Guild Wars 2

Anet: We want to reduce elementalists need to go down the arcane line.

Forces you to put 20 points into arcane to get elemental attunement

Screw off anet. Please stop trying to “help the elementalist” with your patches unless you are planning to actually do changes that do not force players into arcane/water for the most part.

Just disappointing. And I still see there’s a 40 sec on RTL meanwhile warriors with 20k+ HP can easily roam with sword + greatsword with shorter cooldowns lol…

yup i thought i was going crazy and that its my bad since my traits has been reseted made me sacrifise my earth build to get the elemental attunment which is so sad

why anet whyyyyyyy!!!

Be happy they didnt nerf it because its such a must have trait

Um fresh air = forced 30 air magic? What kind of madness is this?
Cleansing water = forced 30 water? Ugh this balance is horrible. I should get traits I like for just 5 points.

Seriously an investment is a investment you want a trait you HAVE to put points somewhere. Renewing stamina is a much more powerful trait than elemental attunement good thing many people on the forums fooled them and they moved elemental attunement up and not renewing stamina.

It sucks for people the want it but only the people that value that trait that high are forced to take it, only because they value the trait that high.

Diamond Skin = forced 30 earth. :P
Persisting Flames = forced 30 fire. :P

We do have survival problems, and elemental attunement is pretty big at helping us fix those, but you can substitute it for other trait combos.

Elemetal attunement is not that Good I mean it was cool to say hey look I’m helping party I’m giving buffs but kitten it renewing stamina is so much better for self survival.

The Elemental Attunement change was poorly thought out, which is shown by keeping Lingering Elements in arcane 15. Now putting just 15 in arcane is completely useless.

They should just tie the 5pt arcane trait into the 15pt one and then make the new 5pt one elemental Attunement, or better yet just make it kittening baseline because every ele in the kittening game takes it.

Durzlla.6295:

They should just tie the 5pt arcane trait into the 15pt one and then make the new 5pt one elemental Attunement, or better yet just make it kittening baseline because every ele in the kittening game takes it.

Well, every Mesmer took Illusionist’s Celerity and look what Anet did with that.

It was an Adept Minor and they turned it into a Grandmaster Minor on June 25th for the sake of ‘improving build diversity’. And only with this patch on December 10th (almost 6 months later) did they bring it back down a trifle to Master Minor.

So in my humble opinion the day Elementalists will get a 5pt Elemental Attunement is the day Mesmers should also get their 5pt Illusionist’s Celerity back as well. But I fear we will probably have to wait another 6 months first and see what this balance team will try to push through next.

Now I may sound bitter when it comes to ANet’s balance team, but that’s precisely what I am. (and I’m still waiting for my Mainhand Pistol)

As I and several others have said before, Elemental Attunement’s effects should be made intrinsic to Attunement swapping, but the intrinsic version should only affect the Elementalist themselves. The current trait can instead be repurposed to change to upgrade this effect to give the boons out to the party. I also feel the Fire effect should be upgraded to 3 stacks of Might, but that’s just me.

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

Ding Ding. The trait should also increase the duration of the buffs, but this would be perfect.

Also, kitten celerity needs to be 5 pts again >.<

cheevee.4087:

The Elemental Attunement change was poorly thought out, which is shown by keeping Lingering Elements in arcane 15. Now putting just 15 in arcane is completely useless.

I always through Lingering Elements was useless anyway?

If the attunement-specific traits (like +20dmg vs vulnerable when in water) worked correctly with LE it would have been a great trait in concept.

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

I can’t agree more with this.

This is a strange viewpoint. I don’t know if I’ve ever created a build based on Elemental Attunement, and I do quite fine. Sure, it’s handy, and it’s fairly strong. But if you consider it “forced,” then that’s probably because you’re unwilling to learn to live without it. You may be offended by that idea, but consider that there are obviously many other players that think otherwise. You are either the only person with a clear understanding of the trait’s value or you are perhaps too narrowly interpreting other options.

We’re already struggling to be viable in general, so how can anything be considered “forced”? It’s more like we have fifty shades of mediocre. Or perhaps we haven’t yet stumbled upon the wonderful confluence of mechanics that will allow the elementalist to shine.

Durzlla.6295:

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

I can’t agree more with this.

I concur.

connvince.8061:

This is a strange viewpoint. I don’t know if I’ve ever created a build based on Elemental Attunement, and I do quite fine. Sure, it’s handy, and it’s fairly strong. But if you consider it “forced,” then that’s probably because you’re unwilling to learn to live without it. You may be offended by that idea, but consider that there are obviously many other players that think otherwise. You are either the only person with a clear understanding of the trait’s value or you are perhaps too narrowly interpreting other options.

We’re already struggling to be viable in general, so how can anything be considered “forced”? It’s more like we have fifty shades of mediocre. Or perhaps we haven’t yet stumbled upon the wonderful confluence of mechanics that will allow the elementalist to shine.

