Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who sees these changes as a nerf? Either way, I don’t see this changing any of the current issues with Ele’s. ( Forced into utilites, horrible base stats, etc).

Fire II – Burning Fire – Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.
Fire VIII – Conjurer – Moved to Adept tier.
Fire III – Ember’s Might. The effect of this trait has been changed to Burns you apply last longer. 25%.
Burning Rage 25 – Increased damage dealt to burning foes: 5% to 10%.
Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.
Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – Increased toughness while attuned to Earth Magic to 1.5/level (120 at level 80).
Earth VII – Strength of Stone. Gain condition damage based on your Toughness. 10%.
Earth XI – Diamond Skin. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.
Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. Moved to Adept tier.
Water X – Soothing Wave. Moved to Adept tier. redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incoming critical hits. 10s recharge.
Soothing Disruption move to master tier.
Cantrip Mastery move to adept tier.
Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown 90s to kitten .
Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s.
Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Arcane Resurrection. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier. This trait will now function outside of combat.
The following changes were done to reduce the necessity of putting points into the Arcane trait line.
The base cooldown of the attunement that you just left is now reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. Attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now Attunements go from 13s to 10s instead of the old range of 16s to 10s.
Base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. Global attunement cooldown rate now decreases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now global attunement cooldown goes from 1.625 to 1.25 instead of the old range of 2.0 to 1.25.

EchenSketch.9142:

Am I the only one who sees these changes as a nerf?

yes

Only a few variances of the most popular builds are going to be slightly toned down with the changes to water, and I’m talking about variances here, because the base builds will still remain intact.

Everything else will be buffed, especially non-arcana builds.

reikken.4961:

EchenSketch.9142:

Am I the only one who sees these changes as a nerf?

yes

Elemental Attunement moved to master tier
Aquamancer’s Alacrity moved to master tier
Cleansing Wave moved to master tier
Soothing Disruption moved to master tier

This patch doesn’t change the necessity of a an Elementalist to put points into Water and Arcane. You want to make survivability harder to attain and expect players to not put 30 into Arcane for Evasive Aracana?

EchenSketch.9142:

This patch doesn’t change the necessity of a an Elementalist to put points into Water and Arcane.

yes it does
I don’t need cleansing wave when I have

Fire II – Burning Fire – Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.
or
Earth XI – Diamond Skin. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

And I don’t need points in arcana when I have acceptable attunement cooldowns already

(Also, arcane abatement is pretty good. If I take nonzero in water now, it’ll probably be 10 for that trait.)

reikken.4961:

EchenSketch.9142:

This patch doesn’t change the necessity of a an Elementalist to put points into Water and Arcane.

yes it does
I don’t need cleansing wave when I have

Fire II – Burning Fire – Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.
or
Earth XI – Diamond Skin. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

And I don’t need points in arcana when I have acceptable attunement cooldowns already

So 20 points into Fire and 30 Into Earth solely for the condition removal. Have fun working with those remaining 20 points.

Now, instead of being forced into Water and Arcane for survivability, we get the option of choosing Fire and Earth for survivability. This doesn’t change the primary issues of the profession.

EchenSketch.9142:

So 20 points into Fire and 30 Into Earth solely for the condition removal. Have fun working with those remaining 20 points.

nah I’ll usually just be taking the 20 (30) in fire
But more importantly, even if I’m taking 20 in fire and 30 in earth, that still gives me 5 other traits, not 2. earth and fire do give out traits before hitting 30 and 20 points respectively

Anyway, you have three trait lines that offer condition countermeasures. What more do you want? seriously

btw “or” =/= “and”

reikken.4961:

EchenSketch.9142:

So 20 points into Fire and 30 Into Earth solely for the condition removal. Have fun working with those remaining 20 points.

nah I’ll usually just be taking the 20 (30) in fire
But more importantly, even if I’m taking 20 in fire and 30 in earth, that still gives me 5 other traits, not 2. earth and fire do give out traits before hitting 30 and 20 points respectively

btw “or” =/= “and”

Right, because we all know how strong an Ele’s fire traitline with. So you put 20 points for the condi removal, now you get the great selection of extra burning duration, a lava fount when downed, and more charges on the amazing conjures.

