Guild Wars 2

Jon,

Next major update is the one stated for November 15th, or the one that’ll follow halloween at 1st?

Kilger.5490:

Am I understanding that an elementalist is strong enough to beat 3 elementalists?? That would be OP, careful what you say!

Trolling aside, its a great class, love it. Its not UP its just more work, but you “can” get more out of it than many classes. If they increase dps the people that are already playing it well will be very OP, so there is a problem. The only solution would be to dumb it down, like making the attunement switch delay longer and increasing the damage of the longer CD skills, which would make a lot of people upset too that like it as it is.

If you would increase the dps by adding good fire/ air traits/ trait synergy, then people who would wish to play power elementalists would have to sacrifice their defenses.

Because, at this moment, a 30/30 fire/ air ele with an offensive amulet is absolutely terrible in spvp, pretty much an even squishier thief with no stealth that takes twice the time to deal the same damage.

Our defensive builds are fine and strong. That does not means our damage does not need to be buffed. It needs, just in a way that it does not makes our defensive builds stronger.

Although I like challenge, I have to say one thing: FINALLY! a party-driven pve experience in this game that is not hardcore!

No, seriously, I love hardcore dungeons, I love general solo pve, but if there’s one thing that leaves me empty, is that there’s no party-driven content for pugs that is made more for casual fun than for the challenging kind of fun. You either choose to play solo casual, or party hardcore. The team-lover in me usually feels empty when for 95% of pve, I must play alone, and yes, even the events with other people are not comparable (exceptions aside).

Although this topic is more to praise how the boss was designed, which I agree it was wonderfully designed and a pleasure to fight against, I’d also want to add that I hope there’s a lot more bosses like this on the way that also allow any pug player to play against, at normal or slightly above general pve’s difficulty. (Add an optional Difficulty-worthy-of-a-dungeon mode if needed.)

@ DesertRose

GW1 elementalists are dps aoe machine guns in GW1’s pve. The only time they weren’t was with the old hard mode, but that was more due to bad design with that mode than anything to do with the profession. If we look at the current state, pve elementalists are about bursting with rodgort’s invocation, searing flames, chain/ invoke lightning, etc.

Elementalists in GW2 are not very comparable when it comes to damage input. Elementalist’s staff on fire is similar to GW1’s nuking builds (savannah heat), and our dagger’s skills are an improved version of our old PBAoEs. There’s nothing comparable to gw1’s shockwave (for those who haven’t played GW1, think of our current churning earth with a much faster casting time), or to GW1’s Invoke Lightning (it’s like staff’s air chain lightning, except it hits extremely hard and you don’t need to wait until your lightning bolt hits the enemy) or even to GW1’s Searing Flames/ Elemental Attunement + Rodgort’s Invocation (imagine staff’s flame burst + fireball. Now imagine them so strong, that you could spam them all day and completely annihilate crowds of mobs).

Every single class in GW2, with the possible exception of the Guardian, is not the typical “stand in one spot and spam skills” class. This has little to do with class design (again, except Guardian) and is heavily influenced by how the entire combat system works (moving while using skills, dodging, lots of fields attacks that can be avoided, etc).

What makes the Elementalist stand out from typical mages is the attunement switching, which makes them very versatile, but that’s not reason enough for our lack of spike builds, because we have 7 other professions with weapon swapping (or kit swapping) that can spike with a weapon, and defend themselves, support allies or control enemies with the other one.

Not only that, but when we specc for power/ critical builds, a lot of our defensive skills become ineffective, either because they heavily depend on healing power (healing skills like water trident and cone of frost), or because they heavily depend on toughness/ vitality for sustained/ long-term defense (shocking/ frost auras, armor of earth, etc), and getting hit in the squishiest of builds for a squichy class leads to about a 3s death.

In spike builds, those skills act more like a “delay your death for a few seconds while you attempt to kill your foe first” than tide-turners as it happens in the popular regeneration/ cantrip/ high healing/ high toughness or vitality meta builds.

But, of course, elementalists can’t spike meaningfully at all, which makes both their offensive skills and their defensive skills underpowered in power builds. And truth is, elementalists were once known as excellent spikers during beta, where their spike skills actually spiked your foes. It might be hard to believe, for some of you, that a hard-to-hit sequence designed specifically for spiking, like (Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> Ring of Fire -> Arcane skills ->) Dragon’s Tooth -> Phoenix -> Fire Grab (-> Earthquake) was efficient at spiking. It was comparable at killing as Frenzy + Hundred Blades, at a much harder cost.

But our damage was greatly nerfed because Anet didn’t like builds that could kill in 1 or 2 seconds (and although I agree with that, it makes you wonder why thieves or HB+frenzy warriors exist in the way they are).

