Earth Trait Line Suggested Tweaks

[illuminosity.8537]

Some thoughts on one of the more underwhelming and outdated feeling trait lines:

Stone Flesh: Strike damage taken is reduced while attuned to earth.

Decent defensive effect, plays into earth's defenses / condi damage theme, but every elementalist spec is based around switching attunements. Talents should never encourage camping a single attunement. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, strike damage taken is reduced for 6 seconds.

 

Earth's Embrace: Cast Armor of Earth when struck while below the health threshold.

Needs a full rework to escape the pit of the 300s cooldowns. In general I am against traits of the form "let yourself be hit to get an advantage" anyway. Encourage players to actively mitigate damage. Suggested change: Gain increased incoming barrier. Gain barrier when you successfully evade an attack.

Serrated Stones: Bleeding you inflict has increased duration. Deal increased damage to bleeding foes.

Increased bleeding duration is fine. Increasing all damage if an enemy is bleeding is kinda weird, and boring because with the amount of bleeds in the game, it cashes out as 5% straight buff against any enemy where 5% damage matters. Suggested change: Bleeding you inflict has increased duration. Gain increased condition damage whenever you inflict bleeding on a foe.

 

Elemental Shielding : Auras you grant to allies also grant protection.

Elementalist can already grant allies protection from Arcane's Elemental Attunement, Earth Staff 3's Transmute Earth, Earth Warhorn 4, Aftershock, Overload Earth, Earth Elemental's Stomp and Earth Jade Sphere, as well as a half dozen personal sources. This trait is competing against strong aura cleanse in fire and fury and swiftness in air, and needs to grant a unique form of protection to be a compelling choice. Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant barrier.

 

Earthen Blast: Damage and cripple nearby foes when attuning to earth.

Cripple is quite nice, and gives you an active source of escape or pursuit. A flat, non-critical packet of damage however doesn't suit the trait line's theme at all. Suggested change: Inflict bleeding and cripple on nearby foes when attuning to earth.

 

Strength of Stone: Gain condition damage based on your toughness. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe.

The only real issue here is that toughness is a stat players actively avoid for raiding (a problem which should be addressed, but is out of scope of these changes). Suggested change: Gain condition damage based on your vitality. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe.

Rock Solid: Grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth.

One of the more underwhelming support talents. In most builds that use earth, earth is going to be on cooldown when a mechanic requires stability, and coupled with its short duration, you're basically just hoping you get lucky with this trait. On the other hand, stability is very strong and arguably too prevalent on other support builds at the moment, so shouldn't be too spammable. Suggested change: Magnetic auras you grant to allies also grant stability.

I'd also recommend adding magnetic aura to Magnetic Wave, or for a very short duration on attuning to earth to increase the value of this skill to non-tempest builds, but that may be oppressive on tempests.

Earthen Blessing: Decrease the duration of movement-impairing conditions applied to you. Restore endurance when you receive one of these conditions.

Feels more like an air talent to me, following air's themes of critical hits, crowd control and mobility. Suggested change: Crowd control effects have a reduced duration on you.

 

Geomancer's Training: Strike damage from nearby foes is reduced. Earth weapon skills gain reduced recharge.

Reduced recharge is nice. Reduced strike damage is a little boring, but basically fine.

 

Diamond Skin: Remove conditions when struck while your health is above the threshold.

Bad for so many reasons. 1) You shouldn't be trying to get hit 2) It directly contradicts itself by working on getting hit, but then not working if you take a certain amount of damage 3) Competing with strong cleanse from water and fire already, when it should do its own thing. Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant resistance.

 

Written in Stone: Signets gain reduced recharge and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging.

Perfect talent, strong and worth taking, while changing the way you approach a whole set of existing abilities. If I was to have any complaints, it would be that too many of the signets aren't amazing even with this powerful buff, and that Perfect Inscriptions is now a boring copy-paste of this. Suggested change: Don't change.

