Guild Wars 2

Darkinub.6781:

hi im a infrequent ele player (playing gw2 on and off) but from playing ele I was just wondering
this trait -> elemental attunement
When attuning to an element, you and all nearby allies gain:
Fire: might
Water: regeneration
Air: swiftness
Earth: protection

I was wondering why this trait wasn’t naturally part of our class mechanic (like automatically have it without having to trait to get this)

I mean if this became a part of our class mechanic, wouldn’t this encourage attunement swapping more for newer players? (I mean when I first started a year ago I didn’t really find a drive to switch to the different elements til later levels)
But obviously now I understand that we are heavily reliant on changing attunements to perform to normal standards

I feel that if this passively became part of our attunement swap
then that would clear up a free adept slot for something else. (i just feel this trait should have been part of our class mechanic making it more beneficial than just another weapon swap)

+1 and bump!

Also make lingering elements part of the 1 point arcana trait and replace lingering elements with renewing stamina. These three changes alone would provide a whole new world of possibilities for the elementalist.

For the love of all that is holy, +1 this post so Anet gets the idea

Aedrion.6483:

Might aswell overhaul the whole game. Impossible to implement, man, and would also make 80% of the playerbase rage in furious anger xD

perhaps… I would at least like to see more skill shots on the classes which are already considered difficult to master.

Whos with me? I’d love to see the game take more skill to play on every class. IMO it would be amazing if targeting an opponent became completely irrelevant and skill shots took over.

Skillshot definition- A skillshot may be considered a Colliding skillshot if it stops and affects only the first target in its path, a Pass-through skillshot if it continues on its trajectory regardless of the targets it passes through (Some colliding skillshots have secondary area of effects that occur once they hit a target.), or a Boomerang skillshot if when thrown, will go a distance and return back to the player.

Azure Fang.8605:

The ferocity change was necessary; crit builds were really out of control (they still are). Now crit damage scales with level, just as every other stat in the game. As it stands, at 80, 15 ferocity = 1% crit damage. As for precision, it’s algorithmically determined to avoid escalation. All of this information is readily available on the wiki; if you can come here and complain that you don’t know how something works, you can just as easily go there and educate yourself. Personally, crit damage needs ANOTHER balance pass to be put on the same system as precision. And you’re right: Berserkers aren’t precise. Remove precision from zerk and add toughness and the term sounds right on gear. This whole thing sounds like a zerker munchkin complaint.

The only thing here I can agree with is the town clothes change. But there’s already a thread for that.

I may be wrong but I believe instead of an item saying it gives 15 ferocity he just wants the item to say 1% crit damage.

sinzer.4018:

I build exclusively for power. I don’t have much of an issue, i kill most people i fight. That may be down to my playtime on my main though (1k hrs). I’ve never found it unfun to fight condis. It never occured to me that it could be infuriating to. Fighting against someone that relies heavily on stealth is tedious but condis? lol. /cleanse

Just wait until you run into 2+ heavy condi spam necros who are well coordinated. THAT is FUN.

Cygnus.6903:

frans.8092:

And yes, Confusion and, to a lesser extent, Torment are ‘fun’ conditions in the sense that they give you a choice.

Like the choice a person on top of a 70-storey building that’s on fire has?

LOL. Anyway, even though I don’t play a whole lot of condition builds, I do think if condition damage get nerfed at all, there should be some form of compensation, more direct damage? Longer durations?

TyPin.9860:

Can this thread please be merged with all the other tell tales threads about condition damage? I hear the same false arguments against condition damage again and again and also from the same few people (say “hi” to Dee Jay).

I make it short:

• Condition damage is strongest in small scale fights against players, who do not understand how to counter the mechanic (much like Mesmer illusions).
• reason for that is, that the number of conditions seem overwhelming, while the actual full damage of the condition appears after a time, making it hard to properly estimate cause and effect.

As for it being episodical and unstructured arguments that are being brought up against conditions I will answer with the same level of evidence:

I play mostly power builds and ripp most of the condition damage build users apart in sPvP and WvW roaming. Conclusion: Condition Damage is too weak and needs buffing…

Looks like you play a mesmer, necro and thief mainly? Of course you’re good at fighting against condition builds. I know thief and mesmer don’t have the best capability at removing condis but stealth is a great counter if you use it at the right time.

There is only one condition in this game that truly bothers me… Confusion >.<
the description for this condition should read. “Go friken kill your self, nub”.

Also, even though direct damage can potentially bust out more sustain, I’d rather fight two classes who are a dd build opposed to one class spamming uber condition damage. regardless I’m personally quite glad direct damage got a slight nerf, now it should be time to balance conditions (less condition spam).

I think the best course of action would be to give all players an immunity timer after cleansing or eating the full duration of a particular condition. Dark Age of Camelot is a good example when it comes to immunity timers.

Immunity timers should respectfully prevent:
-Chain stunning
-Immobilize spam
-Daze Spam
-Knock down/Launch/Knock back spam
-Fear spam

This is my personal ranking system, when it comes to playing spvp. 1st tier being the hardest to play, last tier being the easiest. This is a generalized list.

Tier 1
-Ele
-Thief
-Engy

Tier 2
Mesmer
Necro

Tier 4
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

play styles with the highest skill cap IMO are Staff ele and Sword/dagger Thief.

coglin.1867:

Cygnus.6903:

Regarding engineer though, you have to differ between the condibunker/decap engie and the power engie. The first two are IMO quite easy to learn, a bit harder to master. you will start out rather weak, but when you learn the ropes just a little, you will be beating people that are essentially more skilled. After mastering it, you will be unstoppable, OP even.
Not so much for the Power engineer. Not being able to invest so much into defensive stats will make your engie go from unkillable to difficult to survive. I also feel that the power engie has to be very accurate, or you won’t do significant damage at all. Unlike thief for instance, who has the ability to keep up high burst at all time even if he misses a portion of it (disregarding survival, off course).

