Guild Wars 2

Spicyhash.7605:

Guard, warrior, mesmer, ele, etc, all have access to long duration stability.

Really!? The class with the LOWEST health and Armor and HIGHEST cool downs of defensive skills and you think they have too much?

Armor of Earth – 6 second Duration. 90 second cool down.
Rock Solid – 20 point trait. 2 second duration. 10-13second cool down.
Earth’s Embrace – 10 point trait. 6 second duration. 90 second cool down

Yeah, you are right. For the class with some of the worst defensive skills, that is just to much access and look at those cool downs only 90seconds! what a disgrace.

Maybe they could buff Elemental Attunement?
I mean most ele take it as it is. They could make it so that it does something “special” for just the ele. That could be double the effect/duration of the boons given. Maybe add other boons.

Something like:

Fire – Might(3stacks) – 10 second Duration + 4 second Retal.
Water – Regen – 10 second duration + 5 second Vigor
Air – Swiftness – 10 second duration + 5second Aegis
Earth -Protection 6 second duration + 3 second Stability

Or They could buff up the 15point traits

Kyon.9735:

Yeah. They still have 40 points left to allocate, 3 utilities, 1 heal, 1 elite, different choices of armor and trinket stat combinations, runes, and sigils to balance their builds.

If only people would stop thinking they’re locked into certain traits like EA and Water Magic.

Off-topic:
You guys should definitely try Chillmentalist. It’s really fun in PvP hotjoin and 1v1s against not OP classes/builds. Take 30 Arcana for Elemental Surge instead of EA. Maybe it’d help you a little to get used to not having EA.

Wow, 40 trait points. That isnt exactly a lot now is it. Then we get on to the Utilities….all of which have insane cool downs and the defensive ones have even higher cool downs. So really what does that matter?

As for Elite – we could go with FGS which is used MORE to actually escape than it is for fighting which says enough about that. It is also getting nerfed with changes to LF. We could use Tornado, oh wait that is TERRIBLE and has use in like 1% of the game. Has no added toughness for a melee transformation and is owned HARD by range classes. Or we could go with the insane cool down, average skill of the Elementals that unless you go for Earth they die in seconds and have VERY little impact on fights. yeah some GREAT choices here…

We have limited options in pretty much everything. The new sigil changes are a NERF to us (and engi) but a buff to everyone else. So we are rather limited when it comes to Sigils, the Rune changes mean less benefits from mixing runes which quite a few eles did as well.

I have yet to encounter a single ele that has no/low points in Earth, Water and Arcane. I spend hours in OS dueling as well and not seen a single one that hasn’t got at least 10+ points in them. Most go with 15-20 into Water and 30 into Arcane.

Now if we were given some REAL defensive options that didnt come with insane cool downs that actually the same cool down length as some classes ELITE skills then we wouldn’t need to go into the trait lines. However, that is not the case and these trait lines offer the best defense we can get.

The point is this: Will it stop some Crit hits? Yes. Will it turn the tide of fights? No. Within days other classes will expect all eles to be running this and with that they will just hold back enough to kill you the moment you come out of Earth.

It will do one thing: Delay the inevitable.
I guess i am one of the few that would rather have a trait that has the chance of turning the tide of fights. Rather than some lazy trait that only works in a terrible attunement. No one will care if you are in Earth, especially if you are using D/X they will continue to attack until you are forced out to heal -Then what? You get burst and burst hard.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Liewec.2896:

crit immune conjurer could be a pretty awesome pvp build,
you heard it here first :P

It sounds absurd… but I can almost hear the crying already:

“ZERO SKILL ELE…. L2P YOUR CLASS, STOP USING 1-BUTTON CONJURES.”

It won’t ever be like that. We need Utilities for defensive skills. Combine that with the limited uses and boom, once that is gone – then what?

You can get more uses in the fire tree!
Blazing retreat on flame axe!

What’s not to love!

That may be true. An extra 10 uses on conjures that are decreased when using auto attack as well doesn’t really mean that much. They remove the useage limit but keep the duration limit, yeah something could be done. until the Conjures will remain more of a 1 time thing like with Frost Bow and Ice Storm…

Xenon.4537:

I think you are getting up in your head too much. Obviously you aren’t supposed to sit in earth attunement all the time. You’re supposed to switch in to it to mitigate damage, then switch out of it to deal dps.

