Guild Wars 2

I have remained quiet until now.

RtL nerfs? Okay, I’ll work around it.
Worthless focus buffs? don’t care much about it.
EA nerf? It’s ok, at least that hurts eles with excessive healing power more.

…

Shocking aura nerf (or bugfix)? Annoying but oh well, could’ve been worse.
Soothing disruption nerf? Finally a direct nerf for the infamous, problematic build that has caused all these nerfs in the first place.

But now, after checking back after a couple hours, I have also found out that you decided to nerf Renewing stamina (gain vigor on critical hit).

Let me ask you something Arenanet:

Do you keep in mind that when you nerf something because of a certain build, you also indirectly nerf all the other “balanced” builds in the process?

Are you aware that elementalist was deemed OP because the extreme survivability of one build, coupled with ele’s mobility? It was not ele’s mobility what started the complaints.

You do realize that in the process of these nerfs, you have hurt other builds a lot, ALL while keeping the problematic build (the one that caused every complaint) basically untouched?

Every other change I don’t care much about. But this one kinda matters. A dodge is the difference between survival and death, and considering how fragile glass elementalists are, I find myself with less options than ever before. Glass cannon builds rely on their utility / escape spells and dodge rolling to survive, and when you take that away… you are hurting them, greatly. I am not hitting stuff constantly. Sometimes you gotta keep your distance and that’s when this change really starts to show.

I hope you reconsider and at least revert the renewing stamina change and start addressing the real trouble with this class.

tl;dr: RtL + renew stamina nerfs add up and cripple glass ele’s already fragile survivability (mess up once and you’re done for) badly. But the best part is that 0/10/0/30/30 was barely touched in this patch.

Judging from the text its a 100% chance every 5 seconds, which does mean arcane abilities will guarantee vigor, Or is it still 33% but hidden?

That renewing stamina thing isn’t gonna hurt as much as this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Food-Healing-Nerfed/first

Goodbye glass crit ele.

RTL was compensated with the Frost Aura buff. The new renewed stamina should keep you under vigor as long as you keep attacking (and whenever you cast an arcane skill).

In the end, not much has happened to glass cannon eles. Damage builds will only become viable when the fire and air traits start getting more/ better options.

I certainly agree.

Though I wonder why we keep hearing that bunker eles are basically untouched. I’ve heard it in about 10 different threads now.

Mobility is nerfed (RTL)
Survivability is nerfed (Less regen and vigor)
Damage is nerfed (Less fury).

Minion of Vey.4398:

I certainly agree.

Though I wonder why we keep hearing that bunker eles are basically untouched. I’ve heard it in about 10 different threads now.

Mobility is nerfed (RTL)
Survivability is nerfed (Less regen and vigor)
Damage is nerfed (Less fury).

Because soothing disruption and zephyr’s boon were stealth nerfs, so people who don’t play eles won’t know about them by just reading the patch notes.

But anyway, what was the nerf to renewing stamina? I didn’t see anything posted about it elsewhere.

Navzar.2938:

Minion of Vey.4398:

I certainly agree.

Though I wonder why we keep hearing that bunker eles are basically untouched. I’ve heard it in about 10 different threads now.

Mobility is nerfed (RTL)
Survivability is nerfed (Less regen and vigor)
Damage is nerfed (Less fury).

Because soothing disruption and zephyr’s boon were stealth nerfs, so people who don’t play eles won’t know about them by just reading the patch notes.

But anyway, what was the nerf to renewing stamina? I didn’t see anything posted about it elsewhere.

It now procs every time you crit instead of 33% of the time. But it had a 5 second cooldown added.

Seriously? Dang, that’s a major change. I don’t understand why they don’t include these things into the patch notes -.-

I mean, the guys who use it (and thus the only ones who would complain) are going to find out anyway.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The new renewed stamina should keep you under vigor as long as you keep attacking (and whenever you cast an arcane skill).