Couldn’t disagree more. All of the engineers ranked in the top 100 run power. As a power (soldiers) engineer who demolishes condi bunkers and CC locks the condi decaps, I think you have to get out of the limited grouping you have been playing with.

Part of the problem is this complete myth that professions like the engineer or necromancer are so strong with conditions and are lesser with power. yet in recent complaint threads about conditions, a vast many players posted video comparisons along side the math of damage comparison. Showing that in the case of the soldier geared necro, they will have the capability to deal out more damage and faster in soldiers gear. Similarly they have shown congruent results with the soldiers gear engineer. Just because the band wagoners adhere to what they read someone once, was OP, and flock to it, does not make it the best. Just because every body is doing it, doesn’t mean it is optimal, it simply means everyone herded like sheep to it.

While direct damage may potentially serve a higher damage sustain on a necro/engy, a condi build does seem to be a tad more effective most of the time. This is because you can unload conditions as a necro/engy to such a great extent, all you have to do after you have lit up your target is purely play defensively. I’d assume most of the top ranked players use power because conditions can be hard countered, and most good teams will have great condi clearing methods for their team.

Swim.6830:

Buzzcrave.6197:

No. Skill is fine as it is.

Yeah no, when a skill does less damage than an auto attack it’s not fine…

Agreed, the fire shield provided from the skill when used in a fire field isn’t enough compensation. If the leap was quicker, less broken and the leap hit as hard as impales direct damage(Earth auto attack) I’d be satisfied.
unfortunately it seems like every leap skill across all classes is slightly broken

Bump, I feel it is necessary for the GW2 staff to see this.

I have greatly truncated the list of skills and abilities so that the ones I feel need the most attention will be seen.

Elementalist

Churning Earth- make the earth churn, crippling nearby foes before unleashing a seismic wave that damages and bleeds them.

Cast time: 3.25 seconds
Base damage: 1,092
Bleeding: 8 stacks/ 8 seconds base duration
Radius: 360
Combo Finisher: Blast
Recast: 30s

I believe the skill should either be changed to have the option to be detonated between 1 and 3.25 seconds(Damage scales accordingly) or the skill should be completely replaced with a defensive ability. A 3.25 second cast while rooted in place, unable to do anything is far too much time potentially wasted.

Magnetic Grasp- Immobilize your Foe, following up with magnetic leap.

This skill misses far too often, the projectile travels much too slow. I find this skill missing even when I cast it right in front of someone who hasn’t even dodged. I suggest adding a telegraph which allows you to aim the projectile and drastically increase the velocity.

IMPALE- Spear your foes with a stone spike
Damage: 168
Cast time: .75s
Bleeding: 1 stack/8 seconds duration
Range: 300

This skill would have much more potential if the range was just slightly increased.

VAPOR BLADE- Cast a Vapor Blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.
Cast time: .5s
Damage: 111
Range: 600
Condition: Vulnerability/6s duration

This is one of the worst auto attacks I’ve ever seen, it wouldn’t be as bad if this skill had 900 range, and the projectile wasn’t so easy to avoid. You can literally strafe to the side to avoid this attack.

FlAME WALL-
Damage:49
Condition: Burning 1s
Duration: 8s
Range:900
Combo field: Fire
Cast time: .75s

Flame wall is a skill which is very notorious for being quite ineffective. My advice is to change the fire wall into a fire pit, making it sort of like the warriors adrenaline skill(Combustive Shot) with the long bow.

Flame barrier – You have a 20% chance to cause burning when ever a foe attacks you in melee. Only works in Fire Attunement.
(An elementalist doesn’t stay in fire attunement long enough to really benefit from this. Lingering elements doesn’t work with this.)

One With Fire – Flame barriers chance to proc goes up the longer you are attuned to fire.
(A trait enhancing an already bad trait… and only very slowly enhancing it while camping fire attunement.)

Zephyr’s speed – Move faster while attuned to air (10%).
(Not noticable at all with almost any Ele build, we have near perma swiftness.)

Zypher’s Focus -Your endurance recovers 100% faster while channeling spells.
(Does not stack with vigor. We have permanent vigor. Useless)

Soothing Winds – Gain healing power = to 7% of your precision.
(other adept traits in air provide much better return)

Windbourne Dagger – Run 15% faster with a dagger in main hand, 10% faster with a dagger in offhand.
(Useless in most scenarios, d/d set ups usually have permanent swiftness, turn this trait into some form of super speed!)

Vigorous Scepter – Endurance recharges 50% faster when wielding a scepter.
(useless, does not stack with vigor)

Inscription – Gain a boon depending on your attunement when you use a glyph.
(Only the elite glyph usually finds a spot in spvp)

Weak spot – 60% chance to inflict 1 stack of vulnerability on crit (6 second duration)
(This GM minor trait provides very little return, the duration is too low IMO)

Enduring damage – Gain 10% damage when your endurance is full.
(The elementalist needs to stay evasive, don’t give us traits which makes us not want to be evasive)

PERSISTING FLAMES – Blast finishers you use in fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last 2 seconds longer.
(Not worth the 30 point investment into fire trait line, I can basically accomplish the same thing with 10 in air)

Pyromancer’s Puissance – Fire skills grant might.(base duration 10 seconds)
(Not worth the 30 point investment into Fire, the fire trait line is pretty unrewarding when it comes to pvp)

Blinding Ashes- Blind foes when you burn them. (5s ICD)
(Global CD ruins this trait, needs a CD per target instead)

TEMPEST DEFENSE- Apply shocking aura when disabled (ICD 25s) +20% damage when target is stunned.
(This would be good if this trait also increased the duration of stuns by 1 second so you could actually benefit from the extra damage when disabling a target)

LIGHTNING ROD- When you interrupt a foe hit them with a lightning bold and apply 4 seconds of weakness.
(We are not a great interrupt class)

Lets collect your guys thoughts on how to improve GW2 pvp, here is a list of things I’ve come up with.

