Guild Wars 2

Here are some suggestions for shaving DD ele into a more balanced state.

Drake’s Breath – a 2 second burn per tic instead of a 3 second burn

Elemental Shielding – 2 second protection instead of a 3 second protection

Soothing Disruption – 4-5 second regen/vigor instead of 6 second regen/vigor

Renewing Stamina – 6 second duration with a 10 second ICD instead of 5 second duration with a 5 second ICD EDIT: This change strongly nerfs all other ele builds which are all subpar or very bad as is.

Lightning Whip – Make the second hit stronger than the first hit. This is the simplest way to nerf stow weapon lightning whip without altering some major game mechanics that exist across almost all abilities. Alternatively the Signet of Restoration proc could occur on the 2nd hit. That would make this ability one of a kind compared to other skills in how it procs Signet of Restoration though.

Soothing Wave – 5 second regen with a 15 second ICD instead of a 3s regen with a 10 ICD. This lowers the amount of condition removal elementalist will have when combined with Cleansing water which in my opinion is slightly too high at the moment. I didn’t do the math but this hardly changes regen up time. The main thing is the slight nerf to condition removal over all which will be healthier.

These next 2 changes are sweeping changes to all classes that use these two mechanics. I personally don’t see Anet moving in this direction based on the past few balance patches but I’ll suggest them anyways because there is at the very least a vocal portion of the community that wants these changed.

Might – change it to 25 condition damage per stack instead of 35. Or do some other kind of minor nerf to might stacking such as nerfing the might duration on runes like Hoelbrak and Strength.

Celestial amulet – Take away 25-45 stats off of it. Anything much larger than these numbers in my opinion is too much and would bury the cele amulet into obscurity like it once was.

I’m not suggesting to do all of these nerfs. These are simply options that are good ways to nerf DD ele in my opinion.

I personally like doing some of the shaves before the might and celestial suggestions and seeing where that lands the DD ele from there, possibly including some nerf to might. It’s most important that we keep the feedback in this thread constructive though so the devs have something to work off of. Thanks friends!

You can’t make changes that will screw up other builds.

emikochan.8504:

You can’t make changes that will screw up other builds.

Yeah I see what you mean. The vigor trait change will certainly nerf all other ele builds by quite a bit. Not many of the other ele builds are in a very good spot though and need some rather big changes in my opinion. So maybe a nerf to the vigor would be fine as long as other builds receive some other buffs. I’m with ya though!

Personally i wouldn’t nerf Might, because other classes and builds rely on might stacking to do extra damage as well, it might fact the balance even more.

I do like elemental shielding, lighting whip tho

Phantaram.1265:

Might – change it to 25 condition damage per stack instead of 35.

I like some of the other changes, maybe pick 3 or 4 to actually apply, but most of those are good. This one on the other hand is terrible. There are condition builds that stack might believe it or not, and it isn’t fair to give a blatant bias to power builds for the sake of nerfing eles.

The way to fix the eles constant balance problems have been obvious for over a year, and regularly screamed at the apparently stone def developers.

STOP REQUIRING THAT THEY RELY ON THEIR TRAITS AND ABILITIES FOR ALL THEIR DEFENSE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

You cannot have a class in the game with no passive or consistently available mechanical defense against seven other classes which have constantly available defense through innate stat advantages or ever-present class mechanics. Because if you give said class enough defensive mechanics to have any build options they will stack them and create a single imbalanced build, as has happened twice now with the elementalist. As it is the elementalist will always find itself in one of three states of play, having enough defensive utilities/weapon skills/traits to overload a single overpowered build, having just enough for a single balanced build, or not having enough for any builds at all.

Either give elementalists better defensive stats, or rework the attunement system to give consistent defense; nerfing their active defense appropriately on either account. Or the more likely option, refuse to admit that the design goals for the elementalist were flawed from the start and just keep buffing and nerfing them in a never ending cycle.

Can’t shave all that, it’ll hurt the build too much.

The Drake’s breath change,
Some change to lightning whip/stow,
and potentially bring Renewing Stamina in line with it’s sister traits across professions…

… and that would be a good starting point for the nerfs.

1,2,3,5 seems fine but I still don’t see why celestial or might nerf. Did you forget about other classes? If a side build is affected too much the build can be compensated in other areas you can’t do that with might or celestial. I still believe only melee zerkers struggle against it about that please restore zerker and rampager amulets to proper stats and gives us back jewels. Zerker is becoming inferior for a reason.

The one skill that needs a significant nerf is Drake’s Breath. The burning uptime, the cooldown, the damage, the lack of risks, the ease of application, everything; this skill is ridiculously strong.

