Guild Wars 2

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong.

lol. Bunkers are not “too strong”, it’s just that our other options are extremely poor.

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong. Would be nice if bunkers were not based on healing done and maybe instead given some short term damage mitigation skills to block bursts instead. More skillful play, less mindless healing.

If a bunker is literally just healing through your damage without dodging things that should be dodged or using cc, your damage is just low. Also, damage is just as mindless and based on abusing bad mechanics. Why should healing be nerfed when fire sigils, air sigils and other crit procs result in damage that is essentially unavoidable? Instant cast attacks can’t be mitigated reliably through skill. Attacks from an invisible enemy have to be avoided with guess work. The damage in this game requires that healing be good.

LightningBlaze.4913:

I’m not saying take away the bunker builds just modify them to be less effective on 1v1 scenarios. Have you ever faced multiple bunker built players on 1v1?. You can tell the majority are not skillful at all , yet they survive long against you….. only because their build speak for them on healing themselves back up with minor effort/skill.

How do you propose to nerf bunkers in 1v1 without affecting them in other scenarios? Bunkers use the same skills and traits to survive against one enemy that they use to survive against 2 or 3. This game doesn’t have a variety of effects. The skills that are meant for defense against multiple enemies while being ineffective against one can be counted on one hand. The opposite is true though. Single target blind, cc and skills that only block a finite number of hits are more useful against one enemy.

Also, if you can’t defend yourself as well against 1 thief, how are going to be unaffected when you’re fighting that same thief plus a guardian and ranger?

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong. Would be nice if bunkers were not based on healing done and maybe instead given some short term damage mitigation skills to block bursts instead. More skillful play, less mindless healing.

Indeed. There’s minor risk and very few skillful tactics involved when playing as bunker. The need to dodge main opponent attacks, react fast, observe your enemy buffs, pay attention to opponent skill animations, conserve and cast your weapon skills at a precise timing, utilize your surroundings towards your advantage, getting fatal consequences of your multiple mistakes is reduced by a large percentage or completely eliminated in a lot of 1v1 battles. It is great to not get defeated by a full glass thief with 2-4 attacks if you don’t react fast or having more chances to recover and escape when getting ganked by multiple opponents. I believe this is the main reason why many players just get stuck with bunker builds and don’t try any of the more risky , fun and viable builds…. it is their fear to get defeated easily. After all, if it is easy then everyone will do it right?

LightningBlaze.4913:

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong. Would be nice if bunkers were not based on healing done and maybe instead given some short term damage mitigation skills to block bursts instead. More skillful play, less mindless healing.

Indeed. There’s minor risk and very few skillful tactics involved when playing as bunker. The need to dodge main opponent attacks, react fast, observe your enemy buffs, pay attention to opponent skill animations, casting your skills at a precise timing, utilize your surroundings towards your advantage, getting fatal consequences of your multiple mistakes is reduced by a large percentage or completely eliminated in a lot of 1v1 battles. It is great to not get defeated by a full glass thief with 2-4 attacks if you don’t react fast or having more chances to recover and escape when getting ganked by multiple opponents. I believe this is the main reason why many players just get stuck with bunker builds and don’t try any of the more risky , fun and viable builds…. it is their fear to get defeated easily. After all, if it is easy then everyone will do it right?

You are completely right, but … it works both ways

People fighting against a bunker are under less damage pressure, therefore mistakes are slightly more forgiving.

Some people take that to the extreme, and then they complain about dying after they ate all the weakness, cripple, burning speed and burn bunker put on them ^^

Try playing the bunker ele against LB-axe/sword warriors though, not so bunkerish anymore!

^this
and also tell me how playing a zerker scepter Fresh Air who nukes everything in one seconds can be put in the same phrase with “playing with skills”.

You need exactly as much skill to play a bunker efficiently as you do for a glass nuker.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong. Would be nice if bunkers were not based on healing done and maybe instead given some short term damage mitigation skills to block bursts instead. More skillful play, less mindless healing.

Indeed. There’s minor risk and very few skillful tactics involved when playing as bunker. The need to dodge main opponent attacks, react fast, observe your enemy buffs, pay attention to opponent skill animations, casting your skills at a precise timing, utilize your surroundings towards your advantage, getting fatal consequences of your multiple mistakes is reduced by a large percentage or completely eliminated in a lot of 1v1 battles. It is great to not get defeated by a full glass thief with 2-4 attacks if you don’t react fast or having more chances to recover and escape when getting ganked by multiple opponents. I believe this is the main reason why many players just get stuck with bunker builds and don’t try any of the more risky , fun and viable builds…. it is their fear to get defeated easily. After all, if it is easy then everyone will do it right?

You are completely right, but … it works both ways

People fighting against a bunker are under less damage pressure, therefore mistakes are slightly more forgiving.

Some people take that to the extreme, and then they complain about dying after they ate all the weakness, cripple, burning speed and burn bunker put on them ^^

Try playing the bunker ele against LB-axe/sword warriors though, not so bunkerish anymore!

