Guild Wars 2

Ralathar.7236:

Chaosky.5276:

How do I put this… I’d actually forgotten about the staff when I typed that, and was thinking of some kinda dagger/focus chill build. Despite referring to the staff in the next sentence. Uh, so, yeah, you can just ignore that.

You can do either

Can’t agree with you there. The advantage to a chill build like that is frequent application to a large number of targets; you aren’t going to survive if you dive into a zerg if the players have any idea of what they’re doing, and in small engagements you’d be better off running a more standard build.

Ralathar.7236:

Chaosky.5276:

What purpose does a condition ele serve, though? They have less AoE, and they actually need to struggle against the class mechanic to play a condition build (switch to water to heal, you’ve got about 9 seconds at best, probably more like 13, until you can really start dealing damage again).

Both Earth and Fire have condition options. Admittedly though for scepter fire is bad and needs buffs, hopefully they will do that one day.

Thing is, Burning doesn’t stack in intensity, so you’ll always lose a ton of damage when switching from the Earth attunement. You can get burning out of skills like Signet of Fire, anyway.

Ralathar.7236:

Chaosky.5276:

Also, what role would you fulfill if not using the staff in WvW? With the reduction in mobility, there’s not much reason to choose an ele over a thief or ranger for roaming (inb4 Fiery Greatsword). I mean, I have fun with a glassy scepter/dagger build, but it’s not particularly good at anything in any game mode.

S/D is good at small scale, D/D or D/F can be almost as useful at staff in larger battles. Obviously Staff trumps everything for zerg vs zerg though. Which is one reason I scoff at everyone trying to buff staff.

But honestly maybe people don’t want to play only X, Y, Z build every time they log on. Maybe they are 10%-20% less effective overall but we also play the game for fun. Someone that doesn’t even want to play because they will have to play the exact same thing every single time is 100% less effective. Otherwise you’d have nothing but staff ele’s, guardians, hammer/sword/horn/shout warriors, etc in WvW.

Yeah, that was kind of a pointless argument; most classes only have about one role they’re effective at in WvW, it doesn’t really speak to build diversity.

bursty aoe ele builds dosen’t work, they just die, espcially with mist form and rtl nerf. engi does it better, mesmer does it better (and they both have more survivability and utility.) full bunker deals no damage. half bunker half glass dd deals acceptable damage, but nothing to write home about, plus they die way easier now (high risk medium reward as mentioned above somewhere)

Bottom line, ele, as it currently is… is crap. i’d rather see them remove the whole class tbh

Ralathar.7236:

I’ve played a vast variety of Ele builds and quite simply they work in WvW. Not all work as roamer of course, but I have viable and important roles as each spec used correctly. This cannot be said of most professions to anywhere near the same degree.

I am assuming you are smart. You said yourself DD bunker barely got touched by the nerfs but then say they are justified. If bunkers were barely touched then who got hit? That’s right almost all other types of build.

RTL was always way too good and that is the main nerf bunkers received. It affects other too yes, but it was almost as effective of an escape for other builds too as RTL relied on escaping, not damage mitigation. It can still do that, just not to the same crazy degree. I do agree however it should get a 20 second cooldown as long as it is used on a target that it is in range of regardless of whether it hits or not. To keep with the spirit of it’s usage.

Mist Form nerf was more of a bug fix in my eyes. I never saw why it was a viable option to heal like that and they nerfed that across the board so it’s certainly not ele specific.

Then whatever class you were on you were doing it wrong. Any good warrior theif or mesmer should be able to shut down the basic DD build. The mesmer might have the hardest time staying in melee but has all the tools to keep the DD ele in combat. Thief and Warrior can simply outrun and DPS the ele til down. Ranger has the capability to keep up but requires the pet to properly engage the ele though dogs should be a nice compliment to countering ele by forcing stun breaks.

So you are saying specific specs can kill you if they can chase you down? Why is that a problem? Are you supposed to be unkillable or something? If that’s a problem to you that is not a style of thinking that means balance as those same spec’s also have their theoretical counters.

Even still though the range you have to run to safety is immense, and you can juke two of those in the water. Mesmer relies on charge lines for water mobility, that can be used against them. Warriors won’t have the same movement advantages you have in water, or the amount of CC. Used properly both can be handled in water so as to escape. Especially with proper use/timing of the air attunement teleport bubble, the stun, and chill.

your quotes are weird so I will just respond regularly. Th effect the nerfs had on other builds were simply more immense than they were to a bunker builds and prompted more players to bunker or quit the class. Nerfs to waters base healing would have made more sense in Spvp and ele in WvW should have been left alone.

In water an thief or warrior will out run you. You may have more CC but you lose access to swiftness and frankly warrior hits much harder and has more speed in water. You would have to have sizable lead already to out run the warrior as once you use 3 and 5 (range is not 600) with spear the ele is all but dead unless they have mistform up. Even then once you get in range to press 4 on harpoon gun you 5 them to the surface and dps to your hearts content.

Warrior will outrun the ele in water not the other way around.

I don’t know how long you have played ele but air attunement’s teleport has a slow speed of travel not much faster than swimming. Unless you plan to back track it will be of little to no use. In the old days not true but nerfed how it is now it really wont help you much with escape. Also thief gets the same skill with no cd other than initiative regen.