Saying that we shouldn’t be able to spike by design is completely wrong, because we DO have spike skills designed just for that (the OH dagger weapon as a whole is all about setting up spikes or bursting, Scepter’s fire is all about setting up a big spike), and because our versatility from attunement swapping, “to compensate for the fact that we can’t spike” as some of you have been saying, can’t compensate for the fact that we can’t spike, because all it does, in spike builds, is delay the inevitable death, and our defensive/ CC skills are only truly effective if we can kill fast enough, which we can’t, or if we specc defensively, which is our only option.

Also, the description for both GW1’s and GW2’s elementalists is about the same.
GW1:
Elementalists summon the powers of earth, air, fire, and water and command them at will. They can inflict more damage in a single strike than any other profession.
GW2 (which has been updated right before the game came out):
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

With the perhaps exception of staff, that is almost devoid of damage outside of fire, and the focus, which is our official-defensive-set-that-no-one-uses-for-our-defensive-builds, Daggers are all about dealing damage and Scepter is a hybrid with some big spike-focused sequences, design-wise.

I’ve specced for damage and conditions for pve, which includes some toughness, and I’ve only learned the extreme importance of water traits in pvp (I actually used arcana for pve, so I knew how good it was beforehand).

And… yeah, it was tough in later areas. Overall manageable, with some really crazy unfair areas. You pretty much had to have elementalist mastered or near mastered by this point, and play piano with your keyboard while taking advantage of every single skill and even any hidden synergy you could think of. I wouldn’t mind that, if that was the true difficulty of the game.

But fact is, warriors and guardians breeze through those very same areas without needing to master their own professions. What gives?

This is when we get to know that the elementalist is truly an underpowered profession outside of a singlet rait build, even among the better players. When a very competent player can just barely go through orr with an elementalist while use Hundred Blades/ Symbol of Wrath + Whirling Wrath + Leap of Faith on everything and instant win or at least take at least half the HP of everything with a warrior/ guardian, there’s clearly something not balanced here.

And I was specced in fire/ earth. I don’t want to imagine and fire/ air elementalist. A burst profession that can’t burst? That must be pretty sad. :P

We have a much stronger downed state, and our D/ D builds are better. Ring of Earth causes cripple and Magnetic Grasp is less bugged, which is especially great for pvp’s movement control. Cone of Cold has stronger healing, and Lightning Touch and Fire Grab hit more reliably, which give D/D a more reliable defense and offense. This in addition to dagger’s air buffs from several weeks ago, where lightning whip and lightning touch went from single target to aoe.

For our downed state, our #1 causes two stacks of the vulnerability instead of one, our #2 is Vapor Form now, which lasts less but is much quicker, and our #3 is Grasping Earth, with 50% more damage and bleeding in addition to immobilize (this skill hits hard now).

It’s possible that those weren’t enough for you, though, and unless you’re planning to wait for more changes (devs are aware that some of our spike builds and sustained damage is not quite right there), then I wish you luck with your warrior (their rifle got buffed too).

Considering that the good water/ arcane traited builds (aka, our good builds) can kill efficiently enough in pvp, with the exception of the extreme tank healer, then I’d say a stronger fire/ air traitline and a few tweaks to the functionality of our burst skills should do the trick for power elementalists.

I believe it was said that, if the feature was popular enough, the devs would expand upon it? Because I find costume brawl to be very fun, and I love the idea of adding more interaction between players, but I won’t play it very often unless it is expanded upon (or I want to try new costumes). If it had a little bit more depth/ complexity and some sort of reward, it would definitely be something I would do every once and then per day to break up the pace of the normal game’s flow.

Baby steps? I perfectly agree. However, I wouldn’t wait for the meta to shift to polish the scepter/ focus/ staff skills as they have polished the dagger skills. And only after that would I focus on our traits, especially fire/ air traits for spike builds.

And robust spike builds are, honestly, the thing that I most want. I have choosen an elementalist for my main because I love offensive spell classes with some depth of strategy. A mesmer and a necromancer have a different, distinct flavour, while the profession that promised me strategical, crazy attunement switching combos combined with spells of mass destruction was simply delicious.

I’m satisfied at the moment with my water/ arcane traited builds with good condition damage or good raw power damage as secondary (cleric’s and shaman’s amulets). It gives me a good balance between defense and offense. But I want to make crazy critical burst builds and be able to, you know, actually put them off without dying at the middle of my burst. Thieves burst in 2-5 seconds with fast attacks and then stealth away. We burst in 5-10 seconds, we deal less damage than thieves (and I understand why), our attacks are easier to avoid, we don’t have stealth, and our defensive skills do almost nothing because we aren’t specced for water/ earth/ healing/ whatever to make them good.

