Guild Wars 2

A) Do you think the Elementalist should be gutted in order to avoid it from being able to do everything well?

B) Do you think the developers should use the Elementalist as a template for all other professions?

C) Do you think the developers should create abilities on other professions that counters the Elementalist?

Why?

thieves and elementalists suffer from idgaf syndrome.

it works like this. if you are a thief or an ele, you don’t have to think twice before you engage an enemy. you don’t have to consider if you are outmatched or if the enemy will send reinforcements. you can just say “idgaf” and begin fighting. if things start to go south, you can just leave. ele with rtl and thief with stealth. there’s little an enemy can do to stop you. in addition, the ele has great survivability.

idgaf syndrome is a balance problem the devs need to address. your choice to engage or not should be an important one. there should not be so many options for leaving fights.

so: ele and thief need to have their “lol bye” options restricted. then, all classes need to have their unused skills and traits buffed slowly to bring them in line with the rest of the good builds.

milo.6942:

thieves and elementalists suffer from idgaf syndrome.

it works like this. if you are a thief or an ele, you don’t have to think twice before you engage an enemy. you don’t have to consider if you are outmatched or if the enemy will send reinforcements. you can just say “idgaf” and begin fighting. if things start to go south, you can just leave. ele with rtl and thief with stealth. there’s little an enemy can do to stop you. in addition, the ele has great survivability.

idgaf syndrome is a balance problem the devs need to address. your choice to engage or not should be an important one. there should not be so many options for leaving fights.

so: ele and thief need to have their “lol bye” options restricted. then, all classes need to have their unused skills and traits buffed slowly to bring them in line with the rest of the good builds.

If the disengage skills are restricted then these professions need to be able to stand toe to toe with the other professions. My investment in Toughness and Vitality are significant in order to make up for playing a class with the lowest health and armor in the game.

if they are glass, then they need to blast or die. there also need to be way to leave combat, for sure, but it can’t be a get-out-of-jail-free card like they have now. rtl needs to be affected by slows, for instance. then you would need to actually pay attention to your conditions before attempting to rtl away.

milo.6942:

if they are glass, then they need to blast or die. there also need to be way to leave combat, for sure, but it can’t be a get-out-of-jail-free card like they have now. rtl needs to be affected by slows, for instance. then you would need to actually pay attention to your conditions before attempting to rtl away.

Lets try to look at this from a different perspective then.

Class A – 18,372 base health, 2147 base armor
Class B – 10,805 base health, 1853 base armor

What would you provide class B with in order to balance it with class A?

it turns out that there exists a bunker build for eles that is quite good. they are not the poor helpless low hp class with no defense.

it’s madness to give the ele a 1200 gap closer that’s immune to slows. TWELVEHUNDRED. “poor defenseless eles need a way to reset fights.” right.

make rtl affected by slows. how is this still in the game?? we’ll see how the stealth nerf works out, but i have a feeling it won’t be enough.

I don’t understand how we can lump thieves and elementalists together, when TTD on a thief is ~3 seconds.

A tanky thief does not exist. Those thief builds that can escape most situations due to an abundance of stealth are not the builds we see in tournament matches and complained about on a daily basis.

The ones you see in tournament play are those who better check twice if their current positioning can allow them to actually engage.

Tournament thieves have 1 stun break on a 60s CD (granted it’s a two step stun break, however it’s used 90% of the time to get away, so that you actually only make use of the second step, if you can’t really help it).

Tournament thieves have no invul (and let’s be frank here, I don’t agree with invuls lasting longer than TTD against a single player could be).

The thief you see in tournament has very poor sustain and no instant stealth.

Now, I am in no way advocating that thieves are too weak (though this seems to be the perception nowadays, which I disagree with, just to state it again).

Thief burst needs to drop (burst in general across all glass builds in fact), but in no way are they dealing tons of damage and surviving easily, when compared to elementalists.

Calae.1738:

A) Do you think the Elementalist should be gutted in order to avoid it from being able to do everything well?

B) Do you think the developers should use the Elementalist as a template for all other professions?

C) Do you think the developers should create abilities on other professions that counters the Elementalist?

Why?

Can I generally disagree with all 3?

ensoriki.5789:

Calae.1738:

A) Do you think the Elementalist should be gutted in order to avoid it from being able to do everything well?

B) Do you think the developers should use the Elementalist as a template for all other professions?

C) Do you think the developers should create abilities on other professions that counters the Elementalist?

Why?

Can I generally disagree with all 3?

