Guild Wars 2

shave it off cantrip mastery and not from the crits.

the ele’s trait is is a major one compared to other classes’ vigour on crit traits which are minors, so “bringing it in line” doesn’t really work out here.

i can understand that the devs may think ele has too much vigour but taking it away from arcana will hurt dps builds more than it will hurt celestial builds, so i suggest to nerf the vigour on cantrips from 6s to 4s or 3s and not on crits.

It’s ironic how they want to normalize the traits but left Renewing Stamina a Major.

I agree with your suggestion. That, or switch Arcane Fury with the nerfed Renewing Stamina (make RS a minor like the other traits.)

They should revert the change for Renewing Stamina, and nerf Cantrips instead. Right now, they are pushing even more people to Cantrips to get back the Vigor loss.

Ele is more and more pigeonholed into Water/Cantrips.

I totally agree.

I would have nerfed the Vigor and Regen gain from cantrip to 3 seconds from 6.

And for sure, I would have not removed the might on Burning Fire. 2 for 10 seconds…

I can confirm that the Vigor nerf is felt as a no cantrip elementalist.

Agree too. Did say that immidiately after seeign the changes. Hit it in water not arcane….
The only other change i don´t agree is blinding ashes. It might be anoying but its a mayor defence of most fire builds that don´t run water d/d. The might removed was right.

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Kaleban, your comment feels like bait but I’ll comment on the options your post overlooks for people who may get on board with you, just in case;

Protection boon access

Attunement skills vs weapon swap (20 skills vs 10)

High regeneration uptime if traited water, which almost every ele is in the pvp meta

Signet of Restoration providing excellent healing, especially for dagger

Magnetic aura access for reflects, in addition to frost aura for further incoming damage reduction on top of protection

Defensive outgoing conditions access; blind, cripple, immobilise, weakness

Mobility options on every weapon set excluding sceptre, which can retain some mobility via dagger offhand. My only concession here would be that lightning flash is only 900 yard range and not a stun breaker, but as ele is far from weak in pvp, it is a small quibble

Do not forget that this is a team game at heart, and an ele is fantastic at blasting fields – such as water for team healing, or smoke for team stealth

—

All this said however, I agree that I would have preferred to see vigor shaved from cantrip traits and not from arcana’s vigor trait, as it otherwise continues to reinforce cantrip dominance in pvp which is very uninspiring alongside traiting the water traitline.

Humblekain.5418:

Protection boon access

Which requires swapping attunements, with attendant CDs

Attunement skills vs weapon swap (20 skills vs 10)

As has been explained before, those extra skills forces watering down of ALL the skills, meaning the Ele has to work twice as hard for similar effect.

High regeneration uptime if traited water, which almost every ele is in the pvp meta

Huzzah for build diversity. A single weak boon is not a well formulated defensive methodology.

Signet of Restoration providing excellent healing, especially for dagger

Every profession has at least one decent heal, so not sure why this is a thing, and ignores the fact that the Ele’s healing has been directly singled out for nerfs multiple times.

Magnetic aura access for reflects, in addition to frost aura for further incoming damage reduction on top of protection

Magnetic aura is on Focus, so not meta, and Frost Aura is a 7s aura on a 40s CD.

Defensive outgoing conditions access; blind, cripple, immobilise, weakness

Many classes also have these, and don’t have to contend with extra CDs thanks to attunements.

Mobility options on every weapon set excluding sceptre, which can retain some mobility via dagger offhand. My only concession here would be that lightning flash is only 900 yard range and not a stun breaker, but as ele is far from weak in pvp, it is a small quibble

Burning Speed. Nerfed. Ride the Lightning. Hilariously nerfed. Magnetic Grasp. Requires a target. Fiery Great Sword is taken as an ELITE MOBILITY SKILL thanks to nerfs.

Do not forget that this is a team game at heart, and an ele is fantastic at blasting fields – such as water for team healing, or smoke for team stealth

It being a team game is irrelevant when you’re discussing balance concerns, the professions aren’t balanced by team comps.

