Guild Wars 2

At some point about a year ago, it was decided that eles were way to strong and needed a bunch of major “changes” to be “balanced.” I sifted through the patch notes and picked out the ele nerfs that I felt hurt the class the most.

• April 30th:
  -Mist Form skill: Activation now locks heal, utility, and elite skills.
  -Ride the Lightning skill:
  -Increased recharge increased 20 seconds to 40 seconds.
  -Recharge is now halved if the player strikes a foe.
  -Reduced the range to 1200 from the previous (hidden) 1550.

My opinion:
The mist form nerf made the skill almost like a “self stun.” It also increased the need to use more cantrips because you could no longer heal in Mist Form, reducing its usefulness as a survivability tool. I would still say that mist form is a very useful skill for buying time, though. The Ride the Lightning nerf was truly devastating. It made a once incredible skill easy to play around and set it on a ridiculously long cooldown. It also killed builds that relied on it as a form of survivability instead of water and arcana.

• June 25th
  -Lightning Flash: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Increased damage by 50%. Reduced the cooldown to 40 seconds.
  -Cleansing Fire: This skill is no longer a stun breaker. Decreased the recharge to 40 seconds.
  -Glyph of Elemental Power: This skill is now a stun breaker.
  -Bountiful Power: Damage increase per boon on the elementalist has been reduced from 2% to 1%.

My opinion:
Before this patch, one could easily say cantrips were the most powerful of the ele’s utilities. I think the reason behind this is that they were the most defined category of utility the ele had alongside the arcane utilities. all of the cantrips were devoted solely to survival and therefore, they all had stunbreaks. After taking the stunbreaks from Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash, it muddled the purpose of the cantrip utilities being powerful defensive skills with long cooldowns. To me, these skills no longer made sense without their stunbreaks. Lightning flash became the only utility teleport that didn’t break stun and cleansing fire became a weak condition cleanse. I added the buff to glyph of elemental power because it should have NEVER received this buff. Why would you give a stunbreak to a skill that’s purpose is to be active as much as possible? It doesn’t make any sense. The nerf to bountiful power made going 30 in water a less “powerful” option. Sure a 2% increase can be a lot, but then again, a 1% increase is barely enough to note and certainly nothing to write home about.

• December 10th.
  Water Magic V—Soothing Wave: Moved to the Adept tier. This trait is now redesigned to gain regeneration on incoming critical hits.
  Water Magic VIII—Aquamancer’s Alacrity: Moved to the Master tier.
  Water Magic IX—Soothing Disruption: Moved to the Master tier.
  Water Magic X—Cleansing Wave: Moved to the Master tier.
  Arcana VIII—Elemental Attunement: Moved to the Master tier.

My opinion:
I have no knowledge of what soothing wave did before, but it’s new design is not very special. I guess it messes up condition builds that use rabid gear when used in conjunction with cleansing water? I’m sure bumping all of these good water traits into the master tier made going 10 into water a thing of the past. Especially Cleansing Wave. Moving cantrip mastery down to adept wasn’t such a bad thing, at least. The Elemental Attunement nerf was fair enough. I’m just glad they didn’t take Renewing Stamina too and kill d/d ele in the process.

Conclusion:
I eagerly await an ele cdi. I was extremely disappointed with the dev’s lack of progress on ele changes over the past few months. I hope they look back at some of their previous changes and recognize that they may have been to extreme and should be reverted, such as Ride the Lightning’s absurd 40s cooldown. I’m not looking forward to the next patch and all of the indirect nerfs to eles it will bring (Sigils, Boon Dur, Celestial gear nerf). I’d also like to see less nerfs accompanying buffs on a class that is in a poor condition. I feel like that establishes a “3 steps forward, 2 steps back” motto, and it makes balancing a very slow and painful process. As a final thought, I think it would be really awesome if the devs started making a balance patch every two weeks like the living story patches, at least until the metagame is stable.

Was there anything that I missed? Do you disagree and think eles should be nerfed into oblivion? Keep your comments polite and constructive please!

ele is a kitten now, again worst traits for ele! Make Stone Heart not only in earth attument. Who is playing with 30 points in earth and sitting in earth all fight? NO ONE!

Ele is dead and broken.

The mist form nerf made the skill almost like a “self stun.”

that’s why i never use it. only 1 way to use it – when you cast icebow aoe to enemy raid full of retaliation. totally useless, when I see ele using it in spvp I think " well, you die 3 sec later, just in time my fresh air icd will be ready"

Water Magic X—Cleansing Wave: Moved to the Master tier.

big nerf to fresh air/EA build, because that was only viable condi clean.

Bountiful Power: Damage increase per boon on the elementalist has been reduced from 2% to 1%.

similar traits was all nerfed, but we have that one in 25 minor GM.

The major issue when the initial nerfs happened was that the other classes just weren’t good enough.

