I added this idea to my list of stuff to discuss Monday as I think it would be a fine buff to this trait.
This… would be very interesting.
For bunker DD eles, Renewing Stamina is a bit optional (although still useful). With this change, a DD ele could dedicate that arcana slot to this. It would create an interesting roaming/ bunker setup which, in fact, was already the niche behind ele bunker eles before the nerfs, especially before the RTL nerfs. Of course, +25% speed is not as “problematic” as RTL – it doesn’t allow eles to reset fights, and requires a valuable slot. But it would bring their old point-to-point mobility playstyle back.
Hope you go through this change.
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Mesmers have two “illusions deal +15% damage” traits. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if one of them was changed to “shattered phantasms do X”?
I know that this would be a possible nerf to all phantasm builds (depending on the effect), but I think phantasm builds are way too passive and enjoy not making use of the mesmer’s core profession mechanic. It would be interesting if there was incentive for phantasm mesmers to shatter their illusions every once and then, even if not as often as pure shatter builds.
Not sure which effect should be, though, but probably not “more damage”, or else it would be very boring.
Maybe something cool like,
“Upon shattering, phantasms will activate their attack skills one more time before disappearing.”
Should it be too strong, we could tone down the normal effects of shattering for this specific efect, effectively transforming the shattering mechanic into something else for this specific build.
“Whenever you shatter phantasms, the base shatter effects will be 50% weaker, but phantasms will activate their attack skills one more time before disappearing.”
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What about:
Renewing Stamina
Adept tier
4s of vigor on a 6s cooldown
This would be a slight nerf to justify it being at adept tier, BUT an elementalist could increase its uptime by investing more points into arcana (30 arcana = ~6s every 6s?). Best compromise? It would be a possible solution to tone down dodge spamming without destroying some elementalist’s build survival.
I would also suggest this change for all other vigor-on-crit traits in this game, so all of them would be under the same premise: “Want perma-vigor? Invest on boon duration.”
One of the thing that annoys me the most about mantras, is that after charging them, if I happen to use them a single time before finishing a battle, I’ll then enter the next battle with one charge less. To usually prevent that situation, I waste that charge into the air once the battle is finished, and pre-charge the mantra again. After every single battle. It’s very annoying.
It would be interesting if charges “regenerated” after battle to make them less clumsy.
But to be honest, I would like to see them revamped. The idea of granting party support every channeling pulse is interesting. Think about it: the time-disadvantage is still there. And it’ll still be very easy to interrupt it and to put it into full cooldown. I would then remove the charges.
Mantra of Concentration – Applies 3 seconds of stability in a 600 radius per charging. Assuming a 2- or 3-second charge, that’s 6-9s of stability.
—> Power Break – Break Stun and add 1.5s of evade.
Mantra of Distraction – Perhaps confusion or retaliation to party per pulse?
—> Power Lock – Daze your foe (2s instead of 1).
Mantra of Resolve – Converts conditions into boons per pulse to party.
—> Power Cleanse – Further removes 2 conditions from yourself.
Mantra of Pain – Applies 3 stacks of vulnerability (~10s) to all foes within 600 range, for a total of 6-9 stacks.
—> Power Spike – Damage your foe. (With a buffed base damage)
Mantra of Recovery – 3s or more of regen to party per pulse.
—> Power Return – Heal yourself. (With a buffed base healing)
The main idea is that a Mesmer would channel those mantras at the beginning of each battle, and not at the beginning of each match/ map. For that reason, it’ll no longer be possible to over-ride that disadvantage of dedicating time at the heat of battle, and thus why they are stronger in my suggestion than the actual mantras. Basically, a mantra mesmer would buff its party within battle (think of paragon from GW1 – hey, paragon was a bard, and mesmer has bard-ish flavor. Not everything paragon-wise needs to be transfered to the Guardian profession), at the cost of time and self disruption, so the mesmer would need to kite efficiently and, perhaps, use instant skills in the meantime (including other mantras). After charging them up, the mesmer would gain access to a single one-time only skill that would mostly affect themselves or a single target only, and those “power” skills would work like a “bonus effect” to mantra skills instead of being the core skills of mantras. The mantra skills would be recharging while the Power skills could be active, so that a mesmer wouldn’t feel pressured to spam the power skills to have its party support ready in time.
Traits for this mechanic could include:
1. Increase the duration of effects applied while charging mantras slightly. (In a party support traitline)
2. Increase how strong Power skills are. (In a neutral traitline?)
3. Make Power skills radius-wide instead of single-target, for even better party support, and for some aoe damage/ daze. (Grandmaster-worthy in a party support traitline.)
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Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.
To be honest, scepter feels more like a condition damage + control weapon, than exactly something to “defend allies”.
What if Illusionary Counter was an area block? I always found it to be a limited skill because a single block (with an aftercast) was underwhelming when being bursted by multiple sources or by multiple hits. It feels kinda like a worse version of Blurred Frenzy (and the torment is not exactly something that oh-so-much-better than blurred frenzy’s damage – besides, it’s conditional).
So… it could be an area block that would block up to 3 hits (from any source, and targetting any ally within, say, 240 radius), and then, at the end of the animation (or after 3 blocks), it would counter with torment against every single source. Meaning that a single source could get hit by stacks of torment up to three times, if three of its attacks were blocked; or else the torment could be spread between each blocked source. It would then create a clone for each blocked skill, but it wouldn’t over-ride phantasms.
