Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t recommend investing too much into condition damage, because whether you are small-group skirmishing or with your server zerg against another zerg, I’ve noticed many players have built in a lot of condition removal and aoe cleansing for their group. Eles condition damage lies with bleed (burning doesn’t scale well) and we’re not built to stack a lot of conditions all at once, so cleansing it would be easy for your enemy – compared to necros, mesmers, and engineers that can apply 3+ conditions at once and are practically the reason why everyone has some sort of condition removal.

Maybe like Beauty and the Beast

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Cirax.9231:

fadeaway.2807:

What annoys me most about eles is they’re really not hard to play well. Just keep swapping attunements and spamming anything that’s off cooldown works just fine. Chances are people won’t kill you.

If you cannot defeat an ele that spams skills off cooldown, the problem is you.

I don’t recall ever saying that I couldn’t beat a bad ele.

But I think it’s silly that 80%+ of the effectiveness of a d/d ele can be achieved by spamming random attunements/abilities and RTLing to safety.

That top 20%… yeah. Now that’s where I’m likely to end up as a corpse.

People keep saying it’s hard to be a good ele. No it’s not. It’s hard to be an amazing ele, it’s still surprisingly easy to be a good/op ele.

Who hasn’t heard the “I have no problem dealing with this class, but bad players are successful with said class and it’s OP” excuse?

If you find 80% of an ele’s effectiveness to be spamming random attunements/RTLing away, you are in the same league as hotjoiner’s complaining about 22222 thieves.

Don’t get me wrong, playing an ele isn’t hard, I agree. But the same goes for every other class out there – with enough practice and dedication, it doesn’t take long to become competitive with any class. Folks, this is an MMO PvP where the current competitive game mode is conquest and the winning teams are ones that utilize team synergy, not individual skill. It’s just like DotA – individual skill means crap in a team-based game.

You are kidding yourself if you feel glory in “my profession takes more skill than yours, I am a better player than you.”

Edit: Ele’s bunker build is overly strong at the moment, but it is astonishing how many players don’t understand why it’s strong, and complain about aspects of an ele that aren’t the reason they are dominaing tPvP.

fadeaway.2807:

What annoys me most about eles is they’re really not hard to play well. Just keep swapping attunements and spamming anything that’s off cooldown works just fine. Chances are people won’t kill you.

If you cannot defeat an ele that spams skills off cooldown, the problem is you.

sirflamesword.3896:

Cirax.9231:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Caffynated.5713:

Switching weapons cancels your movement abilities.

I just checked WW, Rush and Savage Leap and their ranges are increased by swiftness.

ele never swaps weapons. that is probably why RTL is not cancelled

Attunement change for ele’s is pretty much swapping weapons to other professions. For example, Sigil of Battle activates upon attunement switching. During RTL, the utility bar and attunements both become deactivated.

pot.6805:

Hold on, if RTL sucks as much as eles claim, why do they use it?

Where did anyone say it sucked? Perhaps it’s not as OP as people think it is – of all people who have complained Rtl to be massively OP, none have actually understood all of its mechanics.

Bonus points if you figure out why making Rtl the same as other charge moves (affected by chill/cripple, swiftness, and able to cast instant utilities/swap weapons) would make it better for bunker eles.

And I love how it’s only people that main Ele that say that RTL isn’t massively OP. ANYONE who has seen what RTL can do on Spirit Watch would have to be completely blind or stupid to not think it is OP. It’s less detectable on other maps, but anything that allows someone to completely disengage from a fight is OP IMO.

Spirit Watch specifically has a big problem with using Rtl with the orb, and the devs have already addressed they are fixing this. This instance is clearly overpowered and I agree for the nerf.

However, other professions (not just Eles and thieves) can build to be able to disengage fights at their discretion, so it’s just part of the game. Eles get a lot of flak for their escape tools because it’s attached to a very strong build. Without offhand dagger though, eles suddenly have a lot less mobility.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Caffynated.5713:

Switching weapons cancels your movement abilities.

I just checked WW, Rush and Savage Leap and their ranges are increased by swiftness.

ele never swaps weapons. that is probably why RTL is not cancelled

Attunement change for ele’s is pretty much swapping weapons to other professions. For example, Sigil of Battle activates upon attunement switching. During RTL, the utility bar and attunements both become deactivated.

pot.6805:

Hold on, if RTL sucks as much as eles claim, why do they use it?

