Guild Wars 2

If I look at the proposed changes reasonably Blasting staff moved to adept is good, the others moved to adept is good. Ones moved to master make sense because they are buffed. Then we get to windborne dagger moved to adept and renewing and elemental attunement moved to master.

So it looks like something has to move up for something to move down. If we look at windborne dagger objectively most people would agree it isn’t a master tier trait.

The reason it doesn’t look like a master tier trait is because of our access to swiftness. Then you look at how we are built and then you we look at elemental attunement boons that arent swiftness and you see that we need those boons for survivability we already specced into arcana at the cost of valuable stat points to begin with.

You could make the case of soothing disruption provides vigor but that is ok. My whole thing with the move is that boon punishment was introduced already so it isn’t like having boons is “OP”.

What looks better is to move just 1 of the traits to master so the option to still take both is there for those that go 30 points in arcana(at the cost of raw stat points). If someone goes 20 into arcana they do so at the cost of “Raw stat points” so their is a trade off there already.

It sounds biased because a change like this doesn’t affect what I run and can still run exactly like I do now but I don’t see a problem with that. It isn’t necessarily that traits have to be moved down if they aren’t “Master Tier” worthy but those traits at “Master tier” worthy should be buffed so they are attractive.

Basically windborne dagger should move to adept and renewing moved up. I feel renewing stamina is the more powerful of the 2 traits. Elemental attunement is a good trait but I just don’t see it OP. The only real way to abuse it is boon duration runes which means less raw stats you could get from runes.

The strongest boon you get from the trait is protection and you can’t perma protection unless you run 75% – 95% boon duration(WvW) and 10 points in earth with elemental shielding. Which you run at the cost of healing or some other stat you could have specced into plus you could get it stripped. For classic D/D it comes at the cost of damage usually or “Raw Stats” since you went into 30 arcana anyway for the boon duration.

I can get cleansing water going 20 into water, I get 100 (240 in earth) more toughness investing 20 into earth, the grandmaster trait is now a master trait so I can get around 300 more condition damage without sacraficing much condi removal. Sounds like a win to me.

oZii.2864:

If I look at the proposed changes reasonably Blasting staff moved to adept is good, the others moved to adept is good. Ones moved to master make sense because they are buffed. Then we get to windborne dagger moved to adept and renewing and elemental attunement moved to master.

So it looks like something has to move up for something to move down. If we look at windborne dagger objectively most people would agree it isn’t a master tier trait.

The reason it doesn’t look like a master tier trait is because of our access to swiftness. Then you look at how we are built and then you we look at elemental attunement boons that arent swiftness and you see that we need those boons for survivability we already specced into arcana at the cost of valuable stat points to begin with.

You could make the case of soothing disruption provides vigor but that is ok. My whole thing with the move is that boon punishment was introduced already so it isn’t like having boons is “OP”.

What looks better is to move just 1 of the traits to master so the option to still take both is there for those that go 30 points in arcana(at the cost of raw stat points). If someone goes 20 into arcana they do so at the cost of “Raw stat points” so their is a trade off there already.

It sounds biased because a change like this doesn’t affect what I run and can still run exactly like I do now but I don’t see a problem with that. It isn’t necessarily that traits have to be moved down if they aren’t “Master Tier” worthy but those traits at “Master tier” worthy should be buffed so they are attractive.

You brought up good points, just like everyone else here.

There is no need what so ever to completely destroy the D/D arcana/water spec to try and make other builds for it “work”. They simply need to make other trait lines more viable for the d/d play style and take away the need to go so far into arcana/water.

Ill say it again, with the current changes as a D/D spec, youre still required to run 30 arcana but at the cost of having less boons/survivability or less dodges/survivability.

→ make the attunement cd a set 10 seconds, and change arcana passive bonus to +to all stats
→ Fix or remove LE for Elemental attunement
→ keep renewing stamina at adept tier
→ Give SoR a better passive heal and other traits or our utilities better access to condition removal and boons.

If they were to do what i said above, you could essentially only go 10-15 in arcana and still have boons/survivability, and essentially if they implemented condi mitigation/ better passive healing we could ignore the water line for more interesting options in other trait lines.

