Guild Wars 2

Say the Devs came and said something like: We know the class is in real need of adjustments and we would like to get your ideas of how you would adjust the class.

What would yours be?

Mine would be involving just D/D as i dont use the other weapons so i can’t comment on them.

First i would like to see some more attunement combos. All we have really at the moment is Area Might with say Ring of Fire or Burning Speed into Earthquake or Churning Earth.

For me i would add more combo options. Cleansing Wave, I would slightly lower the healing done and add a Water field that grants say 1 second of regen every 1 second and the field lasts for say 4-5seconds and along with that i would change Burning Speed – keep the Evade it is getting but make it a Leap Finisher, the distance and everything stay the same the fire wall would still be the same length and everything, it would just add that little extra.

Ride The Lightening, this not only needs to have its missed cool down reduced but maybe add a finisher to it or something same goes for Updraft – surely you are LEAPING backwards so why isnt it a Leap finisher?

I think the Auto attacks of D/D could be adjusted a bit, Air is fine but i find the others rather lacking. The damage from them is rather low as well.

(Taken from my Auto attacks topic)

Fire: Up the base damage. Maybe add 1-2second burning as well?

Water: Add so that the ele is healed when casting and on impact it deals small radius AoE damage to enemies and AoE again in a small radius healing to allies

Air: I dunno, i really think its in its “right” place at the moment so i dont think it needs any adjustments

Earth: Full redesign. I just can’t stand that it is a single target and that it has a terrible animation. Not quite sure what it could be changed to though, keep the bleeding and add a AoE aspect to it. Maybe have it as a sort of reskinned version of Dragons Claw where it fires out 3 stone spikes or something. Any target hit by any of the spikes gets damaged and bleeding. The Range to stay the same.

Heal wise, i think we are reasonable here, i do think that Signet of Restoration could be bumped up a bit 246 per a cast is rather low for someone with nearly 500Healing Power. I do wish we had a Heal that was a mix between Glyph of Harmony and Signet of Restoration. In that you gain health when casting and then get a reasonable heal (3-4k) and then a Boon based on your Attunement. Though i doubt that would ever happen. In its current state Signet of Restoration is just a an average version of Healing Signet.

Utilities wise, i think most of them need to have the cool downs reduced. I would like to see the usage limit of the Conjures except FGS of course to be removed and just let us use them as many times as we want in that 60seconds

I think Signets need to be redesigned and have the actives actually WORTH using. Currently i find the Passive bonuses to be much more worthwhile and not worth using the active in most cases.

Some of the Glyphs are rather lacking as well Storms has too long a cast time and is rather long cool down for something that isnt that great, Sandstorm has its uses but other than that they dont really offer anything that you couldnt get elsewhere. Lesser Elementals, well they are just an even worse version of a very average elite. Renewal, insane cast time and cool down, the tooltip is rather poor as well seeing as it is one ally (unless Earth i think) i do think that the cast time and the cool down both need to be heavily reduced.

Elite wise, i think most of them are rather weak (except FGS) in there own way, i think Tornado needs to be bought up to Plague Form survivability levels at the very least and have its Toughness increased while we are using it. The Elementals allow us to CHOOSE when to use their “best” attack (best being the ones that the lessers dont have)

Lower skill cooldowns.

Increase damage on abilities to match the fact we have the lowest hp and armour of any class.

I still don’t understand why this is such. We don’t have increased power at creation, so why are other classes given better armour and hp. Everyone has ranged abilities and melee, same as us.

You can’t spec for damage in pvp/wvw as a thief/warrior/anything will drop you in 2 hits, so you end up speccing semi defensively, so end up with poor power values. So basically mediocre damage and mediocre defense.

Of all the classes i’ve tried , ele is honestly in need of a buff. You have to work 10 times as hard with an ele to get the same result as most other classes.

phaeris.7604:

You have to work 10 times as hard with an ele to get the same result as most other classes.

Yep. You have to go through ALL attunements use all your skills and them them just right to do the same thing as some classes can do in 2-3 hits…

We are in need of some serious work. I think our overall damage HAS to be increased if they have no intention of increasing our survivability with an increased health or armor pool.

It is quite sad when having nearly 500healing Power and seeing a Warrior have MORE passive healing by simply equipping a Signet, it would take FOUR stacks of Regen to even just be a LITTLE better regen than it is for the highest health and highest armor class that just equips a signet – that never runes out (unless used) and can’t be corrupted or removed…

I was killed in like 2 seconds yesturday by a thief, while having more than 18k health and just over 1500 toughness. it took TWO seconds for me to be downed and they did just over 21,000damage to me in under TWO seconds…

So even we try to go a little more offensive we will still get ganked by builds that have NOTHING we can do to counter it Its either go Bunker and die a little slower and be a threat to no one damage wise or go more offensive and die in seconds….

