Guild Wars 2

Einherjar.6709:

So no doubt this will receive hate from some of the D/D ele crowd, but D/D was if anything fine, and in most cases a LOT more than fine, and now it’s been buffed even more.

Reading through the ele forums, there are enough people stating that they feel forced into D/D because it is overpowered and is the ‘only’ good trait setup at the moment.

So instead of making these fresh D/D ele’s learn how to play better (because admit it, a good D/D ele is an awesome force to be reckoned with), you buff the already overpowered setup. How does this make things better, for ele’s, and for profession balance in general?

Shocking Aura no longer dispellable (although it can no longer benefit from boon duration to balance it)

Signet of Air now provides 25% movement speed. D/D ele’s already have the highest mobility of any profession if they so choose (arguably tied with thief). Granted, this buff will affect all elementalists, but since keeping your distance from a D/D ele is important if you want to survive, this will make this a lot more difficult.

Stone Splinters now has ‘increased range from 300 to 600 units’, it’s description is “Deal 5% more damage when you are within melee range of your target” … since when is 600 units melee range? Another good sized and unnecessary buff for D/D.

Magnetic Grasp is now a leap finisher, and therefore gives 6 seconds more of fury, swiftness, and burning damage — ontop of the 12 seconds of fury and swiftness you get from Shocking Aura (air3) and 6 seconds from Frost Aura (water4).

And Pyromancer’s Puissance. Not normally taken in a D/D trait setup, but it’s been buffed to allow for even easier might stacking.

Have patience, I love staff and I’d like to see some buffs on it, but for now I don’t mind at all to play d/d , furthermore the buff to signet of water will make many scepter/focus builds viable in my opinion, just wait and see

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Arheundel.6451:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Arheundel.6451:

Again you with this paradoxical threads…
Because of you we had like 3-4 whine threads covering both this official forum and a community run forum, what a troll….

I can’t be held responsible for the actions of others.

I don’t appreciate being called a troll, when I’m just trying to point out potential strengths of the only profession I play.

Potential strenghts? The title of your video is " Guild Wars 2 bug", you really think to be clever don’t ya?

Your first “visitors” are well known thief players who have been whining about the ele for months, your actions speak louder than your mouth, you’re just encouraging these people with their little crusade and based on what?
An ele who just blow off all of his defensive skills to obtain a single effect?
Do you even know that you need a target for magnetic grasp?

If you don’t want to use any of the techniques I’ve given then that is fine. I’m not the first person to use magnetic grasp as a leap finisher in tandem with aura traits, but you are certainly the first person to argue against its effectiveness. Lots of people were upset when it became bugged and not for the aura, but because of the boons it gives.

The bulk of the protection duration comes from ring of fire + magnetic grasp combo, which gives 13.2 seconds of protection and can be used every 15 seconds. Using shocking aura and frost aura merely fill in the gaps and don’t necessarily need to be used everytime they are off cooldown. The argument that this isn’t effective because it requires a target and can be dodged is asinine as you could say the same about almost every ability in the game. You are clearly being adversarial and have some paranoid fantasy where any time someone promotes the strengths of elementalist you fear the devs plotting to nerf them.

•Ele•We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

I find it rather sad that you’re still trying to be clever, so you’re trying to promote this profession strenght? Check the comment above from the developers:

the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist

And this is your truly asinine comments!

Divide protection duration by its source’s cooldown and add up to get 1.33925. Since the value is greater than 1 you can stack increasingly higher durations of protection as long as you use each source when it’s off cooldown.

I always thought it was a shame that D/D ele became (sort of) fotm right when they bugged out magnetic grasp which allowed for 100% protection uptime builds. Well now it’s fixed and I think D/D will be increasingly fotm.

So now you’re saying that a good ele would just spamm off CD all these skills by you listed simply to obtain this…“100% protection upkeep”, what you’re proposing go directly against what the developers said, so what’s your point? The ele has suddenly become the new FOTm become some kid go in sPvP and use the tactic by you suggested? I wonder how long will he survive using that method…

To go and spamm all your skill to obtain “uber” effect doesn’t make you a good player…it makes an idiotic player

Teabaker.9524:

Hi!

So yea, I just saw the patch notes and i’m pretty stunned. No buff to warriors, no change to unviable weaponsets (Thief P/P), no nerf to mesmer, no nerf to bunker-guards, no “real” buff to rangers, no nerf to bunker-eles.

Is there more coming or was that all?

@Mr. Sharp
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.
•Warrior•We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.

•Guardian•The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

•Ranger•The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight. The fact that the ranger can have multiple pets allows them to combine their pets in ways that most impact the current fight. We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.

•Engineer•The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

•Thief•Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

•Mesmer•Mesmers rely on illusions in order to accomplish their goals. They need illusions to accomplish some of their highest damage and control, and without the illusions, they become fairly fragile. They can deal with enemy boons better than most classes, but enemy conditions can often be a problem. They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks.

•Ele•We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

•Necro•The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

Going forward
•Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS. We want to keep making balance changes that allow all classes to have various builds they can use. We don’t want tanks dominating the game, and we don’t want spike builds dominating. It’s healthy to have multiple types of builds in the meta, so we’ll be improving the balance to facilitate a healthy meta.
•AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches

Anet philosophy win ^^

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Teabaker.9524:

Yes it works and it’s also pretty easy to do. 40+seconds of protection and 40+ of regeneration. Woho.

EDIT: How broken is that, seriously.

The fire field + magnetic grasp boon duration is bugged out like crazy now giving 26 base duration protection (instead of 3 seconds) and 45 seconds of swift+fury (instead of 5).

This an obvious bug which should have been reported in the appropiate bug section, the purpose of the thread was something else as indicated in the first post

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Arheundel.6451:

Again you with this paradoxical threads…
Because of you we had like 3-4 whine threads covering both this official forum and a community run forum, what a troll….

I can’t be held responsible for the actions of others.

I don’t appreciate being called a troll, when I’m just trying to point out potential strengths of the only profession I play.

Potential strenghts? The title of your video is " Guild Wars 2 bug", you really think to be clever don’t ya?

Your first “visitors” are well known thief players who have been whining about the ele for months, your actions speak louder than your mouth, you’re just encouraging these people with their little crusade and based on what?
An ele who just blow off all of his defensive skills to obtain a single effect?
Do you even know that you need a target for magnetic grasp?

I want to ask you guys to go and check this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/D-D-Ele-100-protection-uptime-is-back/first#post1000457

This @Cosmic teapot has created already before a couple of threads and his only purpose is to stir up even more hate toward the ele, he usually use these paradox, baseless number crunching theories liek blowing off all your skill+utilities just to obtain a single effect

E.G= using 3 cantrip build- use at the same time all your cantrips to obtain 30s+ regeneration – then indirectly call for nerfs on the ele after using these absurd theories as proof.