That’s true. However, it also means that you won’t have vigor to regen your endurance during the time that you’re disengaged. Whether that’s to get a breather and recoup, or because your opponent is kiting you.

Minion of Vey.4398:

I certainly agree.

Though I wonder why we keep hearing that bunker eles are basically untouched. I’ve heard it in about 10 different threads now.

Mobility is nerfed (RTL)
Survivability is nerfed (Less regen and vigor)
Damage is nerfed (Less fury).

RTL was nerfed for everyone, not just them.
Survivability is still top notch with that ridiculous condition removal and healing ratios.
Bunkers were not known for their epic damage. Critical chance is nearly useless without critical damage.

Even if those nerfs were targeted at them… it’s obvious that some other builds got it worse. MUCH worse.

I ran around wvw a bit, and I do think these changes did basically the opposite of what they intended. When I was fighting constantly and not having to take breaks, I didn’t notice much of a difference. Barely anything really. But that’s not how you play a glass ele. Most of the time it’s in and out, taking shots at the right time. And that’s where it started to hurt. Swiftness/fury/vigor were all wearing off during that time and I was finding myself much more vulnerable.

It wasn’t awful and the build is certainly still viable, but ya, it doesn’t seem like the changes affected the right people. If you play like a bunker ele (especially with boon duration), there’s no change, but if you play like a glass cannon, you start to feel it.

^unfortunately is true..the boon nerfed boon durations shows up the less sruvivability you initially have
Also the internal cd on renewing staming cripples heavy crit builds more than bunkerish with fury builds.
On top of that nerfed mobility reduces the hit and run playstyle which means even more nerf for the glass builds compared to bunkers.What i havent tested is how many might stacks you get from getting the fire aura with d/d which with the glyph could pump up damage a bit as well as the frost aura damage decrease is multiplied or added linearly with protection(or if its added at all)
I dont know..is dps /burst ele so good and we havent found out yet that needed that as much of a hit?
For sure people wont stop running cantrip eles in spvp

30 in Arcane + 30 boons duration from runes make the vigor stacks incredible well :P Even if you use a glass cannon build, it is still an option to take arcane and boon durations. It is not a major nerf I would say.

Vanillea.5764:

30 in Arcane + 30 boons duration from runes make the vigor stacks incredible well :P Even if you use a glass cannon build, it is still an option to take arcane and boon durations. It is not a major nerf I would say.

Well that’s the thing. I don’t think anyone running 30 arcane and 30 boon duration runes considers themselves glass. Bunker eles took a bit of a hit in power but were given no incentives to change their build at all. DPS eles however took a hit in power and are incentivized to move to a tankier build to compensate.

I don’t want to give the impression that I think these changes are a huge deal and the dps build is no longer viable, I am just concerned that the changes did the exact opposite of their intended goal.

Indeed… I don’t even know man.

How can ANet manage to balance EXACTLY in the opposite direction they were supposed to be heading at…

Steps to fix this mess:
1. Revert all the changes
2. Reduce healing power ratio across the board (on D/D water 2, 5, attunement swap, signet of restoration, scepter 3 and EA)
3. Add a cooldown to that water grandmaster trait: 5 seconds cooldown after removing a condition through regen gain.
4. Soothing disruption grants regen and 33% energy gain, vigor gain removed.

There, fixed eles for you ANet. And without killing other specs! I’m a genius. You can hire me anyday.

these nerfs are just plain stupid.

the nerf on renewing stamina is not welcome, but is mildly attenuated by “on boons granted by activating cantrips have been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds”.
I suppose all high mobility Ele equips cantrips, so…

I think it’s agood change. It seems fairly useful now, and a lot more reliable at any rate. Maybe vigor wasn’t meant to be perma stacked for minutes on end?

Also, it seems the devs are slowly steering away from the whole ‘cantrips are a solution to all’ concept. This changes makes it the best option to get near permanent vigor, and the critical builds will have near 100% uptime anyway.

