Guild Wars 2

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Sunshine.5014:

Yes, it does have an icd of 5 seconds per target. Just do a test on the nondestructable golem in PvP lobby and see.

That is what i have tested it on. Using different weapons and different attunement auto attacks. It can proc more than once in 5 seconds but that seems to then make it so it doesn’t proc for like 10+ seconds.

Are you sure you don’t have 25 points in Arcana?

Rezzet.3614:

this is clearly a learn to play issue ele has ridiculous damage and survivability and mobility

could try not using staffs for 1 v 1 combat or pvp

Damage, I agree if you mean in PvE and staff Zerging with Meteor Storm and Tornado combo.

Ridiculous Survivability and Mobility? /laugh

There’s a reason why nobody takes a staff Ele in high level competitive PvP. Everything an Ele can do, others can do better – and is much less of a risk.

DD 0/0/10/30/30 bunker cantrip Ele can’t be considered “viable” anymore in competitive tPvP. That build has roughly 14k HP with around 2.6k armor which can’t be considered tanky at the current meta where Thieves deal massive damage with just a few clicks of a button (most top tier teams usually have a thief in their lineup). Healing only works if you can survive long enough to actually take advantage of your sustain healing.

Arcane Precision – I actually posted something similar in the Balance forums asking for a buff but it got ignored. This trait is completely useless for builds with little precision and very lackluster even for builds with decent precision. I actually think people might not even notice it if Anet removed this skill.

Maybe make it 10% chance on hit, not on critical hits. Or another suggestion would be make it proc 100% on crits but has a 10s ICD per attunement. Would that make it too strong? (Of course, increase the Burning duration to maybe 3 seconds)

GoEP – I agree, they should increase it a bit. It has a 5 second ICD per target anyway.

While I really like this idea and I think it’d make Elementalists more fun and might even make it more viable in PvP and WvW (outside of staff zergers), I don’t think Anet is ready to release a new attunement given that they haven’t been able to balance Elementalists with the 4 current Attunements.

Anet might even use it as a reason to further nerf Elementalists. Because their logic = 4 attunements, 20 skills. So let’s make some of their skills pretty lackluster with high Cool Downs because they have 20 freakin skills.

TBH I think Guardian lacking mobility is “fair” since they’re a heavy armor class with good healing. But the moment you compare it to Warrior who’s also a heavy armor class you’ll see that it’s not really that “fair”.

This leads to another question, do Guardians lack mobility or do Warriors over-excel in terms of mobility?

The fact remains that FGS Fiery Rush was not intended to be used against a wall to do massive damage. I don’t think it should be used as reference because it will be eventually removed.

Yes, Elementalists are OK in PvE. But what about the other aspect of the game which is PvP? Do they also deal the highest DPS outside of Staff MS + Tornado combo?

The issue here is that all other classes has a built-in compensation for their strong points and weaknesses. If Elementalists deal the highest DPS across all weapon sets both in PvE and PvP among all classes, that would be the compensation for being the squishiest class but that’s not the case here because almost every other class can be specced to deal massive damage.

I think if they ever decide to bring wards to GW2 the traits would be:

• Lower CD and/or increased duration
• Larger AoE and/or increased effect

Basically the same as Warrior Banners.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Ward against melee was my signature skill in GW1.

If they had that in GW2, I could just pop it on a node and go to sleep while the thief and warrior pushed numbers 1 and 2 100 times over.

Well, until it wears off, anyways.

I think that could be a great candidate for a new category of utilities though. They’d be similar to necromancer wells, although they could focus on providing different kinds of area effects. For instance, they could make them similar to GW1’s ward against melee and ward against foes, causing a percentage of melee attacks to “miss” (or be blocked or evaded) and cause a movement speed reduction without using conditions. Ward of stability is kind of already in the game on hallowed ground, although it could just be the ele version of it (like how unsteady ground is basically line of warding). I mean dang, if you threw all those three down on a spot, it would basically prevent any melee attackers from hurting you and your allies inside for the duration.