I think a bunker build guardian is too strong, and anet seems to think so too. Likewise, bunker water eles, mesmers and thieves are overall a bit on the stronger side too, and anet has mentioned that they are having a close watch on all of them.

madatom.5218:

do you understand that if they fixed these absurd yet simple issues initially we would be receiving something for more interesting now?

Do you understand that the game just came out, and there’s a lot of things to fix, including 8 professions?

Do you understand that whatever the devs decide to pick first to fix, will appeal to some players, but other players will dislike it and say “no, fix our stuff first!”.

Because there’s no way to make everyone happy at the same time.

It’s important to analyze and criticize things we dislike because we want the game we like to play to keep improving and improving, but it’s egoist to demand that the devs work on the things we exactly want and devalue them otherwise. Or else, because everyone has a different opinion on what exactly must be done first, we would fall into a never ending cycle of ungrateful remarks. Which already happens to a certain extent, and has always been so on the internet, which is not exactly the most mature of places.

So, let’s give credit where credit is due. The changes we have gotten were wise and fix very nicely the problems they wanted to fix. We now have a good downed state that is fun and interactive, that is strong at what it does but never too strong to make our death impossible. And we now have a polished set for our D/D Dagger, where we can fend ourselves better with two improved defensive skills, where we can keep our targets where we need them to be with two improved movement control skills, and we have a more reliable burst. It used to be a weapon where the melee-range was a drawback too harsh, both when it came to hitting our targets or taking more damage.

Anet has said that they take their time to analyze and test their changes so the fixes are not rushed, and I can definitely see that with this patch. I’m very grateful for their hardwork.

ThiBash.5634:

The problem you people are forgetting is in the very description of the Elementalist class

“What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

It’s settled then. Let’s change the description so we can end this discussion.

Or let’s fix the fire and air traitlines so we can end this discussion and have more available options to our class.

The same holds true for any purely offensive spec, thief, mesmer, whatever. The answer really is simple – don’t go into a fight unprotected, you can’t always initiate combat and you can’t always choose where you’ll fight

Except it doesn’t. A thief has stealth, a mesmer has clones and stealth. A thief has better armor, and a mesmer has beter HP. A thief and a mesmer can burst in 2-5 seconds, which gives them time to finish their burst and defend themselves.

A power elementalist can’t do that. Due to the nature of how elementalists work, we can’t burst in 2-5 seconds. We need double the skills and double the time. That means we’ll never be able to finish our burst, because we’ll die beforehand. The only solution we have is to interrupt our burst to use survival skills, but there’s a large difference between a power elementalist that takes 5k-8k damage even with shocking aura on, and heals almost nothing with their heals, and a defensive elementalist that takes 1k-2k damage per hit and heals a good chunk with their heals. That means that a power elementalist can’t defend themselves, because their defensive skills only delay the inevitable: their death. That would be fine if they could still burst, but they can not burst, or else they die two times faster than the time they take to kill. Burst elementalists can’t do anything the moment they are targetted.

There’s a reason for why you don’t see people playing fire/ air burst elementalists. We’re good at sustained damage (from conditions or normal skills) with our more defensive setups, because we’re constantly switching between damage and defensive skills without dying easily. And that because we have an earth traitline and good amulets that makes us very defensive while boosting our condition damage very high. In fact, condition damage is a good way to keep dropping down the HP of our opponents while we’re busy surviving ourselves. These builds actually work.

Power elementalist builds don’t work. They can’t properly do their function because the bursting power is too weak to compensante for the amount of (offensive and defensive) skills they have, but then their defensive skills are too weak because we’re talking about builds that invested on boosting mediocre burst skills.

A water-traited ele with toughness/ vitality/ healing can stand against anything and still deal decent damage back. But a power ele will take 8k damage from a single backstab, taking away 60% of their HP, and the time it takes to switch attunements and cast defensive skills is the time they take to spam auto-attack and kill you. Yes, you’ll die even with shocking aura on. Power elementalists are beyond terrible.

And yes, conjures are the answer, but conjures need to be more effective. They’re subpar now.

Selix.5670:

Whine, whine, whine, whine…whine. The class…is….fine. Go play it some more.

Water/ arcane traits (the good traits that synergy with other good traits and with good utilities) with D/D (the most polished weaponset, S/D as a secondary option) is fine.

;) That being said, I’m happy that I have a polished set up to use with this profession. Better than nothing!

PinCushion.7390:

I find all the trait lines to be pretty good, in general. The trick is finding good synergy between trait choices.

The +Damage While Attuned to XYZ traits are pretty weak, but otherwise all trait lines seem decent to me.

But fire/ air are generally all about “+ damage when x condition is met” traits. What makes them good traitlines exactly?

