(edited by Ehecatl.9172)
Between the ease of victory over Zhaitan from a game mechanics perspective and Kraalkatorrik being mentally disabled by an asura, Anet really isn’t doing a good job building the dragons up as credible threats. Primordius’ lieutenant was infinitely more threatening to me the player.
Ah yes, someone that is starving and have just woken up after centuries of sleep is absolutely at the top of his powers…..
Rationalize it all you want, a single asura still gained mental domination over an Elder Dragon. For me that just makes the dragons as a whole seem massively weaker than I have originally imagined when reading about them. Raising a country from the sea? Ripping a path of destruction right through Ascalon? Freakin’ awesome! Almost being taken down by an asura, not so much. Even if you add Glint and Destiny’s Edge in there.
I guess I’m just disappointed. Anet’s pacing from a story perspective is just awful. Releasing a book in which one of the dragons nearly gets stomped by a small team of heroes. Then having the main dragon we’re battling die within the first month of the game… As a roleplayer that last one was especially frustrating as I didn’t even get a chance to include Zhaitan in my character story before he got killed off. And I started playing at launch!
You mean a race than uses oral story telling traditions over written word?
The norn. While they seem to have written word, a lot of their legends and lore is passed down orally in stories and song.
Also a note. Tyria has already invented the Printing Press (Charr innovation at it’s finest), which means that literacy is going to be going up by a large margin very quickly. Larger, cheaper, and more easily obtainable literature for everyone! So your human being poor doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t read.
Staff ele has a reason to go melee in dungeons: benefiting from all the combos it is setting up. Also, elementalist have a stronger reason to go melle: damage! Get a dagger in your main hand and see how much more damage you deal.
So we have some nice ideas, but how about something that would not directly deal damage?
-Additional damage on the difference in armor between you and your targets
-Increased spell range or aoe for a durationThese are just new mechanics that come to my mind, do they sound interesting?
First one would punish people for building for toughness, so not a good idea. It’d also make an Earth/Fire condition build less viable since Earth forces toughness on you, making the trait less useful to those kinds of builds.
Spell range could possibly work but it’d be strong for a 15 pointer.
Also keep in mind. All our elemental 15 point minor traits are elemental bursts/surges. That’s the theme anet went with for those traits. From the current Sun Spot which is a fiery explosion to Earth that is an earthen explosion. Water is a water explosion.. Air is a burst of lightning. For thematic reasons try to think in that mindset of energy exploding from us when switching to fire.
I would truly love an spvp map like this. Shoot, I may not play any other map in the game again.
I love siege warfare in WvW. It’s literally my favorite part of the entire game. Being able to enjoy it in spvp would just be fantastic. It’d also be very similar to a conquest mode in that team combat is a heavy deciding factor here. Whoever takes middle and holds it would be the ones to win the match in the end. Might consider a secondary mechanic that’d be used to relieve pressure on mid to stop an all bunker team from just sitting at middle and dominating the entire match.
Maybe some way to build a siege tower/ladder to climb the enemy’s walls that you have to go off to the side to get so you could sneak into the enemy’s castle for their point or to try and assassinate the lord. That’d force the people in the lead to have roamers running around taking out other roamers, competing for the resource to build the ladder.
Anet and bugs, an issue for another day.
My concern would be for how it would help staff play. I’ve thought of it as a gradual increase on the DOT is opponents get closer—like getting too close to the sun.
Even if it was just a base damage tick per second to enemies within say, 300 yards I’d find it infinitely preferable over Flame Barrier. If I can do even a little more damage without getting a sword in my face I’d call it a win.
It getting stronger the closer the enemy gets would make sense. If someone wants to be right in your face they’d be taking a decent amount of damage per tick. Maybe equal to a burn tick. Which actually might be enough to get people off you if their HP is getting low so they think twice about blitzing you before you can finish them off.
It’d also give staff eles a reason to go melee in dungeons which might be interesting. Deciding if you can risk being so close for the extra damage and greater use of your fields or not. And would benefit D/D players with a little extra damage tick for their trouble.
Between the ease of victory over Zhaitan from a game mechanics perspective and Kraalkatorrik being mentally disabled by an asura, Anet really isn’t doing a good job building the dragons up as credible threats. Primordius’ lieutenant was infinitely more threatening to me the player.
Sunspot and flame barriers effects could be combined.
Something like Sunfire cape from League of Legends
Damage every second to enemies within a certain range. The numbers would need tweaking, as would the range (needs to be effective for all weapons). Doesn’t scale with power, and acts much like a condition where it bypasses armor. That way it will encourage the elementalist to stay in fire attunement for a lengthier time.
That one would be pretty interesting. If not to replace Sun Spot itself certainly to replace Flame Barrier. If we’re traiting for heavy fire we generally want to AVOID being hit. But a constant, low key damage to nearby enemies would do well for spvp where we have to stand on a point anyway.
… Though I can see it bugging like all Hell considering anet’s track record with traits. Remember when switching to air struck non-aggressive creatures or creatures we weren’t fighting? I’m imagining that on an AoE scale. lol
Not necessarily: phoenix gives vigor
Many movement spells are located in fire, the attunement matches the idea of speed and domination. Actually Earth promotes not using endurance (earth 25) and its theme is more about being static, not offensive.