All this said, I’m tired of people proclaiming the Elementalist OP when its really the use of the Celestial Amulet in CONJUNCTION with the jack-of-all-trades design. Your post ignored the entire point of the argument. The Ele in comparison to other professions is objectively weak, dependent on either heavy boon stacking, high player skill, or dumb opponents (player or AI) standing still like target dummies, and often a combination of all three.

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Kaleban.9834:

All this said, I’m tired of people proclaiming the Elementalist OP when its really the use of the Celestial Amulet in CONJUNCTION with the jack-of-all-trades design. Your post ignored the entire point of the argument. The Ele in comparison to other professions is objectively weak, dependent on either heavy boon stacking, high player skill, or dumb opponents (player or AI) standing still like target dummies, and often a combination of all three.

I do see your point, I still feel your opinion is too strong though. Yes there are failings with elementalist, such as pvp build diversity being contained to water/arcana/x, but so long as ele’s continue to thrive in pvp (even if it is d/d celestial, it still works if you don’t like it) and in pve via fire staff, we’re really not going to get much sympathy. All I can suggest is that if it really puts you off and you continue to be disappointed with the lack of other viable builds, maybe try another class in the meantime.

Also boon stacking is no gimmick or crutch, but is inherent in the design of elementalist. It’s why signet necromancers wreck us so hard.

Sunshine.5014:

They should revert the change for Renewing Stamina, and nerf Cantrips instead. Right now, they are pushing even more people to Cantrips to get back the Vigor loss.

Ele is more and more pigeonholed into Water/Cantrips.

^Couldn’t have said it better.

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

Linnael.1069:

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

That the thing went ppl talk about ele having the lower hp / def they leave out that ele has the best sustain in the game and has always been able to play in melee ranged just as well as pure melee classes. Now d/d ele always been super week to ranged classes where most melee have tools to deal with ranged classes.
GW2 not just a numbers game this is more true for a class like ele who lands big hits that are well timed not endless dps.

Jski.6180:

Linnael.1069:

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

That the thing went ppl talk about ele having the lower hp / def they leave out that ele has the best sustain in the game and has always been able to play in melee ranged just as well as pure melee classes. Now d/d ele always been super week to ranged classes where most melee have tools to deal with ranged classes.
GW2 not just a numbers game this is more true for a class like ele who lands big hits that are well timed not endless dps.

The ele only has “the best sustain in the game” (which is not true anyway, guardians and warriors bunkering up have more sustain) when it is bunkering up with celestial gear. To do as much damage as other classes with staff we have to run full zerk, and we then the class gets 1-shot all over the place by 20k shatters, 9k arcing slice, 14k killshot and 7k life blasts.

Xillllix.3485:

Jski.6180:

Linnael.1069:

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

That the thing went ppl talk about ele having the lower hp / def they leave out that ele has the best sustain in the game and has always been able to play in melee ranged just as well as pure melee classes. Now d/d ele always been super week to ranged classes where most melee have tools to deal with ranged classes.
GW2 not just a numbers game this is more true for a class like ele who lands big hits that are well timed not endless dps.

The ele only has “the best sustain in the game” (which is not true anyway, guardians and warriors bunkering up have more sustain) when it is bunkering up with celestial gear. To do as much damage as other classes with staff we have to run full zerk, and we then the class gets 1-shot all over the place by 20k shatters, 9k arcing slice, 14k killshot and 7k life blasts.

So that why we never see d/d eles in spvp?

Jski.6180:

Xillllix.3485:

The ele only has “the best sustain in the game” (which is not true anyway, guardians and warriors bunkering up have more sustain) when it is bunkering up with celestial gear. To do as much damage as other classes with staff we have to run full zerk, and we then the class gets 1-shot all over the place by 20k shatters, 9k arcing slice, 14k killshot and 7k life blasts.

So that why we never see d/d eles in spvp?

No, that’s we never see berserker eles in spvp. learn2read.

