Guild Wars 2

The proposed update changes aren’t final. They put it out to get feedback. Now get back to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/first and say your oppinion, but please do so in a non-threatening manner.

I know how frustrating that they hinder build diversity at every corner by unjust changes (a lot of them!), but try to be less pessimistic. While I am baffled that they even proposed all of those changes, I don’t think they want to kill off elementalists.. at least not now.

Regarding elementalists:

These changes would make sure elementalist survivability drops, and certainly won’t be able to bunker properly. Currently the bunker is meh, giving up on either Renewing Stamina or Elemental Attunemnt (you can’t have both, and you certainly want E.A.) will set them back even further than now.

But worse than that, roaming/hybrid builds will face hard times. While they are somewhat mediocre in the current meta, they will lack defense and a lot of it and become even less viable.

I dream of build diversion and like that you are sharing this with us. However, when such a list appears it seems as if you want us to go 25/30/x/x/x, or variations of that. Yes, some changes are neat enough, but the relocating of the survival skills would hamper the class drastically.

I don’t see bunker or hybrid builds working in the future, unless perhaps in PvE. Pure damage, suicide builds only doesn’t sound swell.

Suggested relocations/changes:

• Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
• Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Condition duration is lowered by X%. (25%?)
• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Staying at adept tier.
• Water X – Soothing Wave. Moved to adept tier. This trait has been redesigned. Signet of Water passive will remove two conditions instead of one. Signet of Restoration will remove one condition on use.
• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Staying at adept tier, because we aren’t sadists.

See that? Much needed condition removal to signet builds. It really needs it. Build diversion please, Jon.

Seigfried.5938:

Every ele will now be running diamond skin.

I won’t. Why bother when even a necromancer with low power and high crit chance will get you below 90% health in a few attacks?

The +10% damage from Vital Striking and Superior Rune of the Scholar only work when you have a suprise attack. One or two hits and you are won’t gain anything anymore. It’s even worse with the new Diamond Skin proposal. I don’t understand why you believe it to be that strong. It feels like a master tier at best.

I would like to add that i don’t like the change to Diamond Skin. Making condition remove less mandatory by making a class immune to conditions is a very, very bad idea. In my opinion having any sort of invincibility against entire builds or playstyles does not add to the gameplay in any way.

@ Columbo

It isn’t as useful as you might think. Having low health and only being able to avoid conditions for a very short while isn’t over the top. How often are you able to stay above 90% health when in combat as an elementalist?

Let’s say you have a whopping 20k health with plenty of points in vitality and using soldier’s. You can take a meager 2k damage before you are affected. Staying above 90% health as an elementalist is ridiculously hard. The trait is nigh worthless for 30 earth imho.

• Elementalists becoming less dependant on arcane HUGE ++++++++++++
• Blasting Staff going to adept ++++++
• Fire traitline redo ++++
• Earth traitline redo +
• Water traitline redo – Potentially problematic
• Arcane traitline redo – Good and bad

I get the feeling that the lack of useful defensive skills in arcane and water will become a big problem for hybrid and bunker builds.

The changes are good from a pure condition/damage build perspective.

Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina should not both be moved up the
latter. Water has only Soothing Disruption in adept that is worth taking as a realistic hybid/bunker.

So while you open up for offensive possibilites, you close down quite a few defensive ones.

And flamewall needs a total makeover, please.

P.S. Survivability will drastically drop and it isn’t good currently.

When you get to Kessex Hills, you automatically get into the story mode. If you accidently leave it, you CAN’T enter again. That seems like a big flaw.

The finisher and the three armor set skins are NOT on TP on Far Shiverpeaks.

Others having these issues?

Fire 4: Complete redo. Takes too long to cast as well.
Fire 5: Could be changed to something unique. We don’t want to get hit, Anet.

Air 5: Lower CD please. At least 10 secs.

Water 4: Much longer duration, AoE effect, or a redo entirely.

We have build diversity in PvE, as you can kill most things given enough time. People will likely not want to bring you along for speed runs, unless you have a pure damage build though.

In PvP matters are much worse..

