Guild Wars 2

Delmain.5167:

pho.9412:

renewing stamina moving to master tier trait.

It’s not renewing stamina moving to master tier, its Elemental Attunement. The people gave enough reasoning against moving renewing stamina up -mostly because similar traits in other professions are in adept-, as for Elemental Attunement, I have yet to see an argument that could have a chance at reverting that decision, mostly because they defeat their own argument when they state how important the trait is which can also be seen as how powerful this trait is. Stronger traits should be on higher tiers, not lower. The developers themselves have said this, though in different words.

I think the argument for elemental attunement is how vital the trait is to elementalists survival because of the protection uptime. That is what I have seen from most posts making the case that it should stay at adept. I personally have put on blasting staff during tower defense forgot to swap back and will notice immediately if I don’t have renewing stamina but elemental attunement takes me a bit longer to notice I don’t have it.

Mash Hog.5672:

The issue is that I don’t see what use Swiftness and Fury is when you’re on the floor.
On your basis that Tempest Defense would work with Powerful Auras, Zephyr’s Boon (swiftness/fury on Aura), and Elemental Shielding (Protection on Aura); you’re describing a 0/30/10/30/0 build.

Fire: 0
Air: 30-
Adept: I (Zephyr’s Boon)
Master: ?
Grandmaster: XI (Tepest Defense)
Earth: 10
Adept: V (Elemental Shielding)
Water: 30
Adept: ?
Master:?
Grandmaster: XII (Powerful Auras)
Arcane: 0

That leaves you with 0 trait-points left with your traits going into Critical Hits and Healing. Those two typically don’t work well with each other. With the suggested trait setup, we still have 3 traits left to pick:
Master Air, Adept Water, and Master Water none of which have traits which can define a build.

Furthermore these boons that we get from Auras: (Swiftness, Fury, and Protection) are effective now because we have 30 points in arcane and they last 30% longer. With said build, we don’t have any traits in arcane and these boons wont last long enough to make too much of a difference.

I am starting to see the development of a bunker build here as I’m refuting all of this, but my points are still valid and there are lots of weaknesses and flaws in this build so far.

I don’t like the fact of building around something that you don’t have too much control over.

I think some people over estimate how much boon duration you get from Arcana 30% boon duration isn’t much on a short duration boon. Its real impact is on long duration boons like Might from blast finishers.

With 30% boon duration you look like

Zeyphyr’s boon – 6.5 secs Swiftness + Fury (up from 5 secs)
Elemental shielding – 3.9 secs of Protection (up from 3 secs)

But might blast finisher – 26 secs (up from 20 secs)

The boon duration from 30 arcana boon duration isn’t vital to using alot of the eles boons unless you are speccing boon duration with runes. The only place on elementalist I personally feel stressing boon duration on a short duration boon is rock solid so you can guarantee a full ether renewal unless your stab is stripped.

You mean as far as damage? The base damage and scaling is higher on fire which in a way is a bonus because you don’t have to spec heavy condi damage for it. The thing with fire is that it stacks duration and not intensity. Where as earth = bleeds and you can stack 5 stacks doing 100 per stack.

Not sure exactly if your asking about condition damage though. Fire is the power line so it does well because it is fire. Air is crit chance and crit damage so you want those to get the damage out of it but it is certainly there.

Lightning whip on Dagger in Air attunement is one of the best dps tools Elementalists have.

ThiBash.5634:

Wraistlin.6072:

You can make it more survivable with the +boon duration runes instead of divinity, but with that you take a hit in damage.

If you use a Sigil of Battle, those boons also get extended, effectively giving you an additional 100 Power and Condition Damage. Add the extended Fury to that, and I’d say they’re pretty much even.

Boon duration runes are good for at least 6 more stacks of might just playing normal. I stay around 10 with no boon duration and not actively stacking might and with boon duration it is usually 16 not actively stacking. My only gripe with boon duration is to get the most out of it I feel you need at least 10 in earth for elemental shielding to justify boon duration setup. If you are doing it for party benefit then not having 10 in earth is fine but I feel like 10 in earth for sure for permanent protection which is hard to pass up. I have a armor setup with it that is actually more squishy and perma protection vs not having it is night and day.

Shadowfall.6543:

Warriors are going to be fundamentally hard to nerf (and still be fun for warrior players).

1) Noone would have fun as a warrior if another class could mow them down in the 2 – 4 seconds it takes for them to close the distance.

2) Warriors have a reasonable expectation to have the advantage when engaged in melee versus a ranged opponent (much the same advantage a staff Elementalist would expect from a range of 1200).

3) It would be no fun if the warrior could not catch the caster (remember how frustrating it is to go against Thieves that just stealth and run away, or Mesmers with their clone army?).

As long as the warriors charge their targets with no fear of appreciable damage (and fairly low travel time), the warriors will have the advantage. And remembering that warriors have to be balanced to survive melee with champion and legendary targets, I think it will be a long time until warriors are balanced with the other classes.

These are all good points and pretty much the balancing act of warriors. Prior to the buffs warriors where easy targets and it wasn’t fun. On my warrior I would go in do a bit of damage and run out. That is why so many built mostly zerker and max damage type of builds. Your survival time was low so you wanted to get the most damage you could out before your EP ran out.

I guess the better question is how important is Fire grab, lightning whip, burning speed, and to a lesser extent churning earth to have them crit? Fire grab and churning are on long cooldowns but Fire Grab is a pretty big swing in a fights momentum when it crits with a much easier setup especially if you run cleansing flame. You almost guarantee a hit on fire grab with a earthquake + cleansing flame + fire grab, shocking aura stun + cleansing flame + fire grab, updraft + cleansing flame + fire grab.

D/D is fine still for solo roaming. The next patch isn’t a nerf to standard D/D 0/10/0/30/30 you can play it the same with the same traits.

posthumecaver.6473:

zencow.3651:

Marks are dodgable.

For sPvP you must use a zerker or valkyrie amulet to have any chance of killing a necro or warrior by yourself (or anything else really). Alternatives don’t give you enough damage to get past life force gains/heal sig and you will lose in a prolonged fight.

