Guild Wars 2

On last Academy Gaming, most Druids picked up that amulet, Tempests did so too and are extremely hard to kill. I am pretty I am not the only one thinking we were over with bunker amulets.

Glenstorm.4059:

Kinda sick of the bugs with our GMs.

Took them so long to fix Lightning Rod. Written in Stone and now Soothing Mist are still bugged.

And we’re still hoping to see Tempest Defense working on other CC than Stun an Knockdowns (and Dazes).

Elemental Enchantment is also bugged with the Overload Recharge not working properly on swap.

I believe that I reported it on /bug report in-game.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Zuik.7158:

My friends, I’m sure that I do not only speak for myself when I say that I am tired of seeing Jesus on a cross because he has no access to stability.

The time has come to buff Jesus.

But Jesus has a perma stealthed chrono ressing him. He didn’t come back a third time cuz they were nerfed and the res taking forever now.

I thought he also had a permanent Sneak Gyro. Anyone saw him recently?

Archon.6480:

The title of this thread would seem to indicate a lack of understanding. This is a L2P issue. Retaliation is easily countered.

By not attacking?

Jourdelune.7456:

Light fields.

Blast or Leap = Retals.

The Light Aura from Leap into a Light Fields can’t be stacked. But if you attack him with multiple hit attack, sure you will melt to the ground.

Are you thief or meditation guard?

Dal

I’d like to put the correction that Light Aura does stack in duration.

bladex.9502:

Alekt.5803:

bladex.9502:

Alekt.5803:

bladex.9502:

Fireball is one of the strongest autoattacks in the game, taking in mind that you can have a lava font on the ground at the same time which can be used for damage or to pressure your enemy.
It also has a pretty decent AoE explosion, so if your foe tries to sidestep it and you aim at the ground it will still hit him.
I would argue that earth 1 is pretty bad, but you generally want to stay away from camping earth too long so you shouldn’t autoattack in earth at all.

If you’re going to complain about skills being useless, try scepter first, because compared to scepter skills staff is severely overpowered.

If you consider putting “lava font” at the same time; we’re no longer speaking of auto-attack. Fire auto-attacks never hit and the attack rate is 1 attack pet 1.4 seconds; that’s weak.

Then its just a l2p issue on your end tbh, I rarely miss them.
With some might and vuln fire autoattacks can easily do over 5k damage, and even tho lava font is not an autoattack, it can be used at the same time, and should be taken in consideration when balancing the autoattack around it.
After all, your autoattack is just a filler between skill cooldowns.

Just a little word of advice I guess since missing them is a big deal for you, try binding your action camera on/off toggle to an easily accessible key and turn it on when you have to autoattack so you can aim towards the ground easier, or just get used to the curve they take and aim that way

I think that we’re talking about different game mode here. Lava Font never hit more than once on players, and players strafe, dodge attacks, do dash closer. Fireball crits for 2k big max on light golems. Offensive Staff is good in PvE; absolutely not in PvP.

I don’t know what build you are playing, but you can clearly see I’m doing 4k-ish crits against a light target golem, and 5k when bolt to the heart kicks in.
Staff is good in pvp, it just requires you to actually play well instead of facerolling with some kittenty celestial d/d build

Well, I did put go Fire, Water and Air (Bolt to the Earth, Pyromancer’s Training, Aquamancer, Force sigil, Scholar Runes, Berserker amulet.) Of course, it deals 5k. But, for example, do a duel against me with all those traits and stats (I am marauder staff myself; and I promise that you will not even hit me once with that set-up.).

Nota Bene. Not that it means much, I got legendary last season using only zerk or marauder staff in solo queue.

bbennett.7463:

Balance is good atm. people need to learn to adapt.

Not really. It is not fair currently.

The perfect balance would be to have all classes viable for tournaments. And way more than 1 builds for each of those classes. For instance, Revenants able to go damage or support or hybrid (via Ventari), Elementalists able to go damage (and not just with scepter: staff too.), Warriors able to do something… Never until then will this game be at its best.

