Guild Wars 2

Go Condi
Started making some videos of my build. Only got 2 currently and neither really show what it can do but more about how to edit and such. Though

http://youtu.be/xX9chUpHOho

This one is a better better, a duel against another Ele. I have spoken to her many times and dueled her many times as well so she knows my build quite well. As you can see, i did make the odd mistake, slacking on the Ether Renewal a bit but still managed to get her down

oZii.2864:

define spammy for me and how it applies to a warrior, ranger, necro, mesmer.

Warrior falls into 2 from my experience. You have the Perplexity + Distracting Strike noobs that run around with Hammer and just bash everything they have. 9 stacks of confusion every 15 seconds. Combined with food and other traits is rather insane. S/S seems to be quite popular with the Perma Torment as well. Also offers nice Bleeding and Cripple combined with a very long duration Immobilize (Flurry) Long bow can be quite popular as well with its Burning, Immobilize and bleeding.

Rangers differ slightly, You get some that just spam Spirits. While you get others That have insane amount of Immobilize. Normally running Spider and Entangle. Sword seems quite popular from those i have faced as well with its Poison, Cripple and Evades.

Necro, surely that is obvious. Mark spamming, into Scepter auto attack spamming. Combine that with the likes of Grasping Dead, Reapers Touch and Spinal shivers. Most of them normally run the trait as well so a free one at 50% health from what i have seen anyway. Lets not forget Signet of Spite. These skills should be used at the RIGHT time, not spammed the moment a fight starts…Sure it doesn’t always happen but it happens more often than not.

Most of them i see are PU Staff and Scepter/Torch builds. You get the odd one that will run Pistol or something. Though over all its pretty much the same thing. You can make it when built right so that you can have perma 5 stacks of confusion of course not accounting for LoS and dodging. then you get the ones that mix a little bit of shattering into that with 6 stacks of confusion with CoF and such.

I have seen many a condition class that will just run up spamming everything they have. Knowing full well they have skills that should be on longer cool downs or shouldn’t have so many conditions attached to them but they have no need for thoughts like that when conditions come so easy.

Interesting that you left Engineer off the list, guess that is because you also think they are pretty much spam, spam, spam?

oZii.2864:

Elementalist – Surprised to see a condition Elementalist but they exist
Guardian – LULZ

I have been Condi ele for months, think i was the first to even make post about it with builds. As for Guardian, i saw an INSANE condi guardian last week. He just melted people with Burning Ticks of over 1k, Poison, Torment and others.

Condi Guard i think will just get more and more popular. It will just take time for some of these insane builds i have personally seen gets out.

The problem is currently not the damage conditions but the NUMBER of conditions that all the spammy classes (Thief, Warrior, Necro, Engineer, Mesmer, Ranger) have access to conditions on low cool downs or spammable via auto attacks. Immobilize is insanely strong as well on Warrior and Ranger has very decent immobilize as well.

Some classes need conditions removed, others need durations reduced and cool downs increased. Tweaks need to be made that is for sure.

Get into combat and try it, as far as i know it has never worked outside of combat.

Osicat.4139:

Toxic buff for 10% condi uptime, 40% uptime food. Fun thing is to eat the food, then hover over staff burn auto, then add the 10% buff and how’re again! the burn dmg go up 100%.

/osicat

This must have been a bug and fixed because i am not seeing that at all.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Elementalist- Weakness class yeah right, how certain specs have more burst potential than even the glassiest of thieves. And they heal up a significant amount of damage without even using their kitten heal skill first. And I swear they cheat, whenever they use Shocking Aura or whatever it lasts like four seconds yet when I tried it it lasted for like .5 seconds. And the mobility! the OP active defenses!

Yes they have high burst potential, that is combined with the lowest health and lowest armor in the game and the fact the target doesnt die, that ele is pretty much on the defence until that burst comes off cool downs again. Just curious, which build of Ele can do 12k+ hits in ONE attack. I would love to see that build.

Healing is pretty much all the have when it comes to defence. The defensive cool downs they have are not only lacklustre (Arcane Shield for example) but also have insane cool downs.

