Guild Wars 2

I think that I’m not alone in that the most disheartening thing about this Watchwork Pick issue, is the total lack of any kind of response to any of the criticisms and complaints levied in this forum. Let me start by saying that I’m not wholly against what the Pick does, although I do still think it is likely a Very Bad Idea.

I recognise that it’s highly likely that items such as the Bone Pick, Jack-In-The-Box Scythe, and Dreamcleaver Logging Axe did not sell very well at all. The reason for this is that there’s not many people that are going to spend a full $12.50 on these items if all they are is a separate skin for those that already have the Molten/Consortium/Chop-It-All tools. If you already have one of the first set of tools, you have next to zero reason to get one of the newer tools when they come out. So clearly the solution was to have the base functionality of the tools (infinite charges) remain, but have some trick that’s specific to each tool aside from the graphics. Enter the Watchwork Mining Pick.

The item has an interesting function which I think COULD have its place, but which I feel should have been done differently. For anyone that enters the game after the Marionette is gone, they will likely be cut off from a sprocket resource forever. They can’t get the home instance one anymore, and the Scarlet attacks around Tyria will apparently be ending soon, so that source will be unavailable as well. So the only other option would be to buy up lots of them on the TP. With this tool, those that buy it would have a way to slowly build up sprockets as they play the game. The issue that arises, is when will this end?

Ideally, the content that drops the sprockets (and Azurite and spores, as a note) should be permanently available in some way at all times, but that’s just my opinion. If it’s set in stone that the content and thus the resources have to vanish, then the only other options I see are the following.

• Offer the meta reward, AFTER the event is over, as a gem store item. That way you can still pay to access it, but only if you’re either unable to get the meta, or join the game after the event is already gone. This gives nobody a real Pay 2 Win advantage, as it’s the exact same upgrade you get from completing the meta.
• Put an account-wide upgrade that gives these % drops when using any infinite tool of the right type. Namely once purchased, you would then be able to get sprockets with any of the current or future picks. This lets the picks themselves retain the same functionality, and players can pick the skin they want, and also not need to clog up bank space with the excess tools.
• Same as above, but have specific tools bonus inherently. So say the Watchwork Pick works as it does now, but by buying the account-wide upgrade, you can then have that bonus apply to all your picks.

ANet, I love your game, and I think that you have your hearts in the right place, but the lack of any kind of response is truly saddening in this and many other instances. You have 100s of employees, there is absolutely no way that nobody knows what is going on at all. All we ask is for a red post acknowledging the threads and letting us know if you consider the controversy caused by this new item as something that should be addressed, and if not, what we can expect future items to be like.

Jabberwock.9014:

I’m seriously scratching my head at this move. I understand that this is probably an attempt to keep sprocket prices from ever skyrocketing beyond the rational (and a good attempt at that), but it is completely unfair to previous customers given the price point is the exact same as previous account bound infinite picks. What they SHOULD do is sell a pick upgrade accessory for a couple hundred gems that can add sprocket mining functionality to any infinite pick.

This idea I actually like, 200-300 gems to add the functionality to one of your tools, would let players use the skins they like most, and still keep the functionality of the new items if they CHOOSE to get them. Instead of having to buy a fully new pick if they want to just get the sprockets or whatever new flavour of the month is.

I would like to know about this as well.

I also love the majority of the Marionette fight. The tower defense works, and getting players to divvy up their forces for maximum effectiveness is a great idea. The only issue, as I’ve said, is the random allocation of players to platforms for the arena aspect of the boss. If we could get teleported to another platform after our regulator is down, this would likely be my favourite boss battle of all time.

Agreed, I like 99% of the Marionette and think the encounter is fantastic. The only issue is the random allocation on the platforms, and not being able to help your allies once your platform is done, that’s about it.

As I said in the other topic, the solution to this is add in iron (which I still think was a deliberate exclusion that makes zero sense), make them all rich nodes, and make their placement in the instance more convenient. You will then see LOADS of players buying them up, and far less complaints. Sell an advanced ore node pack with rich platinum/mithril/ori nodes down the line for 1000 or 1200 gems and you’ll be rolling in more money.

