lLobo.7960

Turning conjures into kits is a terrible idea thematically, mechanically and balance-wise. Thematically they are something you conjure to use. The conjuring have a refresh time and lasts only for a certain time. But you can conjure a weapon for someone else. A kit is something that you have there at your hands and can use at any time, for any amount of time.Mechanically the conjure is a utility that gives you a set of skills and a buff for a certain amount of time. It can be a way to have different attacks while at certain attunements (like the old water camping LH dungeon build).Balance-wise, this limitation gives the conjure the chance to have powerful skills, since their use is limited. If you use the conjure for a single powerful skill and drop it, that skill now has a long CD, as it is locked behind the conjure utility timer, while if you keep the conjure to use that skill again when itself comes out of CD, you are locked out of your other weapon skills. A kit on the other hand means you will trade a utility skill for a weapon slot with no weapon swap CD, they are therefor balanced differently, as every skill can be used on CD since there is no CD on equipping the kit. So although turning conjures into kits would be great for ele rotations, it would likely make them weaker to balance (look at the difference between FGS and mortar). I much prefer the conjure skills to use the ammo system, with two charges each. The skill summon only one conjure at the target location, if the caster is inside the target, then it summons on the caster hands. Then turn conjurer trait to reduce the charge recharge and increase the buffs given. This would keep the flavor and utility of the conjures while also making it much better to fit into the gameplay (since you don't need to pick up from the floor).

Not sure...Using plaguedoctor or seraph you could build a tempest/fire/arcane, provide might/fury/resistance (attune fire, overload, blast, warhorn share) to the whole party/raid while outputing considerable condi dmg (burn ele doesn't need expertise). Using water instead of arcane, you would loose some condi dmg but gain great healing options (using the healing skill to recharge water attunement) providing good might/regen/vigor/resistance and still doing great condi dps. There are not great option for a offensive buffer (as seeker in pvp), but hariers or comanders (if the extra toughness is not an issue) would do great for fire/air/tempest using the auras to provide constant quickness and superspeed to the group/raid. Each air overload would provide quickness (with shock aura traits), swap into fire for fire aura, might share, blasts, swap into earth for another aura and extend buffs with Wh, back in to air for more overload. Ele is not a passive boom-bot like chrono or druid can be, it would be a different way to provide support. I don't think we should have the same passive way of providing every boon in the game to the whole party/raid, but would be nice to update tempest/ele to provide more boons based on their chosen playstyle (agressive with fire/air or defensive with earth/water) while also giving the weaver and core ele more viable combinations (with resistance in fire, quickness/superspeed in air, lower hp threshold for earth traits such as diamond skin, etc)

