Guild Wars 2

Given everything we have learned about the elementalist and the future of other classes in general this is what I feel will become of the ele after the trait changes.

PvP

The typical d/d build won’t work as well anymore. The benefit of cele was being able to tank on point and win most 1v1s and some 2v1. Removing those evasive arcana and elemental attunment will cripple the build.

For thieves, I expect for many to start running trapper condi builds. The new traits gives traps good buffs and their kiting ability has jumped a great deal.

Guardians will probably be running the same builds or a dragonhunter variant of meditations.

Rangers will have access to condi removal in their lb builds as well. You might see some condi or spirit builds, but lb ranger will ultimately reign as the meta build.

Mesmers will mostly be running shatter wells or pu wells.

Engi is too soon to tell. they are getting more support options.

Warriors will probably be running hammer builds again. they got some nice buffs. You might see more running shield since the meta will change to denying points by having more ranged pressure.

necros will probably not be meta still since I expect it to become more ranged heavy. hopefully their specilization saves them.

The best builds I believe for ele are the ones that will directly counter ranged pressure or provide better team support.

Sc/focus and d/focus will be used much more. Aura builds will also be used alot depending on how much it gets buffed. I expect more staff eles as well since people on point will get punished alot more.

Long story short, expect more players to be running ranged denial as well as people running more ranged builds.
Large scale WvW.

06066 staff will be meta. Expect more variations of group comps. Mesmer wells provide decent buffs to frontline. power necros will still be running wells. almost the same as now, but other classes will be able to provide new roles.

Roaming/small scale.

Ele roaming has pretty much died right now. This is do in large part because of the increase of rangers and the struggle to deal with ranged to engage/disengage from fights.

The new traits will give us the tools to become active in the roaming scene again. 06066 or possibly 06660 will become the new meta builds. One with Air is getting buffed from 1.5s to 3s. This is huge when paired with fresh air. Classes that could defeat us by kiting the entire time will now struggle to create gaps on you. Being able to run when outnumbered is no longer an impossiblity either. Tempest defense synergies well with dagger mainhand. You can use air 5 and gain a 20% damage buff for a burning speed on the enemy. Ive run d/f using fresh air before and while its good burst, it lacked sustainabilty. being able to invest in fully in water and arcana will give good sustain through regen and heals.

Long story short, builds that use fresh air and one with air and focus will be the best ones.

Sword mainhand appears to be a close range weapon as well. depending on the traits, you might find even more variants of viable builds. too soon to tell.

keep in mind these are all my predictions and are in no way true. it is to soon to tell. We will have to wait and see what other specilizations bring to the table.

I don’t know if I agree with the Fresh Air part mainly due to losing some modifiers and Bolt to the Heart. I think that roaming in WvW will highly hinge on what Tempest brings to the table.

And the whole Air #5 to Burning Speed is so overused, so predictable that I don’t really count it as a burst option mainly due to how easily it can be avoided by a decent player. Along with the loss of boons, I think that mindset about roaming is optimistic at best. If we thought LB rangers were a problem before, with the buffs to them engaging/disengaging them will be even harder especially since the easiest disengage denial is just dodge RTL. I’ll wait patiently and see (and hope) that they’ll do something to change this. I also doubt Scepter will be used more mainly because of damage modifier loss and the loss of sustained damage (the little it had) to keep any form of pressure between burst phases.

I agree with the rest of your assessment though.

FrownyClown.8402:

Given everything we have learned about the elementalist and the future of other classes in general this is what I feel will become of the ele after the trait changes.

PvP

The typical d/d build won’t work as well anymore. The benefit of cele was being able to tank on point and win most 1v1s and some 2v1. Removing those evasive arcana and elemental attunment will cripple the build.

no offense but it seems you have no idea how to play a celestial d/d ele then…

the purpose of taking a d/d ele in your team is to have him cleanse and support teammates in a teamfight and not to tank on a point, there are better builds for that.

with the trait changes you will be able to tank better on a point… sadly. nobody needs a point tank so it’s goodbye for d/d ele in pvp.

the reason I said that is because d/d cele support comes passively. It makes a much better roamer than point holder, however it can hold home and win/stalemate almost every 1v1.

I agree that point tankers will be crippled with the changes though.

Raif, I agree it is pretty optimistic. I am going to try the builds though, and if it works I’ll let people know. The air 5 into burning speed is an easy tell I agree. More damage will come from constantly pressuring with lightning whip.

