Guild Wars 2

Fire VIII – Conjurer – Moved to Adept tier.

Seriously??
One of the strongest traits for PvE elementalist will be moved to adept…lol!

Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.

Doesn’t make the trait much better. It is still too much cost for being useless though…

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

Great! Make Earth elementalists just stronger as they already are in PvP. Meaning it will turn out to be more like them being on the top. Does this clear all conditions when reaching 90% health?

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.

That’s so sad. I bet no one of Anet plays Elementalist. Instead of making water supporter finally a good role in PvE, they nerf it further until no one wants to play it. As it has been a good supporter trait before, with this update, it becomes utterly useless.

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier.

I mean…what’s this? Making the already-before-useless traits adept and instead turning the only really useful traits into Master traits. Lol!
And the fixes about attunements won’t change the fact that the elementalist concept is more broken after every of those idiotic updates !

Anet, while buffing, strength fire/earth and air traits… why can’t you consider buffing Water Traits/skills, giving water more viable option in term of damage? Everytime I read the Ele update, they neglect water spells. (Ice Spike, Shatterstone, Signet of Water, Water Trident etc.)

There are few Water trait line that is so underpower too.

- Stop, Drop, and Roll : This doesn’t even worth a master tier… you only remove chill and burning?? I would suggest either remove more conditions or completely “rename it” change the whole function. Perhaps a more damage / healing power boost trait.

- Cleansing Water: This is an okay grandmaster… only because I like Water and Powerful Aura isn’t an option in my standard. I’d suggest this also remove conditions on “healing” instead of just “regeneration”.

- Shard of Ice: The trait name just doesn’t sound right with the current in-game function, beside Water already have vulnerablity… how about matching this with Piercing shards? Giving Water spells 20% more damage on chilled foe? Or give some of the water spells such as Water Blast, Ice Shards ability to apply vulnerablity? this make a lot more sense!

The more I think about this the more I realize their planned changes will do more harm than good.

After the RTL, Mistorm and healing nerf we get adept skills changed to master while being told it’s not a nerf but an improvement. Yet when you start listing the builds that will no longer work that new update, once again, fall into the category of a massive fail nerf.

Messing with arcana & water traits are only going to ruin those traits & alot of good builds- don’t move them around, just add more blast finishers & significantly buff fire, air & earth & give a longer staff range. I really don’t want to be “rangered”
Balancing builds shouldnt be destroying builds. This is a nerf to Support eles, no matter how you look at it. Anet is taking The only useful Traits & stacking them in Master Tier traits, so ele’s will be forced to use 1 or the other; it won’t be full builds Yet we will be forced to put all our trait points into master traits to get 1 effect because what could be set out nicely for adept & major (which those traits will now be useless as well after this Nerf) are being moved into master & adepts.

If anything should be moved around it should be:-Stop, drop & roll. Move that to Major & take it out of Adept. It is entirely useless.

People are rightly worried about the changes to the following:
Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.

Those are definitely nerfs, nerfs to fairly important triats at that. Those three changes do hurt build diversity, because they are better traits that are harder to access.

Looking at the buffs, that are coming, it’s mostly passive play buffs:
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%.
Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.

It’s a disappointing stance to be nerfing active use traits and promoting passive traits. One of the reasons I personally enjoy the elementalist so much is because of the high skill ceiling on it. I feel like these changes are watering the class down and preventing so many active combat traits from being used together.

dreztina.4820:

Fishbones.6914:

and another thing!!!! whats up with our arcane utilities??? arcane wave is trash now…. 30 second CD and it hits for less than lightning whip … so what its a blast finisher? there is a reason cantrips are so popular….. they are just all around fantastic compared to our other options… i used to use arcane wave but now its damage is a joke for a utility slot skill on a 30 second CD

Ya, I dropped it and went back to triple cantrip. Cantrips are mediocre compared to other classes’ utilities, and the rest of our utilities are so pathetic they may as well not even be there.

I agree I was looking at Arcane Skills again and I think they should be reworked. Arcane shield is good but more elemental type of stuff would be better. Leave arcane traits in there but the utilities themselves need to be changed.

Ele utilites as a whole aren’t very good because they invested in conjures, arcane skills, and glyphs to much thinking people would use them. Now it is situation where they are trying to make them better so people will use them.

Ele’s signets are pretty lackluster I think with fire being the best.

Signet of water is good passive but the active is weak, earth passive is good but the active is weak and really only gets used for dragon tooth setups. Air passive is good but the active is weak.

