Guild Wars 2

My five cents on ele’s reworked traits: (all is my opinion and posted to constructive discussion)

FIRE:
I was actually hoping that with the +4 trait points this could be interesting, but – Minors are horrible and others don’t offer much in the way of variation.

MINOR:
Flame Barrier:
This is a weird one. If you think about it, it is basically the focus 5 skill fire shield– similar cooldown but with a lower duration due to the randomness and possibly procing it twice during the cooldown. It is a sad day indeed for focus users when this is either a better/worse version of its 5 skill.
This also is a difficult one to adjust specially since if you increase the 20% trigger chance this will be almost essential for aura elementalists (and far better than focus 5 skill) as it will proc all their boons every time they switch to fire.
I would suggest to remove this one and replace it with Burning Precision (which is not adapt trait worthy). However, Burning Precision would switch to being on hit (10% trigger chance seems reasonable) but take away the duration increase on burning.
Sunspot:
Continues to be just bad except for close bursty builds, 180 radius is far too little – maybe it gets more useful with the sword if it has a shorter reach (hope not!), but for any other elementalist weapon staying at such a close range is a bad idea specially if you are attuning to fire.
I would suggest a radius increase, depending on the increase, a reduced damage would be fair.
Burning Rage:
Good, no change.

ADEPT
Burning Precision:
Not adept trait worthy, I would suggest to bring Blinding Ashes down to adept, but with a higher ICD (10s). It then would combine with the burning duration.

Conjurer:
A misleading trait. This is not a conjurer trait, this is a signet trait pure and simple.

First of all, I would suggest a major rework on conjurer skills. My dream would be for them to be meshed into one Glyph skill and become an Elite. The Elite would basically work by giving you access to all conjure weapons (with appropriate nerfs and adjustments) and when you swap elements you swap between conjured weapons.
In this scenario, Conjurer part of this trait would be fused with Inscription from Air and would then be moved to Arcane trait line as a Grandmaster. (Removing Elemental Surge from the Arcane trait line).
The real part of this trait (fire shield when activating signets) is good and would become its sole trait.

Power overwhelming:
A buff to condi damage based on power is horrible idea. Power and Condition are generally mutually exclusive. You either kill fast with power or you get high sustain and wear them down with condition damage, it hardly makes sense to have both. Additionally, disputing condi damage with condi duration is not ideal.
This should be scraped and replaced with a bonus to power based on vitality or toughness. Would make more sense.

MASTER: Some interesting options
Pyromancer’s Training
Decent for those that like fire, but again, I find it very odd that we have so many traits aimed at given % damage boost for being in a single element – we basically have to pick the same generic trait so many times if we want to continue switching between elements or we have to focus on a single element – which is hardly a good thing.

One with fire:
Interesting as well, but this is a wasted opportunity for the clear goal of having aura elementalists. At the very least the might boon should apply to any auras – it is strange that fire has a trait that only benefits fire auras and water, air and earth synergy so well with aura skills. Alas, it is still good combo with conjurer on a signet build (might stack to oblivion).

Burning Fire:
Not a bad trait for condi removal and the might on cantrips is good for cantrip builds and when this triggers it means you trade 3 condi for 3 might stacks, a reasonable contender.

GRANDMASTER: why oh why….
Persisting Flames:
Lava font on you when you go down is horrible. The combination is effectively pure fluff. Persisting flames should have come with a radius increase to fire fields.

Pyromancer’s Puissance:
Same old same old, good for might stacking, but requires staying too long in fire to get a real benefit from it. I would suggest that it could be triggered in other elements due to lingering elements….

Blinding ashes:
Is just a bad grandmaster and should be replaced with something else. I would prefer it was something that helped to clear conditions, maybe a condi clear grandmaster trait that cleared one condition when you blast a fire field or you gain fire shield.
This way, the grandmaster traits become a choice between Crit (Persisting Flames) Power (Pyromancer’s Puissance) or Sustain (New condi clear trait).

AIR:
Had potential, but it feels like only in Grandmaster there will be dispute of what will be useful or not.

MINORS:
Zephyr’s speed – Why this still requires air attunment to work? Just make it global already when you have it and increase the . 15 seems reasonable. (Could compensate for windborne daggers loss)

Lightning Strike – Good.

Weak Spot – Good for crit builds (you are in air for crit builds after all), but it would be nice if it also triggered when you disabled the opponent.

