Guild Wars 2

After doing a lot of reading and theorycrafting I feel like I’ve come up with some pretty realistic changes for the ele. The primary goal of these changes is to increase the viability of the fire, air and earth traitlines for defense while gently nerfing two of the arcana line’s major players in order to stimulate build diversity across all the lines. I would also love to see some bumps to certain weapon and utility skills, so I’ve made some suggestions for those as well.

Disclaimer: Obviously I would not expect ALL of these changes to be made. Power creep would be strong AF.

Starting with one mechanic change:
Make elemental attunement boons baseline to the class with the following changes and durations:

• The boons are NOT AoE baseline.
• Fire: 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds
• Water: Regeneration for 2 seconds
• Air: Swiftness for 2 seconds
• Earth: Protection for 2 seconds

Traits:

• Fire Adept Minor – Flame Barrier: Boost trigger chance from 20% to 50% while attuned to fire.
• Fire Master Minor – Sunspot: Add 2 seconds of burning to this trait in a 240 AoE. Increase the damage radius to 240 to be more in-line with other attunement effects. Reduce affected targets to 3.
• Fire VII – Pyromancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of fire attunement by 20%. Without any points in arcana this would provide for a 10&3/4 second fire attunement recharge time; with 6 points in arcana, the recharge rate would be 8&3/4 seconds.
• Fire IX – Fire’s Embrace: Increase fire aura duration by 1 second.
• Fire X – One with Fire: Completely remove current effect and create new effect: burning applied by you deals 20% increased damage.
• Fire XII – Pyromancer’s Puissance: Remove and replace with new trait Retaliatory Fire: Attuning to fire grants 4 seconds of retaliation (NOT in an AoE.) Retaliation granted by you deals 30% increased damage. Along with flame barrier, this would make striking an ele who has just attuned to fire a potentially dangerous prospect.
• Fire XIII – Blinding Ashes: Either make it so that AoE applications of burning now blind all affected targets if the trait is off cooldown -OR- make the ICD individual to each enemy (the latter being more powerful than the former.)

• Air Adept Minor – Zephyr’s Speed: Movement speed increased to 20%, or even 25%. This would only work while attuned to air, so it would mainly be useful for travel. My thoughts when boosting this trait revolve mainly around the focus – does anyone else enjoy being a turtle in WvW just to use the (severely underused, mostly due to mobility issues) focus? I don’t.
• Air IV – One with Air: Increase superspeed duration to 2 seconds and add 4 seconds of blindness when attuning to Air in a 240 AoE affecting 3 targets. This would allow attuning to air to be a skillshot blind in order to stop that earthshaker or suspected incoming backstab.
• Air V – Soothing Winds: I honestly don’t know anyone that uses this trait, so change it to Vigorous Auras: Auras granted by you last an additional second and grant 2 seconds of vigor.
• Air VIII – Inscription: Increase might granted while using a glyph in fire attunement from 1 stack to 3 stacks and decrease base duration from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Air IX: Aeromancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of air attunement by 20%.
  Air XIII – Lightning Rod: Change to deliver damage and weakness on delivering a critical hit with a 10 second ICD. As it is, ele only has like 2 interrupts at most per weaponset with generally long cooldowns, making this trait a pretty poor performer.

• Earth Master Minor – Earthen Blast: In addition to its current effects, this trait now causes attuning to earth to be a blast finisher centered around the player.
• Earth VIII – Rock Solid: Add 4 seconds of aegis to this trait in a 240 AoE affecting 5 allies along with the stability. This would allow attuning to earth to be a skillshot block in order to block that pin down or suspected incoming backstab.
• Earth IX – Geomancer’s Freedom: In addition to its current effects, this trait now grants 3 seconds of retaliation when you are affected by chill, cripple or immobilize. 10 second ICD.
• Earth X – Geomancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of earth attunement by 20%.

