Guild Wars 2

D/D Ele was nerfed because it filled a role no other class could fill as well. With slight tweaks you could have it fill 3 roles (the Eles strong suit versatility). The problem was those other classes weren’t as good back then.

Necros – couldn’t condi burst
Warriors – didn’t have sustain
More boon stripping was introduced in the game.

Necros can now condi pressure a Ele better then before
Warriors have sustain and always matched or had better mobility then a D/D Ele.

Ele was only seen as overpowered because the rest of the classes where bad. Many classes have been brought up. Even if old ele was back in sPvP the spot it would fill today it competes with Warrior while the warrior can provide better damage. So old D/D Ele in todays meta would just mean you can interchange it with warrior with not much of a drop off between the two.

Fun Fact:
In EU S/D was the preferred weapon set while D/D was NA back in the Ele glory days.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

LightningBlaze.4913:

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

I have not much to add here. I can’t tell if I’m biased or not…

D/D is my weapon set of choice, as everybody knows. The weapon set isn’t as well rounded as some may think. This buff will be a good one, and I think every ele should b happy for the change.

My opinion is every attune should have defensive and offensive skills. Until now, I hardly could have said burning speed was defensive. I’m sorry but too many classes can easily catch us in combat, and burning speed puts you into combat more often than not; your fire tail is unfortunate.

I can say now fire will have a defensive skill, and water will have a new use offensively and defensively with its blast finisher.

There’s no doubt that these are good buffs, but why do people keep calling them overpowered? They aren’t even here yet. The evade frame isn’t going to be that long, and it will protect you more when attacking, just so you can land your attack for once. Yes, I’ve figured out how to land BS on more than one good opponent, but it hits infrequently enough that a buff was merited.

I’ll also say.. This skill just looks like it should have an evade on it. That it didn’t baffled me. When I was learning the class, I thought it did.

So yes, perhaps I’m a little biased, which is why you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I just don’t think eles as a whole should ever complain about the paradigm shift from nerfing to some buffs.

We are supposed to work together, and it’s unfortunate to see some of my favorite eles on the forum bickering.

Nex sorry i missed your posts in all this bickering like you said. Just like I told ozi, even if we are biased, there is nothing wrong with that in a game. It is perfectly understandable that dagger users feel glad to get this buff and I’m glad ele are getting buffed overall instead of more nerf. I just would prefer the buffs to start with traits/utilities and specially to the weapon skills that are weak instead of improving the ones that are already stable/powerful.

Is scepter really all that weak though? Most eles see in tpvp use s/d or s/f. The fresh air burst build seems to have been, and remained, the “go-to” ele build for pvp. I prefer s/d or s/f myself but that’s just anecdotal.

I think the real problem with the elementalist is traitlines/utilities. The only eles i see are ones that run all cantrips or run arcane burst gimmick builds.

Honovi, i have been using scepter with 30 points in air waaaaaay before fresh air was even introduced. The majority of this Ele forum community didn’t even know back then that Ele can actually massive burst without being glass cannon and I was called troll for stating this fact in here. With that said I perfectly know scepter is not weak but some of its skills need adjustments like shatterstone, dragon tooth and even air 3 (blinding something.. I’m bad with names) that only offers blind. Ele god mode d/d build was nerf really hard in spvp because of its stage of abusement by the majority of Ele players. Now you see s/d because if you can’t bunker as well as before in spvp/tpvp might as well go for the other role of being a damage, burst dealer. S/d provides that with the great defense to keep yourself at range or go in and out like a boxing match.

meh, I like air 3. short cd ranged, instant cast, unavoidable blind is really nice.

I like it too but I still find it lackluster with providing 0 damage and just blind that can be taken off with auto attack

LightningBlaze.4913:

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

I have not much to add here. I can’t tell if I’m biased or not…

D/D is my weapon set of choice, as everybody knows. The weapon set isn’t as well rounded as some may think. This buff will be a good one, and I think every ele should b happy for the change.

My opinion is every attune should have defensive and offensive skills. Until now, I hardly could have said burning speed was defensive. I’m sorry but too many classes can easily catch us in combat, and burning speed puts you into combat more often than not; your fire tail is unfortunate.