Zerker amy is your best bet agains’t necros since the small amount of vitality is much better than valk’s toughness and 12k health vs condi.

Uhm there is a trait that make the marks un-dodgeable or not?

No there is a trait that makes them unblockable but you can still dodge them. If the Marks are large 240 radius those are the unblockable marks.

@ ThiBash

I like your second concept build more. Cantrips are always going to be awesome not necessarily a bad thing all the professions I play have the popular utilities and most of the popular utilities that are chosen can be used offensively and defensively offering well “Utility”.

It would be interesting to see though I would probably take those last 20 points and go Arcana to get elemental attunement. Maybe even better 10 arcana 10 air for Zephyr’s boon and renewing stamina. Maybe put 10 in air just for Zeyphr’s and the other 10 in earth for geomancer’s freedom Runes of Hoelbrak

Yea I forgot that fact Mash Hog is correct. Necromancers have very little access to stability it comes from their elites of Plague or Lich a trait for 30 points in Soul Reaping called foot in the grave. That trait is usually on ran in 30/10/0/0/30 power well neco’s not condition builds. A well that not many run also has 1 sec of stability.

Also mash is correct most necros run around with 1 or no stun breakers at all. The popular choices for stun breakers are spectral walk, spectral armor or plague signet.

lunyboy.8672:

This happens to every profession just about every balance patch, and to be fair, some things are a bit out of scale, and others seem to get lost to the assumption that all professions are balanced before they start moving things around.

Which is just completely false. Full stop.

I agree the forums are very hard picture to frame. The thing that bothers me is that it is all pointed at the devs when many of the changes or variations of suggestions come from US the players.

I know that healing signet increase was suggested many times and Jon Peters tested it out in sPvP (the infamous 5 signet pic of him in sPvP). Cleansing Ire is a strictly Player made suggestion. They didn’t buff the healing signet or any of the heal buffs prior and just made all the other changes to help Warriors with condi’s but the players said we need more sustain we still can’t stay in the fight. Asking for protection (Daecollo) constantly Chap even said why they didn’t do healing buffs but it was asked for by the players and it was given now people complain about Warriors to the Devs and say the Devs have no clue what they are doing etc when player feedback from the forums influenced balance changes.

I can probably reference every single instance above that would lead you to believe that the majority of the Warrior changes where player influenced though I don’t have a youtube video I can find the threads. I was heavy into my warrior before the buffs happened or where talked about and was on the Warrior forums alot when they where being discussed. The old thief thread (the big one that was moved from WvW for all the stealth complaining) I think is closed.

Let us look down memory lane shall we in regards to Elementalist:

First SOTG – http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593 Elementalist discussion @ 45:51

Elementalist is first classed discussed. Jon Peter’s seemed to think at that time that ele was fine surprised people thought it was strong. Chap sounds like he would side with how we all feel now about Ele that is a high skill cap so it rewards you. The other players don’t seem to feel the same way influenced by the Players, changes/nerfs to ele happened after that video.

I think looking back at this video it was a l2p issue on the playerbase as a whole and people didn’t know how the ele worked or how to counter it. So ele was nerfed other classes brought up which seemed to be the devs initial intention anyway but for months it was Ele =OP on the forums so they nerfed Ele. The better approach would have been to bring the other classes up to the levels that we see now that is what they seemed to want to do going by the video but somewhere it didn’t happen.

April 2013 – The Ele nerf patch!

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593 Elementalist @ 34:42

This is the RTL/Mist Form/ Cleansing Water(pvp) nerf patch. Even after the changes Symbolic states that he doesn’t think the Cleansing Water nerf will have much impact on how well Ele’s can deal with conditions. Chap states internally it showed other wise (which we all know is totally correct). If I remember Symbolic plays/played necromancer.

Not posting this to call people out as the cause of Elementalist nerfs but it isn’t all on the Devs, players that make a suggestion then it comes out to be bad or overpowered don’t get the fingers pointed at them. The Devs end up getting all the criticsm as they should because they are the creators of the product. Though I personally feel that sometimes it isn’t fair to say things like they have no idea what they are doing with ele.

Who does? The players? Which players should you listen to and not listen to? Who’s idea is the best?

If you go back to the last SOTG Chap even says that players asked for more evades on Thieves other weapons so bow wouldn’t feel mandatory. Now people complain about thief evade builds which are now getting nerfed. Necromancers said they couldn’t kill stuff and people could just disengage at will from them, now people complain about necromancer’s killing stuff.

This feedback from Jon imo was really good but it isn’t like they haven’t looked to the forums before and taken feedback from players of that class and then players of another class complain about the changes brought about suggested by players.

Which is why I like the suggested changes for elementalist but I fear that it will be overbuffed and people don’t see it because nobody posted a video of a 1vX build yet. This is exactly what happened with Warrior’s -See beserker’s stance. See last SOTG Chap mentions that skill specifically and why it was brought up in duration 3 times in 3 different patches because players said it wasn’t good enough to slot.

O.O I thought I was the only one. I kept thinking it wasn’t a crit and the white numbers just lost in the chaos. Time to submit a bug report then

I have both classes Ele is my main but I am pretty familiar with the necro terror build.
The best thing is to understand how it works:

Standard Terror build is 30/20/0/0/20 It is always 30/20/x/x/x I personally run 30/20/20 so I have less life force generation it still plays similar.

The insta-gib combo is ideally

Pop into deathshroud Fear,

Dark Path – Chill and Bleeds

tainted shackles Torment

If not dead swap to staff with a hydromancy or geomancy sigil on it lay reapers mark for more fear.

Lay spectral wall bomb with marks from staff. The person should be dead.

It isn’t particularly difficult to pull off but it depends on what your fighting also. More tankier builds you have to run through the rotation a bit more glassy you probably only need to hit them with half of it.

There are variations of that instagib setup it isn’t so cookie cutter as when you cloak and dagger you should be trying to backstab. There is Fear – hit with Signet of spite also. Then it depends on if they have a focus for more chill a dagger off hand.

