Guild Wars 2

I’ve got a few ideas as well, imagine that! First would be to recognize that Ele is supposed to be a ranged AoE death dealing machine. Given that, it should have the potential to hit more targets than anyone else. Change Blasting Staff to:

Battle Mage – increases size of AoE as per Blasting Staff, increases AoE cap to 10. Then make this a GM trait in Arcane, and move Elemental Surge to Master level. This would then give EA a run for its money.

As for the Staff skills themselves:

Fire:
Fireball – increase size of AoE. It should be at least the radius of some of our PBAoE attacks, so around 200-240 here.

Lava Font – as others have said, no delay on damage.

Burning Retreat – either make a sequence skill with a forward charge component that has a blast finisher at the end, or at the very least make it a full 1200 range.

Water:
Water Blast: change it to a channeled jet, like the skill says that heals the Ele for the duration, heals any friendlies in the jet, and damages any enemies caught in the jet. Basically a dual duty pierce, and would work almost exactly like Cone of Cold

Ice Spike: Shorten duration, should probably be a blast finisher.

Frozen Ground: change it to pulse every second, change duration to around 8 seconds, allowing chilled to stack if they pass through the field

Air:
Chain Lightning: instead of a bouncing attack, change this to work just like Wave of Wrath, except with a lightning graphic. Should affect a fan of enemies in front of you, perhaps make it a channeled spell, be Emperor Palpatine.

Lightning Surge: should also apply Weakness.

Gust: either change the knockback to at LEAST 900 if not 1200, or make it apply Launch instead, just like Updraft. Give it a wider profile too.

Static Field: apply damage to people inside the field, everything else fine

Earth:
Stoning: increase projectile speed

Eruption: shorten cast time to 3/4, keep the 3s delay, introduce a sequence skill allowing immediate detonation. Would allow for “tactical trapping”

Unsteady Ground: definitely needs to be an AoE not a line, about the same size as Frozen Ground, make it into a Smoke combo field which gives Earth a combo field and makes it similar to Trident with Murky Water

Shockwave: changed to a PBAoE skill and blast finisher, does damage and causes Weakness, Blind and Vulnerability, making it much more like its GW1 counterpart.

That’s what I’ve got for now.

Krisztian.8405:

The closest Warrior utility skill you can compare to mist form is endure pain, which, as we all know, is susceptible to cc’s, i.e, stuns, fear, daze and the like. This means that heals during the duration of endure pain can be interrupted. If you’re upset that now your heals can be interrupted as well, all I can say is welcome to our world.

Since Eles now have less mobility than half the classes in the game and no special defenses like stealth or distortion, does that mean we get the Warrior’s health pool and armor value? No? Oh. Well then how are Eles supposed to survive in melee combat with abysmal mobility, no escapes, and even more reduced healing ability?

Oh ANet must have massively buffed our damage to compensate and I just haven’t noticed right? No as well? Huh. Well I’m stumped, is the ANet balance team a room full of monkeys?

P.S. Eles can’t use ANY skill in Mist Form now, you may have missed that.

Gaidax.7835:

Wow you people are spoiled… I roam with my Mesmer with 32 seconds CD traited Blink which also ports 900 range, Mass Invisibility and around 40% Swiftness uptime and I am a happy kitten with that.

And here comes some Ele and says that it is horrible… lol… Just shows how good they had it before…

Get down to earth people!

Right, because everyone forgot that Eles have inherent survivability from illusions, invisibility, distortion, etc. Oh wait, you’re saying Eles don’t have any of that and relied entirely on speed for survival and to disengage and now we don’t have even that anymore?

Huh. Well that seems totally illogical. I guess the Ele is supposed to camp keeps and just Meteor Shower the occasional Rabbit.

loseridoit.2756:

Elemental have an invulnerability get out of jail free card. They have cantrips and other goodies. So, I do not understand your statement sometimes.

Why are you still trolling? Mist Form is on a significant CD, now can’t be used with other skills, which means when you need to use it for defense, its basically stalling the inevitable death blow by 3 seconds. Its ONLY use now is for stomping.

Other classes also have utility skills, you may have missed that. Cantrips are good yes, but not because of the skills alone, its their interplay with certain Water traits, which got nerfed. And are also on significant CDs, generally longer than other classes.

You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, as page after page on thread after thread has shown. Please stop spreading disinformation and lies.

Spending a lot more time reading and posting on forums complaining about the heavy handed nerfs ANet is handing out that have no logical or rational consistency with either the classes themselves or actual game balance.

The desire to login and actually play is beginning to be a fleetingly rare event. I never wanted to play Warrior-Thief Online, I thought I was playing Guild Wars 2. The push against Eles now is strikingly similar to the marginalization of the GW1 Ele to an ER boon prot heal/support as the only viable build.

For a class type that stereotypically in most forms of media is the “nuke from range” character, ANet’s design decisions make little, if any sense. The idea of an Ele as a “jack of all trades” would be nice if it was the case, but its not.

Its times like these that make me wish game companies would stop making MMOs, because it seems that even the fun ones tend to poop all over themselves after a while by listening to a very small vocal minority because they scream the loudest. I mean, the whole point was to nerf the S/D bunker in PvP, and yet these nerfs were applied globally and actually make Ele players in ALL game modes bunker further to compensate for the lack of mobility and survivability.

I just don’t get it.

showatt.9413:

For the past 3 month Elem has been dominating and I really don’t understand how you could’ve missed that.

Dominating where?

Wildclaw.6073:

unless the people complaining about the elementalist bunker are lying through their teeths.

Pretty much this.

Lenn.6347:

dumb bunker builds healing right through my damage and getting away from what should be kills is ridiculous. and then to top off the cherry on the kitten pie, they can burst me down just as fast? you deserve to be nerfed.

These are two different builds. The first can’t kill, the second can’t survive.

Its like a hyperbole tornado by all the pro-nerfers tonight.

showatt.9413:

Did thieve rely on stealth and HS? yes. Did they get nerfed? yes.

Did Elementalist rely on RTL and mist form? Yes. Did they get nerfed? Yes.

Elementalist is OP based on fact; just as Thieves were OP is based on fact. These skills don’t get nerfed because the dev went " oh hey let’s nerf Elementalist and thieves just for fun."

They got nerfed because people complain and complain so the dev playtested and went ‘hmmm there is some problem here. Ok guys gather round. what do we do?’

However, absolutely unplayable is not a fact.
People still plays it after the nerf.
See where I’m getting at?

And when a mechanic gets tweak, not one person is responsible for the idea. There will be developers in the team who goes “hang on but why don’t we just do this instead’ and developers who goes ‘nah let’s do it this way.”

So you can be certain that they’re not just blind nerfing classes.

Did Thief have only one viable build/weaponset for the last several months? No. The Ele? Yup.

Does Thief have defensive mechanics integral to the class? Yup (Stealth, lots of blinds, etc.). The Ele? Nope.

And from all accounts, the balance team is two people, one plays a Warrior, the other a Thief. See where this is going?

I also never said “absolutely unplayable.” Obviously I can still log in and kill Risen in Orr, but being a loot pinata for others in WvWvW is not my idea of fun.

