Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’m Karsaib, ele playing on Desolation EU and as a LOT of people here, I’m pretty kitten regarding the current state of my class. You know the current state of ele, not gonna explain here. I’ll rather try in the following post to make a bunch of suggestions to make ele less mandatory, while giving it possibly different specs that would still be good at what they’re supposed to accomplish in a competitive format. It could also get another class a slot in teams currently using 2 eles.

I just wanna point out that given I’m not a balance developer or anything, the numbers I mention in the following post could sometimes seem very unbalance to you. These are just ideas to play with, and could be balanced completely differently than what I wrote here.

Evasive Arcana issue :

One big part is the way too good synergy between trait VI and XI in the arcane tree. I think Renewing Stamina (trait VI) and Elemental Surge (trait XII, currently way too weak for its cost) should be swapped, forcing to apply an energy sigil on one of their weapons for EA to be really profitable, thus putting an end to berzerker amulet abuses. To be clearer, Renewing Stamina would be trait XI and Evasive Arcana XII.

To some people, another part may be cantrips. Cantrips by themselves are good legit skills. Thing is, given current op ele specs (full bunker and berzerker bunker) use cantrips, people point them out as the problem, calling those eles “cantrips eles”. I don’t think they are actually the problem : A “cantrips ele” is mitigating tons of dmg by dodging for an incredible amount of time, with perma vigor or energy sigil, and thus healing while in water attunement. It’s not the fact that they use cantrips that makes them op. It’s just their ability to dodge for an absurd amount of time, which doesn’t come from cantrips themselves.

Signet of Restoration/soothing mist :

The other main issue in my opinion. By default, the passive effect of the signet heals for 250, 279 with Valkyrie and 352 with clerics, with no internal cooldown. Dodge rolling even applies TWO heals given the evasive arcana proc also triggers the passive effect no matter what attunement. By default, you get 1777+2*250+104 (soothing mist) = 2081hp just by dodgerolling in water. You’d get even 3 signet procs if you switch to water while dodging, for a total of 2631… An easy fix would be to give it an internal cooldown of 2 to 5 seconds, and make so that evasive arcana can’t trigger the passive effect.

As for Soothing Mist, a passive 5 point trait, it heals for 104 by default every second while in water, with a 9 second base duration, but constantly refreshes as long as you don’t leave the water attunement. I don’t know if it’s a real issue given the amount of heal and its frequency but toning it down a little bit along with other passive heals would surely make it harder for bunkers to constantly heal through almost anything, as well as figuring out if this specific trait is part of the issue.

Ride the Lightning fix :

Making it a 20 second cooldown while not touching anything else is pointless. One big, beneficial step would be to make it a 1 to 2 second cast, kind of like a charge up, with a very specific animation, being interruptable, before actually starting the skill. It should be possible to move while casting, but after the charge up is complete, ele couldn’t take any incoming damage or cc until it finishes (he would still take condi damage applied beforehand, thus being susceptible to die from them before the end of the skill). Its cooldown should also be increased to 30 seconds (or more), to make it less cookie cutter. Range shouldn’t be impacted.
This change would still allow dps/hybrid eles to have a very good mobility, while forcing them to think about when to ride the lightning a bit more, or even allow certain players to play focus without gimping their team. It should realistically be implemented in the very near future, given devs won’t most likely rework the focus (see below), thus still granting bunker eles the access to ride the lightning. If the cast time, nor the rework of focus aren’t implemented, RtL’s cooldown should be increased to 35 to 40 seconds at least…

Weapon choice :

This is the part that is the most unlikely to happen. If all the changes listed above were implamented, a major part of the problem would already be solved but would still restraint elementalists to play scepter/dagger for the most part.
To get it out of the way, dagger/dagger isn’t really a problem, coz scepter is better than dagger main hand at anything (except giving swiftness to fellow necromancer maybe…). Dagger fire 3 doesn’t really give you that much more mobility and damage is inferior to scepter’s. The real problem comes from offhand weapon. Offhand dagger is just too good compared to focus, even though focus do has great potential with a bit of a rework.

To be clear, focus should be the got-to bunkering weapon. It means auras should be somehow transferred from dagger main/offhand to focus, so that dagger main hand would be reworked for primarely damage dealing/bursting, becoming stronger than scepter for that role, though requirring to be in melee, while scepter would be hybrid medium range weapon. This would solve by itself the problem of roaming bunkers, as they couldn’t get access to RtL, while still having possibly a back off tool (lightning flash). Focus, by its versatility but restricted mobility could also be a great support off-hand in teamfights, given its ability to combo multiple auras and boons, no matter what main weapon equipped. It would also make bunkerring harder, as going for focus would restraint mobility.

