Guild Wars 2

McClearyUnderMistRaildexGun.2086:

I can relate to what OP’s saying but it would appear that the devs think ele’s are fine.

The dev’s have incredibly poor communication with the community. You can’t assume they are fine with something just because they haven’t voiced their displeasure or released a patch. By that logic they are fine with all the bugs in the game simply because they don’t acknowledge or fix them. In reality it would appear to us, the customers, that they are simply incapable of meaningful progress.

Added another video.

lOKI.8152:

He is AFK. No need to say anything more.

Below are some videos against non afk opponents. Also in the first video I had improper recording settings giving me a near unplayable framerate (I’ve since fixed it). I found an afk opponent and figured it was good enough to show the theoretical potential.

These videos are me using a 20 30 0 0 20 scholar/berserker build. This build isn’t focused around this combo its just one of the many options I have available to engage a fight.

That video was just me messing around. It is completely impractical simply because it lacks points in arcana which we’re pigeonholed into. Here’s a video of me using a similar combo with my hot join glass cannon build 20 30 0 0 20/scholar/zerker. It’s against a warrior so it is relevant to this subforum (sort of).

UPDATE: Added a new video. This is using the build I’ve been using since the last patch.
20 30 0 0 20. Regularly hits for over 10k on churning earth, fire grab, and burning speed+ring of fire combo(dmg combined).

Ottigan.2571:

atm max fire grab i could achieve on light golem is 15.8k

I was able to get over 18k. Again this is just me messing around with numbers, not trying to prove a point or anything.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

6+ abilities and not including the attunement swapping. Thief could do just as much if not move damage with less time and using less cool downs and from stealth

Just went into the first full server I could find. Oh my, not a single thief. Don’t they know how awesome thieves are? Quick go on every other profession forum and let everyone know how awesome thieves are.

So you had a match without a thief..that means nothing, i have had matches with no Thiefs or Mesmers that does happen you know. Still ALOT easier to do that sorta damage combo as a Thief then having to jump attunement 2 or 3 times and use 6 abilities and hope they cant/dont dodge anything

I’ve never actually used this build or this combo outside of making that video which took a couple minutes. I’m pretty sure I said that this was a cheese combo, not an every ele has to use this if they want to deal damage combo.

Ele has good burst that isn’t reliant on long cds. For example an encounter I had a few days ago. I was using a more balanced build, I had 25 stacks of bloodlust.

-I see a theif
-I pop shocking aura (rtl was on cooldown so I didn’t do the standard ele rotation)
-I use burning speed
-He hits me stunning himself before burning speed blasts(increasing dmg by 20%)
-Burning speed blast does 7.5k ring of fire does 5k damage and I then finish him off with one auto attack while hes stunned (dragons claw did 3 hits for 1k each with bolt to the heart).

I don’t want to argue about skill or effort involved, the point was that a 25 second cd gave me 5 seconds of auto cc, then I used 2 15 seconds cooldowns and someone died in 1 second flat.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

6+ abilities and not including the attunement swapping. Thief could do just as much if not move damage with less time and using less cool downs and from stealth

Just went into the first full server I could find. Oh my, not a single thief. Don’t they know how awesome thieves are? Quick go on every other profession forum and let everyone know how awesome thieves are.

Mogar.9216:

problem is he dodges or hit you with a knock down you are toast. unlike a thief ppl WILL see you coming.

This video isn’t the best example, I used lightning flash way too early in the earthquake making it easier to dodge. Also on flat terrain I would initiate the teleport from max range if possible.

WhimsicalPacifist.2943:

They’d have to be deaf not to hear Churning Earth and not think something’s up, but there is still the initial surprise of the teleport. Bear in mind that without stability it’s a one-trick pony- the first time they may not think the elementalist has the teleport and eat the combo. Second time they’re more likely to use blocks, interrupt Churning Earth or CC the elementalist.

It might be more repeatable in a team-fight but the other team will also gib the elementalist who just spent all of their utility slots.

It’s not churning earth. Lightning flash is a 900 range teleport and you can use it right before earthquake lands, making it incredibly difficult to dodge. At that point the target is knocked down and the entirety of the burst (outside of the lightning flash damage) is delivered during the cc. A lightning flash + earthquake almost never gets dodged in hotjoin, although in tournaments it might work once but afterwards they would catch on.

