Guild Wars 2

I look forward to it.

Tried FGS tonight extensively and frankly I was not impressed.

I got owned so hard too, it was really pathetic.

Went back to D/D modified bunker build and did way way better.

fixit.7189:

And staffs have auras, riiiight.

First of all, the plural of staff is staves. Second, they in fact do have an aura: Magnetic Aura. Third, the build is focused on signets that generate auras that generate buffs. That works with any weapon and finally, you can also use runes to generate an additional aura with the accompanying buffs.

Blaine Tog.8304:

If I wanted to be an Auramancer, I would’ve been an Auramancer. I hate that build and have no intention of using it, though. That’s not why I signed up to play an Ele.

Agreed. Yet I wanted to help the original poster with an alternative that’s at least playable. The fact that it’s boring is the reason why I’m on the forums instead of ingame right now.
Just because there’s a combination that has 1 more aura than the rest doesn’t mean the build is suddenly useless on everything that has less auras.

I am not saying the FGS is something you should carry at all time, beside it s an elite skill, with 180 sec CD, your class is elementalist and good to hear that you are playing dual dagger, as it s the most amazing class imho.

I ll be posting the video later on in few hrs, since i am not able to play right now, stay tuned “fixit” :p

Forgive me if I don’t spell to well or use proper punctuation and all that stuff. Not been in school in over 43 odd years. I aint a good typer either. Yes I said aint.

W/e. Magnetic Aura is still bugged so I won’t be tryin that build anyways. Good to know though for the future.

@Ivano if I do even use my elite, I use the ele pet now. Since I am asuran, all I get is junky bots so not much choice. I used to use nado/cancel for the stability but since that got nerfed; not worth a spot on my bar other than annoying the heck out of event farmers by flippin mobs out of thier AoE pile. Oh and btw, I been using staff as main up until today. Todays patch changed all that, so that’s not cool to me.

p.s. I had to type this twice since they decided to merge this thread into what will probably become a massive thread so they can ignore it. lol. It’s actually quite brilliant if you ask me.

I find it strange that the developers chose to remove an innovative gameplay mechanic instead of build upon it, learn from it and perhaps mold it into something more complex.

The professions are already boring to play. Do developers really beleive that pressing the same 2 buttons over and over again is fun? I don’t undertsand this.

Someone earlier mentioned that boon duration stacking was reduced as well. Could someone point me to the exact quote from the patch notes?

@XodoK

Updated Rune of Water to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
Updated Rune of the Monk to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
Updated Rune of Earth to provide 15% protection duration instead of 20%, and 3 seconds of protection instead of 4 seconds in PvP.

That’s probably it, but thankfully it is only limited to PvP

XodoK.8734:

Someone earlier mentioned that boon duration stacking was reduced as well. Could someone point me to the exact quote from the patch notes?

That was a general nerf to the duration of runes that increase boon duration (vs the ones that increase a specific boons’ duration ie Pack save the one mentioned above
) This is PvP only btw.

“Updated Rune of Water to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
Updated Rune of the Monk to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.”

I can’t seem to find dev post for this thread, can someone enlighten me? It has red symbol in the forum.

TWMagimay.9057:

Oh, I see. Because, obviously, team play is for noobs and not the skillful gameplay of 1 person doing everything. I always lay my fields on those who need them, they finish them themselves and magic happens. Guess I’m just not as good as you are. Point being, you created a playstyle that wasn;t supposed to exist based on a trait that was clearly bugged. And now it’s “harder”. -pause for a duhhhh-

1,4 k heal x3 = 4,2k hp….That´s one person doing everything…

Problem with other peoples finishers is manyfold.
First, surprisingly few people actualy can do it. I´m not sure if they don´t know what combos are or maybe they don´t know how to react to field popping near them fast enough. What ever the case is, vast majority of time my fields remain unused if i don´t cap them off myself. Obvious response is to roll with people who know how to react to them quickly, but is it really alright that ele is the one class that actualy has to be picky about with whom to roll? That just furthers the idea that eles make for poor teams, and leads to class discrimination, which already is happening if we believe some people (personaly haven´t seen it though)
Secondly, geyser doesn´t leave enough time to react even if people know how to use fields. There´s barely enough time for yourself to blast it, if target is further than rolldistance away, let alone someone else to notice it, understand whats´happening and execute a blast into it. Healing rain is on a very long cd, and is better used on the actual battle anyway.
Thirdly, your target is usualy running away from combat. Most of the time they´ve already blown their cooldowns or initiative, and are trying to survive. What my playstyle revolved around was getting them live untill they can heal theirselves up and get back to the battle.