The Good:

• [Elementalist] Staff changes are good and makes it much more fun to play.
• [Elementalist] Conjures improvement/attention.
• New UI.
• New condition pop-ups.
• New ground targeting.
• Stun break usable on launches.
• Tab targeting changes.

The Bad:

• [Warrior] They heal for more than they should, even with just 300 healing. Extensive healing gear should provide with good healing, not everything.
• [Elementalist] Conjure Earth Shield is very clunky and lacks animations. It is hard to tell whether you achieve something.
  – Skill 1: Slow and clunky. Second attack shouldn’t be a dash. Lacks impact.
  – Skill 2: Lacking animations. Hard to tell when you have blocked.
  – Skill 3: Has jittering to it, as in the delay before impact. Worst in close quarters.
• [Elementalist] One with Air is underwhelming and doesn’t lend enough mobility to the profession that is needed (for the staff or focus for example).

The Ugly (missing):

• More amulets and gems that opens up for build diversity. I think this is very important. The first of the three below has 798.
  – Power/vitality/healing
  – Power/healing/condition damage
  – Power/vitality/critical damage
  – Variations on some of the current ones, so the main stat changes.
• A solution to SQ matchmaking (which probably is being looked at).
• [Elementalist] Adjusting Conjure Earth Shield.
  – Skill 1: Quicker attacks, no dash on second attack and a single target third attack.
  – Skill 2: Blocks three attacks and adds 1 bleed per block with visuals of it.
  – Skill 3: A fluid charge like Burning Speed perhaps.
• [Elementalist] Less dependancy on arcane traits and traitline for build diversion.
• [Elementalist] Focus attention. Especially fire 4+5, water 4, and air 5 cool down.
• [Elementalist] Making signet and glyph focused builds viable. Glyphs might be impossible since it has no defensive utilities, but I have a few ideas below.

• Signets: They have one stun break and offer few defensive means, like condition removal. Water active could easily cleanse 2 conditions with a small AoE chill. Fire active could be a stun break with small AoE damage. Except for Signet of Restoration and Signet of Earth, I think they should be instant for fluid gameplay. It would be great to focus on signets alone and use the synergy of some traits out there. I do think that Fire’s Embrace should be relocated to adept.

• Glyphs: Glyph of Storms is a strange one. It does very little damage, even when using a berserker setup. If it was redesigned to produce a single hard impact hit with potential after effects (burning/blind/cripple/chill etc.), being telegraphed as it currently is, there would be much more to the skill. The AoE zone should be smaller than it currently is (180 perhaps). That and a lower CD would be in place too, for Inscription to come into the picture.
  Glyph of Elemental Power is EVEN stranger. It was meant to be used right before combat and is way too random for players that rely on skill, instead of luck. The stun break added to it contradicts its role.
  Since glyphs have little to no defensive measures, this particular skill would be a perfect candidate for change. It could produce something (emitting from your character) like a burning pulse in fire, blinding pulse in air, chill pulse in water and weakness or cripple pulse in earth, so a person can choose if they are being defensive or offensive. That combined with the trait Inscription could make it interesting.

For starters they could make Signet of Water remove several conditions every ten seconds and add a heal or bigger condition cleanse when used, or a stunbreak.. something useful and defensive. Currently you are in deep trouble if anyone throws a few conditions towards you and run with four signets.

The other thing that bugs me is GoEP. It’s like putting a stunbreak on Arcane Blast. It should be made defensive in nature, since relying on chance is a horrible way of playing. Cantrips are instant and work perfectly (although the stunbreak loss is sad).

I definitely see why glyphs and signets need much work.

Fixing the bug would be nice. Making us less dependant on arcane would be much better!

Einlanzer.1627:

I’m particularly floored by the lack of updates to Air, which is very overtly the weakest attunement for Staff by a large margin.

Seriously, I’ve been playing Marvel Heroes a lot lately and the difference in quality with both the updates and response to feedback is staggering.

I think fire is the weakest attument. You have nothing particular to aim for at grand master if in PvP for example. Nothing that has a defensive type of effect, like signets for rangers. Air has gotten quite a few updates and is by far more valuable to me. A subjective statement of course.