I don’t profess to be an expert on Ele, but 10-13 seconds cooldown on an ability which can give you:

- crit immunity
- 33% damage reduction
- 120 toughness
- aoe cripple
- powerful defensive weapon skills

It would be nice if someone could calculate the effective % damage reduction gained by having crit immunity to a standard zerker build. Like, how much dps does a zerker lose if they never crit?

- Crit immunity means nothing if you are no threat until you swap out. Once that happens you are going to be a BIG target for burst.

- 33% damage reduction? How so. If you are counting the protection from going into Earth, that is a 20point trait in Arcana.

- Toughness is nothing compared to the insane burst some classes can do

- Oh yeah a MINOR cripple that lasts 3 seconds, oh yeah thats a REAL threat…

- “powerful defensive skills” Yeah, Earth has like Three on different weapons and only two can be used together and which really overlap. Them being Magnetic Aura(Staff) and Magnetic Wave and Obsidian Flesh (Focus) everything else Earth offers is simply not a “powerful defensive skill”

You are also missing the point. They WILL crit. They just won’t crit all the time. The moment you leave Earth which you will have no choice but to either to heal or if you actually want to deal damage then you have a HUGE target on your head.

I can actually see this being WORSE for the ele, classes will just tickle the ele, doing enough damage to get the ele into Earth but holding enough burst back for when they are forced out of it. This could just end up meaning that players will just burst even harder the moment they know the ele isn’t in Earth and hold back enough when they are.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Liewec.2896:

crit immune conjurer could be a pretty awesome pvp build,
you heard it here first :P

It sounds absurd… but I can almost hear the crying already:

“ZERO SKILL ELE…. L2P YOUR CLASS, STOP USING 1-BUTTON CONJURES.”

It won’t ever be like that. We need Utilities for defensive skills. Combine that with the limited uses and boom, once that is gone – then what?

Liewec.2896:

i’ll be trying out a crit-immune conjurer build for pvp when this patch comes.
i anticipate hitting pretty darn hard (not as hard as water attune conjurer though)

Conjure builds i just don’t think are viable. Until they fix Conjures. I think they should remove the ally version (make it a trait) remove the usage limit and then it might be possible.

Talyn.3295:

Let’s not use the warrior as our example for nerfing any boon across the board. We all know Warrior is out of balance

Thats my point. Don’t nerf the Boon. Nerf the insane access some classes have.

Xenon.4537:

I think Stone Heart was basically meant to turn earth attunement into a anti-spike state that you pop whenever you see a thief running at you, or a warrior CC and 100blading you. Combined with protection, stability, and other earth attunement buffs, you won’t even need to use a skill like obsidian flesh to mitigate burst.

The problem is, ALL the classes have fast and easily accessible burst. You might prevent the first burst attempt. Unless you stay in the attunement that is no threat you will just be hit with the next one.

This sort of style will still end the same way – The burst WILL come and we have very little we can do about it. This trait makes it even worse in that Anet doesn’t see that. They think we will be able:

1) See burst coming. Go Earth
2) Negate the burst
3) Be a threat
4) Move to another attunement
5) attack them
6) see burst coming. Go Earth

It won’t work like that, especially against classes that have burst on cool downs lower than our attunement cool downs. They will just keep attacking, force us out to heal and then burst us know that we have at least 10seconds of being at high risk.

ThiBash.5634:

Maybe because it’s a defensive weapon, not a recuperation weapon?

Is it though, I mean what does it really have?

Fire – a Terrible flame wall. I would take Ring of Fire over it which also has a shorter coo down. The Fire Aura is decent but like with all Auras the ICD and the cool down really hurt it. The Might is rather pointless thanks to the ICD.

Water – Freezing Gust is rather poor. Now while it has half the cool down of Frost Aura that is countered by the fact that frost Aura grants damage reduction and will have a longer duration Chill – even if only hit twice during it. Comet is decent, the radius is rather low but the Daze is nice. How ever, again i would take Cleansing Wave for healing and condition removal.

Air – This one is tricky. Swirling winds is nice, useless against melee though. Compare that to Ride The Lightening has uses against both Melee and range classes. Think this one is down to opinion. I would lean towards Ride The Lightening as it has more uses. Gale Vs Updraft is another interesting fight. While Gale has range, it also has a higher cool down and lacks the swiftness and the multi-target appeal of Updraft. So here i think i would go with Updraft.

