Guild Wars 2

Arenanet, I’m relatively certain I’m one of the last few elementalists not running around with a staff on my server.

I’ve been a believer that you know the general condition of the elementalist class, and you would improve it by SHAVING OP things around it in order to put it in its rightful place: a contender, not an underdog.

I have read the new updated patch notes and I am flaming furious. Boy was I wrong.

Not only has the “balance” team BUFFED: Warrior, Thief, Necromancers, they aren’t doing anything at all to the elementalist other than standardizing some of our moves.

Things that KILL elementalists:

Daze, Immobilize, Conditions.

You have buffed the king of conditions, Necro, and roughly doubled its minions’ health pools.

You have increased the healing on already sometimes impossible to kill healing warriors, did not fix the incredible nature with which they can stun me for 6 seconds every 15 seconds.

You have given thief a skill which causes immobilize with vulnerability.

On top of it all, you refuse to make conditions — the LEAST skilled aspect of this game — less powerful.

But lets put sugar on the already sickeningly sweet cake. You have yet to nerf perplexity runes which make EVERY class into a Mesmer!!

I’m incredibly exasperated. Please show me you know what you’re doing and can fix the terrible meta which threatens to ruin an entire game because frankly: you don’t listen to the player base.

I’ve been nothing but a staunch supporter of you, but we see nothing in return. Please explain why. That’s all I’m asking.

Regards,
The last elementalist on Maguuma (D/D)

Many Ele are asking to be an Alpha Class, where there complexity rewards them rather then using it as a term for balance saying things like: Well my class is harder to play, so I should be better.

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

Daecollo.9578:

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

---

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

I’m sorry that I very seriously disagree with much of what you’re saying.

Warrior spec is directly getting a buff, necro skills at are used in the condi spec, MM spec are getting buffed, thieves (condi thieves are extremely hard to beat as Ele) and we have no condition removal.

Yes, we can remove 3 with one skill, one per cantrip, one per dodge roll and one per dagger skill 5 in water. That’s simply not enough when:

Each class can now lay 5 conditions every ten seconds and our booms are easily corrupted or stolen.

Every current “OP spec” is a hard counter to elementalists outside of DP thieves, but what DP thief is actually taken seriously.

I like the skills on Elementalist, I even agree with Jon Sharp when he said they’re ok as a whole, but he said in a caveat, they’re ok ONCE conditions are shaved down.

I disagree that limiting our spec switches is a fix to anything. If you use the attunements to their fullest extent, you can do extremely well.

Also, I think you didn’t understand my post. I’m not asking for a direct buff to elementalists (outside of restoring some of our nerfed abilities) I’m asking for nerfs to several incredibly skilless builds. They instead are getting ignored or buffed.

Also keep in mind that I’m only talking about WvW, as that was the last bastion for seeing a viable elementalist. (We determine our stat output, which allows us sustainability)

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

---

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

I’m sorry that I very seriously disagree with much of what you’re saying.

Warrior spec is directly getting a buff, necro skills at are used in the condi spec, MM spec are getting buffed, thieves (condi thieves are extremely hard to beat as Ele) and we have no condition removal.

Yes, we can remove 3 with one skill, one per cantrip, one per dodge roll and one per dagger skill 5 in water. That’s simply not enough when:

Each class can now lay 5 conditions every ten seconds and our booms are easily corrupted or stolen.

Every current “OP spec” is a hard counter to elementalists outside of DP thieves, but what DP thief is actually taken seriously.

I like the skills on Elementalist, I even agree with Jon Sharp when he said they’re ok as a whole, but he said in a caveat, they’re ok ONCE conditions are shaved down.

I disagree that limiting our spec switches is a fix to anything. If you use the attunements to their fullest extent, you can do extremely well.

Also, I think you didn’t understand my post. I’m not asking for a direct buff to elementalists (outside of restoring some of our nerfed abilities) I’m asking for nerfs to several incredibly skilless builds. They instead are getting ignored or buffed.

Also keep in mind that I’m only talking about WvW, as that was the last bastion for seeing a viable elementalist. (We determine our stat output, which allows us sustainability)

Let me fill you in on what I know.

The Warrior you dislike is 0/10/30/0/30. That is the Stun spec, if you put 0/0/0/30/0 into that to increase my healing, You lose out on either 0/0/30/0/0 or 0/0/0/0/30.

That completely ruins the spec. You can’t do what you could do anymore. Just because of the traits. Warriors of this type will not be getting healed more. This just opened up a new kind of play-style.

Now, the Warrior is also getting nerfed, with Sigil or Para.

What hurts the Elementalist more then anything, is Burst Condition Damage, which is getting shaved down a lot.

It would be like not traiting 0/0/0/30/30, You can’t play a an attunement dancer without that. Hey they buffed the healing of 30/0/0/0/0! However you would have to lose your 0/0/0/30/30 to get that and you just can’t do that!

You can’t have cake and eat it too, when you ask for buffs you have to give up something, and elementalist is one of the most complicated classes in the game to play. So if you want buffs, its going to come at a price, the class will be easier to play.

Daecollo.9578:

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

---

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

I’m sorry that I very seriously disagree with much of what you’re saying.

Warrior spec is directly getting a buff, necro skills at are used in the condi spec, MM spec are getting buffed, thieves (condi thieves are extremely hard to beat as Ele) and we have no condition removal.

Yes, we can remove 3 with one skill, one per cantrip, one per dodge roll and one per dagger skill 5 in water. That’s simply not enough when:

Each class can now lay 5 conditions every ten seconds and our booms are easily corrupted or stolen.

Every current “OP spec” is a hard counter to elementalists outside of DP thieves, but what DP thief is actually taken seriously.

I like the skills on Elementalist, I even agree with Jon Sharp when he said they’re ok as a whole, but he said in a caveat, they’re ok ONCE conditions are shaved down.

I disagree that limiting our spec switches is a fix to anything. If you use the attunements to their fullest extent, you can do extremely well.

Also, I think you didn’t understand my post. I’m not asking for a direct buff to elementalists (outside of restoring some of our nerfed abilities) I’m asking for nerfs to several incredibly skilless builds. They instead are getting ignored or buffed.

