Guild Wars 2

They said that we should keep our armor skins in the pvp locket where they are (as in, not salvage them). So they’ll probably be important someday.

We know there’s a pve skin locket or something similar in the works, and that pvp and pve skins will be one and the same one day. So chances are, the cultural armor you buy now in pvp will be usable someday across the entire game. But that’s just an assumption.

Renewing Stamina is adept tier, so you can pick both.

Isn’t any metagame more interesting when top builds need to adapt and splash a few new options onto their old builds to keep their viability? You know, where players feel forced to leave extreme builds and approach more balanced ones in order to not be hard-countered?

Condi-necros having to bring a few more power options would allow them to over-ride the inherent advantage of DS eles, at the cost of bringing a bit less condition spam to everything else, which indirectly would improve the metagame’s state.

Basically, with more hard-counters existing to fight extreme situations, buildcrafters would find it wiser to create more balanced builds, which in turn would lead to a more balanced, less extreme meta.

This, of course, is just a theory.

I think it’s a bit too soon to know how well will the ele fare in pvp now. We still don’t know how feasible diamond skin builds are, we still don’t know what other new builds might come out of the new traits, and we still have a vague idea of the impact the nerfs to other classes have had in our profession.

If anything, I would prefer if we ele players could discuss potential new builds and see how well they fare in pvp.

If people don’t care about the might stacking, then arcane blast is and always was better than arcane wave for spiking a single target because of the lower cooldown, and that one still works.

Arcane Wave might be harder to execute in a burning speed combo now, but the benefits it brings to everything else over-weight this tiny detail. Wave is now much better when coupled with the Staff’s fields, when coupled with Focus Flamewall, when chasing opponents, or simply to hit them while kiting them. It’s also much better to tag pve mobs before you reach them in the middle of a zerg, if you need killing credit. It’s just a lot more flexible.

If you need to kill a single guy as fast as possible, go for Burning Speed + Arcane Blast.

I would like to see Piercing Shards and Shard of Ice to be revamped to something more meaningful. Yes, I know one of them is used for LH builds, but it’s boring otherwise.

Piercing Shards

• Whenever you apply chill, you also inflict 6 seconds of Torment to your foe.

Shards of Ice

• The next arcane or signet you activate applies 3 seconds of chill and 9 stacks of vulnerability for a low-duration as well (3-4 seconds).

If you want a specific type of build, you’ll need to specialize into it. That’s the point of the entire trait system.

I know this might seem annoying, because you’ll have to adapt, and the old building philosophy no longer works. Imagine when GW2 was in beta, and trait tiers didn’t exist. Do you know what happened? Everyone picked the strongest, grandmaster-worthy traits with only a 10 point investment. There was no specialization. When Anet added the tiering system, the gw2 guru forums exploded, and everyone was complaining that they had no freedom to create their own builds anymore. But I ask, what freedom? Picking all the best traits with no sacrifice only leads to an ultimate, broken build.

Perhaps you don’t find very fun how the trait system is meant to work, which is fair, but the reason why tiers exist and why they are used as a buff/ nerf mechanism, is to force players to make meaningful choices. Not just put 10 points in and get all the stuff they need. In the end, things are more “balanced” now, even though they might be less fun to you, which is a fair criticism.

I do agree that water’s adept traits are a bit restricting now, because the new soothing wave only really works in pvp environments.

If you want party support, you need to invest into it. 20 earth for Rock Solid. 20 arcana for Elemental Attunement. 30 arcana for Evasive Arcana. 15 water for Healing Ripple. 20 water for Cleansing Wave and Aquamancer’s Alacrity. 30 water for Powerful Auras and Cleansing Water. 30 fire for Persisting Flames.

Some people in the ele’s forum are saying that this trait only triggers when they have the respective skill equipped. Is this true/ intended?

Linnael.1069:

I think thats a good mechanic, but Brilliance doesn’t heal enough to justify the risk. Its the same cooldown as glyph, heals less at base, and gives no boons. There should just be a reward for using it well, instead of a risk/reward balance, because its pretty outclassed and the risk is just holding it back instead of holding it balanced.

