Guild Wars 2

I see much less QQ in the forums about D/D ele, did the last changes to Ring of Fire and Drake’s Breath make it (kinda) properly balanced or people just got tired of QQ’ing about it?

it’s not in right place yet but much closer. Let’s wait 1 week for expansion hit and see how balancing will go

Everything will change in another week or so. For example, look a scrapper. Pretty much everyone rated that as top tier during the last beta weekend and since then ANET has buffed it even further.

You will definitely see some really broken specs across various professions at launch. Let’s just hope ANET balances quickly.

Joke is there are more eles at tournaments than before the “nerf”, lol.

But now you actually have to put some minimal effort into stacking might, so some of the baddies are rerolling from DD eles to burn guards that’s why you see more burn guard QQ threads than ele ones, but DD’s still the most broken thing in the game.

Actually isn’t still perfectly balanced, but it’s more balanced than before.
The lost of damage make it more a defensive than offensive build, but there’s still the problem of all the might stack, that grant both high direct and condition damage, making still that bunker build able to deal barely the same damage of a common berserker build.

And the ability to reduce/ignore the damage, clean condi, heal and deal damage, all in a single build and with a high efficence for every aspect, is still a big problem in the hands of a skilled player.

But in 10 deys we will see what the expansion will gring, with new specializzations, builds and meta.

For shure is that if they nerfed the ele’s Burn now we’ll find it back with a big power up in the Tempest Specializzation, that can stack 15-20 burn and might at the same time AoE.

Thief has a weak fighting presence due to their high mobility. Should ele’s mobility be toned down due to their high fighting presence? Seems fair

Drennon.7190:

Thief is fighting presence due to their high mobility. Should ele’s mobility be toned down due to their high fighting presence? Seems fair

How about instead of nerfing ele mobility buff thief sustain and burst to make it on-par with other classes?
Moot discussion, thief has been QQ’d to death already, let’s just see how Dare Devil plays out.

I honestly think the ring of fire change was actually a buff. The burning is now unavoidable when it’s cast. This was never the problem to me, it was always the insane sustain d/d ele has which wasn’t even touched.

The OPness of d/d eles is and always was in the healing possibilities. With not even bunker build they are able to outheal full zerker builds, which is silly. The damage nerf wasnt really needed if they nerfed the healing.

Miyu.8137:

The OPness of d/d eles is and always was in the healing possibilities. With not even bunker build they are able to outheal full zerker builds, which is silly. The damage nerf wasnt really needed if they nerfed the healing.

right…. nerf their sustain so they literally have no way to defend themselves… good idea…. glad you aren’t in charge of balance….

eles are FORCED to take water/cantrips if they want to live more than 2 secs… otherwise a mesmer/thief will instagib them out of stealth….

they have the lowest HP + armor total in the game – and you want to nerf them to make it even harder for them to live? brilliant.

They have had this sustain for years, anet hasn’t nerfed it because they can’t come up with a viable way to give eles a diff option….

damage was the correct nerf in this recent patch….. they aren’t NEARLY as dangerous before this nerf…. sure they can still survive but you should NOT able to survive this well AND dish out ridiculous damage that ele could pump up….. damage output needed to be lowered…that was the right call, not healing.

SkiTz.4590:

Miyu.8137:

The OPness of d/d eles is and always was in the healing possibilities. With not even bunker build they are able to outheal full zerker builds, which is silly. The damage nerf wasnt really needed if they nerfed the healing.

right…. nerf their sustain so they literally have no way to defend themselves… good idea…. glad you aren’t in charge of balance….

eles are FORCED to take water/cantrips if they want to live more than 2 secs… otherwise a mesmer/thief will instagib them out of stealth….

I’ve heard that tons of times. No1 said here that it should be nerfed to oblivion what you are implying indirectly.

Also, mesmer with thief can instagib any1, idk why ele should be an exception.

witcher.3197:

Joke is there are more eles at tournaments than before the “nerf”, lol.

