Guild Wars 2

Intrigued by this patch i must say, ele being buffed woooo!

oZii.2864:

I feel like Battle and Hydromancy will be potent for Dagger users. If you haven’t gotten a Hydro sigil now they have gone up in price.

I think Fire/Air looks good for heavy dps users. Sigil of Renewal/Leeching for sustain.

I am pleased as I know that even with the new ferocity changes and crit damage changes along with rune and sigil restrictions being changed some new and fresh theorycrafting will begin.

Was going over leech setups with a guildie earlier. Assuming you can only use one of each sigil, you could run sigil of blood, sigil of leeching, and slice of candied dragon roll and get something like 2.5k-3k damage and healing over 9-10 seconds. Toss in signet of restoration for good measure and you could have some pretty extreme survivability in a dps build.

Gunlaugr.2716:

DiogoSilva.7089:

It has been a long time since this forums has been happy and peaceful about upcoming changes.

Not that it’ll last, once the preview post comes and announces some nerfs too. :P

I think this piece perfectly captures the picture you are trying to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPon_yVICsk

Perfect!

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

piffdaddy.8014:

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

RTL is not the reason they aren’t Viable in sPvP. Everything is viable in WvW so I am assuming you are talking about sPvP.

The reason ele has a hard time fitting into sPvP meta is because everybody else does it better. If you gave RTL back a thief would still be better as your nuker, warrior better as your roaming bunker.

I understand the love with RTL but I don’t see how RTL = viability. This isn’t launch anymore. Unless you mean reset fights like before every 15 seconds so you can Ether Renewal, come back in and attempt burst rotation again which would again be warrior or thief doing it better. Game has evolved classes are better and sadly warrior probably fits every role a ele could fill better outside of ranged aoe DPS.

I have a warrior also that has better mobility and I still run defense traits I still run SA on my thief. Mobility doesn’t allow me to not spec defense lines and Run all dps because I am mobile.

If you want RTL back as a QOL change sure but RTL and viable have nothing to do with each other when it comes to ele.

piffdaddy.8014:

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

The buffs are awesome, and keep in mind that there will still exist a lot more changes to be revealed.

So gonna play 20/0/0/20/30 might stacking via cantrips dd

and keep in mind that no kitten were givenabout SD and Staff.

In my opinion the best buff is 2x on swap sigil.

Also the healing signet is quite good now

Knox.3748:

and keep in mind that no kitten were givenabout SD and Staff.

I’ll keep in mind that staff has received quite alot of buffs and tweaks. S/D is getting regen on trident.

Scepter is it’s own thing along with staff. Off hand dagger is fine except for maybe fixing fire grab please. Of course RTL as a QOL.

Staff is pretty good what else needs work? Gust and Earth Auto? Those are the only ones I can think of unless someone else can think of others. It is possible to get to a point where a weapon set is pretty complete I feel like staff is about there.

^ Let’s not be biased. The Fire autoattack in Scepter is all-out terrible, and should be looked at. If left as it is it should be because the other Fire skills are too strong to support a decent Fire autoattack too (whether or not they are indeed too strong is open for discussion).

As for Staff, it is highly polarizing because the only attunement with reasonable damage is Fire, and the others are just there for very specific purposes: Water for heals, Earth for extra blast finisher at start of combat, and Air for Windborne Speed. None of the other attunements come at all close to Fire for damage, and a Staff Ele will want to switch back to Fire ASAP if he ever switches out of it. The weapon is still viable right now because its damage output is so good, but well-balanced it is not.

oZii was that a joke? rotfl

Knox.3748:

oZii was that a joke? rotfl

No it wasn’t it also wasn’t a full preview of everything coming. It is also true that staff has gotten probably the most buffs of any of our weapon sets recently.

Staff is in a good place. Of course fire is damage but so is air with a touch of CC and utility, water is heals with a touch of damage and earth is for blast finishers and cc.

