im not talking about removing conditions, im talking about less heal
or actualy the change that you cant channel renewal in mistform anymore, thus getting interrupted within the first tick
i’m not playing sPvP but WvW and if your running with your guildies vs a bigger number of enemys you do need the mobility and save cond remove or your just plain dead as light armor melee
Believe me, I know your pain – I run Ether Renewal with a fairly glassy build, and this change is gonna sting. I’m not even sure if scepter/dagger will be worth using for damage with the RtL change, and if it isn’t I’m gonna have to go staff because I HATE being restricted to melee range, which means I’m not really going to be able to kill anyone…
its funny because you guys are just hating, you cant call the patch a fail just because they didnt nerf bunker ele to the ground. the patch so far sounds really good even if they miss on this ele matter. but i understand, its so nice to try to be funny on the internet.
AND they did nerf cantrip ele, “Cleansing Waters: Now removes 1 condition with a 5s CD”, and thats not to mention thieves with boon removal and warriors percing through stability and boon damage.I was talking about it as a failure with respect to not gutting less used builds. All of the changes they announced hurt weaker ele builds MORE than they hurt cantrip bunkers.
what is hurting other builds more than cantrips, besides the rtl change? besides any staff build, cuz no one really played it anyway.
No Mist Form + Heal means offensive builds lost a very important safety net.
Water Grandmaster Trait: Removes only one condition every five seconds now.
This is actually a perfectly reasonable change, although inadequate and uncompensated for. Unless your playstyle involves spamming Cantrips for condition removal, it shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Although I do wish they’d modify the GoEH so that it removed a condition by default.
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So much love for thieves (even tho Mug has been nerfed), where is that coming from?
SPvP, where bunkers rule and stealth doesn’t allow you to capture points.
its funny because you guys are just hating, you cant call the patch a fail just because they didnt nerf bunker ele to the ground. the patch so far sounds really good even if they miss on this ele matter. but i understand, its so nice to try to be funny on the internet.
AND they did nerf cantrip ele, “Cleansing Waters: Now removes 1 condition with a 5s CD”, and thats not to mention thieves with boon removal and warriors percing through stability and boon damage.
The RtL and Mist Form nerfs hurt offensive elementalists more than defensive ones. Also, s/d eles in general will have a harder time getting close enough to get fire skills to actually hit (offhand dagger skills, Phoenix due to slow travel speed, the best way to give Dragon’s Tooth a CHANCE to hit is to follow up with Earthquake or Blowout, unless you take Signet of Earth for some insane reason).
(My greatest gripe is that scepter/dagger 0/20/0/30(20)/20(30) Berserker is pretty much the only ele build that offers decent ranged damage while retaining solo capability, and its survivability was hit pretty hard with these modifications. (Scholar runes and Vital Striking lose their damage bonus if you take about 1.5k damage, which is pretty much always in 1v1s, so yeah.))
The Cleansing Water nerf really only hurts staff and Glyph of Elemental Harmony users.
Truly, these were the changes required for elementalists.
Although you’re correct that I shouldn’t say the entire patch is terrible, I only play an ele (and sometimes an engi, but leveling is boring), so I don’t care about the rest beyond how it’ll affect matchups.
Elementalist
-Want to bring down cantrip Ele without affecting lesser used buildsCould they fail any harder?
Best thing about this patch is that I’ve got a whole playlist of reaction videos to use.
The Cleansing Water change hurts the D/D bunker build a lot, because you get regeneration from switching to Water as well as whenever you use a cantrip, which is four condition removals from it. Now you really have to space those out to get them all.
It’s a 5 second internal cooldown, not even as notable as the nerf to Soothing Disruption in an earlier patch. Now if you use a Cantrip within 5 seconds before or after switching to water, you lose out on the removal of a single condition.
Cantrips should never be used solely for condition removal, anyway (aside from Cleansing Fire, obviously).