True. But as you said, fire has a lot of speed and aggression built into it. Earth is the line that’s more about slowing the opponent down and hampering them (Cripple, weakness, immobilize), which your endurance trait choice would be doing.
If attuning to fire gave Vigor or a vigor-like effect I could possibly see it.
Projectile Reflect would be extremely powerful for a 15 point minor trait on any profession. 2 seconds of it every 10-15 seconds…
Though I wouldn’t dismiss it outright as a 25 point minor trait. Or maybe a Master level major trait. Even then it might be a bit overpowered.
Endurance drain… Seems a little out of place for Fire line. Thematically speaking it feels more like an Earth thing.
Asurmir: We’re gonna have to agree to disagree here. A minor trait shouldn’t heavily influence how the profession is played because if you want to invest in that line it isn’t optional. What if I wanted a 20 point trait but didn’t want to suddenly turn into a stealth profession? I could just ignore the fields, but then I wouldn’t be using my profession to it’s limits. If we do get smoke fields, it should be a major trait that you have to actively choose to get. That’s all I’m saying.
(edited by Ehecatl.9172)
A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.
As it should. A smoke field would not be that strong of a trait considering that our attunement cd for fire can only go down to 9.25 seconds. And the field doesnt need to last long (2 or 3 seconds) for it to be useful in combat.
It shouldn’t change the way you play the profession. It’s a low tier minor trait. If it were a selected trait or an upper tier minor trait you’d have a point.
Who asked about anything game changing?
Read my OP: I am saying that the number would require some balancing. We are just discussing designs here. We are trying to find new interesting choices. And I mean interesting in term of design, not efficiency in whatever mode you play.
If a smoke field was created it could just be balanced by having a short duration/aoe.
Same for an additional fire field.
An additional fire field in fire would be incredibly redundant since every possible weapon combo has one in fire already. And a Blast Finisher for Earth would also be redundant, but more in the overpowered way in that if you have a dagger offhand you’d have three blast finishers able to be spammed in a row within a couple seconds. Four if you have Arcane Wave. And for staff it’d be less useful and more situational, since you couldn’t double blast a fire field with the way eruption works.
A smoke field would actually be useful, but also very, very strong for a 15 point minor trait. Or at least potentially so. At the very least it’d considerably alter how the elementalist is played.
More might is redundant: you get might from arcane boons, and might from fire 30, might from fire 10 + cantrips, might from glyphs with inscription, and I am just mentioning the traits.
Be more creative, stop wishful thinking!
I’m being realistic. It’s not meant to be a game changer trait. None of the other 15 point minors are. It’s all just minor effects that add to what the attunement you’re switching to already does.
I understand that a buff to might sharing sounds good to you; but I have to disagree with any addition like that.
Especially since you already go 20 points into arcana, more might stacking in fire would be more redundant and wouldn’t save the class anymore than it does now.
As far as supporting goes—the best support comes from a teammate that can kill fast and keep himself alive while doing it.
I can’t imagine them fitting a smoke field on fire though. That would definitely help in defying our opponents.
I wouldn’t say redundant. With the sigil of battle and elemental attunement and arcane wave for the second blast finisher I’m usually floating around 10-17 Might stacks. It could definitely go higher.
And this is only a 15 point minor trait. It’s not suppose to be the answer to all our survival problems. Just a small benefit you get switching into your fire attunement. Earth gives a short duration crowd control for defense, water gives an AoE heal for healing support, and air gives a decent little single target burst for air. These are the things it should be comparable to.
@Ehecatl.9172
You are talking about PvP or WvW I assume.Elementalists are definitely not just a support class! (in any mode)
Adding damage to a 15 trait is redundant, air already has it on single target. Don’t you want more interesting choices to play with?
I didn’t say it was ONLY a support class. However you’d have to go out of your way to make a build that didn’t offer group support passively just by us doing our thing. We were very clearly designed with supporting our group in mind. The fact the whole class revolves around blast finishers is proof of that, which of course happen to give the same boons to any allies near us at the time.
And while more interesting choices are always welcome, I just don’t feel like giving us stealth on blast finishers would go as far to giving us survival as people think. If anything will improve our survival, reducing the need to invest in arcane will. I have a pretty comfortable fire/earth combo build for WvW, but because I use a staff I feel extremely limited without 20 arcane for blasting staff, as an example. Buffing our Might sharing would be a decent buff to my build and many others I am sure. Especially considering this is just a 15 point minor trait. If we do get stealth, I’d assume it would at least be a major trait we have to pick.
I do rather agree with Demon in that fire is about damage. Preferably heavy sustained damage in the same way air is about bursts. Which would explain the heavy mix of burning into the trait line no matter what you do with it. And while I wouldn’t complain if we got stealth, it really doesn’t fit the elementalist thematically, much less our fire tree.
