Guild Wars 2

Dear Arenanet.

I’m Eternya, currently member of the team The Civilized Gentlemen, past member of the team Sizzling Hot Pressure and Fifty Five Hp Monks, I participated to almost all ESL events since the ESL weekly #14 and the only Go4 Esl I didn’t participate was because I was stuck on my hospital bed.

At this day I have almost 13 000 game played in PvP and 5 000 on them are on ELEMENTALIST, now, why I’m saying this is not to try to show if I have a big D or not, i’m just pointing that I have a lot of experience in the game and the prof I want to talk about, plus, I’m redacting that post with others players who are far better and more intelligent than me, players from all differents Top Tier PvP Teams in EU and NA.

So, what i’m asking is that you ArenaNet, have to re-watch/re-think completly the changes that you are going to do for the elementalist
in your patch implementing the new system of specialisations simply because if you keep going on the changes you exposed us, you will definitly and again put the ele out the PvP meta.

We’re here going to tell you what’s the current state of the ele, to what it should be orientate, the changes that you should and shouldn’t make for this prof.

1/ Current state of the ele in the meta

Atm, the ele is a celestial prof along with the Warrior and the Ingeneer.

The War is currently more oriented on the team assistance with an insane ammount
of condi cleanse and proper heal for him and also his allies in 600 radius arround him, we’ll also consider that the heal coming from the shout are usable
even if the warrior is CC’ed and once again, with a really proper range/radius, add a real game-changing elite (battle stantard), add a proper dps over time via condi
and also some descent direct damage with the longbow3/sword3 and you get a prof who’s currently essential to have in any comps.

The ingeneer is kinda the opposite of the warrior, it’s less oriented on the team assistance but rely more on his dps who is full of big direct damage, a large pannel of CC’s
and also really dangerous condi damage, add to this great ammount of cleave the possibility to have a descent heal and condi cleanse with also a big radius/range of 480 and
the fact that it create a water field, accorded with a good coordination with your mates, can heal all your team for a big ammount. You basically obtain a prof with once again
crazy damages/cc and proper team assistance.

Now let’s jump to the elementalist with the parts we saw for the last 2 profs: damages, cc’s and team assistance.
Starting by the damages output, we have the possibility to go fire attunement wich is our real offensive part, allowing us to have a condi pressure over time with burn and also so direct damages with burning speed (3)
and fire grasp (5), besides it, other attunement has a nice auto attack in air wich represent an almost descent constant pressure and earth 2 ring of earth wich is also some slight damages, churching
earth (5) is a really situationnal attacks wich is easyly dodgable/avoidable.
Going to the CC’s part, we have real CC’s, updraft (air 5), seism (earth 4), both are on 40 seconds CD’s, compared to the 15/20secs cd’s of the 2 cc’s of the ingi. I’m not speaking of the fact that these cc’s are full melee
and sometimes hard to land, especially for seism with a stuck animation.
Now considering the team assist part of the ele, that’s maybe the more important part, let’s start with the simple fact that we can give a 6 seconds protection to us and our allies every 10 sec, wich is the main reason you
want an ele in your team tbh, note is that to be able to give that prot, you need the current ARCANE TRAIT 8 elemental attunement, another thing to keep in mind is that the radius of this prot is 240 (really less than all
assist you can get from a warrior or an ingi). Let’s now switch to the HEAL part, turning into the water attunement allow us to heal our allies in ONCE AGAIN a 240 radius for 1 600 hp approx, once we are in water, we usually use
cleansing wave 2 000 heal approx and 1 condition removed and sorry to be repetitive but 240 radius AGAIN, finally we do use or water dodge roll considering we have the arcane trait 11 evasive arcana and so we can perform a second
cleansing wave by dodge rolling, there is no problem to this if it’s only self healing, but in practice, managing to heal an ally by dodge rolling, when everybody is running arround, when you can get CC’ed and (one more time) with only
240 radius, it’s getting hard, not impossible but hard compared to the war who just need to press 1 button and be sure to heal his ally, we sometimes even have to use our lightning flash during our dodge to be 100% sure to perform
the heal.