I would say staff is our most complete weapon set. It isn’t designed to be a 1v1 weapon .
You mention S/D Scepter is it’s own weapon. Off hand dagger is good save for RTL and Fire grab. Scepter I never said was fine though Jeydra must think I did.

oZii.2864:

Knox.3748:

oZii was that a joke? rotfl

No it wasn’t it also wasn’t a full preview of everything coming. It is also true that staff has gotten probably the most buffs of any of our weapon sets recently.

Staff is in a good place. Of course fire is damage but so is air with a touch of CC and utility, water is heals with a touch of damage and earth is for blast finishers and cc.

I would say staff is our most complete weapon set. It isn’t designed to be a 1v1 weapon .
You mention S/D Scepter is it’s own weapon. Off hand dagger is good save for RTL and Fire grab. Scepter I never said was fine though Jeydra must think I did.

Air isn’t really damage… Two skills deal no damage at all, one only does as a side effect of stunning, and one is mainly an AoE blind. That leaves the auto, which is a really bad thing to use in PvP anyway because it can’t be relied upon to hit more than one target and does terrible damage even if it hits two.
I agree that staff is our most complete weapon though, as well as the one with greatest depth due to the huge number of usable combinations it has, especially with blast utilities.

LightningBlaze.4913:

That crit dmg nerf will hurt my burst ele but with fire/air sigil working together and at 100% crit might make up for it. We’ll see. That evasion on burning speed is a huge buff for dd ele and it might cry for nerf on future patches though. I’m still mad there’s not a single buff or fix on my beloved focus offhand weapon set.

Everyone’s burst is coming down, so relatively you won’t be worse off.

The problem is with celestial gear:
The consequence of the critical damage nerf is a reduction of the critical damage on celestial gear (which was before the same as berserker).

So the critical damage on celestial trinkets will be nerfed by something like 20%+ on top of the global nerf.

I’m glad ele is getting a buff, but…
I really really really do not like the idea of adding an evade to an already decently powerful skill.
It will make eles more powerful, but less fun to fight against. Those two things do not have to be mutually exclusive. Dodges, blinds, and blocks are already overabundant enough as it is.

Things like focus’s fire spells are in much greater need of attention than one of the ele’s better skills.

magic fly.2041:

I’m glad ele is getting a buff, but…
I really really really do not like the idea of adding an evade to an already decently powerful skill.
It will make eles more powerful, but less fun to fight against. Those two things do not have to be mutually exclusive. Dodges, blinds, and blocks are already overabundant enough as it is.

Things like focus’s fire spells are in much greater need of attention than one of the ele’s better skills.

I don’t see a problem with burning speed now being allowed to be used defensively and offensively. The reasoning was sound and holds true. Now you can chose to save your lf burning speed combo. The skill is strong but it still requires setup and anyone decent can see when the ele goes into fire and expect whats coming. The alternative is give ele something so they can face tank while they do damage which would be a warrior.

If guardian loses vigor, and renewing stamina is not nerfed, ele running 0/0/20/20/30 and shaman’s amulet could become an alternative to guardian for mid-bunker or just a roaming side-bunker, especially if sigil of intelligence stays a FIVE s ICD.

Ele bunker has:
- aoe stab every 10-12s
- 2 cond clear every 10-12 s
- 2 water fields that can be blasted with spammable blast finisher (earth 2 and earth dodge-roll)
-spammable weakness on entire opponent team (glyph of ele power)
- condi-wipe and big heal every 18 s (ether renewal – doesn’t block like shelter, but 1/2 the cd too)
- more cc than guardian (static field, earth 4, water 4)
- Great decap potential with tornado
- Much better mobility than guardian (burning retreat + turnaround tricks)

It will play differently than guardian (not being just a clone), with some strengths/weaknesses, but I feel they can be close in effectiveness.

oZii.2864:

magic fly.2041:

I’m glad ele is getting a buff, but…
I really really really do not like the idea of adding an evade to an already decently powerful skill.
It will make eles more powerful, but less fun to fight against. Those two things do not have to be mutually exclusive. Dodges, blinds, and blocks are already overabundant enough as it is.