Now you guys go and decide what to do( report-ignore-discuss), for me that’s obviously a whine thread and accordingly to the policy no whine threads are allowed

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

I always thought it was a shame that D/D ele became (sort of) fotm right when they bugged out magnetic grasp which allowed for 100% protection uptime builds. Well now it’s fixed and I think D/D will be increasingly fotm. Here’s the basic build setup (copy/paste link), it works for glass cannoning to bunkering.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;9;9;9;09-T;44;34-A;6qNnCrcW5U

Here’s a little math to show the uptime percentage. 12 seconds is used as the realistic amount of time to swap in and out of earth attune.

Earth attune 8.25/12
Shocking aura 4.95/25
Frost aura 4.95/40
Ring of fire + magnetic grasp 4.95/15

Divide protection duration by its source’s cooldown and add up to get 1.33925. Since the value is greater than 1 you can stack increasingly higher durations of protection as long as you use each source when it’s off cooldown.

I made this post to inform non elementalists and hear their opinions, so please don’t move to the ele sub forum.

Again you with this paradoxical threads…
Because of you we had like 3-4 whine threads covering both this official forum and a community run forum, what a troll….

In sPvP it’s great for the Temple of Storms map ^^, ‘position yourself on top of the door near the temple cap point – wait for zerg to come – attune to earth – jump and use earthquake after falling…double earthquake=immense pain’

plasmacutter.2709:

roostapro.9827:

AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches.

I’m concerned about this, as D/D is pbaoe. (but I think it has more to do with shatter builds, 100 blades, and thief aoe bleed spam)

I’m more concerned about the fact that dynamic events are balanced around launch level aoe, so if the amount of damage is reduced rather than increasing the opportunity cost it will wreck pve.

I’d like to hear more.

We share the same worries ..but as long kittenter/100b/caltrops/traps build get a dmg nerf, I’ll be happy to eat the nerf on my AoE dmg skills

Thank You Anet for not letting me down, these are the kind of changes I have been hoping for, I have been waiting for this buff on signet of air for months, since the buff on thief signet which has similar function, my scepter/focus test build was waiting just for that^^.

Furthermore thank you for not giving in the whining regarding dagger/dagger set, I was afraid you had lost your touch but thankfully I was proved wrong, it really seems now that with each patch we’re moving toward the same PvP balance which can be found in GW1 ( the latest builds locking in free/paid tournament is simply one of the best ideas so far).

By not nerfing our most used weapon set, Anet has sent a clear message to all whiners out there :" less time spent whining on the forums equals to more time spent in the game to find counters which work for you"

What we’ve got so far is definetely good, hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for positive changes on scepter( the one weapon more in need of help) and staff( my main weapon in PvE at the very least).

P.S You made trident, my favourite weapon after d/d set, even better …what to say? TY Anet^^

silvermember.8941:

Otaur.9268:

No buffs to staff or scepter. A lot of trait stuff going on. And underwater stuff…

I guess some people will never be happy.

Lol indeed

lol source?..no wait haha!

Shananigans.8412:

Lost second round of Paid tounrney after i was stuck in staff and couldnt go back to daggers, plz reverse this.

If you go staff..do not enter situations where daggers are preferred and if you can’t use staff as good as daggers…don’t go staff in the first place.

Ty Anet for this great fix!
We need more GW1 bonanza in this game, build locking is another step in the right direction, with this change finally all professions are brought more in line with what balance should be.

urinfamousr.7631:

shatterstone and DT 2 easy ways to get ur target to waste his endurance since most dodge out the way. can also be used to create distance between u and a melee target since soon as they si it they dodge, giving u an extra sec or 2. earth 3 and air 3 are great 2 blinds with short cd’s cant go wrong. scepter is very useful ikittennow how and when to use wut u have..

Only a moron use dodge with shatterstone and dragon’s tooth, your average person will simply walk out of it

Nilvio.7941:

Mesmer buff, so i can do 1v5 in tournament

Possibly they’ll remove engineer-guardian-mesmer , remove the skill bar and add a 3 buttons bar : attack/defense/heal.
Then they’ll change other professions to : paladin-wizard-rogue-archer and change the name of the game to “Golden Axe III”and also add turns time action so you receive a message before you get attacked :" turn 1-paladin use holy sword, turn 2- archer use defense" this should stop all whining

Albane.8367:

miklo.3610:

-Ether Renewal nerf
- Vapor form fix so the HP doesn’t reset when it’s over.
- some buffs to conjured weapons
-some bugfixes
That’s what im expecting but I hope we will get some buff in other areas and hopefully small changes in fire and earth traits.

Are other Elementalist finally starting to use Ether Renewal? I gave up trying to explain why it was so dominant in PvP with Cantrips a couple months ago. I have been running d/d since a couple weeks after the game came out and at the time everyone on these forums thought Staff was the only weapon for PvP.

I look forward to any changes, because running the same build is getting old. The problem is, I don’t run the Cookie Cutter 0-10-0-30-30 so I probably won’t be effected by the nerf to the arcane line.

Not surprising….
If you don’t use ether renewal…how the hell can you survive as ele with the onslaught of conditions , professions like mesmer/necro/thief can unleash on you?
I’m referring to the frequency and simplicity that these multiple stacks of conditions get applied, if you’d want to rely on cleansing water and cleansing wave(trait) you’ll be dead in no time against condition mesmer ( do nothing just dodge roll-create clones and make them shatter/be destroyed for 7s bleeding+confusion+weakness+cripple), wells necro ( lol perma bleeding+cripple+immobilize+poison+chill+fear+boon removal), caltrops thief ( 12 stacks of bleeding in 2-3s+poison+cripple)..or even a shortbow ranger ( bleeding+poison+cripple+immobilize)….no chance man

Tried other weapon sets to the best of my capabilities, you end up on the defense most times than not, because of the constant pressure that you’re not able to re-create with scepter( whose burst need buffs), staff ( no burst, slow casting, suck in 1vs1).

The only set that we can finally bring the fight to the enemy..and people ask for nerfs lol

Coast.5162:

I hope they don’t get influenced by the pressure created by whiners on the forums.
It’s never a good thing if balancing is done just to keep people from whining, let people whine and change things objective is all I want.

Anet must stick to the their guns and not give in the whining, complainers with plain and harsh comments are not good for business anyway, they will always have something to complain about…that’s their nature, unable to deal with problems, they start whining….

I believe that up to this point we should be able to outline the required profile for each weapon set, its purpose and usability.

For instance we all agree on the fact that d/d is our close distance PBAoE, it’s favoured by many especially because of the lack of delay on the dmg skills and the possibility to maintain pressure on all elements and this perfectly reflect the design of the ele.

