Guild Wars 2

No earth shield for a PvP condition elementalist? Get out!

How about…

Signet of Water clears 1 condition and cures Chill every 10 seconds. Succesful hit on the active applies Frost Aura.

Same buff for Signet of Fire’s active, but with Fire Aura instead.

Wolfric.9380:

Geomancres compete with elemental shielding would be very bad. Only with some compensation. Nerfing protection on eles kills all non heal/sustain builds.

Only if using Focus. Earth is not really much the line for the non-sustain build. Probably just condition builds. And I know for a fact that you can’t go both of them anyway as condition (you need the armor of earth at 50%)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Resurrection

Arcane Resurrection still has a 5 seconds aura duration after reviving the allies. Why hit Conjurer and not hit Arcane Resurrection at the same time; we all know how -broken- it is?

Right?

Wolfric.9380:

This is again a nerf hurting non meta more. I understand the reason, because it nerfs aura rate which decreses protection uptime an healing, but i feel like Anet intentionally wants to kill all builds exept one …. This hurts my non meta non auramancer much more and might force me to pick the same traits as meta ele´s. Unbelivable one dimensional thinking and scrapping build diversity.
Why not just nerf regen on auras or even better exchange the water trait for aurashare to something else ….. Yes this nerf is easy to calculate and maybe doesn´t feel to bad for normal players but it hurts build diversity. There should be a -20% CD now on shouts in tepestions aria. So if you want regen you have the new CD´s…. And in addition also wash the pain away can be 30 sec too then. It feels like half finished reducing build diversity again.
While i think its an OK nerf for auramancers i am upset how it was done … It realy feels like 10 minutes work on the drawboard …

How about making Elemental Shielding a Master Trait competing against Geomancer’s training (which benefits so much for auramancer d/f)?

The 10 seconds is a relic of the old trait. (Notice how badly rushed Tempest was.)

Old trait was 10 sec ICD for a breakstun on allies when using a warhorn ability. Which no longer exists, thankfully.

Well, that’s a patronizing way to tell what is allowed to play or not with X class.

Alex Shatter.7956:

Topher.5631:

Tempest:

-Reduce the healing from applying auras

-Reduce healing from water overload

-Reduce damage from air overload

-Increase recharge on “Rebound!”, “Feel the burn!” and “Flash Freeze!”

-Increase damage on all weapon skills

As an ele main I agree with most of this. But the reason why overload air is so strong is not because of its damage, but because of its burst (1/4 sec), radius (largest of overloads), and it hits 5 people. Meaningful nerfs would target those as well / instead

Well, Air Overload hits 3 targets maximum. I don’t see where Tempest would be without Air Overload.

It’s true. Glyphes do not need that much work. They just need pure and simple number adjustment into viability.

The healing spell from glyphes is just completely below the average heal level for Cast Time, Cooldown and quality of secondary effect.

Zergs.9715:

Glacial.9516:

I suppose I should clarify that when I pictured them working like kits, I still assumed they would have their cooldowns, durations and charges (as well as a 10s cooldown upon leaving the conjure, so more like attunements than kits). Plus they’d likely lose their bonus stats. So for non-FGS, as long as we still have charges, we could have them available for use for the entire 60s cooldown. FGS for 60 of its 180s cooldown. Both with 10s cooldowns to re-enter the conjure.

This guy has the right idea.
This is exactly how I’d rework conjure weapons. This would push them from situational/never used skills into things you can actually wrap your builds around. Honestly, constantly increasing number of charges doesn’t bring anything new to the table, it’s only perpetuating state Conjure Weapons are in right now.

