Guild Wars 2

Only thing that kinda fixes it is turning the Character Model Limit to atleast Medium, tho your FPS drop by alot..got to the point where if you wanna see the commander, the game becomes somewhat unplayable. Running with 10 FPS in a blob fight simply because you wanna see your commander ain’t fun at all.

Please take a look at this ANet :/

Been playing through most events and maps of HoT with a full zerk ele, necro and even a revenant that only had zerk armor and no trinkets at all and that solo. Sure you die at times but honestly, just learn to dodge. If you fail, try again. I get that the new content is a lot more challenging but this challenge really is needed. I keep seeing people die in CoF to trash mobs for no reason and then going with the “spam 1, don’t dodge” mindset into HoT sure won’t help.

If you have difficulties, tank up a bit, learn the animations. Some Hero challenges might require some help but most of them can be solo’d and if not, just ask in map chat or tag up if you have a tag – there are enough people that don’t have certain HP yet and gladly help you getting them no matter what time it is.

Yup, mission is completely bugged for many people. :/

ChrizZcE.5981:

good.

All this time PVP players have been forced to only play PVE if they want gold/cool gear.

same goes for WvW players. There are enough players that only enjoy PvP and WvW and yet have to do PvE for most rewards, gold and legendaries. Honestly, taking away WvW from map completion was in my opinion not good to begin with but if they’d take away PvP and WvW again from legendaries, it would be nice for them to add a way to get a legendary with a lot less PvE involved.

Test.8734:

Rose Solane.1027:

HoT isn’t only the content on release date, HoT is all the content we get the next few years (well, without the holiday content). ArenaNet may have made a expansion, I see no signs that they abandoned the road of regular content updates (Living World).

Ah, ok. So you think people should overlook the bugged mess that HoT is right now because of a vague promise of undefined content to be release in an unspecificied amount of time?

Sure, sure. Perfectly reasonable.

Maybe you should look up what a ‘Beta Test’ is. There is a reason these events are happening. To sort out bugs before the lunch and to be honest, literally all MMOs nowadays launch with bugs that get fixed over the weeks after lunch – that’s how these games work. If you don’t want any bugs, then don’t play Beta events and wait like 1 month after launch before you start playing.

Fact is, they did say we will get Living Story back sometime after HoT which will continue right after the story of HoT.

I agree, please Anet bring back the mob difficulty of BWE1

Imo, they seriously should have split the skill for PvE and WvW/PvP because sure, in PvE it was a bit OP and its usage go a bit out of hand at times.

However, for PvP and WvW it actually required some skill to pull of Icebow 4. No only because you are fighting real players there who can dodge and whatever but also because even if you do run full zerk, an icebow 4 on a somewhat bigger group kills you in seconds if you don’t cancel it before it ends (thanks retail)

It’s the new weapon skin for the berserker – each elite spec will have a new skin that’s being unlocked with the spec and for this BWE you are able to play with the berzerker’s torch

As much as I want d/d to be nerfed, I fear it’s gonna be almost impossible to nerf it without damaging other ele specs which are a lot harder to get good at and master and have more counters to d/d.

That being said, removing anything from traits, would hurt other specs probably more than d/d cause the real probably of d/d is both the sustain it has (looking at you cele amulet in combination with evasive arcana – again, if you touch that trait, you hurt every other spec as well which is completely unneeded), the burst damage (e.g burning speed and fier grab – numbers can be nerfed which would only hurt d/d, burst damage on cele has way too high imo) and the sustained damage/damage over time (burning – too many burn application skills on a rather short cd)

Nerf 2) and 3) and d/d will get used a lot less. Also, I agree that Elemental Attunement should only apply boons to yourself. Decreasing the duration of protection would imo be, again, counter productive as other specs need it to be atleast somewhat viable.

Another method would be to rework all the other weapons for ele to have more support and defensive capavilities and then remove support from the traits.

Same problem here, please fix :>

Yup, lag makes it completely unplayable atm on EB (SFR/Deso/Piken).

Dollies are so freaking bugged at the moment..the moment a camp is being flipped, no more dollies are being spawned to bring supplies to keeps/towers…
Any update on how long it’s gonna take to fix WvW again? :/

After this little patch, WvW is even worse, in the Piken/Augury Rock/Baruch Bay matchup we are friendlies on all maps and all our points and upgrades have been completely reset.

Please fix Anet

There is also an issue with supplies not getting into keeps/towers! (happening on Piken for example) and in certain matchups points and keeps can’t be capped – they are basically just white without anyone being able to cap them

DarkSyze.8627:

Kaleban.9834:

DarkSyze.8627:

Gaab.4257:

All those nice theories at anet, why to change something, why to take away something.