Where did anyone say it sucked? Perhaps it’s not as OP as people think it is – of all people who have complained Rtl to be massively OP, none have actually understood all of its mechanics.

Bonus points if you figure out why making Rtl the same as other charge moves (affected by chill/cripple, swiftness, and able to cast instant utilities/swap weapons) would make it better for bunker eles.

zone.1073:

Balance question:

Are you aware that slows in this game not only affect regular movement, but also reduce the range of moving abilities by -50%? This makes slows much more potent than they should be. Thief’s heartseeker is affected, Warrior’s Rush, Bull’s Charge, Whirlwind, Eviscerate, etc are all affected. At the same time, some class’s moving abilities are immune to slows, like Elementalist’s Ride the Ligntning. What are the devs’ thought process behind this mechanic?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Why-do-slows-reduce-movement-skill-ranges/first#content

Caffynated has explained it in your thread here very clearly.

haviz.1340:

Cirax.9231:

And the use of the utility bar, just like other charge moves.

Is Rush an utility skill? Swoop?

I meant you are able to use utility moves during rush or swoop.
If Rtl were to be made mechanically similar to rush or swoop, you should be able to use utilities during Rtl.

Archaon.6245:

Judge’s intervention is an utility skill…so if you compare flashing blade+judge’s intervention with rtl+lightning flash you get pretty much the same effect…with lightning flash requiring no target….so the ele chain would probably be still better…allowing you to “free target” roam more than a guardian…as a guardian you just have one swift on staff (That is not a must have weapon), one on a 60 sec cd shout (10sec) and one on Retreat (20sec) that is just a waste for an utility slot…nothing else for guardian’s free roaming..

Isn’t it the general idea that eles are more of a roamer than guardians, but guardians apply more pressure on point? That defines one of the big differences in bunkering between an ele and a guardian.

Sarrs.8371

As I see it, Ride the Lightning is for the most part a charge move, except just plain better. So much better, that its distinction over other charges can (though not always) dictate whether a fight ends with a successful retreat or a death, and the developers specifically noted that it was the kind of mobility that they intended for the Thief to have in the last SotG. Do elementalists really need to have that kind of special sauce for RTL to be a powerful move?

While I agree Rtl has some advantages compared to other charges, it isn’t that much more powerful such that its mobility is unrivalled. Perhaps, the unique mechanic was a dev decision as a result of a profession having the lowest base hp/armor with the x/d weapon set being virtually melee. However, this is shadowed by the fact ele bunkers are too powerful, so rtl feels too strong. Once ele bunkering has been nerfed (it is still on dev’s watchlist), then we can get a better perspective of Rtl.

haviz.1340:

Let it be affected by chill/cripple/immobilize but by swiftness as well, if you really want to normalize it.

And the use of the utility bar, just like other charge moves. A lot of players don’t think things through thoroughly when asking for balance changes. Normalizing Rtl may create more mobility superiority.

- affected by chill/cripple? Wouldn’t be hard to cleanse as an ele, and switching to air before using Rtl with a 10 point arcana trait gives them swiftness. Swiftness affects charge moves, so now Rtl goes 1600 range instead of 1200.

- Rtl + lightning flash during Rtl… the skill now has a verical advantage.

Normalizing Rtl can actually help eles work around the cripple/chill disadvantage, and travel an even greater distance…

covenn.7165:

LOL. I just noticed the typo.

Yeah staff is brutal if you run around alone with one. Though, even if I do, you can still generally get away if geared, slotted, and traited correctly …well providing an safety zone is in reasonable distance, like a tower, keep, or friendly zerg

I guess it is fair trade off because they don’t stand a chance against me when I have daggers out, and they always end up running away)

Hehe agreed – though I find you’re postponing the inevitable building tougher with staff, unless you’re near a safe zone like you mentioned. My philosophy with staff is: go glass or go home! Isn’t that the typical mage archetype the op was referring to? Sure you’ll die to anything that comes within a 1200 radius, but the damage is worth it, and survivability becomes much less of an issue when hiding behind the coattails of your big Norn guardian friend

Then whip out the d/d to get revenge on all those pesky thieves!