I thought that was intended.

I truly have an issue with the Hammer trait granting another source of passive stability. If one thing was positive about fighting against scrapper was the controlled source of stability limited to Elixir B.

style.6173:

So, first the nerfs were needed. The whole concept of an ele standing on point all day and living just didn’t make sense.

The problem is that ANET didn’t give ele another viable spec as part of the nerf.

That’s why the elementalist community needs to stop saying that Staff is a “support weapon” and start to assume that every weapon set can be molded into a damage role. Weapons just have different feel to it.

Some changes on the Elementalist Air Traits were given. A Lightning Rod bug fix so it may be affected by Tempest Defense which increases the damage dealt to Stunned and Knocked Down foes.

Skills that are not affected by Tempest Defense: Gust, Unsteady Ground, Updraft, Magnetic Shield, Leap Finisher inside Air Fields, Cyclone, Tornado, Tidal Surge, Air Bubble, Undercurrent, Rock Anchor.

However, there is one big issue we’re talking about in the Elementalist Forums and community. Elementalists have a wide variety of Crowd Control sources (Sink, Float, Pull, Lauch, Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Stuns..). Why isn’t Tempest Defense increasing the damage from every sources of CC (On disabled foes) instead of only stunned foes? On subject, the Warhorn, which has two high damaging skills doing a disable (not a stun or a knockdown). Unfortunately, those skill do not work with Tempest Defense’s damage increase.

Elementalists were thrilled to know that their damaging options (in PvP) would be looked at. But sadly, it was an half-measure.

Thank you.

bladex.9502:

Alekt.5803:

bladex.9502:

Fireball is one of the strongest autoattacks in the game, taking in mind that you can have a lava font on the ground at the same time which can be used for damage or to pressure your enemy.
It also has a pretty decent AoE explosion, so if your foe tries to sidestep it and you aim at the ground it will still hit him.
I would argue that earth 1 is pretty bad, but you generally want to stay away from camping earth too long so you shouldn’t autoattack in earth at all.

If you’re going to complain about skills being useless, try scepter first, because compared to scepter skills staff is severely overpowered.

If you consider putting “lava font” at the same time; we’re no longer speaking of auto-attack. Fire auto-attacks never hit and the attack rate is 1 attack pet 1.4 seconds; that’s weak.

Then its just a l2p issue on your end tbh, I rarely miss them.
With some might and vuln fire autoattacks can easily do over 5k damage, and even tho lava font is not an autoattack, it can be used at the same time, and should be taken in consideration when balancing the autoattack around it.
After all, your autoattack is just a filler between skill cooldowns.

Just a little word of advice I guess since missing them is a big deal for you, try binding your action camera on/off toggle to an easily accessible key and turn it on when you have to autoattack so you can aim towards the ground easier, or just get used to the curve they take and aim that way

I think that we’re talking about different game mode here. Lava Font never hit more than once on players, and players strafe, dodge attacks, do dash closer. Fireball crits for 2k big max on light golems. Offensive Staff is good in PvE; absolutely not in PvP.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

If that idea would be added it would be pretty strong. My question is why they didn’t add to warhorn cc that would fit to that trait. Knock-down and stun.

I have my concern: its proc only when we get cc’ed. I would prefer to have option to proc it on our will. In that case I would need way to cc self. My idea is:
-remove Arcane Blast(I trait it for ele surge and use in earth for immobilize in wvw cuz of 1500 range and that is all).
-add Arcane Pull
>pull self torward enemy by 300,
>pull enemy torward you by 300,
>unblockable,
>remove chill self,
>apply burn on target,
>range 600.

So you pull self to proc tempest’ defense.
By pulling enemy you can proc lightning rod on him, that will deal more dmg, cuz already proced tempest defense.
And when both of you will be so close its very common that enemy will hit you with anything. Close range and enemy hitting you – shocking aura do its job and stun him and then follows dmg from lightning rod.