A power elementalist dies as quick if not quicker than a thief, and takes about twice the time to set up their burst, which also happens to be easier to avoid. A thief can burst in 3-5 seconds, and then retreat to survive. An elementalist will have to interrupt their own burst sequence to survive, and without water/ earth/ arcane defensive support, it’ll still die way too fast nonetheless.

Fire/ air need defensive traits that support/ complement bursts, unlike water which offers defensive traits around passive regeneration or the usage of defensive utility.

Currently, the best way to play an elementalist with fire/ air is to strike foes who are busy fighting your team mates, but we don’t have stealth to give us a good opportunity to choose our targets.

Our downed state is excellent, but I don’t think it’s overpowered nor the best, in a good way. After our vapor form, we’re easy targets, while thieves and mesmers usually manage to annoyingly delay their death more frequently (although mesmer’s is bugged and you can easily identify who is the downed clone and the real one).

I do think our downed state is one of the most interesting ones when it comes to number of possibilities (the old one was the exact opposite). The new Vapor Form can have several different purposes, the #3 is strong enough that it’s so satisfying, and we can support our team’s spike with #1. It’s certainly a team-oriented downed state, but that makes it so fun.

Do you mean Eruption, boozer? I think Eruption’s build up is excellent as it is, because it allows you to switch to fire and use combo fields for a blast finisher after casting Eruption. And Eruption itself is strong enough and is in an attunement full of movement control.

I do think, however, that Eruption having a high build up and a (semi-)high casting time is redudant. The skill should be faster to cast.

A weapon swap every 40 seconds would still make you overpowered once for every 40 seconds. It would be nerfed as fast as the Guardian’s “Save Yourselves!” was for the last patch (it was a skill that made them overpowered at the cost of a high recharge).

Weapon swapping outside of combat would be confusing to many people, who would then believe it would be an in-combat bug, or demand for an in-combat swap. Maybe a better solution would be the creation of keybinds to automatically equip weapons in our inventory?

@DiogoSilva: it is lack of class balancing. “Balancing” means every class can do THE SAME, just in a different way.

Doing through utilities is a different way to acchieve the same thing.

Also worth nothing, as an example, that a Guardian lacks good ranged options, but they also have plenty of good closegaps, teleports and anti-ranged skills.

I’m hoping that we get defense through offense options in the future, or something that allows us to burst without rupting ourselves (too much). You know, like the Shocking Aura trait. Traits that allows us to survive while we’re bursting. Too strong? I don’t think so, considering our burst damage is easy to avoid, takes time to set up, and is generally weaker than thieves burst damage, and we rely on utilities to burst too. We do need some sort of trait defense while bursting, or else we’ll die before our dragon’s tooth even hits the ground (and misses :P).

But guardians have so many means to remove conditions. Weapon skills, traits, utility, combo fields, they have it all. Why would anyone bring a skill like this without seriously taking into consideration their ability to remove conditions?

Creslin.1758:

Loosifah.4739:

The problem you people are forgetting is in the very description of the Elementalist class

“What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

Churning Earth? Definitely does massive damage in one attack.

All in all though, I will agree that the description is misleading. The versatility part is dead-on, but we are not an “assassin” class like thief that does 8000 damage with one hit.

IMO, they should just change the description, problem solved!

S/D and D/D fire/ air attunements are heavily driven on bursting and spiking. I’d say we actually are close to a “magical thief” class if we specc for it, it just happens that this playstyle, which does exist for us, has weak trait support. Even the devs agree that our “spike builds are rough”. Let’s wait for some changes in this department, and we’ll probably start getting burst elementalists who use their support to survive while bursting.

Elementalists having bad fire/ air traits and good water/ arcane traits has nothing to do with anet breaking stereotypes. The means to create power elementalists were designed and programmed by anet, but they need another balancing pass to be viable.

Grevender.9235:

I firmly disagree: I refuse to waste an utility slot for a lack of class balancing. It’s a matter that must be dealt at class design level, not gaming style.

Except that what you call a lack of class balancing, is actually the opposite, a tool for class balancing.

Every profession in GW2 has weaknesses and strong points on purpose. A warrior will always be predictable, a guardian will alway be slow and rely on melee-range protection/ damage, an elementalist will always be restricted to a single range.

Being able to sacrifice something for something else would actually be balanced and, in fact, engineers are entirely built upon this idea. Do you think engineers are a disaster of game design or some kind? I sure don’t think so.

The idea of sacrificing utility slots to overcome class weaknesses is interesting, it’s there, and it’s just ineffective at the moment due to the overall power of conjures.

Giving 40 weapon skills to an elementalist would be absolutely crazy in the context of this game, extremely hard to balance, and would probably translate into a general nerf to all our abilities, as if they haven’t suffered enough already from attunements.

