Guild Wars 2

Actually the attributes are a problem for a large amount of people. There’s already many existing threads on why having low HP forces us to gear and/or spec a certain way in various game modes. Even though increasing our base HP would not only be consistent in terms of the way the rest of the game is balanced and also allow people to diverge out of water/arcane they likely will never do it. This really affects all builds. including staff builds.

The same goes with how we are balanced as a class: thematically. What that means is that instead of having a normal power line, a condi line, a crit line, etc (like every other class) we’re instead spread out where each condi is put based on what they match thematically. This means we have multiple condi lines with burning only in Fire and Bleeding only in Earth. A more focused Power line could really help a staff build out.

Elementalist uniquely has access to the largest variety of weapon based ranged AOE abilities. Other classes like a Necro or the upcoming Chronomancer are tied entirely to their utility slots which often gives up colossal amounts of survivability as a result (especially when compared to triple Cantrip). Revenant and the Engineer (post overhaul) have some potential we’ll have to see. While Heart of Thorns will certainly shake things up I don’t really see another class being a contender flaws or no.

I was sure this was going to say, “Increase base Ele HP” or “Stop designing/balancing our class thematically and instead balance or class like every other class in the game.” because those are both things that are simple and would totally fix everything.

It’s really all about what you’re comfortable with. I like to think that dying is the game’s way of telling you that you’re doing something that isn’t right for you yet.

The biggest thing unmentioned in guides (for any class really) you read like at Metabattle is a lot of people have been doing these encounters and content for years now. They have encounters timed out that they know when abilities are going to happen and what they need to do to counter them. So newer players who haven’t run these encounters a bunch of times are going to run into issues when they go in and don’t recognize that hand rising means you will need to dodge after 2 seconds and other various tells.

A lot of what works and doesn’t work really depends on your group. A lot of those Metabattle guides also don’t mention they’re intended to be ran only with other Berserker groups who destroy the content faster than was ever intended allowing you to bypass certain boss mechanics by burning down the boss as fast as possible before they even have a chance to do those mechanics! So not running Berserker if the rest of your group is can become a bad scenario for everyone as well if the group you run with is setup for that. However as Evalia mentioned if you’re not in one of those groups it’s not a race and it’s more important to be learning the mechanics of the encounters.

It’s also important to recognize the group you’re with and how they play. Stacking might is an AOE mechanic that happens around you. If your group isn’t stacked up around you and most of them are all ranged and kiting the mob that won’t help anyone but yourself. In those cases it might be better to simply put on a Staff, back up and kite as well for your own self survivability. The same goes if someone is already sharing Might like a Phalanx Strength warrior.

Generally speaking you want to focus on Power currently over Condition damage. This is because many classes have passive ways to apply bleeds which can often times take up much of the bleed stacks (example: Mesmer on crit, Warrior on crit, etc). There are also many encounters in the game that are simply immune to Conditions and Crits so ultimately focusing on Power is the most versatile solution. While learning I’m personally a fan of using Power focused gear with some defensive stats on it (such as Valykrie or Soldiers). This gives you a little bit more HP and Toughness to survive an extra few hits without immediately going downed at the loss of a little bit of damage (depending how overboard you go with it).

As for Might Stacking itself Scepter/Dagger definitely my favorite as well. The key getting up to 25 is not only stacking it initially but always switching back to Fire on cool down and reapplying it through DT+Fire Ring repeatedly. Runes of Strength are also huge, but fairly spendy so make sure you put them only in gear you can salvage (can’t salvage WvW gear or Karma gear).

All depends on the Tempest.

Nomad is definitely the opposite.

As always, the first and foremost thought in a GvG scenario is playing what your team expects you to be running. If your commander expects you to be throwing Healing Rain with two condi cleanses (Cleansing Water) then not having that is going to throw them off.

That said, full offense is certainly fun but is usually short lived. More Overt attacks can largely be avoided/mitigated with triple cantrip (Flash, Mist and Armor) and conditions managed with Ether Renewal but you can’t really avoid Retaliation. Retaliation is incredibly punishing with very little Toughness/Vitality to last through it. The better you do the more you will be punished for it and I’ve seen my life go from full to half on good bursts of damage almost entirely from Retaliation. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to pull off, and I’ve seen a few groups run a few Eles like this, but again it comes down to organization and planning for it.

Personally I don’t see the point. Prior to joining my guild I ran mostly this build. It has plenty of offense rolled into a strong defense. With Applied Strength/Fortitude and Bloodlust Stacks I’ve got tons of Power and Vitality. I never go down and have plenty of survivability to adjust to bad positioning or a focus spike.