It’s all nice but where is the FUN? Isn’t GW a game somewhere, that people play for fun?

Fun?

It is not nice when there is no Fun to play against this profession. GW should be a game somewhere, that people play for fun but it is not. That is why change-challenge must be enforce to make it happen.

Challenge can not exist without Fun: can not separated at all. If anyone Dare break them apart: will only result in sever punishment and sever consequence.

The evidence is everywhere and will continue to spread without no control. Arena net sales and popularity is not improving: it is sever decreasing because of this.

The only way for Arena net to redemption is to surrender to challenge and enforce it.

Here are the list of Profession that are in sever Violation of Challenge and must be enforced for Fun and Challenge to be harmony together.

Ranger, Elementalist, Thief and Engineer.

When Enforcement of Challenge is Enforced: than you can say the word Fun.

-You can not talk about one without the other-

All Your Base Are Belong To Us?

My brain had a seizure reading this, but I get the point, that balance of the professions is key to competitive, and fun gameplay.

The problem with the premise of your argument though is that you determine what is fun, whereas someone else’s definition may be different. Eles do not DOMINATE any game mode, they’re decent to good in most, but are not the overpowering, destructive force you allude to.

And really, its not even a problem. The Ele (and Engineer) are the most difficult professions to play, and if they are played skillfully SHOULD reward the player with consistent victory. Otherwise, you’re punishing players who would pick those professions so that scrubs who noobcannon their way through the game with Warriors and Guardians can feel good about crushing Scholars.

Where is “skill”?
Where is “Challenge”?
Where is “Fun”?
Where is “Hard-Work”?
Where is “Effort”?
Why so many rewards: for free?
Change-Nerf: where?

I am so glad many mmo’s include new mmo companies do not tolerate this in their games. They make challenge+Fun, Risk-Reward first priority

If you want to play challenge+fun, risk-reward game(s), i will meet you there… until Arena net make serious change and take serious action

" Action expresses priorities and solutions "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZauXcGdhpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMvarJ28SYo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq6DxxFyNIg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc6LZTwamPI

Right, first of all this thread is about eles, just as a heads up. Secondly, basically any class has access to a burst build, no matter if it’s ele, engi, guardian or necro. Any class can run a burst build and be successful with it. Some builds however require more skills than others and yeah, a ranger spaming LB 1+2 doesn’t require much skill but I wouldn’t say that static discharge or fresh air is that easy to play. Sure, the second is difficult to dodge but at the same time the moment you survive the initial burst the eles hasn’t much left he can do.

And to get back to the initial topic, most fresh air builds have EA already traited. There would literally be no difference in making it Baseline has the other traits in Arcana are rather lack luster. All the classes have some sort of defensive mechanism that still makes them able to attack. Thiefs and mesmers with stealth and mesmers with clones, warriors with strances, guards with aegies and f1/2/3 skills, hell even the necro’s death shrout can be seen and used as defensive mechanism.
Eles however don’t and that’s something they really need.

Jekkt.6045:

leave elemental attunement as master trait, make it give boons only to allies and not yourself but increase the radius.

What? no. The other way round, sure but what’s the point in a trait that only others have use of..

DiogoSilva.7089:

People only want Elemental Attunement to be baseline because of its high protection duration, which single-handely makes elementalists viable (in pvp). Everything else about it is good, but not necessary-good to justify being baseline.

Considering that our new grandmaster minor trait at earth is going to give us 20% damage reduction while in earth, plus a free stone heart/ diamond skin, players will no longer require EA to be viable. Also, the buff to blinding ashes, one with air and the tempest defense + lightning rod combo will help cover the elementalist’s defensive needs.

EA will no longer be necessary to put our baseline defense at a viable level.

That being said, EA is still avery interesting trait, better designed than Elemental Contigency, and I’d rather have a nerfed version of EA at master tier than its pseudo-tank variation.

Great, let’s all camp earth attunement to have a worse effect compared to now with now active gameplay involved whatsoever. Great.

Fact is, these changes are only looking at how to nerf D/D while basically all the other specs are completely ignored/hit as much as D/D (or even more is some cases) and most of them aren’t even as popular as the boring cele d/d. Nerf the Cele amulet even more than what you are thinking about right now cele eles will have a lot harder time. No need to nerf the other specs aswell..

lLobo.7960:

Yes, I agree with you that the proposed changes don’t seem very well thought and even seems that they were not sure over some of them (what might be a good thing).

Thats why I think we need to propose better changes, but with a good idea of the different elementalist playstyles and game modes. Even if you don’t like a certain playstyle or game mode, there should be options there for everyone.