Those are the changes I would make (using a double dagger set, coz it sums up most of all the changes) :

Fire : Unchanged

Water :

3 : Decreased cooldown of frozen burst to 12 seconds, in order to give access to a consistent source of melee chills, without being able to blindly spam it every time switching to water.
4 : Gale (currently focus air 5, and call it “Tidal Wave” or something of that sort) and make it a blast finisher. Frost aura would be obtainable via combo field, and would require to have a focus equipped (or staff).

Air :

3 : Shocking aura becomes focus air 4, and Swirling Winds (focus air 4) becomes focus air 5 and light combo field. New dagger 3 would be an off-global cd, hard hitting skill (with short range maybe), kinda like air 2 with scepter, to really make dagger/dagger the most bursty set.

Earth : Unchanged

For scepter, I would only slightly change water 3 skill and make it a heal over time (not considered as regen) that would heal for the same amount it currently does. It would last for a few seconds, maybe 3 or 4, and would prevent the ele from getting his hp bar full instantly, while making him more vulnerable while in water, as poison would weaken water 3’s effect, even if applied after the start of the HoT. Also, properly timed condition spikes would negate the effect of this heal.

This is what new focus skills could look like :

Fire :

4 : Unchanged
5 : Some kind of evading spell, and leap finisher, with 30 to 45 seconds cooldown.

Water :

4 : Increased radius, make it an ice combo field.
5 : Comet, becomes ground targeted, increased radius and increased stun duration from 2 to 3 seconds (not sure about this last one). Make it a blast or leap finisher.

Air :

4 : Shocking Aura
5 : Swirling Winds, becomes a light combo field.

Earth :

Unchanged (rework the animation of obsidian flesh…).

To sum up everything, the main problem of eles right now comes from passive heals and how easy it is to trigger them, given the too good synergy in the arcane tree of vigor and evasive arcana. Nerfing those passive heals by diminishing their frequency would mainly solve this problem. Dodging a burst sequence well can increase elementalists’ efficiency by an incredible amount, as it allows us to just rely on passive heals until another sequence, creating extremely large pressure uptimes, while we’re almost untouchable.

Another part being the mandatory aspect of the dagger off-hand, a Ride the Lightning nerf, as well as a focus redesign could open different possibilities and roles for elementalists.

I want to add that the problem doesn’t come from burst heals (water 3/5 for scepter dagger for instance), and, to some extent, the healing power in general. Those are NEEDED to sustain the ele, given its very low hp pool.
It doesn’t come from “cantrips” as well. All eles can heal for about the same amounts (except for full clerics, that have no damage at all, as well as an extremely low hp pool). Cantrip users heal more become they either run berserker, thus having perma vigor by critting a lot, or have an energy sigil equipped (and non-existent dmg output). In any case, they can just dodge more, thus getting the benefits from evasive arcana, as well as 2 signet of restoration procs, more often, not because they run “cantrips”.

“As for Soothing Mist, a passive 5 point trait, it heals for 104 by default every second " It heals for 94/s when traited 30 in water, without any cleric gear.

Not sure if you are the same guy who posted a wall of text of incredibly kitten changes to eles to a point of making them useless or you are another guy, but you did exactly the same. Deleting the ele class would be faster and easier.

Eles only need new playable builds, they are no where close to be as op as you describe.

Haha, no I didn’t. =)
And I didn’t know there was another topic. But the changes I listed wouldn’t make ele useless by any mean. Just make them balanced.
And I’m an ele myself btw

@Hhary

And I’m sure you are the guys that reply every post someone is talking about Elem, with empty statement and “sky is falling” attitude.

@KarsaiB

Really nice post, good ideas, not sure about them all. Could nerf to hard the DD Elem.

But I would love ot see more diversity, focus and staff elem!

All i saw was:

Eles dodge too muh, nerf!! → Most of the classes can do this, have u ever seen a ranger or engi?

Eles heal too much! nerf!! → thats needed, its their game mechanic due to such low armor and hp

Eles have too much control and mobility, nerf!! → god d/d needs it, how else is a class with no hp, and no armor, supposed to go melee against kitten warriors or rangers? We need gap closers, adding a 2s cast time to RTL and 30s cd would make it utterly crap, i can tell you by this you are terrible as an ele, considering this change only was minded to use RTL as an escape mechanic, how are we supposed to catch those sneaky thieves or rangers if RTL has a huge neon signal telling you your enemy to dodge or move away? With burning speed? lol

Ya remove shocking aura from D/D, and plus all the changes above, you have a 100% glass cannon build that cant survive a burst nor catch his enemy and has to go in melee.

