Guild Wars 2

Gabriell.4856:

Hey Higgins,

Thanks for showing off your condi build, this is the first time I actually see someone utilizing “Written in Stone”. Never thought it can be used in a condi build.

I have a question, I see no stun breakers in your build. How do you survive without at least 1 stun break, for when you are ambushed by a thief or anyone who uses stun as an opener?

Shocking Aura works great. They will normally use Bask to start the fight and then you just use Shocking Aura and when they go in for the Backstab it stuns them. It really should mean no damage is dealt but i am not 100% sure if that is the case or not.

When roaming ai pretty much stay in Air just in case i get ambushed. From then on its okay. I also run with Arcane Shield myself and Arcane Power the blinds (with Elemental Surge) is great defence.

Notice the Legendary weapons….
They are a HUGE leap in damage for Ele over Exo weapons. I have seen Ele trash people with them and then lose when they switch to Exo trying to prove that its not the weapon.

Funny though that the traits are exactly what mine were. Though in the end i moved 10 points out of Earth into Air for that added damage and taking Bolt to the heart trait. Also use the same Rune set, but i take Geomancy and Torment sigils.

As for trait specifics – The Earth traits exactly the same, Water trait exactly the same. I take Windborne Dagger instead of renewing Stamina and Elemental Surge instead of Evasive Arcana. Other than the traits are the same, when i had 30 into Earth i would switch between Diamond Skin and Earth’s Embrace.

Though being Human in my opinion offers the better skill – Reaper of Grenth.

Terrible idea for the Signet of Restoration Passive. Keep the passive the way it is now just tweak it so that its not terrible. Having to swap attunements to get a little heal is rather weak. You swap attunements for the skills not because you need to be healed.

The active sounds interesting. Personally i would change them a bit though.

Fire – Make it so that it is critical damage and that it inflicts burning.
Water – Make it grant Regeneration and is a Water field for allies as well
Air – Seems okay. Maybe have it proc 2seconds of Fury as well(?)
Earth – Make it grant Stability and Protection rather than Weakness

The radius could be improved a bit, maybe 240range

As for the Arcane skills…you want to make them WORSE…
Arcane Blast, Arcane Wave and Arcane Shield changes are all TERRIBLE.

You are trying to ruin the class with SO many of your change ideas. I suggest playing the class before trying to think of change ideas because if you did play the class then you would be able to tell why so many of your changes are pretty awful.

Signet of Fire – Interesting Passive, remove the blast requirement and make it when you burn foes and it could be great. Say 3 second Fury with a 1second ICD. The active i don’t really like i like the current active myself.

Signet of Earth – Terrible Passive, protection duration is way to low to make it any use and the active is just as bad.

Signet of Water – Passive is meh. You are going from having a condition removed every 10 seconds to adding a requirement to remove it. Terrible idea. Would be better if it turned a Condition into a boon every 10seconds. The active is meh as well, make it so that the active converts ALL conditions into Boons for there duration (affected by boon duration) – 90second cool down, instant cast. Boon now a great Signet.

Glyph of Renewal – Terrible glyph, a .25second cast time reduction will not fix all the issues that crappy skill has.

Glyph of storms – again terrible skill a cool down reduction is not enough to make people want to use it.

Glyph of Elemental Power – Personally i liked the way the skill was. The Auras would need to have a MUCH longer duration to make it worth while. The condition application needs to stay 25% chance to trigger the condition with a nice duration as well is MUCH better than your idea. Make each of the Auras last 10seconds, seeing as they have the ICD anyway, increase the cool down back to 45 seconds and keep the current condition application and it would be fine.

I have normally around 20,000 Health. This is with Buffs of course. Pretty much all my gear has Toughness and Vitality on it. Hell i have managed to go past 2,000Toughness with ease.

A trait shouldn’t be “workable” and for a Grandmaster trait it shouldn’t be a case of “oh you’re using the wrong weapon”

Weena.6429:

If it pulled the enemy to you, it would be a lot better. The difference is, it pulls you to your enemy. It should at least go the other way around and ministun the person you pulled instead of yourself. It feels like they switched the targets for the skill.

True, but it can also be helpful to use to escape people by using it on something in the direction you are going to get that little bit of a movement increase. Though it could have its benefits and disadvantages either way.

I have plenty of Toughness and range between 1700-1900 most of the time, condition builds STILL hit hard enough to take you below the 90% threshold. The trait simply is not Grandmaster worthy.