• Water II – Shard of Ice: Renamed to Flash Freeze. Remove old effect. New effect: Inflict 2 seconds of chill and 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds when attuning to water. 240 AoE, 3 Targets.
• Water VIII – Aquamancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of water attunement by 20%.

• Arcane Grandmaster Minor – Arcane Precision: Changed from 10% chance to apply conditions on critical hit to 10% chance to apply conditions on hit. Burning duration increased to 2 seconds. Weakness duration decreased to 2 seconds. Bleeding duration increased to 10 seconds. Vulnerability application while in water changed to 2 seconds of chill.
• Arcane II – Renewing Stamina: Increase ICD to 10 seconds. This will hurt, but with the changes made to other lines being able to maintain permavigor with only one trait is simply too much.
• Arcane VIII – Elemental Attunement: Because of the change to make the boons provided to the ele baseline to the profession, this trait would now double the duration of the boons provided and make them AoE to restore the current functionality of this trait albeit with slightly nerfed durations.
• Arcane IX – Arcane Resurrection: Revive speed increase set to 25%. Auras gained upon revival increased in duration to 6 seconds.
• Arcane X – Arcane Energy: Change effect to give 25% of your endurance back when using a utility, heal or elite skill.
• Arcane XIII – Elemental Contingency: Changed to use the Evasive Arcana style of internal cooldown where the 10 second ICD is individual to each attunement.

Weapon Skills:

• Dagger F5 – Fire Grab: Widen the cone slightly.
• Dagger A2 – Lightning Touch: Widen the cone slightly. Reduce cast time to 1/2 second. Reduce weakness duration by 1 second. Increase affected targets to 5.
• Dagger E2 – Ring of Earth: List reflection skill fact.
• Dagger E5 – Churning Earth: Reduce cast time to 2&1/2 seconds.

• Scepter F1 – Flamestrike: Reduce cast time to 1 second.
• Scepter F2 – Dragon’s Tooth: Increase damage radius to 240.
• Scepter W2 – Shatterstone: Halve the time it takes for the shatterstone to detonate.
• Scepter W3 – Water Trident: Increase radius to 240.

• Focus F4 – Flamewall: Increase burning duration to 2 seconds and add damage per pulse.
• Focus F5 – Fire Shield: Change to Fire Aura for OCD purposes. Increase duration to 8 seconds.
• Focus W4 – Freezing Gust: Increase chill duration to 4 seconds. Reduce recharge to 20 seconds. Make unblockable.
• Focus W5 – Comet: Increase radius to 240.
• Focus A4 – Swirling Winds: Provide swiftness for 10 seconds to allies inside of the 400 radius when the skill is used.

• Staff W2 – Ice Spike: Halve the time it takes for the spike to fall.
• Staff A2 – Lightning Surge: Decrease cast time to 1/4 second (blindness on this skill is pretty pointless if it can’t realistically be used to stop an incoming attack in time.)
• Staff A3 – Gust: Change to knock back foes in a fairly wide cone in front of the player (say 150 degree arc with a 400 unit range.) Reduce recharge time to 25 seconds.
• Staff A4 – Windborne Speed: Reduce recharge rate to 25 seconds.
• Staff E2 – Eruption: Reduce time it takes for the eruption to detonate by 33%.

Glyph Changes (most of these changes taken from ILobo in this thread )

• Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Reduce cast time to 1 second and increase healing power coefficient to 1.0
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Completely scrap this glyph. Change to Glyph of Elemental Shielding: Gain an aura based on your attunement. 8 second fire aura duration, 4 seconds for the other 3 auras. 40 second recharge. Stun break (instant cast time.)
• Glyph of Storms: Reduce recharge time to 45 seconds. Increase range to 1,200.
• Glyph of Renewal: Reduce cast time to 2&1/2 seconds. Reduce recharge time to 150 seconds.
• Glyph of Elemental Power: Remove stun break. Add 1 second cast time. Reduce skill recharge time to 40 seconds. Increase trigger chance to 100%. Reduce burning duration to 2 seconds. Reduce weakness and cripple durations to 3 seconds.
• Glyph of Elementals: Reduce recharge time to 90 seconds. Make it so that activating this skill again while an elemental is summoned will cause it to use its special skill (like a necro’s minions, ranger’s spirits, etc.) with a 30 second recharge time on the activation.