Obviously, given the huge number of smaller and more elegant balance tweaks suggested by players, the deer in the headlights look during the SOTG when an interviewer pointed out to the devs how devastating the intended changes were to Staff Eles (despite their contention that it was all about nerfing bunker), yes, they are in fact nerfing things with no clue as to the impact on game balance.

Looked up “hyperbole” yet?

wiloman.8613:

Can we stop with the communist attitude in a F2P game already ? Ofc Anet wants profit, geniuses. You get to play the game everyday 24/7 if you want to for free, and you can take a break and not have your CC charged every month.
It’s purely cosmetic, you dont NEED it to play the game.

Heads up. Its not F2P.

First, you have to buy the game. To upgrade your inventory or personal stash you have to use gems. Whether you buy them with cash or in game gold, somebody at some point paid real money for it.

So no, GW2 is not F2P. It follows a microtransaction model, and this model as time goes on (in this game and new ones) will offer less and less content without some sort of surcharge.

showatt.9413:

I was just responding to your ridiculous statement about “Elementalist are not killing anything in wvwvw. Period.” and I still stand behind my reply now. Unless Dap comes forward and tell me that even he is finding it hard to kill anything will I believe your statement about Elem not killing anything.

Until then, I will continue to believe Elem is – though a bit harder to play now – still as viable and playable as before.

Apparently, you can’t read either. Here’s what I said:

Let me know at what point in time in the last three months a D/D Ele in full bunker spec was destroying in WvWvW and raking in loot bags. Oh that’s right, NEVER. Any full bunker D/D was not killing anybody, just delaying and harassing targets. A perfectly viable tactic.

Note the VERY obvious clause about the Ele being in FULL BUNKER spec. Reading is your friend, especially on a forum. A zerker Staff Ele raining down 5 target max AoEs can still get loot bags from a zerg or keep, a D/D ele built for pure survival is not downing enemies.

That you missed this obvious part of my post and that you keep maintaining that no one other than quite possibly the best player of a class is worth your time obviously point to you being a troll, pure and simple.

showatt.9413:

So are you saying it’s a learn to play / learn to adopt issue? Because I didn’t actually want to go there…

Also, I hardly think ‘absolutely unplayable’ is something that should be tossed around so easily. Challenging? Yes. Harder to master? maybe. But absolutely unplayable? Because of a few nerf here and there?

Thieves stealth and HS got nerfed to dust ages ago and people still spam them to this day. Yet they were crying about their class being unplayable after their nerfs too. So really, what is going on here?

No its not a L2 kitten ue! GOD! You said you would accept nothing less than the premier example of class play as the baseline for comparison. NOT EVERY ELE PLAYER IS daphoenix! Do you even hear yourself?

The bolded part of your quote is important. Perhaps you should apply the same logic to tossing around “ELE IS OP NEED NERF” comments? The Ele has been consistently nerfed since launch, not a few here and there, starting with about a 60% damage reduction on Staff and continuing from there.

Thieves’ stealth is not “nerfed to dust” as you claim. A now 3s Revealed debuff is enough time for a Thief to get off a combo and then re-stealth. HS before its nerf was like combining RtL with pinpoint Meteor Storm. Tremendous damage plus a gap closer.

You should look up the definition of the term “hyperbole.” Its present in all of your posts.

showatt.9413:

I’m sorry but unless you’re Daphoenix I’m not gonna take your statement seriously. It’s nothing personal. If you can link me a post where Dap complains about not being able to kill people in wvw and post a video of him failing I’ll gladly reconsider my position.

Wait. Your argument is that unless I’m the top tier player of a class, that my input is invalid? You do realize how silly that sounds right? A guy like daphoenix could probably take the Warrior into tPvP and pwn with it, its the player’s skill in his case. Which means the class isn’t OP, the player is OP. Nerf daphoenix?

The flipside is, for the vast majority of players who aren’t as skilled, their survivability just dropped ridiculously.

Jski.6180:

Its every thing ElE is the jack of all trades and master at non of them.

Ele is king of two things, jack and kitten, and jack left town. The Ele as it is now isn’t even mediocre at any role. The only thing it can do is lay down more combo fields than anyone else, but in Staff doesn’t have enough long range blast finishers to make a difference.

To be a “jack of all trades” the combined abilities of your various trades needs to amount to at least the baseline of other class’s abilities. The Ele has poor damage (AND ANet has said it wants to nerf AoE further), poor CC, poor mobility both in and out of combat, etc.

The Jack of All Trades is public relations doublespeak for “we have no idea what this class should do, so to make sure our Warriors and Thieves don’t lose any self-esteem, we’re going to make Eles into near stationary badge pinatas.”

showatt.9413:

The class is still OP, so more nerf is required to tune it down further.

Just. Stop. The. Bologna.

Let me know at what point in time in the last three months a D/D Ele in full bunker spec was destroying in WvWvW and raking in loot bags. Oh that’s right, NEVER. Any full bunker D/D was not killing anybody, just delaying and harassing targets. A perfectly viable tactic.

But apparently not if you’re an Ele, only if you’re Thief, Guardian, etc. Its so pathetic how all the “ELE ARE OP” whiners are obviously the ones who can’t time CC like a block or interrupt on a 3.25s CE, or complain because their glass cannon warrior didn’t bring any condition removal and so got KO’d by the bleed stacks.

This came from a thread I posted in in the Elementalist Forum. It occurred to me that perhaps the devs, who might favor other classes, simply don’t read that forum all that much.

So I devised a few commonsense buffs/changes that would help various Ele builds, and give the Ele better in combat mobility from a variety of gap closers, which could also be used OOC, but so can most of them on other classes as well.

Here’s the original list:

1. Adjust Ride the Lightning to have a 900 range, with a 20s CD. Adjust the damage to compensate. This makes it a gap closer with a shorter range than Warrior’s Rush with a comparable CD.

2. Adjust Lightning Flash’s CD to 30s, keep the 900 range, allowing it to be used in tandem with other movement skills. This also helps Staff and Focus users and is comparable to a Mesmer’s Blink skill.

3. Adjust Burning Retreat into a Sequence skill. First skill is Searing Blast, moving the Ele forward in the same fashion as Burning Speed, with a Blast Finisher at the end, giving the Staff Ele a second Blast Finisher bringing it in-line with the other available weapons. Burning Retreat then becomes the sequence skill but reverts shortly if not used (say 5s). This skill would then function similarly to Illusionary Leap, but without need for a target, and would provide Staff users with a forward movement gap closer/creator.

4. Adjust Blinding Flash to a teleport. Would function exactly like Flashing Blade, but keep the 900 range.

5. Adjust Magnetic Grasp to function without a target. If no target is selected when using MG, it simply defaults to using Magnetic Leap to push you forward 900.

That gives the D/D Ele two native 900 range gap closers, a Scepter Ele at least one (possibly two if going S/D), and a Staff user at least one of both a closer and creator. Having MG be a target optional gap closer/creator also opens up the possibility of viable D/F builds.