Here’s how it’d look as a mix of Glacial’s and my ideas:

• Conjure weapons cooldown reduced to 10 seconds
• Stat bonuses while having Conjure weapon are removed
• Conjure weapons auto-attack costs no charges
• Only 2-5 skills have charges
• Number of charges is reduced to 2
• When traited number of charges is increased to 4

With 2 charges, the thing is going to glitch and bug everytime. And lets not make conjured weapon trait dependant. Elementalist Traits are restricting enough.

kybraga.7103:

Themistokles.1238:

FIrst. Nice that there are more people that like the Conjured Weapons and want a comeback for them.
I agree with most of your points but i absolutely disagree with “Built Rage”. Maybe its just me, but i really dont want to see more condis. Its allready enough burning. For PvE it would be a nice trait. But for PvP i hate the idea.

Lightning Hammer should do much more damage then it is doing at the moment. It should be a viable damage buff compared to AA on Dagger Air. Is nice to have a Explo but because we loose dps at the moment its not good to take. We loose the option to use other sills then the 5 we get, that in mind i would say boost all AA on Conjured.

I would love to see a Trait or a rewok of conjured in general. Something like the Glyphs. Summon a Weapon, based on your Attument you are in. So you still have the option to react to a specific situation. Because we have so many terrible Utility skills it would be nice to have one that can bring alot to the party.

Honestly, I thought about making the AAs on Lightning Hammer faster, the hammer hits hard enough. However there are other things I noticed and will be updating above.
ED: I’ll also look at Built Rage a bit more.

Shield auto-attack can deal more than Hammer due to attack speed and base damage. Not that I complain; shield barely gives anything to survive. It’s just Hammer that is extremely weak.

Aftercast makes the full auto of hammer to 2.71 seconds I think. When shield is about 2.23. Hammer cast time is 1/2 sec per auto, shield is 3/4 per auto. It speaks.
(I am a SPvPer)

Glacial.9516:

I think the simplest solution might be to halve the cooldowns and remove the ground conjure. Though I would love to see them work similar to kits, which would make them their own attunement of sorts.

I’d also be in favor of replacing the ground conjure with mantra-like usage. After casting the conjure you have 2 ‘stacks’ of conjure swaps (one of which is consumed in the initial cast). Each time you use one you’ll equip the conjure. This might also let Conjurer replace Fire Aura with a 3rd conjure stack and make the trait significantly more useful?

If conjures become like kit. Their power will need to be drammatically reduced. This is because at any point, you need to consider the possibility of an extra evade frame with extreme damage (FGS 3), and such.

With hammer, one big issue is how you cannot move while casting Static Field, and how it’s not targetted in an area (with 600 range; hammer is not staff)

With Shield, one big issue is the empty passive stat that is one large issue. Vitality is not helpful. There was a large math thread about how it hindered the elementalist by reducing all healing capacity by 10% during the effect. I usually ask to change Vitality for Concentration, while giving condition conversion to Fortify, and retaliation to Stone Sheath.

For Earth Shield, I would avoid changing the auto-attack. It’s probably the most interesting auto-attack in the entire game. It only lacks a projectile finisher at the last strike.

Stone Sheath one-block component could be kept, but with a lower cooldown (like it used to be before a bug was fixed; it was 4 seconds cooldown, and was not broken)

Fortify, I believe needs to keep the immobility for obvious balance reasons.

The Daze on Earth Shield is currently used to apply a long daze that is affected by Tempest Defense’s Damage increase (It works on stun, knockdown and daze [not in tooltip] only). So it can be followed up with an earth or fire overload. Blast finisher is a sensitive idea, which I used to tell about (or leap finisher).

I also liked the idea of the attunement swapping effect on conjure. But, the best build using conjures are not necessarily using the trait line corresponding to the conjured weapon. Additionnally, a conjured weapon is not necessarily fine tuned with the corresponding trait line. (Just consider the only viable conjure synergy being Earth Shield + Lightning Rod)

Overall: Conjured Weapon ideas involving cooldown increase on abilities are not a good idea. It encourages the “use everything, then discard conjure” attitude, which we don’t want for an healthy utility.