Jski.6180:

Xillllix.3485:

Jski.6180:

Linnael.1069:

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

That the thing went ppl talk about ele having the lower hp / def they leave out that ele has the best sustain in the game and has always been able to play in melee ranged just as well as pure melee classes. Now d/d ele always been super week to ranged classes where most melee have tools to deal with ranged classes.
GW2 not just a numbers game this is more true for a class like ele who lands big hits that are well timed not endless dps.

The ele only has “the best sustain in the game” (which is not true anyway, guardians and warriors bunkering up have more sustain) when it is bunkering up with celestial gear. To do as much damage as other classes with staff we have to run full zerk, and we then the class gets 1-shot all over the place by 20k shatters, 9k arcing slice, 14k killshot and 7k life blasts.

So that why we never see d/d eles in spvp?

Jski, you DO understand that PvP is pretty much all about holding points right? I mean, you do get that’s how you win?

So what do Eles do? They build as tanky as possible, while not needing to worry about inflicting damage, because killing other players 1v1 in PvP is NOT HOW YOU WIN.

Its called a delaying or stalling tactic, which a Water/Arcana/Celestial build is nearly totally focused on.

You can be as snarky as you want, but the simple fact is, that people like you who claim the Ele is OP are the same people who always think its OP when the Ele is not a free kill. Maybe its a perception thing, what with the Elementalist being a light armor class that is difficult to take down when built properly compared to professions like Guardian or Warrior that can do damage while simultaneously being tanky to a point.

For an Elementalist to hold a point, its built to do so, just like any other profession yet somehow the Ele gets all the hate and cries from the peanut gallery about being overpowered.

Kaleban.9834:

Jski.6180:

Xillllix.3485:

Jski.6180:

Linnael.1069:

Jski.6180:

Kaleban.9834:

I can’t be the only person to wonder why, on a class with the least access to defensive skills, lowest health, lightest armor, no weapon-swap, nerfed healing coefficients, nerfed mobility and no profession defining defensive abilities like Stealth and Death Shroud, that ANet seems to think nerfing the sole defensive boon is a good balancing decision?

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.
Vigor on cirt is easy to get and for a class like ele nearly getting a free +20% crit chase if you go the same line as the vigo on crit it becomes an “non-boon” as in you simply just have it all the time. The vigor on cantrips is a great deal shorter lasting for the time of the cd on the skills to get it. So at best an 12 sec cd on an heal skill that gives vigor for 6 sec is right on line with an 10 sec cd on crit for 5 sec of vigor that is if your using the heal the sec it comes off of cd and only letting it just go off and stopping it before it go though its full effect.

Because every single ele is forced to build tank.
People like you are why balance is so bad in this game.

“There is no viable build that doesn’t take every defensive trait and utility available while wearing the tankiest stat set that sees use. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the class is fine and hard to kill. hurr”

That the thing went ppl talk about ele having the lower hp / def they leave out that ele has the best sustain in the game and has always been able to play in melee ranged just as well as pure melee classes. Now d/d ele always been super week to ranged classes where most melee have tools to deal with ranged classes.
GW2 not just a numbers game this is more true for a class like ele who lands big hits that are well timed not endless dps.

The ele only has “the best sustain in the game” (which is not true anyway, guardians and warriors bunkering up have more sustain) when it is bunkering up with celestial gear. To do as much damage as other classes with staff we have to run full zerk, and we then the class gets 1-shot all over the place by 20k shatters, 9k arcing slice, 14k killshot and 7k life blasts.

So that why we never see d/d eles in spvp?

Jski, you DO understand that PvP is pretty much all about holding points right? I mean, you do get that’s how you win?

So what do Eles do? They build as tanky as possible, while not needing to worry about inflicting damage, because killing other players 1v1 in PvP is NOT HOW YOU WIN.

Its called a delaying or stalling tactic, which a Water/Arcana/Celestial build is nearly totally focused on.