Ok remove healing from eles, give them 24k base hp and rework the healing skills so they give you an evade (just as most of the rangers skills) component rather than a heal.

Remove RTL from daggers, but give them 1200 range and huge single target damaging skills. (we have staffs for aoe but it is so slow and boring no one uses it)

Also evasive arcana was nerfed in pvp already, so it will barely heal for 700-800, not to mention the 10s internal cooldown, just shows how 0 knowledge you have about the class.

Ok so first things first.

Because a class is broken doesn’t mean others aren’t too. Ranger is currently mabe even more broken than ele. Devs have to fix this.

If you read me, you’d know that’s NOT what I wrote. Their passive heals are too strong but I said their burst heals should NOT be touched, nor should cantrips. Learn to read.

Didn’t say ele has too much control. Putting shocking aura for focus would allow dagger focus to be very aura/damagy oriented (I’m currently trying to play dagger focus and it’s a LOT of fun). If you read me, once more, you’d know that I would implement a stun or daze or control skill in water, which is currently focus air 5.

RtL, I said 1 to 2 sec cast time. Yes. And I also said numbers should be played around with.

Sets are meant to be played with anyway, and making every weapon good at what they do should make for interresting hybrids.

And evasive arcana is ok now. The problem is the synergy with Reneweing Stamina that is the problem. Again, read me. It’s the signet that needs internal cd

Finally, I think I know the class well enough to talk about it. Do you ?

hharry.1967:

All i saw was:

Eles dodge too muh, nerf!! -> Most of the classes can do this, have u ever seen a ranger or engi?

Eles heal too much! nerf!! -> thats needed, its their game mechanic due to such low armor and hp

Eles have too much control and mobility, nerf!! -> god d/d needs it, how else is a class with no hp, and no armor, supposed to go melee against kitten warriors or rangers? We need gap closers, adding a 2s cast time to RTL and 30s cd would make it utterly crap, i can tell you by this you are terrible as an ele, considering this change only was minded to use RTL as an escape mechanic, how are we supposed to catch those sneaky thieves or rangers if RTL has a huge neon signal telling you your enemy to dodge or move away? With burning speed? lol

Ya remove shocking aura from D/D, and plus all the changes above, you have a 100% glass cannon build that cant survive a burst nor catch his enemy and has to go in melee.

Ok remove healing from eles, give them 24k base hp and rework the healing skills so they give you an evade (just as most of the rangers skills) component rather than a heal.

Remove RTL from daggers, but give them 1200 range and huge single target damaging skills. (we have staffs for aoe but it is so slow and boring no one uses it)

Also evasive arcana was nerfed in pvp already, so it will barely heal for 700-800, not to mention the 10s internal cooldown, just shows how 0 knowledge you have about the class.

Hey look another ELE main who is trying to defend the class when it’s disgustingly obvious how faceroll this class currently is.

Good thing devs dont listen to L2P issues.

^ the class is not face roll.The bunker build is faceroll
Now to op i dont find the ideas bad but really 1 thing.Why make rtl 30 sec cd when there are many 1200 range mobility skills that are at as low as 12 sec cd.
Make it exactly as it is(you can take full damage and be cc) but introduce a small casting time(charging )that determines the maximum range you go and drop cd back to 15 sec.See now its far easier to counter it and you dont have to bring one of the fastest mobility classes to the bottom by doing something so absurd as putting that huge cd.
You know the 20 sec cd has already afected the pve guys(travelling time etc).The 30 sec would be killing it in anything other than the small pvp maps..

kostbabis.8791:

^ the class is not face roll.The bunker build is faceroll
Now to op i dont find the ideas bad but really 1 thing.Why make rtl 30 sec cd when there are many 1200 range mobility skills that are at as low as 12 sec cd.
Make it exactly as it is(you can take full damage and be cc) but introduce a small casting time(charging )that determines the maximum range you go and drop cd back to 15 sec.See now its far easier to counter it and you dont have to bring one of the fastest mobility classes to the bottom by doing something so absurd as putting that huge cd.
You know the 20 sec cd has already afected the pve guys(travelling time etc).The 30 sec would be killing it in anything other than the small pvp maps..

