Guild Wars 2

The heal on Water Overcharge is just pathetic.
It needs to be worth locking you out of Water for 20s. Maybe make the Heal bigger and make it give you some Resistance at the end.

oZii.2864:

Malchior.5732:

Kidel.2057:

Laraley.7695:

That trait should just go.

I see absolutely no reason for ele to have AoE strunbreak.

Ele will also have a shout with aoe stunbreak + superspeed

On a 45 second CD.
If it provided something other than Super Speed + Stun Break it’d be fine, but that’s it? I think Air Signet would be a wiser choice then.

I don’t know about that superspeed is pretty good in combat it just seems lackluster out of it.

It’s not that Super Speed is bad, it’s that 5 seconds of it for a 45 second CD seems a little too high. Yea, it’s a Stun Breaker, but so is Signet of Air…on a 25s CD untraited.

Kidel.2057:

Laraley.7695:

That trait should just go.

I see absolutely no reason for ele to have AoE strunbreak.

Ele will also have a shout with aoe stunbreak + superspeed

On a 45 second CD.
If it provided something other than Super Speed + Stun Break it’d be fine, but that’s it? I think Air Signet would be a wiser choice then.

Kidel.2057:

xarallei.4279:

That said, OP why would buffing underperforming classes be a bad thing? They need the buffs.

of course, but if all classes become like ele/tempest then it’s bad. Atm ele can reach 17k dps, now pulsing blind lol. Not even squishy anymore

Ele only gets really good DPS if they stand in Lava Font; as in, no Pulsing Blind.

Kidel.2057:

You have blast finishers even on dodge dude

Assuming you take Dagger MH, you only have Water 3, then rolling in Earth IF you take Evasive Arcana and then you don’t have anything else.
Consider D/F, that can blast using Water 3 and 5, and Earth 4 and then also has Evasive Arcana.

You basically lost 6 stacks of Might.

Kidel.2057:

Xillllix.3485:

Kidel.2057:

Isn’t that a bit too much?

Guardians have 12 pressing 1 button…

Ele already had 25 easy might stacks.
now this and a 60 minutes fire field with horn 5

A “60 minute fire field” with no Blast finishers on Warhorn…

Vizardlorde.8243:

shout stacks + blasting stacks = eles jumping into fights close to full might from the get go

You could already do this by taking Burning Fire and using Cantrips :L

I’m just hoping the Air Overcharge does good damage and there’s trait somewhere that grants Stability on Overcharge. A Fresh Air build might be viable and you might be able to skip Water with Trooper runes and taking Shouts(assuming they have reasonable CDs).

Raif.9507:

FrownyClown.8402:

Tempest may offer different ways to cleanse conditions so you may not need water attunement at all.

FTFY. So far all we know is that the Water overload cleanses conditions (we don’t know how many) and that the heal cleanses some (don’t know how many). For all we knnow it will cleanse 4 between these 2 on long cooldowns.

Shouts with Trooper runes might do the job depending on their CDs.

Xillllix.3485:

Arcane will impact overload recharge, so most probably we will be forced to go Water/Arcane/Tempest.

Why do people keep saying this?
They said a trait called Harmonious Conduit affected overload recharge.

Overload =/= Attunement

Moonlit.6421:

Sunflowers.1729:

3) Sword – as a main hand weapon – means there’s a 3rd choice between scepter and dagger. And it has more skills too, although 4 of them would just be the auto attack.

Quick question since I sadly haven’t gotten to play ele much but can ele’s really complain about lack of skills? I mean even an offhand weapon technically gives an ele 8 new skills due to attunement changes right not to mention the new mechanics? Or is there another reason?

More skills =/= better

Just because we have a lot of options doesn’t mean they’re good options. A lot of our weapon skills are kinda just filler trash.
I.E. most of our autos and a lot of our #2s.

Kidel.2057:

Also ele is the class with the highest dps and mobility, why do you complain?