I have run it, i removed it after seeing how little it actually helped me and my build. With it i had A LOT of toughness and still seeing as all you have to do is take 1-2k damage and boon you are under 90% health means it is rather useless against pretty much all Condition builds.

Now if you went for PURE condition counter sort of build then yes it would be okay but as it is, no it is not worthy of a grandmaster trait. Hell, even Condition Thief can BS you for 5k+

The problem is, to counter conditions we have to build to PURELY counter them and nothing else. We wouldn’t have the damage to kill them and in the end they WOULD win.

1: Meh, plenty of classes have insane effect combos.

2: It can be great to pull your target to you at times. Rock Spray is stronger the closer you are. So pulling them to you and then using that is great bleeding damage.

3: This i agree with, some of our skills missing when directly in front of the target gets rather annoying

4: Again, i agree with this

5: Yep. I think all of our aura’s are rather weak considering the cool downs they have.

Though, none of these changes would really help the Ele where it needs it. So this is why they would likely happen as they pretty much either have no effect on us or are a nerf (FGS for example)

Another thing that i would like to see:

Shocking Aura: Great against Melee, useless against Range.

I would add a projectile reflection into it for its short duration. Plenty of skills on other classes have this, so this wouldn’t be overpowered or anything and would make using it against ranged weapons much more helpful. Because currently it doesnt stun/daze them or anything.

Joonks.7501:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Don’t We are pretty much the worst class when it comes to S/TPvP. Go with another class if you want to play them modes.

Go away.

I also have the same question – have a 50ish ele that I’d like to get the hang of by playing pvp. Any recommendations on builds for hot join/soloQ?

Seriously, we are VERY weak in S/TPvP right now, unless you like getting melted in seconds then i would suggest not playing S/TPvP. Sure, some “okay” builds like Fresh Air or something but even with that, you will still die A LOT.

…………By dying.

Don’t We are pretty much the worst class when it comes to S/TPvP. Go with another class if you want to play them modes.

Classes like Warrior, thief, Engineer and Necromancer simply have too much access to conditions and have conditions they really don’t need.

Necromancer – Burning
Warrior – Torment
Engineer – Confusion

On top of having TOO much access, they have it all on low cool downs and on auto attacks. Duration was never the issue, the issue was and still is the number of conditions. You can have 5+ conditions on you in seconds….

The number of cleanses simply can not keep up with the spammable conditions. its a fight cleansing will ALWAYS lose.

What i would like to see Mist Form turned into a skill where we have immunity to conditions during it and are allowed to still attack, use skills and such. We have a skill for Direct damage, i mean its on a terrible cool down and such but hey better than nothing but for conditions we actually have pretty much nothing.

Diamond Skin is a JOKE. Every condition build can do enough direct damage to take us below the 90% threshold within seconds anyway.

Question is would damage and condition immunity for 5 seconds (it needs a duration buff, 3 seconds is a joke) be overpowered? considering its cool down.

Arcturus.8109:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I would rather us having like Aura around us, or like flames coming from us in Fire attunement and such little effects on the hands is terrible

That would be good for swag but I dont think that we need more signs that will allow to predict out actions. Currently the only kind of burst that really can be landed without CC is dumb freshair+arcana, all that firegrabs, earthshakes and churning suicides are already losing big part of their effectiveness due to visuals.

All you have to do is see the attunement they are in, see what weapon they have and boom. You already know what to expect. That takes what, less than a second?

Mbelch.9028:

15 percent sounds good. But it doesn’t truly help handle a fight vs a condi spammer.

True, all in all, it being rather low would make it useless. We suffer against zerker burst and condition spamming, you cant get a defence against both in 1 trait…

Mbelch.9028:

That sounds too powerful Ash. I like the line of thinking from those proposals though. It’d be nice if each time you got hit with 4 or more condis, it cleansed them (30 sec ICD.)

Sounds like a a Grandmaster trait to me, for the class with the lowest health and lowest armor, okay maybe not 50% say 10-20%?

Mesmers are strong enough as they are thanks, rather than having everyone OP (Minus Rangers and Eles) maybe it would be better to have the broken builds nerfed instead.

I have seen PU builds melt people, saying that its low damage is just dependant on how the other traits are spent and what the gear is.

