Guild Wars 2

This “Grandmaster” trait for the Elementalist NEEDS to be revisited after the recent changes. Evasive Arcana creates a spell based on attunement on dodge. This trait as a Grandmaster trait is pathetic now. Don’t mean to sound rude it just is. The only thing worth dodging in, is water for the heal.

Let me start by saying I’m not using the most offensive of stats but this trait is producing unbelievably embarrassing results.

Lets start off. Using this GRANDMASTER trait, dodging in fire produced a whopping 98 damage!!! 98 damage!? Are you serious??

Warriors—- get a 5, let me say that again, A 5 Point minor trait that does WAY more damage than this elementalist Grandmaster trait (in our damage attunement none the less.) my Reckless dodge was critting for 1k damage, and I wasn’t a glass warrior either.

Water- is ok. (Edit: Yes I know it is amazing not ok)

Air- Dodging an air provides an Aoe blind which is IMO fine the way it is.

Earth- Supposedly creates “Churning earth” on dodge. Dodging in this attunements for me does an outstanding 200 damage… Are you serious? 200 damage!? Again let me reiterate this is a Grand-master trait. Churning earth is a blast finishing spell that causes 8 stacks of bleeds… This trait does neither on dodge just a laughable 200-300 damage, If you want to make the ability a lite version or watered down version of the spell, at least up the damage so it’s worth my time, and give us a heads up on the trait description.

This ability used to be fun, a tactical choice for the ele to potentially Waste our dodge to cause a Noticeable effect. Should I dodge this attack, or provide the Aoe healing for my party?? Now I am not saying give us back all the blast finishers (I do believe churning earth should be) but as of now the only ones using this ability is bunkers or heavy healer eles dodging in water. Instantly with one patch, ANET stripped this grandmaster trait from a fun tactical choice, to now only being worth anything in 1/4 (possibly 2/4 depending on how you feel about the blind) attunements. That’s 1/4 attunements for a grandmaster trait to be worth using.

Where is the logic that a Warrior 5 point Minor trait should be outperforming (minus the water dodge) and hitting harder than a Grandmaster Elementalist trait!?

I’m completely blown away.

The trait is worth it for the water finisher alone.

The earth finisher is also an AoE slow, which is pretty solid.

The fire finisher sucks, I agree… could use a minor boost in damage.

Honestly though, if they just put a blast finisher back on the earth roll I think the trait will be in a pretty great spot.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Lets start off. Using this GRANDMASTER trait, dodging in fire produced a whopping 98 damage!!! 98 damage!? Are you serious??

Warriors—- get a 5, let me say that again, A 5 Point minor trait that does WAY more damage than this elementalist Grandmaster trait (in our damage attunement none the less.) my Reckless dodge was critting for 1k damage, and I wasn’t a glass warrior either.

Just a fyi but it also applies an AoE 5 seconds of burning which is ~1.5k damage without any extra condition damage

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Water- is ok.

Water is far from ok, it’s an outstanding ability. It’s a ~1.5k base heal with a 1:1 ratio for healing power (which if you’re running valks and 20 into water means it’s a ~1.8k heal) as well as removing a condition. On top of that it can also be triggered every 10 seconds compared to the base spell which has a 40 second recharge.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Air- Dodging an air provides an Aoe blind which is IMO fine the way it is.

Can agree on this one

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Earth- Supposedly creates “Churning earth” on dodge. Dodging in this attunements for me does an outstanding 200 damage… Are you serious? 200 damage!? Again let me reiterate this is a Grand-master trait. Churning earth is a blast finishing spell that causes 8 stacks of bleeds… This trait does neither on dodge just a laughable 200-300 damage, If you want to make the ability a lite version or watered down version of the spell, at least up the damage so it’s worth my time, and give us a heads up on the trait description.