Also about CC you have 3 hard cc skills underwater as an ele. Warrior has 2 on a shorter CD. 3 if you count the spear burst

Last but not least I was saying if you run build that cant keep with or burst a DD ele then your playing the wrong build. Even before the nerf my warrior was fine in WvW vs a DD ele. Stop reading my post like I’m a DD fanboy and read what I said. A smart player should be able to drop a DD ele in WvW, however most simply can’t and that’s their issue. Ele was never immortal the players they fought simply sucked.

Chaosky.5276:

Can’t agree with you there. The advantage to a chill build like that is frequent application to a large number of targets; you aren’t going to survive if you dive into a zerg if the players have any idea of what they’re doing, and in small engagements you’d be better off running a more standard build.

Depends on your team composition. With a core of front line heavies not onlt can the staff eles do their job properly (which would be alot more difficult without the heavies mind you), but you can get in there and survive very well as any tanky built ele, even without all the boons. Especially if the foes targeting you are regularly chilled and if focus offhand you will be especially resilient to projectiles.

Though honestly if my ele is built tanky I’ve never had any issue surviving. I leveled my auramancer in WvW and I was actually incredibly surprised at how tanky I was even at level 30 with heartiness gear and no protection spam. I main a sheer glass staff ele after all, you really have to know your active defense and positioning to survive so that only increases the difficulty of killing my tankier ele.

Thing is, Burning doesn’t stack in intensity, so you’ll always lose a ton of damage when switching from the Earth attunement. You can get burning out of skills like Signet of Fire, anyway.

While this is true D/D and D/F does alot of AOE burning and when they fix scepter fire so will it. D/D earth is bursty condition damage and S/D is single target primarily in earth. Additionally you have utility skills and runes that can apply burning in AOE, but only a single sigil can apply AOE bleeding.

Burning’s real weakness isn’t that it lacks intensity stacking, it’s real weakness is that is scales worse than bleeding. But by the same token losing a little bit of condition damage to make sure you are survivable hurts alot less so you can still maintain those 500+ burn ticks and be pretty tanky.

zalcs.9701:

bursty aoe ele builds dosen’t work, they just die, espcially with mist form and rtl nerf. engi does it better, mesmer does it better (and they both have more survivability and utility.) full bunker deals no damage. half bunker half glass dd deals acceptable damage, but nothing to write home about, plus they die way easier now (high risk medium reward as mentioned above somewhere)

Bottom line, ele, as it currently is… is crap. i’d rather see them remove the whole class tbh

The only glass cannon roaming class that is viable atm in WvW is thief. Everything else will get destroyed if it runs into a balanced class that knows it’s business. Glass cannon has been bad at open world PVP for many many years and continues to be. The only thing glass cannon roaming is good for is ganking and that assumes that you basically catch someone off guard and kill them before they can properly fight you.

This is why those gimmick Warrior builds are very nice at doing something very very specific, but when you learn how to dodge 100b or stop their run before they break ranged fire distance they evaporate.

Gimmicks are gimmicks, don’t come to WvW expecting to survive on gimmicks as they are based more on the situation and your opponent being bad than any skill.

I would also say that there is no such thing in as a class with no damage in these game. Everyone in the game can significantly hurt you and kill you. The difference in 5 seconds and 15 seconds isn’t no damage, it’s less damage. Burst damage rules contrived situations but fails skilled warfare because it comes at the cost of being able to survive if you miss.

stale.9785:

I didn’t argue that they should roll a warrior – they’re Anet’s glory child, so that’s a safe bet. What I said was I would steer them clear of the warrior forum.

The Ele forums are just as bad if not worse. Since the patch, I’ve had 4 different people actually openly mock my ele for being a crybaby on the forums. All this mindless QQing has really given our community as a reputation for being a bunch of whiners and crybabies over nerfs other classes get too. Anyway that saddens me but more than anything I wanted to ask where people get this ridiculous statement from?

Lets actually compare some classes:

Warrior:
PvE – Great
WvW- Moderate
SPvP – Horrible. So bad that the pvp community has given it its on baby tier. Its really sad to see.

Ele:
PvE – Bad (arguably moderate as I find it insulting that other ele’s inability makes mine look bad but, I will give the rest of the community the benefit of the doubt)
SPvP – Godly before patch, very good after patch.
WvW- Moderate (arguably good but moderate seems to be consensus)

Guardian:
PvE – Godly, more so than the warrior, being the only profession required for high end pve content.
SPvP – Very good and popular
WvW – Very good especially for group fights

Mesmer:
PvE – Very useful utilities such as portal and timewarp and way more. Making them great for content due to unique toolkit.
SPvP – Godly, to the point when a mesmer beats someone its almost expected. As a witty man once said “It takes more skill to beat a mesmer than it does to play one”.
WvW – Used to be insanely good in zerg fights, stacking confusion with lethality akin to Guardian Retal. After patch still amazinfly formidable but low innately mobile.

I would honestly say there are better candidates for this “Golden Child” award mindlessly being thrown. Interestingly enough, many would say Mesmer was the OP golden child of anet in GW1, and looking at these above…

PistolWhip.2697:

I would honestly say there are better candidates for this “Golden Child” award mindlessly being thrown. Interestingly enough, many would say Mesmer was the OP golden child of anet in GW1, and looking at these above…

Actually not….

As mesmer player you can clearly see how as for D/D ele they became strong for devs short sights….

In PvE for example ele used to be much better than mesmer until last patch they nerfed focus.

mesmer on his side has his best pve skill bugged since 2 months dealing 1/4 damage than it should (iZerker).