They could be pretty powerful group support-type utilities, which I don’t feel ele has at the moment. Their utilities that provide support are generally self-support, though you can trait them for group applications (i.e. signets popping flame aura and then having aura sharing). Then they could combine two useless traits into one and add a trait for ground-targeted wells (now I’m doing ANet’s work for them).

However, I’d rather they look at making things like glyphs better first before they start poking around with new things.

Very good point. Of course they will have to tone down some effects in order for it to work in GW2. I think the AoE circle of most wards will be a bit smaller than PvP cap points except Ward of Stability which would probably be as small as Hallowed Ground.

If wards and decent buffs ever come to GW2, Elementalist would probably give Guardians a good run for their money for the Bunker role. Most Ward related traits would probably be placed in Earth trait line since most wards in GW1 are from Earth.

I don’t like the removal Jewels. I won’t be able to use my Soldier/Zerker jewel amulet anymore. To be honest it slightly kills off build diversity.

Actually, I’m kind of guessing that the same problem might occur on the revamped Sigil of Intelligence since it works the same way as AP.

You should explain how Wards work in GW1 since people can be too lazy to click that link

If you check, most replies are about what they will lose if we lose conjures but nobody else is talking about what else we will gain if we get warrds.

But nope, don’t replace conjures. Add Wards instead.

Will this nerfs make these builds not playable anymore? No.

Remember what happened to Elementalists? It literally got nerfed to the ground for doing the things that Warriors currently do minus the damage.

Thaddeus.4891:

Kyon.9735:

Thaddeus.4891:

Every profession have his pro and con.

Elementalist are already at the top of the profession in dungeon and are essential part of a Zerg. So i think its ok if they are at the bottom of the food chain in roaming/spvp.

This is completely wrong. IIRC anet stated as their goal is that any class should be able to spec into any build and still be on par with other similar builds of other classes.

The best example would be warriors. Warriors can spec to be bunkers, support, DPS, or Condi.

Its not because its their goal, that its the reality. Necro are bad in PvE, but good in WvW or sPvP. Ele are good in dungeon and WvW, but not that good in sPvP. Mesmer are good in sPvP or Dungeon, but not that good in Zerg. I’m just saying that i can live with that because i play different profession in different role.

But that doesn’t justify certain classes being bad in a certain part of a game when their real goal is to make it balanced.

The real topic here is:

• Thief has low HP and medium armor but they get superior burst, evades, mobility and stealth (which is broken) to compensate.
• Necros have low armor, high HP, 2 HP bars but they have no access to stability to compensate.
• Guardians are tanky because of high armor and heals a lot but they the lowest HP and poor mobility to compensate.
• Engineers have a so much access to CCs but they lack stability themselves to compensate.
• Warriors have high HP and Armor but they get mobility, sustain, and immunities to compensate… err, what?

So what do Eles get in general to compensate for being in the lowest HP and Armor tier especially in PvP? The damage can be justified in PvE because monster AIs are not good enough to learn to dodge but certainly not in PvP.

Thaddeus.4891:

Every profession have his pro and con.

Elementalist are already at the top of the profession in dungeon and are essential part of a Zerg. So i think its ok if they are at the bottom of the food chain in roaming/spvp.

This is completely wrong. IIRC anet stated as their goal is that any class should be able to spec into any build and still be on par with other similar builds of other classes.

The best example would be warriors. Warriors can spec to be bunkers, support, DPS, or Condi.

• I think a zerk staff ele will just need to cast Meteor Shower then it will be able to out-DPS a support Ele’s sustain healing.

• They are changing Sigil of Perplexity and will make it available in PvP on the 15th.

• A 0/0/20/30/20 build with Clerics trinket without runes is that you will have roughly around 13k HP and 2.6k Armor. Those stats are not tanky at all in PvP. Zerker builds will still be able to burst you with no problem.

My main concern is that even if you go full defensive build with Aquatic Benevolence, your stats will still be too low in PvP. All it takes is one decent thief to shadow step into you, skipping all your teammates in the process, to be able to down you. Even if you get ressed, it won’t take long to down you again.

