Guild Wars 2

Why is that, with the changes to specializations change, ele is being burdened with traits (even at the GM level) that have no benefit for the ele, while NO other class suffers the same problem? While revive traits are universally bad across-classes (except for thief’s which also gives something to steal so its not useless), ele is the only class that has traits that do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the class.

Specifically, I am talking about traits such as aquatic benevolence and powerful aura – a minor trait you have to take in water, and a GM trait. Both of these traits have exactly 0 benefit for the ele himself, on a class that has such low base-defense it can’t usually afford to give up self-survival (at least in pvp, the only place this kind of ally support would matter anyway). Even traits such as “spotter” on ranger, “strength in numbers” for guards, and “Empowered allies” give a benefit to the user as-well. Even “unholy martyr” on necros at least gives them the benefit of more life-force (and playstyle changes that can quickly off-load those condis).

Why is this class being treated like a red-headed step-child with upcoming changes? Why is the approach to balance so different for eles than everyone else?

Edit: Also, this the reason why “powerful aura,” even if it works for every aura, will never be taken in a real build if it is at GM. You have to give up basically all self and group cleanse capabilities (which is tied to cleansing water) to get a trait that does 0 for yourself.

Something something #believeinkarl something something.

That is what the elementalist amounts to. BlackBeard.2873 I respect you as an individual generally, but it might be time to accept that simply truth ( I am sure you already knew but… I am trying to be clever here).

Arena net doesn’t know what to do with the elementalist, they have never known what to do with them. The elementalist suffers from being the first class they finalize, it is a relic of a discarded combat system that was changed shortly before beta. Arena net could easily change it, but that involves work and those guys in the balance team seem to prefer pizza parties over real work.

I mean the guys on the balance team are the type of people I would love to get drunk with but not actually give them real responsibility except for Robert. He seems like a “get to the point” sort of fella which unfortunately also means he would be terrible to get drunk with.

#Robertwillfixit

You are right, and I appreciate the respect, I just get so salty every time I think about what they are doing with the class. I know this isn’t going to be seen by anyone on the balance team, I just had to vent.

The good news is, I am enjoying mesmer, and engineer looks like it will be fun. Maybe after they send this class back into the garbage for a year they can put a competent designer on it who can rework it again!

The reason aquatic benevolence functions the way it does, is because it allows them to crank up the numbers a lot higher this way. If it affected yourself too, even 10% would be in the ballpark of OP. So their only way of making support through healing feel substantial is by making it only affect allies.

This also adds the classic ‘focus the healer’ element, which is, if nothing else, a bit of added depth. If it boosted healing universally, your healer would be the hardest to kill of the whole bunch, which makes for an awkward situation.

To address the point you raise, there are plenty “useless” traits that are entirely group focused. Think of tactics revive traits, venomshare, phalanx strength,…

Traits like these are meant to be taken in team comps where your team takes appropriate support to cover for your loss in self-sustainability. You know this.

Aquatic Benevolence makes more sense as a minor.

Adept – Unique regen-esque buff
Master – Heal on water attune
GrandMaster – Increase damaged per boon? Another healing minor fits in with the rest.

Bountiful Power would make more sense in Arcana where boon usage is promoted. With the new water Spec, “Water Ele’s” will have built in healing so the new minor would have natural synergy. The major traits still offer DPS orientated options. So if a player is taking water for damage the traits are still there. Personally, I was originally surprise when I started playing Ele that water wasn’t all based around healing or that Earth was all about defense. Each trait line has its theme, and the new Specs just helped to consolidate them.

BlackBeard.2873:

You are right, and I appreciate the respect, I just get so salty every time I think about what they are doing with the class. I know this isn’t going to be seen by anyone on the balance team, I just had to vent.

The good news is, I am enjoying mesmer, and engineer looks like it will be fun. Maybe after they send this class back into the garbage for a year they can put a competent designer on it who can rework it again!

As soon as robert finishes mesmer he will dispose the tyranical karl and fix all of eles problems ( hopefully)

savacli.8172:

Aquatic Benevolence makes more sense as a minor.

