Guild Wars 2

Axialbloom.8109:

I am talking PvE here:

A lot of your points are valid, so I will only bring up the few points I have contention with. I’m also answering in the same context.

- The 5 second cooldown upon entering an attunement: This is fine for Fire and Air, but it screws Water and Earth. Water is a heal and cleanse, yet you have to wait 5 seconds to use it, which is ridiculous. Earth is a CC, which would be good for break bars, yet having to wait 5 seconds kills your damage. It is also a blast finisher, that you can never time because you need 9 seconds.

At best, I would ask to have it knocked down to 4 seconds, but I guess I don’t have the same experience or opinion, at least, with staff and in PvE and here is why.

Typically, in PvE, you aren’t doing blasts on water field, but rather fire fields for might and fury. Also, the only reason to swap into water for PvE is to heal. Usually, when you do this in staff, you end up stacking both of your water fields to restore health, because you aren’t blasting them. And both of these are on 20 and 45 second base cooldowns, so the 20 second lock out on water isn’t that much of an issue. Usually, in PvE, I swap into water, cast my heals, then overload without much of a notice in tempo. Now, in PvP, water overload is a huge issue, but that’s a seperate discussion.

Yeah, the blast finisher on Earth is pretty awful, but the Earth overload is far from useless in PvE. Usually, I am overloading it on my way into a fight to stack protection, then laying down my blast finisher or a glyph of storms for blind and then swapping into fire to stack AoEs. The 4 second duration of the Earth storm provides just enough protection uptime to swap into fire and stack lava font and meteor storm before fire overloading.

- The 20 second cooldown after attunement: 20 second cooldown on interrupt means you are screwed. 20 second cooldown means many Arcane and Water traits become rubbish.

Arcane has a lack of synergy with Tempest and it’s pretty obvious it’s intended to be that way and they aren’t supposed to be in the same build. Whether or not this is bad design is subjective.

From a staff perspective, I think the 20 second cooldown is a bigger deal in PvP and less so in PvE, because it mostly amounts to a longer, slower rotation thru the attunements. If you are swapping elements with the intention of overloading each one, the cooldown cycles mean you will always have an element to go into.

As I mentioned before, the 20 second cooldown is less of an issue in staff, because most of your big abilities have cooldowns that exceed that cooldown.

Now, if you are playing D/D with shorter cooldowns and a faster playstyle, yeah these are valid cons, but just because a certain sets of traits doesn’t work well with a particular weapon’s playstyle doesn’t mean its broken as a whole.

- Non-instant Shouts: They interrupt Overloading. Rebound also fails to save you due to this.

I am hoping this is a bug

- Melee Overloads: Using Overloads get you smashed, and a lot of this is condition damage, which goes through your Protection.

My experience in PvE with overloads hasn’t been getting smashed and I think, at best, this is hpyerbolic. I will say that it requires more thinking and more situational awareness, but that’s the nature of the new open world content.

The rest of your points are room for improvement, though.

DanteZero.9736:

Ah ha, the link provided show me bolt to the heart, not fresh air, I’ll try the using fresh air in this case.

Don’t use that with staff. Nothing in air on staff does any reasonable damage; you’ll just be waiting 5 seconds to do any damage everytime the cd resets.

Sorry you find this underwhelming; it’s difficult for me to comment as to why without knowing how you play. All I can say is my experience hasn’t been the same. The stacking AoE damage in fire has been pretty powerful for me.

Yeah, I wrote up a short guide at the bottom of this thread here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Casual-PvE-Air-Earth-Tempest/first#post5693384

Iohanna.4863:

MadRabbit.3179:

It didn’t turn out that bad. The bunker spec for pvp is actually stronger than the whole spec. The staff spec I am running for PvE does more damage than the old meta and it’s an interesting way to play.

But for PvP, it’s still a bunker and nothing new.

And a whole lot of other stuff is a lot stronger.

You had a go at Bunker Tempest right? It was more of an upgrade than an alternative to the traditional Bunker Ele yeah?

Yes, I found a tempest staff auramancer build to be a stronger bunker than the old staff bunker with better group support.

But it did take a hit when they got rid of ministrel. Going back to celestial was more of a downgrade.

It’s mostly due to the auras though and less due to the overloads. You have a number of ways to provide auras to yourself and the group via traits and shouts. The auras provide a lot of protection uptime and the percentage increase from tempest traits along with stoneheart amount to a lot of mitigation. That and they heal and grant regen and vigor. You can spec into cleansing water for a lot of condi clear.

Rebound is mostly useless; I ended up going back to gylph of elementals for the earth/water elemental. You can’t really run the heal shout; the current meta is really heavy with conditions, forcing you back to ether renewal. Like, seriously, the build below maxes out on condition clear as much as possible and still wasn’t enough in the matches I fought in.

I think this is what I ended up with. Earthen proxy is now part of the minor; the major replacement grants regen and vigor from auras.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWnMMAVYiNYCWOA0RgFRAzNtGXzrEdgFQFYIAMASgA-TJxHwAGeAA62fAwFAoYZAA

There is actually a lot of potential alternative trait choices. This is geared towards heavy mitigation, a lot of condi clear and a lot of dodges.

Mist form ends up being pretty crucial for securing stomps and rezs. It also adds some interesting utility with overload. If you pop it before the overload, it ensures, at least, 3 seconds of the overload at the expense of canceling the overload when it expires, preventing the payload.