Those are all the changes I have thought of. I feel that most are pretty reasonable. As noted by the disclaimer above, I obviously would not expect ALL of these changes to be simultaneously implemented due to problems with OPness.

Thoughts?

There’s a lot to go through here – far beyond the scope of 5k chars, but I’ll do my best.

Overall I did like a few of the changes, however, what I did not like is how none of your changes truly increase build diversity. Underused traits are universally buffed, yes, as are poor weapon skills, but none of them address:

• Poorly designed trait mechanics in the first place (i.e. passives, RNGs, etc.) or poorly thought out skills
• The preponderance of Ele to invest 40-50+ points into Water and Arcana; now made even more optimal given that Cleansing Water’s ICD has been removed in PVP. There’s no significant condi output in PvE so that doesn’t matter; and WvW never had ICD due to split.
• The lack of diversification of Ele away from Boon dependancy and away from concentration of certain mechanics – condi cleanse, general utility, CDR – into certain trait lines.

The good points, however are within:

• Echoing ele community changes by calling for a new Glyph of Auras as a stunbreak
• Making Elemental Attunement less necessary
• Addressing longstanding ele gripes with certain weapon skills

Onto the specifics.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

Starting with one mechanic change:
Make elemental attunement boons baseline to the class with the following changes and durations:

• The boons are NOT AoE baseline.
• Fire: 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds
• Water: Regeneration for 2 seconds
• Air: Swiftness for 2 seconds
• Earth: Protection for 2 seconds

I feel that nothing should be baseline, ever, for Elementalist, or for any class, for that matter. Traits and effects are there to require investment to enforce the concept of opportunity cost, and baseline effects erode this concept. How about this instead?

• The 5 1 point minors in each tree (Flame Barrier, Zephyr’s Speed, Stone Flesh, Soothing Mist) now grant the individual boons associated with each trait line, at full duration.
• 10 2 points in Arcana now grants the trait Powerful Boons to replace Elemental Attunement which states:
  • Boons you gain are shared with allies (targets 5) in a 240 unit radius.

• It would be an overall nerf in terms of absolute variety of boons, but it would be a buff in terms of specific Boon uptime – the most important of which would be Protection, then Swiftness, then Regeneration, then Might.
  • Let’s be real, the only reason why EAttunement was taken was for Prot, and this is a massive buff to builds that wish to escape Arcana.

Onto Traits.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

Fire Traits:

• Fire Adept Minor – Flame Barrier: Boost trigger chance from 20% to 50% while attuned to fire.

This does nothing to make Flame Barrier somehow less terrible. How about this?

• Renamed to: Stoke the Flames:
  • Burning ticks on a foe gain 1 stack of Might for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 2 seconds.
  • Note emphasis. What this means is that Might is gained not when it is applied, but when it ticks over. Obviously, 1 second of burn grants 1 stack of Might. But a long duration applied Burn from a long cooldown Weapon skill or utility still gets the benefit.
  • Peak Might output is 3-4 stacks assuming a foe is Burning consistently. Pretty strong for an Adept Minor, but you’ll have to find a way to keep that Burning up.
  • In the event of multiple foes, the ICD keeps peak Might from spiralling out of control. On the other hand, proccing off ticks instead of applications means that you will still get a benefit even if 1 foe cleanses; as others will still be Burning.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Fire Master Minor – Sunspot: Add 2 seconds of burning to this trait in a 240 AoE. Increase the damage radius to 240 to be more in-line with other attunement effects. Reduce affected targets to 3.