Sun Spot should do what everything in fire does. Keep up the pressure. However it does far, far too little damage to even be noticed by our opponents. Maybe if it had a different effect in addition to the damage. Like perhaps a free Might stack on us and nearby allies when attuning to fire? That would synergize well with most fire related builds (Might on Fire Spell, Fury+Might on Fire Blast Finishers) and it’d make it easier to stack Might for our fire line when cycling attunements, since if you’re that invested in fire you probably don’t have a lot in arcane for boon duration unless you’re completely made of glass. Which doesn’t work well for a sustained damage build.
Elementalists are primarily a support class. It’s what we do no matter what build we use. So making fire better at sharing offensive boons would add to that role. Let us pick between heavy offensive support with Might and Fury and heavy defensive support with Regeneration and Protection.
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Three seconds of cripple isn’t terrible for just switching to Earth attunement honestly. Not nearly as good as an AoE heal, sure, but not terrible.
I don’t even notice Sun Spot though. I think it hits for what, 600 damage? That’s one burn tick. Completely negligible. Maybe if it was also a short duration AoE blind or just threw on a few seconds of AoE burning it’d make a difference. Though really our fire line is already swimming with burning related traits.
I do rather wish we had killed Zhaitan with somthing with more kick than asuran technology. Asura have become a literary crutch for Anet to use whenever they need a convenient plot device to appear.
“Why doesn’t Kraalkatorrik just step on them?”
“An asura built a mind control device to slow him down!”
“How are we going to kill the personification of undeath?”
“The asura built a new type of lasercannon of course!”
At this point it may as well be Elder Dragons vs Asura with help.
I wish we had defeated Zhaitan using a relic found in Orr or something. Perhaps an old artifact left over from the human god’s time on Tyria being harnessed with an asuran engine/weapon delivered by charr-made airships as the norn call upon the lost spirits of Orr and Sylvari purify the land to weaken and hold Zhaitan down. THAT would have been a more understandable defeat, and actually combine the strengths of all the races.
But I like those rings. It makes my charr look nefarious with his staff in one hand and fire around the other.
I’ve seen this suggested before, but making the conjured auto attacks not use any charges would be a huge buff. We could spam our number 1 skills while everything else was on cooldown without worrying about eating up valuable charges. You know, the thing auto attacks are in the game to do.
I’d also like to see damage all around increased. In my mind all the conjures should have a damage output comparable to the greatsword, and the greatsword should be buffed to some crazy burst potential. This seems to be what the weapons were designed for. They replace twenty skills with five for a very short window of time. They should be much, much stronger than normal weapon skills as a result. It also explains the point of sharing them with others. Why would a warrior pick up our flame axe if it has a lower damage output than his normal set? Being a staff ele and carrying around the flame axe or lightning hammer or even ice bow for a sudden single target burst would massively improve the profession’s performance all around. And the Fiery Greatsword is an ELITE skill. Whipping it out should be a major pants soiling moment for the enemy.
Granted that’s how elites all around should be, which only a small number of them actually succeed in regardless of profession.
I’d be inclined to agree that staff could use a small buff geared toward making us better in 1v1 duels.
We’re amazing at support, be it with boons and heals or conditions and death, and we can quickly change the course of a team battle with our presence. That is the feel I wanted when rolling an elementalist, and I am content with it. However no matter how great we are at group fights there will always be that time where we’re alone for whatever reason. Maybe we’re in spvp and need to get back to our allies as soon as possible, but someone catches us between the respawn point and our team. Maybe we’re in WvWvW and on our way to our designated zerg a roamer catches us. 1v1 DOES happen, and there is no way to completely avoid it.
What makes this an elementalist issue specifically is we only have one weapon set. And if that weapon is a staff we’re automatically handicapped in the duel, and unless we severely outplay the opponent we will die and our presence as team support is completely negated. If we could weapon swap this wouldn’t be a problem, but we’d also be fantastically overpowered. So giving staff a few small 1v1 tools would be the best way to address the problem. Nothing major, we don’t need to replace daggers or scepter as the best roamer weapon, not even close. But we do need a little more in the way of 1v1 reliability so we can survive 1v1 encounters.
I dunno what you guys are talking about. Since the change I feel like I’m doing massive amounts MORE damage. I throw Meteor Shower over a group of enemies and they melt like ice in a volcano. I’ve even been able to down two or three people at once with it.
Maybe you’re running a 30 water build? Because that did in fact get a damage nerf, but it has nothing to do with the staff specifically.
I have to wonder what the heck you have Been doing with meteor shower all this time, that you haven’t always been downing 2-3 people with it?
Having really, really bad luck. Drop the Meteor Shower and watch maybe two meteors actually hit something for the entire duration kind of luck. Even if I dropped the thing right on the capture point as everyone was fighting.
It is very much hitting more frequently now.
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I dunno what you guys are talking about. Since the change I feel like I’m doing massive amounts MORE damage. I throw Meteor Shower over a group of enemies and they melt like ice in a volcano. I’ve even been able to down two or three people at once with it.
Maybe you’re running a 30 water build? Because that did in fact get a damage nerf, but it has nothing to do with the staff specifically.
I ran this build for a while last night through several zerg vs zerg fights. When I went down I rallied near instantly from someone dying from Meteor Shower or an ally after my AoE tagged them.