So no, I disagree that Eatt should be baseline, but Yes, it should not compete with EvArcana for GM slot. They both fit the active playstyle (use attunments in an active form to keep sustain – heal, might, blasts, mobility) and this active playstyle should not be removed or nerfed. Yet, it would be nice to open EAtt to be paired with ECont to provide a more boon centric elementalist, that gains boons actively and passively. But then ECont needs to change to provide different boons to have more synergy with EAtt and provide boons that are good enought to compete with EA for the GM slot. (See my suggestion on other topic)

I kinda disagree. For example, let’s look at the mesmer. Two heavily build defining traits that have nothing to do with each other, that are completly different in the way the build would be played, PU and IP, are both becoming baseline. Not only are these traits build defining but they are also currently GM traits.

Making EA baseline wouldn’t change anything for those that prefer staying in one attunement. While they may not get the consistent boons from swaping attunements actively, I’m pretty sure no ele would complain about occasionally getting certain boons when swaping attunements because of a certain skill that is currently needed.

I very much enjoy playing out all the boons on ele depending on the situation as by playing PvP and WvW you get to learn to use them to your advantage while other classes that don’t have such a wide access to different boons have blocks, stealth or similar mechanisms.

So yeah, I do agree with the suggestion that EA should be baseline with EvAr if really needed being in the GM tier. However, as many others have said before, the duration of the boons should be a little bit shorter and the boons should only be applied to you while a GM trait could make them apply to allies.

Javi.4359:

Provost.6210:

They don’t understand Eles, 50-60% of them play Rangers (who now press ‘2’ to win).

…Not sure if troll thread.

You people seem to be forgetting that the specialisation change will change just about everything. You get three spec lines, not two and ‘a bit’, so it makes sense that each line shouldn’t be as strong as it is now.

Hahahaha yeah sure..just look at basically every class except ele and maybe necro. Even though we do get 3 full lines, classes like thiefs or mesmers are getting huge buffs so saying that all lines should be weaker is not a valid arguement if it doesn’t apply for 6 out of 8 classes..

Supreme.3164:

Cele amulet really is the only amulet that makes ele competitive in PvP and not by choice, the lowest base stats( vitality and armor) among profession and complete lack of base defensive mechanics are the causes why cele is necessary to ele in PvP

You can survive without cele aswell, you already have enough healing to play with a zerker amulet. It may take some time to get used it and it probably isn’t as faceroll as cele d/d.

FrownyClown.8402:

they have. people seem to have this idea that d/d ele is impossible to play without both of those traits. Thats not true and they aren’t essential. they are just the preferred traits because they are the strongest ones for the build. Being able to invest fully into 3 traitlines will do more for ele then these traits ever did. Want to know why celestial ele is good in pvp? its high regen and protection uptime. You will get more than enough regen just investing in water. You also get more than enough -damage modifiers investing into earth. Now all you need is to invest in evasive arcana. boom.

Honestly, I don’t really care about d/d, people crying about cele being nerfed should realize how OP it is atm but whatever.

The thing that converns me are all the other builds that aren’t d/d that don’t have as much defensive gameplay (auras, “high” mobility, knock downs) involved.
Staff for example. Sure there are builds that don’t need EA and EvAr, but from the WvW/PvP point of view, having these traits is the reason why they are viable. Sadly staff isn’t in the place it could be the competitive areas of the game as most other builds have more mobility and attacks that are not as stale/slow as staff.

So, the only reason I really care about EA/EvAr and them nerfing the only decent traitlines while keeping/nerfing the weaker traitlines ever further is because I enjoy playing staff and I really don’t want to see the staff spec being useless because synergy of EA/EvAr isn’t there anymore.
(If you don’t believe me, go full zerk staff eles and experience a full shatter on you. Even with the so OP protection you will hardly live that.)

/rant over

I’m not entirely sure what exactly you are talking about but whatever. My point is that all classes are getting traits as baseline that are defining the build they are being used in, hell, in certain cases they even make the build.

There has in no way been confirmed what Tempest is going to do. We will need to wait and see so specualting about what it may do say I am wrong is a bit weird but whatever..
Also, even though EA and EvAr are “soooooo OP” there are still loads of builds that don’t use the two traits. The builds that do use it are the ones that need to be tankier to survive against burst classes and have atleast some counter play.

Personally I just don’t see the reason the chose between two traits that synergize really well and buff the ele in the places were it’s needed for a limited time.

Jski.6180:

@ Chris.5720

Its crazy that you do not seem to understand the ele class at all. Ele is a class who cant switch weapons so they make up for this with atuments swamping. By making atuments have a base line cd of 10sec is on the level of letting classes who can swap wepon have 1 to 2 more weapons sets at there use for swapping with out giving up countless build types.

