Guild Wars 2

So I don’t know if ArenaNet plans to fix this, but right now I can determine the outcome of the match based on which team has the better bunker ele…

Problems I see with this:
1. If one team has a bunker ele and the other team does not, the team with the bunker ele will most likely win. It’s not fun knowing the outcome before the match even starts.
2. Eles who don’t use the standard bunker builds are useless. There is no room for build variety here because we NEED the bunker ele to win.
3. This one is more opinion-based, but player versus player is a place where you should be fighting other players. While I do think bunkers deserve a place in PvP, I do not think the outcome of the match should heavily rely on players who don’t actually kill other players. The match should be based on who could fight the best, not who can stay on a captured point and survive the longest.

This is just a quick post I wanted to make to see if anyone else noticed this problem. I understand not everyone will agree with me, so let me know if you think I’m wrong on any points.

Elementalist Owner.7802:

So I don’t know if ArenaNet plans to fix this, but right now I can determine the outcome of the match based on which team has the better bunker ele…

Problems I see with this:
1. If one team has a bunker ele and the other team does not, the team with the bunker ele will most likely win. It’s not fun knowing the outcome before the match even starts.
2. Eles who don’t use the standard bunker builds are useless. There is no room for build variety here because we NEED the bunker ele to win.
3. This one is more opinion-based, but player versus player is a place where you should be fighting other players. While I do think bunkers deserve a place in PvP, I do not think the outcome of the match should heavily rely on players who don’t actually kill other players. The match should be based on who could fight the best, not who can stay on a captured point and survive the longest.

This is just a quick post I wanted to make to see if anyone else noticed this problem. I understand not everyone will agree with me, so let me know if you think I’m wrong on any points.

I will counter your anecdote with my own. EVERYTIME my team was without a cleric ele and the other team had one, my team won.

One time I swapped to ele and forgot to put on cleric ele. I was on fresh air. The other team had a bunker ele.

We then proceeded to destroy the other team lol.

So it’s not 100% reliant on an ele, and ele isn’t always useless without bunker. A guy on my PvP team ran s/f ele with us in diamond to legendary with pretty good success. Bunker ele is a great tool to have, though.

Elementalist Owner.7802:

2. Eles who don’t use the standard bunker builds are useless. There is no room for build variety here because we NEED the bunker ele to win.

This is the thing that bothers me the most.

Old-school D/D, IMO one of the most fun and versatile playstyles ever, is dead and buried. Over the years it’s gone from being a decent all-round bruiser, to straight-up cancer, to, now, a relic of the past due to power creep.

Fresh Air S/F isn’t really viable with the crazy amount of damage flying around. Although I have seen some great players use the build effectively, I’d hazard that has more to do with the player’s skill/awareness than the build itself. Other classes’ Marauder specs have a ton more survivability.

Condi Ele is still not viable.

IMO what limits Ele build variety the most is that you HAVE to build tanky at all times if you’re playing to win. You’re constantly pigeonholed into Tempest/Water or Tempest/Earth. Fire still sucks in PvP.

That said, if the meta Auramancer Tempest build is to be nerfed, Anet absolutely needs to ensure that other builds are brought into viability.

Thanks for the replies. After reading the first two, I will say that a bunker ele does not automatically ensure victory. There are exceptions, and good strategy can outplay the other team even if they have the bunker.

Nonetheless, I do still think that bunker ele in it’s current state is broken. If everyone is solo queuing, bunker eles generally contribute the most to the overall score. They can secure points for ages, while other players are fighting over capture points and not earning any points for the team. My suggestion is to somehow balance it out, so that players who go killing and capturing or decapping, contribute to the score as much as the players who survive on capture nodes. Whether that means nerfing the bunker ele or changing the way points are earned in conquest, I don’t really know. But I do think something should be done.