Earth – Again, both of these skills are aimed at different situations. Going defensive wise i think it would have to go to Focus (the first time) but that is due more to the issues of the Dagger Earth skills than how amazingly good the Focus skills are. Projectile reflection is nice, even if it is rather short on duration. The Invul is nice but the cool down is too high. Earthquake is nice but weak against range and Churning Earth well that just sucks 99% of the time thanks to the insane cool down and cast time.

I wouldn’t really call the Focus a Defensive weapon. It is more a mix, it has some nice defense, even if the cool downs on them are insane but it lacks in pretty much every other attunement.

DejaVu.9825:

OK, then reduce the duration of stability and the duration of CC, eg. A maximum of 2 seconds?

No. You don’t go and nerf something because a select few has TOO much access to it. Rather than nerfing the Boons you should be nerfing the access some classes has to it.

The problem is certain classes simply have to much access to it. Reduce that and it won’t be a problem. Warrior is a clear of example of a class that has WAY to much stability for example.

sorrow.2364:

Dude, I’m talking about competitive PvP, not casual WvW encounters, in which that trait is amazing.

Elementalist is extremely good as group support and in team fights and Stone Heart isn’t a trait made for solo roamers.

Most professions die to thieves roamers anyway because… guess what… hold on… WvW is IMBALANCED! That’s right! This game isn’t balanced about 1vs1 situations. Surprised?

Point is that while thieves can keep pressuring you as they want when solo roaming, which is why they are imbalanced in that matter, they can’t in teamfights because they expose themselves to AoEs and team focus.

And, FYI, thief is always the first target when he exposes himself.

Oh yeah, i forgot. Anet and the stupid idea of balancing a game around a dead mode….That says it all. So for Ele to be any “use” in S/TPvP they will have to run a support build with this trait…Oh that sounds fun.

S/TPvP was dead within the first few months of the games release. Might as well stop trying to turn it into an eSport and actually concentrate on the modes that even from the start of the game out numbered S/TPvP in terms of playing using that mode.

So why is such a trait that is USELESS in 2/3 of the game any good? I mean its going to be SERIOUSLY pointless in PvE. 99% of the content is face roll easy and the other 1% contains 1hit kill mechanics, that i some how dont think this trait will effect.

Then we get into WvW…

sorrow.2364:

That’s the point. If the thief is autoattacking you, he’s exposing himself to your team focus, which what you want him to do.

No profession is going to hit when they are under focus, unless you’re talking about 1v1 or some imbalanced WvW.

Silly me, I forget that an Ele has to run with a group to keep them alive. Now, just for a moment think about this insane notion -

Solo.

Crazy, I know. Yet some players actually don’t want to have to be followed around by guards so they aren’t killed in seconds. Now assume that you are in a solo situation. You versus a Thief. Do you think that Stone Heart is really going to have THAT much affect on the eventual outcome of the fight?

Now, even in group fights. You assume that you have people standing around and following the ele so they don’t die. Kind of sad yet actually needed at times. What if you are in an even fight but the others are also busy fighting – then what? run to them for help?

sorrow.2364:

A thief can’t just keep attacking you for the entire time, since it either runs out of initiative or it just exposes himself to your team’s focus.

According to your reasoning, no profession can survive thieves.

So, not heard of auto attack at the very least then? ANY class can keep attacking you – unless you somehow manage to run. Earth is NO threat to any class so they have no need to use defensive skills, So you can’t be crit – that does not mean you can’t be hit.

Hell i can do 2k+ Damage on my Mesmer Auto attack without critting, as just one example.

hooma.9642:

+ stone heart shuts down all condiapplication via crit-procs on runes, sigills or traits.

Sorry to tell you this, this trait will have NO affect on condition builds. None. Sure you stop the odd on crit trait from proccing. Shame that NO condition build actually relies on on Crit effects when they have SO much access to conditions without the need to crit. This will be as helpful against condition builds as Diamond Skin is – None.

Kyon.9735:

Obsidian Flesh is exclusive to Focus which is a Defensive Weapon. What other Elementalist defensive skill is as strong as Obsidian Flesh?

…When all of our defensive skills actually have problems this means nothing. They all have insane cool downs for a start, we have one that is pretty much a self stun for 3 seconds that drops all bundles are are using (Mist Form)

When we actually get GOOD defensive skills then it would be reasonable to judge them against each other, until then. They are ALL lackluster compared to other classes.

Also, you stae the Focus is a defensive weapon. Just curious – why does the “defensive” weapon have no healing skill for? I mean even Dagger off hand has a healing skill and you can’t really call that a defensive weapon. Pretty much ALL weapons except for the “defensive” weapon has a heal…

Strange that.