Or, as a completely different suggestion, or in addition to it, for the tricky flavor, “counterspell” (the sequence skill) could be buffed by creating a clone. Maybe even call it “Ether Clone”, using auto-attack #3 icon, and have it read something like “teleport and create a clone for each blocked attack”. It would be really tricky to catch a mesmer!
This way, you could have scepter as a “mass clone generator” without relying on auto-attack, freeing it up for a different effect.
For example, if Ether Clone were to be the sequence skill for the second attack, Counterspell could now be the last chain skill for the auto-attack. Don’t have many ideas for it, though.
I don’t main Mesmer, so my suggestions might be terrible. But the idea behind them is, make skill 2 the mass clone generator and better at ally support. And then revamp the auto-attack.
I’d like to agree, but I’m a little skeptical that the changes “aren’t final.” They said that about the last update preview and nothing changed that I’m aware of, even though there were items getting incredibly negative feedback.
Anet has been replying to feedback and suggesting some compromises. Those include the possibility of renewing stamina and cleansing wave staying at adept tier. So they are listening and considerating our opinions.
Actually, most of the strongest traits in this game are getting nerfed for the december 10 patch, either by moving up a tier or simply losing some effectiveness.
If anything, even though the patch will get many buffs (mostly for useless stuff), it seems there’s a careful attempt to avoid power creeping or to avoid the new buffs from getting to the level of the “too strong” stuff.
Right now I am thinking 85% on diamond skin as high health eles could break this at 80% imo.
There is another alternative:
instead of 100% immunity go for something along the lines of:
75% condition duration reduction while above 75% healthPersonally I’d still prefer to see GM traits be actives not passives, eg:
reflect the next 2 conditions on attuning to earth, earth attunement is recharged when afflicted by a condition when not in earth attunement, 6sec CD
If you think about it, 90%/ 85% health makes the trait very active, because it demands from the elementalist to actively prevent as much damage and heal as often as possible to maintain it.
I was theorycrafting an aura-sharing build, looking for spots to increase their survival without relying on renewing stamina, and trying to find alternatives to my suggested buff to elemental shielding. Here’s a few issues I found.
Build
1) 30 air (for zephyr’s boon and tempest defense),
2) 10 earth (elemental shielding),
3) 30 water (powerful auras),
4) At least one arcane skill (wave being the best for damage AND support) to burst into a stunned foe, and at least Lightning Flash. Third slot for arcane shield, second arcane burst skill, or mist form.
That leaves us three free slots, two in a defensive traitline. Good.
Because it is a support build, cleansing wave would be a must. To ourselves, whom would lack condition removal, and to further improve our party support. That leaves us with two slots.
Now, here’s the issue. With 30 in water and enough precision/ fury, you could go for valkyrie amulet instead of berzerker, for similar damage input and better healing.
So the natural fit for this build would be… no less than the new Soothing Winds! But it has a problem. Soothing Winds is balanced around the adept tier level, while we have a free master slot. In this situation, it would be much better if soothing winds was at master level and with 10% precision>healing conversion (switch it with the trait that adds critical damage through arcane skills – it’s not very strong). Alternatively, Aeromancer’s Alacrity for more shocking auras, RTL, updraft and weakness! In this situation, I would wish for a buff to 25% cooldown reduction.
Finally, we would get a free water skill. Assuming that both water traits wouldn’t get moved up a tier (one of them staying at adept – very important), this would be a good opportunity for water alacrity. That would mean more access to frost aura and more access to cleansing wave (the skill). This would be the perfect situation to buff alacrity 25% cooldown reduction. This would put both skills at 30s cooldown, Cone of Cold at 7.5 and Frozen Burst at ~11? But would that be good enough? Alacrity is only used -if I’m not mistaken, in WvW to use water fields more often. A small buff to 25% would certainly be welcome, especially in this case, or perhaps an additional bonus to the current effect (even something as simple as “+ healing power while in water attunement”).
Cantrip traits could be interesting alternatives, but they would restrict the aurashare elementalist from arcanes, and thus from most burst potencial within that tiny 1s stun time from a stun aura. Still, it would bring the much needed survival, but would such a setup make full use of tempest defense?
Alternatively, this could be an opportunity to improve Shard of Ice, the adept water trait that adds vulnerability to signets and arcanes. Why? First, that’s some very cool (offensive) party support, which goes in line with this build. Second, it works with arcanes, and this build can easily go for triple arcane! So… what about adding some extra defense? Like, for example, a 1 or 2 second chill in addiction to vulnerability? Too strong? Put it in master tier for the 2s effect, as long as Cleansing Wave is at adept tier.
Food for thought.
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Until they increase the base health of else they will need 20 in water,plus if they move elemental attunement to master 20 in arcane will still be highly desirable.
I’m sure Anet wants arcana to remain a highly desirable traitline, jsut so that they also want other traitlines to be highly desirable as well.
The change to attunement base cooldowns was absolutely needed, but otherwise, arcana should remain a really strong line, and other lines should be brought to be on par.
One With Air has a lot of potential with d/d because the massive speed can be used to chase moving foes. Fresh Air is also not too bad with mh dagger because lightning whip is the best auto-attack for elementalists.
Presumably healing signet will be slightly nerfed prior to the 10th december patch
Just out of curiosity, how do you know this?
