Guild Wars 2

Build variety means nothing, that isn’t the current problem with the class so that shouldn’t be what is concentrated on. Most people go into Earth, Water and Arcana for defense.

I mean even with ,1700 toughness i am still taking 12k+ Backstabs…
Until we are able to actually FIGHT someone without being burst down in seconds even when we are built for defense, build variety won’t change.

Arcana is used more for the attunement cool down reduction than it is anything else, sure it has some great traits in it but even if they weren’t there people would still be putting 20+ points into it just to have a more reasonable cool down on attunements

The class needs a lot of work to really get it up to the standard of other classes both in WvW and in S/TPvP. Being forced to trait and build to counter the disadvantage that we start out with says it all. We were like a sort of Magical Thief, great damage and burst but easily killed if we made mistakes but with all the nerfs we are now pretty much a squishy thief without the damage or defense.

Sure, you get some insane burst eles but, they are not insane because the build is great or they are good – its the gear. Exo to Ascended/Legendary is a HUGE upgrade when it comes to Ele.

I have seen people melt people and seen them get crushed when they change to Exo gear. Builds like Fresh Air are pretty much “Kill them before they kill you” a tiny mistake, a dodge at the right time, or using an Invul skill means the burst is wasted and the ele is pretty much on the back foot until they can try to chain the burst again.

I think we would have more build diversity is our Health and/armor was increased. When you consider our rather weak defensive utilities with shorter durations and longer cool downs than comparable defensive skills from other classes it makes no sense.

Sure we can go the healing route but again, we lose so much elsewhere that we would be no threat to anyone. Unlike some of these classes (Warrior, Guardian) that can build for great offense and yet still be tanky as hell

Mattmatt.4962:

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

It is pretty much that way as it is. All this would do is actually give you a stat boost depending on the attunement you are in.

Already you go Air for Damage, it beats Fire damage already and you go Water for heals and and such so a boost here to healing power would be you know kind of obvious. You go Earth depending on your weapon set for defense, i mean after all you take 5 points in Earth you get more toughness anyway.

I think this is how they wanted the class to actually be. They just havent done enough to make it so you can decide what you want to build around, bar damage in which case you would go Fresh Air trait and go Air.

SO this change would pretty much make it so that the attunements actually have a reason and give you a bonus for what ever you would like to use. Why is it that only Earth should give you a buff and even then cost you 5trait points? It is clear they have a specific role in mind for each attunement, they just sorta gave up mid-design.

Surely “we” is totally wrong. You are assuming that EVERY ele thinks the same as you. This simply is wrong. With this change you wouldn’t need to spec into anything to get the benefit. You would get the added stats as part of the class mechanic.

Sorry but I would take fighting a Condi Necro over any of the other Condi builds. Necro has Conditions and that is it.

Engineer has better access to spamming conditions, better healing, better defense, better mobility, plenty of knockbacks

Mesmer has plenty of conditions, clones, illusions, stealth, knockbacks,

Thief, insanely broken stealth, great burst even when built for conditions, great and near constant condition application

Warrior, insane health, insane regen, plenty of conditions, knockbacks and such

Out of them all, i would say that Necromancer isnt even the strongest condition build anymore. They has Signet of Spite, but that is about it. They have next to no defense, they can’t escape should it go in your favor, they cant chase should it go in theirs.

My necromancer i s a PowerDS build. It is a lot more fun than the condition builds that are pretty much mark spamming in Staff and taking Scepter. I take the traits to make FB give me Might and give them Vul and to pierce.

Sure it still has like next to no defense, terrible mobility and you will either win, die or they will run but its more fun than condition builds.

The right build and D/D can be a support/small team set as well. I mean after all Anet did want us to have synergy between attunements…yet D/D has none of that, all we can do is blast fire fields and that is ALL we can do.

So i don’t see what is wrong with adding other fields to the weapon, it isn’t as if it will suddenly make every Staff ele go D/D and it won’t make us suddenly overpowered because we have a few field options as well.

Dagger/Dagger currently have 4 Blast finishers, yet only 1 field type, what is really the point in that. It isn’t as if Stacking Might is really that hard anyway.

As Ele, we suck under water. As you have stated only 1 Elite currently works under water, it is a good one though and does plenty of damage. Personally i go with Earth as i am a condition build and our under water conditions are even worse than our on ground ones.

Take the 25% movement speed increase as it means you get to get out of water faster.

Killing people who are clearly terrible at the game does not mean you have a good build. ANY good player would remove Burning and Bleeding. It is easily done. So against GOOD player’s – No you want have 2minutes of burning. It is that simple.

As for Geomancy, that is down to opinion and build. I easily get more than 12 stacks of Bleeding going. Of course that is just me and how i play. Bleeding isn’t even a priority condition for me. I concentrate on Burning.

