Guild Wars 2

haviz.1340:

Retal was reduced by 33% and confusion brought down to reasonably level that was already present in pvp. If ele has phenomenal mobility how would you call ranger, thief and warrior mobility?

Better then engineers, necros, guardians.
Equipped with fiery greatsword ele has still the best mobility ingame.
Coupled with tons of condition removement, stunbreakers, on demand stability, strong combo fields + finishers, boons, damage and cc.

Show me one single build that comes close to the D/D ele, just one.
I abused this build for months but unlike all the crybabies i remain honest and objective.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but engi was disgustingly OP and had to be brought down. Anyone who thought the HGH meta builds were OK has no idea what game balance is. Grenades might still need to be brought down some, but we have 2 months to watch them and see how things affect them.

Comparing fiery GS to supply crate is just…

Comparing anything on FGS to an AoE damage + stun that summons 3-4 turrets, and 6-9 1k+ heal bandages doesn’t make any sense. Supply crate is a fight changer. FGS is used for mobility or an emergency “oh crap I’m holding a staff 1v1” skill.

I didnt change anything at all, the build still works great, just a bit slower going from Point a to Point b.

i got war guard and ele, nothing can be comparable to the fun i got using the ele, so anet neft the ele how much you want i will try master my ele skill much i can for make all the crybaby continue say ele is OP

its our duty

It’s funny how these subforums were generally quiet, and after nerfs the trolls reveal themselves and flood the threads with “Ha! Eles deserved the nerf because they were disgustingly OP, I play one and can take on 5 ppl at once, but I don’t have trouble with destroying eles. But they’re OP”.

Right.

A prime example of such trolls is right here: to claim supply drop is garbage and comparing it to FGs. I’d kill to have a supply drop elite with the utility it brings compared to FGs which is, at best, a gimmicky getaway tactic. Chances are if someone complains about FGs, they were killed by one, and that’s just lollingly sad.

When this became a discussion on the merits of engineer I do not know. I can honestly say I rather play my warrior in PvE and WvW. I was leaning that way pre patch so I wont blame the patch for it all. RtL nerf is a game changer for me. I only really like mobile classes and DD ele simply inst mobile enough for me. Engineers can be great but due to the lack of mobility skills (Elixir gun and rifle have them but it is limited) and the way they have whittled down the builds I wouldn’t play it.

Overall Supply Crate is much better than FGS. I nearly an I win button 1 v 1 as a fight winds. I would say this is apples and oranges but usefulness in most situations goes to the crate.

HGH is still strong (and nearly OP) and while engineer did get nerfed heavily some of that was deserved. Kit refinement was too good for an adept sills and they should have just moved it up to master instead of gutting it. Nades were too strong and they might be a little UP atm. Engineer is still a quality class in PvP and WvW don’t confuse a nerf with class destroying. Same goes for ele DD its still “OK” roaming and great 1 v x. Even so its not my cup of tea anymore. I hate to see my main get done in but such a seemingly small nerf but you have to play what you like.

It kitten es me off more because all the cries moaning we could escape, were more then likely the same idiots that didn`t bring any form of stun/immobilise, & yet we weren`t even the fastest pre-patch, not by a long shot.

I did use RTL to travel maps, but for me, it was used more for gap closers, because (Anet, are you taking note here…) WE DON`T HAVE WEAPON SWAP so are stuck at melee.

I`ve still logged my Ele`, barely though, but been levelling a ranger (sort of, spend most of my time alt tabbed ;p (which oh mai gawd, it is sooo much easier to escape/catch up)) & has the added bonus that it can do range &/or melee, without having to kitten about in bags to swap weapons.

Guess hope one day they`ll retro fix molten pick as it is on my Ele` & account bound would be handier, but not holding my breathe.

dat bunny.5074:

I have know idea why you guys are all crying. You guys had a nerf, please join the thief class where they have had a nerf every update. Ele is still a great class, you guys just cant solo 5 players anymore and run away if things look bad

I blame Daphoenix and his Fall 2012 d/d videos for this perception. Many thousands of people watched him harass a bunch of upleveled noobs in WvW with his bunker build and cried OP! [like the thief above who has not rolled an ele but has nevertheless come to troll a d/d thread with claims of 1v5] Ordinary players would have shrugged off Daphoenix’s pathetic damage, forcing him to flee (the only thing d/d was truly good at). Even the noobs he was harassing didn’t die. And i’m sure he has a lot of videos where he was taken down by 1 or 2 other players, they just aren’t posted.

Anyway, eles became an “OP” class overnight and have been overrated ever since. But the truth is that the d/d was never as good as advertised, it was just annoying because of its survivability, and now its mediocre at best.

Those of us who have put 1000+ hours of pvp into our d/d ele will tell you that winning even a 1v2 is extremely rare, and virtually impossible if the other two players know what they are doing.

It’s kind of a downer to hear about nerfs, but I Think Im gonna go ahead and continue to level this Ele no matter what.

Shadow Gathering.5649:

dat bunny.5074:

I have know idea why you guys are all crying. You guys had a nerf, please join the thief class where they have had a nerf every update. Ele is still a great class, you guys just cant solo 5 players anymore and run away if things look bad

I blame Daphoenix and his Fall 2012 d/d videos for this perception. Many thousands of people watched him harass a bunch of upleveled noobs in WvW with his bunker build and cried OP! [like the thief above who has not rolled an ele but has nevertheless come to troll a d/d thread with claims of 1v5] Ordinary players would have shrugged off Daphoenix’s pathetic damage, forcing him to flee (the only thing d/d was truly good at). Even the noobs he was harassing didn’t die. And i’m sure he has a lot of videos where he was taken down by 1 or 2 other players, they just aren’t posted.

