Guild Wars 2

This is an attempt to bring all traits, weapons and utility skills into consideration when forming a build for the elementalist in SPvP.

The current stats of a skill/trait will be listed, followed by an explanation of why I feel the trait/skill is lacking

WEAPON SKILLS

CHURNING EARTH-
Cast time: 3.25 seconds
Base damage: 1,092
Condition: Bleed, 8 stacks/8s base duration
Radius: 360
Combo Finisher: Blast
Recast: 30s
(I believe the skill should either be changed to have the option to be detonated between 1 and 3.25 seconds(Damage scales accordingly) or the skill should be completely replaced with a defensive ability. When your are spotted casting this ability, its far too easy to escape the blast by either walking out of its distance or dodging the blast, it also provides a good chunk of time to freely beat on the elementalist. A good player who notices this skill being cast will not get hit by the blast)

MAGNETIC GRASP- Immobilize your Foe, following up with magnetic leap.
Range: 900
Cast time: .5s
Damage: 34
Conditions: Immobilize 2s
Recast: 12s
(The projectile from this skill seems to miss more often than it probably should, this is only a minor problem though)

MAGNETIC LEAP: Pull your self to your foe whom is magnetically grasped and perform a magnetic leap.
damage: 101
Combo finisher: Leap
Range: 900
(The leap takes slightly too long imo, it also will occasionally bug out and send you in a different direction than your foe whom you have targeted. The damage also seems a tad low(Less damage than an auto attack). Perhaps the skill could get a fix, provide a faster leap forward and maybe apply a condition? Torment perhaps?)

IMPALE- Spear your foes with a stone spike
Damage: 168
Cast time: .75s
Bleeding: 1 stack/8 seconds duration
Range: 300
(This skill has some potential but for a good majority of the time there is little to no reason to use this ability, it would be nice if the range was slightly increased so it could be better used for kiting purposes)

VAPOR BLADE- Cast a Vapor Blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.
Cast time: .5s
Damage: 111
Range: 600
Condition: Vulnerability/6s duration
(This skill does next to no damage, and the vulnerability stacking potential from this ability doesn’t even out the loss in potential damage sustain, it would be nice if this skills range was slightly boosted and the projectile speed was increased enough so that a dodge/block would be mandatory if you wished to evade this skill, opposed to strafing, the main hand dagger weapon could then have a way of sustaining minor dps when VSing an opponent who kites)

ICE SPIKE -
Cast time: 1s
Damage: 554
Condition: Vulnerability (5 stacks)
Radius: 240
Recast:4s
Range:1200
(This skill takes 1 second to cast and then it takes ~2.25seconds to land, after the ice spike has been cast it should either take no more than .75 seconds before it lands or have no telegraph indicating it was casted. If this change has been made then the Ice spike animation should also be slightly moved closer to the ground so people can have a better indication of it being casted.)

FlAME WALL-
Damage:49
Condition: Burning 1s
Duration: 8s
Range:900
Combo field: Fire
Cast time: .75s
(Flame wall is a skill which is very notorious for being quite ineffective. Other than to use as a blast finisher, this skill provides very little return sinces its quite easy to avoid, regardless of this when you do get hit by this skill it does very little. My advice is to change the fire wall into a fire pit, making it sort of like the warriors adrenaline skill(Combustive Shot) with the long bow.)

FIRE SHIELD- Envelope your self in a Fire shield
Condition: Burning 1s (pet hit you take)
Boon: 1 Might stack (per hit you take) (ICD 1s per attacker)
Duration: 5s
Recast:40s
Changes: For what this skill does, 40seconds is much too long of a cooldown, I advise increasing the duration to
~7 seconds and lowering reuse timer to ~20s.

DRAGON’S TOOTH:
Cast time: 1s
Damage:756
condition: Burning (3s)
Radius: 180
Combo finisher: Blast
Range: 900
(This skill takes far to long to land once its summoned in the air. My suggestion is to remove the telegraph indicator and allow the skill to be summoned at a specific location with the assistance of a ground targeted telegraph. Make the dragon tooth float much higher in the air so the opponent must look up if they want to see the location it lingers in.)

