’s see what we can do here.
Suggestion: Arcane Surge: Arcane skills recharge 50% faster. Arcane skills activate immediately upon recharging.
It’s extreme. Perhaps too extreme. But, admit it, you want to try it. (Not meant to stack with Arcane Mastery)

I agree with so much of the stuff, BUT “Grounded” is fine as it is, it gives you absurd burst with D/D if you know how to use it. Slam it into a glass cannon build and you have a monster if someone doesn’t break “Updraft”. OK, I’ve said too much lol.

From what I understand, Updraft launches foes, which is a seperate state from knockdown. Unless this was changed, updraft doesn’t trigger the bonus from grounded. This is part of the reason I suggested a change to disabled foes rather than just knocked down and stunned foes.

I got bored reading. But here’s what I gathered.

Your qualms about many of the fire traits are a bit exaggerated. 4 seconds over 3? That’s not much of a difference in anything. Other fire traits ideas are just dealing more damage, or another damaging effect, and that’s not creative at all.

I do agree that the speed traits should stack with swiftness, and if they don’t already, they should stack over themselves, even over 25%.

I also think it’s a horrible idea to have “% chance of _ happening on a critical hit”. It should either be 100% or 0%. Critical hits don’t happen all the time. You can put a limiter on it, I wouldn’t mind that.

Freyt.8379:

I got bored reading. But here’s what I gathered.

Your qualms about many of the fire traits are a bit exaggerated. 4 seconds over 3? That’s not much of a difference in anything. Other fire traits ideas are just dealing more damage, or another damaging effect, and that’s not creative at all.

I do agree that the speed traits should stack with swiftness, and if they don’t already, they should stack over themselves, even over 25%.

I also think it’s a horrible idea to have “% chance of _ happening on a critical hit”. It should either be 100% or 0%. Critical hits don’t happen all the time. You can put a limiter on it, I wouldn’t mind that.

I got bored reading your response, but here’s what I’m going to assume you were saying based on my admittedly flawed analysis of what I bothered to read.

The 3 to 4 seconds of fire aura is not much of a change because I feel not much of a change was warranted. The fire aura is the weakest aura of the bunch, and the main reason it exists in this trait is for the buffs that other aura traits can provide.

Fire is about damage first and foremost. Unfortunately, it’s just not enough in the games current state. So yes, I boosted the numbers in a lot of areas. I only tried to drastically change a trait if I felt that the concept of a trait was not realistically feasible. I can and did a few creative traits, (guessing you stopped reading before getting to them) but I tried not to make too many drastic changes.

I got to halfway through the air traits.

Check out the following traits for ones that I completely changed:
- Geomancer’s Freedom (renamed to Earthly Impact)
- Stop Drop and Roll (renamed to Acidic Wash)
- Lingering Elements
- Elemental Surge (renamed Arcane Surge)

I’m particularly interested in how Arcane Surge would work on the field.

Great analysis of which traits need some love and some good suggestions in most cases about what to do about it. Wholeheartedly endorsed. Hope the devs are paying attention.

I like almost all of your changes. I have some comments on a few things.

Fire’s Embrace: I don’t think increasing it one second will help much. As you said, it’s is really only selected for an aura build, and even so, it it too far in to really pick. My suggestion would be to keep it the same, but put it at Adept so it can be more easily picked up by an auramancer.

Persisting Flames: I think it would be fine as is if it only worked will all the fire fields. It does not work with Lava Font. If it did, you would be able to keep a Lava Font up all the time, which would make this trait desirable.

Pyromancer’s Puissance: I like your idea, but it would be overpowered. I would change it to add 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds or 1 stack for 10 seconds, only while in Fire. Or you could do something like “whenever you crit in fire, you get a stack of might” but that would be kind of Air-ish.

About speed increases: Completely agree. Unless they play nice with swiftness (and actually work) they are worthless.

Zephyr’s Focus: Instead of endurance regenerating faster while channeling, I would like to see just a flat increase to endurance regeneration. However, that might warrant being moved up to a Master Trait, depending on the percentage.

Grounded: Grounded is good. Glass just doesn’t have enough other good traits to support this.

Salt Stone: I did some leveling as a S/D condition build, and what bothered me about this trait is it didn’t actually affect condition damage. I assume that it’s twin in fire, Ember’s Might, functions the same way. I would like it if both traits worked with ALL damage. It would make them a lot better, and form a great synergy for condition builds when getting both traits.

Stone Splinters: I like your suggestion a lot, but at 10% I think it would need to be moved up to a Master Trait.

Geomancer’s Freedom as a fall damage trait: Love it. I would switch it with Stone Splinters into the Adept Tier.

Rock Solid: LOVE it.