30 into Earth let’s see what we have to work with… Condition build based traits, because we all know how viable condi Ele’s are. A couple survival traits. Real useful stuff.

Earth will get a buffed minor #5, it has a decent (for pvp) minor #15, a decent (for pve) minor #25, Stone Splinters (used everywhere), Rock Solid (very strong in pvp), and depending on your build, Earth’s Embrace and Elemental Shielding (mostly for pvp). It’ll be a solid trait in pvp, which is where condition spamming is a real issue in the first place.

Fire has Spellslinger, which combines well with Burning Fire, but it’ll generally be worth only as a high investment for minor #25 and persisting flames. And of course, the conjure trait for pve.

I see them as a nerf as well, as a bunker ele in PvE, I will no longer offer anything to my party with healing, anything worth while anyways. So I’m doing what Anet wants someone like me to do; Not play an elementalist at all since that is my favorite class.
It’s very obvious the Arcane & water trait lines are getting a major super nerf which makes no sense. It’s like “oh let’s give them a little bit lesser cooldown in fire & add something that they should like in earth…. but lets take away their ability to heal different ways since that’s really all they have & who needs blasting staff or evasive arcana? lets just scramble all those around. yeah. they’ll appreciate this!”

Does anyone in anet even know how to play an ele let alone play an ele at all & enjoy it?
obviously not.

The changes aren’t a nerf for power but they are a huge nerf for diversity. Moving the traits which are good across builds from adept to master and replacing them with very specific traits is a terrible nerf to being able to create diverse builds.

The result of the changes will be some more powerful builds, at the cost of being able to make anything interesting.

If they just replaced Staff Air 2 with the active of Air signet on a shorter cooldown it would be a tremendous improvement (maybe only blinding the primary target).

reikken.4961:

EchenSketch.9142:

Am I the only one who sees these changes as a nerf?

yes

No he isn’t lol infact most of the ele community including some of the most well known and esteemed eles, know that this is a nerf.

You can’t take elemental attunement and cleansing wave and move up to master tier without stamping a big NERF sign on this update.

Keep in mind the current master tiers you’re using now will have to be switched out for these 2 abilities in order for you to function properly as an ele. IMO elemental attunement needs to be made as a base ele mechanic rather than a trait. We all use it because we have to.

I quit GW2 because of Anet’s “balancing” months ago. I heard from a friend that there was a big balance patch on Tuesday. Glad to see Anet hasn’t changed a thing.

That’s what I’ve thought from the start, reducing the cooldowns from elementals is indeed a nice buff, but that doesn’t exclude the fact you still need evasive arcana for reasonable survivability, the build I was running is gonna get nerfed by this update.
They’re moving Water V which means we’ll have even less condi removal when conditions can be so easily applied by other classes. in a nutshell, some classes get a couple buffs while we rather get meh if not even a nerf.

i’m really disgusted about some changes.

why the hell won’t they replace lingering elements with elemental attunement,zephyr’s speed with renewing stamina, why don’t they reverse the rtl nerf, why don’t split evasive arcana into the 5/15 points trait,why?
why always other classes need some boons?

Staff ele is the new longbow ranger. Prepare to see nothing but staff buffs.

they are forcing players in 20 water….
To balance a new trait nobody asked for and that sounds boring and situationally OP or totally useless.

elprimo.4398:

Staff ele is the new longbow ranger. Prepare to see nothing but staff buffs.

Well, longbow is still in advantage, it is able to shoot 1500 range and it’s projectiles are way faster than staffs, so just like that….