So a tempest can focus on auras healing and therefore have less auras since it looses the shouts CD reduction, or focus on more auras (and boons and conditions from shouts) with shouts on a reduced CD. Then it can further: Spec on fire auras and have auras giving might, applying extra burns, and pulsing resistance;Spec on air and having auras providing fury and swiftness, and static auras providing superspeed and quickness;Spec on earth and having auras providing improved protection;Spec on water and having auras providing regen and vigor, with frost aura providing regen twice (so removing 2 conditions with GM)Spec on Arcane and have arcane shield applying to 10 people.So if you want to be a tempest healer, you can choose to use auras to heal and focus less on staying in water attune, using other attunements (fire provides tons of auras) and therefore providing more boons or focusing more on damage, or you can focus on using water attunement to heal (lower CD on water skills, soothing mist, recharge water attune when using a heal, lower overload CD by using skills from that attunement, etc) and use shouts to provide more auras for buffs... Tempest GM trait for dps would be the movement one. This makes overloads not only break stun, but also let you free to move while overloading. It might not be optimal for a raid dps spec, but its great on competitive areas where people will try to pin you down. I thought about that. The idea was to have it more in line with the other minors as a good stat bonuses.Ele has a stat deficiency (lower defense and health pool without better base values or coefficients on skills to compensate) and need better stats bonuses on traits.One option I though was to have soothing mist in a selfish version as the minor, and soothing mist providing healing power. Then when you share soothing mist with 10 people, you also provide then more healing power for their own heals. Yes, I though about that, as mentioned above. The way I see is that you can be a full on healer, reducing CD on water skills and providing group-wide soothing mist and water attune skills (and overload if you go tempest) providing heals, or you can use water attune heals as a spike heal, with your healing skill recharging the water attunement. In this last case, you could be on other attunement, pop into water (triggering the AoE heal from minor master trait), use the water skills, pop out of water, use your heal that recharges water attune, then going into water attune again for another AoE heal from the minor master (and potentially another overload) . While one style provides constant heals and regen, the other provides more burst heals. I don't think other lines should be removing tons of conditions. That is one of the roles of water. On the proposed traitlines there are 3 ways of dealing with condis: Water cleanses condis (with auras or with shorter skills CD and water attune)Fire resists conditions with pulsing resistance on fire aura (that you get from skills, blasts, fire attune, overloads, shouts). It is very powerful but can be corrupted/striped.Earth reduces condi dmg with protection. Also can be corrupted, but it reduces condi dmg and direct dmg, making protection a very powerful buff.So you can take one or two of those to deal with conditions. A Fire/X/X ele can use the fire spec to reduce a lot of condi pressure as long as it can keep its fire auras going (with blasts, with constant swap into fire, with shouts and overloads, etc). Fire/Air with fresh air can nearly keep permanent fire aura, or combine with earth to have a strong condi duelist dealing tons of burns with the auras and resisting the condi and power dmg with protection... Those paths are viable, but still vulnerable to corrupt/strip, in which case, water would still be better for condi removal, but not as good pressure on itself. Its about options... Trade-off are important.A fire/air/tempest would provide tons of support (with might/fury/quickness/superspeed/swiftness/resistance) while also able to apply great dps.A earth/water/tempest would provide great heal and support with protection/regen/vigor/heals and cleanses.A Fire/Arcane/tempest would provide tons of might and deal a lot of condi dmg with burns.A fire/air/weaver could be great dps using fire as a protection from condis with the fire aura traits, or be a pure dps with fire traits improving dmg and condi dmg.A air/water/weaver could be a great duelist focusing on superspeed and quickness from traits and aurasA fire/arcane/weaver could use lingering elements to keep its fire attunement buffs while cycling other attunements, becoming a great hybrid (power and condi) dps. Thanks for putting time to take a look.The idea is to have the discussion going. I'm sorry the format does not make it more clear the changes from the current state of traits. I didn't have time to make more proposals for changes in skills and utilities. And didn't want to make this more than what already is...

