Guild Wars 2

Alekt, I’d like staff to have a better option for 1v1 potential and therefore I think since you should share some of your ideas on how to improve this weapon with us. I had a lot of fun playing a staff marauder build on duel servers, probably one of the more interesting weapons to duel on a tempest with actually since the tempest playstyle when considering overloads seems to synergies with staff oh so well, unfortunately I ran into some popular builds which put the staff weapon to shame due to its clunky nature. If elementalist sustain is taking a dive I’m afraid a staff marauder build is going to fall deeper into the pit of builds to play for fun and not for relevance.

Which staff skills do you find lack luster and think should be improved upon and why?

Alekt.5803:

Grimreaper.5370:

I would love to see dimaond skin be the trait that makes it possible to ditch the water line when considering condition removal, would also really like to see a rune set that removes conditions upon an aura being granted, further making the water line less relevant. If Diamond skin removed conditions upon an aura being granted that would be okay with me too.

Well this cleanse on aura should be when One with Fire and Conjurer are combined in one, and the trait replacing One with Fire makes Fire Aura cleanse 1 damaging condition.

I like it, I also think blinding ashes could perhaps effect auras too in some manner, say maybe reduce condition duration by X% when you have a fire shield up and grant an aoe blind around the fire sheild when its summoned, 8 sec icd.

Would love to see it be made possible to use a fire/air/x build but as it stands it would lack defense. This is my problem when considering offensive builds anet, lets say tempest or arcana is a given, if I pick earth and water line my sustain and condition removal becomes absolutely insane, if I pick the water line and ignore earth I have good sustain and condition removal, but if I ignore the water line im screwed because there goes all my condition removal and a good portion of my healing potential.

It would be nice to see each off hand weapon set for ele provide something defensive that needed to be timed well to mitigate dmg, heals are boring and face roll. They say they want to tone down sustain, if sustain is nerfed the amount it should be (which is a good chunk imo, also look into the absurd protection coming from earth overload) and traded for offense then our weapons need to have ways of blocking damage taken.
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Some ideas for weapon changes:

OH dagger earth 5 could be revamped into something to block projectiles, possibly block 1 attack and daze if an attack is blocked in melee

OH dagger water 5 has its healing reduced by half, then lets add an effect of something like: block all attacks for 1.5 seconds, if you are attacked during this time, heal for double.

Focus fire 4 is lack luster for anything more than a fire field and could probably have the amount of burning stepped up a notch.

Focus water 4 feels like its not strong enough, id rather this be something like a long duration ice wall you casted on the ground and when an opponent stepped into it, it chilled along with some additional effect.

Staff earth 3 feels like it needs a cd of 15- 20 sec of its only going to provide the aura, its out matched by the potential projectile reflect warhorn and focus provide which is basically the reflect and more in one skill. Look at sand squall vs staffs magnetic aura…

Staff fire 2 feels so crappy in pvp if you dont have some sort of cc ready, id like to see this tic once immediately upon being casted.

Staff autos all need to be looked at.

Staff needs to feel less clunky in general.

Scepter fire 2 needs a instant cast time and a 3/4 second delay to drop.

Scepter water 2 should be instant and take around 1 second to detonate, possibly leaving behind an ice field.

Scepter autos all need to be looked at.

Some hardcore scepter fans may disagree but I think phoenix needs to be on a 15s cd and hit more reliably, phoenix doesnt always land its hits in if targets are inside but to the side of the telegraph.I love a challenge but come on now, if youre inside the telegraph it should land more of its hits.

Scepter water 3 imo should remove +1 condition.

Dont know if youve heard but sustain is taking a nerf, I dont want the rune set for more sustain, I want a way to ditch the water line for a more offensive build with some kind of condi removal still being optional.

I would love to see dimaond skin be the trait that makes it possible to ditch the water line when considering condition removal, would also really like to see a rune set that removes conditions upon an aura being granted, further making the water line less relevant. If Diamond skin removed conditions upon an aura being granted that would be okay with me too.

Elementalist

This profession has seen a lot of defensive additions through recent updates and the addition of the tempest. In this iteration, we’ll be fine-tuning the defensive nature of the elementalist a little more and improving its offensive side a bit. To that end, Diamond Skin will see its first change in a long while, moving to condition removal (as is more thematic with the elementalist) rather than condition avoidance. In the effort to improve offense, Air grandmaster traits will be getting usability and damage improvements, while the scepter and focus will be receiving some positive quality-of-life modifications.