Really it’s all about being able to adjust to the scenario as it presents itself. Sometimes Venomshare is very common and I’ll switch out for more Condi Cleanse. Other times it’s not and there’s a lot more people singling people out and blowing them up and I’ll go more survivability. Other nights it’s just a bunch of baddies and you can steam roll them and full Zerker is the call. Adaptability is always the key to success in competitive environment.

I liked the vid!

I like S/D as well on the same spec when I do SPvP. Run into some serious issues with Longbow Rangers for sure though but always some counter.

See I think things like clones are off limits because really that’s the profession mechanic. It’d be like another class getting Attunements.

Whomever gets Mesmers is gonna get Mantras, Glamours or Manipulations. Mantras seem the most likely, but yuck to whomever gets it. Knowing Elementalist’s luck if we got Mesmer we’d get Mantras. I’m hoping however since Warriors generally lack ranged AOE type moves in their utilities they would get Glamour type abilities maybe with a twist or something.

Time will tell

Yea I just don’t necessarily see what Mesmer has to offer us as a secondary class and Thief to a warrior. Both are fairly already in line with each other as is which is why I think it’ll be Ele+Thief and Warrior+Mesmer cause each are sufficiently different to mix things up. Also to be fair Mesmer is quite reknown for stealth as well with the PU builds so could easily be that as well.

Dunno have to see. I think we’re going to see Warrior→ Ranger / Ele – > Thief → Engie in terms of class reveals so we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully I’m wrong and Ele is next

Out of the last mixes I think it’s going to be:

Ele+Thief
Ranger+Ele
Engie+Guardian
Warrior+Mesmer
Thief+Engie

I also agree that Air/Water will be the big WvW lines with Earth/Arcane/Tempest being the optionals as the mainstream specs. As always specific groups will be running their own builds that they find work best for their own groups.

Fire simply only really helps Fire and in WvW you really shouldn’t be camping an attunement. Earth looks great for brawler defense but is entirely suspect for Staff Ele. Without needing Blasting Staff Arcane’s main claim to fame will be perma Vigor and lower attunement timers.

Most of the time if you’re running in an organized raid they typically have organized raid builds they want you to use. These builds are chosen and usually decided upon for what’s most useful for their Commanders and most Commanders will expect organized people to be playing those builds. I would always strongly suggest using whatever build they expect to support your commander.

As to the question of stats, generally speaking the only stats that matter are direct damage (power/precision/ferocity) and survivability stats (toughness/vitality).

Condi damage and Healing generally aren’t useful in large scale scenarios. The main reason for this is the amount of healing we can kick out is vastly inferior to the amount of damage being dealt in large scale scenarios. Even if you could double healing on skills like Geyser it’d still be nothing compared to 4+ Guardians/Warriors AOE blasting with Hammer on the water fields. Conditions suffer from low up time as many classes bring a large amount of condi cleanse from the Guardian’s Purging Flames to our very own Healing Rain and mostly see usage in smaller scale PvP scenarios (solo roaming WvW, SPvP) where condi removal isn’t as abundant.

Therefore Celestial “wastes” points in the less useful stats that could be focused elsewhere. Doesn’t mean you can’t make these stats work, but this explains the viewpoint why most people use Berserker. Well that and it is very commonly used for PvE and if you’re talking Ascended Armor that can be quite spendy to make multiple suits!

Yea for sure. Takes a bit to map a character and you’re not zipping around map to map when you are mapping and honestly lower level content is so easy shouldn’t be going down much if at all.

Even then while leveling, Bloodlust is still extremely solid regardless of class as you shouldn’t be dying that much. If you are you need to either need to focus on a more defensive spec and/or more defensive gear cause you aren’t ready for full glass yet.

While getting downed and/or dying certainly happens I feel it’s faulty to make plans around it. Might just be me, but I see dying or getting downed as failing and/or losing in this game and I avoid it at all costs. If you’re dying a lot, it isn’t necessarily that you’re doing something wrong it’s that you could be doing something that isn’t right for you.

Sigil of Fire isn’t bad at all and after the nerf may be comparable in terms of damage increase you get compared to Sigil of Battle (2 might stacks on swap). Fire can proc almost twice in the Battle cool down. Also depends on play style as if you aren’t rapid attunement swapping (at least once every 9s) you don’t get much mileage out of Battle where as Fire is always just straight up damage.

For PvE though I always like Bloodlust. 25 stacks is just a great boost once you get it rolling. Other than that it’s hard to go wrong with Energy, Air, Fire, Battle, Force, etc.

While leveling you have 4 choices: Dagger, Scepter, Staff or Conjures. All of them work and each have their advantages/disadvantages.