But yes, I’ll try it too. Actually I’ll try all new GM traits except Elemental Contingency. I probably won’t even bother to use it until they make the ICD per Attunement like how EA works.

It’d help a lot if you answered each question separately

And I’m asking these questions so you can convince me that it can work, I’m not close-minded so just say everything you want.

And one more question:
• A zerker staff Ele will out-DPS a support Ele’s group sustain healing. Zerker staff Ele also have control skills so the only comparison will be Damage vs Healing. Why take it instead of a zerker Ele?

Avead.5760:

But even if it doesnt increase your own healing its still 1 trait.You have other 6 and all of other buffs are applied to you. You are still defensively build and have defensive cds. You still have teammates..Heck if theres another ele with the trait now you enjoy massive regen and heals too.You make it sound like you ll drop immediately under focus on clerics gear and that your team wont do anything to peel for you and kill their targets.
The way i see it is that teh enemy team will have to face a tough decision.Waste time killing that “almost” bunker ele that can heal a ton himself too, or ignore him and go direclty for the damage dealers but have to put up with massive regen and healing potential. Cause after all you d still be tougher to kill than the necro or the mesmer that is gonna dps them to death if left unnoticed.

Not to mention that if you are afraid of focus fire so much.Theres still the path of stoneheart and then build for full condi removal traits,sigils etc.You ll lose a heal but you still give insane regen wiuth the boon and soothing mist.

Let’s make this more productive. Let’s talk about how it works in competitive tPvP wherein you can only take in 5 players.

• What role will an Aquatic Benevolence Ele fall into and who will it replace? (Bunker, Roamer, Farpoint Assaulter)
• Is the sustain enough to counter spike damage and pressure from thieves which almost always exist in top teams?
• In this heavy condi meta, is it worth taking over Cleansing Water?
• Why take a support Elementalist over a Support Guardian who can use Runes of Monk and Sigil of Benevolence as well?
• Will any team be ballsy enough take 2 Aquatic Benevolence Elementalists?

P.S – I think taking both Stone Heart and Aquatic Benevolence is counter productive for support builds because you’ll lose Elemental Attunement.

Avead.5760:

Of course ele will be n1 priority in teamfights..especially if its giving 800 passive regen to people around him and heals that can pop them to full aswell ,give prot,spread weakness,give might,cc and do aoe damage
Lol..it doesnt always matter how much durable you are by yourself.All that matters is that what you bring is good enough to justify your team saving and protecting your kitten
You people need to play other games seriously.This gw2 mentality that everyone needs to be everything and do anything and self sustain ..its bad and im glad that they are taking steps to make support more meaningful

No, I am not asking for an elementalist to be able to do everything so don’t put words in my mouth. What I said is true, this GM trait will not increase the Elementalist’s survivability at all, you might even lose more because you’re sacrificing cleansing water.

Any decent group will target an elementlist first regardless if he’s on a healing spec or not. Sure, you can heal others a lot more but a dead healer heals nothing. Honestly, this would’ve worked if Elementalist had more innate survivability without having to rely on others completely to protect him.

Omega.9601:

They could at the very least reduce the CD to 30 secs while you dont make contact, and remove immobalize, cripple, and chilled. The range on rtl got a pretty big nerf since they raised the cd.

I think making it remove immobilize, cripple, and chill would make it too strong. Cripple and Chill doesn’t affect RtL range right now. Even warriors need to trait for it if they want movement skills to remove immobilize.

LordByron.8369:

Originally Posted by Jon Peters, Arenanet

It’s been a while since I wrote the GW2 healing and death article and frankly that article was a lot harder to write when the only profession examples I could use were the warrior and the elementalist.
I said something to Isaiah Cartwright the other day that has stuck in my mind since then. I think it explains how no trinity is possible more than anything else, so I’ll relay it here:

“Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Many interviewers wonder if we are worried about making such a radical change, but to me the whole thing is just common sense for what we are trying to accomplish. I’d be a lot more worried about building GW2 combat with trinity professions than without them. I don’t want to speak for other games or other combat systems, but this system is just better for our game.

