Guild Wars 2

Elementalist
In this update, we’ve reduced quite a few recharges for many weapon and utility skills that felt too high in light of previous reductions to cooldown traits. With that said, we’re also looking to reduce the elementalist’s damage in high-level content, as this profession’s damage and utility mix currently crowds out other potential high-damage dealers.

Arc Lightning: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now deal the higher damage values (25%) in all areas of the game.

Ride the Lightning: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Frost Aura: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Cleansing Wave: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. The number of conditions cleansed has been increased from 1 to 2.

Earthquake: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Fixed a bug that caused the blast finisher to occur around the elementalist’s selected target rather than around their current position.

Frozen Ground: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Healing Rain: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.

Static Field: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.

Meteor Shower: This skill now has a 0.5-second cooldown when hitting nonplayer targets.

Armor of Earth: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 75 seconds to 50 seconds.

Mist Form: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 75 seconds to 60 seconds.

Ether Renewal: The healing of this skill has been increased by 6% per pulse.

Arcane Brilliance: The radius of this skill has been increased from 240 to 360.

Overload Air: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 7% in PvE only.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This skill has been unsplit from PvP, and the cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds game-wide.

Arcane Shield: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use the lower recharge (40 seconds) in all areas of the game.

So is meteor showers only hitting half of the hits against big targets now? wtf. And Even more nerfs to overload air.

EDIT: Here’s a quick video I recorded with my crappy cellphone lol. Please excuse the potato quality, I just rushed it.

To add bullet points use "* "

PVP guy here…

…nothing changed…ele stays healbot for season 6th…only Armor of Earth and Mist Form buff means something…

Anet really wants people to stop playing ele in pvp.

It’s complete waste of time to login in and test the changes.

The meteor shower nerf is extremely painful to say the least. Well, on the bright side, armor of earth, arcane shield, and ride the lightning has their cooldowns reduced. Ridethe lighting is back to it’s pre-nerf days and if you hit a target, the cooldown should be less than its initial release version’s cooldown (15 seconds if you hit a target as opposed to initial release’s 20 seconds).

The nerf to meteor shower makes me wonder if meteor shower was the major culprit or if it was a combination of meteor shower + pre nerf lava font.

DanteZero.9736:

The meteor shower nerf is extremely painful to say the least. Well, on the bright side, armor of earth, arcane shield, and ride the lightning has their cooldowns reduced. Ridethe lighting is back to it’s pre-nerf days and if you hit a target, the cooldown should be less than its initial release version’s cooldown (15 seconds if you hit a target as opposed to initial release’s 20 seconds).

The nerf to meteor shower makes me wonder if meteor shower was the major culprit or if it was a combination of meteor shower + pre nerf lava font.

Staff is becoming a liability now. No flow in fire what so ever with the LF nerf from the last patch. Read through these changes and was a bit perplexed. Until i read that they INCREASED the dps on both guard and warrior. Now i just don’t care about any of it anymore…

Mr Godlike.6098:

PVP guy here…

…nothing changed…ele stays healbot for season 6th…only Armor of Earth and Mist Form buff means something…

Anet really wants people to stop playing ele in pvp.

It’s complete waste of time to login in and test the changes.

Perfect summary. No changes, nothing is different. Weapon choices, strategy and meta will stay exactly the same.

Only difference for ele now is to see how the nerf on staff will affect High level PvE and that is it.

Once again, pathetic changes. It is like they don’t want or don’t know what to change

Well that a goodbye to my staff ele’s raid viability…. they really don’t want us playing this calls anymore do they? in PVP we have one viable build and in PVE effectiveness just went poof while other classes that didn’t need buffs got plenty…. well time to make my Guard my main I guess.. kitten…

Pvp: nothing change.
Pve: we will see how the nerf of meteorshower Will work, to be honest seems a Pretty huge Nerf to me, but have to test.
Also I dont see if scepter fresh air will have any chance to come out since overload Nerf, especially while other classes, mostly condi ones, and thieves got buffs

Here’s a quick video I recorded with my crappy cellphone lol. Please excuse the potato quality, I just rushed it.

It’s pitiful now.

