Guild Wars 2

Dear Arenanet Developers, I’m truly trying to understand a few things:

a) why would you create a class like the elementalist and then nerf it into the ground so much that the class becomes not only a burden to play but a useless addition to any wvw setting? It’s even getting to the point where I don’t want to bother playing it in pve, because the abilities have been so thoroughly ruined.

b) why would you introduce yet another condition like “torment”, that in fact contradicts everything around which this entire game concept is built, (i.e. dynamically active combat…combat in motion). This condition now penalizes players for playing the game the way the game was intended to be played.

Does this make any sense? It doesn’t to me.

Nevermind that it’s only being given to what are apparently your favorite pet classes: necro/thief/mesmer.

Why would you create a class like the Ranger, and then, again, nerf it into the ground where it is completely useless?

Have you seen the latest wvwvw meta? the predominate classes: necromancer/guardian/thief/mesmer/warrior…in that order of importance. No place for ele, ranger or engineer.

I’ve read guild posts and forum posts that explain that there is no use for ele’s or rangers, at all. and why should there be? the two classes have been nerfed into complete uselessness…or soon will be.

So I’m really trying to understand…where are you getting the ideas that these two classes in particular, that in my research have suffered by far the most number and most debilitating nefing of abilities since the games inception…(actually since beta)…where is your information coming from?

Have you EVER played S/D Valkyrie glass in WvW? ;-;

it’s frightening. And makes me feel bad for other classes.

Just because a lot of people play a class, doesn’t make it inherently better. Build a strong playstyle and you’ll end up fighting similarly-skilled players to a standstill.

mmm..no…i haven’t. I will try that, if you have a link to full build with traits and gear I would really appreciate it.

I have never been able to deal out the kind of damage other classes can, though I read lots of posts about it and have watched dozens of videos showing that it supposedly can be done…I’ve never been able to do it, even when I was running full zerker gear and traits, and had everything set up just right, that never happened for me

but you understand what I’m saying right?

just because a single build and a single player of the 100’s of thousands of players, is able to hold off a small group, or win against a small group, or even if it’s a handful of players who are exceptional and able to do this, does not make the class “balanced” when a mediocre thief can obliterate me in 2 seconds or less, even when in a tanky build. I admit that I’m not the best player, but I’m not the worst either, and yet of the thousands of thieves I’ve fought in wvw and spvp, I can count the number of wins I’ve had on my fingers.

Ele’s are described as the “jack of all trades master of none”…but logically, all classes are such if you deconstruct the gaming trinity of healer/tank/dps…if there is no such classification of skills, then all classes are “jacks of all trades”, in theory, yet in practice this is clearly not the case.

And what place is there for a jack of all trades anyway, except in solo pve content?

What frustrates me is that despite this jack of all trades concept that is being forced onto the elementalist, the profession at least had a few strengths…we could heal and we had mobility.
But those have been consistently and repeatedly nerfed into the ground, while despite the mountains upon mountains of complaints in the forums against thief o/p ness…after 8 months they finally gave a completely insignificant nerf to thief stealth while at the same time handing them an even more powerful ability: larcenous strike, which shouldn’t even be in the game. The ability to steal boons and put them on yourself is ridiculously overpowered and doesn’t even make any sense, even in a fantasy game. Necro/Mesmer boon stripping was one thing, but taking them off someone else and putting them on yourself, now from a 1200 range, is just ludicrous.

all in all, I’m convinced that the developers play only thieves and mesmers and maybe necro’s from time to time and couldn’t care less about the rest of the classes, particularly the ele and the ranger.

I understand that they are trying to achieve some kind of balance, at least that is their public statement, though I have failed to yet see any actual balancing. And I get that they want to promote greater variety of game play throughout the professions. But they need to recognize that every game that is based on mathematical tables and random number generation is going to have math majors working out what combination has the greatest survivability/damage potential, and they are going to promote that to others, and that is what gets used by the majority.
The only way to “balance” this, and to promote a greater variety in class builds and game play/weapon choices, is to work out a way that all builds do exactly the same damage, and have exactly the same survivability. Thus leaving the option to play however one wishes and have the same potential.

