Guild Wars 2

Glenstorm.4059:

I played mostly Sword/Dagger and Sword/Focus Weaver this weekend. Here are my impressions:

General

-Weaver as it stands is definitely not a pure Power spec. It does decent condi pressure though. I found Sage amulet to work best for myself, though I hope others can find more viable options. I know Phantaram tried a Mender’s build with some success. Deadshot looks like it has some potential, but I couldn’t make it work.

-The overall animations and look of the spec are great. The Sword, Dual Attack and Utilities are flashy and look powerful. The Elite skill looks good too.

-The biggest issue for me is the inability to have instant access to powerful defensive abilities like Swirling Winds and Obsidian Flesh. THAT SAID, I will for now chalk it up to a L2P issue on my part, since Weaver does provide evades on both Sword and Utilities (Twist of Fate.)

-Survivability needs help. Weaver cannot reliably survive condi bombs. Barrier in particular is lackluster. It requires speccing into Vitality and Healing Power (already limiting build diversity) and decays too early to be useful.

-Another problem I see with the Weaver is that one Utility skill (Primordial Stance) seems to do the bulk of its damage. PS itself is bugged (pulses 3 burn/sec when attuned to Fire and Earth, instead of 1 burn/sec.) It’s going to be weak when fixed, which is going to exacerbate the problem that our weapon skills don’t do all that much damage for a melee spec.

-I also fear that Weaver is still too reliant on Water/Arcane, hamstringing its build diversity. Especially with the crazy condis flying around now, Water is needed more than ever. And Arcane is indispensable for the Attunement swap cool down reduction and Evasive Arcana. I was hoping for more active defense to be added to Sword to help us justify specccing into Fire/Air/Earth, and the evades are a good start, but there simply isn’t enough condi removal to justify abandoning Water, and the class feels too clunky without Arcane.

Sword

-Sword auto-attacks are not good. They don’t do much damage and feel clunky. I think they should just have their cast times reduced/animations sped up. Another problem is that if you swap Attunements mid-AA chain, you reset the chain to the first attack. It’s clunky and annoying.

-Besides the auto-attacks, the Sword feels great to use. A lot of potential here. Needs more damage though!

-Dual attacks for the most part are great (though Staff and Scepter seem to have a few underwhelming Dual Attacks.) However, none of the Dual Attacks benefit from cooldown reduction traits. This needs to be rectified. Some skills like Flame Eruption and Gale Strike could be faster too. Lava Skin should really be instant-cast.

-I love the gap-closers, CC and evades on Sword! Been looking forward to this for ages. I so badly want to spec into Air for Lightning Rod, but am too scared to give up Water/Arcane

Utility Skills

-Primordial Stance is great! However, it’s going to be weak when its bug is fixed

-Twist of Fate is a good skill, and will be on my bar with Lightning Flash and PS.

-Unravel is just a waste of a Utility skill IMO. Once you get the hang of how Attunement swapping works with Weaver, you will almost never need to take this skill. I’d much rather see it reworked. Maybe condition removal or more CC?

Healing Skill

-No real opinion on this; I mainly used Signet of Restoration.

Elite Skill

-Should definitely be usable while moving. Stopping to cast this just cuts your momentum dead.

Traits

-Grandmaster tier needs work. IMO, there is only one good GM trait, Invigorating Strikes. Elements of Rage runs counter to the Weaver mechanic! It should reward dual-attuning; it feels more like a Tempest trait at the moment. Unravel Hexes is so pointless. It’s essentially another Lucid Singularity, which no one takes. It should remove all conditions (one condition per half second) when under the effects of Superspeed.

Overall, I love the Weaver, a lot more than I liked Tempest initially. I hope the issues get fixed; I really want it to be viable as a damage-dealing spec in PVP. It needs to be able to survive on the frontlines and/or have the capacity to do enough damage if people are going to play it.

Just wanted to quote and say that I agree strongly with everything said here, and it’s a good summary of current issues. I hope the devs read this.

Azel.4786:

Two particularly important points that you raised MrAidenVoid.7416 that can’t be stressed enough:

- Sword attacks are weak (power wise) and slow, it needs a power damage buff and to have a shorter cast time (down to 1/2s), this would greatly improve the weapon (balance condi application with this in mind);

- Sword leaps need to have a slight longer reach and I would say that Earth #2 should be a leap forward as well – would make the attack much more reliable and useful.

Yea it would be great if earth 2 was actually a movement skill as well…best if we can target it manually.

Warrost.4895:

Wishmaster.7693:

whan an entitled bunch, necro is useless in 95% of content but WvW and you have the courage to whine because you cannot press 1 button to obliterate siege weapons

Elementalist was always Anet’s favorite. And the are so entitled they still whine for more.

Whenever people posts an low-effort, ignorant reply like this, I like to repost this video.

As it stands, the two most realistic choices that devs could make without changing too much:
1) Remove GCD entirely. Address possible abuses with internal cooldowns.
2) Remove cooldown for double-attuning into the element in your mainhand, so you can double-tap an element to fully attune to it. Ideally the 2nd attunmement shouldn’t trigger a GCD for the other attunements either.

Any other suggestion involving adding additional mechanics (F5, weapon swap to swap main/offhand) is incredibly unlikely to be make it before launch.

Generally agree with what has been said about the clunkiness of sword, barrier being too low, and weaving cds.

I think sword either needs damage number increases, or more preferably, much faster skills (at least autos). Nearly all sword skills already have extremely low range so being in range should have impact.

Some of the dual attacks for sword are also quite mediocre…I wish there was more interesting effects, such as cc or gap closers so we can actually stick on our targets. Or at least the pure damage skills should hit harder than they currently do.

Something that hasn’t received as much attention is twist of fate. The skill is awkward to use because 1) it disables player control for the duration of the dodge, 2) the superspeed it gives lasts just over the dodge period, so you can’t really even make use of it. I feel like this skill should only have a very short spin at activation, as a stun-break animation, and after that give a 1 second period where the player can actually do something with evasion and superspeed. Otherwise, it currently feels like a worse mist form.

FrostDraco.8306:

Senario.2038:

FrostDraco.8306:

Xillllix.3485:

The elementalist is celestial by nature so they’ll probably bring the celestial amulet back instead of working on improvements, which is more demanding. One thing is certain: they can’t balance skills properly at all and the ele lead doesn’t know how the class functions.

So you are mad because they removed a cheesy jack of all trades bunker build? Then you make the claim ele is celestial by nature.

I can’t even.