Your Solution #2 would be an even bigger buff to all other classes. What they should do, if they are not going to help ele and engineer in this regard – make it so that EVERY class has to have the stacking sigil equipped in BOTH weapon sets (like ele and engi will have to do) for them to get the stacks. This would actually make it totally even for EVERY class.

sorrow.2364:

You swap to earth just to get massive damage mitigation at the cost of reduced damage output, that’s it.
It is called opportunity cost, something that most people forget these days in GW2.

It means nothing against the biggest threat to ele (imo) – Thief. They can burst you any moment they want. With you in Earth you are no threat so they can continue and will continue to attack until you are forced to swap to heal up and such. Then what? press of a button, into stealth and hello Backstab and HS spamming.

So what has that going into Earth and negating the damage from BS really done? Nothing. Just delaying your death. This trait along with all of the others will be FoTM for a while until people realize that in the end it does very little to stop the biggest threats to us.

LordByron.8369:

As i said with diamond skin….
I ll say here again..
Trash trait totally forgotten in 1 month.

Nobody will get this as grandmaster trait in the worst trait tree for elementalist.

It’s not the trait line that is the issue. It is the attunement.

Staff – Terrible auto attack that is easily dodged. Eruption decent skill, decent damage but takes to long to go off.Magnetic Aura rocks.Unsteady Ground decent but SO many groups have easily obtained AoE Stability making it useless most of the time. Shock wave rather poor, i have seen TRAITS that are FOUR times longer duration on the same cool down.

Dagger MH – Another awful auto attack. Ring of Earth is decent, nothing more. Magnetic Grasp is SO bugged it ca miss people right in front of the ele.
Dagger OH – earthquake way TOO long of a cool down. Churning Earth insane cool down and insane cast time makes it near useless against anyone that has seen it.

Scepter – Decent Auto attack. Damge is a bit low for getting sharp shards of rock hitting you. Rock Barrier is rather meh, nice Toughness but useless second part (Hurl) Dust Devil decent line Blind long cool down for what it really is though.

Focus – Magnetic Wave is decent but Obsidian Flesh is rather terrible for a 4 second duration Invul it has an insane cool down.

What i would do:

Staff – Add Bleeding and/or Cripple to the auto attack. Speed up Eruption so that even people in the centre of it can’t just walk out before it goes off. Increase the Bleeding Stacks but decrease the duration 12seconds is to long and the stacks will be lost way before then. Increase the Bleeding and Immbo on Shockwave.

Dagger MH: Total redesign of the Auto attack so that it hits multiple foes. Ring of Earth, again reduce the duration of the bleeding but increase the stacks. Maybe remove Cripple and add Torment instead. Magnetic Grasp, make it so that it actually WORKS add a 6 second Cripple.
Dagger OH: Reduce the cool down of Earthquake by a reasonable amount, Add Torment and Cripple to it. Churning Earth needs its cast time reduced by 50%. Increase the Cripple to 2seconds per a tick and add Torment high enough stacks so they have to decide what would be more damaging taking the Churning Earth or running from it.

Scepter: Stone Shards could do with a tiny bit of increase in direct damage. Hurl (Rock Barrier skill) should be 100% Crit hits for each hit with Each hit from it inflicting say 3 stacks of Torment for 10seconds. Dust Devil not to sure, its decent but could use something – maybe cripple?

Focus – Increase reflection duration to 5 seconds. Add Bleeding and/or Torment to it as well. Obsidian Flesh needs to have a much lower Cool down. Maybe have it have a secondary part of the skill something like:

Obsidian Explosion – repel your stoney armor knocking back all foes in range and dealing high damage. All foes in range and inflicted with 10second Cripple and 5 stacks of Torment for 10seconds.

or something like that.

2 of these weapons (Scepter and Focus) have issues in the other attunements as well in my opinion but i won’t get into that here.

Bombsaway.7198:

Engineers and elementalists are fine. Other classes get more sigils. We get more skills.
Sounds about right.

It isn’t like we have fewer ACTIVE sigils (you only get the benefit of the equipped ones). We have less ability to change out the sigils. Seems about right given we can change our action skills with kits and attunements fast.

For Ele. Having more skills doesnt count when they are all average in ability and insane in cool down. We need more skills DUE to the insane cool downs SO many of the weapon skills we have.

Sure we get on swap effects without them – However. Until the 15point traits are actually as strong as the Sigil version then it doesn’t really count now does it.