Adept – Unique regen-esque buff
Master – Heal on water attune
GrandMaster – Increase damaged per boon? Another healing minor fits in with the rest.

Bountiful Power would make more sense in Arcana where boon usage is promoted. With the new water Spec, “Water Ele’s” will have built in healing so the new minor would have natural synergy. The major traits still offer DPS orientated options. So if a player is taking water for damage the traits are still there. Personally, I was originally surprise when I started playing Ele that water wasn’t all based around healing or that Earth was all about defense. Each trait line has its theme, and the new Specs just helped to consolidate them.

his complaint is not that. It is that the traits are completely selfless and offer no sustain to the elementalist himself and are crippling auramancers and other ele specs that could be extremely fun to play if balanced properly.

I’ll just add this:
If ele is that badly balanced, is because of this crappy way of design: water = heal, earth = defense, fire = sustained damage, air = burst.
If you dont understand why, i’ll post again, i’m just so kittening tired (3am for me) to explain this and stay gentle ^^’

Mattmatt.4962:

I’ll just add this:
If ele is that badly balanced, is because of this crappy way of design: water = heal, earth = defense, fire = sustained damage, air = burst.
If you dont understand why, i’ll post again, i’m just so kittening tired (3am for me) to explain this and stay gentle ^^’

I don’t understand your comment… Please post when your not so tired XD ( not that im not guilty of that XP )

Sadrien.3470:

Mattmatt.4962:

I’ll just add this:
If ele is that badly balanced, is because of this crappy way of design: water = heal, earth = defense, fire = sustained damage, air = burst.
If you dont understand why, i’ll post again, i’m just so kittening tired (3am for me) to explain this and stay gentle ^^’

I don’t understand your comment… Please post when your not so tired XD ( not that im not guilty of that XP )

My guess:

Ele has all these options, but due to attunements being so specific in what they do(and a lot of them failing at that….Staff Air comes to mind) the CDs being so high and us not being allowed to switch at will, we’re just stuck without any defense/offense for X amount of time every time we switch.

Now look at Engi. With the Tool Kit, they have a Block for 3 Seconds every 20 seconds, a Pull, a very powerful attack that causes 5 stacks of confusion, etc.
If they need to use the Shield for whatever reason and then switch out, they’re not suddenly screwed out of the Magnet Pull for another 10 seconds.
They can just immediately pop back into Tool Kit and use Magnet Pull if they need to.
They suddenly need to Chill someone? Switch to Grenade Kit and use the Ice Grenades. You can switch back out to your regular weapon set and then go right back for Poison or anything else! All at will.
Makes the Engi really feel very varied and like you have a tool at your disposal for any situation.

Elementalist feels like it’s fighting its own mechanics constantly.
It’s fun to play, but other times I really wish I could just switch whenever I felt like it. This is why I enjoy Fresh Air so much. I can stay in Air for sustained damage, switch out for some utility or burst damage with Burning Speed or whatever and go right back into Air immediately for any defense or control I need.

I kinda got off-track, but I guess what he’s getting at is that Elementalist has no defense outside of Water/Earth(excluding Swirling Winds on Focus Air) and no Offense outside of Fire/Air; making you very predictable and makes the trait lines suffer as they want to focus on just themselves(Fire Magic line focuses on Fire and Burning, which can be useless when you switch to Water, for example).

Another problem that happens is easy to showcase with Condition builds. If you want to apply a lot of Burning, you can only really do that in Fire. Any other attunement can’t do it and you’re locked out of Fire for ~10 seconds. That’s ~10 seconds that you’re losing offensive pressure. Can’t fallback on Earth because it barely has Bleeds or any real damage. Water usually just Chills and does an awful amount of Vulnerability and Air doesn’t do much either. Your own class mechanic is holding you back in this case.

On-Topic:
They really wanted to push Aquatic Benevolence and since it was only really used in really specific places, now we’re ALL forced to use it if we want to go into Water, which right now is almost all the time in PvP/WvW.
What they really need to do is give us more spread-out Condition Cleansing(at least one more line needs to have SOME form on consistent cleansing; maybe on signet use/aura application) and now more than ever we need traits to increase our damage output. We lost so many damage modifiers that I lost count. How can Air be about single-target damage when we barely have any way to increase the damage we do?
Then we have Fire, which could be good, but a lot of the traits are way too weak(Blinding Ashes should be PER target and then that would help a lot in its viability). Earth is WAY too passive. Water has ALL of our healing and condition cleansing(Evasive Arcana is good, but is not nearly enough, especially without EAttunement) and Arcana is just a neutered trait line.

