Guild Wars 2

gkrit.9416:

I think its about time Anet start balancing skills, seeing as the community is starting to take this stuff seriously. It’s still early days, but you gotta do what the community demands at the time. Fix bugs… but prioritise balance in the next patch (and spend time on the next patch rather than just wait a week and do a few petty tweaks) and listen to what the community is saying.

Majority of the time “we” know what we are talking about. There is no time to be “proud”. Think deeply about changes that will be made and it may not be as simple as changing a few numbers… skills may need to function differently because in theory, things sound good… but in practise, they may not fulfill their purpose as intended.

Those minor bug fixes are actually fairly big since it effects thousands/millions of players.

Also they have data we can’t even see to back up their choices, sadly I don’t see any PvP skills like in GW1 where you could have a PvE skill and for PvP it works differently for balance.

Right now it looks like PvE skills are all you can use, I imagine once GvG makes an apperance they’ll split the 2 again but until then we are going to get nerf’d heavily.

Just weather the storm and you’ll come out better.

Atm i rather see them fix some of the obvious bugs before trying to balance anything, since fixing those bugs could make serious changes to the balance to.

Paulus magintie

Also they have data we can’t even see to back up their choices, sadly I don’t see any PvP skills like in GW1 where you could have a PvE skill and for PvP it works differently for balance.

Data does squat if you don’t actually PLAY the game to see why you’re getting that data. Nerfing Pistol Whip by 15% shows a total lack of understanding of what the problem with Pistol Whip is ( Psst, its the haste stunlock, not the base damage itself ).

Glyph of Renewal can only be used to rally downed allies.

Glyph of Renewal takes over 4 seconds to cast.

So the question you have to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to put GoR on your bar is this: would it actually be faster to just click on them instead?

The answer is almost always yes.

GoR was already highly situational and just generally bad. Now it is worse than worthless because you are harming your party/team by using it when you could be using some other utility skill and just clicking on people.

I don’t see how I will ever use this skill again. The time between the realization of ‘they are not going to make the revive so I’ll use my 165 seconds cd skill to help’ and ‘they are dead, spell is useless now’ is just way to short. Especially since the cast time is so long and the range so short.

And even before this nerf, it was hard to justify the slot. One in three times I used it in a dungen, I got killed in the process or just after the revive.

Nowhere did it say Elementalist is a support class.

“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.
"

Nothing massive about Elementalist damage.

If ANet lied to us and makes elementalist into a support class, i want a class change.

It’s funny how my posts always get deleted..I tell the truth and they delete it becuase the truth hurts..Im out. PEACE!

Whirlpool did need to be nerfed.

That said, anyone EVER going to use GoR in earth? bahaha. Thats really going to happen, 3 allies that are downed next to each other and not dead (or going to die before i get the cast off)

ah well.

Fear not elementalists, we still have our …. umm… Electric combo field. No-one else will ever have that!!

Edit: Thread merge makes my post really confusing. I’m talking about Glyph of Renewal bug fix here (or some were calling it a nerf and now useless):

I found uses for it in many WvW situations. In large battles sometimes the enemy either can’t or is too busy to finish your ally so you can use it to rez them; also useful during keep attacks when people get downed at the door in a pile of AoEs.

I’d often use the one to teleport them to my feet and thus into a safe area that that did work for me nicely. I used it in other attunements as well (Earth and Fire, both are nice – either reviving multiple allies which has uses in certain WvW situations, or basically Fire puts a self rez buff on you which is great and I’m not sure anyone else has) and I was always under the impression that it only worked on downed allies.

The only thing I think needs changing is the cast time – make it instant. But I can see uses for it in WvW as well as dungeons. Make it instant and maybe even shorten the CD and I think it’d be great.

I’d prefer that is did revive dead allies for a cost. I’d be happy enough if I could have it in its original form as an elite skill.

> Glyph of Renewal: This skill will now revive downed allies only, not dead ones.