Minor Adept Traits

FLAME BARRIER – You have a 20% chance to cause burning when ever a foe attacks you in melee. Only works in Fire Attunement.
(An elementalist doesn’t stay in fire attunement for long enough to really benefit from this trait)

ZEPHYR’S SPEED – Move faster while attuned to air (10%).
(This skill almost provides no benefit to an elementalist, this class has a good uptime on swiftness.)
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Adept Traits

EMBER’s MIGHT – Burning last 33% longer.
(other traits possess much better return, burning is easy enough to maintain for most
elementalist builds.)

ZYPHER’S FOCUS -Your endurance recovers 100% faster while channeling spells.
(This trait currently holds no value when considering vigor is a fairly easy boon for the elementalist to obtain)

QUICK GLYPHS – Glyphs recharge 20% faster.
(A a good majority of glyphs don’t find there way in a pvp/wvw build, I find this unfortunate because I think running around with two pets would be pretty cool)

SOOTHING WINDS – Gain healing power = to 7% of your precision.
(Does not provide enough return opposed to other adapt traits)

ONE WITH AIR – Gain super speed when attuning to air (1.5s)
(With Fresh Air in mind, this trait is decent at most, allow super speed to work while strafing from side to side and increase the duration ever so slightly, this will then become a trait people can really start to appreciate)

OBSIDIAN FOCUS -Gain +290 toughness when channeling a skill.
(This trait doesn’t provide as great of a bonus as elemental shielding can, I believe this trait would be much better off if it also provided a minor amount of stability, this trait would then not conflict with elemental shielding)

SHARD OF ICE – Arcane and signet skills cause vulnerability when activated. (3stacks)
(The main problem with this trait is the lack of uptime on arcane and signet skills IMO, this trait just doesn’t provide enough return opposed to other potential water adept traits)

WINDBOURNE DAGGER – Run 15% faster with a dagger in main hand, 10% faster with a dagger in offhand.
(While dual wielding daggers, you usually have a pretty good uptime on swiftness so this trait becomes irrelevant, I’d love to see some form of super speed added to this trait)

FINAL SHIELDING – Create an Arcane Shield when your health drops below the threshold (25%).
(This trait isn’t really that bad, but renewing stamina tops this trait by far when it comes to providing defense)

VIGOROUS SCEPTER – Endurance recharges 50% faster when wielding a scepter.
(This trait doesn’t stack with vigor, renewing stamina tops this trait by far)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Minor Master Traits

SUNSPOT – Inflict aoe damage at your location when attuning to fire. Base dmg: 122, Radius: 180
(This trait is in an okay spot, it would be nice if it provided a little bit better return, perhaps a small time frame of burning could be added)

LINGERING ELEMENTS- maintains adept traits for 5 seconds after leaving the attunement.
(Since this skill does only effect adept traits, I feel fusing this trait into the 1 point trait in arcana would make more sense, replacing the 3 point trait with renewing stamina would make much more sense)

Master Traits

BURNING FIRE – When you have 3 or more conditions, use cleansing fire automatically.(40s ICD)
(This trait is not terrible, but I do feel like a 40s cd is too long, 25s would be much more appropriate IMO)

PYROMANCER’S ALACRITY – Reduce the recharge of fire attunement skills by 20%.
(When considering the enhancement of potential attunement rotation with this trait in mind, it doesn’t seem to provide enough returns, if the trait was slightly buffed to have a delve of ~33% then this trait would provide a fair return)

Here’s a list of what 33% reduction to fire attunement skills could do

-burning speed (10 seconds, can now always use immediately when going back into fire attunement, opposed to having to wait a few seconds)
-Phoenix(13s CD, potentially used every time the elementalist attunes to fire)
-Burning retreat(13s CD, potentially used every time the elementalist attunes to fire)
-meteor Shower(20s CD, Potentially used every 1-2 rotations into fire attunement)
-Fire Grab (~30s CD, Potentially used every 2-3 rotations into fire attunement)
-drake’s breath (~3s CD means using this skill quite often)
-Dragon’s tooth (Same thing as drake’s breath)

FIRE’S EMBRACE – When you activate a Signet or Arcane skill, gain fire shield.
(Fire shield is decent, but it doesn’t seem to make this trait worthy of picking IMO)

ONE WITH FIRE – Flame barriers chance to proc goes up the longer you are attuned to fire.
(This trait really isn’t making Flame barrier any more appealing since an elementalist never wants to camp an attunement)