We have so much access to burning that it isn’t needed on a trait. Which those points can be better spent elsewhere. While you have solid Toughness, that wont stop a decent Thief killing you easily thanks to your very low health.

I prefer to use Arcane Power with Burning or Blind myself, i find 1 second Immobilize rather useless, though it does work better on Scepter thanks to the MUCH better Auto attack Earth has in Scepter compared to the Dagger version

Its a shame as Fire and Earth Auto attacks are better on Scepter than they are on Dagger.

As for – “ive tested this throughly in solo q in team tournies and in hot join and it stands up to other condi builds like a beast”

This means nothing, sorry to tell you this but it doesn’t mean anything due to the fact of just how many TERRIBLE players are in S/TPvP. Against GOOD players, i don’t see much of a threat.

I do find it funny, Adding a Water Field to a weapon, which is pretty much all i suggested – how exactly what that make ANYTHING worse? This would SURELY make it better, at least then we would have another combo option rather than the same old Might stacking, like we cant do that already…

All you need is Fury and it procs. I run with 8% Crit Chance. That becomes 28% when i switch attunement. It procs just fine, same with Torment Sigil and Perplexity. Why people insist on having such a huge Crit cance for like 3 things i dont know.

You would get better out of Geomancy than you would with Sigil of Earth. 3stacks of Bleeding for 7 seconds, in an AoE is pretty nice. Sorry but you will ONLY get 2minutes of burning on…well no one. The amount of condition removal in the game means NO one will have 2minutes of burning on them.

Again, Bleeding is easily removed as well. You simply won’t get 2minutes of Burning on ANYONE without bursting ALL your skills – you would need to use your Heal (6 seconds), all 3 utilities AND Dragon’s Tooth and Ring of Fire – that even wouldn’t get you 1 minute…

and like i said, that wouldnt even go for full duration due to all the cleansing in the game. So that is rather wasted.

Julie Yann.5379:

I only Alt an Ele and I’m not familiar with all the intricacies of the skill and traits. Do the effects of Arcane Blast or Wave and Elemental Surge Stack? Would I get 10 sec of burn instead of 5 or 6 sec of chill instead of 3? I won’t have access to game worthy internet for another week so I can’t test it.

Yes they stack. For Example with Elemental Surge and using Elemental Power in Fire you would get 25 seconds of Burning (based on a 5 second duration of burning) The others stack as well. As these are duration conditions unlike say Bleeding they will stack duration rather than intensity.

Mystogan.4157:

Need crit for procs.

You don’t though. Burning Precision is a waste of 10 trait points. We have SO much access to Burning that we dont actually need it. Your Sigil of Earth could be better used as well with replacing it for geomancy which is 3 stacks of Bleeding in an AoE around you.

Julie Yann.5379:

This looks like a real interesting build, I think I will try it out (with a few personal tweaks) for WvW roaming.

I have a WvW version as well.

Traits:

Fire: 0
Air: 0
Earth: 30 – V, VII and II or XI (depending on fights)
Water: 10 – II
Arcana: 30 – VI, VIII, XII

Armor: Toughness/Vitality/Condition Damage
Weapons: Toughness/Healing Power Condition Damage
Accessories: 2xPrecision/Toughness/Vit/Condition damage
Amulet: Precision/Toughness/Vit/Condition Damage
Rings: Toughness/Healing Power/Condition Damage
Sigils: Corruption, Torment and Geomancy (replace Corruption, one not being used)
Runeset: Perplexity

Heal: Arcane Brilliance
Utilities: Arcane Shield, Arcane Power, Armor of Earth
Elite: Reaper of Grenth (Human Elite) or FGS

With this set up i have access to: Burning, Bleeding, Confusion, Torment, Cripple, Chill. Burning is my key condition and ticks for between 800-900. Churning Earth can tick for over 1k bleeding ticks and when timed right i can get 2k Bleeding ticks

Arcane Shield and Power can be used to great effect against the likes of Warriors and Guardians when used in Air as they proc Blinds. Arcane brilliance is rather solid as well and can proc different conditions based on my attunement as well.

Demand!? i havent demanded anything.
The simple fact is, the MELEE heal is BETTER on a RANGED weapon. Does that make sense to anyone?

If it is a heal for anyone, of any weapon set to use, buff the heal and remove the healing increased part. Even then, thanks to the Blast finisher it will STILL be better on Staff.

I am running a condition ele build myself, which i am really enjoying. Sure it isnt the overpowered mess that most condition builds are but its a lot of fun.

