Guild Wars 2

Liquid Swords.1740:

I can’t be the only one that thinks this should of replaced Zephyr’s Speed for the 5 points in air trait?

Most ele’s are running perma swiftness and the real waste is the 10% 5 point trait imo

Yep and nearly a third of Ele traits are total garbage.

Shadowfax.7562:

Lava axe allowes to give group permanent fury before battle start) with +boon duration runes

My cat’s breath smells like cat food.

Change it back to 25% permanent running speed! please!

The only buff Ele’s got was the Unsteady Ground change… Conjures = still useless with a 15 – 25 charge limit… Remove the charges, keep the Duration…. Make them actually useful.

Make attunement recharge not on Arcane Only… set the base Recharge at 12 seconds, and make Traiting into each line lower the attunement recharge for that Attunement. Every 10 points into a line will Reduce Recharge by 1… So say, 30 Fire would make Fire Attunement Recharge 9 seconds. This would at the very least make use of Focusing on certain attunements and taking the -20% skill Recharges.

It’s interesting, but maybe it should have been added to air 15 (with bolt) or the duration should be increased to 5 seconds.

You gave engineers 5 seconds of invisibility but the ele gets 1.5 sec of fast running around in battle. It just seems too little in comparison, and it’s a bit silly considering you just gave 6 seconds + of stacking immobilize to the thief…

Also some ele skills still cannot be used while moving.

I’m just trying to understand what is the idea. Are you expecting us to move faster as we simultaneously aim and cast a static field in a zerg? Perhaps… Or air-att-mist-form runaways?

Thanks a lot for the changes, but in reality it looks like you are very afraid to make any change that are really noticeable as you play and have a new effect.
If you increase the duration it will be worth considering but right now its barely noticeable.

Wow, it’s quite bad. Why even bother tempting us with “superspeed” when it has 0 effect outside of battle? I guarantee you, 99% of eles only care about our neutered out of battle mobility ever since you nerfed rtl.

Please do the right thing and restore rtl to 20s. The experiment has run its course and failed. Time to own up instead of making tiny negligible tweaks to try and appease us.

And now that I think about it… it would actually be useful if you gave us REAL haste (as it’s defined for other classes) for 1.5s on attune to air. That means attack speed.

I thought this trait could be good paired with fresh air, but i tested it in the mist and its as useless as dirt. Considering that when i attune to air i gain swiftness i already reach the speed cap so that 1s superspeed does nothing…. yeh it might help with chill and cripple, but 1s doesnt change anything.

Who would take this trait over zephyr’s boon or bolt to the heart? And when are the dev’s going to realize the nerf to RTL was to drastic….I love running around with my 900 range gap closer that’s on a 40sec CD while warriors go WW and leaping by me with twice the health pool, better healing and better defensive attributes that don’t sacrifice offense……

Josh Davis.6015:

Skills like Super Speed and traits like One With Air set movement speed to the cap. The difference between out-of-combat swiftness and the movement speed cap is very small and won’t be very noticeable.

You’ll mostly notice the effectiveness of these skills when you’re in-combat, as you will be considerably faster than someone with swiftness. It will also reduce the effectiveness of chilled and crippled while under the effects of Super Speed type movement buffs.

Hope that clears things up!

Why don’ t you play Ranger too? And do something for Ranger class too?
You re a bad dev.

Ele = dependant on traits to deal any amount of damage and lacking mobility since RtL nerf that are otherwise readily available to thieves, rangers and warriors without having to sacrifice ANYTHING.

One with Air is a sacrifice in damage with minimal effect. The only time it’s useful is bunkering with staff where damage matters little. D/D and S/D both require you to be facing the target 90% of the time otherwise you deal no damage.

It’s obvious they didn’t care to address ele issues outside of staff ele with this patch.

I use to take one with air for open world roaming when I didn’t want to use up a utility slot with signit of air. Now this trait is completely useless, instead of mostly useless. 1.25 seconds of super speed is like an extra dodge roll with out the evade. I could just take 10 points in arcana and pick up vigor on crit to get a superior effect. I honestly don’t know what this change was trying to achieve.