Dagger: You’re going to spend most of your time in Air.
Scepter: You’re going to spend most of your time in Fire/Air.
Staff: You’re going to spend most of your time in Fire.
Conjures: It matters/doesn’t matter. I spent most of my time in Water.

Instead of viewing each attunement as one thing or another (IE: Water = Healing) it’s better to look at each tree individually and be mindful of what it offers for that weapon. For example if you find yourself in a situation, you should be familiar with your weapon skills and how best to use them. If you’re kiting around as staff and need a breather you have Chill in Water, Immob and Line in Earth, Knockback and Stun in Air and an Evading Retreat in Fire. The key is analyzing the situation and using the tool that is most appropriate for that situation. If you’re burning through things so fast there’s no reason to not just face tank things in your own Lava Fonts cause losing 25% of your HP is meaningless when it instantly heals up a few seconds later.

Biggest thing while leveling is you’re going to find most things die pretty fast so you’re not going to be able to do full combos. For example using Scepter you can kill just about any pack of 5 mobs without switching out of Fire cause it’s so bursty. Veterans and Elites however will give you chances to practice full multi-attunement combos. However in your average mob scenario to be honest just running around with Dagger in Air and spamming 1 gets the job done in so many cases.

Conjures (Lightning Hammer specifically) are incredible while leveling but suffer from the problem that random people will run along and pick them up and use them and more importantly if you gotta move to a new area you gotta go back and pick up your second weapon. They are great for solo story, however.

At your level you’re still in the two stat phase for gear. I prefer Power/Vitality during that part of the game but it’s not always available. Power/Precision or Power/Ferocity is available but I find you never really get enough Precision or Ferocity at this stage to really make one or the other worth it.

Around 65 you start getting triple stat gear and up to you at this point where you go with gear. A lot of us early on learned how to play the Elementalist in the days when it was fashionable to go full tank spec (0xx66) and full tanky gear (soldiers/valkyrie/etc) regardless of game mode. Over time we’ve swapped in more and more offensive gear and spec’s as our proficiency with the class and game raised. You can skip all that and go full tilt offense from the get go but as rabidsmiles mentioned you’re going to die a lot. Personally I hate dying and never will get used to it.

Biggest thing to learn about the Ele is what you have access to and knowing when to take advantage of it. If you do that you’ll be in good shape for 80.

Honestly hard to say until we see the Tempest and see what kind of over all line it’s going to be and how you can apply what it has to regular Elementalist game play. Here’s hoping for the reveal tomorrow.

Otherwise without Tempest it’s pretty basic. Fire/Air/Water for PvE DPS. Earth/Water/Arcane for tanky SPvP and WvW. Air/Water/Arcane for people who want more damage oriented SPvP or WvW. Honestly our lines didn’t get much of an overhaul as other classes so not much will change.

Eventually the complaining will subside (it’s been like this for every major change like RTL) and people will either go Elemental Attunement for defense (highest protection up time) or Evasive Arcana for a mix of off/def.

Hard to say where we will end up amulet wise. We benefited greatly from base stats we got from spec but we’re not getting those anymore making Celestial pretty lack luster on top of a nerf. Really none of the current amulets fill the gaps as nicely as Celestial did either. Really this is more wait and see what they actually do with stats.

Sadrien.3470:

azel, air isn’t really being nerfed because, unless you save your burst until the very end bolt to the heart is only 20/3=6.6% damage increase. ( The 5% less damage in air is much more noticeable except when firegrabbing foes)

And arguably with Tempest Defense and some good CC the damage increase could be over all massive with combos like Gale, Earthquake and Updraft. Good ol’ Flash → Earthquake → Unload just got 20% stronger.

I prefer Staff cause I level up in EOTM.

Hoping for Ele/Thief with Deceptions (high mobility and possibly stealth skills).

Jedge.3619:

We don’t even know the traits for chronomancer, so how can you say it will enhance every current mesmer build? Just because you have a new specialization, doesn’t mean you have to go into that trait line.

While we didn’t get a chance to look at them they did mention a few things about the Chronomancer Traits, specifically that Phantasms can be exploded twice and that Shatters Generate Clones. They also said you could have these two traits at the same time meaning different tiers. Both of these would greatly help most Mesmer builds (as most are Shatter or Phantasm focused).

I honestly have no idea what to expect. To me the name Tempest implies storm, chaotic, speed, etc. “Such and such was caught up in a tempest of…” The problem with a name however is it can be used to justify anything. Haven’t read an implausible idea yet.

That said I’m personally hoping for some thief like mechanics with Deceptions or something similar mobility focused.