Anyway, eles became an “OP” class overnight and have been overrated ever since. But the truth is that the d/d was never as good as advertised, it was just annoying because of its survivability, and now its mediocre at best.

Those of us who have put 1000+ hours of pvp into our d/d ele will tell you that winning even a 1v2 is extremely rare, and virtually impossible if the other two players know what they are doing.

Lets be really honest here without blowing this up. DD bunker ele is good in a 1 v1 or a 1 v x situation. Some classes can be good at picking off links like Thief but DD bunker ele is really at sustaining DPS as long as they arent cc’d much.

What Daphoenix really showed us was how young the game is and how the player base reacts to a challenge. We can’t say he didn’t bring attention to the class. He did. However, I do not think what he did was wrong or bad. Sharing build is part of the meta. It is a good thing inherently and builds a sense of community.

The main issue is that most players do not run solid builds. It is the truth especially in WvW. Many players use the philosophy one ranged, one melee, and enough dps to drop most balanced and glass builds. Very few players run heavy cc and even less run non glassy builds. The way this plays into DD ele’s hand is that most of those build will be eaten by a DD ele due to its jack of all trades nature.

I remember once (actually a few times) I said my warrior build could hold up to a DD ele in wvw. Somebody said I was bragging and I explained that my build was derived from a warrior build that did well vs my DD ele. I thought," That’s a cool build I would like to try that." And that’s another real issue here. Players get beat by xyz build immediately call it OP and any advice given by other players become garbage. If you look at most of their builds they were GC and cookie cutter 2 things that experienced players love.

I am not saying DD bunker didn’t need toning down but what I am saying is between A-net nerfing things that don’t need to be nerfed (not just for us) and the community QQ over learning this pattern continues. We have an issue here where builds that stand out get put down.

I am not completely kitten over the changes but I do think many players are logical. It just makes more sense to play another class for many good reason. I think many of us knew for a while now DD ele was getting hit with big nerfs. How do we know? Look how many people prepared alts just for this situation.

The time we spent on ele I have to say doesn’t matter. the fact is this is a game with PvP changes in the meta are to be expected. You may feel bad or cheated but know its part of the game.

…meanwhile Thieves can stun for over 2 seconds now… keeping someone locked forever…

this forum is like a whole new level of embarrassing, one slight nerf to a build that had way too much going for it did not kill your class. if a slight nerf “killed” it for you, you have no business playing said class, as you never really liked it to begin with.

admit it, if it was “killed,” you’re just another bandwagoner with just a desire to beat people in the easiest, quickest manner; frankly, it’s kind of pathetic.

Lenn.6347:

this forum is like a whole new level of embarrassing, one slight nerf to a build that had way too much going for it did not kill your class. if a slight nerf “killed” it for you, you have no business playing said class, as you never really liked it to begin with.

admit it, if it was “killed,” you’re just another bandwagoner with just a desire to beat people in the easiest, quickest manner; frankly, it’s kind of pathetic.

100% CD increase + 20% range decrease = slight nerf? Stop trolling.

I’m about to hit 80 and I just got around to using the Grandmaster manual. I’m a solo PvE D/D (frankly, I just find D/D to be the most fun).

I’ve been trying to take my setup a little more seriously, though, and I’ve been seeing all the talk here on the forums about nerfs to various things. Personally, it doesn’t effect me too much because I don’t really pay attention to builds and tactics, as I’m a solo PvE player.

I just like to pop off as many skills as possible on a mob and use glyphs for elemental backup/fodder. I was a fire Ele/Ranger back in GW where I liked to nuke and use my black bear as a bodyguard, so this suits me. Though I still wish we had dual classes now, because I miss my bear. :p

It sucks that they nerfed RtL, because I liked to use it for getting from point A to point B. But it hasn’t been much of a detriment to that, because it still mostly works that way and there are plenty of other speed buffs I can throw on to get around. You can generally outrun a mob with those anyway, so again, nothing has changed much for me.

But like I said, I’ve been trying to take my setup a little more seriously and really build around my play style, so I have yet to see how anything will effect me. Though from reading the posts, it seems I’m taking a bit of an unconventional path (I’m the only person I know of with 30 points in Fire/Power on a D/D elementalist with my other trait numbers, hehe).

TheGuy.3568:

The time we spent on ele I have to say doesn’t matter. the fact is this is a game with PvP changes in the meta are to be expected. You may feel bad or cheated but know its part of the game.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only cited the time I’ve spent on my ele to point out that I know what i’m talking about when I say that 1v2 is rare with a d/d ele, and people have a false idea about how awesome the d/d is. I have enjoyed my time very much as an ele and I don’t feel cheated at all.

Lenn.6347:

this forum is like a whole new level of embarrassing, one slight nerf to a build that had way too much going for it did not kill your class. if a slight nerf “killed” it for you, you have no business playing said class, as you never really liked it to begin with.

admit it, if it was “killed,” you’re just another bandwagoner with just a desire to beat people in the easiest, quickest manner; frankly, it’s kind of pathetic.

*Sigh, i’ll bite. First, to be fair, its not one slight nerf, its been a series of medium nerfs. Second, as I explained above, our class did not have “way too much going for it” in the first place. The d/d was tough to kill and that’s about it. Third, I don’t see many people claiming that the ele has been “killed.” This is a thread about how to adapt to the nerf. And many of us are not bandwagoners, we picked ele at launch without knowing anything about it because we like playing mages with AoE. Finally, speaking of pathetic, like most other critics here you are not even an ele, you are an uninformed troll. What’s the matter? Were a few ele’s able to escape from you thief? Come back when you’ve rolled an ele. I think you’ll agree that the hype is unwarranted.