I know every build has their counters and I know all the counters when it comes to every Ele build type. Even though I have lvl 80s of all the professions I only play and mastered the Ele profession….Well not entirely mastered since I still perform poorly with staff .with any other build that is not bunker… Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is bunker builds across all professions are too forgiving for the reasons mentioned above. That is why I believe it needs modification in order to make it a skillful gameplay style in the upcoming balance patch.

And I disagree for the reasons mentioned above: playing bunker makes the fights equally forgiving for your opponent. In the and the two forgivingnesses cancel out each other. The fight may last long but the most skilled player will come on top

Grevender.9235:

^this
and also tell me how playing a zerker scepter Fresh Air who nukes everything in one seconds can be put in the same phrase with “playing with skills”.

What makes you think a fresh air nuker needs to be zerker to burst? Everyone should know at this stage of the game that the Ele doesn’t need to be zerker in order to burst like one.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

And I disagree for the reasons mentioned above: playing bunker makes the fights equally forgiving for your opponent. In the and the two forgivingnesses cancel out each other. The fight may last long but the most skilled player will come on top

Based on this response it show how much experience you lack with playing various build as the Ele. Even within the same profession there are counters against every build. I won’t post a history to backup my case but you should know at least that a more risky build takes a lot more effort and skill to perform just as well as a bunker. As an example , 2 eles, a bunker Ele against an Ele that deals higher damage and that is not bunker. The result is the one that is not bunker will lose. The one that deals more damage can outplay his opponent in many ways but if the bunker can simply heal himself/herself backup it is a guarantee win for him/her due to the sustain the build provides and not because he /she is more skillful. A bunker built player can ignore a lot of skillful gameplay that an non bunker player requires in order to survive long and perform great.

That is completely untrue: if you “ignore” skillful gameplay you will die. Bunkers are strong because they can withstand some small damage pressure, but there is no magic. At the same time, bunkers deal low damage. Therefore people attacking bunkers are under low pressure … just like if they were bunkers.

Besides who said you need to be skillful to kill a bunker? Take an axe/sword-LB warrior and the bunker is dead by facerolling.

There’s no skillful gameplay at healing yourself backup easily per cast/sec, traits, weapon skills. With the latest updates bunkers no longer deal low damage specially if they stack might with rune of strength and have good enough crit chance and ferocity. Also, can you say a bunker condition damage built player deals low damage? Hell no. As I mentioned above, every build and profession have their counter. It is either by a different build within the same profession or from another profession playstyle. That has nothing to do with the topic that bunker is too forgiving on gameplay and needs adjustment.

There is as much skillful play at healing yourself as there is in damaging the opponent. It’s all about HP differential. Everyone has his mean.

A lot of players who fight bunkers simply think they can win because they deal high damage. This is a strong misconception. Even if the bunker deals low damage you will need to dodge its key spells like against any other class. This is generally the reason why people say bunkers are too strong: they underestimate it and think that the “superior” power of their own glassy build will be enough to overcome the “unskilled” tanky build. It’s not. Builds simply help you play, but in the end it is all about how good you are a making efficient use of your assets.

Now you could say that it is easier for bunkers to make efficient use of their assets and I would agree. But this is nothing related to how forgiving a build is.

When you play various other build styles as an Ele for example and perform just as great only then you will understand. The difference of actual player skills requirement and consequences of multiple mistakes is huge. Some builds define the player because it has very little involvement of actual player’s skill. When players say bunker are too strong they are not underestimating it. It is quite the opposite, they are aware how robust the build is with little thoughtful input from the user. It is the main reason why I always recommend them to newcomers and after a few days they do so well they already consider themselves pro with such builds.

Oh you know I’ve played pretty much all sensible builds possible

It’s true that an inexperienced bunker ele will do better than an inexperienced anything else ele, but as soon as skill is involved all builds are efficient and fair in their respective roles.

It’s the same problem with warriors: an inexperienced warrior can perform really well. Yet at high levels of gameplay warriors are not that hard to beat, it’s a fair game (unless they are asura…). Although an inexperienced warrior would definitely destroy an inexperienced ele, but that’s an other problem.

I think there are a series of misconceptions and words just being thrown around in this thread, the first being the general statement that something difficult to execute has to, necessarily, be more efficient. If you consider whatever you do with your class hard then congratulations to you sister! But asking the game to be redefined by your ability to do whatever is it that you do seems a little too much for me.

The second misconception being bunker builds necessarily requiring less “thoughtful input from the user”, I think there are many examples of non-bunker builds that aren’t exactly rocket science, the usual glass ele being one of them. But the real point I wanted to make – as Zelyhn did – is about efficiency, if we were to divide all the builds in this game in categories such as bunker and non-bunker, we could generally claim that the first lacks pressure, while the second lacks survivability. A good player would then, use his ability to manipulate the game mechanisms to cover for those lacking parts, though this effort should never be entirely successful or that would represent an imbalance. Played inefficiently both builds will fail, claiming that one most definitely requires less from the player than the other is inaccurate due to the many intern differences in both categories.