THAT is the sum of our build options.

I would buff ele’s base health, and completely scrap focus’s fire attunement skills to replace them with something else…anything else. Something would be changed about conjure weapons, but I don’t know what could make them feel more fluid without turning them into an engineer kit.
Other than that, I wouldn’t touch ele until other changes are made.

Instead of buffing the ele to put it on par with the other classes, I would nerf all skills that negate damage or give “immune” of some kind across all classes. Then proceed to add proper telegraphs to things like necromancer staff for example. Anything with less than a second casting time, but devastating power would be hit hard if I was ever balancing.

I used to consider warrior to be one of the best classes because it was easy to see what was going on during the fight, and their high health was compensated by low sustain. Warrior then became the leader of powercreep, and so I now consider ele to be one of the better examples of good balance instead, excluding the instant lightning strike cheese. I would much prefer to see ele’s base health bumped up, and then everything else brought back in line rather than buffing the ele a ton and continuing a very real powercreep problem.

thief is hard countered by this game mechanic called dodge and cc.

sorrychief.2563:

thief is hard countered by this game mechanic called dodge and cc.

So you able to see Thief in stealth?
Because seeing as outside of combat they have have perma stealth.
You have to SEE a thief to be able to get ready, you don’t see it. You die.

I would add a signet elite skill which gives us benefits from attunement swapping and recharges all skills on use.

I would definitely make changes to earth’s auto attack and make water’s auto attack heal. I’d make earth’s into a whip type attack which makes like a shockwave in the ground kind of like an underground lightning whip.

Cooldown reductions— this goes for focus offhand and dagger offhand. There need to be some huge reductions. Updraft, churning earth and ride the lightning are on cooldowns which are far too long. And to be honest, I would make the auras each have a ten second shorter cooldown as well.

That cooldown reduction goes for most of our utilities as well. I think our utilities need to have some group utility. Like cleansing fire removes a condition from everybody near you and lightning flash gives each party member aegis. Something that makes D/D ele a little more efficient in groups.

Rework all glyphs and signets. Nuff said.

Rework both fire and air lines to contain both defensive and offensive traits. My view is each line should offer a similar amount of defense and a similar amount of offense. Note: this does NOT mean nerf water and arcana.

Finally, revert ALL spvp nerfs on ele that change it from its WvW state. Cleansing water NEEDS to work.

I think the next balance patch is going to be an excellent start in the right direction.

Re: thief dodge/cc.

You’re kidding right? On my thief eles are easiest class to kill, with LB rangers 2nd.

As a thief I have so many gap closers and my damage is so big I only need a few hits to put you down on an ele.

Good luck dodging me when im in stealth. What cc are you talking about. I lose conditions as soon as I enter stealth.

Roaming on my ele is 100x harder than on my thief. Mainly because every single class is a danger to an ele and you can’t really pick and choose your fights. My low health and armour on my thief is compensated for by my huge burst. Not on the ele!

so, fire focus skills really need a change, water 2 on focus needs change

conjure weaps r fine

we need more base hp or buff our dmg

rtl needs cooldown reduction, like 30 sec normal and 25 sec if u hit enemy?

earth dagger 4 needs cooldown reduction

well w this changes ele would pretty well be balanced i guess?

phaeris.7604:

Re: thief dodge/cc.

You’re kidding right? On my thief eles are easiest class to kill, with LB rangers 2nd.

As a thief I have so many gap closers and my damage is so big I only need a few hits to put you down on an ele.

Good luck dodging me when im in stealth. What cc are you talking about. I lose conditions as soon as I enter stealth.

Roaming on my ele is 100x harder than on my thief. Mainly because every single class is a danger to an ele and you can’t really pick and choose your fights. My low health and armour on my thief is compensated for by my huge burst. Not on the ele!

This.

we are a class that has had its reason for having Low health and Low armor removed – Them being the high burst which was nerfed, Healing which was nerfed, Mobility which was nerfed…

I can understand why Ele had such low health and armor at the start of the game but since all the nerfs and buffs to everyone else, it simply isnt warranted anymore. Even if the nerfs were removed, i don’t think we would become gods again due to how much other classes have been changed and the current meta.