Detailed notes:

•Diamond Skin going from condition immunity to condition removal (1 condition removed on a 1s internal cooldown). Health Threshold is now 75% instead of 90%. So rapid conditions applications will spike you down.

•Auras – duration and overall availability of auras too much since HoT. Overall uptime too high. We are reducing all the auras activated from skills/traits to 4s.

•Fresh Air – In addition to its refresh mechanic, everytime you reattune to air, you get 250 Ferocity for 5s. This bonus doesn’t stack in intensity. So you will be critting and then critting hard.

•Shatterstone (Water Scepter)– Reduced the timeit takes for the shatterstone to explode from two seconds to one. It has a small radius so the explosion would often miss. Cooldown increased from 2 to 3s.

durability rune is being removed

Celestial amulet is being removed, four brand new amulets are being added

Mercenary’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Sage’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Healing Power
560 Vitality

Paladin’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Precision
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Mender’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Healing Power
560 Precision
560 Vitality

(I would like to see a variety of offensive gems for amulets make a comeback)

THESE ARE NOT ALL CHANGES BEING MADE
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With the way the games heading I think fresh air is slowly making its way into the meta, we’ll just have to wait and see. the additional 250 ferocity is almost like having a 5 stat amulet in some cases. If they could just change the dynamic of tempest away from locking you out of attunements for soo long then I think that would seal the deal. Go away long channels and long attunement cd!

This is some pretty good news, I’d also like to see offhand dagger make a comeback and I think this could be a possibility if earth 5 was changed into something defensive along with ride the lightning being fixed to have a flat 20 seconds regardless of it landing.

jenzie.4083:

We have lives son, kids, successful businesses, real money, things that matter the other hours of the day.

Thats all fine and dandy but when you can play a class using your behind on the keyboard and still wreck face your point becomes invalid.

Xillllix.3485:

I wouldn’t change rebound, I would completely scrap it and make a new elite skill. They’ve done it for guardians elites that was already better.

With tempest giving us a huge penalty and slowing our rotation down I think what we need is an Elite that recharges all our attunement instantly.

Would also make our rotation less boring predictable in a fight.

Would LOVE that.

kitten thieves are kitten , buff plz

I’m really looking to branch out on the build diversity and possibly use builds that don’t use the water line in them, this would help bunches. So can we make this a possibility?

Is anyone else on the boat for better offensive builds or are most of your okay with tempests just having only great bunker options?

Liewec.2896:

Yashuoa.9527:

Staff ele is not exactly known for its dmg in pvp

Staff ele in pvp is more a support build than a pewpew nuke dps build.

i disagree,
rather strongly.

Cool, good rng on a target standing still who is also using a glass build. Well that settles it staff is A-OK…

Out of all ele weapons IMO staff has the potential to make a very interesting nuker yet its the worst option when going this path :| oh how id love a viable pvp nuking option for staff, plz anet

If tornado was changed into a signet that could raise hp pools to a base 15000-16000 I’d then accept a sustain nerf, I just want to be able to play glassy builds effectively.

Overloads only really feel like they fit the staffs weapon set playstyle imo, the other weaponsets just feel like they’re thrown off of their nice fast paced combat flow when using an overload which has to channel for so long. I’d really like for overloads to function slightly different.

Somewhere between a 1 1/2 – 2 second cast time at most, I’d like to be able to cast my other abilities while overloads are going off, swap attunments after this cast time is complete and most importantly not be locked out of an attunement for 20 seconds, maybe 12-15 seconds at most. I’d also like for the 33% cd reduction traits to effect overloads as well. Balance them accordingly of course.

Rebound would be a good skill if it was on a 45second cd and maybe converted some conditions into boons… or something, maybe asking for it to convert conditions is too much but a 45second cd would make it great.

FJSAMA.2867:

Theres so many unfair traits when comparing ones to other classes. Not only weapon traits but also similar minor traits for vulns or bleeds etc.

For example:
Mesmer sword trait build up 15 ferocity stacks for 6s while attacking with sword (up to 150 ferocity )
Warrior axe gives permanent 150 for each axe ( 150 or 300) AND adrenaline on hit with the same CD reduction.

This only makes ppl frustated. I guess ones get loved more.

While your point is ture you can’t really compare one skill to another and then make the statement that, that makes one class stronger than the other. Gotta look at the whole picture.

Talindra.4958:

Bcos at current state.. they hv made ele even more easy to play and more offensive thsn before.. without hving to do many stuff ..thts how i feel.

I disagree with the elementalist being more offensive than before but I do agree with it becoming more mindless.