Arcana V, VI, XI is the standard of any D/D build. The changes are trying to promote diversity so i appreciate that. But they need to give us options that are the same as EA for condi mitigation/healing, boons.

Just makes no sense to me. The claim they are trying to get more builds out of arcane, but then they move the more useful traits from the adept line to master line………

Thus insuring we spec into arcane? WTF.

Wraistlin.6072:

Just makes no sense to me. The claim they are trying to get more builds out of arcane, but then they move the more useful traits from the adept line to master line………

Thus insuring we spec into arcane? WTF.

In there defense this is prob do to the complaint that people hate dodge spam in the game and anet wants to tone that down. Completely wrong way of doing it though

@FrownyClown

More condition damage is hardly what the elementalist needed, other classes can apply (spam) conditions way better than we can, no need to try and make the elementalist a lackluster condition class as well. The fact that others can do it better is good – I like diversity between classes.

Elementalist can hardly apply more than one condition in one attunement and that is easily cleared out using your opponents condition removal (we don’t really have cover conditions or something like that). Also keep in mind that real condition classes can stack damaging conditions much faster and more reliable.

And the fact that the old grandmaster toughness to condition damage trait is now a master trait does not change much. I think it is a way better idea to get the stats you can get from gear from the gear (like condition damage) and the things you can not/hardly get from gear (like vigor, condition remove) from traits.

Columbo.5924:

@FrownyClown

More condition damage is hardly what the elementalist needed, other classes can apply (spam) conditions way better than we can, no need to try and make the elementalist a lackluster condition class as well. The fact that others can do it better is good – I like diversity between classes.

Elementalist can hardly apply more than one condition in one attunement and that is easily cleared out using your opponents condition removal (we don’t really have cover conditions or something like that). Also keep in mind that real condition classes can stack damaging conditions much faster and more reliable.

And the fact that the old grandmaster toughness to condition damage trait is now a master trait does not change much. I think it is a way better idea to get the stats you can get from gear from the gear (like condition damage) and the things you can not/hardly get from gear (like vigor, condition remove) from traits.

Condi is very viable as d/d. Go look at my youtube vids.

This patch will be interesting for eles, to say the least. It’s not going to significantly help many of their core problems though.

I love these changes. Great opportunity for me to make up new builds for solo and small group roaming in wvw that involves the fire trait line.

FrownyClown.8402:

I can get cleansing water going 20 into water, I get 100 (240 in earth) more toughness investing 20 into earth, the grandmaster trait is now a master trait so I can get around 300 more condition damage without sacraficing much condi removal. Sounds like a win to me.

This is also a win to me. I only invest 5 points in arcana and do perfectly fine as a solo and small group roamer in wvw. The movement of traits from this branch doesn’t affect me at all but I can understand the frustration of those players that invest more than that because they feel it is a must for the ele.

FrownyClown.8402:

Columbo.5924:

@FrownyClown

More condition damage is hardly what the elementalist needed, other classes can apply (spam) conditions way better than we can, no need to try and make the elementalist a lackluster condition class as well. The fact that others can do it better is good – I like diversity between classes.

Elementalist can hardly apply more than one condition in one attunement and that is easily cleared out using your opponents condition removal (we don’t really have cover conditions or something like that). Also keep in mind that real condition classes can stack damaging conditions much faster and more reliable.

And the fact that the old grandmaster toughness to condition damage trait is now a master trait does not change much. I think it is a way better idea to get the stats you can get from gear from the gear (like condition damage) and the things you can not/hardly get from gear (like vigor, condition remove) from traits.

Condi is very viable as d/d. Go look at my youtube vids.

Okay then, but the problem is rather that they don’t want to give us this buff (I, for one, would not even take this trait because i think condition damage is not good on an ele) without nerfing stuff. Avoid power creep they said, it will be fun they said…

And if I had to make a choice whether I would take all of the thing in the previewed patch notes or no changes at all, I would rather not take any change at all, and leave the ele where it is.

