Guild Wars 2

Main example would be off-hand dagger fire skill 5. 45 seconds, for what at least at my level, without burn is about the same as an auto attack, and with burn is the same as 1.5 auto attacks… 45 seconds?

Elementalists have 4 different attunements… 20 different weapon skills. Thats why their cooldowns are more significant.

Also, its does much much more damage against burning than an autoattack… unless your auto attacks hit for 5k.

Im Too Godlike.5629:

Elementalists have 4 different attunements… 20 different weapon skills. Thats why their cooldowns are more significant.

Also, its does much much more damage against burning than an autoattack… unless your auto attacks hit for 5k.

only when i hit myself i hit for 5k :p

Im Too Godlike.5629:

Elementalists have 4 different attunements… 20 different weapon skills. Thats why their cooldowns are more significant.
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That doesn’t mean 20 effective skills. Warrior’s 100b has better damage, better radius and range, no need in condition on target and it has 8 sec coodown, not 45. I don’t even talk about rifle knockdown and our updraft. That’s for example.

I can only speak for d/d, but imo, Fire 5, Water 4, Air 5 and Earth 4 cooldowns are excessive. I could add some utilities to the list too…

I agree, a lot of the 4 and 5 slot weapon skills and many of the utilities seem to have overly long cool downs relative to the norms for other professions.

imho certain skills might benefit of their CD being SLIGHTLY reduced: I would be against an heavy reduction because if you rotate correctly amongst your attunements doing combos properly, you end up dealing a cheeseload of damage AoE

But even if you rotate you can use firegrab dont right the CD doesnt fit in the rotation in my opinion. Its mostly like the 3. time i switch to fire when firegrab gets up again and seriouly it doenst deal that much damage. I think 30 seconds should be okay, i mean cunning earth is also on a 30sec.
Cleasing Wave and frost armor i find okay. But dont understand why shock armor / aura has a significant lower cooldown whats the thought behind that ?
Updraft i find okay maybe a little less.

An elementalist has to learn to use all their attunements and not allow themselves to get in the habit of relying on only one or two. This is where the cooldowns won’t feel as prohibitive. It’s a hard habit to break (using only one or two attunements) so my suggestion is, if you find that this is what you’re doing…break yourself of it ASAP or you will suffer for it at mid to higher levels especially. I’m speaking strictly in terms of PvE since I don’t PvP in this game, yet.

Having said all of that however, yes…there are times when I get a tad frustrated with some of the cooldowns because they don’t all necessarily fit in a good rotation or the damage relative to the length of the cooldown seems out of balance.

The important word is “little”. There is enough cc between earth and air alone to make me feel comfy with where cds are at. If it gets too bad you can always take the 20% reduction but I feel it’s unnecessary (though I do use the one for water from time to time). If they were to reduce the cds too much ele would be OP given the number of tools at our disposal. Honestly when you shift attunements often you may hit a cd but most important skills are near the end of their timer already.

I’ve always found it funny that firegrab does about the same damage as a heartseeker, is not spammable, has a huge cd, and is very easy to miss. Oh and has a prerequisite of burning to do any sort of damage.

But thieves are an entirely different class that is built around that spike damage and stealth away thing. Ele’s are so much more versatile. We can do a lot more than damage and if a hairy situation comes our way we have more things we can do than a thief can. Sure Ele’s can use a bit of tweaking, but comparing a Thief’s skill to an Ele’s skill is apples and oranges. Totally different classes.

Leiloni.7951:

But thieves are an entirely different class that is built around that spike damage and stealth away thing. Ele’s are so much more versatile. We can do a lot more than damage and if a hairy situation comes our way we have more things we can do than a thief can. Sure Ele’s can use a bit of tweaking, but comparing a Thief’s skill to an Ele’s skill is apples and oranges. Totally different classes.

This. I play both classes and both have their problems and strengths. Ele’s definitely needs a tweak or two but it’s difficult to compare a ranged class with a personal combat class in every little thing.

Part of the issue for eles isn’t just the cooldowns themselves but the amount of downtime it leaves them with. I sometimes find myself waiting a few seconds between fights when soloing just to ensure I have all of my skills readily available; no other profession needs to do this and it adds nothing but a waste of time for us.

Aside from a small tweak to a few of our 4 and 5 skills (alongside a few utilities that were nerfed during beta but never had their cooldowns reduced to match) I think ANet should accelerate weapon skill cooldowns outside of combat.

Updraft should have 20-25 seconds cd. Other classes have nowhere near such long cooldowns on their knockdowns.
Firegrab 15-20 seconds. It does nowhere near enough damage to justify such a long cooldown.

