Guild Wars 2

So once the skill is cast the effects start but the blast finisher is at the end. I like it and seems balanced. It is the one thing with eruption that you have to lock the targets down first then hope they don’t get out of it. It requires a setup to hit which can be frustrating. I like this suggestion.

TimeBomb.3427:

Again, it would still be a very poor decision NOT to choose elemental attunement. It gives you 50-60%+ protection uptime. With one trait. This is +50% armor. (Not to mention the other three boons, which are nice as well.) Elementalists, having the lowest health and armor pools, need all that they can get, and this protection uptime is (literally) a HUGE boon. Thus there’s still a 20 point reliance on Arcana for all builds that want to be able to be not squishy. Something should really be done here to lower the reliance on this trait.

If protection is the argument there is still Elemental Shielding, Glyph of elemental harmony, Earths Embrace, Inscription, Armor of Earth. Still Rune options to get protection or spec boon duration and just go 10 points in for renewing stamina. You only get 1 extra second of protection anyway just going 20 points into Arcana. Protection is important but if it really was that important like you are saying people would always take elemental shielding also but if people have 10 in earth they usually take earths embrace or stone splinters. Or they just go 20 in Air.

Elemental attunement just makes sense if you have 10-30 points in arcana because it augments something you are going to be doing anyway with swapping attunements. If I was forced to choose between renewing stamina and elemental attunement Renewing stamina would always win. I am not forced to choose so I can take both.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Ouch bunker healing build eles will become a pain to beat with this incoming Soothing Wave redesign. I guess I have to burst more now with this patch.

More sustain I love it and you don’t have to go all out boon duration to keep decent uptime on regen

Flux Qemist.6712:

All I can say is: phew

Agreed renewing and elemental attunement both at master would have been a killer.

ThiBash.5634:

Currently, I run a build with 25 points in air and 15 points in Water for the minimum heals, including cleansing wave. I also use a soldier’s ascended backpack because back when I made it, I figured it would go well with any build.

So guess what my solution to the patch is? I simply drop 5 points in air, get a zerker back item and now I have pretty much the exact same build as before!

The reason I’m posting this is to show Jon that if he makes the decision, it really won’t change anything…at least not for me.

He loses weakspot piercing shards synergy. That is just cause you value Cleansing Wave over the 25 point trait in Air(can’t say I blame you though). If that 25 point trait in Air was beastly it would be a much tougher decision say if it was something equal to the old bountiful power. Then I am sure some people maybe not you would keep the 5 points in Air. Those that have the kill them before they kill you mentality.

Fenrina.2954:

oZii.2864:

30/0/30/10/0 this is with cleansing wave still at adept. Combine with ether renewal, diamond skin, the new 20 point trait in fire to remove use cleansing fire when you have more than 3 conditions on you.

Oddly enough, I was thinking of something similar for pve. Diamond Skin sounded like a good thing to counter those mad king mummies or any other future monsters like that. Putting 10 in arcana would provide access to windborne which could be good if buffed. Alternatively, take 10 out of fire and put it elsewhere. Just depends if there’s a second master/grandmaster fire trait desired above other options.

Yea the options are there windborne for mobility, renewing stamina for vigor, cantrip mastery, 10 in Air for Zephyr’s boon. 30 earth definitely has options and the difference in attunement recharge if you didn’t go 30 arcana is 3 seconds. You lose EA but when you look at the other things you can gain while still having good condition management do you really need it? You don’t need the earth dodge in fire anymore for might stacking you can take spellslinger if you want, or pyromancers puissance or persisting flame if you want fury since you will already have alot of extra power if you go 30 in Fire.

Griszax.2467:

Wait did You just call elementalist a condition counter ? Really ? Back to the topic if You really think diamond skin is so op think how much elementalist need to sacrifice to even get 30 earth and that trait will be only good vs conditions ONE VERSUS ONE (if it even gonna be good that is ).

That is the point of it. Should the build be good 1v5? That is what makes a good build or a OP one?

sPvP condition meta – a Ele with the above build I described that is sitting on a point has to pretty much be taken down with help if you have a engi roaming as condis he can’t engage the Ele on his own well he can and they can sit there all day. With the ele probably winning that fight since the ele doesn’t necessarily have to be conditions but can stack 25 stacks of might with ease and have fury. You can replace that engineer with condi necromancer and it is the same effect.

It isn’t that much of a sacrifice to basically not be bothered by conditions at all while still being able to pump out very good damage with 20-30 in fire. I am willing to bet 30 earth eles will be pretty popular using something similar to what I described above.

In WvW you pick up Omnomberry Loaf there is 100 vitality and 70 more toughness. I just don’t want them to make it another Dhuumfire type addition to elementalist then people will start complaining(which they already have started to) then they have to go back and “rework” the trait again. Which is exactly what is happening with Necromancers and Dhuumfire.

There will be alot of variations with 20 fire and 30 earth builds leaving 20 points left over.

Jaytee.9513:

You mean how its now unfair with elementalists marked as free kills by condition builds if they don’t fully spec into cleanses?

With healing as our only sustain (said goodbye to mobility with RTL nerf) poison hard counters heals…..guess who has lots of access to poison or boon corruption? 1v1 any ele has very little chance against a necro (large hp difference+death shroud).

Name a single class an elementalist considers a free kill vs how many classes targets ele’s as free loot?

A ele is not a free kill for a necromancer if the ele has specced to deal with conditions. Yes corrupt boon hurts it is suppose to counter condition bunkers so that is the counter play. The main danger is a signet of spite after cleanse the corrupt boon but it is easy to see if the necro is carrying the signet.

