Guild Wars 2

The mobility of the Elementalist has always been a top concern
for me. My three main characters are an Ele, a Warrior and Thief.

In PvE and WvW, warriors and rogues have a wide array of mobility
options. So much so, that they can escape from any situation OR
run someone down. Even utilities like Shadowstep is a 1200 teleport
compared to the Ele 900.

Now heres my problem. Elementalists have the lowest hitpoints in
the game, with light armor to boot. They cant rely on the high HP
like a warrior, or stealth like a rogue when a situation gets out of control.
Outside of a high CD 900 range teleport and the mobility with Fiery Greatsword,
their only other option is Ride the Lightning which does nothing for the
other weapon builds unless they want to deal switch out weapons when not in combat.

I think for starts the teleport needs to have a 1500 range. Ideally add stealth
to a utility (invisibility is a casters specialty). It seems to me that a lot of the
things that are “mage like” were given to the Mesmer (the better Blink and Invisibility).

tl;dr Give the Ele more options to escape bad situations. Im prove the teleport
range and add a utility skill to give invisibility.

Fiery great swords lets me be almost like a warrior, massive mobility pretty hard to die with that thing.

Agreed, and its on a long cooldown though. I didn’t mind it as bad
when you could lay down FGS while in Mist Form, but you cant
do that now.

I don’t really think eles are in a bad spot. I think others are in just too good of a spot.

Disagree I don’t want my elementalist to be my Mesmer with invisibility. Mesmers and thieves have easy invisibility access because they use the same type of magic Denial. Elementalist magic is destruction magic.

Also a 1500 range teleport? You don’t see a issue with that at all? Invisibility has been a rogue like thing since forever. Ele is more of a caster then a Mesmer. Mesmer has very little AOE and when the numbers get higher like 5+ mesmers end up being mage thieves really only dealing damage to 1 person or some clumped up idiots who get caught by your ileap.

Blink should’ve been an Elementalist ability….I miss it sooo much back from WoW!
20 yard teleport in whichever direction you’re facing, 15 second cooldown, breaks stuns/immob. Heavenly.

Anyway back on topic, all they need to do is give RTL the 20sec cooldown back, that will fix mobility concerns because D/D and S/D are really the only sets that NEED that mobility.
As for survivability, I believe ANet just need to give Ele’s 15k base health and call it a day. I mean why the hell do Mesmers get 15k health + incredible survivability via clones/stealt/invuln + better mobility? What the hell were ANet thinking?

I love Ele mobility with fgs even with s/f. Fgs with lightning flash is very high mobility. On very rare times I find fgs to be on cd when I need it even if I previously use it in combat.

FGS gives you a small glimpse into daily life of a warrior, heh. Now if only FGS gave us 18k base health + the best sustained heal in the game

Mobility is horrid. And it pigeonholes us into having to use FGS just to make up for kitten poor mobility. I’d like to slot something else besides FGS when roaming, but you HAVE to take it if you hope to outrun anyone when a zerg pops up. I take other elites if i’m dueling in a set area, but that’s just for dueling. Its FGS or gtfo if you’re roaming. RTL needs to be reverted. ele mobility sucks the way it is now. Something as squishy as the ele needs to be mobile and heal alot to survive. But Anet disagrees and thinks the tankiest profession with the highest hp needs to heal alot and have the best mobility instead. dat professional balancing. They sure know what they’re doing.

Wintel.4873:

Blink should’ve been an Elementalist ability….I miss it sooo much back from WoW!
20 yard teleport in whichever direction you’re facing, 15 second cooldown, breaks stuns/immob. Heavenly.

Anyway back on topic, all they need to do is give RTL the 20sec cooldown back, that will fix mobility concerns because D/D and S/D are really the only sets that NEED that mobility.
As for survivability, I believe ANet just need to give Ele’s 15k base health and call it a day. I mean why the hell do Mesmers get 15k health + incredible survivability via clones/stealt/invuln + better mobility? What the hell were ANet thinking?

Lightning Flash pretty much is blink, but with the ability to aim wherever you want. I do wish they would add back in the stunbreak though.

Mobility for eles seems decent, but survivability is in a really poor spot. Eles are the squishiest class, but they have far less tools than something like a thief.