Acidic Wash: I would take this a step further. Certain mobs in Orr use Geyser. However, theirs both heals and damages. I have always been jelly. It would need to be moved up to Grandmaster.

Soothing Wave: Love the change. Adds great synergy with Cleansing Water.

Powerful Auras: I would switch this tier-wise with my version of Acidic Wash.

Lingering Elements: I wouldn’t change this.

Arcane Precision: I would make it apply a different condition depending on attunement (like Surge), at a 33%-50% chance.

Arcane Energy: I would change this to apply to any utility and stay at 25%.

Evasive Arcana: I would be so angry if this trait were nerfed, but I would understand why. It’s just too bad that PvE will have to suffer for PvP’s sake. I use this to quadruple blast heal my party (if needed) in dungeons. Works wonders. I think being 8 seconds makes it not SO bad, but I don’t think ANet would be nice like that. I think they would just keep the internal cooldown at 10 seconds.

Elemental Surge: It’s not terrible the way it is now, it is just outshined by Evasive Arcana. However, I would increase the durations a bit.

Overall, some very good suggestions. It’s a great thread with great ideas, and I hope people actually read it and comment.

Lingering Elements is great for Ele players that like to swap attunements a lot, it just needs to be fixed.
According to the wiki Vigorous Scepter increases endurance regeneration by only 25%, imo it should be 50%; it’s a master trait and only works with a single weapon.
I think Evasive Arcana will be nerfed enough when they remove the blast finisher on every dodge, not just the ones that triggers a spell.

If a trait doesn’t give at least 250 average stat points or equivalent other stuff (include bonuses for frontloading) , then it is crap and doesn’t have a spot in any viable build.

For reference, 5% unconditional damage is 100-125 stat points.

good work!!!

I actually agree with pretty much everything you said. Fire, Air, and Earth all have at least one level 30 trait that is just shockingly bad.

And I don’t really like how a glyph build is basically forced to put at least 20 points in Air, or a signet build with 30 into earth, etc.

Edit: I also strongly feel that the 3 level 20 Arcane traits surrounding scepter/staff/dagger should be combined into one trait that takes care of all 3. Whenever you can switch weapons, you can switch traits too, and the reason I avoid all of these is because it’s just too much of a pain. They should either be one trait, or bound to a specific weapon (effectively the same thing)

One of my biggest gripes are our “reduces fire/air/water/earth weapon skill recharge by X%” traits. Seeing as they reduce 25% of our weapon skills compared to 50% of other classes they should have something extra (hell most other classes get reduced cooldowns + something extra even).

Please don’t touch evasive arcana, love it, about the only really good trait.

The problem with our traits is that half of them say “while attuned to ______”, remove this and you’re fine in most cases.

Xriah.5743:

Lingering Elements: Attunement bonuses linger for 5 seconds.

Lingering Elements is great. Your other suggestions are pretty good, though.

Internal Fire: Deal 10% more damage while attuned to fire.
A solid boost to fire damage. Always tempting. As an adept trait, I don’t see a need to change this.

Pyromancer’s Alacrity: All your fire weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
More recharge for our damage dealing attunement? Yes please!

Above and similar traits in their own tree lines, should just be shoved together I think. Pretty much all other professions get something like that I think, someone posted it a long time back asking why we aren’t getting the CD reduction + something else like most other professions.

Zephyr’s Focus: Your endurance regenerates 100% faster while channeling skills.
Not really a D/D skill. I can see this being very nice with scepter and vigor. I won’t touch it, but am curious as to what others think.

I don’t really notice this one or use it and was never really sure of what to think about it.

Grandmaster – Arcane Precision: Skills have chance to apply a condition on critical hits.
I wish I knew what the chance was…because that’s probably what I would want to tweak if this trait needed a tweak.

Some1 else told me this was 10%, dunno if it actually is though.

Otherwise I like what OP’s thinking and I think that looking through this it really shows how much I think we need a buff in traits.

I’d really like to see something besides a speed boost for daggers even if the trait worked and it stacked with swiftness. Dual daggers already has plenty of distance closing skills AND swiftness all over the place, more move speed just seems unimpressive to me in any capacity.

Maybe something as simple as an AoE increase. Works for Staff, why not Daggers? I could get behind bigger AoE’s on Ring of Fire, Chilling Burst, Ride the Lightning, Churning Earth, ect.

Or if you really want to play on daggers being fast weapons, how about a boost to attack speed instead of movement speed? That would be interesting and not redundant, and its not like Elementalists have any other attack speed boosts. Nothing major, maybe 10-15%.

