Guild Wars 2

The only reason most of us play D/D is due to thieves one shoting us if we don’t. I play D/D because it is fun, I also mix it up alot, I use different stats all the time, I have even put on bezerkers in spvp to do that little more damage we can do but lose everything else and still get called OP ele by people who could then effectively 1 shot me. So kudos to the devs for taking away our damage in the first beta and then nerfing us more throughout our life span. Taking us from Super Magus status to god only know what we are now. Some d/d postulant avatar? (They’ve become postulants, novice novices if you will and therefore are under the protection of the church!)

This will destroy a class that is based on AoE only due to WvW/sPvP complains!? Eles are weak and can’t even face someone alone without dieing really fast in WvW, in PvP most use a D/D system because AoE is utterly ridiculous because its easy to avoid, doesn’t do to much damage and coldowns and cast times are to big to follow a combo fields.
What happens in WvW is that people know how to play and how to use AoE as field deniers, this doesn’t do damage, it just prevents people from passing witch is easy to avoid with dodge and skills that classes have.
-AoE in line of single target!? So I do aroud 900 damage on a undead with staff, my field does 1200 damage to each target, so if i have 5 targets now i do only aroud 200 damage to each target. Ridiculous damage, not even worth casting it.
Single target damage stand out? So classes that are supposed to be single target damage and have some AoE will get a boost!? Kill AoE based classes, they are not needed anymore.
But wait, those two are the opposite of each other!? No, they simple didn’t say directly “we are nerfing the Ele AoE and powering up other classes AoE” in the frontal way.
Dungeons. AoE doesn’t kill everything, I would like them or someone to try doing a dungeon with 5 Eles and see how it goes, all with staff. If you survive just tell me the history off it.

I’m pretty enraged at the news right now so take everything i say lightly, but kitten anet you can’t make a class have 100% AoE skills then nerf AoE skills!

AoE nerf for Meteor Shower is expected for me. So, time to re-equip my ele with some other weapons. Staff is a no-go anymore.

or, just remove the staff from ele. No point using it anymore. No point.

I think this is what is actually going on in there mind:
“Bunker eles are very strong”
Actually means
There are too many bunker eles so we will nerf them so that they go and play something else.

The very same happened to bunker staffs, too many now they all play d/d.
After d/d we will all play s/d the super bunker builds that not many play.
Then they will nerf that till we are a mush of non existence.

I wish they would buff our damage if they are going to nerf our bunker-age, so we can compete with warrior and thief burst capabilities again.

@Anet, we play D/D (bunkers in general) because everything else gets destroyed by thieves backstab combo / unprepared 100 blades (although a lot less to 100 blades then invisible thieves). And our “damage” builds are so subpar that it’s not worth specking those points. Our class changes attunements a lot due to high cds on our skills and yet most of the damage booster traits are only available in that attunement, and don’t even carry over with 5 arcane minor. Make the arcane minor something else and make a 10 or 20 points in arcane (or even 15 or 25 minor): All traits carry over for 5 seconds, only 1 can carry over, when changing again you will have the previous traits and current (not 3 attunement sets of traits).

Anyone seen that post about a warrior soloing path1 ?

Designer mentions skill, knowledge dodge timing etc…

Isn’t that what D/D eles do but are much more complicated to do and requires more skill than spamming 1-2 buttons?

Huh….

Reroll warrior/quit game or stick with my D/D ele after all the nerfs it gets to show a net it requires skill rather than anything else….

I like the 3rd option, to stand up for what i believe in…or i can just quit for a game that is f2p and is more balanced with less bugs……….

Think i will stand for what i believe in because by god i love my elementalist play style (nerf play style all you want) and will stick with it through thick and thin.

Some people may say to me (and people have pm me this already) “Go away qqer, nobody wants you” all that rubbish, but i will say i will stand for what i enjoy!

D/D ele requires alot of skill, people like myself enjoy the challenge and adrenaline it gives, it is not a real image…but that’s the beauty of it.

