Guild Wars 2

Every sPvP game I have been in since the patch, people are complaining saying Ele got buffed this patch. Did I miss something? Because all I see is bug fixes, underwater combat, a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait, and a 50% fall damage reduction which we have to spec 20 water to get just like other Professions…

So my question is, what “buffs” did Elementalist receive that I am unaware of?

The Fire lines and Air lines have gotten slight buffs. I think that they will continue to look at these lines and buff them slowly up to fit their philosophy of not too many big changes at once. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they already have plans for some of the other traits.

I think Water and Arcane are still probably the best lines, with a couple points in earth and air, but we are starting to get more options. The people complaining about the buffs though are speaking out of their kitten though because to really take advantage of them, we have to give up some points in what I’ll call our core lines. It’s a trade off, and if we go for more power/damage, we are going to give up survivability (which is what people complained about the D/D eles before).

I have been messing around with a glass cannon build since the changes. I am actually having fun, dieing a lot, but still having fun, which is what I was lacking before. The person complaining was a warrior. When i told him to give examples, he rage quit, PM’d me then blocked me before i could respond. Told me im not worth his f’ing time. So i was curios about what buffs. I know rifle warriors who hit for 15k with their rifles. I must be crazy though.

The buff to Bolt to the Heart i will give is awesome. That was a buff, but it just seems to fit better. They had a few bugs with this patch like Ride the Lightning resetting attunements, but besides that it is giving us more options, imho.

You come to ask pvp questions in the elementalist forums? man, i was right you are disconnected.

Otaur.9268:

a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait

Mmmk. If you feel that buff was “worthless” then you have no clue about how to play an Ele to begin with, so there is no point in further discussion until you do so.

boozer.7815:

Otaur.9268:

a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait

Mmmk. If you feel that buff was “worthless” then you have no clue about how to play an Ele to begin with, so there is no point in further discussion until you do so.

It seems you are the one without a clue. No tournament build has 30 fire. No tournament build even has 10 points into fire because it’s such a bad trait line.

Aether McLoud.1975:

boozer.7815:

Otaur.9268:

a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait

Mmmk. If you feel that buff was “worthless” then you have no clue about how to play an Ele to begin with, so there is no point in further discussion until you do so.

It seems you are the one without a clue. No tournament build has 30 fire. No tournament build even has 10 points into fire because it’s such a bad trait line.

its not used in tournaments so its bad, is it?
its not used in tournaments so it sucks in pve, wvw and spvp?
what a narrow-minded view this is.

The problem with ele damage builds is not the damage part. It’s how badly we deliver that damage consistently. Too many things have to align, they have too big of a cooldown, and we lack the basic survivability to deliver the damage consistently. Mesmers and Thiefs are no bunkers, but they have a good shot at surviving in full berserker and still do a lot of reliable damage without too many skill usages/key presses. Just with shatters, mesmers can potentially do more damage than firegrab/churning earth every 10 seconds.

So yeah, when people say fire trait line is bad, its because it doesn’t solve any of the above issues, but you lose a lot of the very good water/arcana trait lines.

Aether McLoud.1975:

boozer.7815:

Otaur.9268:

a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait

Mmmk. If you feel that buff was “worthless” then you have no clue about how to play an Ele to begin with, so there is no point in further discussion until you do so.

It seems you are the one without a clue. No tournament build has 30 fire. No tournament build even has 10 points into fire because it’s such a bad trait line.

Riiight. No Ele has or will ever spec into Fire for sPvP. See, this is the whole entire problem with people that play this class that actually think they know what they are doing. LTP this class and stop making bold assumptions about it.

After these changes you would be a total fool to not use Fire in some builds for sPvP.

naphack.9346:

Aether McLoud.1975:

boozer.7815:

Otaur.9268:

a worthless duration increase to 30 fire trait

Mmmk. If you feel that buff was “worthless” then you have no clue about how to play an Ele to begin with, so there is no point in further discussion until you do so.

It seems you are the one without a clue. No tournament build has 30 fire. No tournament build even has 10 points into fire because it’s such a bad trait line.

its not used in tournaments so its bad, is it?
its not used in tournaments so it sucks in pve, wvw and spvp?
what a narrow-minded view this is.

If peope are talking about sPvP and tPvP… than it’s obvious that they are interested in what work in that field… (if u read the opening post it was clearly tolking about that field…)

also that trait is not that bright in PvE and WvW since fire trait line is not shining in any field … now this boosted trait can push someone to try that line again… but for the ele going 30 into fire mean to forsake a great deal of survival trait (and rememebr that we have the lowest passive survival so we NEED active survival that comes form trait/utility…)

also all those that move critique to the ele usualyy talk about the common aura build… that work around a set of trait that in best case sceneraio leave u with 10 point to place where u want… if u want to put 30 point into the fire line u will have to breake that build… and makes a new one (with lot less survial as stated before) so there is no way that boosting that line boosted our so much hatred build… (is just like if they boosted thief short bow dmg and people come complaining that they bosted backstabber thief…)

all in all… yep ele recived a boost… not a boost that will increase its actual power (since actual build won’t make use of that boost) but a boost that may open a path to other possible build that are yet to be tested and refined

so all I have to do is tell you a build wich incorporates fire and works for pvp right?

naphack.9346:

so all I have to do is tell you a build wich incorporates fire and works for pvp right?