Raif.9507:

Except… that requires getting hit… something no DPS elementalist wants. And to be perfectly honest, I can’t think of a single PvP build that doesn’t use it that’s worth anything.

The only thing making Celestial ele “OP” as the masses call it is Celestial. It wasn’t even in the meta till the amulet itself was buffed. This is overboard, just like RTL.

I never said it was a good solution, it was simply a logical one. In fact everyone’s arguments against Elemental Contingency (in short: it’s worse than Evasive Arcana) are all reasons why it should be in a lower tier than Elemental Attunement.

Gaab.4257:

I just don’t get the logic.

It’s so core, everyone uses it -> let’s remove!

The problem with this mentality is not everyone does use it. I haven’t used Elemental Attunement in over a month. In fact I’d have zero points in Arcane if it wasn’t for Blasting Staff in most cases.

As for the Logic…he probably had someone somewhere tell him to nerf D/D Celestial Elementalists and this was the decision he came up with. Honestly when you think about it….kinda the logical move. If you were going to nerf Elemental Attunement and make a worse version of it, you pretty much have Elemental Contingency. Swap the two, call it a day, and move on to your next brilliant decision: Make the Guardian specialization a Ranger.

Yo dawg, I heard you like a Ranger Alt so now I put a Ranger in your Guardian so you can ranger while you Guardian.

As for what to do, most WvW servers I know of have TS and if you can listen in that’s usually what most are looking for. Even if you’re unable to call fields, being able to listen to what’s needed is clutch.

If you can listen in, usually you can try to find patterns for different Commanders and simply do what you need to do. This means gauging how aggressive the Commander is and gauge what they need. For example if a Commander always leads with CCs chances are you’re going to want to be in Air when running around to drop down Static on enemies first. Just the same if they call for Water fields repeatedly you may not want to be locked out of Water after pushing. Eventually you get a feel for what’s needed and come up with your own rotation.

Doubling up usually isn’t bad, either. If a commander calls for a water field, people may drop Geyser and you can drop it as well but slightly off the tag (like edge on tag, and edge towards other people) so different groups of 5 people get the heal and it creates a bigger area for people to blast.

While I can understand the frustration of not hearing Geyser to blast it, ultimately I’d like to imagine that people would be appreciative of the fact it got cast at all when asked for rather than be upset it wasn’t mentioned. Then again this is the internet. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, find those groups out there and just run with them and you should be good.

If you can’t even listen in on TS…well that’s a whole other can of worms.

This is a build I used to run for WvW before I joined my guild.

Trait wise Lightning Rod has become fairly good in the new CC heavy meta. The biggest problem I find with it is it doesn’t give credit for tags unfortunately (bug reported). In Water you can swap around the Master Trait between Soothing Disruption, Cleansing Wave and Aquamancer’s Alacrity. All are good options depending on your situation and the key really is adaptability. Earth points are variable and can be swapped around as desired. I like the 10 in Earth for the extra 100 Toughness and Earth’s Embrace because I play very aggressively.

Utility wise is all about self survivability and mobility. Again with the CC heavy meta Armor of Earth is a must. Mist Form I used to skip but now I find it’s very useful for charging through chokes and the like as you can effectively get two dodge roll distance out of it. Lightning Flash lets you reposition where you need to be if you get caught in a bad scenario. Even FGS is all about mobility and getting to an objective quicker or escaping.

The Health is a bit low stats wise, but honestly with Robust HP WvW boost and 5 Guard Stacks (2500 HP) it’s more than enough to survive (usually 17k – 18k HP). The 2500 toughness, decent HP and utilities makes me one hell of a robust character when played right. Usually I only go full down (as in lose guard stacks) once or twice an evening even in Tier 1 battles. Bloodlust stacks are easy to maintain as well.

Offensively speaking we’re solid. After Guard Stacks (100 power) and Bloodlust we’re sitting on a comfortable 2700+ power on top of 48% crit and 199% crit damage before we’re even touching Might, Fury or any other kind of boons. Even Ice Spike is incredibly painful for groups and I easily see it go off for 5k crits all the time.

Defensive Infusions I’d eventually throw in Toughness/Agony. This is about 100g I believe per one however so not in a huge rush to get those in. Eventually though that’s enough Agony that I can easily do 1-29 Fractals which is all I’ve ever been interested in doing personally. The WvW defensive Infusions (or even the offensive ones for that matter) seem largely unimportant as guards don’t do any real damage nor last long enough to matter. It may be more important when HOT hits and the new Borderlands maps introduce new mobs to the equation however.

My understanding was that it was a bug.

