Guild Wars 2

Greetings, all.

I’d like to start by giving a shout-out to ArenaNet: in addition to quality-of-life buffs on Lightning Touch, Fire Grab, Earthquake, and Magnetic Grasp, they have also provided more critical buffs to Ring of Earth, Cone of Cold, and our downed state. The buff to Ring of Earth actually gives us exponentially greater control over a fight; the buff to Cone of Cold amplifies our support ability; and the changes to our downed state basically make it so I have some control over my fate when downed.

I got a chance to try these buffs out in WvWvW, and the effect is astronomical. Maybe I was going up against bad players, but I felt godlike, flowing from engagement to engagement and utilizing the tools I had on hand to do the job. I could damage or control opponents as necessary, and escape when outnumbered. The only class that gave me trouble was a thief who simply would not die. =)

I will now move on to my remaining two cents:

• We still might have a little ways to go — I feel a few Staff skills, some utility skills, and most Scepter/Focus skills need a tuneup like the one ArenaNet just gave Dagger/Dagger. Likewise, I feel our traits could use another pass, with emphasis on synergy and cost/benefit.
• At the same time, I feel that further progress should be made incrementally. Baby steps, ArenaNet! In this player’s opinion, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are aware of our concerns and intend to address some of them. It is my humble recommendation that you let the metagame shift and settle, then apply small tweaks here and there, gradually, to prevent a truckload of changes from tipping the metagame over the edge of a cliff.

TLDR:

• Recent changes: awesome
• There might be a ways to go before Staff and Scepter/Focus are as robust in PvP as you have made Dagger/Dagger
• Baby steps!

Sing out if you agree, folks!

Gaius.2781:

• Baby steps!

I mostly agree with everything you posted except for this. Anet did not use baby steps when the nerfed the heck out of this class during the BWE’s and since launch. In fact, they overnerfed us in many area’s. Baby steps should have been used then. I am afraid its going to take more than baby steps now to bring us back up to where we should be. The changes they just made in the last patch were certainly more than baby steps, so I think they realize how far down in the hole we are.

Lol you just said after the patch you feel godlike, then ask for more changes… You should probably re word that, as that statement alone completely contradicts your whole post.

The D/D changes were amazing, if the fix Ride The Lightning I would be EXTREMELY happy with D/D and I am already very happy with it.

RTL is SUCH a crucial skill for D/D melee eles arsenal or even S/D and for it to be stun-locking us the way it is now is terrible as we already have to work to be on top.

Agreed. Give them time to fix the bugs, then reëvaluate the class as a whole. Give the discussion a rest because most of it has been said (and read by Anet) already.

I agree – the D/D changes seem small, but have a great impact on that weapon set. Let’s just hope that the self-stun on RtL and Magnetic Grasp is removed someday^^

reëvaluate

If you did that on purpose, that would be the best trema usage I’ve ever seen on the internet.

God Like? No.

Able to actually play the game rather than fight the bugs/interface problems?

Yes.

Missing half my Fire Grabs and Lighting Touches was getting so irritating that I didn’t really use the skills. Magnetic Grab and RTL still need work, but they’re working better. I’m very pleased with this fix. The change to downed skills were a nice touch as well.

Baby steps? I perfectly agree. However, I wouldn’t wait for the meta to shift to polish the scepter/ focus/ staff skills as they have polished the dagger skills. And only after that would I focus on our traits, especially fire/ air traits for spike builds.

And robust spike builds are, honestly, the thing that I most want. I have choosen an elementalist for my main because I love offensive spell classes with some depth of strategy. A mesmer and a necromancer have a different, distinct flavour, while the profession that promised me strategical, crazy attunement switching combos combined with spells of mass destruction was simply delicious.

I’m satisfied at the moment with my water/ arcane traited builds with good condition damage or good raw power damage as secondary (cleric’s and shaman’s amulets). It gives me a good balance between defense and offense. But I want to make crazy critical burst builds and be able to, you know, actually put them off without dying at the middle of my burst. Thieves burst in 2-5 seconds with fast attacks and then stealth away. We burst in 5-10 seconds, we deal less damage than thieves (and I understand why), our attacks are easier to avoid, we don’t have stealth, and our defensive skills do almost nothing because we aren’t specced for water/ earth/ healing/ whatever to make them good.

i feel they are working on us one weapon set at a time to gauge balance before they make sweeping changes to all our powers at the same time. then they probably have a team working entirely on trait polishing and trait text clarification for all classes. finally they will probably look at utilities and elites for all the classes last. they have to work slowly so nothing gets dropped into game and completely wrecks it with being overpowered. and i can appreciate that. im just glad i switched from mesmer to elementalist, since that class has issues yet seems to be getting nerfed every patch :p with elementalist, it can ONLY get better!

I really enjoy down state in wvw, makes me almost fearless (as long as I can run away far enough as a mist!)

Just my opinion, but I really wish they would look at the time it takes for so many of the skills to actually “go off”. I usually run D/D simply because it’s the set that runs at my speed.

For example, Dragon’s Tooth or Ice Spike, both #2 skill slot abilities, different weapons of delivery. These both may cast instantly, but both hang some mystical object in the air that will actually activate some 2-4 seconds following the cast. That means you have to stand around waiting for the attack to be delivered. In pve, that means you stand at the edge of the blast radius getting hit to ensure that the mob stays in range. Can you kite? Sure, but you give up the ability to be sure that your attack will actually effect your target. Another couple of #2 slotters, Eruption and Shatterstone, same deal except its a stationary, ground targeted explosion. Lava font, works immediately, but is useless unless you are willing to position someone or something in it and stand there waiting on the damage to be delivered. Those are litteraly almost all of our #2 skills for staff and scepter and they are mostly useless unless you are willing to get beat on to use them. Heck might as well round it out, staff #2 lightning anyone? Lightning Surge is at least targeted, but it has a build up period before it actually fires and the damage is underwhelming at best. In the same time it takes it to go off you could have done more damage with #1 spam. Not only that, your #1 spam would have hit multiple targets!