It’s worth noting that although this one needs tweaking a bit it is no where near as bad as you make it out to be. It doesn’t do significant damage however it does apply a 20 second bleed which is around another 800+ damage. It also applies a 2 second cripple which is relatively useful on a 10 second cooldown. It could do with a 3-5 second cripple and change the bleeding to 2 stacks over 10 seconds rather than 1 over 20 but it’s nowhere near as bad as you describe.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

This ability used to be fun, a tactical choice for the ele to potentially Waste our dodge to cause a Noticeable effect. Should I dodge this attack, or provide the Aoe healing for my party?? Now I am not saying give us back all the blast finishers (I do believe churning earth should be) but as of now the only ones using this ability is bunkers or heavy healer eles dodging in water. Instantly with one patch, ANET stripped this grandmaster trait from a fun tactical choice, to now only being worth anything in 1/4 (possibly 2/4 depending on how you feel about the blind) attunements. That’s 1/4 attunements for a grandmaster trait to be worth using.

Where is the logic that a Warrior 5 point Minor trait should be outperforming (minus the water dodge) and hitting harder than a Grandmaster Elementalist trait!?

I’m completely blown away.

Please continue with your over exaggeration of how bad this trait is <3

Not really exaggerating mate, for a grandmaster trait the effects are weak, with how frequently conditions are being cleansed in this game the burning and the one stack of bleed is nothing.

I love this ability use it all the time on my bunker, but it’s just lackluster now. The water is amazing and the blind is decent, but the 2 “damaging” abilities are just not that, they aren’t damaging. They aren’t producing noticeable results. The 98 damage on fire dodge even with the burning at the end is nothing. Using this ability on a node against another bunker, of even a dps is not going to have the effect that a grandmaster trait should have. The only thing that holds this trait on is the water dodge, which I agree is amazing, but a grandmaster trait should have more uses than in one of our attunement. Thiefs stack cripple and bleeds on dodge with uncatchable a 10 point trickery trait, the earth dodge is really nothing special. Which is what a grandmaster trait should be

According to the wiki, flame burst is damage instead of burns. If that’s the case (I’m not sure it’s right) then for a damaging ability with no burning it is embarrassing. Even with burning and the 2 second cripple on earth unless you are stacking condition damage no one is going to notice that one stack of bleed, or couple seconds of burning. It’s just that, forgettable.

From the WIKI —
Notes
Effect will only trigger during combat.
All spells have an area of effect radius of about 180 and serve as variations of Elementalist weapon skills:
Flame Burst simply inflicts damage instead of burns.
Cleansing Wave has identical functionality.
Blinding Flash inflicts AoE blind.
Churning Earth inflicts 20 seconds of bleeding and 2 seconds of crippled.

Instead of complaining about Evasive Arcana only, why not just tell Anet to make many other skills and traits viable, so people don’t feel the need to go 30 arcane? Even if Anet reverts this skill to previous state, it doesn’t change a thing about the ele. Only very few ultra defensive builds will keep you alive for long, which people will think is the only way to play an ele (silly way of thinking imo).

Evasive Arcana is still probably the best ele grandmaster trait. People are peeved because it got nerfed so hard, but instead of complaining about it, I think that we need to buff or change other grandmaster traits. Seriously, which ele grandmaster trait is better than EA, even in its current state?

Unless it’s a new bug, the wiki is wrong, go test the skill in the mists. Don’t trust the wiki, or even tooltips, lots of stuff is just plain wrong.

Evasive Arcana is a great trait, it’s essentially a bunch of free spells, instant cast. It’s kind of similar to having all the 15 point minors except more condition based, a bunch of free instant spells every 10 seconds or so. Earth could use a buff, just something like more bleeds for shorter duration.

While it sucks that we got nerfed, EA was way too strong relative to other traits. Even in its nerfed form it’s still one of the better tier 3 traits. In the long run EA would hold us back in build diversity by forcing yet more 30 arcane builds. The problem is that we don’t have that build diversity yet, so that long term assessment is hoping for things to change.

Wulf.5431:

Evasive Arcana is still probably the best ele grandmaster trait. People are peeved because it got nerfed so hard, but instead of complaining about it, I think that we need to buff or change other grandmaster traits. Seriously, which ele grandmaster trait is better than EA, even in its current state?

Powerful auras.

But yeah, several of our GM traits suck. I find the fire trait that gives you might on each fire cast particularly horrible. You will get much more might from using arcane wave and blast finishers in a fire field combined with sigil of battle.

I could see the fire might trait as being okay as an adept trait, but GM…no way. Oh, and the one that increases fire field duration…really???

Oh, a ‘red’ post. So when’s the next balance patch again?