You can be as snarky as you want, but the simple fact is, that people like you who claim the Ele is OP are the same people who always think its OP when the Ele is not a free kill. Maybe its a perception thing, what with the Elementalist being a light armor class that is difficult to take down when built properly compared to professions like Guardian or Warrior that can do damage while simultaneously being tanky to a point.

For an Elementalist to hold a point, its built to do so, just like any other profession yet somehow the Ele gets all the hate and cries from the peanut gallery about being overpowered.

That the thing this game is NOT about 1v1 nor will it ever be. The talk is if ele can stay alive even though it had the lower hp and def in the game and it CAN.

Also i did not say a thing about a class being op i talked about how vigor on cantrips is weaker then the current on crit vigor.

Jski.6180:

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.

Yeah, you kinda did.

The Ele can stay alive despite having the lowest health and armor ONLY by utilizing a build totally dedicated to shoring up those weaknesses.

This leaves the Ele with little to no damage output relative to other professions that can have both tankiness and damage. This is fine in PvP when you’re discussing point holding, but an Ele built to survive in PvP cannot really decap, and would be useless in WvW (barring trolling havoc squads, daphoenix early on showcased this to great effect) and REALLY useless in PvE.

HoT may change this, but the point is that right NOW, the Ele’s only reliable defense across various builds is in fact dodging, which is why Vigor traits are nearly mandatory. You can thank ANet for pigeonholing Eles into such builds by nerfing healing coefficients on almost every skill, granting no inherent defensive skills or design such as Stealth or Shroud, and working over mobility hard with the nerf bat.

I don’t even know why I bother participating in these debates, the facts are all in evidence and yet, thanks to the design of PvP and how Celestial interacts with the Ele’s design, people still think the Ele is OP. Which is a totally erroneous conclusion, especially when compared straight up to most of the other professions.

This is getting seriously funny. Each and everytime they want to “promote more varied gameplay”, “make alternate playstyles better”, “reduce the need to specialise into water/cantrip/arcane” or “give other builds more power”, they end up gutting all the tools those other builds have.
“ummm, guys, we have 2 traits offensive builds use for survival, and 3 traits that only the builds we want to nerf use…how about we nerf the 2 former ones?”

Nowadays whenever they mention anything along those lines i can´t help but giggle

Kaleban.9834:

Jski.6180:

Yet its still one of the hardest to kill class in the game some how despite that lol.

Yeah, you kinda did.

The Ele can stay alive despite having the lowest health and armor ONLY by utilizing a build totally dedicated to shoring up those weaknesses.

This leaves the Ele with little to no damage output relative to other professions that can have both tankiness and damage. This is fine in PvP when you’re discussing point holding, but an Ele built to survive in PvP cannot really decap, and would be useless in WvW (barring trolling havoc squads, daphoenix early on showcased this to great effect) and REALLY useless in PvE.

HoT may change this, but the point is that right NOW, the Ele’s only reliable defense across various builds is in fact dodging, which is why Vigor traits are nearly mandatory. You can thank ANet for pigeonholing Eles into such builds by nerfing healing coefficients on almost every skill, granting no inherent defensive skills or design such as Stealth or Shroud, and working over mobility hard with the nerf bat.

I don’t even know why I bother participating in these debates, the facts are all in evidence and yet, thanks to the design of PvP and how Celestial interacts with the Ele’s design, people still think the Ele is OP. Which is a totally erroneous conclusion, especially when compared straight up to most of the other professions.

Just becuse something hard to kill dose not make it op you even say your self that. So by your own views me saying that IS not saying ele is op.

Vigor lost a lot of power when it had a 50% nerf that was part of classes having way too much vigor up time. Even still vigor is one of the powerful boons of GW2 and having 100% up time of an powerful boon is a bit much. The thing about the arcain line is it did too much and its been betting hit to make it less or a must have line. Vigor getting dropped is part of this and now you can get away from arcain a bit more and just run cantrip vigor and get a still strong up time of vigor at a higher price then just being able to land a crit ever 10 sec or so lol.