Pathetic complaints. Staff ele was easily 7k dps ahead of any other dps spec in ‘high tier pve’. The numbers are coming and, oh, whats this? Youre still #1 dps. Seems to me the ele community qq’s a lot about nothing.

I’ve tested it a bit – mind you, i’m not God’s gift to elementalists – but a few minutes before the patch, i scored 40k on a big target 1kk hp; no food, no infusions, everything else on. Now I’m doing 35k. Ouch.

Gwaihir.1745:

Pathetic complaints. Staff ele was easily 7k dps ahead of any other dps spec in ‘high tier pve’. The numbers are coming and, oh, whats this? Youre still #1 dps. Seems to me the ele community qq’s a lot about nothing.

Since you quoted my moment on High tier PvE as I mentioned above I don’t give kitten about it since I don’t know the impact – much less do I care as I do PvP and WvW.

Now please tell me how the complaint is pathetic on the actual point of the complaint – changes made no difference to bring build diversity, new role, etc.

Before going around the board doing your “damage control” read the complaints.

PvP:Looks like slight microbuff for me.Was hoping for dragon tooth buff/rework and FGS CD reduction with insta cast on it.I had low expectations for me,but result is even worse than i was awaiting.Thou util skills CD reduction is nice,now just have to survive those 50sec for armor of earth to witness it

On other hand,reading guardian notes and “buff” to lithany of wrath,lol,CD reduced to 25sec….. more epic than shatterstone buff from previous balance.

KaporHabakuk.6219:

PvP:Looks like slight microbuff for me.Was hoping for dragon tooth buff/rework and FGS CD reduction with insta cast on it.I had low expectations for me,but result is even worse than i was awaiting.Thou util skills CD reduction is nice,now just have to survive those 50sec for armor of earth to witness it

On other hand,reading guardian notes and “buff” to lithany of wrath,lol,CD reduced to 25sec….. more epic than shatterstone buff from previous balance.

But you can’t improve the epicness and perfection that shatterstone is. That skill was polished to excellence

it would be good to take into account the persistence dd characters is propor- tional to their damage

The MS nerf will balance Eles on bosses with Large Hitboxes.

I mean even a Staff Ele with a poor rotation could hit 40k on the Large Golem, when the best rotation for any other class was about 36k max.

The issue is with FA Staff on small hit boxes. Someone with a REALLY good rotation could do 38k on the golem, but I, who consider myself in maybe the 80th percentile of raiders, could only consistently get about 32.5k. With Power Engi, I could manage 34k, with DWh I could manage 34k, with Theif I could manage about 33.5k.

So, the FA Staff rotation was in fact pretty difficult to pull off well. I suspect after the nerf I will maybe be able to pull off 30k tops, probably closer to 28k on average. I suspect that the best of the best will maybe be able to reach 34k. Which pretty much means that, Super Skilled FA Staff Ele = Above Average Thief.

mulzi.8273:

DanteZero.9736:

The meteor shower nerf is extremely painful to say the least. Well, on the bright side, armor of earth, arcane shield, and ride the lightning has their cooldowns reduced. Ridethe lighting is back to it’s pre-nerf days and if you hit a target, the cooldown should be less than its initial release version’s cooldown (15 seconds if you hit a target as opposed to initial release’s 20 seconds).

The nerf to meteor shower makes me wonder if meteor shower was the major culprit or if it was a combination of meteor shower + pre nerf lava font.

Staff is becoming a liability now. No flow in fire what so ever with the LF nerf from the last patch. Read through these changes and was a bit perplexed. Until i read that they INCREASED the dps on both guard and warrior. Now i just don’t care about any of it anymore…

no flow? describe the flow prior and how this has reduced it. staff ele has always been and will always intend to be a slow weapon. its designed to be pve and WvW, in 5v5 pvp your an idiot for picking a slow weapon.

lucadiro.4519:

Pvp: nothing change.
Pve: we will see how the nerf of meteorshower Will work, to be honest seems a Pretty huge Nerf to me, but have to test.
Also I dont see if scepter fresh air will have any chance to come out since overload Nerf, especially while other classes, mostly condi ones, and thieves got buffs

Thief buffs? Their infinite dodge spam has been KILLED. Vault spam is DESTROYED after line-of-sight change. They have to face their enemy now to Vault them. They got completely butchered.