It really just takes some more awareness of your positioning to avoid going down entirely though.
Though my runes were different. Infiltrators because I’m really, really poor. I’ll be replacing that soon.
Out of curiosity, what runes are you wanting to run? I’m using Runes of the Elementalist to keep burning up (+10% damage to burning targets) and to prolong the CC inflicted by my chills. And I’m praying we one day get condition duration/precision food to further this end.
I tested out 2 Rage, 2 Citadel, and 2 Fire in the Mists and found it made my uptime on might and fury ridiculous. I do more than enough damage without damage specific runes, and as the grandmaster trait I went for was the new Persisting Flames I want to give my zerg a larger advantage in offense. Close to 20 seconds of Fury on blast finishers on lava font is pretty great. Plus the Might I’d normally be spreading about.
I have noticed the trait is a bit finnicky though. I don’t always get the fury when I should have, and it’s not an internal cooldown because I’ve often gotten double fury on double blasting my font. Spreading 40 seconds of Fury to my group. It’s odd.
30/20/0/0/20
fully zerker gear with ascended zerker trinkets, MF runes and power/presc/MF infusions.
AoE the zerg, AoE loot.
I support my team by killing the enemy team.
And when you die, you rally everyone who hit you….gg!
I ran this build for a while last night through several zerg vs zerg fights. When I went down I rallied near instantly from someone dying from Meteor Shower or an ally after my AoE tagged them.
It really just takes some more awareness of your positioning to avoid going down entirely though.
Though my runes were different. Infiltrators because I’m really, really poor. I’ll be replacing that soon.
It’s not a suicide run. The elementalist used his downed state intelligently to be a minor annoyance to your zerg that would otherwise flatten him in seconds without a single bit of skill on your part.
It’s not suicide if the elementalist doesn’t get killed. It’s just outplaying you.
This is exactly why this needs to change. You guys rely on so many crutches, like being able to get yourself killed and vapor form to safety, that you never learn how to play your classes correctly.
That and you fool yourselves into thinking it takes skill.
So you’ve basically admitted you’re trolling us then. Seeing as you’re discrediting everyone who’s proposed the counters to stop this from happening by saying you shouldn’t HAVE to bring counters to stop someone from doing something, which is a pretty big hole in your argument considering I have to bring Mist Form to stop the likes of you from three shotting me every time I wander away from my zerg. Just insulted me and everyone who plays an elementalist by saying we don’t know how to play our class because elementalist is just SO cheap and full of cheesey tactics that make the game a piece of cake.
There is no further need for discussion.
The counter of pulling an Elementalist away from the portal after it lands on the ground before killing it? To counter you dying and pressing 2?
I mean, we’ve already established that they can immediately Vapor Form upon death and float back inside so the idea of ‘countering it while they are downed with immobilize’ was just an attempt to justify the action by saying there was actually a way to counter it after they died.
So after establishing that the above counter was just a lie (Or the people proposing it don’t know how there class works which is equally likely) you just toss out and even more ludicrous suggestion?
And I’m the troll here.
Aaand what about pulling the ele further away from the door BEFORE he goes down? What about putting a guardian bubble block in front of the door? Or hitting him with fear so he runs away from the door before going down?
Even if we run with the premise that immobilize goes away when downed, which a few here and noted it does not (Haven’t verified either way myself), there are ways to deal with it. And the amount of damage a lone ele can do to a zerg is trivial at best. Just break into the fort and kill him if your entire zerg is utterly without the capacity to figure out a way to deal with it.
I never use this tactic myself as my internet latency means I can’t move at all in vapour form (I move on my screen but the game recognizes that I didn’t leave my original position) so this effects me not in the least. It’s still a silly thing to be complaining about.
And that is the last I’ll be saying on the matter.
It’s not a suicide run. The elementalist used his downed state intelligently to be a minor annoyance to your zerg that would otherwise flatten him in seconds without a single bit of skill on your part.
It’s not suicide if the elementalist doesn’t get killed. It’s just outplaying you.
This is exactly why this needs to change. You guys rely on so many crutches, like being able to get yourself killed and vapor form to safety, that you never learn how to play your classes correctly.
That and you fool yourselves into thinking it takes skill.
So you’ve basically admitted you’re trolling us then. Seeing as you’re discrediting everyone who’s proposed the counters to stop this from happening by saying you shouldn’t HAVE to bring counters to stop someone from doing something, which is a pretty big hole in your argument considering I have to bring Mist Form to stop the likes of you from three shotting me every time I wander away from my zerg. Just insulted me and everyone who plays an elementalist by saying we don’t know how to play our class because elementalist is just SO cheap and full of cheesey tactics that make the game a piece of cake.
There is no further need for discussion.
It’s not a suicide run. The elementalist used his downed state intelligently to be a minor annoyance to your zerg that would otherwise flatten him in seconds without a single bit of skill on your part.
It’s not suicide if the elementalist doesn’t get killed. It’s just outplaying you.
Fire Aura does need a complete rework. The idea of auras is to punish our enemies for hitting us. Severely. To the point they back off a few seconds and let us get aggressive or give us breathing room.
