Guild Wars 2

I think it’s just plain unbalanced that elementalists are punished with a longer cooldown for using ride the lightning without a target, while other classes are allowed to continue to use their attacks as escape/mobility options without targets…

Makes no sense.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Leuca.5732:

Its original CD was excessively low and could be traited to be a 12 second recharge, but 40 seconds (that doesn’t always properly hit and thus reduce recharge) is absurd. And no, fixing the hitbox bugs that trigger recharge reduction will not solve this problem. It needs to be a static 24 seconds, give or take before traits.

why is 12 seconds to excessive?
Ranger Greatsword is 12 seconds (without trait) goes 1100range, is a combo finisher
Warrior Greatsword is 20 seconds (without trait) goes 1200range

The ONE class that has NO option of going between range and melee with D/D and make the skill that is pretty much the SAME as the ones above and give it a cool down that is at least twice as long as just the 2 above is a joke

if it must have the “on hit” thing then it needs to be UNBLOCKABLE or remove it and reduce the overall cool down. 20 seconds before trait seems fair.

The reason it was excessive is that it ignored movement impairing effects like cripple/chill, did decent damage with might stacks with almost no aftercast delay and back then was quite possibly the best mobility skill in the game. If you cripple/chill a ranger or war before they use their respective dashing skills, they go almost nowhere and the skills have very clear animations for the exact moment the attack will strike if they are charging you. An ele could reset combat better than any profession sans thieves. I don’t think the ability to reset combat is necessarily bad, but I don’t think 12 seconds is healthy for the game, even with this ridiculous meta. We should be trying to bring other stuff in line, not overbuff things and make the powercreep worse. Please know that I do want RtL to have the CD reduced, but not quite that much; there are other factors with comparable skills that must be taken into account, and I don’t think it’s as black-and-white as comparing:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_of_Earth

and

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Stand_Your_Ground!%22

In this case we have a horrible disparity because both the Ele and Guardian are relatively good at self-sustain, and each of these utilities can be traited for relatively similar effects e.g. condition removal etc. However, no ele has problems with attuning to Earth before taking spike damage if they are paying attention, making the protection from Armor of Earth negligible, leaving us with a self-targeted stability at 90s recharge vs an aoe stability on 30s recharge.

Except RTL could be stopped. Guardian 3 ball chain thing, Mesmer line pull, ranger knockback & probably more I`ve not noticed.
Worse, in RTL we`re a useless ball of sparks, at least those chilled can still fight/heal etc. Also they have higher hp/armour to boot.
Warriors can trait for any movement skill to remove immobilising effects, fairly sure both cna still move whilst using their copious amount of movement spells, even if a little slower.
Ranger pets can remove conditions, combined with they also get higher damage output as standard, due to ele having to go into 30 arcane/30water just to survive average goings on.

We get stunned, we can`t do kitten & we die.

The main problem is that we`re still either okayish melee only or feeble staff ranged.
Every other profession can do both at press of a button, Warriors traited weapon swap every 4 seconds.

Gimme that, you can keep your RTL..

Except Staff is laughable, Decrease Attunement swap cool downs and skill, utility and Elite cool downs by 10-20% i mean we have stupidly high cool downs on pretty much everything. I cant think of any skill that that has a reasonable (damage/utility Vs cool down) cool down, they are all simply to long.

Fishbait.6723:

Except RTL could be stopped. Guardian 3 ball chain thing, Mesmer line pull, ranger knockback & probably more I`ve not noticed.
Worse, in RTL we`re a useless ball of sparks, at least those chilled can still fight/heal etc. Also they have higher hp/armour to boot.
Warriors can trait for any movement skill to remove immobilising effects, fairly sure both cna still move whilst using their copious amount of movement spells, even if a little slower.
Ranger pets can remove conditions, combined with they also get higher damage output as standard, due to ele having to go into 30 arcane/30water just to survive average goings on.

We get stunned, we can`t do kitten & we die.

The main problem is that we`re still either okayish melee only or feeble staff ranged.
Every other profession can do both at press of a button, Warriors traited weapon swap every 4 seconds.

Gimme that, you can keep your RTL..