So saying that bunkers in general should be nerfed is quite a powerful statement, an incorrect one in my opinion, because, at least in my gaming experience, I don’t see the entire category being so out of control as to need a redesign, in fact, they’re not even close to the meta in many aspects of this game. Of course there always punctual changes to make for the sake of balance, but generalizing them is never good, see the poor state that our class was left in a few years ago, an state which affected both, bunker and non bunker, elementalists.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I too hope for better reasons not to go full arcane and water. It could be a good change to have more viable fire magic builds that are as attractive as arcane and water.

This. I think it sucks that Ele is still strongly obliged to spec 20+ arcane, 20+ water with 2-3 cantrips just to achieve IMO what should be baseline survivability.

I’d still like to see improvements to:

• glyphs – lack of compelling trait(s)
• conjures – clunkiness of base mechanic
• signets – weak passives/lack of defense for heavy trait investment
• the traits that have been criticised since launch, eg: one with fire/air, zephyr’s speed, geomancer’s freedom, stop drop and roll, elemental surge, plus:
  • Blinding Ashes (nerf the CD slightly but make it a per-blind-application CD so it works deterministically for AOE burns)
  • the new XII arcane trait, no way it’s on the same power level as other grandmasters.

Why don’t you 2 settle with a Pokémon battle?

6v6 singles, You two decide tiers.
I want to see who gets walled first, let the waller be broke.
I’m pretty sure the answer lies within.

The first misconception is within your first paragraph Dolores. Something that includes more tactics, thinking and more player skills to perform well got misinterpreted by you as being"difficult". Nothing is difficult in this game. Moving on to your second paragraph. In your attempt to defend bunker builds you make up another misconception. You generally claimed that if we divide bunkers and non bunkers, one would lack pressure while the second one would lack survivability. I could write so many pages towards this topic alone but the truth is both build types are more than capable to provide both features with different play-styles. A third misconception is assuming that the ele was left in a poor state back when the ele no longer was able to bunker as much as it used to. A couple of us found a lot of success during this “poor state” era.

It is only natural to defend something you specialize in and enjoy. I get it. That’s why I won’t get into further discussion/argument with anyone. It is not possible to create that mutual understanding towards this topic if you and I have different gaming experiences . As I stated I find bunker builds to be too forgiving in the sense you are open to make multiple mistakes with very minor consequences and it requires less skill to play it right on small scale encounters. Bunker and condition builds are meta after all. The easier path is always taken by the majority even when it comes to a game.

As you could see the words “difficult” and “hard” are bold, that is because your general opinion towards any build that isn’t being enjoyed by you seems to be that they are “forgiving” thus “easier”, I am sorry if I misinterpreted you, but I’m pretty sure when you say something requires “less skill” you’re trying to imply its “less difficult to do”. Anyway, I tried to point out that those builds shouldn’t be changed based on how you perform on your build, independently of what you consider difficult or not. I completely agree that in this game nothing is terribly difficult to begin with.

In my second paragraph I clearly state that what those builds lack is somehow covered by what a player can do with the game mechanisms.

A good player would then, use his ability to manipulate the game mechanisms to cover for those lacking parts, though this effort should never be entirely successful or that would represent an imbalance.

My point being that even though different playstiles will increase the effectiveness range of a build, no build will be flawless in both senses – pressure and survivability – not even the bunker condi builds that everyone seems to be so scared about.

Andddd… when I talked about the ele nerf I explicitly said that both categories – bunker and non-bunker – were affected, while I’m sure you’d perform well in any occasion, you cannot deny that the prejudice towards one aspect of the class damaged its entirety, even builds who had nothing to do with 30/30 were affected by those nerfs and neglect, thus the danger in asking for another nerf of that magnitude.

I get it that you believe all your time mastering every aspect of the elementalist class should be rewarded. But I guess the reward is in itself, you get too play any build you want doing very well with it, not in how effective you think other builds should be. If bunkers, specially bunker eles were completely over the top I too would most certainly agree with a nerf, however, I do not think they are, in fact the only place where I see bunker completely outshine glass cannon is in wvw solo roaming.

LightningBlaze.4913:

There’s no skillful gameplay at healing yourself backup easily per cast/sec, traits, weapon skills. With the latest updates bunkers no longer deal low damage specially if they stack might with rune of strength and have good enough crit chance and ferocity. Also, can you say a bunker condition damage built player deals low damage? Hell no. As I mentioned above, every build and profession have their counter. It is either by a different build within the same profession or from another profession playstyle. That has nothing to do with the topic that bunker is too forgiving on gameplay and needs adjustment.

i agree on that . i am not dedicated ele ( i have one 80 lvl for asura power wvw events in my server : aurora glade ) , but i will add my experience against a d/d that had 25 stacks of corruption before the fight and he build 25 stacks of might in under 15 seconds of fight in a ruin .

i died ( 3400 armor and 25k hp ) without even deal some damage on him. the rotation on boons on him and the conditions that applied on me in this time window was extremely fast . i had trait the destruction of empowered for classes that maintain a lot of boons like guardians and eles or any other class .

i had a lot of duels with many eles in the past but this fight was extremely fast . some times i win , some times i loose , but this fight was just a shame . i started searching on Internet the reason of the problem and i found that the 25 might stack increase by 33% both power and condition damage and with unstoppable rotation of att skills that have access an ele makes him overpowered . this ele was smart , he knew how to stack 25 stacks of might and he had only to increase by 250 his condition damage to make the situation … .god mode !

so , devs have something to do here , because maybe you feel lucky that your class has this god-mode , but it is matter of time to all ele share the same build / video to stack 25 stacks of might ( strenth runes + battle sigil + traits + no skill cooldowns + celestials ) + 250 corruption and devs re-act on other classes anger with the wrong way , by destroying your class.

drive devs to the correct changes and not to the wrong changes . i am not an ele expert and i can not say what should be the changes …it is your turn to make a decision on that problem.

