Guild Wars 2

Sun Spot: fire 15
Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire.

Earthen Blast: eart 15
Damage foes and cripple them for 3 seconds when attuning to earth.

I am not making a suggestion here but I would like the opinion of the community:
If the numbers were balanced around, would you like to see the effects of these skills do the following instead:
-Sun spot => create a small fire combo field (lava font?)
-Earthen blast => blast combo finisher

I think people would play around with these minor traits much more then.

Of on the most interesting ues of this I can think of is a LH build with 30 in fire (persisting flame): use LH, swap to fire for combo field, auto-attack for blast combos (might + fury from persisting flames), swap out and enjoy a long duration of fury.

And I don’t think I have to explain how to use an extra blast finisher :)

Any thoughts?

IMHO besides maybe 2 or 3 all of our minor traits are really sucky and should be buffed/changed on the whole.

Fire is going to need more changes than sun spot to be effective for pvp.
Does sun spot inflict burn like EA dodge roll in fire? If not then it is even worse than I thought it is :-(

But your ideas would really help improve them. Both of them should be like the earth/fire dodges with EA. (Honestly, I feel fire EA should either a blast finisher or a short duration fire field as well heh.)

Really nice ideas.

Demon.5082:

Fire is going to need more changes than sun spot to be effective for pvp.
Does sun spot inflict burn like EA dodge roll in fire? If not then it is even worse than I thought it is :-(

But your ideas would really help improve them. Both of them should be like the earth/fire dodges with EA. (Honestly, I feel fire EA should either a blast finisher or a short duration fire field as well heh.)

Dodge in fire with 0 condition damage deals 1640 damage with burning, while sun spot doesn’t and its power is comparable to stoning.

Demon.5082:

Fire is going to need more changes than sun spot to be effective for pvp.
Does sun spot inflict burn like EA dodge roll in fire? If not then it is even worse than I thought it is :-(

But your ideas would really help improve them. Both of them should be like the earth/fire dodges with EA. (Honestly, I feel fire EA should either a blast finisher or a short duration fire field as well heh.)

EA used to always be a blast finisher at release. It was OP as hell and everyone on every spec had to pretty much play 30 Arcane. Drop a water field and EA roll into 3 massive heals.

Back on topic: I think it’d be great to make Sunspot create a Lava Font (maybe a toned down one). It would create more DPS without allowing ridiculous bursting.

A blast finisher on earth would be too much though, we already have so many blasts finishers. If Earthen Blast would simply do twice as much damage, I’d be happy about it (and then I could move on to the other useless traits).

Yeah I agree, a blast would be a bit too much.
How about it gave aegis in a 180 aoe instead? That would fit quite well with the theme of earth and it would break the guardian’s monopoly of the boon!

Three seconds of cripple isn’t terrible for just switching to Earth attunement honestly. Not nearly as good as an AoE heal, sure, but not terrible.

I don’t even notice Sun Spot though. I think it hits for what, 600 damage? That’s one burn tick. Completely negligible. Maybe if it was also a short duration AoE blind or just threw on a few seconds of AoE burning it’d make a difference. Though really our fire line is already swimming with burning related traits.

Sunspot should make a short smoke field when attuning to fire. It would give some very limited access to stealth (just like engineers) and is not unheard of for eles seeing as we can already stealth underwater.

haviz.1340:

Really nice ideas.
Dodge in fire with 0 condition damage deals 1640 damage with burning, while sun spot doesn’t and its power is comparable to stoning.

Hmm, i never noticed the burn duration until now. Thought it was just 600-900 damage (3 burn ticks). Well I guess its fine then. But sunspot sounds horrid.

Kodiak.3281:

EA used to always be a blast finisher at release. It was OP as hell and everyone on every spec had to pretty much play 30 Arcane. Drop a water field and EA roll into 3 massive heals.

Wish I played during that time :-/
Anyway, I was only talking about the fire roll. Air and water are fine (air could use a larger area though, i have to literally dodge on top of my target’s position to get him blinded).

Zelyhn.8069:

Yeah I agree, a blast would be a bit too much.
How about it gave aegis in a 180 aoe instead? That would fit quite well with the theme of earth and it would break the guardian’s monopoly of the boon!