You’re right about that. When I have Mobile Strikes on, Rush won’t be affected by movement impairing effects. it breaks them. And you can also trait to reduce the cooldowns on all GS skills. Warrior’s movement is superior to ele’s in every single way. Even if they did un-nerf RTL, they would still be superior. Its ridiculous how much ground I can cover when I hit my Signet of Rage then whirlwind, then rush, then bulls charge, then swap to sword and savage leap and because I have Fast Hands I wait 5 secs then swap back to GS and by that time I can rush again. No one will EVER catch me. Ele just has RTL on a 40 sec cooldown, burning speed, only 15 seconds but goes a very short distance, LF which is also 40 seconds. I don’t count Firey Greatsword because if you get jumped, in the 4 seconds it takes for you to summon it, which can be interrupted if someone hits you, you will die. If a warrior specced for movement gets jumped, he’s getting away no matter what. Same deal with ranger or thief. An ele specced for everything we have at our disposal that gives us speed, will rarely ever get away. RTL and lightning flash both need much lower cooldowns especially now that they nerfed LF by removing the stunbreak. there’s no justifiable reason why it should have that long of a cooldown even if it does do damage.

We are not allowed to run away.
Only the enemy is allowed to run away, (after we spent 30 mins trying to damage them as a bunker).

Ride the lightning is meant to zerg between rabbits like how Metallica had intended.

Jabberwock.9014:

…still glitches making you immobile at the end until you re-press w half the time.

Oh whew… I thought that was just my machine doing that!

Anet made a mistake. They decreased the length and yet increased the CD. They should have chosen either, not both. Also mistform heal and vigor was essential.

KarateKid.5648:

Jabberwock.9014:

…still glitches making you immobile at the end until you re-press w half the time.

Oh whew… I thought that was just my machine doing that!

Yep, i get that was well about 20-30% of the time i use it. Another annoying thing the slightest bump or change in terrain and it gets stuck and goes on its full cool down another issue is that if people have invul or Aegis up when you hit them despite hitting them it still goes on the full cool down…

Fuzzion.2504:

Anet made a mistake. They decreased the length and yet increased the CD. They should have chosen either, not both. Also mistform heal and vigor was essential.

Mistform heal was not essential before stun/fear locking and condi meta came into being.

ARM.3912:

style.6173:

Eles are in a good place right now, at least in WvW. They do not really need any other buffs. PvP is also ok. PvE likes needs some help.

First off, PvE doesn’t need help for a couple reasons. FGS in a corner kills most things, plus PvE is boring static play and if you can’t figure out how to kill mobs a buff wont help you either.

Second, WvW is not ok. The elementalist is the complete bottom of the food chain and might as well be renamed “rally bait” or “free bags” when shown to enemies.

Third, I don’t play PvP since i’m not a casual gamer. But I understand the mechanics and ele’s are slightly better off there than in WvW because the map is just simply smaller. But they still suck there.

ele is fine. Go with the condi meta, youll see. thats all! dire gear is amazing. (im talking wvw) RTL could use a reassessment tho, but other than that, ele is pretty much fine.

I think RtL needs fixed. And other weapons need similar mobility skills.

I think it should be reverted to the old cooldown, but also made ground targeted. It’s stupid that i have to turn off auto targeting just to use the skill as a movement skill.

^No I hate ground targeting skills. It just needs to be unnerfed and not screwed with any further.

It just needs to be 1200 on a 20s cooldown, or even slightly shorter range/CD. 900 on a 15s cooldown achieves the same results (makes sense too b/c out weapon skills have long enough range for this to get us close to ranged enemies).

considering how squishy we are and the fact we have to be mobile to stay alive, I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a complete unnerf back to its original state. 1550 at 15 sec cooldown. Any less than that and they have to increase the damage and blast radius, and make it unblockable.

katniss.6735:

Well most of the time I don’t even need to leave air attunement or swap weapons to maintain sprint. Switching healing skills could be the thing that keeps me alive in a big fight. But that’s kinda off-topic lol. I don’t really feel (edit) underpowered in wvw. In spvp I prefer s/d. And pve (guild missions/fractals) I don’t have problems with anything.

My wvw/general spec: d/d

I know this post is a couple of months old, but having been gone for a year your post just made my day. You run the EXACT trait setup and 2/3 same utilities I ran before the ascended gear debacle. I have different gear (mix of carrion/cleric … fury USED to give me enough crits to proc vigor reliably) but it’s nice to know the general idea is still viable.

Tonight I got outrun by a warrior when he started losing 1v1 in WvW. Despite having perma swiftness, RtL, lightning flash, and FGS, the warrior still pulled away with ease using rush(20s), whirlwind attack(10s), and savage leap (6s). Had he not blocked my first RtL, I may have been able to catch him. But a 40s CD for RtL, and lighting flash doesn’t compare to the low cooldowns of the warrior’s mobile skills. Another reason to main warrior…

Same old argument though.