I vote for range trait for staff, we deserve it with our poor survivability…. Maybe an alteration for blasting staff? Everybody gets more than just one enhancement on the traits like this, so why not Elementalists? It’s the same like the weapon skills CD reduction traits…

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

staff is already the best weapon in a siege and the meta for zerg breaker groups is all about supporting meteor+tornado bombing. while it could use some real improvements for 1v1 to bring it up to par with d/d or s/d in those use cases, increasing the range doesnt accomplish that, and there are ways to do it without stealing the unique qualities of other classes.

on topic:

yes, this patch is a nerf for anyone but a condi-ele. the improved talents all scream “gimmick”; the movement of cleansing wave and elemental attunement crush build diversity despite claims that they want to improve it.

if they wanted to make fire viable for wvw/pvp, they would turn fire aura into a solid defense mechanic.

Raven.9603:

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

I would change the tornado “glitch” boost for better range any time, I hate this kind of “mechanics” in-game, which are present just because someone don’t want to/can’t fix them (the same with the FGS – you know what I’m talking about)

Also, if you got hit for 10k by a meteor, you deserved it, everyone with more braincells than teeth would be out of the meteor shower area by the time an Ele triggers the Tornado. And Ele capable of such damage is killed in a heartbeat, so it’s basically risk-reward kind of thing – also the only one of this type Eles have….

STRanger.5120:

Raven.9603:

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

I would change the tornado “glitch” boost for better range any time, I hate this kind of “mechanics” in-game, which are present just because someone don’t want to/can’t fix them (the same with the FGS – you know what I’m talking about)

Also, if you got hit for 10k by a meteor, you deserved it, everyone with more braincells than teeth would be out of the meteor shower area by the time an Ele triggers the Tornado. And Ele capable of such damage is killed in a heartbeat, so it’s basically risk-reward kind of thing – also the only one of this type Eles have….

I play mostly ranger ele and thief (wvw), but i have a lot of time on every class but warrior.

i run either valk/soldiers/zerk or celestial on my ele, and either set can hit for 7-10k with the meteor+tornado combo (about 65-85% crit dmg).

while obviously 1500 range is desirable, the point is to make staff good without taking away something that makes another class unique. Rangers are not really in a good place for group-based wvw. most serious wvw guilds flat out dont allow people to play them. take away the uniqueness of 1500 range and give it to a class thats already highly valued in group play in all aspects of the game, not a good move.

staff can be improved in ways that arent detrimental to the roles of other classes. eg, single target damage, damage mitagation abilities, etc.

Raven.9603:

STRanger.5120:

Raven.9603:

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

I would change the tornado “glitch” boost for better range any time, I hate this kind of “mechanics” in-game, which are present just because someone don’t want to/can’t fix them (the same with the FGS – you know what I’m talking about)

Also, if you got hit for 10k by a meteor, you deserved it, everyone with more braincells than teeth would be out of the meteor shower area by the time an Ele triggers the Tornado. And Ele capable of such damage is killed in a heartbeat, so it’s basically risk-reward kind of thing – also the only one of this type Eles have….

I play mostly ranger ele and thief (wvw), but i have a lot of time on every class but warrior.

i run either valk/soldiers/zerk or celestial on my ele, and either set can hit for 7-10k with the meteor+tornado combo (about 65-85% crit dmg).

while obviously 1500 range is desirable, the point is to make staff good without taking away something that makes another class unique. Rangers are not really in a good place for group-based wvw. most serious wvw guilds flat out dont allow people to play them. take away the uniqueness of 1500 range and give it to a class thats already highly valued in group play in all aspects of the game, not a good move.

staff can be improved in ways that arent detrimental to the roles of other classes. eg, single target damage, damage mitagation abilities, etc.

Yeah, you’re right about this, staff can be improved in many aspects of gameplay. However regarding that dmg you listed, the fact it “can” doesn’t equal it “will”, for that damage, there’s quite a lot conditions to be met – might stacking, bloodlust stacked, dumb enemies who will stand in the shower or just don’t notice it etc. etc.

Also, Ranger is not the only class with 1500 range, remember, some ppl are so strong they can throw grenades on the same range that a longbow can shoot, what a feat!!! :-)
/joke

the grenade case is a bit different, as projectiles can travel farther than listed range, so rangers are still “masters” of the range. ele staff auto attacks fall into that category too, so having 1500 range would put them above rangers (especially considering Air1 is a homing missile and fire 1 has splash dmg).

the meteor shower dmg i am mentioning is just meteor+tornado in either of the gear sets i mentioned. with that combo you dont need might stacks or vulnerability to hit between 7-10k. guilds (at least in my bracket) have been stacking staff eles and having them drop this combo in order to insta melt other zergs.