But now you actually have to put some minimal effort into stacking might, so some of the baddies are rerolling from DD eles to burn guards that’s why you see more burn guard QQ threads than ele ones, but DD’s still the most broken thing in the game.

Might stacking was never an issue on DD/SD Eles. The might on cantrip nerf pretty much only affected staff builds …..

Burns overall should have been addressed because the damage they do is absurd. Not just the ele burns.

Oh and dont worry about tempest …because it blows in just about every way.

cillard.3986:

witcher.3197:

Joke is there are more eles at tournaments than before the “nerf”, lol.

But now you actually have to put some minimal effort into stacking might, so some of the baddies are rerolling from DD eles to burn guards that’s why you see more burn guard QQ threads than ele ones, but DD’s still the most broken thing in the game.

Might stacking was never an issue on DD/SD Eles. The might on cantrip nerf pretty much only affected staff builds …..

Burns overall should have been addressed because the damage they do is absurd. Not just the ele burns.

Might stacking was never an issue as long as you did your rotation, but most soloq eles don’t go above 8-10 might stacks.

Staff builds used Earth/Water/Arcana and not Fire, so i don’t get your point unless you’re talking about hotjoin zerker staff eles which is irrelevant in balance discussions.

But you’re right about burning.

of course not. its much stronger then any other build. d/d eles still dominate everything and everyone. Yeah something like chronomancer will probably reach whole new levels of broken, but that doesnt mean ele is in a good spot. It still needs a fix.

ele in " solo " is falling out of the meta.
you cant kill anything now.
now you are only a tank, but a guard tank is better, okey you are a mobile tank.

1 more nerf and ele is back to april 2013.

Buff Burning Fire to 1 or 2 might and ele is fine.

ah and one more thing: BUFF USELESS UTILITY SKILLS

Good night

Its still strong, but not strong enough to carry bads.

could use tweaking but it isnt outrageous.

No, its still OP, most teams still run 2 D/D Cele Eles.

It wont matter in a week though, Chronomancer, Scrapper, and Herald from the last BWE all seemed to have builds that were even more powerful than D/D Cele Ele.

d/d eles need a hit to defensive sustain, let them run staff if they want to survive.

its Balanced except for healing. Fire grab and fire rush do good damage and rings doesn’t give 9-12 stacks from walking through it weird. There really was close to no change other than the ring that makes it worse, but that was the only thing that was making it OP. Now a bad D/D is just a mediocre addition to a team rather than a great one.

EDIT: I do want to say if anything scaling with healing power should matter more, meaning celestial should heal less while clerics heal just as much.

They’re still trolling you 2v1
Too much condi removal and heal

I am not sure nerfing the damage was the right thing. Most D/D ele ran fire/water/arcane. Having fire means they are supposed to be fairly potent damage dealer. The problem is their sustain. A bunker build would be earth/water/arcane and that would deal little damage. But fire D/D ele could sustain so much they didn’t need the earth line.

So the sustain should have been addressed, not the damage. Currently, the damage is lower, but the sustain is still too high.

cillard.3986:

Oh and dont worry about tempest …because it blows in just about every way.

The pun here amuses me greatly.

Still has too much sustain for someone with a celestials amulet.

They’re okay. if I had the nerf-stick, I’d probably tone down their mobility and team support. While they are strong, I can easily hold my own against them with a shout ranger… The problem comes in to play that they can rotate faster than me and provide more team support in group fights. when it comes to how well they hold a point 1v1, I think they’re in a good place.

Kenmei.7138:

SkiTz.4590:

Miyu.8137:

The OPness of d/d eles is and always was in the healing possibilities. With not even bunker build they are able to outheal full zerker builds, which is silly. The damage nerf wasnt really needed if they nerfed the healing.

right…. nerf their sustain so they literally have no way to defend themselves… good idea…. glad you aren’t in charge of balance….

eles are FORCED to take water/cantrips if they want to live more than 2 secs… otherwise a mesmer/thief will instagib them out of stealth….

I’ve heard that tons of times. No1 said here that it should be nerfed to oblivion what you are implying indirectly.

