Guild Wars 2

Jon sharp posted this

We’re working on the staff in an effort to make it a stronger support weapon, and we also improved the conjure weapons so that they’re stronger for support. You’ll see improvements to all 4 of the conjure weapons to make them stronger and better for support.

We also increased the healing on Water Blast, the radius on Geyser and we reworked
Unsteady Ground to make it function more like line of warding.

in other words is this what ele will be getting for balance patch seems pretty accurate on what jon sharp is saying ? is this those the fixes we need? i mean i cant see anyone still going with conjure weapons ( if they mean they are buffing them for ppl to use them more in tpvp? ) or that people will start using staff for the geyser buff?

balance thing by anet logic :
become a support class .
nice try but FAIL .

GG
time to delete my ele for real……

Kuruptz.4782:

in other words is this what ele will be getting for balance patch seems pretty accurate on what jon sharp is saying ? is this those the fixes we need? i mean i cant see anyone still going with conjure weapons ( if they mean they are buffing them for ppl to use them more in tpvp? ) or that people will start using staff for the geyser buff?

They’re acknowledging that conjures are having issues and trying to make headway with improving them. They’re saying that staff is underperforming with its heals and make adjustments to improve that.
I don’t think Sharp is saying that anything that they’ve done is what is specifically needed, but that they are the steps to move Ele options they’d like to see into a better light.

Lava Axe is a pretty fast attack, so maybe it’d be nice for Might stacking If conjures didn’t have such ridiculously long cooldowns.

Is this really what we’re getting? Just some bug fixes and borderline pointless buffs?

It would be awfully nice to actually get new build options, rather than minor buffs that won’t change a thing.

You forgot to add some of the general updates that affect us as well.

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.
-This could hurt as a bit when it comes to chill, burn, and regeneration. And I guess it affects stoning too, but no one uses auto attack anyway :p
More importantly, it can really affect how well we work with other classes.

All player controlled minions. excluding Mesmer phantasm and clones because they were already increased in a previous patch, now have 71.43% more hit points in a PvE map.
-Yay, more health for elementals in pve

Aoe spells with that have a maximum number of targets will now count combatants that block or evade the attack towards that maximum

Skills that buff allies in an aoe now prioritize party members

Arena Net is now in the bargaining phase with Elementalists.

1. First they Denied there was a problem at all with Elementalists and it was normal for everyone to play the same spec. They said D/D was balanced and they were just waiting to see if the meta would adjust. For a long time they never nerfed anything even as people raged loudly about the Elementalist class being too strong.

2. Then they got Angry with the Elementalists always playing the same spec and decided to nerf everything. They nerfed the healing efficiency in SPVP as well as gutted our mobility with Ride the Lightning and took out all the stun removers out of Cantrips. Damage got lowered, boon generation got nerfed and on a whole we ended up in the sad state we are in now.

3. Now they are Bargaining with Elementalists to try to get them to play less used specs. They buffed the Earth line hoping it’d inspire some kind of condition/signet play. They now buffing Conjures hoping it’ll get people to spec out of Cantrips/Arcane abilities. They’re trying to nudge staff to get people to use it instead of S/D or D/D.

4. Next we will see a long bout of Depression in regards to the Elementalists and we’ll largely be ignored. We’ll still be nerfed and inferior to other classes in every role because jack of all trades and master of none is easily replaced by rolling 3 alts and being the master of all (or just make a warrior). Their changes won’t inspire anyone to change out of the existing x/x/x/20/20 cantrip meta and they won’t know what to do.

5. Finally years down the line there will be Acceptance that the Elementalist class design is bad at it’s core because it’s the very core of the Elementalist that encourages the very problem they were trying to fix of getting people to play different builds/strategies. They will overhaul the class and people will dust off their Elementalists that they long gave up on.

Considering line of warding has a 40s cooldown, they will slap a 5 minute cooldown on the elementalist version.

DrTenma.7249:

Considering line of warding has a 40s cooldown, they will slap a 5 minute cooldown on the elementalist version.