Definitely a fair trade off between weapon sets – staff could use some tweaks but imo it’s still a very good weapon.

Fuzzion.2504

Staff were designed for 3 thongs

It certainly feels like the only thing you’re wearing when using a staff, and you need the extra 2 pairs when you crap yourself after a thief jumps you :p

Sarrs.4831:

If you’re going to make sweeping statements about abilities, it’s pretty important to make sure that your sweeping statements are actually correct. It might seem like an off-the-cuff remark to you, but it can seem like you’re practically shouting “I have no idea what I’m talking about!” to someone else.

Fair enough. You did claim in your previous post that I was comparing Rtl to teleports when I should be comparing to rush, when I actually did compare it to rush. However, I’m not going to disregard your whole post as “lol l2read” because your main argument still holds merit and is worth discussing.

Why are we operating under the assumption that I wouldn’t be okay with people using utilities while using RTL? Go nuts. If you can find synergies between a charge and an instant move, have at. That’ll add depth to the metagame, that’s good. Specifically on RTL+Signet of Earth->Updraft? That’s a very well telegraphed ability combo.

The flipside to “variety” is “what the hell are all the rules”. That’s why the distinction between a charge and a leap and a teleport is important. At the moment, the list of movement skill rulesets is limited to Charge/Leap(minor distinction between the two, that the player becomes airborne while leaping), Teleports, RTL, and you could make a case for Portal. You need to know, or you should need to know, how to deal with each of these. Is giving countering RTL its own strategy a reasonable distinction?

I believe the devs intended Rtl to be mechanically different, as Rtl actually gives you a visible indicator “lightning form”, and was discussed in elementalist bug patches where they had to fix how it didn’t lock out the taskbar properly. From here, it’s up to them to decide whether Rtl should continue to have its own mechanic or not. Portal’s unique mechanic forced its own counter strategies as well. In the end, both ended up getting nerfed.

Strategy is an aspect of skill. Making intelligent(or unintelligent) decisions within the bounds of reaction time is what decides whether players are good or bad, before getting into physical training like APM. How many intelligent or unintelligent decisions decisions can you make with Ride the Lightning compared to a standard charge? How many intelligent or unintelligent decisions can a player make when trying to counter Ride the Lightning? What can a player do to deal with this, or make a hilarious miscalculation while trying to deal with this? How many “wrong times” are there to use RTL, and how many “wrong times” are there to use a charge skill?

This is where the Rtl argument gets really muddy. Many players claim Rtl is a virtual get-out-of-jail free card and provide anecdotal evidence, but I have heard and experienced myself many ways to stop it as an ele and against an ele. Even if the ele gets Rtl off successfully, professions equipped with mobility can close the gap, or conditions like cripple/chill that actually linger after using Rtl can still make the ele vulnerable. Rtl is a strong skill, but I don’t think it is as invincible as many players claim, and there are just as many players who say they have no trouble dealing with it. A lot of things can happen before, during, after Rtl/rush, and the variety makes the difficulty of using those skills subjective to what the player has experienced.

Sarrs.4831:

Cirax.9231:

Read above for why Rtl is different, and what may happen if it were made similar to other movememt skills.

Another misconception: 0/10/0/30/30 build (+variations) & offhand dagger is OP. Eles have weak, underused trait lines.. like all the other professions.

You’ve listed a whole lot of, uh, things, which might involve skill to use. Which is a pretty important secondary objective when you’re making balance changes; to increase the amount of skill that can be invested.

My saying that “elementalists are OP” was a direct retort to the quoted post. Assuming that elementalists are indeed OP, would bringing into line one of their abilities which currently doesn’t operate under the same rules as other abilities in the same class be worthwhile?