Is this based on experience or theory? I’ve been using Brilliance in pvp, and it’s common to get a huge health boost out of it. And that’s pvp, because in pve it should be even easier.

A 5-7k+ health gain for a tiny 3/4 casting time is unlike anything else the elementalist has access to, and you still deal damage and get a blast finisher. The later which you’ll want to take advantage of, of course.

I’m surprised at how well balanced this skill is. It’s strong without overshadowing any other heal we have.

There’s a lot of flexibility from the last changes. Some players just can’t see them yet, because they’re stuck to the old builds, and are unwilling to try something new.

I’ve been trying a dagger variant with sigil of hydromancy instead of battle, and it’s been pretty effective. Burst damage is still good, sustained damage is better even with only half the average might, and I feel that fire traitline’s condition duration is more effective with mh dagger than with scepter (longer duration for weakness, chill, immobilize, cripple and relevant burning).

Hydromancy sigil adds some strong aoe burst on nearby targets (can go up to 2k+ of damage, plus chill), and only gets better with might and extra condition duration.

This effectively makes it not a specialized might-stacking build, but you still have 3 three blast finishers on a ring of fire and up to 5 cantrip triggers.

PvE “grinders” probably don’t care about a few extra acchievement points from pvp dailies. It’s a different subset of the playerbase, the “completionists”, that do. And those two do not always overlap. And to be honest, the new pvp dailies are very harsh for them. Winning a single game can already be hard for some players (which is fine), forcing them to win about 8 (?) games is just too time-consuming. An acchievement completionist needs to spend their entire day to get the full daily bonus from both game modes together from this change alone. Aren’t dailies meant to complement your activities in this game? Not tire them out of the game? So yeah, I do think they’re currently very harsh.

About gold rewards for losing, I think it should be scaled. If your team loses 100-500, you should get almost no silver (it would still be good for pve newbies, who can’t get much more in pve either at that point of the game), but tighter 450-500 matchs should reward the losing players with, say, 75% of the gold they would otherwise get with a victory.

This would push players into trying their best, even when they’re not convinced that they will win.

Tornado can be strong in Skyhammer’s (pvp) hammer room, or to capture points when combined with skills like Obsidian Flesh or if your build has strong passive defenses.

I’m not sure if you can make much use of its triple power effect, except for Meteor Shower scenarios. Perhaps with a sigil. It would be great if you could use your heal/ utility skills while under it. Ether Renewal would rock there, and arcane skills would be insane. Perhaps too insane. ;P But I wouldn’t mind a nerf to the extra power given if that meant I could heal or cast arcanes within it.

Here’s a thread to post new build prototypes for sPvP, analyze their strong and weak points, and hopefully improve them as much as possible.

S/D Might-Stacking Cantrip Build
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k34;4kU015-NFZ0;9;4T-9T-37A;12;028A;14o0;3sV2DsV2D4BH
(Uses Arcane Brilliance for the heal slot)

Strong Points

• Can get to 25 might-stacks easily
• Perma Fury and a lot of might to yourself and allies nearby
• Solid survival against conditions (cleansing everywhere) and direct damage (protection and stability ocasionally, a lot of vigor)
• Some of its strong defensive mechanisms are passive
• Good healing (water attunement, water trident, cleansing wave, a lot of regen, solid healing power)
• Arcane Brilliance is a great heal here. At its worst, it complements the other healing tools with a quick-casting, decent heal. At its best, it’s a really strong skill, with a quick and very strong burst heal that can also apply might and fury to you and your party. And it’s not uncommon to use it on fire fields or when swarmed by opponents/ AI, so expect the best out of it frequently enough.

This build sounds really effective in theory. A 20+ might stacking build with perma fury, strong defenses against everything, solid passive and active defenses, high natural power, cantrips everywhere giving you plenty of regen, vigor, might and other benefits, etc. You have strong party support through fire fields (offensively) and healing skills (defensively). You can reach 25 stacks of might without much difficulty. What could fail here?

Weak Points

• Unreliable attacks and weak auto-attacks make it hard to take advantage of of your might.

This is a big problem with this build, because if you can’t take advantage of your might stacks for higher sustain damage, you’re pretty much playing a weaker version of a bunker build with some ocasional burst. Kinda like the non fresh-air air burst builds, but perhaps this one is better in the condition meta?

