Guild Wars 2

Discussion Time:

Q; What are your expectations for the January patch on elementalist, Nerfs, Buffs or fixes?

What i expect:

Nerfs to D/D builds due to the amount of people crying for nerfs due to their L2P issues (I am hoping A net overlook these “Issues” and know that to play an ele it requires skill, coordination & movement)

I am also expecting significant buffs to staff & scepters and minor fixes to our bugs.

So what are you expecting?

:)

Not much into speculation, its literally guessing.

My list won’t be expected rather suggestions while we wait for what we are expecting to be just some random number changes here and there for some skills like heal reduction or duration increase of some sort.

Improvement on Traits especially Fire and/or Air to make a decent non 0/10/0/30/30 build with any weapon set. I am tired of all these “D/D eles are OP” whines. Someone please make a new fotm for eles and post it here on the forums! I seem to fail at this attempt.

Please buff Cojures some more. Or better yet, redesign or improve some of them so they don’t feel clunky and gimmicky to use. Why not make it usable in a way that it becomes some sort of an extra weapon swap for its duration or number of charges.
Example: I cast conjure frost bow and change my weapon skills bar to that of the frost bow, but when i swap to any attunement, i will enter that attunement’s skillset. and i can still press the button for conjure frost bow to go back to the frost bow’s skillset much like an engineer’s weaponkit as long as the timer isn’t over or all the charges haven’t been consumed yet. the problem here will be that the conjured weapon skills will no longer be under the effect of any of the attunement’s bonuses for that matter but at least it won’t be: conjure weapon, cast skill 2,3,4,5, drop weapon. I get to keep them longer and use them inbetween my attunement skills.

And while you’re at it, Glyph of Renewal. We all know it’s tooooooooo situational to the point of being useless compared to other revival skills of other classes except Mesmers. Theirs are as trash as this one. lol

They just got back from vacation. We won’t see any major changes until February.

Gallrvaghn: “Why not make it usable in a way that it becomes some sort of an extra weapon swap for its duration or number of charges?”

I have a possible idea for the conjures is similar to this. I think the conjure skills should replace the corresponding element’s skills for the minute with 15 charges. For example, if someone used Frost Bow, their water attunement skills would be changed to the Frost Bow skills for the duration of the skill, and they would be able to switch attunements without losing the bow until the skill goes away. Obviously this would lead to the ele being much more OP, so there would have to be something to counterbalance that boost a bit, like when the ele switches attunements and uses other skills it would use a conjure charge for each one, or the stat bonuses would have to go away, and some other mechanism be put into place to balance it out.

Either that, or give the ele some more traits that help conjures so they can be less clunky.

i don t think we will see any nerf…

Just look at vids.

Ele playing tactically, with lot of use of terrain, evasions and various mechanics for eles…

On the other side you look at thieves vids (posted by themselves) and you just facepalm.

Even some warriors vids ._.

Staff is unplayable, despite some players pretends it is.
focus is bad
D/D is stuck in short range.
If they took away anything from D/D, ele becomes worse than engineer.
Thief has stealth
Guardian has ….well too much to list
Warrior has heavy armor and high HP
Necro has double lifebar and life stealing
Mesmer has clones/stealth
Ranger has pet
Ele has healing…..
Engi has….hope in the future

I’d say this again, building an ele teaches you to play….or you just die to moa 1VS1 until you are 80.

Its not like guardians…I used one few days ago on a friends account….he had button messed up so i had trouble moving, i just completed alone an event Killing 6 veterans at once without even knowing what i was doing .____.

Or again when i use my GC mesmer and i m the last to die in fotm…..because i actually know how to survive…..and i use defensive skills properly….

December’s patch was was supposedly oriented around balance and we did not get very many changes at all. My expectations are quite low.

TimeBomb.3427:

December’s patch was was supposedly oriented around balance and we did not get very many changes at all. My expectations are quite low.

This. Other than some tweaks in damage numbers or CD increase or decrease, I doubt we will be expecting anything else.

Bug fixes? Nah, they just bring in some MORE bugs.

Oh! The negativity! Sad but true. True true.

Jan Changes:

Elementalist:
-RTL cooldown increased to 25. Old: 12/15, New: 20/25

I feel like increasing RTL cooldown will just make travel more annoying. I usually lose people before it cools down anyway, unless they really want me dead.