The designers just dont get that “we dont want to be forced into water and arcana so much” does NOT, I repeat NOT mean destroy the arcana and water line so much, so that nobody uses them anymore. All this comes basically without a meaningful replacement – except for some gimmick options/traits that will be nerfed one patch later – of course without restoring the other traits that were nerfed because of the gimmick.

Do they even remember that players can NOT get all the traits at once? Buffing certain traits would lead to a power creep if we had 30-30-30-30-30 builds, but currently you always have to give up something in order to gain a certain trait. For example getting the new fire auto-cleasing fire trait means that you need to shove off those points for fire attunement from somewehere else, where they are needed just as much. That already takes care of the “power creep”.

20 0 0 20 30 bunker power build. Max condi removal with the new fire trait. 20 30 0 10 10 s/d build now with more appropriate condi removal.

It’s hard to really say for sure with such a big list of changes, but this looks more like an overall nerf than a buff. They pretty much gutted arcane and water, and certainly didn’t make up for it with the buffs to the other lines. Losing both cleansing wave and elemental attunement/renewing stamina is such a massive hit to survivability.

These guys don’t understand elementalists at all, and it’s a kitten ed shame. Just gotta wait for a mmo that’s more serious about its pvp to come out.

I really love this changes and devs going to right direction.

“Great Mobility” and “D/D play style” should be gone.

NO ANY MORE D/D.

Great Mobility is not for Ele, for Thief, you all know that,
and Devs said so.
I do not understand , why you guys keeping to ask for Mobility to Ele( RTL CD back).
It’s over for RTL.

we have to go next step.

leave from 30 arcana.

off course we have still a long way to go.
but this is a great first step.

I hope that weapon skills are goint to have a great step.

or you guys can not survive without arcana 30?
can not even think for tactics without arcana 30?

the “D/D playstyle” make us weaker obviously.

D/Ds are doing nothing just dodging around and damage foes with EA.

please, we have to leave arcana 30.

ippy.9048:

I really love this changes and devs going to right direction.

“Great Mobility” and “D/D play style” should be gone.

NO ANY MORE D/D.

Great Mobility is not for Ele, for Thief, you all know that,
and Devs said so.
I do not understand , why you guys keeping to ask for Mobility to Ele( RTL CD back).
It’s over for RTL.

we have to go next step.

leave from 30 arcana.

off course we have still a long way to go.
but this is a great first step.

I hope that weapon skills are goint to have a great step.

I like your post, so I liked it.

As much as I hate to admit it, it seems unlikely that they’ll back off the renewing stamina change when they’re nerfing so many other dodge/vigor traits as well. Engineer, ranger, and thief are all getting hit at least a little. Thought they left the mesmer and guardian 5pt traits completely untouched for whatever reason.

Why is it that both mesmers and guardians only have to spend 5 points into a trait line to get vigor on crit, yet we have to spend 20? >.>

dreztina.4820:

It’s hard to really say for sure with such a big list of changes, but this looks more like an overall nerf than a buff. They pretty much gutted arcane and water, and certainly didn’t make up for it with the buffs to the other lines. Losing both cleansing wave and elemental attunement/renewing stamina is such a massive hit to survivability.

These guys don’t understand elementalists at all, and it’s a kitten ed shame. Just gotta wait for a mmo that’s more serious about its pvp to come out.

Looks more like a nerf to me aswell, harakiri to sustain rather. However i’m gonna let it sink in for a while, will arenanet be naive enough to pull these changes through is the question… Such a shame that this class is becoming rather stale it used to be so flashy.. Good thing christmas is on the horizon so we can trim the tree again.

I would like to see mesmer not have perma endurance. They have enough utility

The “strong” buffs that make them worry about power creep.

- Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.
-Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.
-Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.

Tempest defense is only useful against condis, and won’t protect a glass ele as they still tank each hit for every stun they give. Diamond skin will be nice, but only when ele can kite. It is 100% useless in teamfights as residual aoe will drop you below 90% too fast. Blasting staff just helps build viability. Other buffs are kind of a wash, but not too powerful.

Please note: Windborne Dagger will never be useful until it effects OOC speed.

