Guild Wars 2

Most specialisations focus on a specific area such as defense, party support, power damage, condition damage, control. This was even emphasised in the (in my opinion correct) decision to move the engineer trait Incendiary Powder from the power-focussed Explosions line to the condition-focussed Firearms line.

Now if we look at the fire line, it provides significant buffs in three seperate areas:

In the power area, we have 10% damage to burning foes, 10% damage while in fire (burning speed and fire grab are both significant sources of dps in the build), reduced cooldown on those skills and might on cantrips.

In the condition area, we have an additional fire aura per rotation (more burn), additional cleansing fire (3 stacks of burn) proccing every 32s and might on cantrips.

In the defense area we have Blinding Ashes. Now besides the burning from the fire skills, there is also the fire aura combo gained on the opposite side of the rotation that means that the blind frequency is fairly close to the 5s icd, which is a rather high blind frequency. There is also the additional condition cleanse (3 conditions every 32s).

As you can see, the fire line really gives too much to three separate areas for a single trait line. There are two ways to address this. Either knock one of these areas out of the fire line, or reduce the potency of these areas. I’ll let you decide which would be best, but increasing the icd of Blinding Ashes to around 12s would be a good start. This trait alone currently gives as much defense as half of the earth line.

P.S. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I main D/D celestial elementalist and actively play it in the NA esl scene at this point in time.

ele fire line = lowest risk, highest reward line trait in game

+1 and lot of naked charrs with apples

Fire line was given all that defensive power because elementalists were complaining that we couldn’t spec into fire without giving up a ton of sustain from water and arcane. Now that we have three lines fire is mainly competing with earth for which provides more defense.

What really needs to happen is for the water and arcane lines to get hefty nerfs and the ele weapon skills compensated with more innate defense so elementalists can survive with such low base stats without going for builds that are 90% defense.

Once elementalists can survive without investing so much into defense you can change the fire line to be all about raw damage and burning without the defensive traits.

What really needs to happen is for the water and arcane lines to get hefty nerfs and the ele weapon skills compensated with more innate defense so elementalists can survive with such low base stats without going for builds that are 90% defense.

this is just no.. then you get the same junk you have now and will be able to dish out even more damage because you would just go all offense with all your defense on weapons

Ehecatl.9172:

Fire line was given all that defensive power because elementalists were complaining that we couldn’t spec into fire without giving up a ton of sustain from water and arcane. Now that we have three lines fire is mainly competing with earth for which provides more defense.

What really needs to happen is for the water and arcane lines to get hefty nerfs and the ele weapon skills compensated with more innate defense so elementalists can survive with such low base stats without going for builds that are 90% defense.

Once elementalists can survive without investing so much into defense you can change the fire line to be all about raw damage and burning without the defensive traits.

Elementalists shouldn’t be surviving without investing into defense. This is the same for pretty much every class except elementalist, who somehow manage to spec very offensive while obtaining tremendous defensive benefits at the same time.

Make blinding ashes 20-30 seconds. Or nerf their damage by A LOT. Why should a tank class be able to deal damage and ele damage isn’t even hard to land.

But hey Trixx, wouldn’t putting down Fire Trait line because d/d abused simply put down other elementalist builds that were using it?

The might on cantrips needs to be put in line with the One with Fire might. Which means: 2 stack of might for 10 seconds. Cantrips are already good like that.

Other than that, I also advocate for a reduction in the Regeneration and Vigor from Soothing Disruption by half. Which means: casting a cantrip now grants 3 seconds of regeneration and vigor.

Alekt.5803:

But hey Trixx, wouldn’t putting down Fire Trait line because d/d abused simply put down other elementalist builds that were using it?

For example?

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Most specialisations focus on a specific area such as defense, party support, power damage, condition damage, control. This was even emphasised in the (in my opinion correct) decision to move the engineer trait Incendiary Powder from the power-focussed Explosions line to the condition-focussed Firearms line.

Now if we look at the fire line, it provides significant buffs in three seperate areas:

In the power area, we have 10% damage to burning foes, 10% damage while in fire (burning speed and fire grab are both significant sources of dps in the build), reduced cooldown on those skills and might on cantrips.

In the condition area, we have an additional fire aura per rotation (more burn), additional cleansing fire (3 stacks of burn) proccing every 32s and might on cantrips.

In the defense area we have Blinding Ashes. Now besides the burning from the fire skills, there is also the fire aura combo gained on the opposite side of the rotation that means that the blind frequency is fairly close to the 5s icd, which is a rather high blind frequency. There is also the additional condition cleanse (3 conditions every 32s).

