TLDR version:
The targeted end result is that glass cannon builds should be doing enough damage to be “worth it” and have enough active-survival to be dungeon-viable for those who are capable of putting themselves into defense or evasive state at the right times – and the key to this is having abilities in “offensive” attunements on short enough cooldowns to provide this without being overpowered. The adjusments to regen are to neuter some of the passive obscene-regen that makes bunker-builds ridiculous.
Any fixes to elementalists should involve both of these happening at the same time:
1 – considerably reducing PERSONAL passive healing through regeneration (the group-wide stuff should not be touched).
2 – adding active evasions and reflections to weapon skills (particularly in fire and air — D/D and scepter — more kiting tools to staff)
3 – compensating some additional damage for the reduced passive survival. +15% across the board, and +10-15%(more) for 30 point investment each in fire and air. (ele damage is pitiful compared to thief/warrior/guardian – the “massive damage nerf” was over-nerf )
Long version:
We need a little history here:
- during the BWE’s, eles used to do a lot more damage. This provided, at one time, a tradeoff for the complete and utter lack of survival tools provided by most weapons. Thus, if you ignored water for offense, you were rewarded with massive numbers for a brief existence as an assassin (trading your life for your target’s like a thief).
No Longer
- After the “massive damage nerf”, eles who spec 30/30/0/0/0 are few and far between because, unlike mesmer, there are precious few active survival tools in their weapon sets, those few are on ridiculous cooldowns comparatively, and eles have a lot less base HP to boot!. Being two-shot by non-vets is not engaging gameplay, thus most eles spec heavily into water for the only survival eles get (no matter how utterly boring and un-engaging it is): gobs and gobs of regeneration.
Prime candidates for regen reduction:
water III – remove the regen from cantrip use – replace with something less potent (this should limit regen to water attunment, thus putting an effective 10 second cooldown on the boon)
(if necessary after watching balance on water 3 change) water 5 point minor – this could apply to party but not yourself.
Thoughts – set by set:
dagger/dagger – burning speed and ride the lightning should provide evasion for their duraiton the same way updraft does – shocking aura could block 3 attacks like arcane shield. (if you spec 30/30/0/0/0 glass cannon, and use daggers, you’re like a backstab/death blossom thief, you have 10k hp, can be one-shot by nearly everything, and NEED this kind of evasion just to stay alive with your jolt-induced super-twitchiness — once you’ve used them, you are everyone’s food)
scepter – make blinding flash aoe, phoenix should grant distortion the way 1h sword does for mesmer.
staff – gust should cripple, as should the fire field in burning retreat, all fields which cause status effects should cause them to people within, not just if they enter it, and should be triggered around a target rather than point-casted.
focus is fine for defense.
Thoughts?