There is no point to that. What the poster above you was saying is that the point of this thread (assumed) is solely about sPvP/tPvP. It is the incorrectly held belief currently that Ele can not function in that setting without 30 points in Water and 30 points in Arcana, leaving just 10 points to put elsewhere. This completely false belief also forces the incorrect assumption that Ele’s are “locked” into just one build set and that only D/D is effective. This belief mostly stems from conjecture by others and without any factual data to back it up. It also stems from some peoples play styles, where it synergizes very well with how they like to play.

So, given the above, it’s no wonder that people who play this class and who also have closed minds find the class pigeon holed into one or two effective builds, which for them, is true, but only because of their inability to try other builds and make them work. So, until some smart person comes on here and shares a different build that is effective, they will continue to believe that there are no other effective builds. So, do not share your build with them, IMO. Let them find it for themselves, as I and others have done already.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of changing underused trait lines to make them viable for use? And if so, doesn’t that use also per definition include WvW and PvP?

Now, if you were aiming to discuss wheter this change makes Fire a viable alternative, then we’d have something to talk about. But dismissing a trait that just got buffed because nobody uses it simply because nobody uses it is fairly thickheaded.

EVERYTHING is viable in pve and wvw.

I’m running D/D, have been since about 3 days after release (s/d damage till then, fun with 2 people in the same spec hard with just the 1) so much fun. I don’t run 30 arcane or 30 water. I run 10 15 0 25 20 with knights to dish out a fairly large amount of damage for my defenses.

On top of that, I believe that Scepter dagger in bunker spec is much more durable then dagger dagger as they can kite and drop aoe effects into the rings. The build my friend is running is so lame. You cant hurt him much before he can full heal again and conditions don’t even have a chance to inflict much damage. His weakness is that all his damage output is condition damage.

I saw this trait buff and thought it might be good for my build, going out on a limb to lose a fair bit of defense but gain perma 15-25 might.

Not to mention that with my setup I would have 15 possible abilities in fire (2x conjure weapons as well) but generally I change like mad with the conjure out for the fury and buffs

The one I’ve seen complained about most is the boost to 25% move speed for Signet of Air. Other professions got it too of course, but most people seem to complain that “Elementalist is already insanely fast and you give them MORE speed?”.

Of course, in reality the buff to SoA is not nearly as useful as those people are thinking it is, considering the fact that it doesn’t stack with Swiftness nor does it stack with any of the other speed traits Elementalist has, coupled with the fact that most Ele’s would hardly spare a utility slot just for some extra speed. But I guess on paper giving a fast class more speed makes people panic regardless of how much actual impact it may have.

I suppose they could be thinking of the wierd bugs now associated with Magnetic Grasp and how it sometimes gives you a minute worth of fury, but that wasn’t in the notes so I doubt most non-ele’s even know about that (and either way its quite obvious its a bug).

The change to MG is/will have MUCH more of an impact than a passive speed increase from SoA, which wont help you much when you get into combat. Also, the increased duration on Might from Puissant is going to have a massive impact with cannon builds. Just.. Massive!

Everybody seems to be so excited about the change to the 30 point might trait in fire, the thing is you can already maintain 25 stacks of might as Scepter Dagger after two rotations, while using the sigil of Superior Battle, I do it all the time, I don’t know how it would work out since I do it with the extra blast finisher from Evasive Arcana in earth, but I might do some testing to see how many ways there are to maintain 25 stacks of might.

MindlessRuff.1948:

Everybody seems to be so excited about the change to the 30 point might trait in fire, the thing is you can already maintain 25 stacks of might as Scepter Dagger after two rotations, while using the sigil of Superior Battle, I do it all the time, I don’t know how it would work out since I do it with the extra blast finisher from Evasive Arcana in earth, but I might do some testing to see how many ways there are to maintain 25 stacks of might.

Exactly… I already keep 20+ stacks of might while switching attunements and attacking with ALL my skills. I might try fire again but I don’t see this buff being that relevant at all.

ThiBash.5634:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of changing underused trait lines to make them viable for use? And if so, doesn’t that use also per definition include WvW and PvP?

Now, if you were aiming to discuss wheter this change makes Fire a viable alternative, then we’d have something to talk about. But dismissing a trait that just got buffed because nobody uses it simply because nobody uses it is fairly thickheaded.

that buff didn’t do much because fire has one big problem: 95% of the traits only work while attuned to fire.
It needs one or two more allrounders.
As of now, there are 2 traits worth investing in and they pretty much exclude eachother.
First one is 3 stacks of might for casting cantrips, second one is flame aura on using signet(triggering all other aura traits, basically giving fury, swiftness, protection, …) The rest is fairly strong in its own right but doesn’t have much of an “allround” feeling. 30% to burn on crits is nice too but the traits which benefit from burning foes are too far off.

For a classic attunement swapping dagger cantrip ele, the fire traits are pretty much lackluster, except for maybe the 10 point trait giving might on cantrip cast.

I never said, fire was uberstrong. But it’s also far from useless. It got a bunch of traits which can pack quite some punch and a bunch of traits which can actually have terrific synergy with other traitlines.
The problem with fire right now is, it doesn’t pay off to put any more than 20 points into it. The grandmaster traits are ridiculously narrowed down to fire attunement only.

Galrond.5972:

Maybe increase the durration of all fields. That could be usefull.

That would surely get my attention as a staff wielder.

Mainly the fire 30 pt trait got buffed to make it quite good for a might stacking spec. Other than that most ele’s didnt really see any kind of buff.