Guild Wars 2

Some very, very good points so far; I’m going to edit the OP to reflect some of the suggestions here.

For the moment, I’m going to keep the Bleeding and Burning removal on the skills I specified. I’m aware that Elementalists already have plenty of condition removal, but I often feel bogged down trying to remove damage conditions AND mobility conditions at the same time; this will allow Elementalists to use Water Trident and Fire Shield to remove damaging conditions, whilst saving their more general condition removal abilities for other condition-based threats.

For those of you who are wondering why I gave Bleeding removal to Fire Shield:
1). Fire is used to cauterize wounds, thereby stopping Bleeding; this is the only fire spell besides Phoenix (which already removes conditions) that I feel could be used in this manner
2). Every single Aura besides Fire Aura has some defensive benefit; I wanted to add a defensive benefit to Fire Aura that was thematically acceptable

Greetings, all.

My previous post on this subject wandered off the beaten path a bit. Consequently, I’d like to take this as an opportunity to provide a slightly more reserved suite of suggestions for the Elementalist — suggestions that act as slight variations on pre-established themes, or provide slightly more utility.

I’d like to reiterate that I feel the class is moving in the right direction, and I trust the developers — these are just my two cents.

Feel free to discuss and critique!

Dagger:

• Burning Speed: Evades attacks while in motion
• Ride the Lightning: Evades attacks while in motion

Scepter:

• Dragon’s Tooth: Can be manually targeted
• Ice Shards: Now has a 33% chance to Chill foes for 1 second (Note: this suggestion was inspired by Leuca’s suggestion of splitting Ice Shards into a three-skill chain; though Leuca’s solution was elegant, mine is simpler and achieves a similar result, though with a degree of randomness)
• Water Trident: Removes Burning condition on allies

Focus:

• Fire Shield (effect): Removes Bleeding condition when applied (this would effect to all instances of Fire Shield, including those acquired from combo fields); duration increased from 4 to 7 seconds; Burning duration increased from 1 to 3 seconds (I would also suggest a cooldown reduction, but I don’t overstep)
• Freezing Gust: Chill duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Utility:

• Signet of Water: Recharge time reduced to 25 seconds; activation time reduced from 3/4 to 1/2; passive effect also applies a bonus to healing power that scales with level
• Glyph of Storms: Ice Storm comets strike a slightly larger area; Lightning Storm strikes inflict 5 seconds of Weakness; Firestorm strikes inflict 2 seconds of Burning

In addition to the above, I have two additional quibbles with the Elementalist in its current state:

• Fire Grab is on a very long cooldown for what it does (short-range burst). I feel it could use some love, but I have no idea what to do with it. The first thing that comes to mind is a conditional method of shortening its cooldown — but it already has a conditional method of doing more damage. It could perhaps apply a condition, but what condition besides Burning is appropriate? Alternatively, it could perhaps apply a boon, but the only one that comes to mind is Vigor or Fury. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to speak up; this is an excellent place to discuss it.

An observation of replies indicates that there seems to be a degree of consensus that the following skills need significant tweaking or redesign:

• Shatterstone
• Rock Barrier and Hurl (Personal Note: currently, the rocks that comprise Rock Barrier act as charges that are consumed all at once by Hurl; I feel that it would be interesting to consume these charges for both attack AND defense, either by hurling them one at a time OR to absorb damage from incoming attacks. For example: “Rock Barrier: Each rock absorbs 33% of a single incoming attack; when a given rock absorbs an attack in this way, that rock is destroyed.” This way, it would work like Protection that only effects five attacks)
• Staff abilities (earth)
• Freezing Gust (Personal Note: I feel it’s fine as a strictly kiting ability; most Elementalist skills are underpowered by design because, for any given weapon, Elementalists have anywhere between 8 and 20 skills available at a time)

Once again, feel free to discuss and criticize!

Truebanana.5936:

I know that there is almost nobody using focus in www (i saw something like 3-4 fighting with that in almost 1 year) and i think it’s not the best weapon for PvE.

Well, I find I prefer dagger-dagger in PvP (I use an auramancer build), but in PvE, I far prefer scepter-focus to dagger-dagger or the staff.

• Dagger-dagger forces you to get close to bosses, and Elementalists are squishy; since boss fights can happen at almost any time in PvE, running around with dagger-dagger isn’t necessarily the brightest idea, because a build that’s good with dagger-dagger is not necessarily good with scepter-focus (I use a Fresh Air build with scepter-focus).
• To me, scepter-focus is infinitely preferable to the staff in PvE. When using the staff, you use fire for damage, air and earth for control+damage, and water for healing. With scepter-focus, you use fire for AoE, air for single-target damage (plus control), water for control and healing, and earth for protection and control. I like it better — it feels like you have more options for controlling one or more opponents. Glyph of Elemental Power helps even further.

Truebanana.5936:

I want a smoke field instead of a fire wall with the focus.

Heh, my first thought was, “We aren’t Theives!” =)

How about with Unsteady Ground instead? That’s a combo field without a combo field.

Navzar.2938:

Oh sorry, I should have been more specific. When I said bump unsteady ground, I was thinking more towards increasing the damage and maybe a slight cooldown reduction since the effect is weak overall. That being said, increasing cripple works too

I don’t use staff much, but from what I remember, Unsteady Ground is primarily used not for its damage, but for area denial. Combining Cripple + lots of damage could be too good (owing to the fact that it traps you in the area), so I’m actually fine with its damage being low. On the other hand, there is nothing to keep players in a Flame Wall, so I’d prefer its damage went up. =)

mjharrison.3209:

Your suggestions are kinda OP IMO.