Mesmer in PvE is the most overvalued class ever….it really doesn t bring anything to the table..unless you need portal or a short stealth……..(i.e. a versatile random class for those situational events)

And if you think the issue is that other eles are bad……and ele is actually good just try this:

Switch class and see what YOU can do with the other.
When you find yourself doing twice with half effort you have data to think where the problem is.

P.S. also considering anet “philosophy” analysis is to be done on builds/weaponsets.

Depressing threads on the ele. Wow, huge surprise.

Seriously, what do you expect in the forums of a profession that gets gradually nerfed down with each and every patch they release?

Eles are struggling pretty hard already and are only borderline viable in any gamemode other than sPvP. The latest set of nerfs hit pretty hard (not like we didn’t have an entire build [bunker staff] getting straight out deleted already), AND they already have the next batch of nerfs announced & prepared (sigill of battle ‘rework’ [everybody knows it’s just gonna be a massive nerf] + AoE nerfs). What do you expect when joining these forums? Everybody happily enjoying their already battered class, faithfully ignoring the 2 killing blows glancing on the horizon?

makku.2508:

Depressing threads on the ele. Wow, huge surprise.

Seriously, what do you expect in the forums of a profession that gets gradually nerfed down with each and every patch they release?

Eles are struggling pretty hard already and are only borderline viable in any gamemode other than sPvP. The latest set of nerfs hit pretty hard (not like we didn’t have an entire build [bunker staff] getting straight out deleted already), AND they already have the next batch of nerfs announced & prepared (sigill of battle ‘rework’ [everybody knows it’s just gonna be a massive nerf] + AoE nerfs). What do you expect when joining these forums? Everybody happily enjoying their already battered class, faithfully ignoring the 2 killing blows glancing on the horizon?

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

When I created this thread I suppose I didn’t fully understand how much change had been brought upon the class and with that limited knowledge, it was still fun to play. I have to admit now, that my once favorite character is only used now as a crafting/bank alt and that’s about it. I can deal with most of the nerf’s but the RTL just kills the class for me.

I’ve now gone back and started toying around my with Thief and Mesmer alt but I’m not honestly sure where to go from here. The D/D Ele was WHY I played GW2 as I just loved the quick mobility of the class. Without it, I now understand where you all come from.

makku.2508:

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

Thanks for the Infos. I believed they said it after watching a team of 5 Staff Eles wreck a Zerg on a choke point..Shame…

Stealth.9324:

makku.2508:

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

Thanks for the Infos. I believed they said it after watching a team of 5 Staff Eles wreck a Zerg on a choke point..Shame…

no they explicitly said aoe are OP in PvE…

And that was the time i lost every single hope i had in balancing.

PistolWhip.2697:

Warrior:
PvE – Great
WvW- Moderate
SPvP – Horrible. So bad that the pvp community has given it its on baby tier. Its really sad to see.

Ele:
PvE – Bad (arguably moderate as I find it insulting that other ele’s inability makes mine look bad but, I will give the rest of the community the benefit of the doubt)
SPvP – Godly before patch, very good after patch.
WvW- Moderate (arguably good but moderate seems to be consensus)

WHAT!!?? Hammer/sword/horn/solider rune Warrior and Staff Ele are considered mainstays of group composition in WvW. How the heck do you figure moderate?

LordByron.8369:

Stealth.9324:

makku.2508:

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

Thanks for the Infos. I believed they said it after watching a team of 5 Staff Eles wreck a Zerg on a choke point..Shame…

no they explicitly said aoe are OP in PvE…

And that was the time i lost every single hope i had in balancing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Incoming-AoE-nerf-and-rezzing-in-WvW/first

This was back in January. I wouldn’t expect AOE nerfs atm, they appear to have rescinded their idea. I believe they said they would be doing individual reviews on the power of each AOE skill and adjusting accordingly, not just a blanket AOE nerf.

Moderate because I consider all aspects of WvW. Not everyone enjoys group composition or large scale fights. Some literally go to WvW to Roam. Warriors are very good in Largescale fights yes, but moderate in small group fights (most people target warriors first because they usually can’t support themselves) and roaming. (Mobility is great of course, but their roaming is hampered by lack of staying power mostly.)

Ele’s I believe to be amazing in WvW, but unless I post them to be moderate people will QQ and moan about how they are only moderate, and thus I decided to take onboard their concerns too and lined it as moderate.

Anyway my point stands, Warrior is hardly the ‘golden child’. To the point their “buff” last patch was mostly useless, (Dogged March is somewhat useful but, 3 Second Regen is pretty… well 3 seconds I mean cmon.). Warriors didn’t need a buff in damage.

“Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/

Guess they should change the elementalist discription on this page? I mean it’s pretty much misinformation at this point. If anything it should say “What they lack in physical toughness they make up for with versatility and quick health regeneration through healing spells” because I’m pretty sure the “massive damage in a single attack” award does not go to us. ;D

Some elementalists in my guild are moving to another class, guess which ones…

Xillllix.3485:

Some elementalists in my guild are moving to another class, guess which ones…

The bad elementalists. Sorry, it was there lol.

Ralathar.7236:

Xillllix.3485:

Some elementalists in my guild are moving to another class, guess which ones…

The bad elementalists. Sorry, it was there lol.

No it ain’t that… They’ve just didn’t spent over 1000 hours on them to be forced into a support class.

