Guild Wars 2

Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.
Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s.
Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier.

Great, so now it is impossible to have Elemental Attunement + Renewing Stamina + Evasive Arcana. Thanks for another Elementalist nerf while calling it a buff.

/facepalm

By nerfing some of the cheesy thief builds, it would be wise to remember that the cheesy thief builds are all we have at the moment. We defy need some compensation here. I believe thieves are one of the weaker classes atm. While a good thief can still do amazing things, the lack of condition removal in the current meta makes it a tough and often frustrating experience.

Maybe just give Hard to Catch a stunbreak and full condi cleanse without teleport. Or turn it into a Roll for Initiative trait. That way, it’s more clear where we are going to roll to. Less randomness would improve it a lot imo.

Terrible thief change. Stop nerfing the sword. You keep doing it every patch. First shadow return distance, then the stunbreak, now the skill itself too?

STOP.

I will make it short…every second or third post is about thiefs…and its about another nerf to this class…its really really sad that Anet can be so blind and only listen to whiners and keep nerfing this class…why not just remove this class from game and let all caster classes find another subject they can whine about. I normally never write in any forums in any MMO game I have played the last 10 year…gw2 is a fun game i like to play but sadly there are too many whiners in this game. Even more sad is that you are listening to them Anet. When I pvp or in wvw get killed by any class or 1 specific class I dont go into forums and whine. You know why…its becouse i know in mmo games there will allways be some nice skilled players. You dont sell Messi from Barcelona cuz he score goal in almost every match right??? Well if it was up to gw2 whiners he would be sold tomorrow. Its sad cuz kids will allways cry and its even more sad that anet is acting like their mother and give them what they want. With this said if u nerf a class then you have to give something else back to this class to keep it fair.

Crossposting from ranger boards, as this might be the goto place.

The ones that concern me.

Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500 range by 20%.
Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500-1000 range by 15%.
While a step in the right direction it’s not enough. Currently it’s 56%:72%:100% and the change will place it at 67%:83%:100% I don’t think it should be any worse (and this is the lowest I’d accept) than 80%:90%100%. At least then you wouldn’t be completly hamstringed in close range, especially in a game were melee is king.

Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor. Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.
Just thank you.

Wilderness VIII – Oakheart Salve. Decreased the recharge of this trait from 20s->15s
The regen is like 5 seconds, even with this change there are far more interresting traits in that line.

Wilderness XII – Bark Skin Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.
This is good. It’s still a bit overshadowed by Empathic Bond, but good non the less.

Nature Magic IX – Two Handed Training. Added the following functionality to this trait. Greatsword and Spear attacks have a chance to grant Fury on hit. 50% chance. 3s Fury. 10s cooldown.
On top of current functionality this is completly ok.

Nature Magic VII – Nature’s Vengeance. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.
This ok, I can’t find any complaint on this.

Beastmastery VI – Mighty Swap. The might from this trait is now applied to you and your pet.
Good, we need more of this.

While the proposed changes are a step in the right direction it still feels very lackluster. I’m not very impressed and ultimately it’ll change nothing for me. And as other poeple have noted, still missing some love to pet AI, utilities, sword 1 etc that have been discussed for a months.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The change to arcana is lovely, and it’ll open up a lot of new possibilities, but I worry about some issues that might cripple those possibilities. Here’s a few comments:

3.1. Elementalists rely too much on Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina to survive. Although it might be worth trying the scepter’s higher endurance trait now that it is at adept, I think the earth traitline should have a… worthy substitute for elemental attunement’s protection. Maybe it could have a stun breaker trait? Rock Solid could get it, but I fear it could make it too strong. Maybe as a grandmaster trait, and moving Written in Stone down a tier.

The changes we’ve done to Ele are actually going to drastically increase the amount of build diversity. The arcane recharge change really does add the flow the Elementalist needed when not spending points in Arcane. This will now allow players to stray away from spending points in the Arcane line. Ele’s will now experience faster attunement swapping as well because they will be down to 1.5s globals when they have zero points spent in Arcane and 1.2s globals with 30 points.

This makes:
13 second recharge on 0 points Arcane
12 second recharge with 10 points Arcane
11 second recharge with 20 points Arcane
10 second recharge with 30 points Arcane

Dagger ele’s will now have new specs through Tempest Defense, Elemental Shielding, and Shared Auras much more appealing, as well as being able to go up the Fire and Earth trees.

Scepter ele’s will be able to play some forms of condition builds, burst builds with more sustain, and even bunker builds.

Staff ele’s will now be able to get blasting staff from tier one and now be capable of going for a trait such as Diamond Skin, or even Fresh air or high up in the Fire line.

Here are some examples of specs I’ve been messing around with:
0/30/10/30/0 (Tempest Defense, Elemental Shielding, Shared Auras with Cantrips and Dagger/Dagger)
0/0/30/10/30 (Diamond Skin bunker build)
0/30/30/0/10 (Tempest Defense, Diamond Skin, Double Arcane with recharge burst spec)
20/20/0/10/20 (Dps staff build based around sustain from Burning Fire)
0/10/0/30/30 (Generic D/D Arcane build)
0/20/0/20/30 (Generic S/D Burst build)
0/30/0/20/20 (Fresh air build)
Many more..

We thank everyone for their feedback. We are keeping a VERY CLOSE eye on this thread and we will constantly be chatting internally until this release drops for potential things to change.

This doesn’t address the fact that current d/d eles need both Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina to go with Evasive Arcana if they want to function at all. This build isn’t even slightly overpowered, so why break it? Why not just replace Lingering Elements, which does not function, with Elemental Attunement, and give us a new master trait?

JonathanSharp.7094:

•Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.

•Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Move 1 not both. I love D/D and I usually can find reasoning by alot of the balance changes and keep a open mind but this one. I’ll go 30 arcana anyway the traits are good but neither of them make D/D ele’s to powerful based on the other changes to Elementalist mentioned.

I can understand moving 1 so those builds that don’t go all the way in arcana with these changes don’t become to strong but I don’t see it affecting those that go 30 in arcana already that is already 30 points we spend and those are good traits and I don’t see a point in putting them both together.

I usually play “classic d/d” so 30 in arcana for me and I don’t mind 30 in arcana. This change doesn’t destroy the classic build but is nerf to the classic build that has already been nerfed quite a bit.

I see it playing out that moving both to master tier ends up with Renewing stamina>Elemental attunement. With elemental attunement then becoming one of those traits that nobody takes. Because Vigor>The boons you get from elemental attunement.

Elemental attunement I feel can stay at adept with renewing going to master and it is fine.

You guys introduced several gameplay elements to help other classes deal with those classes that are “boon heavy” the vigor from renewing, and boons from elemental can be stripped or the elementalist, guardian, prismatic mesmers, can all be “punished” if they are fighting enemies that have traits that punish or strip those boons so the counter play has been implemented in regards to “classic D/D”.