Edit: Its weird that it doesn’t deal bonus dmg vs daze (cuz of comet) or at least comet to could have swaped daze for stun. Its weird that it doesn’t deal bonus dmg vs launch (cuz of updraft) that one at least could be change to knock-down (nope it could, with what we will reposition downed states etc?). Definitely what it is lacking is sink/float, cuz underwater combat. Yes, I prefer if they consider and care about everything.

Tempest Defense works on Dazed foes. Tempest Defense is a two component trait. 1. When getting disabled, you active Shock Aura. 2. You deal increased damage to Stunned and Knocked-Down foes (and Dazed foes, not in the tooltip).

Your utility will not function the way you think. It will be a self-CC (which procs a shocking aura). You will not stun anyone with that aura by default. A pull will only indeed cast Lightning Rod, but will not see its damage improved by 20%. You also need to consider that a stun, followed by any CCs not included in that damage increase will cancel the stun. So, if your target is stunned for 2 seconds by Static Field and you cast Gust on it (a knockback; not a knockdown), it will cancel the stun and apply a knockback: it means that this 2nd lightning rod will not benefit from Tempest Defense either even though the target was stunned beforehand.

Wolfric.9380:

This and fire aura also reduced was unneccessary ele grieving and not balance. DS and cele was more then enough for ele needing to reorient…
Now give us some trait love … One with fire 100% Fire aura duration and give 5s prot on elemental shielding …

Oh please no. No buffs to elemental shielding. Fire Aura duration is meaningless.

You want the duration improvement on Hardy Conduit because any tempest has it and only affect the elementalist itself.
You want One With Fire combined with Conjurer.

bladex.9502:

Fireball is one of the strongest autoattacks in the game, taking in mind that you can have a lava font on the ground at the same time which can be used for damage or to pressure your enemy.
It also has a pretty decent AoE explosion, so if your foe tries to sidestep it and you aim at the ground it will still hit him.
I would argue that earth 1 is pretty bad, but you generally want to stay away from camping earth too long so you shouldn’t autoattack in earth at all.

If you’re going to complain about skills being useless, try scepter first, because compared to scepter skills staff is severely overpowered.

If you consider putting “lava font” at the same time; we’re no longer speaking of auto-attack. Fire auto-attacks never hit and the attack rate is 1 attack pet 1.4 seconds; that’s weak.

For that, Anet needs to update old utilities, or add stuff to skillsets. For now, most classes have 1 healing skill superior to the others and is spammed. Some utilities are permanently benched because they serve no purpose. Some traits are absolutely terrible (Inscription, Conjurer, Serrated Stones…)

BlackBeard.2873:

This is their plan with “cyclical balance” – this season is the season of the medium-armor classes, while warrior, ele, and mes sit on the bench. Next season someone else will be on the bench (although I don’t have much faith in ANet’s ability to balance warr/ele/mes, they will probably just reintroduce cele or something and call everything ok).

Which I absolutely don’t want to see back as an Elementalist main. Let celestial amulet rot.

BlackBeard.2873:

Fireball autos can’t be stronger b/c PvE mobs are dumb and stand in your lava fonts eating constant ticks to the tune of maximum dps in-game (when combined with autos).

Fireball being unreliable/slow-moving, however, is not called for.

I personally don’t think the autos are a problem. I would like to see them address air auto (it is supposed to be high single-target damage…but isn’t), as well as gust (too small of a cone), blinding flash (forever cast time for low dps and a blind?!?!), and shockwave (too slow), but on the whole I don’t think staff autos are all that problematic.

From a pvp perspective, I would like to see some changes that make staff skills more reliable while not buffing pve damage, such as moving ticks of lava font sooner after the cast, and maybe decreasing the blast time for eruption a bit. You could tweak staff to be more effective in pvp without buffing in pve at all. That said, it still has a pretty decent kit for support (mostly due to cc and water fields), it is just that b/c of no weapon-swap ele weapons need to be more adaptable to different roles.

