Guild Wars 2

I think the lens concept is interesting for inititive cost, but a sniper would probably be hard to balance since you can spam skills.

It would be cool if they made a supportish specilization that focused on debilitating conditions. Basically a thief that can do a ton of aoe weakness, poison vulnerability and blind being its main source of staying alive.

Just do what every guild on mag does and stack 40 seconds of resistance

So its intended to be 10 seconds?

Wish it would get fixed so I could make use of a pretty great trait in that case.

Currently its 30 seconds but the tooltip is confusing.

It also only works when you have warhorn equipped.

How is the damage for the wvw frontline build? To me it just feels like I can do much more for my team if I stick to backline.

Everyone running mallyx and durability runes makes condi damage seem like a non-factor to me.

Waisenpai.6028:

Just need a few trait line buffs.

Soothing Disruption needs a healing buff by 100%. If you have 650 healing power your heal is around 1.6k healing regen over 6 seconds that’s less that guardian spamming their meditation skills around 2k with zero healing power invested and compared to warrior’s new Adrenal Health.

Cantip skills should get their stun breaker status back and their cool down times needs reduction.

Aracane trait (Minor Adept) Arcane Fury should get fury duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds and a new function to gain Endurance 5 per swap.

Arcane trait minor grandmaster Elemental Enchantment should have Recharge Reduced: 15% increased to 20% While Duration is increased from 10% to 15%

Increase Skill Signet of Restoration base healing per cast to 220

That should bring back the old d.d ele fighters while not effecting tempest status to much.

Thats just putting a band aid on it. For one, no water traits should be changed as it just promotes bunker playstyles even more.

I can agree with signet of restoration getting a heal buff or increasing the base heal from soothing distruption (really a nonfactor change).

2nd, in order for d/d to be relevent it has to dish out good damage too. Improving the fire traitline for might stacking and burning is a good start.

For example, give 3 might stacks when a fire aura is applied to you or allies.
Arcane precision has a 100% chance on crit to cause burn for 1s.
Reduce blinding ashes to 5s.

I am curious, lets say you have 3 eles running this rune and then you use “eye of the storm” will it proc the heal for all 3 eles if they all break out of a stun?

Mr Godlike.6098:

1. Anet has different balance understanding then probably most of our community have. They mostly don’t care about our 85% feedback on professions forums. Just try to find any response there… I can assume only that mostly they want meta to be dynamic and avoid domination extreme tanky builds that provide mostly -> boring matches. To do the balance they locked professions in traits and builds that wouldn’t hurt pve balance that are not used there like, for example: trait-line defence for warriors.

2. Ele is hard as hell to balance. If they nerf current traits (water-earth-tempest) they will remove ele from pvp. Ele on berserker amulet is just one shoted by thief. They can’t buff damage because ele use same dps traits in pve and would make other classes just less attractive for raids.

3.I think that Anet want’s Ele to stay these way (auramancer d/f tempest build) and they think that they will add more possible builds with new elite spec’s. These way people even more will have to buy new expansions.

4. If I personally could do the balance I wouldn’t touch current traits (water-earth) and tempest. Instead I would buff or re-work some unused traits in fire, air that aren’t popular in pve that could help stay alive ele on paladin amulet at least.

As usually sorry for my messy English.

What annoys me is they could improve other builds by making small changes but they don’t.

For example, pistol whip rooting a thief in place. Removing the root and increasing auto attack speed would make it a viable option.

Another example. Improving some traits to better synergize with arcanes. Increasing the arcane reduction to -33% and changing the functionality of arcane shield so it won’t pop in less than a second.

Or increasing the heal scaling from Pure of heart and selfless dodging so support guardians can heal themselves and allies on par with a tempest ele.

The 1200 range is so it can be used in wvw frontline

But its not. Greatsword is really good in wvw

In pvp its not meta because its pretty easy to focus down and its slow. In wvw roaming id argue its the best build out there.

Power reaper is probably one of the only classes that can take a zerker amulet too which is nice.

I like your ideas. I would just make them work like kits. Reduce FGS damage a bit to compensate that it has no cooldown

I always enjoyed using sw/p in pvp and it feels pretty strong with pulmonary impact, however I often find it suffers set backs from really simple fixes.

At first I thought that pistol whip needs an evade frame, but after playing it a bit I learned the biggest flaw is that pistol whip roots you in place, often causing you to waste 5 initiative completely or have only half of the skill hit.