• I don’t mind this change. Has good synergy with my proposal for the 1 point minor, actually. Serendipitous.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Fire VII – Pyromancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of fire attunement by 20%. Without any points in arcana this would provide for a 10&3/4 second fire attunement recharge time; with 6 points in arcana, the recharge rate would be 8&3/4 seconds.

• This implementation is fine, although I fear it would drive people deeper into Arcana if they ever wish to run an Attunement specialised build. I feel that there needs to be a “Fresh Fire” type trait that resets Attunement CD so that people feel comfortable running just 2-3 specialist attunements over the 4 that are danced across right now.
• How about a rejiggering of the Pyromancer’s Puissance GM trait to reduce the cooldown of Fire Attunement by 2 seconds (minimum 8 seconds) when Burning is applied by Utility skills (Glyph of Greater Elemental, FGS, Cleansing Flame, (hopefully) Glyph of Auras, Flame Axe, Fire Signet)?

More.

• Fire IX – Fire’s Embrace: Increase fire aura duration by 1 second.

Honestly the whole Fire Aura mechanic needs work, and I don’t think that Duration is the answer. The Signets grant Fire Shield mechanic is fine, however, Fire Shield itself isn’t combat significant enough due to providing no defensive mechanics at all. How about this?

• You gain 3 seconds of Fire Aura when you activate a Signet. Gain 10% damage reduction while under the effects of Fire Aura. Cleanse 1 condition and Burn foes in a 240 radius when Fire Aura ends. (Reapplying Fire Aura, or applying another aura, ends Fire Aura)
  • What you have now is a tradeoff when running a triple signet build (and presumably, Written in Stone). It also makes Leap Finishers for Ele suddenly extremely valuable because now you have a cleanse and a Burn. You can burn cooldowns for 1 cleanse and a Burn, or wait until it ends to keep the 10% damage reduction up.
  • 1 cleanse is probably too weak for something you need utility slots for, but keep in mind that Leap Finishers also apply Fire Aura. Magnetic Grasp just got buffed, and Dagger Focus got 1 step closer to being not terrible in the PVP setting. Fire Aura (the weapon skill) could be stronger by providing damage on top of burning, and cleansing more conditions; whilst retaining the 10% damage reduction.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Fire X – One with Fire: Completely remove current effect and create new effect: burning applied by you deals 20% increased damage.

• I feel that this trait is a little too strong, to be honest. However, given how limited the scope of the trait is, it would be strong in a condi-specific build, and combined with Ember’s Might, that’s 2 potentially useful utility trait slots taken up for offense, so I guess it’s fine.

One of the traits that I feel you did skip over was Burning Fire ; which as a trait is pretty terrible in a few ways:

• It’s passive, which means you have no control over it
• It raises cleanses per 10 seconds to 0.75 for a Master trait in a line that has Adepts of limited usefulness; whilst Cleansing Water or Evasive Arcana outperform it by leaps and bounds for less opportunity cost
• It’s currently bugged with Cantrip traits; so it doesn’t even have synergy with Spell Slinger or Soothing Disruption . Cantrip Mastery doesn’t count because CDR traits have not usually had synergy with passive procs.

One of the ways I feel would reinvigorate it would be this:

• Blasting a Fire Field cleanses 1 condition on up to 5 allies and inflicts Burning for 2 seconds on foes in a 240 radius.

So, what does this mean?

• It adds 2 cleanses per 25 to double Arcana Staff builds that would previously have to run 6 in Water just to not die, 1 more to Dagger mainhand, 1 to dagger offhand, 2 to Scepter and 2 to Focus.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Fire XII – Pyromancer’s Puissance: Remove and replace with new trait Retaliatory Fire: Attuning to fire grants 4 seconds of retaliation (NOT in an AoE.) Retaliation granted by you deals 30% increased damage. Along with flame barrier, this would make striking an ele who has just attuned to fire a potentially dangerous prospect.

