Guild Wars 2

One more question:

1. I know GW2 is not meant to have the traditional holy trinity, but can we ever get to see character roles more well-defined outside of pvp (ex. bunker, roamer, etc)?

I agree that more skills could have effects like “for each boon the enemy has, it deals +X damage”. However, I’m completely against the idea of giving every single class boon removal. It adds more diversity to the combat when there are many diferent ways to counter the same problem. Necros and Mesmers specialize at stripping boons. Let’s have other professions offer different anti-boon options. The good thing about a “more damage per boon” mechanic, is that boons will still have their efect (players will still be able to dodge more often with vigor, block an attack with aegis, etc). If every class could strip boons, it would take away from the diversity of combat.

Also, having to invest on traits for"boon-hate" means that builds will have to take away something else for it. This means that only specialized anti-bunker builds will take those traits, as they’ll be pointless otherwise.

Well, custom arenas are meant to substitute hotjoin, aren’t they? And custom arenas and spectator mode are already being tested internally. So, it shouldn’t take much longer for pvp to get revamped.

Didn’t the devs said that we would be getting pvp features as soon as they were ready, separate from the monthly patches? Or were they only talking about the leaderboards?

Because, for example, if they could finish features like custom arenas mid-April, I would prefer for them to release those features right at that moment, instead of having us to wait until end-April’s monthly patch.

Anyways, we should at the very least get new balance changes. But with custom arenas, spectator mode and leaderboards coming “soon”, it shouldn’t take much time until pvp becomes at a much better state.

People are overreacting here.

Is condition useless because condition-hate exists? Is burst useless because anti-burst exists? Is movement control useless because stun breakers and teleports exist?

No, no and no.

Likewise, giving to every class and their mothers boon stripping would make boons completely pointless, because everyone and their mothers would be able to strip them. Besides, boon stripping is only good against builds that use few boons. It’s rather weak against builds that can re-apply boons every few seconds. Besides, if every profession could counter boons the exact same way, it would be pretty boring design.

I think devs are going into the right direction with “more damage per boon” traits. Because it won’t make a worthwhile difference against most builds who use a single or two boons every once in a while, as the damage increase won’t be much, but will work great against boon-heavy builds, which currently lack a worthwhile counter (and like I’ve said, stripping is not strong enough, unless stripping skills had extremely low cooldowns… which would make them overpowered).

Once this change comes in, most people won’t probably even notice it.

There will exist more means to counter boons, which should make it eaiser to counter dd bunker eles.

Archaon.6245:

Since you need pretty much none…just rotate attenuements while blowing the whole weapon skillbar before switching for the next and you’re done, dodge if needed….if kitten hits the fan just rtl away or mist form waiting for att/skills cd…

I’m not even sure if I should bother to reply, but I’ll give it a go:

How do you “blow up” Churning Earth? Bunker eles are frail when immobilized, and CE immobilizes them for 3 seconds. Even a random HB Warrior can kill a bunker ele that carelessly uses CE.

How do you “blow up” the defensive high-recharging, short duration skills? Those are the bread and butter of a bunker ele: any average player who blows them up will be left without options to survive a burst.

How do you “blow up” Drake’s Breath or Fire Grab? The former has a long animation time, which requires careful usage, and the later is conditional and requires proper positioning to not miss.

“Blowing up” strong CC skills like Earthquake or Updraft is also pretty bad, because of their high cooldowns. Earthquake alone has, what, 45s cooldown? I believe Updraft is around that too. Those skills are strong when used at the right moment, but kinda weak otherwise.

Fact is, anyone who plays an ele to “blow up” their skills won’t go far. Eles skills require proper timing and context to be used, and switching attunements locks you out of 3/4s of your skills. It requires a lot of practise to memorize all skills available to an ele, then to get an idea of the best attunements to switch to for each situation (or to improvize, when an iimportant attunement is locked by cooldown), then to make the most use of each single skill (and there are twice as them), then to make the whole piano-keyboard playstyle as smooth as possible (for an average player, it’s a bit intimidating and clunky).

Unlike a certain profession that can and should spam a certain skill (called Heartseeker) when a certain condition is met, the elementalist professions demands a lot from the player, the margin for error is very small, and your average player will make a lot of tiny mistakes that will add up and make them lose.