Could you be more specific on that? I feel the discussion could benefit from criticism, and I like smart people who disagree with me.

On to your other comments:

• sceptre fire #1 and water #1 could be retuned a little as well.

I get the impression that the #1 abilities are primarily intended to be “lite” — they are functionally autoattacks. Combining them with Glyph of Elemental Power can actually produce some profound effects (chain Weakness, Burning, and Chilled are NOT fun).

• focus needs a fair amount of love. The fire field (fire #4) could for e.g. cause burning for 4+sec instead of 1, possibly cripple for 1sec as well.

I think the entire Elementalist community is with you on the need for a Fire Shield and Flame Wall buff; the only problem with your suggestion is that Fire is typically associated with Burning, Might, or Vigor, not Crippled.

I think adding Vigor to Fire Shield might be sufficient.

• focus air #4 (swirling winds) became useless when it stopped destroying siege projectiles (IMO a poor decision), especially when earth #4 is a reflect on short CD. Air #4 could perhaps cause 3-4x stacks of confusion, a condition otherwise unavailable to Eles, in addition to current effect. Might make some kind of ?/F condi Ele viable.

I like the idea of Swirling Winds causing Confusion.

• Focus water #4 is also kinda underwhelming, a low dmg single target chill. IMO rework this skill entirely into a movement skill, e.g. a 600 range leap, like burning speed but with a chill trail effect. More than anything focus needs to provide a mobility option comparable to ride the lightning or dagger will almost always be the better option.

The way I see it, Focus #4 is designed specifically to apply a ranged Chill effect, to either catch a distant target, or prevent a distant target from closing with you. The problem is, its cooldown is currently too long, and the Chill duration too short, to do what it’s supposed to be doing. I’ve done my best to address that in the OP, though I concede it might not be enough.

Good points!

Navzar.2938:

On weapon stability sounds really strong imo. Seeing how magnetic aura is already a good skill I feel this could push it over the top. For the rest, I agree with your listing and find it quite reasonable.
For extras:
For glyph of storms I think lightning storm needs an increase on the individual strike aoe and fire storm a bit of extra damage or an occasional burn.
I think unsteady ground could use a bump similar to what you suggested for fire wall.
Lastly, as others have mentioned, fire shield needs a buff as well.

I agree with this. I’ll mention it in the OP.

Aedil.1296:

- conjure weapons as bundle like engi kits
- rework almost all traits
- give celestial some attributes for each arcane point or at least increase the damage.

I agree with the bit about Conjured weapons working like Engineer kits; adding to the OP.

Though I think some of the traits need to be looked at, I’m a little less concerned about them. Simply put: in terms of usage, abilities see more use than individual traits.

ele should have the most damage of all classes since it has the lowest armor and lowest heal, not war that has the most heal and armor toghether…will you ever understand this dear developers?

I don’t agree.

Elementalist is perhaps one of the most versatile classes in the game, with a number of options for applying conditions, dealing area-of-effect damage, applying boons, and setting up combo fields. It can act as a long-range combatant, support, or close-range DPS class (granted: Elementalists are a tad squishy).

One of the reasons I’ve stuck with Elementalist so far, despite trying out Mesmer, Necromancer, Guardian, and Ranger, is this: if you build an Elementalist correctly, and if you play it right, you can apply almost every condition and boon in the game consistently and on-demand. Elementalists may not have the most damage output for any single ability, but the net effect can be synergistic.

I’m fine with this. I far prefer my Elementalist over any of the other classes, which seem like one-button wonders.

Kamui,

I like that suggestion (also like the X reference — it’s been a LONG time since I saw one!).

I’ll add your suggestion to the OP.

Good call.

I could have sworn Unsteady Ground was a combo field, but you’re right, it’s not. =)

I’ll edit the OP to reflect this.

Greetings, all. It’s been a while, but I’m back. I’m having a lot of fun, and I feel like the Elementalist is almost where it needs to be. Nevertheless, I have a few ideas to contribute.

This thread is exactly what it says on the tin — a short wishlist regarding Elementalist skills. Feel free to agree, disagree, criticize, comment, flame, or otherwise discuss my ideas. Contributions will be added to this post via edit.

Forthwith the list!

Scepter:

• Dragon’s Tooth: Here, I actually have two wishes: the ability to manually target Dragon’s Tooth; and/or a 10-20% reduction in the delay prior to impact
• Shatterstone: I feel this ability could also use a 10-20% reduction in the delay prior to impact
• Water Trident: I would like to see this ability inflict Chilled, as well — on its own, the Scepter does not have any ability to Chill targets
• Rock Barrier (Hurl): I would like to see each rock hurled inflict 3 seconds of Crippled — on its own, the Scepter does not have any way to Cripple targets

Focus:

• Flame Wall: Though this ability functions primarily to generate combo effects, I wouldn’t mind seeing its damage increased somewhat and/or its cooldown reduced by 5 seconds
• Fire Shield: Most people seem to agree that this skill could use a buff; I feel its duration could be increased from 5 to 8 seconds, and the duration of Burning could be increased from 1 to 3 seconds; note that this would apply to Fire Auras applied from all sources (such as combo fields). If that is not sufficient, Fire Aura could also apply Vigor — although that could easily be added with a Tier 1 Fire trait.
• Freezing Gust: I feel it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to increase the Chilled duration of Freezing Gust from 3s to 5s; the addition of a small area-of-effect might justify its cooldown (which is significantly longer than that of Frozen Burst, which provides a similar effect at point-blank range).
• Comet: I think this ability could use a reduction in cooldown, from 25 to 20 seconds; a slight increase in area of effect could also work