2 videos for the problem : 1 . unstoppable skill rotation 2. 25 stacks of might alone an ele .
1. http://youtu.be/b_20qc2Xg_Y
2. http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1wakk8/stacking_25_might_as_solo_elementalist_howto_in/

p.s. check this build ( http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhMMacW5wzBr0AJAS4BHCI8zlifrC-TlyCABA8AAcZ/hwUC2p6KYqChUKPu4EA8lSMB1DIpKBBAQAuZZGADdoDdoDdodzbezbezbWIgHjBA-w) , how many source of mights can have an ele …. ? 12 !!!

i don’t know any other class have so many sources for might ,with some of them stacks of 3 … alone

@Reborn
Let’s be serious

@Topic
The word “forgiving” really bothers me here. I seems to me it’s just thrown into the mix just because the bunker ele can heal. Heal=forgiving? That is not true. If the ele was “forgiving” then it would be OP. That’s the technical definition. That is if you can ignore some of your opponent actions then you should always win on fights of the same skill level. That is not true.
Healing only delays the inevitable. Like I said before, it is about HP differential. If you take a big hit that you are supposed to dodge and heal it up then it looks like it is “forgiving” but the truth is that you just used some healing resources on something that should not require it and now you are left with nothing to withstand damage pressure. For example: if you with a axe/s-LB warrior and get hit by eviscerate, you can heal it up, once, but then your HP will drop very low due to constant LB pressure, and you will loose the fight. Therefore it is not forgiving, it is simply delaying. It’s just like having more HP! Nothing is forgiving in this game. Nothing at all. If you take a hit that you were not supposed to take, you will loose one way or another (leaving a point in conquest, not being able to withstand further pressure, throwing utilities, etc).

I actually find that it takes quite some skill to play the d/d ele effectively! It’s really not that easy and it requires a lot of concentration

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

@Reborn
Let’s be serious

i am . are you ?

do you understand what means 25 stacks of might + 25 stack of corruption ? with full celestial armor and weapons this char has* 2900 power , 1750 condition damage , 30% condition duration, 41 % critical change and 198 % critical damage under this full stack of 25 might situation . his toughness is 2500 that is enough under protection boon to absorb any damage.

and ofc the rotation on fire skills is endless ….

*in wvw is more all these stats because of wvw buffs

p.s. note . in the build i posted before you have to add the 25 stacks of might manually to see the increase of 25 might stack and the 25 from corruption sigil

Reborn.2934:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

@Reborn
Let’s be serious

i am . are you ?

do you understand what means 25 stacks of might + 25 stack of corruption ? with full celestial armor and weapons this char has* 2900 power , 1750 condition damage , 30% condition duration, 41 % critical change and 198 % critical damage under this full stack of 25 might situation . his toughness is 2500 that is enough under protection boon to absorb any damage.

and ofc the rotation on fire skills is endless ….

*in wvw is more all these stats because of wvw buffs

p.s. note . in the build i posted before you have to add the 25 stacks of might manually to see the increase of 25 might stack and the 25 from corruption sigil

Please tell me more about how he kept you at 25 vulnerability while /dancing and completing a jumping puzzle, solving a rubiks cube with his feet at the same time

@reborn.

Nice, you posted an out and out dps template.

It’s a shame you have 0 healing and 0 condition removal and 2300 armour. You don’t understand tradeoffs very well.

Anyone who goes into WvW with no condition cleanses is going to be very dead very quickly.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You need exactly as much skill to play a bunker efficiently as you do for a glass nuker.

think about it: if what you state was true, there wouldn’t be a “zerk meta”.

LightningBlaze.4913:

What makes you think a fresh air nuker needs to be zerker to burst? Everyone should know at this stage of the game that the Ele doesn’t need to be zerker in order to burst like one.

it’s like asking “how much horsepower do you need to get 600 horsepower?”. We are of course talking about peak, and everyone should know at this stage of the game that only full zerk is full zerk….

Grevender.9235:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You need exactly as much skill to play a bunker efficiently as you do for a glass nuker.

think about it: if what you state was true, there wouldn’t be a “zerk meta”.

There is no zerker meta in PvP.

Grevender.9235:

LightningBlaze.4913:

What makes you think a fresh air nuker needs to be zerker to burst? Everyone should know at this stage of the game that the Ele doesn’t need to be zerker in order to burst like one.

it’s like asking “how much horsepower do you need to get 600 horsepower?”. We are of course talking about peak, and everyone should know at this stage of the game that only full zerk is full zerk….

