Guild Wars 2

Patch is going to land eventually, and time to post studied balance ideas and solutions seems to be called for. So here’s a couple of ideas for changes, including nerfs and buffs and reworks. The goal is to expand the class variety.

NERFS

“Wash the Pain Away!” Reduce the heal amount to allies by 50%. As compensation, increase the area of effect to the first and second pulse to 240 radius and 360 radius respectively, up from 180 and 240 radius.

Frost Aura Applies the chill only if the target is within 600 range. This is also a Reaper nerf.

Diamond Skin Condition can now be applied on the Elementalist. Instead, you ignore the conditions applied to you when above 90% threshold, working similarly to Resistance. (Diamond Skin worded that way does not synergize so well with condition clear since the condition is still applied above threshold. But, a build able to come back up to the 90% threshold can be possible and will ignore applied conditions again.)

Overload Earth Protection applied to allies is now the same as the one applied to yourself. 1 second of protection pulsing while channeling and up to 3 seconds upon completing the overload.

BUFFS

Staff
(I did not think about Scepters and Daggers since I don’t play them, though, I read the scepter threads.)

Lava Font : First instance of the damage occurs immediately after the cast. (Instant First tick).

Lighning Surge : Reduce cooldown to 5 seconds from 10 to better match cooldown with Fresh Air.

Gust : Add minor damage on impact.

Magnetic Aura : Apply cripple for 5 seconds in a 300 radius around the player on cast. Reduce cooldown to 25 from 30.

Shockwave : Improve power ratio to 1.0 from 0.5. Increase bleeding stacks to 3 from 1, reduce duration to 8 from 20. Reduce cooldown to 20 from 30.

Healing Rain: Reduce cast time to 1 seconds from 1 1/2 seconds.

Traits

Inscription: Increase the might gained from casting glyphs while attuned to fire to 3 stacks from 1 stack. Additionnaly, it now reduces the cooldown of the summoned elemental special ability cooldown by 20%.

Weak Spot: Increase the Vulnerability Stacks on critical strike to 2 from 1.

Earthen Blast : Add 3 stacks of bleeding for 3 seconds in the 240 radius when swapping to Earth.

Serrated Stones: Applying Cripple also applies 5 seconds of Bleeding (3 seconds ICD); Applying Bleeding also applies 2 seconds of Cripple (10 seconds ICD). Improve damage dealt against bleeding foes by 5%; improve critical chance against Crippled foes by 5%. Increase Bleeding and Cripple duration by 20%.

Lightning Strike : Increase range to 1200 from 900.

Renewing Stamina : Reduce recharge to 4 seconds from 10. Reduce duration to 3 seconds from 5.

Elemental Attunement : Increase the radius to 360 from 240.

Conjurer : Combine One with Fire and Conjurer together as a single trait.

New trait to replace One with Fire: Element of Purification : Applying Fire Aura cleanse 1 damaging condition and increases damage dealt by condition by 5% and damage by 5 % for the duration of the Aura.

Pyromancer’s Puissance : Bonus (Minor and Major traits) from Fire Attunement now lingers for 5 seconds after swapping from Fire Attunement.

UTILITIES

Arcane Shield Reduce cooldown to 50 seconds, down from 75 seconds.

Arcane Power Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds, down from 45 seconds. Additionnally, improves Ferocity by 250 for the duration of the spell.

Arcane Blast Reduce cooldown to 15 seconds from 20 seconds. Additionnally, the spell now launches 3 projectiles in a barrage to the target with a 100% projectile finisher. Damage is improved by 10%, but splitted in 3 instances of damage.

Arcane Wave Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds from 30.

Arcane Brillance Reduce cooldown to 15, down from 25 seconds. Short cooldown healing skill.

Signet of Restoration Clears one condition when casted.

Signet of Water Now also removes chill every 10 seconds in addition to the regular condition clear. When activated, gain Frost Aura on successful hit in addition to the chill on the target.

Signet of Fire Now grants Fire Aura on successful hit in addition to the burn on the target.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony Increase healing value to 6,490 (1.0), up from 4894 (0.75).

Glyph of Elemental Power Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds, down from 45 seconds.

Eye of the Storm Now grants a static charge to allies for 10 seconds in addition to the old effect, similar to the effects upon completing air overload.

