Guild Wars 2

ANet fanboys are saying the talent is still good and stuff.

Is anyone going 30 points in arcane JUST for new EA since supposedly it is still good?

nah, 20 points into arcana and 10 points into earth (as a D/D build)

EA isn’t worth it anymore….

Nonlinear.9823:

ANet fanboys are saying the talent is still good and stuff.

Is anyone going 30 points in arcane JUST for new EA since supposedly it is still good?

For the new EA, I doubt anyone is taking 30pts. FOR that skill now…

But we still need our Attunement-swap cooldown reduction, and there’s nothing else worthwhile to choose… so many will keep EA for lack of anything better.

With the exception of maybe Water though, dodging will just be dodging again.

or just go play warrior and spam auto atk.. in all seriousness personally i put the 10 points into 3 might stack on cantrips, and changed my boon duration runes to migth duration.. still i feel needlessly underwhelming now i cant keep my boons up.. considering how poor ele is in other ways.. boons where really all we had..

it’s sad when the funnest most engaging build was unintended. 20/10/0/10/30 synergized REALLY well, better than anything ANet “intended”.

What a shame that the intended builds aren’t as much fun. Hopefully ANet “screws up” or there is another fun “unintended bug” that we can create interesting builds around.

Please, ANet, introduce more bugs. I want to find more fun builds.

I may keep 30 because the 30% Attunement cooldown reduction is hard to live without, but I certainly won’t be keeping it because EA is any good.

I am considering switching to 20 Arcane/10 Earth though.

I was doing 20 arcane for awhile and got used to the slightly slower attunement cooldown, so I’ll probably be going back to my old build (0/10/10/30/20). I might play with 10 more into air for Bolt to the Heart since I’ve gotten used to not having 10 earth, see if that 20% is worth it for wvw.

D/D btw.

I’m keeping 30 points in Arcane because of the faster swap, but was considering Final Shielding for my new trait. Until I read that it’s bugged and not working as it should be… so I’m thinking of sticking to EA as there’s really no useful replacements for it anyway.

I am not even sure I’ll keep playing my Elementalist, Evasive Arcana was a major factor when I decided to stick to my little attunement dancer.

I might as well play my Hammer Guardian, Mighty Blow works exactly like EA dodging: 4s cd, small gap closer blast finisher.

The issue is that it’s not as if we have a lot of great options for spending those 10 points. I’m debating whether or not to keep it in my build myself.

It seems pretty useless on my staff now to me, but I can still see it as useful on D/D for the cripple/blind/heal effects since you’ll be in melee range and can actually get some use out of them, unlike staff. Since I regularly switch back and forth between staff and D/D depending on my range requirements I haven’t decided what to do yet.

EA is only good in water, but it’s kind of a pain having to switch to that attunement just to use it. Fire/air need a good radius buff imo, and earth should be 2~3 stacks with less time.

I’ll probably slot it for the reasons stated above (attunement cooldown, water heal).

That assumes I play my elementalist at all, which I probably won’t if Anet totally ignores this outcry.

I’d stick with Arcana 30 because otherwise you can’t stance dance, and if you can’t stance dance you can’t really do anything as an Eke at all. But EA? Waste of a trait slot. I’ll pick up the -20% Arcane skills cooldown. That’s a way better use of the slot than incredibly low damage that forces you to get way too close.

I’m sticking with 30 Arcana but not with EA. It’s a waste. Without EA there is no reason to be close to an enemy and usually you dodge AWAY from people. I’m going to take Final Shielding or Elemental Surge. If you have arcane utility skills Elemental Surge does close to the same thing as Evasive Arcana does now, except it’s better because it’s ranged.

Does anyone have any experience with Arcane Retribution? The wiki doesn’t list a cooldown? Is Arcane Power still bugged?

Yes, arcane power is still bugged. You’ll get maybe 2 crits out of it per use.

So Final Shielding and Arcane power/Arcane retribution are all bugged. It seems like Elemental Attunement, Arcane Mastery, and Elemental Surge are only options. I guess I could go with Blasting Staff, but I’m not sure how much bigger areas help, and in some cases, like Static Field, they actually seem to hurt.

For EA primarily? No. For the attunement reduction? Yes. Also water EA is part of how I play so I doubt I would be comfortable without it.