ARCANE LIGHTNING – For a short time gain ferocity after using an arcane skill. Duration:15s Ferocity:150(10%)
(This trait is okay, but other trait choices make this trait not viable)

INSCRIPTION – Gain a boon depending on your attunement when you use a glyph.
(Since most glyphs are not viable in spvp/wvw, this trait doesn’t get much attention)

AEROMANCER’S ALACRITY- Air skills recharge 20% faster.
(This trait is useful, but this trait also directly competes with air training, perhaps the two could get fused together)

STRENGTH IN STONE- gain 10% condition damage based on your toughness.
(This trait would be nice if elementalists had a tad bit better condition sustain, preferably with bleeding)

GEOMANCER’S ALACRITY – Reduce recharge of earth spells by 20%,
(This trait just simply seems to be lacking, its not as good of a choice as other master earth traits, perhaps geomancer’s freedom should be fused into this trait)

AQUAMANCER’S ALACRITY – Water attunement skills recharge 20% faster.
(other master traits triumph over this traits potential)

STOP DROP AND ROLL: Remove fire and chill conditions when dodging (10s ICD)
(This trait can be decent but most of the time cleansing wave is going to hold more value over this trait, perhaps a cleansing of confusion could also be added? Since confusion is an elementalists arch enemy)

ARCANE RETRIBUTION- Gain arcane Power after you drop below the HP threshold. (75%)
(Elemental attunement dominates all other Arcane Master traits)

ARCANE ENERGY – Arcane skills grant 25 endurance when used.
(Elemental attunement dominates all other Arcane Master traits)

Minor GM traits

WEAK SPOT – 60% chance to inflict 1 stack of vulnerability on crit (6 second duration)
(This trait only provides 3 to 4% damage on average, I find many GM Minor traits that hold little value like this one across all classes, this should change IMO, it doesn’t make much sense that our Minor master traits on Ele are so much more powerful than our GM Minor traits)

ENDURING DAMAGE – Gain 10% damage when your endurance is full.
(The elementalist is all about being evasive, this trait should be, “when endurance is NOT full” IMHO)

ARCANE PRECISION – Skills have a 10% chance to inflict conditions on critical hits
FIRE: Burning 1.2seconds(base duration)
AIR: Weakness 3.5seconds(base duration)
EARTH: Bleeding 6seconds(base duration)
WATER: Vulnerability 12seconds(base duration)
(This skill wouldn’t be bad if the chance to apply these conditions wasn’t so darn low)
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

GM traits

PERSISTING FLAMES – Blast finishers you use in fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last 2 seconds longer.
(compared to other potential GM traits in other lines, this trait doesn’t seem to compensate)

Pyromancer’s Puissance – Fire skills grant might.(base duration 10 seconds)
(Might is already a fairly easy thing for an elementalist to stack with adept trait/sigil/rune sets in mind. Its also a shame this trait forces you to stay in one attunement to benefit from it)

BLINDING ASHES- Blind foes when you burn them. (5s ICD)
(Remove the global cooldown and replace it with a cooldown per target. The global cool down makes this trait non GM worthy)

TEMPEST DEFENSE- Apply shocking aura when disabled (ICD 25s) +20% damage when target is stunned.
(This trait is okay to an extent but I see a few problems with this trait, 1.) it doesn’t work outside of melee(ish) range, there for it doesn’t provide much benefit when being CC’d from a distance. I also believe this trait should boost the duration of stun for elementalist, making shocking aura a 2 second stun opposed to 1)

LIGHTNING ROD- When you interrupt a foe hit them with a lightning bold and apply 4 seconds of weakness.
(its too easy to obtain the same results with fresh air + lightning touch/GoEP, which also provide better return)

WRITTEN IN STONE- Maintain passive effects of signets after using them.
(This trait it self isn’t bad, but a good majority of signets need a revamp for this trait to be more worthy)

POWERFUL AURA- Aura’s are applied to nearby allies.
(This trait is great for parties but most elementalists wont pick it for selfish reasons, I believe the trait should increase the duration of auras as well so that this trait will see more light)