Seems balanced. I mean we do have 20 skills after all.

Lava axe sounds interesting though, could bear some incredibly niche pve immense mightstacking ele build.
Also there’s supposed to be changes to earthshield as well, prolly a complete revamp for not being mentioned here.

One thing I’m not looking forward to is limiting conditions (and boons) that stack in duration to only 5 “stacks” at once. This means that Burning is screwed for Eles, since one of the things that tends to happen with that is we do lots of small applications of it, like from the Minor Adept Fire trait, Drake’s Breath, Burning Precision, etc. It’s also gonna suck for the boon side, since it’s going to slaughter the LH build’s Fury uptime. The other thing we have to wonder is if it’s only considering “stacks” from a single source, or if I’ll need to worry about any other party members that might have long lasting Burns but no ConDam. Damaging conditions in general need a look at due to how they get screwed over when a cap is reached, especially on Champs and world bosses, and this is just going to make the problem even worse.

At this point it is clear that either Anet is unable or unwilling to put forth the effort to make the ele a viable class. Any Anet employee feel free to prove me wrong, but at this point the class really is useless in PvP/WvW. It’s only use in PvE is tagging mobs, which Anet also wants to nerf.

Kodiak.3281:

Arena Net is now in the bargaining phase with Elementalists.

When do they enter the “playing phase”, where someone from the balance team actually plays the class? Because no useful changes will ever happen to the class until that occurs.

Navzar.2938:

You forgot to add some of the general updates that affect us as well.

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.
-This could hurt as a bit when it comes to chill, burn, and regeneration. And I guess it affects stoning too, but no one uses auto attack anyway :p
More importantly, it can really affect how well we work with other classes.

I’m not sure I’m getting this. I mean how does it work right now? And how will these changes how these buffs and condis work in game? Is it a buff? Nerf? Can someone please explain? >.<

And yeah, ele support is getting some love. Excited for Earth Shield buffs. But yeah, eles still suck at the damage department without dying at the blink of an eye though.

P.S.
Diamond Skin SUCKS. :P

cheshirefox.7026:

P.S.
Stone Flesh SUCKS.  :\

But..but… the dev said it lets you tank big damage!

Kodiak.3281:

Arena Net is now in the bargaining phase with Elementalists.

1. First they Denied there was a problem at all with Elementalists and it was normal for everyone to play the same spec. They said D/D was balanced and they were just waiting to see if the meta would adjust. For a long time they never nerfed anything even as people raged loudly about the Elementalist class being too strong.
.

elementalist problems comes from that 1% players that feels more important than 99% players.

Ele was costantly nerfed…..

Staff was a dps weapon….dps was neutered, become a support weapon…support was neutered, people changed to D/D …

Silly PvP gamemodes that doesn t require to kill anything, made D/D strong in that limited environment…..while still being “viable” at most in other situations like WWW and BAD at PvE (cit. from sotg pre nerf)

Then was the time to nerf D/D (and still people pretend D/D was OP in www that had the same issues it has today…..while necro even prebuff were OP as hell)

People turned to S/D or S/F and they planned many time to nerf that…but the horrible situation on PvP ele prevent them to do it.

So they are buffing conjured so finally elementalist lose his class identity completely.

In the meantime PvE and WWW ele changed from the most fun and dynamic class to play to a gameplay inferior to a ranger pet (no more than 2-3 skills to be effective)

I still wait them to think to the 99% players that have their profession almost deleted from the game (expecially if you actually play for fun and not for rewards only).

LordByron.8369:

So they are buffing conjured so finally elementalist lose his class identity completely.

In the meantime PvE and WWW ele changed from the most fun and dynamic class to play to a gameplay inferior to a ranger pet (no more than 2-3 skills to be effective)

I still wait them to think to the 99% players that have their profession almost deleted from the game (expecially if you actually play for fun and not for rewards only).

Well first of all I was just making a joke about the Kubler-Ross model.