Without sigil of fire, air minor #15 and/ or arcane utilities, your burst damage is not as reliable as the air burst builds. Phoenix, Ring of Fire, Earthquake, Lightning Bolt, Fire Grab (when it hits…) are still great skills to cast, but you’ll have a hard time making use of your might in the meantime with no auto-attacks and an unreliable Dragon’s Tooth.

Perhaps it is me who has to learn to master it first, and try to hold some of my bursts until might is high enough, but it’s not always possible when skills like phoenix, ring of fire and earthquake are so deeply tied to might-generation in the first place.

I believe it’s still a solid build, but I’m thinking of some variants:

• Take 10 points out of fire and water, losing fury and extra cleansing. Put 15 in air and 5 in arcana, for a more reliable burst. Not sure if that would be worth losing 2 grandmaster traits, though. Probably not.
• Use MH Dagger instead. This results in the loss of two blast finishers, one of them that can be applied easily. That means might-stacking will average around 12-21+, only maxing ocasionally. Meanwhile, Lightning Whip is a solid auto-attack, and you could go 20 in air (at the expense of two grandmasters) for zephyr’ boon and air burst, although the grandmaster traits are probably still worthier. How scary can a 15+ might Lightning Whip be? I’ll have to test it out.

Flexibility

• Depending on your opposing team or the map, you can switch between Armor of Earth and Cleansing Fire.
• In a MH dagger Variant, Cleansing Water and Powerful Auras can be equally good, also depending on the situation.

NOTE: Cantrip mastery affects Burning Fire (reduces its cooldown to a tasty 32 seconds), but it does not affects Earth’s Embrace (which still remains at 90 seconds). Anet has confirmed that they will fix this as soon as possible, so this build will be further buffed someday (Earth Embrace will get a 75 second cooldown out of it).

There are several design issues with the elementalist. Base survival, weak auto-attacks, etc. One of them, which is the base attunement cooldowns, was improved upon in this patch, and so far based on my testings, it’s great as it now is. Playing with 0 arcana feels natural now (talking exclusively about attunement swapping).

This is a very important change. Elementalists are usually stuck to specific traits: those who give them survival, or those who are simple better than the remaining ones. Arcana traitline still has some of our strongest traits (renewing stamina, elemental attunement, evasive arcana), but now you can more freely substitute them for equally good traits (Rock Solid, Persisting Flames, Diamond Skin, Fresh Air) or other potentially strong combinations (full cantrip traits, aura traits) without having to worry about base attunement cooldowns. In fact, the main worries about not investing in arcana now usually revolve around the following questions: “are the arcana traits worth sacrificing for the other traits?”, which can be a yes/ no scenario depending on the context, and “do I need more boon duration?”

There were times where the arcana traits were potentially worth sacrificing for a few other good traits. But then there was a third problem: “I can’t still leave arcana or else the high attument cooldowns break my entire build”. Especially when we consider how other traits, like Rock Solid and Cleansing Wave, are so reliant on attunement swapping.

By fixing this problem, the patch was a great step in the right direction. Elementalists were not magically fixed out of all of their issues, of course, and they still need to invest on survival to exist (organized dungeon pve aside), and they still need to revolve around builds that do not depend on most of their weak auto-attacks to exist as well. However, now that they are no longer stuck to arcana’s attunement cooldown boost, traits like renewing stamina, elemental attunement and evasive arcana (and arcana’s #5) are now under a tigher competition with other strong traits from other lines.

Individually strong non-arcana traits:
- (Fire) Persisting Flames
- (Air) Zephyr’s Boon
- (Air) Fresh Air
- (Earth) Rock Solid
- (Earth) Diamond Skin
- (Water) Minor #15
- (Water) Cleansing Wave
- (Water) Soothing Disruption
- (Water) Cleansing Water

And (potentially) strong traits, most that become even better when combined with others:
- (Air) Tempest Defense, (Earth) Elemental Shielding and (Water) Powerful Auras
- (Fire) Spellslinger, (Fire) Burning Fire), (Earth) Earth’s Embrace, (Water) Cantrip Mastery
- All +damage traits across those four traitlines, including (Fire) Minor #25 and (Air) Minor #15
- (Water) Soothing Wave, (Fire) Conjure and (Fire) Cooldown decrease
- (Earth) and (Water) Minor #5, (Earth) Minor #15

When we consider that arcana’s minor traits are not that good outside of the #5 (fury on swap, which can be substituted by persisting flames or zephyr’s boon), and if we don’t desperately need extra boon duration, then it’s far more feasible to trade in the best arcana traits for the best of the other lines, depending on what type of build we want and on each situation.