Karl McLain.5604:

… to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field….

I’m curious about this, Karl. Lots of professions have a blast finisher in the same weapon set as a combo field: (Guardian Hammer + GS / Necromancer Staff / etc). I think this functionality is largely why these weapons are so useful, and think that if you have a general profession policy against it that you should revisit the policy. In my humble opinion, I think the reason why many weapon sets across professions in general are so bad is because they lack finishers entirely. Consider Necromancer Axe, Guardian Mace, and so forth and how these are largely considered inferior to other options.

I recognize this is the Elementalist forum, but you talk a lot about general profession policy, so I think this is an appropriate concern to voice.

Karl McLain.5604:

Berial.4860:

Oh, a ‘red’ post. So when’s the next balance patch again?

Probably with Wintersday.

SWEET! I love short waits much more than long ones!

Thanks for the post Karl, I know it’s intentionally vague, but I am going to read it to be “we will definitely be adding a blast finisher to the earth attunement’s version of EA.”

And I will be insanely disappointed and call you all betrayers and liars if this does not happen.

Good day.

Also…just kidding.

Karl McLain.5604:

We’ll be adding a bit more functionality to this trait in the near future for the earth portion of the ability (this time, associated with the skill’s cooldown), to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.
Additionally, we’re looking at traits across the board, for all professions, and will be doing some improvements in that aspect as well. We hope to be able to get some of these in for our next balance patch and open up more build possibilities!
-Karl

Hey thanks a lot Karl for the Update and popping into the ele forums it is much appreciated. I was hoping someone at ANET would see this thread, because EA just doesn’t seem right right now for a grandmaster trait. Again thanks for the heads up.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Karl McLain.5604:

… to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field….

I’m curious about this, Karl. Lots of professions have a blast finisher in the same weapon set as a combo field: (Guardian Hammer + GS / Necromancer Staff / etc).

I think that policy depends on the weapon set and on the profession, and I also think attunement set counts as a weapon set. So he probably meant that, a weapon like the elementalist’s staff, that requires party members, utility or the earth set to combo with itself, might get a combo finisher for the earth dodge.

Think EA is bad, the only good grand master trait for mesmer is illusionary persona, and you sacrifice so much of either survivability, group utility, or power to get it that it’s not worth it.

Karl McLain.5604:

We’ll be adding a bit more functionality to this trait in the near future for the earth portion of the ability (this time, associated with the skill’s cooldown), to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.

First of all, thank you for your answer. I really appreciate it, honestly.

Second, do note that you could have avoided a lot of elementalist player’s bickering if you’d replied straight away instead of two weeks later.

Still, it’s good that you’re aware of our concern. That’s all we wanted. That you told us that you heard us.

Good, I’ll shut up now.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Karl McLain.5604:

… to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field….

I’m curious about this, Karl. Lots of professions have a blast finisher in the same weapon set as a combo field: (Guardian Hammer + GS / Necromancer Staff / etc). I think this functionality is largely why these weapons are so useful, and think that if you have a general profession policy against it that you should revisit the policy. In my humble opinion, I think the reason why many weapon sets across professions in general are so bad is because they lack finishers entirely. Consider Necromancer Axe, Guardian Mace, and so forth and how these are largely considered inferior to other options.

I recognize this is the Elementalist forum, but you talk a lot about general profession policy, so I think this is an appropriate concern to voice.

…. where does a guardian have a blast finisher with a greatsword bar?

Karl McLain.5604:

We’ll be adding a bit more functionality to this trait in the near future for the earth portion of the ability (this time, associated with the skill’s cooldown), to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.
Additionally, we’re looking at traits across the board, for all professions, and will be doing some improvements in that aspect as well. We hope to be able to get some of these in for our next balance patch and open up more build possibilities!
-Karl

it’s extremely positive to see you partecipating in our threads
I am crossing fingers and looking forward the upcoming changes to see what happen…

Karl McLain.5604:

We’ll be adding a bit more functionality to this trait in the near future for the earth portion of the ability (this time, associated with the skill’s cooldown), to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.
Additionally, we’re looking at traits across the board, for all professions, and will be doing some improvements in that aspect as well. We hope to be able to get some of these in for our next balance patch and open up more build possibilities!
-Karl

I can tell you that the people on this forum all feel like the prettiest girls at the ball today with all the dev attention we’re getting.

