Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty sure that even most of the Elementalist community agrees that the D/D Celestial Elementalist build is currently too strong and needs to get nerfed some. This is without much dispute in the PvP arena.

However, the question shouldn’t be if it needs a nerf but what specifically needs a nerf and how much of one. So, I am interested in hearing the Elementalist community’s thoughts on the matter for the following question:

What nerfs specifically would tone down the oppressive strength of the build without rendering it useless? Ideally, this would be in traits and skills, not runes, sigils, or amulets (as those would nerf non-problematic builds on other professions as well).

trait
burning fire: cantrip grant might stack reduce to 1 stack
soothing ice: frost aura duration reduced to 2 sec

skill
ring of fire burn stack reduce to 1 stack.
cleansing fire burn stack reduce to 1 stack.

Oppressive strength?

As it has been showed today again during Go4, a quick access to condi clear is all that is needed to basically rend the build whose main source of damage is burning , the direct damage of celestial d/d is laughable in most cases.

Funny…how desperate are people to nerf the only thing that makes players shake in their boots when they see an ele, which would be otherwise a free kill slot machine if left only with staff and scepter..and soon the warhorn.

But before keep going with the discussion do please clarify something: what level of nerfs are you asking for?

A) A level where afterward a d/d ele would not pose any kind of danger to you or anybody else?

B) A level where you would still think twice before engaging an ele using D/D?

The majority of forum warriors (which are mistakenly passed as the majority of GW2 playerbase in all gamemodes) are looking to achieve option A ofc, they want D/D set to be reduced to scepter/staff level where they basically pose no threat to any decent player( able to at least run a meta build ).

The build itself already has counters : cele necro, staff PU mesmer [even if conveniently left out of discussion every time ] and some others not normally met on your meta bible site.

The number of D/D counter will triple when HoT release and war/necro/mesmer gain access to elite specializations ( berseker will feast on D/D like nothing = ability to trigger CI every 8-9s with basically all weapon sets, CC/condi immunity, zerk damage and more, much much more) – cele necro +reaper will make d/d ele basically useless in 1vs1 scenario – shatter condi chronomancer will obliterate eles in few secs.

Then there will be revenant ( who some already tested during last BWE) able to perma torment/confuse/poison ele while sending back all burning stacks and boon ripping

I bet thief mele elite will be a pain for d/d too….

Ele will get tempest which we all know will never see the light of the day in PvP..so D/D is for the next 2-3 years and still….we need to nerf d/d ele to the ground right?
The entire profession rely on gimmicks to be considered viable, remove those and you need to go back to the drawing board, something the devs are not intended to do so…

D/D Cele Ele should still be a threat. It just shouldn’t be so good that teams are stacking them three at a time and nobody thinks it’s a bad idea.

Realistically, I’d like to see the build nerfed to the point where it is still competitive, but taking more than one on a 5-man team is not necessarily the best path to victory. Ideally, you should think twice before engaging any build in the game (aside from dumb ones like a Necro with full minion traits, but no minions), although some will still be easier fights than others.

As mentioned in another Topic…

Drake’s Breath: Just 3 Stacks Burning.

Diamond Skin: Should not give Immunity.

Aeromancer’s Training is too strong combined with Shocking Aura and Lightning Rod. Higher Basecooldown for Shocking Aura? No other Idea..

Cone of Cold 16-20 Seconds Cooldown.

Ring of Fire: Burning need an Icd for each Player running through, 2 Seconds would be enough.

Burning Fire: Reducing the Mightstacks to 1 would be fine for me.

I would completly remove might stacks from Burning Fire.
And reduce ring of fire to 1 burn stack.

the only other thing that should be looked at is the mandatory water/cantrip thing. But touching this can destroy ele because there is not good build diversity beside water/cantrips. Skiping 80% of eles condi defence + loosing regeneration would be grim.

I personaly are not hit/hurt very often by spells like dragon breath or cone of cold. This is more L2P.

No, not when fighting 1 vs 1 (Dragon’s Breath). But its more about high Burningstacks from multiple sources.. thats the Reason for the Nerf in my Opinion. One Stack Burning from RoF without a Icd would be fine too.

Dmg from Cone of Cold is fine… ppl are complaining about high Sustain. So … a 16-20 Second Cooldown would be fine. Still enough Sustain and Healing. Why would someone complain about Dmg from CoC? Nevermind..

I know the general consensus seems to be that the damage is too high, but the whole design about ele was supposed to be high burst, low defense. That is why they were given the lowest armor and health in the game.

I think it is silly that currently D/D ele’s have more sustain than both necros and warriors, the classes that are supposed to have the highest sustain in the game.