Just had a match where I was trying to cleave a downed DH with an ele healing him…

hundred blades and axe whirl were totally ineffective…the kitten Ele was actually able to heal himself while rezzing and being cleaved…

I run demolisher build, and it makes absolutely no sense to me to that happen unless he’s using an invulnerable skill…

While they can have great sustain, an ele focusing on rezzing not invulnerable just shouldn’t happen the way this happened now……

If I missed some passives that allow an ele to heal while being hit (heal MORE than dmg received) please point it out so I can study it…

total amount of compound defensive buffs they can get is too much to deal on the power side…I could never kill an adept ele in a 1v1 with this, while I can rip a new one to every other class in the game…including engis.

I’m literally dumbfounded atm because of this.

Aveigel.2601:

Just had a match where I was trying to cleave a downed DH with an ele healing him…

hundred blades and axe whirl were totally ineffective…the kitten Ele was actually able to heal himself while rezzing and being cleaved…

I run demolisher build, and it makes absolutely no sense to me to that happen unless he’s using an invulnerable skill…

While they can have great sustain, an ele focusing on rezzing not invulnerable just shouldn’t happen the way this happened now……

If I missed some passives that allow an ele to heal while being hit (heal MORE than dmg received) please point it out so I can study it…

total amount of compound defensive buffs they can get is too much to deal on the power side…I could never kill an adept ele in a 1v1 with this, while I can rip a new one to every other class in the game…including engis.

I’m literally dumbfounded atm because of this.

They have a passive that allows them to heal while being hit yes, among other things.
They can be pretty tough but they do next to no damage, all they do is buff and heal and can be easily focused down.

The tempest on the other team usually only becomes a problem when:

1) players don’t know how to burst them down;
2) players don’t rotate away from the tempests and scrappers (if together) to break their formation apart
3) your own team comp, specially when is pretty much support when the other have a variation of bruiser/dps/support

When I am duo queuing with my friend and the other team have 2 tempests, we both re-roll for revenant and pretty much melt them down, specially if they split by each being in one point.

2. Eles who don’t use the standard bunker builds are useless. There is no room for build variety here because we NEED the bunker ele to win.

I disagree, a Mender’s Ele who knows how to dip in and out as a decent roamer healer and decent point holder can be really great for healing and damage. There are runes like Monk’s that can add healing power. Ele might need nerfs in places but buffed elsewhere so they’d still be just as good but in a different way. There are 20 weapon skills the ele has access to between attunements and four profession skills in the form of overloads, so that’s a lot of moves. It’s a shame if an ele can’t make decent use out of all them.

2) players don’t rotate away from the tempests and scrappers (if together) to break their formation apart

That’s a team effort though and not all classes are adept at disengaging. I’d count either one of them and of course both plus warrior.

My hate goes straight to Ele and Engi. I wish Engi didn’t have the type of reflects it has. I also wish they didn’t have as much access to daze. I hate that Engi has a stability trait on a 5 second freaking CD, with 2 seconds of downtime. Ele is just an awesome kittening healer and it makes me mad #_#

Aveigel.2601:

total amount of compound defensive buffs they can get is too much to deal on the power side…I could never kill an adept ele in a 1v1 with this, while I can rip a new one to every other class in the game…including engis.

I also have trouble taking town bunker eles in 1v1s. I don’t find this annoying or unfair, because they are fully defensive, so it should take more than one player to take them down. What I find annoying, is that even though the fight is a stalemate, they are still getting all the points from the capture point you are fighting over. They can’t win the fights, but in the end they earn the most points.

I also have trouble taking town bunker eles in 1v1s. I don’t find this annoying or unfair, because they are fully defensive, so it should take more than one player to take them down.

The problem stems from they have protection on top of fully defensive runes and amulet and even if you’re running full offense and interrupt the correct skills still have trouble with them. Full offense should beat out full defense eventually (counting Marauder not Berserker amulet) because if it can’t then full defense can theoretically live forever with a relatively small skill cap.