Since this is not associated towards the bias bunker/non Bunker topic. I’ll reply to it. The horsepower metaphor does not correspond to this game mechanic at all. My Ele only has 3 zerker trinket and the rest is mixed of soldier, assassin, knight and sentinel gears. Yet I still get asked all the time by many players how am I bursting more than their full zerk geared Ele using a full zerk build like 6/6/0/0/10. The answer is simple and you will learn in time if you follow other paths after mastering bunker specs. The reason why ele can burst high is primarily due to damage modifiers traits, follow by stats and then multiple instant skill cast in one sec. This is something very few knew during the stage Daphonix made popular the bunker dd god mode build. After fresh air release many found out the info because they started to experiment with other playstyles. This is why at this stage of the game you should already know that the Ele can burst without being full zerk geared or using a glass build.

Without being drawn into /any/ arguments, I can confidently say I’d like to see the following balance for elementalists and the game that they are in:

*Nerf to strength runes
*Increased relevancy to the grandmaster in fire, improvements along the earth line
*Nerf to celestial gear
*Decreased cool down on fire grab, various focus 4 and 5 skills.
*Changes to the way churning earth fires off; it should be manual and scaled by how long you charge the skill for

Ele is in a pretty great place right now thanks to the last patch. I’d just like to see some of the things that make the skill floor so low disappear.

Well yeah the problem is that we are arguing balance with wvw people… this discussion can go nowhere!

So many people fail to realise that building defencively and going down slower doesnt mean the build requires less skill by default..

A d/d ele has to make use of this tankiness he has and use his resources for his teammates. Heal and cleanse to save others,then burst to pressure and cc to peel for others.
A zerker ele or an elementalist with “damage modifier traits” (i can only imagine what silly builds wvwers use to make fancy videos) cant do anything of that.
Point is that next time you play celestial d/d ele and you think its easy to play cause its easy to survive ..THINK
Are you actually doing everything the build allows you to do at that situation? Cause someone else will do and his team will have clearly the advantage .
If you still keep thinking in terms of isolated 1vs1 or in terms of selfish survivng or doing simple burst/sustian damage then you are far away from the skill cap of this class.Ele has insane innate support and zerker(or selfishly made) builds make that harder/impossible to use since you worry too much for your own survival
If you dont think like that then of course d/d and EVERYTHING in this game is easy..so kittening easy.
Then everything with stacked defence is easy..right? just cause will be harder for a toddler to die with it..

Example: eles sustain too much with water attunement.Water heals are all aoe. Good ele doesnt need water cleanses/heal hat much for himself and uses it for his fellow mesmer.Bad ele due to failing to mitigate damage uses water for selfish reasons only.The second pair loses miserably the 2vs2.

WvWers are the ones who test the largest variety of builds. If you’ve played a crazy build, likely it came from someone who did more WvW.

In WvW, you don’t particularly have to think about points, teammates and defined roles. You make your own roles.

Essentially, SPvP has more limitations for builds, WvW dueling/roaming/zerging doesn’t. You can spec for what you want.

I’m not advocating either, and I’m also not saying one specific archetype of build variety is superior over another.

I believe certain builds perform better in certain situations, but people should be able to play what they want without being flamed for it.

Mbelch.9028:

WvWers are the ones who test the largest variety of builds. If you’ve played a crazy build, likely it came from someone who did more WvW.

In WvW, you don’t particularly have to think about points, teammates and defined roles. You make your own roles.

Essentially, SPvP has more limitations for builds, WvW dueling/roaming/zerging doesn’t. You can spec for what you want.

I’m not advocating either, and I’m also not saying one specific archetype of build variety is superior over another.

I believe certain builds perform better in certain situations, but people should be able to play what they want without being flamed for it.

You surprised me Mbelch. It very well said. I never expected this sort of respond from the Mbelch I knew a few months back. I salute you. For everyone else my intention was never to flamed the player. I’m criticizing the build gameplay on how forgiving it is on small scale battles like 1v1. Of course it plays a major support role but that wasn’t the topic I initialized and already finished responding to…..starting now lol.

LightningBlaze, define what you mean by “forgiving” please.

Improvements as I see it:
Dagger main hand: Fire and earth auto attacks are clumsy borderline unusable (needs a rework). Air 2 – bit of a waste, could be improved by having blind + weakness on it. earth 3 bugs out frequently.

Dagger off hand: FIRE GRAB PLEASE FIX CONE/RANGE and reduce the cooldown (35 seconds) and have a it guarantee a critical on burning targets
Earth 5: too long a cast time to be rooted in one position, were in melee range kitten .
water 5: this is a heal oh how lovely, maybe reduce the cool down or increase the amount it heals because its barely noticeable.
Air 4 (RTL) ….. I don’t even need to say anything here.

Scepter: Fire auto attack cast time needs to be reduced significantly same with dragons tooth for that matter.

