Guild Wars 2

Just got a bad feeling about this…

Indubitably.

Feeling? I think you can go up to certainty.

What we should do, however, is bet on what will be nerfed so we can have some fun in this forum.

Here goes my guess:

Healing Power will be nerfed to “fix” Druids and we will be hit by it – or they just straight up nerf our values.

They will also go across the board standardizing the items / traits / skills that give %boon duration and changing it to give concentration – which will result in a nerf to our Arcane Trait Line.

I think we can also expect a mix of poor buff attempts and some nerf scepter skills (Something tells me that phoenix hitting more than 3 times is about to get fixed this patch).

What is your guess?

Druid base healing is being nerfed, HP itself shouldn’t be. In fact, unless they specifically target Ele healing abilities; this helps ele healers if more level base with druid.

Honestly the devs won’t further nerf a class that’s been bottle behind neck slammed to the ground; they just may continue to leave them lying there to bleed :P

So, little to no changes/buffs OR nerfs to Ele. Which depending on other class nerfs, just leaves ele meh as is now – depending play mode. I guess.

Don’t worry they’ll add 10% more damage to shatterstone to compensate.

I was waiting for the patch to see if I would uninstall the game, but then I changed my mind (I also had a very bad feeling) and uninstalled the game (stopped playing anyway, got bored of DH). I’m waiting for the patch to see if I want to reinstall it.

It feeling like walking on a tightrope with elementalist right now.

I mean, they essentially gave our healing the same treatment they’re about to give Druid (less upfront heals, better Healing Power scaling,) so I don’t think they’ll further nerf our healing (I hope.)

But they seem to be on crusade against boon duration/ubiquity. From that perspective, I’m really worried for Elemental Shielding, though I don’t see how they’ll nerf that without harming baseline Ele (although to be fair, who seriously plays baseline classes anymore?) Another potential target is Invigorating Torrents, though if they dare touch that trait it will break Tempest in PvP at least.

Coldtart.4785:

Don’t worry they’ll add 10% more damage to shatterstone to compensate.

How DARE you insinuate SHATTERSTONE isn’t already perfect? Shame on you.

Is another nerf even pasible? What do we have that is soooo grand?

Is the next step taking away attunements or making CD from 1-5 to not be independent from the different attunements?

Jhoul.6923:

Is another nerf even pasible? What do we have that is soooo grand?

Is the next step taking away attunements or making CD from 1-5 to not be independent from the different attunements?

They should nerf Meteors Shower.

After that, there is nothing for Ele anymore. No place in raid. No place in wvw. Already have no place in PvP.

People don’t recognize that it is Meteors Shower that carries this class. Without it, Ele shows the true form of a bottom tier class. Until the day Meteors Shower is nerfed, Ele won’t get a proper balance since the devs will just point to the DPS and say Ele is fine.

The problem with that is that meteor shower sucks outside of pve so it should really be getting buffed instead.

I’d really like it if I could actually use staff against something that’s not a mob or a zerg…

I don’t think they will touch the ele healing this round as that nerf hit us last patch. Its almost like they were testing the healing nerf on us before rolling it out to all classes.

Whatever this patch does to ele, I hope it makes the class more fun to play.

Rebound will be: give delayed heal and aura, no longer negate lethal dmg. All shouts will have 50/60/70s cd to remove inconsistency in theirs cds. Cleansing water will have 5s cd. Persisting Flames will no longer increase duration of fire fields. Glyph of Elemental Storm will have longer cd and cast time, lightning will have reduced amount of impacts. Lightining overload will have reduced amount of impacts. Each meteor in meteor show will have 1target hit not 3. Fireball will hit 1target not 3. Lava font 20s cd and flame burst 20s cd. Shooting ice cd increased to 90s from 20s. Static Field and Unsteady Ground cast time increased to 2s, becouse of how powerful walls are.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Rebound will be: give delayed heal and aura, no longer negate lethal dmg. All shouts will have 50/60/70s cd to remove inconsistency in theirs cds. Cleansing water will have 5s cd. Persisting Flames will no longer increase duration of fire fields. Glyph of Elemental Storm will have longer cd and cast time, lightning will have reduced amount of impacts. Lightining overload will have reduced amount of impacts. Each meteor in meteor show will have 1target hit not 3. Fireball will hit 1target not 3. Lava font 20s cd and flame burst 20s cd. Shooting ice cd increased to 90s from 20s. Static Field and Unsteady Ground cast time increased to 2s, becouse of how powerful walls are.

