Guild Wars 2

Here’s a framework for a goofy build I use

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmabuR5wjDAEFmATQRAIMeAiIkA-TsAgyCuIuRdj7GzNybs3M64swUAA

Maintain regen & use auras wisely for protection. Nothing flashy.
December 10th I’ll be getting rid of the lava font in fire and picking up the 25% duration to burning. Because of the changes to the water X ability and dropping the lava font thing I’ll not be attached to mist form, and may swap it for Armor of Earth or Glyph of Elemental Power (yes, really. It’s not too shabby once you’re used to flying it, in my limited experience)

I think it has a lot more potential in wvw than this simple pvp skeleton.

I suppose this isn’t the thread for this, though >.>

or is it?

Anierna.6918:

The Game Slayer.7632:

There are some builds out there that are working for ele. Just gotta put more effort forth. Try out condi ele, dire gear is OP.

this quote from Game Slayer is a perfect example of why I should join a teaching guild, gasmic. ill be on in half an hour and pm you for an invite (assuming no rep req, right?)

we’ve got to convince these people that stupid stuff like condi ele just doesnt work. in a pve context, I’ll be happy to prove that both the s/d + lh and the staff metas do higher damage. in a pvp context, you’ll never be able to match the condi damage of other classes (think necro), so dont even try.

And a perfect example of elitism at its finest.

I’m proud to b an ele. I absolutely love the class, love wearing the letters off my keys with manic apm, playing to anticipate rather than respond… it’s exhilarating. However, I implore you to reconsider your ideology. Elitism is an ugly thing to associate yourself with.

Be a better elementalist.

ELEvate yourself.

This game is extremely punishing, but that’s why universally available dodging and combat resurrection are such integral parts of the game.

I’d put it on the ele. No matter what built you go for you’re going to have low base health & some abilities that apply conditions and some abilities that heal. In fact, it’s near unavoidable if you’re using attunements at all. Ele has the most to gain by not going all-in on one armor type… in nearly any build.

ALTHOUGH

if you really want a build that really works those stats – here’s a favorite of mine, a heavy condi tanky ele build with focus on auras, 0 dependence on crit:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmabuR5wjDAEFmATQRAIMeAiIkA-TsAgyCuIuRdj7GzNybs3M64swUAA

I haven’t put it together for pve/wvw yet, so you’ll have to fill in the blanks. :]

It survives the Dec. 10th changes as they currently look, though the changes to water X, I’ll be dropping the lava font while downed for the new 25% increased burn duration, and switching Mist Form with Armor of Earth or Glyph of Elemental Power (yes, really). The Dec. 10th changes will make the build stronger, imo…. something I wish I could say about my other builds.

I’d probably focus on getting the toughness up to the 2600 range, trying to keep health around 17000+, then get the healing signet to 275 healing/proc, maybe 300- as long as Drake’s Breath is still netting around 7k. Idk about power. Like I said, I haven’t really played around with it enough in wvw or pve.

Nretep.2564:

• General -> Gold
• Events -> Karma
• Guild missions -> Guild commendations
• Daily -> Mystic Coin, Laurel
• New stuff -> Achievement points
• Dungeon x -> Dungeontoken x
• WvW -> Badges of Honor
• Champions -> Bloodstone
• World Events ->Dragonite Ores
• Jumping puzzles -> Empyreal Fragments

So why do you want events to give Laurels ? or guild missions to give laurels ?

Fairly certain this is all comes down to ascended gear.

Agony resistance needs a design overhaul, as do infusions. Ascended gear is just a point of contention in the community.

The trouble with being apathetic about it is the gap between full exotic and full ascended will only get bigger if it’s introduced on armor.

My only issue with ascended gear is it can’t be earned in world pve and wvw, but it can be used there. Players that want to play BIS are either forced to grind content outside of what they enjoy, or make 1 laurel a day. Vendors for ascended gear should sell in appropriate currencies to how players want to earn them.

That… and the infusion slots need to be combined and cleaned up. A single offense/defense/utility slot is bs. Bake the agony resistance into each trinket, then have an offense/defense slot for the wvw infusions AND a utility slot for pve bonuses.

You see a bush rustling in the wind… and realize there is no wind.

You interact with the suspicious bush… and…

A wild Mini Caithe appears!

Blind is really good…

that it stacks in duration is a little awkward… intensity would be a bit OP and enable some disastrous effects.