On top of that the auto attacks are a bit too slow.

What do you guys think is stopping this weapon from being useful?

Eles are still good, but lost their neccessity when reaper got nerfed. I expect you will find more teams running druids this season.

The buffs to thieves and warriors helped for fighting against support builds, but its a tough trade off to use one vs using a rev or mesmer

Would this kind of build work in pvp?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWn8cCFdidDBWDB8DhlGi6aY3yAQe4T+nHbCiguE-T5wGABmv/AAPBAmKDAA

Xillllix.3485:

The Warhorn must be the worse weapon design in MMO history.

The animations are kittenty, the utilities are kittenty, the speed is kittenty, the synergy with other weapons is kittenty, the damage is kittenty, the range is kittenty, even the available weapon skins are kittenty and there are no blocks or evades.

Before fire 4 on the warhorn got nerfed it served a good purpose for boon spamming.
Pretty sure warhorn was an attempt to put ele in a frontline role, but failed to address obvious issues like lack of stability and lack of a leap (fire 3 on dagger is a joke of a leap)
The heal on auras was a result of some of us complaining that we needed to gain a stack of stability on auras to be good in frontline. Gave us healing instead.

Its bad at almost everything else and mediocre in wvw to put it simply.

Anet won’t fix it either. They don’t fix anything.

-33% might be okay in pvp but its too strong in wvw. Thats an almost 16 second heal for allies plus more heal spam from auras and more boon spam from auras.

20% is good enough. Instead I would increase the might stacks to 3, reduce duration by 20% and increase weakness uptime to 4 seconds.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

It isn’t a perception, it’s a fact that pvp is declining and this much is viewable if you were a guild leader that has paid attention to players joining/leaving the game within the past year and what they say to you before they leave.

Quick summary:

Pre HoT and pre 6/23/2015 traits in to specialization patch ~ spvp was at it’s most balanced. Three years of work towards balancing the game up to that point. The game had a more solid feel. 2-3 builds were at least viable on each class and people liked playing those builds because those were the builds that had always been being played and people were used to this. People enjoyed pvp then more than they do now. So much to the point that I could get my girlfriend, our friend Keri and Keri’s mom to play spvp with me. Along with a list of numerous other players that I can’t even get to touch the game now after HoT release and S1.

HoT release and S1 ~ Many casual frequenters of spvp, wvw and even pve left the game about a week or two after the HoT release. The initial hype was interesting to many of them at first but then the realization set in of “now they need to grind to get gold to pay for new gear, again” “now they need to relearn and adapt to some new build structure, again”. Here are actual quotes from some of the people I know in real life who left this game:

• Amanda my gf: It’s too demanding now. I feel like I can’t get anywhere in this game. It took me a long time to learn how to keep up in pvp with you guys but every time I catch up, the game changes. I think I’m done with this hun.
• Keri our friend: I liked my old cele/rifle engi. I do not like how scrapper plays and I don’t like how other classes play in pvp either.
• Keri’s mom: I just don’t know what the hell is going on at all anymore. <- She has currently been playing RTS games because she says it’s something she can learn that doesn’t change.
• My friend Brandon: Why’s a-net gotta keep stirring the bucket? I prefer games that make me feel like my time invested, matters.
• Various in-game buddies who were much more hardcore than the above players: Mostly claiming that they have had enough with imbalance issues and have had enough with bad match making.

S2 ~ Literally, my entire guild fell apart at the beginning of S2. During S1, I had a great team rolling. Even through the fire & flame of the leaving players, I was able to pull together a strong 5 man crew and we had achieved r29 on the leaderboards just before Christmas rolled around. Around Christmas time, players began getting burnt out and started disappearing. It got to the point that there were only 3 people or less online at a given time and I had to stop running the guild team tag, thus I could no longer progress our team in league due to this. Most of them would sign in once or twice a week for an hour here or there in between S1 and S2 but when S2 rolled around, they just signed out and never logged back in. Here is what some of them said:

• Tai: I think I’ll just go check out new games now <- This guy was always positive and never negative. What I can tell you that what he means by this, is that he is unsatisfied with the direction of GW2 spvp.
• “a name that I won’t mention because he streams”: I’m so tired of these issues in GW2 man. I like this game and I don’t want to leave it but maybe it’s time to take a break for awhile and see what happens.
• “another name that I won’t mention because plenty of you would know who he is”: What the bleep is arena net doing? <-a man of few words but strong ones.
• and countless others who disappeared upon S2 release, claiming complete disapproval of the balance patch that was released at that point.

