Guild Wars 2

1. Elemental attunement built in for self buff with trait making it aoe, seen it suggested so many times and it makes so much sense
2. More health, or preferably a much, much smaller gap between the low/mid/high hp tiers. 10.8k base compared to 18k on high armor classes is just silly.
3. Not sure, any of the other reasonable ideas posted in this thread or others, preferably something involving utilities that arent cantrips (which still have too long cd’s for what they do), but other nice ones would include updates to staff aa’s, focus buffs, or some kind of trait rework in fire/air/earth. Evasive arcana moved to 20 points would also be nice for diversity but that would maybe be pushing it.

Also, people will hate, but a nerf to the tornado/meteor shower combo would be fitting so people stop thinking “omg eles are fine they crit me for 10k with aoe in wvw the other day thats op brah”.

1/ Nerf our damage output with scepter full zerker specs. Nerf arcane spells damage. Damage is boring, you don’t play ele do only nuke kitten down.

2/ Increase the base healing power in pvp. I’m an ele, I want my group heals to matter and save lives.

3/ Introduce some sort of ele specific amulet by its stats (got this from phanta), some kind of refined celestial. With power main stat, toughness precision healing power. It’d be so niche that every other class using it would be suboptimal.

4/ (Might sound crazy) Remove fresh air. Instant unavoidable unpredictable damage is bad for the game and lowers the skill ceiling. A good ele lands everything. A mediocre one just lands air#2.

5/ First idea from the above. Been wanting this for a long time, strange that no one has taken note yet.

6/ Remove crit dmg and condi damage and introduce EFFECTIVE armor rating, armor penetration, attack power, spell power and magic resist, with new, more balanced multipliers. Can’t build a castle on a pile of kitten. Make a drastic change, redo it from sratch. Better for the game in my opinion.

I’ll think about some more but we honnestly only need a kick in the butt to be very (potentially too) strong again. Just be very careful.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I don’t want it, having to spend multiple trait slots, up to four even, for the entire effect would be horrible.

You don’t need that many trait slots, an EA ele should almost always be dodging in water or earth attunement.

Dolores.5471:

I had this crazy idea the other day when thinking of how to make eles less dependent on arcana. Along with making elemental attunement baseline, as its already been suggested, why don’t we divide the evasive arcana trait into 4 minor traits spread on the other trait lines? It has always seemed a little odd to me how other classes get “on dodge” traits so easily and ele has to spend 30 points for it.

Anet could make it so that for example, an adept trait in the water trait line granted cleansing wave when dodging in water attunement, same on earth, fire and wind for their respective effects. That way we could pick which effects of evasive arcana we wanted and possibly save points to diversify/strengthen our builds… Was this ever suggested before? Is it too crazy/op?

Thats an Interesting idea. Make it combined into the 5point current traits and replace EA with something else, this would also save wasting a dodge roll and proccing it when you didnt want to in a different attunement (Air one SUCKS!)

Then add a new Arcane Grandmaster trait.

Wintel.4873:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I don’t want it, having to spend multiple trait slots, up to four even, for the entire effect would be horrible.

You don’t need that many trait slots, an EA ele should almost always be dodging in water or earth attunement.

I’d still have to be spending 10 extra points in trees i don’t like to get a lesser effect.

It’s totally a nerf.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I’d still have to be spending 10 extra points in trees i don’t like to get a lesser effect.

It’s totally a nerf.

Combine them into the 5point traits. That would be okay. I would only want Water and Earth anyway. Air is just terrible and Fire i dunno, just seems rather weak.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I’d still have to be spending 10 extra points in trees i don’t like to get a lesser effect.

It’s totally a nerf.

Combine them into the 5point traits. That would be okay. I would only want Water and Earth anyway. Air is just terrible and Fire i dunno, just seems rather weak.

I’d be okay with that one, it would probably be equal to it’s current incarnation for me (I would still pretty much always put 20+ in Arcana, but I would be able to lose that stupid 25 pt trait)

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

so, shell we make a thread “3 most important things you want to change”? to help you?

My three things are active defense, faster but weaker aoes and in-combat weapon swapping at the cost of attunements.

The Double Cooldown on Ride the Lightning really has to go. It’s beyond stupidity.

A lot of good suggestions for D/D and Traits. So I’ll focus mainly on Staff.

Fire Attunement:

• Fireball – projectile speed should be increased since it travels so slow and easy to dodge.
• Lava Font – The delay on its initial damage should be removed. An increase in either duration (up to 5 sec) or radius (to 180 and 240 w/ blasting staff).
• Flame Burst – Up the base damage of burning to 1700-1800.
• Burning Retreat – Be able to control its direction just like you would a normal dodge. It would add more to our survivability.
• Meteor Shower – Increase the number of meteors to 28 up from 24. In turn that ups the damage a bit.

Water Attunement:

• Water Blast – Up the base damage to 150 and the base heal to 400 maybe but dont have much of an idea for this one.
• Ice Spike – Reduce the delay to 1.5 sec. There is about a 2.5 sec delay from the spike forming and dropping on target. Add Combo Finisher: Blast to it(nice to have another one besides Eruption).
• Geyser – Increase duration to 3 sec up from 2. Decrease cast time to 1/2 sec down from 3/4.
• Frozen Ground and Healing Rain- I think these are good the way they are.

Lightning Attunement:

• Chain Lightning – Increase the speed of the projectile(Lighning should not travel so slow). Reduce cast time to 1/2 sec down 3/4 sec. Maybe increase the maximum number of targets to 5 up from 3.
• Lightning Surge – Increase the radius to 180(240 with Blasting Staff) up from 120(180).
• Gust – Make it more conal because this seldom hits it’s target.
• Windborne Speed – It is good they way it is maybe increase the swiftness granted to 15 sec up from 13.
• Static Field – This one is good the way it is.

Earth Attunement:

• Stoning – It is fine in it’s current state.
• Eruption – Add 2 to 3 sec of cripple from when it starts to from on the ground.
• Magnetic Aura – Increase duration to 6 sec up from 5.
• Unsteady Ground – Like Ring of Warding give it a radius 120(180 with Blasting Staff) and Combo Field: Smoke. Adds a new dynamic to Eles
• Shock Wave – Also good in it’s current state.