Things like focus’s fire spells are in much greater need of attention than one of the ele’s better skills.

I don’t see a problem with burning speed now being allowed to be used defensively and offensively. The reasoning was sound and holds true. Now you can chose to save your lf burning speed combo. The skill is strong but it still requires setup and anyone decent can see when the ele goes into fire and expect whats coming. The alternative is give ele something so they can face tank while they do damage which would be a warrior.

That’s not always the case. I’m way above decent with my ele yet I tend to fail sometimes at seeing that burning speed animation specially coming from an asura. There’s also the case that I would dodge the skill and use my instant casts to do damage during the time the player finishes that skill. That won’t be possible right now with the dodges added. I would have to wait till it is done while in the meantime that players gain great amount of distance to me without any setback.

I still fail to see the logic from Anet on buffing a weapon set that is already very strong and balanced as it is yet fail to arrange the ones that really need attention like focus and scepter. Water trident addition is lame.

LightningBlaze.4913:

That’s not always the case. I’m way above decent with my ele yet I tend to fail sometimes at seeing that burning speed animation specially coming from an asura. There’s also the case that I would dodge the skill and use my instant casts to do damage during the time the player finishes that skill. That won’t be possible right now with the dodges added. I would have to wait till it is done while in the meantime that players gain great amount of distance to me without any setback.

I still fail to see the logic from Anet on buffing a weapon set that is already very strong and balanced as it is yet fail to arrange the ones that really need attention like focus and scepter. Water trident addition is lame.

D/D did need some buffs, and I’m not sure why you think scepter needs attention so much more when it’s in a better place than dagger mainhand right now. Plenty of eles in tpvp running s/d or s/f, pretty much zero running d/d. Also, I’d be careful what you wish for with focus. You think the weak abilities will get buffed and they’ll just leave earth alone? The earth focus skills are so ridiculous, that if they buff the weak skills, they’re going to nerf those first. That’s probably a large part of why they haven’t touched it yet.

However, I have the same reservations about this particular change. Landing and countering burning speed was one of the primary play/counterplay components to being/fighting a D/D ele. I’m glad they were finally looking at balancing us, but I would have greatly preferred our mobility being returned instead of just adding evade to an already highly used ability.

dreztina.4820:

LightningBlaze.4913:

That’s not always the case. I’m way above decent with my ele yet I tend to fail sometimes at seeing that burning speed animation specially coming from an asura. There’s also the case that I would dodge the skill and use my instant casts to do damage during the time the player finishes that skill. That won’t be possible right now with the dodges added. I would have to wait till it is done while in the meantime that players gain great amount of distance to me without any setback.

I still fail to see the logic from Anet on buffing a weapon set that is already very strong and balanced as it is yet fail to arrange the ones that really need attention like focus and scepter. Water trident addition is lame.

D/D did need some buffs, and I’m not sure why you think scepter needs attention so much more when it’s in a better place than dagger mainhand right now. Plenty of eles in tpvp running s/d or s/f, pretty much zero running d/d. Also, I’d be careful what you wish for with focus. You think the weak abilities will get buffed and they’ll just leave earth alone? The earth focus skills are so ridiculous, that if they buff the weak skills, they’re going to nerf those first. That’s probably a large part of why they haven’t touched it yet.

However, I have the same reservations about this particular change. Landing and countering burning speed was one of the primary play/counterplay components to being/fighting a D/D ele. I’m glad they were finally looking at balancing us, but I would have greatly preferred our mobility being returned instead of just adding evade to an already highly used ability.

Play with scepter and with focus first and then tell me those 2 don’t need attention compared to dagger skills across all the 4 attunements. Scepter is just great for bursting, far superior than dagger in that sense but in terms of having as much useful and reliable skills, dagger is supreme. The main weakness for d/d is that forces the player to be at melee range to be effective and that comes with the price of receiving more damage and not related to countering burning speed.