To master an elementalist is to master four weapon sets, and to master an elementalist is to master movement, evasion and positioning in this game. That because elementalists must deal with 20 weapon skills instead of the normal 10, and because elementalists are the squishiest class in this game, being the only one that has both the lowest natural HP and the lowest natural armor rating.

Again: I agree that bunker eles are a bit too strong once (close to) mastered, but it’s not every newb that takes it and gets results immediatly.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Oni.5429:

backstab is a million times harder to play than a bunker ele in competitive play.

Yup. Thief must have good positioning, target selection, use his evasion and weapon swapping at the right times and work with the team for things like resses

A bunker ele must heavily rely on dodging (with vigor), movement (with swiftness) and well-timed defenses to survive, due to their naturally poor passive defense. They must swap not between two weapons, but four, to be played at full, and demand from the player higher skill memorization for that too.

To say that an average player makes an excellent bunker ele is ridiculous. If anything, it usually leads to the opposite.

It’s true that bunker eles are too strong, but that has nothing to do with the skill that is required to master that build.

Setsunayaki.4907:

I don’t want to tell people ‘I can’t boon you because you will take more damage from your enemies"

I highly doubt every single player in pvp will use a boon-hate build.

This is a pvp or balance oriented interview, right?

My main question is:
- GW1 had a very fun, simple and streamlined character building system with a lot of depth behind. But for GW2, experimentation requires a small fee or loading times to teleport into the mists, a lot of dedication to get the right exotic/ ascended level of stats, involves several different mechanics (utility skills, traits) and even lacks a fun skill-hunting system. Is there any plans to improve, expand or streamline the current systems?

Secondary questions:
- Are there any plans to customize the weapon’s skill selection, or would that be troublesome for balancing?
- Any plans to change how elite skills work, how they are obtained, or even the possibility to swap them forother utility skills?
- Does the existence of conjure weapons for the elementalist means that they won’t ever get a greatsword, axe, etc weapon?
- What are your goals with conjure weapons?

Something like +1/ 2/ 3% damage per boon is a terrible trait for people who use boons occasionally. However, it’s strong against boon-oriented builds who have 4-5 boons at the same time and stacked in high quantities.

So it would hardly punish people for using boons normally. It would only shine against extreme boon builds.

Mesmers and Necros are fine with boon stripping/ converting/ stealing mechanics. It fits the mesmer’s anti-playstyle flavor and the Necro’s corruption flavor. But for Warriors and Thieves, it makes sense for them get “something different”.

Oni.5429:

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.

That the bunker eles are strong, anyone can see. But that they are extremely cheap to play is just plain wrong. Elementalists, in general, is one of the hardest classes to play effectively in GW2. Yes, the right build makes a huge difference, but let’s not compare a bunker elementalist, which DOES require skill to play, than, say, a backstab/ heartseeker thief.

Do you remember when bunker eles were buffed? With the exception of the buffs to d/d, bunker elementalists in GW2 were never buffed since the game was released. So, why did they only start to become a problem months after the release, when classes like the thief were very quickly identified as troublesome?

For a very simple reason: it took a longer time for players to master the ele class.

Of course, being “too strong” makes them easier to play than they should, but in no way would I call them a “trash class” that requires little skill.

SmoothHussler.6387:

You’re right, they mentioned they might look at shatter builds. Maybe. The only definitive thing they mentioned were buffs though. If you play mesmers, you’re laughing. If you don’t, its a facepalm moment.

The current Shatter builds do not user the Greatsword and the Scepter. In fact, the Scepter has been a very sucky option for mesmers as a whole. If anything,this should open up new options.

So what is the problem? Just because a single build is strong, it does not means that all builds of that profession are strong.

The Greatsword is a damage-oriented weapon, but it’s currently not worth using in pvp. The shatter mesmer has excellent burst. Should shatter mesmers start using the buffed GS over either staff or sword/ pistol, to deal even more damage, then it’s natural that the devs would nerf the shatter’s damage input. I believe that’s what they meant by “maybe”.

They should remove the pvp daily, and move its objectives into the normal laurel’s daily. Then, add pvp-only laurel rewards into the mix.

SmoothHussler.6387:

The scary thing is that in the SoTG, anet mentioned only buffing the mesmer. Insane. I dont think they’re at all aware of whats going on in pvp. They’re killing it.

They said they are buffing weak Mesmer’s options. It shouldn’t affect current shatter Mesmer builds. In fact, they said they are considering nerfing shatter’s damage if the new buffs to GS and Scepter end up making the current shatter builds way too strong.