Shadow Gathering.5649:

TheGuy.3568:

The time we spent on ele I have to say doesn’t matter. the fact is this is a game with PvP changes in the meta are to be expected. You may feel bad or cheated but know its part of the game.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only cited the time I’ve spent on my ele to point out that I know what i’m talking about when I say that 1v2 is rare with a d/d ele, and people have a false idea about how awesome the d/d is. I have enjoyed my time very much as an ele and I don’t feel cheated at all.

Lenn.6347:

this forum is like a whole new level of embarrassing, one slight nerf to a build that had way too much going for it did not kill your class. if a slight nerf “killed” it for you, you have no business playing said class, as you never really liked it to begin with.

admit it, if it was “killed,” you’re just another bandwagoner with just a desire to beat people in the easiest, quickest manner; frankly, it’s kind of pathetic.

*Sigh, i’ll bite. First, to be fair, its not one slight nerf, its been a series of medium nerfs. Second, as I explained above, our class did not have “way too much going for it” in the first place. The d/d was tough to kill and that’s about it. Third, I don’t see many people claiming that the ele has been “killed.” This is a thread about how to adapt to the nerf. And many of us are not bandwagoners, we picked ele at launch without knowing anything about it because we like playing mages with AoE. Finally, speaking of pathetic, like most other critics here you are not even an ele, you are an uninformed troll. What’s the matter? Were a few ele’s able to escape from you thief? Come back when you’ve rolled an ele. I think you’ll agree that the hype is unwarranted.

this isnt an adaptation thread, the majority of the thread is whiny little bandwagon eles complaining their OP faceroll build got nerfed

There are just three things that make me sad:
- Mistform nerf did nerf everything but d/d bunkers (wich is quite sad, since there isnt much diversity in builds anyways for WvW)

- RTL was just THE skill to make this game more enjoable by being able to move somewhere faster (i am talking about towns and PvE now) since you could reduce the time running somewhere. Jjust running somewhere isnt fun.

- I am more than 100% sure the patch notes said “Blocks, Evades and stuff count as hit” for RTL when the notes just came out. Wich would mean it would be less buggy. But now the Post got edited 6 days ago…and I feel like I know what got edited.
Just proves, that the people in Anet dont even communicate/document the changes they do in detail to each other.

This was a huge nerf made even bigger by the fact that we already received this nerf and had to adapt before. Now there is no way to keep up the speed needed to play anywhere near the same way. Anyone d/d ele who doesnt feel this nerf wasnt playing right to begin with.

ARM.3912:

Anyone d/d ele who doesnt feel this nerf wasnt playing right to begin with.

So, charging away every 20 seconds was the “right” method to play?

I never understood what’s the big deal with RtL anyway (neither the crying of other classes pre-nerf nor the crying here post-nerf). I think RtL in its current form is a good compromise: For its intended use it hasn’t been nerfed at all (I’ll consider the range a fix, not a nerf) and if you misuse RtL as escape tool, you suffer a high cooldown which is actually in the range of other emergency cooldowns.

The elementalist class has more important issues than a cooldown of a single skill:

• Traits which are active only 1/4 of time
• Mostly seless traits outside the water and arcane line
• Auras as the only cross-traitline synergy
• Dependence on arcane trait points to make the class actually playable
• Dependence on cantrips for survival
• Air is described as single-target damage element, but is usually outclassed by fire skills. Buffs to air skills added even an AoE element (lightning whip, arc lightning)
• I’m sure, I’ve missed something obvious, but it’s late…

Lenn.6347:

this isnt an adaptation thread, the majority of the thread is whiny little bandwagon eles complaining their OP faceroll build got nerfed

Seeing as how you’re wrong about everything, does that mean you’re a bandwagonning uniformed, ignorant troll?

Eles were hardly ever faceroll, nor OP, but I guess watching a couple excellent players stall underleveled noobs means they’re too powerful.

The fact that RtL got nerfed, despite the problem being bunkering (i.e. NOT moving) and the number of trolls coming out to say its warranted and still not balanced just defies belief.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

doing jumping puzzles… did 12 yesterday…. and I swapped to S/D healing build for dungeons. Seems to give me survivability, decent damage output and better controlled support compared to D/D Also swapped to glyphs instead of cantrips except for when there are scary boss-fights.

This is pretty much what I’ve been running on my Ele since Day 1 and I love it. It gives you so many options at all times.

pmnt.4067:

ARM.3912:

Anyone d/d ele who doesnt feel this nerf wasnt playing right to begin with.

So, charging away every 20 seconds was the “right” method to play?

Yes, maximizing the use of all the abilities of your class is the “right” way to play, plain and simple.

pmnt.4067:

I never understood what’s the big deal with RtL anyway (neither the crying of other classes pre-nerf nor the crying here post-nerf). I think RtL in its current form is a good compromise: For its intended use it hasn’t been nerfed at all (I’ll consider the range a fix, not a nerf) and if you misuse RtL as escape tool, you suffer a high cooldown which is actually in the range of other emergency cooldowns.

So you don’t understand it but are weighing in on a “compromise”? There is no compromise in setting the ability to 40 seconds. If you think the intended use was only as an offensive tool, then it has still been nerfed since we can’t chase down targets by only using it once every 40 seconds. D/d eles are now melee only fighters who have to stay in close, but have a third the defense of everyone else.

pmnt.4067:

I think RtL in its current form is a good compromise: For its intended use it hasn’t been nerfed at all (I’ll consider the range a fix, not a nerf) and if you misuse RtL as escape tool, you suffer a high cooldown which is actually in the range of other emergency cooldowns.

Other “emergency” cooldowns on other professions are utility skills. Most other professions movement skills on the weapons are in the 10 to 15 second CD range, no dual CD and no stipulations on how it is used (offensive or defensive).

Every other profession has either more health, more armor, a combination of both, or extra defensive attributes built in (stealth, death shroud, etc.) that give those professions survivabiltity, especially in melee. The D/D Ele is now a class with abysmal mobility, low damage, and the worst armor and health in the game.