Valid points, though saying I am bad at ele is really uncalled for jekkt.

i haven’t said that you are bad, just that i think that you don’t know how to properly fulfill your role as d/d ele in PvP.

engi for example is a way better roamer, on ele you should not do this because usually fights take long and you will get people on you because of rotations.

your support may activate passively but you should still use it actively.

disagree on WVW: the meta build will be:

• fire/water/arcane for persisting flames + dmg/CD reduction, or
• earth/water/arcane for AOE stab and 20% DR.

air/water/arcane is a distant 3rd, due to only 1 genuinely useful trait (lightning rod), which doesn’t really do enough damage or proc enough to give up the more generally useful benefits of fire or earth.

obviously, staff + cantrips, because Anet haven’t bothered to address (the lack of) weapon/utility choices in WVW; i don’t expect the 20% DR under 600 range to make D/D a practical choice (at least in T1). The superiority of cantrips in PVP/WVW has not been addressed at all.

scerevisiae.1972:

• fire/water/arcane for persisting flames + dmg/CD reduction, or
• earth/water/arcane for AOE stab and 20% DR.

Persisting flames is useless in WVW
Dame reduction at 600 range is useless in pirate ship
AOE stab was a thing before the nerf stab, it snow a crappy trait since it gives only 1stack. I used to play DD with the MT, i just cant now cause it high risk for now no reward

The build WILL be Air/Water/Arcane
Unless Tempest bring something nice
By the way, lightning rod is amazingly powerfull since Stabagedon, and now the combo lightning rod + tempest defense is kinda OP

Mattmatt.4962:

scerevisiae.1972:

• fire/water/arcane for persisting flames + dmg/CD reduction, or
• earth/water/arcane for AOE stab and 20% DR.

Persisting flames is useless in WVW

wtf? hard to take you seriously with this comment. do you think necro wells are useless too? PS lava font is equivalent to a necro well with 100% uptime and a 5sec CD. triple blasting your lava font solo gives your whole group 36seconds of fury. it’s not uncommon after group pre-buffing for my whole group to have 1-2min of fury.

Dame reduction at 600 range is useless in pirate ship

when was the last time your Ele died to ranged damage? exactly.

AOE stab was a thing before the nerf stab, it snow a crappy trait since it gives only 1stack. I used to play DD with the MT, i just cant now cause it high risk for now no reward

maybe you’re not used to fighting good players who interrupt heals. with this trait: attune to earth, use heal, don’t get interrupted. An extra source of AOE group stability is ALWAYS good to have.

The build WILL be Air/Water/Arcane

lightning rod is a small damage add, versus bad players who don’t run/use stability. the better your opponent, the worse the trait becomes. the rest of air is not very useful for a staff ele.

earth offer a lot more to a staff Ele than air any which way you cut it.

I also agree that Air/Water will be the big WvW lines with Earth/Arcane/Tempest being the optionals as the mainstream specs. As always specific groups will be running their own builds that they find work best for their own groups.

Fire simply only really helps Fire and in WvW you really shouldn’t be camping an attunement. Earth looks great for brawler defense but is entirely suspect for Staff Ele. Without needing Blasting Staff Arcane’s main claim to fame will be perma Vigor and lower attunement timers.

with the guild i am currently in we usually have 1 ele for premight stacking. i could see them taking the trait for fury. lighting rod is a decent damage add, critting from around 1.5k on heavies and 3-4k on zerker classes. 1 stack of stability is stupid for 20v20 type fighting.

You’d need around 6k power to do a 4k crit with LR, LR has very low scaling. Not to mention it can only proc on 3 staff long CD skills, and only on players who don’t have stab.

Vs a 50% increase in damage for one of the highest scaling skills in the game, which is on a 5sec cd. I do way more damage with LF in WVW than any other skill.

YMMV but it’s not even close to me.

scerevisiae.1972:

Mattmatt.4962:

scerevisiae.1972:

• fire/water/arcane for persisting flames + dmg/CD reduction, or
• earth/water/arcane for AOE stab and 20% DR.

Persisting flames is useless in WVW

wtf? hard to take you seriously with this comment. do you think necro wells are useless too? PS lava font is equivalent to a necro well with 100% uptime and a 5sec CD. triple blasting your lava font solo gives your whole group 36seconds of fury. it’s not uncommon after group pre-buffing for my whole group to have 1-2min of fury.