Also, you’re completely wrong about the number of abilities that require a (hostile) target for you to use them as a teleport. Quickly reviewing the list on the wiki;

Flashing Blade
Judge’s Intervention
Infiltrator’s Signet
Infiltrator’s Strike
Shadow Shot
Shadow Strike
Shadow Pursuit
Steal
Dark Path

Tangentially, or requires a friendly target;
Illusionary Leap->Swap
Necrotic Traversal
Merciful Intervention

I’m sure I didn’t get them all, but you need to do your research. This is all meaningless, anyway; there’s a non-trivial distinction between a charge/rush attack and a teleport. Ride The Lightning is not a teleport. Do not compare it to a teleport. Do not think of it as a teleport. Compare it to Bull Rush. Dear Lord, think of the chaos you could do if Dark Path operated like Ride the Lightning.

You’re correct about teleports I did not cover, but you are well aware my main focus was to compare Rtl to movement skills because players use this premise to argue for Rtl being affected by chill/cripple. I didn’t make any direct examples comparing rtl to teleports to justify my argument. I used rush and swoop as examples. You don’t need to go off on a huge tangent on teleports – that is clearly not the main topic here.

As I said before and I will mention again: if you want to bring Rtl in line with other similar abilities, then make all aspects the same, and this includes the use of utilities during animation. I don’t understand why players are so inclined to categorize every “similar” skill to have exactly the same mechanics. Variety keeps things interesting.

How would you go about making balance changes to increase the amount of skill invested? What makes something that takes skill in this game vs something that doesn’t? Let’s be honest, the technical aspect of this game isn’t rocket science – strategy and mind games are more important than worrying about how much skill a profession takes.

Sarrs.4831:

Varyag.3751:

Elementalist is overpowered. RTL isn’t the reason for this, leave it as it is.

It certainly doesn’t help that an overpowered class has a charge which ignores most of the rules that the other charges in the game operate under.

Read above for why Rtl is different, and what may happen if it were made similar to other movememt skills.

Another misconception: 0/10/0/30/30 build (+variations) & offhand dagger is OP. Eles have weak, underused trait lines.. like all the other professions.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

What utilities are you using during rush or swoop that are not instant cast and usable at any instant anyway. The main complain of rtl is the ele cannot be affected by slows.

Yes, only instant casts can be cast during animations like shouts, some signets, and stances. It’s not the most useful thing in the world to be able to use these utilities during a movement skill, but the premise of players arguing for Rtl being affected by slows is because of skills like rush or swoop being affected by them. But in return, it would be bias if Rtl was changed to be affected by cripple without enabling eles to use utilities during the animation.

The nerf would be acceptable if utilities were enabled during rtl similar to other movement skills, but it could create worse problems with balance.

Not to mention, bunkering is the core problem and should be focused on for adjustments. OH dagger is used by other ele builds as well, and nerfing rtl further would worsen the state of the class that gravitates towards bunkering.

Good read – unbiased and constructive. Just a few wording errors like mentioning cleansing wave twice when I think you meant one of them to be soothing wave. Great in-depth analysis though, I hope Anet will implement some of your suggestions without totally borking the spec.

I don’t understand why players cannot accept mechanical differences between skills and want everything to be normalized. If Rtl were like other movement skills, then eles would be able to use utilities during Rtl just like Rush or Swoop. What does that introduce? Rtl + lightning flash up cliffs? Chilled/cripped before using Rtl —> cleansing flame during Rtl and still go the full distance. Rtl to target --> signet of earth to immobilize target during Rtl —> target can’t dodge the updraft combo. Be careful what you wish for.

Anyone suggesting Rtl requiring a target are simply mad an ele got away. No other movement/teleport skill requires this (except guardians, and it’s a teleport), and if escape is an issue, talk to thieves and mesmers as well. Ele get a lot of flak for this because of their strong bunkering capabilities, but maybe that’s the problem, and not mobility?

tapsumbong.6470:

ninja.4139:

I’d like to point out that downed players can still be knocked back.

It’s weird though that only certain cc skills can knockback a downed enemy. As an engineer, big ol bomb and I think thumper turret 2nd skill will knock back a downed enemy, but flamethrower blowback and shield #4 skill don’t.

Only launch skills, like the two skills you mentioned, can knock back downed players. Regular pushes or pulls like guardian bubble or mesmer focus #4 (temporal curtain?) won’t affect downed state.

All in all, this is PvP in an MMO… it doesn’t take long to pick up any profession with any build.

On topic, necros are an example of one of the more balanced professions. As others have mentioned, you can get more for less with classes like eles, guardians, and mesmers.

