Guild Wars 2

Laraley please keep this post on topic opposed to focusing all your will power on winning an argument. We are here to discuss balance not to try and win internet fights.

Roxanne.6140:

Video is a setup to ruin ele again.

No, I promise this is not my intention. I just want fights to feel fair, I don’t know if all of my suggestions I made are fair, they’re simply there to discuss. I even made a couple suggestions which I think would end up in some aspects buffing an elementalist who knows how to play well.

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Here is what I think needs to be done…
8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

I would also be up for taking a chunk out of ele sustain if it meant getting back 15 second CD on Ride the Lightning.

The ring of earth suggestion is a bit extreme. D/D eles need something to help against rangers. Especially in wvw. You have to think in terms of the entire game, just not one game mode. I think my suggestions are sufficient and sinject has +1’ed it. Do you +1 it as well?

And you shouldn’t just nerf ele sustain based on one weaponset astro. I know you can think better than this. Rethink that.

Lettuce, the sustain nerf can be taken out of dagger 5 cleansing water to compensate for lowwer CD on RTL.

That will hurt s/d eles though.

Perhaps it would in some cases but in others it would provide them with more kiting capability making them better at escaping sticky situations, correct?

I don’t think asking for a ~10-15% shave on cleansing wave is too much if we receive a 15 sec CD on a mobility skill which used to make this class an amazing roamer.

You know me. I rarely d/d. And even I know this is too much. I’ll be glad to explain as to why in guild chat especially in terms of roaming which I know you don’t do.

I’m talking about roaming in between points in spvp. This is something I do quite often. Sacrificing a little bit of sustain for more mobility seems like a very fair trade to me.

Consider what will save you in the long run Lettuce, ~200hp(15% of cleansing wave /w zerk or marauders equipt) per 40 seconds or an escape. Once again I’ll say this though, that suggestion wasn’t something I was trying to set in stone, I was just simply saying I’d personally sacrifice some sustain for mobility. If you disagree with that suggestion thats fine, but please don’t be so condescending over the forums.

Also if losing sustain on s/d was such a big deal even after gaining mobility, couldn’t that be compensated by buffing water 3 on scepter?

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Here is what I think needs to be done…
8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

I would also be up for taking a chunk out of ele sustain if it meant getting back 15 second CD on Ride the Lightning.

The ring of earth suggestion is a bit extreme. D/D eles need something to help against rangers. Especially in wvw. You have to think in terms of the entire game, just not one game mode. I think my suggestions are sufficient and sinject has +1’ed it. Do you +1 it as well?

And you shouldn’t just nerf ele sustain based on one weaponset astro. I know you can think better than this. Rethink that.

Lettuce, the sustain nerf can be taken out of dagger 5 cleansing water to compensate for lowwer CD on RTL.

That will hurt s/d eles though.

Perhaps it would in some cases but in others it would provide them with more kiting capability making them better at escaping sticky situations, correct?

I don’t think asking for a ~10-15% shave on cleansing wave dagger 5 is too much if it meant we receive a 15 sec CD on a mobility skill which used to make this class an amazing roamer. Anyway, I doubt this would actually happen. I’m just craving what I used to have and now miss.

Lettuce.2945:

Grimreaper.5370:

Here is what I think needs to be done…
8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

I would also be up for taking a chunk out of ele sustain if it meant getting back 15 second CD on Ride the Lightning.

The ring of earth suggestion is a bit extreme. D/D eles need something to help against rangers. Especially in wvw. You have to think in terms of the entire game, just not one game mode. I think my suggestions are sufficient and sinject has +1’ed it. Do you +1 it as well?

And you shouldn’t just nerf ele sustain based on one weaponset astro. I know you can think better than this. Rethink that.

Lettuce, the sustain nerf can be taken out of dagger 5 cleansing water to compensate for lowwer CD on RTL.

ResJudicator.7916:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Here is what I think needs to be done…
8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

Ring of Earth: So you want a skill to block projectiles in melee range? Do you not understand how the logic fails in that completely? If I want to block projectiles, most likely my target won’t be standing at my feet.

Perhaps, I was also considering how mobile the Elementalist is though. I never said my ideas were perfect, that is why we are discussing them.

Again, Soothing ice gives you 800 heal from the regeneration in 20 seconds. Do you think that would actually do something?

One less condition removed + potential downtime for regen, consider boon removal

Obsidian Flesh cooldown is completely fine and should not be increased, there’s seriously no reason to do so. A horrible idea.

With Geomancer’s Training the CD on Obsidian Flesh is reduced to ~33 seconds, and magnetic wave reduced to 16 seconds. I think a cd this short for a skill so powerful is a little too strong, a 40 second cd with geomancer’s trait in mind seems reasonable to me. thats 10 more seconds added to the ability with no trait and ~7 more with trait.

If you take Geomancer’s training, that means you’re probably Earth/Water/Arcana, which means you’ll do negligible damage. It also means you’re running focus offhand, rather than OH dagger, so you lose updraft for throwing people off point. So basically you’ll be able to hold points already in your control, and will take forever decapping.

A very good point ResJudicator, I have not taken this into much consideration. Right now I am left feeling d/f (earth, water, arcana) is a tad too tanky for spvp matches, but as someone else pointed out no one ran d/f in the latest ESL.

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Here is what I think needs to be done…
8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

Ring of Earth: So you want a skill to block projectiles in melee range? Do you not understand how the logic fails in that completely? If I want to block projectiles, most likely my target won’t be standing at my feet.

Perhaps, I was also considering how mobile the Elementalist is though. I never said my ideas were perfect, that is why we are discussing them.

Again, Soothing ice gives you 800 heal from the regeneration in 20 seconds. Do you think that would actually do something?

One less condition removed + potential downtime for regen, consider boon removal

Obsidian Flesh cooldown is completely fine and should not be increased, there’s seriously no reason to do so. A horrible idea.

With Geomancer’s Training the CD on Obsidian Flesh is reduced to ~33 seconds, and magnetic wave reduced to 16 seconds. I think a cd this short for a skill so powerful is a little too strong, a 40 second cd with geomancer’s trait in mind seems reasonable to me. thats 10 more seconds added to the ability with no trait and ~7 more with trait. This would prevent the ability from being almost immediately up every 3rd rotation into earth or so.

Here are some suggestions, I’m not saying all of these ideas should be implemented:

8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Ring of Earth no longer blocks projectiles if it does NOT land on a target

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath, as for focus offhand users potentially suffering from a change like this, they receive much more defense and flame wall is hitting pretty darn hard now anyhow, flame wall may need rework after a burning condition nerf.)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

I would also be up for taking a chunk out of ele sustain if it meant getting back 15 second CD on Ride the Lightning. EDIT: I realize I may sound selfish saying this, but I was considering removing the chunk of sustain from dagger 5 in water, cleansing wave.