I do very much understand how eles work, thank you very much. The thing is, that’s how eles were designed and at the same time they pay for that by being very squishy and having no real defensive mechanisms like steahlth, blocks, invulnerability just to name a few.
The one thing eles do have are boons and the ability make use of their dodges more than most classes. Also, why would I not use a valuebale trait? Not using EA is like shatter mesmers not using IP or create clones on dodge..it’s a core part of the build and so are EA and EvAr to some ele builds. This has nothing got to do with relying too much on these traits or being helpless without them..

Sizer.5632:

Here are my thoughts, from a mostly casual staff ele:

First EA should definitely be a GM trait, its just too powerful. A compromise id do would be to make lingering elements give the ele the boons, and have the gm trait make them shared and + 25% longer duration. Then thered at least be a choice involved, and you wouldnt get the unshared boons for free without any spec (which would be unfair imo, even with our low hp/armor)

Not really simply because

meanwhile, mesmers get their 2 strongest GM traits (PU, IP), plus a GM minor trait, 1 master and 3 adept traits as baseline. it’s all a bit WTF.

EA as a self-only version as baseline would be fair considering all the buffs to the other classes.

Jski.6180:

Ele getting the biggest buff in the game out of all of the classes from the new trait system the 10 sec swap being a base line effect. It opens up every build that you could images for and ele and the quality of life alone is out right a dream come true. If you can only see one trait at a time yes it will seem like a nerf but your not playing ele as a one trait class after the update (though ele IS a one trait class now before the update 5/3/15). Stop getting lost on the lose of one leaf when you have a full tree to work with.

They really really don’t. In fact, eles are being nerfed the most of all the classes. Thing is, it won’t open up any build diversity. Arcana will still be the meta, just to get on of the two traits. Water will also be the meta. And most likely Earth aswell. Problem is, the “-20% damage from players close by” which people keep calling OP really isn’t. It may be for good for d/d but for anything that is out side the range due to the weapon they are using is being set up.

Thanks to this patch other classes don’t have chose between really important traits either..mesmer getting 2 core traits as baseline, thiefs getting the ability to chose Executioner and Panic Strike which is deadly in PvP/WvW against anything that doesn’t have much defensive capabilities..

To sum up, it won’t open up build diversity for basically most eles as people will still chose the same lines du to the other lines being too weak. Surviving will be a lot harder as the other classes are being buffed. Using the synergy between EA and EvAr is fun and takes some skill which seems like to be taken away..

lLobo.7960:

FGS needs its dmg back! At least some of it. Right now its only useful to run away from things, and even for that, norn racial elite is better.
(really, when I see a necro using lich form, I know I need to run for cover, when I see a engy using supply crate, I know I need to get back away from it, A warrior in rampage? kite it untill you can fight him again… An ele casts FGS, You won – he is running away)

FGS isn’t that bad, like, with a lucky crit you can still do some damage with the leap of FGS 4 but yeah apart from that there isn’t really much you can do with FGS anymore. Same goes for tornado though as with the lack of stab the moment you pop it, you are just gonna get stunned..

Also, there is one thing I have been wondering which is once these changes go life and stats aren’t linked to trait lines anymore, is there any idea on how eles are gonna get more boon duration in? Right now we get 30% boon duration if we invest 6 points into the arcana line which is quite vital at times, especially if combined with Elemental Attunement. While the elemental attunement cooldown will be reduced with the patch (right now the elemental attunement recharge rate is also linked to the arcana line) it’d be awesome to get some clarification as to what’s gonna happen to the boon duration.

Another thing would be to remove Ferocious Winds from the Air Adept as even if you fully invest into healing power you get hardly any ferocity out of it. Instead I’d replace the trait with Zephyr’s Focus (Endurance regenerates faster while channeling skills) or something similar that either gives vigor or generally regenerates endurance a little quicker.

Another thread with some good ideas: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Ele-Weapon-Skills-A-constructive-feedback/first#post5020990

Personally, I’d also love to see Shockwave (Staff Earth 5) being reworked. Currently, all #5 skills on staff are a big AoE, except for Shockwave. While it potentially can hit up to 5 targets, they need to stand very close to one another. Apart from that, imobilizing your enemy with a shockwave doesn’t really fit either. Personally I’d love Shockwave to be more of an AoE skill, like a proper wave, maybe line that’s like 180 wide and knocks down and stuns enemy for maybe 2 seconds on impact.
This change would both fit the staff as more of an AoE weapon and at the same time would fit a real shockwave.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