• I feel that Pyromancer’s Puissance is fine, to be honest. I proposed a buff in my previous post that emphasises Fire Attunement rather than forcing Elementalists to stay in Fire Attunement.
  • I also feel that until Retaliation becomes a percentage based damage taken mechanic that stacks up to 25 like Might etc it’s either going to be too weak against single big hits or too strong against many small hits.
  • That said, I can see the utility of this in a mainhand dagger build, so there is that.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Fire XIII – Blinding Ashes: Either make it so that AoE applications of burning now blind all affected targets if the trait is off cooldown -OR- make the ICD individual to each enemy (the latter being more powerful than the former.)

Blinding Ashes should have been this mechanic in the first place:

• Your Fire Fields now pulse Blind for 2 seconds every 2 seconds.
  • Done! Now skills like Ring of Fire, Lava Font and even Burning Retreat now have a defensive counterpressure role.

• To increase its offensive pressure, you can add this mechanic:
  • Foes Controlled (Push, Knockdown, Stun, Daze, Launch) onto your Fire Fields begin to take damage (0.3 coefficient of Power per second) and Burn for 2 seconds every second in the style of Bed of Coals

30 Fire X/Dagger Elementalist never sounded so scary; and Gust for Staff just became legitimate damage when kiting after Burning Retreat.

Ah yeah, fire aura removing condi’s idk why I didn’t think of that before. None of the auras do anything against condi pressure and considering fire does nothing now that makes a lot of sense.

q increase build diversity
a make base stats suck less

Go get a job at Anet and fix the ele!

It’s really hard to reasonably get us out of water. Having Cleansing Water and Ether Renewal at our disposal kind of makes it so that any more traits/skills that would remove conditions would push us over the top. I think the only thing that could have condition removal reasonably added would be a grandmaster trait in a line (probably fire or earth) that would make auras produced by you remove one condition. This would give signet builds some sort of condition removal and still be able to run the signet heal over ether renewal, which would instantly make a signet build FAR more viable.

However, as outlined in my opening posts, I think getting us out of arcana is pretty easy. The “mancer” traits in each line could have attunement CD reduction added, vigor uptime from renewing stamina could be halved, elemental attunement could be nerfed a bit (and made baseline, if you’re in favor of that) and more defensive options could be added to the other lines. Bam, 4 points in arcana is no longer a requirement for most viable builds.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

It’s really hard to reasonably get us out of water. Having Cleansing Water and Ether Renewal at our disposal kind of makes it so that any more traits/skills that would remove conditions would push us over the top. I think the only thing that could have condition removal reasonably added would be a grandmaster trait in a line (probably fire or earth) that would make auras produced by you remove one condition. This would give signet builds some sort of condition removal and still be able to run the signet heal over ether renewal, which would instantly make a signet build FAR more viable.

However, as outlined in my opening posts, I think getting us out of arcana is pretty easy. The “mancer” traits in each line could have attunement CD reduction added, vigor uptime from renewing stamina could be halved, elemental attunement could be nerfed a bit (and made baseline, if you’re in favor of that) and more defensive options could be added to the other lines. Bam, 4 points in arcana is no longer a requirement for most viable builds.

And if you had read my responses, you would have seen some of that in my proposals. With regard to Elementalist “double dipping” in condition cleansing – it is precisely that mentality that pushed Anet to make Cleansing Wave Master tier. What players then did is not move away from Water, but instead put 20 (4) points into Water instead of 10 (2) post Dhuumfire patch – because that functionality did not exist anywhere else.

By situating Condition cleanse at Master tier in Fire, tied to Blasting Combo Fields, Elementalists can “combo into” their Cleansing which is:

• Slower, and therefore more liable to interruption
• Less mobile, which exposes the Ele to AOE pressure – at least until they Blast the Field
• More telegraphed as there are now 2 skills going off to get the effect – and therefore more counterplayable (stack a different Condi)

I don’t see how this would somehow push Ele’s cleansing through the Roof without sacrifice. In fact, due to the fact that you’re actually burning cooldowns on the ground – NOT the enemy – you’re probably giving up far more to cleanse using the trait than simply by Swapping to Water attunement. It might even be underpowered when looking at it from that perspective.