Throwing an idea out there… perhaps if blind instead of making the next attack miss, have each attack miss for the duration, but taking 5 seconds of the duration off for each miss.

Please make Ghastly Claws from the Necromncer Axe #2 ability a small AoE. Currently the animation it uses would suit being an AoE. Awkward issues with next/nearest targeting while attempting to snap decisions make this ability whiff, despite having your axe spinning around through multiple enemies’ skulls. I do think the ability should absolutely be thrown to your target, but it should at least be hitting the mobs around it as well, especially in those nonsensical cases where you tab target to some mob you didn’t even consider or notice that was 3 miles outside what your settings even display, wasting a short cd and gimping your Life Force generation.

If rapid life force generation is an issue with this, just cap it at 12% or something.

I’d really rather not swap health pools with Mesmer. We have the tools to make up for hp with our greater abundance of heals, we just lack the mitigation to make those heals amount to something.

Yet they’re moving our active mitigation into the master tier. Our condition removal, the only “mitigation” vs conditions, is being put into the master tier. Regen and protection on attunement swap moved to master. Vigor, the amount of dodging we use to avoid the crushing burst that puts our healing way behind… master tier. Even the new condition removal they gave fire… they moved into the master tier.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

PvP-relevant survivability is what we need most of all, and they’re kicking us while we’re down.

They have acknowledged that a lot of our traits need an overhaul. Their concern is we’re too dependent on arcane and water. How is it they don’t see the connection? FIX our traits that need an overhaul in the OTHER trait lines to make them more attractive and stop bending us over until we break! Improve our utilities by lowering the cooldowns on our stun breakers – hugely important for pvp active mitigation our, our major downfall – and ease up the need for us to make up for our utilities’ weaknesses with traits.

Mash Hog.5672:

Chasind.3128:

I’d love to see builds after this nerf- I hope this is just for PVP & not PvE

What do you feel is getting nerfed?
And how will that effect gameplay?

The nerf is in the availability of key traits players could splash for 10 points in both water and arcane, & that now our options are going to be even more limited. To reduce our dependency on arcane they butchered the adept tier, when they should have been focusing on improving the others. In fact, the adept tier is now butchered across the board, making 30 of our 70 points nearly worthless.

Their thinking that strong talents should be in master or grandmaster is nonsense and any class they apply it to gets broken by it. Every tier needs strong traits. What determines which tier a trait goes in should be determined by its role. Traits with broad roles worthwhile in any build should be in adept. Traits that contribute to a more specific theme work well at master, and traits that add a lot of power to specialized builds but will be awkward in others should find their home in grandmaster.

Let me put their changes to our over-dependence on arcane and water in the form of a metaphor. If someone’s overly-dependent on public transportation, the answer isn’t to remove bus routes to make it harder to get to their destination and waste more of their time. They’re still going to depend on it, and just be directly worse off for it, or they’ll have to invest in a car, and live with less spending money.

We’re still going to have the same problems, and dealing with them just got harder.

Jinn Kazuma.2163:

Fun fact, the story reward light Commando armor leg piece looks like MCHammer pants at least on female sylvari. Pretty freaking stylish.

That’s Embroidered, crafted by tailors. It’s a nice set.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Embroidered_armor

mercury ranique.2170:

Dand.8231:

mercury ranique.2170:

No!
If you want to trade with people you cant trust you should use the TP. The TP is designed for secure and safe transactions. Transactions through email are only used amongst friends (based on mutual trust) or by scammers. The answer is to use the TP.

The answer is NOT the TP. The Black Lion Trade Post, while awesome for what it does, COMPLETELY LACKS the feature im asking for.

I’m asking for a secure way to trade directly with other players.

The reason people want to trade this way is either they got scammed or cause they wanna scam. Give me a GOOD reason to trade this way. I have given arguments that history has proven it is misused a lot by scammers and goldsellers. You can see that in any old game. So give me a valid reason and I might want to agree. I dont see the purpose at all and don’t want them to waste time on an unneeded feature.

This actually seems more like scam protection… since neither party has to commit to sending their side of the trade first. It’s used in real life, called Cash on delivery/Collect on delivery.