Hey, by all means you can add 4 or 5 or as many as you want.

milo.6942:

it turns out that there exists a bunker build for eles that is quite good. they are not the poor helpless low hp class with no defense.

it’s madness to give the ele a 1200 gap closer that’s immune to slows. TWELVEHUNDRED. “poor defenseless eles need a way to reset fights.” right.

make rtl affected by slows. how is this still in the game?? we’ll see how the stealth nerf works out, but i have a feeling it won’t be enough.

Lets assume I can read your mind and extract data from it.

Does giving Class B condition removal, healing abilities and protection boons offset the low health and armor? I might have some healing abilities and 1 condition removal on my weapon skills but, other than that I have to select specific traits in order to get the rest. (cough bunker cough)

milo.6942:

it turns out that there exists a bunker build for eles that is quite good. they are not the poor helpless low hp class with no defense.

it’s madness to give the ele a 1200 gap closer that’s immune to slows. TWELVEHUNDRED. “poor defenseless eles need a way to reset fights.” right.

make rtl affected by slows. how is this still in the game?? we’ll see how the stealth nerf works out, but i have a feeling it won’t be enough.

see thats why you arent a game developer..You have something in your mind and think only how to bring it down to what you think is fair no matter the cost..
Just because there is ONE bruiser build that you think its too strong that doesnt mean we should nerf whatever keeps remotely viable all other specs..
Get it on your head..Rtl affects everything.Healing power and its scaling affects mostly what you hate of..
But sure keep going

In short if milo was in charge eles would be even more pigeonholed into heavy bunker builds only this time they would just be less effective.

kostbabis.8791:

milo.6942:

it turns out that there exists a bunker build for eles that is quite good. they are not the poor helpless low hp class with no defense.

it’s madness to give the ele a 1200 gap closer that’s immune to slows. TWELVEHUNDRED. “poor defenseless eles need a way to reset fights.” right.

make rtl affected by slows. how is this still in the game?? we’ll see how the stealth nerf works out, but i have a feeling it won’t be enough.

see thats why you arent a game developer..You have something in your mind and think only how to bring it down to what you think is fair no matter the cost..
Just because there is ONE bruiser build that you think its too strong that doesnt mean we should nerf whatever keeps remotely viable all other specs..
Get it on your head..Rtl affects everything.Healing power and its scaling affects mostly what you hate of..
But sure keep going

In short if milo was in charge eles would be even more pigeonholed into heavy bunker builds only this time they would just be less effective.

Exactly.

If Elementalist mobility is nerfed; people would have no choice but to spec into bunker. While other classes who have high base health and armor would just select traits that boosts damage output.

Calae.1738:

kostbabis.8791:

milo.6942:

it turns out that there exists a bunker build for eles that is quite good. they are not the poor helpless low hp class with no defense.

it’s madness to give the ele a 1200 gap closer that’s immune to slows. TWELVEHUNDRED. “poor defenseless eles need a way to reset fights.” right.

make rtl affected by slows. how is this still in the game?? we’ll see how the stealth nerf works out, but i have a feeling it won’t be enough.

see thats why you arent a game developer..You have something in your mind and think only how to bring it down to what you think is fair no matter the cost..
Just because there is ONE bruiser build that you think its too strong that doesnt mean we should nerf whatever keeps remotely viable all other specs..
Get it on your head..Rtl affects everything.Healing power and its scaling affects mostly what you hate of..
But sure keep going

In short if milo was in charge eles would be even more pigeonholed into heavy bunker builds only this time they would just be less effective.

Exactly.

If Elementalist mobility is nerfed; people would have no choice but to spec into bunker. While other classes who have high base health and armor would just select traits that boosts damage output.

Not quite.
To play both sides.
If Rtl is affected by slows, it just means when crippled and chilled RTL isn’t very efficient. This doesn’t really mean anything at all, if you are not under those conditions.
There are a couple utility based condition removals as well as cleansing wave and possibly ether renewal if you are worried about not being able to make a clean escape.
That makes it harder to escape, it does not remove the possibility.

On the other hand since Ele’s put a lot of faith in that one ability, having to shift your focus to keeping yourself cleansed for that one aspect, may be significantly detrimental in the long run of their play.

Ele should get quite a few buffs.
The bunker aspect should be toned down. I didn’t think the OP’s options captured that idea of balancing it out on both sides of the scale to bring it to a stable level.
Boon removal could certainly see a greater abundance, but an Ele or guardian shouldn’t be straight out hard-countered as a profession as soon as someone says “im bringing boon removal” that would be terrible.

ensoriki seems to be the only one understanding what i’m saying.

i began with “idgaf syndrom” because that’s exactly what rtl is a part of. you don’t have to care anything about what’s going on, you have to only use it in the opposite direction of the fight. you don’t have to care about your chilled or your cripple. you don’t have to worry about cleansing yourself and planning the appropriate time to escape. you don’t have to worry about getting outplayed by someone who anticipates your rtl and snared you.

you just leave.
and that’s bad balance.

