Guild Wars 2

Suctum.6912:

Why precision? Bolt through the Heart is by one of the best skills in game.

I am assuming you mean “Bolt to the Heart”. The trait that gives a crappy average 4.35% damage in a backloaded fashion. It is definitely not one of the best traits in the game. In fact, it is down there with the worst of them.

I’d be interested to duel, I’m betting an arcane build will be better but I’d be interested to see if the opposite is true for others with different playstyles. I use d/d btw and only do sPVP/tPVP.

I don’t think people mainly put points in arcana to reduce the attunement cooldown, it’s mainly because the traits are all great, no matter what attunement you are in or what weapon you are using. That said, if you are chaining damage abilities and then need to go into a specific attunement for a control spell (or anything along those lines), the lower cooldown would be useful. It’s especially helpful if you’re trying to be methodical about skill use and not just using abilities as they come off cooldown.

Everyone has their opinions and we’re not all going to agree. I’m 30 arcana, you may take a hit in some of your dps numbers but the amount of benefits you gain from it far outweigh the hit in my opinion but this is for PVE/WvW….

Spvp/Tpvp is a different animal…. Regardless of it all, still doesn’t change the fact we have to work twice as hard just to be on par!

Taste the rainbow!

Prince.3682:

I’d be interested to duel, I’m betting an arcane build will be better but I’d be interested to see if the opposite is true for others with different playstyles. I use d/d btw and only do sPVP/tPVP.

I’m game. I added you to my friends list. We’ll set something up next time I see you on. Good luck!

I don’t understand why everybody thinks D/D doesn’t benefit from Arcana spec. A balanced build with about 30-35% chance to crit can gain unlimited vigor, letting you dodge a lot more than people are expecting from an ele. As a rule I have 20 in Arcana at all times in PvP. I don’t really find that Evasive Arcana benefits me enough to lose the Earth/Water traits.

Suctum is exactly right about fire complete waste of points, as well as Funcom destroying AoC for the same things I are here. I have never walked away from a game I loved just because of the company running it, until AOC.

Anyways, IMO fire is completely worthless for any ele, staff, d/d or scepter/dagger. There are so many better options out there for any spec, also like others said, if you are putting points in your spec to boost stats, that’s not a very good decision. An extra 100 power is going to do nothing, when you can gain large amounts of power through gear weaps and accessories, while at the same time getting stuck with terrible traits. Stats from specs are not going to make of break your playstyle or toon. You can run a power precision playstyle with 0 points in air and fire and gain ALL of your power and precision from knights gear or beserkers and accessories. Earth, water, arcana, and air are IMO the only trait lines worth speccing into not because of stats, but because of traits which have a bigger impact on gameplay than 100 more power or so.

Stat points from trait lines are just a supplement, it does not define your playstyle (stats alone).

I will simply state why Arcana is a Good Thing.

The Elementalist has high skill cap and also the spec imposes mechanical caps.

If you spec all in one element then you are playing the basic, newcomer version. You can do good but there’s an hard cap to the most important asset for the Ele: flexibility.

Then you figure out that switching elements as needed, yields better results. You start appreciating the various facets and how you can sequence the elements in a sort of adaptable rotation.

At last, you unlock the true class. You start noticing how by timing cooldowns across multiple attunements you can create incredible combos, ever-up stacks of boons, evil CC + damage chains and so on. This requires constantly and flawlessy switching between elements and not use all the CDs in the current element but to time them with CDs in other elements. The attunement reduction, along with the neat Arcana traits basically unlock the full class.

Each his own of course, I like to play fully unlocked.

No thanks

I’ll keep my 8 seconds of protection every 10.5 seconds

I’ll keep my 3k heal + regen and 3 condition removals every 10.5 seconds (5k in heals for bunker build, though 1 less condition removal)

Earth and Water attune are more valuable as a cooldowns themselves rather than an actual attunement you use. I actually swap to these attunes mid dodge roll so I can get the evasive arcana blast asap and swap back out. If the situation dictates I’ll stay in them for maybe 5-8 seconds tops though.

