Guild Wars 2

Elementalist: “Wait, you mean we have utilities BESIDES Cantrips? Good one, pull the other leg now.”
Engineer: “It pays to have a dev main you~”
Guardian: “Others come and ago…we will always be meta. Oh, but we need buffs..for…reasons…”
Mesmer: “Make ALL the traits baseline! #balance”
Necromancer: (Looks at Consume Conditions.) (Sobs quietly.)
Ranger: “Entangle? OP? Nah bro.”
Thief: “Single-handedly keeping other [non-medi-guard] zerkers out of the meta since 2012.”
Warrior: “Hurr!” (pounds face on keyboard; wins)

Don’t take this too seriously, guys

I play a male human Ele. 95% of the time he wears Ascalonian pants for his awesome Zerker look. The other 5% he wears Embroidered pants for his “devout/pacifist” Cleric look.

These two pants are pretty good, but the former can look a bit too tight at times (especially with the wrong boots) and the latter are a bit too pajama-ish (which works when going for the monk look, but looks ridiculous otherwise.)

I would definitely appreciate more “normal,” “modern” looking pants to wear.

The Human male light T1 pants look too ridiculous to wear, and the T2 pants are a bit baggy, and don’t look “modern” enough IMO.

Everything else is skirts…which is fine if you like, but it gets old.

Moar pants plz :p

Ice Bow 4 is not being changed.

Ice Bow 2 and 3 are being buffed

Adding my voice to the others saying thank you! Great changes, both the stat conversion and bringing the gap back down to 5%.

Hopefully one day we’ll also be able to conserve/recover upgrade components when switching stats, but I’m not complaining.

Lol, good riddance. Can I have my skill points back? :p

Yep, I too believe that Thieves and Mesmers are going to keep any other non-medi Guadian zerkers out of the meta. Thief will still trump Mesmer, but just not as badly.

Wouldn’t the newly buffed One with Air help with mobility though? Especially combined with no CD on FA?

Okay guys, I got another update from reddit, courtesy of Jon Peters: looks like the radius is 600 after all.

I quote: “We switched these to 600 I think in the most recent build. Spotter, Soothing Mist, Strength in Numbers, Empower Allies, and the new Necro one whose name is escaping me.”

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/39zgic/june_23rd_specialization_changes_official/cs8b1vd

So I thought it’d be a good idea to use this thread to collect our feedback about what remains to be done in terms of elementalist balance post-6/23 balance changes. I hope this makes it easier for Anet to see and act on our feedback.

My thoughts:

General

-Chill needs to stop affecting Attunement swap. No other class suffers from this limitation. Yes, we get a trait that specifically removes chill (Stop Drop and Roll), but it is overshadowed in its tier by Soothing Ice.

-Why did we not get access to any of the new effects like Resistance, Slow, Taunt etc.?

Traits

I quite like the majority of the trait changes, but there is still room for improvement.

-Aquatic Benevolence and Soothing Power should be switched, with the former being buffed back to 25% and the latter being nerfed, maybe to 100-150%. As it stands, AB does nothing for the elementalist, which is really crappy for a trait that you are forced to take. At least this way, the GM minor trait will do SOMETHING for you regardless of your build.

-Soothing Mist: radius should be 600 at the very least. Buffing its healing only to reduce its effect to a minuscule 300 seems counterproductive; you practically have to be next to your ally for them to receive the effect.

-Fire’s Embrace: I’m guessing this was axed because of the buff to Powerful Aura, Sunspot, Soothing Ice and baseline Attunement swap recharge reduction. But I still feel that it should be reinstated in the Conjurer trait; it was the core of many signet condi builds and quite a few people enjoyed running them in WvW. Removing this trait just destroys a non-meta build and forces people to rarely if ever run signets. Maybe fix the aura/boon durations to account for the new aura traits if there are concerns about it being OP.

Skills

We seriously need hefty reworks to many skills. The recent changes have buffed cantrips but have barely touched the other utilities, which means cantrips are more necessary than ever.

-Glyphs are still gimmicky and clunky, do not help clean conditions, and the one stun breaker glyph is actually meant to be used off-coold own, which is counterproductive to its stun break functionality. The storms and elemental glyphs could use cool down reductions.