Two more tick on lavafront isnt worth taking 3useless minor and 2useless major (well in fact 3 since persisting flame is too ^^). You might have not notice, but there is now an ICD on fury stack, and since you’re supposed to be gorup with eles, they got nice fury uptime by swapping … but i fell like you’re a camping fire pve boy that think is somehow usefull in wvw with the same playstyle

Dame reduction at 600 range is useless in pirate ship

when was the last time your Ele died to ranged damage? exactly.

Last time was when 2ranger and one shortbow venom share thief focused me

AOE stab was a thing before the nerf stab, it snow a crappy trait since it gives only 1stack. I used to play DD with the MT, i just cant now cause it high risk for now no reward

maybe you’re not used to fighting good players who interrupt heals. with this trait: attune to earth, use heal, don’t get interrupted. An extra source of AOE group stability is ALWAYS good to have.

We ’re talking about large scale battle right ? long range stun arent legion, and half can be reflected with magnetic aura. Stability on a gorup of ranged … obviously usefull ….

The build WILL be Air/Water/Arcane

lightning rod is a small damage add, versus bad players who don’t run/use stability. the better your opponent, the worse the trait becomes. the rest of air is not very useful for a staff ele.
earth offer a lot more to a staff Ele than air any which way you cut it.

lightning rod small damage …. have you ever tryied it out ? or maybe are you playing full cleric ? (i’m not even mentionning the weakness)
Player who cant have acces to 32675416254stack of stab are definitely “bad”, you’re right ….
the rest of air isnt nice … tempest defense is huge, especially combined to lightning rod,CDR on air for more air5 is nice too (people who doesnt want to take lightning rod will 90% take it). adept are a bit lackluster but its way better to have one useless trait than a whle spec full of it (read fire)

.
There is only non sense in your statement and examples (cause they’re adapted to 1V1 and very small scale fight while we’re talking about large scale)

Ele going to end up being less support and fill more of a dps or tank roll. It still can be a support roll but over all its losing its one of its support effect but getting many self support and more effective dmg.
D/D 60660 ele is going to be the new self aura support but with out the auras. d/d 06660 going to end up being the new aura support may be losing 6 in air or earth for 6 in ar to go all in support. Staff 66060 all in dmg will be usable in all formats. Staff 06660 going to be a fun hard cc build. The all in support (dmg) staff 06066 will be less self heal and more boon support or the other way over all it will do more dmg. staff 00666 will be the tank build that is imposable to kill.

Mattmatt.4962:

Two more tick on lavafront isnt worth taking 3useless minor and 2useless major (well in fact 3 since persisting flame is too ^^). You might have not notice, but there is now an ICD on fury stack, and since you’re supposed to be gorup with eles, they got nice fury uptime by swapping …

2 more ticks on one of the highest-scaling (3.2 co-efficient), most damaging skills in the game, gg. Like i said, traited LF is effectively a 100% uptime necro well, and should be your most damaging ability.

Fire’s other traits in the XP are not great, but not bad either (+20% dmg, -20% fire CD, cleanse 3 condis + cantrip), but they are better than air.

Btw, fury from swap trait is max 22% uptime, L2Ele.

but i fell like you’re a camping fire pve boy that think is somehow usefull in wvw with the same playstyle

I only roam solo and zerg with staff in T1, but nice try. Solo roaming with staff on Ele takes a fair amount of skill…

When you need damage now now now, PS + fire is where you need to be, and I also find reduced fire CD to be one of the best survivability traits, because fire #4 is incredible. cleanse 3 condi cantrip trait is also great for solo roaming.

Last time was when 2ranger and one shortbow venom share thief focused me

You sound like you’re doing it wrong. As a staff Ele you should easily be able to avoid/counter-pressure a glassy ranger for long enough to re-position or force him to flee. L2 use earth #3, fire #4, lightning flash, and your 3 CC abilities properly.

Point is, passive 20% damage reduction all the time is super strong, in every part of the game, and that’s before you add in the anti-crit or anti-condi GM. Maybe the best reason to take earth as 3rd trait line is that it should enable you to gear for higher damage, without losing survivability.

We ’re talking about large scale battle right ? long range stun arent legion, and half can be reflected with magnetic aura. Stability on a gorup of ranged … obviously usefull ….

You’re right, stability while healing, caught by the train, or channelling meteor shower is totally not useful……

lightning rod small damage …. have you ever tryied it out ? or maybe are you playing full cleric ? (i’m not even mentionning the weakness)

The damage is ok, when you can actualy get it to proc. good groups/players will avoid or stab through your 2 good CC skills, which makes your GM trait useless a lot of the time.