The air auto-attacks are very good in PvP. The bounces can pull off a great “single target” damage if it hits twice. Sad part is that the damage is purposefully reduced by 15% on the last tick. A treatment that was surely not given to the triple Precision Strike we see from sword Revenant nowadays.

Infusion.7149:

That would be an improvement.

You’d probably want more ways to proc shocking aura as well, besides lightning fields like static field.

What do you mean? I think the procs from shocking aura are good enough.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Bugfixes are not nerfs

The bug was there since BW1, or BW2. Honestly, it seemed to be legit. Of course, the numbers were big, but standing on a a 240 radius after an overload was risky by itself.

Currently, there is no gains in standing inside it. All you get is a a protection that only covers the duration of your stay inside the AoE, where you absolutely don’t want to stay with a glassy dps build. (Get protection in melee, but die in melee: trade-off!)

Though, 8 seconds of protection may look long, but one must consider that this protection is not exactly reactive like swapping to earth with arcana. With Tempest, the protection is much harder to control and cannot be timed with the oponent’s burst.

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m sorry wth is this thread? Fresh Air Ele is still a pretty OP build. Maybe not as much in PvP but, in WvW the same build is still nuts. 50%-60% damage reduction and DS still clearing conditions really well. Overloading Air hits way too hard at 1.5-2k procs x 18. That’s just too much for one button press and all that passive defense.

And my end goal is not to stomp people in unranked game. I am looking for competitively viable; and not just the aura-bot healer that is the auramancer from the last meta.

MyPuppy.8970:

I never understood why as having lowest hp/toughness, eles also have the weakest aas/dmg skills/elites. There is no compensation for that innate handicap. Sure we theoryticaly have the most dps potential, but that requires all stars to be aligned during a solar eclipse. You HAVE to spec survivability to be somewhat useful to your team, or if you go full damage, you are much less efficient than any other class. This class has been designed to be a swiss knife, so everything feels kitten.

The removal of celestial is a good thing, but there needs to be tools to be efficient in any specialization you chose. That is why our gm traits were originally designed to be strong, that was role defining, they were an issue with some amulets because of the design of the class. But once those said amulets are removed, if you don’t have any gm trait worth taking anymore, and you directly/indirectly nerf/fix their source of dmg mitigation, you leave a class without any decent role in a team since others can do better with less investment.

I’m not complaining though, I can still manage to have my share of fun. But it always leaves a bitter aftertaste.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind the Jack of All Trade nowadays. Seems to be that Scrappers are way more All Trade than Elementlists now, along with Revenant having an impressive number of cooldowns to use.

BlackBeard.2873:

Good, now another overload is complete trash. Overloads are still a terrible mechanic, and maybe this “bug-fix” will make them realize the costs are still too astronomically high to be used outside of:

- Air overload with fresh air (which negates the half the cost)
- Fire overload in PvE fire-camping staff, which doesn’t swap anyway

Of course, it is optimistic to think they would actually FIX the underlying issues. Instead, expect them to tack on some more (mostly useless) effects eventually, hoping to make it useful. For earth overload, they will probably add something like:
- 20% chance to reflect projectiles while overloading
- toughness increased by 100 during earth overload
- movement impeding conditions reduced by 20% during overload (ignoring that this conflicts with a supposed GM trait, which is garbage)

Literally, think of the most useless effects you can tack onto a bad skill, and that is probably what will be added.

Lucid Singularity is indeed garbage.

“Overload Earth: Fixed a bug that caused this overload to deliver extra protection per pulse rather than the intended 1 second per pulse. Fixed a bug that caused the lingering damage to follow the elementalist around after the overload had completed.”

This change was sold as a bug fix, but it was probably the greatest nerf in the entire patch to an individual class (not counting the removal of celestial amulet). Here is a quantitative overview of the nerf.

Hardy Conduit: 3 seconds of protection initially.
The Overload Earth is 9 ticks of damage; the fifth tick, the explosion does not grant protection. On self, it used granted 1 second pulse for 4 seconds. Considering that the 5th tick never granted that 1 second pulse, the Tempest has 4 seconds of protection to self.

