Guild Wars 2

I’m not going to join the bandwagon and scream that April 30 is a disaster, I’d like to get a feel of what all the changes are before partaking in any negativity.

However I do have some areas of concerns when it comes to Elementalist game play come April 30.

The first thing is that I’m all for the goal of Bunker builds to have an effective counter of their own. That’s great, however a matter of concern is how there’s already adjustments that already diminishes Bunker Ele survivability, will the advent of Bunker Killer builds go too far? Of course that’s something to find out after April 30, but then this bring up another concern.

Build variety. Elementalists have a few builds here and there but none can be considered truly practical. Lightning Hammer is nice, but extremely dependent on other classes which reduces its viability and popularity. Scepter Dagger can be used, but it’s clunky and its popularity will probably go down as well due to the off hand dagger nerf. Staff is great for PVE and WvW, but it’s terrible for 1 v 1, the Mist Form changes really hurts them, and the Cleansing Water change, while can be adapted since it doesn’t hurt that much, ultimately still hurts them.

Ultimately there doesn’t seem to be any increase in build variety, in fact it has gone as far as hurt other builds in both PVP and PVE. Isn’t this counter-intuitive considering Anet’s goal is to increase Elementalist build variety? Shouldn’t more effort be put into reworking the traits as well so players can actually develop counters to bunker killer builds? Right now we’re still stuck with bunkers, even more so, due to Mist Form changes. I’m feeling the pressure to go for more tougher builds, potentially bunkering up because of how brutal PVE contents can get. RTL changes affecting the entire game is understandable, but Mist Form changes hurts every single Elementalist build out there and we’re very fragile enough in PVE contents. Shaman in FOTM 28+ is brutal!

In conclusion. It’s not fair to denounce the changes, that’d be knee jerking, but certainly it’s a legitimate concern to point out that there still isn’t any build options being opened up as a result of these changes. Some of these changes hurting PVE game play, which is confusing since there are other skills that operates similarly to Mist Form. Isn’t this contrary to Anet’s outlined goals? There doesn’t seem to be a lot for us to work with except having to face new builds that is specifically designed to counter the only effective builds we have. Is there some more changes that we aren’t aware of?

S/F 20/20/30/0/0 Like a boss
No one knows how to fight it, so its all lulz. Perfect for pesky ranged players, more blinds and projectile counters than most classes, don’t even need mist form because Earth 5 is a 4 sec invuln xD, goin for the signet condi build, because I just don’t care

0 points in arcane takes some getting used to though lol.

Sticking with glassy dd ele build even though this is the build that will be hit hardest by the nerf. I dislike playing bunker because it takes too long to kill an opponent.

I will never stop playing dd ele no matter how much they nerf it. The skill set of the dd ele is just too fluid, everything feels so smooth. All the other melee skills of other classes feel too clunky and “cheap”. There is no flow unlike like the DD ele.

We still really don’t know EXACTLY and COMPLETELY what is in the patch for us.
The devs were talking about some incoming buffs to signets, so we may see some improvement here (apart from our healing signet).
Cantrip elementalists are too strong, the cantrip build is really too well synergised, so I don’t really care if it is nerfed.
I also find it is good that overall they are adding some new tools to different classes to be boon hunters/thieves, which is a way to counter many elementalists/engies/guardians.
By introducing new archetypes in the meta they may force us to rethink our place as elementalists.
I can’t really say were it will take us but I am pretty sure that some of the top players will find out a place for us.

Parktou, would you have a video for us, could be interesting to show us your playstyle !

I think the main issue with D/D bunkers is their damage potential was too strong for a bunker.

Look at bunker Guardians, they can really never kill. Can’t say the same about Ele’s.

S/F 20/20/30/0/0 Like a boss
No one knows how to fight it, so its all lulz. Perfect for pesky ranged players, more blinds and projectile counters than most classes, don’t even need mist form because Earth 5 is a 4 sec invuln xD, goin for the signet condi build, because I just don’t care
0 points in arcane takes some getting used to though lol.