Now in order to outline correct suggestions to improve staff/scepter, I believe it’s necessary to first define the role that a scepter or staff user can cover; personally I come to the conclusion that a scepter user should be our single target specialist/burster while a staff user should be the heavy artillery guy, in the past I read suggestions about giving more single target skills to staff and more aoe to scepter, that would be a mistake because they would lose identity, in light of these factors here below are my ideas for each set ( including focus)

SCEPTER:

-Fire
1) Flamestrike = no change
2) Dragon’s tooth= decrease delay by half, it can at least force people to dodge
3) Phoenix= increase speed by 20%

-Water
1) Ice shards= apply vulnerability
2) Shatterstone= same dmg as dragon’s tooth, 6s CD, apply 2s cripple
3) Water trident = no change

-Air
1) Arc lightning = no change
2) Lightning strike= no change
3) Blinding flash = no change

-Earth
1) Stone shards= no change
2) Rock barrier = *Hurl should deal like 200 dmg with each shard
3) Dust Devil= apply 8s bleeding

STAFF

-Fire
1) Fireball= no change
2) Lava font= increase radious to 240
3) Flameburst = no change
4) Burning Retreat = no change
5) Meteor Storm = more precision with meteor rocks

-Water
1)Water Blast = no change
2) Ice spike= no change
3) Geyser =no change
4) Frozen ground= reduce CD to 30s , we need more CC to keep enemies away
5) Healing Rain= Reduce CD to 40

-Air
1) Chain Lightning = no change
2) Lightning surge = no change
3) Gust = increase knockback to 450, remove projectile status, add “push nearby foes”
4) Windborne speed = no change
5) Static Field = reduce CD to 35s

-Earth
1) Stoning = no change
2) Eruption= reduce casting time to 1s and activation time to 2s
3) Magnetic Aura = no change
4) Unsteady ground = apply 4s cripple , increase dmg by 20%
5) Shockwave = change to ground target, immediate activation, 1s casting animation, 3s immobilize

Finally the FOCUS

-Fire
4) Flamewall = increase duration to 10s
5) Fire shield = increase duration to 5s

-Water
4) Freezing Gust = no change
5) Comet = no change

-Air
4) Swirling winds = apply 10s swiftness
5) Gale = reduce CD to 40s

-Earth
4) Shockwave = no change
5) Obsidian Flesh = no change

These are the changes I’d like to see, in my opinion long CD and long activation times are the main reason behind the fall of staff and scepter.

Because of huge activation delay and long CD by using a [b]staff[b] you rely too much on your team to stay alive because you lack effective ways to keep the enemy away and therefore you become an easy target in sPvP and somewhat more resilient( better team support) in tPvP but still far too dependant on your team to stay alive, after all we’re unable to switch sets therefore we must have the means to protect ourself if no ally can help you right away.

The Scepter should be our main burst weapon sey for single targets only, by using Dragon’s tooth and phoenix, if we could have the changes I’ve proposed, a scepter user would finally be able to maintaint the same level of pressure on a single target from middle range as a dagger/dagger user can on multiple targets but at close range

The Focus is clearly a defensive weapon but compared to the other weapon, it lacks a movement buff skill, and given the nature of the game, a way to move quickly is somehow a necessity, a modest buff to swirling wind ( apply 10s swiftness) would go a long way in improving our quality of life because once again we cannot change weapon set while in combat, finally the changes to fire would increase even more the defensive capabilities of a focus user, especially fire shield which would become a serious threat to the enemies

-NOTE- Daggers and Trident are excellent in the sense that all attunements allows to maintain pressure on the enemy without huge delays and ridiculously long CD, I only wish for this design to be extended to our other weapon sets

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

I can’t think of any other game where a profession can one-shot others by simply pressing the same button over and over again, go almost perma-invisible, and use a teleport skill which can be used everywhere ..not like other teleport skills..

Hey check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2rkN8jZBFA&feature=player_embedded..a profession killing 4-5 people one after the other…lol

mjharrison.3209:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Ele does constant heavy aoe damage to everyone while being able to tank like a mother, while giving himself and the whole team boons up the kitten

Please enlighten us with this magical high DPS, high tank and high support spec… hint: it doesn’t exist. Every class can “tank like a mother” if you spec full tank on it.

You are conflating bunker D/D eles with burst D/D Eles. The only “big damage” you can get out of a typical 0/10/0/30/30 cantrip D/D is churning earth for 4K + bleeds on 5 targets with ~1800 power and that’s a stationary point-blank 3sec cast. Abilities like dagger storm crap all over it.

Ele is like every other class: good support, good DPS, high survivability – pick 2. The main reason D/D has become popular is that all the other Ele weapons have major issues (staff = terrible at single target, scepter = dragon’s tooth easily dodged, focus = no heals, no mobility).

I enjoy D/D but i’d rather be playing a ranged caster, but that isn’t currently viable if you don’t like tower- or zerg-humping (yes I only play WVW).

Ranged weapons for ele will soon be viable, Jon Peters has already admitted that burst is not really viable for the ele..or very “rough” using his words, couple this with the upcoming buff to fire trait and you’re in for a surprise.
The day that staff/scepter work like daggers/trident will soon arrive

NaturalPortman.9562:

Arheundel.6451:

So…d/d eles are “impossible to kill”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Zw8vNJVvg

This video say otherwise

Yes the ele will get downed if it stands in place and eats the burst of a thief >.>..

Lol so the ele must move to avoid the burst..but if he moves is OP, that’s why Anet always state “L2P” before anything

muscarine.5136:

I hope you realise you’re actually throwing discredit at what you’re poorly trying to defend here.

You’re forced into arcanes ? oh bummer, thieves are forced into critical strikes for damage or trickery for conditions, when it’s not actually both :‘( But we still have one more than you do right :’(
Oh and, i didn’t see your moderator tag by the way, care to drop the little chiefling attitude ?
I didn’t see you posting anything relevant either, maybe you could start with it instead of trying to be a smart *

Arheundel… You’re so high on your horses you don’t even realise you flamed a fellow d/d user who shared his thoughts about a class he plays.

Anyway…
I’m still not seeing any counter argument to what i exposed, feel free to start trying to be constructive.

Nah dude, if you look in my profile you’ll see that months ago I created a post asking for nerfs on the OP staff bunker ele, which was in that state because of the double dodge bug.

I know when something is truly OP, if my class or other I don’t care ..I will denounce it, but now just for the simple fact that you can easily recognize a newb d/d user and an expert user , clearly shows how contradictory are your claims.

Something is OP when anyone can start up as pro from having zero previous knowledge.

You don’t seem to realize that this profession was designed with synergy in mind, unfortunately this has been reflected only in the dagger/dagger set so far.

If they’d reduce the activation time and increase projectile speed of skills on scepter and staff, you’d see much more variety compared to now.