Elementalist used to have a lot of diversity in its traits and be able to fill different roles in a group. Not anymore. With the changes in the game over the past years and expacks, elementalist way of buffing allies, providing support and dealing dmg has become obsolete and after many nerfs not even viable in some cases. Ele has become a simple melee dps class with not much flavor to it. I'd like to see more synergy for ele traits, to provide ways for eles (and tempests and weavers) to become more than just dps. Tempest need to provide better support with auras and overloads, be it offensive or defensive support. Fire: Improves sustained damage through power and burns, buffs power and condition dmg through might. Minor Adept: Empowering Flame - Gain power and condition damage (150 @ lvl80) while attuned to fire. Major Adept: Burning Precision - Critical hits have a chance to cause burning, and burning lasts longer. Major Adept: Blinding Ashes - Blind foes that you burn (5s ICD per target). Major Adept: Powerful Auras - Auras you apply give might (4 stacks 10s). Minor Master: Sunspot - Inflict damage and burning at your location and gain a fire aura when you attune to fire. Major Master: -Burning rage: Gain increased condition dmg based on your power. When you gain fire aura, burn nearby foes. Major Master: Smothering Auras - Fire auras you apply last longer and pulse resolution (1s every second). Major Master: Power Overwhelming - Gain increased power when above the might threshold. Deal more damage to burning foes. Minor Grandmaster: Pyromancer's Training - Reduces recharge on all fire weapon skills. Each skill you use while attuned to fire grants you might. Major Grandmaster: Persisting Flames - Executing blast finishers on fire fields grant fire aura to you. Fire fields last longer. Major Grandmaster: Pyromancer's Puissance - Gain a stacking damage and condition damage bonus while attuned to fire (1% per second up to 10%). Stacks last for 10s and reset duration upon application. Major Grandmaster: Conjurer - Conjure utilities skills recharge faster. Conjure weapon provide higher bonuses and conjure abilities have reduced recharge . Air: Improves mobility, burst and critical damage and crowd control. Minor Adept: Ferocious Winds - Gain ferocity and precision (150 @ lvl80) while attuned to air. Major Adept: Zephyr's Boon - Grant boons (fury and swiftness) to allies you grant auras to. Glyphs apply boons based on your attunement. Major Adept: One with Air - Move faster while attuned to air and gain superspeed when attuning to air. Major Adept: Piercing Lightening - vulnerability you apply last 33% longer. You have increased critical chance to vulnerable foes (2% per stack) while attuned to air. Minor Master: Electric Discharge - Strike your target with a bolt of lightning when attuning to air. Major Master: Zephyr speed - Static auras you apply pulse superspeed (3s every 3s). Apply quickness (3s) when you apply superspeed. Major Master: Raging Storm - Critically striking a foe grants fury. Gain ferocity while under the effects of fury. Major Master: Tempest Defense - Cast Shocking Aura when disabled. Deal increased damage to stunned or knocked-down foes. Minor Grandmaster: Aeromancer's Training - Gain ferocity based on your precision. Reduces recharge on all air weapon skills. Major Grandmaster: Bolt to the Heart - Deal more damage when your foe's health drops below the threshold. Major Grandmaster: Fresh Air - Recharge air attunement on a critical hit. Gain a ferocity boost when attuning to air. Major Grandmaster: Lightning Rod - Cast Lightning Rod when you disable a foe. Electric Discharge hits twice against disabled foes. Earth: is about codition dmg (with bleeds) and defense through reducing dmg, condition dmg and applying weakness and cripple to opponents. Minor Adept: Stone Flesh - Gain toughness and expertise (150 @ lvl80) while attuned to earth. Major Adept: Earth's Embrace - Gain Armor of Earth whenever your health drops below the threshold. (Armor of Earth now pulses stability -1s- and protection -1s- for the duration) Major Adept: Serrated Stones - Bleeds you apply last longer; Apply bleed to foes you apply cripple or immobilize to. Major Adept: Rock Solid - Gain stability when attuning to earth. Magnetic auras you apply pulse stability (1s every second) Minor Master: Earthen Blast - Bleed and cripple foes for 3 seconds when attuning to earth. Major Master: Geomancer's Defense - Apply resistance when you apply protection. Remove movement impairing conditions when you receive stability. Major Master: Elemental Shielding - Grant protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally. Protection you apply have improved damage reduction. Major Master: Strength of Stone - Gain expertise based on your toughness. Minor Grandmaster: Geomancer's Training - You recover more quickly from slow, crippling, immobilizing, and chilling. Reduces recharge on all earth weapon skills. Major Grandmaster: Diamond Skin - Remove conditions when struck while your health is above the threshold (50%). Major Grandmaster: Written in Stone - Maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them. Reduce recharge of signets. Major Grandmaster: Stone Heart - Enemies that critically hit you receive weakness. You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth. Water: is about cleanse and healing. Its the go-to sustain traitline for ele. Minor Adept: Aquatic Benevolence - regenerate health (Soothing mist) and gain Healing Power while attuned to Water. Major Adept: Invigorating Auras - Gain frost aura when critically hit. Auras you apply give regeneration (3s) and vigor. Major Adept: Latent Stamina - Apply vigor in a radius when attuning to water. Granting vigor to allies also restores a portion of endurance. Major Adept: Soothing Disruption - Cantrips grant you regeneration and vigor; reduce recharge on cantrips. Minor Master: Healing Ripple - Heal nearby allies when attuning to water. Major Master: Soothing Ice - Frost Auras you apply slowly heal the receiver (pulse healing for frost aura duration). Major Master: Soothing recovery - Cast geyser when reviving an ally. Geyser revive allies. You have improved revive speed, and give frost aura to you when reviving an ally, and frost aura to allies you revive. Major Master: Flow like water - Block or evading an attack heals you and gives 10% healing effectiveness. Minor Grandmaster: Aquamancer's Training - Reduces recharge on all water weapon skills. Regeneration you apply have improved effects. Major Grandmaster: Cleansing Water - Remove a condition when granting regeneration to yourself or an ally. Major Grandmaster: Cleansing Wave - Recharges water attunement when using a heal skill. Remove a condition from you and your allies when attuning to water. Major Grandmaster: Soothing Power - Soothing Mist has increased effects and provide a bonus to healing power. Arcane: is about fast swaping attunements, giving short buffs to each and all attunment on swap and about arcane skills. Minor Adept: Elemental Attunement - When attuning to an element, you and nearby allies gain a boon. Major Adept: Arcane Precision - Skills have a chance to apply a condition on critical hits. Major Adept: Renewing Stamina - Gain vigor when you deliver a critical hit. Major Adept: Arcane Abatement - Swapping attunements restores health. Minor Master: Elemental Fury - Gain Leaser Elemental Power (Arcane skill: You do critical damage with your next 2 attacks. grants bonus ferocity.) when swapping attunements. Major Master: Lingering Elements - Attunement bonuses (from minor traits) linger longer (5s) after leaving an attunement. Major Master: Elemental Lockdown - Gain a boon when you disable a foe, based on your current attunement. Major Master: Final Shielding - Create an Lesser Arcane Shield when your health drops below the threshold. Arcane shield is now an aura. Minor Grandmaster: Elemental Enchantment - Gain concentration and your attunements gain reduced recharge. Major Grandmaster: Evasive Arcana - Create an attunement-based spell after dodging. Major Grandmaster: Elemental Surge - Based on your attunement, arcane skills inflict a condition on foes. Gain more ferocity when you use an arcane skill. Arcane skills recharge faster. Major Grandmaster: Bountiful Power - Gain increased effects for each boon on you based on attunement: fire: 1% dmg, 1% condi dmg; air: 1% dmg, 1% crit dmg; water: 1% healing, 1% outgoing healing; earth: 1% dmg reduction, 1% incoming condi duration reduction Tempest: is about staying longer in attunements and overloading them for greater effects. It relies on caster centered AoEs and group support. Minor Proficiency: Warhorn Proficiency - You can wield the warhorn weapon. Minor Adept: Singularity - Attain elemental singularity by remaining in an attunement for a period of time. Upon attaining singularity, you may overload the attunement to your vicinity. Major Adept: Gale Song - Trigger "Eye of the Storm!" when a foe attempts to control you by stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, fear, taunt, or launch. Eye of the Storm now provides static aura to allies. Major Adept: Effective Conduit - Using skills from an attunement reduces the recharge of its overload. Major Adept: Unstable Conduit - Overloading an attunement grants an aura based on the element you're attuned to when the ability is completed. Minor Master: Speedy Conduit - Pulse swiftness and stability when overloading an attunement. Major Master: Tempestuous Aria - Allies affected by your shouts gain a boom and Enemies are affected by a condition based on shout. Shouts have reduced CD. Major Master: Elemental Bastion - Receive an aura at the start of your overloads based on attunement. Auras you apply last 33% longer. Major Master: Harmonious Conduit - Upon successfully completing an overload, gain a buff based on overload (fire 5% dmg and condi dmg, air 10% crit dmg, earth -10% dmg and condi dmg reduction, water 10% healing effectiveness) for a period of time. Minor Grandmaster: Hardy Conduit - Pulse protection and barrier while overloading an attunement. Major Grandmaster: Imbued Melodies - Gain increased concentration when wielding a warhorn. Use Sand Squall when struck while below the health threshold. Sand squall now extends boons for 4 secs (instead of 2). Major Grandmaster: Lucid Singularity - Remove and gain massive resistance to movement-impeding conditions while overloading your attunements. Overloads pulse superspeed. Major Grandmaster: Tempestuous Auras - When you apply an aura to yourself, apply the same aura to 10 allies. Weaver: is about combining attunements and using dual skills. It gives the ele options for a bit of mobility, barrier and vitality to use its melee range (with sword) more reliable or provides bonus for swaping to diferent attunements and combinations. Minor Proficiency: Sword Proficiency - You can wield swords in your main hand. Minor Adept: Weaver - Your active attunement is now applied to your main hand, with the old attunement moving to your off hand. Attunement recharges are reduced. Gain access to Dual Attack and the Stance utility types. Major Adept: Superior Elements - Dual Attack skills weaken enemies. Attacks against weakened foes have increased critical chance. Major Adept: Elemental Pursuit - Gain superspeed when inflicting inhibiting conditions on enemies. Major Adept: Master's Fortitude - Gain increased vitality (+100). Gain bonus vitality when wielding a sword (+40) or a dagger (+40). Gain bonus vitality based on a portion of your power and condition damage. Minor Master: Elemental Refreshment - Gain barrier when swapping attunments. Major Master: Weaver's Prowess - Gain bonuses for a period of time after attuning to a different element: Fire - increased condition damage, Water - reduced condition damage to you, Air - increased condition duration, Earth - reduced condition duration to you. Major Master: Swift Revenge - Gain swiftness when using a Dual Attack. Deal extra damage to enemies while under the effects of swiftness or superspeed. Major Master: Bolstered Elements - Gain barrier when activating a stance. Activate Lesser Stone Resonance when struck while below the health threshold. Minor Grandmaster: Elemental Polyphony - Gain attributes based on your current attunement. When dual attuned, gain both benefits. Major Grandmaster: Elements of Rage - Gain bonuses for a period of time when attuned to a single element. Fire - 10% damage, Air - 10% critical dmg, Water - 10% healing eff, Earth - 10% dmg reduction. Major Grandmaster: Woven Stride - Gain swiftness when you are inflicted with inhibiting conditions. When gaining either superspeed or swiftness, also gain regeneration. Swiftness has increased effectiveness. Major Grandmaster: Invigorating Strikes - Gain vigor when using a Dual Attack. Vigor has increased effectiveness. Dodge rolling grants a barrier.