It’s funny because they would actually use terrible logic like that to justify ridiculous nerfs.

shouts will heal over 4 seconds now instead of instant. – burst heal shouldn’t be a counter to burst damage.

shatterstone damage increased by 7%, radius by 3%, animation by 2%. – we feel like this skill has a lot of potential, so we want to build on that.

water scepter auto damage increased by 4%. – if eles suck at healing they should at least be able to deal damage.

phoenix can only hit 2 times now. – fixed unintended behaviour that was in the game since launch.

rebound heal will not be triggered by condition damage. – we feel like condition damage is not lethal enough.

…is what i don’t hope.

Shatterstone will be buffed don’t worry

Tbh I might expect the usual nerf or two, using the traditional garbage Anet logic that makes no sense.

However, I just have a bad feeling that we’ll see no changes whatsoever. The thing I really liked about GW1 is that usually, all classes would see get at least some love in a balance update. The changes were also fairly transparent, meaning there (usually) weren’t any nasty surprises. I would always come away feeling that we had gained something.

However, the ‘skill updates’ in GW2, despite being less frequent, are usually just tooltip fixes and minor number tweaking. If they go beyond that, usually it’s a very serious mechanical nerf to a skill that we aren’t given advanced warning about. It’s like they put no effort whatsoever into thinking about balance. With GW2 balance updates, I always come away with a bitter taste in my mouth…

“So… we buffed Shatterstone with an extra stack of vulnerability, but we also raised the CD of all shouts by 40 seconds because lolz”

I really wish they would spend at least one patch, thinking really deeply about balance, prioritising it over skins, Black Lion Trading Post etc.

cobalt.1846:

I don’t think they will touch the ele healing this round as that nerf hit us last patch. Its almost like they were testing the healing nerf on us before rolling it out to all classes.

Whatever this patch does to ele, I hope it makes the class more fun to play.

There is a slim, slim, glimmer of hope that the CD of Burning Speed will be reduced by ~1 second.

I can almost guarantee there will be some (relatively large) nerf that didn’t get put into the last patch (of damage nerfs) because it was somewhat involved and wasn’t completed in time. It will probably come on meteor shower or something, where they change the animation or how the skill functions.

This is why, after going through a cycle where one class is targeted for nerfs, it ALWAYS gets kicked while down even after it is brought into line or is now sub-par. When they SHOULD be balancing by tweaking numbers a little bit relatively frequently, they like to get cute and completely rework skills that aren’t really a problem (or miss the problem, like flamestrike, which is still garbage) while ignoring those that NEED help (like shatterstone, which is not a numbers problem but terrible cast time/delay and low reward when it actually DOES hit). Inevitably, they will fall behind in some of these reworks, overdo it on other nerfs to make up for it, and just apply those reworks (nerfs) later after they aren’t really needed anymore.

And if they get something wrong (see, Ride the Lightning double cooldown), they will almost never just undo it. The ONLY time they have EVER gone back on anything was when they added an ICD to cleansing water (5s) in pvp, then later removed it after ele was unviable for a year (due to that and other things).

