Guild Wars 2

Valkyriez.6578:

A full bunker kills no one. You should need 2 people to kill him everytime.

A full bunker who relies on conditions will kill a GC ele quickly, because you will have little to no condition removal. Sure, you can tweak that to survive a bit longer, but then you move away from the GC aspect.

Well, the fact that you try a GC ele is the reason why it failed in the first place (that and what the others say. One person on a bunker shouldn’t work. Two against one however, another story).

Eles lack good damage skills and traits (and arcane blast/wave doesn’t help thaaat much) and trickery (like invisi or teleports). Can’t really rely on Churning Earth, as most know how to dodge and engineers and mesmers will null it quickly with daze or whatever they use. That leaves Fire Grab only, and the CD is ridiculously long, so that is a no go.

You could make some threads/pleas to Anet, asking for them to give ele some love in the damage/trickery department, thereby (hopefully) making the GC variant a possible and playable option should they act on it. Eles sorely needs damage and trickery/mobility boosts (RTL on a GC? Does very little for you).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blasting_Staff

I won’t play staff without it, as it makes quite a few skills meaningless in PvP, in certain circumstances. People are always moving.

Fire shield only gives you might if you are hit, and lords know an ele would try to avoid that. It’s usefulness is very limited, although evading all damage is impossible, at least for an ele.

Eles are lacking in power. Bunker is a tad over the top, but eles (everything that isn’t bunkerish) is lacking.. quite much.

Yeah, Fire Wall could be made into a neat high damage spell, and the water skills could use a solid damage increase. Then I could see myself use it, even though it lacks mobility.

Well, sadly attunement recharge rate lies there, so if you plan on PvP’ing you want at the very least 10 points in arcane. And sadly you need 20 in arcane for blasting staff, which I think shouldn’t exist, but be part of the staff at all times as you will feel much weaker without it, and that doesn’t help with build diversity at all.

Arcane power + Elemental Surge + Tornado do not work in combination.

The blast of the shield should though. Would be sweet.

What about Arcane Shield. Does it trigger the effects of Elemental Surge?

Hopefully the high ranking players present will be objective, because they do seem to have trouble in that regard.. just a tiny bit. Will be interesting to see what an ele has to say.

Well, you might become frustrated with the ele in SPvP as there aren’t many possibilities. Of course you can mix and match as wildly as you like, but there are frustratingly few solid options to use. Things might be addressed in future patches hopefully, but so far nothing has happened. Cantrip is the thing. You can’t do without at least one. Water (15 min) and arcane (10 min) is also something you want. The traitlines are a bit.. off in my oppinion.

But elementalists are fun! Just saying that they have their fair share of problems..

• 1. Balance changes to professions. More frequent in the future? (Instead of waiting one month for the meta to set in, perhaps lessening the time as the players are into the game now, and quickly grow aware of what works and what doesn’t).

• 2. What is being done to increase the number of viable builds? (Build diversity and freedom in PvP is gold).

• 3. March patch info. What does it contain? (I have eaten bananas for a week now).

I want it to be invisible like air.. I like it though.

I think it needs some beefing up too.

@Davinci: So people who play hot-join become UNABLE to read the wiki or ask friends how TPvP works? That is a rather astounding. Pretty sure that capping and holding points is pretty easy to comprehend. The other fancy tricks and details to achieve victory will come the more you play. And people who wishes to improve their teamplay won’t play hot-join, but solo or team queue, for more goal oriented gameplay (should they be divided).

SPvP isn’t supposed to be TPvP only, you know that right? Just because you prefer it that way, you can’t and shouldn’t try to eleminate other aspects of the game to achieve more focus to the playstyle you prefer. It limits the freedom of choice that I think made GW2 so puppy amazing and attracted that many players to begin with.

There are likely people who learned to like PvP by using the casual hot-join, then went to TPvP for more competition. Starting off a game with four elitists on your team who easily become enraged or disappointed is not appealing for a player that wants to start it off slowly. One step at a time.. and hot-join is for many the first step.