There’s a lot of good suggestions about changes or buffs to healing, utility and elite skills. I may look at Trident skills next but water combat is a rare occasion.

Like everyone said it before.

1. Lower CD’s
2. 10 s Attunment Swap Flat CD
3. Higher Burst or higher Base HP

And an other idea that could be nice, but idk if that would be op :

Fire Grab now : 1000 DMG and 2 k dmg on Burning Foes

Fire Grab change: 1500 Dmg and allways Crit on burning enemies

(random numbers just to explain my idea).

Dolores.5471:

I had this crazy idea the other day when thinking of how to make eles less dependent on arcana. Along with making elemental attunement baseline, as its already been suggested, why don’t we divide the evasive arcana trait into 4 minor traits spread on the other trait lines? It has always seemed a little odd to me how other classes get “on dodge” traits so easily and ele has to spend 30 points for it.

Anet could make it so that for example, an adept trait in the water trait line granted cleansing wave when dodging in water attunement, same on earth, fire and wind for their respective effects. That way we could pick which effects of evasive arcana we wanted and possibly save points to diversify/strengthen our builds… Was this ever suggested before? Is it too crazy/op?

+1

and maybe give a fire an explosion finisher and air change the blind into a 1s daze or something like this.

(and sry for my bad english its not my main language)

Taal.2913:

A lot of good suggestions for D/D and Traits. So I’ll focus mainly on Staff.

Fire Attunement:

• Fireball – projectile speed should be increased since it travels so slow and easy to dodge.
• Lava Font – The delay on its initial damage should be removed. An increase in either duration (up to 5 sec) or radius (to 180 and 240 w/ blasting staff).
• Flame Burst – Up the base damage of burning to 1700-1800.
• Burning Retreat – Be able to control its direction just like you would a normal dodge. It would add more to our survivability.
• Meteor Shower – Increase the number of meteors to 28 up from 24. In turn that ups the damage a bit.

Water Attunement:

• Water Blast – Up the base damage to 150 and the base heal to 400 maybe but dont have much of an idea for this one.
• Ice Spike – Reduce the delay to 1.5 sec. There is about a 2.5 sec delay from the spike forming and dropping on target. Add Combo Finisher: Blast to it(nice to have another one besides Eruption).
• Geyser – Increase duration to 3 sec up from 2. Decrease cast time to 1/2 sec down from 3/4.
• Frozen Ground and Healing Rain- I think these are good the way they are.

Lightning Attunement:

• Chain Lightning – Increase the speed of the projectile(Lighning should not travel so slow). Reduce cast time to 1/2 sec down 3/4 sec. Maybe increase the maximum number of targets to 5 up from 3.
• Lightning Surge – Increase the radius to 180(240 with Blasting Staff) up from 120(180).
• Gust – Make it more conal because this seldom hits it’s target.
• Windborne Speed – It is good they way it is maybe increase the swiftness granted to 15 sec up from 13.
• Static Field – This one is good the way it is.

Earth Attunement:

• Stoning – It is fine in it’s current state.
• Eruption – Add 2 to 3 sec of cripple from when it starts to from on the ground.
• Magnetic Aura – Increase duration to 6 sec up from 5.
• Unsteady Ground – Like Ring of Warding give it a radius 120(180 with Blasting Staff) and Combo Field: Smoke. Adds a new dynamic to Eles
• Shock Wave – Also good in it’s current state.

There’s a lot of good suggestions about changes or buffs to healing, utility and elite skills. I may look at Trident skills next but water combat is a rare occasion.

These changes are great for staff. A few things:

• Not sure about Unsteady Ground becoming a Smoke Field. I’d love for it to Blind and all, but Smoke Fields lead to Stealth, which is something that just grates against my perceptions of Ele for some reason. Then again, it’s not entirely unprecedented for Elementalist; as Earth 5 on Trident (underwater) does have a Smoke Field.
• Chain Lightning needs to have its projectile speed increased, certainly. But I feel that dividing up the damage between 5 targets is going to make it a little too AOE. It would definitely make Air extremely bad in 1v1 scenarios. Fireball and Stoning would pretty much be all we have left. I would only support this if the first hit did 50-60% of the total possible damage, and the remaining bounces were split accordingly.
• Gust absolutely needs to become a cone AOE like Illusionary Wave . I wouldn’t even mind a range nerf; I just want the ability to reliably self-peel.
• Ice Spike becoming a Blast Finisher: Absolutely. Staff is so Field Heavy and finisher weak that it is quite ridiculous. Would force Elementalists to choose between utility (blasts) and DPS (vulnerability stacks); but more Blasts = more better.
• Lava Font no delay: Yes. The frontloaded damage must be decreased if this is to happen though. As it is, Lava Font already forces dodges.
• Flame Burst: Personally I’d just reduce its burning duration and instead introduce direct damage. Make it a skillshot to justify the increase in damage.
• Burning Retreat: Give it Whirlwind Attack’s targeting reticule . The teensy AOE of the fire field is easily sidestepped and gap closers ignore it entirely. I mean, yes, I can do a 180 turn to retreat forwards, but more control over these things can never go amiss.

1: The very first thing to change is the health pools, all classes should have the same health pool. I find Mesmer, Ranger, and Engineer being the prime spot to stick all classes, they always seemed the most balanced base to start with. I could never understand that 8k gap between lowest and highest HP. Maybe it was an oversight of numbers where the lowest base health pool was suppost to have the highest vit and vice versa?

2: Ride the Lightning – Since the 1550 range is what was giving us that massive mobility you nerfed it with a dual cooldown that hurts the skill more then helps it. I say you either fix the CD when used against blocks, evades, blinds, and other random variables that make it go on 40cd or remove the dual CD. Or if you want to keep it, add the dual cooldown to Warrior skills. As well since I am on the topic of RtL, maybe add immunity to Immobilize or stick a trigger to take you out of RtL if you get immobilized while in it. To many times have I did the first jump to be sitting there watching the DPS hit me for the other three with nothing possible to prevent it. It will even ignore your AoE and Final Shielding traits if you have them if you get DPSed in RtL form.

3. Chill affecting attunement swapping – From my experience with the other classes I have never seen it affect how long I have to swap to my next weapon set when I was chilled, why does ele get the 66% longer cooldown on their weapon swaps when chilled? I am fine with skills and utilites, but unless we have 30 into water and are running cantrips grant regen we are screwed at this point till it wears off.