I still love the elementalist, but am branching out into other classes to suit the roaming play-style I want in WvW. Tried thief, and it wasn’t my cup of tea b/c they aren’t very survivable unless you go with cheesy perma-stealth builds. Worked on ranger for a bit, and they are pretty mobile and good skirmishers, although the forced pet can be a pain. Finally got to mesmer, and HOLY COW!!! They are so much stronger than ele! They have stealth, blinks, pushes and pulls, clones which confuse anyone in single or even small-group fights, portals in keep situations, time-warp, great defensive tools. While the healing isn’t as good as the ele, its not as needed b/c you can constantly spam out punching bags at-will. They also do some great damage. While not as useful at dishing out zerg-damage, an overall better class. I just wish I could have my mobility back on the ele, though.

Ralathar.7236:

LordByron.8369:

Stealth.9324:

makku.2508:

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

Thanks for the Infos. I believed they said it after watching a team of 5 Staff Eles wreck a Zerg on a choke point..Shame…

no they explicitly said aoe are OP in PvE…

And that was the time i lost every single hope i had in balancing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Incoming-AoE-nerf-and-rezzing-in-WvW/first

This was back in January. I wouldn’t expect AOE nerfs atm, they appear to have rescinded their idea. I believe they said they would be doing individual reviews on the power of each AOE skill and adjusting accordingly, not just a blanket AOE nerf.

You miss the original post that gave Birth to that thread and gave them that wonderful idea of aoe nerf.

It says some professions were able to bypass entire encounters in dungeons due to aoe.

Now, i don t know wich or what expecially since the aoe cap was already in place….but the fact they think to aoes when we have the guardian/warrior issue is just another proof they don t have an idea on how to balance this game.

Or it could just have referred to 100Blades but even then its the damage and not the aoe.

For now what i can say is that a zerker ele doies risible damage with his most powerful weapons and combos.

100b Is like the worst skill for a warrior to use in a pvp setting, and honestly, if you die to 1 hundred blades, you deserved it, its a really easy skill to dodge. I’m sure most of the warrior population would happily have it halved in damage if it actually hit for more than 30% of the time in pvp and more than 2 strikes.

Then again, as you keep stressing, you only care about PvE. Boy am I glad that Anet doesn’t think like you anymore and has decided to cater to more than one game mode. Skill splits are coming soon, and a lot of them. Look forward to it.

What is this thread about again?

Well prepare for more doom & gloom (more then likely ;p)

`Peters dropped into the live stream that GW2Guru were holding for the tournaments & at one point he said something about this next patch will be looking more into traits/balance.

Having seen the mess they`ve done since going live I`m not remotely optimistic, but here goes….

Never know, they may actually give Ele` something to make up for the ridiculous nerfages they`ve been hit with almost constantly.

<shifty eyes>

Ralathar.7236:

Depends on your team composition.

Which is exactly how you don’t balance a profession. No one at ANet is balancing Thief Stealth around Engineer’s Smoke Bomb, or Warrior’s Adrenaline gain by standing in Fire fields.

Ele Staff for example should not require balance consideration around how many Guardians are using Might Blow at the time.

Fishbait.6723:

Well prepare for more doom & gloom (more then likely ;p)

`Peters dropped into the live stream that GW2Guru were holding for the tournaments & at one point he said something about this next patch will be looking more into traits/balance.

Having seen the mess they`ve done since going live I`m not remotely optimistic, but here goes….

Never know, they may actually give Ele` something to make up for the ridiculous nerfages they`ve been hit with almost constantly.

<shifty eyes>

In all truth the only positive change ele received since the buff to scepter air-auto-attack was the 33% HP increase on elementals, all in all this profession receive a little positive change once in a blue moon every few months, the rest is just a collection of nerfs and biased changes

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

Depends on your team composition.

Which is exactly how you don’t balance a profession. No one at ANet is balancing Thief Stealth around Engineer’s Smoke Bomb, or Warrior’s Adrenaline gain by standing in Fire fields.

Ele Staff for example should not require balance consideration around how many Guardians are using Might Blow at the time.

That’s an all around theme though. Anet has said over and over, most recently in the SoTG video last patch that they balance around team play. This to them justifies why warrior has no staying power and is terrible in most cases alone. This is why Ele staff has no viability in a 1v1 situation to the point its almost a free kill for most people. This is also why Mesmer is so strong in a 1v1 situation as they become more balanced and more realistic to beat in a team fight.

Anet doesn’t care for 1v1’s, though I’m willing to wager if they added a form of dueling they might. In fact, many of these new custom arenas are dueling servers, because people like the prospect of 1v1ing more than Anet anticipated it seems.

Ele’s aren’t the only profession which gets nerfs, some others for example, the Thief has had more nerfs than any other profession combined, and minimal buffs to conpensate. A big issue I feel is the culture in which Anet seems to buy into of nerfing everything as opposed to buffing. If other classes aren’t as strong as Ele at the time, buff them, don’t limit the Ele. Same applies to Guardians and Mesmers who can be considered the peak of balance. They are very well thought out, and work in all game modes, and the only reason they seem OP all the time is due to the other professions being UP in some KEY areas.

PistolWhip.2697:

Ele’s aren’t the only profession which gets nerfs, some others for example, the Thief has had more nerfs than any other profession combined, and minimal buffs to conpensate. A big issue I feel is the culture in which Anet seems to buy into of nerfing everything as opposed to buffing. If other classes aren’t as strong as Ele at the time, buff them, don’t limit the Ele. Same applies to Guardians and Mesmers who can be considered the peak of balance. They are very well thought out, and work in all game modes, and the only reason they seem OP all the time is due to the other professions being UP in some KEY areas.