I dont think d/d is really in that bad a spot right now…. if they bring condi classes damage down a bit it should be pretty strong again. but seriously…. RTL 20 seconds CD .. i mean cmon… do it… just do it.
I would personally like to see a buffed version of One with Air trait, and have RTL activate the half cooldown duration if the hit is blocked or evaded. If the double cooldown was to prevent too much escaping, then why does it still activate in some situations when we use it against players? :P
I’m not seeing how Tempest Defense is that great even after the proposed change. I mean it looks okay especially with the +damage against stunned or otherwise controlled foes but that has been there for a while.
Shocking aura itself stuns in melee only. Does it not? And judging from the description it doesn’t actually counter the stun effect targetting you? Merely tries to turn the table so you still need to use condition removal to get rid off of the effect and even then you only stun the melee guys.
With only 25s cooldown for Tempest Defense’s stun aura, a mh dagger elementalist (the best candidate for aura builds) can not only get more reliable defense, but more fury/ swiftness/ protection more often from traited auras. And within that precious 1s stun, an elementalist can always use its arcane skills + swap to air for a massive burst.
I fear it won’t have enough survival, though. At least the aura-sharing variant. With powerful Auras to support allies, and perhaps cleansing wave, what left is there to help eles survive? Cantrip traits won’t be very good here, unless the aura ele doesn’t takes arcane skills. But by doing so, it’ll be hard to take advantage of the +20% damage (outside of lightning flash).
That’s why I defend a slightly stronger elemental shielding. That trait is only good for aura elementalists, which is pretty much a variant of mh dagger builds, and mh dagger builds are the builds that most need the extra survival out of all elementalist’s builds. 1+1=2. :P
It doesn’t works very well in pve because bosses can’t be stunned. Unfortunately. If only the stun got applied on bosses, even if it did nothing, for the sake of activating this trait…
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Re-posting from the elementalist forums.
If Renewing Stamina stays at adept tier, D/D aura (without aura-sharing) elementalists can potentially become slightly stronger than what they are now, because of the buff to tempest defense. It won’t work in PvE, though, because of the lame Defiance mechanic, but fresh air D/D is already fine there.
The problem with the new tempest defense and aura sharing, is that taking both and elemental shielding from earth comes at the cost of renewing stamina. Elemental Attunement is a much, much stronger trait than elemental shielding even in an aura build. For that reason, I can argue that an aura-sharing build today is stronger than an aura-sharing build after the 10 dec patch with the new tempest defense and the master tier elemental attunement. And considering that aura-share eles aren’t exactly top-tier today…
This is important for Anet to consider. Spending 20 points for elemental attunement is a better deal to apply protection to the party than 30 in water and 10 in earth with auras. This, however, would mean sacrificing the new tempest defense, which in turn would mean that aura-share eles wouldn’t get any buff from this patch. Else, an elementalist is probably just better ignoring 30 water and going for a more 1v1 dueling aura build and offering party support with the arcana traitline.
The key here to fix all that is elemental shielding. For an “optimized” aura-sharing build, elementalists won’t be able to ever get Renewing Stamina (30 air, 10 earth, 30 water). This will put them at a situation close to staff eles: good support at the cost of very poor survival. For that reason, I really think Elemental Shielding should be buffed in duration from 3s protection to 5s. :P I’ve already offered several arguments in favor of this buff, so that’s one more.
Right now, D/D is horrible. These changes are not going to make it stronger. The best we can hope for is to adjust the changes so that D/D at least isn’t made weaker, and hope that the nerfs other classes are receiving result in it being at least moderately viable. But it still is going to be a subpar build after this patch, so if that’s a problem, I’d go for something else.
If Renewing Stamina stays at adept tier, D/D aura (without aura-sharing) elementalists can potentially become slightly stronger than what they are now, because of the buff to tempest defense. It won’t work in PvE, though, because of the lame Defiance mechanic, but fresh air D/D is already fine there.
The problem with the new tempest defense and aura sharing, is that taking both and elemental shielding from earth comes at the cost of renewing stamina. Elemental Attunement is a much, much stronger trait than elemental shielding even in an aura build. For that reason, I can argue that an aura-sharing build today is stronger than an aura-sharing build after the 10 dec patch with the new tempest defense and the master tier elemental attunement. And considering that aura-share eles aren’t exactly top-tier today…
This is important for Anet to consider. Spending 20 points for elemental attunement is a better deal to apply protection to the party than 30 in water and 10 in earth with auras. This, however, would mean sacrificing the new tempest defense, which in turn would mean that aura-share eles wouldn’t get any buff from this patch. Else, an elementalist is probably just better ignoring 30 water and going for a more 1v1 dueling aura build and offering party support with the arcana traitline.
The key here to fix all that is elemental shielding. For an “optimized” aura-sharing build, elementalists won’t be able to ever get Renewing Stamina (30 air, 10 earth, 30 water). This will put them at a situation close to staff eles: good support at the cost of very poor survival. For that reason, I really think Elemental Shielding should be buffed in duration from 3s protection to 5s. :P I’ve already offered several arguments in favor of this buff, so that’s one more.
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Renewing Stamina and Cleansing Wave at adept tier is a good compromise. They’re certainly strong enough for master tier (and EA for grandmaster), but those traits are also the main reason to spec 10 points into the respective lines in many situations.
I still stand by my opinion that elemental shielding could get a slight buff, and that arcana’s dagger (and scepter) trait a re-thought.
