Guild Wars 2

All I can say is… be ready.

Expect things like lightning flash no longer stunbreaks, bountiful power reduced to 1% per boon, and no real buffs to damage, etc etc

This forum is going to be a mess in a few days time.

i believe it will still be instant..so you will be able to teleport while cced you just would appear with your face on the ground :P

They also reduced Lightning Flash’s cooldown and increased its damage. And it’s still an instant skill, so it’s likely that you can still USE it while stunned, you’ll just still be stunned on arrival, which honestly amounts to much of the same thing. The Mesmer’s #2 skill on their staff works like that and the movement along usually buys you enough time to eat the stun and continue on your merry way.

I gotta say, if the supposed leaked patch notes are accurate, I’m actually really excited. A lot more Ele builds will be a lot more viable now.

its not the nerfs you need to worry about, its the buffs.

thieves and mesmers are getting a condi called torment that does damage to anyone that decides to move.

GG.

Raven.9603:

its not the nerfs you need to worry about, its the buffs.

thieves and mesmers are getting a condi called torment that does damage to anyone that decides to move.

GG.

And Necros.

So what? Cleanse the darn thing with one of our many condi removals. Or don’t, since most Mesmers and Thieves go for direct-damage builds so their Torment stacks will barely tickle.

kostbabis.8791:

i believe it will still be instant..so you will be able to teleport while cced you just would appear with your face on the ground :P

Pretty much this it will still be instant cast you can still move away just doesn’t break stun.

My guess is they will also nerf/rework/remove Zephyr’s Boon to get rid off perma fury and swiftness on D/D.

What I expect overall is:
- Less survivability from cantrips. They’re prolly gonna move at least 2 stunbreaks from cantrips over to glyph or signets, so we’re forced to choose between a stronger activated defense CD but without stunbreak (cantrip), or some mediocre passive/active effect with a stunbreaker (signet/glyph). Overall, defense & survivability from utilities will be lower.
- They’re probably gonna tone down our offensive boons as well, removing perma fury on D/D and probably finding some way to limit our might stacking as well.
- Further, some aspects of Water and Arcana might get hit as well, most likely condition removal and our access to vigor and regeneration.

xiv.7136:

All I can say is… be ready.

Expect things like lightning flash no longer stunbreaks, bountiful power reduced to 1% per boon, and no real buffs to damage, etc etc

This forum is going to be a mess in a few days time.

Ok most people have seen the leaked patch notes. Those are not serious nerfs at all.

Its more buffs than nerfs. No real buffs to damage? Heh? You should go look at the notes again and read slower. Earth magic trait change?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Raven.9603:

its not the nerfs you need to worry about, its the buffs.

thieves and mesmers are getting a condi called torment that does damage to anyone that decides to move.

GG.

And Necros.

So what? Cleanse the darn thing with one of our many condi removals. Or don’t, since most Mesmers and Thieves go for direct-damage builds so their Torment stacks will barely tickle.

Mesmers don’t use the scepter. If they started using it for torment, if the leaked notes are true, then they would have to give away the staff, the greatsword or the sword (blurred frenzy).

Torment on mesmers and thieves will only be used in new builds for them, not in older builds.

Can we even talk about leaked notes without getting banned? I’d be careful discussing anything like that on these forums if I were you, especially if its negative.

Raven.9603:

its not the nerfs you need to worry about, its the buffs.

thieves and mesmers are getting a condi called torment that does damage to anyone that decides to move.

GG.

If that is true, most….kittened….addition….ever!

To the one that said Mesmers don`t use scepter. I`ve one & do.

Torment is a condition, it’s going to use condition damage… We don’t even know which weapon set it will be on, possibly the weakest ones to give people a reason to use them (p/p for example)

I wonder if people would be complaining if we got torment on the focus…

imagine a mesmer with 1200 condition damage using both torment and confusion!!!
I would still want to see Torment because it’d break the idea of mobility being vital in pvp. Kinda like an anti-mobility mechanism for two of the most mobile professions in the game…

AoE nerfs will be on the cards. I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!! WE STAFF USERS ARE SCREWED!.
/end trolling.