Fire: Sustained dmg through power dmg and burns. Steady might generation (with skills or auras), some condition removal (cleansing fire), minor sustain with blinds (blinding ashes)Air: Burst power dmg, mobility and control. Swiftness, superspeed and fury generation (with attunement or auras) and bonuses to precision and ferocity. Higher focus on bursts of power dmg with multiple quick critical hits, vulnerability application, and against disabled (tempest defense) or low hp (bolt to the heart) opponents. Sustain with CC, mobility and weakness.Water: Healing and cleansing. Very low dmg, focus on control (with chill) and sustain (healing and condi cleanse). Regen and vigor boom generation, healing power and outgoing healing bonuses. Focus on steady healing in water attunement (with soothing mist and improved water skills), support (sharing auras and their effects) or cleansing (with cleanses on regen boons, water attunement, etc).Earth: Defense and control. Protection and stability boon generation, lower condi duration and damage defensive bonuses. Focus on defense by reducing incoming dmg and condition duration on you and controlling opponents. Applies cripple, immobilize and bleeding conditions and focuses on hard cc and control.Arcane: Focus on attunement swaping and effects. Reduces attunement CD and improves boom duration. Provides boons and conditions based on attunement to attunement swaps and critical hits, mostly short duration versions of the main attunment traitlines to incentivize quick and constant attunement swap.