The HUGE nerfs that hurt build diversity:

Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Any d/d ele CANNOT survive w/o renewing stamina and elemental attunement. You are killing the daggers a viable weapon-set, as their survivability will be terrible for a sustained dps spec. It will not make sense at any time to take d/x if the arcane changes stand. You will always be better off taking another trait setup. D/D needs its prot, needs EA, and needs its vigor. No more…

Cleansing wave just hurts build variety, allowing people to take an alternative to ether renewal/EA if they were glassy. Glass specs didn’t take it before, and hyrbid specs will see less usage, being pushed more into the bunker water/arcane setup. Not build-destroying, just annoying and harmful.

Cleansing fire skill is useless fyi, as it will never proc when you actually need it, and will most likely clear useless cleanses. It is only powerful in combination with cleansing wave and EA dodge-roll so that ether renewal isn’t 100% required, but that won’t be a thing. Unless this procs “cantrip” traits, in which case we can still get high vigor, and I say, YAY 20/0/0/20/30 as a potential option.

Just because 3 traits are good doesn’t make them OP. It could very well be that the rest of the traits aren’t up to snuff in comparison.

If you want to “abuse” elemental attunement you have to spec boon duration anyway which means you lose “Raw stats” you would get like toughness, precision etc. To spec boon duration you then would have to go 30 in arcana to maximize it. Those boons can be stripped, converted to conditions, stolen, cause you to take more damage. They introduced “boon bunker” counters to several other classes so the trait isn’t as strong anymore because of the buffs to other classes.

While I don’t particularly like comparing classes in most cases because their is so many factors. If you spec 30 points in dueling and are running a sword pistol you pick Duelist discipline, deceptive evasion, phantasmal fury, or blade training. Why? They are the best traits that have synergy with sword/pistol. That doesn’t make the traits OP.

Arcana would be more comparable to Illusions trait line because most class mechanic trait lines have traits that are good regardless of your weapon choice. Ironically those are the traits that are chosen in those trait lines in most cases. Usually there is a specific weapon or set that has a trait in that line.

When I run staff on my ele I take elemental attunement over Renewing stamina currently because I have less need for dodges because I am at range so it makes sense. Of course I take blasting staff no real need to take evasive arcana because their are better choices for staff.

While they are moving Windborne down to Adept and I feel that is the fringe trait that just doesn’t look “Master tier” worthy. If they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time and not just in combat it then looks a bit better. Then it can be justified to stay Master tier. Then a ele could contemplate the question of 25% movement speed all the time with renewing stamina or elemental attunement.

Then I can be ok with moving 10 points from Air (standard 0/10/0/30/30 build). I go something like 0/0/10/30/30 or I could do 0/0/20/20/30. If windborne dagger was all the time movement speed of 25% I am sure it would get more use. Moving it to adept I still don’t see it being picked up like it is currently. The people that don’t take Zephyr’s boon would be the ones that the trait would look really attractive to if the trait had 25% movement speed all the time.

When they changed Windborne dagger I actually thought about running it and dropping 10 from air and not taking zephyr’s boon then I saw it was still had to be in combat. I was going to take that over elemental attunement.

If I look at not just the standard build I still don’t see why anyone would take windborne even not going all the way into arcana. But if they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time. Kept it at master, and moved either renewing or elemental attunement to master along side it then it could work as a compromise and cause a choice. It would really make the Arcana trait line perfect to include the other changes with elemental surge being the last trait that MIGHT need to be looked at for a buff.

The developers are clueless.

On the bright side ele can not go any lower in pvp..so you cant say these changes will kill the class :P
If they are stupid enough to think that ele is playable without protection/regen on good amounts with the tones of damage there is around then let them..Another 6 months of no viability..But come on ..dont expect a build without elemental attunement to be viable in spvp.Even serious burst builds need the protection unless you want to play a complete gimmick.
So what did ya say about not going heavy in arcana??

I’m depressed about the suggested changes because they’re making Cleansing Wave into a major trait. This means now we’ll have to choose between much needed condition removal (Cleansing Wave) and better Cantrip recharge rate (Cantrip Mastery). This is a huge blow to Elementalist survivability. Cantrips have such huge cool downs that Cantrip Mastery is a must, however taking Cantrip Mastery will now prevent you from being able to take Cleansing Wave, which is also a necessity when fighting anyone running a condi build.

rhodoc.2381:

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

This sounds OP.