Wyrden.4713:

so, fire focus skills really need a change, water 2 on focus needs change
conjure weaps r fine
we need more base hp or buff our dmg
rtl needs cooldown reduction, like 30 sec normal and 25 sec if u hit enemy?
earth dagger 4 needs cooldown reduction
well w this changes ele would pretty well be balanced i guess?

No idea about focus, i think i used it to simply unlock the skills and havent used it since. I would say the Conjures (except FGS) are in need of work. Either the Duration removed or the number of uses removed, i would prefer the number of uses removed. This would of course mean slight changes to some of the skills.

I agree with either need our base stats increased to compensate or increase our damage which we can’t have due to the fact we are forced into defensive options due to the fact we start at a disadvantage thanks to the low health and low armor.

I would say: 30second basic cool done if you don’t hit anything, 15seconds if you hit something. Considering it isnt a stun break, you can still be CC during it and everything else

D/D wise, i personally think all Earth skills need to be adjusted. The auto attack is terrible. Ring of Earth is okay. Magnetic Grasp likes to bug out and refuse to hit the person even if they are in range. Earthquake cool down is like 15-20seconds too long and i think that Churning Earth could use a few tweaks. I know its meant to be a heavy hitter and everything but the cast time is simply to long to make it of any use in PvP and the fact that you need to use another 40second cool down utility to even stand a chance of it hitting, says it all….

ops i mean water 2 on scepter needs change not focus lol

I’d remove that filler minor traits. Water is the only line where you get 6 meaningful traits for 30 points. Either make Elemental Attunement or that 15-point spells or Elemental Attunement a baseline class mechanic. I’d favour the first one, because it would free 4 trait slots.

Changes in detail:

• The on-attunement spells (15 point minors: Sunspot, Electric Discharge, Earthen Blast, Healing Ripple) are part of the attunement mechanic.

• Lingering Elements and the 5 point minors (Flame Barrier, Zephyr’s Speed, Stoneflesh) are deleted. Soothing Mist is powerful and can be shifted further into the Water tree.

• new 5 Point Traits: Gain <element> aura for 2 seconds (fire: 5s or buff fire aura) when you attune to <element>. Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding need to be toned down (1-2s fury/swiftness/protection). Arcane Fury can stay.

• new 15 Point Traits: <element> training: Reduce the recharge of <element> weapon skills by 25%. Arcane 15: Elemental Attunement.

• The 25 point traits could stay. I’d shift Bountiful Power from Water to Arcane to make place for Soothing Mist. Bountiful Power makes more sense in the Arcane line, because it’s the boon duration line and already offers Elemental Attunement and Arcane Fury for synergy with Bountiful Power. Also, Arcane Precision is not a loss.

With that changes elementalists could run 30/30/10 specs and choose two of: Persisting Flames, Fresh Air, Diamond Skin, Powerful Auras/Cleansing Water, Evasive Arcana without the cost of wasted minor traits. Or even a 15/15/15/15/15 stance dancer.

Personally i think Zephyrs boon is perfectly fine, partly due to the limited number of Auras we have access to.

I do like the idea of the 15point traits being part of the actual class as well.

What else i would like to see is a trait in Arcane about master/Grandmaster level that decreases the cool down for ALL attunement skills.

Soothing Mist would have to be buffed to make it worthy of going higher into the tree. Seeing as its like 100hps while in Water which is fine, Now if it was moved to say Grandmaster Minor it would have to at least be doubled to make it worth being that high in the tree.

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

Ryld.1340:

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

Thats a very interesting idea as well. Could very well work

Dagger Mainhand:
- Slightly larger cone on air 2 (lightning touch)
- Faster leap on Earth 3 (perhaps be able to start leaping in that direction immediately if you want, regardless of hit)

Dagger Offhand
-Fire 5 (Fire Grab) – slightly larger cone angle so that its not so buggy, especially with vertical axis changes
- Air 4 (Ride the Lightning) – 25 s CD
- Earth 5 – Chargeable skill. Blast finish on full-charge.

Scepter Mainhand:
- Fire 1 (Flamestrike): Reduce cast time to 3/4 s. Perhaps shorter burn to compensate.
- Fire 2 (Dragon’s tooth): Fix so damage is dealt if controlled after cast is done but before tooth lands
- Water 2 (Shatterstone): Have it do just about anything. Currently it doesn’t even exist in my book.
- Water 3 (Water Trident): Slightly faster projectile speed so that you can actually use it for support more reliably

Focus Off-hand
-Fire 4 (Flamewall): Give a larger combo field, burns for 3s when crossed, perhaps detonate for a blind or cripple on cross.
- Fire 5 (Fire Aura): Reduce CD to 20s so its at least usable with aura builds.