To tone down dodge spamming, I think all vigor traits should be moved to master tier (the same logic applies to guardian or mesmer), and weaker “endurance regenerates 50% faster” should exist at adept. Renewing Stamina at master would open up space to use scepter’s trait, but I also think scepter trait’s effect would be more important to dagger. That being said, is the elementalist class, being the squishiest class in the game, guilty of “dodge spamming luxury”?
Aquamancer’s Alacrity
I personally would like to see a more creative bonus to the recharge traits. Other professions have recharge traits with extra bonuses, and the affected skillsets are 1/2 of their entire weapon skillsets, while for elementalists, it only affects 1/4.
However, considering how long our skill recharges usually are, maybe 25% (or more) is not a bad idea. It would be very interesting to test a – for example – 33% recharge reduction for ride the lightning, updraft, swirling winds, etc. Would it be too strong? Maybe, not sure, but they would be pretty cool utility additions for Fresh Air and any other similar grandmaster traits that might ever appear.
Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery
I’m unsure.
Let me share my pvp experience with those two traits. When I go with cantrip builds, I always prefer SD over mastery. At the start of each match, I always check my opponent’s team to see if there’s too many condition builds or not. If yes, I pick Cleansing Wave. If not, I go for mastery for easier access to stability from armor of earth.
To be honest, I see cantrip mastery more as an add-on to SD, although that certainly means that SD is the better one. And mastery at adept would certainly open new possibilities for Lightning Flash, etc, especially for glass cannon builds that already have vigor and don’t have enough boon/ healing stats to care about the regen (especially if only using two builds).
I’d say that this change should be done alongside Renewing Stamina. If one vigor trait ends at master tier, the other should remain at adept. Good compromise?
Other thing to consider is any new cantrip build with 20 points in fire for might on cantrips and auto cleansing fire. This kind of build will certainly want SD for vigor and regen. :P
One question: does the cantrip recharging trait affects cantrip traits, or only the skills?
Arcana
Final Shielding is not good enough to be at master tier. Unless… it is affected by the arcane recharging adept trait?
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I mean we can argue all day about whether it will be good or not. But the bottom line is, good or not, it is just more lame cheese. Single traits which hard counter entire specs AND are passive? Really? Not great.
To be honest, the hard counter is only very temporary, and demands hard work from the ele player to keep the hp that high. For that reason, the new diamond skin is less of a hard counter and less passive than what it might seem at the first glance.
I’d say we should test it first before fully judging it. It’s hard to predict how cheesy it might or might not be at the moment, in my opinion, but something tells me it requires more active input than what you think.
Ele doesnt need buffing.
I agree with this. However, eles don’t need nerfing for their barely viable builds, neither, do they? And I’m not talking about their most popular instant-burst cheese, but just a typical d/d build. In the upcomming changes, eles are going to get some buffs in weak areas, which is cool, and they are going to get some nerfs to compensate for it, which is fair, but d/d builds seem to suffer a bit too much, considering they aren’t that strong nor cheesy. For that reason, I think Anet should consider compensating the indirect nerfs done to d/d by doing some slight buffs exclusive to those builds.
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For elementalists, d/d builds are going to suffer unfairly with those changes, so I hope that Anet carefully thinks of that.
I don’t mind the tier up for vigor and EA (in fact, I’ve been defending them for some time), but something should be done to compensate for d/d eles, which haven’t been very viable even with both traits equipped.
Buffing elemental shielding to give 5s of protection instead of 3s per aura, and switching arcana dagger trait’s effect with scepter trait’s effect so that daggers can get the higher endurance regeneration, are two possible solutions to help d/d eles without the risk of power-creeping other ele builds.
Another idea to take the dependence out of elementalist’s elemental attunement, is to further buff their minor adept traits to be comparable.
Make earth #5 add 180 toughness (same as signet of earth) instead of the stated 120, or give a party radius effect like the water trait. Or both.
Make air #5 add 15% speed instead of 10%, but I have my doubts about this one. 25% speed would feel better, but could it be too strong for a 5-points trait? What about a party-radius effect instead?
No ideas about fire #5, but maybe something like “% chance to inflict 1s burning on hit/ 5s cooldown”, kinda like a modified burning precision.
To be honest, even water’s #5 could get a slight buff, even though it’s the best of them all.
And of course, bug fix lingering elements to work with air and earth.
Even so, those are only very tame buffs. Think this way, Anet: what would be better, investing 5 points in each traitline to get each of those small tiny effects, or invest 20 points in arcana for elemental attunement and fury on swap and an adept tier of choice?
EDIT:
Another solution, and a very bold one, is to remove the elemental attunement and lingering elements completely from the game, and have each minor adept trait add EA’s effects, with slight modifications.
Fire’s #5 trait: 3 stacks of might for 12s. 240 radius.
Air’s #5 trait: 6s of swiftness. 240 radius.
Earth’s #5 trait: 3s of protection. 240 radius.
Water’s #5 trait: 6s of Regen. 240 radius.
Lingering Elements: increases the duration of those buffs by 33%.
Elemental Attunement: increases the radius of those buffs to 600. Adept tier, or grandmaster minor, or master minor swapped with lingering.
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Alternative solutions to (d/d) elementalist’s defense
I fully agree with the decision to move Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement up a tier, due to how strong they are, but based on this thread it’s clear that, regardless of how strong those two traits are, eles (especially d/d) weren’t broken with both of them to begin with.
