Guild Wars 2

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

What people suggesting stuff like “ele boons need nerfing” always seem to forget is that ele’s don’t have anything else besides boon as defensive options. Thief/Mesmer has stealth, Guard/Warrior/Mesmer have block, necros have shroud, etc.

Eles only have boons really, that’s why our boons are strong, especially the defensive ones.

I know this, the problem is the boons are applied so quickly and frequently especially since our attunement recharge got reduced that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of these strips. Protection is applied in buckets for the ele with little investment. I’d like to see boons increased in duration by a second or two but the application or re application reduced by a second or two.

Just a small shave. Then I’d like to see some cool down reductions on some survival utilities and something other than cantrips and arcane shield for surviving. Glyphs would be a great place to start as they’re very hit and miss in terms of usefulness, with long cool downs.

Mattmatt.4962:

Maybe it forces condi spec to actually build for more than one stat to deal damage ? :x

How can they build for more than one stat with the amulet selection we have in pvp atm?

Edit: Also, one trait should not completely counter anything.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

1. Burning: completely remove burning from Engineers, Necros and Mesmers. Make it an exclusive damaging condition for Eles and Guardians. As long as Necros, Engis and Mesmers can put out almost ALL the damaging conditions on top of burning, while Eles and Guardians have nothing else besides burning (you can’t really stack bleeding as an ele and if you try to you can’t stack burning, both in the same build/ at the same time aren’t possible). As long as this doesn’t change burning can never be balanced. It will either be OP for engi/mesmer/necro and a viable choice for condition builds for Ele/Guard like it is now, or it will be balanced for engi/mes/nec while underpowered for us like it was before the big patch.

Actually, Dhuumfire on Necromancer is so unviable that traiting it reduces our damage, survivability, AND the range of life blast. There is no reason that a necromancer should be using Dhuumfire right now because it costs more than it gives. Dhuumfire is arguably Necromancer’s worst grandmaster.
On the discussion of the OP, Diamond Skin is a terrible, terrible trait. It is completely irrelevant in most group fights and against power builds, but 1v1, it is so disgustingly good against condition builds that you will be called many foul things like kitten if you use it. It needs to be changed
Stone Heart has some nice bunkering potential, but overall, I’d say it is fine because it requires you to sit in earth.
Blinding Ashes needs a per target ICD. I wouldn’t say it needs a nerf because the only ways to proc it outside fire is to rely on a 33% chance of a % chance that is on a 5 sec ICD or utilities.
Shocking Aura only stuns at melee range, so a ranger can still happily pewpew through it, and the ele really loses out if the opponent ignores the ele while shocking aura is up and heals. I would say this trait is fine for now.
Burn could stand to be toned down a bit.
Also, don’t ask for nerfs. You’ll end up like Necromancer with traits that actively make you worse.

Cecilia.5179:

Blinding Ashes needs a per target ICD. I wouldn’t say it needs a nerf because the only ways to proc it outside fire is to rely on a 33% chance of a % chance that is on a 5 sec ICD or utilities.
Shocking Aura only stuns at melee range, so a ranger can still happily pewpew through it, and the ele really loses out if the opponent ignores the ele while shocking aura is up and heals. I would say this trait is fine for now.

Neither of these are true.

You can take Burning precision and proc it in all attunements. Or stuff like Runes of the Balthazar.

Shocking aura procs in the radius of 600 units, which is a bit further than melee range I would say. And apparently it procs on some ranged attacks, too. I haven’t tested that, though. Imo, the cooldown should be just increased a bit, 25 seconds is quite too low. Mirror of Anguish has 60 to compare.

Laraley.7695:

Cecilia.5179:

Blinding Ashes needs a per target ICD. I wouldn’t say it needs a nerf because the only ways to proc it outside fire is to rely on a 33% chance of a % chance that is on a 5 sec ICD or utilities.
Shocking Aura only stuns at melee range, so a ranger can still happily pewpew through it, and the ele really loses out if the opponent ignores the ele while shocking aura is up and heals. I would say this trait is fine for now.

Neither of these are true.

You can take Burning precision and proc it in all attunements. Or stuff like Runes of the Balthazar.