Staff and scepter are plagued by skills whose animation is far too obvious and take too long to take effect, making those weapons extremely redudant against any player who know the basics of the game( like not sitting in the red circle)

If they nerf/fix burst dmg of 1.mesmers, 2. thieves, 3. warriors I’ll be more than happy to take a nerf/fix on bunker build

Khyras.8021:

Problem: stale repetitive pvp because only burst and bunker/conditions builds are viable.
Solution: Increase effectiveness of toughness and make it mitigate percentage of condition damage and reduce duration and effectiveness of boons.Presto, no more burst spammers and unkillable bunker/conditions spammers and, as a bonus, no need to nerf anyone.

Yes pls Anet make so that toughness mitigate condition dmg and fare better against burst builds ( thief/mesmer can still crit you for 8k+ even with 1800 toughness)

So…d/d eles are “impossible to kill”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Zw8vNJVvg

This video say otherwise

muscarine.5136:

Oh my god do i really have to repeat myself every time i answer ?

Skills alone are not OP i never talked about a single OP skill for crying out loud, i know my english is not that great but i don’t think i’m creating any confusion here, can you understand the meaning of too – much – synergie and access to too – much -pressure because of the association of defense, mobility and low rotation CD allowing for it.

What are you? A thief? If you can’t manage d/d eles in mele range, switch to pistol or shortbow or call for help, here goes your “OP” shocking aura and frozen burst which works only at mele range and if the ele beats you regardless…well you simply got outplayed what’s your problem?

Dude you didn’t even freaking read, why am i even bothering answering to you ?
Why would you even try to participate to a discussion that is already way too angry in regards of what i try to explain, if all you do is answer randomly to my post while totally missing the point ?
I AM USING P/P
And did i ever say i can’t be outplayed or anything ? Don’t try to summarise my whole arguments into an ego matter, thank you, so much.

I guess i just need to l2p, in the end, there’s no possible discussion with the likes of you.

This is tiresome.

As i said earlier i think it’s too soon to develop on the subject, this will have to wait for the gimmick to get a bit more popular for people to really start questionning it.

Yeah dude, it’s a l2p issue, it took you long enough to realize it, go and make an ele, play it for few weeks and then come back here and try to spout the same non-sense like now

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Klassic.8057:

North American servers comprise of bandwagon morons, 2 months ago you would be lucky to see a elementalist in Spvp, now everybody and their mother plays one. what a shame.

+1
This is mainly the problem I see here. The community will likely focus their attention to eles right now because they are starting to come out in sPVP like mushrooms, most of them using D/D cantrip builds. And this I think was mainly due to daphoenix’s post in the forum about mastering the D/D ele. He was able to use his build to its full potential. I learned a lot from his guide.

When this same guy or another exceptional player discovers an amazing build that leans on becoming OP and shares it with everyone, and bandwagoning starts to move to a different meta, we will see the same threads like the BS thief OP, mind wrack shatter mesmer OP, etc.

I am eagerly waiting to find a good ele build using D/F, Sc/F without using cantrips which is equivalent to the performance of the current D/D cantrip build which is indeed quite strong in almost every aspect – mobility, survivability, DPS, and control – and is very powerful in the hands of a good player.

No man…the current d/d ele meta is a direct consequence of the kitten balance present at the moment, professions like mesmer/thief/warrior can completely disable you for long periods of time while still having an innate defense which does not require any initial setting

Cantrip as multiple stun breakers?
-necromancer bunker= spectral armour+ spectral walk+necrotic traversal
-guardian bunker= “stand your ground”“save yourself”
-warrior= “shake it off” frenzy
-thief = shadow step +haste + infiltrator signet
-and more

Mobility?
- RTL= 1200 range / 320 dmg
- Rush= 1200 range / 698 dmg
- Infiltrator arrow= 900 range(teleport)
- and more

Control?

D/D got less control than scepter and staff, only on these two the skills are very clunky and difficult to land, when they gonna fix our traits and buff/change others…you guys will cry even louder

muscarine.5136:

And on what you’d increase the CD?
Can’t you see that eles are forced to go 30 in Arcane to use their own mechanic? Show me another profession whose main mechanic become effective only after being treated,

Uh i’m not sure i understand, it’s the same for every class…

we’ve already got 40s+ on our “defensive” skills, would you like to push this CD to 60s+?
And these “OP” defensive skills…got no: reflection,invulnerability,block, I suppose to force somebody not to hit me for 4s at mele range is too much, even though other professions can still switch to range in that case.

Wth ? frozen burst/frozen aura + glyph ? mist form ? armor of earth ? pick you poison ?
I’m not sure i’m following you.

Maybe you’re complaining about our gap closer, than what about skills like phase retreat and overcharged shot, or maybe flashing blade.

Uh yea, what about those, i could give my opinion but i’m not sure this will have anything to do with how eles mobility synergizes with ele offence/defence.

To ask for less mobility is complete non-sense, not only you’re asking for less survivability, but you even want less mobility on a light armour profession forced in mele range..and lol on what this mobility is based anyway? Burning speed? doesn’t that count like a leap that other professions got?

Swiftness ?

Anyway, you want loads of defence ? Fine, then cut the pressure, i’m not sure you understand what i meant by pressure, which has nothing to do with burst or raw damage, i would like to invite you to read my previous posts on the matter, please.

Also please don’t go all like my main damage skill is at a 45s CD while you have 2 other attunements to switch with to keep up the pressure and one to turtle (and kinda keep up with the pressure may i add since these aren’t just healing/mitigate damage skills), you always have something ready to face what’s coming to you.

We’re talking about d/d..not the utilities and the ones you’ve mentioned got 75s and 90s CD respectively what so OP about them? Going back to d/d I’m still asking you what so OP about shocking aura and frost aura , all they do is “force” people not to attacks for 4s-7s respectively.

Then you go and mention ‘frozen burst’ I mean really? It’s a 3s chill close range aoe, what so OP about it? All I do with it is to create condition pressure, a type of pressure which can be used by all other professions with no exclusion: condition staff mesmers, bunker engy, trap rangers, caltrops thiefs, hammer guardian and so on

The fact is simple, spammers get punished heavily in this game, unless you know your kitten..you get killed.
-I don’t use updraft on you if I see the stability boon icon
-I don’t attack a mesmer with chaos armour up
-I don’t stand there with big ‘ol bomb next to me
-I don’t attack an ele with frost aura up
-I don’t attack a warrior with defy pain up
-I don’t do kitten loads of things…

But you want come, spamm 1-2-3 on me and win, but then you get stunned/chilled because you can’t bother to read the opponent and then you come here on the forum to cry? kitten that man!

At all time I bring with me 2 types of amulet and all weapon sets, during a match I can change weapon and tactic to deal with a particular build/situation.
If I keep losing to a particulary nasty trap ranger, I switch to staff or scepter and deal with him, if I keep losing to a particualary skilled mele thief, I switch back to d/d and so on..but of course it’s much easier to keep using the same cookie cutter build and demand to win everytime than go out there and find a counter.