Tapsteve.8579:

Secondly you would have missed with 70% of that against the equally broken thief .

The thief was knocked down for the entire duration of the burst which gave me an additional 20% damage. Yes he was afk and he might of used a stunbreaker if he had been at his keyboard. However if no stunbreaker is available you can land the entirety of the burst inside the knockdown (except lightning flash which hits before earthquake).

Noctred.6732:

As mentioned, this build is completely impractical against any kind of non-random competition – nobody would ever run it seriously.

It doesn’t prove much outside of raw damage potential, which is mostly irrelevant.

Not my fault anet doesn’t know how to balance their kitten. Reduce attunement swap to 12 seconds (9 at best with full arcana), lingering elements actually works, remove evasive arcana heal and compensate by majorly buffing water attune weapon ability heals. (The class is balanced around EA’s heal just make equivalent healing baseline for kitten sake). Maybe then builds like this could be effective as other professions running the same trait setup. Nobody wants to be pigeonholed into a build where they water attune swap mid dodge roll to be viable it’s kittening kitten

build: copy paste
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2BJ-V0z4kM-Z0;9;4TT-9-35205B;15;3SN;4G3G3G3G35Bo

I would never seriously use this build. I was doing testing to determine maximum burst potential. The alteration of that build I actually use for hotjoin glass cannoning is

-take 10 out of fire and water and put it into arcana for renewing stamina and elemental attunement
-bloodlust sigil on offhand
-mist form instead of arcane wave (you could probably do without mist form though)

felivear.1536:

lol nice. So, was that churning earth, portal in, use to arcane moves, switch to fire and fire grab..and that’s all?

It was …

-earthquake
-lightning flash mid cast
-cleansing fire (to burn opponent)
-arcane wave
-fire attunement
-fire grab

You’d get more damage using fire attunement right after lightning flash but I find it’s easier my way as the combo goes utility 1,2,3 which is a lot easier to hit.

Target happened to be afk, and I had to get way closer because he was on a hill making ground targeting difficult. You can initiate this combo from 900 range and it’s all on a knocked down opponent. Fire Grab did massive overkill but still would have been at least 10k without bolt to the heart (+20% dmg on target below 25% health).

I don’t think this combo was possible until a few patches ago when they fixed the responsiveness of stomp abilities like earthquake.

Feedback appreciated. I realize this is a very cheesy combo.

reikken.4961:

900 range combo in which all the moves have 300 range?

What I meant by that is lightning flash has 900 range, which allows you to get the jump on someone. Also youtube vid incomming, target happened to be afk but whatever.

Caffynated.5713:

You can switch to fire attunement while casting earthquake, right after lightning flash. You also have time to lay down a ring of fire before your arcane wave for might and still get off your fire grab before they get up from knock down.

The fire grab damage is fun to giggle over, but the damage you’re doing means they’re under 25% health and triggering Bolt to the Heart. It ends up being mostly overkill damage.

True but you still get +20% for grounded (stunned or knocked down opponent), +10 for burning, +10 for fire, +10 for scholar runes, +10 for vital striking. On a light target golem at above 25% health knocked down this build does 12k fire grabs.

I’ve come up with a burst combo that deals a lot of damage in a few seconds. It can be initiated from 900 range mid cc making it difficult to avoid. I realize this isn’t exactly practical, the idea was to make an ele cheese combo.

-Earthquake
-Lightning Flash mid cast to target from 900 range
-Cleansing Fire
-Arcane Wave
-Fire Attunement (ideally you would use this after lightning flash)
-Fire Grab

Build is 30 30 0 10 0, 10 in water for vital striking(+10% dmg above 90%hp), scholar runes

UPDATE: Here’s me using a this combo in a build I actually use. Yes I realize he used frenzy.

UPDATE: Here’s a vid showing the damage capable without bolt to the heart or a frenzied target. Notice how I have shocking aura and protection up the entire time and before those are gone I’m invulnerable making the stomp.