COMBAT

Combat should be interesting, look flashy and require thought process. When an ability is executed it should not look like a “normal” attack, a specific ability should stand out from the rest and serve a unique purpose compared to the rest of a classes skillset. While I feel guild wars 2 does this pretty well to some extent, there are a few abilities that just aren’t standing out from the rest IMO.

BALANCE

This can be considered apart of combat to some extent. Balance means each player has a fair shot at winning, when it comes to the execution of abilities alone. There is the exception of skill potentially being a determinant of balance should a player have the potential to exploit their skills more than intended. This is one thing I feel GW2 needs to focus more on, they have a GREAT pvp system but the lack of balance is hindering the potential of this game

Things to consider when looking into class balance:
-1v1 combat
-small group vs small group combat
-group vs group combat
-class + class synergy
-class vs class

COUNTER PLAY

This is THE most important subject of this post imo!. Counter play means that a skilled player can dominate an incompetent player. In GW2, skills with a .75s cast time or greater provide a large enough time frame which allow you to dodge and then prevent damage taken, as long as you see the attack coming. IMO Skills in this game with large burst and skills with great returns should always take at least .75s or longer to complete, they should also have nice vivid animations which are dead giveaways so that counterplay may exist. Most abilities which provide a disabling effect (knockdown, fear, stun, daze, launch) should usually take at least .75 seconds to cast and have a good indication of when they are cast so they may be countered.

UTILITY

The utility you can bring into a fight means everything. IMO the more options the better. Since some players may be overwhelmed by many skills its good to have some classes that don’t have as many skills. One of the best things guild wars 2 has done IMO, was invent classes like the Engineer, Elementalist, Necromancer, whom have many options when it comes to utility.

SKILL CAP

Skill cap does intertwine with counter play to an extent. A high skill cap means keeping loyal pvp players around for a long time. It means not being able to master a class after a few days or even months of playing it. This may sounds a tad redundant, but in order for a game to take skill, skill shots should play a big role in the game. I’m talking about abilities which you must aim, opposed to selecting a target and then hitting a button. Skills which allow you to block should require precise timing. Guild wars 2 dodge system is a great example of this, the blocking system? Not quite so much.

Minor GM traits

WEAK SPOT – 60% chance to inflict 1 stack of vulnerability on crit (6 second duration)
(This trait only provides 3 to 4% damage on average, I find many GM Minor traits that hold little value like this one across all classes, this should change IMO, it doesn’t make much sense that our Minor master traits on Ele are so much more powerful than our GM Minor traits)

ENDURING DAMAGE – Gain 10% damage when your endurance is full.
(The elementalist is all about being evasive, this trait should be, “when endurance is NOT full” IMHO)

ARCANE PRECISION – Skills have a 10% chance to inflict conditions on critical hits
FIRE: Burning 1.2seconds(base duration)
AIR: Weakness 3.5seconds(base duration)
EARTH: Bleeding 6seconds(base duration)
WATER: Vulnerability 12seconds(base duration)
(This skill wouldn’t be bad if the chance to apply these conditions wasn’t so darn low)
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

GM traits

PERSISTING FLAMES – Blast finishers you use in fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last 2 seconds longer.
(compared to other potential GM traits in other lines, this trait doesn’t seem to compensate)

Pyromancer’s Puissance – Fire skills grant might.(base duration 10 seconds)
(Might is already a fairly easy thing for an elementalist to stack with adept trait/sigil/rune sets in mind. Its also a shame this trait forces you to stay in one attunement to benefit from it)

BLINDING ASHES- Blind foes when you burn them. (5s ICD)
(Remove the global cooldown and replace it with a cooldown per target. The global cool down makes this trait non GM worthy)

TEMPEST DEFENSE- Apply shocking aura when disabled (ICD 25s) +20% damage when target is stunned.
(This trait is okay to an extent but I see a few problems with this trait, 1.) it doesn’t work outside of melee(ish) range, there for it doesn’t provide much benefit when being CC’d from a distance. I also believe this trait should boost the duration of stun for elementalist, making shocking aura a 2 second stun opposed to 1)

LIGHTNING ROD- When you interrupt a foe hit them with a lightning bold and apply 4 seconds of weakness.
(its too easy to obtain the same results with fresh air + lightning touch/GoEP, which also provide better return)

WRITTEN IN STONE- Maintain passive effects of signets after using them.
(This trait it self isn’t bad, but a good majority of signets need a revamp for this trait to be more worthy)

POWERFUL AURA- Aura’s are applied to nearby allies.
(This trait is great for parties but most elementalists wont pick it for selfish reasons, I believe the trait should increase the duration of auras as well so that this trait will see more light)

ELEMENTAL SURGE- Based on your current attunement, arcane skills cause a condition.
Fire: Burning 5s
Air: blind 5s
Earth: Immobilize 1s
Water: Chill 3s
(I don’t find this skill worthy of picking over evasive arcana, ever. You get much more blinds out of EA, gain a heal with good uptime, much more burning out of EA, you get the idea)