Elementalists have the lowest base armor/health in the game. How are we supposed to stay above 90% health? xD Also, if you’re fighting a power build it’s essentially a wasted trait.

this patch

YES I can take 30 in air now since I only need 10 for Blasting Staff
nooo I no longer get Elemental Attunement. The protection, regen, and swiftness are all invaluably useful.
well, I guess my glass ele will be even glassier

reikken.4961:

this patch

YES I can take 30 in air now since I only need 10 for Blasting Staff
nooo I no longer get Elemental Attunement. The protection, regen, and swiftness are all invaluably useful.
well, I guess my glass ele will be even glassier

Thieves can’t spam as well with the patch so maybe we all can go glassier

Of all things you could have addressed with Elementalists … I really don’t understand why you picked the things you did to meddle with.

If you wanted to actually help Elementalist you could have addressed some of our long outstanding questions:

1. Why is Balance Stance a 40 second cooldown / 8 second duration on a high armor/high hitpoint class, but Armor of Earth is a 90 second cooldown / 6 second duration on Elementalist?

2. Why does Lingering Elements not affect all attunement dependant abilities such as Piercing Shards and Internal Fire

3. Why hasn’t Zephyr’s Speed and Windborne Dagger been replaced with traits that would be useful? You nerfed One With Air (something people actually used) and left us with their broken and unwanted cousins.

4. Why is ANet so aggressively pushing Burning on a class that, as designed, is not a condition class. If Burning was power based, I could understand … but stacking burning when its only doing a few hundred a tick is asanine.

5. When are the focus and scepter issues going to be addressed? You acknowledged the issues with both since the end of Closed Beta and still nothing has been done. The only benefit/advantage that elementalist has is the fact it has access to more abilities than other classes … so none of them should be lackluster. Example: Shatterstone.

6. With nerfed Mobility, gutted Healing abilities, and the 5 player AE cap … how does ANet justify the low hitpoints/armor that the class was given back in alpha/closed beta? Look at the other low hitpoint classes: Guardian, Thief, Elementalist … which is doing the worst (especially in sPvP)? Look at the other low armor classes: Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist … same question as before? Don’t you feel that the drawbacks given to the class have should be reviewed given that you have abandoned the reasoning for them in the first place back before release? It isn’t like other classes aren’t doing the same damage output at Elementalists with far more survivability.

I would also like some clarification on two points that on the surface look completely hypocritical.

1. Why was RTL nerfed and Warriors, Rogues, and Thieves are allowed to do the very thing you deemed improper for elementalists to do in your game?

2. Why are you thinking of moving Vigor on crit to 20 points in Arcane when you give it to both Guardians and Mesmers for a 5 point investment?

I just read all 13 pages of the responses to the changes. I don’t really feel like completely re-hashing what a lot of great ele posters have said but I am not happy with the trait tier changes in Arcane and Water.

I just don’t understand how they can justify nerfing a class that has no place in current spvp or roaming wvw meta. Even IF they are indeed nerfing most of the other classes major meta spvp builds Ele’s are being nerfed AGAIN to make sure that with the other classes nerfs we are still sure to be at the bottom AGAIN. Was the old D/D ele at launch that traumatic to the game that it will not only be nerfed in every way possible but then, 6 months later, with no additional buffs or changes to the spec, be re-nerfed?

Sure we have builds that are o.k. and as others have stated some people(including myself) still play D/D ele even in its nerfed state because we like the playstyle of it. I really love the way D/D ele plays even if I know I’m not being as useful as I could be if I were to get on one of my other classes.

they say they want more build diversity? then why nerf an already nerfed into the ground spec like d/d ele(that people still enjoy running regardless of how nerfed it already is)? it won’t build diversity.. either people will be forced to spend more points in both water and arcane, bringing us back to 0/x/x/30/30 builds or you will have to completely give up water and arcane traits to try out their new traits that may or may not be completely useless and provide far less sustainable survivabilty and group support.