Eurantien.4632:

That was really painful to watch. Your ranger friend needs to learn how to use his pets properly. Standing in the open like that you could die vs a competent ranger. Though its still in the eles favor.

? This was a test to observe lb dmg vs an ele build becoming somewhat common. He didn’t need to hide, I wasn’t even trying to fully take advantage of blocking as much damage as I actually could have, I was just spamming skills. So while what you may say is true about his demonstration of dps vs my defense, I also could have played better by simply trying to avoid as much damage as possible!

the main culprit IMO is ring of earth allowing more time to get back into water attunement and heal up. Keep in mind I tested this with a bunch of rangers and obtained the same result.

sinject.4607:

Lettuce.2945:

As I already said, I propose a couple changes to the elementalist traits.

1: Raise the icd of blinding ashes to 10s or so.

2: Raise the icd of soothing ice or remove the regen portion of it.

3: Rework diamond skin so it works as a resistance buff that procs for 4 secs every time you swap into earth while above the 75% health threshold to promote more skillful counterplay.

4: Rework burning across all professions aka scale it down.

5: Possibly rework the might stacking capabilities of ele by scaling it down a bit to promote more skillful play and more teamwork. Maybe by starting with the pyromancer’s puissance trait in fire.

6: I say keep the healing/sustain on ele since we have one of the lowest hp pools and armor anyways.

7: Remove protection altogether from the elemental contigency trait (which is rng) since we have enough access to protection anyways. So replace it with something like swiftness or regen.

8: Rework Ferocious Winds and revert it back to the trait it was pre patch aka gain healing power based on precision. That way we can give marauder/zerk eles some kind of sustain to encourage more build diversity.

And I think eles will be in a very good spot compared to the rest of the meta, reasonably speaking. Nerfed but not overnerfed to the point of uselessness like some people want.

great post (first time in a while i’ve been able to say this without any irony behind it).

on might stacking: i’ve suggested it in the past but i still think the best solution to nerfing it while still promoting skillful use in team environments is by hard limiting the amount of might you can stack by yourself to 10 stacks. this is still a sizable amount of power/condition damage (+300) but limits the absurdity of certain builds being able to dominate 1v1 fights thanks in part to their shear might stacking ability, which is what elementalist is foremost guilty of. this way, teamplay is still promoted by stacking might as a team but might is still nerfed without it negatively affecting weapon skills/utilities outside of their might stacking functionality.

i think with this nerf in conjecture with many of the nerfs you listed above, ele would be well balanced.

I do not think might stacking is an issue on elementalist because

1.) The fire trait line used to might stack is bugged and providing +150 (total of 300 in fire) more power than it is supposed to.

2.) Once burning is toned down the Elementalists dps will drop accordingly. most of the damage is coming from burns.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Grimreaper.5370:

I personally am not a fan of hard countering a class, I don’t think it should be allowed. My opinion…

I’m not a fan of it either, but two things: It seems to be what Arenanet intends for their balance, and ranger is FAR from hardcountered by eles. +1 an ele on a point and you’re gonna down him in seconds. Also, as I and others pointed out that ranger played exceptionally bad, not even once swapping his weapons – and rangers have lots of weapons for lots of reasons, one of them being so that they can swap to another weapon when fighting a spec that particularly good against one of their 2 chosen weapons.

A hard counter is stuff like Diamond Skin against a full condi necro – where the necro may as well just /afk because that’s how much damage he will do even when playing to his best against a bad ele.

There are a lot of soft counters in the game though – thieves counter basically all zerker specs (especially ele’s), DPS guardians counter thieves, condi necros counter engineers, etc.

Nerfing one spec because you don’t like it very much wouldn’t change this fact – all it would do is make ele unviable again – it’s not like they have any other viable specs, never had, it always was arcane+water+x d/d or d/f.

Perhaps you are right about your view on anets design, it justs leaves me a little sad.

It is true, he did not swap weapons, I should also note I have ran this same test with 6 other rangers now, some being some of the better players from the guild Wind and I still came out with the same result. Many of them did try to swap to great sword with their lb burst builds in mind, even with taunt I was simply too defensive to be brought down.

Oh nonono, I don’t want d/d to get nerfed because I don’t like it, I LOVE this class to death and I absolutely love d/d. Its one of the only classes I really spend any time playing. I simply am concerned about having too much of an advantage, I want my opponents to get a fair fight.

Also, I don’t think anything drastic needs to happen to the class in order to bring balance. Here are some suggestions…

8-9 second CD on blinding ashes( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)

Regen duration slightly reduced (remove regen from soothing ice?)

Burning condition re-scaled across the board

Diamond skin reworked

Obsidian flesh CD slightly increased.

Drakes breath and Fire grab re-scaled so that drakes breath hits less hard and fire grab hits much harder. (its much harder to land a Fire Grab than drakes breath, and right now in some circumstances Drakes Breath hits just as hard as a fire grab if the full channel lands and burns are not cleansed, the CD on drakes breath is also very short while fire grab is a very long CD. It makes more sense to me for being heavily rewarded for landing a fire grab with a burn applied opposed to being heavily rewarded for spamming drakes breath)

…Would also be nice to get something a little more reliable than churning earth, that skill is almost a waste time now with how great the burning condition is. I have never been a fan of Churning Earth.

Sacrifice dagger water 5 sustain for 15 second RTL?

Laraley.7695:

You two are hilarious really. Proving how ranger cannot kill an ele when the ranger is just playing badly.
1. Never actually preventing the ele from healing by not using interrupts right.
2. Using entangle when ele has avialable water.
3. Proving Blinding ashes needs a nerf when most of procs go to pet, not ranger itself.
4. Never swapping from longbow.
5. Never timing burst right.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a ranger would have an ease killing a d/d ele, but this video is just silly. Basically just mindlessly pewpewing thinking it will have some result.

Second video just proved an ele can beat two bad guardians.

1. Not stunbreaking updraft.
2. Then eating burning speed.

The guardian did not need to waste a stun break so early, she easily recovered if you didn’t notice.

3. Never dodging burning speed.
4. Not dodging fire grab.
Yes I’m sure you would have dodged a fire grab with the animation being covered up by a norn guardian obscuring your view :p Please re-watch and re-evaluate the video with an unbiased opinion if that is possible.

6. Ressing when ele is on 2K hp instead of putting some pressure and eating all the damage.

His judges intervention was down and I was waiting for him to turn around, I still had the advantage although it was a small one.