So if it’s just blast finishers you folks are worried about (and I can see why; they have the most dramatic effects), then what about other types of finisher? I’m sure most of us would be happy to have a whirl finisher. I was disappointed when the whirl finisher was removed from Whirlwind, and Tornado doesn’t count, so it’s left a gap in there that I feel needs filling.

The air dodge is probably the most underwhelming one right now (especially in PvP, as blinds tend to be worse against players than they are against NPCs). Why not make it a whirl finisher? Why not make other things whirl finishers? Swirling Winds has the word “swirling” in the name. I therefore see it as a prime candidate for a whirl finisher. It could easily become Focus’s zazziest skill.

Karl McLain.5604:

to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.
-Karl

Uhm… what about Scepter/Dagger Fire? Necromancer Staff? Warrior Longbow? Do we have to expect nerfs for those?

Karl McLain.5604:

We’ll be adding a bit more functionality to this trait in the near future for the earth portion of the ability (this time, associated with the skill’s cooldown), to keep it in line with our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.
Additionally, we’re looking at traits across the board, for all professions, and will be doing some improvements in that aspect as well. We hope to be able to get some of these in for our next balance patch and open up more build possibilities!
-Karl

That sounds really incredible. Having more options when it comes to builds in PvP and PvE would be soooo welcome.

Karl McLain.5604:

our general policy of not having a blast finisher in the same weapon set you have a combo field.

What general policy is this?

Most elementalist solo options are pathetically weak without self-finishing, specifically scepter/dagger and staff.

It’s also true of trident.

Yes, the staff got hit by this change the most I think, the only reliable finisher is Arcana wave now (switching to earth attunement for finisher is very limiting in the terms of comboing) and the eruption is badly usable because of the huge delay, especially in the dungeons/PvP where everything moves unexpectedly.
I hope for some good news for the Staff Eles, even if we are the minority

Karl McLain.5604:

Berial.4860:

Oh, a ‘red’ post. So when’s the next balance patch again?

Probably with Wintersday.

Sweet, christmas for ele’s come early , hooray!

With three attunements with skills dedicated to controlling movement, two of the four skills specifically in earth, I don’t think Eruption is in a bad spot, and it’s a pretty strong skill by itself. I usually manage to hit with it even in pvp, and even when the opponent dodges away, my party usually gets their boon from the combo finisher. But without a doubt that Arcane Wave is far more reliable to hit the exact field we want. I just think it requires some practice.

The new EA is pretty much a new AW as long as you attune to earth right after you create your field. And then you cast Shockwave for a projectile finisher and an immobilize, eruption to that spot, switch back to another attunement, use another combo field on top of eruption. It works pretty fine when you get the hang of it, it’s fun, and I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Well, the new explosions on Earth with EA are good to me! It’s fun again to use that !!

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

I don’t think we need a blast finisher on every attunement. What would be more interesting in my opinion would be to just make each attunement’s dodge effect more interesting. Water is pretty sound, but it should have the heal toned down like they did to our 15 Water trait. Earth seems relatively decent. Fire and air however are just paltry; there is no incentive to dodge in any of those elements to trigger evasive arcana. Fire could create small aoe damage and a small flame ring (just as an example) and Air could pulse a blind with a small AoE swiftness. In this kind of setup, one attunement damages/sets up combo field, another debuffs+buffs, another heals/removes a debuff, and the last is a debuff+combo finisher.

Leuca.5732:

I don’t think we need a blast finisher on every attunement. What would be more interesting in my opinion would be to just make each attunement’s dodge effect more interesting. Water is pretty sound, but it should have the heal toned down like they did to our 15 Water trait. Earth seems relatively decent. Fire and air however are just paltry; there is no incentive to dodge in any of those elements to trigger evasive arcana. Fire could create small aoe damage and a small flame ring (just as an example) and Air could pulse a blind with a small AoE swiftness. In this kind of setup, one attunement damages/sets up combo field, another debuffs+buffs, another heals/removes a debuff, and the last is a debuff+combo finisher.