PS: And loving that 20s chill on theif steal, and you said we are the ones that can apply the most. With that skill alone they can apply more on us then we can on them. Though yes it does require an enemy ele present. It is the one reason I tend to win more often as at theif in sPvP duals with eles.

Low vitality should = higher damage.

This sadly isn’t the case.

phaeris.7604:

Low vitality should = higher damage.

This sadly isn’t the case.

low vitality is not the problem (just look at Guardian for reference)
our problem is SUSTAIN, which is a different thing.

I would like to see ele scepter auto attack damage match other weapons we have. It’s kind of ridiculous that healing sig warriors can completely mitigate auto attack damage with a passive heal. I know HS is getting adjusted, but it’s still not where it should be.

Dolores.5471:

I had this crazy idea the other day when thinking of how to make eles less dependent on arcana. Along with making elemental attunement baseline, as its already been suggested, why don’t we divide the evasive arcana trait into 4 minor traits spread on the other trait lines? It has always seemed a little odd to me how other classes get “on dodge” traits so easily and ele has to spend 30 points for it.

Anet could make it so that for example, an adept trait in the water trait line granted cleansing wave when dodging in water attunement, same on earth, fire and wind for their respective effects. That way we could pick which effects of evasive arcana we wanted and possibly save points to diversify/strengthen our builds… Was this ever suggested before? Is it too crazy/op?

+1

Well in PVE I like the build diversity and play styles quite a bit. We are in a very good place pve wise.

As for pvp, we are the most squishie class, locked into either range or melee, have huge cooldowns and bad projectile defense, bad cleansings, bad conditions, lackluster CC abilities, the attument swapping is also very punishing.

So the attument swap recharge rates and in general cooldowns should be greatly reduced. Would have to find another stat for arcana though. Also the idea of making elemental attument baseline and build evasive arcana separately in minor traits appeals.

Weapon skills should grant more build in or when traited defensive options and control, thus some form of stability/cures/aegis/dodge ( like burning speed)/stuns or chills. For example wall of earth in staff could now also block projectiles, or another example ring of fire cures conditions in a persisting flame type effect. Add a type of cleansing aura when traited for water. Stuff like that.

Utility wise: Cantrips are fine, mist form/lightning flash/ armor of earth/ arcane shield are all very strong abilities. The problem is the rate at which we need to burn them to stay alive, it is ridiculous. Low inherent defense in the trait lines/weapon skills and base value of stats and large cooldowns in general ( focus comes to mind) and high attument recharge rates means we burn our utilities like other classes burn their auto attacks.

Basically our attument swapping and build in defensive/controlling options need some love. Or our practical damage/condition damage needs to be boosted in return. However playing one of the most squishie classes and still have lackluster damage outputs, no control skills nor any decent defensive skills for party members makes little sense to me.

Weapon skills: Insane cool downs
Utilities: Average, compared to other classes and insane cool downs
Elites: VERY poor and insane cool downs.

I think Each Attunement should buff specific stats as part of the class mechanic:
Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Critical Damge, Power or Precision
Water: Healing Power
Earth: Toughness

From a D/D Ele point of view. D/D i think should get Water Field on Cleansing Wave, it is INSANELY weak for a 40second cool down skill. I would say drop the cool down to 30seceonds and add a Water Field.

Fire Skills:
Drakes Breath: Turn The burning in to a intensity stacking condition for Ele. We have very little access to conditions and i think this change would be a great one for the class. The cool down might need to be buffed a bit though

Burning Speed: Keep the new Evade aspect, add in leap Finisher.

Ring of Fire: Give it a condition removal aspect, 1 condition removed on entering/exiting the ring and another condition removed every second you stay inside the ring.

Fire Grab: Change it. Make it so that it REMOVES burning but does say 50% of that Burnings damage added onto the current aspect

Air:

Lightening Touch: Its okay in my opinion.

Shocking Aura: remove the ICD. Inflicts 1 stack of Weakness/Confusion every time a player is stunned

Ride The Lightening: Unnerf. Make it 20 seconds base cast, 15seconds if you hit someone. Make the Impact on a player a blast finisher as well.

Updraft: Decrease cool down to 30seconds, Increase Launch from 200 to 400

Water:

Cone of Cold: Up the healing done.

Frozen Burst: Increase the radius a tad.

Forst Aura: Reduce the cool down to 30seconds. Remove the ICD and make it so that it heals the Ele and near by allies when they get hit while this is up.

Cleansing Wave: Reduce the cool dwon to 30seconds. Increase the Healing a tad. Add a Water Field that grants 3seconds of regen every second, lasts 4 seconds.

Earth:

Ring of Earth: Add Poison. Make it a Poison Field.

Magnetic Grasp: Increase Immobilize. Increase projectile speed.

Earthquake: Reduce to 30seconds. Increase Knockdown from 2 to 3 seconds.

Churning Earth: Increase Cripple duration from each tick from 1 to 3 seconds. Decrease the cast time from 3 and 1/4 seconds to 2 seconds.

I play ele since start of game. As a staf elementalist when i cast Meteor shower in wvw for example have to gain Arcane Shield 1 or will never be able to cast that aoe spell because of too much damage on me and because of SUPER SLOW casting time.
Do something about this slow casting time. CD time of Meteor shower is too long too. Most helpful support elementalist skill is most slower casting

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Forst Aura: Reduce the cool down to 30seconds. Remove the ICD and make it so that it heals the Ele and near by allies when they get hit while this is up.

There is one problem with that suggestion a group of 5 Elementalist will be able to keep that up permanently with powerful aura on each other and would make it a little to over powered.
Don’t get me wrong I’m all up for buffing Ele’s but not so big of a buff that we need to be nerfed again for another year straight just to get some tiny love a little later.

