Guild Wars 2

No, really, the FGS nerf whine is way too much atm. In PvE, I don’t see how anyone could argue that FGS trivialized nearly every fight ever, so I believe it’s justified. For pvp/wvw, how often were people rushing other players down next to a wall? Is that a thing that happens right now that I’m unaware of? Is there some PvP meta where teams used fiery rush next to the altar wall in temple of the silent storm? What’s going on?

For normal usage, in PvP FGS was used mostly as mobility, and it could arguably be said to be buffed in that regard as you now have a high damage attack opener rush. And for PvE, a lot of other classes have bad elites – look at thief and engi for example.

Someone PM’d me and asked me to post his reply:

I am not bothered by the nerf for its “untended” use. I am however annoyed that is it SILL very situational. I play WvW and havent touched PvE in months. FGS before the nerf was used for Mobility, after the change it is still going to be used for mobility.
This MUST be changed. Currently offers SO little in WvW outside of running away…
For me, what i would do:
Fiery Greatsword: This, i would reduce the duration to 30 seconds. Remove the usage cap. Remove/reduce the mobility and increase the damage so it is on the levels of Lich Form and such. i would even consider:
1) 120 Second cool down without a secondary FGS being dropped
or
2) Kept at 180second cool down with a secondary FGS being dropped
With such changes the skills would need to be adjusted:
Flame Wave: Increase the damage, reduce the speed of the projectile. So it is something similar to. Maybe reduce it to 1 projectile at a time and increase the damage. Cast time would need to be reduced as well.
Fiery Eruption: Think this skill is in a reasonable place. Maybe reduce the cast time a little as it is currently a little too long. Maybe make it so that it makes a trail for a few seconds following its target
Fiery Whirl: This would be one of the skills that would need a total redesign. It has too much mobility currently. Could make it something like Warriors 100b that it locks you in place and you swing the flaming sword around damaging and burning foes.
Fiery Rush: Second skill that needs a total redesign. It is okay for it to have a little mobility. Its “exploit” needs to be fixed that is for sure. Could maybe make it so that it is a leap that leaves something like a Larva Font or something at the target and inflicts say 1-2 second Immbo as well
Firestorm: Radius needs to be increased a little, the damage is rather low as well
All skills would need cool down adjustments as well. I think this would actually bring it into being USED more as offensive utility rather than a escape everything on a 180second cool down.

You know, you honestly did not need to make a new thread for this. People are going to whine and cry but that is pretty much standard whenever something is nerfed, it is not a new phenomenon. They are going to cling to every trite and stupid reason why it is a turible idea and you are better off not worrying about it.

I mean what mmorpg forum doesn’t have QQ.

silvermember.8941:

You know, you honestly did not need to make a new thread for this. People are going to whine and cry but that is pretty much standard whenever something is nerfed, it is not a new phenomenon. They are going to cling to every trite and stupid reason why it is a turible idea and you are better off not worrying about it.

I mean what mmorpg forum doesn’t have QQ.

It’s spectacular in this occasion, though, because it’s not really a ‘nerf’ so much as ‘fixing an exploit’.

I honestly find it hilarious that people are so up-in-arms about clearly broken mechanics and unintentional behaviours getting fixed.

Was pretty surprised that more posts weren’t made about the teleport-FGS#4 bugfix, actually. Guess folks were saving up their qq for when this inevitably happened.

The only thing more trite than whining, crying and qq is using those terms for opinions you disagree with.

Tbh a year and a half ago i wanted to make a FGS WvW montage by either lf bink kills or wall rushes but yeah, i’m kittening lazy so that never happened.
Besides fgs worked great on those full t4nk guards – mind the retal.

Disagreeing with a made decision is futile regardless, Gents.

Tei.1704:

The only thing more trite than whining, crying and qq is using those terms for opinions you disagree with.

+1

cheese.4739:

silvermember.8941:

You know, you honestly did not need to make a new thread for this. People are going to whine and cry but that is pretty much standard whenever something is nerfed, it is not a new phenomenon. They are going to cling to every trite and stupid reason why it is a turible idea and you are better off not worrying about it.