The convenience items like this need to actually be CONVENIENT, and worth the money. $10 for 3 each of copper/silver/gold per day is silly. Since these nodes are on a daily cooldown, and not 8-10 hours like normal ones, making them rich nodes should be a complete and utter no-brainer.

Add in iron, and make each node a rich one, and this would be well worth it. Later down the line you can add in a 1000-1200 gem ore node pack for rich platinum/mithril/orichalcum nodes and I guarantee that will sell as well. Basic nodes and leaving out iron (which I guarantee was deliberate) are both poor choices. Add iron and make them rich nodes and I guarantee you’ll see a spike in sales.

“Higher value conditions should overwrite lower value conditions simple as that so if you have per your example, one condu Ranger and 4 zerker Others your ranger would be able to stack all the conditions they want w/o being kitten by splash conditions from other classes.”

This is the key point from your post, and I’d basically do this, but with an extra twist. When stacks are at max, what needs to happen is the stack(s) with the lowest damage should be applied immediately to the target, this applies even if the newest stack(s) is/are the ones that are doing the lowest damage (like from the Warrior in the OP) . This could be stupidly broken in PvP/WvW, so likely it should be limited only to Elite enemies and above. Basically you just remove the lowest damage stack(s), and apply the damage from it/them instantly. This way the conditions from the non ConDam specced classes are still being used but the ones that spec for conditions are still keeping their damage going just fine.

Silly idea, but what about having the stealth from the trait simply remove stealth if damage is done, and NOT apply Revealed? That way you can get the stealth, but aren’t punished with Revealed no matter what when it procs.

With these additions it’d likely boost the CD of the skill, probably to somewhere in the 30-35 sec range.

In addition to this, can we finally get the Ranger pet to reflect the Ranger’s own stats (By which I mean any stats on gear/traits should also affect the pet, even if it’s to a lesser degree) and for the love of the Six give pets the ability to move and attack at the same time. Forcing them to root themselves to attack is just plain silly in a game where EVERYONE is expected to be moving around at all times.

A couple personal suggestions that I haven’t seen in the thread, I fully agree with the bits about Elemental Attunement being made intrinsic to the class (but only affecting the user when untraited) and various other bits, so here’s my suggestions.

Give Us Condition Traits: By this I mean give us traits like Necro’s Dhuumfire/Terror which let us be a condition user if we want to trait for it. A Master Fire trait which causes applications of Burning to inflict Poison (Toxic Fumes!), a Master Earth trait causing Bleed applications to inflict Torment (Serrated Shards?) and finally a Master Water one to cause Chill to inflict damage (Frostbite!) would go a LONG way to making condition Eles viable and could at least in one category help our damage out.

Elementals: This is really something I’d like to see on all summoned minions, but basically there is no real reason why they should have such a limited lifespan. I find them to be incredibly cool and useful, but their short duration means that they often inconveniently poof right in the middle of a fight even if they were doing fine. In addition, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to have them cast their more powerful skills on command. For the Lesser Elementals you can just have a simple button press activate their more powerful skill. For the Elite, have a tap activate one skill (and be a short-ish CD) and holding the button for more than a half second activate their more powerful one (for a longer CD). For both of them, you can have it set up so that holding their button for 3 seconds dismisses the Elemental (in case you want to call forth a different one for whatever reason).

Romo.3709:

Think how many of these they would’ve sold if they were 200 Gems each. A ton!

Nah, they still need to tack on “This is pullable like the Zenith and Radiant/Hellfire skins as many times as you like for all characters on your account” before I think they’d sell “a ton”.

One thing people seem to be forgetting with the new Soothing Wave, is that in PvE you will NEVER get hit by a critical hit. Monsters don’t have that ability, so that is a trait which flat out worthless in PvE content, and only mildly viable in PvP and WvW. And frankly, having yourself get 3 secs of Regen when you get critted, which likely means “You’re about to die horribly” doesn’t help. Not to mention the ten sec CD means that you’ll likely get it once or twice per encounter, whoop de do. If it were to provide you with Vigor and/or Protection as well (3 secs of each) on the same CD timer, then MAYBE it would be worthwhile. But as it is, it’s a silly trait, only moderately useful if you combo it with the GM Water trait. Except that all traits should be viable on their own, not require a GM trait to be usable.