Yes I love classic 0/10/0/30/30 I have played other builds but these changes to those traits nerfs classic 0/10/0/30/30 as if to “force” movement from running 30 in arcana. I like 30 points in arcana and I don’t see anything being overpowered by moving just 1 trait to master.

Something has to move to adept tier maybe a possible middle ground is to change windborne dagger to something like vigorous scepter. If you really really want to try to give the trait more playtime. I would prefer if only 1 trait was moved but this could possible be a middle ground. While also making it attractive for S/D to get basically vigor with out the boon but still having to choose it over the other traits in arcana. At the same time something like this would basically make it no reason to take renewing stamina.

So best course is to just move 1 of the traits! So that D/D still can get good endurance regen(which can still be stripped). Because Zephyrs focus only applies to Cone of Cold, Drakes Breath and churning earth nothing that anyone can possibly spam.

TL&DR: Don’t move both Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement to Master.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Damaskinos.1263:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

AgentChaos.4932:

good change to symbol of swiftness but can we have pure of voice removes 2 condi back?

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

• How is the change to symbol of Swiftness any good? So many classes move much faster then Guardians. If you want to nerf this, give us an Adept trait, that gives us flat 25% movement spead, like Warriors have it.

In many cases the symbol of swiftness change is actually a buff and not a nerf. Currently it will only apply the initial large portion of swiftness if the target does not currently have any swiftness on them. If they have swiftness on them or after that first pulse it will then add 1 second of swiftness per pulse. This is very awkward and clunky.

The change makes the spell apply a consistent 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse without the strange hidden mechanic. Basically. if you already have swiftness on the people which you using the symbol on or if you take the time to stand in the spell for the full duration then it will just be a buff. =)

But for anyone using symbol of swiftness on the move, which would be a lot more normal than standing around in a circle to gain swiftness, it is a nerf and given that the symbol often puts you in combat it is really not worth using for 4s of swiftness. Is there any chance it can apply 4s of swiftness on entry and pulse? This way if you place properly you get the same 8s as before AND remove the old clunky mechanic?

JonPeters.5630:

Engineer:

• Explosives V – Incendiary Powder. Moved to Master tier.
• Explosives VI – Exploit Weakness. Increased the health threshold from 25% to 50%
• Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets. Moved to Adept tier.
• Firearms XI – Modified Ammunition. This trait now works regardless of equipped weapon.
• Inventions V – Energized Armor. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Inventions X – Autotool Installation. Increased healing percent from 1% to 5%. * Decreased interval from 10s to 3s.
• Inventions XI – Elixir Infused bombs. Increased healing scaling by 50%.
• Alchemy V – Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Alchemy 15 – Transmute. Increased % chance from 8% to 100%. This effect can now only trigger once every 15 seconds.
• Tools VI – Speedy Kits. Increased Swiftness duration to 10s. This effect can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
• Tools XI – Armor Mods. Changed this to now trigger on struck instead of on critical hit incoming. Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 15 seconds.

Let me start off by saying that if our permanent vigor is going to be nerfed (which is fine by me) please also add by this patch equal nerfs to the 5 trait point perks for Guardian and Mesmer. Seems only fair considering that we had to invest 20 to get permanent vigor and they have to invest 5.

Moving on…
*The explosive trait changes, yes to the exploit weakness I would rather see that perk exchange when turrets become a bit more impactful. That change, in my honest opinion, won’t help turrets gain any ground as being slotted for use. Unless you have a patch coming beforehand that revamps turrets like you said Jon in a SoTG I think 6 months ago or so. Speaking of which..

*Auto tool installation-Nice to see its getting a buff, but once again objectively where turrets are it’s still not going to help turrets out when they currently die in about 4 hits. Would like to see this get merged with the metal plating since this perk seems to be about letting turrets fix themselves and allowing it to take reduced damage to heal itself back up while the engineer deals with the threat. Also would free up a trait slot for something else to help turrets function.

*Modified ammunition change isn’t bad, but I doubt it will be that good either.

*Tools Trait adjustments are mediocre at best considering that a few traits in that line are actually worth picking up. Would like to see some tweaking done for a few of these skills. Scope, for instance, benefits only power builds with moves greater than 600 range. The total number of skills that are even remotely viable with this trait are 4 skills. Four skills. Another example is packaged stimulants, you have to re-run over the bandages, antidote, or stimulants when I just tossed them directly onto you. That trait really needs a QoL fix. Also, if you ever decide to put more effort into turrets, I would respectively ask that you move the toolkit perk down to adept tier in this trait line or in a different trait line since tool belt cooldown isn’t effective when your tool belt is 50% detonate from having turrets on the field.

For my own partial sanity I must ask this, are engineer turrets even being thoughtfully worked on at all? I ask this because I fail to see why this turret targeting even was given the ok since most of the engineers damage kitten nal is AoEs and multi-hit abilities. It has also been months since we were told turrets were being looked into functionality wise and I have yet to see anything that supports that claim. I am not trying to be mean, but it is generally frustrating that I can’t use certain utilities and play the style I want to play as because core parts of the build just won’t function appropriately.

(I also know that there are builds that don’t function similarly on other classes, but I can only speak of what I know to be true.)

LOL MORE nerf to ranger…. Just awesome.
No matter, I have 8 professions max gear max level that can be used in WvW.
As long as you dont touch my Engineer I’m fine with it.

Speaking as someone who has played a WvW D/D Ele since release, but finally abandoned ship and rerolled as a Guardian last month — these changes look very well intended but poorly executed.

Please keep in mind that by the stats alone the Ele is the squishiest class in the game, combining both the lowest HP and worst armor type. We rely heavily on things like Vigor, Protection, Regeneration, water attunement swaps, Cleansing Wave on dodges, etc to not get flattened. So while I’m very interested in the idea of making Ele builds more flexible, right now the reality is that our access to those tools is getting nerfed.

I don’t see how I would be supposed to put out reasonable DPS while not getting splattered whenever someone looks at me. Being in melee range with Ele stats is terrifying and these changes make it harder without making it more rewarding. If these changes shipped today, I wouldn’t even consider going back to maining my Ele.

Can Elementalist get a fix to Lingering Elements? Arcana minor Master trait.

I love everything about this. Good job, Anet.