Anet can probably fix it while still going through the EA and RS changes.
1. Shave Cleansing Fire’s cooldown by 5 or 10 seconds (30 or 35 from 40). Since this cantrip lost its stun break, it hasn’t seen use even when the meta favors it. That says something. Should the new trait’s cooldown be linked to it, put both at 35s then. Fire-specced eles will probably not have easy access to sustained defense, so I don’t think this would be a risky change for the new trait.
2. Shave Armor of Earth’s cooldown for the skill and for the trait by 15s (75s from 90s). Much like Cleansing Fire, this skill isn’t used even when the meta favors it. Same logic as above.
3. Buff Elemental Shielding’s trait to add 5s of protection per aura instead of 3s. Here’s my list of arguments to justify why this change would be fair and not add powercreep:
3.1. This trait mostly affects dagger elementalists, and dagger elementalists are the ones that need extra defense the most.
3.2. Dagger elementalists are barely viable even at elemental attunement at adept tier. This is one of the bigger arguments in favor of this buff. EA adds 5-8 seconds of protection that also affects allies, and it still adds might, regeneration and swiftness on top of it. 5s protection elemental shielding would still be much weaker than EA, which would justify it being an adept, and it would be mostly exclusive to dagger users.
3.3. I’ve defended in this thread that the earth traitline needs an alternative solution to elemental attunement’s protection. The above buffs to armor of earth trait and elemental shielding would make the earth traitline a viable defensive alternative, while still having enough restrictions to not make it as strong as EA at adept tier.
3.4. A five seconds protection for Elemental Shielding, to ever be as strong as EA, would require 30 point investment in water for shared auras, while EA already had the AoE naturally.
3.5. EA is already in the boon traitline. Elemental Shielding requires further boon duration investment to get up to 8s of protection like EA ccan easily acchieve.
3.6. God, EA is just so strong! A buff to Elemental Shielding won’t suddenly make d/d eles broken. It’ll just give them the extra protection they need to survive.
4. You are buffing non-arcana eles, but why nerf arcana eles in the process? It’s not like 30 arcana eles have been dominating any game mode, have they?
4.1. What I mean is, consider making Elemental Attunement the #25 minor grandmaster trait. Yes, this will be a direct buff to all arcana eles, which might be risky.
4.2. Nerf Elemental Attunement’s protection duration to 3s (it’ll still be good enough for anti-bursting, especially with all the extra boon duration) but change fire’s might to stack 3 times instead of 1 (decrease the duration to 8s). This will even out EA’s effects, and further make the earth traitline more appealing for protection.
5. I don’t understand the nerf to water’s traitline. Removing 1 condition on water is strong, but was it EA/RS-strong? Nonetheless, I want to make some comments about this change.
5.1. Cleansing Wave is important for build diversity because of how universal it is. A glass cannon ele with +10% damage on >90% hp could switch to it anytime they would need it without re-traiting. Likewise, a cantrip ele could do the same. It’s a trait that can be used in any build, which is cool.
5.2. By moving up a tier, cantrip eles and glass cannon eles will be stuck to only one water trait at adept tier. Also, the water traitline will offer underwhelming protection to non-cantrip builds at that tier. This is bad for a defensive traitline.
5.3. For all those reasons, I suggest keeping this trait at adept, or revamping soothing wave to a more universal any-build-can-benefit-from-it effect. For example, it could improve the minor #5 trait, or maybe add regeneration on water (a weaker version of EA), or even something fancy like “your healing skills heal other allies for 25% more”. This can be expanded to “and increases healing skills radius by 60”, but I wonder, if this wouldn’t be worthy a master tier as well?
6. It wouldn’t hurt if elementalists could get a non-boon defense, like access to weakness or blind through a trait. Air traitline is a good candidate for a blind, and fire traitline increases condition duration, so it could get something like “Melting Weaponry/ Equipment: your next hit applies weakness (and vulnerability?) on a burning foe”. Of course, this could go to earth as well, for an interesting fire/ earth synergy.
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Yes.
They don’t want tanks
They want completely shallow one dimensional gameplay.
Dodge and DPS.
It was a PvP change.
In PvP, warriors can tank, CC AND dps in a single build.
Not any less one dimensional, is it?
Question: Is/ Will it be possible to reduce the cooldown of cantrip traits with the -20% cantrip duration trait?
This update might also be a good opportunity to rethink arcana’s minor 15th and 25th traits. Lingering Elements should get bug fixed, but some of the minor 5 traits (fire and air) should also get a small buff, much like how earth’s trait will. I’d say 15% speed for air and 30% chance for fire, and those are just shy buffs.
Rock Solid builds might become more viable now that they won’t rely so much on Arcana.
I also want to add:
Elementalist’s Scepter regeneration trait doesn’t stacks with vigor. This leads to bad synergy with Phoenix.
Awesome changes! Here’s my opinion about some of them:
1. About Warrior
I think that Healing Signet should have lower base healing and better healing power scaling. It doesn’t needs to be something drastic, considering that warriors will already get their pvp meta builds nerfed.
2. About vigor/ evasion traits
I think the nerf to the mentioned vigor traits are an excellent change, and will tone down dodge spamming. But please, do not forget Guardian and Mesmer, who can get perma vigor with only a 5 point investment. Those two professions are not any less guilty to dodge spamming.