Here’s what I might change
Updraft – increase the radius/range to 300 from 180.
Earthquake – make it ground-targetable (450 range) and increase its base damage by X amount. (just so it fits the description of dealing “massive damage.” Ring of Earth does about 5% more damage than earthquake atm… not a big buff…but for how long of a cool down it has, it should be stronger)

Churning Earth – lower the cast time. maybe 2.5 secs or 2.75 from 3.25
Vapor Blade – lowered cast time to 1/4 seconds or insta-cast from 1/2
Dragon’s Claw – increase the size of each individual projectile and increase the range by 50…(maybe)
Impale – reduce cast time to 1/2

Magnetic Wave – functions as an aura now. Also dazes nearby foes for 1 second upon activation. (when traited with Powerful Aura, only the reflection aura is applied to allies. does not clear 3 conditions from allies)
Magnetic Grasp – changed the 2nd functionality to a pull rather than leaping to your target.
Freezing Gust – range reduced to 600 from 900. this skill now has a knock-back of 300.
Cleansing Wave – add a knock-back radius of 130
Burning Retreat – this skill now cures chill.
Swirling Winds – update so that it destroys all projectiles. Unblockable including.
Foes entering the area are inflicted with weakness and are crippled.

Glyph of Renewal – cast time reduced to 3 seconds from 3.25; Renewal of Earth’s radius increased to 240 up from 180.

Fiery Greatsword – update the auto attack animation to make it resemble the guardians Shield of Judgment animation or make each fireball hit reliably

Ancient Ranger.3276:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Forst Aura: Reduce the cool down to 30seconds. Remove the ICD and make it so that it heals the Ele and near by allies when they get hit while this is up.

There is one problem with that suggestion a group of 5 Elementalist will be able to keep that up permanently with powerful aura on each other and would make it a little to over powered.
Don’t get me wrong I’m all up for buffing Ele’s but not so big of a buff that we need to be nerfed again for another year straight just to get some tiny love a little later.

An easy fix: Healing only applies to the ele that uses the skill. Any shared aura only gets the current version of Frost Aura. minus the removal of the ICD of course.

BOOM. sorted. Nothing Overpowered what so ever.

I could make a huge post on here talking about my opinions but I don’t think my voice matters or will ever be heard so I’ll keep it simple and if people want me to elaborate then I will.

I would like a good trait reworking is in order with an emphasis on condition damage with some cross attunement synergies. Having say “a trait in earth magic effect all ground targeted skills, maybe adding poison or confusion to them” or something like that.

Another idea that’s interesting to me would be traits that add an effect on burst, so at the end of burning speed, or flame burst, or lightning strike. (instead of the “effect on crit” that seems so prevalent). Or effect on AoE’s like Cleansing Wave or Earthquake.

Idk.. these are just my thoughts

Trait Wise i think the class needs a bit more work as well. I would like to see each Attunement given a proper role. For me it would have to be:

Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Direct/Burst damage
Water: Healing
Earth: Defense

They could achieve this in various ways.

Fire:

Minors
Flame Barrier – Increase Proc chance to 50%, Increase Burning to 2seconds.
Sunspot – Increase Damage and have it inflict Burning for 3 seconds to all affected
Burning Rage: Changed to 25% Increased Burning Damage

Adapt
Lava Tomb – Remove. I hate traits that require you to go down to be work
Conjurer – increase charge to 15, add Auto attacks don’t remove charge
Embers Might – Fine. No need for change
Spell Slinger – Fine(?) Don’t use Cantrip builds but seems okay
Burning Precision – Increase Proc chance to 50%, Increase duration to 3seconds
Internal Fire – Change to Increase Condition damage by 10% while in Fire

Master
Pyromancer’s Alacrity – Inflicting Burning on targets removes a condition from yourself. 5second cool down. Keeps current effects as well.
Burning Fire – Reduce Cool down to 30seconds. Burning Inflicted is increased by more conditions that are removed
Fire’s Embrace – Arcane Skills also proc Shield. Duration increased to 5 seconds. Burning Increased to 3 seconds. No ICD
One With Fire – Replace with something else.

Grandmaster:
Persisting Flame – Also grants 5 stacks of Might for 10seconds. Fire Field increased duration by 5 seconds.

Pryomancer’s Puissance – Increase Might Duration. Currently it stacks to about 7/8 currently, that isnt Grandmaster quality. Engineer has a Master Level trait that also increases Toughness when using Flamethrower that gives more.

Air:

Minors
Zephyrs Speed – Seems okay. Nothing to amazing about it.
Electric Discharge – Great Trait.
Weak Spot – Very Solid trait.

Adapt:
Zephyrs Boon – Solid trait. I do wish Protection from the Earth one was combined with this though into just 1 trait.
Zephyrs Focus – Decent Trait.
Quick Glyphs – Solid trait again
One With Air – Increase Super Speed to 2 1/2 seconds.
Soothing Winds – Increase to 10%

Master:
bolt To The Heart: Solid Trait. About right for a Master
Arcane Lightening: Increase to to 25% and Make it stack.
Inscription – Protection duration increased to 5seconds.
Aeromancer’s Alacrity – 25% chance on Crit to inflict Weakness added to its current effects.
Air Training: Solid. Maybe increase to 15%

Grandmaster:
Tempest Defense – Reduce cool down to 5seconds. Remove ICD on stun.
Fresh Air: Great trait.

(Will do the other 3 trait lines in another post)

THIS:

Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Direct/Burst damage
Water: Healing
Earth: Defense

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

Mattmatt.4962:

THIS:

Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Direct/Burst damage
Water: Healing
Earth: Defense

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

Agreed.

Ash has one goal in GW2 and that’s to make his specific D/D build super powered. All his suggestions are aimed at achieving that goal. If there’s an aspect of Elementalist that doesn’t help his build, he wants to change it (at the detriment of other builds).

Mattmatt.4962:

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

It is pretty much that way as it is. All this would do is actually give you a stat boost depending on the attunement you are in.

Already you go Air for Damage, it beats Fire damage already and you go Water for heals and and such so a boost here to healing power would be you know kind of obvious. You go Earth depending on your weapon set for defense, i mean after all you take 5 points in Earth you get more toughness anyway.

I think this is how they wanted the class to actually be. They just havent done enough to make it so you can decide what you want to build around, bar damage in which case you would go Fresh Air trait and go Air.

SO this change would pretty much make it so that the attunements actually have a reason and give you a bonus for what ever you would like to use. Why is it that only Earth should give you a buff and even then cost you 5trait points? It is clear they have a specific role in mind for each attunement, they just sorta gave up mid-design.