Likewise, professions like the elementalist will also get buffs, but that does not means that the current bunker elementalists will become any stronger.

“Deal extra damage based on the amount of boons currently on your target”

A mechanic like this shouldn’t be relevant against a build with a single boon, or a teammate that was granted one or two boons from an ally.

It’s only truly strong against bunkers who can have 4-5 boons at the same time, and for a long duration.

Also, giving all/ most professions boon-stripping mechanics would make them play way too similar to a necro/ mesmer.

The problem with these threads, is both that the topic creators only mention vague/ incomplete info, and the following posters react based on that, without bothering or even knowing that they should make some deeper research. No offense to anyone, but this adds a lot of unnecessary clutter to the threads.

Here’s a few more details that were mentioned:
- Some traitlines will have some anti-boon mechanics. The Warrior is a good candidate for that. The thief will have its damage toned down for more anti-boon options.
- In fact, they’re planning to change how the thief class is played, maaking it a more mobile/ harassing professions that can last longer, than a squishy all-or-nothing bursts that can spam stealth.

And in my opinion, nerfing boons to make bunker builds balanced, would make boons underpowered for all other builds, so that’s not a good option.

I also disagree that ALL means to counter boons should be about stripping or stealing them. That would make the combat a bit ridiculous, with boons jumping from player to player every single second. It would also make every single class play the same. Do you seriously think Warriors should play like Necromancers when it comes to stripping and stealing boons? Yeah, me neither. Besides, boon stripping is not strong enough against professions that can re-apply boons very often, but improving boon stripping would make it overpowered against all other builds with (fewer) boons.

In the end, I think this is the best option. It allows players to counter extreme boon builds, without making other boons useless-weak for all other builds.

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.

We know that there will be more means to counter boon builds in the future.

Boon-bunker elementalists are currently too strong in pvp, and boon-bunker guardians as well. And mostly because of boons.

The devs will either have to nerf boons directly, or create more viable means to counter them. I agree that more viable counters is what is needed to beat current bunker eles. There should be more anti-boon traitlines, as well.

Their “excuse” does makes sense, though. Look at GW1’s random arenas: how many players build around flags? Who many made build around auto-resurrection? Pretty much none, because those maps were random, and wouldn’t always pop up. Playewrs had to use a generalized build for them all, and weren’t allowed to adapt.

A random map system would mean that any depth that would come from building around the secondary objectives, would be negleted. That’s cool for casual/ hotjoin (which already cycles maps), but generally, it will only emphasize more the builds that are already meta, by destroying the niche builds.

Calae.1738:

Designing a new ability and balancing it requires a lot of testing; which Arena net doesn’t like to do.

1. MH Dagger’s Earth #3;

2. Frost Aura and Fire Shield, to a lesser extent;

Why would the devs bother to reply in a forum where the majority of posts are full of hyberbole and people acting like victims?

This is most of what is said in the profession forums: “The profession I play is so much worse than all other 7 professions, please, fix it first!”

I think conquest is funnier when the game creates incentives for ALL players to move around. ALL players. Currently, conquest is about forcing a few players to stick into a single node for the entire match. Every time I add a new pvp player into a team and tell them “defend that node”, their reaction is almost always “do I have to be there the whole time”? And at the middle of the matches, the questions asked are “can I help over there”? Unfortunately, I have to say, “no, you’re a bunker, you can’t and shouldn’t do anything else”.

It’s.not.exciting.

Even though people are going full on with hyperbole (lol @ GW2’s pvp being the “worst thing ever”. Ya, I know you’re mad that it’s not as good at the moment as you want it to be, but no need to exaggerate), I think it’s easy to agree that GW1’s pvp is better. And, dare I say, it’s also easy to agree that GW2’s pvp can get a lot of what GW1 had in just very few months, as long as the devs play their cards right. Let’s make a recap:

Custom Arenas are coming (GW1 never had them);
Spectator is coming (GW1 had it);
Ladder is coming (GW1 had it);
Spirit Watch came, is a (great) example that the devs are investing on more diversity in playstyles.

Now, here’s what Anet should absolutely do, according to this community:
Solo (/Duo) Queue as soon as possible (GW1 had it with RA and TA);
Visible MMR (GW1 had it);

Meanwhile, let’s look at some of the game modes for GW1:
AB – Conquest with more time spent running around;
JQ – Conquest with Carrier protecting/ killing;
FA – Base Assault with secondary Conquest mechanics.
Costume Brawl (for special events) – Conquest;

Add in Spirit Watch for GW2: Conquest with a very relevant CTF mechanic.