Always to defend thieves?

Lets see some facts:

Ele got the most serious and numerous nerfs since release:
1) staff dps was nerfed to the ground at release
2) staff support was destroyed few months after
3) staff healing got a huge hit also

And that led to a weaponset completely destroyed (1 year after they talk about buff that proves their “balancing” was wrong).

Dagger:
EA nerfed
RTL got so many nerfs that i can t even remember how it was the original skill
Earth 3 was completely changed from a mobility skill to what is now

What about mistform signet of restoration and many other stuffs?

I wont comment on the “Golden child” class because its not the proper thread…but i find really sad to hear players complaining about it….unless is PvP that i don t follow.

PistolWhip.2697:

makku.2508:

PistolWhip.2697:

I find it sad all you do is complain about Ele’s being bad, when you’re plain bad. Honestly, I’m sorry for you that you can’t play ele, but me and others are having a blast and still doing great. We would love a few buffs where we need it, I suggest you stop playing GW2, it obviously isn’t your cup of tea.

Wait, weren’t you one of those whiners who threatened to leave the game if they went through with the update? Well they did, so good bye.

Solid way to discuss with people that share different opinions. Call them bad and tell them to gtfo. You just disqualified yourself, bro. Get back to the thief forums.

Amount of hypocritical words here is disgusting. Its not like the person in question just accuses others of stupid things ( as if a person playing on a thief is bound to come on a forum and complain about another class for some odd reason), but also here you are doing the same. I don’t play thief, and I haven’t in months, because I found them to be a bad profession. I didn’t like that I had to rely on stealth in most cases just to survive.

Who are you to say I’ve disqualified myself from anything?

You just disqualified yourself, ‘bro’. Get off the forums.

See, I just did to you what you do to others. Look at that rage in your reply, and how it immediately destroys any attempt at having a proper discussion. Hope you learned your lesson.

makku.2508:

PistolWhip.2697:

makku.2508:

PistolWhip.2697:

I find it sad all you do is complain about Ele’s being bad, when you’re plain bad. Honestly, I’m sorry for you that you can’t play ele, but me and others are having a blast and still doing great. We would love a few buffs where we need it, I suggest you stop playing GW2, it obviously isn’t your cup of tea.

Wait, weren’t you one of those whiners who threatened to leave the game if they went through with the update? Well they did, so good bye.

Solid way to discuss with people that share different opinions. Call them bad and tell them to gtfo. You just disqualified yourself, bro. Get back to the thief forums.

Amount of hypocritical words here is disgusting. Its not like the person in question just accuses others of stupid things ( as if a person playing on a thief is bound to come on a forum and complain about another class for some odd reason), but also here you are doing the same. I don’t play thief, and I haven’t in months, because I found them to be a bad profession. I didn’t like that I had to rely on stealth in most cases just to survive.

Who are you to say I’ve disqualified myself from anything?

You just disqualified yourself, ‘bro’. Get off the forums.

See, I just did to you what you do to others. Look at that rage in your reply, and how it immediately destroys any attempt at having a proper discussion. Hope you learned your lesson.

Well, after putting you in your place I’ve learned the lesson that using someone’s own medicine against them seems to work well. Now that you’ve hushed down, those with a real point to make can post

PistolWhip.2697:

Well, after putting you in your place I’ve learned the lesson that using someone’s own medicine against them seems to work well. Now that you’ve hushed down, those with a real point to make can post

So you were F5’ing this thread for almost an hour straight to immediately comment on any reply, and all you come up with is some poor trolling attempt? Son, I fear you have not learned your lesson yet.

Back on Topic please :P

PistolWhip.2697:

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

Depends on your team composition.

Which is exactly how you don’t balance a profession. No one at ANet is balancing Thief Stealth around Engineer’s Smoke Bomb, or Warrior’s Adrenaline gain by standing in Fire fields.

Ele Staff for example should not require balance consideration around how many Guardians are using Might Blow at the time.

That’s an all around theme though. Anet has said over and over, most recently in the SoTG video last patch that they balance around team play. This to them justifies why warrior has no staying power and is terrible in most cases alone. This is why Ele staff has no viability in a 1v1 situation to the point its almost a free kill for most people. This is also why Mesmer is so strong in a 1v1 situation as they become more balanced and more realistic to beat in a team fight.

Anet doesn’t care for 1v1’s, though I’m willing to wager if they added a form of dueling they might. In fact, many of these new custom arenas are dueling servers, because people like the prospect of 1v1ing more than Anet anticipated it seems.

Ele’s aren’t the only profession which gets nerfs, some others for example, the Thief has had more nerfs than any other profession combined, and minimal buffs to conpensate. A big issue I feel is the culture in which Anet seems to buy into of nerfing everything as opposed to buffing. If other classes aren’t as strong as Ele at the time, buff them, don’t limit the Ele. Same applies to Guardians and Mesmers who can be considered the peak of balance. They are very well thought out, and work in all game modes, and the only reason they seem OP all the time is due to the other professions being UP in some KEY areas.

This is probably the most sober assessment of the state of the game that I’ve read. I don’t think the RTL nerf was that big a deal. What is a big deal is that the difference between the class being a good value in every game mode and the class being a waste of a group slot depended on 1 skill on 1 weaponset in 1 build. If a 40s cooldown on RTL is enough to change Ele from an amazing group member to a waste, then there’s some problems with the core class design that need to be tweaked.

