Guild Wars 2

Dahkeus.8243:

FrownyClown.8402:

A better idea could be amulet stacking. Only 2 amulets with condi damage in it is allowed on the team. Only 2 amulets with power and ferocity is allowed on the team. Only 1 amulet with healing power is allowed on the team.

No, that’s kittening dumb.

okay.

Ryou.2398:

Wow, im new to visiting these elementalist forums, and looking into an ele before I made it everyone swears its versatile and has allot of build diversity, yet people are saying otherwise here, I havent experienced this myself yet if its really true. But I dont get why so many in game and other forums claim this if there are so many issues.

In retrospect, the elementalist has a place in all game modes and has uses for almost all of its weapons. I have been playing ele for over 3 years so I would like to say I have a deep understanding of the class as far as pvp and wvw go. That being said, there is only 1 build viable in pvp and thats most likely where all the flaming comes from. Just a lack of diversity in the same game modes. This is a problem with every class. Everyone that doesn’t play ele will say we are op and versatile, but everyone who mains the class will say we are being limited by our lack of good traits and utilities. Its more likely frustration of anet not touching our utilities since launch and pretty much ruining the game to make as much cash as possible.

Both. Most builds from the core class are obsolete to the specializations. And also the build is dead since the removal of celestial.

I think its a good idea to remove class stacking. It would be hard to implement though because of people switching classes before fights and finding teams when you are duo queuing.

A better idea could be amulet stacking. Only 2 amulets with condi damage in it is allowed on the team. Only 2 amulets with power and ferocity is allowed on the team. Only 1 amulet with healing power is allowed on the team.

The main reason inscription is taken is most likely for lower cooldown on glyph of storms. This provides better damage overall than the extra precision from Aeromancer’s Training.

I don’t raid, but given the build I would say Inscription is better overall unless you are not taking glyph of storms.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Mesmer-and-Elementalist-Lore-Origins

This goes into a bit of the lore of magic in guild wars

Try fire wyvern if you wanted more burn damage.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Glyph of elemental power and arcane precision already apply weakness on hit so adding another trait that applies weakness would be redundant.

Air is in a good spot,but the problem with taking air is you leave yourself vulnerable to power builds if you don’t get earth you have no access to protection aside from overloads.If you don’t pick water then you leave yourself vulnerable to condition builds, because you have very little condition removal and you have very little team support.

Even though air is fine, it needs some kind of built in self defense or dps ele will never be viable.

One with Air is very strong and under utilized.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

Perhaps adding survavibility options to dmg traitlines would be great?

Yes,if the air trait line had access to protection dps ele would be in better shape.

What if weak spot was changed to give 3-4 seconds of protection on crit with a 10 second ICD instead of vulnerability on crit .I don’t think this would be unreasonable because bunker eles would not benefit at all from going air.

Air trait line is in a good spot and protection doesn’t work thematically with the trait line. If anything, I would rather weak spot apply weakness for 1 second every time you crit while in air (3s icd).

You also have to think about trait synergies with weak spot as it is now. Piercing shards for example has potential to work really well with air builds if water damage was made more relevent.

Its hard to nerf group support in pvp without nerfing it in wvw too. I think the best way to do it would nerf the range of the last heal pulse for wash the pain away to 360 radius. Remove the “frost aura is applied to allies” affect from elemental bastion and have it only applied to yourself.

It slightly reduces potential team heals but keeps the ele’s tankiness the same.

Hi, I don’t play necro, but from the perspective of an ele, I think necros are in a good spot. I actually feel that the extra condi is a bit more annoying to deal with.

Personnally I don’t see a problem with them creating a longbow and keeping all of the same skills as ice bow, but giving them other attunements with it. I’d rather they get rid of conjures completely so we had more potential weapons.

My two cents would be to try a shout build for support.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8YnUqA1Ci9CC+rActglOBDelGTzpO/tAwK7pFEqOclMtHA-TJRJABAcBAEqMg2PAAa2fAA

Like skyhammer and spiritwatch

I enjoy core lb ranger. I don’t really like touching my ranger if I don’t run lb in the build.

LughLongArm.5460:

“each one of my glyphs cures 2 conditions each time it is activated, on top of planting a healing seed.” – please explain.

Probably just misunderstands the tooltip on gw2skills since it wasn’t updated.

I missed season 1, but it appeared it was a celestial tempest build that used cantrips. Now its a cleric bunker build that uses shouts. So essentially you missed healbot ele. Its fun for awhile, but ends up being boring after a a season.

This season we had a minor nerf to our shout cooldowns. That and the introduction of thief, warrior into the meta (on top of removing merc amulet) you have a pretty heavy decent balanced game with the right comp. Most players I feel are playing condi these days, which makes playing an ele incredibely hard (stacking condi builds makes it impossible to cleanse conditions fast enough). I stopped trying to play ranked this season because of these reasons.