my comments in another thread:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i’d like to see
a) gust apply 5s of torment, since torment synergizes with the concept of control
b) unsteady ground should actually knockdown anyone who runs into it. (this would create more synergy with tempest defense trait)
c) eruption needs to apply bleeding every second instead of only at the end, and then apply 2-5 seconds blindness and 2-5 seconds of poison at the end, due to how difficult it is to land this ability on foes. (and it would finally be worth the name “eruption” since all those particles exploding into the air in such close proximity would be harder to breath, like a poison, and the blast would also naturally cause momentary blindness)

i’m looking for more conditions for elementalist, too. i reckon, that ele’s have access to weapon sigils and armor runes that can proc any condition, so why not add a condition or two to skills that would match a theme? gust is a movement-position denial skill, so why not also apply a few seconds of torment? a real life eruption spews a big cloud of ash and dust into the air, so why not apply short blindness and poison (to simulate breathing in the ash and dust)

these are intended as examples for staff. i’m sure one of two skills in the other weapons could be adjusted this way , too.

Eh, I do agree that Eruption could us a little change and your suggestions would really fit. Gust applying torment however is a bit meh and doesn’t really fit the other air skills either.
Earth is already more condition heavy and air is more linked to burst in CC. Unsteady Ground is fine as it is aswell imo..

angellips.9753:

Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are core to the Elementalist (ANet has stated this in the past as well). We should not be forced to choose one or the other. If they need to change Elemental Attunement to self only and make it baseline – that would be acceptable. A self only Elemental Attunement would not be build defining and would give us an active defense mechanism. If ANet really wants they could do the Grandmaster version with the durations and effects extended to allies.

Finally, Elementalist Elite skills are just not elite… frankly they are underwhelming and mostly unused.

Pretty much sums it up!

Another thread to include:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/IT-IS-TIME-Bring-Back-RTL

MaXi.3642:

Chris.5720:

While I do agree that 6 1/2 seconds of protection every 20 seconds may be a bit much, keep in mind that the protection is the only defensive mechansim an ele actually has.

6 1/5 sec every 20 sec? who seriously stay in one attunement for 10 sec? you know, we have 4, so in fact it can be up to 6 1/5 every 10 sec (without additional boon duration from other sources)

Yeah, my bad. Ofc the c/d is 10 seconds however at time you rotate your attunements around and stay longer in one than another due to casting or whatever. But yeah, ofc it’d be 6 1/2 every 10 seconds.

Teladis.1309:

…at least you are not necromancers.

I’d rather get nothing than being nerfed. And no, condition necro did not get nerfed. After the patch necros will overall be in a better spot than now. Eles are being nerfed all around.

Mostly aimed towards playing ele in PvP and WvW: playing elementalist should involve active gameplay. The thing that makes playing ele fun is that the class is so versatile. We have the lowest health and armor pool of all the classes in GW2 and also our damage isn’t as great as it used to be and yet thanks to boons we can temporarily improve our damage/tankiness/sustain.
This is something I want to see more off. Eles don’t have any real defensive mechanisms like stealth or blocks so more active gameplay is needed that grants boons or similar stuff.

While d/d is atm in a fairly good spot in PvP, staff lacks. I personally love playing staff elementalist and I’d love to see some incentives to play this spec more often.

@Traits: Adding a few new traits for survivability (which aren’t even viable for like half the weapon sets in the first place) and making these traits totally needed on most setups doesn’t enhance build variety. While a trait that reduces damage within 600 range may be nice for d/d, specs like staff elementalist can’t really use that.

In addition, the “proc on hit” traits need a rework. Traits that activate something upon being hit don’t make a lot of sense on the squishies class. How much is a trait like this gonna do against any class that can take like 1/3 or even more of your health with one attack..? This traits should be on warriors or guardians, not on eles. I’d much rather see more traits that activate upon me hiting/criting something.

@Elites: We need buffs here: Tornado is, especially after the stab changes really underwhelming. 1 stack of stab every 3 seconds makes it unuseable in PvP and WvW and the skills within Tornado are very week aswell. Stronger attacks would be amazing.

Fiery Greatsword: While FGS is in a better spot than Tornado I’d prefer if there was another real use other than for mobility. The AoE attack is weak and the radius too small. Increasing the damage to match it with the elites of the other classes would be great.

@Arcana Line: Elemental Attunement should be baseline and only give boon to yourself. In addition to that a new trait that makes the boons being applied within a radius with maybe a longer duration. EA and Evasive Arcana have so much synergy and allow the awesome active gameplay us eles need and love.

@Conjure Weapons and Glyphs: Glyphs are too weak for their long c/ds and most conjure weapons are hardly being used due to not being as effective as they could be. With Icebow and Lightning Hammer being nerfed, the last two decent conjure weapons will probably disappear out of most builds.