I´m not hear kittening because it became harder. I´m here because it´s just not worth it anymore to try react to the situation. It´s not fast and reliable enough anymore to do it, better just focus on healing whoever is tanking, spec bit more offense and just dps while your heals are down.
It made it more simple and easier if anything i think.

We created a playstyle which most of us fully expected to get nerfed by a bugfix, one that would´ve reduced our blasts to be on a 10s cooldown, maybe even remove air and water blasts completely, if we were pessimistic even the fire might have gone. Having just the earth finishers would´ve let the playstyle live. But nope, everything got removed.

On a side note, unintended is never an outright bad thing. Combos in fighter games were bron unintendedly, space invaders created difficulty curve unintendedly. Dismissing something just because it was unintended is just plain stupid.

fixit.7189:

I look forward to it.

Tried FGS tonight extensively and frankly I was not impressed.

I got owned so hard too, it was really pathetic.

Went back to D/D modified bunker build and did way way better.

Honestly I got rid of arcana and did this too. The realized I hate bunker so I went back got my arcana and called it a day. DPS and heal nerf all in one day I mean really lol.

Lets be honest here they are going to heard us into D/D bunker with this bs.

ThiBash.5634:

Just so you know, I’ve made a post about the changes on the Warrior forums. I figured that way, It’s sure to be read by the people who balance this game.

Posts will all be locked and deleted. I have tried. We are not allowed to call out to devs for responses.

@ phandaria a moderator merged several threads together which cased the icon. There has been no official response on this thread.

Begging to get EA back will not work, its a lost cause. Anet, please, please, at the very least let us use condoms. I want to be safe the time you F@%K ME!

@Sakura&TheGuy
Thanks guys!

Yikes, I read through this thread again just now and it makes little sense. It’s like reading 2 pages from one book, then 3 from another, and so on. They are like just randomly shoving in posts in no particular order too. So confusing haha.

zombyturtle.5980:

ThiBash.5634:

Just so you know, I’ve made a post about the changes on the Warrior forums. I figured that way, It’s sure to be read by the people who balance this game.

Posts will all be locked and deleted. I have tried. We are not allowed to call out to devs for responses.

Yeah, I know. It was mostly done as an attempt at humor, and would have been better off to be deleted rather than moved. It shouldn’t even have been merged with this thread at all.

Suggestions
- Reintroduce the blast finisher on evasive arcana once every 10 seconds.
- Remove the current spell effects
- Introduce the dodge spell finishers as minor traits, replacing less effective traits.

For example change the stop drop and roll trait in water so it produces the effect cleansing wave.

When merging topics…introduce a tab system where each individual merged thread is layered at the top of the screen, above the page number links, to prevent discontinuity within threads.

With all of the nerfs to Evasive Arcana, I’m surprised to see that the effect damage from the roll is still pathetically low, like two digits low.

Was the only fun and engaging way to play a staff ele.
Guess it’s back to tab 123 from range, bra-fkin-vo.

phandaria.4891:

I can’t seem to find dev post for this thread, can someone enlighten me? It has red symbol in the forum.

There isn’t one. The thread likely just got that icon when one of the Mods merged the threads, but didn’t bother to post that they had done so. I’m assuming this was because they’ve been called out on using Thread Merge as a blunt instrument to reduce visibility only on threads that make them look bad, while letting dozens or hundreds of parallel topics flourish provided they don’t criticize ANet. If their community team expects to maintain any credibility at all, they couldn’t keep having their actual names appear in such threads. Thus, silent merge.

The last time an actual Developer said anything in this forum was 22 pages ago.