15 secs? lol, that would be insane.
I think most of the perceived “weakness” has roots in the incorrect selection of traits (or worst the urban legend of an universally valid set of them, instead of a more realistic click-and-change-in-every-map habit) and the misuse/total lack of use of the most efficients combo rotations.
I mostly use D/D so I am at ease once I get at least fire aura (which with the proper trait assignement gives also protection), 10+ stacks of Might AoE, and no ordinary crowd of mobs can survive an entire four elements rotation combo.
Firegrab + any aoe fire, especially in lower level areas = instagib

I repeat, am okay with slightly tuning uo our damage output and maybe slightly reducing some cooldown, but I am not seeking to get a “push here to win” button.

I’ve been leveling with a mesmer friend, we both crafted ourselfs the same Masterwork level 35 Power/Vitality armor and rare weapons. Now I’m level 52 and he is 45 because im grinding more during the event. Yesterday during the champion fights at upscaled level 80 his sword auto-attack was hitting for 700 per hit, and 1000+ on crits while my 45 sec Fire Grab hits for 1500 crit… A mesmer can do 4 clone mindwracks + Blurred Frenzy and do 15k+ damage every 12 secs?

So no, I don’t think a 15 sec Fire Grab would be insane.

Not to be annoying, but a Mesmer can’t get on demand might stacks, healing burst combos and Regen stacks, Protection stacks, multiple CC’s, Bleeds, burns, etc. They have a lot of cool stuff but are not as versatile as we are. Our versatility is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness I think.

From 45 to 15 seems like too huge a jump. 20 or 25 seconds would be neat.

@Grevender: Backstab has 3 seconds cooldown. Heartseeker 0. Killshot about 10-15, 100b 6. Ele is the only class with obsessively long cooldowns on their hardhitters, and even then other classes hit WAY harder with their lower cooldown skills.

Also you talk about PVE which is easymode. In tournament pvp you will never have that “10+ stack of might” because a mesmer or necro will simply strip of corrupt them. Almost all classes have boon stripping abilities.

Also, what NdranC said.

Leiloni.7951:

Not to be annoying, but a Mesmer can’t get on demand might stacks, healing burst combos and Regen stacks, Protection stacks, multiple CC’s, Bleeds, burns, etc. They have a lot of cool stuff but are not as versatile as we are. Our versatility is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness I think.

The thing is Mesmers effectively have all that baked in.

A Mesmer’s damage is much higher than an ele’s by default, the ele needs those might stacks to break even or push slightly ahead. Same goes for the protection: mesmers don’t need it as they have distortion which is far far superior. Everyone constantly rattles off a list of boons and other things the ele can give yet overlooks the fact that the other 7 professions don’t even need them to be effective.

Leiloni.7951:

Not to be annoying, but a Mesmer can’t get on demand might stacks, healing burst combos and Regen stacks, Protection stacks, multiple CC’s, Bleeds, burns, etc. They have a lot of cool stuff but are not as versatile as we are. Our versatility is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness I think.

My main point was that we are lacking on viable damaging builds both because of traits and big cooldowns/low damage skills. All we are known for right now is moving a lot, being hard to kill and making everybody else powerful/healthy.

Also, might stacking shines much more when you have a group of people to buff. Yes we can get 20+ stacks of might on ourselves but by that point we’ve already used all our biggest hitters (at least D/D). We mostly “really” enjoy 9 of them.

I always thought the engineer shield abilities had excessively long cool downs, one of the major reasons I always roll rifle.

Aether McLoud.1975:

@Grevender: Backstab has 3 seconds cooldown. Heartseeker 0. Killshot about 10-15, 100b 6. Ele is the only class with obsessively long cooldowns on their hardhitters, and even then other classes hit WAY harder with their lower cooldown skills.

so what? are you suggesting that they drastically shorten our CD only because those classes have theirs insanely low? Just increase those, and voilà balance!

PvE maybe easymode, but is an huge portion of the game and other classes aren’t as efficient as Ele at it.

PvP, they will someday balance all stuff and I will finally enjoy it.

As our skills are weakened as compensation for having more then other professions (and longer cast times), i think 45 secs is out of the question. Even other professions rarely have this long cooldown. So this means ele has both a damage/cooldown nerf to other professions. I’m not talking about crazy cooldown lowerings. But i think 30-35 secs should be the top for most skills. The hotkey 5 healing skills cooldowns however are ok for me (might be to op in certain situations if they had lower cd), but our damage skills should never have 45 secs cooldown. Been fighting 4+ enemies at same time (pretty hard), but that became even harder when all the 45/30 secs skills were on cooldown, and stayed like 15 secs for that until they recharged. Especially dagger (a weapon that must have a good rotation or you won’t survive/succeed), should not have 45 sec cooldowns. That’s my take on it.