The important thing as a ele is good cleanses. If you are d/d ele you can win the fight but it is in the necro’s favor especially if they run corrupt boon. Ether renewal can help if your disengaging but anyone who has fought ele’s or know how they work will fear you when you ether. It is really easy to interrupt ether as a necro.

The key things to know is that the build is pretty glassy usually sitting around 2.5k armor and 18-20k health. Some people think it is tanky but that is just deathshroud after you get past deathshroud the necro itself is squishy. Any necro with 20-30 points in soul reaping will seem tanky because of deathshroud.

Most will go 15 points in soul reaping for Spectral armor at 50% health. If a necro has spectral armor up and goes into deathshroud it will actually gain life force the more attacks that hit it and 1v1 you can’t get through deathshroud with spectral armor up.

It isn’t a fight where you can eat the conditions wipe them and then mop the floor with the necro because application is easy. You have to get through the deathshroud that is the most imporant thing.

Like Zencow said burst is good against necros don’t eat marks as best you can.

S/D eles can give me trouble more so than D/D because S/D has range and blind sucks and no necro uses the staff auto attack so you get blinded when you are doing imporant attacks which are pretty much what the necro is always using.

Also if you get hit with tainted shackles and you can’t get outside the 900 range before the immobilze hits don’t wipe it until after the immobilize hits you. Alot of times people wipe as soon as they see the shackles but the real danger is the immobilize and the damage at the end.

Important Provided a necro has at least 10 points in Soul Reaping(which most do) they can fear you every 17.5 seconds.

Anierna.6918:

You didn’t say what gear you’re using. Zerk, or something else? That is an important factor in bloodlust vs. perception.

Factor in your power/prec/crit dmg stats, your multipliers, your food, your boons, and your buffs, then do one simulation w/ 250 extra power, then a second simulation w/ 250 extra prec. If the first simulation has a higher effective power, use bloodlust. If the second does, use perception. It’s that simple.

I have looked at the effective power difference between the 2 and bloodlust always wins just like superior sharpening stones is always higher than maintenance oils. Even if I go over 2300 power just adding it in manually it is always higher effective power for Power. The only close difference is Pow/Pre food and Pow/Crit Dmg food alwys give very close effective power while Pre/Crit Dmg food is always less effective power than the other choices. This is using buildcrafts calculations.

It is knights armor, celestial accessories, celestial amulet cav rings, cav backpiece pvt daggers.

FrownyClown.8402:

man i spent 20 minutes writing a reply and then it got deleted. Long story short, 12% additional crit chance. Is it worth it? If you are going for more of a bursting type of play style I think going for added precision is wise. If you wanted more of a sustained damage then power would be the way to go.

Yea I think perception is what I need. I really hate not crit fire grabs

Me and a few people where talking about crit vs power. Most people know that power is the best offensive stat then when you reach a certain threshold of crit damage then precision becomes important. My friend said that consistency is why crit chance is better.

I was thinking about classic D/D 0/10/0/30/30 most people always run bloodlust with this set then a sigil of force after you get stacks.

I was thinking isn’t perception better on D/D than Bloodlust? The reason I am asking this now is I have been viewing my play lately I currently sit at 10 stacks of might 28 crit chance and 48 crit damage on one of my gear setups for D/D 1868 power before might.

When I look at D/D if you run FGS you will easily sit over 2300 power. Might stacking I stay around 10 stacks with just 30 in Arcana. When I run boon duration setup I sit around 16-20 stacks if the fight lasts longer than 15-20 seconds. Both of these setups have lower crit chance prefury but since might is so easy doesn’t precision become more important especially for important attacks/burst attacks like burning speed, firegrab and lightning whip.

This is WvW

Bitcloud1 is a ele streamer he comes on late evening/early morning. He hasn’t been playing alot of GW2 lately though. I did see him stream I think last week. When he was streaming Guild Wars 2 every night he was almost always the most popular streamer.

He has a archive and videos on youtube.

I was actually thinking elemental shielding permanent for all aura’s rock solid moved down to adept in earth and geomancer can stay at master on it’s own geo isn’t great but it is good when you combine it with food or melandru/hoelbrak runes. That would still mean there needs to be a new earth trait at master tier.

Thyophelis.8035:

o i didn t know that cleansing water doesn t have a icd in wvw. wierd I droped it after that patch, when cleansing flame was no stun braker anymore and I was forced to used ether renewal

so lets agree in Spvp with elemental attunement the trait is still useless?

Yea I would agree there. Yea in WvW cleansing water doesn’t have a icd.

Joseph.7213:

Mash Hog.5672:

(Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.*
I get it, this was a very powerful trait, it needed more of an investment in the Arcana tree to obtain it. At least we don’t need to decide between Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina (which would have been bad).

Wait, aren’t they putting Renewing Stamina in the Master tree, too?

No not anymore

Thyophelis.8035:

you cannot control when you get crit hit, this trait will probably go off in the window 1-4 sec before or after you changed to water and you gain 0, nada, nothing from your adept tier.

together with elemental attunement this trait is useless. And I still consider elemental atunement to be the best trait for an elementalist.

In sPvP it will have the icd on cleansing water in WvW this is better since there is no icd. With 30 in water and 20 in arcana for elemental attunement this is way better than taking cleansing wave. I don’t run cleansing wave anyway and take cantrip mastery but I will probably drop cantrip mastery for soothing wave+soothing disruption+cleansing water.

Anyone that has fought D/D ele or S/D that isn’t fresh air plenty of times knows that you burst the ele after he comes out of water that is when it is the most weakest. This helps in those fights against someone that knows how ele usually works. Your in Air and passively removing a stack of bleeds while you keep pressure up lightning whip spamming. This also helps SOR users alot with passive condition removal.

You are fighting a non condition build who has a immobilize or cripple that is pretty long. You just wiped it and keep applying pressure or kiting. Hammer warriors come to mind with it’s 7 second base duration cripple.

In sPvP maybe they should drop the ICD on cleansing water now it would really help ele alot there.