Just be careful if your enemy has access to blind.

Nothing like channeling for 3 seconds then flashing in only to see miss miss miss miss.

Having played WvW and s/tPvP, both have their ups and downs, but I have found some of the best fights occur in Wvw because of the variety of builds you come across. Once you wvw a bit longer, you will learn the best places to find roamers and avoid the zerg (though coming across them is sometimes inevitable, but at least you get to practice escape tactics :p).

One problem with spvp is the lack of variety of available builds because of the limited stat distributions. And even then, hot join still has zerg problems. In tpvp, it’s more about allocating resources to stay in a circle as long as possible. As a bunker, I watch my health bar and cooldowns instead of killing the people capturing the node because that’s my job.. it can get repetitive.

I suggest trying out WvW a bit longer – there are good fights to be had! It may take some roaming and luck to find them, but they’re there.

I love warriors
Wtf? Super ele???
Delete and reroll

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I thought the thief QQ would be gone after culling was destroyed. I was wrong.

To be fair, the QQ has died down a lot, but the 1st law of gaming states there will always be persistant complaining when someone loses.

I’m not too certain of armor runes, but I usually go divinity when going glass since it provides the crit damage you need in addition to other useful stats that benefit eles. Having the lowest base hp/armor, it’s nice to have extra points in those areas. I am not too familiar with other offensive runes though.

Sigil of fire and air would share the same ICD. Sigil of accuracy works, but I’d recommend sigil of battle instead, as you likely already have 50%+ crit rate, the stacks of might from switching attunements often in d/d feels more beneficial that 5% more crit chance.

I’ve always wondered why sigil of air and fire are very close in damage. Air does a bit more (5-10%?), but not nearly enough to justify taking fire for the aoe. I often find I run into more than one enemy (including pets) so I’ve always used sigil of fire.

8 months of playing merry-go-round, fighting bunkers in a small circle. It’s bound to get repetitive w/o other game modes. If you enjoy conquest that much, kudos to you.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Probably the biggest problem with tornado is that you can tag them with confusion and the tornado will cause them to suicide absurdly quickly. Other than that, it’s a pretty decent utility for repeated knockbacks and area denial.

Agreed, with so many confusion builds out there, the elite becomes a “convert self into loot bag instantly” button. You can cancel it, but why bother slotting it then :p?

It’s still fun to use in the right situation though. You never know what you’ll run into in wvw! Time to whip out that Charrzooka!

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

If I want anything it’s to remove attunements and make Ele’s like every single other profession ^^

What?? Nooo! …why?

The arcana description may be misleading, but rate is they key word here, so the recharge rate is working as intended. Plus, attunment swapping is what makes eles fun and unique.

Op, you are calculating “attunement cooldown reduced by x”, but the trait increases recharge rate by x.

100% recharge rate = 1 swap/15 seconds
20% faster recharge rate —> 120% recharge rate = 1.2 swap/15sec or 1 swap/ 12.5 sec
140% = 1.4 swaps/15 sec or 1 swap/10.7 sec
160% = 1.6 swaps/15sec or 1 swap/9.4 sec

Edit: Gorni has the same idea.

If 5 churning earths from 5 eles hit you when you’re stacked with your zerg, you were unlucky; however the AOE cap means the CE’s did not hit 5 other people in your zerg.

If 5 churning earths each hit 5 unique players for a total of 25 players hit, it’s nice AOE, but non-lethal. The spike damage won’t kill you, and the bleed stacks can be easily removed.

If you died to a single cast of churning earth, there is nothing we can say to help you.

Flipside.4152:

I tried 1 celestial amu + all berzerk ascended to reach 3k effective power while still having 15k hp with food and 19% damage reduction. Can anyone tell me their experience on all zerk/ semi-zerk builds on d/d WvW? Im running on Knight/Cav gear right now, loving the survivability and moderate damage but I’m thinking I could push the damage higher since I feel that I can dodge pretty good now negating the need for more survivability stats on WvW.

One of the great things about eles is that you can replace your gear with more offensive stats until you feel comfortable with your damage/survivability balance. If you feel you are able to mitigate a lot of wvw damage actively, go for more damage until it feels right for you.