First off, LH is used in exactly the same manner - you press 4, you do an AA chain (which is actually terrible for an ele... I mean, with so many skills available you still resort to auto...) and then you discard it. It's not fundamentally different from the usage pattern of Icebow (which is still used in some places by the way) or FGS. Personally, I like that. It fits the Elementalist concept as a whole - access different weapon skills to use only the best/those applicable to your situation, then move on to another skill set to do the same. My only gripe with conjures is how inconvenient their use is, particularly picking them up from the ground. That's plain awful. Aside from that, I don't mind their current state. Sure, I'd like to see Lava Axe being brought to some semblance of useful state. But I wouldn't like to see them made into something powerful enough to make me want to stay on it. It's not what ele is about. Furthermore, any changes that begin with "nerf ele further in the name of a brighter future" - no. Just no. I have zero faith in brighter futures in general, and particularly when it comes to ele balance in this game. There are various playstyles for conjures.You can use them as your main weapon while camping an attunement that has poor skills (the old LH in water attunement style, still very good at early levels)You can use them as utility situationally to cover something that you can't with your weapon (like using frostbow for CC, or LH against projectile reflecting opponents)You can use them quickly for burst (LH and FGS are good example of burst) They do need improvements but really don't need to be removed. They are very cool concepts and a great utility for a class with no weapon swap.1: Make the conjure utility ammunition based.2: Make the conjure utility summon only one weapon per use. It summons one weapon at the caster hands if the caster is inside the conjure AoE, and summons at the ground if the caster is not inside the AoE.3: Frostbow skill 4: froststorm needs to apply chill to foes and regen to allies instead of bleeding. Making frostbow a good CC option for ele.4: Flame axe skill 1: lava axe needs to apply burning so that Flame axe becomes more condition based