Players have suggested raid of the Capricorn be brought back for ages. Hands down the most fun map, but got rid of it because underwater combat. I’d imagine it would take the team significantly less time to just fix the issues with that map and reintroduce it.

f1 pet skills to control their secondary mechanics (like the dogs knockdown)

Thief is fine apart from the perma evade d/d build. The build is much stronger with daredevil.

On a side note, I am finding this meta even more condi-centric than last.

Rodzynald.5897:

Supreme.3164:

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

Supreme,

If ele heals were single target, themselves, it wouldn’t be a problem, but when it comes to teamfights is where the problem begins to show itself. If I cant kill an ele, its fine, I can CC them around and get a decap, and if needed I can wait until a teammate +1’s. However, in a 2v2 the ele will always win, because you either have to deal with an unkillable teammate DPSing you, or you target the elementalist and get ravaged by their teammate. That is the problem.

If the tempest heals were not aoe…ele would not be taken anywhere in the game outside wvw as staff backline ever thought about that?

Which team would take an ele in pvp over a scrapper or druid as they have more personal sustain and better dmg options and overall better 1vs1 duellists?

Ele is taken exclusively for its support with aoe component, a support bot position where the profession has been restricted to..after they nerfed to the ground everything around it.

Do you know that ele is the only profession with utilities left without any update since BW2 during June 2012? No? Go check ele glyphs then for example or arcane skills

Like seriously the profession is taken only for its support capabilities that obviously will be aoe, take that away and nobody in his right mind would ever use an ele…like really nobody at least in pvp

You guys both speak the truth.
Ele and pretty much every support should heal themselves along with their teammates. But if someone farts out heals like after eating taco bell then something is kinda not okay.
Ele is supreme in terms of healing, druid right behind it or perhaps on the same level.
Perhaps secondary target should get about X% less healing?
What I mean by that is: Ele focuses heals on his/her teammates, they are healed through AoE but Ele himself gets less recovery from that. You can take it as healing points distribution throughout the whole team. Perhaps the more allies, the less health they will get healed for because dropping stab and a few buttons to burst heal everyone in mere seconds is nothing else but ridiculous. Ele is a walking Signet of Courage active effect but on much lower cooldown.
On the other hand if Ele could focus heals on him/herself, the AoE for others is halved. This might work on all AoE healing skills.

EDIT:
About that part of not updated utilites. I’d love to remind you that Ele had his golden age during Cele meta where there were everything on demand.
Don’t bring up something like that knowing that Guardians are the most left out profession in the whole game.
Check out consecrations, spirit weapons, signets, shouts… want more to compare? Check out Guard’s traits and compare them in the terms of efficiency and synergy with other classes’ traits.
BUT WAIT! There’s more… weapons: hammer, scepter, sword, mace
Yeh… I guess that Guardian has it rough a little bit more than Elementalist.

Hammer is used in wvw frontline. Scepter and sword used to be meta for medi builds before HoT. Elementalists suffer from outdated traits/utilities not quite to the level of guardians but I definitely feel we are in 2nd place.

Guardian just feels like a product of 2012. Ele just feels like a product of a “jack of all trades” failed concept. Guardian just feels very basic, like it was left in the dust with an evolving game. Ele just feels like its pigeoned into builds in pvp because of its lower stats and lack of defense aside from boons/healing, like anet forgot what the class was supposed to be about.

Its not gonna happen. Anet doesn’t have enough people working for them to dedicate a team to create these arenas. The game mode will be a flop simply because nothing will be balanced for it. It will get hyped up for a season or so and then go on to be the next stronghold. The only way for it to succeed is for them to drop conquest and dedicate their time to that game mode instead.

Not to mention its against the forum policy to post petitions. You will probably get infracted and lose your posting privileges for this.

Aeroxe.8140:

In general, I think ele just needs some numbers toned down, unlike many classes that need some more design changes. Perhaps a decrease in the healing coefficient of elemental bastion.

the healing coefficient is pretty bad as it is. We could have half our healing power and still be decent.

I would opt for removing cleric amulet for an amulet that did like Precision 1050, toughness 1050, vitality 560, healing power 560.

Guizao.4167:

@Kyon
Maybe Persisting Flames doesn’t need to be changed, but those minor traits are really terrible. I love the idea about Burning Rage, considering how it is difficult for DPS eles to deal consistent dmg while managing to survive (I’m not considering fresh air with s/f). I just wish all of our skills to have a cooldown reduction and some others get offensive buffs. PvE is brainless, everything works on PvE. It doesn’t concern me. WvW is just another extension of it so I really don’t care.