Players will for lack of a better word make the most abusive build possible with the tools they have.

30/0/30/10/0 this is with cleansing wave still at adept. Combine with ether renewal, diamond skin, the new 20 point trait in fire to remove use cleansing fire when you have more than 3 conditions on you.

When I mentioned this earlier I totally forgot about Geomancer’s freedom. Combine with Runes of Hoelbrak. There is no way you should have a problem with condi with that setup.

You will increase your might duration, be -53% condition duration against chill, cripple, and immobilze- 93% in WvW to go along with your +300 armor just from traits. Combine with the ability to pick up 2s of stability or protection on aura’s to help you with direct damage. With a 13s attunement recharge rate with no points in Arcana.

Remove Cleansing Wave from that build, pick up cantrip mastery or soothing vaport or put your 10 points in Air or arcana if you want some vigor. There is probably a reason they didn’t even mention Stop, Drop, and Roll to be moved to adept though I don’t know a soul that takes it. This is still on paper what looks like a extremely strong build against any condition class.

ThiBash.5634:

The thing I just don’t get is why the Elementalist’s defense must be nerfed in the first place. I haven’t seen any complaints about it recently, quite the opposite.

I just think they look at traits a little bit differently. I can’t fault them for realizing there are bad traits and then admitting to a trait that is bad and trying to make that trait good instead of dismissing it as a bad trait. Once that trait is changed then it has to be considered as to what tier it is best placed at. I have a feeling that soothing wave change will become a really popular trait.

I think the 30 Earth Diamond skin change really impacts the Cleansing Wave decision to keep it moved to Master.

Someone puts 30 into earth, 10 into water for cleansing wave, Then where do they go for damage with 30 points left over? 20 in fire to grab even more condition removal long with +200 power, where to next? 10 in air for mobility with zephyr’s boon or I go a full 30 into power and blast finish to maintain fury while stacking crazy might. Load utility bar with cantrips to include cleansing flame, maybe throw on signet of water also. A ele doesn’t necessarily have to spec deep into precision.

I think that is the kind of builds they worry about.

Jabberwock.9014:

Oh my god, Jon Peters listened to my suggestion to make windborne daggers function outside of combat! Thank you! This is huge in WvW since an extra utility slot (from saying goodbye to signet of air) is worth more to me than most traits. My only qualm is that it requires two daggers for 25% speed, so for d/f (an incredibly fun set that wrecks projectile classes) it’s still not really worth it. I’ll take what I can get for now though. I just hope they make sure not to remove the buff when using a conjure.

Still hoping cleansing wave remains adept, because being able to clear blind at the end of churning earth channel is often vital. With the change to soothing mist, it sounds like that may be the case?

With the new windborne and fix on lingering elements D/F should be able to get the same movement bonus of 25%

ThiBash.5634:

@Jon:

The thing is Jon, because of our low base defense and no stealth or clones, we Elementalists are crazily vulnerable to immobilize and stun. Until that changes, condition removals and stunbreakers are a neccesity on elementalists. Thus any plans you have to make water less attractive will fail because we don’t take it because we want to, we take it because we must.

You may not like the idea of increasing our base health, but it seems to be the only viable option. Traits like Diamond Skin won’t solve the issue, if anything, they will force people into Water even more just so they can keep their health up.

I think they just want to make bad traits better not necessarily make good traits less attractive. Though it did seem like that in the past before they started the Collab and This balance patch discussion I sometimes thought that was how they looked at traits sometimes.

Cleansing wave could stay at adept and soothing wave with the change could stay at master so people looking for more management don’t have to go far into water. I see what you are getting at though but they did add the condition removal trait into fire. That will make people not so worried about going deep into the fire line.

The only way to make water less attractive is to have condition removal in every line which I just don’t see happening. Ele’s condition management is some of/if not the best in the game along side guardians. Just like guardians a necro can ruin your day also as a counter.

The all around cleaner regardless of how you spec is Ether Renewal that is what puts Ele over the top of Guardians for personal condition management. Though it has a extremely long cast time but is extremely good if you can get it off.

I am sure they factor Ether Renewal into their balance talks my guess is that skill has more to do with how they look at ele’s condition management resources than any of the traits.

I did realize DiogoSilva brought it up in the other thread. At least for sPvP purposes the soothing wave is interesting since there Cleansing Water has the ICD on it.

I like the change I can see the issue with the icd on Cleansing Water though if you are infact popping a cantrip with soothing disruption and or elemental attunement synergy you would have issues.

From a WvW perspective though I am very pleased with that trait. 30 in water Soothing Wave(assuming soothing wave is adept), cantrip mastery, cleansing water. Is better condition management then the normal water setup. I won’t feel I have to have soothing disruption with cantrips and their long cooldown.

If it stays at master their and cleansing wave stays adept I will still pick that over cleansing wave.

Jon answered this making it even better!

JonPeters.5630:

The design for soothing wave is that it won’t trigger the ICD unless it actually removes a condition.

This is a increase in elementalist sustain

That soothing Wave Redesign though! With cleansing water trait! Yes please.

You wont as forced to blow cantrips to wipe condis if you are taking light condition pressure. That is awesome!

In case no one has seen this. Based on the feedback they posted changes.

JonPeters.5630:

Here is a summary of the changes we have made thus far based on feedback we have read. This is not necessarily the end of adjustments, but where we stand currently. There were a lot of good suggestions, and some of them may not be able to make it due to time constraints on testing and implementation. Please continue to give feedback over the course of the next few days. We will continue to monitor that feedback and take it into account in changes we make for this patch and for the future.