Surely “we” is totally wrong. You are assuming that EVERY ele thinks the same as you. This simply is wrong. With this change you wouldn’t need to spec into anything to get the benefit. You would get the added stats as part of the class mechanic.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mattmatt.4962:

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

It is pretty much that way as it is. All this would do is actually give you a stat boost depending on the attunement you are in.

Already you go Air for Damage, it beats Fire damage already and you go Water for heals and and such so a boost here to healing power would be you know kind of obvious. You go Earth depending on your weapon set for defense, i mean after all you take 5 points in Earth you get more toughness anyway.

I think this is how they wanted the class to actually be. They just havent done enough to make it so you can decide what you want to build around, bar damage in which case you would go Fresh Air trait and go Air.

SO this change would pretty much make it so that the attunements actually have a reason and give you a bonus for what ever you would like to use. Why is it that only Earth should give you a buff and even then cost you 5trait points? It is clear they have a specific role in mind for each attunement, they just sorta gave up mid-design.

Surely “we” is totally wrong. You are assuming that EVERY ele thinks the same as you. This simply is wrong. With this change you wouldn’t need to spec into anything to get the benefit. You would get the added stats as part of the class mechanic.

Actually, I tend to cleave to the views of MattMatt in that the current trait design of Elementalist is flawed, with a too-rigid split of Offense and Defense that leaves Build diversity out in the cold.

If you recall Elementalist before the nerfs, most “discovered” builds at the time were all essentially variations on the one build – 10+ in Air, 30+ in Arcana, with the remaining 10-30 points put into Water and/or Earth for defense.

• For D/D: 0/10/0/30/30 Auramancy; all 3 healing options usable. Later dropped in favour of same trait distribution but instead relying on Might Stacking through Sigil of Battle and Boon Duration runes and Cleansing Water/Bountiful Power. Triple Cantrip favoured, but other utilities optional.

• For D/D, S/D: 0/10/10/20/30 or 0/20/10/10/30 or 0/15/10/15/30: A more offensive variation that became available once Stone Splinters was made less situational. Triple Cantrip was de jour. Conditions were not as out of hand back then; nor were Grenadier Engineers, so the build was plenty survivable in the context of the time.

You will note that at all points, 30 in Arcana was considered to be optimal. Even when Fresh Air was introduced, 30 points was considered the best as any less would be sacrificing other Attunements. Conditions were becoming more of an issue now that Engineers and Necromancers were both going condition builds, so Ether Renewal found a way into builds especially since the channel time was reduced.

Water and Arcana were nerfed repeatedly throughout this time, with the final nail in the coffin coming in December 2013. Elementalist was now essentially Thief without Stealth, relying almost entirely on Fresh Air burst and still being shut down by Thieves as well as condition classes.

Now that Elementalists lacked reliable cleanses 10 points deep in Water and heck, the newest source, Burning Fire required 20 points in Fire and a useless Adept slot – matchups were extremely unfavourable, especially given that Fresh Air was now mandatory for enough DPS to kill Warriors.

The whole issue has been the fact that Elementalists lack Condition defense outside of Water (and no, Diamond Skin is not condition defense).

As for Toughness, PvE and WvW Elementalists can slot enough to survive burst damage and indeed, their build diversity is larger there. But in PVP, Valkyrie’s amulet can no longer provide enough DPS to kill Warriors nor the Vitality to survive Conditions whilst at the same time, Thieves still train down Elementalists.

If Elementalist is to have build variety – and I do mean true build variety outside of going 20+ in Water, 20+ in Arcana and calling it a day, then the current design of condition defense in Water, attunement procs in Arcana, Direct Damage in Air, Defense in Earth, Burning in Fire – must be abandoned for continued diversification of these functions throughout all trait trees.

Anything less is still going to make Elementalists put 40+ points in Water and Arcana because otherwise the resulting builds are too glassy to survive.

Build variety means nothing, that isn’t the current problem with the class so that shouldn’t be what is concentrated on. Most people go into Earth, Water and Arcana for defense.

I mean even with ,1700 toughness i am still taking 12k+ Backstabs…
Until we are able to actually FIGHT someone without being burst down in seconds even when we are built for defense, build variety won’t change.

Arcana is used more for the attunement cool down reduction than it is anything else, sure it has some great traits in it but even if they weren’t there people would still be putting 20+ points into it just to have a more reasonable cool down on attunements

The class needs a lot of work to really get it up to the standard of other classes both in WvW and in S/TPvP. Being forced to trait and build to counter the disadvantage that we start out with says it all. We were like a sort of Magical Thief, great damage and burst but easily killed if we made mistakes but with all the nerfs we are now pretty much a squishy thief without the damage or defense.

Sure, you get some insane burst eles but, they are not insane because the build is great or they are good – its the gear. Exo to Ascended/Legendary is a HUGE upgrade when it comes to Ele.

I have seen people melt people and seen them get crushed when they change to Exo gear. Builds like Fresh Air are pretty much “Kill them before they kill you” a tiny mistake, a dodge at the right time, or using an Invul skill means the burst is wasted and the ele is pretty much on the back foot until they can try to chain the burst again.

I think we would have more build diversity is our Health and/armor was increased. When you consider our rather weak defensive utilities with shorter durations and longer cool downs than comparable defensive skills from other classes it makes no sense.

Sure we can go the healing route but again, we lose so much elsewhere that we would be no threat to anyone. Unlike some of these classes (Warrior, Guardian) that can build for great offense and yet still be tanky as hell

Grevender.9235:

phaeris.7604:

Low vitality should = higher damage.

This sadly isn’t the case.

low vitality is not the problem (just look at Guardian for reference)
our problem is SUSTAIN, which is a different thing.

It sure is PART of the problem. Lets keep in mind a guardian still has 5-7k+ more
HP than an ele AND wears heavy armor.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Grevender.9235:

phaeris.7604:

Low vitality should = higher damage.

This sadly isn’t the case.

low vitality is not the problem (just look at Guardian for reference)
our problem is SUSTAIN, which is a different thing.

It sure is PART of the problem. Lets keep in mind a guardian still has 5-7k+ more
HP than an ele AND wears heavy armor.

Uh…what? Guardian shares the lowest HP bracket with Elementalist at 10805 at Level 80 before traits, runes or stats from armour and/or trinkets.

Elementalist sustain did exist – it’s just that it’s been nerfed both directly with changes to condition cleanse and indirectly with bug fixes like Mistform interrupting Ether Renewal.