Also keep in mind that I’m only talking about WvW, as that was the last bastion for seeing a viable elementalist. (We determine our stat output, which allows us sustainability)

Let me fill you in on what I know.

The Warrior you dislike is 0/10/30/0/30. That is the Stun spec, if you put 0/0/0/30/0 into that to increase my healing, You lose out on either 0/0/30/0/0 or 0/0/0/0/30.

That completely ruins the spec. You can’t do what you could do anymore. Just because of the traits. Warriors of this type will not be getting healed more. This just opened up a new kind of play-style.

Now, the Warrior is also getting nerfed, with Sigil or Para.

What hurts the Elementalist more then anything, is Burst Condition Damage, which is getting shaved down a lot.

---

You can’t have cake and eat it too, when you ask for buffs you have to give up something, and elementalist is one of the most complicated classes in the game to play. So if you want buffs, its going to come at a price, the class will be easier to play.

While I appreciate the comments, the insight into warrior, I want you to know I’m not asking for elementalist buffs at all.

I do want you to clarify on how you think condition burst is getting shaved down, as that’s what would make elementalist viable again, but I see no indication that it is.

Also, with the warrior build, I know it is tough, but mixed builds are possible.

I’m a very good elementalist thanks to learning from of the best Eles in game. I am not disillusioned about the potential of elementalist, or how good it is right now. But if they don’t fix the meta, it is all pointless.

We have a heal skill that can be so good for combating conditions, but it is so easily interrupted it isn’t funny. And unlike normal skills, it doesn’t get a 2 second reset, it goes through its full cool down even if you reaped no benefits. It should have a tiered cool down based on when it is interrupted.

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

---

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

I’m sorry that I very seriously disagree with much of what you’re saying.

Warrior spec is directly getting a buff, necro skills at are used in the condi spec, MM spec are getting buffed, thieves (condi thieves are extremely hard to beat as Ele) and we have no condition removal.

Yes, we can remove 3 with one skill, one per cantrip, one per dodge roll and one per dagger skill 5 in water. That’s simply not enough when:

Each class can now lay 5 conditions every ten seconds and our booms are easily corrupted or stolen.

Every current “OP spec” is a hard counter to elementalists outside of DP thieves, but what DP thief is actually taken seriously.

I like the skills on Elementalist, I even agree with Jon Sharp when he said they’re ok as a whole, but he said in a caveat, they’re ok ONCE conditions are shaved down.

I disagree that limiting our spec switches is a fix to anything. If you use the attunements to their fullest extent, you can do extremely well.

Also, I think you didn’t understand my post. I’m not asking for a direct buff to elementalists (outside of restoring some of our nerfed abilities) I’m asking for nerfs to several incredibly skilless builds. They instead are getting ignored or buffed.

Also keep in mind that I’m only talking about WvW, as that was the last bastion for seeing a viable elementalist. (We determine our stat output, which allows us sustainability)

Let me fill you in on what I know.

The Warrior you dislike is 0/10/30/0/30. That is the Stun spec, if you put 0/0/0/30/0 into that to increase my healing, You lose out on either 0/0/30/0/0 or 0/0/0/0/30.

That completely ruins the spec. You can’t do what you could do anymore. Just because of the traits. Warriors of this type will not be getting healed more. This just opened up a new kind of play-style.

Now, the Warrior is also getting nerfed, with Sigil or Para.

What hurts the Elementalist more then anything, is Burst Condition Damage, which is getting shaved down a lot.

---

You can’t have cake and eat it too, when you ask for buffs you have to give up something, and elementalist is one of the most complicated classes in the game to play. So if you want buffs, its going to come at a price, the class will be easier to play.

While I appreciate the comments, the insight into warrior, I want you to know I’m not asking for elementalist buffs at all.

I do want you to clarify on how you think condition burst is getting shaved down, as that’s what would make elementalist viable again, but I see no indication that it is.

Also, with the warrior build, I know it is tough, but mixed builds are possible.

I’m a very good elementalist thanks to learning from of the best Eles in game. I am not disillusioned about the potential of elementalist, or how good it is right now. But if they don’t fix the meta, it is all pointless.

We have a heal skill that can be so good for combating conditions, but it is so easily interrupted it isn’t funny. And unlike normal skills, it doesn’t get a 2 second reset, it goes through its full cool down even if you reaped no benefits. It should have a tiered cool down based on when it is interrupted.

They are making it so only one player can stack a certain amount a certain amount of times so if your getting hit hard by several players with stacks of conditions only one will be viable until it goes away.

Daecollo.9578:

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

Mbelch.9028:

Daecollo.9578:

They buffed underused specs, the specs your having trouble against did not get buffed at all. They are buffing underused things to make them better.

Elementalist is hard to balance because its so complex.

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Earth should be focused on Condition Damage/Reducing Damage. (Bleeding Damage/Confusion Damage/Protection.)

Water should be focused on Power Damage/Healing. (Vulnerability/Weaknesss/Power Damage/Healing.)

---

Fire should be Condition Damage/Condition Removal and Control. (Burning, Power, Condition Control. (Remove conditions/cure for each one removed.).

Air Should be Burst/Critical Damage/Daze and Crowd Control.

This way you can have 1 offensive/1 defensive option.

I’m sorry that I very seriously disagree with much of what you’re saying.

Warrior spec is directly getting a buff, necro skills at are used in the condi spec, MM spec are getting buffed, thieves (condi thieves are extremely hard to beat as Ele) and we have no condition removal.

Yes, we can remove 3 with one skill, one per cantrip, one per dodge roll and one per dagger skill 5 in water. That’s simply not enough when:

Each class can now lay 5 conditions every ten seconds and our booms are easily corrupted or stolen.

Every current “OP spec” is a hard counter to elementalists outside of DP thieves, but what DP thief is actually taken seriously.

I like the skills on Elementalist, I even agree with Jon Sharp when he said they’re ok as a whole, but he said in a caveat, they’re ok ONCE conditions are shaved down.

I disagree that limiting our spec switches is a fix to anything. If you use the attunements to their fullest extent, you can do extremely well.