-Conjures are still borderline useless, with the exception of Frost Bow and FGS for mobility. Earth Shield has so much potential; if only it were a stun break on cast, and perhaps had Taunt/Resistance.

-Scepter: Auto-attacks could use lower casting times. Shatterstone is so bad; it either needs a dramatically reduced casting time or needs to pulse Chill while charging up, because it is just too easy to walk out of.

-Focus: Fire Shield does NOT reduce condition duration on you despite the tooltip, and definitely does not deserve its 40 second cool down. Freezing Gust is a 3 second chill on a 25 second cool down; it could use additional functionality like boon strip for example.

-Staff: Gust and Shockwave need either increased projectile speed or wider projectiles. Ice Spike has the same problems kittenterstone.

-Dagger: Ride the Lightning needs to have the stupid cool down penalty removed. No other movement skill in the game suffers this penalty. Its cool down could be brought up to a flat 25-30 seconds to compensate. Alternatively, it should ONLY accrue the penalty when NOT used as a gap closer (i.e. not if the target evades/blocks/stealths.)

-Elites are SEVERELY lacking. NONE of them feel like the momentum-changing skills they’re supposed to be. Glyph of Elementals needs at the very least a cool down reduction. Tornado is still a joke. Compared to Rampage, Lich Form, Moa or even Plague, it is hilariously bad. It is a “kill me” sign and could use either projectile reflection/destruction and/or Resistance; definitely needs a cool down reduction too. Fiery Greatsword definitely needs a cool down reduction. In fact, I don’t feel like any of our elites should have anything more than 120 second cool down before traits.

Those are my thoughts for now. Let’s hear everyone else’s!

Mesmer and Engi, definitely. Mesmer in particular is going to be a royal PITA, along with Thief. Loving the Blood Magic changes though.

I do sympathize with those who ran signet aura builds. The reason I posited PA being the reason for FE’s removal is because of the changes to Sunspot, Soothing Ice and baseline Attunement swap being 10 seconds now. These changes along with FE would IMO have been a bit too much. I do think they could have adjusted numbers instead of outright axing the trait though :/

Slightly off-topic, but I’m actually excited to try out a Settler’s signet condi build now. The party boons that FE gave would be replaced with the condi/heal support from Water magic instead.

Never mind, Josh confirmed it is 300: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/39zgic/june_23rd_specialization_changes_official/cs7x1qa

I too hope it’s 600.

MrSilver.5269:

Never mind, found it: http://dulfy.net/2015/06/15/gw2-ready-up-skill-and-balance-changes-livestream-notes/#Elementalist_Changes

Was going to post the reddit link but you beat me to it

They also said they would put up all the notes later, I expect here on the forums.

It might be because of the new Powerful Aura. Currently PA only affects auras from your weapon skills. The new PA has been reworded to “When you apply an aura to yourself”. Hopefully this means auras you gain via Leaps, Blasts and runes too. I think this is why they got rid of Fire’s Embrace; the group uptime on Protection/Fury/Swiftness would be pretty OP otherwise.

At least, that’s what I think.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

IB got a buff to 2 and 3, not 4

Ahhh silly me, I always confuse Frost Volley and Ice Storm. Thanks, will edit my post. Still good changes though!

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Glenstorm.4059:

-ICE BOW 4 BUFFED!

No

? Explain please?

We got some niiiiice buffs.

-Baseline Attunement swap being 10 seconds is in itself pretty huge.

-All the Training traits now reduce cool downs by 33%! AND have other awesome effects rolled into them. Geomancer’s Training in particular is amazing, especially for Focus users.

-Bolt to the Heart is now the Elementalist Executioner! Good buff.

-Powerful Aura has been reworded to “When you apply an aura to yourself”! Hopefully this means auras you gain via traits, Leaps, Blasts and runes too. I think this is why they got rid of Fire’s Embrace; the group uptime on Protection/Fury/Swiftness would be pretty OP otherwise. Still, I don’t think they should have gotten rid of the trait altogether, since it kinda screws over some signet condi builds.

-One with Air has been significantly buffed, could be really helpful to skilled players.

-Ferocious Winds is no longer completely useless now, lol. Helps make up for not being able to take BttH and Fresh Air together.

-Rock Solid states “2 seconds of stability.” I wonder if they mean 2 stacks. If true, then it’s a nice buff.

-New Fire Adept Minor is decent. Sunspot now helps non-melee Eles too.