Focus: Fire 4 and 5 aren’t very good at all (rework) and cooldowns for the other attunements are far too long when you compare it classes using a shield (I’m not saying I want obsidian flesh every 20-30 seconds, but 50 seconds is a bit too long – 40-45seconds would be nice). To put it another way if you had 2 equally matched players dueling with the same build one using d/f the other d/d – I would expect the d/f player to lose via cooldown attrition.

Staff: Fire auto attack projectile moves rather slowly. flame blast: could do with hitting for more damage rather than just setting them on fire.

Staff Air: Auto – increase damage/travel speed, air 2….. needs WAY more damage given the cast time… I’d expect a Kill shot type of damage given that sort of cast time. Gust needs a cone of effect much like illusionary wave to be of any use at all.

Staff Earth: Auto, very slow projectile with negligible damage. skill 5: very slow travel speed.

Just an idea I had for Focus fire 5 – fire shield: blocks one hit before it bursts like arcane shield, giving 3 stacks of might to the ele and laying down a fire field like combustive shot.

Also can we please have attunement effect with the tornado, I know something similar was raised with the engineers version (statics fields if I’m not mistaken).
Possible ideas: Fire attunement tornado- if you are hit the person hitting you is ignited. and you get to fire three phoenix’s
Air: copy the static field the engi’s have
Earth: (no ideas as of yet)
Water: Chill field beneath the ele + can drop three ice spikes and or ice comets.

Edit: will get to the traits later.. not enough time right now.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Well yeah the problem is that we are arguing balance with wvw people… this discussion can go nowhere!

Surely you aren’t implying that spvp is well balanced.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Grevender.9235:

LightningBlaze.4913:

What makes you think a fresh air nuker needs to be zerker to burst? Everyone should know at this stage of the game that the Ele doesn’t need to be zerker in order to burst like one.

it’s like asking “how much horsepower do you need to get 600 horsepower?”. We are of course talking about peak, and everyone should know at this stage of the game that only full zerk is full zerk….

Since this is not associated towards the bias bunker/non Bunker topic. I’ll reply to it. The horsepower metaphor does not correspond to this game mechanic at all. My Ele only has 3 zerker trinket and the rest is mixed of soldier, assassin, knight and sentinel gears. Yet I still get asked all the time by many players how am I bursting more than their full zerk geared Ele using a full zerk build like 6/6/0/0/10. The answer is simple and you will learn in time if you follow other paths after mastering bunker specs. The reason why ele can burst high is primarily due to damage modifiers traits, follow by stats and then multiple instant skill cast in one sec. This is something very few knew during the stage Daphonix made popular the bunker dd god mode build. After fresh air release many found out the info because they started to experiment with other playstyles. This is why at this stage of the game you should already know that the Ele can burst without being full zerk geared or using a glass build.

Funny enough I got whispered by an enemy ele in WvW the other day because he was shocked at how tanky I was while at the same time hitting extremely hard. I told him I’m full zerk fresh air and he didn’t believe me at first until we did some duels. He realized that what makes me “tanky” is having good positioning, kiting, using blinds for specific reasons, not wasting dodges, and knowing when it’s best to line of sight.

So it sort of goes both ways. Know how to time damage (whether you count out enemy dodges or watch for their attack animations) and know how to time defense. In either way you increase your “tankiness” or “burst”.

Mbelch.9028:

Without being drawn into /any/ arguments, I can confidently say I’d like to see the following balance for elementalists and the game that they are in:

*Nerf to strength runes

already done

*Nerf to celestial gear

already done

*Changes to the way churning earth fires off; it should be manual and scaled by how long you charge the skill for

would still be useless

Ele is in a pretty great place right now thanks to the last patch. I’d just like to see some of the things that make the skill floor so low disappear.

Pvp is not the only game mode.
I still have to see anything but thief, warrior and PU mesmer viable for WWW roaming. and no ELE is not viable…. You can roam even with a PVT necro obviously but that doesn t change the huge efficience disparity with other professions.

Last ferocity nerf and boon runes nerf was a big hit to a profession already struggling.

WWW has only staff eles in zergs (slightly OP but the lag balance them making them totally unplayable in bigger fights).

In PvE, ele gameplay is a joke based on stacking traits.
Its efficient but it actually promotes the opposite off what an ele should do…. (sit in fire and 5121212151212121 etc or conjure a hammer and 1111111 other weapons exists for stacking might ooc -.-).

pvp “balance” damaged GW2 since release i don t want to see any more PvP nerfs ruining other gamemodes.

GW2 won t be an esport….if they want to balance pvp just split pvp skills.

LordByron.8369:

Mbelch.9028:

Without being drawn into /any/ arguments, I can confidently say I’d like to see the following balance for elementalists and the game that they are in:

*Nerf to strength runes

already done

*Nerf to celestial gear

already done

*Changes to the way churning earth fires off; it should be manual and scaled by how long you charge the skill for

would still be useless

Ele is in a pretty great place right now thanks to the last patch. I’d just like to see some of the things that make the skill floor so low disappear.