Bsquared.3421:

How people mistook it for ring of fire I can’t fathom.

Reading similar names fast sometimes do that, especially when everyone uses and knows the fire one, while the earth one was forgottable.

This has been repeating many times, and apparently it’s never ending.

The problems with range can and should be fixed with Conjure Weapons. Yes, conjures kinda suck at the moment, but that’s the source of the problem, not the lack of weapon swapping.

Mikhael.2391:

Why is it that i fight against such good players on elementists, necros.engies, rangers even wich can keep me snared and CCed almost the whole fight and they all can kill me very well?

Be aware that great players exist for every profession.

I rarely see rangers and necromancers having that much success, but I can understand how a necromancer is great against a guardian, considering their good builds are about boon stripping and condition damage. About elementalists, the good elementalists’ builds are extremely defensive, which gives them time to snare and CC very well.

Those professions still have problems because you can’t play them in any other way. You have several meaningful builds to choose from with a Guardian, but being an elementalist without putting points into your vitality trait and attunement trait leads to absolute terrible results. I can bet you have never seen a power elementalist, do you? They basically spike like thieves, for half the damage, with attacks that are easier to avoid and slower to hit, die in 3 seconds like thieves, but without stealth to survive like thieves, and have elites that are suicide buttons for no meaningful effect. Now tell me if that isn´t bad. Well, yeah, thieves will have to be nerfed sooner or later, but power elementalists are basically the opposite, inneffective “magical” thieves.

Lovely change. It went from a forgottable skill to another tool that’ll make sure your enemy is where you can hit them.

I think the combo field shouldn’t be changed, because one of the greatsword’s niches is retaliation, and the devs want to weaken retaliation, they don’t want to remove retaliation altogether from the game. A greatsword was deemed too strong for what it does, but that does not means it should be completely changed. It should be nerfed, and it was nerfed. I also don’t think the recharge should be shorter here, but I do think that, should the GS reveal itself to be too weak (but is it?) a generic damage boost is probably the best way to fix it.

About the hammer, it’s 1112 sequence is much slower. You can’t grant retaliation to yourself the moment you need it. When with a Greatsword you need retaliation, you put the symbol in. If you need more, you leap in the symbol. But the hammer? By the time you have done your first skill’s chain, your opponent has already spiked you out, so retaliation is more of a bonus to give you time to survive through your remaining HP than a severe punishment at the beginning of a duel. Hammer’s #5 does grant retaliation when you need, but the recharge is much higher, and you’ll want to use that skill in different occasions too.

I’m not saying the hammer is perfect (I don’t know if it is or not, personally), but the hammer is, IMO, very well designed, and you can choose between keeping an opponent snared or keeping an opponent away from you, while slowly but steadily smack them out. Is there even an optimal sequence for movement control? Should immobilize be done first, or should the ward, or should banish? I don’t think there is, it highly depends on the context.

1112 hammer comes at the cost of speed. The old 234 from greatsword was too easy, and the new 423 version comes at the cost of recharges/ availiability. I’d say they’re pretty much on par now, or closer to each other now.

tom.7468:

ok i know how to play guardian but if this is the case that theif,guardian,mesmer is stronger than the others then why not just buff them to make them equally useful?? instead of making those 3 less fun. i also don’t like how people categorize it as tier 1,2,3 all the classes is tier 1 ok tier means upgraded units there is no such thing on classes.

In a MMO game, it’s best to nerf the few strongest options than buff everything else to their level. Or else, if you keep buffing, buffing, buffing, the game will suffer from powercreep months/ year later, and all professions will one hit or two hit kill others. :P

I don’t think nerfs make the professions less fun, at least good nerfs that target specific skills without making them useless. SY! is still a strong pvp skill, greatsword is still great for breezing through pve and decent for pvp, etc. Unless fun for some players means easy, unfair wins over other players. Retaliation stacking and SY! did lead to easy wins.

That being said, the weaker professions are getting slowly buffed too. Elementalist was buffed this time (finally!), necromancers have been previously, rangers were supposed to get buffs to their terrible utilities but those changes haven’t been in time for the patch. Even “mid-tier” professions like engineers and warriors, and even the thief, guardian and mesmer, have gotten some buffs to weaker skills, so obviously, it’s not all about nerfing either. It’s just not a good idea to buff everything.

tom.7468:

Ruufio.1496:

You Guardians are in dire need of a lot more nerfs than that so stop whining. I know you all like to play your overpowered profession and faceroll SPvP but that’s too bad. You need to be nerfed. The only class I’ve seen that can take out a good Guardian 1v1 is a boon removal Necromancer.