Besides, a handful of 2K dmg ticks from your 2 main CC skills every 30sec+ is not that exciting. With PS, your LF can do an extra 2x 2K+ dmg ticks every 5sec, it’s so much more damage it’s not even comparable. Not to mention, PS gives close to 100% fury uptime… tons more dmg.

Not to mention: LR coeff = 0.3, LF coeff = 3.2

I’m not saying LR is a bad trait, it’s not bad at all, but it’s not as much damage as you think it is + the crappiness of air puts it 3rd of my list of 3rd trait lines after water & arcane.

the rest of air isnt nice … tempest defense is huge, especially combined to lightning rod,

TD is pretty crappy, if you’re getting caught by a melee disable (the only thing it’s useful against), you made a mistake and/or are doing it wrong. TD + LR will be an improvement though, i’ll be trying it ofc, but i think earth or fire is going to be overall better.

There is only non sense in your statement and examples (cause they’re adapted to 1V1 and very small scale fight while we’re talking about large scale)

I think you need to L2Ele better. like i said above, my perspective comes from someone who plays t1 oceanic, so while it’s true i do roam 1v1 (and 1v2 ;-)) with staff (because i like hard-mode), i do plenty of large and v large scale as well. PS is better than you think, try it.

Your 2more tick on lavafront will never proc,:
-in 1v1, 1v2 (i do roam too so stop assuming thing) for obvious reason
- in large scale, i donno how you play in NA, but i hope your blob are somehow mobile. There is no way your lavafront touch 5players every ticks unless someguy got rooted and boon stripped to death, and even in this case, its useless as kitten since the guy is dead no matter what (if you cant concede the fact that a guy rooted for 10sec boon stripped is dead, its the kittening proof you donno how large scale battle work and will settle the end of our argument)
By the way, mentionning tick, LF is target-capped while StaticField isnt. The damage ratio barely compensate this fact since your 2last tick would only touch downed player (and probably in their downing phase where they’re unvulnerable).
Ans once again, curently 6K crit on backline (who rarely have stability) that will be increased by TempestDefense, just reckt backline. (not even mentionning the fact that with the AOE display cap, at least half the player donno that your SF is a SF and will walk out of it thinking its a regular AOE without especially having stability (once again backliner barely have it in regular builds)

One stab stack wont save you, and if you need one stack stab to use ER then you just use it in wrong location, it’s nice in small scale, but not in large scale, i’d rather take earth’s mastery for cc reduction and cdr on 3-4-5earth staff.
But still, since you need at least one damage spe (and it should be air especially with the power stat leaving fire), water for the support, i think that perma vigor from arcana, one of the EA and EC (RIP this trait, but its the best we have) gives more survivability than earth … but i think you cant understand this if you think that 20%DamageReduction is usefull as staff in zerg … and StoneHearth too, cause you never camp earth,, it probably is the element where you spend the less amoungh of time when staff ele is played right.
Cause yeah i probably play ele better than you, cause argument like “i’m playing in T1” means NOTHING.

Dont forget that PS will be nerfed and wont give 100% fury uptime … and i’m just thinking this: how the kitten do you maintain 100% uptime ??? unless you’re running AW (which is a nice spell) and use your lavafront to stack 1time out of 2 (well maybe 3 with Swap, too lazy to count), you’ll never get 100% outside of paper.

All your statement are nice on paper but in fact are false. You’re perma assuming your lavafront will touch 5players every tickwhich is non sense.

About the FP, if you think you can survive a FP of 2 ranger overbuffed by a venomshare thief that focuses you, unless you have EVERYTHING up (4fire, mist form, blink, and 3earth) then you’re just a liar, or the kind of ranged that play cowardly behind the MT waiting for the good eles to place the burst initiation) but according to what you said, you’re not (which i tend to believe since the discution bring somehow good arguments)

Finnaly:
Just stop with your “L2P”, i provide fact, and real combat situation (once again assuming the whole LF will touch 5player each time is just crazyness), while you’re only speaking on paper.

if you’re not able to land all your LF ticks, then i think i’ve found the problem, you’re not placing them well, L2P?

also, you’re not getting 6K lightning rod crits on level 80s, LR has a 0.322 coeff, mathematically it’s not possible, you’d need 10K+ power.

also, i get focused/target-called all the time, i just don’t die to rangers… at least, i can’t remember the last time, their damage is so easy to avoid, lol. Reflect/fire #4/LFlash/obstruct/prot-tank/counter-pressure/kite through or past your melee train, and if start running out of options you should be able to out-heal them for a long time by double or triple blasting your own fields and cycling CDs. Fire #4 on a 16sec CD helps a lot, as does dodging/pre-kiting as soon as damage is taken.