The only feature I’m finding odd is that you’re suggesting it get taxed… I would have thought going through the mail personally to the person you’re trading with would be to avoid that loss…

Saulius.8430:

4 weapon sets.. hm. that would drastically increase versatility… access to more skills, and combos… but but.. how you suggest to balance that between classes? e.g. now ele and engi don’t have weapon swap, but have something else instead

It’s still only usable out of combat, and it’s a QoL UI change for everyone. Not having a big window impairing your vision isn’t a class balance issue.

& besides, classes with weapon swap will have more weapons in each weapon set, and will be able to change twice as many weapons with a single UI interaction – my d/d ele can double click the staff in my bags, which I’ve made a really small window and kept very organized for this purpose.

I’d say… just auto-unlock them all for free at 30 and they’ll be perfect.

coglin.1867:

I have had all professions to 80 for many months but I main an engineer. Engineers fastest cool down on a stun breaker is 40s. Eles fastest cool down is 30s.

This is true, but let’s consider everything under a minute. Engi has 2 on 40s and 2 kitten a 50s I’m not particularly keen on, 60s… all significantly more useable than Signet of Air. It’s pretty much only an option for auramancer builds. (for anyone wondering about those numbers, a lot of them are in the tool belt function

Ele has that 30s signet… and a 45 sec that I actually love despite all the qq on these forums. Of course, it’s pretty useless out of inscription builds. Beyond one minute… 2 @ 75 and 1 at 90, all three of those are great stun breaks and…. a hell of a wait.

So yes you’re right engi has the shorter stun break cd. I play engi and ele and love them both. As far as stun breaks though… engi is far less likely to be waiting on their stun break.

Too much dps race not enough boss mechanics… healing power needs a large buff, toughness needs a slight buff (only toughness, not armor) and boss damage needs an appropriate nerf in line with stronger mechanics.

Boons should apply to downed players, just scaled down in effectiveness. Stats from trait points (but not armor) should affect your performance while downed. Get up quicker to do your job as a support player!

%of xyz stat converted to abc stat in a new line of perfumes crafted by chefs, artificers, and huntsmen.

Vitality from traits reduces dazed duration Toughness from traits reduces knocked-back/down duration & distance. Healing from traits reduces stunned duration. Boon duration from traits reduces feared duration.

just throwing some ideas around xD

Jaymee.1560:

Trains

Brilliant! This game needs trains!

Jaymee.1560:

but you still have a big lump of mindless smelly flesh fighting for you?

Fair point. I wouldn’t want them anywhere near my fridge.

Seems to me if you can summon a minion from thin air, you ought to be able to summon a minion from 30 yards. Though I could see them forgetting if they get few arrows stuck in their backside.

Perhaps it could be a trait. … kind of a weak trait >.>

I could imagine flying machines in wvw…npc controlled on a pre-determined route that you could fire cannons from and parachute off of. Zerg, look up for your gods, see only a winged eclipse, and fade into darkness. & explosions. Players in the flying machine ask the pilot to slow down or speed up.

I’d say leave gold out. Have guilds receive karma based on players representing them doing wonderful things and noble acts for the land of Tyria. Rather than taxing, though, it would just be a bonus. Clearly the player has their own karma. There could also be a bonus for multiple guild members working together, such as an additional 1% from each member present!

Also, I’d never tax economic transactions your members make.

F2 – All minions return to me
F3 – All minions attack my target
F4 – One of you, get me a coke

These would not have to appear in your ui until summoning a minion, of course

coglin.1867:

Dodge stun skills, can dodge 2 every 10s with no endurance regen or vigor buffs.

Use stability.

Use stun breakers.

See what I did there. I just skipped all of this 100%, 75%, 50%, and immune crap and went strait to nearly indefinitely immune. The difference is, I used the already intelligent system that is in game, instead of illogically complaining on the forums demanding an unnecessary core change that can make a player immune to another players build because they invested in CC.

I got no problem with a fully CC invested player actually doing some CC to me. I got no problem when a full invested glass cannon damages me. I got no problem when a tanky speced player takes minimal damage from me.

Some people play elementalists, and have to wait 4-6 business days for their stun breaks to come off cooldown. Don’t even get me started on stability. Vigor, on the other hand, is not a weakness (yet)

Rather than going to a specific basic armor look to be unlocked, maybe they could just make them legendary armor skins? Then you could take them into pvp as well.

For stats, which I’m not entirely for but… maybe have a second “skin” packaged with it that you just use on a piece of armor, and instead of skinning your gear it… skins the stats? like a transmute without obliterating your legendary aesthetic skin.