Ele has been at the top of the food chain for the longest. The same reason you love the class, is the same reason they have been nerfing it. Food for thought.

Now I pose to you a question, is it justified to leave a class with absolutely 0 reason to play the game? Want to play PVP? Nah choose something else, want to play WvW? Groups have started to take other water field generating classes.

Want to play PvE? Ele is being phased out even in their best fights like Gorseval only being kept around because they have the only weapon that can clear structures while on stack. (aka if you’re the only one with it calling you the “best” is honestly not a big deal. Bc you’re the only one competing for the spot).

I don’t think it is entirely fair to say that Ele players want the class to be OP. They just don’t want to be useless in every mode. And no, saying “Well other classes had their turn so now it is yours” is not an argument…it is defending extremely bad balance.

In response to your question, no, I don’t think that is justified. But that’s not what is happening.

Ele has been strong for a long time, and is still strong, however those that play ele all the time, will have felt the nerfs harder than someone like me. However to sit here and say the class is useless? Bullocks. Just because ele isn’t the best at everything or a particular thing doesn’t make it useless. That is the definition of being a jack of all trades.

Also this person is going full celestial, of course he’s going to feel like the class is useless because he chose stats that don’t do anything well. A celestial anything isn’t good at any particular one thing. He is being unreasonable. Pick a stat you want to have to most of, therefore you do that thing, By choosing celestial, he is basically setting himself up to be useless, and/or good at nothing. It’s the nature of the stats.

I don’t think ele is the best at anything, I honestly don’t know. But what I do know is they have been in the top meta bracket for all game modes for the longest time. And they are still that way in all but pvp. Why does ele deserve to be good at everything when other classes struggle to be good at even one thing?

Someone brought up theif dps, when that’s about all theives do. Never mind the fact they have been consistently nerfed for years, and before daredevil was considered one of the worse classes in the game. Ele still does good dps, but not as good as a theifs. Once you factor in the other things theifs lack however, you can see why.

My point is Ele isn’t useless in every mode. Not even freaking close. By constantly comparing niche’s of other classes to ele, they are basically saying they want ele to do what X class does, which would be OP due to the fact ele does everything.

Been staying away from the forums since that horrific patch, but man oh man I’m greeted by this when I do decide to take a peek again.

Before I address your points, I just want to put this out there: From what you’ve written, you don’t seem to have much history with ele. In fact you probably don’t have too much knowledge about the history of the game. I’d like to write this off as you just omitting facts to make your argument appear stronger, but to leave out all the other context is pretty disingenuous.

Let’s first get one thing straight though, unlike what a lot of forum warriors like to pretend, elementalists has not always been meta. For probably the first year of the game, ele was actually considered trash, especially in pvp. If it hadn’t been this way, this video wouldn’t have existed, and by the way, this video always shows a bit of why thieves were nerfed so much since the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

And even in the times that elementalists HAD been in the meta, it’s usually besides many other classes that could compete with the ele for its niche. Only the celestial ele ever outclassed everyone by being able to “do everything”. I put this in quotes because in reality, it was still not the best at everything, it was just competent at everything at the same time compared to the other classes.

All in all, the class suffers from the design flaw that it’s meant to be a jack of all trades, which both you and the person you quoted from, seem to acknowledge. But you in particular don’t seem to realize that eles are currently in a state where it isn’t really even possible to be a “jack of all trades” in PVP (and I’m betting this is the game mode where people are primarily complaining), because there is no amulet that can actually provide all the necessary stats now. Ever since they removed celestial amulet, eles have had to choose stats that forced them into niches, which contradicts elementalist’s entire class design.

After that, eles changed to cleric because the only niches left is healer/bunker and DPS, and DPS is out of the question because eles lack active mitigation skills, and being glass cannon is useless when everyone else can just mitigate our burst while we have to eat theirs. After all, our sustain comes from eating damage and healing back up. And then they took away cleric, AND nerfed our traits, while giving pretty much nothing back.

So yea, now the class is in a terrible place in PvP where we don’t really provide much. We can’t do what the class was designed to do as a jack of all trades, and we can’t support/DPS as well as the competitors because what we used to have as advantages have systematically been removed/trivialized. Eles are not complaining because they can’t be the best at everything, they’re complaining because, at least in PvP, Anet has taken away just about everything that makes the class competitive.

By the way, your comment about the guy using celestial doesn’t make sense. PvP doesn’t allow celestial stats. If it did, the complaints probably wouldn’t be here. And I’ll be honest, fine class balance in other modes don’t matter in most situations.

Don’t thin evasive arcana would ever be made baseline, but basically all of the core ele adept minor should be baseline.

BigEvs.6971:

Tempest is the worst thing to happen to the Elementalist in years. Its nerfing was a mercy-killing imo, so I’m happy about that I guess.

They whacked both tempest and base ele with the nerfbat when they should have just took power away from tempest and gave it to base ele.

Number buffs are nice and all, but what eles really need is active mitigation that is mutually exclusive with support.

Glenstorm.4059:

I think people who play any class that has a meta build (or is assumed to have a place in the upcoming meta) will be happy overall, even if there are other issues with that class.

Couldn’t be further from the truth. Ele has been meta for all three seasons of PVP so far, and during each season I was unhappy with the class’s pvp status. This last update only made things even worse.

Ezrael.6859:

Shadowflare.2759:

Really. You’re complaining about ele scepter.

Not on its own no.

But the combination of instant hitting skills ranged skills while under chained Magnetic Aura at range or chained Shocking Aura in melee makes for an insane hard counter to incoming attacks while throwing huge damage back that suffers no reflection penalty.

Yea….No.

I don’t disagree that it’s absurdly easy to upkeep reflection as an ele, however the moment you bring their scepter into the argument, especially mentioning “Huge damage”, then you have already lost credibility. But you went further and mentioned the chaining of shocking aura, which is even harder as a scepter ele if you’re going against anyone worth their salt in pvp.

This is one of those cases where too many things are dragged in to justify the main point, and yet only weakened your argument.

As for the abundance of reflection, it could definitely stand to be toned down, though frankly, considering the amount of counterplays that exist, it’s hardly the most pressing balance issue.

Really. You’re complaining about ele scepter.

When you take away the bots and abuse, BnS demands much more skill than GW2 currently does. There was a time when reading critical moves and baiting skills used to matter in GW2, now everything is on such low cd and does so much that this is no longer the case.

In an ideal situation, BnS makes for a more challenging PvP game.

Shovel Face.4512:

John.8507:

Playing a certain amount of games won’t determine your skill level.