Tornado: Changed to Signet of the Wind which passively improve vitality, thoughness and healing power by 80. Tornado now applies the first instance of damage instantly after a succesful cast and the last tick applies at the very end of the transformation. Raise the pulsing stability stack to 5 up from 1 every three seconds. Additionnaly, clears 3 conditions every 3 seconds. And finally, enemy combo fields are inneffective while under Tornado (it does not affect the regular effects of the ability causing the combo field).

Conjured Weapons

-Reduce initial cooldown to 45 seconds from 60.

-Reduce Fiery Greatsword cooldown to 120 from 180 seconds.

-Improve visibility between allies’ and enemies’ conjured weapon.

-Drastically reduce the delay to pick up Conjured Weapon (or Bundles) when already on the floor.

Conjure Earth Shield

Passive stats : -Remove vitality from the passive stat gains since it is immediately lost when the Conjured Weapon is discarded.

-Add Concentration (20% boon duration) to the passive stat pool.

Stone Sheath : Increase radius to 360. Each enemy hit grants two seconds of Retaliation. Reduce cooldown to 5 seconds from 8.

Magnetic Surge : Add a Leap Finisher to the skill.

Crippling Shield : Add a Projectile Finisher to the skill.

Lightning Hammer

Static Field : Allow the wielder to move while casting. Allow to target the field in the area instead of a Point Blank Area, 600 range.

Wind Blast : Improve damage to match Guardian Hammer’s Banish.

Auto Attack : Reduce auto attack windup to match the indicated cast time.

Conjure Flame Axe

Ring of Fire : Update this Ring of Fire to match the current iteration of Ring of Fire on Dagger.

Auto-Attack : Rework the auto attack to include a chain in melee, which could include some evade frames.

Conjure Ice Bow

Auto Attack : Completely rework the auto-attack. Fire a shard of ice that shatters on impact, Bleeding and dealing extra damage to enemies behind the impact. 1 stack of bleed for 3 seconds, 320 (0,6) damage ; 2 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds, 384 (0.72) damage to target behind. 900 range.

Frost Fan : Increase chill duration to 2 seconds from 1 seconds (to compensate the chill stack limit). Struck enemies and allies now leave a regenerative mist on impact that pulse heal every seconds for 204 (0,2) over 3 seconds.

Ice Storm : Do an evasive leap away from target area while shooting a volatile shard of ice. Detonate midair for multiple explosions of ice. Detonates into 5 shards that cripple and bleeds.

BUG FIXES

Elemental Enchantment Fix the issue causing the overload cooldown to reset back to 20 seconds when swapping out of the element causing the overload.

Written in Stones Fix the issue causing signets buff duration not matching the signet cooldown due to the aftercast. Aftercast duration now adds to the buff duration.

Tempest Defense Fix the issue that prevents Lightning Rod from receiving the damage increase portion to disabled target. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3x9941/lightning_rod_is_not_working_properly_video_proof/)

Lightning Rod Fix the issue that causes the lightning strike to be blocked or dodged upon sucessfully interrupting a dodging or blocking target. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3x9941/lightning_rod_is_not_working_properly_video_proof/)

Every patch we get nerfed to the ground, then learn to master the only viable build left until everyone starts complaining that we are OP, then we get nerfed again… it’s an infinite loop of nerfing.

All the elites, the glymphs, the slow skills that rarely hit anyone, it all need redesign.

Xillllix.3485:

Every patch we get nerfed to the ground, then learn to master the only viable build left until everyone starts complaining that we are OP, then we get nerfed again… it’s an infinite loop of nerfing.

All the elites, the glymphs, the slow skills that rarely hit anyone, it all need redesign.

Forgot about the utility. Added them.

Don’t have much to say about most of the buffs, they’re mostly reasonable though you’re optimistic to think they’re gonna do such a wide sweeping buff.

The nerf to diamond skin, as opposed to a rework, is going the wrong direction. There shouldn’t be a 90% hp threshold attached to it, period. As long as it’s there, the trait is situational, and when the inevitable sustain nerfs come, the trait becomes useless.

But honestly, scepter (and maybe arcane utilities) are the things that need serious help, and I’m not even expecting the devs to buff those it too much in one patch, much less half the things that you listed.

Shadowflare.2759:

Don’t have much to say about most of the buffs, they’re mostly reasonable though you’re optimistic to think they’re gonna do such a wide sweeping buff.

The nerf to diamond skin, as opposed to a rework, is going the wrong direction. There shouldn’t be a 90% hp threshold attached to it, period. As long as it’s there, the trait is situational, and when the inevitable sustain nerfs come, the trait becomes useless.