Even if that theory of yours turns out to be true then I would absolutely prefer having more reliable skills with these weapon sets at the price of nerfing 1-2.

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

RTL is not the reason they aren’t Viable in sPvP. Everything is viable in WvW so I am assuming you are talking about sPvP.

The reason ele has a hard time fitting into sPvP meta is because everybody else does it better. If you gave RTL back a thief would still be better as your nuker, warrior better as your roaming bunker.

I understand the love with RTL but I don’t see how RTL = viability. This isn’t launch anymore. Unless you mean reset fights like before every 15 seconds so you can Ether Renewal, come back in and attempt burst rotation again which would again be warrior or thief doing it better. Game has evolved classes are better and sadly warrior probably fits every role a ele could fill better outside of ranged aoe DPS.

I have a warrior also that has better mobility and I still run defense traits I still run SA on my thief. Mobility doesn’t allow me to not spec defense lines and Run all dps because I am mobile.

If you want RTL back as a QOL change sure but RTL and viable have nothing to do with each other when it comes to ele.

Ozii, do you even WvW? Have you fought a Warrior, Ranger, or Thief? Post nerf, they can out run/maneuver us and pester us at will … be it solo, group fight, or a zerg. When you get them low they bounce and we have no means to keep pace to finish the job … so they come back and guess who they gun for first.

The worst part of the whole thing is that this whole punishment if you miss on maneuverability weapon abilities was only levied against Elementalists. If it was applied to all classes equally it would at least have been bearable … still bad … but not blatantly hypocritical.

Taldren.7523:

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

RTL is not the reason they aren’t Viable in sPvP. Everything is viable in WvW so I am assuming you are talking about sPvP.

The reason ele has a hard time fitting into sPvP meta is because everybody else does it better. If you gave RTL back a thief would still be better as your nuker, warrior better as your roaming bunker.

I understand the love with RTL but I don’t see how RTL = viability. This isn’t launch anymore. Unless you mean reset fights like before every 15 seconds so you can Ether Renewal, come back in and attempt burst rotation again which would again be warrior or thief doing it better. Game has evolved classes are better and sadly warrior probably fits every role a ele could fill better outside of ranged aoe DPS.

I have a warrior also that has better mobility and I still run defense traits I still run SA on my thief. Mobility doesn’t allow me to not spec defense lines and Run all dps because I am mobile.

If you want RTL back as a QOL change sure but RTL and viable have nothing to do with each other when it comes to ele.

Ozii, do you even WvW? Have you fought a Warrior, Ranger, or Thief? Post nerf, they can out run/maneuver us and pester us at will … be it solo, group fight, or a zerg. When you get them low they bounce and we have no means to keep pace to finish the job … so they come back and guess who they gun for first.

The worst part of the whole thing is that this whole punishment if you miss on maneuverability weapon abilities was only levied against Elementalists. If it was applied to all classes equally it would at least have been bearable … still bad … but not blatantly hypocritical.

Do you WvW? Everything is viable in WvW. Alot of people play Ele in WvW. Yes I WvW it is all I do pretty much.

If you look at the context of that conversation the point I was making is that mobility is not the reason Ele’s aren’t viable. In s/tPvP because that is the only place Ele’s aren’t currently viable at high levels.

If you want RTL to be returned then don’t dress it up as viability was my only point there. It looks silly trying to say Elementalist isn’t viable in WvW.

I have fought a Warrior the only warrior build that is even trouble for me on my Ele is hambow which is one of the top builds in s/tPvP. In WvW hambow has no mobility there it is just a dueling build so who cares. I have never had any problems with thieves. The hardest to fight is P/D thieves and that has to do with Range not mobility even then it is still winnable. Also this is in a duel context which isn’t really all that important.