That would also mean you could perhaps keep a look you love in pve and get the legendary stats, then take the aesthetic to your pvp set.

All in all, I love the foresight you’ve shown that would prevent people from looking ridiculous with legendary rainbow boots (extreme example… maybe >.>) for their stats with completely mismatched gear set, or otherwise preventing them from being able to use their legendaries while collecting them for the sake of vanity. Just putting something out there in regards to implementation.

Anet has knocked down gated pvp, it’s time they adopted it for wvw as well. I’m all for slow, no-farm pve progression, but if they’re pitting players vs other players then it’s kind of slanting the playing field… regardless of how ridiculous the pvp in wvw can get with zerg.

The trinkets themselves might be part of a solution. Rather than making the only avenues to getting them be from dailies, have them also be purchasable with other currencies from other vendors. Then, make agony resistant infusions come from fractal reward currencies, magic/gold/karma, perhaps glory/aesthetic/crafting come from laurels (glory would be on pvp gear you worked for, the main 6 not the trinkets – possibly an aesthetic back piece), and have infusions that boost offense/defense to wvw crap come from wvw.

While you can also get ascended trinkets from fractals, what I’m trying to say is they should extend their core design philosophy of “level the way you want to level” into something like “gear the way you want to gear.”

Incidentally, I also think the trinkets should have an offense/defense infusion slot, a fractals/pve progression slot, and a utility slot, rather than having to earn a trinket for each purpose… and have it let you change the infusions.

Also… to alleviate some of the issue of trying to gear new alts, allow each toon to do dailies for a laurel to go into the account wallet. Then people will be able to set up new toons without being discouraged by the daunting task of gearing them to bis. Hell, they’ll probably sell more character slots.

StinVec.3621:

Hmm…

I think I need to start paying more attention to the appearances of NPCs again, at least more than my current gawking at the awesome clothes that Sister Brenda and Lexi Price in Queensdale are wearing and wishing we could have them for our armors.

Those aren’t clothes. What we’re witnessing here is a changeling, completely in the buff.

Simple idea, signets that proc an effect when you dodge roll.

f2 All Return
f3 All Attack Target
f4 Go get me a drink

hidden until you summon a minion

Has anyone ever given it any extended use? I’ve found it immensely handy in inscription builds. You need only anticipate the stun to be in an appropriate attunement. Which, most of the time, you’ll be in instinctively from trying to get an Elemental Attunement buff. From there, you’ve got a very unique control proc for a really nice duration.

It’s different and perhaps awkward, but with a little effort can be quite useful, versatile, and fun.

I do like the idea of having it give 2 stacks of defiant.

( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant )

Rather than stability making you immune to as many stuns as people throw at you over a short duration, immunity to only 2 stuns over a significantly longer duration. (immunity to 1 stun would just be… a worse version of stability)

What if champions just had diminishing returns? Such as, the first time you kill it in the day you’re guaranteed something really nice and some other fun stuff and blues or w/e, then from then on until daily reset it’s just the same reward you would get from any veteran. Second time killing troll today? Here, have a toenail.

I do agree, though, that the economy is pretty nuts and the rewards structure seems… a little off.

jheryn.8390:

I actually love the “concept” of the living world as it was presented to us, but it doesn’t feel as if the world is living and changing/growing. It feels like going to work actually. You go to work and you have different situations and projects, but it is still the same job. Not much changes about what most people do. This is how the LS feels to me. There is no permanent impact on the world, just more of the same with different players.

My personal top 10 things I would like to see in the LS are :

1. Permanent content introduced or permanent changes in landscape, people and creatures.
2. Content that impacts and develops existing content. Many have mentioned more with the dragons. I think it could be anything existing or from GW1. Maybe new NPC’s are introduced into the orders or we get to see other area’s of the different orders bases. Maybe the Mursaat make an appearance and it affects Orr in some way. Maybe risen from Droknar’s Forge start to appear in the water. Maybe another stone dwarf NPC can be introduced. Maybe the grove suffers a fire in part of the city and we can watch it progressively heal like any vegetative area would. Maybe address the Charr/Human uneasiness that still exists.
3. I would like to see lore from GW1 be introduced into the living story and have it be a significant impact upon current lore.
4. I would really like to see maybe an extended break from the LS in order to bring an expansion size LS content into the game. I miss the epic amount of places, things and creatures to discover and not be given to me piece meal.
5. New maps.
6. Explanations for things that are missing from GW1. Gargoyles, Hydra, weapon skins, etc.
7. Story lines that feel significant. Scarlet is funny and BSC, but she doesn’t feel threatening. More annoying than anything. The story lines just don’t feel as rich in GW2. The living story has done nothing to remedy that IMO.
8. New skills and traits. If the world is really evolving through the LS, shouldn’t those thing grow and expand as well?
9. Personal story progression.
10. I am sorry for repeating but most importantly, permanent content. I hate seeing the wonderful things you people work so kitten and that we really DO enjoy being taken away. The Molten Dungeon for example.