At this point, consideration should be paid to the weapon skills that can heal on Elementalist like Cleansing Wave, Cone of Cold, Geyser, Water Trident, Healing Rain. Removal of Regeneration on Attunement from Soothing Wave is also an issue that removes significant amounts of HPS given the low base vitality.

MonMalthias.4763:

At this point, consideration should be paid to the weapon skills that can heal on Elementalist like Cleansing Wave, Cone of Cold, Geyser, Water Trident, Healing Rain. Removal of Regeneration on Attunement from Soothing Wave is also an issue that removes significant amounts of HPS given the low base vitality.

Cleansing Wave (Dagger skill) and Cone Of Cold arent the issues. Both are rather terrible “heals” anyway. Cone of Cold isnt to bad, thanks to the lowish cool down that makes up for the rather weak healing that it gives. Cleansing Wave though is simply a joke. 40second cool down for a 1,671 heal (with 369 Healing Power) and a condition removed, all on a 40second cool down? Thats pathetic.

Going to go over Healing Skills and Some Utility Skills(mainly cantrips) this time around.

Healing Skills

• Ether Renewal – Either add 2 sec of Stability since it’s to easy to interrupt or up the base heal per pulse.
• Signet of Restoration – Up the base heal to 3,750. I think the healing per cast is fine. Reduce cast time to 3/4 down from 1 sec.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony – Reduce cool down to 20 sec down from 25 sec.
• Arcane Brilliance – Reduce cool down to 20 sec down from 25 sec.

Utilities

• Arcane Shield – Reduce cool down to 70 sec down from 75 sec. Increase the amount of attacks it can block to 5 up from 3 attacks. Maybe make each blocked attack a damage multiplier ( .02 each for a total .1)
• Armor of Earth – Reduce its cool down to 80 sec down from 90 sec. Increase the Duration(Stability and Protection) to 8 sec up from 6 sec
• Lightning Flash – Increase the range to 1000 up from 900. Reduce the cool down to 35 sec down from 40 sec
• Glyph of Elemental Power – Increase Trigger chance to 30% up from 25%

Increase charges on all conjured weapons to 18 up from 15. Duration should remain the same.

Conjured Frost Bow

• Ice Storm – Increase range to 1200 up from 900.
• Frost Volley – Increase range to 1200 up from 900.

Conjure Earth Shield

• Magnetic Surge – Increase range to 800 up from 600.
• Fortify – Increase duration to 5 sec up from 3 sec.

Conjure Flame Axe

• Burning Retreat – Should be able to control it’s direction.
• Flame Leap – Increase range to 600 up from 550.

Conjure Lightning Hammer

• Lightning Storm – Increase base damage to 270 up from 163.

Lastly Elite Skills:

Torando – Add a forth and fifth skill.

• Blizzard or Frost Tornado – A lesser version of Frozen Burst but with a cool down of 20 sec.
• Wild Fire or Flame Tornado – A lesser version of Ring of Fire but with a cool down of 30 sec.

Glyph of Elementals

• Baseline health and stats should be adjusted according to a percentage of the summoners.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword

• Reduce its cool down to 160 sec down from180 sec.
• Firestorm – Increase range up to 900 up from 600.
• Fiery Rush – Add Burning: 2 sec (656 Damage), Evade: 1 sec

The Game Slayer.7632:

1- Make elemental attunement baseline , with the trait making it aoe to your team mates.
2- Revert RTL. The range nerf alone was enough, it was overdone by doubling the cooldown.
3- Fix focus. Water attunement and fire attunement specifically.

If all 3 of these things actually were changed, ele would be very balanced.

^
What this guy is saying, with extra mustard on top (by that I mean with an improvement in Staff auto-attacks casting times/speed and a weapon swap button).

Xillllix.3485:

The Game Slayer.7632:

1- Make elemental attunement baseline , with the trait making it aoe to your team mates.
2- Revert RTL. The range nerf alone was enough, it was overdone by doubling the cooldown.
3- Fix focus. Water attunement and fire attunement specifically.

If all 3 of these things actually were changed, ele would be very balanced.

^
What this guy is saying, with extra mustard on top (by that I mean with an improvement in Staff auto-attacks casting times/speed and a weapon swap button).

I actually think that Elemental Attunement becoming folded into Arcane Fury or Lingering Elements with a Master Trait making the boons AOE would be better because some investment into Arcana should be encouraged. Arcane Fury getting Elemental Attunement’s functionality would be especially nice, and it gives a clear source of the boons without the pre-existing Boon duration to make uptimes of Protection or Fury OP.

As for RTL, 15/30 or even 15/25 would be favourable now that the bug has been fixed and mobility of Elementalist has been far surpassed by Thief and even Warrior with GS.

Staff autoattack projectile speeds should absolutely be increased and should be the first fix before any other changes to Staff occur.

In my PvE experience, survivability is the key issue, period. It may be imbalancing to have Elementalist damage much higher, but the current trade off in sub par survivability is absurd.

1) Get rid of the duration on both Glyphs of Elementals, but only allow one up at a time. Also, give them on-demand abilities in addition to their regular abilities. Use the Necro pets as a reference for cooldowns.

- Don’t think Elementalists should be more pet-heavy? Well, just compare their survivability to Necros and Mesmers, both of whom have all kinds of pet options. The Escape from LA event has highlighted how squishy my Elementalist is in the face of multiple fast repops, which are all too common in this game. My other light armor class characters do much, much better.

2) Elemental Attunement should be slightly buffed from its former status, not nerfed. As others suggest, make it a base ability for self; but, applying it to party members as an AE should merely require its former cost – an Adept trait. There was no valid justification offered for the nerf by Anet, just that it seemed too good. No, it’s not that good – Elementalists were otherwise just that bad.

3) Increase base health to Mesmer levels. The base survivability cannot be cured through weapons or utilities; the fundamentals are flawed.

Even if all three were implemented, it probably wouldn’t be enough. To be honest, the class is so bad my buddy, who loves playing traditional mages, has left the game in disgust. All the pretty graphics mean nothing when you have to frantically button mash just to stay alive and do the same damage as other classes who have a more relaxing time. Risk/Effort > < Reward.