Also, I think you didn’t understand my post. I’m not asking for a direct buff to elementalists (outside of restoring some of our nerfed abilities) I’m asking for nerfs to several incredibly skilless builds. They instead are getting ignored or buffed.

Also keep in mind that I’m only talking about WvW, as that was the last bastion for seeing a viable elementalist. (We determine our stat output, which allows us sustainability)

Let me fill you in on what I know.

The Warrior you dislike is 0/10/30/0/30. That is the Stun spec, if you put 0/0/0/30/0 into that to increase my healing, You lose out on either 0/0/30/0/0 or 0/0/0/0/30.

That completely ruins the spec. You can’t do what you could do anymore. Just because of the traits. Warriors of this type will not be getting healed more. This just opened up a new kind of play-style.

Now, the Warrior is also getting nerfed, with Sigil or Para.

What hurts the Elementalist more then anything, is Burst Condition Damage, which is getting shaved down a lot.

---

You can’t have cake and eat it too, when you ask for buffs you have to give up something, and elementalist is one of the most complicated classes in the game to play. So if you want buffs, its going to come at a price, the class will be easier to play.

While I appreciate the comments, the insight into warrior, I want you to know I’m not asking for elementalist buffs at all.

I do want you to clarify on how you think condition burst is getting shaved down, as that’s what would make elementalist viable again, but I see no indication that it is.

Also, with the warrior build, I know it is tough, but mixed builds are possible.

I’m a very good elementalist thanks to learning from of the best Eles in game. I am not disillusioned about the potential of elementalist, or how good it is right now. But if they don’t fix the meta, it is all pointless.

We have a heal skill that can be so good for combating conditions, but it is so easily interrupted it isn’t funny. And unlike normal skills, it doesn’t get a 2 second reset, it goes through its full cool down even if you reaped no benefits. It should have a tiered cool down based on when it is interrupted.

They are making it so only one player can stack a certain amount a certain amount of times so if your getting hit hard by several players with stacks of conditions only one will be viable until it goes away.

That’s not a big deal for anything minus larger team fights. Condition damage needs to be shaved down. But it isn’t getting that hit.

That’s a slight nerf, nothing that even impacts small teams roamers/duelers that look to WvW as the game mode of choice.

They just need to unnerf our skills that they messed up. We should be able to heal in mistform again, RTL needs its original cooldown and range back, they need to unnerf our condition removal and healing as well. And there was no reason for them to remove the stunbreakers on purifying flame and lightning flash. I’d gladly trade Mesmer’s blink with our LF. Even with those changes we would STILL be underpowered compared to all the other classes as they are now. The thing eles need most of all is a flat out buff in damage to all our skills. Unless you’re using some gimmicky conjure build(which I refuse to use because I want to play an ele not a poor man’s hammer warrior!) our DPS straight up sucks compared to all other classes.

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to unnerf our skills that they messed up. We should be able to heal in mistform again, RTL needs its original cooldown and range back, they need to unnerf our condition removal and healing as well. And there was no reason for them to remove the stunbreakers on purifying flame and lightning flash.

This^.

Anet: read it, do it, love it… well I don’t care if you love it, just do it.

thieves didnt get buffed, they got nerfed, again on 2 weapon sets thieves barely even play. the immobilize will be on pistol main hand #2, the vulnerability on that same skill is weak and costs too much initiative to frequently use considering the underwhelming condition damage it does.

Sword dagger will now only steal 1 boon, not 2 from infiltrators strike (sword #2). but i’m totally on your side on “qq’ing” about yet another buff to necromancers, because another buff is really what they needed. /sarcasm

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to unnerf our skills that they messed up. We should be able to heal in mistform again, RTL needs its original cooldown and range back, they need to unnerf our condition removal and healing as well. And there was no reason for them to remove the stunbreakers on purifying flame and lightning flash.

I could not agree more!

I only have one character, my ele. I’ve played it since the first beta and been in love with D/D since last october.

The changes you did, quoted above, were tough but I accepted them becouse back then made sense (I could face a group of 5, kill 3 and run away). But right now, after all buffs to other classes, I have to do my best to win a 1vs1 and if I cast the wrong skill at the wrong timing I might be in a trouble.

I have to play almost perfectly my ele to beat a thief or a necro, and can’t at all beat a stun warrior or a good guardian.

So ANet guys, please give me back the old purifying flame (which was VERY important in my build before its nerf and had to change it for Armor of Earth which is not the same at all, I preffer not having stability and having an other stun break), return de stun break to lightning flash and unnerf the passive healing of the Signet of Restoration (which is way lower than the warrior equivalent, for example).

I’m talking from the WvW perspective.

My axe power necro aren’t getting buffs at all.

On condition necro (if one plays that in PvP) you get beaten easily by stuns/knockdown/knockbacks/dazes and so on, CC’ing a necro will kill him fast and as far as i know elementalist professions have a few ways to do that.

Anyway, so because you have trouble against a few professions, yet walk over other like it’s nothing, should elementalists not be nerfed then as some professions have a hard time killing elementalists?. No?, then you can’t call for a nerf or buff.

Daecollo.9578:

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Stop pushing your agenda please. Your idea makes the elementalist even harder to balance (not that it’s that hard to balance in theory anyway; it’s just been terribly messed up) and completely messes with its core mechanic in a way that would necessitate a rework of the profession.

Azzer.8137:

My axe power necro aren’t getting buffs at all.

On condition necro (if one plays that in PvP) you get beaten easily by stuns/knockdown/knockbacks/dazes and so on, CC’ing a necro will kill him fast and as far as i know elementalist professions have a few ways to do that.

Anyway, so because you have trouble against a few professions, yet walk over other like it’s nothing, should elementalists not be nerfed then as some professions have a hard time killing elementalists?. No?, then you can’t call for a nerf or buff.

I’m not saying that I can easily kill a necro, I’m saying that I have to play almost perfectly to kill it. It’s not the same, I can’t afford to hit the wrong key twice in a fight or forget to dodge a key enemy skill (I have to know what skills I can afford not to dodge so I can evade the important one), otherwise I’m dead.