Stone Heart: You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth.

Powerful, but has the same issue as Stone Flesh encouraging camping attunements. Additionally, this completely invalidates the effect of crits for enemy power users, even though they've had to invest two statistics (precision & ferocity) into it. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, take reduced damage from critical hits for 6 seconds.
 

I would suggest the reduction equals 50%, so it removes the base bonus from a critical hit, while still rewarding enemies for any extra ferocity they have equipped.

[crosknight.3041]

glad to see other people are in the "i'll do it myself" boat when it comes to balancing ele. havent given the traits a look over much since im focusing at the utils.

i like some of these changes though.
Stone Flesh: i would make it an earth equivilant to soothing mist, just selfish. buff lasts for 10 seconds outside of earth attunement and for it reduced strike/condi damage taken

Stone Heart: i would instead make it "can't be critically hit while you have barrier" to make the defensive aspect of this trait much more accessible outside of the earth tree.
Earth Embrace: imo to similar to weaver trait Invigorating Strikes. would keep increased incoming barrier, would add in increased outgoing barrier too as well as increased barrier cap.

earth tree imo seems like a natural home for barrier associated traits. so very much agree with most of those

[Sahne.6950]

I think its weird how some of the suggestions..... are straight up nerfs.... atleast when imagining the outcome for a support tempest.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Jski.6180]

Earth line needs more means of def support not just pure self def. I suggest going more for protection aimed where protection can give you both clears and barrier. I would also like to see stab on aura transmutation.

I also think earth line needs to be the line of creation so it should have conaj weapons not sigents. So conja weapons lower cd maybe aura on pick up and self stab generation when your holding an conja wepon.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Jski.6180

[Endaris.1452]

10 hours ago, illuminosity.8537 said:

Stone Heart: You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth.

Powerful, but has the same issue as Stone Flesh encouraging camping attunements. Additionally, this completely invalidates the effect of crits for enemy power users, even though they've had to invest two statistics (precision & ferocity) into it. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, take reduced damage from critical hits for 6 seconds.

Instead of tying this to the earth attunement switch and limiting this to a certain time, I think this could just reduce the critical damage bonus of incoming hits by 50% flat. So if someone only invested into precision but not into ferocity, crits will hit for 150% - 50% = 100% damage. If they did invest into ferocity, they might hit for 230% - 50% = 180% damage on crit. As you mention, encouraging attunement camping feels like bad design but discouraging overloading by overly relying on "on switch" traits also feels like bad design. As this is a major grandmaster trait I think it would be fair for it to be this powerful at baseline.

 

10 hours ago, illuminosity.8537 said:

Diamond Skin: Remove conditions when struck while your health is above the threshold.

Bad for so many reasons. 1) You shouldn't be trying to get hit 2) It directly contradicts itself by working on getting hit, but then not working if you take a certain amount of damage 3) Competing with strong cleanse from water and fire already, when it should do its own thing. Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant resistance.

Not necessarily a fan of trying to funnel everything into auras just because Elementalist happens to have them as skills. I feel like one "stuff happens upon applying auras" trait per traitline is enough, otherwise other traitlines might just not be competitive for aura builds anymore. Resistance is also an intentionally scarce boon because it counteracts a lot of active defenses in disabling weakness, chill, blind, slow as well as lockdown in immobilize, taunt and fear. So I think putting this on aura share would make it too accessible.

I think the general idea with this trait is that between Stone Heart and Diamond Skin you need to pick whether you want to be powerful against condi or against power damage. As you mention, condi cleanse is already associated with Fire and Water so going with resolution to reduce received damage instead seems like a very intuitive effect for whatever this trait is going to do based on the earth theme. For alternative trigger conditions or ideas, I think this could also go along the lines of "Grant resolution to nearby allies upon performing a blast or whirl combo. Grant resistance to nearby allies upon performing a leap combo". Combo gameplay has always been important for elementalist and is accessible on all of its weapons so I think this would be cool to build on, making this accessible without forcing you into an aura share build.