I’ve got a working cantrip build with 25 might stacking and good might/ fury support. It’s rather tanky and has cool sustain damage. Also want to try out a d/d aura build once my net’s clumsy speed gets fixed.

I’ve asked an anet dev (Powerr) in game about cantrip mastery + burning fire.

Apparently, it’s a bug – but only for the old traits! He wanted new content to be bug free, so cantrip mastery is already working with burning fire, and in the future, old traits should get affected by the mastery traits as well.

oZii.2864:

The new burning fire trait is affected by cantrip mastery. So the icd is 32 secs haven’t field tested this but the tooltip changes to reflect it.

Yes, this is both exciting and weird. There was already hints of this based on dev’s posts, but cantrip mastery doesn’t works on earth’s embrace yet, nor does cantrip amstery works with the arcane traits.

I assume matchmaking, rewards and game modes became a higher priority issue, and templates were put on hold. However, I do agree they would be lovely, especially after this patch.

STRanger.5120:

Maybe it’s time for you to read the weakness description again…. 3k crit glancing will be 1500 dmg, not 750….

Glancing hits can’t critical.

About the near immortal comment, think about it. :P Weakness is a very strong condition now. It can reduce the damage from critical hits to 1/4 of their original value. A 3k critical hit has a 50% chance to only deal around 750 damage while under weakness. A bunker build with the new soothing wave will get 3 (5) seconds of regen out of that, plus the regen from their heal and from their minor water trait. That’s a lot. The ele bunkers of old did not have perma weaknesses.

Of course, it would be a mediocre/ average build versus conditions, and pvp is currently driven by a condition meta, so that’s not very good. But the weakness in our glyph is a “sleeper”. It was buffed in the same patch where the condition meta came out. In the possibility of conditions being further nerfed and/ or a direct damage meta coming back in the future, I can see soothing wave (plus elemental attunement, plus all other passive heals stacked) and perma weaknesses to be a strong combination.

LordByron.8369:

Diogo…. i won t waste an answer now…

We will see how many ele will run it in 1 month…

Its too situational for a GM trait…its imho as situational as falling damage trait.

Look at immobilize/chill skills DAMAGE…….its just useless..will maybe be good for some pve exploit.

P.S. also i don t expect people to go 30 earth and 20-30 water….and be effective

Again, I didn’t say it would be a strong or widely-used trait, just that the design isn’t as bad as you made it sound. If no on ends up picking DS, Anet can always buff it to require 85% health instead of 90%.

STRanger.5120:

Hmm, I still don’t get how 3s regen helps me if I need to get critted for it, let’s say an average crit of 3K dmg…..

I think it’s the kind of trait that needs to be built around in order to be useful. 30 arcana, +20% boon duration and +20% regen duration would make this trait last about… 5 seconds? Coupled with elemental attunement and cleansing water, and we can potencially get perma-regen and traited condition cleansing without relying on cantrips. Add in the minor #5 water trait, SoR healing and cleansing wave, and that’s a lot of passive regen and steady cleansing. This was usually only possible with full cantrip builds before (the old ele bunkers), but you are now free to use other utilities like, say, glyph of elemental power (yes) for the perma weakness, which would make you near immortal versus direct damage classes, arcane shield instead of mist form so you can still act and heal from SoR, and who knows what else.

Another possibility I can see with it, is in an aura build. Because aura builds will want to be hit (for tempest defense, frost aura and shocking aura), assuming a balanced build with good points in toughness, vitality and healing power while still being strong at dealing damage (example: valkyrie amulet with berserker jewel, 10 earth for elemental shielding, 30 water for powerful auras, 30 air for zephyr’s boon and tempest defense, runes of divinity), you’ll want to make sure that being hit by your opponents is as least risky as possible. The new soothing wave does that, by giving you regen to offset the damage you receive, which also happens to scale well with your healing power investment.