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

A few days ago I proposed a change to Diamond skin:

Diamond Skin: When you lose more than 20% of your current health in a single attack, you gain aegis and lose 2 conditions. (ICD: 2 seconds)

This would solidify Diamond skins role as a tank trait, reducing burst and conditions while under heavy pressure

No thanks, that isn’t Grandmaster quality.

How about one that increases our toughness by say 50% of the damage taken, Lasts say 5-10seconds. Stacks 5 times Now THAT is a Grandmaster Trait.

This might stop us getting killed in like 2-3 hits as well…

Arcturus.8109:

For some reason I think these effects should look like big, attunement-related colored crosshairs floating above elementalist’s head. From time to time he should be also marked on minimap and be accompanied by line “Here’s ele, mash you buttons!” in enemy chat.

I would rather us having like Aura around us, or like flames coming from us in Fire attunement and such little effects on the hands is terrible

I would rather they remove the icon and give us REAL attunement effects, the terrible rings around the hands just smell of lazy work.

Black Teagan.9215:

Guys, calm down!
I want here a serious discussion, and not the next flamethread, which will close because you can not stop to tussle.

The problem is, It is always going to be a Them Vs Us sort of situation. They don’t to be balanced because it would require them having to EARN kills rather than spam buttons and win.

The same goes for other classes as well, but when a class has SO many broken mechanics – fixing them would make the class rather weak. So if they did (what they should do) nerf the insanely broken burst, fix the likes of HS and remove the Leap Finisher and lower the damage they would then have to (rightly so) buff them defensively. Power Thieves rely on BS and HS and pretty much thats it, of course they need the stealth skills as well but its BS and HS that will get the kills.

Only the poor players of a class would defend such a broken thing where spamming HS actually kills people. You can hit it what 4+ times before you run out of initiative, good job they have stealth options that dont require it…

Part of the problem was the whole initiative idea, it has clearly failed, it is WAY to hard to balance and they should just remove it. Give the class proper weapon cool downs and replace/change the traits that grant initiative to do something else. The Stealth skills would need a 15-20second cool down as well, having a skill that does THAT much damage and ONLY requires you to be in stealth is insane. No punishment if they dodge, block or immune it either is rather poor balancing as well.

Form.8741:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Black Teagan.9215:

If you want to summary the thiefclass in one sentence: “Kill them immediately or stealth and repeat your button spamming once they have used there defensive cool downs to stop your first batch of burst.”

Fixed it for you. The sort of damage Thief can do is simply broken. What other class has an attack that can do up to 16k damage in ONE hit that has NO punishment if the skill is dodged, blocked or immuned? Which allows them to continue to spam it until it hits and then for them to spam #2 until the target is dead…

Lets not forget that this burst can ONLY be “avoided” if you actually SEE them. You stand NO chance if they see you first and instantly use one of MANY ways to get cheap and easy Stealth. Sure having advantage is fine, that advantage leading to near 1hit kills is NOT fine.

Warrior does several skills actually, including one that works at 1500 range.

You are forgetting that those can be dodged, easier to dodge attacks with long cast times when you know they are coming. Try dodging a skill from a class you don’t know is there of an attack you dont know is coming…

Zutha.5091:

Churning earth is a massively telegraphed ability and anyone with an IQ above 50 can dodge it.

50? You can have an IQ of 1 and still have time to escape, that or you can just interrupt them, unless they are using another insanely long cool down skill to prevent that, in which case – just walk out, with such a long cast time you could walk all the way out and laugh at them as they waste a an insanely long cast time skill that will hit NO player. Unless of course you have friends that are keeping them there, That Guardian ring for example.

Black Teagan.9215:

If you want to summary the thiefclass in one sentence: “Kill them immediately or stealth and repeat your button spamming once they have used there defensive cool downs to stop your first batch of burst.”

Fixed it for you. The sort of damage Thief can do is simply broken. What other class has an attack that can do up to 16k damage in ONE hit that has NO punishment if the skill is dodged, blocked or immuned? Which allows them to continue to spam it until it hits and then for them to spam #2 until the target is dead…

Lets not forget that this burst can ONLY be “avoided” if you actually SEE them. You stand NO chance if they see you first and instantly use one of MANY ways to get cheap and easy Stealth. Sure having advantage is fine, that advantage leading to near 1hit kills is NOT fine.

runeblade.7514:

Lightning Flash compared with->

- Shadow Step (Thief) 50sec CD, stunbreak removes 3 conditions two flashes, one -breaking stun one removing conditions.
- Infiltrator’s Signet (Thief) 30sec CD stunbreak passive effect and easily combined with strong instant attacks.
- Blink (Mesmer) 30sec CD stunbreak.