Thyophelis.8035:

with plenty you mean 2? one of it has a cast time and does basicly no dmg. the other does no dmg at all. compared to other classes blinds who always have a secondary effect and dmg on top of that the earth blind is pretty crap. Necros have an ae blind that transfers 3 conditions and does dmg. thiefs have ae blind, smoke fields. the ae blinds on my guard hit for up to 2k dmg and are gap closers.
I mean lets be honest what does the new trait do? Most eles have perma regen on them, so all this trait does is remove 1 condition every 10 sec when you get critical hit and you need a grandmaster trait for it to work. You loose regen and vigor on cantrips, which is an on demand 1 cond removal.
For prolly 95% of the ele builds this is just another useless trait in the adept water trait.

It is adept tier though. Cleansing Fire if traited is 32 seconds 3 conditions what makes that utility good is that it is on demand burst. That trait would basically be cleansing fire but passive while you can still take cleansing fire and soothing disruption with it.

So you could remove

4 conditions (cleansing fire+soothing disruption and cleansing water) every 40 seconds or what amounts to 4 conditions every 10 seconds.

Lightning flash + Armor of earth/mist Form is another 2 conditions

Elemental attunement combined with 30 water for 1 more condition

If you take EA that is another condition

Along side 1 condition every 10 seconds with soothing wave + cleansing water.

So that is 8 conditions + a passive 1 condition every 10 seconds (though it does depend on you getting crit but the crit doesnt have to come from the condition enemy)

If you get hit by a crit every 10 seconds soothing wave + cleansing water = same condition removal as cleansing flame passively.

Attrition condition builds have never been a problem for ele it is burst condition builds like necro and engi. You can still burst remove conditions while having a passive condition removal against attrition style conditions. This isn’t even factoring in dagger offhand water 5, ether renewal, GoeH with 30 water, magnetic wave with focus.

As far as blinds go the 2 are pretty good blinding flash in instant in air and 900 range. Dust devil hits foes in a line on a 15 sec cd. It isn’t like ele stays in Air or stays in Earth. So they should add a blind to fire attunement and water also? Your guardian can stay on those weapon sets depending on the fight. A ele doesn’t stay in Air or Earth for very long.

@ Diogo

What if Elemental shielding – protection on aura’s became inherent bumped up to 4 seconds base maybe even 5 seconds.

If we compare the classes raw no traits. Mesmer can get protection randomly from chaos storm and from Signet of inspiration.

So with the lower health pool couldn’t the argument be made that 4-5 seconds of protection on aura inherent with no trait point invest be justified? That could still be stripped or corrupted as counter play.

While we don’t have retal we do get protection and more protection would most certainly help and be balanced as long as it isn’t looked at as every ele specs boon duration because many do not go boon duration anymore. Does this help Focus yes because of fire aura, it helps staff because of Magnetic aura, it helps d/d because of shocking and frost and it helps S/D because of frost aura. For additional protection with out going boon duration grab GoEH and elemental attunement if you want.

Malcastus.6240:

Are you sure it is Soothing Wave that is getting redesigned and not Soothing Mist? I have seen a few posts by Tyler where he says Soothing Mist, not Wave. If it’s Soothing Wave, then cool beans. Soothing Mist.. ow.

It is soothing wave

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview-Updated-Nov-6th/page/30#post3157728

Thyophelis.8035:

Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incoming critical hits. 10s recharge.

Honestly replacing unpopular traits with useless ones isn t gona do much. I would add a blind or 2-3 sec weakness to that trait also on a 10-15 sec cooldown.

Suggestion Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incoming critical hits and blind (or weaken)your foe for 3 seconds. 12s recharge.

I feel the elementalists lacks defensiv skills during combat. My Guard has got 3 blinds, all of them do good dmg 2 are gap closers, leap finishers and 1 even removes a condition, then focus 5 is 3 blocks and good burst potental, sword 2 blocks projectiles, my heal blocks, my elite blocks. Together with AH or Healing meditations and heals on dodge he s got as much self heal as the ele has, when not more.
If I look @ the ele he just doesn t have enough. scepter has got 2 blinds, the earth one is dire, cast time, not doing any dmg @ all and having no second function, and earth 2 has a slight armor increase.
Staff has got good cc ability, and 1 movement skill, my warrior s got 98% cc cond reduction and 2-3 times stability, there s certainly no staff ele gona stop me from killing anything. The blind is weak and the pressure on a single target is nonexistant. The Staff eles I can t ignore hit me with fireballs of 1.6k dmg, when I hit em with my hammer they eat 4k+ per swing final trust can hit up to 7k+ dmg
the only weapon that offers good defensiv skills is the focus, but @ the loss of mobility and dmg.

Run S/D there is plenty of blinds there. The soothing wave trait is pretty good for a adept tier trait. Regen with out having to go into water that is sustain that you have that doesn’t depend on you blowing a cantrip or a 6th skill. The real gem of it is with 30 water otherwise I wouldn’t take it over the other options. More healing without having to go into water is a very good trait. I think 5 sec (base) would be better though.

This is a good write up I disagree with some of your points like soothing wave. Other people also seem to be down on soothing wave but I think it is a fantastic trait at adept tier. Right now normal Ele builds go into water then they get regen and that is the best HOT you receive from standard builds with 15 water and 20 Arcana. Not only will the trait proc cleansing water but it would also allow you to stay out of water attunement a bit longer. I think 5 sec base with 10 sec cd is better than the 3 seconds they are talking about now.

Ember’s Might is a good trait and it is adept they should take that and merge with burning precision that would look better.

DiogoSilva.7089:

So, what’s the solution?

• The easiest/ simplest one, would be to swap each profession’s health, fixing the lack of defenses of one and fixing the huge amount of defenses for the other. But being the easiest/ simplest solution might not necessarily mean it would be the best one, of course.
• The alternative solution, and probably the one that Anet wants us elementalists to discuss for, is to improve all the current underwhelming survival skills (lightning touch, gust and shockwave have unreliable functionality, dust devil, fire shield and freezing gust are underwhelming), improve our access to chill (suggestion: add chill in shatterstone’s effect, dare to buff freezing gust’s chill duration to 5 seconds aoe, consider making frost burst adding 1 second extra of chill, add good chill traits), rethink our access to mobility effects, add more defensive traits in our offensive traitlines, and consider improving our access to other defensive conditions. And then hope that the sum of all parts would fix this profession’s base survival. Will that be enough? Which chill traits could exist outside of water and arcane traitlines? Probably none. Is Anet willing to revert the mobility nerfs? Is Anet willing to make us closer to the mesmer’s or necromancer’s active defenses? Will Anet simply fill all our traitlines with defensive options? How should it be?