It’s true that Blasting Staff is not needed in highly organized dungeon running because of the terrible boss design. I was talking about a more general pve context. Assuming many different contexts, like wanting to use the same build through the entire pve content, or not being skilled enough, or doing dungeons with pugs, or not having learned dungeon’s mechanics yet, or even fighting more complex encounters, whichever they are. In a more flexible scenario, blasting staff is far worthier than a conditional (and thus won’t always work) +10 % damage boost.

LordByron.8369:

I find its one of the worst trait design i ever seen in this game:

You do? Diamond Skin is an evolution of almost every single passive trait in this game.

From a design perspective, it has the two positives for it: it demands more from the user (health needs to be kept high), and can be counter-played by your opponent (by dealing damage).

If you want to look at the “worst trait design I have ever seen in this game”, there are plenty of passive traits in GW2 that do not have the two positive points DS has.

-totally counters a SINGLE build

It doesn’t. Do not let the “immune to conditions” description deceive you. Its effect is conditional, and tied to a highly volatile value: health. It can be countered by anyone, and if any specific build, for some reason, can’t absolutely do anything against it, its players can easily adapt it by bringing an extra direct damage source.

-promotes passive playstyle

It does not. It’s a passive trait, but it does not promote passive play. It’s a trait that demands the elementalist to stay at near full health. Do you think that is something that happens passively? Only if no one is targetting the ele!

-Totally useless against anything else thus won t be used….

Useless against a sudden immobilize burst? Against cripples and chills while running away or chasing? Against traps or marks on the ground? There’s more to this trait than being an anti condition-builds.

-requires balance via nerfing across the board, negatively impacting ANY build not using a GRANDMASTER trait extremely situational and on a suboptimal line for eles.

Cleansing Wave was moved up because two new counter-condition traits were added in general, not because Diamond Skin’s functionality alone demands it to be this way.

Also, how will earth be a suboptimal line for eles? Are we talking about the same line that has one of our best pvp traits, Rock Solid? The minor #15 is decent, the minor #5 will be buffed, and the adept traits are decent.

Some players are already running with 20 earth in pvp.

EDIT Keep in mind that I’m not saying that Diamond Skin will be strong. It might up being underwhelming. I just don’t think the design is as bad as you make it sound to be. There’s a lot worse.

Arcane Wave should still be instant-cast, yes.

Razor.6392:

You don’t have a 1.3 seconds window to cast phoenix. I fail to see how those 2 are even similar.

In the heat of (pvp) combat, sometimes that time window can make the difference between the death of your opponent or yours, at least in any glass cannon ele build.

But let’s think of a better example: when you need to Lightning Flash Earthquake Hurl Air Attune Lightning Bolt. You barely have a second to do it, but the best players can pull it off nonetheless.

Durzlla.6295:

You do realize tornado is a 180s CD and it starts as soon as the skill activates right? How you got 240s I will never know…

150s cooldown. :P

BlackBeard.2873:

I mean, you have to balance every minor buff an ele receives with greater nerfs!

This applies to all professions. After the pvp meta disaster that came out of June’s patch, Anet has been tighter with their buff/ nerf balance. It might be annoying to players when their main professions do not get an endless flow of buffs, but it’s better for the game this way to avoid mindless powercreep.

Razor.6392:

Did no one really use arcane wave with a main hand dagger? It won’t be instant anymore and casting it will be a pain.

How do you burning speed + arcane wave after the patch, can anybody tell me?

Instant ground target cast will be the only option, and I’ll have to click the kitten burning speed trail mid-flight for it to work…

There are two options for one-click ground-targetted spells, you should try them both.

Yes, you’ll need to move your mouse a little bit now, but it’s not like this has ever ruined the Phoenix skill from scepter, is it?

Anet has a plan to nerf vigor across the game, so it’s likely that renewing stamina might get moved or nerfed someday. However, Anet delayed that change because they agreed it wouldn’t be fair to do this change before the mesmer’s and guardian’s vigor-on-crit traits get changed too, and probably because they acknowledge our current lack of base survivability.