Roxanne.6140:

Lol I just saw the video on the traits nerfs, and when I read your title, I thought broken meant that elementalists would be a useless class after the patch. Basically, there has been nerfs to the damage which I found very lacklustre in the first place when you compare to other classes. It seems to me that the devs want the elementalist to be all glass and no cannon. I know there are traits that improve the survivability but in the first place, the elementalist wears light armour and it does not have the toughness of heavy armoured classes like the warrior or guardian. In fact, it doesn’t even have the damage of such classes. Speccing into toughness makes it deal virtually no damage. The devs need to know what they want the ele to play as.

yeah, I absolutely agree. Ele had some well setup weapon sets and with these changes most of it is being ruined/nerfed into the ground. The only thing that may be broken is Cele d/d in PvP but that’s being nerfed anyways.

All the burst specs on ele aren’t OP at all. they are so easy to dodge as you need to use multiple skills at the same time to get some nice damage out while other classes can use one skill for the same or even more damage.

Adding a few new traits for survivability (which aren’t even viable for like half the weapon sets in the first place) and making these (rather crap) traits totally needed on most setups clearly enhances build variety..I mean, nothing is better than only 0 0 6 6 6 support d/d in PvP compared to now where you see all different kind of trait and weapon setups in PvP.

Imo it’s really sad to see that by trying to enforce new builds, they managed to nerf basically the whole class, be it damage or sustainability -wise.

ronpierce.2760:

Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I tend to agree. 240 is too close for a supportive trait, especially as a GM. Both could really use a 480-600 range so it can be used as support in like a pvp setting where you can’t just stack on eachother. Plus it favors playing dagger to support, which isn’t fun to be holed into.

As for concerns of EA being needed to survive as an Ele, the new master trait that gives Protection when struck in earth could be a way to fix that issue. You’d have some from swapping and again from taking damage, which should lead to a near-perma protection up-time I’d think. (Assuming the cooldowns aren’t shared between attunements, which is what i heard)

But as a supportive style skill, it really should have a radius on it that works beyond basically meleeing boons onto allies.

I have yet to find out why on earth there are traits for eles, the squishiest class in the game, that prock something upon you being hit, like what’s the point? How much is a trait like this gonna do against any class that can take like 1/3 or even more of your health with on attack..?

Also I disagree, people tend to mix up d/d and other weapon sets..staff and scepter don’t have any auras at all so saying EA and auras do the same is not correct.

savacli.8172:

Elemental Attunement is too good of a skill. You get uncontested boons that require no effort to obtain other than attuning to an element. With decent boon duration those boons last quite a long time. I compare an Ele’s access to protection to that of a guardian’s. A Guardian has to expend a long cooldown (shout, virtue, etc) to obtain protection reliably. They have the hammer AA, but that requires cycling the attack and not getting interrupted In PvE that’s very easy to obtain, but that may not necessarily be the case in other aspects in the game due to AI vs Player tactics. Ele’s, on the other hand, simply attune to Earth and receive the boon everytime. What’s worse is that they are able to distribute the boon as well. Evasive arcana has two levels of balance in that each attunement carries its own ICD as well as the Ele has to have endurance for dodging to to be able to trigger the effect.

Elemental Attunement should have been a GM all along as that level of uncontested boon control is quite powerful. The other reasoning I can see the trait being GM worthy is that there is no proactive counterplay to it. At the very least Evasive Arcana has a visual for counter play. E.G. Warrior is going for the kill shot but can notice an Air Ele dodging in his direction.

I saw another thread suggesting that the Elemental Attunement become baseline, but the trait should be diminished a little by making the boons only apply to the Ele and instead make the GM a trait that would once again distribute the boons as it currently does. That I see being a bit more reasonable, though I would ask that the baseline have a shorter boon duration and the GM also expand the base boon duration of those granted.

The thing is, it actually does require some effort cause if you don’t know your cooldowns (both skill and attunement) you gonna have a hard time managing your damamge, CC and sustain.

While I do agree that 6 1/2 seconds of protection every 20 seconds may be a bit much, keep in mind that the protection is the only defensive mechansim an ele actually has. While other classes have stealth, blocks, vulnerability or either of those combined, us eles have our cantrips and the protection (talking about PvP and WvW here). If you are playing on a relatively squishy ele, a good mesmer in WvW can one-shot you, with protection (which still requires skill to actually anticipate the bomb and then time the protection right) you are able to survive. While I agree that for cele D/Ds the boons on top of the celestial kitten is OP, on staff (or any other, more squishy set) it ain’t at all.

It is needed.

Encountering a full zerk thief that runs panic strike and executioner will redefine the word “squishy” for us eles.