Why should RTL be an extended cd on a miss or block when every other profession can move faster over shorter distance & on a lower cd, with no cd increases when they miss?

I can’t help but feel a bit amused at reading every “RTL was OP” comment. The activation did not initiate an invulnerability. In fact, whilst in RTL, said player was not immune to damage and/or crowd control effects. It was never overpowered. Period. Especially when compared with the escape/engage mechanics of competing classes.

Ride the Lagning is a great way for Oceanic players to die horribly.

Rainshine.5493:

katniss.6735:

Well most of the time I don’t even need to leave air attunement or swap weapons to maintain sprint. Switching healing skills could be the thing that keeps me alive in a big fight. But that’s kinda off-topic lol. I don’t really feel (edit) underpowered in wvw. In spvp I prefer s/d. And pve (guild missions/fractals) I don’t have problems with anything.

My wvw/general spec: d/d

I know this post is a couple of months old, but having been gone for a year your post just made my day. You run the EXACT trait setup and 2/3 same utilities I ran before the ascended gear debacle. I have different gear (mix of carrion/cleric … fury USED to give me enough crits to proc vigor reliably) but it’s nice to know the general idea is still viable.

I actually use a different spec and gear now. 0/0/vi/30/30. knights armor/weapons, pvt/cav trinkets. 6/6 traveler runes. blust/energy on daggers.

d/d earth #5 was the problem. Players of other classes went out of their mind when hit by a sudden attack. Did they trade direct damage for condition damage. I remember hitting for more immediate damage and much less condition damage, even though my ele had bad power back then.

ImProVocateur.5189:

d/d earth #5 was the problem. Players of other classes went out of their mind when hit by a sudden attack. Did they trade direct damage for condition damage. I remember hitting for more immediate damage and much less condition damage, even though my ele had bad power back then.

More people are simply bunker nowadays.

Ride the lightning uses 2 seconds traveltime, and you can be damaged.
It is a very visible skill, that clearly shows all your enemies what direction you’re going, unlike the various teleport skills.

Elementalists are squishy, and they don’t deal insane dmg either. As a tradeoff they need good escape mechanics.

It does seem a bit strange to make such extreme “balance changes”. They should make stepwise changes, such that they can get some information on the results, and then change it even further if necessary.

Giving skills 50% more damage, 66% of original damage, 15s coldown to 20/40s cooldown are very drastic changes.

seeing no reply like eva of devs on the ele forum… i can say they dont give a kitten bout ele now…..they themselves roll as warrior or theif (majority)….so i guess they should shift+delete the elementalist profession!

Flamealchemist.2681:

seeing no reply like eva of devs on the ele forum… i can say they dont give a kitten bout ele now…..they themselves roll as warrior or theif (majority)….so i guess they should shift+delete the elementalist profession!

they explained elsewhere that want for us a support role (they are gonna buff our support abilities)

In a game which they advertised for months/years on end of not requiring a healer or tank, sticking ele as support just sucks balls.

Never played healer/tank in any game, didn`t want to in a game that isn`t meant to have them either.

If they really want to make ele only support, they`re kittening the class over enough to make it not even good enough for that.

To go support, you can`t play heal builds/gear, because you`ll still be 1-3 shot by most other classes & having to rely on other players/pugs to keep ressing you is just a waste of time, meaning you`re just as useless as ever & should be using a guardian instead.

Plus they`re page states: “What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

We all know that is bullkitten &/or they mistook the class for thief.
So either they up our damage or up our base hp/armours etc.

Also, even if they do that, you`ll still be one of the slowest classes with no weapon swap, which every other class can do much better.

Fishbait.6723:

In a game which they advertised for months/years on end of not requiring a healer or tank, sticking ele as support just sucks balls.

Never played healer/tank in any game, didn`t want to in a game that isn`t meant to have them either.

If they really want to make ele only support, they`re kittening the class over enough to make it not even good enough for that.

To go support, you can`t play heal builds/gear, because you`ll still be 1-3 shot by most other classes & having to rely on other players/pugs to keep ressing you is just a waste of time, meaning you`re just as useless as ever & should be using a guardian instead.

Plus they`re page states: “What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

We all know that is bullkitten &/or they mistook the class for thief.
So either they up our damage or up our base hp/armours etc.

Also, even if they do that, you`ll still be one of the slowest classes with no weapon swap, which every other class can do much better.

Exactly.

Stick Ele in a support role? I thought GW2 was supposed to NOT have ‘dedicated’ support/healing roles?

