Guild Wars 2

I really hope RTL doesn’t get nerfed. The thing that makes the D/D ele work as a bunker is the mobility. We can’t stand toe to toe and soak up damage like a Guard can. The thing the allows us to survive is that we can get in and out of the fray.

Ele’s are not OP because A. Our damage is laughable and B. look at A. We are a distraction in combat with healing support and easily taken out if targeted. The only thing we have going for us is our ability to escape before we are targeted. If mist is on CD and we get immobilized its game over. I really hope ANET doesn’t destroy the ele because its the most fun to play IMO.

I think Anet understands the strengths in a d/d ele lie with the bunkering – specifically boon duration and healing which is on the strong side at the moment. In addition to addressing aoe, d/d mobility is likely to remain unchanged – otherwise we’d be a light armored version of a bunker guardian. Those who complain nerf to d/d ele mobility really don’t understand class balance and were probably frustrated they couldn’t land a kill when a d/d ele ran away.

The problem is access to healing rotation/might stacking, though might stacking is an almost global problem in the game. Our 5th slot heal skills need to be better, and our healing rotation needs to be toned down. A few actual water attunement skills could be buffed to compensate. This would reduce the number of AoE heals we pump out while increasing our survivability through proper usage of #5.

Then again, you could just ask that they revisit the ele’s design completely. How could they not see what would happen when they give a low armor/low hp class access to some of the best healing in the game?

Leuca.5732:

The problem is access to healing rotation/might stacking, though might stacking is an almost global problem in the game. Our 5th slot heal skills need to be better, and our healing rotation needs to be toned down. A few actual water attunement skills could be buffed to compensate. This would reduce the number of AoE heals we pump out while increasing our survivability through proper usage of #5.

Then again, you could just ask that they revisit the ele’s design completely. How could they not see what would happen when they give a low armor/low hp class access to some of the best healing in the game?

Nothing of sort should be done, the real problem is the cleric amulet build which allows people to stack up healing power and boon duration, they should simply switch the 15% boon duration to rune 6 bonus so that people can’t reach 80% boon duration and remove toughness of power from the cleric amulet…even better make the air trait : zephyr’s boon a master trait -problem solved

^worst. Idea. Ever.

Especially the cleric “Remove toughness” bit…

And then Air trait to GM trait…as if our traits aren’t bad enough….

I must be going insane just reading all these posts, like seriously it is starting to become more and more frustrating..
Buff classes.
Simple

Keep nerfing and this “UNIQUE” (note the "") mmo into a generic mmo that is boring, sluggish and…just not fun.

RTL nerf is…meh i will still be able to outrun the zerg chasing me by using terrain to my advantage (terrain advantages will then become the new thing to nerf).

Not hard.

Arheundel.6451:

Leuca.5732:

The problem is access to healing rotation/might stacking, though might stacking is an almost global problem in the game. Our 5th slot heal skills need to be better, and our healing rotation needs to be toned down. A few actual water attunement skills could be buffed to compensate. This would reduce the number of AoE heals we pump out while increasing our survivability through proper usage of #5.

Then again, you could just ask that they revisit the ele’s design completely. How could they not see what would happen when they give a low armor/low hp class access to some of the best healing in the game?

Nothing of sort should be done, the real problem is the cleric amulet build which allows people to stack up healing power and boon duration, they should simply switch the 15% boon duration to rune 6 bonus so that people can’t reach 80% boon duration and remove toughness of power from the cleric amulet…even better make the air trait : zephyr’s boon a master trait -problem solved

The Cleric Amulet wouldn’t be so OP with some professions if their base healing ability wasn’t so strong to begin with. You can stack toughness all you want; if you aren’t putting out some kind of sustained healing you will eventually die to damage.

roostapro.9827:

^worst. Idea. Ever.

Especially the cleric “Remove toughness” bit…

And then Air trait to GM trait…as if our traits aren’t bad enough….

I must be going insane just reading all these posts, like seriously it is starting to become more and more frustrating..
Buff classes.
Simple

Keep nerfing and this “UNIQUE” (note the "") mmo into a generic mmo that is boring, sluggish and…just not fun.

RTL nerf is…meh i will still be able to outrun the zerg chasing me by using terrain to my advantage (terrain advantages will then become the new thing to nerf).

Not hard.

You’d be completely fine if they’d moved the air trait to master ( 20 air), you’d still be a very tough opponent but at the very least the QQers out there won’t be able anymore to say bullkitten like this :" omfg eles go bunker and have huge burst and huge healing"

IF they nerf RTL then they should nerf thief stealth, theif shortbow teleport skill, mesmer portals, etc etc etc, every class have something to escape fight.

I have a feeling they will make RTL affected by cripples and chill.