ELEMENTALIST

• Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.
• Windborne Dagger is going to function outside of combat.
  • Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.**
• Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.
  • Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.**

Reminder, we will be locking this thread near the end of the week.

Thanks,

Jon

Dat soothing wave redesign synergy with Cleansing Water!! Yes Please

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/page/29#post3156808

Fenrina.2954:

Xernth.8561:

25% passive, unstrippable damage reduction would be ridiculous.

Fine, I removed it and put toughness in it’s place. Is it any better? Given the reactions probably not.

Hmm not sure how I feel about this suggestion. Right now with what Jon said and Windborne working OOC you are no longer punished as D/D for not taking zephyr’s just for extra swiftness and can think about not stacking boon duration. You only need 30 points in arcana to keep up swiftness if you have 10 in air. Without it you are slow unless you use the signet.

I see what you are getting at though that d/d should get some extra defense somewhere to help it since it is close quarters. Scepter gets rock barrier but it still has range options. Maybe a inherent +100 toughness while wielding 2 daggers?

posthumecaver.6473:

2s Stability every 10s, if you return to Earth every 10s (never saw anybody doing it) + who will let me Bunker with Staff in a competitive PVP, common if this is you understand from good Master trait, we deserve what we get as elementalist.

The real gem in earth is Elemental attunement but you need boon duration to make it really worth while same with rock solid. The 2s of stability is decent. Really though we will have to see what pops up after the patch.

Alot of times a Patch comes out before hand people dismiss stuff and state they will run the same that they always did. Patch hits and someone creative makes a build. People shoot the build down with tons of “What ifs”. The creator or someone else makes a video of said build 1vX. People flock to build like wildfire new build is born. If the 1vX video is good enough you then get people rolling that profession because said build 1vX in a video.

We then get alot of that build 1vX videos over and over again. Someone states they did something different that was changing a trait so they name it the Gorilla Monster Smash’em build!.

Go to the thief forums already seen someone saying they are making a D/D ele the next patch. It easy to find Chap responded to them so it’s in the dev tracker.

This would be pretty good and it would make for FUN gameplay. It would also raise the skill cap on ele even higher with some of the combinations you would be trying to use.

Dingle.2743:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Stuff

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 awesome. Really well thought out

Taldren.7523:

oZii.2864:

Nobody stands there and eats 100 blades unless it is setup by mace burst skill, sword immobilize (all at full adrenaline) bolas, or a combination of all those with frenzy.

Which happens all the time. It’s not like its a hard combo to pull off.

Now it is.

Bola’s is buggy which is why nobody uses bola’s. It is like iLeap or RTL in the way it bugs out if you and the enemy on slightly different elevations then it won’t land.

You can’t get a full 100 blades off anymore after the fix to sigil of paralyzation if your at level 3 adrenaline you get a 3.45 second stun on mace. Cast time on 100 blades is 3.5 seconds. You throw in human error you definitely won’t land the last hit which does the most damage. It USE to be easy to land the whole thing post skull crack buff now it isn’t post sigil of paralyzation nerf. Prior to skull crack buff you could only land it with bolas(still bugged) flurry(sword was terrible in power builds back then) or frenzy bullscharge noob combo.

If you WvW you probably notice less mace warriors, more hammer warriors and out of the ones that still run mace you see alot more running frenzy(lulz).

I am not against what I quoted just stating the facts that 100blades is not the same anymore after sigil of paralyzation was nerfed.

Belorn.2659:

Wintel.4873:

They do, but only if the enemy doesn’t move. Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Churning Earth, Fire Grab, etc are some of the hardest-hitting abilities in the game. Hell even staff with Lava Font + Meteor Shower can do an insane level of damage.

No? Those are not some of the hardest-hitting abilities in the game.

Hundred Blades, Kill Shot, backstab, and Phantasmal Berserker are some of the hardest-hitting abilities in the game.

if you combo Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Churning Earth, and Fire Grab, and the target stand still, you might get somewhere close to Hundred Blades but for 3 times the time (so about 1/3 of the dps). Average damage at best, under the condition of a stunned foe.

If your argument is to compare elementalist hitting ability to other classes, do not claim that elementalists has high damage potential. They simply don’t.

Nobody stands there and eats 100 blades unless it is setup by mace burst skill, sword immobilize (all at full adrenaline) bolas, or a combination of all those with frenzy. You might as well throw 100 blade out of the argument. The rest are good valid ones though.

For conjures I think it should be charges or time limit not both. I would prefer it just be the time limit though.

Calae.1738:

Lucky for me to have dumped my Elementalist in the garbage in favor for my Thief. It seems the more they touch this profession the worse it gets.

You have seen the thief changes right? It is going to completely change the way thief is played currently. They even acknowledged that the thief changes will have the most impact to the profession than any of the other changes proposed.

Treborlavok.3504:

oZii.2864:

juno.1840:

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

Nothing replaces it — it’s fine. We said dump “Lingering Elements”… not the individual element buffs themselves.

You then need a new trait to replace Elemental Attunement then if it would move to 15 points in Arcana.

To make it even better and a moot point on the RS trait..

5 arcana = Renewing stamina
10 arcana = adept traits as proposed by anet
15 arcana = Elemental attunement
Make the original fury on attunement a master thats combined with say arcane retribution or windbourne dagger… then make Windbourne dagger like the wars current 25% speed boost while wielding a melee weapon…

This is pretty good the fury on swap combined with retribution is pretty good suggestion I like that idea alot actually. Well Jon posted in the thread in General that he thinks Windborne working OOC is a good acceptable buff. So looks that one is going to happen.