Please try and provide relative feedback opposed to hateful posts.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

This is basically propaganda:

1. A fight like this would never happen in a normal 5v5 game because fighting 1v1 on point isn’t what LB rangers are about.
2. It’s common knowledge that rangers aren’t really happy with the state of their class, so it seems you’ve purposefully chosen one of the worst classes right now to “prove” your point.
3. The ranger didn’t play particularly well either. Didn’t even weapon swap or open from stealth (yes in normal games you usually don’t see a ranger/thief/mesmer coming, dueling completely warps the game around this issue).

Now make a video like this against a signet necro or a mesmer and the game will look completely different. This was probably the worst demonstration you could have chosen. Some classes simply are countered harder by some specs than others. This is a fact and will probably never change.

This simply looks like another of those “nerf ele” crusades that we’ve seen every single time ele was viable. They only stopped once they were so unviable that you got flamed for playing one in pvp – and even then some people still asked for nerfs…

I too can make a video playing a Condi ranger against a thief that’s not allowed to weaponswap and doesn’t have any condi cleanses and the result will be that the thief gets owned hard by the evading, condi-spamming bunker ranger. Does this mean ranger is OP? Hell no. It simply means that some specs work better against some other specs, while some work worse.

This is commonly refered to as the METAGAME.

I personally am not a fan of hard countering a class, I don’t think it should be allowed. My opinion…

crunchyraisin.6054:

I’m worried that bumping this post may be a mistake on my part, but I’ll bite.

In the first video you’ve shown a cele ele with energy runes (majority don’t take these) sustaining against a power ranger at range using only skills one and 2. While it is true that cele eles should usually win that matchup, that video blows that way out of proportion.

In the 2nd video you’ve shown a cele ele defeating 2 guardians, one that was running a weird mace symbol build and one that was probably running 11k hp. Neither could significantly pressure the ele outside of melee range. Cele eles have always outclassed medi guards for that reason.

For the record, I only play about 25% of my matches on ele.

You are trying to blow this perceived imbalance way out of proportion using deceptive videos in dueling servers. Please stop. There are several more pressing balance issues at the moment…..guardians that do 20k burn ticks by pressing one button….burn in general, the nades thing….rampage….shatter mesmers (which will hard counter your ele) There isn’t a shortage of legitimate things to complain about. Pick one of those instead maybe?

I run in spvp with one of those guardians on a regular basis, he exploits burns as much as possible. Both guardians are from my guild and know how to play. I’m concerned with the overall effectiveness of my main class because I don’t feel skilled when I win fights. I attend spvp matches in pubs and premades on a regular basis these days and also find I am too strong there.

It is true an Elementalist almost always counters the guardian class. I’ll admit the amount of condition removal I was running is very strong.

Right now I feel like the d/d AND/OR d/f elementalist usually(depending on build) has a huge advantage over most builds coming from: rangers, thieves, guardians, necros, engineers; and soft counters the rest with the exception of a solid shatter mesmer. The class feels as though it is left with out any counters.

Its very possible that perhaps I have not ran into a few builds floating around which may counter my class, but after a week of going ham on this class after the most recent patch I am left feeling unaccomplished when defeating my opponents. Its unfortunate that the class feels even more locked into celestial stats when using d/d or d/f than ever before since stats were removed from trait lines. I feel that if I want to remain playing the Elementalist in competitive play I must either run a very yolo like build or run an amulet with balanced stats but then personally suffer from an overwhelming synergy from traits when accompanied by the celestial amulet.

This video is a damage test vs a Zerk longbow burst build, we are testing the potential damage longbow can accomplish vs my Elementalists build(which is listed below)

Shots are being blocked by: Blinds from rune burn procs + fire shield, dodges, evades, projectile block (Ring of Earth)
Health is regained by: Regen, Cleansing wave, cone of cold, Cleansing wave dodge, healing signet)

and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYO3pyCAdlY

The build used:

D/D
Flame legion runes
Celestial Amulet
Fire(3,1,3)/Water(1,1,1)/Arcana(2,2,3)
Energy/Leech
Lightning Flash, Cleansing Flame, Armor of Earth

Take note that the sustain from this build would not be QUITE that powerful vs longbow if I wasn’t so focused on spamming attunements for evasive and defensive maneuvers.

Let me explain why I posted these vids, I am not a fan of hard countering a class. I believe everyone deserves a shot at winning a fight and right now I feel like there are a few classes who don’t get that chance vs an elementalist (depending on build of course). I’m also not a fan of passive play and unfortunately this class revolves around a lot of it. (If you want to take a reliable and competitive build)

Should hard counters and/or counters be allowed? Discuss

I want to remind you all that this post isn’t about the Elementalist class being “broken” or “god tier” or “OP”. Its about being able to counter some classes builds much harder than what seems fair in my eyes.

My goal isn’t to try and nerf the class into the ground! I main and almost only play this class.

Suggestions(nerfs):

1: Raise the icd of blinding ashes.( Allow a per target cd on blinding ashes instead of an ICD)
2: Raise the icd of soothing ice or remove the regen portion of it.
3: Rework diamond skin so it works as a resistance buff that procs for 4 secs every time you swap into earth while above the 75% health threshold to promote more skillful counterplay.
4: Rework burning across all professions aka scale it down.
5: Remove protection altogether from the elemental contigency trait since we have quite a fair amount of it already in this trait line. Replace the boon with something else.

Suggestions(buffs):

1: Rework Ferocious Winds to give ~250-300 healing player to a player using marauders. ( based off precision)
2: Bring back 15 second RTL?
3: Re-work Churning Earth to become useful in more situations?

Ranger suggestion: Allow rapid fire to pierce projectile block? Give rangers a trait to pierce projectile block with a few different bow skills?

Guardian suggestion: Short duration stability trait for channeled burst skills? Not entirely sure what to suggest.

Elitist.8701:

Balance broke after the update, my expectation is that Anet will take about 6 months after the expansion to do anything.

Just quit the game like I did.

-Former best multi class NA

You forgot to include, “Self Proclaimed” in front of the word, “Former”

Xillllix.3485:

Seriously this has to be one of the funniest thread on this forum.
Eles are anything but OP.

I just won my first 1v2 in a long time (from start to finish, without anyone helping) on a class I never played before today: used rampage on Warrior, randomly pressed all they keys, got 2 downs and spiked them both.

Before that yesterday I played my old guardian I didn’t touch in 1 year, used a meta battle build, after 1 hour I could 1-shot people. Barely died.

I could say I tried engi, but 1-shotting people pressing 1 button using grenade barrage was to low to go for me after 1 match.

