Guild Wars 2

1- Buff the damage on the focus 4 “Freezing Gust” then swap places between it and “Cleansing Wave” on off hand dagger, lower the CD of “Cleansing Wave” to 20 sec.

2- Remove “Cleansing Wave” as the evasive arcana water effect, replacing it with a weaker version of the dagger 3 “Frozen Burst” effect (2 sec aoe chill rather than 3).

Yes, that’s it. The fundamental problem unlike what people think is not cantrips. They’re strong defensive abilities but have a fair CD and take up an ability slot. They’re fine. The real problem is off hand dagger and evasive arcana.

Off hand dagger offers in one weapon: the best mobility/disengage ability in the game with a base range of 1200 very fast movement speed with a fairly low CD, combined with high damage abilities, combined with 2 powerful control abilities, combined with a powerful healing ability. That makes it way too easy for the class to disengage/disable while healing themselves. Cleansing wave on evasive arcana is just too strong and makes the trait mandatory, eles are not going to explore other trait lines until you remove it, simple as that. Plus it gives sustained healing to eles even when they are geared for dmg output, which combined with strong defensive abilities make their ratio of dmg to defense unbalanced. An AOE chill on a 10 sec cd is still powerful defensively, but no longer “mandatory”. An ele geared for dmg should not be able to just stay in and tank dmg while out healing it, they should be forced to use their control/mobility to disengage when low to survive and have to actually wait for their health to get back up like with every other dmg build in the game.

The reduction in CD for Cleansing Wave is to compensate for removing it from evasive arcana, because a bunker/healing ele that gears for that should be viable. And by putting it with focus you now force eles to make a choice, they can be good bunkers/healers OR highly mobile/burst dmg but they can’t do all 4 of those things at the same time because that’s when it gets stupid and unbalanced.

I’m not saying this is all it takes to “fix” eles all around, this is what it takes to break the current meta, to really fix the class glyphs and signets both need to be revamped so they are actually useful, conjured weapons needs to be buffed further, the fire trait line needs to be buffed/redesigned, staff needs major buffing and some redesign… etc. But this would be a start.

mmm maybe but focus don’t need no cleansing wave. That set already anti-burst as it comes. Just lacking heavily in offensive presence.

ensoriki.5789:

mmm maybe but focus don’t need no cleansing wave. That set already anti-burst as it comes. Just lacking heavily in offensive presence.

It does, otherwise even bunker eles will continue to run off hand dagger.

Scepter range is only 900 not 1200…and i dont want to be forced to use a focus like mesmers. I love my water five ability so screw you go QQ some more. No ele wants to be forced to use a focus I personally love to run scepter/dagger. Eww focus horrible idea.

How about swapping the effects of Evasive Arcana with the 15 point minor traits?

If you take away cleansing wave AND evasive arcana heal you are basically gutting all of scepter/daggers healing power and there will be no one using that weapon set anymore. The only option will be to run 3 cantrips or die after dodges are on cooldown.

It doesn’t take it away, 30 in water and arcana would still give cleansing wave and evasive arcana heal. Just instead of Flame Burst, Blinding Flash, and Churning Earth on dodge in the other attunements, you’d get Sunspot (damage at location), Electric Discharge (strike foe with lightning), and Earthen Blast (damage and cripple at location), respectively, instead.

You know, I came in here expecting to laugh at the idea’s but these are actually good well thought out and logical idea’s. /clap

piffdaddy.8014:

Scepter range is only 900 not 1200…and i dont want to be forced to use a focus like mesmers. I love my water five ability so screw you go QQ some more. No ele wants to be forced to use a focus I personally love to run scepter/dagger. Eww focus horrible idea.

“The best mobility/disengage ability in the game with a base range of 1200 very fast movement speed with a fairly low CD” that’s clearly referring to Ride the Lightning, not to scepter range, nowhere in that statement do I say anything about scepter. So rather than “correcting” me you could learn to read. The fact “you” “love” having both the strongest weapon slot heal and the strongest weapon slot mobility skill in the game in one weapon is not an argument as to how that is or isn’t balanced. The opposite if anything. Unlike this post, which is a coherent argument as to how it is not. All classes would love that combination as it makes staying alive for a roamer a bit too easy.

The change also does not “force” eles to use focus, it makes focus optimal if they want to bunker, if they want to do dmg they’d still be better off running dagger, and they would gain a ranged chill to help them close into kiting targets to melee them. All classes are “forced” to run certain weapons to perform in specific types of play, a warrior is forced to run LB to have decent ranged capability, a necro is forced to run dagger to be able to burst an engi is forced to run pistol to play condi, and etc. The fact off dagger is the best weapon to both bunker with AND roam burst, and that no one wants to touch focus, makes it quite clear there is a balance issue between the two.

