Guild Wars 2

I want a 5th attunement

Elementalist Trait Discussion: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-s-new-trait-discussion

Jekkt.6045:

20s cd, no on hit stuff. everybody will be happy.

I’d settle for any reduced timer at all, 40 second ICD is outrageous when dealing with kiting classes.

Sunshine.5014:

Lingering elements should work on more than just adept minor traits. It should work with all traits

Can you imagine lingering elements working with Stone heart? You could almost never be critically hit, that would become so broken.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Sunshine.5014:

iKeostuKen.2738:

I would have to say that i disagree with increasing cooldown while reducing damage.

Also, I feel as though Staff needs better Soft and Hard CC. Meaning:

-Eruption needs to pulse crippling effect. The ground is literally shaking at their feet, why are they moving at the same speed.
-Unsteady ground should work even if the enemy has stability. People can walk around or teleport over it anyways :/. Hell some even glitch through it.

Also, itd be cool if ice spike, summoned a hailstorm instead on a location instead of what we get now.

Ken, your suggestions would make ele too OP. I want ele to be fun to play, but also fun to played against too.

There is no way a pulsing cripple would be op. If its like 2 or 3 pulses.

Unsteady ground needs some sort of change if its going to remain a small block that is easily counter by common sense :/. Its even a bit delayed so people can run over it before it takes effect.

I have to agree with you on the pulsing cripple definitely not being op at all. Churning Earth has one and no one uses that skill unless the elementalist goes unnoticed.

It would be interesting to see a game mode that was a collage of game modes which provided part time zerg heavy battles which were then forced into smaller battles, 1v1s, 2v2s, cycling through difference scales. It would require a very intricate and thought out map but may also be worth the time making.

Any of you play Mortal Kombat at all? Remember how you and your opponent could fall through the floor and enter a new arena? What if two opposing players from an X vs X situation were selected at random to fall into a room and fight to the death for example. A map like this could get really creative and mix things up

Its not the might, its not the swiftness, the regen definitely helps but the reason this trait is THE trait of all traits is because of the protection. When combined with Elemental Shielding (The 2nd trait of all traits), you can obtain kitten near permanent protection.

Since not everyone wants to play the meta and the more bursty builds do rely on that protection if they want any survivability, I think its fair to make Elemental Attunement baseline IF, and only if they reduce the amount of potential protection duration so its not constantly up when traiting for a bunker build. There should be “weakspots” in order to provide counter play. I also believe important boons like protection should be more visible to the opposing player, instead of having to look at the boon icons maybe that shield that appears right as you gain protection could remain intact until the boon is gone. Thoughts?

Elemental Attunement is only a bit over the top because of the long protection duration it provides, the regen can come in pretty handy with a full bunker build too, the swiftness and might provided are not providing a huge outrageous buff. Reduce the protection and regeneration durations and test out how things go if this trait was to become baseline. Maybe something along the lines of 3 seconds of protection, 3-4 seconds of regeneration while keeping current might and swiftness values? Or perhaps the EA could maintain its current boon values if it was baseline + selfish.

I’m not simply asking for EA to become baseline because I want EA for free, this trait has become a huge part of the class, this trait is why this class can function at all with more bursty builds, as of now other traits such as Elemental shielding, Cleansing Wave, Zypher’s boon synergize far too well with EA to not take it. With its current design the Elementalist completely revolves around this trait. If you want to give this class diversity then I believe this trait must become baseline.

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, how about RTL 30s CD if it doesn’t have a target selected. 15s CD if it has a target selected, no matter if the skill hits or not. Simpler logic, without their bs of block/evade

This is actually a pretty good idea, why didn’t anet just base the ICD off whether there was a target or not instead of whether it landed or not.

+1!

Ignavia.7420:

I don’t see this being mentioned yet, but Flame Barrier does not work in that slot at all. The Fire, Air, Earth and Water traits are all supposed to trigger “While attuned to X” instead of “When you attune to X” so that Lingering Elements works.

The very first water minor (Soothing mists) and the very first earth minor (stone flesh) are the only minors this trait has ever affected.

I think its important to note that the 00666 build will have access to THREE heals (signet heal while maintaining the passive after use and 20second cd), which might be why anet decided to move Elemental Attunement to a GM trait…

If elemental attunement becomes baseline then I suggest dropping the protection time down to around 2 seconds upon entering earth(if you get hit in earth and have Elemental contingency that’s 4 1/2 seconds of protection) reduce the regeneration gained when swapping to water to about 3-4 seconds(we really need the regeneration to proc the condition removal when swapping into water with the Cleansing Wave GM trait in mind; in order for it to remain a good trait) reduce Healing Signets passive heal value by about ~3% to compensate for the regeneration boon gained and increase the cast time of Healing Signet by ~1/4th a second so there is a little more time to counter the active heal.