As for the Cheating that is just stupid. You are wrong. You will find that Shocking Aura from Dagger/Dagger does in fact last 4 seconds. It can proc every 2 seconds. It is not even that great a skill

The mobility? Really you think the mobility is overpowered?
Scepter has NONE.
Focus has NONE
Staff has ONE

Dagger/Dagger has two and one of them goes of 40 second cool down A LOT. It is easily dodged. Goes on 40 second cool down if target has Aegis, invul and other things. So not that great. Now compare that to other classes such as the Warrior…

They should be reducing access to conditions some of these classes have. Warrior, Engineer, Necromancer, Mesmer all have just a bit too much when it comes to conditions.

Necromancer – Remove Burning
Engineer – Remove Confusion
Mesmer – Remove Burning
Warrior – Remove Torment

They shouldn’t have SO many conditions that are not only easily to apply but on low cool downs making condition removals rather useless most of the time.

In my opinion, The torment stacks need to be improved from the trait. 3 stacks (at best) for a Grandmaster trait just isn’t worth it . It just seems rather weak. It needs to be 2 stacks per illusion.

The tooltip seems bugged as well. The damage according to my tooltip odesnt change if they are standing still or moving, anyone else getting this?

They could also make it so that Blocks, Invul, dodges and such bring the Thief out of stealth. What else they could do is add an Initiative cost as well. Having a skill that has 1 requirement of being in stealth with no cost of the skill and no downside makes it VERY hated. Sure, you can dodge it, but that doesn’t really do anything seeing as they can just keep trying.

Something else they could do, make it so if within a certain range you can kind of see an outline and if you stay in that range longer and longer then you can see them more and more or something?

Reaper of Grenth – Poison and Chill in an AoE for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. It works really well. in Solo, Small groups and in Zerg fights. It being unblockable is very useful and the Poison is SO useful for us when fighting classes that have high regen (ele, warrior, engi)

I dont think it has a limit on number of foes that can be affected either. Kinda tempted to give the new Krait runes a try. Which adding Bleeding, Torment and Poison though only 1 stack of each for 8 seconds. Which is very disappointing they could have made it higher stacks but longer cool down (currently 30 seconds) It should have been 3 stacks of torment, 3 stacks of Bleeding for 8 seconds and Poison for 15 seconds on a 90 second cool down.

What do you think of Take Root? My condi ele (Human) runs with Reaper of Grenth. It is a real shame that we don’t have a real condition based elite

In my opinion, they both sucked. Nothing more. Nothing less. The Thief wasn’t even doing that much damage or anything, at least the Mesmer nearly had you down. Going down by the looks to a skill that is SO easy to avoid (Churning Earth) They both pretty much gave you the win. They got hit WAY too many times with skills that could have been easily avoided as well. Neither used poison. A must against Signet of Restro ele, well pretty much any ele and Healing Signet Warriors.

Curious what your Legendary daggers and accessories stats were?

Personally, i am looking at the Torment ones. Though i do run with the Torment on Shatter and the 50% chance to inflict Torment and the added duration is very nice. Though i do wish the trait was better – 3 stacks for a grandmaster trait is rather weak imo.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

That #5 stun is the most absurd thing ever if they fail to dodge it in a 1v1, and stone heart lets you counterburst with it (3542).

Who is going to get hit by the stun in a 1 Vs 1 though? It is rather easy to dodge. I don’t think i have ever been hit with it but i think that is the case for pretty much everything else has when it comes to projectiles (staff for example)

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Taking frost bow (the only conjure that I like to ever use in PvP) with stone heart solves all the problems of both, I find. It’s hard to stay in earth because of bad skills, and frost bow solves that. It’s hard to use frost bow skills because the root makes you take a ton of damage, stone heart solves that.

Not really. You ain’t going to use the bow for its whole duration so you would be pretty much using it as a 60second cool down AoE….Not really worth it now is it. Plus then you would have to sacrifice something.

I currently run Arcane Shield (amazing against Thief and melee) Armor of Earth (Counter Hammer noobs) and Signet of Earth (Added Toughness) So i would be giving up defense for a 60 second cool down AoE that would have like a 3second cast time – 1/4second to summon Bow and 2 3/4 Ice Storm Cast time.

Could you really make use of that in say a 1 Vs 1? Maybe in zerg fights and keep/tower defense/attack but that is about it. Useless in 1 Vs 1, slight use i guess in small groups but that is about it and that would require you being able to summon it and cast it while they are still in the same area without getting attacked knocked back or anything…

Azure Prower.8701:

I heard there are these things called “Runes of the Traveler” in the Trading Post.