It’s not I can’t easily kill a necro, I just have to reach it; perfectly time the 5 air skill and the 4 earth skill (D/D) so that it doesn’t escape or heal, while trying to deal damage, avoid other enemies skills and hope I deal enough damage to kill it. So yeah I’m complaining, but not about how hard it is to play (I love it) but about that if that necro didn’t die after all that or just dodged the first CC, I’d be with half of my skills on CD and no CC, while the necro could walk away, heal, swap to staff and spam areas and I wouldn’t be able to reach it.

And that’s just the necro…

Where can I find the patch notes about these changes to the classes? I can *never seem to find them. :/

Justin, it’s illegal to link them, however, google “October 15 Leaked Patch notes” you’ll find them.

Azzer, unless you play Ele, don’t say we walk over other professions. It is a HARD fight to win our battles. We have to focus more and plan more than other classes. Just because power isn’t getting buffed doesn’t mean other builds getting buffed isnt a nightmare. Let’s be real.

Nikki, while overall I agree 100%, I don’t even need those to be happy (well, yeah, condi removal back is necessary.) Ele has some great utility right now, the other classes are just extremely OP in that they hard counter elementalist.

Jonwar, glad you’re on my side, but a nerf to S/D was necessary, and a buff to P/D is going to result in the MOST OP build we’ve seen yet for thief. Just trust me on this, as I’ve already had testing done.

For starters, I think returning the condition removal is a good choice. The broken with cantrips was the sucessive stun breaking, which was fixed.

And this is more of a side thing and it doesn’t solve the main issue, but maybe we’d be better in this meta if we weren’t so boon dependent for buffs? Some of our passive buff traits are pretty bad. Boon hate is a pretty good mechanism against eles after all.

Justin.5231:

Where can I find the patch notes about these changes to the classes? I can *never seem to find them. :/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Leuca.5732:

Daecollo.9578:

You need traits that well… specialize in 1-2 attunements, but have amazing traits like this!

Stop pushing your agenda please. Your idea makes the elementalist even harder to balance (not that it’s that hard to balance in theory anyway; it’s just been terribly messed up) and completely messes with its core mechanic in a way that would necessitate a rework of the profession.

Its easier to balance a class that uses 1-2 attunements then all 4.

Your not going to see upgrades unless the class is simpler.

If you buff all four attunements or even one and leave it how it is, you are just going to make an Alpha Class for some players, which ele was for a while.

The way you describe alpha class it makes it sound like “I’m more skilled, so I should be stronger”, which seems fine to me. I can only see it as a problem if the skill ceilings on other classes are really low.

Navzar.2938:

The way you describe alpha class it makes it sound like “I’m more skilled, so I should be stronger”, which seems fine to me. I can only see it as a problem if the skill ceilings on other classes are really low.

Well then you will have the problem that only teams “who are skilled.” will only be running the more skilled classes, and the simple ones who are less powerful will not be ran.

Mbelch.9028:

Justin, it’s illegal to link them, however, google “October 15 Leaked Patch notes” you’ll find them.

It isn`t “illegal” in the least.
Sure, it may end up with a thread, post deletion etc because the mods/devs don`t like it, but there is no law against it.

Daecollo.9578:

Its easier to balance a class that uses 1-2 attunements then all 4.

Your not going to see upgrades unless the class is simpler.

If you buff all four attunements or even one and leave it how it is, you are just going to make an Alpha Class for some players, which ele was for a while.

If eles only had two attunements period, that would be easier to balance. Instead what you are suggesting is that the elementalist be balanced around having about 6 different sets to choose from instead of one global set that is balanced around all of its parts. You then have to work each element so that it is a separate weapon set entirely, then make sure that your traitlines are in line with this, whereas in other professions you can receive a much more universal benefit per traitline.

The reason why Elementalists are terrible is because they were designed extremely poorly. In essence, Anet designed them like the game were still GW1, where elementalists went one or two elements and that was it.

The trait lines reflect this. In short, most traits reward an elementalist for sticking in one attunement and only apply benefits for there, usually in a backwards sort of way. The reason why D/D was so powerful/useful was that its traits benefited the ele in almost all attunements.

This thought process might be okay, except the cooldowns for Ele skills are based around attunement switching, so you cannot spend all your time in one attunement unless you really, really enjoy auto attacking for a fifth of the damage that everyone else does.

And on top of that, the attunement recharge times are complete crap as well. Unless you invest heavily into the Arcane tree, then juggling through your most useful attunements that you may have invested in simply cannot be done.

This is why Elementalists are considered a joke of a class. In WvW, they’re taken for mobile field generators and that’s pretty much it. In PvE, there’s at least two or three builds that can do whatever an elementalist can do, if not better, on top of offering something else, like DPS. The only moderately attractive PvE build for elementalists is lightning hammer—which is what I’m sure everyone in the class wants, a build that plays like a warrior.

There’s no mystic left for the elementalist. There’s no threat about them. When was the last time someone went into WvW, saw an elementalist, and thought they were a threat? Odds are, most everyone just thought correctly that they were a free kill.

But oh yeah, they’re in an okay place. Sure. I mean, you could take D/D at the height of its power and toss it into the current game, and it still wouldn’t be anywhere near the top.

In short, it will take almost a complete overhaul of the elementalist to fix their fundamental problems. Anet simply won’t do this, either because it’s against their design decision of glacial changes or because they have too much on their plate.

The only thing elementalists can hope for is that some of the new weapon options will act as a bandaid for our problems.

Irony nerfs:

D/D getting repeatedly nerf (most recently, the extremely uncalled for RTL nerf, which was a range and cooldown nerf, on top of the other ones it had received) because it’s ‘too mobile’. Know what class is far, far more mobile than D/D eles? Warriors. Thieves.

EA gets nerfed because it creates ‘too many’ blast finishers—first all blasts were removed from it, then Anet decides to graciously allow us to retain the Earth attunement blast bonus. So glad there’s not another class out there—like, say, engineer—with access to really good fields—like, say, water and smoke—and a plethora of blast finishers.

1. Buff back Bountiful Power. The nerf was uncalled for.
2. Buff back Ride the Lightning. The nerf was uncalled for.
3. Add the stun breaker back to Lightning Flash and Cleansing Flame. The nerf was uncalled for.
4. Remove stun breaker from Glyph of Elemental Power, a utility skill you ideally want to always have on recharge. The buff was uncalled for.