Cleansing Fire compared with->

- Arcane Thievery (Mesmer) 45sec CD not only removes all our current conditions but also steal your targets boons.
- Elixir C (Engineer) 40sec CD convert all current conditons into boons.
- Shadow Step (Thief) yet agian.
- Shake it Off (Warrior) 25sec CD stunbreak condition remove partywide
- Berserker Stance (Warrior) 60sec CD condition imunnity for 8sec

Armor Of Earth compared with->

- Stand Your Ground! (Guardian) 30sec CD stunbreak partywide stability and retaliation
- Protect Me (Ranger) 60sec CD stunbreak damage imunnity for 6sec (As long your current pet is able to survive)
- Balanced Stance (Warrior) 40sec CD stunbreak 8sec stability and swiftness

Mist Form is elementalist specific and had it glorydays but now is deemed useless by meny.

This is our biggest problem. Our utilities are not only weaker than comparable skills of other classes but have MUCH higher cool downs as well. Mist form can be compared to any Invul skill, which again is weaker than all others lower duration, no special effects (bar increased movement speed), longer cool down and in the case against certain ones we get locked out of heal, utilities and elite while theres doesnt….

Mbelch.9028:

Try 30/30/0/0/10 :P jk. But back on track guys.

What do we hope they change in this next patch for condi removal?

Also how did you all feel about the fake patch notes that changed condi dmg with auras?

I was actually quite pleased with some of the changes in the “fake” patch notes. The Tornado change was a MUST. Yet, it is still going to stay one of the WORST transformation skills in the game.

That was the one that stayed with me, i remember there was one about different Aura effects as well. Aura’s need to be redesigned in my opinion, they should be our main weapon based defence but currently they are rather weak compared to skills of other classes

They need the ICD removed and they need to have them be more punishing on people that just spam attacks without fear.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Why? For a skill-focused game, any offense must be greater than the respective defense. In fact, this is the reason why PvE is so heavily dominated by pure DPS: the defense is greater than the related offense. Tip: the same avoidance techniques you use against power builds also work on condition builds.

For a start, it would stop the simple unskilled condition based gameplay as it is now – throw everything you have at the target, keep spamming auto attacks that also inflict conditions and wait for them to die.

That is pretty much it as it is now, NO class has the power to counter the conditions. Look at the likes of Engineer and Necromancer as just one example – Conditions on pretty much EVERY skill they have. Auto attacks that inflict conditions as well, so while the skills they used to get you full of conditions are on cool down, they can just move to the next skill and the next skill – what about the other person? That person has a VERY limited number of condition removals.

Is it not enough with how damaging these conditions are that they also have to be EASILY applied and EASILY reapplied once they are removed. It makes removing them pointless because within seconds you are going to be pumped full of conditions again – then what do you do? you dont have anywhere the access to condition removals as they have access to conditions, just look at the Engineer list of conditions. that was from a weapon set and 3 utilties which also offer blasts, fields, blocks, knockbacks, dazes. They could go with Healing Turret get some great healing as well as stealth.

Anet has a choice:

1) reduce the access to conditions – this would involve removing certain conditions from classes that should never have gotten them to begin with (Burning Necro, Confusion Engineer and Torment Warrior spring to mind) then adjust the cool downs of them skills. Remove Conditions from ALL auto attacks that these classes have as well. They dont need conditions on EVERYTHING they have.

2) Increase Self Condition Removal – This would involve going over EVERY class and EVERY weapon and making adjustments to skills to give classes more accessible access to condition removal. Things like Cleansing Fire – 3 conditions removed on a 40second cool down!? that needs to be dropped to like 20seconds and increased to 5 conditions and other classes would need the same.

It is going to be VERY tough to balance, but so far they have been doing a TERRIBLE job at it and been going in the WRONG direction.

Flissy.4093:

Warriors are dependent on bleeds for condition damage. They have very limited access to other conditions, so to make things fair the Warrior’s “only” condition is buffed.

I don’t see why you can scream OP in comparison to a Necro – Put a condition Necro against a condition Warrior of equal skill and the Necro will win all day long.