Bug The Tempest would keep pulsing 1 second of protection to self for a total of 4 pulses (4 extra seconds). Additionnally, the Overload left an AoE pulsing 3 seconds of protection every seconds for a total of 16 seconds of protection if the elementalist stayed.

So, in absolute protection duration, you had: 23 seconds of protection to self. (26 seconds with elemental shielding). For 15 or 18 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Allies received (8×1) seconds of protection + (8×3) for 32 seconds of protection (35 with shielding), for 24 or 27 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Currently, the absolute protection duration is 11 seconds from Overload Earth if fully completed and remaining in the dust storm. (14 seconds with elemental shielding). For 3 seconds of protection once overload is over, up to 6 with shielding. For allies, it grants 8 seconds of protection; 0 or 3 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Nota Bene. Once must also consider that the Tempest will swap out of Earth once the Overload is completed. At best, the cooldown of Overload Earth is 26 seconds (need to stay 6 seconds in an attunement to overload).

In percentage, the protection uptime reduction was.
For self: 23 seconds; down to 11 seconds. (52% nerf.)
For allies: 32 seconds; down to 8 seconds. (75% nerf.)
And, this was sold as a bug fix.

SOLUTIONS:
-Increase protection duration from Hardy Conduit to 5 seconds, up fro 3 seconds.
-Reduce Overload Recharge time to 15 seconds, down from 20.

Did I just catch you having fun in HotM?

Browrain.7346:

Jesus man. I sympathize with your situation, especially since you played zerk ele without DS during season 1. But this is the 3rd thread you’ve made about eles that I can see just on the front page.

Isn’t it the second? One being an odd unwanted duplicate. Both are relevant.

What would be wrong in having 150 Power when attuned to Fire, 150 thoughness when attuned to earth, soothing mist when attuned to water, 25% movespeed when attuned to air?

Then give cheap stat conversions to adept tiers representing the secondary or primary stat of the attunement based on power or condition damage, whichever grants more to the player.

Why can’t they be traded for more goodies like champion bags?

Currently, Tempest Defense works only on Stuns, Dazes, and Knockdown. Knowing the vast variety of crowdcontrol of the Elementalist, why not extend it to every type of CC, including (Launch, Sink, Float, Knockback, Pull, Fear, Taunt)?

Currently, Warhorn damaging crowd control abilities are not working with that trait due to the nature of their CC being Pull and Knockback.

Chaith.8256:

Dragonhunters were nerfed to balance it better at lower divisions, at high divisions, Dragonhunters are just worse & slightly different Revenants/Scrappers.

Cry nerf but it’d probably be bad to change DH for the worse, ever. If anything, buff them with some mechanic to heighten how good they can be if they master a really difficult/skillful mechanic.

Chaith, I believe that you see the Dh from a scrapper point of view. From my elementalist point of view, Dh are quite strong. Though, so are any other classes for that purpose. Ele is garbage.

reikken.4961:

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

broken or not, it was exactly what was carrying tempest. what was enabling it to survive and support well in team fights, more than diamond skin ever did. The change is a severe nerf. that change alone, without even removing celestial or nerfing diamond skin, would likely have brought tempest in line. Diamond skin was never an issue before tempest and perma protection.

Then you layer that on top of the other nerfs and lol

I prefer the removal of celestial amulet. Celestial amulet only made elementalist boring.

The point of the thread is to give a quantitative overview of the nerf, hidden as a bug fix on Overload Earth, and to also give the results of my testing, since I claimed Elementalist were fine earlier this week. I do not think it is the case anymore: elementalists are very weak.

Staff is also useless now.

Malchior.5732:

StickerHappy.8052:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

I’ve seen them land, yes. Gust is broken, but at least you can sorta aim it.
Precision Strike literally targets whatever it wants.
Also, Staff has much more going for it than just those few broken skills. Revenant Sword has three(!) buggy, half-functional skills, and a nerfed auto-attack. The only thing it has going for it is damage and an evade that fails often.