Also the boon duration is vital for me to be able to achieve 100% uptime on fury, vigor, swiftness, regen (for bunker build), and might (25 stacks is easy with evasive arcana).

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

No thanks

words of wisdom

QFT. 875 might and condi damage is better than pumping into fire for the self-centered, weak and lack luster 3 might for 10 seconds per cantrip. AoE might from the blast combo rolling into a fire field applies an AOE 3 might stacks for massive 20(plus 6 from 30 arcane)(plus 2-4 from rune).

As far as damage output goes eles pretty much really on might stacks to do any. Arcana provides just so much through both survivability and damage to forgo.

Evasive arcana also opens up alot of avenues for cross-profession ownage. If you are roamer and your bunker guardian is getting ganked you can roll into his light fields for perma aoe retaliations and fend off the gank. If you are bunker and have a ganking thief and it turns awry you can roll into his smoke field for AoE stealth and give the thief an extra backstab to get the target low even more then finish it off with the classic static field+heartseeker spam combo for ~5 second daze to annihilate the target completely).

Xriah,

Intriguing idea. I’m going to give this a try. I was tempted to just go deep Arcane because common wisdom seemed to insist it and decry any build that didn’t. But your arguments make sense, because speaking as a fanatic for the Guardian class, I can definitely appreciate the stance that well-timed skills often trump frequently-used skills.

Well for some reason i can’t get the quote feature to work properly so i’ll respond to you in bold, while the default size will be your comments Xriah.

You should pick your traits based on both. 300 can make a large difference, Especially for us since our stats are well matched. Going 30 into Lightning gets us 300 percision AND %30+ crit damage. Going 30 into fire gets us 300 extra damage AND extra condition duration. Crit damage, condition duration, lots of stats can be harder to mix and match on gear.

Picking for both is a nice bonus, but it shouldn’t be a major deciding factor in why you want that specific trait line. While 300 will make a difference, its not large enough to go purely in the trait line for the stats. Consider them as a nice bonus, and nothing else, and you’ll be able to make much better builds that have more synergy then raw stats.

I put 20 in fire for 3xMight in cantrips, 10% extra damage in fire, and the extra damage it affords. It’s a good compliment to our damage, which could really use the boost. Especially if you run a cantrip build, giving you several moments with 3x and 6x Might.
Evasive Arcana kind of screws what dodging should be about, which is avoiding damage. It, again, makes more sense in staff where you have range and can afford to lose some dodge than it does in D/D where you should focus on dodging the big hits.

I understand why you went into fire, It looks rather appeasing right from the get go, and its great in the early levels, although i still prefer lightning but that’s slightly off topic. However if you look at the two traits you chose, both give your more damage, which is significantly less then evasive arcana will give you. Since your using D/D you have access to ring of fire, which means you can save your dodges for big attacks and grant yourself might in the process, on top of doing some addition bleeding damage, healing yourself and removing a condition, or throwing in a blind for a free dodge. (not on bosses obviously for the last one) The 30 in arcane would also grant you perma vigor thanks to renewing stamina. Meaning the 30 points you spend in arcane do the same as the 30 you put into fire/water and then some. Plus you get the benefit of one more open trait slot which you can use to get a ~60%+ uptime on regen/protection just from attunement swapping often.

I think we agree on one thing, and that’s that people should be trying their own builds and learning what works best for them. I’ve tried Arcana, and it feels lackluster on D/D. I think other people should see if they can invest elsewhere instead of just assuming it’s the best fit for them, because it sure as hell wasn’t the best for me. Isn’t that what you want?

No doubt about this, do what works for YOU. However i highly, highly recommend you try out the arcane tree again, as maybe you overlooked just how powerful it is. If it still doesn’t work feel free to stick with what worked for you. However it is generally accepted that the arcane tree is the best tree, and telling new players otherwise, could actually deter them from such a wonderful and deep class. I know this wasn’t your intent or anything just be careful with your wording, your original post makes it sound like the arcane tree is terrible when that’s clearly not the case.