I have no confidences whatsoever at the devs when it comes to patching skills and traits….. I am expecting nerfs and MORE nerfs…… I may as well strip naked and dance all day in LA….eventually….because it would come a time when an ambient bunny would take 10 hits to kill….. and get one-shot by a level 2 doe………..

If the leaked notes are correct:

There are only 7 nerfs out of the entire list. Those are:

Lightning Flash: Stun breaker removed (nerf). Cooldown reduced to 40s, damage increased 50% (both of the latter effects are actually a buff)
Cleansing Fire: Stun breaker removed (nerf). Cooldown reduced to 40s (buff)
Lightning Touch: Weakness duration reduced to 3 seconds
Bountiful Power: Damage increase per buff reduced to 1%
Stoning: Weakness duration reduced
Glyph of Elemental Power: Weakness duration reduced (nerf), now a stun breaker (buff)
Electrocute: Cooldown increased to 12s (nerf), damage increased 50%, now stacks vuln

Of these nerfs, I’ve bolded the ones that have any effect on standard D/D land combat. Electrocute affects almost any build as no elementalist can avoid using trident.

The nerfed cantrips are both getting buffs in other areas to compensate, and literally every other item on the ele changelist is a buff. Mostly to staff, which is underplayed in pvp and in need of a buff.

D/D will still work. You have one less cantrip stun breaker and two less options for stun breakers in the first two slots, but if you want a third stun breaker, ele still has just as many as before, and air 10 being a standard means you can have the cooldown trait on the Glyph by default – and as the cooldown on it hasn’t been increased, that would make it a 36 second cooldown stun breaker, faster than any already run by D/D, while also providing your choice of conditions on attacks. Or you could use the signet of air and get a 30s stun breaker. Whatever. If you don’t actually need the stun break, lightning flash/cleansing fire will still both proc regen and vigor in a cantrips build, and more often too.

This is far from the end of the world, and the buffs that don’t affect D/D bunker look like a step in the right direction for any staff user, as well as condition and burst builds.

Edit: just to clarify, everything I’ve said is dependent on the leak being correct. We won’t know for certain until the patch, no matter how realistic it seems right now.

looks like the usual middle finger to pve players to me…..

LordByron.8369:

looks like the usual middle finger to pve players to me…..

You realize you’re playing a PvP game?

r z.7261:

LordByron.8369:

looks like the usual middle finger to pve players to me…..

You realize you’re playing a PvP game?

no i realize that this is aPVE game and if pve players left the game it would die in a week, instead if pvp players left the game nobody would notice…..

all be prepared!! august patch evasiva arcane nerf and cd swamp attunement 20 sec

stunbreak on signet and glyph? are you kidding? every signet and every glyph sucks and are totaly usless!!

LordByron.8369:

r z.7261:

LordByron.8369:

looks like the usual middle finger to pve players to me…..

You realize you’re playing a PvP game?

no i realize that this is aPVE game and if pve players left the game it would die in a week, instead if pvp players left the game nobody would notice…..

So true. I know there are a fair number of primarily PvP-centric players, but based on PvP server activity levels when I do occasionally PvP, it seems it’s a very small percentage of the overall active player base.

The custom arena tokens may help increase revenue from those players, but I’d also think that they tend to spend a lot less on average per month on gems.

I love that PvP is a strong feature of this game, but it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of players and the vast majority of revenue, comes from PvE/WvW players.

Now, if you were to say that the ANet devs tend to balance the game as if it were primarily a PvP game, that might be more accurate. I get that balance is more important for competitive PvP, I also appreciate that they are starting to split some skills between PvP and PvE versions, but they still tend to mess with PvE balance much more than necessary based on PvP centric changes that should have seen skill splits, but didn’t.

I’m not even sure how to respond to someone who feels WvW is a PvE activity rather than a PvP environment.

I don’t go out to the borderlands to fight Skritt and Centuars for hours at a time… I’m looking to stab players.

I’m not sure if the weakness duration reductions (across all classes) are a nerf, since weakness itself now applies to crits.