There’s also Sigil of Doom, the poison uptime of that thing should be reduced to half at least, this single sigil renders countless other poison application skills redundant, it’s that strong.

Concerning Elemental Shielding, either what you proposed or lowering Elemental Attunement’s protection duration, or both protection applications don’t stack. Protection uptime was always too generous imo, regardless of spec.

You can’t take soothing wave, soothing disruption and cleansing water without losing cantrip mastery. So there is a tradeoff, you either live with those really long cantrip CD’s and pick up the extra condi removal or lose out on that removal for reasonable cantrip cooldown timers.

Would you take soothing disruption without cantrip mastery?

Oh by the way guys, if you thought D/D Ele Was strong before swap Doom sigil for Energy and swap your runes to Orr.

All credit to Zoose, let’s shift the meta D/D Build to this stronger version sooner than later and talk about balancing it based off of that.

As a side note, ZOOSE WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DISCOVER A WAY TO TURN D/D ELE INTO THE ONPOINT VERSION OF S/D THIEF.

Discuss

Why do you think ele is overpowered to begin with? You are just giving random nerf suggestions with no reasoning.

Cele amulet needs some tweaking, just because it enables other professions (engi specifically) to avoid the need to specialize. It enables a player to reach a new stat base, across the board, that can be built on in multiple directions (healing, condi, power, crit) rather than just one or two.

I, like others, realized a long time ago that Elementalist needed those cele stats to become competitive (especially at the lower levels). The profession suffers form some combination of low health, low toughness, or low damage without this one amulet. It makes the skill ‘floor’ very high. The cele amulet lowers that skill floor, but it enables pro players to reach an even higher skill ceiling, which outperforms others.

I believe that, like the 30 in Arcana, the celestial amulet is a requirement for ele to function properly because the base stats are too low to begin with. To compensate, ele has been given almost ridiculous traits, which end up feeling “OP” in combination with the cele amulet.

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

Can’t you draw the same conclusion that Celestial Eles take 10+ minutes to kill a glass thief? Haha. D/D is a soft counter to thief, 1v1 anyways. Thief is balanced around having huge ability to +1 on other points and overwhelm people extremely fast.

D/D 1v1 efficiency can stand to get nerfed by 5-8%. But what’s wrong with having professions that can heal?

The suggestions phanta has listed are extremely good. The changes to might and celestial amulets seem unnecessary though.

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

So why aren’t you also complaining about guardians? (by the way, 20% to 100% is extremely over-exaggerated)

Guardians actually go from 20% to 100% all the time.

My suggestion for fixing d/d:

Nerf battle sigil down to 3 stacks for 12 seconds or 2 stacks for 20. Try playing celes d/d ele without battle sigil – its a lot weaker. Pre-emptively for people who will say “but other builds use battle sigil and aren’t OP” – these builds do not RELY on battle sigil to nearly the degree. Every one of those builds can swap out battle for an alternative and not lose much, if any, effectiveness. Battle is also statistically FAR superior.

Remove the blast from frozen burst. This was a MASSIVE buff to d/d ele that few talk about, and it gives them more free might on a low cooldown.

I do also like the lightning whip idea, and have suggested it in the past.

I also agree with the drake’s breath suggestion. I wasn’t even aware it was 3s – that is INSANE. They could also change drake’s breath to simply remove burn ticks from the end/beginning so that its not as guaranteed to get burning on someone.

I would be careful with renewing stamina. PLEASE don’t make it 5s on a 10s ICD, a major trait should be better than a minor trait other classes (guardian/mesmer) get for free. However, 5s on a 6 or 7s ICD could be reasonable.

I’m kind of against nerfing ele survivability by reducing vigor, prot, or regen/vigor, as the base-survivability of the class is why everyone plays d/d. The build literally has 14/14 trait points and 2.5/3 utilities (LF is 50% offense) dedicate to defense and survival. That build should be pretty darn tanky, as its basically a bunker build. It just does too much damage for all the defense it has, and I think shaving its might-stacking capability and some of the damage sources would be just fine.

Chaith.8256:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

Can’t you draw the same conclusion that Celestial Eles take 10+ minutes to kill a glass thief? Haha. D/D is a soft counter to thief, 1v1 anyways. Thief is balanced around having huge ability to +1 on other points and overwhelm people extremely fast.

D/D 1v1 efficiency can stand to get nerfed by 5-8%. But what’s wrong with having professions that can heal?

The suggestions phanta has listed are extremely good. The changes to might and celestial amulets seem unnecessary though.