I still am on the fence about the lingering elements suggestion being replaced by elemental attunement. That is unstrippable regen with better scaling. Ele needs all the healing it can get. It would still be there but you would lose out on that extra 9 seconds of healing once you leave water it is sustain nerf if lingering was replaced by elemental attunement.

Looking at my tooltip soothing provides me with 1009 hp over 10 seconds. After I leave water that is still 1009 hp I am getting after I leave water.

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, what do you think about this proposal? It will increase build diversity a lot by allowing people to have 0 points in Arcana. I think it’s an idea that’s worth considering.

Sunshine.5014:

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Please swap Air II – Zephyr’s Focus and Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina instead.

Renewing Stamina depends on Crit, and is out of place in the Arcana line, while Zephyr’s Focus belongs to the Arcana line (although it’s nearly useless since only Meteor Shower counts as a channelling spell). Swap it, put Renewing Stamina in Adept tier for Air, and put Zephyr’s Focus in Master tier for Arcana, and maybe buff it a little bit.

Arcana has too many good traits, swap it to other line like Air will help builds diversity.

Don’t like this idea then it forces a choice between Zephyr’s boon and Renewing stamina. Arcana has good traits because everyone can make use of them. Moving it to 10 points in Air means traditional D/D 0/10/0/30/30 now would have to go 0/20/0/30/30.

5 points in Air as a replacement could be ok but I don’t know about that one either. It is more shuffling for no reason. I would rather it stay where it is and a better 5 point trait in Air that is a buff. Nothing changes but something is improved instead of moving traits for the sake of moving them.

Edit: After thinking it over a bit more:

Also 5 points in air means you need to be in air to get your vigor in the first place. If you look at the theme for the rest of the attunement traits at 5 points they require you to first attune to it anyway. None of them effect you while your in another attunement and they only do (water, fire) if you run lingering elements.

So for this one trait you asking it to be the exception to the rule? A trait in Air that you benefit from no matter the attunement? Reshuffling for no reason right now anyone gets benefit from it no matter the attunement (why it is popular) moving it to air will mean less dodging if Air is on cooldown and your vigor was stripped or corrupted into cripple.

DiogoSilva.7089:

While still within the topic of weak traits, I feel that fire’s 15th is “okay-ish”, but underwhelming compared to air’s 15th. It has one strong point in comparison: it’s aoe. But it has two drawbacks: it’s melee range and it’s weaker. I feel that Fire’s 15th should either be a ranged skill (like sigil of fire), or should deal as much damage as air 15th, considering that being melee-ranged is already a compensation for being aoe. That, or have it apply burning in addition to damage. Even if it’s just 1 tick.

I feel fire’s 15th lacks purpose outside of dagger builds. Earth 15th is melee too, but that one serves to punish foes around you, so it makes sense defensively.

Earth 15 is a pretty good trait. If you are 15 points in Earth you are probably defensively specced as a ele. It can be used offensively to stack cripple with Ring of Earth. The damage is decent also.

Fire 15 should burn it just makes sense.

Here goes the never ending cycle of skill and trait comparisons. Ele has to do Y but necromancer doesn’t get A. Wait Necromancer doesn’t get A but it gets B the same as engineer gets B. Though Ele does have Z but Mesmer has R times 2. Guardian’s should pop up next.

Waiting for the post on how elementalist should be able to control their elementals like ranger pets, with a mesmer stating the same thing for clones. Then we should get elementals on dodge trait and replace Fire Elemental with hounds of Balthazar.

juno.1840:

oZii.2864:

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

Nothing replaces it — it’s fine. We said dump “Lingering Elements”… not the individual element buffs themselves.

You then need a new trait to replace Elemental Attunement then if it would move to 15 points in Arcana.

Mithfir.1038:

If you are that concerned that Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement are going to be too available why not get rid of Lingering Elements and put either in that spot? Or better yet move Elemental Attunement to 25 points removing arcane precision and ensuring high investment is required? Because frankly I find RNG condition proc pretty useless and IMO it’s not even close to worthy of 25 points.

Yea something needs to happed for Arcane precision! Lets bump that chance to proc up on that too. I notice it when someone has weakness when I am lightning whip them other wise I never notice it.

Treborlavok.3504:

juno.1840:

Agree with Tei — remove the trait and give the “boon on attunement activations” as the new Master Minor.

Agreed, if that’s all the “fixed” LE is going to do… Make the arcana 15 the current elemental attunement and get rid of LE. Keep renewing stamina as VI. Then remove the ICD on evasive arcana and then arcana will be fine.

Then leave water as is, and work on fire line because it’s garbage.

Fix signets and cantrips and boom, class is playable again across the board.

What replaces the 5 point water trait? Soothing mist is basically regen that can’t be stripped or corrupted. The base could be brought up a little imo.

JonPeters.5630:

I do agree that the 5 point minors need looking at. I think the Earth and Water ones are in an ok place right now but Fire and Air need work.

Jon

Fire – Flame Barrier should bump up to 40% chance. I would consider it 20% is really low. It is a 1s burn and you have to be struck to burn someone with it and you have to stay in fire attunement. Ele’s aren’t very fond of getting struck.

I know you probably want the 5 point minors to feel like 5 point but fire requires you to stay in fire and take damage for a 1’s burn.