Dagger:

• Fire Grab: I feel as though this ability could benefit from one of two things: a 5-second cooldown reduction; or a conditional method of reducing the ability’s cooldown

Staff:

• Magnetic Aura: Magnetic Aura seems a little… lackluster by comparison with Magnetic Wave; perhaps it should apply Stability for 3-5 seconds in addition to its current effects (note that this would also apply to Magnetic Auras from earth combo fields, if such existed — thanks, Ryld)
• Unsteady Ground (Courtesy of Navzar): Navzar feels this skill could use a cooldown reduction or a damage boost; though I agree on a slight cooldown reduction (on the order of 5 seconds or so), I would also consider the possibility of extending the Cripple duration from 2 seconds to 3-5 seconds. To me, Unsteady Ground is more an area-denial skill than a DPS skill — and a skill that simultaneously traps foes in an area AND does high DPS is potentially problematic.

Utility:

• Glyph of Elemental Power (WARNING: POSSIBLY OP): Now effects all attunements, instead of the attunement in which it was activated (so, after activating it, you can switch to Fire attunment for a chance to Burn things, Air attunement for a chance to cripple things, etc.). It might need to have its cooldown increased if this change is implemented.
• Glyph of Storms: This ability is wonderful, but I have two suggestions: allow Lightning Storm to apply Weakness for 5 seconds in a slightly larger area; and to slightly increase the area of effect and Chilled duration for Ice Storm
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals (courtesy of Kamui): No limited duration on the summon. Basically make them function like a Necromancer minion and keep them around until they die. In addition, have their special attack be what replaces the Glyph skill itself (Necro minions, Ranger spirits, and Guardian spirit weapons all get this) so that we can fire them on command instead of them being used randomly. Note: To implement this properly, the Elemental would need a “dismiss” command, so you could switch Elementals as necessary. Likewise, whether the Elite version of this glyph would function similarly would need to be discussed, owing to the possibility of having two permanent Elementals simultaneously. Finally, each Greater Elemental has three skills, so Kamui’s suggestion does not translate directly to the elite version of this skill. I like the spirit of the idea, which is why I included it here, but it might need a little work.

Discuss.

DISCLAIMER: I like the way things appear to be moving; the developers at ArenaNet appear to be fixing bugs and making small moves; I approve. Though I personally feel that a few imbalances remain, particularly with Scepter/Focus and Staff skills, I’m not too worried. Furthermore, I like the direction the devs are moving with conjured weapons, by allowing them to provide you with an indirect benefit.

My suggestion? Allow Elementalists to switch attunements whilst using conjured weapons, the conjured weapon replacing only the appropriate skill bar, regardless of the weapons you have equipped:

• Lava Axe/Fiery Greatsword: replaces the Fire Attunement skill bar
• Frost Bow: replaces Water Attunement skill bar
• Earth Shield: replaces Earth Attunement skill bar
• Lightning Hammer: replaces Air Attunement skill bar

I’m not sure this will work with the engine, but it’s worth a shot.

What say you?

Greetings, all.

I’d like to start by giving a shout-out to ArenaNet: in addition to quality-of-life buffs on Lightning Touch, Fire Grab, Earthquake, and Magnetic Grasp, they have also provided more critical buffs to Ring of Earth, Cone of Cold, and our downed state. The buff to Ring of Earth actually gives us exponentially greater control over a fight; the buff to Cone of Cold amplifies our support ability; and the changes to our downed state basically make it so I have some control over my fate when downed.

I got a chance to try these buffs out in WvWvW, and the effect is astronomical. Maybe I was going up against bad players, but I felt godlike, flowing from engagement to engagement and utilizing the tools I had on hand to do the job. I could damage or control opponents as necessary, and escape when outnumbered. The only class that gave me trouble was a thief who simply would not die. =)

I will now move on to my remaining two cents:

• We still might have a little ways to go — I feel a few Staff skills, some utility skills, and most Scepter/Focus skills need a tuneup like the one ArenaNet just gave Dagger/Dagger. Likewise, I feel our traits could use another pass, with emphasis on synergy and cost/benefit.
• At the same time, I feel that further progress should be made incrementally. Baby steps, ArenaNet! In this player’s opinion, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are aware of our concerns and intend to address some of them. It is my humble recommendation that you let the metagame shift and settle, then apply small tweaks here and there, gradually, to prevent a truckload of changes from tipping the metagame over the edge of a cliff.

TLDR:

• Recent changes: awesome
• There might be a ways to go before Staff and Scepter/Focus are as robust in PvP as you have made Dagger/Dagger
• Baby steps!

Sing out if you agree, folks!

On their own, auras don’t give you much of a benefit.

Sure, Shocking Aura stuns things that hit you (it’s basically an interrupt, because it doesn’t last long enough for them to hit you, and be stunned, more than once), and Magnetic Aura reflects projectiles (which is a lot of fun to use on Engineers), but they generally have long cooldowns and short uptime.

What helps is that you can trait them to apply boons, including:

• Protection
• Fury (which helps proc any on-crit traits)
• Swiftness

I should note that any traits you have that apply boons when gaining auras also work for auras acquired via a combo field. This applies for both you AND anyone who gains an aura from you.

For example: say you have that tier 1 earth trait (Elemental Shielding) that gives you Protection any time you acquire an aura. If you an acquire a fire aura by using a leap finisher through a fire field, congratulations — you gain Protection!