-At least now each tier of Arcana has a decent trait (Renewing Stamina, Final Shielding, Evasive Arcana.) I do hope they upped the trigger chance for Arcane Precision. Also, hooray for the EArcana Cleansing Wave being un-nerfed!

-ICE BOW 2 and 3 BUFFED, 4 NOT nerfed!

-Tornado/Whirlpool and Ether Renewal now have synergy with all the cantrip traits. Still don’t think Tornado is worth taking though, but we’ll see.

-Looks like they’re finally programming the damage buff to Fiery Charge into the game, with an additional 10% buff.

-New Burning Precision has same ICD as Blinding Ashes! Blind spam ftw. Hopefully the ICD is per enemy and not global. I don’t like that this now competes with Burning Fire, but I’ll live.

-I do think Aquatic Benevolence and Soothing Power should be switched, with the former being buffed back to 25% and the latter being nerfed, maybe to 100-150%. At least this way, the GM minor trait will do SOMETHING for you regardless of your build.

What we lost:

-Inherent stats from traitlines. This hits us hard especially since we tend to depend on the Vitality and Boon Duration from Water/Arcana. Hopefully they compensate us well for this. I don’t math very well but the burning changes look good to make up for the lost condi duration from Fire, but someone who DOES math well can feel free to correct me.

-Fire’s Embrace is gone, but I understand why given how Powerful Aura was buffed.

-Lingering Elements. Pfft, GOOD RIDDANCE.

-Still need skill reworks, especially for stuff like Shatterstone, Fire Shield, Freezing Gust, Glyphs, and all our Elites.

But all in all, I really cannot complain. This is exciting!

PlatinumMember.5274:

already getting ready to be disappointed. Then make threats about how I will quit this game but not actually follow through with those threats.

This is me too, pretty much. Doubly so for Tempest. :/

I’m just hoping that we are adequately compensated for the loss of Vitality/Healing Power from Water Magic and Boon Duration from Arcana.

Also hoping for a buff to Shatterstone.

And Chill not affecting Attunement swap.

Oh, and a powerful Elite would be nice.

I agree; I hate that we’re being forced to pick a minor trait that does absolutely nothing for us. I think if they made the trait affect us too, it wouldn’t be too OP. Healing Power scales so terribly, and the cool down on water fields is long enough that I don’t see why the ele should be excluded.

What if Aquatic Benevolence had this added to its current functionality:

Blast Finishers your allies execute on Water Fields heal for 50% more (this does not apply to your Blast Finishers)
Radius: 1200
Limit: 4 closest allies

This would solve the problem of AB not affecting other’s blast heals.

In character creation, it seems like the character model has been moved up, which means that if you’re picking a height that’s average to above average, the character’s head gets cut off. Quite annoying.

Just saw an Engi do this while spectating…he got into Blue and killed their Lord without destroying either gate…

The problem, as I see it, with the PBAoE/melee brawler idea is the fact that the Reaper does that role quite well already. Not to mention the fact that that’s essentially what D/D Ele does.

Eight months later, and still no fix.

BlackBeard.2873:

Laraley.7695:

Self sustain is not the problem d/d ele is facing. It’s not even the problem fresh air has. I’m gonna say this once again, sustain is fine, but due to being so squishy and depeneding on long cooldowns with having nothing more to offer to team, ele will disappear from pvp if they go on with this change and won’t make tempest at least as good as normal changes to thieves/mesmers.

I just want to clarify because a lot of people seem caught up on the nuance behind this assertion. Base-line, self-sustain IS a very-big issue for ele, thus why EVERY build currently goes so deep into water/arcana. Post-patch, max-tank eles will still have good enough self-sustain when speccing earth/water/arcana, but every single ele build will STILL be forced heavily into defense just to be on-par with every other class in terms of baseline survival capability. Even fresh-air has trouble with self-sustain due to the boons being less effective on a squishy spec AND survival tied to long CDs.

I do agree with you, under the new system, d/d will still have sufficient self-sustain (as you have indicated), but loses a LARGE portion of its team-support. In the past, any time you had an ele build that could sustain itself pretty well, it became a pretty good team-option because so much of that self-sustain was automatically shared. You are right, without bringing group support to the table (which used to be inherent), there will NEVER be any reason to take a tanky ele. However, like was the problem near release, NO ele build will be viable without tanking up big-time (look at current d/d, it is impossible to pack ANY MORE self-defense into the build, as even doing something like taking clerics amulet makes the ele susceptible to condis and lose out on perma-vigor). So even though a max-tank spec will have enough survivability, baseline survivability of the class IS a major problem.