Im using this build for a long time, its very good, very versatile
and the better part ? NO ARCANA! I have not anynting against Arcana but
im sick to hear from every single one * The only viable build is…. * and then some 30 or 20 in Arcana. I strongly believe that anyone who is complaining about * not one other
viable sollution * is just copying wiki builds and never try to discover a new one.
And YES is NORMAL to destroy you when u are 1 and they are 5 or 4 or 3 or even 2.
For god sake u are not a noob when u are losing against more players.
Sorry for my english is not my native language.

Flissy.4093:

I think the main issue with D/D bunkers is their damage potential was too strong for a bunker.

Look at bunker Guardians, they can really never kill. Can’t say the same about Ele’s.

One of the best things about ele bunker nerfs, is that their damage isn’t being nerfed. To be honest, I like the idea of bunkers with some damage. It fits the elementalist’s flavor of destruction, and makes them different from guardians. Besides, professions that can’t kill or be killed is boring to the game, imo.

Well for me it’s more about what seemingly is a lack of anything new to work with. I personally support the idea of nerfing bunker Elementalists, because I feel there is a lot of room for streamlining things in the Elementalists’ traits, but there isn’t any mention of that.

I’m a Staff Ele in FOTMs. I’m not the greatest Ele in the world and it gets really brutal in 28+ FOTMs like the Shaman fractal. The existing signets won’t stop me from being chain rooted by those elemental grubs after my Magnetic Aura is gone, and I’m being rooted while arrows and all other kinds of nasty things are being thrown at me while I’m being chewed to death.

What kind of options have to added to the Elementalists build so we can branch out and do something else now with the Mist Form nerf in PVE as well?

Also what kind of things have they added so in my down time when I play in WvW and the gates go down and I’m forced to go from staff into D/D, that I can hold my own against bunker killer builds?

I’m all for changes and balance, but don’t we need something to work with so we can move away from the things that were out of balance? Mobility and survivability is down now for the class, and we’re faced with two very popular and high damage classes that are now designed to punish us for being in a build that’s often called our sole practical build.

Where’s our practical options of moving away from bunker builds? Can’t there be more information revealed to put the portion of the community, who’s looking for some thing practical that isn’t a bunker Ele, at ease?

HikariNoTen.1402:

Cantrip elementalists are too strong, the cantrip build is really too well synergised, so I don’t really care if it is nerfed.

you said it well but you lost on the way: cantrips are not too strong, they are simply well thought and implemented by developers.
Instead of nerfing what’s well done, just make everything else on par with this.

Really says a lot for the game that when traits accidentally synergize well, they need to be nerfed. HGH engineers get this too.

EVERYONE should have traits that synergize well. Not just for one build either, for several builds.

Parktou, would you have a video for us, could be interesting to show us your playstyle ![/quote]

Sorry to say I don’t but if you wanna try it, just try to stay at max range against most opponents(i.e. 900) It’s not a jack of all trades/can do anything build but if you find yourself in groups of 5+ it’s really fun because you can play offensively and devastate alot of players health pools while still being defensive and keeping glass rangers from focus firing your people from 1500 range. Best advice I can give is to have fun though, for me this is kind of a troll build, its not really my style, but I can make it work until they give us Dual torches XD the other thing is that once you understand the rotations, the problem your foes will find is that they have no idea what you can do to them, so they’ll either hesitate(making it easy) or charge in foolishly(making it slightly less easy) also the scepters just have better skins then daggers do, if your ele is an asura like mine :P

P.S. people keep getting lost in the condition cleansing because it’s so good, but the truth is that the cantrip-cleanse build is actually just overkill, sure if your in a zerg on zerg in WvW and you walk through 10 aoes your gonna get a lot of conditions and it will come in handy but most of the time that condi-cleanse potential gets completely wasted because it just isn’t NEEDED. just my 2 cents

Grevender.9235:

you said it well but you lost on the way: cantrips are not too strong, they are simply well thought and implemented by developers.
Instead of nerfing what’s well done, just make everything else on par with this.

This is what should have been done – but it’d be “power creep” and if you’re not a warrior or thief, you’re not allowed to have that.

stale.9785:

if you’re not a warrior or thief, you’re not allowed to have that.

ewwwww xD
considering how much they QQ about their profession without having probably never leveled from 1 to 80 without using gold (fresh account) an Elementalist back in the days… they will never truly understand how godly they are.