The changes are awesome. I’m going to try each one of these new traits to see which is/are most efficient for my play style as a s/d and s/f burst Ele.

Raven.9603:

the grenade case is a bit different, as projectiles can travel farther than listed range, so rangers are still “masters” of the range. ele staff auto attacks fall into that category too, so having 1500 range would put them above rangers (especially considering Air1 is a homing missile and fire 1 has splash dmg).

And yet with the speed of our projectiles we’d be lucky to hit something at 1200 range even if traited for 1500 range. I’d rather not comment on MS+Tornado.

So we have a 240sec cd defining combo… Sounds… Wonder what to do for the 230secs left.

The problem I have with staff is that unlike other classes I can’t swap weapons. So everytime I use a staff I’m locked in long range. If my teamates are not aiding my sorry kitten when I’m in trouble I’ll be pretty much rally bait.

So often I will get that awkward position were you are fighting a melee opponent that is circling around you while you are trying to land your dem areas that have like a forever cast time. Which doesn’t happen when I roll staff on my necro.

You could say b-but staff has a lot of selfpeel. Well I spend most of them aiding my teamates not saving my selfish kitten.

Did no one really use arcane wave with a main hand dagger? It won’t be instant anymore and casting it will be a pain.

How do you burning speed + arcane wave after the patch, can anybody tell me?

Instant ground target cast will be the only option, and I’ll have to click the kitten burning speed trail mid-flight for it to work…

Razor.6392:

Did no one really use arcane wave with a main hand dagger? It won’t be instant anymore and casting it will be a pain.

How do you burning speed + arcane wave after the patch, can anybody tell me?

Instant ground target cast will be the only option, and I’ll have to click the kitten burning speed trail mid-flight for it to work…

There are two options for one-click ground-targetted spells, you should try them both.

Yes, you’ll need to move your mouse a little bit now, but it’s not like this has ever ruined the Phoenix skill from scepter, is it?

DiogoSilva.7089:

Razor.6392:

Did no one really use arcane wave with a main hand dagger? It won’t be instant anymore and casting it will be a pain.

How do you burning speed + arcane wave after the patch, can anybody tell me?

Instant ground target cast will be the only option, and I’ll have to click the kitten burning speed trail mid-flight for it to work…

There are two options for one-click ground-targetted spells, you should try them both.

Yes, you’ll need to move your mouse a little bit now, but it’s not like this has ever ruined the Phoenix skill from scepter, is it?

You don’t have a 1.3 seconds window to cast phoenix. I fail to see how those 2 are even similar.

elprimo.4398:

So we have a 240sec cd defining combo… Sounds… Wonder what to do for the 230secs left.

You do realize tornado is a 180s CD and it starts as soon as the skill activates right? How you got 240s I will never know…

Razor.6392:

You don’t have a 1.3 seconds window to cast phoenix. I fail to see how those 2 are even similar.

In the heat of (pvp) combat, sometimes that time window can make the difference between the death of your opponent or yours, at least in any glass cannon ele build.

But let’s think of a better example: when you need to Lightning Flash Earthquake Hurl Air Attune Lightning Bolt. You barely have a second to do it, but the best players can pull it off nonetheless.

Durzlla.6295:

You do realize tornado is a 180s CD and it starts as soon as the skill activates right? How you got 240s I will never know…

150s cooldown. :P

Durzlla.6295:

elprimo.4398:

So we have a 240sec cd defining combo… Sounds… Wonder what to do for the 230secs left.

You do realize tornado is a 180s CD and it starts as soon as the skill activates right? How you got 240s I will never know…

you right i prefer to use the norn racial chettah cd so got confused anyways It shouldn’t be core 150 sec is still long.