There is some noticeable downsides to this compared to the old build. Mostly, the lack of Armor of Earth and trading out Earth’s Embrace for Elemental Shielding means you will be getting decapped noticebly more, but stuff like Rock Solid and Gale Song help with that.

Rune of radiance also ends up being a very interesting choice.

It didn’t turn out that bad. The bunker spec for pvp is actually stronger than the whole spec. The staff spec I am running for PvE does more damage than the old meta and it’s an interesting way to play.

But for PvP, it’s still a bunker and nothing new.

And a whole lot of other stuff is a lot stronger.

To be honest, my bunker abilities are way stronger with a tempest/earth/water bunker, then the old arcane/earth/water bunker.

The problem at the moment is a few things.

One, if you are queuing solo as a bunker and the rest of your team sucks, it’s going to be a very painful game.

Two, even though tempest bunker is stronger than old bunker, everything else is like way way stronger. I mean, dragonhunters, revenants, reapers, dodgeroll thieves are all pretty insane. Also, the general amount of conditions being thrown around in the current meta seems to be a lot higher than it was.

Three, if you are queuing solo casually, you are probably going to get eaten alive by all the pre-built teams who don’t have a ranked season to play in.

Koviko.3248:

Staff & Scepter are slow at tagging, so dagger is our best way to tag. However, being in melee puts us at risk.

Staff with an instant AoE on a potential 4 second cooldown is slow at tagging?

Anyways, I wrote a long post in the Casual PVE Build thread on fighting in the new content.

I don’t want to get into the base hp debate, but being what it is, you are going to be swapping your utility slots around a lot based on what type of mobs you are facing.

I just haven’t actually seen a reason to run this heavy of a bunker build in the new content, because the increase in protection from tempest and the dmg output from the overloads is more than enough to kill stuff really fast before it kills you.

Here is what I run…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAGnMIC9XiNNA0RgFBAzt1ObztBBgCwBQYDECSBA-TxRGABA8gAGS5Xgq/Ay+DkpjwgLIgUKBBA-e

The third slot is empty for a reason. You gotta swap it out based on what you are fighting. Like those annoying archers who evade on ranged attacks require the reflect shout. Charge based mobs need lighting flash.

The trick is to be patient, wait on your cooldowns and engage groups of mobs based on what cooldowns you have available. You also really need to have some soldier’s gear in the mix. I go with all soldier’s armor and berserker’s everything else.

The ideal scenario is to already be in fire with overload up and your fire shout on cd. You engage the group or mob, drop the lava font as you get them to stack, pop your shout for fire aura and fury, fire overload and then arcane brilliance the fire field at the end.

I’ve easily decimated 2-3 veterans at once with this combo without taking much damage, because the protection from the overload provides such heavy mitigation.

Alternative combos are start in earth, overload into the group to stack protection, gylph of storms for the blind, switch to fire, lava font, situational arcane brilliance if you health requires it, meteor shower, lava font if anything is still alive.

You can also swap into fire, lava font, meteor shower and then overload when meteor shower is done, but this is a far more risky combination, because you will be taking a lot of damaage while channeling meteor shower.

Starting in air with overload off CD works too, because it does a lot of damage, but keep in mind, you will most likely have to swap to fire to finish them off and your protection will be gone at this point. Fire is ideal, because you can stack your AoEs and overload before the mobs really start to damage so it’s mitigated by your protection.

Charge mobs are a bit tricky, because they don’t stand still to execute the combo, so you mostly have to slowly kite them.

Champions and legendaries usually require staying at range and waiting to execute your overload in between their powerful attacks. You don’t HAVE to risk this; it’s a group fight and the fire and air spec alone give you enough ranged dps to contribute.

Gylph of elementals is for when you have to fight at ranged. Having Earth to tank something is great.

The biggest problem I have had so far is killing myself due to a lack of situational awareness or not fully understanding the AI and abilities of the mob I was engaging.

Thanks for that tip. Just tried it and you are right if you mistform first and then pop overload. That’s really useful.

However, when mist form wears off, it seems to cancel the overload, so you don’t get the payload.

I haven’t actually tested the viability of this yet, because too busy with legendary to do a WvW run with guild. This is just a theory at the moment I am throwing out there for discussion.

The build editor hasn’t been updated yet with tempest changes, so you have to pretend that Earthen proxy actually gives regen and vigor on auras.

The idea behind this is to mix the long range support of staff with the close range support of tempest and to party this build with 4 other frontline builds to give them buff priority.

Some of the ideas behind it…
- Immediately before the melee train engages, you can pop Shock and Aftershock and Eye of the Storm to grant your frontliners superspeed to close the distance and projectile reflect, fury, swiftness, regen and vigor before going into combat.
- While the melee train is engaging, you have all normal staff abilities to support from long range.
- When the melee train disengages, in addition to your water fields, you have potentially, wash the pain away, water overload and magnetic aura (also a second source of shared projectile refelct) for additional sustain.
- If the zerg is engaged as a whole and you come under fire, you have Tempest Defense and Soothing Ice that when proced, will spread auras to other members of the zerg and grant healing, regen, vigor, swiftness and fury.
- Overloads can be potentially used in the instances of close quarters combat or as a buffing method before engage. Earth overload, in particular, might have potential if you get hit by a melee train.
- Mist form is kept so you have, at least, one “Oh kitten” button
- I can’t justify taking rebound, so FGS is in there to add missing mobility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCNYiFYCWOA8RglHAzdyeZ/sEDhXQLQIAcAeAA-T1RGABA8gAGS5Xgq/Ay+DkpjwgLIgUKBJFQEjBA-w

The armor, sigil and rune choices are kind of up in the air at the moment. I am going to go with my current setup at the moment to try to balance the build with more damage to be more than just a support build.