Meanwhile, a mesmer shatter spike is 18k, a thief backstab and heartseeker combo gets you down in a second.

On my elementalist, with over 4000 hours of experience, I still have to dodge like crazy, blast might and pull off crazy combo to get similar results, and the elites are still useless. If there is one lass that doesn’t need nerfing right now it’s the elementalist. For the risk factor the reward level is well below what it should be.

Do you vs premades or pugs usually? I dont think anyone is under the impression that ele is the only class that needs tweaks, at least id hope not. Im not sure what build you play, but the builds ive found for ele seem a little over the top atm to me. Id prefer more damage and less sustain for the cele builds currently out there. How about you?

StickerHappy.8052:

alain.1659:

So there are macho guys constantly saying 1v1 again. Why? Why should a thief or a ranger go 1v1 in spvp? It is a team fight and your job is simple. Ele’s seem strong to many people because it was not the most powerful profession for quite some time. So only real ele fans played it and learned very well. What you are talking is experience and reading the situation. One guy playing a perfect game does not mean the class is strong. If you still think it is strong, open an ele and do spvp matches as a ele newbie. If you win constantly against everyone then you can ignore others and form your own true idea.
But remember, spvp is not about dueling. It is a bloody team fight.

IF you’re capping a point and someone comes, you will be in a 1v1, no one is talking about dueling here.

You will see a lot of 1v1 scenarios in pvp if you play a lot. Especially we are talking about PUGS here.

Also, that high sustain/regen the ele is getting, don’t tell me that is skilled play. The multiplier on health regen is just too much.

Keep in mind there were other factors keeping me alive too, blinds, evades, dodges, rng procs and projectile block being a huge one. If I had to pick some stuff to nerf id choose between regen boon, burn, burn duration runes, soothing ice, and requiring ring of earth to land in order to block projectiles.

alain.1659:

So there are macho guys constantly saying 1v1 again. Why? Why should a thief or a ranger go 1v1 in spvp? It is a team fight and your job is simple. Ele’s seem strong to many people because it was not the most powerful profession for quite some time. So only real ele fans played it and learned very well. What you are talking is experience and reading the situation. One guy playing a perfect game does not mean the class is strong. If you still think it is strong, open an ele and do spvp matches as a ele newbie. If you win constantly against everyone then you can ignore others and form your own true idea.
But remember, spvp is not about dueling. It is a bloody team fight.

Youre right Alain! It is a game based on team play! It’s also true that 1v1 does happen in spvp, and I think its a very reasonable request to ask that each class at least have a shot at competing with another class, dont you agree?

Oxidia.8103:

It seems every class is op on this part of the forum. Well, every class IS op if you don’t know how to play your class. Sorry.

Watch the videos of me playing ele that werr posted in this thread and then tell me how you feel about the classes balance.

If they would just allow me to balance the class my self I would let blackbead help too

BlackBeard.2873:

Lettuce, your “demonstration” is just silly. It is a zerker ranger playing like he is a PvE Bearbow ranger – using skills right off CD, not counting any dodges, and just camping longbow. He isn’t even standing at max range to maximize damage, or properly using CC.

He prevented me from doing a few ring of earths and heals during some of our tests and I did start taking more damage but could also eventually recover. I find it a little silly how ele hard counters lb witha combination of blinds, ring of earth, regen, heals, dodges and evasive maneuvers.

And just to put in my opinion I’d prefer d/d was balanced around the idea of high damage, moderate sustain. d/f is the new bunker meta, d/d doesn’t need to try and fill in the same role.

Lettuce.2945:

Also leaving this here. My d/f ele could 1 v 2 as well. It’s too OP at this point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYO3pyCAdlY

My build was
AMULET: Celestial
TRAITS :fire(1/3/1) water(1/1/1) Arcana(2/2/3)
RUNES: Hoelbrak
Sigils: Energy/Generocity
WEAPONS: D/D

I won 1 out of 4 attempts. Both guardians are from my guild and know how to play.

Lettuce.2945:

I’ll just leave this here. Zerk ranger trying to kill the cele ele without the cele ele fighting back. Take note that he’s fire, not earth. And he’s not even d/f. If it was d/f, it woulda been worse. If he fought back, he would have killed the ranger about 5-6 times in the duration of the video. No matter if the ranger outskills the ele, it’s too much a hard counter thanks to the passive rng traits like blinds, soothing ice, burns from flame legion + BA rune. Just look at how often the ranger has to heal and the ele isn’t doing a single thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0sN1hgW4Kg

But hey, #Balanced. Let’s nerf stoneheart. (Trollface). Not even using earth traitlines.

Now can we discuss genuine reasonable nerfs?

I propose a raise in the icd of blinding ashes to 10 seconds or so.

A raise to the icd of soothing ice or remove the regen portion of it.

A rework to diamond skin to proc resistance for 4 secs every time you go in earth above 75% health threshold or something of the sort to promote more “skillful” play.

Scale down burning across all professions.

And I think eles will be in a good spot after those things get implemented.

This is bs, you’re obviously not trying hard enough. JK I was the ele.

I also think ring of earth doesn’t need to block projectiles when it lands on nothing, it should at least have to land on a target to get the blocking projectile effect. That was basically the main reason I was able to survive for so long.

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Lettuce.2945:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Okay so you are simply stating stone heart is OP on paper, you have no real evidence of it being an actual issue. This is not how balance changes should be approached, you need to provide evidence.

Have you ever thought about the fact I might have tried playing with it?

Make a video then, provide evidence that stone heart is imbalanced.

After you make a video it’s balanced. Seriously, these arguments, jeez.

What you just said proves that you live to argue even if it’s invalid. When someone suggests a nerf, they should be the one to provide evidence as to why it deserves a nerf. Otherwise…Nerf isn’t happening. Anet designed stone heart knowing it’s balanced. To prove otherwise, show why IT’S NOT. Now thanks for that statement. I know you just argue for the sake of arguing now. It’s clear as day.

How is that arguing? That’s just asking him the same stupid question he asked me, seems pretty legit to me. And you were the one with the need of repyling to this post to…argue. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, I’m quite sure I’m allowed to express my opinion and that’s what I did. I don’t really care what you think, though. Yes, ANet designed everything knowing it’s balanced and we have no broken things in the game. Great logic.

I didn’t ask a question, I made a statement. I have logic behind that statement, you are accusing a trait of being broken but provide no evidence, I would like to see proof of this trait being exploited to the point of being broken. I am not going to go out of my way to provide the evidence because I am not concerned about Stone Heart, I think its fine.

There’s really no point in talking to you. I have no need to prove anything either, so we can just leave it as it is and not continue talking about it. A trait doesn’t need to be exploited to be too strong.