Now i’m not trying to say that ELE is in a bad position and need to be buffed, what i’m saying if that we take a look at the 3 points I mentionned, we basically have a warrior who has a bit less dps/cc than ELE but clearly MORE
cleanse and heal for himself and his mates, and on the other hand we have the ingi who has way more DPS and CC’s for a bit less team assist/cleanse. OFC ele has other strong points, indeed we have a better self sustain than the 2 others
in reason of our super high mobility with lightning flash and RTL and our self prot via aura. But our meta is taking the way of a real team fights meta, and having a really selfish sustain and mobility is worthless compared to an high
dps or team assist.

What we’re trying to point here is the fact that ELE is the most polyvalent prof, it does everything and that’s why he is meta, but in the end, doing a bit of everything might be worthless than dropping dps for heal or heal for dps.

2/ The specializations patch

Now that you know what is the current state of the ele, let’s see what you are going to do with the others prof and the ele.

With this new patch, allowing us to have 3 trait line at max, you are buffing a lot of prof thief will be able to play panic strike and executionner, mutliples prof such as warrior are seing some traits being merged, by exemple
shout’s one, wich allow warriors to basically have 2 more bonus traits that they have now, for some profs you’re also putting some big importants traits as minor, such as Illusion of Persona for the mesmer (that’s only 1 exmple).
To be quick, almost all the profs are getting buffed (and that’s not bad for me) and none of them are getting nerfed exept for the ELE, first of all you’re putting elemental attunements as a GM trait, we will have to choose between
this trait and evasive arcana, wich is the biggest nerf you could do for the prof.
Now you will tell me something like ‘yes but the nerf of the arcana can be compasate by having 1 more compelte trait line such as the earth one’ and I will answer YES, but if I listen to the maths, you’re buffing us but also nerfing
us when you are just buffing and not nerfing other profs, and by this you just put the ele out of the meta one more time.

3/ What we’re asking for

So first of all, dear ANET, we’re asking you to not put ELEMENTAL ATTUNEMENTS as a GM trait or if you do so, put EVASIVE ARCANA as a master trait or minor. We highly insist on that point, if you do that simple change you’ll definitly
kill ele again.

Also, we highly recommend you to re-watch the assist part of the elementalist, by maybe buffing the radius of our heals or allowing us to have more condi cleanse. Putting aquatic benevolence as a minor trait is a good idea that you
have to keep on with. The full earth trait line will just allow us to have more sustain but that’s what we already have, what we want is being able to have more impact during our team fights.

Some CD’s reduction would be nice aswell, I maybe didn’t came to that point but again, the only big CD on warrior is fear me, 45 sec approx, exept crate ingi doesn’t even have a CD that reach 30 seconds exept slick shoes when we have
when we have at least 7 skills with a 40sec + cd’s, rest are smth like 30 seconds cd’s.

Once again, we’re not asking for a buff, what we are asking for is to bring our prof on the same logic of the others.

Thanks.

Once again, we’re not asking for a buff, what we are asking for is to bring our prof on the same logic of the others.

We’ve been asking for the same thing..for a very long time, precisely we’ve been asking for more variety in our utilities/elites department and we’ve been doing this since launch, nothing has been done

Somehow anyway I think that the change may benefit eles in the end, if we’re not seen anymore as support bots, anet may finally decide to give eles some other roles outside of healbot

I don’t play Elementalist at all. But Suprah brought up some good points. I would hate to see Elementalists neutered again.

A good point raised here, is that Elementalists have to do about 5 times as much as Warriors and still do less for the team.

Elemental Attunement should be baseline. If you’re going to make Illusionary Persona baseline, and let Thieves take panic strike and executioner, you need to make it baseline as well.

I mean, every single ele’ build relies on EA. Nerf EA = kill eles. It’s simple, I don’t understand what the devs are thinking.

Oh, and let’s not forget the huge nerf to the Fresh Air build with Bolt to the Heart becoming GM as well. If there’s one ele’ build that really needed a buff, it’s FA – but nope! They’re gonna nerf that as well.