On the subject of the current top raid/group DPS build for weaver: It seems that a lot of skills from core ele (staff, conjures, gliph of storms) have been nerfed/changed due to how powerfull they were on this specific build in specific group encounters (static bosses with large hit boxes). The nerf was done in a way that moved most of the dmg on storm skills to the initial strikes and reduced power dmg on other skills.The issues with this are: Storm skills should be area negating skills. By reducing the power over the time they are in effect you remove the flavor of this type of skill making it just a burst skill.Staff fire skills completely lack burning. Reducing the power dmg should be an option to increase/add the burn dmg. This would increase diversity by creating option for a hybrid or condi dmg staff ele (core or weaver)Weaver has mechanics that make its rotation complicated but reward good execution (elements of rage and weaver prowess), this should be encouraged and not nerfed.Main issue with the weaver power dps build is Bountiful Power. With the support from chronos this trait gives up to +20% flat dmg increase. This trait should be reworked to be more in line with the arcana tree and spread its benefits according to attunements (like the other grandmasters) making it still competitive on a group scenario, but not so good that is better than the whole air line on a burst spec.add burn to fireball and lava font, make flame burst copy burn stacks on the target to 5 targets in the aoe: Staff needs more condi dmg. This would open dps options for staff condi dps (maybe even with tempest), hybrid dps (power and condi). Normalize meteor dmg from meteor shower and add burn to each hit, same for GoS:Firestorm: Fire is the sustained dmg attunement. Not burst. Make the storm skills in fire apply a good portion of BOTH condi/burn and power dps in a steady way, not in burst. This will make timing of those skills important in fights, instead of just the first few hits. Leave the burst storms for air one (conjure hammer and GoS in air) so the ele can decide, based on how long the opponent will be in the storm area (or if it has the vulnerable debuff on, making burst better), to go with a burst power storm in air or with a more steady storm in fire. MAKE THEM BOTH VIABLE IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS.bountiful power change to "gain increased effects for each boon on you based on attunement: fire: 1% dmg, 1% condi dmg; aird: 1% dmg, 1% crit dmg; water: 1% healing, 1% outgoing healing; earth: 1% dmg reduction, 1% condi duration reduction". This trait is too focused on dmg to be on the arcana line. It needs to be more adaptable for this line. Just like the other Grandmasters have different effects per attunement, so do this. This reduces the direct power it gives to dps builds, gives more synergy to hybrid dps builds and a good use to full hybrid builds. It can be used by a full water healing build for groups and becomes a good contender to evasive arcana, where one is constant passive buffs, the other more powerfull active effects.elements of rage remove the flat ferocity increase and add +10% crit dmg to the buff (so, only dmg increase when in the 10s window of dual attunement). So it is a 10% normal dmg increase and 20% for crits, when in the 10s window after a dual attunement. This is comparable with the other 20% dmg from other GM traits, and rewards good rotation and well timed bursts, while weaver prowess acts similar to condition dmg.

The issue is the ceiling is too low for such a high floor. Ele has complicated dps rotation (not just in terms of how many skills you use, but the window and order of use has a high impact on results), it is squishy with little room for taking defensive utilities or attunements without major impacts in dps, it brings little to the team besides raw dps, and is highly dependent on group support and heals. The skill floor for the weaver dps role is high(er).But the benefits for doing it all perfect are not there. Others can put out more dps, with more room for error and bringing more party utility/support. Meanwhile, ele as a support role, although able to bring good heals, it brings bad dps (if you want to go for a offensive support), low support (not enough boons or buffs) so its not only not good, its not even an option on most game content (CMs, most raids, PvP). Ok, Here is my take on what is limiting the ele: Class traits and weapons:Elementalists have the attunement system, this change what their weapon skills do (heal, dmg, condition, control, burst, cleanse) while the weapons itself change how this is done (long range slow AoE, mid range burst, fast PBAoE, etc).The traitlines are one for each attunement and its theme, while arcana works for all attunements in a leaser extent (short boons instead of greater buffs) and the e-specs focus on staying longer on attunment (tempest) or moving attunements fast and combining them (weaver). The issue here is, that traits on each traitline are very limited on their scope (mostly only function on each attunement) and are not powerfull enough to cover this limitation. For instance the ele does not have any trait to lower CD of its weapon skills, but of its attunment skills, and at the same extent other classes have for their weapons. At the same time, traits related to utility skills are on very random places. Why conjurer is on fire if we have conjures for each attunment? Why gliphs on air? With PoF tempest was pushed further into the realm of support, specifically with auras. But to use auras as a support you need water attunment. This locks tempests on defensive support and makes it not viable as a decent offensive support. Meanwhile weaver is a great spec for dps or sustain/dueling, but dual skills, sword and some of the stances are just very lackluster. The idea of elements of rage and weavers power is great, but elements of rage need to give its crit dmg bonus (ferocity) on the same way it gives the main dmg bonus, so it creates an improved gameplay (by giving temporary bonuses when dual attuning) instead of flat bonuses. I've made a lot of sugestions to give ele more synergy, to give options to dealing with condi outside of water, to give tempest more room to work with other traitlines and create opportunities for offensive and defensive support roles, to create more options for hybrid dmg (condi and power), etc: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/48446/the-trait-changes-the-elementalist-needs-more-synergy StatsEle has the lowest base defensive stats. But it has no greater coefficients on its weapon skills to compensate that. Sure, it has attunements, but it already has no weapon swap to balance for attunements. A engi has kits and toolbelt while still having medium HP and armor. We got attunements and low armor and hp. Not only this but attunements are very specific and need high specialization (gear and traits) to work decently. So a zerker ele does not have better sustain than a zerker warrior due to having water attunement, it does not have higher dmg or crit coefficients on fire or air, it does not have higher mobility or condi dmg output. There is no value on having lower defensive stats if everyone else (with more HP and armor) can achieve the same level of dmg or burst or heal or support than you can ever specialize in.

