Guild Wars 2

Let’s review our history. We lost Minstrels, Mercenary, Soldiers and NOW Clerics.

What’s the next amulet on the chopping block? Menders? Sage? It seems like every amulet removed is a defensive one. Do we just hate defense/support? Do we just like to spam DPS to death without a second thought? At what point, do we realize, that removing amulets will NOT solve the problem? At what point do we realize the OBVIOUS problem? Balance and HoT builds.

HoT builds simply do too much damage. The amount of conditions they pump out is absurd. With the removal of clerics, it’s even WORSE. Removing clerics did nothing but kill support builds and especially Eles. We’re killing builds, folks.

Stop covering up balance issues by removing amulets, it’s not going to solve the core issues but it’ll certainly remove what little build diversity’s left in this game.

kitten , oh boi. can’t say i’m surprised tough.

Rock got deleted by Scissor QQ.

:(

Next amulet to get Deleted :
Knight.

Is there any attempt to keep ele viable in pvp?

With the removal of cleric, elementalist can no longer participate in “serious pvp” (even in as sad of state as it is in). All of the defense mechanics are based on tanking (auras require you get hit, prot requires you get hit) + healing – there is pathetically little hard mitigation (invulns, evades, blocks) on very long CD’s. The class CANNOT play a dps role without just being crapped on by better burst classes like mesmer, theif, and rev.

So the class is pigeon-holed into tanking or bruiser roles, relying on healing to stay alive. Without toughness, your healing does no good. Without healing, your toughness just keeps you alive slightly longer as you just get worn down very quickly without the ability to recover. Vitality doesn’t allow you to sustain in the long run, and works AGAINST healing power.

So now that cele, cleric, and valk’s (or crusader’s) has been removed, what is left for the class? Without cele or crusader’s, eles cannot keep up with other bruisers like scrapper or zerker. Without cleric, ele cannot keep up as a bunker or bunker/dps without just immediately exploding.

I guess the plan is to let the class sit in a dumpster for a year? Will this time be used to actually buff the active defense, or will it just be a year of being asked to change classes followed by reintroduction of cele and celebration that “ele is fixed!!”?

Ele just got deleted from pvp. GG WP no RE. See you all in a year when they probably reintroduce celestial after eles being unseen for that entire span.

This is a short-sighted response. Elementalist is completely viable, even without Cleric’s. The reality is that at low level play, the D/F Auramancer build was a free win. At high level play, it created a long time to kill that was unfun to play and watch. This is a much needed change to bring PvP back into a healthier state.

The issue with Cleric’s was that with Obsidian Flesh, Eles now had 900 Toughness against power builds, and great solutions against condition builds. And with 1200 Healing Power plus all of the abilities on their insane cooldowns, you could not simply ignore them. It created a build that had to be solved, and covered most of its solutions extremely well. More plainly: the Elementalist had to make the mistake.

Why not try the same D/F Auramancer build but with Menders? 1k Power/HP, 500 vit/precision. Pretty good, but now there is counter play from power builds. Beyond that, you’re making the assumption about what Elementalists have to do in your view. But that’s just not the reality. Fresh Air was a popular build for a long time, and is likely still viable in the right hands.

Long short of it: Give the meta time to redevelop. Clerics was problematic.

Cleric’s Amulet was extremely problematic. If you want build diversity, we can not have certain amulets being strictly better than any other choice for a class. People stopped exploring things like Fresh Air builds because of how good D/F Auramancer was. I elaborated a bit more in another post

We need to remove the idea that you can do damage and be tanky at the same time. That being said, we do need to solve the core issues that plague the game: too much of it is focused on builds rather than skill-based dodges, etc. But many of their changes (e.g. Scapper lightning field) are pushing for this sort of counter-play based approach to their PvP. Over-all, this was a solid patch and removing Cleric’s was necessary.

Cleric was an amulet since the start of the game. There is a reason you didn’t see ANY mender’s eles: they don’t have the toughness to play a sustain role. Menders eles get crapped on hard by dps, and only have obsidian flesh as defense.

You will now just see heavy classes bunking.

Fresh air was never actually viable, it was a poor-mans version of a mesmer. It has far too long CD on its burst, its defense is on a VERY long CD, map mobility is very low, team support is low, and you automatically lose if a thief looks at you. It is only worse since HoT, where burst thief (and now revs) are even stronger than old thief, and fresh air ele received nothing truly helpful from HoT.

Ele can’t play dps b/c all ele defense is tank + heal. Hard damage mitigation is on VERY long CD and can’t keep up with the dodges/invulns/blocks/stealth of other dps. Without toughness, ele can’t sustain the pressure of a bruiser.