I’m replacing my pvt jewelry one by one with celestial stats (amu, ring, karka acc) currently) and I found a significant boost in offensive power without too much survivability loss. Only burst-heavy builds made me feel weaker defensively, especially gs warriors that have a wall of hurt around them.

Most eles agree the bunkering needs to be toned down, and are trying to point out Rtl is not the issue. We get it, no one likes their enemies escaping during a fight, but you haven’t answered my post above: what about thieves, mesmers, specced warriors that can peace out and reset fights as well? Do you have a problem with them escaping fights?

Bunker ele is strong. Healing should be toned down or more boon stripping/boon hate should be introduced. Mobility and escapes are not an issue, unless you want a cloth guardian and think thieves /mesmers should be removed from the game.

But it if were the other way around, targeting the real mesmer would be far too easy. This issue would be solved if they implement the option to turn of titles on nameplates globally.

Death breakdown has been pretty glitchy, especially moves that funk around with downed state like old vapor form, vengeance, revive signets, etc.
I do like how your allies near you were all mesmers, fighting another mesmer xD

Lordrosicky.5813:

Cirax.9231:

Lordrosicky.5813:

I would like to see mist form get a 90s cooldown tbh. I mean endure pain is WAY worse as its not invulnerbility and thats on a 90s cooldown. It is a joke. Its 100% worse than mist form and yet is on a longer cd lol.

You can actually use your weapon skills during endure pain lasting 5 seconds, which is lots of time to set up something, whereas mist form lasts 3 seconds and locks out the weapon skill bar. The CDs are fine.

Nothing much has changed post patch. Until they tone down bunkering along with recent quickness nerf, what’s left of the meta won’t change.

Ok fine. You think endure pain that lasts for 5 seconds is fine. So lets buff it to 5 seconds from 3 seconds. That would be fine too. Glad you agree

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Endure-Pain-stealth-change

The tooltip was incorrect showing 5sec lasting 3sec, but it has been reported to last 4sec. See what a little research does? Oh wait, this is another thread veiled against eles as usual. We get your point. No need to be passive-aggressive about it.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I would like to see mist form get a 90s cooldown tbh. I mean endure pain is WAY worse as its not invulnerbility and thats on a 90s cooldown. It is a joke. Its 100% worse than mist form and yet is on a longer cd lol.

You can actually use your weapon skills during endure pain lasting 5 seconds, which is lots of time to set up something, whereas mist form lasts 3 seconds and locks out the weapon skill bar. The CDs are fine.

Nothing much has changed post patch. Until they tone down bunkering along with recent quickness nerf, what’s left of the meta won’t change.

Awesome, thanks for clarifying that ThiBash! In another thread, I was shocked at a screenshot someone posted who had a significantly more total stats, as he was using celestial ascended compared against full exotics. Of course, the numbers were thinned across all stats so I would imagine it would balance out. The think the extras that come with celesial jewelry (especially crit damage) is worth losing a bit of PVT from soldier’s jewelry on eles.

Yes, but I miss swinging my weapon like a madman during quickness… now it’s half the speed and not as fun.

But in seriousness, bunkers should have been toned down along with this nerf, and quickness penalties should’ve been adjusted as well.

Eles work well with balanced stats, so going hybrid isn’t a bad idea. You can change your accesories to zerker stats one by one until you feel comfortable with your defensive and offensive power.

However, I wouldn’t dismiss celestial stats immediately if you’re looking for a balanced build. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m sure you can achieve just as good of extra offensive power with celestial jewelry, with the benefit of other helpful stats like cond damage &healing, and you still gain just as much crit damage.

Dog.1472:

maddoctor.2738

I don’t know if trolling or not but certainly a totally ignorant post… Unless they integrated all those traits in the Elementalist profession (which they didn’t as far as I know) what you mention is achievable with certain traits/builds. Last I checked, RtL is the only option for a non-bunker Ele to escape, and if you made a very simple effort to search before posting, how builds/skills actually work, you would realise that a non-very-specific built Ele doesn’t have all the above condition removals.

Yes, nerf RtL even more, so MORE people roll D/D bunkers, since nerfing their one and only escape skill, that makes going something OTHER than D/D bunker a bit more viable is a great idea…. the “problem” is to make other builds more viable by buffing them, not by nerfing the only viable build more, something that unfortunately our Devs (and some posters) don’t know.