Electro.4173:

I’d really like to see something besides a speed boost for daggers even if the trait worked and it stacked with swiftness. Dual daggers already has plenty of distance closing skills AND swiftness all over the place, more move speed just seems unimpressive to me in any capacity.

Maybe something as simple as an AoE increase. Works for Staff, why not Daggers? I could get behind bigger AoE’s on Ring of Fire, Chilling Burst, Ride the Lightning, Churning Earth, ect.

Or if you really want to play on daggers being fast weapons, how about a boost to attack speed instead of movement speed? That would be interesting and not redundant, and its not like Elementalists have any other attack speed boosts. Nothing major, maybe 10-15%.

Attack speed boost, range boost, increase to damage the closer you are to your target. How does that sound to you?

Electro.4173:

I’d really like to see something besides a speed boost for daggers even if the trait worked and it stacked with swiftness. Dual daggers already has plenty of distance closing skills AND swiftness all over the place, more move speed just seems unimpressive to me in any capacity.

Maybe something as simple as an AoE increase. Works for Staff, why not Daggers? I could get behind bigger AoE’s on Ring of Fire, Chilling Burst, Ride the Lightning, Churning Earth, ect.

Or if you really want to play on daggers being fast weapons, how about a boost to attack speed instead of movement speed? That would be interesting and not redundant, and its not like Elementalists have any other attack speed boosts. Nothing major, maybe 10-15%.

That actually made me think: Those 3 traits are the only weapon specific traits we have, so why not abandon them too?

Make those 3 traits have nothing to do with weapon choice:
- 1 makes all your aoe bigger
- 1 gives you a bit more endurance regen

And the formerly-dagger one is still kitteny, even if if would stack with swiftness. Maybe something with conditions?

Zephyr’s Focus: Your endurance regenerates 100% faster while channeling skills.
Not really a D/D skill. I can see this being very nice with scepter and vigor. I won’t touch it, but am curious as to what others think.

It is a D/D and S/D skill. Both have channel attacks (cone of cold and drakes breath are both channeled). It would be better to have an armor or toughness boost rather than an endurance boost.

Bolt to the Heart: Deal 20% more damage to foes with less than 25% health.
People either love it or hate it. I’m not a fan, but if some people pick it, then it’s doing its job.

This is a crap skill in general. People that are under 25% go down fast as it is and there is no compelling reason to slot this over others.

Suggestion: Bolt to the Heart: Gain 100% crit rate and damage when attacking foes with less than 25% health.
Seems like a lot but its really not much more than what Bolt to the Heart currently does with the exception that it should finish nearly dead foes off a bit faster.

Piercing Shards: While attuned to water, your spells deal 20% more damage to vulnerable foes.
Umm…I’m not sure about this one. I mean, 20% more damage is a lot, but who the heck uses water to put out damage? Maybe it’s viable if you spec for it?

Picture the Air 25 skill procing vulnerability then swapping to water with this slotted. If in D/D or S/D this becomes fairly powerful on auto attacks alone. Its not enough reason to slot this, but it does up the damage signicantly.

Suggestion: Piercing Shards: Gain 50% increased crit rate when attacking vulnerable foes.

Stop Drop and Roll is a great trait considering chill destroys elementalist due to the cooldown increase, and burn hurts really bad which is not a good thing with our low hp. Not only that but both conditions are pretty common (especially burn). Dodge rolling does not have to be only for dodging attacks, and you can still use it for other things like curing chill/burn and easily have enough endurance to dodge attacks that need to be dodged if you think before you just randomly dodge around.

The elemental surge change you want is pretty terrible tbh… having abilities that activate on their own is a pretty lazy and annoying idea. True, elemental surge isn’t as good as evasive arcana in most cases, but it is still a good trait. Chill and immobilize are strong conditions (their effects aren’t reduced against many bosses). It is a good trait in builds with more than one arcane spell.

This is an impressive work, but i feel like Elementalists need a fix to their bugs rather than a revamp.

Traits like Piercing Shards would be great if only they worked with Lingering Attunements; Elementalists could almost ignore Precision if only Arcane Power worked correctly, I could see a Valkyrie based build being viable in this case; also I cannot count the times I died because RTL and Magnetic Grasp bugged leaving me exposed for 2/3 seconds and the list could go on for pages…

I’m not saying your traits ideas are bad, I like some of them, but do you realize that if ANet implemented this new set like our current one only half of it would work?

The adjustments below is what I’d like to see.

Ember’s Might | Burn (3 sec) nearby foes when you reach 6 or more stacks of Might. 30 second cooldown.

One with Air | Swiftness lasts 30% longer. Reduce fall damage by 50% when under the effects of Swiftness.

Obsidian Focus | Gain 90 Power and 90 Toughness while wielding a Conjured weapon.