I think something like this would allow Elemental Attunement to become baseline while not creating a huge imbalance amongst the class. The Swiftness gained from swapping into air is also pretty important for any build not picking up the air trait line. If this was done then the first minor in air could become One With Air for that 3 second super speed buff*. It wouldn’t make any sense to gain swiftness(baseline) upon entering air, and have a 10% move speed minor trait while in air attunement… for the most part.

Since attunement recharge rates will drop to 8.7 seconds with the arcana trait line in mind, I believe its fair for Evasive Arcana, Elemental Contingency, and Elemental Attunement to also have an 8.7ICD opposed to the 10 second ICD (which is the current ICD for attunement recharge with 6 points in arcana)

I have noticed a lot of traits potentially being implemented will provide a more passive playstyle. Allow me to share an example; an elementalist trait called Burning Fire states that it will:

“Use Cleansing fire AUTOMATICALLY when you have a number of conditions on you.”

A warrior signet can allow you to automatically heal.

A ranger trait can automatically remove conditions over time.

Disregard the class and the trait descriptions for the most part lets just focus on that one word… Automatic.

Are automatic traits a good idea for gameplay? Are they a fun mechanic? Discuss

PowerBottom.5796:

Grimreaper.5370:

PowerBottom.5796:

Grimreaper.5370:

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.

first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….

Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?

Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:

- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”

Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.

So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make have to make more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.

You can instantly manifest the boon you want with Elemental Attunement, you have to wait to be hit and stay in an attunement for a specific boon with Elemental Contingency. I’d rather summon the boon I want on command and then be able to freely swap to another attunement if need be. You don’t have to agree with me this is just my personal preference when it comes to EA vs EC

Again, ppl confuse it when I say “I like the trait” with “I think the trait is better”. I like EC more than EA exactly because it forces you to make those kinds of decisions and because the boons you get are more timing-based and because it will be harder to use effectively.

For me, a trait that requires you to play better, make decisions and opens up new ways to play a character is a better designed trait.

Is it better than EA – probably not, I still like it more, because numbers can easily be tweaked, but the core design of how the trait works is less likely to be changed.

I think maybe you are misunderstanding me, I was simply stating my preference on a specific game mechanic and said you don’t have to be like minded. I personally don’t like the way EC is designed because I prefer to try an play an evasive playstyle. Again I am not arguing with you, I’m not trying to tell you one mechanic is “better” than the other. I am just stating my preference when it comes to mechanic function via attunement swapping vs being hit in a current attunement.

PowerBottom.5796:

Grimreaper.5370:

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.

first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….

Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?

Depends heavily on the specifics, let’s clarify:

- I hate percentage-based random procs on hit, like 20% on hit – trigger X. way too random and you can’t really count on it. So you more or less just let it happen….
- I also don’t like on-hit stuff with long CD’s, it’s too unpredictable.
- I also prefer the boons or procs to be timing-based, like protection, stability, , retaliation, fury: It’s important to get them at the right time, not just with sth. like reg or vigor or swiftness while in combat, where it’s more or less like: “yeah cool, I got that now – neat.”

Prot and retal are useless if you’re not being attacked (and it even depends quite heavily on what atk’s you with which skill), with fury, it’s important to use it and actually atk sth. and stability is only useful, when you’re in danger of getting CC’d.

So in the case of Elemental Contingency: a 10s CD on each attunement with seperate CD’s that trigger on the first hit – I’m completely fine with it! This might even mean that i’ll run into an AoE real quick to trigger a boon before I switch, if I didn’t take dmg and would “loose” the boon or not trigger it until I’m back in this attunement. It might also make have to make more deliaberate choices when I switch into Fire and Air, more than without having EC as a trait. Water with vigor is kinda meh, since you have perma-vigor anyways and vigor isn’t that heavily timing-based anyways, you just don’t need it if your endurance is full, thats about it.

You can instantly manifest the boon you want with Elemental Attunement, you have to wait to be hit and stay in an attunement for a specific boon with Elemental Contingency. I’d rather summon the boon I want on command and then be able to freely swap to another attunement if need be. You don’t have to agree with me this is just my personal preference when it comes to EA vs EC.

On a side note if balancing the elementalist was completely up to me I wouldn’t make the class rely on long duration boons at all.

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

why do you assume that elemental attunement takes less skill than contigency? with EA you have to at least switch attunements, EC is just 100% passive.

first hit on attunement (with each boon having different cd’s) – pretty much the same as EA when attacked….

Which I’m personally not a fan of, I don’t like the idea of having to be hit in order to get a boons. Anyone else feel the same way?

Yes.. please… I play my elementalist for the versatile playstyle, I don’t want to feel like I only win based on a bunch of passive traits.

Xillllix.3485:

They are not going to nerf 15k+ damage burst from 1700 range, but they will nerf the abysmal damage of celestial stats after nerfing the might stacking. Trying to find the logic in Anet’s balancing is like figure skating while playing a guitar solo.

Which is probably the most bada** thing anyone could ever do. I hope that figure skater is shedding out a wicked Eruption (Van halen) solo

Very well said ResJudicator, I’m not a fan of passive play either… I hope “face-tanking” doesn’t become the ele meta, I’d prefer a more active role.