Sorry, I kinda rambled a lot. Basically, the changes to the Ele traits are mostly awful.
I might switch to Thief or Engi.
> Has actual burst builds with escapes and survivability(more so Thief)
> Has a lot more viable roaming specs
> Has viable Condition builds

Yea, unless Tempest is amazing and/or they re-re-work a lot of the trait lines, I’m probably just gonna switch unfortunately :L

Gokil.2543:

The reason aquatic benevolence functions the way it does, is because it allows them to crank up the numbers a lot higher this way. If it affected yourself too, even 10% would be in the ballpark of OP. So their only way of making support through healing feel substantial is by making it only affect allies.

This also adds the classic ‘focus the healer’ element, which is, if nothing else, a bit of added depth. If it boosted healing universally, your healer would be the hardest to kill of the whole bunch, which makes for an awkward situation.

Being a dedicated healer in this game doesn’t work. When you are able to do the most work as a “healer” it is because you provide a water field that you/others blast. There is a reason aquatic benevolence is never taken even in wvw, and its not b/c the condi cleanse is 100% critical. It is because the trait is just bad.

To address the point you raise, there are plenty “useless” traits that are entirely group focused. Think of tactics revive traits, venomshare, phalanx strength,…

Venom-share now actually reduces venom CD’s by 20%, so it has a selfish benefit as well. I addressed that revive traits are dog-crap across the board (except thief’s b/c it also impacts steal). Also, phalanx strength is on a class that has no shortage of base defense, and provides offensive support (which makes it good for PvE). Honest, powerful aura is not strong enough, even if it shares every aura, to be at the GM slot and compete with cleansing water. At the very least, it should reduce the CD on “Aura” skills by -20%.

Thank you malchior, that’s exactly it.
And that’s why i get kittening salty when some person that have no clue about balance come and yell that line should be even more focused u_u
What they really have to do is something like the reaper spec bar: theme focus trait “line” in the spec

Themes

If you pick all bottom traits (Relentless Pursit, Decimate Defenses, and Reaper’s Onslaught), it is our movie monster themed line. It is hard to stop you, you move and attack faster.
Middle line is our chill based line. It helps you spread chill, deal more damage to chilled foes and make chill do damage.
Top line is our brawler line, it rewards you for hitting lots of enemies. Your shouts recharge faster, you get lots of siphons, and sustain.

For instance, make one line direct damage (pyromancer’s training), one line burning (burning precision), one line defensive (burnign fire, blinding ashe) for fire, so you can actually MIX and get SOME defense (you can take like one defensive trait and 2offensive (power or condi according to your build))

For water, one chill based, one heal/cleanse based, on direct damage based(like it would apply quite a lot of vuln)

We actually need reliable damage modifier, what i mean by this is non attunement bound damage modifier (pyromancer’s training beeing the embodyment of this).
The combo vuln on crit from minor GM air and water +X% damage to vuln foes would be nice … if not tied up to water attunement who does abyssaly low damage.

About aquatic benevolence.
It’s weak, amazingly weak. Why not making it work on himself ? I mean, every burst spec get power-creeped to heaven (#panic_strike_for_all) so why not tanky ones too ? Until they come up with a good way to balance fix ele, they just should make this useless trait a bit OP

savacli.8172:

Aquatic Benevolence makes more sense as a minor.

It doesn’t. It would only make a sense if they didn’t move dmg modifiers into water and then force you to have a completely useless minor trait if you play dps. It also doesn’t make a sense to have a completely selfless trait in a trait line that should support your own survability, too. They should just merge it with one of the GM traits and bring something new for the GM minor.

Laraley.7695:

savacli.8172:

Aquatic Benevolence makes more sense as a minor.