Now, is Staff melee range? No, of course not. You can zone the Revenant with it and make them run through a bunch of garbage.
It’s almost like you don’t even want to try anymore.

Super defense coming from a revenant player which is basically saying “Rev is fine”

sigh
Fine. Just die to every Revenant. I really don’t care.
I’m just baffled that people complain about the most basic things and then they act like their class has no options against it.
Sword 2 has really clear weaknesses, but if you choose to completely ignore them, then what to do expect?

Oh, and the person who said that Revenant is fine was actually Roy :^)
Ever since Beta, I’ve been saying it’s not fine and mentioning things that are too strong and things that are too weak. Of course, I don’t really affect any of the changes. Anet just kinda does whatever it wants.

EDIT @ Alekt: So, you have soft-CC (one of them being completely unavoidable for the Revenant), you have hard-CC he also can’t really avoid, you can block his path, you can just deal damage, you out-range him, and you still haven’t considered utilities or traits.
Wanna go further? Staff isn’t even meant to 1v1 and it still has good options against Revenant Sword. Now either counter-play like other classes or sit there and get killed by Precision Strike.

If there is one class good at avoiding Frozen ground it is Revenant, and why on earth would I think that chill will do anything for me with all those dodge rolls and blinks? You have more chill on precision strike alone. Revenants are not easier to kill with elementalist, and don’t go on talking about 1v1: You are as useful in teamfight has a revenant than is an elementalist, if not better.

Sure. Let’s go to utilities. I have a utility blocking 3 attacks on a 75 seconds cooldown. I have no choice to use it because of thieves pressure amongst others. I have FGS on a 180 seconds cooldown. The point of the thread had absolutely nothing to do with 1v1, and if it did: so little.

I suppose you’re going to talk to me about energy management next. You are full of kitten.

Malchior.5732:

Browrain.7346:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

To be fair, you can’t really run from a rev.

Uh, use soft-CC? Ele has a decent amount and Revenant doesn’t have any cleanses anyway.

You can use hard-CC too. The stability got nerfed and the best Stun Break is expensive on Energy. Assuming they Retribution. If they go full damage, they wont even have any Stability.

You can also just run around; they don’t have as many spammable gap closers like Thief. At most, Phase Traversal (expensive), Axe 4 (it’s not hard to spot), and Unrelenting Assault (tons of ways to make it fail and now you can fully dodge it).

Soft CC = Shockwave (30 second cooldown, 3/4 cast time 3/4 aftercast), Frozen Ground (40 seconds cooldown). That’s it.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

You’re Staff. Why are you in melee range?

Staff is melee range. Have you seen a Gust landing from range or a Shockwave, or any auto-attacks?

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

A and D have 0 second cooldown.

Can you stop already? Strafing in melee. You have a revenant auto-attack to worry about.

coax.2951:

You realise stacking over half a minute of protection with one overload, AoE, was incredibly broken, right?

Half a minute if staying on the circle of the overload, and after its 4 seconds channel. It was the dust storm at the end that granted the most of the protection. You cannot stay on that area most of the time.

Consider that I am generous with my figures and that they represent the best case scenario. I am also from a non-earth perspective; a non-bunker one.

Malchior.5732:

Alekt.5803:

Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike

Press 3 on Earth Staff, 4 on Focus, use Earth Shout, or just walk back and forth/jump around. Better yet, just fight near boxes or houses.

I can guarantee you that you wont be hit for 7k ever again (until it gets fixed and/or nerfed because people are crying over a non-functional skill that shoots everywhere other than the target).

On-Topic: Yes, it sucks. That’s why I swapped to a class that has actual offensive capabilities.

Precision Strike is 5 seconds cooldown.

I have been playing marauder staff tempest the whole time last season. And I was surviving well against scrappers, thieves, mesmers, revenants (depending on the player), and I could deal with a few necromancers..