Regardless of whether people agree on certain ability changes,
it still boils down to the reliance on FGS for mobility, which is
silly.

No other class has such a hard counter as ele vs rogue (in other words
when a good one finds you, you can neither get away or survive). You
can argue that point, but as mentioned above I also have a 80 rogue
and kill ele’s with little effort.

Necro’s have even less mobility than a Ranger, but at least that’s compensated
by the highest health pool in the game and many options at fearing or
life draining.

Still confused on why they would not compensate the lowest HP class with more
methods of escaping.

There are two different sides of the coin “of mobility”
1. Do we want better mobility to be more flexible?
2. Or do we want mobility to survive?

At the moment our ability to stay alive is the more prominent problem, IMO. Like others have posted, a return to a previous version of RTL would solve a lot of mobility issues for the D/D or S/D wielders. The normal double cooldown we have + the “if you don’t hit” thing has hit us hard and we still have not recovered compared to other classes.
I don’t mind not being the fastest class in game as an Ele (although the profession should be in the fast “third”), but there should be something that helps us survive as the light armor profession with the lowest health. Thieves & Rangers e.g. have fast recharging skills that provide evade. The Burning Speed evade addition goes in the right direction – but only a first step.

PS: I see the health split among the professions as a fundamental problem to balance, but that goes off topic here.

So…I don’t understand…do people really think that an ele should be able to run from a thief? Even if that somehow makes sense to you, wouldn’t you rather have the ability to make thieves run from you instead?

This thread really boggles my mind right now.

RTL was nerfed because it was too easy for Elementalist to escape. It appears that people in this thread wants for these days to return, which is a sentiment that I understand, but frankly do not agree with. Arenanet was right to put increase the CD on a detargeted RTL because it was the one factor that made roaming D/D bunker DPS ele possible when it was strong.

Of course, RTL was then debugged and as is typical for Arenanet nerfs, RTL was too heavy handedly nerfed. A bug was also introduced that forced full cooldown on targeted (as in, engaging) RTLs that came up against Aegis and Block – two things that have made the Elementalist vs Guardian and Warrior matchup horrible as a result.

As for the calls for Stealth and 1500 range blinks…it appears that some people want to be Thief instead. Which is fine – just go and play Thief and put Elementalists in the dumpster.

The only things that RTL needs are the following:

1. The Block and Aegis bug on targeted RTLs to be fixed. Optionally, so too should targeted RTLs against Blinds and Evades, as RTL was used as a gap closer and therefore should not receive the long CD.
2. For the long CD to be 30 seconds instead of 40. There was a time when RTL was 15 seconds, then 20, then debugged from 1550 range and doubled in CD to 40 seconds. The debugging was necessary, the 40 seconds CD is not. 30 seconds makes RTL being used for escapes still punishing. 15 seconds on an offensive RTL normalises RTL with other offensive gap closers, which really should have been the objective of Arenanet in the first place.
3. All talk about Warrior GS, or 18k HP, or Thieves putting Elementalists in the dumpster is extraneous and unnecessary. Buffing for the purpose of normalising? Sure. But complaining that the profession doesn’t have parity with others with respect to mobility neglects to take into account the differentiating factors of each profession’s individualised mobility skills. Rush can be interrupted with hard CC or impeded by snares. RTL is immune to snares (except Immobilise, for some strange reason) and hard CC does not interrupt movement. These are differences that make apples and oranges out of direct comparisons and comparing them is facetious at best, a non-sequitur at worst.

The only reason RTL was nerfed is because of that stupid pvp map Spirit Watch. That’s what alot of people here fail to grasp. But hey guess what? Warriors, who can go invuln and hit zerkers stance and take mobile strikes so you cant cc them at all, unlike ele, are zipping around that map anyway. But apparently that’s ok. Anet screwed up, they just dont have the balls to admit they made a mistake and revert the unneccesary nerfs. Ele was never the most mobile class. Even before the nerfs it was below thief and warrior, somewhat tied with ranger for mobility.

The problem the seems to be the idea behind Elementalist. They wanted them to be able to do a lot of cool things, but they made them really mediocre at all of them.

Even if you go full 30 in to fire and air you see a terrible increase to damage, and an amazingly high decrease to survive.