Firstly, i fixed it for you. secondly that should NOT be a reason not to give Mesmer 25% Movement. I would prefer a 25% Movement minor trait. Something like some others get. I think they should remove the restrictions of what weapons you have to get it though. Example Windborne Daggers for Ele. Useless if you dont run with 2 daggers, weakened if you use 1 dagger.

silvermember.8941:

Based on the bold part, it seems to me you wanted a more OP leaning trait and less of balanced trait.

Again you are making wrong assumptions. Did you like only read certain parts? As i have said my issue is NOT and i will repeat again NOT the trait. It is the attunement and the skills itself.

Again, the trait is actually okay. What i don’t like is that they have no idea what they want ele to do with attunements. Some traits promote staying in a attunement, others promote jumping in and out of attunements.

The skills in Earth should be more of a condition threat, as in. You go into Earth for the defense and the very dangerous access to conditions, this is currently not the case. People should see you go into Earth and think about your defenses being higher, your direct damage being lower but your Conditions being a big threat with the likes of Cripple, Torment and such.

I am not a huge fan of traits that promote jumping into attunements and then jumping out and you have to remember many classes can spam burst the moment you leave Earth and you have 10+ seconds of being threatened with burst. Which in itself wouldn’t be so bad – if this same design was used for ALL the classes.

I think you will find as i have stated MANY times Earth attunement ISN’T only about defense. Well its not meant to be about defense it is also MEANT to be about CONDITIONS

silvermember.8941:

It seems to me that your issue with stone heart is more that it is not OP and less about it being a terrible trait

Rather than try to look for a meaning that isn’t there you could just look at what i said. The issue i have with it is that Earth attunement is no threat. Why is it only one class has to make HUGE sacrifices to gain something else.

Look at all the other classes, what do they give up when going zerker? Nothing. Ele going Zerker means death in seconds if their burst fails to kill the target. Look at Bunker what does other give up going bunker? Nothing meanwhile Ele going bunker does like no damage what so ever. Why is it that only ele have to make sacrifices…

All it would take is to make Earth a VIABLE attunement to spend more than 3-4 seconds in and then maybe it would have a better chance. For a “Condition” (and defense) attunement – it seems to be rather lacking on the condition front.

Staff – Bleeding, Weakness, Immobilize. All of which are rather easy to dodge
D/D – Bleeding, Cripple, Immobilize. Either terrible stacks, Buggy or impossible to hit.
Scepter – Bleeding, Blind. The Bleeding is decent the blind is okay.
Focus – Cripple. Nothing more.

Here is the problem. For a condition attunement either the skills are too easy to dodge/miss as with pretty much all Staff skills as well as Chruning Earth or they have poor stacks such as Dagger Auto attack, Dagger 2, dagger 3 or they bug out.

We need other conditions added. I would like to see some Torment. A total resign of the Earth auto attack. Churning Earth needs to have a lower Cast time. More than 3 seconds is insanely stupid for such a game as this. They also need to have a reason why you would rather stay in it and try and dodge at the right time rather then just easily walk out, like increase the Cripple duration by 50% and add like 3-4stacks of Torment at every proc. These are the sort of changes i would like to see that would actually make Earth a threat. Have it so it deals very low direct damage but is a serious threat if you are into conditions.

The problem with that is, We either have terrible defense (outside earth) or good defense (in Earth) but the problem comes in with the fact that pretty much every class has burst options on shorter cool downs than what the Attunement swap is.

Then once you are getting burst you have to go back to Earth and be very little to no threat what so ever. I really do think that they could do with an increase to conditions in Earth – for a Condition trait line and Attunement it has a rather terrible access to conditions.

The problem isn’t the trait, the trait is okay it is the Earth skills. You tend to spend as little as you can in Earth because it is rather terrible. If they fixed the the Dagger auto attack then maybe we could have something but currently it offers very little.

D/D has a terrible auto attack. Ring of Earth is decent. The Bleeding stacks need to be higher or add something like Torment. Magnetic Grasp is terrible and bugs out SO much. Earthquake has an insane cool down. Churning Earth has an insane cast time, an insane cool down and is insanely hard to actually hit.