My advice:

Burning – This will be a key condition. With this in mind. Replace Scepter with main hand Dagger, while Scepter has some decent skills it loses several key ones as well – Drakes Breath, Cone of Cold, Frozen Burst, Shocking Aura, Ring of Earth and Magnetic Grasp can all be very useful in various fights. Even without buffs Drakes Breath can do like 8-9k Burning, plus its great being an AoE. Burning Speed is also a VERY good skill.

I would replace the rune set and go for Undead Runes, Replace the amulet for Carrion Amulet and grab Settlers Jewel. This will give you 1,468 Condition damage, 1,411 Toughness and nearly 18,000 health. Sigil wise, you are wasting them as well. Go with Geomancy for Damage and AoE bleeding The second one is your choice, Seeing as Burning is such a key condition could go with 10% Burning Duration.

Trait wise – 10 in Fire is rather wasted, the proc for burning is rather low and you have plenty of access to burning without it. I would put them points into Earth for more Condition Damage and Toughness and grab either Earth’s Embrace or Diamond Skin depending on who is on the other team I would also replace Serrated Stones with Elemental Shielding. As you will now have 2 Auras (with D/D) and you will need them to not die rather easily. Replace Arcane Retribution with Elemental Attunement this will help both you and your team mates with some very decent buffs.

Utilities wise, mostly okay. Glyph of Elemental Power can be very handy. You can trigger it in one attunement and then switch to another and keep the condition from it. I run with Arcane Shield, Arcane Power and either LF, EP or GoS depending on the situation.

Elite wise, we are as a conditon build rather screwed. In WvW i mostly use Reaper of Grenth (Human Elite) but FGS can be very good as well thanks to its nice Burning it has.

Mystogan.4157:

I jst kiled a sig hammer war with this build =3 made sure he couldnt get to me with arcane surge

Lol, this means nothing really. We have no idea on his/her skill level, what sort of build they were or anything else about the fight. You could very well go against another Sig warrior and get owned.

Gutted. Some of these Ele changes would have been nice. Tornado needs a BIG buff. The fact that it doesnt give extra toughness to an already weak (armor/toughness wise) class is bad enough, having an Elite that turns you into a big “kill me now” tornado is rather poor.

Trait Wise i think the class needs a bit more work as well. I would like to see each Attunement given a proper role. For me it would have to be:

Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Direct/Burst damage
Water: Healing
Earth: Defense

They could achieve this in various ways.

Fire:

Minors
Flame Barrier – Increase Proc chance to 50%, Increase Burning to 2seconds.
Sunspot – Increase Damage and have it inflict Burning for 3 seconds to all affected
Burning Rage: Changed to 25% Increased Burning Damage

Adapt
Lava Tomb – Remove. I hate traits that require you to go down to be work
Conjurer – increase charge to 15, add Auto attacks don’t remove charge
Embers Might – Fine. No need for change
Spell Slinger – Fine(?) Don’t use Cantrip builds but seems okay
Burning Precision – Increase Proc chance to 50%, Increase duration to 3seconds
Internal Fire – Change to Increase Condition damage by 10% while in Fire

Master
Pyromancer’s Alacrity – Inflicting Burning on targets removes a condition from yourself. 5second cool down. Keeps current effects as well.
Burning Fire – Reduce Cool down to 30seconds. Burning Inflicted is increased by more conditions that are removed
Fire’s Embrace – Arcane Skills also proc Shield. Duration increased to 5 seconds. Burning Increased to 3 seconds. No ICD
One With Fire – Replace with something else.

Grandmaster:
Persisting Flame – Also grants 5 stacks of Might for 10seconds. Fire Field increased duration by 5 seconds.

Pryomancer’s Puissance – Increase Might Duration. Currently it stacks to about 7/8 currently, that isnt Grandmaster quality. Engineer has a Master Level trait that also increases Toughness when using Flamethrower that gives more.

Air:

Minors
Zephyrs Speed – Seems okay. Nothing to amazing about it.
Electric Discharge – Great Trait.
Weak Spot – Very Solid trait.

Adapt:
Zephyrs Boon – Solid trait. I do wish Protection from the Earth one was combined with this though into just 1 trait.
Zephyrs Focus – Decent Trait.
Quick Glyphs – Solid trait again
One With Air – Increase Super Speed to 2 1/2 seconds.
Soothing Winds – Increase to 10%

Master:
bolt To The Heart: Solid Trait. About right for a Master
Arcane Lightening: Increase to to 25% and Make it stack.
Inscription – Protection duration increased to 5seconds.
Aeromancer’s Alacrity – 25% chance on Crit to inflict Weakness added to its current effects.
Air Training: Solid. Maybe increase to 15%

Grandmaster:
Tempest Defense – Reduce cool down to 5seconds. Remove ICD on stun.
Fresh Air: Great trait.