I mean what mmorpg forum doesn’t have QQ.

It’s spectacular in this occasion, though, because it’s not really a ‘nerf’ so much as ‘fixing an exploit’.

I honestly find it hilarious that people are so up-in-arms about clearly broken mechanics and unintentional behaviours getting fixed.
…

I remember when Ride the Lightning (Dagger Air 4) got a much needed bugfix and a questionable cooldown increase at the same time. I seem to recall the majority of the QQers lumped both the bugfix and the nerf together.

That was a great storm to watch.

I am more concerned about how this will alter Burning Speed (Dagger Fire 3) and Burning Retreat (Staff Fire 4 + Conjured Flame Axe 3). Neither of those skills seem particularly OP and furthermore, I really enjoy how there are many subtle tricks/tactics that reward knowledgeable, skillful and strategic play across all professions.

For the record: I totally support this change to FGS.

METAShift.2913:

No, really, the FGS nerf whine is way too much atm. In PvE, I don’t see how anyone could argue that FGS trivialized nearly every fight ever, so I believe it’s justified. For pvp/wvw, how often were people rushing other players down next to a wall? Is that a thing that happens right now that I’m unaware of? Is there some PvP meta where teams used fiery rush next to the altar wall in temple of the silent storm? What’s going on?

For normal usage, in PvP FGS was used mostly as mobility, and it could arguably be said to be buffed in that regard as you now have a high damage attack opener rush. And for PvE, a lot of other classes have bad elites – look at thief and engi for example.

FGS doesn’t trivialize PvE encounters; the design of the PvE content does that. The hardest PvE encounters like Mai Trin or Grawl Shaman aren’t difficult because you can’t use FGS exploits against them; they’re hard because you can’t stack on them. FGS merely made content that was already easy go by faster. All this change will do is make dungeon runs take a bit longer.

I’m fine with the change happening by the way. It wasn’t the way the skill was supposed to work and I’m ok with that. What Anet seem to have missed though is that, much like Tornado, the only thing that made these skills worth slotting was those very unintended effects they just removed.

For PvP/WvW, sure, FGS gives you some nice mobility. That almost seems to be an unintended side-effect though. When you summon a giant flaming greatsword you’d usually expect to use it to fight. But its best use is letting you run away. If that isn’t an indication that the skill needs improvements, I’m not sure what would be.

Finally, the argument that other classes have terrible elites, so its ok for us to have terrible elites, doesn’t really add up. Other classes having bad skills doesn’t excuse us having bad skills anymore than it excuses them having bad skills. Those skills should be improved just like ours should be. And for the record, Engis have a fantastic elite in Supply Drop.

Galen.9042:

METAShift.2913:

No, really, the FGS nerf whine is way too much atm. In PvE, I don’t see how anyone could argue that FGS trivialized nearly every fight ever, so I believe it’s justified. For pvp/wvw, how often were people rushing other players down next to a wall? Is that a thing that happens right now that I’m unaware of? Is there some PvP meta where teams used fiery rush next to the altar wall in temple of the silent storm? What’s going on?

For normal usage, in PvP FGS was used mostly as mobility, and it could arguably be said to be buffed in that regard as you now have a high damage attack opener rush. And for PvE, a lot of other classes have bad elites – look at thief and engi for example.

FGS doesn’t trivialize PvE encounters; the design of the PvE content does that. The hardest PvE encounters like Mai Trin or Grawl Shaman aren’t difficult because you can’t use FGS exploits against them; they’re hard because you can’t stack on them. FGS merely made content that was already easy go by faster. All this change will do is make dungeon runs take a bit longer.

I’m fine with the change happening by the way. It wasn’t the way the skill was supposed to work and I’m ok with that. What Anet seem to have missed though is that, much like Tornado, the only thing that made these skills worth slotting was those very unintended effects they just removed.

For PvP/WvW, sure, FGS gives you some nice mobility. That almost seems to be an unintended side-effect though. When you summon a giant flaming greatsword you’d usually expect to use it to fight. But its best use is letting you run away. If that isn’t an indication that the skill needs improvements, I’m not sure what would be.