ELEMENTAL SURGE- Based on your current attunement, arcane skills cause a condition.
Fire: Burning 5s
Air: blind 5s
Earth: Immobilize 1s
Water: Chill 3s
(I don’t find this skill worthy of picking over evasive arcana, ever. You get much more blinds out of EA, gain a heal with good uptime, much more burning out of EA, you get the idea)

ELEMENTAL CONTINGENCY- Gain a boon when you are struck, based on your current attunement. (Global ICD across all boons (10s))
Fire: Retaliation kitten
Water: Fury 6.5s
Air: protection 3.25s
Earth: vigor 3.75s

(This trait is unfortunately the worst GM trait I’ve ever seen on this class and every elementalist will easily agree with me, the main reason it is so bad is because of that global cooldown across all boons, remove that global cooldown, replace this trait with our current Minor GM trait in the Arcana, Air or Earth line, and this trait will start to shine)

It’s swagg 2.0, guys!

I have greatly truncated the list of skills and abilities so that the ones I feel need the most attention will be seen.

i agree with lingering elements, it would make more sense as the minor adept in arcana

magnetic aura on staff.. useless outside of pvE, why is there no stun breaker or protection or retal on this

rock solid and geomancer’s freedom are great, except the overwhelming and obvious flaw that they should be 1 singular trait and not 2

gust should be a ground targeted launch 200, radius 200 it’s just that simple, range ?900

I would take roll to remove confusion and drop burning or chill for stop drop and roll. If you add all 3 of those then you effectively given dodge roll the ability to remove the 3 worst condis a ele can have.

x2 Skillsets
Nearly half of them are useless.

LOL – I used to run both Elemental Surge and Powerful Aura in tPvP :P
Both are really good traits if you have the team for it!

(i will be concentrating on Earth and D/D in particular)

Skills:

Impale – Seriously poor skill. I would prefer it if it was changed. Maybe something kind of like Vapor Blade with a solid range that can hit more than one person and inflict conditions to each one.

Idea: Turn it into a Chain skill.
Chain 1 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Bleeding 1 stack (8seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2 second cast Damage targets and inflict bleeding 1 stack (8 seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Torment 1 stack (2 seconds)

the “projectile” would look the same for Chain 1 and 2 but differ for chain 3 due to it inflicting a different condition. Would be like a Boomerang of rock sort of deal. The range would be increased to 900 so D/D has some reasonable kitting ability.

Ring of Earth – It is decent but could be improved.

Idea: Bleeding. Reduce the duration to 6 seconds, increase the stacks from 1 to 2. Keep Cripple the way it is, add 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.

Magnetic Grasp/Magnetic Leap – This is needed, we just need it to be redesigned so that it doesn’t bug out and miss the target so much.

Idea: Magnetic Grasp, maybe add some Bleeding stacks to the initial attack as well 3 stacks of Bleeding for 3 seconds or something. Magnetic Leap could do with a buff. 5 stacks of Torment on leaping to your target in an AoE would be nice.

Earthquake. Good skill. Lower cool down.

Idea: Decrease the cool down from 45 to 30 seconds. I would kind of be interested in maybe it knocking people back rather than down as well.

Churning Earth – Threat yes, viable – No.

Idea: This needs to have quite a bit of work. Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. Increase the Cripple duration per a stack to 2 seconds because even with it being 1 second people can still just walk out before it goes off. Finally make it more punishing just to leave. Like you have to decide what would be more damaging leaving it or staying and trying to block, dodge invul the actual attack. This could be done with high stacking Torment that gets applied during the channel, kind of like how Cripple works.

Traits:

Serrated Stones – I find this rather lacking. Who actually uses it?
Idea: Remove the damage increase, Increase duration increase to 50% and add chance on hit to inflict Bleeding (works in ALL attunements) for 8 seconds, 2 second cool down. 50% Chance. This would be on HIT and not on Crit.

Stone Splinters – Another rather terrible trait.
Idea: Remove damage increase and change it to 10% Increase to Condition damage when within 600range of your target. This is the Condition trait line after all.

Geomancers Freedom – Decent, could be better
Idea: Increase duration reduction from 33% to 50% These conditions are a killer to pretty much any Ele and not being able to change weaponset and changing from melee to range or range to melee is rather annoying and punishing.

Geomancer’s Alacrity – Average. Average. Average.
Idea – This goes for ALL the skill reduction traits. Rather than just decrease the cool down they should also have a secondary affect like others do. An increase to Toughness and Condition damage would be solid here. Say 5% increase to both.