Everyone has a dedicated slot on their skill bar where they must place a healing skill. These vary greatly and are an intimate part of the Guild Wars 2 build-making process, but ultimately they are your most efficient and reliable way to sustain yourself in battle. Why did we do this? Because we think it is a more interesting way to create sustained encounters for solo players AND groups while keeping players focused on themselves and their surroundings.

That is why we want to eliminate things that we felt were burdens on the game such as:

•Group LF Healer/Tank…
•Party wipes when you lose the wrong person.
•Watching the interface instead of the world.
•Playing with people because you have to, not because you want to.
•Being stuck in the same combat patterns over and over again.

Anyway, I hope this gives everyone a little bit of insight into the combat of Guild Wars 2, the removal of the Holy Trinity, and profession roles.

Sincerely a non HEALER elementalist…..
We lack a survival mechanics…being a healer only for Others is not a good idea and is going against anything different GW2 design had compared to old school mmorpgs

Great find. Exact opposite of what they were originally promoting.

Even if it affects regen boon, it doesn’t remove the fact that it doesn’t affect the Elementalist at all. You’ll still be as squishy as paper, nothing changed. Elementalists will still be the 1st priority target in team fights regardless if you’re on a healing spec or not.

nicknamenick.2437:

Adamsdjr.1350:

Ranger skills are garbage warriors are god-like…yeah ok

its takes a GM trait..

nobody is going to take any of the new GM traits on warriors.

because it will cost you a different good GM trait the warriors are using right now.

-100% on burst is in 30 strength, nobody is going that far in that traitline

-10% attack speed.. you wont even feel or see the difference, besides its only there when using a sword/axe/mace in offhand.. nobody use it because they suck, besides sword off hand, but that’s a 100% condi weapon so they don’t benefit much

-+ armor on stun break… ok well first if you use endure pain for a stun break you wont need any extra armor.. maby its nice when using other stun breakers but still it cost you a different trait like endure pain on 25% health or for hambow warrior it will cost you either hammer trait or cleansing ire..

-might for allies, warrior itself doesn’t benefit from it.. could be nice for a might stacking boost party.. but the only reason warriors go 30 into this traitline is to get healing on banner or healing on shouts.. well not sure if any warrior will give that up for some might..

-the last one is silly, remove blind on swap… why not just auto attack 1 more?? no lets skip the rotation and swap your weapon, this also cost you burst mastery…

so overall you wont see warriors running this, maby some experimenting it but that’s it.

Easy translation:

Current Warrior traits are already too good that the new GM traits that seems OP in the eyes of other classes are called “useless” by the warriors.

Conjures are very useful in PVE and removing conjures would definitely displace Elementalists of its place in PVE. Adding wards however is a different thing.

I wish Eles in GW2 had more access to Blinds and Knockdowns through their skills like GW1 Eles did. Yes, we now have access to blinds through Blinding Ashes but it forces you 30 points deep into Fire and it’s single target with kitten ICD.

Ray.2640:

Ganathar.4956:

Simon.3794:

or you mean rifle engi and staff ele are already being punished

or you can compare to other classes with 4 one handed weapon.

which is by design.

Yeah, the TC is pretty much wrong but there is an issue with the stacking sigil changes that wasn’t mentioned in the OP.

Ray.2640:

Make an out-of-combat weapon swap option available to engis and eles.
Like all the other classes but then the ~ button is grayed out while in combat.
Now you can have your stacking sigil on the off-set while still being tied to only 1 weapon set (in combat).
This has been requested numerous times before the sigil issue was even an issue at all.

This is not a viable option because it will shift the disadvantage to the other 6 classes instead.
Eles and Engis will have the effect of the stacking sigil plus the effects of the two sigils on their weapons all the time while other classes will have this only 50% of the time.

In order for this to be balanced one of the following changes must happen:

-Remove stacking sigils.
-Make a third slot for only stacking sigils that is separate from the weapon for all professions.
-Make stacking sigils only apply their buff when you are using the weapon that has the sigil (buff is gone when you swap but comes back with the same amount of stacks when you go back to the weapon with the sigil).

