Guild Wars 2

For those that’ve given it a try, what do you think so far? I did a few duels running it, trying both 0/0/30/30/10 and 0/0/30/10/30, and it really shuts down condi necros/engis hard. Unless they add in a bit of power through either gear or utility/weapon choice, the fights pretty close to impossible for them. If they pass the hp threshold the condis would start melting me, but even then ether renewal takes care of that problem. Feels like a pretty useless trait outside of duels against condi classes though. Power builds won’t care, and in a group fight an ele isn’t gonna have an easy time staying above 90%.

Overall I’m probably just gonna stick to my regular build. I’m sure there’s some crazy build out there that can utilize this trait well, but for the time being outside of duels against condi classes I don’t see the appeal.

D/D ele here.

So far I’m not finding it very effective in PvP.

If I fight 1 on 1 and am very careful about taking damage then I can down a condi class, but as soon as you dip below 90% you are dead very quickly. This makes you feel very uncertain when you fight as the change can be very sudden; one moment you are at 90% and its seemingly taken a lot of fighting to get there, and the next moment you’re dead.

It feels like you’ve got 10% of your health basically to kill someone, so if you run around with 20K health, you better kill them without being hit for 2K… The more I think about it, the more useless it seems.

This was against an engineer in my guild. He could beat me everytime pre-patch, but when he switched to his ele (used to be his main) I could beat him almost everytime even though his build was more tanky. Post patch, I can down his engi if I make absolutely no mistakes, have zero cool-downs, and down him quickly before he gets a 2k hit in. After that the condis get me pretty quick.

Fighting in a group, forget it, it doesn’t take much to get below 90% health.

Having said that, this is day 1 and I’ve had limited time with it. Maybe there will be a way to make it work. I’m still playing with builds, but I felt more effective when I went back to my standard build.

I was really looking forward to this patch, but so far it has left me a little cold. First impression at least.

PvE went a little better though. I did a couple of dungeons and enjoyed the condi immunity, but I really missed evasive arcana. Not had time to try WvW yet.

It requires building specifically for it, and is VERY situational (1v1 with a condi class). You are better doing something else.

The only “new” toy I haven’t tested is soothing wave + cleansing water, but its not really worth giving up all of our dps and rock solid just to take a heal other than ether renewal.

I’ve been using a 30/10/30/0/0 tanky condi build since back when most eles were using the DD heal-bunker, and yeah, this is yet another addition to the growing list of failed attempts by the developers at giving us the defense they know they unreasonably took.

Why are the developers so against giving us any defense? We are the ONLY class to fall in the lowest tier for both health and armor. The other classes with the lowest armor have inherent defense in their class mechanics (The mesmers illusions and necromancers Death Shroud), the other classes with the lowest tier health have the most defensive abilities in the game (the thief’s stealth and evasion and the guardians blocks and buff uptime).

Personally, I don’t think they can, and the developers just need to admit it. They are never going to balance a class’s defensive abilities solely with traits and abilities against classes with such severe differences in base stats. I’d say the developers were trying to balance apples and oranges, but that’s not an apt analogy, it’s more like they are trying to balance apples and orange against just an apple.

Normalize the defensive stat tiers, there is no reason whatsoever for such a severe difference and you are never going to balance this game with them as they currently sit.

I can’t imagine the trait being useful if it doesn’t cleanse conditions when you reach above the threshold. Does it not do that?

At the moment I am using 0/10/30/0/30 and am liking it immensely. As others have said, pure condi classes just do not stand a chance. Even if they manage to get me below the 90% threshold it is just rock solid and ether renewal up again. What I most like about my build is that it also can handle its own against hybrid and physical damage classes. So far the only spec I feel where I am at a noticeable disadvantage is a power hammer/longbow warrior. I do get very close though. Though, a build that puts 30 into water should not have much trouble with a power hammer/longbow warrior.

I am going to also test out 0/10/30/15/15 since the added healing and health of going into water should outweigh losing the 15 into arcana.