LightningBlaze.4913:

You just need a non glassy burst style to beat them easily. Don’t expect to beat any good condition necro with a bunker, low to moderate dmg d/d build. Make a necro and play with it for a bit in spvp to learn its playstyle. Also your toughness have no effect against conditions dmg.

Don’t agree here. You can beat a necro with both but 30 in water really makes it possible if you are not burst style.

Most non glassy burst style ele’s run ether renewal and any necro that knows the slightest on how a ele works will interrupt it. I never have had a problem with a ele on my necro unless it is 30 water. 15 in soul reaping(meta condi necro always has 15 in SR) and not being afk pretty much ensures that you won’t get instagibed by burst type s/d eles because it is alot of different attacks that give you alot of life force whereas a thief is 3-4 burst attacks so you can’t refill lf again.

Avatara.1042:

Blasting Staff is basically required for Staff. And Sceptre still fails to deliver a viable condition build, like all Ele weapons.

Gotta agree there no blasting staff is bad if you run staff. I have no idea what other trait trumps blasting to staff that I would take over it.

Mbelch.9028:

I think a lot of eles on this forum, including myself, have made some excellent threads/posts on the elementalist.

Like I said in my post, not all of us agree 100% of the time on anything, so nobody can speak on behalf of us.

And about DaPheonix, I don’t exactly know how in touch he is with the game. I know you were just joking, but he really isn’t/wasn’t godliness embodied into an ele :P.

He still plays though I havent seen him on in a while. he is usually on for a few days when a new patch comes out.

TheBandit.7031:

Hi, I haven’t played Guild Wars for a while, I used to play my ele with daggers and cantrips but I believe there was a nerf that made it bad or something. Is that still a good build or should I try something else?

In WvW the build is pretty much the same.

Nerfs where to bountiful power only granting 1% damage per boon. Ride the Lightning now has a stipulation that you must hit a target to get the reduced cooldown if not then it is 40 seconds.

If you ran Signet of Restoration then you will notice some reduced healing because there was a bug that caused it to Proc 3 times when you used a Evasive Arcana spell that has been fixed result is less healing.

Other than that it is pretty much the same. In sPvP there is more differences like Cleansing Water has a ICD on the condi clear with regen.

ImProVocateur.5189:

People who love their other classes, and never want to die to an Ele again always come to our threads to flame us with that exact argument. The fact is that behind all of this is math, so, yes, you CAN compare any skill to any other skill. When you talk about so many factors that it cannot be calculated, what you are talking about is called a math function. Each function acts as something called a variable. We even have math that allows us to graph the results. That is called Calculus. What is amazing about computer games is that billions of calculations go on per second to calculate these formulas in the millions.

Then you have this https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

-Chap from China

Nothing to do with Math and everything to do with the “purity of purpose”. That Quote throws the math out of the window. Even if other people don’t understand or never seen that quote doesn’t matter but that is why certain traits are in certain places on other classes even though they function similar to other classes. That is why he said it was useless because Anet doesn’t compare the trait but the classes based on the roles they fill.

Quickening Thirst

“
Increases movement speed for each dagger that you wield.

Wielding two daggers: 25%
Wielding one dagger: 15%

Windborne Dagger

Move faster for each dagger that you wield.

Main-hand dagger speed increase: 15%
Off-hand dagger speed increase: 10%

Same trait one works OOC one only works in. One is Master one is moving to adept but based off what Jon said it still will get the OOC mobility.

Looking at the quote it makes sense they don’t move it to adept because it doesn’t fit with how they want the necromancer to play.

Kaleban.9834:

oZii.2864:

fadeaway.2807:

Comparisons like that are useless because the usefulness of those skills goes up and down depending on their interaction with other skills, base hp, traits etc.

pretty much this.

OP lists traits or skills in a vacuum and thinks it is intelligent.

They’re not useless specifically because each professions traits and skills work exactly the same way. A vigor on crit trait works the same whether its on a Guard, Ele or Mesmer. A skill that works as a gap closer/opener with a listed distance is going to propel any class that has one the same distance. In point of fact skills and traits as compared by the OP is a very accurate representation of the lopsided class balance, and is obvious to anyone who spends even a few seconds thinking about it.

Saying “skills in a vacuum” does not make your commentary intelligent if you have no idea what it means.

It doesn’t work the same way it gives you vigor but you have to take in account the rest of the way the class is built.

You can’t just go vigor on crit vs vigor on crit without looking at the class or even it’s intent. There is a reason mesmers don’t have a movement speed sigil, there is a reason mesmers are weak to conditions, there are reasons why necromancers don’t have awesome escape mechanics like the other condition pressure class engineer, there is a reason necromancer can’t get healing to their real hp pool while in death shroud. There is a reason why Warrior’s didn’t get reliable access to protection though it was asked for repeatedly. It has been stated many many times by the devs on the forums.

Jon said that renewing stamina will probably stay at adept in arcana anyway. I definitely wouldn’t want it to replace Arcane fury as a 5 point trait to “Match Guardian and Mesmer” like the OP states. Then a support player would almost feel obligated to take zephyr’s boon or throw precision into their build to get the synergy with renewing stamina.

I ran without zeyphyr’s boon for a while with boon duration runes and just playing normal I could keep fury up most times to proc renewing stamina. The problem was that I had a harder time keeping swiftness up but that was my trade off. Arcane Fury is a pretty good 5 point trait not every build takes Zephyr’s boon, Arcane fury makes that possible.

Why not just leave EA where it is like it is currently. It fits the Arcana line benefits your build no matter what attunement you are in that is why people like Arcana and the traits that are in Arcana.