As a d/d aura build i can easily choose Final Shielding, Vigor on crit, 25 lightning / 25 water traits which can easily add up to 10% more dmg on their own, or 10 earth for an extra armor of earth. All good options, but ofcourse not as good as a 0 cooldown blast finisher on a trait (that had no mention of any blast finishers at all). Its still a good talent if you’ve got +healing imo. Gaining 2 seconds attunement recharge isnt thát much, and the 25 arcane trait is kitten anyway. My ele still performs really well, especially in smaller numbered fights.

Bugs happen, mostly they’re bad but sometimes they work out in your favor, but bugs simply need to be fixed. Hopefully they’ll take a good look at the data of our damage output now and we get some buffs later if they feel its needed.

yes, i’m keeping EA.

the dodge roll survivability from water is still good. i’m apparently the only person in the entirety of GW2 that read the healing ripple change too.

tough decision but the attunement recharge and healing ripple makes me want to keep it.

I’m still using EA for the dodge roll in water.

Not totally sure, on one hand the extra boons from faster recharge + longer boon duration are enticing, but on the other hand the two last trait slots in arcana really might as well be empty now (ok, water dodge is still good, but the others…).

Then again, not like there are any traits I’d particularly want in trees other than water either. Such freedom to build your character when you don’t really care for any of the choices offered!

The trait is so-so now. Not bad, but not good either.

Pluses

• Has a potential decent stat point worth due to the water dodge.
• Is reachable without taking any crap majors.

Minuses

• Harsh requirement of having to waste a dodge and being in water for good effect.
• Arcane grandmaster minor is worthless.
• 60% arcane recharge is overkill. You only gain 1.33s compared to 20 arcane. And unlike the 1.8s you gain going from 10-20, these last 10 points have less rotational meaning.

It’s not 60%, it’s 30: you go from 15s base to 9, 9.x actualy, but it’s definitely 10>cd>9.

If it truly was 60% cd would go down from 15 to about 6.

I felt pretty useless with it last night in the group I ran with some guildies. There is no point to it. I am quickly running out of reasons to play. If every class is just a dps rotation spam with support being an unintended lucky happenstance when certain abilities fall together, then I am beginging to think this game is not for me.

After I finished with my guild group I went to a dungeon in Tera last night with my Mystic. Apples and Oranges, I know. But GDI I had fun.

nvmvoidrays.2158:

yes, i’m keeping EA.

the dodge roll survivability from water is still good. i’m apparently the only person in the entirety of GW2 that read the healing ripple change too.

NO, I saw that as well, was another reason for me to be depressed about this class.

I haven’t changed a single thing with my build, I’m still 10 Air, 30 Water, 30 Arcana and still using EA. Honestly I’m shocked by the amount of people complaining about an unintended blast finisher bug being removed. It hasn’t broken the profession, I still kill people and rarely die, just last night won 2 × 2v1’s against a D/D Ele and a Thief, yes both were level 80’s, I wish I’d frapsed the fights.

If anything, they STILL need to fix Ride The Lightning, Magnetic Grasp. Both still bug out and both are still broken. But overall I think the Ele is in the same place as it was pre-patch. The buffed conjures don’t make a difference, people still will not use them, multiple cantrips are mandatory in PvP as is 30 Arcana / 30 Water. Tornado is now completely useless, but I still do well enough not to complain.

Sure I know that I’m working 3 x as hard as other professions, Thieves still do way to much DPS, but I’m having fun and that’s the main thing!!

Loco.4561:

But overall I think the Ele is in the same place as it was pre-patch.

Ele isn’t in the same place because now MG very rarely triggers fire aura (you get a confirmation of combo done but no icon, no burning to nearby enemy and no buffs if traited). Plus, dragon’s tooth doesn’t trigger blast finishers at all. And frankly, judging by recent anets reaction, we gonna get tooltip change instead of bugfix or even if they would fix it, it will take about a month and it might be glitched even more.

haviz.1340:

Loco.4561:

But overall I think the Ele is in the same place as it was pre-patch.