The way I see it, we will only be able to deal consistent damage if we can improve our overall survivability with traits. I don’t think buffing traits for improved defense in underused trait lines would promote bunker builds, because there is a trade off of losing condition removal or protection on auras.

Do you think match making would be quicker and more fair if they didn’t use mmr at all, but instead just matched you with players in the same rank/tier range. In theory it all would come down to which team did better. Downside would be getting constantly paired with and against the same people.

I disagree. Condi damage is running rampant this season. Ive actually had so many condis that I could not cleanse them all as an ele. I’ve actually decided to retire from gw2 (apart from wvw raid with my guild), not because of season 3 but because I don’t like the direction anet is taking the game anymore.

Things that would get me interested in the game again;

Rework of underused traits and utilities for classes.

Adding LFG in the PvP UI, but with party joining restrictions such as need to be a certain rank and tier.

A better answer for teams that stack condition damage, such as a limit to the amount of condis that can be applied in pvp to 7 per person. Or change conditions into 2 types: movement and damage and have damage conditions get priority removal once a certain threshold of condis is attached to you (not sure the best way to make it so teams with condi builds dont lose strength but teams that stack condi can’t abuse it).

I think those 3 things would go a long way for the overall state of the game in pvp and possibly wvw.

Axe mainhand is used as a way to give your pet might stacks. It offers good buffs for a beastmaster build, but the weapon offers little else in pvp

Cantrips are fine as they are. The only thing I would like changed is Armor of earth. I like your suggestion of making it a lower cooldown with less stacks and duration. I would give up its stun breaker affect just for that.

You can try the less popular shoutbow build. I think it uses menders, but I like using paladin with it. I prefer beastly warden over Zephyr’s Speed and I take smokescale/jaguar for the instant taunt casts. I also like switching out staff for gs/ or sw/d.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YnUqA1Ci9CC+rActglOBDelGT3pO/tAQh7pFEqOcnIdSLB-TJBIAB5s/w8lBC4gAAwRAAA

The build offers acceptable damage with great cc and condi cleanse options.

Stand The Wall.6987:

have all your frontline run durability runes, get a frontline mallyx/jalis rev and maybe a boonshare mesmer, you will have so much resistance that cleanses will be a non factor.

Pretty much this. The current meta has most frontline running Durability rune. Pair it with a stupid amount of revenants and you can stack 40+ seconds of resistance. Cleansing water is only worth it for the staff 5 condi cleanse since it cleanses 2 condis a second instead of one.

Supreme.3164:

@ FrownyClown and Kyon

Buffing cantrips further is not the way to go, do we really want an ele with bigger stability uptime? If built for it, enemies can have a hard time CC the ele, furthermore the cantrips already trigger soothing disruption and for this reason also any buff to burning fire cannot be justified; warriors have a similar trait “shrug it off” and it’s master tree

We must keep trade offs while giving out suggestions, it’s the only way to find the optimum balance, any exaggerated buff will inevitably bring a disastrous nerf

Cleansing on ele is fine, only you need to specifically tailor your build to counter full condi specs, we can neutralize them but hardly beat them and I’d say this should not change for the sake of balance

All the proposed buffs seen so far would make bunker specs even stronger, we must buff those elements that can’t benefit a bunker spec at all

This means to leave out of the conversation things like : cantrips, aura and Signet of restoration. So let’s see how we can come up with a viable dps build for PvP, that won’t create “monsters” in WvW or PvP alike.

First it’s the main healing skill, my suggestion :

Glyph of elemental harmony
-1/2s cast time
-removed boon application
-added “Mist Armor” = incoming dmg reduced by 33% , duration 2s

Arcane Brilliance
-Base dmg increased by 150% ( from 250 to 625)
-Base healing reduced from 3500 to 3000
-Radius of attack increased from 240 to 480

Now the utilities:
Arcane skills
-Added 1s daze to arcane blast
-Added 2s stun to arcane wave
-Arcane shield CD reduced from 75s to 40s, now blocks 5 attacks
-Arcane Power “your next 5 attacks are unblockable”

Glyphs
-Glyph of elemental power CD reduced by 5s from kitten
—Removed effect recharge
—Removed chill effect from water, now applies torment 1 stacks for 4s
—Weakness duration reduced from 6s to 3s

-Glyph of Storm
—CD reduced from 60s to kitten
—Base dmg increased by 33%

-Glyph of Lesser Elemental
—CD starts from the moment of summoning not the death( like necro minions )

Signets
-Signet of Fire
—Removed casting time
—PBaoe effect, you require no target
—Removed burning application
—Added new effect Immolation: set yourself on fire, you suffer from 1 stack of burning based on your condi dmg level for 10s, gain an Immolation aura that applies 3 stacks of burning for 2s to every enemy that attacks you every second, effect last 4s