This shows that conquest can appear in several different “modes” and still be refreshing enough. And why is this observation important? Because the devs have clearly stated that they want to balance this game around one mode, to make it easier to balance. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, as long as the secondary mechanics are relevant enough to keep the entire playstyle refreshing.

So, (again), the pvp devs can also decide to do the same thing their pve comrades are doing in the last updates: take what already exists and add into it. That basically means something like:

Example: Take Foefire’s map, and make the lord slaying mechanic as relevant as the conquest nodes. Improve the gate’s defenses, and add some sort of bombs or carriers to destroy gates or repair them at each node;
Example 2: Take Temple’s map, and make the node-capturing buff appear every few minutes instead of only once, and make the killpoints buffs far more relevant.

Theoretically, we could probably get all this in very few months, if the devs wish it. And what would be left from GW1? A casual deathmatch map (it can always be added to custom arenas/ hotjoin), ha (a 3-round tourney can substitute it as long as other maps and new maps get more diversity) and gvg.

The idea behind GW2 is that “everything” is endgame. That each place is challenging and offers good rewards to you. This is a selling point of this game, and the closer the devs reach this goal each update, the closer they are to their vision. GW2 was always advertised as a skill-based game, where the player’s skill is more relevant than their stats.

Also, keeping things challenging creates a sense of danger while exploring the world. To many players, this makes the game exciting. Far more exciting than spamming auto-attacks for half an hour and getting useless lv5 equipment loot. The downleveling system makes it so that, each time you have to go to a new map to explore it, you’ll have to explore an exciting new place with danger everywhere, and not mindlessly grind low-level mobs/ events for the sake of world exploration.

The fire in Scepter is fine. It’s strong, but requires skill to use. You won’t always be able to hit with Dragoon’s Tooth, but when you do, you can set up a pretty big burst. Also, excellent might-stacking with OH dagger.

The problem with Scepter is the other attunements, especially water and earth. When you use fire, successfully or not, and it is put on cooldown, you start to lack some meaningful options. Air is pretty cool to start the battles and set up the air-> fire bursts. But water only has Water Trident, and earth only has a good auto-attack that relies on bleeding, which doesn’t do much in a weapon used for bursting.

Hurl should be more relevant at helping up the burst, Dust Devil should be stronger (maybe have it last a few seconds, dotting up damage twice or thrice?), and water’s #1 and #2 should be meaningful at setting up bursts – or at doing anything else, as they are currently useless.

I think we all can agree that, sooner or later, hotjoin must come to an end. Between no matchmaking, mindless glory farm and a 8v8 mode that does not works in this game, hotjoin stopped being representative of GW2’s pvp very early in the game, even more so now that MM is in. Custom arenas (for quick matches, training, etc) and solo q tourneys (for pugs who want to be competitive or for pugs who want to “farm” the best possible rewards and acchievements possible at their disposal) should completely substitute hotjoin and make the pvp environment much better.

Anet will then juust have to find a way to comunicate to most hotjoiners what are the new places to go. Many of them are probably clueless of the scenes behind the curtains, the forum posts, etc, and probably think that hotjoin = entire pvp. Besides, the word “tournament” might even intimidate some of them.

And for the foefire, have each point regenerate bombs to destroy gates, or repair kits for them too. This in addition to the idea that “lord killed = game won”, and we would have a foefire map that would require far more mobility and offensive playing, without scrapping the conquest mode.

I think the best thing anet devs could try to do with conquest, is to make a transition from its current defensive nature to a more offensive and/ or mobile playstyle. In this way, maps will be a lot more exciting, conquest will be a lot more exciting, and it will open up the opportunity for more roles. Players love game modes that are naturally offensive.

I also agree that buffs should be more relevant in the temple. The big buff shouldn’t be one-time only, but something worthy to fight over through the match. And the kill buffs should be relevant enough to make “deathmatching” a relevant strategy for short bursts of time. This would make teams improvize more often.

I don’t think a solo queue system would divide the community much, as long as Anet could effectively transfer the hotjoin pug community to ranked (hidden or not) solo queue matches. But for that to happen, I guess the rewards would need to exist and be visible. Hotjoin is currently “too good” to farm glory in 8v8, and a lot of people do it for that (in addition to not having to face premades).