Staff
- Air 1: Only affects single target with 3x lightning bolts for their current damage
- Air 2: Cast-time reduced to 1/4 s.

Healing Skills:
-Ether renewal: Reduce cast-time to 2.5 s. Improved healing per-tick to 1.25 current level. Only 6 pulses now.
- Cleansing Fire: Now a stunbreak again, or aoe remove 3 condis
- Signet of water: Reduce cast-time of active and/or have it remove condis as well.
- Earth Shield: 1/4 s cast, stun-breaks
- All conjures: auto-attack doesn’t use a charge. Number of charges reduced to 8 or 10

Traits:
Fire:
- Burning precision removed. New trait: Pheonix’s Fire: Gain 5s of vigor on burning a foe. 5s ICD.

-Air:
- Zephyr’s speed: effect is now +5% speed while attuned to air, stacks with other effects.
- One with air: Increase haste to 2s.
- Electric discharge (15 pt minor): Now applies a blind-hit instead of the damage-hit. This is to reduce untelegraphed burst and give more sustain.
- Tempest Defense: Now works on launched foes as well.

Earth:
-Diamond skin: Immunity to movement impairing effects below 50% health and weakness below 25% health. Renamed “Stiff Upper Lip”

Water:
- Stop, drop, and roll: moved down adept tier, swapped with Shard of Ice.
- Shard of ice: completely replaced
- Cleansing Water: removed 5s icd from pvp – completely kills the skill.
- Arcane precision: Increase chance on critical to at least 50%. Perhaps reduce weakness duration.

Ryld.1340:

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

that would make the arcan traitline useless, i mean the basic points thingy( dam cant explain)

but, u know when u swap to an attunement every attunement gets a 2 second cd, remove that so we can swap faster, for example, auras r instant cast- if u only want the aura from one attunement u just swap to it , use aura, swap righ after to another attunement without waiting 2 seconds

this would be awesome

tl:dr version: lrn2play

phaeris.7604:

Re: thief dodge/cc.

You’re kidding right? On my thief eles are easiest class to kill, with LB rangers 2nd.

As a thief I have so many gap closers and my damage is so big I only need a few hits to put you down on an ele.

Good luck dodging me when im in stealth. What cc are you talking about. I lose conditions as soon as I enter stealth.

Roaming on my ele is 100x harder than on my thief. Mainly because every single class is a danger to an ele and you can’t really pick and choose your fights. My low health and armour on my thief is compensated for by my huge burst. Not on the ele!

I’ve killed all sorts of d/p players in wvw and spvp (assuming you d/p because d/d takes some actual effort). All I need to do is pop shocking aura in your black powder while you heartseeker through it. Your only chance at killing my ele is to run away and bring 5 warriors.

My only real trouble with thieves are good s/d players who take thier time trying to kill me instead of xXxeLiteNiNjAbuRstXxX.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

sorrychief.2563:

thief is hard countered by this game mechanic called dodge and cc.

So you able to see Thief in stealth?
Because seeing as outside of combat they have have perma stealth.
You have to SEE a thief to be able to get ready, you don’t see it. You die.

PROTIP:

You don’t need to see a thief in stealth to hit them.
I would wager everytime I killed a thief I can’t see because damage log won’t show the numbers you did to them in stealth (obviously).

Now if you’re fighting someone while your hp is low and a thief ganks you they are doing their job and you can’t really complain your class is weak. But the only time I ever outright died 1vs1 to a thief was on a joke 30/30/0/0/10 zerk build in some dueling server.

sorrychief.2563:

PROTIP:

You don’t need to see a thief in stealth to hit them.
I would wager everytime I killed a thief I can’t see because damage log won’t show the numbers you did to them in stealth (obviously).

Now if you’re fighting someone while your hp is low and a thief ganks you they are doing their job and you can’t really complain your class is weak. But the only time I ever outright died 1vs1 to a thief was on a joke 30/30/0/0/10 zerk build in some dueling server.

PROTIP:

You need to know they are there to begin with, that is what i am saying. Seeing as how they can Perma stealth around you can easily get ganked by one that you never even knew they were there…

Wyrden.4713:

Ryld.1340:

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

that would make the arcan traitline useless, i mean the basic points thingy( dam cant explain)

but, u know when u swap to an attunement every attunement gets a 2 second cd, remove that so we can swap faster, for example, auras r instant cast- if u only want the aura from one attunement u just swap to it , use aura, swap righ after to another attunement without waiting 2 seconds

this would be awesome

So change it to something else. May I suggest “Skill Recharge %”? That’s everyone’s second biggest annoyance with the class.