I think it is fine that ele’s have access to high burning damage, that fits the ele theme quite well. It is absurd that they can survive a 2v1 for 30s and then just run away and instantly be at full health again then return 10s later and repeat.

Here, try this … If you had a Staff or Scepter would the build even be considered powerful? If not then why are you hurting Staff and Scepter with these nerfs? Fix Dagger if that is the root cause and leave the rest of the class alone. It’s hurting enough as it is.

I agree that from the class design/feeling it´s more high damage-low sustain :-).
D/D plays more the other way ^^ + it burns hard.
And all nerves that hit non d/d builds would be crap…. and this usualy means nerfign mainhand dagger is the best way not to destroy other builds.
Even better would be pushing scepter ……

Wolfric.9380:

I would completly remove might stacks from Burning Fire.
And reduce ring of fire to 1 burn stack.

the only other thing that should be looked at is the mandatory water/cantrip thing. But touching this can destroy ele because there is not good build diversity beside water/cantrips. Skiping 80% of eles condi defence + loosing regeneration would be grim.

I personaly are not hit/hurt very often by spells like dragon breath or cone of cold. This is more L2P.

If you nerf that way all the builds other then D/D Ele would be nerfed also.

Other builds are so far from relevance I am not sure it is wise to nerf not D/D Cele specific things.

You can nerf burn stacking from Drake Breath and RoF they are weapon skills but Devs have to be really careful that what impact these nerfs will cause on other specs.

Like glass cannon D/F Marauder Ele, Fire/Air Staff, etc… yeah I know they are not META prob nobody plays them but this is no reason to burry them harder…

Personally I think they have it backwards … Ring of Fire should be 1 stack of burn while Flamewall should be 3 stacks.

Hmm not shure if 3 Stacks on the wall would be to much but the direction is good.
Maybe 1 ring and 2 wall.

posthumecaver.6473:

Wolfric.9380:

I would completly remove might stacks from Burning Fire.
And reduce ring of fire to 1 burn stack.

the only other thing that should be looked at is the mandatory water/cantrip thing. But touching this can destroy ele because there is not good build diversity beside water/cantrips. Skiping 80% of eles condi defence + loosing regeneration would be grim.

I personaly are not hit/hurt very often by spells like dragon breath or cone of cold. This is more L2P.

If you nerf that way all the builds other then D/D Ele would be nerfed also.

Other builds are so far from relevance I am not sure it is wise to nerf not D/D Cele specific things.

You can nerf burn stacking from Drake Breath and RoF they are weapon skills but Devs have to be really careful that what impact these nerfs will cause on other specs.

Like glass cannon D/F Marauder Ele, Fire/Air Staff, etc… yeah I know they are not META prob nobody plays them but this is no reason to burry them harder…

I was thinking the same thing. Many of the suggestions given hurt a lot more than just the D/D ele. The other ele builds are far from OP.

The one thing that is a problem all around and that I would agree with is the burning. Burning is way too strong ATM regardless of who uses it.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

posthumecaver.6473:

Wolfric.9380:

I would completly remove might stacks from Burning Fire.
And reduce ring of fire to 1 burn stack.

the only other thing that should be looked at is the mandatory water/cantrip thing. But touching this can destroy ele because there is not good build diversity beside water/cantrips. Skiping 80% of eles condi defence + loosing regeneration would be grim.

I personaly are not hit/hurt very often by spells like dragon breath or cone of cold. This is more L2P.

If you nerf that way all the builds other then D/D Ele would be nerfed also.

Other builds are so far from relevance I am not sure it is wise to nerf not D/D Cele specific things.

You can nerf burn stacking from Drake Breath and RoF they are weapon skills but Devs have to be really careful that what impact these nerfs will cause on other specs.

Like glass cannon D/F Marauder Ele, Fire/Air Staff, etc… yeah I know they are not META prob nobody plays them but this is no reason to burry them harder…

I was thinking the same thing. Many of the suggestions given hurt a lot more than just the D/D ele. The other ele builds are far from OP.

The one thing that is a problem all around and that I would agree with is the burning. Burning is way too strong ATM regardless of who uses it.

Yeah you are right I have no idea why devs created something like this.

I understand they want to make condis viable for PVE so many people should not hit condi cap and their damage should not be limited but this is way out of control.

They should have 3 stacks burning pro person cap in PVP, there is no other way out of it then most probably most complaints about D/D Cele Ele will disappear.

I agree that D/D ele definitely needs to be nerfed, but I’m scared that Anet will overnerf and we will be back at the bottom of the barrel again…

All eles fear that a nerf will also hit non D/D specs.

Wolfric.9380:

All eles fear that a nerf will also hit non D/D specs.