Fire Aura causes minor burning when we’re hit. That… Is not going to make anyone rethink attacking us. We’ll be dead long before the burning becomes a problem for our attacker.
Maybe Fire Aura should cause an AoE burst of say, 300 base damage along with four seconds of burning per hit? That’d definitely give the enemy reason to pause.
I admit it would be nice to have a higher base HP pool. With my knight/berserker set up for WvW I have close to 1,700 toughness. But that does nothing if I only have 12K HP. Elementalists shouldn’t need at least 20 in our defensive line just to have enough health to not die instantly when we enter combat.
We need better HP or we need better defenses built into our weapon sets. I was very surprised when our “Defense” attunement Earth had literally no blocks/Retaliation/Invulnerability/defensive walls. Focus is the only weapon with sufficient defense, but it has so little offense it’d never make a good offensive build weapon.
Just today I was running a new offensive build. Trying out a heavy fire (I know, I know) build focusing on raw offensive and arcane utilities for finishers. I did great damage and could wreck groups in a team fight. But a ranger kept picking me off.
The ranger spammed his attacks through the duration of my Mist Form, continued on through my healing rotation, and then kept blasting me with arrows THROUGH my Magnetic Aura (Ended up getting him down to 75% because of his own attacks) and he still ended up destroying me before I could burst him to half because I spent the entire fight trying to stay alive.
I know staff is a terrible 1v1 weapon and my build was pretty glassy, but one would think I’d have been able to do better as my opponent continued to mindlessly shoot at my anti-projectile defense for it’s full duration.
Oh hey. This same thread is also in the elementalist forums. I’ll just copy post my response from there.
“We shouldn’t be discouraging the creative use of abilities. It takes away from tactics and strategies that can be used and makes the game less dynamic and interesting.”
Technically speaking if he’s downed he’s not dead. You didn’t kill him. You got him close to death but he pulled a last minute escape attempt and succeeded.
Downed is not Defeated.
And for the record. I’d say it takes more skill to jump down from the wall, burst a group of people and carefully position yourself so when you go down you’re close enough to the door to escape. You know, despite the myriad of knock-backs, stuns, pulls, and snares that will immediately be blown all over your face the second you come into range.
More skill than, say, spamming attack buttons while vastly outnumbering the elementalist and being in a place of complete and utter safety, that’s for sure.
We shouldn’t be discouraging the creative use of abilities. It takes away from tactics and strategies that can be used and makes the game less dynamic and interesting.
Taking away two stun breakers from d/d, IMO that is the final nail in the coffin since the class cant survive without mobility.
Nobody is taking stunbreakers away. They are just being redistributed to different skills so builds that aren’t completely cantrip focused aren’t royally screwed whenever they get hit by a stun.
By definition they are taking stunbreakers away. You would have to be an Anet to run a glyph that gives you burning(already in fire), weakness(already in air), chill(already in water) and cripple(already in earth). If you want to run a glyph that gives you what you already have, and lose out on a teleport that actually keeps you alive be my guest. Oh, and kiss earth 5 goodbye. Since you are running glyphs now good luck landing that one.
Lightning Flash is still in the game. It’s not a stunbreaker anymore, but it still teleports you. If the leaked notes are true they also increased the damage of it by 50% (Turning it into a heavier burst to add to a burst combo) and reduced the cooldown to 40 seconds (Meaning you can use it much more frequently, almost matching Churning Earth’s cooldown). Seems to me they’ve tailored the skill specifically toward landing Churning Earth.
D/D is still far, far, far away from being unusable. Just now your solid cantrip set up isn’t as loaded with stunbreakers as before.
I can still survive pretty darn well without having three stunbreakers on my utility bar. I’m not seeing what the massive problem is.
o don t worry you ll soon find out, when you re eating hundert blades and the new mesmer hasted shatter spike including a 2500+dmg buff.
most classes got buffs for the already existing builds. Only Eles got nerfed in the vital parts… survivability.
All warriors got a 5 sec reduced cooldown on their heals.Mist Form. Signet of Air. Armor of Earth…
… Problem solved?
Seriously. Lightning Flash isn’t the only stunbreaker we have. And it’s still a great skill with a lot of utility on a shorter cooldown than it was before. That means more maneuverability, more zapping in for a churning earth spike, and more controlling the range you’re fighting at. If you were only using this skill for the stunbreak you were seriously undervaluing it’s potential.
Other professions got buffs. Good for them. And while they may have gotten buffed more than us, that doesn’t mean we should turn up our noses at the buffs we did get. This patch is giving eles loads of buffs and a couple amazing traits that very well might give us entirely new builds. Be happy!
well, i can t stand mist form since the patch, best use of it i find is to stomp or res someone. I use Healing signet and using mistform makes me loose over 1000 hp healed, while conditions are still eating away my live, and since it s a o kitten button, you re prolly already low on live.
I ve played the burster ele for a while, and it only shines to burst down some thiefes. In small scale, as soon as i see the lightning channel anymation he s priority target. Most scepter/d eles you see nowadays don t even run offensiv gear, more like hibryd gear that is abit more offensiv then a dd ele uses. ever wondered why? because their survivability is crap
I’ve been playing many variations of D/D and S/D burst and Staff AoE damage builds since release. Despite the long periods of time the both of them have been borderline suicidal. I’ve tried bunker and Aura Share too, but eh. Support isn’t why I picked this profession.
