Guild Wars 2

My suggestion is pretty simple. I propose that we revamp signet of air and water each in a significant way making them significantly more viable for all weapon styles be it s/d d/d staff or focus. As of right now the 2 utilities read:

-Signet of Water
Passive: Cures a condition every ten seconds.
Active: Chill your foe.

Chilled.png Chilled: 4 s
Damage Damage: 122
Range.png Range: 1,200

The main issue with this signet is the condition cleanse is not significant enough to be taken because condi cleanse is only used in high pressure situations when 1 condi cleanse every 10 seconds doesnt cut it. What I think should be changed is the on activate effect. The cc and damage seem unviable and lacking in potential. A much better approach to the activate would be a condi to boon conversion. This might warrant a cooldown increase from 30 seconds to 45-60 but I feel that having additional condi cleanse is never a bad thing and will make it more viable in todays condi based meta.

-Signet of Air
Passive: Grants a 25% increase in movement speed.
Active: Blind your target and nearby foes.

Blind.png Blind: 5 s
Damage Damage: 122
Radius.png Radius: 240
Breaks stun.png Breaks stun
Range.png Range: 1,200

So for this signet, the passive is pretty lackluster seeing as staff switching and elemental are so widely used. I however, feel the real issue lies with the activate again. The damage is mediocre and the aoe blind seems to be counter-intuitive to the whole style of elementalist nowadays focusing on vigor stacking instead of blind spamming. A much better alternative would be a 2 second knock back similar to that of updraft. I feel this will play into both burst and defense builds through all weapon combinations. Elementalist burst with s/d and d/d rely strongly on updraft fire combinations to land maximum blast finishers in fire fields. This gives us a little wiggle room on the already 40 SECOND CD of updraft (about the most unforgiving spell we have). It also plays into the defense of staff and focus eles who are on the retreat and trying to kite. Lets be real, above anything it’s classes that stack damage and stability that are the bane of elementalists ie: Warriors Guardians Thieves. This change may require a nerf on the cooldown from 30 seconds to 45-60 or a removal of the stun break but I still feel it would be worth it to bring some diversity into todays ele builds.

tl;dr – change signet of water on activate to condi-boon conversion with an increase in cooldown and change signet of air on activate to 2 second knock back similar in stature to updraft with a slight nerf to cooldown or removal of stun break.

All feedback is appreciated and if you have your own ideas on how you think these signets can be revamped, please feel free to post below.

No feedback after 20 hours? I guess all signets for eles are in perfect standing as of right now and shouldn’t be changed in any aspect.

I agree with what you say Ninja. Especially on Signet of Water.
We have water trait to remove condition. Remove just one condition every ten second isn’t worth it and its wasting your skill slot.

Anet buff Signet of Fire/Earth and add extra function on Signet of Air. But completely ignored Signet of Water! (Typical…. anet tend to weaken water spells back in GW1 days)

My humble suggestion would either remove 2 conditions every 8 or 10 secs. Adding a longer chill duration or giving a “deep freezed” effect. (or AoE chill/damage muti enemies once activited the signet)

Or heal/remove 1 or 2 conditions when activated. Giving +healing power (or vitality) as passive effect.

Water passive needs to remove 2 conditions and signet of air active should be a smoke field

I love the idea of signet of air being a knockdown on activation that would be really nice!
I don’t see why there should be any increase to cd since using a stunbreaker offensively promotes for skilled play.

I’d also like to see singet of earth become a instant cast and lowered cd to 25 sec, I mean running s/d and sometimes s/f it’s wierd that a ranged elementalist got so few lockdown abilities to keep enemies at bay.

Signet of Water isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Looking at signet of water without thinking 30 water/ 30 arcana.

Cleasning flame is burst condi cleanse untraited 40 secs. So basically 3 conditions every 40 seconds. Signet of water will remove more than that in 40 seconds (4). Cleansing flame can be traited to be better than Signet of Water.

Take your suggestion of condition to boon conversion keep it every 10 secs and I would most certainly think about running it. Active needs something though Frost Aura? Actually Frost aura for Signet of Water, Magnetic Aura for Signet of Earth, I do like the active on fire but I think Fire aura would be better, Air shocking aura.

All have 5 sec durations, this makes elemental shielding 10 in earth look juicy and the signet fire aura trait look even better in fire line, and makes powerful auras totally grandmaster worthy.

Condition → boon coversion is entering necro/ mesmer/ guardian ground, and there was a time where Jon Peters said, in gw2’s pvptv streaming, that adding more cc to elementalists would make them too strong.

I’ll suggest instead that Signet of Water should heal on its active effect. Pretty much as a second water trident, with ground targetted party healing too. Coupled that with stronger condition removal on passive (would 2 conditions every 10 seconds be too strong?), and that can compensate for some lack of investment on water and/ or arcana.

I would add a 1.25 second of evasion to Signet of Air instead of the blind. Wouldn’t touch it any further at the moment.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Condition -> boon coversion is entering necro/ mesmer/ guardian ground, and there was a time where Jon Peters said, in gw2’s pvptv streaming, that adding more cc to elementalists would make them too strong.

As it goes for CC something needs to be added or improve already excisting CC. For example “Earth Quake” on dagger offhand maybe could work like “Updraft” so it becomes another tool to land a relieble “Dragon’s Tooth” or maybe even a “Churning Earth”. When you have acceses to strong attacks like “Dragon’s Tooth” it’s really annoying that you hardly ever can use it because it will be a waste of time. (player vs player perspective)

Any buff to signet of air would increase it cd even more. It was a 20s cd before they added the stunbreaker to it. Now it is a 30s cd. Signet of water does need to be reworked since it is under used. It is currently only useful for pve.