Likewise, if you have Elemental Shielding and a friend of yours performs a leap finisher through a fire field you created, THEY get Protection as well, along with the fire aura.

TLDR:
If you have traits that provide boons along with auras, you gain the boons no matter how you get the aura. Likewise, if you have a trait that provides boons along with auras, your friends gain the boons, too, as long as they acquire the auras from you (that is, you provide the appropriate combo field).

Any questions? =)

Thanks for the feedback, Mytheos.

To be honest: 4 seconds of auras, plus a few seconds of Swiftness, Protection, and Fury aren’t necessarily that noteworthy.

It mainly has two effects:

• Slight increase in damage output and protection
• Situational crowd control (chill or stun)

I’ve found that in small group fights against large mobs, this build acts like a force multiplier — you can generally expect to take on a somewhat larger amount of mobs with the same amount of people.

Greetings, all.

This thread is exactly what it says on the tin: it is intended as a request for constructive feedback for the build I’m using.

My build is one I came up with purely by trial-and-error. It’s a general-purpose, tanky, supporty, D/D build. Here’s what you need to know:

• Dagger/Dagger (Scepter/Dagger is also permitted)
• 10 points in Earth and Air
• 20 points in Arcane
• 30 points in Water

Traits:

• Air: Zephyr’s Boon (Auras grant Fury and Swiftness)
• Earth: Elemental Shielding (Auras grant Protection)
• Water: Cleansing Wave (condition removal on attunement to water); Cantrip Mastery (Cantrips recharge 20% faster); Powerful Aura (Auras are applied to nearby allies)
• Arcane: Elemental Attunement (gain a boon when attuning); Renewing Stamina (33% chance to gain Vigor on crit)

Alternative Water Traits (used as necessary depending on context):

• Stop Drop and Roll (remove Burning and Chilled on dodge)
• Cleansing Aura (remove a condition when applying Regeneration)

Heal:

• Signet of Restoration (natch)

Utilities:

• Armor of Earth (again, natch)
• Cleansing Flame
• Lightning Flash in PvP; Glyph of Storms in PvE

This build is strong in both solo and cooperative play. You are fairly tanky; you have a ton of boons running around, which boosts your damage output by around 10% in all attunements; your auras, to which you have access on two different attunements, give you all kinds of benefits; you can apply auras to friends if you want, giving them those same benefits; you have lots of condition removal at your fingertips; and, as a dagger-dagger specc, you have access to both control and PBAOE abilities. Also, as 1 in 3 of your crits will give you Vigor, you have reasonable defensive mobility.

My build can be found at the following web location:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#3|3|1119|3984|100|9559|4480|0|0|0|0|10|1887|0|0|10|2255|0|0|30|1684|1680|1687|20|2250|2252|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

If I can optimize this build further, let me know. It’s a little weak offensively, and the advantages of auras might be insignificant given their cooldowns.

Thanks in advance.

This thread is exactly what it says on the tin: a discussion of the properties, origin, nature, and purposes of the Elder Dragons.

What we know:

• They are the size of a small continent
• They are not strictly reptilian — skeletal, mineral, and perhaps even plant-like dragons are present
• They conform to the typical Western dragon archetype (six limbs: four legs, two wings)
• They appear as vertebrates, though whether or not the vertebrae do the same things they do in typical vertebrates (conduct nerve impulses) is unknown — they might not have any conventional anatomical analogs
• I’ve heard they eat magic, making technology the most efficient mechanism to deal with them
• Their breath profoundly twists the surrounding landscape
• They designate champions, some of which can acquire (or are given) free will
• Lore indicates that they were put to sleep because the previous civilization could not defeat them

Of course, this still leaves us with some profound lacks of information with regard to their motives, personality, and origin.

As an example: some of you may be familiar with an old-school J-RPG known as Chrono Cross. This game, too, had six rather-important dragons (though quite not so large as the Elder Dragons), each associated with an element (earth, air, fire, water, light, and shadow). Each one had its own personality and appearance: the water dragon looked like a large amphibian; the earth dragon had features reminiscent of a worm; the sky dragon had feathers. All six were scattered around the world between two different dimensions. As it turns out… ...each dragon represents one-sixth of the Dragon God, a biomechanical nature control system designed by the highly advanced Reptite denizens of a utopian alternate timeline in which the Reptites did *not* go extinct 65 million years ago; the Reptite civilization, including the Dragon God, was drawn into the Chrono Cross dimension to compensate for the introduction of a foreign object (the Chronopolis time lab, which had been sent back in time from the distant future during a failed time experiment) so early in the time stream; the Reptites warred with the high-tech denizens of Chronopolis and were eventually defeated. A supercomputer called FATE used the power of an artifact called the Frozen Flame (itself the scale of a monstrously powerful planetary parasite called Lavos, defeated in the prequel, Chrono Trigger, the events of which actually set Chrono Cross in motion by screwing up the time stream) to break the Dragon God into six pieces; later, the protagonists break FATE's control of the Frozen Flame, permitting the Dragon God to reunite... which was the Dragon God's plan all along. Believe it or not, that is a subplot.

My point is, there is room to explore the Elder Dragons further.