Elementalist Owner.7802:

Aveigel.2601:

total amount of compound defensive buffs they can get is too much to deal on the power side…I could never kill an adept ele in a 1v1 with this, while I can rip a new one to every other class in the game…including engis.

I also have trouble taking town bunker eles in 1v1s. I don’t find this annoying or unfair, because they are fully defensive, so it should take more than one player to take them down. What I find annoying, is that even though the fight is a stalemate, they are still getting all the points from the capture point you are fighting over. They can’t win the fights, but in the end they earn the most points.

I thought individual points are meaningless. Regardless, why shouldn’t they get the points if they helped contribute to capturing the point and holding it? I don’t understand. It’s the same with the old bunker guardians, chrono bunkers etc.

Glenstorm.4059:

Elementalist Owner.7802:

Aveigel.2601:

total amount of compound defensive buffs they can get is too much to deal on the power side…I could never kill an adept ele in a 1v1 with this, while I can rip a new one to every other class in the game…including engis.

I also have trouble taking town bunker eles in 1v1s. I don’t find this annoying or unfair, because they are fully defensive, so it should take more than one player to take them down. What I find annoying, is that even though the fight is a stalemate, they are still getting all the points from the capture point you are fighting over. They can’t win the fights, but in the end they earn the most points.

I thought individual points are meaningless. Regardless, why shouldn’t they get the points if they helped contribute to capturing the point and holding it? I don’t understand. It’s the same with the old bunker guardians, chrono bunkers etc.

When I say points, I mean the overall game score. Not personal points. Sorry for the confusion, there are too many types of “points” in PvP lol.

I agree, a bunkers job is to hold capture points, not fight. But bunker ele in it’s current state is the absolute king of holding down capture points, and there isn’t much you can do about it, especially in solo que. Just think it’s a bit overpowered, and the teams with bunker eles have a huge advantage.

The community has been asking for the"Holy Trinity" for years. The new Ele is the old monk.

I for one really like having a healer class. As a cleric ele, I can seldom down anyone. I can survive and prevent a decap 1v1 or more. My main job though is to stay as close to my damage dealers as possible and pour boons on them.

Now if I could also do serious damage, ( other than by easily interrupted overloads, ) that would be an issue.

Ithilwen.1529:

The community has been asking for the"Holy Trinity" for years. The new Ele is the old monk.

I for one really like having a healer class. As a cleric ele, I can seldom down anyone. I can survive and prevent a decap 1v1 or more. My main job though is to stay as close to my damage dealers as possible and pour boons on them.

Now if I could also do serious damage, ( other than by easily interrupted overloads, ) that would be an issue.

I actually think the bunker ele is not overpowered in team fights or the actual fighting aspect of the game — it works and makes the fight interesting.

But, with the conquest scoring system, they can survive on capture points forever and really juice the points until the game ends. That’s where I see them being overpowered, because the scoring system really works in their favor.

The bunker Ele definitely doesn’t guarantee a win. It helps increase your chances of winning if you have a good one but doens’t guarantee it. Beaten several teams with double bunker Eles by (not-so-simply) outrotating them and splitting them up.

In most of the matches I’ve been in, a bunker Tempest isn’t a guaranteed win, but its a substantial advantage if they know how to stay alive while contributing in team fights if the enemy team has one. The group without is much more likely to lose a large team fight unless the enemy’s Elementalist is killed -very- quickly.

As mentioned before, you also have easy point-squatting since some comps can’t quickly 1v1 a bunker Ele and pressure them hard enough to force a retreat or death. It gets further complicated with other boon heavy bruisers (Scrappers in particular) tossed into the mix, who can ensure that even downed Eles can quickly get back up if they’re downed

Well, the real problem with the current bunk ele is not the ammount of tankiness it offers, its the ammount of HEALING it puts out while beeing tanky as hell. If the overall healing would be reduced and it would focus more on protecting and removing condis rather than both + immense healing it would be better imo.