I disagree with this. And seems quite a narrow viewpoint. Staff is an AoE ranged weapon. It is still the best potential dps on large hitbox or groups.Deadeye is the best dps on single target. Seems fair. Ele is not in a spot where you will be kicked out of raids (and if you are, either you are bad or the commander is a kitten) for not being good dps. The thing that, IMO, is wrong with the way the nerfs are coming is that staff ele is being pushed to burst without an option for sustain.If they increased the condi dmg on staff skills to (even partially) cover for the power nerfs, then maybe the ele could choose to go zerker on short (or phased) fights and hybrid (griever or whatever) on longer fights. It would be nice to have options.

Stuck in 'match about to begin' right after map selection. Tried relog, restart, join a pvp match from game browser, wvw... nothing makes this go away

On a serious note... Longbow is the most logical choice for elementalist next weapon.Long range, 2 handed, single target. We got long range aoe with staff;We got mid range burst with scepter;We got short range PBAoE with dagger;We got melee range with sword;We got OH defense with focus;We got OH offense with dagger;We got OH support with warhorn; We had an OH Elite spec with tempest warhorn...We had a MH Elite spec with weaver sword... We have shortbow, hammer, axe, shield and greatsword conjures... So, unless they give a weapon we can already conjure (very lame, IMO), we have mace, pistols, rifle and longbow.Dual pistols could be really fun as an elemental spell-slinger type. But pistols are usually mid-range burst and we have that with scepter.Rifle and Longbow are both long range single target 2 handed weapons, with the longbow fitting the current elementalist setup more. So unless they plan to give the ele some more modern tech (pistols or riffle) or a weapon we can already conjure, or another MH melee weapon (mace - pls NO), we should be getting a longbow.

Although dual pistols could be really fun for a fast paced ele mid range gameplay (think unload on thief, but with elemental magic), I think dual pistols (and rifles) will likely go to mesmers while eles will get the more traditional weapons... But yea, elemental gunslinger would be quite fun.

The monk! Yes

We got long range aoe with staff;We got mid range burst with scepter;We got short range PBAoE with dagger;We got melee range with sword;We got OH defense with focus;We got OH offense with dagger;We got OH support with warhorn; We had an OH Espec with tempest warhorn...We had a MH Espec with weaver sword... We have shortbow, hammer, axe, shield and greatsword conjures... The logical option next is a long range single target LONGBOW. Arcane Archer Elite spec.Longbow and offensive support. Attunements become weapon enchantments you provide to the group for bonus dmg and effects.

Add WvW only mounts related to WvW masteries. Move as fast as swiftness.Engage skills only usable on your own territory and are WvW related (deploy siege trap, deploy stealth trap, deploy siege disable, deploy supply)Each mount has its own characteristics: Charr car reduces siege dmg, dolyak increase supply capacity...

My Suggestion from the previous forum also: 2 charges, charge recharge 60s (90 for FGS?).Utility skill summons one conjure weapon, 30s duration.Target AoE (as now).If you are inside the AoE: summons on your hand,if you are not inside the AoE: summons on the ground.