Grevender.9235:

the nerf on renewing stamina is not welcome, but is mildly attenuated by “on boons granted by activating cantrips have been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds”.
I suppose all high mobility Ele equips cantrips, so…

I have arcane shield, wave, and mist form.

So that’s only one cantrip >_>

They could have made it so you only get 3 seconds vigor on crit, instead of adding a cooldown to it.

Razor.6392:

So that’s only one cantrip >_>

c’mon, it could be worse….. it could be raining

Razor.6392:

divinity / ruby orbs.

man I can’t wait until they nerf 0/10/0/30/30.

I am laughing so hard right now. You couldn’t wait, and now you’re upset in how they nerfed it. There were 3 elements that made the D/D Ele strong:

1. Perma vigor with renewing stamina and Soothing Disruption
2. Easily maintained perma Fury with double Shocking Aura
3. Balled up healing efficiency where nothing is really OP but when combined it’s very strong

Nerfing 3 is hard and messy from a development standpoint because there’s really no one thing that’s OP in the mix. Even cutting Evasive Arcana’s water effect isn’t going to have a whole lot of changes of game play.

Nerfing 2 was expected. It can still be maintained, but now the user has to give up a bit more offense to do it (IE: Rune slots). I imagine in the future they will reduce it a bit more as well.

Nerfing 1 was also expected. Soothing Disruption is arguably one of the best traits in the game previously able to offer a huge amount of Regen and Vigor on demand on top of what are already some of our best utility. Coupled with Renewing Stamina you could very easily have perma Vigor which is another thing (in addition to Fury) they’ve been trying to reduce/remove. The truth is however I have a Mesmer and Guardian and Vigor is constantly up with high enough crit rating. The difference is that if you don’t have high enough Crit Rating (such as going more defensive in PVT gear and boon duration) your crit still won’t be as high (50%) as someone who’s in Zerker gear and usually has Fury up (70-90%).

Be careful what you wish for.

Razor.6392:

Indeed… I don’t even know man.

How can ANet manage to balance EXACTLY in the opposite direction they were supposed to be heading at…

Steps to fix this mess:
1. Revert all the changes
2. Reduce healing power ratio across the board (on D/D water 2, 5, attunement swap, signet of restoration, scepter 3 and EA)
3. Add a cooldown to that water grandmaster trait: 5 seconds cooldown after removing a condition through regen gain.
4. Soothing disruption grants regen and 33% energy gain, vigor gain removed.

There, fixed eles for you ANet. And without killing other specs! I’m a genius. You can hire me anyday.

You don’t know how to balance, sir. Glad you aren’t a dev.

honestly, if you now have nerfed ele, I’m happy. first were really OP,
I do necro and I think I’m good, and I can not kill a good element.

Kodiak.3281:

Razor.6392:

divinity / ruby orbs.

man I can’t wait until they nerf 0/10/0/30/30.

I am laughing so hard right now. You couldn’t wait, and now you’re upset in how they nerfed it. There were 3 elements that made the D/D Ele strong:

1. Perma vigor with renewing stamina and Soothing Disruption
2. Easily maintained perma Fury with double Shocking Aura
3. Balled up healing efficiency where nothing is really OP but when combined it’s very strong

Nerfing 3 is hard and messy from a development standpoint because there’s really no one thing that’s OP in the mix. Even cutting Evasive Arcana’s water effect isn’t going to have a whole lot of changes of game play.

Nerfing 2 was expected. It can still be maintained, but now the user has to give up a bit more offense to do it (IE: Rune slots). I imagine in the future they will reduce it a bit more as well.