Let’s get real: in any team-based pvp game with classes, they are different roles. Support builds are a crucial part of balance, whether they are offensive support builds like old d/d ele, or druid to a certain extend.

The real problem here is that there is currently only one support build: cleric ele. So naturally, you have to have one. The real solution is for Anet to keep in mind that they are different roles, and that different classes should be able to play different roles if possible . The two good candidates for a support role would be support druid and ventari rev, if they were made viable.

I said “if possible” because it’s tricky balance-wise to try to create two really different builds with one profession. The two infamous examples were fire d/d ele post 23rd June, that had offensive capabilities that were waaaay out of hand, and bunker mesmer, a monster created by the idea of a “support” mesmer, but with all the escape mechanics characteristic of burst builds.

Whoever wins mid, AND has an ele to hold it, wins. Mid becomes uncappable, as the rest of the enemy team can rotate with ease to and from sides to roll over their opponents.

It is known XD

I’ve found that eles are very susceptible to CC and burst. They aren’t really bunkers. They have great sustain but that’s different than high vitality and toughness.
The hard part about the ele is that they are really the best support class in the game and can make taking a point difficult if they are sitting on it with 2+ teammates.

Solstace.2514:

I’ve found that eles are very susceptible to CC and burst. They aren’t really bunkers. They have great sustain but that’s different than high vitality and toughness.
The hard part about the ele is that they are really the best support class in the game and can make taking a point difficult if they are sitting on it with 2+ teammates.

Which is especially bad on a small map where they can trivially reach a side node.

Bunker ele isn’t even that great at solo bunking points. My power rev will generally solo decap bunker eles in less than 30 seconds, and possibly completely kill them a little bit later, foefire points being the obvious exception. Most other classes can hold the 1v1 cap much longer simply because I can’t just go ham on them or they will kill me. They are subsequently more likely to keep the point indefinitely since rev has a lot of fairly even or disadvantaged 1v1 matchups. Eles are the one 1v1 matchup I know I won’t lose and it normally doesn’t take too long to get what I need.

I’m not saying I can’t 1v1 bunker eles, in fact I flaten em out with a necro, but I find it hard to swallow that it’s practically undoable with a power (thief/warr) build in which I also CC em, but they get that huge heal with a short cooldown which is available to them before my CCs can be of use again…in fact they can heal twice before I can CC em again…

and I find it sad that it needs to be a 2v1 situation only to down one on the power side…which reduces build diversity…Now if I see 2 or more Eles, for sure I’ll swap out of power because there is no point…

There are very few actual good elementalists in the game who understand and play the support role well. Eles shouldn’t be “bunkering” points and taking 1v1s; their true power potential lies in supporting team fights. If you’re forcing an enemy elementalist into 1v1s or watching a single node, you’re at an advantage if you/your team know what they’re doing.

Most bad eles I’ve seen will sit on a point all match whilst the team fights are happening at other nodes and will not rotate into them. This means you should be able to take team fights without the ele being a factor to the outcome (which are almost guaranteed wins if you have an ele on your team who is present in said fights). You can also just ignore them entirely and rotate around the point they’re sat AFK on, making the game a permanent 4v5 in your favor. The remainder of the bad eles who are at least present in teamfights usually just run around in a circle trying to stay alive themselves rather than focusing on healing/supporting the focus targets of the enemy team, thus being an almost non-factor.

A good ele will definitely determine the outcome of a team fight but not the entire match imo, there are counters like rotating. You learn pretty quickly whether your team can handle the other in a team fight and adjust your strategy accordingly.

It’s 10x worse with scrapper + ele which is pure cancer setup as there are basically infinite reflects and support going off by both of them it’s not as simple as focusing down a target. I try to avoid these fights as much as humanly possible as to retain my sanity in this game.