(Smartphone auto correct, sorry)

/signed a mage fan.

Anet needs to really sit down and think what they should do. Instead of knee-jerk nerfing everything, why don’t they BUFF and FIX mechanics/traits/utilizes all that jazz.
Laziness maybe? Or inexperience?

Also Anet needs to be patching stuff more often, 1 major patch a month is pathetic.

I would love to have a burst build that has a chance to survive more than a gust of wind, but alas we’re all trapped in bunker spec. Which is something that is quite fun to play but also takes a lot of skill to use it well.

So I hope that bunker doesn’t get nerfed into the ground, but instead they open up more options by adding a decent burst ele build.

My guess is that boon duration runes will no longer stack. Which makes sense mind you, but I will miss them. :-)

I will still be playing my D/D elementalist as I have been from the beginning. I am however worried about how they can reduce the effectiveness of all AoE without significantly nerfing my favorite play style into the ground….

when they say they want single target damage classes to stand out more it really boggles my mind as thieves are all ready slated for being too strong in their burst combo’s, now the only thing you can use to counter a thief is being nerfed? I’m not quite sure I understand….. we’ll see.

Maybe I’m just completely biased but 2 of the major nerfs they mentioned will (bunker ele on radar) and will likely (aoe nerf) affect elementalists directly. It make no kittening sense. Is it just a pvp thing? Am I crazy?

For a while people were complaining about the bunker ele because it was new. Now they dont because they learned to counter. I have NEVER thought or been told that a staff ele aoe is op. Guess what, the counter for stealth thieves is aoe. Lets nerf! I have friends who faceroll guardians and warriors with starter gear and traits in wvw and hold their own. That would never work with even dd ele.

I know I sound frustrated because I am. Who decided these nerfs are necessary and why? And I can only imagine what aoe nerfs will do to kittening classes like the necro

When we get to the Profession balance part of the new patch notes it will be something like:

We are displeased that there are still people playing something other than Warrior in PVE and Thief in PVP, so the following changes will allow even more players to play these OP profs while avoiding the kitten ones. We felt this change is necessary because balancing two professions is easier than balancing eight.

Followed by the patch notes

maddoctor.2738:

When we get to the Profession balance part of the new patch notes it will be something like:

We are displeased that there are still people playing something other than Warrior in PVE and Thief in PVP, so the following changes will allow even more players to play these OP profs while avoiding the kitten ones. We felt this change is necessary because balancing two professions is easier than balancing eight.

Followed by the patch notes

Nicely said. So, time to ditch my ele and go for my thief. Maybe now I can actually go into WvW. Fun…………

I can’t believe some of the kittening in here.

D/D ele is pretty insane right now.

Granted it’s great fun and not a faceroll, but it’s really not as hard to play as people make it out to be – and it’s far stronger overall than any other class including thief and guardian (though specifically for guarding a point without having to move, guardian is still stronger)

In WvW and PVE with large areas, lots of terrain to use and large groups to AOE, ele’s are literally a god class.

I will still love my D/D and stick with him after all he is my main

If ele bunkering is being tweaked, and aoe is being toned down, that’s two major changes on elementalists – I am wondering how Anet will handle this as they agreed drastic changes throws class balance into pandamonium. They will have to tread on their planned changes very carefully or they will destroy this class.

People have also complained about d/d mobility; if they nerf bunkering and aoe damage, and cut down mobility, you now have a melee cloth low hp dunce that hits for crap dmg w/o mobility. ANET has to tweak one variable at a time, and if a certain spec is still too strong, adjust more or tweak another variable. They can’t nerf everything at once, so no fear fellow elementalists!

The future of Guild Wars 2 open field battle: 25 players from each side line up opposite each other, they all bow, then killshot the person opposite them after a commander from the third server counts down from 3.

It’s 2013 not 1713 ArenaNet.

Ride the Lightning obviously needs to go. It’s not much fun to battle against an elementalist when you know they’ll just run away and break combat the moment you start getting the better of it, every 15 seconds. The cooldowns on major skills are so ridiculously low that you only need to button mash with this class to beat most opponents.