You’re correct but the thing that worries me is that after the patch I will only have 1 sigil slot besides the stacking sigil. Whereas other classes have 3. So yes, they can use them half the time but at least they have the advantage of having 3 unique sigils. And are able to slot them in a way that benefits them the most.
Running without a stacking sigil gives the ele/engi 2 sigils to proc 100% of the time and the other classes 4 sigils to proc half the time. The issue is with the stacking sigil.
I don’t see how either giving up 250 stats, on a class which already has a stat disadvantage over every other class in the game, or losing a sigil is a good change at all. Especially when the general consensus is that the ele is actually in need of help.

Exactly. People should put into account that all other classes aside from Ele/Engi can still use 3 different sigils while using stacking sigils.

CMstorm.8679:

it doesn’t say if theres an internal cool down does it?

Which one? Sigil of Air and Fire have 5s ICD. Arcane Power will crit for your next 5 attacks including fire trails from Burning Speed and FGS.

April Fools! Lolnet

oZii.2864:

killahmayne.9518:

There is a reason why nobody would be scared of a Mesmer in full PVT gear, if you see one for that matter, over a mesmer that is full Dire, which you do see a bit. People say dodge but you can’t possibly dodge all winds of chaos bouncing around at you, clones dieing and inflicting conditions while duelists are shooting you at the same time with that mesmer using chaos armor and casting chaos storm on top of your head. People just would rather stick to mathematic calculations and theorycrafting and refuse to see what actually happens in a realistic situation. Theoretically an attack can do 10 billion damage but if it has no chance of landing it does zero damage.

You don’t see full dire mesmers because of a Trait called Sharper images. If you see a full dire mesmer then he did it terribly wrong. I think you think you see full dire mesmers cause a full dire mesmer is dumb and should never kill anyone.

Yeah. A mix of Dire/Rabid mesmer is more realistic as they usually get the trait that gives Phantasms Fury.

I hope they’d give stat changes for Divinity/Traveler runes. I have 12 pieces of Traveler Runes on my armors >_<

LordByron.8369:

doesn t Air 15 crit? if so i don’t see the problem.

I actually use 20 in air but to tell the truth i never checked.

If it crits on Lightning Strike when swapping to Air, I have no issues.

But imagine if you switch to Fire and do a Burning Speed (assuming your target doesn’t end up in your Fire trail) and Sigil of Fire or Air procs and it doesn’t crit, you’d instantly lose 2 charges if it works the same way as Arcane Power.

runeblade.7514:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

runeblade.7514:

D/D ele sacrifice less than a mobility warrior. If Mobility warrior wants to be more mobile than Ele, then he has to give up something. A mobility warrior is not a 30/30/30/30/30 build. Ele still has everything because his mechanics gives him everything.

Try killing some from range as a D/D ele. You saying that ele give up nothing is just silly. With D/D we are 100% melee. We go out of that and we do NO damage, we cant swap to another weapon set like everyone else.

So no, Ele doesn’t have “everything” Pretty much EVERY ele build sacrifices something.

Zerk – Toughness, Health, Survivability, Sustain
Bunker – Damage
Condi – Damage, Sustain

Unlike everyone else, An ele build has advantages and disadvantages. We can’t go zerker and still have good defense unlike most classes. We can’t go bunker and still do good damage unlike most others.

• Vapor blade is range.
• Even Warrior Longbow can’t even kill from range. Unless enemies is at low hp. Even then, Ele Vapor blade can do the same.
• Pre-nerfed D/D probably did the same amount of damage or slightly more and still wreck things up as the Kings of PvP.

• Vapor Blade is like one of the worst auto attacks to be used against a moving enemy that’s why you won’t see DD eles use it as much.
• Warrior long bow auto attack is just as bad as vapor blade in terms of damage but is a lot more reliable to hit your enemies.
• PvP DD Ele was always either Full Glass or Full Bunker and it was the Bunker builds that were dominant in PvP. I don’t remember Bunker Eles “wrecking” things in PvP because they have no damage at all.