I feel like Elemental Attunement should be baseline in order to broaden elementalist’s build diversity, Evasive Arcana could then be put into the available minor trait slot for the Arcana line.

Right now no one is going to take any Arcana GM trait besides Evasive Arcana for the most part, if this change was made and Arcane shield’s CD was lowered to roughly 45seconds I have a feeling some more offensive builds would open up and then we might start seeing Elemental Surge being a viable choice in the Arcana line.

this would fix so many issues when looking into an offensive build, baseline elemental attunement would hardly affect the current water/earth/tempest bunker build since regen and protection are so freely availiable, the extra might and swiftness would hardly be buffing this build.

I’d also really like to see the tempest traitline receive some sort of condition removal option slotted in either the first minor trait or available in the adept trait slot so the water trait line didn’t feel soo necessary.

Last but not least I’d like to see overloads flow more fluently with all weapon sets, right now the long channel times make me feel like I could be accomplishing similar results by just using my weapon skills instead, only the air and earth overload feel at all useful, I wouldn’t mind seeing the damage rescaled if it meant maybe a small cast time of 1 1/2 to 2 seconds which then activated the overload and allowed you to cast other skills while the overload was in its active state.

I think if these change were to be made it would be completely reasonable to re-scale overload dps, nerf the air overloads aoe radius and even remove diamond skin from the game.

Thoughts?

Don’t forget about staff! Look at what sand squall does, then look at staffs magnetic aura… I know the world isn’t just black and white but its stuff like this that makes me think staff is so outdated its not even funny. they both have the same cd and one skill gives more utility than the other.

I am all for this, 40 or 45 second cd on arcane shield seems completely fair to me. Please also make the overload concept fit the d/d and d/f playstyle a bit more, right now it feels like it interrupts the flow of the weaponset.

Would be so nice if they perhaps balanced overloads around the idea of a 3 second lock out time when attuning to an element and then having a 1 1/2 to 2 second charge time before creating the overload around the user with no channel time afterwards. I’d be completely okay with it doing absolutely nothing until it charged even, IF it wasn’t being channeled afterwards. I know the damage would have to be re-scaled and the air overload aoe radius could even be nerfed for all I care, I just want overloads to feel like they should be used with any weaponset and that means long channel times have to go.

Can confirm both thief and warrior suck balls

Nubu.6148:

yeah i think tempest needs some buffs …….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouMatOXG1qo

1.) Thats wvw and should never be looked at when considering balance

2.) The players he fights are for the most part very bad, its easy to make any class look like its in a good spot when fighting average players.

Tornado would finally be a good elite if you could use all your normal abilities when taking that form.

That was really good playing, I enjoyed it a lot. 10/10

Every class has a pretty kitten good bunker option these days.

If overloads become more reliable in tpvp I would be happy

My tempest trait suggestions:

Invigorating Torrents: I absolutely love this trait, it synergies with cleansing water so well. It would be nice if I could take another line opposed to water to receive a condition clear option though though. I suggest adding 1 condition clear upon an aura being granted to the user, that or give this trait a 20% reduction to aura reuse timers.

Tempestuous Aria: This trait is only soso, Weakness and might are great, but the overall effectiveness of this trait seems to be lacking. It would be nice to see this trait possibly grant a slightly longer weakness duration and also take one of the above suggestions from Invigorating torrents.

Latent Stamina: I’m not really a fan of this trait at the moment because I feel like I don’t really even need the vigor from it thanks to Invigorating torrents, why was renewing stamina nerfed again? This trait seems so lack luster.

Harmonious Conduit: This trait seems very necessary for tpvp because you know the enemies going to attempt to cc you during an overload if they can, and although it has its uses I also wish this trait could do a little something extra since you’re giving up a lot of potential sustain when taking this, perhaps reduce the overload cooldown by X% upon successful completion?

Lucid Singularity: This should be the offensive grand master trait option for overloading an attunement, could we perhaps see it grant the user super speed along with something else like a short burst of quickness upon completing an overload?

Some general suggestions for overloads: I would like to see the reuse for overloading an attunement reduced to a base cd of ~15 seconds upon successful completion, if the overload is interrupted it can keep its 20 second cooldown. I would also like to see overloads take no longer than 3 seconds to become available when entering an attunement and take no longer than ~3 seconds to complete casting.

Thoughts?

I would be very happy with the state of tempest if the following happened to overloads and shouts:

A.) Instantly available when entering an attunement

B.) Only suffered additional attunement cd if overload was interrupted or channel was not finished.