How is that compromise?

pmnt.4067:

ARM.3912:

Anyone d/d ele who doesnt feel this nerf wasnt playing right to begin with.

So, charging away every 20 seconds was the “right” method to play?

I never understood what’s the big deal with RtL anyway (neither the crying of other classes pre-nerf nor the crying here post-nerf). I think RtL in its current form is a good compromise: For its intended use it hasn’t been nerfed at all (I’ll consider the range a fix, not a nerf) and if you misuse RtL as escape tool, you suffer a high cooldown which is actually in the range of other emergency cooldowns.

Not singling you out but I see this statement often. I alway wnoder how people arrive at this conclusion. When I play warrior ranger or thief I use mobility for both purposes and so do most other players. Map travel is an issue in WvW so if you play a class with high mobility you expect it to be mobile in all cases.

The truth is without the BS all gap closers are used as escape tools if they can be used that way. That simply is the way it is. The other thing is rarely do gap closers hit. Most of the time you are no in range when you use them you literally use them to close the gap when there is a wide one or to chase. Most of the time unless the person is already in range and not running you gap is not going to hit it is literally going to close the gap. The is especially true of RtL, swoop, and Rush (rush more so). For rtl once the other player break the 1,200 threshold the chase is over. NO I am not drumming it up its over. Chase is rarely once cd cycle dps one cd cycle dps the goal is to get to help or get out of range. Atm DD ele is the easiest class to get out of range of. As long as RtL does not it there is no really reasonable way to keep a runner in combat outside FGS.

Honestly speak I think it takes playing all 4 classes with mobility sets to understand exactly why the RtL nerf is actually a major one. It might be difficult because many outside players only see 1 v x and scream op. I understand that mentality but at the same time its very hard to explain reality to someone who sees things that way alone. Due to the nature of the set DD ele is really only good as a roamer. Roaming is really about mobility. I know there are guardians, mesmers, engineers, and necros who roam. However if we are talking about serous roaming no insult but mobility is a necessity. Right now DD ele has truly limited mobility. There is not real adapting this. 1 v x we are still fine if your bunker as a roamer not so much.

TL;DR

Post came out a bit long so I highlighted the most important point.

Just tried out Ranger (GS + S/D) b/c I heard they were mobile, and what I have to say is…..boy are they mobile!! I can have the exact same playstyle (tons of regen, good condi clearing, even better mobility) with an extra pet to give more abilities. The only trade-off is less PbAOE, but for the extra attacker and the greater mobility is awesome. In fact, if you trait for it, you can even get a lot more control keeping everyone crippled, which allows you to space out the attackers as you slowly whittle them away.

Now the thing I want to point out, is that this is just a play-style that can be had on ANY mobile profession who makes superior use of their mobility, survive-ability, and terrain.

Just fyi, RTL is currently 1200 range on 40s cooldown (for all intents and purposes, 16s traited + hit). Rangers have Swoop (1100 range on 12 s cooldown, 9.5 traited), + hornets sting/monarchs leap with cam flips (600 range each with a combined cooldown of 8 s, 6.5 traited), lightning reflexes (with cam flips, similar utility to lightning flash, also breaks stun), and serpent’s strike for additional in-combat mobility. This far outpaces what my ele does, and survives even better b/c its not even a sweat to get away.

Kaleban.9834:

pmnt.4067:

I think RtL in its current form is a good compromise: For its intended use it hasn’t been nerfed at all (I’ll consider the range a fix, not a nerf) and if you misuse RtL as escape tool, you suffer a high cooldown which is actually in the range of other emergency cooldowns.

Other “emergency” cooldowns on other professions are utility skills. Most other professions movement skills on the weapons are in the 10 to 15 second CD range, no dual CD and no stipulations on how it is used (offensive or defensive).

Every other profession has either more health, more armor, a combination of both, or extra defensive attributes built in (stealth, death shroud, etc.) that give those professions survivabiltity, especially in melee. The D/D Ele is now a class with abysmal mobility, low damage, and the worst armor and health in the game.

How is that compromise?

you severely exaggerate. its kind of annoying

people stop talking about nothing
RTL nerf was aimed at spirit watch….

So do nt try to come to strange absurd conclusions about how because of the global warmth making sea level increase…the nerf was balanced in www or PvE….

BlackBeard.2873:

Just tried out Ranger (GS + S/D) b/c I heard they were mobile, and what I have to say is…..boy are they mobile!! I can have the exact same playstyle (tons of regen, good condi clearing, even better mobility) with an extra pet to give more abilities. The only trade-off is less PbAOE, but for the extra attacker and the greater mobility is awesome. In fact, if you trait for it, you can even get a lot more control keeping everyone crippled, which allows you to space out the attackers as you slowly whittle them away.

Now the thing I want to point out, is that this is just a play-style that can be had on ANY mobile profession who makes superior use of their mobility, survive-ability, and terrain.

Just fyi, RTL is currently 1200 range on 40s cooldown (for all intents and purposes, 16s traited + hit). Rangers have Swoop (1100 range on 12 s cooldown, 9.5 traited), + hornets sting/monarchs leap with cam flips (600 range each with a combined cooldown of 8 s, 6.5 traited), lightning reflexes (with cam flips, similar utility to lightning flash, also breaks stun), and serpent’s strike for additional in-combat mobility. This far outpaces what my ele does, and survives even better b/c its not even a sweat to get away.