So S3 approaches. With the above statements and actions trending, there won’t be much of an actual spvp community left other than new faces showing up who are only showing up to get legendary wings. They aren’t showing up for the love of a competitive scene, like the original hardcore players. No, they want rewards and if they weren’t getting rewards, they wouldn’t be interested.

Consider the difference in mindframe between the two different types of players in spvp: “players who are there because they actually like pvp” and “players who are there trudging forward through disgust to get legendary wings”. <- Players who are there trudging forward in disgust to get legendary wings are not going to stay after they get the legendary wings. All of these new faces you see, yeah they are mostly there trudging forward in disgust to get the legendary wings. This is not a healthy way to build population in a competitive scene. The players who actually love pvp are more and more dropping out and not coming back, due to finally being fed up enough to do so.

All of the above is not healthy and arena-net needs to review their priorities if they want to keep making money. You need fanbase to make money and you need a solid game to create and keep fanbase. I personally love the GW2 engine and will stay with this game but the large majority of players do not feel the same way that I do.

The #1 biggest culprit to the above problem is how LONG it takes arena-net to patch and fix this game. With their current schedule of serious patching, it’s going to take years to achieve the same level of balance in pvp that we had seen pre 6/23/2015 and that’s unfortunate.

Well put

emkelly.2371:

Elementalist players are weird. I should really explain that more, but honestly, I don’t feel like it. Suffice to say, elementalists need a change, but not in the way you guys think.

Thanks for a completely irrelevant comment.

Can’t go wrong with human. Safest bet

Pvp is probably at its strongest based on numbers, but this is definitely the least happy the community has been with pvp in a while. I think this perception of a decline of pvp is false and based on peoples negative views of a non-changing meta that anet refuses to change because it won’t make them money.

GLOR.2489:

FrownyClown what do you think about a reduction of the cooldown of the arcane shield?

It will help, but it won’t make dps ele viable without changing the arcane traitline to better support arcanes.

Here is my proposition for anet.

Move the elemental surge affect from using an arcane when in certain attunments to were arcane precision is. Call it arcane precision still.

Increase the reduction of arcane traits given by Elemental Surge to 33%. Have the ele heal for 20% of outgoing damage from arcane traits. Rename the trait to Arcane Atunement.

This will make arcane shield a 50s cooldown when investing into arcane. Have arcane shield last 3 seconds regardless of hits and exploding after 3 seconds

Arcane power will be 30s and will synergize with the new affect of the grandmaster trait by making your next 5 attacks arcane attacks.

Arcane Wave is now 20s

Arcane Blast is now 13s. Reduce the range to 900.

This way eles will need to invest into arcane to get the benefits of a reduced shield cooldown forcing them to give up other valuable lines if they wanted to use it for a bunker build which I think is a big concern with changing the way arcane shield functions.

They can get healing options without investing into healing power. And receive low cooldown damage skills at the sacrifice of active defences.

But hey I doubt anet will make those changes since it won’t make them any money.

Ride the lightning is a product of a very old meta. There is no reason it should continue to have such a long cooldown when missing.

Don’t expect anet to fix it though. Most suggestions get ignored even when they are good ones.

Yeah pulsing all the boons, but for shorter durations could be an option as well. Anet doesn’t make changes that aren’t much of a problem though.

Nerfing it would further the pirate ship meta. Its one of the few things sustaining frontline these days.

Trait is fine as it is. It works well with boon duration/sustain builds. Other classes have similar traits as a minor such as rangers Enlargement trait.

This is one of the few skills I have felt is good with its current cooldown. Lowering it anymore might make the utility and this trait sustain too well when used together.

Dunno, vipers with damage from fear still feels like it does its job

You won’t beat one as a scrapper 1v1.

The best counters to an ele is cc, boon ripping, and straight dps.

Thieves are very good at killing an ele in a +1 situation

Mesmer moa is good to counter their sustain.

The biggest thing is interrupting the water overload.

As for the ele going into air alot, you most likely faced a dps fresh air ele. Strong in team fights, weak when hard pressured

If an ele is by himself on a point its probably best to let him bunker it. Just means he is not supporting his allies which is the strength of the build

Will the only weapon affected by the day/night cycle be the focus?