I guess the thought process was “Let’s just make everything useful a GM trait, that’ll hurt”?

With the changes to might we’ve seen eles begin to fall out of the meta, with the nerf it’s pretty likely that we’re going to see it go completely.

Please, for the love of the game, don’t mess this up Anet.

All elementalist are angry about the Evasive Arcana / Elemental Attunement nerf.

Obviously: Our class is so weak it relies on boons an the water line to stay alive.
Now you will lose your water dodge (+cleanse) and your blast for might unless you want to remove the only trait that keeps the ele alive (Elemental attunement Protection).

It’s another survival nerf to a class that didn’t need any.

Make Evasive Arcana a Master Trait, problem solved.

I would back this, of the overview of specs elementalist seemed the least worrying, and perhaps the least viable so some work around the arcana tree might be needed.

Also in terms of elementalist at the moment, they are basically completely replaced by shoutwarriors who have easier heals, cleanse and of course that incredible banner. There should be at least one of these things that an elementalist can do, so increasing AoE on heals also sounds good.

Then again I dont have any experience balancing a game ^^ But I do hope to see elementalists in a position where people that invested their entire GW2 career into playing them can come back with that level of gameplay for us to see again!

I agree with you in most points, but not with Aquatic benevolence being a minor trait in water. Since they moved damage modifiers to water and removed the ones in air, I don’t think it’s really fair dps ele should be stuck with AB. I understand it good for dd ele, but if fresh air will be forced to take water and have one useless minor gm trait, it will be hurt even more than it is now.

But you definitely are right. What they did to ele wasn’t fair compared to buffs to other professions. Maybe they will listen to you, Eternya.

Please listen to this ArenaNet! However, there a couple of points i would like to bring up in addition to this. Firstly, moving one of the traits back to masters would only make every ele in the game go arcane traitline, once again. This is not what build diversity is about.

Instead:

-Elemental Attunement baseline would be a tad too strong if you ask me. Instead, give ele a baseline selfish version of this trait, giving the boons only to you. Now you have the potential for a trait that goes like this: “Elemental attunement affects your allies”.

-While “buffing” the ele, be sure to not overbuff it in areas where it already shines. Ele is already amazing for small fights, 1v1s in particular. One way to do this is to increase the area of the heals slightly (320?). This would put ele more in line with warrior as a support, and at the same time not overbuff the profession in 1v1 situations.

-Following the previous point, another way to help ele support allies on level with other professions without buffing the profession in general too much, is to add support to the water line. Specifically an idea i had was to change the grandmaster minor in water to, in addition to increase heal for allies, also increase radius of heals (cleansing wave). So, like this: [Aquatic Benevolence: Healing done to allies is increased. Radius of cleansing wave also increases].

This way, you bring elementalist support options in line with other professions’ (mainly warrio at the moment) while not giving dps elementalists too much heals or support baseline.

Your voice is falling on deaf ears, Eternyah. The people balancing eles think Zephyr’s speed (+10% speed while attuned to air) is a GOOD trait – they clearly have no idea what they are doing.

Just look at past balancing of eles – they have only been able to make them borderline OP or complete trash. The pendulum is due to swing back to trash for another year.

Part of the problem with eles has always been that their baseline defense is so abysmal, they have to be given incredibly potent defensive traits to keep up with the big boys. Due to the low health/armor, long CD’s on utility/defensive weapon skills, and lack of any inherent defensive mechanic, there have to be traits that give high prot access to survive direct damage and lots of cleanses to survive condis. This creates a problem that the class can become super-tanky when stacking every bit of defense it can get. If you increase the baseline defensive capabilities you don’t need to over-compensate with such OP traits, making the class less able to be broken.