The funny thing is, Rangers already were more mobile than Eles pre-nerf. It’s just people don’t have brains or something. They run around on a Long Bow all day long and complain about Ele mobility, when literally all they have to do is equip an offhand GS and they’re already on the same level of mobility.
Plus forum propaganda seems to be a big issue in this game. People are like blindly accepting myths that carry over from sPvP to be true in WvW and stuff like that. Like Rangers and Engineers are useless professions and D/D Ele is completely OP and annihilating every single other profession out there and BS like that. To all those claiming the aforementioned: Roll an elementalist yourself, go 0/10/0/30/30 D/D, head for the windmill at the southern camp in WvW and do some duels against those ‘useless’ professions with your ‘OP’ ele. And get shredded to pieces. D/D is far from being the best 1v1/ 1vX build (already was pre-nerf), and really was only strong at roaming. Which is what effectively was taken away with the recent RTL nerf.

People should not form opinions on class balance based on what they see in open world WvW combat. WvW is full of terribads and PvErs that really should not be used to benchmark the powerlevel of classes. Yes, at times I 1v4 people in WvW on my Ele and come out ahead. BUT, these guys are all upleveled and/or either first-time WvWers or have never done anything other than running around with a giant zerg, spamming AoEs in the general direction of enemy blobs. Of course these guys get annihilated by a single player who knows what he’s doing. I’ve done the exact same on my Guardian and on a Thief. I highly doubt I had any problems doing it on any other profession, especially Mesmer, Ranger & Engineer.

makku.2508:

The funny thing is, Rangers already were more mobile than Eles pre-nerf. It’s just people don’t have brains or something. They run around on a Long Bow all day long and complain about Ele mobility, when literally all they have to do is equip an offhand GS and they’re already on the same level of mobility.

I completely agree with everything you said. I felt like I was good at surviving and doing decent damage when I went roaming in WvW with my ele, but I never felt OP. The only argument that I would say was that sigil of battle made our damage about par, as opposed to garbage, on a bunker spec. If that was toned down, the D/D ele would have been in a perfect place in WvW. If you disagree, just try running even PvE w/o the sigil of battle: night and day. There is no harm in having a jackrabbit that survives forever and does no damage, and by taking away that might stacking a bit, it would pull bunkers out of their shells and have them rely on the tools they HAD (not anymore) to survive through damage.

That being said, to have the roaming playstyle of great sustain+great mobility+decent damage, you are best to look at other professions (ranger, thief, mesmer all have the necessary tools, perhaps others but I am not experienced with those). Of the options, ranger with GS+S/D gets the closest, and could even be customized to melee great and range if desired. So many more build options!!!

BlackBeard.2873:

That being said, to have the roaming playstyle of great sustain+great mobility+decent damage, you are best to look at other professions (ranger, thief, mesmer all have the necessary tools, perhaps others but I am not experienced with those). Of the options, ranger with GS+S/D gets the closest, and could even be customized to melee great and range if desired. So many more build options!!!

You are correct the closest you can get is ranger bunker/regen If you use a cat and keep other players in melee range you can rip apart some builds quickly. The main downside is you rely on the pet for a great deal of your dps. That being said DD ele is the better bunker in most cases.

Ranger, thief, and mesmer. Ranger and thief have great mobility in general. Mesmer has great in battle mobility, but when it comes to moving across the map not so much. Its a good roamer like ele if you plan to stay and fight or roam close to friendlies. The main issue with mesmer comes when you get smart melee players shutting them down or rangers who are good at keep there ranged targets. While it is true mesmers can roam well they still lag behind thief, warrior, and ranger.

no matter how good the player is, if classes are balanced then 1vs2 any must lose.

Caffynated.5713:

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but engi was disgustingly OP and had to be brought down. Anyone who thought the HGH meta builds were OK has no idea what game balance is. Grenades might still need to be brought down some, but we have 2 months to watch them and see how things affect them.

Comparing fiery GS to supply crate is just…

Comparing anything on FGS to an AoE damage + stun that summons 3-4 turrets, and 6-9 1k+ heal bandages doesn’t make any sense. Supply crate is a fight changer. FGS is used for mobility or an emergency “oh crap I’m holding a staff 1v1” skill.

LOL and as always, because people do not know a thing, they are making horrible mistakes again. HgH has just 1 way to a 4s stability on a 45sec VD and it’s RNG based. But I NEVER see anyone tackle me on my weakspot. Ever. All of you just bump up my back and try to damage me as much as possible. No, instead you should bump me around and immobilize me. But you all do the same thing, and when you all do it’s easy to learn how to counter it. Anyway, I didn’t find RtL that OP, but I don’t thing the whole ele cry-out about the longer CD is justified.

And supply crate -> stunbreaker and away is the fight changer. Allthough I must agree at the fact that it’s loads better then FG .. I only use it against world bosses sometimes.

Grevender.9235:

no matter how good the player is, if classes are balanced then 1vs2 any must lose.

I’m going to assume you mean all players are of equal skill, so I’ll avoid the obvious scenario of one enemy being an up arrowed thief that only uses pistol auto-attack. Classes being balanced doesn’t mean the builds each one can run is a fair fight against all possible builds others can run. A single condition necro should beat two pure melee enemies that lack condition removal. Every profession can run into an outnumbered situation, but still have an advantage that evens the odds just based on what builds the enemies use. Everyone can run into a 1vs1 and be at a large disadvantage based on builds. This is going to become more true over time because Anet appears to want more counter pick skills and traits.

Grevender.9235:

no matter how good the player is, if classes are balanced then 1vs2 any must lose.

musashi could kill MANY opponents at once with the same weapons their opponent had.

Even history and philosophy proves this wrong.

Same thing I did before, kill people in WvW. :P The QQ is all for nothing, not much changed, or at least not anything that requires you to change your entire build, only a mild inconvenience that is easily remedied with a slight change in skill management. Besides, only two skills got nerfed, other skills got buffed.