Oh, so you run the 0/0/0/0/0 build? Traits are very much a part of the class. Different builds are irrelevant, all that matters is what the Elementalist is capable of achieving. The condition removal by itself is not as much of an issue as being able to quickly and easily put a massive gap between you and your opponent. No amount of healing will matter if you can’t get away from your foe. Healing is definitely strong on an Ele, but not as strong as their ability to run.

And no, putting 30 points into water doesn’t make you a bunker. The stats from your traits are insignificant in comparison to your gear. Combine those traits with that ability and some power focused gear and you are immortal.

And no, RtL is not the only option to escape. It is simply the best, most overpowered one.

I’m not going to argue that Eles don’t have a lot of viable builds because they don’t. The fire tree is useless and needs a buff, but because some things are underpowered, it doesn’t mean that some things aren’t overpowered.

I don’t get your point. Many classes can place a massive gap between you and your opponent, why is the problem of running away exclusive to eles? You ignored mesmers, thieves, and warriors. When you say “no amount of healing will matter if you can’t get away from your foe”, you ignored guardians, rangers, engineers and necros who normally don’t flee but can hold their ground very well with healing/regen.

Rtl is a great escape move but it’s not unstoppable. I think stealth is stronger for escapes because of the fact it has no hard counter, and being able to see your opponent’s movement while they can’t see yours gives huge potential for positioning however you want.

The Eliminati worked silently, even pretending to be “free kills” at one point of their history. Now, we have emerged out of hibernation stronger than ever! More heals! More boons! More Rtl to watch enemies shrink on the horizon! Without quickness to stop us, elementalists will rule the world! Rejoice!

Arc lightning for sceptre is pretty interesting now. Zzzzzzap!

Again, people complain about Rtl when the real culprit is bunkering. Eles don’t have this godly condition removal unless traited 30 in water, usually complemented by 20-30 in arcana. What about offensive eles who don’t trait condition removal? Rtl still op then? Know the class and acutally understand it, and not basing your complaints on what you preceive or hear from others.

Ele bunkering is still strong and still needs adjustments, but rtl isn’t the issue. If you have beef with enemies escaping, talk to thieves, mesmers, and other classes like warriors that can trait for mobility. If you can’t stop an ele from using rtl, you would not have the skill to stop them even if rtl was affected by chill/cripple.

Empiren.6401:

Cirax.9231:

Lordrosicky.5813:

milo.6942:

it’s not a bug, it’s intended. which is even worse.

It has to be a bug because it is not consistant with any other movement skills :/

Milo’s right – using rtl gives you a status where you’re in “lightning form” and you can’t use any skills, utilities, or even switch attunements. The devs were bug fixing and tweaking this skill in the early months, so if slows/cripples not affecting it were an issue, they would’ve addressed it. That being said, rtl isn’t affected by swiftness either. Not all movement skills have to be exactly the same.

Rtl can be pretty cheap as an orb carrier, but it isn’t unstoppable; and professions like rangers, guardians, and engineers have little trouble being an orb carrier as well. The devs can decide whether to tweak Rtl during orb carrying, but it isn’t fair to suggest adjustments to a skill solely because of one sPvP map.

By that logic you are in “whirlwind” forum or “rush form”.

Because you can’t use any other techniques while doing such things.
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Rtl unnaffected by slows is just bad game design. Its catering to one class over another for a very similar skill.

If you play an elementalist, you see you get a buff while using rtl called “lightning form”. This locks out your entire taskbar.

On a warrior, you can still use utilities like shouts during “rush”.

Please at least try the class before making balance comments.. this goes for everyone talking about any profession. The last thing we need is spreading misinformation.

Lordrosicky.5813:

milo.6942:

it’s not a bug, it’s intended. which is even worse.

It has to be a bug because it is not consistant with any other movement skills :/

Milo’s right – using rtl gives you a status where you’re in “lightning form” and you can’t use any skills, utilities, or even switch attunements. The devs were bug fixing and tweaking this skill in the early months, so if slows/cripples not affecting it were an issue, they would’ve addressed it. That being said, rtl isn’t affected by swiftness either. Not all movement skills have to be exactly the same.