EDIT About mobility, with easier/ stronger access to chill effects in our weapon skills, elementalists would have an easier time escaping with a combination of chill + swiftness. It’s mechanically important for us, it’s flavorful, and allows us to escape without getting the old RTL back. Yes, speed + chill is already possible in current builds, but clearly not effective enough, is it? Besides, skills like dragon’s Tooth, Flamewall, Lava Font, etc, want and demand more anti-movement skills. I definitely think our access to chill should be stronger.

This a very good post Diogo excellent post. I think more access to chill could be a good option and fits thematically.

As far as the base health is concerned I think the one thing about that suggestion is that it won’t change how people build ele’s. If you gave my Ele 15k base health it would allow me to chose more gear. I would still run 20+ in water and 30+ arcana because it is fun. Now armed with that extra vitality would open up more gear choices but I don’t think it would make build diversity. A better solution is to just bump the Ele up to 15k and leave the Mesmer at 15k. I am not really in favor of dropping 5k hp from a profession for the sake of another profession. The storm that would arise as people complain about gear.

I think your suggestion of more access to chill is a good one. I can’t buy the RTL survivability argument because /F and Staff don’t get access to RTL. It is one weapon set not a class trait. I think RTL has to be thrown out the window because not everyone runs X/D.

Last time I tested rune of earth the 20% protection duration doesn’t work. Not sure if it has been fixed since then which was about 2 weeks ago. Rune of the grove doesn’t work either.

look at this gem

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Elementalist_traits

The old elementalist traits

It looks like Elemental Attunement was actually the 5 point minors before.

Only thing I like there is One with Mists- Mist form at 33% health.

Rennoko.5731:

I find the 0 20 20 10 20 build my second favorite after the standard. Greater marks and MOB and leveraging spectral skills is very nice.

I agree you don’t need dummfire to be effective, but I don’t think you get enough out of Greater marks and MOB currently to justify dropping 30% to all durations and burning. It works fine, but just not as well.

Logically I would be better off dropping terror and taking spectral durations in standard build with a few spectral skills if I need more survivability. Burning is more reliable, easier to apply, and has much higher uptime than terror. Hence the problem with it.

This pretty much is what I did looking at it I dropped potentially 4k damage by not taking Terror but felt I still had good time to kill with dhuumfire and the condition duration. I personally run 30/20/20/0/0 now and like it alot because I love GM in DM.

So instead of terror I run spectral attunement occasionally running master of corruption when my guild is running a bit more serious. I run Traveler runes so 90% condition duration with the new toxic crystals and I run focus for more control with chill (I am in love with focus). I do sometimes go back and take Terror occasionally.

I agree as a necro you can kill without dhuumfire the problem is people can and will disengage from you, or have enough time to stall till backup comes. Smaller group fights or 1v1 scenarios play out like 20/20/30/0/0 mesmer condition builds in that people can just ignore you(though not as bad as the mesmer condition build).

DiogoSilva.7089:

snip

+100

15 char

What if the the 5 point traits gave boon duration.

• 15% might duration
• 15% Swiftness duration
• 15% protection duration
• 15% regen duration

Then Elemental Attunement as 15 point trait move Elemental Surge down to Master Tier because it isn’t GM worthy.

Make Lingering elements new Grandmaster trait with a little rework.

• Fire would be flame barrier merged with one with Fire.
• Air would be the old One with Air.
• Earth would be the buffed +120 toughness
• Water would be Soothing Mist w/ better scaling.

Replace One with Fire with a new trait something like Molten Rock for 7% of your power is converted to toughness.

Just threw this together might have a trait missing somewhere but I think it is solid. Lets face it elementalist is tied to boons and that’s ok and one of the things I like about the class.

This would ease up on the reliance of arcana and boon duration so you could spec some boon duration if you like but don’t have to sacrifice to many raw stats for it. You can already get 95% in PvE/WvW if you like. This makes a 3 Monk and 3 Water setup able to go 3 monk 3 something else rune set so you can get some kind of raw stats.

If a ele doesn’t spec boon duration they wouldn’t get alot of benefit from it but some. If this was implented 15 Arcana would be popular of course but people wouldn’t feel the need to go more into arcana than that. Has synergy with Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

I agree with you that you can survive I am just saying that if the point is to never die full clerics with soldiers can’t be beat on ele.

There are more changes that they havent discussed for all classes based on the feedback from these discussions. Not sure what those are though.

Powerr did say that he also feels that elemental attunement is something that could or should be class inherent. I thought about it a bit more and I think elemental attunement could move to 15 arcana but everytime I think of this change I think that is 1000 of unstrippable regen that I will lose and when they fix it if I have at least 5 in earth that would be +120 toughness for an additional 10 seconds I would lose this on top of elemental shielding.

Maybe perhaps move elemental attunement to 15 arcana and lingering elements to adept arcana or master with decent buffs to 5 air and 5 fire I would probably pick it up. I would essentially have the same 30 point traits in arcana but this would perhaps help those players that don’t want to go 20+ points into arcana.

Could the case be made for elemental attunement at 5 points arcana, arcana fury at 15 points and lingering elements as a trait? Then it makes elemental attunement almost feel like IC for mesmers but when IC was a 5 point trait for mesmers you did have alot more build variety.

Clerics is good if you stack it you will survive longer in full clerics vs knights/clerics mix. If the goal is survivability you can’t top clerics with some pvt mixed in for extra vit. You won’t really kill anything though. Clerics + Celestial is good also but it plays more like high healing, high damage (if you go boon duration setup which gives a easy 16 stacks of might) but your squishy and crits are important. If you run boon duration you can always count on 6+ stacks of might than just a 30 arcana d/d. The problem is protection uptime which to maximize means you need elemental shielding which means less damage.