It doesn’t. It would only make a sense if they didn’t move dmg modifiers into water and then force you to have a completely useless minor trait if you play dps. It also doesn’t make a sense to have a completely selfless trait in a trait line that should support your own survability, too. They should just merge it with one of the GM traits and bring something new for the GM minor.

it makes more sense as a minor yes but the damage% per boon on you is not worth a gm trait → merge them together for the minor gm trait and the problem is solved.

It might not make it any better but behaving like Elementalists are sole victims here is just plain wrong. Two other heal-associated lines are designed exactly the same way when it comes to the GM Minor (e.g. new Engineer Inventions, Necromancer Blood Magic unless they change it to Vampiric Aura) and several classes are barely better off – meaning their GM Minor doesn’t have any too beneficial self-effects either (e.g. Mesmer, Warrior).

Healing traitlines have the main theme of supporting your allies and therefore I don’t see an issue of having the Minors enhance this sort of playstyle. To be honest, Aquatic Benevolence is still better than any GM Minor which provides Healing Power. I get that people might be upset if they prefer damage but on the bright side you no longer lose stats to Healing Power when the rework hits. Overall you might actually be better off than before.

Now, complaining about Powerful Auras not providing anything selfish is just silly since there are alternatives to it. Nobody makes you take it if you don’t feel like supporting your group. If Arcana stays as it is it might still be powerful enough to be taken.

If it were to stay as a GM why not restore the trait to its original form (2% per boon) at the very least. Otherwise, it looks rather meh when compared to the Guard’s GM minor that does the same thing.

Also no one is forcing players to take water. We’re so used to dipping into trait lines for the best of the best that suddenly we’re frustrated that we have to commit to a Spec that focuses on healing/recovery support. Honestly though the flip-side of this argument is valid too. Why is it Ele’s that are choosing Water for healing have to put up with a DPS minor trait? The other Minor traits promote party support while major traits can be both selfish and selfless. For a Heal-bot Ele the water spec keeps them from having to choose from AB and cleansing Water which are both high heal support traits.

Personally if I’m hard traiting into water it’s because I want to keep my team alive; my cantrips and weapon skills are already doing enough for personal sustain so the AB would go largely unnoticed for myself. Otherwise, like everyone else, I take 2 points in water and move on with my damage buff.

Water line is a support line. It has some selfish components for those that want that but the theme is still support. It’s in the minors all the way through.

Soothing mists: regenerate health for you and allies
Healing Ripple: heal nearby allies (and self) when attuning to water
Aquatic benevolence: outgoing healing effectiveness increased by 25%

Look at water skills on weapons, there’s ally support on all combos (even if some are kinda meh) and a lot of them are healing related.

I do however agree that traits being attunement specific isn’t that good but there are much less majors like that now. I do think elementalist needs a thorough overhaul from weapon skills to traits and a really good look at the way it all works.

However I cannot complain that water specialisation, in particular the minors are support orientated, especially as this is a design philosophy being extended to other classes.

I’m also talking about the proposed water spec not current water line.

Xaylin.1860:

It might not make it any better but behaving like Elementalists are sole victims here is just plain wrong. Two other heal-associated lines are designed exactly the same way when it comes to the GM Minor (e.g. new Engineer Inventions, Necromancer Blood Magic unless they change it to Vampiric Aura) and several classes are barely better off – meaning their GM Minor doesn’t have any too beneficial self-effects either (e.g. Mesmer, Warrior).

if you hadn’t notice this is an elementalist thread. Also are you really comparing a minor thread to a Major? The it can be a minor trait, but it is not is a grandmaster MAJOR trait.

PlatinumMember.5274:

if you hadn’t notice this is an elementalist thread. Also are you really comparing a minor thread to a Major? The it can be a minor trait, but it is not is a grandmaster MAJOR trait.

Are you really bashing me for referring to other classes?
How silly of me to compare healing trait lines if we are talking about Water.

Also, you might want to update yourself on how traits will look like:
http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/

I compared Minors to Minors.