Abelisk.4527:

lucadiro.4519:

Pvp: nothing change.
Pve: we will see how the nerf of meteorshower Will work, to be honest seems a Pretty huge Nerf to me, but have to test.
Also I dont see if scepter fresh air will have any chance to come out since overload Nerf, especially while other classes, mostly condi ones, and thieves got buffs

Thief buffs? Their infinite dodge spam has been KILLED. Vault spam is DESTROYED after line-of-sight change. They have to face their enemy now to Vault them. They got completely butchered.

You don’t need to face them, it just prevents you from vaulting beyond obstacles.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMMAFOgdOAOOAcYilNAb4BEAugu71/6hlYFkBGBA-TJBGABus/wBnAAAeAAeXGAA

I see potential with s/d bruiser style of play. Ill test it after work

Was hoping Arcane Shield change was just a straight block (4s?) because as it stands other professions that skillspam can remove it in 3 seconds (e.g. Locust Swarm for Necro Wh 5). Think Bandit’s Defense. That would have had at least made it better instead of just a cooldown decrease which is appreciated as well.

New ele raid meta? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qylEEXvGtc

UrMom.4205:

New ele raid meta? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qylEEXvGtc

Lololol I also was to posting that here! Look really promising! Will test it!

I like the non pve staff buffs.

My elly is now fully retired. Full mesmer and warrior in all game modes. GG ANET

Mr Godlike.6098:

-snip- Anet really wants people to stop playing pvp.

It’s complete waste of time. -snip-

fixed that for you bro, no need to thank me.

The Meteor Shower changes realty hits ele hard in wvw for being a siege clearing class now you can no longer kill siege with out other siege. That going to need to be fixed badly.
Who even in charges of ele balancing at this point this seems to be a major over sight.

Jski.6180:

The Meteor Shower changes realty hits ele hard in wvw for being a siege clearing class now you can no longer kill siege with out other siege. That going to need to be fixed badly.
Who even in charges of ele balancing at this point this seems to be a major over sight.

this is true but to be fair a single ele could clear siege faster than a ballista honestly two meteor showers would take down an ac or ballista

Rangerdeity.5847:

Jski.6180:

The Meteor Shower changes realty hits ele hard in wvw for being a siege clearing class now you can no longer kill siege with out other siege. That going to need to be fixed badly.
Who even in charges of ele balancing at this point this seems to be a major over sight.

this is true but to be fair a single ele could clear siege faster than a ballista honestly two meteor showers would take down an ac or ballista

More to do with ballista not being a ture conter to siege and AC cata trebs shield gens even caions where far better counters. Simply put ballista is counter to offisve sigese not def siege. Ele metor was a counter to def siege / siege bunkering and now its all over.

im sorry you are all going on about how meteor shower was nerfed, exactly how was it nerfed? ive noticed no change in it.

it only hits PvE when you strike huge monsters and as side effect damage to siege got lowered. Thats it. Seems like 10% damage nerf on some large boss mobs.

Griever.7480:

im sorry you are all going on about how meteor shower was nerfed, exactly how was it nerfed? ive noticed no change in it.

Basically it hit half of the time with meteors. Before the patch i could hit 24 times the same target with the best RNG possibile and with an enemy with big hitbox.
Now the maximun hit it can land is 12 with the best RNG and on a large target hitbox.

On one hand, Arc Lightning buff finally coming to PvE is sweet. On the other, we got an unnecessary Air Overload nerf.

Griever.7480:

im sorry you are all going on about how meteor shower was nerfed, exactly how was it nerfed? ive noticed no change in it.

Pre-patch, if you cast MS on a large hit box enemy, all 24 meteors would do damage to the target. The meteors drop every 0.375 seconds, so post patch on a large hitbox, after a hit, the next drop won’t hit because it’s on a 0.5 cooldown. So its every other hit (12 out of 24) so 50% damage nerf on large hitbox. You can cast MS and count the number of hits, if you’re lucky you’ll get 12 hits. It’s sorta rng, i seem to always get 10 or 11 hits.