Thoughts? Good? Bad? Completely insane? Utterly pointless? “Wtf why would you run this?”

This isn’t meant to be a replacement to the existing staff backline builds, but an interesting supplement.

ReaperJr.5967:

Wait.. you tested this in hot join? No offense but that is no way in hell a reliable indication of a builds ability.

As someone who plays staff bunker religiously, the tempest staff bunker version is solid on paper and I am looking forward to trying it out. There is a version of it on metabattle for D/D in test atm.

Your beefs with tempest are valid. It doesn’t add anything new to our class. It’s just a different way to bunker with roughly the same potential as the old bunker builds.

Yes, other elite specs are stronger. Yes, we got screwed with tempest. I’ve been very critical of tempest during beta. But don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Iohanna.4863:

Build Editor hasn’t been updated yet for Invigorating Torrents, but here is the Immortal Tempest build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAzdv+XPsErgUwIY4BEAugA-TJRJwAAeAA02fg7FA4XZAA

The key thing about Staff Bunker Eles is that Earth gives near perma-weakness (it’s not permanent if they dodge) via auto-attack vs 1 enemy, on top of crit-immunity (which completely negates any Precision and Ferocity your opponent may have invested in). That perma-weakness is what lets you completely repel any single enemy, regardless of their skill level or build. I mean come on, you’re already immune to crits and (practically immune to) conditions – how does a single player stand any chance of forcing you off if they also have to deal with weakness? And they also have to worry about their own health – you still do pretty good damage even though you’re a bunker.

The key thing about Tempest that enhances Staff Bunker Ele is that Shouts are better than Cantrips: more heals, protection, cleansing, and Magnetic Aura while you’re camping Earth. And having Overload Earth without sacrificing any utility slots is very nice. And having protection reduce damage by 40% instead of 33% is also nice.

Pre-HoT Staff Bunker Eles needed to switch into Water and Fire regularly for additional heals, evades, and AOE pressure; Earth + Cantrips did not give you everything you needed.

I theorized during beta this staff bunker tempest build might be viable, but I think you are up-selling it a little bit too much.

It’s not a direct upgrade to bunker; it’s a trade off.

An arcane based bunker that depends on a constant attunement rotation gives you full access to all your staff abilities, giving you more CC for peels, more damage pressure from fire and more combo fields for team coordinated blasts.

You trade off the availability of that utility for more survivability and probably more healing potential from shouts when you play a tempest bunker based off staying in one spec and less overall attunement swapping. I also think you are going to have a harder time in a 2 vs 1 against both a zerker and a condi build than the traditional staff bunker does, because those fights take some careful management of being in water and earth at the right times and you also don’t run ether renewal.

And this ultimately is why tempest is such a huge disappointment.

We have a long history of being a bunker and only a bunker in PvP and now in HoT, we have a new elite specialization that allows us to continue to be a bunker with roughly the same power, but in a different way.

In all seriousness, don’t worry about it. I would focus on acquiring ascended armor and trinkets and a legendary weapon of your choice.

Given enough time, you’ll eventually get an ascended weapons chest from somewhere and can alter the stats in the mystic forge to your liking.

The money and time investment to level artificer or weaponsmith to make ascended weapons and then the money and time to acquire the materials is better spent on working on a legendary weapon.

The AR from armor and trinkets is enough for like the 30s.

cillard.3986:

I can’t speak of PvE directly at all, so perhaps in that aspect it is hyperbolic ….. however, from a WvW and lesser extent sPvP point of view, your comments aren’t valid. Burst and timing of that burst is everything when you are fighting players.

They are absolutely not valid, because I don’t run fire in neither WvW or SPvP, because to be honest, it’s not my job to burst and if you are playing staff to burst, you already got a small dog in that fight. There is a long line of builds and classes that could do burst better than staff.

When I run in WvW, I am usually running Air, because it’s provides better overall damage increase when I am swapping attunements constantly. My job and the job of the other staff elementalists is to coordinate with the zerg on water, static, ice and wall fields and to supplement the dps with meteor shower. Even if I ran Fire, the idea of popping all of my cantrips for stacks of might and lose their utility if I accidentally fell out of position is insane to me. The combined might of a fair sized zerg’s AoE pressure is more than enough that I don’t need to trade all my defensive utility for 9 might stacks.

In sPvP, honestly, burst staff was a joke before the trait change and to play anything else as staff besides a bunker support was paying your team a huge disservice. You have no realistic damage output except during point control when people have to make a hard choice between moving off point or staying in your AoEs. There is so many other builds that can do better in fights out in the open where enemeies can just dodge out of your AoEs.

I am guessing this is from a PvE standpoint. I only play staff elementalist and I’ve noticed almost no difference in my damage output after the trait change and here’s why.

- With Sigils of Strength and Runes of Strength plus might on hit trait, it’s pretty easy to build up 20ish stacks of might without the cantrips.

- Cycling your attunements is important, but it’s situationally important and those situations aren’t constant, lending to more than enough time to spend in fire. In fact, before the nerf, you were spending 50% of your time in fire in PvE, because the pressure and difficulty in PvE just isn’t there like it is in PvP and doesn’t require constant attunement dancing.

