Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

I am Glorfyndel, I am an experienced elementalist player (spend more than 4000 hours on my main elementalist). I play most of the time fresh air because i like chanllenge.

Well, thoses times I saw that some population of elementalists in-game are being bored by the support role. In the other hand arenat net seems to be really interrested on make changes for elementalist power based builds. By the way, thank you arena net to show this interrest on the elementalist. You change the dragon tooth, the auto attack on fire (I can use it sometimes now) and you buffed the auto attack in air.

Then, I created this post to analyse and make and easier (sometimes complex) propositon for a few changes in elementalist that can bring more gameplay.

1) Why elementalist are soo good as support:

—> The elementalist is a class that has a low pull hp and low pull armor. So we need a lot more stats than others (maybe all stats thats why celestial amulet is so broken on elementalist). But the lack of stats is not the only reason, the other reason is that we dont have a huge quantity of avoidable skills. I mean the few avoidable skills we can take have and insane CD (mist form, arcane shield, obsidian flesh, ride of the ligthing).

—> Conclusion, elementalist have to play tanky in order to survive because their ability to survive is the healing power scaling. So, as many of ur heals are in AOE, we are the support preferential class in GW2.

2) An effective way to make changes on elementalist:

—> In this paragraph. As many people judge me as one of the most experienced fresh air in-game, I will made some suggestion for you arena net. I am prepared to anwser you if you wanna make conctat with me to discuss. My ideas here are order by increasing difficulties.

Changes:

—> Reduce cooldown on arcane shield of 75 sec to 40-45 sec and reduce final damage as well. The important think is the block, not the dammage, this is an avoidable ability that could make the arcanes comeback again.

—> Reduce cooldown of ride the lightning from 40 sec to 20 sec (even if we hit a target let the 20sec). I understand that this ability was too strong during the D/D elementalist empire period. But now is just a mobility dash (is not even a blast or a heal or and evade) so you have to normalize this coolsown in order to make the dagger off hand come back.

—> Reduce the scaling healing on the healing skills. Maybe you can increase the base heal. But overall, healing power should increase the regeneration buff more than healings abilities itself.

—> For the comeback of the scepter people need something really interresting to play it. I mean something that could challenge other weappons set. Then, I propose to make a big change on the roc barrier skill to make it block the next 3 attacks. And remove the thoughtness buff and the attack.

—> For the warhorn, the problem is more complex. This weappon need animation speed. The 4 water need to bump enemies instantly. And the air projectil on 5 air skill need speed. And, finaly, remove the water area mouvement of the 5 water skill tomake easier the combos blast in it (like the engineer).

Those are the ideas I have hear most of time.

I made this post in a serious way.
Please dicuss about this in the same way.

Thank you

I personaly would reduce or even substitute regeneration from invigorationg torrets and buff fire and arcane (shield is one of the key skills here) . And yes RTL needs a come back for offhand dagger geting a chance.

I agree with you Wolfric. I think that one of the biggest skills to change is the arcane shield and the ride of the lightning. Arena net really have to reduce those to cooldowns. Nowdays, 40 sec on a dash of 1200 and 75 sec on a shield that blocs 3 attacks is really too much.

By the way I think that is a matter of the standardization of the skills in the game.

Just think what will happen if invigorating torrets get´s furry instead of regeneration.
And then the CD of arane shield is lowered to 50sec and arcane brilliance 20 sec base.
Then the CD for arcance precision is lowered to 1s and blinding ahes back to 5sec. One with fire gets five might stacks for 20 sec.
+ RTL goes on 25 sec.

What will hapen?

Wolfric.9380:

Just think what will happen if invigorating torrets get´s furry instead of regeneration.
And then the CD of arane shield is lowered to 50sec and arcane brilliance 20 sec base.
Then the CD for arcance precision is lowered to 1s and blinding ahes back to 5sec. One with fire gets five might stacks for 20 sec.
+ RTL goes on 25 sec.

What will hapen?

The regen/vigor on aura is what keeping ele atm, too much to lose by removing it after we spent so long begging for the trait change, the huge drop in condi removal would be devastating.