Though, with this patch, my build was struck severely by collateral nerfs. The magnetic aura duration reduction by 20% greatly affects your chances to fight Dragonhunters, which was already a feat to beat in 1v1. Now, it’s even worse. Thieves needed a good placement of stun fields to win; but now, they can burst you down way easily than before. Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike: it’s one massive cooldown to worry about that adds up to the lots of Staff Charge, Unrelentling Assault, quickness auto-attacks (and to make it worse, it’s a mid ranged attack). With necromancer, it is just impossible now.

Some people might wonder how elementalist was hit so bad. “1 second on auras is so little!” (I will not talk about Diamond skin; I was not using it.)

Protection nerf (A bug fix)
The massive nerf on Tempest was the bug fix on Overload Earth (a bug that was there since beta weekend 2, I must add, so it did not look like a bug). I’ll give you the math behind that protection uptime for Self.

Hardy Conduit: 3 seconds of protection initially.
The Overload Earth is 9 ticks of damage; the fifth tick, the explosion does not grant protection. On self, it used granted 1 second pulse for 4 seconds. Considering that the 5th tick never granted that 1 second pulse, the Tempest has 4 seconds of protection to self.
Bug The Tempest would keep pulsing 1 second of protection to self for a total of 4 pulses (4 extra seconds). Additionnally, the Overload left an AoE pulsing 3 seconds of protection every seconds for a total of 16 seconds of protection if the elementalist stayed.

So, in absolute protection duration, you had: 23 seconds of protection to self. (26 seconds with elemental shielding). For 15 or 18 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Allies received (8×1) seconds of protection + (8×3) for 32 seconds of protection (35 with shielding), for 24 or 27 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Currently, the absolute protection duration is 11 seconds from Overload Earth if fully completed and remaining in the dust storm. (14 seconds with elemental shielding). For 3 seconds of protection once overload is over, up to 6 with shielding. For allies, it grants 8 seconds of protection; 0 or 3 seconds of protection once overload is over.

_Nota Bene. Once must also consider that the Tempest will swap out of Earth once the Overload is completed. At best, the cooldown of Overload Earth is 26 seconds (need to stay 6 seconds in an attunement to overload).

In percentage, the protection uptime reduction was.
For self: 23 seconds; down to 11 seconds. (52% nerf.)
For allies: 32 seconds; down to 8 seconds. (75% nerf.)
And, this was sold as a bug fix.

SOLUTIONS:
-Increase the protection gains for Hardy Conduit to 5 seconds, up from 3.
-Decrease the overload recharge to 15 seconds, down from 20.

I have been playing marauder staff tempest the whole time last season. And I was surviving well against scrappers, thieves, mesmers, revenants (depending on the player), and I could deal with a few necromancers..

Though, with this patch, my build was struck severely by collateral nerfs. The magnetic aura duration reduction by 20% greatly affects your chances to fight Dragonhunters, which was already a feat to beat in 1v1. Now, it’s even worse. Thieves needed a good placement of stun fields to win; but now, they can burst you down way easily than before. Revenants are dealing 7k crits with precision strike: it’s one massive cooldown to worry about that adds up to the lots of Staff Charge, Unrelentling Assault, quickness auto-attacks (and to make it worse, it’s a mid ranged attack). With necromancer, it is just impossible now.

Some people might wonder how elementalist was hit so bad. “1 second on auras is so little!” (I will not talk about Diamond skin; I was not using it.)

Protection nerf (A bug fix)
The massive nerf on Tempest was the bug fix on Overload Earth (a bug that was there since beta weekend 2, I must add, so it did not look like a bug). I’ll give you the math behind that protection uptime for Self.

Hardy Conduit: 3 seconds of protection initially.
The Overload Earth is 9 ticks of damage; the fifth tick, the explosion does not grant protection. On self, it used granted 1 second pulse for 4 seconds. Considering that the 5th tick never granted that 1 second pulse, the Tempest has 4 seconds of protection to self.
Bug The Tempest would keep pulsing 1 second of protection to self for a total of 4 pulses (4 extra seconds). Additionnally, the Overload left an AoE pulsing 3 seconds of protection every seconds for a total of 16 seconds of protection if the elementalist stayed.