No real need to think for a half a second whether you should be using this skill at this stage of the fight unlike with other classes.

Invulnerability stomp is another one that needs to go. Obviously not intended.

Hah, my crystal ball was right – bunkers on the watchlist.

TheGreatA.4192:

Ride the Lightning obviously needs to go. It’s not much fun to battle against an elementalist when you know they’ll just run away and break combat the moment you start getting the better of it, every 15 seconds. The cooldowns on major skills are so ridiculously low that you only need to button mash with this class to beat most opponents.

No real need to think for a half a second whether you should be using this skill at this stage of the fight unlike with other classes.

Invulnerability stomp is another one that needs to go. Obviously not intended.

Stealth stomp, stealth run like a little baby, stealth skills actually DOING damage, greatsword + sword mobility + stability stomps on heavies, portal + blink + decoy on Mesmer.

Flip side, 100% melee, no weaponswap requiring a short cooldown gap closer (which in reality is closer to a 20-24 second cooldown due to attunement swaps) vs the short cooldown gap closers other classes have combined the weaponswap to ranged.

You get what I’m saying.

haviz.1340:

Hah, my crystal ball was right – bunkers on the watchlist.

My hero! I hope you noticed the mention of one-shot thief builds too.

MarzAttakz.9608:

haviz.1340:

Hah, my crystal ball was right – bunkers on the watchlist.

My hero! I hope you noticed the mention of one-shot thief builds too.

Visions were a bit too unclear in that matter.

TheGreatA.4192:

Ride the Lightning obviously needs to go. It’s not much fun to battle against an elementalist when you know they’ll just run away and break combat the moment you start getting the better of it, every 15 seconds. The cooldowns on major skills are so ridiculously low that you only need to button mash with this class to beat most opponents.

No real need to think for a half a second whether you should be using this skill at this stage of the fight unlike with other classes.

Invulnerability stomp is another one that needs to go. Obviously not intended.

With that mentality, you would also avoid thieves, warriors, or any class that can get out of combat and remove their escape mechanisms? Any class that uses a skill to escape combat does not get the benefit of the skill – the tradeoff of using it to either enter or leave combat. Of all aspects of d/d eles, mobility is the least of concern compared to its bunkering capabilities or aoe damage.

Sorry to sound harsh, but button mashing on any profession will beat unaware players – if you are being beaten by a button mashing ele, you need to work on improving your gameplay. Also, the major skills are on a 40-45 second cooldown – RTL is a movement /gap closer like any other similar skills on other professions (and not to mention stealth which is the easiest way to escape combat safely. Edit: Marzattackz summarizes this nicely in his post above).

Since the beginning, Anet is nerfing professions and builds instead of bringing the rest up to the same level. And since the beginning, I feel each profession loses what makes it different from the others. There are less and less viable builds, people switch to the next good class/build, and when this other class/build is nerfed, nobody uses the 2 previous nerfed ones. And I fear professions will look more and more the same. Of course professions will be balanced, but at the cost of diversity and fun. And D/D is by far the most fun build I’ve played on GW2. Lots of skills to use, good synergies between traits and skills, and the need to know each one to use it effectively.

Nerfing is not the way to go. They need to make all builds/classes as fun and effective as D/D. But I suppose it’s easier to nerf this build instead. I’m really disappointed. I really feel each part of fun is ripped of of this game.

Well i guess time to finish Thf.. and attempt to get him through fractals now..
Its sad really as a staff ele..
throw away exo staff i guess. I mean hell half the time in fotm i think whyd i even use that aoe.. what did it hit. Oh look 500 on a running mob after everyone else in my group.
Kinda sad cause i dropped my necro for my ele and now im regretting that very much so.

-A lil’ nerf on D/D surv’.
-Change the gameplay of conditions s/f. (condition mesmer is more fun to play)
-A smoke combo zone. (scepter=>earth=>3)

TGSlasher.1458:

@Anet, we play D/D (bunkers in general) because everything else gets destroyed by thieves backstab combo / unprepared 100 blades (although a lot less to 100 blades then invisible thieves). And our “damage” builds are so subpar that it’s not worth specking those points.

