The Scrying Pool continues its specialization speculations with Elementalist's Mage.

Continuing on we have the Glyph of Elemental Storage:

Glyph of Elemental Storage – While active gain a buff stack for every skill used (includes attunements). When Glyph of Elemental Storage ends, deal damage and an additional attunement based effect based on the number of stacks. (Utility Type: Glyph | Replaces Glyph of Lesser Elementals)

This skill is interesting in that it does nothing when used—at least not at first. Glyph of Elemental Storage is a delayed skill that builds up in power as more skills are used. This means that things like Quickness will help make the Glyph something incredible while Slow will have a deterring effect.

Glyph of Elemental Storage would last for a short time, maybe in the range of 5-10 seconds. At the end of this time the Mage would explode dealing damage to all nearby enemies (supporting the melee focus for the specialization). In addition to the damage, the skill would function as a blast finisher and additionally apply a condition based on the current attunement (such as burning foes if attuned to fire).

The idea behind the Glyph is to store a little of the elements every time you cast a skill to put toward future use. As such, it is tied to each skill use and not per hit. Using skills that hit multiple times such as Meteor Shower would only add a single buff stack as it is just a single skill.

Before I leave you with the last utility, Conjure Earth Pistol, I want to share a trait for the Mage.

Short Invocation – Conjured weapons are no longer ground targeted and appear in the Mage’s hands and at their feet instantly. Charges, duration and cooldown are reduced.

The one thing I don’t like about Conjured weapons are the clunkiness to them. Targeting and casting are slow and they replace all of your weapon skills when equipped. Many times, people will pick up the weapon and use a skill or two before just throwing them aside. This trait would fight that clunkiness by making them instant cast skills at the cost of a reduced amount of use from them. Instead of 15 charges, this would put them down at around 3-5 charges. This would align the skills more with how they are used, a few skills and then they are gone. The reduced cooldown however, would have no effect on the skills gained from the conjured weapons, just on the actual conjuring utility skills. Being a trait means you don’t have to equip it if you don’t want that play.

Conjure Earth Pistol – Manifest an earth pistol in your hands and at the target location. Wielders of the weapon gain toughness and power. (Utility Type: Conjure | Replaces Conjure Earth Shield)

1. Fires a fast-moving earth projectile.
2. Create an area of quicksand at target location. Pulses, dealing some damage and applying slow to enemies.
3. Fire at the ground, creating a cascade that damages, cripples and knocks down enemies.
4. Fire at the ground causing a wall to burst upward that blocks projectiles and enemy movement.
5. Fire at the ground, causing small rocks around the caster to shoot upward and form a giant boulder high above the caster. Enemies hit take gain bleeding. Use again: Crash the boulder down to the ground, causing large damage and multiple stacks of vulnerability.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams is excited to play some Stronghold on Tuesday!

Work continues ever onward for unlocking the dungeon skins. As an update, I'm still working on AC by running the dungeon and HotW through the dungeon reward track in PvP. Outside of the dungeons, work is being made on the Corrupted weapon set and on the last of the Blade Shard backpacks (just missing the green version). What are you currently working on while we wait for Heart of Thorns?

If you have a question for me or a topic you would like to see talked about here, leave a comment below. You can also tweet your question and topics to me on twitter @MattstaNinja. Also, check out my site Mattsta.Ninja that focuses on guides and more for Guild Wars 2.