Frankly, this item should work exactly like the Hall of Monuments stone, IMO. If you have a permanent pass in inventory (AKA the first time the character goes into the Terrace) then have one of the vendors in the Terrace “sell” an item for 0 copper that works exactly like the perm Royal Pass, but requires you to have the perm one already in inventory. This way you’ll need to put the real pass onto a character the first time they go to the Terrace, but after that they can keep the voucher in inventory at all times, which for all intents and purposes (double click to teleport, allows entry) works just like the perm Royal Pass itself.

If this functionality were included, I would instantly snap up the permanent pass, until it’s there, though, I’m gonna pass on the pass.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Speaking staff here I’ve never understood why flame burst is the only skill in the entire fire line to add a decent duration burn. Lava font should apply burn as well, since it takes so long to tick I’d love it to apply burning on cast and then in between each damage tick.

I really like Kamui’s suggestions as well and totally agree that it takes too long to get our bleed stacks up.

Funny thing about the other skill in Staff that can do Burn, IE Burning Retreat? It only applies its Burn if the enemy isn’t ALREADY Burning. So it’s completely useless if you have any sort of +ConDur.

As far as Eruption goes, one thing they could do with it would be to have it be one press to place, at which point it pulses 2 stacks of Bleed for 2 secs (plus the 2 stacks it’ll apply right when it’s placed, and 2 more when the final explosion applies). At any time during the pulses, you can hit the button for it again to instantly explode it, applying the 2 Bleed stacks for that, as well as the Blast finisher, in exchange for giving up the pulse stacks of Bleed. Naturally this can only be done if you stay in Earth, so you can’t lay it down and then add a field on top of it.

Main idea I had a while back for Conjures was that they would work like kits, but only for the Ele that used them, only on the one spawned in your hands when the conjure is used, and they’d keep their charges and duration. Basically once a Conjure is used, you gain it as a weapon swap as long as the charges/duration are still there. The bonus stats from it are only applied while actually using the Conjure itself, and any Conjures you pick up off the ground are simply treated as bundles and would be dropped if you pressed weapon swap.

Making only the one the Ele spawns for itself into a temp kit, while letting them keep the ability to swap back to their normal skills, would make Conjures a good deal more useful. Ele can only keep one Conjure “kitted” at a time (using another Conjure simply changes your swappable one, and your old Conjure can still be on CD), so it wouldn’t be absurdly overpowered.

General setup is this, on use, a Conjure slaps the bundle version on the target and the kit version into the Ele’s hands. They can press the weapon swap button to swap to and from the Conjure’s skills, but will only gain the stat boosts from the Conjure while using its skills on their skill bar. If the Conjure runs out of duration/charges, it is poofed and the Ele returns to their normal skills, the bundle version of the Conjure (the one spawned on the ground) will not have this swapping ability. If the Ele currently has an active Conjure and then uses another Conjure utility, then their old one is wiped and their new one is now their new “kit”. Hopefully that kind of change would make Conjures worthwhile and keep encouraging the Ele to be a versatile profession.

One way you fix condition Eles is 3 new traits. One in Fire can be Toxic Fumes: When you apply Burning, you also apply 5 secs of Poison, 10 sec CD. Another for Earth can be Tormenting Pain: When you apply a Bleed, apply Torment of equal # of stacks/duration, 3 sec CD. Finally one for Water can be Frostbite: Chill now deals damage, similar to how Fear can for Necros with Terror.

This way the Ele can spec into being a powerful condition build, but they have to trait for it, potentially DEEP into a trait line (I could see the Earth one being a GM and moving Written In Stone down to Master, myself, same with Frostbite and moving Powerful Auras?) to get full use of it. Ele is a jack of all trades, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t have the option of focusing how they play via traits into something like full condition damage.