I’m personally and expecting hoping not much happens, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they slapped some mild to strong nerfs on us again.

the mob has spoken. D/D 0/10/0/30/30 cantrip specs are gonna get nerfed. there is no stopping them! :O

I highly doubt RTL is going to be nerfed. It’s on par with other similar skills with the same range and cooldown. If they were going to nerf something to try and make d/d less viable, it would probably be icy breath so it only healed if you actually did damage.

I’m also of the opinion d/d isn’t really that over the top. It just seems like it because all other options for this class are just so terrible and most of the other classes in this game are just god awful. If someone asked anyone who played this game to list the top 3 strongest classes and bottom 3 weakest classes I’d bet 90% of the players wouldn’t list Elementalists in either category.

I would hope if they were going to change this class at all it would be to make something along the lines of a massive overhaul to the fire tree, a rethinking of how the scepter does damage, and rethinking how staff just doesn’t have enough burst output.

Elementalists can no longer use vapor form to get through tower or keep doors in wvw.

Ridiculous speculation post, but here goes:

1. They will replace RTL with UYB. Instead of the Elementalist zipping off willy nilly into glitchy buggy land, he or she will instead zip off right UYB.

2. Staff will be removed and replaced by a giant candy cane. This fearsome weapon will produce rainbows and candy sprinkles instead of the normal skills. They do no damage but who cares. They will be pretty.

3. Conjured weapons will be removed and replaced with giant sugar cubes which can be conjured instantly to produce the fearsome spell, “Sugar High”. A favorite for the more ADHD inclined amongst us.

4. Anyone who has ever played an Elementalist on any server will immediately and irrevocably have their forum posting rights removed for life.

RTL will probably be changed so that it’s affected by movement imparement skills (cripple/chill).

Possibly some changes to Dragon’s Breath perhaps.

*Reduced damage from dagger skills by 30%
*Reduced healing from dagger skills by 30%

Engineers used to have the same problem as Elementalists. One specific kit (weapon set in the case of elementalists) was overpowered to the point that it overshadowed other kits in utility that practically everyone who wanted to be effective used it. The answer to that problem was to nerf said kit’s damage by 30%. I can see a similar scenario coming soon for d/d.

Kid Taylor.5479:

*Reduced damage from dagger skills by 30%
*Reduced healing from dagger skills by 30%

Engineers used to have the same problem as Elementalists. One specific kit (weapon set in the case of elementalists) was overpowered to the point that it overshadowed other kits in utility that practically everyone who wanted to be effective used it. The answer to that problem was to nerf said kit’s damage by 30%. I can see a similar scenario coming soon for d/d.

While this would be good for the intent you have mentioned, would it not be better to improve other weapon sets, traits, or utilities so that they may become useful, effective, and not overshadowed? I mean with what they did to the Engineers, that class went from functional to a total plague in tPVP comps.

Its not that D/D deals lot of dmg ….. expecially for a melee set, moreover if you cannot swap.

Anet Logic:

What?! Warriors can take on end-game bosses 1 on 1 head-on?
Let’s buff them some more.

What?! Engineers are the least played class and 50% of their skills and traits are still bugged?
Let’s do some nerfing.

Engineer grenade kit outshines all other kits, they nerfed it instead of fixing/buffing other kits. It’s the same issue here, elementalist D/D outshines all other weapon sets, they’d rather nerf it than fix other weapon sets.

I don’t see a reason why they won’t do an unreasonable nerf to the elementalists as well. I’ve lost all my faith on Anet team who’re too busy playing their warriors and thieves to even give a single comment to the engineer community who has been crying for justice since the grenades nerf.

Trivia Time!
Did you know that grenade kit/flamethrower kit which engineers use can be bought from certain NPCs? And guess what, they are stronger than the original kits!

FTW Anet.

Kyon.9735:

Anet Logic:

What?! Warriors can take on end-game bosses 1 on 1 head-on?
Let’s buff them some more.

What?! Engineers are the least played class and 50% of their skills and traits are still bugged?
Let’s do some nerfing.

Engineer grenade kit outshines all other kits, they nerfed it instead of fixing/buffing other kits. It’s the same issue here, elementalist D/D outshines all other weapon sets, they’d rather nerf it than fix other weapon sets.

I don’t see a reason why they won’t do an unreasonable nerf to the elementalists as well. I’ve lost all my faith on Anet team who’re too busy playing their warriors and thieves to even give a single comment to the engineer community who has been crying for justice since the grenades nerf.