Aegis would make earth 15 better than water 15 heh. Well in fairness, mesmers have some random access to aegis (engineer has 1 trait) but your right in that Guardian is king/queen of aegis.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Sunspot should make a short smoke field when attuning to fire. It would give some very limited access to stealth (just like engineers) and is not unheard of for eles seeing as we can already stealth underwater.

This has been suggested a lot to improve fire survivability but I just do not like the idea of playing more than 1 stealth class :-/

Imho fire is about damage, so it should do damage. Lots of it. Then we can think of the trait line instead of air for damage. Sunspot should apply more burning, fire auras should reduce damage taken and apply stronger burns. We should also get some traits that increase burn duration.

We can’t really compare EA with 15 bonuses in each tree! Or we can, but we have to keep this in mind: EA in water is similar to water 15 plus water 10 with V (dispel on attunement).
So for fire sunspot makes sense: it is the fire EA without the burn. Same goes for earth. It is logical, but is it very weak, we all agree on that.
I would really like a small aoe fire field instead , like a half-size lava font.

I do rather agree with Demon in that fire is about damage. Preferably heavy sustained damage in the same way air is about bursts. Which would explain the heavy mix of burning into the trait line no matter what you do with it. And while I wouldn’t complain if we got stealth, it really doesn’t fit the elementalist thematically, much less our fire tree.

Sun Spot should do what everything in fire does. Keep up the pressure. However it does far, far too little damage to even be noticed by our opponents. Maybe if it had a different effect in addition to the damage. Like perhaps a free Might stack on us and nearby allies when attuning to fire? That would synergize well with most fire related builds (Might on Fire Spell, Fury+Might on Fire Blast Finishers) and it’d make it easier to stack Might for our fire line when cycling attunements, since if you’re that invested in fire you probably don’t have a lot in arcane for boon duration unless you’re completely made of glass. Which doesn’t work well for a sustained damage build.

Elementalists are primarily a support class. It’s what we do no matter what build we use. So making fire better at sharing offensive boons would add to that role. Let us pick between heavy offensive support with Might and Fury and heavy defensive support with Regeneration and Protection.

@Ehecatl.9172
You are talking about PvP or WvW I assume.

Elementalists are definitely not just a support class! (in any mode)

Adding damage to a 15 trait is redundant, air already has it on single target. Don’t you want more interesting choices to play with?

Zelyhn.8069:

@Ehecatl.9172
You are talking about PvP or WvW I assume.

Elementalists are definitely not just a support class! (in any mode)

Adding damage to a 15 trait is redundant, air already has it on single target. Don’t you want more interesting choices to play with?

I didn’t say it was ONLY a support class. However you’d have to go out of your way to make a build that didn’t offer group support passively just by us doing our thing. We were very clearly designed with supporting our group in mind. The fact the whole class revolves around blast finishers is proof of that, which of course happen to give the same boons to any allies near us at the time.

And while more interesting choices are always welcome, I just don’t feel like giving us stealth on blast finishers would go as far to giving us survival as people think. If anything will improve our survival, reducing the need to invest in arcane will. I have a pretty comfortable fire/earth combo build for WvW, but because I use a staff I feel extremely limited without 20 arcane for blasting staff, as an example. Buffing our Might sharing would be a decent buff to my build and many others I am sure. Especially considering this is just a 15 point minor trait. If we do get stealth, I’d assume it would at least be a major trait we have to pick.

I understand that a buff to might sharing sounds good to you; but I have to disagree with any addition like that.

Especially since you already go 20 points into arcana, more might stacking in fire would be more redundant and wouldn’t save the class anymore than it does now.

As far as supporting goes—the best support comes from a teammate that can kill fast and keep himself alive while doing it.

I can’t imagine them fitting a smoke field on fire though. That would definitely help in defying our opponents.

Asurmir.7956:

I understand that a buff to might sharing sounds good to you; but I have to disagree with any addition like that.

Especially since you already go 20 points into arcana, more might stacking in fire would be more redundant and wouldn’t save the class anymore than it does now.

As far as supporting goes—the best support comes from a teammate that can kill fast and keep himself alive while doing it.

I can’t imagine them fitting a smoke field on fire though. That would definitely help in defying our opponents.

I wouldn’t say redundant. With the sigil of battle and elemental attunement and arcane wave for the second blast finisher I’m usually floating around 10-17 Might stacks. It could definitely go higher.

