Guild Wars 2

continued
Currently, many mechanics and abilities are implemented in such a way that they fail to reward or punish the player for timed use. It is almost always beneficial to attack an opponent with one’s minions or pets. Many abilities deal flat damage regardless of enemy state or position. Most boons and conditions possess universally harmful/beneficial effects or are applied with such frequency/duration that timed use becomes irrelevant. Stealth, if permanent, is not punished if applied at the incorrect time. A lack of cast-bars and difficult or impossible to read animations reduce the reactionary potential of interrupts, making them far less situational. In all of these instances, the mechanics themselves (minions, conditions, stealth, autoattacks, etc.) are not inherently passive. Minions such as flesh worm force the player to make critical decisions: where to place the worm and when to sacrifice it exchanging passive damage for regained positioning. Short-duration stealth forces a player to decide whether to use it early to gain first strike or later to make an escape or interrupt a cc chain. Short yet powerful utility boons or conditions force a player to time their use in conjunction with their opponent’s actions. Auto-attacks can force a player to sacrifice time or positioning in order to be used effectively. All of these mechanics can be tweaked and refined in order to encourage active play, and there is nothing inherent in their design that forces them to be passive.

Active decision making is necessary to make a game competitive and fun. When gameplay is passive, even slight differences between the overall power of builds become magnified, and mathematically superior builds form fotm-fueled metas. It is freedom of choice that separates exciting battles between people from predetermined interactions between sets of statistics, and only when players are given more control over their actions and more liberty to make their own decisions can skill and quick-thinking begin to trump builds and balance.

Passivity is a relative term when it comes to playstyles. In my opinion, the best way to measure passivity is in the frequency and the importance of the decisions made by the player. Playstyles which require more frequent and important decisions to be played effectively are more active then playstyles that require fewer or irrelevant decisions. Please note that this measurement avoids terms such as “effort” and “mechanical skill”; it deals entirely in player-made decision. Even if a playstyle requires a specific series of buttons to be pressed really, really quickly in an extravagant and inconvenient way, if pressing that series of buttons is always the player’s best move, then the playstyle is passive. Conversely, even if a playstyle involves only two buttons, if the player must frequently and consistently determine the right button to press in order to be effective, then the playstyle would be more active.

Relative effectiveness does not influence passivity. It does not matter whether a player rolling their face on the keyboard dies instantly or stomps faces; the playstyle remains passive. Players merely notice effective passive playstyles more than ineffective passive playstyles because they are more frustrating to lose to. As such, we tend to demand changes to effective passive playstyles while ignoring ineffective passive playstyles. Instead, we should protest all passive gameplay, effective or otherwise.

Mechanics do not inherently make a playstyle passive; only the ways in which these mechanics are implemented within the game can affect passivity. If an action is always the best action to take (or if the action takes itself), then the decision to take that action is made for the player rather than by the player and therefore contributes to a passive playstyle. In guild wars 2, the only drawback to most abilities is their cooldown; this means that the only consideration taken when using an ability is opportunity-cost. However, opportunity-cost is only relevant when an ability A is markedly more effective in some instances compared to others and B possesses a sufficiently large drawback such that the player is punished if the ability is used at the incorrect time.

Dirame.8521:

Ryld.1340:

Dirame.8521:

LordEarle.9754:

• Active traits deepen the interactions between a player and their abilities, offering multiple options for similar roles and helping to dispel the notion of a “strictly superior” build for a given weaponset or role.

Do you sincerely believe this to be true?

I know I do.

There’s is always going to be a superior build for a specific scenario. Even his examples of Altruistic vs Monk’s shows that.

Another example I’d throw out is Fresh Air. Superior for burst because most of the skills used in that combo are instant cast and on a very quick cooldown. Yes, the trait might be active but no other burst build for the ele can come close to it because of the way the skills function.

EDIT: Let me clarify my statement by saying that I do agree that traits should be made more active but I do not believe in the notion that active traits will instantly be the things that solve the problem of FOTM.

I agree with you that some active traits will be better than others for particular scenarios, but this is exactly what allows them to produce build diversity. For example, imagine that a guardian had to fill every single one of his trait slots with either Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. If he/she runs a build that could benefit from either, then there appears an entire spectrum of possible trait combinations depending on whether the guardian knows he/she will be in teamfights always, sometimes, or never.

Following this logic, the only time that an active trait can be said to be absolutely better than its alternatives is when the player knows beforehand exactly what situations he/she will face. This is the case with Fresh Air. Other elementalist builds can achieve bursts equaling or exceeding that of Fresh Air builds, but most of them require the elementalist to enter melee range of the target. In a meta involving copious amount of aoe, this playstyle will naturally fall out in favor of the ranged playstyle allowed by Fresh Air.

Therefore, while it is true that active traits do not guaruntee build diversity, they certainly help.

Concerning FOTM builds, I am not under the illusion that an increase in active traits would immediately banish all FOTM builds, but the removal of instant gratification would certainly help to mitigate the phenomena. A player that initially performs poorly with a FOTM build should be more likely to go back to playing what they like rather than playing what they think the meta demands of them. Still, human nature is strange, and I have no way of proving this assertion. In the end, you may be right.

I hope this helps to clarify my position, and as always thank you for your well thought out feedback.

Introduction
When players brainstorm ideas on how to improve this game, the terms “active traits” versus “passive traits” come up frequently. In this thread, I hope to clarify what is meant by these terms as well as to make the case that adding more “active traits” in place of “passive traits” to the game will improve overall gameplay, build diversity, and player involvement.

This thread does not approach the subject of balance. Whatever the current meta may be, I intend for the move towards active traits to be no less relevant.

I have mained elementalist since launch, and so the majority of my examples will stem from the elementalist trait line. This is due solely to my familiarity with them; examples of active and passive traits can be found in the trait lines of all professions.

I have summarized the core of my argument in the following points:
• An active trait is one that requires direct player input in order to be utilized correctly. It influences a player’s behavior when in combat rather than simply influencing the build the player constructs out of combat.
• A passive trait is one that requires no direct player input in order to be used correctly. It in no way alters the player’s behavior, and it provides it maximum benefit regardless of the player’s actions.
• Active traits deepen the interactions between a player and their abilities, offering multiple options for similar roles and helping to dispel the notion of a “strictly superior” build for a given weaponset or role.
• Passive traits simplify the interactions between a player’s build and their playstyle, allowing the playerbase to agree upon a limited number of “best” builds for given roles.
• More active traits would deepen gameplay, broaden playstyles, and help to mitigate flavor-of-the-month (FOTM) builds.

Due to the limitations of the forum, I have linked the full article as a text file. I recommend pasting the text into a word document for improved readability. Large spaces have been added between sections for QOL.

If you are at all interested in this subject, I recommend you read the full article and post any question or comment you may have below. You are also encouraged to post your own take on active and passive traits.

Finally, many questions and concerns are answered in the article itself. I recommend you read at least the opening paragraph of each section before posting.