My personal suggestion is to have it point-blank if you tap the button, and if you hold it for half a second it turns into ground-target.

I said one thing, I’d also be just fine with being able to use them in combat.

You know one thing that would make more people use town clothes? Have the City Travel buff auto-apply to you if you equip them while in a city. Bam, everyone’s now using town clothes since it lets them move about quicker, and you know there’ll be people that will prefer to be in the cooler looking town clothes, so that’ll prob drum up some gem sales too.

Sadly Conjure Flame Axe doesn’t seem to “count” as a Fire weapon skill set, even though it’s pretty clearly fiery. However the bit about the fields not lasting as long is definitely a bug, since the tooltip says nothing about only fields from Fire weapon skills, it should apply to ALL Fire fields.

If you think blocking all skills is OP, I would like to point you to Warrior’s Shield Stance. That’s right, you get 3 secs of invincibility every 30 secs, 24 if you trait for it! So yeah, I don’t think Ele having a similar utility would be OP.

Granted, I know Warrior can’t do anything in the middle of channeling that, but it’s still incredibly powerful. Ele having a higher CD on its version would make it balanced, IMO.

CC Danicia.1394:

Doggie.3184:

For some reason nearly all Anet players I see are Rangers.

I’ve been tooling around on my Ele & Necro today.

So one of the weakest classes and one of the strongest. Although I main Ele, so I know it’s fun to play, just a bit lacklustre most of the time. :/

I really don’t see an issue with there being a timer on these achievements like with Dailies. Transparency for players is something that should be a high priority, especially with things like this.

A Zerk Ele isn’t gonna go to 70% usually though, they’re either at full, dead, or very close to dead.

connvince.8061:

This is a strange viewpoint. I don’t know if I’ve ever created a build based on Elemental Attunement, and I do quite fine. Sure, it’s handy, and it’s fairly strong. But if you consider it “forced,” then that’s probably because you’re unwilling to learn to live without it. You may be offended by that idea, but consider that there are obviously many other players that think otherwise. You are either the only person with a clear understanding of the trait’s value or you are perhaps too narrowly interpreting other options.

We’re already struggling to be viable in general, so how can anything be considered “forced”? It’s more like we have fifty shades of mediocre. Or perhaps we haven’t yet stumbled upon the wonderful confluence of mechanics that will allow the elementalist to shine.

While it’s most certainly possible to go without Elemental Attunement, the effects that it gives (most notably Protection and Regen) are incredibly helpful to the Elementalist, as they have both low armour and low HP. With high Arcane you can have very good Protection uptime. There are other builds like Zerker Staff which relies on dodging and Burning Retreat to never get hit in the first place, so those builds don’t get as much benefit from EA. Dagger/Dagger gets great use from it, as well as Renewing Stamina and Evasive Arcana, to keep their ability to dodge as well as adding a bonus effect to their dodges.

No, if they make EA baseline, then they can do something to specifically make EA not be overpowered with Fresh Air, simply give each EA effect a 9 sec CD.

A Signet build in Earth would be potentially viable if our Signets were any good, they’d need to be twice as powerful as their current state to be worth using. Also, they could upgrade the Signet of Restoration to work similar to Arcane Brilliance, have it heal more the more targets you hit with an attack.

paleeshi.1924:

Zuik.7158:

Just going to throw out some facts. Here I will display some similar mobility skills which can be used for disengaging in sPvP and I would like some opinions and justification for this from players and if possible from a developer.

The justification is that the cooldown was too short compared to most of the ele’s offhand skills.

Yep, seriously, that’s what the devs said.

This is why I seriously think they need to lower the CD of those skills to more reasonable levels. 40-45 sec CDs is just stupid, even if we have 4 skill bars, so what? Engies get 1-4 skill bars with their kits (and they don’t really give up utilities, they still have the toolbelt even with kits) and they get both instant swapping and the normal CDs just like any other class has.

As I and several others have said before, Elemental Attunement’s effects should be made intrinsic to Attunement swapping, but the intrinsic version should only affect the Elementalist themselves. The current trait can instead be repurposed to change to upgrade this effect to give the boons out to the party. I also feel the Fire effect should be upgraded to 3 stacks of Might, but that’s just me.