What they SHOULD do for eles:

1. Make elemental attunement BASELINE for the ele, but have shorter durations. Have a master-level trait that increase the duration and makes them aoe. Probably nerf the overall protection duration.
2. Take all of the 5 usable utility skills, and give them CD’s in-line with other classes. If you want to shift some of the survivability away from traits, you have to give it back to the active cooldown usage.
3. Fix the myriad of useless traits created, even during this revamp stage, making sure that not only is every trait actually useful and good, but also that every line (adept/master/gm) has actual options.
4. Find a way to include more actually usable condi-cleanse outside water so that eles can explore other builds that don’t include cleansing water. The cleansing fire trait is garbage, and stuck in a garbage fire line.

+1

ANet should listen to this. EA should be baseline for ele, and has a trait for allies. The Bolt to the Heart change is really bad, and Air traits need a second look. Arcana minor traits are very terrible too. 10% on crit to apply a short condition? With 30% crit chance, that translate to a 3% chance on hit! <wat>. To add more insult to the injury, that trait even has kitten ICD, and is a grand master minor.

Sunshine.5014:

+1

ANet should listen to this. EA should be baseline for ele, and has a trait for allies. The Bolt to the Heart change is really bad, and Air traits need a second look. Arcana minor traits are very terrible too. 10% on crit to apply a short condition? With 30% crit chance, that translate to a 3% chance on hit! <wat>. To add more insult to the injury, that trait even has kitten ICD, and is a grand master minor.

I’m only worried that EA being baseline for ele and traited for allies would bring the same problem if it was a GM trait. It’s rather about ele being supportive to allies and this way they would have to give up Evasive Arcana and lose the support they have now. It’s needed for either EA being in master trait slots, especially when there’s really nothing good to take at all. But yeah, I would be fine with that solution as long as one of them is master.

I can’t believe Arenanet reworked most of the traits and made the same mistakes.

This was the last chance to finally fix ele and now the class makes even less sense.

Here’s my prediction:

1) Ele is useless
2) it takes 8 months to fix it
3) Anet has to introduce an OP, must have trait
4) Ele is now overpowered
5) After 8 more months: Anet nerfes ele.
6) Go back to 1) and repeat.

i believe i posted this the same day as they showed the new traits, sadly not many people care because most of them have the impression that the ele is the “nobrain too much op pls” class, and so my thread died.

Jekkt.6045:

Talking Role
the current role of the elementalist is to support teammembers in skirmishes or teamfights by giving them boons, cleansing conditions, healing them and ccing enemies.

yesterday was shown that the trait elemental attunement will be moved to the grandmaster tier, resulting in the forced choice between it and evasive arcana.

what does this mean for the elementalist’s role and its place in the current meta?

first of all this change will result in 1 less cleanse for the team because you either lose the regeneration on water attunement or the water dodge roll, both reomivng one condition.

furthermore you will either lose your aoe boons or your water heal, both very important in a team fight and will thus cripple the ele’s role.

Concurrence
there are several classes that take on the role of a team supporter, the two strongest (not including ele) beeing shoutbow and altruistic healing shout guard.
both of these specs (correct me if i’m wrong) have been buffed yesterday.

guardian is currently less viable because of the fact that this build can’t accomplish much on its own compared to ele or warrior.

warrior on the other hand is highly demanded and almost every team is running at least one.

Conseuquences
what will this mean for the elementalist?

the elementalist is now able to pick the full earth line, giving it access to rock solid and stone heart, very strong traits; at least in 1v1 situations.

the changes to elementalist take away his effectiveness in teamfights but increase his strength in a 1v1 fight.
the damage output of an elementalist, compared to an engineer for example, is not that high and fights will generally take too long to bring them to an end before reinforcement arrives due to rotations.

what does the elementalist have over, for example, a shoutbow?

assuming we take evasive arcana over elemental attunement, the elementalist will not be able to give his team protection anymore. with rock solid on the other hand we will be able to give our team 1 stack of stability (2s) every 10s which is quite strong.
stability is generally used to stomp downed enemies. with meditation guards in the meta there is already access to stability and makes this less important even if it’s on a shorter cooldown than the virtue.

the elementalist offers great mobility and a fiery greatsword, let’s not forget this. the question is, is it necessary? is it better than a banner? (again, not attacking warriors, but warriors are in the same role and the ele’s concurrence).
there are also ele’s good soft and hard ccs that we shouldn’t overlook.