If EA was moved down people wouldn’t go 30 points into Arcana. Then you would have elemental surge and? I can’t think of anything else that would be awesome to go 30 in arcana for. The replacement trait probably wouldn’t be that good unless it was some +60 to all stats and 12 critical damage basically divinity runes in trait is the only thing I can think of that fits the theme or arcana and is attractive.

So we would have a 2 GM traits in Arcana that people wouldn’t take. EA could move down IF elemental attunement was buffed to like 10 second base duration on boons. In the end though it looks like reshuffling for no reason.

It is like making build diversity at the sake of 30 in Arcana. It is like mesmer for example there are builds that go 30 points in Dueling but nobody actually takes a Grandmaster trait in dueling most times they take an adept or master trait at Grandmaster because the choices at adept and master are better. It is always Phantasmal fury, duelist discipline, deceptive evasion, blade training, or far-reaching manipulations are always better choices than any of the GM traits. That is basically what would happen to Arcana.

The Great Al.2546:

I’d be willing to settle for the mechanics changing slightly, like being unable to trigger it twice in a row in the same attunement.

It already works that it has a 10 sec icd if you are in the same attunement. That is plenty as is now because nobody really sits in a attunement longer than 10 seconds and the ones that you would want to use more than twice in a row are water and earth in a fire field. The rest are just ok.

Mr. Peters,

Signet of Restoration – The elementalist sustained heal skill on paper awesome! Scaling decent when you consider attack speeds if you are using d/d. If you are using any other weapon set not so much.

Issue – Hit with Confusion or Poison you are then double penalized for healing with the Signet’s passive. Counter play in poison to reduce the healing, but confusion also works to counteract the healing.

Suggestion – Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds. By making the CD to 20 seconds Signet mastery and Written in Stone together look more attractive. Allow the signet to proc over the course of channel skills. Right now it will proc 1 time over the course of a channel skill and that is at Skill activation.

20 seconds puts it in line with Healing Signet(while healing for less) and Signet of Malice(which has a base of recharge of 15 seconds without a Signet trait). These 3 Signet share the same base healing on the active 3,275. Signet of Restoration however is 25 second base recharge.

Signet of Restoration lost some of it’s power in the Confusion patch where the bug fix was done because Signet of Restoration would proc to many times with Evasive Arcana, this reduced the Signet of Restorations healing output also because it would proc 3 times in Earth dodge roll for example.

I think Signet of Restoration is good it’s weakness is conditions and I am ok with that because Ether Renewal and Glyph (combined with cleansing water trait) are better at condition removal than Signet. I think lowering the base cd to 20 seconds would be a good change because if you are using the active you are probably dead anyway.

If you want to deal with conditions and run Signet you have to trait/gear to do so and their is the trade off in Running the Signet. Otherwise right now the obvious choice is to go Ether renewal or Glyph.

Yea pretty much what Xaylin said I agree with. The majority of main hand dagger skills cd is already low. If you are taking a CD reduction trait for daggers as ele your taking it because of your 4 and 5 skill for off-hand. Like scepter on mesmers the cooldowns are already short so there isn’t really a big reason to take the trait just like blade training in dueling.

It is like on my necromancer master of corruption is a awesome trait for corrupt boon but there are better choices if I just run epidemic which is one of the strongest skills in the game. It is already 15 sec cd reducing it to 12 seconds isn’t worth the other choices at Master tier definitely not taking it over Terror.

Not everyone get’s a staff buff on cd reduction skills. Necromancers staff is adept in Death Magic and people only take it really because the other choices at adept arent good and you only go 20 into death magic to get greater marks or reaper’s protection there is no +Stats tied to the trait.

For me to really be enticed to grab a cd reduction trait as a elementalist it would have to be something that really makes it more attractive. Like gain 2 seconds of regeneration on auto attack of water skills, might on fire skills or 40% chance to cause burning on crit, 2 seconds of protection earth auto attack skills etc.

Water really was the only one I ever took and that was with staff.

Incase nobody saw this nugget. It is in the larger General discussion thread on these changes.

JonPeters.5630:

Jacks.5367:

Well.. Since there’s gonna be a rework to Elementalist to access to windborne dagger. Can this be buffed that it work in and out-of combat?

I added this idea to my list of stuff to discuss Monday as I think it would be a fine buff to this trait.

Now this makes it worth considering to take that trait. It really was all it ever needed for people to think about picking it up.

If this holds up from what Jon said earlier in this thread.

JonPeters.5630:

Last but definitely not least.

Arcana
I see the logic in not wanting the two changes in this line to counter each other. Moving good adept traits to master level is contrary to reducing the need to spec into this line. That being said, Elemental Attunement is just a beast of a trait and could honestly be compared with most grandmaster traits. I think a good compromise would be to place Renewing Stamina back in the adept tier, placing is where the other professions get this type of trait, and instead move Final Shielding to the master tier where it could live alongside Arcane Retribution as two good choices in arcane builds that take Arcane Mastery in the adept tier. That could leave some interesting builds such as: 0/30/30/0/10 for fresh air, diamond skin, and renewing stamina. It also still leaves builds that put only 10 points in Arcana a chance to gain Protection by going 30 air for Tempest Defense, and 10 Earth for Elemental Shielding and still have 30 points leftover.

I still believe there is work to be done at the grandmaster tier in Fire at the very minimum and that Air and Water are the only truly good grandmaster choice right now. There are also still a handful of just terrible traits that will still get looked at, but we felt like we were already bordering on changing too much.

Thanks,

Jon

P.S. bug fix for Lingering Elements is coming on Nov. 26th as well.