They need to sort out matchmaking, and maybe keep track of individual performance as well as team performance so if do get stuck losing you could maybe still advance pips based on your performance.

Woah, I think the amount of games you play to reach a certain division truly shows your skill level. I mean if you can get to Legendary in 120 games when you need 125 pips to reach Legendary that’s MLG pro stuff and that’s who deserve the Legendary title, not people who play a ton of ranked matches with a sub 50% win rate.

Other than that, I totally agree with the other stuff you said.

The problem with you thinking is that you’re assuming people would not improve over time.

Alekt.5803:

Jekkt.6045:

i would say dagger is in general a lot stronger than focus. there is literally not a single bad skill on it. churning earth might not be the best skill but after its buff it is at least acceptable.

by function focus is currently more viable because it makes you survive longer and you don’t need to be a fast bruiser anymore. on focus you either have the really strong ones like obsidian, or the weak ones like freezing gust while on dagger all of them are equally impactful.

Sure. There are weak spells with extremely strong ones. Just look at how loaded Magnetic Wave is. (Great damage, low cooldown, instant cast, staff-quality AoE radius, long duration cripple, reflection without clear visual that is 1 sec less than aura, clear 3 condition, blast finisher).

Then, look at Magnetic Aura from staff. (Instant, aura, reflect for 4 seconds, longer cooldown)

One word. Fairness.

See, I used to think like you, when I was mainly playing scepter fresh air during the D/D era. But that was stupid thinking, and it’s still stupid now.

Focus is only maybe a contender for best weapon when you look at it in a vaccuum. Other classes are able to stack just as much damage mitigation/defensive abilities, if not more than the focus, if built properly.

There’s not really much of a reason to ask for nerfs to focus just because it’s a cornerstone of the current ele meta, due to a desperate need to build defensive in almost every way. If the other classes hadn’t been powercreeped to this degree, you wouldn’t even see focus used so much. Why else do you think the past ‘OP ELE’ era was D/D, not D/F? Cele D/Ds didn’t even need to take the earth trait line either during its time.

If you want staff, and if I want scepter, to be buffed, then all we can ask for is that. Buffs to underpowered weapons. But really, unless Anet wakes up and makes drastic changes to core ele functionalities, I doubt we’ll get any significant buffs.

Laserbolt.6731:

Shadowflare, I was responding to the original posters comment that unranked is not a reasonable alternative to solo queue because you cannot progress your league standing in unranked.

If unranked play was a reasonable alternative for solo queue for the OP, do you think they would have come to make this post? Obviously ranked standings does make a difference to other people. It doesn’t even have to be all that important, just the fact that you have something to work towards can be good for some people. In this case it’s obvious why unranked is clearly not the same thing as ranked solo.

Laserbolt.6731:

But I said I wasn’t anywhere close to being pro in gw2 PvP, so how’s that patting myself on the back?
"

Seriously?

It’s okay, I’m really, really good at other things in life that matter to me. I don’t need to worry about if I am good in gw2 PvP.

How did you believe that this was in any way necessary to the discussion?

Laserbolt.6731:

I’ve decided that League standing tells me pretty much nothing I don’t already know about my ability. Or lack of it in my case. I just don’t have the twitch reaction and I don’t know the classes well enough. So I am never going to get really good at this. Even if I got lucky and rode the wave up to a higher Division, I still know how good I am, or am not, at this.

It’s okay, I’m really, really good at other things in life that matter to me. I don’t need to worry about if I am good in gw2 PvP.

All those words, and you managed to say nothing relevant to the topic of solo queue in GW2 pvp. The OP didn’t start the thread asking for you to pat yourself on the back and tell everyone why you don’t think leagues, or gw2 pvp in general, matters.

That being said, solo queue won’t happen, they don’t have the population unless they completely get rid of team queues as well, and given that they would like to support challenger teams for esports..I doubt they will. Not to mention there are most likely players out there who may not like to solo queue.

While I agree with many of the things you said here, know that Anet will not change it. They can barely even rework skills on a smaller scale, how do you expect them to make such a massive overhaul to a system? Think about all the assets and underlying code that would need to be thrown away and re-made.

We’re better off asking for them to take a look at core ele and make that playstyle be competitive again, but even that is a long shot going by their recent actions.

ronpierce.2760:

Zintrothen.1056:

Obsidian Flesh is actually only 33.5 seconds with the Earth trait. And yes, that is way too short.

While I teeter on this issue. I actually don’t like invuln stomping, I think it’s a cheap tool not everyone has access to, but nevertheless, it can be argued with cooldowns and what-not.

Obsidian Flesh though is absolutely insane. It blows most other damage mitigation skills out of the water and allows full damage while being unable to CC/Blind/etc, on a cooldown that’s close to half of other less effective tools.

My little rant for the day, that skill is a bit crazy.

It’s easy to say that when you look at the skill in a vacuum. But when you consider how few non-situational hard mitigations that eles have, you realize that even such a good skill isn’t all that impressive in actual play. You bait out the OB and then they’re open to nuke.

Compare that with revs or scrappers who can chain one defensive move after another to continuously avoid damage. This was also why pre nerf chronos made better bunkers than pre nerf tempests.

Since no one else is speaking up, whether because they gave up and stopped checking forums or they don’t care anymore, I guess I’ll come in and say something before you inflate your own ego any further…

Let’s preface this with a couple things.
First, given that this is only the first week since S2 start, I’m going to guess that you probably played in the lower ranks, and there, almost any build can still get you wins assuming you don’t play like an idiot. If you’re truly skilled, then keep farming the unskilled players for wins, and wait till you get to the higher ranks as a solo queue before you comment on whether or not non-meta builds can still perform.

Second, since you’ve only played ele for 2 months, I’m going to guess you don’t know the history of the elementalist class. Simply put, the class was at first advertised as a “jack of all trades” class, but until celestial amulet was buffed into viability, this title was never really true. We were/still are too squishy to go full damage as a competitive build. Even then, the majority of builds that have ever been meta runs 2 defensive (or 1.5 since tempest and arcane are defensive/utility) trait lines to make the ele survive. Build diversity has always been bad, since the power difference of non-meta builds compared to meta builds is night and day. What makes it worse is that every nerf targeted at the meta bunker/bruiser builds usually ends up hitting the non-meta builds harder than the intended target.

And that’s exactly what’s happening yet again. The meta tempest build brought far too much sustain, but instead of toning it down specifically, anet nuked an integral part of what made other ele builds work without giving them something substantial back. Look at the scepter, it’s been more than 3 years, and it still has terrible auto attacks and lacking utility. Many of our utility skills are crap, either because of unusably high CDs, or simply lacking in good effects. Non-defensive builds cannot work because we don’t have the tools to sustain ourselves without running the same few defensive traits that we have always run.

