Elemental Lockdown is Kinda Useless

[Barnesy.5839]

"Gain 5 of might for 5 seconds when disabling a foe while attuned to fire" sounds great, except when you realise that there are literally no fire attunement weapon skills which can disable your foe.

Overall, I'm very keen to try out the new patch. However, Elemental Lockdown is a poorly designed trait. There are no elementalist utility skills which disable your foe (except for conjured weapons). The only disables an elementalist will has access to are those from their elite skill (if they use tornado, summon elemental or rebound) and any disables from weapon skills. Since elite skills have such a long cooldown, for the most part, the only disables an elementalist will have are those which they have from their weapon. Elementalists have access to such few disables and those disables are only in a couple attunements for a particular weapon set. Elementalists won't even be able to proc this trait with all 4 elements.

Additionally:In PVE raids, this trait is useless because the boons are redundant and they only apply to yourself.In WvW, this trait is almost completely useless because the boons only apply to yourself, and are often redundant.In PvP, this trait is almost completely useless because procing it is so infrequent. (hopefully your target doesn't block/evade your disable)

Elemental Contigency was a much better trait you were able to proc it 4 times every ~10s and it encouraged quickly cycling through all your attunements (which is a core theme of the arcane specialisation tree). Elemental Lockdown provides very little benefit and it actually discourages cycling through all your attunements because you can typically only proc it in two specific attunements.

Elemental Lockdown is poorly designed thematically and mechanically.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Yes, this trait is absolutely and utterly awful. But you have to put it in context. The developers are trying to show results now, but their vision is longer term. They don't have time to be creative. In the here and now we're just going for reducing the power of everything. So, you get this useless trait. I think the already useless other trait I don't even remember the name of is going to remain useless. And to complete the trifecta, your passive arcane shield now has a 300s CD, making it completely worthless as well. It'll just proc at the end of a fight when conditions tick and take you down to 50%, then it'll be on cooldown for the rest of the match!

So, 3 useless traits. Pick any one you like. It doesn't really matter as none of them do anything of consequence. But I'm told combat is going to be way better now with super high TTK, all bunker all the time, and best of all? No more mirage! They're deleting it from PvP (only half-joking here!)!

[MyPuppy.8970]

Idk, cast shock aura/static field/unsteady ground/mud slide, then switch to Fire?

[Barnesy.5839]

@"MyPuppy.8970" said:Idk, cast shock aura/static field/unsteady ground/mud slide, then switch to Fire?

That is a possible option, which I was aware of. However that requires the elementalist to use one of their two disables which typically have a 25s cooldown.

With damage being nerfed by about 33%, it's going to take 50% longer to kill players (1/.66 = 1.5). Thus average DPS will be much more relevant, rather than just burst damage. When you look at the average uptime of the trait it is utterly pathetic.

Assuming you're swapping to fire attunement as you disable your opponent, assuming your disables always connect, and assuming you're using your disables as soon as they're off cooldown, in the best case scenario, you're going to have an average +2 might. The trait becomes: "Gain +60 power and +60 condi dmg, but only if you are consistently disabling your opponent".

A trait which says: constantly disable your opponent for the payoff of +60 power and +60 condi dmg is pathetic.

[Newholiday.8103]

To be fair, 5 seconds of fury in air and 4 seconds of protection in earth are probably the two most useful buffs. Especially considering the global nerfs to protection. Plus, maintaining fury will be a lot easier, especially since you typically start with a disable if you are bursting in air.

If they also make these buffs aoe, I'd even consider it an overall improvement. Here's to hoping that happens.

[Barnesy.5839]

@thepolishman.2348 said:To be fair, 5 seconds of fury in air and 4 seconds of protection in earth are probably the two most useful buffs.

Even if you consider fury or protection, the effect is still pathetic. An elementalist typically will be able to proc this trait twice every 25s. If you always proc this trait in air attunement you'll have 10s of fury every 25s. And that's assuming your disables ALWAYS connect and you use them immediately off cooldown.

Compare Elemental Lockdown (a master teir ele trait) to Raging storm (a master teir ele trait):Elemental Lockdown provides 40% fury uptime IF you are always successfully disabling your opponent when your disables immediately come off cooldown.Raging storm provides 67% fury uptime and +180 ferocity (+120 ferocity average) and it's so easy to proc.

Elemental Lockdown is pitiful in comparison.

[Razor.6392]

Reminder that they reduced elemental surge immobilize on earth from 2s to 1s btw.

FA ELE TOO OVERPOWERED GUYS AM I RIGHT

[MyPuppy.8970]

Well the goal of the patch wasn't to give you perma boons anyway.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

You don't need protection anymore on ele, as you'll switch class for War or DH, the two favorites classes, so the less impacted.