Second of all I’m feeling lazy so I’m just going to requote myself below why they do what they do:

Kodiak.3281:

Vissarion.6509:

Why do they bother with conjures.

Because if you haven’t figured it out by now Arena Net does all their balancing and all their game play changes based entirely on in game metrics.

So lets say there were a grand total of around million hours played on the Elementalist for all characters of all levels over the course of 60 days. Of those million hours, only 5% of the time X skill was actively slotted or Y trait was selected. They can break it down even further and look at what level ranges the skill was used in (such as maybe 4% of that time was 1-40 but after 40 it only saw 1% usage) and other interesting metrics.

Once that have that data they they can then do trending on that data (this is very common for any user based software development) to determine if anything needs to be taken care of looked at.

Their first passes probably lead them to the conclusion that the Cantrip utilities were too strong which eclipsed these other utilities. However even after nerfing Cantrips by removing their stunbreakers and other various nerfs over time Cantrips are likely still dominating the usage. Anyone who actually plays an Elementalist knows this is because Cantrips provide the maximum amount of utility/survivability on a class that already has the lowest HP and lowest armor (significantly) and you won’t see much deviation out of them until they address the lowest HP and lowest armor.

Since that failed miserably (non cantrip builds are still pretty rare) and people still aren’t using Conjures they probably think that by boosting Conjures up that it might drive usage instead. Result is Conjures get a boost to drive usage

The TL;DR here is that all the forum whining is pointless. Users (us) lie and while we might be crying one thing on the forums we’re doing another actual thing in game. I laugh at all the RTL crying because those people are still probably spamming it on cool down driving usage making them think it’s 100% okay. Unfortunately they seem content to keep putting band aids on our broken arm hoping that it’ll accomplish something.

this is sad… If you are right they won’t fix anything that way, as we already use the skills that even being nerfed still give us more survivability… Until they don’t see that we are doomed

Kodiak’s quote should be stickied, saves about half the threads in here or pretty much any profession forum.

Problem about elementalist: if you wanna do at least some damage, you have to go with conjured weapons. ANEt is forcing us to use them.

I already rerolled my warrior and guardian again, so much fun not getting killed by a one hit kill. I play on Elona Reach and elementalists are dying…

Kuruptz.4782:

Elementalist:
Shocking Aura: Added the shocking aura buff to the skill fact.

Wont change anything

Elemental Attunement: Normalized this trait so that each boon can apply up to 5 allies within a 240 radius.

Sure whatever

Evasive Arcana: Normalized the radius of each spell created to 180.

*Define “normalized”, it was 240 for the other skill

Persisting Flames: The duration increase for fire fields is now consistent.

Consistence is an important quality in a work of art

Burning Fire: This trait now lists the proper skill names in its description.

I see where your going with this…

Written in Stone: Fixed an issue which caused Signet of Air to lose its effect partially though the skill’s recharge.

It’s about time

Glyph of Storms: This skill now properly displays the duration of each spell.

omg yes! …wait! … I misread that.

Geyser: Increased the base radius to 180. Increased the radius when equipped with the blasting staff trait to 240. Fixed a bug so that the water field radius would match the increased radius with the blasting staff trait.

This will really help my staff elementalist not getting destroyed by a thief or warrior in two second before being able to cast a spell right?

Water Blast: Increased the healing stat scaling from 10% to 25%. Slightly decreased base heal at low levels but it will heal for same base at level 80.

So it’s been “normalized” now

Only ‘buff’ for staff was Geyser. Water blast will only be beneficial if you have + healing power.

Evasive Aracana change is a debuff. Elemental Attunement change is a debuff.

The rest is fluff.

Conjured changes are not enough for me to use them. I will eventually test them out but see nothing to make me stay with it.

Why not have one skill slot called “Conjured weapons” and allow us to switch between the four (axe, bow, shield and hammer) as we do with our attunements with the same number of charges.

Overall this patch seems to weaken the elementalist even more.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Navzar.2938:

You forgot to add some of the general updates that affect us as well.