I still don’t get why they don’t realise that they are making critical hits on the non bunkerish eles every patch thus kinda force us more into bunkering…
They just take and take and don’t give anything in return…
Or am I seeing this wrongYou’re seeing it wrong. The goal is to take the Cantrip Ele build down a notch while also buffing other builds.
Yet they’re nerfing offensive builds more than defensive builds. They’re giving eles fewer options to recuperate in combat, thus providing even more incentive to take more Cantrips and Healing Power.
Frankly, elementalists need an improvement to base defense, because the class relies too much on healing and Cantrips as-is. THEN the devs could do things like reducing our healing and condition removal capability, which is the real problem.
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Bunker = Defense
/thread
The RtL and Mist Form nerfs hurt offensive elementalists more than defensive ones. Also, s/d eles in general will have a harder time getting close enough to get fire skills to actually hit (offhand dagger skills, Phoenix due to slow travel speed, the best way to give Dragon’s Tooth a CHANCE to hit is to follow up with Earthquake or Blowout, unless you take Signet of Earth for some insane reason).
(My greatest gripe is that scepter/dagger 0/20/0/30(20)/20(30) Berserker is pretty much the only ele build that offers decent ranged damage while retaining solo capability, and its survivability was hit pretty hard with these modifications. (Scholar runes and Vital Striking lose their damage bonus if you take about 1.5k damage, which is pretty much always in 1v1s, so yeah.))
The Cleansing Water nerf really only hurts staff and Glyph of Elemental Harmony users.
Truly, these were the changes required for elementalists.
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Honestly, all this patch means for me is that my ‘Zerker s/d ele is a lot worse off. Come to think of it, even if I switch back to Valk/’Zerk, getting close enough to use my fire skills could be a bit of a pain, too.
Also, what happens if enemies dodge RtL? Do we still get the 40s cooldown?
Blargh.
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third time since I started playing that no new builds have become viable
so
conjured weapons typically have a situational use. i figure an elementalist to be thinking ahead to set up using a conjured weapon’s skills and then drop it
like dropping some area of effect spells and using the earth shield’s pull to draw your foes in and turn invulnerable while they hammer on you and sit in your damage
or perhaps in reverse, the lightning hammer’s blowout is a good opportunity to lay down some lava font dragon tooth hurt
There simply isn’t reason to take Conjures over Cantrips or even Arcane utilities – you lose too much defense and/or offense while using them, and they’re incredibly awkward to boot. (60/180 second recharge times when you’re going to drop them shortly after conjuring them, the Lightning Hammer isn’t really able to stay on a moving target, etc.)
Also, the Lightning Hammer’s blowout doesn’t last enough to follow up with something like Dragon’s Tooth. You’d need to use its Static Field, but even then you may as well take Signet of Earth for the shorter cooldown and greater range.
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Those builds are not “glass cannons”. Both are the standard Water/Arcana build (with slight variations) and different gear. “Glass cannon” means no points into water or earth (which are both more defensive trait lines) and pure damage which simply doesn’t work against better players with the current traits.
Well, builds without at least 20 in Water and Arcana don’t really work, as you said, but I guess I could call it “gearing for a lotta damage and becoming super squishy” if the technicalities are that great a concern.
Add in permafury with an ele, and you’ve got 42%, assuming it’s not already added in.
24% is with Fury, assuming they are actually a bunker (full Cleric’s or something). Not that elementalists with more offensive gear and 3 Cantrips don’t possess ridiculous survivability.
I run full power/toughness/vitality gear and slot beryls in my accessories. I use the same for my daggers, but swap out a higher damage staff since the range adds survivability. I hit pretty much as hard as you can baseline with power, but I sacrifice some c/cd for a crap load more toughness and vitality compared to zerker gear. (With stacks, food, and auras I still have over 50% c/cd both) This means that I sustain my damage output longer and am immune to being brought down by another player’s burst. Overall, I will do more damage because I will not have to reset or heal up as often.
So compared to zerker gear, it might take an extra couple of abilities to drop someone. A sacrifice I make willingly because I will be alive and standing on my feet to drop damage into the next person after I kill the first. Dead people do 0 damage.
