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A small overhaul of Elementalist traits. [suggestion]


Yannir.4132

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I was thinking about how the other classes have been gaining more utility on their weapon traits. Now equivalent traits for ele would probably be the attunement buff minors, the first trait in any given elemental traitline. It would make sense to me that these traits should work similarly.

  • Empowering Flame: You now gain 50% of the Power in other attunements as well.
  • Soothing Mist: Gain Lesser Soothing Mist in other attunements. Lesser Soothing Mist heals for 50% of Soothing Mist.
  • Zephyr's Speed: Gain 50% Movement Speed Increase in Air Attunement. Gain 25% Movement Speed Increase in other attunements.
  • Stone Flesh: Gain 50% of the Toughness in other attunements.

The same logic can be applied to the various Z-mancer's Training traits.

  • Pyromancer's Training: Gain 5% increased damage on other attunements as well.
  • Aquamancer's Training: Gain +10% damage when above 90 % health in Water attunement, and gain +5% damage when above 90% health in other attunements. (Truth be told, I'd actually like this to do something else other than damage. Which would be much more fitting for the Water traitline.)
  • Aeromancer's Training: Gain 50% of the Ferocity in other attunements.
  • Geomancer's Training: Movement-impairing conditions are further reduced in duration while attuned to Earth. They are reduced by 66%. This effect only applies to conditions inflicted while you are attuned to Earth.

Then I have some other changes I'd like to make to counter-intuitive and underwhelming traits. Also trying to get rid of some rather limiting ICD's.

Starting with Fire:

  • Burning Precision: No longer Burns foes on critical hits. Burning a foe now grants you a stacking buff that grants you increased critical hit chance and condition damage. Increases critical hit chance by 1% and condition damage by +12 per stack up to 10 stacks. Lasts for 10(-ish) seconds. The Adept tier of Fire lacks power build synergy which is what I'm trying to insert here but would also work for condition builds. I'm open to other ideas though, this just came to mind.
  • Sunspot: Increased the radius of this trait from 180 to 240.
  • Blinding Ashes: This trait has been reworked. Fire Shield on you now detonates(Transmute Fire) automatically when it ends. Detonating Fire Shield inflicts Blindness on effected foes for 4 seconds. This trait has a 4 second internal cooldown.I normalized Sunspot to the same radius as Earthen Blast. The current Blinding Ashes is too RNG, and kind of weak for a GM, to my liking.

Water:

  • Healing Ripple: This trait now also removes a condition from effected allies.
  • Cleansing Wave: This trait has been removed. Replaced by a new Master trait called Rending Ice.
  • Rending Ice: Inflict Vulnerability for 8 seconds on foes struck by skills when attuned to Water.Cleansing Wave is kinda pathetic so I merged it into Healing Ripple. Rending Ice is intended to improve Cryomancer playstyles.

Air:

  • Stormsoul: Extra damage against disabled foes is increased to 15% instead of 10%.I'd like to see those Pile Driver "1-shots". I'm only 50% joking here.

Earth:

  • Serrated Stones: No longer grants you increased damage against Bleeding foes. Bleeding you inflict is now 33% more effective.
  • Earthen Blast: Now also inflicts 1 stack of Bleeding for 5 seconds.
  • Written in Stone: Activating Signets now also inflicts Bleeding around you. 2 stacks for 10 seconds in a 180 Radius.Reinforcing condition playstyles for Geomancers and elementalist in general.

Then I have 1 last thing that's not a trait change as a bonus.It's kinda wishful thinking to do this change after 6 years but I would really like if they swapped the places of Water Trident and Ice Spike. A. That would make Staff a better long range healing set, and B. It would make Water Scepter feel like an actual Cryomancer playstyle that's good at stacking Vulnerability. Just make the numbers fit their new roles in their respective weapon set.

So what do you think? Dumb? Brilliant?

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I like a lot of the changes I am seeing here but swapping Ice Spike for Trident would remove a reliable blast finisher from the kit which in turn hurts some of the synergy water has with itself and other attunements.

The training trait ideas are good but I do not think the Geomancer one would be fair to other classes who have similar traits.