Also, mesmer with thief can instagib any1, idk why ele should be an exception.

Dont forget that Guardian also has the lowest hp, the damage reduction from being heavy is the 10% (note diference from light to heavy is arround ~7%-10% damage reduction).
It is a bad class design system that affects all classes, add some bad balance, and u end with some build being to much, obligating players to play in 1 most viable way per class.

I think you see less QQ because people are just giving up on ANET

Honestly, I feel it is pretty much balanced now against the other bruisers. HGH engies, cele necros, and condi-regen rangers all have advantages and disadvantages, opening up choice for the bruiser role.

With the coming of HoT, I think we have beasts way worse than anything in the current meta about to destroy everything. People will yearn for the days when the measure for OP was d/d ele.

Hammerguard.9834:

Still has too much sustain for someone with a celestials amulet.

Celestial is literally the best amulet for ele sustain b/c they need vitality, toughness, and healing power to maximize survivability. On top of that, eles take 7-8 traits out of 9, runes, 1 or 2 sigils, and all their utilities to maximize defense. It should sustain in those situations.

Before the condition and might nerf, I was a critic of how overtuned it was. Happy it wasn’t gutted to uselessness. They did a good job not destroying it.

D/d eles are fine where they are now. Just wait for expac to see how they fare. If they survive expac, it’s a build non HoT buyers can count on.

Edit: I wanted to add that BWE 3 was too short but from what I’ve encountered:
d/d ele beat gs reaper but scrapper and chronomancer beat d/d ele

BlackBeard.2873:

Hammerguard.9834:

Still has too much sustain for someone with a celestials amulet.

Celestial is literally the best amulet for ele sustain b/c they need vitality, toughness, and healing power to maximize survivability. On top of that, eles take 7-8 traits out of 9, runes, 1 or 2 sigils, and all their utilities to maximize defense. It should sustain in those situations.

Fine, they still do too much damage for how much they put into sustain then.

BlackBeard.2873:

Honestly, I feel it is pretty much balanced now against the other bruisers. HGH engies, cele necros, and condi-regen rangers all have advantages and disadvantages, opening up choice for the bruiser role.

With the coming of HoT, I think we have beasts way worse than anything in the current meta about to destroy everything. People will yearn for the days when the measure for OP was d/d ele.

Hammerguard.9834:

Still has too much sustain for someone with a celestials amulet.

Celestial is literally the best amulet for ele sustain b/c they need vitality, toughness, and healing power to maximize survivability. On top of that, eles take 7-8 traits out of 9, runes, 1 or 2 sigils, and all their utilities to maximize defense. It should sustain in those situations.

It will be balanced once teams don’t feel like they need 2 dd ele in order to win. That’s the current situation. We’ll see if that changes after the HoT release.

BlackBeard.2873:

On top of that, eles take 7-8 traits out of 9, runes, 1 or 2 sigils, and all their utilities to maximize defense. It should sustain in those situations.

Well eles take some of their sustain traits in a line (fire) which is focused on damage and on which all the minor traits add damage.

So the question is why there are (strong) defensive traits in an offensive traitline? If eles had the sustain they currently have while using earth/water/arcane, people would not complain as much. But being able to have

• + 150 power in fire
• + 10% damage in fire
• + 10% damage to burning foes

while having defensive traits is a bit too much according to me.

Silverkey.2078:

BlackBeard.2873:

On top of that, eles take 7-8 traits out of 9, runes, 1 or 2 sigils, and all their utilities to maximize defense. It should sustain in those situations.

Well eles take some of their sustain traits in a line (fire) which is focused on damage and on which all the minor traits add damage.

Not saying that it should stay very defensive, but this one actually occured back when they were trying to actually promote build diversity. See, eles are very poorly designed, with terrible baseline defensive capabilities, and most of their survival tied to must-have tratis in water/arcana. The utilities that provide defense are all on a very long CD, and even then there is very little access to hard-mitigation. To try and make builds that aren’t water/arcana/x possible, they were forced to start offering good defensive options in other lines, but because survivability is so important for ele builds, they still just maximize it. To properly fix eles they would have to change a lot, but alas that isn’t going to happen, so every ele forever is going to be stuck with water/arcana/x and tanking up.