• Are the Elder Dragons biologically active, or are they magical constructs? If the latter: do they consume magic to keep themselves active? Does their life cycle correspond with sufficient the presence of sufficient magic to sustain them? If so, could the Gods of Tyria, in gifting magic to mortals, have contributed to the awakening of the Elder Dragons?
• Were they born or made? Are they a natural phenomena, or a deliberately constructed agent?
• Are they from Tyria, or are they extraterrestrial in origin?
• Is their ability to consume magic a selection mechanism to determine whether or not the denizens of Tyria are fit to survive? I mean, against the Elder Dragons, you only have a chance of winning if you have both high technology and the ability to cast aside petty differences and squabbles; consequently, the Elder Dragons might very well be a test to determine whether or not the denizens of Tyria are capable of both banding together and utilizing high technology for a common goal (as opposed to using technology to kill or subdue one another)
• What is the relationship between the Dragons, the Gods of Tyria (which were a tangible presence in the original Guild Wars), and the ancient giants (Giganticus lupicus)?
• What do the Elder Dragons think? Are they self-aware? Do they have plots and plans? Or are they automatons, mindlessly pursuing some mysterious objective?
• If the Elder Dragons do think, are their thoughts comprehensible to mortals, or are they wholly eldritch creatures, far beyond mortal ken?
• Does their ability to change their surroundings indicate that their purpose might be to stir things up, from an evolutionary perspective? To basically generate punctuated equilibrium, wherein a wide variety of new and diverse species appears rapidly, as though out of nowhere?

Discuss.

I’m a big fan of the “revived-when-examining-Zhaitan’s-corpse” scenario, for the following reasons:

• The fight scene, bugged or not, was really anticlimactic. I’m aware of the reasons for using high tech to defeat the dragon (it’s something people probably didn’t have last time), but STILL.
• The fight itself didn’t really fit with the dynamic nature of Guild Wars 2. Let me put it to you this way: in the final phase of the fight, you stand around, pushing one button; the rest of Guild Wars 2 is about running around and pushing every button you can!

As to those who suggest you couldn’t really fight a force of nature within the bounds of the Guild Wars 2 engine, I have eight words for you: multiphase instanced event with persistent progress until reset

Assume, as Lonami suggested above, that the adventurers descend into the depths of Arah, where Zhaitan retreated. Assume that people trying to see if he’s really dead have accidentally revived him. You are now trapped in an underground cavern with a very angry undead dragon the size of a small continent. What do you do?

Well, the good news is that since he’s fallen underground, he’s partially buried, putting a crimp in his style: he can’t hit you as hard as he wants to, he can’t fly around and pick you off. He’s also badly wounded from cannon fire, so he has lots of damaged points in his rotting armor.

You start off in a huge cavern, approaching a partially-buried Zhaitan. He lunges for you; you dodge. The ensuing fight involves predicting his attacks and dodging them, maybe fighting independent pieces of him that attack you. You do enough damage to some exposed bit and he roars, thrashes around, and retreats.

Next phase is a corridor chase. Zhaitan is retreating, pulling himself back down a corridor. You need to dodge rock from the ceiling and broken bits of him that attack you, whilst keeping up with him. The goal is to attack him when he pauses to collapse the corridor; if you fail even once, you wipe. Succeed, and he continues to withdraw.

Other elements will include platform jumping (whilst dodging Zhaitan’s attacks and minions and delivering damage) and even an underwater section.

All of them would test coordination, reflexes, and adaptability. Ideally, you’d be able to stop and resume between phases based on what you’d unlocked as a player — a group of players would be limited by the player who has the fewest phases unlocked, but a group who has done it before would be able to resume near the end (if they had to stop for a breather). This would make the event nice and long and satisfying, but manageable.

(Also, it would allow you time to farm for repair bills between phases).

@Shockwave:
Something just occurred to me in my sleep.

Maybe, just maybe, Flame Wall (and Flame Wall alone) could have an ancillary effect when it sets things on fire. So, “On inflicting Burning, applies Fury to caster and nearby allies.” Or some such.

(if you’re curious, I had a dream reminiscent of the first scene in Gladiator and remembered the rationale that those flaming arrows were supposed to be used for psychological effect).

@Eimi:
You’re absolutely right about Air having no damage, but then, I’m noticing that Air tends to double as a “control” attunement. You use it when you need to blind or knock things thing around.

As I indicated above, this thread is mainly devoted to “quality of life” suggestions and consistency for the Elementalist. Whilst some of the Elementalist’s skills may need to do more damage or have shorter cooldowns, I’m of the opinion that that judgment needs to be made on a “numbers pass” for the Elementalist — a forum post seriously comparing Elementalist DPS at 80 with other classes.

@Shockwave:
I think we might end up butting heads on this one because I feel that if Fire attunement could inflict all those conditions via Flame Wall, it would render other attunements (all of which do less damage) obsolete. Why switch to Air to inflict Weakness or Blind when you can do it with Flame Wall from Fire attunement, which puts out more damage?

The only way your suggestion would work is if you could put out Fire DPS via the Grand Master traits in every other attunement. That would balance it out: Grand Master Fire gets conditions; Grand Master Air and Earth get DPS to complement their conditions and control (Water would be the exception because it has both conditions AND healing AND condition removal built in).

But that would be a major, MAJOR change to the entire Elementalist class. A much simpler solution to this particular problem (to wit, Flame Wall sucks) would be to straight-up buff Flame Wall’s DPS. =)

@Shockwave:
You have a point.

Let’s be about this systematically. Within the Guild Wars 2 Elementalist Canono, fire does:

• Vigor
• Might
• Burning
• Damage

Currently, Flame Wall doesn’t do much damage. One option is to increase that damage.