If I were to replace/remove/rework anything from staff it would be Flame Burst because it only exists for the trait Burning Rage and does not tie fire attunement together very well like how the other 3 slot abilities do for other attunements, and I would preferably replace it with something that inflicts burning, and grants you or allies including yourself quickness to synergize with the slowness of fire, and most importantly does not require a target to cast.

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@secretsauce.7689 said:I like a lot of the changes I am seeing here but swapping Ice Spike for Trident would remove a reliable blast finisher from the kit which in turn hurts some of the synergy water has with itself and other attunements.

That would be the down side of the change. In Water you'd probably barely see a numeric difference but blasting fields from the other attunements would certainly be affected.

The training trait ideas are good but I do not think the Geomancer one would be fair to other classes who have similar traits.

Reaper basically has this exact trait but it's in Shroud instead of Earth Attunement.

If I were to replace/remove/rework anything from staff it would be Flame Burst because it only exists for the trait Burning Rage and does not tie fire attunement together very well like how the other 3 slot abilities do for other attunements, and I would preferably replace it with something that inflicts burning, and grants you or allies including yourself quickness to synergize with the slowness of fire, and most importantly does not require a target to cast.

Not really looking to start a discussion on staff here but I do like the idea. Elementalist doesn't exactly have an over-abundance of Quickness so having some tactical Quickness on Fire staff wouldn't be too bad of a balance issue.

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It's difficult to disagree with such changes, in fact I'd go even further by suggesting:

  • sunspot proc whenever you switch attunment (replace fire shield by a burning effect)
  • electric discharge proc whenever you switch attunment (remove increased critical damage)
  • earthen blast proc whenever you switch attunment (replace cripple by 1 bleed stack (4s))
  • Healing ripple proc whenever you switch attunment (reduce heal to around 500)
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@Dadnir.5038 said:It's difficult to disagree with such changes, in fact I'd go even further by suggesting:

  • sunspot proc whenever you switch attunment (replace fire shield by a burning effect)
  • electric discharge proc whenever you switch attunment (remove increased critical damage)
  • earthen blast proc whenever you switch attunment (replace cripple by 1 bleed stack (4s))
  • Healing ripple proc whenever you switch attunment (reduce heal to around 500)

There's a reason why I didn't touch these. Which is basically Weaver.The most problematic is Healing Ripple, and I figured if I don't want Weaver to have that added healing, I should probably leave all of them mostly as is.Keep in mind, there's already Arcane Abatement which heals on attunement swap. Weavers having access to 800+ healing every 3,5 seconds while doing damage in Fire/Earth attunement, proccing their Signet of Restoration, would be kinda nuts. Considering Weavers healing has been nerfed several times, I'd see this as unlikely.Of course this is just speculation, and I may be wrong.

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:It's difficult to disagree with such changes, in fact I'd go even further by suggesting:
  • sunspot
    proc whenever you switch attunment (replace
    fire shield
    by a burning effect)
  • electric discharge
    proc whenever you switch attunment (remove increased critical damage)
  • earthen blast
    proc whenever you switch attunment (replace cripple by 1 bleed stack (4s))
  • Healing ripple
    proc whenever you switch attunment (reduce heal to around 500)

There's a reason why I didn't touch these. Which is basically Weaver.The most problematic is Healing Ripple, and I figured if I don't want Weaver to have that added healing, I should probably leave all of them mostly as is.Keep in mind, there's already Arcane Abatement which heals on attunement swap. Weavers having access to 800+ healing every 3,5 seconds while doing damage in Fire/Earth attunement, proccing their Signet of Restoration, would be kinda nuts. Considering Weavers healing has been nerfed several times, I'd see this as unlikely.Of course this is just speculation, and I may be wrong.

Truth be told, it never occured to me that arcane abatment had this effect... Maybe it's because I tend to ignore the fall trait and it became an habit to not look at them. Anyway, 800 every 3.5 second or 1600 every 8 seconds... I don't think the change would be to significant on weaver.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

Truth be told, it never occured to me that arcane abatment had this effect... Maybe it's because I tend to ignore the fall trait and it became an habit to not look at them. Anyway, 800 every 3.5 second or 1600 every 8 seconds... I don't think the change would be to significant on weaver.