I also agree with you, even if an ele becomes the best tank in the game, it won’t see play if it brings no support. The key to seeing play in pvp is being proficient in a role, and having some other unique aspect that improves the team. Mesmers are proficient roaming dps, with portal. Thieves are the MOST proficient burst with highest mobility. Medi-guard is high burst, with excellent sustain and dps. Engineers have incredibly high roaming dps, with the most CC and insane survivability. The unique “thing” eles have always provided in every spec was aoe boons and cleanse, which only really works in tanky/bruiser roles (thus why dps ele was pretty much never really a thing).

With the upcoming changes, eles won’t really bring anything special to the table for ANY role. Being a jack-of-all-trades also doesn’t bring anything to the table, it just means you have no role. For a jack-of-all-trades to see play, it needs to be above-average in everything (sort of like d/d ele is now). Straight C’s just puts you squarely in the garbage-bin.

Well said. Although I think this is all just going to fall on deaf ears.

-It’s always been ridiculous that we have Attunement swap cool downs, large cool downs on our weapon skills, AND that our weapon skills on an individual basis are weaker than those of other professions. Two of these three I can understand. But all three?
-With Cele amulet being further nerfed, and Shoutbow being buffed, D/D WILL fall out of meta.
-It sucks that our profession mechanic, but not that of any other class, is affected by Chill. I don’t care that we get decent access to cleanses. Necros have excellent access to condi cleanses, and Death Shroud isn’t affected by Chill.
-Selfish EA should definitely be baseline. EA GM trait should extend the effect to allies and increase the radius. On a similar token, radius on our healing skills and traits needs to be increased if we are to have a hope of competing with Shoutbow warriors for the support role.
-Losing trait line stats is scary; currently, I run a build with 4 in Water for the increased health since I don’t use a +Vitality amulet. Am I supposed to run around with ~10k health? I’m not convinced that Anet is going to compensate me effectively for the loss of health.
-It sucks having no decent, powerful Elite skills. Oh and FGS skill 4 damage is still bugged (does less than half of the tooltip damage.)
-Fresh Air, our one (kinda) variable burst spec, has been neutered. Where does that leave the clunky Scepter?
-With LH and FB being nerfed, say goodbye to any reason to equip a Conjure, ever. These skills will never be used seriously again, besides FGS for mobility.
-Aquatic Benevolence is forced onto all eles in a line that now has most of our DPS traits, despite AB providing NO benefit whatsoever to the ele.
-Arcane Precision, Zephyr’s Speed and Soothing Winds are abominations of traits.

I fully expect Tempest to be a colossal disappointment; with this track record, what do we have to look forward to?

We’ve given them a bunch of new ideas for Tornado and begged for a change to make the skill useful for ages. There hasn’t been a red post here seeking feedback on potential reworks. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

As optimistic as I want to be, I feel like we’re going to be disappointed. Anet’s track record with Ele “balance,” IMO, smacks of them not knowing what to do with the class in terms of combat role and class mechanics. It doesn’t help that the Ele is sensitive to even minute balance changes, seeing as how a single change can make them either “OP” or never used (Celestial amulet.)

Like that one scene from Malcom in the Middle, I think my reaction will be: I expected nothing, and I’m still let down.

Of course, I’d be extremely happy to be wrong.

Also, just repeating what others have already pointed out:

Give us Elite skills that are actually worth using!!!

-FGS is only used for its mobility and the damage buff to Skill 4 never made it into the game.
-Tornado is CRAP. It’s basically a huge “KILL ME” sign, and provides NO benefits for locking us out of our weapon skills. At the very least, it needs projectile destruction/reflection, increased movement speed and reduced cooldown. Or consider making it immune to conditions; how the hell do you burn, immobilize or poison a tornado????!
-Elementals are meh. All the non-Earth elementals need serious survivability buffs. The Glyph itself needs a much lower cooldown.