Cool trait, could be longer. Cant complain about a new trait taking the place of a crappy one.
Already too many good air traits, Fire could have used the help more, call it… Hot feets.

I also preferred the old trait.

I’ll just reiterate what was said a little earlier that this would have been much more useful if it were just a replacement for the 5 point trait that has virtually no impact. Having a defensive on-attunement effect at 5 and offensive on-attunement effect at 15 for all 4 elements would shore up those weak minor traits. (Yes, that is a suggestion to rework all 4 elements’ minor traits)

Additional way to rework our talents

~Combine our 20% reduced weapon skill recharge trait with the passive buff to the broad passive damage buff from that attunement. This would make sense in line with other professions’ traits that have a 20% reduced recharge to a specific weapon skill in addition to another minor effect. 20% reduced recharge to water weapon skills and additional damage when health is above threshold, 20% reduced recharge earth weapon skills and additional damage when within 600 yards, Bolt to the Heart + Aeromancer’s Alacrity, Pyromancer’s Alacrity + Ember’s Might… freeing up 4 more talent options. .

I used One With Air for a total of 2 minutes. It’s horrible because the speed ends up being less than zephyr’s boon because it doesn’t last as long. And it doesn’t stack with other swiftness buffs, from what I could tell. It felt like it did nothing at all every time I swapped to air.

It was fun in the stream when they said “you can use one with air in daggers to catch up with your targets”

Yeah

It’s morel like targets catch up with us while we desperately run away

Saw it and thought it was more useless than a glyph trait. You will never get me to use that trait. Don’t nerf the current fresh air build please. It’s the only fun I really have left on my elementalist. Also, I got my Warrior up 5 levels today. Thank you ever increasingly useless elementalist.

Josh Davis.6015:

Skills like Super Speed and traits like One With Air set movement speed to the cap. The difference between out-of-combat swiftness and the movement speed cap is very small and won’t be very noticeable.

You’ll mostly notice the effectiveness of these skills when you’re in-combat, as you will be considerably faster than someone with swiftness. It will also reduce the effectiveness of chilled and crippled while under the effects of Super Speed type movement buffs.

Hope that clears things up!

I probably gained about 15-20% distance on my Burning Speed when I activated the trait at the beginning of my animation.

Also, %reductions scale up as their target’s base increases.

This trait is brutally ineffective at giving us the mobility we need because it adds up to about 10% overall increase in ground covered during combat. (assuming it’s working properly and you do not have swiftness up ever, which will never happen because we pretty much have to run Elemental Attunement)

It’s just really disappointing that with all the myriad issues eles have from a core-mechanic perspective in relation to our traits that this is somehow supposed to be a significant factor in our mobility and build crafting.

Noticed this works when carrying the orb in Spirit Watch. Hopefully, that’ll stay in the game, as it’s the only useful effect I can find for this trait…

zencow.3651:

Ele = dependant on traits to deal any amount of damage and lacking mobility since RtL nerf that are otherwise readily available to thieves, rangers and warriors without having to sacrifice ANYTHING.

One with Air is a sacrifice in damage with minimal effect. The only time it’s useful is bunkering with staff where damage matters little. D/D and S/D both require you to be facing the target 90% of the time otherwise you deal no damage.

It’s obvious they didn’t care to address ele issues outside of staff ele with this patch.

Staff will not take One with Air. You have to sacrifice Rock Solid which is a need for Ether Renewal to try and help deal with conditions. And you most definitely won’t be Staff without at least 20 in Water. 15 at the least.

This trait seems like a perfect example of something Elementalists were largely happy with, and got a terrible change.

I know at one point, ANet said they’ll be adding new unlockable utility skills and traits….. well maybe this should have waited till then, instead of replacing something useful.