Obie.3268:

With all of the nerfs to Evasive Arcana, I’m surprised to see that the effect damage from the roll is still pathetically low, like two digits low.

I was about to post this too, fire dodge spell now is basically a pretty graphic effect, because it’s damage and burning will not matter when most of the people have at the very least 14/15k hps.

I get 16 dmg with my fire rolls. That’s pretty OP imo; needs more nerfin.

Admittedly, I’m very irritated at this.

I think a nerf was needed on chaining, but NOT a complete elimination of the blast finisher. Especially as a PvE person, it added a little extra oomph to staff users and contributed to a good support role. It’s another example of PvP just ruining the PvE experience.

Evasive arcana was also a grandmaster trait. A very powerful one at that, so yes, I think it’s fair enough to nerf the super chaining. Removing the blast finisher is a harsh blow to staff users I think. Why would you even use it now? Especially in PvE, there’s not much point.

Slowly but surely, I’m feeling funneled into very specific ways to play, as dictated by Anet/members of other professions who are valued more highly.

Well, apart from rangers

I’ve never been one to hop on the “ANet hates ele’s” bandwagon, but holy kittens this patch is making it look mighty tempting to start thinking that way.

I too built myself around Evasive Arcana, I absolutely love the playstyle. To me it was the biggest fun factor in the profession and a huge reason why I would play my ele over say, a guardian. I loved dodge rolling INTO enemies instead of away from them to deal damage when playing solo. It made me feel like I was a battle mage of sorts and I didn’t NEED to use D/D to feel that way (prefer support staff). It was different and fresh as opposed to your average spellcasting type classes in other games that just stand there and sling spells all day. It required movement, careful positioning and guts, basically allowing enemies to have a shot at you. Using this trait as support in dungeons was a huge departure from healing in any other game too since you had to run straight up to your allies and blast them with some healing, it kept you in the battle and not just on the outskirts laying down fields. Not to mention it made the geyser (water staff 3) actually useful, since dwayna knows it’s nigh impossible to heal anyone with that spell considering no one pays attention to it and runs straight away after it’s dropped (let alone have the reaction time to execute their own blast finishers on it).

I get it, Evasive Arcana was a very strong choice for a few builds, almost necessary for most and that this is a way of making it so other builds focusing on other things are more prominent. But why nerf Evasive Arcana? Why not just make other linchpin grandmaster traits stronger so they can compete on the same level? None of the other grandmaster traits come close to actually changing playstyle, they just have small effects. The only other playstyle changing one that comes to mind is the aura sharing trait but even then aura’s are so spaced out between weapons that it’s basically useless. Since launch it’s been said that ele’s need to be reworked a bit since other classes can bring everything an ele can with less effort, why take one of the only things that we could do better than other classes away?

I really REALLY hope that this change is actually bugged and that it was only supposed to fix how finishers would sometimes proc even when the spell didn’t (that happened a lot). Sometimes it happens, things get nerfed more than was intended, I hope this is one of those times…

phandaria.4891:

I can’t seem to find dev post for this thread, can someone enlighten me? It has red symbol in the forum.

It just shows that for the thread merge. We don’t get developer replies here.

Compare and contrast with a certain other class’s forums where a thread kittening that they didn’t get enough buffs and fixes gets a reply and apology within an hour.

omg i cant bring myself to play the game at all..I never imagined that a nerf could have such an impact to me..Always thought that its the whiners fault that they cant adapt.

Sifu.6527:

So…after 5 pages this is what I see.

Players found bug with EA. Players exploited EA bug. Bug fixed. Players QQ and threaten to quite because they can’t exploit anymore.

I think the main problem is that staff has been having problems for a while (they’ve been doing a decent job fixing d/d although their fixes ended up being more buggy than fixxy this patch).

Sifu.6527:

So…after 5 pages this is what I see.

Players found bug with EA. Players exploited EA bug. Bug fixed. Players QQ and threaten to quite because they can’t exploit anymore.

The problem isn’t that they fixed a broken trait. EA was overpowered, nobody is questioning that. The problem is that they gutted it. They broke it completely. They left it in such a state that it’s hard to imagine a player with any understanding of how it works now deliberately incorporating it into a build. They burned it to the ground and left us with the ashes.