Stop complaining. Guardian is OP.

what guardian build in particular did you ever play a guardian? why don’t you go play a guardian in pvp and see how many theifs mesmer engineers will kill you THEN come back and here and tell how op it is.

Thieves, Guardians and Mesmers are definitely the best professions at the moment to play pvp with, as shown by the number of players who pick them up, and by the amount of nerfs targetting those three.

This trio will see more nerfs in the future, I don’t doubt it, and it’s fun to see how their fans (especially for guardian and for thief) react to each nerf they get. You would think the world is coming at an end, the sky is falling, the profession is being ruined. But in reality, only a selected few (abused) skills get targetted each per patch, and the trio still remains on the stronger side of the spectrum. Not that I would want the devs to rush in, mind you. I think balance should be slow and wise, because the weaker builds are also getting buffs very slowly, and there’ll be a time where elementalists, necromancers and rangers, and guardians, thieves and mesmers, will all be at an equal level to each other.

lcc.9374:

@DiogoSilva:

except SoW is a light field and does neither burn or blind

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_Field

I was including the virtue and the leap’s effect into the whole sequence’s effect.

Greatsword is a very smooth-to-play weapon, I agree, but it pidgeonholed us into a linear sequence, so strategically it was a bit mindnumbing IMO. Pressing 423 will still allow you to do that sequence, just less often. I don’t think that makes the greatsword’s playstyle any less elegant, as the skills are the same, the effects are the same, only one of them happens to be used less often (and another slightly more often). In fact, seeing Condition Removal pop up in the screen half the time might add to the elegance (it cleans up a bit), because people chained those skills either they had conditions on themselves or not. It was a very automatic process.

Same playstyle, same combat flow, more variance in skill order and, yes, more positional advantage and direct damage mitigation because of the buff to the leap.

The negative aspects I can see from this change is that the symbol traits became less effective, but I haven’t tested yet how much effectiveness they have lost. And, of course, the greatsword is weaker, because there was a clear intention to be weaker, but if the damage was overnerfed or not I don’t know, and truth is the devs added a bit of GS symbol damage back in the last update.

boozer.7815:

Whole bunch of speculation there.

Speculation is the whole point of this topic, as the topic title implies.

Because SoW -> Whirling -> Leap is an extremely strong sequence that basically degenerated the greatsword into a 234 button press sequence against 99% of the pve mobs. It was pretty much mindless. Press 234, and you lose conditions, blind foes and deal huge aoe damage from burning, retaliation and burst damage? Only the 5th skill offered more variance to general gameplay, but then it’s also optimal to use in the symbol.

Now, this sequence is still available, it is still the strongest you can make with those three skills, but you can’t do it every single time anymore. There will be times where you’ll actually whirl without the symbol, and with the leap on a lower cooldown, you’ll also leap between mobs much more often without forcing yourself into the linear symbol sequence.

In my opinion, GS was and is stronger in pve than in pvp, so the nerf shouldn’t be split. SY! drawback, however, is less relevant on smaller teamplay like in spvp, and the self-boons were too strong to the point that they would decide the winner of a 1vs1 match. The split was necessary.

Here’s the dev’s comments from three weeks ago:

Oh ya, wanted to add: yes, we’re watching Mesmers, bunker Guardians and tank heal Ele’s. Forgot to add that.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Having said that, Dagger/dagger Ele needs help. Some defensive Ele specs are too good. Some of their sustained damage is too low, while some spike builds are pretty rough. Keeping an eye on it means we’re not going to nerf/buff it without thinking very carefully about it – that’s what my first update was about.

Karl McLain.5604:

We do have some improvements in mind for the elementalist’s main-hand dagger, along with reworking the downed state a bit. Keep in mind that you might not see this for a bit, but it is in the works.

D/D and downed state have gotten their share of changes since then, and we’re left with comments that imply what might come next.

Out of boredom, we can always try to interpret them. Here’s what I think:

Oh ya, wanted to add: yes, we’re watching Mesmers, bunker Guardians and tank heal Ele’s. (…) Some defensive Ele specs are too good.

• This one is pretty obvious, bunker eles are being targetted for balance. My guess is that this is about staff healers who can’t kill nor die, which is against the combat philosophy for this game.

Some of their sustained damage is too low

• For sustained damage, the biggest offender seems to be focus’ fire skillset. Its generally considered to be a weak set, and it happens to be all about burning (= sustained damage). It could also apply to several lacking burning/ bleeding traits.

while some spike builds are pretty rough.