1. Make every grandmaster trait well worth it (looking at puissance, powerful aura, tempest defense, diamond skin, elemental surge. etc. mainly)

2. Buff certain abilities. (gale, flamewall, water focus #4, lightning surge, dagger fire autoattack, earth dagger autoattack, every scepter autoattack, shatterstone, fire grab, etc.). Some need cooldown buffs, others need cast time buffs, others need usability buffs and others need complete revamps or dramatically increased numbers.

3. Buff the elemental elite and delete tornado. add a new one (Idea: refresh all attunements cds and also reduce all the attunement cooldown by 100% for 8 seconds).

4. Revert RtL to 20 seconds CD but change its functionality into a normal charge. Let it be affected by chills and cripple and don’t block ele’s healing and utility bar while casting it.

5. Chill doesn’t affect the cooldown recharge rate.

6. Some other traits need fixing, but I won’t go in depth.

I mean I haven’t gone in depth in any of the previous ones either, it’s just too complex to propose changes without revamping the class to my liking, and I don’t wanna do that either.

Father Grimm.8467:

To be honest, the class is so bad my buddy, who loves playing traditional mages, has left the game in disgust.

The class isn’t bad. It just takes more finesse than the other ones. Eles have the least room for error out of any class in the game. I think it would go like this:

Which classes are allowed to blatantly mess up, and get away with it?

1. Warrior
2. Thief
3. Guardian
4. Engineer
5. Necromancer
6. Mesmer
7. Ranger
8. Elementalist

IMO, Ele is too inflexible, due to high trait line and utility imbalances: arcane/water are essentially mandatory as far as I’m concerned, utilities outside of cantrips and arcane are horrible. So:

1) Solve the water/arcane problem — make a caster-only version of Elemental attunement baseline, with a trait to restore the AOE version, with the 15 water and soothing mist traits switched.
2) Balance the utilities — signets, glyphs and conjures all need a serious rethink. signet skills need buffs, glyphs need new trait(s) and glyph of elementals reimplemented, conjures need a mechanics change.
2) Thorough trait line review & improvement, not merely swapping them around — loads of really useless traits, earth

Razor.6392:

Which classes are allowed to blatantly mess up, and get away with it?

1. Warrior
2. Thief
3. Guardian
4. Engineer
5. Necromancer
6. Mesmer
7. Ranger
8. Elementalist

Every single one of them can mess up and get away with it if built for it.

If warriors used a zerk build, they’ll die just as much as an ele can. Actually, they’ll die harder.

Here’s my list,

Utilities:

- Make all Signets instant casts.
- Lower cooldown on Arcane Shield to 40sec and Arcane Power to 30sec.
- Make all Conjure Weapon skills appear instant with a 1sec delay on the weapon summoned for allies.

- Lower cooldown on Glyph of Storms to 25sec, lower casttime on Glyph of Renewal to 1sec, make Glyph of Lesser Elemental + Glyph of Greater Elemental scale with your power/toughness/vitality/precision.

- Lower cooldown on Lightning Flash to 20sec, Cleansing Fire 30sec, Armor Of Earth 40sec and Mist Form 40sec.

Reason for utility changes:

- Signets

The Elementalists singets are extremly subpar to other proffesions signets and making them instant casts would maybe open up new build options with traits like “Fire’s Embrace”

- Arcane

Arcane Shield is a elementalist trademark and is highly used in all aspects of the game lowering the cooldown would further our defensive capabilities which is highly needed especially since this skill aint a cantrip!
Arcane power is a tricky one it’s mostly used in Staff builds since Staff is the only weapon that really benefit from this skill and making Staff more viable is something I know Arena Net wants too.

- Conjure Weapon

Here’s another trademark of the elementalist, our conjurations! Conjure Weapon is so close to becoming a very good skill especially the Frost Bow and by making these skills instant cast you can really make some intresting play with them.

Maybe reworking some of the conjurations skills would serve us good aswell, thinking of Earth Shield, Flame Axe and Lightning Hammer. The Hammer if good for PvE as is but not quite home in PvP yet.

- Glyphs

Glyphs were intented to be elementalist trademark skills by the looks of it but is currently our worst skills. Glyphs are highly underused and are in dire need of some rework. My suggestions are to lower cooldowns and make them more apealing for offensive use since we already have other utilities to serve as defensive skills.

- Cantrips

Cantrips are by far our best skills but I seriously think they need lower cooldown and the main reason is this:

Lightning Flash compared with→

- Shadow Step (Thief) 50sec CD, stunbreak removes 3 conditions two flashes, one -breaking stun one removing conditions.
- Infiltrator’s Signet (Thief) 30sec CD stunbreak passive effect and easily combined with strong instant attacks.
- Blink (Mesmer) 30sec CD stunbreak.

Cleansing Fire compared with→

- Arcane Thievery (Mesmer) 45sec CD not only removes all our current conditions but also steal your targets boons.
- Elixir C (Engineer) 40sec CD convert all current conditons into boons.
- Shadow Step (Thief) yet agian.
- Shake it Off (Warrior) 25sec CD stunbreak condition remove partywide
- Berserker Stance (Warrior) 60sec CD condition imunnity for 8sec

Armor Of Earth compared with→

- Stand Your Ground! (Guardian) 30sec CD stunbreak partywide stability and retaliation
- Protect Me (Ranger) 60sec CD stunbreak damage imunnity for 6sec (As long your current pet is able to survive)
- Balanced Stance (Warrior) 40sec CD stunbreak 8sec stability and swiftness

Mist Form is elementalist specific and had it glorydays but now is deemed useless by meny.

These are my opinions feel free to criticis!

runeblade.7514:

Lightning Flash compared with->

- Shadow Step (Thief) 50sec CD, stunbreak removes 3 conditions two flashes, one -breaking stun one removing conditions.
- Infiltrator’s Signet (Thief) 30sec CD stunbreak passive effect and easily combined with strong instant attacks.
- Blink (Mesmer) 30sec CD stunbreak.