They had these accounts flagged as a “beta” account. Then when they reset them they flagged it back as a “Heroic” account which is why some people got the chests. Wasn’t intentional nor meant as a reward for HOT testers.

John.8507:

Its not all fair because it seems that theres a higher percentage chance that it drops for some people and not others, there might not be or it could just be “luck”, or it could be down to a MF mistake? But its been shown by some people trying for days/ and hours each day to get one and not getting one, and others getting some after a few minutes or getting several portals shows that its not totally fair, and cant all just be down to luck or bad luck.

It’s entirely an assumption that you think player X has a greater chance to get the item than player Y. I know someone who has 500% magic find and I got 5 and they still have zero. I also had a group with someone who got one on their 3rd event after just reinstalling the game for first time in 2 years in a group with someone who has been farming for days and she’s gotten none.

The only thing proven by all these stories is that it’s entirely random and everyone has the same random chance at it.

http://i.imgur.com/ExqnUIC.jpg

What does it matter if I got 1 portal or 5? I’m still in the beta either way. It’s not as if me getting into the beta I stole one of your chances to get in. It’s simply a % drop chance regardless. At most you can complain I got 1 gold extra due to a drop item which is completely ignorant of the huge number of champ bags that will grant me far more than that ever would.

People are simply frustrated. The system isn’t broken or unjust or unfair. Blaming the system or the implementation of the system is the way people are choosing to express their frustration that they haven’t gotten in. It’s no different than people expressing frustration when they didn’t get in due to a random selection of people.

timmyf.1490:

Astralporing.1957:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

No, i’d rather they just stick to emailing them out randomly.

It’s still random, except this time I wouldn’t be encouraged to waste my time grinding stale content.

This.

I didn’t grind the content because I don’t have time to waste. It would have been nice to have a chance to get the portal.

You have a chance to get into it from signing up like everyone does.

Consider also the following. They put in a drop that favors a large time investment cause more time is more RNG chances (sure some will get it right away but most who got one or more have grinded a lot). Aren’t those the kind of people they want in beta? The kind who do have time to waste and will play and test it?

Hell yea.

http://i.imgur.com/ExqnUIC.jpg

Ignoring the 5 portals, there’s thousands of champ bags and gear bags there to loot and more rolling in since that screen shot. It’s been fantastic with all the people coming out to a zone and trying for stuff. While some people find it frustrating, I really enjoy all the crazy amounts of people participating in activities.

As always you want to put context on what kind of game play you’re doing.

Presumably not SPvP since leveling is largely irrelevant there but there are a lot of differences between WvW and PvE and PvE Dungeons and PvE Fractals and even high end PvE Fractals.

http://i.imgur.com/ExqnUIC.jpg

Working as intended.

Then all 5 lines would have Auras and Aura related traits!

Yay lets make every line have everything in it!

The biggest problem with removing stats is that in PvP there isn’t a spread of them. For example you could (in theory) currently go 6 into Earth and pick up 300 Toughness that you don’t get if you take a Berserker Amulet. While you will pick up 74 base stats (power, prec, etc) it also doesn’t answer what happens to non-base stats like condi damage, healing power, etc that we got before. This can make something like Celestial, which works well with an additional 100 Toughness and 300 Vit/Heal, now problematic because it doesn’t give enough of any particular stat to make it work (let alone the fact they are reducing it further).

I imagine that Geomancer’s Defense will help with the the stats but I don’t see it necessarily as designed entirely to act as a replacement to the toughness there. Honestly without Geomancer’s Defense this entire line would be forgettable as you’d really only spec it for the Grandmaster now that Earth’s Embrace is down to 25% HP.

Honestly removing the 800 stat points just shows how limited the amulet system is and hopefully they will do something more dynamic like simply give you 2000 (or whatever) selectable attributes for the entire character. Basically what you can do for PvE/WvW.

With our current trait lines the only line that’s really great anymore (regardless of build/play style) is Water. The rest of the lines lack focus and remain mostly the same generic lines we have currently with clearly superior choices.

So yea kinda hoping Tempest will be the big #2 line even if I don’t use a Sword with it (far as I can tell Specializations don’t restrict your weapon, just unlocks the use of it). This is going to really depend on what utilities we get with it plus the elite and of course what the Traits actually offer to existing game play. Even then with nerfs like Elemental Attunement making Elementalist survivability even lower I think it’s going to be just that much harder to get away from Cantrips.

Personally I’m hoping for something mobility focused.

Dem Wells though….

I’m so excited about Mortar Kit I actually logged into my Engineer to do more than just some cooking.