Skill Feedback:

Conjures: Clunky and gimmicky to use, and with the upcoming nerfs to LH and FB, in danger of never again being slotted. I get why the nerfs were needed, but all they will do is make sure no one ever equips these again. They are useful precisely because of certain “OP” fire-and-forget skills (LH 1, FB 4+5); holding onto them for any of their other skills is worse than just using our Attunement skills. Not to mention, the weapons have a cast time and do not break stun/cure condis, so are automatically inferior to other utilities.
-Not to mention, the supposed damage buff to FGS skill 4 only affected the tooltip, and not the actual damage.

Gylphs: Storms seriously needs a cooldown reduction, as most people in PvP are smart enough to stay out of AoE. Elementals besides the Earth elemental need survivability buffs.

Fire Shield (Focus Fire skill 5): does not deserve its long cooldown; the reworked Flame Barrier is better than this skill now. Either reduce its cooldown or give it additional functionality (block? boon strip when struck?)

Phoenix (Scepter Fire skill 3): could use improved pathing; if used on an enemy above/below you, it never returns to you

Shatterstone (Scepter Water skill 2) and Ice Spike (Staff Water skill 2): WAY too easy to walk right out of. Either lower casting animation time or have them do an AoE chill while charging up.

Magnetic Grasp/Leap (Dagger Earth skill 3): Misses easily.

And last but not least:

RIDE THE LIGHTNING (Dagger Air skill 4): PLEASE remove the cooldown penalty! Or at least remove the penalty if it is dodged/evaded/misses (i.e., penalty only applies if used as an escape, NOT as a gap closer.)

(continued from above)

Water: Continues to be a great line. Love Soothing Ice.

Piercing Shards: I’d love to see the damage modifier work in all Attunements. This would promote synergy with Weak Spot and burst builds in general, and also helps promote Water Magic as a DPS line, complementing Bountiful Power.

Aquatic Benevolence: I hate that this is a minor trait. It has absolutely no benefit for the Ele itself, while being a build-defining trait. This, to me, is the essence of a Grandmaster MAJOR trait. Any Ele who doesn’t spec into Healing Power (i.e. the vast majority of Eles) will have absolutely no benefit from this trait. Even Healing Eles will not be able to benefit from the increased healing. So I don’t know why we’re being forced into taking this waste of a trait slot. Better to leave it as a major trait, and reinstating Bountiful Power as the Grandmaster minor.

Powerful Auras: NEEDS to affect auras gained from ALL sources and not just weapon skills; otherwise, Auramancers will never really be a thing.

Arcana: Taking a big nerf with Elemental Attunement becoming a Grandmaster, competing with Evasive Arcana. The Master tier is severely lacking for good options.

Lingering Elements: I’m very torn about this trait. On the one hand, I love how cohesive it makes the class feel: swapping attunements feels very good when you have the lingering Adept minor from the previous attunements still active. On the other hand, this one trait makes all our Adept minor traits fairly crappy to avoid power creep. Besides, the new Flame Barrier doesn’t even work with Lingering Elements. I’d be in favor of buffing/reworking our other minor Adepts and doing away entirely with Lingering Elements, but this may be hard to do at this point.

Elemental Contingency: On-hit traits for the class with the lowest health and armor in the game is a bad, bad idea. This trait also discourages active defense. Rework it entirely.

Final Shielding: The cooldown on this could use shaving.

Arcane Precision: I think this is a joke of a Grandmaster minor trait. Abysmal trigger chance on top of only triggering on crits. Builds that don’t stack Precision will almost never see a benefit from this trait. I suggest upping the trigger chance for any attack (not just crits.)

Other thoughts:

-I really think that a self-only version of Elemental Attunement should be a baseline mechanism of the class, possibly with shorter prot/regen boon durations. The argument Anet made was that they believe both EAs are build-defining traits and therefore need to be mutually exclusive. Yet (not to pick on the Mesmer, but), they made Illusionary Persona (a build-defining trait) inherent to the Mesmer. A self-only Elemental Attunement would in no way be build-defining, and would give the class an in-built active defense mechanism. The Grandmaster version could then extend the duration of the boons conferred, and extend the effect to allies. Alternatively, the self-only version of Elemental Attunement could replace Arcane Precision.

-We need a good trait to replace the Vigorous Scepter and Windborne Dagger traits.