I think 25% is a bit too random though.. I’d prefer 50% chance of 25% reduction rather than the other way around, but time will tell..

Cantrips not breaking stuns is a big deal guys. Those stun breaks have saved me, and you, countless times.

Given what is happening with necros and other classes with torment, and other classes like warriors (who are getting very significant buffs), ele’s are ending up relatively weaker.

You can make the argument that the cast/recast reductions for staff make up for it, but it doesn’t fix stuff like fire 2 delay, air 2 missing etc.

Not a total disaster, but comparing to others, some very real nerfs there.

There’s almost no nerf. The weakness reductions are a reaction to weakness getting stronger – those should actually count as buffs. Two stunbreaking cantrips are still good, and they other two are getting buffed in other ways. Electrocute received a strong buff, and the higher cooldown is to prevent it from being op.

The only real nerf listed there, is Bountiful Power, which is more than fair.

Perfect, more nerfs & not enough “fixes” to the lack of different builds while still maintaining current d/d and s/d builds.

All I can say is “nerf nerf nerf” until we’re non existant class, then maybe they’ll build us back up instead of burying is in the backyard of lack of dev concern for the class.

I see much more buffs/fixes/opportunities than nerfs.

I mean, nerf count is:
-cleansing fire no more stunbreak (nobody use this in a cantrip build due to CW+regen on cantrip combo anyway)
-lighting flash no more stunbreak(which will stay istant cast, so it’s like a gtaoe phase retreat. oh and got nice CD reduction)
-bountiful power nerfed of 50% (….of 2% dmg. so you lose 1% dmg for boon with this patch. wow. this will destroy every ele dps attempt, ! /sarcasm)
-and..uh..end.
Now go list all buffs.

Think whatever you want, this seems great patch, at very least as starting point.

My WvW Staff Ele is still at full power, untouched and ready to rock, at increased casting speed since 25th.

@AndrewSX the OP was just being a doomsayer. You know one of those people that like to tell people he has it all figured out and people should listen to him cause he is always right. So far the forums seem the opposite of what he predicted go figure…

oZii.2864:

@AndrewSX the OP was just being a doomsayer. You know one of those people that like to tell people he has it all figured out and people should listen to him cause he is always right. So far the forums seem the opposite of what he predicted go figure…

I know, but can’t resist to the call of “prove them wrong!”

:D

Bountiful power is a pretty big nerf. Losing 5-7% constant damage is a large amount. If you don’t invest in water, it’s tough to survive any amount of firepower. BP mitigated some of the damage you lose by being forced to invest in a tree just to reach a necessary level of survivability.

The big one to me that nobody seems to be mentioning is the Glyph of Elemental Power stunbreaker. Not only is it a pretty poor choice of a skill to be a stunbreaker in the first place, it has a 1 1/4 second cast time. What good is that? By the time you break the stun, it’s already done what it needed to. So moving the stunbreaker there is pretty much taking one away from elementalist.

I really like the staff changes, as it was my weapon of choice for a long time, but some of these reduce the viability of already viable builds, while not really creating anything that can match them. Fresh Air, among other things, seem like steps in the right direction, while some changes are really just head scratching. It seems like other classes got improvements to already good builds (Warriors CD reduction on all heals, torment for Mesmer & Thief) or changes that could potentially create viable builds (Reduction on CDs + Stunbreak & Stability on wells for Necro plus boosts to Death Shroud, big upgrades to sword & traits that synergize with cripple/immob for Warrior, huge buffs to rupt skills for Mesmer)

Ushio.7138:

Bountiful power is a pretty big nerf. Losing 5-7% constant damage is a large amount. If you don’t invest in water, it’s tough to survive any amount of firepower. BP mitigated some of the damage you lose by being forced to invest in a tree just to reach a necessary level of survivability.

The big one to me that nobody seems to be mentioning is the Glyph of Elemental Power stunbreaker. Not only is it a pretty poor choice of a skill to be a stunbreaker in the first place, it has a 1 1/4 second cast time. What good is that? By the time you break the stun, it’s already done what it needed to. So moving the stunbreaker there is pretty much taking one away from elementalist.