Scepter has a good Auto attack. Rock Barrier is decent but again the 2nd part needs to have Torment and Cripple added to it to actually make it WORTH using. Say 3 stacks of Torment and 3 seconds of Cripple for each of the rocks that hit the target (5 in total) Maybe make it so that the Auto attack and Hurl pierces targets would be nice. Dust Devil is meh. Decent in group fights but rather meh in duels.

Focus is just a terrible weapon in pretty much every attunement except Earth which is hilarious as its normally the other way around, though Scepter is the same, great in Earth not so in other attunements (going by my build – condi) Magnetic Wave is very good. Though i do wish it had (again) conditions added to it having 5 stacks of Torment added would be reasonable seeing as other classes have just as many stacks on much shorter cool downs. Wish it was 5 second reflect as well. Obsidian Flesh is decent but has an insane cool down.

Doug Whisper.2465:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Maybe they could make it so that Interrupts remove say 5 Initiative?

The longest cooldown on mesmer untraited weapon skill is 35 sec whereas the most costly weapon skill on theft is 7 initiatives. If this is an apple to apple comparison, a successful interrupt on thefts from mesmers with Power Lock traited should cost them 2 initiatives.

2 Initiative is nothing. If other classes get 10 seconds added to the cool down of the interrupted skill then 2 initiative is poor. I think it should add a cool down to the skill that gets interrupted, 5 seconds normally and 10 seconds if you have the trait. This goes for EVERY class that interrupts a Thief (minus the 10 second one of course)

No they should NOT be still allowed to put Auto attacks on a 10 second cool down and anyone that thinks otherwise is just wanting it too easy. The same goes for Ressing and Finishing but i do think that it is about time that Thief got punished like everyone else for having skills getting interrupted, the same goes for Chill. It needs to slow down Initiative regen as well.

I can confirm, No it doesnt. The moment you go into it Stone Heart is removed and 10 seconds later so is the Attunement buff. Another reason why it isn’t that great a trait.

Maybe they could make it so that Interrupts remove say 5 Initiative?

SrebX.6498:

It was obviously an unintended bug. Whenyou first saw tthis skill did you really think it’ll work on thieves

Why shouldn’t it work on Thieves? Why is it ONE class gets to be immune to what this trait does? This isn’t the only thing either, Chill is only 50% effective against them as well. This needs to be fixed.

If someone uses a interrupt and stops them from using a skill that skill SHOULD go on cool down. It should NOT matter if that class does not normally have cool downs. It should still be put on a 5/10 second cool down.

The same goes for Chill. It might not be able to slow down the cool down but it could be made that it slows down Initiative regen.

I think that the 10 second cool down added to Res and Finish was something that needed to be fixed. other than that it was fine.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Elemental Attunement
  Move the current boons to other skritty traits, add might to Lava Tomb, add swiftness to Soothing Winds, add protection to Obsidian Focus, regeneration to Arcane Abatement

No thanks. This would be a nerf to pretty much EVERY class, just in different ways. So this would be a a big no from me. So you want to make swiftness which is a VERY important boon connected to a trait that i dont think anyone even uses? In fact, i don’t use ANY of them traits. I don’t think you will find anyone that uses them all, you might get a few that uses Obsidian Focus but that is with ONE weapon (Scepter)

Super Riceman.8702:

Change its current effect to create an attack when you switch to a certain element
Fire would trigger Fire Grab, Water trigger frozen ground with untraited AoE, Air Gust, Earth trigger Dust Devil.

You talking about the 15 point traits or Evasive Arcana? Which ever it is, it is another terrible idea that would do nothing but nerf the class. So again, this would be a big no from me.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Conjurer
  Also add an effect that reduces the recharge of conjure weapons by 7 sec when you swap to fire attunement, cooldown 20 sec

Another pointless change. Most of the Conjure Skills are used for one specific attack and then dropped. Until they make Conjures VIABLE then no one will use them except in very specific situations which after using 1 skill they drop it it is rather pointless.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Persisting Flames
  Change effect so that it grants stability when blast or leap finishers are triggered on your fire fields

In place of the Fury? No thanks. Most that take that trait is because of the Fury Why would you add a defence boon in a grandmaster slot in a damaging trait line?