ADEPT:
Zephyr’s boon:
Always liked it, sadly the only one still useful here.
One with Air:
Honestly never felt the 3s of superspeed was meaningful, but that is just me. I would even say that this should be removed and replaced with something more interesting. Perhaps something that triggered when you apply disabled to the enemy – mobility, disable and crit seems to be the moto of Air, and crit and mobility is already covered by Zephy’s boon.
Ferocius Winds –
First off, Based on healing power? With the increase of base stats that means that healing power max will be lower, and you give only 7%? Not to mention, this is just one of the 3 (yes 3) traits that are buffing ferocity. Ferocity became really bad after the time old nerf to crit damage… This should become a much more needed bonus to precision rather than a mediocre bonus to ferocity trait… It would then be a dispute between this and Zephy’s boon, one for aura eles this for non-aura crit eles.

MASTER:
Inscription –
Glyphs skills are bad and you should avoid them and this. But if my conjurer dream came true, this could be replaced with something more interesting in this line. Perhaps a rework of Zephyr’s focus? It would help with those focusing on more mobile builds.
Aeromancer’s Training Yup, here we go again. Ferocity buff n. 2, miles better increase than the adept and comes with 20% reduced recharge rate on air skills, but seriously, you not taking tempest defense why? Oh you a burst/crit build? Fair enough.
Tempest Defense:
For the new aura elementalists (eager for those) this is golden. For everyone else this is good.

GRANDMASTER:
Bolt to the Heart To change it from adept to grandmaster it should come with some buff, a higher health threshold to trigger would be the correct way (something like 40%).
Fresh Air – Only for Fresh Air builds, but having to take this or bolt to the heart is a major blow to fresh air builds…, however, if the changes to Lingering Attunement went through, this could be very interesting for those that like to jump between elements as well.
Lightining rod – really like it, and synergy with tempest defense is a given. With the upcoming aura eles and the good number of disable abilities ele have, this continues to be an interesting choice.

EARTH:
The bunker builds and poor Stone Splintters (sigh….)

MINORS:
Wow… earth seems a higher contender just because of the minors.

Stone Flesh:
Good to help with our natural low armor, but should continue with lingering elements.
Earthen Blast:
Oh look, a better radius than fire…. not great still, but not as bad as fire’s. Could have its radius slightly increased.
Geomancer’s Defense:
Very nice for melee elementalists. 600 range s good for a melee elementalist and 20% reduction in damage is great. It could, however, have a distance threshold in it to become more universal for eles. Perhaps have a scaling 10% at 750-900 (900 seems too much, but who knows), 15% at 600 and 20% at 300 (more than 20% is too much).

ADEPT:
Earth’s embrace:
Horrible – let’s be honest, elementalists have a very good alternatives for getting auras and you have elemental shielding giving you 3s protection per aura, why would you prefer this to give you 6s protection, with no control, and at a low 25% threshold? This will be neglected and should be replaced with something better – not sure what yet.
Serrated Stones:
For condi builds it is useful, for non-condi builds the 5% buff is negligible. This could come coupled with a buff to condi damage to make it more worthwhile. (at least it has some synergy with power overwhelming from fire – but it still just makes it a weird duo).

*Elemental Shielding *
For future aura eles, golden. For the others, dispute between serrated stones depending on build and weapon choices simply because Earth’s Embrace is horrible.

MASTER:
Nothing exciting here, but not horrible.

Strength of Stone:
A Condi damage buff that makes sense unlike power overwhelming.
Rock Solid
I like it.
Geomancer’s Training
Not bad. but nothing special.

GRANDMASTER:
Diamond Skin
Against a condi heavy build this is good, would prefer a slightly lower threshold (80-85%), but a difficult line for this to not become a killer of condi builds.

Written in Stone
Mandatory for signet builds, nothing else.
Stone Heart
I don’t like to stay in earth when fighting a power/crit build because it hardly does enough damage, so I find this not grandmaster worthy, but it does provide a good combo with lingering elements.

WATER:
Almost feels mandatory as a trait line due to the lack of condi removal from other trait lines. (Which could change if fire had more condi clears)

MINORS:
Soothing Mist & Healing Ripple
Love them.
*Aquatic Benevolence: *
This is not bad per se, but it should affect the elementalist as well – maybe with a reduced percentage if Anet finds it to be excessive, but it still should.