Conclusion
Overall the elementalist gets pushed out more and more of the meta, not because the build will be weak but because there is no place for the tanky 1v1 build that celestial d/d is going towards to.

other elementalist builds have not really been buffed either, as the other semi viable build, s/f fresh air, has lost a portion of its damage while gaining more active defense in return. this is nice in a way but then again other berserk predators like the thief have also been buffed in a, in my opinion, disturbing way.

so if the devs read this:
please take another look at the ele changes, i don’t mind if you change d/d to the point where it’s not viable as a support role anymore but if you do that then buff other builds so that they will become viable on a high level. if you can’t to that then keep elemental attunement as a master trait, and not a grandmaster.

I definitely agree with you, great post.

As long as they also look at necros, who are in a far worse state across the whole game, I agree. It mainly comes down to eles having lowest hp and armor by default. They need a tad more innate defence that every build gets. Making single target elemental attunement baseline as others have suggested might help, but I still think glassy ele builds will get ganked real hard by thieves.

How to fight against Elementalist as a thief in a team fight:
Step 1: Apply Chill.
Step 2: Come back to it later.

At this point I doubt ArenaNet will keep to the original placement, after all, the preview was more of a collection of thoughts rather than a set ideas. Granted, a lot of those ideas are… still pathetic for Elementalist.

Diamond Skin? Just have it so you are immune, reduce or just cleanse a condition based on your attunement (IE, Fire grants immunity to burning, water negates chill, air stops blindness and earth prevents bleeding, etc.)

Not to mention there are still little reasons to put 6 points into Fire Magic, now with attribute allocation and traits are seperate, there is even LESS of a reason to go a Grandmaster Fire Mage.

_

I must rather more than anything see Chill no longer affect attunement swapping and Magnetic Grasp randomly failing.

_

As of right now, ArenaNet changed for the better. Some suggestions and ideas I made on the forums WERE on the trait preview.

Don’t panic Suprah, have faith in ArenaNet. We all don’t want another Dhuumfire PvP killing massacre on our hands.

when the patch will be released specializations? It is very unfair that all professions ele rise but lower it.

does a dev even play ele ? i mean really play with a few thousand matches or hours , not some scrub with 200hours playtime

Most changes are great. The only problem is losing elemental attunemt. Making elemental attunement grandmaster in the same line as evasive arcana is the same as deleting the trait. Most players wont use it anymore. They should make that trait baseline instead of making it unusable.

Elemental attunement is far too strong to be made baseline as it is. It also has boons attached to it, meaning it is unlikely to be made baseline. Also, the ele changes are a dream compared to what necros got, so it could be worse.

zapv.8051:

Elemental attunement is far too strong to be made baseline as it is. It also has boons attached to it, meaning it is unlikely to be made baseline. Also, the ele changes are a dream compared to what necros got, so it could be worse.

EA seems strong only because ele is the only class whose class mechanic doesn’t confer any inherent benefit. Unless traited, there’s no real benefit associated with the ability to swap attunements. True, the Ele has more overall weapon skills, but the ele’s weapon skills have already been balanced around this fact, so in the end it’s not an inherent advantage. Specifically, the ele’s access to 20 weapon skills is already balanced by the fact that the ele’s weapon skills are generally weaker or have longer cooldowns compared to other classes. To the point where several ele weapon skills aren’t even worth casting (shatterstone, I’m looking at you).

Every other class’s mechanic confers a substantive benefit even when untraited. Warriors get a hard-hitting skill. Guardians get access to burning, on-demand aegis, etc. Thieves get a free teleport + stolen item. Rangers get two pets with their own set of skills. Necros get a second life bar. Etc.

Making a selfish version of EA baseline would bring the Ele’s class mechanic up to this same level.

ResJudicator.7916:

zapv.8051:

Elemental attunement is far too strong to be made baseline as it is. It also has boons attached to it, meaning it is unlikely to be made baseline. Also, the ele changes are a dream compared to what necros got, so it could be worse.