And then they took the time to nerf a bunch of other stuff, and slap some kitten pity buffs on Conjurations, which are still too terrible for anyone to use. Their epic Two-Man Class Balance team took a good long look at the Elementalist class (allegedly) and decided that one of most valuable and immediate-priority uses of their time this patch was to NERF TORNADO.

Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended fun.

Seriously. Rolling in and out of field, both my own and those of group mates, was what made ele support so exceptionally fun that I could still overlook all the bugs, potential underpoweredness, fragility and so on. It was just so much fun that I still cannot grasp how they could just remove it entirely. Tying the blast finisher to the spells produced by the trait, and thus their cooldowns, should have been enough of a nerf and would have been accepted by the elementalist community easily, because it would have been reasonable without crippling our capabilities or destroying the fun in quite a number of interesting builds.

Majority here admits that EA needed fixing, infact I called this nerf a while ago in another forum subsection (resulted in deletion and infraction, btw).

Problem is I thought they would simply fix the multiple procs under 10 secs which was the whole reason why it was OP. Instead, they gutted it completely.

I honestly did not expect them to go this far. But they did!

It’s quite a shock.

I’m not usually the posting type but this nerf/fix whatever you want to call it just killed ele for me. This was the one build that just seemed to make sense. Not everyone knew how to utilize evasive well and it meant you couldn’t just stand there and nuke. There are still plenty of eles that are happy to stand back and just pew pew. But in this build you were actively involved and moving! I’m not a fan of standing there just button pushing so something that allowed us to be dynamic in playing was almost like that fun challenge. Switching attunements and dodge/rolling to give the group some real utility made the game fun.. Dungeons were actually fun and we were useful to the group instead of dying. Honestly, I have no interest in my ele as of right now, which is a bummer considering the new content. I don’t care to invest hours in switching up gear and rebuilding to something that isn’t 1/2 as enjoyable. Considering we just got a bunch of friends to play for this new friend referral it seems most logical to just start a new class. I’m hopeful the devs will figure out some middle ground at the very least so she’s worth coming back to.

Haven’t played gw2 in two weaks because I’ve been very busy.
I was hoping this patch would do some good to elementalists as this was the first big bug fixing patch of the game. I read and was disappointed. I see little reason to get back to gw2 now. But oh well, I’ve already lost the desire to play.

Not much I can say that hasn’t been said already, but this certainly killed any remaining interest I have in the game – it was the one build I found fun on my Elementalist. As others, I fully expected the blast finishers when the spell was on CD to go away – that never seemed intended – but to remove ALL the blast finishers? Never expected that, and it really guts the fun of playing a staff elementalist.

I was already reeling from the announcement of a new gear grind in Ascended items…this nerf is just the nail in the coffin for me. Hopefully we’ll get buffed down the road to be a half-decent class, but I’m not holding my breath.

Lets call it what it is we had a skill removed. Everyone got dps increases/decreases etc but what we got was a skilled removed from the arsenal. It just reminds us that eles as a community aren’t really understood. This isn’t the same as a skill nerf but the removal of an entire style of play.

Also note so many of us said it was a bug. Many of us never exploited the bug (I for one was expecting the fix and didn’t want to use it). What we never expected was seeing probably one of out most useful traits get gutted to this point. This isn’t just taking away a toy some exploited. Right now ele are going to gt pigeon holed into more defensive specs. My fear is that D/D will become the only acceptable play style. Even S/D had ones of its blast finishers nerfed.

I know the devs are unlikely to come here and talk to us. I don’t want them to defend there reasons just explain them. We are one of the Hardest classes to play and most of us actually had to work at getting good.

Not to over exaggerated but EA’s usefulness was on par at times with stealth and clones for many builds it was the true core mechanic. I will admit my build will still work with EA not as a blast finisher my dps will take a small hit but for our staff family this was too much. Not realizing this shows a disconnect with our community.

Baladir.2736:

TWMagimay.9057:

Strang.8170:

Stationary target because you need to prepare your heal with eruption for it to be worth anything, and with cast times that´s good 2-3 second process. on top of that with recuded finisher amount, you´ll need to make sure people stay in your heals.