Ele isn’t in the same place because now MG very rarely triggers fire aura (you get a confirmation of combo done but no icon, no burning to nearby enemy and no buffs if traited). Plus, dragon’s tooth doesn’t trigger blast finishers at all. And frankly, judging by recent anets reaction, we gonna get tooltip change instead of bugfix or even if they would fix it, it will take about a month and it might be glitched even more.

And? It’s hardly broke the profession has it? I don’t get why so many are focussed on this one aspect.

Loco.4561:

haviz.1340:

Loco.4561:

But overall I think the Ele is in the same place as it was pre-patch.

Ele isn’t in the same place because now MG very rarely triggers fire aura (you get a confirmation of combo done but no icon, no burning to nearby enemy and no buffs if traited). Plus, dragon’s tooth doesn’t trigger blast finishers at all. And frankly, judging by recent anets reaction, we gonna get tooltip change instead of bugfix or even if they would fix it, it will take about a month and it might be glitched even more.

And? It’s hardly broke the profession has it? I don’t get why so many are focussed on this one aspect.

Do you have problems with constructing logical arguments? I’m not focused on god kitten EA because I wasn’t using it all. I’m concerned about more bugs while old ones are still present. You’ve said they are in SAME place, while they’re not because of more everpresent bugs. And btw, rangers got hotfixes to their traps so hotfixes are possible afterall, who would have thought.

I’m taking 30 in arcane because the attunement cooldown reduction is so critical to having our class just barely function.

I’ve gotta have the attunement cooldown, so yes, but EA for the dodge in water isn’t worth slotting. I may try to wean myself down to 20 arcane and put those ten points elsewhere, but as it stands now the only grandmaster traits really worth going deep into a line for now are water’s.

Loco.4561:

Honestly I’m shocked by the amount of people complaining about an unintended blast finisher bug being removed.

Then you don’t really get the problem at all. Evasive Arcana with blast finishers created a playstyle all by itself. It was incredibly challenging to pull of in tougher fights, but also very fun to play that way. It was extremely fast paced, involving quick decision making and precision in executing your moves and skill uses.

And that’s gone now. You can’t fault people for feeling that a stationary, long range fireball spamming staff build feels a bit bland comparitively. It may not affect the power level of the elementalist, but it did nerf one very fun build.

nvmvoidrays.2158:

yes, i’m keeping EA.

the dodge roll survivability from water is still good. i’m apparently the only person in the entirety of GW2 that read the healing ripple change too.

That only affects bunkers though. It doesn’t affect play style or efficiency of other builds, which is were a lot of the qq is coming from.

Mik Hell.8206:

It’s not 60%, it’s 30: you go from 15s base to 9, 9.x actualy, but it’s definitely 10>cd>9.

It is 60% increased recharge rate.

15/1.2=12.5
15/1.4=10.714
15/1.6=9.375

That only affects bunkers though. It doesn’t affect play style or efficiency of other builds, which is were a lot of the qq is coming from.

Agreed. The healing ripple change is not that huge if you don’t use healing power gear.

The Evasive Arcane nerf on the other hand is a big problem for all elementalist specs as Evasive Arcana was the best dps trait that the elementalist had. Far better than the crappy traits in the Fire and Air lines.

Dodge rolling into water fields made the roll heal twice as good.

Wildclaw.6073:

Evasive Arcana was the best dps trait that the elementalist had.

It was so much more than just a power boost. It had all kinds of fun possibilities with all kinds of combo fields.

ThiBash.5634:

Dodge rolling into water fields made the roll heal twice as good.

Wildclaw.6073:

Evasive Arcana was the best dps trait that the elementalist had.

It was so much more than just a power boost. It had all kinds of fun possibilities with all kinds of combo fields.

Yea. It was OP. Its gone forever now. The fat lady sang and all that. We get it. Now to learn to use the abilities in the manner in which they were intended to be used by Anet instead of using some of them in ways that Anet did not intend for them to be used and etc..

I guess half the issue is that trying to figure out which abilities work the way Anet wants them to is kind of a crap shoot, but abilities that trigger effects not listed on the tool tip are probably good candidates for nerfs, so be warned.

boozer.7815:

ThiBash.5634:

Dodge rolling into water fields made the roll heal twice as good.

Wildclaw.6073:

Evasive Arcana was the best dps trait that the elementalist had.

It was so much more than just a power boost. It had all kinds of fun possibilities with all kinds of combo fields.