Ryld.1340:

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-Cooldowns/first

I kind of expected more discussion on it back then, but the forums can be fickle.

Chaosky.5276:

Ryld.1340:

Attunement Swap Cooldown removed. All swap effects are given a 8 second cooldown.

You want us to be able to “adapt to any situation”? Then let us use our skills when we need them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-Cooldowns/first

I kind of expected more discussion on it back then, but the forums can be fickle.

Yeah, I was first replier to that.

Ryld.1340:

Yeah, I was first replier to that.

I feel quite silly now.

But it’s still a relevant link so I don’t feel as silly as I could.

I would give Eles a new main hand weapon like a 1h sword or something.

Fuzzion.2504:

I would give Eles a new main hand weapon like a 1h sword or something.

I want dual pistols, because that would be awesome.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I want dual pistols, because that would be awesome.

Duel Pistols would rock, Though it would be rather difficult to make skills for all of them. Especially the Water and Earth skills…

I could see Fire having a sort of Incendiary shot or something and Air having a skill thats is kinda like the Thief P/P skill and have it fire say 6-12 shots and with chance at weakness or something

air staff: better single target damage
fire focus: better skills

done. ele is now gold

reikken.4961:

air staff: better single target damage
fire focus: better skills

done. ele is now gold

“gold”?
What about the sustain?
What about the defence?
What about the need to trait/build for Vit/Toughness to counter our weaknesses?

Ele: Some added survival that isn’t rejuv. Running zerker as is, you won’t survive long enough to enjoy it vs a thief.

Thief: Remove all weapon evades or place a heafty ICD on each, stealth debuff increased to 10-15 seconds to stop that madness of thieves jumping in and out of stealth. Lastly, balance their burst. It’s so out of control vs other glass with no setup involved.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

The next round is going to be Dev picked. I wouldn’t spin people up on “think of your top three” for a poll that’s probably 3+ weeks away…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

1) Attunement Cooldowns removed. All attunement swap effects gain a 10s ICD.

2) Arcane Tree now reduces recharge time of all skills globally instead of Attunement only.

3) Elemental Attunement becomes baseline. The trait to replace it makes the effects AoE. A worthy master trait.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

Thank you for your information – we will have a look!

Ryld.1340:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

1) Attunement Cooldowns removed. All attunement swap effects gain a 10s ICD.

2) Arcane Tree now reduces recharge time of all skills globally instead of Attunement only.

3) Elemental Attunement becomes baseline. The trait to replace it makes the effects AoE. A worthy master trait.

You would need to remove/ICD lingering elements too, but I doubt anyone would care particularly about that anyway.

The problem with ele is actually the player base. Let me explain. There are some fantastic eles out there. I’ve seen some in matches recently. In general though, these are few. Why? It is because other classes are easier to play.

So, the challenge… How to make the class more accessible to more people without making it completely OP to those who are already good eles.

There have been countless threads on ele changes and ideas, yet every time a dev thinks he has the answer, the fool creates Diamond Skin and/or nerfs traits. The first sign of light of a Dev in the Ele form is Allie mentioning something to the balance team about putting red circles on meteor shower. LOL! CDI is a joke, this game balance is a joke.

How about make it a requirement for your balance team to read and post on the profession forums weekly. I mean really who thinks a blast finisher and an evade on skills is gonna save the Ele. Thats on one weapon set, Dagger. What about the other weapons? We dont ask for damage only to be able to survive or sustain.

Here are basic ideas:
1:) buff health and armor to that of mesmer. ( they are still under thief in current meta but might be a start.)
2:) rework Focus fire and water skills. Fix fire aura to something useful
3:)remove the requirement to go into arcane for attunement swap duration reduction
4:) fix auto attacks so they are actually helpful
5:) Nerf Lyssa runes(The abuse is killing our CC to be able to survive)
6:) Bring thief teleport and evade in line to other classes
7:) Make our elites worth a kitten
8:) Faster number adjusting updates say like for Healing signet reduction on warriors, could of been nice 2 months ago.

I would like to see the elementalist match their description in GW2 or the Description updated.

“Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”
Thieves inflict massive damage in single attacks, Elementalists do not. We inflict massive damage by button mashing.

Air

“By harnessing wind and lightning, elementalists can target specific foes with focused, high-damage attacks.”
(not on staff, and scepter DPS is sub-par).

Water

“Elementalists can chill their foes with ice and rejuvenate their allies with water.”
While we can chill, they are typically on long cooldown (there is also no chill on scepter, and water trident is fairly laughable healing).