I posted this in another thread but why not take all the signets keep current passives and change actives to aura’s associated with that element. All with 5 sec duration still leave stun break on air. This makes Powerful aura’s truly grandmaster good, the fire aura on signet use trait looks much better, elemental shielding looks much better, and signets looks much better overall and gives Ele’s some really good looking support options that don’t look like any other classes.

I think the glyphs are decent GoEP could get bumped up though on chance to proc.

By the way; these changes DO NOT promote build adversity. Moving everything good into master trait means exactly = all points go into water & arcana for that 1 master trait skill.

At least I’m 100% certain I can’t be a solo ele for sure now & I’ll have to have a Guardian to boon & heal me or a Mesmer or warrior to strip my conditions off.
I’m talking PvE btw.

So for WvW the only change I really see for my build is that I’m going to need to decide between Cleansing Wave and Cleansing Water because I can’t have them both anymore.

Hmm, which to choose?

And then put in Soothing Disruption.

Chasind.3128:

By the way; these changes DO NOT promote build adversity. Moving everything good into master trait means exactly = all points go into water & arcana for that 1 master trait skill.

At least I’m 100% certain I can’t be a solo ele for sure now & I’ll have to have a Guardian to boon & heal me or a Mesmer or warrior to strip my conditions off.
I’m talking PvE btw.

This goes all the way back to beta weekends, the decision to make major traits tiered really hurt build diversity.

What would have happened if they didn’t tier the major traits is they could have locked the hardest traits to balance into difference minor tiers and then slowly started to identify the least used traits to rework them into something that more people would use.

I don’t feel like ANet’s goal is to make traits equally used. It seems like they feel that is too hard to balance and actually intend to leave rarely and heavily used traits. From the beginning it was extremely obvious many traits would rarely if ever be used, while others were almost mandatory.

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

They’re too stubborn to listen to most of these suggestions. They’ll just keep giving us crap no one asked for that makes no one happy and is only a sad attempt to fix the problems with ele that we’ve been telling them are wrong with the class since the beginning of the game.

All we need:
1. Higher base hp. As squishy as we are, we will NEVER get out of water with such low hp because we need the vitality. Swap Mesmer and Ele base hp, problem solved.

2. Better mobility. Other classes have so many mobility skills on such low cooldowns its ridiculous. Revert ride the lightning to its original state. We also need mobility options on focus but i’ll get to that soon.

3. our extreme dependence on arcane for reduction in attunement swap. This is remedied easily by removing attunement recharge as something that is boosted by arcane and making our base attunement swap 9 seconds.

Theres only 1 problem after that. What do you replace the attunement reduction with? Aura duration. This is the first step in a series of changes they have to make that will give us endless build possibility finally moving us away from arcane. If you want an aura build you can still spec into it, but its no longer necessary. Remove all auras from all weapons and replace them with mobility skills. This also solves the problem of our kitten poor mobility. Make elemental attunement trait inherent to the class. I don’t know why it was never like this to begin with. It needs to be done, it shouldn’t be a trait. Replace elemental attunement with a trait that acts sort of like it, except with auras. “Gain an aura based on your attunement on attunement swap.” All weapons now have access to auras, and you can extend the duration if you feel like speccing into arcane.

Some people will still spec into arcane just for the water dodge for healing and condition cure. You can fix this easily by combining the cleansing wave with stop, drop and roll. Which is a totally lackluster trait that no one ever uses. Change it to “when you dodge remove 3 conditions and heal for a small amount” It would have the same healing as cleansing wave and remove 3 conditions. Perfect for a master trait in water.

There are plenty of other things that need to be changed, but I don’t feel like getting into it now as thinking about everything that’s wrong with this class gives me a headache. And other people have stated it already anyway, so there’s no need for me to repeat.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

There will be more build diversity? There has always been build diversity! Question is which builds are viable?

@Nikkinella while I agree that there are issues with ele your suggestions are a bit OP cause I could grab all of those traits.

Just a quick throw together of what you said. You want elemental attunement inherent a 9 second base recharge on attunement recharge rate and a aura based on the attunement you swap to replacing elemental attunement. You don’t think that sounds remotely OP? Hello fresh air builds perma shocking aura!

florence.1674:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

There will be more build diversity? There has always been build diversity! Question is which builds are viable?

All glass cannon builds that either don’t spec in arcana or put in 10 points for renewing stamina, and most of the 20+ arcana and 20+ water will remain unchanged, perhaps only losing one variation in water. That’s pretty much most of the viable ele builds in this game, right?

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

This is not correct.

Cantrip builds that were 40-60 points in water/arcana already are mostly unaffected.