But honestly, scepter (and maybe arcane utilities) are the things that need serious help, and I’m not even expecting the devs to buff those it too much in one patch, much less half the things that you listed.

The goal is just to give ideas and reminders of what could be looked at. If the team takes 3 months, I suppose they can look through more than 4 changes.

About the Diamond Skin solution, I had been theorycrafting heavily on the subject, and before HoT. One strenght about Diamond Skin is that it “cancels” the condition. If you read quickly, it’s possible that you miss the logic behind the change. In reality, it’s a night and day change and benefits a build with a totally different dynamic than the Tempest Auramancer. Diamond Skin does not stop the condition from being applied, so you could have the skin broken while afflicted by a lot of conditions: this means that the condition abilities casted before gain some efficiency back and are not simply cancelled. At the moment once you’ve broken diamond skin, you need to condi bomb once again, which takes a moment; and during that moment, the elementalist uses it to get back to full.

Alekt.5803:

Xillllix.3485:

Every patch we get nerfed to the ground, then learn to master the only viable build left until everyone starts complaining that we are OP, then we get nerfed again… it’s an infinite loop of nerfing.

All the elites, the glymphs, the slow skills that rarely hit anyone, it all need redesign.

Forgot about the utility. Added them.

I think you also forgot Warhorn, but it’s ok nobody cares about it anymore…

Xillllix.3485:

Alekt.5803:

Xillllix.3485:

Every patch we get nerfed to the ground, then learn to master the only viable build left until everyone starts complaining that we are OP, then we get nerfed again… it’s an infinite loop of nerfing.

All the elites, the glymphs, the slow skills that rarely hit anyone, it all need redesign.

Forgot about the utility. Added them.

I think you also forgot Warhorn, but it’s ok nobody cares about it anymore…

Who cares about Warhorn?

I don’t know, I’ve never really used it.

Alekt.5803:

Shadowflare.2759:

Don’t have much to say about most of the buffs, they’re mostly reasonable though you’re optimistic to think they’re gonna do such a wide sweeping buff.

The nerf to diamond skin, as opposed to a rework, is going the wrong direction. There shouldn’t be a 90% hp threshold attached to it, period. As long as it’s there, the trait is situational, and when the inevitable sustain nerfs come, the trait becomes useless.

But honestly, scepter (and maybe arcane utilities) are the things that need serious help, and I’m not even expecting the devs to buff those it too much in one patch, much less half the things that you listed.

The goal is just to give ideas and reminders of what could be looked at. If the team takes 3 months, I suppose they can look through more than 4 changes.

About the Diamond Skin solution, I had been theorycrafting heavily on the subject, and before HoT. One strenght about Diamond Skin is that it “cancels” the condition. If you read quickly, it’s possible that you miss the logic behind the change. In reality, it’s a night and day change and benefits a build with a totally different dynamic than the Tempest Auramancer. Diamond Skin does not stop the condition from being applied, so you could have the skin broken while afflicted by a lot of conditions: this means that the condition abilities casted before gain some efficiency back and are not simply cancelled. At the moment once you’ve broken diamond skin, you need to condi bomb once again, which takes a moment; and during that moment, the elementalist uses it to get back to full.

I didn’t miss the logic. I’m not having a problem with the fact that you’re nerfing diamond skin to act like resistance, the problem is that even as of now, the trait is just horribly designed. You get 10% hp of immunity, but as soon as something breaks the threshold you are now playing with 1 less trait.

This whole premise of a “OP effect when above certain health threshold” is stupid. If I pick a trait, I want it to be active as often as possible. I don’t care if they rework the trait to have less powerful effects if it means that it cannot be removed just because the enemy happens to be playing a power build.

And that’s not even including the fact that as long as DS is dependent on a health threshold, it will only benefit from bunker builds with high sustain. This then ties the fate of ele survivalbility to the current excessive healing/boon spam, and therefore is one of the many reasons why eles have no build diversity.

There have been many interesting rework suggestions, I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head, but things like:

Gain resistance on attunement swap,
Gain longer duration resistance on swapping to earth,
Pulse resistance when (activating certain skills)

These are the types of reworks that Diamond Skin should receive, not just a nerf. The trait isn’t OP, it just has niche counters that happen to be widely played.

Shadowflare.2759:

I didn’t miss the logic. I’m not having a problem with the fact that you’re nerfing diamond skin to act like resistance, the problem is that even as of now, the trait is just horribly designed. You get 10% hp of immunity, but as soon as something breaks the threshold you are now playing with 1 less trait.