Xaylin.1860:

It might not make it any better but behaving like Elementalists are sole victims here is just plain wrong. Two other heal-associated lines are designed exactly the same way when it comes to the GM Minor (e.g. new Engineer Inventions, Necromancer Blood Magic unless they change it to Vampiric Aura) and several classes are barely better off – meaning their GM Minor doesn’t have any too beneficial self-effects either (e.g. Mesmer, Warrior).

Healing traitlines have the main theme of supporting your allies and therefore I don’t see an issue of having the Minors enhance this sort of playstyle. To be honest, Aquatic Benevolence is still better than any GM Minor which provides Healing Power. I get that people might be upset if they prefer damage but on the bright side you no longer lose stats to Healing Power when the rework hits. Overall you might actually be better off than before.

Now, complaining about Powerful Auras not providing anything selfish is just silly since there are alternatives to it. Nobody makes you take it if you don’t feel like supporting your group. If Arcana stays as it is it might still be powerful enough to be taken.

What?
Can you tell me which of these classes has a completely selfless trait as a GM in the trait line that used to be tied to healing power? None. There is a difference between having higher healing power and having only outgoing healing increased.

The problem I see is they can’t have it apply to the elementalist too. Already people complain elementalists have a lot of sustain and a trait like aquatic benevolence affecting the heals you receive also would be silly hard to balance.

As a trait I do feel it belongs as a minor (gawd knows I wouldn’t pick it as a major) and being in a support line I can’t say it’s out of place. Especially when the other two minors are pretty good of themselves (though lingering elements being needed for soothing mist) and it has some of the strongest support (major) traits in the game.

The last thing anyone wants is to see a signet of restoration nerf, sustain in general or feel they absolutely have to go into water for sustain, even if we currently feel the need to do that.

apharma.3741:

The problem I see is they can’t have it apply to the elementalist too. Already people complain elementalists have a lot of sustain and a trait like aquatic benevolence affecting the heals you receive also would be silly hard to balance.

As a trait I do feel it belongs as a minor (gawd knows I wouldn’t pick it as a major) and being in a support line I can’t say it’s out of place. Especially when the other two minors are pretty good of themselves (though lingering elements being needed for soothing mist) and it has some of the strongest support (major) traits in the game.

The last thing anyone wants is to see a signet of restoration nerf, sustain in general or feel they absolutely have to go into water for sustain, even if we currently feel the need to do that.

So you think that it’s okay zerker specs are forced into water and have kitteneless gm minor trait? I don’t think so.

I never said I that, in fact you even quoted me saying

“Or feel they absolutely have to go into water for sustain, even if we currently feel the need to do that.”

I think the blinding ashes changes to 3s ICD is a step in the right direction when combo’d with burning precision which is not bound to an attunement I may add. However 2 traits for that…not sure if it’s worth it at all.

There are other things that do need changing and I certainly think Air magic needs a big improvement, especially the minor adept and some of the adept and master traits. I also think a balance pass should be taken at the ways elementalists survive or disengage.

However, as I said, water is a support line, it does what it says on the tin extremely well.

apharma.3741:

I never said I that, in fact you even quoted me saying

“Or feel they absolutely have to go into water for sustain, even if we currently feel the need to do that.”

I think the blinding ashes changes to 3s ICD is a step in the right direction when combo’d with burning precision which is not bound to an attunement I may add. However 2 traits for that…not sure if it’s worth it at all.

There are other things that do need changing and I certainly think Air magic needs a big improvement, especially the minor adept and some of the adept and master traits. I also think a balance pass should be taken at the ways elementalists survive or disengage.

However, as I said, water is a support line, it does what it says on the tin extremely well.

Sigh. No, water is not a support line when they moved damage modifiers there. Either they need to move them somewhere else or change the GM minor, pretty simple.

Our traits, from the base knowledge of what we know is now a mess.

Let us hope they fix it before HoT.

Laraley.7695:

What?
Can you tell me which of these classes has a completely selfless trait as a GM in the trait line that used to be tied to healing power? None.

Either got I comprehension issues or you didn’t even make an effort.

Engineer
GM Minor – Healing Power increased while under the effect of Regeneration
GM Major – Incoming heals heal allies for a % of that heal.

Necromancer
GM Minor – Gain 300 additional healing power while your health is below the threshold (75%).
GM Major – Heal in an area when you enter death shroud.