Taldren.7523:

Still nothing on RTL … the hypocrisy continues.

This was my first thought on the buffs as well. Undo this double CD already, most players agree it shouldn’t go back to how it was, but the double CD was possibly the stupidest class-related decision that has been made post-launch.

BlackBeard.2873:

If guardian loses vigor, and renewing stamina is not nerfed, ele running 0/0/20/20/30 and shaman’s amulet could become an alternative to guardian for mid-bunker or just a roaming side-bunker, especially if sigil of intelligence stays a FIVE s ICD.

Ele bunker has:
- aoe stab every 10-12s
- 2 cond clear every 10-12 s
- 2 water fields that can be blasted with spammable blast finisher (earth 2 and earth dodge-roll)
-spammable weakness on entire opponent team (glyph of ele power)
- condi-wipe and big heal every 18 s (ether renewal – doesn’t block like shelter, but 1/2 the cd too)
- more cc than guardian (static field, earth 4, water 4)
- Great decap potential with tornado
- Much better mobility than guardian (burning retreat + turnaround tricks)

It will play differently than guardian (not being just a clone), with some strengths/weaknesses, but I feel they can be close in effectiveness.

Here is why this will never happen: Elementalists are made of glass now. You cannot possibly bunker with 14k health. Not with conditions, as a group, ticking in the thousands and pets hitting for 4k and thieves hitting you for 7k. In early GW2, you could actually outheal the damage. This is no longer the case.

Bunker ele belongs to a different meta, one that is long gone.

Marcos.3690:

In my opinion the best buff is 2x on swap sigil.

Also the healing signet is quite good now

The big signet nerf wasnt the reduction in heal ticks.It was the removal of double/triple healing on evasive arcana and the massive heal on earth 2 on scepter. That loss is definately not gonna be reversed with just the % nerf being removed unfortunately.Plus nothing was that strong back then especially not condies. Signet offers no utility and also not burst heal. You ll still die in a fear chan from necro or a cc chain from a warrior or get bursted by mesmer with halting strike and thief.Those things didnt exist back then

zilcho.7624:

BlackBeard.2873:

If guardian loses vigor, and renewing stamina is not nerfed, ele running 0/0/20/20/30 and shaman’s amulet could become an alternative to guardian for mid-bunker or just a roaming side-bunker, especially if sigil of intelligence stays a FIVE s ICD.

Ele bunker has:
- aoe stab every 10-12s
- 2 cond clear every 10-12 s
- 2 water fields that can be blasted with spammable blast finisher (earth 2 and earth dodge-roll)
-spammable weakness on entire opponent team (glyph of ele power)
- condi-wipe and big heal every 18 s (ether renewal – doesn’t block like shelter, but 1/2 the cd too)
- more cc than guardian (static field, earth 4, water 4)
- Great decap potential with tornado
- Much better mobility than guardian (burning retreat + turnaround tricks)

It will play differently than guardian (not being just a clone), with some strengths/weaknesses, but I feel they can be close in effectiveness.

Here is why this will never happen: Elementalists are made of glass now. You cannot possibly bunker with 14k health. Not with conditions, as a group, ticking in the thousands and pets hitting for 4k and thieves hitting you for 7k. In early GW2, you could actually outheal the damage. This is no longer the case.

Bunker ele belongs to a different meta, one that is long gone.

Tell that to bunker guardians, who have 14 K health. If you take a shaman’s amulet, you get about the same toughness/vit/healing power as a guardian. I think you would also have more offense b/c you are condi and condi-damage only needs 1 stat to be viable.

I expect people to be really closed-minded about this for a while until people have success with it. On paper, there is no reason that bunker ele can’t do well, especially with the slight reduction in Guardian’s bunker-ability. There have been a lot of buffs, and being able to take intelligence sigil + another defensive on-swap sigil (like energy, even if its nerfed) feels like the last piece.

Crit damge nerf = WVW zerg bunker builds even more op.