Then maybe I’ll be a bit happier.

I feel bad for Mesmers, no stability and their key defense for melee got an recharge increase for no reason. Oh, but they are getting stability, on a Mantra?! Mantras are not bad but now every Mesmer has to carry it if they want to be useful in PvP.

Whoever is making these decisions has gone full stupid.
Trying to create various builds and balance is instead limiting builds and making more imbalance.

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to unnerf our skills that they messed up. We should be able to heal in mistform again, RTL needs its original cooldown and range back, they need to unnerf our condition removal and healing as well. And there was no reason for them to remove the stunbreakers on purifying flame and lightning flash. I’d gladly trade Mesmer’s blink with our LF. Even with those changes we would STILL be underpowered compared to all the other classes as they are now. The thing eles need most of all is a flat out buff in damage to all our skills. Unless you’re using some gimmicky conjure build(which I refuse to use because I want to play an ele not a poor man’s hammer warrior!) our DPS straight up sucks compared to all other classes.

So basically you just want all the problems we had in the meta to come back all over again? Do you even understand why they nerfed those things at all? The only ones I could remotely agree on are the stun breakers for purif flame and the rtl distance, but not the cd on it. Lightning flas can still get you out of the area even if stunned, so there’s no point in stun breaker for that. The healing is still pretty op if you play it right, and as for the condi removal, we have tons of it just most people don’t know how to properly use it. Ether renewal does need a fix though, the full cd on interrupt is bad. But unless you plan on going “player vs server” there’s allied condi removals too that everyone seems to forget about. might want to think about running with a better team.

Nova Stiker.8396:

1. Buff back Bountiful Power. The nerf was uncalled for.
2. Buff back Ride the Lightning. The nerf was uncalled for.
3. Add the stun breaker back to Lightning Flash and Cleansing Flame. The nerf was uncalled for.
4. Remove stun breaker from Glyph of Elemental Power, a utility skill you ideally want to always have on recharge. The buff was uncalled for.

1. I think this nerf was reasonable since it’s now in line with other profession’s +% damage per boon traits.
2. I pretty much agree with this. The mobility was rather important. Although the 1550>1200 range is acceptable, the recharge shouldn’t be more than 20.
3. This was definitely necessary because all cantrips stun breaking was just too much, so some had to go.
4. Well you can still use it as the old version if you want to, but I agree that it’s a bad choice for a stun breaker and could use some work.

Sorry I didn’t reply to some of these posts.

Let me take a crack at it in order.

Navzar, I agree that condi removal is a must for eles. If we don’t currently trait 100% for conditions and prepare for them unconditionally, we get beaten on them. But preparing for them leaves you less than optimally prepared for melee classes. It isn’t a good situation right now.

Daecollo, I think you already know I’m going to say I disagree with you. Eles should have the opportunity to focus on two elements, or choose a broader play style. That is achievable without a complete class restructure. Don’t be over dramatic. Eles aren’t hard to balance right now because we aren’t OP. We need a few simple buffs to be WvW viable again.

Fishbait, I find myself frequently saying here: Don’t troll where there is no bridge. Your comment added nothing to this discussion and only reinforced my belief that posting a link would be detrimental. Some people can’t just leave things be.

Lina, you’re spot on with the ironic nerf comments. However… I must say eles weren’t designed poorly. They just need some trait reworks similar to fresh air to make each trait line as valuable as the next. It would be neat to see Arcana give minus condition duration or something beneficial instead of attunement recharge and have all attunement recharges standardized at 8-9 seconds.

Nova, while I don’t agree with a 100percent rollback on all our nerfs (minus the blast nerf) I think some of these are valuable. We definitely need some of those nerfs rebuffed.

Nay of the Ether, you’ve got some good points. A complete rollback would make eles strong as kitten, but also consider the meta. The meta is a hard counter to elementalists. Also consider a different skill level from now to then. Eles aren’t a surprise anymore. I know the only surprise I bring is my high damage.

Keep on campaigning for ele support guys. I hope some day we get it.

Mbelch.9028:

Lina, you’re spot on with the ironic nerf comments. However… I must say eles weren’t designed poorly. They just need some trait reworks similar to fresh air to make each trait line as valuable as the next. It would be neat to see Arcana give minus condition duration or something beneficial instead of attunement recharge and have all attunement recharges standardized at 8-9 seconds.

A rework to Arcana like that would make Fresh Air almost unnecessary. Not a bad thing, but that’s what would happen.

Leuca.5732:

Mbelch.9028:

Lina, you’re spot on with the ironic nerf comments. However… I must say eles weren’t designed poorly. They just need some trait reworks similar to fresh air to make each trait line as valuable as the next. It would be neat to see Arcana give minus condition duration or something beneficial instead of attunement recharge and have all attunement recharges standardized at 8-9 seconds.

A rework to Arcana like that would make Fresh Air almost unnecessary. Not a bad thing, but that’s what would happen.

I think fresh air should be an immediate or a maximum of three second recharge. And I think each element minus arcana should have a similar mechanism. Thanks for your comment!

Mbelch.9028:

Leuca.5732:

Mbelch.9028:

Lina, you’re spot on with the ironic nerf comments. However… I must say eles weren’t designed poorly. They just need some trait reworks similar to fresh air to make each trait line as valuable as the next. It would be neat to see Arcana give minus condition duration or something beneficial instead of attunement recharge and have all attunement recharges standardized at 8-9 seconds.

A rework to Arcana like that would make Fresh Air almost unnecessary. Not a bad thing, but that’s what would happen.

I think fresh air should be an immediate or a maximum of three second recharge. And I think each element minus arcana should have a similar mechanism. Thanks for your comment!

Fresh air traits are stupid and shouldn’t exist. They are a few suggestions that will be perfect around this parts, I think it was the attunement swap bar.

And if they do give all attunement fresh air like traits at the mininum they need to merge them with alarcity traits for each line.

Why do you think they’re stupid? I think a few trait merges would be great for ele. You’re quite right.