ELEMENTAL CONTINGENCY- Gain a boon when you are struck, based on your current attunement. (Global ICD across all boons (10s))
Fire: Retaliation kitten
Water: Fury 6.5s
Air: protection 3.25s
Earth: vigor 3.75s

(This trait is unfortunately the worst GM trait I’ve ever seen on this class and every elementalist will easily agree with me, the main reason it is so bad is because of that global cooldown across all boons, remove that global cooldown, replace this trait with our current Minor GM trait in the Arcana, Air or Earth line, and this trait will start to shine)

Master Traits

BURNING FIRE – When you have 3 or more conditions, use cleansing fire automatically.(40s ICD)
(This trait is not terrible, but I do feel like a 40s cd is too long, 25s would be much more appropriate IMO)

PYROMANCER’S ALACRITY – Reduce the recharge of fire attunement skills by 20%.
(When considering the enhancement of potential attunement rotation with this trait in mind, it doesn’t seem to provide enough returns, if the trait was slightly buffed to have a delve of ~33% then this trait would provide a fair return)

Here’s a list of what 33% reduction to fire attunement skills could do

-burning speed (10 seconds, can now always use immediately when going back into fire attunement, opposed to having to wait a few seconds)
-Phoenix(13s CD, potentially used every time the elementalist attunes to fire)
-Burning retreat(13s CD, potentially used every time the elementalist attunes to fire)
-meteor Shower(20s CD, Potentially used every 1-2 rotations into fire attunement)
-Fire Grab (~30s CD, Potentially used every 2-3 rotations into fire attunement)
-drake’s breath (~3s CD means using this skill quite often)
-Dragon’s tooth (Same thing as drake’s breath)

FIRE’S EMBRACE – When you activate a Signet or Arcane skill, gain fire shield.
(Fire shield is decent, but it doesn’t seem to make this trait worthy of picking IMO)

ONE WITH FIRE – Flame barriers chance to proc goes up the longer you are attuned to fire.
(This trait really isn’t making Flame barrier any more appealing since an elementalist never wants to camp an attunement)

ARCANE LIGHTNING – For a short time gain ferocity after using an arcane skill. Duration:15s Ferocity:150(10%)
(This trait is okay, but other trait choices make this trait not viable)

INSCRIPTION – Gain a boon depending on your attunement when you use a glyph.
(Since most glyphs are not viable in spvp/wvw, this trait doesn’t get much attention)

AEROMANCER’S ALACRITY- Air skills recharge 20% faster.
(This trait is useful, but this trait also directly competes with air training, perhaps the two could get fused together)

STRENGTH IN STONE- gain 10% condition damage based on your toughness.
(This trait would be nice if elementalists had a tad bit better condition sustain, preferably with bleeding)

GEOMANCER’S ALACRITY – Reduce recharge of earth spells by 20%,
(This trait just simply seems to be lacking, its not as good of a choice as other master earth traits, perhaps geomancer’s freedom should be fused into this trait)

AQUAMANCER’S ALACRITY – Water attunement skills recharge 20% faster.
(other master traits triumph over this traits potential)

STOP DROP AND ROLL: Remove fire and chill conditions when dodging (10s ICD)
(This trait can be decent but most of the time cleansing wave is going to hold more value over this trait, perhaps a cleansing of confusion could also be added? Since confusion is an elementalists arch enemy)

ARCANE RETRIBUTION- Gain arcane Power after you drop below the HP threshold. (75%)
(Elemental attunement dominates all other Arcane Master traits)

ARCANE ENERGY – Arcane skills grant 25 endurance when used.
(Elemental attunement dominates all other Arcane Master traits)

ONE WITH AIR – Gain super speed when attuning to air (1.5s)
(With Fresh Air in mind, this trait is decent at most, allow super speed to work while strafing from side to side and increase the duration ever so slightly, this will then become a trait people can really start to appreciate)

OBSIDIAN FOCUS -Gain +290 toughness when channeling a skill.
(This trait doesn’t provide as great of a bonus as elemental shielding can, I believe this trait would be much better off if it also provided a minor amount of stability, this trait would then not conflict with elemental shielding)

SHARD OF ICE – Arcane and signet skills cause vulnerability when activated. (3stacks)
(The main problem with this trait is the lack of uptime on arcane and signet skills IMO, this trait just doesn’t provide enough return opposed to other potential water adept traits)

WINDBOURNE DAGGER – Run 15% faster with a dagger in main hand, 10% faster with a dagger in offhand.
(While dual wielding daggers, you usually have a pretty good uptime on swiftness so this trait becomes irrelevant, I’d love to see some form of super speed added to this trait)

FINAL SHIELDING – Create an Arcane Shield when your health drops below the threshold (25%).
(This trait isn’t really that bad, but renewing stamina tops this trait by far when it comes to providing defense)

VIGOROUS SCEPTER – Endurance recharges 50% faster when wielding a scepter.
(This trait doesn’t stack with vigor, renewing stamina tops this trait by far)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Minor Master Traits

SUNSPOT – Inflict aoe damage at your location when attuning to fire. Base dmg: 122, Radius: 180
(This trait is in an okay spot, it would be nice if it provided a little bit better return, perhaps a small time frame of burning could be added)

LINGERING ELEMENTS- maintains adept traits for 5 seconds after leaving the attunement.
(Since this skill does only effect adept traits, I feel fusing this trait into the 1 point trait in arcana would make more sense, replacing the 3 point trait with renewing stamina would make much more sense)

Minor Adept Traits

FLAME BARRIER – You have a 20% chance to cause burning when ever a foe attacks you in melee. Only works in Fire Attunement.
(An elementalist doesn’t stay in fire attunement for long enough to really benefit from this trait)

ZEPHYR’S SPEED – Move faster while attuned to air (10%).
(This skill almost provides no benefit to an elementalist, this class has a good uptime on swiftness.)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Adept Traits

EMBER’s MIGHT – Burning last 33% longer.
(other traits possess much better return, burning is easy enough to maintain for most
elementalist builds.)