Super Riceman.8702:

• Blinding Ashes
  Change effect so that blind triggers when your flame fields dmg an enemy cooldown 2s, make it increase lava font cooldown to 10s

It would still be a rather poor trait so this wouldn’t really change much. In fact in the case of the Staff this would actually be a nerf. As it only has 2 fire fields and one of them you want to increase its cool down by like 60% and the other is on a 20second cool down…

Super Riceman.8702:

• Flame Barrier
  Allow it to trigger in all attunements

This i agree with, It is only 20% proc chance and in melee so i think it should affect all attunements. It could actually do with a buff, i would say combine “One With Fire” into the 5 point trait. Make it so that it is a 10% Increase every 5 seconds or make the base 50% chance and it having an increase of 10% every 10 seconds while in Fire. Make it so that you have to switch to Fire to keep the proc chance going as well or leave it and be happy with 50% chance

Super Riceman.8702:

• Serrated Stones
  Change effect to bleed an attacker when they critically hit you

I agree that this trait is rather poor when other classes get 50% increased duration. I would rather have it increase Bleeding damage by 50% than for it to proc a bleed. Unless we are talking 3-5 stacks of bleeding, if not then it would be pointless. Another idea could be to increase Bleeding by 25% and 50% chance on hit to inflict 3 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds on a 10 second cool down?

Super Riceman.8702:

• Stone Splinters
  Change effect to grant bonus damage when you are vulnerable, crippled/chilled/immobilized

No thanks, this would be yet again another nerf.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Strength of Stone
  Change effect to grant projectile reflection for 3s when you take more than 3k damage in 1s from 2 or more different enemies, cooldown 15s

No. No. No. As a condition build this would be a HUGE nerf to me and every other condition ele. Strength of Stone is fine the way it is. Plus that would like proc never.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Enduring Damage
  Change effect to grant 10% bonus damage when you have 4 or more conditions on you

I would rather have a MUCH higher damage increase seeing as we want as few conditions on us to begin with, having the lowest health in the game and this triat do NOT go well together.

Super Riceman.8702:

• Diamond Skin
  Change effect to grant bonus vitality and healing power per condition on you

An interesting Idea. What would be the % increase per a condition? Maybe, just maybe make it Celestial based in that it increases EVERY stat for each condition you have. That would be quite interesting. Of course it wouldn’t be able to be like 10% Per a condition but say a 5% increase per a condition would maybe stop classes just condition bombing and spamming from the start of a fight.

NeroBoron.7285:

Uhm I play an Engineer and an Ele and it’s completly fair in my opinion, cause every class got only 2 sigil that can be triggered/ are active.

Now, if only they had to have them on on both weapon sets like Ele and Engineer. Because they can only have 2 used at the same time means nothing. Another example would be asking why Ele deserve insane cool down on skills because they 20 skills, though can only use 5 at a time, so surely they should be reduced.

BobbyT.7192:

yeah but for the most part as far as i’m aware, rune only have “when struck/hit” for stuff like that, tho i like the torment on elite.

Yeah Perplexity did have but the change to when hit does make sense as it should be used to punish them attacking. While conditions like Torment should be on hit. Yeah i think it would be a great 6/6 The 90 second cool down would make it so that it can’t be abused by the low cool down elite skill classes like Warrior and Thief.

I think they wimpped out a bit when it came to changes for some of the Rune sets. Some could have been made SO useful for certain builds but they were a bit scared (or lazy?) Balt is a decent change but others could have been improved as well

I find the Torment trait to be rather lacking, like REALLY lacking for a Grandmaster trait. 3 stacks is rather too low. I think it should have been 6 stacks.

Something like:

1st illusion: 3 Stacks
2nd illusion: 2 stacks
3rd illusion: 1 stack

I wouldn’t even mind it being on like a 5 second cool down. It just doesnt feel threatening enough. When for example a Warrior can proc FIVE stacks of Torment for TWELVE seconds every 15 seconds (with 0% Condition duration and no trait) it is rather poor that a Grandmaster trait is a mere 3 stacks for like 4 seconds….

They could make it so the more illusions that are shattered the more stacks and the longer duration it is. something like:

1 Illusion = 5 seconds
2 Illusions = 7 seconds
3 Illusions = 9 seconds

Though i am not sure if this would be possible. They could make it that each Illusion procs the stack and somehow a duration increase on the current and previous stack?