Seeing as you edited your post: There’s logic behind my statement, too. I’ve even typed it several times, all I heard from you was: It’s not broken.

I don’t think you know what the word exploit means, the trait by it self with no other traits would be garbage but with synergy from other traits, stone heart can be strong. I’m sorry you feel like I am attacking you Laraley, I’m trying to provide you with constructive criticism so you may hopefully prove your point.

Laraley.7695:

Lettuce.2945:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Okay so you are simply stating stone heart is OP on paper, you have no real evidence of it being an actual issue. This is not how balance changes should be approached, you need to provide evidence.

Have you ever thought about the fact I might have tried playing with it?

Make a video then, provide evidence that stone heart is imbalanced.

After you make a video it’s balanced. Seriously, these arguments, jeez.

What you just said proves that you live to argue even if it’s invalid. When someone suggests a nerf, they should be the one to provide evidence as to why it deserves a nerf. Otherwise…Nerf isn’t happening. Anet designed stone heart knowing it’s balanced. To prove otherwise, show why IT’S NOT. Now thanks for that statement. I know you just argue for the sake of arguing now. It’s clear as day.

How is that arguing? That’s just asking him the same stupid question he asked me, seems pretty legit to me. And you were the one with the need of repyling to this post to…argue. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, I’m quite sure I’m allowed to express my opinion and that’s what I did. I don’t really care what you think, though. Yes, ANet designed everything knowing it’s balanced and we have no broken things in the game. Great logic.

I didn’t ask a question, I made a statement. I have logic behind that statement, you are accusing a trait of being broken but provide no evidence, I would like to see proof of this trait being exploited to the point of being broken. I am not going to go out of my way to provide the evidence for you because I am not concerned about Stone Heart, I think its fine.

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Okay so you are simply stating stone heart is OP on paper, you have no real evidence of it being an actual issue. This is not how balance changes should be approached, you need to provide evidence.

Have you ever thought about the fact I might have tried playing with it?

Make a video then, provide evidence that stone heart is imbalanced.

Laraley.7695:

Wow, you guys amaze me.

First of all, I didn’t suggest the nerf because I lost to a stone heart ele, but simply because I think it’s too strong. Apparently that’s just way too difficult for you to understand. I wasn’t crying about anything, I was simply stating my opinion. You are the ones insulting me for it. I’m sorry but I don’t think that swaping to earth is a skilled play. With stone heart, on top of that protection and if you position yourself well also with Geomancer’s defense and there you go, you’ll be taking very little damage. All that comes from just pressing one button and moving yourself. The reason this trait is partially passive is the fact every average ele will learn the basic rotations and then perform them, going to earth included. Now this average ele will have 33% damage reduction and no critical hits incoming just because he managed to swap to earth. Great job, so skilled. While he might not getting bursted down, there most likely will be damage prevented without him even realizing it.

Second of all, I’m not crying about anything, I’m simply stating what I think. I haven’t figured out it’s such an issue for people like you, I apologize. I suggest no reading what I say if it makes you so mad.

Third of all, I didn’t do any mistake. That’s just you assuming I had to lose to a d/d ele with Stone heart to think it’s too strong. Well, newsflash. People have different opinions, you might as well accept that. No one owned me, now it might be a shocking for you, but I actually made my own opinion. I understand that’s very difficult concept for you to understand, but yeah it happens, sorry.

@Lettuce: It think it’s quite hilarious you call yourself a pro ele, when you snaped on me saying I do not know how a trait works when in fact it was you not knowing how it works currently, arguing and saying you even tested it and still didn’t know it’s bugged. Made my day.

After all, there’s not a point in talking to any of you. All you do is calling me skilless without having any reason to do, just because my opinion differs from you, assuming things without even thinking why there was some things said. Well, enjoy doing that, I’m going to keep my opnion, I’m entitled to it.

Okay so you are simply stating stone heart is OP on paper, you have no real evidence of it being an actual issue. This is not how balance changes should be approached, you need to provide solid evidence.

“The reason this trait is partially passive is the fact every average ele will learn the basic rotations and then perform them, going to earth included”

Don’t burst after fire fields.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Grimreaper.5370:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Lettuce.2945:

Blinding ashes isn’t skilled at all. It hard countered one of the best thieves on NA and I wasn’t even trying. When something is so effortless versus someone so skilled, then no…It’s not fine.

But all the countless passive thief procs are fine? Please stop your crusade to get ele nerfed when the meta hasn’t even settles, it’s really annoying. Thief has SO MANY passives, compared to eles that have only a handful.

Haste proc on autoattacks? Check. Do ALL THE THINGS when using steal? Check. Thief list of passive traits is almost endless, like it is for most other classes.

His main issue is when fighting an Elementalist in a 1v1 sitation blinding ashes becomes so powerful of a counter he’s almost rendered useless when playing his thief. Which IMO is incredibly underwhelming since I’d prefer every class had a shot at beating X class.

The blinding ashes trait it self is actually just as active as stone heart, but when you throw in random burn procs and fire shield well… it becomes sort of brainless.

As I’ve edited in my previous post, if you can’t deal with a single blind every 5+ seconds this is clearly a learn to play issue. Maybe use some condition removal instead of ALL THE BURST UTILITIES. Maybe autoattack to lose the blind, maybe use the stealth-removes-condition-trait. Thieves have COUNTLESS ways to deal with blind.

And there’s other classes that can spam way more blinds than an ele with burning ashes – an actually pretty underpowered trait.

I don’t really play a Thief but I’m under the impression the only way to remove a blind is with withdraw (if its traited) to remove 1 condition, and hope the blind was the condition removed. A thief isn’t going to want to attack you from stealth if they are blinded. Thieves only remove damaging conditions now with their stealth condition removal. Perhaps if withdraw removed 2 conditions when traited, blinding ashes wouldn’t be such an issue for thieves.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Lettuce.2945:

Blinding ashes isn’t skilled at all. It hard countered one of the best thieves on NA and I wasn’t even trying. When something is so effortless versus someone so skilled, then no…It’s not fine.

But all the countless passive thief procs are fine? Please stop your crusade to get ele nerfed when the meta hasn’t even settles, it’s really annoying. Thief has SO MANY passives, compared to eles that have only a handful.

Haste proc on autoattacks? Check. Do ALL THE THINGS when using steal? Check. Thief list of passive traits is almost endless, like it is for most other classes.

His main issue is when fighting an Elementalist in a 1v1 sitation blinding ashes becomes so powerful of a counter he’s almost rendered useless when playing his thief. Which IMO is incredibly underwhelming since I’d prefer every class had a shot at beating X class.