Haven’t had a chance to fight an Ele yet. What worries me most isn’t the condition damage. I run a tanky power dagger build on my Necro and in order to deliver any meaningful damage I need to initiate with Immobilize/Fears/Chills. I’m happy that the devs are designing more interesting and meaningful traits, but its frustrating when everyone else gets new toys and we can’t say we’re best at anything.

I love it — using a 0/0/30/30/10 D/D build in 5-man WvW roaming. I just move thru fear, necro marks, doesn’t matter. It’s very cool.

0 0 30 20 20 and im owning

Incredibly broken trait.

Was a terribly-designed and obviously flawed trait from the first suggestion. OP in 1v1 vs a condi class, useless otherwise.

Conncept.7638:

I’ve been using a 30/10/30/0/0 tanky condi build since back when most eles were using the DD heal-bunker, and yeah, this is yet another addition to the growing list of failed attempts by the developers at giving us the defense they know they unreasonably took.

Why are the developers so against giving us any defense? We are the ONLY class to fall in the lowest tier for both health and armor. The other classes with the lowest armor have inherent defense in their class mechanics (The mesmers illusions and necromancers Death Shroud), the other classes with the lowest tier health have the most defensive abilities in the game (the thief’s stealth and evasion and the guardians blocks and buff uptime).

Personally, I don’t think they can, and the developers just need to admit it. They are never going to balance a class’s defensive abilities solely with traits and abilities against classes with such severe differences in base stats. I’d say the developers were trying to balance apples and oranges, but that’s not an apt analogy, it’s more like they are trying to balance apples and orange against just an apple.

Normalize the defensive stat tiers, there is no reason whatsoever for such a severe difference and you are never going to balance this game with them as they currently sit.

Mesmers and Necros also have more health than we do. Necros have as much health as a warrior and Mesmers have as much as a ranger.

I am not too worried about the different armor tiers since there is not a hugh disparity in points, I am more worried about the HP disparity (800 vitality for high HP and 400 vitality for medium HP).

Armor is far more tame, with only about 300 toughness between heavy and light and 140 between medium and light.

(That is a 1100 gap between Warrior and Ele, just imagine the balance if we had a 1100 boost to power, or 800 to power and 300 to precision?)

In Zerg WvW fights last night as a staff Ele it was awesome, I could not be shutdown while on the edge of the fights a breath of fresh air not having to spend 30 in Arcana but imo even though it is as others have said situational it will be nerfed too many people will moan

I am experimenting with 0/10/30/10/20…

the problem is I can’t give up the Renewing Stamina because as DD I have no other vigor resource now and without Elemental Attunement Ele doesn’t fell like Ele…

And with 10 in Water I don’t have enough sustained to keep me up at %90 health…..if I could go to 15 water and get the minor there I think I would have a good chance but I don’t have 5 points to spare.

That brings me the idea, why they don’t couple Elemental Attunement to minor 15 of Arcana, if it is too powerfull for it, lets say nerf %50 duration of the buff……

That will really open up some build possiblities….

Not sure where the fun comes in with traits like these that shut down a certain playstyle. Instead of being the better player, it now comes down to what trait you happen to be using. I’d rather have the old cleansing wave back. That at least allowed us to make average builds, which we then had to play properly in order to win or not. Diamond Skin however turns it into a build vs. build game.

Broken vs condi necro, condi warrior
Balanced vs. PU condi bunker
Garbage vs everything else.

ThiBash.5634:

Not sure where the fun comes in with traits like these that shut down a certain playstyle. Instead of being the better player, it now comes down to what trait you happen to be using. I’d rather have the old cleansing wave back. That at least allowed us to make average builds, which we then had to play properly in order to win or not. Diamond Skin however turns it into a build vs. build game.

Is this the same fun as dying from low-effort condition spam? Maybe that comes down to what skills/traits someone else is using?