@diogo
That’s not so hard -_-

A straightforward combo just got much more complicated to me, I only had to Burning speed + arcane wave. 2 buttons.

Now I gotta not only set the instant ground cursor thing (which I didn’t use because I find it annoying), but also put my cursor behind my character as I cast burning speed, and then while hovering over the trail as I cast it, press arcane wave (assuming that it’s still instant). All of that in a 1.2 – 1.5 seconds window.

And like you mentioned, in the heat of the battle such fine step by step combo may fail. I might have my cursor somewhere else for whatever reason and cast arcane wave nowhere near where I am, lol.

Gonna be fun!

Arcane Wave should still be instant-cast, yes.

Tempest defense might not be useless, but arcane nerfs will hurt (especially if renewing stamina is master too). Moving up renewing stamina will be the last straw of the 8-month long dismantling of the d/d playstyle that many people enjoyed. People still playing d/d did it because it was fun even though it was less effective.

Soothing wave might be interesting for 30-water eles, and a bunker build (which will be ineffective anyway).

Diamond skin will be a non-factor, as it is pushing us into a condi-ganker role that thieves or mesmers will be better at. It useless outside of 1v1 anyway.

The cleansing fire skill is useless. 90% of the time it will cleanse: 1 stack of vuln, 1 bleed, and 1s of chill. Its not controllable, and thus useless (cleansing fire, the skill, is already useless).

Moving blasting staff down is nice for glass-staff builds, but eles who want to survive and play the game like everyone else are taking a big-one in the chin Now you either build full-defensive and end up with the base survivability of most other classes, or full glass and enjoy playing your FPS game.

elprimo.4398:

Durzlla.6295:

elprimo.4398:

So we have a 240sec cd defining combo… Sounds… Wonder what to do for the 230secs left.

You do realize tornado is a 180s CD and it starts as soon as the skill activates right? How you got 240s I will never know…

you right i prefer to use the norn racial chettah cd so got confused anyways It shouldn’t be core 150 sec is still long.

Tornado is 150sec cd, -15 seconds from the duration. So 135sec.
Is 135 sec too long for a combo that will do 7-10k per meteor to a large area?

Not really.

I wasnt saying staff couldnt use improvements, single target combat with staff really needs to get better, as does damage avoidance. All im saying is range is something of a ranger niche and there are probably better solutions than taking something away from them.

I’m considering this pvp build for a d/f user, not many changes since I’ll still be using 0/30/0/20/20. Can’t be helped because elemental attunement is now a master trait.

I’ll get tempest defense on the grandmaster trait instead and cooldown reduction air for the master trait, replacing bonus crit damage on arcane usage and bolt to the heart.

Shocking aura will basically be up 24/7, and Gale will also charge faster allowing me to do more damage. More fury and swiftness as well.

Raven.9603:

If they wanted to make fire viable for wvw/pvp, they would turn fire aura into a solid defense mechanic.

This.

Raven.9603:

the grenade case is a bit different, as projectiles can travel farther than listed range, so rangers are still “masters” of the range. ele staff auto attacks fall into that category too, so having 1500 range would put them above rangers (especially considering Air1 is a homing missile and fire 1 has splash dmg).

the meteor shower dmg i am mentioning is just meteor+tornado in either of the gear sets i mentioned. with that combo you dont need might stacks or vulnerability to hit between 7-10k. guilds (at least in my bracket) have been stacking staff eles and having them drop this combo in order to insta melt other zergs.

Air 1 is maybe homing, but not when the target is farther than the range, fact #1
As was already mentioned, our projectiles are slow as hell (I have to admint that Engi nades are even slower, I’m always like “OMG” when trying to hit moving target on maximum range with him, but at least Engi can lead the target, Ele AA does that automatically and totally wrong.)

About that Meteor + Tornado dmg, if you don’t need might stacks/vulnerability/bloodlust, you’re hitting uplevelled players, sorry. I know it because I play full zerker Ele in WvW and the combo hits for 5-7K (5 to heavy armor, 7 to light) and that’s with some might stacks (sigil of bloodlust, pyromancer’s puissance). So just like that