Not quite what I meant – I have another set of gear that works quite well. Certainly better than the glassy stuff I’ve been going on about.
Because the staff doesn’t work well for 1v1s (I’ll probably be able to stay alive, but I’m not gonna kill anyone without help), the point of using Berserker gear was to make Arc Lightning and Lightning Strike deal enough damage to warrant staying at range. I know Phantaram uses Vital Striking and Scholar runes to boost the damage, but he has a team to prevent enemies from dealing the 1.4k damage to him that would negate the damage bonus.
I absolutely despise being restricted to melee range. (Although I like a hybrid of ranged and melee the most.)
You want them to be so busy wondering how to manage all your damage that they have no time to play too offensively.
Yeah this pretty much sums up your hopes of success when running GC. Hit them hard, and hope they freak out and run around like a noob until your finish them off instead of just two shotting you.
Fair enough, I have had plenty of pretty nasty matchups (d/d-staff ’Zerker necros, for one), and against other eles the best I can do is heal. However, the purpose of me building offensively is for ranged damage – got any suggestions for that?
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I wouldn’t consider any build with 30 in water to be glass, especially in sPvP where enemy damage is lower than WvW and the amulets make you take some survival stats.
Is it possible to do ok with your build?
Sure.
Are you?
Then it is.
Are your opponents just “bad”?
Probably, or maybe, who knows, it’s pretty subjective. If you’re “good” then they are probably “bad”. ’Cause, there are a lot of people in the world, and some will be better at stuff and some worse.tl;dr Your build isn’t “glass”, but yeah, you can do alright with it.
Eh, I was defining the playstyle by gear, because ele builds are all so similar.
…But yeah, this subject is so subjective that this thread is kinda pointless.
You guys can ignore this, not really sure what I was thinking.
What you could do in a zerg is stay behind the lines and then just pick a weak looking target and burst ‘m down with arcana and stuff. I’ve got a zerker set-up too and even when I don’t trait completely towards it I still do very decent damage. I die in 4 hits but I tend to do 4 times more damage then when I use my cleric set-up.
I’m referring to a glass cannon (with 30 in water) as is possible in SPvP, where full Berserker’s grants me about 17.5k health with a 0/20/0/30/20 build. In WvW the stats can get pretty crazy, so in attempting to replicate my SPvP stats, I end up with around 1.4k armor and 15k health with exotic gear, with nearly identical offense.
Glass will only work in duels if your opponents are bad, or if you are willing to jump out of the fight everytime your safety nets are down(cantrips).
I suppose this is the sort of answer I asked for, though not the kind I was hoping for. Rather, I’d like to know why the following strategies don’t work:
The reason I’m building so offensively in the first place is so that I can put out moderate ranged damage. With that in mind, the ability to stay at a distance while still pressuring my enemy would seem to allow for more opportunities to dodge skills like Bull’s Charge and Illusionary Leap, thus greatly reducing the need for Cantrips.
Taking Ether Renewal grants me access to condition removal outside of the water attunement (very useful against immobilizes), and allows me to heal more proactively (helpful due to relatively low healing power).
I generally save Updraft and Earthquake for use as defensive CC, which really helps to interrupt incoming damage (I’ll still use Updraft offensively if I really want to set up my fire burst combo on a thief or something, though); the scepter’s blinds are also nice.
…Yeah, I asked for other people’s opinions and now I’m sort of arguing them. Sorry, I just wasn’t clear in the OP.
I play scepter/dagger because I want ranged capability while retaining effectiveness in 1v1s (the ranged-melee hybrid aspect is nice, too). Thing is, the scepter attacks that actually hit at range don’t do much damage, so I gear offensively. (The SPvP variant of Berserker’s for the purposes of this thread.)
Anyway, the reason I’m making this thread is that my experiences as a glass s/d ele don’t seem to match up with that of the community – that is to say, I actually do okay. I die pretty much instantly to enemies that cooridinate CC, of course, but in 1v1s I perform just fine (not so much against bunker rangers, but I think that’s a common difficulty).