Ok. Here goes.

I accepted Prince’s offer to duel and he completely wrecked me. I’m a very good player. I know the Ele D/D combos like the back of my hand and I normally wreck all oncomers, but I couldn’t do enough damage to keep up with his ridiculous healing and he whittled me down to size. We both were using similar combos, and similar techniques. Based on pure playskill, it should have been much closer, but every time I hurt him badly, he healed up so fast I couldn’t take advantage of the oppourtunity. Normally, I can do very well with my glass cannon build, but I have been fighting in skirmishes. I cannot argue with results and what this man can do.

Prince is a veteran tournament player with amazing skill and knowledge of the game. He plays sPvP and tPvP exclusively. He clearly has more skill at PvP than I do (I play all modes). He also showed me that evasive arcana’s moves are all blast finishers. That was kind of an, “Oh…” moment. Yeah. Suddenly, I can see how this thing is to swear by.

So I tried arcana again, with a bit more knowledge about how it’s supposed to work. Prince wouldn’t tell me his build (totally understand), but was still very kind and helpful. Fortunately, I know the Ele well and I could piece together the vital bits that I was missing. I took the core principles of his build and combined them with the one I was using, then went to duel him again.

Much MUCH more even. He’s still a better player, but I was keeping up with him. The fights lasted a lot longer and he was having to work hard to stay alive. I even downed him once! (We both got downed, but I downed him first, and we didn’t really feel like going through 45 minutes of downed mist form fighting.) I was pretty good before, but this build is just flat out better.

Then I went to play sPvP among normal players. …It’s stupid. I’m not getting hurt. No one is even coming close. I can take on two people and still stand a very big chance of winning. It feels like I’m cheating.

It’s also eye opening in terms of people’s complaints towards bunker builds. Glass cannons can be real fun to play, but they’re worthless against a bunker. Which is wrong. I don’t think these types of builds should make up the core of the game.

I’m gonna stick to my glass cannon spec in PvE, because it still works there and it’s how I like to play. I know I’d be better if I switched, but I don’t wanna. I’m going to switch my build in sPvP in the meantime because I know it’s just flat out stronger.

Here’s to hoping ANet gets around to making the pvp engagements short and sweet instead of defensive marathons. And here’s to Prince for being awesome and also showing me the ropes of elite lvl PvP.

Man, it’s hard to admit you’re wrong on the internet…

Agree that the attunement cooldown bit of Arcana is not that great. Like you said, its more about the cooldowns for your good attacks in the individual attunements than the actual attunement switching itself, and most of the time the default attunement recharge is perfectly fine for that.

Disagree that it makes Arcana less worthwhile of a tree to spec in regardless, though. Sure, the attunement cooldown is probably a partially (or completely) wasted stat, but the boon duration is nice. And Arcana has some brilliant traits (both minor and major), traits that apply to a wide variety of situations, which is especially big for Elementalist since the way the traits are set up into attunement groups means that there tend to be a lot of situational traits that will only be active some of the time.

EDIT: Also, someone brought up Arcana not being good for Dagger / Dagger, which I also disagree with. But, I’m glad to see someone else annoyed by Dagger’s “trait” of 15% speed increase. With all the swiftness Elementalist already has, all the lunging attacks Dagger / Dagger already has… I just hate that trait. What a let down when I was reading through the trait trees for the first time, saw the “Staff increased AoE trait” and then was like “Wow, nice, wonder what daggers get” only to see… a speed increase. Whoop de do. 5% more speed than just putting 5 points into Air, thanks a lot. I bet half the reason its broken is because even the devs realized it was useless and so they just don’t care :p

Xriah.5743:

Ok. Here goes.

I accepted Prince’s offer to duel and he completely wrecked me. I’m a very good player. I know the Ele D/D combos like the back of my hand and I normally wreck all oncomers, but I couldn’t do enough damage to keep up with his ridiculous healing and he whittled me down to size. We both were using similar combos, and similar techniques. Based on pure playskill, it should have been much closer, but every time I hurt him badly, he healed up so fast I couldn’t take advantage of the oppourtunity. Normally, I can do very well with my glass cannon build, but I have been fighting in skirmishes. I cannot argue with results and what this man can do.