Fresh Air IS stupid. Its a gimmick trait designed to band-aid the Ele’s extremely poor burst and DPS by allowing one to cycle an Air Attunement in between standard rotation for that extra bump in damage from the lightning strike.

The problem is, Air is a sub-par attunement, nearly in the same boat as Water. In Staff, you’ve got lackluster DPS, a long charge-up blind, a stun field and some redundant utility skills. If you’re running Daggers or Scepter, you’re not spending a lot of time in Air because you’ll need the getaway from RtL, and usually you’re dropping nukes and not worrying about single target damage spikes. Focus is good, but not spectacular.

The problem with a trait like FA is that it really pigeonholes the profession. You need to build up Precision to make sure you are getting access when you need it (i.e. “on demand”) and to do any appreciable damage as an Ele you also need Power. Which means a FA build will almost always run Zerk (or Assassin) which results in even lower survivability.

To me, Fresh Air smacked of very poor design, and it makes no sense if you’re going to offer a trait like that to not include one for each traitline! And especially if the main traitline that everyone runs (Arcane) already reduces attunement recharge across all fours attunements resulting in smoother play!

Seriously, the ANet balance team is frustrating as hell. Its as if they saw all those daphoenix videos, listened to OP thieves and warriors whining about not getting their free kills, and nerfed Eles into the ground. Eles SHOULD be the insta-gib class. If they get their nukes off, things should die quickly and horribly (as ANet themselves described the profession). The trade-off is extreme vulnerability. Unfortunately, the SOTG as it is now forces the vulnerability without the benefit of the damage. Other professions do more damage, with more inherent defense and survivability, this is beyond question.

In almost any game I’ve ever played, the Mage or Wizard is the squishiest, but does the most damage and is the most maneuverable, via either teleports or simply by dint of wearing robes and not hundreds of pounds of armor. That ANet has given more mobility to classes like Thief with their Stealth, Warriors with their armor and Rangers with their pets defies any sort of logical process.

There are many common sense fixes that ANet could implement relatively quickly that would solve a lot of the profession’s problems, many of which have been outlined in this and other threads. That they continue to ignore basic class balance in favor of putting out Living Story is silly. You should get the foundation right before you build on it. I’m also well aware that the department that works on balance is not the same as the one that works on story content. The obvious conclusion is to move people from story content to the balance team until such time as the game reaches a good semblance of balance, at which point they move back.

I’ve got to say your assessment of fresh air, and the air attunement isn’t spot on. I think air is our best attunement. It’s at the very least my favorite attunement.

Your views come from a big zerger or a primary staff ele. That’s fine, but our best auto attacks are in air. I’ve got some good, not zerker builds that use fresh air effectively. Mind you this is WvW. I’ve seen people use it as a burst spec well in spvp too.

Air gives you swiftness. (awesome for fighting because you hit them more frequently as you don’t see “miss”).

It gives hit deterrents. (Blind or stun, great for close range fighting)

It has the best autos for simple damage. On most zerkers I hit 3.5-4k per full air auto attack.

It has good movement skills like RTL.

I don’t know what there is to complain about.

No it isn’t good for staff, but it wasn’t intended to be. Not every grandmaster trait was intended to be used for every build. It works for over half our mainhand weapons.

Apart from S/x, Fresh Air is really really nice for D/x since it lets you switch back to Air to access Lightning Whip with it’s awesome 1.4 coefficient that outshines every other ele auto and even does more damage than the warrior’s GS auto. Two lightning whips hits the same as a while burning target Fire Grab yet is much easier to land and less conditional (no Anet, don’t nerf lightning whip, buff the kittening Fire Grab.)

Too bad 30 Air with dagger mainhand is so squishy and can only be used reliably in PvE.

@OP Warrior is getting lung capacity moved to Tier 1 which means they go into tactics which means that they will lose out on damage. The normal stun spec doesn’t go into tactics at all. You could still go into tactics and run stun build but if you do move discipline points you give up shorter recharge rate on skull crack, you give up 10-20 critical damage. You have to run unsuspecting foe in that build so no less than 10 in arms. So you lose your greatsword recharge rate if you do. If you drop 10 from defense then you lose will lose cleansing ire(conditiion removal on burst skill), Last stand(auto stability when hit with a CC that isn’t immobilize), dogged march (recover from cripple chill immobilize 33% faster and gain adrenaline) .

The common stun mace spec is 0/20/30/0/20 or 0/20/20/0/30 I don’t think many mace warriors will go 10 in tactics. Many might drop mace all together when sigil of para is nerfed because it wont give a full 100blades anymore if they do it as the tooltip says it should be almost all of the 100 blades except the last hit(which does the most damage) and with very little wiggle room for error you have to swap immediately if they fix the para sigil like the tooltip says.

If you ever played a necro you know that Flesh Golem sucks the AI will still be bad on it it just will have more health. I mean its decent but I would take any of elementalists elementals over it any day in its current state.

Most typical necro condi builds will only run that minion anyway.

Conditions are a problem for elementalist lol. That heal with which you take off god knows how many conditions and water trait for each dodge you remove I think 2 conditions. I have no problem facing any kind of condition even in a wvw situation.

I just dont get it how you get so many conditions and are unable to remove them as an ele. However as thief, I have difficulties removing conditions.

UnknownRH.4592:

Conditions are a problem for elementalist lol. That heal with which you take off god knows how many conditions and water trait for each dodge you remove I think 2 conditions. I have no problem facing any kind of condition even in a wvw situation.

I just dont get it how you get so many conditions and are unable to remove them as an ele. However as thief, I have difficulties removing conditions.

You have obviously never fought 1v1, nor fought an intelligent person.

Many of us fight people who interrupt any longer skill, especially the well telegraphed ether renewal.

Condi spam will always be effective on the classes with the lowest health pool.

Thieves get a million evades and stealth, whereas eles are forced to grin and bare it so to speak.