- The Burning Precision trait is strong enough even without condi damage to compensate for the damage loss. Realistically, might on cantrip was a small, constant damage increase, because it puts you at a huge disadvantage to pop all your cantrips to build up a burst. Burning on critical provides that same small, constant damage increase.

- There isn’t much reason to take Cleansing Fire over Burning Precision, because the trait wasn’t all that useful in PvE besides the might on cantrips. It’s not very common to get 3 condis on you at once to trigger the cantrip in PvE, particularly with how much condi cleanse you have available.

So considering all of these, the nerf has had zero impact on my PvE gameplay. Like it’s not even noticeable. Considering this to be a major nerf to staff is hyperbolic at best. I just swapped out Cleansing Fire for Burning Precision and it’s business as usual.

Jski.6180:

Nado has the worst of the stab for transformation your way better off getting 3 stacks every 3 sec then getting 1 stack ever 1 sec. That why its one of the worst in the game. On-top of having a long cd so overloads are nothing like transformation they are channles like meto or chrun or many other effects ele has (all though your able to move during them much like overload).

AoE is better for reactive use and the overloads them self (with stun brake) are also best reactive then passive other then earth overload who has 3 stack of stab build in. If your not getting an overload off its more the player of the tempest fault then the other side.

So yes its a fair thing and nothing new for the ele class they have many effects that have long cast times and long cd so a lot of risk for interruption before overloads.
Now something that may be an though is adding in interruption cd for when your effect at the start of overload is stopped but once the effect of the overloads cast start it should go into full cd if stopped.

And all of this was total bullkitten.

Jski.6180:

You can still use your utility you just cant dodges. Tornado you can dodges but you cant use your utility. Its a give and take for effects. All the overloads at they stand in the last beta have a good use both on use during and finnish.

I won’t pick on you so much if you won’t leave out like half of the factual information in an attempt to make your supporting argument seem stronger than it is.

It’s far from a give and take. Tornado grants stability on pulse, largely negating the need to use utility cantrips like Armor of Earth, only a couple of abilities in the game can completely cancel out the transformation, negating it entirely where as any CC effect can shut down the channel and using Tornado puts one elite on a long cooldown where as using an overload puts an entire attunement on long cooldown.

Getting your water overload completely shut down with a single knockback and getting locked out of your sustain for 20 seconds is a potentially unrecoverable, game-ending situation where as bailing early on Tornado is not.

It’s a mechanic that inherits all the drawbacks from Tornado/Lich/Rampage transformation mechanics, but with harsher consequences for using it in the first place, no stability per second or defensive bonuses which is what makes the transformation mechanics viable and sub par rewards for using it.

Jski.6180:

So are you saying overloads do nothing when your channeling them? They do and some of them mostly air and fire are stronger then “spamming 1 like a dummy.” Water overload heals for a lot and removes a lot of conditions earth overload is a good soft cc tool AND a good stab. That an your getting protection and other effects when overloading.

No, that’s not what he is saying at all and it’s not even the point.

Of course, overloads do something while channeling. Tornado does stuff while transformed.

The problem is while you are “doing something” you don’t have access to your defensive abilities and the animation both from overload and tornado makes you a huge target which any experienced PvPer is going to immediately target.

This is why no one runs Tornado except in very specific situations, because even with stability and the ability to exit the transformation, you get focused so hard that you are forced to bail to go defensive and heal and that negates the value of using the ability in the first place.

I can count the number of times I have ridden out a Tornado transformation in PvP to it’s expiration without having to bail on one hand.

The rewards from these kind of mechanics have to pretty much straight out one shot somebody like Rampage does to justify using it. I didn’t play during BW3, but based on the feedback, overloads still aren’t there yet.

I think there is other stuff in the expansion besides Tempest.

0.o

Taldren.7523:

Legiion.7385:

Ok…. u dont know how easy u can counter a Burn Guard.
The torch is just buggy and u can evade so easy.
The only skill u cant evade easy is the teleport.
If anet nerf burn guard, is the build death.
If u know how to clean, u can kill him so easy.
He can only use 1 condi.

Ok, I guess you don’t play ele because the Elementalist plays EXACTLY the same. One a single condition, easy to evade, easy to cleanse, and the guardian build isn’t any more important to the game as the guard one is/was.

Yep, one single condition on D/D…as long as you don’t count, bleeds, vulnerability, chill, cripple, weakness and immobilize.

Functionally, after nerfs, D/D goes back to being the same bunker it was in July with better damage or if you go into Earth, a much tougher bunker with ok damage.

Burst burn guardian isn’t the same build as bunker guardian. It’s not a bunker; it’s not intended to be and it doesn’t bring much else to the table besides burns and condi cleanse. If you nerf the burns on a burn guardian, that build dies and everyone goes back to playing bunker guardians or medi guardians, because it doesn’t have anything else to prop it up besides it’s burn burst.

So I don’t get why just, because a ganker build has good burn damage, it somehow makes it okay for a bunker to have the sustain to beat the damage in a 2vs1 with cooldown rotation while still having the dps potential to kill one of them before they can out rotate you.

I think there is plenty of legitimate reasons to be mad about the patch if you want to be mad. This in’t one of them.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Overloads are weak and greatly lengthen attunement cooldowns, punishing you heavily for using it with little reward.

Shouts have underwhelming effects.

The warhorn has underwhelming effects.