ZYPHER’S FOCUS -Your endurance recovers 100% faster while channeling spells.
(This trait currently holds no value when considering vigor is a fairly easy boon for the elementalist to obtain)

QUICK GLYPHS – Glyphs recharge 20% faster.
(A a good majority of glyphs don’t find there way in a pvp/wvw build, I find this unfortunate because I think running around with two pets would be pretty cool)

SOOTHING WINDS – Gain healing power = to 7% of your precision.
(Does not provide enough return opposed to other adapt traits)

This is an attempt to bring all traits, weapons and utility skills into consideration when forming a build for the elementalist in SPvP.

The current stats of a skill/trait will be listed, followed by an explanation of why I feel the trait/skill is lacking

WEAPON SKILLS

CHURNING EARTH-
Cast time: 3.25 seconds
Base damage: 1,092
Condition: Bleed, 8 stacks/8s base duration
Radius: 360
Combo Finisher: Blast
Recast: 30s
(I believe the skill should either be changed to have the option to be detonated between 1 and 3.25 seconds(Damage scales accordingly) or the skill should be completely replaced with a defensive ability. When your are spotted casting this ability, its far too easy to escape the blast by either walking out of its distance or dodging the blast, it also provides a good chunk of time to freely beat on the elementalist. A good player who notices this skill being cast will not get hit by the blast)

MAGNETIC GRASP- Immobilize your Foe, following up with magnetic leap.
Range: 900
Cast time: .5s
Damage: 34
Conditions: Immobilize 2s
Recast: 12s
(The projectile from this skill seems to miss more often than it probably should, this is only a minor problem though)

MAGNETIC LEAP: Pull your self to your foe whom is magnetically grasped and perform a magnetic leap.
damage: 101
Combo finisher: Leap
Range: 900
(The leap takes slightly too long imo, it also will occasionally bug out and send you in a different direction than your foe whom you have targeted. The damage also seems a tad low(Less damage than an auto attack). Perhaps the skill could get a fix, provide a faster leap forward and maybe apply a condition? Torment perhaps?)

IMPALE- Spear your foes with a stone spike
Damage: 168
Cast time: .75s
Bleeding: 1 stack/8 seconds duration
Range: 300
(This skill has some potential but for a good majority of the time there is little to no reason to use this ability, it would be nice if the range was slightly increased so it could be better used for kiting purposes)

VAPOR BLADE- Cast a Vapor Blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.
Cast time: .5s
Damage: 111
Range: 600
Condition: Vulnerability/6s duration
(This skill does next to no damage, and the vulnerability stacking potential from this ability doesn’t even out the loss in potential damage sustain, it would be nice if this skills range was slightly boosted and the projectile speed was increased enough so that a dodge/block would be mandatory if you wished to evade this skill, opposed to strafing, the main hand dagger weapon could then have a way of sustaining minor dps when VSing an opponent who kites)

ICE SPIKE -
Cast time: 1s
Damage: 554
Condition: Vulnerability (5 stacks)
Radius: 240
Recast:4s
Range:1200
(This skill takes 1 second to cast and then it takes ~2.25seconds to land, after the ice spike has been cast it should either take no more than .75 seconds before it lands or have no telegraph indicating it was casted. If this change has been made then the Ice spike animation should also be slightly moved closer to the ground so people can have a better indication of it being casted.)

FlAME WALL-
Damage:49
Condition: Burning 1s
Duration: 8s
Range:900
Combo field: Fire
Cast time: .75s
(Flame wall is a skill which is very notorious for being quite ineffective. Other than to use as a blast finisher, this skill provides very little return sinces its quite easy to avoid, regardless of this when you do get hit by this skill it does very little. My advice is to change the fire wall into a fire pit, making it sort of like the warriors adrenaline skill(Combustive Shot) with the long bow.)

FIRE SHIELD- Envelope your self in a Fire shield
Condition: Burning 1s (pet hit you take)
Boon: 1 Might stack (per hit you take) (ICD 1s per attacker)
Duration: 5s
Recast:40s
Changes: For what this skill does, 40seconds is much too long of a cooldown, I advise increasing the duration to
~7 seconds and lowering reuse timer to ~20s.

DRAGON’S TOOTH:
Cast time: 1s
Damage:756
condition: Burning (3s)
Radius: 180
Combo finisher: Blast
Range: 900
(This skill takes far to long to land once its summoned in the air. My suggestion is to remove the telegraph indicator and allow the skill to be summoned at a specific location with the assistance of a ground targeted telegraph. Make the dragon tooth float much higher in the air so the opponent must look up if they want to see the location it lingers in.)

too be honest runes of the pirate may be even better than this set if your class is already good at holding up might stacks. that parrot hits insanely hard, and you still get some might duration.

Rayti.6531:

I’m sure this video has been shared several times all over the place. But it shows that – given some coordinated play – you can have lots of fun with Churning Earth in WvW.

http://youtu.be/HzBV9X6Z07M

Also when you are playing solo, you can land this skill nicely. All you have to do is use your environment so the opponent does not see the cast animation until it’s too late. When you analyise the maps you are playing on, there are some nice spots where you can start a cast unnoticed and lightning flash to you target easily.

However, I would really like a change like the one described above (DMG depending on how long you cast it). If I’m not totally mistaken, I can remember the skill working a bit differently in beta… I’m not sure if it didn’t even have a similar mechanic as described by you.

