Guild Wars 2

Here are my thoughts on the elementalist class. Ill talk about our current traits, builds and weapon sets.

TRAITS:

Fire

Lava Tomb: Create a lava tomb when downed. —> Why do I want to improve my downed state? When theorycrafting you try to make a build to win, not aiming to die. Change this trait to “Create a lava tomb when you are low HP”

Burning fire: Cleansing fire, Conjured flame axe, signet of fire and conjure fiery greatsword inflict 3 seconds of burning —> Only viable if you play the listed utilities. Since no one does because they are extremely weak this trait should be replaced.

Ember’s might: 5% damage to burning foes —> it’s ok.

Spell slinger: Cantrips grant 3 stacks of might when used —> it’s ok

Burning precision: 30% chance to cause burning on critical hit —> There are so many ways to apply burning this trait is stupid. Either increase the % or make it “% to gain might on crit”

Internal fire: Deal 10% more damage while att to fire —> Im not sure if it does, but it should work with Lingering elements (attunement bonus lingers for 5 seconds)

Pyromancer’s alacrity: All your fire weapon skills recharge 20% faster —> ok.
Attunement should also recharge faster. What’s the purpose of less CD in 1 trait line if the attunement rotation doesn’t vary.

Conjurer: Conjured weapons have 10 more charges —> Totally crap. Make it a good conjured weapons trait and maybe we see someone play them. “Conjured weapons are instant to cast and give X boon”

Fire’s embrace: When you activate a signet you gain a fire shield —> Very good, but no one uses it because it’s too far in crappy line. If it was an adept trait or Written in stone wasn’t grandmaster it would open many possibilities.

One with fire: Flame barrier’s chance to burn goes up the longer you are attuned to fire —> Totally crap. We are elementalists, we dont stay in 1 attunement.

Persisting flames: Fire fields last 30% longer. —> Not worth being grandmaster. It’s just bad. This one should be removed or % increased.

Pyromancer’s Puissance: Each fire spell you cast grants might for 10 seconds. —> Again, we don’t want to sit into one attunement and we have better ways to build might. “increased might duration and +5% damage while under the effects of might” would be awesome.

Air

Zephyr’s boon: Auras grant fury and swiftness —> Very strong. Should be master instead of adept.

Zephyr’s focus: Your endurance regenerates faster while channeling skills —> Could be better, but its ok

Quick glyphs: 20% less cd on glyphs —> Ok

One with air: You move 5% faster every 10 seconds you are attuned to air —> we. dont. sit. in. one. attunement. Id delete this one.

Soothing Winds: 5% of your precision is converted into healing —> Meh. 5% is too low, if you want healing you spend points in water not in air. This one should be gone.

Bolt to the heart: Deal 20% more damage to foes with less than 33% HP —> Very good

Arcane lightning: Increase crit chance by 3% after using an arcane skill —> Not very good, when fury is so easy to access in this game

Inscription: Grant’s a boon associated with your attunement when casting a glyph —> Ok

Aeormancer’s alacrity: All your air weapon skills recharge 20% faster —> Attunement should also recharge faster. What’s the purpose of less CD in 1 trait line if the attunement rotation doesn’t vary.

Air training: Deal 10% more damage while attuned to air. Im not sure if it does, but it should work with Lingering elements (attunement bonus lingers for 5 seconds)

Tempest Defense: Surround yourself with a shocking aura when disabled. 90 seconds CD. —> Good concept but really bad implementation. 90 seconds CD being grandmaster trait? You must be kidding. I wouldn’t consider using this trait unless CD was around 30 seconds.

Grounded: Deal 20% damage to knocked down or stunned foes. —> “Your knockdowns and stuns last 50% longer” would be better. Your main combos dont have enough time to hit when the enemy is knocked down. This trait doesnt deserve the grandmaster spot.

Earth

Gain toughness while using a channeling skill —> Meh, the toughness gain is very low. You gain stability while using a channeling skill would be worth using, imo. Or “your interruopted channels dont go into full CD”

Signets recharge 20% faster —> Ok

Gain armor of earth when health reaches 50% HP —> Too strong, should be moved to master tier

Salt stone: Deal 5% more damage to bleeding foes —> Ok.