BlackBeard.2873:

Grimreaper.5370:

I am excited about the changes Laraley, and I think you should be too. Don’t worry because in the end I believe everything will be alright, have faith.

Kind of like it was from summer of 2012 until 4/15/14? I think d/d with earth/water/arcana (ele contingency is suprisingly good with how tanky it is) and d/f auramancer (with air/earth/water) will be fine, but scepter and staff builds are going to be just bad or overshadowed by other classes.

My high-level traitline assessment:

Fire is bad outside of blindspam. Sunspot is a joke and flame barrier doesn’t work with lingering elements. Flame barrier might work as a minor for auramancer builds (but not really b/c they need to go into air for zephyr’s boon, earth for prot on aura, and water for cleanse). The adepts are honestly bad outside burning precision (and a chance on a chance with an ICD is not really good). Master level are “meh” in that they don’t really give great damage, utility, or survival. At GM only blindspam will work in pvp. Spellslinger is terrible, but I guess caters to pve casuals who will camp fire (although persisting flames is better for them anyway).

Air is more of a utility line, and has good potential in an aura-based build. However, all 3 grandmasters don’t really offer DIFFERENT choices. Lightning rod and bolt to the heart come down to which is higher dps, while fresh air is dps/utility. There are then actually just 2 choices: fresh air (if you want the utility) or whichever other one gives more damage.

Earth is carried by the OP -20% damage within 600 range trait. At adept only ele shielding is strong, while earth’s embrace MAY see spot usage in staff builds. Condition builds don’t work, so condition traits are dumb. Rock solid is decent, but not really good enough at only 1 stack (it was hard to justify when it was 2s unlimited stab). Geomancer’s training is amazingly strong and the only real choice. The grandmaster traits are good, except diamond skin is still terrible design.

Water line is very strong and going to be necessary in most builds. The aura trait outstrips stop,drop, and roll due to cleansing water. Piercing shards is a non-choice because water does terrible damage to begin with. At master, Soothing disruption is the clear choice for most builds b/c cantrips are the only option, while aquamancer’s training might see use in dps builds. Grandmaster is pretty good, but aura-share is worthless if it only applies to weapon skills.

Arcana is kind of a mess. Lingering elements seems pretty useless when the only ones worth lingering are water/earth (enforcing the earth/water/arcana bent). Arcane energy would be interesting if it gave 25 endurance (which is 5/6 of the bar) rather than 25%, but renewing stamina is the only real choice at adept. Master is decent with ele contingency for tanky builds (retal and prot are good), while arcane shield is decent but still bad on bursty builds. At grandmaster the only real choice is ele attunement 90% of the time (the class doesn’t work without it). Evasive arcana is a trap choice and is only really good in-conjunction with elemental attunement. Elemental surge is a joke (as always) unless there is some broken way to pop a bunch of arcanes for some stupid 1-shot.

The problem with putting evasive arcana and elemental attunement on the same line, is that they aren’t DIFFERENT playstyles, and it comes down to a min-max (which goes in Ele attunement’s favor). It seems that the goal is to take the “dodge’s blast” and give that engineers (and see how broken that is with healing turret). Most eles who enjoyed this playstyle with evasive arcana will just play engie.

This is some really great insight blackbeard, I do also agree that it is a shame that you have to max out air and fire if you want to take advantage of zypher’s boon with fire shields mainly for example. The arcana line does seem very underwhelming now, so hopefully some offensive builds will come into play and work well or something like 0/6/6/6/0.

In my opinion(Based on speculations) instead of having to take arcana and water line, we’ll now just have to take water and earth line if we want any survivability, we’ll have the option of either choosing fire, air or arcana, but then again who knows as of yet.

I’m only worried about SA trait line allowing thief to easily reset fights while also doing amazing damage since there will be 3 gm traits to consider now.

I think it would make sense for cleansing ire to become a minor trait or even base line if it mean’t also having to land combustive shot in order to get it to proc, just my opinion.

WOW.9653:

So you just QQ about nerfs and ^^ about buffs? Close this thread please, another l2p issue

He is not the OP, I would love to hear your constructive feedback about my posts.

I am excited about the changes Laraley, and I think you should be too. Don’t worry because in the end I believe everything will be alright, have faith.

Arcane Trait changes: http://i.imgur.com/DH70jqk.jpg

Minor – Arcane fury useful as always, Lingering Elements should at least have its description changed so people know it only works with Soothing Mist and Stone Flesh. Arcane Precision giving a 15% reduction on all attunements is pretty darn cool since that will mean we get an 8.7 ICD on attunements with this minor in mind.

Adept : Arcane Energy- I don’t see this trait being used but who knows,
maybe this and Renewing Stamina together will make for a mean acrobatic Thei-I mean Ele.

Renewing Stamina- Forever will be the go to Adept in the Arcana line… This should just become a minor trait IMO, replace it with lingering Elements?