You should count in the other weapon sets than D/D, friend. I understand that for D/D, the blast finisher on Earth is sufficient, however try to play staff ele and you will see the problem (staff ele don´t have reliable blast finisher on their weapon set, eruption is like “pray to hit something” spell) and if you want to actually stack some might, you cannot use eruption and the EA at once, which sux, at least not in a useful and reliable way (to actually hit with those and do some dmg also…)

Eavasive Arcana is balanced at the moment. The blast finisher in earth makes you able to keep 20+ might at all time when build correctly. And it gives an aoe heal in a water field. Combine the water heal + water dodge with a switch to earth and dodge again and you can chain heal for about 25-40% HP (depending on stats) of the total health. This alone makes us the best support class ingame when it comes to buffing/healing.

And I think alot of you also forget the fact that the air dodge is an AoE blind. The damage the skill does is nothing but the oppurtunities it creates make up for the low damage. The only thing that is off with EA and could use some change IMO is the fire dodge, maybe increase the damage for this dodge to 750-1k to make it somewhat usefull.

So basically, yes it is worth the 30 points. Btw 30 in arcana also gives +30% boon duration.

Humposaurus.5764:

Eavasive Arcana is balanced at the moment. The blast finisher in earth makes you able to keep 20+ might at all time when build correctly. And it gives an aoe heal in a water field. Combine the water heal + water dodge with a switch to earth and dodge again and you can chain heal for about 25-40% HP (depending on stats) of the total health. This alone makes us the best support class ingame when it comes to buffing/healing.

And I think alot of you also forget the fact that the air dodge is an AoE blind. The damage the skill does is nothing but the oppurtunities it creates make up for the low damage.

So basically, yes it is worth the 30 points. Btw 30 in arcana also gives +30% boon duration.

Again, with the D/D weapon set, or maybe with the Scepter. But Staff is overlooked again…

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

Wrong. It’s exactly because you must switch to earth, that you have a specific sequence now. With the old EA, there were no sequences, you simply created a field, and dodged, created a field, and dodged. You did not have to sacrifice anything for a specific sequence. It was very out there.

DiogoSilva.7089:

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

Wrong. It’s exactly because you must switch to earth, that you have a specific sequence now. With the old EA, there were no sequences, you simply created a field, and dodged, created a field, and dodged. You did not have to sacrifice anything for a specific sequence. It was very out there.

Any example of specific and effective sequence for staff? The need to switch into earth attunement basically made Eruption blast finisher useless in the combination with EA imho…

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

Wrong. It’s exactly because you must switch to earth, that you have a specific sequence now. With the old EA, there were no sequences, you simply created a field, and dodged, created a field, and dodged. You did not have to sacrifice anything for a specific sequence. It was very out there.

Any example of specific and effective sequence for staff? The need to switch into earth attunement basically made Eruption blast finisher useless in the combination with EA imho…

Healing rain, eruption, dodge.
Geyser, dodge, eruption, lavafont.
Geyser dodge, arcane wave for mobile targets.

Even only earth finisher is enough to make EA worth it for me again, support staff here btw.

Old EA was ofcourse significantly better, but new version is useful enough to make me put the extra 10 points in arcana.

Strang.8170:

Healing rain, eruption, dodge.
Geyser, dodge, eruption, lavafont.
Geyser dodge, arcane wave for mobile targets.

Even only earth finisher is enough to make EA worth it for me again, support staff here btw.

Old EA was ofcourse significantly better, but new version is useful enough to make me put the extra 10 points in arcana.

Healing rain, eruption, dodge. – This one is weird, I doubt that you can do this effectively in dungeons for example, it is too slow to do it as a reaction to a situation and you should have tha ability to predict future to cast it before the situation when this healburst is needed comes.
Also I had in mind something more offensive, like might stacking, this change effectively busted eruption in this, because you are no longer able to use eruption and the EA simultaneously with Lava font, which was pretty effective way to stack might and actually do some damage (because as we know, Staff damage sucks hard since the BWE great nerf). So therefore Staff is just more pigeonholed into support role (healing mainly) rather then be able to fulfill any other role, which is sad.
Shouldn´t casters (with low armor and HPs) be able to do some significant ranged dmg, like other classes can?