It’s always a build-vs-build game when players are on equal skill footing. That being said there is some skill to maintaining your HP above 90% with this trait so it’s not brainless.

juno.1840:

Is this the same fun as dying from low-effort condition spam? Maybe that comes down to what skills/traits someone else is using?

So the answer is to add specific counters rather than fix the issue?

It’s always a build-vs-build game when players are on equal skill footing. That being said there is some skill to maintaining your HP above 90% with this trait so it’s not brainless.

Disagree. There’s no such thing as being equally skilled. At some point one of the players will make a mistake and the duel will be decided. Diamond Skin is a rock-paper-scissors trait, which only won’t make you win against it’s designed counter if the player doesn’t know how to play it properly (i.e. not knowing how scissors looks).

Not sure what game you’ve been playing ThiBash, but GW2 is full of rock-paper-scissors (and so was GW1, even more so).

You cannot make a singular build that will beat every other build merely on skill — nor should you be able to as skill/trait selection should have meaning.

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Senjun.8149:

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Not true — the trait is not suppose to be “god mode”… nor is it “easy mode”. It’s simply another tool available to you as a player (and it’s a good tool).

If you get hit for 3k, then top yourself off so you’re back above 90%.

What did players expect for this trait? Seriously? I think it’s very good, but I see many complaints about the 90% mechanic. I’ll ask you this: What threshold would make this trait “good” for you? Can you provide an answer that doesn’t make people laugh?

I am wondering if this trait is as insane as I think it will be in PvE? I dont play many pvp games, and am consdidering switching from a ultra glass cannon build to a build based arround diamond skin to shake things up a bit. As far as I know, this trait can be pretty interesting in dungeons. Anyone has experience with it from a PvE point of view?

I like the idea of the trait btw, its one of the few ‘’build arround me’’ traits. I spent a lot of time switching stuff arround in build editors, heck I think thats 20% of my total game time, and I do play guildwars quite a bit =P I love building awesome builds!

Shadowfall.6543:

Mesmers and Necros also have more health than we do. Necros have as much health as a warrior and Mesmers have as much as a ranger.

I am not too worried about the different armor tiers since there is not a hugh disparity in points, I am more worried about the HP disparity (800 vitality for high HP and 400 vitality for medium HP).

Armor is far more tame, with only about 300 toughness between heavy and light and 140 between medium and light.

(That is a 1100 gap between Warrior and Ele, just imagine the balance if we had a 1100 boost to power, or 800 to power and 300 to precision?)

I never said necros didn’t have more health, or mesmers, I spoke about their armor. And personally I do think the armor disparity is a big deal because of the huge HP disparity, armor improves with vitality, similar to how critical and precision improve with power, they are codependent stats. Meaning that the classes which have the same armor as us, but higher HP, actually have better armor as well.

And then add that to the fact that all these classes with either low HP or armor have inherent defensive abilities or class mechanics (while the ele gets pseudo-diversity as its class mechanic) and you begin to see that the Ele is never going to be balanced, it is always going to be overpowered if you give it defense, or underpowered if you don’t.

juno.1840:

Senjun.8149:

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Not true — the trait is not suppose to be “god mode”… nor is it “easy mode”. It’s simply another tool available to you as a player (and it’s a good tool).

If you get hit for 3k, then top yourself off so you’re back above 90%.

What did players expect for this trait? Seriously? I think it’s very good, but I see many complaints about the 90% mechanic. I’ll ask you this: What threshold would make this trait “good” for you? Can you provide an answer that doesn’t make people laugh?

85% would be alot better. It is a grandmaster trait John sharp was thinking about lowering it to 85% or heightening the elementalists health pool. It was discussed at their meetings he said.

But ofc being bad at balancing anything anet did what they did best. Nothing.

Well if you want a glass ele to be your main DPS and you have 2x bunker spamming heals on them, they should actually do much better than normal since they could basically stand in the condi kittenstorm that is on points and ignore most of it.