Having content that has permanence would break up the zerg in those events as well, once people move on to the newest thing. Areas with some major geographic change or tribe migration would also be quite cool, possibly making map completion less static, as once in a while the priory sends you out to map the recent changes and see if you can get up on that new vista.

Sorry about the DP.

Though I am against level scaling up for this game, one thing I absolutely do think would be appropriate is gear scaling up for this game. A crappy strong sword in a lvl 5 zone should be a lvl 5 crappy strong sword. A crappy strong sword in a lvl 30 zone should be a lvl 30 crappy strong sword, even if you somehow got it there in one piece on a lvl 2 character. lvl requirements to weild a weapon would still be very appropriate in this kind of setup.

SHM.7628:

knives.6345:

People asking to abolish a leveling system on an MMORPG? What’s next? Abolish gear rarity? Give BiS gears the moment you create a character?

I would say no. Leveling gives you a sense of progression/competition and a sense of hard work, dedication and commitment. You need to get to point A to get access to point A skills, to wear point A gears and to play equally with point A players.

Is it that far fetched? The downscale you when you enter a lower level area. That is kind of like doing away with levels. In the new" nightmare" instance they bump everyone up to level 80.

You still need to amass skill points for progression or your skills are locked. I think it can be done. You can make skill points and trait points gainable from skill challenges and by moving the XP bar as well.

What practical purpose does the levels really serve in this kind of system anyway? Even with armor and weapons. Its all basically throw away stuff until you’re maxed. This would really help simplify crafting too. As it stands, its all too confusing and convoluted.

One level, go wherever you want. Do whatever you want to do. Sounds pretty darn good to me. Plus think back to GW1. You could get to level 20 and get max armor pretty quickly. That wasn’t what made you good. You unlocked skills and learned how to use them. You unlocked your heroes and title track, learned to run dungeons. Then you were good You weren’t just good because you were level 20.

It’s not a bad idea for there just to be skills unlocked. River City Ransom was like that… & it had an economic system of progressing your character, buying sushi to get stronger or training in techniques… it didn’t have levels, but essentially it had levels.

Economic progression, such as buying a bigger boat when you can afford it, or organization rank/permissions progression, such as getting clearance to drive a tank, or leveling all amount to the same thing in the end, though.

Once you get out of your starting zone you’re free to go where you want, outside of instances. Area levels are recommended and not enforced. It’s recommended you reach those levels so as not to put up with getting 1-shot over and over. Your abilities will still be effective. When you block you block when you blind you blind, you’re just not strong enough. Hell, you can even go into wvw and try your luck there. It’ll beat you up over and over unless you learn not to bite more than you can chew and to get stronger. When your character gets stronger, they take on bigger challenges. Unlocking traits and utilities is merely a delivery system representing your character’s growth. Or, if you want, you could do a long term role-play with someone already at level 80 and is your guardian Maybe you’re the guy carrying some terrible burden that must be destroyed, and she’s the sexy necromancer that makes sure you get to Mount Doom.

That said, gear progression is pretty terrible at 80. 1 laurel a day, account wide, and a little bump for doing fractals. Laurels should be worked for, not waited for. The daily should just be one avenue to earn them. & they should be worked for in both pve and wvw since that’s what people get them for.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some lower level instances. 45 is much too high to be starting out dungeons.

PvP, though it ruins your immersion by setting you up and distancing you from the work you’ve put in, is a great outlet for what you’re looking for. & I think it’s brilliant in that way – instant level playing field. You’re playing against other players in a test of skill, awareness, and adaptation, as opposed to being a story where you face terrible monsters that devour inexperienced adventurers. Inexperienced.

Experience points represent experience… who knew?