While I do agree that the bountiful power nerf will decrease the efficiency of the D/D ele x-x-x-30-30 builds, I think it’s mostly negligible and doesn’t detract from the ability to stay alive, which is the main purpose of going bunker, outlasting your opponent. If you want to do some serious damage, you’ll have to go and try out some new builds. And with the changes to the air traitline (Fresh Air sounds like an awesome trait) you will be able to do just that.

The glyph of elemental power sounds to me as the best glyph to put a stun breaker on. I’m pretty sure it will break stun first and then start casting the glyph itself. At least that would be the logical thing to do.

Overall I’m pretty excited about all the changes coming our way, it’s good they’re shaking up the whole meta all at once instead of releasing small patches all the time. At least like this people will have to figure out new builds and the meta will be rocky for quite some time.

Mclol.1436:

Ushio.7138:

Bountiful power is a pretty big nerf. Losing 5-7% constant damage is a large amount. If you don’t invest in water, it’s tough to survive any amount of firepower. BP mitigated some of the damage you lose by being forced to invest in a tree just to reach a necessary level of survivability.

The big one to me that nobody seems to be mentioning is the Glyph of Elemental Power stunbreaker. Not only is it a pretty poor choice of a skill to be a stunbreaker in the first place, it has a 1 1/4 second cast time. What good is that? By the time you break the stun, it’s already done what it needed to. So moving the stunbreaker there is pretty much taking one away from elementalist.

While I do agree that the bountiful power nerf will decrease the efficiency of the D/D ele x-x-x-30-30 builds, I think it’s mostly negligible and doesn’t detract from the ability to stay alive, which is the main purpose of going bunker, outlasting your opponent. If you want to do some serious damage, you’ll have to go and try out some new builds. And with the changes to the air traitline (Fresh Air sounds like an awesome trait) you will be able to do just that.

The glyph of elemental power sounds to me as the best glyph to put a stun breaker on. I’m pretty sure it will break stun first and then start casting the glyph itself. At least that would be the logical thing to do.

Overall I’m pretty excited about all the changes coming our way, it’s good they’re shaking up the whole meta all at once instead of releasing small patches all the time. At least like this people will have to figure out new builds and the meta will be rocky for quite some time.

As a general rule, all stun breakers need to be instant cast. If they’re not, two possibilities occur:

1) The stun break doesn’t work because you can only cast instant-cast spells while stunned.
2) The stun break happens when you activate the spell, meaning you could cancel the spell to get the stun break back after just 3 seconds.

The first makes the stun break pointless, the second breaks the game. GoEP is likely becoming instant cast.

I was under the assumption that the Glyph would become instant cast as well.

emikochan.8504:

I’m not sure if the weakness duration reductions (across all classes) are a nerf, since weakness itself now applies to crits.

I think 25% is a bit too random though.. I’d prefer 50% chance of 25% reduction rather than the other way around, but time will tell..

Well, GW2 has decided to label them that way. usually when we talk about GW2 PvP, we are talking about Competitive PvP. Of course WvW is primarily a PvP activity, but that wasn’t what the person was talking about. It is clear that cPvP is the over-riding focus for profession balance in the game. Not all changes made for CPvP are good for PvE or WvW.

I disagree that taking stun break from an existing skill to put it on Glyph of Elemental Power was a good idea. GoEP is an over time proc effect. It’s not a Signet, the 30 second proc window only starts when you activate the skill.

I don’t know what the proc percentage is, but it is a proc, not a guaranteed trigger. It also can only trigger once every five seconds on a given target. It’s something you want to fire off early in combat and forget. It’s not an effect that’s conducive as an “oh kitten” button. Saving this skill as a stun break kills the skills main, limited usefulness. That it’s additional effect has no value as an “Oh Kitten” situational ability makes this skill, as a stun breaker, pointless outside of a formal PvP match where you have intel on the opposing team and know you will be facing a lot of stuns.