Solutions
1. 12 second base, each 10 points into arcana reduces cooldown by 1 second
2. Lingering elements actually works and is a 5 point trait, swapped with arcane fury
3. I’m guessing you are refering to elemental attunement and evasive arcana, remove heal from evasive arcana which shouldn’t be mandatory for all viable builds just for the heal. Compensate by massively buffing water healing abilities (i.e. 15 second cooldown on cleansing wave, buff geyser to be in line with cleansing wave, etc.). Reduce protection duration on elemental attunement to 3 seconds (still good but not so much that even the glassiest glass cannons feel obligated to take it).
4. All professions have weak filler traits, not really an issue IMO
5. Couldn’t agree more, get your kitten together anet
6. Easily implemented, again get your kitten together anet

I think with these changes and a few buff to fire traits ele would be in a good place.

I’ve also experienced this in the new map.

@Arheundel

I agree with everything you’ve said, but if removing the heal from evasive arcana would destroy elementalists in tpvp don’t you think that is poor design?

If elementalists are going to be balanced around having access to an additional base 1300 heal + condition removal every time they go water attunement why not just tweak all the water attunement weapon abilities to accommodate that. For example just reduce the cooldown on offhand dagger cleansing wave to 15 seconds. This way elementalists don’t lose any survivability and they aren’t pigeonholed into an evasive arcana build.

I’ve noticed one elementalist on the leaderboards using a semi glassy build in paids. At least prior to the last patch he was using water/arcana + berserker amulet. I find it absurd that he’s forced to use a build nearly identical to a bunker even though he is preforming an entirely different role.

I’ve played elementalist exclusively from rank 17 to rank 37 with over 1400 matches. Until the recent patch I’ve used evasive arcana builds exclusively. I am a casual player and only want what’s best for overall balance (I am not an elitist[nor do I have any reason to be] I value everyone’s opinion). I appreciate your response and I will do my best to respond even in my currently inebriated state.

I have dropped evasive arcana since the latest patch. I do agree that attunement swapping is entirely mandatory to be an effective elementalist. By reducing the base attunement swapping to 12 seconds and halving the recharge rate, the new swapping cooldowns would be 12,11,10, and 9 depending on arcana investment. This was greatly reduce ele’s dependance on arcana. The reduction on the protection duration is to reflect the fact that even those with little arcana investment would have greater access to this buff and it would possibly be overpowered to not reduce its duration. The nerfs I propose aren’t really nerfs, but a way to balance out the buffs. The buffs I propose are to increase the viability of all ele builds, and the nerfs are to insure that specific builds don’t benefit disproportionately.

I do have to disagree that bunker builds didn’t require evasive arcana. Perhaps a third party could chime in on this?

I am perhaps slightly biased, for in the spvp forum people often refer to elementalists synonymously as bunker elementalist. For those of us using berserker amulets and having zero room for error in order to perform properly, it is slightly insulting to be compared to the low risk cleric’s amulet using bunker elementalist who can tank 2 people almost indefinitely.

I don’t want to force people into dps specs. I am just tired of people parroting the notion that our traitlines are broken unless you spec into water/arcana. I’ve used water/arcana builds and fire/air builds and find both to be equally suitable. I can’t speak for conditions builds although the general opinion seems to be that they are ineffective and I agree in theory.

Most poeple agree that the current meta of unkillable bunker builds is ruining the game. Guardians are still the main culprit here but I don’t think that should give elementalist a free pass.

TheGuy.3568:

Also I cant imagine why players should be punished for swapping. Its the harder playstyle and for doing it well we should be rewarded not punished.

I assume this is in response to the lingering elements nerf I proposed. I don’t really consider it a nerf, but rather a way to balance out the buff I proposed for it. If people could spec for +10% dmg in fire, +10% dmg in air, and +20% damage in water on vulnerable target they could potentially stack all three of those attunement bonuses and deal ridiculously high damage. By limiting the attunement bonuses it would prevent this but still be significant buff compared to what we have now.

As for the evasive arcana nerf, I would ask do you still think that the ability is mandatory? I don’t want the devs to balance elementalist survivability around the idea that we all have evasive arcana and water attune + dodge roll every time it’s off cooldown.

I couldn’t agree more on the bug fixes, especially for newly introduced bugs from improperly tested patches. The bugs that the game released with never really bothered me because I worked around them, but the newly introduced ones that affected my build/playstyle really tick me off.

I’m gonna keep this short and to the point.