Diamond Skin – Works well….against some classes.
Idea: change the health threshold from 90% to 75% Engineer has it so that it is immune from 0 – 25% so why is ours only 10% on a squishy class that can take that much damage from auto attacks…

I agree with almost every one of your trait complaints and solutions. +1! I have many trait ideas that could be a lot better than the current ones. I hope they do a major overhaul (/balance pass) on all traits from all classes.

May I note that our obsidian focus 290 armor while casting is NOT on par with either the necromancer or mesmer who also have a similar skill only they get 400 armor.
Our vigor on crit is a minor trait for guardians and warriors too I think.
But I disagree with most of your ‘bad trait’ taggings

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

(i will be concentrating on Earth and D/D in particular)

Skills:

Impale – Seriously poor skill. I would prefer it if it was changed. Maybe something kind of like Vapor Blade with a solid range that can hit more than one person and inflict conditions to each one.

Idea: Turn it into a Chain skill.
Chain 1 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Bleeding 1 stack (8seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2 second cast Damage targets and inflict bleeding 1 stack (8 seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Torment 1 stack (2 seconds)

the “projectile” would look the same for Chain 1 and 2 but differ for chain 3 due to it inflicting a different condition. Would be like a Boomerang of rock sort of deal. The range would be increased to 900 so D/D has some reasonable kitting ability.

Ring of Earth – It is decent but could be improved.

Idea: Bleeding. Reduce the duration to 6 seconds, increase the stacks from 1 to 2. Keep Cripple the way it is, add 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.

Magnetic Grasp/Magnetic Leap – This is needed, we just need it to be redesigned so that it doesn’t bug out and miss the target so much.

Idea: Magnetic Grasp, maybe add some Bleeding stacks to the initial attack as well 3 stacks of Bleeding for 3 seconds or something. Magnetic Leap could do with a buff. 5 stacks of Torment on leaping to your target in an AoE would be nice.

Earthquake. Good skill. Lower cool down.

Idea: Decrease the cool down from 45 to 30 seconds. I would kind of be interested in maybe it knocking people back rather than down as well.

Churning Earth – Threat yes, viable – No.

Idea: This needs to have quite a bit of work. Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. Increase the Cripple duration per a stack to 2 seconds because even with it being 1 second people can still just walk out before it goes off. Finally make it more punishing just to leave. Like you have to decide what would be more damaging leaving it or staying and trying to block, dodge invul the actual attack. This could be done with high stacking Torment that gets applied during the channel, kind of like how Cripple works.

Traits:

Serrated Stones – I find this rather lacking. Who actually uses it?
Idea: Remove the damage increase, Increase duration increase to 50% and add chance on hit to inflict Bleeding (works in ALL attunements) for 8 seconds, 2 second cool down. 50% Chance. This would be on HIT and not on Crit.

Stone Splinters – Another rather terrible trait.
Idea: Remove damage increase and change it to 10% Increase to Condition damage when within 600range of your target. This is the Condition trait line after all.

Geomancers Freedom – Decent, could be better
Idea: Increase duration reduction from 33% to 50% These conditions are a killer to pretty much any Ele and not being able to change weaponset and changing from melee to range or range to melee is rather annoying and punishing.

Geomancer’s Alacrity – Average. Average. Average.
Idea – This goes for ALL the skill reduction traits. Rather than just decrease the cool down they should also have a secondary affect like others do. An increase to Toughness and Condition damage would be solid here. Say 5% increase to both.

Diamond Skin – Works well….against some classes.
Idea: change the health threshold from 90% to 75% Engineer has it so that it is immune from 0 – 25% so why is ours only 10% on a squishy class that can take that much damage from auto attacks…

1. )I actually find stone splinters to be one of the better adept traits for d/d
2.) Diamond skin would become far too OP with that kind of an HP threshold. The engineers automated response actually got nerfed to reduce the duration of conditions by 50% when under a 33% hp threshold. The whole idea behind diamond skin disgusts me, I hate the idea of a trait that hard counters other classes. This trait makes me feel completely unskilled and noob when VSing pure condi builds.