The blinding ashes trait it self is actually just as active as stone heart for example (thought I’d throw that in there since Stone Hearts been a good majority of this debate), but when you throw in random burn procs and fire shield well… it becomes sort of brainless.

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

An Elementalist is almost always going to swap into earth right after fire if they’re playing d/d or d/f, I’m assuming you know this? I’m assuming you don’t think Stone Heart with scepter is an issue since I believe I’ve heard you say somewhere that scepter is crap. If you’re trying to burst them right after they lay down fire fields and know they’re running stone heart well… That sounds like a L2P issue.

BTW how many eles do you even run into who use Stone Heart? I’m sure you’ll say “a lot” but from my experience its almost never seen.

How did you go from me saying that I think the trait is too strong while not requiring much to that I have issues with d/d eles? Funny. I’ve never seen an ele with scepter having Stone heart, what does that have to do with it? I don’t have the numbers, sorry, but usually celestial eles either run earth or fire.

So what, are you implying that staff elementalists using stone heart are owning you? What kind of build with Stone Heart in mind owned you which brought you to the forums to cry nerf, tell me… I was eliminating scepter users from the debate, Laraderp. I assumed you had no problem with stone heart in combination with the scepter weapon. Based on allll the different things I’ve seen you cry nerf about I think it was a safe assumption to assume you get salty when playing vs a d/d or d/f Elementalist. You need to bring logic to the table when discussing potential balance changes, stop trying to cover your bum when you’ve made an obvious mistake and just accept that part of your issues are L2P ones.

Now I’m not saying I don’t think you raise valid points Laraley, here is where I and probably the majority of anyone who really cares about balance/esports will agree with you:

-Passive play should not be promoted ( down with the RNG procs)

-Burns need to be reworked in some shape or form

-Diamond skin is a terrible idea for a trait.

-Empowering flame is bugged, should be fixed.

Now instead of crying about every and anything that you can think of, consider that balance changes in order to bring BALANCE take time and must be approached one step at a time. If Anet nerfed EVERY aspect of the game you wanted to see nerfed right now many classes would fall out of place becoming completely irrelevant to play.

I think its a safe bet to assume the burning condition is a little over the top so lets start with balancing this and then figure out how to further improve balance.

Laraley.7695:

Supreme.3164:

Laraley.7695:

-snip-

How can you benefit from stone heart if you play badly? Lol you’ve missed the ball in a majestic way now, if you play badly against a skilled opponent, you just get bursted down once you’re forced to leave earth. It really all depends on the kind of opponents you face..yes against hotjoiners stone heart will surely appear OP.

Stone heart is not a passive trait at all, rather who is passive is the opponent!, Time to learn attunement animation and recognize the fact that ele cannot camp earth so stop your mindless rampage and start apply some condi pressure of sort, save your big burst for when ele leaves earth.

I play war/ranger on top of ele and can recognize the stone heart icon clearly as the sun, I just call target or apply some condi pressure, soon the ele leaves earth to restore HP and bam I attack!

To complain about stone heart is L2P issue because ele is simply buying time in earth, he can’t do great dmg or heal..be patient with your mindless spam

-edit- For as long as stealth camping exist, stealth burst, OP one shot skills with no tell; there will be no reasonable complain against traits like stone heart.
L2P just like I need to in order to win against stealth burst BS and similar, have a nice day

I don’t know maybe because even monkey would swap to earth from time to time? You can prevent burst even without knowing it just from pure luck. Saying Stone heart is fully active trait is just ridiculous.

Oh no, what will you ever do about having to plan out when to burst a target every now and then. smh… Looks like you will have to just mindlessly hope your burst lands.

Laraley.7695:

Lettuce.2945:

Bolded the quote from you. You complained about the lack of having EA in the build (having to choose between one of them)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/No-more-Elemental-Attunement-Evasive-Arcana/first

That’s you complaining about it. Now you get it, you complain about it? You’re focused on the wrong things. You want to nerf cele ammy (yes, you complained about it as grimreaper pointed out). Have you actually tried pvping or dueling on marauders amulet? The traitlines no longer give healing power, so playing a zerk ele has pretty much no sustain, especially in 1 v 2. You’ll just get instantly bursted by a good player. Celestial is pretty much our only option at this point, so no…Leave the amulet alone. Burning needs to be scaled down per stack. Right now the amount is just simply too high especially with the might stacking capabilities of eles. And I saw your nerf suggestions. It was kittened as hell.

Stone heart promotes passive play? You have to actively time when to go into earth and then burst accordingly. See a stealthed mirror blade headed towards you which means an incoming shatter…swap to earth. It’s an active defensive trait…Leave it as it is. As for diamond skin, I do agree with warlord sikari on it (ronpierce) about the suggested changes. Blinding ashes IS the true definition of passive play/defense…So at least you got that right…They need to raise the icd to 10 secs or 12. Right now, it really screws with thieves. It’s a 100% hard counter assuming both players are equally skilled especially if the ele uses flame legion runes. I also tested with my guildie yesterday who’s actually another skilled ele…I got on my ranger and I had a theory that even with a zerker amulet (me using it), I wouldn’t even be able to kill him with him not even fighting back. My theory was correct. I spent 5 minutes trying to get him to 0 health while he forced me to heal a a bunch of times because of the blinding ashes + burn procs. He just walked around healing and rotating protection. So I think soothing ice needs to be adjusted a bit. As of now, it’s a perma protection build. So even if I out played him on ranger, I wouldn’t be able to kill him if he just rotated properly. It’s the traits that needs the rework. And you’re focusing on the wrong ones. Stone heart is passive? PUHLEASE. Soothing ice, blinding ashes, and diamond skin are the top 3 for me that needs some adjustments along with burning damage. Then I think ele will be in the right spot.

I believe that Elemental Attunement is crucial for the class and should be a baseline, so there would be a bit higher build diversity. I never said that I think it’s bad that EA is a minor trait now even though it still forced eles into Arcana, so stop putting words in my mouth. On the other hand having full earth line with traits like Diamond skin and Stone heart seems a bit too much to me. Again, I never complained about the amulet istelf, stop implying I did. No, I actually played zerker instead of marauder, since I felt like my damage wasn’t where I wanted it to be.

Yes, it’s pretty well known most people will defend their class without even rationally thinking about why it might be too strong. I do not want to play class, that’s broken, so sorry if I insulted you with the fact I thought about what could be too powerful.

Again, we can argue how much swaping to earth is an active play, it’s not really that much. You can benefit from the trait despite playing badly, so it’s definitely not a fully active defense. Lots of the damage comes from air + fire and ele will be immune to this in earth, which is quite strong. Even a bot could swap to earth and just avoid this altogether.