Moving Zephyr’s Boon to Master Trait seems fair. As long as other useless traits get improved even a tiny weeeeenieeee little bit. With this, people can move away from 0/10/0/30/30 builds. If one really wants awesome boons from auras, they’d either max Water for Aura Share OR max Arcana and not both

I just get this feeling that A-Net will come in with a fiery vengeance and just nerf the ever-loving kitten out of D/D to the point that we’ll all be running scared to another weapon set… or class. Let’s just say I have trust issues when it comes to A-Net’s idea of what ‘balancing’ is.

All we can hope for is that it’s minor enough to keep D/D viable, its the only fun wep set for me

Zephyr’s Boon to Master trait indeed sounds like a great idea. I would go as far as making it a Grandmaster trait.

Also, change Evasive Arcana (water) to do damage + vulnerability, and make it a Master trait * hides *.

I think a lot of the issues with sPvP could be avoided with ANet balanced amulets such that players wouldn’t be able to spec into extremes.

For D/D eles I believe one of the biggest problems is that might stacking increases both direct damage and condition damage. Certain D/D skills that use both types of damage are easy to land so by playing defensively and building up might, D/D will be able to steamroll and burn down most any spec.

ANet could go about nerfing a couple of ways, but I think the the best possible solution is to reduce healing/nerf defensive boons. This will not only bring down the D/D problematic ele’s survivability, but also bring guardians in line with other classes. Additionaly, I think it’d be good for the metagame in general if classes couldn’t reset so easily mid-fight. It’d require players to be more clutch with their dodges and skill usage.

As for the topic, I don’t think RTL is at risk for a nerf. The problems are much deeper than a simple escape/initiation ability.

If you reduce healing and nerf defensive boons, you will make going 30 water/30 arcane for Evasive Arcana mandatory in order to survive. At least 30 water and that solves nothing, except make players frustrated over the lack of viable builds altogether. I must remind you that it would have devastating effects on the focus.

Solving the problem lies in the traits, their positions and the traitline attributes.

Random but interesting example of traitline attribute switch..

Fire: Power – Condition Duration
Air: Precision – Critical Damage
Earth: Toughness – Boon Duration
Water: Vitality – Healing Power
Arcana: Attunement Recharge Rate – Condition Damage

Malcastus.6240:

If you reduce healing and nerf defensive boons, you will make going 30 water/30 arcane for Evasive Arcana mandatory in order to survive. At least 30 water and that solves nothing, except make players frustrated over the lack of viable builds altogether. I must remind you that it would have devastating effects on the focus.

Solving the problem lies in the traits, their positions and the traitline attributes.

Random but interesting example of traitline attribute switch..

Fire: Power – Condition Duration
Air: Precision – Critical Damage
Earth: Toughness – Boon Duration
Water: Vitality – Healing Power
Arcana: Attunement Recharge Rate – Condition Damage

Funnily enough the other day I sat tinkering with a spreadsheet looking at the allocation of trait influences and came up with a similar idea. Afterwards I thought about Arcana and the attunement system in particular and reached the conclusion that we’re double hit with pre-nerfs in the form of Arcana contributing to attunement cooldown as well as our primary skills having long cooldowns already.

How about we throw attunement reduction out the window and normalise attunement swap to a base 9 seconds like weaponswap already is and then increase cooldown on skills by a few seconds, buff our auto-attack damage and add something more meaningful to the Arcana line.

Furthermore for Earth to actually be attractive outside of s/x condition builds most of the traits need a serious dose of developer attention.

Do you know Earth dmg skills are heavily based on condition dmg?
The idea of switching bonus attributes between Earth and Arcana is nonsense.

I fail to see how RTL is a problem when it has the same range as many other abilities on similar cooldowns. Charge is 5 seconds longer on a weapon set with another movement option. Swoop is on the same cooldown on a class with more snares than any other class in the game (still not enough mind you).

I agree with the above poster that the heals are problem and doing minor things like increasing RTL to 20 seconds and making icy breath require you to hit a target to heal would be more than enough to reign in the build. Bunker gear and that whole meta will require more work than just nerfing classes one by one.

Could also just move RTL to scepter 3 and move the blind to dagger 4 also. That would kill the whole build and shift people into a weapon that isn’t very bunker friendly.

Malcastus.6240:

Zephyr’s Boon to Master trait indeed sounds like a great idea. I would go as far as making it a Grandmaster trait.

Also, change Evasive Arcana (water) to do damage + vulnerability, and make it a Master trait * hides *.

Zephyr’s boon is definitely not worthy of being a grandmaster trait. Master trait would be a reasonable nerf, but the thing is it wouldn’t actually stop the bunker part so people would keep complaining just as much. imo the easiest way to weakena lot bunker builds is to just reduce the healing power coefficient coefficient on skill that aren’t the main heal.

Navzar.2938:

Malcastus.6240:

Zephyr’s Boon to Master trait indeed sounds like a great idea. I would go as far as making it a Grandmaster trait.

Also, change Evasive Arcana (water) to do damage + vulnerability, and make it a Master trait * hides *.