Marquis.7412:

On the other hand, this is great for D/D Eles, who get wrecked pretty hard by confusion

Well, looking at the bright side at least Necros don’t get to abuse this rune too now that Fear will work as an interrupt.

I think this would be great for staff especially zergers.

If it’s 5 seconds it’d be really good for Elementalists (and Warriors of course). But I wonder if it will be bugged like Arcane Power if paired to another on-crit sigil.

If you proc sigil of fire or sigil or air while you have charges of Arcane Power, Flame Blast or Lightning Strike will get a chance to crit but will use 2 charges of Arcane Power regardless if you crit or not. Lightning Strike from Air 15 also eats up 1 charge of Arcane Power so we can assume Sigil of Intelligence will eat up 1 charge when you swith to Air if you have 15 points in it.

NinjaEd.3946:

It only goes on a 40 second cooldown if you use it to escape, and don’t target anything.

In wvw, you can target an ambient creature.

In pvp, certain maps have boxes you can hit.

Ever try catching an ele with per-nerf rtl? It was literally impossible, it moved way to quickly and over the moon and it was a joke. Maybe 40 seconds was too much but hey, your #5 is also a 40 second cd so it has synergy even for being the most predictable combo out of any profession.

Non-ele player: “Here comes an ele, with rtl, and updraft… dodge…”
Ele player: “aww man how did I miss?”

Scene.

Do you even know that RTL was bugged to 1,500 range pre-nerf and fix and that it’s fixed now?

Does any other skill have any requirements similar to this?

Great vid. I’ve always liked seeing eles dominate without going deep into Arcana or Water. I’m quite surprised with how glassy your opponents are (even the non-uplevels) or are these selected videos?

So I’ve been testing with Arcane Power and on-crit sigils specifically Sigil of Fire and Air. I’ve discovered what I think is a bug when you have Arcane Power activated and the effect of sigil of Air/Fire procs so I’d like to know if it’s actually working as intended.

So what I know:
• Arcane Power will make your next 5 attacks be critical hits.
• Sigil of Fire’s Flame Blast cannot crit as per the official GW2 wiki page.
• Nothing is mentioned in Sigil of Air’s wiki page if it can crit or not.

What Happened:
• Flame Blast and Lightning Strike has a chance to land critical hits (not always)
• 2 charges of Arcane Power is used regardless if Flame Blast or Lightning Strike crits.

Scenario 1:
I use Dragon’s Tooth with Arcane Power Activated against Indestructible Golem.
Dragon’s Tooth crits for 3,997 damage.
Flame Blast hits for 620 damage.
2 charges of Arcane Power is used

Scenario 2:
I use Dragon’s Tooth with Arcane Power Activated against Indestructible Golem.
Dragon’s Tooth crits for 3,490 damage.
Flame blast crits for 1,107 damage.
2 charges of Arcane Power is used

Regardless if Flame Blast and Lightning Strike are intended to be able to crit when using Arcane Power, I think it’s unfair that 2 charges are used up if they don’t crit.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I know people will argue with me over this but an elementalist’s back line support vs an enemies back line dps; the back line dps will win almost all the time, unless they are really incompetent.

I tested out seeing how much healing I could dish out when spec’d for it, bottom line, 5 of me in that spec wouldn’t be enough to hold off 1 elementalist’s dps. My advice, stay away from support as your primary goal and stick to either hybrid or dps.

Ele’s dish out a crap load of dps, you just have to learn to stay alive, and keep Lightning Flash on your skill bar to quickly get out of harms way. I don’t want to say support is useless because you can still provide decent condition cleanse and combo fields.

If you plan to stay in the back line, stick with staff for dps.

TBH I don’t know what Anet’s planning with Aquatic Benevolence. In WvW, zergs heal from blasting water fields and not from the Healing that the skill with water fields give. Sure, a “Healer” role Ele with Aquatic Benevolence can blast his own water fields too but like you said, a single DPS elementalist will outdamage the heals of a pure support Elementalist.