-Signet of Water
—Removed Chill application
—Added new effect : Hibernation : launch an icy shuckle at the enemy, chilling him for 1s every 2s for the whole duration 6s
—2nd effect Freezing Subjugation, shatter the shuckle to teleport at the enemy location, causing a 3s aoe chill bomb with 240 radius

Elites

-Tornado
—Condition dmg deal 50% less dmg
—Added skill 4 “Force of Nature” applies a 3s projectile denial, 6s CD
—Added skill 5 “Violent Storm” 2s channeling PBaoe , 1800 base dmg, 10s CD

Conjures
-Removed the environmental aspect, now only the ele can use conjures
-Duration reduced from 60s to 30s

Finally the traits:

Fire Trait line
-Adept: Conjurer = Renamed to “Summoning Rift”
—Removed the fire aura application
—Now add 15 charges

-GM: Pyromancer =Renamed to “Conjurer”
—Reduce CD of conjure by 33%
—Conjure skill replace the respective attunement : EX conjure flame axe will replace Fire attunement for the whole duration of 30s

-Blinding ashes
—Applies 3s blind every 5s when you burn enemy

Air Trait line
-Inscription
—Removed the boon application aspect
—Increased effect of the glyph used by 100% ( EX glyph of elemental power trigger chance increased from 25% to 50%, elementals HP/armor doubled )

Earth Trait line
-Adept: Serrated Stones = changed to “10% Condition dmg duration”

-GM: Diamond Skin= Conditions duration on you reduced by 10% (stackable effect)
Right now the trait is useless to anything not built to bunker, my suggestion would benefit everybody and the stackable effect is the reason : EX geomancer+DS+- duration runes( + food in wvw), you could reach min -60% condi duration

Arcana Trait line

GM : Elemental Surge: Renamed to “Arcane mastery”= After the usage of any arcane skill you gain “Arcanist Aura” reduce inc dmg by 25% for 5s, 15s CD
—Removed the ferocity effect
—Added new effect “Arcane Retaliation” = increase your dmg output by 50% when HP is below 25% threshold

..So hope you guys will enjoy reading my wall of text and let’s see what’s on your mind

I honestly don’t really like any of your ideas, nor do I see how it would make them viable.

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 15% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

Yeah I thought it would be too strong too. Removing just one boon from an arcane skill doesnt seem worth it though. You could probably just get rid of the “next 5 attacks are arcane skills” thought and have it just heal you. Reduce the CD to 40s (32s traited).

Your changes to Armour of Earth are very good and I think healthy for the game. It gives frontline Ele what it needs to be be frontline; reliably stability on a decent cooldown.

The Cleansing Fire change might be too strong. Its strong removing 4 conditions (because of regen) and applying burn. I often used this skill offensively back in the cele ele days.

As for the might on all auras. I think it could be considered too strong. Especially if the changes to Persisting Flames happened as well. Basically you would have people going Fire instead of water, while taking advantage of cleansing flame trait and Persisting Flames for condi removal. However, I think the trade offs are worth it. Bunkers lose the condi cleanse from auras since they dont have cleansing water. You would also have to change the rune to a might duration one to take advantage of the might stacks, losing even more condition removal. Basically I can’t see people using the trait at all in a bunker build and it would be better suited for more bruiser style play.

I think Removing 2 boons would only be OP on Arcane Power. It’s definitely balanced for me as far as Arcane Wave, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Shield goes.

The suggested changes to Persisting Flames are really good and I believe it will make Fire Trait Line more than Viable with those changes. I’ll definitely use something like Tempest/Arcane(or water for hp sustain)/Fire.

I can only see getting 2 Might from applying auras as overpowered when paired with Tempest specialization and possibly Fresh Air as well, other than that it’s pretty balanced as non-Tempest builds cannot Aura spam reliably. I can see a possibility of semi-bunkers with Fire/Water/Tempest who would rely on might stacking to get damage as well similar to the old celestial meta. While these changes to One with Fire are perfect for non-aura spamming builds, I assume it would benefit bunker-ish ones more. What do you think of getting a flat damage increase while an aura is active? Probably gain increased 10% damage(I think 20% might be too strong) while an aura is active. It definitely helps the sustain damage of bruiser builds while gives scepter builds more burst when swapping to fire (Empowering Flame + gain Fire Shield from Sunspot).

As for Cleansing Fire, it already cleanses 4 conditions with Soothing Disruption right now but with the amount of condi spam in this meta, I still think it’s not enough so I suggested adding max 3s of Resistance.