I think 0/0/20/20/30 will be much better when windborne dagger works OOC. You could keep perma protection take stone splinters, and have decent mobility. You will just need to find some critical chance from some where.

I run celestial amulet, 2 cav rings, 2 celestial accessories. I did like many go full celestial trinkets so I have the rings but I don’t use them anymore.

Some celestial is ok in the end really for a D/D ele it all comes down to Might stacks/fury.

As far as damage a PVT and celestial are similar until you add in might stacks. I am sure you kind find the math and topics out there just google Celestial vs Soldier for example.

It might not be in a ele forum but you can get the main idea from them.

I would also recommend as D/D if they are mace/x or Hammer that this is one fight that it is ok to pop armor of earth early in the fight. Don’t start any of your aura’s early for fury like alot of ele’s do. Pay attention to buff bar for Endure pain and beserker’s stance if berserkers stance is up there is no point in trying to burn/fire grab. Save chill, ring of earth is on a low cd and does good damage so I will still hit them with it anyway.

keadlaw.6350:

wvw staff ele is in a good place this is true as long as you stay with the herd. My main issue is that the devs have been using comparisons like mine to justify shuffling our traits around. I’m just wondering how they can then justify a stronger trait being in a lower tier for a different class.

I play both warrior an ele in most aspects of the game and I can’t help but notice the warrior seems to be in a better position. For a mere 15 points they get access to Dogged March, Adrenal Health, and Healing Signet. This gives them very good passive healing I might even go as far as say its better than ele’s active healing because they can keep the pressure on. Now why does a class with the highest hp/armor warrant healing as good or better than the ele? While still having 55 trait points to spend how they please. To be able to keep up I’m forced to take Healing Ripple, Elemental Attunement, and Evasive Arcana taking up 45 of my 70 trait points.

It will play a bit differently after the patch. Unsuspecting moves to 20 points deeper in arms so if a warrior wants it they have spend 10 more trait points to get it. If they want that and Forceful greatsword they will have to spend 20 points.

So now if we take the popular 0/20/30/0/20 or 0/20/20/0/30 builds with hammer or mace/shield with GS.

It will have to look like 0/30/20/0/20 if they want both traits in arms that means more critical chance but 100 less armor and 100 less critical damage along with longer cooldown. I usually just run 20 discipline anyway on my warrior but GS mobility is really important so giving that up for unsuspecting foe will be hard. To include the -20-24% damage nerf to earthshaker and staggering blow that makes merciless hammer even more important.

So if you feel you have to have 30 points in defense you will be giving up mobility on GS. If you feel you must have burst mastery and 30 in defense you will be giving up both traits.

So my guess is that 0/30/20/0/20 will become the new go to build for roaming type of play then you still have mobility still can slot cav gear/some pvt. Still do damage and sustain but you have to pick between cleansing ire, last stand or merciless hammer. Those are pretty tough choices the mace shield wars will probably slot the same utilities and play how they do now. Hammer guy will probably lean toward merciless hammer and drop dolyak for signet of stamina.

Both of those builds will then not have auto stability activate when they are hit with hard CC. Which alows more classes to open on them with only 1 stability on hand. Just how I see it playing out post patch all my own assumptions though.

@Sabull or Pro

Doesn’t condition damage also sway the importance of vitality or toughness. If for example you had 30 in water with also 30 in arcana with EA. You take the best condition removal trait setup. Elemental attunement, soothing disruption, cleansing wave and cleansing water, you also slot cleansing flame.

Say you sit at 17660 HP you then run Lemongrass poultry soup to bring you to 18360 doesn’t those utilities, traits and food allow you to move some of your vitality points toward toughness, healing or both? In this case you could drop a few PVT pieces for knights or clerics if you want.

The “trait” level is just how good the trait is but the class that is on is most definitely considered.

Dhuumfire is the same as Incendiary power between engi’s and necromancers but necros must spend 30 points for the trait and Engi’s currently spend 10 after the patch they have to spend 20. They do this on purpose it isn’t like Engi’s have Fear/Terror so that is my guess as to why it’s ok for it to not cost Engineers 30 points. Since that is potentially 3k+ hard to avoid damage a condition engi doesn’t have that the necromancer does.

If they decide to run you will have a hard time catching them to ensure you get a kill. You can kill them with 0/10/0/30/30 it depends on how you geared. Burning from drakes breath is vital to counteract healing signet. With that said Signet of Restoration totally changes the fight in a duel situation if you slot it. Ether renewal is a no no if we are talking about strictly dueling purposes.

Running around with glitter while casting for 3 1/2 seconds is 1596 health the Warrior gets to regenerate just from healing signet + adrenal health with 20 points in defense. D/D 10 air and 30 water is about sustained damage constant attacking, unless your running it in zerk/valk high crit damage.

The more I think about the more I think that ether renewal is great if you are burst or S/D burst build with 20+ points in Air and SOR is better if you are 10 air 30 water.

While warriors can dps you down well you can recover the damage taken pretty well with SOR and the lesser filler attacks from auto’s can be out healed with the standard build.

I run 0/10/0/30/30 and warriors are my fav people to fight. Though if they run I can’t catch them.

blutstein.2468:

oZii.2864:

I guess we could take the idea of conjured weapon traits a little further, see what we can come up with. The Fire line has a lot of dud traits which could be removed for something else.

I’ll throw out a couple possibilities:

Speedy Conjures Master Tier, probably to replace One with Fire
Conjured weapons are instant cast. Reduce the cooldown of skills of your conjured weapons by 20%

This idea touches on something players have been asking for (instant conjured weapons) with something conjured weapons don’t have right now (a cooldown reduction on their skills. It’d help make conjure builds less predictable.

Conjured Affinity not sure which tier this could go in
Conjured weapons grant the wielder boons if the caster is in the matching attunement.
Fire: Might x5
Air: Fury
Water: Regeneration
Earth: Protection
The boon would be refreshed every 5 seconds, up to (5 seconds * boon duration) if they’re below that amount

This grants a bonus for using LH while in air, FGS while in fire, and so on. It brings some defensive capabilities into the fire line if the player is running Ice Bow or Earth Shield, and improves DPS to some degree for FGS, Flame Axe and LH. The boons affect allies that use your weapons, and the duration mechanic means you can switch attunements and maintain the effect for a few seconds, so the offensive buffs in fire/air aren’t totally overshadowed by the usual Piercing Shards trait in water. I have a feeling this would be top-end Master tier, possible Grandmaster.