EA is the best way for us to create boons which are needed…creating then a new GM trait that boosts your damage the more boons you have on you is like a slap in your face.. :/

Please Anet, I wanna keep enjoying my ele and not just be a easy target/running lootbag as all I can do is using my cantrips.

the arcana line isn’t picked cause it’s OP just all the other trait lines aren’t good enough, simple as that. esspecially in PvP and even more so in WvW eles need to boons to survive against high burst classes. Every single class got buffed in some way or another and then nerfing the strongest of the 5 meh-traitlines is a rather cheap solution.

The reason everyone uses arcana is not cause it’s OP, it’s more cause it’s needed to survive and to up the damage a bit. With cele being nerfed you’ll see how OP arcana is (I do agree that it needs to be nerfed in PvP) just the other changes aren’t justified whatsoever.

spoj.9672:

The ele nerfs are justified. The only fault in them is they hurt less potent builds more and do not effect over the top builds like PvE staff ele.

From a PvE perspective D/F and LH need buffs to compete with staff yet they are being nerfed. And staff needs a nerf because its too strong and too easy. But the opposite is happening.

Overall the class could recieve way more nerfs and still be ahead of the other classes.

That may be the case from the PvE side but on the WvW/PvP side of things nerfing staff which is happening by both EA/EA and the air line is not justified at all. I do understand that they want to nerf D/D in PvP but this is defo not the right way as it literally affects all the builds, even those that require some skill and were fun to play..

Raif.9507:

The real answer would be to make it baseline where it functions only for you and create other GM’s that are worthy of being GM’s that compliment the playstyle and are playstyle changing. Fresh Air changes how the elementalist feels, more bursty, more air line oriented. Diamond Skin makes you like a tank as you just ignore condis and can just go for that frontline. EAttunement isn’t game changing, it’s a trait that makes an elementalist FEEL like an elementalist, there’s a difference.

Agreed, all we need is EA as baseline and a maybe a GM trait that makes the boons shareable with maybe a bigger range. With all the buffs to high burst classes taking away this defensive mechanism of gaining protection and blasting your own waterfields (if on staff) seems a little bit ridiculous..

DarkSyze.8627:

“but I felt like the problem is not related to one particular build. Eles are the only profession that can be tanky, deliever lots of damage, mobile, have lots of cc and can be invulnerable”.

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“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them”

Seems like somebody never has played warrior…even on full zerk they are way tankier than us eles and guess what, their damage is being buffed even more. Landing 100b on full zerker does equally as much if not more damage than fresh air. If your opponent dodges you are basically screwed on freshair as you used all your c/d and you are completely vulnerable.

All in all, these changes are basically screwing most ele specs while so many other burst specs on other classes are buffed even further and as if that wasn’t already bad enough, no more evasive arcana and elemental attunement.. sadface

Neko.9021:

Eles are getting a new minor Earth trait – Geomancer’s Defense – which gives 20% damage mitigation against foes within 600 units. I don’t think they misunderstand at all. They’re just trying to push different trait lines and get us out of always relying on Arcana for everything.

That trait might be working for D/D but for every other spec that can’t close gaps rather quickly, this trait isn’t really viable.

Other than that, Elemental Attunement should just stay where it is right now and in the best case go as baseline and make the boons shareable via a new trait.

Ceeps.3185:

Individually, ranger and guardian are getting potentially more protection uptime (especially meditation guardian, which is tough to fight solo even D/D or S/D), and we’re having to choose between that or evasive arcana.

Not only that, ele (not talking about d/d) is already struggling competing with other classes and now with basically every single class being buffed, taking away the most important traits from eles which not only nerfs cele d/d but basically every single weapon set, feels quite unfair imo..

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

In both PvP and WvW (be it zerg fights or roaming) this isn’t really the case. Elemental Attuenment and Evasive Arcana allowed some active gameplay that will no matter how much they tweak the numbers for geomancer’s training be gone.

Other than that I do agree, the arcana line isn’t/wasn’t stupidly OP, it’s more like it’s needed to make most specs viable as most other lines are compared to other classes rather lacking.

ArthurDent.9538:

Phantaram.1265:

I think elemental attunement should be base line. After making it base line balance from there. Both Evasive Arcana and elemental attunement are really fun and skillful abilities. Why take one away?

Besides that. Let’s take a look at the big picture for a second.

Removing conditions upon gaining regeneration: Dropping evasive arcana or elemental attunement with this trait drops condi removal from 2 every ~9 seconds to 1 every ~9 seconds(everytime you swap to water you gain regen + Evasive arcana for 2 condi removal). That’s a pretty big nerf to condi removal. On top of this we can assume the new “Soothing Ice”, which is the old regen proc trait with frost aura tide to it, will not be a 10 second icd anymore. That’s even less condi removal with the predicted icd being around 25-30 seconds (imo). The only way we’d get regen without healing rain would be from cantrips at this point, which is completely selfish condi removal.