Well, this is not the case. Otherwise they would only have Bleeding. They Also have access to Burning, Torment and Confusion alone. Ignoring Sigils, Rune set and such. they are FAR from reliant on one condition, if that is the case – the others can be removed.

After all, dont need a 12 second 5 stack Torment on a 15second cool down (before any traits or anything) if they rely on Bleeding, this could easily be reduced to say 1 stack 10seconds. After all, its just there to cover the bleeding right…

The Confusion, that could be reduced to 1 stack because again just there to cover the bleeding and thus this doesnt need to be doing anywhere near as much damage, right?

RyuDragnier.9476:

Conditions are not the problem in WvW…CC is.

Bleed/poison/confusion/burn/torment? Pop a condi-remover.

So after you have removed them conditions. What do you do about the very next condition spam where you are given Bleeds, Poison, Confusion and others within like 3-5seconds?

EVERY class needs to have condition removal on weapon skills but just for themselves, limit the AoE condition removal but add more player only removal. It is the only way to counter the CONSTANT condition spam that Condition builds are.

It isn’t even about playing well and using the right conditions at the right time, its about spamming as many as you can onto the target as fast as you can and then repeating until that person is dead.

Either Condition builds need to have the cool down of said skills increased or classes need to be given better removal options. A Engineer can have EASILY 10+ stacks of confusion, Burning, bleeding, Poison and others on you within seconds.

Pretty much every Condition Engineer i see runs with Tool Kit, Grenade Kit and Bomb Kit which gives access to Burning, confusion, Blindness, Cripple, Immobilize (Bomb Kit) vul, Bleeding, Cripple, Confusion, (Tool Kit) and Bleeding, Blindness, Chill, Poison (Grenade Kit) and lets not forget the Poison, Smoke, Fire Fields. The Block, The Pull, Blast Finisher. That is ignoring the weapons which are likely Pistol/Shield which offers Bleeding on auto attack, Poison, Blindness, Confusion projectile reflection, Knockback and Blast finisher as well as Block that stuns or Knocks line Daze….

That is without any traits, sigils, or anything else. That is simply too much.

Brando.1374:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Ashin.5986:

The only instance I’ve seen in which conditions seemed overpowered was 1v1 mesmer.

They are so weak in moderate to large scale WvW as to border on irrelevant.

Then you must not WvW often, Engineer condition builds are insane. I would personally have them being stronger than Necromancer myself and even they are simply insane if you are not built specifically to counter conditions and in that case you will not be killing them.

a necro loosing to another condi class just shows that is a bad necro who does not know how or when to xfer or clear condi’s.

personally my build the trait structure stays the same, traits change for certain situations (gvg, roaming, dueling) Utilities also change.

Now if you are solo roaming in wvw and know you cant win vs that class then blink/shadowstep/run away since we cant catch you. come back when we are not paying attention to gank us.

Duels – is you know its a condi class and you dont have the removal to win, dont fight us.

small group 5-10. 1 condi class will have a bit of an impact but power/sustain is better, if you have 3-4 condi classes then yes you will not have the ability to clear all those condi’s.

GvG 15v15 – if you want to run a condi class (necro) you will need at least 3 using the same build and skills to even come close to pressuring the other guilds condi removal.

zergs – GvG scenario but x10

Did i say anything about Condition Vs Condition? Even then, i would say it would be tight between Necro and Engineer. Engi have much better defence and some decent interrupts that are a serious threat to Necromancer.

Easier said than done, seeing as how most roamers are Condition builds.I saw tonight – Condition Ranger, Engineer, Necromancer, Warrior and Thief. Not all together but saw them all during my nights WvW time All roaming. Saw plenty in small groups as well. Pretty much only safe place is Zergs. Due to all the AoE condition removal that goes around.

Ashin.5986:

The only instance I’ve seen in which conditions seemed overpowered was 1v1 mesmer.

They are so weak in moderate to large scale WvW as to border on irrelevant.

Then you must not WvW often, Engineer condition builds are insane. I would personally have them being stronger than Necromancer myself and even they are simply insane if you are not built specifically to counter conditions and in that case you will not be killing them.

Brando.1374:

Conditions a problem in WvW?
will all the aoe condi removal/runes/food you should not have issues with condition classes.

if you run solo you need to learn how to dodge Sig of spite.