ADEPT:
Soothing Ice:
Regeneration and Frost Aura when you are struck by critical hit. It is not bad per se, but it depends on the duration of frost aura and the ICD, but I would prefer if the regen was when you applied any aura and the Frost Aura triggered only on criticals.
Piercing Shards:
I highly doubt I would pick this. Water has very good traits, and water skills are hardly for doing damage. It still combos great with Air minor, but I don’t know… maybe with lingering elements it is good.
Stop, drop and Roll: – Good.

MASTER:
Soothing Disruption:
Love it and hate it. Love that now the cantrip cooldown reduction and regen/vigor are together – cantrips are the best skills for me – but the dispute with Cleansing Wave is harsh.
Cleasing Wave:
Very good, not much to say, but high contender with Soothing Disruption.
Aquamancer’s training:
Continues to be reasonable for some builds that want to mesh sustain and damage as it is not conditioned to being attuned to water.

GRANDMASTER:
Cleansing Water:
Possibly my only option in the future for the condi cleansing
Powerful Auras:
This seems very nice for aura eles to give group support, but question remains if the other buffs to aura would apply to your allies. If so, aura eles are becoming the go to build for group support in my eyes.
Bountiful Power:
Depends on the %d, for burst builds that can trigger a ton of boons and pick other damage buffs, this would be very good. For others, I think Cleansing Water provides the much more needed self sustain.

ARCANE:
Nothing amazing, but to combine the other trait lines this seems too needed…

MINORS:
Arcane Fury
Good no comment.
Lingering Elements
More and more I think this should be baseline.
Arcane Precision
Horrible, 10% chance on criticals? First of all, this should not be focused on crit. This is not the crit trait line – Air is – This really should be Elemental Attunement – Arcane is all about moving through the elements, and this is just a very poor crit trait.

ADEPT:
Arcane Energy
The combination is good, the question is are arcane skills really worth it?
Renewing Stamina
Good as it currently is.
Arcane Abatement
Fall damage reduction traits are bad, why these continue I will never know.

MASTER:
Arcane Resurrection
At first I thought aura should apply when you start reviving, but then it is just a waste unless you quickly trigger the revive and pull out to attack – which goes against the spirit of the trait which is actually reviving the ally. It just doesn’t seem good trait as a whole. I would say that the reviving part should move to water’s Soothing Ice and the aura part be combined with something more interesting.
Elemental Contingency
I didn’t hate this trait, and quite frankly it is the only current good Master trait, the problem is that this trait cost elementalist Elemental Attunement which was leagues better.
Arcane Shield
Arcane Shield is not bad. Threshold is not bad. The Cooldown is horrible though.

GRANDMASTER:
Elemental Surge
This is just means to gain Ferocity pure and simple, the rest is practically filler text. This could be removed for the new conjurer trait I said above, which would be a lot more interesting, or really become a trait that actually makes arcane skills stand out more.
Evasive Arcana
Very good utility, though in my opinion it is only worth it because of the water cleansing wave and the Earth roll to blast fire fields.
Elemental Attunement
This should be in place of Arcane Precision. This is not Grandmaster material. As Anet said, all they wanted is to have you choose between two traits, Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement, but neither are amazing Grandmaster traits in my opinion, but both are essential to what going to Arcane trait line is meant to be (jumping through elements).

Way too much to go point to point the only thing i like to point out is the number from the preview they showed are not going to be the same once they are out. So things that are much harder to get the 6 point ones that where once in 2 or 4 should be stronger and the ones that drop will be weaker.

The classic DnD meta will be 60660/ 00666/ 06660

I reckon most eles will just go 00666 and bunker the hatches down.

Personally, I feel that Aura Share and Elemental Attunement (especially now that it’s Grandmaster tier) should get a 480-600 radius. 240 and 360 (240 for EA) almost having to be in melee range to support allies when heavily invested in it is pretty lame if you ask me. It seems like it was designed to cater to frequent PVE team stacking, but doesn’t do much justice for PVP settings. Might be worth looking at.

Seems like both traits lose a LOT of potential simply because they don’t always reach people in realistic fights.

Rather than breaking out each trait down into each line I think a better way to examine things is to break them down into realistic builds. For example have a thread on a S/F Fresh Air build now or a Staff PvE Dps build or D/F build and work out how or if it’d work now then show how/if traits don’t have any place.