Because when some classes have too much sustain it becomes boring for everybody. Have you ever seen a D/D ele vs D/D duel? Hmm yea ,it only takes 30 min to kill each other!

glock.6590:

Chaith.8256:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

Can’t you draw the same conclusion that Celestial Eles take 10+ minutes to kill a glass thief? Haha. D/D is a soft counter to thief, 1v1 anyways. Thief is balanced around having huge ability to +1 on other points and overwhelm people extremely fast.

D/D 1v1 efficiency can stand to get nerfed by 5-8%. But what’s wrong with having professions that can heal?

The suggestions phanta has listed are extremely good. The changes to might and celestial amulets seem unnecessary though.

Because when some classes have too much sustain it becomes boring for everybody. Have you ever seen a D/D ele vs D/D duel? Hmm yea ,it only takes 30 min to kill each other!

They wear an amulet with enough defensive stats, and have approximately 100% of their trait points in defensive lines, centered around protection, condition removal, boon duration, and attunement swapping for more healing, and protection.

Have you seen two bunker guards duel?

What’s not okay is that it’s got the best odds to win any 1v1 in addition to the great things it brings – support, point holding, etc. Needs a small shave to 1v1 efficiency.

There’s nothing wrong with letting someone dump their traits into defense.

Honestly, a little rock paper scissors would do wonders for the D/D Ele. Right now it’s like… when the D/D Ele fights on a side point, he’s rock and there are only other rocks and scissors. He might lose to a better rock but …. wheres the paper at, man? Haha. I feel that a if a predator was introduced that would be ideal, rather than going ham with the nerfbat to D/D Eles.

Maybe introduce some potent protection-boonhate to some deserving parties?

Only thing i would shave would be:

#1: Drake’s Breath
#2: Renewing Stamina
#3: Lightning Whip stow

And possibly a few stats off the Celestial Amulet, maybe 25 off of each stat.

Chaith.8256:

Maybe introduce some potent protection-boonhate to some deserving parties?

Mmm, I don’t know.. I feel like Mesmers, Thieves and Necros already fill that role (I believe that Necromancers actually counter D/D Elementalists) moreover D/D Ele is not that good against heavy-condition teams. Which is why we see a lot more condi-ranger and condi-necro than before.

Frenk.5917:

Chaith.8256:

Maybe introduce some potent protection-boonhate to some deserving parties?

Mmm, I don’t know.. I feel like Mesmers, Thieves and Necros already fill that role (I believe that Necromancers actually counter D/D Elementalists) moreover D/D Ele is not that good against heavy-condition teams. Which is why we see a lot more condi-ranger and condi-necro than before.

You’re right, at least about boon-hate already being in the Thief/Mes/Necro turf. However, Eles are never a bad option to take against condition heavy teams. D/D Eles are never ‘not that good’, under any circumstances right now.

Back to the subject of boonhate, Mesmers I would like to see them easier to pick up, without devoting an entire comp around it.

Also, I think that Larcenous Strike should steal a second boon if used on a foe below 50% HP. I think if that happened top D/D Eles and top S/D Thieves would be able to go even in 1v1s, instead of the Ele’s favor, and the Ele would be slightly more pressured when a thief outnumbers him.

Elementalist Abilities
Agree with a lot of the changes, especially to burning duration.

Celestial Amulet
Celestial Amulet is fine. If the amulet was the problem, we’d see a lot more builds running it and being a nuisance. Many people forget that the d/d elementalist build was buffed/un-nerfed in the same patch which made the celestial amulet viable.

Might
Nerf Sigil of Battle to 12 seconds of 3 stacks of might instead of 20 seconds. This reduces damage by over 5% on builds which have boon duration traits and might duration runes.

Reducing the burning from Drake’s Breath and fixing/reducing the lightning whip stow-cancelling should be a sufficient shave, in my opinion.

Against a competent opponent (i.e. one that doesn’t unnecessarily eat burning speed / fire grab), a lot of the damage as D/D ele comes from the burning, and most of that burning comes from Drake’s Breath. D/D’s other primary sources of burning have more room for counterplay and/or a higher opportunity cost:

- Evasive Arcana in fire (5s burning, but you have to dodge into your opponent, which uses up a dodge and may not necessarily put you in optimal positioning),
- Burning speed (usually just 1s-2s if you dash through them and they don’t dodge),
- Ring of fire (each time they walk — not dodge — through it, they get 5s of burning), and
- Cleansing Fire (3s, but you rarely want to waste this cantrip just for the burning effect).

Fixing stow-cancelling for lightning whip (and for mesmer GS1) is a nobrainer.

The above would be a slight shave to the D/D ele’s DPS (both single target and AOE), which is all that’s really needed. It would especially make thieves slightly more effective vs eles, since their main problem is dealing with the burning (they have enough dodges to avoid the rest of the skills). If further shaving is needed, then consider reducing the duration on Sigil of Battle for the reasons BlackBeard has mentioned.