I am not giving a short-sighted response. I am giving an honest response backed by over 3 years experience playing the class, including the dark ages where 0 eles existed in pvp from summer 2013-summer 2014 because they attacked ele sustain. I am glad you are hopeful, but I think you lack a deep understanding of what works and what doesn’t with the class, and what makes it work.

Who is gonna heals and cleanses for you guyz?

Why going healing power (sage or mender) to do that if it’s simply easier to do Marauder or Wanderer?

Cleave got BUFF. No Sage could rez that cleaved.

So… does that mean we are stuck into a condi meta for all time?

I’m surprised at your response. It’s well thought out and less emotionally charged than expected. I respect your view of this and am anxious to see how it plays out. I’ve been playing since launch and I do recall the times you’re speaking of (about Ele’s being gone from PvP). I hope you’re wrong and Eles can find a way into the meta.

I remember when Slick Shoes was nerfed before s3 and engi’s all thought the world was ending, and then engi’s became one of like two classes that could single-handedly carry a game.

Give it time. Someone will make ele viable.

Don’t be ridiculous now. Surely, being able to block 3(!) attacks every 60 seconds will be enough to keep you alive.

JediSange.1645:

I’m surprised at your response. It’s well thought out and less emotionally charged than expected. I respect your view of this and am anxious to see how it plays out. I’ve been playing since launch and I do recall the times you’re speaking of (about Ele’s being gone from PvP). I hope you’re wrong and Eles can find a way into the meta.

Nobodies know you around, are you a forum “chill”?

You speak about pvp much too well for a noob.

What a joke.

What’s the point of team builds in a team game? lets all just run kittenin condition builds now yay.

Jourdelune.7456:

Nobodies know you around, are you a forum “chill”?

You speak about pvp much too well for a noob.

I guess I’m a lurker? I’ve been playing since launch, am a game designer by hobby, and play a lot of competitive games at a medium-high level — that’s where most of my diction and analysis comes from. So it’s more that I’ve played GW2 PvP seriously since launch, but really only read reddit and the forums on occasion.

JediSange.1645:

Cleric’s Amulet was extremely problematic. If you want build diversity, we can not have certain amulets being strictly better than any other choice for a class. People stopped exploring things like Fresh Air builds because of how good D/F Auramancer was. I elaborated a bit more in another post

We need to remove the idea that you can do damage and be tanky at the same time. That being said, we do need to solve the core issues that plague the game: too much of it is focused on builds rather than skill-based dodges, etc. But many of their changes (e.g. Scapper lightning field) are pushing for this sort of counter-play based approach to their PvP. Over-all, this was a solid patch and removing Cleric’s was necessary.

As someone who only plays Ele in WvW. I think the flat removal of Cleric’s as a bit overboard. I think ANet needs to re-address every single skill and trait in this game, before touching more Amulets. At this rate if GW2’s sPvP somehow survives long enoth expect ANet to remove all of the current amulets and replace them all with just Celestial Amulet.

I am extremely salty about removing team play amulets from a team play game.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with my ele in sPvP now. At least it’s still great for PvE?

Shame on you OP… How can you complain about the only viable amulet for Ele being removed while you now can go berserker (or viper) and collect kills spamming flamestrike

Ubik.8315:

I’m not sure what I’ll do with my ele in sPvP now. At least it’s still great for PvE?

Yeah, huge dps lost but I think it will be still metà for raids

JediSange.1645:

Why not try the same D/F Auramancer build but with Menders?

Mender has no toughness, which makes you lose health faster, has a lot of vitality to make it harder to heal up and has lower healing power to make it even more impossible to reach the now much higher max HP. It’s worse in every possible way than Cleric for a support role.

witcher.3197:

Mender has no toughness, which makes you lose health faster, has a lot of vitality to make it harder to heal up and has lower healing power to make it even more impossible to reach the now much higher max HP. It’s worse in every possible way than Cleric for a support role.

It is worse in every way (sans dealing damage). However, that’s kind of the point. That build was far too strong and created a lot of problems with the meta. It was a well-targeted nerf.

So Anet decided to finally kick the Ele all the way to the bottom?

We ask for ways to play a dps role without exploding in 3 seconds and Anet nerf lava font which is completely unreliable since hardly lands, the heals, air overload, removes cleric, give an improved version of kitteneless tornado, reduce our only block from 75s cd to 60cd LOL, reduce fire grab CD (which no one is using because who is crazy enough to run dagger offhand amid this power creep?) and buff flamestrike.

Yeah, we got this. We will rule with the supreme overpowered shatterstone and flamestrike. Feel the burn!