Another option: Fear. I don’t know about you, but were I confronted by a wall of fire, I’d be terrified. But it would have to be under certain circumstances (like a combo). But the combo system is pretty well entrenched right now, so you’d have to work it in another way.

Another option is Fury, though I have no idea how you’d implement it.

One last option is condition removal, although that generally falls within the purview of Light Fields.

Of these, the most likely option is Moar Damage — which can’t hurt, given that the Elementalist is a tad low on damage right now.

I shan’t add anything to the OP without more discussion, however. What say you?

Magoslich.6857:

Understandable. If anything I really like the idea of a vigor buff on fire shield, as vigor seems like an underestimated boon that can be tricky to get.

Vigor is GODLY for Elementalists, for two reasons:

• Elementalists are squishy. As has been discussed to death, we are the squishiest class in the game in terms of base armor and health. Squishy classes like being able to dodge things. Vigor helps us dodge things more. Ergo, Vigor is great for Elementalists.
• If you swap attunements correctly, Elementalists have a HUGE number of crowd control spells that you can juggle with dodging to avoid things. Against foes with slow attacks, Blind + Dodge + Knockdown is your friend. Against foes with fast attacks, Weakness/Chill + Dodge + Knockdown is your friend. Vigor just makes it that much better.

Vigor is also provided by Phoenix, BTW.

@Shockwave:
Fire fields provide a lot more than burning.

If combo’d, fire fields provide Area Might (3 stacks of it), Flame Shield (which, I feel, should provide Vigor), and Burning Bolts. You can get a lot out of them besides Burning.

I understand what you’re asking: you want Fire to provide conditions besides Burning.

My only counter-arguments are as follows:

• Other conditions are provided by other attunements (Air = Weakness, Blind; Earth = Crippled, Bleed; Ice = Vulnerable, Chilled). Fire is already our best DPS, for single targets AND groups — if you provide conditions, too, what incentive is there to swap attunements at all?
• Fire is pretty generous with boons, namely Vigor (provided by Phoenix and Heat Wave), Might (which is provided within Fire fields), and Fury (when attuning to Fire).

Yeah, it sucks that Fire can’t do everything. At the same time, it’s kinda GOOD that Fire can’t do everything. =)

@MagosLich:
To be honest, I feel that if the devs read this thread, I hope they take it as inspiration rather than a laundry list — a community approved muse rather than a list of demands.

That’s why I edit the OP in response to discussion: so the most favorable ideas rise to the top, whilst the more scatterbrained of my ideas disappear.

That way, the devs can get the distilled version just by reading the OP — and if they like what they see, they don’t have to say anything. All they have to do is say, “Huh, hadn’t thought of that.”

It’s a self-selecting collection of ideas they can kick around, without having to take a position on the forums. =)

@Shockwave:
In a word… intense!

I’ll go through your suggestions point by point, just to let you know which I like (most of them) and which of them cause me to raise my eyebrows a bit.

Burning Speed – Self triggering combo field of fire and leap to create a fire aura. Allows d/d ele’s to trigger aura traits for combo chains without first putting water or air on cool down.

Fantastic. Adding to the OP shortly.

Fire Grab – Lower recharge, maybe ~35 seconds.

This is one of the few suggestions you made with which I disagree, for two reasons:

• The suggestions I made in the OP are more “quality of life” and “consistency” suggestions; I tried to avoid altering damage values or cooldowns except for the above reasons
• Though I personally wouldn’t mind a reduced cooldown (it’s a single-target melee range nuke), I think a suggestion like this one needs to wait on a “numbers pass” — that is, someone doing some serious Elementalist number crunching.

For the moment, I’m leaving this one off the OP.

Frost Aura – Lower recharge, maybe 30-35 seconds.
Shocking Aura – Higher recharge, 30 seconds

From what I’m seeing here, you and I feel auras should be normalized to about 30 seconds. I’ll fix the OP to reflect this.

Ride the Lightning – Sub-skill to “detonate”

Absolute perfection. Added to the OP.

Flamewall – In addition to the burning condition apply 2 seconds of cripple, weakness, and vulnerability.

I understand WHY you made this suggestion (in a word, Flame Wall does nothing but provide a combo field and an insignificant amount of damage), but I don’t feel your suggestion is on the money. Vulnerability seems to be the purview of ice; likewise, Weakness seems to be an Air thing. Cripple is more Earth (in fact, Unsteady Ground is a wall that cripples — it would be rather redundant, yes?).

Fire Shield – Reduce recharge to 20 seconds. Applies Retaliation (for skill only not combo fields + finishers)

I’d rather it apply Vigor and/or Might or Fury. These seem more Fire’s style.

Besides: Elementalists need to dodge a lot more than other classes — Vigor is more useful to us.

Freezing Gust – Tweak the numbers for an upkeep time of 25%, don’t drop the recharge lower than 20 seconds.

Ten-four. =)

Obsidian Flesh – Make the invulnerability real, so that duration over time doesn’t deal damage. Deny all sources of damage.

Good catch!

Dragon’s Tooth – Faster drop

Already taken care of.

Phoenix – Reduce recharge to 15 seconds.

Same story as Fire Grab — I’d wait on a numbers pass to make a change like this.

Shatterstone – Reduce detonations to 1.5 seconds. Add 2 second chill. Increase recharge to 4 seconds.

Already done. =)

Arc Lightning – Inflict weakness for 2 seconds each hit during Stage 2 damage, and Vulnerability for 4 seconds each hit during Stage 3.

I like the way you think, but I baked Weakness into Lightning Strike. It’s a tossup — either way, I think we both agree that Scepter needs a way to inflict Weakness.