My problem with many of the other changes, which Phantaram recognizes in his followup post, is that any nerfs to ele’s survivability would wreck all of the non-bunker ele builds, which have to rely on just a subset of the tanky traits to even survive.

Fresh air ele (in my experience) is just barely viable in higher level play due to lack of sustain and disengage, and any nerfs to Renewing Stamina or the water/earth attunement bonuses would kill the build, unless you upped its already high burst potential to compensate (in which case it would become even more of a yolo kamikaze build).

Also, I see absolutely 0 problems with thieves having difficulty shutting down a bunker build in a 1v1. Their mobility already gives them the ability to +1 fights around the map, or to rotate to more favorable matchups. A thief who +1s a fight vs a D/D ele can shut the D/D ele down pretty quickly if you time steal to strip their protection (ie after earth attune, which often comes after or right before water, so you can then land the chill for the win).

The Game Slayer.7632:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

So why aren’t you also complaining about guardians? (by the way, 20% to 100% is extremely over-exaggerated)

Guardians actually go from 20% to 100% all the time.

Yeah using their Heal Skill which can be interrupted and is on lengthy CD. DD ele does it using other skills and its a bit ridiculous. Soon as they shift into Water they become a Raid Boss.

Ele is completely OP atm with how much healing it has. I don’t even feel DD Ele is as strong as Staff Ele. I can kind of ignore a DD Ele as its damage is not huge… Staff Ele (unless its a zerker) is just as tanky and doing strong damage to a massive area. I can’t ignore them.

The person’s comment on Stats is 100% correct. Like thief, Ele has such low health that unless its OP in other areas it can not survive to be effective. Same with Necro but in reverse: if they ever improved their trait system they would be massively OP because of how much health they have.

Relentliss.2170:

The Game Slayer.7632:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

So why aren’t you also complaining about guardians? (by the way, 20% to 100% is extremely over-exaggerated)

Guardians actually go from 20% to 100% all the time.

Yeah using their Heal Skill which can be interrupted and is on lengthy CD. DD ele does it using other skills and its a bit ridiculous. Soon as they shift into Water they become a Raid Boss.

Ele is completely OP atm with how much healing it has. I don’t even feel DD Ele is as strong as Staff Ele. I can kind of ignore a DD Ele as its damage is not huge… Staff Ele (unless its a zerker) is just as tanky and doing strong damage to a massive area. I can’t ignore them.

The person’s comment on Stats is 100% correct. Like thief, Ele has such low health that unless its OP in other areas it can not survive to be effective. Same with Necro but in reverse: if they ever improved their trait system they would be massively OP because of how much health they have.

Sorry, have you not ran into a full bunker guardian? Are we playing the same game?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Full bunker guardians go from 5%-100% 4 times over before all of their cool downs are spent.

Relentliss.2170:

The Game Slayer.7632:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

So why aren’t you also complaining about guardians? (by the way, 20% to 100% is extremely over-exaggerated)

Guardians actually go from 20% to 100% all the time.

Yeah using their Heal Skill which can be interrupted and is on lengthy CD. DD ele does it using other skills and its a bit ridiculous. Soon as they shift into Water they become a Raid Boss.

Ele is completely OP atm with how much healing it has. I don’t even feel DD Ele is as strong as Staff Ele. I can kind of ignore a DD Ele as its damage is not huge… Staff Ele (unless its a zerker) is just as tanky and doing strong damage to a massive area. I can’t ignore them.

The person’s comment on Stats is 100% correct. Like thief, Ele has such low health that unless its OP in other areas it can not survive to be effective. Same with Necro but in reverse: if they ever improved their trait system they would be massively OP because of how much health they have.

Guardians don’t go to full from their heal skill. They go to full from altruistic healing and proper positioning for their skills.

The main difference in survivability between bunker ele (which is what 00266 is set up as) and bunker guard is that the ele relies more on healing while the guard relies more on blocks and CC. The bunker guardian’s defensive skills tend to scale better in group fights, which is why bunker guard is better at holding a node vs an outnumbered fight or against focus fire in a team fight. On the other hand, the ele can put out more pressure which is why they come out ahead in small-scale fights.

ResJudicator.7916:

Relentliss.2170:

The Game Slayer.7632:

glock.6590:

Meh the only thing that is OP with ele is the healing. Its ridiculous that a cele ele can recover from 20% to full….

Let them have protection , might, vigor but nerf the healing . It takes me kittening 5 minutes to kill an ele and I’m a glass thief so yea…

Same problem with engi btw , healing turret needs to be nerfed or a longer cast time.

Shout healing warrior is also aids, way too much sustain.