Again, sounds a lot likea L2P issue, i’m sensing a theme here…

We can agree to disagree on how good air will be in the expac, noone really knows until we try it. On the other stuff, the things you describe as problems i simply don’t have. Maybe our playstyles are vastly different… or maybe there are L2P issues, idk lol.

Here we are, no argument so spamm “l2p” …
Thank you for this easy win

By the way, its not a matter of “missplacing the LF”, its a matter of “is the ennemy dumb enough to stay in it ?” … blaming a player for facing opponent that use they keyboard to walk out …. pretty funny.
I lost all interest to discuss with you

By the way, Air is already stornger than fire, and its getting enhanced (exept for fresh air spec) while fire is still poor (worst gm trait ever)

Mattmatt.4962:

Here we are, no argument so spamm “l2p” …
Thank you for this easy win

By the way, its not a matter of “missplacing the LF”, its a matter of “is the ennemy dumb enough to stay in it ?” … blaming a player for facing opponent that use they keyboard to walk out …. pretty funny.
I lost all interest to discuss with you

By the way, Air is already stornger than fire, and its getting enhanced (exept for fresh air spec) while fire is still poor (worst gm trait ever)

Well, I agree with you in this. There is literally no way anyone will be willingly standing in LF for the whole duration. If you’re against people with a brain, you’ll get one proc of it max.

Air is probably stronger than fire, however both lines are not great. I honestly couldn’t care less about some fire aura line, completely uninterested. However, fresh air was my favourite build (because there is no other power spec for ele) and I don’t think it’ll be in a great state after the nerf and nor there will be any other power build unless tempest is awesome. That doesn’t come only from trait lines, though. Scepter is just so bad.

Well they are clearly mixing the professions. Guardian/Ranger, Mesmer/Necro, Necro/Warrior…this leaves Ele to be mixed with a Thief, a Mesmer or an Engi. Most are predicating that Ranger is getting either Ele or Guardian…though, Engi is getting a hammer so that could be Guardian too. Ahh…so much stuff!

All three seem like a neat idea…dunno how they will implement it though.

Out of the last mixes I think it’s going to be:

Ele+Thief
Ranger+Ele
Engie+Guardian
Warrior+Mesmer
Thief+Engie

The problem is…we saw a profession using a thief stealth mechanic when they were first showing off the HoT expac. It looked like a warrior but I haven’t looked at the video for a while. So if I had to guess:

Warrior – Thief (speculating because vid showed a prof that looked heavy using shadowy)
Guardian – Ranger (we know this because they are getting traps and longbow)
Engi – Guardian (speculating this because we know 100% they are getting hammer)
Thief – Engi (we know thief are getting rifle, video showed med prof using rife)
Ranger – Ele (speculating this because we know 100% they are getting staff)
Ele – Mesmer
Mesmer -Necro (we know this because they are getting Necro wells)
Necro – Warrior (we know they are getting shouts and a greatsword)

Though Warrior/Mesmer and Ele/Thief could be switched

Yea I just don’t necessarily see what Mesmer has to offer us as a secondary class and Thief to a warrior. Both are fairly already in line with each other as is which is why I think it’ll be Ele+Thief and Warrior+Mesmer cause each are sufficiently different to mix things up. Also to be fair Mesmer is quite reknown for stealth as well with the PU builds so could easily be that as well.

Dunno have to see. I think we’re going to see Warrior→ Ranger / Ele – > Thief → Engie in terms of class reveals so we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully I’m wrong and Ele is next

Ele/Thief would definitely be my pick. Would be awesome to have stealth…

Also, we know for sure 100% that Engi is getting a hammer. That means either Guardian or Warrior, but Necro already got Warrior this week. So that leaves Guardian for Engi.

Warrior can’t get Ranger because Guardian already got it.

Ele/thief = stealth (trident get stealth already) or sword teleport ( burst sword ele ) + elemental deception

Ele/mesmer = stealth + clones (vapor based clones, some gas maybe based clone +stealth) + mantra that power up the ele

See I think things like clones are off limits because really that’s the profession mechanic. It’d be like another class getting Attunements.

Whomever gets Mesmers is gonna get Mantras, Glamours or Manipulations. Mantras seem the most likely, but yuck to whomever gets it. Knowing Elementalist’s luck if we got Mesmer we’d get Mantras. I’m hoping however since Warriors generally lack ranged AOE type moves in their utilities they would get Glamour type abilities maybe with a twist or something.

