Guild Wars 2

SO many people didn’t get the joke.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Lightning flash does dmg, blink doesn’t.

This is also true.

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.

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.

I would be up for this if it was out of combat. As much as I’d like in-combat swap, having 8 toolsets to choose from would be pretty unfair considering other classes only get 2 at a time.

Rush.8253:

Crujiente….Keep away from my fun box…..

NO!

To those FA fighting us at TCBL at the bridge south of Hills and north of Redlake tower, that was a great fight. I was the blonde staff elementalist with the blindfold and the crazy AoE crits. You knocked me off the bridge a couple of times!

I love how there’s people from DB thinking TC and FA are teaming up, and there’s people from FA thinking DB and TC are teaming up. Keep the drama going. It makes for an entertaining read!

That being said, I think the matchup has been extremely competitive. Good fights all around from both DB and FA.

Redscope.6215:

The builds that didn’t get nerfed this time around DO work, they’re just not OP like the dd bunker ele. Now that it’s all but lost the OP, assuming you ran one, you’ve got to learn how to not faceroll your keyboard ftw.

Its kinda like how mesmers QQ’d about needing Line of Sight to land their clone attacks and being able to be blinded/dodged/blocked/etc. Learn how to play by the same rules everyone else does, or find the next FotM OP build in class “x”. Either way, the problem is the player needing OP to win.

Apparently you didn’t seem to understand that EVERY build got nerfed BUT the bunker ones. D/D bunker is still the same as always (yes, it’s still “OP” if you guys want to call it that). It’s not a question of OP or not, it’s a question of overall effectiveness. If you think I rolled Elementalist for “flavor of the month” or whatever, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s the first class I ever played and has been my main for a long time.

The point I was trying to make is that it’s much harder to do anything unless you’re cookie cutter BECAUSE of the nerfs. Different builds can work in duels and in tPvP, but in sPvP with randoms it’s a lot harder to get anything done if you’re not using what’s expected, or at least a variant.

chronometria.3708:

Crujiente.8612:

They work; they’re just much less effective and a lot harder to work with (as in, a huge step down in viability from the cookie cutter). You’re likely to spend more time downed than anything. It’s really sad you can’t do anything but use the cantrips and the bunker setups if you want to stay in play longer.

You keep using that word “work”, but I do not think it means, what you think it means.

It’s more of an attempt to be positive in light of these changes. I guess I should just stop understating it and say that it it just painful to try builds other than the ones that were supposed to be nerfed, but were barely even scratched.

In WvW you can still get away with some variety, but in sPvP all that variety is pretty much gone if you want to stay alive long enough to make a difference.

autoduck.2837:

I’ve tried a few different builds this week for the DD ele like signet and glyph builds but they simply do not work. The dd ele is all about close quarter combat hence stunbreakers are a must which is why the cantrip build will always be the number 1 build for the dd ele.

They work; they’re just much less effective and a lot harder to work with (as in, a huge step down in viability from the cookie cutter). You’re likely to spend more time downed than anything. It’s really sad you can’t do anything but use the cantrips and the bunker setups if you want to stay in play longer.

I’ve been trying many different builds post nerfs, and really, everything pales in comparison to the cookie cutter 0/10/0/30/30 double dagger with boon duration runes and a few other bunker builds. All the different situational creative builds I had prior to the patch are just really hard to work in a PUG setting now (not tPvP… you can get away with other stuff in tPvP since it’s a lot more coordinated). Some of them may work for dueling, but for sPvP in general it’s just a lot harder to pull off any builds other than the bunker ones. So much for variety.

I really hope ANet looks at Elementalist traits, glyphs, signets, weapons, etc. and provides us some alternatives in the future. There are a few other builds you can run, but they take a lot more work than just going with the flow and taking the cookie cutter setup, or another decent bunker build. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

P.S.: This only applies to sPvP, not WvW.

Bunker Eles were not really even touched by this nerf. All other more creative builds were. Bunker is still almost the same as before.

I’ve still been having lots of fun with it. I run a mostly Knight’s build with a Berserker’s Amulet, and Soldier’s back item/helmet/gloves/shoulders. All exotic except for the backpiece. Power/vitality/crit damage jewels. Traits are 10/25/0/20/15, and I have a 30 second CD on RTL if I don’t hit anything or 15 sec if I do, so it’s not much of a loss. I just use it more strategically now.

Also, I’m testing using power/vitality/crit damage orbs on my armor instead of boon duration runes like I had before, in order to try not to rely so much on my boons (may switch to Divinity runes in the future, but I like the 120 power…) I’m having a blast with all the crit damage. I might swap the amulet for an Invader’s for some more toughness/vitality or Knight’s so I keep the precision and get extra toughness.

I don’t sPvP so much anymore, but I WvW a lot. I still manage to escape a lot of sticky situations, but I have to use my cantrips and other timing a little bit differently than before. Fiery Greatsword is amazing for escapes. I still roam around picking off Yaks or soloing camps from time to time, but if I see enemies nearby I have to start leaving before they can get close enough to slow me down. Much safer to stay with the zerg nowadays.

After some testing, pretending as if it’s all been patched, I think we’ll be fine. The only thing that would really break us is if they removed our ability to remove immboilizes, etc. via cantrips, which I heard rumors of but could not find proof of. That’s what I was worried about the most.

Not only did I try your challenge, but I also experimented with several different builds without using cantrips (although I did keep mist form for some tests), in case they were to nerf their uses as immobilize escapes. I did this in sPvP and in WvW.

The bottom line: painful. In WvW you have a much more difficult time (I kept mist form, but did not heal while in mist form as part of the challenge). Few escapes and a longer CD on RTL means you’re a sitting duck for almost everyone with an immobilize. I was using a 10/20/0/30/10 build with mostly Knight’s exotic gear (power/precision/toughness, for the newer players) except for the amulet (berserker’s – power/precision/crit damage), with valkyrie-statted jewels slotted (power/vitality/crit damage). Less mobility, and it’s harder to escape classes that are good at catching up.

In sPvP, you’re basically screwed if an engineer immobilizes you, and the same goes if you run into one or two instagib builds with at least one immobilize and that one hits you. Also, it does not matter how tanky you build. I tried bunker setups, tanky condition damage setups, glass cannon setups, and used dagger/dagger, scepter/dagger, scepter/focus, staff… if you get immobilized there is not much you can do without the cantrips, with an alpha coming your way. All of this being said, I think I liked the condition damage and the glass cannon builds most without the cantrips. You may be likely to die quickly, but by putting a lot of pressure on the enemy via conditions or lots of damage, you can turn the tide sometimes.

P.S.: They should keep Elementalist as-is for PvE, whether they go through with these nerfs or not. Although PvE is a lot easier than facing players who can think for themselves, Elementalists seem to be a lot weaker leveling up than other classes.

P.P.S.: I think we’ll be fine in WvW as long as they don’t remove our cantrips’ abilities to break immobilizes, etc. Less mobility, but as long as we still have that we can make it work.

TL;DR: Experimented with this change, but added the challenge of not using cantrips. Painful this way. As long as cantrips aren’t nerfed to not allow us to break immobilizes, we should be fine.