Guranteed:
X trait nobody uses will recieve an incremental buff
Y utility nobody uses will recieve an incremental buff
Z trait everybody uses will be nerfed to “standardize”
Shatterstone will be buffed
Ride The Lightning will recieve no changes
Conjures will be ignored
Arcane skills will be ignored
Bug fixes that have a bigger impact than the actual balance
Things that we won’t be surprised by
Favorite amulet removed from spvp
Global nerf to something hurting ele the most
Stunbreaker moved to a weak skill that should be used on cooldown

I have lost faith in the profession balance team over 4 years of balance patches that spoil my appetite to play.

I for one would be really happy if they nerfed the hell out of elementalist.

Heck, if they nerf Elemental Bastion to dust and remove regen on Invigorating Torrents I would be happy.

Fact of the matter is elementalist is profession that requires a ton of work from the developers and – frankly – I don’t think there is anyone left on the team that understands how it works to start.

I have no delusions that before the class is destroyed ANET will attempt to fix its many issues.

So our hope of getting elementalist fixed lies in the class becoming utter trash that makes ANET ponder whether to delete it or to actually put the effort to make it balanced again.

With that said, I sincerely hope this balance patch is a swift and decisive move to put the class on a complete utter trash stage so that we can then hope that in the next balance patch maybe – just maybe – ANET starts, at least with baby steps, to fix the class into something balanced and fun.

without any changes in ele balance team I predict this:
1. remowal of mender/magi+buffing again healing power contribution to healing skill’s/traits
2. cooldown’s will stay the same only few damage 0.5% buffs
3. no serious reworks on skill’s
4. they make glich that cause temepst to self-destruct on every use of rebound

…and ESL pro players will keep using ele as healbot because there will be nothing better for 5th spot, and in new soloq will be still butchered by random autoattacks.

Seriously…if nothing changes for better 2016 is probably the worst year to main ele (at least in pvp) . I really hope that i am not a prophet:(.

Mr Godlike.6098:

without any changes in ele balance team I predict this:
1. remowal of mender/magi+buffing again healing power contribution to healing skill’s/traits
2. cooldown’s will stay the same only few damage 0.5% buffs
3. no serious reworks on skill’s
4. they make glich that cause temepst to self-destruct on every use of rebound

…and ESL pro players will keep using ele as healbot because there will be nothing better for 5th spot, and in new soloq will be still butchered by random autoattacks.

Seriously…if nothing changes for better 2016 is probably the worst year to main ele (at least in pvp) . I really hope that i am not a prophet:(.

The removal of the celestial amulet really was a stupid idea. They could have nerfed it by 3% or something if it was soooo strong.

HiggsBoson.1976:

cobalt.1846:

I don’t think they will touch the ele healing this round as that nerf hit us last patch. Its almost like they were testing the healing nerf on us before rolling it out to all classes.

Whatever this patch does to ele, I hope it makes the class more fun to play.

There is a slim, slim, glimmer of hope that the CD of Burning Speed will be reduced by ~1 second.

Well that is no good… I’m a staff ele… the beginning of your sentence had me worked up with the slim glimmer of hope.

Is there still something left to nerf?

Przemyslaw.5891:

Is there still something left to nerf?

My thoughts exactly.

Valento.9852:

Przemyslaw.5891:

Is there still something left to nerf?

My thoughts exactly.

“We think that Meteor Shower deals too much damage in PVE so we reduced the damage and the radius of each Meteor.”

“To compensate, Stoning and Water Blast will now deal 5% more damage.”

Przemyslaw.5891:

Is there still something left to nerf?

Obsidian Flesh now gives protection instead of invulnerability

Przemyslaw.5891:

Is there still something left to nerf?

Shatterstone and flamestrike

No nerfs? Is this the Twilight Zone?

Significant buffs d/x may be a thing agen and the effect from the glype is going to be a major tool at all points of the game.

10/19 Patch – DEVS: “Oops we made a mistake with elementalist balance changes – everything you thought was buffed was actually meant to be a nerf. Apologies to the elementalist community for this error, we try to meet your expectations to provide the worst for your class and we almost failed to meet ours and your expectations.”