And this is only a 15 point minor trait. It’s not suppose to be the answer to all our survival problems. Just a small benefit you get switching into your fire attunement. Earth gives a short duration crowd control for defense, water gives an AoE heal for healing support, and air gives a decent little single target burst for air. These are the things it should be comparable to.

More might is redundant: you get might from arcane boons, and might from fire 30, might from fire 10 + cantrips, might from glyphs with inscription, and I am just mentioning the traits.

Be more creative, stop wishful thinking!

Zelyhn.8069:

More might is redundant: you get might from arcane boons, and might from fire 30, might from fire 10 + cantrips, might from glyphs with inscription, and I am just mentioning the traits.

Be more creative, stop wishful thinking!

I’m being realistic. It’s not meant to be a game changer trait. None of the other 15 point minors are. It’s all just minor effects that add to what the attunement you’re switching to already does.

Look, the position of the trait means little to nothing when you actually look at all professions trait lines.

Example-

Elementalist: Major trait in Arcana- Renewing Stamina
Mesmer: Minor trait in Dueling- Critical Infusion
Guardian: Minor trait in Honor- Vigorous Precision

If anything, the minor traits are to be just as valuable, just as potent and worthy of 5 trait points like the major traits.

Who asked about anything game changing?
Read my OP: I am saying that the number would require some balancing. We are just discussing designs here. We are trying to find new interesting choices. And I mean interesting in term of design, not efficiency in whatever mode you play.
If a smoke field was created it could just be balanced by having a short duration/aoe.
Same for an additional fire field.

You should be able to put 15 points into any trait line and see a noticeable difference. It is meant to be game changing. Else the game gets stagnant, more so than it already has.

How about something like this:
On attunement swap, for 2 seconds all projectiles targeted at you are reflected and they cause burning (like if they went through a fire field).

Theme: hot air stream, Icarus’ temptation, sun skin

Edit:
After writing down Icarus something came to my mind:
How about: On attunement swap, for 2 seconds your spells have 300 increased range
Or: For 2 seconds your spell deal additional damage equal to the target’s armor divided by 10

Zelyhn.8069:

Who asked about anything game changing?
Read my OP: I am saying that the number would require some balancing. We are just discussing designs here. We are trying to find new interesting choices. And I mean interesting in term of design, not efficiency in whatever mode you play.
If a smoke field was created it could just be balanced by having a short duration/aoe.
Same for an additional fire field.

An additional fire field in fire would be incredibly redundant since every possible weapon combo has one in fire already. And a Blast Finisher for Earth would also be redundant, but more in the overpowered way in that if you have a dagger offhand you’d have three blast finishers able to be spammed in a row within a couple seconds. Four if you have Arcane Wave. And for staff it’d be less useful and more situational, since you couldn’t double blast a fire field with the way eruption works.

A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.

Ehecatl.9172:

A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.

As it should. A smoke field would not be that strong of a trait considering that our attunement cd for fire can only go down to 9.25 seconds. And the field doesnt need to last long (2 or 3 seconds) for it to be useful in combat.

Asurmir.7956:

Ehecatl.9172:

A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.

As it should. A smoke field would not be that strong of a trait considering that our attunement cd for fire can only go down to 9.25 seconds. And the field doesnt need to last long (2 or 3 seconds) for it to be useful in combat.

It shouldn’t change the way you play the profession. It’s a low tier minor trait. If it were a selected trait or an upper tier minor trait you’d have a point.

I have even more ideas:
On attunement, drain the endurance of nearby foes
-180 aoe
-drains 25% energy

Maybe deal damage if a target has no energy
Maybe make it drain 50% to each target, but you receive only 25%

Theme: feed the fire

Ehecatl.9172:

Asurmir.7956:

Ehecatl.9172:

A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.

As it should. A smoke field would not be that strong of a trait considering that our attunement cd for fire can only go down to 9.25 seconds. And the field doesnt need to last long (2 or 3 seconds) for it to be useful in combat.

It shouldn’t change the way you play the profession. It’s a low tier minor trait. If it were a selected trait or an upper tier minor trait you’d have a point.

Your logic about the placement of the trait ‘not affecting how you play’ makes no sense. If the trait doesn’t change how you play the profession, then it is like it was never implemented. A wasted 5 pts on a trait that does nothing. Which is what we already have.