Earth

“Elementalists can cause the ground under their feet to come to their aid, turn flesh to stone, destabilize foes with seismic shocks, or trigger volcanic eruptions”.
Turning flesh to stone? I missed that one.

Conjure Spells

Elementalists use conjure spells to summon useful items and potent weapons that can be used by allies or themselves. For example, Conjure Flame Axe creates a fiery axe that can be hurled at an enemy.
Useful items and potent weapons, maybe they wrote the description before they created earth shield. Flame axe is also fairly weak since it is not really much stronger than our normal skills. I will grant lightning hammer, FGS, and Frost bow (I still want confusion back on the frost bow, I never knew why they removed it).

Either that or have Anet put 2 disclaimers on the Elementalist when you create one:

1) It should state that you are now playing GW2 on hard mode, and will probably need to remap your keyboard.

2) If you think this class is the quintisental mage like in other games, you will be disappointed. The elementalist has the durability of a full caster with powers of a hybrid (the closest class I can think of would be the Bard in DnD, but with the durability of the wizard).

My 3 biggest wishes:

1: Give us a unique ACTIVE defensive mechanism. Thiefs got stealth and a kittenton of dodges + above average mobility. Mesmers got stealth and clones. Necros have death shroud + plague and I could go on for any other class out there. We seem to be the onliest class that does not has any sort of active reliable defense. Back on first days I was getting the impression you want us to have the best healing capabilities. But judging from how much you went overboard with warriors selfheal abillities I started to doubt that.

2: Rework / Reorganize traits and skills. Alot of traits don’t make any sense at all, and sometimes it would give us more building options if certain traits would be moved down 1 or maybe even 2 tiers. This applies to any class, not just the elementalist tho. Weapon skills and utilities are a complete mess right now. More then half of the utilities are lacking compared to the more useful ones. Same goes for some of the weapon skills.

3: Make Conjure skills an instant cast. Alot of times I would have used a conjurable weapon if it wouldn’t take that long to get them out.

3 things I would change for the ele.

1) If you make a mage class with low hp/low armour then the trade off is damage = quick+high at range and even higher in melee range due to the higher risk/reward.

Here it’s low hp/low armour same damage as everyone else can achieve. Ranged dps is limited to who stands in the red circles for long enough. This is why eles are bottom of the pile currently. You can’t spec for damage without zerker warriors/thieves tearing you a new one in a few hits, and speccing for survival means you lack any sort of damage.

2) Being forced to spec 30 into arcane for wvw/pvp. It’s pretty much essential due to the ultra long cooldowns on abilities. Really limits any sort of builds. Just remove the atunement switch and have it 9-10 seconds as a standard and put a better stat in that line.

3) Cooldowns. The length of cooldowns for eles is nuts. 45 seconds for firegrab?, utilities with 90 sec cooldowns?. So the only decent bursts are on huge cooldowns, and you’re stuck with some low damage abilities in the meantime, running around trying not to die as a thief is spamming 3-4k heartseekers on you, or hammer warriors are auto attacking you for 2-4k a swing in the meantime i’m happy to break 1k on my dagger auto attack.

There’s no compensation for having low hp/low armour. You didn’t want a holy trinity but as soon as you introduced those stat differences you made it. Except you forgot to give the ele damage associated with that trinity.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

1) Increase Ele base health to 15K - currently Ele’s basically get insta-killed in both PvE and PvP if they aren’t wearing toughness gear + defensive traits. There is just not enough breathing room to pull off the intricate combos + spell telegraphs and cast times. The class feels extremely fragile with no defensive mechanics comparable to what Thieves, Guardians or Mesmers get.

2) Lower attunement cooldowns - 8 seconds baseline, 6 seconds with 30 Arcana. Currently our core mechanic feels more like a hindrance than an advantage, it’s extremely punishing to switch out of attunements. Also attunement cooldowns add further delay on weapon abilities that already have very long cooldowns.

3) Lower Ride The Lightning cooldown - 20 seconds flat, regardless of whether it hits anything or not. The nerfs to this ability were very poorly thought-out, that is all I have to say.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

The is plenty of collaborative feed back in the Balance thread, Any single person who plays the games, reads the fourms knows the major issues are.

Perma hide – Sins, Mesmers

Perma Eva – Sins

Conidtions builds/damge. mainly the fact people running these builds have massive defense, hp and utility like Perma hide or massive control like engi. (dire gear to blame here, with plex runes)

Warrior – best mobility, best healing, best defense, best hp, best damage, best at everything. They can leave combat when ever they want, cannot be root’ed or slowed due to passives.