BUFFS:
-Base attunement swap 12 seconds, Arcana recharge rate halved (Shadow something of team paradigm’s idea)
-Add a blast finisher to evasive arcana earth dodge roll
-Lingering elements now works with + % dmg while attuned to X
-Pyromancer’s Puissance changed to spells cast while attuned to fire to work with lingering elements

EDIT:
-Rework water attunement healing abilities to make the healing from evasive arcana cleansing wave baseline. Example: offhand dagger cleansing wave cooldown is now 15 seconds.
-Burning precision’s burning duration increased to 2 seconds.

NERFS:
-Protection duration from elemental attunement reduced from 5 to 3 seconds
-Only 1 lingering attunement at any given time

-EDITED: Remove the heal from evasive arcana, the buff to baseline healing abilities should offset this loss.

Feedback appreciated.

Nice vid.

Also, In after shameless self promotion.

Numot.3965:

All 3 have some the most obvious animations in the whole game, meaning they are some of the easiest to avoid attacks. Knock back and pull tend to be fairly short, shorter than most stuns. The only one longer than a stun is blow out, and it has the most blatant animations.

To be fair updraft and overcharged shot are instant casts and personal battering ram is a 1/4 second cast. Although guardian hammer launch, stomp, and big ol’ bomb are indeed obvious.

Watch this vid, this guy does around 20k (aoe) damage in 3 seconds by using 3 weapon abilities and a utility. I think people exaggerate the amount of effort required to play an ele. Also under ideal circumstances fire grab can crit for 15k+ (aoe) so it shouldn’t exactly be easy to land.

Evie.2794:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

Good work on RTL. But you did more harm than good on magnetic grasp and should just revert it.

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

The earth attunement protection boon has a base duration of 5 seconds. With 2 water, 2 earth, and 2 monk runes the duration is 8.25 seconds (using the updated nerfed duration bonuses). This can be activated every 12 seconds (10.5 in theory but it never works out that way).

Elemental shielding gives auras a protection duration of 4.95 seconds

If you divide the boon duration by the source cooldowns and get a value of 1 that equals 100% protection uptime. So if I do this for every source and add them up and the value is = 1 then that would mean 100% protection uptime is possible. If the value is greater than 1 than you could cycle through the cooldowns gaining a surplus and achieve continually greater protection durations

8.25/12 earth attune +
4.95/25 shocking aura +
4.95/40 frost aura +
9.9/72 armor of earth +
= 1.14675

Now if magnetic grasps leap finisher wasn’t bugged we could add in

4.95/15

even without armor of earth factored in this would = 1.33925

Before they bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp I was able to achieve a minute duration of protection on target golems just using fire/frost/shocking auras, and earth attunement swapping. In actual fights in spvp I would notice durations of around 30 seconds after a battle would be finished.

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

fire aura with the trait elemental shielding

Griffon.4716:

OneManArmy.5617:

Being able to easily obtain 30+ seconds of protection(-33% reduction)

Elementalists can’t get over 30 seconds of protection, you may want to look into your numbers before you just throw them out.

OneManArmy.5617:

The Guardian cannot keep up boons for too long even if they spec into 30% boon duration.They may have a few blocks, but elementalists have other ways to avoid/absorb damage as well making them an excellent bunker.

Can you list the ways elementalists can avoid/absorb damage, besides mist form (which neutralizes the point, thus rendering them a useless bunker)?

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

Gisei.5749:

If I leap in place, it works about 7 out of 10 times for me. If I back up and actually leap, then it never fails to combo.

Interesting, I couldn’t recreate these results.

haviz.1340:

Ye, it says it triggered Fire Aura but you should check if you got an icon representing Fire Aura. Because you don’t get it in most cases. So visually you get leap finisher, but technically don’t.

Correct

Bsquared.3421:

I hope the fire shield you get from using magnetic grasp in a fire field NOT procc’ing auro traits (e.g., fury, swiftness, protection) is a bug and they get around to fixing it before next year.

If it’s an intended change, than that blows….

It’s a bug

I actually just don’t know enough about pve to contribute to this. I don’t think water would be necessary though. I would get the elemental attunement arcana trait so that I could swap attunements with my conjured weapon out for the boons.

Are you looking for a 100% conjure build where you only use conjured weapon abilities?

Although I only do spvp I think I have some decent ideas on conjure builds. The build would depend on how intent you are on incorporating the conjured weapon though.

On a side note this thread got me thinking about how much you could crit with a lightning hammer, 5699 was the best I could do.