Nerfing 1 was also expected. Soothing Disruption is arguably one of the best traits in the game previously able to offer a huge amount of Regen and Vigor on demand on top of what are already some of our best utility. Coupled with Renewing Stamina you could very easily have perma Vigor which is another thing (in addition to Fury) they’ve been trying to reduce/remove. The truth is however I have a Mesmer and Guardian and Vigor is constantly up with high enough crit rating. The difference is that if you don’t have high enough Crit Rating (such as going more defensive in PVT gear and boon duration) your crit still won’t be as high (50%) as someone who’s in Zerker gear and usually has Fury up (70-90%).

Be careful what you wish for.

The only direct nerf that 0/10/0/30/30 received was the soothing disruption one. Every other nerf, and I mean EVERY ONE OF THEM, impacted other builds on a much greater scale.

@Malcastus: hi bunker player

Can they at least give us the perma swiftness back….

The strongest ele builds were the 0/10/0/30/30 bunkers, and close to them and with similar traits, the auramancers. Both builds were godlike at stacking boons, being able to have as much as 20-30s of boons at once, the former with ridiculous sustain, the later with very strong party support.

Let’s look at the patch notes, excluding the buffs to focus and to staff:
Renewing Stamina: Offensive critical builds can still maintain vigor. Boon builds can no longer stack vigor to ridiculous amounts. Nerf to boon builds, like bunkers and auramancers.
Soothing Disruption: Significant nerf to cantrip builds and to boon builds. That means bunkers and auramancers.
Zephyr’s Boon: Less fury and swiftness for MH Dagger elementalists. A nerf to all MH dagger builds, be them either burst or boon oriented. A significant nerf to all auramancers.
Evasive Arcana: Only affects the healing scale. A nerf to builds with healing power, like bunkers.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Three stacks of might instead of one. A buff to burst builds.
Ride the Lightning: General nerf to all OH Dagger builds, be them either burst or boon.
Frost Aura: Less chill, more defense. Neutral. Won’t count this one.

Bunkers: 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Auramancers: 4 or 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Burst builds: 2 nerfs (none being significant), 1 buff

Razor.6392:

The only direct nerf that 0/10/0/30/30 received was the soothing disruption one. Every other nerf, and I mean EVERY ONE OF THEM, impacted other builds on a much greater scale.

I actually used Soothing Disruption in any build that wasn’t really full on zerker mode (30/30/0/0/10) including my other three Staff builds that heavily utilized Cantrips and used it as my primary source of Vigor.

If anything the biggest nerf to D/D was to the aura boon durations which directly impacted any kind of D/D play. With 3 auras (Fire → Earth leap combo, Frost Aura, Shocking Aura) it’s the only spec with a reliable amount of Auras to benefit from ZB. ZB certainly didn’t effect my staff builds (as I rarely do Frost Blast Finisher to warrant specing into ZB) especially now that Inscription just became a lot more powerful as staff (Eruption → Fire (Battle +Ele Att) → Lava Font → Arcane Wave → Glyph Heal = 16 might stacks with staff).

Honestly doesn’t bother me much. Just makes Zerker based D/D play less viable which I rarely ran in most cases. Just means no more wearing Magic Find gear while dungeoning as D/D

DiogoSilva.7089:

The strongest ele builds were the 0/10/0/30/30 bunkers, and close to them and with similar traits, the auramancers. Both builds were godlike at stacking boons, being able to have as much as 20-30s of boons at once, the former with ridiculous sustain, the later with very strong party support.

Let’s look at the patch notes, excluding the buffs to focus and to staff:
Renewing Stamina: Offensive critical builds can still maintain vigor. Boon builds can no longer stack vigor to ridiculous amounts. Nerf to boon builds, like bunkers and auramancers.
Soothing Disruption: Significant nerf to cantrip builds and to boon builds. That means bunkers and auramancers.
Zephyr’s Boon: Less fury and swiftness for MH Dagger elementalists. A nerf to all MH dagger builds, be them either burst or boon oriented. A significant nerf to all auramancers.
Evasive Arcana: Only affects the healing scale. A nerf to builds with healing power, like bunkers.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Three stacks of might instead of one. A buff to burst builds.
Ride the Lightning: General nerf to all OH Dagger builds, be them either burst or boon.
Frost Aura: Less chill, more defense. Neutral. Won’t count this one.

