Guild Wars 2

You’re probably getting tired of random people coming in and spewing random suggestions on the forum, but I’m pretty proud of these few. Make no mistake, these would be not unsignificant buffs to the ele, particularly in the PvP format, but that’s the positive side of being slightly underpowered, you can suggest impactful changes.

Air grandmaster minor, changed to ‘stun target foe for .25 seconds when attuning to air’.

Great synergy with both tempest defense and fresh air. Use mid channel of for example fire grab to get the bonus damage from tempest defense, or just increase the pressure of continuous air spikes. This would turn air attunement into the true 1v1 spiker it wants to be. The current grandmaster minor is a non-factor in PvP, but quite useful in dungeons. Elementalists are however top-tier in dungeons, and this reasonable nerf is probably justified. The only place where the current version really shines is when using the fiery greatsword-rush ‘glitch’, which really deserves this nerf. Not saying I think it’s an exploit, but the damage is so obscene, reducing it a little would really be a nice side-effect of changing this trait.

Water grandmaster minor, changed to auras apply regeneration.

In a trait line with powerful aura as a grandmaster, we need at least one aura-related trait. Again great synergy with both water grandmasters, while also possibly filling the lack of regeneration when not going 20 arcana. Also a more thematic choice, instead of an important damage modifier, a more survivability-oriented trait.

These two are the most important ones. I have some ideas for both arcana and earth grandmaster minors, but for now I’ll give you those. See if anyone likes them.

I think the grandmaster minor for air is a good trait as it is (Personally I’d prefer it as a adept tier trait though, as a lot of other classes inflict vuln or some other condi on crit sooner) I do have an interesting adept minor idea though. We could rework it to:

Zephyr’s Freedom: Remove immobilize when attuning to air. Chill, Cripple and Immobilize durations are reduced by 33% while attuned to air.

I also have a good idea for the grandmaster water and air minor traits as well, which are as follows:

Bountiful Power: Moved to Arcane Grandmaster 25

Regenerative Waters: Regeneration lasts 33% longer. (Replaces Water Grandmaster 25)

Have you ever played with 25 air in PvP? The amount of vulnerability it stacks is negligible.

I like the sound of that adept trait, although it’s definitely extremely strong for an adept minor. Just the passive effect seems like a good option.

I had the same thing in mind for arcane grandmaster.

Basically the point of my propositions would be to further define elementalist as a class with a very high skillcap. Rather than giving them a bunch of passive buffs or stat increases, give them mechanically interesting choices. That’s why I don’t like your proposition for water grandmaster minor, nor the current version of air minor grandmaster.

• caster-only version of Elemental Attunement as baseline, add new trait that restores the AOE capability. switch EA water attunement effect with current water 15.

utilities:

• glyphs: replace the non-elite glyph of elementals, add a decent glyph trait
• signets: slight buff to signet of Water passive and active, traits are ok
• conjures: remove clunkiness of core mechanic, it’s bloody awful

weapons:

• focus: add some mobility and/or healing, buff fire wall
• sceptre: improve general usability of fire #2 and water #2
• dagger: revert ride the lightning CD nerf
• staff: speed up air #2, maybe add small leap backward to air #3.

I’d rather have one working build, than 5 subpar ones. Giving signets, glyphs and conjures such minor buffs isn’t going to get us anywhere in PvP. Your suggestions on weapons are very vague, and your elemental attunement idea is quite unrealistic, since elemental attunement is a borderline grandmaster trait, so there is no way we’ll get it as a free passive. Giving 15 water as baseline as well will completely break the ele, as you now get massive healing for free as well.

Also, try to not completely ignore other propositions and just throw your own at us, that’s not what this post is about. Looking for some feedback

Elemental Attunement wasn’t a near grandmaster trait until recently, and it could be just as easily moved back to where it was.

I’m not saying it should be a grandmaster trait, I’m saying that’s how strong it is. And although I agree it should be moved back, it’s pretty safe to assume they won’t revert this change, as they’ve never done such a thing. So let’s work from there.

^ Flawed logic, which Anet is mysteriously embracing. I could just as easily say something ridiculous like: “movement is an incredibly powerful and game-changing ability. For this reason we are moving the use of WASD keys to a grandmaster trait.”

Point is, the strength of traits should not be examined in a void, but in how powerful they make us in comparison to other classes. If ele is balanced or UP compared to other classes with elemental attunement as an adept trait or even baseline, that is what it should be. If it is more powerful than other traits then they should instead be brought up to par.

If you take a look at the Twitch podcast of Isaiah Cartwright (! anachronism) featuring the Ele, you see that Anet still sees the profession as a master of nothing, but average at all other things. Strangely condition damage is kind of bad (not average) and perhaps that’s were they should tune a bit (also some Focus tuning):

1. Flamestrike (Scepter #1) needs a speed up to 0.5 sec a cast or a burning increase to 3 seconds.
2. Stage 3 of Arc Lightning should add 1 sec of Weakness
3, Dust Devil should Immobilize for 1 sec
4. Impale should get a range increase to 400
5. Ring of Fire should apply burning to foes that stand in it, not just passing through
6. Flame Wall should have a recharge of 15 sec
7. Gust should either have a longer Chill (4 sec) or a shorter recharge (20 sec)
8. Comet should get either get no casting time or a bigger radius (180 perhaps)
9. Gale needs it recharge halved and added a small damage component
10. Swirling Winds recharge should go down to 25 sec.

The condi suggestions are just minor, but could be a first step.
I would not change traits too much now, with the exception of Soothing Wave (which is no replacement for Cleansing Wave) that would get another second of Regeneration.

Glyphs need love (I made a thread called “A Plea for Glyphs” a while ago with some suggestions) and Conjures are still a mess. I would like to see some “banner effect” for the spot you cast the second weapon, perhaps with a little smaller radius than Warrior’s banners and applying like the same stat combo bonus than the weapon.

Jabberwock.9014:

^ Flawed logic, which Anet is mysteriously embracing. I could just as easily say something ridiculous like: “movement is an incredibly powerful and game-changing ability. For this reason we are moving the use of WASD keys to a grandmaster trait.”

Point is, the strength of traits should not be examined in a void, but in how powerful they make us in comparison to other classes. If ele is balanced or UP compared to other classes with elemental attunement as an adept trait or even baseline, that is what it should be. If it is more powerful than other traits then they should instead be brought up to par.

Movement is not unique to any profession, elemental attunement is. I agree it wouldn’t be a problem balance-wise if we got it baseline or if it went back to adept, I’m just saying it won’t happen, and we should work from there.

Irrelevant point. I could say the same thing about attunement swapping as opposed to movement; that is ele specific yes? Since it is so powerful, should we move the ability to swap attunements to a grandmaster trait? Of course not. Just because something is powerful doesn’t mean it has to be hard to access.

I agree Anet probably won’t go back on it, but that doesn’t mean I think their trait balancing logic (in general) is any less flawed.

scerevisiae.1972:

• dagger: revert ride the lightning CD nerf

I would cry tears of happy if that happened.

Gokil.2543:

I’d rather have one working build, than 5 subpar ones.

This. I don’t play with 30 in air, as in my testing I found it to be an incomplete build which relies on heavy damage, but can’t sustain itself in a 2v1, but I will say whatever you propose, follow the guideline above regardless of what other people say.

Always shoot for the complete build, and you’ll be happier. I know glass cannons think they’re happy, but in reality they would be happier as all around useful players. “You’re not a DPS if you’re dead.”