Guild Wars 2

Hey players and developers. I just wanted to provide feedback on the buffs recieved to the elementalist in pvp. I am also going to post my thoughts on developing SC/x ele going forward.

Changes

Arc Lightning: The damage of this ability has been increased by 25% in PvP only.
Arcane Shield: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
Final Shielding: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 75 seconds to 60 seconds. The health threshold for activating Arcane Shield has been increased from 25% to 50%.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only

Arc Lightning

First looking at the buff I wasn’t too impressed, however with the removal of bunker amulets the damage buff was a bit more noticeable. I think this auto attack is at the sweet spot in terms of damage. It does a good amount, but not enough to be considered strong which is fine.

Arcane Shield
A great and much needed change. I wish the developer response was much faster since this was requested over 6 months ago, but this is a step in the right direction for increasing the viability of SC/X.

Final Shielding
Pretty good as well. The only thing annoying is it conflicts with the minor earth trait. I feel that they CD is at a fair spot.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony

Great for those who use it. Its the heal I use now since I only have 11k hp.

Overall Thoughts on Changes

All of the changes directly buffed the build I use so I am pretty biased, but this brought DPS ele sustain to an acceptable level. The biggest issue the previous seasons was fresh air builds lacked the sustain and damage to defend point or +1 a fight. Now they just lack the damage to be considered an asset on the team.

Going Foward
Like I said, the sustain is there, but the damage is not. What I would recommend to Anet is to look into our other skills for damage.

Phoenix-The cooldown is too long to be reliable and can be hard to land. I would reduce its cooldown to 15-12 seconds.

Dragons Tooth- the skill is fine. It does a good job of increasing downed pressure which should be its main purpose other than baiting dodge rolls.

Shatterstone-My least used skill. Can you guys give it a real dps buff already? Either that or replace it with something useful.

Ice shards-Suprisingly decent damage, though doesnt come close to air. Buffing this auto attack by another 25% would bring it up to a level where it can be used regularly in conjunction with air autos.

On a side note, another issue with fresh air ele is that it is not fast enough to be a roamer. I feel that is an acceptable risk and one of the things that should be taken into consideration, however it shouldn’t be outmatched by other roamers who do more reliable damage (thief prime example) and offer greater mobility.

Final Thoughts

This is all my opinion on the direction they should take for a viable DPS build. I have played about 15 matches in s5, but I can already tell it lacks the performance necessary for high level play. Other veterans can confirm this as well. Feel free to post your own thoughts below.

Happy Holidays,

-Baddie

I have nothing against the changes they are surely a changes in the right direction.

My problem is the role of the Sc/X FA Ele, it is directly in competition with Thief and Revenant for.roster spot but with its current mobility that can’t happen.

It is time to revert the nerf to RTL, they were may be right to nerf it 3 years ago but this isn’t the same game as 3 years before.

If SC/Dagger will be viable again while dagger again as a mobility and defense tool….

One side question for builds with the buff to elemental shield are you using evasive arcana or elemental surge(for reduced elemental shield CD reduction)?

Hey sorry for the late reply. I have found that elemental surge works better for burst and good if you take final shielding as well.

Sadly off-hand dagger with RTL reverted still wouldnt cut it as the utility from focus is more important than it was 2 years ago. The burst on offhand dagger is too unreliable or leaves you too vulnerable. This is all my opinion.

You already hold a solid slot. You can’t expect an off brand weapon set to push another class out of the team.

Are you a thief main?

Fresh Air still can’t fight well on a point in a 1v1, most of what you’ll fight will just decap/fullcap before you get the kill since you still have to kite. You can teamfight and +1 a bit worse than a Thief because of the superspeed from One With Air.

I only enjoyed the buffs for Arcane Shield and Final Shield. Still, staff and scepter are lacking substantial buffs. Dragon’s Tooth and Ice Spike are pretty slow to fall down and can be easily avoided. Some traits of Fire, Earth, Air and Water are completely useless.
Maybe useless is too strong, let’s say the least: they don’t fit in any reliable build. Burning Precision competes with Burning Fire, and the first is important for DPS builds when you take Fire traitline. But the DPS input of Fire traitline is weaker than Air’s. Air has Bolt To The Heart, Tempest Defense and Ferocious Winds. You see, three traits which benefit all attunements and ele’s dps as a whole.
But let’s say that you’re making a DPS ele and you choose Fire and Arcane, and your arcane gm trait is Elemental Surge. So now you can choose Burning Fire instead of Burning Precision, but you have to cast those arcanes while attuned to Fire. otherwise you’d be wasting 10% more dmg.
I don’t know how meaningful are those changes for scepter air AA, because the rest is lacking. Glyphs are okay, but if ArenaNet trully wants to promote skill balancing and build variety, then they must have to take a look at our traitlines. Weakening the other professions in order to make elementalists stronger does not seem to be a good idea.

Ok I play this season since One week, because I don’t had internet connection, and I got placed in tier 1 gold and today I just reach First tier of Platinum. (1700rating, EU)
I played mosty SF fresh air, standard Air Water Arcane, and just some few matches with druid when happen that I duo que with my friend (she also use Fresh Air Ele).
So in mostly of my matches I always had 1 fresh air Ele.
I throw my tought about change.

-Air 1 damage buff… Well is amazing, now a full channel + sigils proc does a very decent damage, so we can finally put some pression with it.
And since it “pierce” you can hit 2+ people with it with a good positioning.

-Arcane shield… This was really needed and I’m so happy with it. I also use the CD reduction trait in arcane so I have it on 32sec CD (I always have arcane blast also) and It is amazing!
Also the passive trait, final shielding, is a good change since now it Can really Save your Life while in the past with a so low treeshold you were going to die anyway.
I don’t use earth line anymore so it doesn’t annoy me for the multiple proc

-Glyph… Now I think it is out best healskill (without healing Power) and I always use it, I think the signet is better only if you take earth line with written in the Stone.

So I played a lot fresh air this season and I will play it untill the season will end.
The susistain is great now if you have a good positioning and you are good at kiting.
You have a big impact on teamfight thanks by your burst AoE burst.
You have THE BEST mobility ingame once every 180sec with FGS, and used well it does a crazy AoE damage.
I mean a lot of people use it just as mobility tool while forget how much damage it can push out comboing the skills with fresh air procs.
Phoenix is basically an executioner skill every time is off CD for everyone that has less then 10k hp, since Phoenix + Air swap+air 2 can reach more or less this number.
I don’t know if it need a CD reduction.
Dragon thoot instead still need an cast time/aftercast reduction, even with a nerf in damage.

You can actually win some 1v1, but you can’t win them standing on the point. Also if your Phoenix doesnt crit or get dodged you don’t have the damage to win the 1v1 in a resonable ammount of time and then you get outsustained or even +1ed.

The problem of fresh air Ele is still the same, once your FGS is in cd you dont have enought mobility to be a roamer. Dagger offhand fix this problem but doesnt provide enough susistain.
You don’t have the damage mitigation to fight on a point like Warrior and Dh.
So it still is a High risk low reward spec.