Build that are impossible now which could have been viable are:

• Any build that wanted to splash arcana because Elemental Attunement is out of reach.
• Water builds that want to run something other than cantrips because of both Aquamancer’s Alacrity and Cleansing Wave being moved to master
• Any build that wanted to splash water because of the Cleansing Wave move
• Builds that got endurance from something other than Renewing Stamina because they can’t get EA at 10 arcana anymore

The fact is, unfortunately the most power Elementalist traits also tend to be the most generally useful across many types of builds and gameplay. Elemental Attunement is powerful because Might/Swiftness/Protection/Regen are useful almost all of the time. Cleansing Wave is powerful because conditions are a significant part of the game regardless of what you are trying to do.

By moving so many generalist traits high into the tiers, build diversity is crushed. The sad truth is, the tiering of traits should be considered both by power and by application across builds. By moving traits that almost every build might use high into the trees the player gets less options and obviously there will be less diversity.

Of course the argument can be made that having powerful traits at Adept makes Elementalists overpowered. The Devs may feel that way, but if they do they should come out and say so. General perception is not that Elementalists are overpowered right now; so in theory don’t need nerfing. This balancing was sold as promoting diversity, not being a backhanded nerf by moving good traits out of reach.

@ Xernth

I agree with your post, although my main point was, how many current viable builds get affected by the changes? Not many. So build diversity will not get that much worse with the 10th dec patch as it is now. Those changes can, however, prevent potential new builds at becoming viable, which is where I agree with you, but we’ll have to wait first and see what the playerbase will come with the new traits and the new attunement’s base cooldowns.

Senjun.8149:

wolfer.1587:

Senjun.8149:

Kamui.3150:

We also could do quite well if we had a trait which caused Chill to deal damage, similar to the way that Necros have a trait which lets them inflict damage with Fear. The devs are worried about making Water too strong though, so we prob won’t see that for a good while. Our Chill-inflicting skills also need to have longer Chill duration than what they currently inflict.

Im not sure how anet justifies a 25 sec cd chill that only chills for 3 seconds and deals next to no damage. You know if that was an engy ability or a necro ability its cooldown would be 10-15 seconds tops. (focus chill)

Take a look at what Rangers get: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter%27s_Bite

Not surprised.

That’s how they balance the 20 skills Elementalists have over the 10 other classes have. There’s no real balancing other than doubling the cooldowns because they have double the skills. It’s that stupid.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

How will they get more builds?
Looks to be it will still be the old set-up of
0, 10, 0, 30, 30

Moving the traits from Grandmaster to lower tiers instead of higher would actually help imo.

Xernth.8561:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

This is not correct.

Cantrip builds that were 40-60 points in water/arcana already are mostly unaffected.

Build that are impossible now which could have been viable are:

• Any build that wanted to splash arcana because Elemental Attunement is out of reach.
• Water builds that want to run something other than cantrips because of both Aquamancer’s Alacrity and Cleansing Wave being moved to master
• Any build that wanted to splash water because of the Cleansing Wave move
• Builds that got endurance from something other than Renewing Stamina because they can’t get EA at 10 arcana anymore

The fact is, unfortunately the most power Elementalist traits also tend to be the most generally useful across many types of builds and gameplay. Elemental Attunement is powerful because Might/Swiftness/Protection/Regen are useful almost all of the time. Cleansing Wave is powerful because conditions are a significant part of the game regardless of what you are trying to do.

By moving so many generalist traits high into the tiers, build diversity is crushed. The sad truth is, the tiering of traits should be considered both by power and by application across builds. By moving traits that almost every build might use high into the trees the player gets less options and obviously there will be less diversity.

Of course the argument can be made that having powerful traits at Adept makes Elementalists overpowered. The Devs may feel that way, but if they do they should come out and say so. General perception is not that Elementalists are overpowered right now; so in theory don’t need nerfing. This balancing was sold as promoting diversity, not being a backhanded nerf by moving good traits out of reach.

I agree with this; I don’t feel elementalists are OP in anyway – I generally love the class & I have 2 ele’s. This nerf will just make me not play them at all because what I use in master, adept, grandmaster will now all be pushed into GM trait- so my setup will still be 0, 10, 0, 30, 30 – just crappier because there won’t be any real proper condition removals or healing that I can have. It will be ‘So, do I use aurashare for my allies? Or do I used cleansing wave to remove conditions? Do I use evasive arcana? I’ll just close my eyes & pick…." That’s how I feel.

oZii.2864:

@Nikkinella while I agree that there are issues with ele your suggestions are a bit OP cause I could grab all of those traits.