I can say now fire will have a defensive skill, and water will have a new use offensively and defensively with its blast finisher.

There’s no doubt that these are good buffs, but why do people keep calling them overpowered? They aren’t even here yet. The evade frame isn’t going to be that long, and it will protect you more when attacking, just so you can land your attack for once. Yes, I’ve figured out how to land BS on more than one good opponent, but it hits infrequently enough that a buff was merited.

I’ll also say.. This skill just looks like it should have an evade on it. That it didn’t baffled me. When I was learning the class, I thought it did.

So yes, perhaps I’m a little biased, which is why you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I just don’t think eles as a whole should ever complain about the paradigm shift from nerfing to some buffs.

We are supposed to work together, and it’s unfortunate to see some of my favorite eles on the forum bickering.

Nex sorry i missed your posts in all this bickering like you said. Just like I told ozi, even if we are biased, there is nothing wrong with that in a game. It is perfectly understandable that dagger users feel glad to get this buff and I’m glad ele are getting buffed overall instead of more nerf. I just would prefer the buffs to start with traits/utilities and specially to the weapon skills that are weak instead of improving the ones that are already stable/powerful.

Is scepter really all that weak though? Most eles see in tpvp use s/d or s/f. The fresh air burst build seems to have been, and remained, the “go-to” ele build for pvp. I prefer s/d or s/f myself but that’s just anecdotal.

I think the real problem with the elementalist is traitlines/utilities. The only eles i see are ones that run all cantrips or run arcane burst gimmick builds.

Honovi, i have been using scepter with 30 points in air waaaaaay before fresh air was even introduced. The majority of this Ele forum community didn’t even know back then that Ele can actually massive burst without being glass cannon and I was called troll for stating this fact in here. With that said I perfectly know scepter is not weak but some of its skills need adjustments like shatterstone, dragon tooth and even air 3 (blinding something.. I’m bad with names) that only offers blind. Ele god mode d/d build was nerf really hard in spvp because of its stage of abusement by the majority of Ele players. Now you see s/d because if you can’t bunker as well as before in spvp/tpvp might as well go for the other role of being a damage, burst dealer. S/d provides that with the great defense to keep yourself at range or go in and out like a boxing match.

So how is scepter or focus not a strong weapon set if so many people are choosing it over d/d? Now, keep in mind i have no real stats to back this up, but most dueling arenas i go into with eles have:
A. Fresh air s/f or s/d burst ele.
B. high pressure cantrip d/f ele.

I’m just not seeing why you think scepter and focus are so weak. Do they have skills that suck? absolutely. But they also have a few AMAZING skills that beat similar skills from other professions by a longshot.

And yes, i’ve been playing this game since release. I know the history of eles and how much qq there was about scepter being bad. It doesn’t matter if you were the first person that thought scepter was good 6 months ago or the last. Right now, i believe scepter mainhand is a better option than dagger though. But once again, that’s just me.

Any other eles think that scepter is now a BETTER option than dagger? I know these weaponsets excel at two completely different things but bunker ele is just sad now. We get ripped apart in seconds.

honovi.7893:

So how is scepter or focus not a strong weapon set if so many people are choosing it over d/d? Now, keep in mind i have no real stats to back this up, but most dueling arenas i go into with eles have:
A. Fresh air s/f or s/d burst ele.
B. high pressure cantrip d/f ele.

I’m just not seeing why you think scepter and focus are so weak. Do they have skills that suck? absolutely. But they also have a few AMAZING skills that beat similar skills from other professions by a longshot.

And yes, i’ve been playing this game since release. I know the history of eles and how much qq there was about scepter being bad. It doesn’t matter if you were the first person that thought scepter was good 6 months ago or the last. Right now, i believe scepter mainhand is a better option than dagger though. But once again, that’s just me.

Any other eles think that scepter is now a BETTER option than dagger? I know these weaponsets excel at two completely different things but bunker ele is just sad now. We get ripped apart in seconds.

This one is hard to say which is “better” in a wvw/pvp perspective. Lightning is correct that if you can’t bunker like before you can try to be dps. Nobody still takes Eles though but if they did it would most certainly be S/x before D/x.