As for Fire Aura removing Conditions, this is nothing new; and was proposed by DiogoSilva under his Suggestions for Focus and in fact his proposal was much stronger.

We tread and re-tread the same ground only for Anet to forge its own path, it seems.

Moving on to Air.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Air Adept Minor – Zephyr’s Speed: Movement speed increased to 20%, or even 25%. This would only work while attuned to air, so it would mainly be useful for travel. My thoughts when boosting this trait revolve mainly around the focus – does anyone else enjoy being a turtle in WvW just to use the (severely underused, mostly due to mobility issues) focus? I don’t.

• S/F builds – at least those that try to run in WvW – incorporate Traveler’s Runes . Your proposal echoes the old One with Air where IMS stacked over time to maximum of 25% – but was not taken due to being awfully underpowered for a Major Slot.
• In my opinion, Zephyr’s Speed should have had the old One with Air effect put on, buffed to 10% per 10 seconds; first tick on Air Attune, max 25%; and called good. This puts X/F at 25% IMS after 20 seconds, which is more than fine as it forces a camped attunement. Unfortunately, this has some negative Synergy with Fresh Air but let’s be real, it’s a 5 (1) point Minor.
• On the other hand, if you make split Elemental Attunement’s Boon effects into each 5 (1) point Minor, then this wouldn’t even be an issue in the first place.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Air IV – One with Air: Increase superspeed duration to 2 seconds and add 4 seconds of blindness when attuning to Air in a 240 AoE affecting 3 targets. This would allow attuning to air to be a skillshot blind in order to stop that earthshaker or suspected incoming backstab.

• Pretty strong for an Adept tier trait, considering Evasive Arcana requires not only a dodge, but for enemies to be around you when your dodge completes. It’s also difficult to counterplay, especially for Fresh Air specs. I can imagine a lot of Warrior hate incoming if this was to be implemented.
• Just make it so “your next attack inflicts Blind for 4 seconds” after attuning to Air and add a Buff icon for transparency. Air is traditionally single target focus, and a way to limit its power level is to make it single target.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Air V – Soothing Winds: I honestly don’t know anyone that uses this trait, so change it to Vigorous Auras: Auras granted by you last an additional second and grant 2 seconds of vigor.

• I could only accept this if Anet had gone through with the Renewing Stamina nerf despite all the protests – including mine at the time. With the evade frames on Burning Speed now, along with double Sigils for Energy, I’d be for this change.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Air VIII – Inscription: Increase might granted while using a glyph in fire attunement from 1 stack to 3 stacks and decrease base duration from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.

• A fine change, as it encourages use of Glyph of Elemental Harmony instead of that lazy Signet. However, Glyphs in general do need a lot of tweaks. I’ll get to my review of your Glyph proposals in time, though.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Air IX: Aeromancer’s Alacrity: In addition to reducing the recharge rate of attunement-based weapon skills, this trait would now also increase the recharge rate of air attunement by 20%.

• I made mention of this in my Fire Trait review of how this would further incentivise Arcana so people could “double dip” Attunement recharge. I think the principle is sound, I’m just not so sure that people will move out of Arcana given the implementation as you propose.

Arcane Lightning
I also note that you skip through Arcane Lightning on your way to the GM Traits. Any reason why?

• In my opinion, this trait is easily outcompeted by the trifecta of Bolt to the Heart, Air Training and Fresh Air – even in a triple Arcane burst build as the damage is far more consistent and less situational.
• 10% Critical Damage isn’t bad, it’s just that other traits are better. So how about we don’t try to make yet another DPS increase trait in the Air Magic line and try for something different?
  • Ele at the moment is missing a few things: Boon Hate, Condi cleanse outside of water (put it in Fire or Earth, not Air), CC/Interrupts with better uptime, and defensive counterpressure outside of Auras. We’ll get to Boon Hate in Earth or Fire.