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

Phi Is Sly.1857:

Crit damge nerf = WVW zerg bunker builds even more op.

We’ll have to see how the new stat ferocity works out.

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

RTL is not the reason Ele is not viable. Warrior have always had as good mobility as Elementalist or better. The warrior can bunker and still do more damage. Warrior always borderlined taking the Elementalists roaming bunker position it didn’t because it was weak to conditions and had no sustain. It now has the tools now for that.

Those once weak warriors have muscled in on the “Role” that ele use to fill now all E;e can do is wish to TIE the warrior in a mobility race with a RTL revert. Then you would say the mobility tools line up and have to look at the rest of the qualifications for that “Role” and who can do it better. This is more of a problem with conquest requiring certain “Roles”.

More simple example is:

Warrior = 1200 range on rush and lets say 1400 with swiftness(I think it is actually 1500) + rush 16 sec cooldown trait GS. Throw on sword lets say also then has 600 range leap on 8 second cooldown lets say 800 with swiftness.

Ele = 1200 range RTL with old RTL 15 seconds. Burning Speed 600 range on 15 second cooldown lets say 800 range with swiftness now with evade frames.

So the mobility tools start to line up for D/D vs War with Warrior having the definitive edge. S/D can’t match that mobility.

So then you have to look at the rest of the tools besides mobiliity because Warrior wins that even with a lower CD RTL.

Edit
Add whirlwind which I forgot 600 range on 8 second cd traited so 800 with swiftness. This puts mobility completely in the warriors favor.

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

RTL is not the reason Ele is not viable. Warrior have always had as good mobility as Elementalist. The warrior can bunker and still do more damage. Warrior always borderlined taking the Elementalists roaming bunker position it didn’t because it was weak to conditions and had no sustain. It now has the tools now for that.

Those once weak warriors have muscled in on the “Role” that ele use to fill now all E;e can do is wish to TIE the warrior in a mobility race with a RTL revert. Then you would say the mobility tools line up and have to look at the rest of the qualifications for that “Role” and who can do it better. This is more of a problem with conquest requiring certain “Roles”.

More simple example is:

Warrior = 1200 range on rush and lets say 1400 with swiftness(I think it is actually 1500) + rush 16 sec cooldown trait GS. Throw on sword lets say also then has 600 range leap on 8 second cooldown lets say 800 with swiftness.

Ele = 1200 range RTL with old RTL 15 seconds. Burning Speed 600 range on 15 second cooldown lets say 800 range with swiftness now with evade frames.

So the mobility tools line up for D/D vs War with Warrior having the edge slightly. S/D can’t match that mobility.

So then you have to look at the rest of the tools besides mobility since they basically cancelled each other out.

You forgot warrior whirlwind which also has 600 range with swiftness, on a 10 second cooldown.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

RTL is not the reason Ele is not viable. Warrior have always had as good mobility as Elementalist. The warrior can bunker and still do more damage. Warrior always borderlined taking the Elementalists roaming bunker position it didn’t because it was weak to conditions and had no sustain. It now has the tools now for that.

Those once weak warriors have muscled in on the “Role” that ele use to fill now all E;e can do is wish to TIE the warrior in a mobility race with a RTL revert. Then you would say the mobility tools line up and have to look at the rest of the qualifications for that “Role” and who can do it better. This is more of a problem with conquest requiring certain “Roles”.

More simple example is:

Warrior = 1200 range on rush and lets say 1400 with swiftness(I think it is actually 1500) + rush 16 sec cooldown trait GS. Throw on sword lets say also then has 600 range leap on 8 second cooldown lets say 800 with swiftness.

Ele = 1200 range RTL with old RTL 15 seconds. Burning Speed 600 range on 15 second cooldown lets say 800 range with swiftness now with evade frames.

So the mobility tools line up for D/D vs War with Warrior having the edge slightly. S/D can’t match that mobility.