One big issue with conjured weapon is the lack of condition clear

Grimreaper.5370:

Alekt.5803:

Grimreaper.5370:

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Changes to unused traits I’d like to see:

-Latent Stamina now grants 50 endurance when the Elementalist enters the water attunement along with applying its typical 3 seconds of vigor in a 240 radius.

Thoughts?

My thoughts for that one? Re-read the trait. There is no shame in that, even ESL “tempests” don’t know how to read that trait.

It grants 10 endurance to allies or yourself whenever you apply vigor. There is no ICD; the tooltip is wrong. The trait also applies vigor around you when swapping to water.

I’m aware, you are actually the one who initially informed me, but I belive it would be more reliable if vigor was just granted in a form that would immediately give you a dodge you were wanting. That or change this trait into something that maybe gives endurance upon crits so you didnt have to stack vigor over the top, that could also make for a nice trait for glass build

To be honest, the trait would be nicer if Tempest was not exlusively about auras. We only have 1 quality GM trait, and it works with sustain and aura. It then becomes silly to let go of one very important aura trait that Latent Stamina competes against. Elementalists (Damage Tempest or Sustaint Tempest)always need a core of both Condition Clear and Sustain, which the aura route in Tempest offers; it’s like the classic Evasive Arcana route with Arcane. The solution needs to be within those parameters.

The 3 Tempest GMs offer a sort of defensive option where Elemental Bastion ends up beating every single one, on many levels.

Lucid Singularity would need some serious help. In core, the trait clears and grant immunity to movement imparing effects, this needs to stay. But in addition, here is a few options that may fit the theme and the needs of a more offensive-oriented tempest (while remaining defensive in a way). So here what may fit:

1. Grant one second of super speed at the beginning of the overload, and another second upon completing the overload.
2. Reduce recharge rate of Overloads by 33%.
3. Upon casting an overload, grant a buff that increases the boon duration by 33% for 7 seconds.

Sadly, I don’t think the dev team is competent enough to fix that issue.

Lol. Was OP playing staff ele?

Maesto.9103:

I like S/D with Lightning Rod for Roaming. Air, Water, Arcane. Powerbuild with 2,4k Armor 2, 3k Power and a bit Healing Power.

You have good sustain – Teleport, Mistform, Conjure Earthshield and Fgs. Ride the Lightning, Cc, Blinds… you just have to choose your Playground and shouldnt fight in open Terrain. Many great Places at the new Borders to roam and kite there.

But yes, ofc there are Classes that can better engage/disengage. But you cant have it all;).

Ele is still good enough for Roaming.

Glad to see more Conjure Tempests.

Indeed, Conjure Earth Shield has many hidden comboes (which I will not disclose here) that can add up to a 1500 range gap closer when done right.

For me, it’s Staff, Lightning Rod, Conjure Earth Shield + FGS. Conjures improve the stats when overloading (more thoughness, or more power) and provide a better filler rotation to wait for overloads. First tick of Earth Overload is instant, First tick of Fire Overload is 0.2sec delay; use that to your advantage. If you find the playstyle odd, it’s normal because you’ve never played something like that before. I repeat, you’ll mess up the first 100 hours.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCNYiFRAGOA8RglHAjYIEE2BuT2L7nVIAcAahA-TJBFAB/XGAgHAgAXAAk2fAA

Grimreaper.5370:

---

Changes to unused traits I’d like to see:

-Latent Stamina now grants 50 endurance when the Elementalist enters the water attunement along with applying its typical 3 seconds of vigor in a 240 radius.

Thoughts?

My thoughts for that one? Re-read the trait. There is no shame in that, even ESL “tempests” don’t know how to read that trait.

It grants 10 endurance to allies or yourself whenever you apply vigor. There is no ICD; the tooltip is wrong. The trait also applies vigor around you when swapping to water.

kilim.5093:

This is an interesting wtf build lol
Will take a look. So… since you dont have fire specialization, doesnt it reduce damage by a lot? Well, ok, in reallity i swith often, but still. I run fire, water and tempest + i’m not shore my build is good or it sucks. In pvp i remember having hard time killing some tempests, so might as well add some better survival.