Bunkers: 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Auramancers: 4 or 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Burst builds: 2 nerfs (none being significant), 1 buff

None being significant… do we even play the same game?

Mobility and dodging is more important on glass builds compared to bunker ones because they have no innate survivability or ridiculous healing / condition removal to survive without them.

But what would you know?

Even more simplified for you:
Burst / glass / dps ele: high damage, relies on dodging, 100% defensive utility spells and mobility to survive.

Faceroll bunker build: average damage, relies on condition removal, massive healing and boons to survive. mobility and dodge rolling are the icing on the cake of OP.

I’ll leave the rest for you.

I sometimes play with an offensive glass cannon s/d ele that relies heavily on dodging, in particular on renewed stamina and the sigil of energy. The 5s nerf to RTL doesn’t ruin it, and the buff to GoEH is really nice.

I have also played heavily with multiple variants of the bunker build’s traits, so I’m aware of what it is like. By the way, bunker builds are not “faceroll” (they do require skill to play), and dodge rolling and mobility are extremely important to bunkers. Massive healing has a cooldown, the regen boon is slow, and the perma vigor was key pre patch. Without mobility and dodge rolling, even the bunker eles can be bursted down like kittens. The bunker eles were always more “ninja-ish tanks” than “warrior-ish tanks”.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The strongest ele builds were the 0/10/0/30/30 bunkers, and close to them and with similar traits, the auramancers. Both builds were godlike at stacking boons, being able to have as much as 20-30s of boons at once, the former with ridiculous sustain, the later with very strong party support.

Let’s look at the patch notes, excluding the buffs to focus and to staff:
Renewing Stamina: Offensive critical builds can still maintain vigor. Boon builds can no longer stack vigor to ridiculous amounts. Nerf to boon builds, like bunkers and auramancers.
Soothing Disruption: Significant nerf to cantrip builds and to boon builds. That means bunkers and auramancers.
Zephyr’s Boon: Less fury and swiftness for MH Dagger elementalists. A nerf to all MH dagger builds, be them either burst or boon oriented. A significant nerf to all auramancers.
Evasive Arcana: Only affects the healing scale. A nerf to builds with healing power, like bunkers.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Three stacks of might instead of one. A buff to burst builds.
Ride the Lightning: General nerf to all OH Dagger builds, be them either burst or boon.
Frost Aura: Less chill, more defense. Neutral. Won’t count this one.

Bunkers: 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Auramancers: 4 or 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Burst builds: 2 nerfs (none being significant), 1 buff

Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.

Huge nerf to burst builds.

Zephyr’s Boon: the nerf to fury duration means you have big gaps in your fury uptime unless you’re 30 arcana and constantly swap attunements even when you would be better served sitting in air and auto attacking.

Big nerf to burst builds.

Glyph heal: Why would you ever use this outside of water/earth? Maybe air for swiftness when you’re running around in PvE? Eles gain might every time they turn around. This isn’t a change that anyone is ever going to actually notice while fighting.

Frost aura: 10% damage mitigation for a few seconds isn’t much compensation for the huge nerf frost aura just took. A warrior isn’t going to stop and ask himself if he should whirlwind through an ele with frost aura up, because 2 seconds of chill isn’t going to matter. If anything, he probably wants to be chilled for a second because it will slow down his whirlwind and get more hits in. It went from a serious defense that people wanted to avoid hitting, to a mild annoyance.

Huge nerf to burst eles.

Ride the lightning: Nerf to any x/D ele

Wait, I don’t understand this “Renewing Stamina” issue.