I highly doubt Conjures will ever be kits because we already have permanent access to too many weapon sets with Attunements. The whole concept of flipping another weapon set on, using a cool down or two, then flipping back to your weapons/more kits is really what the Engie play style is all about currently.

Conjures need an entire overhaul because currently they don’t work very well. They’re either good enough that they supplant our base weapons creating that Engineer scenario (Lightning Hammer) or they are bad and used as throw away weapons where you use 1-2 cool downs then ditch them (Ice Bow). If you nerf the former scenario, you reinforce the second scenario. If you nerf both scenarios, you make other options clearly superior (IE: Glyph of Storms in favor of Ice Bow 4) and there’s no reason to use Conjures. There are many ways to overhaul Conjures keeping with the concept of a cool effect for you and your group without impeding on any other class mechanics.

That said, if they are going to leave Conjures in their current state what they should allow at the very least is for you to be able to pick up your second weapon and simply add Charges to the existing timer. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to use your Conjure weapon and having some random dude come along, pick it up, swing it once or twice and then despawn it entirely. This preserves the options for sharing while not having to camp an area to pick up your other Conjure when your current on wears out while soloing.

As I put elsewhere the biggest frustration I have with the new trait system is that we continue to be balanced thematically.

What that means is instead of having a very clear “This is the Condition line. This is the Aura line. This is the…” that most classes seem to have many traits we have are spread out all over because they go with their respective Attunements. Burning must be Fire. Bleeds must be Earth. Protection on Auras is Earth. Auras and traits that boost Auras are spread out over four specializations two of which (Air/Earth) are just boons on Aura.

This is incredibly frustrating as a player and Elementalist should be looked at and each line made consistent with two Focuses and a utility trait per tier. Water is probably the best example of this. It has two focuses: Damage (Piercing Shards, Aquamancer Training, Bountiful Power) and Defense (Soothing Ice, Cleansing Wave, Cleansing Water) and Utility (Stop Drop and Roll, Soothing Disruption and Powerful Aura).

Other trees need similar focus. Why do we have two Condi lines on a class that only ever has had fringe Condi builds? Why are there multiple crit focused traits in a Power/Condi specialization? Signets in two lines. Cantrips in two lines. Auras in four lines. Conjures don’t even have their own trait. The biggest thing other classes got that we didn’t is cohesion and refinement in each of their lines while each of our lines continue to simply try to do too much in too many places.

General Trait Feedback

The biggest frustration I have with the new trait system is that we continue to be balanced thematically.

What that means is instead of having a very clear “This is the Condition line. This is the Aura line. This is the…” that most classes seem to have many traits we have are spread out all over because they go with their respective Attunements. Burning must be Fire. Bleeds must be Earth. Protection on Auras is Earth. Auras and traits that boost Auras are spread out over four specializations two of which (Air/Earth) are just boons on Aura.

This is incredibly frustrating as a player and I don’t think you should continue to balance this way. Elementalist should be looked at and each line made consistent with two Focuses and a utility trait per tier. Water is probably the best example of this and bravo to the design on the new Water line. It has two focuses: Damage (Piercing Shards, Aquamancer Training, Bountiful Power) and Defense (Soothing Ice, Cleansing Wave, Cleansing Water) and Utility (Stop Drop and Roll, Soothing Disruption and Powerful Aura). Beautiful and you guys did a fantastic job with this line.

What needs to happen is this same kind of design needs to happen in the other Specs of two focused areas and then utility.

1. Earth or Fire should be made the Condi line and the rest moved out. There are many ways to do this and keep the spirit of things. For example if you choose Earth, you can easily make Burning Precision now called “Molten Slivers” that X% chance on applying Bleed you also apply Burning and Y% chance on Burning you apply Bleed. You can swap out “Written in Stone” (now “Seared Sigils”) and “Blinding Ashes” which provides greater synergy with Conjurer. “Strength of Stone” could be renamed “Toxic Earth” and add in a Poison effect to the mix. Elemental Shielding should be merged into Powerful Auras (creating a clear Fire/Air/Water Aura build).

2. This is going to sound crazy but I think Inscriptions should be in the Arcane focused line and Arcane Skill boosts in the Air line. The reason for this is simply that Glyphs are all attunements where Arcane skills are primarily Crit damage and it’s more a matter of functionality than theme. This is going to be a bit of a ride but follow me here: First we take Bolt to the Heart out of GM and move it down to Adept with it being 150 Ferocity when target below 33% health (even at 50% crit that’s roughly a 5% damage increase which is a T1 trait worthy for only 1/3rd health). We remove Inscription and replace it with Final Shielding (add something else to it, cause it’s a poor choice at the moment regardless of where it is). Then we take Arcane Energy, put it as a the GM Trait but now make it so Blast Finishers now add Fury and removing this benefit from Persisting Flames (which is a Power based line).