Hows that going to work, with its very long cast time? All downed allies will be dead by the time you can cast it. No one stays downed for very long in WvW. This change will make this skill completely useless in my opinion.

Anlyon.8375:

Fear not elementalists, we still have our …. umm… Electric combo field. No-one else will ever have that!!

Until you drop a lightning hammer and another class picks it up and now has access to a lightning field

So, The latest patch update has changed one of my most favourite Utility Skills – Glyph of Renewal.

It now, no longer resses Fully Dead Allies!

That’s such a painful nerf to the glyph (Or bug removal if you see it as that.)
I personally thought it was a great addition to prolong team fights that made a mistake, the fact it seems to take 3-4 seconds to cast itself means it wasn’t the easiest thing to catch them whilst down anyway.

-

It allowed for a team member/s to return to the fight if they get 1 shotted by say – Subject Alpha AoE (Which Downs and Kills) without the running.
Usually usable only once in a fight, Unless the fight took ages for large health reasons.

-

3 downed allies for Earth spec will happen occasionally, quite rare though.
I see it being changed from a permanent spot on my Utilities to a Temporary one now.
As a support role Elementalist, It was invaluable to me and my teammates.
I’m sad to see it gone.

How do you feel about the change?

On a second thought, the removal of this aspect would probably remove a lot of hassle involving exploitations involving moving NPC’s with Air Teleport and stuff.

Which I’m all for. But still

The problems I have with the “bug fix” are the following:

Yes, It was a bug and it was before, only bringing players from a downed state, and after the patch began doing (i thought) what it was supposed to, and working on dead players.

The description for the glyph states “Revive” and not “rally”..different things. I was under the impression that it was not working as intended before last weeks patch, and was fixed.

I never USED this glyph before last weeks patch, as it was useless. I used it maybe once or twice and realized it just was not practical. By the time I cast the glyph, the player is most likely dead (if they’re in a tough enough spot for me to have to use the glyph instead of manually res them anyway).

Once the glyph started reviving allies from the dead, I began to use it again, and actually felt it was an essential part to my build (Support, mainly). I was SO pleased that this skill was not a waste anymore…and then BAM..back to it’s original, useless state.

So, we’re back to Glyph of Renewal being so impractical for any situation. By the time I cast the glyph, the player is most likely dead (if they’re in a tough enough spot for me to have to use the glyph instead of manually res them anyway).

Gotta love taking one step forward and being pushed two steps back.

It actually takes longer to cast this than it does to res someone up. Can you say worthless?

Is it just me or does staff earth ability #2 (eruption) have a smoother and faster cast? I noticed before that it took FOREVER for this skill to go off, but now it just seems…different. Anyone?

Slithan.4380:

It actually takes longer to cast this than it does to res someone up. Can you say worthless?

I think the only reason it’s good for something is to ress someone from ranged now, so you don’t risk getting downed yourself.

Ressing 3 allies with Earth sounds good but is highly unlikely to have 3 allies downed at the same time.

I agree, it’s pretty much useless now for me.
Here’s hoping they’d change it back sometime.

No it’s still the same useless skill in pvp, you still have to ask your foe to stand still around 4sec waiting for the explosion…

Let’s face it, this class is never going to be a DPS class of all elements, it’s clear ANET are backing down from that initial idea. Anyone and everyone who’s great at the elementalist knows that it’s pretty much a monk/ele hybrid, leaning more to support.
I never thought I’d say this but, if you want to deal great burst damage, and have great mobility/AOE damage/survivability > Roll thief/guardian/warrior. :/

No, one of the selling points of this game was: there’s no holy trinity, no one has to be the healer, no one has to tank, no one needs to specialize.

I dont want to be forced to support in order to enjoy game content, no one is pointing a gun at me, but when I have only one viable role for pvp and explorables I feel like I have no choice.