• boon stripping wasn’t viable
• other classes lacked sustain
• other classes weak to conditions
• other classes couldn’t condition pressure a ele enough

Fast forward to now and if you revert all the Ele nerfs previously then that form of Elementalist might compete with a Warrior for that role (s/tPvP) the gap between them would be very close.

Still there really was 1 build back then that was viable cantrip Ele D/D or S/D. 20 water/30 arcana. With the buffs to other classes that build would be the apex Ele build right now and I think you would possibly have the “I am pigeonholed into 1 build”.

Enter Fresh Air that opened up S/D Ele’s having a place as a burster BUT the buffs to thieves/warriors/necro’s makes it harder for S/D Ele’s to fill that role.

Really if s/tPvP is the backbone of alot of balance more game modes is the answer with different roles because then it changes the perception that there is only 5 roles.

Balance is still PvE/WvW and trying to find a role for 8 professions no matter how the PIE is sliced. The devs look across the entire game and when they get to s/tPvP they have no choice but to try and accomplish that because that is the only game mode for s/tPvP and there only 5 spots to fill.

Specifically I understand the mistform change engineers where hit with the same change to elixir S.

This thread will probably end up into RTL as many of these do but we have to remember focus and staff users.

Staff has had alot of buffs since then and is a very good weapon imo compared to what it use to be. Focus still needs love though and Dragon tooth needs a rework.

I think Soothing Wave (I think there was another trait that was in that position but was replaced by soothing wave. I don’t think the old trait was called soothing wave) gave you regeneration when you activated Signet of Water, Mist Form, and Frost Bow. This was pretty great when you coupled it with the trait that removed a condition upon gaining regeneration. You could have also combined soothing disruption that gave regeneration upon using a cantrip. Mistform…. Bam! Cleanse two conditions.

oZii.2864:

The major issue when the initial nerfs happened was that the other classes just weren’t good enough.

• boon stripping wasn’t viable
• other classes lacked sustain
• other classes weak to conditions
• other classes couldn’t condition pressure a ele enough

Fast forward to now and if you revert all the Ele nerfs previously then that form of Elementalist might compete with a Warrior for that role (s/tPvP) the gap between them would be very close.

Still there really was 1 build back then that was viable cantrip Ele D/D or S/D. 20 water/30 arcana. With the buffs to other classes that build would be the apex Ele build right now and I think you would possibly have the “I am pigeonholed into 1 build”.

Enter Fresh Air that opened up S/D Ele’s having a place as a burster BUT the buffs to thieves/warriors/necro’s makes it harder for S/D Ele’s to fill that role.

Really if s/tPvP is the backbone of alot of balance more game modes is the answer with different roles because then it changes the perception that there is only 5 roles.

Balance is still PvE/WvW and trying to find a role for 8 professions no matter how the PIE is sliced. The devs look across the entire game and when they get to s/tPvP they have no choice but to try and accomplish that because that is the only game mode for s/tPvP and there only 5 spots to fill.

Specifically I understand the mistform change engineers where hit with the same change to elixir S.

This thread will probably end up into RTL as many of these do but we have to remember focus and staff users.

Staff has had alot of buffs since then and is a very good weapon imo compared to what it use to be. Focus still needs love though and Dragon tooth needs a rework.

Well written. It’s clear you’ve played Elemantalist a very good bit. (If not since launch)

He may be right but only if he doesn t play ele since launch….

Staff used to be viable few month post launch and in beta…..
Was nerfed hard…

The best nerf was the ressing sigil that was nerfed for any profession but….. Warriors

Makes me smile the new GM trait is pushing staff ele to the same job it did prenerfs.

LordByron.8369:

He may be right but only if he doesn t play ele since launch….

Staff used to be viable few month post launch and in beta…..
Was nerfed hard…

The best nerf was the ressing sigil that was nerfed for any profession but….. Warriors

Makes me smile the new GM trait is pushing staff ele to the same job it did prenerfs.

I don’t remember staff being nerfed soon after launch, but I was a noob and while trying to learn as much as I could, I went straight to a d/d build so I guess I wouldn’t know.

MightyMicah.7451:

I don’t remember staff being nerfed soon after launch, but I was a noob and while trying to learn as much as I could, I went straight to a d/d build so I guess I wouldn’t know.

Staff was viable due to a bug in evasive arcana that gave blast finishers on every dodge regardless of attunement or the trait’s internal cooldown. That meant you were pretty much spamming blast finishers every 4 seconds or less with perma vigor and sigil of energy.

Anyways, staff has been directly buffed since then, and some builds are “almost” viable in pvp. With the revert to cleansing water’s trait, the buffs to armor of earth and its trait, a second sigil of choice (so sigil of energy can be coupled with, say, sigil of battle or sigil of life), and some slight nerfs to meta builds, maybe it can come back to play again.