• If there’s one thing I can define as rough about power builds for elementalists, it’s the fire/ air traits. Elementalist’s spike skills are pretty polished and well-defined, bugs aside, but elementalists usually rely on water/ arcane traits because that’s where their good traits are, and with good synergy. When we look at fire’s traitline, we see a bunch of generic, highly conditional +damage traits with no creative or meaningful synergy between them. Nothing like, say, water’s traits that add regeneration and add condition removal per regeneration. And nothing that actually makes us survive while we’re spiking, or else power elementalists are basically thieves without stealth, which means we’re dead in 3 seconds. It’s a pretty rough traitline.

Isila.2574:

Our downed state and several of our skills (the blasts) have gone from “worthless” to simply “bad”. It’s a start.

If you think this downed state is bad, then you don’t know how to play it, or simply expect downed states to be overpowered skillsets that make killing pointless.

Vapor Form is excellent at making you run back to your allies, and the #3 skill deals a lot of damage, to the point that I’ve been able to down a glass cannon thief who was at about 15% health with that skill alone (and because I was in a corner thanks to the form, and the thief was the only one targetting me at the moment, yet, he did get stomped before me). That was pretty cool.

Typical reaction to a nerf for the top tier Guardian/ Thief/ Mesmer trinity:
“OMG my class was always an instant pick for tournament, and not it sucks so bad. Reroll!”
And for the remaining professions, especially for the ranger/ necromancer/ non-bunker elementalist trinity:
“OMG my class sucks so bad, and now I’ve lost faith completely. Reroll!”

Conclusion we can take from the forums:
Every single class is weaker than the other 7.

bantapoo.1093:

so according to you, it is ok to nerf by 50% a core ability in order to nerf a very specific niche, good for nothing else, build among dozens other?

Save Yourselves was not nerfed by 50%. It’s main purpose still works 100% as it does, only the side bonus was nerfed because it was beyond broken, and even then, only for spvp. The fact that people don’t realize SY! has two functions implies by itself that something was wrong with the way the skill was being used.

Also, all the nerfs so far have made sense, in my opinion, and outside of the louder fanbase who can’t understand them, many fans have justified the changes with logic. I’m sure more people are willing to share those opinions. I’ll sum up my thoughts:

1. Greatsword had a mindless, overpowered #2->#3->#4 skill sequence that was the absolute best way to play it in pve. The nerf added more gameplay variation, because you no longer will be forced to press 123, 123, 123, 123 in this exact order for the best results, due to changes in recharges. The symbol was the source of the problem, because it was a combo field that fueled 3 combo finishers to aoe retaliation and a lot of condition removal. This sequence is still possible, just less frequent, giving decision making to when you want to blow off your cooldowns for a burst of retaliation + condition removal + huge aoe damage with only 3 skills.
2. Greatsword’s symbol had a double nerf for the fact that it was a retaliation symbol, and retaliation was deemed too strong. I guess somewhere during the changes they noticed that the symbol recharge nerf was too harsh to the weapon as a whole, but a lesser recharge would make that single skill stronger than what they wanted, so they buffed the leap, and now buffed the symbol’s damage slightly. It’s clear, however, that they don’t want to make the weapon as strong as it used to be.
3. Suggesting the removal of retaliation from symbol of wrath and from save yourselves is NOT the solution. They want to weaken retaliation builds, not remove retaliation entirely from the game.
4. Save Yourselves is about saving your party members from their conditions at the cost of your own survival, as both the current name and the old name (Martyr) suggest. The self-boons are there, I can assume, to compensate for the drawback and to not make the skill useless when playing solo. But bathing yourselve with almost all boons in the game for 10s (up to17s) was extremely strong at spvp, anyone who played against a Guardian could see this, and many people were seeing a nerf coming with or without the existance of a topic suggesting a nerf.

I play both secondarily, and honestly, they are so different from each other, that the best answer to each of your question is simply that they are completely different.

One similarity between both is the reliance on timing your skills right, but for different effects. With Guardians you time out your virtues, block, retaliation, etc. With Mesmer, you also time out a few blocks, and then shatters, dazes, stuns, etc. One is more supportive and defensive in nature, the other more focused on screwing with your opponents.

Yeah, necros, rangers and elementalists could have been at a better state. Guardians, thieves, mesmers, are too strong. (Warriors are more balanced than what you may think, but that’s also what makes them a great option to pick up.)

As an elementalist, I understand what it is to play the underdog, and this patch has been the first one where we have truly got a relevant buff. To be fair, necros have been getting a lot of attention in previous patches (which is easy to understand why), while elementalists close to none (or bug fixes that made them worse, or nerfs with new bug fixes).

wolfie.7296:

Donjo.9042”

Given that sPvP involves a lot of 1v1 fights, this nerf makes sense. In PvE and WvWvW, the Guardian is far more likely to have allies around him, and thus far more likely to actually acquire conditions due to this shout.

I was questioning this very point in other threads. Other players insist on telling Guardians who want to 1v1 to “reroll”. Here you are saying it’s precisely this 1v1 situation that crops up so often that causes this nerf, yet I’m being told to reroll for 1v1.