So at a stroke, let’s create a new build just by putting in this mechanic:

• Arcane Lightning: Your Arcane Skills inflict Daze for 2 seconds. Inflict 5 stacks of Vulnerability if you Interrupt a foe.
  • We have just created an Interrupt build if we then combo it with Lightning Rod
  • Alternatively, combo it with Tempest Defense, allow TD to proc its damage increase with Daze as well, and all of a sudden you have a huge counterpressure build.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

Air XIII – Lightning Rod: Change to deliver damage and weakness on delivering a critical hit with a 10 second ICD. As it is, ele only has like 2 interrupts at most per weaponset with generally long cooldowns, making this trait a pretty poor performer.

• This change is not needed at all if you simply make Arcane Lightning a rupt-based trait.
• Interrupt builds have a skill floor of forcing yourself to play to the opponent’s rhythm, not your own, to interrupt key skills. To lower the skill floor to mere on critical hit is an insult to the intelligence of the profession and a blow to skilled play.
• If there is anything the game needs less of, it’s on-crit procs.

Instead, how about this:

• Lightning Rod: On successfully dodging an attack, your next attack inflicts Daze for 2 seconds. If you interrupt a foe, strike it with a Lightning bolt that does damage and causes weakness for 4 seconds
  • This turns Lightning Rod into an extremely potent alternative to Tempest Defense as a counterpressure build. It’s also attunement agnostic, which is hilariously strong.
  • For counterplay reasons, a verbal quote like “Charged up!” or “Get Zapped!” should be said by the character; or a storm cloud should form over the character’s head on a successful dodge so enemies know what’s coming. There needs to be more telegraphs in this game.

MonMalthias.4763:

• S/F builds – at least those that try to run in WvW – incorporate Traveler’s Runes . Your proposal echoes the old One with Air where IMS stacked over time to maximum of 25% – but was not taken due to being awfully underpowered for a Major Slot.
• In my opinion, Zephyr’s Speed should have had the old One with Air effect put on, buffed to 10% per 10 seconds; first tick on Air Attune, max 25%; and called good. This puts X/F at 25% IMS after 20 seconds, which is more than fine as it forces a camped attunement. Unfortunately, this has some negative Synergy with Fresh Air but let’s be real, it’s a 5 (1) point Minor.
• On the other hand, if you make split Elemental Attunement’s Boon effects into each 5 (1) point Minor, then this wouldn’t even be an issue in the first place.

I like this too, and it probably makes the passive 25% more feasible from a balance standpoint.

MonMalthias.4763:

• Pretty strong for an Adept tier trait, considering Evasive Arcana requires not only a dodge, but for enemies to be around you when your dodge completes. It’s also difficult to counterplay, especially for Fresh Air specs. I can imagine a lot of Warrior hate incoming if this was to be implemented.
• Just make it so “your next attack inflicts Blind for 4 seconds” after attuning to Air and add a Buff icon for transparency. Air is traditionally single target focus, and a way to limit its power level is to make it single target.

This is fine too, but remember that this will produce an instant 900 range blind upon attuning to air with the 3 point air trait which is arguably just as powerful (although scepter already has this, so I guess it’s not that bad.)

MonMalthias.4763:

So at a stroke, let’s create a new build just by putting in this mechanic:

• Arcane Lightning: Your Arcane Skills inflict Daze for 2 seconds. Inflict 5 stacks of Vulnerability if you Interrupt a foe.
  • We have just created an Interrupt build if we then combo it with Lightning Rod
  • Alternatively, combo it with Tempest Defense, allow TD to proc its damage increase with Daze as well, and all of a sudden you have a huge counterpressure build.