3. Oh Fire, we’ve taken so much from you! Persisting Flames can be dropped to Adept now (Lava Tomb + 2s fire field). Conversion Trait should be more Power focused rather than Condi. One with Fire is moved to Grandmaster tier and now adds a pulsating Fire effect to Fire Aura (think Grawl Shaman Fractal kinda effect only against enemies!). A new Master trait is added to Master line that’s Conjure related (see below for Conjure revamp link). This turns the line into a Signet/Aura and Power based line with a few utilities here and there.

4. Arcane. So long as Renewing Stamina is a trait, it’s going to be picked and really should just be made into a Minor such with Arcane Precision and then the 15% reduction added to Lingering Elements. Inscription would go in place of Final Shielding. A new boon focused trait should go in place of Renewing Stamina. The big change is Lingering Elements and making it work with all skills and utilities. The biggest example is Glyphs. If you are in Fire and swap to Water, using Glyph of Storms will produce a storm that is a mix of Cold and Fire (but same max total of bolts). If you do the same and use a Lesser Elemental you would summon a Fire and Ice elementals (but only half the duration). This breathes life into something like Glyphs and makes Lingering Elements useful and a kind of new way to play the character. This is consistent and makes everything Crit, Arcane and utility focused.

Regardless of what is decided, the class lines need to be made consistent. I realize this may not always jive thematically but skills can always be renamed after the fact.

Conjures
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Problematic-Conjures/first#post5006424

Basically remake Conjures into buffs rather than throw away weapons because no matter what they do their current design they are problematic.

Players are generally looking for one of two things in their utilities. These generally hold true for just about every class:

Additional Offense – Special attack type or method of attacking you don’t get from your base weapon skills and traits or more of that.

Additional Defense – Special defenses that you don’t get from basew eapon skills and traits or more of them.

With that in mind, Glyphs really only offer two sets of meaningful options.

The first one is Glyph of Storms, which simply adds additional AOE to the mix with various useful conditions (burn, chill, vuln, blind). This is just more of what we already have and the big use people talk about is the AOE Blind with Sandstorm which is something we don’t normally have.

The second is the Elemental Glyphs which are basically throw away, dumb pets that die really easy (except Earth) and then you lose access to any of their additional abilities most of which are pretty suspect. I actually prefer most of the abilities on the Lesser Elementals because they can be done anywhere rather than requiring a target meaning I can use them as a buff. I guess the Elite is technically the least useless of the all the useless options we have for PvE. Hooray, win by default.

The Ress one is ridiculous and Elemental Power just adds more of the same conditions you already get generally speaking from their own base lines. That’s not to say that more isn’t better, only that if you’re comparing these options and a Cantrip for survivability or a Conjure (For now) for offense there’s no reason I’d ever take these. It’s a similar problem with Signets, but at least they can be used for Aura generators.

Inscription is the prime example of what I’m talking about. Add a boon to your Glyph! Well gee, thanks for a random boon. It entirely ignores the fact we can easily self stack huge stacks of Might, have unlimited Swiftness and have loads of Regeneration. Protection is nice and all but then I have to swap to Earth to use my Glyphs.

Only thing I see really working interesting with Glyphs is if they made them work with Lingering Elements. Like if you have Lingering Elements with Fire and Water, when you do Glyph of Storms it’s a mix of Fire and Cold bolts or with Inscription you get both boons when you use them. Not sure how that works with Elementals but sure they could figure out something (maybe both Elementals but only can use the abilities of the attunement you’re in I dunno).

Air line is basically:

Zephyr’s Boon if you are Aurashare or One with Air because Ferocity on Healing Power is garbage because Healing Power is garbage.

Master line it’s pick your poison. For staff you’ll use Tempest Defense because the Air line in staff is…not…good. For Dagger you may want to consider using Aeromancer Training because 10% crit damage ain’t awful if it’s a longer fight. Scepter I’d probably use Tempest Defense because it’s paired with Focus or Dagger both which have a lot of CC in them but 10% crit damage for the instant lightning bolts ain’t a kick in the face either. Inscriptions continues to be there because where else would they put our useless traits that they said they were overhauling? Oh hey, I can get a single boon on a class that practically poops boons with each step they take? Best Master trait ever!

Grandmaster is pretty much going to be Fresh Air for burst damage and Bolt to the Heart for sustained damage. Lightning Rod continues to remain an interesting option for large scale WvW fights but the loss of it combined with Bolt to the Heart and otherwise makes the whole Air line somewhat suspect for large scale WvW in general meaning it may very well fall off in use.