Just a quick throw together of what you said. You want elemental attunement inherent a 9 second base recharge on attunement recharge rate and a aura based on the attunement you swap to replacing elemental attunement. You don’t think that sounds remotely OP? Hello fresh air builds perma shocking aura!

I don’t think it would be the least bit overpowered considering what other classes are capable of. And what’s wrong with a perma shocking aura? People SHOULD have to think twice about just carelessly attacking us. It still wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as permastun warrior. Right now, even the best eles are little more than a nuisance to enemies. Not a real threat. The people you try to kill first when you come up against enemies are the warriors and necros, because they’re the biggest threat. Eles are just an afterthough. And its not like they cant catch us after they kill everyone else anyway. They can shrug off the mediocre damage we do in more defensive specs, and if we’re glassy and can hurt them, we’ll die easily if focused on anyway. Ele should go from being a free loot bag to a serious threat that people prioritize killing first.
So no, my suggestions aren’t the least bit OP. They’ll put us on par with other classes.
When have people ever requested to have an ele in their group for anything other than a buffbot in WvW? Or in pve our only use is icebow in AC.

Nikkinella.8254:

They’re too stubborn to listen to most of these suggestions. They’ll just keep giving us crap no one asked for that makes no one happy and is only a sad attempt to fix the problems with ele that we’ve been telling them are wrong with the class since the beginning of the game.

All we need:
1. Higher base hp. As squishy as we are, we will NEVER get out of water with such low hp because we need the vitality. Swap Mesmer and Ele base hp, problem solved.

2. Better mobility. Other classes have so many mobility skills on such low cooldowns its ridiculous. Revert ride the lightning to its original state. We also need mobility options on focus but i’ll get to that soon.

3. our extreme dependence on arcane for reduction in attunement swap. This is remedied easily by removing attunement recharge as something that is boosted by arcane and making our base attunement swap 9 seconds.

Theres only 1 problem after that. What do you replace the attunement reduction with? Aura duration. This is the first step in a series of changes they have to make that will give us endless build possibility finally moving us away from arcane. If you want an aura build you can still spec into it, but its no longer necessary. Remove all auras from all weapons and replace them with mobility skills. This also solves the problem of our kitten poor mobility. Make elemental attunement trait inherent to the class. I don’t know why it was never like this to begin with. It needs to be done, it shouldn’t be a trait. Replace elemental attunement with a trait that acts sort of like it, except with auras. “Gain an aura based on your attunement on attunement swap.” All weapons now have access to auras, and you can extend the duration if you feel like speccing into arcane.

Some people will still spec into arcane just for the water dodge for healing and condition cure. You can fix this easily by combining the cleansing wave with stop, drop and roll. Which is a totally lackluster trait that no one ever uses. Change it to “when you dodge remove 3 conditions and heal for a small amount” It would have the same healing as cleansing wave and remove 3 conditions. Perfect for a master trait in water.

There are plenty of other things that need to be changed, but I don’t feel like getting into it now as thinking about everything that’s wrong with this class gives me a headache. And other people have stated it already anyway, so there’s no need for me to repeat.

This……
He wrote the truth, if u wanna really change ele and give us a chance to use more builds follow his instruction… please

Nikkinella.8254:

I don’t think it would be the least bit overpowered considering what other classes are capable of. And what’s wrong with a perma shocking aura? People SHOULD have to think twice about just carelessly attacking us. It still wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as permastun warrior. Right now, even the best eles are little more than a nuisance to enemies. Not a real threat. The people you try to kill first when you come up against enemies are the warriors and necros, because they’re the biggest threat. Eles are just an afterthough. And its not like they cant catch us after they kill everyone else anyway. They can shrug off the mediocre damage we do in more defensive specs, and if we’re glassy and can hurt them, we’ll die easily if focused on anyway. Ele should go from being a free loot bag to a serious threat that people prioritize killing first.
So no, my suggestions aren’t the least bit OP. They’ll put us on par with other classes.
When have people ever requested to have an ele in their group for anything other than a buffbot in WvW? Or in pve our only use is icebow in AC.

There is only one real threat everyone prioritizes is Necro’s. Priority on warriors is a waste because of endure pain, stability, beserker’s stance and their mobility. Staff Ele’s aren’t looked at as a threat until they use meteor shower into tornado and people are surprised they died in 2 seconds look at combat log and see 8k meteors.