I don’t understand the Overload Air nerf for PvE, do they hate D/Wh and Fresh Air Staff builds?

My love for Ele surpasses these nerfs. I will still play it. Idgaf about meta.

cgMatt.5162:

I don’t understand the Overload Air nerf for PvE, do they hate D/Wh and Fresh Air Staff builds?

Raid balance, ele covr the TOP 3 positions, that’s why

Supreme.3164:

cgMatt.5162:

I don’t understand the Overload Air nerf for PvE, do they hate D/Wh and Fresh Air Staff builds?

Raid balance, ele covr the TOP 3 positions, that’s why

Funny thing is that it will still cover TOP 1 lol

Leoneth.8762:

My love for Ele surpasses these nerfs. I will still play it. Idgaf about meta.

Its still viable but as a tempest and as pure support it even got a buff in the update. Its the core ele / dmg ele that got hit hard the very ideal of what a mages is and why ppl play mages types in rpgs.

Ele or temp (i would not even call the class an ele any more) is a melee support class who stays alive though boons and heals.

Yes tempest is not ele. But naming it diffrent woudl have helped. Most disapointment comes from expectations. If you always have this in your mind it´s nearly impossible to fail.

Wolfric.9380:

Yes tempest is not ele. But naming it diffrent woudl have helped. Most disapointment comes from expectations. If you always have this in your mind it´s nearly impossible to fail.

The issue is that all class whom only got add on from there elite spec effectively killed the core version of that class type (so classes that got realty f1-f4 changes not just simple add on have a core class). What was keeping core ele playable is it staff game play in wvw and to a point pve. Staff main dmg is metor shower something they just nerfed hard vs npc / siege. A core ele is nearly unplayable in spvp and now with these nerfs pointless in wvw / pve.

I just do not see core ele say water air arcain making a come back with d/d or staff at any point of the game when you have to chose of running tempest line over say air or arcain.

All of this was very temporarily in that once they had added in a dmg elite spec for the ele type class core ele would of lost every thing in its meaning.

(There no more core classes : Ele mez eng ranger thf. Your far better off calling them types or there elite spec’s names.)

lucadiro.4519:

Supreme.3164:

cgMatt.5162:

I don’t understand the Overload Air nerf for PvE, do they hate D/Wh and Fresh Air Staff builds?

Raid balance, ele covr the TOP 3 positions, that’s why

Funny thing is that it will still cover TOP 1 lol

as it rightfully should. but give the rangers a chance… oh right rangers still meh. ok give the engineers a chan…. kitten …. ok everyone kitten off your building warriors and guardians kittening deal with it.

Rangerdeity.5847:

lucadiro.4519:

Supreme.3164:

cgMatt.5162:

I don’t understand the Overload Air nerf for PvE, do they hate D/Wh and Fresh Air Staff builds?

Raid balance, ele covr the TOP 3 positions, that’s why

Funny thing is that it will still cover TOP 1 lol

as it rightfully should. but give the rangers a chance… oh right rangers still meh. ok give the engineers a chan…. kitten …. ok everyone kitten off your building warriors and guardians kittening deal with it.

What?

In WvW ele is viable, not top pecking order but it’s better in wvw . Play D/D core. Only issue are some warriors but it’s stalemate in the fight and you should leave in time or you will lose since they have less commands to dish out 3-4 times your damage. Or if you fight a condi thief spammer and you didn’t quip enough condi remove or did not have earth trait line replacing fire. You still have to work those rotations so your doing 4-5 times the amount of work than people just hitting one button to equal your 2-3 rotation chain combo. As for spvp or raids I won’t comment on hehe since without the right stats your a kitten ele doing way too much work for minimal returns.

Waisenpai.6028:

In WvW ele is viable, not top pecking order but it’s better in wvw . Play D/D core. Only issue are some warriors but it’s stalemate in the fight and you should leave in time or you will lose since they have less commands to dish out 3-4 times your damage. Or if you fight a condi thief spammer and you didn’t quip enough condi remove or did not have earth trait line replacing fire. You still have to work those rotations so your doing 4-5 times the amount of work than people just hitting one button to equal your 2-3 rotation chain combo. As for spvp or raids I won’t comment on hehe since without the right stats your a kitten ele doing way too much work for minimal returns.