I’d really like to see it become less mandatory putting 20-30 points into the arcana line.
-Make elemental attunement a passive part of the ele.
-Lingering elements fused into 1 point arcana trait.
-10 seconds cool down on attunements regardless of points spent in arcana.
-Add renewing samina to the 15 point trait line.

This would allow you to actually have a choice when looking into the adept and master traits in arcana and it would allow for more diverse builds. The other adept and master trait choices in the Arcana line are not anything significant so you really wouldn’t see the current meta build for Ele shoot through the roof because of these changes. A couple of the adept traits are actually quite pitiful.

-Vigorous scepter- Completely useless due to renewing stamina being a much better option. (they don’t stack)

-Windbourne Dagger- Fairly(but not completely) useless with any meta build in mind due to high swiftness uptime with d/d

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

(i will be concentrating on Earth and D/D in particular)

Skills:

Impale – Seriously poor skill. I would prefer it if it was changed. Maybe something kind of like Vapor Blade with a solid range that can hit more than one person and inflict conditions to each one.

Idea: Turn it into a Chain skill.
Chain 1 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Bleeding 1 stack (8seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2 second cast Damage targets and inflict bleeding 1 stack (8 seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Torment 1 stack (2 seconds)

the “projectile” would look the same for Chain 1 and 2 but differ for chain 3 due to it inflicting a different condition. Would be like a Boomerang of rock sort of deal. The range would be increased to 900 so D/D has some reasonable kitting ability.

Ring of Earth – It is decent but could be improved.

Idea: Bleeding. Reduce the duration to 6 seconds, increase the stacks from 1 to 2. Keep Cripple the way it is, add 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.

Magnetic Grasp/Magnetic Leap – This is needed, we just need it to be redesigned so that it doesn’t bug out and miss the target so much.

Idea: Magnetic Grasp, maybe add some Bleeding stacks to the initial attack as well 3 stacks of Bleeding for 3 seconds or something. Magnetic Leap could do with a buff. 5 stacks of Torment on leaping to your target in an AoE would be nice.

Earthquake. Good skill. Lower cool down.

Idea: Decrease the cool down from 45 to 30 seconds. I would kind of be interested in maybe it knocking people back rather than down as well.

Churning Earth – Threat yes, viable – No.

Idea: This needs to have quite a bit of work. Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. Increase the Cripple duration per a stack to 2 seconds because even with it being 1 second people can still just walk out before it goes off. Finally make it more punishing just to leave. Like you have to decide what would be more damaging leaving it or staying and trying to block, dodge invul the actual attack. This could be done with high stacking Torment that gets applied during the channel, kind of like how Cripple works.

Traits:

Serrated Stones – I find this rather lacking. Who actually uses it?
Idea: Remove the damage increase, Increase duration increase to 50% and add chance on hit to inflict Bleeding (works in ALL attunements) for 8 seconds, 2 second cool down. 50% Chance. This would be on HIT and not on Crit.

Stone Splinters – Another rather terrible trait.
Idea: Remove damage increase and change it to 10% Increase to Condition damage when within 600range of your target. This is the Condition trait line after all.

Geomancers Freedom – Decent, could be better
Idea: Increase duration reduction from 33% to 50% These conditions are a killer to pretty much any Ele and not being able to change weaponset and changing from melee to range or range to melee is rather annoying and punishing.

Geomancer’s Alacrity – Average. Average. Average.
Idea – This goes for ALL the skill reduction traits. Rather than just decrease the cool down they should also have a secondary affect like others do. An increase to Toughness and Condition damage would be solid here. Say 5% increase to both.

Diamond Skin – Works well….against some classes.
Idea: change the health threshold from 90% to 75% Engineer has it so that it is immune from 0 – 25% so why is ours only 10% on a squishy class that can take that much damage from auto attacks…

While i think there needs to be a little bit of improvement to earth magic for DD i think idea of giving an elementalist such easy access to torment is ridiculous. that means even a full zerker elementalist with sigil of doom has access to 3 high damage conditions. When keeping burning on a target comes so naturally to an elementalist and when even runnning full zerker it still seems to be in the top 5 highest damage effects when killing an opponent torment is simply not going to be given to elementalists so freely. it would make them the most OP class in the game by a seriously long way. I mean 5 stacks on a skill that has a 15 second cooldown? naaaaaaaaaaaah

Nuithari.3728:

LOL – I used to run both Elemental Surge and Powerful Aura in tPvP :P
Both are really good traits if you have the team for it!