[Barnesy.5839]

@MyPuppy.8970 said:Well the goal of the patch wasn't to give you perma boons anyway.

Of course. I'm not suggesting the need for perma boons.I'm just trying to show that when you compare Elemental Lockdown to all other master teir elementalist traits you can see that it is extremely weak. In PvE and WvW, the trait is almost entirely useless and redundant. In PvP, even in the most ideal hypothetical circumstances, the trait is still the terrible when you compare other master teir elementalist traits. It's a poorly designed trait. It doesn't match the theme of the arcane specialisation tree and it's usefulness is extremely lacking.

[Jski.6180]

@MyPuppy.8970 said:Well the goal of the patch wasn't to give you perma boons anyway.

Then they need to remove boon duration + and stop all of this max and min of number of duration because it will never work when you have blot of boon duration in the game.

Also perma boons such as might and swiftness is a joke to go after its the perma or even near peram of stab quickness alacrity and resistances that needs to go after nothing that ele has.

[MyPuppy.8970]

@Barnesy.5839 said:

@MyPuppy.8970 said:Well the goal of the patch wasn't to give you perma boons anyway.

Of course. I'm not suggesting the need for perma boons.I'm just trying to show that when you compare Elemental Lockdown to all other master teir elementalist traits you can see that it is extremely weak. In PvE and WvW, the trait is almost entirely useless and redundant. In PvP, even in the most ideal hypothetical circumstances, the trait is still the terrible when you compare other master teir elementalist traits. It's a poorly designed trait. It doesn't match the theme of the arcane specialisation tree and it's usefulness is extremely lacking.

I agree being in Arcane line it would have made more sense to get a boon on crit. Still it's better than a boon on being hit. I think it's more proactive and less passive than Elemental contingency, so i'm fine with that.

[Blimm.5028]

Honestly, 95% of the time when I use a disable, I switch into fire/air attunement mid animation.

Most of our hard cc has enough windup to switch attunements and benefit, and that's not even counting weaver.

[Coldtart.4785]

It's certainly a very weak trait, but Anet's numbers will show that it's a success anyway because both other options for that slot are getting smiter's booned.

[Yasai.3549]

This should have been an Arcane Grandmaster to compete with Evasive Arcana.

LR builds will use this for sure over Evasive Arcana because their sustain is already poo poo bad and they would be forced to slot 3 stunbreaks in the next patch, so ideally this would aid them in hard bursting targets through CC application.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It's not that bad. It depends of your weapons and spec, in my current build it should be even better than the current trait.Unless if there is an ICD.

[bluberblasen.9684]

Elemental Contingency was mediocre.. and bad because final shielding was 1000000 times better.both are gone and we have to use lockdown now ?!

in the first i like the new design more because its " active " play and not passiv play like the other two.but in general this trait seems very weak to me... maybe not ? 10 recharge is very high ?!

Nevertheless as a 90 % core player i think its a nice skill. - because it will be trigger 80-90 % in earth ( dagger 4 ) means more protection uptime.

[bluberblasen.9684]

@Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:It's not that bad. It depends of your weapons and spec, in my current build it should be even better than the current trait.Unless if there is an ICD.

10 seconds icd

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

@bluberblasen.9684 said:

@Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:It's not that bad. It depends of your weapons and spec, in my current build it should be even better than the current trait.Unless if there is an ICD.

10 seconds icd

Then it's bad.

[Jeddite.8620]

@"Barnesy.5839" said:"Gain 5 of might for 5 seconds when disabling a foe while attuned to fire" sounds great, except when you realise that there are literally no fire attunement weapon skills which can disable your foe.

staff weaver: fire/air or fire/earth

[Downstate.4697]

Trait was made only considering weaver. That whole tier of traitline is worse than the minors

[GoQ.1048]

or conjures u know.

[bluberblasen.9684]

@FrownyClown.8402 said:Trait was made only considering weaver. That whole tier of traitline is worse than the minors

Tried it for ~ 10 hours and i never saw when it triggers :/Playing core ele and it should trigger mostly in earth for protection uptime and in fire ( new updraft delay + switching to fire )

the icd is 1 second - down from 10 :)

[Tom.8029]

It's not perfect, but I found a fun build. I love lightning rod, so I was determined to try out this new trait. I like using it with the earth shield conjure. So I can just equip the shield, switch to whatever attunement I want and use one of its 2 interrupt abilities. I'm running it with d/w tempest Most of my damage comes from interrupts. It's pretty fun. It's also worth noting that the shield's damage coefficients were not changed. So it hits for a lot, combined with lightning rod. Catches lots of people off guard, all while generating barrier and a nice invulnerability for when I have to hide and wait out conditions or cooldowns.

[Tom.8029]

Also, worth noting, the internal cooldown of elemental lockdown is separate for each attunement. So I can interrupt in fire, and then in earth and get both boons.