I also think Signet of Restoration’s active effect is too weak compared to other classes’ signet heals. I mean take a look at Warrior’s Healing Signet. As passive as my grandmother is, grants Resistance upon activation, and even has lower cool down. I suggested in another thread to buff Signet of Restoratin’s Active effect by creating a 3s water field around you that grants regeneration. I can see this as a more reliable heal for non-tempest builds. Being able to blast it would help non-tempest DPS builds more as you can get a reliable 1.3k heal per blast (without healing power) and its active is still good sustain. I don’t see tempest bunker/support builds taking this because I think Wash Away the Pain is still better overall.

Edit: Well I think my suggestion to One with Fire is more useful to D/X builds more than S/X builds.

The reason I think adding resistance is too strong is because it will be bad for balance. If the meta shifts to a power meta, it would eventually see a nerf.

I don’t like the idea of flat damage stacks from auras. Giving might will keep the boon sharing from auras persistent, like the other traitlines. These changes would probably give people the option to play something like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYn0XCNOgdOAGOAcYilCAj4KUEeCun2V7sNYA0ACAA-TJBFABls/QDnAAAeAA/XGAA

The build would offer superior condi cleanse, high fury uptime, and acceptable might stacks. The might stacking will not be at the level of pre-hot builds, which offered 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds when using a cantrip or blasting a fire field.

Signet of Restoration could use some buffs for sure, but its the same for every signet. I think the best way to improve its overall healing potential is to have skills like sunspot and applying auras count as a spell cast (if they dont already).

Curennos.9307:

Would help knowing the details of the build. I know there’s a chunk of vulnerability frames at the end of the staff 5 Vault skill…but IIRC there’s one more ability out there somewhere used for the ‘perma’ evade thingy.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYn8lCFOh9OBGmC8PhFqiqrnCgGw7C+gtbO77+wH

I think this is what they use. Basically they spam dagger 3 and evades, while maintaining endurance from the heal and signet.

I thought they did a pretty decent job at fixing the bunker meta this season. Imagine the game without bunkers. You would just have people sneezing condis at each other and spamming aoe on point.

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

This is bad design. Why I can’t use staff in pvp? Because devs can’t really do their jobs at balacing and promoting that so called build diversity. I remember when they said that staff is a supportive weapon…LMAO! This is so tragic.

Have you tried staff with the traditional meta build? Its pretty decent if played well, though I don’t think its quite to the level of d/f.

Guizao.4167:

FrownyClown.8402:

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

It’s a good video but WvW (PvE-extension) doesn’t concern me. Water traitline and earth traitline should boost ele’s defense equivalently. Water traitline doesn’t serve to mitigate damage but to heal that damage. That’s fine. On the other hand earth traitline should help the ele to mitigate damage as good as water heals that damage. I mean bringing them in line.

Killing someone with just lava font is almost impossible. You have to cast meteor shower. If lava font at least had a damage increase and an instant damage output and meteor shower be faster to cast and reverted back to five targets. elementalists could apply more pressure in WvW roaming and sPvP. The traits and utilites would still need to be reworked.

IF you are talking about pvp, I think you should give up. The weapon is used in pve and wvw and is meta in both game modes. You can’t have it all in pvp.

Kyon.9735:

FrownyClown.8402:

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

This is pretty well made that I’d seriously want to play my S/D build again or even try playing D/D Arcane. All traits and utilities synergize well. Having boon removal on arcane skills would be very handy. However, I’m quite reluctant with the change to Arcane Power as it might be too powerful being able to remove 10 boons while being able to life steal for the next 5 attacks even on a 50s CD. I think 10 boons is just too much.

Burning Precision – will completely make Condi Ele viable. I like it even though I hate the condi spam meta. At least will have a viable condi build which won’t require sitting in Fire attunement forever. However, I think burning is one of the strongest conditions out there after confusion and torment (pvp perspective). I think a lot of people will complain.

One with Fire – brings back the might stacking. Might be too powerful if paired with Tempest Trait line and specialization. How about increasing direct damage by 2% when applying an aura (up to 5 stacks, each stack lasts 15s)?

As for utilities…
Cantrips – Cooldowns are too long especially if not traited to Water. Reduce base CD:
• Armor of Earth – Reduce base CD to 50s. Reduce to 5 stacks of stability and reduce “buff” duration to 5s. While active, reduce incoming direct damage by 15% in addition to protection (still weaker than Bulwark Gyro which reduces 50% damage on a 20s CD). CD is too long and only front line WvW eles will need 10 stacks of stab (I even think it’s still too much). Somewhat similar to GW1 Armor of Earth in a sense.

• Cleanse up to 3 conditions and apply 1s of resistance for every condition cleansed (up to 3s). We have the lowest base HP and completely vulnerable to conditions because of this. We all know that we’ll never survive condi spam without speccing our traits, stats, and runes/sigils for to counter it.