At least, that’s what I interpret from the threads where this was discussed.

Dub.1273:

A proper PvE Staff build is 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/25/25/0/0. Both of these will only receive a little buff (25 in fire), nothing except that changes.

I’d say 10 points in arcana for blasting staff is worth over water’s or earth’s investment. Blasting Staff indirectly increases aoe damage against kiting foes, as well as the damage from meteor shower, not to mention the massive utility it brings. Also, the improved base attunement recharges (10 arcana will be worth a 12 second cooldown, instead of the pre-patch 14 seconds) will allow elementalists to get back to fire more quickly.

You might say that all of this is useless in a perfect scenario where your party stacks into a boss and spikes them down, which is true, but perfect scenarios won’t always happen, and fire staff builds suffer a lot every time things don’t go the expected way. And that will happen in some specific dungeon battles, it’ll almost always happen with pugs, and it’ll almost always happen in the open pve world or in new not-yet-abused content.

All things considered, massive utility/ aoe that blasting staff brings is far more noticeable and convenient than a conditional 10% damage boost, IMO, especially when we consider how much extra damage potencial the staff trait can also add by itself.

And for pve farming, a fireball or a meteor shower with twice the radius damage range are golden.

10 arcana also offers the flexibility of picking renewing stamina, for those players who need the extra survival.

It would be cool if Anet could organize a one-time-only, Free for All lobby event someday.

EDIT A pit would be even cooler!

Nikkinella.8254:

That’s why D/D gets nerfed so hard in every single patch.

The new heal benefits dagger eles a lot.

Graendall.4765:

I will never understand from what kind of players all this QQ comes from.

This is simply how mmo profession forums work. It’s a place where people like to gather so they can complain about the remaining professions together. It’s not exclusive to the elementalist forum, nor to guild wars 2.

Senjun.8149:

Lol you call those buffs? Go to the mesmer forums and ranger forums and see what they are getting. Now THOSE are buffs and big ones at that.

Are we talking about the same rangers that are going to get their top meta pvp build further nerfed? The same rangers that have less of a place in pve and wvw than we do? Seems perfectly fair to me. The buffs to mesmers, however, seem a bit troubling.

Now let’s look at our buffs.

In PvE, they pretty much improve almost every single meta build we have. Lightning Hammer builds will become more flexible, 30 fire builds will gain a free adept slot, Staff builds will require less points in arcana for their precious trait, any build with 10 points in earth is going to get slightly more toughness, and pretty much all non-arcana builds (which are most of the min-max builds) will have improved base attunement cooldowns.

In PvP, any Rock Solid variant is going to be buffed, and even though 10-water builds will lose cleansing wave, two new condition traits in other lines will compensate for that. Cantrip traits will be buffed because of the existence of a fifth cantrip proc, and because taking all the cantrip traits now will no longer come at the cost of base attunement cooldowns. Likewise, aura builds will no longer have to sacrifice some of their precious traits for the prison that is base attunement cooldowns, in addition to a buff to an aura trait. Earth/ Water bunkers will get buffed because of the Diamond Skin, and because – once more – they’re no longer imprisioned by the high base attunement cooldowns.

Not to mention the nerfs to spirit rangers, hambow warriors, sword thieves and condi-burst necros, which were the builds that took us out of the pvp meta in the first place, when they first came out.

Will all those new builds become as strong as the builds we have now? WE DON´T KNOW. But they will surely become stronger than at their current state. Until time proves how strong those new builds end up being, any statement that claims otherwise is just pessimistic.

Your earth minor #5 will give you more 40 toughness while in earth, and lingering elements should partially work with it now, giving you 120 toughness outside of earth. Ranged arcane wave and heal blast finisher might help too.

But it’s the 30 fire staff builds that are going to get the most noticeable buffs, with the improved minor #25 in fire for+5% damage, the only 10 points requirement for blasting staff in arcana (which leaves 10 free points for more damage traits), and improved attunement recharges.

EchenSketch.9142:

These “buffs” don’t help any of the main issues of the Ele. We’re still forced into utilities, we’re still forced to use trait points for survivabliity, we still have kitten base stats.