Greater Conjuration Master tier
Conjured weapons have a larger impact radius and deal more damage when summoned. Increase the size, range and damage of conjured weapons.
20% impact radius and skill range increase. 10% increased damage when summoned and from conjured weapon skills

Simply put, make the conjured weapons larger and more powerful. Generic statistical buff, but you can at least make it fun by actually increasing the scale of the weapons

These conjure suggestions are really awesome.

BTW Earth shield needs some condi removal, its our defense conjure… We cannot run 3 conj in a build, because of no condi removal (i hate the canneled heal, it screams ‘interrupt me!’)

The conjure wasn’t my suggestion I do think they those suggestions are awesome though.

I liked it have you thought about doing a series or something on youtube? I don’t know why but personally I love reading theorycrafting threads even if it’s not on a class I play. (guardian forum have really good reads)

There are alot of variables like condition modifiers on a attack even if the build isn’t condition based it still adds up. It would still support your theory though that vitality is better.

With the possibility that people will put 30 points in earth with the new trait. This is good for people not going conditions to think about going valkyrie gear.

The gear choices are limited though so going Vitality means Sentinel(with lower power) and Shaman(with no power) the best middle ground is Soldier’s gear for survivability and damage if you have the critical chance valkyrie though many know this already.

I would put a disclaimer to avoid the thread being derailed that this is based on simulation of 2 people trading hits.

Good demonstration and the video is a nice touch there really isn’t any Videos on Theorycrafting for GW2 I think many people would like them.

Nice Job!

Fuzzion.2504:

For the one running the usual classic 0/10/0/30/30 what will you be changing and why.
Your thoughts are appreciated

Good thread.

If staying with standard 0/10/0/30/30 replacing soothing disruption with soothing wave. Will still take cantrip mastery.

Reason I like this is because I won’t feel as forced to blow cantrips with their long cooldowns to emergency wipe condis. If I want to get really beefy against condis then Soothing disruption along with soothing wave. WvW cleansing water has no icd (seems alot of people don’t know this).

The soothing wave trait is really good with cleansing water for another reason. I don’t know much bout engineers. The classes I do play I know their condition builds pretty well. Even full dire necro is going to crit you as long as they have 15 points(fury going in deathshroud) in curses (which most condi necros have). Alot of times when I am on my necro I open with doom in DS which gives me fury and a dhuumfire proc. I will have to look at it but I believe fire is the first condition that procs in this case. So it should get removed immediately when soothing wave procs.

Any good mesmer condition build is going to have precision because the bleed on crit trait for clones is important to keep dps up. It is terrible with out that trait or not having decent crit chance. Any phantasmal fury running mesmer will proc soothing immediately.

Thief will be different since it doesn’t need crits for its conditions. Though if they run thrill of the crime they won’t be able to not crit you after they have stolen. Warrior doesn’t need crits either but most will pop SOR anyway. Condi warrior builds usually go at least 10 in arms(crit tree for longer bleeds)

I plan to try 20/0/0/20/30 with 20 in Fire and the new embers might your looking at +45% burn duration. If you want to add a bit more juice you can run the new Toxic Sharpening stones for additional 10%. Ill try the cleansing flame trait in fire also. Windborne dagger with renewing stamina to help with mobility.

Mmm any thing I try that doesn’t have zeyphy’r boon will be with windborne daggers and renewing stamina to include anything I run in earth like 20 earth.

For the most part standard setup will have soothing wave with cantrip mastery and cleansing water.

Treborlavok.3504:

Raven, c’mon really… You think you can out run a thief or warrior with gs/sword/horn…. Our Fgs runs out, your ability to run is gone. They can keep running almost indefinitely, not counting the fact that they can either stealth or strait up ignore conditions and take the dmg.

ER is a horrible argument in condition control. And having to rely on stability to use said skill ends the argument.

I’m all for eles being great healers, we need something for being so squishy. If our SoR was on par with wars, evasive arcana had no ICD and our healing scaled even more, then I can see some good d/d builds with a base of 30 in arcana and then only needing a 10 in water for cleansing wave.

I agree that SOR should be bumped up since it gets double penalized for poison and confusion. A GS Sword/Horn warrior doesn’t kill anyone that isn’t AFK. There is no control there to CC anyone in order to land damage from GS. Sure if you are comparing a race across tyria that would make the Warrior win. No matter how much damage a warrior puts into a GS Sword/horn build it is by no means scary damage unless you are AFK. This is a 30/30/30/30/30 example. GS Sword/Horn warriors are built to run away and are no threat to kill anyone who is paying attention. Final Thrust does alot of damage but is so slow that it needs setup from hammer or mace to land.

Treborlavok.3504:

@oZii
Yea I know that but the point is they can both do multiple things very well and without any or much of a draw back. List one thing an ele can do better than any other class, besides dying, and besides just standing there putting down water fields.

We have no reward for our extremely high risk factors.

I can think of a few things but it would be best to compare builds so it doesn’t get confused with 30/30/30/30/30 vs 30/30/30/30/30.

Mesmer 20/20/30/0/0 usually called Black Water (name the creator who made it popular called it). In a condition build you Run Scepter/Torch or Sword/Torch + Staff.

The mesmer condition version of 20/20/30 requires your enemy to kill themself by blowing up your clones. You don’t have mobility but deception to get away, you don’t have good condition management which are 2 skills on Torch. You might slot null field but you give up a invis which means less escape tools.

Group support is nonexistant in that build unless you want to count chaos storm.

The same 20/20/30 build can be ran in Power with Sword/torch + GS. Same issues as condition version but here you would be forced to choose between Torch condition management or GS cooldown reduction. You have no group support at all because you don’t have staff unless you want to count mirror blade and your buddy standing next to the enemy when you throw it giving him stacks of might.