Forcing hot-join casual players out of it and into a solo queue is a bad idea (solo queue doesn’t even work properly yet). In the end you will have people testing builds out in solo queue and it just becomes a jumbled mess, with longer and more frustrating waiting times. I know I would go there to test builds, not particularly contributing with anything solid, because I would be testing out new possible perks of a build and only learning, making it a nuisance for fellow players, who then likely would complain and decrease the entertainment value of the particular SPvP aspect of the game for all involved (yes, people will be more inclined to complain, if there is more at stake. For instance new fancy gem/gold whatever rewards OP suggested).

It would result in a game type hardcore TPvP’ers resent, because of all the random factors that might increase your score, if it became implemented.
“So you have a high solo queue score? Pfft, who cares, you are just competing against unprepared players, just being there to try out a thing or two, not having the goal of winning clearly in mind..”. Wouldn’t that sort of make the ladder/visible ranking pointless for solo queue? And hey, people might even call it the new hot-join.

Why remove hot-join, when you have solo queue on the side now? Seems very elitist and hostile towards a certain part of the playerbase. Forcing someone to play it your way, is not necessarily the only approach. To quote Leia: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers..”.

Testing builds for TPvP won’t work in WvW, as you can’t equip all types of armor, sigils, runes etc. for free with the same stats and test it against players you know has access to the same trinkets. WvW and SPvP is just very different. Besides, not all people can just “go play WvW”, as it demands so much more of your PC.

Summed up for clarification:
There is nothing wrong with hot-join being there on the side as it hurts noone, and removing it will do more harm than good. Noone is making you play it. The mentality that everone has to eventually play TPvP is ridiculous.

Arenas are the most boring thing in existance. No real means of using the surroundings, being limited to a small space is just annoying and mindnumbingly monotone.

Razor.6392:

@Malcastus: hi bunker player

I play anything but bunker builds, señor. Did test it a few times, but generally avoid it like the plague. Shall I then call you a bunker player in return, just to be as random? :P

Anet, can you please make damage/burst builds viable?

I look at the skill like Air Pocket, and think to myself whether something like that would make glass cannon builds possible and fun, without the bunker variants having access to such without giving up on much needed defense (thereby not empowering bunker variants). Perhaps in the shape of utility, master or grandmaster traits. Extra mobility would really help the glass cannon/burst elementalist survive more than now.

We have no effective means of staying alive and are the most frail of all professions. Mediocre damage on skills, combined with needing arcane offensive utility skills to portray a glass cannon and be a threat leaves you with very poor defenses. You can take a few crits, then you usually die. With no focus in healing (which currently is needed to a certain degree in PvP) and little means to keep yourself alive, it is a frustrating struggle that bears almost no fruit.

I thought about the idea of a fire grandmaster’s trait that would let you use fire fields to create ash clouds instead (thereby giving up on possible might stacking), making it possible to use Arcane Wave for instance to achieve invisibility for 3-5 seconds. That combined with some alterations to arcane utilities (for the better hopefully) and fire and air skill trees could make offensive oriented builds viable I believe.

Just something that struck me as possible.

Yes, can we please have viable burst builds? Even putting some sort of ash cloud mechanic at grandmaster fire tier to enable eles to create a combo field, in order to have brief invisibility might work. Just a random idea, but we do indeed need something happening.

There are no viable glass cannon spec, as we lack any means of invisibility type of skills and the damage. Sure, you can get a few kills here and there, but there just isn’t any way to make yourself useful.

And when you limit the mobility even more, you can only distance yourself from a “cannon” spec. Unless they do serious changes to fire and air, I don’t see things change.
Not that it was viable before the changes, mind you.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

The list is from the community. He is just organizing it.

Exactly, the OP contributed his own list at the beginning but after that he averaged out all the responses. So the reason eles are at the top of his list is because they’ve been at the top of almost every response, not because the OP is lobbying for ele nerfs.

This is also important because it allows players/devs to track changes over time. For example, if 10/30/30 ele gets nerfed this patch and immediately all the responses start putting ele at the bottom, the devs know they did something horribly wrong. More likely, after the patch eles will still be at the top of everyone’s list, and the devs will know some other professions need minor buffs/fixes (like trap rangers got) to make them as powerful as the current S and A professions.

But he invented the S-class, thereby putting the top ranked profession in the “polls” in a category of its own. That is what I meant.

Razor.6392:

Indeed… I don’t even know man.