Yeah I thought it would be too strong too. Removing just one boon from an arcane skill doesnt seem worth it though. You could probably just get rid of the “next 5 attacks are arcane skills” thought and have it just heal you. Reduce the CD to 40s (32s traited).

Your changes to Armour of Earth are very good and I think healthy for the game. It gives frontline Ele what it needs to be be frontline; reliably stability on a decent cooldown.

The Cleansing Fire change might be too strong. Its strong removing 4 conditions (because of regen) and applying burn. I often used this skill offensively back in the cele ele days.

As for the might on all auras. I think it could be considered too strong. Especially if the changes to Persisting Flames happened as well. Basically you would have people going Fire instead of water, while taking advantage of cleansing flame trait and Persisting Flames for condi removal. However, I think the trade offs are worth it. Bunkers lose the condi cleanse from auras since they dont have cleansing water. You would also have to change the rune to a might duration one to take advantage of the might stacks, losing even more condition removal. Basically I can’t see people using the trait at all in a bunker build and it would be better suited for more bruiser style play.

Guizao.4167:

And our traits are really bad as well. Arcane is not great and it never was; fire is lacking more reliable damage increase; air also lacks damage (both the traits and the attunement); earth can’t compete against necros and mesmers conditions and it also lacks speed; water, well, what can I say about water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-QuQHma5wYg

Thats how you should be using staff in wvw

Guizao.4167:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

Pretty much agree with all you wrote. Elementalists’ utilities have been left in the shade of oblivion and no dev has paid the proper attention to them. Most of our utilities’ cooldowns are way too long because it looks like that devs have the stupid impression that our survavibility is godly. Most players do think the same as well. They have that we’re ultimately strong cause we’re healbots currently. But what are our true capabilities? Where’s the so-called “jack-of-all-trades”? Personally I don’t like that concept but weapons like staff suffer a lot due to long CDs and really bad damage output.
People think that there’s not a single problem with staff because they have the wrong idea that it’s the most damaging weapon in the game. But that just regards pve where you fight brainless pokemons which STAND on your lava fonts forever! I don’t fk*** care about pve. Every **** works on pve. I’m talking about the pvp scenary: WvW is just another “PvE-masked” scene. And staff is not actually the only bad weapon for elementalist: scepter, oh my, scepter! Both of these weaps are slow in dealing reliable damage (condi dmg is the worst for staff). Lava font is weak at pvp and the dmg isn’t even instant BLOODY HELL how can I spare my foes some time to get away? And the cooldowns? We have the worst hp pool and armor in the game! We have no time to keep changing attunement just to wonder if we can survive. Scepter is worse than Harry Potter’s wands…

Our utilities also have long cooldowns and most of their functionality is clunky. I was going to comment about conjures…but, welll.

Staff is fine. It is the best weapon for large scale wvw and does alot of damage while still supporting your frontline.

Here are my current qualms with DPS scepter ele.

First off, its lack of sustain. I addressed that in my other post with regards to arcane shield.

Second, its lack of damage. It has very high burst damage, but very low sustain damage (unless you play a cele d/d build). The auto attacks are not that useful versus classes with high sustain and you spend more time kiting dps classes than you do landing auto attacks on them. The fights versus dps classes is fine since you have other options of casting skills behind you. The main issue with dps is how well we do versus bunker builds.

That is why I propose to add a boon removal affect to one of the arcane traits. I would give up the condis produced from elemental surge to have arcane skills remove 2 boons from enemies. It makes more sense for a dps build to have that option than have a trait that is used only because of the reduced arcane cooldown.

Secondly, I know its a popular opinion to increase the cd reduction of arcanes to 33%, however it would be the first utilities to have that kind of cd reduction on any class. It just wouldn’t be fair. That is why CD reductions should be done on the utilities and not the trait itself. Have Arcane Shield 60s CD (48s traited).

Increase the radius and damage of Arcane Brilliance to bring it closer to arcane wave. (360 radius and half the damage of arcane wave). Make the heal skill ground targetable 600 range.

Arcane power needs a rework, since dps builds usually have a good amount of critical chance already. I would have it so it makes your next 5 attacks are considered arcane skills. This would make it so you could remove 10 boons on a target potentially. Increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. It also heals you for 20% of outgoing damage on the target for the next 5 attacks.

As far as the Fire trait line goes, this is what I would change.

Give Burning Precision a 100% chance on critical hits to apply burning.

Increase the damage and radius of sunspot.

One With Fire applies 2 stacks of might for every aura applied.

Persisting Flames now removes 1 condition every 2 seconds as long as you are standing in a fire field. I feel this would give d/d builds a leg up in bigger fights, since they have a pretty good uptime on Ring of Fire.

I had 2 of my team mates lose a 2v1 to such a build. I wasn’t there to see it, but I can imagine it was them chasing the thief, hitting him once or twice until he healed up, rinse and repeat.