For our roaming group staff ele is important for swiftness(yes a buff) and our CC. D/D isn’t needed or s/d but we also don’t really need mesmer’s besides maybe a veil but everyone knows that trick, maybe a portal? In GvG’s definitely want staff eles, S/D eles are good for strike teams to pick of the backliner’s like other teams Staff eles and squishies. D/D can be used I suppose but I don’t think it’s needed. Just from GvG’s Guardians, Eles, Necro, Warriors are probably the most important classes. In most cases guardians and eles are used for the same thing/role except guardians aren’t ever used for dps that I know of. Its AH all day everyday for serious stuff.

Chasind.3128:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

How will they get more builds?
Looks to be it will still be the old set-up of
0, 10, 0, 30, 30

Moving the traits from Grandmaster to lower tiers instead of higher would actually help imo.

But not many play with the 0-10-0-30-30 bunker build anymore. PvP eles have been using air burst builds, or going with rock solid. PvE eles almost always go with 30 in fire and fresh air or other damage modifiers. Maybe that’s the build used in WvW? I don’t know that, as I don’t play it much.

If anything, the nerfs to other professions might bring the 0-10-0-30-30 d/d build back to pvp.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Chasind.3128:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

How will they get more builds?
Looks to be it will still be the old set-up of
0, 10, 0, 30, 30

Moving the traits from Grandmaster to lower tiers instead of higher would actually help imo.

But not many play with the 0-10-0-30-30 bunker build anymore. PvP eles have been using air burst builds, or going with rock solid. PvE eles almost always go with 30 in fire and fresh air or other damage modifiers. Maybe that’s the build used in WvW? I don’t know that, as I don’t play it much.

If anything, the nerfs to other professions might bring the 0-10-0-30-30 d/d build back to pvp.

0/10/0/30/30 is still used by many D/D players in WvW.

As I suspected.

@ the suggestion to auras per attunement swap,

I hope you can understand why that would be extremely overpowered. I’m not being hyperbolic here. Even without fresh air, and even without any arcana investment, a 13s shocking aura on demand, or a 13s magnetic aura on demand, would be crazy powerful. And I’m talking about potential grandmaster traits that only add a single aura on swap. If a single trait offered the four auras, or if coupled with 30 arcana, or with fresh air, or with aura traits, this already OP setup would skyrocket, and if you sum all of it in a single build, it would perhaps create the most overpowered build in pvp history. :P

Just imagine d/d elementalists with perma fury, perma swiftness, perma protection, perma-auras, that can make entire armies reflect projectiles, stun melees, chill everyone, while giving perma protection, perma fury and perma swiftness to allies.

No, don’t imagine it. :P Glorious, yes, but not a good thing.

DiogoSilva.7089:

As I suspected.

@ the suggestion to auras per attunement swap,

I hope you can understand why that would be extremely overpowered. I’m not being hyperbolic here. Even without fresh air, and even without any arcana investment, a 13s shocking aura on demand, or a 13s magnetic aura on demand, would be crazy powerful. And I’m talking about potential grandmaster traits that only add a single aura on swap. If a single trait offered the four auras, or if coupled with 30 arcana, or with fresh air, or with aura traits, this already OP setup would skyrocket, and if you sum all of it in a single build, it would perhaps create the most overpowered build in pvp history. :P

Just imagine d/d elementalists with perma fury, perma swiftness, perma protection, perma-auras, that can make entire armies reflect projectiles, stun melees, chill everyone, while giving perma protection, perma fury and perma swiftness to allies.

No, don’t imagine it. :P Glorious, yes, but not a good thing.

You’re assuming I meant you would get 1 second for each point invested in it. I didn’t mean that. Obviously they would have to work something out. Probably a max of 5 seconds. Which compared to warriors stunning you for 6 seconds isn’t bad at all considering shocking aura has a cooldown in between when the stuns can proc. I don’t think even a 10s aura would be that bad considering that. And shouldn’t it be our turn to have a powerful spec for once? Despite popular belief by terrible players, eles were NEVER overpowered, not even when we ewere at our best. We were mediocre damage dealers who could disengage and heal up. All we could do was harass people and run away. Now warriors can run away and heal up and deal insane amounts of damage and cc you forever. How is that better than us doing minimal amounts of damage and running away? Yet it was OP when we ran and did no damage yet warriros get away with their current BS.

Nikkinella.8254:

oZii.2864:

@Nikkinella while I agree that there are issues with ele your suggestions are a bit OP cause I could grab all of those traits.

Just a quick throw together of what you said. You want elemental attunement inherent a 9 second base recharge on attunement recharge rate and a aura based on the attunement you swap to replacing elemental attunement. You don’t think that sounds remotely OP? Hello fresh air builds perma shocking aura!