Diamond skin is a completely passive trait that requires completely nothing and counters all condition builds. Blinding ashes actually can at least reward a skilled play, unlike Diamond skin.

There is a difference between passive traits and passive traits that are way too powerful. So thanks for your opinion, I’ll keep thinking what I’ve been thinking till now.

An Elementalist is almost always going to swap into earth right after fire if they’re playing d/d or d/f, I’m assuming you know this? I’m assuming you don’t think Stone Heart with scepter is an issue since I believe I’ve heard you say somewhere that scepter is crap. If you’re trying to burst them right after they lay down fire fields and know they’re running stone heart well… That sounds like a L2P issue.

BTW how many eles do you even run into who use Stone Heart? I’m sure you’ll say “a lot” but from my experience its almost never seen.

I think it would be quite alright if blinding ashes had its icd increased to 8 or so seconds, I would even prefer blinding ashes only work with weapon or utility skills manually used, and I main an ele. In return it would be nice if they also made blinding ashes icd per target opposed to who ever you hit with x burn skill at that time.

Morwath.9817:

Grimreaper.5370:

The only thing I find slightly absurd about mesmer is the potential amount of stealth they could use if traited for it with the right utility and weapon. Their dmg is kinda cray when traited to go full man mode, but common now we do need at least one profession who can go all in and destroy a bunker fairly quickly.

No we don’t, otherwise there is no point to bunker.

Are you aware of how vulnerable a full on shatter build is once they blow their wombo combo? If they mess up a huge combo to bust out enough dmg to destroy a bunker in a matter of seconds then they very well may just become fodder if the enemy team jumps them afterwards.

nearlight.3064:

Grimreaper.5370:

nearlight.3064:

If you do D/F ele with the fire traits the extra fire aura can easily get you over 20 stacks of might on your own.

Still if you just have two eles sitting at 25 might, which is even easier with a bunker guard that still won’t be enough to kill other eles and bunker guards in a reasonable timeframe. Hence shatter mesmer, the ultimate +1.

Edit: Also to +1 add zerk rampage warriors and marauder elixer x RNG Engis, THE NEW META!

Man I have to agree with the shatter Mesmer remark! I’ve done so well holding a point with my ele vs maybe 1 or 2 other decent damage dealers until a shatter Mesmer decides to roll through and basically insta gib me. Everyone should have a shatter Mesmer on their team.

Also if a d/d or d/f ele is taking the fire trait line their defense is significantly diminished since they’ll more than likely be dropping either the water or earth trait line. Blinding Ashes isn’t usually very effective in a real spvp match so don’t anyone even go there.

They’ll take fire, water, and arcane. Earth really isn’t ideal for d/d or d/f because it offers only marginally increased defense but no damage. Its taken for staff builds that are rez focused and for some d/d builds that want to fulfill a more bunkerish role for their team. Fire offers a lot more damage simply because the might stacking is alot better. With earth d/d you’re usually at 10-15 stacks most of the time, with fire and d/f, you’ll generally have 20-25 stacks. It also makes celestial HGH engi look like gutter trash by comparision.

Blinding Ashes isn’t as bad as it seems. Blind is good and powerful damage mitigation, especially when fighting necros and warriors, which in the past have been very good against ele 1v1. It may seem weak, but thats because you only really proc it when you’re in fire, but every bit of damage mitigation helps, and there aren’t any better traits to take in the GM tier in my opinion.

If you don’t think d/f should take the earth line you are well misinformed on how insanely strong that trait line can be combined with focus. Earth is MORE ideal for focus off hand users than water. Also I didn’t say blinding ashes was bad, I use blinding ashes trait when I think I’ll be doing a lot of 1v1 in an spvp match. (When I fight pubs because they’re usually bad) You know nothing john snow, persisting flames is a great fire GM trait too, amazing for team play.

Might stacking with the fire trait line at hand is not the main culprit of too much damage coming out of d/d or d/f. Here are some factors you should rather look into.

1.) 150 additional power ontop of another 150(when in fire, totaling 300 power when in fire) is being given to people who take the fire line which was not intended. its a bug.

2.) Burning isn’t balanced as of now.

Both of these things are due for a change soon, no need to worry any further.

No more complaining about x class being OP please, just get used to the new patch please

The only thing I find slightly absurd about mesmer is the potential amount of stealth they could use if traited for it with the right utility and weapon. Their dmg is kinda cray when traited to go full man mode, but common now we do need at least one profession who can go all in and destroy a bunker fairly quickly.

If a full man mode shatter bursts you out of stealth by blinking ontop of you, mirror blading your kitten right before using a dodge plus mirrored images for a 3x mind wrack, then hes a pretty vulnerable mesmer after that.

I also have been enjoying this patch as well!

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Roxanne.6140:

I do not think the damage by an ele is anything higher than the videos I have seen other classes do. The survivability was buffed because staff ele survivability was a joke before the patch. I just see a ton of whines and no real video showing exactly wtf is goin on

Excuse me? D/d ele survability was superior, the other specs lacked any good survability. The class has to trait into survability, but then it’s too strong. And yet, the celestial spec got buffed again instead of actually making some changes to the baseline, so ele would have more options than one.

Nonono, this is a misinterpretation of what happened to that amulet. It was not simply buffed, everyone lost stats gained from trait lines and the additional stats were added to compensate for that.

I’m not talking about the amulet at all.

“And yet, the celestial spec got buffed again instead of actually making some changes to the baseline”
“I’m not talking about the amulet at all”

Looks like you are complaining about celestial stats to me. Celestial stats are balanced, perhaps you should have just mentioned traits?

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Re read what I said I didnt say eles dmg is crap.

Sorry, I missed that. But what do you expect? Spec into defensive trait lines and be able to do insane damage? It’s not like ele is underpowered, it definitely has some stuff that could use some nerfs/changes.

I do not expect anything of the sort. If anything needs to be reworked its burning across the board before we decide how to tone down the class.

It’s not only burning. I really don’t know what to tell you if you cannot realize what strong traits ele has. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my class to be easy mode just because it provides some traits with complete or partial passive play that rewards you too much for basically no input from you.

Once again you are overlooking what I am saying. Balance takes time, and we should proceed with changes one step at a time so the Elementalist doesn’t once again become fodder.

Dibaryon.7469:

I main ele (have been for the last 1,5 years). Here’s my opinion after they introduced the patch.

After playing against other eles, using a medi guard and a shatter mesmer, what I find OP about eles is burning and the healing rate: which provides them amazing sustain.