Of course it will becasue they refuse to split the balance between PvE and PvP… and that’s why Ele shuld stay as it is – I’m tired of PvP nerfs that unnecessarily affect PvE.

No nerfs to D/D Eles unless:
a) they nerf only Cele D/D Eles and leave all other builds alone
b) there are buffs to other skills / weapons / traits that will make at least one more build viable in PVP

The current track record is bad because a lot of Ele nerfs hurt all other Ele builds more than D/D Eles (see: RtL)

maddoctor.2738:

No nerfs to D/D Eles unless:
a) they nerf only Cele D/D Eles and leave all other builds alone
b) there are buffs to other skills / weapons / traits that will make at least one more build viable in PVP

The current track record is bad because a lot of Ele nerfs hurt all other Ele builds more than D/D Eles (see: RtL)

a) cannot actually happen. Even nerfing a skill on dagger will nerf other builds. For example, nerfing fire grab would also nerf S/D eles. If Staff ele were the problematic one, it would be easier, but the issue is with a build where each part of it can be mixed in with other things the Ele has. It is impossible to only nerf D/D Celementalist and no other builds.

The main problem with D/D cele is might.
The combination of cele + might runes/sigils allows players to reach the stats of offensive amulets (both condi and power) while keeping good defensive stats. Take out some of the “passive” might generation like Burning Fire, reduce might duration in some of our traits and force ppl to actually blast fields for it… you should see a big difference already.
The burning application on ele is FINE, it’s our only relevant condition at the moment, reducing the stacks on our skills/utilities will screw up condi builds, the problem with cele and burning is the might allowing it to reach high condi damage.
I cannot agree with nerfs to sustain, they will hit builds all across the board, we’ve been there before, can we please not go there again?
Last but not least, GROW UP about Ring of Fire, the skill is designed to be a trap, and the only thing you cannot do is cross it… in PvP we constantly have to avoid fields, you don’t stand on necro wells, you don’t walk on ranger traps.. if you do you’re punished. Ring of fire used to completely fail as a trap, ppl used to ignore it, now that its actually fulfilling its role ppl complain…. again GROW UP… it’s honestly one of the most telegraphed and easily avoidable skills on the game.

Literally just nerf cantrips and buff the other utility types, and everything will be a-ok.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Literally just nerf cantrips and buff the other utility types, and everything will be a-ok.

Uh, no.­ How is that only nerfing d/d ele? This is the kind of very bad blind nerf we don’t want.

I don’t think d/d cele ele is over powered, just has great versatility and other classes have problems that make the class seem too strong. The professional team that are trying multiple ele’s seem to be trying something new to see what team comp works and ele is just very versitile right now with it’s good survivabiltiy, support, and mobility. Burning may be a bit too high, but it’s not that big a deal with decent condi clense. I think the biggest problem is the high mobility of the class. There’s really no way to catch up to an ele using Ride the Lightning (1200 range, really?) and the mistform in downstate can lead to safe stealth res which no other class has a way to ensure a res. Maybe reduce Ride the Lightning to 900 range making it comparable to other leaps and such and reduce the mistform to 2 seconds while reducing the cooldown to 15 seconds.

Of course this is just the opinion of a non ele player. Mostly play Warrior, Engi, and some Guard.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Literally just nerf cantrips and buff the other utility types, and everything will be a-ok.

Uh, no.­ How is that only nerfing d/d ele? This is the kind of very bad blind nerf we don’t want.

Our only meta build for the entire history of the game has been cantrips + water + arcane. I think that a good solution would change that, at the very least.

Like it or not, the core of D/D ele is water cantrip synergy, and reallocating that power is probably the only thing that will actually create build variety.

Guys… Just wait until burn damage gets nerfed. That’s the MAIN way that cele D/D eles can sustain so well. Don’t be so hasty to neuter weapon skills and traits when no other class’s has been and we ALL know that burn damage in general is stupidly OP… If you think of how Ring of Fire’s OP ts because of 2 things. One, burn damage is OP on EVERY class that can reapply it fast enough and 2, don’t repeatedly cross the red ring or you’re asking to get burned to death. The latter is honestly is a L2P issue when in the grand scope of things there’s MUCH more OP things out there than cele eles, like condi PU mesmers who can perma stealth pretty much better than thieves while still spitting out clones while still maintaining stealth. Or Burn Guardians who can again deal ridiculous burn damage because burns themselves are too high. Focus on the GAME BREAKING issues at hand before calling out stupid nerfs that’s going to affect non cele builds too.

As far as skill goes behind the build playing D/D cele compared to most other meta builds isnt mindless to play. You still have to know what skills to rotate to, and how to change it depending on what situation. As for the other aforementioned meta builds, usually you pretty much have a few “I win” buttons or passive mechanics at your disposal while cele ele has no such a thing.

