Guild Wars 2

The last patch did some nice work on bringing up some weak lines and traits into something useful. Of course there are still a few skills fall short of others. Some to the extent that they can be ignored when it comes to build decisions. I’d like to focus more on these weaker traits in this thread. Please add your own ideas & opinions.

Traits that are farthest behind.
Flame Barrier-20% to burn for 2 sec also grants 2~3 sec retaliation (5 to 10sec cd)
or 20% chance to burn for 1 sec and grants 3 sec aegis.
Burning Precision-merge with ember’s might or burning rage. Maybe change to 4sec burning on 10sec cd.
Ember’s Might-This needs a boost to be worth a major slot.
One with fire-Doubles chance of flame barrier activating or merge current form into pyromancer’s puissance. Candidate for rework.
(empty adept slot)

Windborne Dagger-Increase speed outside of combat.
Zephyr’s Speed-rename, increases precision by 1 per level, or it adds a flat +5% crit chance.
One with Air- Rework completely. Ex. Conjure Lightning Hammer, Signet of Air and Lightning Flash inflict 5seconds of weakness. (or grant 6sec of fury). You could merge the current one with some other trait like soothing wind if you want to keep it around.
Soothing Wind- This trait is pretty weak as well. It could use a bump or a second effect.

Diamond Skin- Bump up to 15%, add an effect, or drop to master level

Vigorous Scepter-???
50% higher endurance recharge in combat is overshadowed by renewing stamina. A good start would be making it adept level and working outside of combat.

Traits that might be okay, but might need a retouch.
Sunspot&Earthen Blast-There’s already another thread on these. A simple burn/damage increase might be good.
Lingering Elements-fix to work with all adept minors
Arcane resurrection-Apply aura to self you begin reviving? (30s cd)
Burning Fire-and remove a boon in addition to current function (and move to master rank). Maybe just change to removing two boons and put the old functionality under the current one with fire.
Arcane Precision-increase chance to 33% or make 10~15% on all hits. May have to changes some condition durations.
The trait itself I think is weak, but it’s already in a strong line. So I’m hesitant to say it needs a buff.
Burning Rage- Not a great trait, but it’s only a minor trait so the buff can’t be too large. Preferred choice for merging with burning precision.

Navzar.2938:

Vigorous Scepter- ????
25% higher endurance recharge in combat is weak and easily out shined by renewing stamina. Although I don’t know what to do with this, this trait needs a buff.

It is 50% (half of Vigor). The trait is actually really good. It is just that Renewing Stamina is insanely overpowered and they don’t stack.

Edit: Noticed that the wiki page says 25%. But I am fairly certain that when I tested it back in the autumn, it brought a full recharge from 20→15s, which is a 50% increase in recharge rate.

Sunspot&Earthen Blast-There’s already another thread on these. A simple burn/damage increase might be good.

Both of those are already fairly decent. Sunspot is better than the Lightning equivalent if you hit two enemies. Earthen Blast has the cripple which is very useful.

The trait itself I think is weak, but it’s already in a strong line. So I’m hesitant to say it needs a buff.

Generally my reasoning as well. Anyway, you missed a few:

• Burning Fire – 3s of burning on long cd utilities, except for Signet of Fire that has so long initial burn that it will generally be cleansed long before. Simply not worth it.
• Ember’s Might – Too weak for a major elementalist trait. Only reason to keep it this weak is because of being afraid to boost maximum dps build.
• Soothing Winds – This one is so horrible
• Arcane Lightning – A maximum 5.9% damage boost to crits only. Not really impressive. Similar to Ember’s Might.
• Diamond Skin – Is that supposed to be a grandmaster trait? Compared to what you can get from Written in Stone (and other grandmaster traits), Diamond Skin looks more like a Master trait at most.

Renewing Stamina and all the equivalents for the other professions should be nerfed, imo. I would make it 6s vigor every 10s, not 5 every 5s.

The + damage to burning foes should be upped to 10%, like Guardian’s version. The + burning on critical should be buffed to the Engineer’s version, although I’m unsure if that one is used or not.

Diamond Skin should offer 15%, have an extra effect, or go down a tier. 5% isn’t even good for an adept trait (as the air trait shows), so I wouldn’t be surprised if diamond skin was fine even as an adept trait.

@wildclaw- Burning fire is in the lower priority list, although my suggestion was just some slight boon removal or merging. So any good ideas for it are always welcome. I tested Vigorous Scepter and you’re right about it being 50%, so it’s not as bad as I thought so I’ll add it to the maybe pile for now.

@both- I didn’t really pay much attention to diamond skin since it was new, but you’re right, 10% is pretty low for a grandmaster. As for the % damage to burning, I’ll add those as well.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Renewing Stamina and all the equivalents for the other professions should be nerfed, imo. I would make it 6s vigor every 10s, not 5 every 5s.

The + damage to burning foes should be upped to 10%, like Guardian’s version. The + burning on critical should be buffed to the Engineer’s version, although I’m unsure if that one is used or not.

Diamond Skin should offer 15%, have an extra effect, or go down a tier. 5% isn’t even good for an adept trait (as the air trait shows), so I wouldn’t be surprised if diamond skin was fine even as an adept trait.

Incendiary Powder

Yes, lots of Engineers use this because it’s awesome. It’s so awesome that they gave Necros the same thing.

Dhuumfire

Whereas Elementalists get (and almost never use)

Burning Precision

Edit: In all fairness the biggest difference is the internal cooldown. Powder and Dhuumfire have a cooldown that makes them useless for AoE skills, as it’ll only effect 1 person. Precision has no cooldown.

Still, I think the %chance is a little low. It’s difficult to tell when it actually procs on stuff.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Burning Precision was changed to Engineer’s/ Necromancer’s version someday. Incendiary Powder used to work like our trait, except it applies 2s, before it was buffed. In the end, Burning Precision is an incredibly outdated trait. :P

We were also the last profession to get the Renewing Stamina’s effect.