(Will do the other 3 trait lines in another post)

Ancient Ranger.3276:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Forst Aura: Reduce the cool down to 30seconds. Remove the ICD and make it so that it heals the Ele and near by allies when they get hit while this is up.

There is one problem with that suggestion a group of 5 Elementalist will be able to keep that up permanently with powerful aura on each other and would make it a little to over powered.
Don’t get me wrong I’m all up for buffing Ele’s but not so big of a buff that we need to be nerfed again for another year straight just to get some tiny love a little later.

An easy fix: Healing only applies to the ele that uses the skill. Any shared aura only gets the current version of Frost Aura. minus the removal of the ICD of course.

BOOM. sorted. Nothing Overpowered what so ever.

Weapon skills: Insane cool downs
Utilities: Average, compared to other classes and insane cool downs
Elites: VERY poor and insane cool downs.

I think Each Attunement should buff specific stats as part of the class mechanic:
Fire: Condition Damage
Air: Critical Damge, Power or Precision
Water: Healing Power
Earth: Toughness

From a D/D Ele point of view. D/D i think should get Water Field on Cleansing Wave, it is INSANELY weak for a 40second cool down skill. I would say drop the cool down to 30seceonds and add a Water Field.

Fire Skills:
Drakes Breath: Turn The burning in to a intensity stacking condition for Ele. We have very little access to conditions and i think this change would be a great one for the class. The cool down might need to be buffed a bit though

Burning Speed: Keep the new Evade aspect, add in leap Finisher.

Ring of Fire: Give it a condition removal aspect, 1 condition removed on entering/exiting the ring and another condition removed every second you stay inside the ring.

Fire Grab: Change it. Make it so that it REMOVES burning but does say 50% of that Burnings damage added onto the current aspect

Air:

Lightening Touch: Its okay in my opinion.

Shocking Aura: remove the ICD. Inflicts 1 stack of Weakness/Confusion every time a player is stunned

Ride The Lightening: Unnerf. Make it 20 seconds base cast, 15seconds if you hit someone. Make the Impact on a player a blast finisher as well.

Updraft: Decrease cool down to 30seconds, Increase Launch from 200 to 400

Water:

Cone of Cold: Up the healing done.

Frozen Burst: Increase the radius a tad.

Forst Aura: Reduce the cool down to 30seconds. Remove the ICD and make it so that it heals the Ele and near by allies when they get hit while this is up.

Cleansing Wave: Reduce the cool dwon to 30seconds. Increase the Healing a tad. Add a Water Field that grants 3seconds of regen every second, lasts 4 seconds.

Earth:

Ring of Earth: Add Poison. Make it a Poison Field.

Magnetic Grasp: Increase Immobilize. Increase projectile speed.

Earthquake: Reduce to 30seconds. Increase Knockdown from 2 to 3 seconds.

Churning Earth: Increase Cripple duration from each tick from 1 to 3 seconds. Decrease the cast time from 3 and 1/4 seconds to 2 seconds.

Iris Ng.9845:

Same can be asked for engi and their kits. And I believe a strong “No” from Anet will be issued.

You can’t compare Conjures to Engineer Kits. Until Conjures dont have a set duration and usage limit and a 60second cool down, then they can not be compared to kits.

I have over 1,600 Toughness and i am taking 10-11k single hits….
It makes you wonder what is the point of Armor and Toughness on a class like Ele if no matter how much you have it is never enough. Though its even worse in WvW where i have been hit for 16k damage from a class you can’t see coming, from a skill that costs them NOTHING…

I hate the fact that auto attacks count towards the VERY low usage limit. Personally i would it if they just removed the usage limit. Of course it would mean skills would need to be adjusted a little. Of course FGS would stay the way it is currently.

As i said, D/D is WAY more fun. You should not be forced into a certain weapon set to make the most out of a heal. Even worse it is better on a RANGE weapon when it is a MELEE heal.

The problem is it would NOT be a huge buff, when you consider the fact that the skill it would be attached to has an INSANE cool down, is WEAKER than both the Staff heals – So why shouldn’t Cleansing Wave be given a Water Field?

cheese.4739:

Ash, I think you should just start playing staff if you’re so desperate for water fields

D/D is SO much more fun, i prefer being in the centre of the action. It won’t take long before Anet sees the error of their ways and sees that the “buffs” are are getting will have little to no impact on our sustainability. So, maybe just maybe we might actually get D/D Water fields in the future, well when Guild Wars 3 launches maybe…

With Staff being a RANGE weapon it doesnt really need to have 2 Water fields, so i would be more than happy if one got moved to D/D the weapon set that is 100% melee. At least Staff have the choice of to fight close range or at a distance, D/D doesn’t have that choice.