It used to be: “33% chance to gain 5s of Vigor on critical hits.”
Sure, it’d stack, so you could have it for a while. But now…

It is now: “100% chance to gain 5s of Vigor on critical hits. (5s cooldown)”
That’s essentially perma vigor. Even if you can’t land a crit the exact second the cooldown is off, if you have +boon duration, you’ll still have some vigor left over. In my case, when I crit, I gain 8s (6s in PvP) of Vigor. The cooldown is 5s, so I have 3s (1s in PvP) to get another crit to keep perma vigor. If my crit chance is 35% (44% in PvP) without Fury, there’s a high chance that I’ll land a crit.

What’s the issue? Am I missing something?

Edit: “Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.”

So it’s an issue when running away. Is that it?

zTales.4392:

Edit: “Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.”

So it’s an issue when running away. Is that it?

You’ve never kited/disengaged an enemy to heal, cleanse, or stall for a CD?

Khalic.3561:

zTales.4392:

Edit: “Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.”

So it’s an issue when running away. Is that it?

You’ve never kited/disengaged an enemy to heal, cleanse, or stall for a CD?

I have, but never for more than… uh…

Ether Renewal + Glyph of Elementals = ~5s
Water Attunement switch & Cantrips are instant, so ignore that.

That’s the longest I’m ever away before I jump back in. 3s is the norm though (Ether Renewal). By the time I hit ‘em, I’ve only been without vigor for a few seconds and have a dodge still up.

Caffynated.5713:

Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.

Huge nerf to burst builds.

Zephyr’s Boon: the nerf to fury duration means you have big gaps in your fury uptime unless you’re 30 arcana and constantly swap attunements even when you would be better served sitting in air and auto attacking.

Big nerf to burst builds.

Glyph heal: Why would you ever use this outside of water/earth? Maybe air for swiftness when you’re running around in PvE? Eles gain might every time they turn around. This isn’t a change that anyone is ever going to actually notice while fighting.

Frost aura: 10% damage mitigation for a few seconds isn’t much compensation for the huge nerf frost aura just took. A warrior isn’t going to stop and ask himself if he should whirlwind through an ele with frost aura up, because 2 seconds of chill isn’t going to matter. If anything, he probably wants to be chilled for a second because it will slow down his whirlwind and get more hits in. It went from a serious defense that people wanted to avoid hitting, to a mild annoyance.

Huge nerf to burst eles.

Ride the lightning: Nerf to any x/D ele

About Renewing Stamina: yes, you won’t get vigor when you’re defending yourself or running away, but chances are, by that time, you still haven’t used your dodges. By the time you dodge once or twice (or more) while being offensive (and with vigor on), and then take a break to heal yourself, all you need is to make a single critical hit again to have vigor back in.

Besides, as others have said, vigor lasts 5s, which should give you 5s (or more, with some extra boon duration) when not attacking.

As long as you adapt your playstyle to this new situation, it shouldn’t make a big difference. In the end, the only true nerf here is to the sustained defensive builds, that can no longer get infinite stacks of vigor.

Zephyr´s Boon: Meanwhile, renewed stamina no longer relies so much on fury as it did, as long as you have high precision (which burst builds should). Besides, burst builds are about, guess what, bursting. And bursts should usually be pretty quick. Just activate your auras right before you attempt to burst, and switch attunements to fire. That’s 7-8s of fury, taking into account 10 points into arcana. More than enough time to set up your burst.

Again: adapt your playstyle, and you shouldn’t notice a big difference.

Glyph Heal: No, the fire heal was never used before. But do you know why? Because it was underpowered. Not anymore, though, which means that people should start using more often. If you’re not being bursted by an opponent and don’t need the protection, then Fire is now an excellent choice for burst builds. Swiftness is good to roam around, and water is good for longer fights and especially to bunkers,so that leaves earth and fire for burst builds in general.