I can see staff getting a lot of benefit with one with air.Burning retreat is getting a lot of range increase. I think you arent doing it right..First cast the leap on whatever attunement and then swap.Its practically as far as rtl with an evade and you can use about face to move forward..Its not really hard to figure out how it works and im getting the feeling half the people here dont even know what it does ,use it out of combat and think its useless
hint:Its not !! :P (but im talking to a wall aint i??! )

And btw the difference it has in combat and how many times you can use it with fresh air make it a VERY SOLID PICK ..kthxbye

Oniyui.8279:

I’ll just reiterate what was said a little earlier that this would have been much more useful if it were just a replacement for the 5 point trait that has virtually no impact. Having a defensive on-attunement effect at 5 and offensive on-attunement effect at 15 for all 4 elements would shore up those weak minor traits. (Yes, that is a suggestion to rework all 4 elements’ minor traits)

---

Additional way to rework our talents

~Combine our 20% reduced weapon skill recharge trait with the passive buff to the broad passive damage buff from that attunement. This would make sense in line with other professions’ traits that have a 20% reduced recharge to a specific weapon skill in addition to another minor effect. 20% reduced recharge to water weapon skills and additional damage when health is above threshold, 20% reduced recharge earth weapon skills and additional damage when within 600 yards, Bolt to the Heart + Aeromancer’s Alacrity, Pyromancer’s Alacrity + Ember’s Might… freeing up 4 more talent options. .

Yay I’d love for our 20% reduction traits to have an additional minor effect, that would be cool

Anyway, as someone else said, this could be in the 5 point minor trait maybe?
Otherwise, it’s a pretty poor major trait…

I appreciate the good intentions though <3

Pegaasus.3280:

Josh Davis.6015:

Skills like Super Speed and traits like One With Air set movement speed to the cap. The difference between out-of-combat swiftness and the movement speed cap is very small and won’t be very noticeable.

You’ll mostly notice the effectiveness of these skills when you’re in-combat, as you will be considerably faster than someone with swiftness. It will also reduce the effectiveness of chilled and crippled while under the effects of Super Speed type movement buffs.

Hope that clears things up!

Why don’ t you play Ranger too? And do something for Ranger class too?
You re a bad dev.

There is no reason to attack Grouch for giving some helpful clarification. He isn’t actually involved in the development process, but instead the QA process (testing).

While I agree the trait is rather lackluster (perhaps have it cure cripple/chill/immob on attune = boss), attacking someone who is very helpful won’t get you anywhere.

unfortunately I can only +1 your post one time
people need to be encouraging devs to post, not attacking them

Avead.5760:

I can see staff getting a lot of benefit with one with air.Burning retreat is getting a lot of range increase. I think you arent doing it right..First cast the leap on whatever attunement and then swap.Its practically as far as rtl with an evade and you can use about face to move forward..Its not really hard to figure out how it works and im getting the feeling half the people here dont even know what it does ,use it out of combat and think its useless
hint:Its not !! :P (but im talking to a wall aint i??! )

And btw the difference it has in combat and how many times you can use it with fresh air make it a VERY SOLID PICK ..kthxbye

So this is basically the only example I’m seeing of why the trait has any semblance of usefulness. Burning Retreat was already decent at getting you out of melee range, and it gets boosted by swiftness. This trait adds maybe 20% at most to the distance you travel in combat with Burning Retreat, when they could have fixed RtL and been done with the mobility complaints.

It’s a neat concept, but it was implemented terribly and doesn’t even come close to fixing ele mobility problems.

idk, it seems kinda like how stuff like Pistol Whip + Quickness was, back in the day. in that it is great when abused but mediocre otherwise
One With Air is probably great when you spam it with Fresh Air but sucks otherwise. They should increase the duration (and let it actually work out of combat. please) but then give it an internal cooldown

I already have Elemental Attunement, which gives a 6.5 seconds of swiftness when switching to Air, so this new change basically takes away my out of combat speed. I now run around at a turtles pace with no added benefit.

After using this “replacement”, testing it out I feel so sllloowwww ALL the time…… except for 1.5 seconds in combat. The mobility in and out of combat was a big part of what made ele fun. Now it feels like that is gone. The Ride the Lightning nerf was bad enough. This made it worse. Can I have my fun back Anet, please?

thx for answers.
but yeah, 1,5 sec even in-combat changes nothing. even in FA build.

Revyn.8961:

“Air, that force of nature that can move over 200 miles per hour (tornados/hurricanes). It’ll drive straws into trees and blow with such force and speed that buildings succumb to its power. As an elementalist, I’m one with the elements!” /cough

Sorry, but this “One with Air” change seems like a “Puff of Air,” especially since all of the ele’s speed skills have a longer recharge duration now — many of which have almost doubled since release.