I don’t think it would be the least bit overpowered considering what other classes are capable of. And what’s wrong with a perma shocking aura? People SHOULD have to think twice about just carelessly attacking us. It still wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as permastun warrior. Right now, even the best eles are little more than a nuisance to enemies. Not a real threat. The people you try to kill first when you come up against enemies are the warriors and necros, because they’re the biggest threat. Eles are just an afterthough. And its not like they cant catch us after they kill everyone else anyway. They can shrug off the mediocre damage we do in more defensive specs, and if we’re glassy and can hurt them, we’ll die easily if focused on anyway. Ele should go from being a free loot bag to a serious threat that people prioritize killing first.
So no, my suggestions aren’t the least bit OP. They’ll put us on par with other classes.
When have people ever requested to have an ele in their group for anything other than a buffbot in WvW? Or in pve our only use is icebow in AC.

This all the way +1

My big question is: Are these changes set in stone? Is Anet merely wanting our Feedback & then will make the necessary & actually correct adjustments?

About Elemental Attunement moving to the Master Tier, I was thinking: Why not replace Arcane Precision with Lingering Elements? Then replace Arcane Precision with Elemental Attunement.

Arcane Precision would become a trait (and it could be revamped), Elemental Attunement would be availble for 15 points instead of 20 but it will stay in the Master Tier. And Lingering Elements, as a 25 points Minor Trait, could work with other trait like Air training or Internal Fire.

Why not combine all the weapons skills, it seems like a waste of traits considering we only have 1 weapon set in combat. but i suppose fluff is also good.

If you move the good traits to master I will be forced to trait to master or even grandmaster. Those traits are necessary to absorb and mitiage damage.

I have low health and low armor, dodging is what keeps me alive. Cleansing wave, elemental attunement and soothing disruption are all important to sustain myself.

The fire and earth traits are nice but I cant use them if im dead. Il will just keep traiting water/arcane.

I play s/d 0-10-0-30-30 in pve is the best dps solution for fotm or u will be permadowned

Lian Olsam.9541:

I play s/d 0-10-0-30-30 in pve is the best dps solution for fotm or u will be permadowned

I wholeheartedly disagree

Lian Olsam.9541:

I play s/d 0-10-0-30-30 in pve is the best dps solution for fotm or u will be permadowned

yah… if you want best dps with s/d you need fresh air. 0/30/0/10/30 works best for me doing lvl 48 fotm or even higher.

10 in water for clensing wave, which will be moved to master tier on dec 10th. Now I gota invest 20 in water or more for easy access condi remove. This means I will have to sacrifice fresh air or evasive arcane. this does not make my day.

which makes me think should i just retrait to 0/10/0/30/30 after dec 10th because other builds doesn’t look as promising.

pve/ wvw player here. I don’t touch spvp at all unless friend/guild mate ask me to.

^Exactly this. I don’t know why Anet thinks making grandmaster traits better while nerfing everything else will fix us. That is the exact opposite of the approach they should be taking. As we will stand on Dec 10, we will have 4 incredible, essentially overpowered grandmaster traits (Evasive Arcana, Fresh Air, Diamond Skin, Cleansing Water). The problem is, we will ONLY ever be able to get 2 of them, and if we do choose 2 of them, we are stuck with an adept trait in another line. However, they are nerfing all our adept traits so that our last 10 points are wasted, and additionally forcing us to choose between good traits at the master level when previously we didn’t have to choose (we could take both). Overall this is a diversity killer, especially the water adept nerf where the only useful defensive adept trait is now cantrip mastery. Even with how massively nerfed cantrips are now, I guess Anet wants us to stick with them.

Ele really suffers from “eggs all in one basket syndrome”. All of our power and survivability lies in a couple overpowered traits that are becoming harder and harder to get.

pho.9412:

Lian Olsam.9541:

I play s/d 0-10-0-30-30 in pve is the best dps solution for fotm or u will be permadowned

yah… if you want best dps with s/d you need fresh air. 0/30/0/10/30 works best for me doing lvl 48 fotm or even higher.

>.< These 2 posts were physically painful to read.

You two guys need to look up a s/d (or s/f) + LH build. That’s wayyyy higher damage than either Fresh Air or (* says with great horror *) the standard bunker build. Can’t believe anyone actually runs that in PvE; that should be a capital offense.

s/d + LH build is here (I’m not actually running the 30/10/10/20 one in the guide atm, but it’s still a good spec): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

Post-update, I’m gonna probably go s/f + LH. It’s better might stacking, and w/ the shortened atune CD’s, the rotation will be a lot faster. Look here for that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/S-F-ele/first#post3241658

some people don’t like to use LH… I know that conjure weap would benifit most if you equip staff. for the max power so why dont people use staff?

anyways… I was talking about the traits variation problem.

pho.9412:

some people don’t like to use LH… I know that conjure weap would benifit most if you equip staff. for the max power so why dont people use staff?