On a side note and mesmer-wise:

i)
Can you stop focusing so much on mantras and resuming mesmer changes to either that or shattering? I know that it’s important to have mantra’s being useful but maybe try to make them more fun to play first? (not sure how this could be accomplished, tho; maybe have passives while unready? or buffing up the invulnerability mantra’s trait?) They’re not really fun to play as they are now, at all. I feel like they’re only truly useful as in stack increased damage output for PvE speed kill challenges.

ii)
You really need to do something about the torch’s phantasm. It’s completely useless even in confusion builds. Also because retaliation in this game is pointless; it scales terribly. Give it a blind instead of confusion for example or boon conversion instead of retaliation. Anything but it’s current state. I use the torch and refuse to summon it unless I’m desperate for shatter fodder. Even my clones are more useful.

iii)
I would also invite you to take a general look at all the clone’s effects. I currently main a prismatic clone factory condition build in sPvP and I’m forced to use sword+pistol/sword+torch (and my build is borderline OP) because every other clone type (exception to the staff one) SUCKS.

How can sword clones inflict vulnerability and remove conditions, the staff ones inflict random boons and conditions and the GS and the scepter do absolutely nothing?

This is also why the scepter is in such a crappy state for mesmers (even thought your last scpeter changes have been a huge improvement!), The GS would be in a similar state if it’s phantasm wasn’t completely OP (multistrike, area-damage, stays at relative safe range, summons from max range AND causes cripple… I don’t even..). But the scepter… Come on, give it some love.

In my pure clone/condition build I have zero interest in using the scepter a.k.a. the clone condition weapon(!) because it’s clones are useless (and because blocking sucks even thought torment is awesome [more about blocking in the next post]. Give scepter’s clones ANY effect! half a stack of confusion?; let them summon other clones (with a really slow attack speed)?; anything.

iv)
Mesmer’s have access to a really cool block build that every other month I go back to trying and always – very quickly – remember why I gave up in the first place. And I’d like to see more players encouraged to try that out – as with other block builds. Blocking can be extremely fun.

But currently blocking sucks if you’re fighting pet classes (minion builds, spirit builds, phantasms/clones, turrets) because you’re constantly being hit by 3000 minions and your precious effects don’t mirror to the player controlling them; which makes the build 100% unreliable against half your opponents.

Can’t block effects trigger on the person who summoned the pets, even if just for a percentage? This would buff the more offensive side of guardian block too (and necro retaliation builds if they ever existed), also it could even make retaliation viable (unlikely tho).

v)
One last point, more than changing the traits, a lot of wasted potential happens on skills. If you look at things like arcane thievery or mimic for example, and how there’s next to no incentive to using those skills either because they’re unreliability in fast paced battles or the existence of way superior alternatives (feedback, null field) it’s clearly something that needs and could bring change.

Hell, I would even argue other skill changes for signet of inspiration and veil (I know wvw people would kill me instantly tho). Yes, I know they have very strong situational uses but still, they’re not really doing much for build diversity.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I’m really passionate about mesmers.

Yoshifxe.8346:

Let me start off by saying that if our permanent vigor is going to be nerfed (which is fine by me) please also add by this patch equal nerfs to the 5 trait point perks for Guardian and Mesmer. Seems only fair considering that we had to invest 20 to get permanent vigor and they have to invest 5.

That would be reasonable. If they are against perma vigor, they should fix it for all classes.

I support all these changes to the elementalist. In particular, I think Burning Fire and Diamond Skin (in their proposed form…) will provide just enough incentive to sway us away from water and arcana, and should go some ways in creating solid build diversity. In my opinion, this is fair compensation for moving our most valued adept arcana and water traits up to master tier. Overall, I believe these are healthy and balanced changes for eles and the current state of pvp.

about the thiefs..

the way i see it is that thiefs can still use D/P combo for stacking some stealth ,but instead of using that combo for regening ini and some health,they will only be able to escape and run away from the fight.

The only solutions i can think of in the moment is to either build up on armor and health and some other means of survivability so we don’t have to rely on entering a long stealth (that wont be as effective as it used to be anyway) to escape a fight or finish off a fight.

that…or going some sort of condition build..like the one i saw on one of the devs livestream about thieves a few days ago

Taldren.7523:

Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.
Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s.
Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier.

Great, so now it is impossible to have Elemental Attunement + Renewing Stamina + Evasive Arcana. Thanks for another Elementalist nerf while calling it a buff.

/facepalm

I also found that quite hilarious. They have no clue what they’re doing. Simultaneous nerf + “buff”

lol at where the ele is right now and where it will be.

I forgot to mention this in my posts earlier, but thank you ANet for posting this and opening up communication on future changes. It really makes a difference to me to have your open and honest perspectives on balance changes BEFORE they go into place. I also like that you’re opening up communication for feedback.

I hope you find the feedback you need here and are able to make the necessary changes to keep the game going strong. =)

Dahkeus.8243:

I forgot to mention this in my posts earlier, but thank you ANet for posting this and opening up communication on future changes. It really makes a difference to me to have your open and honest perspectives on balance changes BEFORE they go into place. I also like that you’re opening up communication for feedback.

I hope you find the feedback you need here and are able to make the necessary changes to keep the game going strong. =)

I agree, this is a really solid step forward. Thanks for taking the time to do this and taking the player’s reasoning/suggestions into consideration.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of times, when running standard Necro condie builds, the bleeds actually do a large portion of your damage if they are allowed to stack on a target. Burning is nice, and Torment can be decent, and of course Poison brings down opposing heals. But the Bleeds are where a large amount of the sustained damage comes from.

We want to bring down that raw dmg but still allow the Necro the ability to “shut down” targets. Notice we’re not bringing down Chills much, or Vulns, or Blinds. We don’t mind the Necro shutting targets down, we just don’t want them also doing a ton of condition damage on top if it.

For Dhumfire and Terror: we have plans on reworks for those down the road, but they won’t make it in for this patch. We have plans for those, but they’re a little further down the “balance” road.

Thanks for the feedback!

While I totally understand wanting to decrease the condition pressure a necromancer is capable of I can’t help but wonder… why the staff? The staff is not a necessary tool to achieve that pressure nor is it a particularly good weapon on its own. You’d be hard pressed to find any necromancer using the staff as his primary tool of carnage so why nerf its damage potential when it’s already so lackluster? Surely there are better things to target if you want to reduce this pressure.

I just think that both elemental attunement and renewing stamina being moved up is kind of too much to prevent power creep on ele.Obviously i cant tell or pretend i know the outcome with nerfs of other classes.But the classic d/d ele and all ele builds with 30 in arcana wont see a buff from the attunement base reduction change at all..while this will be a harsh nerf to a subpar although fun build that is kind of tradition for ele now..
Just move only 1 and see how it goes.Mesmer has more escapes than ele nad gets perma vigor for nothing.And protection..i dont see how i can play ele without the protection from swapping to earth..even if i get 10 or 20 more trait points in exchange
Also that diamond skin trait.. lol prepare for major crying

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Damaskinos.1263:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

AgentChaos.4932:

good change to symbol of swiftness but can we have pure of voice removes 2 condi back?