I’m not saying other rpgs without leveling are in any way bad, I’m just saying there’s nothing inherently wrong with this method either. It’s a symbolic representation of growth. Try joining a dojo and taking on the black belts some day, and you’ll figure out what it’s symbolic of.

Conjure mastery could be a 10-splash for conjure builds now, or maybe for anyone who uses Fiery GS for their elite. I like the move. Anything that lets you get value out of 10 points for a wide variety of builds is good talent design. Though honestly moving an auto-cleansing flame out of adept seems pretty backwards. Not to mention the crushing blow to traits in adept water and arcane…

I’m probably in the minority here but I’m happy with how conjures work now. In the interest of ideas, though…

It would be cool if they all had an impact effect at the ground target location you put them, like FGS does. I could imagine the shield slamming into the ground and making a big magnetic bubble from projectiles, Hammer making an AoE blind, Frost Bow bursting out of the ground with an AoE of icy spikes that do damage and chill

Put in poison on swap sigil and cut into their healing trinket/force their condi removal

Forgot to mention… get a taste for coffee. Playing ele requires near-manic levels of ability management and awareness.

Also, never play ele on a full stomach.

All of our weapon sets suffer from cooldown issues. Focus needs to be completely reworked though… would be nice maybe if it could rip boons off foes in fire attunement? & focus air 4… whirl finisher.

Cast times are also odd on some abilities, especially blinds. Also the abilities you can’t move while casting… bleargh

All auras should be blocking projectiles.

Stability on dagger earth 3, dagger air 4 either leap or blast finisher

in utility skills, would really like to see all of our stun break abilities cap out at 1 minute cooldown max.

Spear, in and out of water, with block

While leveling, make sure you have the ability to swap into ranged for a melee build or melee with a staff build. Lightning Hammer can be a staff ele’s best friend, & likewise a good ranged utility like glyph of storms or fiery greatsword go a long way.

If you do use conjures, make sure you’re still taking advantage of attunements. Just because your weapon skills don’t change doesn’t mean your attunements don’t change.

Make sure to learn all your combo fields and finishers and make use of them. Much of elementalists’ power comes from getting off 2-3 small effects in the global cooldown of what would normally be a single effect. I found Arcane Blast to be a great utility while leveling to get the best access to a blast finisher, at least until you get Evasive Arcana or another synergy engine for combos or other effect multipliers.

The 2 more unique builds I enjoy:

DD Inscription Fresh Air:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImQbzx0wjDIkHmwJwCiHVAFwhlCzAA-TsAA2CoIuRdj7GzNybs3M040wUEA

DD Aura Juggernaut:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmabuR5wjDAEFmATQRAIMeAiIkA-TsAgyCuIuRdj7GzNybs3M64swUAA

DiogoSilva.7089:

Ladies and Gentlement, :P

Elemental Attunement as a whole is not a staple to elementalists. The protection on Elemental Attunement is.

EA is a good party support skill. EA is versatile. EA has good synergy with the water traitline, which happens to be one of our best traitlines. But although all of those characteristics help making EA a strong trait, none of them make it a staple.

5 (8) seconds of protection under a 10-ish second cooldown is what makes all elementalists require it to survive.

EA is as much as a “staple” to the class as Renewing Stamina. Who cares about the 1 stack of might? Who cares about 6s of swiftness? They’re all okay-ish, but that’s not why all eles absolutely want to have it.

So, again, one of the core flaws of our profession is the survival. And this is something that must surely be addressed someday.

When people suggest an HP increase, they are just suggesting the easiest solution. I understand when Anet says that all classes should be balanced around its own unique base stat values. But, I wonder, wouldn’t it make it more sense for the Mesmer to have the low HP value and for the Elementalist to have the mid HP value? The Mesmers have clones, stealth, and stronger active defenses than ourselves.

Because the root of all this is the original design behind the elementalist. Anet has said, before the launch of the game, the following: to compensate for the low passive defense, we would have stronger active defenses.

That’s all fine in theory. But those “stronger active defenses” weren’t given to us. They were given to the mesmer.

It’s the mesmer that has easier access to blocks and invulnerability and teleporting and stealth and clones and confusion and torment and interrupts.

And us elementalists have gotten auras, which require us to get hit before doing anything, and so they’re most useful when we have stronger passive defense. And us elementalists have been given plenty of healing skills, which are the most useful when we have, again, stronger passive defense (toughness & healing). And we elementalists have been given slow-to-cast blinds or slow-to-cast defensive skills (most staff’s defenses). Which are more useful when we have – guess what? Stronger passive defense. Only our stuns/ KDs seem to be neutral enough, to be equally powerful regardless of our builds.