Alternatively, instead of resolution, granting a flat damage reduction on received condi damage also seems like a fair option given that resolution is essentially useless against specs like scourge that corrupt your boons with roughly half their available skills. Something like "Take 5% reduced condition damage for every condition on you." Granted, not very exciting because it is passive but given that condition damage counterplay has never been exciting at all to start with this would be a pretty good starting point to make this a good anti-condi trait because it balances damage you take vs ease of actually cleansing the conditions.

10 hours ago, illuminosity.8537 said:

Stone Flesh: Strike damage taken is reduced while attuned to earth.

Decent defensive effect, plays into earth's defenses / condi damage theme, but every elementalist spec is based around switching attunements. Talents should never encourage camping a single attunement. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, strike damage taken is reduced for 6 seconds.

I think the most boring thing about this is the relatively big overlap with Geomancer's training. Both are minor traits, both reduce damage taken. Sure, they have different conditions but essentially it is more of the same.

They reason why your suggested change is never going to happen is that anet followed a very specific logic for the minor traits of the attunement trait lines:

Minor Adept: Some static bonus while in that attunement

Minor Master: Something upon switching into that attunement

Minor Grandmaster: Reduced attunement cooldowns + something thematic to the attunement in general.

 

So whatever a new Minor Adept is going to be, it should probably follow that pattern. Soothing Mist kind of breaks out of that pattern because the effect lasts beyond staying on Water so you might go into the direction of something like the Mesmer's Illusionary Defense:

"Gain 2% damage reduction upon using any earth attunement skill" (or every second dunno), up to 5 stacks, lasting 5s. That way it is ensured that you effectively always have it in earth, fulfilling the criteria of being attunement specific but also lasting a bit further beyond Earth.

Additionally, if you changed it that way you could rework Geomancer's Training to consume the stacks to grant protection or resolution to nearby allies upon reaching the maximum stack threshold instead of reducing damage from nearby enemies (attunement CD reduction stays of course) which enhances the reduced damage idea in a different and also supportive direction, following the theme of earth protecting yourself and your allies.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Endaris.1452

[Endaris.1452]

11 hours ago, illuminosity.8537 said:

Strength of Stone: Gain condition damage based on your toughness. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe.

The only real issue here is that toughness is a stat players actively avoid for raiding (a problem which should be addressed, but is out of scope of these changes). Suggested change: Gain condition damage based on your vitality. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe.

This seems just a bit too convenient with the advent of ritualist gear, doesn't it? 😛 Would make it 217 extra condition damage for a DPS boon support. Not sure if such a change could even make ritualist's perform better than viper's which would be pretty broken. Then again, it would be difficult to complain about this while the meme that is harbinger still exists.

I think the main issue with the trait is that
a) The ICD on applying bleeding with immobilize makes no sense

Immobilize is already fairly inaccessible and even though a tempest specifically geared to apply this has a total of 7 sources of immobilize (8 if you want to count the downed skill), it is traitlocked into Arcane, Earth, Tempest and gives up taking any utilities / heals / elities that do other useful things. In competitive the bleed stacks are already cut down to 1 so essentially no reason to be concerned in that regard, the access to that much immobilize would always be a bigger concern than the extra damage for sure.

b) The base bonus without gear investment is too low.