I’m sure Elemental Surge can have its moments, for example, hitting your opponent with an arcane spell while in earth attunement as they are about to get hit with Churning Earth. This trait is no where near as rewarding as Evasive Arcana though, have you ever seen anyone use this trait in a pro tournament game? No.

Also, I said while Powerful Aura is a good trait I felt like it lacked a purpose that would drive solo que players into using it. Please read before responding.

Grimreaper.5370:

1. )I actually find stone splinters to be one of the better adept traits for d/d
2.) Diamond skin would become far too OP with that kind of an HP threshold. The engineers automated response actually got nerfed to reduce the duration of conditions by 50% when under a 33% hp threshold. The whole idea behind diamond skin disgusts me, I hate the idea of a trait that hard counters other classes. This trait makes me feel completely unskilled and noob when VSing pure condi builds.

I’d really like to see it become less mandatory putting 20-30 points into the arcana line.
-Make elemental attunement a passive part of the ele.
-Lingering elements fused into 1 point arcana trait.
-10 seconds cool down on attunements regardless of points spent in arcana.
-Add renewing samina to the 15 point trait line.

This would allow you to actually have a choice when looking into the adept and master traits in arcana and it would allow for more diverse builds. The other adept and master trait choices in the Arcana line are not anything significant so you really wouldn’t see the current meta build for Ele shoot through the roof because of these changes. A couple of the adept traits are actually quite pitiful.

-Vigorous scepter- Completely useless due to renewing stamina being a much better option. (they don’t stack)

-Windbourne Dagger- Fairly(but not completely) useless with any meta build in mind due to high swiftness uptime with d/d

Personally i take Elemental Shielding. I just find Stone Splinters in a Condition trait line to be rather poor, then again it has what like 4 traits in the whole line that are based around conditions which is really stupid. I guess you are right. It is just pretty useless against Hybrid builds which is kind of annoying but we cant have everything i guess.

I actually use Windborne Dagger as i run solo so it is very helpful. What would you do with Arcane Fury? The current 1 point minor trait?

Sheppy.9306:

While i think there needs to be a little bit of improvement to earth magic for DD i think idea of giving an elementalist such easy access to torment is ridiculous. that means even a full zerker elementalist with sigil of doom has access to 3 high damage conditions. When keeping burning on a target comes so naturally to an elementalist and when even runnning full zerker it still seems to be in the top 5 highest damage effects when killing an opponent torment is simply not going to be given to elementalists so freely. it would make them the most OP class in the game by a seriously long way. I mean 5 stacks on a skill that has a 15 second cooldown? naaaaaaaaaaaah

I have yet to encounter 1 D/D burst ele, and even then if they aren’t built for conditions the damage is SO minor. for example with no condition damage 1 stack of Torment that lasts 4 seconds would do 255 damage and only if the target is moving for the whole 4 seconds.

So it would be an added like 130ish damage with the Torment on auto attack chain, thats nothing really. It would of course be increased for Condition builds which is to be expected but for Zerker builds i dont really see a problem, would you really go into Earth as a Zerk D/D ele for damage? Then again, i havent actually seen any Zerker D/D ele

You do know that Warrior has a longer duration one right? Sword off hand has 5 stacks for 8 seconds on the same cool down So i don’t think it would be that huge, sure cool downs could be adjusted to balance it a bit Also Magnetic Grasp is easily dodged and bugs out as it is so again it wouldnt be that huge compared to how the Warrior does the same thing. Even if it means increasing the cool down to say 20 seconds, i would be fine with that myself. It just seems the attunement for conditions is rather lacking the conditions…

No way would it suddenly make them the most OP class in the game giving them Torment, not by a long way. Remember this is on the 100% melee only based weapon set as well

Tornado form should give me double the HP during the duration and make 3k crits at minimum.

Swim.6830:

Tornado form should give me double the HP during the duration and make 3k crits at minimum.

In my opinion all it needs:

1) Projectile reflection
2) Increased Toughness

These 2 changes alone i think would make the skill actually useful. Its more of a death sentence using it currently :/

Maybe they could add in a 4th skill that is changed depending on your attunement. Something like:

Fire – Fiery Boulder: Turn Your Tornado into a Firenado. Sending out chucks of fiery rock that inflicts Burning on those that it hits.