Pointless to play core d/d ele when you have tempest that adds at least 4 effects of def that arcain cant. If your going melee ele you MUST rune tempest and water any thing beyond that your asking to die to condi or to be one shot.

Core ele IS staff ele the very pinnacle of the type mages. Any thing else is just a mages trying to be a melee. So any nerf to staff is a nerf to core ele and any buff to def / dagger is a buff to tempest the more non mages ele type.

Sorry for my english but..
I write here as the support has advised, but I do not believe in that that that that to change
I no longer understand the meaning of the word balance in GW2:
I’m curious about what it was to do an elementalist so useless for the group, once the glass cannon remained glassy but ..
In comparison with other classes it is practically useless:
Fractals are much easier to pass by necromancers, in which DPS is higher than in Elementalist in 9 out of 10 cases
2 guardians destroy mobs in dungeons faster than the elementalist has time to do anything
As a buffer it is better to take a druid or PS warrior and messmer
and all these classes are more tenacious.
So why did remove the class from the game for experienced players who were able to realize their potential dd to the fullest with crystal compatibility?

Savach.7219:

Sorry for my english but..
I write here as the support has advised, but I do not believe in that that that that to change
I no longer understand the meaning of the word balance in GW2:
I’m curious about what it was to do an elementalist so useless for the group, once the glass cannon remained glassy but ..
In comparison with other classes it is practically useless:
Fractals are much easier to pass by necromancers, in which DPS is higher than in Elementalist in 9 out of 10 cases
2 guardians destroy mobs in dungeons faster than the elementalist has time to do anything
As a buffer it is better to take a druid or PS warrior and messmer
and all these classes are more tenacious.
So why did remove the class from the game for experienced players who were able to realize their potential dd to the fullest with crystal compatibility?

They didnt remove the class from the game lol… It still is One of the best class to the DPS role.
And “experienced players that can realize their potential” are mostly still playing ele.

lucadiro.4519:

Savach.7219:

Sorry for my english but..
I write here as the support has advised, but I do not believe in that that that that to change
I no longer understand the meaning of the word balance in GW2:
I’m curious about what it was to do an elementalist so useless for the group, once the glass cannon remained glassy but ..
In comparison with other classes it is practically useless:
Fractals are much easier to pass by necromancers, in which DPS is higher than in Elementalist in 9 out of 10 cases
2 guardians destroy mobs in dungeons faster than the elementalist has time to do anything
As a buffer it is better to take a druid or PS warrior and messmer
and all these classes are more tenacious.
So why did remove the class from the game for experienced players who were able to realize their potential dd to the fullest with crystal compatibility?

They didnt remove the class from the game lol… It still is One of the best class to the DPS role.
And “experienced players that can realize their potential” are mostly still playing ele.

Only true for 1/3 (maybe less due to raids only being part of pve) of the game and even that not the best class for pve raids but for most of the game ele is a weak dps class (spvp wvw and open pve).

lucadiro.4519:

They didnt remove the class from the game lol… It still is One of the best class to the DPS role.
And “experienced players that can realize their potential” are mostly still playing ele.

Removed not literally, but
Probably you play recently, if you do not see the difference.
Dps is close but more often smaller than the rest, while the Elementalist will still play on the “piano” polka, the necromancer languidly pressing a pair of buttons will cause more damage O_o it is a fact
I play elementalist ele-out of habit, in DPS I overtake only the lazy and novice

Savach, fact is that the elementalist is still top dps in raid. Fact is that solo dungeon record are still held by elementalists. Fact is that the necromancer is still more often kicked out of raid than taken. The elementalist bring minute support with next to 0 investment that strengthen the group as a whole.

If you feel that the elementalist is lacking in PvE there is only one answer : you lack experience as an elementalist. If you think that the necromancer outclass the elementalist… that’s you take hits that you shouldn’t take. The necromancer shine for the players that don’t quite master the different encounters of the game but it’s light is very dim in front of an elementalist that have mastered the class and have a thorough understanding of the differents encounters of the game.