What were we talking about again? I seem to have forgotten while I got distracted

I warned you all.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Diamond-Skin-Proposal

It’s either amazing, with a very specific build, against a very specific foe, or it’s the garbage king of Mt. Garbington.

Senjun.8149:

juno.1840:

Senjun.8149:

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Not true — the trait is not suppose to be “god mode”… nor is it “easy mode”. It’s simply another tool available to you as a player (and it’s a good tool).

If you get hit for 3k, then top yourself off so you’re back above 90%.

What did players expect for this trait? Seriously? I think it’s very good, but I see many complaints about the 90% mechanic. I’ll ask you this: What threshold would make this trait “good” for you? Can you provide an answer that doesn’t make people laugh?

85% would be alot better. It is a grandmaster trait John sharp was thinking about lowering it to 85% or heightening the elementalists health pool. It was discussed at their meetings he said.

But ofc being bad at balancing anything anet did what they did best. Nothing.

I believe it’s good enough against condition builds already, 2200 HP is at least 4-5 attacks for a build with no power damage. What it needs is either a secondary affect which helps against power builds or helps your own condition build.

amazing against conditrolls, completely useless in any other circumstance.

I agree.. I’ve been playing around in spvp today, trying to find some good build.. something outside the standard. Still trying to figure it out… but. I tested x/x/30/20-30/x bunker build and zerker, and honestly it just doesn’t work.. It’s kinda fun when you get a necro spamming their conditions on you, but outside that, one hit, and you starting to take all the condition damage again. It’s not nearly as useful as engineer’s trait that gives immunity at 25% hp..

Btw, I don’t like the cleansing fire in Fire trait line either.. It’s not a reliable condition removal, I just rather go in water for on demand condi removal.

Yeah fire trait is pretty hilarious when it activates on the first tick of a 3-5 tick aoe spam skill. Most players don’t even open up a fight with their biggest condi burst for the exact reason of making players waste removal early… And in this case we don’t even have a choice in the matter

Not sure what people expect here. There are many traits that don’t impact every fight.

Anyone with 30 water has a wasted trait when they aren’t fighting condi. Cleansing water is garbage folks. 15 air is garbage unless you have fresh air.

The most popular traits among all classes are the ones that are the most effective in all situations. Then the niche traits shape your build. It’s like saying fresh air is garbage when your in air. When we know that’s not the case.

Effective general use traits are powerful and always taken. Diamond skin is not a general use trait but neither is many of the gm traits. The only strong general use GM trait is evasive arcana and when I switch to s/d I will still take fresh air over evasive.

juno.1840:

Not sure what game you’ve been playing ThiBash, but GW2 is full of rock-paper-scissors (and so was GW1, even more so).

As you can probably tell, I’m not a fan of that and would prefer less of it, not more.

You cannot make a singular build that will beat every other build merely on skill — nor should you be able to as skill/trait selection should have meaning.

There’s a difference between ‘beat’ and ‘have a fair fighting chance’. Don’t put words in my mouth.

This trait is an absolute mess. It renders 1v1 against condition necros a 100% win, but is subpar against almost literally everything else. Anything more than 1v1 you are at a huge disadvantage because that 10% buffer will be gone in a millisecond. Additionally power builds will still destroy you since you can’t take evasive arcana for healing.

The only benefit I can see this having is forcing necros to build some power with their condition damage so they aren’t hard countered by a single trait.

Aside from the hard counter to condition classes, I feel this is also useful to the perma immobilize openers that more often than not are the cause of my death.

Jabberwock.9014:

This trait is an absolute mess. It renders 1v1 against condition necros a 100% win, but is subpar against almost literally everything else. Anything more than 1v1 you are at a huge disadvantage because that 10% buffer will be gone in a millisecond. Additionally power builds will still destroy you since you can’t take evasive arcana for healing.

The only benefit I can see this having is forcing necros to build some power with their condition damage so they aren’t hard countered by a single trait.