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

• How is the change to symbol of Swiftness any good? So many classes move much faster then Guardians. If you want to nerf this, give us an Adept trait, that gives us flat 25% movement spead, like Warriors have it.

In many cases the symbol of swiftness change is actually a buff and not a nerf. Currently it will only apply the initial large portion of swiftness if the target does not currently have any swiftness on them. If they have swiftness on them or after that first pulse it will then add 1 second of swiftness per pulse. This is very awkward and clunky.

The change makes the spell apply a consistent 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse without the strange hidden mechanic. Basically. if you already have swiftness on the people which you using the symbol on or if you take the time to stand in the spell for the full duration then it will just be a buff. =)

Mesmer focus 4 (temporal curtain) has the same issue, it doesn’t apply swiftness if they have any on them. Will this possibly be fixed or changed to apply swiftness if they haven’t run through it allready?

Elementalist:
Water changes make sense given the new Earth trait, Diamond Skin. Ppl seem to be misquoting you on Diamond Skin. Your description says “conditions cannot be applied to you”. Quite different from granting condition immunity. Shuffling of Arcane seems reasonable in light of the other improvements. Not to say that the improvement to the base cooldown isn’t great, but halving the attunement cooldown really detracts from putting points into the Arcane line.

Guardian:
Opening up more damage options for Guardians is much appreciated. I don’t think damage is terrible now, but it was grossly lacking for options. Depending on the damage, Shattered Aegis could be really nice in a group setting (assuming aegis applied to allies gets this effect as well). The Searing Flames change looks awesome; always wanted to use this trait, but the long cooldown coupled with the lack of micro control over when it is spent kept me away from it. Though the Zeal line is still a big turn off, Kindled Zeal with Supreme Justice could be very interesting…

Warrior:
Crack Shot down to Adept is quite helpful for including the rifle more; less contention with “must have” traits. I assume the reduction in hammer damage is to target the hammer is more CC; so should the CC on the hammer be slightly improved so the weapon isn’t watered down?

Definitely appreciate the early preview and, most of all, the reasoning. Gives us players a clearer picture.

oZii.2864:

JonathanSharp.7094:

•Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.

•Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Move 1 not both. I love D/D and I usually can find reasoning by alot of the balance changes and keep a open mind but this one. I’ll go 30 arcana anyway the traits are good but neither of them make D/D ele’s to powerful based on the other changes to Elementalist mentioned.

I can understand moving 1 so those builds that don’t go all the way in arcana with these changes don’t become to strong but I don’t see it affecting those that go 30 in arcana already that is already 30 points we spend and those are good traits and I don’t see a point in putting them both together.

I usually play “classic d/d” so 30 in arcana for me and I don’t mind 30 in arcana. This change doesn’t destroy the classic build but is nerf to the classic build that has already been nerfed quite a bit.

I see it playing out that moving both to master tier ends up with Renewing stamina>Elemental attunement. With elemental attunement then becoming one of those traits that nobody takes. Because Vigor>The boons you get from elemental attunement.

Elemental attunement I feel can stay at adept with renewing going to master and it is fine.

You guys introduced several gameplay elements to help other classes deal with those classes that are “boon heavy” the vigor from renewing, and boons from elemental can be stripped or the elementalist, guardian, prismatic mesmers, can all be “punished” if they are fighting enemies that have traits that punish or strip those boons so the counter play has been implemented in regards to “classic D/D”.

Yes I love classic 0/10/0/30/30 I have played other builds but these changes to those traits nerfs classic 0/10/0/30/30 as if to “force” movement from running 30 in arcana. I like 30 points in arcana and I don’t see anything being overpowered by moving just 1 trait to master.

TL&DR: Don’t move both Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement to Master.

THIS
both these traits are directly related the the elementalists survivablity. d/d hardly has a place in the current meta. i understand build diversity but this would be bad change.
DO NOT MAKE THIS CHANGE

Awesome, so where are the PvE balnce notes?

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we really appreciate you guys giving us a heads up with the potential changes so early on. Thanks a lot.

I’d like to comment on some of the Guardian changes if I may:

While mostly interesting (The Searing Flames and Supreme Justice changes are very encouraging. Even the Pure of Heart has promise), I feel that with the Powerful Blades, and Zealous Blades changes, you may be pushing damage Guardians even further towards sword and greatsword, and the other really cool, but much less popular weapons will see even less play.

Mace:
For damage it’s quirky but I like it. Probably not as strong as sword now but the difference is small enough. With the extra damage on sword it makes it an even weaker choice that it already is, so I’d like to see some Quality of Life changes for it to keep it interesting.

Faithful Strike: From 1 second —> 0.5 second casting time (like sword third hit).

Considering sword auto 3rd hit, this doesn’t seem special enough to warrant the painfully slow last hit, especially with the lack cleave. It’s hard enough staying on targets as it is with limited access to swiftness on the slow Guardian. Would really appreciate this change.

Symbol of Faith: 1.25 second cast to 0.75 second casting time (like Symbol of Swiftness)

Similarly this just feels painfully slow. Symbol of Swiftness on staff feels great speed-wise. The current speed just makes Guardian mace even less fun to use.

Hammer:
The break-stun on Launch change hurt hammer Banish pretty badly, especially with such obvious animation anticipation (which in itself is awesome. Really high skill cap to use. Thanks for that)… Also it’s always had issue with the last hit on the auto like mace. It’s just too sluggish. I like the idea of the seeming weight of the weapon but it’s just a bit too much. Especially considering how great Warrior hammer auto feels.

Symbol of Protection: Cast time 1.25 seconds —> 0.75 seconds. Also allow the trait Writ of Persistence behave the same as all the other symbols. It seems it doesn’t currently add 2 seconds of duration. Potentially a bug.

Banish: 25 seconds cool down —> 20 seconds (in sync with GS 4, and make it slightly more effective).

Ring of Warding: 40 seconds —> 30 seconds.

The area denial benefit of this skill has taken a bit of a beating thanks to the ever increasing number of Stability sources. This will also bring it in line with GS 5, Binding Blade.

Glacial Heart: Cool down 30 seconds —> 20 seconds. 5% damage increase with the Hammer. Triggers on landing Mighty Blow with 100% chance.

This trait probably has the coolest make in the game! It’s unfortunately a little underwhelming. Hammer really falls behind the other weapons in damage and while the animation and cool down changes above would really help, I feel it needs a 5% damage bonus trait to stay competitive. Also the random nature of the Chilled proc is too painful to use for PvP purposes at the moment. I think tying it to a skill would make it insanely cool and almost as cool as it’s name.