While it’s most certainly possible to go without Elemental Attunement, the effects that it gives (most notably Protection and Regen) are incredibly helpful to the Elementalist, as they have both low armour and low HP. With high Arcane you can have very good Protection uptime. There are other builds like Zerker Staff which relies on dodging and Burning Retreat to never get hit in the first place, so those builds don’t get as much benefit from EA. Dagger/Dagger gets great use from it, as well as Renewing Stamina and Evasive Arcana, to keep their ability to dodge as well as adding a bonus effect to their dodges.

There simply aren’t that many alternatives for 5 (8 when traited) seconds of protection every 10 or so seconds. Not even on other professions.

They stated before that it was too powerful a support ability in a team fight to just make it an inherent trait fr us, like it should be. The simple solution to this would be to make it inherent, but ONLY affect the ele. Then add a trait in master that says “elemental attunement now affects up to 5 allies” That was we actually have a trait we need for our basic survival, but if we want to support others we can still spec for it.

ThiBash.5634:

There simply aren’t that many alternatives for 5 (8 when traited) seconds of protection every 10 or so seconds. Not even on other professions.

not to mention it’s on a class with no inherent defense mechanic.

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

Couldn’t agree more!

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

alternatively, remove, move or combine the existing 5pt element traits with the elemental attunement buffs, caster only, and have an arcane trait that makes them AOE.

ie: you’d need to go 5/5/5/5/10 in order to get the current EA behaviour, but you’d be able to pick and choose which EA buffs you had.

not quite as much of a buff as making EA baseline but keeps the basic functionality accessible.

After the Dec 10th patch, I still put 30 points in Arcane, but I have dropped elemental attunement for faster recharge for the new ranged arcane wave. My new build is BETTER than my old build. Admittedly, I run staff ele, which does a lot less attunement swapping than D/D .

Therefore Elemental Attunement is not a “class mechanic” but just a popular trait. It is not irreplaceably useful for every build.

I haven’t run elemental attunement in a long time now
ever since I heard about the proposed dec 10 changes
feels pretty good

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

PVE you can roll any build. Dodge is much more important in Spvp or WvW. Arcane is a must you duke it out with real people in close combat based scenarios. Also flip the kitten and pat the bunny.

maxinion.8396:

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

Congratulations you can survive a AI in a simplified game… PvE is kind of a joke in this game that is why Anet doesn’t balance builds and classes around PvE its all to very simple. They revolve balances around PvP, whether that includes WvW or it is just just sPvP is beyond me.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

maxinion.8396:

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

Congratulations you can survive a AI in a simplified game… PvE is kind of a joke in this game that is why Anet doesn’t balance builds and classes around PvE its all to very simple. They revolve balances around PvP, whether that includes WvW or it is just just sPvP is beyond me.

^this. You can complete PVE easily with 0 trait points. This thread has always been about arcane/water being by far the best lines for PVP/WVW.

scerevisiae.1972:

As i’ve been saying for weeks now, Elemental Attunement is a class-defining trait. A caster-only version of it should be baseline, then you can have a 20pt trait for the AOE version.

I 100% agree. They have always used Elemental Attunement to justify the stat-disadvantage eles have, with the logic that the boons can be superior to more stats. It was an assumption that every ele would take this trait. Then they made the trait harder to get, after spending a year balancing the class around every build taking this trait! So drastically changing a core-assumption in their class balancing really hurts the chances of the ele moving forward.

Caster only as a baseline would be excellent, with the trait sharing the boons aoe in a larger radius (240 was judged to be too small to provide real support for just about every other skill, such as venoms, mantras, and shouts, but ele is still chuggin along with a teeny tiny radius that was “justified” because it was so easy to get).

Ancient Ranger.3276:

maxinion.8396:

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

Congratulations you can survive a AI in a simplified game… PvE is kind of a joke in this game that is why Anet doesn’t balance builds and classes around PvE its all to very simple. They revolve balances around PvP, whether that includes WvW or it is just just sPvP is beyond me.

fyi, the first occurrence of “pvp” or “wvw” in this thread is the reply above you, so it wasn’t exactly clear that the discussion was only pvp/ wvw based.

Agreed, of course, that in pvp and wvw you need more survivability, and for that reason you’re probably going to roll 30 in arcane anyway, and the patch hasn’t changed anything wrt that at all.

maxinion.8396:

Agreed, of course, that in pvp and wvw you need more survivability, and for that reason you’re probably going to roll 30 in arcane anyway, and the patch hasn’t changed anything wrt that at all.

Ironic that the stated goal of said patch was making it so people didn’t have to spec arcane.

^Not everyone have to spec arcane for everything. The patch does its job, does it not?

Iris Ng.9845:

^Not everyone have to spec arcane for everything. The patch does its job, does it not?

Well, the meta PvE builds before the patch had 0 arcane as well. If the developers thought people were relying on Arcane too much, they were probably looking at PvP and WvW builds. In that regard, not much has changed, as people still usually drop 20 or 30 there.

I used to spec 20 arcane for blasting staff in WvW, but now I don’t have to. Maybe I’m the only case…