Come back when you play other classes other than Necro and Thief in WvW. Try dodging all the conditions that Engineers throw, with PLENTY of variation in build to still give anyone trouble unless you specifically build, trait, rune, sigil, gear for that ONE counter and be useless everywhere else.

1 Vs 1 = Conditions broken
Small group = Conditions Broken
Zerg/Blob = Conditions Weak

Until that is fixed, conditions will continue to be a problem. You can NEVER have enough removal to remove all the conditions that are spammed on you – this isnt even including the likes of Spite and then you have like no damage to kill them as they are all bunker Condition builds…

Kadin.2356:

I like to see small changes rather than large sweeping over halls. How about fixing the condi duration +/- food before doing anything else and see how that changes things.

Duration isnt the problem – it is how many can be applied and how fast they can be applied. You can have like 5+ conditions on you in SECONDS. They need to reduce the number of conditions Necromancers and Engineers have to start it, remove Confusion from Engineer, Remove Burning (aka Dhuumfire) from Necromancers

Then you need to look at other classes – Warriors have insane condition builds doing great damage, insane conditions as well as being of hight health and armor as well as having plenty of defensive skills. Then you get Thief that can apply like 5-6 conditions in seconds, jump into stealth and then redo it all over again when they come out.

Welcome to the world of Ele. When you get to 80 you will have the potential for great burst – just be warned you fail to kill them and you are dead. We have terrible health and terrible armor considering our rather low damage…

TheSwede.9512:

The answer to this is simple.

Warriors only have access to 3 out of 5 DoT conditions through weapon Skills (Bleed, Burn and Torment). They gain access to Confusion through a Strength Master Trait.
Compare to Necromancer, who has access to Bleeding, Poison and Torment, and can trait for Burning and Fear.
Compare to the Elementalist Trait which also Increases Damage to Bleeding targets as well.

There’s your answer.

Ele says hello with just Burning and Bleeding. So we have even less so why is ours LESS duration? then again Warrior have better health, armor, mobility and damage and a very broken Healing Signet…

Them having 3 of the 5 DoT shouldn’t mean they get MORE than other classes that have VERY limited access. You also missed out that they can have access to Confusion via a trait which is 4 stacks for 8 seconds and no ICD….

So while you have access to Torment, Confusion, Burning and Bleeding excluding Sigils and ruins. Ele has Burning and Bleeding….So you think that while you have more of everything you still have BETTER condition bleeding trait?

Ooo, a 5% damage increase…I say remove that and make it a 50% duration.

Everyone knows this. It has been like this for A LONG time. Don’t hold your breath because it will likely not be touched until 2015 the way they are going….

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Where this isn’t nerfed in WvW, every elementalist is already forced into 30 pts of water.

Erm, i don’t run 30 in Water, i run 10. I mean i could go 20 into Water but that would mean removing 10 from Earth which is currently used for Diamond Skin or Earth’s Embrace. Though even then i have been thinking about putting 10 points into Air for added Precision, Crit Damage and like Bolt To The Heart or Zephyrs Boon.

I currently run 0/0/30/10/30 Condition Build. However, i have been adding a bit of Crit Damage to my build and power to try and buff its direct damage up a bit so that i have a better chance against some builds.

I have been giving Precision/Crit Damage food a try over 40% Condition Duration and it has worked out quite well, still do nice Condition damage and it makes my direct attacks that little bit stronger especially Air, which i use against Warriors and Guardians with Elemental Surge and Arcane Shield and Arcane Power which grant Blind on proc which is very nice.

Maybe a 20second cool down on Cleansing Wave would be enough, i do think that it needs a slight tweak in healing done, Maybe have it remove 2 or 3 conditions instead of 1 even if its just on us as with our very low health Conditions are simply a killer.

As for ER, maybe just a reduction in Channel time. Currently it is simply to easy to interrupt. Maybe even have it so it grants us 1 second Stability every 1second or something, i mean after all we are doing NOTHING else for the duration which gives the enemy(ies) time to get sorted and get ready. Or they could still be blasting us with conditions and reapplying the ones that we are removing.

Signet of Water, the passive is rather weak, but better than nothing. Maybe a good idea would be that it would turn the condition into the opposite type Boon every 10seconds? I mean still not amazing but would be better than it is now. Make it so it lasts the duration of the condition and then have it so that it is then increased by our Boon duration.