Evan Lesh.3295:

Custom Arenas will still be used to fill the role of hot-join. They won’t all be password protected, and people who just want to jump into a game are still going to do that.

I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge in this board or not, but does that mean custom arenas are going to substitute hotjoin?

I don’t play a Necro, but I feel like that change makes it depend way too heavily on boons. It feels like the skill is now in a position where it will both rock and suck. I think it would be better to get an unconditional boost in combination with a smaller conditional boost, so that it can be more meaningful in other situations, especially in pve, where you won’t usually find enemies with three boons. In fact, in pve, “remove a boon” is already a conditional effect, so I don’t think any skill should rely so heavily on something situational, unless it’s an utility. It feels like “hey, remember this skill that is only good in this situation? It’s even better at it now, but it’s still the same for everything else”. And it’s not like 3 boons was ever a weak conditional effect, in the first place.

But again, I don’t play a Necro, so this is simply my perception of it.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

So in this suggestion, people would only play as a team of 5 or by themselves. That would mean effectively disabling tournaments for people who want to play tournaments with a friend. Or two friends, or three friends, but don’t have a full team. I can’t imagine that would go over very well either.

I agree with what you’re saying, but I think that suggestion can be easily adapted to this:

1. Make the 1-round tournament que ‘’join solo’’ only
2. Make the 3-round tournament work as it does now

There. One for solo-only, the other working the way tourneys currently work in-game. It might not be a perfect solution, but it’ll probably be (I guess) the best way to implement what everyone is suggesting without investing too many resources into it. And then you can just polish that system in the future, by transforming the solo queue into a solo/ duo queue for added flexibility, etc.

Don’t let the difficulty stop from playing it. In fact, it’s the way the ele plays that so makes so many people enjoy it. Experiment with it, and see if it sticks.

I guess RTL should be affected by the orb’s movement nerf. That, or channeling for the orb should be longer, so other classes can caught the elementalist at the beginning of each match.

D/D or S/D also rely on killing enemies as quickly as possible. When they are dead, they can’t kill you. Here’s a very popular burst sequence for the eles:

S/D:
(Air Attunement) Ride the Lightning -> Updraft (-> Air #2 and #3, which are instant) -> (Fire Attunement, while running towards your enemy) -> Dragon’s Tooth -> Ring of Fire (-> Arcane Wave utility if you want it) -> Phoenix -> Fire Grab -> (Earth Attunement) -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth (-> Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Earth Armor, any defensive utility that might protect you while casting it, if you want it).

This will keep foes disabled for half the time (updraft, earthquake), will allow you to deal a LOT of damage very quickly (you will probably kill most foes without completing that sequence), and get a lot of stacks of the Might Boon if you cast Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Wave, Earthquake and Churning Earth inside the field Ring of Fire.

Here’s the D/D equivalent:
(Air Attunement) Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> (Fire Attunement) -> Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire (-> Arcane Wave utility if you want it) -> Drake’s Breath (here, you decide if you want to watch the entire animation for the full effect, or cast the next skill right after and interrupting half of this skill’s length) -> Fire Grab -> (Earth Attunement) (-> Magnetic Grasp to apply burning within the fire field, if you want it) -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth (-> Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Earth Armor, any defensive utility that might protect you while casting it, if you want it).

They might seem hard to memorize, or complicated when looking at this post, but they are actually quite simple and intuitive once you try them in the game. This should speed up your pve progression significantly. Here’s a simplified version of D/D’s sequence, without the notes and the optional skills, if you find the above example too hard to memorize:

Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire -> Drake’s Breath -> Fire Grab -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth.

But remember, this sequence won’t always be optimal, especially against stronger enemies, and you’ll have to improvize it several times in several situations. But it’s excellent to start with.

Caffynated.5713:

Renewing stamina: You now don’t have vigor when you’re not attacking. That means, when you’re being pressed and have to be defensive, you don’t have the energy to dodge.

Huge nerf to burst builds.

Zephyr’s Boon: the nerf to fury duration means you have big gaps in your fury uptime unless you’re 30 arcana and constantly swap attunements even when you would be better served sitting in air and auto attacking.

Big nerf to burst builds.

Glyph heal: Why would you ever use this outside of water/earth? Maybe air for swiftness when you’re running around in PvE? Eles gain might every time they turn around. This isn’t a change that anyone is ever going to actually notice while fighting.