The previous Fresh Air patch was better at build diversity than this. at least that new trait was so much fun and good you wanted to give up some arcane or water traits for it. This patch however is not building diversity it’s forcing us into new specs that cannot vary and nerfing existing ones that aren’t even viable to begin with.

I don’t kittening get it. Need warrior to have more support? Insanely buff shouts. Need ele not to stick to arcana and water? Nerf to the ground arcana and water. WTF?

Now x/x/x/30/30 is even more forced than before, a lot of CORE traits of every pvp viable build will be master, thus 30 points will be needed to get them both.

Elementalist has INSANE cooldowns on some utilities (armor of earth 90 secs wtf? and now it’s going to be much harder to get the 20% cooldown reduction on chantrips, arcane shield 75s? wtf again). We have no hp, no damage if not geared glass, we MUST go down on defensive traits to stay alive against those classes with 2,5k armor and 20k hp on full zerker gear like wars.

Loved GW, loved GW2, loved my ele. This is probably not the game i’ll be playing in 2014 though. Luckily ESO will come out soon or later..

They already nerfed d/d into the ground months ago. I don’t understand why its getting more nerfs. I get they want to buff staff but its coming at the cost of any sort of viability d/d had left.

The thing that annoys me the most is people saying that changes like diamond skin are awesome and even OP. Or that condi eles and wars will be the new meta…

I’m doing everything I can to keep the best feedback from our users visible!! I’m also repeating myself by saying that they “need to have a dev make an official thread in each professions forums to clean up the clutter of everyone trying to give them feedback about their profession in one thread together.” Keep our voices heard!

It hurts staff more than D/D though…

In pvp/wvw builds I tried to go as low as possible in water and arcana, In most of the builds I pick only 10 in both – for watter 5 and arcane 6 traits. After the patch it will be 20 watter and 20 arcana – bravo ArenaNoobs, WTF balance continues…. again you managed to achieve exact the oposite you wanted to have “This patch’s goal for the elementalist was to increase the power of the Earth, Air and Fire lines, while taking away some of the need to go into the Arcane line”.
Also one of the most powerfull ele pvp build arcana 5,6,11 is gone. New Diamond Skin in competetive pvp will be useless (cuz it is very easy to counter witn anything except 0 power builds) so my pvp condi/tank ele will still pick earth 12 for perma active signets so for almost 4k heal every 20s.

Lavadiel.6231:

In pvp/wvw builds I tried to go as low as possible in water and arcana, In most of the builds I pick only 10 in both – for watter 5 and arcane 6 traits. After the patch it will be 20 watter and 20 arcana – bravo ArenaNoobs, WTF balance continues…. again you managed to achieve exact the oposite you wanted to have “This patch’s goal for the elementalist was to increase the power of the Earth, Air and Fire lines, while taking away some of the need to go into the Arcane line”.
Also one of the most powerfull ele pvp build arcana 5,6,11 is gone. New Diamond Skin in competetive pvp will be useless (cuz it is very easy to counter witn anything except 0 power builds) so my pvp condi/tank ele will still pick earth 12 for perma active signets so for almost 4k heal every 20s.

That’s exactly my thought. I was running 10 points in arcana both in pvp and pve. If I want vigour I need to get more points in arcana. Never ceases to amaze me.

raise your voice!

dont let them destroy one of our few viable D/D builds!

Dear ANET, nobody is against build diversity.
But dont just nerf arcan traitline that the wrong way forcing people to not invest in arcane.
You should give us good traits in other traitline and not kill our old builds.

Hell, were at the bottom anyway. if this patch goes live as it is, then D/D ele ist dead.
Just remove the class from the game.

sincerely Nelisa (850 hours played as D/D ELE on Dzagonur mainly WVW)

Lavadiel.6231:

In pvp/wvw builds I tried to go as low as possible in water and arcana, In most of the builds I pick only 10 in both – for watter 5 and arcane 6 traits. After the patch it will be 20 watter and 20 arcana

This sums it up for me as well.

haviz.1340:

That’s exactly my thought. I was running 10 points in arcana both in pvp and pve. If I want vigour I need to get more points in arcana. Never ceases to amaze me.