Arcane Abatement – lol…

Master : Arcane Resurrection – I don’t see this being used in a serious build, but who knows maybe when comboing this with some earth traits to reduce DMG taken we’ll see some trollish Ele builds solely focusing on rezing

Arcane Shield – very underwhelming master trait, it would make for a great Adept trait if Renewing Stamina became a minor trait.

Elemental Contingency – I’m guessing if an Elementalist is still going to invest into the Arcana line post future patch, this will be the go to Master trait.

Grand Master : Evasive Arcana – A great trait as all us Elementalists know

Elemental Surge – This is the Arcana GM trait which will probably be least used, if
the immob and chill durations were increased slightly and this skill somehow
sped up the recharge rate of the arcane skills then I could see this
being a valuable trait.

Elemental Attunement – The trait which has basically been the classes bread and butter ever since it originated as an Adept trait.
IMO this trait needs to have the regen/protection duration reduced and then made a base part of the class, this trait is only over the top due to the high protection duration it provides with elemental shielding

Thank you for for your time

-Astro Blackfire

Water trait Changes: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

Minors – Soothing Mist is great as always, Healing Ripple oh how we all rely so much on you.
And now Aquatic Benevolence as our new minor! This is amazing!

Adept : Soothing Ice – Holy crap this looks soo good, traits like this might make up for the arcana line being
butchered. I might even go so far as to say this trait is sort of OP since this trait
would mean you have a frost aura up almost 40% of the time while in battle…
Perhaps the Frost aura could be reduced by a second.

Piercing Shards – I don’t see this trait being picked up as it stands currently, it won’t work with lingering Elements I’m assuming.

Stop Drop and Roll – I’m so happy to see this an Adept trait, finally! I think this trait should also remove confusion and/or poison upon dodging so it can compete with Soothing Ice (which is going to also remove a condition with “old faithful” in mind)

Master : Soothing Distruption – This will probably be the go to Master trait, its even stronger than ever!

Clensing Wave – I think this trait needs remove 2 conditions upon swapping water to compete with Soothing Distruption when considering the Soothing Ice + Soothing Distruption + Clensing Wave combo which will exist post patch. This change could also make up for the loss of condition clear we’ll get since the Arcana line was nerfed.

Aquamancer’s Training – Although this trait seems like it could be useful I see this being the least picked one of the three master water traits.

Grand Master : Soothing Wave – This trait is being indirectly nerfed if you take into consideration that Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are both a GM Trait now. I Still think this trait will be useful but may fall out of the meta.

Powerful Aura – With the amount of auras possible next patch this GM trait is looking more promising,
Although I wish it also maybe added an additional second or so to aura duration.

Bountiful power – I don’t see this trait ever being used, even if it offered 4% dmg for each current
boon, it needs something else besides a damage boost IMO.

Earth Trait Changes: http://i.imgur.com/fzRs1qr.jpg

Minors – Stone flesh, Earthen Blast are the same, cool cool, but that
Geomancer’s Defense, holy Kittens!

Adept : Armor of Earth – This trait is alright but I don’t see it being picked
over elemental shielding very often due to its high ICD.

Serrated Stones – This will be the adept trait that is probably least used.

Elemental Shielding – This is a big part of why the Dagger/Dagger meta exists
This trait mixed with Elemental attunement is currently
Godlike. I still see this trait being heavily used post
patch.

Master : Stength of Stone – This will probably be the least used trait.

Rock Solid – A fairly decent trait IMO when combined with Ether renewal,
although I just don’t see this being chosen over
Geomancer’s Training since that trait with focus weapon #4
will remove 3 conditions instantly on a 20s ICD.
If rock solid provided a slightly longer stability (4 seconds?)
I could see this being a very promising trait to pick up.

Geomancer’s Training – This trait is going to put the focus weapon heavily
into the meta. This will probably be the go to Master
trait for most elementalists.

Grand Master : Diamond Skin – This trait makes me chuckle… A very useful trait
Although I hate the god mode passive play this provides
vs full blown condi builds.

Written In Stone – I love the 20% signet ICD reduction addition to this trait.
I think the other two GM traits will usually be chosen over
this one but we will just have to see.

Stone Heart – This trait combined with the protection boon and geomancer’s Defense
in mind will make for a pretty interesting bunker. I think this trait will become
quite popular and require more skill to use optimally than people think.

Air Trait changes: http://i.imgur.com/sedmwsr.jpg

Minors : Zypher’s Speed- is still pretty underwhelming and pretty much non existent if you consider the amount of access the class has to swiftness, and now super speed. I’d like to see the value changed to 25% movement speed while in air,
or maybe even completely revamped. I don’t think its too much to ask for this minor to become One with Air.

Lightning Strike- as always pretty awesome.

Weak Spot – This trait has only ever given me an additional 3 or 4%
damage at most… I really think this minor trait needs a revamp.

Adept : Zypher’s Boon- Great trait, will still probably be used quite often.