EA seems strong only because ele is the only class whose class mechanic doesn’t confer any inherent benefit. Unless traited, there’s no real benefit associated with the ability to swap attunements. True, the Ele has more overall weapon skills, but the ele’s weapon skills have already been balanced around this fact, so in the end it’s not an inherent advantage. Specifically, the ele’s access to 20 weapon skills is already balanced by the fact that the ele’s weapon skills are generally weaker or have longer cooldowns compared to other classes. To the point where several ele weapon skills aren’t even worth casting (shatterstone, I’m looking at you).

Every other class’s mechanic confers a substantive benefit even when untraited. Warriors get a hard-hitting skill. Guardians get access to burning, on-demand aegis, etc. Thieves get a free teleport + stolen item. Rangers get two pets with their own set of skills. Necros get a second life bar. Etc.

Making a selfish version of EA baseline would bring the Ele’s class mechanic up to this same level.

I agree, selfish version would work well.

We talked about this on the stream as well yesterday…

Basically what you will see here is the end of support from an Ele as a Shoutbow under the new system will be more than capable of taking care of this…

Contrary to popular belief however is that the Ele is quite capable of self-sustaining them under the new system… Making Elemental Attunement a selfish version does not help the Elementalists there where it hits hardest, namely support

I know that a lot of people have said things about Elementalists, especially their popular Celestial build – but you got to realize that this is not removing the issue, it will simply shift it (when every Ele rerolls Warrior for the team instead), and that is a criminal mistake

Good post and the trait changes indeed do seem like an issue.

However, considering cele meta now and based around the mentioned warrior and thief buffs, shouldn’t the discussion be about nerfing warrior, thief and engi along with the ele to give another classes and multiple specs a chance.

Quadox.7834:

I agree, selfish version would work well.

Pls stop suggesting that.It doesnt solve the issue at all.
Its always the same thing with this game..A class can be super op in the sense that it is irreplaceable to every team but everybody will say nothing for years .
But when a class gets strong in the form of good self sustain everybody posts 10 nerf threads per day here..
Selfish elemental attunement will just bring more tears and wont do kitten for the support part.You ll have an “unkillable” ele again that all solo players,wvw players,hot join heroes cry all day while teams couldnt care less about replacing it when the nerfs inevitably come cause there are better options in tfs.

we see less and less cele-DD’s anyways, because they’re not good enough in teamfights (Shoutbow is much better and cele-engi as well) and for 1v1/nodeholding, cele-engi is probably at least on the same level, but with better decap and as stated, better teamfight, burst etc.

Also, to be able to run any amus besides Cele or Zerker successfully, there needs to be a HP-increase to the ele, it’s ridiculous…..

In terms of the upcoming specialization-changes:

- Elemental Attunemt: Yes, the skill is very important for Ele’s, but I still don’t particularly like it. It’s just another AoE-spammable skill like all the AoE-condi-cleanse, Boonspamming with Shouts/Warhorn etc. – everything is just a huge AoE…. -.-°

But if they nerf this skill, they’d have to give Ele sth else.

I think with the new specializations, Fresh-Air could be pretty good: The role would change from sustain-1v1-roamer to DPS-Teamfight roamer. The support would still be pretty good for a very high dps-class: Swirling winds, fire fields, tons of blast-finishers, some AoE-heal und condi-cleanse, decent CC, Fiery GS and depending on the build, a dps-oriented range Ele probably has the easiest way to still get the elemental attunemt compared to the sustain-heavy ele-builds.

For tankyness and teamsupport, I’d probably go for a Staff-Ele: It’ll offer less dps than the current DD-Ele, but the teamsupport with the new incresed healing for allies and the added tankyness, AoE-stability etc. from the new specializations, it could be a build that fits a similar role as the Shoutbow now.

Looking at the traits, I’d probably buff the cleansing wave to two conditions (with 1 it’s basically a joke and as stated by the OP, the Ele will need some teamsupport if EA is a grandmaster trait).