Yea. It was OP. Its gone forever now. The fat lady sang and all that. We get it. Now to learn to use the abilities in the manner in which they were intended to be used by Anet instead of using some of them in ways that Anet did not intend for them to be used and etc..

I think you missed the part where he said it was FUN TO USE. Balancing energy use and positioning for potential combos is a lot more INTERESTING than simply earth 2 water 3 call it a day.

Rather than completely remove a FUN play style, they could have actually kept some of it alive by, oh, I dunno, keeping it only on the “churning earth” roll, or a forced global 10-15 second cool down on the blast portion, or whatever. There, no more super fast double/triple blast spam finishers into water fields for mass bunker healing, but you still keep some of the hectic FUN around.

Generally, you want your game to be more active and interesting than not, right? There are many games that have become successful in large because of the fact that the community managed to find some really interesting bugs to play with.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Generally, you want your game to be more active and interesting than not, right?

Agree, but I do not play this class just because of one trait, nor do I feel that one trait makes this class fun. Apparently, that is not the way Anet intends for that trait to be used. Ce la vie.

I guess we need to learn to use how our Combo Fields work when teaming up with other classes, like say.. A Warrior! Most finishers in the game of any class. Or how about a Guardian, or a Necro, or a Mesmer, and etc.. LTP the game as it was intended to be played, which is to use your abilities in combination with other classes as part of a team. I do not recall Anet ever saying that the Ele was supposed to be played strictly solo and not as a valuable part of a team…..

The fun of this class for me is in demonstrating ways in which I can use the Ele’s abilities in combination with others and then in all of us reaping the benefits through teamwork. The fact is that the Staff Ele brings more combo field options to the table than any other class this game currently has today. Those can be used in any number of ways to turn your team into a powerhouse. That is what the Staff Ele is supposed to be doing, IMO.

For D/D and S/D I still use Elemental Attunement, Renewing Stamina and Evasive Arcana but for Staff I’ll properly switch Evasive Arcana with Blasting Staff.

boozer.7815:

The fun of this class for me is in demonstrating ways in which I can use the Ele’s abilities in combination with others and then in all of us reaping the benefits through teamwork. The fact is that the Staff Ele brings more combo field options to the table than any other class this game currently has today. Those can be used in any number of ways to turn your team into a powerhouse. That is what the Staff Ele is supposed to be doing, IMO.

We could do that very well with Evasive Arcana, and still perform our own combos.

You’d have had to have mastered Evasive Arcana play to truly appreciate why it was so much fun.

Think of it this way: staff elementalists used to be moving all over the place, dodging left and right and comboing (and missing combos) as much they could.

Now, our gameplay consists of standing in the back, placing a field every few seconds and hopefully see a heart appear in the distance.

Which sounds like it’d be more fun to do?

boozer.7815:

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Generally, you want your game to be more active and interesting than not, right?

Agree, but I do not play this class just because of one trait, nor do I feel that one trait makes this class fun. Apparently, that is not the way Anet intends for that trait to be used. Ce la vie.

I guess we need to learn to use how our Combo Fields work when teaming up with other classes, like say.. A Warrior! Most finishers in the game of any class. Or how about a Guardian, or a Necro, or a Mesmer, and etc.. LTP the game as it was intended to be played, which is to use your abilities in combination with other classes as part of a team. I do not recall Anet ever saying that the Ele was supposed to be played strictly solo and not as a valuable part of a team…..

The fun of this class for me is in demonstrating ways in which I can use the Ele’s abilities in combination with others and then in all of us reaping the benefits through teamwork. The fact is that the Staff Ele brings more combo field options to the table than any other class this game currently has today. Those can be used in any number of ways to turn your team into a powerhouse. That is what the Staff Ele is supposed to be doing, IMO.

Who said I didn’t play the ele as a team player? The whole point of my build, with Evasive Arcana, was to be able to provide my entire team with long lasting 21 stacks of might while also having the versatility to provide more blasts with the lightning hammer or aoe damage with the frost bow conjure. Me actually using the conjures a lot already makes me one of the less orthodox elementalist players probably. Also, I’m not even a Staff elementalist – I only using that for either sieges (where it’s the obvious choice) or if there’s a boss that it will obviously rip through (ex. Nightmare Tree). I enjoyed the idea of being able to roll into my fellow Ranger’s healing field or debuffing with AoE weakness. If I wanted to play a more selfish manner, I’d play my 80 Warrior or my 80 Thief (and I do when I feel like it).