What do you think about switching Renewing stamina for Arcane Abatement?

Fire is the worst line possible, plus, OP asked for a bunker or support build.

Acane Abatement is for falling damage, which is never an issue in SPvP

There used to be a settler staff dps build for elementalist using Icebow and Earth Shield. But, it was pre-HOT, but Icebow got nerfed, settler amulet got deleted, diamond skin got reworked.

Condition elementalist is usually better during a non-condition meta, and most traits implying conditions are in need for a rework that will never happen.

Condition variety: poor
Condition burst: High
Sustained Condition: medium

Still wondering why Revenant had tier 2 health when considering the 2 heal skills + heals on weapon skills, + heavy armor + protection uptime.

Sigil of Leeching
Assassin Annihilation
Sigil of Blood
And more?

I am refusing to log-in if it’s still here.

It’s a total of 21% damage increase.
1.10 × 1.10 = 1.21

What is “bruiser” tempest anyway?

You could try this one. Though, it’s crippled by a bug Anet refuses to acknowledge; arcane traits will not reduce the cooldown of your overload recharge. You asked for a support or bunker build. You can swap to the regular Rune of the Soldier instead of Leadership if you prefer, but the boon duration is generally well-received from leadership, and the condition convertion on elite acts in a similar way to Soldier runes too.

You also have Vigor-Giving traits from Arcana, which synergizes with Latent Stamina, which itself synergizes with Evasive Arcana. Blast you icefields for area wide: 10 energy, 1200 heal, 1 condi clear, 1 vigor (7s), 1 regen (7s), and the 4 seconds frost aura (is used to be 4, but got buffed to 4 when every aura got nerfed)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCGOAcYiFWAjIBcACAuX1uaZtYDk/qAA-TJxHABA8AAq9CAgUZAx3fAA

FrostSpectre.4198:

Perhaps make that Inscriptions gives another boon, the said boon to nearby allies (and make glyphs that don’t have a boon by attunement, to have one), while granting the Elementalist itself Fury.

All glyphs would give a boon like Glyph of Elemental harmony un-traited?

Fire attunement with inscriptions could grant fury (5 seconds on all glyphs) and AoE quickness (2 seconds)
Water attunement with inscriptions could grant fury and AoE resistance (2-4 seconds)
Air attunement with inscriptions could grant fury and AoE stability (5 seconds)
Earth attunement with inscriptions could grant fury and AoE retaliation (5 seconds)
I just threw boons abit random with this example…

Yeah, I once had an idea of a major boon, with ICD per glyph uses. Though, let’s remember that the regen on glyph when used on water (with cleansing water) removes 2 conditions, which is nothing to laugh at. I’d like inscription to keep that synergy.

FrownyClown.8402:

[Elementalist] Making staff viable for dueling in pvp would ruin it for wvw.

The changes staff elementalist received seems to be directed toward the goal to make it better in small scale fights with the cooldown reduction on Gust. There also seems to be some hidden accuracy fixes to Shockwave into that list. Stuff like accuracy changes (when an auto-attack keeps getting obstructed or misses due to being too slow or innacurate) does not change the WvW or PvE dynamics, but it does for PvP.

Then again, I am surprised to see the fireball changes on pure damage instead of being on the accuracy or cast speed part of the skill. I suppose it’s because of the propaganda videos some users kept spamming about marauder staff ele vs… Who knows?

Conncept.7638:

Slightly off topic but glyphs really do need to be moved OUT of the air tree.

They are a set of SUPPORT and CONDITION skills completely nonsensically placed in the EVASION and SPIKE DAMAGE tree. They’re some of my favorite skills but I can’t use more than 1 or 2 because a full bar of them is worthless without the CD reduction, which you have to take at the cost of the selection of an entire trait tree that is otherwise worthless for them.