Pvp is not the only game mode.
I still have to see anything but thief, warrior and PU mesmer viable for WWW roaming. and no ELE is not viable…. You can roam even with a PVT necro obviously but that doesn t change the huge efficience disparity with other professions.

Last ferocity nerf and boon runes nerf was a big hit to a profession already struggling.

WWW has only staff eles in zergs (slightly OP but the lag balance them making them totally unplayable in bigger fights).

In PvE, ele gameplay is a joke based on stacking traits.
Its efficient but it actually promotes the opposite off what an ele should do…. (sit in fire and 5121212151212121 etc or conjure a hammer and 1111111 other weapons exists for stacking might ooc -.-).

pvp “balance” damaged GW2 since release i don t want to see any more PvP nerfs ruining other gamemodes.

GW2 won t be an esport….if they want to balance pvp just split pvp skills.

what r u talking about, roaming as elementalist is perfect, condi d/x and celestial + own preference mix meta d/d works awesome for roaming.

Wyrden.4713:

what r u talking about, roaming as elementalist is perfect, condi d/x and celestial + own preference mix meta d/d works awesome for roaming.

Yeah yeah as if i don t play DD since release.
I have even 2 celestial sets only for the runes and almost any trinket combination.

The point is in WWW most people is unexperienced…..the time you meet ANY Group that knows what to do you start thinking “what could i have done better?” after some tries you discover how in WWW ele roamer is extremely situational and any time you don t have the proper setting you can t do anything.

Unless you consider working good “surviving thieves and warriors”.
At that point i could agree ele can be built for that….not that you will kill any decent one.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

WvWers are the ones who test the largest variety of builds. If you’ve played a crazy build, likely it came from someone who did more WvW.

In WvW, you don’t particularly have to think about points, teammates and defined roles. You make your own roles.

Essentially, SPvP has more limitations for builds, WvW dueling/roaming/zerging doesn’t. You can spec for what you want.

I’m not advocating either, and I’m also not saying one specific archetype of build variety is superior over another.

I believe certain builds perform better in certain situations, but people should be able to play what they want without being flamed for it.

You surprised me Mbelch. It very well said. I never expected this sort of respond from the Mbelch I knew a few months back. I salute you. For everyone else my intention was never to flamed the player. I’m criticizing the build gameplay on how forgiving it is on small scale battles like 1v1. Of course it plays a major support role but that wasn’t the topic I initialized and already finished responding to…..starting now lol.

As my signature denotes, I took some time off to let my personal grudges go away as much as I could lol. I wasn’t meaning you flaming any particular person here, I meant in game where no matter if I play a cheese build for 10 minutes for fun, an underpowered build or a very skillful build, I am flamed by at least one person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

LordByron.8369:

Mbelch.9028:

Without being drawn into /any/ arguments, I can confidently say I’d like to see the following balance for elementalists and the game that they are in:

*Nerf to strength runes

already done

The nerf clearly wasn’t enough. I’ve yet to duel an ele who doesn’t ask “Lol why aren’t you using strength runes.” It was a small nerf you saw, I’m asking for more.

*Nerf to celestial gear

already done

Celestial wasn’t nerfed. Anybody with a spreadsheet on effectiveness and damage would know that it was indirectly buffed when it was supposedly “nerfed”.

*Changes to the way churning earth fires off; it should be manual and scaled by how long you charge the skill for

would still be useless

You’re trolling me now. In what way would a skilled move be useless.

Ele is in a pretty great place right now thanks to the last patch. I’d just like to see some of the things that make the skill floor so low disappear.

Pvp is not the only game mode.
I still have to see anything but thief, warrior and PU mesmer viable for WWW roaming. and no ELE is not viable…. You can roam even with a PVT necro obviously but that doesn t change the huge efficience disparity with other professions.

Last ferocity nerf and boon runes nerf was a big hit to a profession already struggling.

WWW has only staff eles in zergs (slightly OP but the lag balance them making them totally unplayable in bigger fights).

In PvE, ele gameplay is a joke based on stacking traits.
Its efficient but it actually promotes the opposite off what an ele should do…. (sit in fire and 5121212151212121 etc or conjure a hammer and 1111111 other weapons exists for stacking might ooc -.-).

pvp “balance” damaged GW2 since release i don t want to see any more PvP nerfs ruining other gamemodes.

GW2 won t be an esport….if they want to balance pvp just split pvp skills.

I’m sorry, but I am like rank 30 in PvP, and I only get there through funning with my friends. I don’t know how my own personal feelings on what I would like to see changed at this point had anything to do with your or how they gave you the impression that I play PvP more than I roam.

Now to get on the track where you indicate ele is a broken class.. I don’t know if we are playing two different versions of the game, but I have great success on my ele even to this day where I don’t play as much.

This isn’t really a struggling class to me. If you have different opinions, that’s fine, but don’t make assumptions about me/the way I play from a forum post.

I hope glyphs and conjures get some rework. We really need a change on the stun-break glyph and it could be an aura giving one.