I think we are not alone in this opinion. Everyone who has the basic idea of what pvp (and to some degree pve) elemetalist is will agree. I think even the nups from balance team realize that and they know and (at least partially) understand what they are doing and what the consequencess will be – my question is why are they doing it?

Yes. Why don’t they just move it to fire or something? That way you’d at least get variation between healing/toughness bunker or dodgy glass cannon.

ThiBash.5634:

Yes. Why don’t they just move it to fire or something? That way you’d at least get variation between healing/toughness bunker or dodgy glass cannon.

I know right… I’d be happier if they were to just put renewing stamina In fire adept and changed the burning fire to be more like cleansing wave… 20/30/10/10/0 or 20/30/0/10/10 etc, would be pretty fun as a harder hitting d/d at the cost of being glassy.

avilo.1942:

The developers are clueless.

Watch out now, you might get banned!

Gasoline.2570:

avilo.1942:

The developers are clueless.

Watch out now, you might get banned!

if they would ban ppl for “clueless” I would get perm ban long ago.
And as as I said, they must know what they do and we must know why.

Some of the changes are good, but overall this is not enough and old mistakes are still in.

Some of the balancing factors in arcane are really unnecessary
Rewards for being squishy need to be appropriately strong
The option to be mobile and survivable needs to return

RTL revert needs to happen
Stunbreak on LF needs to happen

Reverting past mistakes for the sake of better balance should not be an obstacle.

xiv.7136:

Some of the changes are good, but overall this is not enough and old mistakes are still in.

Some of the balancing factors in arcane are really unnecessary
Rewards for being squishy need to be appropriately strong
The option to be mobile and survivable needs to return

RTL revert needs to happen
Stunbreak on LF needs to happen

Reverting past mistakes for the sake of better balance should not be an obstacle.

as for RTL as a movement skill, I agree 40s is way to long. On the other hand RTL in 1v1 scenarios was used to get in->put skills on CD-> get out->heal->get in… and so on – just like on old intigo movies and probalby like most of us used it at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaqw8bQh-DA
Basicly correctly plyed ele had to wait until the opponet made a fatal mistake and then in some 4th or 5th try (actually almost full combat reset) he finally used the opponent fatal error and won or made smal mistake and lose. Generaly this was bad. There should be no possibility to reset 1v1 combat. Ofc this should apply to all professions, not only ele.

As for stunebreak on LF its obvious it must be there. There is even no animation after you use LF while knocked down you apper standing (not laying) and “locked” until you stand up. Also since the relese if you use LF very fast after some of the skills (simmilar to perm Whirlwind Attack + switch on war) you have a chance for total animation (toon) lock that can be excaped only via next LF in 40s. After they removed BS the I found locking myself after LF a lot more often.

I posted this 6 months ago:

Summed up i think Eles are just adapting to the facts given. There are many factors that push us into that kind of playstyle:

• Fire, Air and Earth-Traits are weak compared to Water and Arcana and compared to other classes -> Water/Arcana-Build
• Conjures, Glyphs and Signets are weak compared to Cantrips and compared to other classes -> Cantrips are the only solid option (maybe except Arcane-Spells)
• Staff is weak compared to S/D and D/D, same goes for Focus
• lowest base-HP and base-toughness -> forces players to compensate through defensive spec
• high CD on attunenment-switch -> to use the full potential of all our attunenments 30P in Arcana are necessary (other classes can keep their 10 weapon-skills on CD without having to spend talent-points)
• low synergy on other builds and traits (except cantrips) -> builds all revolve around cantrips
• too many traits that only buff one attunenment -> makes them unappealing since our playstyle involves heavy rotation through attunenments (would like to see more traits that improve specific weapon-sets, like it’s the case with most other classes)
• (Elites are crap, I would totally trade my elite-slot for a fourth “normal” utility-slot)
• 1-spells too weak -> makes Arcana-tree more interesting since low CD on attunenment-switch is important to keep the other spells on CD
• no possibility to adapt to situations where defense is needed because of the lack of weapon-switch (that offers defensive skills or the possiblity to kite at range) -> defensive spec (30P Water, cantrips) is necessary to compensate for this
• unreliable spells (dragons tooth, fire-grab, shatter-stone, …) [ -> the lack of reliable burst (and also single-target-DMG)] makes GC-Builds less attractive -> makes Bunker-Builds more attractive