The Majors are completely selfless and the Minors only grant a pitiful amount of Healing Power. Yes, this affects yourself. But considering the scaling of Healing Power in general makes those traits inferior to Aquatic Benevolence.

Other classes which also got semi-selfless traits:

Mesmer
GM Minor – Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies. Your healing power is increased by 100 for each illusion you control.
GM Major – Whenever you summon a phantasm, cast Signet of Inspiration.

Warrior
GM Minor – Boon duration and outgoing healing increased by 10%.
GM Major – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well.

Yes, the Warrior traits are from the former Vitality line. But like it or not, both GM Majors are completely selfless. The Minors are semi-selfless but the selfish part is so small we can’t seriously be arguing about it.

Laraley.7695:

There is a difference between having higher healing power and having only outgoing healing increased.

Yes, it is. The difference is that +x% outgoing healing is better in almost any scenario aside from self-sustainability because Healing Power has aweful coefficients. It doesn’t really matter that Healing Power affects yourself it it’s inefficient.

Xaylin.1860:

Laraley.7695:

What?
Can you tell me which of these classes has a completely selfless trait as a GM in the trait line that used to be tied to healing power? None.

Either got I comprehension issues or you didn’t even make an effort.

Engineer
GM Minor – Healing Power increased while under the effect of Regeneration
GM Major – Incoming heals heal allies for a % of that heal.

Necromancer
GM Minor – Gain 300 additional healing power while your health is below the threshold (75%).
GM Major – Heal in an area when you enter death shroud.

The Majors are completely selfless and the Minors only grant a pitiful amount of Healing Power. Yes, this affects yourself. But considering the scaling of Healing Power in general makes those traits inferior to Aquatic Benevolence.

Other classes which also got semi-selfless traits:

Mesmer
GM Minor – Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies. Your healing power is increased by 100 for each illusion you control.
GM Major – Whenever you summon a phantasm, cast Signet of Inspiration.

Warrior
GM Minor – Boon duration and outgoing healing increased by 10%.
GM Major – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well.

Yes, the Warrior traits are from the former Vitality line. But like it or not, both GM Majors are completely selfless. The Minors are semi-selfless but the selfish part is so small we can’t seriously be arguing about it.

Laraley.7695:

There is a difference between having higher healing power and having only outgoing healing increased.

Yes, it is. The difference is that +x% outgoing healing is better in almost any scenario aside from self-sustainability because Healing Power has aweful coefficients. It doesn’t really matter that Healing Power affects yourself it it’s inefficient.

Thanks for proving my point. None of these traits are completely selfless. Except the engi one, but that’s not a minor.

Laraley.7695:

Sigh. No, water is not a support line when they moved damage modifiers there. Either they need to move them somewhere else or change the GM minor, pretty simple.

They didn’t move them there. They are already placed in Water. Nevertheless, having some damage related traits doesn’t suddenly change the whole theme of the traitline to non-support or non-healing.

Laraley.7695:

Thanks for proving my point. None of these traits are completely selfless.

Be my guest and prove that none of them are selfless.

Xaylin.1860:

Laraley.7695:

Sigh. No, water is not a support line when they moved damage modifiers there. Either they need to move them somewhere else or change the GM minor, pretty simple.

They didn’t move them there. They are already placed in Water. Nevertheless, having some damage related traits doesn’t suddenly change the whole theme of the traitline to non-support or non-healing.

Laraley.7695:

Thanks for proving my point. None of these traits are completely selfless.

Be my guest and prove that none of them are selfless.

If it affects you, it’s not selfless. It’s that easy.
If you want to compare minor and major traits then all I can say is that it’s silly.

Yeah, they didn’t move them there, but rather removed similar traits from air. Doesn’t mean dps specs should be forced on several completely useless traits, that’s not gonna make them viable.

Laraley.7695:

Sigh. No, water is not a support line when they moved damage modifiers there. Either they need to move them somewhere else or change the GM minor, pretty simple.