THIS is the problem with the elementalist’s survival. We were mechanically designed to depend more on active defenses, but those active defenses were given to the Mesmer. We need active defenses that don’t depend on stats. We need more blocks, more evades, more blinds, more of that stuff, and less auras and less healing. But those blocks, those evades, those blinds, and stealth, and confusion, and torment, and clones – all of them made more sense for the duelist/ trickster flavor of the mesmer profession, and so anet gave them the best and the most neutral active defenses.

So the solution can be simply enough:
- Swap the base healing of the elementalist with the base healing of the mesmer.

Or it can be a hard and time-consuming solution:
- Improve most of our active defenses across all our weapon skills to be more neutral. but then, won’t that make us way too similar to mesmers? Would that be a good solution?

Anet wanted a spellcasting profession with low passive defense and high active defense. That’s all lovely. They choose the elementalist for that role. Sure. But mechanically, that profession was the mesmer all along. Not the elementalist, unlike what Anet originally intended. And this is unfair to us.

Don’t forget stun breaks with all this talk about active defenses!

Though I agree with most of your statements, I actually do find the aoe swiftness, might, and regen to be valuable assets, not just protection. I do acknowledge, though, that protection on demand is a must.

I like it more as it is. Auras are much less useful to me. If it doesn’t feel defensive to you (despite its ability to put space between you and your pursuer and make their abilities fail to weakness or slowed with chilled) you can also run it with Inscription, a frequently overlooked and powerful trait.

There is, however, a decent amount of support for auras in the traits. However, the duration of auras seems entirely too short. I could see it as a new glyph though on something like a 30 second cd.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Leuca.5732:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Not going to dive too far into answering this but the designers moved these traits to the master line because they consider them traits too strong to be adept. Surely you can imagine a bunch of ideas were on the table.

Why are they too strong to be adept? A condition cleanse every 10 seconds (requires maxed Arcana) and some boons on attunement. Stating the obvious here, but wouldn’t a better solution have included identifying factors that make them so strong and then toning those down? For instance, how numerically strong would Cleansing Wave still be if it only affected the Elementalist? I can only guess ideas like this were brought up, but who actually thinks Cleansing Wave would be too strong for the Adept tier if it had no aoe, and what ele wouldn’t still find it useful for the most part?

My issue with many of these changes is that they are unnecessarily counteracting changes that are meant to increase versatility.

It’s the only tier 1 AOE cleanse in the game is the main reason, other factors are that its also an on demand cleanse, and it can be used every 10 seconds.

^^ directly from JP’s mouth just now

We’re on the shortest clock vs dps conditions having the lowest hp and absolutely no complete condition wipes. We absolutely need short cd cleanses as just a minimal maintenance vs conditions, & it’s one of the last useful specialties for us to bring (right there with cycling buffs from Elemental Attunement…) and still… many players don’t even value it as our contribution. A ten second cleanse for us is our only reliable maintenance vs any sort of condition. Our hp is too low to try and stall for our 50 second dagger cleanse or 40 second cleansing fire cooldown.

We need the tier 1 AOE cleanse to be valuable/viable. Our minor trait is useless, and the practicality of using it every 10 seconds is akin to saying water attunement weapon skills are never worth using over a single condi cleanse. Not to mention… we don’t have any way outside of runes of lyssa to wipe conditions off ourselves! 1 cleanse every ten seconds amounts to… falling behind. The profession with the lowest hp and armor is already on a really short clock vs condition dps, and we have to eat effects like chill and cripple just to keep it available in case someone puts a poison on us and auto-wins.

Keep universally valuable, splashable abilities in tier 1, and specialized abilities in higher tiers. Filling tier 1 with overly-specialized abilities and making them go to 20 to splash a trait destroys the class. Yes, that’s exactly what it’ll be. Going to 20 to splash a trait, making it so any build outside of water has 50 points to work with instead of 60. Oh, but then there’s people who don’t really want to go into arcane, either, but they’ve got to go 20 in to splash a trait… leaving 30 points to make a unique build. Then again, evasive arcana’s around the corner….

Elementalists will get 30 points to make a unique build unless they want to make a 1 trick pony gimmick build.