I am rather disappointed in the Torment Runeset as well, I had real hopes they would make it worth taking but it is still rather lacking. 2 stacks of Torment on heal is rather poor. Plus no stacks on hitting an enemy either

This would have been mine:

+25 Condition Damage
+10% Torment Duration
+50 Condition Damage
+15% Torment Duration 20% Chance on hit to inflict 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds(15second cool down)
+100 Condition Damage
+20% Torment Duration; when you use a Elite skill, apply 5 stacks of torment to nearby foes. (Cooldown: 90seconds)

This would have been a GREAT runeset.

The problem with that solution is it changes nothing. Instead of it being 3 sigils Vs 1 sigil it is now 4Sigils Vs 2 Sigils because all the other classes can do it to. So this “solution” really changes nothing about the issue at hand and that issue is the Sigils numbers some classes can use compared to Ele and Engi.

Nearly a month old and STILL no dev comment….

They could buff up the Ele 15 point traits. They should be just as strong, if not a little stronger than Sigils. Seeing as we are having to spend 15 trait points to get them.

I would do the following:

Sunspot: Add 3 second Burning to all those affected
Electric Discharge: Add 3 second Blind
Earthen Blast: Add 3 Stacks of Torment for 5 seconds to all those affected
Healing Ripple: Increase Healing or add 4-5 second Regen and 3 second to allies

what is “dooling”?

Travis the Terrible.4739:

It seems people forget that ele also has the most skills based on an attunement.

People also seem to think quantity is better than quality…
Yeah they have more skills. Look at the cool downs. Like Dagger/Dagger
Fire = 5 second, 15, second, 15 second, 45 second
Water = 10 second, 15 second, 40 second, 40 second
Air = 10 second, 25second, 40 second, 45second
Earth = 6 second, 12 second, 45 second, 30 second

So out of ALL the weapon skills Dagger/dagger has
8/40 is 25 seconds +
7/40 is 30 seconds +
6/40 is 45 seconds +

AlsoRemember for Dagger/Dagger they are melee LOCKED. They go out of melee and they do NO damage what so ever.

hooma.9642:

u THINK its an issue. but its not, cause u ignoring your class mechanic and complain about a single piece of the cake.

Curious do you play either of these classes? This IS a big issue for ANYONE that plays either of these classes. Sure you can use the pointless excuse of them having more skills but when these are countered in the case of Ele of being weaker and having INSANE cool downs that doesn’t mean much.

With the change to stacking Sigils Ele and Engineer will be down to ONE Sigil while all other classes will still have THREE sigil slots they can use. Now you really think this isn’t an issue?

I am VERY disappointed, but unfortunately not shocked that we STILL haven’t had any red comments and something tells me we won’t get any.

ThiBash.5634:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

it would be pointless in most cases, Most of the elementals SUCK.

Like I’ve said many times before, you’re just using them wrong.

Yeah because them dying in seconds (unless Earth ele) is really the fault of the player. As i have previously stated when this came up. I have had MANY duels with eles and the summons have been NO threat – Why? Because they either die in seconds or they do no damage so they can be ignored.

The WHOLE Elite would have to be redesigned for this to even be effective. I mean at Current stats. The Fire Ele could be ONE shot. They all need the damage buffed. The Air ele would need its “best” attack – best being defined as the one the lesser version doesn’t get to actually DEAL damage. The Earth Ele would need a better “best” skill as well. 5 second cripple and 3 second protection is rather poor for a “best” skill.

They should also each have specific stats from the Ele themselves. Like Fire Ele could gain 50% of the summoning ele Power, while the Air Ele could get 50% of the new Ferocity stat for increased Crit Damage, Water Ele could get an increase of Healing Power while the Earth Ele gains Condition damage based off the summoning ele.

I would of course tweak some of the skills they have as well. Earth Ele should really inflict Bleeding (though i would prefer Torment) on its “auto attacks” with Weakness and Torment on its 2nd attack. Air Ele rather than granting Swiftness i would prefer it granted Fury instead.

ThiBash.5634:

The elementalist is soo much better than the mage in WoW.

Except The WoW Mage had better attacks, did more damage, better mobility, Invisibility, Better CC, clones, better arcane skills. I can’t see in Any way where the Ele is better than the WoW mage – Maybe at healing and thats about it. But you have to consider the different game types as well for that.