-Please consider making Attunement swap (only) immune to Chill. Chill does not affect weapon swap for any other class. Yes, we have good access to condi cleanses, but with classes like Reaper getting spammable Chill, I am afraid our condi cleanses will simply not be able to keep up.

Thank you for doing this! Copy-pasting my thoughts from another thread:

Fire: This line gets a lot of hate, but I think it’s pretty solid, and has potential. Especially love the changes to Blinding Ashes and One with Fire. My biggest issues with it are the minors:

Flame Barrier: I like the new functionality, but this needs to be refined to work with Lingering Elements.

Sunspot: I’d like to see this have its radius significantly increased, so that non-melee Eles can get some use out of it too.

Air: This line is taking a substantial nerf with Bolt to the Heart becoming a Grandmaster. There are a few problematic traits IMO:

Zephyr’s Speed: Redundant. With Eles’ ease of access to Swiftness and the ubiquity of Signet of Air (which will undoubtedly be used more due to how awesome Earth Magic now is,) this trait is a waste of a minor. Needs to be reworked, and needs to play well with Lingering Elements.

Ferocious Winds: This trait is very pointless, and IMO one of the worst traits in the entire game. An Ele specializing in Healing will hardly ever need Ferocity. What combination would such an Ele even use? There is no Healing Power/Precision/Ferocity combination, and even if this existed, it’s not like heals can crit (although IMO that’d be awesome.)

Inscription: Glyphs granting a boon on use is a mediocre effect on a class that has decent access to boons already. If it were changed to Glyphs remove a condition on use (including the Elemental command skills,) I think it would go a long way towards making Gylphs usable; however, even this is problematic because Glyphs are meant to be used often, while you would typically want to save condi cleanses. This trait still needs a bit of refining either way IMO.

Bolt to the Heart: To compensate for being moved to Grandmaster level, I think the health threshold should be 50%. This would make it the Ele version of Executioner, and would be balanced by the fact that you can’t also take Fresh Air anymore.

Earth: This line is amazing now! Besides the fact that I hate Diamond Skin, I only have one minor suggestion:

Rock Solid: This is a great trait, but I’d like it to grant more than 1 stack of stability for just the Ele. 2 is probably best.
(continued)

(continued from above)

Water: Continues to be a great line. Love Soothing Ice.

Piercing Shards: I’d love to see the damage modifier work in all Attunements. This would promote synergy with Weak Spot and burst builds in general, and also helps promote Water Magic as a DPS line, complementing Bountiful Power.

Aquatic Benevolence: I hate that this is a minor trait. It has absolutely no benefit for the Ele itself, while being a build-defining trait. This, to me, is the essence of a Grandmaster MAJOR trait. Any Ele who doesn’t spec into Healing Power (i.e. the vast majority of Eles) will have absolutely no benefit from this trait. Even Healing Eles will not be able to benefit from the increased healing. So I don’t know why we’re being forced into taking this waste of a trait slot. Better to leave it as a major trait, and reinstating Bountiful Power as the Grandmaster minor.

Powerful Auras: NEEDS to affect auras gained from ALL sources and not just weapon skills; otherwise, Auramancers will never really be a thing.

Arcana: Taking a big nerf with Elemental Attunement becoming a Grandmaster, competing with Evasive Arcana. The Master tier is severely lacking for good options.

Lingering Elements: I’m very torn about this trait. On the one hand, I love how cohesive it makes the class feel: swapping attunements feels very good when you have the lingering Adept minor from the previous attunements still active. On the other hand, this one trait makes all our Adept minor traits fairly crappy to avoid power creep. Besides, the new Flame Barrier doesn’t even work with Lingering Elements. I’d be in favor of buffing/reworking our other minor Adepts and doing away entirely with Lingering Elements.

Elemental Contingency: On-hit traits for the class with the lowest health and armor in the game is a bad, bad idea. This trait also discourages active defense. Rework it entirely.

Final Shielding: The cooldown on this could use shaving.

Arcane Precision: I think this is a joke of a Grandmaster minor trait. Abysmal trigger chance on top of only triggering on crits. Builds that don’t stack Precision will almost never see a benefit from this trait. I suggest upping the trigger chance for any attack (not just crits.)