The staff-meta is staying in fire the whole time and spamming 1, 2, and 3 (and sometimes 4 or 5, in certain situations). You can find it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112688

However, you will not be able to stack might nearly as well with staff as you will w/ s/d or s/f, so you should use one of those. At the moment, staff also does less damage than LH, so you should definitely not use it. Post-update, though, that staff meta is getting a buff, so it’s possible it may do more damage than LH. I wouldn’t count on it though.

All the AA’s for scepter are weak (Arc Lightning’s the strongest, but it’s still noob); that’s why, in PvE, using LH is a necessity. The fire auto on staff is relatively strong; this is why your statement that “conjure wep would benefit most if you equip staff” is false.; LH will benefit scepter more than staff. And “some people don’t like to use LH” is not an excuse for not using it in PvE; it will benefit your group the most, so in the interests of the common good, you must use it. Doing otherwise is simply selfish.

Anierna.6918:

pho.9412:

some people don’t like to use LH… I know that conjure weap would benifit most if you equip staff. for the max power so why dont people use staff?

The staff-meta is staying in fire the whole time and spamming 1, 2, and 3 (and sometimes 4 or 5, in certain situations). You can find it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112688

However, you will not be able to stack might nearly as well with staff as you will w/ s/d or s/f, so you should use one of those. At the moment, staff also does less damage than LH, so you should definitely not use it. Post-update, though, that staff meta is getting a buff, so it’s possible it may do more damage than LH. I wouldn’t count on it though.

All the AA’s for scepter are weak (Arc Lightning’s the strongest, but it’s still noob); that’s why, in PvE, using LH is a necessity. The fire auto on staff is relatively strong; this is why your statement that “conjure wep would benefit most if you equip staff” is false. Max power is also LH, not staff. And “some people don’t like to use LH” is not an excuse for not using it in PvE; it will benefit your group the most, so in the interests of the common good, you must use it.

maybe a necessity for you…

pho.9412:

[b]some people don’t like to use LH…

anyways… I was talking about the traits variation problem. [/b]

pho.9412:

maybe a necessity for you…

You are not understanding this concept. So let me break it down for you.

Premise: The objective in PvE is to finish the dungeon as fast as possible
Premise: Higher group damage allows you to finish dungeons faster
Premise: Proper gear and trait setups that are damage-oriented will cause a player to do more damage
Premise: Stacking might for the group increases group damage.

Now, here are three premises that are specific to ele’s:

Premise: all scepter AA’s are weak compared to AA’s with dagger, staff, and LH
Premise: scepter is the best main-hand weapon for might-stacking
Premise: ele’s cannot wep swap. However, they CAN summon conjures

Conclusion: An ele should run a spec which maximizes group damage (which, in terms of the ele, consists of might stacking and personal damage). An ele should alternate between scepter to maximize might-stacking, and LH to maximize personal DPS.

If I am unclear in anything here, please let me know and I’ll clarify for you.

I think you are not understanding MY point of view. I keep stressing the fact that I don’t care for the LH and was only talking about the trait variation.

but hey, I’m all for finishing the dungeon as fast as possible. I still won’t use the LH.

why? when I can finish arah p1-3 in 30-45 mins and 1 hr 30 mins arah p4. and fotm 48 in 45 mins if we are lucky, and under 1 hr 30 mins if we are not lucky with shamman and dredge and mossman. (and I’m talking about with no hack jumping wall this and that since I suck at jumping, I like to kill everything) what does LH possibly bring to my party, a faster run? if I can finish a lvl 48 fotm in 30 mins with LH then sure I will use it.

I will get out of the forum now because. I see no point to what you are saying when I am talking about some thing entire different. I’m sorry if i have upset you and your great LH build.

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

So if I am reading this correctly, Anet are declaring war on D/D players whose build doesn’t already go 20 into Arcane? After over a year you guys are moving traits to different tiers? What is wrong with you? All it takes is one guy running 20/10/30/0/10
signet/aura D/D with duel Incinerators and we will likely get a post that breaks any records for the amount of “kittens” per word. I wouldn’t blame him. I don’t play my ele much and when I do she runs staff, but even this has me shocked.