Prince is a veteran tournament player with amazing skill and knowledge of the game. He plays sPvP and tPvP exclusively. He clearly has more skill at PvP than I do (I play all modes). He also showed me that evasive arcana’s moves are all blast finishers. That was kind of an, “Oh…” moment. Yeah. Suddenly, I can see how this thing is to swear by.

So I tried arcana again, with a bit more knowledge about how it’s supposed to work. Prince wouldn’t tell me his build (totally understand), but was still very kind and helpful. Fortunately, I know the Ele well and I could piece together the vital bits that I was missing. I took the core principles of his build and combined them with the one I was using, then went to duel him again.

Much MUCH more even. He’s still a better player, but I was keeping up with him. The fights lasted a lot longer and he was having to work hard to stay alive. I even downed him once! (We both got downed, but I downed him first, and we didn’t really feel like going through 45 minutes of downed mist form fighting.) I was pretty good before, but this build is just flat out better.

Then I went to play sPvP among normal players. …It’s stupid. I’m not getting hurt. No one is even coming close. I can take on two people and still stand a very big chance of winning. It feels like I’m cheating.

It’s also eye opening in terms of people’s complaints towards bunker builds. Glass cannons can be real fun to play, but they’re worthless against a bunker. Which is wrong. I don’t think these types of builds should make up the core of the game.

I’m gonna stick to my glass cannon spec in PvE, because it still works there and it’s how I like to play. I know I’d be better if I switched, but I don’t wanna. I’m going to switch my build in sPvP in the meantime because I know it’s just flat out stronger.

Here’s to hoping ANet gets around to making the pvp engagements short and sweet instead of defensive marathons. And here’s to Prince for being awesome and also showing me the ropes of elite lvl PvP.

Man, it’s hard to admit you’re wrong on the internet…

Hey man you put your money where your mouth was, no shame in that. Admitting there are better players out there is a good humbling experience, but it doesn’t make your advice any less worthwhile. Not everyone uses arcana and there is room for players that don’t want to, personally I see too much benefit in using it.

Ps trying to decide on going 30 arcane for evasive arcana 30 water and 10 earth or 20 arcana 30 water 10 earth and 10 air, how big of an impact was evasive arcana? Would you recommend it for dungeons PVE and WvW? (SPVP I’m running a different set up, similar though.)

Xriah.5743:

I’m gonna stick to my glass cannon spec in PvE, because it still works there and it’s how I like to play. I know I’d be better if I switched, but I don’t wanna. I’m going to switch my build in sPvP in the meantime because I know it’s just flat out stronger.

Here’s to hoping ANet gets around to making the pvp engagements short and sweet instead of defensive marathons. And here’s to Prince for being awesome and also showing me the ropes of elite lvl PvP.

I honestly prefer longer fights… no one likes getting 2 or 3 shot. Fast fights just feel like ganks where one side had little they could do instead of a longer fight requiring skill and giving both sides a chance to fight back or even make a mistake and survive. It also feels more epic. Also if I died in a longer fight I feel better because I know I had a chance to do something and the other guy just played better.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Hey man you put your money where your mouth was, no shame in that. Admitting there are better players out there is a good humbling experience, but it doesn’t make your advice any less worthwhile. Not everyone uses arcana and there is room for players that don’t want to, personally I see too much benefit in using it.

Ps trying to decide on going 30 arcane for evasive arcana 30 water and 10 earth or 20 arcana 30 water 10 earth and 10 air, how big of an impact was evasive arcana? Would you recommend it for dungeons PVE and WvW? (SPVP I’m running a different set up, similar though.)

I just got out of a tournament where I won a straight up 2 vs 1 against a warrior and a necromancer. No allies anywhere near me. It’s mind boggling how game changing it is. It’s a heal every 10 seconds when you need it and you can combo it with ring of fire in order to get a massive amount of might.