Then I think most ele’s will agree the changes to ele overall are good.

Edit: after looking at what Jon said it looks like he is thinking to leave both traits elemental attunement and renewing stamina at adept. When I first read it I thought he was saying to just leave renewing at adept.

fadeaway.2807:

Comparisons like that are useless because the usefulness of those skills goes up and down depending on their interaction with other skills, base hp, traits etc.

pretty much this.

OP lists traits or skills in a vacuum and thinks it is intelligent.

Jon posted saying that right now he likes the idea of renewing staying adept and elemental attunement moving to to master.

Mikhail.4961:

So… with the upcoming changes, is it even worth levelling an ele for the express purpose of d/d?
Because as I see it, Arcana VI is no more overpowered than mesmer’s Dueling Adept trait (five points, Critical infusion) and that’s a class with great survivability even without it.

With what Jon said renewing will stay adept and elemental attunement will move to master. So the standard 30 arcana d/d build is still possible.

If Jon or a Dev gets a second I would like to know how they view the weapon sets for elementalist.

I remember reading that they want it that your character is your character and the type of combatant you are is your weapon set.

I always viewed D/D as the more tankier option of all the weapon sets. It makes sense since it is the melee weapon set. Staff I always viewed as nuker/cc but you can go bunker support, it is always appeared to be able to play both extremes full glass or full support well.

S/D the burst weapon set that disengages to get better positioning and prepare to set you up for spike again.

D/F or S/F I am not sure where they fit. I have seen D/F nukers with group setup S/F can be a pain kind of reminds me of glass rangers sitting in the back. I find S/F to be alot of fun. It isn’t awesome for roaming be in a group it is alot of fun.

30 Arcana is good because it is traits which give you effect not specifically tied to your weapon set or attunement.

It is like many other class mechanic trait lines. Trickery, Illusions, Discipline, Soul Reaping. Many people tell you it is certain traits the cd reduction is a side benefit for most(probably because they are just use to the timing now).

The popular traits in Arcana are elemental attunement, renewing stamina and EA. Traits that will give you good benefits regardless of your build which is why they are popular.

Other classes I play

Class mechanic line popular choices

Warrior : Discipline – Signet Mastery, Warrior sprint, Burst Mastery, mobile strikes, Vigor on focus, fast hands at 15 point minor is actually really good and always considered in warrior builds.

Necromancer: Soul Reaping – Path of Midnight(cd reduction on DS skills), Foot in the grave, Master of terror, soul marks.

Thief – Trickery – Sleight of hand, bountiful theft, thrill of the crime, flanking strikes, caltrops on dodge/

Mesmer – Illusions – Compounding power, Masterful Reflection, master of misdirection, illusionary invigoration, illusionary persona.

The theme you can see is trait choices that will give you benefit regardless of your build type, Those are the most popular traits in those lines and fit with why arcana traits are popular also. The side benefit is the extra death shroud life, burst cooldown reduction, shatter recharge rate and steal cooldown.

Mesmer would be the class I say has the more niche traits that get picked up in their class mechanic line when IC was a 5 point minor was when you saw more mesmers go deeper into illusions on builds.

TL&DR – Arcana is a popular tree beause the traits in it can give you benefit regardless of the build you are running it has flexible traits.

JonPeters.5630:

xiv.7136:

JonPeters.5630:

Summation of high risk concerns for elementalist.

………..

I still believe there is work to be done at the grandmaster tier in Fire at the very minimum and that Air and Water are the only truly good grandmaster choice right now. There are also still a handful of just terrible traits that will still get looked at, but we felt like we were already bordering on changing too much.

Thanks,

Jon

P.S. bug fix for Lingering Elements is coming on Nov. 26th as well.

Right now I am thinking 85% on diamond skin as high health eles could break this at 80% imo.

Also thinking 25% cooldown on the alacrity traits so we can move slowly. If we go 30% and have to nerf after that I would not be happy. The diamond skin thing is possible for dec 10th. The cooldown thing on alacrity traits is more likely to be the following patch because it has a lot of testing requirements that concern me.

Jon

I think 85% for diamond skin would be good testing area. I think people would try it at 90% you would see it get play at first and then it wouldn’t get used. You need to the healing to retop your self so its at least minimum of 20 in water.

I think most ele’s feel that the arcana tree is in pretty good shape and after these proposed changes (with renewing stamina staying at adept) is that arcana would be a perfect tree on par if not better than Water.

I could only think of 2 weak traits left and thats windborne dagger. Elemental surge actually doesn’t look weak its just that it requires arcane which is a utility slot. So it doesn’t get picked over EA. If their was a way to get the elemental surge effects with out sacrificing a utility slot or the effect lasted longer people would pick it up.

Fire:

Burning Precision – potentially a awesome trait the problem is 1 second of burning. It would get picked up if it was a 2 second burning base.

Flame Barrier should just be merged with One with Fire and kept at a 5 pt. Have to see how it all plays out on the 26th though.

If this goes through I’ll tinker with it for my own piece of mind in saying I at least tried the setup but if classic 0/0/0/20/30 just doesn’t cut it. I’m going guardian it is the only other class that appeals to me because it’s support similarities to D/D ele.

He actually did when the game released. I think Staff bunker in sPvP he use to be Top Ele NA actually IIRC.

Just because 3 traits are good doesn’t make them OP. It could very well be that the rest of the traits aren’t up to snuff in comparison.