So a BURST/DPS ele will have to care about cleansing damaging condies off his 13k HEALTH ,cleanse the slows that hinder his major form of defence,focus on landing his HIGHLY AVOIDABLE burst,dodge the HEAVY burst moves that other !!! proffesions have..
On top of managing more than twice the amount of cds other classes have and having a total burst htat in numbers is quite mediocre apart from the fact thats entirely aoe..
Dont you think thats a bit too much??:P
I would love to see you play it thought (if it ever happens).Being crippled by a thief and hs till death..or being jumped on get chilled andthen melt in 1 burst.
Oh man it sure would be balanced

cleansing fire says hi

edit: again i think people have skewed ideas about how fights should go down. the current situation is not good. there should not exist a brainless fight reset button. all arguments regarding ele squishiness are fine in some broader discussion about eles, but not this one. here, we are talking about how easily ele resets fights.

milo.6942:

cleansing fire says hi

dude you did it again :P
You force certain utilities into players..Like mist form wasnt already enough!
Besides its 50 sec cd and the snares classes have are at much lower cd.
If only we could test the rtl somehow affected by slows you would see how low ele would drop.Besides anet already somewhat addresed this issue by raising the cd to 20 sec.
They would NEVER do that if it was meant to be affected by slows.Its range alone doesnt justify that huge cd compared to waht other classes have!

kostbabis.8791:

milo.6942:

cleansing fire says hi

dude you did it again :P
You force certain utilities into players..Like mist form wasnt already enough!

That isn’t forcing a utility on you in actuality.

Not to disregard your point of it perhaps being too crippling in general, but it’s not forcing a utility on you at all.
For instance you can take Lightning Flash for enhanced mobility that is not effected by slows in any form. Whether RTL is reduced or not, you would have LF to help in an escape. Or you’d hit CW , air attunement -> Rtl. Or sure you could take cleansing Fire. Or you Dgaf you take signet of water. Bottom line choice isn’t forced upon you.
Though it may be a poor change to make.

You don’t make a build disregarding your utilities in relation to your needs.
Otherwise thieves would roll 3/4 signets all day to smack things with 15+ power because they can full disregard, the idea of threats.

ensoriki.5789:

kostbabis.8791:

milo.6942:

cleansing fire says hi

dude you did it again :P
You force certain utilities into players..Like mist form wasnt already enough!

That isn’t forcing a utility on you in actuality.

Not to disregard your point of it perhaps being too crippling in general, but it’s not forcing a utility on you at all.
For instance you can take Lightning Flash for enhanced mobility that is not effected by slows in any form. Whether RTL is reduced or not, you would have LF to help in an escape. Or you’d hit CW , air attunement -> Rtl. Or sure you could take cleansing Fire. Or you Dgaf you take signet of water. Bottom line choice isn’t forced upon you.
Though it may be a poor change to make.

You don’t make a build disregarding your utilities in relation to your needs.
Otherwise thieves would roll 3/4 signets all day to smack things with 15+ power because they can full disregard, the idea of threats.

I know that! :P
My point is that if you need to take a 50 sec utility to make rtl up to what it was before the nerf and also taking account how mediocre general specs for ele are besides the fotm build one could only guess in what bottomless pit this class would end :P
I could surely do things to ensure that rtl still grants me an escape.But i also could do a lot less any more. So now the need for cond removal traits,the need for cantrips and boons is twice as much as before..
Dont know if you get my point..i might be wrong but i think specs like d/d and s/d would need a small redesign if something like that was to happen.
Also you really underestimate the frequency classes apply the snares.And cond removals dont by default cleasne snares first.You could have 2 singet of water but if they were to cleanse your weakness and vulnerability then whats the point?
Rng much??!!!! :P

No underestimation, Snares just mean little to me.

ensoriki.5789:

No underestimation, Snares just mean little to me.

Yep cause..you play thief!Shadowstep isnt affected by snares :P
See it like that, if a warrior with almost twice the hp is completely locked down by snares no point in having a (by default) squishier class the same
To clarify by default i mean ele with no heavy water traits,toughness,vitality,healing investment

An Elementalist with no toughness, vitality, healing investment is a walking free kill and an unpleasant gaming experience. How about the developers find a way to make that viable before any nerfs are made to the bunker build?

I would like all classes to have the same base armor and health and work from there. Sounds to me like it would simplify balance a lot more.