So, in absolute protection duration, you had: 23 seconds of protection to self. (26 seconds with elemental shielding). For 15 or 18 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Allies received (8×1) seconds of protection + (8×3) for 32 seconds of protection (35 with shielding), for 24 or 27 seconds of protection once overload is over.

Currently, the absolute protection duration is 11 seconds from Overload Earth if fully completed and remaining in the dust storm. (14 seconds with elemental shielding). For 3 seconds of protection once overload is over, up to 6 with shielding. For allies, it grants 8 seconds of protection; 0 or 3 seconds of protection once overload is over.

_Nota Bene. Once must also consider that the Tempest will swap out of Earth once the Overload is completed. At best, the cooldown of Overload Earth is 26 seconds (need to stay 6 seconds in an attunement to overload).

In percentage, the protection uptime reduction was.
For self: 23 seconds; down to 11 seconds. (52% nerf.)
For allies: 32 seconds; down to 8 seconds. (75% nerf.)
And, this was sold as a bug fix.

Fire line is junk

Lampshade.7569:

Alekt.5803:

Honestly, I believe in minor changes. Shockwave aftercast, damage adjustments (Condi and Power); Add something to Magnetic aura (favorably in the form of a minor condition clear because the only source of clear on staff is on a 45 seconds cooldown); Slight reduction of Healing Rain cooldown and cast time reduction (You have no time to cast it while focused by necro and you need to stay on field to gain the effects for over 6 seconds); Lava Font instant. That’s about it.

That sounds mostly reasonable, staff really is very weak to condi. Though you should specify what you mean by “lava font instant”. The first tick? That’s still too weak. The total damage? That’s a one-shot button on 4s cooldown. I’d be okay with having first two ticks happen instantly and the remaining ones adjusted to keep the total damage the same.

Overall though, my point is that I would prefer to not invite dev attention at all x)

Lava Font instant means the first tick is immediate. That’s the usual saying in the forums. And it’s quite very strong if you played enough staff.

Sarrs.4831:

Wouldn’t Eles and Tempests still counter heavily projectile-dependent classes like Rangers and Dragonhunters?

Ranger is absolutely not favorable. And, Dh is certainly not easy: magnetic aura 20% reduction.

Browrain.7346:

Axialbloom.8109:

Browrain.7346:

Why do you feel like you need to counter someone?

If a profession cannot beat anything, then it is pointless.

Being able to beat someone does not mean countering it.

Favorable match-ups is the word I am looking for.

Is there a class Elementalist is favorable against in a 1v1?

Lampshade.7569:

Alekt.5803:

A lot of changes proposed do not even affect PvE. PvE rotation is Lava Font, Fireball and Overload Fire.

Most of the proposed changes sound rather overpowered. If the staff is too strong in pvp, whining for nerfs will commence and the nerfs will be made in a way that does affect PvE, even if the buffs don’t, because that’s how they seem to roll.

Silly me. I was not referring to the OP’s. I was mostly concluding from a meta analysis of multiple thread. The help staff needs is on usability. If Focus received quality of life changes, I don’t see why staff doesn’t get quality of life changes.

For instance, an immediate tick of lava font does not affect PvE since the damage remains the same. This sort of change is directed toward the damaging capacity of staff against players.

I do not advocate for massive overhauls.

Honestly, I believe in minor changes. Shockwave aftercast, damage adjustments (Condi and Power); Add something to Magnetic aura (favorably in the form of a minor condition clear because the only source of clear on staff is on a 45 seconds cooldown); Slight reduction of Healing Rain cooldown and cast time reduction (You have no time to cast it while focused by necro and you need to stay on field to gain the effects for over 6 seconds); Lava Font instant. That’s about it.

Yes. I’d like to some runes to be looked at too. And sigils too.