Guild Wars 2

I have been playing marauder staff tempest the whole time last season. And I was surviving well against scrappers, thieves, mesmers, revenants (depending on the player), and I could deal with a few necromancers..

Though, with this patch, my build was struck severely by collateral nerfs. The magnetic aura duration reduction by 20% greatly affects your chances to fight Dragonhunters, which was already a feat to beat in 1v1. Now, it’s even worse. Thieves needed a good placement of stun fields to win; but now, they can burst you down way easily than before. Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike: it’s one massive cooldown to worry about that adds up to the lots of Staff Charge, Unrelentling Assault, quickness auto-attacks (and to make it worse, it’s a mid ranged attack). With necromancer, it is just impossible now.

Some people might wonder how elementalist was hit so bad. “1 second on auras is so little!” (I will not talk about Diamond skin; I was not using it.)

Protection nerf (A bug fix)
The massive nerf on Tempest was the bug fix on Overload Earth (a bug that was there since beta weekend 2, I must add, so it did not look like a bug). I’ll give you the math behind that protection uptime for Self.

Hardy Conduit: 3 seconds of protection initially.
The Overload Earth is 9 ticks of damage; the fifth tick, the explosion does not grant protection. On self, it used granted 1 second pulse for 4 seconds. Considering that the 5th tick never granted that 1 second pulse, the Tempest has 4 seconds of protection to self.
Bug The Tempest would keep pulsing 1 second of protection to self for a total of 4 pulses (4 extra seconds). Additionnally, the Overload left an AoE pulsing 3 seconds of protection every seconds for a total of 16 seconds of protection if the elementalist stayed.

So, in absolute protection duration, you had: 23 seconds of protection to self. (26 seconds with elemental shielding). For 15 or 18 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Allies received (8×1) seconds of protection + (8×3) for 32 seconds of protection (35 with shielding), for 24 or 27 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Currently, the absolute protection duration is 11 seconds from Overload Earth if fully completed and remaining in the dust storm. (14 seconds with elemental shielding). For 3 seconds of protection once overload is over, up to 6 with shielding. For allies, it grants 8 seconds of protection; 0 or 3 seconds of protection once overload is over.

_Nota Bene. Once must also consider that the Tempest will swap out of Earth once the Overload is completed. At best, the cooldown of Overload Earth is 26 seconds (need to stay 6 seconds in an attunement to overload).

In percentage, the protection uptime reduction was.
For self: 23 seconds; down to 11 seconds. (52% nerf.)
For allies: 32 seconds; down to 8 seconds. (75% nerf.)
And, this was sold as a bug fix.

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Kind of true, but in a way kind of not. On its face, it is relatively broken, but given the insane overload cost and the fact that overload earth doesn’t do anything else substantial it was relatively balanced. To clarify, overload earth, while probably having the longest description due to all the garbage attached to it in an attempt to make it worthwhile, did basically nothing besides grant prot. The damage/bleeds are minimal, the final 4s immob takes too long to get and has almost no meaning with everyone taking insane amounts of condi cleanse (due to other classes), the blast finisher is just ….why? (a blast 5s from a cast is all but impossible to use). You will always get more now by just swapping out and coming back, both in the short and long term.

I agree with the change, as it now normalizes earth overload with the other overloads (besides air) as skills that should basically never be cast. Fire is acceptable for downed cleave, but you don’t want to use it in the middle of a fight as being locked out of fire for 20s means no pressure.

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

I don’t think this matters a whole lot, because:

- Necros are pretty popular and so are condi-revs, which means mass amounts of boon-removal. That prot won’t stay on you long enough for the duration reduction to really matter.
- Many builds still have a big amount of prot-uptime for the Ele itself and your allies.

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Half a minute if staying on the circle of the overload, and after its 4 seconds channel. It was the dust storm at the end that granted the most of the protection. You cannot stay on that area most of the time.

Consider that I am generous with my figures and that they represent the best case scenario. I am also from a non-earth perspective; a non-bunker one.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

but how? they’ve buffed shatterstone 3 times now! ele should be perfect!

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

broken or not, it was exactly what was carrying tempest. what was enabling it to survive and support well in team fights, more than diamond skin ever did. The change is a severe nerf. that change alone, without even removing celestial or nerfing diamond skin, would likely have brought tempest in line. Diamond skin was never an issue before tempest and perma protection.

Then you layer that on top of the other nerfs and lol

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

To be fair, you can’t really run from a rev.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

Browrain.7346:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

To be fair, you can’t really run from a rev.