Other thoughts:

-I really think that a self-only version of Elemental Attunement should be a baseline mechanism of the class, possibly with shorter prot/regen boon durations. The argument Anet made was that they believe both EAs are build-defining traits and therefore need to be mutually exclusive. Yet (not to pick on the Mesmer, but), they made Illusionary Persona (a build-defining trait) inherent to the Mesmer. A self-only Elemental Attunement would in no way be build-defining, and would gives the class an in-built active defense mechanism. The Grandmaster version could then extend the duration of the boons conferred, and extend the effect to allies. Alternatively, the self-only version of Elemental Attunement could replace Arcane Precision.

-We need a good trait to replace the Vigorous Scepter and Windborne Dagger traits.

My thoughts:

Fire: This line gets a lot of hate, but I think it’s pretty solid, and has potential. Especially love the changes to Blinding Ashes and One with Fire. My biggest issues with it are the minors:

Flame Barrier: I like the new functionality, but this needs to be refined to work with Lingering Elements.

Sunspot: I’d like to see this have its radius significantly increased, so that non-melee Eles can get some use out of it too.

Air: This line is taking a substantial nerf with Bolt to the Heart becoming a Grandmaster. There are a few problematic traits IMO:

Zephyr’s Speed: Redundant. With Eles’ ease of access to Swiftness and the ubiquity of Signet of Air (which will undoubtedly be used more due to how awesome Earth Magic now is,) this trait is a waste of a minor. Needs to be reworked, and needs to play well with Lingering Elements.

Ferocious Winds: This trait is very pointless, and IMO one of the worst traits in the entire game. An Ele specializing in Healing will hardly ever need Ferocity. What combination would such an Ele even use? There is no Healing Power/Precision/Ferocity combination, and even if this existed, it’s not like heals can crit (although IMO that’d be awesome.)

Inscription: Glyphs granting a boon on use is a mediocre effect on a class that has decent access to boons already. If it were changed to Glyphs remove a condition on use (including the Elemental command skills,) I think it would go a long way towards making Gylphs usable; however, even this is problematic because Glyphs are meant to be used often, while you would typically want to save condi cleanses. This trait still needs a bit of refining either way IMO.

Bolt to the Heart: To compensate for being moved to Grandmaster level, I think the health threshold should be 50%. This would make it the Ele version of Executioner, and would be balanced by the fact that you can’t also take Fresh Air anymore.

Earth: This line is amazing now! Besides the fact that I hate Diamond Skin, I only have one minor suggestion:

Rock Solid: This is a great trait, but I’d like it to grant more than 1 stack of stability for just the Ele. 2 is probably best.

(continued)

By taking Glyphs, you are sacrificing condition removal and stun breaks. As long as Glyphs don’t provide at least minor condi removal/stun breaks, they will always be situational and inferior to Cantrips.

I absolutely hate Elemental Power because its stun break functionality is so counterintuitive to its condition application functionality (saving the skill versus using it often.) That said, I don’t know which other Glyph could get a more intuitive stun break functionality.

-Making Glyphs (except Elemental Harmony and Renewal) instant-cast would go a long way towards making them viable IMO.
-If Inscription also made Glyphs remove a condition, that would be AMAZING. But I think it’d be a little OP… maybe if Inscription were changed to remove a condition per Gylph use instead of applying a boon. In fact, my dream change to this trait would be:

Inscription: Reduces Gylph recharge. Glyphs you cast remove one condition. In addition, Glyphs you cast remove a specific condition depending on your Attunement:
Fire: removes Chilled
Air: removes Immobilize
Earth: removes Poison
Water: removes Burning

-This is a wacky suggestion, and obviously OP, but I’m going to lay it out anyway. In GW1, Gylphs were used to enhance the next spell(s) you were going to cast. I think it’d be awesome if some of the Glyphs had an additional function that would affect your current Attunement, or the next spell you cast. For example:

Glyph of Renewal could instantly recharge the next weapon skill you use.

Glyph of Elemental Power could give you bonus Condition Damage for your next weapon skill.

Gylph of Elementals, being an Elite, could recharge your Attunements when used.

The possibilities would be endless :p

Yes. I absolutely resent having a trait forced onto me that does zilch for me, especially a Grandmaster trait.

Also, AB is what I’d consider a build defining trait. Aren’t those supposed to be Major traits?

I’d much rather have them put Bountiful Power back into the Minor slot.