Really, all they’ve accomplished is removed stun break from some skills where they made sense and put a stun break an a skill that will almost never find it’s way onto the skill bar as a stun breaker. Builds that already use the Glyph aren’t going to stop using it for it’s primary effect and since you usually are going to be spamming the skill when ever it’s off cooldown during combat, will very rarely ever provide any usefulness as a stun breaker.

How about a new signet of elemental power then?

For 5 seconds, nearby foes receive a condition every second based on your attunement:
Fire: Burning (1sec)
Water: Chilled (1sec)
Air: Weakness (1sec)
Earth: Crippled (2sec)
Radius: 240

Or you can go the opposite route and have it give boons to allies instead.
Fire: Retaliation (2sec)
Water: Regeneration (2sec)
Air: Vigor (2sec)
Earth: Protection (1sec)
Radius: 240 or 360
Either lasts 5 sec at 1 application/sec, or 10sec at 1 application/2sec.

Bountiful power nerf:
Sorta sad about this but sorta saw it coming. Engineer has the same trait, and it’s 1%. It’s intended to give a bit of damage to bunker builds, and that’s good, it still will. It’s obviously not intended that 25 points in water give more damage than 25 points in fire, but under some circumstances that’s exactly what happens at +2% per boon.

Putting a stunbreaker on signet of air is so awesome I can’t even say. Not sure about the glyph, hopefully they removed the cast time because stunbreakers sorta need to be insta-cast to function properly.

Signet aura-share should be playable now. Glyph builds may be more viable as well, time will tell on that one.

I’m really looking forward to the air trait line changes. As a long time player of 30 air builds, the combined GM traits and the new one both sound too good to be true.

They’re nerfing the wrong things. Cantrips don’t need a nerf, nor does the stunbreakers (Stunbreakers need a buff in the game overall)

Instead, they should have nerfed Ether Renewal.\

all the stun breakers being concentrated on cantrips was stupid and definitely needed a change. maybe some people disagree with the skills involved, but -something- had to be done.

Doomdesire.9365:

Instead, they should have nerfed Ether Renewal.\

That was last patch, it was called the mist form nerf.

This patch they are buffing it. Hello rock solid tanks!

Mclol.1436:

While I do agree that the bountiful power nerf will decrease the efficiency of the D/D ele x-x-x-30-30 builds, I think it’s mostly negligible and doesn’t detract from the ability to stay alive, which is the main purpose of going bunker, outlasting your opponent. If you want to do some serious damage, you’ll have to go and try out some new builds. And with the changes to the air traitline (Fresh Air sounds like an awesome trait) you will be able to do just that.

The glyph of elemental power sounds to me as the best glyph to put a stun breaker on. I’m pretty sure it will break stun first and then start casting the glyph itself. At least that would be the logical thing to do.

Overall I’m pretty excited about all the changes coming our way, it’s good they’re shaking up the whole meta all at once instead of releasing small patches all the time. At least like this people will have to figure out new builds and the meta will be rocky for quite some time.

That’s fair. But the way I see it is that baseline survivability is so ridiculously low for an Ele that you’re pretty much forced into taking at least 15 in water if you want any hope of not dying the second someone looks at you, and attunement recharge rates are so key to gameplay that you need at least 15-20 there to be effective. While the Water and Arcana trait lines are awesome enough that it’s not a big deal, it’s hard to promote build diversity when so many points are tied up just making the class playable. Skills like Fresh Air might make it possible to go 10 Arcana (let’s face it, you’ll never make a build without EA) and still rotate effectively, but we’ll have to see.

Like somebody else said, it can’t break stun then cast, or else you’ll have it on a 3s CD by rupting it yourself. Unless they can somehow give the stunbreak a CD separate from the skill itself? My initial thought was that it would become instant, but I don’t see that mentioned anywhere and all the glyphs have you draw them in the air. Kinda silly to take that out for the one glyph that breaks stuns.