Thunderstruck
Another master level air trait, this would give elementalits a buff once every 20 seconds that has the effect “The next time you blind an opponent, you also daze them for 1 second”. I say “gives the elementalist a buff” because if this ability simply acted on an internal cooldown, then neither the elementalist nor its opponents would feasibly be able to play around it. It would simply be a thing that happens every 20 seconds or so with no input from either player. Instead, if the trait is given an indicator (much like opening strike or virtue of justice), then the elementalist can intentionally save their blind as an interrupt, and the elementalist’s opponents know when the elementalist has its interrupt available.

Crystalize
I envision this as a grandmaster earth trait, likely to replace diamondskin. The trait would function as follows: Whenever you are struck by an attack, you gain a buff that lasts 1 second, stacks in intensity, caps at 10, and provides something along the lines of 50 condition damage and 50 toughness. Most importantly, the application of this buff would have no internal cooldown. The results would be a grandmaster trait that would be extremely underwhelming in a 1v1 situation or when not focused, but extremely potent when being focused or in the middle of a teamfight cleave. This simultaneously helps the elementalist survive while in the pocket, punishes opponents for spamming aoe or focusing him/her, and better fits the theme of earth attunement as well as the name when compared to Diamondskin. It also promotes highly active play. Does the elementalist expose itself to the aoe damage in order to obtain the benefit, or would the damage be too much? Do the elementalists’s opponents focus the ele despite the application of the buff, or do they ignore it and allow it to do as it pleases? To me, this feels like the grandmaster trait that earth deserves.

Feed the Fire
This master level fire trait would cause damage inflicted by the elementalit’s burning to heal the elementalist proportional to the damage dealt. This trait is more passive than I would prefer, but I accomplishes several important things for the elementalist playstyle. First, it adds sustain to the fire trait line without diminishing its flavor. Second, it provides incentive for the elementalist to apply burning to more opponents, even if those opponents aren’t necessarily the target he/she would rather be damaging. This introduces tradeoffs, which again encourages active play rather than passive play.

Disorienting Winds
This master level air trait would provide the elementalist with 1 second of distortion upon attuning to air (with a 10 second internal cooldown to account for fresh air). Traits like this and Rock Solid are, in my opinion, the gold standard of active traits. The player has full control over the trait’s effect and must continually choose whether to rotate into air in order to access its abilities or to save the attunement in order to counter their opponent’s actions.

Frostburn
This trait would cause the chilled condition applied by the elementalist to deal damage in the same way that the necromancer’s “terror” trait causes their fear condition to deal damage. Naturally, this would not deal the same damage as the “terror” trait due to the relative ease of application of the chilled condition. In my opinion, this trait should be located at the master level of the water tree, and it should cause the chilled condition to deal somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of the burning condition, including scaling with condition damage. For example, if an elementalist’s burning ticks for 600 damage, then its chilled with this trait should tick for between 200 and 400 damage. The trait would need to be tested to find the actual acceptable value. I believe that this trait would expand elementalist playstyles by providing more options for elementalists who focus on condition damage as well as by changing the way the elementalist thinks about its chill applications. Instead of using a chill application as a peel or an escape, they may choose to apply them to the focus target in order to apply greater pressure. Also, they may save their blast finishers for freezing fields in order to obtain frost armor rather than using them on the first field that presents itself.

Fan the Flames
This master trait in the fire line would cause burning applied by the elementalist to produce an aoe effect every time it ticks. This damage would be proportional to the amount of damage caused by the burning tick, and it would not proc any on-hit effects. This aoe damage would occur in a small area centered around each target afflicted with the elementalist’s burning each time that stack of burning ticks. For example, if five burning targets were grouped tightly together, they would each receive the damage of “Fan the Flames” five times per tick of burning. Naturally, the damage inflicted by “Fan the Flames” would need to be extremely small in order to compensate for its stacking potential. Much like “Altruistic Healing” this trait should be relatively weak in small skirmish situations yet potentially powerful if utilized correctly and in the right situations. To demonstrate this trait, imagine that it deals 10% the damage of the applied burning. If each tick of an elementalists burning caused 500 damage, then “Fan the Flames” would cause 50 damage in a tight area with each tick of burning. Against a single target, this would only equate to a 10% increase in burning damage: fairly insubstantial compared to other master level traits. However, if used against a group of 5 targets, such as an mm necro, a spirit ranger, or a tight pack in a teamfight, “Fan the Flames” could deal up to 250 damage per second to each target in the area, a massive increase.

Introduction
This thread intends to serve as a way to brainstorm original elementalist traits. These traits should endeavor to meet the following criteria:
1. These traits should either be entirely original or such strong revisions that they no longer resemble their predecessors. Alterations to numbers or minor tweaks are discouraged.

2. The purpose of these new traits is to expand elementalist playstyles and offer interesting options. Balance is in no way the focus of this thread. If the next patch were to buff elementalist to God King Masters of the Universe, then the ideas presented here should be no less relevant. This leads us to 3:

3. Specific numbers and placement in the trait line need not be included. Because balance is not an issue, the traits can remain wholly conceptual; however, the author can propose numbers or trait line placement if they so choose.

4. If possible, the proposed traits should directly influence the user’s playstyle. Passive effects or traits that do not require active thought to play around are discouraged. Even traits that help certain builds more than others are considered less productive than traits that require conscious input during combat. For example, the traits “Burning Precision” and “Renewing Stamina” require no input from the player. They play exactly as they would before, except with the mindless passive benefit of the trait. On the other hand, traits such as “Evasive Arcana” and “Rock Solid” change the player’s dynamics in combat. The stability gained from rock solid is controlled by the player, and they are constantly faced with the decision to hold off from switching to earth in order to secure a cast or to thwart some cc or to switch to it regardless in order to continue their rotation. When using evasive arcana, the elementalist has the option to use endurance offensively to apply conditions rather than saving it for a timed dodge. In general, a trait should encourage a player to actively play around it rather than slotting it and forgetting about it.

Lastly, posts should remain purely contributive. Posts that do not propose new traits or review the traits proposed by others should be reserved.

I will begin by offering a few examples.

Freezing Gust
This ability had good synergy with comet. That’s about all I can say for it. Chilled is a wonderful condition to apply to people in pvp, but 3 seconds of chill every 25 seconds with no real damage (less scaling than the auto-attack of either mainhand) does not compensate for its range. I don’t think its cooldown should be reduced; the only thing worse than a free condition is a spam-able free condition. Nor do I think its base effect should be increased or improved because as it stands the ability lacks counterplay. When you cast this ability, you spend ¼ second waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care, and suddenly an opponent finds themselves with 3 more seconds of chilled than they would have liked. If the base effect were improved, the ability would read “Push this button if not on cooldown.” Instead, the ability should be a 1 second channeled ability. Over the course of this second, it should pulse three times. Each pulse should have the same effect as the original ability (3 seconds of chill plus the token damage). This way, the ability becomes powerful, yet can be reacted to.