Necromancer – 30/20/0/0/20 Standard Terror build that is popular group support is nonexistent unless you run plague signet or get some good putrid marks off. Necro’s deal with conditions themselves very well so that part is moot. It does do conditions better than Elementalist but so do most classes. Never seen it ran in power. You have no mobility but that is all necromancers. No stability access so you can get stun chained easily. Low Life force regeneration because your conditions UNLESS you take soul marks in SR.

Necromancer – 30/10/0/0/30 or 30/0/10/0/30 pretty standard Power build – condition management is inherent because of offhand dagger. Some people run staff in this build. Same issues as above with mobility. Does get stability access with Foot in the Grave trait but it is all personal stability.

Just looking at the light armor classes.

They all give up something if you go Conditions as a necro you give up running other weapons sets and pretty much have to run staff and Scepter/X if you take focus you give up condition management with deathly swarm personally I like focus though because chill is so good. You also feel forced to go 20 into soul reaping and to take soul marks because as conditions it is very hard to regenerate your class mechanic of Death Shroud with life force. Power necros do it much better because of Axe you can run Axe as conditions but why? It is terrible in a condition build since it doesn’t have any real conditions.

If you go power as a necro you do have good life force regeneration but you are still slow like a condi necro. You can by pass the squishy feeling with taking deathly perception and throwing on some Soldier gear so you can sacrifice some precision for vitality and toughness but you would lose stability in DS.

The popular mesmer builds all sacrifice condition removal and deal with it via Food(wvw), lyssa runes, melandru, hoelbrak. They may go 10 into inspiration and take mender’s purity which currently is only 1 condition on heal (20 seconds). Not many mesmers run mantra so I didn’t even mention those.

With the current condition meta in sPvP that is why Mesmer’s aren’t present because nobody goes 30 points in inspiration which would pretty much be required if Mesmer’s wanted to survive.

Treborlavok.3504:

Exactly and that’s why I’m bringing them up. They’re another light armor profession yet they can do 3x the burst dmg, strip boons, have great condition mitigation and casting, stealth, evasion, clones, more hp, more armor, shall I keep going?

Why should another light armor profession like the necro or meanders, be able to flat out out do anything an ele hopes to do? It’s a wonder we even play eles… If it wasn’t for my s/d build to fall back on, which is going to lose its swiftness and boons with having spent 10 in arcana… In now going to have to choose to be more bunker or more glass at the cost of being weaker either way. Let alone if I was using my d/d build…

Neither has more armor but they both do have more HP.

Mesmers have the potential to have great condition mitigation but they don’t take it because they lose damage. The best mesmer condition mitigation traits are in Inspiration. If you are running a phantasm spec sure you can get those and still have your 25 points in inspiration for phantasm damage. Shattered conditions is a awesome trait that I would put up there with cleansing water but to get it you lose damage. Alot of mesmer builds rely on Hoelbrak, Melandru, or Lyssa runes in alot of their builds. Or they invis so much that there phantasms do alot of the work while they stay out of harms way as much as possible. Mesmers and Elementalist are not currently getting much play in the sPvP meta at all. To keep up with a 30 water elementalist for condition management a Mesmer has to go 30 inspiration and they still can’t keep up unless they throw on cleansing conflagration for 20 in Domination.

Necromancers have condition management in the form of transfers or wipe from heal but the best condition management TRAITS are in Death Magic and Blood Magic not many Necromancers go deep into either. There is another in spite but requires something dies to remove conditions and nobody I know takes it. Necromancers inherently deal with condis fine because of deathly swarm on dagger and putrid mark on staff, they also have plague signet though it is on a 60 sec cd untraited. That is the Necromancers thing though there theme fits them being able to manipulate conditions and boons. The trade off with necro is that is can’t escape fights very well a mesmer can escape fights well if they have enough invis on their utility bar which means less condition management tools.

Problem
Elementalist has the lowest base health and armor. In other words the lowest base survivability in the game.

This seems to be the staple argument that people bring up as to why certain traits are a must have.

Elementalist inherent defenses If you where to take no trait points and just look at the class raw.

Healing (base and scaling)
Attunements allowing you to deal with a variety of situations or flexibility.

The problem that still plays out in game

People still feel they must go at least 15 into water, take protection to help with survivability via Elemental attunement trait, go 30 into arcana for EA heal and to a lesser extent earth dodge roll blast finisher.

Suggestions

• Increase healing base and scaling if that is suppose to be elementalist main defense. It is already the best scaling so maybe the bases need to be increased so people won’t feel they need Extra heals to survive from 15 water and 30 arcana. Soothing Wave change does kind of help with passive regen proccing and you don’t have to attune to water. It is still a water trait but it should be attractive and I plan to pick it up over soothing disruption for sure.

• Another option could be to increase base armor to medium class. I don’t think we need HP but more base Armor would be good and allow elementalist to have a few more armor choices without being super squishy. On the same token increasing the base Armor to possibly medium will also increase the value of healing which is the Elementalists main defense.

As far as condition management goes: I feel that elementalist are fine there you spec into it and of all the classes I play just from traits you can spec into condition management that is pretty good. The benefit that elementalist has is that the really good ones are all in one trait line. That is without considering Ether Renewal even though it has that extemely long cast time which can be accounted for by Earth’s Embrace, Armor of Earth and Rock solid.

This is nice alot of people don’t know these when they are looking at theorycrafting topics.

Let’s see if we can get it out of Tyler(Powerr)

RTL – buggy that it will not connect many times if you are on different elevations (this is a problem with other skills in the game also not just tied to RTL). So you get the 40 second cooldown. Can it be reduced a bit more to say 30 seconds if you miss as a compromise? Still keep the on hit cooldown. Aeromancer’s Alacrity would look a bit more attractive as you could then get a 24 sec cd if you miss but you give up a trait to get it.

40 seconds is pretty long for that skill. I know the pluses are that it isn’t effected by movement impairment still that is pretty long. If the current state of RTL’s cooldowns isn’t going to change that it get a bit of a damage increase. It’s pretty much a point blank skill or a escape currently.