And if you’re using Mist Form when you’re about to die you’re using it wrong. Ideally you want to use it when the enemy stuns you and are lining up their burst. That’s when you break the stun and the whole burst is wasted entirely and you can proceed to gently float away. And I’ll likely still use Cleansing Flame as well, but not as a stunbreaker. As a condition removal when I’m running a build that’s low on condition removal. You know, the original purpose of the move.
With my S/D burst build with Knight’s amulet and Zerker jewel I had 21K health running the usual 0/20/0/20/30 build. It plus the healing was more than enough to keep me up and allow me to keep respectful damage. Enough to put down opponents. Wasn’t super awesome bursty unless someone was dumb enough to stand right in front of me when I went into fire, but it was playable.
Now the main spike build might shift to 0/30/0/20/20. If you can’t see the value of having air attunement on call every 5 seconds I have nothing more to say really.
Edit: Had to shorten your quote or it wouldn’t let me post T.T
(edited by Ehecatl.9172)
Taking away two stun breakers from d/d, IMO that is the final nail in the coffin since the class cant survive without mobility.
Nobody is taking stunbreakers away. They are just being redistributed to different skills so builds that aren’t completely cantrip focused aren’t royally screwed whenever they get hit by a stun.
By definition they are taking stunbreakers away. You would have to be an Anet to run a glyph that gives you burning(already in fire), weakness(already in air), chill(already in water) and cripple(already in earth). If you want to run a glyph that gives you what you already have, and lose out on a teleport that actually keeps you alive be my guest. Oh, and kiss earth 5 goodbye. Since you are running glyphs now good luck landing that one.
Lightning Flash is still in the game. It’s not a stunbreaker anymore, but it still teleports you. If the leaked notes are true they also increased the damage of it by 50% (Turning it into a heavier burst to add to a burst combo) and reduced the cooldown to 40 seconds (Meaning you can use it much more frequently, almost matching Churning Earth’s cooldown). Seems to me they’ve tailored the skill specifically toward landing Churning Earth.
D/D is still far, far, far away from being unusable. Just now your solid cantrip set up isn’t as loaded with stunbreakers as before.
I can still survive pretty darn well without having three stunbreakers on my utility bar. I’m not seeing what the massive problem is.
o don t worry you ll soon find out, when you re eating hundert blades and the new mesmer hasted shatter spike including a 2500+dmg buff.
most classes got buffs for the already existing builds. Only Eles got nerfed in the vital parts… survivability.
All warriors got a 5 sec reduced cooldown on their heals.
Mist Form. Signet of Air. Armor of Earth…
… Problem solved?
Seriously. Lightning Flash isn’t the only stunbreaker we have. And it’s still a great skill with a lot of utility on a shorter cooldown than it was before. That means more maneuverability, more zapping in for a churning earth spike, and more controlling the range you’re fighting at. If you were only using this skill for the stunbreak you were seriously undervaluing it’s potential.
Other professions got buffs. Good for them. And while they may have gotten buffed more than us, that doesn’t mean we should turn up our noses at the buffs we did get. This patch is giving eles loads of buffs and a couple amazing traits that very well might give us entirely new builds. Be happy!
Taking away two stun breakers from d/d, IMO that is the final nail in the coffin since the class cant survive without mobility.
Nobody is taking stunbreakers away. They are just being redistributed to different skills so builds that aren’t completely cantrip focused aren’t royally screwed whenever they get hit by a stun.
By definition they are taking stunbreakers away. You would have to be an Anet to run a glyph that gives you burning(already in fire), weakness(already in air), chill(already in water) and cripple(already in earth). If you want to run a glyph that gives you what you already have, and lose out on a teleport that actually keeps you alive be my guest. Oh, and kiss earth 5 goodbye. Since you are running glyphs now good luck landing that one.
Lightning Flash is still in the game. It’s not a stunbreaker anymore, but it still teleports you. If the leaked notes are true they also increased the damage of it by 50% (Turning it into a heavier burst to add to a burst combo) and reduced the cooldown to 40 seconds (Meaning you can use it much more frequently, almost matching Churning Earth’s cooldown). Seems to me they’ve tailored the skill specifically toward landing Churning Earth.
D/D is still far, far, far away from being unusable. Just now your solid cantrip set up isn’t as loaded with stunbreakers as before.
I can still survive pretty darn well without having three stunbreakers on my utility bar. I’m not seeing what the massive problem is.
Taking away two stun breakers from d/d, IMO that is the final nail in the coffin since the class cant survive without mobility.
Nobody is taking stunbreakers away. They are just being redistributed to different skills so builds that aren’t completely cantrip focused aren’t royally screwed whenever they get hit by a stun.
The game is already stacked in favour of single target burst for those classes that actually have it.
I use AoE playing certain classes because the single target damage is beyond terrible. On my wells Necro, Grenadier Engineer and staff Ele I won’t kill anyone with single target abilities ever.