Rukia.9860:

A good ele will definitely determine the outcome of a team fight but not the entire match imo, there are counters like rotating. You learn pretty quickly whether your team can handle the other in a team fight and adjust your strategy accordingly.

It’s 10x worse with scrapper + ele which is pure cancer setup as there are basically infinite reflects and support going off by both of them it’s not as simple as focusing down a target. I try to avoid these fights as much as humanly possible as to retain my sanity in this game.

It’s rather simple, focus the scrapper with condis and keep CCing the ele, basically you need to properly focus both at the same time, but only wait for the ele to use obsidian flesh and earth overload( stability) before CC him to death.

Majority of eles have no stunbreakes outside overload, have a “chilled to the bone” or something similar immediately after they switch attunement ( 5s wait)

Reflects have CD and you still need timing to land your skills.

Rally double target focus and CC/moa the ele at the right time, to bring down the primary target ( scrapper ), it’s rather weak to condis and most meta users only have 1 stunbreak ( elixir s plays against them anyway )

Ross Biddle.2367:

Whoever wins mid, AND has an ele to hold it, wins. Mid becomes uncappable, as the rest of the enemy team can rotate with ease to and from sides to roll over their opponents.

It is known XD

I have seen that type of game quite a bit: if you are on the non-ele team its a constant race to take and hold the sides, can usually only win by ignoring mid, hoping the ele at mid just sits there doing nothing, and if the rest of the other team isn’t very good.

I have also found, in pugs at least, that targeting the bunker ele in team fights usually ends in a loss, I have better results focusing the rangers, DH’s, and necros first then dealing with the ele when it has no support.

Bunker-ele and the chain-reflect/stability/immune/auto-stomping engi’s are pretty annoying for sure.

I think a lot of people want gw2 play style to be something like this, and it is getting closer and closer to it imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FruDiBguzM

Ellie.5913:

I think a lot of people want gw2 play style to be something like this, and it is getting closer and closer to it imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FruDiBguzM

Dragon Arena is so fun, even the mini events in GW1 were competitive lol

I much preferred the point and click way of evading projectiles instead of straight up rolling on the floor and magically becoming immune to everything. It was more skill based imo.

Supreme.3164:

it’s rather weak to condis and most meta users only have 1 stunbreak ( elixir s plays against them anyway )

What kind of Scrapper is weak to condis?
Every engineer should be using the Elixir traits and they will simply shake them off with their elixirs spam or just downright turn them into boons.

Team mates assume bunker ele, so they charge into point and get downed complaining “no heals”, fill them in you’re marauder and all of a sudden they stop charging into points and getting downed.

That’s all I can say in terms of “needing a bunker Ele”…..

Man I just wanted to swing by and say that I hate Tempest with a passion.

The other elite specs are also not too far off although they are at least interesting – generally – tempest is just boring and, worst of all, close to mandatory for you to be able to survive against the other elite specs (which accounts for almost 99% of what the people run in PvP).

It sucks that elites are pretty much mandatory and it sucks even worse that Tempest is the most boring of them all…. my poor ele was so much fun before.

/rant

My random pug team with no bunker ele, other was premade with bunker ele. Ele did nothing as a bunch of us just all blew up their guys instead of having a useless heal bot. My team won by steamrolling them. Maybe if your team knows how to focus you’ll win???

Primary support druid got nerfed into oblivion so the only healer left is ele.

To be a healer you have to be tanky otherwise everyone focuses the hell out of you (play shoutbow druid to see what can happen to a glass healer).

So, you get a tanky, healer, ele as the only dedicated support.

Yes, bunker druid is supposedly a thing. Personally I’ve never run into one that has been an issue in teafights, whereas the cleric ele will skew teamfights (both from playing and trying to kill them).

Ive also experienced not having one while the other team does and it isnt fun but the answer isnt to nerf it, that woul be a horrible mistake but knowing Anet that is what they will do.