At this point, defensive capability in fire isn’t very good at all. Cleansing fire is decent but super-easy to play around (against a good opponent it should cleanse 1 vuln, 1 bleed, and 1 cripple), and blinding ashes is hardly GM worthy (esp when it is per-target ICD).

Also, many teams take 1-2 eles b/c they are used to it at this point and teams shift metas quite slowly. In terms of team capabilities, eles are arguably just equal to other brawlers (with some +’s and some -’s).

Pretty balanced. I see way more necros, guardians, and mesmers than I do eles.

To answer OP’s question: Yes, d/d ele looks like it’s in a good spot and with expansion just around the corner, I feel that it should be left alone and have us see how well it does with new spec elites.

Also I hope ANET learns from this d/d ele episode – if people are protesting non stop about something being OP, just do what you did w/ d/d ele and nerf it slightly w/o killing it like you did with dhuumfire, turret engie, thief diversity etc…..

Silverkey.2078:

I am not sure nerfing the damage was the right thing. Most D/D ele ran fire/water/arcane. Having fire means they are supposed to be fairly potent damage dealer. The problem is their sustain. A bunker build would be earth/water/arcane and that would deal little damage. But fire D/D ele could sustain so much they didn’t need the earth line.

So the sustain should have been addressed, not the damage. Currently, the damage is lower, but the sustain is still too high.

I sort of agree. I think the cantrip might trait should have been changed to give 1 stack instead of none, down from the absurd 3 stacks. I barely think fire is worth using after the nerfs, even though I feel it was pretty justified.

I think the main issue is that both healing and condition cleansing are locked in water. If they moved some of that condition cleansing/management out of water and into untraited weapon skills, non-cantrip utilities (like arcanes and shouts) and earth traits, such as potentially reworking diamond skin to grant some skillful resistance uptime, then ele would be way more balanced, since you honestly wouldn’t even need water to sustain yourself reasonably well if you didn’t have to run water/cantrips just to not instadie to condis.

Echoing what some others have said: it’s still a little too strong, but it’s no longer overwhelming. It consistently wins 1v1s, but doesn’t win them as quickly. It’s still extremely survivable in small fights, but the damage output in those fights is less.

And you have to be somewhat decent in order to deal damage now. It’s no longer face-roll.

Wolfs Shadow.7234:

I think you see less QQ because people are just giving up on ANET

This. And the fact that there is the expansion coming in a few days. People are hoping they can find new ways to deal with this “balanced” build.

I don’t think Cele D/D Ele will be the build to beat come Heart of Thorns.

Velimere.7685:

I don’t think Cele D/D Ele will be the build to beat come Heart of Thorns.

There’s a good chance that will be the case. Even so, it’s still an awesome build for capture game mode and hope it doesn’t disappear completely.

Anet (Grouch) has openly admitted that their most recent attempt at balancing didn’t bring them in line as much as they had hoped, but obviously closer.

I try to be optimistic. If class balance isn’t perfect and if it favors certain classes, we still have the ability to either learn and practice soft counters or if we cant beat it, play it.

The part that makes me most nervous is matchmaking for soloQers because no matter how good or long you’ve played, if you are matched up with bad or fairly new people, there isn’t much you can do except queue as a premade or play FallOut 4 instead

I was gonna pre order FO4 but used my money on HoT instead. Hope I made the right decision

Maybe it’s just me, but Ele’s are stacking more burning on me now than they were pre-patch. The auto 2 stack from Ring of Fire was a buff.

Vapour.7348:

I was gonna pre order FO4 but used my money on HoT instead. Hope I made the right decision

I pretty much did the opposite. I have been unhappy with how the balancing has been handled for the past 8 months or so (Gee not withstanding), so I dusted off my Xbox and I look forward to playing it again. If the new specs really are upgrades, like Reaper and Scrapper seem to be, it’ll pretty much look like pay-to-win and I’ll mostly be done with the game.