I'll try and crunch the numbers later when I have the time.Though the selling point currently is that you DO have to attune to Water currently to get that healing, sacrificing your damage as you do it. If this happened in every attunement, there would be 0 trade offs for the healing.

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@Yannir.4132 said:I'll try and crunch the numbers later when I have the time.Though the selling point currently is that you DO have to attune to Water currently to get that healing, sacrificing your damage as you do it. If this happened in every attunement, there would be 0 trade offs for the healing.

I wouldn't say that. It's more accurate to say that the selling point of the trait is that it heal around you, having to go into water to do it is a drawback. The main purpose of this trait isn't to heal the elementalist but to support it's allies, players using this trait selfishly corrupt the main purpose of the trait. Plus, in the main purpose of the trait going into water is an advantage not a drawback since what you sacrifice by going into other element is your support.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:I'll try and crunch the numbers later when I have the time.Though the selling point currently is that you DO have to attune to Water currently to get that healing, sacrificing your damage as you do it. If this happened in every attunement, there would be 0 trade offs for the healing.

I wouldn't say that. It's more accurate to say that the selling point of the trait is that it heal around you, having to go into water to do it is a drawback. The main purpose of this trait isn't to heal the elementalist but to support it's allies, players using this trait selfishly corrupt the main purpose of the trait. Plus, in the main purpose of the trait going into water is an advantage not a drawback since what you sacrifice by going into other element is your support.

You can easily balance this by making attuning to other elements grant 25% of the damage/heal while attuning to designated attunement granted the full effect.

Alternatively you can remove their functionalities in other attunements. Fire aura can only be applied when attuning to fire, extra crit damage+vuln only in air and cripple only in earth (bleed+damage/barrier in other attunements). Water one can be personal heal with low value in other attunements.

You can go step ahead and make them a bit more creative: swapping attunements (different than traited one) give you elemental charges of traited element that you can use with any auto attacks or by attuning to traited element. Fire can cause burning, water can be heal, air can be additional lightning strikes and earth can add do bleeding/retal/barrier. Example: when you trait fire you'll get fire stacks when you attune to water/air/earth; your autos will inflict burning and remove one stack, attuning to fire will inflict aoe burning per stack (basically an improved minor trait in each attunement). Air is a bit questionable since you'd be able to unload several lightning strikes at once when attuning to air. Water buff would provide personal heal on autos or improved aoe heal when attuning to water.

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@"Yannir.4132" said:Air:

  • Stormsoul: Extra damage against disabled foes is increased to 15% instead of 10%.I'd like to see those Pile Driver "1-shots". I'm only 50% joking here.Was thinking about this, glad to see it on the list. We would get much better use out of things like Comet, Gale, and Polaric Leap. Static Field from Staff/Lightning Hammer are the only skills that benefit from this trait. Everything else is classified as a knockback, daze or pull.
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@Yannir.4132 said:[...]So what do you think? Dumb? Brilliant?

Totally agree with you on the weapon traits. What about including the respective Conjured weapon and removing Conjurer?

I do not agree on opening up additional Minors for other Attunements. Mostly because it's a design decision. Design can't justify everything. But what difference would some more stats or some small healing while in Fire instead of Water make? Probably none. It certainly won't make it more fun.

Many players complain about Elementalists being jack-of-all-trades. You'll never get out of that kind of position when approaching a trait-rework by watering down the role of each Attunement (here: trait lines). Instead, I personally would prefer improving single-Attunement traits while increasing the options to access each Attunement in specific scenarios that suit the respective role. This could be done through traits like Fresh Air. Gameplay would still resolve around dancing between Attunements. But it would be less all-rounder than the typical Arcane set up. People ask for being an 'Earth-Mage' or 'Fire-Mage'. Why not give them this option? This won't do much for Weaver. But it could be interesting for base Elementalist and Tempest.

For example:Soothing Power - Additionally, recharge your Water Attuenement when using your Heal skill. (Or: When falling below 50% health)Stone Heart - Additionally, recharge your Earth Attunement when granting yourself Protection.Pyromancers Puissance - Tricky one. Not sure. When hitting an enemy while under 10 Might? Reducing it by 1s per target hit (1s ICD)?