Lenn.6347:

Kaleban.9834:

Other “emergency” cooldowns on other professions are utility skills. Most other professions movement skills on the weapons are in the 10 to 15 second CD range, no dual CD and no stipulations on how it is used (offensive or defensive).

Every other profession has either more health, more armor, a combination of both, or extra defensive attributes built in (stealth, death shroud, etc.) that give those professions survivabiltity, especially in melee. The D/D Ele is now a class with abysmal mobility, low damage, and the worst armor and health in the game.

How is that compromise?

you severely exaggerate. its kind of annoying

Exactly where in the post do I exaggerate? Everything above is fact. The numbers on skill cooldowns are accurate (I can link wiki pages if you’d like) and the second paragraph is absolutely factual.

Perhaps what you find annoying is that I and other are right in our claims, and the dawning realization that all the “nerf Ele” BS that is based on disinformation and outright lies is causing you a headache?

Kept on playing 25/20/0/15/10 Zerker burst build. Mist form nerf hurt hard because it no longer channels Ether Renewal, but the extra 15 in water usually goes with that. Had to drop about 2k damage from Fire Grab in the updraft rotation to pick up the water traits, but meh. Everything still dies. Not nearly the zergdiving capacity we had before, but roaming is still fun.

Kaleban.9834:

Exactly where in the post do I exaggerate? Everything above is fact. The numbers on skill cooldowns are accurate (I can link wiki pages if you’d like) and the second paragraph is absolutely factual.

Nevertheless, the conclusion you’re drawing is an exaggeration. Eles have a lot of disadvantages, this is true, but they also get twice as many weapon skills, and Cantrips are still really really strong. Do you know how much I’d pay to be able to slot a Cantrip or two on my Necro or even my Ranger?

Merely stating facts like this doesn’t prove anything. I can make literally any profession or any spec sound OP just by reading off stuff they can do. Conversely, I can make any profession sound UP just by reading off stuff other professions can do.

In general, I think the Elementalist is an underpowered profession that can exploit a few specific overpowered abilities to do very well when specced a specific way. This is bad. It kills build diversity and makes the Ele very difficult to fix because any power you add to peripheral specs is probably going to get stolen and magnified by the OP abilities.

If being able to Mist Form through a casting of Ether Renewal were the only thing keeping Eles viable, then, speaking as an Ele main, I’m glad it got nerfed. Now the devs can start buffing everything about the Ele that sucks so the profession will be heathlier overall. How cool would it be if you could run Scepter/Dagger and Arcane spells or a Staff with a bunch of Glyphs? How much fun would a viable glassy D/D be? Or Conjures, what if those were made to be actually good?

This game is not balanced at the moment. Almost every profession board is constantly filled with threads whining about how underpowered their profession is, and the reason (outside of a simple “grass is greener” situation) is because everyone has some specs that are too good and a whole lot of specs that just suck. As the lifecycle of the game progresses, that’s going to get ironed out until every profession has a bunch of balanced specs with only a few shallow valleys and short hills that aren’t too far off sea level to be a serious problem for everyone else. But we’re not there yet. Personally I’d prefer ANet buffed the weak specs first but I do understand why they’re doing it as they are.

Blaine Tog.8304:

In general, I think the Elementalist is an underpowered profession that can exploit a few specific overpowered abilities to do very well when specced a specific way. This is bad. It kills build diversity and makes the Ele very difficult to fix because any power you add to peripheral specs is probably going to get stolen and magnified by the OP abilities.

This.

I really wish that the devs would actually let us in on the changes they have in mind, though, rather than blanket-nerfing the class and and retreating to observe the effects for the next month or two.

Chaosky.5276:

Blaine Tog.8304:

In general, I think the Elementalist is an underpowered profession that can exploit a few specific overpowered abilities to do very well when specced a specific way. This is bad. It kills build diversity and makes the Ele very difficult to fix because any power you add to peripheral specs is probably going to get stolen and magnified by the OP abilities.

This.

I really wish that the devs would actually let us in on the changes they have in mind, though, rather than blanket-nerfing the class and and retreating to observe the effects for the next month or two.

If their strategy is indeed what it appears to be, it’ll probably work in the long run but it really does suck for us (as GW2 players) here and now. I’d personally be fine with a little whack-a-mole style balancing if it meant a smoother balance curve.

Fishbait.6723:

Next patch: Due to all Elementalists killing bunnies just to cross a map at the same speed as every other class, all skills will be turned permanently into town clothes skills for 60 seconds when you enter combat & you will be in the disguise of a carrot.

I read an article somewhere that PETA has submitted a complaint to Anet for all the unnecessary slaughter of defenseless bunnies, birds, rats, etc which roam freely across the GW2 world.

On a serious note, I parked my Ele and rolled a Thief. Now I hunt Ele’s in WvW… “Run away little Ele, run away – oh, wait, I forgot, you can’t run from anything anymore.”

Blaine Tog.8304:

Nevertheless, the conclusion you’re drawing is an exaggeration. Eles have a lot of disadvantages, this is true, but they also get twice as many weapon skills, and Cantrips are still really really strong. Do you know how much I’d pay to be able to slot a Cantrip or two on my Necro or even my Ranger?

No, its not really an exaggeration, because I didn’t draw any conclusions. As many (including the devs) have stated, the problem with Eles were their ability to out-sustain anything in sPvP. The entire forum community ignores this point, and instead over-generalizes the problem as the entire profession in general, and in many threads are calling for further nerfs. Facts aren’t exaggerations.

Twice as many weapon skills? Oh awesome. Never mind that they’re severely underpowered for just that reason, and that Eles have to spam twice as many (or more) skills to achieve similar effects of other professions. And are on four separate “weapon swaps” with individual CDs. And locked into one range.