So anyway, this just scratches the surface. But seriously, if we could do monumental amounts of damage with our attacks then I could understand the delays. But as it stands, our damage make take so long to be delivered that we won’t survive the application period of the damage.

In pve, you can set up attacks in your favor, in pvp not so much. For example;

I equip my staff in pve. I find a random mob (preferring single mobs at a time because its my staff not D/D)
I cast: Eruption, (swap to fire) flame burst #3, Burning retreat#4, lava font #2 at my feet and spam fireball #1 and the mob will likely die if it isn’t elite. If it is elite I will have to dance through some other skills like lightning #3 and #4 to create distance and water #3 and #5 for healing.

This scenario in pvp? Eruption = dodge, flame burst = hit with burning that will likely be cured, burning retreat = run out of it’s path to avoid, lava font = dodge #2, fireballs = hits but now my cloth wearing butt is also getting hit. Swap into lightning blow the person back if they aren’t stable, swiftness myself to create space, try to static field them which may or may not work, etc etc (I’m tired of typing, but you get the point)

That is what needs fixed.

Bleeds.4029:

Just my opinion, but I really wish they would look at the time it takes for so many of the skills to actually “go off”. I usually run D/D simply because it’s the set that runs at my speed.

For example, Dragon’s Tooth or Ice Spike, both #2 skill slot abilities, different weapons of delivery. These both may cast instantly, but both hang some mystical object in the air that will actually activate some 2-4 seconds following the cast. That means you have to stand around waiting for the attack to be delivered. In pve, that means you stand at the edge of the blast radius getting hit to ensure that the mob stays in range. Can you kite? Sure, but you give up the ability to be sure that your attack will actually effect your target. Another couple of #2 slotters, Eruption and Shatterstone, same deal except its a stationary, ground targeted explosion. Lava font, works immediately, but is useless unless you are willing to position someone or something in it and stand there waiting on the damage to be delivered. Those are litteraly almost all of our #2 skills for staff and scepter and they are mostly useless unless you are willing to get beat on to use them. Heck might as well round it out, staff #2 lightning anyone? Lightning Surge is at least targeted, but it has a build up period before it actually fires and the damage is underwhelming at best. In the same time it takes it to go off you could have done more damage with #1 spam. Not only that, your #1 spam would have hit multiple targets!

So anyway, this just scratches the surface. But seriously, if we could do monumental amounts of damage with our attacks then I could understand the delays. But as it stands, our damage make take so long to be delivered that we won’t survive the application period of the damage.

In pve, you can set up attacks in your favor, in pvp not so much. For example;

I equip my staff in pve. I find a random mob (preferring single mobs at a time because its my staff not D/D)
I cast: Eruption, (swap to fire) flame burst #3, Burning retreat#4, lava font #2 at my feet and spam fireball #1 and the mob will likely die if it isn’t elite. If it is elite I will have to dance through some other skills like lightning #3 and #4 to create distance and water #3 and #5 for healing.

This scenario in pvp? Eruption = dodge, flame burst = hit with burning that will likely be cured, burning retreat = run out of it’s path to avoid, lava font = dodge #2, fireballs = hits but now my cloth wearing butt is also getting hit. Swap into lightning blow the person back if they aren’t stable, swiftness myself to create space, try to static field them which may or may not work, etc etc (I’m tired of typing, but you get the point)

That is what needs fixed.

yes. what you forgot though is with many of the #2 slow animation attacks, they don’t need to dodge. they animate so slowly you can walk out of the aoe. This is true for any mage mob in pve – they are so easy to kill because their aoes take forever to animate, so you can just strafe slowly in front of them and they die without hitting you.

So true Schroedingercat, so true.

And please, nobody take my post as a rant. I love elementalist having come over to it being a bored guardian first. D/D keeps me on my toes and active, it’s just so engaging! It’s a challenge to play and is rewarding for good play and harsh when I screw it up which equals fun to me. I hope to see the other weapons brought into line so that I am forced to make hard decisions on which set to pick. I just won’t pick sets in their current form when they sucketh to high heaven. Thank heaven for D/D!

I like the changes in the last patch, but personally I’m of the opinion that the elementalist could still use an across to board damage buff to most of our abilities.

Alternatively, a rebalance of the ridiculously long cool downs and animation times on what are supposed to be heavy hitters but are really just mediocre damage abilities so we can use them more often might do the trick if ANet continues to be so afraid to let the class off its leash.

The problem is really highlighted for me when I’m running around Orr attunement dancing like a mad man to still take quite a long time to take trash mobs down, when I see classes like a mesmer or thief run in and down them in three or four hits. How that is supposed to be “balanced” I really don’t understand. I never got to try the class in the beta before the major nerf everyone talks about, but it’s clear to me in it’s current state that it just takes way to long to kill things with it relative to most other classes.

Considering that the good water/ arcane traited builds (aka, our good builds) can kill efficiently enough in pvp, with the exception of the extreme tank healer, then I’d say a stronger fire/ air traitline and a few tweaks to the functionality of our burst skills should do the trick for power elementalists.