I’ll try to answer this.

When you go to a profession board – ANY profession board, after a nerf takes place, several casual players will complain about those nerfs and threaten they’ll reroll or advice others to reroll. It’s something people say when they’re hot-heated, annoyed that their favourite skills will no longer be used the way they were using them, which we can understand why. It does not means, however, that they are right.

“Save Yourselves!” is a skill about saving other allies, as the name outright tells. It was once called Martyr, because you’re being the victim for the good of others. However, to compensate for being too harsh on you, and to make it not useless when playing solo, it gives you a lot of boons. In a way, 5s retaliation + protection + regeneration + lots of stuff will still be excellent at turning the tides of battle in your favor, because it does instantly make you take too little damage and deal back too much damage. It’s still a strong solo skill. In normal 1vs1 pvp, if that’s already strong as it is, 10s basically made it a win button. For 10s seconds the target would kill themselves while you would take almost no damage. That was downright overpowered. You can still time this skill to completely destroy a thief, a warrior or anything that bursts you down in a few seconds, so it’s still good even at what isn’t its main purpose.

Doesn’t vapor form gives you swiftness now and is super fast? It doesn’t lasts as long, but you can manage to flee and immobilize right after your foes. It’s pretty cool. It’s a strong downed state, but it’s also balanced, because after the first vapor form, the elementalists are easy targets to stomp, unless the context of the battle or of the map allows them to flee to somewhere safe.

It’s lovely.

Otaur.9268:

They broke Magnetic Grasp. You sit in mid-air for several seconds like RTL.

Seriously? That’s what used to happen before this update, and from my experience, it no longer happens since the update is out.

Bobobejumbo.4951:

Most of them only care about PvP. I doubt they will return. This isn’t a group of kids, it’s a group of seasoned gamers who were really disappointed by this title.

Well, I hope they learn to have patience in the future, or else they’ll never have an opportunity to be seasoned at pvp in any mmo game, ever. Unless they only pick games with years of balancing, which would only mean that they would come back to this one sooner or later.

A lot of things are not good with the elementalist. If your staff was fixed, the MH dagger, scepter and focus users would then come complaining about how they were being ignored. It would be the same thing, but anet has to start from some point, and MH Dagger was clearly the one that needed most help with S/D being the better choice for pvp and staff for wvw.

Hopefully, next in line is focus.

Warlord Jim.2870:

DiogoSilva.7089:

One of the top tier professions gets nerfed, and its fans come complaining about how “they don’t understand how such a thing could ever happen!”

Honestly, I could see a nerf coming to SY! :/

Interesting. Could you please link me the source on this Tier List? I assume ANET created ? Surely it’s not just based off your own armchair theorycrafting and speculation? Oh… it IS? What a shocker.

The Guardian/ Mesmer/ Thief trio. It’s quite well known.

And SY! was OP. Do you really think that healing 4k hp (to quote a user) with a single non-heal skill while still getting a lot of other goodies for 10s was balanced? Sure, it has the drawback of filling you with conditions, but that’s the point of the skill in the first place, it was never about overwhelming foes on 1vs1.

Lava tomb still works nicely with Vapor Form. They’ll take the hits in an attempt to kill you, you become mist, and if you got to down them, your chances for survival improve greatly (that, and vapor form can take you where they can’t hit, giving you time to heal).

Avatara.1042:

DiogoSilva.7089:

And surprise surprise, the only profession that has gotten a clear buff in this patch still attracts whiners.

What a stupid thing to say. You have to look at classes in relation to each other. You cannot just say ‘dey gotz buffs must be gud lol u complan!’

I’m not saying that. But you people seem to expect that the entire profession is going to get reworked in two weeks, which is unrealistic.

MH Dagger got some much needed changes. Ring of Fire was a bit irrelevant and Magnetic Grasp bugged. Now with added cripple and the responsiveness fixed, earth MH dagger eles sure can keep their targets where they can hit them. It was a really good step to take for a weapon that has restricted range and is all about dealing damage. With Fire Grab and Lightning Touch hitting far more often than they used to, elementalists’ S/D or D/D burst damage became more reliable, and D/D’s defense too, as it really needed. And cone of cold’s stronger healing is an extra nice touch to MH dagger survival.

Overall, from what I’ve tested (in pvp), I’m very pleased with those changes. And, of course, the new downed state is awesome! Vapor Form is super fast now, and #3 is quickly available, which makes the downed state actually fun to play too.

Yet, the Guardian/ Thief/ Mesmer keep getting most of the nerfs in all the latest patches.

It’s never a good idea to pick a profession based on builds that get balanced every week or two.