I’m tiered of fighting cele classes for 10 mins.

So why aren’t you also complaining about guardians? (by the way, 20% to 100% is extremely over-exaggerated)

Guardians actually go from 20% to 100% all the time.

Yeah using their Heal Skill which can be interrupted and is on lengthy CD. DD ele does it using other skills and its a bit ridiculous. Soon as they shift into Water they become a Raid Boss.

Ele is completely OP atm with how much healing it has. I don’t even feel DD Ele is as strong as Staff Ele. I can kind of ignore a DD Ele as its damage is not huge… Staff Ele (unless its a zerker) is just as tanky and doing strong damage to a massive area. I can’t ignore them.

The person’s comment on Stats is 100% correct. Like thief, Ele has such low health that unless its OP in other areas it can not survive to be effective. Same with Necro but in reverse: if they ever improved their trait system they would be massively OP because of how much health they have.

Guardians don’t go to full from their heal skill. They go to full from altruistic healing and proper positioning for their skills.

The main difference in survivability between bunker ele (which is what 00266 is set up as) and bunker guard is that the ele relies more on healing while the guard relies more on blocks and CC. The bunker guardian’s defensive skills tend to scale better in group fights, which is why bunker guard is better at holding a node vs an outnumbered fight or against focus fire in a team fight. On the other hand, the ele can put out more pressure which is why they come out ahead in small-scale fights.

Oh. Kinda just sounds like bunker guardians are better at group fighting, while bunker eles do better at single node holding.
Yep. Nerf. Guardian needs to be able to be better than ele at everything. /sarcasm

The buff of boon removal is long waited one as well,only some specs(melee) feel the strenght of celestial ele, it works so well due to the attunements nature. I still fail to understand what’s OP other than partially Drake’s Breath and Lightning Whip , if the traits are dedicated to sustain yes they should feel tanky but they are well telegraphed and predictable. I really feel like most people just go head on"like a fresh air ele or some thieves" forgetting to save their burst or cc.

I can’t take my self seriously if I die to one unless I get outplayed. I feel more threat from engi grenades at melee but I hope boon removal overall is not forgotten.

Chorazin.4107:

You can’t take soothing wave, soothing disruption and cleansing water without losing cantrip mastery. So there is a tradeoff, you either live with those really long cantrip CD’s and pick up the extra condi removal or lose out on that removal for reasonable cantrip cooldown timers.

Would you take soothing disruption without cantrip mastery?

Yes.

To a few of you in here, all I gotta say is read the whole OP next time and you won’t make a pointless post. Overall good discussion though.

The lightning whip one sounds fair although it would be easier if they could just fix the stow bug (if possible). Drakes breath (and other fire skills) also put on too much burning without any effort so those could use a little nerf.

The rest of these changes are just silly. No point in nerfing a class just because one build with a certain rune set is over the top. A nerf to str runes and doom/battle sigils would work better

The Game Slayer.7632:

Why do you think ele is overpowered to begin with? You are just giving random nerf suggestions with no reasoning.

the reasoning is literally right there described with each suggested change.

he’s also a very high level elementalist that plays competitively so i think his words carry a bit more weight than yours

Sizer.5632:

The lightning whip one sounds fair although it would be easier if they could just fix the stow bug (if possible). Drakes breath (and other fire skills) also put on too much burning without any effort so those could use a little nerf.

The rest of these changes are just silly. No point in nerfing a class just because one build with a certain rune set is over the top. A nerf to str runes and doom/battle sigils would work better

then you’re nerfing entire runes/sigils for the sake of one profession. that effects a lot more than just entire profession.

onswap sigils imo are only overpowered on elementalist and engineer because they are rewarded for and have absolutely 0 punishment for constantly swapping attunements/kits.

other than that i agree with you. only difference is that i think the Soothing Wave change is just as valid as the change to Drake’s Breath.

the Lightning Whip change needs to happen though. this is an exploit in mechanics, it’s not up for debate whether or not it should be changed. it’s a bug that needs fixing.

sinject.4607:

the reasoning is literally right there described with each suggested change.
he’s also a very high level elementalist that plays competitively so i think his words carry a bit more weight than yours

This thread isn’t tagged as sPvP, and the crowd here spans all the game modes. Not all readers are up to date on sPvP D/D Ele balance.

Also, he really doesn’t provide lengthy explanations by any stretch. That’s because most people just already know what’s up, lol. IE:

Phantaram.1265:

Drake’s Breath – a 2 second burn per tic instead of a 3 second burn

Elemental Shielding – 2 second protection instead of a 3 second protection

Soothing Disruption – 4-5 second regen/vigor instead of 6 second regen/vigor

So yeah. Anyone else who’s reading and didn’t get the memo, D/D Ele is noticeably over-performing in 5v5 conquest, Phanta’s first six suggestions, or a combination of them would likely remedy this over-performing pretty perfectly. I still think changing Boons themselves or Amulets is a bit too knee-jerk, though.