Cantrips are not super strong in and of themselves, its their interplay with certain traits that make them nearly indispensable. And they’re indispensable for the simple fact that Eles need them to survive, I mean who wouldn’t pick Lightning Flash or Cleansing Fire over pretty much any other utility skill? Other skills just don’t add enough necessary defensive options, a skill like Signet of Earth or Arcane Shield just doesn’t do much against a determined attacker or three, whereas LF or MF are much more valuable.

And now who’s exaggerating? Do you know how many Eles would kill for an entire second health bar to help with defense, or a pet not on a 60 second timer to take some of the heat off?

Kaleban.9834:

No, its not really an exaggeration, because I didn’t draw any conclusions.

Then let’s make things unequivocal: what do you think is the current state of the Elementalist’s balance?

Kaleban.9834:

Twice as many weapon skills? Oh awesome. Never mind that they’re severely underpowered for just that reason, and that Eles have to spam twice as many (or more) skills to achieve similar effects of other professions. And are on four separate “weapon swaps” with individual CDs. And locked into one range.

Oh I know. If you’d bothered to have read the rest of my post, you’d see that I don’t think the Elementalist is overpowered in general. It has one spec that is (was) a bit too good (not to the extent that the whiners say) and a bunch that suck. It needs… evening out.

Personally, I think a small increase to the Ele’s base health would make the rest of the profession much easier to balance. It’s just so darn hard to play the Ele without a bunch of extra Vitality and Cantrip’ed defense. I feel like they’d have to make glass builds way too good under ideal circumstances in order to make them not suck in normal situations.

Kaleban.9834:

Cantrips are not super strong in and of themselves, its their interplay with certain traits that make them nearly indispensable.

I strongly disagree. Cantrips provide nearly unparalleled mobility and defense. A stunbreaker that grants invulnerability and another stunbreaker that’s also a blink? On-demand stability and protection without a Transform skill for longer than you’d need for any given action? Even Cleansing Fire is pretty sweet. Most professions don’t get to have condition removal and stunbreakers together in one utility skill.

You can toss a Cantrip in your build even without traits and it’ll be a strong addition to your arsenal. And that’s great! You shouldn’t have to trait for something for it to be good (though Traits should, and in the case of Cantrips, do, make them better and build-defining).

Kaleban.9834:

And they’re indispensable for the simple fact that Eles need them to survive, I mean who wouldn’t pick Lightning Flash or Cleansing Fire over pretty much any other utility skill?

I totally agree, but it’s bad that we HAVE to run Cantrips. The Ele has insufficient base defenses to function in this game, forcing us to use Water and Cantrips as a crutch. I don’t want my crutch taken away from me, but if that has to happen before the bigger problems can be addressed, so be it.

Kaleban.9834:

And now who’s exaggerating? Do you know how many Eles would kill for an entire second health bar to help with defense, or a pet not on a 60 second timer to take some of the heat off?

Apples and oranges. I was talking about Utility skills, not Profession Mechanics. If I could trade “Guard!” for literally any Cantrip, I would. If I could trade Summon Flesh Wurm for Lightning Flash, I would.

Only the bad eles got nerfed. D/D is still very, very strong if you’re not a baddy.

Mada.5319:

Only the bad eles got nerfed. D/D is still very, very strong if you’re not a baddy.

good ele in www can now catch thieves…..but only if you are good your range/cd is reverted and its immune to stealth making the skill miss.

Also you can summon unicorns to run across the field….

Or maybe only PvP bunker ele doesn t care and the patch destroyed most GC/balanced in WWW/PVE

LordByron.8369:

Grevender.9235:

no matter how good the player is, if classes are balanced then 1vs2 any must lose.

musashi could kill MANY opponents at once with the same weapons their opponent had.

Even history and philosophy proves this wrong.

are you stating by any chance that Musashi facing TWO Musashi would still win?
It happened to me to be 1 vs 3 and still win, but there is no way I would be able to do that against three players with the same skill level as me (or better)

Grevender.9235:

LordByron.8369:

Grevender.9235:

no matter how good the player is, if classes are balanced then 1vs2 any must lose.

musashi could kill MANY opponents at once with the same weapons their opponent had.

Even history and philosophy proves this wrong.

are you stating by any chance that Musashi facing TWO Musashi would still win?
It happened to me to be 1 vs 3 and still win, but there is no way I would be able to do that against three players with the same skill level as me (or better)

Skill/tactic is why there was just ONE musashi its not that musashi had a rocket launcher and his opponents just katana.

So if you balance something around numbers than it becomes the most useless game ever.

Skill > numbers that is how it should work.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Then let’s make things unequivocal: what do you think is the current state of the Elementalist’s balance?I would.

Well, now I will draw some conclusions!

First, the idea that Cantrips are awesome because of something like Lightning Flash. Blink has a 15 second shorter CD, can be traited for longer range and also breaks stun. Yes, comparing one skill from an admittedly OP class may seem odd, but the point is that most of the Ele’s skills have “clones” on other professions, but are for some reason handicapped or underpowered, or given silly conditions for use.

I personally think the Ele is in a terrible state of balance. Primarily the problem lies with the hyperbole of the community. The Ele was somewhat OP in sPvP due to healing and cleansing, so ANet nerfed not only that but various other abilities (most famously RtL) pretty harshly, causing the most damage to non-D/D bunker builds, which was the stated target of the nerfs in the first place, and in game formats (PvE, WvWvW) where there weren’t any real problems.

And THAT is the scariest part of the balancing process, that the devs at ANet not only don’t know what to tweak on the profession to balance it, but also their entire concept of the class is flawed.

If you think about it, the Ele’s profession mechanic is a large culprit. Its kind of like trying to balance a GW1 profession against the mechanics of the GW2 professions with the skill diversity. Attunement switching is a cool idea, but fails for a couple of reasons. One, the need to de-power individual skills so that the Ele isn’t twice as powerful out of the gate. Two, and counter to that, is that it takes longer to achieve the same effects as other professions because of cast times and cooldowns, such that any battle with or against an Ele is always a battle of attrition, rather than burst nuking.