Shocking aura procs in the radius of 600 units, which is a bit further than melee range I would say. And apparently it procs on some ranged attacks, too. I haven’t tested that, though. Imo, the cooldown should be just increased a bit, 25 seconds is quite too low. Mirror of Anguish has 60 to compare.

I mentioned Burning Precision, and Balthazar Runes only proc burn on heal.

Tempest Defense has the cd of shocking aura. 600 is a bit farther than melee range, yes, but it is not really ranged either. The uptime of Shocking Aura with this trait is only high with mainhand dagger. Also, if you want to stun the ranger that just knocked you out of range, you still have to close the gap, and you do not break stun with this trait. The difference between this trait and Mirror of Anguish is that Mirror of Anguish is that the foe is taking their own stun no matter where they are, however this trait is still one of the stronger anti cc traits, but it is not as strong as hard to catch, which is a guaranteed stunbreak on a similar cooldown.

Don’t ask for nerfs. You will get them. Also, read before saying something is wrong…

Cecilia.5179:

Laraley.7695:

Cecilia.5179:

Blinding Ashes needs a per target ICD. I wouldn’t say it needs a nerf because the only ways to proc it outside fire is to rely on a 33% chance of a % chance that is on a 5 sec ICD or utilities.
Shocking Aura only stuns at melee range, so a ranger can still happily pewpew through it, and the ele really loses out if the opponent ignores the ele while shocking aura is up and heals. I would say this trait is fine for now.

Neither of these are true.

You can take Burning precision and proc it in all attunements. Or stuff like Runes of the Balthazar.

Shocking aura procs in the radius of 600 units, which is a bit further than melee range I would say. And apparently it procs on some ranged attacks, too. I haven’t tested that, though. Imo, the cooldown should be just increased a bit, 25 seconds is quite too low. Mirror of Anguish has 60 to compare.

I mentioned Burning Precision, and Balthazar Runes only proc burn on heal.

Tempest Defense has the cd of shocking aura. 600 is a bit farther than melee range, yes, but it is not really ranged either. The uptime of Shocking Aura with this trait is only high with mainhand dagger. Also, if you want to stun the ranger that just knocked you out of range, you still have to close the gap, and you do not break stun with this trait. The difference between this trait and Mirror of Anguish is that Mirror of Anguish is that the foe is taking their own stun no matter where they are, however this trait is still one of the stronger anti cc traits, but it is not as strong as hard to catch, which is a guaranteed stunbreak on a similar cooldown.

Don’t ask for nerfs. You will get them. Also, read before saying something is wrong…

Yes, but the proc is actually not hard to get at all. I should have probably mention runes like Flame legion that will proc burn for you same as Burning Precision instead of Balthazar. My point is you can get lots burning even without being in fire.

I get the difference but Tempest defense will proc on most cc attacks you’ll recieve. It’s also a passive trait, so the cooldown is not comparable to actual Shocking aura you need to time right. I don’t think saying that it won’t proc on a ranger pewpewing you is a justification for such a low cooldown.

apharma.3741:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

What people suggesting stuff like “ele boons need nerfing” always seem to forget is that ele’s don’t have anything else besides boon as defensive options. Thief/Mesmer has stealth, Guard/Warrior/Mesmer have block, necros have shroud, etc.

Eles only have boons really, that’s why our boons are strong, especially the defensive ones.

I know this, the problem is the boons are applied so quickly and frequently especially since our attunement recharge got reduced that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of these strips. Protection is applied in buckets for the ele with little investment. I’d like to see boons increased in duration by a second or two but the application or re application reduced by a second or two.

Just a small shave. Then I’d like to see some cool down reductions on some survival utilities and something other than cantrips and arcane shield for surviving. Glyphs would be a great place to start as they’re very hit and miss in terms of usefulness, with long cool downs.

Have a boon control Necromancer around problem solved. The amount of boon corruption a Necro can do now is way way better than it was before. 2 boons per signet used plague, locust, corrupt boon, one of the boons is a trait. Not every class is suppose to do all things. Corrupting Stability is bugged right now and not converting it to fear it just strips it currently. That one thing would change the effectiveness of Ele making armor earth and rock solid a liability if a necro is around.

Elementalist has been one of the classes I haven’t had any problem fighting on my Necromancer. I’m still a Ele main, but I’ve been playing my necro more post patch trying to get a build down, but signets of suffering will make boon eles(which is just about all eles) life miserable when stab to fear conversion is fixed.