When I say “class” I basically mean the only single viable spec the class has like every class in this kitten game. What I’m getting at is that ANET should buff everything else on par with these ridiculously OP specs or nerf that spec on par with everything else. It’s not even funny how stupid that D/D and or S/D bunker/sustain builds are right now.

I’m more in favor of smaller tweaks to base weapon sets but there is no beating around the bush here, cantrips and high end heal stacking is too powerful. It makes the class way too face roll easy to be able to run three stun breakers, one giving a short term invulnerability, one a mid ranged teleport with multi-faceted uses, and another giving 7 3/4 seconds of stability and protection which are arguably the strongest boons in the entire game. This makes the ele too easy to lock down in addition to their natural skill sets with the weapons and if you diminish usefulness of the core abilities to much, you’re really only targeting builds that rely on them for survival(dps specs) over ones that stack defensive utilities. If you want to address the core of the problem of the elementalist, the nerf bat must come down on cantrips.

The elemental elite needs to be dealt with as well especially the fire/water elemental. Sustain/defensive eles shouldn’t be able to put out as much pressure as they do with that out. They either need a damage reduction or dramatic reduction in their overall health to make killing them an option. You could also do a bit of good reducing Earth’s Embrace activation to 25 percent to 10 percent activation or pushing it into tier 2 earth. As it is, its too strong to run with the other sustain traits. Armor of earth needs to give 5-6 seconds max of protection and stability(maybe even 3 seconds on stability) and shouldn’t be a stun break.

I ran the 0/10/10/30/20 D/D ele in september/october with full cantrips with earth runes for high protection uptime and it crazy powerful even back then when everyone thought the class was worthless. It was always strong, and will always be breaking balance as long as stacking cantrips give you too much survival.

Since when redesign = nerf?

The only advantages eles currently have in PvP are the boons (regen, might, vigor, etc.) and healing on a relatively short CD. In every other aspect of the game other professions are stronger. By removing the only good trait synergy we have you would make the profession useless for PvP. Why would you pick an ele if he is not good at anything?

Here are my thoughts about the ele problems (copy and paste from other threads):

Build problems:

“Currently eles have to run the cookie cutter ele specs and utility skills if they want to play successfully. There are only 2 different builds to use, the D/D bunker (which is used by the majority of players) and a support staff build (only works in certain team comps). Why?

Pretty simple to explain if you take a look at the current builds:

- D/D DPS does not work, the damage is way to low for the risk you have to take. You are simply a one-shot kill.
- D/D support (most likely aura share) is pretty weak imo but the last patch may have improved the situation.

- S/D DPS is a one-shot kill again.
- S/D bunker is ok, but the split between “pure” damage and condition damage puts us in a weird situation. This is especially bad since the strong skills are really difficult to use (Dragon’s Tooth, Fire Grab and Churning Earth).
- S/D support is just bad compared to staff support.

- Staff DPS is good for PvE and WvW but bad for sPvP. It takes to long to deal the damage (e.g. Meteor Shower and Eruption). The enemy can just walk out of the AoE. Besides that you are a one-shot kill again.
- Staff tank is mediocre at best. Really bad compared to D/D and S/D.

Everything with a focus as your offhand is simply not viable. You lose the majority of your damage (earth and fire skills) and survivability (air and water skills).

For the utility skills I would say you need to pick at least 2 cantrips. The stun break is way to important for an elementalist. Cantrips are also very versatile compared to the other utility skills.

As you can see there are only 2 builds left. The D/D bunker is viable in pretty much any situation (1v1, 1v2, team fights, etc.) and team comp and that’s why it is so popular. The staff support build is stong too but needs a certain team comp to be effective.

This is why you “only” see D/D bunkers and that’s also why it is so annoying. If an ele kills you/defends a point 1v2 it is always the “bad” D/D bunker.

P.S. What I also forgot to mention is the fact that you ALWAYS need 30 points in arcana. The boon duration and attunement recharge rate is a MUST for ALL elementalist builds. The Arcana traits are also really strong compared to earth, fire and air."

RTL in particular:

“The only annoying thing about RTL was and still is the fact that you can get out of a lot of situations ONCE every 20 seconds. If you think that’s OP you should look at the thiefs and their escape mechanisms. Long stealths, several leaps, multiple shadowsteps and so on. And guess what, both professions need these mechanics. Imagine an ele without a good escape/defense. ANY bursty warrior/mesmer/etc. could pretty much one-shot you. That’s why we need some defensive abilities.”