Those are not leaps though. Almost all of those are rolls. Quick shot I could probably agree with

Razor.9872:

FrownyClown.8402:

Hello,

If you hit a dazed opponent with a multi-projectile skills (axe 2 and shortbow 2) it will proc ancient seeds 5 times.

That is not a bug. That is a function.

I agree that it is. I posted it as a bug for confirmation from anet since everyone in pvp forums is raging.

Hello,

If you hit a dazed opponent with a multi-projectile skills (axe 2 and shortbow 2) it will proc ancient seeds 5 times.

StickerHappy.8052:

FrownyClown.8402:

StickerHappy.8052:

Razor.9872:

Zatoichi.1049:

FrownyClown.8402:

I can kind of agree. I’d increase the duration to around 20s to bring it in line with shortbow 5 cooldown. The skill should really be used for condi builds, but its not because the immobalize is very strong with builds that have lots of cc

who are u to say ancient seeds is a condi/shortbow trait? Shortbow is a trash weapon and every Ranger knows it, so I assume you must not play ranger. In pvp, Ancient seeds is, and has primarily been a used for its immob to lock down targets, set up bursts and decap , not the bleed. Its primary strength comes from LB point blank shot, Dazes from CA, and glyphs.

I cant believe that sheer lack of even basic understanding about the ranger class. Nerf Ancient Seeds? r u people serious?

Believe me, I find it hard to wrap my head around as well, but with the recent buffs it received shortbow is actually as strong as axe/dagger dps-wise (maybe stronger). In addition, if you do #5 quickly followed by #2 at point-blank range, you can proc 5 vines on a single target. Also #4 followed by bristle-back F2 is very strong.

I stopped reading when you said SB is as strong/er as axe/Dagger. Why? Just because of that bug?

Wow.

Anet can we get confirmation whether this was intended or it is a bug?

It’s common sense. You do not need Anet’s confirmation. Ancient seeds has 10 sec ICD. You hit 1 arrow of Poison volley = Procs 1 Ancient Seed.

You hit all arrows of Poison Volley all at the SAME TIME = Considered 1 attack = Procs 1 Ancient Seed.

It’s a no brainer.

Alright i’ll post it as a bug in the ranger forums. Hopefully it gets resolved if thats the case.

StickerHappy.8052:

Razor.9872:

Zatoichi.1049:

FrownyClown.8402:

I can kind of agree. I’d increase the duration to around 20s to bring it in line with shortbow 5 cooldown. The skill should really be used for condi builds, but its not because the immobalize is very strong with builds that have lots of cc

who are u to say ancient seeds is a condi/shortbow trait? Shortbow is a trash weapon and every Ranger knows it, so I assume you must not play ranger. In pvp, Ancient seeds is, and has primarily been a used for its immob to lock down targets, set up bursts and decap , not the bleed. Its primary strength comes from LB point blank shot, Dazes from CA, and glyphs.

I cant believe that sheer lack of even basic understanding about the ranger class. Nerf Ancient Seeds? r u people serious?

Believe me, I find it hard to wrap my head around as well, but with the recent buffs it received shortbow is actually as strong as axe/dagger dps-wise (maybe stronger). In addition, if you do #5 quickly followed by #2 at point-blank range, you can proc 5 vines on a single target. Also #4 followed by bristle-back F2 is very strong.

I stopped reading when you said SB is as strong/er as axe/Dagger. Why? Just because of that bug?

Wow.

Anet can we get confirmation whether this was intended or it is a bug?

Zatoichi.1049:

FrownyClown.8402:

I can kind of agree. I’d increase the duration to around 20s to bring it in line with shortbow 5 cooldown. The skill should really be used for condi builds, but its not because the immobalize is very strong with builds that have lots of cc

who are u to say ancient seeds is a condi/shortbow trait? Shortbow is a trash weapon and every Ranger knows it, so I assume you must not play ranger. In pvp, Ancient seeds is, and has primarily been a used for its immob to lock down targets, set up bursts and decap , not the bleed. Its primary strength comes from LB point blank shot, Dazes from CA, and glyphs.

I cant believe that sheer lack of even basic understanding about the ranger class. Nerf Ancient Seeds? r u people serious?

Why so mad?

What about other weapons? What about pets?

AegisFLCL.7623:

FrownyClown.8402:

Asherah.7651:

How exactly is ancient seeds a condi trait???