You know how I like to demonstrate how an Elementalist and combo fields are useful in dungeons? We rip down a boss and I ask how people like my little might dance that basically gave them 21 permanent stacks of might. Then even randoms start getting a little bit more aware of their own, and people even start to think about how to not obscure my might dance or to put down water fields when I pop out my hammer. It’s what let me rip through CoE in random pugs with first timers in 25 minutes.

ThiBash.5634:

boozer.7815:

The fun of this class for me is in demonstrating ways in which I can use the Ele’s abilities in combination with others and then in all of us reaping the benefits through teamwork. The fact is that the Staff Ele brings more combo field options to the table than any other class this game currently has today. Those can be used in any number of ways to turn your team into a powerhouse. That is what the Staff Ele is supposed to be doing, IMO.

We could do that very well with Evasive Arcana, and still perform our own combos.

You’d have had to have mastered Evasive Arcana play to truly appreciate why it was so much fun.

Think of it this way: staff elementalists used to be moving all over the place, dodging left and right and comboing (and missing combos) as much they could.

Now, our gameplay consists of standing in the back, placing a field every few seconds and hopefully see a heart appear in the distance.

Which sounds like it’d be more fun to do?

EA as it was used was deemed to be too OP. With it you could pop off absolutely insane combo’s giving yourself and your team way too much of the goodies we can dish out. Now that its gone we cant dish out quite so much goodness, or we have to work a lot harder to do it by ourselves. However, when coordinating with a team, you still lose a little bit (one less blast finisher option available to us), but you still have the potential to cap boons with a bit more work from your team mates.

boozer.7815:

ThiBash.5634:

boozer.7815:

The fun of this class for me is in demonstrating ways in which I can use the Ele’s abilities in combination with others and then in all of us reaping the benefits through teamwork. The fact is that the Staff Ele brings more combo field options to the table than any other class this game currently has today. Those can be used in any number of ways to turn your team into a powerhouse. That is what the Staff Ele is supposed to be doing, IMO.

We could do that very well with Evasive Arcana, and still perform our own combos.

You’d have had to have mastered Evasive Arcana play to truly appreciate why it was so much fun.

Think of it this way: staff elementalists used to be moving all over the place, dodging left and right and comboing (and missing combos) as much they could.

Now, our gameplay consists of standing in the back, placing a field every few seconds and hopefully see a heart appear in the distance.

Which sounds like it’d be more fun to do?

EA as it was used was deemed to be too OP. With it you could pop off absolutely insane combo’s giving yourself and your team way too much of the goodies we can dish out. Now that its gone we cant dish out quite so much goodness, or we have to work a lot harder to do it by ourselves. However, when coordinating with a team, you still lose a little bit (one less blast finisher option available to us), but you still have the potential to cap boons with a bit more work from your team mates.

That doesn’t mean it should have been removed completely, just reduced, and no one was complaining about the boons, only about the chain healing that made bunkers a pain to kill. … and once again, its far more than “one less blast finisher”. You have to consider its worth compared to other blast finishers like arcane wave, or dragon’s tooth (which we also lost, but not much complaint about that one).

boozer.7815:

EA as it was used was deemed to be too OP.

Agreed, totally. It needed to be nerfed, not in the least because the blast finisher didn’t have a cooldown.

But there were other ways to do so while still keeping the playstyle active. For example, the blast finishers could have been kept (but with cooldown) and the spell effects removed (instead of vice versa as it is now).

Or Churning Earth could have been made into a blast finisher, giving EA just 1 finisher with a 10 second cooldown. In fact, the fact that it’s not a finisher is a bug since the original skill is in fact a finisher.