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.
-This could hurt as a bit when it comes to chill, burn, and regeneration. And I guess it affects stoning too, but no one uses auto attack anyway :p
More importantly, it can really affect how well we work with other classes.

I’m not sure I’m getting this. I mean how does it work right now? And how will these changes how these buffs and condis work in game? Is it a buff? Nerf? Can someone please explain? >.<

Currently the stack limit is 25. Once you reach that cap, you can’t increase the duration by applying the boon/condition again until one of the previous stack’s duration is used up. Any attempts to do so will just do nothing and go to waste.

For boons I think it’s just used in the order that they are applied. Conditions seems to use the highest condition damage stack first.

so if over 10 seconds you get 5 swiftness buffs for 20 sec, 20 sec, 20 sec, 20 sec, 20sec, now for the next 10 seconds any more swiftness applications will be ignored.

If it’s something like 20, 15,10,10,15 I think it’d be the same way, so you still need to wait 10 seconds, but I’m not certain.

kitten i won’t be able to stack more than 1min30s anymore :/

oh right as if I’d return to playing my elementalist with these changes…becoming a support class isnt fun and conjures are a joke when our ability to survive anything, even a cute lil dolly is so laughable. defensive selfish utilities is what most of eles who still play it will ever pick. sorry Anet but that is the wrong direction

The leaks(if they are accurate) had some buffs to Earth Shield that look really good. An actual auto attack chain. A moving mass pull that will provide protection for each foe pulled in. 2 new attacks added to #2 and number #3 and the 5 skill (forgot its name) with invulnerability will have its CD reduced to 30 seconds.

oZii.2864:

The leaks(if they are accurate) had some buffs to Earth Shield that look really good. An actual auto attack chain. A moving mass pull that will provide protection for each foe pulled in. 2 new attacks added to #2 and number #3 and the 5 skill (forgot its name) with invulnerability will have its CD reduced to 30 seconds.

That would be nice. I’ve long been looking for a reason to use the shield, because it looks so good. :-)

Support is never worth it ! You need to do DPS to get rewards in both PvE and WvW.
Doing Damage is the only way to get loot from a mob or enemy player. Healing or removing conditions on people will net you Zero loot and Zero credit for enemy kills. This game was designed from the start for everyone to look after themselves for healing and survival.

oZii.2864:

The leaks(if they are accurate) had some buffs to Earth Shield that look really good. An actual auto attack chain. A moving mass pull that will provide protection for each foe pulled in. 2 new attacks added to #2 and number #3 and the 5 skill (forgot its name) with invulnerability will have its CD reduced to 30 seconds.

Make it a stunbreak and I’d use it so hard.

IMO, this is how we want to play:

In order of enjoyment

WvW: D/D, then Staff, then S/D, then S/F.
Spvp: D/D, S/D, Staff, S/F
PVE: Staff, S/D, D/D, S/F

Right now I’m playing D/D in WvW and Spvp still. WvW = full celestial + perplexity, knights weapons. In spvp: full soldiers with grove runes. Both are 0/0/10/30/30. Ether Renewal, CFlame, Mist Form, LFlash for both. Only use armor of earth for special situations where I need the stab. I have a secondary knights set with travelers. I carry 3 daggers, a staff, a scepter, and a focus at all times. I use: FGS, then greater elem, then tornado (staff, or extra stab, or knockback). I solo roam at least 75% of the time I play.

Most of the patch listed above is meaningless to me. It will not alter my playstyle at all. I really don’t know why anet is making changes to things nobody wants to use in pvp at all. I see maybe 1 ele in 100 matches that has a frostbow in use. I see very few eles in spvp overall. If I want to play fresh air, or fire line, I have to hide behind other people with staff or s/d as glass for it to be worthwhile.

katniss.6735:

IMO, this is how we want to play:

In order of enjoyment

WvW: D/D, then Staff, then S/D, then S/F.
Spvp: D/D, S/D, Staff, S/F
PVE: Staff, S/D, D/D, S/F

Right now I’m playing D/D in WvW and Spvp still. WvW = full celestial + perplexity, knights weapons. In spvp: full soldiers with grove runes. Both are 0/0/10/30/30. Ether Renewal, CFlame, Mist Form, LFlash for both. Only use armor of earth for special situations where I need the stab. I have a secondary knights set with travelers. I carry 3 daggers, a staff, a scepter, and a focus at all times. I use: FGS, then greater elem, then tornado (staff, or extra stab, or knockback). I solo roam at least 75% of the time I play.