I don’t PvP or WvW, and reading all this, I’m glad that I don’t.
I love Elementalist, I really do.. but ANet seems to have some sort of grudge against the profession or something.
I don’t get it, did an Elementalist burn down their puppy when they were a kid or something, and they’re getting metaphorical revenge by doing this?

Seriously, what the kitten, ANet?

Give us what you promised us! A versatile class, with the ability to “inflict massive damage in a single attack”.

..I’m getting way to worked up over this. It’s come that far.

The so called “top ele players” all thought this rtl nerf along with the other nerfs were perfectly in line towards balance. Look where we ended up now; a lot of them don’t even play anymore. Only they advocated for severely nerfing their own class (sotg/streams/vods) while other classes seemed to have an idea about balance.

edit*
Just took a look at the community class tier thread and lol’ed at ele jump from S+ tier to B/C. Then I realized it was true and just sighed and shook my head. Literally swapped places with the warrior.

Agreed. Kill thief stealth or give me back my right to run away anytime I want to.

The RtL nerf really was a mistake that should be reverted. When RtL was nerfed, people hadn’t realized that warrior/thief/melee-ranger were just as mobile because those classes weren’t yet popular in tPvP.

Grevender.9235:

Flamealchemist.2681:

seeing no reply like eva of devs on the ele forum… i can say they dont give a kitten bout ele now…..they themselves roll as warrior or theif (majority)….so i guess they should shift+delete the elementalist profession!

they explained elsewhere that want for us a support role (they are gonna buff our support abilities)

And they explained elsewhere still that they want us to be a jack of all trades (and thus suck at all trades)

Just make RTl unblockable. Kinda stupid to give a skill with such a conditional cooldown and have the long CD proc’d by a friggin block. or evade.

Looking at what some of the other classes has got, you’ll notice how ridicilous it is to nerf this, while not nerfing the others.

Warrior’s greatsword has two mobility skills.
1. Rush: Covers 1200 range in 2 seconds, just as RTL. The difference is that RTL deals damage in a 180 radius, whereas Rush deals nearly double damage to one target.
2. Whilwind attack: Covers 450 range in 1 second at a 10 second cooldown. Hits 4 time, and typically 2-3 times on player in path, so much more damaging than RTL. It’s also a 3/4s evade.

Just by looking at rush alone. If RTL is 40s CD on miss, then why has Rush not been given a 40s CD on miss aswell?

This is only the start though.

There’s a master trait in arms, that reduces CD of greatsword and spear for 20%, so Rush and Whirlwind attack gets a 8s and 16s CD. As if that were not enough, that trait also grants you might on critical hits with your GS.

There’s another master trait in Dicipline which will make all movement skills immobilize breakers.

Elementalists, D/D does not even come close to this, and to reduce CD of RTL and burning speed you must use master trait in both air and fire. Elementalits also have no way of being able to spam immobilize breakers, like the warrior can.

If you go D/D you’re bound to melee/close quarters, whereas a warrior can use a bow or rifle as a second weapon.

Solid? Lmao, it contains some of the most telegraphed skills in the game.

A Block where it shows us holding the sword up , would you hit us while we’re doing that? A smart ele won’t

Maul: A huge bear comes out in 2seconds time, yea, not enough time to dodge that at ALL.

Hilt Bash: a 1 second cast of me spinning and hitting you with the hilt of my sword, again, completely not telegraphed at all.

Auto attack: slow, ineffective and useless

1. Leap: Like I said, takes 1 second for us to take off has a flying eagle animation, totall y not counter-able at ALL. Like i said above, can be snared/immob’d/chilled/feared/interrupted. All but fear are skills you have.

Please know the mechanics of the gs before you try and say its ‘completely solid’. That weapon has absolutely no place whatsoever in PVP/WVW , it’s a pve only weapon and that’s about where that ends.

Quit crying and learn to play and adapt, RTL isn’t the ele’s issue it’s condition spamming.

Ranger’s Greatsword is getting a huge damage buff soon.

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger’s Greatsword is getting a huge damage buff soon.

Rumored damage buff from leaked patch notes. And it’s to the one of the most telegraphed skills in the game. a rumored 15% dmg buff to the most telegraphed skill on that sword doesn’t get people to use it, fixing it’s functionality in a pvp/wvw environment will. Power builds don’t work for rangers and gs is nothing but a power weapon.

Please spare me the bullkitten

Once again, you’re not getting your op kitten utility RTL back to what it was.