If I can have same survivability and damage potential whether I am a conditions build, power build or crit-build, if I am running tanky spec of damage spec…then I have the option to play however I choose, use whichever weapon selections I choose, and not have to worry that I’m going to get ganked by someone with a better, more powerful weapon combination.
but this, obviously, is not going to happen.

solarisnox.8521:

Dear Arenanet Developers, I’m truly trying to understand a few things:

a) why would you create a class like the elementalist and then nerf it into the ground so much that the class becomes not only a burden to play but a useless addition to any wvw setting? It’s even getting to the point where I don’t want to bother playing it in pve, because the abilities have been so thoroughly ruined.

b) why would you introduce yet another condition like “torment”, that in fact contradicts everything around which this entire game concept is built, (i.e. dynamically active combat…combat in motion). This condition now penalizes players for playing the game the way the game was intended to be played.

Does this make any sense? It doesn’t to me.

Nevermind that it’s only being given to what are apparently your favorite pet classes: necro/thief/mesmer.

Why would you create a class like the Ranger, and then, again, nerf it into the ground where it is completely useless?

Have you seen the latest wvwvw meta? the predominate classes: necromancer/guardian/thief/mesmer/warrior…in that order of importance. No place for ele, ranger or engineer.

I’ve read guild posts and forum posts that explain that there is no use for ele’s or rangers, at all. and why should there be? the two classes have been nerfed into complete uselessness…or soon will be.

So I’m really trying to understand…where are you getting the ideas that these two classes in particular, that in my research have suffered by far the most number and most debilitating nefing of abilities since the games inception…(actually since beta)…where is your information coming from?

Completely agree as to why so many negative changes to the class happen when its a minority of people asking for them, and a majority disagree.

solarisnox.8521:

mmm..no…i haven’t. I will try that, if you have a link to full build with traits and gear I would really appreciate it.

I have never been able to deal out the kind of damage other classes can, though I read lots of posts about it and have watched dozens of videos showing that it supposedly can be done…I’ve never been able to do it, even when I was running full zerker gear and traits, and had everything set up just right, that never happened for me

but you understand what I’m saying right?

If the new patch notes are valid (leaked) then sceptre/dagger with the air attunement GM trait and the arcane lightning trait will burst so hard, it will probably get a nerf soon after.

Basically for the sceptre air burst, the trick is to stack as much power and critical damage as possible while having decent vitality or toughness so you do not break like glass when some one sneezes at you. For this, you sacrifice precision and utilize the arcane skill which lands 5 spell critical hits.

Off the top of my head, you will get a build like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmMbkR5wjFAkCoEKcwoQHiHW4QElCxA-jkyAYLE8VAJKBhKAm+KiGbxtIas6aMlLgKeR1m8ioVLFQEjBA-w

You will be dealing 45% more damage to a burning target in air attunement when above 90% hp and at melee range.

You will be dealing 65% more damage to a burning target (when stunned/knocked down) in air attunement when above 90% hp.

You will be dealing 85% more damage to a burning target (when stunned/knocked down and below 33% hp) in air attunement when above 90% hp.

With a critical damage of nearly 120%, you start in earth and knockdown with earth 4, then use earth 2 and then unleash earth 2 and use arcane power while attuning to air and spamming air 2, air 1 and arcane blast which usually procs the sigil of air for another lightning strike.

Most often this combo deals 10-15k damage and if they are not finished off with this, you can use air 5 to knockhim down again and go fire and use fire 3/4/5 to finish him off.

You have a fair amount of vitality/toughness so if your combo fails you can just RTL and get out while using mistform to survive burst damage.

With the patch this build will get significantly stronger and even though its main burst needs arcane power off cd, it is still quite strong as a ranged burst in small groups.

Sure torment seems to work against the main idea of moving but you could use the same logic to say the conditions like cripple, chilled, and immobilize are also designed to contradict the games core combat. Only problem I see with torment is the fact that not every class has instant and regular free access to condition removing.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Sure torment seems to work against the main idea of moving but you could use the same logic to say the conditions like cripple, chilled, and immobilize are also designed to contradict the games core combat. Only problem I see with torment is the fact that not every class has instant and regular free access to condition removing.

I would agree with you, except that torment, as I understand it, causes damage when you’re standing still, and double damage if you’re moving…the way this differs from other conditions like cripple/chilled/immobilize, is that those conditions: a) don’t cause damage in and of themselves, they only limit mobility, and b) they don’t penalize you for moving if you are able to cleanse the condition.