Nerfing AoE would require some serious rebalancing in other areas, especially considering Necro and Engineer have few viable specs to start with. I bet that’s gonna be on the backburner again though…
Not enough Thieves yet I guess.
Also a staff ele. I use AoEs on single target enemies because I HAVE NO single target abilities. What am I suppose to kill people with? Gust that deals no damage? Stoning?
An AoE nerf will literally reduce staff elementalists to fighting off enemies by tossing rocks at them. And I do mean literally. Throwing rocks is our only single target damage ability!
I seriously hope they don’t nerf AoE as bad as it looks like they will. I’m probably one of the last few staff eles out there. Running a 30/30/0/0/10 offensive build focused entirely around hard hitting AoEs and high sustained fireball damage to pressure enemy zergs in WvWvW. If they nerf AoE even slightly my entire build becomes trash. I’m already just barely doing enough damage to warrant not rolling the water/arcane dagger build that’s so popular right now.
And please leave Meteor Shower alone! It’s literally the only skill staff has that stands out. If it gets nerfed then not only is my build trashed by staff’s biggest battlefield utility goes down the tube as well.
It’s almost ironic. But if this nerf goes through staff elementalists will literally be reduced to the status of full time healer, as it’s the only thing the staff will have left. Isn’t that was Anet was trying to avoid with this game?
Every profession balanced in 1v1? Absolutely.
Every build? No.
You pick the profession based on the flavor and playstyle you want to do.
You make your build based on what objectives you want to specialize in.
Therefore some builds are more specialized in a 1v1 dueling situation, while others are more geared to team oriented fire fights, and still others are designed specifically for running dungeons or solo pve.
It’s just the nature of any class based character system. You make choices based on your preferences and play according to those preferences.
Seems a lot of duelers automatically assume they’re superior at pvp than “Zerglets” that follow the group to do objectives. I find this a fairly laughable conclusion considering both forms of combat are just that, forms of combat. Would you say a trained soldier is less skilled a fighter than a professional fighter? I’d certainly hope not. They can both be deadly, but were trained for entirely different objectives.
The “Zerglets” are soldiers. They follow orders, help devise strategies with their commanding officer, and do everything in their power to use their skills in intelligent, tactical ways to turn the tide of a group vs group battle. Not all groups are mindless zergs without a true leader, or a very incompetent leader. When I play WvWvW, I follow an intelligent commander and am part of a well oiled killing machine. I drop my AoEs not to maximize raw damage output, but to close off escape routes and herd the enemy team into less favorable positions. And to destroy their siege above all else. I use my support abilities to relieve my allies and provide them with increased battle prowess to give us the edge.
The roamers are the lone warriors that go around and flip camps and kill/escort dolyaks and do the small scale, but very important, work that allows the soldiers on the front lines to have the supplies needed to get the definitive edge over a larger enemy host. Roamers generally run dueling builds as most of their battles are 1v1 or small scale skirmishes, and that’s fine.
Duelists also have 1v1 specs, but rather than run objectives they battle eachother to test their strength and see who is superior. While I might be annoyed that you’re not helping the server gain victory in any way, what brings you joy brings you joy. Duelists are more like the boxers and competitive fighters. Fighting for recognition rather than making a difference.
But my build is a heavy ranged AoE build that has next to no ability to fight 1v1. It was designed purely for group “support” in the way of choking the enemy out with big damage numbers and keeping heavy pressure on the enemy group. My staff elementalist is excellent at what he was made to do. But if I go against a Dagger dueling elementalist you know what the outcome will be? Nine times out of ten I get flattened. Because his build was specialized for 1v1 and mine was not.
That is what duelists seem to see as a skill gap between them and their opponent. You don’t destroy the zerglets because they’re bad at 1v1, you destroy them because they did not design their character with 1v1 in mind. Simple as that.
As per the topic. If I’m running by and I see an ally in a 1v1 situation I will, 100% of the time and without hesitation, incinerate the opposing fighter. If, and only if, my ally tells me directly to leave him be will I do this. But any form of hesitation on my part before it’s confirmed to be a duel is a waste of time and give the enemy a chance to gain an edge, and my build will NOT allow me to win after my ally is down. This is a war zone, and duelists cannot expect the soldiers to stop and second guess themselves before engaging in what could be a game changing confrontation.
As I’ve seen one or two duelists here say that if a friendly player interrupts their duel they pull out and let their ally get slaughtered in a suddenly 1v1 duel… All I have to say is I hope you realize how shameful and disrespectful it is to your teammate who had gone out of his way because he thought you were in danger, that you’d let them die in a 1v1 they likely weren’t built for just because they hindered your “Good time.”
Until this game provides some sort of flag to announce to others that what is happening is a duel and not a skirmish, duelists kind of have to suck it up and accept that if they are dueling in WvWvW, they will get interrupted. Sucks, I know. But that’s what it’s like in a war zone. War is Hell, not your personal playground.
… Even if it is basically a virtual playground.