Thanks for reading my WoT!

honestly as main war i think if u nerf the hammer and mace u are killing the only builds that work in pvp for that class still 1 on 1 u cant kill good necro,engi,thief or ele dosent mather how GOOD u are and even if u conecet all the hits whit not singel doge from the oponent and this nerf is making me stop play im not some kid that qq for no reason iv TEST each outer build im playing since start i have all armors all weapons and none TRUST me none works for wvsw or s pvp then hammer cuz tehy will just kite U UNTIL U DIE UNTIL U DIEEEEE ty arena net if u put this into the game i have 2 options gear up my engi and ranger or stop play and i dont like to grind all over ascendet gear for those caracters pls think again what u doing u killing the only build that works range have always been easy to play and u cant keep up whit them as war melee is milion times harder + earshaker have stupid long animation whic good players 90% of the time they doge it

I’ll echo what others are saying and say that this is so awesome, thanks for allowing us to get involved!

I’m digging the warrior changes personally, but I’m ever so curious as to how you guys feel about Greatsword for warrior in it’s current state? Is it in a place where you are comfortably happy with how it plays? Hundred Blades and Arcing Slice are usually pretty big skills that come up in discussions when the topic of refining the Greatsword for warrior comes up, and previous posts from dev’s have hinted that you guys have looked at these skills. Are there any current plans or skill changes in progress for GS on Warrior?

Before you are swayed by the vigor hate train, I wanna point out something. Mesmers is capable of having nearly perma vigor uptime. But that means you have to boost up a lot of crit chance, pretty much running zerker to get perma vigor and it’s a huge tradeoff in term of survivability. If you take a look an engineer they can gain perma vigor with sacrificing only 20 points which go into defensive build anyway. In addition, mesmers have to constantly engage in fighting to get the so called perma vigor. Engineers get in on demand.

Think carefully before you throw vigor nerf everywhere.

I’d like to thank the devs for doing this, especially for outlining the philosophy behind the changes, and comment on some of the proposed Thief changes.

Quick Recovery
I approve of the change to the generic initiative rate and think it is a good change that will make thieves much less dependent on traits to generate initiative. However, I think that changing Quick Recovery in the proposed way will only serve to make it a very underused trait. With the proposed change Quick Recovery gives the same initiative as Infiltrator’s Signet, only without any of the other benefits, like the stun breaker, shadowstep, etc. To compensate for the decreased initiative regeneration, I think it would be best to add a secondary effect to the trait, though I’m not certain what effect.

Assassin’s Reward
I approve the idea of making this trait more effective, however increasing the scaling with Healing alone won’t accomplish much on it’s own since many thieves do not spec into Healing. I propose splitting the scaling by increasing the scaling with initiative of the skills used and Healing instead of just Healing. A 10/25% split or similar would be better received given the increased initiative regen.

Hard to Catch
I like that this trait is becoming more available, but having a movement skill you cannot fully control can be disastrous with the game’s heavy emphasis on positioning. I think if there was a better way for the thief to control the effects of the trait it would help people adopt the trait.

One way to do this would be to change the trait to make Steal a stun breaker. Even fully traited into steal that would mean a stun breaker every 21 seconds, which isn’t far from the 24 second strun breaker you can get with Signet Use. This would give the player complete control of when the escape occurs and make the trait much more reliable. If combined with the idea from earlier to make Steal shadowstep you forward even without a target it would live up to the trait’s name.

About Thiefs:

Pro

• General Initiative Gain to reduce the dependency of Traits that increase Initiative Gain
• Increase of Practiced Tolerance, but I think it should be increase from 5% to 10%
• Sundering Strikes becoming an alot more reliable source for dealing vulnerability
• Critical Haste improvement, letting finally Thiefs becomes slightly bit the fastest class of all when it comes down to Attack Speed with a more reliable souce of constant quickness
• Nerf to Perma Stealth and Mechanics that gave Thiefs too much recovery within Stealth in regard of Initiative

Neutral

• To all of the changes that reduced Initiative Gain from 2 to 1.
  I don’t think that really all of those changes are needed.
• Opportunist Change.
  I’d rather like to see getting that trait redesigned with a complete new effect, when it could lead to the point that traits that gave 2 initiative will give in future only 1 initiative. I think this is just based on the opportunist buff, so revert those changes rather and give Opportunist a new unique helpful effect, somethign like:

• Gain Stealth for 3 seconds, whenever you perform a Dodge Roll, as long your Health is below 90%. Shadow Steps from Stealings will leave you also from now on in Stealth for 5 seconds*

Contra

• The Changes to Hard to Catch and Assassins Reward.
  While I like the change up to the point, that you want to buff the healing power, I absolutely dislike your discision here that you want to change assassins reward to Grand Master for that silly useless Hard to Catch trait, which is only very situational of any benefit, whereas assassins reward is ALWAYS benefitial while in combat, especialls when beign in Melee Combat.
  Instead if buffing/moving AR to Grand Master, make this change:

Signet of Malice
Passive Healings from Hits get increased by 25%. Recharge Time of this Skill gets increased from 15 Seconds to 20 Seconds. The Base Active Healing at Lvl 80 gets increased from 3275 to 4250 and the Activation Time gets increased from 1.25 Seconds to 1.75 Seconds. Signet of Malice will gain a new Effect: Passive: Cures every x Hits Torment from you/nearby allies. Active: Fears and Torments an Enemy the next time you hit critical..

If you just want to move Hard to Catch to Master for the sake of it being there only, then I suggest you to change Quick Recovery to Grand Master and change its effect to following:

Quick Recovery
Moved to Grand Master – Changed its effect to the following effect:
When you get knocked downed, the KD Duration will be reduced for you by 50% and you will gain for a few seconds Regeneration and Stability to prevent getting instantly knocked downed again.
——
Also please consider some other serious changes to this class, that the thief class desperately needs to become alot lesser dependant from stealth.

1) Redesign the Shadow Step Mechanic into a Fast Movement/Dodge Feature instead of letting it be a boring Instant Teleportation and give SHadow Steps a fittign new Animation, that looks like the Thief rushing through a shadowlike other dimension.
Let Stealth become a kind of different dimension that changes also visually the environment for the Thief, how the surroundings do look to them (being veiled in a shadowy dark grey look or something)
Shadow Steps should be quick movements from A to B, which just let the Thief automatically dodge incoming attacks/damage, while the movement animation is active. The Animations for something like that are very well done in Blade & Soul. Compare it with GW2’s Shadow Step Mechanic and you should easily understand, what I mean. It would also help in making Thief moves look “faster”.