Michal.4513:

Glenstorm.4059:

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Its rly bad to compare IP to Eva and Attument.. both EVA and Attuemnt have great AoE Wide effect, and are supperior to IP.

Im sure on 100% thats is pure PVP change. So yea, Eva and attument higly oversahdow IP in PVP, so thats why they did it. If you dont see why, its bcos you dont care about balance.

With new Traits when you can go 6Earth/6Water/6Arcane you dont need both of them. You dont need cond clear bcos of Diamond skin, and you dont need 3s protect bcos you can tank whole party in Earth attument. Stop cry about old builds, start think how you can abuse new one.

…which is why I’m asking for a non-AoE version of EA to be made baseline.

IP, if you have good positioning, can also have powerful AoE effects. I’d argue that its AoE effects can be just as impactful than anything Elemental Attunement can achieve (depending on the situation, AoE confusion/daze is as effective as a few seconds of prot or regen.)

IP is also a build-defining Grandmaster (Shatter.) Anet’s reasoning for making us choose between EAs is because apparently they’re both build-defining, yet they make IP a baseline functionality.

Pigeonholing us into Earth is lame, because the traits that “make up” for the lack of Elemental Attunement are passive and boring. Diamond Skin should just not exist. And I’d rather not be forced to camp Earth Attunement to “tank whole party” with Stone Heart, as attunement switching is supposed to be a core mechanic of the class.

With Elemental Attunement being moved up to Grandmaster (sob), there is a serious lack of good traits in the Master slot.

Elemental Contingency is a joke. I don’t want to be hit as the profession with the lowest health and armor.

Arcane Resurrection is way too situational and hampered by the fact that the aura is applied to the Ele after, not during resurrection.

Final Shielding is the only semi-decent option.

How about giving us a self-only version of Elemental Attunement as a Master trait? My dream would be to have this as a baseline feature of the class, but I’ll take it as a Master trait. The GM trait can then be changed to make it affect allies.

I don’t understand how the devs can make Illusionary Persona and Illusionary Elasticity baseline for mesmers, but force us to choose between the EAs.

PLEASE, PLEASE make a self-only version of Elemental Attunement a baseline functionality for us, and convert the GM version to extend the effect to allies.

Ferocious Winds looks absolutely useless to me. I don’t see any builds going Precision-heavy (probably Zerker and, if you’re feeling adventurous, something to do with triggering condis on crit) having anything to do with Healing. IMO, it’d be better to scrap that trait entirely and putting in something useful, like condi removal on crit for instance.

With Frost Bow and Lightning Hammer getting nerfed, why bother equipping them at all?

Edit: especially over Cantrips and Signets.

The 6-rune bonus of Runes of the Undead (% toughness becomes condition damage) does not work when skills give you bonus Toughness.

For example, there is no bonus condition damage when equipping Signet of Earth or when casting Rock Barrier (which both give bonus Toughness.)

I can interact with it, but each note is held down for like 5 seconds despite me not holding down the button.

It sucks

The Fiery Greatsword skill 4 (Fiery Rush) hits for less than half of what its tooltip states. The ending hit was supposed to be buffed a few months ago to compensate for the reduction of the flame wall damage, but it seems like only the tooltip was updated, not the actual damage.

Seriously, test it out on a dummy in Heart of the Mists…you hit for less than half the tooltip damage.

Can we please get a fix for this?

I too think it’s gonna be mainhand sword. Guns just don’t match the elementalist theme. Personally, I hope it’s greatsword, but since we already have the elite I think that’s not gonna happen.

Torch would be lazy as heck though…I would rage. It’s not like we don’t have enough ways to set things on fire already :p

While playing on the red team in a hotjoin match on Legacy of the Foefire, I spawned in the blue base….much to the surprise of the two opposing players who spawned with me, and myself. I was stuck there too, since I couldn’t exit the blue team portals.

Asking around in Heart of the Mists, it seems like others have experienced this bug too. Surprised it hasn’t been posted in this forum yet.

My very first character in GW1 was a Ranger named Glenstorm Wolfsbane (I know, kinda cringey, but I was like 13 when I thought it up.) I envisioned that my main in GW2 would be a direct descendant of my GW1 Ranger who eventually settled in the little Krytan village of Hakewood.

Thus, my Ele in GW2 came to be named Glen Hakewood as a tribute to my first character.

Bumping. Hopefully this gets noticed and fixed!