Wrong. This patch doesn’t magically fix the elementalist, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Base attunement cooldowns is one of our major issues. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it. The current values make it nearly impossible to make any viable build outside of arcana, regardless of how many good traits there might exist out of it, because high attunement cooldowns can break this profession completely. This is getting improved with the upcoming patch.

We’re still forced to trait for survivability, but we’ll get more defensive traits in new lines (diamond skin, burning fire) and we’re getting improved defensive traits (tempest defense, final shielding, stone flesh).

Our new heal will give us an extra blast finisher/ arcane skill without having to sacrifice some of our precious defensive utilities.

And non-ele meta builds in pvp are getting toned down, which makes us indirectly stronger.

The first three skills are underwhelming. Gust has clumsy functionality, and the design behind Lightning’s Surge and Chain Lightning is not working very well.

Earth will get a buffed minor #5, it has a decent (for pvp) minor #15, a decent (for pve) minor #25, Stone Splinters (used everywhere), Rock Solid (very strong in pvp), and depending on your build, Earth’s Embrace and Elemental Shielding (mostly for pvp). It’ll be a solid trait in pvp, which is where condition spamming is a real issue in the first place.

Fire has Spellslinger, which combines well with Burning Fire, but it’ll generally be worth only as a high investment for minor #25 and persisting flames. And of course, the conjure trait for pve.

Why give up on the ele two days before the buffs?

It’s very common in this game to be swarmed by foes without doing it by choice, and if you are a MH Dagger ele, it’ll happen even more often. At such time, a quick cast time skill with a massive burst heal will certainly come in handy.

Only a few variances of the most popular builds are going to be slightly toned down with the changes to water, and I’m talking about variances here, because the base builds will still remain intact.

Everything else will be buffed, especially non-arcana builds.

Adastra.9821:

Well that’s why I made a broad statement “outside of PvE”. The fire traitline is rarely used if ever outside of PvE.

Persisting Flames is a good grandmaster trait anywhere, the problem was everything else. So with the new burning fire trait, the buff to the minor #25, and the lesser reliance of arcana for attunement swapping, we might start seeing more fire-traited builds. This new heal also synergies very well with persisting flames.

I have in my mind a cantrip/ might-stacking build that would pick spellslinger (3 stacks of might per cantrip used), burning fire, persisting flames, and 20 points in water and 10 in earth for the remaining cantrip traits. This would mean regen/ vigor/ might from five different sources, plus passive (and possibly active) protection, stability and condition removal, with even more might and fury, this time party-wide, with scepter’s skills and this heal.

Ray.2640:

My biggest concern is the fact how AoE behaves since this patch:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2013-10-15

“AoE spells with a maximum number of targets will now count combatants that block or evade the attack towards that maximum.”

That’s the point. If you look at most of the new healing skills, they can be counter-played by your opponent.

Warrior’s new heal is useless if no one attacks him. Guardian’s new heal is useless if he can’t burst right after, or if there aren’t many targets to hit at the same time. Thief’s new heal is useless if the attacks are blocked/ evaded. Same for Necromancer’s. The Mesmer’s passive effect is very weak with one or no illusions on play, and the active effect involves a burst that can be evded/ blocked. Engineer’s heal will be useless if the engie doesn’t dies in that short time.

That’s what makes the new healing skills so interesting. They can be weaker or stronger than existing skills depending on how well you and your opponent play.

This skill addresses the staff ele’s need for more blast finishers, adresses the d/d ele’s need for more survivability (being at melee range increases your chances of hitting more foes), makes arcane-traited builds stronger, makes min-max pve builds stronger, and makes elementalist’s party support builds stronger.

Obviously, it needs to be weaker than other skills in other areas of the game. Ether Renewal will still be the best against conditions. Signet of Restoration will still be the best for healing over time. Glyph of Harmony will still be the best for a spike heal and “selfish” utility.

It seems like you people are disappointed because this skill is not overpowered. Did you seriously expected this skill to heal as much as Glyph while dealing 1000 aoe critical damage, speccing renewing stamina and sigil of fire, applying blind/ chill/ immobilize/ burning, all under a low casting time of 3/4 and a low 20 second cooldown, AND still being a blast finisher for party-wide might and fury, or for party-wide heal, or for party-wide frost auras?