D/D ele is not that tanky: just look at the stats. What makes it “tanky” is the signet (that’s used by the majority of players), the healing power, the “perma regen” from cantrips/water attunement and “perma vigor” also because of cantrips and sigil of energy (that most players also use because of evasive arcana).

Here’s what I think that should be changed:
My opinion based on being on the both sides of the fight is that they need to nerf burning (that affects all professions), and weapon sets that are not entirely designed for support should have their healing capabilities nerfed (for example: cleansing wave). This way we could justify the elementalist’s raw power+condition damage hybrid build that the celestial amulet provides, but without 3-4k healing from a single skill. I believe that a small change like this should be enough.

I agree with the burning remark, but I don’t know if cleansing wave on off hand dagger really needs to be touched and this is why. Any Elementalist trying to utilize d/d for serious play is usually going to want to run fire/water/arcana. You lose out on the perma protection earth provides, the earth line isn’t very good to take over water for d/d. If you nerf off hand dagger you’ll probably just force more Elementalists into taking the focus offhand weapon, forcing everyone who plays that class back into another full on bunker meta. Honestly I find the defense on d/d with its current ideal build to be just fine, its strong in 1v1 with blinding ashes but you’ll go down pretty easily when you’re focused in an spvp match.

Laraley.7695:

Roxanne.6140:

I do not think the damage by an ele is anything higher than the videos I have seen other classes do. The survivability was buffed because staff ele survivability was a joke before the patch. I just see a ton of whines and no real video showing exactly wtf is goin on

Excuse me? D/d ele survability was superior, the other specs lacked any good survability. The class has to trait into survability, but then it’s too strong. And yet, the celestial spec got buffed again instead of actually making some changes to the baseline, so ele would have more options than one.

Nonono, this is a misinterpretation of what happened to that amulet. It was not simply buffed, everyone lost stats gained from trait lines and the additional stats were added to compensate for that.

Roxanne.6140:

d/d ele never appeared to have that good a damage to me. There were many honest posts saying how many of them could be laid to waste. I played other classes and it was quite apparent how ele needed to be improved in pvp.

I agree the potential dmg output for the old d/d meta was pretty crappy prior to the patch.

nearlight.3064:

If you do D/F ele with the fire traits the extra fire aura can easily get you over 20 stacks of might on your own.

Still if you just have two eles sitting at 25 might, which is even easier with a bunker guard that still won’t be enough to kill other eles and bunker guards in a reasonable timeframe. Hence shatter mesmer, the ultimate +1.

Edit: Also to +1 add zerk rampage warriors and marauder elixer x RNG Engis, THE NEW META!

Man I have to agree with the shatter Mesmer remark! I’ve done so well holding a point with my ele vs maybe 1 or 2 other decent damage dealers until a shatter Mesmer decides to roll through and basically insta gib me. Everyone should have a shatter Mesmer on their team.

Also if a d/d or d/f ele is taking the fire trait line their defense is significantly diminished since they’ll more than likely be dropping either the water or earth trait line. Blinding Ashes isn’t usually very effective in a real spvp match so don’t anyone even go there.

nearlight.3064:

Laraley.7695:

robertul.3679:

So what ele doesn’t need a new offhand?

Did mesmer really need a new offhand given that it has sword, focus, torch, pistol? All good in various situations. Meanwhile the only viable mainhand is the sword.

At least ele has scepter which is a lot better than mesmer scepter. And dagger which is very strong.

Scepter is trash.

Its a ranged burst weapon. Its not trash, it fulfills that role very well. As to whether burst ele is even viable at varying levels of play, thats another story, but the weapon does fulfill that role. Most of the reasons that scepter fresh air isn’t viable at high levels are due to relatively poor damage mitigation, mobility, disengage, team fight utility compared to a mesmer, thief, or medi guard, and none of those are the scepter’s fault because the damage is totally there.

Similarly the mesmer scepter isn’t trash either, its a great weapon for condition or even phantasm builds. Likewise, those condition builds aren’t viable at high levels of play, but thats not because the weapon is trash.

What I think he means is scepter has a lot of abilities that are kitten near useless, which in his mind makes it trash.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

While probably a bit too good, the burning changes are the single thing that made condi eles playable now. I really hope that when they nerf it (which they will/must) that they think of us (and Guardians) too: we only really can stack burning, no other damaging condition so we SHOULD comparable damage with burning alone when specced for condis compared to classes like engi and necro that can bomb you with 4 different damage condis.

Also all those ~10k burning ticks you see in videos are only available in pve with food and sinister gear… both not available in pvp which has lower stats anyway overall.

Not true, I’m able to obtain 10-12k burn tics in spvp with my ele, using a very specific build. (If all my “conditions” are met, which they usually are not when fighting someone who runs around and clears conditions). Is the build reliable though? ROFL hell no, die like a wet noodle being sliced with a katana.

Raif.9507:

Leo G.4501:

Sword can be very awesome and interesting if done creatively. I’m all for creative modes of play which makes me rather confused when people keep pressing for ele sword main to just get a cleave weapon. I mean, yeah, sure ele doesn’t really have a specifically “swing and cleave” type of weapon but that’s hardly a playstyle. Necros got a cleaving weapon not because they needed a weapon to swing and hit multiple foes, they got GS because their AoE was limited. Elementalist isn’t limited on AoE at all. They likely have more AoE than any other profession (I’m learning about engi and they seem pretty good at AoE too) so introducing a melee cleave is only to pander to a specific attack style, NOT a play style.

I once made a suggestion for a sword off-hand for ele that kinda sorta made a ‘trapper’ out of elementalist since ele doesn’t have anything like traps/marks to work with. THAT is the way people should be looking at weapons and specs, at least when we’re trying to add to a profession’s capabilities.

Most people who want sword (like myself) see sword as a possibility for a bursty, evade/blink type of assassin. More of a “I see you there, you’re going to die” type of all in playstyle that the thief and mesmer have that depends on evades and blinks for survivability, not regen, protection and heals. Scepter has a form of this, but it’s ranged and it’s still mixed if taken with focus with tons of utility which is why it’s not as powerful as mesmer/thief burst.

D/D is more of an in your face, tanky/healy type of melee brawler and this would make it more interesting, at least I think it would be an interesting take on the elementalist. A mage melee assassin.

Ahh yes, I’m all for this idea. This is how I’ve always wanted to play my elementalist

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Re read what I said I didnt say eles dmg is crap.

Sorry, I missed that. But what do you expect? Spec into defensive trait lines and be able to do insane damage? It’s not like ele is underpowered, it definitely has some stuff that could use some nerfs/changes.

I do not expect anything of the sort. If anything needs to be reworked its burning across the board before we decide how to tone down the class.