Frost aura: 10% damage mitigation for a few seconds isn’t much compensation for the huge nerf frost aura just took. A warrior isn’t going to stop and ask himself if he should whirlwind through an ele with frost aura up, because 2 seconds of chill isn’t going to matter. If anything, he probably wants to be chilled for a second because it will slow down his whirlwind and get more hits in. It went from a serious defense that people wanted to avoid hitting, to a mild annoyance.

Huge nerf to burst eles.

Ride the lightning: Nerf to any x/D ele

About Renewing Stamina: yes, you won’t get vigor when you’re defending yourself or running away, but chances are, by that time, you still haven’t used your dodges. By the time you dodge once or twice (or more) while being offensive (and with vigor on), and then take a break to heal yourself, all you need is to make a single critical hit again to have vigor back in.

Besides, as others have said, vigor lasts 5s, which should give you 5s (or more, with some extra boon duration) when not attacking.

As long as you adapt your playstyle to this new situation, it shouldn’t make a big difference. In the end, the only true nerf here is to the sustained defensive builds, that can no longer get infinite stacks of vigor.

Zephyr´s Boon: Meanwhile, renewed stamina no longer relies so much on fury as it did, as long as you have high precision (which burst builds should). Besides, burst builds are about, guess what, bursting. And bursts should usually be pretty quick. Just activate your auras right before you attempt to burst, and switch attunements to fire. That’s 7-8s of fury, taking into account 10 points into arcana. More than enough time to set up your burst.

Again: adapt your playstyle, and you shouldn’t notice a big difference.

Glyph Heal: No, the fire heal was never used before. But do you know why? Because it was underpowered. Not anymore, though, which means that people should start using more often. If you’re not being bursted by an opponent and don’t need the protection, then Fire is now an excellent choice for burst builds. Swiftness is good to roam around, and water is good for longer fights and especially to bunkers,so that leaves earth and fire for burst builds in general.

Finally, chill was always excellent for burst eles because it makes their bursts connect more often. It does not matter if it only lasts 2s: that can make the difference between hitting with a Dragon’s Tooth or a Fire Grab, or forcing an enemy to waste their dodges. The problem with Frost Aura is that it relies on the ele to take a hit, which is a big no-no for glass cannons. The extra defense should soften thatup, especially when stacked with protection, which should decrease the damage up to 43%, I think.

Bunker eles received much bigger nerfs than this. If anything, burst builds only require more skill/ timing to play effectively.

Well, the devs have said that they do not mind some professions being better at carrying the orb, as long as there are several of them, and as long as others are good at other things, like, for example, stopping the orb runner.

Now, if that’s what happens or not, is another story, but considering that the map is new, it’s normal that the meta hasn’t settled yet.

BTW, do rangers really make good orb runners, or not?

In theory, scepter and focus for ranged 1v1, but I’m not sure if focus is still good enough. Fire Shield should offer better “indirect” defense (for pvp) and more offensive power, and comet should rupt more reliably. A S/ F ele is a fairly balanced ranged setup, with a nice mix of offense, defense and disruption.

However, when it comes to hitting hard, I can’t imagine anything other than OH dagger. I don’t think focus will ever reach that level. It does not have Churning Earth, nor Fire Grab. Even if Flamewall is buffed in damage, Focus will probably not specialize on that.

If you’re going to use Frostbow #5 stun, you’re much better set off with Dragon Tooth + Fire Grab.

I sometimes play with an offensive glass cannon s/d ele that relies heavily on dodging, in particular on renewed stamina and the sigil of energy. The 5s nerf to RTL doesn’t ruin it, and the buff to GoEH is really nice.

I have also played heavily with multiple variants of the bunker build’s traits, so I’m aware of what it is like. By the way, bunker builds are not “faceroll” (they do require skill to play), and dodge rolling and mobility are extremely important to bunkers. Massive healing has a cooldown, the regen boon is slow, and the perma vigor was key pre patch. Without mobility and dodge rolling, even the bunker eles can be bursted down like kittens. The bunker eles were always more “ninja-ish tanks” than “warrior-ish tanks”.

The strongest ele builds were the 0/10/0/30/30 bunkers, and close to them and with similar traits, the auramancers. Both builds were godlike at stacking boons, being able to have as much as 20-30s of boons at once, the former with ridiculous sustain, the later with very strong party support.