As you can see, the fire line really gives too much to three separate areas for a single trait line. There are two ways to address this. Either knock one of these areas out of the fire line, or reduce the potency of these areas. I’ll let you decide which would be best, but increasing the icd of Blinding Ashes to around 12s would be a good start. This trait alone currently gives as much defense as half of the earth line.

P.S. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I main D/D celestial elementalist and actively play it in the NA esl scene at this point in time.

Regardless of what you play or not, your analysis is wrong.
First of all you talk like the ele only has one weapon set, therefore is ok to nerf a traitline…like seriously?

Second of all when you talk about condi cleanse, do take into consideration, the final number of conditions cleansed and the frequency and compare it to what other professions get when they do spec for condi clear, here a fast calculation : ele clears 6 condis every 32s, 2 condis every 10s, 1 condi every 32s, 1 condi every 60s; on ranger I can get 4 condis cleared every 20s, 4 condis cleared every 48s, all of the condis cleared every 48s. It’s the ele condi cleare capability that outrageous when talking about numbers?..obviously not

Now going back to my first point:
is a staff ele specced in fire a power house, burning/blinding people non stop?……No
is a scepter ele equally specced fire any useful?…..absolutely NO

So outside a couple of traits that need adjustment, the fire line is fine, it provides exactly what it was designed for : power increase and condi/direct damage pressure

I don’t see any offensive trait line in game without a hefty amount of defensive options in it, name me a single profession with an offensive trait line that lacks any sort of defensive options…

So the real problem is clear, the weapon set itself, simply reduce the burn application of the weapon set and you’d solve all problems but…that won’t satiate the angry mob I know.

Personally I think they need to tone down water or at least make it so that you either get spike heal or sustain heal, not medium chunks fairly often with a smedium regen from regen, soothing mists and signet heal.

Blinding ashes is annoying but it does give defensive options outside of water and arcana as was said earlier. Another under valued trait is lightening rod, you can keep a lot of weakness up especially with the number of interrupts else has.

Arcana still needs work in my opinion.

Supreme.3164:

I don’t see any offensive trait line in game without a hefty amount of defensive options in it, name me a single profession with an offensive trait line that lacks any sort of defensive options…

You must be blind then.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zeal
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arms
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosives
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firearms
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Domination
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_Strikes (nobody takes IP because of how bad it is before you bring that up)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corruption

Supreme.3164:

So the real problem is clear, the weapon set itself

Yes of course, and that’s why d/d ele was falling out of the meta prior to the patch that allowed eles to spec full into fire?

Rangers Marksman line isn’t linked to LB’s anymore , and the Striders defence is linked to Melee use now and that only protects vs ranged quite randomly i might add but if thats combined with quickness it becomes a strong trait which is that lines only defence which only works vs Ranged unlike Blind which works vs everything.

plus we have to choose between Steady focus 10% damage at the cost of full Endurance or Striders defence, nothing else in a rangers Power Trait line gives defence.

for Balance D/D ele or the % damage of having access to two 10%’s in one line is not even to other classes ontop of that having such a strong Defence through blinds is also not Equal to other classes , so choose loose 10% or add more IDC to the blinds.

d/d elementalists were like, “who needs elemental shielding and other boring earth traits when you can have empowering flame, burning fire, pyromancer’s training, burning rage and blinding ashes.”

The offense-defense synergy of fire line alone is better than the 3 combined trait lines on some classes.

Fay.2357:

Elementalists shouldn’t be surviving without investing into defense. This is the same for pretty much every class except elementalist, who somehow manage to spec very offensive while obtaining tremendous defensive benefits at the same time.

Elementalists don’t spec offensively and get insane defense. They spec defensively and get insane offense. Giving them some innate defense while nerfing what they get from traits gives enough breathing room to nerf the fire line and make it more offensive so offensive eles can freely spec offensively without being completely defenseless and vice versa.

It opens the door to much easier balancing decisions as right now all ele balance choices are made assuming the ele has invested in water. Making water not mandatory makes everything easier and gives the ele build diversity.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Alekt.5803:

But hey Trixx, wouldn’t putting down Fire Trait line because d/d abused simply put down other elementalist builds that were using it?

For example?

A conjure build could be tempted to use blinding ashes. My fire variation of Condi Conjure Staff uses it. But now? Because d/d uses it, it becomes too good.

Just reduce the burning applied by dagger skills. Problem solved. Prevents other weapons from being nerfed unnecessarily

Lol.

Fire isn’t actually that strong, honestly. It’s not a complete waste of a traitline now, as it had been for a while, but really it just happens to be better than earth and air, which isn’t exactly noteworthy.

Arcane and Water are the strong ele lines, and I would argue that water is the problematic one.