I’ve already taken multiple leaves of absense, like the Turret Engie Era and the recent Ele-Vamp domination, if it keeps happening I would consider myself stupid to stay.

meow one twenty.4376:

Vapour.7348:

I was gonna pre order FO4 but used my money on HoT instead. Hope I made the right decision

I pretty much did the opposite. I have been unhappy with how the balancing has been handled for the past 8 months or so (Gee not withstanding), so I dusted off my Xbox and I look forward to playing it again. If the new specs really are upgrades, like Reaper and Scrapper seem to be, it’ll pretty much look like pay-to-win and I’ll mostly be done with the game.

I’ve already taken multiple leaves of absense, like the Turret Engie Era and the recent Ele-Vamp domination, if it keeps happening I would consider myself stupid to stay.

You should stay. It’s fun beating people, something you can’t get from FO4.

Scrapper is the only elite I care about.

Ele, guard, warrior, ranger and yes even necro are more powerful than their HoT elite spec. Haven’t picked up on revenant and prefer chronomancer over it so far.

Vapour didn’t purchase FO4 coz he prolly gets one shotted by deathclaws. He put all his points on Speech, lmao.

meow one twenty.4376:

Vapour.7348:

I was gonna pre order FO4 but used my money on HoT instead. Hope I made the right decision

I pretty much did the opposite. I have been unhappy with how the balancing has been handled for the past 8 months or so (Gee not withstanding), so I dusted off my Xbox and I look forward to playing it again. If the new specs really are upgrades, like Reaper and Scrapper seem to be, it’ll pretty much look like pay-to-win and I’ll mostly be done with the game.

I’ve already taken multiple leaves of absense, like the Turret Engie Era and the recent Ele-Vamp domination, if it keeps happening I would consider myself stupid to stay.

People can argue that elite specs are all 100% fair because everyone still has 3 trees.
But some of the new stuff seem strictly better like true shot, berserker burst, revenant etc…
It is to be expected new content needs adjustments but Anet better be quick if they want esport to work.
The rulings like “3 different profession per team” or “no vamp rune for ele” it’s just hilarious.

abc.5790:

meow one twenty.4376:

Vapour.7348:

I was gonna pre order FO4 but used my money on HoT instead. Hope I made the right decision

I pretty much did the opposite. I have been unhappy with how the balancing has been handled for the past 8 months or so (Gee not withstanding), so I dusted off my Xbox and I look forward to playing it again. If the new specs really are upgrades, like Reaper and Scrapper seem to be, it’ll pretty much look like pay-to-win and I’ll mostly be done with the game.

I’ve already taken multiple leaves of absense, like the Turret Engie Era and the recent Ele-Vamp domination, if it keeps happening I would consider myself stupid to stay.

You should stay. It’s fun beating people, something you can’t get from FO4.

Scrapper is the only elite I care about.

Ele, guard, warrior, ranger and yes even necro are more powerful than their HoT elite spec. Haven’t picked up on revenant and prefer chronomancer over it so far.

Vapour didn’t purchase FO4 coz he prolly gets one shotted by deathclaws. He put all his points on Speech, lmao.

We all know speech is op. Pls nerf speech.

Everyone is QQing about D/D ele, but if this build gets nerfed to oblivion again, ele would literally be dead.

No other ele build comes close to D/D, in fact, there isn’t any viable build besides cele D/D at this point.

Pimsley.3681:

Before the condition and might nerf, I was a critic of how overtuned it was. Happy it wasn’t gutted to uselessness. They did a good job not destroying it.

D/d eles are fine where they are now. Just wait for expac to see how they fare. If they survive expac, it’s a build non HoT buyers can count on.

Edit: I wanted to add that BWE 3 was too short but from what I’ve encountered:
d/d ele beat gs reaper but scrapper and chronomancer beat d/d ele

My sentiments exactly