There are 3 damage traits, all are majors and are in adept, master and grandmaster. There are 3 specific support related majors, 2 grandmaster and 1 master. So it falls to the minors as to whether it is a support line and guess what? 3 for 3 are about healing your allies, 2 of which do affect yourself one doesn’t. Additionally many other traits are providing yourself (selfishly) with support or utility.

It also correlates with other professions support lines in position.

Also, most of the damage traits are very niche, you know this and I know this, let’s not kid ourselves. I do think some of them are in the wrong line though

What I think you should be asking for is just better traits in fire and air where they offer defence and offence not tied to attunements. Merging blinding ashes with burning precision would be a great start.

Changing ferocious winds to piercing shards would work brilliantly there and synergise well with the GM minor (though a reduction to 10% would be more appropriate). In fact just switch the 2 traits.

apharma.3741:

Laraley.7695:

Sigh. No, water is not a support line when they moved damage modifiers there. Either they need to move them somewhere else or change the GM minor, pretty simple.

There are 3 damage traits, all are majors and are in adept, master and grandmaster. There are 3 specific support related majors, 2 grandmaster and 1 master. So it falls to the minors as to whether it is a support line and guess what? 3 for 3 are about healing your allies, 2 of which do affect yourself one doesn’t. Additionally many other traits are providing yourself (selfishly) with support or utility.

It also correlates with other professions support lines in position.

Also, most of the damage traits are very niche, you know this and I know this, let’s not kid ourselves. I do think some of them are in the wrong line though

What I think you should be asking for is just better traits in fire and air where they offer defence and offence not tied to attunements. Merging blinding ashes with burning precision would be a great start.

Changing ferocious winds to piercing shards would work brilliantly there and synergise well with the GM minor (though a reduction to 10% would be more appropriate). In fact just switch the 2 traits.

That’s not the point how many damage traits there are. If they’re going to keep forcing useless traits on ele, there will never be anything else viable than d/d ele. No class should be forced into so many useless traits.

Xaylin.1860:

Laraley.7695:

What?
Can you tell me which of these classes has a completely selfless trait as a GM in the trait line that used to be tied to healing power? None.

Either got I comprehension issues or you didn’t even make an effort.

Engineer
GM Minor – Healing Power increased while under the effect of Regeneration
GM Major – Incoming heals heal allies for a % of that heal.

Necromancer
GM Minor – Gain 300 additional healing power while your health is below the threshold (75%).
GM Major – Heal in an area when you enter death shroud.

The Majors are completely selfless and the Minors only grant a pitiful amount of Healing Power. Yes, this affects yourself. But considering the scaling of Healing Power in general makes those traits inferior to Aquatic Benevolence.

Other classes which also got semi-selfless traits:

Mesmer
GM Minor – Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies. Your healing power is increased by 100 for each illusion you control.
GM Major – Whenever you summon a phantasm, cast Signet of Inspiration.

Warrior
GM Minor – Boon duration and outgoing healing increased by 10%.
GM Major – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well.

Yes, the Warrior traits are from the former Vitality line. But like it or not, both GM Majors are completely selfless. The Minors are semi-selfless but the selfish part is so small we can’t seriously be arguing about it.

Laraley.7695:

There is a difference between having higher healing power and having only outgoing healing increased.

Yes, it is. The difference is that +x% outgoing healing is better in almost any scenario aside from self-sustainability because Healing Power has aweful coefficients. It doesn’t really matter that Healing Power affects yourself it it’s inefficient.

Those traits all benefit the caster, Aquatic Benevolence does no benefit the caster and it is a grandmaster major trai. IN any case, I am going to bow out of this “debate” with you because you clearly have an unmovable opinion that not even facts can change. I mean while argue with a wall, right?

apharma.3741:

However, as I said, water is a support line, it does what it says on the tin extremely well.

Stop with this bullkitten for kitten sake, if you keep this stupid ide aof balance, you’ll never achieve to fix ele …..

Laraley.7695:

If it affects you, it’s not selfless. It’s that easy.

I’d really like to see your face if he devs – based on your argumentation – changed Aquativ Benevolence into +300 Healing Power. Because while it might affect yourself you will get way more out of the +25% outgoing healing in everything but a solo scenario.