Sunshine.4680:

Wish they’d remove the stupid CD on attunements..I mostly stay in fire anyways but switching to heal and having to wait is annoying.

Errr, but that’s the class mechanic of Elementalists D;

P Fun Daddy.1208:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL9ihXiFAko

kitten it feels good to be an ele.

Kinda expecting a Rick Roll haha. But yeah it’s fun to play Ele.

If EC gets the same mechanics as EA and Blinding Ashes becomes an AoE blind (up to 3 targets as someone suggested, sorry I forgot who suggested that) then it’ll be even better!

cheese.4739:

I… don’t see Perplexity going well for any Eles. We struggle against conditions -> our cleanse/healing is un-nerfed.
Oh look, but you’re now given a whole bunch more confusion to deal with. Confusion that completely destroys your (hahaha you thought it was now functional) Signet, or any kind of burst (or defence) you thought you had.

Welcome back, 0/x/x/30/30 Ele. Cleanse and vague, uninteresting utility is still what you do best.

I’m expecting an infux of Condi thieves and warriors again after Perplexity is added.

Manuhell.2759:

Nike.2631:

Or it just could mean there was an actual problem and both players and Devs agree on that.

Or just that there is no problem, aside from a majority of players whining about one of the less played classes in the game.

And the devs are the same devs that are balancing that class giving fixed penalities on the assumption you’ll use optional skills, that are nerfing skills on the assumption that any engineers uses Grenadier and any enemy stays still for 5 seconds on a poison fields and that are balancing an utility like net turret because the version used on an elite skill with 180s cooldown that stuns end up immobilizing because the target is stunned.
Oh, sure i can trust them.

Nike.2631:

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Like the non-existant passive condition removal of engineers that they already nerfed with the Transmute change? Or the fact that engineers had no other choice other than using AR since they play with a reduced amount of utility to begin with due to nonsensical design decisions like the ones described above?

But no, better nerf them to oblivion. Who cares, they are a minority anyway.

What game mode do you play? In WvW sure, there aren’t lots of engineers. If there are, they’re usually p/s perplexity engineers. But in PvP? By no means Engineer is among the least played class.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bolt_to_the_Heart
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Striking

Bolt to the Heart is Air VI. It applies on any attunement as long as your target is below the threshold. The same goes with Vital Striking (Water VI).

However, Piercing Shards (Water IV) is exclusive to Water Attunement only that’s why Lightning Hammer build takes all 3 damage modifier traits and sit in water most of the time.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing_Shards

This is a bad change overall. So what will High Rankers aim for now that they will hit level cap? Even me, I’m just a Tiger ranked nobody but I’ll be boosted to Bear/Shark level after this patch. It feels like cheating.

Netko.9271:

I don’t see it useful in any situation. Even in 1v1, you won’t blind every 5 sec, you can’t in fight apply burn exactly every 5 sec, you don’t have timer, so you must estimate when 5 sec pass, sometimes after 5 sec you will be in wrong attunment, or you will need to dodge, or heal, maybe you will be rooted, stuned, kb, out of range…. In average fight it will be good if you put blind every 7-8 seconds. It is just to much investment for that one blind.
Let look for example at Blinding Flash which traited have 8 sec CD and it is less investment then Blinding Ashes for probably same result.

Burning Precision (30% chance on critical hits) should be enough assuming you have decent precision to proc it every 5-7 seconds. If get hit on Fire attunement, Flame Barrier will be a plus.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Kyon.9735:

If Elemental Contingency work like EA (Boon ICD is per attunement) I’ll definitely give it a try.

And if it doesn’t, it’ll be crap.

Well, you just confirmed it. It is crap

oZii.2864:

They killed me with that one! It makes no sense because nobody will take it over EA. Boon duration is already going to take a hit in PvE/WvW so I don’t understand why it isn’t just 10 sec icd per attunement just like EA is. I was going to give it a try assuming a 10 sec icd per attunement because that just makes sense now I don’t plan to.