Before we need DD to the ground, please buff the other options for ele PvP . The last thing I want is ele in the early days of gw2.. With everyone complaining in this forum.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Literally just nerf cantrips and buff the other utility types, and everything will be a-ok.

Uh, no.­ How is that only nerfing d/d ele? This is the kind of very bad blind nerf we don’t want.

Our only meta build for the entire history of the game has been cantrips + water + arcane. I think that a good solution would change that, at the very least.

Like it or not, the core of D/D ele is water cantrip synergy, and reallocating that power is probably the only thing that will actually create build variety.

How about just buffing the other utilities that don’t see the light of day so that they can at least have SOME synergy that’s similar to what cantrips can do, but to another aspect. Signets ever since the Fire Aura on signet use got taken out, they seriously lack any synergy on any traitline. The only traitline it has going for it is earth… In ONE trait for a CD reduction and passive effect continuation after using the active. Signets pretty much are condition based, and there are condi damage traits in the earth line so to make signets on par with cantrips, make it so they have synergy in another trait line, like air so they can give some defensive effect when they use signets. For example, an air trait for signets so that a signet activarion also gives you 3 seconds of superspeed, or in arcane so if you activate a signet, depending on the signet used you get an aura for 3 seconds based on the element of the signet. (The heal signet can give a Light Aura for example) so to make these more viable. Glyphs are also on the kitten end because of no trait synergy. Glyphs create a wide variety of effects ranging from summoning lesser elementals to reviving allies to creating storms. Make some traits that will enhance the effects of these utilities such as duration or damage. Arcana is already at a good place as far as damage and defensive traits go and reenforces the glass ele style really well. Conjures are situational at best but I won’t go in depth with them, but I will say the trait in fire is an OK start, but there needs to be more of a reason to use conjures besides icebowing.

Glyphs and Signets need their own identity on where they fit in a build because as of now, they both don’t have any!

Ok. I thought about it for the day and this is what I came up with:

1. Change Cleansing Fire to cause 1 burn per condition removed (max 3) instead of a flat 3 burn stacks.
2. Reduce Ring of Fire (Dagger 4) to 1 stack of burn from 3.
3. Increase Firewall (Focus 4) to 2 stacks of burn from 1.
Evaluate … if it is still too powerful:
4. Reduce the burning stacks on Dragons Breath to 2 from 4 (every other pulse causes burning).

Colt.9051:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Literally just nerf cantrips and buff the other utility types, and everything will be a-ok.

Uh, no.­ How is that only nerfing d/d ele? This is the kind of very bad blind nerf we don’t want.

Our only meta build for the entire history of the game has been cantrips + water + arcane. I think that a good solution would change that, at the very least.

Like it or not, the core of D/D ele is water cantrip synergy, and reallocating that power is probably the only thing that will actually create build variety.

How about just buffing the other utilities that don’t see the light of day so that they can at least have SOME synergy that’s similar to what cantrips can do, but to another aspect. Signets ever since the Fire Aura on signet use got taken out, they seriously lack any synergy on any traitline. The only traitline it has going for it is earth… In ONE trait for a CD reduction and passive effect continuation after using the active. Signets pretty much are condition based, and there are condi damage traits in the earth line so to make signets on par with cantrips, make it so they have synergy in another trait line, like air so they can give some defensive effect when they use signets. For example, an air trait for signets so that a signet activarion also gives you 3 seconds of superspeed, or in arcane so if you activate a signet, depending on the signet used you get an aura for 3 seconds based on the element of the signet. (The heal signet can give a Light Aura for example) so to make these more viable. Glyphs are also on the kitten end because of no trait synergy. Glyphs create a wide variety of effects ranging from summoning lesser elementals to reviving allies to creating storms. Make some traits that will enhance the effects of these utilities such as duration or damage. Arcana is already at a good place as far as damage and defensive traits go and reenforces the glass ele style really well. Conjures are situational at best but I won’t go in depth with them, but I will say the trait in fire is an OK start, but there needs to be more of a reason to use conjures besides icebowing.

Glyphs and Signets need their own identity on where they fit in a build because as of now, they both don’t have any!

I would say cantrips are our strongest because they give us access to a lot of stuff we normally lack, like the tele and especially the stability.
Arcana probably could be good with a few minor buffs (including replacing arcane blast, which is frankly too low-counterplay to ever be actually viable), mostly because it actually does something, which glyphs and signets basically don’t. The only part about it I really dislike is Arcane Power, which sucks against multiple targets (so mesmers, necros, anyone with pets). I run arcanes personally, so I may be biased.