I’m very up to date on sPvP. What’s ridiculous is just to state that a class is overpowered without giving any reasons as to why. I only do sPvP/wvw roaming.

Instead of listing nerf suggestions without any rationalization, why don’t you state why you think they’re overpowered and the more experienced players can help you to counter them?

Remove the ICD on searing flames and ill gladly burn all those extra boons from eles by becoming paper on fire to rock

Sizer.5632:

The lightning whip one sounds fair although it would be easier if they could just fix the stow bug (if possible).

The stow-weapon thing isn’t really a bug, its just a way to squeeze more efficacy by using in-game mechanics. The problem with other changes that would “fix” the stow-weapon, is it either requires a special exception with how lightning-whip acts with SoR, via an ICD for that skill or moving the proc to the end of the skill, or really nerfs SoR for other builds (say by moving all healing casts to the end of skills). The latter option really hurts scepter eles who have a lot of channelled skills that rare complete casting. You could also remove the ability to stow-weapon, but that REALLY hurts high-level play.

Just shifting the damage application on lightning whip is a super-easy to implement change (just change numbers) that completely removes the advantage of performing the LW-stow action. Its kind of the simplest fix without having to do a major rework of any in-game systems.

Concept has the right idea but without any real suggestions. My 2 cents:

Skills

Lightning Whip: Obviously fix the stow issue.

Drakes breath: Cut the burning in half. It’s already on a very low cd with decent aoe application.

Chill Aura: Reduce the duration from 7 to 5 seconds. No profession should have a plethora of soft/hard cc.

Magnetic grasp: Increase the cd to 20 seconds.

Traits

Elemental Shielding: Gonna get some hate from this but this is way too good for an adept. Either reduce the duration or move it up to a master.

Cleansing water: With the sheer access to regeneration, i’d say this needs a slight change. Put a small ICD on it for each other person you apply regeneration to. Example: You apply regen to yourself, you remove a condition but it cannot be done for another 5 seconds. You can however remove a condi from someone else within that time-frame.

Elemental Attunement: This is a weird one because it goes from making the Elementalist’s attunement swap from being completely useless, to having the highest access of very strong boons. Not exactly sure what to do with this but maybe lowering the duration?

I know it looks like a pretty significant amount of nerfs but anyone profession should never be able to do nearly everything with great execution. There needs to be give somewhere, Risk/Reward so to speak. I’d rather not see the Elementalist fall out of the meta like it did previously but something needs to be done.

I feel as though we need small balance changes for eles because it would trully be a shame to have the class nerfed into oblivion once again.

Imho the main problem now is that cele d/d eles have insane defensive capabilities. They are the only class that can cope with both physical and condition pressure just by using the 0-0-2-6-6 build. It’s really not fun to play against somebody that has nearly permanent protection upkeep and a lot of condition removal while also being able to get stronger the longer the fight lasts because of might stacking. Basically you either need to burst them down early or else you’ll soon be facing a 25 stack powerhouse.

I totally agree with phantaram as far as lightning whip is concerned. On the other hand i believe that a lot of the changes he proposes are over the top, not to mention that nerfing amulets and game mechanics in general(might stacking) ,because currently 2 classes dominate the scene , is not justifiable.

Elemental Shielding. This trait needs to be moved to master tier and swap it with Geomancer’s Freedom. This way ele players will need to sacrifice some of their condition removal and healing potential in order to get more physical damage mitigation

if anet buffs gadget( trait)s ill burst your ele with throw mine toolbelt!

bam, more strong stripping viable in the meta.

do we need a nerf here? or do we need increased viable counterplay?

imo warriors could use real boon hate as well, what anet gave them is just crap. maybe instead of +3% damage per boon, it should be 50% chance to remove a boon on crit. 1s icd to make it single target. move to say… strength grandmaster so they can only take 2 of cleansing ire, burst mastery, and boon hate. suddenly warriors can build for a niche that isnt always good, but would allow strategic countering at a build level. was your warrior able to correctly call a d/d ele, and now gets to kitten all over him all game, or will he lose the on point fights to perma protection?

i dunno, i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example, as a bruiser engi build with high defense investment, d/d cele ele is something that i can duel for 10-20 mins with no clear winner, which is pretty much where it needs to be with all that defense investment. but there need to be good, viable counters to it.

insanemaniac.2456:

i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example

insanemaniac.2456:

if anet buffs gadget( trait)s ill burst your ele with throw mine toolbelt!