Arcane shield must be min 40s cd or it’d still be useless…nah basically guys I’m losing hope to ever seen a power ele; other professions get way too much in terms of self sustain, a warrior right now can have 20s+ resistance endure painx2 and 10s CD stunbreaks healing for 2k.

Ele to be power viable would need far too many things at this point, things that really would send him to godhood …it’s more reliable to expect next specialization to be condi burst

I don´t see it devasting if regen on aura is lost. Shure some other damage oriented buffs should happen in fire and arcane. While arcane is a hybrid thing so things like lowering the CD for arcane skills to 33% instead of 20 in addition to lowering shield to 50sec would make sense.
It migt be that without regen on auras auramancer support bot becomes non viable in high tier play, but breaking water dependency is mandatory to bring diversity.

If just raw dmg was all that required to shine as power build than ele would have been the king since day one, without sustain you’re just a glass cannon waiting to be bursted down and unfortunately my balance scenarios always take in consideration the other professions.

Right now other professions have multiple ways to reset the fight with ease and efficiency.

I quickly changed my mind since few days ago, forget about power specs, I’m not in the mood for uphill battles which most likely results in my defeat.

The lowering of the sustain on ele should be brought up with the introduction of extremely powerful burst skills on relatively low CD if not you can have even a 30s CD arcane shield…meanwhile I’ll just stealth till it expires, go endure pain or block anything you throw at me( my blocks skills are below 20s CD), I’ll just facetank all dmg etc etc.

@Wolfric, @GLOR..I do understand where you guys come from, I truly do and it’s nice to see GW2 has still players with such high value of sportsmanship but…since HoT launch we cannot talk anymore about what is fair to face or not.

Other professions have access to really unfair defensive mechanisms like short cd medium duration block anything, stealth, 4x your ele HP bar, low CD ridiculous heal burst that require no investment in healing power…as an other profession I’d laugh at your mere arcane shield buff.

Now let me talk as wvw player, tried these stats for months, all trait lines combos :
2k+ Power, 190%+ crit dmg, 40%+ crit chance, bolt to the heart, fresh air etc etc…nothing works man, other professions simply facetank anything..you don’t even scratch warriors or revs.

I said “kitten it” and went the whole Brosky way …and it works fabulously, there is no more room to talk about what is fair to other professions…because surely other professions don’t play fairly

I play a condi focused hybrid ele and stomp them. Only condi mesmers an recently warriors are a pain… I have no regen (ok trident ..) and don´t trait water and it works.
In pvp i just avoid mesmers …. I use soldier rune but amulets are wanderer, sage (here i trait water cleansebot, sometimes its needed in necro world) or viper…
WvW is easier i have good hybrid stats …..
I played arcane brilliance and shield a lot before Hot and it was great. The CD on shield was evil :-(. It was a fire/earth/arcane build and now i run tempest with shouts instead of arcane. It just fits me better. The protection on auras is what keeps me alive and its very surprisiin how well i perform in all fights 1-3 players on each side. I fall back to healbot in the lager fights but can live with that.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XidOAWOAcYiFCAzt0+artCTyJQMMoAEACiA-TJBGABJ8AA8uMAAnAAb2fAA

This is what I play currently. It has decent burst and sustain in team fights. It does okay 1v1 vs half of the meta builds out there. Struggles vs necro, dh, good druids. Essentially its not very good at side capping because of, what a suprise, lack of sustain.

I will always be an advocate for arcane shield lasting 3 seconds regardless of hits and reduced duration because that is what is needed to get dps ele’s a fighting chance.

Not to mention core dps ele is outshined be tempest air overload.

Hello Supreme,

Thank you for your answer. I mean, even if you are not agree with the “fanatics” elementalist power like me, you keep calm and put arguments on the table. I apreciated that.

Well, I am agree with you in the way that actual elementalist is losing againts many machtups (scrappers, druids, revenants, mesmers and recently the warriors too ==> 6/9 classes in-game). I normaly win most of my 1v1 figths, but normal people dont. Actually, the elementalist is only a group class.

Well, I trired to play conditions damage with my elementalist in roaming WvW such as PvP. But it didn’t work because i think that elementalist doesnt access to a lot of different condition to cover the burning. So, the enemies just couldn’t die because they number of dispel was too huge compare to my condition pressure.