Funny part is 12 months ago EAtt was at adept tier and moved to Master. Now it is moving to the GM.
It took them 3 years to figure out a trait they created during the design of the class belongs actually belong to GM.
Either they don’t know anything about their game or who ever balancing the Elementalist does not know anything about Elementalist.
Can we get at least one developer/balancer that we know that he/she play Ele like we know Groudge plays Engi.

Just a quick thought is it possible to remove Evasive arcana as it is now, and split it up in minor traits(1 point in a trait line).
So if you want the blast finisher from earth you have to spec atleast 1 into earth trait line.
1 point in Fire gives flames burst
1 point in Air gives Blinding flash
1 point in Earth gives Blast finisher
1 point in Water give the water heal

Gaberen.4325:

Just a quick thought is it possible to remove Evasive arcana as it is now, and split it up in minor traits(1 point in a trait line).
So if you want the blast finisher from earth you have to spec atleast 1 into earth trait line.
1 point in Fire gives flames burst
1 point in Air gives Blinding flash
1 point in Earth gives Blast finisher
1 point in Water give the water heal

I kinda like it. ^^’

One aspect I still think would make teamplay with the ele much better and actually be very skill-intensive and a nice help to mitigate EA being GM now, would be that you’d be able to target an ally and use things like cantrips (+all the boni from traits) or auras directly on them.

This could also be implemented for other skills; I’m thinking of distortion from the mesmer, “protect me” from the ranger etc.

I think it would be amazing for the game to actually have focused teamsupport, instead of just massive braindead AoE.

That’s why I also really love the new guardian specialization, especially the shield you can guard allies with, while himself being vulnerable from the side or back. We need more focused and skill-intensive support like that instead of huge AoE’s.

Golden post of the year!

Pls stop suggesting that.It doesnt solve the issue at all.
Its always the same thing with this game..A class can be super op in the sense that it is irreplaceable to every team but everybody will say nothing for years .
But when a class gets strong in the form of good self sustain everybody posts 10 nerf threads per day here..
Selfish elemental attunement will just bring more tears and wont do kitten for the support part.You ll have an “unkillable” ele again that all solo players,wvw players,hot join heroes cry all day while teams couldnt care less about replacing it when the nerfs inevitably come cause there are better options in tfs.

Could have not say better, put EA back where it was…and in the new system you can expect many soloQ-heroes to come here crying all day…every day…until ele get nerfed even harsher

Gaberen.4325:

Just a quick thought is it possible to remove Evasive arcana as it is now, and split it up in minor traits(1 point in a trait line).
So if you want the blast finisher from earth you have to spec atleast 1 into earth trait line.
1 point in Fire gives flames burst
1 point in Air gives Blinding flash
1 point in Earth gives Blast finisher
1 point in Water give the water heal

That would only solve half of the problem. D/D ele would have to go Arcana, anyway. And then what? Pick a bad master trait? The master ones are really really underwhelming.

+1
Great post, im a long time ele player and i pretty much agree on all points.
This post definitely needs a responds from ArenaNet and hopefully they will be able to rethink all the changes they will do to ele.

All is said. All that’s left is to pray now.

I highly support Eternyas ideas. Currently ele has not a safe spot in the meta because warrior brings so much more support to the teamfight and engi is so much stronger at dueling. Ele still works vs some teams who have easy targets like power nec/dps guard where the ele can support in his melee range, but as soon as you have to deal with sneaky zerkers like mes/thief you cannot catch, warriors you cannot pressure and engis you cannot kill and obliterate you in duels and 2v2s you become useless. Increasing the support range of ele would definitely help its teamfight presence, currently we have to reposition even for a single target support.
Also we are lacking a high impact I win button like crate/moa/banner aswell as the damage to make a difference, nor do we have the cc to decap reliably.
Instead of changing elemental attunement to grandmaster it rather deserves to be baseline 600 radius. The only good change I see so far is 20% less dmg from close range so finally we dont get oneshot by thieves anymore. In the end ele is not more than a low hp pool clothy with some boons.