We could do it like this. Arcane Wave is a PBAoE on the user if the button for the skill is tapped, if held for longer than a half second, it turns into a groud target skill. We could easily use that kind of versatility to give both the ones that want to use it in close range and in their rapid-fire combos and the ones that want to use it as a long range Blast finisher exactly what they want.

Frankly, I also figure Arcane Brilliance should be given this same treatment. I dunno about you, but I really don’t like the idea that my squishy self has to get in close to enemies to get the most out of his healing skill.

What I figure they need to do to fix Ele is:

1) Make Elemental Attunement’s effects inherent to attunement swapping, but only for the user, can then make an Adept or Master-tier trait to make it a party-sharing effect. You could also certainly afford to have the Fire version of this give 3 stacks of Might, a single stack is absolutely pitiful (also could do this for the Inscription trait, just saying!).

2) Lower the CDs on pretty much ALL of our 4/5 skills, if we could fire those off with only 20-30 sec CDs we would be FAR more effective (also really need to lower the CD on some of our Water skills). The same should also be done for the more ludicrous utilities, like Armour of Earth.

3) Potentially give Eles the medium health pool. Other classes with low HP or armour have some mechanic which counters these weaknesses. Guardians have high armour and great boons, Mesmers have their clones and some stealth, Necromancers have high HP and Death Shroud, and Thieves have evasion, Initiative, and heavy use of stealth. An Elementalist’s mechanic, as I see it, is meant to be their healing skills in Water attunement (frankly, those aren’t so great, they have way too high CDs to be really effective at sustain) and access to various boons like Protection and Regeneration. The problem is, the access to those boons is NOT inherent to the profession.

In order to gain access to those boons the player must specifically trait for them (Glyph of Elemental Harmony can give these boons, as well as Armour of Earth, but the former requires that specific skill, and the LATTER is a 90 bloody sec CD). The primary trait that allows for access to these boons, particularly Protection on a reliable basis, is Elemental Attunement. You will NOT be getting Eles out of at least the Arcana line unless item 1 on this list occurs. You CAN go without Elemental Attunement’s effects, but it is very tough going, moreso than it should be for the profession with the least survivability of them all.

4) Finally, this isn’t as much a requirement, but it is certainly something to consider. Similar to how I figure that Elemental Attunement should be an inherent effect of the Elementalist (yet should ONLY affect the user in that state) I also feel that some other effects should occur when you swap Attunements. Water could gain the effects of Cleansing Wave, but only for the Elementalist (with the current trait used to upgrade it to an AOE to affect the party). Fire could cause the next attack inflicted to inflict a short duration Burn or flat out Burn the Ele’s current target for 3 secs. Earth could work as a stunbreak with a decently long ICD, or it could Immobilise/Cripple the Ele’s current target. Finally, Air could have Vulnerability inflicted on the Ele’s target.

The last item in particular I know probably won’t happen, but ask yourself. With as many flaws as the Elementalist has, would it really be overpowered for them to be able to do all these things, or would it just do the job of helping bring them up to be equal to the other professions (and make the Ele actually not HAVE to spec into Water/Arcane JUST to survive).

Zaxares.5419:

Somewhat related question. Where is the option to switch on the item rarity border? I’ve been looking through my Options but I can’t see anything. Am I blind or just looking in the wrong place?

It’s in the gear icon in the upper right of your inventory. You should have a Show/Hide Rarity option there. Regarding the CFSOM’s colour, that’s sad to hear, it seems like it shouldn’t be much issue to change the rarity of the item while keeping its effectiveness (even though I would greatly prefer if it were equal to a Master’s Salvage Kit, it’s FAR more valuable then) the same.

So when I logged in today, thanks to the new item rarity borders (thanks for those!) I noticed that my standard line of stuff to take out of the bank for my character was no longer all Rare/Yellow. The 3 infinite harvest tools I used are still R/Y rarity, but for some reason the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic was changed to now be Common/White rarity. I’m curious on the reason for this change, and if it was intentional. If so, it makes me wonder if ANet plans to release other Salvage-o-Matics that are higher rarity (and thus use the higher power salvage kit ratios) for more copper/silver per use.