I would use three pieces ascended (the parts that gives most value, chest, leggins and shoulders) and three pieces soldiers. Then an ascended weapon/s, and adjust from there. You get mediocre healing and condition damage, but better than base. Just my oppinion, but mixing it like that, gives my ele more the ele feel. Fine burst, decent condition damage and healing, mixed with fine defensive stats. Better than pure soldiers to me, at least.

The point being that you can perform most tasks given you.

Of course Anet will get complaints if they make stealth bugfixes. If the playerbase isn’t notified and someone spots the change, it will seem like they are trying to conduct something “illegal” behind your back, hoping you won’t notice. That certainly emits bad vibes.

Hopefully they get better at informing the player base in the future. Not like you can upset eles much more anyway.

I have wanted to create a thread about the clunkiness of it since the update. While I like what it has become, there are some big issues attached. I have tested it on dummies, PvP npcs and in hot join.

Skill 1: The auto attacks are very clunky and odd. The worst is the second of the three attacks that provides a tiny dash which doesn’t seem to connect on immobile targets. Like OP, I have a tough time telling what is happening and the auto attacks are generally VERY slow. 3/4 of a second per hit is too slow with a short range weapon, imho, especially for a squishy ele. The attacks should be quicker and more fluid, so you can actually see and feel that it connects. Currently it makes me cringe using.

Skill 2: Works, except you can’t always tell whether you blocked something or not. It is lacking an animation to tell you what happened. Of course you can see if the bleeding applied is increased, but that isn’t how it should be. If that got fixed, you can switch to other skills, knowing you didn’t waste a block.

Skill 3: Works fine for the most part. What I mean is that it works best if you travel the entire distance and hit your target. If the target is standing close, it has a very odd delay where you hover over the ground in your charge animation, making it way to easy to dodge/block. For a close quarters weapon, it’s a rather big annoyance.

Skill 4: The pull effect works fine, or at least lets you pull someone towards you, although often only some of the way.

Skill 5: No problems with this one.

Superspeed only works in combat? I didn’t see any change using it out of combat. To me, it seems very situational. As it is, I don’t see any reason to use it, as there are so many better choices.

Spear please.. and a honeybadger on a leash.

If you want to pull someone off a point of interest, or keep someone from stomping, I could imagine. Perhaps using it to keep orb runners slowed. Pull a group towards you, while others focus AoE in the area, while you shield yourself for 3 seconds with Fortify.

Could be interesting to use in dungeons as well, if someone is downed.

Really? That is quite a lot, hah.

Sounds unreasonable. Why should Fortify stay, when you drop the shield that gives you the skill?

I do agree that you should be able to blink while using it at least.

I don’t think it’s 6 seconds. I went back and watched the video again and saw (pretty sure) 2½ seconds protection per person pulled. That was with 30 arcane, I believe. We’ll see tomorrow.

In PvP people aren’t always silly enough to trample through your Unsteady Ground. Good players avoid it, from my experience. Now you can much more easily stop groups, create distance and potentially combine it with attacks.

You can dodge through the current Unsteady Ground, while you can’t with the new one, if it works as told. A huge difference.

Regarding what you said about superspeed. While you can’t outrun people, you can CC them before using it, giving you that extra mobility needed. Usually you don’t have to keep outrunning someone, but manage to get from A to B (your team, keep, etc.). That time you buy yourself, can be enough for x skill, heal or utility to go off CD. To me that means a lot in a fight, especially using staff or focus.

It looks like it has potential. We’ll see how it fares in testing tomorrow.

Earth 4 was nigh useless before. Now it will be very valuable, despite the CD. Thanks Anet!

Man, there is a lot of whining going on here, even though noone has seen or tested the final changes yet. Don’t think there is enough cheese to go around, sadly.

Currently it looks good. The superspeed will be a great addition to burst builds. Who needs 20% shorter CDs or +10% damage in air, when you get a grand mobility buff, even with the short duration. It will be good for staff and focus eles, who are lacking in mobility.

A shame they didn’t give us all the details, but looks good for sure.

How can you forget fire 4.. the worst of the bunch.

I prefer S/D, since you can do damage from a distance and stack might neatly.