Zephyr’s boon is definitely not worthy of being a grandmaster trait. Master trait would be a reasonable nerf, but the thing is it wouldn’t actually stop the bunker part so people would keep complaining just as much. imo the easiest way to weakena lot bunker builds is to just reduce the healing power further coefficient on skill that aren’t the main heal.

You could do that if you’d give me some evasive manouevres for compensation say:

E.G water trident : “heal allies for 500 base healing+ coefficient and apply 4s cripple on nearby foes” or something along these lines

Arheundel.6451:

Navzar.2938:

Malcastus.6240:

Zephyr’s Boon to Master trait indeed sounds like a great idea. I would go as far as making it a Grandmaster trait.

Also, change Evasive Arcana (water) to do damage + vulnerability, and make it a Master trait * hides *.

Zephyr’s boon is definitely not worthy of being a grandmaster trait. Master trait would be a reasonable nerf, but the thing is it wouldn’t actually stop the bunker part so people would keep complaining just as much. imo the easiest way to weakena lot bunker builds is to just reduce the healing power further coefficient on skill that aren’t the main heal.

You could do that if you’d give me some evasive manouevres for compensation say:

E.G water trident : “heal allies for 500 base healing+ coefficient and apply 4s cripple on nearby foes” or something along these lines

Then you’d still just be mitigating again so there wouldn’t really be much point would there? Anyway, I think I worded that wrong. I meant for the base healing to remain the same, but the additional healing from healing power to be reduced for all skills that aren’t slot 6.

if they limit the application of healing or regen to either your skill 6 or being in water, the build would be fine.

removing regen from cantrips (nerfing water trait 3) would fix this build in a much more targeted, measured way.

You use cantrips generally as “oh crap” buttons. I think it’s a little much to, when stunned, hit armor of earth, gain protection, break the stun, gain stability, AND gain regen while getting the opportunity to open a gap and kite.

It’s the regen on cantrips which pushes the build’s survivability “over the edge”

plasmacutter.2709:

if they limit the application of healing or regen to either your skill 6 or being in water, the build would be fine.

removing regen from cantrips (nerfing water trait 3) would fix this build in a much more targeted, measured way.

You use cantrips generally as “oh crap” buttons. I think it’s a little much to, when stunned, hit armor of earth, gain protection, break the stun, gain stability, AND gain regen while getting the opportunity to open a gap and kite.

It’s the regen on cantrips which pushes the build’s survivability “over the edge”

Boons based survival it’s an integral part of the whole profession, you can’t simply delete a good trait to fix a broken because that will destroy many viable builds at the same time.

The main problem is the rune stacking, by simply moving the 15% boon duration bonus to rune 6, you’d kill the ability of bunker eles to maintain regeneration/protection for 30+s, also moving the zephyr’s boon trait to master would force 0/10/0/30/30 users to make important choices, or they lose EA or they lose Cleansing water grandmaster trait, but if the sytll want to use both those trait they will lose the ability of stacking fury boon

Arheundel.6451:

plasmacutter.2709:

if they limit the application of healing or regen to either your skill 6 or being in water, the build would be fine.

removing regen from cantrips (nerfing water trait 3) would fix this build in a much more targeted, measured way.

You use cantrips generally as “oh crap” buttons. I think it’s a little much to, when stunned, hit armor of earth, gain protection, break the stun, gain stability, AND gain regen while getting the opportunity to open a gap and kite.

It’s the regen on cantrips which pushes the build’s survivability “over the edge”

Boons based survival it’s an integral part of the whole profession, you can’t simply delete a good trait to fix a broken because that will destroy many viable builds at the same time.

The main problem is the rune stacking, by simply moving the 15% boon duration bonus to rune 6, you’d kill the ability of bunker eles to maintain regeneration/protection for 30+s, also moving the zephyr’s boon trait to master would force 0/10/0/30/30 users to make important choices, or they lose EA or they lose Cleansing water grandmaster trait, but if the sytll want to use both those trait they will lose the ability of stacking fury boon

Moving zephyr’s boon would bork other builds. It’s definitely not worth masters in its current state. to be masters it should have in-built potential to maintain perma-fury, not just weapon dependent. (and its duration is still bugged)

The end of this is, they need to add more survivability to DPS weapon sets.

mesmers are on the second HP tier and have blocks and evasion galore on their melee weapons in addition to their clones mixing things up.

Eles have only one evasion in updraft.

They should have RTL and burning speed do evasion on daggers, add block to shocking and frost aura, and evasion to drakes breath. We have 10k hp in GC gear, it IS balanced to do this if you reduce the healing from water by about 30%.

This will stop bunker builds AND make D/D glass cannons viable.

Extend this to scepter combinations and you have the makings of MUCH MORE build diversity.

They could also balance the above addition of evasive skills with the idea of simply upping ele base HP.

Ele’s base HP was based on nearly 100% higher damage in GC builds than ele has at this point thanks to the “massive damage nerf”. Since they can’t burst like thieves anymore, it makes zero sense for them to have 10k hp.