It’s not out. Those are actually a old design where elements have a tertiary specialization. Air 3rd strenght is healing power.

Air: Precision, Crit, -Healing-. Soothing Winds along with the Glyph trait (which is essentially support)
Fire: Power, burning, -cleansing-. (Still very much in effect)
Earth: Thoughness, bleeding, -physical-. Enduring Damage
Water: Healing, Vitality, Ice (Power and Vulnerability) (Still in effect)

Conncept.7638:

Slightly off topic but glyphs really do need to be moved OUT of the air tree.

They are a set of SUPPORT and CONDITION skills completely nonsensically placed in the EVASION and SPIKE DAMAGE tree. They’re some of my favorite skills but I can’t use more than 1 or 2 because a full bar of them is worthless without the CD reduction, which you have to take at the cost of the selection of an entire trait tree that is otherwise worthless for them.

It’s not out. Those are actually a old design where elements have a tertiary specialization. Air 3rd strenght is healing power.

Air: Precision, Crit, -Healing-.
Fire: Power, burning, -cleansing-.
Earth: Thoughness, bleeding, -physical-.
Water: Healing, Vitality, Ice (Power and Vulnerability)

And that system was supposed to be intuitive for the people like OP.

How do you test builds if all you get in unranked are poor opponents. How do you manage to balance before the ranked season if Pro Leagues keep their strats secret, builds secret.

All Anet creates with that system is a 1 month and an half of nothingness for the majority of players. Well, if it’s your strategy, feel free to do so, but don’t expect players to stick around. I am certainly not.

Glacial.9516:

Can confirm, and while it may not be a good usage for the trait per-say, I often use Inscription when I know I’ll be running around a lot with little combat (ie. Map completion). Glyph of Elemental Harmony (Air) can maintain perma swiftness on its own.

And just throwing it out there, what if Inscription worked on up to 5 party members within range? (In addition to Fire being fixed/changed to give 3 might instead of 1.)

It’s not bad per-se.

But one should compare Glyph of Elemental Harmony (Heal value, cooldown, cast time, secondary effects) to other heals like Heal as One. There is a 2k heal value missing.

“Gw2 on life support” -Chaith.

I stalk Chaith for that sort of quotes for bad copypastarino on Twitch Chat.

Dagger mainhand has Burning Speed, Ring of Earth, Shocking Aura. (Off-hand: Updraft,)

Scepter has Blinding Flash, Dust Devil and Rock Barrier’s toughness.

I agree with OP. Focus is the only reason Elementalist went anywhere lately. Thankfully, they tried to adress it this patch for Staff by increasing the Unsteady Ground duration by 1 sec (which is nothing to laugh at), and reducing the cooldown of both Gust and Windborne Speed (which would be interesting if it cleansed slow).

BlackBeard.2873:

Diva.1476:

This is pretty much the reason why we still can’t play a glyph build yet, the only glyphs trait is bugged/unfixed/not tested properly.

I appreciate people testing out abilities constantly, but I really don’t think this is the only reason glyphs aren’t used. Yes, I agree Glyph of ele Power has potential to be usable someday, and the elite can be nice (decent damage in pve, rocky is a good tank for old Tom, water heal is great in pvp), but all other glyphs are basically garbage, and inscription is hilariously bad as well (partially b/c all other glyphs are bad, and partially b/c…lol, 1 might?!?!). While this trait should be fixed, you probably shouldn’t be making a glyph build anyway.

Glyph of Elemental Power is quite good (I am talking about the instant condition giver buff). The inscription trait remains thrash tier (at least in PvP). It does not even give 3 might, and if it did, it would still remain thrash tier. It would still be thrash tier if it reduced the cooldown of the elemental special abilities by 20% too.

