Guild Wars 2

Traits, runes, and food/utilities that convert one stat to another are only converting base stats + stats from equipment. Based on my testing they are NOT converting from:

- Signet passives
- Conjure weapons
- Food and utility bonuses
- Stat auras (Spotter, etc.)
- Might stacks
- Traits that give conditional stat bonuses (with X weapon, in X attunement, while revealed, etc.)
- Weapon skills
- Sigil stacks
- Other stat conversions (a power to condition damage conversion will not benefit from the power from a vitality to power conversion)

Basically, ANYTHING that is not a stat directly from equipment is not factored into conversion calculations. This is a pretty big problem in my opinion because players that take these conversions are expecting higher returns but are not getting them (and then not understand why). This leads to problems in theorycrafting, because unless you are aware of this bug actual results will be further poorer than theoretical ones. This may also explain why build calculator websites have different numbers than in-game, as they correctly scale off total stats.

Note that I have not tested every combination on every class nor obscure stat bonuses (such as stats on rez), but I believe this is universal to all stat conversion mechanics. Please feel free to do some testing on your own. In the meantime, until ANet fixes this bug it may be worth making a note on relevant wiki pages stating that only base + equipment stats are taken into account.

On a side note, Ferocious winds (precision to ferocity), is currently scaling off of toughness. Could we get a quick fix for that at least please?

Edit: Added might to list
Edit2: Added sigil stacks

Ferocious Winds is not adding bonus ferocity based on the precision from Signet of Fire passive or Aeromancer’s training.

EDIT: I guess since Ferocious Winds is currently scaling off of Toughness it makes sense for these to not add ferocity. Like Strength of Stone, however, the Signet of Earth passive also does not add ferocity based on toughness.

Jekkt.6045:

i would never take this even if it was 20% damage, 10% of an ele’s health are an auto attack of any class

Yes, it’s true that Elementalists are the squishiest class in terms of base stats. But like I pointed out, they also have some of the best defensive utilities in the game. Armor of Earth and Arcane Shield are amazing at preventing incoming damage. Obsidian flesh provides a full 4 seconds of invulnerability with no drawbacks (I could totally see a Scepter/Focus build where you unleash hell for the first 4 seconds and then play defensive). Specializing into Water also provides neat healing effects to get you healthy again if you do take damage. Diamond Skin in Earth removes any threats from conditions. And with stats being no longer tied to trait lines, you can be as tanky as going 0/0/30/30/10 while having all the offensive traits of Fire and/or Air.

The point is, there really are a lot of ways for Elementalists to stay above the 90% mark, you simply have to adjust your build to accommodate that style of play. Which is what a Grandmaster Trait is all about. And like I pointed out, the 20% really is just a number. I’m sure there’s a value between 1 and 1,000,000 that satisfy the majority of players

In all honesty, when do you ever equip a fall damage trait outside of doing a jumping puzzle? The problem is, fall damage is never a part of combat for 99% of the game (even in WvW with all its cliffs there are better trait choices). Yet fall damage Traits still stuck around even when so many other traits were merged or went baseline.

Fall damage doesn’t encourage build diversity. It doesn’t encourage playing differently. You use it when you think there’s a good chance of dying from falling and that’s it. There absolutely shouldn’t be a trait in Adept let alone Master(!) tiers dedicated to a very small portion of the game competing against two practical, beneficial traits.

Reduced fall damage should either become baseline (or even just removed) and replaced with something that affects game play in a meaningful way. With fewer options to now choose from and with many of them currently lackluster, fall damage Traits really don’t have a place in the game anymore.

Well maybe you missed it but the devs pointed out that the damage ticks from Burning/Poison (shown through skill facts) were lower than they are now because they are stackable.

Of course, it wouldn’t be too interesting to just have another Bleeding clone, but you don’t need to worry about burning maintaining its x7 damange per second vs bleeding or anything. The devs are definitely keeping their eyes on it.

