Guild Wars 2

Hi!

I have a few issues with the Meteor Shower change. (in terms of mechanics, I’m okay with the nerf)

It is now just not that satisfying, seeing a meteor dropping on the target and dealing zero damage is just feels bad. The meteor was already RNG based, and now we also have to hope for that the next meteor won’t arrive too early. I feel it is now rng^2.

I would welcome a change where the meteor isn’t affected RNG or terrain that much. Where you can have a reliable damage output, and then you can change lots of properties of the skill itself. (numbers of meteors, area, damage, maybe apply condition, and whatnot)
If I remember right, years ago meteor also had additional meteor effects, so visually much more dropped, than what actually did damage. Now we are back at this state again. It was removed because it was misleading maybe?

I really don’t like the mechanical change because it feels so out of place. It could been a chance to actually rework the skill. Right now it is one more property of the skill that maybe forgotten to taken into account later on. (and already happened with the quickness)

For example each falling meteor should have a damage radius larger, and the placement of them selected in a way, that each explosion reach to the center of the skill area. that way, if you place it on top of something, it will hit constantly. This way even placement (edge of the platform) of the skill wont have effect on the damage output. However if the target moves away from the center, now it is again affected by rng, so it keeps this aspect.
(I’m aware of in the earlier state it would have been a large damage boost, but then the damage itself could have been moderated, or the number of meteors)

So that’s it. I wanted to share my opinion, thanks for reading.

What other solutions would you choose? How would you change Meteor Shower?

Maybe add in a end hit where the full aoe gets hit with one big rock that can hit 10 targets. So even if your rng dose not work well for you at least you have the big end.

Over all if they would just up the dmg per rock after they changed it to icd to deal with big boss explosion all of this would be a non issue that and if they treated power dmg with some level of respected and stop beefing up condi dmg.

Taboria.3071:

For example each falling meteor should have a damage radius larger, and the placement of them selected in a way, that each explosion reach to the center of the skill area. that way, if you place it on top of something, it will hit constantly. This way even placement (edge of the platform) of the skill wont have effect on the damage output. However if the target moves away from the center, now it is again affected by rng, so it keeps this aspect.
(I’m aware of in the earlier state it would have been a large damage boost, but then the damage itself could have been moderated, or the number of meteors)

For ArenaNet this wouldn’t be a solution because the reason (I think?) they put in this nerf is because large targets (often bosses) get hit by most if not all meteors, taking away the entire rng factor of this skill. Especially for raids, ele was the #1 (and probably still is?) DPS class because of this. The nerf effects those targets now the most because not all hits are registered into damage on the same target. But the nerf is really poor imo in general. Because like you say, if you’re casting it on a small target area which only gets hit by lets say 30% of the meteor’s, it’s quite annoying to see 1 or more hits not doing damage because it’s coincendentally within the 0,5 seconds after the other hit.

I understand that PvE players are annoyed that their meteor shower isn’t used to their full potential anymore. But probably any big mechanical change to MS is going to screw over the WvW player. The nerf is only to non player targets, meaning that the nerf didn’t hit us WvW players fortunately. I can safely say that MS is a very well designed skill because of the “RNG” factor and changing it would be a real waste. With this RNG, it’s still a very strong skill in WvW but not overpowered. The radius is very big and a well placed MS can have influence on the flow of battle. I think that if the skill gets changed drastically, it would make it a lot less powerful in WvW while any nerf or buff to the skill would be mostly unwelcome.

Instead of nerfing the skill over the entire game (It’s also nerfed on siege in WvW), ANet should have kept the nerf to the PvE raids only.

The mechanic is idiotic. Last I checked one does not gain a tolerance to being hit by meteors by being hit by meteors. No one can “suspend disbelief” enough to make sense of this mechanic.

If Meteor Shower needed a nerf, but this was not the way to do it.

It’s a stupid senseless mechanic with no real reason to even be there.

No attack count should be hitting for zero.. it’s just down right unfair. It’s like hundred blades hitting a target.. and on a hit the target becomes immune to the next two attacks.

Why should the target get immunity.. especially the larger hit box where it’s suppose to shine… now it’s not ok.

I main warrior.. and I think Eles didn’t deserve this terribly balance design

Why didn’t they just adjust the hit-boxes of enemies in PVE to have a universal radius rather than nerf Meteor Shower? Or would that make too much sense? :/

While Meteor Shower and Elementalist DPS needed a nerf, I feel the Meteor Shower change was particularly wrong headed. It would have been much better to see the overall damage get shaved a bit rather than add an internal cooldown on meteor strikes. It completely kills the flavor of the ability, which was already reliant on RNG. Not only that, but quickness actually reduces Meteor Shower’s damage, because now all that does is ensure that more of your meteors are landing during the cooldown.

I feel a big part of what made this skill fun and flavorful was that while it was RNG dependent, there were situations that it shined in and ways to reduce the RNG. If you’re summoning a Meteor Shower, it just makes sense that larger objects should get hit by them more. And was always the ability to focus the storms area by using terrain and walls carefully.

We’ve seen the numbers. Staff ele in PVE is now the lowest damage option in all circumstances, even on enemies with large hitboxes. Maybe Scepter / Dagger should be more effective on smaller enemies. I can see the reasoning for that. But now staff doesn’t have a place in raids anymore, which is a bit sad.

While I feel the nerf needed to happen, I don’t think adding an internal cooldown was all that wise and thought out.