The traits for speed in air traitline are also just bad and need something better (at least make the 10% boost stack)

lingering elements need to work more with attunement bonuses from traits, even if it becomes the new 5pt minor.

arcane precision needs a much bigger chance to proc. 10% is just too low.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Grimreaper.5370:

I agree with bunkers being too strong. Would be nice if bunkers were not based on healing done and maybe instead given some short term damage mitigation skills to block bursts instead. More skillful play, less mindless healing.

Indeed. There’s minor risk and very few skillful tactics involved when playing as bunker. The need to dodge main opponent attacks, react fast, observe your enemy buffs, pay attention to opponent skill animations, casting your skills at a precise timing, utilize your surroundings towards your advantage, getting fatal consequences of your multiple mistakes is reduced by a large percentage or completely eliminated in a lot of 1v1 battles. It is great to not get defeated by a full glass thief with 2-4 attacks if you don’t react fast or having more chances to recover and escape when getting ganked by multiple opponents. I believe this is the main reason why many players just get stuck with bunker builds and don’t try any of the more risky , fun and viable builds…. it is their fear to get defeated easily. After all, if it is easy then everyone will do it right?

Try playing the bunker ele against LB-axe/sword warriors though, not so bunkerish anymore!

That can be said for any bunker of any class when vsing that war spec, its a bit ridiculous and we all know it.

Mbelch.9028:

I’m sorry, but I am like rank 30 in PvP, and I only get there through funning with my friends. I don’t know how my own personal feelings on what I would like to see changed at this point had anything to do with your or how they gave you the impression that I play PvP more than I roam.

tried pvp few times, saw what its about, left and never looked back.
(i comes from years of competitive PvP games, with world live tournaments like… i still don t like mmorpgs pvp expecially capture point)

But WWW roaming is a different thing.
The balance is a joke…some profession are way Beyond OP and yet they are ignored because “in pvp they can’t capture point so easily”.

WWW doesn t force you to sit in a circle/square, nor gives you points if your opponent disengage.

You have to actually kill your opponent and if he is able to disengage/engagé at will, the profession with the least mobility AND longer cooldown is in a bad position.

There is infact a reason why Bunker is not viable for solo roaming for example while is extremely strong in PvP.

Since release the nerfs against Bunker eles are hitting hard balanced/offensive ele more than the bunker ones.

One year ago we had more build+role variety than today in www, and NO build was OP.
The video of daphoenix KITING 10 newbies was just a test to see if people notices the mistakes of attackers (not even Dungeon bosses with the awful AI ignores players to focus on an earth elemental really)……

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Grevender.9235:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You need exactly as much skill to play a bunker efficiently as you do for a glass nuker.

think about it: if what you state was true, there wouldn’t be a “zerk meta”.

There is no zerker meta in PvP.

the fact that a single specific game mode is less influenced has little to no relevance in the overall picture.

LightningBlaze.4913:

The horsepower metaphor does not correspond to this game mechanic at all.

it does, as it is comparing sheer numbers.

My Ele only has 3 zerker trinket and the rest is mixed of soldier, assassin, knight and sentinel gears. Yet I still get asked all the time by many players how am I bursting more than their full zerk geared Ele using a full zerk build like 6/6/0/0/10.

let me rephrase: are you by any chance implying that devs falsely stated that the “ultimate dps” can be achieved through Berserker gear?

This is why at this stage of the game you should already know that the Ele can burst without being full zerk geared or using a glass build.

we are not discussing that, maybe you want to read again?

I would say, some serious tuning of meta d/d celestial, maybe some buffs to focus and scepter.

Not much tbh. Eles are A top tier in every game mode.

Ah and some tuning of zerker staff/FGS to reduce gamebreaking bugs and encourage more attunement swapping.

LordByron.8369:

Mbelch.9028:

I’m sorry, but I am like rank 30 in PvP, and I only get there through funning with my friends. I don’t know how my own personal feelings on what I would like to see changed at this point had anything to do with your or how they gave you the impression that I play PvP more than I roam.

tried pvp few times, saw what its about, left and never looked back.
(i comes from years of competitive PvP games, with world live tournaments like… i still don t like mmorpgs pvp expecially capture point)

But WWW roaming is a different thing.
The balance is a joke…some profession are way Beyond OP and yet they are ignored because “in pvp they can’t capture point so easily”.

WWW doesn t force you to sit in a circle/square, nor gives you points if your opponent disengage.

You have to actually kill your opponent and if he is able to disengage/engagé at will, the profession with the least mobility AND longer cooldown is in a bad position.

There is infact a reason why Bunker is not viable for solo roaming for example while is extremely strong in PvP.

Since release the nerfs against Bunker eles are hitting hard balanced/offensive ele more than the bunker ones.

One year ago we had more build+role variety than today in www, and NO build was OP.
The video of daphoenix KITING 10 newbies was just a test to see if people notices the mistakes of attackers (not even Dungeon bosses with the awful AI ignores players to focus on an earth elemental really)……

I’m going to remove myself from this.. I was a respected roamer when eles were at their lowest point. I was one of the respected ele duelists and I still roam and duel when I can find time.

I don’t need to be spoken to like I don’t comprehend roaming. I only have this to say. If you have trouble roaming with an elementalist, it is your fault. We are a strong and viable class.