This sounds good in theory, but would be VERY powerful with Arcane Power producing a 2s daze 5 times. However, were it made such that only the first attack produced a daze, this would sound like a pretty good idea to me and also makes the current iteration of Lightning Rod fine.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

This sounds good in theory, but would be VERY powerful with Arcane Power producing a 2s daze 5 times. However, were it made such that only the first attack produced a daze, this would sound like a pretty good idea to me and also makes the current iteration of Lightning Rod fine.

Right, I should have clarified that it would affect Arcane Power differently in that only the next animation after casting would Daze. Again, the beauty of the change is that it:

• Creates an entirely new build (Rupts) for Elementalist to fit an entirely new role
• Is powerful enough that it justifies running both M and GM traits for opportunity cost reasons; yet
• Situational enough that it isn’t overly strong; as Interrupt based builds are quite dueling centric.

Moving on to Earth

• Earth Master Minor – Earthen Blast: In addition to its current effects, this trait now causes attuning to earth to be a blast finisher centered around the player.

• I actually don’t mind this trait when running D/D in the Rock Solid variant as it allows a lot of anti-kite or kiting potential. It’s actually quite good; just not on par with Healing Ripple or Electric Discharge.

Pretty much the easiest way to buff this is to boost its defensive potential, like this:

• Gain Aegis for 3 seconds and Cripple foes in a 240 Radius for 3 seconds when you Attune to Earth
  • This re-emphasises Earth Attunement as something to switch to when a burst is anticipated to be incoming. If Elemental Attunement’s Prot is split into Earth, this becomes even stronger, as beyond the Aegis there is now Protection as well.

That being said, Earth really lacks offensive options due to poor autoattacks (except for Staff Earth 1), (generally) more utility based skills with lower damage potential (due to being CC setups, or Blast finishers) and it could do with a better Minor to prop it up. How about this? (Skill Data From Zelyhn’s thread

• When you Attune to Earth, deal damage (0.3 Coeff.) and Cripple foes in a 240 Radius for 3 seconds. Foes that had attacked you in the past 2 seconds take bonus damage (0.3 → 0.7 coefficient) and receive 5 stacks of Vulnerability.
  • This is a huge melee boost; as 0.7 coefficient is identical to that of the Electric Discharge trait – except this is AOE. Add the vulnerability onto that to setup future damage and this becomes a massive counterpressure trait.

Obsidian Focus
One of the traits I feel that you did ignore (and for good reason, as I have seen very few people take it) is Obsidian Focus. It’s outcompeted for the simple reason that Protection is so much better. 33% Damage reduction from Prot is worth ~800 Toughness from the 1804 base Armour, is easier to obtain from Boons as Elementalist, and scales with diminishing returns to a lesser degree than simply stacking Toughness alone.

For it to supply 290 toughness; and only on Channelling skills and not much else, it’s clear why Elementalists shy away from it. Keep in mind that this is also the buffed version as well; it was previously only 170 toughness prior to the Dhuumfire patch.

• At this point it may be better to forgo the Toughness mechanic altogether and instead make a mechanic around Aegis instead.
  • Obsidian Focus: When channeling a Skill, gain Aegis for 2 seconds

This forces people to autoattack before interrupting, thus decreasing the risk of high-impact skills like Meteor Shower.

Machspeedtwo.1342:

• Earth VIII – Rock Solid: Add 4 seconds of aegis to this trait in a 240 AoE affecting 5 allies along with the stability. This would allow attuning to earth to be a skillshot block in order to block that pin down or suspected incoming backstab.

• I don’t know if you’ve ever played with Rock Solid before, but Ether Renewal → Earth Attunement is huge.
• In the PvP / WvW setting, Stability is king for securing stomps, denying stomps, and negating CC chains. Rock Solid by itself makes D/D quite strong against Hammer Warrior and allows you to negate CC within the cooldowns of the Hammer weapon set. Rock Solid is also AOE, in case you haven’t noticed, which makes an RS ele one of the best team support with regards to down state control. There’s a reason RS was once Grandmaster.

I’d argue for no changes to RS.