JediSange.1645:

witcher.3197:

Mender has no toughness, which makes you lose health faster, has a lot of vitality to make it harder to heal up and has lower healing power to make it even more impossible to reach the now much higher max HP. It’s worse in every possible way than Cleric for a support role.

It is worse in every way (sans dealing damage). However, that’s kind of the point. That build was far too strong and created a lot of problems with the meta. It was a well-targeted nerf.

Why is it a well targeted nerf to remove something other classes could make good use of and not be completely OP just because 1 build on 1 class was broken?

A well-targeted nerf would be to reduce the healing a little bit (wash the pain away and elemental bastion) and maybe reduce the access to obsidian flesh (CD reduction earth).

Removing cleric gives no possible stat combinations for ele that are even worth considering building around. The class is packed with loads of sustain traits, and was taking every scrap of sustain and support it could. Taking away the only workable amulet makes those sustain traits useless, which means you go damage. But ele doesn’t have the defensive mechanics within the class to keep up with other damage dealers. So you are left with…no competitive build directions where other classes aren’t just “strictly better” in every way.

witcher.3197:

Stop covering up balance issues by removing amulets, it’s not going to solve the core issues but it’ll certainly remove what little build diversity’s left in this game.

umad

That build was problematic. From the start, they said they wanted to avoid a trinity. Having Elementalists with one viable sPvP build and that being a dedicated healer is not a good place to be. This is the first step to a better PvP environment, methinks. I could be wrong, but at this point I’m just repeating my same point in several different threads. I will let it be and see how it plays out for now.

JediSange.1645:

People stopped exploring things like Fresh Air builds because of how good D/F Auramancer was.

People stopped exploring Fresh Air because it is bad and can’t keep up with other builds for either a bruiser or burst role. That build got hit with nerfs too (longer cooldown on earth skills thanks to changes in CDR traits, which were our primary form of hard mitigation).

If fresh air was even viable but not optimal, people would have taken it. It is just so far from being viable its just sad. Fresh Air could only be played against people whom you were WAY better than, and even then you might barely beat them despite not making bad mistakes and them repeatedly making stupid mistakes.

JediSange.1645:

People stopped exploring things like Fresh Air builds because of how good D/F Auramancer was.

I love this type of comments, if FA is so good why don’t you explore it.

Best Fresh Air player that I know, Phantaram, just quit the class because FA is so good, do you want more exploring?

Why should risk epilepsy by clicking 100 buttons with a FA ele while I can just click 2 buttons with a Revenant and do the same thing.

JediSange.1645:

Having Elementalists with one viable sPvP build and that being a dedicated healer is not a good place to be.

Which was pretty much Ele’s ONLY viable build as well.

I don’t know about you; but I think having a spot, even if its not a good one is better than no spot at all.

sephiroth.4217:

What a joke.

What’s the point of team builds in a team game? lets all just run kittenin condition builds now yay.

You mean exactly how it was, and ele’s were only ever used to solo-bunker a point?

Good thing they removed it. Never liked these afk cleric builds, game is going good direction.

witcher.3197:

Stop covering up balance issues by removing amulets, it’s not going to solve the core issues but it’ll certainly remove what little build diversity’s left in this game.

It was literally the only amulet that worked on Ventari/Glint Herald, buffs aren’t even close enough to compensate for that loss.
Auramancer nerfs were enough.

Varezenem.2813:

witcher.3197:

Stop covering up balance issues by removing amulets, it’s not going to solve the core issues but it’ll certainly remove what little build diversity’s left in this game.

It was literally the only amulet that worked on Ventari/Glint Herald, buffs aren’t even close enough to compensate for that loss.
Auramancer nerfs were enough.

Mender’s works all right for Ventari/Shiro. But we’re talking Ventari build here, so yeah…

As for the removal of Cleric’s amulet, I’d much rather see Tempest removed instead and replaced with some other elite specilalization for elementalist.

Trying to sweep the problem under the rug by deleting Cleric’s instead of proper balance changes won’t work in long-term.

Clerics has been in since launch hasn’kitten Why is it suddenly too OP?

I play staff/hammer guard with cleric’s (well not anymore). Was it really that powerful? running around with my 13k hps, just waiting to be ganked. So if power, toughness, and healing power are game breaking, what’s next? Rabid? Berserker? knights? first they took soldiers, now cleric’s, i’m afraid to learn another amulet, lest they take that as well.