The fact that we have to switch between all 4 attunements just to achieve what most classes can do while they remain in one weapon set is stupid.

I honestly have no idea where to begin fixing anything, but they really should just start spit balling ideas

Ask me how I feel about Ele sustainability and I’ll answer…

As a staff user: mobility is actually pretty great.

Burning Retreat now goes 1200 distance on 20s cooldown, and I can easily maintain swiftness... but more importantly, I have 3 CC skills that I can just drop behind me without turning round (huzzah for ’look behind’ keybind):
- Frozen Ground: chills, unblockable, ignores Stability since it’s a soft CC
- Static Field: stun, unblockable, affects foes teleporting out of it (though ignored by Stability)
- Unsteady Ground: blocks passage, can trigger multiple times if whoever you’re running from is an eejit (affected by stability)

Combine these skills with the 15s Burning Retreat on the flame axe, a Lightning Flash teleport, or even an FGS, and it’s easy to escape from the vast majority of assailants.

Also, re: RTL, a suggestion that someone posted rather a while ago, should it have to keep the double-cooldown mechanic:
At the end of the channel, check if any foe is within 600 units (maybe closer than this). If there isn’t anyone within this range, double the cooldown.

what about giving blocks to elementalist?? maybe if they remove the stun break in the arcane shield, put a 15s cd with 2 blocks or 20s with 3 blocks the survival will be “fine” (maybe a little OP, but hey, we have very low hp and armor, remember?), and then put the stun break on the teleport again. we will still lack the damage, but at least we will be alive for more than 2-3 hits (one if a thief backstab you). I think the mobility is not that bad, maybe a 30s cd with 15s cd if it hi ton RTL and is fine for me.

Culpahble.3524:

what about giving blocks to elementalist?? maybe if they remove the stun break in the arcane shield, put a 15s cd with 2 blocks or 20s with 3 blocks the survival will be “fine” (maybe a little OP, but hey, we have very low hp and armor, remember?), and then put the stun break on the teleport again. we will still lack the damage, but at least we will be alive for more than 2-3 hits (one if a thief backstab you). I think the mobility is not that bad, maybe a 30s cd with 15s cd if it hi ton RTL and is fine for me.

nope. a part of i use it is coz of the stunbreak. we lost the stunbreak on lightning flash alrdy

tho they gotta reduce the cd to60s ..

Just hope the Ele changes are for the best and maybe some of the other class changes to bring them more in line with Ele *cough*thief*cough*.

I have too many complaints to even care to list.

Staff mobility is actually greater than dagger thanks to burning retreat (protip: keybind “turn around” in an easy to reach place, so you can turn—>burning retreat—>turn to make forward distance) and casting aoe’s behind you as you run. I have kited warrior’s and thieves around the entire map w/o FGS just using chills/stuns, burning retreat, and LF.

The real issue for mobility is d/d users, who need to stick to their target, but can’t really because of the abomination that RtL has become. Just fix RtL and all will be right with the world (of ele).

cheese.4739:

As a staff user: mobility is actually pretty great.

Burning Retreat now goes 1200 distance on 20s cooldown, and I can easily maintain swiftness… but more importantly, I have 3 CC skills that I can just drop behind me without turning round (huzzah for ‘look behind’ keybind):
- Frozen Ground: chills, unblockable, ignores Stability since it’s a soft CC
- Static Field: stun, unblockable, affects foes teleporting out of it (though ignored by Stability)
- Unsteady Ground: blocks passage, can trigger multiple times if whoever you’re running from is an eejit (affected by stability)

Combine these skills with the 15s Burning Retreat on the flame axe, a Lightning Flash teleport, or even an FGS, and it’s easy to escape from the vast majority of assailants.

Also, re: RTL, a suggestion that someone posted rather a while ago, should it have to keep the double-cooldown mechanic:
At the end of the channel, check if any foe is within 600 units (maybe closer than this). If there isn’t anyone within this range, double the cooldown.

Wait a second…Burning Retreat is 1200 range? I know they increased the distance, but 1200? Last time i checked, the distance is still shorter than what Lighting Flash can teleport and i am pretty sure that’s not 1200 range!!

smartidiot.2695:

Wait a second…Burning Retreat is 1200 range? I know they increased the distance, but 1200? Last time i checked, the distance is still shorter than what Lighting Flash can teleport and i am pretty sure that’s not 1200 range!!