And Staff Ele being a free kill is part of the overall problem here. Would D/D be any good at all if RTL was just removed entirely? Would Staff suddenly become good if RTL was added to it? That’s a problem. It means the class has problems and one OP skill is glossing over those problems.

So, let’s ask ourselves why RTL was so OP. It’s fairly obvious. We have great healing output, but poor armor and hitpoints. RTL allowed us to control where engagements took place, and stagger how many opponents we were fighting at once. It made it less likely we’d get dog-piled. It allowed us to cross maps faster than other professions. It allowed us to reset fights with impunity. That’s a lot of control on one ability.

Ok, so what problems is RTL glossing over? Again, it’s fairly obvious. People have been griping about this stuff since release. Low armor and low hitpoints is in the class design, and that’s fine. What isn’t fine is that our high-burst skills are all very telegraphed, and have long cooldowns. Our damage output hinges on “combos” that are easily broken or disrupted. Once we’re in melee we’re basically dead unless we build entirely around survival, which destroys our damage output. We have several Utilities that do basically nothing (i.e. Conjured Weapons). Our traits often work against each other. For example, “Get X the longer you’re in Y attunement” doesn’t synergize well with “Swap attunements X% faster.” In addition, we have many traits that are just bad options (i.e. Flame Barrier related traits).

PistolWhip.2697:

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

Depends on your team composition.

Which is exactly how you don’t balance a profession. No one at ANet is balancing Thief Stealth around Engineer’s Smoke Bomb, or Warrior’s Adrenaline gain by standing in Fire fields.

Ele Staff for example should not require balance consideration around how many Guardians are using Might Blow at the time.

That’s an all around theme though. Anet has said over and over, most recently in the SoTG video last patch that they balance around team play. This to them justifies why warrior has no staying power and is terrible in most cases alone. This is why Ele staff has no viability in a 1v1 situation to the point its almost a free kill for most people. This is also why Mesmer is so strong in a 1v1 situation as they become more balanced and more realistic to beat in a team fight.

Anet doesn’t care for 1v1’s, though I’m willing to wager if they added a form of dueling they might. In fact, many of these new custom arenas are dueling servers, because people like the prospect of 1v1ing more than Anet anticipated it seems.

Ele’s aren’t the only profession which gets nerfs, some others for example, the Thief has had more nerfs than any other profession combined, and minimal buffs to conpensate. A big issue I feel is the culture in which Anet seems to buy into of nerfing everything as opposed to buffing. If other classes aren’t as strong as Ele at the time, buff them, don’t limit the Ele. Same applies to Guardians and Mesmers who can be considered the peak of balance. They are very well thought out, and work in all game modes, and the only reason they seem OP all the time is due to the other professions being UP in some KEY areas.

Do you realize that people don’t care that much about team play?
For everybody( yes you included) to lose a 1vs1 is much more deal breaking than losing a team fight…that’s why you find complain threads in every profession sub-forum.
Having an excellent 1vs1 balance would help the game in the long run, trust me

Arheundel, I’m not saying I don’t care about 1v1, I’m saying Anet doesn’t balance around it. I fully agree with you that both aspects are fun and should be considered.

PinCushion.7390:

So, let’s ask ourselves why RTL was so OP.

No need to ask devs said it many times

Spirit watch
+
the chance for a bunker to get from a point to another to capture it.

It NEVER been a www issue.
You are discussing of non issues.

WWW problems officially were confusion and swirling winds…..things that were specifically addressed (once again with unintended repercussions on PvE).

I have just got a Ele to 80th lvl and am happy about the performance in PvE, but any class seems fine in PvE…

WvW, I was also pleasantly surprised, my Ele was pretty kitten good…

However, took my Ele into PvP and I was slaughtered, didn’t matter what build…whats going on…are Ele’s rubbish in PvP?

I haven’t read a lot of threads for any specific class, but yes many of the ones you will find are very ’why’d you nerf me’ ‘we suck’ whine whine whine. Very disheartening. Personally, I see ‘nerfs’ as a challenge, not a reason to whine. ‘Ok, they changed it, how I can make this build better’

Yes, in some instances there are legitimate gripes, with solid examples to support the gripe. These types of threads offer valid discussion and are helpful to the devs should they opt to read them.

That said, I am happy with my ele, at this point. I havent tried a bunch of builds on her, but what I do have works. I stay alive in solo, duo, and team play. I do decent damage, and above all, I enjoy myself. I can play open world, I can do dungeons (with the right people) and WvW w/o too much of an issue. Am I spectacular player? Haha, nope, not by any means, but as long as I’m having fun, it really dont matter.

This whole thread is pointless. Complaining about complainers? Accuse someone as Whiner? I dont think anyone shed just on tear over this game.

You are tired reading about complaints? Stop reading it. If this isnt the right place for complaints, then where is?

zalcs.9701:

bursty aoe ele builds dosen’t work, they just die, espcially with mist form and rtl nerf. engi does it better, mesmer does it better (and they both have more survivability and utility.) full bunker deals no damage. half bunker half glass dd deals acceptable damage, but nothing to write home about, plus they die way easier now (high risk medium reward as mentioned above somewhere)

Bottom line, ele, as it currently is… is crap. i’d rather see them remove the whole class tbh

I do agree that eles are less fun to play now and it is somehow a class that is near the brink of extinction. My main is only an ele and is my only lvl 80 char and I feel that it’s becoming more of a support/healer type which, I think is contrary to what arenanet was trying to do in the first place. I think the class is going backwards instead of forward although, you might say it’s up to the player’s skill but, for how far and how long can player skills help if the class itself is broken? By broken I meant nerfed to the point that you have less option and not much advantages compare to other classes. I won’t list these disadvantages as they’re just far too much and again if you compare them to other classes, eles got it worse.