Finally, the argument that other classes have terrible elites, so its ok for us to have terrible elites, doesn’t really add up. Other classes having bad skills doesn’t excuse us having bad skills anymore than it excuses them having bad skills. Those skills should be improved just like ours should be. And for the record, Engis have a fantastic elite in Supply Drop.

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1

A quality post right here.

cheese.4739:

It’s spectacular in this occasion, though, because it’s not really a ‘nerf’ so much as ‘fixing an exploit’.

First of all, I’m aware of the difference between nerfing and fixing:

• Fixing an exploit: The fire patches do no longer stack onto each other

• Nerf: -70% damage on the fire trail.

Most people here are not complaining that the ridiculous damage is gone, they are complaining because an elite skill, for which you have to sacrifice your 20 weapon skills, deals less damage than spamming staff fire 1+2. After the nerf It’s just a mobility skill, and not even good at that. And it won’t make any encounter easier.

lolz, we are so crippled we need an elite to get mobility /facepalm
but yeah, fix the exploits (in all other classes too plz)

I think the crying is not that much about the nerf itself. It’s more like the fgs wallrush was the only thing left that made an elementalist elite skill actually strong. Take that away and you can officially dump the elites. IF they rework the fgs, why don’t they do it in a way that it gets useful besides running away?

The second thing is something that most people forget. Usability of fgs in dungeons will not be nerfed, it will be destroyed. The dmg before the nerf was op, but what they now did was to completely kill the fgs by removing the multiple fire fields. They could’ve just nerfed the dmg by 50% so it was not op anymore but still a good move.

And you were much more flexible as an ele. You can melee the boss dealing tons of damage and being a class wich was dealing damage which was far beyond being godlike. Now surviving as an Ele in some occasions will nearly be impossible if the fight takes longer and debuffs will stack on you, a class which has the worst survivability in this game. Especially for new and inexperienced players. Except you’re willing to lose some of your damage boost which will make you just an “equal” damage dealer – so you’re not really needed after all – other classes can deal the same amount of damage with a much lower risk of being out of stamina or what so ever – which will lead to a dead sooner or later. Meaning most of the Eles will be not doing damage at all, just lying there waiting for better times to arrive.
So why should a group take an Ele from the beginning? Other constellations can also stack might..And the Eles healing power is nice but we’re not healers we were powerhouses which could give the group freaking high support equally dealing massive amount of damage. So an experienced player could make your party member’s lives much easier – which is / was a hug he advantage and what made an Ele so freaking awesome.
But now?! lol … Using cantrips and nothing instead?! I guess that’s how the Ele should be played now.

I don’t really mind the bug being fixed behavior being changed (this was previously classified as clever use of game-mechanics, not a bug). In fact, I am happy as it now makes the skill useless for anything other than mobility (which is all I use it for anyway). Since 3 minutes is ridiculous as a CD for a mobility skill, I more see this as an opportunity for them to lower the CD and make the skill more useful (to me). Fixing the wall-stacking just removes the potential abuse that would have happened previously had the reduced the CD.

Ok, some points:

It’s not a “3 minute cooldown mobility skill” like some suggested. It’s not a RTL with 180 seconds of CD, it’s a skill that gives you pretty much the best mobility in the game for a minute, with the possibility of giving it to another ally as well.

It might be a bit weak, sure, but elites in this game are not designed as an “I win” button on a huge CD, they’re all situational. Plague form doesn’t tilt the fight in your favor the second you pop it, signet of rage gives you some boons, thief basilisk venom is a 1 second stun. The game isn’t balanced around “2 classes meet, they both dump their elites on each other”, you have to take into account the whole class, or I may as well say thief is unplayable because it has rather weak elites compared to the other classes.

FGS did, IMO, trivialize PvE encounters. Sure, they are badly designed with the stacking thing, but FGS made those stacks 10000x easier. Thus, trivial. I agree that it’s not a solution to the bad design on Anet’s part, but you can’t argue it to be a negative change. What’s funny is that mostly nobody complained about it before when they were happily abusing an exploit.