Does that mean ele as a class is completely unviable? No, it can still work, as proven by the rehash of the meta auramancer support build. (Condition builds can also work to a certain degree) Are other builds also good, befitting of the title of “jack of all trades”? Not really. Seriously, I challenge you to make a bruiser build as a power ele that can rival scrapper.

Were/are there incompetent eles? Yes. and if they left the class because of the latest nerfs, good riddance. But note that the class isn’t in a good place, not because we do not have a place competitively, but because the class has lost its identity, and because of the many other issues that non-meta builds face. These issues have been ignored over and over and over because people, not unlike you, point at the one single meta build and say “hey, the class is fine”.

Ps. On your comment about 1 v 1s. Just because you don’t care for them doesn’t mean it’s not important. If a class is effective in both 1 v 1 and teamfights, they’re automatically more flexible than one that is only good at one. It’s also the situation where mechanical skills are most required.

You said it. This is why, despite having seen many ridiculous posts that past-me would have jumped on to comment on, I just don’t bother anymore. They don’t listen.

I’m going to bet not many people complain about ele’s situation is talking about any game mode other than spvp.

And there, ele still has a place, it’s just that that role is being a support b**** even more than before. I for one am sick of it.

PowerBottom.5796:

Nope – Ele is pretty sick actually. Try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodn0XCNYi9XCWYCcYilNAzdv+XPsErgLwIY4BEAKgA-TJRIABzeCAwZ/BAeAAGVGAA

By far highest support (boons, condi-removal, auras, healing numbers) and unkillable in a 1v1.

I saw this build from tons of competetive players and smaller tournaments and I thought it would suck as well, but it’s insane. Yes, you have no DMG, but in all other aspects, it’s pretty much godlike.

Also, reapers won’t do anything to this build.

*Edit: It’s actually that good, that I’ve seen quite a few ESL-players that normally don’t play Ele practice it, likely for the upcoming season finale. Not gonna drop names though, since they helped me with the build and I don’t wanna spoil any teams strategies.

Yay, time to continue being the support b****. Exactly how I wanted to play my elementalist.

MailMail.6534:

Shadowflare.2759:

To sit on the bench. From the results of every patch since launch, it’s been made clear that eles:
1) Are not allowed to burst hard
2) Are not allowed to be mobile like thieves
3) Are not allowed to be tanky
4) Are not allowed to be a jack of all trades.

What are we allowed to be? A kitten support that can barely do anything on its own.

The removal of cele wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just revealed how fundamentally flawed eles are. Maybe in 5 years eles will actually get the changes it needs.

For someone who’s been playing for 3 years, you sure do have convenient amnesia concerning the roles Eles have been able to effectively fulfill in the last several metas…

EDIT: this is not to say that eles aren’t under-powered now. I just don’t think we should be oh so dramatic with these outlandish claims. Make a case, but be legitimate when you do.

PrZone.4753:

1) before the removal of cele ele had medium damage… for a bunker… seriously?
2) it is a mobile class… but are you seriously trying to say a bunker class should have mobility like thieves?
3) really? holding 3 people on a point and killing one of them at the same time… yea they arent tanky
4) ele is THE jack of all trades… they heal… damage… tank… move… everything… if you honestly think anything you said was true you really need to learn how to play ele a little better. ive been able to 2v1 most class combinations since launch as an ele, until the removal of cele in the last patch… and still there are builds that i can reliably 1v1 with. ele is a class thats harder to pick up than others but once you learn to play them they are pub stompers.

I will address these two together.

You both seem to think I’m being dramatic, but what I said was simply analysis of history. Nothing either of you said actually disproves my point, I didn’t claim that this last single patch nerfed all those aspects of the ele, but rather that as time went on, each of those took a hit. And those hits removed the particular aspect from the ele I was going to write out a huge post pointing out the chronolgies of these nerfs, but there really is no point. It won’t change the fact that they happened.

I will simply say that in the current state, Eles cannot do damage comparable to thieves, scrappers, or reapers. Even with dagger offhand, our mobility pales in comparison to thieves or druids.

We cannot tank because now we have to choose from having toughness, vitality, or healing power, and without hard mitigation, lacking even one of these stats makes our method of “sustain through recovery” far less effective.

And we cannot be a jack of all trades, again because the amulets available no longer supports that style of play. Without the stats, at best you’re mediocre at a few things, while bad at others. And why would someone take a class that is just okay at a few, if they can just take other classes which can specialize and be excellent at specific things?

I’m still able to 1 v 1 most opponents, hell I can even 1 v 2 some match ups with marauder fresh air core ele. That doesn’t mean that ele is in a good place. We have always had trouble finding a niche, and I’ve brought this up almost every balance patch. If you want eles to be the eternal support bot, with the same playstyle since launch, then keep championing that the class is okay.

Silv.9207:

The problem of the ele is that in the past yewrs has been always played with Celestial, why had the chance to use all the statistics of that amulet with every single builds he had and with the might spam was able to inflict high direct and condition damage still whith a bunker build.

Now there’s no more a bunker build and the ele need to leart to play a role.
But there’s a lot of roles a ele can do.

The fresh air build is still a really high dps build, for example, can be a support/healer, a hybrid between direct and condition damage, and with the staff can inflict insane AoE damage, a really good thing for spvp.

The ele have a really high dps and different defensive skills, you need only a “meta” build to follow and be happy, nothing more.

Wait for the next meta builds and let’s see what happen

Have you even tried the fresh air build recently? It’s an unreliable spec that does decent at 1 v 1 vs builds with low sustain, but compared to scrapper, it is garbage. Ele dps pales in comparison to what’s available out there, partially because every half of every ele’s builds have to be dedicated to make the eles survive, and partially because lots of our skills are either weak in terms of number, or weak in terms of reliability.

All those things you say we have, we don’t really have. At the same time, you can definitely find another class who can do the same, if not better, with less effort and more safety.

To sit on the bench. From the results of every patch since launch, it’s been made clear that eles:
1) Are not allowed to burst hard
2) Are not allowed to be mobile like thieves
3) Are not allowed to be tanky
4) Are not allowed to be a jack of all trades.

What are we allowed to be? A kitten support that can barely do anything on its own.

The removal of cele wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just revealed how fundamentally flawed eles are. Maybe in 5 years eles will actually get the changes it needs.