You don’t need to spec for offense when you can end up with over 20 stacks of might.

I dunno how I’d feel reccomending it for WvW or PvE. WvW, it will definetely give you more survivability, but whenever I die in WvW it’s usually because I have 20 people trying to kill me all at once. It’s almost as if build is irrelevant in WvW just because of the massive scale of the battles.

In PvE, again it’s more about what you like and what works for you. It’ll definetely help you stack some heals, but it’s so important to have your dodge up during boss fights, rolling for any other reason seems like a bad idea.

Keep in mind, I’m brand new to this trait, so take my advice with a bit of salt.

Leiloni.7951:

I honestly prefer longer fights… no one likes getting 2 or 3 shot. Fast fights just feel like ganks where one side had little they could do instead of a longer fight requiring skill and giving both sides a chance to fight back or even make a mistake and survive. It also feels more epic. Also if I died in a longer fight I feel better because I know I had a chance to do something and the other guy just played better.

That would be if you went too far in the other direction. I’m talking fights should last more like 20-40 seconds. My duels with Prince were 2+ minutes, both of us struggling mightily to kill eachother. At that point, it’s too much about the teamwork and less about the personal skill, because there’s no way you’re going to be left alone in a PvP match for two minutes.

All about balance between the two.

Xriah.5743:

Man, it’s hard to admit you’re wrong on the internet…

Yes, but it takes a bigger person to do it, kudos to you.. and glad i read all the way through to see both sides of the argument! good thread stuff.

you also realize that this will all probably get nerfed down, because thats how arenanet seems to be rolling.. 30 point trait and you can dodge – combo every 30 seconds instead! or maybe the effects dont work on us. or cant be used as a blast finisher. cant have you killing warriors with a friend solo, thats too op! :p

It has to be nerfed.

No single trait line or trait should be so effective as to outshine all the other choices. It’s not really a choice if it nearly doubles your effectiveness, is it?

wouldnt it be better to buff the other trait lines instead? compare it for instance to mesmer, who don’t especially benefit from going over 20-25 on most trait lines, because the 30 trait stinks for all but one of the lines and it is only for a very narrowly focused build. compare it to guardian, who has multiple very nice end line traits. compare it to necro, whose trait lines are just all around goofy. they traits need reworking on all classes – lets not nerf one endline into the ground to make it suck as hard as all the others, so people have “choices”.

Xriah – you shouldn’t feel like its cheating lol . You must understand that you’re going from a higher damage build to a more sustained build. And that is generally superior to 90% of the fail burst builds running around in pugs – provided you have a little skill to pull it off, which you do.

And besides – You’re giving up 30 points that could be invested in fire/lit for more damage to something that on the surface gives you no damage. However with skill you can make up for it by proc’ing blast finishers in fire and so forth which last longer from boon duration anyhow.

Main issue is risk vs reward is skewed too much in favor of defense at the moment. We don’t have much built in defense like mesmers/thiefs to spec for glass and survive for long.

Most people feel like ele’s small hp pool with low defense would allow for viable and fearsome dps, and it can but only at the cost of being disproportionately easy to kill.

We can pull out some reasonable dps with hybrid builds leaning toward the dps side as long as we outskill the opponents but when you fight others playing their classes at an equally skilled level the disparity begins to reveal itself again.

I could say we shine in AOE dps but engi and necro have that down pretty well also.

Anyway, I for one hope instead of nerfs to arcane tree we get buffs on other traits. I feel like arcane tree should give something else for the stat instead of attunement recharge. Attunement swapping pretty much makes the class and 15s vs 9s recharge is no contest. Should be flat 9 regardless of arcane investment.

Ultimately I would say ele is a solid class, mostly at a reasonable state balance-wise (provided you have invested time to become proficient with it – it does take time) but some trees do need nicer traits, and the bugs that plague our class need to be fixed. Downed state is crap and elites are weak. I would trade elites and downed state with any other class at random.