C.) Overload channeled cast time was reduced to ~2.5-3 seconds

D.) Shouts received a trait that could reduce shout cast time by 20%, preferably added to the Invigorating Torrents trait.

Balance accordingly

I can confirm that I’ve been hit for 14k by one trap while playing a cele d/d ele, the DH was full glass though. That DH could negate all damage I did about 85% of the time. Nice build for 1v1, don’t know how insane it would be in team fights but it was absolutely mind blowing in 1v1.

Thief is pretty weak in regards to 1v1

This is in regards to SPVP: I’m all for the elite spec changing up the playstyle of the elementalist but I just can’t get over being locked out of an attunement for so long. I really don’t want Tempest to be balanced around this design. When entering an attunement I don’t want to have to stall in it for an overload that may easily backfire on me depending on what my opponent does and I certainly don’t want to wait longer than my original attunement cooldown to re-enter an attunement.

just dueled a dh with cele d/d meta, one (basically instant) trap did 11k dmg. dh blocked ~75% of the time. dh was using longbow and gs, longbow capable of doing 20% of my health with true shot. dueled ~20 times? duels 90:10 in his favor? …. Traps not viable? Long bow not viable? what?

https://youtu.be/l4UFQWKjy_I

Well done anet well done.

Power.2957:

No one runs condi mesmer in high level PvP. They have no mobility, they kill too slowly and they can’t hold a cap on a point.

Not true, played a tourny with kronos runnin a hybrid condi bunker strat. No one was able to 1v1 him on point, as far as mobility goes he did have portal.

Hopefully we’ve learned something from this tourny. No mods who are going through puberty plz and ban options that allow high stealth uptime…

abc.5790:

Grimreaper.5370:

abc.5790:

Zerker warriors counter d/d eles the same way shoutbow warriors countered them before the June patch

Wat?

¿què?

Zerker warrior builds do not counter d/d ele meta build.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I would love to find of a solution to this problem. Its a big barrier for new players learning the game.
Brain dump:

How many of your own cooldowns must you know to be effective. Skills? Traits? Sigils?
Runes? Attunements? Kits? Transforms? Everything?
Naturally you should know every ICD you have to play most effectively, although some ICDs are less important to pay attention to such as trait ICDs, Sigils and Runes. This is because these procs are usually either a.) too much of a burden to keep track of while you’re executing your strategy to win (No visual indication of when they’ll be up again) AND/OR b.) Not worth trying to time with other abilities if said ability also includes RNG proc after its off ICD

How many cooldowns are too many cooldowns / whats the minimum number to know?
Some players prefer having a short list of abilities they can frequently use to their advantage while other players prefer a multitude of abilities at their disposal, it really comes down to personal preference on how many is too many or too little.

Same question for enemies. How much skill is involved with remembering enemy cooldowns?
This depends on the skill being executed, you should determine how quickly the skill can be executed(cast time), how effective the skill being cast is vs you and how available the skill is. Some skills can be avoided via reacting accordingly to a skills animation, knowing a skills ICD which can be avoided via reacting accordingly is not as important as knowing an instant cast skills ICD. Skills like “steal” must be anticipated at almost “random” since the cast time is instant and available immediately off cooldown, there is no other indications such as a weapon swap which might inform you of when a skill like this can be used. This is where knowing an ICD becomes much more important, some sort of indication of when skills like this were available would be nice

Would this new piece of UI benefit PvE the same amount?
This depends on how hardcore PvE gets, I would love to see encounters which took a solid understanding of X enemy’s combat mechanics in order to succeed

Where could this UI live?
*A few ideas on how to portray when a spell is off ICD:

unique auras surrounding,*
-targets feet( http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n375/N1gel/dugg.jpg)

-Surrounding targets body (http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140824173131/lookout/images/5/51/288772-super_saiyan_2_veigto.jpg)

*I also think a very easy to see stance could work as well, perhaps shown once in combat.

What about adding an enhanced animation to a skill if it would also proc a trait? You could show that a trait is off cd with the swing of a weapon signaling that x trait is going to proc woth that next weapon swing.*

abc.5790:

Zerker warriors counter d/d eles the same way shoutbow warriors countered them before the June patch

Wat?

Condi cele/bunker mesmer built right has the strongest 1v1 potential I’ve ever seen in spvp. I’ve been dueling since release.

Ive never lost to the meta taunt ranger in 1v1 when playing d/d ele meta. You should be able to either force them to run or die trying to kill you. Learn their cc animations which can be dodged via reaction, they’re very easy to deal with when you can dodge entangle elite and longbow knock back by reacting to the skill animation.