This is only partially true; the reality is that the Guild Wars 2’s class system obeys to this rule: bunker>burst>balanced.

The thieves are op (they’re THE op class), but all elementalists use the d/d bunker build just because is clearly op too (how many times you died without being able to escape? Ikittennow how to play, an ele bunker is just impossibile to kill).

Sure Anet have to nerf thieves and hb warrior, but they have to nerf also many bunker build because as it’is ridiculous you can be killed in less than a second, so it’s ridiculous you cannot kill a class that, thanks to its resistance and its escape ability, is almost immortal

Edeor.9720:

Sure Anet have to nerf thieves and hb warrior, but they have to nerf also many bunker build because as it’is ridiculous you can be killed in less than a second, so it’s ridiculous you cannot kill a class that, thanks to its resistance and its escape ability, is almost immortal

The reason most eles play bunker builds is because if we don’t, we can’t winning anything. I’m all for a balanced build, but the main difference between a balanced ele and a bunker ele, is that balanced eles can also by killed by other bunkers, whereas bunkers can only be killed by burst.

And if we go burst, we can do extremely well…until we boot up the game. The damage just isn’t sufficient.

Cirax.9231:

With that mentality, you would also avoid thieves, warriors, or any class that can get out of combat and remove their escape mechanisms? Any class that uses a skill to escape combat does not get the benefit of the skill – the tradeoff of using it to either enter or leave combat. Of all aspects of d/d eles, mobility is the least of concern compared to its bunkering capabilities or aoe damage.

Sorry to sound harsh, but button mashing on any profession will beat unaware players – if you are being beaten by a button mashing ele, you need to work on improving your gameplay. Also, the major skills are on a 40-45 second cooldown – RTL is a movement /gap closer like any other similar skills on other professions (and not to mention stealth which is the easiest way to escape combat safely. Edit: Marzattackz summarizes this nicely in his post above).

Warrior escape is a joke. It is definitely not on par with Ride the Lightning, which is usually followed up by several other skills which can create a gap large enough between yourself and your enemies to break combat. Warrior defense largely consists of facetanking every bit of damage the enemy can deal them. Let’s not even bring them up.

Thieves are another class that are complained about for obvious reasons. Thankfully most thieves are too stubborn to actually escape combat and are terribly glassy in the end.

Button mashers are not a problem for skilled players, but with the endless amount of skills that elementalists can access, a button masher can go a long way. On most videos of elementalists playing, the lack of thought put into their use of skills is laughable. Despite this they can get away with it because of the ultimate bail-out button on a 15 second cooldown. These are players who think they are among the most skilled in the game. When there’s little risk in going after a group of 3 or 4 enemies, there’s a problem.

Let’s compare a necromancer who has to pay close attention to the amount of boons and conditions on the enemy and cannot afford to waste a single skill which are usually on cooldowns of 60 seconds or more. There’s just much more skill required to achieve a similar result. I’m not saying they should take everything from elementalists, but there’s definitely a problem even within the elementalist class itself of one particular build achieveing a lot more with the same amount of effort put in (or less).

I think you guys a greatly overstating the skill requirement for D/D. It literally is all about spamming AE’s and trying to stay close to the target. But even with that said, the AE’s dagger has really isn’t doing the kind of damage that I would consider excessive. I think D/D’s problems relate more to its longevity and we’d sooner see dagger 2 and 5 adjusted some.

I also think you guys are jumping the gun with just what they mean about too much AE. Personally, I think we’re more likely to see them tone down melee attacks so there’s a cap of 3 targets with their melee swings or something like that. I don’t think we’ll see staff’s AE’s targeted as the cooldown on fire abilities and the way they’re used is quite limited. They also have to acknowledge that there are so few players actually using staff so why push the few die hards left away?