Finally, chill was always excellent for burst eles because it makes their bursts connect more often. It does not matter if it only lasts 2s: that can make the difference between hitting with a Dragon’s Tooth or a Fire Grab, or forcing an enemy to waste their dodges. The problem with Frost Aura is that it relies on the ele to take a hit, which is a big no-no for glass cannons. The extra defense should soften thatup, especially when stacked with protection, which should decrease the damage up to 43%, I think.

Bunker eles received much bigger nerfs than this. If anything, burst builds only require more skill/ timing to play effectively.

Best to wait to see how the other classes changes affect the overall meta, it may not be all doom and gloom.

I don’t know what the fuss is about with Renewing Stamina, just tried it and i have more than 20 seconds stacked already.

It should be minor trait (check guardian and mesmer equivalents).

The change to Renewing Stamina I saw as a positive, but I never used Soothing Distruption or Cantrips to stack vigor, I depended on crits in battle to get the first proc. Now, I can get it pretty quickly where as before there could be a delay.

Yes, I have lived with running out of dodges while running away lol. But then I have always lived by the, “If you run you die.” philosophy and think that is fair.

As a poster up above already noted, it is still possible to get some pretty big stacks of vigor going. So, I have to wonder what the big deal really is. I wonder if it may have to do with eles being able to cap points in Pvp using the speed of dodges to cross the map. Less stack = less dodges out of combat = no crosssing the map at warp speed.

not that i want to complain or anything but..I have kittening died so many times in pvp after the patch cause i was waiting for the extra 5 sec of rtl .. :P
Pls anet nerf heals at half and restore cd..pppplllsss!!!!!!!
Seriosuly though mobility>>healing if you play anything non tanky

Razor.6392:

@Malcastus: hi bunker player

I play anything but bunker builds, señor. Did test it a few times, but generally avoid it like the plague. Shall I then call you a bunker player in return, just to be as random? :P

Anet, can you please make damage/burst builds viable?

I look at the skill like Air Pocket, and think to myself whether something like that would make glass cannon builds possible and fun, without the bunker variants having access to such without giving up on much needed defense (thereby not empowering bunker variants). Perhaps in the shape of utility, master or grandmaster traits. Extra mobility would really help the glass cannon/burst elementalist survive more than now.

We have no effective means of staying alive and are the most frail of all professions. Mediocre damage on skills, combined with needing arcane offensive utility skills to portray a glass cannon and be a threat leaves you with very poor defenses. You can take a few crits, then you usually die. With no focus in healing (which currently is needed to a certain degree in PvP) and little means to keep yourself alive, it is a frustrating struggle that bears almost no fruit.

I thought about the idea of a fire grandmaster’s trait that would let you use fire fields to create ash clouds instead (thereby giving up on possible might stacking), making it possible to use Arcane Wave for instance to achieve invisibility for 3-5 seconds. That combined with some alterations to arcane utilities (for the better hopefully) and fire and air skill trees could make offensive oriented builds viable I believe.

Just something that struck me as possible.

So many posts implying 0/10/0/30/30 builds are all bunkers rather than balanced if armored without PVT/Healing gear.

All I know is movement got really clunky with the RTL cooldown nerf. Have to leave/come back to air twice now to use it instead of once + a couple seconds like it was before.

It’s actually more annoying just roaming around than it is in PVP. Doesn’t feel right that warriors can outrun me now (in an out of combat footrace). Even if you stay perma swift and use RTL, Burning speed, and blink on cooldown, you’ll lose the race to the guy in heavy armor if he uses his various movement abilities as well. That’s pretty f’d up.

Ralloff.7359:

So many posts implying 0/10/0/30/30 builds are all bunkers rather than balanced if armored without PVT/Healing gear.

/signed I have noticed the same thing. We rarely see the stats at the end of the build including armor and weapons which is all that really matters. There’s a thread now asking players to show screen shots of their build. It’s very eye opening to see the real stats that some people are running. Seeing those, I am sure I am not sure I know what a “glass cannon” is. Is it 12,500 health buffef lol? How much glass and how big does the cannon have to be?