I think the nerf to Whirpool was justified, regardless of it being an elite. It could take down entire mobs in a matter of seconds. I dont know any other profession that can do the same in equal or less time.

Grenade Engineers are very efficent and fast killers while fighting underwater, but mine is level 50, I dont know what’s their damage with full exotics.

Atm i rather see them fix some of the obvious bugs before trying to balance anything, since fixing those bugs could make serious changes to the balance to.

This. Please.

Rename Anet to activision blizzard, because activision sadly made every game unbalanced since then.

Then ANET learning from them?
How could possible 80% of the PVP players are thief,guardian,mesmer?
Hmm..Maybe this is the 3 best way to win? yes nerf ele underwater, but why?
Any commentary from anet for this?(maybe in one day?)
Or just some buff on Ele’s HP? i know necro have a same but dont forget necro shield!

The whirlpool nerf is more than a 33% dmg reduction, was hitting over 4k easily yesterday in spvp, and now its just 2.2k crits.

I’ve said this in many other threads…

It’s :
A – Faster to ress someone with the “action” key..like F, default. And to ress in range? You don’t need that, you can go close ress with “F” for example, and activate mistform..and watch the magic happen..But who am I kiddin, mistform gettin nerfed next patch, mark my words.
B – The spell is overall broken, I’ve never ressed someone with Air attunement..And I mean a player, I’ve never ressed a player with my air attunement = Broken.
C – The Water attunement bonus is just a joke since all the other attunements gives the revived ally full health.

I think they already fixed the bug that lets Elemenatlists do any damage. Mine was doing a simple Personal Story quest when I noticed that he kept missing his enemies with his staff. Ok, then let’s try scepter – still missing eh? Ok, then let’s try daggers – you missed again?! When he did manage to accidentally hit one of them he did next to no damage. So if he has to use daggers to actually damage an enemy then I better see him with heavy armor and the ability swap weapons faster.

I liked it the way it was. Otherwise it could take a minute to rez someone in combat, but then only some seconds.
Now it’s complete and utter crap. I do not approve of this change and I will not play my elementalist anymore until it gets buffed. Since I’m only playing elementalist, I will be taking a break from the game.

So I’ll say it again, we did get a buff in this patch, and it has to do with the camera changes. Targeting is much easier with breath spells and fire grab, if not others.

Add in the fact that I haven’t seen another class do nearly the burst we can with arcane skills, and I really don’t know what the source of all this complaining is. Running berserker’s amulet w/ full scholar’s runes, Fire 30/Air 30/Arcane 10, I have nearly-constant fury, putting crit rate at roughly 70%. I am almost as much of a glass cannon as is possible, but I have few problems and get top kills semi-frequently.

We have a few bugs, but are we even playing the same class? In sPvP and PvE alike, I have experienced none of the issues which seem to plague everyone else.

LOL arcane skills and burst, are you insane? There’s autoattacks that do more damage than our arcane skills.

Sorry, but if you say you have never seen another class do the burst an ele can do with ANY skill then you threw your credibility right out the window and will probably get labeled a troll.

While your claim itself is debatable, can you cast any of those autoattacks instantaneously while casting other damage skills? THAT’S why they’re burst skills.

Air attunement, RTL, Updraft/arcane wave/blast (all at once), burning speed, ring of fire. That happens in the span of 3 seconds and does well over 15k if not more. It melts PvP targets all at once, but it also works on people.

So yes, arcane = burst.

And I’ve seen people do high burst, but it is at best equal to that I’ve seen first-hand. The obvious example here for me is the warrior quickness/charge/stun/100 blades, but this combo does just as much or more in the same time frame.

You want burst? Ele meet thief. I can do 15-25k damage in 2-3 seconds with the right setup on my thief. Try to match that on an ele.

@Nicomachiavelli – You haven’t played alot of other classes have you?

I used to think as you do, always knew the elementalist was in abit of trouble, not much, but we still had some competent damage, and if we start playing the keyboard like a grand piano, we do alright.