Uh, use soft-CC? Ele has a decent amount and Revenant doesn’t have any cleanses anyway.

You can use hard-CC too. The stability got nerfed and the best Stun Break is expensive on Energy. Assuming they Retribution. If they go full damage, they wont even have any Stability.

You can also just run around; they don’t have as many spammable gap closers like Thief. At most, Phase Traversal (expensive), Axe 4 (it’s not hard to spot), and Unrelenting Assault (tons of ways to make it fail and now you can fully dodge it).

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Malchior.5732:

Browrain.7346:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

To be fair, you can’t really run from a rev.

Uh, use soft-CC? Ele has a decent amount and Revenant doesn’t have any cleanses anyway.

You can use hard-CC too. The stability got nerfed and the best Stun Break is expensive on Energy. Assuming they Retribution. If they go full damage, they wont even have any Stability.

You can also just run around; they don’t have as many spammable gap closers like Thief. At most, Phase Traversal (expensive), Axe 4 (it’s not hard to spot), and Unrelenting Assault (tons of ways to make it fail and now you can fully dodge it).

Soft CC = Shockwave (30 second cooldown, 3/4 cast time 3/4 aftercast), Frozen Ground (40 seconds cooldown). That’s it.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Super defense coming from a revenant player which is basically saying “Rev is fine”

We have twice as much skills, so it it perfectly normal that they have twice the cooldown, twice casting time, twice aftercast, and half as much dammage and efficiency. You have to work twice more for half the result. To compensate, we have half the armor and hp pool. That is ele balance. Do not get tricked by the early description of elementalist “deals massive damage in a single blow”.

StickerHappy.8052:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Super defense coming from a revenant player which is basically saying “Rev is fine”

sigh
Fine. Just die to every Revenant. I really don’t care.
I’m just baffled that people complain about the most basic things and then they act like their class has no options against it.
Sword 2 has really clear weaknesses, but if you choose to completely ignore them, then what to do expect?

Oh, and the person who said that Revenant is fine was actually Roy :^)
Ever since Beta, I’ve been saying it’s not fine and mentioning things that are too strong and things that are too weak. Of course, I don’t really affect any of the changes. Anet just kinda does whatever it wants.

EDIT @ Alekt: So, you have soft-CC (one of them being completely unavoidable for the Revenant), you have hard-CC he also can’t really avoid, you can block his path, you can just deal damage, you out-range him, and you still haven’t considered utilities or traits.
Wanna go further? Staff isn’t even meant to 1v1 and it still has good options against Revenant Sword. Now either counter-play like other classes or sit there and get killed by Precision Strike.

Malchior.5732:

StickerHappy.8052:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Super defense coming from a revenant player which is basically saying “Rev is fine”

sigh
Fine. Just die to every Revenant. I really don’t care.
I’m just baffled that people complain about the most basic things and then they act like their class has no options against it.
Sword 2 has really clear weaknesses, but if you choose to completely ignore them, then what to do expect?

Oh, and the person who said that Revenant is fine was actually Roy :^)
Ever since Beta, I’ve been saying it’s not fine and mentioning things that are too strong and things that are too weak. Of course, I don’t really affect any of the changes. Anet just kinda does whatever it wants.

EDIT @ Alekt: So, you have soft-CC (one of them being completely unavoidable for the Revenant), you have hard-CC he also can’t really avoid, you can block his path, you can just deal damage, you out-range him, and you still haven’t considered utilities or traits.
Wanna go further? Staff isn’t even meant to 1v1 and it still has good options against Revenant Sword. Now either counter-play like other classes or sit there and get killed by Precision Strike.

If there is one class good at avoiding Frozen ground it is Revenant, and why on earth would I think that chill will do anything for me with all those dodge rolls and blinks? You have more chill on precision strike alone. Revenants are not easier to kill with elementalist, and don’t go on talking about 1v1: You are as useful in teamfight has a revenant than is an elementalist, if not better.

Sure. Let’s go to utilities. I have a utility blocking 3 attacks on a 75 seconds cooldown. I have no choice to use it because of thieves pressure amongst others. I have FGS on a 180 seconds cooldown. The point of the thread had absolutely nothing to do with 1v1, and if it did: so little.

I suppose you’re going to talk to me about energy management next. You are full of kitten.