Projectile Reflect would be extremely powerful for a 15 point minor trait on any profession. 2 seconds of it every 10-15 seconds…

Though I wouldn’t dismiss it outright as a 25 point minor trait. Or maybe a Master level major trait. Even then it might be a bit overpowered.

Endurance drain… Seems a little out of place for Fire line. Thematically speaking it feels more like an Earth thing.

Asurmir: We’re gonna have to agree to disagree here. A minor trait shouldn’t heavily influence how the profession is played because if you want to invest in that line it isn’t optional. What if I wanted a 20 point trait but didn’t want to suddenly turn into a stealth profession? I could just ignore the fields, but then I wouldn’t be using my profession to it’s limits. If we do get smoke fields, it should be a major trait that you have to actively choose to get. That’s all I’m saying.

Not necessarily: phoenix gives vigor
Many movement spells are located in fire, the attunement matches the idea of speed and domination. Actually Earth promotes not using endurance (earth 25) and its theme is more about being static, not offensive.

Zelyhn.8069:

Not necessarily: phoenix gives vigor
Many movement spells are located in fire, the attunement matches the idea of speed and domination. Actually Earth promotes not using endurance (earth 25) and its theme is more about being static, not offensive.

True. But as you said, fire has a lot of speed and aggression built into it. Earth is the line that’s more about slowing the opponent down and hampering them (Cripple, weakness, immobilize), which your endurance trait choice would be doing.

If attuning to fire gave Vigor or a vigor-like effect I could possibly see it.

Sunspot and flame barriers effects could be combined.

Something like Sunfire cape from League of Legends

Damage every second to enemies within a certain range. The numbers would need tweaking, as would the range (needs to be effective for all weapons). Doesn’t scale with power, and acts much like a condition where it bypasses armor. That way it will encourage the elementalist to stay in fire attunement for a lengthier time.

Asurmir.7956:

Sunspot and flame barriers effects could be combined.

Something like Sunfire cape from League of Legends

Damage every second to enemies within a certain range. The numbers would need tweaking, as would the range (needs to be effective for all weapons). Doesn’t scale with power, and acts much like a condition where it bypasses armor. That way it will encourage the elementalist to stay in fire attunement for a lengthier time.

That one would be pretty interesting. If not to replace Sun Spot itself certainly to replace Flame Barrier. If we’re traiting for heavy fire we generally want to AVOID being hit. But a constant, low key damage to nearby enemies would do well for spvp where we have to stand on a point anyway.

… Though I can see it bugging like all Hell considering anet’s track record with traits. Remember when switching to air struck non-aggressive creatures or creatures we weren’t fighting? I’m imagining that on an AoE scale. lol

Ehecatl.9172:

Projectile Reflect would be extremely powerful for a 15 point minor trait on any profession. 2 seconds of it every 10-15 seconds…

Though I wouldn’t dismiss it outright as a 25 point minor trait. Or maybe a Master level major trait. Even then it might be a bit overpowered.

Endurance drain… Seems a little out of place for Fire line. Thematically speaking it feels more like an Earth thing.

Asurmir: We’re gonna have to agree to disagree here. A minor trait shouldn’t heavily influence how the profession is played because if you want to invest in that line it isn’t optional. What if I wanted a 20 point trait but didn’t want to suddenly turn into a stealth profession? I could just ignore the fields, but then I wouldn’t be using my profession to it’s limits. If we do get smoke fields, it should be a major trait that you have to actively choose to get. That’s all I’m saying.

You realize that you do this already, right? Whether you use the fury proc from the 5 pt minor in arcana or not is completely up to you and your play-style. Many would argue that is one of the necessities that makes arcana so good, despite it only giving fury for 2 seconds.

It would be no different from the 15 pts in water, or in air. Both encourage swapping to those attunements more frequently.

I get what you are saying, but you’re not getting what I’m after. I would rather the profession have more options, especially in the case of survival, because we are limited in this field.

Ehecatl.9172:

Asurmir.7956:

Sunspot and flame barriers effects could be combined.

Something like Sunfire cape from League of Legends

Damage every second to enemies within a certain range. The numbers would need tweaking, as would the range (needs to be effective for all weapons). Doesn’t scale with power, and acts much like a condition where it bypasses armor. That way it will encourage the elementalist to stay in fire attunement for a lengthier time.

That one would be pretty interesting. If not to replace Sun Spot itself certainly to replace Flame Barrier. If we’re traiting for heavy fire we generally want to AVOID being hit. But a constant, low key damage to nearby enemies would do well for spvp where we have to stand on a point anyway.