Regarding Cryomancer in the sense of dealing damage - I do feel this would be more of an elite spec thing because it would probably require all Water weapon skills being reworked otherwise. For baseline Elementalist, I'd rather see additional soft CC by improving on Chill. For example, longer Chills on Foes with Vulnerability (either flat amount or scaled based on stacks). The main-theme of Water will probably always remain Healing in GW2.

Overall, I do like most of your trait suggestions. But to talk about some specifics:

Cleansing Wave - It is still too strong to be for 'free'. I could see it being merged with Cleansing Water, though.Blinding Ashes - Cool idea. I'd prefer Blind on Fire Aura. Because it is more active.Written in Stone - Sounds reasonable. But maybe 240 range? Harr harr. ;)

Maybe make Geomancers Defense into the 'in Attunement' trait and change Stone Flesh to +Vitality regardless of Attunement?

@Dadnir.5038 said:It's difficult to disagree with such changes, in fact I'd go even further by suggesting:

  • sunspot proc whenever you switch attunment (replace fire shield by a burning effect)
  • electric discharge proc whenever you switch attunment (remove increased critical damage)
  • earthen blast proc whenever you switch attunment (replace cripple by 1 bleed stack (4s))
  • Healing ripple proc whenever you switch attunment (reduce heal to around 500)

Careful. This leads to stuff like Condi Chronomancers back in the day. It waters down the original purpose of the trait, encourages spamming (here: Attunement switching wether you actually want to switch or not) and will eventually get the trait nerfed.

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@cgMatt.5162 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:Air:
  • Stormsoul: Extra damage against disabled foes is increased to 15% instead of 10%.
    I'd like to see those Pile Driver "1-shots". I'm only 50% joking here.
    Was thinking about this, glad to see it on the list. We would get much better use out of things like Comet, Gale, and Polaric Leap. Static Field from Staff/Lightning Hammer are the only skills that benefit from this trait. Everything else is classified as a knockback, daze or pull.

I definitely wasn't thinking about that while typing it but let's call it a happy accident.

@"Xaylin.1860" said:Totally agree with you on the weapon traits. What about including the respective Conjured weapon and removing Conjurer?

I like that. It would open up more space in the Fire Adept tier, and I wouldn't have to scrap the old Burning Precision(which I actually like).Probably leave FGS out, it's already plenty powerful.

I do not agree on opening up additional Minors for other Attunements. Mostly because it's a design decision. Design can't justify everything. But what difference would some more stats or some small healing while in Fire instead of Water make? Probably none. It certainly won't make it more fun.

I have some background on this actually from back before HoT when there was just Core Ele, and I was personally just a casual player.I used to hate the fact that the elemental traitlines don't support each other. Each is playstyle-defining and you had to pick 2 of them. Particularly Fire and Air don't really support each other every tier, especially the Master tier in Air. My problem there was that if I wanted to benefit from the Air traits, I had to swap into Air, which I didn't want to. I wanted to play in purely Fire.Now currently it's a different story. The traitlines are different and I'm more accustomed to swapping elements and playing the piano but that old newbie me still occasionally knocks on the back of my skull.As a conclusion, what I'm saying is that while on the surface level it would seem that spreading the trait benefits around would serve to dilute the meaningfulness of traitline choices, it actually doesn't in a way. It gives you the freedom to play as you want without feeling the need to swap attunements.

Many players complain about Elementalists being jack-of-all-trades. You'll never get out of that kind of position when approaching a trait-rework by watering down the role of each Attunement (here: trait lines). Instead, I personally would prefer improving single-Attunement traits while increasing the options to access each Attunement in specific scenarios that suit the respective role. This could be done through traits like Fresh Air. Gameplay would still resolve around dancing between Attunements. But it would be less all-rounder than the typical Arcane set up. People ask for being an 'Earth-Mage' or 'Fire-Mage'. Why not give them this option? This won't do much for Weaver. But it could be interesting for base Elementalist and Tempest.

I think it's more specifically the "...and master of none"-part but I get what you mean.