How in the world does this make it online as even a suggestion? This is the kind of thing you do before people gear up and spend a year learning a build, not after. I understand balancing the power of traits like “reduced the rate at which endurance is generated for 100% to 50%”, but completely taking them away?

You really need to take a step back and think about what you are doing here. I don’t know of a single D/D ele that is right in the head that gets into melee range without that trait. Squishiest class, closest range weapon set, and you put the vigor up another 10 points?

Mojo.7986:

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

S

You really need to take a step back and think about what you are doing here. I don’t know of a single D/D ele that is right in the head that gets into melee range without that trait. Squishiest class, closest range weapon set, and you put the vigor up another 10 points?

No, Renewing Stamina is still an adept tier. Arcane Retribution, Arcane Resurrection and Elemental Attunement are moving to adept

Vanillea.5764:

No, Renewing Stamina is still an adept tier. Arcane Retribution, Arcane Resurrection and Elemental Attunement are moving to adept

And they better improve those two Arcane Traits since I’ve never heard or known anyone using those two. Like ever. EVER.

No, Renewing Stamina is still an adept tier. Arcane Retribution, Arcane Resurrection and Elemental Attunement are moving to adept

I copied that from the original post. Somewhere in this mass of 21 pages they went back on it? They changed their mind? They changed their thoughts on others as well? That’s swell.

Perhaps they should update the original post so D/D players don’t rage quit just reading that insanity?

Your premises are lacking imo. It’s not just scepter. All ele AA’s are terrible.

You look at fireball, critting for 3-3.5k at best for its considerable cast time is not that great given my guardian is critting for 3-4k on his greatsword, and that’s a guardian.

Ele are forced to use conjure weapon because their sustained damage is garbage since the autoattacks suck.

And no, anet may think increasing a cooldown skill by 20% may fix it, but it won’t because the amount they would have to increase cooldown abilities to make up for the deficit in autoattack damage would break ele’s in pvp.

The ele autoattacks, especially in water attunement, need a serious buff.

And god Flamestrike is just bad. The scepter autos in particular have really bad aftercast issues on top of the bad auto damage.

But the concept stays the same if you go daggers. Dragon claw even at point blank does less damage than all other melee weapons ingame.

Eles also suffer from scaling because a lot of their autos and skills are hybrids of condition and power, meaning the numbers for each aspect are low, and it only gets worse because only a fraction of your attack sees an upgrade whereas a necromancer has the bulk of his offensive stat going to most of his condition damage skills, as the warrior gets the full benefit of his high base damage, 100% power based skills scaling from what stats he does have.

Mojo.7986:

No, Renewing Stamina is still an adept tier. Arcane Retribution, Arcane Resurrection and Elemental Attunement are moving to adept

I copied that from the original post. Somewhere in this mass of 21 pages they went back on it? They changed their mind? They changed their thoughts on others as well? That’s swell.

Perhaps they should update the original post so D/D players don’t rage quit just reading that insanity?

The original post you’re looking for is here. OP doesn’t appear to be a forum regular and didn’t update it.

is it too late to hope for a signet revamp? buff side , not nurf side plz

I kinda like them somehow as it fit the best the fast smashing button machine players we have to be. But, they could be viable of it wasnt mandatory to go all the way up to earth to get swritten in stone Also lowering the casting time wouldnt hurt! tyvm for lettin me dreaming, ty byebye

Anierna.6918:

pho.9412:

Lian Olsam.9541:

I play s/d 0-10-0-30-30 in pve is the best dps solution for fotm or u will be permadowned

yah… if you want best dps with s/d you need fresh air. 0/30/0/10/30 works best for me doing lvl 48 fotm or even higher.

>.< These 2 posts were physically painful to read.

You two guys need to look up a s/d (or s/f) + LH build. That’s wayyyy higher damage than either Fresh Air or (* says with great horror *) the standard bunker build. Can’t believe anyone actually runs that in PvE; that should be a capital offense.

s/d + LH build is here (I’m not actually running the 30/10/10/20 one in the guide atm, but it’s still a good spec): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs/first#post3112677

Post-update, I’m gonna probably go s/f + LH. It’s better might stacking, and w/ the shortened atune CD’s, the rotation will be a lot faster. Look here for that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/S-F-ele/first#post3241658

The damage is good, of course. But some ppl actually like to play an elementalist, if you know what I mean

I play fotm 70+ with an offensive build (30/30/0/0/10 zerker scholar D/F) and I am doing fine
But in fact I agree: Anierna’s “meta” builds are only good for specific speedruns, definitely not for PvE as a whole.