A “QQ” post is a whiny post where players say what they like and want (as opposed to what’s better for the game and overall balance), get mad at people who disagree, insult other people, and don’t actually present any sound arguments or solutions to a real problem. In other words, your post, no mine. Not to mention, unlike some of the actual QQ posts about eles, what I suggest is barely a nerf, and more of a adjustment to fix a balance problem.

lettucemode.3789:

It doesn’t take it away, 30 in water and arcana would still give cleansing wave and evasive arcana heal. Just instead of Flame Burst, Blinding Flash, and Churning Earth on dodge in the other attunements, you’d get Sunspot (damage at location), Electric Discharge (strike foe with lightning), and Earthen Blast (damage and cripple at location), respectively, instead.

my last post was directed at the op, but honestly your idea is not so bad. I just dont want to lose my elementalists healing because of QQ. The op thinks we should be gutted and forced to use a focus for any survivability.

piffdaddy.8014:

lettucemode.3789:

It doesn’t take it away, 30 in water and arcana would still give cleansing wave and evasive arcana heal. Just instead of Flame Burst, Blinding Flash, and Churning Earth on dodge in the other attunements, you’d get Sunspot (damage at location), Electric Discharge (strike foe with lightning), and Earthen Blast (damage and cripple at location), respectively, instead.

my last post was directed at the op, but honestly your idea is not so bad. I just dont want to lose my elementalists healing because of QQ. The op thinks we should be gutted and forced to use a focus for any survivability.

My apologies then, I thought you were talking to me

piffdaddy.8014:

If you take away cleansing wave AND evasive arcana heal you are basically gutting all of scepter/daggers healing power and there will be no one using that weapon set anymore. The only option will be to run 3 cantrips or die after dodges are on cooldown.

Scepter/dagger would be more suitable for a hybrid dmg/roam build, while scepter/focus would be best for a pure bunker build. As to it “gutting away all healing power”, you mean besides the main heal, water trident, healing ripple, soothing mists and regen right? Because that’s 5 healing sources. Also, if your weapon set up and runes/sigils are damage oriented, you actually shouldn’t be able to just out heal another high damage opponent, you need to kill them before they kill you, as with every other dmg build in the game. If you want to be able to out heal your opponent your dmg should take a penalty from it.

Julius.1094:

ensoriki.5789:

mmm maybe but focus don’t need no cleansing wave. That set already anti-burst as it comes. Just lacking heavily in offensive presence.

It does, otherwise even bunker eles will continue to run off hand dagger.

it does for what?
Let em bunker in /D.
Taking focus atm leaves you with terrible damage output, no matter what you do and with Obsidian flesh you’ll get your pointed neutted regardless like a thief.
Thing needs better offensive presence or its CC upped.
Till then its stuck in limbo.
Not like the world needs more bunkers either sorz.

I kinda like those propositions and it would reduce the tankyness of certain builds while still keeping strong support-capabilities with the chill.

Maybe Valk-Amu Eles would then be a bit too squishy though, but a slight HP-boost could solve that without making tank-builds too strong again.

I was expecting another QQ thread but this one is actually not that bad.

Tbh I would not remove Cleansing Wave on off hand dagger. It simply fits the other skills. You need to be close or channel your abilites (aka enemies will hit you) to deal damage which means you also need to some way of healing. Freezing Gust would not compensate for that.

Here is what I would do instead:

Lower the base healing on Cleansing Wave and increase the ratio with Healing Power. Burst builds could heal less and bunker builds would stay viable. This would also make Evasive Arcana less powerful. Problem solved.

Blackhat.4016:

Lower the base healing on Cleansing Wave and increase the ratio with Healing Power. Burst builds could heal less and bunker builds would stay viable. This would also make Evasive Arcana less powerful. Problem solved.

Exactly the opposite should be done: Bunker-Ele’s are the Problem, not the ones with Valk-Amu…..

Maybe I was a little inaccurate:

A lot of Healing Power = a lot of healing

Currently it heals too much, even without a lot of Healing Power. If you decrease the base healing a lot and slightly increase the ratio the skill would follow the rule again. Bunkers would be weaker while still being viable. DPS builds should not be able to heal a lot. There are several reasons why we don’t see DPS eles but let me tell you what would happen if they would be viable and the base healing would stay the same:

They would deal a lot of damage and heal a lot. And that is something I personally don’t want.

I can’t tell you the exact numbers on how much the base healing and ratio should be. Anet would need to try different numbers. In the end the skill should heal less while still scaling well with Healing Power.

I like the OPs post and to be honest I usually never spec more than 10 in arcana. However a lot of people do spec to 30 because of the attunement cooldown reduction, so maybe that has to be addressed as well…

These are not half bad suggestions. Ele still needs a lot though — 30 in Arcana is not only a ‘requirement’ for Evasive Arcana but for attunement cooldown reduction, as people have noted. Until that is addressed eles will be forced to put 20-30 points in Arcana and builds will continue to be limited.

Again, these are good ideas! Interested to see how this thread continues. It will be quite a challenge to balance the ele without gutting it entirely.

I completely agree with this post. Dagger off hand is just too powerful currently and it has lead to build blandness.