One With Air- This trait mixed with Fresh air could be pretty useful I see this
trait being a potential candidate with a fresh air build. I suggested to move this trait to the first minor.

Ferocious Winds- This may become useful with a scepter/x build, but I don’t see
this trait making it into the meta scene.

Master : Tempest defense – A master trait now?! Wow! The new possibilities! Especially with Lightning Rod in mind! It would be kind of nice to see tempest defense add a slight duration to stun as well so we can maybe buy an extra half a second to benefit from the dmg bonus while target is stunned.

Aeromancer’s Training – I don’t see this trait ever making it into anyones build as
a master trait, this should be replaced with the
Ferocious winds Adept trait IMO.

Inscription – As they are now, glyphs just rub me the wrong way. This Master trait has nothing on Tempest Defense. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of Inscription. IMO glyphs really need to be reworked, ditch the lesser elemental glyph, add something like a trap glyph, make glyph of storms create a storm around the elementalist whom cast it, just some thoughts.

Grand Master : Bolt to the Heart – This may be a very good trait when it gets changed to +20% DMG below 50% HP. But I still HATE the fact that this trait is competing with Fresh Air… BTTH should be a Master Trait and have current values remain the same.

Fresh Air – I love this trait because it opens up a more versitile playstyle, and I think people will still use this trait regardless of base dmg modifier nerfs to air.

Lightning Rod – I see a lot of potential with this trait when mixed with Tempest defense People are definitely going to be using this one more than they do now.

Hi, I’d like to share with you all which traits (after the big balance patch) I see being feasible and which traits I think may need some work in order to provide this class some diversity when considering trait choices. This is my number one concern, diversity, I simply want choices. Note that I’m strictly basing this discussion with SPvP in mind.

My goal in sharing this information is for Arena Net to take notice and consider tweaking traits which in my opinion will have little to no use in the meta. (post future balance patch).

I have spent ~3,000 hours on this class so I would like to believe that my input and advice is a credible source…lets get started!

Fire Trait changes : http://i.imgur.com/HOLoIGu.jpg.

Minors : The minors all look valuable to me, flame barrier sounds very appealing.
Some people believe sunspot needs a touch-up, the radius could be a little larger I suppose?

Adepts : Burning precision – this trait looks great.
Conjurer – This adept trait could work pretty well with signets. This trait wont be used very often with conjures, Conjures need a lot of work done to them in order for them to ever come close to being apart of the meta.
Power Overwhelming- I have a feeling the other two adepts will always be chosen over this one. Perhaps this trait could be swapped out for something else which won’t directly compete with the other two adepts.

Master : Cleansing fire – This trait is probably the best choice out of all the Master traits IMO, its very strong with Cantrip mastery(now soothing disruption) in mind. How ever I really do wish this trait needed to be used manually instead of being a passive just because I simply like to feel in control.

One with Fire – I think this is a decent master trait but since Cantrips with their amazing condition cleanse are so useful, I don’t know how often this trait will be used. Merge this trait with Pyromancer’s Training?.

Pyromancer’s Training- This is probably going to be the master trait which is least used out of the three. If this was merged with One with Fire I think people would have a hard time deciding between Cleansing Fire and this.

Grand master : Persisting Flames – I’ve always had mixed feelings about this trait… I’ve found it useful when utilizing a Staff weapon but I still don’t feel like this trait is GM worthy. I don’t see this trait being used too often unless some new staff dps meta comes to be. I think it would be nice if Lava font was scratched and something like retaliation was given upon blasting in a fire field. Perhaps this trait could make standing inside of a fire field deal direct damage, this could include standing inside Ring of Fire which currently does no damage.

Pyromancer’s Puissance – I have ALWAYS dreaded this trait with a passion! But perhaps it will be more useful now with the higher duration in mind. My mind is still in a cynical place when thinking about this trait, the might will come easy from other methods, I think the trait should just be sacrificed and replaced with something else that perhaps caters to condition removal, such as “Fire shields now reduce condition duration by an additional 25%” for example. This would synergies well with One with Fire.

Blinding Ashes- This traits going to open up ridiculous potential for 1v1 and its going to be awesome. A 3 second ICD might almost be too good! I’m excited to test this trait out once the patch hits.

Elemental Attunement is only over the top because of the high protection duration on a low icd, just make the skill a base part of the class and remove the protection via attuning to earth and replace it with vigor or a lower duration of protection (3 seconds would seem like a good start for testing). And then fix the Arcana line so its still worth using, but not mandatory for a build like it is now. Problems solved. We can still get a fair amount of protection with the new aura potentials + elemental shielding + 20% dmg reduction in a close vicinity, sounds like a fair compensation by far for the loss of near perma protection.

In order for Cleansing Water to remain a good GM trait we really need to keep Elemental attunement around for the regen boon upon swapping to water. Another reason why I think Elemental attunement should just become a base part of the class.