Laraley.7695:

Mattmatt.4962:

Maybe it forces condi spec to actually build for more than one stat to deal damage ? :x

How can they build for more than one stat with the amulet selection we have in pvp atm?

Edit: Also, one trait should not completely counter anything.

One stat combo should not completely counter anything :x
(For pvp, i think if you use Rabid + a power/condi duration rune (for instance elementalist , flame legion, mad king) and you have far enough damage to pierce diamond skin.

I just faced a full dire PU condi mesmer this morning. Running something else than diamond skin resulted in a pure no match. And with diamond skin it took me HOURS to kill this beyond broken build. What really annoy me is the fact that the skill cap of such build is amazingly low, this mesmer was so so soooo bad, not even attending a shatter to pierce through diamond skin …. just condi spamming for ages

To me if you go full dire (for pvp lets say marauder and no power in amulet) you MUST have less dps than a build that have to spend THREE stat to deal damage.
It’s actually not the case => obvious balance issue

Laraley.7695:

2. Stone Heart. Again, this trait just promotes passive play and to gain the most out of it, you would need to be camping earth. I think this is just badly designed trait.

HOW? On the contrary: pre-patch, eles never used any kind of burst mitigation, they just randomly dodged to blast their fields and get healed. Now, with Stone Heart, you can really tell a good ele from a bad one: the good one will keep its earth attunement ready, and swap immediately when hit with a Basilisk venom/daze mantra. You’re not supposed to camp on earth, but to use Stone Heart to mitigate a burst when you have no stun-breakers left.

Sorel.4870:

Laraley.7695:

2. Stone Heart. Again, this trait just promotes passive play and to gain the most out of it, you would need to be camping earth. I think this is just badly designed trait.

HOW? On the contrary: pre-patch, eles never used any kind of burst mitigation, they just randomly dodged to blast their fields and get healed. Now, with Stone Heart, you can really tell a good ele from a bad one: the good one will keep its earth attunement ready, and swap immediately when hit with a Basilisk venom/daze mantra. You’re not supposed to camp on earth, but to use Stone Heart to mitigate a burst when you have no stun-breakers left.

Never used any kind of burst mitigation?

Protection? Shocking aura? Frost Aura?

Mattmatt.4962:

Laraley.7695:

Mattmatt.4962:

Maybe it forces condi spec to actually build for more than one stat to deal damage ? :x

How can they build for more than one stat with the amulet selection we have in pvp atm?

Edit: Also, one trait should not completely counter anything.

One stat combo should not completely counter anything :x
(For pvp, i think if you use Rabid + a power/condi duration rune (for instance elementalist , flame legion, mad king) and you have far enough damage to pierce diamond skin.

I just faced a full dire PU condi mesmer this morning. Running something else than diamond skin resulted in a pure no match. And with diamond skin it took me HOURS to kill this beyond broken build. What really annoy me is the fact that the skill cap of such build is amazingly low, this mesmer was so so soooo bad, not even attending a shatter to pierce through diamond skin …. just condi spamming for ages

To me if you go full dire (for pvp lets say marauder and no power in amulet) you MUST have less dps than a build that have to spend THREE stat to deal damage.
It’s actually not the case => obvious balance issue

Yeah, but for example necro would have issues to get ele under 90% with both carrion and rabid. I just think it should be reworked so there’s actually some counterplay. I’m not saying that are not other problematic traits, but Diamond skin is imo a really bad design.

Laraley.7695:

1. Diamond skin. I’m not a fan of this at all, it’s either too strong or completely irrelevant. I do not like how easily it counters condition builds in 1v1 scenario.

Agreed. This trait is either completely OP or useless. It should have a different activation limit (not just 90% health), be conditional (only work on certain conditions, maybe per-attunement), or give short duration resistance on-swap. Anything else that promotes just rotating through heals to stay above 90% and never taking any damage from a condi build.

2. Stone Heart. Again, this trait just promotes passive play and to gain the most out of it, you would need to be camping earth. I think this is just badly designed trait.