Or, remove the blast finisher from Frozen Blast and put a Water Field (and buff) Cleansing Wave.

IchigoHatake.5098:

That’s not how you use that heal -__-, you use it with staff ele, use “geyser” when in water form then use arcane brilliance for a blast finisher which will heal you about 7k :P

Thats the problem. A heal that is meant to be used a bit offensively in Melee range is actually better used at Range, not hitting any targets and just used on a Water Field. This is why i think D/D needs to be given access to a Water Field so that they can use it to full effect.

With Elemental Serge it is a pretty decent heal but it is rather wasted on D/D thanks to the fact they have no access to Water Fields. I have used Geyser and Arcane Brilliance combo on staff just to see what its like and I got a rather big heal from it, i think it was like 8-9,000 that was with NO one being hit by it or anything either.

The problem is – they are not used because they are powerful – they are used because we have NO other choice. I run either Mist or AoE, not because they are great but because we WILL die without them, though even with them we could still very well die.

I run a Arcane build mostly, but even Arcane Shield isn’t enough currently so forced into have TWO utility skills that are defensive and ALL of them are on insane cool downs and rather average for what they actually do compared to other defensive skills from other classes.

Not holding my breathe about Ele changes, from what they have said so far it means nothing, SoR is still going to be rather weak due to the fact you will be dead way before it does anything anyway.

The Sigil changes are surely going to be WEAKER for Ele and Engineer, are thy going to be getting buffs elsewhere to counter the fact they can only have 2 sigils? While every other class could have access to up to 4?

Said before and i will say again, Ele needs its health and armor status looked at, at the start when it was SO strong, it was acceptable to have low health – they have had damage, mobility and healing nerfed….Got nothing for it while other classes have been given buffs, some given insane buffs.

Even the “zerk” builds, you miss ONE hit, get dodged, invuled or anything and you are pretty much dead. Ele have the worst defensive skills and on insanely long cool downs, like pretty much every skill, utility and elite…

Sure, people use the “oh but you can heal with skills” now if only that was true for D/D the heal is a JOKE, a 40 second cool down, no water field, barely a heal at all, I have 500 Healing power and its like 1,800 healing and 1 condition removed….40second cool down for THAT!?

As for the condition comment about ele, Yeah that won’t happen. Until Toughness/Vit/Condition damage Amulet is introduced the Condition Ele wont stand a chance in S/TPvP. Then you have the lack of covering conditions as well as insane cool downs on weapon skills, utilities and elites. Going to be a while, if ever that the Condition ele could be a really viable build, right now (and i have tried it) it is hit and miss, mostly miss in S/TPvP. In WvW it depends on the situation, works great in my Guild groups, terrible solo but then again most ele builds are due to the fact you can get melted in seconds thanks to an unreasonably low amount of health and armor (this needs to be looked at!)

16k health is nothing, I have 1,600 Toughness and 18k health and taken 16k in ONE hit of damage from a Thief. You will die in seconds.

Jackums.3496:

No. Condition duration isn’t even remotely as necessary to maximize damage as precision and critical damage is for a direct damage build. They’re not comparable.

This depends on the class. My Condition build (ele) has NO use from Precision. Even with Perplexity Rune and Torment Sigil i have like 7% Crit Chance and they both proc fine, they are the ONLY On Crit affects, even Perplexity i think is just per a hit, so if thats the case its just Torment. No traits offer it in the trait lines i am using.

Jabberwock.9014:

Has anybody else realized that the passive could actually seriously screw up our combos and mobility? As we all know, quickness is pretty naively implemented and will cut the distance of mobility skills by a factor of 1.5 by virtue of speeding up their animations by a factor of 1.5. This isn’t so much of a problem for timed quicknesses like frenzy (just don’t pop it when you want to use a mobility skill), but with a passive that triggers on attunement swap we will be getting shortened rtl and burning speed all over the place. This will even screw up time-honored combos like updraft to burning speed (burning speed probably won’t even reach).

IMO we should just be getting 1.4x damage and condition damage modifier on attunement swap instead of quickness, to avoid this broknenness.

That is something else that i would hope Anet thinks about. An entirely different option fore the passive that it grants a 2-3second Aura based on the attunement you go to, this would of course have a 10second cool down so that you couldnt spam all of them. I wouldn’t mind my D/D ele having Access to Fire Aura and Magnetic Aura as well.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Props for trying something new with a positive attitude. That’s a huge part to keep improving with this profession.

Yeah seem to be the same old, same old really so got kinda bored. Saw another Ele Condition build a while and thought it was quite interesting. Didn’t ask them for there build or anything as i wasn’t really interested in my ele at the time.