BlackBeard.2873:

korioaurel.3041:

I also think we need to stop thinking as supports, we are too squishy to cover anyone. When i’m trying some new builds I focus on my own survivability and on damage.

I think this a flawed line of reasoning, as the justification of eles being so weak and ineffective on their owns is that they have such powerful capabilities to support. Let’s be honest, any selfish ele build is inherently worse than another class unless it focuses primarily on being a heal/cleanse/boon bot.

Roaming dps – even with dagger, you lack map mobility compared to thief/rev/mesmer. Your burst is a much longer CD, your defenses are far inferior, and you are hardcountered by other roaming dps (esp. thief/rev) to a pathetic degree. This is honestly not a viable role for ele.

Bunker – You have no true hard mitigation, and poor access to stab for stomps/resses. Also, no effective res utilities to make up for that.

Bruiser – if you try to build as a bruiser, you become a really bad version of scrapper/druid. You have less mobility, way less damage, you take way more damage, and you should lose the 1v1 matchup with both due to their superior damage/survival balance. While the game doesn’t revolve around 1v1’s, being a bruiser DOES, as being able to 1v1 effectively is one of the primary roles of a bruiser.

Support – Ele can probably cleanse the most conditions per 10s of any class. With healing auras, ele can provide lots of team heals to keep a team-mate healthy, while having a couple good CC skills to help a dps player lock someone down. Also, all of the self-survival traits ele takes are naturally AoE mostly, allowing you to share those powerful survival tools with team-mates. It is debatable if this is even a worth-while role or if other classes like guard or druid won’t just end up usurping eles here too, but at least you can be effective.

You’re right, and that’s why this is pathetic. Back to the class that can’t do jack **** on their own. As if we didn’t have enough time as the support already, now we even get nerfed to the point where it’s the only thing we can do, and at less efficiency than before.

In the previous season it was already clear that tempests fall easily to coordinated teams, now that our survivalbility took a hit, I doubt people would want a support that can barely stay alive.

It is a bug fix, no one should deny that. The problem is that not only did we receive this bugfix which reduced our effectiveness, we also got plenty of other nerfs.

It’s the same issue as always. Anet nerfs, doesn’t give back in other ways.

Laraley.7695:

Shadowflare.2759:

Laraley.7695:

emikochan.8504:

Laraley.7695:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

40 seconds cooldown for a single target 1 second stun.

LOL. Just LOL.

It’s not single target, nor it’s stun.

Gale is the focus ability that knockdowns 1 target (identical to a stun)

You are confusing the staff Gust skill.

I didn’t confuse anyting, I just kitten ed. However, stun is not identical to knocback. Sure you cannot move and use your skills, but it’s still not the same regarding what happens with your character.

Also, Gust is knockback, not knockdown.

You’re either not reading properly or you are seriously out of touch. He said gale is a single target knockdown, nothing about gust being knockdown.

He said I confused it with that skill, but I was talking about knockdown, not knockback. Whatever, completely off topic and pointless.

Because the first time you were nitpicking, you not only said it’s not single target, and not a stun. That describes gust. That’s why they assume that’s why you were confusing the 2 skills. You were right that it wasn’t a stun, but it’s almost the same.

By the wording of the patch notes, I’m hoping it’s only a tooltip change, since I never actually timed the duration on the gale KD.

Laraley.7695:

emikochan.8504:

Laraley.7695:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

40 seconds cooldown for a single target 1 second stun.

LOL. Just LOL.

It’s not single target, nor it’s stun.

Gale is the focus ability that knockdowns 1 target (identical to a stun)

You are confusing the staff Gust skill.

I didn’t confuse anyting, I just kitten ed. However, stun is not identical to knocback. Sure you cannot move and use your skills, but it’s still not the same regarding what happens with your character.

Also, Gust is knockback, not knockdown.

You’re either not reading properly or you are seriously out of touch. He said gale is a single target knockdown, nothing about gust being knockdown.

The buffs that focus got were far more significant than scepter…and it wasn’t even the one that needed buffs the most.

I’m only glad I’ll have B&S to satisfy my PvP needs for the time being.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Shadowflare.2759:

snip

I havent faced a ton of them to be honest, and when I do its on a pure condi or power build. I think many others have had the same experience and so we dont have the experience to know what is what. Btw, I did take the time to read your post, and I think you could have done a better job. You sound like youre talking down to people, and thats not going to get you anywhere, especially on interweb forums.

Given that many of them were repeating each other’s arguments or using arguments already addressed in my opening post, it already suggested to me that they didn’t take the time to digest what has already been put into the discussion before making their posts. I had to type out many things repeatedly, you do that without getting annoyed. I’d say for the most part I stayed quite neutral, other than the exasperation at people repeating the same things as those which have been said.

Blue Hare.8612:

Shadowflare.2759:

The thing is, Diamond skin, old or new, is a standalone trait. It doesn’t combo with anything else for its effect. So really, nothing else affects how well it works other than its own effect.

So you are basically saying that healingpower, toughness and vitality have no effect on how well Diamond Skin works? Can you keep your health up without celestial?

I think we have to look at the bigger picture. I’m going to make a pretty ridiculous and far fetched example here:

Let’s say that there was a trait that gave you permanent 10 might, then it got changed and it now provides 25 stacks. At the same time one of necromancer traits was changed so that with boon corruption necro can one-shot anyone who has 25 might. In this case the buff on a standalone trait from 10 to 25 stacks would be a nerf right, in PvP at least.

To my experience the old Diamond Skin wasn’t so bad, I always had enough power(pet) damage in my condi build to break it, or an ally broke it for me. I’m more scared of the new DS since the builds I have been running don’t really apply conditions constantly. And don’t cling on the fact that I’m running niche non-meta builds, that is not the point.

Necro supposedly had pretty hard time with the old DS, so against necros the new DS is a nerf, sure. So… dunno, I still think that It is too early to tell, it depends on what kind of classes/builds you are put against in the upcoming meta.

And yeah, I’m a just a dirty casual but I think it is going a bit far calling ppl ignorant at this point when only time will tell how things work out. Furthermore, we should have this conversation after the patch so we can see the new DS in action. And I’m totally ok if the new DS turns out to be more powerful than the old one, since without celestial, I dunno what will come of ele.

And I’m not saying that you are completely full of BS, you do make some valid arguments, you could even be right and it turns out to be a nerf. I don’t care who is going to be right, ele is going to be weaker than before anyway, but that is not because of DS. But what I don’t agree on is that you say that this is not open for a debate and that everyone else is just ignorant, and again, we should just wait and see.