3. About elementalists
The change to arcana is lovely, and it’ll open up a lot of new possibilities, but I worry about some issues that might cripple those possibilities. Here’s a few comments:
3.1. Elementalists rely too much on Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina to survive. Although it might be worth trying the scepter’s higher endurance trait now that it is at adept, I think the earth traitline should have a… worthy substitute for elemental attunement’s protection. Maybe it could have a stun breaker trait? Rock Solid could get it, but I fear it could make it too strong. Maybe as a grandmaster trait, and moving Written in Stone down a tier.
3.2. The fire traitline is now going to get a good master tier with condition removal, and with the changes to ember’s might and #25, it might create an interesting 100% duration burning build.
3.3. Maybe it’s good time to make Burning Precision equal to the Engineer’s Incendiary version. 4s of burning on critical, with 10s cooldown, at master tier. This change would change elementalists a lot. Higher sustain for many fire builds, good synergy with the new ember’s might, and also – worth considering, players would have to choos between it and the new Burning Fire.
3.4. Please, consider adding one extra 0.5 seconds duration to the One With Air trait.
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by letting players gain powerful effects in Master and Grandmaster tier of Fire, Air, and Earth
Okay, can anyone explain me those powerful traits of fire, air and earth?
Persisting Flames is meta in PvE. Fresh Air is meta everywhere. New Diamond Skin is going to be pretty tough.
Why is it that when changing something in the Elementalist you always accompany it with huge nerfs to avoid “power creep” and when buffing other classes it’s just a flat out buff with no strings attached?
Nerfs for the meta stun-lock warriors.
Nerfs for the meta burst necromancers.
Nerfs for the meta s/d evade-spam thieves.
Nerfs for the meta spirit evade-spam rangers.
Pretty much the entire OP pvp meta is going to be nerfed.
Elementalists might “lose” the protection from elemental attunement or the vigor from renewing stamina (or both), but all the builds they have to fight against will get their damage nerfed, and many of them will get less vigor as well.
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None of the mobility issues were addressed.
(…)
If youre not running a glass burst build, your still required to use 2-3 cantrips.
Mist form still not mentioned about being able to be rooted while in it.
I wouldn’t expect for a single patch to fix every single issue.
The condi removal now gets screwed up even more so by moving adept traits in water and arcana to the master traits. Were still required to go 50-60 between arcana and water for “decent” condi removal.
New Burning Fire says hi. For a burst elementalist, an automatic condition removal is all they need. Especially when you can spec for it to add 3 stacks of might, vigor and regeneration with other traits.
People have been complaining about the dependence on arcana for too long. That alone will open up a lot of new possibilities.
Those are some of the greatest changes elementalists will get since the game is out, and are going to be extremely important at fixing some of our core issues.
December. I’ll give out more details later.
Are there any plans for another balance preview post? Was the last one a success to gather feedback?
The one thing that confuses me on changes like this is…..when did anyone complain about the original one with air trait?
Can we get some attention on the traits that are annoying, broke, or useless first? Before we start rehashing traits that players have no complaints with.
One With Air got some attention because it was weak. Now, the new change might not be enough, but based on feedback that Anet gathers, they can always boost its new numbers a little bit.
Yes, we’re also looking at the other classes in relation to the current iteration of the Warrior and how they vie for spaces in the meta.
If we bring down Warrior slightly, we’ll also need to adjust other things to make sure they’re also not too strong.
Also, we want to shave most things down, instead of just running around with a “buff” stick. That’s how you get a lot of power creep, and it’s something a lot of you, very astutely, have pointed out – we need to avoid that.
Keep your eyes peeled for another post later today where we expound on a lot of this type of stuff.
I agree with this. I think buffs should only come to skills that are clumsy or inefficient. Even though the elementalist is currently the worst class for pvp, I would actually wish for its instant-burst damage to be toned down (which, in my opinion, should be done by adding a " damagedelay" to arcane skills, so that they wouldn’t be nerfed outside of pvp or even outside of this build). It would be interesting to see all classes have their strongest options “shaved” in the next balance patch.
BTW, when can we except the next wave of changes? In 2 weeks?
About big teams
I would like to see a game mode that puts several small teams in the same map, similar to AB in GW1. For example, 2 teams at each side consisting of 3 players each. That would be a 6v6, except each player would only need to gather two friends and queue.
It would also create an interesting situation where organized teams would have to cooperate with other organized teams. Maybe a good opportunity to meet new players?
About KotH
I can understand why King of the Hill would be a mess. Maybe it would work better in a 3v3 format, or as a secondary objective. It’s worth noting that Foefire map can already be adapted to different game modes. You could have, for example, an assault the base/ kill the lord main objective, with a KotH secondary objective at the middle.
About GvG
To be honest, I would like to see a fusion of MOBA style gameplay and WvW sieging. Why? Simply because it would be original, it would be epic, and it would make GW2 stand out from other PvP games in the market.
Here’s my rough concept:
1. Instead of minions waves to destroy towers, the map would have NPC waves to use siege weaponry to break doors and walls.
1.1. NPC siege soldiers would spawn if sieges exist.
1.2. NPC engineers would spawn to build or repair sieges.
1.3. The “guild leader” would decide where and which sieges would be build. NPCs would automatically move towards the build zone.