The tempest offers no new role (still group support), while almost every other elite spec does.

The tempest lacks good personal stability and bulkiness, making it unfit for the proposed front-line role.

So yeah, the tempest feels poorly designed and not unique at all.

Also, to answer your second question, my guess is that celestial gear would work the best in PvP/WvW roaming, while berserker would be best in classic PvE (not sure about HoT PvE though).

This and the new trait lines just doesn’t have solid synergy with other trait lines.

You need like traits from Tempest and like 3 other trait lines to make a decent build.

Dmg output on skill 4 is roughly on par with gylph of storms.

If you were using bow, signet and storms before, no reason to stop unless you want a blast finisher which is a pretty justifiable reason.

O.o

Lol.

(Some extra arbitrary characters so I can post this)

O.o

You can run support in PvE. Staff support is best, but you could be D/D support, too. Nothing stopping you besides a self-imposed restriction to play the “meta” all the time.

Just not any reason to do that outside of high level fractals and maybe if you are skipping sections in TA.

Laraley.7695:

If they want to normalize Ether Renewal then it needs to be a minor, period.

And making bold opinionated statements without supporting arguments is lame. Period.

ele has just boons and some invulnerability on long cooldowns.

0.o

It’s not even about nerfing d/d ele, but rather securing it will stay the only viable build.

It’s still not and wasn’t before the patch?

Using ER is a bad idea, gl with that.

0.0

Xillllix.3485:

MadRabbit.3179:

Actually, forget all of that. If I use Ether Renewal every 14.5 seconds combined with a crit within that window, it will give me 12 seconds of vigor. Without factoring in the overlap of cooldowns, that gives me…

2.5 SECONDS EVERY 14.5 SECONDS WITHOUT VIGOR IF I DONT USE ANY OTHER CANTRIPS OR GET A CANTRIP PROC OFF EARTH OR FIRE?

ANET, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? I AM QUITTING THE GD GAME!

Most people would rather have the 10% damage modifier, just saying: in practice the nerfs affects optimized dps staff builds much more than bunker d/d builds. This is why this balance patch for ele is soooo bad.

Serious time now, what area of the game do you feel the optimized dps staff builds are being hindered the most? Like sPvP, WvW zerg, WvW roaming?

CDUB.1645:

If this is the case, Guardian might stacks should be nerfed….because if they are in the zerg they would be rendered unnecessary due to the amount of guardians, eles, or whomever in zerg that can stack might (buffs).

No?

If I understand the intention of the nerf, it was to reduce the overall strength of solo D/D elementalists. And it did a pretty good job of that, because with so many potential sources of might in group might, the cantrip change is mostly only noticeable solo.

[/quote]

Fire 3 did not require a nerf…..Why was Ele considered OP? The burning…Anet apparently fixed that because they nerf Ele burn instead of global burning?? I believe the burn guardian still all the same…..

Because D/D was a full bunker build with pretty wicked damage potentials due to multiple sources of burn stacks on low cooldown?

And burn guardian brings mostly burn burst and condition cleanse to the table?

I understand everyone else on the forum likes to myopically reference burn guardian when complaining about the burning nerf for elementalists as if they were the same in every way, but they aren’t.

aNet basically took something away from cantrips that is the main utility used by all Eles in WvW and sPvP due to low base stat pool and survivability.

And if you pragmatically look at it, there is multiple scenarios in this game where what they took away isn’t even essential, so it ends up just being complaining because “they took something away”.

Actually, forget all of that. If I use Ether Renewal every 14.5 seconds combined with a crit within that window, it will give me 12 seconds of vigor. Without factoring in the overlap of cooldowns, that gives me…

2.5 SECONDS EVERY 14.5 SECONDS WITHOUT VIGOR IF I DONT USE ANY OTHER CANTRIPS OR GET A CANTRIP PROC OFF EARTH OR FIRE?

ANET, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? I AM QUITTING THE GD GAME!

savacli.8172:

I don’t fully agree with the increase in the ICD for Renewing stamina, but what excuse do we have as Ele’s to have kept the ICD on 5 seconds when everyone else got bumped up to 10 seconds? This trait is absolutely identical to traits found on other classes; there’s nothing Ele-rific about it. As it stands right now Renewing Stamina is just a re-branded trait that Guards and Mesmers share as well.

It’s actually a solid nerf, but people will over-dramatically whine about anything on an Internet forum. 5.5 seconds on a 5 ICD is pretty much perma vigor. That’s without cantrips and elemental contigency.

It would be nice if they swapped it with our minor. That way I can just ignore Arcane Fury if I wanted to and have Arcane Precision and Renewing Stamina. It would go a good way into make condition builds more viable, since having to take Renewing Stamina as a staple overshadows Arcane Precision.

But the fact that it’s a major paired with Arcane Fury makes it tolerable that it’s a major and not a minor. The two traits have a lot of synergy.

Given a steady cantrip rotation, I doubt I will notice much downtime in my vigor buff even at a 10second ICD unless the fight drags on for a long time without a disengage. I will probably go back to using a Sigil of Energy though.

It’s questionable. The problem with using S/F for full bunker is the sustain in water is subpar to D/D and even more subpar to Staff.

But the Earth attunement provides a lot of defensive utility that has a lot of synergy with the Earth trait line.

There is a lot of good arguments here from other people for taking Fire over Air.

The decision to take which one really comes to down to what benefit you are providing your zerg.