Without wanting to derail it, I feel sort of meh because here is someone argueing that their grandmaster trait is too weak (for a grandmaster trait, and rightfully so), when my class (Mesmer) doesn’t even have traits which identify as GM traits in any perceivable way (except Persona, so 1 out of 10).

E.g. I got a mid-level trait “Apply a random condition when you interrupt a foe”. There’s a GM trait “Apply a random boon to yourself when you interrupt a foe” – because you know, that’s such a big differene to the one above conceptually. :P

That being said, I’m happy to see they’re adding more into it again. We need more distinct traits. For all classes, but anyhow!

STRanger.5120:

Healing rain, eruption, dodge. – This one is weird, I doubt that you can do this effectively in dungeons for example, it is too slow to do it as a reaction to a situation and you should have tha ability to predict future to cast it before the situation when this healburst is needed comes.
Also I had in mind something more offensive, like might stacking, this change effectively busted eruption in this, because you are no longer able to use eruption and the EA simultaneously with Lava font, which was pretty effective way to stack might and actually do some damage (because as we know, Staff damage sucks hard since the BWE great nerf). So therefore Staff is just more pigeonholed into support role (healing mainly) rather then be able to fulfill any other role, which is sad.
Shouldn´t casters (with low armor and HPs) be able to do some significant ranged dmg, like other classes can?

Healing rain combo is nice when you have beefier melee character around. If they engage mobs, they will take damage and will not move away right away. No need to be able to tell the future.
Also if you have people who know how to kite in a small area, it´s easy enough to tell them do so and use that combo.

Might stacking indeed is troublesome, but burning retreat has long enough field for eruption+dodge after it, i´m not sure if that´s the case without longer fields trait though.

Strang.8170:

Might stacking indeed is troublesome, but burning retreat has long enough field for eruption+dodge after it, i´m not sure if that´s the case without longer fields trait though.

Yes, that´s the issue which bothers me right now. I think that the Burning retreat is long enough, but it must be done perfectly, which is often difficult in the heat of battle and you don´t have the room for this in some cases. Also if you want to do some dmg by this stacking combo, it is very complicated to hit…
Nevermind, we will se what Anet does in the next patch, I suppose that I will try D/D even if it don´t fit my imagination of the caster class

STRanger.5120:

Strang.8170:

Might stacking indeed is troublesome, but burning retreat has long enough field for eruption+dodge after it, i´m not sure if that´s the case without longer fields trait though.

Yes, that´s the issue which bothers me right now. I think that the Burning retreat is long enough, but it must be done perfectly, which is often difficult in the heat of battle and you don´t have the room for this in some cases. Also if you want to do some dmg by this stacking combo, it is very complicated to hit…
Nevermind, we will se what Anet does in the next patch, I suppose that I will try D/D even if it don´t fit my imagination of the caster class

This is a huge problem with staff eles; they were spoiled on the old evasive arcana. In this situation, you could stack mass might, mass aoe heal, mass aoe buff with protection or fury/swiftness (both if you had the right traits), and now they are unable to do all these things.. at the same time. If you want might stacks, bring arcane wave and a sigil of battle; if you want healing, get a sigil of life or energy. You will still have a bit of ability in your other category but there needs to be some definition of specialization here; the number of free might stacks you could get just by running a sigil of energy was stupid, as was the number of free aoe heals by just dodging around like a stupid bouncy ball in your healing rain. You want the ele to be diverse but reject the idea of anything that doesn’t include mass amounts of blast finishers. The ele wasn’t made to be a one-trick pony, so don’t keep it that way.

Leuca.5732:

STRanger.5120:

Strang.8170:

Might stacking indeed is troublesome, but burning retreat has long enough field for eruption+dodge after it, i´m not sure if that´s the case without longer fields trait though.