When all is said and done, what are people really complaining about with D/D these days? It’s all the escapes and all the heals. It’s not the damage because people who use D/D are in tanking gear….

TheGreatA.4192:

Cirax.9231:

With that mentality, you would also avoid thieves, warriors, or any class that can get out of combat and remove their escape mechanisms? Any class that uses a skill to escape combat does not get the benefit of the skill – the tradeoff of using it to either enter or leave combat. Of all aspects of d/d eles, mobility is the least of concern compared to its bunkering capabilities or aoe damage.

Sorry to sound harsh, but button mashing on any profession will beat unaware players – if you are being beaten by a button mashing ele, you need to work on improving your gameplay. Also, the major skills are on a 40-45 second cooldown – RTL is a movement /gap closer like any other similar skills on other professions (and not to mention stealth which is the easiest way to escape combat safely. Edit: Marzattackz summarizes this nicely in his post above).

Warrior escape is a joke. It is definitely not on par with Ride the Lightning, which is usually followed up by several other skills which can create a gap large enough between yourself and your enemies to break combat. Warrior defense largely consists of facetanking every bit of damage the enemy can deal them. Let’s not even bring them up.

Thieves are another class that are complained about for obvious reasons. Thankfully most thieves are too stubborn to actually escape combat and are terribly glassy in the end.

Button mashers are not a problem for skilled players, but with the endless amount of skills that elementalists can access, a button masher can go a long way. On most videos of elementalists playing, the lack of thought put into their use of skills is laughable. Despite this they can get away with it because of the ultimate bail-out button on a 15 second cooldown.

Let’s compare a necromancer who has to pay close attention to the amount of boons and conditions on the enemy and cannot afford to waste a single skill which are usually on cooldowns of 60 seconds or more. There’s just much more skill required to achieve a similar result. I’m not saying they should take everything from elementalists, but there’s definitely a problem even within the elementalist class itself of one particular build achieveing a lot more with the same amount of effort put in (or less).

RTL isn’t the problem. And Warriors don’t need strong escapes because they have heavy armor, 25k hp, strong snares and incapacitates. And even with all of this, you can’t honestly pretend that the escape options for warrior are exactly week with 2 greatsword and 2 1h sword options on short cooldowns with fairly long range (not 1200 I realize, but you’re also not a ranged class in light armor with 15k hp).

And look at other abilities with similar affect to RTL. Rangers have swoop with the same range and cooldown. Warriors have rush which is on only a slightly higher cooldown and can still use whirlwind to get an opener or savage leap. Without RTL or a snare on the warrior, they can out run anyone. And they have insanely high burst (which is probably the AE damage they’re talking about toning down).

Atherakhia.4086:

RTL isn’t the problem. And Warriors don’t need strong escapes because they have heavy armor, 25k hp, strong snares and incapacitates. And even with all of this, you can’t honestly pretend that the escape options for warrior are exactly week with 2 greatsword and 2 1h sword options on short cooldowns with fairly long range (not 1200 I realize, but you’re also not a ranged class in light armor with 15k hp).

And look at other abilities with similar affect to RTL. Rangers have swoop with the same range and cooldown. Warriors have rush which is on only a slightly higher cooldown and can still use whirlwind to get an opener or savage leap. Without RTL or a snare on the warrior, they can out run anyone. And they have insanely high burst (which is probably the AE damage they’re talking about toning down).

Even with high armor, high HP and high damage the warrior class is still fodder for most decent players, unless you meet a warrior with exceptional skill or get caught by HB in a mob. There’s little utility to speak of and whatever little utility they may have, there’s counters for them. But it is impossible to have a counter for each of the 20+ skills that any elementalist can utilize.

You can say that you can counter this and that but other classes simply do not have as much to offer. They’ll be waiting for those 60 second cooldowns while the elementalist already has a full set of skills to utilize.

A bunker ele is far more survivable than the average warrior, while a bunker warrior is completely missing the point and is basically a static object to beat up on. Warriors are just not a problem, let’s put it that way.