The One with Air change seems to make sense in combat, especially for PvP/WvW. In battle, I am constantly switching elements, as is intended for the class. However, for just relaxing, gathering materials, etc. in PvE, it’s nice to get a break from the insane button mashing (aka: constant element swapping).

Anet, please consider giving the elementalist a better running skill (weapon or utility — with less than a 30 second cooldown) or returning our old #4 trait. (However, it looks like “Signet of Air” will likely be a near perma-addition to my skill bar again…)

I just use the glyph heal in air when I want to run places.

reikken.4961:

idk, it seems kinda like how stuff like Pistol Whip + Quickness was, back in the day. in that it is great when abused but mediocre otherwise
One With Air is probably great when you spam it with Fresh Air but sucks otherwise. They should increase the duration (and let it actually work out of combat. please) but then give it an internal cooldown

Yeah obviously it lasts so low cause they tried to balance it with freshair in mind which is bad balance.They could icnrease its duration and put an icd so everyone could get benefit from it.Not only that but if you go for fresh air in pvp you are made of paper and it makes sense to go for max damage and bolt to the heart a bit more.
But..its undeniable that the trait is far better than what it was.
I mean how could someone use it before…A 25% speed increase that required you to be in air all time and needed 50 sec to pass before it reached that ??!? :S
Completely rubbish.Now you can get something out of it.
For example lets say you fight a warrior in wvw and you immob him with magnetic grasp,he cleanses it or uses mobile strikes orwhatever and then uses his own broken mobility to get away. Now you just active earth 3 again switch in air and you are there to him in no time. Its a good trait,not bad. Just compare it to the other air adept traits..Far more interesting except for the damage ones and zephyrs boon which is completely overrated atm..Like really really overrated and useless if you for fresh air
But everyone knows this wasnt a balance patch.Nothing changed effectively..so if ele is still bad its not cause of this change but cause nothing op was nerfed as it should.
This was a good change !

Anet should experiment with the numbers behind this trait. 2s next patch, and maybe even more if people still don’t use it.

I think One With Air should be viable regardless of Fresh Air. Fresh Air builds lack a lot of defense, and revolve (in pvp) around scepter. What One With Air adds to fresh air builds, is better escaping (at the cost of lesser damage), and better kiting should you decide to go with MH dagger. For that reason, I don’t think Anet should be too worried about balancing it with fresh air in mind. I can see this trait going up to, say, 2 or 2.5 seconds. To non-fresh air builds, that should be a good number. To fresh air builds, it could be a bit much, but the damage loss and the natural lack of survival would justify it.

I’ve tested it out myself in pvp. It was cool to give me time to finish ether renewal versus melee characters. But it did nothing versus ranged chars, versus leaps, and more importantly, most of the times an ele would want to switch to air with a fresh air build, would be to burst. So by the time the buttons are pressed to activate the burst, one with air’s duration would be over.

Anyways, experiment with 2s next patch, Anet!

P.S. Alternatively, having it affect out-of-combat speed would allow for very interesting roaming builds, especially if it could synergize with RtL. I wouldn’t mind upping this trait’s tier to master if that was the case, to prevent a situation where highly defensive eles from using it. That’s if assuming Anet still doesn’t wants bunker eles to have their old mobility back.

I think the reason why this thread is getting so many mixed opinions is because people are thinking about very specific scenarios when talking about this new trait (like someone thinking about dungeons or random PvE content, while others thinking about specific sPvP builds/combos)

This change might be decent in sPvP, but I feel like PvE in general was the most affected.

This trait is useless in PvE.

BlackBeard.2873:

While I agree the trait is rather lackluster (perhaps have it cure cripple/chill/immob on attune = boss), attacking someone who is very helpful won’t get you anywhere.

We have a winner!!! Best suggestion it’s attractive helps with some conditions for those that don’t have 20 in earth or are deep in water.

Popular 0/10/0/30/30 would think about taking it possible over zephyr’s boon. Not going deep into water would feel less punishing.

Win/Win!

I can see it useful, IF they lifted the kitten cap (for this trait only) before they made it live.