Once i came back I thought i would give it a try. Can you do conditions better on other classes? Sure, are they as much fun? In my opinion No. I have played Condition Mesmer, Condition Necromancer and Condition Engineer they all felt very overpowered in just how much pressure and conditions they could spam and it got rather boring, rather fast.

Here i am just aiming for a solid condition build that can be a little bit of support to my Guild and small groups and i love D/D Ele combat style – Kinda like a magical version of Thief, just without the broken stealth and insane burst damage in one hit they can do.

Just picked up Applied Fortitude, with that and 25 stacks of Corruption. I should have 20,700Health, 1650 Toughness and 1650 Condition. This is before i upgrade 1 non-condition based item and upgrade 2 Exo condition based items. So should end up with between 21,000 and 21,500 health and around 1,800 Condition Damage. Toughness will be between 1700-1800 depending on the stats that i go with.

So far, i am really liking it.
1 Vs 1 I have made has been a mixed back so far. I have Made several thieves run neither of them condition based, killed a few warriors, Guardians, Necros and such but that could just be down to them not being that great

It is nice seeing Churning Earth doing 1k Bleeding Ticks and even with my lowish damage, crit chance and crit damage still can hit for like 3k damage alone, Burning does around 800-850 tick damage, Confusion ticks around 5-600 for the 3 stack one and can get higher if i get interrupt and the 4/6 proc and Torment is around 200 per tick if they are moving. Bleeding i have managed to get to go up to 2k ticks

I would guess that it will be 100% chance but with 10second or so cool down. I dont see them giving Sigils 30seconds cool down because who would use them with that sort of cool down? Either that or the damage done by things like Sigil of Fire and Air would have to be reduced.

I would rather see a video that wasnt just Mesmers and Eles (oh and an engi) in a 13minute fight. Fights against Various Warrior builds would be interesting to see, especially Spamhammer happy ones.

Dahkeus.8243:

Arcane Brilliance is probably the only healing skill out of all the new healing skills released that I actually like.

(well, the mesmer one sounds solid too, but I don’t really play my mesmer anymore.)

Don’t get me wrong that its not a bad skill, it just seems rather unfair and silly that a Melee based heal is better on a ranged weapon. I think given that Staff has TWO skills that are both better than the Water Heal from Dagger/Dagger that the D/D heal should be improved, Give it a Water Field that grants 3seconds of Regen every 1 second. Would seem fair considering the heal alone is weaker and has a longer cool down than the Staff heals

Why do i have the feeling that Anet is going to make the same mistake twice and over buff another class into insane levels…

especially with some of these suggestions.

Nikkinella.8254:

personally i’d rather not get the blast on frozen burst and get a water field instead on cleansing wave. One thing that melee eles are desperately missing that would help the crappy survival is a water field. we do not need more blast finishers, we have plenty already.

This. We have enough blasts as it it on D/D what we need or more fields to use them on rather than just might stacking. Given Cleansing Wave cool down, i dont see any reason why it couldn’t be a Water field.

I mean Take Geyser for example on staff i have 469Healing Power

Geyser: : 2,775 Healing, 180 Radius, 2 sec duration, Water Field – 20sec cool down
CW: 1,771 healing, 240Radius, 1 condi removed, 5targets – 40 sec cool down

Half the cool down, More healing and water field.
Why does Cleansing Wave have such a higher cool down when all it does “better” is a condition removed, surely that can’t be why the skill has an extra 20second cool down despite being a weaker heal and not having a water field…

Don’t get me started on Healing Rain, an extra 5 second cool down for water field, curing conditions every 3 seconds, even if its 1 condition every 3 seconds its still better than Cleansing Wave, has a Water field, affects more people and again is a better heal, be it regen.

I think 2seconds, on a 11second cool down would be fine. This would even allow for some of the insanely long cast time skills to actually be used without needing the cheap Lightening Flash trick (Churning Earth)

The active needs to be really reworked though. An idea could be so that it removes the 10second cool down, it just becomes 1 second cool down on Attunement switches and all weapon skills have a 50% reduced cool down, 15 second duration. 180second cool down.

What do you guys think?

Mbelch.9028:

Show me this 16k/hit thief please. You’re blowing smoke out your rear end.

I guarantee you’ve been hit this hard. I also guarantee you were standing still, or you are counting a combo as one skill.

All of which equate to: do something to stop the thief.

Check the WvW forum, there have been PLENTY of topics about it with pictures proving both the Toughness of the player and the damage dealt. Next time it happens, i will screenshot it and show you. Because it has happened and it DOES happen.

phaeris.7604:

I honestly don’t know who all these thieves are you chaps are talking about, but i’ve never lost to an ele ever on my thief. As soon as you blew through the mist form, and shield there’s just nothing you can do. I’m hitting for 2-4k a hit and you have about 15khps or less, it’s not going to take me that long.