Klassic.8057:

Yeah bro, tone down the water dodge – give it a 40 second cool down, while we’re at it, make the earth dodgeroll an original cool down of 30s too. One second cripple and 100dmg is too op. Must tone down.

And while we’re at it why not give theives full blown caltrops on every dodge with an internal cooldown 1/4 of the actual cooldown (7.5 seconds). That would be really balanced. I realize its not a grandmaster trait but even if it was it would still be ridiculously overpowered.

Every on proc ability in the game has an internal cooldown equal or greater than the actualy abilities cooldown. If it doesn’t than the ability is toned down (i.e. caltrops, “churning earth”) The only exception to this that I’m aware of is evasive arcana’s cleansing wave. Just imagine if you made the actual offhand dagger cleansing wave a 10-12 second cooldown and how that would affect balance. IMO they should of gave evasive arcana’s cleansing wave the 50% scaling nerf and kept healing ripple the same.

Steam takes a percentage of all micro transactions that occur in game, so you’ll probably never see this game on Steam.

I want balance, not overpowered traits that every viable build has to have. There are inconsistencies within the Evasive Arcana trait that I think should be addressed.

-Flame burst 10 second cooldown
-Blinding flash 10 second cooldown
-Churning earth – kittened hybrid version of shockwave/churning earth
-Cleansing wave 40 second cooldown non kittened version

I think cleansing wave should be toned down as it’s the strongest one and churning earth should be given a blast finsher as it’s the weakest one.

There’s an ele grandmaster trait that gives shocking aura, a 25 second cooldown, every 90 seconds. If you balanced that trait around the fact that evasive arcana allows a 40 second cooldown every 12 seconds then shocking aura would be procing every 7.5 seconds. It’s just poorly designed.

I agree with the OP.

Although if I recall correctly at release fire and earth dodge rolls were the only blast finishers that actually triggered the visual cue. I personally thought that at the very least those two were the only intended ones.

Intigo.1653:

The Churning Earth dodge roll (when it triggers, not like it used to be) should be a Blast Finisher, the rest not.

That way the trait would be fairly well balanced – in its current state it’s near useless and only the Water roll is remotely useful.

It’s quite simple.

I agree.

On another note I also think the water dodge roll is inherently overpowered. Cleansing wave is a 40 second cd and evasive arcana allows it to be used every 12 or so seconds. I think it should get the healing ripple treatment and only scale with healing power by 50%.

The leap finisher on magnetic grasp is extremely bugged out. When used with a fire field it shows the fire aura animation and visual cue, but it only gives the actual fire aura about 5 percent of the time.

When you use fire field + magnetic grasp is shows the fire aura cue and the fire aura animation but you don’t actually get it or the appropriate icon. It took me about 20 tries to actually get it to properly activate and then it did proc elemental shielding and zephyr’s boon.

Yes, so far I am satisfied with the RTL fix. On the new map someone was knocked off a ledge while I was rtling at them and I homed in on them and hit them mid air, it was pretty awesome.

Magnetic Grasp on the other hand is still self ccing me and the leap finisher is bugged out. I think they should revert the changes until they can properly fix it.

Ride the lightning’s cooldown is not reduced via the air cooldown reduction trait.

Amaethon.8710:

I wasn’t aware that Elementalist had a leap finisher, and I main one. Maybe I just misread the tooltips.

Magnetic Grasp isn’t listed as a leap finisher. So either this leaping move was given a leap finisher by accident and the devs never got around to fixing it or the devs intended it to be a leap finisher and forgot to put it in the tooltip. I for one am inclined to believe they just forgot to put it in the tooltip. However, since they bugged the leap finisher trying to fix another bug they’ll probably just say it was never intended.

Magnetic Grasp is extremely buggy in regards to working as a leap finisher, other than that everything is the same. I’ve used leap finishers from conjured weapons through fire fields and they work as intended.

I would appreciate a response from the game developers

TWMagimay.9057:

OmegaBlack.5931:

That its not fun to be an Ele anymore because of recent changes.

Well, if your fun comes from exploiting bugs…yeah, that’s your issue, not a class one either…

Do people actually belive anet when they say the blast finisher we’re unintended? If that is indeed true, than the developers are ridiculously incompetent. If that is a lie than you are completely gullible for believing such an obvious falsehood.