Burning Retreat – In addition to the burning condition apply 2 seconds of cripple, weakness, and vulnerability.

I actually like your combo field idea better. =)

Lightning Surge – Add Weakness

I like where you’re going with this, but I’m wary of leaning too heavily on Lightning Surge. I agree with you: Air staff needs Weakness, I’m just not sure where.

Thanks for your contributions, and feel free to discuss my response or yell at me.

@DiogoSilva:

Eruption and Churning Earth are interesting as they are.

Could you elaborate further on this statement?

I only ask because, from where I’m sitting (and remember, I’m the Village Idiot):

• Eruption is child’s play to dodge (“Huh, there’s this big clump of dirt with a red circle around it on the ground. I wonder if I should avoid it?”)
• In PvP, Churning Earth basically only works consistently when paired with Lightning Flash or Armor of Earth (unless you’re facing off against monumentally stupid opponents). Certainly, the need to use Lightning Flash under most circumstances makes it interesting, but since you’re basically using TWO abilities to fire off ONE ability consistently, shouldn’t Churning Earth basically deal the damage of two abilities? Otherwise, it’s a poor Return on Investment, yes?

That’s what it looks like from my perspective. That said: there could be something I’m missing. Like I said, I’m the Village Idiot.

So, explain it to me: why are these abilities interesting as they are? Pretty please?

There has been a LOT of productive discussion above.

With regard to Eruption, the two main issues appear to be the following:

• As it currently stands, you can dodge it easily
• Speed up the animation and the Earth staff loses a combo field

I agree with both; consequently, I am going to make the following suggestion:

• At the start of the animation, it applies Crippled to all targets within the area; the Crippled condition lasts as long as the buildup animation lasts, forcing people to either dodge or take the full brunt of the Eruption damage.

This solves both the long animation problem (by making it easier to hit people with it) and the combo field problem. =)

As for Churning Earth, I’m also a huge fan of manually charging it up, for either more damage or (preferably) a wider area. I will implement this suggestion in the OP as an alternative to my own.

Cheers, all!

My apologies, Jorn — I had forgotten that Elementals was a glyph.

I’ll edit the OP to more accurately reflect my sentiments on elite skills.

Thank you, Thor, for pointing that out. I had forgotten the length of Arcane Shield’s cooldown. I’ll fix the the OP. =)

Only thing I have to say is that dagger ice 2 (cone of cold) needs to keep its heal.

@Wolfbane:
This is an example of me being the village idiot. I’d forgotten it heals YOU. It seemed rather counterintuitive to have a healing spell that would never really heal allies.

I’ll fix the OP.

Likewise, AngryHelper: thanks for the pointers. I had thought I’d remembered Eruption hitting an opponent multiple times before it burst, but that was just me.

As for Magnetic Aura, well, it basically IS the same thing — the problem is, the staff version doesn’t remove conditions AND it has a longer cooldown. >.<

For the moment, I’ll stand by my initial suggestions for Unsteady Ground, however — at the moment, it is ridiculously easy to dodge. I’ll wait until another helpful soul comes along and tells me why exactly I’ve got my head on backwards.

Greetings, all.

As the subject header indicates, I am the village idiot. This means I know how to dodge, attunement swap for maximum effectiveness, and tweak my build when necessary. That said, I’m nowhere near being an excellent player — I can only solo four or five mobs my own level, and there are some classes (you know who you are) who beat me every time in PvP. You Have Been Warned.

I personally feel that the Elementalist is almost where it needs to be; I certainly don’t want the class to be altered in such a way that facerolling becomes possible. Consequently, I have a short list of suggestions for the Elementalist. Note that I hardly ever use the staff, so I have few suggestions for it.

This is a living thread — I have already modified the OP in accordance with community feedback and discussion, and I will continue to do so as long as this thread remains popular, or until such time (about next Tuesday) as someone demonstrates that my suggestions are fundamentally flawed.

Before I begin, I will enumerate the issues the elementalist faces:

• Poor trait efficacy and synergy: the majority of elementalist traits benefit a single attunement, consequently encouraging you to remain on one attunement — but they provide so little benefit that attunement swapping will almost always be better, ergo the traits that benefit a single attunement will almost always be eclipsed by traits that benefit an attunement-swapping playstyle
• Certain abilities provide minimal return-on-investment (ROI)
• Disappointing elites (by default, we can either turn into a tornado that can be crowd-controlled, summon elementals that we can’t directly command, or summon a sword that replaces all our action bars); though addressing this issue is beyond the scope of this thread, I would just like to throw it out there that I get the feeling that the Elementalist community would probably appreciate an elite signet, glyph, or spell that directly enhanced our existing combat capabilities

A brief overview of my suggestions:

• Make certain abilities easier to use by increasing animation speed, widening their area of effect, or fixing bugs
• Provide ancillary benefits for certain abilities
• Normalize Aura cooldowns to 30 seconds each (Flame Shield, Frost Aura, etc.)
• Normalize Wall cooldowns to 15 seconds each (a-la Ring of Fire)
• Improve synergy

My specific suggestions are as follows:

Scepter

• Dragon’s Tooth (Fire-2): Now targets a specified area; increase animation speed by 25-50%
• Ice Shards (Ice-1): Applies Vulnerability with every hit
• Shatterstone (Ice-2): No longer applies Vulnerability; instead, Chills targets for 2 seconds; increase animation speed by 25-50%; damage and cooldown increased to be in line with Dragon’s Tooth
• Lightning Strike (Air-2): Also inflicts Weakness (to compensate for the fact that Blind is useless against fast attackers)