2) Improve the Steal Feature by redesigning the stolen skills to make them more useful.
Thiefs should be able to steal more items, than only 1. Increase it to 3 and let us choose the stolen item we want to use, before we press F1 to decide which stolen item we want to use against a foe.
Stealing from an enemy should confuse the enemy also too as a basic effect of Steal to add a weakening effect to the steal mechanic.
Either this, or it should instantly add a long lasting 10 stacks of vulnerability – you stole something from your foe, they should be really weakened somehow by that, or confused about it, how it could just happened to them.

3) Move the Venom Skills away from the Utility Skills and change them to F2-F4, giving Thiefs basically 3 specific venoms, that should have a way bigger influence on the overall weapon skills of the thief (use this to give GW2 some good old GW1 Assassin Skills more back under the thief), to make this class more versatile and unpredictable and more useful as group supporter/debuffer too. This would give you the option to add a few new utility skills and a new more useful Elite Skill to the class to replace the venom’s old places.

virtue.7235:

oZii.2864:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Move 1 not both. I love D/D and I usually can find reasoning by alot of the balance changes and keep a open mind but this one. I’ll go 30 arcana anyway the traits are good but neither of them make D/D ele’s to powerful based on the other changes to Elementalist mentioned.
I can understand moving 1 so those builds that don’t go all the way in arcana with these changes don’t become to strong but I don’t see it affecting those that go 30 in arcana already that is already 30 points we spend and those are good traits and I don’t see a point in putting them both together.
I usually play “classic d/d” so 30 in arcana for me and I don’t mind 30 in arcana. This change doesn’t destroy the classic build but is nerf to the classic build that has already been nerfed quite a bit.
I see it playing out that moving both to master tier ends up with Renewing stamina>Elemental attunement. With elemental attunement then becoming one of those traits that nobody takes. Because Vigor>The boons you get from elemental attunement.
Elemental attunement I feel can stay at adept with renewing going to master and it is fine.
You guys introduced several gameplay elements to help other classes deal with those classes that are “boon heavy” the vigor from renewing, and boons from elemental can be stripped or the elementalist, guardian, prismatic mesmers, can all be “punished” if they are fighting enemies that have traits that punish or strip those boons so the counter play has been implemented in regards to “classic D/D”.
Yes I love classic 0/10/0/30/30 I have played other builds but these changes to those traits nerfs classic 0/10/0/30/30 as if to “force” movement from running 30 in arcana. I like 30 points in arcana and I don’t see anything being overpowered by moving just 1 trait to master.
TL&DR: Don’t move both Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement to Master.

THIS
both these traits are directly related the the elementalists survivablity. d/d hardly has a place in the current meta. i understand build diversity but this would be bad change.
DO NOT MAKE THIS CHANGE

tayloriusrex.4532:

piffdaddy.8014:

iriyabran.6218:

So you want to take away some of the need for eles to go into arcane and you actually do exactly the opposite by moving multiple mandatory traits up in tier you force people to invest even more and even more trait points in water and arcane. Also people who go high in arcane go for “evasive arcane” NOT for the attunement cooldown.
You basically doom us to set ourself in stone with 30 water 30 arcane and 10 whatever, the attunement recharge won’t matter and diamond skin genuinely made me laugh. I wish good luck to everyone who decides to test spending 30 trait points and trying to stay over 90% health in PvP often enough for it to be a trait that justifies the investment and sacrifice of everything else.
I am not even joking when I say this I really don’t know how you guys play ele if you play it at all.

Quoted for kitten truth…I hope anet reconsiders some of these changes to arcane and water to avoid “power creep” when the “power” we are getting is not even worth going for. So basically we end up with unneeded nerfs. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I agree with these posts very strongly. For those of us in the WvW community these changes are mind baffling.

QFT ^
You want build diversity for eles…
- Remove attunement CD % from arcana and make the set attunement cd 10 seconds.
-> replace attunement cd% with celestial +to all stats or something else.
- DO NOT move our only worthy adept skills in arcana and water to master tier.
-> Youre doing the exact opposite of giving us diversity and making us go with atleast 40 points into arcana and water for vigor/boons, 1 condi cleanse.
-> instead you need to keep said skills at the adept trait tier. Fix Evasive arcana to have either no ICD or a 5 second ICD to let us free up a lot of points from water.
- The only viable d/d build atm is the standard 0/10/0/30/30… because… we rely so much on boons, dodges, short attunement cds, and condi cleanse. Anyone who says otherwise has never faced a competent player in any situation.
Why else do you think there were NONE, ZERO, NADDA, NO ONE, NOT ONE, ZILCH players using an elementalist in the last PAX tournament… its not a kittene. Because the ele class is already practically destroyed for anything other than a gimmicky easily avoided s/d burst build let alone a staff that you cant 1v1 with. If this goes into effect youre guaranteeing that noone will ever play an ele in Tpvp and noone will be using anyD/D builds in wvw.
-> FIX lingering elements or change it for Elemental attunement.

Elemental Attunement being moved to Master tier is going to hurt pretty bad. Will it at least be getting buffed so that it provides more than a single stack of Might when attuning to Fire? Also disliking the moving of Cleansing Wave to Master, it is a good trait that gives a good little burst effect when attuning to Water.

As far as the Earth 5 trait, I would instead like to suggest that it give a larger boost to Toughness once you attune to Earth, but have said boost only last for 3-5 seconds or so. That will help to encourage players to swap into and out of attunements to keep up the pressure on their foes.

Finally, I don’t see any changes to the Flame Barrier trait, are there any plans to change it, or is it currently believed to be good enough as it is?

Roy Cronacher.1576:

vangedas.7358:

Diamond Skin

- this can be absurdly broken. Please, please, do not go with this. Not only pure passive immunity to conditions is very powerful, cheesy and and cannot be counter-played, but this new trait would literally kill specs like trap ranger, not to mention it would hurt necromancers.
Once again, do not go with this trait, it would be a huge mistake.

There actually is counter play to this trait unlike some other similar mechanics. The goal of the elementalist with this trait is to stay above 90% hit points while the counter play is to do a bit of physical damage to the elementalist to drop them below this threshold in order to get the conditions rolling on them, which will in turn help keep them below that threshold.

In SPvP an elementalist can reach a maximum of around 20,000-21,000 hit points. This means that 2100 would be the most damage you would need to do to an elementalist to break through this trait and in most cases it would be a lower amount than that. That is not very much damage needed to do in order to start applying conditions. This still leaves room for the elementalist using healing traits/skills and kiting to try to stay above that threshold to increase their survivability vs conditions.

We have been doing internal testing and it feels like it in a good place for a tier 3 trait. That being said though and as a reminder, none of these changes are set in stone yet and are subject to change.

What about this situation, a condition necro is fighting with an opponent. He got the opponent down. Then an ele with diamon skin comes up and starts rezzing the downed opponent… that’s like a guaranteed rez. Most condi necro run scepter and staff, that would be impossible to deal with considering the necro has very gimpy direct dmg already and has to chew through ele’s protection/toughness/vit/regen.