The Arcane Wave change is neat, it can now be used without needing to be in the middle of the action, although it’s now pointless underwater. That said, Arcane Brilliance SHOULD have worked like the new Arcane Wave, because when my heal requires me to dive into a mob full of things trying to kill me for max effectiveness, it’s going to get me killed more often than not.

From what I understand, the only thing Lingering Attunements does is let you keep the 5 point traits for an attunement for another few seconds. That’s it. No stacking other damage traits or getting multiple effects from Glyphs or anything similar.

I agree that Eles really should be in the medium health pool, as their healing abilities in Water attune are definitely not enough to compensate for their low health. I’d like to add to your point in that another bit where there was potential, but the ball was dropped, is the cooldown on Elementalist skills. There’s no logical reason why an Ele should have 40-45 sec CDs on their 4-5 slots, and CDs upwards of 60 secs on abilities similar classes have for far lower CDs. I’ve heard some bits talking about having Mesmers and Eles swap HP pools, and I think it could work. Ideally I’d rather Ele and Mesmer just share the same HP pool, but dunno if that would happen.

Yeah, the high CDs on Ele skills are apparently there because we have 20 weapon skills. Problem is, the skills also have generally lower damage numbers, and one of the main points of Ele is being able to do cool cross-attunement combos (RtL > Updraft > Fire Attune > Burning Speed > Fire Grab, for example) but those can’t really be done more than every 40 secs, 45 in some cases, and the full combo is just about as effective as some of the generic weapon combos that most other classes have (Guardian Greatsword can do Binding Blade, Symbol of Wrath, Pull, then Whirling Wrath for easy powerful damage, and even manages to get Retal and cure conditions of nearby allies with this combo, all on one weapon).

However, this entire theory would only make sense if it were just on weapon skills. There’s literally no reason why skills such as Armour of Earth and Mist Form need to have such high CDs when there’s skills such as Stand Your Ground (Retal and Stability SHOUT, also stun-breaker for the user) on only a 30 second CD, or as stated, Warrior’s Endure Pain Stance on a shorter CD. ANet needs to take another look and ask themselves why Eles need to have such high CDs on their utilities especially, but it also really wouldn’t hurt for them to take a look at the 4/5 slots on most weapon setups.

Regarding GoLE and GoE, I’d personally like them to have the summons work more like Necromancer minions. Don’t have them on a timer, and let us use their more powerful skill on command. For the GoE Elementals which have two skills, tapping the button can be one skill, while holding it can be another skill. Frankly I think all autonomous summons should be this way, makes them far more user friendly, and we don’t lose our Elemental right in the middle of a tough fight.

For everything else, I support 100%. They did fix the bug where Inscription didn’t work with GoE, though, so that’s good at least.

“The problem with the frost idea though is that our chill durations are very short lived but on very long cooldowns. The damage would need to be substantial.”

No, our 4-5 skills and the bulk of our utilities are on very long cooldowns. I’ve long said that they seriously need to lower the CDs on lots of the Ele skills to make them more usable. They could also look at Chill’s duration on several skills, but yeah, CD reduction is something that really needs to happen.

Taldren.7523:

To be honest, I am not sold on trying to shoehorn elementalist into being a condition class. That said, if it were to happen … I would say Poison fits better in the Water line.

If there was a condition ELE you would want one condition type per attunement so you never locked yourself out of your damage output.

Here are the holes that needed to be filled (with Poison included):
Control / Damage / Boon
Fire: (( )) / Burning / Might
Earth: Cripple / Bleed / Protection
Water: Chill / ((Poison)) / Regeneration
Air: Weakness / (( )) / Swiftness

Actually, I’ve been figuring for a while that there should be a Master tier trait that causes Chill to deal damage, similar to how Necros have one that enables Fear to deal damage. It’d work for an Ele, and make it so, if you trait right, you could use that as well as Poison on Burn to make an Ele a viable condition user. It makes it so that an Ele at its base is a jack of all trades, but when traited/geared properly, can focus more on one area at the detriment of others.