Also don´t forget that the celestial amulet might take a nerf around 10% and the choice for another zerker will be easier than it is now. In addition the traitlines will lose their stats and eles will have to invest into vitality and healing power while other classes like warrior can go all the way into toughnes/direct/condi damage. When warriors can have more armor and health by nature, why can´t ele have more healing and boon duration by nature for example ? Another aspect is the upcoming burn change, if burning does less damage and has to be stacked first the eles main dmg source is getting hit aswell.

If you think ele is still good, its weaknes is one reason I´m not playing for orng and abjured also gave up on trying with ele.

Given anet’s track record, no matter how much users plea and make constructive argument/criticism, it won’t happen. Elementalists in pvp will die out because of Anet’s choice, and since none of the developers play pvp at competent level, they think it will be balanced.
Anet is now balancing everything towards living world, which is all about pressing 1. So I support everything that was said in this thread, but anet won’t care, so gg guys let’s reroll

i would nerf wars/engis tbh…

Cynz.9437:

i would nerf wars/engis tbh…

I was actually thinking the same thing.

Everyone here complaining they’re not at same level as Shoutwarr in Support..
What if we just tone down shoutwarr heal/boon conversion

FYI; celestial getting a tone down, which will already reduce shoutwarr effectiveness already.

Imo d/d eles are fine, its just they get bested by another CELE bruis/supporter.

I think a baseline 600 radius elemental attunement is crazy and way too strong. Partly because it makes full damage eles provide amazing support without investing anything. However i do agree that if eles are ever going to use anything else than arcane traitline, selfish elemental attunement needs to be a thing. In a way, i actually like that the heals are fairly small radius as it makes the supporting more skill based rather than fire and forget. I am willing to instead support a nerf of cele warrior/engi (mainly warrior), as warrior is much much easier than ele and provides greater support in most situations.

But, as i’ve said before, be careful as to not make cele ele too strong in 1v1s.

They said they would be listening to the player feedback but I don’t see any sign of it.

Quite simple: 95% of Eles don’t want that build-breaking nerf.
Can Anet just answer and say they will find another solution?

Xillllix.3485:

They said they would be listening to the player feedback but I don’t see any sign of it.

Quite simple: 95% of Eles don’t want that build-breaking nerf.
Can Anet just answer and say they will find another solution?

um 99% of thieves didn’t want any nerfs that happend like every single patch in the past, you think it stopped anet lol?

thief is still required for any team and overpowered , same as warrior and engi , but ele is already dropping out of the meta

Blackjack.5621:

thief is still required for any team and overpowered , same as warrior and engi , but ele is already dropping out of the meta

define overpowered… thieves are not required for any team, yes they are nice to have but not required, there were tourneys that were won by teams that didn’t have neither mesmer nor thief….. but 2 eles 2 engis (see SALT/bigD team) etc.

my point was, feedback and weither we like changes or not doesn’t mean jack to anet

@cynz, both of the teams that you mentioned runs a thief.

kervv.8542:

@cynz, both of the teams that you mentioned runs a thief.

not always… they have won games w/o thief/mesmer; zuik/honey can confirm

Cynz.9437:

kervv.8542:

@cynz, both of the teams that you mentioned runs a thief.

not always… they have won games w/o thief/mesmer; zuik/honey can confirm

They have… but their main roster includes Thieves.

Jasher.6580:

Cynz.9437:

kervv.8542:

@cynz, both of the teams that you mentioned runs a thief.

not always… they have won games w/o thief/mesmer; zuik/honey can confirm

They have… but their main roster includes Thieves.

doesn’t change the fact that they have won tourneys w/o thief

I still hope that they will realize that and on the base of the fact, that, Arena Net claims to be different from others Mmos by listening to the community, makes the changes that who lives with the elementslist for a good part of the day has proposed. I can’t agree better. If I can say mine, I even think that we won’t be using the elite specialization since it seems that we’re getting forced to spec into something else.

I’ve dusted off my guardian for fear of ele being useless yet again. It may seem like nothing, but in reality these changes will greatly affect elementalist play and if unchanged, there will be a drastic decrease in representation (unless tempest or sword is awesome sauce OP).