Its too early to make our assumptions about the class being ruined, although I am also feeling a little down in the dumps hearing elemental attunement, once again, got moved up a notch and now is in the GM trait line. I feel like Elemental attunement really should just be a base part of the class with the amount of protection toned down to maybe 3 1/2 seconds. I’m not sure if the Devs are aware but its the protection from elemental attunement + elemental shielding which basically makes this class right now. IMO the trait didn’t need to be moves from adept to master and then master to GM, it just needed to have its protection duration lowered.

If you nerf the class instead of the amulet you’re just forcing the class to use celestial amulet even more… IMO we should be allowed to mess around with the stats that we want on our amulets in SPvP.

Sevens, use scepter/dagger while leveling for max damage.

Put points into the Air line once you get the option to for some additional precision (Critical chance). You can always redo your traits (skill tree basically) for free so feel free to try them all.

Grab the three arcane utility skills when you get the option to, they’ll increase your damage for PvE massively…. The air signet might also be nice to have for the 25% run speed passive!

The Arcane trait line is your bread and butter trait line, it helps you swap attunements (your four elements) quicker and can provide you with awesome boons(buffs), but you can worry about this later.

And just incase you like pvp… Dagger/Dagger is the meta, you’ll be a tanky melee support mage who can excel at 1v1s basically, but you are not limited to playing this role with dual daggers! (My most favorite weapon choice for the class) Dagger/Dagger is also fun to level with, if you go dagger/dagger make sure you put 2 points in the Air trait line(skill tree) and pick up the zypher’s boon trait from the Air line: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Boon
Also grab one point in the Arcane trait line right afterwards, this way you can stack the fury boon and get 20% critical bonus chance for quite some time

Shoutheal builds can still a force to be reckoned with, there are some really nasty rifle builds that will make you want to pull your hair out if you vs them in 1v1.

I’d take a nerf to sustain for old RTL and maybe a CE revamp, just sayin. Perhaps a nerf to cele amulet’s defensive stats and a slight upgrade to the offensive stats will do.

I’d like for the evade to start from the beginning to the end of the cast as well, it would allow for the skill to be used more defensively thats for sure… There are a lot of things that should get rework on the ele, such as Churning Earth, magnetic grasp, lightning touch… I’d be willing to take a nerf to cele amulet if it meant getting to have properly functioning skills.

IMO very tanky defense should be “nerfed” by removing it via passive playstyle and instead should be provided through usable skills which provide major defense in short bursts. Defense should come through good counter play IMO.

Unfortunately I never see this happening in GW2, this would mean a huge reduction in boon duration, conditions would need to become difficult to apply, lots of skills would need revamping… I guess I’ll keep dreaming.

Conart.4785:

Grimreaper.5370:

A good player will not use their instant skills in a way that will easily be predicted.

Correct, but a good opponent will still be able to recognise when and why that instant skill is being used and predict it anyway. In the end, it depends on which player is able to out mind-game the other. Telegraphed skills don’t leave any room for mind-games. If every game changing skill was telegraphed the only reason anyone would get hit by them is because they ran out of dodges, and you can be sure it would be fairly simple to memorise ahead of time which skills you should save your dodges for.

I can understand where you are coming from. I think at least some devistating game breaking abilities should receive this change. There aren’t that many that need additional cast time added IMO. A lot of abilities should receive a vivid animation that don’t really have one though, especially traits with CD.

I also don’t think most players are capable of dodging a 3/4 second cast time on purpose. At least not all of the time. If they all could we wouldn’t see so many of these complaints we see made on the forums.

A good player will not use their instant skills in a way that will easily be predicted. It may be true thats 3/4ths of a second may be a little too much of a cast time for some of the spells I listed. Although I probably could of put more time into concidering which skills need longer cast times, this was not the real point I was trying to get across. The point I want people to think about is that skills which are instant or have too fast of a cast time to react to and are truely game changing should be looked into should receive a slightly longer cast time and have a vivid casting animation. There are not many skills which need this tune up IMO, adding 1/4th of a second to a a couple current abilities cast time won’t slow combat down to dull levels… I also don’t think that we should call it good on balance after changes like this went through.

Elitist.8701:

DD ele skillfloor is incredibly low and the meta spec as it is is the most overpowered cheesiest build in the PvP meta. The skillcap is also comparitively low as I can beat all “pro” elementalists 50% of the time and I barely play ele. If you really thought LB ranger was cheesey, I would advise against playing DD ele. Go play engi, its not quite as faceroll and is actually balanced while still being complex and fun to play. The meta for engineer is 60044 with rifle and hoelbrak runes. You can probably find a more in depth build if you go on the engi forums.

inb4 ele is hard and not cheesey

If the skillcap was low you wouldn’t see some Eles dominating the crap out of all other Eles running the same build. You sure do like to over exaggerate don’t you.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could always tell what skill was being executed by your opponent via a neat casting animation. Wouldn’t it be great if you could tell when your passive traits which had a cooldown were active because of a nice aura animation? I believe its very important for all skills to stand out from each other with a unique animation in mind. Counterplay is vital for the longevity of GW2, I believe it is important for vivid animations to be apart of all skills/traits with CDs.