Trivia Time!
Did you know that grenade kit/flamethrower kit which engineers use can be bought from certain NPCs? And guess what, they are stronger than the original kits!

FTW Anet.

The fact remains that D/D ele is much, much stronger than warriors or thieves.

If there is a nerf, which is very uncertain, it will most likely cover the boons. Perhaps attunement switching itself getting a longer cooldown.

The trait line reducing attunement cooldown closely resembles the warrior burst damage trait line.

Warriors used to get +30% burst damage on that line, now it’s 3% at max.

Maybe attunement switching will go from 60% cd reduction to 6%.

xiv.7136:

The fact remains that D/D ele is much, much stronger than warriors or thieves.

If there is a nerf, which is very uncertain, it will most likely cover the boons. Perhaps attunement switching itself getting a longer cooldown.

The trait line reducing attunement cooldown closely resembles the warrior burst damage trait line.

Warriors used to get +30% burst damage on that line, now it’s 3% at max.

Maybe attunement switching will go from 60% cd reduction to 6%.

That would also nerf every other ele build.

dekou.6012:

xiv.7136:

The fact remains that D/D ele is much, much stronger than warriors or thieves.

If there is a nerf, which is very uncertain, it will most likely cover the boons. Perhaps attunement switching itself getting a longer cooldown.

The trait line reducing attunement cooldown closely resembles the warrior burst damage trait line.

Warriors used to get +30% burst damage on that line, now it’s 3% at max.

Maybe attunement switching will go from 60% cd reduction to 6%.

That would also nerf every other ele build.

Very true – would have to be something with the boons on attunement switches then

A lot of overall bunker issues would be fixed with better boon stripping

My crystal ball tells me bunker spec will be nerfed and the scream of hundreds of players will be heard on the whole earth, twice.

I fail to see how d/d is more powerful than thieves and I stand by my earlier comment that if you asked every player to name the 3 strongest and 3 weakest classes in this game 90% of them wouldn’t list the elementalist in either category.

If they nerf D/D, it had better be accompanied by some enormous improvements to staff and scepter because short of that we should probably get weapon swapping to become enabled.

Kyon.9735:

Trivia Time!
Did you know that grenade kit/flamethrower kit which engineers use can be bought from certain NPCs? And guess what, they are stronger than the original kits!

FTW Anet.

We can also buy mortars that are slightly better… :/

Poor engies.

I dont think there will, or should, be any significant nerfs to dual dagger bunker builds. It is working the way they intend according to the class philosophies:

Ele
We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

If you faceroll, you cannot play this build. If you have one rotation and dont understand the skills in each attunement, as soon as that rotation is broken you will die. I cant comment on PvP becuase I do not play PvP but this build seems to work well for PvE and WvW. I do well alot. I also die alot. I am nowhere near the most skilled player nor the least skilled player.

I thnk anet gets that DD ele synergy of traits and understanding the class is what should ultimately be available for every class

I do feel like the D/D ele build should be nerfed abit, but nothing major. I can take out the scrubs who play D/D ele because it is the popular build, but when I find one that is actually good, I just tip my hat, say GG and move on.

Other than that…I will sit quietly and await for my S/D Thief build to be caught in the crossfire of nerfs again, and become even weaker.

Lifeson.4352:

Elementalists can no longer use vapor form to get through tower or keep doors in wvw.

hey! you shut your dirty mouth!! >_>

I don’t want them to do the same what they did to eles in GW1, they became so underpowered and basically killed even obsidian flesh tanks and after that ele’s were only good at healing.. (and everyone knows the story of perma SF sins)
Maybe ele is said to be overpowered because other classes seem underpowered on those aspects where D/D’s are great. In GW1 mesmers had interruption skills and they were able to take down unskilled eles fairly easily. Necros had curse builds and so on. I don’t think the problem is the ele, it’s the other professions.. they need some buff.. (especialIy engi and necro) just a thought.

Miomooki.3812:

I don’t want them to do the same what they did to eles in GW1, they became so underpowered and basically killed even obsidian flesh tanks and after that ele’s were only good at healing.. (and everyone knows the story of perma SF sins)
Maybe ele is said to be overpowered because other classes seem underpowered on those aspects where D/D’s are great. In GW1 mesmers had interruption skills and they were able to take down unskilled eles fairly easily. Necros had curse builds and so on. I don’t think the problem is the ele, it’s the other professions.. they need some buff.. (especialIy engi and necro) just a thought.