Alternative Approach: Freezing gust is one of the few abilities that I believe would benefit from a full rework. Imagine the following ability: Aimed as a 900 range skillshot the approximate width of a whirlwind attack, this ability produces a chilling wind in the area for 3 seconds. Each second an ally remains within the area of the attack, it gains 2 seconds of swiftness. Each second an enemy remains in the area, it takes a small amount of damage as well as 2 seconds of chill.

This new ability would, in my opinion, add many more options to the focus playstyle and would involve much more skill than the previous Freezing Gust. Rather than simply using the skill whenever you have a target and happen to be in water attunement, you would need to think about how to use it. Do you attempt to run down a retreating foe, or do you save it as an avenue of escape for your allies? Do you use it here in the field where your enemy can dodge to the side of it, or do you wait until you are in a more narrow corridor where you can control their movement? While I do believe that the game as a whole should have less spammable aoe, I do not believe this would qualify. This would be an ability that would call for timed, strategic use. Its low damage but high tactical potential would demand that it be used intelligently rather than immediately.

Fire Shield
If you use d/d, you’ll get twice as many fire shields via leap finishers than you would with this little gem. Some have suggested that the best fix would be to reduce the cooldown or increase the duration. I believe this would remove a ton of the thought and counterplay from this ability. I’m fine with only being able to access it 5 out of every 40 seconds, but only so long as for those brief 5 seconds, I feel more like “COME AT ME BRO!” than “I’ll deal marginally more damage if I time this with your burst!”. To that end, I believe that this ability should, in addition to its fire shield, grant 5 seconds of retaliation, 5 seconds of protection, and deal a pulse of aoe damage every second in a manner akin to Locust Swarm. The retaliation would better incentivize your opponent to avoid attacking you. The protection would actually allow you to survive the attacks (remember, you’re an elementalits, face-tanking usually isn’t an option), and the short-range pulses of damage, while they shouldn’t deal all that much damage, would help make the ability feel more stylized as well as give it a pinch of utility even if you aren’t the focus target.

This may sound like a lot is being added, but that’s because a lot should be added. If all of the proposed additions are too much, any combination of them would still help the ability feel more impactful rather than “that button you press when you switch to fire attunement”.

Gale
Ranged, difficult to predict stuns are extremely valuable. They are not, however, single-target-50-second-cooldown-no damage-no outside-utility valuable. Even for an elementalist, whose cooldowns are justly longer than those of other classes (elementalist would be horrifically OP if the cooldowns weren’t so long), 50 seconds for an ability like this is pushing it. At first, I thought that making this ability aoe or adding some sort of secondary effect to it such as damage, conditions, or boons would make it more appealing. However, the more I think about it, the more I’m of the opinion that the best way to fix this ability is to keep it single target and damageless but to greatly reduce its cooldown. To understand why this would be the best solution, understand the role that gale plays in the focus’s setup. It’s the start of your chains. It’s the making of your combos. It’s the thing you throw down so you can land that dragon’s tooth+phoenix before chaining it into a signet of earth and again into a comet. It wouldn’t gain any flavor or utility from having damage attached to it. All it needs is a cooldown in the 30-35 second range. This would allow it to be used about two times in a skirmish rather than being an all-in-kill-him-with-this-chain-or-lose sort of move.

Flamewall
Look at ring of fire, now back at this, now back at ring of fire. Sadly, this is not ring of fire. But with a few practical tweaks, it can offer the same zone control. The most practical change I’ve heard regarding this ability is to first massively increase the damage per pulse as well as its scaling (so it, you know, does a little more than tickle) and second to have it cause 4-5 seconds of burning once when a person crosses the wall, much like Ring of Fire does. I also agree that this burning should have an internal cooldown of 4-5 seconds so that if a person chooses to walk through it again once the initial effect wears off, they’d get a fat new stack of burning.

Also, some have suggested that flamewall also give a fire shield to all allies passing through it. While this would be extremely cool, I’m of the opinion that simple zone control better fits the theme of the ability.

It’s no secret that the focus is a tragically underused weapon by elementalists. On the surface, its defensive orientation and chainable abilities appear to suit the playstyle of many elementalist builds. However, I believe that most players, elementalists or otherwise, would agree that despite several of its “rock-star” abilities, it lacks the tools to serve as a viable elementalist weapon in most situations. To be clear, I am unsure if this is actually the case. There may be legions of elite pros using the focus, but if so they have not contacted me and I am unable to find their builds. Wrong or right, and without any complain or qq intended, it is my personal belief that the focus needs more love.

To that end, I am posting a series of ideas on how to mend some of the most-griped-about focus abilities what I hope to be a fair, balanced way. Generally, these suggestions will involve reworking or tweaking skills rather than replacing them entirely. This will hopefully make the suggested changes more practical and easier to implement. Also, these suggestions are not to be taken as a whole. This is not an “all or nothing” focus rework, just a smattering of concepts that I believe would make the weapon more fun to use.

It should also be noted that all of my suggestions pertain exclusively to tpvp. I have no experience in pve or wvw and so cannot suggest changes for those areas. That said, I do not expect these skills to be split between game types, and I hope that the proposed changes are balanced throughout.

I am aware that others have proposed changes to the focus. I have not read many of them, and if I my proposed changes are similar or identical to changes proposed by others, I apologize.

Finally, if you have thoughts or disagreements about the proposed changes or if you have new ideas regarding the focus, feel free to post them.

Currently, many players are of the opinion that to balance the elementalist, the base cooldown of attunements should be reduced in order to alleviate the elementalist’s dependence on the arcane trait line. I believe that this would be a poor change to, and it would irrevocably damage elementalists as a profession. Here is why:

In the current meta, elementalists are required to substantially invest in the water and arcana trait lines for two reasons. 1. Only the water trait line contains the sustain to compensate for their low base defensive stats. 2. They need to continually switch between attunements in order to access the cooldowns that allow them to match other classes in term of damage and sustain, causing the arcana trait line to become a prerequisite for competent elementalist play. These two factors contribute to what has become known as the “dance” of the elementalist. This “dance” exists because once the elementalist has expended at least the short cooldowns in an attunement, they no longer benefit from that attunement, and regardless of their situation, it is normally in their best interest to swap.

If base attunement cooldown is reduced, it may in the short term allow elementalists to reach slightly deeper into other trait lines. However, the core issues of the profession would remain unresolved. 10 to 15 points into the water trait line as well as arcana V (Elemental Attunement) would continue to be staples of the class, particularly in tpvp. Instead of strengthening the other trait lines to make them more appealing and allow for greater specialization, we would essentially be making all other trait lines into “arcana by another name”. Diversity in elementalist playstyles would be stifled, and the profession as a whole would stagnate.

I believe that balancing elementalists as a profession does not require the alteration of any of their core mechanics. A series of changes to elementalist trait lines would accomplish the same thing while simultaneously expanding the profession rather than constricting it. To save space, I will link my full proposal here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Diversification-of-Elementalist-Builds.