Most of the patch listed above is meaningless to me. It will not alter my playstyle at all. I really don’t know why anet is making changes to things nobody wants to use in pvp at all. I see maybe 1 ele in 100 matches that has a frostbow in use. I see very few eles in spvp overall. If I want to play fresh air, or fire line, I have to hide behind other people with staff or s/d as glass for it to be worthwhile.

I second that.

I found myself using a very unsual build as d/d elementalist, but it is effective for the most part: 20,0,30,20,0 with a condition amulet. It provides viability in terms of staying alive against thieves, but unless I land my bleeds with “Churning Earth” and “Ring of Earth”, followed by fire combos against a thief’s HeartSeeker and Shadow Step, i’m toast.

There is something unjust and not quite balanced when channelling “Churning Earth”, a 3.5 second spell, with “Armor of Earth”, only for it to be switched off by a thief. That amongst other things is wrong with a d/d elementalist and really needs to be addressed.

I will stop playing the game if I feel that Jonathon Sharp and his team are failing me as a d/d elementalist.

The Unsteady Ground change sounds nice, if it is as described.

That Conjure Frost Bow auto attack didn’t get a damage boost, is beyond me. But I like that they’ll increase projectile velocity and reduce cast time of other skills, so you aren’t dependant on the non-damaging auto attack and may use skill 2 more often.

Where do you get the info about Conjure Earth Shield?

Navzar.2938:

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.

I think that would be a major ele-nerf. I don’t really know how they want to implement something like this – because it would make some already useless traits and spells even more useless (burning precision for example and all auto-attacks that stack conditions like earth and fire 1 with scepter, water 1 with dagger or earth 1 with staff).
The new cap for might would be 15? That’s a huge nerf for both PvE and PvP eles. That’s a major aspect of our support in PvE.
I don’t really get what they mean with that or how they’re going to implement it. Since most of those conditions/boons stack in duration would it mean that they can’t be stacked more than 5 times per player or overall? Can you only stack again if your stacks have run out?

I run solo almost everything in this game. My main source of damage is personal might stacking and boon duration for survivability. Looks like that patch will most likely hurt a lot :/

Gorni.1764:

Navzar.2938:

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.

I think that would be a major ele-nerf. I don’t really know how they want to implement something like this – because it would make some already useless traits and spells even more useless (burning precision for example and all auto-attacks that stack conditions like earth and fire 1 with scepter, water 1 with dagger or earth 1 with staff).
The new cap for might would be 15? That’s a huge nerf for both PvE and PvP eles. That’s a major aspect of our support in PvE.
I don’t really get what they mean with that or how they’re going to implement it. Since most of those conditions/boons stack in duration would it mean that they can’t be stacked more than 5 times per player or overall? Can you only stack again if your stacks have run out?

It only affects duration stacking things, so might won’t be affected. Stack limits are overall, just like you have an over all 25 stack limit for might. You can stack again once some of the stacks have run out.

Gorni.1764:

Navzar.2938:

All duration stacking boons(Aegis, Fury, protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, Swiftness, and Vigor) and conditions(Blind, Burning, Chilled, Cripple, immobilze(now stacks duration), and Poison) now stack to a maximum of 5 times.