Another idea could be for Diamond Skin – make it so that it gives us “immunity” to conditions for X number of seconds after removing one. In the case of Ether Renewal it would stack in duration. Or maybe make it so that we somehow can make it turn conditions into Boons?

roamzero.9486:

I think Eles have to tools to handle conditions better than most other classes

The problem is, we would have to take specific heal, as well as all the right Utilities and take the right trait load out as wel otherwise no matter how much damage you can do, you will die to most Condition builds

ER sounds solid with just a 15second cool down, the problem is within 2-3seconds ALL the conditions you removed will be back on you and then you are dead because you will have NO other way to get them all off in time.

So while we MIGHT be able to handle them in certain situations. In most cases, we will just be worn down until the inevitable happens and we die.

Razor.6392:

In soon to be 2 years of gw2, I’ve never found myself using inscription even once.

Bolt to the heart, % cooldown reduction on air, 10% damage on air, bonus crit damage after arcane and even quick glyphs have always been better even on those situational uses.

Maybe not delete it but put it into adept, then delete one with air or healing precision.

I have used it, its a great trait. I mean not the best but its very solid and great when used with the Glyph heal. Sure other than that its not that great, not because of the trait but because the other Glyphs are kind of crap.

I would much rather as D/D be able to use different fields with it. It is not like we can’t exactly get Might already, why add yet another source for D/D why not give us another field or 2 so that we can make use of this and other blasts rather than Might, Might, Might.

So you need a 30 point trait in Fire to make the Heal worth using? Take away all the possible traits. Then what does it have? Nothing but another Might Blast which D/D already has plenty of. I say Melee heal due to the fact it gets stronger the more people it hits.

Delete Inscription? One of the few traits that make using Glyphs worthwhile? No thanks. Without that Trait Glyphs are useless. I think it should also be in Adapt, After all the cool downs the Glyphs have and make it bit of competition for the glyph reduction trait – of course i think Glyphs would need to be buffed as well.

Because without the trait they are all rather weak, with the trait they are nothing more than average.

The problem with Diamond skin is that it merely takes a few auto attacks from most classes to get us below the required health point. So even against other Condition classes – it is rather useless as they can all still do enough damage to get us below it, once that happens we are dead.

We simply do not have the condition removal potential. Sure ER is decent, except the heal is rather low and it is VERY easily interrupted so it can’t always be used to any decent effect having to use high cool down defense skills JUST to get the heal off says it all.

Cleansing Wave is a JOKE. A 40second cool down to remove one condition and heal for a tiny amount.

Cleansing Fire 3 conditions removed every 40 seconds!? Really, sure a tiny Burning but again an insane cool down which the ele suffers with on pretty much EVERY weapon, EVERY heal, EVERY Utility and EVERY Elite for no good justifiable reason at all.

Signet of Water, Cure a condition every 10 seconds? Not to shabby, i mean its not amazing and it wont save us but still. Now if only the active was WORTH using.

My Ideas:

Ether Renewal Channel time reduced. It should be like 33% faster at least. 2 second channel to remove 1 condition every tick, increase the pulses to 10 for a tiny bit more condition removal. So 10 ticks in 2 seconds to remove 10 conditions and a little bit better heal, Maybe increase the cool down a tad to counter its better use.

Diamond Skin: Make it so that its 75% health before Conditions are applied but give it say a 20-30second cool down. So once below that 75% mark you will have to survive for 20-30seconds before it works again or something? Though i do like the idea of making it a GM minor trait, the second idea for the conditions to be mirrored back at the target would be great as well. If it was a choice between the 2, i would go with that one.

Cleansing Wave: Make it a channel – That removes Conditions and heals for each pulse. Say 1 second channel, 2 conditions removed per a pulse, 4 Pulses and 500 health healed per a pulse (at 0 healing power) This would make it worth the 40second cool down.

Signet of water: Keep the passive, change the active to a 90second cool down that turns all conditions into boons for the duration of what the condition would have been. Much better than the current active.

Cleansing Fire: Cure 3 conditions and another 2 conditions per target that is hit by the burning. Decrease cool down to 20seconds.

As i said, this for being a more melee based heal is rather pointless having a Blast finisher when the ONLY weapon that has more than 1 field is the RANGED staff. If the other weapons were actually give more choice when it came to Fields then this heal would be GREAT, as it is – its wasted potential for all weapons bar the ranged one which is silly considering its a melee heal.

Ryld.1340:

Elementalist is perfectly fine in WvW.