For example:Soothing Power - Additionally, recharge your Water Attuenement when using your Heal skill. (Or: When falling below 50% health)Stone Heart - Additionally, recharge your Earth Attunement when granting yourself Protection.Pyromancers Puissance - Tricky one. Not sure. When hitting an enemy while under 10 Might? Reducing it by 1s per target hit (1s ICD)?

I think we should be looking at different ways to make the traitlines feel unique, not just copy Fresh Air around.

Regarding Cryomancer in the sense of dealing damage - I do feel this would be more of an elite spec thing because it would probably require all Water weapon skills being reworked otherwise. For baseline Elementalist, I'd rather see additional soft CC by improving on Chill. For example, longer Chills on Foes with Vulnerability (either flat amount or scaled based on stacks). The main-theme of Water will probably always remain Healing in GW2.

It's quite possible it can't be done so that the result is satisfying. Maybe I'll drop Rending Ice and make it into "gain 10% of xyz-stat as Healing Power" instead.Currently the problem with Cryomancer and Geomancer playstyles is that doing damage is kinda hard when half the skills don't have a meaningful impact. Especially on Cryo where every weapon set is stuffed with a healing skill. Atleast Geo can play D/D and feel somewhat impactful.It would be nice if Water Scepter felt impactful as a damage playstyle.

Overall, I do like most of your trait suggestions. But to talk about some specifics:

Cleansing Wave - It is still too strong to be for 'free'. I could see it being merged with Cleansing Water, though.Blinding Ashes - Cool idea. I'd prefer Blind on Fire Aura. Because it is more active.Written in Stone - Sounds reasonable. But maybe 240 range? Harr harr. ;)

I don't agree with your assessment about Cleansing Wave, ele generally doesn't have good condi cleanse. Sure they can cleanse a few conditions efficiently which is enough in PvE scenarios but for PvP/WvW their clears are not great. Getting bombed is really punishing when you don't have a mass clear. Most of this isn't within the confines of this thread but I figured I'd throw a little something in there.The other 2 suggestions sound fine though.

Maybe make Geomancers Defense into the 'in Attunement' trait and change Stone Flesh to +Vitality regardless of Attunement?

Good idea. Stone Heart kinda makes the current Stone Flesh a lot less useful so Vitality would work much better there. And if you're not running Stone Heart, you could still pick up some more durability with Geomancer's Training.

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@"Yannir.4132" said:I like that. It would open up more space in the Fire Adept tier, and I wouldn't have to scrap the old Burning Precision(which I actually like).Probably leave FGS out, it's already plenty powerful.

Well... not sure if a lower cooldown would be that bad. And you could still make it 'Arcane' (rework to Illusionary GS).

As a conclusion, what I'm saying is that while on the surface level it would seem that spreading the trait benefits around would serve to dilute the meaningfulness of traitline choices, it actually doesn't in a way. It gives you the freedom to play as you want without feeling the need to swap attunements.

Is this so? How would your gameplay change if Soothing Mist was available in Air or Fire? Or even Earth? Probably not as much as you'd think.

Making those effects available across all Attunements - even at a weaker level - is nothing else but a plain buff. It doesn't create synergies and therefore won't encourage a change in your mindset or the way you'd want to play. That's why I don't like it. I'm all for meaningful trait options which aren't Attunement exclusive, don't get me wrong. But then we'd have to look at stuff like Aura traits or Lightning Rod.

I think we should be looking at different ways to make the traitlines feel unique, not just copy Fresh Air around.

That's like saying Invigorating Torrents was a copy of Zephyr's Boon. ;)

A trait doesn't have to be unique to empower a specific aspect or theme of a traitline or class characteristic.

It's quite possible it can't be done so that the result is satisfying. Maybe I'll drop Rending Ice and make it into "gain 10% of xyz-stat as Healing Power" instead.Currently the problem with Cryomancer and Geomancer playstyles is that doing damage is kinda hard when half the skills don't have a meaningful impact. Especially on Cryo where every weapon set is stuffed with a healing skill. Atleast Geo can play D/D and feel somewhat impactful.It would be nice if Water Scepter felt impactful as a damage playstyle.