Why waste our time with your post if you are just going to get angry at people helping you?

Kyon.9735:

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

You know, if you can read between the lines you’ll realize that somewhere in that long wall of text that I posted, I actually pointed out that Ele sustain is too strong on bunker builds, which obviously means putting all traits and stats into defense, and buffing that sustain in general to help glass eles will only result into making bunker builds more powerful and more “meta” thus not helping the offensive side of the class at all.

And can you please elaborate how and why do you think Eles has the worst sustain in the game? All weapon sets have the ability to heal paired with some traits/combos which is why I was able to play zerk-ish D/D and S/D in the past. Only problem was that I die so fast before I can fully execute that healing combo. I can’t even imagine how a non-bunker mesmer or any build of necro can outsustain a non-bunker ele in terms of HP regen/heals.

So before you go typing things in bold text, hold your horses and FOR GOD’S SAKE read and understand the context.

EDIT: IIRC 200~300 was the “standard” healing power DD Eles needed in the past and that is not literally “putting all stats into defense”. Below are the builds I used for D/D and S/D in T1 duels and solo/2~5 man wvw roaming pre-HoT and I could say Ele sustain is great (not worst, not best) based on these (Not all traits are accurate as some were changed/moved tiers).

D/D: http://tinyurl.com/hh68egl
S/D: http://tinyurl.com/j98429g

The reason why I said that I think there would be no chance of making Ele DPS meta again in PvP/WvW roaming is that for example, buffing Ele’s base HP/armor will just make bunker builds stronger. There is no way for DPS eles to get back into meta without buffing its current core abilities/traits in a way it won’t make bunker builds stronger and that’s why I suggested that it would be possible if we were given a new offensive specialization with new traits and utilities to tinker around with.

First off, I would like to say that this game is not balanced on small man/solo roaming. Thats why you have some of the cheesiest builds in the game that is only viable in small fights, carried by their stats and food.

Buffing the sustain of dps builds is quite easy. Make traits in fire/arcane better.

Add an effect to Persisting Flames. As long as you are in a fire field lose conditions. Does not affect allies.

For arcane improve the traits to better synergize with arcane utilities. Arcane shield in its current form needs to go. I thought about making it pop after 3 seconds regardless of hits, but it would be very strong in wvw large scale if a CD reduction was added to it. Anet could buff it to 6 hits for 5 seconds, however add a second affect when used to pop it whenever you want. It also requires a CD reduction. Improving arcane shield alone would help with the sustain of dps builds, but would not do much for bunker builds.

And as for the worst sustain in the game, its because their is too much damage going around in melee range these days. Other classes have reliable blocks (guardian), high sustain (Warrior), Tons of dodge and mobility (thief). D/D and even Sc/D ele for that matter does not have much to avoid damage (other than 1v1 situations) and only receives the benefits of healing from playing bunker.

virus.4370:

Aeolus.3615:

virus.4370, the issue is that some classes on bunker specs do to much and Anet dont fix that, they rather remove trinkets to hide on awfull class design is careless about putting aoe spammy pve design classes into pvp field.

well then more people should join me and speak out for bunker players and tanks..why should we be the ones to suffer an injustice..people should call for Anet to fix it..and the more that speaks out for it the more weight it will carry..instead of trolls and attacked based classes laughing about it and saying play another way. they should want it fixed to prove they are truly great at pvp..instead of having the deck stacked in their favor and staying they are good. it’s easy to win when the deck is stacked in your favor..i want to make this an even battle..

These type of amulets were removed because the sustain is not healthy for the point holding game mode. It would cause more balance issues and make certain builds too strong at holding points and supporting allies. Clerics is borderline too strong, even though the only class that uses it is the tempest currently

A spear would fit nicely. Easily done since you can just use the underwater tridents instead of creating an entirely new weapon

DH is only good against you because of the daze from traps. They have 2 traps, plus a trap that is placed when they get cced. My best advice to you is to stand off point until the traps are done. You can also use earth 5 to stay safe, since most teammates will just stand in the traps and die, so staying close is better. Try to put more emphasis on staying alive instead of trying to kill people, as that is not your role in the team fight.

As an ele you want to avoid red circles, while healing allies. Your damage is from air overload. Use your cc on enemies being focused.

Supreme.3164:

Kyon.9735:

Grimreaper.5370:

If they just gave ele an option for a glass cannon type build that worked with d/d and s/f I think most eles would be happy.

I agree. We need something that will raise the survivability of Glass Eles without making bunker builds overpowered.

Note: I am talking in a PvP/WvW perspective.

