Guild Wars 2

Why is lightning flash on a 10 second longer cooldown costs 5 skill points more without it being a stun breaker like blink is?
Also blink benefits from I in dueling to increase range and III in chaos to reduce cooldown. And we get regen and might and cooldown reduction on cantrip it just feels a little strange? I’m new to ele so if i am missing something or being ignorant let me know. But i found the stun breaker on blink on my mesmer good for WvW in getting out of zergs to heal.
If you take the reduced by 20% for each you get 32 second cooldown vs a 24 with a stun breaker i know lightning gives damage but i don’t feel like its equal with the 300 extra range on mesmer blink also.

It used to be a stunbreaker. ANet felt that cantrip builds were overpowered and also wanted to reduce our reliance on cantrips in general, so they spread the stunbreakers around to other utility skills. They also upped the damage Lightning Flash does.

From what I’ve seen, a lot of Elementalists still prefer to use cantrips in general, including Lightning Flash, so I don’t know about that change really affecting much.

Something I noticed is that the nerfing cantrips didn’t stop them from being widely used because they offer survivability and much better utility than most glyphs, signets, and arcane skills.

Seriously, how is glyph of elemental power, which provides us a passive buff that causes conditions on attacks, fit in as a stunbreaker? Most of our stunbreakers are skills that provide some sort of defensive benefit E.G signet of air causes AoE blind (which is still pitiful imo) and arcane shield provides three blocked attacks over five seconds.

Edit: Lighting flash was considered too good so it got hit with a nerf. Personally, I think it was just fine.

From what i posted its worse than the mesmer blink in many ways so I don’t understand why it wasn’t made to be on par?

Because Elementalists in general were considered too good for tournament play, which is what ANet wants to balance the game around, so they were nerfed to the point that few competitive players use them anymore.

Since ANet no longer balances separately for PvE, WvW, and sPvP, everyone feels the nerfs.

Lightning flash does dmg, blink doesn’t.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Lightning flash does dmg, blink doesn’t.

This is also true.

The damage is not as good as a stun breaker or a general lower cooldown especially if you are playing defensive. As ranged ofc.

The loss of a stunbreaker isn’t all that significant, considering that it’s still instant cast and can therefore be used while you’re stunned.

I do wish there was a trait that would increase it’s range though.

emilejuggernaut.1864:

The damage is not as good as a stun breaker or a general lower cooldown especially if you are playing defensive. As ranged ofc.

Put more damage gear on lightning flash can do a good amount of damage. 2k is not uncommon in normal dps builds 4k is definitely doable. The loss of stun breaker isn’t all that big of a deal because you can still use it while stunned.

Mesmer’s hardly ever take blink trait in most builds because the alternatives are much better unless you are building to run away. Also mesmer mobility isn’t as good as elementalist mobility they can invis and misdirect people which is different.

If a Mesmer lets say in the uber popular 20/20/30/0/0 PU build blows through all of it’s utility cooldowns of stealth it doesn’t really have much after that to get away or even options to trait to get away via weapon skills. A ele will always have wind borne speed on staff, burning retreat on staff, always have rtl on offhand dagger, has a movement signet, the one that would be the least mobile would be Focus off hand with no trait points.

People here might make the case that those thing “suck” but on paper with no trait points a Ele can have much better mobility then a Mesmer and traits just make it better. It isn’t warrior or thief mobility but in this comparison a Mesmer doesn’t even have Ele mobility. Mesmer has just a focus a random proc on a signet and 4 secs randomly on chaos storm and the illusion movement speed trait that no one ever takes.

Ele will spoil you with swiftness up time Mesmer’s have to go buy traveler runes or runes of speed or centaur and pop heals all day just get anywhere semi fast.

Crujiente.8612:

They also upped the damage Lightning Flash does.

Which is laughable.

OMG, thief has a teleport for 1200 range! Must nerf!

/Sarcasm

It is a bit unfair to remove the stunbreak from it (it was taken away while they were nerfing everything related to survivability into oblivion), but the skill is still the best utility we have. While Blink certainly has better traits and the stunbreak is great, elementalists can use the instant teleport much more effectively than mesmers. With all of the PbAOE, channels, fire-trail abilities, etc, we can really make great use of lightning flash to really widen our bag of tricks and become less predictable in-combat. LF+burning speed, Churning earth+LF, LF+Updraft, Earthquake+LF, FGS 4+LF, Phoenix+LF all make it possible to increase burst or hit otherwise easy-to-miss skills. LF still psuedo-stunbreaks a lot of situations by just teleporting out of the fray, and has some useful blink spots that give Z-axis mobility that many classes don’t have.

All that being said, giving a stunbreak BACK to LF would honestly help the profession slightly more towards viability at this point w/o risking the old “ele qq meta” days.

Crujiente.8612:

Bsgapollo.5364:

Lightning flash does dmg, blink doesn’t.

This is also true.

Lightning Flash is still a pseudo stun break because it’s instant cast, so you can still prevent a burst with it. It also synergies really well with some of our weapon skills, and deals damage on top of it. A critical hit from LF is worth, what, the same amount as an Arcane Wave?

Ultimately, Blink is a trickery teleport skill from a trickery profession, and Lightning Flash is a more burst oriented skill from the burst element (air) and available to a profession who playstyle is driven by comboed sequences.

Crujiente.8612:

It used to be a stunbreaker. ANet felt that cantrip builds were overpowered and also wanted to reduce our reliance on cantrips in general, so they spread the stunbreakers around to other utility skills. They also upped the damage Lightning Flash does.

From what I’ve seen, a lot of Elementalists still prefer to use cantrips in general, including Lightning Flash, so I don’t know about that change really affecting much.

The problem with the change is that we’re too squishy to go with anything but cantrips. We can’t afford to swap cantrips for anything else. Give us a higher base HP, and it might be a different story.

zilcho.7624:

The problem with the change is that we’re too squishy to go with anything but cantrips. We can’t afford to swap cantrips for anything else. Give us a higher base HP, and it might be a different story.

You are thinking about this in the wrong way. Playing a bunker, you need to out-survive going full-on survival. However, in this game you often way better off by applying pressure and getting an offensive lead in a fight rather than trying to outlast. Arcane skills (especially wave and shield) are EXCELLENT for that reason, and shield even stunbreaks.

Sometimes, you will find you survive better with more offense as opposed to more defense, oddly enough.

What blackbeard says is true. Ele has pretty decent sustain actually in my time playing guardian these last 2 weeks I appreciate ele’s sustain/dps ratio much more now. It is much better then Guardian it just isn’t warrior.

Pressure I have found is the best medicine for some of the most annoying builds to fight out there your PU mesmers, your necros etcs. You can find the balance where you aren’t full glass and not full bunker.

Leaning your build to more bunker just lets you 1vX bad players or stalemate other bunkers.

cause teleport crits for 3k thats why.

I can live with Flash not being a stun break, but Cleansing Fire should be one again. A tiny amount of burn and clearing 3 condition is just so bland for a utility skill and doesn’t justify the 40 seconds cooldown.