2. One of the main player’s objectives is to defend own sieges and to destroy or disrupt the opponent’s sieges.
2.1. This would be acchieved by slaying the NPCs, but if an opposing player would be there to protect them, a deathmatch would occur.
2.2. It would be similar to defending or assaulting conquest points, but there would be less emphasis on bunkers and more on ally support.
3. Somewhere in the map, perhaps at the middle, there would exist either a KotH point or an orb. Holding the point or taking the orb to the base would offer resource advantage (in own base) or help bombing the enemy’s gates (their base).
4. Somewhere hidden in the map, some NPC enemies could be destroyed and some treasures looted. They would spawn every few minutes, and the rewards would be resource advantage.
5. A resource system would allow teams to progress through the match, but not by level of by equipment. Instead, it would unlock new or stronger sieges, new or stronger food and other items buffs, and new or stronger NPC allies.
5.1. Examples for new sieges: just look at the diversity of sieges in WvW AND how wvw levels affect them. In GvG, there could exist base sieges, which would cost resources, and there could exist improved versions, that apply extra conditions or other effects.
5.2. Examples for food buffs: just look at pve. They would add regeneration, improve stats, etc. There would be plenty of them, so each player would have to know the better stats to invest on based on their team, the opposing team, the current situation and the meta.
5.3. Examples of new NPCs: armored NPCs (higher toughness), faster NPCs (roamers), bomber NPCs (they drop bombs when they are slayed), etc, etc, etc.
6. Once the walls or the doors are broken, the final objective would be to slay the lord, or maybe to spread the team and prevent the zerg, to destroy 2 or 3 different power cores within the base.
7. On death, players would spawn on their base. However, there should exist an ability to quickly teleport them to their base to get stronger item buffs, better sieges, etc.
Number of players required:
1 Guild Leader, with access to siege “shop”;
1 Second-in-command, to take the role of the leader whenever needed;
(Assuming there are two “best spots” for catapult sieges)
2+ players to defend their own sieges;
2+ players to disrupt the enemy’s sieges;
1+ player/s for KotH or orb running;
0-1+ player to roam where needed, or to hunt NPCs/ treasures;
This could work well in a 8v8 scenario or even for bigger teams, but I suppose it could also be done with 5v5, depending on execution. This level of team flexibility would be nice also for custom arenas/ hotjoin.
This feels like the hundredth time I have had to say this…
You cannot directly compare traits from 2 different classes.
There are tens of other factors to take into account, such as health, armor, boons, skills, class mechanics, and more.
Oh, I am aware of that. There’s a reason why Dhummfire is at grandmaster tier and is half as effective as the engie’s version.
But we’re talking about underpowered traits here that are left rotting. If better versions for them are being made to other professions, wouldn’t it be fair to take that opportunity to update the already-existing prototypes, even if the changes aren’t exactly the same?
That being said, I can’t imagine an elementalist to be too strong with a master tier Dogged March or an adept tier Incediary Powder. In fact, I’d say that it would give them exactly what they need.
Take the Remorseless trait for Rangers and the Hidden Killer trait for Thieves. Do effectively the same thing in the exact same manner. No one in their right mind would ever choose Remorseless. I’d be cool with putting a 1500 yard backstab on the longbow attack as a ‘from stealth’ move though.
Certainly, but stealth is not equally available across all professions. Critical chance is. And eles like resistance to conditions like immobilize as much as warriors do.
To be honest, even if they fix Lingering Elements, will it be worth for the extra two digits toughness or for +10% movement speed? It would be an exciting change if any of those minor traits were good in the first place, or if they synergized with something else (for example, traits that would activate while under those buffs). But then, for the last situation, supposing that this would involve all the +damage traits, Lingering Elements would be so massively overpowered, that I don’t think even being at grandmaster tier would keep it in check.
I would like to see it fixed only after a balancing pass to the minor adept elemental traits.
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This feels like the hundredth time I have had to say this…
You cannot directly compare traits from 2 different classes.
There are tens of other factors to take into account, such as health, armor, boons, skills, class mechanics, and more.
Oh, I am aware of that. There’s a reason why Dhummfire is at grandmaster tier and is half as effective as the engie’s version.
But we’re talking about underpowered traits here that are left rotting. If better versions for them are being made to other professions, wouldn’t it be fair to take that opportunity to update the already-existing prototypes, even if the changes aren’t exactly the same?
That being said, I can’t imagine an elementalist to be too strong with a master tier Dogged March or an adept tier Incediary Powder. In fact, I’d say that it would give them exactly what they need.
Arcane Lightning increases Critical Damage by 5%, not 10%.
I didn’t find AL to be worth it at 10%, considering it only affects critical damage and not all damage, and demanded specific utility setup to activate. But if that’s true and it only increases by 5%, then it’s a pretty poor trait. :P
It’s interesting how elementalists have a weaker version of Unsuspecting Foe at grandmaster tier, and how that trait has smaller synergy with the class than UF has with Warrior. If one is going to be touched, maybe it would be a good time to revise the other, too. But then again, warrior’s have gotten Dogged March too, which pretty much reads, “This is the elementalist’s Geomancer’s Freedom trait, except with added regeneration and at a lower tier!”