The point is that Diamond skin, unlike cleansing water, does not depend on other traits/skills/effects to activate, as such if you want to compare whether the trait gets a buff or a nerf, you simply need to take the same build pre/post patch and compare whether DS perform better or worse.

I will concede that there is an indirect relationship between defensive stats and DS’s ability to be maintained, however that is also besides the point. Even if an amulet is introduced that can further optimize DS use, the trait itself was not buffed, something new was simply added which can help prop up the trait.
In any case, that isn’t even happening. Celestial is being removed, and the replacements aren’t really better, so if anything, the DS change along with amulet change means DS will be even worse off than before.

Exceptions like viper rev and clearly your ranger build are not the norm for full condi users. Assuming equally high skill, the full condi necro had 0 chance of killing the elementalist using the current DS. How could they, if their large hitters are completed negated?

The new DS introduces an opportunity for mass condi pressure to overwhelm the DS, as opposed to the old DS where they had 0 opportunity. That is a new weakness and therefore an obvious nerf to DS effectiveness.

I will take a step back and say “the vast majority of people who thinks this DS is a buff are ignorant”. I simply don’t want their misconceptions to affect how eles is perceived, and therefore indirectly affect how eles balanced in the future. It’s not like I’m saying DS shouldn’t be reworked or DS nerf will destroy elementalists.

Simonoly.4352:

It’s both a buff and a nerf. Troubles be coming against condi Necro and Engi, but DS will likely trivialise fights against non-hybrid 1-3 condi burst classes even more with the lowered threshold, which basically constitutes the other six classes. Either way, DS will continue to be a boring trait though. Feels like a missed opportunity for something exciting. Oh well.

Non-hybrid condi classes wouldn’t be breaking the old DS to apply any conditions in the first place.

Foggy.9213:

The thing is you guys are thinking the condi removal only with the DS, but ele’s can remove way faster and better, so that will just buff up even more the condi removal.

So if will take 5-6s to recover only with DS then with all the other things will be like 2-3s
PS: You just need to apply regen. ( With water)

How does having other condi removals make this change a buff?
I have those same condi removals right now, and I can stack it with the current DS to make myself even more invulnerable against conditions…Except I don’t need to. Going 1 v 1 against a condi build, I wouldn’t even need to cleanse right now because literally nothing is applied to me.

Obviously elementalists always have something other than diamond skin, and obviously elementalists wouldn’t just afk and let people damage them. But we’re talking about a change to a single trait. It’s a very simple comparison, before and after the change, which iteration of the trait is more powerful?

The thing is, Diamond skin, old or new, is a standalone trait. It doesn’t combo with anything else for its effect. So really, nothing else affects how well it works other than its own effect.

@blue hare, I can’t watch the stream right now, so I won’t comment on what phantaram said, but I’ll say this: This random guy on the forum has been playing GW2 as an ele main since the first beta of GW2 core game. I made it to legendary as a solo with 63% W/L and under 250 games played.

Phantaram is most likely still a better player than me, and if he thinks that I’m wrong he can go debunk me on my thread, but I don’t think he could deny most of what I said. Maybe he has undisputable proof that the frequency of eles being in a HP zone of 75% vs 90% actually occurs often enough for this change ends up being a buff.

But if you think I’m just here spewing out BS because I don’t know the reality of GW2 meta, think again.

Anyone who thinks that it’s a buff, is simply ignorant.
Educate yourselves:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Can-someone-explain-to-me/first#post5933314

I practically wrote an essay on this thing all throughout that thread, and if you actually read it all and compare the before/after DS, there’s no reason to think that the change is a buff.

edit: Everything that is being used as arguments in this thread so far, and probably all others in the near future, I’ve most likely already addressed, if not in the OP then in a reply.

Alekt.5803:

All those fellow elementalist going into insults to another fellow elementalist who is actually playing marauder amulet.

Will you quit bragging about your marauder build…you’re so biased about it you came into this thread to bring down another fellow ele’s request for reasonable scepter buffs, and when people turn on you for being disingenuous you act the victim…

Gokil.2543:

For me it’s the combination of proactive and reactive plays.

There’s a constant tug-of-war between rotation and situation. As a beginner, you’re using skills randomly as you see the need, then you learn to do the leet rotations, and finally you end up appreciating reactive skill use again.

Personally I’m not a fan of the engi playstyle. If all your skills are available at all times, that’s a loss of depth rather than a gain in my humble opinion.

In short, you can get pretty far with rotational knowledge alone, but weaving the steps of the attunement dance according to the situation is the true joy of playing ele.

I was going to comment but this guy already covered everything I wanted to say, especially the bolded part.

Alekt.5803:

Sunshine.5014:

Alekt.5803:

Sunshine.5014:

Alekt.5803:

With the removal of bunker amulets, marauder staff cleaving on point will become much more deadly than it used to be. So, we still have this running.

Honestly that’s wishful thinking. I’ve played with you multiple games on my glass Rev, and you didn’t survive any focus fire on your marauder Ele. You got rezzed a few times from your teammates though. Like, as soon as I put a target on you, you’re into running mode and dead a few seconds later.

Now imagine a thief with 30% damage buff, and those Mesmers who couldn’t bunk anymore, go back to Glass burst Mesmers.

There is no such thing as “Glass Rev” when at 50% health, 50% of damage is mitigated for 6 seconds, perma stability and 5 dodge rolls. If you were using retribution amulet, there is nothing I can do other than relying on teamates.

Glass as in Marauder amulet. Now if you don’t think Marauder Ele can survive and dish out similar DPS as a glass Rev, then please stop posting those wishful thinking posts. It does more harm to the state of PvP than helping.

I don’t ask for a glass Ele to win a glass Rev/Scrapper/Reaper/Thief/Mesmer 1v1, but at least Ele should have a chance instead of being completely useless, instead of being a liability to the team.

I deal top damage every game (99% of the time), so I got this going. And I gain much more survivability with Scrapper runes; which I tend not to use because I tried to push out more “potential” carry potential with scholar runes.

You’ll only ever do massive damage vs teams who don’t know your build and don’t go out of their way to focus you. When they do, you die quickly. Given that thieves are getting buffed, you’re certainly optimistic if you think you’ll still be able to do your damage without harassment.

With support classes leaving the meta, you won’t even be getting as much help from teammates. In these circumstances, a DPS who can also survive against focus will always be more useful than one who can’t. I’m pretty sure this was his point, and it’s true.

Stilgar.6437:

it is most definitely a buff. Necro is probably the only class that can break through it with corrupts and even that will be hard, considering you are constantly pushing your damaging conditions to the top of the stack.