When comparing with other specs, only engineer and ele are in the sad boat of only getting a 10% conversion from a main stat to condition damage while guardian and necromancer both get a 13% conversion for no apparent reason, despite their secondary trait effects being as good or better. Meaning this should be adjusted to match these two specs, potentially with split numbers for competitive cause bulky condi builds are already powerful. It wouldn't be much but it would be honest work and bring it into line with other existing traits.
Alternatively I could also see this trait being changed to something akin to the stat traits based on weapons other specs have (120 flat, 120 extra while attuned to earth). Or a combination of the two like in https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Second_Opinion. Or splitting the source between toughness and vitality so that differing gearing choices are generally more likely to benefit from this trait without making it too powerful of a modifier.a

Edited July 12, 2022 by Endaris.1452
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[Draconious.2751]

I am not sure how nerfing an "underwhelming and outdated" trait line makes it more viable. Should it be improved and reworked? Yes, but nerfing most of the attractive benefits is not the path.
 

Stone Flesh 

Suggested change: After attuning to earth, strike damage taken is reduced for 6 seconds.

Ok

Earths Embrace 

Suggested change: Gain increased incoming barrier. Gain barrier when you successfully evade an attack.

Could just get a reasonable cooldown like every other 300s CD trait in the game. Weaver has a trait similar to your suggestion (Invigorating Strikes). The combination of these two along side vigor would be too much for competitive modes.

Serrated Stones 

Suggested change: Bleeding you inflict has increased duration. Gain increased condition damage whenever you inflict bleeding on a foe.

I'm not sure why this underwhelming trait needed a nerf.

 

Elemental Shielding 

Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant barrier.

This is a massive nerf. Protection sharing via auras is what makes this trait so attractive. Massive nerf to auramancers and core ele. 

 

Earthen Blast

Suggested change: Inflict bleeding and cripple on nearby foes when attuning to earth.

Non-impactful change.

 

Strength of Stone

Suggested change: Gain condition damage based on your vitality. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe.

This probably would be fine now that Stone Flesh lost it's toughness.

 

Rock Solid

Suggested change: Magnetic auras you grant to allies also grant stability.

Massive nerf to anything not Tempest. Outside of Tempest only staff, hammer and magnetic shield have access to magnetic auras.

 

Earthen Blessing

Suggested change: Crowd control effects have a reduced duration on you.

Ok

 

Geomancer's Training

Suggested change: Don't change

Feels like a repeat of Stone Flesh but I don't have any better ideas for replacing the reduce damage taken effect.

 

Diamond Skin

Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant resistance.

I like it but auras start becoming quite overloaded with boons. Also ele typically has to trait for condi cleanse being water or fire so removing one more source of condi cleanse could harm some build potential.

 

Written in Stone

Suggested change: Don't change

Ok

 

Stone Heart

Suggested change: After attuning to earth, take reduced damage from critical hits for 6 seconds.

This trait has always been meh. Its extremely strong against power if you camp earth but ele design discourages attunement camping. I don't think giving ele another source of improved protection would be an option either.

 

 

[Stallic.2397]

Earth needs more barrier, more stab, more condi cleanse and another condi added to its repertoire. Preferably poison and weakness. 

 

This would create more build diversity across catalyst and core. Tempest would be a slight buff with the barrier and I don't see weaver benefiting much because that spec relies to heavily on fire and arcane rather than earth. 

[Serephen.3420]

Stone heart suggestion barely makes it worth taking for where it would be used, such as wvw bunker/brawler builds. Just a 50% reduction in crit damage is pretty meh.

I like the tactical element to it, to use earth in a defensive way.

If it really needs a change then make it a 50% strike and condi dng reduction for 7 seconds or so after attuning to earth. Though it's current iteration is hardly op. It just protects you a but from burst when you swap to earth, much like other active defences would but without completely nullifying damage.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[TheDarkness.6947]

On 7/12/2022 at 7:47 AM, illuminosity.8537 said:

Talents should never encourage camping a single attunement.

 

Completely disagree with this part of your reasoning.  Ele already has too many specs that strongly encourage piano playing just for the sake of it,.

I much prefer the concept of switching attunements to strategically deal with the situation as it changes from moment to moment.  If that means camping an attunement until you deem its time to swap, that feels like better, more thoughtful game play to me than constantly swapping attunements because the traits or espec mechanics encourage it.