Is it too late to change some of the warhorn skills and make the weapon more focused upon cc/dmg opposed to support?

If overloads did not increase cooldown of attunements, were not canceled after swapping attunement, were changed from long channels to something more quick to execute and did not have a cooldown upon entering an attunement then the tempest would start to feel a lot better imo.

What I think might work:

-Fire overload can now be used once your target is standing on top/in your fire field.

-Air overload can now be used after you successfully dodge an attack in air attunement.

-Earth overload can now be used after successfully using a blast finisher

-Water overload can now be used after successfully healing an ally.

I would like to see overloads when being executed provide some sort of ability that didn’t feel like it should be spammed but rather executed tactically.

Some things I’d like to see tempest line focus on:

Conjured weapons; it would be cool to be able to have a trait that made conjured weapons function sort of like engineer kits.

Condition removal; If I’m taking the tempest line I don’t want to feel like I’m forced to also take Arcana(still feels required for any build) and water to have an ideal amount of condition removal, so it would be nice to see the tempest line provide some sort of condition removal.

Some changes I’d like to see to traits:

Latent Stamina: It would be nice if this allowed permanent or near permanent vigor uptime, it would make the arcana line feel less required.

Tempestuous Aria: I would like to see this trait remove conditions after using shouts so shouts could feel like they can compete with cantrips. I would also like to see this trait reduce shout CD by 20%.

Harmonious Conduit and Lucid singularity should be scrapped and replaced with something else, overloads shouldn’t increase recharge on attunements or be long channeled abilities.

Sekai.2987:

if they nerf the cele dd , i hope they at least make a bersek build good enough to play it in torunaments

Me too dude! I’m all for that high risk for reward playstyle. It would be nice to see some of the weapon abilities on the d/d set require a little more skill to pull off as well!

Ross Biddle.2367:

uhohhotdog.3598:

Nerfs and buffs for everyone. Not just ele.

Correct.

OP needs to re-read and quote grouch.

I understand that these incoming balance changes are not solely focused on the Elementalist but I have decided to focus the topic on this class in particular based on my requests.

The d/d meta build has nerfs inc, grouch has confirmed ele nerfs (and some buffs) are coming. While I find this to be a good thing, I really enjoy playing glassier builds for d/d so I’d really appriciate if when the meta build gets its fair share of balance changes, glassier builds would not suffer as a consequence. Is this possible?

More stats combos for amulets (4 combos please)

conditions should be icing on the cake unless youre built around conditions ( threatening but not lethal after a few seconds)

Celestial amulet should have a portion of its defensive stats put into offensive stats instead.

RNG traits removed from game.

Fix useless abilities on weapons

Is this too much too ask? Maybe next year plz?

rotten.9753:

Aetrion.8295:

The biggest problem with Tempest is that people seem to think that Tempest must be an upgrade to what they are doing right now, which is simply not the case. Tempest isn’t supposed to make all current builds obsolete, it’s supposed to be one of many possible builds.

The fundamental issue ANet needs to address is that it’s currently way too easy to make an ideal build and literally thousands of other build possibilities are viewed as useless as a result. So sure, as long as that’s broken nobody is going to be happy with getting something added to the game that isn’t better than what they got in every way.

The biggest problem with tempest is that you completely misdiagnosed what people want. What we wanted was ele v.1.0b and what we received is ele v0.5a.

Yes, this. I want a new and interesting playstyle, not something stronger than the current meta. What I’d personally like is a very high risk for reward meta build, I don’t want to feel like I’m playing the same build I already play on my ele if I play tempest.

Oh well at least Thief, warrior, rev elite specs looks like they’ll provide something fun.

Tbh, if they scrapped the current tempest and just made churning earth, dragon tooth, and shatter stone viable skills I would be somewhat satisfied. Release tempest later, idc if it takes a little more time after the expansion comes out.

I see a lot of people are not happy about the tempest design, so I’m curious…

If tempest is released as is, how many of you will quit playing Ele as main and move to another class?

Will anyone go so far as to quit and look for a different game if the elite spec doesn’t offer something fresh/unique?

Easy/lazy fix that might make the current meta more interesting, not necessarily a nerf.

Remove 25% of stats from cele’s defensive stats, and evenly distribute those points into the offensive stats of cele.

P.S. Bunker metas are kind of boring

I commit suicide.

Im just kidding.

I am sad.

Tempest is garbage.

Huge design flaws.

Warhorns now fart.

Is this joke?