Like, I run with a guild and I am in teamspeak calling out static fields and water fields. My purpose is primarily sustain and crowd control, so I just don’t spend enough time in fire to gain any benefit from the pyromancer’s traits, which is why I choose Air.

But if you aren’t doing that and are essentially a nuker, then Fire is better choice, because you are camping Fire enough or even Fire and Air if you trully are a nuker and not providing any sustain.

zapphyre.6548:

one thing i’d like to ask is, from your prespective, how many people run with full ascended gear in WvW?

It’s not neccessary to have it in WvW, but it’s a nice to have. The stat difference and WvW infusions are minor. I run AR infusions in my ascended, because I like to do fractals and the WvW infusion bonuses are so minor, it’s not worth preventing myself from doing high level fractals.

Most people in my guild work towards it, because once you get exotic, there is not much else to do with your money, besides working towards a legendary.

WvW is also one of the few areas in the game that ascended gets full valued, because it’s a pure 80 zone. If you get downleveled, the algorithm reduces the gear down to be on par with exotic pretty much, so it really makes no noticeable difference in low level dungeons and zones.

This is another one of those posts that don’t match my experiences.

If you are talking about D/D and Roaming, yeah, you can’t 1vs3 people anymore…yeah, it sucks.

If you are talking about Staff and Zerging, then, lol?

To think a couple of changes to fire rendered, what was the most important class in a coordinated zerg, EXTREMELY USELESS is pretty out there.

(Edited To Add: Oh, my bad. You were talking about gylphs being extremely useless. But…still. Come on, man.)

If you were running Fire before the patch, then you were probably running Pyromancers. That plus sigil and rune choices and multiple sources of might from the zerg itself rendered the might from cantrips unnecessary and a “nice to have” at best.

Even before the nerfs, you still had Air as an option which would provide a superior bonus to DPS if you were attunement swapping enough to prohibit gaining any real benefits from the fire only traits. That is a common scenario if you are one of the main elementalists on TS in the CC and water rotation.

It’s too early to tell, because don’t know much about how raid mechanics will work.

Problem is the majority of abilities are designed around a 5 man party. This is different than games like WoW where the raids are treated as a single unit and each class brings something to the table that benefits the entire raid. That kind of composition allows for more variance in class representation.

If the concept of a 10 man raid in GW2 amounts to basically 2 5 man parties, then I imagine you will end up with 2 self sustaining groups with very similar compositions and less class representation in the meta. In that case, I think staff elementalist will have a place in a raiding group, not only for their DPS, but because combo fields are currently the best way to provide benefits to a large number of players at once and staff elementalist has the most.

If the concept of a 10 man raid is actually a single unit of 10 people, then I have no idea, because I have no idea how that would function. It would be completely different than anything we have seen before.

This is one of the few times I do feel like the scepter nerfs were just thrown in there as a last minute attempt to soften the blow from icebow and fire nerfs and aren’t a very well thought rework of the weapon.

At least, dragon’s tooth is ground targetable. All things being equal, it’s a step in the right direction.

I might actually start to bother to switch to scepter now pre-fight for might before going back to staff.

The 2vs1’s on the points are what really hit home for me. I can bunker against 2vs1 as an earth staff ele probably slightly more effectively, but with about half the damage output, making me more dependent on support from team mates.

D/D will still be able to do the same, so it’s not the end of the world for them in PvP meta. They just go back to the same bunker they were before the new specs, but only stronger due to being able to spec fully into earth or fire.

It would be nice to see it become a condi weapon as a opposed to a one shot burst gimmick that leverages the mechanics of a couple of skills to make up for all the bad ones.

zapphyre.6548:

Following your explaination i got:

- Exotic Soldier and Berserker Gear both equipped with “Rune of the Strenght (x6)”
- Berserker Trinkets
- Molten Staff with Sigil of accuracy (7% critical chance) and Sigil of force (5% damage)

Now i’m working to get the Ascended Berserker trinkets, i’ve read a guide on the wiki so i won’t bother
you on this ^^

I began doing some fractals to get “Ring of the red dead” but without agony resistance it’s a bit tough.

Thanks Again for the time.

Yeah, I run runes of strength. If you are going to spend the money on those, you really need a sigil of strength as well to leverage your high crit chance to stack might.

All of that is really expensive though. Some of the other elementalists I know who run the same build prefer Superior Runes of the Pack, because they are cheaper.

I won’t go with a flat stat increase on your sigils.

Superior Sigil of Energy is a good choice for the extra dodge. I don’t really feel I need it, so I run a Superior Sigil of Fire as a complement to Superior Sigil of Strength.

Superior Sigil of Air is another good choice. Your crit chance is high enough with this build that both Fire and Air will increase your damage significantly.

Senario.2038:

Thing is it isn’t PvP and PvE solely. You also have World v World in this game. Balancing around arguably a smaller group that has very little esports viability due to the nature of the game is very nonsensical.

I don’t play dagger dagger ele because it is the best thing ever, I play it because I find staff and scepter boring. I don’t even bother with PvP as I find the World v World gamemode just straight up more fun than a generic 5v5 computer game that isn’t even in a genre that is good for esports. World v World is the content I felt was most unique of the MMOs I have played so I enjoy it a lot.

Balancing around PvP when there are two other gamemodes makes no sense to me as some things aren’t even a problem in the other two gamemodes. One of which is fairly competitive.

Same issue. Same tug of war.