I don’t see why they couldn’t have just made it so everyone starts with the exact same stats and then players are given a X number of stats that they can choose where to spend them. The problem would be the game is UNFAIRLY balanced around what skills classes have and most of the time is is WRONGLY balanced.

cheese.4739:

Yes, we need another elite that locks us out of our skills ;p

More seriously, I’m in favour of the permanent elemental but that’d probably get complained about for being too like Flesh Golem – would be nice to be able to have that lovely earth tank up indefinitely in PvE though.

I think a more reasonable change that we actually can hope for is manual activation of the summons’ special abilities – it’s generally agreed that in PvP the summons are unimpressive at best, being just a little extra damage output, since their utility is so very unreliable. Allowing players to choose when to stun an opponent with Air-GoE would potentially make Tempest Defence (or even the new air trait) much more useful.

Well to be fair, they would be similar to what the attunements are. So using it in Fire would turn you into a Fire Elemental. With Burning and such kind of damage. Water would be about Chills, AoE heals and such. Earth would be about Bleeding and Defense.

While using a attunement element would increase your stats in specific areas.

it would be pointless in most cases, Most of the elementals SUCK. They would all need adjusting. What would happen when they die? I would prefer an Elite that would turn the player into an Elemental. We already have the model for players wit the Charged Potion and such it would just need skills adjusted and such.

Uhtameit.2413:

Yes but most dagger skills offer some nice damage. In water, the aura gives -10% damage (it’s nice but not that big of a deal) and the heal is 1k2 every 40s. If you consider focus, with 4 air and 4 earth you have around 10s immunity against projectiles which can prove way more helpful than just a 1k2 heal every 40s. And on top of that you’ve got a 4s immunity to everything.

So yes, it’s more defensive but clearly the fire skills need to be reworked. Dagger is overall much more fun but it doesn’t serve the same purpose

Sure the 10% damage reduction isn’t amazing combine that with one or 2 traits and you could have Protection for another 33% damage reduction and/or Swiftness and Fury. Sure the healing isn’t amazing with no Healing Power mine has like 800Healing Power and that is a 2,100healing done, i take the cool down reduction trait as well which helps.

I would say the Fire skills need to be redone, the Fire Aura is decent but needs a cool down reduction at the very least. The Water spells need to be totally redone. Air is okay, cool downs could be adjusted. Earth could do with little changes as well. Obsidian Flesh needs like a BIG cool down reduction. Magnetic could do with little tweaks.

Uhtameit.2413:

I like it but there’s little chance that Anet will see it.

Either that or will ignore it. I have a thread i made about the same issue over 2 weeks old and no red comment or anything.

OP, check out my thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Sigils-Ele-and-Engineer-punished/page/2#post3867687

Had a few ideas posted. See what you think.

Uhtameit.2413:

Not denying it, far from it. Focus is just a defensive weapon while a dagger obviously is an offensive one.

Dagger is “more” offensive…Yet it comes with Heal, Damage reduction Aura, 2 CC and Mobility.

Uhtameit.2413:

It’s not like the heal on a 40s CD on off hand dagger will save you. Obsidian Flesh and the two anti-projectiles skill may prove much more helpful than 1k2 hp

Yet Dagger offhand comes with A LOT more useful skills. The Focus has the Earth skills and that is it. That is all it has that is “better” than Dagger offhand.

nicknamenick.2437:

Warriors are better in wvw yes, same for the other classes. No difference.

The problem being they are insanely broken in WvW. You buff them in S/TPvP and more than likely they would end up being buffed in WvW making them even strong in WvW. What does S/TPvP matter anyway? The mode isn’t exactly that great anyway.

You know duels don’t just happen in S/TPvP right…
They are insane in 1 Vs 1 in WvW so they get buffed for S/TPvP then they would become even more broken in WvW.

Uhtameit.2413:

Woot. I probably don’t need to tell you that playing condition ele is almost an heresy since it’s quite obvious the class wasn’t designed for it : you can apply conditions with two auto attacks on scepter and that’s it (with a few more skills for dagger but it’s not much better), there’s nothing to cover them or stack them properly. It’s probably okay-ish in PvE but that’s it.

Scepter offers burst and blast finishers that are extremely good in PvP, it really outshines dagger.