What are you? A thief? If you can’t manage d/d eles in mele range, switch to pistol or shortbow or call for help, here goes your “OP” shocking aura and frozen burst which works only at mele range and if the ele beats you regardless…well you simply got outplayed what’s your problem?

nerva.7940:

nah, d/d ele is faceroll. you have 50 boons up at all times, you come in, unload, get out, heal up, and repeat. it’s the dumbest spec, only second to d/d thief.

What so dumb about a spec or profession which doesn’t exist?

NaturalPortman.9562:

NarcoticHaze.3497:

I play a thief. Our ability to stealth in combat is absurdly overpowered.

Just bring an ele, the ele will just kill the thief while he’s in stealth

I didn’t know eles got skills to see through stealth, nice to know, maybe you’re talking about the ele greatsword or maybe you’re talking about random aoe spamm which can be used by every profession…hmm great find nevertheless

muscarine.5136:

Why do you always assume we’re asking eles to get nerfed into the ground ?

Personnaly i’m not asking for ezmod against eles, what would be the point ?
I’m telling d/d needs tweaking, buffing the other weapon sets if needed would of course be a good thing. And yes your elites aren’t very useful atm.

Either lower the effectiveness of defensive abilities, either raise CDs on the rotation or defensive abilities, either diminish mobility, and by this i mean tweaking, not kittening throw it into oblivion so there is no challenge.

Or maybe the game is already absolutely polished 3 months later and nothing needs tweaking anymore ?

Why should we be forced to wait 50s+ to do anything worth notice while still having lowest HP and armour in game?

I’m sorry, what ? Is this the olympics of suffering ?

So basically you’re playing the weakest class in the game and it gives great results only because suddenly there is a huge injection of really good players who by some coincidence chose to play d/d ele all at the same time ?

Come on, this is the same issue we are having with backstab thieves. When i started playing gw2 at launch almost nobody figured how to properly burst with backstab, and i was having my own fun rolling BS.
Then it became a bit more popular, more and more players figured it, the build started to get shared and so on, now we get BS thieves everywhere.

It has been a while since then that decent players figured how to counter it, but it still needs tweaking because it is still very punishing even if you happen to know how to deal with it.
And once again i mean tweaking not what for some reason the majority of the players who come here to complain about BS seems to be asking, as in nerf teh thievz to ze ground so i can revenge and mock at dem.

Same goes for d/d… It needs to be leveled…

edit : And if i may, i suspect many of the people who came here to defend this spec were’nt even playing a d/d ele two weeks ago.

And on what you’d increase the CD?
Can’t you see that eles are forced to go 30 in Arcane to use their own mechanic? Show me another profession whose main mechanic become effective only after being treated, we’ve already got 40s+ on our “defensive” skills, would you like to push this CD to 60s+?
And these “OP” defensive skills…got no: reflection,invulnerability,block, I suppose to force somebody not to hit me for 4s at mele range is too much, even though other professions can still switch to range in that case.

To ask for less mobility is complete non-sense, not only you’re asking for less survivability, but you even want less mobility on a light armour profession forced in mele range..and lol on what this mobility is based anyway? Burning speed? doesn’t that count like a leap that other professions got?

Maybe you’re complaining about our gap closer, than what about skills like phase retreat and overcharged shot, or maybe flashing blade.

So in the end me as ele, must go and stand still trying to kill a warrior with dragon claw hitting at 230 dmg, because of course I can’t have dmg as well

Regizer.1763:

I think it all comes down to how you prefer to play, if you want to be in someones face then go daggers, if you want to nuke people from a distance go with scepter or staff. In the end all weapon sets have their strenghts and weaknesses.

Given the overall weakness of ranged compared to mele and the multiple ways meles professions got to close gap, it’s no wonder people go for d/d

Hellkaiser.6025:

Skunked.6987:

You are whining about whining.

^ this…

And to quickly add, give reasonable arguments why they shouldn’t complain about what they feel is broken or even worse been broken post release in this game?
The “don’t like it, don’t play it” group has been spamming their garbage enough with that remark, the “don’t like it, shut up and don’t play it” isn’t going to be met with much better a reception.

For broken we always talk about real bugs and issues, not that build used by that profession which you can’t beat using the same old build, so people complain rather than adapt……

muscarine.5136:

I understand man you already talked about temporizing, as i said it comes with two issues, the more you delay, the closer he comes to refresh his rotation, and second, your own rotation doesn’t refresh near as fast as theirs.

And that is pressure, of course you don’t hit for 8k crit, that’s not the problem.

This is either due to too strong defensive abilities OR too fast cooldowns.

This is field experience, i’m sorry i don’t bring paper numbers along with my words but you have to trust me a bit, i’ve done my share of spvp (2077 games / 1372 wins / 1736 top stat – r42).

And as i said first good d/d eles are a minority to actually really use their build to full potential, many of them arent an issue at all since they are clueless, soon as their RTL misses they switch to water.

I don’t want good players to be punished.
But i find that it becomes too powerful within their hands, not like every class becomes great within good hands, of course. Every once in a while i get pm’d or /map hated for nerf although i’m rolling freaking dual pistols.
In this particular case we go a bit too much over the top.

And that’s the main reason why people go for d/d set, it’s the weapon set which has allowed people to get close to the mage archetype somehow.
The class has always been advertised as a versatile and strong profession, but this cannot be seen in scepter/staff/focus, where you get “punished” for leaving one attunement, with less dmg, less defense and more.

Why should we be forced to wait 50s+ to do anything worth notice while still having lowest HP and armour in game?

What you’re suggesting is that the ele should have the lowest armour, lowest health, lowest survivability and with the longest CD skills in the game

Pls list me the “defensive” abilities of a d/d ele:
1) Frost Aura? 40s CD – 7s duration
2) Shocking Aura? 25s CD – 4s duration
3) Updraft? 40s CD
4) Earthquake? 45s CD

I don’t see any short CD defensive skills, the rest come from mobility and therefore is related to the skill level of the user and what’s wrong that?
Anet has already stated that they will never nerf a profession which become effective through the use of active dodging and timing, Anet nerf things which allow the user to stand there and spamm the same button over and over….and that’s not the d/d ele case.

I believe that mobility is a necessity for a light armour profession using close range skills, but above all why don’t you explain us what ele players should use if not d/d?
Scepter?
1) Dragons’tooth= 3s activation+ red circle + enemy who stand still
2) Phoenix= 3-4s to land hit + red circle + require mele range to hit at all
3) Arc lightning = 125 pts max base dmg at 1500 Power
4) Lightning Strike = 700 dmg at 1500 power

Staff?
1) Lava font= 2s activation + red circle + enemy who stand still for 5s
2) Flamestrike = 5s burning….10s CD+ poor dmg
3) Ice spike= 3s activation + red circle+enemy who stand still
4) Lightning surge = 2s activation + LoS
5) Eruption = 3s activation+ rec circle + enemy who stand still

Still wondering why people go for d/d?