It’s totally sensical for them to balance around PvP. WvW has zero esports presence at all where as PvP has professional tournaments which amounts to $$$ in advertising and marketing. I actually watch and enjoy them; you learn a lot about the mechanics of the game.

I don’t know of any statistical data that shows which game element is more popular, but given how much balancing does occur around PvP and how many posts I see with concerns about PvP balancing, I would put money on PvP being the most popular.

Senario.2038:

Thing is I would still question the validity of balancing solely around PvP. A gamemode that not a lot of ppl bother with and is highly likely to be overshadowed by PvE and WvW in this MMO. Cele dagger dagger ele wasn’t a problem in PvE or WvW. Only in PvP so instead of finding a way to hit only PvP they hit all gamemodes.

That’s just a reality of playing any multiplayer RPG that has both PvP and PvE AND allows for a large realm of freedom for players to create builds.

The mechanics between the two are so different that balance inevitably becomes a tug of war and it’s really not the developers fault. Every multiplayer RPG that I have played with this kind of setup suffers from the same issue.

If players are going to rage when this happens, I strongly recommend they go play World of Warcraft and I don’t mean that as an insult. They had the same issue and finally got tired of investing so much time and money into game balancing due to people min/maxing the build choices that they pigeonholed people into one of three pre-created builds and restricted player choice down to like 6 talent choices and 3 gylph choices. And EVEN THEN, it didn’t solve the problem completely, leading them to introduce two separate talent lines, one for PvP and one for PvE, in the upcoming expansion.

However, when they did all that, it made the game boring for me, because I like choice in my character builds, leading me to come to Guild Wars 2. But with that, I accept the fact that a build I create and like isn’t going to be viable in both PvP and PvE and might get wrecked in the next game update; it’s just the reality of a game like this.

Kind of like how I also like CCGs like Hearthstone and as a result, I accept losing games to top decking. Like, if you are going to get salty over top decking, why play a CCG? The randomness is a core element of the game and what makes it exciting and fun.

Jski.6180:

Why are you so “hell bent” on making tempest something you like when it seems ele IS already something that you like? Its starting to sound like ppl are going after tempest not becuse they want to play tempest but simply becuse they do not want to play ele any more or at least just want new things for the ele and not the elite spec. I do not think you like ele any more.

I’m not hell bent on anything, man. Nor am I arguing against tempest at the moment. You are arguing “for” tempest, but your arguments to support tempest are based on misleading information.

You can’t make a statement that says “tempest is good, because it’s already really hard to swap out of an attunement in less than 5 seconds”. No, it’s not hard at all. You can do it, based on cast times alone, for nearly all the attunements. It’s also less true, based on personal experience, because the scenarios where you will blow all your skills in one swap are few in number. Based on this alone, staying in attunement for 5 seconds to get an overload is a con more than it is a pro and not negated by people “staying in attunements for 5 seconds all the time already”

In response to that, you ignore the math on the weapon skill issue and respond with “If you only use one skill in a swap, it is a waste of an attunement swap”. That is a horribly inaccurate statement and I provided solid examples which show how it’s not a waste and actually essential to play an elementalist correctly.

In response to that, you ignored all of that and launched into a response about how tempest is going to be different than elementalist because you have to think about what skills use when instead of just blowing all of them at once.

I don’t know who these elementalists are that just faceroll their keyboard on attunement swap. I don’t play that way. None of the elementalists in my guild play that way. I provided scenarios in the previous post that show when it’s essential to not play that way.

So…look, if you want to be a tempest fan boy, please, go ahead. But this isn’t a billboard for you to blast out a bunch of bullkitten statements about how tempest is going to be awesome, because of false statements about current elementalist gameplay. You are almost just making stuff up to talk up the tempest class. People actually read these forums to learn more about the class and the game which is why I think it’s worthwhile to argue.

Jski.6180:

They do have long cd but they also have long cast times. Ele mostly d/d ele is more of a cd game its all about timing its not about reaction to what the other person is doing as much. That why its so easy to counter ele becuse its rotation is very predicable. Tempest is more about reacting to what they other person is doing due to higher risk of skills use. A tempest simply dose not use ability as soon as they go off of cd like an ele dose making it a very different game play AND class type. If you wanted tempest to be just like ele in its swap then i do not get why you and others would say that tempest was not different.

I am beginning to find engaging in discourse with you, Jski, to be very boring, because not only is this response completely irrelevant to the inaccurate information I was refuting here, I am going to have to repeat myself.

Those “long cast times”, excluding auto attacks, if you add them all up, will not total 5 seconds except for offhand earth dagger, particularly when you factor in the fact that you can swap attunements during those “long cast times”. Therefore, it is not by any objective means “hard” to stay in an attunement for less than 5 seconds and therefore, the premise of your previous arguments was wrong.

Nor does the current state of gameplay lead to an elementalist just “using any ability when it is off cooldown”. Abilties are used situationally to react to certain situations. I have provided examples of where swapping into an attunement to only use one or even no abilities is a situationally correct and smart move to make. Therefore, this notion you have that tempest will somehow have a different playstyle due to them being situationally reactive as opposed to “using any abiliity when it comes off cooldown” is also false.

Tomiyou.3790:

Actually it is more than just 3 stacks of might, you could get far more than just 3 stacks of might with it (don’t forget it’s passive proc). The thing is that daggers abusive fire application was rightfully nerfed, but longer cd on blinding ashes and less might stacks hurt more than just the D/D ele (looking at you staff ele).