I’ve played more tourneys than most would believe and I’m still learning ele. Optimal rotations in various situations, etc.
I’ve got some old and new posted on youtube if anyone is interested http://www.youtube.com/user/prriinnce

Let me clarify,

I think that the impossible-to-kill builds for classes like Guardian, Ele, ect should be nerfed, not just arcane. That could be done statistically rather than taking away what arcana gives us.

In the end, I think ANet will see the problem (eventually) and do SOMETHING to fix it. There are multiple approaches to fixing it.

Xriah.5743:

Let me clarify,

I think that the impossible-to-kill builds for classes like Guardian, Ele, ect should be nerfed, not just arcane. That could be done statistically rather than taking away what arcana gives us.

In the end, I think ANet will see the problem (eventually) and do SOMETHING to fix it. There are multiple approaches to fixing it.

All the complaints on the forums over the last how many weeks saying the ele is completely worthless and so on, good players find a build that works, 1 build…. Glass cannon doesn’t work for us like everyone has already stated, so how about instead of needing the one build we have that’s viable and actually makes us a threat.. They buff the other builds. Remember ANET is only needing things if players do everything possible to find a way to beat a build and can’t. How many players have you seen complain that the ele is OP? you have to understand it takes a lot of skill to do everything the ele can do as well as remembering to combo blast finishers, not to mention using dodges to combo means they are not necessarily being saved for when needed. Trust me there are MULTIPLE classes that can destroy 2v1’s so it’s not just oh eles can do it. My necro’s survivability is outrageous and I have won many 2v1’s granted they are all pug stomping by myself in public games, my guilds more of WvW so I can’t do Tpvp yet

Our fire traits need re-worked, elites and down skills need looked at and LOTS of bugs from Every class need looked at.

Also I feel it is a mistake to make a class more difficult simply because a handful of very good players are very good with it. I am not very good with it – because I don’t have the reflexes of a 17 year old.

Just like with mesmer, no matter how hard you nerf the class, smart and skilled players will always find a way to make it good. You can nerf the class, but not the player.

Could anyone explain to me how you do the might building? I’m pretty new to the game and don’t know everything about combos and fields and such. I tried porting to the mists last night and experimenting based on what people were talking about in this thread but didn’t get anywhere.

Might building involves fire fields and blast finishers. Try casting Ring of Fire, (OH Dagger 4) then using Arcane Wave. You’ll get might stacks.

Or use OH dagger fire 4 (ring of fire) then swap to earth and use earth OH dagger 4 and 5 and you will get might stacks as well

I like evasive arcana. To get that I have to get 30 in arcane.
I really like perm vigor too though. Boons wihle changing attunements are also nice.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Xriah.5743:

Let me clarify,

I think that the impossible-to-kill builds for classes like Guardian, Ele, ect should be nerfed, not just arcane. That could be done statistically rather than taking away what arcana gives us.

In the end, I think ANet will see the problem (eventually) and do SOMETHING to fix it. There are multiple approaches to fixing it.

All the complaints on the forums over the last how many weeks saying the ele is completely worthless and so on, good players find a build that works, 1 build…. Glass cannon doesn’t work for us like everyone has already stated, so how about instead of needing the one build we have that’s viable and actually makes us a threat.. They buff the other builds. Remember ANET is only needing things if players do everything possible to find a way to beat a build and can’t.

It’s been stated it’s under close scrutiny and it WILL be nerfed.
They are not going to bother buffing the craptastic other specs but they will obliterate the one that forces everybody to spec into it.
In the developers eyes is better to have all equally bad than one spec to dominate them all.
I have seen this being done during 12 years of MMOs playing. It’s not going to be different this time.

Imo the problem is not bunker builds in and of themselves…the problem is the way sPvP is designed. “Don’t die on this spot” shouldn’t be what the game is about, and two people should be able to override one person from the other team. More people on a spot = faster capping. Two people from Team One + one person from Team Two on the same cap should work out to Team One capping at the speed of a solo player on a node, etc.

Imo, of course.

@Xriah: Takes a lot to admit you were wrong publicly. I happen to have understood the value of Arcane line … but lack the skill to play nearly to potential, lol. Ah well.