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

StickerHappy.8052:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Super defense coming from a revenant player which is basically saying “Rev is fine”

sigh
Fine. Just die to every Revenant. I really don’t care.
I’m just baffled that people complain about the most basic things and then they act like their class has no options against it.
Sword 2 has really clear weaknesses, but if you choose to completely ignore them, then what to do expect?

Oh, and the person who said that Revenant is fine was actually Roy :^)
Ever since Beta, I’ve been saying it’s not fine and mentioning things that are too strong and things that are too weak. Of course, I don’t really affect any of the changes. Anet just kinda does whatever it wants.

EDIT @ Alekt: So, you have soft-CC (one of them being completely unavoidable for the Revenant), you have hard-CC he also can’t really avoid, you can block his path, you can just deal damage, you out-range him, and you still haven’t considered utilities or traits.
Wanna go further? Staff isn’t even meant to 1v1 and it still has good options against Revenant Sword. Now either counter-play like other classes or sit there and get killed by Precision Strike.

Sure. Let’s go to utilities. I have a utility blocking 3 attacks on a 75 seconds cooldown. I have no choice to use it because of thieves pressure amongst others. I have FGS on a 180 seconds cooldown. The point of the thread had absolutely nothing to do with 1v1, and if it did: so little.

I suppose you’re going to talk to me about energy management next. You are full of kitten.

Sure, whatever. Go get crushed by Revenants, Thieves, and whatever else comes after the next patch.
Just don’t tell me I’m full of kitten when you quite obviously gloss over all your options to try to prove a point.

The point of the thread is to give a quantitative overview of the nerf, hidden as a bug fix on Overload Earth, and to also give the results of my testing, since I claimed Elementalist were fine earlier this week. I do not think it is the case anymore: elementalists are very weak.

reikken.4961:

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

broken or not, it was exactly what was carrying tempest. what was enabling it to survive and support well in team fights, more than diamond skin ever did. The change is a severe nerf. that change alone, without even removing celestial or nerfing diamond skin, would likely have brought tempest in line. Diamond skin was never an issue before tempest and perma protection.

Then you layer that on top of the other nerfs and lol

I prefer the removal of celestial amulet. Celestial amulet only made elementalist boring.

I never understood why as having lowest hp/toughness, eles also have the weakest aas/dmg skills/elites. There is no compensation for that innate handicap. Sure we theoryticaly have the most dps potential, but that requires all stars to be aligned during a solar eclipse. You HAVE to spec survivability to be somewhat useful to your team, or if you go full damage, you are much less efficient than any other class. This class has been designed to be a swiss knife, so everything feels kitten.

The removal of celestial is a good thing, but there needs to be tools to be efficient in any specialization you chose. That is why our gm traits were originally designed to be strong, that was role defining, they were an issue with some amulets because of the design of the class. But once those said amulets are removed, if you don’t have any gm trait worth taking anymore, and you directly/indirectly nerf/fix their source of dmg mitigation, you leave a class without any decent role in a team since others can do better with less investment.

I’m not complaining though, I can still manage to have my share of fun. But it always leaves a bitter aftertaste.

MyPuppy.8970:

I never understood why as having lowest hp/toughness, eles also have the weakest aas/dmg skills/elites. There is no compensation for that innate handicap. Sure we theoryticaly have the most dps potential, but that requires all stars to be aligned during a solar eclipse. You HAVE to spec survivability to be somewhat useful to your team, or if you go full damage, you are much less efficient than any other class. This class has been designed to be a swiss knife, so everything feels kitten.

The removal of celestial is a good thing, but there needs to be tools to be efficient in any specialization you chose. That is why our gm traits were originally designed to be strong, that was role defining, they were an issue with some amulets because of the design of the class. But once those said amulets are removed, if you don’t have any gm trait worth taking anymore, and you directly/indirectly nerf/fix their source of dmg mitigation, you leave a class without any decent role in a team since others can do better with less investment.

I’m not complaining though, I can still manage to have my share of fun. But it always leaves a bitter aftertaste.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind the Jack of All Trade nowadays. Seems to be that Scrappers are way more All Trade than Elementlists now, along with Revenant having an impressive number of cooldowns to use.

Alekt.5803:

MyPuppy.8970:

I never understood why as having lowest hp/toughness, eles also have the weakest aas/dmg skills/elites. There is no compensation for that innate handicap. Sure we theoryticaly have the most dps potential, but that requires all stars to be aligned during a solar eclipse. You HAVE to spec survivability to be somewhat useful to your team, or if you go full damage, you are much less efficient than any other class. This class has been designed to be a swiss knife, so everything feels kitten.