Another problem that I encounter a lot with my elementalist conditions is that I can’t chase anyone, everyone has far too much of mobility.

Now I got a question for you Supreme and for everyone too, what do you think about the block idea on the rock barrier skill ? And on the Cd reduction of RTL whos increibly high.

I disagree on the multiple condition part ;-). It can be davasting.
I can bomb with: Bleed, Torment, Burn, Chill, Criple, Imob, Blind, Poision, Weakness … And if i want add fear.
But i agree on mobility. Its bad and i can´t catch someone unless i use FSG.

My motly liked WvW build (equipement not fully finished)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XiVYCOOA8RgFBAzN1+aztDBhZQSMIAEKLiA-TVSHABAcCAOSZQ9qV0kSv02foQVVC+BAUnSwy1D0ZQAYEA8//3nnHpAsbXF-w

I can bring utter devastation combined with good enough survivability ….

GLOR.2489:

Hello Supreme,

Thank you for your answer. I mean, even if you are not agree with the “fanatics” elementalist power like me, you keep calm and put arguments on the table. I apreciated that.

Well, I am agree with you in the way that actual elementalist is losing againts many machtups (scrappers, druids, revenants, mesmers and recently the warriors too ==> 6/9 classes in-game). I normaly win most of my 1v1 figths, but normal people dont. Actually, the elementalist is only a group class.

Well, I trired to play conditions damage with my elementalist in roaming WvW such as PvP. But it didn’t work because i think that elementalist doesnt access to a lot of different condition to cover the burning. So, the enemies just couldn’t die because they number of dispel was too huge compare to my condition pressure.

Another problem that I encounter a lot with my elementalist conditions is that I can’t chase anyone, everyone has far too much of mobility.

Now I got a question for you Supreme and for everyone too, what do you think about the block idea on the rock barrier skill ? And on the Cd reduction of RTL whos increibly high.

Rock barrier is already strong. RTL changes are welcome. Its not the same game as 3 years ago. Making it 20s still won’t make us superior in mobility.

You are mostly right about condition ele. Its very easy to kite. The burn application is very good though.

FrownyClown what do you think about a reduction of the cooldown of the arcane shield?

GLOR.2489:

FrownyClown what do you think about a reduction of the cooldown of the arcane shield?

It will help, but it won’t make dps ele viable without changing the arcane traitline to better support arcanes.

Here is my proposition for anet.

Move the elemental surge affect from using an arcane when in certain attunments to were arcane precision is. Call it arcane precision still.

Increase the reduction of arcane traits given by Elemental Surge to 33%. Have the ele heal for 20% of outgoing damage from arcane traits. Rename the trait to Arcane Atunement.

This will make arcane shield a 50s cooldown when investing into arcane. Have arcane shield last 3 seconds regardless of hits and exploding after 3 seconds

Arcane power will be 30s and will synergize with the new affect of the grandmaster trait by making your next 5 attacks arcane attacks.

Arcane Wave is now 20s

Arcane Blast is now 13s. Reduce the range to 900.

This way eles will need to invest into arcane to get the benefits of a reduced shield cooldown forcing them to give up other valuable lines if they wanted to use it for a bunker build which I think is a big concern with changing the way arcane shield functions.

They can get healing options without investing into healing power. And receive low cooldown damage skills at the sacrifice of active defences.

But hey I doubt anet will make those changes since it won’t make them any money.

hey glor we once dueled on eb shortly after hot. i was on sd back than ;o)

i dont think that a reduction of healing related skills will make dps ele more atractive. its another role u should be able to play and should be seen as seperate.

i think ur direction is right when it comes to RTL reset but posts like that r in the forum every week and anet ignores. maybe they want to advance with ele aswell so looking outside of the box might help. they completly changed skills on other weaps (sword thief #3) too before.

theres either them reducing the evade on heavy burst skills on other classes or giving dps eles the same feature. that said a dps ele can have different weaps so it should be made via utility. my favourites would be a redesign of glyphs ( which would fit with air line) or immunities on arcana use + reduction. 3 attack block is nothing.

i dislike ur suggestion tho with rock barrier as it is often a finishing move and needed added burst skill too. the tough on it is a nice to have aswell.

gl o/

Elementalist players are weird. I should really explain that more, but honestly, I don’t feel like it. Suffice to say, elementalists need a change, but not in the way you guys think.

emkelly.2371:

Elementalist players are weird. I should really explain that more, but honestly, I don’t feel like it. Suffice to say, elementalists need a change, but not in the way you guys think.