If comparing to GW1….Why did it seem like in every 4v4 PvP team consisted of a Mind Blast ele…. If they were under powered, then why did every expert monk bring fire resistance on a weapon set <and other weapon sets with other elemental damage>. They may not have had too much spike potential, but they were and are by no means UP. Sure there were some builds that could halt/hinder them, and maybe that is the problem people have in GW2: there seems to be no build to halt/hinder the D/D ele. They shake off conditions, the have the best mobility i have seen, they have high tanking abilities, they have many stun breakers. They can basically get out of anything.

LordByron.8369:

i don t think we will see any nerf…

Just look at vids.

Ele playing tactically, with lot of use of terrain, evasions and various mechanics for eles…

On the other side you look at thieves vids (posted by themselves) and you just facepalm.

Even some warriors vids ._.

Staff is unplayable, despite some players pretends it is.
focus is bad
D/D is stuck in short range.
If they took away anything from D/D, ele becomes worse than engineer.
Thief has stealth
Guardian has ….well too much to list
Warrior has heavy armor and high HP
Necro has double lifebar and life stealing
Mesmer has clones/stealth
Ranger has pet
Ele has healing…..
Engi has….hope in the future

I’d say this again, building an ele teaches you to play….or you just die to moa 1VS1 until you are 80.

Its not like guardians…I used one few days ago on a friends account….he had button messed up so i had trouble moving, i just completed alone an event Killing 6 veterans at once without even knowing what i was doing .____.

Or again when i use my GC mesmer and i m the last to die in fotm…..because i actually know how to survive…..and i use defensive skills properly….

You must be playin PvE then , or you just don’t see what classes play around you. I can bet Ele d/d is top reroll class atm…

From latest Live Stream from Arena Net we can say for sure that AoE dmg will be nerfed so ….. I can throw away my Staff Dps Ele.
Really – AoE dmg is so OP?? Maybe at WvW it is possible but what else left for me in PvE?

There will be no january patch. The january patch will be released in february.

Humposaurus.5764:

There will be no january patch. The january patch will be released in february.

It is in Jan 28th I think.

I hope they don’t nerf staff ele anymore because honestly I don’t think Staff deserves a nerf right now.

Aba.6419:

From latest Live Stream from Arena Net we can say for sure that AoE dmg will be nerfed so ….. I can throw away my Staff Dps Ele.
Really – AoE dmg is so OP?? Maybe at WvW it is possible but what else left for me in PvE?

What did they say about it exactly? If they do nerf it staff eles better receive buffs in other areas to compensate.

Aba.6419:

From latest Live Stream from Arena Net we can say for sure that AoE dmg will be nerfed so ….. I can throw away my Staff Dps Ele.
Really – AoE dmg is so OP?? Maybe at WvW it is possible but what else left for me in PvE?

Staff already does low damage, and our AoEs barely connect. o.o

If they nerf a staff, i think i’m just going to give up on it and follow the x/x/x/30/30 D/D builds, as much as it pains me to do so.

From what I heard they just said that aoe across the board was to strong and was getting nerfed. But only in wvw and pvp

eternistarr.6304:

From what I heard they just said that aoe across the board was to strong and was getting nerfed. But only in wvw and pvp

Except its not strong in WvW with the 5 character restriction. Besides whilst they can balance for sPVP separately I don’t think they can for WvW only which has the same balance as the PVE side.

Ele bunkers are on “Arenanets watch list”. (Twitch livestream btw)
incoming Nerf fairly soon I suspect
Well, I enjoy the challenge I face as a D/D ele and will stick with it…for now.
maybe make our other UP builds more viable and you will see less bunkers? (People go bunker builds as ele as..well our builds aren’t all that great blahblah etc. You would see less QQ about our bunker if our other builds actually worked and weren’t underpowered.)

I feel as though my D/D Elementalist is “Just” Right for me, I have a challenge in front of me that requires skill, Coordination & outplaying my enemy instead of just sitting at the back of everything and spamming AoE attacks until one of my AoE hits someone.

I am sad there will be a nerf to our D/D build in the near future, maybe not January, but when a Dev says “Watch List” it usually means Nerf and not a buff.