There are MANY other balance tweaks I could think up, but for now this is a short list and I think makes a fair point:

The Ele is a low armor, low health class. It has at least two weapon sets (x/D) that require at least partial melee range. As a class it has no natural defensive mechanics (i.e. Mesmer illusions/distortion, Ranger pet, Thief stealth, Necromancer death shroud, etc.) and relies almost entirely on dodges and utility skills for any semblance of defense. What Ele players became somewhat accustomed to with the long range RtL and to a lesser extent MF-heals was a degree of survivability in combat, especially in your face PBAoE.

Since ANet’s philosophy on Ele balancing is to reduce the ability to extend and escape from combat situations, something needs to be compensated with, especially in PvE and WvWvW. The above changes would give the Ele more in combat mobility and survivability, something that is sorely needed especially in D/D format.

To those detractors who say I’m crazy, look at the D/D build. Burning Speed, RtL, and Magnetic Grasp. If changed to the above, they become three mid range gap closers, and sans target gap creators. Contrast that to a Warrior running with GS and S/x. Two mid and one long range gap closers on shorter CDs than the above suggestions, on the class with the highest base armor and health.

If ANet’s design philosophy requires the Thief to be the most mobile, so be it, but that should not mean that they have to hamstring the Ele into boring unplayability. Especially when you consider the defensive advantages the Thief has (blinds, Stealth, near infinite dodging, profession mechanic that includes a 900 range gap closer, etc.), its clear that a light armor class with no inherent defense needs better consideration.

loseridoit.2756:

However, d/d elemental was extremely mobile build.

Anet did make it possible to still have a 20 sec cd on rtl. Elemental just have to hit something

The first statement is forum propaganda. The Ele has never been “extremely mobile” for a significant period of time now, about half the other classes, which include heavily armored king of PvE Warrior, PvE easy mode Ranger, and noobcannon Thief have always had more mobility both in and out of combat. The misconception was fueled by RtL’s bugged range, which allowed Eles to escape combat. Which is necessary for survival, the D/D playstyle even with all boons cannot survive facetanking for any significant period of time. Eles NEED an escape tool, otherwise they are free kills.

The second statement ignores what players primarily used RtL for, to escape bad situations. As a front line, melee, PBAoE blasting, tissue paper armor wearing character, bad situations occur, frequently.

If ANet wants RtL to be a gap closer only, fine. Then make it like EVERY other gap closer, short CD (say 20s), with a 900 range. BUT given the Eles low inherent survivability (now more than ever) something else must be changed to allow Eles a chance to escape via mobility. Here’s a few suggestions:

1. Adjust Ride the Lightning to have a 900 range, with a 20s CD. Adjust the damage to compensate. This makes it a gap closer with a shorter range than Warrior’s Rush with a comparable CD.

2. Adjust Lightning Flash’s CD to 30s, keep the 900 range, allowing it to be used in tandem with other movement skills. This also helps Staff and Focus users and is comparable to a Mesmer’s Blink skill

3. Adjust Burning Retreat into a Sequence skill. First skill is Searing Blast, moving the Ele forward in the same fashion as Burning Speed, with a Blast Finisher at the end, giving the Staff Ele a second Blast Finisher bringing it in-line with the other available weapons. Burning Retreat then becomes the sequence skill but reverts shortly if not used. This skill would then function similarly to Illusionary Leap, but without need for a target, and would provide Staff users with a forward movement gap closer/creator.

4. Adjust Blinding Flash to a teleport. Would function exactly like Flashing Blade, but keep the 900 range.

5. Adjust Magnetic Grasp to function without a target. If no target is selected when using MG, it simply defaults to using Magnetic Leap to push you forward 900.

So all of the above changes give the Ele lots of in combat mobility which it desperately needs to survive, without allowing it to escape any fight it cannot win, forcing the Ele player to carefully weigh the odds. Why this kind of logical balance is so hard for the devs to fathom is beyond me. But to not give a light armored class in an MMO with no inherent survival mechanism some reliable means of survival is just ridiculous.

loseridoit.2756:

Now, I dont want to argue against this bs.
D/D elementalist have alot of abilities to get out of trouble.

How is it BS?

Do you really want me to list all the abilities other classes have that gives them survivability? And then compare that to what the Ele has? In general, most other classes have survivability built into either their weapon sets (i.e. Distortion on Mesmer Sword 2, Warrior and Guardian blocks on Shields), or built into a defining class trait, such as Clones/Phantasms on Mesmer, a Ranger’s Pet, Necro’s Death Shroud, or Stealth on the Thief.

The Ele’s survivability on almost any build comes from utilities, namely Arcane Shield and the various Cantrips, which all have excessive CDs. It USED to also include in combat mobility thanks to RtL, as well as sustain healing from MF-ER and Water traits, ALL of which have been nerfed significantly.

ANet nerfed the Ele’s ability to extend and escape into the ground, while giving nothing back to compensate them in combat. The whole point behind use of RtL or MF was to escape the no-win scenario, now for ANY Ele build there is literally no way to escape any attacker. Which means any Ele caught is eventually a dead Ele.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Conjures are incredibly strong already.

You need to backup such a ridiculous statement with proof. Or stop trolling the Ele forums.

Or just make them kits. With an optional cooldown if spawning a second weapon via sequence skill for another player (which does have charges).

So you swap to FGS, and play with it all day. Its not OP because you’re locked out of all your other skills. Would finally make sense given the Ele has no weapon swap. As long as you don’t spawn a second weapon via the sequence skill, you can freely switch between the Conjure and normal skills (with, say a 5s internal CD on all Conjures).

IF you then spawn a second FGS for another player, the spawned one lasts for 15 charges. You can keep playing with the FGS, but if you swap out of FGS, say back to Staff for a Water Field, FGS goes on a 180s CD.

Then just apply this design to the other Conjures. Its in a similar vein to Guardian Virtues. By “activating” the Conjure sequence, you’ve spawned another weapon and increased overall party utility/DPS, but only for a short time.

loseridoit.2756:

Thief should be the most mobile class in the game.

WHY?

Thief has higher armor, access to infinite Stealth via HS/BP combo, and better mobility than the Ele even before the nerf.

Why should a medium armor profession that stylistically should be creeping up silently behind its target for a backstab have MORE mobility than a cloth armored caster playing melee with PBAoE?

This idea that the Thief should be the most mobile profession is just stupid. All professions should be mobile, but the Elementalist has NO class mechanic that helps with survivability, at all. The one thing that kept Eles from being a free kill in WvWvW was their high mobility and good sustain via healing. It certainly wasn’t their abysmal damage. Now the Ele has none of that.

You shouldn’t have posted this. Now ANet will just quintuple all condition duration on Eles as a “balance.”

I want to avoid a profession that will be experiencing nerfs significant enough to change the whole playstyle or alter the class.

Is there any class that is safe from the nerfbat? I hear Warriors and Thieves are good because they’re the balance devs’ pet classes. Also Ranger is pretty terrible so perhaps that would be a good class to pick.

Nice to know that to enjoy the game I have to purposefully select the worst class(es) to avoid entire playstyle changes.

Sincerely, an Ele player since launch.