TL;DR: Does going glass as an ele work in duels, or are my opponents just bad?
I’ve had to say this like, 4 times now, if you guys can’t read, don’t post.
Cleric’s+ Valkyrie’s does more damage then Soldier’s +Cleric’s…Shocker! Please read things before making stupid posts.
I rather doubt that 5% Crit Damage makes up for the loss of 179 power when you only have a 29% Crit Chance.
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You heard it here first, folks: Cleric’s + Valkyrie’s does more damage than Soldier’s + Cleric’s.
I mean, it’s not like Power does anything, right?
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Warriors need to lrn2kite.
As in, fly at their enemies on a hang glider.
It’s funny because eles don’t have a viable ranged option for PvP.
(Yes, scepter/dagger has ranged skills, but the only stuff that actually hits and is worth using beyond 300 range is in the air attunement, and even then you’re not going to accomplish anything by spamming Arc Lightning and Lightning Strike.)
0/20/0/20/30 with 2 arcanes roamer, no cantrips traits.
I run that with scepter/dagger, with 30 in Water instead of Arcana, and it’s okay.
I’m more upset that my only good ranged damage comes from my Electric Discharge-Lightning Strike-Arcane Blast combo when switching to air.
Personally none of these changes would make me consider removing points from water or arcana. Now if that is an issue with water/arcane offering too much or fire still not offering enough I don’t know.
Yeah, I don’t think we’ll really be able to move out of Water and Arcana unless our base Attunement Recharge Rate is changed to about 10 seconds, and our survival becomes less dependent on healing.
i use GS for transportation in wvw.
have to check in the leopard.tested the leopard.. GS have better transportation. lasting alot longer.
I was referring more to the ability to run past zergs with stealth.
*lotta text
The thing about the Glyph is that it’s best to save it for when I’m low on health to avoid losing out on healing, but that means that I’ll be using my water attunement heals frequently, which means that I won’t be able to get the regeneration out of it reliably.
Also, Ether Renewal’s really good against condition specs, and for removing immobilizes that are buried under, like, 5 other conditions.
(I’m really only concerned with SPvP and WvW, by the way.)
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Well, there’s always the “Become the Snow Leopard” Norn racial elite, which is absurdly good for moving around in WvW.
It doesn’t make much of a difference in the end, though, so go with what you want.
Ether Renewal has the best condition removal and the shortest default cooldown (though matched by traited glyph).
Traited Glyph is 20 seconds, whereas Ether Renewal is 15 by default.
I run fairly offensively-oriented builds, so I find the extra condition removal and healing offered by Ether Renewal to be invaluable – the trick is generally to either line-of-sight or wait for/bait CCs.
I wouldn’t mind some buffs to Fire, though what I would really like is for Lava Tomb to be moved down to a 10s ICD (or have it removed altogether).
The latter might be better. Is it even used for anything other than rallying off of weakened mobs?
Boiling Blood (Adept)
When you burn a foe while attuned to Fire, you have an x% chance to inflict bleeding for y seconds.
How about a small chance to inflict bleeding with each tick of burning in any attunement?
Removed traits: One With Fire, Fire’s Embrace.
Shining, Burning Fingers (New)
You and all allies deal 10% more damage to foes within melee range.
Fire’s Embrace is kinda fun, and would be pretty great if signets themselves were more useful. Also, Burning Fingers would mostly benefit the dagger, which is already generally the best weapon for both hands, so I’m not too keen on that idea.
Pyromancer’s Puissance (Reworked)
Whenever you cast a spell on a burning foe, you gain Might for x seconds.
Would be pretty great for builds with Signet of Fire, and signet-focused builds with Fire’s Embrace.
Conjure Responsibly
When you conjure a weapon, you gain Retaliation for x seconds and Stability for y seconds. This applies to the ally who picks up your other weapon as well. Conjured weapons have 20% lower cooldowns (not the same as Conjurer, which effects the cooldowns of the skills ON the conjured weapon).