Laraley.7695:

Yeah, they didn’t move them there, but rather removed similar traits from air.

I don’t mean to be nit-picky but all damage modificators in the preview have already been there. Some of them have been combined with other traits but that’s about it.

Mattmatt.4962:

apharma.3741:

However, as I said, water is a support line, it does what it says on the tin extremely well.

Stop with this bullkitten for kitten sake, if you keep this stupid ide aof balance, you’ll never achieve to fix ele …..

If that’s how you’re going to respond to people then you will never get taken seriously by anyone let alone fix ele.

Having trait lines have a focus is not a problem. For example look at the healing power to ferocity trait in air. It looks silly being there, stick it in water and you have a damage increasing support focused trait.

Xaylin.1860:

Laraley.7695:

If it affects you, it’s not selfless. It’s that easy.

I’d really like to see your face if he devs – based on your argumentation – changed Aquativ Benevolence into +300 Healing Power. Because while it might affect yourself you will get way more out of the +25% outgoing healing in everything but a solo scenario.

Laraley.7695:

Yeah, they didn’t move them there, but rather removed similar traits from air.

I don’t mean to be nit-picky but all damage modificators in the preview have already been there. Some of them have been combined with other traits but that’s about it.

I don’t care, both of these traits are useless for me, but 300 healing power would at least help out d/d eles.

I said they didn’t move them there, but removed those damage modifiers from air > fresh air eles will go water for them and be stuck with several useless traits.

apharma.3741:

Mattmatt.4962:

apharma.3741:

However, as I said, water is a support line, it does what it says on the tin extremely well.

Stop with this bullkitten for kitten sake, if you keep this stupid ide aof balance, you’ll never achieve to fix ele …..

If that’s how you’re going to respond to people then you will never get taken seriously by anyone let alone fix ele.

Having trait lines have a focus is not a problem. For example look at the healing power to ferocity trait in air. It looks silly being there, stick it in water and you have a damage increasing support focused trait.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Specializations-Support-only-traits/first#post5123084

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Specializations-Support-only-traits/first#post5123515

Same page ….
I just don’t like to repeat myself ^^

Beeing able to make the water line a support line is fine, forcing it, isn’t

Yeah I read them and I do agree in some ways with things you put. I don’t mind water being support focused though. Especially as it’s a running theme of healing, whether to yourself or others.

I think the problem is more that the good damage traits are in water, bountiful power as a damage trait as proposed (2% per boons) is a great trait. Looking at trait lines that are about damage where are the strong attunement wide damage boosts?

Look at ferocious winds, can anyone honestly say that it belongs in air when swapping it with piercing shards would make a lot more sense?

Like I said previously, I think elementalist needs an overhaul, from weapons and utilities to traits.

BlackBeard.2873:

Gokil.2543:

The reason aquatic benevolence functions the way it does, is because it allows them to crank up the numbers a lot higher this way. If it affected yourself too, even 10% would be in the ballpark of OP. So their only way of making support through healing feel substantial is by making it only affect allies.

This also adds the classic ‘focus the healer’ element, which is, if nothing else, a bit of added depth. If it boosted healing universally, your healer would be the hardest to kill of the whole bunch, which makes for an awkward situation.

Being a dedicated healer in this game doesn’t work. When you are able to do the most work as a “healer” it is because you provide a water field that you/others blast. There is a reason aquatic benevolence is never taken even in wvw, and its not b/c the condi cleanse is 100% critical. It is because the trait is just bad.

To address the point you raise, there are plenty “useless” traits that are entirely group focused. Think of tactics revive traits, venomshare, phalanx strength,…

Venom-share now actually reduces venom CD’s by 20%, so it has a selfish benefit as well. I addressed that revive traits are dog-crap across the board (except thief’s b/c it also impacts steal). Also, phalanx strength is on a class that has no shortage of base defense, and provides offensive support (which makes it good for PvE). Honest, powerful aura is not strong enough, even if it shares every aura, to be at the GM slot and compete with cleansing water. At the very least, it should reduce the CD on “Aura” skills by -20%.

This is a good idea, aura skills do not have enough on demand effects right now and the reduced cooldowns will help with that.