The removal of celestial is a good thing, but there needs to be tools to be efficient in any specialization you chose. That is why our gm traits were originally designed to be strong, that was role defining, they were an issue with some amulets because of the design of the class. But once those said amulets are removed, if you don’t have any gm trait worth taking anymore, and you directly/indirectly nerf/fix their source of dmg mitigation, you leave a class without any decent role in a team since others can do better with less investment.

I’m not complaining though, I can still manage to have my share of fun. But it always leaves a bitter aftertaste.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind the Jack of All Trade nowadays. Seems to be that Scrappers are way more All Trade than Elementlists now, along with Revenant having an impressive number of cooldowns to use.

Ele USE to be jack of all trades now it’s a struggle just to find a build much less diversity

Clearly the answer is to give ele back Lava Tomb (increased damage while downed).

Let’s face it. As a damage built ele, you’re going to go down quickly and often. But with this trait, people can’t stomp you because they’ll die to the lava font if they try to, so you are now immune to stealth stomps, among other things. And even your formerly useless downed skill 1 can drop people.

…

This was actually my favorite trait back in 2013, when ele was trash tier, and I ran zerker ele. It was hilarious watching people try to stomp me and then realizing they couldn’t, and then dropping to a fire sigil proc off skill 1 as they backed off.

reikken.4961:

Clearly the answer is to give ele back Lava Tomb (increased damage while downed).

Let’s face it. As a damage built ele, you’re going to go down quickly and often. But with this trait, people can’t stomp you because they’ll die to the lava font if they try to, so you are now immune to stealth stomps, among other things. And even your formerly useless downed skill 1 can drop people.

…

This was actually my favorite trait back in early 2013, when ele was trash tier, and I ran zerker ele. It was hilarious watching people try to stomp me and then realizing they couldn’t, and then dropping to a fire sigil proc off skill 1 as they backed off.

Downed lava font trait is still there it just got merged with the persisting flames gm trait, though I think they dropped the increased damage part got removed.

yeah the increased damage part is what is missing and what needs to be added back

reikken.4961:

yeah the increased damage part is what is missing and what needs to be added back

Jihad down-state ele doesn’t even have enough damage to make a comeback in 2016. Sad times…

I’m sorry wth is this thread? Fresh Air Ele is still a pretty OP build. Maybe not as much in PvP but, in WvW the same build is still nuts. 50%-60% damage reduction and DS still clearing conditions really well. Overloading Air hits way too hard at 1.5-2k procs x 18. That’s just too much for one button press and all that passive defense.

Think they were referring to pvp not wvw

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m sorry wth is this thread? Fresh Air Ele is still a pretty OP build. Maybe not as much in PvP but, in WvW the same build is still nuts. 50%-60% damage reduction and DS still clearing conditions really well. Overloading Air hits way too hard at 1.5-2k procs x 18. That’s just too much for one button press and all that passive defense.

This is PvP forum…no wvw…-_-

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m sorry wth is this thread? Fresh Air Ele is still a pretty OP build. Maybe not as much in PvP but, in WvW the same build is still nuts. 50%-60% damage reduction and DS still clearing conditions really well. Overloading Air hits way too hard at 1.5-2k procs x 18. That’s just too much for one button press and all that passive defense.

And my end goal is not to stomp people in unranked game. I am looking for competitively viable; and not just the aura-bot healer that is the auramancer from the last meta.

BlackBeard.2873:

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Kind of true, but in a way kind of not. On its face, it is relatively broken, but given the insane overload cost and the fact that overload earth doesn’t do anything else substantial it was relatively balanced. To clarify, overload earth, while probably having the longest description due to all the garbage attached to it in an attempt to make it worthwhile, did basically nothing besides grant prot. The damage/bleeds are minimal, the final 4s immob takes too long to get and has almost no meaning with everyone taking insane amounts of condi cleanse (due to other classes), the blast finisher is just ….why? (a blast 5s from a cast is all but impossible to use). You will always get more now by just swapping out and coming back, both in the short and long term.

I agree with the change, as it now normalizes earth overload with the other overloads (besides air) as skills that should basically never be cast. Fire is acceptable for downed cleave, but you don’t want to use it in the middle of a fight as being locked out of fire for 20s means no pressure.

20 second cooldown while having 20 other skills is costly to you?

Okay then.

There is only thing you have to understand about Ele.