Thanks for a completely irrelevant comment.

I’d love to see a change of Phoenix, from 20 seconds cd to 15 seconds. Long live fresh air scepter!

lowering most cooldowns is not god for the game unless you want a spamfeast….
For some it makes sense like going for -33% with arcane cooldown reduction making the trait more valuable and not boosting bunker specs.

The Warhorn must be the worse weapon design in MMO history.

The animations are kittenty, the utilities are kittenty, the speed is kittenty, the synergy with other weapons is kittenty, the damage is kittenty, the range is kittenty, even the available weapon skins are kittenty and there are no blocks or evades.

Xillllix.3485:

The Warhorn must be the worse weapon design in MMO history.

The animations are kittenty, the utilities are kittenty, the speed is kittenty, the synergy with other weapons is kittenty, the damage is kittenty, the range is kittenty, even the available weapon skins are kittenty and there are no blocks or evades.

Before fire 4 on the warhorn got nerfed it served a good purpose for boon spamming.
Pretty sure warhorn was an attempt to put ele in a frontline role, but failed to address obvious issues like lack of stability and lack of a leap (fire 3 on dagger is a joke of a leap)
The heal on auras was a result of some of us complaining that we needed to gain a stack of stability on auras to be good in frontline. Gave us healing instead.

Its bad at almost everything else and mediocre in wvw to put it simply.

Anet won’t fix it either. They don’t fix anything.

First and foremost:
i’m just a casual player and i’m not so much experienced but here are my 2 cents anyway.

I tried a condi build in PvP, it was fun and easy to play. The build was D/F, Ether Renewal, Signets of Fire, Air and Earth and last the greatsword. I was almost able to win all the various 1v1.
Apart from the fact that we have low hp and low toughness, our profession is not built to sustain condi damage easily. If you want to try and defend yourself you have to forgot mobility. For me the best way to defend is to use the staff, but that weapon with mostly AoE cannot give you the mobility required in PvP mostly.

I realy like FSG but in PvP the cooldown kills it and its rebound…
Also signets are nice but shouts if tempest are better especially they are for the team.

Hey Shinta,

Firts, hi man glad to see you over here ! I am sure that ur duel was really nice…

Second, I do like a lot your suggestion on the glyphs with the air trait synergy. But what I fair th most is that the task would be really hard (I mean glyphs need a deep refound… ) I am happy to see that you also want a reduction of the arcana skills and ride the lightning.

Tird, what I dislike the most about keeping the healing power based on elementalist is that support elementalist will stay always in the meta without changing the elementalist role.

Thank you for your post man, i may think about something about the glyphs.

see you mate

To make burst/dps PvP ele viable they would need to put selfish healing and regen in traits that compete with support traits. If elemental surge instead healed you (and only you) either for the damage done or on arcane skill use it would be a start.

Reducing arcane shield cool down to kitten would also help as well changing arcane power and either arcane blast or arcane wave as those two are too similar. Maybe arcane power could be for 10s you gain boons every time you strike an enemy based on your attunement (might, regen, fury, protection) that way it can pair up nicely with condition removal on regen in water tree. Perhaps arcane blast could become a mobility skill that damages where it leaves?

Just need a few trait line buffs.

Soothing Disruption needs a healing buff by 100%. If you have 650 healing power your heal is around 1.6k healing regen over 6 seconds that’s less that guardian spamming their meditation skills around 2k with zero healing power invested and compared to warrior’s new Adrenal Health.

Cantip skills should get their stun breaker status back and their cool down times needs reduction.

Aracane trait (Minor Adept) Arcane Fury should get fury duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds and a new function to gain Endurance 5 per swap.

Arcane trait minor grandmaster Elemental Enchantment should have Recharge Reduced: 15% increased to 20% While Duration is increased from 10% to 15%

Increase Skill Signet of Restoration base healing per cast to 220

That should bring back the old d.d ele fighters while not effecting tempest status to much.

Waisenpai.6028:

Just need a few trait line buffs.