I personally disagree with you completely here. Every defensive skill/trait can passively mitigate damage. Randomly popping shocking aura, or frost aura, is going to reduce incoming damage somewhat. However, this trait needs to be timed to use properly, and opens up both play AND counterplay. If you expect an incoming stealth burst, pop into earth and enjoy this+prot to mitigate it big-time. For your opponent, when they see you using this trait, they need to focus on priming your for burst and then bursting AFTER forcing out of earth. No ele can truly just camp earth and live forever, you have to swap to other attunements for damage, boons, and heals. I personally think you are looking at this trait wrong. In total, every form of active defense will give you SOME benefit if used randomly/over the course of a rotation, but proper use gets you WAY more benefit than people just letting it randomly mitigate some damage.

3. Blinding ashes. Another passive that I’m not a fan of. Blind is pretty strong and therefore it should reward a skilled play, not random burn proc you get from another trait.

This trait itself actually has a LOT of potential to be quite active and fun. The problem is the other random sources of burns that also proc this. I am fine with something like a fire aura proccing this, and even glyph of ele power (because that skill has a lot of play), but burning precision, balth runes, etc. are what make this random/passive damage mitigation. This trait would be 200% better with a longer cooldown, but per-target activation.

4. Tempest defense. As much as I love this trait, I think there should be some rework to it, there’s literally no counterplay to it since Shocking aura will proc the stun from basically anything.

This trait is a little bit over budget, but I think for different reasons. I would personally reduce shocking-aura’s range to ~360, reduce the duration to 2-3s, increase the cooldown a little bit, and/or reduce the bonus damage to 10%. I do not have a problem with having some kind of “anti-burst” trait, but this trait was borderline GM-worthy previously (it just couldn’t compete with lightning rod and fresh air because of how strong they are).

5. The buuuuurn. It’s not just ele, it’s all the burn in general, it’s a bit too strong I would say.

Agreed, burning is too strong right now. Things need to give fewer stacks, and if that makes them too weak, durations should increase a bit.

So what are things you would nerf/rework if you were on the ele balance team?

Personally, I think the biggest problem with ele (and always has been) is with having enough sustain or too much. This all comes down to the strength of the water heals (water-swap, EA dodge) and cleansing water combined with the high prot uptimes. When eles have enough heals, cleanses, and boon to completely survive on their own, they stack insanely well when you put them in groups. Personally, I think the biggest problem is that the water heals (EA dodge and water-swap) give too much considering they are 100% unpreventable (even poison isn’t effective b/c of all the cleanse in water). I would remove the heal (keep the cleanse from EA dodge roll), remove the free regen from that frost-aura trait, and put some more healing onto the ele weapon-skills (increase heal amounts or reduce CD’s a good amount) to enable counterplay.

I would also reduce the protection duration from elemental attunement a little bit. 5s is just too much, especially when combined with contingency. It should be about 3s, which still gives very high uptime, but also leaves eles exposed after leaving earth.

BlackBeard.2873:

Personally, I think the biggest problem with ele (and always has been) is with having enough sustain or too much. This all comes down to the strength of the water heals (water-swap, EA dodge) and cleansing water combined with the high prot uptimes. When eles have enough heals, cleanses, and boon to completely survive on their own, they stack insanely well when you put them in groups. Personally, I think the biggest problem is that the water heals (EA dodge and water-swap) give too much considering they are 100% unpreventable (even poison isn’t effective b/c of all the cleanse in water). I would remove the heal (keep the cleanse from EA dodge roll), remove the free regen from that frost-aura trait, and put some more healing onto the ele weapon-skills (increase heal amounts or reduce CD’s a good amount) to enable counterplay.

I would also reduce the protection duration from elemental attunement a little bit. 5s is just too much, especially when combined with contingency. It should be about 3s, which still gives very high uptime, but also leaves eles exposed after leaving earth.

Hm, yeah I agree with the fact ele has way too much sustain and I think it’s a good idea to move some of the healing to weapons to there would be some counterplay. I do not think the regenation from Soothing Ice is an issue since it provides 800 sec of healing every 20 seconds. You get one cleanse from it, but that can just go to something completely irrelevant. However, I think it would be better to decrease the duration of the Frost Aura to maybe 3 seconds.

I agree that the protection uptime is a bit high, but I would just remove Elemental Contigiency and replace it with something else and leave EA’s protection where it is. The reason why I’m not a fan of Stone Heart is just the fact that with the combination of protection from earth and Geomancer’s defense it gives you way too high defense for not doing so much.