Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits.

Jon, thank you for participating and encouraging this discussion.

But with all due respect, I think you are wrong here. Elemental Attunement gives you only a single boon per attunement switch, that is, 1 Might or Swiftness or Regeneration or Protection.
Just for comparison, warrior’s “Great Justice” Utility skill gives you 3 Might permanently if timed correctly.

But why do so many elementalists take Elemental Attunement then?

I do it because of the access to Regeneration and I don’t think that’s a Grandmaster Trait or even elite skill. And if you have a closer look you see that elementalists have no easy access to regeneration.

There is one on glyph of elemental harmony, but this has no condition removal and with water trait XI (cleansing water) that’s even worse than ether renewal. And you would have to use a trait and a heal utility for it, in order to keep condition removal.

Then there is water trait X (soothing wave), but you have to trigger it with a utility skill (for example signet of water). The same with water III (soothing disruption), which needs a cantrip as utility. If you want to combine that with water trait XI, then you need two traits and a utility for access to the removal of 1 condition.

As for weapons, well, regeneration is only on staff water 5 and trident water 4, not on dagger, scepter, or focus.

They only way out of this complicated mess is this crutch Elemental Attunement, which gives you easy access to regeneration and let you efficiently use for example grandmaster water trait XI.

And I am not thinking about spvp or tpvp here, but wvw with zergs, large groups, I gave up on builds not using elemental attunement here, so I would be forced into arcana 20 anyway.
(Otherwise I can’t take arcane abatement with water 30, if I want cleansing wave and cleansing water, but need a regeneration trigger trait as well).