Time will tell

rabidsmiles.5926:

Ele/Thief would definitely be my pick. Would be awesome to have stealth…

Also, we know for sure 100% that Engi is getting a hammer. That means either Guardian or Warrior, but Necro already got Warrior this week. So that leaves Guardian for Engi.

Warrior can’t get Ranger because Guardian already got it.

Same, I think stealth and mobility would make the dps specs of ele viable. I think it’s likely, but I’m afraid they will go the route of mesmer and give us some kitten mantras. That would be probably the worst out of all for me.

It also makes sense, if you think tempest, stealth wouldn’t be so far from it thematically.

Laraley.7695:

I’m afraid they will go the route of mesmer and give us some kitten mantras. That would be probably the worst out of all for me.

It also makes sense, if you think tempest, stealth wouldn’t be so far from it thematically.

Something gives me the feeling we are going to get a bunch of worthless mantras too. Perhaps it will allow us to have a better 1-trick pony 1-shot build, although taking 2 arcanes + Lightning flash is about as much burst as you could hope.

Or…a thought just struck me with my theory list. We could be getting mechanics from one profession and a weapon from another.

So:

Warrior – Thief (or Mesmer) and ? (?/?)
Guardian – Ranger/Thief (longbow/traps)
Engi – Guardian(or Warrior)/? (hammer/?)
Ranger – Ele and ? (staff/?)
Thief – Engi and ? (rifle/?)
Ele – Mesmer (or Thief) and ? (Sword/?)
Mesmer – Guardian (or Warrior) and Necro (Shield/Wells)
Necro – Warrior and Guardian (Greatsword/Shouts) Order doesn’t matter here, as both professions have access to both.

Would be interesting to see…this thought came about because it struck me that while Mesmers are getting wells, they are also getting a shield. Necros don’t use a shield…so where does that come from? Obviously from another profession.

Would love to see Ele/Thief with some stealth mechanics, but how would that fit into a ‘Tempest’ theme?

The Great Al.2546:

Would love to see Ele/Thief with some stealth mechanics, but how would that fit into a ‘Tempest’ theme?

Sure…the definition of a Tempest is a violent windstorm or a violent commotion. Combine the tactics of a thief and an ele and you got something violent

The Great Al.2546:

Would love to see Ele/Thief with some stealth mechanics, but how would that fit into a ‘Tempest’ theme?

Wind can put quite some dust in the air (just got my eyes destroyed by it this morning while jogging ^^). Its basically the idea used for stealth trident.
And to me, Tempest is something fast that hit hard and that you dont necesseraly see coming (#thief)

Mattmatt.4962:

By the way, its not a matter of “missplacing the LF”, its a matter of “is the ennemy dumb enough to stay in it ?” … blaming a player for facing opponent that use they keyboard to walk out ….

i thought we were talking about large-scale? a well-placed LF will have the whole train travelling through it. plus Ele has 2 hard AOE CCs, 2 soft AOE CCs, not too hard to maximise LF damage, just takes a bit more skill than dropping a static once every 30sec and lolbignumberz….

By the way, Air is already stornger than fire, and its getting enhanced (exept for fresh air spec) while fire is still poor (worst gm trait ever)

air and fire are both getting buffed because they were weaker than earth.

it’s ok if you want to surrender the argument buddy, pretty clear we’re on different skill levels anyway.

scerevisiae.1972:

Mattmatt.4962:

By the way, its not a matter of “missplacing the LF”, its a matter of “is the ennemy dumb enough to stay in it ?” … blaming a player for facing opponent that use they keyboard to walk out ….

i thought we were talking about large-scale? a well-placed LF will have the whole train travelling through it. plus Ele has 2 hard AOE CCs, 2 soft AOE CCs, not too hard to maximise LF damage, just takes a bit more skill than dropping a static once every 30sec and lolbignumberz….

By the way, Air is already stornger than fire, and its getting enhanced (exept for fresh air spec) while fire is still poor (worst gm trait ever)

air and fire are both getting buffed because they were weaker than earth.

it’s ok if you want to surrender the argument buddy, pretty clear we’re on different skill levels anyway.

Wat. Air is getting buffed? Yeah, no.

And the changes to fire are rather sad than good.

Laraley.7695:

Wat. Air is getting buffed? Yeah, no.

?? All but one of the adept and master traits were buffed.