I’m going to ask if you’ve tried it — because I did. It was in 20 on 20 zerg fights in WvW and I thought it was amazing. I could clearly see a difference. I avoided all initial condition spam. In addition, when I top my health off I’m immune again. In fact I don’t have to try sometimes because my team mates are also throwing out group healz which keeps me immune that much longer.

I found myself laughing out loud multiple times last night and probably convinced at least two other players in our guild to dust off their elementalists and give it a go.

Too many theory crafters have crafted this trait as useless, and it’s far from it.

Wraistlin.6072:

Aside from the hard counter to condition classes, I feel this is also useful to the perma immobilize openers that more often than not are the cause of my death.

I also found it great when running away. If you choose not to fight, just turn and run. All immobilize, cripple, fear, etc. doesn’t even touch you (and if I observed it correctly, doesn’t even throw you into combat!). I outran some zergs while a few of my team mates succumbed to the mob. Of course stability is still required but that’s where Rock Solid and Armor of Earth pays off.

juno.1840:

Jabberwock.9014:

This trait is an absolute mess. It renders 1v1 against condition necros a 100% win, but is subpar against almost literally everything else. Anything more than 1v1 you are at a huge disadvantage because that 10% buffer will be gone in a millisecond. Additionally power builds will still destroy you since you can’t take evasive arcana for healing.

The only benefit I can see this having is forcing necros to build some power with their condition damage so they aren’t hard countered by a single trait.

I’m going to ask if you’ve tried it — because I did. It was in 20 on 20 zerg fights in WvW and I thought it was amazing. I could clearly see a difference. I avoided all initial condition spam. In addition, when I top my health off I’m immune again. In fact I don’t have to try sometimes because my team mates are also throwing out group healz which keeps me immune that much longer.

I found myself laughing out loud multiple times last night and probably convinced at least two other players in our guild to dust off their elementalists and give it a go.

Too many theory crafters have crafted this trait as useless, and it’s far from it.

I suppose I tried an offensive build with 25 in fire and carrion amulet which may have contributed. Maybe soldier’s amulet would fare better. But like you say, in wvw zergs with teammates topping your health off it’s probably better. For sPvP or solo roaming I don’t think it’s worth it.

What kind of gear did you have? Healing power? Toughness? Vitality?

So far only tried it with settlers and is not worth it, I had 13k hp pool. Didn’t have the chance to 1v1 a condition user. Pretty much all encounters where +2v2 and zergs in mid points my health dropped pretty fast didn’t even realized I had the trait I tought it was bugged.

Topping your health to +90% should be easy task but getting to it won’t cleanse the conditions already in. So you will die pretty quick. You could use ether renewal like some said but I tought I was a bunker and being in mid fight, you could get interrupted by almost anyone half cast.

It’s a good step we should have lots of GM traits we could build around I mean look at fresh air is an awesome trait.

Jabberwock.9014:

I suppose I tried an offensive build with 25 in fire and carrion amulet which may have contributed. Maybe soldier’s amulet would fare better. But like you say, in wvw zergs with teammates topping your health off it’s probably better. For sPvP or solo roaming I don’t think it’s worth it.

What kind of gear did you have? Healing power? Toughness? Vitality?

I was running a 0/0/30/30/10 D/D build with aura sharing. My gear is PVT armor and Celestial jewelry. I pulled this build out of my kitten because I wanted to try diamond skin.

Honestly I was surprised at how good it worked — I suspected it would totally suck as there’s lots of damage flying around in ZvZ. That’s my perspective (ZvZ), not PvP nor any other usage discussed so far.

As has been mentioned already, drop below 90% and the trait does not function. So part of the strategy of using Diamond Skin is to get your health back above 90% and purge the conditions you have. If you execute this recovery successfully, it’s like you’ve reset the fight. I achieved this because: (1) I was still using Ether Renewal and Cleansing Flames cantrip, (2) I was still traiting for cantrips to receive vigor and regen, and (3) I had 30 in water to help recover health. So maybe this is a build around diamond skin — I don’t know. But I found it very effective, felt like I was supporting my team, and felt that I hampered the opposing zerg satisfactorily.