If this is strictly about s/tPvP then Old cantrip D/D still wouldn’t have a “needed” role in today’s meta. It could just Sub as a roaming bunker for warrior that is all that would change even if you gave RTL a 15 second CD it would still be a viable sub for a Warrior in today’s meta.

For roaming out in WvW I would say it is even and just depends on what you are fighting both have strengths and weakness some shared and some distinct.

For larger scale fights or controlled fights like GvG’s I prefer to run S/x then D/x(I mostly play staff but I’m the Ele that would go on the havoc team). That is my personal preference and I feel that in a GvG type setting S/x will provide the same DPS that D/x will with much less of the risk. I don’t see in this setting that D/x clearly outshines S/x for damage and it will really come down to how often you have to stop doing dps to defend yourself.

With as much CC running around I personally feel that S/x allows me more dps uptime without having to blow survivability skills like cantrips after I just burning speed a down guy but ran into a fear mark. I know people run D/x in strike forces or the small havoc teams in GvG’s Serane does this I have too. I feel that you can build a small havoc team better with a S/x then a D/x especially if you throw GS mesmers on that team since you can range right along with them.

This is just speaking strictly from a GvG standpoint. I was asked to run D/x the other day in a GvG but I was against the idea of D/x and preferred S/x.

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

I have not much to add here. I can’t tell if I’m biased or not…

D/D is my weapon set of choice, as everybody knows. The weapon set isn’t as well rounded as some may think. This buff will be a good one, and I think every ele should b happy for the change.

My opinion is every attune should have defensive and offensive skills. Until now, I hardly could have said burning speed was defensive. I’m sorry but too many classes can easily catch us in combat, and burning speed puts you into combat more often than not; your fire tail is unfortunate.

I can say now fire will have a defensive skill, and water will have a new use offensively and defensively with its blast finisher.

There’s no doubt that these are good buffs, but why do people keep calling them overpowered? They aren’t even here yet. The evade frame isn’t going to be that long, and it will protect you more when attacking, just so you can land your attack for once. Yes, I’ve figured out how to land BS on more than one good opponent, but it hits infrequently enough that a buff was merited.

I’ll also say.. This skill just looks like it should have an evade on it. That it didn’t baffled me. When I was learning the class, I thought it did.

So yes, perhaps I’m a little biased, which is why you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I just don’t think eles as a whole should ever complain about the paradigm shift from nerfing to some buffs.

We are supposed to work together, and it’s unfortunate to see some of my favorite eles on the forum bickering.

Nex sorry i missed your posts in all this bickering like you said. Just like I told ozi, even if we are biased, there is nothing wrong with that in a game. It is perfectly understandable that dagger users feel glad to get this buff and I’m glad ele are getting buffed overall instead of more nerf. I just would prefer the buffs to start with traits/utilities and specially to the weapon skills that are weak instead of improving the ones that are already stable/powerful.

Is scepter really all that weak though? Most eles see in tpvp use s/d or s/f. The fresh air burst build seems to have been, and remained, the “go-to” ele build for pvp. I prefer s/d or s/f myself but that’s just anecdotal.

I think the real problem with the elementalist is traitlines/utilities. The only eles i see are ones that run all cantrips or run arcane burst gimmick builds.

Honovi, i have been using scepter with 30 points in air waaaaaay before fresh air was even introduced. The majority of this Ele forum community didn’t even know back then that Ele can actually massive burst without being glass cannon and I was called troll for stating this fact in here. With that said I perfectly know scepter is not weak but some of its skills need adjustments like shatterstone, dragon tooth and even air 3 (blinding something.. I’m bad with names) that only offers blind. Ele god mode d/d build was nerf really hard in spvp because of its stage of abusement by the majority of Ele players. Now you see s/d because if you can’t bunker as well as before in spvp/tpvp might as well go for the other role of being a damage, burst dealer. S/d provides that with the great defense to keep yourself at range or go in and out like a boxing match.

So how is scepter or focus not a strong weapon set if so many people are choosing it over d/d? Now, keep in mind i have no real stats to back this up, but most dueling arenas i go into with eles have:
A. Fresh air s/f or s/d burst ele.
B. high pressure cantrip d/f ele.

I’m just not seeing why you think scepter and focus are so weak. Do they have skills that suck? absolutely. But they also have a few AMAZING skills that beat similar skills from other professions by a longshot.