Ele- laughable the amount of work needed from a player to make it “playable” even so you can be and will be killed by people who are not so good at a class.

ranger – just bad in general.

• Arcana – Intelligence: Improves arcane skills (base attunement recharge will be 9 or 10 sec).
• Elemental Attunement becomes a natural elementalist ability, which is improved by traits.
• Fix glyphs and signets.
• Slightly more base health..

Increasing the base health would probably fix most if not all issues. What I would certainly not do is huge mechanics overhauls…there are plenty of those in the other professions…keep the ele unique please.

Throwing out some thoughts I’ve had on ele:

Add weapon swap button usable ooc

Summoned elementals endless

Traits for buffing elementals stats (perhaps 30ish in air or earth to make it perma)

Held conjured weapon does not expire

Increase base hp

Increase auto attack damage for staff & scepter or make other skills land faster

Redesign focus skills, needs water field

Increase base HP (15k like mesmer).
Weapon swap button out of combat.
Attunement cooldowns – flat 10 seconds and no further reduction by Arcana.

Mines will be like;

- More reliable skills (Staff, scepter)
- Rework on conjures
- Actually usefull elites.( hello Signet of Rage)

Dorid.1793:

Increase base HP (15k like mesmer).
Weapon swap button out of combat.
Attunement cooldowns – flat 10 seconds and no further reduction by Arcana.

What a terrible suggestion on increasing attunement cooldowns. What game do you play?

I want arcana to affect up to 30 points again, so that now, people who invest up to 30 points are at 6-8 seconds.

I’d like there to be a grandmaster aclarity trait which decreased all weapon skill cooldowns.

Past that, why not fix our high CD utilities.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just FYI – We’ll be rolling out another round of Collaborative Development soon. I’ll be working with the balance designers to help get some well-rounded feedback from you all. Start thinking about what 3 things you would change, and keep an eye out for the CDI thread!

Nice to see a red post in here, we will see though if any of the ideas are actually used when it comes to balancing the class.

3 things? 3 things from a class that has SO many issues!?

Stats: The ele needs to have its Health bumped up a tier, I just can’t understand that after all the nerds to damage, mobility and healing that we STILL have lowest health and armor. It simply isn’t justified anymore.

People being FORCED to go defensive on traits and/or gear to counter the simply unjustified weakness we have when it comes to our Health and Armor.

I also think that each Attunement should buff a specific stat while inside that attunement, this would make the trait “Lingering Elements” actually WORTH having because NO ele puts 5+ points into each trait line, most go 20-30points into Arcane because it is required at most people have 3 trait lines being used, those are mostly Arcane, Water and either Air or Earth. Fire attunement should increase Power, Air should increase Crit Damage(soon to be Ferocity), Earth should increase Toughness and Water should increase Healing Power.

Cooldowns: Weapon, Utility and Elite skills some have insane and unwarranted cool down times.

Weapons – Fire Grab should NOT be 45second cool down. Frost Aura, Cleansing Wave, Ride the Lightening, Updraft and Earthquake all need cool down reductions

Utilities – Where to begin? nearly all of them are rather weak and/or have issues.

Conjures – The usage limit needs to be removed or at least have it not affected by the auto attack. Flame Axe needs to be improved as well as it is rather lacking currently. They all need adjustments on the skill cool downs. I would say make it so that the ele can use the conjure as many times as they want inside 60 seconds at which point they would have to reuse the skill but for allies they get a usage limit, though increased to 25. Conjure Shield needs to be redesigned it is rather terrible as it is.

Cantrip – While they are decent, the cool downs are FAR to long and they are nothing more than decent most of the time. Cleansing Fire needs its cool down cut in half, maybe increase the burning stack based on the number of conditions removed. So 1 stack for 1, 2 stacks for 2 and 3 stacks for 3 conditions removed.

Armor of Earth and Mist Form being pretty much our only defense both have too long a cool down and are rather weak. Remove the increased movement speed of Mist Form, make it so that we can use weapon skills, heals and such and reduce the cool down to 60seconds and increase duration to 4 seconds – just like Warrior has, which is silly for a Warrior who has better health, better armor, better damage and better everything else to also have MORE defense…

Glyphs: They are rather lacking. Elemental Harmony is decent with Inscription trait and rather weak without it. Storms has to long a cast time and cool down. Lesser Elementals is a weaker version of an already average skill. Renewal cast time and cool down is rather too long. Elemental Power has potential but its trigger chance needs to be improved, why does it have a stun? it should be used early in a fight or before it starts thus it is wasted, remove the stun breaker and increase the trigger chance to 50%

Signets: Just like most signets in the game, passives are much better than the actives, though that doesnt mean that the passives are even that great on ele. Signet of Air, make the active a a AoE that blinds every second for say 5 seconds. Signet of Earth It being a defensive Signet i think it granting Protection, Regen and Retaliation for a say 5 second base would be quite nice. Signet of Fire, reduce the duration and increase the stacks of Burning Say 3 stacks of burning for 3 seconds. Signet of Water Passive make it grant a Boon when it clears a condition maybe?