If you want to “abuse” elemental attunement you have to spec boon duration anyway which means you lose “Raw stats” you would get like toughness, precision etc. To spec boon duration you then would have to go 30 in arcana to maximize it. Those boons can be stripped, converted to conditions, stolen, cause you to take more damage. They introduced “boon bunker” counters to several other classes so the trait isn’t as strong anymore because of the buffs to other classes.

While I don’t particularly like comparing classes in most cases because their is so many factors. If you spec 30 points in dueling and are running a sword pistol you pick Duelist discipline, deceptive evasion, phantasmal fury, or blade training. Why? They are the best traits that have synergy with sword/pistol. That doesn’t make the traits OP.

Arcana would be more comparable to Illusions trait line because most class mechanic trait lines have traits that are good regardless of your weapon choice. Ironically those are the traits that are chosen in those trait lines in most cases. Usually there is a specific weapon or set that has a trait in that line.

When I run staff on my ele I take elemental attunement over Renewing stamina currently because I have less need for dodges because I am at range so it makes sense. Of course I take blasting staff no real need to take evasive arcana because their are better choices for staff.

While they are moving Windborne down to Adept and I feel that is the fringe trait that just doesn’t look “Master tier” worthy. If they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time and not just in combat it then looks a bit better. Then it can be justified to stay Master tier. Then a ele could contemplate the question of 25% movement speed all the time with renewing stamina or elemental attunement.

Then I can be ok with moving 10 points from Air (standard 0/10/0/30/30 build). I go something like 0/0/10/30/30 or I could do 0/0/20/20/30. If windborne dagger was all the time movement speed of 25% I am sure it would get more use. Moving it to adept I still don’t see it being picked up like it is currently. The people that don’t take Zephyr’s boon would be the ones that the trait would look really attractive to if the trait had 25% movement speed all the time.

When they changed Windborne dagger I actually thought about running it and dropping 10 from air and not taking zephyr’s boon then I saw it was still had to be in combat. I was going to take that over elemental attunement.

If I look at not just the standard build I still don’t see why anyone would take windborne even not going all the way into arcana. But if they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time. Kept it at master, and moved either renewing or elemental attunement to master along side it then it could work as a compromise and cause a choice. It would really make the Arcana trait line perfect to include the other changes with elemental surge being the last trait that MIGHT need to be looked at for a buff.

alanis.6094:

Adiemus.2081:

Think about it, to make a trait line less dependable is to make vital trait more accessible with less point invested. How can they get this right with mesmer by moving illusion celerity down to 15 but totally messed up the elementalist by moving up Water V and Arcana V and VI?

I don’t get Anet’s logic.

Its not rocket science — those three traits were very, very, very strong (i.e. OP) for Adept level traits. (much, much stronger than IC)

No they aren’t IC is a Global cd reduction on all Illusion summoning skills. Then you can further reduce it by taking the particular weapon skills cool down or manipulation skill if you happen to go in that line.

Just because 3 traits are good doesn’t make them OP. It could very well be that the rest of the traits aren’t up to snuff in comparison.

If you want to “abuse” elemental attunement you have to spec boon duration anyway which means you lose “Raw stats” you would get like toughness, precision etc. To spec boon duration you then would have to go 30 in arcana to maximize it. Those boons can be stripped, converted to conditions, stolen, cause you to take more damage. They introduced “boon bunker” counters to several other classes so the trait isn’t as strong anymore because of the buffs to other classes.

While I don’t particularly like comparing classes in most cases because their is so many factors. If you spec 30 points in dueling and are running a sword pistol you pick Duelist discipline, deceptive evasion, phantasmal fury, or blade training. Why? They are the best traits that have synergy with sword/pistol. That doesn’t make the traits OP.

Arcana would be more comparable to Illusions trait line because most class mechanic trait lines have traits that are good regardless of your weapon choice. Ironically those are the traits that are chosen in those trait lines in most cases. Usually there is a specific weapon or set that has a trait in that line.

When I run staff on my ele I take elemental attunement over Renewing stamina currently because I have less need for dodges because I am at range so it makes sense. Of course I take blasting staff no real need to take evasive arcana because their are better choices for staff.

While they are moving Windborne down to Adept and I feel that is the fringe trait that just doesn’t look “Master tier” worthy. If they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time and not just in combat it then looks a bit better. Then it can be justified to stay Master tier. Then a ele could contemplate the question of 25% movement speed all the time with renewing stamina or elemental attunement.

Then I can be ok with moving 10 points from Air (standard 0/10/0/30/30 build). I go something like 0/0/10/30/30 or I could do 0/0/20/20/30. If windborne dagger was all the time movement speed of 25% I am sure it would get more use. Moving it to adept I still don’t see it being picked up like it is currently. The people that don’t take Zephyr’s boon would be the ones that the trait would look really attractive to if the trait had 25% movement speed all the time. When they changed Windborne dagger I actually thought about running it and dropping 10 from air and not taking zephyr’s boon then I saw it was still had to be in combat. I was going to take that over elemental attunement.

If I look at not just the standard build I still don’t see why anyone would take windborne even not going all the way into arcana. But if they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time. Kept it at master, and moved either renewing or elemental attunement to master along side it then it could work as a compromise and cause a choice. It would really make the Arcana trait line perfect to include the other changes with elemental surge being the last trait that MIGHT need to be looked at for a buff.

@Adiemus.2081 It’s TL&DR and is more for the devs than you as they may have the same thought.

It sounds good but not my style. With that said 0/0/30/20/20 but you could make a case for 0/0/30/10/30 for water field with evasive arcana in earth dodge. But if you really want to bunker 20-30 in water seems better.