I’m not saying that elementalists having a lot of skills is wrong by any means, because that’s the point of the class, I’m just saying there should be more risk involved for the use of those skills. When you go all in, you can’t expect to be able to pull out of it when things aren’t going your way.

The only mean I found to defeat a D/D (or any bunker) in 1v1 is playing condition builds. (s/f – staff)

TheGreatA.4192:

Atherakhia.4086:

RTL isn’t the problem. And Warriors don’t need strong escapes because they have heavy armor, 25k hp, strong snares and incapacitates. And even with all of this, you can’t honestly pretend that the escape options for warrior are exactly week with 2 greatsword and 2 1h sword options on short cooldowns with fairly long range (not 1200 I realize, but you’re also not a ranged class in light armor with 15k hp).

And look at other abilities with similar affect to RTL. Rangers have swoop with the same range and cooldown. Warriors have rush which is on only a slightly higher cooldown and can still use whirlwind to get an opener or savage leap. Without RTL or a snare on the warrior, they can out run anyone. And they have insanely high burst (which is probably the AE damage they’re talking about toning down).

Even with high armor, high HP and high damage the warrior class is still fodder for most decent players, unless you meet a warrior with exceptional skill or get caught by HB in a mob. There’s little utility to speak of and whatever little utility they may have, there’s counters for them. But it is impossible to have a counter for each of the 20+ skills that any elementalist can utilize. You can say that you can counter this and that but other classes simply do not have as much to offer.

A bunker ele is far more survivable than the average warrior, while a bunker warrior is completely missing the point and is basically a static object to beat up on. Warriors are just not a problem, let’s put it that way.

They’re far more survivable because of heals moreso than the escapes. RTL is the only real one on a short cooldown. The others your snares/roots are on shorter cooldowns by half or better. But yes, Warriors are fodder in PvP and that revolves around the sheer amount of things flying around and your class’ poor healing options. With only 1 hard counter to conditions and half the classes out there wanting to get away from you, Warriors have it rough.

MarzAttakz.9608:

haviz.1340:

Hah, my crystal ball was right – bunkers on the watchlist.

My hero! I hope you noticed the mention of one-shot thief builds too.

I think the one-shot thief build was mentioned in the question, but not in the answer… only that bunker builds are on their watch list
So I don’t think any crystal ball will show anything about thief 1-shot builds, they are “as intented” by Anet

Why does everyone keep saying the D/D build (or any build honestly) requires skill to use? Seems to me Ele has become all about keeping everything on cooldown and popping cantrips when you get in trouble… Every D/D Ele I run in to just face rolls the whole time. There’s no need to time anything except churning earth + lightning flash. By the time you put all of your Fire, Air, and Earth skills on cooldown, you probably have taken some damage and conditions so its time to go water. By the time you put your water skills on cooldown, everything else is ready to be spammed again. Again, this can be said for pretty much any other Ele build… Spam everything on cooldown and pop cantrips when you need to.

Xenon.4537:

Why does everyone keep saying the D/D build (or any build honestly) requires skill to use? Seems to me Ele has become all about keeping everything on cooldown and popping cantrips when you get in trouble… Every D/D Ele I run in to just face rolls the whole time. There’s no need to time anything except churning earth + lightning flash. By the time you put all of your Fire, Air, and Earth skills on cooldown, you probably have taken some damage and conditions so its time to go water. By the time you put your water skills on cooldown, everything else is ready to be spammed again. Again, this can be said for pretty much any other Ele build… Spam everything on cooldown and pop cantrips when you need to.

The idea that elementalists have the highest skill floor came before the x/x/x/30/30 bunker build became popular. Bunker builds for any class have some of the lowest skill floors because they have so much more room for error. This is especially relevant for elementalists because they have the lowest base hp and armor. For any class built as a glass cannon, the elementalist is among those you worry about the least because they’re the most squishy, have no damage mitigation options, and don’t even do as much burst damage from obvious attack sequences. As a result of this, the skill curve becomes a cliff the moment you don’t spec as a bunker.