Let’s look at the patch notes, excluding the buffs to focus and to staff:
Renewing Stamina: Offensive critical builds can still maintain vigor. Boon builds can no longer stack vigor to ridiculous amounts. Nerf to boon builds, like bunkers and auramancers.
Soothing Disruption: Significant nerf to cantrip builds and to boon builds. That means bunkers and auramancers.
Zephyr’s Boon: Less fury and swiftness for MH Dagger elementalists. A nerf to all MH dagger builds, be them either burst or boon oriented. A significant nerf to all auramancers.
Evasive Arcana: Only affects the healing scale. A nerf to builds with healing power, like bunkers.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Three stacks of might instead of one. A buff to burst builds.
Ride the Lightning: General nerf to all OH Dagger builds, be them either burst or boon.
Frost Aura: Less chill, more defense. Neutral. Won’t count this one.

Bunkers: 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Auramancers: 4 or 5 nerfs (most of them being significant)
Burst builds: 2 nerfs (none being significant), 1 buff

Frost Aura always had a 40s cooldown.

Dardamaniac.1295:

I dont know what happened..When the patch went live i read a nice post from Xeph saying that this patch was a joke.I asked him if he gonna quit this game and he said he will consider it.I always wathced closed at Team Paradigm.Today another member of Team Paradigm,(Phantaram)along with some other (Teldo,Gasmask) almost praised this patch.What happened guys,do you know something that WE dont know?3 more changes in ele and this patch become good in a night?
You used to have my respect now im gonna be more carefull to what you have to say

As an elementalist player, I want to say that those extra changes were spot-on at nerfing the bunker eles. I’m not sure if they were enough, but they are the step into the right diretion.

I also don’t think ele dps builds were nerfed (that much, at least). RTL’s 5 extra seconds hurts, but Frost Aura’s extra defense helps. Renewed Stamina was kinda broken, allowing eles with fury/ critical to maintain high stacks of vigor. But the current version still allows them to (almost) always have vigor on. Zephyr’s Boon fix does hurts the critical rate, but it was bugged and too strong in the first place, and the new renewed stamina activates 100% of the time with a single critical hit, making it depend less on fury.

In the end, the real nerfs were all done to the bunker ele’s ability to stack boons, which should open more opportunities to defeat them the longer the battles last; and indirectly, to the available means to counter bunker eles, with the Necro’s buffed boon removal.

RTL was compensated with the Frost Aura buff. The new renewed stamina should keep you under vigor as long as you keep attacking (and whenever you cast an arcane skill).

In the end, not much has happened to glass cannon eles. Damage builds will only become viable when the fire and air traits start getting more/ better options.

Random Arenas is not exactly better, even without monks existing. Unless it had a matchmaking system. But if it had a MM system, then that would pretty much be similar to a solo/ duo queue that the OP suggested.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I would recommend the following change:
1- Make the 8 team queue a 2 team queue also.
2- Make it so that 1 of these 1 round tournaments is for solo queuers and dual queuers only and make it so that the other one is for full premades only.

This. Simple solution, huge benefits.

However, I’m interested to see what will happen in a few more days, when premade teams get better rankings than solo players. Maybe, just maybe, the system might balance itself a little.

Heh, burst eles will automatically get 5s of vigor (or more with some boon duration) with a single critical hit. It gives vigor 100% of the time now. So as long as you keep dealing damage – as you should – you’ll keep vigor on yourself. It does not allows you to stack anything more than that, though, but ultimately, that will only negatively affect sustained defense, and the only elementalists who can sustain themselves are very defensive in the first place.

The idea I get is that the pvp team, much like the wvw team, had to delay some of their plans for March. I also think that the devs’ current goal at taking a look at every single aoe skill in the game might be slowing down their balancing pace.

Nonetheless, we know that spectator mode and custom servers are currently in the works, and should they (and the aoe fixes) pop up in March’s patch, the devs will have plenty of time to implement new stuff before any expansion comes late year (IF it comes).

Zodian.6597:

i heard you can carry orb with invulns, s/d bunker ele would be pretty broken if thats true. Not to mention if they can rtl while carrying orb.

Mist Form drops the orb, I think? So you would need Focus eles.

The AoE nerf is a bit ambitious. I mean, they need to change a LOT of skills. It’s probably something that might still take a while, but hopefully, it’ll be ready for the March’s update. I also hope devs take this opportunity to take a second look at any underpowered aoe skills they pass along the way, and consider buffing them through other means.