Of course, this wouldn’t be a first. Nor a second. Elementalists have been stuck with burning precision, an outdated burning-on-critical trait compared to the engineers’ version, which was already superior by the game’s launch and gor further updated in a patch, and even necromancers traitline got an overhaul for the sake of getting the engie’s version of that trait with Dhummfire! Necromancers, for god’s sake! Out of all the professions in this game to get better burning traits than none other but the fire elementalist, they choose Necromancers! I know eles were strong at that time, but we’re talking about a bad traitline no ele used.
This also reminds me that Renewing Stamina was one of the last vigor-on-critical traits to ever be updated.
It would be nice if Anet didn’t forget to update our traits every time they decide to make a better version of them for other professions! Maybe water/ earth bunkers or burning-sustain builds could be viable by now if we weren’t stuck to beta-version prototypes.
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I don’t think the problem with elementalist was the nerfs, but the buffs done to other classes and a lack of viable tools to fight this meta.
I mean, one of the elementalist’s best tools to fight this meta is the Focus, what iss otherwise pne of their weakest weaponsets. Elementalists are relying on a broken toolset with a nearly non-existent fire line, and a few other underwhelming skills, so they can have anti-projectiles, condition removal and invulnerability to fight the burst/ stun/ condition/ ranged driven meta. If Focus was improved, maybe elementalists would be at a better situation (in this meta). Of course, I want the meta to change too, so we don’t get stuck to focus only, but I’m just saying.
Also, the elementalist’s means to counter the meta aren’t effective enough. You would think the earth traitline would be fined tuned to the current stun burst, with Rock Solid, that other trait that reduces immobilize, or the auto- armor of earth, but if no one is using them, then it only shows how they can not counter what they were meant to counter. Maybe it’s time for Anet to consider improving the defensive options for our traitline, like adding a stun break trait on earth, or a better “condition/ or cc duration decreased” trait.
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I don’t even mind if those pve skills are slightly underpowered, as long as they are good at their own well-estabilished niches.
Prayer to Dwayna, for example, is a decent healing skill, and there are times where the flat decent health gain is better or as good as the alternative profession-specific options. That’s nice!
When I read this skill, I immediatly thought, “this sucks for solo playing, but it’ll be decent in dungeons because of the AoE!” And that would be the niche behind this skill. But it turns out it doesn’t heals allies, it only cleanses them, and knowing Anet, I doubt it’s a bug – probably just a description mistake. But I can also understand that: the niche behind this skill is not for massive aoe spikes (it would be OP in wvw, afterall), but for aoe cleansing.
But here’s the problem: it’s not good at cleansing neither. It’s very restricted in pve environments, and the extra healing (which should affect allies, right?) is unnoticeable. How many times are your allies going to poisoned, confused AND tormented, at the same time, in a pve situation, to make it worthy? Even if the update for the next patch adds a situation like that, the entire, remaining pve experience isn’t still like that.
In practice, this skill reads: “sacrifice your own survival. heals other allies for 500 health and cleanses them a single condition only at certain spots of the game”.
I’m much better off at spreading regeneration to my allies than dedicating my precious healing skill to remove poison and heal allies for 500.
TL;DR: This skill isn’t good even at its little, restricted niche.
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…Until you realize that they are made to suck on purpose due to balancing reasons.
And you won’t ever use them, unless the game forces you to do so (aka, to heal this new “toxin”).
Yeah, I’m all up for horizontal progression, Anet, and skill hunting was an excellent, excellent feature of GW1.
But here’s a tip, Anet: the charm behind skill hunting is to get to use your new-found tools and get satisfied by the results, or even to create new builds revolving around your new tools.
If all we’re getting out of horizontal progression is skills meant to suck, then there’s no horizontal progression at all, because nothing changes. It’s just an illusion.
Okay, this skill doesn’t heals allies, at least not by its normal value. It’s either bugged, or the description is wrong. Apparently, from what I’ve read, it only cleanses allies and heals them for each condition cleansed, but it surely doesn’t heals them (I’ve tested the later on my elemental pet).
At the current state, it’s trash and not even worth a single skill point, imo.
Ally healing is the only reason why this skill might be used, ever. I hope it’s a bug and not just a tooltip mistake.
Some people are just skeptical. Once they play long enough, they will realise that it’s better to spend the 25 sp than farm for it.
But it’s kind of ridiculous though. The healing is sub par and the condition that removes are limited to only 4 conditions (1 unique pollen).
The healing might be pretty awesome in group content. Keep in mind that it’s AoE. That means you can get healed by it 5 times in dungeon or other party content, because each time other players use it, it’ll affect you as well, if you’re within range.
Not exactly expecting, but people are actually hoping it gets better because, you know, that might determine if they’ll keep playing this game or not.
Anet has revamped an entire zone out of an existing map, created new enemies with some new twists, etc. Yet, all there is to do, is to zerg-farm for acchievements. That’s it. The story instance is cool, but it’s a single instance, so it’s over quick. There’s not even any challenging optional content to keep players going. No, only more farming.
It was fun while it lasted, but for me it’s already mostly over, because there’s simply nothing there but tricks to make you want to farm more. That’s not more content. That’s repeating generic quests and stretching them.
The story does seems interesting, but yeah. A single instance.
ANET: Take this opportunity to get the healing skill without having to spend 25 skill points! You must do it now, or you’ll lose this chance once living world moves on!
Players: But, ANET, spending 25 skill points is actually the best way to do it…
That moment where you realize that the shortcut, the “opportunity”, is actually worse than the normal way.
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I absolutely love the helm.
And it manages to be better than the upcomming ascended heavy mess.