I can’t imagine how ridiculously OP it would be in a GD/ELE zerg blob.

•Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
•Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

this is way too much. Ur killing hammer dmg for the other none meta hammer builds. Moving unsuspecting foe is enough to tone down dmg since now I have to make a choice between
a) getting something else and loseing the crit bonuses all together

b) shifting 10 points away from defense and losing merciless hammer(because in condiwars2 cleansing ire is required).

c) losing 10 points in discipline which will lower my overall crit dmg.

You only see big hits from hammer on CRIT and now no matter how u slice it im goin to lose the crit chance, the crit dmg or both. The devs need to play some hammer banner, or hammer shouts first before they start destroying the lower dmg output those builds already have.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

a t s e.9614:

Healing signet needs NO NERF , don’t listen to the whiner . Warrior has no sustain outside of high regen . Those hammer dmg nodes nerf are perfect . But im dissapointed about thief changes honestly , S\D is the only viable build anet

The change to initiative regain baseline is a huge buff to ALL thief builds, so don’t jump so early to those conclusions!

Huge buff?! i beg to differ… it is a undeniable nerf, if the init regen traits are getting NERFED by 50% and the natural regen “buffed” by 25% meaning thieves will gain 4 init in 4 sec instead of the current 3 init every 4 sec wile loosing 50% of the regen from traits… I am very bad in math but looking at the numbers HOW can you say it is a BUFF?!

Why nerf thieves again?! this time offensively by reducing init gain by quite allot and and defensively by reducing the vigor by 50%…. as if the thieves had any survivability at all besides dodging…

I’m sure you will go on with these changes and nothing we say will change your mind, this threads are made to give us the illusion that were being given the opportunity to participate in development but we all know we have no influence whatsoever.

So yeah… go ahead and stomp thieves in the face once and for all… :’(

Hello Jon and Anet.

First, thank you for letting us know the balance preview and talking with us about it!

Now, I would like to talk about the D/D ele. I can’t say I’ll be objective because I only play the D/D from the first day and only that. But I want to give you my point of view anyway. ^^

I find many changement interesting but I’ll only talk about the point I really don’t like.

•Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.

Well, I normally use 20 points in water with V and IX. I only use two cantrip, so I would rather choose the cd reduction over Soothing Disruption. The V is indeed a powerful trait and I can’t remove it from my build. Sadly, V and IX will not be possible anymore without 30 points in water… But like you said, it may be too powerful combined with the new trait in Fire or Earth. So I can understand the change.

•Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
•Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

While I agree that V is really powerful, and perhaps, have to move to the master tier, I don’t understand why VI have to follow the same way?

Elemental Attunement is too important to give it up. So how we’re supposed to have access to Vigor? With the III Water trait and using a full bar of Cantrip?
The many dodge available with Vigor is a part of the D/D gameplay. We need to dodge for our survivability and for the Arcane XI but not only that. It’s a important part of our mobility in combat.

Well, it will still possible to have the V and VI with 30 points in Arcane but without XI. Sounds like a unnecessary tradeoff.

I’m glad you want to increase the diversity of build but I don’t think it’s a good idea when the new change nerf the already existent spec, which is not even OP and provides great fun. Because the way I see it, It’s indeed a huge nerf to the way I play -and the way I want to play my D/D ele.

In fact, these change destroy my spec…

Looks good. Balances seem adequate. Of course the OP classes will scream nerf (thinking warriors and thieves)…now they’ll have to think a little :-)

JonPeters.5630:

• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.

This is going to really hurt Elementalist survivability by forcing them to choose between either Cantrip Mastery and and Cleansing Wave. Instead of helping Elementalists this change is hurting them. To spec for survivability both Cleansing Wave and Cantrip Mastery are very much needed. Please don’t nerf access to Cleansing Wave.

I really like a lot of other changes however.

Ele comments:

Many people have already pointed out the issues with the proposed changes to the Water line, along with the Arcana changes. Honestly I don’t see how most builds won’t just gravitate towards 20 in water and at least 20 in arcana (if not the full 30 as usual for Evasive Arcana, the actual reason for buying into arcana, not the cooldown), which hardly increases build diversity.

I also want to point out the lousy condition removal elementalists have currently; unless you run staff, you also cannot share condition removal with allies at all, unless you have Cleansing Wave (and Evasive Arcana) — but now you must spend more in water to keep that ability. Staff is useful for a certain meta in WvW, but is lousy for basically everything else. D/D and S/D (and */F, ha ha ahahaha--ahem) are far more tricky to keep alive in a blob in WvW, being ultra squishy, and I feel required to keep 10 points in earth to stay alive (plus lots of dodging). The changes to water mean I’m going to have to DROP those 10 points, since I have enough problems with getting overwhelmed with conditions as it is.

These are not major issues in PvE. They are very major issues in WvW.

JonPeters.5630:

Necromancer:
For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud. Increase recharge from 15 to 25.

.

TLDR: Don’t do it. This seems counterproductive.

There aren’t a lot of ways for Necro’s to apply Weakness. AoE weakness is a good offensive support, and more importantly increases sustain for the necro.

Increasing the cool down on this trait makes it less attractive.

It’s triggered by entering DS so you don’t have much choice of when and where it targets, it might have been a good time to go into DS – but not a good time to active Enfeebling blood, there is no way to track the cool down of it so you don’t waste it – there are so many cleanses out there. Last I check it already applied 1 less bleed then the dagger counterpart. No need for them to match.

Brothers in Elements, fear not the winds of change. The Elementalist Master Race will rise again.

Love all the changes, Rather pleased with a lot of them for various classes.

But this one I find myself scratching my head at.

JonPeters.5630:

• Inspiration XI – Shattered Conditions. Increased radius from 240 to 600.

I get what is trying to be done here, (that is buffing the support traits) but it’s still a grand master in a tree that isn’t built for shattering at all, and in a lot of cases feels clunky.

I my self have tried using a support mes in this way but it just feels so unwieldy in both play and support. You are kind of backed into a position where you either need to give up 10 in illusions to take X in dueling, and lose both shatter rate and a 4th condition (or heal pulse) or keep the rate and lose clone generation and any amount of damage. Which isn’t a problem when your full support but again the former still doesn’t feel very good imo.

It comes to where I personally don’t think increasing the range is going to help very much. At least me personally with a desire for a full support (in terms of heals or clense) build that is not mantra (heals) I don’t think I’d bother, where I’d rather just stay DPS.

First, I’d like to say think you for these previews, and for giving your own theories as to why these were necessary/helpful.

Second, I’d like to ask that when doing these in future, instead of just listing how they change, list in full both the current, and the future descriptions side by side. The way these are currently written up is great if you already know every trait by name and what each already does, but otherwise you have to do a lot of back and forth with the wiki to tell what’s going on.