That’s the theme of every balance patch… people complain that they can’t 1 shot people quick enough so instead of ignoring dumb people they nerf everyone’s sustain and get rid of healing a little at a time and take away every amulet we have that allows us to make a decent support build so people can die even quicker and so no 1 can be a decent team supporter and run the build they want to run and have it be useful. Oh it also looks like they are forcing power builds down our throats with the silly new amulets they added. If taking away build diversity and support builds & any type of sustain, and trying to force us to use builds we don’t like is your main goal then gg anet you win.

Anet hates diversity, we should know that by now. I can’t think of any other reason why they would have removed cleric’s. Not only ele, druid as well. We had our core power and condi rangers for so long that the recent healing/support druid was simply a thorn in “our” eye, so back to the roots I suppose. Support is overrated anyway, am I right?

Although I agree that it’s a rather lazy way/quick way of dealing with the main issues.

Being that survivability hurts the game for a ton of reasons including viewership (which is crucial for E-sports), player mentality, apex predators, lack of diversity, and counters.

It’s significantly better than them doing nothing, or waiting another two years for them to re-balance the entire game based on some guys vision that is likely objectively terrible and being back to square one.

Although there should be more team support focused healing amulets.

It was a good move but hardly a fix to anything the really good players use.

morrolan.9608:

Clerics has been in since launch hasn’kitten Why is it suddenly too OP?

^ This
Apothecary and Soldier’s amulets original as well…
I also liked the minor tweaks with the add-ons from before so if you want more of this or that you could have a small amount through what amounted to an upgrade slots. For example, soldiers with a carrion upgrade. What was so wrong with the original system?

Proof that anet prefers condi over healing is the fact that they kept rabid amulet in the game. this amulet also provides toughness with condi damage. another proof that they don’t even know what balance is. If you take out one amulet, at least take out the counter amulet.

Lucred.1802:

sephiroth.4217:

What a joke.

What’s the point of team builds in a team game? lets all just run kittenin condition builds now yay.

You mean exactly how it was, and ele’s were only ever used to solo-bunker a point?

Mine was used on mid-home rotation with a staff…

I’m hoping they re-introduce it as a 4 stat amulet, halving what ever they felt was “unbalanced” about the original amulet and putting it into a vitality stat.

……Or just raise Ele base vitality.

Let’s get this over with.

First off, if you remove Cleric amulet, you gotta remove Magi.

There are some issues with the new amulets, well Seeker Amulet. They don’t add vitality or toughness, sure, but they add boon duration. Is this useful for everyone? No. Is there an oversight with a certain dragon invoking profession? Yeah big time.

Seeker amulet, in tandem with a herald, is gunna cause problems. I tested it, and found it to far too strong for the current balance. Here’s why:

• Facet of Chaos gives 5.5s of protection every 3s giving up to a maximum of 46s (longer than the cool down of the activation).
• Near permanent quickness as impossible odds gives 1.83s of quickness per second so on legend swap you have just over 8s of quickness.
  So that’s 1.5x dmg and 33% less damage, which is about the sustain boost from the comparable Mercenary and Demolisher amulets but with extra damage.

On other professions I don’t know if this would be as big of an issue but on revenant it will likely make the meta.

The new boon duration amulets, they’re better in theory than in practice. They might make it in as a viable side-grade on certain professions, but will not succeed in shifting the meta

Chaith.8256:

The new boon duration amulets, they’re better in theory than in practice. They might make it in as a viable side-grade on certain professions, but will not succeed in shifting the meta

You don’t know what you are talking about. Even tough it doesn’t have toughness, you have 25 might uptime, protection uptime, regeneration uptime.
with leadership set 100% boon duration, try to fight a Chrono or a Druide
It won’t last long until it is removed.

Some Boon duration isn’t that big of a deal when you get no defensive stats. And Mallyx benefits more from concentration stat than Glint. But since none of the new amulets has any condition stats, then..well…

Revenant may actually drop in tier quite a bit if the cleanse spam Ele doesn’t survive removal of Cleric’s.

you don’t need defensiv stat, if you have ALL boons uptime.
1 time warp give 26 second quickness, and i don’t talk about continuum shift.

Well whatever, i won’t expect you to understand. Have a nice day.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Chaith.8256:

The new boon duration amulets, they’re better in theory than in practice. They might make it in as a viable side-grade on certain professions, but will not succeed in shifting the meta

You don’t know what you are talking about. Even tough it doesn’t have toughness, you have 25 might uptime, protection uptime, regeneration uptime.
with leadership set 100% boon duration, try to fight a Chrono or a Druide
It won’t last long until it is removed.

Time will tell and we’ll see, I’m aware and have played with leadership alongside both boon duration amulets and if you’re betting that Chrono and Druid consider the 1050 concentration amulet a broken, must have, then you shouldn’t be a betting man.