Essentially Water line is the new meta. It has amazing defenses and amazing benefits for DPS builds. I think you’re going to struggle to create a build that doesn’t include water cause it’s the only tree we have that is just has cool stuff in it regardless of spec. Auras? It has you covered. Support? Yes indeed. DPS? Look no further.

Every other line is lackluster (0-2 options in each major) with almost 100% of the cool stuff in the Grandmaster tiers. Lackluster lines simply mean they will be chosen based on what you need. Need more CC focus? Air. Planning on sitting in fire and doing DPS? Fire. Need some melee survivability? Earth. All these other lines are very boring and while the Grandmaster traits might be pretty cool the rest of the line is like, “I guess I will take this option because it’s the best option out of all these terrible options.” like “I guess I’ll take 10% dmg on Fire/20% cool down cause it’s better than a condi cleanse I don’t need with Might on cantrips on stupid long cool downs and that aura one which is so forgettable I have to look it up to even see that it does more Might.”

Don’t say this to complain, just kinda how it is with our choices.

Really don’t see the loss in damage from a PvE perspective for Staff builds.

In Fire you had 10% fire dmg, 20% fire cool downs, and Puissance. You still get all that plus an additional Adept trait which most likely will be the burning on crit because the other options are terrible.

Air line used to be Bolt to the Heart then up to Tempest Defense (for 20% damage with Icebow 5 stun) or 4 points just for the added Precision and a dead trait. You still get the same Bolt to the Heart and Tempest defense while staff with a useless trait in the Adept slot cause none are good for DPS.

From here you got two choices. You can go after Renewing Stamina again and get the Vigor, a useless Master trait and I guess Evasive Arcana. Alternatively you can go Water, get Piercing Shards (20% damage in Water and extra Vuln duration from crits), Aquamancer’s Training (10% damage while above 90%) and bountiful Power (2% damage per boon). Frankly the water seems like the obvious choice if you can deal without Vigor.

Until or if they do something with Fire Adept, Air Adept and Arcane Master those trees always going to involve taking useless stuff to get what you want. That’s nothing new for the Elementalist all told and instead of having it be limited to Fire/Earth/Air it’s now Fire/Air/Arcane with useless major traits in it.

Azel.4786:

- Kodiak: I think that goes against what Anet is planning. I think the idea, and this could be possible, is for you not to look at an Ele and based on his weapon choice instantly know what skills and traits he has. With a few changes they can achieve that. I think that each trait line should have a damage, survivability and utility trait, this way you can mix match what fits your playstile.

I meant more like analyze/create actual builds that would get used. So for example there’s a number of existing builds: PvE Berserker Staff. PvE Fresh Air D/F. D/D Celestial Ele. Etc. They stated they wanted existing builds to be changed but not ruined entirely with these changes and we won’t know that unless we really break them down. How do these existing builds work in the new system and if not, why not?

For example look at Aurashare. For one we know Water is mandatory. That leaves us with Fire to generate Fire Auras from Signets/Conjures. Air for Zephyr’s Boon. Earth for Elemental Shielding. Assuming we pick Fire for it’s DPS benefits that leaves Air and Earth. Air essentially amounts to giving more offense and Earth more defense. So you could have a D/D (or D/F) build that’s Fire/Air/Water or Fire/Earth/Water depending if you want to go more offensive or defensive and have it work pretty well. However you can no longer get all of it on a 42260 build so it’s more of an offense or defensive option where we get either more offense or more defense but no longer have the option to choose a little of both.

Rather than breaking out each trait down into each line I think a better way to examine things is to break them down into realistic builds. For example have a thread on a S/F Fresh Air build now or a Staff PvE Dps build or D/F build and work out how or if it’d work now then show how/if traits don’t have any place.

Air line is fine except for the loss of a damage oriented trait in Adept. All they need to do is remove Ferocious Winds and replace it with something useful. Right now it is not useful because as a class we really don’t stack Healing. We don’t do this because our healing coefficients have been repeatedly nerfed time after time again and typically only pick up what we get passively (Celestial, and previously Water Traits).

Honestly I think it’s too early to really tell what will and won’t be viable in PvE in HOT. They’ve already stated they understand why Berserker meta has developed (simple encounters that can be easily bursted down thus bypassing most of their mechanics) and aim to fix that from being the case in HOT.

For all we know it could be PvE that requires high burst damage in phases similar like you see with the later Living Story Episodes (few seconds DPS, then mob invuln again for a bit) and a weapon like Scepter is preferred.

I am more concerned with the rather lackluster DPS trees that we now have in Fire and Air.