I think that would be a major ele-nerf. I don’t really know how they want to implement something like this – because it would make some already useless traits and spells even more useless (burning precision for example and all auto-attacks that stack conditions like earth and fire 1 with scepter, water 1 with dagger or earth 1 with staff).
The new cap for might would be 15? That’s a huge nerf for both PvE and PvP eles. That’s a major aspect of our support in PvE.
I don’t really get what they mean with that or how they’re going to implement it. Since most of those conditions/boons stack in duration would it mean that they can’t be stacked more than 5 times per player or overall? Can you only stack again if your stacks have run out?

The change will be similar to what they did already with retaliation with its 5 stack cap. It doesn’t matter the base duration. The changes for duration boons probably won’t really be noticed anyway by eles. Vigor has a icd from renewing stamina so that doesn’t matter. Fury won’t be affected since its easy to get as soon as 1 “stack” wears off you can put it on again so you won’t notice a change there.

I can see it not being very noticeable as far as solo play is concerned, but it will definitely make a huge difference in group play if party members have boons as well.

Also, it does hinder regen stacking quite a bit, so it does have some impact on solo play.

Also, though it’s not very ele related, doesn’t this 5 stack limit thing kind of screw over projectile/whirl combo finishers in general? They were already weak, but now they’re low stacks can actually get in the way.

katniss.6735:

IMO, this is how we want to play:

In order of enjoyment

WvW: D/D, then Staff, then S/D, then S/F.
Spvp: D/D, S/D, Staff, S/F
PVE: Staff, S/D, D/D, S/F

Right now I’m playing D/D in WvW and Spvp still. WvW = full celestial + perplexity, knights weapons. In spvp: full soldiers with grove runes. Both are 0/0/10/30/30. Ether Renewal, CFlame, Mist Form, LFlash for both. Only use armor of earth for special situations where I need the stab. I have a secondary knights set with travelers. I carry 3 daggers, a staff, a scepter, and a focus at all times. I use: FGS, then greater elem, then tornado (staff, or extra stab, or knockback). I solo roam at least 75% of the time I play.

Most of the patch listed above is meaningless to me. It will not alter my playstyle at all. I really don’t know why anet is making changes to things nobody wants to use in pvp at all. I see maybe 1 ele in 100 matches that has a frostbow in use. I see very few eles in spvp overall. If I want to play fresh air, or fire line, I have to hide behind other people with staff or s/d as glass for it to be worthwhile.

D/F not even acknowledged.

Didn’t read the “leak” itself, but I am very worried that unsteady ground will become quite overpowered if it is changed to be like line of warding. The skill definitely needed a buff though.

ensoriki.5789:

D/F not even acknowledged.

Yup. D/Fers are a curiosity even among their ele peers.

Kuruptz.4782:

we reworked
Unsteady Ground to make it function more like line of warding.

They actually listened for once? I’m shocked beyond words.

+1 ANet

Celtus.8456:

Didn’t read the “leak” itself, but I am very worried that unsteady ground will become quite overpowered if it is changed to be like line of warding. The skill definitely needed a buff though.

may i ask why a worse version of a skill from another profession is automatically OP if given to elementalist?

Wasn t a leak btw its official if i remember well

LordByron.8369:

Celtus.8456:

Didn’t read the “leak” itself, but I am very worried that unsteady ground will become quite overpowered if it is changed to be like line of warding. The skill definitely needed a buff though.

may i ask why a worse version of a skill from another profession is automatically OP if given to elementalist?

Wasn t a leak btw its official if i remember well

How is it worse? It has a shorter cooldown as well.

If only conjured were like kits.

all I heard was “stronger support” and now I’m waiting for the dps nerf so staff’s Support aspect will seem stronger suddenly.

Ryld.1340:

LordByron.8369:

Celtus.8456:

Didn’t read the “leak” itself, but I am very worried that unsteady ground will become quite overpowered if it is changed to be like line of warding. The skill definitely needed a buff though.

may i ask why a worse version of a skill from another profession is automatically OP if given to elementalist?

Wasn t a leak btw its official if i remember well

How is it worse? It has a shorter cooldown as well.

They said they reworked it, so why would you think the recharge will remain the same?