Try small teams roaming on for size then come back and kitten that statement.

oZii.2864:

@OP Warrior is getting lung capacity moved to Tier 1 which means they go into tactics which means that they will lose out on damage. The normal stun spec doesn’t go into tactics at all. You could still go into tactics and run stun build but if you do move discipline points you give up shorter recharge rate on skull crack, you give up 10-20 critical damage. You have to run unsuspecting foe in that build so no less than 10 in arms. So you lose your greatsword recharge rate if you do. If you drop 10 from defense then you lose will lose cleansing ire(conditiion removal on burst skill), Last stand(auto stability when hit with a CC that isn’t immobilize), dogged march (recover from cripple chill immobilize 33% faster and gain adrenaline) .

The common stun mace spec is 0/20/30/0/20 or 0/20/20/0/30 I don’t think many mace warriors will go 10 in tactics. Many might drop mace all together when sigil of para is nerfed because it wont give a full 100blades anymore if they do it as the tooltip says it should be almost all of the 100 blades except the last hit(which does the most damage) and with very little wiggle room for error you have to swap immediately if they fix the para sigil like the tooltip says.

If you ever played a necro you know that Flesh Golem sucks the AI will still be bad on it it just will have more health. I mean its decent but I would take any of elementalists elementals over it any day in its current state.

Most typical necro condi builds will only run that minion anyway.

Good warrior assessment. I have one but don’t play it frequently. I’m still concerned that certain things aren’t getting nerfed. Perplexity for one.

I’m also wondering if we’ve ever fought. I’m an ele on mag from FEAR.

Mbelch.9028:

I’ve got to say your assessment of fresh air, and the air attunement isn’t spot on. I think air is our best attunement. It’s at the very least my favorite attunement.

Your views come from a big zerger or a primary staff ele. That’s fine, but our best auto attacks are in air. I’ve got some good, not zerker builds that use fresh air effectively. Mind you this is WvW. I’ve seen people use it as a burst spec well in spvp too.

Air gives you swiftness. (awesome for fighting because you hit them more frequently as you don’t see “miss”).

It gives hit deterrents. (Blind or stun, great for close range fighting)

It has the best autos for simple damage. On most zerkers I hit 3.5-4k per full air auto attack.

It has good movement skills like RTL.

I don’t know what there is to complain about.

No it isn’t good for staff, but it wasn’t intended to be. Not every grandmaster trait was intended to be used for every build. It works for over half our mainhand weapons.

While I do play WvW, most of my hours on Ele are PvE and dungeons, usually using D/D or S/D and S/F.

If you’re sitting in Air, you’re doing it wrong. Almost all of our high damage skills are not in Air, and the metagame is all about DPS. Yes, LW on Dagger is a good auto, of course about the only thing that stands in said auto are golem target dummies. The stun is extremely short (and has an ICD), and Blind is hardly helpful when you’re engaging more than one opponent, as is the case most of the time. AoE blind would be great, but you have to take a stationary utility skill for that. Too bad that Scepter Air 3 isn’t AoE like Blinding Surge was in GW1.

Swiftness doesn’t affect accuracy, unless you mean the target is out of range, which means its a positioning problem, not an issue of having swiftness or not. And don’t even get me started on RtL, which is a joke now.

Almost any build for any area (bar high level fractals and using Focus) you’re going to be relying on Fire and/or Earth for damage, cycling into Air only when all your other skills are on CD. That’s my problem with traits like Fresh Air, its a crutch for poor design.

Mbelch.9028:

I’ve got to say your assessment of fresh air, and the air attunement isn’t spot on. I think air is our best attunement. It’s at the very least my favorite attunement.

It’s not a bad attunement, but it’s certainly not living up to what its description says it should do.

Your views come from a big zerger or a primary staff ele. That’s fine, but our best auto attacks are in air. I’ve got some good, not zerker builds that use fresh air effectively. Mind you this is WvW. I’ve seen people use it as a burst spec well in spvp too.

Scepter air auto is really bad dps if you aren’t supplementing with anything else; its saving grace is the fact that you can use instant skills while it’s channeling. The burst spec in spvp doesn’t even rely on Fresh Air for the bulk of the damage; the spike actually works better and is much easier to execute with Tempest Defense, to combo with Earthquake’s knockdown effect. Fresh Air is for attempting to sustain dps, not burst, but it doesn’t even do that very well.

Air gives you swiftness. (awesome for fighting because you hit them more frequently as you don’t see “miss”).

Slightly true, but most professions have enough gap closers to make hitting without swiftness pretty much a non-issue. Swiftness is stronger outside of combat because it’s a % increase, and you move slower while in combat, making gap closing skills stronger when they have reasonable cooldown.

It gives hit deterrents. (Blind or stun, great for close range fighting)

Ironically, eles have some of the worst access to blind out of professions that are supposed to be good at it. Look at ele blind compared to thief blind.

It has the best autos for simple damage. On most zerkers I hit 3.5-4k per full air auto attack.

Our autos don’t really stack up to the competition because the tradeoff for sticking to an auto for that long is not worth giving up the utility of your other skills.

It has good movement skills like RTL.

RtL is ONLY half-decent if you are using it and successfully hit somebody. It’s received too many nerfs to stack up to its competition, and ele mobility is pretty pathetic compared to quite a few other professions now.

I don’t know what there is to complain about.

A lot. There are many design flaws that are pretty obvious, and not just with Air magic.

No it isn’t good for staff, but it wasn’t intended to be. Not every grandmaster trait was intended to be used for every build. It works for over half our mainhand weapons.

Where in the trait does it specify that staves aren’t good with it? The reason I’m asking is because Fresh Air is not a weapon-specific trait; it is an Air Magic trait. That’s an example of bad design.

Kaleban.9834:

Almost any build for any area (bar high level fractals and using Focus) you’re going to be relying on Fire and/or Earth for damage, cycling into Air only when all your other skills are on CD. That’s my problem with traits like Fresh Air, its a crutch for poor design.

This really is the crux. The “good” stuff in Air (RtL, Updraft, Static) has such long cooldowns that you really don’t want to be swapping back to Air just to end up using auto attacks.

When playing D/D, the auto attacks are a “last resort” between your other elements, so you can keep some pressure up while you wait for things to come off cooldown.

Fresh Air sounds like a good idea until you realise it genuinely doesn’t give you anything useful over a non Fresh Air build. I typically max out at 20 in Air (Zephyr/Bolt or Alacrity/Bolt) and then, as everyone else does, dump the rest into Water & Arcane.