For the sake of skillful play I suggest skills which provide great return have a cast timer no less than 3/4ths of a second. A player should always have the option to react and counter an opponent’s attack(if it will greatly affect a fight).

While I believe its perfectly fine for some skills to stay instant, abilities which can really turn a fight around quickly should probably be modified to have a some sort of cast time which at least rewards people with extremely quick reaction time the chance to dodge.

I agree with the OP on many levels. I’d prefer any skills which have evades attached to them to over-ride any current action being executed.

It would be kinda nice if burning speed started to evade as soon as you used the skill instead of starting to evade a quarter+ of a second later after using it.

To the people crying for nerfs, you’re either very new or don’t remember how poorly the Elementalist functioned before the celestial amulet received a buff in stats while might stacking also became much more popular and prevalent. The class itself does not deserve any nerfs. Infact the class has a couple things that actually need improvements, its the gear that may need some change.

I don’t find the D/D Cele Elementalist that op in small scale fights, then again I played one for over 2k hours so I have become very accustom to the methods for countering this class. It really just comes down to when you apply conditions and if you have a fast enough reaction time. Its very possible to dodge the burning speed and the burning speed + Lightning flash combo every time an Elementalist uses it, this would be their primary damage source aside from other burning sources and lightning whips.

Even though I don’t find the current d/d cele build too over the top, I STILL currently hate how the d/d Celestial Elementalist functions while I’m playing my Ele. My personal choice in play style revolves around a more glassy ninja man mode type strategy. This is probably why I enjoy dueling so much with Zerker amulet, Zerker amulet works so well in 1v1 for D/D Ele if you have a great reaction time and understand the classes you are fighting. Its a kitten shame the zerker amulet doesn’t work so well for d/d while in high skill level matchmaking. I believe most people like myself feel sort of forced to use the celestial amulet since other stat combos don’t seem to cut the cake in real SPvP matches.

Rather than nerfing the Elementalist, I believe they should revamp churning earth so it becomes a more viable skill in small fights, remove and replace the water 3 heal trait(Something other than a heal), and then buff the elementalist’s other heals accordingly so we don’t see much of a difference with the water 3 trait heal gone. This would probably call for a revamp to the focus weapon, but then again who doesn’t want to see this weapon get a little love?

Now after all this I’d say its time to look into all the current amulets in SPvP and rescale their values so that one amulet does not seemingly rule over all others. (I feel like might duration on runes could receive a small nerf as well.) If the defensive stats were toned down on the celestial amulet(while the offensive stats were increased) I think it would make a lot of people very happy since most people don’t like fighting a bunker Elementalist for several years before the fight comes to an end.

Oh and all this talk about cele d/d ele being god tier in 1v1, I don’t think so, almost every class has a specific build that can potentially wreck a d/d celestial elementalist 1v1. Learn to BUILD guys! gosh!

thefantasticg.3984:

Purple Miku.7032:

I’m not thanking them for being as lazy as they have been and completely shunning everyone besides Living Story fans and PvP players.

kitten them.

If I could +10,000 this I would.

Its not that simple, not everyone at anet calls the shots.

Prysin.8542:

What they could do is set up a server for testing, it has test events, similar to beta events. You have to sign up, random people are given access. In test mode, you report on a specific skill or function using a modded version of the ingame bug report tool

I don’t think heavy balancing is or will ever be apart of Arenanet demands… sadly. IMO Anet should open up QA tester jobs which focus on balance. Hell… If they didn’t want to pay people to balance the game I’m sure they could just find “team leads” to do it for free.This is what DAoC did.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Chilli.2976:

And in regards to GW2 players trying out the skills, traits etc in a private client would be an awesome idea, but will also have its drawbacks.

This would be the worst idea in my opinion. At this point, all of the feedback from players would generally just be biased towards their personal favorite or main profession.

I actually want the profession I play nerfed in some aspects, I like fair fights!… Not everyone is completely biased.

After the patch, Fiery Rush, burning speed and burning retreat will no longer stack burning trails when being used near a wall. Does this mean the burning trails for burning speed and retreat will no longer stack when comboed with a well timed lightning flash?

I think it would be fair to have life force slowly drain until it gets down to ~x% when out of combat, IMO Life Force is only really an issue if a necro farms LF out in WvW from PvE mobs and then start a fight with near-full life force.

Carighan I wasn’t referring to EVE and to be honest, I don’t care about what works/doesn’t work or even how “difficult” that game might be. That game is nothing like GW2; I’m interested in solving issues which exist in GW2.

“But compare GW2. How would players here react if classes hardcountered each other, TF2-style?”

Classes in GW2 do currently hard counter one another, this is something I want Anet to avoid.

“It’s just an inherently divergent design wish. MMORPGs by nature aren’t suited for “skill-based combat”.”

You only feel this way because this is all you know, all you have ever seen. MMO combat has mainly been the way it has been due to server latency issues, this WILL change, and is slowly but surely changing already.