bam, more strong stripping viable in the meta.

do we need a nerf here? or do we need increased viable counterplay?

imo warriors could use real boon hate as well, what anet gave them is just crap. maybe instead of +3% damage per boon, it should be 50% chance to remove a boon on crit. 1s icd to make it single target. move to say… strength grandmaster so they can only take 2 of cleansing ire, burst mastery, and boon hate. suddenly warriors can build for a niche that isnt always good, but would allow strategic countering at a build level. was your warrior able to correctly call a d/d ele, and now gets to kitten all over him all game, or will he lose the on point fights to perma protection?

i dunno, i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example, as a bruiser engi build with high defense investment, d/d cele ele is something that i can duel for 10-20 mins with no clear winner, which is pretty much where it needs to be with all that defense investment. but there need to be good, viable counters to it.

yes, i feel like warrior can use some real boon hate, it might be competitive again as point holder against ele.

Sagat.3285:

insanemaniac.2456:

i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example

This actually makes a lot of sense. However, giving everyone boon-hate is a much more daunting task than just working with the boons themselves.

Arken.3725:

Sagat.3285:

insanemaniac.2456:

i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example

This actually makes a lot of sense. However, giving everyone boon-hate is a much more daunting task than just working with the boons themselves.

Eh? No way. Slipping in a little ‘…and removes a boon’ to a PvP centric tooltip is much less difficult a task than changing how good boons are and expecting game balance to be good.

Chaith.8256:

Arken.3725:

Sagat.3285:

insanemaniac.2456:

i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example

This actually makes a lot of sense. However, giving everyone boon-hate is a much more daunting task than just working with the boons themselves.

Eh? No way. Slipping in a little ‘…and removes a boon’ to a PvP centric tooltip is much less difficult a task than changing how good boons are and expecting game balance to be good.

Eh? This has already been tried by a few traits given by a few professions and look how it turned out. It’s incredibly underwhelming. I’ve already given my opinion a few posts above to lower the amount of boon-access to a more acceptable level. Potentially 65% or more uptime on at least 4 boons is too much.

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

Chaith.8256:

Maybe introduce some potent protection-boonhate to some deserving parties?

Mmm, I don’t know.. I feel like Mesmers, Thieves and Necros already fill that role (I believe that Necromancers actually counter D/D Elementalists) moreover D/D Ele is not that good against heavy-condition teams. Which is why we see a lot more condi-ranger and condi-necro than before.

You’re right, at least about boon-hate already being in the Thief/Mes/Necro turf. However, Eles are never a bad option to take against condition heavy teams. D/D Eles are never ‘not that good’, under any circumstances right now.

Back to the subject of boonhate, Mesmers I would like to see them easier to pick up, without devoting an entire comp around it.

Also, I think that Larcenous Strike should steal a second boon if used on a foe below 50% HP. I think if that happened top D/D Eles and top S/D Thieves would be able to go even in 1v1s, instead of the Ele’s favor, and the Ele would be slightly more pressured when a thief outnumbers him.

id like to point out s/d thief can 1v1 a d/d ele it just takes 2-3 minutes vs a good ele.

furthermore I think there needs to be a buff to shatter mesmers so that they destroy d/d eles.. I understand lots of EU teams already run mesmer but I’m going to continue to assert that that is not the most optimal comp until WTS says otherwise. Pretty much every class in thsi game has a decent counter except ele so why can’t ele have one? It would be fair if ele didn’t hard counter anyone either and was just decent vs everything, but that’s not the case as it 100% will win every single 1v1 vs guardians, d/p thieves, rangers, and warriors with no exceptions.

Arken.3725:

Chaith.8256:

Arken.3725:

Sagat.3285:

insanemaniac.2456:

i feel like the answer here is to give us really good counters to boon spam that otherwise arent that great. not necessarily just nerf the offending boon build. for example

This actually makes a lot of sense. However, giving everyone boon-hate is a much more daunting task than just working with the boons themselves.

Eh? No way. Slipping in a little ‘…and removes a boon’ to a PvP centric tooltip is much less difficult a task than changing how good boons are and expecting game balance to be good.

Eh? This has already been tried by a few traits given by a few professions and look how it turned out. It’s incredibly underwhelming. I’ve already given my opinion a few posts above to lower the amount of boon-access to a more acceptable level. Potentially 65% or more uptime on at least 4 boons is too much.

it hasnt even been given a chance though, for example the warrior trait cant even break through protection because if it could in its current form itd be blatantly op against everything without protection. so its doomed to obscurity as long as it remains as it is.

Booms.2594:

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

Chaith.8256:

Maybe introduce some potent protection-boonhate to some deserving parties?