For Example: Earth Blast – Should have Bleeding added to it. 5 stacks. Make it so that it could not proc both this and Geomancy on entering Earth. Maybe have Sunspot, Electric Discharge and Healing Ripple buffed a bit as well and then maybe, just maybe i could live with just 2 Sigil slots.

Marcos.3690:

*
- The reason to get up to 20 in arcana is because you need the lingering elements for stone heart.

Sorry to break it to you, Lingering Elements currently affects specific traits. I don’t think it will be changed to include Stone Heart. Now, if it does get changed (highly unlikely) then it could be something very good. Until then i would hold off with these sort of ideas.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Tell me, what does Blind do? Oh yeah, it makes an attack miss. As in, not hit you. Which means you don’t have to hope to survive it. Blinding Ashes is very much a survivability trait.

While true. The chances of that attack that misses being an auto attack is rather high. Also the lack of control over who gets the blind would be a problem against Mesmers, Rangers and Necromancers. It to me just feels Meh as a trait, though the same could be said for all of our (ele) traits. They all just seem rather bland.

You then have to take into consideration – Is the 1 blind every 5 seconds worth losing out on traits and stats elsewhere.

jportell.2197:

In tournament PvP we have maybe a shatter build, and clone death builds (non-PU because it prevents point cap.)
Phantasm builds are useless
Lockdown builds are like Sasquatch… you hear of them but rarely see them.

At least you are useful in TPvP. Ele for example is pretty much awful in all forms of S/TPvP no matter the build. Though wanting such a change from a TINY portion of the game is just silly. Not considered WvW i take it?

Jackums.3496:

For the purpose of negating clone-death builds? Why not just solve that issue at its source and nerf Debilitating Dissipation instead?

Why should it be moved down at all? Mesmer have more builds that are viable that some other classes. So why is this such an issue i don’t know. If it is to be moved down, then something must be reduced/nerfed to compensate for it being moved down.

They go back to the idea about not creating new clones if you have 3 up when you dodge, then fine i wouldn’t mind it going down to 15point trait. If not – Then it should stay where it is.

cheese.4739:

Guaranteed crit = 100% crit chance
No crit = 0% crit chance
100 * 0 = 0

Even if ‘guaranteed crits’ actually give a higher than 100% chance… such as maybe a 200% chance, which would cancel out with a 50% crit chance reduction to make 100%? That 200 * 0 still works out at 0.

Not going to happen i think. It will just do normal damage.

WhimsicalPacifist.2943:

Way I interpreted the skill text was that it has a chance per spell, not per hit. There’s ambiguity in that text that makes this all the more aggravating. Even per spell the proc rate is low.

I dont think it is, as Scepter Air for example had procs MID channel.

WhimsicalPacifist.2943:

Grrrr. If it’s that low then its’ going to need a large N analysis to establish the proc chance then. Not fun.

When using Dagger in Air, all i did for the WHOLE time was Auto attack. Which should be about 60 attacks, if its 1/2 cast time. with 4 procs per those 60 attacks. That would mean it has a proc chance of like 2.4% or something. Same goes for Scepter, only used Auto attack in Air and in Earth, nothing really changed. Still a rather low proc rate, even with the more attacks.

WhimsicalPacifist.2943:

The consistency despite the disparity in attack rate between Earth and Air/Scepter and Dagger suggests a very large internal cooldown. If this were rectified, the Glyph might actually be a strong utility instead of an otherwise-useless stunbreaker.

It doesn’t seem to have a cool down between procs, it just has a terrible proc chance. Some times it proced twice in a few seconds and then went 10+seconds without nothing. So not quite sure what the issue is. The 20% proc chance seems to be a tool tip bug. It can NOT be 20%. It would need say a 50% chance to proc with a 1-2second ICD or something to really make it better.

I have not seen a single Condition based Engineer using Pistol/Pistol. Sure you can do that. Doesn’t quite help when you get attacked before you can do it.

Berengar.6951:

Even if you removed Incendiary Powder, Engie probably has the best access to burning besides Eles.

Fire Bomb, Rocket Boots toolbelt, Multiple Flamethrower skills, Incendiary Ammo(Flamethrower toolbelt), Flame Turret, Flame Turret Toolbelt, Blowtorch (offhand pistol #4). I’m sure I missed some

That is true. How ever, most condition Engineers don’t take Flamethrower which would remove Incendiary Ammo. Nor do they take Pistol offhand. Flame Turret isn’t really taken either. They need Bomb Kit, Grenade Kit and normally take Tool Kit.