Frankly, I know that personally I’d be far more willing to buy skins in the gem store if they were permanent and put into a skin archive somewhere in the bank. I’d like to think that other players share this sentiment as well. The thing is, doing this properly would also likely bring in more money for ANet.

Most smart players don’t bother to get skins until they’re level 80 and are hunting around for cool looks. If they look in the gem store, they’re not likely to buy something more than once, and using transmutation crystals/stones as you level isn’t really sensible either. In addition, this skin archive would be a prime place to put all the various skin rewards that we receive from meta achievements.

One thing you could do as an alternative to transmutation stones/crystals could also be charging a reasonable amount of gems to add any skin to the skin bank, basically like how the PvP locker works, except for PvE and requiring gems to add something that’s not normally a skin.

Finally, this would make ANet more money. The two groups (IMO) most likely to spend gems are those that are just starting out and wanting to try cool stuff, or those that are very high level and want to grab cool skins for cosmetics. Making these things one-use means that the low level group, if they have any sense, aren’t going to bother buying the skins. At that point, you run the risk of them getting bored with the game, or racking up enough gold that they don’t have to pay real money for their gems, so you’re potentially losing a decent chunk of money there.

All in all, I think that making a skin archive in the bank would be a great move for ANet, any gem items that are skins are made permanent, potentially making any purchases that people did prior added to the bank as well.

In summary:

• Skin archive works like a hybrid of the PvP locker and the Zenith/Hellfire/Radiant skins from the Achievement panel.
• Can select an item in the archive and put a copy of it into your inventory as many times as you like, infinite use.
• Gem items and rewards from meta achievements are added to the archive.
• Items purchased prior from the gem store (can check purchase history for this) are added to the archive retroactively.
• Charge a reasonable amount of gems to add any item to the archive, letting it be withdrawn and used as a skin infinitely. This is more expensive than a single transmutation crystal, but unsure how much more.

If it were a guaranteed Poison application whenever Burning was applied with an ICD then I’d see no issues. That way it’s equally viable with Flame Burst on Staff and Drake’s Breath on mainhand Dagger. You could have a 5 sec Poison application with a 10 sec CD and you’d be pretty much set, maybe make it a Master tier trait.

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Honestly, the Soothing Wave prob isn’t gonna be so great. Even with it popping Regen, it’s not gonna be enough unless you’re a full bunker spec. Now if it were something like “Instant-cast Cleansing Wave (the Water Dagger 5 skill) when crit, 10-15 sec CD” then we might have something. It wouldn’t proc too often, it wouldn’t be an “on-demand” condition cleanse like the CW trait is, and it’d be a nice bit of burst heal in response to the crit, instead of the small heal over time from the Regen.

Possibly could crank it up to 20 sec CD, the healing from the CW skill is 1302 + HealPow at Lv 80, while Regen is… 130 + (0.125*HealPow) at 80. There’s no denying that my proposed option would be better, so a longer cooldown would make sense. Could even potentially give it a health threshold. Something like it doesn’t proc unless you’re below 80% HP after the crit. This could give it good synergy with Diamon Skin as well.

Lots of Ele skills are on far longer CDs than they need to be. There’s no real excuse for Armour of Earth having 90 sec CD when Guardians have Stand Your Ground for Stability to a GROUP for 30 sec CD.

Procbably. Is shot

But I agree with Gallrvaghn, I like being able to have a good degree of extra Burning when in Staff Fire, or when in D/D Air. It’s really good with a Fresh Air build, since you can get the attunement/effect you want, swap back to Air, and then use Sceptre to easily apply the effect VERY quickly. You’ve now got Fresh Air which is also applying Burns at a rapid pace.

I figure Greatsword could work well as a long range single target nuker. We have Staff for area damage, mainhand Dagger for melee range, and Sceptre for medium range (and it covers both area damage and single target well). Having a good weapon for spiking from a distance with fast, single target attacks would be very useful for an Ele.