Then, purely out of curiosity I rolled a warrior and a mesmer. (played both PvE and PvP with them)
And now I know the elementalist is in fact very near the term “Useless”.

I’ve been considering melding my RTL combo with churning earth-teleport. The RTL combo already does a heinous amount of damage in AOE, but churning earth, earthquake, ring of earth into RTL, updraft, burning speed, ring of fire/arcane blast/wave would well outstrip any thief, but it would require staking the whole elementalist build on that one moment where you burst down the point.

As it is, I opt for mist form as my last utility and usually run away casting ether renewal as soon as I start taking damage on the point. In fact, I run away often in order to set up for another burst. It works wonders and rakes in the kills. Can’t tell you how many times a nice burst has tipped the scales on a point in stalemate.

Nicomachiavelli.3046:

I’ve been considering melding my RTL combo with churning earth-teleport. The RTL combo already does a heinous amount of damage in AOE, but churning earth, earthquake, ring of earth into RTL, updraft, burning speed, ring of fire/arcane blast/wave would well outstrip any thief, but it would require staking the whole elementalist build on that one moment where you burst down the point.

You are just plain wrong. I would finish my 15-25k burst just as you finish ride the lightning minus all your other spells. If you throw in all those spells in I could put out over 30k dps on a thief and I’m not even that good at it. Thief has double the burst of eles, and way more evasion and survivability.

“heineous amount of damage”. you REALLY should try another class. For the amount of (easily dodgable) skills you need to combo in your… combo, other classes do even more damage with 2-3 skills instead of your 6-10.

Anyone who argues ele does competitive (or even good) damage is simply delirious and/or never played another class.

The only thing I’ll cede is that I have to hit a lot of buttons really fast to pull this off, but from the RTL (assuming it works) to ring of fire is maybe 3 seconds, and I can sustain a good deal after that.

Also, does thief burst hit everyone on a point? Thief burst is generally single-target (and potentially higher), whereas the 15-20k burst on an ele will hit everyone in the area.

Unacceptable nerfs.
My biggest disappointment was the glyph of renewal nerf. It was fine how it was. Could rez someone, but has high cooldown and high cast time (and wouldn’t work half of the time). Now it still doesn’t work half of the time, but it’s absolutely useless unless it’s instant cast and has it’s cooldown reduced by half.
Not satisfied with underwater combat nerf. Sure the elite did mediocre damage, unless you spec for power which in that case you’re shooting yourself in the foot. I don’t know about others, but I died fast in whirpool, you suck people in and they can start doing damage.
I won’t play my elementalist like this: in need of bug fixes and in need of buffs, but instead they nerf us without actually mentioning why. So I’m taking a break from the game, I’ll linger these forums waiting for elementalist buffs, but I’m not hoping on it.
Either way, I’ve payed the game and it’s free to play so I guess I can always come back. Shame though, I was actually planning to buy some gems.. Maybe next time.

It’s good that they do look into balance of all the classes and so on, but why do they only fix bugs that give us an advantage?
Ok, im fine with sinets not firing behind us and all, but how important and gamebreaking was that bug??
What I simply dont get is the fact that they even did nothing against all the skills/boons/conditions not granting the listed duration.
Like 5 seconds of vigor from phoenix instead of 10, healing rain only lasting 4 seconds instead of 9, stability/protection on armor of earth 6 not 8 and so on…
How difficult can it be to change those numbers?
I mean really, I just don’t get it.

Icewolfnector.1487:

It’s good that they do look into balance of all the classes and so on, but why do they only fix bugs that give us an advantage?
Ok, im fine with sinets not firing behind us and all, but how important and gamebreaking was that bug??
What I simply dont get is the fact that they even did nothing against all the skills/boons/conditions not granting the listed duration.
Like 5 seconds of vigor from phoenix instead of 10, healing rain only lasting 4 seconds instead of 9, stability/protection on armor of earth 6 not 8 and so on…
How difficult can it be to change those numbers?
I mean really, I just don’t get it.