The idea of introducing a new condition that actively penalizes movement with damage is…to me…ludicrous…when there are so many other things that need fixing to actually create some sense of balance among the professions.

as I pointed out in another post, the insignificant nerf to thief stealth a couple months ago, was overwhelmingly offset by the addition of the insanely overpowered “larcenous strike”.

When was the last time the elementalist class got a new ability?
oh yeah, when they finally gave a falling damage mitigation trait…a tier 2 trait…while every other class has that ability as a tier 1 trait.

other than that, everything has been nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf. Ele’s can heal themselve’s too well: nerf. Ele’s are too mobile: nerf. Ele’s are too powerful and do too much damage: nerf.

I still just don’t understand where the data is coming from that triggers these actions on the part of the developers.

If this keeps up I’ll be abandoning this game…which will upset me greatly since I’ve invested hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours into it.

But I’m not going to waste any more time and money on a game when the developers clearly favor a certain couple of professions over pretty much all others.

I mean, seriously, why bother even creating a profession like the elementalist if all you are going to do is nerf it into the ground over and over and over. It’s already almost impossible to actually have a fair fight and do even half the damage that every other class in the game can do.

Yes, there are certain highly specific builds that, if executed flawlessly against an unsuspecting target and all proc’s go off as hoped, and the planets are all properly aligned, and the god’s smile upon you, and you’re only fighting one foe, (Daphoenix excepted…that guys is amazing)…an ele can do a ton of damage fast enough to win a fight, IF their foe doesn’t have too high an armor rating and not too much health.

does that sound balanced?

when I can go out as a mediocre thief (and believe me, I am nothing more than a mediocre thief), wielding pistol/dagger, dagger/pistol, sword/dagger, sword/pistol, hell even pistol/pistol, and completely facerape pretty much any other class in the game, with the exception of bunker necro’s and guardians?

this, sadly, does not sound balanced to me.

Anet…are you reading this?
understand, I love this game, but if we don’t start seeing some love for the ele and the ranger soon, I’m done.

DarkSider.1079:

solarisnox.8521:

Dear Arenanet Developers, I’m truly trying to understand a few things:

a) why would you create a class like the elementalist and then nerf it into the ground so much that the class becomes not only a burden to play but a useless addition to any wvw setting? It’s even getting to the point where I don’t want to bother playing it in pve, because the abilities have been so thoroughly ruined.

b) why would you introduce yet another condition like “torment”, that in fact contradicts everything around which this entire game concept is built, (i.e. dynamically active combat…combat in motion). This condition now penalizes players for playing the game the way the game was intended to be played.

Does this make any sense? It doesn’t to me.

Nevermind that it’s only being given to what are apparently your favorite pet classes: necro/thief/mesmer.

Why would you create a class like the Ranger, and then, again, nerf it into the ground where it is completely useless?

Have you seen the latest wvwvw meta? the predominate classes: necromancer/guardian/thief/mesmer/warrior…in that order of importance. No place for ele, ranger or engineer.

I’ve read guild posts and forum posts that explain that there is no use for ele’s or rangers, at all. and why should there be? the two classes have been nerfed into complete uselessness…or soon will be.

So I’m really trying to understand…where are you getting the ideas that these two classes in particular, that in my research have suffered by far the most number and most debilitating nefing of abilities since the games inception…(actually since beta)…where is your information coming from?

Completely agree as to why so many negative changes to the class happen when its a minority of people asking for them, and a majority disagree.

I don’t understand it either, especially when I see the mountains of complaints against the thief and mesmer o/p…but nothing but insignificant nerfs and massive o/p buffs and new abilities.

I just don’t get it.

why have any other class in the game? We should all just delete our ele’s and make nothing but thieves and mesmers, I guess.

solarisnox.8521:

I don’t understand it either, especially when I see the mountains of complaints against the thief and mesmer o/p…but nothing but insignificant nerfs and massive o/p buffs and new abilities.

I just don’t get it.

why have any other class in the game? We should all just delete our ele’s and make nothing but thieves and mesmers, I guess.

I have a mesmer and trust me that new condition is on a weapon that is horrible in competitive play. The main problem with fighting mesmers is the chaos they create with clones and some of their defensive abilities. But if you catch a mesmer and pin him down with immobilize (their condition removal is horrible), chances are he is dead.