That means all ranger/engi/mesmer/guard etc. condi builds will be hard-countered and unplayable same as now.

You are not fighting a golem, sure you can overwhelm 1 condi per sec (on top of shouts/traits etc.) if the ele is afk, but the ele will dodge, CC you, force you to dodge, break LoS etc.

Though im not considering how much ele will suffer because of cele loss. Gotta wait and see, but if there is a viable ele build with one of the new amulets, it will certainly HARD-counter the vast majority of condi builds and be the same problem as current diamond skin.

So pre-patch: no condi build can break DS unless the ele majorly messes up.
Post patch: at least one condi build can break DS even if the ele doesn’t majorly mess up.

Therefore the patch is buffing DS?

What kind of logic are you people using…

Alekt.5803:

morrolan.9608:

You want ele nerfed even more?

No, it’s actually a Tempest buff. Without Diamond Skin, you notice some 10 sec chill after a meteor shower and chill every time you cast anything. And sometimes, that chill deal 600 dps (reapers)

That’s not a tempest buff. That’s a ranged weapon user buff. Being a tempest doesn’t mean you use a staff.

Demandred.7930:

Aidenwolf.5964:

We were impervious to conditions while health was above X% was that too strong? Sure if you didn’t know how to hit an Ele before using your Condi bomb, it was very tough. But Diamond Skin will be worthless now.

You make it sound easy. It was too strong, and extremely frustrating to play against. Try playing against it with a frostfire carrion necro and judge for yourself.

I’m not so sure DS will be worthless, practical play will determine this.

Which is why I’m not against having DS reworked. The issue is that people are painting this nerf as a buff for no reason, and now they’re going around spreading their misconception.

Consider the number of changes they’d have to make to let this happen, do you really think they’re going to do that?

kuritsutian.2987:

Wolfric.9380:

ele is always adaptable. It just happens that build diversity is constantly hindered and eles are usually forced into water. If they can make it into the new meta i don´t know. It´s to be feared that only fresh air can do it.

Mark my words, I foresee the new elementalist as a fire elementalist.

Far too early for any declarations, we still haven’t seen all of the changes that are coming.

Towren.1745:

Shadowflare.2759:

Sigh. how can it possibly be a buff if you have to get more condition cleansing just to make DS function as it currently does?

The additional condi cleansing is coming from the new DS, nothing else… Taking additional like ether renewal will probably be overkill, some will do it, but it won’t be needed…

And there we go…we’re back to square one. I have pointed out multiple times, starting from the opening post, that this new DS’s cleansing effect does not do any more towards condi protection when compared to the old one. Why? because you can apply conditions now. You can have your boons corrupted, you can be affected by poison, chill, and fear.

Any attempt you make to maintain yourself at 75% will be hampered by the very fact that the conditions actually have an effect on you. Unless you were to take extra cleansing compared to current builds, at best you break even with the old DS in terms of protecting yourself. Just because the health threshold is larger, doesn’t mean it’s harder to break your DS, simply because the new condition defense is considerably less powerful. Why do you think they even lowered the threshold?

Towren.1745:

But anyway you asked the question. You’ve had your response. If you would rather a 90% HP threshold immunity rather than a 75% HP threshold cleanse every second then that’s your preference.

It’s not mine.

I’d rather they get rid of the health threshold entirely and rework the trait to give condition resistance which are activated by us, the players, but that sure as hell isn’t happening.

If you’d been paying any attention, I must have said this same thing in more than 5 posts in the last week or so.

Towren.1745:

The new Diamond Skin will be a lot more helpful to me in group fights.

Thus it’s a buff.

Except it doesn’t. In a team fight, even just random cleave damage can bring you down below the threshold, 90% vs 75% is pretty insignifcant when you have multiple people attacking you/throwing out aoes.

Towren.1745:

The new Diamond Skin will be a lot more helpful to me vs power builds.

Thus I consider it a buff.

Power builds never relied on conditions to break your diamond skin in the first place, any conditions that they apply in addition to the power damage is just icing on top. 75% threshold is just as useless as 90% in this scenario.

Towren.1745:

The new Diamond Skin will be less useful to me in 1v1’s against Condition builds.

It is a nerf in this regard.

We now have two instances in which its a buff. And one in which it’s a nerf.

I come across the first two instances (group fights, and power builds) more than I do the last instance (1v1 condi) when fighting in ranked matches. So now extra value is placed on the two buffs.

I have more than enough tools at my disposal to laugh a condi build off 1v1 without diamond skin anyway, thus the nerf is negligible.

So now we have two valued buffs, vs a negligible nerf.

Thus I consider overall the change to be a buff.

You asked my opinion, I’ve given it to you. You do not have to agree.

Edit: Of course this is all negligible anyway, as with the change to the amulets and the meta overall we have no idea how Elly will work, or whether either iteration of Diamond Skin will be useful in the future.

I’m not even going to discuss the 1 v 1 vs condi builds again because I’ve already repeated myself plenty on this part, if you want to believe that condition cleansing reactively is better than condition immunity, there’s really nothing I can say.

Instead I will say that I’m pretty confident in my analysis of the previous 2 scenarios, because it’s been the same pattern for me as I soloed my way to legendary, and continues to be so in every match I’ve played in legendary. And this is in the current meta, which is relatively low in burst compared to the one that will be coming. In both teamfight scenarios and fighting vs power builds, the new DS is just as useless as the old, and fighting vs condition is where the new DS is outperformed by the old.

Trait is nerfed. It’s not the straw that will break the camel’s back, but it’s a nerf nevertheless.

Towren.1745:

Shadowflare.2759:

“Because you will have all those cleanses that’s always been available, diamond skin is getting buffed”. That’s what you people sound like.

I suppose the answer your looking for is this:

Old Diamond Skin meant immune to condi’s above 90% – You would laugh above 90%, but below 90% you’d be up poop creak. In 1v1’s it was extremely powerful against condi builds and useless against power builds. In group fights it became semi-useless

New Diamond Skin means you’ll rely move heavily on your condi cleanses, yes, but you’ll have more condi cleanses at your disposal, you won’t have to worry as much about the 90% HP bracket, and it’ll be a lot more powerful against power builds and in group fights.

I like to think of it this way: On any other class which would I prefer? 90% HP immunity to conditions, or for my condition cleanse utility to come off cooldown every second and be activated by a bot?

I know which I’d prefer.

Sigh. how can it possibly be a buff if you have to get more condition cleansing just to make DS function as it currently does?