If you’re not running 30 arcane you’re not utilising the fullest of the elementalist and therefore you will fail. End of story.

Vaerah.4907:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Xriah.5743:

Let me clarify,

I think that the impossible-to-kill builds for classes like Guardian, Ele, ect should be nerfed, not just arcane. That could be done statistically rather than taking away what arcana gives us.

In the end, I think ANet will see the problem (eventually) and do SOMETHING to fix it. There are multiple approaches to fixing it.

All the complaints on the forums over the last how many weeks saying the ele is completely worthless and so on, good players find a build that works, 1 build…. Glass cannon doesn’t work for us like everyone has already stated, so how about instead of needing the one build we have that’s viable and actually makes us a threat.. They buff the other builds. Remember ANET is only needing things if players do everything possible to find a way to beat a build and can’t.

It’s been stated it’s under close scrutiny and it WILL be nerfed.
They are not going to bother buffing the craptastic other specs but they will obliterate the one that forces everybody to spec into it.
In the developers eyes is better to have all equally bad than one spec to dominate them all.
I have seen this being done during 12 years of MMOs playing. It’s not going to be different this time.

Ah, not that I’m disagreeing with you or saying your not speaking the truth, but do you have a source for this? I’m really interested in reading up on this, and tho whole context of the comment.

Thanks

evasive arcana pawns everything. Arcane in traits is worth to get.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Vaerah.4907:

It’s been stated it’s under close scrutiny and it WILL be nerfed.
They are not going to bother buffing the craptastic other specs but they will obliterate the one that forces everybody to spec into it.
In the developers eyes is better to have all equally bad than one spec to dominate them all.
I have seen this being done during 12 years of MMOs playing. It’s not going to be different this time.

Ah, not that I’m disagreeing with you or saying your not speaking the truth, but do you have a source for this? I’m really interested in reading up on this, and tho whole context of the comment.

Thanks

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Quick-update/first#post347588

Oh ya, wanted to add: yes, we’re watching Mesmers, bunker Guardians and tank heal Ele’s. Forgot to add that.

And later on on in the same thread.. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Quick-update/page/3#post354773

Keeping an eye on something means we’re watching it, seeing how it plays out, and making sure we don’t make knee jerk reactions (nerfs or buffs).

Having said that, Dagger/dagger Ele needs help. Some defensive Ele specs are too good. Some of their sustained damage is too low, while some spike builds are pretty rough. Keeping an eye on it means we’re not going to nerf/buff it without thinking very carefully about it – that’s what my first update was about.

We’re also keeping an eye on Thieves, both in regards to damage output and sustained defense through stealth.

We’re also looking at the balance for all the downed skills for all classes. Some are riding the high end of the power curve, while others feel weaker in comparison.

Anddddddddddd we’re also looking at buffs/nerfs to all classes as apropos – I’m just not listing every single one. For many classes this means that we want them to have different builds that are equally viable, and making sure that no single build outshines all others in efficacy. Also, this means that JUST BECAUSE I DIDN’T SPECIFICALLY CALL OUT YOUR CLASS in a post, that DOES NOT MEAN WE’RE NOT LOOKING AT IT.

Communication in-and-of-itself is a complicated thing, and the inherent complication of human communication is further exacerbated when it’s done via a web-based medium. We’re trying to do our best to communicate with you, so please understand that just because I say “keeping an eye on something”, that doesn’t mean we are nerfing X from orbit with a Nerf nuke – as it’s the only way to be sure. It simply means we’re keeping an eye on it.

/salute

@Baladir.2736:

It´s precisely 9.375 seconds with 30 points in arcane. The formula is kinda weird, but it works.

Evasive Arcana already got nerfed once… It used to cast Shockwave and Updraft instead of the measly Churning Earth and Blinding Flash, so hopefully they wont so readily nerf it again… plus they’re still letting the meta settle so I doubt any trait reworks will happen soon (my poor, neglected fire line). So let’s enjoy the 10 air, 30 water, 30 arcane cookie cutter goodness while we still can