Guild Wars 2

Is it just me or do these options just kind of suck on the ele? Been playing a ranger lately and noticed a pretty big difference. I look at their utility and elite skills and actually feel the urge to swap them around and play them to the fights. They feel meaningful and interesting. On my Ele I run the same stuff pretty much constantly because it doesn’t feel like the choices matter. Especially the elite skill.

I agree. We do have some weak utilities and especially elites. We have some pretty awesome abilities hidden away on Conjures, but they just aren’t very effective.

Cantrips: Mostly fine but very long cds. The -20% cd from trait could be baseline so they are more usable without Water. (And of course Tornado needs a -lot- of help).

Conjures: Too many problems, need to rework them into a weapon swap probably. The cast-and-drop usage really hurts them imo, but reducing cd and duration by half would help that aspect of them.

Glyphs: Situational but versatile. Heal glyph gives perma swiftness with Inscription. Elemental Power is ok for Condi builds, but trigger chance could be 50-100% (it already has 5s recharge time). Storms is good. I’m really not sure what to do with glyphs, they’re not too bad.

Arcanes: I want to like Arcanes but they just feel weak. Elemental Surge trait is almost a requirement for them to be used. Arcane blast down to 18s base would allow it to keep the trait’s ferocity buff procced. Arcane shield is a bit long cd. Arcane power is ok but difficult to slot because few builds (if any) need 5 guaranteed crits every 36 to 45 seconds. If Elemental Surge were -33% cd it would solve a lot of their problems other than being even more reliant on that trait. Removing their 100% Crit mechanic might give more leeway to buff them.

Signets: Fire and Earth are very good for condi builds. Air is a good stunbreak. Water I’ve never used (perhaps if we had some synergy with chill?). Low enough cd that they are usable. I think our Signets are in a great place as a whole.

Shouts: No complaints except Rebound. They’re very good with Aura traits.

Funny thing is, if the glyph and arcane trait switched mechanics, I could see myself trying out glyph and arcane builds for pvp. But as they are now they are 100% useless.

Arcanes are all about crit damage. So the trait adding conditions doesn’t make any sense.
Glyphs are mostly about conditions (with the elementals as the odd skill out) so getting boons from them doesn’t help much either.

But arcanes would be really cool if they could be used for protection in earth, or regeneration in water while still doing damage with low cooldowns.

Signets lost all use when the aura on signet trait was taken away and given to Guardians of all classes…