Once condition spamming is toned down you will be on top in duels again, don’t worry guys,

Ele was never OP. Low damage, low health, and now low mobility. Why are warriors allowed to have massive mobility, deal huge damage, and be tanky as hell? Some scrub warriors will argue “but that’s not all one build, we have to sacrifice everything for mobility and are useless!” Bull, absolute bull. That IS all one build, I have a warrior myself and use that cheesy OP build. Takes 15-30 people to kill you IF they can catch up to you since you’re immune to snares 90% of the time you deal ridiculous amounts of condition damage, and can disengage combat any time you chose and come back in fully healed while your enemy is still dying from your bleeds, confusion, and burns. Ele could run away and was hard to kill, but that’s ALL it could do. It couldn’t deal damage, and still can’t. They need to massively boost our damage output or reverse the RTL nerf so we can atleast be mobile again.

Don`t know about you, but I run my bank alt ranger with shortbow & GS & GS is perfectly fine as it is.
Yes it is easily telegraphed, but you don`t think RTL is? lol
Yes GS you can be chilled/feared/interrupted, so what?

RTL can be mesmer line/guardian wall/ranger longbow knocked back etc etc, but at least when GS is chilled etc, you can still use your utils, main spells.

Ele in RTL can`t do kitten or even cancel it.

kitten, even a pebble on the ground can kitten the Ele over.

Combine that with them being melee only & RTL is the closest to reliable catch up spell they have, ranger definitely has it better.

Feel free to peruse the rest of the Ele forum, it is all listed there in plain sight.

If you need to learn how to play the ele class I suggest messaging Aggressive Serane, a very good ele that dominates in duels safe for necromancers and engis which, again, comes back to condition spamming that kittened the ele over not an RTL nerf. RTL is fine where it’s at. Also, the addition to perplexity hurts the ele probably most out of all of the other classes imo, so that’s unfair as well adding insult to injury.

If you’re in a group play/zerg play youre GOING to get focused as an ele, with the RTL revert or not. It’s the way it is. Rangers, necros , engis are no different in this regard. We get focused for a reason and not warriors/guardians/mesmers/thieves because of escapism or in the regards to warrior (endure pain/stab/blocks from shield/ etc) guardians (aegis/block on heal, et c etc which is whyits easier to simply moa them and burst down), way too much stab and you cant focus hem as easily as rangers, eles, necros and engis. It’s the way it is, whether you have RTL or not.

Ryan.8367:

Solid? Lmao, it contains some of the most telegraphed skills in the game.

A Block where it shows us holding the sword up , would you hit us while we’re doing that? A smart ele won’t

Maul: A huge bear comes out in 2seconds time, yea, not enough time to dodge that at ALL.

Hilt Bash: a 1 second cast of me spinning and hitting you with the hilt of my sword, again, completely not telegraphed at all.

Auto attack: slow, ineffective and useless

1. Leap: Like I said, takes 1 second for us to take off has a flying eagle animation, totall y not counter-able at ALL. Like i said above, can be snared/immob’d/chilled/feared/interrupted. All but fear are skills you have.

Please know the mechanics of the gs before you try and say its ‘completely solid’. That weapon has absolutely no place whatsoever in PVP/WVW , it’s a pve only weapon and that’s about where that ends.

Quit crying and learn to play and adapt, RTL isn’t the ele’s issue it’s condition spamming.

Is this some kind of joke?

Ranger Greatsword is seriously the most well designed weapon in the game.

You’re arguments are terrible lmao.

A telegraphed block is a bad block? How does that make any sense? You have a 3 second block on a 15 second base cooldown.

Maul takes 1 second and does really good dmg.

1100 range leap on a short cooldown.

AND a stun/daze, it really is the most solid weapon in the game, more weapons should be like it.

You want telegraphed skills play Ele.

The RTL 40 seconds nerf is just stupid. A wrong design decision, why?

this nerf was intended to make ppl use rtl as an offensive gap closer and not only as escape/map traveling (sPvP) tool, but the way it works now is just stupid because, even if u use it as intended for the 20 seconds, u cannot be sure to don’t get the 40 seconds cd. The stupid thing is that it is random: u can get a blind, an aegis proc (block), miss, lag, stun, daze, immobilize, whatever. Every time I use rtl I have to cross my fingers and hope for the 20 seconds cd. This is just ridicolous, there cannot be so many random factors on one of the most important skills and one of the most representative skills of the class.

Change it to a fixed cd, 25 seconds is enough, maybe 30, but not random things pls.

Best way to use it now? Keep CTRL pressed and look for ambient creatures…. GG working as intended