Edit: btw, I created this post, not to QQ, but to make a discussion of expected/speculated nerfs/buffs.

IMHO Arenanet has to start buffing everything so not to lead classes to become overnerfed and become an engineer sadly

Well aoe nerf…they said it. I’m not sure where that leaves staff and dagger/dagger which have barely any single target attacks between them except auto-attacks. They can’t possibly rework the class enough to compensate for a major aoe nerf (aka ele overall damage nerf)… so it should be interesting.

I also predict…
Ride the lightning will have its distance reduced by 33%.

They will intentionally bug at least two things they can’t officially nerf.

Were Kittened end of story, 0 viable builds, retires me ele for a diff class.
(same as i had to do in gw1)

Welp,looks like we will only be using environmental weaps from now on-now where was that merch who was selling wood planks?

They better not screw with boon duration, the elemental attunement trait, or the attunement cooldown reduction in arcane, because those are the only threads that hold the class together to playability.

In fact elemental attunement and 9 second attunement swap cooldowns should be baseline for the entire class without trait choices, then people could actually play more than 1 build.

And scepter should have an aura.

I’m expecting somewhere under eles: Ride the lighting issue is now resloved
And the next 10 mins on the forum: Ride the lighting only goes straight forward, it doesn’t target track
Then: Fixed the tool tip of Ride the lighting to say that it sends you only forward 1200 units, it does not target track.

I’m hoping for some scepter and staff love, want to get away from these dagger dagger builds. Although so much fun to do full damage d/d build and playing with the enemy mindset to trick them into thinking you are an OP ele, then continue to rip from life’s flesh their soul. To the forum they will cry, OH D/D ele can do so much damage and heal so much and get protection and not die, when infact the reason I’m doing so much damage is because I sacrificed the other things they think we can do and they just think its the same build.

Haha I just don’t get the likely bunker ele nerfs. Granted, I am now playing a dd ele but for the majority of the time I have played a necro as my main and never once did I think dd ele was overpowered or impossible to counter, as opposed to several other classes builds.

Hopefully the nerfs won’t break the build

My expectations
main hand dagger second hand dagger ele:
All fire, water, air and earth skills ( earth 1 isnt affected by this ) now inflict 66% less damage if the skills hit only 1 target. The effect is greatly increased if there are some enemys near.

Staff ele:
All fire, water, air, earth ( water 1 and earth 1 isnt affect by this ) now inflict 66% less damage if the skills hit only a1 target. The effect is greatly increased if there are some enemys near.

Scepter ele:
Fire 2 and 3, water 2 and earth 3 now inflict 66% less damage if the skills hit only a1 target. The effect is greatly increased if there are some enemys near.

Bunker ele:

Dont know but some hard nerf.

Seems a joke, but no. I really think this will happen.

“AoE abilities balancing

- One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.

- Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.

- Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.

- Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want. "

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

More nerfs coming for ele’s, more buffs for thieves and warriors, hooray for Anet.

My bet: Both from their comments and the popular mood on the forums, they are going to tone down Meteor shower and significantly nerf d/d. I wouldn’t be surprised if it includes both damage and mobility. I’ve always tried to respond to the “when are they going to nerf d/d” threads by highlighting the showcase for player skill aspects of the spec, but the mob has a rope and its sounds like justice is going to be spelled n-e-r-f. I just hope they don’t invalidate the spec altogether.

Recycle.5493:

“AoE abilities balancing

- One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.

- Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.

- Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.

- Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want. "

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

More nerfs coming for ele’s, more buffs for thieves and warriors, hooray for Anet.

Even though i know these quotes are legit, i find it surprisingly hard to believe that this is coming straight from the developers themselves. mind boggling really.

What is this supposed to mean to a staff ele who was by no means ever regarded as “OP” by anyone? I mean, ALL of their skills are AoE. and it’s not like they can ever switch to single target during combat.

To be honest the most dangerous nerf would be to RtL or cantrips. I doubt they can reduce our toughness / vit anymore than it is already and the issue seems to be the “bunker” portion of the build rather than the lolDamage.

Reduce healing would hurt and probably affect PvP more than WvW ( I assume, since I don’t play PvP ) since WvWers can still run away.

I suppose something like a increase to cooldowns? Might have to go back to 0/20/0/30/20 if that’s the case. If they drastically change how skills work it’s going to be a baaaaaddd day.