Berengar.6951:

Hammer trains run Soldiers gear usually

and of all the classes you want to remove burning from, you want to take it away from the one that actually has a flamethrower?

yeah, so they would have to make a choice about using it. I rarely see any condition Engineer using it – why? because of all the other conditions on the other kits and with the Burning on Crit makes up for it.

So, remove the Burning trait. Leave the Flamethrower and make them actually have to give up something to get access to the strongest (damage wise) condition.

My reason for removing it from Necromancer and Engineer is that they don’t need it. I guess you could say the same about Staff Mesmer, though they do have a rather big amount of access to conditions as well.

So, with the news about the new Fire Trait. I was looking at Burning Precision. Would changing it from:

Current: 30% Chance on Crit, 2second ICD
to
Idea: 50% Chance on Crit, 2second ICD

Would this be too broken? I mean, its a decent trait but the proc chance is rather iffy. Maybe a change in duration would help as well. 1 second duration with a 30% chance on Crit is rather poor. It could become a really solid trait. It is a bit lacking currently – low chance on proc combined with a poor duration doesnt make for the best of traits.

WvW:

Zergs: Melee Zerk Hammer trains.
Roaming: Conditions
1 Vs 1: Conditions
Small Group: Conditions

It was this before the changes, it will continue to be this. Until the Condition spamming of Necro, Thief, Ranger, Mesmer and Engineer is taken under control nothing will change. Engineer and Necromander need to have Burning Removed. Engineer needs to have its Confusion reduced a lot. Condition builds on Thief need to be looked at as well. Spending SO much in time and then spamming conditions when they get out until they go back in…

If they want Condition builds to be king – Ele and Guardian need to be hugely buffed in terms of condition builds. Ele can do it, just. Requires constant pressure and none of this spamming conditions rubbish. They sacrifice A LOT damage is terrible, defense is rather poor as well. Unlike all other Condition builds – Insane defense, insane condition access, High health.

Ray.2640:

Step 1: get scepter / x + condi set.
Step 2: get blind on burn + crit invulnerability in earth attunement.
Step 3: activate glyph of elemental power in fire attunement then switch to earth.
Step 4: auto attack.
Step 5: ??
Step 6: Profit!

Wouldn’t Dagger/Dagger and then switching to Air be better? It has a faster attack rate. Sure Earth has the Immune to Crit, but nothing else. Scepter Earth pretty much has 1 Blind and added Toughness. Nothing else. Also the proc chance is rather poor.

Testing it, in 30seconds it procced 4 times. I tried in Earth and Air with Scepter and it procced 4 times every time i tried. I tried with D/D and using Air and it procced 5 times and then only 4 times the second try. To me, this simply isnt good enough and is rather a waste of a utility.

Carighan.6758:

You take the same damage per attack as someone else with 2k Toughness. :P

Yeah, now if only i had the health they had or the defensive skills they had….

mcarswell.3768:

i’ll be running 30/0/0/10/30 using the synergy between Blinding Ashes and Elemental Surge.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMIShD2zAuMAfEGAIFaJ8QADAo8ImZqB-z0CBYjA0HAJfAZngJqQZPoJQJrMsIasqaDRWZDT9CNAACwN3ZAIhWopN/5Pv5PLEQ5JA-w

I dont think that will work very well. You would be forced to be in Fire and use them Arcane skills in Fire to get the Blind. Elemental Surge is rather weak and that does not change with this trait.

Maybe going with Focus offhand, Signets grant Fire Aura and such with Dagger or Scepter Main hand would be a better option to go with? Fire’s Embrace and Elemental Shielding could mean decent up time on Blind, Fire Shield and Protection. Shame that it’s just a 3second duration proc.

Carighan.6758:

The argument is actually that Eles and Engis can trigger on-swap Sigils much more consistently. And they won’t trigger them less in total either, they just have less variety.

To explain it differently:
If the two-weapons user had the same sigils on both sets of weapons, the sigil-mechanic would really favour Ele/Engi. The only balancing act is that they are limited in versatility, because those two classes are forced to kinda have that same set on “both” weapons.

On swap Sigils have the same cool down for all classes. Ele and Engineer would not be able to proc them more than any other class. They have a 9-10second cool down no matter the class you are using.