The only utility glyph that actually does something useful is glyph of storms (GoEP basically only exists to do cheesy burning builds), and the elite is just the least bad of the elites. GoLE just sucks outside of solo PvE, and GoR is unequivocally not worth slotting.

Signet of Air is the only one with a moderately strong active, and its passive is made useless simply by speccing into air or our abundant swiftness, which is odd to say the least. The healing signet is good, but only for sustain, which signets don’t seem to really be about. They don’t really seem to be intended for any specific purpose, actually.

This is why I think taking power away from our most used and obviously op spec, which is based around cantrips, and moving it to other utility types, which are underused and pretty bad, would be a good idea.

The fire specialization is the main culprit.

—One of the damage multipliers needs to go, from either Pyromancer’s training or Burning Rage. Sorry PvE eles, but you’re unbalanced too.

—Blinding Ashes ICD increased to 8 seconds. It now has an individual ICD per target.

—Burning Fire. Cantrips no longer grant Might on use. They now increase your burning duration for x seconds.

From Water:

—Soothing Disruption: Cantrips no longer grant regeneration. They now increase your healing power for x seconds.

Some dagger main-hand skills need some shaves too:

—Drake’s Breath total burn stacks reduced to 3.

—Ring of Fire’s burn stacks reduced to 2.

—Lightning Whip’s damage reduced by 10%.

Some much needed improvements too:

—Greatly improved the fluidity of the Magnetic Leap animation.

—Reduced the after-cast of Ring of earth.

—You can now move while channeling Churning Earth, although you move 50% slower and you stop to deliver the final blow, like with Guardian’s Symbol of Wrath (GS skill 4).

—Vapor Blade now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability each hit.

—Impale’s cast time reduced to ½s.

—Dragon’s Claw damage per proyectile increased by 10%.

Khenzy.9348:

The fire specialization is the main culprit.

—One of the damage multipliers needs to go, from either Pyromancer’s training or Burning Rage. Sorry PvE eles, but you’re unbalanced too.

—Blinding Ashes ICD increased to 8 seconds. It now has an individual ICD per target.

—Burning Fire. Cantrips no longer grant Might on use. They now increase your burning duration for x seconds.

From Water:

—Soothing Disruption: Cantrips no longer grant regeneration. They now increase your healing power for x seconds.

Some dagger main-hand skills need some shaves too:

—Drake’s Breath total burn stacks reduced to 3.

—Ring of Fire’s burn stacks reduced to 2.

—Lightning Whip’s damage reduced by 10%.

Some much needed improvements too:

—Greatly improved the fluidity of the Magnetic Leap animation.

—Reduced the after-cast of Ring of earth.

—You can now move while channeling Churning Earth, although you move 50% slower and you stop to deliver the final blow, like with Guardian’s Symbol of Wrath (GS skill 4).

—Vapor Blade now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability each hit.

—Impale’s cast time reduced to ½s.

—Dragon’s Claw damage per proyectile increased by 10%.

If fire specialization was the main culprit Staff and Scepter/Focus would be equally powerful and it isn’t. All your other changes make zero sense and look to be more of a “I hate elementalist” post rather than any sort of constructive feedback. The problem is limited to D/D and the abuse of Cleansing Fire … both of which I addressed above.

If done proper there need to be a lot of changes. It doesnt look very dificult to do but there must be the will to do it….
And we have two themes here.
1.) Burning changes and as a result D/D overshooting
2.) Ele build diversity by water/cantrips beeing much beter then the rest…

For 1 not so much is needed. RoF 1 stack, remove might on cantrips an then look what happens.
Taldrens suggestions are not so bad. the direction is right. But i think it would overshoot and especialy not only nerf D/D which is seriously bad.
I won´t touch blinding ashes and if cleansing fire is less burn then ICD should be lower.

-now to touching sothing disruption. I would do that, but this has mayor impact on eles survivability and will also hit other builds. If this is done rework on non D/D has to be done. Like scepter and all other utilities. I think this is the reason we are stuck to water/cantrips. Its the easy way to focus on one line.
The pitty is i see it could be done and is not that hard :-(.

It has been stated before that the problem with d/d cele ele isn’t the fire trait line or the dagger skills but with burning itself. I will prove this. Ok, so I pulled these damage formulas off of the GW2 Official Wiki.

Bleeding
(0.06 * Condition Damage) + 22 = (Damage per stack per second)
Poison
(0.06 * Condition Damage) + 33.5 = (Damage per stack per second)
Burning
(0.155 * Condition Damage) + 131.5 = (Damage per stack per second)

For this example we’re going to go with a Condition Damage of 900 with is given by Setteler’s Amulet and we’re going to use 4 stacks of Burning for 3 seconds wish is what the Ele’s 2nd dagger skill uses and we’re going to compare the damage of bleeding and poison with the burning damage.