That 75% health threshold remains useless against power builds, same deal in a teamfight. You won’t be maintaining it any more so than the current one.

What WILL happen is that heavy pressure condi users no longer gets completed nullified. If they corrupt at the right time, if they cover the right conditions, if they transfer conditions in bursts, they CAN bring you down. Why? because chill, poison, and CC exists. And if they were able to bring you down past 75% even with all your cleanses, what make you think they won’t be able to keep you down when you no longer have DS?

I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself; I’m not here to say that DS shouldn’t be reworked. I’m not here to say that the rework is bad (at least I’m not saying it in this thread), I’m not here to say that elementalist will die because DS is getting nerfed. I’m just here to say to any and everyone who thinks that the DS change is a buff: It’s not. Maybe I should just make this my signature…

You might wonder why it matters to me whether people think it’s a buff or a nerf. Well, when reasonable buff suggestions for eles come up (usually about scepter or utilities or whatnot), there’s always people that dismiss it, citing things like these to be buffs and therefore we don’t need any more. Not only that, Anet has proven time and time again that they balance on the crying of the loud. If the prevailing belief is that DS was buffed instead of nerfed…then we stand to be nerfed again in other areas.

Towren.1745:

Ok, think about it. Look at the trait on it’s own – It removes a condition every second. That’s powerful, very powerful. Had this been given to any other profession people would be crying it as OP. But because its a Diamond Skin change people think it’s a Nerf?

Elementalists are very powerful condi cleansers. Before HoT and the Bunker Aura Tempest it was hard to condi Bomb an Elly anyway – Cantraps + Regen Removal, Water Attunement swap, Water attunement abilities, Ether Renewal Heal, Arcane Dodge traits…

Do you remember that?

D/D Ellies were basically immune to Conditions before HoT, if it was a very heavy condi comp you’d just swap out mistform for cleansing fire and laugh. Elementalists still have all of that cleansing now, but now they’re going to get a passive ability to cleanse a condi every second. You don’t think that’s going to have an impact on condi builds?

Whether Elementalist comes back, or Tempest with Shout Runes stays in play they’re still going to be amazing at Condi cleansing. Probably better than any other class out there, the only thing I can see coming close is a Mesmer running the inspiration cleanse on shatter, and I still don’t think that’ll keep up.

If you can’t see DS is going to be a powerful tool for an Elly then you’re crazy. If an elly, with ether renewal, water weapon skills, utilities that all cleanse conditions, and a passive 1 second cleanse can’t keep up with the condi bomb then I can safely say that nobody will be able to… And we’ll be in a condi bomb Meta where condi’s will get nerfed.

The only thing which is gonna make an elly melt is the removal of Celestial and Soldiers Amulets, the two amulets Ellies have used for years (do you remember the Soldier D/D meta before celestial was introduced?)

Tl;dr: Elementalists and Tempests were the King of Condi cleanse before the new passive Diamond Skin 1 second removal. If you don’t think that’s going to be a very powerful tool for them then you’re a crazy person.

Elementalists have a ridiculous amount of cleanse without diamond skin, you’re right. However what does that have to do with this discussion?

I can spec into full cleanse right now with the current diamond skin. I would be even more OP against condis than I would be in the next patch, with the only difference being that diamond skin functions differently.

This isn’t about elementalist viability. DS is one trait. It’s not a build, it’s not a class, it’s just one trait. My point in all of this, is simply that they are nerfing it, and frankly, I don’t understand how any of you still disagree even after (or maybe you just chose not to) reading everything I’ve already said.

Seriously, half the people in this thread just come in here and say “look eles have all these other condi removals”, well guess what, I have them all right now. Having those other cleanses doesn’t change the fact that they’re nerfing the trait…

“Because you will have all those cleanses that’s always been available, diamond skin is getting buffed”. That’s what you people sound like.

Rezzet.3614:

the new DS is definetly a buff altho i can see it being a nerf if they do remove cele gear or something like that as then ele wont have the healing up time to keep up the 90% hp as often

How is it a buff…

Alin.2468:

Do not worry. Elementalist will not die. No profession will be removed or rendered unusable, otherwise the game and gems will not sell.

Worst case scenario: elementalist will no longer be meta, but will still exist a great PvP build for it.

In my personal opinion, I think elementalist should no longer be meta. I played 4.3k games on elementalist since game release. Since celestial was added in PvP in 2014 (if I remember right) elementalist is in meta. Even an international tournament was won with 2 elementalists on same team. Sorry, but it was in top for too long and now it should drop from the podium. 2 years of continuous meta is enough for any profession. We should make room for something else (because nothing is perfect).

No matter what happens, elementalist will still be playable and fun.

Seriously, just take that video off your sig. I can’t take anything you say seriously because I just remember how bad it was when we were worse than trash tier.

Mirrodin.8729:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Mirrodin.8729:

Shadowflare.2759:

…Why they think the reworked Diamond Skin is a buff compared to the old DS??

Let me start off by saying that yes, Diamond Skin needed a rework, I’m not here to argue that. However, the toxic part about the old DS (aside from my personal bias against the health threshold) was that it prevented condition APPLICATION.

I don’t think people understand how huge of a difference that makes.

Before, when you try to apply condis, nothing would stick, when you try to corrupt boons, at most you remove the boons and yet no conditions are added. And when/if you manage to drop the ele’s HP under 90%, if they react quickly enough with condi clear/heals, they go back to the immunity. It means the window of opportunity for pure condi users was extremely small in a 1 v 1.

The new DS however, does not prevent application. Hell it isn’t even a resistance, so anything you throw on them takes effect immediately. This means poison, chill, fear can be dropped with some covering conditions, and these three conditions then severely hamper an ele’s ability to maintain health above 75%, or to recover once dropped below the threshold. Boon corruption of course becomes much more powerful vs this new DS. Even with the health threshold being lowered to 75%, this new DS is probably easier to break than the old one.

I honestly just don’t see how people are saying this is a buff. However, maybe I missed something, so please, explain to me why people see this as a buff.

find another build, no light armor user should last longer than a heavy armor by nature, yet without boon corruption (sometimes even with that) eles outlast most damages, suck it up and deal with it

Light armor users have magic, obviously. Less armor because they don’t need it. I’m making a silly comment I admit but you’re attempting to apply logic where magic is involved. Also those heavy armor classes have immunity to damage similar to Diamond Skin, shouldn’t those be removed too?

Then they can use their magic to avoid nerfs? no? well, time to be the underdog class

Underdog class you say? Yea. Been there. done that.