The level Ele buffed or nerfed, is completely related the level whine about it.

In the last 2 months, did you see Ele any top tier competitive level, where the teams still running 4 elementalists?

But it was already too late, whine train was traveling full speed ahead, for the top talent it was already decided that Ele didn’t have it but the argumentation now was, it is to effective at low level PVP.

So bad players can’t deal with Elemantalist, so actually when you balance class A against class B, a reasonable men will look what a top player can do with class A while another top player plays with class B.

But what ANet says in their unbelievable wisdom, no bad player can deal with Ele, we will balance for them.

Thats my friend is for me balancing with whining level…….

I agree with the OP as the bug fix of earth atunement was the change that hurted the ele the most in terms of survibability. Also agree with the weird selection of title (dps kill) when the problem was earth overload… the thing is that this week I realized that the best way to build an offensive ele is by boosting their def, …. the most it lives, the more damage it can deal… For sure Air overload buff is flashy in paper and more than agree that it’s usage in PvE will be golden, but here… one may think, oh, I’ll use the flashy Paladin amulet and kill all paper thieves that cross my path but truth is, you get wrecked fast… .. tried different skills, traits… and nothing seemed to work … gave up and said … “DPS ele is dead”…. lastnight had a relevation… well… we use to dps with cele, why not … use Mender’s for dps?…. the results where highly unexpected, while I kept the water/tempest traits to deal with healing/cleansing, changed earth to air for whatever specific dps build … and well … an alive ele deals more damage than a dead one.. played cc lightning rod with S/F, no conjured weapon, but all auras instead and the spikes where enough to take down the thieves and hurt the other classes… specially useful on teamfights since no longer died to focuss fire while providing good healing to teammates.

Long story short, I feel that Mender’s amulet is the new cele amulet for ele, making several builds (that doesn´t require condi damage) …viable.

runeblade.7514:

BlackBeard.2873:

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Kind of true, but in a way kind of not. On its face, it is relatively broken, but given the insane overload cost and the fact that overload earth doesn’t do anything else substantial it was relatively balanced. To clarify, overload earth, while probably having the longest description due to all the garbage attached to it in an attempt to make it worthwhile, did basically nothing besides grant prot. The damage/bleeds are minimal, the final 4s immob takes too long to get and has almost no meaning with everyone taking insane amounts of condi cleanse (due to other classes), the blast finisher is just ….why? (a blast 5s from a cast is all but impossible to use). You will always get more now by just swapping out and coming back, both in the short and long term.

I agree with the change, as it now normalizes earth overload with the other overloads (besides air) as skills that should basically never be cast. Fire is acceptable for downed cleave, but you don’t want to use it in the middle of a fight as being locked out of fire for 20s means no pressure.

20 second cooldown while having 20 other skills is costly to you?

Okay then.

I think you missed the bold part of the argument. Anyway, yes, we don’t need to worry to be locked out of the pressure skills for 20s since now we have the new improved all mighty SHATTERSTONE!

runeblade.7514:

BlackBeard.2873:

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Kind of true, but in a way kind of not. On its face, it is relatively broken, but given the insane overload cost and the fact that overload earth doesn’t do anything else substantial it was relatively balanced. To clarify, overload earth, while probably having the longest description due to all the garbage attached to it in an attempt to make it worthwhile, did basically nothing besides grant prot. The damage/bleeds are minimal, the final 4s immob takes too long to get and has almost no meaning with everyone taking insane amounts of condi cleanse (due to other classes), the blast finisher is just ….why? (a blast 5s from a cast is all but impossible to use). You will always get more now by just swapping out and coming back, both in the short and long term.

I agree with the change, as it now normalizes earth overload with the other overloads (besides air) as skills that should basically never be cast. Fire is acceptable for downed cleave, but you don’t want to use it in the middle of a fight as being locked out of fire for 20s means no pressure.

20 second cooldown while having 20 other skills is costly to you?

Okay then.

Skills like… Shatterstone? And auto attacks that has less physical damage coefficients per second than a condi auto attack from Reaper?

Here is a comparison for you, both using the water set:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shatterstone
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Spike

Ice Spike has almost double the damage, more range, more radius. Ice Spike deals damage after the vulnerability. Shatterstone deals damage before the vulnerability, which means it is not affected by the +20% damage traits.

It’s a shame that they refuse to look at Ele Scepter damage. It’s a shame that after 3 buffs, Shatterstone is still like half of Ice Spike (which is not even used regularly in PvE/PvP).