Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Cleansing Wave
This is the one I am most on the fence about of all of the elementalist changes. It is a borderline master level trait and I think a better solution would be to leave it at adept tier and instead of moving Soothing Wave (which is only moving because it is better to have a 100% worthless trait at adept tier rather than master tier) we would redesign Soothing Wave into something worthy of master level.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery
This one was debated internally for a while as well. I think swapping these traits would also help build diversity as it would let you splash 10 points in water to get Cantrip recharge, but would make you really consider going into water magic for the Regen and Vigor which is much more flavorful. I would love to hear some elementalist thoughts on that potential change.

Last but definitely not least.

Arcana
I see the logic in not wanting the two changes in this line to counter each other. Moving good adept traits to master level is contrary to reducing the need to spec into this line. That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits. I think a good compromise would be to place Renewing Stamina back in the adept tier, placing is where the other professions get this type of trait, and instead move Final Shielding to the master tier where it could live alongside Arcane Retribution as two good choices in arcane builds that take Arcane Mastery in the adept tier.

I’m much happier with these changes than the original ones for these traits. Moving up elemental attunement to master sounds completely fair and due to leaving renewing stamina in the adept tier this change won’t disrupt any of the current D/D and S/D defensive set ups. Leaving Cleansing wave in place and redesigning soothing wave sounds great as well because D/D and S/D really need both that condition removal and Cantrip Mastery. I look forward to seeing what the new soothing wave does.

The idea of Cantrip Mastery being in the adept tier is intriguing as Cantrips are very widely used for their utility and the survivability they grant the player (not to mention their superiority over the alternative utility skills) which is what currently makes it feel absolutely necessary to go 20 into water.

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.

While I don’t mind most of the changes these two really bug me. All these two changes are going to do is make it more difficult for elementalists to spec defensively by forcing us to now chose between cantrip mastery and cleansing wave (the obvious choice being cantrip mastery) and to chose between elemental attunement and renewing stamina. Moving water 5 is just nerfing condition removal in defensive trait set ups which doesn’t seem like the right thing to do during the condition meta. Moving Elemental Attuenment to master is even more worrying for me.

These changes are only going to weaken my current (0/30/0/20/20) S/D fresh air build (Which I use for WvW roaming) by forcing me to use inferior defensive traits in the adept slots when it is already quite difficult to survive, especially against condition builds. Now my current S/D build will have less condition removal (now only water skill 5 and ether renewal) and if I want to keep Ele Attunement (which I like for the protection and swiftness) I will have to use vigorous scepter giving me only half of my current endurance regen bonus in combat. Fresh Air S/D is already inferior to D/D for roaming.

Additionally, if increasing elementalist build diversity is a goal, I would recommend finally getting around to buffing the focus. Currently, half of its skills are underpowered or useless (Particularly the water and fire skills). Fire and water skill 4 are particularly bad. Its powerful defensive skills don’t make up for it’s lack of damage and mobility. It would be nice to see S/F and D/F be viable weapon combinations.

Also, one of the major problems with the stoneflesh minor earth trait is that, unlike soothing mist, it doesn’t work with lingering attunements. It’s the fact that this trait only really benefits players that camp in earth attunement that limits its usefulness. It might even be good to give it a lingering effect like soothing mist.

I use a mix of 2 mouse buttons and shift to attunement swap so this bug has pretty much destroys my ability to play elementalist well in competitive gameplay. I hope this gets resolved soon because I can’t hope to do WvW until then.

This frustrating bug has been happening to me on and off for months now and has cost me at least several gold, tens of thousands of karma and multiple levels worth of WXP. I have sent in dozens of bug reports over the months to no avail. This is a pretty severe bug and really needs a fix. I am tired of having to worry about whether or not I am actuallly going to get my hard earned reward after spending a large amount of time capturing a tower, keep or SMC. Please fix this.