So then you have to look at the rest of the tools besides mobility since they basically cancelled each other out.

You forgot warrior whirlwind which also has 600 range with swiftness, on a 10 second cooldown.

Ahh very true I totally forgot that one thanks.

Kinda happy for all you D/d eles, this looks like a big buff patch for you guys. I’m a bit miffed at the crit damage thigh, as I am strictly a damage zerker in staff. This might screw me. The two sigil slots though might just make up for it.

Overall, interesting and it gives me incentive to practice d/d more. Good to see anet is finally fixing ele and doing something about Necros

But where is the fix to thief perma stealth? !

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

Ele has far mobility than warr. It’s called Fiery Great Sword. No class can beat an Ele in a race because of FGS. You can disengage with this very easily.

I can’t believe they are pushing Ele even more into the water line…

Blast on dagger water #3 is good, a good start to making focus usable in WVW would be to give focus a lightning or ice field.

Mochann.5298:

Ele has far mobility than warr. It’s called Fiery Great Sword. No class can beat an Ele in a race because of FGS. You can disengage with this very easily.

Maybe if you mean a literal race, where neither player is allowed to touch the other. Otherwise, ele’s are not the most mobile profession by any stretch of the imagination.

You realize FGS 3 doesn’t break you out of Stun or Immobilize, right? If it did, ele’s would probably take FGS over the elemental. But it doesn’t, and everyone takes the elemental. (Cause it’s nice to do some damage as we are condition-spammed and CC-locked to death.)

zilcho.7624:

Mochann.5298:

Ele has far mobility than warr. It’s called Fiery Great Sword. No class can beat an Ele in a race because of FGS. You can disengage with this very easily.

Maybe if you mean a literal race, where neither player is allowed to touch the other. Otherwise, ele’s are not the most mobile profession by any stretch of the imagination.

You realize FGS 3 doesn’t break you out of Stun or Immobilize, right? If it did, ele’s would probably take FGS over the elemental. But it doesn’t, and everyone takes the elemental. (Cause it’s nice to do some damage as we are condition-spammed and CC-locked to death.)

FGS is for WvW, PvP is usually GoE (or Tornado for zerk staff).
FGS does temporarily give you the best mobility at the cost of an elite slot, and with a 120s minimum downtime for 60s maximum uptime.
However, using this ability and then losing the weapon, either when you decide to actually do something and not just spin all over the place or from when its duration expires, leaves you with fairly subpar mobility (RTL is mediocre as a mobility tool, and you only get permaswiftness on a staff).

So sure, you can win one race, but you definitely can’t win two haha.

Yeah, FGS doens’t break stun — that’s what Vapor Form is for. When you want to disengage, when you are stunned or in a losing situation, go mist, get some distance away. Once out, use your mobility skill (like Burning Retreat or RTL or whatever) then pop FGS, and use it to outrun whoever is chasing you. Against most classes and builds you won’t need FGS to disengage, but against Thief and Warr this usually isn’t enough, so you need FGS for that extra boost of mobility.

It’s up to you if you want to use FGS or Elemental or Tornado, just realize that Elemental and Tornado don’t give you extra options to disengage if that is your desire.

But if you want an escape route as a Glass Staff Ele in WvW FGS is the only reliable way I’ve found to disengage. I can’t disengage from anyone reliably (or rather, from thieves or warrs) without FGS.

I personally don’t run FGS, I run Tornado because I go for broke doing damage. If I die, then I die. But on the days I want to run, I slot in FGS.

Just saying, not saying this is an optimal build or anything, but I am saying that Eles technically have better mobility than any other class out there if they spec for it. And yes, in my post above I did mean a flat out race — funny thing that happened, one of our Warrs in WvW challenged one of our Eles to a race, saying Warrs are the fastest class and can outrun anyone. We Eles said, BS, haha. And we actually did the race and beat him handily with FGS. Without FGS, Ele would lose to Warr’s GS5, GS3 and Bullrush.