As appealing as the idea may appear at first glance, please do not encourage the developers to reduce the base cooldown of attunements. Once made, a change like that would be difficult to undo, and it would not lead to the betterment of the class.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

LordEarle.9754:

I understand your point concerning the way in which traits like the new Diamond Skin and One with X punish attunement swapping. However, I should note that Pyromancer’s Puissance punishes attunement swapping as well.

For this, the Might stacking i wonder if we could ever get a trait. Likely in Arcane that would replace such traits and give us different boons for the attunement we are in.

Fire = Stacking Might
Water = Stacking Regen(?)
Air = Stacking Swiftness
Earth = Stacking protection(?)

This way we would be able to replace the traits that would give these (or similar) benefits and replace them with something else?

Not sure about Water or Earth boons, stacking wise they would just be stacking duration which would cap at say 10seconds but be reapplying every 2seconds while in the attunement that way we would still get a benefit from them in another attunement for like 5-10seconds which ever would be more balanced. Might would stacking up to 5 stacks like it does now.

This is an interesting idea; however, I don’t think it meets the criteria of an interesting trait. If it were taken, how would it be built around/played around? If every single spell granted the elementalist a boon, it would not affect the elementalist’s playstyle or cause the elementalist to think about the use of its abilities. Instead, the elementalist would play exactly as it did before, moving from one attunement to the next, except now it would have yet another source of passive, free boons. It would be more like Arcane V on roids, and duration caps on the attunements would further pressure the elementalist to continue switching attunements lest it miss out on valuable boon uptime, reducing thoughtful play and promoting spam.

This is a cool idea, and in the long run a trait like this might be implemented as a grandmaster arcana trait. Until then, however, I don’t think elementalist builds that revolve around frequent attunement swapping require any more love from the trait lines.

Blaine Tog.8304:

pmnt.4067:

Wow, what a long read – but it was worth it. First of all, please bold the trait names to break the wall of text. Maybe add an empty line between trait tiers. Your thread would be wasted if nobody reads it. That said, I’m impressed by your work and your thought you’ve put in here and I actually agree with all your suggestions.

This.

Posts that are just big unbroken blocks of text are quite difficult to read. It would behoove you to go back and add in some formatting to make them more user-friendly.

Yes, the bold text didn’t carry over when I pasted the text, and I did not at first know how to add it because I am become forum noob. Now, however, the bolds are boldier, the texts are textier, and the posts should be more readable.

Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully it looks better now.

Azunai.5974:

First of all, WOW. Very lengthy but also very well written and thought out. I really liked your emphasis on active play rather than passive, by removing or modifying traits that simply change stats. Making Spell Slinger more dependent on timing for bigger rewards was absolutely brilliant. Also, changing some traits to fit a “pure attunement” playstyle got me to agree with you even more. I really liked the idea of pyromancer’a puissance and seeing more traits in a similar vein.

I do, however think that changing attunement should always be a positive thing, not a negative thing, even if you wanna stay in an attunement for longer periods. No, changing attunement should, like you said, not be based on rotation, but need. A need for a specific spell, even if it means changing out of an attunement with lots of benefits. Pyromancer’s puissance is a great example of this, but Diamond skin isn’t. I don’t wanna hesitate to change out of earth, in fear of losing stacks. So I think Diamond Skin should be changed to promote active thinking rather than rote.

I still think evasive arcana should be changed, or split into minor traits. Maybe adept so 20/20/20/20/20 builds actually become possible and a “balanced elementalist” archetype will emerge amonst the purists. But that’s just my opinion.

Again, great post! Thoroughly enjoyed reading it all.

Thank you for the feedback. I understand your point concerning the way in which traits like the new Diamond Skin and One with X punish attunement swapping. However, I should note that Pyromancer’s Puissance punishes attunement swapping as well. For every second you spend outside of fire, it’s a second you spend losing might stacks rather than gaining them. It’s not as hard-lined of a tradeoff as the ones listed in my post, but it is a tradeoff none-the-less. That said, it may be better to have the stacks from the modified Diamond Skin dissipate gradually rather than abruptly. It all depends on the strength of the stacks, the amount you can hold at a time, and the speed of their dissipation. More than anything, I don’t want to see people take a trait like modified Diamond Skin yet continue to mindlessly rotate through their attunements because they know they won’t lose much if they do.
I understand your sentiment, but until elementalists receive some further incentive not to constantly swap attunements, they will continue to do so.
Again, thank you for the constructive feedback.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I personally think that Water tree (all the healing) is why the class cant be buffed. I would have loved to see earth tree to be a bit more condition heavy when it comes to traits. I also hate all the traits that only work in specific attunement.

I think reducing attunement swap cool down from 15 to say 12 seconds would really help allow people to be a bit more experimental when it comes to builds the fact that we pretty much have to go at least 20 in Arcane just to reduce to cool down to a reasonable amount is really damaging

Does WBD work if you have the 25% movement increase utility? To me it doesnt stack, i am not sure if thats a bug or its simply not allowed to be stackable.

Healing and mitigation traits such as Feed the Fire, modified Soothing Winds, Geomancer’s Freedom, and modified Diamondskin are meant to draw some of the elemetnalist’s necessary sustain away from water.
Within the post itself I focus strongly on why normalizing attunement cooldown by decreasing its base recharge rate would negatively impact elementalist build diversity. This would be treating the symptom, not the disease. If base attunement recharge were reduced, then yes, many builds may begin investing outside of arcane, but from looking at them, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Elementalist playstyle would continue to revolve around brainlessly hopping from attunement to attunement in a mad dash to expend as many cooldowns as possible such that they do not go to waste. New traits may be taken, but in a practical sense elementalists would be homogenized.
This leads us to traits that reward you for remaining in a single attunement. Currently, I’m guessing you don’t like these traits because, in general, they aren’t very good. This is because most of them fail to take into consideration the price and elementalist must pay when remaining in a single attunement for an extended duration of time. In order to compensate for this, I propose in this thread that these traits be given more powerful effects to properly reward the player for accepting the trait’s drawbacks. For examples of this, see modified Diamond Skin, modified Soothing Winds, Pyromancer’s Puissance, and all of the modified One with “X” traits.

I strongly believe that reducing the impact that the Arcana line has on attunement recharge would be a grave error and would greatly harm the diversification of elementalist builds in the long run.

Also, no, Windborne Dagger does not stack with other movement increasing effects. This is not a bug. Only take it if you do not build for permaswiftness and do not take Signet of Air.

Conclusion:
Think of this post as a collection of suggestions rather than a single, cohesive overhaul of the profession. I’m not here to change the world; I simply want to help brainstorm ideas to create more varied and viable elementalist builds and playstyles. If you have any further ideas or feedback, feel free to post them.