And the changes to fire are rather sad than good.

there are some more improvements that could be made but overall are in the right direction i think:

• blinding ashes on a 3sec CD looks pretty good, nice synergy with fire aura
• fire aura being made into a major source of might is a change in the right direction, up to now fire aura has been totally useless. FA may still need to be stronger though, need to see what the changes are to burning. if burning is weaker (as it appears to be), then fire aura prob needs to come up some more
• adept traits are all a bit unexciting, burning precision is the best of them

so there are some stronger traits, some weak traits, fire as a line all hinges on what the changes are to burning and fire aura.

burning precision – burning fire – blinding ashes looks pretty good

scerevisiae.1972:

Laraley.7695:

Wat. Air is getting buffed? Yeah, no.

?? All but one of the adept and master traits were buffed.

And the changes to fire are rather sad than good.

there are some more improvements that could be made but overall are in the right direction i think:

• blinding ashes on a 3sec CD looks pretty good, nice synergy with fire aura
• fire aura being made into a major source of might is a change in the right direction, up to now fire aura has been totally useless. FA may still need to be stronger though, need to see what the changes are to burning. if burning is weaker (as it appears to be), then fire aura prob needs to come up some more
• adept traits are all a bit unexciting, burning precision is the best of them

so there are some stronger traits, some weak traits, fire as a line all hinges on what the changes are to burning and fire aura.

burning precision – burning fire – blinding ashes looks pretty good

1. Losing Air training
2. Moving Bolt to the heart to GM.

In numbers there might be more buffs, but these were important for fresh air. So yeah, it’s really not a buff since fresh air was the only spec using this line in pvp.

Laraley.7695:

1. Losing Air training
2. Moving Bolt to the heart to GM.

In numbers there might be more buffs, but these were important for fresh air. So yeah, it’s really not a buff since fresh air was the only spec using this line in pvp.

While bolt to the heart change hurts dps, air training isn’t that much dps for fresh-air, as the CD reduction of air helps you get more lightning procs (as well as the added access to the defensive skills).

Still just adding 10% crit. damage (150 ferocity) isn’t even as much as increasing the damage on critical hits by 10% (as 1.1*1.5 > 1*(1.5+0.1)).

BlackBeard.2873:

Laraley.7695:

1. Losing Air training
2. Moving Bolt to the heart to GM.

In numbers there might be more buffs, but these were important for fresh air. So yeah, it’s really not a buff since fresh air was the only spec using this line in pvp.

While bolt to the heart change hurts dps, air training isn’t that much dps for fresh-air, as the CD reduction of air helps you get more lightning procs (as well as the added access to the defensive skills).

Still just adding 10% crit. damage (150 ferocity) isn’t even as much as increasing the damage on critical hits by 10% (as 1.1*1.5 > 1*(1.5+0.1)).

How is 10% more damage in air not dps for ele? Of course it is.

Fresh Air builds weren’t nerfed, they had their role changed. Less burst for more utility and speed.

After seeing dragonhunter (worst name ever) and now reaper, i’m betting that Tempest will add a 5th attunement, arcane maybe?

The name also strongly implies something to do with storms, so could be wildly wrong there.

Not super fussed about what the utility type is, Anet seem determined to keep cantrips as the only reasonable utility choice.

scerevisiae.1972:

After seeing dragonhunter (worst name ever) and now reaper, i’m betting that Tempest will add a 5th attunement, arcane maybe?

The name also strongly implies something to do with storms, so could be wildly wrong there.

Not super fussed about what the utility type is, Anet seem determined to keep cantrips as the only reasonable utility choice.

That would mean designing 15 (old weapons) + 15 (sword most likely) new skills, I doubt that will happen.

Laraley.7695:

BlackBeard.2873:

Laraley.7695:

1. Losing Air training
2. Moving Bolt to the heart to GM.

In numbers there might be more buffs, but these were important for fresh air. So yeah, it’s really not a buff since fresh air was the only spec using this line in pvp.

While bolt to the heart change hurts dps, air training isn’t that much dps for fresh-air, as the CD reduction of air helps you get more lightning procs (as well as the added access to the defensive skills).

Still just adding 10% crit. damage (150 ferocity) isn’t even as much as increasing the damage on critical hits by 10% (as 1.1*1.5 > 1*(1.5+0.1)).

How is 10% more damage in air not dps for ele? Of course it is.

I am saying it wasn’t that much LOST dps. Sorry I missed a word. My point is that you are losing 10% damage in air to get 10% crit damage, which is certainly a big reduction. However, the CDR partially makes up for that loss by giving you greater access to lightning strikes, while also improving your access to the defenses in air.