Yes, that´s the issue which bothers me right now. I think that the Burning retreat is long enough, but it must be done perfectly, which is often difficult in the heat of battle and you don´t have the room for this in some cases. Also if you want to do some dmg by this stacking combo, it is very complicated to hit…
Nevermind, we will se what Anet does in the next patch, I suppose that I will try D/D even if it don´t fit my imagination of the caster class

This is a huge problem with staff eles; they were spoiled on the old evasive arcana. In this situation, you could stack mass might, mass aoe heal, mass aoe buff with protection or fury/swiftness (both if you had the right traits), and now they are unable to do all these things.. at the same time. If you want might stacks, bring arcane wave and a sigil of battle; if you want healing, get a sigil of life or energy. You will still have a bit of ability in your other category but there needs to be some definition of specialization here; the number of free might stacks you could get just by running a sigil of energy was stupid, as was the number of free aoe heals by just dodging around like a stupid bouncy ball in your healing rain. You want the ele to be diverse but reject the idea of anything that doesn’t include mass amounts of blast finishers. The ele wasn’t made to be a one-trick pony, so don’t keep it that way.

I agree with you, that’s why I written that the bugged EA was ridiculously OP, but I don’t think that the finisher was intended to be only in Earth attunement, I believe that the finisher was intended in all attunements, but should be on CD like the dodge-spells are, so that the dodge-spamming in fields should be negated by this…

DiogoSilva.7089:

STRanger.5120:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel that the staff was lacking an interesting, specific skill sequence like that before.

Unfortunately no, it doesn´t. You just had more options of the interesting, specific sequences than now, because you were not forced to switch to Earth every time for the finisher (I refer to the fact that all of the EA spells were finishers, not to that bug which caused that every dodge was a finisher, to be clear, that was ofc hugely OP)

Wrong. It’s exactly because you must switch to earth, that you have a specific sequence now. With the old EA, there were no sequences, you simply created a field, and dodged, created a field, and dodged. You did not have to sacrifice anything for a specific sequence. It was very out there.

yes, because D/D didn’t have enough sequences to track, they now have EA also tied to this…

not everything needs to be ball-and-chained in this manner.

This is a huge problem with staff eles; they were spoiled on the old evasive arcana. In this situation, you could stack mass might, mass aoe heal, mass aoe buff with protection or fury/swiftness (both if you had the right traits), and now they are unable to do all these things.. at the same time.

And yet I never saw a single person whining about how “overpowered” staff eles (or any eles) were when the “bugged” EA was there.

stacking all those boons and STILL just “up to par”.

This says something about fundamental issues with ele.. especially with staff.

plasmacutter.2709:

And yet I never saw a single person whining about how “overpowered” staff eles (or any eles) were when the “bugged” EA was there.

Where were you looking, if you don’t mind my asking? Bugged EA was horrifically OP. All you had to do was equip a sigil of energy on your staff and get vigor on cantrip for stupid amounts of might and aoe healing everywhere. Stacking a full minute of swiftness as you finish an encounter?

just to ask (still able to stack any amount of swiftness with rune of the pack).

What on earth swiftness is useful for? considering as you are engaged in battle its disabled?

LordByron.8369:

What on earth swiftness is useful for? considering as you are engaged in battle its disabled?

It’s not disabled, just much less effective in combat…

Leuca.5732:

plasmacutter.2709:

And yet I never saw a single person whining about how “overpowered” staff eles (or any eles) were when the “bugged” EA was there.

Where were you looking, if you don’t mind my asking? Bugged EA was horrifically OP. All you had to do was equip a sigil of energy on your staff and get vigor on cantrip for stupid amounts of might and aoe healing everywhere. Stacking a full minute of swiftness as you finish an encounter?

theres also that sigil that restores your endurence after each kill.Really 25 stack might full heal swiftness for as long as you want was a piece of cake.

STRanger.5120:

LordByron.8369:

What on earth swiftness is useful for? considering as you are engaged in battle its disabled?

It’s not disabled, just much less effective in combat…

If you notice, when you’re just walking around the world, or whatever, something about being in combat reduces your movement speed. So, in combat, all walking speed is reduced. If swiftness modifies the “in combat” movement speed, then you’ll get less effect from swiftness while in combat then when out of combat.

Berial.4860:

Karl McLain.5604:

Berial.4860:

Oh, a ‘red’ post. So when’s the next balance patch again?

Probably with Wintersday.

SWEET! I love short waits much more than long ones!

yes and expect some nerfs =D

LordByron.8369:

just to ask (still able to stack any amount of swiftness with rune of the pack).

What on earth swiftness is useful for? considering as you are engaged in battle its disabled?

Ever try chasing an ele with swiftness even in combat?