“It’s the opposite. It’s PvE-centric and people (you included :P ) are trying to inject something which works in other games (an esports-focus) into it more than it should have. Well ok, so are some devs, and honestly I have no idea what they are doing. Even Microsoft doesn’t hold onto a clearly not working concept as long as they do.”

If you honestly think trying to implement skillful based combat is wrong, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I don’t think you truly believe this though, you said it your self that class X hard-countering class Y would probably upset some/most of the playerbase, and it does. Classes DO currently hard-counter others in this game. Allowing people to skillfully outplay a class that SHOULD hard-counter them (because of the nature of their class mechanic vs the opponents class mechanic) would alleviate much player frustration.

I don’t like the fact that I can defeat some players because of my classes passive attributes being much stronger than theirs, it especially bugs me that I can defeat a specific class so badly they had NO chance what so ever, even if I ate every single burst combo they threw at me. I want to know that the players class mechanic it self has the potential to completely stomp mine, I want to know I defeated an enemy player because I outplayed them.

Posted the original question I had above

Substance E.4852:

Grimreaper.5370:

Substance E.4852:

Grimreaper.5370:

Substance E.4852:

Carighan.6758:

So in short, to make a truly successful PvP-centric MMO?
Easy. Make a truly successful PvP-centric MMO.

Once you hit “critical mass”, you can draw in crazy amount of players. How to get there however, no clue. It seems no one has gotten close yet.

You say that but…

http://www.eveonline.com/

I will never understand why people like playing that game but yes I guess there is… that… The combat in that game felt so passive it was as though I was watching a boring movie.

True and that’s why it works. It’s 100% tactics and planning based, presentation is an afterthought. CCP doesn’t care about being an Esport and the people who invest their time in the game don’t much care either.

It’s when you think “well if Valve and Riot can do it then so can I” that you run into problems in the same way MMO’s fail when they try to be “WoW 2.0”

Except PvP is a pretty vague term when it comes to building a game around this concept. I never implied that Anet should make their own MOBA, not sure if you thought I was heading in that direction or not.

Basically, my point was that eve works as a pvp centric game the same way GW1 worked as an MMO in the hayday of WoW. By being completely different.

Trying to inject what works for other popular platforms will likely only backfire.

The whole idea I’m trying to get across was to create something that wasn’t mindless and has some essence. I only used specific games as a reference, I never said Anet should just copy feature x from game y.

Let me ask you and everyone reading this a question, do you honestly enjoy grinding mobs for currency/materials that are so easy to defeat you could kill these creatures in your sleep? Is this concept actually fun for any of you? After a few hours I’d imagine anyone with a brain gets bored of doing this. THIS is what the MMO market needs to STOP making us do. This atrocious mindless self indulgence we call PvE is not something most of us enjoy when it comes to being forced to grind the same mobs 100,000x times in order to finally obtain the result we have been long waiting for. I understand the point of a time sync for the sake of business, but at least make the journey to our final destination entertaining… please?

IMO we should have to face challenging tasks to obtain the rewards we seek, these tasks shouldn’t have to be repeated 1000 times either. I’m not saying Anet should make us group up to fight X boss because he hits so hard, so often, you couldn’t possibly avoid all attacks and therefore need 1 person tanking and 5+ people healing. Group challenges should be soloable, hard as hell to do so but soloable, this way there is a difficulty level for all kinds of gamers to enjoy, you cater to the casuals by letting them easily complete an event by grouping and also let that hardcore player have his fun as well.

With all that being said, I believe that GW2’s PvP is far superior to its PvE; I don’t have any statistic to prove what I’m about to say but based on my intuition Anet would be better off heavily devoting their time fixing up the WvW/SPvP side of the game. The PvP in GW2 is Anets diamond in the rough where their PvE as of now, is nothing special.

“Trying to inject what works for other popular platforms will likely only backfire.”

This is exactly why focusing on PvE will eventually lead to the downfall of this game unless they come up with something revolutionary.

Substance E.4852:

Grimreaper.5370:

Substance E.4852:

Carighan.6758:

So in short, to make a truly successful PvP-centric MMO?
Easy. Make a truly successful PvP-centric MMO.

Once you hit “critical mass”, you can draw in crazy amount of players. How to get there however, no clue. It seems no one has gotten close yet.

You say that but…

http://www.eveonline.com/

I will never understand why people like playing that game but yes I guess there is… that… The combat in that game felt so passive it was as though I was watching a boring movie.

True and that’s why it works. It’s 100% tactics and planning based, presentation is an afterthought. CCP doesn’t care about being an Esport and the people who invest their time in the game don’t much care either.

It’s when you think “well if Valve and Riot can do it then so can I” that you run into problems in the same way MMO’s fail when they try to be “WoW 2.0”

Except PvP is a pretty vague term when it comes to building a game around this concept. I never implied that Anet should make their own MOBA, not sure if you thought I was heading in that direction or not.