Guild Wars 2

Both streamers that previewed the upcoming Elementalist changes, showed the viewers how to select the water/arcane trees and slot cantrips, and then skimmed the remainder of the new traits and pointed out why nearly every one of them was worthless. Except the earth tree of course, which they labeled worthless as a whole and completely ignored.

And the saddest part, even though one of them clearly had very little idea what he was talking about, not being an Ele main or even having read most of the recent announcements, they both came to the exact same obvious conclusions about the classes build diversity problems. Both a vet player and even a complete noob ele, can, with a few minutes of observation, come to a better understanding of what is wrong with the class, than the developers have in nearly three years of live development.

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

Reading comprehension for the win.

Of course. Earthen Blast has been left aside, while every other on attunement spells have their uses. Sunspot now grants a Fire Aura. Earthen Blast? Not a single thing was added.

Again in Earth, the adepts have not been touched at all. They even planned to nerf Earth’s Embrace, but have been reverted back.

Serrated Stones – They left it despite being one of the worst trait. I am a Earth Condition Elementalist and have never seen this trait as good. It should have been combined with Strenght in Stones (10% toughness converted in bonus Condition Damage).

The only help Earth received was from the form of an actual Grandminor which seems not that strong at all. Then, Geomancer’s Training (which was combined) and Written in Stone (Signet Combo).

This certainly do not justify the shift to Earth since it was already considered the worst Trait Line.

Well, some of the traits they changed are good (combined as well) , some are ‘meh’ and some….downright ‘yukk.’

It allows for build diversity, but most, as usual, will follow a certain meta again or hang on every word the theorycrafters will dish out. Same old same old.

Sthenith.5196:

Well, some of the traits they changed are good (combined as well) , some are ‘meh’ and some….downright ‘yukk.’

It allows for build diversity, but most, as usual, will follow a certain meta again or hang on every word the theorycrafters will dish out. Same old same old.

Its more than a meta. Every class has a meta, the ele on the other hand is completely borked by design. We have the lowest base armor and health, and no defense in our class mechanic. And the only time we’ve ever been able to get a developer to speak up about the subject, he scoffed at the thread in question and stated “You just don’t understand our design goals.”

He was wrong, we totally understand their design goals for the Ele. Far better than he in fact, well enough to know they need to be changed. The ele is never going to both be balanced and have build diversity with such an enormous disparity between its own baseline defense and that of the other seven classes.

Either the ele will have enough active defense choices to have build diverstiy, in which case they will stack them for a single overpowered bunker build, they won’t have that choice and will have one reliable method of active defense, or they will have no choices of active defense and no build. We have seen the developers cycle through this twice now since launch, and yet they still won’t admit their design goals for the ele may have been flawed from the start.

actually, i expected this, ele is already strong as it is now, the changes would make them even stronger, at least for PvE.

… flame legion runes would see hike in price….

Haven’t really read about them, but I’m hoping it’ll spruce my ele up. In solo Im play im very happy, in group play he just isn’t doing it for me sadly

Conncept.7638:

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

Reading comprehension for the win.

Disagreement for the win. Since the specialization notes came out I knew I was specializing in Fire and Air at least, while leaning towards Arcane for my third line (and I’ve almost never traited in Arcane). Mostly I was just peeved that someone can so easily dismiss 3/5 of the lines and claim that that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. It sounds like they just didn’t add anything shiny and new enough to draw players away from their comfort zone.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Conncept.7638:

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

Reading comprehension for the win.

Disagreement for the win. Since the specialization notes came out I knew I was specializing in Fire and Air at least, while leaning towards Arcane for my third line (and I’ve almost never traited in Arcane). Mostly I was just peeved that someone can so easily dismiss 3/5 of the lines and claim that that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. It sounds like they just didn’t add anything shiny and new enough to draw players away from their comfort zone.

Like I said, reading comprehension.

My main(ish) character is an earth spec’d condi ele. And I’ll still run his crapshoot condi build unchanged after this patch. However, I run that in spite of its efficacy, not because of it.

This thread is not about my personal taste in builds, nor yours. It is about how obvious the need is to change the ele class mechanic to allow for a proper workable baseline as compared to the other classes, to allow build options outside water/arcane to be equally viable choices based on playstyle and taste, instead of compromises on the one single method the ele has for gaining any reasonable amount of defense.