Focus

• Flamewall (Fire-4): Cooldown normalized to 15 seconds
• Fire Shield (Fire-5): Cooldown normalized to 30 seconds; also grants Vigor
• Freezing Gust (Ice-4): Cooldown changed to provide 25% uptime — thanks, Shockwave

Dagger

• Drake’s Breath (Fire-2): Wider cone
• Burning Speed (Fire-3): Now counts as both an Evade (if it doesn’t already) and a Leap combo finisher; can self-trigger (thank you, Shockwave)
• Ring of Fire (Fire-4): Now inflicts Burning on foes who are within the ring when it is cast, but does not continue to inflict Burning on these foes unless they cross the ring again
• Fire Grab (Fire-5): Wider cone
• Cone of Cold (Ice-2): Wider cone
• Frost Aura (Ice-4): Cooldown normalized to 30 seconds
• Lightning Whip (Air-1): Wider cone (Helpfully provided by ArenaNet as of October 1st patch!)
• Lightning Touch (Air-2): Wider cone (Helpfully provided by ArenaNet as of October 1st patch!)
• Ride the Lightning (Air-4): Now acts as a Leap finisher; ignores intervening obstacles and elevation changes; also acts as an Evade (it currently does not); also provides a Detonate sub-skill so the user may cancel it at any time (thanks, Shockwave!)
• Churning Earth (Earth-5): Chargeup speed increased by 25-50%
  -OR-
• Churning Earth (Earth-5): Players can now manually control chargeup speed by holding the button for up to 4 seconds, increasing the detonation radius (damage remains constant)

Staff

• Ice Spike (Ice-2): Increase animation speed by 25-50%; increase damage and cooldown to be in line with Dragon’s Tooth
• Geyser (Ice-3): Damages foes in proportion to its healing in the same manner as Water Trident (thank you, AngryHelper!)
• Eruption (Earth-2): Applies Cripple to all targets within the area of effect as soon as the buildup animation begins; the Cripple condition lasts until Eruption does damage
• Magnetic Aura (Earth-3): Cooldown normalized to 30 seconds
• Unsteady Ground (Earth-4): Cooldown shortened to 15 seconds (like Ring of Fire)

Again, all suggestions are open to discussion and debate.

@Kyros:
I don’t mind the long posts — in fact, when I’m not being deliberately circumspect, my posts tend to run long.

My comment about "traits that benefit attunement swapping tend to outshine traits that do NOT benefit attunement swapping " simply indicates the following:

The Elementalist tree seems to include two types of traits:
1). Traits that benefit a single attunement
2). A few traits that benefit attunement swapping

My observation is, simply: traits that benefit a single attunement might not provide enough of a benefit to be worth it, since you’ll only be receiving that benefit less than a quarter of the time (and to receive that benefit encourages using a single attunement, which discourages taking full advantage of your class).

I’d like to know your opinion on this.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly: certain abilities, such as Flamewall and Fire Shield, tend to have very long cooldowns and cast times, yet they do not influence the battle in a meaningful way — Fire Shield provides 1 second of burning to attackers and lasts for 3 seconds, but it has a 40 second cooldown AND it doesn’t help you avoid damage in any way or buff you in any other respect. Staff abilities tend to suffer from this much more than Scepter/Dagger/Focus abilities, in that staff abilities tend to have longer cooldowns AND longer attunement cooldowns (so you can’t switch as often).

And then there appear to be abilities that suffer from the opposite problem: the Scepter ability Shatterstone is a well-telegraphed ability that does minimal damage on a short cooldown, which appears to be counterintuitive design.

I’m not trying to complain: the whole point of the Elementalist is the ability to switch roles as necessary, providing levels of versatility other classes lack. I like it that way, too — I like being able to switch roles on the fly.

Furthermore, I feel there should be a cost to having approximately 20 combat abilities at your disposal at any given time. This cost can be in the form of long cooldowns or “nerfed” effects by comparison to the abilities of other classes, but there needs to be a balance between cost and benefit.

The question becomes: is the design of the Elementalist working as intended? Is the player penalized appropriately for having this level of versatility, or is the player overpenalized (by either certain numerical values or general trait and ability design flaws [such as lack of synergy])?

Just to give a personal example: I often find that a given combat can depend on whether or not I land a Dragon’s Tooth and/or a Fire Grab — but both of these abilities are very difficult to target appropriately (Dragon’s Tooth because you cannot manually lead the target, Fire Grab because the cone of effect is deceptive). This may or may not be a design issue — perhaps I’m simply not good enough to force my opponent to hang around under the gigantic stalactite until it lands. But when it does go wrong, I simply switch attunements until I can go back to my ability to do damage — and hope I survive.

What say you?

Kyros,

Since I haven’t done any top-level PvP of any kind, I can’t comment either way on the Elementalist. That said: like you, I would prefer to use a profession that has a higher skill cap, demanding more effort from players but yielding (slightly) greater results when played correctly.

I do have a couple of questions for you.

First, it seems to me that the Elementalist trait lines lack synergy and efficacy compared to other classes — there appear to be very few traits that benefit attunement switching, and they appear to outshine those that do not. by simple virtue of the fact that, without attunement switching, your options are limited.

My question: do you think this is the case?

My second question: I constantly switch attunements after burning through the cooldowns available, but I feel that some abilities appear to not offer enough benefit for their cast or cooldown time.

Do you feel this is the case?

Thanks!