Arcana (cont’d)
Vigorous Scepter: Currently, this trait permanently increases your stamina regeneration by 20% when you have a scepter equipped. It’s also located right next to a trait that permanently increases your stamina regeneration by 100% when you have a scepter equipped (assuming you can crit now and then). That’s a little awkward if you ask me. This trait should be scrapped and replaced by the following:
Powerful Artifacts: Increase the range of scepter and focus abilities from 900 to 1200. This opens up new avenues for new playstyles and revives a completely dead trait.
Blasting Staff: As it is, this is not a trait; it is the “Staff Tax”. If you want to use a staff, you must take Blasting Staff, not because it’s good, but because you’ll be worthless otherwise. Personally, I’d like to see two things happen to get this trait on its feet. First, increase the base area of staff abilities equal to half the bonus of the previous blasting staff (i.e. without any traits, Lava Font and Ice Spike are 25% larger than they currently are, Lightning Surge is 50% larger, Eruption is 12.5% larger, etc…). Then, if this trait is taken, it further increases the area of staff abilities such that they equal the current area of staff abilities when blasting staff is taken. This is to say, staff abilities are no bigger than they are now if you take blasting staff, but they are larger than they were before if you do not take blasting staff. Secondly, staff abilities should cause 5 seconds of cripple to their target with a 15 second internal cooldown. This would help staff elementalists maintain distance from their target as well as make staff abilities in general feel more impactful. When I slap someone with a burning rock from space, I want them to feel Shell Shocked, not annoyed.
Windborne Dagger: I actually like this trait as it is. 25% move speed is no joke if you aren’t built for swiftness uptime. If it continues to not see play, changes may be considered, but at the moment, it may be best to keep it as it is.
Arcane Energy: Kill elemental attunement and watch this trait grow. I think it’s fine.
Evasive Arcana: Most elementalist builds take this trait because they need to go deep into arcana anyway, and while they’re there, this is the best thing to pick up. I have no meaningful suggestions for it, but I don’t think it’s keeping elementalists pinned to a particular build.
Elemental Surge: If Arcane Retribution is changed in the recommended fashion, I believe this trait will see more play. It should not be changed.

Arcana:
Arcane Fury: Cool, flavorful, and encourages mid-cast attunement swaps for easy crits. I use it, I like it, and I wouldn’t change it.
Arcane Mastery: Once Elemental Attunement gets what’s coming to it, this may see more play. It should not be changed.
Arcane Resurrection: In tpvp, this ability does not confer enough of a bonus to justify it situational use. If it also caused the elementalist to take reduced damage while reviving an ally (much like armor of mercy does) it may become usable. Currently, surviving the cleave is just as important as reviving the ally quickly.
Arcane Retribution: The funny thing about Arcane Power is that you really need to set yourself up in order to use it properly. Otherwise the crits will be burned on meaningless things such as vapor blades or churning earth cripple tics. Instead, I think this ability should refresh the cooldowns of your arcane utilities and should trigger at 50% life. That way, when YOU are the one in control of your abilities, not some proc. Also, despite how it may look, this trait should in no way subsume Final Shielding. This trait only gives you an extra shield if you choose to carry one in a utility slot. Final Shielding will still be a fine choice for those who carry non-arcane utilities.
Final Shielding: This ability is actually fairly good, but is completely eclipsed by Elemental Attunement. Even though this ability is a passive trigger, it gives you a predictable window to get away with plays that would otherwise be interrupted. It might benefit from a reduced internal cooldown, but I can’t really say.
Elemental Attunement: This is the single most important trait that elementalist builds revolve around. It is the center of the profession. It is a mechanic that the elementalist is balanced around. To change this, it needs to be toned down. The regeneration and protection granted when attuning to water and earth should be reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds. The trait will still be good; it won’t be nerfed to the ground. It will be a sad day for elementalist, but this has to happen. I should stress, however, that Elemental Attunement should only be nerfed once the elementalist receives viable alternatives.
Renewing Stamina: I have no problems with this trait. I hate dodge spamming as much as the next guy, but at least this thing requires you to land critical hits with some frequency.
Lingering Elements: The Soothing Mist extenderer will have something else to do once air 5 and fire 5 start doing things. I don’t think this should be changed.

Water Magic (cont’d)
Shards of Ice: I have the same problem with this that I had with Spell Slinger: the effect is too minor and lasts too long to be exciting or counterable. Instead of 3 stacks for 6 seconds (1 stack in the case of arcane power), this trait should add 10 stacks for 2 seconds (3 stacks in the case of arcane power). This makes arcane and signet abilities scary and impactful and promotes more skilled play.
Soothing Disruption: Is a great trait that is still viable even after the nerf of cantrips. I wouldn’t see it changed.
Piercing Shards: Provides one hell of a damage bonus for your arcane skills, but not much else. I like it, and I hope someone finds a way to build around it if any of the changes suggested here are implemented.
Cleansing Wave: This trait speaks for itself. It should not be changed, and if it is changed, it should not be buffed.
Vital Striking: Another conditional trait that strongly rewards situational play. I’d prefer to keep it as it is.
Healing Ripple: I think this is actually in a good place right now.
Stop Drop and Roll, Bountiful Power, and Arcane Precision: Last I checked, this trait triggered its icd even if burning or chilled weren’t removed. That’s pretty bogus, and it should be fixed if it hasn’t been fixed already. Also, I agree with general sentiment that it should replace Bountiful Power as water 25 and that Bountiful Power should replace Arcane Precision.
Frostburn: This trait replaces Stop Drop and Roll. This new trait causes chills you apply to damages your enemies. It would function much like Terror, but with a much smaller coefficient, of course. Personally, I believe it should deal approximately 70% the damage of burning in order to be balanced, but I am unsure. I want this trait to be powerful and build-defining, so it may be best to move it to grandmaster and relocate Powerful Auras to master tier. I would like community feedback on this concept.
Cantrip Mastery: A powerful trait for powerful abilities. It should remain as it is.
Soothing Wave: I have no problems with this trait. It might see play alongside Frostburn, if that mechanic is ever implemented. Until then, I’m hesitant to propose any changes for it.
Cleansing Water and Powerful Aura: In my opinion, both of these traits are fine where they are. It might be neat to see Powerful Aura made into a master tier trait so it could be combined with Written in Stone, Elemental Shielding, and Fire’s Embrace, but that might be too much. Also, if Soothing Winds receives the suggested changes, Cleansing Water will need its internal cooldown more than ever. Still, I don’t think the two would be too abusable together. Most builds that run Cleansing Water have no trouble triggering it every 5 seconds.