It can’t be hard to search in the code for the skill and replace the number with another number. I’m thinking anet is following the same tactic as other mmorpg’s: nerfing classes while making others overpowered, and ignoring bugs. So to let people play other classes and let them pay for expansion slots. I thought better of anet, but I’m doubting, I’ll wait for the next updates to finalize my thoughts.

I figured whirlpool would get nerfed. It was so out of line with the land version as far as damage and I’m cynical about getting buffs. Now I want the Sylvari Take Root to have an underwater version (Algae Bloom?) so I can have a useful elite when I get zerged underwater.

As far as Renewal, I gave up on it being useful by the end of bwe1. Were we the only one with a rez ability? They should just scrap it if so because it will either be niche or overpowered.

Malcara.6758:

So I’ve been waiting for Elementalist, arguably the worst class in the game and the class I want to play the most, to get a buff before comitting to one. I eagerly opened today’s patch notes hoping that the day had arrived at last. And then I see a nerf. I am confused. Angry. Confused even more, but most of all deeply and bitterly disappointed. Didn’t you guys at ArenaNet pride yourselves in listening to the playerbase? It flies in the face of any kind of sense. This is what loss of faith must feel like.

LMFAO!! I’m not going to lie but I had to log in just from this post because it cracked me up. Not necessarily laughing at you but at the simple thought that the Elementalist will get buffs any time soon

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with elementalist in the near future to be honest. the damage should be back to the beta days now that everyone is used to playing the game. I can’t see how the elementalist was “OP” back in the day

I’ve been thinkin to go back to Guild Wars 1, because there elementalist can actually DO some damage and survive.

Thank you Anet for this experience.

Agreed, by the time you cast it, the guy is already dead.

I want back my 6 skill points so I can buy other skills.

Hopsu.7392:

I’ve been thinkin to go back to Guild Wars 1, because there elementalist can actually DO some damage and survive.

Thank you Anet for this experience.

They couldn’t until several months ago.

So glyph of renewal has been made useless before even fixing the ability. While attuned to air it has never worked since day 1.

Now, even if glyph of renewel was 0.5 second cast, it is STILL useless. In its current state…….hahaha

I use this is WvW all the time.

Pre-cast it in air before a buddy goes down = one happy buddy.

It was never ment to rez dead people, so really, its a bug fix (that is kinda game breaking if you think about it)

From the recent patch notes:

*Glyph of Renewal: This skill will now revive downed allies only, not dead ones.

This change is absurd.

The glyph has never worked while attuned to air, and often doesn’t in other attunements. The very long cast time was bad enough on dead targets (especially since the 1200 range version doesn’t work), but now more so since it only affects downed players. It is always faster to rally a downed player then casting the glyph.

Builds Dungeon support set around glyph of renewal ( since in dungeon with brain, it WAS awesome ). Spends 25 gold on different sets, finding the best combinations, jewelry and forever retraiting.

GoR gets nerfed to kitten the day after x). Thanks, couldve just bought Commander Compendium instead.

Nerfed whirlpool, the ONLY thing that did damage underwater for ele ( except a bugged water 5 skill – path just sux on it ).

Great so, we got lowest HP, lowest damage, lowest tankiness, lowest base power, most useless elites and a kitten amount of broken skills.

OMG we have aoe ! yay, oh wait warrior GS can outdamage us 500:1 with basic ’ 1 ’ skill.

Hmm, ye, hmm. 300 hours wasted x)

Selo.1250:

Nowhere did it say Elementalist is a support class.

“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.
"

Nothing massive about Elementalist damage.

If ANet lied to us and makes elementalist into a support class, i want a class change.

Multi facited….versatility…. I am not sure, but I would guess those 2 statements are pretty much the definition of claiming a class to be a support class.