Bleeding
(0.06 * 900) + 22 = 76per stack per second
4 * 3 * 76 = 912 total damage
Poison
(0.06 * 900) + 33.5 = 87.5
4 * 3 * 87.5 = 1,050 total damage
Burning
(0.155 * 900) + 131.5 = 271.5
4 * 3 * 87.5 = 3,252 total damage

Easily three times as much damage. That’s ridiculous. I can understand twice since you can stack more bleeding than burn, and poison has the added effect of reducing effective healing, but three times?

I disagree about the burning nerf, as there are a lot of builds this would effect, and as the light armor lowest HP class, ele was made to do tons of damage, burning on ele is balanced with the other awesome things we can do.
what I suggest is to a fix soothing mist bug (been like this sense release,) currently (and in the past) soothing mist by default lasts for 5 secs after you leave water attunement. this is very strong as ele’s always attune to water on cd (which is an 8.5s recharge as everyone takes arcane trait line) that leaves soothing mist up at about 80% uptime (and most people take the trait for soothing mist does double the healing.) that is way too much passive healing. making soothing mist leave you as soon as you leave water attunement wouldn’t effect support builds soo much as they tend to stay in water attunement for a bit longer, this would encourage people to stay in water attunement longer if they really needed heals, rather than swap attunements knowing their healing would remain the same.

PlasticHippo.8934:

I disagree about the burning nerf, as there are a lot of builds this would effect, and as the light armor lowest HP class, ele was made to do tons of damage, burning on ele is balanced with the other awesome things we can do.
what I suggest is to a fix soothing mist bug (been like this sense release,) currently (and in the past) soothing mist by default lasts for 5 secs after you leave water attunement. this is very strong as ele’s always attune to water on cd (which is an 8.5s recharge as everyone takes arcane trait line) that leaves soothing mist up at about 80% uptime (and most people take the trait for soothing mist does double the healing.) that is way too much passive healing. making soothing mist leave you as soon as you leave water attunement wouldn’t effect support builds soo much as they tend to stay in water attunement for a bit longer, this would encourage people to stay in water attunement longer if they really needed heals, rather than swap attunements knowing their healing would remain the same.

I think burning needs a theme change from massive quick damage to more sustained damage over time. Even if the overall damage stays the same reduce the per second per stack damage and increase the duration of the burning. That way it wouldn’t be hard to maintain decent stacks of burning but the burst damage potential of it would be reduced. I don’t think that would effect other builds the harshly. I do agree with you about the Soothing Mist bug though. The ability of Ele’s to Ride the Lightning out of range, heal to full, and return to battle as if nothing happened is a bit ridiculous. I mention above a possible change to Ride the Lightning since it’s range it a bit far imho.

Did´t know that there is this kind of bug. Thought it´s gone after removing lingering.
This realy has an impact and will adress the water OP self sustain which is good.
And when playing eles the damage was not the main problem it always is the eles superior self healing from water. The heavy burn is the topping that you taste :-).

Basically DD ele is just too good at everything. You just need to nerf One of the areas it is good at.

Let’s break it down:
1. sustain
You can’t nerf this because dagger is a close range combat weapon and ele is low health/low armor so it needs sustain to be able to do anything.
2. mobility
If you nerf this one, then it will hurt other more bursty ele spec even more.
3. damage
So the only thing left is damage. And many already suggested that they way dd ele applies burning is just plain stupidly strong. One burning stack is like 5 bleeding stack. So 3 burning stack is essentially 15 bleed stack. The pressure is ridiculously high.

The result of such ele condie pressure is that ele can not only hold a point 1v1 but can also decap a point 1v1. If you put such ability on a class that has close-to-top mobility as well, it automaticaly becomes OP and trivializes any rotation effort.

So as I suggested in second thread. Focus on nerfing the damage, especially from burns. I also think the passive defence soothing ice is a bit too strong as adept. So some shaving there as well.

Taldren.7523:

Khenzy.9348:

The fire specialization is the main culprit.

—One of the damage multipliers needs to go, from either Pyromancer’s training or Burning Rage. Sorry PvE eles, but you’re unbalanced too.

—Blinding Ashes ICD increased to 8 seconds. It now has an individual ICD per target.

—Burning Fire. Cantrips no longer grant Might on use. They now increase your burning duration for x seconds.

From Water:

—Soothing Disruption: Cantrips no longer grant regeneration. They now increase your healing power for x seconds.

Some dagger main-hand skills need some shaves too:

—Drake’s Breath total burn stacks reduced to 3.

—Ring of Fire’s burn stacks reduced to 2.

—Lightning Whip’s damage reduced by 10%.