Water Magic:
Soothing Mist: This trait along with Arcane V have become so necessary to an elementalist that people are starting to forget that they’re optional. I’ve met players who sharing boons on attunement swap and providing massive aoe healing is just something that elementalists DO. They’ve evolved from optional traits to core mechanics so much so that even the devs appear to be balancing the class around them. This must change. I’m not here to make elementalists into gods; I’m only here to diversify our builds. This cannot be done with buffs alone. May the MMO gods forgive me, but for the betterment of elementalists as a whole, I believe that Soothing Mist and Elemental Attunement must be nerfed. In the case of Soothing Mist, I think the base healing should be reduced, but the scaling with healing power should increase such that a proper support elementalist will still receive the same (if not slightly greater) benefit as he does now. The nerf doesn’t have to be tremendous, but I think a small reduction would go a long way toward the diversification of builds. Changes on Elemental Attunement are listed further down.
Aquamancer’s Alacrity: This trait should switch places with Arcane Abatement, should be renamed One with Water, and should be given the same treatment as all other attunement cooldown traits again for the same reasons.
Arcane Abatement: To note, this is now an adept trait. Now, to be clear, I cannot speak for this ability’s use in PvE. In PvP, however, people commonly look at falling damage traits and say “they’re worthless, but at least each class has one, so everyone gets a wasted slot”. At first, I was inclined to agree, but the more I think about it, the more appealing these traits feel. Akittens core this game should be about good positioning and the exploitation of situational advantages. I believe that these traits offer that opportunity. As it stands, the only problem is that the bonus effect is weak relative to the cost of the ability. Not only do you need to give up a superior position, you also need to inflict some degree of damage onto yourself. If I set up this ability and pay such a steep cost, I want to GOOMBA STOMP people. To that effect, here are my proposed changes to Arcane Abatement (for tpvp only):
Fire: Meteor Shower
Water: Healing Rain
Air: Static Field and Lightning Storm (as seen in Glyph of Storms)
Earth: Churning Earth
All spells would trigger immediately upon receiving the falling damage with no cast time (The churning earth would not require a channel, the meteor shower and healing rain would be instant, etc.)

Earth Magic (cont’d)
Diamond Skin: It’s passive, isn’t not worthwhile even when one builds around it, is impossible to play around, and doesn’t really fit its name. There are two avenues that I believe could help fix this trait. First and foremost: have enemies deal less damage to you proportional to the number of unique conditions they have. I’m not sure if that sort of effect is possible to program, but it would feel unique and would allow for marginally more intelligent play than a flat buff to a single stat. Secondly, you could have each successful attack in earth attunement provide a unique stacking buff that reduces damage taken. This buff would immediately dissipate once the elementalist leaves earth attunement or exits combat. Personally, I think it should stack at 1% per attack and cap at 20%, and it should affect condition damage as well as direct damage. Both of these options fit the theme of the earth line and encourage different playstyles.

Earth Magic:
Stone Flesh: I’m perfectly fine with this trait. It looks earthy, it feels earthy, it smells earthy, and it’s not half bad.
Obsidian Focus: I think it should be changed to a flat damage reduction rather than a bonus to toughness. This would help alleviate the dependence on water for condition removal. Not a lot, but it would help. 10-20% less damage taken would be enough, I think, to encourage this trait. Keep in mind that it is extremely conditional, so the effect should be powerful to match. Even with this trait, I don’t think we’ll ever see an elementalist able to spam channeled skills.
Signet Mastery: This trait is powerful. Signets are powerful. With fire more accessable, I hope to see more signet+aura cheese. This trait should remain as it is.
Serrated Stones: I love the inclusion of this trait and I think it would be used more if elementalist were less dependent on water and arcana.
Elemental Shielding: Another cool trait that I would not change for reasons listed above.
Stone Splinters: A substantial benefit that impacts playstyle and punishes poor positioning; I like it.
Earthen Blast: Should be changed for the same reason Sunspot should be changed, and in the same way to boot: Add a short delay and slap some bleeding onto it. Given its name, I’d also encourage it to be a blast finisher. This might take some pressure away from evasive arcana and would allow for some interesting combos. Also, it has “Blast” in the name; quit confusing people, Arena Net.
Strength of Stone: If this affects condition damage as well (a solid portion of earth’s damage), then I’m all for keeping this trait as it is.
Rock Solid: Another solid (heh) trait that takes emphasis away from mindless attunement swapping. Many of the changes proposed in this thread may make Rock Solid more viable.
Geomancer’s Freedom: If I wanted these conditions gone, I would simply invest more heavily into water and arcana and cleanse them. This trait needs a bit extra to make it worthwhile. 3 seconds of protection when hit by one of these conditions on a 10 second internal cooldown might make this a more appealing choice.
Geomancer’s Alacrity: I believe that this should be renamed One with Earth and be given the same treatment as One with Fire and One with Air for the same reasons.
Enduring Damage: High risk, high reward. Are you willing to go against the evade-spam meta for some extra damage? I hope so, because this is a cool trait and should stay as is.
Written In Stone: Is essentially just a strong passive buff, but it feels flavorful and encourages more signet use, so I think it should stay.

Inscription: Solid yet less common for the same reason that Quick Glyphs is solid and less common. I’m convinced that if a few of the glyphs are fine-tuned (and if Glyph of Renewal actually gets off its fat duff and starts DOING things), then this trait will see play. I’d prefer to leave it unchanged.
Air Training: A staple in many current builds. Would be OP if buffed, unused if nerfed. Promotes thoughtful play and the correct timing of abilities (to a degree). I like it.
Weak Spot: It’s passive, relies on mindless procs, and only results in a bit of additional damage over the course of a longer fight, yet I still like it. It promotes focused fire and rewards high crit frequency. Also, it’s a mandatory trait, so its passive nature can be forgiven, in my opinion.
Tempest Defense and Fresh Air: I think these are beautiful examples of grandmaster traits that each encourage different playstyles (both of which involve shooting lasers out of one’s eyes). I’m hesitant to change them.

Air Magic (cont’d)
Soothing Winds: This is an example of exactly what a trait should not be: entirely passive, unable to impact your playstyle, and unrewarding even if built around. Increasing its scaling would not help to solve this problem; even if this granted healing power equal to 100% of your precisions and became an overpowered staple of the elementalist, it would still be excruciatingly boring. Instead, this trait is where we give the air trait line its sustain. The new trait should read “Critical Hits with air weapon skills grant 1 second of regeneration”. It can keep its 5% precision to healing power; it won’t affect much anyway. It’s important that this trait only gives regeneration on confirmed critical hits and only when in air attunement; it should also only give regeneration for 1 second but have no internal cooldown. It is also important that this trait give regeneration rather than a direct heal. The purpose of this trait is to reward builds with high critical hit chances for remaining in air attunement without giving defensively-geared bunker eles with another source of healing. The short duration of the regeneration and the frequency of its application ensures that, while the elementalist receives constant healing while in air, this healing quickly dissipates as soon as the elementalist is forced into a different attunement. This trait will provide sustain to elementalists that do not invest greatly into water and arcana without becoming another tool for elementalists who DO invest heavily in water and arcana.
Bolt To the Heart: Already a powerful staple in many tpvp elementalist builds. Doesn’t need any more juice; keep it as is.
Arcane Lightning: Most current s/d burst builds run two arcane utilities and rely on critical damage, yet air X is still a better choice than this trait. I love its theme, and it begs to be built around, particularly when used in combination with arcane power in a d/d build. I think that if it were made an adept trait rather than a master trait, it would be more appealing.
Electric Discharge: Cheesy and instant, but if there was ever a place for that, it’s here in the air trait line. I’m fine with this trait.
Please note that this leaves two master trait tier slots empty. They will be filled by the following two traits:
Speed Advantage: Deal 10% more damage when moving faster than your target. I think this trait could result in some interesting playstyles involving swiftness uptime, timing bursts while an opponent is stunned, and avoiding conditions such as cripple, chill, and immobilize. My only fear is that some aspect of this game’s programming prevents an effect like this from being implemented. If that is the case, then I guess a flat damage bonus when we have swiftness up would suffice. It would be boring, but I don’t have any other ideas.
Blurred Speed: Gain 1 second of distortion when you attune to air (with a 10 second internal cooldown to prevent fresh air abuse). Promotes skilled play, discourages mindlessly cycling through attunements, can be used like Rock Solid is used to secure dunks, rezzes, prevent stuns, negate bursts, and generally outplay people. It comes with a tradeoff, as always: if you attune to air purely to secure a burst, then you’ll be wasting the cooldown.