Talents you can splash for 10 are a good thing, not a bad thing. Make more talents available at 10 that are universally beneficial to every build in all the trait lines, put slightly more specialized abilities in Master, and highly specialized in Grand Master.

LordByron.8369:

Mithfir.1038:

RTL back in the day was overpowered .

stop using that word…
Look at other profession skills

Look at elmentalist…and his cloth/low HP short range style

If you say that our mobility is fine you never played elementalist…
You can no longer follow anyone …even a mesmer can disengage a D/D ele without any problem as its now.

Even without looking at warrior or thief or ranger mobility….. a profession locked in short range NEEDS mobility.
Remove it and you have a bad version of the warrior of 6 months ago.

let’s not forget about our 3 hour wait on stun breaking utilities. Which are obv. OP since so many eles use them in 2 or even 3 utility slots regardless of their build.

Quick Mouse.7635:

Nothing you guys have changed in the balance preview will change this.
Trying to remove dependence on arcana while keeping the “golden” ele traits at 20 and 30 arcana is going to do nothing for build variety.

Nonsense. Splashing 10 in arcane or water will no longer be viable, so it’s going to kill build variety entirely!

Rather than range, you’ve got gap closers. Conjures also work. Like a staff user taking Lightning Hammer, D/D can supplement their abilities with a conjure as well. Personally, I like the fiery greatsword in my d/d fresh air build.

blutstein.2468:

Nikkinella.8254:

Gorni.1764:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

water 25… +2% damage per active boon…

1%, it was nerfed

I don’t know why that trait was ever in water to begin with. Boon duration stuff would belong in the arcane trait line I would think. Would be nice if it were buffed back to 2% and moved to the 25 pt in arcane, since the 25 in arcane is crap anyway, no one would miss it.

the idea behind the 25 arcane is great, but 10% on crit is way to low, even for adept and ridiculous for a GM minor. It should be 60% on crit like the air one.

Eh, I think it’s too much like the glyph, which could use a buff in its own. I do like the concept though. Maybe it’d be better off with something to do with endurance, though. Like dodging executes leap finishers or something.

Berengar.6951:

Spectre.6452:

good condition removal.

Unless you trait into elixirs, engi condition removal is terrible

I’d debate that it’s no more terrible than Ele’s condi removal without water. The viable options are pretty good. Viable for options for Ele are nowhere close to engineering counterparts. OH dagger on a 40 sec cd is the most reliable thing we’ve got, as the focus needs a lot of work in spite of its actually really good condi removal. Engi doesn’t get any favors in their weapon skills, but the utility skills they have are strong, especially keeping in mind they also all have powerful tool belt abilities. Healing Turret, Med Kit can clear up conditions on much better cooldowns. Elixir Gun destroys conditions and has a wonderful little stun break heal. Elixir C is comparable to Cleansing Fire but can also be tossed for an AoE removal. If I wanted to put together a build without water or alchemy, I’d much rather have my condition removal in engineering’s hands than ele’s. Just for the healing skills alone.

blutstein.2468:

I play both regulary, and both are fun. But its a lot of misinformation here imho.

• Besides grenade spam (I don’t know who like this, maybe warrior players) and Static discharge, there are no viable power builds. Engineers excel at condition bombing, but thats it.
• Elixier spam is like grenades spam. ground targeting over and over again. Maybe its just me, but…..
• a huge part of engineers core mechanic (turrets) is completely broken since Beta.
• some kits are questionable and many traits are broken.
• Ele DPS is by far higher than engineers.
• Build Diversity is the worst of all professions imho.

sure, thats my 2c. Don’t get me wrong, i really love my charr blood legion engineer, but imho its by far the profession in the game that needs more love.

For PvE I agree, PvP/WvW disagree. Both definitely need love.

On the subject of build diversity, that’s being greatly threatened for eles in December. The backwards idea of making splash-worthy (mandatory) abilities higher on the trait chain means else essentially have to dedicate an additional 10 skill points to those trait chains to fill the gaps in their setup. Of course, engineering’s also facing some significant restrictions.

I digress. Clearly the only solution is to make a social dating website where engineers and elementalists can meet.

Gorni.1764:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

water 25… +2% damage per active boon…

1%, it was nerfed

Should also provide 1% healing per boon as well imo…

Healing deserves a buff, perhaps with exception to the regeneration boon as that seems good where it is.