TwoBit.5903:

Scepter does okay in team fights. It has 2 blast finishers, one doubling as condition removal and 2 blinds. DT and Phoenix are only difficult to hit whilst roaming, but for bunkering and team fights they function great for stacking might and zoning.

Dagger has better close range AoEs and a very good aura, making it ideal for roaming and close range support.

I prefer dagger since it’s often more useful, but scepter does okay. It’s certainly not so far behind as to not be competitive.

The problem is that staff fare much better in team fight while d/d shine as our 1vs1 set, so people are left with a rather redudant weapon set, the scepter simply lack any prominent features compared to d/d and staff.

The scepter/focus set falls behind on everything from steady dmg to mobility, outside the situational use of projectile defenses, a bunker s/f is still below a bunker staff or d/d, while the burst option is quite unreliable and far too predictable for the enemy compared to d/d where you can hit from every corner.

The main reason why people opt for d/d in 80% of cases is because of the lack of huge delay skills as in scepter case, the delay on scepter is so great that any range advantage you may initially have can easily be reverted to disavantage.

If I want range I use staff because I have got the tools to maintain the range and without using any utility, insteas with scepter you see that many people literally go in mele range to hit reliably with phoenix and use very long CD skills to land any heavy hit skill present.

Just look at Dmh, staff and trident, they got dmg “equally” distributed among all attunements, still water doens’t lose in healing potential and air/earht still offer great CC skills, but in the scepter case we see that the dmg is concentrated mostly in fire, if only Anet would buff shatterstone and add swiftness to swirling wind, I’d pick scepter/focus

LordByron.8369:

muscarine.5136:

Bsquared.3421:

…says the thief about his counter class….

This goes along with being able to dispel most conditions, reflect projectiles, resist interrupts and that horrible ice shield that stacks frost for kittening ever.

See i’m not saying it’s easy mod, i’m actually saying it’s godmod placed in the right hands.

What O___o lol….
I suppose ele you met had a build Dagger/dagger/scepter/Staff

An ele with 4 arms is indeed OP

I’d say probably he was running also double arcane + 3 cantrips and possibly EA plus elemental surge

Let’s start with this simple quote:

@Jonhatan Sharp
•Balance. Really, balance is pretty good. We’re very observant of the meta, we read the forums, and we’re playing the game with you. We don’t want to make knee-jerk balance decisions. And if did whatever the community wanted, what would happen to balance? How many threads are basically: “NERF X OMG!!” “Learn to play , X is fine” “Omg no, we can’t beat X at all!” “Just saying, none of the people I know even run X anymore” “Hey you guys forget X, let’s buff Y!”….then this just repeats over and over. We can’t just do exactly what players ask for in relation to balance, because different players at various skill levels view balance differently. So what we do is balance community feedback with gameplay results. We don’t want to play whack-a-mole with balance, so we don’t just nerf/buff everything as soon as someone posts about it. It would ruin the game if we did. We try to be patient, see if the meta fixes itself (because a lot of times, once you learn how to deal with something, you realize it may not be as imba as you first thought), and then make long-lasting balance changes. We don’t want to nerf X, then realize no one uses it, and buff it again, then have to nerf it again, etc. etc.

Basically is pointless to cry for nerfs on the forum everytime, it’s much better to get out there and practice because…you can’t nerf good players , doesn’t matter what your whining may bring you, developers nerf something and buff something else, good players are those who adapt quickly, so no amount of nerfs will allow a baddie to beat an experienced player.

Sol.4310:

Hey guys guess what you guys are going to get a nerf, after watching the YouTube clip with one of the game designers you couldn’t half tell by his reaction to the d/d ele he dam well knows there overpowered in some area’s.

So brace yourself for the nerf its going to happen.

They cannot nerf dodge, condition dmg and great playstyle.
Good ele players will always dominate in PvP regardless on what we use

Bunker eles are OK, they’re no unkillable by a long shot, they’ve got no CC on short CD, no IWIN elite, no heavy armour and no huge HP bar.
Other people just go there and spamm 1-2-3 and demand to win that way, well the profession is supposed to be versatile and adapt to every threat..but no.

Anet must give you guys a game where you go and press : bull’s rush -frenzy- 100b and people must drop dead at yout feets, if not the target is using an OP profession, same thing for mug-backstab- HS – HS etc etc or swap clones-blurred frenzy – mind wrack

Psikerlord.2569:

If any build can hold 4v1 it needs a big nerf. Even holding 2v1 indefinitely needs a big nerf, it will unbalance the game (in fact imo even holding 1v1 needs a nerf, if the other class has no chance to beat you). Every class should be able to 1v1 any other class i reckon (not sure if this is feasible, how it works in most mmos?)

Builds which can theoretically one shot a profession are in need of even a bigger nerf, when some profession are able to deal over 10k dmg with 2 skills while some profession got a base HP of 10k ..then you ask for troubles.

All I see is people complaining about a profession forced to heavily invest in defense in order to be playable, the funny thing I remember that time when ele players were worried for the low HP of the profession, the answer from other professions was :" Lol noobs you’ve got water heals and remember that you must always invest in toughness to be competitive"..so now what?

2 Months ago, the ele sub-forum was full of people crying on how they were one-shotted by thieves-mesmer..every other profession, in the general forum all you could read was :" Lol when I see an ele, I see a free kill"…now the situation has changed, you see an ele and you start kitten your pants…well deserved

Why don’t you post a video of you beating 4 people in sPvP..actually in tPvP?
Rather than simply dismissing your post as fiction based story, I’d like to see proof of you beating 4 people in sPvP, I’m very curious to see how somebody with little more than 1k Power can claim to reach 75% of the burst potential of specced mesmer/thief/warrior who can deal like 12+k dmg in 3-4s, with these profession still having more than the double of your power…maybe you killed them with your 130 dmg dragon’s claw…

Rell.8395:

Get bunkers or lose in a proper tPvP plain and simple. Several classes have outrageous bunker builds: necro, engineer, ele, guardian. The order is from the worst to ok. Surprisingly, guardian bunkers (might be b/c of the low hp and lack of multiple invul) are much easier to nail down. To all those people crying that necros are weak, they’ve no idea how powerful necs are in proper team. The most ridiculous thing are the invul abilities. Those few seconds can make them go from close to dying to full hp. I thought GW2 was supposed to have less heal and be more action/reaction oriented. This is more like grabbing every reg/passive proc reg/heal possible and just run around inside a kitten circle.