Oh come on. I hope no one truly thinks they want Ele to escape death. You’re the sacrifice, seriously. They intentionally broke Windborne Speed . I.n.t.e.n.t.i.o.n.a.l.l.y, that should tell you something. The One With Air change was another nerf. That is all.

i like one with air! it would be nice if it lasted a bit longer and broke immobalize!

First thing I’d do is make this the 5 point minor trait in Air. That alone would make it moderately decent since it would overlap the horrid passive speed boost we currently have for the 5 point trait. I’d also say either double the duration to 3 secs (1.5 secs is pitiful) or use the above idea to have it cure Cripple/Immobilise/Chill. Hell, could potentially give immunity to those statuses for the duration of the speed boost. Any one of these would be fantastic, and would go in line with the “You should be swapping attunements constantly, so we’re going to give you short duration effects that are still pretty powerful when you swap into an attunement.” idea that I think this trait tries to promote.

I like the way you dream.

Zelyhn.8069:

This trait is useless in PvE.

Best trait for skipping.

I took a break from the game for a couple of months, came back last week, jumped into WvW and felt like an insect walking in molasses. What have they done to us?

Bad enough spitting in our eyes, but dancing on the corpse of this amazing class is just insulting.

The one thing that confuses me on changes like this is…..when did anyone complain about the original one with air trait?

Can we get some attention on the traits that are annoying, broke, or useless first? Before we start rehashing traits that players have no complaints with.

Wraistlin.6072:

The one thing that confuses me on changes like this is…..when did anyone complain about the original one with air trait?

Can we get some attention on the traits that are annoying, broke, or useless first? Before we start rehashing traits that players have no complaints with.

One With Air got some attention because it was weak. Now, the new change might not be enough, but based on feedback that Anet gathers, they can always boost its new numbers a little bit.

MarzAttakz.9608:

I took a break from the game for a couple of months, came back last week, jumped into WvW and felt like an insect walking in molasses. What have they done to us?

Bad enough spitting in our eyes, but dancing on the corpse of this amazing class is just insulting.

LOL! I too am a returning player after 2-3 mths. I jump onto my elem & suddenly air just doesn’t seem to be giving me any speed boost. So I check One With Air & I think to myself “this isn’t what this trait did at all & I must be reading it wrong – I’m sure I used to get a 5% speed increase every 10secs of being attuned to air, or something like that”. One With Molasses – that was my 1st thought too after trying out the trait effectt for all of 2 mins running around LA sigh.

Guess us PvE carebears are SOL. And my elem, who is in her mid 40s, was actually going to be my explorer character originally. Dodged that bullet (lucky I chose a warrior who is 80 & at 80%+ of world completion. Guess PvP > PvE for some reason with ANet now, which tells me that stopping playing the game short of a year & 1000+hrs invested was a really smart move. Struggling to even enjoy the Guardian I created for the very first time who’s 22 now (with the anniversary token bump to 20, eh). Really feel 4 u elem luvas, just happy I’m not one right now…

Nostromo.4126:

Really feel 4 u elem luvas, just happy I’m not one right now…

Any change to the trait was actually a buff, because:

1) Most elemenalist don’t stay in a single attunement for extended periods of time.
2) Most elementalist builds had permanent acces to swiftness, which gives a +33% speed increase, meaning the old trait was weaker even at full power.

I’m sorry to read that you’re not happy, but judging by what you wrote, you have a lot more to discover in this game. Especially about elementalists. Try out some of the tactics listed on this forum, and get your ele to 80. I’m sure you’ll love it by then.

ThiBash.5634:

Nostromo.4126:

Really feel 4 u elem luvas, just happy I’m not one right now…

Any change to the trait was actually a buff, because:

1) Most elemenalist don’t stay in a single attunement for extended periods of time.
2) Most elementalist builds had permanent acces to swiftness, which gives a +33% speed increase, meaning the old trait was weaker even at full power.

I’m sorry to read that you’re not happy, but judging by what you wrote, you have a lot more to discover in this game. Especially about elementalists. Try out some of the tactics listed on this forum, and get your ele to 80. I’m sure you’ll love it by then.

Which part of 1000+ hrs did you not understand…?