Some much needed improvements too:

—Greatly improved the fluidity of the Magnetic Leap animation.

—Reduced the after-cast of Ring of earth.

—You can now move while channeling Churning Earth, although you move 50% slower and you stop to deliver the final blow, like with Guardian’s Symbol of Wrath (GS skill 4).

—Vapor Blade now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability each hit.

—Impale’s cast time reduced to ½s.

—Dragon’s Claw damage per proyectile increased by 10%.

If fire specialization was the main culprit Staff and Scepter/Focus would be equally powerful and it isn’t. All your other changes make zero sense and look to be more of a “I hate elementalist” post rather than any sort of constructive feedback. The problem is limited to D/D and the abuse of Cleansing Fire … both of which I addressed above.

How can Scepter and Staff be equally powerful if they have an entirely different set of skills? You lost me with your logic there (plase, don’t make me explain this further).
Also, how can I be an ele hater when I’m currently maining one? What the hell? I’m just, out of words by now.
And what Cleansing Fire abuse? Do you really honestly think if Cleasing Fire was entirely removed from the game (and the respective trait), D/D cele ele would be balanced all of a sudden? Get real.

D/D Eles became extremely strong the moment they could spec into fire while retaining full traits on arcana and water, we all know that by now. You have to nerf somewhere. Besides the damage multiplier on fire (damage reduction on fire is needed in my opinion), my changes would have 0 effect on PvE ele builds and very little effect on either scepter (scepter eles spec into fresh air, so they don’t take fire) nor staff eles (which usually take earth).

Cantrips alone overshadow any other utilities the ele has, by far, they are already the best choice on their own, but once you trait them, it’s just totally overkill. The trait sinergy is just too strong.

Regarding dagger skills, Lightning Whip hits extremely hard with celestial, the base damage coheficient of this AA is definetly a little too high and the burn stacks on RoF and DB are just over the top for how easy they apply such a poweful condition.

Concerning the rest, if we are going to be nerfing, may as well propose some QoL changes too.

I can’t believe I had to reply to this, I thought what I wrote was self-explanatory.

burning needs to be fixed, scepter needs to be fixed and made competative with D/D. not D/D Nerfed

Äh i play scepter and spec fire ;-). Nerfing fire traitline is NOT the way to go, except the might on cantrips is to much.

I’ve ran around as the ele to refine my suggestions to two things that I think would be the best to adjust things while leaving d/d cele ele for the most part intact. Fix burning itself Reduce burning’s per stack per second damage by a third but increase the durations of the burning by a second (or so depending on the skill) making burning more of a sustained damage over time. This should be done across the board to leave burning damage totals the same, but takes more time to achieve. More time would allow builds like burn guard to achieve higher stacks of burning while allowing ele to sustain burning over time yet give opponents time to clense. And make Soothing Mists from the water attunement from a 9 second regen on a 3 second recharge to a 3 second regen on a 3 second recharge leaving a bit of an overlap for the nest attunement you enter, but not so prolonged as to be able to maintain it indefinitely.

what really needs to be nerf is cele signet necros and mesmer in general. this 2 class is just plain op and they out sustain a d/d ele in everyway. i just dont get why would ppl call for nerf to d/d ele when there are much much more obvious problem to fix? nerfing anything that has to do with cantrip would just take away ele’s sustainability, doing that will just relive the period where u dont see a single ele in any of the spvp or tpvp games. would pretty much be like how warriors are nowadays where 10match u get to see 1 or 2 warriors while in 10 match u see mesmer and necro every single time…

Khenzy.9348:

Taldren.7523:

Khenzy.9348:

The fire specialization is the main culprit.

—One of the damage multipliers needs to go, from either Pyromancer’s training or Burning Rage. Sorry PvE eles, but you’re unbalanced too.

—Blinding Ashes ICD increased to 8 seconds. It now has an individual ICD per target.

—Burning Fire. Cantrips no longer grant Might on use. They now increase your burning duration for x seconds.

From Water:

—Soothing Disruption: Cantrips no longer grant regeneration. They now increase your healing power for x seconds.

Some dagger main-hand skills need some shaves too:

—Drake’s Breath total burn stacks reduced to 3.

—Ring of Fire’s burn stacks reduced to 2.

—Lightning Whip’s damage reduced by 10%.

Some much needed improvements too:

—Greatly improved the fluidity of the Magnetic Leap animation.

—Reduced the after-cast of Ring of earth.

—You can now move while channeling Churning Earth, although you move 50% slower and you stop to deliver the final blow, like with Guardian’s Symbol of Wrath (GS skill 4).

—Vapor Blade now applies 2 stacks of vulnerability each hit.