Another idea: Given the cripple is already kind of “pulsing” they could add some dmg to these pulses…

I will admit CE is quite useful in a well coordinated team, wither its a thief stealthing you, a hammer warrior coordinated with you and spamming well placed knock downs, an engy using a well placed glue bomb, you get the idea. It would be nice though if the skill would not rely on a well coordinated team.

Here is exactly how I think the skill should be modified.

You begin to cast CE, a visual pulsing effect begins around the elementalist which happens in 1 second intervals (perhaps Anet could use the effect which ques in the player of a potential magnetic leap). CE is now allowed to be detonated at exactly
the 1st, 2nd or 3rd second of it being casted. While the skill is channeling the
elementalist is free to move, but not allowed to do anything else, he must focus on channeling and executing the ability before using anything else to his/her advantage. Depending on when the skill is detonated the damage will scale accordingly, the 8 bleeds will always apply regardless of when it was detonated.

Luimes.4281:

Churning Earth in a 1vs1 can force out a dodge.

I cast my Churning Earth, my opponent beats on me for 3 seconds… Was it worth the forced dodge roll/block? Sure you could use shocking aura or arcane shield to prevent hits, but I just don’t find this being an optimal strat 98% of the time. The only time I find CE useful in 1v1 is vs an opponent who has no idea how it works, or vs MM necro pets/mesmer phantoms, even then its only rarely optimal to use. The skill simply needs an option to detonate between 1 and 3 1/4 seconds, with the damage scaled accordingly of course.

Hitman.5829:

Blackjack.5621:

Staff ele lacks own single target damage. You could see me using staff ele in the quarter finals of the ToL. I had to use pirate runes and keep my parrot alive with heals and protection in order to create counter pressure cause i dont have own damage sources. Dps classes like engi, warrior, mesmer etc destroy you pretty easy cause you lack counter pressure and they can easily overextend/pve on you. Also bad to get points back vs guards due to lack of damage. You survive better and bring more support than dd ele but a 5v5 is not large scale enough to make staff ele 1st choice so i will probably go to dd ele or play warrior again.

That is exactly my point! Staff Elementalists do not create counter pressure because we do not have own damage sources. So, basically we are sitting ducks for the attackers, and that is what you see on PvP everyone jumping on the elementalist! For those that are skeptical about this fact, please play an elementalist and you will see that everyone jumps on the elementalist first because the elementalist is:

• Low on health pool (light armor easy to kill)
• Deals low damage

No, everyone jumps on a zerker staff ele first in spvp matches because of low hp and HIGH damage. Staff damage isn’t low, it just lacks sustain. This isn’t a class you can just jump onto and just start tearing people apart, unlike a good majority of the other classes in this game. Play a staff ele for 6months to a year in spvp and you should reach a skill level that makes you feel differently of the class. With staff you’re a team oriented class, not a main damage dealer.

IMO the class has unfortunately been balanced around the 15 water trait and evasive arcana trait. Oh well, at least ele is in a much better state than last patch.

Staff elementalist is probably one of the hardest to play in spvp as a damage dealing role, when it comes to sustaining dps on a target. Note though that the staff ele playing the dps role is still extremely effective when it comes to team based fights. My guild has been doing spvp tourney matches vs each other for a while and we have found if you leave a zerker staff ele alone while he does his thing, you’re probably going to see your team get wiped. This is because aoes like meteor cover a large portion of a point you want to keep caped. While their aoes are strong, I definitely would love to see a little bit better single target dmg sustain on staff my self.

After this patch hit the floor, I personally feel very strong vs every class 1v1, except vs the one who counters me the hardest with their amazing ability to remove boons, Necro.

If they made ride the lightning a 25 second CD at most the skill would more than likely be used every ~30-35 seconds. Since air is an important part of sustaining dps, fresh air builds would really have something quite viable at their finger tips then.

Not enough people care about playing hardcore apparently

Fire: (0)
Air: (2)Zypher’s boon
Earth: (2)Stone Splinters
Water: (4)Vital Striking, Cleansing Wave
Arcana: (6)Renewing Stamina, Elemental Attunement, Evasive Arcana

Weapon : D/D
Amulet: Celestial Amulet
Runes :Rune of Strength
Sigil 1: Sigil of battle
Sigil 2: Sigil of Strength OR Bloodlust
Utility: Lightning Flash, Cleansing Fire, Arcane Shield
Heal: Healing Signet
Elite: Glyph of Elementals (use in fire)

This is my personal favorite setup for d/d in spvp, I’ll sometimes swap out cleansing fire for Glyph of Elemental Power and pop it in either fire or air attunement for constant burning or weakness.

I honestly think it would be nice if the skill was completely scraped and they just gave off hand dagger 5 some defensive skill instead.

Try using fresh air instead and activate glyph of elemental power in air attunement, you will apply 6s of weakness roughly every 5 seconds. Quick glyphs trait makes this glyph only have 6 seconds of down time. How do you feel about your lightning rod now? :|

Luimes.4281:

To make it less useless it would be enough to:
- add protection when channeling
- always hit when blind
- hit through Aegis

@ OP

I totally agree. Lets make this the most op skill ever!

Still wouldn’t be OP, anyone with an understanding of the skill will just dodge after counting to 3 and avoid all of the damage. I’d rather see the skill have a “detonate” option between 1 and 3 1/4 seconds.

oZii.2864:

Here is a recent thread I made with some videos for ideas on the changes. The core hasn’t really changed for D/D as in 6 points in Fire or anything drastic.