I’ve done PvE about as extensively as you can, without just turning it into an OCD grind (which is why I stopped, when it started to do that, 3 mths ago). I’ve got 3 80s I’ve played to death, done most dungeons, events, JPs, some WvW and easily completed all zones & areas in the game (just not with the 1 character, which is what the elem was originally meant for, but then switched to the warrior). I prefer pet classes, so I’ve had plenty of experience & maxed the value out of the necro/ranger/eng chars I’ve played. I’ve now tried every class, with guardian being the last one I’ve recently added to my roster.

The problem here is many-fold:
1. some ppl just don’t understand that some ppl are only interested in PvE (whether solo or co-op), with absolutely no interest in PvP
2. skills shouldn’t & can’t service PvE AND PvP builds equally & properly, which is why there are lots of examples of changes to skill effects between the two (mostly as a magnitude adjustment/nerf for PvP)
3. in this case the OWA elem trait was changed from what was a fantastic, single-atunement (mostly) perma-swiftness PvE skill, to a mostly PvP focused one, which has completely destroyed it’s value for PvE-ers like myself

What was arguably one of the best permaswift skills/traits in the game (25% speed boost after 50secs being atuned to air), now provides 33% for a whole 1.5secs every time you switch to air, which is around every 15secs at best, once the atunement switch goes on CD after the 1st time you switch (I also added +10% to it through some other skill/trait/gear, can’t remember which, to get to the cap). That’s not even close to being as effective & useful for PvE as the eng speedy kits trait, as fiddly & annoying as that is!
And what’s so hard to understand about running an air-focused elem build & just switching out the OWA trait to something more useful before going into long battles or dungeons say? That’s all I did (shame there are still no loadout hotkeys in the game, but that’s another argument).

For some of us dps is all-important, for some survivability, MF, stealth-play, for some of us it’s speed. Call us speed-junkies if you will, but it’s hard to go back once you’ve gotten used to it. It’s my #1 bugbear in mmos & the 1st thing that makes me leave one, if getting around turns into an insufferable grind. Other mmos handle this with mounts or vehicles (usually not soon enough), gw2 uses fast WP travel & swiftness, without which I would have stopped playing long ago. As an aside, as much as I love my mesmer, she’s also parked in the 40s, mainly due to lack of speed options & getting around just being too much of a chore in the mid-levels.

That said, I find the elem too squishy & bursty for my tastes, though I haven’t used the earth elemental summon much as a pet shield (mainly used fire elem lesser/greater glyphs, as fire was my 2nd goto element of choice for combat). So you’re prob right for the wrong reasons – elem prob isn’t for me & this OWA super-nerf was just the last nail in the coffin from ANet for us PvE speedsters.

@ Nostromo

The ele can maintain perma swiftness a number of ways. The old one with air functionality didn’t serve an purpose that couldn’t already be accomplished. It’s not an issue that it was changed, it’s just different and adds more tools for the elementalists to utilize.

Shockwave.1230:

@ Nostromo

The ele can maintain perma swiftness a number of ways. The old one with air functionality didn’t serve an purpose that couldn’t already be accomplished. It’s not an issue that it was changed, it’s just different and adds more tools for the elementalists to utilize.

Ok, we’ll just have to agree to disagree then. I can’t see anything simpler, cheaper or easier for PvE exploring than a single minor (adept) trait to give you near perma-swiftmess after just 50secs, which can also be very easily swapped out for something more functional if you’re traited for air anyway. Other classes like ranger & necro have a single signet to achieve this, elems unfortunately don’t. (For reference, I run my necro with the Signet of the Locust & even add Spectral Walk when I’m just exploring or doing non-combat Daily crap – easy enough to swap both out for more pets or other skills b4 getting into more difficult combat – I used to run twin dagger with the 25% speed trait, but changed to all-ranged staff+scepter/focus build more recently for various reasons).

As it stands now, you have to use some combo of the following to gain permaswiftness:
Windborne Speed, Glyph of Elemental Harmony/Power and the Inscription and/or Elemental Attunement traits. How this is ‘better’ overall in anyone’s right mind, apart from the 8% more speed, is beyond me.

Thank god they didn’t also hit Ride The Lightning with the nerf bat is all I can say!