Air Magic:
Zephyr’s Speed: Self only, inactive when out of combat (i.e. roaming i.e. when it would be most useful), and doesn’t stack with swiftness (making it do absolutely bunk for most eles using it). However, akittens core, this trait isn’t a bad concept. It feels exactly as an air minor trait should: some a subtle yet powerful advantage over time. Now we only need to work on the “powerful” part. Make it work outside of combat, share it with your nearby allies (just as you share soothing mist), and if that isn’t enough, jack it to 15% (though not any higher, in my opinion). This should make it feel impactful again.
Zephyr’s Boon: I love this trait and don’t think it should be changed. It provides a powerful advantage when running auras and feels distinct.
Zephyr’s Focus: It’s been a long, long time since I tested this trait, so I’m not sure if it has any bugs associated with it. As long as it functions with all channeled skills, it may act as a way to reduce dependency on arcane VI. I’m hesitant to propose any changes for this trait.
Quick Glyphs: In my understanding, glyphs are the only utlity that an elementalist can run 5 of, giving this trait great potential power. If glyph of renewal wasn’t bugged to high heaven, if glyph of storms had either a shorter cooldown or a useful storm outside of sandstorm, and if there was some way to increase the health pool of lesser elementals, this trait may see play. Generally, I believe that abilities don’t see play because they don’t have powerful enough traits to support them. In this instance however, it’s the abilities that reduce the potency of the trait. That said, even with 3 of 6 glyphs bugged/unviable, this trait is an appealing choice. Keep it as it is.
One With Air and Aeromancer’s Alacrity: I say give it the same treatment as Pyromancer’s Alacrity and One With Fire. Move it to master, keep the name One With Air, and make it 20% cooldown reduction with an additional 10% if you camp in the same attunement for a full rotation. This will gives air-lovers a tool that isn’t fresh air when they want to shoot more lightning bolts.

Fire Magic (cont’d):
Pyromancer’s Alacrity and One With Fire: The elementalist’s “20% cooldown reduction” abilities are a bit awkward by themselves considering they only reduce the cooldowns of one quarter of your abilities, more than half of which will be back up by the time you reach the attunement again anyway, and if Flame Barrier receives the changes suggested above, One With Fire won’t really have a place anymore. Instead, this is where we go about resolving elementalists’ addiction with rapid attunement swapping. The new trait will keep the name One With Fire. At base, it gives 20% cooldown reduction to fire abilities. However, the longer you remain in fire attunement, the shorter the cooldown of your fire abilities becomes; this will continue until a cap is reached. As soon as the elementalist swaps out of fire attunement, the cooldown reduction is immediately lost. This encourages the elementalist to remain in fire attunement and punishes them if they are put into a situation where they are forced out of it. The exact numbers are difficult to pin down, for now, I think the trait should read “Fire weapon skills recharge 20% faster. This bonus increases to 30% over 10 second while in fire attunement. The bonus is lost once the elementalist leaves fire attunement”. I think this would result in more intelligent play from elementalists.
Feed the Fire: This trait takes the place of Pyromancer’s Alacrity. It’s one of the traits intended to draw a portion of an elementalist’s potential sustain away from water and arcana. Once taken, this new trait would cause you to be healed by a portion of all burning damage you deal. That is to say, each tic of burning that you applied to an enemy will heal you proportional to the amount of damage dealt by that tic. It is extremely important that this trait scales with condition damage, not healing power. It should only act as viable sustain if the elementalist has invested heavily into burning uptime and burning damage. As always, the number is extremely tricky. I believe that being healed for 20-30% of burning damage would not be unreasonable, but I might be way off. It might also be possible to have a set amount of healing that triggers each burning tic but only scales with condition damage in order to avoid a bunker ele taking this trait and abusing the high base damage of burning. Regardless, I believe this trait and others like it are necessary if you want tpvp elementalists to allocate their resources away from water/arcana.
Conjurer: I am at a loss. I don’t really see conjured weapons in tpvp, so I can’t really speak as to whether or not this trait would be taken. It isn’t critical, and I’m not touching it.
Fire’s Embrace: This is an extremely cool trait that I hope will be taken more once other trait lines become more accessible.
Burning Rage: We’ve already altered this trait’s little brother, so it would be fine for this trait to remain the same. It’s still a fairly stale, minor damage boost, but at least it’s still conditional and relies on the player attacking the correct target. Also, it’s a mandatory trait, so I’m hesitant to make it powerful/specialized. It should stay as it is.
Persisting Flames and Pyromancer’s Puissance: Theses are both powerful, distinctive grandmaster traits that impact your playstyle. It is my hope that if the trait line is given the proper tools, these traits will begin to see play.

Fire Magic (cont’d):
Spell Slinger: Whenever I read this trait I hear a monotone voice drone something along the lines of “So yeah if you take this and run cantrips you’ll deal a bit more damage in the long run.” I don’t want “damage in the long run” out of my traits, I want skill-based, situation, rewarding opportunities. Instead of 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds, this trait should give you 10 stacks of might for 3 seconds. That way, when you lightning flash to your target and hit cleansing flame in the same split second to enable the fire grab you were casting, you and your fleeting 20 might stacks feel like you’ve accomplished something today.
Burning Precision: This is another one of those “damage in the long run” traits that rewards passive play and prolonged fights rather than awareness and skill. Instead of burning targets when they take a critical hit, this trait should increase the chance to critically hit burning targets. That way, a player is rewarded for focusing the target he just lit on fire and trying to time his bursts on targets that won’t immediately cleanse the burning. The exact % by which crit chance should be increased is up to the balance team. I think 7% would be reasonable (5% probably too little, 10% probably too much), but I don’t know that for sure.
Internal Fire: I actually don’t have a problem with this trait. It rewards you for sticking in a single attunement, which is a pretty hefty tradeoff considering that for an elementalist, sitting in one attunement means locking yourself out of 75% of your abilities. I’m hesitant to change this trait. Any less damage and it might become unusable, any more damage and it might become overpowered (10% more to burning speed+fire grab+double arcane burst is no joke).
Sunspot: Melee range, pitifully low damage, not much going for it. However, simply increasing the damage coefficient won’t help anyone. All it will do is give elementalists another source of cheesy, unanswerable instant-speed damage. Instead, sunspot should be a delayed ability along the lines of dragon’s tooth, but perhaps with a slightly shorter delay. Also, it shouldn’t just be a little puff of flame. It’s called sunspot, not fire-fart. I’m talking short delay, then a brief laser beam from the sky like Zeus playing with a magnifying glass. It can keep its shoddy direct damage coefficient, but it should add a few seconds of burning to anyone, because honestly, this is fire attunement we’re talking about.