You can’t cc a thief, i’m invisible for 4/5 of the fight. As I stated, either i’m incredibly good on my thief (i’m not), or i’ve somehow only ever encountered the worse ele’s in the game.

Btw, my initial combo lands for a total of 19k sometimes on some eles. 1.5k mug, 5k c+d, 13k backstab + fire rune. There’s no way to outplay that, it’s just pure numbers.

The problem is, most of these people either face TERRIBLE Thieves and thus think it will be like that all the time or they got lucky. I have made plenty a thief run 1 Vs 1. The problem is you have to have the right weapon set and be in the right attunement, i find Shocking Aura to be the best way to start a fight with a Thief once you get Bask Vemon-ed.

The problem is, not being in that attunement or not having that skill off cool most of the time means you are dead.

Sure you have skills like Arcane Shield and Mist form, but as you say, then what? you go Mist form it means they they are free to do what every they want and just around the time Mist Form ends they can jmp right back into stealth and go for another BS. Sure this time you will know about them but you will also have at least 1 defense on a very long cool down.

As you say, Taking so much damage in such a short space of time, you can’t as an ele come back from that. Sure you might have the slim chance that its a terrible Thief, but even a semi-decent one will still either win the fight or retreat.

style.6173:

If you get nuked down by a HS, HS, HS thief, then the problem is you.

And not the fact that with 1,600 toughness you are still taking 16,000 damage in ONE hit. Yeah sure, what ever you say. You can stop the HS spamming by going Vapor or using Arcane Shield – then what? From the VERY first hit you are at a huge disadvantage.

Being that you will now have very little health left they will have stealth back up very soon and will be able to repeat the same thing over and over again until you finally die. Sure you might make a couple run away as the second attempt you will know they are there but i see plenty of Thieves save Bask Venom knowing that it isn’t needed on the first try, they will ALWAYS hit the BS first time around if you have no idea they are there.

The problem i have with the immobilize, the duration. Sure i dont expect a 10second duration but 1 second simply isnt enough. I find myself using the Burning the most. Air i simply don’t use, if was Weakness then yeah without a doubt i use it more often. If Earth Torment then it would be much better for Kiting and such

While i am really liking some aspects of this Trait. I feel that Air and Earth are VERY poor. Fire Gets Burning which is great, even Chill from Water is solid but i think that Blind should be replaced with Weakness for 5 seconds and that Immobilize should be replaced with 6 stacks of Bleeding for 5 seconds, which would be about the same amount of damage done by Burning.

Another Option add another condition – Make it do Torment 5 stacks for 10 seconds Which would have the potential to do more damage than Burning but only if they dont stay still. This would also aid us with another useful damaging condition.

What do you guys think?
Those of you who also use this trait, what do you think about it? and those of you that don’t would this change make you even want to try using it?

I hate stealth but that is just a stupid idea.

They should be able to stay in stealth when out of combat, they should get a penalty for it, slow movement speed. say -33% built into the mechanic of all stealth.

If they attack they are removed from stealth if it hits, if its blocked, invul, Aegis EVERYTHING. Once in combat and out of stealth they have skills that will put them back into stealth.

Inititive is removed and replaced with cool downs like every other class, this way they cant’t spam the same power attack several times, jump into stealth and regain it. They will also have the FULL effect of Chill just like everyone else.

The skills they have now will stay, they will just have reasonable cool downs. They will get increased defensive options to counter the fact they wont be able to jump into stealth every 4 seconds.

This is how Thief stealth should work

Terravos.4059:

What Makes Conditions Powerful isn’t the damage or duration, Its how many conditions you can put on a target at once.

This. Necromancer and Engineer are the worst culprits. They don’t win because they have a strong build, they win because they can burst conditions and have WAY more access to conditions than someone has access to removals. The ONLY way to stand a chance is to build SPECIFICALLY to counter conditions, thats taking EVERY condition skill, trait, sigil, rune as you can, take as much -duration food as you can.

Even Mesmer, Thief and Warrior have to much access to conditions, plus stealth. It is just a nightmare currently. To much cheap access to conditions such as on auto attacks and very low cool downs, while the counters are all on too long a cool down.

whyme.3281:

Splitting the damage value of each condition between classes isnt the best solution. But it can be done with the duration of the conditions and the access each class has to them.

It would make Condition builds A LOT easier to balance, they can’t do anything to the actual condition because it is tied to every other class that uses it currently, all the can do is adjust the duration and stacks. That isn’t enough

They need to be able to tone done specific conditions on specific classes without hurting other classes that use them. Take Burning, look at how many classes use that, on most classes it is fine. On Necromancer how ever it is just getting nerfs left right and centre.