I love it, can push with zergs up the front like a madman with dagger, focus #5, #4 (earth), and Reaper of Grenth human elite, tears them apart. If things get hairy, rock solid + ether renewal + lightning flash → mist form and get the kitten outta there!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmibzR3gjDIEFAgJMeECfQHWUkDzAA-ToAA1CtIETJmTMjYSxsiNCZWA

Had great success with this in spvp. Had 2 people ragequit and another ask for the build. This all within 5 fights.

@Talindra: are you using translate.google.com or something? Honestly it’s like mashed up words.

I enjoy this build so far. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbwx4gjDIkHngLwCjHdQI0hiCPAA-ToAA1CoIqRVjrGTNyas1M+YSA

WvA.8624:

I am wondering if this trait is as insane as I think it will be in PvE?

Not really. I find my hp doesn’t really last long with just the toughness from Earth and going into close range. It helps, but no where near “insane.” With Scepter’s Rock Barrier or similar defense increases, maybe. Longer range would probably be helpful too.

Daze ignores it too. The current LS toy golems or wvw sentries proved that rather quickly. Kinda jarring the first time it happened.

All in all, it’s kinda underwhelming.

Only played a bit tonight since my internet sucks BBC and I get constant ping spikes at night, but after trying several builds I’ve somewhat settled on 0/0/30/20/20 with offensive gear. It actually has potential.

I’ve tried most possible builds with 30 earth for diamond skin as the only constant since the patch in both pvp and wvw, and while its incredibly overpowered 1v1 against a condi class (you can basically go afk against a condi mesmer), it quickly loses its relevance in 1vX or group fights due to the low hp pool for ele. I’ve since pretty much given up on it and switched back to my usual 0/10/0/30/30 with the new soothing wave trait which has been very good so far.

Draehl.2681:

Haven’t had a chance to fight an Ele yet. What worries me most isn’t the condition damage. I run a tanky power dagger build on my Necro and in order to deliver any meaningful damage I need to initiate with Immobilize/Fears/Chills. I’m happy that the devs are designing more interesting and meaningful traits, but its frustrating when everyone else gets new toys and we can’t say we’re best at anything.

Did you just complain that Necro isn’t best at anything!?

Legion.1569:

I’ve tried most possible builds with 30 earth for diamond skin as the only constant since the patch in both pvp and wvw, and while its incredibly overpowered 1v1 against a condi class (you can basically go afk against a condi mesmer), it quickly loses its relevance in 1vX or group fights due to the low hp pool for ele. I’ve since pretty much given up on it and switched back to my usual 0/10/0/30/30 with the new soothing wave trait which has been very good so far.

The way I see it, Diamond Skin is going to be useless to most people running Dagger builds. Diamond Skin is the kind of trait that doesn’t work for melee classes.

On the other hand I think Staff Eles are going to love it. As a Full Zerk Staff Ele, I am used to running away, kiting, and basically avoiding damage altogether, because usually I die the moment I get hit by anything. This should help a bit.

Though I should note that Staff Eles still suck in PVP 1v1s (or at least, I do) so this is probably not gonna help any in that regard. It will probably work wonders in WvW where I sometimes have trouble running away because I get chilled, immobilized or crippled to hell and back.

this traits pretty interesting. against most classes it gives you a huge advantage early on in the fights, even in team fights i feel like its pretty nice, honestly its hilarious fighting condi classes with it. rock solid is also an incredible trait. the only thing is, you actually have to play good against some power classes now. ive been running 0-0-30-10-30 and if you take vital striking and stone splinters ( and earth 25 ) you do enormous damage at the start of a fight… killing glassier classes in one burning speed fire grab combo if you get the jump on them

Finally I can make conditiomancers tremble those full hardcore all conditons.