… Though I can see it bugging like all Hell considering anet’s track record with traits. Remember when switching to air struck non-aggressive creatures or creatures we weren’t fighting? I’m imagining that on an AoE scale. lol

Anet and bugs, an issue for another day.

My concern would be for how it would help staff play. I’ve thought of it as a gradual increase on the DOT is opponents get closer—like getting too close to the sun.

Asurmir.7956:

Anet and bugs, an issue for another day.

My concern would be for how it would help staff play. I’ve thought of it as a gradual increase on the DOT is opponents get closer—like getting too close to the sun.

Even if it was just a base damage tick per second to enemies within say, 300 yards I’d find it infinitely preferable over Flame Barrier. If I can do even a little more damage without getting a sword in my face I’d call it a win.

It getting stronger the closer the enemy gets would make sense. If someone wants to be right in your face they’d be taking a decent amount of damage per tick. Maybe equal to a burn tick. Which actually might be enough to get people off you if their HP is getting low so they think twice about blitzing you before you can finish them off.

It’d also give staff eles a reason to go melee in dungeons which might be interesting. Deciding if you can risk being so close for the extra damage and greater use of your fields or not. And would benefit D/D players with a little extra damage tick for their trouble.

Staff ele has a reason to go melee in dungeons: benefiting from all the combos it is setting up. Also, elementalist have a stronger reason to go melle: damage! Get a dagger in your main hand and see how much more damage you deal.

So we have some nice ideas, but how about something that would not directly deal damage?

-Additional damage on the difference in armor between you and your targets
-Increased spell range or aoe for a duration

These are just new mechanics that come to my mind, do they sound interesting?

Zelyhn.8069:

Staff ele has a reason to go melee in dungeons: benefiting from all the combos it is setting up. Also, elementalist have a stronger reason to go melle: damage! Get a dagger in your main hand and see how much more damage you deal.

So we have some nice ideas, but how about something that would not directly deal damage?

-Additional damage on the difference in armor between you and your targets
-Increased spell range or aoe for a duration

These are just new mechanics that come to my mind, do they sound interesting?

First one would punish people for building for toughness, so not a good idea. It’d also make an Earth/Fire condition build less viable since Earth forces toughness on you, making the trait less useful to those kinds of builds.

Spell range could possibly work but it’d be strong for a 15 pointer.

Also keep in mind. All our elemental 15 point minor traits are elemental bursts/surges. That’s the theme anet went with for those traits. From the current Sun Spot which is a fiery explosion to Earth that is an earthen explosion. Water is a water explosion.. Air is a burst of lightning. For thematic reasons try to think in that mindset of energy exploding from us when switching to fire.

Right, you have a point.
I appreciate you inputs, really, but you need to stop saying “this is strong” or “this is weak”. For the last time, we are not making suggestions, just discussing designs, not values!

Some very nice ideas being thrown around in this thread. I made a thread for posting interesting ideas in hopes that the devs will take notice. Hope you guys do not mind if I post some of the ideas into that thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Suggestions-for-improving-fixing-eles/first#post2352846

Anyway, back on topic. I feel that fire is about damage but could also use some defensive work so this is what I could come up with.

Sunspot – Create a flame dome around you when attuning to fire for 2sec. The dome DEFLECTS incoming projectiles. (Dome will be small and will only deflect not reflect)

Flame barrier 1 – Gives a 30% chance to inflict burning on nearby enemies (240 radius) when casting a spell while attuned to fire. 1 second burn.

Flame barrier 2 – You have a 30% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you. Only triggers when attuned to fire. 1 second burn. (both melee and ranged)

One with fire – Increases flame barriers chance by 5% for every second spent in fire attunement.

Earth 15 should be more defensive to make it inline with the water 15.

Stone Hide 1 – Grants 250 toughness for 4 seconds when attuning to earth.

Stone Hide 2 – Grants aegis for 2 seconds when attuning to earth.

Demon.5082:

Stone Hide 2 – Grants aegis for 2 seconds when attuning to earth.

I like this very much. We are supposed to be the most versatily profession, yet for example engineers have WAY more different conditions, boons and combo fields and combo finishers than us, and even all in the same spec.