I suspect the change wasn’t even taking PvE into account THAT much, but rather has to do with players in sPvP using FGS to kill the bosses on forest and the lord on foefire in seconds, which is something that looks bad to spectators in tournaments and such as it can completely turn a game around(more so on foefire) by using an exploit.

I say keep it up as much as possible. FGS is pretty worthless outside of being used a method of escape when it’s supposed to be a powerful tool for DPS. Maybe if enough complaints are made to the point where they can’t be ignored, they’ll actually update the FGS skills to be of some actual merit:

Imagine Flame Wave exploding on impact dealing damage to up to 5 targets within a 240 radius instead of kitten piercing – heck, imagine it applying of burning to each target too! Imagine Fiery Eruption having a 240 radius… Imagine Fiery Rush (do I even dare?) hitting for as much as Phantasmal Swordsman when it’s actually being used on a target. Imagine Firestorm applying burning too.

Complain enough, keep it up, and we might just eventually have an elite skill that’s worth using!

I just wonder why most Elites should be offensive and display large numbers, there’s plenty of room to make defensive/supporting Elites.

Yeah but the problem would be which elite to give whom. Especially casting some elite which are intended to be “supportive” aren’t worth casting, because of – they’re aren’t that good overall because of long CDs and the risk of dying or your elite dying.

METAShift.2913:

elites in this game are not designed as an “I win” button on a huge CD,

Seems we dont play the same game.

Moa is a death sentence
Supply craft is a 2sec stun followed by a 2sec root, that also burn you, and during those 4sec of hard CC, you can be dicharged by the engi. If you’re around 50% life, its the “I win” button
Lich form spamm 1 is a death sentence too (or a “run away or you die”)

should i continue ? (and by the way game designers said that elite skill when used have to change the battle, its not “i win” button, but not so far)

FGS deals NO damage, Tornado is kited, Elemental is killed within 5sec by good players.
As someone said on another topic: “best usage of elite slot for ele would be to take another utility” …

FGS and tornado HAD SITUATIONNAL use that are now nerfed into oblivion.
I dont mind those nerf, those skill were already crap anyway.
But just 2things:
First, fixing a glitch that help ele seems to be the first thing to do, while fixing things that are bad for ele seems to be irevelant. I’m here refering to the retaliation damage with the fire trail. If they fixed both, i would say its balanced, now you cant trick anymore with the FGS AND you still cant use it in large scale WVW where it supposed to be at its best …

Second:

we’ll be addressing the Tornado and Fiery Greatsword elite skills; we’ll make some usability improvements and tone down some of their unintended functionality.

I see the town down, but where is the “usuability improvement” ?
oh wait! since we won’t use them anymore its easier to use it! … I though Anet were liar Kappa

Are you seriously complaining about complaints?? does that makes you feel better than them??

chris.6583:

Are you seriously complaining about complaints?? does that makes you feel better than them??

…please stop complaining about the people complaining about people laughing about other people complaining about unreasonable things to complain about.

It makes you look like a noob.

You should l2p and FGS#4 more.

People need to ask anet to make FGS into a small kitten so you can ride it. Maybe transform tornado into a cloud bunny that throws elemental carrots at people. I’m sure that would resolve the issue. Also the kitten should purr very loud as it hops into battle and the bunny needs to have very soft fur. I’d pay 9000 Gems for that.

METAShift.2913:

No, really, the FGS nerf whine is way too much atm. In PvE, I don’t see how anyone could argue that FGS trivialized nearly every fight ever, .

Almost every experienced pve player knows that uis not FGS to trivialize every fight.

Its the stupid AI.

Before FGS dungeons were as easy as today.
I don t really care for FGS (except the fact we were given nothing in return).
If it was for me iwould delete conjured weapons and give elementalist a decent mechanic that is not a lazy copy of other professions.

I’m far more concerbned about fire dagger 2 and staff 4 that were counterplay against some OP www stuff.

I suggest the kitten should have fiery mittens to go with it’s purrfectly cute appearance. I would also like to see a norn or charr ride that little fiery kitten to battle. Vote for FGS to be turned into a fiery kitten you can ride into battle. I’m slowly persuading the developers day by day.