That would be horrible for burning and bleeding effects. And sad for boon dependant professions.. they need to make enormous changes to skills that provide boons and conditions, which I fear might take them a looong time to fix. There are many bugs in the game since launch still, which haven’t been addressed.

I’ve swapped over to staff for PvP to be prepared when the changes arrive. Hopefully there are other goodies for us, beside the neat sounding Unsteady Ground (reworked). The changes they have revealed won’t make staff viable in PvP. Takes more than that.

The staff builds I currently test..
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmmbyx4gjDAEFm4yQhGjUeMzO2A-TkAgyCmI0SplTLjWStsaN+A

and..

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmmbyx4gjDAEFm4yQhGjUeMzO2A-TkAgyCmI0SplTLjWStsaN+A

.. just for good measure. ^^

Daecollo.9578:

Nikkinella.8254:

It’s already terrible enough that so few people even bother using it anymore. this would ensure NO ONE ever uses it. Agree with the guy above me, all it needs is a slight buff in the healing to be on par with the warrior’s signet heal.

Warriors heal has an internal cool-down of 1 second to it every tick. It has no opportunity cost.

If you want yours buffed your going to need its opportunity cost adjusted.

I wish that our signet would heal the same way the warrior signet does. You get almost nothing from it as a staff wielder. I wonder why they call it “passive heal”, when you have to be actively hitting something to trigger the effect, and satan forbid that it heals when we have to flee (not a rare occurance for an ele).

A shame they nerfed it. Never thought a bunker build could cause such destruction for ele build potential..

The 4 piece bonus heal that triggers after a heal, does not work in PvP. It works against golems in HotM, but not in actual fights (Hotjoin/TPvP). The 6 piece bonus doesn’t work either, and I have been testing it several times.

The Unsteady Ground change sounds nice, if it is as described.

That Conjure Frost Bow auto attack didn’t get a damage boost, is beyond me. But I like that they’ll increase projectile velocity and reduce cast time of other skills, so you aren’t dependant on the non-damaging auto attack and may use skill 2 more often.

Where do you get the info about Conjure Earth Shield?

If the glyph had defensive abilities, it would make sense to make it a stunbreak. If it was like a leap or such, it would make sense too, but an over-time-trigger effect? You will either save it for when you actually are stunned and not receive the boons until into the fight, or use it (as it is intended) before the fight, and have no stunbreak. Currently it’s just plain weird, to put it mildly.

Something definitely needs to be done with arcane and attunement cooldown and lessening the dependency of it.

It is currently nigh impossible to get on main servers, unless you get up at 5 am and stay there half the day, until said boss dies. Most of the time in GW2 you spend on waiting, then have the lovely error messages.. It is a nightmare.

The video tells me nothing, other than you can hit more than one person with AoE..

I have the same problem. Very annoying..

[In case this thread isn’t an attempt at trolling]
As someone who has only played elementalist and ranger, I can say they are both very straightforward. If you can’t understand to switch attunements for the ele, then take your time to learn it, like you would every other class. PvE is a good place to learn by slowly getting more skills in each attunement.

Mate, just spec for something specific if you want a (one) simple attunement if you can’t fathom using more than that. It can be done, you know?

It’s not a good idea to remove runes, as it will limit options for creating new builds and exploring professions. Sure, some aren’t used as often as others, but having less options in a meta where each profession has very few and viable/good builds, would only decrease freedom and that isn’t something to be encouraged imho.

The Game Slayer.7632:

That is seriously all you have to do arena-net. Everything else for the ele is balanced.

I think most eles that have used all weapon sets and tried a million different builds would beg to differ..

They need to do much more than change RTL that’s for sure.

Same for me, more or less. I recall picking mesmer after ele and guardian came shortly after. First time playing a mesmer, I sat in hotjoin all day using mantras. That was fun.

Sounds sarcastic. Pretty sure it is a troll post. Anyway..

What would you do? Simplify it and ruin it for all people that fancy the way of playing it, so new players gets into it a bit faster? A poll put engineers and elementalists on top, of professions that were the most fun to play. Probably not because we have ONE attunement..