For Glyphes uselessness theories, it’s simple. 1. Individually, the utilities are not very good (2 summons, 1 bottom tier heal, 1 AoE skill mostly for PvE and bad anywhere else, 1 niche rez skill, 1 condition build utility). 2. They make no sense together. 3. The trait improving the glyphs is out-dated, seems ignored with the 1 stack of might, and is bottom tier. 4. The trait benefits mostly the use of many Glyphs together while they have no solid synergy together.

So, the solutions to inscription would be to either do;

A) Rework the trait for issue number 4, which means a trait that is good enough when only 2 or less Glyphs are used.
B) Flat-out buff the Glyph healing skill. The heal value itself is amongst the lowest and the boons themselves follow an old boon duration logic.
C) Try to avoid going the boring way by adding some Auras to Glyphs.
D) Glyph of Elemental Power is an awesome design; that’s how glyphs should look like.

Good luck fixing one of the least used stuff.

Players, balance.

Axialbloom.8109:

He means that on the strongest weapon eles have, Fireball is the strongest auto-attack. Not that it is the strongest auto-attack we have.

Depends on which game mode. Staff was completely eclipsed in SPvP lately, and we have no confirmation about if it’s going to be any different.

Burtnik.5218:

Alekt.5803:

No one noticed that yet?

Damage looks fine for me. What you speaking about is bugged trait interraction with projectiles which deal 2k lifesteal damage from sides/behind

Thanks for details.

No one noticed that yet?

It does not prove that they read this post. It was already planned, launched and ready to go before it.

One thing I got changed was the Sigil of Nullification, which was spoken about 2 months prior this date. Now, I don’t say they don’t read; it was already planned before you spoke about it four days before patch.

Wolfric.9380:

More boon steal/removal had been put in the game. This is usually bad news for ele. Steal protection and kill ele …

The more boon steal here does not matter if you’re referring to Boontiful Theft: it already prioritized Stability and Protection.

If you’re talking about Sigil of Nullification, it’s actually a possibility for the Lightning Rod eles.

The auto-attack from downstate deals over 3k per strike. It seems to be a bug.

I had taken a two month break, came back with all the rust, and can claim that (just for the few games I did) the dps ele survives better due to the other stuff getting the righteous shaving.

Fireball damage was one of the last thing I expected.

I would have expected instant first tick of Lava Font, Cooldown reduction of lightning surge, damage increase on Ice Spike and/or Eruption, damage increase on shockwave. But no, fireball.

Exactly the point. I wonder who promoted that sort of changes instead of increasing velocity or the accuracy of the projectiles.

Obligatory repost.

“Fireball: The effect of this skill has been returned to its previous state. The damage of this skill has been increased by 17%.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6102561

Was I right?

Well, you got your scepter buffs, good ones. I don’t agree with the 17% buff on staff fireball, it will only promote fire camping.

I report it everytime I log in.

reikken.4961:

Alekt.5803:

1. Fix the bug with arcane instead.
2. Why? This doesn’t make sense to me. I can see making it 4 seconds, to match the duration of the channel. Or even better, make it 1 second applied every 1 second while channeling. but 5? what

1. What is the goal behind deemphasizing proper positioning and coordination?

The radius change on Wash the Pain is because 180 radius is overly close and is mainly achievable with a tanky type of elementalist, pushing more fragile-built elementalists.

The protection duration is to match the channel, yes. The justification for the extra second (5 seconds) is due to the previous nerf/bug fix on Overload Earth that reduced the protection duration by 52% on non-earth tempest. And no need to worry about Elemental Shielding being a master trait with the proposed changes.

For Elementalist, I expect:

1. Reduce Overload Recharge to 15 seconds, down from 20.
2. Increase Protection duration from Hardy Conduit to 5 seconds, up from 3.

Nerfs.
1. Wash the Pain Away’s healing to allies is reduced by 50%, but the radius on first pulse and second pulse is improved by 240 and 360, respectively up from 180 and 240 radius.
2. Elemental Shielding is now a Master Trait competing against Geomancer’s Training. (To limit Focus’ synergy with the Earth Line).