Soothing Disruption needs a healing buff by 100%. If you have 650 healing power your heal is around 1.6k healing regen over 6 seconds that’s less that guardian spamming their meditation skills around 2k with zero healing power invested and compared to warrior’s new Adrenal Health.

Cantip skills should get their stun breaker status back and their cool down times needs reduction.

Aracane trait (Minor Adept) Arcane Fury should get fury duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds and a new function to gain Endurance 5 per swap.

Arcane trait minor grandmaster Elemental Enchantment should have Recharge Reduced: 15% increased to 20% While Duration is increased from 10% to 15%

Increase Skill Signet of Restoration base healing per cast to 220

That should bring back the old d.d ele fighters while not effecting tempest status to much.

Thats just putting a band aid on it. For one, no water traits should be changed as it just promotes bunker playstyles even more.

I can agree with signet of restoration getting a heal buff or increasing the base heal from soothing distruption (really a nonfactor change).

2nd, in order for d/d to be relevent it has to dish out good damage too. Improving the fire traitline for might stacking and burning is a good start.

For example, give 3 might stacks when a fire aura is applied to you or allies.
Arcane precision has a 100% chance on crit to cause burn for 1s.
Reduce blinding ashes to 5s.

1. Buff and reintroduce the signets.
• Air Signet – No changes to passive. Active: Teleport to your foe and stun them(1s) with a lightning strike (900 range). Breaks stun. Requires target. 30s CD.
• Water Signet – Passive: Increase Boon Duration by 15%. Active: Cure 3 conditions. CD: 30s
• Fire Signet – Passive: No Changes. Active: Add 2 stacks of Torment (10s). CD: 20s.
• Earth Signet – Passive: No Changes. Active: Same. Add poison (10s). CD: 25s
• Signet of Restoration – Passive: No Changes. Active: Create a water field that grants regeneration. Field Duration: 3s.

2. Buff our cantrips. Their CD doesn’t do them justice for their effects.
• Armor of Earth – Reduce CD to 40s. Reduce Stability stacks to 5. Reduce Protection duration to 4s.
• Cleansing Fire- Reduce CD to 35s. Breaks stun.
• Lightning Flash – Reduce CD to 30s. Reduce Damage by 20%.

3. Buff Glyphs
• Glyph of storms – can be cast on yourself and follows the caster – same as overload. When cast on self, reduce Glyph damage by 20% and reduce duration to a fixed 5s.
• Glyph of Elemental Attunement – Increase trigger chance to 33%.

4. Buff Arcane.
Arcane Shield – Reduce CD to 40s. Reduce blast damage by 30%. Can be self detonated
Arcane Power – Reduce CD to 35s. Reduce Duration to 20s.

5. Buff traits.
Fire:
• One with Fire – Grant Fire aura and and 2 stacks of might when activating a signet.
• Blinding Ashes – Change CD to ICD per target. 7s ICD.

Air and Earth: No Changes.

Water:
• Powerful Auras – Increase the potency of Aura effects.
Fire Aura – Increase burning stack to 2.
Frost Aura – Reduce Incoming Damage by 15%.
Earth Aura – Grants Retaliation for the duration of the aura.
Shocking Aura – Apply Weakness(3s) when hit.

Arcane:
• Arcane Precision – Now applies conditions on hit instead of critical hits. Reduce trigger chance to 20%.
• Elemental Surge – Additional Effect: 40% of damage done by arcane skills heal you.

6. Buff weapon skills.
• Ride the Lightning – Reduce CD to 20s. Reduce range to 900.
• Churning Earth – Blocks projectiles while casting.
• Rock Barrier – Blocks the next 3 incoming attacks. Using hurl removes the block effect.
• Heat Sync – Reduce CD to 20s.
• Wildfire – Increase animation speed. Strip boons at a 2 second interval.
• Tidal Surge – Instant.
• Cyclone – Increase speed.
• Lightning Orb – change to stationary orb. Increase range to 600.
• Dust Storm – Applies torment.

Too lazy to think of changes for Tempest right now.

Let’s just make it simple remove all nerfs. hahaha :P And make all summons look like pokemon!

Hi Kyon,

Thanks for the post, there is a few ideas there that can be really nice.
On my point of view, the best ones are the return of the cantrips by putting again the break stuns.