Removing all finishers however was totally unneccesary.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Who said I didn’t play the ele as a team player? The whole point of my build, with Evasive Arcana, was to be able to provide my entire team with long lasting 21 stacks of might while also having the versatility to provide more blasts with the lightning hammer or aoe damage with the frost bow conjure. Me actually using the conjures a lot already makes me one of the less orthodox elementalist players probably. Also, I’m not even a Staff elementalist – I only using that for either sieges (where it’s the obvious choice) or if there’s a boss that it will obviously rip through (ex. Nightmare Tree). I enjoyed the idea of being able to roll into my fellow Ranger’s healing field or debuffing with AoE weakness. If I wanted to play a more selfish manner, I’d play my 80 Warrior or my 80 Thief (and I do when I feel like it).

You know how I like to demonstrate how an Elementalist and combo fields are useful in dungeons? We rip down a boss and I ask how people like my little might dance that basically gave them 21 permanent stacks of might. Then even randoms start getting a little bit more aware of their own, and people even start to think about how to not obscure my might dance or to put down water fields when I pop out my hammer. It’s what let me rip through CoE in random pugs with first timers in 25 minutes.

This.

I know fun is subjective, but my fun was providing my groups with a lot of might stacks: I loved to cast burning speed and then dodge back into the trail of fire; I loved to cast ring of fire, magnetic grasp, dodge twice, earthquake and churning earth; I loved how I could combo with my friends fields.

Now that kind of playstile is gone.

Was it OP? Yes it was.

Was it fun? Hell yeah it was fun!

Did ANet absolutely need to remove each and any blast finisher from Evasive Arcana? No way.

I think they should have tied it to the incredibly useless fire spell as it will deal pathetic damage with a negligible amount of burning, while earth’s spell at least cripples.

Navzar.2938:

… and once again, its far more than “one less blast finisher”. You have to consider its worth compared to other blast finishers like arcane wave, or dragon’s tooth (which we also lost, but not much complaint about that one).

Dragon’s Tooth: The blast finisher for this skill now triggers at the spell location rather than the character’s location.

Actually no, that’s not what the patch notes say. Dragons Tooth still has its blast finisher, which now correctly triggers at the location in which it falls.

So what I see from reading the actual patch notes, we lost one (1) blast finisher, which we were never supposed to have in the first place (Where did it say that EA was supposed to have a blast finisher? Nowhere, because it was not supposed to have one by design). So what actually happened here is Anet fixed a bunch of our bugs. Its kind of upsetting that two of those bugs happened to roll in the players favor and were so heavily exploited to the point where people felt that they were not exploits and were in fact, normal, but as you can see, they were bugs and got fixed. This is what Anet should be doing, no?.. Now if they could do that to the abilities that Thieves and other classes are currently exploiting, we would all be happy I think.

boozer.7815:

Navzar.2938:

… and once again, its far more than “one less blast finisher”. You have to consider its worth compared to other blast finishers like arcane wave, or dragon’s tooth (which we also lost, but not much complaint about that one).

Dragon’s Tooth: The blast finisher for this skill now triggers at the spell location rather than the character’s location.

Actually no, that’s not what the patch notes say. Dragons Tooth still has its blast finisher, which now correctly triggers at the location in which it falls.

So what I see from reading the actual patch notes, we lost one (1) blast finisher, which we were never supposed to have in the first place. The sky is not falling yet.

Actual patch notes don’t reflect actual changes. Simply put, it’s bugged and won’t trigger any finishers. So next patch might be about fixing wrong tooltip ;<

haviz.1340:

boozer.7815:

Navzar.2938:

… and once again, its far more than “one less blast finisher”. You have to consider its worth compared to other blast finishers like arcane wave, or dragon’s tooth (which we also lost, but not much complaint about that one).

Dragon’s Tooth: The blast finisher for this skill now triggers at the spell location rather than the character’s location.

Actually no, that’s not what the patch notes say. Dragons Tooth still has its blast finisher, which now correctly triggers at the location in which it falls.

So what I see from reading the actual patch notes, we lost one (1) blast finisher, which we were never supposed to have in the first place. The sky is not falling yet.

Actual patch notes don’t reflect actual changes. Simply put, it’s bugged and won’t trigger any finishers. So next patch might be about fixing wrong tooltip ;<

If Dragons Tooth is not triggering a blast finisher then that is a bug and they need to fix that.

Yea, a lot of those tool tips are not very up to date too and they will probably do a patch to fix a lot of those for all the classes.

boozer.7815:

Where did it say that EA was supposed to have a blast finisher?

Earth: Churning Earth