In pve and WvWvW I’m in Knight’s gear with berserker accessories. I like having some level of passive defense so I don’t get obliterated when I can’t respond to incoming damage on the spot. But if you have a good connection and good reflexes you could try all berserker. If you just keep to the zerg glass cannon builds tend to be fairly viable because it’s almost impossible to get focus fired.
I’ve always ran builds with 20-30 points in fire, constantly searching for a way to play at least somewhat effectively specializing in the element I have a preference for. But as a result I was always less effective at just about everything I did than the heavy water elementalists, which saddened me greatly.
But now! I can run my 30 points in fire build and actually put out the heavy sustained damage the trait line should’ve awarded all along. I still feel it needs some more trait tweaks, but I am content with at least having one solid grandmaster fire trait.
Currently running 30/10/0/10/20 with a staff.
Spell Slinger, Alacricity, and Pyromancer’s Puissance.
Quicker Glyphs
Soothing Disruption
Elemental Attunement and Blasting Staff.
I of course use the glyph heal for perma swiftness and the strong heal. Plus the other buffs are always useful. Mist Form, Cleansing Fire to compensate for lack of condition removal, and the last slot I alternate between Arcane Wave for pve and WvWvW sieges (Extra combo means extra burst heals and might stacks and AoE swiftness) and Armor of Earth for spvp and any situation I feel I might go 1v1. And Glyph of Elementals as my elite.
Knight’s Amulet with zerker jewel.
I do pretty nasty AoE damage with this build. If I can get Meteor Shower off it’s enough to wreck an opposing group of enemies handily. And I don’t do too terribly 1v1 for a staff build. Usually sitting on 10 stacks of Might just from Pyromancer’s Puissance alone. In most engagements I end up with 20+ stacks in short order. Even with attunement dancing to play defensively I can usually get back to fire and pick up my Might stacking back up quickly to melt my opponents down.
Admittedly I’ve been considering dropping 10 in water and moving it to air for Inscription or Bolt to the Heart. But I dunno if I’m willing to give up the regen and vigor for it.
No one fear bunker eles except a bunch of spvp thief zergers…just check each profession thread and see who’s complaininf about “bunker” eles….just thieves or some random necro well spammer, so stop giving reasons to people who can’t see behind the end of their own nose
Gonna point out I never said bunker ele was overpowered. I just pointed out that it was the build most people are complaining about when they bring up elementalists. Which is for the most part true.
The point is they aren’t buffing what are already strong elementalist builds this patch. They are buffing our weakest trait lines so that maybe people who play elementalists will branch out more.
What race has a history of raining fire down upon their enemies?
CHARR!
Plus their staff handling animation is just splendid. They walk around like an evil sorcerer plotting something nefarious. I love it.
Necro isn’t that strong, but buffs to thieves and eles? Really?
I feel like insert name here has literally gone mental, while working on balance.
The Lead Balance Dev plays Thief. His friend or next in line down the totem pole likely plays Ele.
Its not insanity, it is just Bias. Pure and simple. Developers are people with Bias. People in charge of multiple class balance that are specific class fans will 100% of the time favor that class in all development decisions. They do this subconsciously so there is no possible way to prevent it. Human nature is Human Nature.
I’m not entirely sure what game you’re playing.
The dreaded Bunker ele spec that everyone feared got a pretty severe nerf/bug fix last patch. And this patch the bunker elementalist build was left mostly alone. What they buffed were our fire, air, and earth lines. Buffing a grandmaster fire trait that NO ONE used outside pve encounters. And buffing an air trait that was mostly considered useless because it only kicked in after the enemy already had one foot in the grave.
This patch was about buffs to trait lines that weren’t being heavily used. Anet is trying to expand the potential number of builds so not every elementalist is running the exact same high survivability murderbuild daggers spec that most people consider “OP”.
I’d much, much prefer they go about balancing the elementalist class this way than nerfing the last viable elementalist pvp build and making us wait a month before we see the counter buffs. It’s also better game design overall to buff other builds and see what happens than to just nerfhammer everything that starts to seem slightly strong.
I don’t play enough of the other classes to really pay attention to their buffs and nerfs. But from what I understand anet is using the same philosophy with them.
I’m also having this fairly large problem. With this download speed Wintersday will be over before my patch is done.
I’m more concerned with the idea of it going into the water line.
I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid speccing heavily into water. And was mostly looking forward to taking points out of water to try out the buffs to fire/air lines. And yet now if I do take points out of water I have to choose between being able to switch to the fall damage trait or taking the traits I want to play around with. It’s an annoying turn of events to say the least. lol
Ah, pve. Alright, I’ll correct myself then.
Have you ever been exploring and fallen off a cliff, only to see some warrior or rogue make the SAME JUMP and survive? I have. And it’s humiliating being the only class that can’t survive that jump. And it saves travel time besides, making world completion that much quicker and easier.
Ever tried following a WvWvW zerg? A fall damage trait is amazingly useful, as it lets me do just that without dying every time the zerg decides to make a jump that I can’t survive due to lack of fall damage reduction.
Well, they DID say they were improving our trait lines. I expected more than only changing two traits in the fire/air lines, but it’s a good start.
Now to begin my mad experiments with the new Pyromancer’s Puissance and see if the damage increase is worth it! Muahahahaha~