Runes of divinity are probably not as much of the flavor anymore they give 6 critical damage now and if that was your thing you get 12 from rune of rage or rune of air. Now the trend is might stacking and boosting power.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Video-WvW-D-D-Ele-thoughts-build

The “trend” was always might stacking, most ele just didn’t know about how great stacking might duration was xD

Jae.5138:

oZii.2864:

Jae.5138:

s/d feels useless against condi engi’s not gonna lie

You probably need to go S/F because the /D will get you killed if you get close to the engi.

:( but if i’m defending a point and engi comes to take it, how do i not get close to him? (apart from not defending a point in the first place)

S/D is has the best burst method I’ve ever seen for ele, S/F or D/F is pretty good at killing an engy.

Before they add anything new, they need to fix the current game.

My hardcore korean friends play the classes that either have high risk for high reward or classes that are complicated. Ele, Engy, Thief, Mesmer.

All professions are in a mess imo. I will continue to feel this way until we start to see all weapon and trait choice become viable, along with less 11111 meta spam.

Einlanzer.1627:

‘Autoattacks’ represent the baseline for sustained DPS which is then ‘modified’ by the other skills present in your set and how you use them. Therefore, having a very weak #1 skill sets a very low baseline for sustained DPS that is at best very difficult and in many cases outright impossible to overcome even with intelligent or skillful use of the other skills. Having a very strong #1 makes a weapon both very powerful and boringly easy to use. All #1 skills need to be brought toward a middle ground, which in quite a few cases means very significant adjustments.

I completely agree with everything this man has said, When I play my d/d Ele I find myself camping air attunement when fire attunement is on cooldown for best sustained dps. Why? Because my auto attack in air (Lightning whip) is much stronger than anything Earth or Water attunement has to offer. Before you suggest churning earth, lets look at an example of possible dps from lightning whip in 3 1/4 seconds vs 1 successful Churning Earth.

3 1/4 seconds = ~7 lightning Whips. (Attacks twice per second)

3 1/4 seconds = 1 Churning Earth

7 Lightning whips with a base of 235 dmg = 1645 dmg (note air sigil could proc twice in this amount of time and is likely too)

1 Churning Earth = 1,092 direct damage. (2,720 bleed damage over 8 seconds)

Although churning Earth can do more damage over all opposed to lightning whip, it does much less direct dps, the bleeds can be cleansed, its not as reliable as lightning whip, I can’t move while casting churning earth, I could crit 7 times in a row with lightning whip and not crit with CE, which would mean casting that 3 1/4 second skill was a complete waste of my time perhaps? Most of the time in competitive play it is rather easily dodged if the elementalist casting it is spotted, which is likely. Moral of the story? While fire attunement is down, for best and most reliable sustained dps I’m much better off spamming 1 in air opposed to utilizing any skills in earth or water… this saddens me.

I’d much rather see each class have to land their skills intuitively in order to win fights opposed to spamming an auto attack button.

This is how I envision perfect balance when it comes to auto attacks:

Auto attacks are used to build up momentum while burst skills are on cooldown. This means low direct damage values. In order for the auto attack to still serve a purpose, add a condition like vulnerability or bleed with low duration in mind. While you auto attack you aren’t getting much DPS, but you are building up some momentum before you burst. Vulnerability stacks make the upcoming burst hit harder, stacking low duration bleeds on the end of a 3 chain attack makes you hit slightly harder the longer you auto attack, but doesn’t make the auto attack worth using over your skills with cooldown or initiative cost. If auto attacks always had a lower dps value than other skills available designed for dps but still served a purpose, we would start to see auto attacks functioning the way they should have and not the way they do now.

Frye.4608:

That of course is a flawed argument. I disengage from about half the fights vs engis. I have to choice whether to go back in or not. They could never disengage from me.

Started playing a thief recently, I’m disappointed in the class mechanic. Takes so much patients to kill people since I have to either hide in stealth for days on end or reset fights by stealthing. Up the DPS, give thief a higher HP pool, and compensate by reducing the amount of stealth spam possible IMO. This proposal is coming from a guy who mains Ele btw, so before anyone says “lol buff thief?” Just know I don’t main theif.

Lots of people will agree the skill needs a revamp, the way it should be revamped I’m not quite sure. I’d love to see something like magnetic aura applied while channeling churning earth. D/D needs some way to reflect projectiles imo. I like your idea as well, perhaps for each second of channeling the skill the damage could scale accordingly, allowing you to detonate it anywhere from 1 to 3 1/4 seconds.

Uhtameit.2413:

I thought perhaps lingering elements was hindering the potential of the skill, sort of like how it does with Glyph of elemental power, only worse but thats not even the case

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Power

“The determined condition does not change when swapping attunements and affects any source of direct damage. "

It’s unrelated to lingering elements.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Say something Anet….

I really hope anet will take the time to look into these new GM traits for all classes and balance them accordingly…

Lightning rod would of made a much better Minor GM trait in air.

Elemental Contingency would of also made a decent Minor GM trait if it had a separate cd per boon instead of global cd per use of one boon. Right now though, Elemental Contingency as it stands is so bad I wouldn’t even want to trade it for Arcane precision (Minor GM trait in Arcana)

Duran.3196:

Good analysis though.
Binding Ashes: exactly that
Lightning Rod:
I am D/D so i have 2 real interrupts (air 5 and earth 4) okay and shocking aura, so I dont know if i really benefit from it, both are in my burst rotation though.

Elemental Contingency :
Each and utter crap that trait, even if there was no internal cool down at all, the only build i can think of profiting from it would be the Aquamancer (otherwise you dont live long enough to profit) and that build usually takes evasive arcana there.