By contrast few professions ( thief -warrior ) got outrageous burst build, of course the thief is thr worst offender in this game when talking about burst, to be killed in 2s with little chances of survival is kittening absurd.
I don’t want go through the “same old dance – l2dodge” noob, because in that case I should start from the fact that I play a 13k HP ele with valkyrie amulet…and normally thieves and warriors die when faced alone, for now let’s just consider the fact that when I run a more tanky build( 2k toughness = 3k armour) I can receive around 12k dmg in 2 hits from a burst thief…immagine what happen when I go around with 1030 toughness.
So what will it be?
In my opinion we can start talking about nerfing bunkers..when they gonna seriously nerf the dmg of thieves/mesmers and warriors, but as long as 3 professions out of 8 can literally 2 shots all others, I believe it’s safe to assume that bunker builds are here to stay

DiogoSilva.7089:

-snip-

So basically the ele bunker is OP because you can counter your average d/d newb thief and that’s all you can do, furthermore all your analysis is based on personal level of skill and that got nothing to do with balance.

For instance you’re trying to say that you can dodge a shatter mesmer inside a small platform like on clocktower or mine or henge, tell me how you do dodge when immobilized/daze/crippled because mesmer burst is available every 12-15s and in the meantime he can summon illusions much faster than you can manage with your aoe.

Mesmer daze is on what? 18s CD? Everytime you may try to use any long cast skill you’ll be rupted, any decent mesmer won’t spamm all illusions in a single point, you can be surrounded by 3 duellist each dealing 6-7k dmg + 3-4 stacks of bleeding and what if you face a condition mesmer? That’s like 6k auto-dmg everytime you use one skill and any attempt at using ER will be rupted and your other condition removals won’t be enough

Ever faced a trap ranger while trying to bunker? Pls go and tell me that you can remove all conditions against a well played trap ranger or tell me how you avoid being rupted while trying to use ER, and what about necros? Between fear chain and chill application you won’t survive long.

Want to talk about dodge? let’ see how you dodge non-stop once I apply weakness on you 24/7, you can try and remove it ..only to be applied a second later, same can be said about poison.

Finally a good d/d thief, will just wait in the shadows for you to waste all your cantrips fighting somebody else, then he’ll pop-in, basilisk venom – backstab( 8k dmg min)- steal( 3k dmg)- HS spamm.

This is what happen in tPvP, what happen in sPvP is irrelevant, even Jonhatan Sharp agree, he basically suggested to people complaining about 100b warrior to l2p, so now go and show me a paid tournament video of a team using this “unkillable” ele staff bunker you have mentioned, you even need to find a single video of current teams using a bunker eles over a double guardian combination, many of the teams using double guardian don’t even use an ele lol.

DiogoSilva.7089:

-snip-

Bunker eles are not that OP as people claim, like for everything else there are counters, a well played trap ranger-shutter mesmer ( if we look at 13k HP eles) and any burst class can easily bring a bunker eles to his knees if they know what they’re doing.
Once you force them to use all their cantrips and interrupt ER, most bunker eles are done for the others will survive long enough for help to come( at that’s what bunker are for)

3. If you use a staff bunker ele, you’ll do very little dmg and outside the occasional area healing and frozen ground, you won’t do much outside annoying 2-3 newbs who don’t know how to deal with an ele.
If you want a “staff killing machine for glory farming” pick a wells necro spammer and collect 20 kills for match

5. eles who rely on boons to stay alive are very weak against boon removals professions like necro and mesmer , it was the same in GW1 where necros where the bane of eles with the way attunements were working, they were strippable enchantments and we needed it to save energy on spells.
In GW1 no class was able to win against all others there was always the “black horse” for each one of them,, so why should it be so in GW2?
They may reduce durations on boons for eles ( not expecting more than 30% reduction) but fundamentally the ele is a class which rely on boons to stay alive, let’s no all forget it, stacking boon/ench has been a staple of this profession since GW1

1. Condition dmg is so OP on some professions ( necro-thief-mesmer-ranger) that ER has become sort of mandatory these days, more and more eles are using it…so yeah a nerf is inevitable, because more and more people are “crying” about it, but what else can you do when some professions are able to apply 25 stacks of bleeding very easily on top of burning/poison/chill? Condition removal is one of the 2 reasons tPvP teams use an ele at all, remove that and we won’t be able to bunker as well thus removing the req for eles in general ( burst= thief/warrior/mesmer are better, support= eng/necro/mesmer are better)
2. D/D is good because it’s the weapon set which require less twiching among all ele sets, scepter users are almost non-existents right now and staff users are on decline, these days when you see an ele you can bet is a d/d ele; Anet really need to understand that slow moving/delayed skills are are not suitable for this kind of game…unfortunately the ele is the only profession which is loaded with unrealistic slow activation skills, many staff skills require manual aiming+strong CC and the result is awful
3. Staff already does suck, for bunking I use scepter/focus and I obtain far better results in that regard, by using a staff most time than not you need to chain 2 snare skills (each having 30+s CD) to even be able to hit something with skill 2
4. yeah they will remove the HP reset most likely
5. As long as they increase the innate survivability somehow, I won’t mind a nerf on boons.
6. No more nerfs on this one I believe

Any infos on when this gonna be sorted? It happens quite frequently and the entirity of my team, got skills which activate 2s after pressing the icon

Creslin.1758:

ARANCA

Stat Bonuses: AMAZING + 1. +30% boon duration is awesome by itself, but that ain’t the reason why this is so good. The attunement recharge rate bonus will bring your attunements from 15s CD at 0 Arcana to a 10s CD at 30. This is SOOOO good it borders on being broken, and many Ele’s complain that they feel forced into the Arcana tree because of it. For now though, I would HIGHLY recommend investing some points here.

Minors:

Arcane Fury: Excellent. You put points in Arcana, you will probably have good boon duration, and be switching attunements frequently…this trait will give you A LOT of fury, and it’s a 5 pointer!

Lingering Elements: Excellent. Makes the already ridiculous Elemental Attunement skill even better!

Arcane Precision: Good. A 7.5% chance to apply an attunement specific condition on critical, ain’t bad. Not the best of our 25 pointers, but not bad.

Majors:

Arcane Mastery: Okay. Arcane skills are good, but you really have to sacrifice a lot of defense to have more than 1 on your bar. So I think this is limited in usefulness.

Arcane Ressurection: Good. If you’re in air, this can stop people from beating the crap out of you when you revive, because they will get stunned on every hit. definitely not as good as the thief’s stealth on revive, but not horrible.

Arcane Retribution: Okay. Problem I have with this is that Arcane Power is a skill that requires planning (you want to use it before your big hits) and this is triggered reactively, so you can’t really plan for it.

Final Shielding: Excellent. A life saver, uses arcane shield just when you need it! Note, this was once bugged so it triggered at 10% health instead of 25%…not sure if this is still the case.