So yes, it is less initial burst, but the sustained damage is not hurt that much (on a single-target) due to lower CD on the #2 lightning strike.

Trust me, I dislike the change from 10% damage to 10% crit damage too (as explained why the latter is far inferior in the original reply), but you can’t dismiss the added CDR bonus when comparing DPS capability.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Fresh Air builds weren’t nerfed, they had their role changed. Less burst for more utility and speed.

Except, that is a major nerf when the ROLE of scepter-FA is roaming burst (and that is only role it can fulfill). The only thing scepter is good for is burst, and without that the weapon is 100% dead. Not only does nerfing the damage hurt its viability within the burst role (and burst is all it had going for it), it also nerfs the survivability of the spec. Fresh air is one of the few cases in this game where “a good offense is a good defense,” as it relies on heavy counter-pressure for its own survivability. Thus, nerfing the damage also nerfs its own self-survival. So what does the spec get? More speed?…Nope, the increase in super-speed uptime only effects in-combat mobility, which wasn’t really a problem to start with due to high swiftness and Lightning flash. Its not going to allow you to get away from a d/p thief with its no-cd gap-closers. Support? When was the last time a burst spec was chosen b/c it can heal and cleanse his allies well? So what other utility does FA has? slightly lower CD on a projectile reflect, a blind, and knock-down – sounds game changing.

In the end, the approach Anet has taken with ele, ESPECIALLY fresh-air burst specs is terrible. The spec is already B-tier at best, and it is only falling further behind other classes due to reliance on a lousy main-hand weapon and being forced to take a bunch of lousy traits because ele trait lines are a mess.

Laraley.7695:

scerevisiae.1972:

After seeing dragonhunter (worst name ever) and now reaper, i’m betting that Tempest will add a 5th attunement, arcane maybe?

The name also strongly implies something to do with storms, so could be wildly wrong there.

Not super fussed about what the utility type is, Anet seem determined to keep cantrips as the only reasonable utility choice.

That would mean designing 15 (old weapons) + 15 (sword most likely) new skills, I doubt that will happen.

Not necessarily, they could just be 5 “tempest” skills in the arcane attunement, not tied to weapon.

Also your maths are off, even if they kept the current convention it would be 5 staff, 5 trident, 3 sceptre, 3 sword, 3 dagger MH + 2 dagger OH + 2 focus == 23 skills, of which only half need to be any good, the rest can be filler, just like current Ele ;-)

2. Moving Bolt to the heart to GM.

Let’s face it, this was a pretty bad design decision, it was only a strong trait for FA spec and moving it to GM kills the only spec that really needed it.

Now it’s just a really weak GM.

scerevisiae.1972:

Laraley.7695:

scerevisiae.1972:

After seeing dragonhunter (worst name ever) and now reaper, i’m betting that Tempest will add a 5th attunement, arcane maybe?

The name also strongly implies something to do with storms, so could be wildly wrong there.

Not super fussed about what the utility type is, Anet seem determined to keep cantrips as the only reasonable utility choice.

That would mean designing 15 (old weapons) + 15 (sword most likely) new skills, I doubt that will happen.

Not necessarily, they could just be 5 “tempest” skills in the arcane attunement, not tied to weapon.

Also your maths are off, even if they kept the current convention it would be 5 staff, 5 trident, 3 sceptre, 3 sword, 3 dagger MH + 2 dagger OH + 2 focus == 23 skills, of which only half need to be any good, the rest can be filler, just like current Ele ;-)

My math is correct:

3 dagger mainhand
2 dagger offhand
5 staff
3 scepter
2 focus
=15
3 sword fire
3 sword air
3 sword water
3 sword earth
3 sword tempest
=15
>> 30
They can’t give you sword without creating skills for current attunements, unless ele will be played completely different and it won’t have acess to any of the current attunements with the spec.

I didn’t count underwater weapons because they’re so insignificant, I didn’t think about it and they hardly have to balance them.

True. 30 new skills just for 1 new specialisation prob is too many to be likely.

There is a 3rd option: a 5th attunement but no new weapon -that would “only” be 20 skills.

Will be interesting to see what they go with.

I think we might get thief style sword skills (mobility and evade) and something similar to venons (weapon enchantments) based on each attunement.
I just hope we get some elite that its actually useful.

lLobo.7960:

I think we might get thief style sword skills (mobility and evade) and something similar to venons (weapon enchantments) based on each attunement.
I just hope we get some elite that its actually useful.

Pls no venoms

Teef is great.

Deceptions are great.

Sealth is great.

Pls make it happen.