Divinorium.8952:

D/D Element has:
1 – Churning earth.
2 – Earthquake – Hard CC – Knock down
3 – Magnetic Grasp – Hard CC – Immo
4 – Ring of Earth
5 -Updraft – Hard CC – Blowout/knockdown
6 – Shocking Aura – Defensive hard CC -Stun
7 – Frist Aura
8 – Frozen Burst

You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m quoting the above to pick apart for you to show you how wrong you are.

You say Eles are GOD mode. Lowest health and armor in the game, D/D is a melee set, RtL and MF nerfed to no longer provide the breathing room needed for a melee build that has tissue paper for armor, etc.

Then you compare some skills we have and say they’re so much better. Okay, here we go:

1. Churning Earth – 3.25 sec casting time, obvious animation, red circle, hits like a wet noodle in bunker spec/gear, applies Cripple. The Cripple is seldom applied because most Eles pair this with LF for the surprise attack, so CC is irrelevant. When it is relevant, how bad a player are you to not CC the Ele for over 3 seconds, or simply walk even with Cripple out of the blast radius?

2. Earthquake. Pitiful damage (not massive as the wiki states), small AoE and a 45 second CD. This will probably be the go to skill now to KD your foes, LF and RtL as far away as possible. The CD makes this prohibitively expensive to use.

3. Magnetic Grasp. The amount of times this skill bugs out still makes it irrelevant. Not to mention that with all the nerfs getting into melee range is suicide. Moving on.

4. Ring of Earth. A 3s Cripple. Nice, if you have the survivability required to sit in melee, which now we don’t.

5. Updraft. 40s CD for a blowout skill. Again, how do we use this? For running away, which is why it applies Swiftness, rather than something like Bleed stacks on the target. Are you starting to see the pattern here? Other professions use CC like Cripple and Immobilize to keep their targets rooted so they can do damage, the Ele uses CC to escape, now more than ever thanks to the destruction of RtL and MF.

6. Shocking Aura. Ahh the bane of Thieves. On a 25s CD. Which only lasts 4s, with an ICD of 2s. Which means with PERFECT timing you get a total of 2s of Daze on a target that is hitting you in melee. So, not so much a bane, but a temporary annoyance, because this was a great skill to help escape from bad situations. Now, with no escape options, no buff to damage, and no ability to kill anyone else before we get killed, exactly how is this skill useful?

7. Frost Aura. A 7s duration aura on a 40s CD. Imparts Chilled and a 10% reduction in damage from direct attacks. Chilled is a nice CC, if its being cast at range, to help keep enemies from closing the distance. So no help there. The 10% DR is nice, but isn’t as great as it seems, given the extremely low health pool Eles have in the first place, coupled now with low survivability and sustain, and crap mobility.

8. Frozen Burst. A 3s Chilled effect on a 15s CD paired with minimal damage, useful, again, only at melee range. As I pointed out above, melee CC is only useful for classes that actually do damage. So bleh here as well.

So almost all our CC is geared towards running away, which with the D/D range, means we’re not actually utilizing CC in an efficient manner. The “escape CC” would be fine if our mobility was up to par and our damage competitive, to compensate for lowest health and armor in the game. However its not, so it isn’t.

Also, don’t forget that not only do we have to manage the individual CDs on all these skills, which are in general double or longer than other professions’ CC, we also have to manage the four different attunements, which means often we’ll be locked out of a particular skillset. What’s worse, we still have to invest a minimum of 25 points into Arcana to get attunement swapping down to the baseline weapon swap of every other class, and we still have to swap between four attunements while other classes only have to manage two weapons. Except for the Engineer’s kits of course, which only have a 1 second ICD for swapping.

As I’ve pointed out in MANY other threads, the majority of legitimate QQ directed at the Ele was/is bunker point camping in PvP. That was the real problem, not the terribad players’ assertion that PVT D/Ds are somehow doing berserker damage blitzkrieg style on Warriors and Guardians in WvWvW, which you see all the time on the forums, but is a complete and utter falsehood.

Bottom line is, Ele nerfs were unwarranted in every game mode except possibly PvP, and the end result of nerfs makes every other build but D/D even more non-viable in a competitive sense. And no amount of edited dueling of upleveled noobs in WvWvW will change these facts. And for people like you to continue to spew falsehoods in an effort to get ANet to make Eles totally free kills is morally and ethically wrong.

Hyo Jin.5630:

rhodoc.2381:

Zero buffs with drastic nerfs. R.I.P ele.

You obviously didn’t read all the way down to the patch. D/D needed a nerf, obviously was way too much OP. That IS a fact. So don’t complain like an idiot. Elementalists still are awesome. It’s a bit more balanced now.

You might want to stop calling people idiots when what ANet did ended up really nerfing every build BUT D/D, and ends up pushing alternative weapon set users towards D/D.

D/D didn’t need a nerf. This is propaganda of the terribad players who get rolled by any player in bunker spec. D/D was a powerful defensive build yes, with terrible damage output. The people who claim D/D was OP were the ones rolling around in full zerker, with no stunbreaks, and no CC (or didn’t know how/when to use it).

ANet bought in to the propaganda, and here we are. D/D Eles were actually pretty easy to counter, in any game mode well before the last couple rounds of nerf patches, by simply getting them to burn their cantrips, a quick stun and some burst. The problem is 95% of the playerbase out there is too thick to figure it out, so whined and cried until ANet nerfed the only fun and interesting class into a free kill again.

So no, D/D being OP is NOT a fact, its simply an opinion popularized by lots of crappy players whining in chorus at the top of their lungs.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Kaleban.9834:

The challenge will be to not switch to Thief in despair.

Thieves’ burst is getting equally nerfed, and their new buffs are intented to change their playstyle or offer them new playstyles. It might be a good patch to thieves who want to experiment a lot more stuff, but backstab muggers are getting nerfed.

Right, because nothing says nerf like being able to steal for 1 Initiative cost an Ele’s 20 stacks of Might benefitting from Arcana’s boon duration increase and boon duration runes that so many Eles are currently geared with.

Or the ability to combine D/P heartseeker in blackpowder stealth combos with even more mobility, allowing them to roam further in combat, and get off more backstabs.

I mean, just look at the language used. Thieves are getting a little of their overall burst reduced, Elementalist will get “slapped” due to their favor in PvP and WvWvW (which follows PvE rules for any that are confused). So Thieves are getting new and interesting options available, while Ele players are being punished big time for ANet’s own balancing incompetence.

Yeah, fills me with so much confidence in the SOTG.

PistolWhip.2697:

My point about bunker is that you can’t say a bunkers damage is subpar compared to other classes because a bunker has sub par damage off the initial step.

Its like saying my bunker guardian does no damage, of course it doesn’t its not meant to. That’s all im addressing, not how viable zerker or dps specs are on ele, just that if you spec for damage you can have it, there’s no physical limitation stopping you.

True, and we agree. However, the vast majority of people arguing for nerfs of Eles ignore the above simple facts. Their contention, especially in PvP, is that Eles built for bunker are also insta-gibbing people all over the map. If you point out this inconsistency, they throw tantrums until you give up. And it seems ANet listens to these children.