Elemental Attunement: AMAZING + 1. This trait…this trait. It is good. It will give you AND your group TONS of boons. It is only a 10 pointer. It will make you MUCH more powerful. Take it. Take it now.

Renewing Stamina: AMAZING. Perma-vigor! By far our best endurance regen trait!

Vigorous Scepter: Terrible. This gives a 25% endurance regen when wielding scepter. Renewing Stamina will give you almost permanent vigot uptime that gives you 100% endurance regen. Easy choice? I think so.

Windborne Dagger: Terrible. Doesn’t stack with swiftness, useless…and I think it’s bugged anyway.

Arcane Energy: Poor. Completely overshadowed by Renewing Stamina.

Evasive Arcana: AMAZING. Not only do you get an AoE blind on dodge in air, burn in fire, condition purge in water, and bleed in earth…you also get another blast finisher in earth! And since you will likely have perma-vigor due to Renewing Stamina…you get to use this A LOT.

Elemental Surge: Poor. For a GM trait, this is just bad. It’s only used on very specific utility skills (arcane), and it just causes one condition. COMPLETELY overshadowed by Evasive Arcana.

1) Elemental Surge= Amazing! It applies conditions accordingly to your current attunement( fire= 5s burning for arcane skill as for the rest, water= 3s chill, air= 5s blind, earth= 1s immobilize), only reason for me for using 2 arcane when I need

Creslin.1758:

WATER

Stat Bonuses: Okay. Vitality and healing power. Both good for Ele, but both can easily be stacked with gear.

Minors:

Soothing Mist: Excellent. A regen that stacks with regen! Adds a bit of healing to your entire group, not bad at all for a 5 point trait!

Healing Ripple: AMAZING. This is a pretty BIG heal, AND it triggers on attunement, AND it’s AoE, AND it’s a 15 point trait. Need I say more?

Bountiful Power: AMAZING. For D/D, this is HANDS DOWN our best 25 pointer. We will normally have a MINIMUM of 5 boons up, so this is a 10% (at least) damage increase to ALL of your skills, nearly ALL the time. And wait, wait…it’s in the healing tree!

Majors:

Aquamancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire.

Shard of Ice: Okay. It’s not terrible, but Air 25 is a MUCH superior way to stack vulnerability, as this one depends on utility skill use.

Soothing Disruption: Excellent (AMAZING with water 11). More healing, uses cantrips which are already awesome, and makes for some AMAZING condition removal with Water 11.

Piercing Shards: Poor. Water is not a big DPS tree for us. Yes, foes will always be vulnerable if you are always in water…but I doubt you will be doing more damage to them in water than in fire or earth even with the 20% increase.

Cleansing Wave: AMAZING. AoE condition removal on attune…uh yeah.

Vital Striking: Good. 10% extra damage to your opening burst. Ain’t bad, and you can actually spend a long time above 90% health because of all your heals.

Stop Drop and Roll: Poor. Anyone 20 points deep into water is already gonna have a lot of condition removal. This thing only removes two conditions on dodge…not necessary.

Icy Mist: Terrible. The man himself (jon Peters) says it, and I agree! Vapor form is only downed, and mist form is a long cooldown…yeah, not useful.

Cantrip Mastery: Excellent. Cantrips are great, reducing their cooldown, also great.

Soothing Wave: Poor. We have MUCH better ways of granting regen, like soothing disruption or elemental attunement.

Cleansing Water: AMAZING. This skill is a beast. This will infuriate so many players because it allows you to have some of the best condition removal in the game!

Powerful Aura; AMAZING. You not only share your auras with your group, but also all their ancilliary buffs! Perma-fury and swiftness for your group, and a decent amount of Prot??? Heck yeah!

1) Vital striking= poor, it’s much easier to remain under 90% HP than above it, and 10% dmg increase is nothing in my opinion

2) Stop drop and roll = excellent, when suffering from chilling while from an other dozen of conditions, to be able to get rid of chill ( which increase CD on everything) can mean the difference between life and death

The rest I agree

Creslin.1758:

EARTH

Stat Bonuses: Good. Toughness is great for the low armor Ele, and since Ele’s will ALWAYS be using condition damage, that isn’t bad too. While the stat bonsues here aren’t amazing, they provide offense and defense in one package.

Minors:

Stone Flesh: Okay. 80 toughness while in one attunement…you get 300 from 30 earth…meh.

Earthen Blast: Excellent. On attune skills are typically great, and this is one of the best of the “damaging” on attune skills, it does AoE AND it cripples…not bad for a minor!

Enduring Damage: Good. 10% more damage with full endurance…you will have full endurance when you start a fight, so that’s 10% more damage to your opening burst. Not bad! Still, it’s a 25 point investment, and you will have non-full endurance for most of the fight, so it could be better.

Majors:

Obsidian Focus: Okay. 170 more toughness when channeling. It’s okay, but nothing to write home about.

Signet Mastery: Excellent. Great synergy with a 30 earth signet build, probably required.

Earth’s Embrace: Excellent. Armor of earth is a great skill. This trait is just a 10 pointer and lets you save on a utility slot. I think you get all your cantrip bonuses when it procs as well, but not sure.

Salt Stone: Okay. 5% increase, very conditional, just okay.

Elemental Shielding: Good. For an auramancer, this is great. Otherwise, it’s decent, but I would go with earth’s embrace over it.

Stone Splinters: Good for D/D. With D/D, you will be melee nearly all the time, so this is more or less a 5% damage increase.

Stength of Stone: Okay. Earth can do a lot of damage with certain abilities, but it’s second string to fire. I wouldn’t take this one…too limited, I think stone splinters would be better.

Serrated Stones: Okay. This one sounds great on paper, 20% more bleeding! But you are not going to want to make a pure bleed Ele build…instead you will be mixing bleeding, burning, DD, and all your utility stuff. Couple this with the fact that bleeds can be purged, and it’s just…meh.

Geomancer’s Freedom: Good. Haven’t used this, but it sounds decent. Immobilized is KILLER for Ele’s. Yes, we have a lot of condition removal, but you don’t ALWAYS have one available

Geomancer’s Alacrity: Okay. Same reasons as fire one.

Rock Solid: Poor. For a GM trait, this is lacking. 2s of stability every (min) 10s isn’t all that amazing, and it’s WAY overshadowed by Elemental Attunement.

Written in Stone: AMAZING. The cornerstone of a signet build.

Let’s talk about earth traits:

1) Salt stone= terrible, 5% dmg increase on bleeding target, useless

2) Stone splinters= terrible, another useless trait which require heavy investment for pathetic reward

3) Geomancer’s Freedom = poor, change it to cripple or weaken for 5s foes who immobilize/cripple/chill you

I agree witht the rest