I hope this helps. Btw this is only my experience but I am pretty sure the majority of ele players think the same way.

hharry.1967:

All i saw was:

Eles dodge too muh, nerf!! -> Most of the classes can do this, have u ever seen a ranger or engi?

Eles heal too much! nerf!! -> thats needed, its their game mechanic due to such low armor and hp

Oh yes…but i think u noticed that noone actually heals 2.5k+ just dodging around…am i wrong? An ele can refull his hp in seconds without touching 6 (That btw many times is the only healing skill given to other classes or specs) or utilities…just dodges and weapon skills…even a guardian can’t do that and he also has no mobility and no dmg if specced bunker…but yes ele (Expec valkirie, the most broken of them all) is fine, at last for those who play it, obviously..

Archaon.6245:

hharry.1967:

All i saw was:

Eles dodge too muh, nerf!! -> Most of the classes can do this, have u ever seen a ranger or engi?

Eles heal too much! nerf!! -> thats needed, its their game mechanic due to such low armor and hp

Oh yes…but i think u noticed that noone actually heals 2.5k+ just dodging around…am i wrong? An ele can refull his hp in seconds without touching 6 (That btw many times is the only healing skill given to other classes or specs) or utilities…just dodges and weapon skills…even a guardian can’t do that and he also has no mobility and no dmg if specced bunker…but yes ele (Expec valkirie, the most broken of them all) is fine, at last for those who play it, obviously..

Its not 2.5k + every time you dodge, neither on sPvP where is the only place that balance matters, not to mention you waste a dodge to heal and a lot of damage going 30 in arcana. Eles might be the only class that heals this much but also the only class with light armor and 13k base hp with only 1 viable spec.

Renewing stamina as grandmaster trait, brilliant idea.

There’s not one single viable spec. You have full bunker, bunker traits with berzerker, valkyrie hybrids, glasscanon s/d or d/d, and aurashare d/d.

This topic is made for people to give suggestions to bring better balance, hopefully. Not to be a pretext for a few clueless guys to argue about nothing and make blunt and false statements. Go somewhere else if you wanna find out who pees the furthest.

Rather busy irl atm so cant say much on topic + dont have time to read it all but ill give my opinions on the topics.

Evasive arcane – Perfectly fine the way it is now after Nerf, if anybody is still complaining then my guess is, they want you to delete elementalists.

Signet of restoration – slightly OP but only due to double proc on dodging + high up time vigour (i highly advise on not nerfing the signet itself, just things like double/tripple proc)

RTL – on this new map its EXTREMLY OP with the orb rtl but i don’t think any nerfs to the actual skill should be nerfed. or the cd. the current thing with elementalists is.. its good at everything, if the community want the class destroying, they need to decide what specific role elementalist will do better than other classes. atm its roaming ability is 1 of the good things. people only dislike eles RTL due to teams of 2-3 eles, constantly feeding themselves into point, but is that really in need of a nerf?

Weapons -

Focus just sucks apart from earth-5

Scepter is fine although some skills deserve tweak, e.g – dragons tooth been ground targetable. atm its almost impossible to land.

Dagger OP sustained dps for 1v1s/team fights the damage once again isn’t hardly noticeable unless focusing thief/mesmer
Sidenote about dagger – Burning speed needs huge dps Nerf or cd increased, 15s cd for skill which does that much damage is kinda stupid

on top of all this. frost aura needs to go back to how it was, no need what so ever for eles to get that buffed.

the main issue with this game at the moment is that the devs are horrible players, the beta/alpha testing is completely pointless since the people who do all the hard work testing/suggesting things who actually KNOW about the game, they just ignore.

and having devs who cant play balance the game around how they like it, its just stupid.

no offense to any Mod who responds/if they respond

Another thing is fire elemental – people complain about Bunker eles vs Mesmer on their close point when they just tank the element, easy solution…. use your brain. it has like 8k hp and is glass cannon, eventually we would beat Mesmer just takes some time.

Pretty good troll thread, you almost got me into posting seriously.

Some advice tho (because some people might not find it that obvious), change “Redesign” for “List of proposed nerfs”.

Hahaha, moved to the graveyard forums ;D good riddance with your bleep ideas.

Haha, bravo, mod, keep on censoring people. Even edited the title ! Keep on making your game more and more kittenty after all, whatever.

Don’t quit your day job.

hehe why do they destroy threads like this..I agree with kylex!!
I know you all hate the class but pls decide at what it should excel before making up nerf ideas and not try to cripple it at everything