I’m a reasonable person usually and think with a open mind on balance but this one baffles me. Even blinding ashes I can kind of see the thinking because it follows the standard pattern for traits of that type, though I think a cap of 3 is better.

Yeah. I was assuming it would work like EA where the ICD was per attunement. Now I don’t even see a reason for getting it over EA.

Karl McLain.5604:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Hey Allie! If it was possible, I would wish to get some clarification for the new elementalist’s traits too.

• Blinding Ashes – Is the ICD global, or per target?
• Elemental Contigency – Is the ICD global, or per attunement?
• Lightning Rod – 1) Is there any ICD? 2) What is lightning bolt’s damage value?

Thank you for your attention.

EDIT: Seems like I wasn’t the only one to have the same idea. x)

Thanks for the questions. Here are some answers:

• Blinding Ashes ICD (Internal Cooldown) is ‘global’, where it activates once and goes on recharge. The trait works much better in small engagements.
• Elemental Contingency’s Internal Cooldown is currently once every 10 seconds.
• Lightning Rod has no ICD. It will activate as often as a target allows you to interrupt them. The damage value of this trait is similar to that of Halting Strike.
  Weakness duration is 4 seconds base.

Edit: Fixed a hilarious blunder.

Blinding Ashes – Does this mean Blinding Ashes will be completely useless when fighting against petting zoo builds (MM necro and Spirit Rangers) and Mesmers because of their clones?

Elemental Contingency – Don’t you think 1 boon every 10 seconds is a bit lackluster compared to Evasive Arcana? Also, if I wanted Retaliation but I was currently sitting in Water when the ICD came off cool down, I’ll have to wait another 10 seconds. Not to mention Evasive Arcana will be more rewarding.

magic fly.2041:

I honestly don’t like the burning speed buff that is coming.
High damage, mobility, aoe, and a small fire field.
It already does a lot.
Adding dodge to a mostly offensive skill removes it’s counterplay.

I’m not saying that the skill will become too powerful, but that it will be less fun to play against, and will give too much for a single skill.

The damage isn’t even comparable to Pistol Whip which literally has everything (Stun, Damage, Evasion). I think it’s actually good for main hand dagger which already lacks survivability. Add in a few more blinds or blocks or evasive frames on a few more skills then I think it should be enough to increase the DD’s natural active defense without bumping the base HP.

Ray.2640:

Applying large quantities of a duration stacking condition is usually a bad idea, especially if you don’t have a lot of cover conditions. You’d need to find a way to slowly apply the chill so that it’s on the target near-permanently but applied in small doses each time it times out/gets removed. That said, Chill is a very underrated condition. The insanely long cooldowns are a real killer.

GoEP + Hydromancy should be decent enough for “passive” chilling for D/x builds. When do i use Arcane + Elemental Surge? When you know your enemy’s out of cleanses. Imagine applying 15s of chill to an elementalist who just blew his Ether Renewal and swapped out of water. He’s pretty much dead if he doesn’t have 30 in water or Cleansing Fire.

As for the topic regarding Massive Damage, Phoenix hits up to 3x and deals massive damage.

MotherKitten.6795:

Yamsandjams.3267:

The shard of ice trait makes your arcane skills apply vulnerability (arcane power can apply 15 stacks alone).

Can anyone verify this? Are you saying that each of the five crits from using arcane power will give 3 vulnerability totaling 15 after arcane power has run its course?

I did some experimenting and couldn’t get results to support that, but the numbers were still higher than saying it has no effect.

The best explanation for the numbers I got was that with the Shard of Ice trait all five crits from Arcane Power count as crits for procing Weak Spot trait, contrary to the standard opinion that crits from Arcane Power will never activate a on-crit proc. I was just playing around with the trait so I’m not counting this as serious experimenting.

Arcane Power gets effects per hit. Seems like not a lot of people know about Arcane Power.

Just a heads up for those who don’t know:
Arcane Power with Elemental Surge can easily apply 25 seconds of burning or 15 seconds of chill) in D/X weapon sets. I use it in my Chillmentalist build.