This is a bit….incorrect.
We have the highest AoE DPS if, and only if, our target is standing still.
Mobility? The only weapon set with any real mobility is D/D with Burning Speed(15s CD) and Ride the Lightning(40s CD) and well, I guess FGS, but that has a 180s CD.
Not even close to what a Thief can do and it’s not even remotely correct that we can do both at the same time.

rapthorne.7345:

Except elementalist attunements mean that ele has all bases covered by swapping attunements. no other class can do so much with a single weapon (or even with weapon swap) as ele can with attunement swap.

Revenant actually needed weapon swap to even be worth playing due to how locked to each legend the weapons are.

Well, that assumes we actually DO have all bases covered by swapping attunements.
Hint: We don’t. That’s why we needed a real melee weapon for burst/DPS and why we still lack a weapon for dedicated condi.

Unfortunately attunement swapping is more of a liability than an asset all things considered. Fire has no CC and bad sustained damage, Water has no damage, Air actually has very little single-target DPS, and Earth has horrible damage and little actual survivability in most sets.
So what happens is that you switch to Water to heal and you lose all offensive pressure for a few seconds, but can’t switch back to your damage Elements because they have their own CDs. Compare this to Guardian’s Scepter/Focus. They got decent ranged damage, a CC, and a very powerful Block that also applies damage with no CDs further tacked on.
What I want to emphasize is: More skills =/= Better
Good Skills = Better
Just because Ele has more options, doesn’t mean they were GOOD options.
However, Revenant kinda needed the Weapon swap, as the Legends themselves weren’t enough. It’s just that….that argument you used isn’t really valid. Elementalists wont get Weapon swap, not because we have everything covered, but because we WOULD have everything covered. Suddenly you get a Staff Ele that can kite you forever, then swap to D/D and smash your face in or he can cast Healing Rain, swap to D/D and heal up to full by just switching to Earth, rolling, and pressing 4.

lLobo.7960:

So there you go… warhorn…
I bet the skills summon elementals and we get something like the guardian spirit weapons…
After all, what the ele needs is more AI to its gameplay.
yay?

Nah, we’re gonna get Ranger spirits.
Immobile NPCs that pulse stuff, much like Singularities seem to do.
Tempest is the new Turret Engi.

That sounds pretty awful for a GM. I could just cleanse my allies by using Staff or something. This isn’t worth a GM trait :L
You just can’t give us a GM like this for one specific utility that has a 60s CD(traited!) and not make it ridiculously good. As is, this trait wouldn’t really help you survive, wont increase damage, or do anything meaningful in a fight except be inferior to another trait.

How is this even comparable to Cleansing Water? :L
Right now, at least I can go Soothing Power if my build doesn’t have a lot of Regen application, but then again our only good utilities are cantrips, so we probably should take Soothing Disruption and then why would you take this new GM?

MailMail.6534:

And besides, I’ve never faced a Diamond Skin ele that was on the winning team. I don’t think it’s an extremely strong trait with the 90% threshold…

It’s weak because it’s godkitten useless against most builds. It’s only good against pure condi.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You got Elemental Attunement put to baseline with Evasive Arcana buffed to its PvE value.

I’m sorry, but I just gotta correct this:

Elemental Attunement is NOT baseline. It’s now a Minor trait, but it’s not something that comes naturally. We still need to go into Arcana to get it. All we gained in Arcana was nerfed Vigor application and Elemental Contingency…hardly a benefit.
What we actually got from this patch was a much stronger Fire line and ability to trait for it. Our survivability is really good, because we pretty much have all of it traited :L
Water/Arcana is almost purely about survival(Evasive Arcana has a few offensive applications, but nothing major) so all of our real damage comes from Burn stacking, which should be toned down in general, and our ability to Might stack, which is supplemented by the Fire line and is pretty much the only way the Cele D/D build can kill anything in a reasonable amount of time.