Mmm, I don’t know.. I feel like Mesmers, Thieves and Necros already fill that role (I believe that Necromancers actually counter D/D Elementalists) moreover D/D Ele is not that good against heavy-condition teams. Which is why we see a lot more condi-ranger and condi-necro than before.

You’re right, at least about boon-hate already being in the Thief/Mes/Necro turf. However, Eles are never a bad option to take against condition heavy teams. D/D Eles are never ‘not that good’, under any circumstances right now.

Back to the subject of boonhate, Mesmers I would like to see them easier to pick up, without devoting an entire comp around it.

Also, I think that Larcenous Strike should steal a second boon if used on a foe below 50% HP. I think if that happened top D/D Eles and top S/D Thieves would be able to go even in 1v1s, instead of the Ele’s favor, and the Ele would be slightly more pressured when a thief outnumbers him.

id like to point out s/d thief can 1v1 a d/d ele it just takes 2-3 minutes vs a good ele.

furthermore I think there needs to be a buff to shatter mesmers so that they destroy d/d eles.. I understand lots of EU teams already run mesmer but I’m going to continue to assert that that is not the most optimal comp until WTS says otherwise. Pretty much every class in thsi game has a decent counter except ele so why can’t ele have one? It would be fair if ele didn’t hard counter anyone either and was just decent vs everything, but that’s not the case as it 100% will win every single 1v1 vs guardians, d/p thieves, rangers, and warriors with no exceptions.

Phantaram v. Magic Toker practice 1v1s are probably 75% win rate for Phanta. Both (the?) two top players at D/D Ele and S/D Thief, respectively.

Translated into conquest, it’s a 2 minute duel on a point the Ele will probably own. I still think the odds are against the Thief, and the threat of an enemy crashing the duel much more threatening to the Thief than the Ele.

It’s not a good investment for the Thief, so considering those factors I’d say the ability for a thief to maybe kill an ele after 60-120 seconds is not very useful.

And just to further reiterate on the whole “boon hate” discussion. S/D thief/Necromancer are the only professions with access to useful skills/traits. Again, looking at a single profession to balance is probably easier than looking at everyone else trying to find a way to fight it.

Edit: I’m trying to find a good balance for some of the professions of topic lately and EVERY single user of those professions seems to be against any sort of adjustment. It’s amazing really but not unexpected. Even as a Guardian i’m a little biased towards it but i’d be more than willing to admit when something is broken/too strong.

And for those looking to nerf these professions, give reasons why and maybe some alternatives instead of just, “NERF LAWLZ.”

I feel like this topic has devolved from a suggestion of a few shaves to gradually nerf eles into a witch-hunt to just murder the profession altogether. I guess some want to go back to pre-april level of ele participation.

For all the people who want to lower ele’s defense, remember that cele d/d ele is a BUNKER BUILD (14/14 traits and all utilities are defensive). It is literally the maximum survival an ele can get pack into a single spec, with a high-sustain amulet and might-stacking for damage. It doesn’t survive TOO long under focus-fire (although it can stall like many builds nowadays), but it does output too much DAMAGE, especially in 1v1 situations. To that end, shaves should be focused on reducing the damage it can do as a veritable bunker (which is carried mostly by condi damage).

Reducing the burning up-time immediately tips the power-scale in many fights. Taking away some of the might stacks (even just 5-6 stacks on average) puts them on-par with other bruiser builds.

On the topic of boon-hate, I think it would be a good move to give s/d thieves back their 2nd stolen boon now that they can’t front-load damage. However, s/d might need a shave elsewhere if given this (it is still a top-tier spec atm). Perhaps zerker guards should have some more boon strip capability, but you gotta put it a higher tier than adept so you don’t have boon-stripping bunkers. Other skills, like necro feast of corruption could even change to its beta form, and do more damage for each boon as opposed to each condi (although not sure if this is a net buff or not). I’m not sure engies deserve more boon hate as they already have the tools as a class to handle anything. Perhaps mesmer sword could improve to strip TWO boons on the 3rd hit, as its already a very risky skill to use. Not sure I’d buff warrior boon-hate, they are in a great place atm if the other top-bruiser specs get shaved. Destruction of the empowered is a good damage buff.

I don’t think anyone wants to murder the profession but rather find the “sweet spot” so to speak. Even if there was limited access to burning/might stacks, it still has a bit too much for my taste. As an example when I play Bunker Guard, I don’t have soft cc, mobility, constant access to boons as well as excellent dmg mitigation. It’s all team-support. That to me, is balanced because you are literally offering everything for your team while keeping only a bit for yourself.

And if we’re talking Bruiser builds, it should by no means be the MOST survivable spec. Just my 2 cents.