Condi removal is extremely important for survivability these days even against non condi classes. Poison, weakness, chill… they will all be elementalists death without the amount of condi removal we currently have.

On top of all this Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana are both group utility traits. People are already not taking Elementalists for team fights because there are much better group/team fight classes out there. Taking one of them away just greater pigeon-holes ele into a selfish 1v1 category.

I think overall making Elemental Attunement baseline and balancing from that point is a much healthier direction to take elementalist.

Agree with all of this, the interaction with cleansing wave means that elemental attunement will pretty much rule out evasive arcana in most cases. This saddens me greatly as I loved all the explosions, and trying to maximize the effectiveness of the extra 4 skills I got with evasive arcana.

This is a massive nerf, probably a slight buff overall from how the class is today, however with every other class getting massive power creep from what I can tell, Ele is going to fall behind fast. It is like anet doesn’t realize how close to balanced this game’s pvp is and decides to just throw around massive balance changes all of a sudden with Ele getting the only real heavy nerf.

What they are doing would be the equivalent of forcing warriors to choose between fast hands and cleansing ire, or mesmers to choose between deceptive evasion and illusionary persona (lol they got it baseline instead), or engis to choose between grenadier and incendiary powder, thief between sleight of hand and bountiful theft…. Only ele seems to be forced into this choice, while they massively buffed every other class.

There was a forum topic a bit ago about each classes crutches, every class has them. Anet decided to help some classes by giving several classes their crutches for free, while ele now has to choose between its two most important ones.

Please nerf the completely permanent extremely passive and quite op 20% damage reduction trait. Using this to cover the lack of protection, would be a change, but not one for the better. It is a stupidly passive permanent trait with no counter play other than to range. With elemental attunement you could time your protection for when you needed it and had to worry about boon strip making it much more interesting to play. Reduce the trait to 10-15% and give back elemental attunement at master tier or better yet baseline as it should have always been.

+1!
Can’t believe how much I agree..!

Maybe camping was the wrong word but I am pretty sure that the majority of players would stay in earth and water more than they are now simply because some part of self sustain is simply gone.
Personally I enjoy playing staff ele (be it cele or zerk) in pvp and the reason these build are somewhat viable (in comparison to d/d) is because while d/d has for example auras and the normal traits to reduce incoming damage, staff users were bound to swap attunements for the boons and use evasive arcana for sustainability. By changing this combination the spec would be a lot less viable in pvp (not even gonna start about WvW).

Atm it is possible to use 60066 or 06066 on staff without any issues, however if this change goes life it’s gonna be very situational to use the air or fire line as you’d need the defensive traits of earth.

To get back on the actual topic: ofc they have buffed the defensive traits and lines but at the same time it’s gonna be lot more boring to play an ele or to fight one as camping water and earth isn’t difficult at all.

The thing that made ele fun and interessting was changing attunements upon situation and buffing yourself by doing so. The old setup allowed you to be in any attunement at any time be it in WvW or PvP and if you are/were attacked you could swap attunement to gain regen and protection and at the same time to get some active gameplay in by blasting your own water- or firefield.

With the changes ANet has in mind this kind of gameplay won’t be possible anymore. Sitting in one attunement all the time just receive less damage is easy but sadly does not enhance build diversity whatsoever.

While D/D eles haave the possibility to work around these changes, staff eles can’t as much. If a ranger is pewpewing me I’d be stupid to blink in to make my earth trait actually work out. Sure I can move away but overall these changes are a lot worse for players that enjoy using staff (and everyones else who doesn’t use full celestial cough)

Guys, this thread is supossed to be about the fact that after this patch you won’t be able to use elemental attunement and evasive aracana together so maybe we can get back to the topic?

it’s not just about d/d though..staff eles got majorly nerfed with this changed. also considering the changes to thiefs for example the only way for staff eles to still be somewhat viable in PvP and WvW we’d need to invest in all the defensive traitlines while having no chance to play with fire or air magic :/

Nikkinella.8254:

Elemental attunement needs to be baseline just for the ele only. make the trait have it affect allies. it should have been this way from day 1 anyway, this is their chance to finally make it happen.

Totally agreeing on this one. This change would be a huge nerf to any staff ele in WvW/Pvp and also to d/d eles. Evasive Arcana in combination with elemental attunement is vital to eles and instead of creating more build options by removing this combination it rather locks us down into the defensive lines (as already said before).

Other than that, I do love that blasting staff is now baseline.

You don’t even need to be in T1 for the lag, ever since the stab changes the lag is considerably worse than before, no matter if you ar ein T1 or T5.. :/