As opposed to before when you could see people on low health (usualy running franticly), throw a field towards them and cap off with dual finisher(dodge+arcane wave). Kept you both mobile, didn´t require recipient to set up a camp inside your heal and rewarded skillful play and observation.

Oh, I see. Because, obviously, team play is for noobs and not the skillful gameplay of 1 person doing everything. I always lay my fields on those who need them, they finish them themselves and magic happens. Guess I’m just not as good as you are. Point being, you created a playstyle that wasn;t supposed to exist based on a trait that was clearly bugged. And now it’s “harder”. -pause for a duhhhh-

I had to laugh at this exchange. As someone who just only found out a month or so ago that EA had a blast finisher, and someone who only plays a couple times a week and so never had much chance to use this “new” function, I can safely say I will not miss it.

I’ve never been one to read alot about other peoples builds, preferring to figure things out myself. So, the chances of stumbling upon undocumented “skills”, (exploits or bugs would actually be better words), are slim. The fact you guys have built entire builds around these bugs is understandable. That’s what many players do with bugs and exploits, exploit them lol. To recongnize we have to change is honest enough, but to whine about it just seems so…… like a little brat throwing a fit when he’s caught with his hands in the cookie jar and is told no more cookies for you.

Like you said you don’t play much so you wont get it. We (that’s right “we”) reported the bug. What we saw was that every time we would dodge roll we would gt a blast finisher no cd at all. Some (read that word) players exploited it. What we lost wasn’t a big deal for D/D and S/D we will cope. Effectively Anet nerfed healing on staff. The blast finisher they have access to has a very long cast to effect time ie it takes a while to proc. Its also a tricky combo to pull off. Considering how mobile everything in the game is it requires you to read mind rather than react on the spot.

Now I get you haven’t played much and don’t play often but you not realizing it worked that way doesn’t mean the rest of us should just stay quiet and take it. Many people here did the right thing and wanted the skill to be balanced. What they have now learned is that reporting a bug could lead to a trigger happy nerf which could hurt our class.

While i respect your right to have your own Opinion your incapability to see the far reaching implications of what was done upsets me. While its true I am one of those less effected by this change (since I play D/D) I still realize how big the impact is to the community at large. Perhaps you should try the same?

Another thing about the discussion you quoted

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blast_Finisher

If player understood that half the skills that carry a blast are nigh useless and that consistent blast lie in the hands of SB thief (rare) and hammer users. Our EA blast were useful all around.

I never looked up builds from others. The moment I looked into the Arcane trait line I knew I wanted Evasive Arcana because it seemed cool to me. Over time I learned that it also combos in fields, which made it extra fun. I don’t play PvP, I don’t exploit might stacks. I just liked the ability to dodge into fields and create a combo with my trait.
It changed my playstyle into something more fun, and now that’s gone.

TheGuy.3568:

Effectively Anet nerfed healing on staff.

In the general section of the changes, I saw this too:

Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

I haven’t tested this (and probably won’t bother), but it looks like an extra nerf to Ele’s support capabilities.

Now that the blastfinishers are no longer, will you still slot Evasive Arcana?

Are the effects enough for a GM trait?

Absolutely not. Cleansing Wave is decent, but the other 3 are far too weak, and Cleansing Wave on a 10s CD alone doesn’t justify its status as a Grandmaster trait.

Like I said in another thread. Choosing Elementalist traits is like choosing between kittens or kittens. It doesn’t really matter, as it’s either bugged, and/or so underpowered it might as well be an empty trait slot.

Heimlich.3065:

TheGuy.3568:

Effectively Anet nerfed healing on staff.

In the general section of the changes, I saw this too:

Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

I haven’t tested this (and probably won’t bother), but it looks like an extra nerf to Ele’s support capabilities.

They nerfed our healing in general. I wont say it was unfair as it can be argued that our healing could be over the top at times. Its just the level of nerf they dealt to staff was excessive. this sort of meta game nerf can kill a class. However in this case it will likely kill a weapon. Staff ele often would pride themselves on their supportive play style as no other class can really compare. It may be shocking for some but nerfing EA to this point might make many shelve the weapon entirely.