Water – Icy Boulder: Turn your tornado into a Icenado. Sending out chunks of frozen rock that inflicts Chill on those it hits

Air: needs name Turn your tornado into a Airnado. Sending out chunks of something that inflicts confusion on those it hits

Earth – Rock Boulder – Turn your tornado into a Rocknado. Sending out chunks of Razor sharp rock that inflicts Torment on those it hits.

Burning = 3 seconds
Chill = 2 seconds
Confusion(3 stacks) = 5 seconds
Torment (3 stacks) = 5 seconds

Skill would have a 10 second cool down. Fires say 20 rocks in random directions. The effects continue even after you use any of the 1-3 skills.

The fact that you can cripple and immob a tornado is really hilarious.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Swim.6830:

Tornado form should give me double the HP during the duration and make 3k crits at minimum.

In my opinion all it needs:

1) Projectile reflection
2) Increased Toughness

These 2 changes alone i think would make the skill actually useful. Its more of a death sentence using it currently :/

Maybe they could add in a 4th skill that is changed depending on your attunement. Something like:

Fire – Fiery Boulder: Turn Your Tornado into a Firenado. Sending out chucks of fiery rock that inflicts Burning on those that it hits.

Water – Icy Boulder: Turn your tornado into a Icenado. Sending out chunks of frozen rock that inflicts Chill on those it hits

Air: needs name Turn your tornado into a Airnado. Sending out chunks of something that inflicts confusion on those it hits

Earth – Rock Boulder – Turn your tornado into a Rocknado. Sending out chunks of Razor sharp rock that inflicts Torment on those it hits.

Burning = 3 seconds
Chill = 2 seconds
Confusion(3 stacks) = 5 seconds
Torment (3 stacks) = 5 seconds

Skill would have a 10 second cool down. Fires say 20 rocks in random directions. The effects continue even after you use any of the 1-3 skills.

ok if that happened this is what it would do:

Goes tornado with a tanky build – knocks everyone off point, reflects projectiles and melee classes can’t come close because well… y’r a tornado. Only thing able to hit you then are aoe’s but hey y’r tanky and have extra toughness.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

ok if that happened this is what it would do:

Goes tornado with a tanky build – knocks everyone off point, reflects projectiles and melee classes can’t come close because well… y’r a tornado. Only thing able to hit you then are aoe’s but hey y’r tanky and have extra toughness.

The projectile reflection would only happen with Debris Tornado and would only last a certain number of seconds with an ICD. Thinking something like a 3 second duration, 9 second cooldown.

It would still be easily removed/corrupted by by several classes – Corrupt Boon for example, Spinal Shivers. Their are plenty of ways for the stability to be removed. This is more of a WvW change but it could be adjusted slightly to make it so its strong but not overpowered for S/TPvP for those poor souls that like torture.

You go with a tanky build you wont be killing anyone, would it really be worth knocking people off a point once every 150seconds…

This change would make using the skill especially in WvW viable not and an instant kill marker thanks to the fact you get no added toughness or anything.

I find Gust on staff the worst skill,with the amount of gapclosers melee have in this game,a soft caster like a staff elementalist should have a well-working point blank AoE knockback.

SmokinBuda.1398:

I find Gust on staff the worst skill,with the amount of gapclosers melee have in this game,a soft caster like a staff elementalist should have a well-working point blank AoE knockback.

Definitely can agree on gust being a poor design.

gust simply needs to be cast at point blank range or on a non-moving target.. they even reworked it and sometimes it is buggy.. it’s good for repositioning npc
but for all its uses let’s look at something else, icy ground is a very overpowered snowball mayhem skill.. if modified correctly (900-1k range, 200 for a smaller cast area than some ground targeted skills, and an underpowered launch 200) and obviously this would be in air and not leave a field on the ground.. this would become a great defensive addition to staff, activating on the spellcasters location would be a prized interrupt against all those distance closing stun spammers…

re: Gust, how about change it to ’Call up a gust of wind under target foe to knock them down’? Can’t create distance like the current one, but it would hit reliably - and synergise with Tempest Defence for a well-set-up burst.

I like the push from the current Gust but it’s just far too unreliable even at point-blank range.