This whole premise of a “OP effect when above certain health threshold” is stupid. If I pick a trait, I want it to be active as often as possible. I don’t care if they rework the trait to have less powerful effects if it means that it cannot be removed just because the enemy happens to be playing a power build.

And that’s not even including the fact that as long as DS is dependent on a health threshold, it will only benefit from bunker builds with high sustain. This then ties the fate of ele survivalbility to the current excessive healing/boon spam, and therefore is one of the many reasons why eles have no build diversity.

There have been many interesting rework suggestions, I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head, but things like:

Gain resistance on attunement swap,
Gain longer duration resistance on swapping to earth,
Pulse resistance when (activating certain skills)

These are the types of reworks that Diamond Skin should receive, not just a nerf. The trait isn’t OP, it just has niche counters that happen to be widely played.

Yeah I get you. Pre-HoT, I had a pretty unique build on elementalist using Diamond Skin. So it served the elementalist build diversity. It could even rival d/d cantrip at a point. But if a rework is interesting I am all for.

Shadowflare.2759:

Alekt.5803:

Shadowflare.2759:

Don’t have much to say about most of the buffs, they’re mostly reasonable though you’re optimistic to think they’re gonna do such a wide sweeping buff.

The nerf to diamond skin, as opposed to a rework, is going the wrong direction. There shouldn’t be a 90% hp threshold attached to it, period. As long as it’s there, the trait is situational, and when the inevitable sustain nerfs come, the trait becomes useless.

But honestly, scepter (and maybe arcane utilities) are the things that need serious help, and I’m not even expecting the devs to buff those it too much in one patch, much less half the things that you listed.

The goal is just to give ideas and reminders of what could be looked at. If the team takes 3 months, I suppose they can look through more than 4 changes.

About the Diamond Skin solution, I had been theorycrafting heavily on the subject, and before HoT. One strenght about Diamond Skin is that it “cancels” the condition. If you read quickly, it’s possible that you miss the logic behind the change. In reality, it’s a night and day change and benefits a build with a totally different dynamic than the Tempest Auramancer. Diamond Skin does not stop the condition from being applied, so you could have the skin broken while afflicted by a lot of conditions: this means that the condition abilities casted before gain some efficiency back and are not simply cancelled. At the moment once you’ve broken diamond skin, you need to condi bomb once again, which takes a moment; and during that moment, the elementalist uses it to get back to full.

I didn’t miss the logic. I’m not having a problem with the fact that you’re nerfing diamond skin to act like resistance, the problem is that even as of now, the trait is just horribly designed. You get 10% hp of immunity, but as soon as something breaks the threshold you are now playing with 1 less trait.

This whole premise of a “OP effect when above certain health threshold” is stupid. If I pick a trait, I want it to be active as often as possible. I don’t care if they rework the trait to have less powerful effects if it means that it cannot be removed just because the enemy happens to be playing a power build.

And that’s not even including the fact that as long as DS is dependent on a health threshold, it will only benefit from bunker builds with high sustain. This then ties the fate of ele survivalbility to the current excessive healing/boon spam, and therefore is one of the many reasons why eles have no build diversity.

There have been many interesting rework suggestions, I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head, but things like:

Gain resistance on attunement swap,
Gain longer duration resistance on swapping to earth,
Pulse resistance when (activating certain skills)

These are the types of reworks that Diamond Skin should receive, not just a nerf. The trait isn’t OP, it just has niche counters that happen to be widely played.

I agree 100% with you. If they do something about it, they should make some of these changes (kinda like how mallyx works for revs)

On a side note, most of the nerf suggestions seems to come from people that is used to dump all the conditions at once and then get outmatched by eles running this. And, in a condition meta, it’s expected that most of the people will use DS.
Same thing will happen if you run Stone heart in a power meta, and people will ask for nerfs to the ground instead of suggesting actual changes to make these traits fun in the first place.
THey need to change them because they have poor design, not because they’re OP. Diamond skin is highly situational because in team fights (pvp isn’t about 1v1) means nothing, and while on 1v1 is quite strong against condis, as an auramancer you shouldn’t be 1v1ing in the first place. And Stone Heart locks you in earth wich isn’t good.

If tornado was changed into a signet that could raise hp pools to a base 15000-16000 I’d then accept a sustain nerf, I just want to be able to play glassy builds effectively.