I’m a much greater fan of changing conjures to act more like engi kits so that they’d always be accessible – that would really help to mitigate the lack of range versatility that elementalists suffer from. If that’s not an option, though, I guess this’d do.
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“wdawdasdawdwdasdawdawdsaada”
“8 inc”
“2 headiEFFINGTHIEVES”
You’re an evil, evil person – I almost sprayed my drink all over my computer.
I have one suggestion for the medkit: Allow me to drop the skills on myself so that I can use Antidote when I’m immobilized.
- Is it currently a goal to give elementalists better ranged options for PvP? Are the less popular weapons, utilities, and trait lines being improved?
- Is it currently a goal to help engineers achieve more build diversity? (Condition removal for builds that don’t use Elixir C/elixirs with Cleaning Formula 409, for example.)
On pvp most have gone with the bunker/heal/deal mediocre dmg build making them unkillable on 1v1 against any profession unless they are really really bad. hopefully this build gets nerf with the heals to the point where most elementalist realize there are successful dps/defense build.
for every one ele that can play this build effectively, there are 10 that can’t and they are the easiest targets to take down. The nerf bat should not be based on the top players, but rather the average players…..not to mention it would make ele’s even more useless in PvE.
That sort of build is so easy to play that I’d say the ratio would be the reverse; also, I’d say balancing based on the highest level of play is wiser, as it helps keep gameplay interesting for more experienced players.
It’s good because offhand dagger is good.
Scepter on it’s own isn’t compelling.
Dis.
Unless you wanna bunker, I guess.
As ryan mentioned, it’s not so much what weapon as it is what combat style. I’m not sure if some awesome scepter build has come out that makes scepter air a decent target-based ranged option (I realize arc lightning is now a ‘beam’ though) but as is, I feel that staff seems like a more support/ranged ground-targeted weapon and scepter tries to be a mid-ranged/target+ground-target weapon, but it feels like we’re missing a rather simple foe-targeted based ranged set akin to say a Rifle Warrior or shortbow Ranger.
15char
all my 15char
How comes so late after the release some people still cannot understand how damage text works on canneling attacks?
Not everyone’s a moron. I don’t prefer the air elemental because it deals high damage. I prefer it because it actually deals damage, whereas fire only works against npcs and gates.
I think their point was that the Fiery Greatsword’s basic attack is channeled, and thus doesn’t deal nearly as much damage as some people seem to think it does on single targets.
I’d appreciate if someone could tell me why this suggestion wouldn’t work, be it balancing or any other reason.
Y’know, I’m honestly not sure there would be an issue, provided that bonuses dependent on switching attunement were place on internal cooldowns. It’d certainly help the non-dagger weapons, seeing as their attunements are more situationally dependent (the scepter’s air attunement offers what are pretty much the weapon’s only effective options at range, for example).
The only issue I see that may arise as a result is that Arcana would become less desirable, but I’d rather that than its current necessity, and traits like Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina would still completely justify spending 20 points.
I can see what you’re saying but weapon swapping in combat would make us too OP with our attunement swapping. I think that our weapons are designed to keep us at a range, since we can’t swap. Staff skills have slows etc. On them to help you get back to long range. Perhaps the real problem is they’re not effective enough.
Although it can be an issue, my gripes are more about actually hitting enemies at range than keeping them there.
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and must I remind you that Gandalf actually used his sword more than he used magic?
So a sword would mainly ignore the attunements and be you just slicing people with it?
Wut? No, I was just pointing out that the standard of magic users being physically weak isn’t as much of a standard as some would believe.
Although if we got a sword, I would like to actually hit people with it.
Honestly, I find eles to be one of the less versatile classes when it comes to combat. Sure, I have a mixture of damage, healing, and CC skills that other classes may not, but as an ele, I have to choose between damage or ranged capability, zerging or roaming – I don’t need to do that as, say, a d/d-staff necro.