What they should do is open up builds for all the classes and let the rest resolve itself. If each class has lets say 10 viable ways they can be built competitively, bunker ele will not be able to have as much influence.

How? well they can start by combining utilities, making weak traits have more impact and putting restrictions on stuns/reduce the need for stun breaks. Cleanse should also be made a lot more easily accessible without having to use so many slots for classes that have their cleanse spread out too thin.

I dont understand what the plan for class expansion was:
- Fixed number of weapon skill slots per class.
- Fixed number of utility skill slots per class
- Fixed number of trait slots

They keep designing new skills in addition to the old ones but they can’t just add more slots because that means more buttons which won’t work for gw2 combat. At some point many skills wont be used (it is happening already) is that really what they want?

Same thing with traits. Three trait slots? what about future trait lines? at some point people will stop taking certain trait lines because definitely some lines will become better than others.

Just combine utilities (like necro spectral skills being a toggle transformation) and stop with the linear trait system, would save so much development time in the long run

Elementalist Owner.7802:

3. This one is more opinion-based, but player versus player is a place where you should be fighting other players. While I do think bunkers deserve a place in PvP, I do not think the outcome of the match should heavily rely on players who don’t actually kill other players. The match should be based on who could fight the best, not who can stay on a captured point and survive the longest.

This is why I say that if there are going to be bunkers, there should be bunker-busters.

In my personal opinion, a fully glass-cannon Thief should be able to make short work of a bunker in a 1v1 situation IF played well. Such a build should be super-high risk, but also super-high reward. It is not.

All of the passive defenses and passive counters in the current game turn every fight into one of attrition. Glass-cannons cannot sustain fights.

So a single bunker… or even a non-glass build that sits on a point effectively neutralizes a Thief’s one advantage… mobility. And a full glass-cannon Thief has very little business being in a large Team fight, even if it is a +1.

There are just too many passive invulnerability procs at 50% and 25% health. Too many passive CC-reflects as well. And way too many AoE’s that can kill glass builds way too easily. Unfortunately, these seem to make almost everyone bunkerish.

Kageseigi.2150:

Elementalist Owner.7802:

3. This one is more opinion-based, but player versus player is a place where you should be fighting other players. While I do think bunkers deserve a place in PvP, I do not think the outcome of the match should heavily rely on players who don’t actually kill other players. The match should be based on who could fight the best, not who can stay on a captured point and survive the longest.

This is why I say that if there are going to be bunkers, there should be bunker-busters.

In my personal opinion, a fully glass-cannon Thief should be able to make short work of a bunker in a 1v1 situation IF played well. Such a build should be super-high risk, but also super-high reward. It is not.

All of the passive defenses and passive counters in the current game turn every fight into one of attrition. Glass-cannons cannot sustain fights.

So a single bunker… or even a non-glass build that sits on a point effectively neutralizes a Thief’s one advantage… mobility. And a full glass-cannon Thief has very little business being in a large Team fight, even if it is a +1.

There are just too many passive invulnerability procs at 50% and 25% health. Too many passive CC-reflects as well. And way too many AoE’s that can kill glass builds way too easily. Unfortunately, these seem to make almost everyone bunkerish.

To allow bunker-busters to exist, some professions should not be forced into a bunker role by design, but rather it should be a choice. Give eles a dps build that can actually kill something without being oneshotted by everything in a couple of secs..and you can have your bunker buster

Supreme.3164:

To allow bunker-busters to exist, some professions should not be forced into a bunker role by design, but rather it should be a choice. Give eles a dps build that can actually kill something without being oneshotted by everything in a couple of secs..and you can have your bunker buster

That sounds good to me. The Thief is on the other extreme. It’s forced into being a DPS build because there’s no viable bunker build that can hold a point. WvW stealth builds don’t help in PvP, and that’s where most of the Thief’s defenses are based.

What about scrappers who has a lot of sustain and damage to boot? Dont forget the CCs.