If you hit all the projectiles from shortbow 2 or axe 2 it will proc ancient seeds 5 times. Condi trait.

Wha????

10 sec cd…. not sure what you’re on about…

they hit at the same time. You will stack 25 bleeds over the course of 5 seconds

I still think the meta is going to change.

There will be less necro stacking.

Thieves got decent buffs.

They strengthened areas that counter ele in team fights pretty well IMO.

I think you will see a less stale meta this season.

Asherah.7651:

How exactly is ancient seeds a condi trait???

If you hit all the projectiles from shortbow 2 or axe 2 it will proc ancient seeds 5 times. Condi trait.

ShadowHunter.5173:

Doesn’t make any sense why one should bring it in line with SB as this weapon has enough kitting to it, it should be brought in line with the minimal time a ranger can have on weapon swap therefore rewarding constant swapping with the daze on staff equipped.
Besides that’s the only trait of those 3 that could be considered ‘master’ and made use of in solo play or casual pvp.

Thats fine, but its not used that way since their are so many other sources of cc from druid.
Ancient seeds is a condi trait and should be utilized as such.

GLOR.2489:

Hello Supreme,

Thank you for your answer. I mean, even if you are not agree with the “fanatics” elementalist power like me, you keep calm and put arguments on the table. I apreciated that.

Well, I am agree with you in the way that actual elementalist is losing againts many machtups (scrappers, druids, revenants, mesmers and recently the warriors too ==> 6/9 classes in-game). I normaly win most of my 1v1 figths, but normal people dont. Actually, the elementalist is only a group class.

Well, I trired to play conditions damage with my elementalist in roaming WvW such as PvP. But it didn’t work because i think that elementalist doesnt access to a lot of different condition to cover the burning. So, the enemies just couldn’t die because they number of dispel was too huge compare to my condition pressure.

Another problem that I encounter a lot with my elementalist conditions is that I can’t chase anyone, everyone has far too much of mobility.

Now I got a question for you Supreme and for everyone too, what do you think about the block idea on the rock barrier skill ? And on the Cd reduction of RTL whos increibly high.

Rock barrier is already strong. RTL changes are welcome. Its not the same game as 3 years ago. Making it 20s still won’t make us superior in mobility.

You are mostly right about condition ele. Its very easy to kite. The burn application is very good though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XidOAWOAcYiFCAzt0+artCTyJQMMoAEACiA-TJBGABJ8AA8uMAAnAAb2fAA

This is what I play currently. It has decent burst and sustain in team fights. It does okay 1v1 vs half of the meta builds out there. Struggles vs necro, dh, good druids. Essentially its not very good at side capping because of, what a suprise, lack of sustain.

I will always be an advocate for arcane shield lasting 3 seconds regardless of hits and reduced duration because that is what is needed to get dps ele’s a fighting chance.

Not to mention core dps ele is outshined be tempest air overload.

I can kind of agree. I’d increase the duration to around 20s to bring it in line with shortbow 5 cooldown. The skill should really be used for condi builds, but its not because the immobalize is very strong with builds that have lots of cc

Just like tornado on ele is game changing.
Moa was broken in pvp even before chronomancer. The only counter to it is reflect and it leaves you as a free kill for 10 seconds. It requires no real skill but gives your team a huge advantage.

I play ele and wish I had guardian or thief downed state.

Here is a useful tip. Don’t go down.

For roaming? yeah as far as i know

If you daze your opponent and hit all 5 shots of poison volley on them it will proc ancient seeds 5 times in a row. have fun.

After some testing I don’t feel warhorn is that great for the build. It feels too clunky and most of the warhorn skills forces you to face the enemy, making kiting harder to do.

Blasting your waterfield feels like a chore where you almost have to have a rotation to ensure you get a blast

should of just reduced the number of impacts

Hello,
First I would like to say that running the meta build with scepter and taking cleansing water instead of powerful auras is a great alternative and works very well for me.

I believe that you could potentially play it with a warhorn and still do well.

You can do overload earth followed by sandsquall for 10s of protection on yourself.

You gain condition removal from water trident, tidal surge and pheonix.

You also gain a ton of blind options which works very well when kiting enemies.

The biggest loss, is an unblockable knockdown, superior reflect damage mitigation and the loss of obsidian flesh.

I say try it out. The potential healing is top notch and the cc/blind is decent for a build focused on kiting around.

I’ll test it myself and see if its worth giving a go.