So this means nothing. Lets not forget that ALL other classes will have FOUR sigil options. One likely taken up with a stacking Sigil – What about ele and engineer they are stuck with 2, well 1 if you include the stacking sigil that will apparently have its stacks removed if you remove the weapon.

Some are also thinking of ways to get around that – using the stacking Sigil of the Under water weapon. If this works it will be 4 Sigils Vs 2. Neither Ele or Engineer have such a bonus that this would not affect them.

So limited in what Sigils they can use, opens up options for other classes, makes it even more limited on Ele and Engineer. It makes no sense.

OneManArmy.9732:

no reason to invest into fire traits. because our “defensive” earth trait line provides more offense than our “offensive” fire trait line.

nothing changes hambow/spirit rangers dont need to make crits, their AA gives them enough damage to kill ele without crits.

are new traits gives us builds diversity? yes, they are
will we have more survivability? no, another way to play, same way to die.

This. Not taking Crits means nothing when non-critting hits still do insane damage to us. Even with 2k Toughness i am still taking high damage from even just auto attacks….

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

that’s just pointless… the Staff aura already does that so what’s the point of turning all the aura’s into stuff like that? I’d rather have auras give aegis.

I would rather my D/D ele had Reflection than Aegis. Though maybe a better solution would be a Glyph or Arcane that grants you the Aura based on your Attunement. This then would work with EVERY build.

As you could decide what Aura you want at any given time:

Fire – Fire Aura
Air – Shocking Aura
Water – Frozen Aura
Earth – Magnetic Aura

5second duration, 30second cool down.

Another problem D/D has – No way to counter Range only builds. Even if Ride The Lightening was reverted. You can still be stunned, knocked back and such while IN it. It happened to me last night. Then you get the builds that are purely Ranged and have MUCH more access to range making abilities than D/D has access to gap closers.

Really wish D/D was given Magnetic Aura somehow. It is really needed against the likes of P/P Thieves, Rangers, P/S Engineers and such that have SO many ways to keep out of our range while continuing to do great damage with nothing we can do.

The Sigil and Rune changes are just another nerf to the class. While everyone else gets buffed by it – we get nerfed from it…

this elepocalypse i think meant the death of ele outside of trying to force it into a role that they said the game would not have.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

this makes fire aura so much more usefull with a signet build and fire auras being given when you activate a signet this would give near perma blind, burn and might.

You can’t have even “near perma” Blind when it has a 5second cool down. Unless your target is attacking you every 4-5seconds.

I agree. I think this wasn’t the best idea when deciding on new traits. Now the assumption is people will either be immune to conditions when above 90% health which itself is a joke thanks to our low health it is VERY easy for even condition builds to get us below that line and now we will have a trait that makes us immune to crit when in a attunement that is simply awful.

It does not matter if you can’t be crit hit in Earth seeing as Earth itself is no threat what so ever. It will just mean it will take a little bit longer to kill you and you will still melt to the constant burst condition builds that can apply insane numbers of conditions in seconds and just laugh at you while you fail to remove them all. Knowing that they can reply them and more in seconds.

What happens when after being in Earth for so long and the enemy being still at high health due to how weak and pointless some of our skills are in Earth when we are getting low, forced to change attunement to heal, now locked out of it for at least 10seconds and with the fact that Lingering Elements will not work with it means that we are going to be toast. Everyone will just spam attacks until we are forced to change attunement and then wait for that to burst us into death….

So we take one or the other…Then weak against the other so much so that it is pretty much death no matter what way you go, the difference will just be the builds that are easily killing you. people going on about stopping the on-crit procs like that will be something amazing – who relies on on Crit effects anyway? No one.

i can see MANY of the new traits either getting adjusted or full out redesigned when it comes to release. Because some of them are straight up broken – A class that spend 90% of a fight in stealth getting a 50% damage reduction in stealth…Yeah great idea. Some of the Warrior ones are rather stupid as well.

Xaylin.1860:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

is 1 per a 5second classified as Frequent? Now if that is 1 Per 5second per a target, that could be interesting. If not then it could easily get wasted on for example Mesmer Clone. They do like no damage what so ever so in this case it would be a total waste.

I don’t get your hate for this trait. Check other Blinds. It is very frequent.

So your real issue with this trait is that you can’t use it with area effects. But that doesn’t make it a crappy trait. It will be extremly powerful in a 1vs1 situation as long as you’re not facing a pet/minion build. Even then you usually got the option of directly targetting the player. As far as I know area effects prioritize your target so you can still reliably Blind the player.