Third, I’m worried that a lot of these changes, and the reasons behind them, are invisibly prefaced with “In PvP.” I play exclusively PvE content, and I worry that a lot of the changes suggested here might mess up my current builds in the name of PvP balance. I run a Condi Necro, for example, and already feel that my damage is a bit worrisome due to condition stack issues, yet it sounds like I’m to expect doing less damage after this patch? I also run a high-ini Acro/Trick Thief, and it sounds like that might be facing a beatstick too. I don’t know, I’ll need to do some more research, but please don’t balance things with PvP in mind, balance with PvE in mind too, and make sure that any nerfs you apply are not to classes that are already sub-optimal in PvE.

An elementalist here:

Strongly disagree on this one – “Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.”. Ele’s already an squishiest class in the entire game and we hardly could keep up with condi removal.

Also, the right way to “avoid power creep” is to buff up other traits in other elements (fire / air / earth) instead of upping tier of existing traits.

my impressions:

• Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second. → good as you nerf the gain from traits below

• Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time. → first it was stun break and got nerfed now adding cast time combine with huge vigor nerf it will break this set. maybe at least improve the power of the skill or conditions clear to be more appealing

• Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.→ so evasion is 1.5 sec, stun is 0.5 and after cast is 0.25 so basically the skill does 0.17 base dmg unless you catch someone with no stunbreak or dodges left. so nothing change as before it was 1 sec stun with 0.75 cast time which is the same 0.25

• Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.→ nice so basically with fury 0.33 chance to trigger it.

• Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.→ not much a change its about 360 hp (2%)

• Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.→ very bad you gave more 66% chance (30→50) but increase trigger by 500%???? am i getting it wrong?!

• Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.→ so we see less the fast BS HS combos. maybe give 33% reduce recharge as now also vigor nerfed and initiative also so maybe more use in signet for defense mode like restore more often endurance and more often stun break and aoe blind

• Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.→ nice

• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.→ bless change no more d/p perma stealth. but i hope this wont kill this weapon set as the ini use is high or maybe ppl will go with 10,30,0,0,30 build as in tpvp

• Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 4s from 8s.→ other classes also have almost perma vigor. if we supposed to be the fastest and hard to catch class so why nerf it. basically you making ppl to use certain build with certain weapon. d/d with stealth, s/d with dodging.

• Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.→ never used it

• Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.→ so now we need more skills management and as for now its bit hard to land clean cnd on good opponent. guess we wait and see

• Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.→ not much a change with 300 healing power thief had around 80 per initiative so it gives with 4 ini skills 320 and will be now 430?. not much a change and maybe nerf

• Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.→ never used it as thief must need control of their fight and this is random skill with kind random location drop. so very dangerous to the thief play style. i would change the skill to gain stealth and ignore the disable and increase recharge to 45 seconds

• Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.→ same as above. so maybe increase dmg from mug a bit

• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.→ why so now he have less ability to dodge, to regain initiative combine with less dmg?!
• Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.→ same as above
• Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.→ never use i

my conclusions:
thieves have to manage more their initiative points and be punished if they miss more than once cnd. also they must check their endurance more often as they can be wide open for 5+ seconds if they abuse dodges.

s/d got nerf bit more but still useable (in pve) but you wont be able to stay in the fight always so you must restart the fight and all over again. thus wont be any good against bunker build
welcome change to d/p perma stealth set. so maybe goodbye
s/p got back
p/d still trolling and fun to play
d/d same as before

all in all more nerfs than buffs and still no any sort of group fight contribution

i guess all over again thieves must learn to adapt and still will be the most qq class

Roy Cronacher.1576:

vangedas.7358:

Diamond Skin

- this can be absurdly broken. Please, please, do not go with this. Not only pure passive immunity to conditions is very powerful, cheesy and and cannot be counter-played, but this new trait would literally kill specs like trap ranger, not to mention it would hurt necromancers.
Once again, do not go with this trait, it would be a huge mistake.

There actually is counter play to this trait unlike some other similar mechanics. The goal of the elementalist with this trait is to stay above 90% hit points while the counter play is to do a bit of physical damage to the elementalist to drop them below this threshold in order to get the conditions rolling on them, which will in turn help keep them below that threshold.

In SPvP an elementalist can reach a maximum of around 20,000-21,000 hit points. This means that 2100 would be the most damage you would need to do to an elementalist to break through this trait and in most cases it would be a lower amount than that. That is not very much damage needed to do in order to start applying conditions. This still leaves room for the elementalist using healing traits/skills and kiting to try to stay above that threshold to increase their survivability vs conditions.

We have been doing internal testing and it feels like it in a good place for a tier 3 trait. That being said though and as a reminder, none of these changes are set in stone yet and are subject to change.

translation: counter play is to hit the elementalist once or twice, as a single autoattack is likely going to deal 10% of their hp in damage, and they won’t be able to dodge since they no longer have vigor.

I must disagree with the vigour change for thieves. Thieves are supposed to be the most mobile class in gw2. We should be able to dodge more and evade more than other classes.

I cant say that the Shadow Return nerf isnt justified, but Mesmers have Phase Retreat that is similar to Shadow Return. And if you are trying to justify the nerf by “buffing” Acro, than i think you dont think you have a good understanding of your Acro trait.
1) Hard to Catch is a terrible trait that send you to random location and it doesnt even break the stun/knockback/etc.
2) Assassin’s Retreat is junk
3) Assassins Reward heal is increased to 100hp/initiative with 300 healing power which is something I plan on testing but it seems viable option instead of Pain Response but doesnt justify a change to vigour or Shadow Return

I think the Critical strike line can be reworked considering that only Furious Retaliation and Side Strike are worth taking for non signet builds and Signet of Power and Signet Use are the other two trait that are worth taking in that trait line

To Recap: If there is one thing you should not touch is Vigour.

(but if this is going to be like Flanking Strike change than I wasted my time typing this)

These mesmer changes encourage Duel builds for bad mesmers who need a crutch,
like Low skill cap Phantasm/Prismatic Understanding builds..

Am I misunderstanding or is this Grandmaster trait Useless?
Domination XII Confounding Suggestions. Changed to increase daze duration by 25%.
25% duration(Trait)
30% Con.duration(30 Domination)
15% Sigil of Paralysation = Only 70%
You also need to get Runes of the Mesmer 33%
So A full build for what? 1 extra second on daze?
Pretty underwhelming when compared to any good GM traits imho.

I for one am not a fan of Mantras, I find them clunky and bad game design like Spirit Ranger but that’s just personal opinion, good changes for mantra mesmer.

All in all tournament viable(yet suboptimal) mesmer builds didn’t get much imho.