Vs other classes we had no true dominant weapon set as each had their trade off and the benefit/losses we relatively the same. Right now without EA I don’t know what exactly the benefit of staff is anymore. It’s too reliant on good team players when there are so few. I think other eles might understand where I come from when I say its not that we want to do everything but that we have to do everything.

If I can’t have fast attunement swapping, the class isn’t fun anyway. So I’ll probably use 3 arcane traits. And it may well be that Evasive Arcana’s water heal — the only vaguely useful part — leaves it as one of the three least-bad traits for scepter builds.

Heimlich.3065:

TheGuy.3568:

Effectively Anet nerfed healing on staff.

In the general section of the changes, I saw this too:

Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

I haven’t tested this (and probably won’t bother), but it looks like an extra nerf to Ele’s support capabilities.

Well, while it was certainly nice that some AoE heals hit an unlimited amount of targets (Geysir in tightly stacked players during Jormag’s Claw produced insane healing numbers), I agree with that receiving a limitation, though I would prefer a limit of 10 to account for pets, NPCs in dungeons.

Evasive Arcana, on the other hand, simply got destroyed. They should just have bound the Blast Finisher to the 10 second internal cooldown of the spell effects, or even its own global 10 second cooldown independent of the spells, to make it reasonable yet still useful and fun.

No, it’s trash, just like the other Gransmaster Major.

I need the 30 arcane aswell for my build, thinking of taking this now:

Elemental attunement
Blasting Staff
Renewing Stamina

It should be INCREDIBLY clear at this point that a majority of vocal staff-wielding Elementalists enjoyed the kitten/puppy/panda out of the ability to dodge roll into our fields to finish them.

It gave us something to do besides sit at 1200 yards and spam.
It made us feel like we were really contributing to out party’s efforts.
It increased the fun-factor of playing a Staff Elementalist tenfold.

So while we understand that the blast finisher effect was not intended (though there are serious questions about churning earth), it was a bug that the community found quite rewarding and opened up an entire style of play that was previously unavailable to the profession. This should be obvious by the amount of people who had been using the build now reporting that the class seems empty and broken without it.

Take this to heart Devs… it means something. Just because it was not intended, does not mean that it wasn’t worth keeping in the arsenal. Your community LOVES it.

So now that Evasive Arcana is useless… and it IS. Please consider reintroducing this play-style, albeit with fair restrictions. Increase and fix the Cooldown and whatever else it is you have to do to make it fit your balance bill… but bring it back.

Personally, I would love it if any and all damage/effects BESIDES the finisher itself were removed from EA. Even better? Depending on which attunement is up dictates the finisher type… Fire = Projectile, Water = Blast, Lightning = Leap, Earth = Whirling… Yeah yeah yeah, I know that’s a little crazy, but hotDOG would that be fun.

Gutting EA the way you did was overkill and does nobody any favors. Were we really OP with it? I still felt like the weakest kitten/puppy/panda profession in the game, but at least I could DANCE. I’m really finding it hard to even want to log in now… seriously.

Mephane, I completely agree with you. The Evasive Arcana was the crown kitten in this update, though breaking Dragon’s Tooth and yet-again leaving Mist Form CD untouched are nice additions. (I think Mist Form CD is just a tradition now).

A 10 or 15 limit on heal targets would have been much, much, much better. A limit of 5 can’t hit a full random sPvP team or even a full 5-person party, since pets, NPCs, and elementals could take healing as well.

I was using it with daggers, this is not just the staff-wielding community afaik. I just would like a single finisher per field or a single finisher every X seconds. That would at least bring back the fun.

The Evasive Arcana effects were nerfed in beta because they were seen as too powerful in combination with the blast finisher. Now they remove the blast finisher and claim that it was unintentional that it was a blast finisher.

Talk about a bullkitten lie.

The effects of Evasive Arcana are no longer enough imo. But we’re almost forced into it for the attunement-swap reduction.

This profession went from the most underpowered profession to the most underpowered and uninteresting profession overnight.