Rtl can be pretty cheap as an orb carrier, but it isn’t unstoppable; and professions like rangers, guardians, and engineers have little trouble being an orb carrier as well. The devs can decide whether to tweak Rtl during orb carrying, but it isn’t fair to suggest adjustments to a skill solely because of one sPvP map.

Oni.5429:

I think one of the most amusing things on these forums is watching these horrible hotjoiner eles trying to convince top players that they’re bad because said top players are calling eles overpowered.

The class is absolutely disgusting and does not require massive skill to be extremely powerful. All it needs is the right build.

You can be a r30 bunker ele with little to no real experience and still pose an absurd threat to the enemy team by just pushing their close.

‘’We instantly die to thieves’’

Yeah, that’s because you have the wrong build. Eles wont ‘’instantly die’‘, even when they’re up vs a thief, a mesmer and a warrior from stealth burst together with the correct build. They’ll be able to rtl+blink back to mid, reset their health and push close again whenever they feel like it.

Trash class that makes pvp a chore to play.

Oni.5429:

My fault for even trying to talk sense with random hotjoiners, I surrender.

Lots of sense, coming from the high and almighty competitive player.

Try not raging next time, maybe you’ll be taken seriously?

Leo G.4501:

The way it was described, the counter to this mechanic of ‘boon hate’ is a boon itself: Protection. Unless this mechanic can muster more than 33% damage (and even if it does) Protection mitigates more damage than it causes.

So what’s the big whoop?

If protection were to mitigate the damage of boon hate, then boon hate won’t do its job of softening up bunkers. However they implement it, it can go to either extreme – super powerful or super useless.

Being able to remove protection would make more sense imo. Or have armor reducing/piercing skills.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I don’t understand the logic of some people. Main mechanics are meant to be countered. Or else we’ll get overpowered, hard-to-counter builds, as it is happening right now.

Boons won’t become a bad thing just because a few builds will be able to counter them. That’s like saying that burst builds suck because bunkers can counter them. Burst builds are still key regardless of the existence of bunkers or not. Boon builds should still be strong against the majority of builds. More so than that, creating an anti-boon build means NOT creating a different kind of build, and for competitive pvp, you only have 5 players per map.

The problem with boon hate is that it presents a false choice, amplified by the fact that it is very common to provide boons for teammates if they are near you – did you just help them or hurt them? It is more intuitive to provide means to take away an advantage (boon-stripping) than to give a counter to an advantage – what is going to counter that counter? It would become an endless nightmare of counters for counters.

That’s why if boon hate were to be implemented, they have to be very careful how it is accessed or it may create a bigger balance problem. I’m very down with all professions having more boon stripping options though.

wish.3102:

Karolis.4261:

Cirax.9231:

This is a good change that won’t impact good thieves, and only the bad ones that rely on chain stealthing (repeated CnD on PvE mobs, blackpowder/HS spam).

So tahts what I said, this wont impact GC zerker 1 combo kill builds ( which you are refering as to “skilled thiefs”), but will fk up stealth builds that relly on CnD or Black powder/hs combo to survive till their next opening who are completally skilless compared to google copied gc zerker 1 combo thiefs. Yea, thats about it.

I would just like to point out that the perma stealth thief who fights groups of enemies is far more skilled than the guy who simply 1 shots 1-2 guys then hides and waits for all his cooldowns to come back.

Master of Timespace.2548

Yah, this. This nerf only touches the skill based builds, but the gimmicky instagib crap remains the same. This game is noob friendly beyond belief. I quess the carebears are better customers when it comes to the Item Mall

These replies are a prime example of how only bad thieves will complain about this stealth change. Such misinformed posts as above illustrates how bad players will do anything to protect their enjoyment of gimmicks.

Boon hate is interesting, but it would have to be implemented very carefully – it would be counter-intuitive to buff yourself with boons only to have someone deal massive damage to you because of buffs.

Boons are strong atm, but they can easily go from hero to zero if builds can smash through boons. This applies especially to guardians and eles who have a low hp pool partially because of their easy access to boons. I would be more in favor of giving more access to boon stripping instead.