And yes, i’ve been playing this game since release. I know the history of eles and how much qq there was about scepter being bad. It doesn’t matter if you were the first person that thought scepter was good 6 months ago or the last. Right now, i believe scepter mainhand is a better option than dagger though. But once again, that’s just me.

Any other eles think that scepter is now a BETTER option than dagger? I know these weaponsets excel at two completely different things but bunker ele is just sad now. We get ripped apart in seconds.

Once again Honovi…….I don’t think scepter and focus are weak weapon sets. I even use both s/f together for solo/group roaming and running with the zerg within wvw and I do very well. I only know they both have some weak skills that need adjustments. Just a few skills out of all the ones these weapon sets offer. That is all.

DiogoSilva.7089:

LordByron.8369:

That is the point…
Unless anet thinks they gave blurred frenzy to ele to compensate the lack of defense….

They just reduced a slow skill vulnerability
Differently from BF you can t use BS as reliable extra evade for 2 reasons:

1) it just ruins positioning
2) it will available on 1/4 attunements and in the only without any defense.

With Burning Speed you will be able to:

1. Leap through marks, traps and other ground effects while evading them.
   Great to catch staff necromancers, or prevent engineers from disabling your point.

and this is a bad thing for the balance?
Considering necros can sit in their mark/traps etc its not a valid point

1. Burst moving foes without being caught by a sudden movement-impairing effect.
   Similar to the above point.

This is somkething that MUST be discussed.
Its a linear skill and its not even that fast.

Means it needs guessing and you know if you guess right and your opponent moves in the wrong direction he deserves to be hit?

Now consider your opponent is somehow lucky OR react properly.
The skill takes you out of your effective range/position and you are vulnerable (see kiting properly).

1. Burst foes with less interruption from external sources.
   Especially important in team fights where warriors from the opposing team are spamming KDs and stuns everywhere.

“burst” i think this word can t be applied to the skill….
Deals 1/4 than a thief burst and as said you can evade it on reaction…

So NO its not a burst at all.
Its an average damage skill

1. Evade a burst when immobilized, while still dealing a lot of damage and burning from the stacked fire trail.

i use this in pve a lot….
It dpesn t do ,much damage…and in PvP www if ou sit on it well you deserve to be hit for 1/4 of a warrior 1HB.

Elementalists are very weak to immobilize, and any squishy profession that will depend on it will get hit hard if their sudden burst is evaded all the while getting bursted down.

Elementalist are weak to a lot of things mostly chill rather than immobilize….

I’m annoyed they’re only focusing on D/?.

I think they should have lifted the base defensive performance of Ele and then if necessary trimmed stuff back.

The fundamental problem with Ele (IMO) is the lack of an innate defence mechanic comparable to stealth/shadowsteps/clones/aegis.

In theory, it’s healing, but for decent healing sustain you basically require 15+ water/30 arcane.

IMO, Ele should get (a solo version of) Elemental Attunement as baseline, with a trait for the AOE version, and with 15 water heal and soothing mist swapped. It’s really the only thing that will stop pushing Ele into the water/arcane corner.

We don’t have a lack of them. They’re called auras, bud. And they’re incredibly useful. Could we stand to see auras buffed? Yes. Could our base stats be buffed? Yes.

But I don’t think your views on ele are healthy based on your responses across the board.

scerevisiae.1972:

IMO, Ele should get (a solo version of) Elemental Attunement as baseline, with a trait for the AOE version, and with 15 water heal and soothing mist swapped. It’s really the only thing that will stop pushing Ele into the water/arcane corner.

Forcing every elementalist to depend on regen and protection (elemental attunement’s best effects) is forcing every elementalist to continue to invest on water (healing power) and arcana (boon duration), and forcing every elementalist to be rendered useless by every single boon stripping build in existence.

We need more stat-independent defenses, and we need our weakest defensive skills/ effects buffed. Burning Speed’s evasion and Armor of Earth’s lower cooldown fit perfectly into this.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Forcing every elementalist to depend on regen and protection (elemental attunement’s best effects) is forcing every elementalist to continue to invest on water (healing power) and arcana (boon duration), and forcing every elementalist to be rendered useless by every single boon stripping build in existence.