—Impale’s cast time reduced to ½s.

—Dragon’s Claw damage per proyectile increased by 10%.

If fire specialization was the main culprit Staff and Scepter/Focus would be equally powerful and it isn’t. All your other changes make zero sense and look to be more of a “I hate elementalist” post rather than any sort of constructive feedback. The problem is limited to D/D and the abuse of Cleansing Fire … both of which I addressed above.

How can Scepter and Staff be equally powerful if they have an entirely different set of skills? You lost me with your logic there (plase, don’t make me explain this further).
Also, how can I be an ele hater when I’m currently maining one? What the hell? I’m just, out of words by now.
And what Cleansing Fire abuse? Do you really honestly think if Cleasing Fire was entirely removed from the game (and the respective trait), D/D cele ele would be balanced all of a sudden? Get real.

D/D Eles became extremely strong the moment they could spec into fire while retaining full traits on arcana and water, we all know that by now. You have to nerf somewhere. Besides the damage multiplier on fire (damage reduction on fire is needed in my opinion), my changes would have 0 effect on PvE ele builds and very little effect on either scepter (scepter eles spec into fresh air, so they don’t take fire) nor staff eles (which usually take earth).

Cantrips alone overshadow any other utilities the ele has, by far, they are already the best choice on their own, but once you trait them, it’s just totally overkill. The trait sinergy is just too strong.

Regarding dagger skills, Lightning Whip hits extremely hard with celestial, the base damage coheficient of this AA is definetly a little too high and the burn stacks on RoF and DB are just over the top for how easy they apply such a poweful condition.

Concerning the rest, if we are going to be nerfing, may as well propose some QoL changes too.

I can’t believe I had to reply to this, I thought what I wrote was self-explanatory.

You said that the fire specialization was the source of the issue. Does Staff and Scepter somehow lose access to fire attunement that would utilize said specialization?? No. Do you get, now, why your argument makes no sense? And if you don’t think removing 10% damge from an already low dps fire staff and scepter doesn’t affect them you are out of your mind. Losing the might on cantrip and the blind affects Staff/Scepter MORE than dagger given how slow the attacks are on those weapons. Removal of Regen on cantrip … you do realize we are the low armor low hitpoint class of the game, right? Scepter/Staff doesn’t exactly bounce all over the place like D/D can. The loss of mobility means little things like losing freaking regen is a big deal. In fact, losing the synergy is a big freaking deal too for the same reason.

^ well said. someone give him a cookie please!

Really OP? Someone tries to do this thread a second time?

Swim.6830:

Really OP? Someone tries to do this thread a second time?

Sorry if I’m not an Ele main and these forums don’t have a working search function. I’m liking the overall discussion, though.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m pretty sure that even most of the Elementalist community agrees….

Naw. I don’t think it needs a nerf and I’d say most in the real pvp community don’t. It’s mostly forum warriors that seem to think so – if you actually go play PvP I rarely hear people complain of OP eles. Moreso its these official forums that you get all this OP calls and hate mongering. I don’t see as much ele hate on reddit for instance.

Cele D/D is fine. I’ve seen warriors and necros with far far more keyboard facerolling combos and mesmers (with skill) that just destroy with no chance to fight back.

PS and if you really think the devs are gonna listen to a thread like this……….you realize there have been 1,000s of these threads on ALL classes? If they listened to these x class is OP thread we’d all be playing kittens with mittens.

Mightybird.6034:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m pretty sure that even most of the Elementalist community agrees….

Naw. I don’t think it needs a nerf and I’d say most in the real pvp community don’t. It’s mostly forum warriors that seem to think so – if you actually go play PvP I rarely hear people complain of OP eles. Moreso its these official forums that you get all this OP calls and hate mongering. I don’t see as much ele hate on reddit for instance.

And yet, Celestial D/D ele is becoming commonplace to show up not once, not twice, but 3 or 4 times on a team in top-level tournaments. This is not something that happens when a build is not overperforming by a wide margin.

DD ele will eventually get a nerf…. reddit just had a massive 200+ comment post and thats the first time I’ve ever seen that GW2 reddit page actually have a lot of comments and upvoted to front page that was actually pvp related…

majority of the “nerfs/balancing” posts involve cele ele dd as well on this forum…

Everyone outside of like 20-30% of the ele community thinks it deserves a nerf….

And no its not because of the fire line….

burning is just too strong and dagger has access to the best burns with low CDs…DD ele’s ONLY threatening and sustainable DPS is through the fire skills in DD… and they can ramp up that damage as well because they stack might pretty good as well….prior to burning buff, cele DD was NOT this strong…. their defensive sustain was never a problem… they were always tough to bring down but they never had this kind of firepower (no pun intented)…