It IS rather easy to get into, as I see it and using a few attunements only works just fine. And if it’s too hard to get into PvP, because of attunement dancing, then you need to practice. People are perhaps too lazy and spoiled, who knows. Of course it has to be user friendly, but simplifying it could ruin the fun of the class entirely.

I believe the problem of not being able to enter is just as problematic. On several occasions did I have to move away from the portal and back, in order for it to work.

I hope they do something with staff to make it viable in SPvP without doing harm in WvW, mainly giving it defensive means/better gap creating skills. You can alter some skills to do damage differently, less animation time, longer CD or such, which could be implemented without harming WvW.

A wish of mine is Unsteady Ground (earth 4) changed into a burrowing skill (used as gap creater/retreat, or mole surprise attack), OR a skill that makes you a big, rolling boulder that can crush and knockdown characters in a line.

I suppose that they eventually change a few things with the lesser used and underwhelming skills of staff (and focus).

A wish of mine is Unsteady Ground (earth 4) changed into a burrowing skill (used as gap creater/retreat, or mole surprise attack), OR a skill that makes you a big, rolling boulder that can crush and knockdown characters in a line.

I suppose you could do with air and water mainly. There is some synergy in those two attunements and with the use of conjures, there should be a way to produce some fine results and get a wee bit of diversity out of it. Air, water, earth and Lightning Hammer (air again).

The setup I was thinking of is using Weak Spot, which is vulnerability that you get from 25 air and the water trait Piercing Shards that allows you to do 20% more damage to vulnerable opponents when in water attunement. I played a Lightning Hammer focused build for a short while, something like 20/25/0/15/10 I think. It worked fine, although I was a bit squishy. Of course you can gear after your needs, which I never fully did for this build.

Answering your questions, OP. Yes, you can kill things with two elements only. And if you tire of staff, scepter or dagger air and water, you have an air and water conjure for diversity and special scenarios.

Staff

The skill Gust only hits one target, not everyone in a line as it states.

Universal weapons

Earth skill #1 doesn’t work as an auto attack. You need to click for each attack, which is confusing/annoying.

Durzlla.6295:

Hekmatyar.8725:

Durzlla.6295:

I….. I can’t believe he’s saying ele sits in only fire and uses 1-2 attunements…. I’m at work or I’d play it right now…. This must be a joke… Right? Right? RIGHT?!?

He didn’t.

I’ll know for sure when I watch it later, I’m hoping you’re right!

It -is- probably true for PvE eles. I don’t think it’s because of profession difficulty, but damage efficiency. You obviously deal much more damage in fire than water or earth, so why swap if you can do without and already run 30 fire for better firefields+crit chance?

That he pointed out such a potential faulty (see above) and irrelevant PvE aspect is beyond me.

I just wish they would get on with it and give staff a few effective defensive skills, so it will see more use in SPvP and not be a deathtrap.

Only problems with focus (imo) are..

Flamewall (Everything about it. Absolutely horrible and it destroys any kind of flow the focus might have).

Fire Shield (CD and its mechanic that doesn’t do anything unless you purposely choose to get hit – which would be stupid).

Freezing Gust (It does very little. Barely any damage and has a very short chill duration for a 25 sec skill. Not entirely pointless though).

Comet (Could use a damage buff, but otherwise fine).

Gale (The CD seems a bit long for a short duration, single target knockdown).

That is what bothers me about it. If they could at the very least address the two fire attunement skills, things would look a lot brighter.

To improve it, I would recommend removing Soothing Disruption, as you only run a single cantrip and the CD is 75 seconds. That isn’t worth the feat. You have plenty of vigor from Renewing Stamina anyways and around six seconds of regen every potential 75 secs isn’t doing much for you overall.

I would suggest Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Vital Striking or Arcane Abatement instead. A. Alacrity because you will have more CC, healing etc., which is always good for PvE, V.S. because extra damage is always helpful, and A. Abatement because it’s PvE and you can use the terrain to your advantage and not die a horrible death if you have to do some parkour moves and failing (even do jumps that inflict a wee bit of damage to you triggers Healing Wave and can be very helpful).

More achievements would be nice. A lot more.

You want a viable condition build it seems. Sounds a bit like the engi arsenal when it comes to conditions.