Wow! Sigil of Hydromancy just noticed it became super expensive thanks to reading this thread!

Lucky I bought two — and slotted them into my warrior’s gear. I wish I had bought more now.

These are good changes. However, I am astounded that nothing will happen to the rusty focus, glyphs and signets (beside resto). Suppose we have to wait a long time for that :/

Mochann.5298:

Wow! Sigil of Hydromancy just noticed it became super expensive thanks to reading this thread!

Lucky I bought two — and slotted them into my warrior’s gear. I wish I had bought more now.

The dagger 3 skill got a blast finisher. Where did you get your information about Sigil of Hydromancy acting exactly like Frozen Burst?

These changes ain’t gonna change kittens for ele. Why you guys acting like ele’s are gonna be viable now? I think you are wishing these changes would bring your ele back to life but it ain’t.

Yeah, they should at least revert Bountiful Power (10% max damage) and Cleansing Water. Using a trait you need a stopwatch or luck to use isn’t good. If Cleansing Water removed 1 condition every 5 secs, I could approve of it. Or 2 every 10 secs. Guardians have purity (adept, 1 condi/10 secs) and rangers empathic bond (grandmaster, 3 condis/10 secs w. living pet). That way you wouldn’t have to worry about an invisible timer.

Malcastus.6240:

Yeah, they should at least revert Bountiful Power (10% max damage) and Cleansing Water. Using a trait you need a stopwatch or luck to use isn’t good. If Cleansing Water removed 1 condition every 5 secs, I could approve of it. Or 2 every 10 secs. Guardians have purity (adept, 1 condi/10 secs) and rangers empathic bond (grandmaster, 3 condis/10 secs w. living pet). That way you wouldn’t have to worry about an invisible timer.

This so much. The only thing that ever made cleansing water worthy of a grandmaster trait was that you could time a few regen abilities at the same time to remove more than 1 condition instantly. Now that it only removes 1 condition at the same time, and you have to internally count 5 seconds cooldown to time the next regen ability, it’s not worthy of a gm trait anymore (especially with elemental attunement getting moved to master tier).

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Malcastus.6240:

Yeah, they should at least revert Bountiful Power (10% max damage) and Cleansing Water. Using a trait you need a stopwatch or luck to use isn’t good. If Cleansing Water removed 1 condition every 5 secs, I could approve of it. Or 2 every 10 secs. Guardians have purity (adept, 1 condi/10 secs) and rangers empathic bond (grandmaster, 3 condis/10 secs w. living pet). That way you wouldn’t have to worry about an invisible timer.

This so much. The only thing that ever made cleansing water worthy of a grandmaster trait was that you could time a few regen abilities at the same time to remove more than 1 condition instantly. Now that it only removes 1 condition at the same time, and you have to internally count 5 seconds cooldown to time the next regen ability, it’s not worthy of a gm trait anymore (especially with elemental attunement getting moved to master tier).

Mind you this is only SPvP. It works wonders in wvw.

Mbelch.9028:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Malcastus.6240:

Yeah, they should at least revert Bountiful Power (10% max damage) and Cleansing Water. Using a trait you need a stopwatch or luck to use isn’t good. If Cleansing Water removed 1 condition every 5 secs, I could approve of it. Or 2 every 10 secs. Guardians have purity (adept, 1 condi/10 secs) and rangers empathic bond (grandmaster, 3 condis/10 secs w. living pet). That way you wouldn’t have to worry about an invisible timer.

This so much. The only thing that ever made cleansing water worthy of a grandmaster trait was that you could time a few regen abilities at the same time to remove more than 1 condition instantly. Now that it only removes 1 condition at the same time, and you have to internally count 5 seconds cooldown to time the next regen ability, it’s not worthy of a gm trait anymore (especially with elemental attunement getting moved to master tier).

Mind you this is only SPvP. It works wonders in wvw.

Yes of course. I don’t play wvw though, only pvp.