Fire Magic:
Flame Barrier: This should be given an internal cooldown, a higher trigger chance, and instead of burning, it should give a fire shield. This fire shield should trigger all effects associated with aura application. Suddenly, this trait can be built around, doesn’t rely on boring, unanswerable procs, and has actual counterplay. Considering the strength (or lack thereof) of fire shield as an aura, I believe that a 30% trigger chance for a 5 second shield on a 20 second internal cooldown would be balanced, but as always, numbers are variable depending on balance.
Lava Tomb: The problems surrounding Lava Tomb are the same problems surrounding all downed-state traits in tpvp: they’re too situational to be worth the resources. If Lava Tomb also reduced the damage taken while in a downed state, it would help you survive the cleave while your team gets off the rez, making it a more attractive trait as a whole. Overall, I like this type of trait: powerful and situational. The more situational a trait is, however, the more powerful it should be. That is why I believe that this trait deserves the above buff.
Burning Fire: Conceptually, I’m not sure what to think of this type of trait. I like that it gives the player a way to take otherwise unrelated utilities, but it’s unlikely that someone would take all of these utilities together, especially now that cleansing flame no longer breaks stun. Also, even if for some reason someone decided to run all of these utilities together, this trait would not be worthwhile. Signet of fire already provides more than enough burning, and it will almost certainly be hit by a cleanse before it expires, wasting the extra 3 seconds. It works a bit better with cleansing flame, but because it already applies burning, it runs into the same problem. The cooldowns of flame axe and fiery greatsword make a paltry 3 seconds of burning laughable. Keep the burning, but add a condition cleanse (self only) on top of it. I’m not sure if this will fix the trait, but I think it would be a step in the right direction.
Ember’s Might: Burning Rage’s twin brother isn’t a very exciting trait. It doesn’t make attacking a burning target feel very impactful, it merely gives you a slight statistical increase over time. Instead, this trait should read “attacks against a burning target have a chance to trigger an explosion of fire”. Basically, this would work like Sigil of Fire except instead of criticals, it would trigger off attacks against burning targets. The internal cooldown and damage coefficients are variable depending on how the trait affects balance. Personally, I believe that it should have damage comparable to sigil of fire yet should have a longer internal cooldown (in the 10-15 second range). This would make focusing a burning target feel more satisfying and impactful.

Introduction:
In this thread I will make a series of suggestions that I believe will help to create more varied elementalist builds by addressing 2 critical issues: 1. The reliance on water and arcana for sustain and 2. Dependence on constantly swapping attunements. I intend to do this entirely through the revision of traits.
Overview:
As a class, the elementalist has a small health pool with low base defensive stats. It is meant to compensate for this with high sustain. However, at the moment, the water and arcana trait lines hold all of the elemenalist’s sustain and are arguably necessary if an elementalist intends to survive for an extended duration. Some have suggested fixing this dependency by increasing the elementalist’s base defensive stats, but I believe that this would be the wrong approach. By altering traits, I hope to decentralize the elementalits’s sustain in a balanced fashion.
Concerning attunement swapping, some have suggested reducing base attunement recharge while simultaneously reducing the attunement recharge gained by investing in the arcane trait line. I believe that this is the wrong approach. Giving all elementalist builds the ability to rapidly dance through attunements would only serve to further homogenize our playstyle; we would be treating a symptom, not a cure. Instead, I believe that adding more traits such as pyromancer’s puissance—traits which reward the elementalist for remaining in a single attunement for a longer duration—would make non-arcana builds more viable. Some may argue that building around a single attunement would reduce the profession’s skill cap; however, I would argue instead that a build that wishes to remain in a single attunement would require more skill than one that constantly cycles through attunements. This is because switching attunements would carry a heavier tradeoff, and each attunement could be used tactically. Rather than rushing through our attunements in a dash to make use of as many powerful cooldowns as possible, we would instead attempt to remain in the attunement that best suits our current role. I hope that the changes proposed in this thread can accomplish this without negatively impacting the balance of the profession.
Disclaimer: I have played Guild Wars 2 since beta, but in that time, I have really only experienced its structured player versus player. I have not played a great deal of world versus world or PvE and therefore cannot speak towards their balance. All changes proposed in this thread pertain only to the balance of tpvp. Additionally, while many of these proposed changes are direct buffs to traits, I do not intend to buff elementalists as a whole. We have a few viable builds in tpvp, and I do not wish to see them become overpowered. I only wish to open up other roles and avenues. This is not a qq thread.

If you have invested 15 or more points into air attunement, switching to air will trigger the targeted attack. If you do not wish to accidentally attack people with this, go to your options and turn off your auto-targeting.

After a bit of testing, I have noticed that an elementalist with a “next attack after weapon swap” sigil (such as sigil of Doom, Leeching, or Intelligence) that switches attunement while casting or channeling a spell in the previous attunement will expend the effect of the sigil without receiving the benefit. For example, if a scepter/dagger elementalist is channeling air 1 and switches to another attunement mid-channel, the effect of the sigil (the symbol that states “on next attack, x occurs”) will appear briefly with the rest of the ele’s buffs and then be expended the next time one of the ele’s spell’s deals damage. However, if that spell is the spell he/she was casting/channeling in the previous attunement (in this example: air 1), then the sigil will not go into effect, despite being expended (i.e. no poison will be applied, no health will be leeched, no 100% crit chance, etc.).

I have only tested this in a pvp setting and only with scepter/dagger and dagger/dagger. Yes, I was not at max health when testing leech on hit, and yes, the sigils do work if the next attack to hit them is either a utility or an attack of the attunement into which they switched in order to gain the charge. As far as I can tell, this applies both to channeled and cast spells.

Is this intentional? If so, why? If not, is there any way this could be fixed or resolved? If disallowing eles from using these types of sigils helps balance, that is fine. However, if eles are actually meant to be able to use “next hit on weapon or attunement swap” sigils in pvp, then this bug should come to your attention.