Arcane Precision is the only one i will talk about. What has been holding ele back for doing any thing out side of the “6 arcane box” is the cdr of atuments swapping. You comply leave out that its a base 10 sec with out any arcane but with 6 in arcane it is -15% less then the old base of 10 sec 8.7 sec? this IS a game changer for the ele class in both new builds and old builds.

10 sec swap on non 6 ar builds lets ALL other builds work. 8.7 sec swaps makes boon swapping strong then evasive arcane (due to control of effect cd of effect and COST of the effect.) Now you lose 2 condition (if you build for it) every 8.7 sec not the old 10 sec you get 2 sec of fury from swap that can be chain more effectively.

A few things on the couple of comments:

- ronpierce: You got a good point there, a radius increase for group buffing is certainly good.

- Kodiak: I think that goes against what Anet is planning. I think the idea, and this could be possible, is for you not to look at an Ele and based on his weapon choice instantly know what skills and traits he has. With a few changes they can achieve that. I think that each trait line should have a damage, survivability and utility trait, this way you can mix match what fits your playstile.

For example, fire could be Power, Condi Damage and Condi Clear. Air, Crit, Disable and Mobility. Earth Condi Damage and Damage mitigation.

- Jski: Indeed, the 10s baseline is great, but Arcane is still a much needed trait line for elementalists due to Lingering Elements. Lingering Elements is like a glue that sticks the different elements together due to several traits only working when you are attuned to an element, if you don’t have it, you really feel it -e.g., when your Soothing Mist instantly goes out after moving out of water, when toughness bonus instantly goes out when moving from earth and the combination of spellcasting from each element.

If they made Lingering Elements baseline, the impact of the 10s reduction would make people think of mixing other trait lines more than still going to Arcane and thus provide a much needed build variation.

Ferocious Wind must scale from Power/ Vit/ Toughness
BttH proc at >50%
Elemantal Atunement combined with Elemental Contingency, Arcane Resurrection
or even Lingering Elements
Add grandmaster that gives +20% dmg for 10 sec (or so) after Attunement Swapping / no iCD does not stack; similar to warrs new Trait affecting burst skills
and also move the +10% dmg back to air training >_> ; i like the decicion between air training and Tempest Defense though
That would be the changes id like to see

Aquatic Benevolence
As I’ve said in other threat. This trait is useless for ele. Either add some bonus that will help ele itself or move it to major trait and don’t force it on us. There are great many situations where one is alone, and we don’t need trait that gives us nothing in such situations.

Zephyr’s speed
Again 10% only while in air is useless. In long run the bonus is little enough to give us no edge on other classes with their mobility/swiftness or even edge on other ele with no such trait.
In short run it is too little to help us get away from danger or catch someone running away. Again especially since most classes have either greater passive, swiftness generator or mobility skills mostly on low cds

Try limiting your criticism to the traits that are especially out of place. There’s a lot of “I don’t like it/this is weird/i’d replace it with this” in your post, makes it hard to read. Not every trait needs work.

My main disagreements with your assessment:

Burning precision is a fine trait. Perfect for adept level.
Pyromancer’s training also fine-strong.
Blinding ashes is a strong trait with 3s ICD. Unrivaled blindspam.
Persisting flames fine
Pyromancer’s puissance terrible (possible synergy with sword tho)

One with air is potentially 60% superspeed uptime with fresh air. Very strong

Stone heart doesn’t work with lingering attunements
Piercing shards idem, it’s meant to be a pve centered trait and is fine for that purpose

(You seem to have completely forgotten PvE when making your assessment. A great deal of traits make perfect sense for that purpose)

Azel.4786:

- Kodiak: I think that goes against what Anet is planning. I think the idea, and this could be possible, is for you not to look at an Ele and based on his weapon choice instantly know what skills and traits he has. With a few changes they can achieve that. I think that each trait line should have a damage, survivability and utility trait, this way you can mix match what fits your playstile.

I meant more like analyze/create actual builds that would get used. So for example there’s a number of existing builds: PvE Berserker Staff. PvE Fresh Air D/F. D/D Celestial Ele. Etc. They stated they wanted existing builds to be changed but not ruined entirely with these changes and we won’t know that unless we really break them down. How do these existing builds work in the new system and if not, why not?