I believe that the attunement reduction should be reduced by default, that Evasive Arcana should be an Adept trait (10 Arcane) and Fire & Air fixed to make them more attractive.

Mbelch.9028:

Good warrior assessment. I have one but don’t play it frequently. I’m still concerned that certain things aren’t getting nerfed. Perplexity for one.

I’m also wondering if we’ve ever fought. I’m an ele on mag from FEAR.

Possibly I have a Human Ele with incinerator only ele with incinerator in Good Fights. If you are the human female ele from fear then yea we have before. I haven’t logged on to it much the past few days as I was trying out a few new thief specs.

elithrar.7143:

This really is the crux. The “good” stuff in Air (RtL, Updraft, Static) has such long cooldowns that you really don’t want to be swapping back to Air just to end up using auto attacks.

When playing D/D, the auto attacks are a “last resort” between your other elements, so you can keep some pressure up while you wait for things to come off cooldown.

Fresh Air sounds like a good idea until you realise it genuinely doesn’t give you anything useful over a non Fresh Air build. I typically max out at 20 in Air (Zephyr/Bolt or Alacrity/Bolt) and then, as everyone else does, dump the rest into Water & Arcane.

I believe that the attunement reduction should be reduced by default, that Evasive Arcana should be an Adept trait (10 Arcane) and Fire & Air fixed to make them more attractive.

I disagree you don’t want to use any auto attacks for any of the attunements except Air that is the one auto attack with D/D that you should be using it is the best auto attack an ele has it does almost as much damage as thief dagger auto attack but has 300 range on it.

oZii.2864:

I disagree you don’t want to use any auto attacks for any of the attunements except Air that is the one auto attack with D/D that you should be using it is the best auto attack an ele has it does almost as much damage as thief dagger auto attack but has 300 range on it.

Perhaps you misread. The Dagger Air auto-attack is really good, but you’re not going to spam it over other abilities. It’s a “last resort” in that you’re going to cycle your major CD’s in other attunements before you rely on it too heavily.

elithrar.7143:

Fresh Air sounds like a good idea until you realise it genuinely doesn’t give you anything useful over a non Fresh Air build. I typically max out at 20 in Air (Zephyr/Bolt or Alacrity/Bolt) and then, as everyone else does, dump the rest into Water & Arcane.

The one thing is does do is give you a lightning bolt everytime you swap to it. It works pretty well with scepter, though I can see why it’s less desirable for dagger.

elithrar.7143:

oZii.2864:

I disagree you don’t want to use any auto attacks for any of the attunements except Air that is the one auto attack with D/D that you should be using it is the best auto attack an ele has it does almost as much damage as thief dagger auto attack but has 300 range on it.

Perhaps you misread. The Dagger Air auto-attack is really good, but you’re not going to spam it over other abilities. It’s a “last resort” in that you’re going to cycle your major CD’s in other attunements before you rely on it too heavily.

Not really, Drakes Breath and Burning Speed are the only skills that give more DPS than than LW. Ring of Earth, Frozen Burst and all the other dagger main hand skills have lower coefficients.

It feels more like LW is the main source of damage while the other stuff are fillers :P

To add to oZii’s perspective, LW also does more damage than warrior greatsword auto and at a further range.

Kaleban.9834:

Ele’s extremely poor burst

Yup. No burst whatsoever.

Kyskythyn.6471:

Kaleban.9834:

Ele’s extremely poor burst

Yup. No burst whatsoever.

Great burst, too bad it’s slow as hell and easily stopped. It’s not like backstab, you can’t defend yourself with invisibility.

And that is just stopping the burst, you’d be taking 5-6k critical hits from a rangers short bow auto attack.

In PvE you’d be even more useless being a squishy S/D, you can’t use combo fields unless you’re near melee range of the enemy. It’ll work in CoF path 1 and…
…
Yep.

Elementalist glass cannon is way to slow, so easily stopped and has little to no means of survivability.
It has no place in competitive PvP and almost no use in PvE.

It is not viable. Simple as that.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Elementalist glass cannon is way to slow, so easily stopped and has little to no means of survivability.
It has no place in competitive PvP and almost no use in PvE.

It is not viable. Simple as that.

Perhaps if some ele’s tried something other than 0/0/0/30/30 bunker, they would see that bunker support is not the only role ele’s can fulfill.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to unnerf our skills that they messed up. We should be able to heal in mistform again, RTL needs its original cooldown and range back, they need to unnerf our condition removal and healing as well. And there was no reason for them to remove the stunbreakers on purifying flame and lightning flash. I’d gladly trade Mesmer’s blink with our LF. Even with those changes we would STILL be underpowered compared to all the other classes as they are now. The thing eles need most of all is a flat out buff in damage to all our skills. Unless you’re using some gimmicky conjure build(which I refuse to use because I want to play an ele not a poor man’s hammer warrior!) our DPS straight up sucks compared to all other classes.

So basically you just want all the problems we had in the meta to come back all over again? Do you even understand why they nerfed those things at all? The only ones I could remotely agree on are the stun breakers for purif flame and the rtl distance, but not the cd on it. Lightning flas can still get you out of the area even if stunned, so there’s no point in stun breaker for that. The healing is still pretty op if you play it right, and as for the condi removal, we have tons of it just most people don’t know how to properly use it. Ether renewal does need a fix though, the full cd on interrupt is bad. But unless you plan on going “player vs server” there’s allied condi removals too that everyone seems to forget about. might want to think about running with a better team.

Play as a warrior then come back and say that. I’ve been maining warrior since they keep nerfing ele into uselessness. Compared to the buffs warrior has gotten and the buffs they KEEP getting despite being the most OP class ever, the changes i’m asking for are barely anything. In fact they aren’t enough considering how warrior is now. Ele STILL would be crap compared to warrior if they doubled the damage on all our skills and cut all our cooldowns in half. And your argument about conditions is invalid. Berserkers stance, that’s all I need to say about that. Warrior also has dogged march which is a superior version of geomancer’s freedom.
Yeah, unless they nerf warrior severely I won’t settle for anything less than a complete unnerfing of everything that has happened to ele since beta.