Of course, you won’t succeed if you don’t make the effort to target the real Mesmer, the Minion Master, yadda yadda. But seriously, this doesn’t turn it into a bad trait just because you can’t mindlessly spamm burns.

I just dont like the trait. Then again, i don’t like any of the ele traits enough for me to think “wow i should change my build and add that” 1 Blind every 5 seconds is simply not Grandmaster quality. It being in the Fire line i was really hoping for something that would benefit Condition builds a little bit, like Increased Burning Damage.

Currently the tree has very few reasons to go into it, this trait will not change that. Without control over who gets the blind as i said it could easily be wasted on Clones, Ranger Pets, Minions, Spirit Minions and such. I just don’t think that a trait for 1 blind every 5 seconds is going to really do much for the class.

When the update comes and we have had a week or so with them – i reckon i will be proven right. Most of these traits will be FoTM for a bit and then replaced when people see that they don’t really offer enough to make the losses of traits and stats elsewhere to be worth it.

My issue with the trait is simple: It is not Grandmaster quality.
Then again, same could be said for pretty much all the new ele traits. Even the Earth one is going to be rather pointless seeing as it will not work with Lingering Elements and is in an attunement that is no threat to anyone.

Azgarn.2145:

There is absolutely no reason in earth, Heaven, or Satan’s sock drawer that this game needs more blind spamming.

It has a 5second cool down, i would hardly call that spamming…

TakeCare.3182:

Aw. I’m so excited for it. I already have gear and everything picked out. I think it will be quite good in the right spec. Who knows. It could be completely OP or a bust. I would imagine somewhere in the middle. Guess we’ll find out. :P

It won’t work with Lingering Elements. It will be FoTM for a bit until people see that it really has little effect in practice. Seeing as the attunement you have to be in, is rather poorly designed on pretty much every weapon set. Whats the point of not being able to be Crit Hit, if you yourself are no threat what so ever.

is 1 per a 5second classified as Frequent? Now if that is 1 Per 5second per a target, that could be interesting. If not then it could easily get wasted on for example Mesmer Clone. They do like no damage what so ever so in this case it would be a total waste.

TakeCare.3182:

Jski.6180:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Przemek Pro.1309:

Yeah but when u leave earth attument u still have attu,emt bonuses for 5 sec

No. Unless they change Lingering Elements which has yet to be confirmed it will not linger. Lingering Elements affects CERTAIN traits only.

That may be part of the bug fixed that ele are getting in fact all classes are getting some type of bug fix.

The devs have stated that Lingering Elements is currently working as intended.

JonPeters.5630:

Lingering Elements
All passive bonuses for that attunement should linger. This means Flame Barrier, Stone Flesh, Soothing Mist, and Zephyr’s Speed.

Source

JonPeters.5630:

I think this trait needs better wording. I hope you all understand why that trait would be wildly overpowered if it carried over everything particularly all 10% damage bonuses. You could simply slam through all attunements and then get 50% bonus damage. Similarly making other things work with this would requires those traits get lowered in the base case as well. I think this is a fine 15 point minor trait on its own and we can reword it and then discuss the merits of the other traits on their own.

To me, that is a better starting point for discussion than attempting to balance all of these effects with how they might work with a minor trait in Arcana. That would predicate the entire profession around that trait which is not what we want out of our minor traits.

Jon

Source

This is why i think it won’t be changed. With that in mind i think this trait loses much of its appeal, for me at least.

Simon.3794:

your example is poor, dhummfire and incendiary powder can be avoided by condition immunity too, but these are OP traits.

Your example is poor. You compare a condition on classes that have INSANE burst access to conditions. Remove both of them traits and they would still be fine due to the fact they have just so much access to conditions. While the Burning is doing good damage, the Burning itself is no threat what so ever. Its all the other conditions that are given as well.

Hell i have played condition builds on both of them classes and havent needed to take either trait. Because they are just another condition. Nothing more. When you have insane access to poison, Confusion, Cripple, Bleeding and such Burning isn’t needed. While the damage is nice it isn’t a requirement to do well with either class.

Where as 1 blind with a 5second cool down as a Grandmaster trait is rather meh. Like i said, i would rather have a trait that boosts Burning. An increase in Damage would be very welcome. We already have the trait for increased duration though on D/D it isnt needed what so ever.

Jski.6180:

That may be part of the bug fixed that ele are getting in fact all classes are getting some type of bug fix.

Now. If this does happen. That will make it VERY interesting. Though i am doubtful that it will happen.