We need more stat-independent defenses, and we need our weakest defensive skills/ effects buffed. Burning Speed’s evasion and Armor of Earth’s lower cooldown fit perfectly into this.

You know Diogo I’ve been doing some reading up on Elementalist lore etc. I didn’t play GW1 but after reading a bit of lore then looking at the actual class description I agree even more with these changes and the idea of more stat independent defenses for Elementalist.

I could be misunderstanding it but the profession description is.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

We all consider elementalist weak physically that is SOOO working as intended lol. We go into water and arcana to offset that. We also know that a elementalist can blow things up in a blink if you wanted to build that way. We also know that Elementalist for PvE meta is the highest theoretical dps.

Our damage output also aligns with our Magic type which is Destruction magic unlike the other profession types we don’t have a affinity to any of the gods but to the elements. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Mesmer-and-Elementalist-Lore-Origins/first#post2721612. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magic

So we can do destruction well but at the cost of survivability. It is I think generally considered alright to go for more damage via Fire and Air if your staff. I would say that is balanced given the range that you have. I personally love 20-30 in Fire and 30 Air always 30 air on staff.

The perfect balance I think for Elementalist is achieved when a Ele can feel ok out in WvW and s/tPvP going almost full all out zerker like you feel if you have a full zerk mesmer or thief which both use the same type of magic (Denial) from a lore standpoint. I don’t think twice about taking my Mesmer or Thief out in WvW with 2.2k armor.

I don’t think Elementalist needs stealth like those but this evade being added and armor of earth being reduced fits thematically. Without altering the base HP and the reason why we have low hp is probably because of the description for Elementalist. There needs to be more of the stat independent defenses and utilities.

I think this has been blown out of proportion. Burning Speed does not become some epic skill because it gets evade.

If you are immobilized, then hitting burning speed keeps you locked in place. If you are stunned, you cannot magically use burning speed.

The only improvement is now you’ll evade once Burning Speed starts. This is consistent with the other Burning XXX skills that the elementalist has (i.e. Burning Retreat). It matches other skills in the game such as Whirlwind Attack and Power Stab.

It makes sense and I’ve often wondered why Burning Speed did not have the evade to begin with.

Anybody remember how OP diamond skin was suppose to be? The point being it is better just to wait it out then to have a very very very lackluster skills.

oZii.2864:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Forcing every elementalist to depend on regen and protection (elemental attunement’s best effects) is forcing every elementalist to continue to invest on water (healing power) and arcana (boon duration), and forcing every elementalist to be rendered useless by every single boon stripping build in existence.

We need more stat-independent defenses, and we need our weakest defensive skills/ effects buffed. Burning Speed’s evasion and Armor of Earth’s lower cooldown fit perfectly into this.

snip

I don’t want to be that guy, but towards the very end of guild wars 1 circa 2012, the elementalist was redesigned because it sucked so in PvE I don’t remember their place in PvP though, so no comment on that. However, just like in gw2 our elites were often outclassed by basic skills.

you would think the folks at arenanet will take inspiration from gw1, but I guess that would be a no.

Now they just need to increase thief and warrior mobility cooldowns if they aren’t used to hit something first, like ride the lightning!

silvermember.8941:

I don’t want to be that guy, but towards the very end of guild wars 1 circa 2012, the elementalist was redesigned because it sucked so in PvE I don’t remember their place in PvP though, so no comment on that. However, just like in gw2 our elites were often outclassed by basic skills.

you would think the folks at arenanet will take inspiration from gw1, but I guess that would be a no.

The first elementalist redesign patch was pretty cool (more viable and interesting elites, and we could finally be useful in Hard Mode), but the second one was very disappointing. It basically revamped 90% of our underpowered skills into mechanically-different underpowered skills, and pretty much had almost no impact to our playing. And to make matters worse, Anet stopped supporting the game right after, so there was never a buff to compensate. Anet was afraid of buffing eles too much, after having done so with the dervishes and the mesmers, so they were more conversative. Well, they were too conservative. While the other two professions remain really strong in pve. :P But anyways, at least the first patch was worth it, which is at least something. Rangers, Paragons and Smiting Monks got nothing, and I pity them.

Back to GW2!