What about a GM trait that reduces attunement recharge by another 2 or 3 sec, that would be grandmaster worthy

It sounds nice to have Elemental Contingency replaced with a GM trait that reduces the cooldown on all attunements…. That sounds like a wonderful idea, 5 seconds less wouldn’t make the elementalist OP imo. No more heal dodge in water, no more blind in air, no more burning in fire, no more blast finisher/bleed/dd from earth. Instead you would be able to utilize your 3 point traits better, along with skills that had short cooldowns. With 30 points into arcana you’ll only get to choose two of them at the most. Overall this trait would mainly benefit staff elementalist by giving the class a potential build for sustaining a fair amount dps on a single target.

On the contrary there is one problem I see with a trait like this… Not that this isn’t already a problem, but the Ele would surely stay stuck to a few meta builds, like it already is. Most people would probably greatly appreciate if there was more selection.

Blinding Ashes- I like this trait, when I’m doing 1v1 or dueling. When playing the game how it was meant to be played though and fighting multiples with a team at my side, I feel like this trait is lack luster due to the global cooldown, I advise the global cooldown be changed to a cooldown per target effected by the trait. The trait feels extremely underwhelming when you hit a mesmer clone or necro pet and then can’t even blind the target you initially wanted to until 5 seconds have passed.

Lightning Rod- I do love the idea behind this trait, I love to see traits which require skill in order to be utilized. There is a downside though, this trait isn’t offering enough reward for interrupting IMO. I feel this way because the Elementalist class has a small selection of skills to interrupt, most of these skills also have very long cooldowns. This trait might offer something to a d/f ele utilizing shocking aura and comet (due to their short cooldowns), but even then I still wouldn’t take this trait since I feel like I’d be better off with Fresh Air and dagger’s #2 (Lightning Touch). I’m basically going to accomplish the same thing as lightning rod with this combo, but it will be way more effective.

Elemental Contingency – I was pretty appalled by the looks of this skill, it seemed to be a mockery of this class but I decided to test it anyway, I was shocked that there was a cooldown on all 4 possible boons after one has been used. I thought perhaps lingering elements was hindering the potential of the skill but thats not even the case. Theres just simply a 10 second cooldown between each potential boon. There are a few things that I see that are just plain wrong with this skill.

1.) This skill doesn’t offer enough reward for being hit
2.) The adept trait in the arcana line (renewing stamina) for vigor is far superior compared to this GM traits usefulness in water attunement. Infact with this adept trait in mind, there is absolutely no benefit from Elemental Contingency while in water attunement. All elementalists want the renewing stamina trait unless they are perhaps playing staff.
3.) The elementalist class is about being evasive, and not getting hit
4.) Evasive arcana > Elemental Contingency. Hands down, no question about it.

Elemental Contingency is a joke and makes me think who ever was in charge of assigning new traits to the elementalist didn’t take their job very seriously.

I have been saying this for months, that an increase in potential stats would improve the Elementalist by far. Eles are a very stat dependent class. Why do you think Elementalist was so much better off in WvW prior to the patch? Its true every class received a stat boost in WvW but for some that boost in stats was more valuable. Now that celestial amulet has some decent stats and might stacks are easier than ever to obtain, you can really start to appreciate the Elementalist.

I hope this doesn’t mean Anet will stop working on improving this class though, I’d still really love to see each and every potential trait that doesn’t see the light of day get polished up.

PS: I used to win 9/10 spvp solo tourneys pre patch all the time (using d/d which is not even the ideal weapons for spvp tournies). This means NOTHING when looking into balance. Get back to me when you start to win above 80% of your matches out of 1000s of games

patricide.1062:

I’m not saying that Ele’s should be able to roflstomp every single class/spec, but it gets old owning Thieves.

You won’t own a good thief, you will surely die a slow and painful death

If you played an ele in wvw and pvp before the patch, I’m sure you noticed a huge difference in how much stronger you were in wvw. Why? Stats. What did they boost for spvp? Stats! Whats the best stat combo for a jack of all trades? Celestial ofcourse.

I feel much better off in spvp now, I don’t feel kitten by any means. However I definitely would of liked to see old unused traits become more useful for some change :\

Overall I’m satisfied with this patch, it was a step in the right direction. Now instead of more living story, it would be cool if they just finished polishing up those dusty traits that have been sitting on the shelf, neglected for years.

silvermember.8941:

Vissarion.6509:

What is every active ele asking for? #More traits that don’t lock you into a specific attunement.

What is Arenanet giving us? #More traits that you need to stay in one attunement to be useful/active.

There it is.

Actually, that is not what every ele wanted.

Most wanted the other triats lines to have good traits like arcane and water aka more diversity. This patch brought us slightly closer to that dream. For the first time in a while, people are considering other traits lines other than water, air and arcane. That is an improvement.

Also this new trait is actually bringing the elementlist back to its pre-release theory which is that fire = damage, water = support (New GM sucks though), air (single target) damage and earth (defense stone heart does the job pretty well).

Also contrary to what YOU believe, this new GM actually punishes you for staying in earth too long since your damage goes significantly lower. IT was design to let you only go into earth when you think kitten is about to hit the fan.

Most definitely, I agree on your perception of Stone Heart, it requires a valid understanding of your opponent and a keen sense of when burst is inc. The boost in stats on spvp amulets made me really happy, now that celestial stats are viable in spvp I don’t feel as crappy. I feel strong when fighting one person since I utilize my dodges well. I still feel like I lack survivability when it comes to multiple targets on me. Over all I’m happy with this patch, it was a step in the right direction. Hopefully Anet will eventually get on to improving all the current traits and utility skills that aren’t seeing the light of day.