Mistform might have been a bit too good but, it was never OP. It was the only thing that pretty much saved ele’s from the big burst damage and combos from other classes. Look at guardians/warriors even in death you have to either go MF or blind them so you can stomp them without missing. With a dead ele no problem you just devour them and not much effort needed.

But now in spvp or wvw you take so much damage, MF and then get out of MF and then get stunned, bleed to death etc before you can even click heal.

Overall, at the moment I think it is harder, more complicated, less useful close to pointless class. FYI I play a staff ele and I feel that I should play mesmer or quit the game overall.

I’m loving my D/D ele so far in PvE (currently lvl 72). I find the management of 20 weapons skills rather complex compared to the other professions and that’s appealing.

I totally agree with a previous poster who said “Mesmers require more skill to fight against than to play”. This is so true. My lvl 80 memser is a breeze to play, it really is easy mode. However the mechanics of clones make it incredibly difficult to play against (and I have an advantage in that I can easily see the real mesmer, but it’s still a lot of work).

My main was an ele..full ascended and everything. I liked playing D/D but now it feels so slow. RTL was my favorite skill for getting around the map, now it’s so nerfed we basically just have swiftness and lightning flash. I’m almost a strictly PVE player so I wasn’t on the SPVP bandwagon. We were already weaker in PVE than most classes but at least it was fun. I keep trying to return to my ele, but it’s so hard to get into now. 15sec 1500 range to 40sec 1200 range is insane. (CD is nearly always 40sec even if you try to use it offensively). Since Ele is no longer fun, I’ve been playing on my guardian/warrior/thief(wvw only)…and things have never been easier.

Curtis.1562:

My main was an ele..full ascended and everything. I liked playing D/D but now it feels so slow. RTL was my favorite skill for getting around the map, now it’s so nerfed we basically just have swiftness and lightning flash. I’m almost a strictly PVE player so I wasn’t on the SPVP bandwagon. We were already weaker in PVE than most classes but at least it was fun. I keep trying to return to my ele, but it’s so hard to get into now. 15sec 1500 range to 40sec 1200 range is insane. (CD is nearly always 40sec even if you try to use it offensively). Since Ele is no longer fun, I’ve been playing on my guardian/warrior/thief(wvw only)…and things have never been easier.

So your class is no longer worth playing because they can’t buzz across the map quite as fast even though they are still one of the top classes for mobility? Forgive me if I laugh.

Something that small doesn’t make or break a class. They still play 99% the same. You just open-world RTL travel less. I of course still support the CD being 20 seconds even on misses and blocks as long as the enemy was in range though.

Ralathar.7236:

So your class is no longer worth playing because they can’t buzz across the map quite as fast even though they are still one of the top classes for mobility? Forgive me if I laugh.

Except that its the least mobile of the mobile classes…

In pure speed:
Rangers, faster.
Warriors, faster.
Mesmers, as fast if not faster.
Thieves, the fastest class in game.

Only necros, engis and guardians are slower than ele.

Strang.8170:

Ralathar.7236:

So your class is no longer worth playing because they can’t buzz across the map quite as fast even though they are still one of the top classes for mobility? Forgive me if I laugh.

Except that its the least mobile of the mobile classes…

In pure speed:
Rangers, faster.
Warriors, faster.
Mesmers, as fast if not faster.
Thieves, the fastest class in game.

Only necros, engis and guardians are slower than ele.

Pure speed over a long distance is not the same as constant in fight mobility. Ele’s are certainly not out in the cold for long distance mobility being middle of the pack in your statement. Meaning you can go alot further before being caught if you do it right.

They also have really good in fight mobility, beaten out by thief but warrior mobility outside of combat and warrior mobility IN COMBAT are two different things. Warriors and rangers are far more susceptible to CC effects for example and combat also means weapon swap timers apply. You also won’t see Rangers and Warriors applying chill, cripple, and stun to their chasers without so much as missing a step.

Ralathar.7236:

Pure speed over a long distance is not the same as constant in fight mobility. Ele’s are certainly not out in the cold for long distance mobility being middle of the pack in your statement. Meaning you can go alot further before being caught if you do it right.

False. Wasn’t true before the recent nerf, especially not true afterwards. The Ele’s movement skills are on some of, if not the, highest skill cooldowns.

They also have really good in fight mobility, beaten out by thief but warrior mobility outside of combat and warrior mobility IN COMBAT are two different things. Warriors and rangers are far more susceptible to CC effects for example and combat also means weapon swap timers apply. You also won’t see Rangers and Warriors applying chill, cripple, and stun to their chasers without so much as missing a step.

Ele’s can be CC’d as normal in all but RtL (and yes some CC works even then), which is now on a crazy CD, and still buggy as hell (RtL a vet karka and 7 out of 10 times I should have hit but do not). Out of 20 skills on Staff there is one movement skill, and backwards at that. None on Scepter or Focus. Only one on Dagger that doesn’t require a target (Burning Speed). Shortest CD is Magnetic Leap on a 12s CD, but 9 times out of 10 misses the target.