Mesmers bring a lot to a game but they cannot disengage like an ele and in my unbiased opinion, both classes are fairly balanced (this is only in tpvp not hotjoins or WvWvW).

That being said, mesmers have a lot of bugs as well and if these are fixed, then the class would tip into the OP side of things and would need to be toned down.

Be patient and wait out this patch for the actual changes before getting too hasty :-P

solarisnox.8521:

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Sure torment seems to work against the main idea of moving but you could use the same logic to say the conditions like cripple, chilled, and immobilize are also designed to contradict the games core combat. Only problem I see with torment is the fact that not every class has instant and regular free access to condition removing.

I would agree with you, except that torment, as I understand it, causes damage when you’re standing still, and double damage if you’re moving…the way this differs from other conditions like cripple/chilled/immobilize, is that those conditions: a) don’t cause damage in and of themselves, they only limit mobility, and b) they don’t penalize you for moving if you are able to cleanse the condition.

Ok that changes thing a bit, I never actually looked at the finer details of torment myself but if its like that then it does seem a bit off. course we won’t really know its true effects till the patch, for all we know its will be like a 1 stack of bleed weak and annoying but nothing life threatening alone.

As for nerfs that’s a complaint I’v had with this game for a long time. Hate making a comparison to WoW but at least when blizzard made changes they took bold steps to buff/nerf skills and if it didn’t work out a quick flip of the switch as it was back to its old way for more tweaking. But Anet has this baby step mind set that drives me up the wall, and once they have done a change it takes months before they do anything about it.

solarisnox.8521:

Dear Arenanet Developers, I’m truly trying to understand a few things:

a) why would you create a class like the elementalist and then nerf it into the ground so much that the class becomes not only a burden to play but a useless addition to any wvw setting?

Staff Ele here and, even though I understand your frustration, I have to argue against the above statement. We are very important to WvW and I am seeing more staff ele’s every day.

Since no one has seen this new torment condition in action, no one can really give a good way to work around it. I think the reason this was added was to directly counter the elementalist and to force it to use a cleanse to get it off as an anti-movement condition to the class that has to keep moving just goes hand in hand.

The only thing I can think of is that you will need to run a condition remover, if you don’t already and learn to look for the abilities that grant this condition and avoid them or just cleanse them.

As far as elementalists being useless in WvW, I heartily disagree. The elementalist (staff in particular) is a sought after commodity by all the commanders (at least in T1) due to the amount of control they offer with static field/frozen ground/unsteady ground and the buffs you give out. You can also roam very well using the standard 0/10/0/30/30 build in Dapheonix’s thread, and as someone mentioned, there is the S/D burst build that is also good for running with some people. Both of those specs are very good in WvW for running around in small mans (3-15) people. If you want to see some really good elementalist play in WvW I would suggest you read Dapheonix’s thread on the D/D elementalist, check out his videos. You can also look at Intigo’s twich channel and see another good elementalist from the Red Guard guild who runs a lot of GvG’s as well as just running around in WvW.

Since you asked for a S/D burst build with gear:

S/D Burst (WvW) – http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1g.h1h.8.1c.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71g.1g.a7.1c.71h.1g.a7.1c.71j.1g.a7|2s.0.2s.d1e.3s.d1e.2v.0.3v.0.2v.d1e|0.p16.0.p56.k56|40.7|1l.1o.1u.1v.28|e

That S/D burst build isn’t done yet, since I don’t have the runes I want in the armor just yet (runes of the Wurm or scholar, haven’t decided yet).

The nerfs that keep coming to the elementalist is due to the class being good at all the things in a certain gameplay. Before the game went live, ele’s had huge burst, people complained and it was nerfed. And by huge burst I meant HUGE. It’s PVP complaints that wash over to PVE/WVW. I await the day that the devs understand that a 5v5 or an 8v8 in a small map doesn’t represent the whole game as in PVE or WvW, those rules don’t always apply. It sucks, because people who don’t play sPVP are getting hit as well.

As these nerfs go on, more and more the class get’s difficult to play in anything short of a defensive build, as the damage while very good, the class lacks defensive mechanisms to live when it goes for such damage. We can always hope they reverse some of the nerfs (like RTL and the damage nerfs from beta) but I doubt it as they want the class to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Meaning that any class will be better at a specialization than you, but you will be more rounded. You wont be the best burster, or the best tank, but you can do a mix of both.