Focus has some decent skills in Earth and Air (why don’t you like an AoE that destroys projectiles? the cc is meh but so are all of our ccs).Then the skills in fire and water are lackluster which would make it the weakest weapon indeed. Also, all of cooldowns are insane. The point of the focus is not to get damage, it’s to get a defensive off hand weapon : something that might not be as useful in PvE as it is in PvP.

Sure its not the strongest of builds, in fact it is the 2nd worst condition build (2nd to only Guardian) and i agree the Scepter is a Power weapon, it just doesn’t work currently for condition builds. Of course that could change with a few minor changes to it though none will actually happen.

It is a MUCH better weapon for Burst builds that is for sure. I am not saying that Focus is hugely poor. As you said it has some decent skills. Being that i run Dagger Main Hand i NEED the mobility that Ride The Lightening offers. The cool downs are rather insane but that goes for most weapons and utilities so it can’t really be down to the focus as its not the only one that has issues with this.

What i don’t understand – for a “defensive” weapon – No heal skill?

Scepter and Focus for me. Scepter is near useless in Condition builds and is out done in pretty much every way by Dagger. The only good thing is the Earth Auto attack. Focus has some decent Earth skills but is let down in every other attunement. In Fire You get better damage and Burning from Dagger. In Water no healing what so ever a decent range Chill and a tiny daze. Swirling Winds is decent but would take Ride The Lightening every day of the week and Updraft is better as well. In Earth Magnetic Wave is good even if the reflection duration is a little low. Obsidian Flesh would be better if it wasnt for the insane cool down.

Manuhell.2759:

It wouldn’t help. As the name implies, it would work only with kits…leaving the non-kit builds with the same problems as before. And those are the ones that actually need help the most.
And my idea is always the same: just let us have that second weapon slot. There was never a reason for engineers to lack one, anyway, and unless we get it, non-kit builds will always be penalized compared to other classes.

Regarding elementalists, instead, seeing as having those 4 weapon sets is their class mechanic, they could implement some sort of way of slotting two additional sigils and make them alternate when alignements are swapped (and make it so that pressing the swap key out of combat makes them swap the sigils). And then they could implement some trait that would give them access to all those sigils at the same time.

Yeah that would be the only issue, tough with that being said i have never encountered an Engineer that doesn’t use at least 1 kit. I mean aren’t the kits the reason they do rather low damage because they are balanced around having the Kits, just like Ele have low damage and insane cool downs because they are balanced around having the 4 attunements.

How about this:

Rather than Kit Refinement added as class mechanic, it gets left in as a trait with the reduced cool down and adjusted effects and another similar trait is added that affects turrets? Of course this trait wouldn’t work on Supply Crate but for example -

Flame Turret – When placed creates an AoE damage that inflicts Burning on targets within 240radius

Net Turret – When placed creates an AoE Immobilize for 1second on targets within 240radius

Of course these effects would have a 10 second shared cool down

Anyone else got any ideas how this could be fixed? They could make “Kit Refinement” Part of the class (Engineer) reduce the cool down to 10 seconds. This would mean having to make a new trait but i think it could work.

The skills would need to be adjusted both in duration and power as the cool down would be reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.

The 15 point traits for Ele would be more powerful as Ele would have to spend trait points for them but if they did make Kit Refinement changes and made it part of the class and buffing up the ele 15point traits then i think it would make up for the reduced sigil number.

Rezzet.3614:

i gotta say i’d love these changes OP proposed however DR would be much too strong and bad for wvw Unless the CC DR is applied individually so teamwork isnt punished for locking a character between 3 players

because it would render DR useless i it was global Example i immob someone for 3s my buddy tries to use same immob but instead applies 1s

It should work on ANY form. The amount of times i have seen groups with 3-4 or even more Hammer Warriors that will ALL just jump in and spam all the CC they have. It should be per a target, not the caster.

So if i get a CC from Player A then Player B, his should be reduced. It requires little skill to just have X number of Hammer warriors and just get them to bash all their hammer buttons from the start. This could go for ALL Daze, Stun and Knockdown skills.

Rezzet.3614:

honestly i dont know what you’re talking about if anything i aint lost a single duel ever since i went from engi to warrior

That would be because Warrior are VERY strong. The ONLY time it is weak is when its in the hands of a terrible player. This is nothing but player issue here.