Chill and Cripple don’t last long enough to make up for the deficit in movement skills. And saying the Ele has really good mobility in either in or out of combat when compared to professions like Thief and Warrior is both patently false first of all, and second you’re comparing mobility on a profession (Ele) with the lowest health, armor and no inherent profession defense (i.e. Stealth, Death Shroud, Aegis, etc.) to other professions that do have MUCH better defense which alleviates the need for mobility both in and out of combat. The other reason Rangers and Warriors don’t need Chill and Cripple is because their movement skills work much better, tend to not bug out on terrain or obstacles nearly as much, have significantly shorter CDs in many cases, and have much higher innate defense (armor, health) along with profession mechanics or design that helps them survive.

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

Pure speed over a long distance is not the same as constant in fight mobility. Ele’s are certainly not out in the cold for long distance mobility being middle of the pack in your statement. Meaning you can go alot further before being caught if you do it right.

False. Wasn’t true before the recent nerf, especially not true afterwards. The Ele’s movement skills are on some of, if not the, highest skill cooldowns.

They also have really good in fight mobility, beaten out by thief but warrior mobility outside of combat and warrior mobility IN COMBAT are two different things. Warriors and rangers are far more susceptible to CC effects for example and combat also means weapon swap timers apply. You also won’t see Rangers and Warriors applying chill, cripple, and stun to their chasers without so much as missing a step.

Ele’s can be CC’d as normal in all but RtL (and yes some CC works even then), which is now on a crazy CD, and still buggy as hell (RtL a vet karka and 7 out of 10 times I should have hit but do not). Out of 20 skills on Staff there is one movement skill, and backwards at that. None on Scepter or Focus. Only one on Dagger that doesn’t require a target (Burning Speed). Shortest CD is Magnetic Leap on a 12s CD, but 9 times out of 10 misses the target.

Chill and Cripple don’t last long enough to make up for the deficit in movement skills. And saying the Ele has really good mobility in either in or out of combat when compared to professions like Thief and Warrior is both patently false first of all, and second you’re comparing mobility on a profession (Ele) with the lowest health, armor and no inherent profession defense (i.e. Stealth, Death Shroud, Aegis, etc.) to other professions that do have MUCH better defense which alleviates the need for mobility both in and out of combat. The other reason Rangers and Warriors don’t need Chill and Cripple is because their movement skills work much better, tend to not bug out on terrain or obstacles nearly as much, have significantly shorter CDs in many cases, and have much higher innate defense (armor, health) along with profession mechanics or design that helps them survive.

Have you ever tried using Rush on a warrior Greatsword? I’d dare you to go ask any warrior in their forums, its one of the worst and buggiest skills in-game.

But of course, our population of Ele’s seem to think they are the only one with issues. Still one of the best classes in game in my opinion, and others, making this too subjective to even matter I feel, but the amount of QQ on these forums compared to others is somewhat disheartening.

pistolwhip could you please stop your l2p and QQmore posts?

people gave reasons, analyzed skills, and stuff

You just reply discussing people instead.
Thank you……

You never see 250% nerfs in games….what would happen if they did it to stealth?

I really can’t understand how anyone can still defend that RTL nerf. I mean, there’s so many reasons not to:

1) It was a gigantic nerf. Over the course of a few weeks, RTL went from 15s CD 1550 range to 40s CD 1200 range. That’s not to far from 25/90, actually. (Look up GW1 Smiter’s Boon if you don’t understand that last part). A nerf of that dimension goes straight against anything they claim are their balancing guidelines (no knee-jerk, whack-a-mole style balancing). What ANet did is a clear statement: “If we don’t like a skill, we will remove it. If we don’t like a build, we will destroy it.”. EVERYBODY should be up in arms by now, as clearly things like that can happen to any other profession as well. Things like that have already happened in GW1. Numerous times. Don’t let them get away with it, again.

2) It doesn’t even work like they intended. They claimed on stream, in front of audience, a block would trigger the 20s CD. Long story short, it doesn’t. Obviously their intend was to just ‘fix’ the ‘bugged’ range (tooltip stating the wrong range is not something I’d call bugged range, but w/e) and keep the 20s CD in most cases, falling back to the 40s CD just in case you ‘abuse’ the skill for map traversing purposes. But they screwed up, royally. At times RTL just bugs out → 40s CD. Enemy blocks/dodges/blinks away/blinds you/WHATEVER REALLY → 40s CD. They completely missed what they intended to do.

3) They are messing with basic class design. RTL is one of the most iconic elementalist skills, it really is one of the things that defines how the entire class (running */D) plays out. These guys are supposed to balance. They are not supposed to screw around with class design fundamentals. What they applied to RTL was not a balance change, it was a change in design and concept. They turned a strong roaming class into a borderline viable roaming class.
Truth be told, they are bringing elementalists pretty close to how a Thief should actually play out (except we’re missing the damage): RTL is our best escape tool. If you use it to go in on an enemy, that’s an all-in move pretty much. You’re almost guaranteed to sit on a 40s CD on your main escape, creating a do-or-die situation. That’s high risk gameplay. Now take a look a the thief, the guy that obviously should be the high risk – high reward assassin kind-of class in the game: Thieves engage & disengage at will. They can join any fight, any given time and the second things go wrong they just disengage and are gone. Then they rinse, repeat. Something went very wrong here.