As of now, its possible to build a full zerker Ele, usually Staff and gib people from a keep. If you take a step away from high walls or the zerg, you keel over in a stiff breeze. Its also possible to build full bunker Ele, usually D/D or a S/D in some cases, and bunker all day. To actually land a kill however requires either an upleveled WvWvW noob (or several) as the target(s) or extremely coordinated play on behalf of a skilled player.

My problem with all the cries for OP Ele nerfing is that the majority argue the idea that full bunker eles are somehow also doing zerker damage. What it really boils down to is these children got beat by a bunker D/D Ele because they’re terrible players, and rather than improve, they’d rather ANet bring the Ele’s abilities so low that even in the hands of a player like daphoenix, the Ele can’t help but be a free kill.

CobaltSixty.1542:

Kaleban.9834:

CobaltSixty.1542:

Kaleban.9834:

Firegoth.6427:

Moot points OP.
D/D had it coming, it was a matter of time, and everyone knew it.

Live with it and move on.

Too bad the majority of nerfs will affect non D/D builds the most, as well as forcing players into more bunkering to counter the loss of mobility. So really, its the opposite effect.

But I guess we should live with that…

Are you from the future?

No.

But I can read.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1d67nf/gw2guru_sotg/

So you’ve seen how every change will intimately effect everything. Teach me your gift.

Reading comprehension is something they teach in school. Difficult to be taught via random person on a game forum. Suffice to say in the reddit notes, every profession but Ele is being buffed, build diversity is talked about in regards to other classes but not Ele, the idea that Staff Eles are “safe” (despite being rubbish), etc.

If you can’t read, or read between the lines, then what can i teach you from behind a keyboard, via READING?

foofad.5162:

Your example doesn’t hold, since you listed ACTUAL class mechanics, and Guardian’s ACTUAL class mechanic is Virtues.

It was to illustrate a point, arguing semantics is pointless. Yes Virtues are the Guardian’s class mechanic, but the Guardian is a boon heavy playstyle no matter which build you play.

You could pick any example for what a class depends heavily on, for example, a 10% slower attack speed per Signet equipped, hurts both Warriors and Thieves. Or a 15% reduction in total health per pet out, affects Eles with Elementals, Rangers all the time, and Minion heavy necros.

Bottom line is, introducing a mechanic that very obviously targets specific builds or classes but not others is bad design. Especially when the rumors of a 2 man balance team that mains Warrior and Thief float around, then you get a patch that adds boonhate to those two professions to take out their natural “counter” classes (Ele counters War, Guardian counters Thief).

CobaltSixty.1542:

Kaleban.9834:

Firegoth.6427:

Moot points OP.
D/D had it coming, it was a matter of time, and everyone knew it.

Live with it and move on.

Too bad the majority of nerfs will affect non D/D builds the most, as well as forcing players into more bunkering to counter the loss of mobility. So really, its the opposite effect.

But I guess we should live with that…

Are you from the future?

No.

But I can read.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1d67nf/gw2guru_sotg/

What if all classes did more damage to Warriors depending on their Adrenaline level?

Or CC effects lasted longer on Thieves the less Initiative they had?

Or Mesmers sent to Downed State with more than two Shatters on CD are instantly defeated?

Basically, its not right to introduce a mechanic that specifically targets other class’s core mechanics. Countering boons and conditions is one thing (and there may need to be a DR for power builds so that Necros built for conditions can be competitive) and something every profession should have access to in a limited fashion.

But boons are designed to enhance defense, not become a liability. Boon hate is a hastily designed idea, and is the wrong method to go about countering bunkering Guardians and Eles in PvP. Really, the best way to counter bunkers in PvP would have been from the outset to have PvP objectives be random.

Having one map be point defense, another capture the flag, still another last man standing, etc. would go a long way to altering build priorities in PvP. With only one design as of now, inevitably the best build for the situation would be found and used by everyone.

Curo.2483:

And your point? Please don’t tell me this is going to turn into an argument that everything in the game should be cheap. I’ve always been on the poorer spectrum in RPG’s, and I disagree with that.

The person I quoted made the claim that legendaries would be more achievable than SAB skins. That’s not going to happen for a very long time.

Perhaps the point is that if the skins from the initial release of SAB will never be available again, that eventually the tradeable versions will all have been used, and with no means to acquire them after the next 48 hours that they will quickly become the rarest skins in the game?

Technically speaking then, within 48 hours or so SAB skins will instantly become more rare than Legendaries precisely because they will arbitrarily become unobtainable.

Which is stupid. Why would ANet intentionally introduce skin rarity in the game? People get the SAB skins because they like them, not because of a power thing. Why should noobies a year from now be excluded from ever obtaining them? So that older players can stroke their kittens?

Really, SAB is a cute mini game, with a means to accrue a few interesting and funny weapon skins. There is no logical reason to ever remove it from the game, as its not part of any lore issue.

Plus, with ANet’s stated intent of “anti-grind” (which they fail miserably at, but still) introducing cool new skins, a very grindy way of acquiring them, and then a limited time in which to do so is just a trifecta of poor decision making.

Firegoth.6427:

Moot points OP.
D/D had it coming, it was a matter of time, and everyone knew it.

Live with it and move on.

Too bad the majority of nerfs will affect non D/D builds the most, as well as forcing players into more bunkering to counter the loss of mobility. So really, its the opposite effect.

But I guess we should live with that…

cero.1209:

I am actually some what excited. Time for some new build to come out, im pretty excited to see what the community will come up with to work around the new changes.

And to Anet all i have to say is: look in attachments

Dude there’s tons of builds out there that you can use, no need for a challenge!

Unfortunately, they’re all massively sub-par compared to cookie cutter D/D spec, and as far as anyone knows the patch isn’t buffing any other weapon or any utility to compete. In fact, the known intended nerfs actually hurt non D/D builds more than D/D itself, again counter to Anet’s stated intent.

The challenge will be to not switch to Thief in despair.

This isn’t a rant post. Just a impression, devs and other players can ignore or not.

I like GW2. I enjoyed GW1 as well. I primarily play casters in most RPGs because, well that’s something that I could never do in real life. I could learn fencing, or how to be sneaky, or shoot a bow, but throwing fireballs or raising the dead or melting minds no. Flashy F/X don’t hurt either!

That being said, I’m trying real hard to stay interested in GW2. I’m sure some are aware, I main an Ele and its my “pet” class. I liked the adaptability and mobility the class offered.

Apparently, that is not Anet’s vision of the class. And with all the nerfs that have come down the pipe since beta, I’m finding it real hard to stay interested in the class, not to mention the game. My earth shattering kaboom slinger is now a level 1 pantywaist mage who tickles enemies while repairing road signs with a sledge from hammerspace.

I like the art. I like a lot of the VO. Who doesn’t like Tybalt? But that starts to lose its luster when your class of choice is neutered over and over. I’m sure many Engineers, Necromancers and Rangers feel the same.

