Guild Wars 2

Mist Form is still better.

You can’t guarantee a flag/revive simply by popping cleansing fire, and it’s also not going to save you if you get focussed by 3 guys chain stunning. Mist form can buy you those precious few seconds for an escape to come off cooldown, for backup to arrive, or any number of situations where it’s a case of ‘just a few seconds longer’.

Bsquared.3421:

no, it casts a weaker version of churning earth. It does some damage, and puts up a single bleed stack (whereas the real CE skill puts up. The animation looks identical to CE except the spikes from the ground are slightly smaller, so I’m not quite sure how you could confuse it with earthquake (the two skill animations look nothing alike).

No.

It casts Shockwave (you can even see it in the combat log – go test it on a dummy) which hits for about the damage that Shockwave hits for, and applies one stack of bleed (like Shockwave), but no immobilize. It doesn’t cast churning earth. The rockburst graphic is that of Churning Earth, but the spell that fires is not anything close.

Stating that it casts Earthquake was wrong, but no less wrong than claiming it casts Churning Earth, when it very clearly doesn’t, and takes 2 minutes to verify.

Additionally, the Air blind didn’t work on dummies when I tested it. I don’t know if that’s because they can’t attack (and are therefore effectively immune) or because it too is bugged. I never really noticed when I was pvp’ing and didn’t think to check ‘til I was testing to see if the earth dodge was really doing what it was supposed to do. Either way, I dropped the trait when I found that it wasn’t proccing Churning Earth, and possibly wasn’t proccing the blind from an Air dodge.

Nicomachiavelli.3046:

What are some good trait-based options for defense if focusing on offense?

I’ve been finding reasonable success with Cantrip Mastery/Soothing Disruption/Renewing Stamina when combined with triple cantrips for utilities (Armor of Earth/Mistform/Teleport), in a D/D Aura build (Rune of the Fire on armour).

Having a high uptime on Fury gives me around 65%ish crit chance, which directly converts into Vigor uptime, buying twice as many dodges as normal. Being then able to manually proc vigor if I need it (in addition to the other defensive benefits the cantrip of choice provides) generally buys me enough time for a Water switch to heal or some other escape to come back off cooldown (RtL/Burning Speed).

Between the Might uptime from the weapon Sigil and Superior Runes, reasonably regular Fury proccing, and Bountiful Power I’d still consider my damage output to be pretty solid, but in a much more durable package compared to what I’d have if I was relying on proc-based long-cd traits like Arcane Shield or their ilk. I’m much less of a fan of those simply due to the fact that it’s so easy for them to end up being wasted on an engagement they aren’t required, only to still be on cooldown when you do actually need them. I’m aware that’s a somewhat hypocritical stance given my choice of armour Runes, but I view the Fire Shield as a convenient bonus when it’s up. It’s not something I’m completely reliant on to keep me alive or doing damage. It’s just nice to have a free Fury/Swiftness proc every 90s, regardless of whether you really need it right then.

The build, for anyone interesed:

http://tinyurl.com/cz947ro

(Sorry for the tinyurl link – I guess the forum doesn’t like gw2skills.net’s url format)

Yup, happens on my PvE/PvP Ele all the time. Go from LA to the mists and bam! Where’d all my major traits go?

Papa Khann.5326:

Currently, it appears that Evasive Arcana is actually casting Ring of Earth at the end of a dodge roll. Not Churning Earth. Test it on a target dummy. The dodge roll only applies a single stack of bleed, not the 8 that Churning Earth would apply.

Either the trait is bugged (I know, an Ele trait not functioning properly… I’m sure we’re all SHOCKED.), or the tool tip is incorrect.

Papa

It’s casting Shockwave at the end of an Earth dodge (easily confirmed by the combat log). Hilariously, said Shockwave doesn’t even apply the immobilize, which would at least make it somewhat useful, even in it’s broken state.

Similarly, I did some testing and discovered that it’s also failing to apply the ‘Blind’ portion of Blinding Flash when you Air dodge (unless for some reason the target golems in the mists are immune to it, due to their inability to attack).

In short, it’s pretty much not worth the trait slot right now.