Arcane: Arcane Shield cool down is too long, the number of blocks is too short. I would remove the blocks 3 attacks, make it so that it blocks ALL attacks for 3 seconds and at the end of the 3 seconds it explodes dealing damage and is a blast finisher. Arcane Blast, Wave Power are all rather meh and rather boring, they needs to do something interesting as well.

(due to “flood control” i have to wait like 10minutes before i can post rest of this as i hit the character limit)

Elites: It says a lot when Firey Greatsword is used the most and even then its rarely for damage but for the much needed mobility thanks partly to the nerf to RtL. Glyph of Elementals needs to have its cool down reduced and make it so that the “best” skill (the one the lessers dont have) is player controlled just like the Charge is for Flesh Golem, this might mean a 5 second or so cool down added to the skills but i would take that for being able to control WHEN to use it. Torando is simply terrible. It SHOULD increase toughness as well currently it doesn’t which is rather stupid considering how easily boons are removed and the fact that Plague form increase toughness

Traits: Some sorting of the traits would be nice, Fire needs to have a GOOD reason to go into it and this won’t happen and can’t happen until we get some increased survivability built into the class without having to trait, gear or take certain skills.

I would say removing the decrease in attunement swap in Arcane and making it 10seconds all the time would be a reasonable start, You could then have it so that the buff there does something else, like decrease cool down of weapon skills, even add a Arcane Grandmaster trait that decreases the cool down of ALL attunement skills by 20% and maybe keep the others and let the decreases stack. I do think the other ones would need to give like a bonus for getting it as some others in different classes give say increased Power (Greatsword Mesmer cool down) for example.

Pyromancer’s Alacrity – decreases skill cool down by 20% inflicts 1 second burning for each damaging skill you use while in Fire attunement. For Fire skills that already inflict Burning, the duration is increased

Aeromancer’s Alacrity – Decrease skill cool down by 20%. 50% chance on crit to inflict Weakness. Channeled skills have 50% chance per damaging tick and multi hit skills (such as staff air auto) has 50% chance on crit per a target

Geomancer’s Alacrity – Decrease skill cool down by 20% 50% on crit to Not quite sure yet

Aquamancer’s Alacrity – Decrease skill cool downs by 20% 50% chance on crit to heal for 50% of the damage done. (its 50% of damage done as the damage in Water isn’t really stellar, with more than 70% Crit Damage i barely reach 500 damage)

pmnt.4067:

I’d remove that filler minor traits. Water is the only line where you get 6 meaningful traits for 30 points. Either make Elemental Attunement or that 15-point spells or Elemental Attunement a baseline class mechanic. I’d favour the first one, because it would free 4 trait slots.

Changes in detail:

• The on-attunement spells (15 point minors: Sunspot, Electric Discharge, Earthen Blast, Healing Ripple) are part of the attunement mechanic.

• Lingering Elements and the 5 point minors (Flame Barrier, Zephyr’s Speed, Stoneflesh) are deleted. Soothing Mist is powerful and can be shifted further into the Water tree.

• new 5 Point Traits: Gain <element> aura for 2 seconds (fire: 5s or buff fire aura) when you attune to <element>. Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding need to be toned down (1-2s fury/swiftness/protection). Arcane Fury can stay.

• new 15 Point Traits: <element> training: Reduce the recharge of <element> weapon skills by 25%. Arcane 15: Elemental Attunement.

• The 25 point traits could stay. I’d shift Bountiful Power from Water to Arcane to make place for Soothing Mist. Bountiful Power makes more sense in the Arcane line, because it’s the boon duration line and already offers Elemental Attunement and Arcane Fury for synergy with Bountiful Power. Also, Arcane Precision is not a loss.

With that changes elementalists could run 30/30/10 specs and choose two of: Persisting Flames, Fresh Air, Diamond Skin, Powerful Auras/Cleansing Water, Evasive Arcana without the cost of wasted minor traits. Or even a 15/15/15/15/15 stance dancer.

I’d say this is very viable. I would also like them to change the traits before anything else. ANet plz