This game is not just about PvP, in fact I’d feel safe assuming the majority of players play PvE or WvWvW (which follows PvE rules). I’ve played several MMOs, including GW1 (mained a Sin and Mes there), but the direction that GW2 is taking reminds me all too clearly of the direction SWTOR took, and its inevitable failure to compete.

GW2 is making money, both on sales and gem store. If the rumors of a 2 person balance team are true, have the CEOs take a 1% pay cut and hire some more testers. Or setup a pre-patch test server and give select players access, I’m sure many players would do ANet’s patch testing for free if given the chance.

My gut feeling is that if things continue as they are, with no clear direction or concept of class role or even basic design, the players will start to abandon the game in droves for more polished games that offer a concrete foundation. Its not necessarily about the holy trinity, but as an example, several have asked of the Ele nerfs, “what role should a light armor, melee PBAoE class offer if the only defenses it has that allow it to perform said role are nerfed into non-existence?” Its as if ANet has no real idea what they want, and are just tossing darts at the wall filled with nerf post its.

Again, please don’t take this as a complaint post. I really do like the game overall, however the current direction leaves my enthusiasm lacking, and I’m finding it difficult to want to invest the time when the game seems to be taking a direction I personally find apalling.

haviz.1340:

I do and I can guarantee that berserker is more than viable. For pvp I run zerk+valk because average gamer is much better than in zvz.

If you’re using berserker, then newsflash, you’re not building bunker. Tough concept, but there it is.

PistolWhip.2697:

No ones arguing for Bunker build damage…do you even read? How can any of you say when you build an ele for damage, it doesn’t do any? On a purely statistical platform, any class traiting+building for damage will do it.

Go to Spvp, put on a berserker amulet, put together a creative build based around burst. Use it on a target dummy, and notice how all the numbers are the same as any other class going glass.

Perhaps because anyone who builds a bunker Ele for point camping or WvWvW roaming is obviously not building for damage, but survivability and sustain?

An Ele who wants to survive builds to survive, nearly all D/D bunkers start out on PVT and eventually move to Knight’s as they get more comfortable with the lower health pool and access to healing. A D/D Ele built with Berserker’s is about as effective in PvP and WvWvW as a houseplant.

The arguments on these forums from pro-nerfers is always that Eles are capable of doing massive damage and bunker like no one else. What they fail to note in their rants is that it is not an AND operation, but an OR. An Ele can build for DPS or survivability, but not both.

And anyone who says otherwise is just propagating lies and fiction. I guarantee that any top tier PvP or WvWvW Ele player is not running full zerk while in D/D, anyone who says otherwise just wants free Ele kills.

lordkrall.7241:

So, because people jump on the bandwagon and buy gear for the Flavor of the Month build ArenaNet should not balance the game?

A rather high number of people most likely think before jumping on the whole “OMG THAT BUILD IS THE BEST I MUST USE IT!!!” thingy, and therefore don’t spend a huge amount of money on a overpowered build, since it is quite logical to assume that said build will be changed sooner or later.

While it may be logical to assume changes, it is not logical to assume that the entire playstyle of a class will be altered several months after release.

Some of the changes, and specifically the heavy handed nerfs to Eles are akin to changing the way chess pieces are allowed to move mid game. The Knight no longer moves in an L shape, and the Castle can only move 5 spaces.

Given that top end exotic gear is required to be competitive, that it is quite expensive especially for new players without a thousand hours of playtime, that ANet continues to release new currencies and is establishing a gear treadmill (contrary to everything they’ve said), and all the other shenanigans ANet seems to be pulling, it is not wrong for players to be angry.

ESPECIALLY since ANet’s business model revolves around inevitable cash transactions for gems, which allows gearing through BLTC gold buying, they’re actually ethically wrong to alter classes to the point of unplayability or at least making them much more difficult. The reason being, if a player spends money to gear a character, ANet then makes that character undesirable, forcing said player to roll a new character, and then spend more real money to gear up.

Its a bad precedent both business wise and gameplay wise.

I think its pretty obvious ANet has no idea what they are doing.

Let’s say the problem with the Ele is bunker-heal-escape. We can survive due to boons, heal up and cleanse conditions better than anyone, and can flee combat easily to reset. Of course our damage is pathetic, but even in full Fire/Air spec or perfect attunement dancing we still do less damage than almost any other profession.

But, ANet wants to lessen the effectiveness of bunkering. Well, on the Ele at least they’re destroying it. Putting in boon hate kills almost any Ele build, reducing SoR and cleanse traits is a nice double whammy, and limiting our only non-target-required weapon move skill with a double CD, reduced (fixed) range, and additional conditions that may or may not be satisfied.

Does anyone NOT think this is overkill? And to top it all off, our damage is still crap compared straight up to almost any other build. Why do you think Eles are constantly running Bloodlust, using sharpening stones and power/precision food, and building Might Stacks? Because we HAVE to just to compete at other professions’ baseline effectiveness.

And it gets worse. By nerfing mobility and heal abilities, and adding in a mechanic that adds damage when we try to defend (head explode) ANet basically forces any Ele player into one of only two options:

1. Staff nuker from zerg
2. Even more bunkering to compensate for our much lower survivability

Can anyone explain this to me? The logic behind making such ridiculous decisions? And if someone mentions sPvP their argument is automatically invalid since that’s such a small part of the game. Point camping is not a good yardstick for class balance, as that’s more about positioning and CC skills.

Fishbait.6723:

But that is just spvp.
I`m fine with nerfs/buffs where needed in there, but most of these changes are going global, as in WvWs, dungeons, normal open coughlol world areas.

This nerf isn`t just overkill, it is mass genocide

I’ve noticed most of the people whinging about the Ele being overpowered are also the ones who make no distinction between sPvP (where they are definitely a top tier performer, but probably only slightly OP) and the rest of the game.

Whether ANet listens to these people is besides the point, looking at the upcoming nerfs, it appears they do. ANet instituting global nerfs because of an sPv kitten ue is ludicrous. I’ll probably continue to play an Ele, but I’ll have to start leveling his twin brother, a Thief. I enjoy frenetic, mobile gameplay, which the Ele gave in spades. With the direction ANet seems to be taking however, Eles are going to be nerfed into bottom tier, in all areas of the game.

I’ll never understand why game developers insist on nerfing something fun into oblivion, rather than slowly buff other options up. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the “OP” bunker D/D Ele was simply the yardstick by which other professions/builds were measured? Rather than nerf /D into suckitude, why not buff Staff, Scepter and Focus to the point where they compete? And do that for all professions?

Honestly, with the number of skills GW2 has compared to GW1, you’d think the game would have been balanced right out of the gate. Or do like many other game developers do, and have a segment of the community act as patch beta testers on a separate server, and trial test changes before springing them on the entire gaming populace without a “burn in” phase. It makes changes smaller yet more meaningful, if the devs send over 10 changes on the Ele to the beta server, they test it out exhaustively and come back saying only 2 or 3 are needed, but the full amount would break the class/build viability entirely.