How can ANet manage to balance EXACTLY in the opposite direction they were supposed to be heading at…

Steps to fix this mess:
1. Revert all the changes
2. Reduce healing power ratio across the board (on D/D water 2, 5, attunement swap, signet of restoration, scepter 3 and EA)
3. Add a cooldown to that water grandmaster trait: 5 seconds cooldown after removing a condition through regen gain.
4. Soothing disruption grants regen and 33% energy gain, vigor gain removed.

There, fixed eles for you ANet. And without killing other specs! I’m a genius. You can hire me anyday.

You don’t know how to balance, sir. Glad you aren’t a dev.

We were never really cannon. Just thin glass.

Rasperries grow in areas with constant frost.. how does that make any sense? I have seen so many out of place things, this should not be questioned, heh.

Imagine the ele choosing to give his air elemental a form.

Btw, did the fire elemental always cripple people with its AoE attack? I noticed it now first..

Regarding the air elemental. It does not really effectively hit much with its attack..

Leo G.4501:

Malcastus.6240:

It looks AWESOME! Leave the poor thing alone! I need spider feet and tail on my epic one too!

It’s already there.

I agree. I like this change. They actually look kind of cute now instead of…neutral. A faceless ball has no cuteness factor but put some legs and a tail and suddenly they seem to be alive.

Oh yeah, I just thought the patch notes said lesser air elemental. That is marvellous news! Sooo much cooler.

Sad that alternatives really haven’t opened up much. I used D/F before patch, and still using it. The changes doesn’t inspire people to pick up a build that allows you to die within minutes.

Wait, did they neglect to tell us about other things in the update? Now I am curious.

It looks AWESOME! Leave the poor thing alone! I need spider feet and tail on my epic one too!

So, what is new about it? I tested it just now. You need to stand on top of it to trigger combos basically. Not that any of you out there care about Flame Wall, though.

Devs, could you make the skill more appealing, please?

ThiBash.5634:

The Frist Aura change seems to favor staff (and other ice field builds) more than D/D though.

Frost aura from combo fields are very brief sadly.

Bunkers haven’t been buffed, but nerfed. Check EA healing and RTL changes. The frost aura thing every 40 seconds won’t do much. 10% damage reduction isn’t much, when comparing to protection. If it stacks, it would still be a nerf.

The EA changes are only annoying for builds that does’t aim to be bunkerish in nature. Not going 30 arcane on my focus build anymore.

Ok changes to focus, except Flame Wall, which remains borderline useless.

No real nerf to bunkers this time, sadly. 20 second RTL isn’t too bad. I just wish the update would give us more options in terms of making more viable builds. Suppose we get something interesting next month, although I do appreciate the boons to fire though. I wonder if you will get might bonuses if you are hit while being invulnerable..

Haha. It sucks, sadly. Looks awesome, but way too many drawbacks. You can even immobilize it. Stability my kitten

This is a bad way to address a problem. OP does not mention important details as bunker/roamer/burst variations for instance. It makes a huge difference and will paint the wrong picture.

I will play along, however. As an ele who has tried a bazillion builds and approaches, this is my vote on the ele alone. I don’t know enough about each other profession and their different viable and dangerous builds to give accurate votes. I will be objective.

A bunker ele would be tier A+.
A roamer ele would be tier B-.
A burst ele would be tier C.

There should not be a tier S. But perhaps OP, as someone that plays a (biased?) warrior, knows that most people have an issue with the bunker ele, and cleverly added a league for the ele alone, just to bring extra focus to it. To me it comes off as whining in a more elaborate fashion.

Nothing against you personally, but I think you should rethink all this. The list is very crude, giving the wrong overall impression.

P.S.
I think all the bunkers variations are strong in their own right. Fighting two of a same profession is a bother, anytime. But two eles are nasty to be against, as they have better synergy than other classes might have.

However, if you bring two of the same profession to a TPvP fight, for example, it isn’t always a testament to a profession being too strong, but rather trying a different approach. The problem is that people will rip each other off when something different works, and then it suddenly becomes popular and receives the more attention. For good or for worse.
Just chill and wait for the patch. They have already said that they are looking at bunker eles. No need to go to extremes.