But you will never achieve these stats as 0 X X 30 30 in SPvP, where they actually need the help.

Ele is far from fine in WvW. You can be nearly 1shot by a SINGLE thief attack…
I had more than 1,600Toughness and was STILL hit for 16k damage from ONE skill.

We lack sustain as well, our damage is rather weak as we have to build to counter the low health and armor we are given despite the nerfs to damage, healing and mobility…

The problem is, certain weapons have no use for the blast finisher. In fact, ALL weapons bar the Staff have no use for it – why? Because they only have access to ONE field compared to Staff which has Fire, Air, Water and Ice.

Now in my opinion that is stupid, an elementalist that can use FOUR different attunements and yet only gets ONE field if they are not using the Staff!? really!?

Brando.1374:

only to physical damage.

Well, that sucks

Yeah i agree, it does seem a bit weak but not quite sure what it is. I think it would be better if the conditions were different based on the Arcane skill that is being used.

Arcane Shield:
Fire – Burning. Great i like it.
Water – Chill. Okay, could do with longer duration
Air – Blind. Great against melee
Earth – Immobilize – Rather weak. Needs longer duration

Arcane Power:
Fire – Burning. Great i like it. Great at stacking Burning
Water – Chill. Okay, could do with longer duration
Air – Blind. Great against melee
Earth – Immobilize – weak. Rather it was Torment, 3 stacks 10seconds or something

Arcane Wave
Fire – Burning. Great i like it.
Water – Chill. Okay, could do with longer duration
Air – Blind. Great against melee Zergs
Earth – Immobilize – Rather weak. Needs longer duration

Arcane Blast
Fire – Burning. Could do with longer duration as its 1 hit.
Water – Chill. Weak, needs to be 6-9seconds
Air – Blind. Weak. Rather it was 10-15second Weakness
Earth – Immobilize – Awful. Needs to be 4-5seconds or changed to something else

Arcane Brilliance
Fire – Burning. Great i like it.
Water – Chill. Okay, could do with longer duration
Air – Blind. Okay, Weakness would be better
Earth – Immobilize Rather it was Poison.

As for Arcane Briliance the heal, sure its great for weapon set that has plenty of fields – Fire, Air and Water you have great access. for Dagger/Dagger though it is just lacking it offers nothing but more Might stacking which is easily done as it is. Maybe if it did a sort Evasive Arcana sort of effect when you healed Like it gave 6stacks of Might in Fire, Swiftness or AoE Weakness in Air, added Healing in Water and a mini Churning Earth in Earth based on the attunement you are in (this would be separate to the Elemental Surge affects) though that might make people cry about it being to overpowered but then it would be more worth while, it just seems in D/D it has that little something missing.

Does Traits that increase damage for example Bolt to the Heart that increases damage by 20% to targets below 33% health, is that just direct damage or does it count Condition damage as well?

dietzero.3514:

Arcane builds still fail.

I actually like Elemental Surge and Arcane Shield and Arcane Power. i some times wish that Earth was Torment or something rather than a weak 1second Immbo but the others are rather good. Air and Blinds can be great against classes like Warrior and Guardian. I currently have the trait for added Vul as well which is pretty decent.

I do think they have a bit too long a cool down though and for Grand master trait they some are a bit lacking. Think Burning and Chill could have a longer duration and i think Earth inflicting 3-4 stacks of Torment for 5seconds would be better than a 1second Immbo, which is like useless against most classes anyway.

This would be a terrible change. My Ele has Burning AoE that ticks for nearly 900 and my AoE Bleeding can deal 2k+ damage. That is on top of the other damage i deal. If Condition damage was buffed that much it would be insane.

MonMalthias.4763:

At this point, consideration should be paid to the weapon skills that can heal on Elementalist like Cleansing Wave, Cone of Cold, Geyser, Water Trident, Healing Rain. Removal of Regeneration on Attunement from Soothing Wave is also an issue that removes significant amounts of HPS given the low base vitality.

Cleansing Wave (Dagger skill) and Cone Of Cold arent the issues. Both are rather terrible “heals” anyway. Cone of Cold isnt to bad, thanks to the lowish cool down that makes up for the rather weak healing that it gives. Cleansing Wave though is simply a joke. 40second cool down for a 1,671 heal (with 369 Healing Power) and a condition removed, all on a 40second cool down? Thats pathetic.