Look at other classes, they can play glass builds much easier as they probably have one or more of these:
A. Access to stealth (Thief, Mesmer, Engi)
B. Higher base HP/Armor (all other classes)
C. Mobility and/or Sustain (warrior, ranger, thief, engi)
D. Class Mechanics (Necro Shroud)
E. Access to resistance (warrior, mesmer, rev)

Everyone can argue that Ele has great sustain and boon application but that sustain is useless for glass Eles because they don’t live long enough to actually take advantage of it. Thus, everybody goes bunker build. Honestly, I don’t see any way of balancing our offensive abilities without making our bunker abilities overpowered (just my opinion).

The only way I can see glass eles going back to DPS meta is by giving us an offensive specialization paired with offensive weapon/s and offensive utilities. Tempest is already focused on being support so it would be very logical to have an offensive specialization.

TL;DR – Please give us a GS weilding specialization! (:

EDIT: No, don’t give us a condi build. Just stahp the condi spam for God’s sake!

The first and important thing that I’d like really much to see is for the ele community to stop thinking that ele sustain is the highest

I mean FOR GOD SAKES, we invest every ounce of trait point in the defense department, we even use a full healer amulet and all of this just to be kittening playable, that’s kittening BS

All other profession can get away with investing in power lines and still have enough sustain to play whatever they want .

All of you guys think about it the wrong way : ele got the lowest kittentiest sustain out of all classes, the class is freaking unplayable unless you play some sort of bunker/tank/bruiser …how that exactly translate to the highest sustain in the game?

Wake the hell up all of you!

GW2 Elementalist is possible the kittentiest design that I ever seen in a MMO

4 Years of freaking bunkering and you guys still think that ele has the highest sustain of all classes, are you kidding me?

When Gw2 launched in Aug 2012, the ele was considered by all the worst profession, I can’t find the video right now but..in an interview Chapman found himself unable to answer back to the community at the time, he was all like:" well…well…well.."

Then Daphoenix came around with that d/d arcana bunker and he apparently “saved” the class..by showing how you could troll an entire team of newbs by investing 90% of your points in defense and sit there spamming heal after heal , while trying to outsustain non-bunker specs

The lowest health! The lowest armor! A complete lack of base sustain! A list of rotting utilities left like that since launch! The worst elites in the whole game! The lowest dps ( I don’t give a kitten about pve and killing random AI controlled pokemon)

Thinking that this class will ever see a viable burst/power build…it’s the equivalent of “daydreaming”, it means being completely out of touch with reality…

Rant over…I’m just glad over the years I managed to collect enough resources to start over on another main

I hear ya man. I am finding myself less and less motivated to log onto GW2 these days. The elementalist has the worst sustain out of all classes, if they are trying to build anything other than a bunker. Dapheonix was the reason I even created an ele. Spent 2 years trying to master d/d and then its not viable anymore.

I don’t think we are one of the worst designed though. In fact, I think we are one of the most well thought-out concepts. We suffer like guardians because we have outdated traits and utilities.

I have tried posting suggestions to improve the Fire and arcane traitlines, but Anet only buys in to simple number fixes. Hell, I have even tried asking the community what they wanted in posts, but no one seemed to have much interest in replying.

odstninja.1468:

Acnologia.6934:

Metas are kittens. If you have a playstyle go with it. Build your own “meta”, play with it in unranked, test it, then go for ranked matches. Don’t force yourself in a playstyle that you don’t like, only because it is the meta of the moment. Create your own build and fight with it.

This is my rank after i build my own “meta” on y character “Looùrr”. Have faith in your build and play with it if you like it and you see that it works. First and first try it in unranked, then go ranked.
Have faith in yourself guys
(i go only solo queue btw :P )

Just curious what your weapons, stats and traits are? I’ve also seen teams with 2 dh do amazing which struck me as weird since they are supposed to be really bad this season. So metabattle sure isn’t everything.

DH’s are very good at messing with tempest heals because of the constant dazes. Reverting the true shot nerf would put them in a decentish place i feel

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdhMMokhdOwnB8RM0AYVh8KEFojQR4HIVgAwHE-TFiDQB4T9HDcCA2x+DI4BAgO9AIU5HAM/5KlgkCwchWA-w

Hey, here is a roaming build you might enjoy. It does very well vs most other roaming builds out there, except for people carried by their stats such as condi thief.

I have tried playing non meta in conquest. You are a liability to your team most of the time. MM necro has always been a good point-holder and one of the easiest to play because people will die simply killing your minions. Add that to the AI clutter and animation spam and gg. MM is not meta because its pretty easy to focus down in team fights, but is superior in stronghold because aoe spam.

I’ve done all sorts of theorycrafting you can imagine on ele and ranger. Non-meta builds either work fine or don’t work at all, depending on who you face. Meta builds are not for scrubs, they are for people that want to win their ranked matches.