I wish they would change EA in water to not be a Cleansing Wave, but damage and slow instead, and switch/alter a few traits, than nerfing so many other things that people suggest, which would ruin alternative builds. Remember that the problem is a bunker build that uses EA. It’s is an AoE healing skill with AoE cleansing every 10 seconds. Cleansing Wave on the dagger off-hand has a 40 second CD, so EA is rather ridiculous in strength.

I believe that takes the bunker ele too far. Two eles working together will be nigh impossible to kill due to that.

Keep in mind that they only need to tone down the bunker build, and not ruin the profession as a whole. I still have my hopes up for them to buff focus, scepter and staff, utilities, traits and the like, so we will have more viable options.

How about they leave 8v8 hotjoin be? The map I dislike the most is Raid on the Capricorn. Not because of the undrewater combat, actually I like that part, because it demands other skills and strategies. No, what bothers me about the map, is the way it’s constructed and how it appeals to a more zerg type play.

The map is small and very limiting on land, thereby encouraging zergs. There is one main road, which happens to be frequented very often, and mostly by someone charging towards the other cap point on land (of course there are those that just run through the ship, high-five the opponent and grab the point while others fight in the middle).

Now if you had an extra road between the two land cap points, things might look different.

…doesn’t work properly. You get 3x might, but no fury.

There are underwater areas in SPvP and WvW. Of course it matters. And yes, it is OP.

Insane suggestions, OP, very insane. Glad you aren’t a developer. :P

Arcane Blast and Arcane Wave has approximately the same damage. When used on a dummy, the output is the same. Arcane Wave should be doing almost twice the damage Arcane Blast does, according to the description of the spell, yet it is not the case.

Best thing is to wait for the patch, and see what other options it may provide. About a week until it hits. But yeah, sadly you need to throw many points into water and arcane to be viable.

If you aim for condition builds, you could aim for a high crit build that triggers bleed and burning, while using 30 water and cantrips for survival. That route works alright.

Of course, if the devs managed to give two-handed weapons an extra sigil slot, or altered the current sigil slot to add x1.5 or x2 value, you might have more options that way using the staff.

Not sure whether it will be that beneficial to you, as the skill says the radius is 50 only. Fireball has a radius of 120, and I’m rarely able to hit more than one opponent with it, unless they are cuddling, which is rare.

I agree with OP that things have turned into crap.

Staff, scepter and focus need some serious lovin’.

When using Cleansing Water at Jormag (with Elemental Attunement), right after it fears you on the second half of the battle (where it spawns ice spikes), you can get stuck and won’t be able to move at all, until it fears you again or unless you have Lightning Flash ready. Occured twice for me now, so thought I would mention it. It only happens when you use Cleansing Water the very moment the fear sets in.

More whining. I do have just as much, often more trouble with bunker mesmers, necros, rangers, guardians etc. I think every other class. But it is too easy to just complain.

Don’t listen to this fella. I stopped reading after the second suggestion of yours. Too much damage, pfft.

“2. Nerf armor of earth duration to 5 seconds from 6, since everyone runs 30 on arcana, the boon duration will still be high.”

I don’t play 30 arcane, and I don’t want to because it limits yourself and would force you into playing defensively, namely a bunker build (since you need at least 20 water and therefore spend). You know, the build that you made this very thread for? Stop.. just stop suggesting random nonsense, please. You are making things worse by suggesting these changes, mate.

Ele has one bunker build that annoys people, because it is built around survival, neglecting damage in the process, thereby becoming much less of a threat. That is a bunker build. Every class can make bunkerish types. You just hate it, because most eles for weird reasons don’t like challenges and pick the strongest defensive build (poor damage, mind you) and you encounter a LOT of them, which makes you think everyone is one. But no..

You dislike the bunker build, which happens to work best in D/D setup. Your suggestions ruins every alternative there might be and force the ele to play ONE WAY ONLY.

.. Please stop and let the devs do something that encourages more viable builds. Sheesh!

I have the same trouble with it not appearing in my hand. Using the flame axe though. Really annoying.

Ugh.. guns suck.

I smell Fairy Tail, hehe.

I think that a longbow would be quite neat. We already have conjure Frost Bow, so why not. I love the idea of having an Arcane Archer option though (D&D).