This skill must have a low base heal to compensate for all of this, and even then you can still boost its base heal by 20-100%.

Ele really didn’t need another situational heal with glaring weaknesses.

Quite the contrary, all the professions should have skills with strong and weak points, in order to reward skillful playing.

As long as we have condi-spam all over the place ER will be obligatory anyways in PvP.

With new condition removal traits coming up for us, and with other professions also getting some stronger condition counters, it’s too early to tell that.

i’m pretty disappointed for this skill… for be better than others u have to be melee vs 5 mob.. otherwise glyph casted in water attunement give u something like 5.4k heal +2.6 regen in 13 secs.. so its 8k every 20 sec (if u have glyph 20%) w/o have to kill, and stay close to any mob…

Used at its best, this skill can heal for around 8k without needing regen, and still an extra 1.2 – 1.5k aoe heal while on a water field. Or 3 stacks of aoe might (and maybe even fury) instead of might only to yourself. And with half the casting time. I’d say even by just hitting one or two foes, with some team playing, it’ll be almost always better than the glyph.

I think the damage really should go up. If you’re running high crit damage and power you are looking at what maybe 1k damage. I agree that if it requires you to be in melee for the max heal it should move up in damage comparable to arcane wave.

This would make air burst builds way too strong in pvp. It could be fire for pve, though, but in pve, it’ll also be easier to get the full heal bonus, and min-max players will already prefer an extra blast finisher over slightly more healing, so the skill is already inherently stronger in pve.

Excluding the farming spots, players don’t get much gold in general pve. Events and story instances are not that rewarding in this aspect. So getting 12.5 – 25 silver per solo queue match is worth about as much as playing pve “casually”, and especially a lot more than low-level pve.

I think the current income is fine, but I wouldn’t mind if it could be scaled by merit. For example, extra coins for higher ranks/ ladders, extra coins for in-match top players, etc.

I think people don’t realize the potencial of necro’s new heal. If I ever see a necro in my party use it, my fresh air burst is suddenly going to be much more deadly, and I’ll still get health back out of it. And in any situation where a bunker is holding, say, two players, if the necro uses it, the bunker is going to get bursted real hard.

Think of any 2v3 or 3v3 scenario at the middle point of any map. A necro uses the signet on the guardian. Everyone bursts the guardian down within those five seconds for 4-6k extra damage.

Of course, it can be counter-played, blocked, evaded, etc. But in several scenarios, this skill can potencially flip points to your team.

EverythingEnds.4261:

In general, I also dont get, why ANet keeps makes heals (and elites) which rely on certain skill categories (like signets). Heals and Elites should be an own category for not getting influeced by traits. (at least not by those which arent specific for heals).

It makes those skills and skill building in general more exciting.

Balance aside, I feel that the new heal skills are very well designed.

The higher emphasis on party support, the possibility to screw their effects if poorly played, and the more opportunities given to your opponent to counterplay them, all add up to a more skill-driven playstyle. Some of them also punish pet clutter (guardian’s and ele’s) or condition bursting (warrior’s or engie’s), as those two situations will make it very easy for those four skills to give massive health bursts to their respective owners.

Even the more “passive” skills are more demanding than what they seem at the first glance. The mesmer’s signet, for example, only activates every three seconds, the passive is underwhelming or non-existent with less than two illusions, and it has a good active effect that players will want to take advantage of. In comparison to the braindead Healing Signet, mesmer’s one has a weaker passive (good), a stronger active (good), the passive requires resource maintenance (good) and the enemy can counterplay the passive (good) and in some way the active (good). Likewise, the spirit’s passive heal also seems rather underwhelming (600 hp each ten seconds for each party member?), but the bulk of the skill lies in the active effect and demands party awareness, two positives for it.

Now taking balance into equation, I do have some worries. Especially for those two skills. The first is what’s everyone asked already, won’t spirit rangers become even stronger with a fifth spirit? The second issue is how easy a mesmer can maintain (or recreate) their illusions, which can nullify some of the skill involved in its passive effect.