Plus, given the time investment to level to 80, along with gear outfitting to be competitive in WvWvW (definitely a lot more time than leveling to 20 and getting a collector weapon and you can compete ala GW1), not to mention that ANet expects a certain percentage of the gaming population to spend real money at the gem store to outfit characters, changing the rules and in this case, the entire feel and playstyle of a class is simply too much. It’d be like saying forwards in soccer can no longer use anything but their heads to move the ball downfield, mid-game.

Syeria.4812:

Honestly, if an entire build is “ruined” by a conditional cooldown adjustment to Ride the Lightning, that’s proof in and of itself the skill is broken and needs to be adjusted.

I haven’t watched the SotG, but if the OP’s listed changes are all that’s happening to ele, I am ridiculously relieved. The Mist Form change will be painful, but otherwise there’s not much to complain about here. A cooldown added to Cleansing Water? Oh noes, now we can only clear conditions once every 5 seconds, or when we use our heal (with a 15 second cooldown), or when we use our water 5 skill, or when we dodge in water, or when we use Cleansing Fire. It’s not a meaningful change (except perhaps in high level tPvP, where it’s probably pretty desperately needed). The signet heal change can be a big deal to some people, but Ether Renewal isn’t being changed and the difference between the two was mostly preference.

Honestly, I’m pretty excited that this is what Anet considers to be reasonable for bringing D/D ele back down to earth.

D/D build is a dueler. D/D build relies on mobility and escapes just to survive. ANet decides to double the cooldown of the escape, introduce a split CD just to mess with the player (and worry about hitting a rock or part of the landscape), and introduce boon hate (no more yay for perma swiftness) to further reduce survivability and mobility.

Where’s the balance to skills like:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat a 1200 range teleport, combo finisher and summons a condition stacking clone (with a target) on a 10 second cooldown.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_of_Faith a 600 range leap combo finisher with damage and an AoE 3 second blind on a 15 second CD
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade a 600 range 3 second AoE blind teleport on a 10 second CD

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Arrow a 900 range teleport, and 5 second area blind with no CD on a class which can trait for heavy resource renewal

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop a 1100 range leap finisher with AoE damage on a 12 second CD

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirlwind_Attack a 450 range whirl finisher on a 10s CD with evasion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush a 1200 range damage/gap closer on a 20 second CD
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Savage_Leap a 600 range damaging leap combo finisher on an 8 second CD

And you people arguing FOR further Ele nerfs, specifically in the mobility, escape and healing department just conveniently forget that every other profession has these? And that just to survive against the other professions, the Ele needs this kind of functionality? Which means the Ele not only doesn’t excel at mobility, its no longer even mediocre. Its amazing how easy it is for people who’ve been stomped by really good Eles to assume that all Eles are like that. Especially when those same crysacks are are obviously bad players who can’t be bothered to interrupt a 3.5 second channel of CE, or, you know, dodge out of the big warning circle. /facepalm

PistolWhip.2697:

@Kaleban

That is true but, why are all the most meta people playing Elementalist? PvP is a different place altogether. I know hardcore pvp players and they play literally almost everything. They will play what is the best at what time to secure a win, generally that’s the attitude. It just so happened that the Cantrip Ele was superior to every other build in Spvp so most people use it, as displayed by leader boards.

Post patch I’d like to see another analysis of the boards to see the change in class popularity if their is any.

But ask yourself why they played Ele? Was it because the Ele as a class is overpowered, or is it because the bunker build for the Ele is very efficient at holding points, just like any other profession designed to soak or deflect damage and turtle?

As I’ve tried to point out, PvP objectives and gameplay are vastly different to PvE and WvWvW, yet ANet and the whiners are calling for nerfs to the Ele’s overall performance in EVERY area. This is not balance.

PistolWhip.2697:

^Guardian doesn’t dominate the top position in the leader boards as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong. Ele does.

This could also be because more people are playing Ele than Guardian. Statistically the leaderboards could be skewed due to player/profession distribution. Using it as factual proof without citation leads to incorrect assumption and conclusions.

Dog.1472:

TheGuy.3568:

Don’t take the post the wrong way. You may be the best ele out there. Dungeon master and all. Doesn’t change the fact for PvE Guardian and Warrior are your best options.

Edit:

Ele does have a role it excels at and it is general support in a game that doesn’t really need support. So there you have it. /shrug

Not at all. With the Ele, you have the obvious swirling winds which allows the Ele to make certain things trivially easy, you have party condition removal, you have aoe heals, you have fire fields at your disposal to grant many stacks of might across the party increasing DPS, you have the only lightning fields in the game allowing you to stack vulnerability, you have party wide defensive boons such as protection, regen, fury, blindness and swiftness, decent CC, and you have high structure damage. On top of that, the Ele has the ability to give other classes the ability to achieve what they can’t do on their own with conjured weapons (which are not all bad in PvE) especially including the combo finishers associated with some of them.

An Ele is prepared for everything while other classes are not. Eles allow teams to achieve many things that a party of all war and guard simply cannot do. The Ele excels at being able to do everything. It is a unique role that the Ele was intended to fill and it is very useful. No, it isn’t going to be as fast as that party of all Warriors, but your chances of success with an Ele will be better when you are ready for anything.

I think this is getting off topic though. Plain and simple, the whole point from the beginning is that Eles are one of the best at self sustain because of their combined healing and mobility. It isn’t about whether or not Eles can offer as much DPS or group support, it’s that Eles rival the best classes in the roles for what they were nerfed in. A cantrip Ele has so much break stun and condition removal that surviving with one in even the most difficult dungeons is not difficult to do.

Balance for a class should not depend on how many others it requires to reach effectiveness. Then you’re not balancing the class, you’re balancing a party. When you approach balance this way, you can’t help but nerf because the assumption is that an Ele is a force multiplier that will make group content trivial and easy.

Well what happens when the Ele player is soloing? Or roaming? or any number of scenarios where the force multiplication doesn’t come into effect?

This isn’t D&D where a wizard can sit behind a shield wall and decimate the enemies with fireballs. The Ele has to contend with front line mechanics, just like a Warrior with its higher armor, or Guardian with blocks and reflects, Thief with stealth, Ranger with pets, etc. Its survival is based on a linchpin of condition removal, mobility, healing and escapes. When you pull out that pin, the class falls apart. Bottom line is, balance the class, not what it can do when you stick it with four or more other players.

[edit] Wihtout tooting my own horn, I raise a good point. How do you think other professions’ players would react to the following nerfs:

Thieves no longer have access to stealth
Guardians no longer have blocking
Rangers no longer have pets
Necromancers no longer have access to Death Shroud
Warrior damage nerfed 50%
Engineers no longer have the Tool Kit and cooldown on Shield skills doubled
Mesmers no longer have access to clones

These kinds of changes would cripple the other professions immeasurably, yet Ele players, who depend on the linchpin I mentioned above, are told to accept the exact same type of nerfs with good humor, adjust to it, and be satisfied with the new mediocrity. That’s balance?

PistolWhip.2697:

@Kaleban

Boon hate is a bad idea IMO yes, how its implemented that is. Its them trying to find a use for the under powered warrior at this point, which really isn’t helping/

Just stop. Please. Warrior is somewhat underpowered in sPvP. NOWHERE else. These changes will affect everyone in every mode, without consideration for the actual consequences for the majority of the playerbase.