I actually think its 1100 range, up from 900 previously (change happened on October 15th). However, with swiftness, it is a little further than 1200 range. Staff ele should always have 100% swiftness uptime.

Ah, I was definitely getting something wrong there, my apologies - the patch notes say its distance was increased by 200, and I’ve somehow been ignoring all evidence that it’s less than that.
Just trialled it, and it’s currently about 900 range, and something like 1100 with swiftness. Sorry for getting that so wrong!

BlackBeard.2873:

smartidiot.2695:

Wait a second…Burning Retreat is 1200 range? I know they increased the distance, but 1200? Last time i checked, the distance is still shorter than what Lighting Flash can teleport and i am pretty sure that’s not 1200 range!!

I actually think its 1100 range, up from 900 previously (change happened on October 15th). However, with swiftness, it is a little further than 1200 range. Staff ele should always have 100% swiftness uptime.

We’re talking some kind of 30 Arcana build + shorter air cooldowns right? Windborne Speed is 10s swiftness for 30sec cooldown untraited. Or are we talking static field blast finishers (too much setup).

Wyrden.4713:

Culpahble.3524:

what about giving blocks to elementalist?? maybe if they remove the stun break in the arcane shield, put a 15s cd with 2 blocks or 20s with 3 blocks the survival will be “fine” (maybe a little OP, but hey, we have very low hp and armor, remember?), and then put the stun break on the teleport again. we will still lack the damage, but at least we will be alive for more than 2-3 hits (one if a thief backstab you). I think the mobility is not that bad, maybe a 30s cd with 15s cd if it hi ton RTL and is fine for me.

nope. a part of i use it is coz of the stunbreak. we lost the stunbreak on lightning flash alrdy

tho they gotta reduce the cd to60s ..

that’s why I said give stunbreak to lightning flash again, and make arcane shield an on demand block, so we can take more than 2 hits before die. we need something to survive, and shields to stop damage and all that magics are common in mage classes. maybe not a block, but at least some form to absorb damage like frost shield in wow.

It’s way too much, elementalists have access to four attunements so they shouldn’t be able to move, ever.

^^ God I hope that’s a joke. Ill leave it at that. Engineers have the most abilities
at their fingertips, so take away their stealth blast and rocket boots, right?

Thunderbrew.7034:

^^ God I hope that’s a joke. Ill leave it at that. Engineers have the most abilities
at their fingertips, so take away their stealth blast and rocket boots, right?

No he’s totally serious, 4 attunements is overpowered and Mist Form needs to be deleted. Ele’s are breaking the game right now.

Once I faced a D/D ele on my warrior (bunker), went AFK, made a sandwich, came back and the guy had almost got me down to 70% health. What the hell are ANet thinking allowing Ele’s to do such crazy damage?

Wintel.4873:

Thunderbrew.7034:

^^ God I hope that’s a joke. Ill leave it at that. Engineers have the most abilities
at their fingertips, so take away their stealth blast and rocket boots, right?

No he’s totally serious, 4 attunements is overpowered and Mist Form needs to be deleted. Ele’s are breaking the game right now.

Once I faced a D/D ele on my warrior (bunker), went AFK, made a sandwich, came back and the guy had almost got me down to 70% health. What the hell are ANet thinking allowing Ele’s to do such crazy damage?

win

Wintel.4873:

Thunderbrew.7034:

^^ God I hope that’s a joke. Ill leave it at that. Engineers have the most abilities
at their fingertips, so take away their stealth blast and rocket boots, right?

No he’s totally serious, 4 attunements is overpowered and Mist Form needs to be deleted. Ele’s are breaking the game right now.

Once I faced a D/D ele on my warrior (bunker), went AFK, made a sandwich, came back and the guy had almost got me down to 70% health. What the hell are ANet thinking allowing Ele’s to do such crazy damage?

i don’t know whether i should laugh because this is funny, or cry because of how close to true it is for how bad eles are currently.

I find our mobility fine as it is. Always rooms for improvement tho

Ele mobility skills are good. Their cooldowns are way too high though.