Guild Wars 2

Glyphs are a unique utilities that change according to the attunement you are. This is a great concept as it helps the elementalist to tap on its flexibility.

The problem is that glyphs are mostly lacking.
The elite one is somewhat nice, as you can summon a healing elemental, a tanky one, a dmg one or a control one.
GoEP is also nice as it can provide some good dmg increase with burn, some defense with weakness or control with cripple or chill.
This features show a bit of how flexible glyph utilties can be and how they could work.

The problem is that most are very lackluster and don’t live up to its potential. I’d like to sugest some changes:

GoEP:
– Remove the stun-break. This skill is all about using before the battle, you don’t want to be holding it to remove a stun.
– Set the CD to be “per target”, not “per activation”. Otherwise the effects gets wasted on adds and has no use on fights with more than one opponent
– Increase or remove the activation chance. 25% chance is too low, even if you use fast attacks with daggers this needs to be more reliable.

GoLE:
– Rework completely: The elementals are too weak to be used on nearly any situation.
– Set as a stun-break
– reduce CD to 40s
– new effect: “Gives you an aura based on your attunement:”
– works with aura traits and glyphs traits.
– this would be a good exemple of a glyph stun-breaker. You can use when you are stuned to actually prevent a burst (shock aura in air or magnetic aura in earth) or to apply control (frost aura in water) or to improve your dmg (fire aura).

GoS:
– This glyph isn’t bad, but it falls short on area and dmg, so many people rather use frost-bow instead.
– Improve the radius and effects to be an option.

GoR:
– This glyph could be useful if the cast time wasnt so long.

GoE:
– As an elite this is a bit lacking. So, move it to a normal utility and keep it as it is (change place with GoR, making it the new elite glyph with reduced cast-time) or:
– Start the CD of the skill when the elemental is summoned, not when it dies, or remove the duration time on the elemental and give it OoC regen.
– Let us control the elementals unique skill (heal, fire-fields, aoe criple, stuns)

Armagedonsomething sent me this by PM and asked to be posted.

In my opinion all of the glyphs are poor. What i would do is:
Glyph of Elemental Harmony – This is a decent heal. What it needs i think is cast time reduced to 3/4 of a second. At 1 and 1/4 seconds it is a little too long a cast time. I think the Healing could be improved as well. It just seems to be lacking. If you go with Inscription trait AND heal in Water it becomes a little better. Another idea could be to make the Boons great an AoE for allies as well.

Glyph of Lesser Elementals – They all need to be buffed. I know they are meant to be lesser but should they be to the point where they are totally useless? I would make it so they gain say 25% of the players stats as an increase. Reduce the cast time as well because again it is a little too long. Buff each elemental based on its attunement as well. So on top of the 25% stat increase across the board they should each get a further 25% increase to a specific stat(Fire -Power, Water – Healing Power, Air – Ferosity, Earth – Condition Damage)

Glyph of Renewal – Not sure what can be done with this, as all the problems effect all other classes with revive abilities as well.

Glyph of Elemental Power – This has so much potential but it is wasted due to the INSANE cool down it has. I actually think they should remove Glyph of Lesser Elementals, Move down Glyph of Elementals from Elite to Utility and move Elemental Power to be an Elite and as such given buffs.
Cool down: Increase to 60 seconds
Duration: Unchanged 30 seconds
Effect recharge: Reduce to 2 second cool down
Earth Condition: Replace Cripple with Torment(3 stacks) for 5 seconds
Air Condition: Replace Weakness with Confusion(2 stacks) for 5 seconds
remove Stun Break
Increase Burning duration to 4 seconds
Increase Chill duration to 3 seconds

To go with Glyphs changes, i think the Traits could do with a little work
Combine Quick Glyphs with Inscription.
Decrease Boon duration to Mightx3(5 second, Regen(7 second), Swiftness(5 second) and Protection(Unchanged – 3 second) Keep as Adapt.

New Major trait:
Power of Elements: Inflict a Condition based on your Attunement in an AoE around yourself when you use a Glyph, 5 targets, 10 second ICD

Hello, a few thoughts:

Glyph of Elemental Power: Actually does have a “per target” cooldown. You are right though, it does function somewhat awkwardly in that you are torn between saving it to stunbreak, and pre-buffing with it to modify your attacks. And yes, the 25% chance activation is annoying with slower weapons…maybe it could be adjusted to 33%. With the current effect though, I would be hesitant to buff it much more as the ease of perma-weakness or cripple application might be too strong.

Glyph of Storms: I wish it were different, as it stands now I much prefer to take Conjure Frost Bow.

Glyph of Renewal: It is extremely strong already. Every revive utility is difficult to use/or long cooldown.

As for the Glyph of Elementals and Lesser Elementals: I think it is a great idea to let us control their active ability (as most utility-summoned pets in this game seem to allow). Perhaps put stunbreaker on the air or earth active too. And balance accordingly. People should be receptive to less “AI” and more player control though.

all excellent suggestions IMO.

i particularly like the idea of GoLE producing an aura, some nice potential synergies there.

the only thing i would add is that glyphs feel like they need another trait. perhaps drop the new damage-on-interrupt trait to master level and add a GM glyph trait?

I was wondering why the other day glyph of renewal was so bad. It was then I realized at one point it was originally planned so you could revive allies that were fully dead. Then they changed it to just allies in the down state, while leaving the cooldown the same as the original. Yeah……

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/A-plea-for-Glyphs

(My 8 month old thread about glyphs)

That GoLE suggestion is amazing.

As an addition our elementals are the only pets in the game , including turrets, that don’t have some further interaction option, Why don’t our elementals have a command? If we don’t get that, then scrapping the skill makes sense.

Glyph of storms would be great if it caused combo fields.