To get rid of all those bunker-eles you must not nerf water/arcana and cantrips … you have to change the other factors that make us specc into them. Fix these points and there will be other specs.

most of the problems that make us play water/arcana/cantrips haven’t been adressed (at least not in such extent to make a difference) and instead Anet kept doing what I told them not to do (nerf defense even more). The result are players that are still playing the same defensive ele-specc (just in a much weaker and therefore unviable state) as on year ago or rerolled and stopped playing ele.

Lavadiel.6231:

Gasoline.2570:

avilo.1942:

The developers are clueless.

Watch out now, you might get banned!

if they would ban ppl for “clueless” I would get perm ban long ago.
And as as I said, they must know what they do and we must know why.

They are very sensitive right now. Two nights ago they infracted my post in Black Lion Trading for saying that they’ve “made bad decisions.” The moderator didn’t even leave it up for 24 hours with a line through the title. It was removed and disabled immediately after the moderator read it. Be careful expressing dissent at this time. It is intolerable.

Honestly, even ignoring the fact that moving both arcana V and VI to master is a huge nerf, moving V to master is going to have the opposite result from what they say they intended.

Elemental attunement is basically a required trait. Now anyone who was thinking outside the box with their build and only had 10 points in arcana has to invest 20. That’s ten LESS points to invest elsewhere, not more. Same goes for water V. It’s not quite as required, but it’s still basically required if you want to not die as soon as you get immobilized in WvW.

@ Devs: I know you don’t understand how ele works against opponents who don’t work for arenanet (who potentially play exactly like you want them to so you can say your test builds are viable when you beat a build no one actually uses in live), but really?… Jump into WvW (on LIVE servers, not your test servers, preferably against gold league servers) without a group of 80 as backup and see how long you live without arcana V or water V. It’s not going to be pretty. Forcing us to invest MORE HEAVILY in water and arcana traits to not die horribly is not the way to encourage us to try new builds. Neither is a grandmaster trait that only works until someone autoattacks us twice.

Lavadiel.6231:

xiv.7136:

Some of the changes are good, but overall this is not enough and old mistakes are still in.

Some of the balancing factors in arcane are really unnecessary
Rewards for being squishy need to be appropriately strong
The option to be mobile and survivable needs to return

RTL revert needs to happen
Stunbreak on LF needs to happen

Reverting past mistakes for the sake of better balance should not be an obstacle.

as for RTL as a movement skill, I agree 40s is way to long. On the other hand RTL in 1v1 scenarios was used to get in->put skills on CD-> get out->heal->get in… and so on – just like on old intigo movies and probalby like most of us used it at some point.

Not a valid excuse on idiotnets part.
Why is it okay for every other class to still be able to do exactly that with no double in a cd for doing so, but not for the ele?
Even with the older 20 second cd, others had shorter cds.

The base justification for the movement of traits for the most part make sense. It is kind of weird when have people choosing multiple adept level traits in the same line. How they moved them isn’t exactly optimal (as pointed out). So far people are pointing out alternative changes to the traits (to essentially keep the same builds present which is probably what Anet is trying to avoid…so we’re basically arguing something we won’t get). Would changes to utilities and weapon skills make more sense here (e.g., buffing dagger skills)? We didn’t see any weapon skill changes (since that isn’t the point of the post) so would any of the downsides potentially be counteracted with weapon buffs?

Elemental attunement should be 15 minor since every other 15 minor trait triggers upon attunement change. Renewing stamina should stay at 10, it’s not like mesmer hasn’t have exactly same trait at 5 minor while having more tools to survive.

The elemental attunenment trait will be the only one affecting all those eles that doesn’t like to waste points in the arcana tree. I guess i will have to find other ways to gain speeds even if that means sacrificing a utility, rune or another trait because there is no way I will ever again waste 20 point in the arcane tree for WvW.