Well, I think that arena net did a great choice in the past by nerfing the cantrips (removing the break stuns on the cleasing fire and the flash). Because in that past, the elementalist was clearly broken (so I agreed to this nerf). The think is that, maybe, they should go back to the way it was to see if the return of the catrips can compete with the auras tempest build.

The same happends to the Ride of the Ligthning, this skill was too strong in the past but now I think that is time to get back to thoses 20 sec CD.

I also apreciate the ideas on the signets. I think that signet of earth is nice and has been up nicelly by developpers. FIre will be always used in a codition based build. But, clearly the water/air signet are not used. So I think that could be nice to changes those 2 signets.

The rock barrier block on the scepter could be really strong. I mean it depends if arena net want the scepter to be back as really good weappon to compete with the dagger main hand.

Thank you again,

see you

Kyon.9735:

• Air Signet – No changes to passive. Active: Teleport to your foe and stun them(1s) with a lightning strike (900 range). Breaks stun. Requires target. 30s CD.

Holy kitten, this is a massive buff. What is one of ele’s biggest weakness as a class is that it is terrible at interrupts. This is an instant interrupt. on top of a massive mobility skill and stun break.

It might turn out that this is exactly what ele needs to suddenly have a viable offensive build and be bursting people like rev and thief without being OP, but just saying, this is an enormous change and very easily could be the worst thing ever.

Also, kind of off topic, but

Wolfric.9380:

get´s furry instead of

Is this intentional?

Do you guys remember the fire trait nerfs and the dagger main hand (fire trait) nerfs that happened right before HOT launched? (Drakes Breath, Ring of Fire, Blinding Ashes) Does anyone else agree that the nerfs should be reverted with the Power Creep that arrived with HOT Specializations? At this point most of the Ele Grand Master traits are average at best. Oh yeah lets not forget we have the weakest elite skills in the game

Assassin O.9367:

Do you guys remember the fire trait nerfs and the dagger main hand (fire trait) nerfs that happened right before HOT launched? (Drakes Breath, Ring of Fire, Blinding Ashes) Does anyone else agree that the nerfs should be reverted with the Power Creep that arrived with HOT Specializations? At this point most of the Ele Grand Master traits are average at best. Oh yeah lets not forget we have the weakest elite skills in the game

Some of the nerfs I would say yes. But anet rarely reverses nerfs. They are real big on simple fixes that players suggest though, like auto attack cast times or damage from attacks. I would like at least the traits reverted, but why get your hopes up for something they’d never do? All is vain.

FrownyClown.8402:

All is vain.

I think that arena net does have a real interest on the possible return of a different build on elementalists. I mean we are saw all the changes on the scepter weappon lately…

So I will keep my optimistic position.

PS: my real idea is not to make elementalist op again, or to balance this game (wich is impossible task because of the complexity). I only want elementalist do something else, something dfferent than just healing in PvP. A role change ^^

Yea as an ele since launch I think it’s in a pretty bad spot now. All build are only good for support. Kinda boring being the team cheer leader. Just made a reeper and it’s insane how much stronger, go staff, great sword and now you can have higher burst aoe with a faster cast and cool down than any ele staff skills and then if they want to get close and personally just use great sword or switch to reaper. Has light armor just like ele but tons more life and a second life pool on top of that!

Anet needs to wake up, my fully ascended speced ele does less dmg than my exotic speced reaper and has even less survivability. Also none of the ele builds do better than any of the other classes options and they are all generally based around the same bunker concept. Ex ele staff range aoe, weaker than necro staff well bomb or dh traps all while at the same exact time has no close range option if someone gets close, no weap swap to close quarter combat. So weaker range aoe and no close combate vs better range and a close combat option. Sounds fair?

It’s been awhile since I’ve fought an elementalist, and not just a regenerating scarecrow that poops out lightning storms. I support these changes. thumbs up

Silhouette.5631:

It’s been awhile since I’ve fought an elementalist, and not just a regenerating scarecrow that poops out lightning storms. I support these changes. thumbs up

I’ll take it as a compliment for Tempests. People avoid poops but Air Overloads from bunker tempests usually aren’t even worth avoiding.