For example look at Aurashare. For one we know Water is mandatory. That leaves us with Fire to generate Fire Auras from Signets/Conjures. Air for Zephyr’s Boon. Earth for Elemental Shielding. Assuming we pick Fire for it’s DPS benefits that leaves Air and Earth. Air essentially amounts to giving more offense and Earth more defense. So you could have a D/D (or D/F) build that’s Fire/Air/Water or Fire/Earth/Water depending if you want to go more offensive or defensive and have it work pretty well. However you can no longer get all of it on a 42260 build so it’s more of an offense or defensive option where we get either more offense or more defense but no longer have the option to choose a little of both.

I created a spreadsheat of the current changes to elementalist traits. If you like, you could copy it and integrate your ideas there. Furthermore I also did exactly this and thought about what traits need changes to make them worthwhile in at least a few situations. This is what I came up with so far. There are comments on every trait that explain what got changed. Every trait with a gray background is unchanged. As was stressed on the lifestream, numbers are of course subject to change, I’ll leave that to the professionals — even though I sometimes adjusted numbers to show a general direction the trait could be going. The trait placement and overall functionality is more important here.

On a whole there a reasonable number of good changes to the elementalist skill trees. I think that there are a few things that don’t work well or make sense in the new elementalist skill trees:

Fire

Fire II
Combining a key trait for signet builds with the conjurer trait seems extremely awkward and out of place. Ideally there should be additional traits for conjure skills such as CDR, mechanics changes, boon on conjure, etc.

Fire III
Overwhelming Power is on the weak side for an adept numberswise. Additionally, condition builds generally don’t work well for elementalists in WvW/PvE.

Fire VII
I guess merging persisting flames, a key PvE trait with lava tomb doesn’t hurt the skill… on the other hand it also isn’t really useful. Similarly to Fire II, this is an awkward merging of traits.

Air

Air Minor 1
Zephyr’s speed is a very weak minor trait. 10% movespeed in air usually has no noticeable effect on gameplay and is not very exciting as a trait in general. Additionally, it is often made redundant by swiftness boons.

Air III
They mentioned on stream that this trait will likely be changed to scale on precision instead and for good reason. The skill with its current tooltip makes no sense. Niche healing builds don’t benefit from crit damage and standard damage builds don’t take healing power.

Air VII
Many people have objected to the shifting of bolt to the heart from adept to grandmaster. This cripples builds such as S/X fresh air PvP builds which were already niche in addition to D/F PvE builds. If it is to stay in this tier it should at least be raised up to par with similar grandmaster skills such as executioner aka 20% increase at 50% HP and below.

Earth and Water skill trees are well put together and will probably be core for PvP

Arcane

sigh… where do I start

This tree as a whole has become very underwhelming over the years and when the specialization patch hits, in my opinion will be undertuned compared to other specializations.

Arcane Minor 2
Lingering elements has always been an extremely weak adept that is often not noticed. Ideally it should be changed to something more powerful or interesting in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Arcane IV
This trait is really not very useful and I would be hard pressed to find someone who would take it in any game mode. Additionally, gaining an aura after the revive is somewhat redundant as you would want the protection while you are reviving.

Arcane VI
Final shielding seems to be underwhelming compared to other master level traits in the game. It is more on par with an adept trait in terms of power in my opinion.

Arcane minor 3
Arcane Precision is pretty underpowered for a grandmaster level minor trait. 10% chance on crit is laughably low for the effect that is applied to an enemy.

Arcane VIII
Elemental Surge is undertuned compared to other GM level Arcane traits that could be taken. Almost all players will take evasive arcana or elemental attunement instead.

Fire minor 1: weak passive trait with (to) high lvl of randomness)
Fire minor 2: not viable for scepter/staff because they fight @ ranged

Fire adept: not viable for non condi/conjurer professions, burning precision to much randomness+weak effect

Air minor 1: useless buff because of high swiftness uptime+low speedboost
Air adept: only offers decent trait for d/d ele’s because of their aura’s

Earth minor 2: ineffective for scepter+staff builds because of close range

Water minor 3: not viable for 1v1/pve mode going party support should be an OPTION not being forced

Arcana master: All underpowered traits compared to other classes/traitlines

summarizing: The MINOR traits do not synergize well with every weapon set/combat situation. Because you can’t choose between minors, making them mandatory is very odd, blocking attunements for specific weapons. Also some adept/master traitlines do not give any traits that can synergize with specific weapons.
Last but not least Fire+Air adept and Arcane Master traits have to weak effects for their tier.