Elemental shielding: Gain protection when applying an aura. —> Ok

Deal 5% more damage when you are within melee range —> Ok

Deal 10% more damage while attuned to earth —> Im not sure if it does, but it should work with Lingering elements (attunement bonus lingers for 5 seconds)

Serrated stones: Bleeds you apply last 20% longer —> Ok

You recover from crippled, immobilized and chilled 33% faster —> Ok

All your earth weapon skills recharge 20% faster —> Ok. Attunement should also recharge faster. What’s the purpose of less CD in 1 trait line if the attunement rotation doesn’t vary.

Gain 2s of stability when attuning to earth —> bad. Again not worth the grandmaster spot

Written in stone: Maintain the passive effects of signets —> Awesome, it makes signets viable. However, spending 30 points in earth makes signets not viable again. Either improve the whole line, which is mediocre, or move this to a lower tier.

Water and arcana Are fine. If the other trait lines were buffed, they could be nerfed.

About Possible builds

Auras: They are good enough. But only when playing dagger dagger. Scepter main hand should have access to at least 1 aura. If it had a leap skill, we could combo fire field + leap (as dagger does).

Signets: They would be good if the combination of “Your signets grant you an aura” and “You don’t lose the passive effects of signets”. However these traits are too far in their trait lines. If you want to use both of them you give up so many important traits, this build is not worth using atm.

Condition damage: There are many, many traits aiming burn and bleed duration&damage. While the traits are good, the build isn’t. As an ele you only apply burn and bleed (and short freezes). This combination of conditions are too easy to cleanse. Maybe if we had more condition utilities or glyph of elemental power was reworked…

Conjured weapons: Should be totally reworked. They are really, really, really bad. Charge concept is bad.
Cast time is bad
Conjured weapon skills are bad.
The buffs you get are bad (frostbow increases your healing. No comments…)
Some other skills have many bugs.
Some conjured weapons are slow
The sustain you have when using conjured weapons is also very bad.

Cantrips: They have been nerfed a lot, but they are still good. I guess. Sure they make strong bunkers, but rangers are way better at this already. Anyway, Anet forces most eles to play this, because the other options are very weak.

Arcane skills: Good, balanced build.

*About weapon sets

Scepter: Good, balanced.

Dagger main hand: Good, balanced

Dagger offhand: Too strong. The main reason no one considers playing the weak focus.

Focus offhand: Way weaker than dagger. Some attunements are very bad, while others are really strong (earth)

Staff: This one is interesting. I think a viable build could be made atm. However I failed, so share your builds if you found a good one.
Fire 5 should be fixed. It’s really buggy. After 70% of its duration, the meteors will never hit anyone.
Earth 4 should be reworked. It’s useless atm.
Air “gust” should hit faster. It misses half of the time.
Water 5 should be improved. It was indirectly nerfed this patch, because of cleansing water.

About builds that don’t go heavy on healings

If you play an ele you need healing to survive. In most games the mage class survives because it has a lot of shields & immunity skills to choose from. That’s not the case in gw2.

Keep nerfing heals & defensive skills without boosting our defensive abilities, and the class will be unplayable very soon.

I don’t really have anything to add to your analysis as my play in tpvp is limited (none) but I will make mention of a few things.

Arcane Lightning increases critical damage when you activate an arcane skill, not critical chance.

Lingering Elements, as far as I understand, only effects the adept minor traits apart from Arcane Fury (so it effects Flame Barrier, Zephyr’s Speed, Stone Flesh, and Soothing Mist).

Rerroll.9083:

Earth

Water and arcana Are fine. If the other trait lines were buffed, they could be nerfed.

No need to nerf. At the current state Water 30 and Arcana 30 are on par with most other cookie cutter builds in the game. Buffing other elements and nerfing water/arcana will only result in the elementalist having one viable build again. We need more options, not just a new ‘standard’ build which will replace the cantrip build.

Other than that, I think your insights are great and I hope Anet will carefully read this entire thread.