COUNTERARGUMENTS:

• But the water skill recharge shouldn’t be on a Grandmaster Trait!
  Ok, then put it on Bountiful Power in the Master tier.

• But why not just buff Bountiful Power to give X% more damage per boon?
  This change would make Bountiful Power more enticing and have more of an impact, but the fact that it fails to change player builds or play style still exists. That is, it would become a better Trait, but it wouldn’t become a better Grandmaster Trait.

• But 20% on Aquamancer’s Training is too high!
  The 20% is merely a suggestion, a number that can be changed and balanced. The inherent health-maintenance minigame still exists, which is why it has so much more potential as a Grandmaster Trait. In addition, the number can be changed to something like 15% and another bonus effect such as “water skills recharge 30% faster while above 90% health,” or “create a Frost Aura upon successful evade while above 90%.” There’s really a lot of creative space here.

• But why not just keep the 10% on Aquamancer’s and swap it as-is?
  A 10% damage boost on a Grandmaster Trait with such a difficult to maintain condition just doesn’t seem Grandmaster-worthy. Especially when there are super easy boosts like 10% to burning enemies or 10% while attuned to Fire in Master/Minor tiers.

• But there will be more boons in HoT! Bountiful Power will be OP!
  Sorry, a 2 or 3% boost still doesn’t solve the issue of Bountiful Power being a poor Grandmaster choice (assuming Elementalists could even maintain boons like Quickness and Resistance).

TL;DR at the bottom. Warning: this is a long one!

So I saw all four+ hours of the Specialization AMA. I really like how the system is moving forward and I appreciate that there is some real decision-making involved now with trait choices. However, I’d like to make the following suggestion:

Make Aquamancer’s Training (deal 10% extra damage when your health is above 90% and reduces recharge on all water weapon skills) a Grandmaster Trait, boost the damage bonus to 20% (or 15% with another bonus effect), and turn Bountiful Power (deal 1% extra damage for every boon) into a Master Trait.

Why? Well the new Specialization system is mainly focused on how Grandmaster Traits define/change the player’s play style in a significant, meaningful way. As it stands now, Bountiful Power is, quite frankly, boring and passive. It adds a marginal stat boost (at any given time an Ele generally has only 4-5 boons), and does not promote any new type of playing. Heck, even the Ranger’s equivalent, Bountiful Hunter, is only an Adept Trait! Although I understand that comparing similar traits between classes is not completely fair due to how different their play styles are, I really don’t believe Bountiful Power is deserving of Grandmaster tier.

The only sort of play style that Bountiful Power promotes is to have as many boons on your character at a time. However, there are currently only 9 boons total in the game, and Eles don’t have reliable access to Retaliation or Aegis. Protection, Stability, and Vigor are difficult to maintain, leaving only four (Might, Fury, Regeneration, and Swiftness) boons to have near-constant uptime. These four boons, however, are already at near-constant uptime on almost all Elementalist builds!. They are simply too important and helpful to go without, as any competitive player would agree. They are also very easy to maintain, whether it be through blasting fields, weapon skills, or through traits such as Elemental Attunement or Zephyr’s Boon. That is, no Elementalist, even if they chose Bountiful Power, would significantly change their play style (boons should already be up whenever possible), or their builds (purposely choosing a Trait/Rune that provides a unique boon for a 1% damage bonus is wasteful). Ultimately, Bountiful Power fails at being a Grandmaster Trait.

I understand that the intention of Bountiful Power was to give Eles who went into Water a damage option. Whereas Cleansing Water encourages group-wide support builds, and Powerful Aura encourages Auramancer play, Bountiful Power, however, offers only a pure damage boost with nothing else interesting about it. It also suffers from the fact that it can be rendered useless when fighting an enemy that can remove conditions. When a Mesmer can nullify your Grandmaster Trait just by using their sword auto-attack, or a Thief spamming S/D 3, it seems like bad game design and leads to a bad player experience.