Cleansing Fire compared with->

- Arcane Thievery (Mesmer) 45sec CD not only removes all our current conditions but also steal your targets boons.
- Elixir C (Engineer) 40sec CD convert all current conditons into boons.
- Shadow Step (Thief) yet agian.
- Shake it Off (Warrior) 25sec CD stunbreak condition remove partywide
- Berserker Stance (Warrior) 60sec CD condition imunnity for 8sec

Armor Of Earth compared with->

- Stand Your Ground! (Guardian) 30sec CD stunbreak partywide stability and retaliation
- Protect Me (Ranger) 60sec CD stunbreak damage imunnity for 6sec (As long your current pet is able to survive)
- Balanced Stance (Warrior) 40sec CD stunbreak 8sec stability and swiftness

Mist Form is elementalist specific and had it glorydays but now is deemed useless by meny.

This is our biggest problem. Our utilities are not only weaker than comparable skills of other classes but have MUCH higher cool downs as well. Mist form can be compared to any Invul skill, which again is weaker than all others lower duration, no special effects (bar increased movement speed), longer cool down and in the case against certain ones we get locked out of heal, utilities and elite while theres doesnt….

A net I look forward to working with you.

Another thing that i would like to see:

Shocking Aura: Great against Melee, useless against Range.

I would add a projectile reflection into it for its short duration. Plenty of skills on other classes have this, so this wouldn’t be overpowered or anything and would make using it against ranged weapons much more helpful. Because currently it doesnt stun/daze them or anything.

1) Raise base health pool or raise overall damage. No reason why a warrior for instance in tanky based armor and tanky traits still hits harder with hammer auto attacks then a ele in a full glass cannon build.
2) Cooldown reductions across the board but most specifically ride the lightning. RTL is the only skill in game that punishes you when you use it as a mobility skill to create distance or run from a zerg. In comparison warrior savage leap 8 seconds cd whirlwind 10 seconds cd rush 20 seconds cd. None of them require you to hit a target.
3)Make the healing skills useful. I feel these are the worst heal skills by far of any class. Singet of restoration you have to cast a spell to get roughly half of what a warrior does passively on healing singet. Ether of renewal takes way to long to cast to get less healing then every other burst heal in the game pretty much. Arcane brilliance requires you to hit 5 enemies to get again less healing then most burst heals in the game.

1. More natural defense abilities from weapon sets/traits.
2. Buff focus to be capable as a replacement for cantrips:
Fire shield – buff it by removing the internal cooldown and reduce the cd or enable it to purge a condition when the enemy hits you(removing the might stacking aspect of it). Gale – reduce cd. Freezing Gust – add condition can not do direct damage target with a boon. Comet – increase AE.
3. Glyphs need some kind of buff. Glyph of renewal – reduce casting time, increase the duration of the fire attunement renewal. Glyph of Elemental Power – Improve proc rate. Glyph of elementals – add a on use effect base on the type of elemental summoned.

I find it kind of funny how everyone wants a buff to damage to all our skills and auto attacks, but no one will bring up the fiery rush+lightning flash bug. It is beyond a “crazy wombo combo” and is incredibly overpowered. While I think it needs to be fixed regardless of whatever buffs/nerfs ele gets, it most definitely needs to be fixed if our damage output is increased in any way. I know no one wants their OP combo removed, (I still see people whining about the ether renewal+mist form combo, which was also OP) but those who do not want it removed are incredibly biased towards ele. I love the elementalist class to death and have mained ele since prerelease so please don’t assume I main another class.

Here are some changes I posted in another thread:

1. First and foremost, please fix the FGS rush+lightning flash bug. It’s incredibly overpowered.
2. Magnetic current, trident earth 3, is really, really broken. Pretty much all skills on trident are ranged, why would you want to pull yourself to your foe? And worst of all, it ministuns you! You are locked out of all your skills besides your 3 utilities and attunement swaps for a whopping 1.5 seconds. It even counts as a stun because you can use a stunbreak to get your skills off CD. I believe this is the most hindering skill in the entire game. I don’t think any other skills make you stun yourself. This skill should be removed altogether and replaced with something else.
3. Forked lightning, trident air autoattack, misses at point blank like 50% of the time.
4. Shatterstone, sceptre water 2, is not very good. Not only does it have a 1s cast time, you also have to wait 2s afterwards for it to burst for 4 vuln stacks. This isn’t as big of a deal, but it is a skill that just isn’t worth using in PvE. At least remove the 2s it takes to explode.
5. Fire shield, focus fire 5, is also pretty bad. The only good thing about it is it has no cast time. You get one stack of might every time you are struck. As an ele, you never want to be hit, especially for one measly stack of might and 1s of burning. Eles are the kings of might stacking, so the single stack of might is never worth it. The 40s CD is also silly for such a bad skill. The only real reason to use it is if you are traited for zephyr’s boon. Maybe rework the aura entirely or replace this with another skill.

I also saw another thread about how chill affects ele’s attunement recharges, which is a valid point and I agree the increased cd from chill on our class mechanic should be removed.

I’m not sure if this change would be too much but I would really like to see swirling winds become a reflection skill instead of projectile destruction. . I know elementalist already has some reflection skills (like magnetic aura and magnetic wave), but reflection is one of the most coveted skills in PvE, and it would be a welcome change.

One other thing is I’m unsure if fire grab is supposed to be a skill shot or not, because you have to be pretty precise to land it. Is this intended?

I would want the water trait in the ele and healing power to actually be good. The Signet of Restoration skill is a complete joke too. 232 or so a heal and only 3245 or so for the actual heal? You’ll be getting hit for more a lot than that.

I’d also want to give the ele more vitality and survivability. After all, why should warriors, one of the tankiest classes in game, not only get a ton of toughness and heavy armor, but have a 27,000+ health pool as well? While ele’s get a piddly health pool and paper-thin armor. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

Just a thought.
New Grand Master trait for water magic:

Immune to conditions whilst attuned to water.

At first it does sound OP but think about it… its not like you’re going to stand around in water attunement spamming skills to face roll anyone now is it? given that most skills across all weapon sets in water attunement do very little damage or are healing skill of some type.
Second it fits the water magic tree line perfectly.
Thirdly it addresses the issue of the condition spam meta vs shallow health pool, given that you’d be able remove conditions just as quickly as classes like engi/necro etc can apply it.

In any case I can only agree with what a number of people have said for months now wrt Low HP, low damage output, low healing ability, persistent nerfs to healing and maneuverability skills not to mention irritating bugs involving lighting flash and RTL which have still not been fixed.
Anet you need to do something as this class has already become a sad joke compared to others.