Saying Warrior is UP while Ele is OP (the majority of the crysacks around here) without qualifying that statement as ONLY in sPvP and nowhere else leads to a bunch of parroting voices claiming it as true for everything. Its basically rhetorical propaganda, and makes me think these people have an agenda to make all proffesions other than Warrior into easy kills.

[edit] yes the Ele is somewhat overpowered. That doesn’t mean the class is unbeatable, and the extent of the nerfbat usage is inexcusable. In every game with differentiated professions, each will excel in a certain area. This is natural and a part of the idea of rock-paper-scissors balance, that any class will always have a counter. Eles in D/D spec excelled at not getting killed, and that was it. The counter was a boonstrip from a Necro or Mesmer, or simply doing massive DPS, which several professions could easily do to a cloth wearer, even one coated in boons. And no, there are only a few people “admitting” Ele is SOMEWHAT overpowered, which is not the cause of nerfing. Its the massive amount of whiners. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.

I guess if actual Ele players (not Thieves and Warriors trolling as such) complain enough, we might get some real consideration. But I doubt it, from what I hear no one on the balance teams mains or even plays Ele all that much, and are content with letting possibly the most interesting and flashy class fall to the wayside. Sad.

PistolWhip.2697:

@Kaleban

I hope you don’t mean me, I have a lvl 80 Ele, who also ran D/D for WvW. To be precise, the many concerns raised were in Spvp yes, but also in WvW. That’s 2 game modes not just one.

PvE is fundamentally flawed, for Ele and some of the other classes alike, and that’s why they should split balancing.

No I meant you. sPvP and WvWvW function very differently, mechanically and playstyle-wise. The Ele in sPvP is a very different beast altogether from the WvWvW and PvE counterpart. For you to not acknowledge that says to me you’re just trolling.

I would contend that sPvP is fundamentally flawed, that PvE and WvWvW are the “real” game modes. Perhaps they should split balancing, I won’t weigh in on that issue, my problem with the balance team is balancing the PvE side out of concerns raised in PvP. In fact, Pv kitten o different in gameplay from the other two modes it could be said to be a different game altogether. From the builds people run to objectives and strategies. Capturing and holding points solo or in small teams is extremely different from AoEing down a keep in siege, or taking down a champion and adds in PvE.

I mean, take the AoE cap on player skills. Makes sense when you’re in PvP, where usually you’ll either be around only one or two other teammates, or attacking just a couple of people. Makes NO sense in WvWvW where you could be faced with 50 or more players, or in PvE where sometimes the mobs outnumber the AoE cap by a factor of two or more. And yet ANet calls it balanced, and people argue for it, all the time citing PvP as their yardstick.

The fundamental flaw is the disconnect on the part of players and ANet for not recognizing these obvious differences. I don’t mind the idea of professions playing differently in different modes, but PvE players should not be penalized because of the PvP meta and a very small vocal minority whining about something they haven’t even tried to counter in the first place.

ThiBash.5634:

PistolWhip.2697:

Its 3% per boon, so unless you run more than 5 boons at a time, hard unless you run “save yourselves”, or your teammates are there to provide boons. It wont be that number in most situations.

Just running the Elemental Attunement trait will give said warrior +15% extra damage (it gives near-permanent might, protection, regeneration, swiftness & fury). If I’m unfortunate enough to recieve even more boons from my allies during the fight, it’ll quickly add up to 20%. I’d drop the trait but unfortunately, viable boonless builds are in short supply on staff eles. Just look at the traits and skills and see how many of the provide boons. The warrior would have a tough time finding an ele that doesn’t give him at least +9%.

Boon hate as a mechanic is asinine. The whole point of boons, heck the definition is that they’re beneficial. If boons become a liability, why run them in the first place? Why even put them in the game? Why have different builds, with traits that provide defensive bonuses if running a defensive build means three months down the road that build will get whined on by terribad players who refuse to run the obvious counters and instead convince ANet to nerf it into the ground by the addition of crutch mechanics that pigeonhole the entire playerbase into only two or three preferred classes to the exclusion of all others?

This is simply ANet putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. UNLESS all professions get access to boon hate, then its obvious they have even less of a clear idea how to balance their game then I thought.

Just a hint: sPvP is not the largest demographic of the game.

Defending any profession’s nerfs because of how it affects PvP while ignoring the much larger playerbase in WvWvW and PvE and how said nerfs affect them is simply operating with blinders on.

Why should I roll over and accept ridiculous nerfs to my preferred profession because of a mode I rarely play? People on forums, players in general, and especially ANet balance teams need to stop looking at the Ele in a vacuum. Destroying or at least severely hampering a profession in the entire game because of a slight advantage in one mode makes no logical sense.

But by all means, continue to advocate against a class you don’t like so that your pet class gets better, and ignore the overall health and longevity of the game as a whole. They shouldn’t call these “State of the Game” announcements, they should be called “State of the Whiners” because apparently that’s who runs the balance input.

PistolWhip.2697:

Then what do you propose people who main or play Ele for a substantial amount of time who think they should be nerfed, well the D/D spec in particular are? Just amazingly good players?

Not sure I understand the question, but I’ll attempt an answer. Those people are usually Thief players trolling as Eles trying to make their pet class even stronger.

I’ve played every class. In PvE, WvWvW, sPvP. Admittedly, most of my gametime has been split between PvE and WvWvW. And I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that out of all the 8 professions, I have to do the most work, pay the most attention, and be extra careful on my Elementalist. And I’m fine with that. I like the class concept. However, its painfully obvious that even with 20 weapon skills, it STILL takes an Ele twice as long, sometimes longer to kill targets compared to any other profession, requiring the use of very long weapon CDs and rotation of utility skills. Comparatively, a Warrior, Thief, heck even Necros can usually blitz any PvE mob without a single weapon switch in half the time or less.

So while I’m no expert, I can say the Ele even in the supposed OP D/D bunker setup is not in fact, OP. Bunkers by definition do little damage, build to survive, and IF they win its via attrition. In that case, even daphoenix’s videos show an Ele “working as intended.” But because a few Thieves, Warriors and Mesmers ganging up on Excala are too incompetent to interrupt CE or even approach daphoenix’s play level (none of them for example can figure out his usage of LoS) they instead decide to complain about it, vociferously, and get the class nerfed so they can get their free badges again.

The problem is with definition.

Dynamic implies change or variance. How much change or variance can you get while running the Plinx chain? There’s only so many outcomes, loot/reward is not scaled very well to difficulty, most DEs follow similar quest structures “hidden in the background”, etc.

While I hope it doesn’t end up like it, I see GW2 rapidly approaching collapse under its own hype, just like SWTOR. TOR was supposed to be the Second Coming for MMOs, but failed because it oversold a very limited mechanic, story. There’s only so much change and effect each player can have in an MMO, after which it becomes painfully obvious that your character’s story doesn’t matter in the slightest.

Other MMOs like WoW acknowledge this, and basically sell themselves as GUIs grafted onto a Pavlov’s Dog system of respondent conditioning. Push the button, get the treat as it were.