We only have a VERY limited amount of different conditions, boons and combos available. IMHO to be truly versatile we need to have almost every condition/boon/combo available to use (some more, some less).

sun spot is just bad… i switch to fire usually longer distance from target (staff = always away if you can, scepter = ranged combo, dagger = burning speed from range)

earthen blast at least gives cripple, so i can use it as a defensive skill when i need to get away from someone, anyway i usually dont pick it

overall… they are much worse then their counterparts in air and water… healing ripple is almost must have for every build and electric discharge is very important for dmg builds i would like to see some change for earth and fire 15 traits to make them worth taking

PS: i like the aegis idea for earth might for fire would be nice or at least make it ranged aoe instead of aoe around you

I don’t really think Sunspot needs a huge change. Fire line is about damage (and often AoE damage), and it does AoE damage, so it fits just fine. Just make it an AoE centered on your target instead of being centered on you, and maybe up the damage just a bit, though the fact that the move is AoE means it has to be weaker than Lightning Strike, which is what a lot of people seem to be comparing it to.

Earthen Blast does seem like it could use a change, though. Earth does have a fair number of cripple-inducing attacks, but I wouldn’t really call that the “main” aspect of it. And I’d like something a little more defensive to better balance with the other 15 point traits. Air and Fire are offensive, Earth and Water should be defensive. Maybe a sand blast that blinds enemies. Or Aegis as already mentioned would fit, could be treated like a burst of stone armor.

Aether McLoud.1975:

I like this very much. We are supposed to be the most versatily profession, yet for example engineers have WAY more different conditions, boons and combo fields and combo finishers than us, and even all in the same spec.

We only have a VERY limited amount of different conditions, boons and combos available. IMHO to be truly versatile we need to have almost every condition/boon/combo available to use (some more, some less).

I have not played an engi yet to comment but from what I see in spvp/tpvp they do have a huge number of boons and blocks in addition to their large sets of utilities (turrents/nades/supplies etc).
I am not saying we have to outshine engi/guardian in the boon department but we have to at least come close. We have enough fields in staff. Its the other weapon sets that are lacking in ice/water/lightning fields sadly.

MaXi.3642:

sun spot is just bad… i switch to fire usually longer distance from target (staff = always away if you can, scepter = ranged combo, dagger = burning speed from range)

earthen blast at least gives cripple, so i can use it as a defensive skill when i need to get away from someone, anyway i usually dont pick it

overall… they are much worse then their counterparts in air and water… healing ripple is almost must have for every build and electric discharge is very important for dmg builds i would like to see some change for earth and fire 15 traits to make them worth taking

PS: i like the aegis idea for earth might for fire would be nice or at least make it ranged aoe instead of aoe around you

A lot of people seem to like the aegis idea for earth heh. I disagree that you have to be ranged for scepter fire since its most effective if you are 400-500 range to land your (if running S/D) blast finishers within your fire 4 and to land your fire 5. I do agree that sunspot is bad since no one specced that much into fire really wants to kiss their enemies kitten to do negligible damage. However, like you said fire is about damage and your idea of a ranged + targeted aoe is interesting.

Something like this would be nice:-

Sunspot – Create an explosion of flame around your target burning all enemies caught within for 3 seconds.

The problem is though, for fire to be competitive we still need some active defense put into the trait-line.

Electro.4173:

I don’t really think Sunspot needs a huge change. Fire line is about damage (and often AoE damage), and it does AoE damage, so it fits just fine. Just make it an AoE centered on your target instead of being centered on you, and maybe up the damage just a bit, though the fact that the move is AoE means it has to be weaker than Lightning Strike, which is what a lot of people seem to be comparing it to.

Earthen Blast does seem like it could use a change, though. Earth does have a fair number of cripple-inducing attacks, but I wouldn’t really call that the “main” aspect of it. And I’d like something a little more defensive to better balance with the other 15 point traits. Air and Fire are offensive, Earth and Water should be defensive. Maybe a sand blast that blinds enemies. Or Aegis as already mentioned would fit, could be treated like a burst of stone armor.

Since fire is about pressure, I suggested an area burn condition for 3 seconds which should come close to air 15’s damage (with 0 condition damage ofc)

The blind would be overkill since S/D already has access to mutliple blinds with EA included. I just think adding a blind will create a lot of warrior QQ :-/

Also, blind would not be as effective as aegis since it will be limited to melee defense and not ranged defense.