I just don't believe that ANet wants baseline Water to deal meaningful - or let's say - build defining damage.

I agree on Geomancer. I feel like Fire is holding it back from taking the condi-spotlight on Elementalist.

I don't agree with your assessment about Cleansing Wave, ele generally doesn't have good condi cleanse.

Elementalists baseline condition removal is way higher than that of other classes. Of course, you'd have to build for it in competitive scenario.

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On the phone, but just had a some ideas.

What if...

  • Using a Conjure would also count as being attuned to the respective element?
  • Using an element specific utility (e.g. Signet of Fire or Cleansing Fire = Fire) would reset or at least partially recharge the respective Attunement by default? (Note: Would probably not work with Arcanes, Glyphes and probably excludes Heals and Elites)
  • Using an element specific utility would grant x seconds of Attunement specific traits (when traited, e.g. Soothing Mist) and/or trigger on-swap effects (when traited)?
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@"Xaylin.1860" said:On the phone, but just had a some ideas.

What if...

  • Using a Conjure would also count as being attuned to the respective element?
  • Using an element specific utility (e.g. Signet of Fire or Cleansing Fire = Fire) would reset or at least partially recharge the respective Attunement by default? (Note: Would probably not work with Arcanes, Glyphes and probably excludes Heals and Elites)
  • Using an element specific utility would grant x seconds of Attunement specific traits (when traited, e.g. Soothing Mist) and/or trigger on-swap effects (when traited)?

Conjures not counting as their respective attunement is actually one of the few benefits of Conjures. You need a rather compelling reason to do that IMO.Like, when you are attuned to Earth, you don't want(usually) an Earth shield to be even more defensive, you want a Fiery Great Sword to deal damage while still being immune to critical hits. Or vice versa.I like the second idea, it's unique enough to distinguish itself from FA. Seems especially fitting for Fire, essentially "burning cooldowns". Just not a fan of doing the same for every attunement.I'm having a hard time imagining what you mean with your 3rd idea, can you give some more specific examples?

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@"Xaylin.1860" said:On the phone, but just had a some ideas.

What if...
  • Using a Conjure would also count as being attuned to the respective element?
  • Using an element specific utility (e.g. Signet of Fire or Cleansing Fire = Fire) would reset or at least partially recharge the respective Attunement by default? (Note: Would probably not work with Arcanes, Glyphes and probably excludes Heals and Elites)
  • Using an element specific utility would grant x seconds of Attunement specific traits (when traited, e.g. Soothing Mist) and/or trigger on-swap effects (when traited)?

Conjures not counting as their respective attunement is actually one of the few benefits of Conjures. You need a rather compelling reason to do that IMO.Like, when you are attuned to Earth, you don't want(usually) an Earth shield to be even more defensive, you want a Fiery Great Sword to deal damage while still being immune to critical hits. Or vice versa.I like the second idea, it's unique enough to distinguish itself from FA. Seems especially fitting for Fire, essentially "burning cooldowns". Just not a fan of doing the same for every attunement.I'm having a hard time imagining what you mean with your 3rd idea, can you give some more specific examples?

Conjures

It is a double edged sword for sure. It would be great for Healing with Frost Bow. And if you were in Fire and needed Defense, it would also be great for Earth Shield because you'd automatically became immune to crits. Conjures would work as an additional pseudo-swap this way.

Personally, I find exploiting modifiers as it happens nowadays gimmicky because nothing else on Ele encourages such gameplay. Just my opinion, though.

Recharge based on utility usage

Not sure how having it work the same way for all Elements would be bad? It's like saying Arcane being bad because it reduces recharges for each Element. Not every effect itself has to be unique to enable distinctive builds. On the contrary. If this was a default effect it would have to be as simple as possible. Again, just my opinion.

Attunement-effects on utility usage

Two examples.

You cast Flame Axe. It triggers Sunspot and you gain +150 power like you were attuned to Fire for 5s because you traited Fire.

You use Mist Form. You heal nearby allies for a small amount and gain Soothing Mist for 5s because you traited Water.

It's probably the more sexy option than my Conjure suggestion because you could theoretically stack Attunement effects ?

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