I actually don’t want, contrary to what a few may think, for the Ele to be an OP nightmare. It then loses the challenge and variety of the profession, which made the Ele interesting to play at first. But I do want the devs to recognize that function does not always follow form, which as an example, I think the notion that “THIEF IS MOST MOBILE” is a silly one. The devs have a concept, and are trying to ram this concept into the engine, but it doesn’t fit gameplay wise or balance wise. In any other game, the more natural defenses or survivability a class has (i.e. armor and health, class features that are defensive in nature) the slower they are overall. As the classes become lighter armored and more “squishy” the faster and more mobile they are to balance this out.

GW2 somewhat breaks that pattern by giving certain classes such as the Necro an extra health bar, or an Engineer with the right build for example having a lot of blocks and invuln available. This then moves the class up or down the ladder of “toughness” and their mobility is adjusted accordingly.

With the Ele however, the only thing that makes them survive in high end areas of play is the ability to heal. Low armor, low health, no inherent defenses, etc. And healing/cleansing was nerfed too. So the only saving grace of the class SHOULD be the ability to be mobile enough to avoid damage while in combat, or to escape when things go south. Which has also been nerfed.

Realistically, most complaints against the Ele in non-sPvP was their ability to escape and reset. However, if they were unable to win the fight the first time around, re-setting means not a lot. The class basically becomes a harasser unit, causing diversions but no appreciable damage. I think the main problem with this is a problem of perception. Because many Eles were running when outmatched, people started equating an escaping Ele with the Ele “winning” somehow, even though that’s patently ridiculous. And then those people come on the forums, complain about the Ele being OP, while conveniently forgetting to mention that they were not in fact killed, and that the Ele simply escaped.

Hence my conclusion that most of the vitriol directed the Ele’s way is unfounded and certainly biased. Again, lowest armor and health, low damage unless getting off a multi-skill combo, low ability to sustain long enough to enact said combo, combo is easily telegraphed, etc., etc. Maybe its the flashy spell effects, but whatever it is, people need to stop false claims about the Ele being OP. It seems that many will not be satisfied until the Ele is simply a walking badge pinata.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kaleban.9834:

No, its not really an exaggeration, because I didn’t draw any conclusions.

Then let’s make things unequivocal: what do you think is the current state of the Elementalist’s balance?

I wouldnt bother arguing with Kaleban.

He basically claims that the elementalist is a very weak class and requires a near guarantee escape mechanic.

He just keep listing the cons of being an elementalist without mentioning the benefits.
Of course, he never mention the con to other class skills.

I do not understand his concept of class balance because an reliable escape means nerf to actual areas in combat to compensate.

Kaleban.9834:

First, the idea that Cantrips are awesome because of something like Lightning Flash. Blink has a 15 second shorter CD, can be traited for longer range and also breaks stun. Yes, comparing one skill from an admittedly OP class may seem odd, but the point is that most of the Ele’s skills have “clones” on other professions, but are for some reason handicapped or underpowered, or given silly conditions for use.

Cantrips are awesome — because they are. Plain and simple. The effects they give are extremely strong. There are a few similar defensive spells spread out amongst the other professions, this is true, but that doesn’t make the Ele’s Cantrips bad. They’re good utilities because they give strong effects.

Kaleban.9834:

I personally think the Ele is in a terrible state of balance. Primarily the problem lies with the hyperbole of the community.

Pot, kettle.

Kaleban.9834:

In any other game, the more natural defenses or survivability a class has (i.e. armor and health, class features that are defensive in nature) the slower they are overall. As the classes become lighter armored and more “squishy” the faster and more mobile they are to balance this out.

Do you play League of Legends? I can think of dozens of champions from that game that break that paradigm.

Kaleban.9834:

With the Ele however, the only thing that makes them survive in high end areas of play is the ability to heal. Low armor, low health, no inherent defenses, etc. And healing/cleansing was nerfed too. So the only saving grace of the class SHOULD be the ability to be mobile enough to avoid damage while in combat, or to escape when things go south. Which has also been nerfed.

I agree. I just don’t necessarily agree that it’s been nerfed excessively.

Kaleban.9834:

Realistically, most complaints against the Ele in non-sPvP was their ability to escape and reset. However, if they were unable to win the fight the first time around, re-setting means not a lot. The class basically becomes a harasser unit, causing diversions but no appreciable damage. I think the main problem with this is a problem of perception. Because many Eles were running when outmatched, people started equating an escaping Ele with the Ele “winning” somehow, even though that’s patently ridiculous. And then those people come on the forums, complain about the Ele being OP, while conveniently forgetting to mention that they were not in fact killed, and that the Ele simply escaped.

To be blunt, I don’t think you understand tactics in this game very well.

In PvP, being able to escape from anything is quite a strength. The key resource in that game mode is time. Wasting the enemy’s time is an extremely good strategy. If you can hold a point 1v2 or even 1v3, your team should pretty much auto-win… unless the enemy has someone just like you who’s doing the same thing to another point. Further, being able to choose your engagements is very, very strong. If you can get someone to waste time chasing you, all the better.

WvW is a similar situation. If you can get a group of 5 or 10 or 15 people to chase you for 5 or 10 minutes, you’ve effectively stolen 20 or 45 or 70 minutes from the enemy server. Honestly, that could well be better than killing them since it often won’t take that long for them to rejoin a zerg or run supplies. And if they don’t chase you, then you’re still left alive behind enemy lines, able to zip around and take out yaks, maybe even solo camps if you’re built for it. I’m not saying being able to escape is OP, but it is a victory of sorts.