Definitely with you on the shaking up of the meta. I really like the way they’re doing this and I think the coming weeks after the patch will be fun as new builds pop up since it’s SO stagnant right now.

wow, basically every single forum says that the world is ending except for 2, necros and shockingly, engineers. Necros because we are finally good! Engineers because we have accepted our fate as terrible
Eles look fine, my build was wrecked but I will find another
rangers are hurting a lot
thieves look fine (i would say tied with eles in terms of how they will be effected)
same with guardians
warriors have more cond removal to help with that
necros now have a high damage nich move
engineers are looking very bad
mesmer same with guardians, thieves, warriors, eles they all have pretty good notes.

forums in general = overeaction, and the only classes that have real cause to fret are A. rangers (who have never been powerful, and still aren’t)
B. Engineers (who are just a little puppy dog now :P)

The way I see it, this brought the earth line up to a formidable place along side water (which is now more equal since it’s a bit worse) and aracana. Air got a nice bump as well, but I don’t know if it’s up to par; I’ll have to wait and see. Fire still feels like a no touch trait line though, but oh well.

Navzar.2938:

The way I see it, this brought the earth line up to a formidable place along side water (which is now more equal since it’s a bit worse) and aracana. Air got a nice bump as well, but I don’t know if it’s up to par; I’ll have to wait and see. Fire still feels like a no touch trait line though, but oh well.

Agree completely Earth is now a very good trait line.

Air is almost there maybe 1 or 2 more changes to traits to make it a hard choice.

Fire is on its own it need some changes to the adept and master traits to make them sexy choices.

When all the trait lines are so good that it becomes a hard choice picking then the goal is reached.

All I know that this patch will increase one of my bursts damage by +50% and overall damage will be more consistent and higher thanks to air-25 (which actually works very very well with ice shards and the 20% increase damage to vulnerable foes).

Blaine Tog.8304:

They also reduced Lightning Flash’s cooldown and increased its damage. And it’s still an instant skill, so it’s likely that you can still USE it while stunned, you’ll just still be stunned on arrival, which honestly amounts to much of the same thing. The Mesmer’s #2 skill on their staff works like that and the movement along usually buys you enough time to eat the stun and continue on your merry way.

I gotta say, if the supposed leaked patch notes are accurate, I’m actually really excited. A lot more Ele builds will be a lot more viable now.

Oh, great, you get 500-600 more damage from Lightning Flash, so USEFUL. Especially to anything that isn’t DD and uses it to port away from people not TO them.

Zenith.7301:

Oh, great, you get 500-600 more damage from Lightning Flash, so USEFUL. Especially to anything that isn’t DD and uses it to port away from people not TO them.

So you never port to enemy while using scepter or staff? Well you should try….

They let you the choice…it’s not for you to only use one option depending on your set…

silvos.3092:

Zenith.7301:

Oh, great, you get 500-600 more damage from Lightning Flash, so USEFUL. Especially to anything that isn’t DD and uses it to port away from people not TO them.

So you never port to enemy while using scepter or staff? Well you should try….

They let you the choice…it’s not for you to only use one option depending on your set…

No? The last thing I want to do with a mesmer or thief is port into them.

Churning Earth+Flash only hits noobs anyways. People who know the cast time for it will save the dodge till the last moment and gain immunity frames against it.

You dont port for churning earth..you do earthquake -arcanes – air spells.
or earthquake -phoenix – rof .
Thats ele 101 stuff :P

Zenith.7301:

No? The last thing I want to do with a mesmer or thief is port into them.

Because obviously there are only 3 professions in GW2 : thief, mesmer and elementalist…

And if I agree they are not the main professions I use flash to, flashing to them can still prove useful in some situation… To interrupt a stomp with gust for example you better be in contact with your target (and I’d had that ease the rezing after the interrupt…)…

Now I agree damages have never been something very important with that skill…But if you really only use it to go away from your target you are wasting it…

You’d actually be surprised how many people you can still hit with Churning Earth. The majority of people you meet in wvw are brainless zergers and wont dodge anything. When you catch them alone for the most part they stand still and never dodge any of your attacks and die with full endurance. Then they add you to party and say you only won because you’re using an OP class then ignore you when you try to explain that there exists a function called dodge.