Let’s talk about Aquamancer’s Training, though. Aquamancer’s training does encourage a simple, but strategic minigame. Try to keep your health above 90% to do more damage. The % health mechanic is especially interesting on Elementalists due to them having the lowest base Health/Armor combination, yet extremely high damage potential. By pumping up the damage bonus to, say, 20%, not only is it highly enticing as a Grandmaster Trait (thus fairly competing with Cleansing Water and Powerful Aura), but whole new builds will be designed around keeping your health above 90%, lest you lose a huge part of your potential damage output. It would force glass cannon Eles to put major investment into Weapon Skills/Utilities that prevent damage such as Arcane Shield or Obsidian Flesh, or force them to play a strike at full health, retreat and heal, and strike again play style. Or, you could focus solely on the 90% health part and focus on building Vitality and Toughness, while still having a helpful damage boost. Aquamancer’s Training also heavily synergizes with the Earth Grandmaster Traits Diamond Skin and Stone Heart, due to the nature of their damage-preventing effects. Synergy between Specialization lines is a great thing and was heavily emphasized as such during the stream. Ultimately, by increasing the damage increase portion of Aquamancer’s Training, it becomes a highly attractive Trait that would compete with other Grandmaster Traits while at the same time encouraging unique builds and/or play styles to capitalize on said damage increase. Basically, it would envision everything ArenaNet wants in a Grandmaster Trait.

TL;DR
Bountiful Power doesn’t encourage unique play styles or builds. It is boring, weak, and should not be Grandmaster tier. Aquamancer’s Training encourages making builds and having combat that plays around the 90% health point. It competes well with the other Grandmaster Traits and has synergy with other trait lines (Earth). Buff the % damage bonus to make it Grandmaster-worthy and swap the two.

evilunderling.9265:

bushido.8071:

please add new weapons for engineer, because engineer have only double pistol and shield combination alongside rifle for double hand. when we look at guardian and warrior, there weapons choices are huge.

For reference, mesmers are actually the profession with the fewest weapon skills, as shown here.

Engineers get a lot of extra weapon skills from their kits.

Mesmers actually have the fewest skills of any kind in the game, losing out to necromancers once you count lich form and plague form skills.

In terms of sheer weapon diversity, however, Elementalist and Engineer are very lacking . I’m especially looking forward to what these two classes get.

Just saying, a 10% damage loss from 2,000 damage is 200 damage, not 100…

Bumping and clarifying my original question. My question is specifically at stacking two of the SAME on crit sigil.

I tried to do some testing myself, and it has led me to believe that the second same sigil will have no effect. Can anyone confirm?

I’ve been searching for the answer around a lot but I’ve seen mixed replies (search also sucks here). Sigil stacking is a bit confusing in general.

My question is, do sigils that apply on crits (air, fire, etc.) stack with diminishing returns when applied on two weapons (offhand and mainhand)? I understand that the cooldowns are shared between the two, and that you won’t have the same effect twice on a crit but will the proc percentage go up?

For example, with two sigils of air will I have a 51% chance on crit for a lightning strike, or will one of the sigils be wasted?

I was also a bit confused when I first started cooking (1-400 today, yay!).

The salt and pepper recipe is already learned when you start cooking. It’s not something you discover like other recipes, so just find it under seasonings and voila.

Attunement bonuses linger for five seconds. It doesn’t mean you can cast spells from one element while attuned to another.

One of the elementalist utility skills, Cleansing Fire, does not have its burning duration tooltip updated when the trait Burning Fire (Fire Adept II) is learned.

The base burning duration on the skill is 3 seconds, and with the trait the tooltip should read 6 seconds in blue font (without any condition duration increases). Although the tooltip continues to read 3 seconds after learning the trait, in-game the actual duration is 6 seconds, hence the reason the bug is only minor.

The trait Burning Fire does correctly update the tooltips of Signet of Fire, Conjure Flame Axe, and Conjure Firery Greatsword. Cleansing Fire seems to be the only skill not being updated.