I don’t see the problem? You just swap to D/D or staff out of combat when situation requires. And you mostly don’t have to respec for it, since most builds works pretty much with every weapon set. Just cause you cannot swap in combat as Ele, it doesn’t mean you have to stay with that particular weapon set/roll forever.
I want versatility in terms of RANGE. As an ele, if I want to duel, I don’t have any effective ranged options – however, the lack of effective ranged solo-oriented weapons wouldn’t matter nearly as much if I could just switch from staff to d/d when things got rough.
Now, of course eles shouldn’t get weapon swapping as well as attunement swapping, but I want to point out that attunement swapping doesn’t allow me to react to a given situation as effectively as weapon swapping.
(inb4 play another class, which isn’t an option because lol roleplaying)
This is also why I think you never see an Ele with anything but a staff in concept art, to signify its ranged dominance and sorcerer attitude. If you’re looking for a battle mage, which has an active and offensive play style with great sword, I’d say Mesmer is your bet, well, that’s what Anet implies anyway lol.
Oh gods. “Ranged dominance.”
All of my laughter.
4. It just doesn’t make much sense to have a magic user, based around affinity to elements and knowledge, to have the upper body strength to carry the great sword. Mesmers I can justify, seeing as they can bend reality itself, it makes a plausible sense for them to be able to manipulate the weight of the great sword so it is light as a feather. For Ele’s I can find no justification.
So, why can’t magic users possess physical strength? Classes in this game are defined by their training rather than their natural attributes – and must I remind you that Gandalf actually used his sword more than he used magic?
Besides, eles can handle conjured and environmental weapons just fine.
I spend almost all my time studying and playing video games, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find time to exercise.
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Because when damage-dealers go all-in on them, they don’t die right away. And when your whole team focuses them, they don’t die right away. However, when they decide to fight you back, they effectively set you up to be killed. Some may argue that they’re too effective at what they do.
I’m obviously referring to Eles who trait deep into Water and Arcana (with remainders in Air and/or Earth traits), use Valkyrie’s amulet, and 1 or 2 Arcane utilities. Of course triple cantrip bunkers don’t, and should not, die right away. This isn’t about Bunkers specifically.
I dunno about you but this is flawless
Then why a GS? Why not a bow or even a pistol or rifle? I honestly wouldn’t care either way, just new weapons would be super welcomed…but a melee weapon you shoot elements from super far away is the last thing I’d suggest.
Personally? I’d like my weapon to look as though I could use it as a melee weapon.
I wouldn’t care if conjures were like engi kits, though, ’cause then I could just bring out Mjölnir and smack people with it whenever I felt like it.
Actually, making conjures more readily-accessible would solve a lot of my problems with the class.
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I wouldn’t know about staff. I don’t solo or small man with that weapon out.
People actually roam with staff??!
Judging by the sheer amount of people complaining about how weak staff is, I have to assume they do.
Aye. I think the only time you catch a staffer is when his running to meet zerg mates
Or if they’re desperate for ranged combat.
Who is this ‘we’ you speak of. I have been an ele since beta and it is my main, I don’t share the same expectations as you. I rolled the class because it allowed the ability to adapt and succeed in any given situation without being strapped into a singular role.
Honestly, I find eles to be one of the less versatile classes when it comes to combat. Sure, I have a mixture of damage, healing, and CC skills that other classes may not, but as an ele, I have to choose between damage or ranged capability, zerging or roaming – I don’t need to do that as, say, a d/d-staff necro.
Oh …and I hit like a truck and have survivability.
Either we have different definitions of “hitting like a truck”, or you’ve got stats that don’t exist in SPvP – if it’s the latter case, that’s kind of like of like saying that you can outpace an olympic athlete by using rocket boots.
Greatsword’s auto-attack commonly hits for 5k with a glass cannon spec.
In what universe can a glass cannon ele survive for any length of time in a 1v1 without access to their healing and CC skills?
That attack’s a 2 3/4 second channel, too, so it’s not all that impressive for single-target damage.