You are correct. I was being hyperbolic.

But…

As a mediocrely average staff elementalist, I disagree with that. But I will temper that disagreement with the fact that it comes from my perspective with my build choices.

In PvP, I use Earth/Water/Arcane almost religiously, so once again, it’s not an issue.

In WvW, I use Air/Water/Arcane, so also, not an issue.

In PvE, where I do run Fire, maybe an issue, but let’s temper that with a pragmatic view of how the current state of PvE works.

In a dungeon or fractal, my usual purpose is to blast fire fields for fury, because there is most likely one or two sources of group might.

If I am playing solo in VW, it could be an issue, but not really. I am not blowing my cantrips in that zone to stack might. I am using them as needed to stay alive. My main source of might is mostly sigils, runes and building stacks in fire from Pyromancer.

Jski.6180:

MadRabbit.3179:

Jski.6180:

Its hard to get the most out of an atument with out saying in it for 5 sec due to all the casting times and after casting animations ele has. So being in one atument for 5 sec not that big of a deal or even odd when you look at using ele for more then a faces rolling class.

It’s actually not hard at all, since, excluding auto attacks, it is mathematically possible to blow all the skills (which is the very definition of face rolling elementalist) in all the attunements in under 5 seconds except for earth attunement with an off hand dagger.

If you are using your abilities situationally and as needed, you won’t ever spend 5 seconds in an attunement (except for maybe offhand dagger when you combo 4 and 5).

If you swap into an atument just for one skill your swapping to that atument is simply not worth it beyond the on swap effect.

No it is very worth it, because most of the powerful skills have cooldown times that exceed the attunement recharge rate.

Swapping into water to only use big water to sustain a zerg and then swapping into air to only use static field on the tail is a very worthwhole attunement swap.

Swapping into water to use small water and then also using big water so your attunement swap is “worth it” will kill a zerg.

Same goes for PvP. I’ll swap into Earth only for stoneheart and protection to absorb a burst and maybe only use wall or reflect.

I can probably think of another half a dozen situations where only using one skill after an attunement swap is the right call if I was willing to invest the time.

Supreme.3164:

MadRabbit must be another one of those legendary heroes who can wipe a whole team while playing ele with a hand behind their back…too skilled for us…but we need a video to show the world your powerful gameplay so us ..well me can learn from your master level skill

Actually, it’s the exact opposite. I was pretty kittenty in 2012 as was everyone when the youtube video in the previous post came out and the kittentiness at the time contributed to the perception in the video (I actually saw that very video when it came out).

But I didn’t blame the class just because I was kittenty at it. D/D builds started to emerge, I learned how to play one and I eventually evolved to the mediocrely average player I am today where I began to do well and win games against the other mediocrely average players I was ranked with.

And luckily do to my mediocrely averageness, nerfs have never really influenced my elementalist experience over the years, because of the mediocrely average players I have played against over the years.

Which always blows my mind when people write these posts of “OMG! We lost 3 stacks of might! The sky if falling!”, because I and, based on mathematical probability, most of us are probably not good enough at the game to begin with it for it to make a difference.

Jski.6180:

Its hard to get the most out of an atument with out saying in it for 5 sec due to all the casting times and after casting animations ele has. So being in one atument for 5 sec not that big of a deal or even odd when you look at using ele for more then a faces rolling class.

It’s actually not hard at all, since, excluding auto attacks, it is mathematically possible to blow all the skills (which is the very definition of face rolling elementalist) in all the attunements in under 5 seconds except for earth attunement with an off hand dagger.

If you are using your abilities situationally and as needed, you won’t ever spend 5 seconds in an attunement (except for maybe offhand dagger when you combo 4 and 5).

Sunshine.5014:

MadRabbit.3179:

My elementalist just turned 3 years old the other day. Only class I have really played except for engineer.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

The only real dark age was at the start of the game when no one really knew how to play elementalist and didn’t fully understand it’s potential.

The class, compared to other classes, has been consistently strong and always been an enjoyment to play.

I can’t remember a single time in 3 years either where I got some kind of nasty message or got removed from a group for playing an elementalist.

If you really want to pat yourself on the back, you should have played a ranger for the last 3 years.

And anyone who applies a balanced and fair viewpoint (instead of incessantly whining and creating over-drama on the forums like a 14 year old girl), to the latest round of nerfs will realize they aren’t that bad.

You’re talking about PvE, they are talking about PvP.

There was definitely a dark age for Ele in PvP.

Right, because everyone who posts on the forums is a such a kitten pro-level player who plays on such a high end level that even playing a slightly sub par build can cost you a game. No one who posts here is part of the 90% in the meat and potatoes brackets where winning is usually determined by being slightly less dogkitten than your opponent and not playing a build only ranked “good” on Metabattle.

It wasn’t that bad.

Have fun in World of Warcraft.

My elementalist just turned 3 years old the other day. Only class I have really played except for engineer.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

The only real dark age was at the start of the game when no one really knew how to play elementalist and didn’t fully understand it’s potential.

The class, compared to other classes, has been consistently strong and always been an enjoyment to play.

I can’t remember a single time in 3 years either where I got some kind of nasty message or got removed from a group for playing an elementalist.

If you really want to pat yourself on the back, you should have played a ranger for the last 3 years.

And anyone who applies a balanced and fair viewpoint (instead of incessantly whining and creating over-drama on the forums like a 14 year old girl), to the latest round of nerfs will realize they aren’t that bad.