So if each condition a class had this would in my opinion also be adjusted, some classes have access to conditions they shouldn’t have – Engineer and Confusion is a prime example.

Once that is done they can tweak the damage, stacks, duration for each specific condition per each class.

Monoman.2068:

Condition damage needs a redesign.

This is what happens when you add a condition but don’t balance it per a class, you just say all classes does X amount of damage. Conditions should be balanced around each specific class.

necromancer for example, it would deal LESS damage but its threat would come from the number of conditions. So while its burst damage would be reduced it would still be a threat simply because of the number of conditions that it can burst out.

Then take classes like Ele and Guardian, they are a HUGE lack of conditions compared to the other classes, so maybe they could deal more damage on things like Burning but as they have less access to conditions while the damage would be higher, it would be removed easier.

Engineers and Thieves, well personally i think they need a reduction in conditions that the class has access to, if they want other conditions then they should have to do what say an Ele would have to do, gear for it with runes, sigils and such. Confusion should be removed from them, poison toned down a bit damage wise.

This is the sort of thing that should happen. The problem with Anet is, they know 2 things: Overpowered and Underpowered. This sort of change would help making balance changes to conditions of classes MUCH easier.

Lazaar.9123:

There are far, far more people using zerker builds than there is condition builds, so no. Condition builds are the minority. There is not many thieves that run condition builds, for good reason, they don’t have much access. While every class can have condition builds, not all are effective, as it is not what their classes specialize in. The problem with thieves is definitely not their conditions, it’s their stealth spam, but that belongs in a different topic.

Well seeing as how WvW is about one thing and one thing only – Blobbing of course more people run Zerker, though you have to take into account what classes are most used in WvW and then consider what options they have when it comes to builds.

To say that we arent in a condition META based on blobbing is just silly, it owns small groups, it owns solo and lets not get into S/TPvP.

The problem being that while every class CAN have condition builds, certain classes (Necro, Engineer mostly) can easily burst WAY to many conditions and while Thief lack that, they make up for it with so much stealth access and even then they can get 5-6 conditions onto someone in seconds, hell even Engineer and Mesmer condition builds can have stealth as well.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I’d still have to be spending 10 extra points in trees i don’t like to get a lesser effect.

It’s totally a nerf.

Combine them into the 5point traits. That would be okay. I would only want Water and Earth anyway. Air is just terrible and Fire i dunno, just seems rather weak.

@Lazaar, I think you will find it has been a Condition meta for A LONG. Most in small groups and solo but it can still be effective in Zergs. I have seen condition builds for EVERY class. Thief could be the most powerful, less conditions but so much stealth can proc like 4-5 conditions every time they attack when coming out of stealth and then repeat.

Currently i have access to: Burning, Bleeding, Torment, Confusion, Cripple and Chill
It’s a decent amount, i could even swap Geomancy out and add in Doom for access to poison but as i run in parties the AoE access is quite nice.

For me, Bleeding is nothing more than a cover, decent cover but still just cover. For me Burning and Confusion are the threats, though i can still get decent bleeding going i don’t really concentrate only on bleeding I spend less time in Earth than i do any other Attunement

I think its not the conditions themselves that are the problem.

Necromancer – Too easy to burst conditions, too much access to conditions
Engineer- Too easy to burst conditions, too much access to conditions
Thief – too much access to conditions, spends too much time in stealth

Another problem is the fact that conditions are balanced around the condition and not around each class that uses it. Necromancer should be doing less damage per a condition but the threat coming from the number of conditions they have, the same could be said about Engineer as well plus Engineer can be WAY more bunkerable than Necromancer. Thief, well Stealth is the main issue they have.

Again, i dont think its the conditions themselves. It is the way Anet has decided to have each condition do X damage no matter what class its on and thus conditions are MUCH stronger on classes that can just continually spam and burst with them.

Dolores.5471:

I had this crazy idea the other day when thinking of how to make eles less dependent on arcana. Along with making elemental attunement baseline, as its already been suggested, why don’t we divide the evasive arcana trait into 4 minor traits spread on the other trait lines? It has always seemed a little odd to me how other classes get “on dodge” traits so easily and ele has to spend 30 points for it.

Anet could make it so that for example, an adept trait in the water trait line granted cleansing wave when dodging in water attunement, same on earth, fire and wind for their respective effects. That way we could pick which effects of evasive arcana we wanted and possibly save points to diversify/strengthen our builds… Was this ever suggested before? Is it too crazy/op?

Thats an Interesting idea. Make it combined into the 5point current traits and replace EA with something else, this would also save wasting a dodge roll and proccing it when you didnt want to in a different attunement (Air one SUCKS!)

Then add a new Arcane Grandmaster trait.