That build has always been about outsustaining and Might stacking; is it too strong now? If it is, then what do you nerf without making us useless again? I say, tone down the Burning(as a condition, not on how much Ele can apply) and go from there, but this topic is about Diamond Skin, right? DS is a poorly designed pile of crap.
Like I said, it hard counters a certain amount of amulets and is completely useless against everything else. It’d be better, not just for Condition players, but also Elementalists, if it did something else that helped us deal with Conditions without having to spec into Water and promoted more active play. Actually, if they gave us sustain/cleansing in our other lines, we could actually nerf Water’s sustain/cleansing a bit, but I don’t really trust Anet with that careful balance.

Darknicrofia.2604:

lol at “HAVE TO” run cleansing water/wave as if they’re some ten ton burden traits eles need just to stay relevant.

Go ahead and look for any VIABLE Elementalist build in the past few years. Every single one has always had at the very least gone for Healing Ripple and Elemental Attunement. Right now we might be able to get away without using Arcana, but Water is pretty much mandatory unless you’re using a build that’s quite inferior.

Since the Ele has such a small amount of health and Light armor, along with the fact that we lack the disengage potential of the Thief(and the Blinds/Evades which can be properly applied when actually needed…), that makes us really susceptible to Conditions. All our cleansing is in Water, as Ether Renewal is far too vulnerable, so we gotta trait for that. Then, a lot of our burst Healing is also in Water: we get a ~2k Heal every 10 seconds just by switching to Water along with the Regen from the other traits.

Then, we go Arcana for easy Protection and Regen application(which synergizes with Cleansing Water) and Evasive Arcana gives us an extra ~2k Heal, an extra Blast Finisher, etc. Arcana synergizes really well with everything.

So now that we can take Fire without leaving ourselves completely helpless, we can have better Might stacking and Blind on Burn(which is what Fire is actually used for, not just Burning). What you get is a class going mostly into survival(hence why they’re hard to kill) and the ability to Might stack during a fight(which means our chances of winning go up the longer we fight, without losing our survivability).

Wait, what exactly did Ele get baseline? (@Phineas) We mostly got stuff other classes got(like Necro getting more LF without having to take Soul Reaping), but we didn’t actually get anything crazy baseline, like say, Mesmer did.
What they did is push us further into Water and 3x Cantrips when they should have most likely lowered the sustain in Water a bit and given us some sort of usable cleansing/sustain in other lines.
All that being said, DS is poorly designed as it hard counters several amulets, but is useless against almost anything else. Would be better if it applied Resistance for 1-2s upon switching to Earth or something to help mitigate conditions, but not make them entirely useless and not be so passive.

The difference is that while a Medi Guard is forced into Virtues and Valor, Guardian as a whole isn’t.
Thieves aren’t actually forced into SA either because of how badly they nerfed the cleansing in that line. So bad, that a ton of Thieves now run Critical Strikes over it. Not taking into consideration other builds that used Acrobatics for survival instead of SA.

The Elementalist has been forced into Water since the beginning in every viable build ever. If they want to fix us, they gotta give us some better condi cleanse and sustain in another line. Doesn’t have to be AS strong as Water, but good enough.

Solori.6025:

Malchior.5732:

Solori.6025:

DavyMcB.1603:

Rampage is supposed to be better than Lich in term of offense because it is melee. There is greater risk for meleeing. However, I do agree that the effectiveness spread between Rampage and Lich is way too wide. 1k+ (at the very least) auto attack damage with 4CCs of short CD is way too much.

Lich is a power mode, but Rampage is outright godmod (now that it also benefits from physical skill traits)

Not really, Both of them are strong in there own right, but I wouldnt call either god mode when you can simple move away, reflect, blind,dodge, invuln, use terrain, or kite.

Both have something strong. and both can be countered in pretty much the same ways.

What people have a problem with is that they get caught in these elites, panic, and die for it.
But then again I have been rolling on my necro and engi for the past couple of days.
So a lot of problems with things people see I haven’t been seeing.

Well, lets be fair here.
I dodge the Warrior’s CC skills, he goes into Rampage and now I have to dodge 3 more CCs, not including the Auto-Attack chain that still deals decent damage.
Comparing this to a Necro’s Lich form that is really only used for the Auto-Attack is a bit inaccurate.
The latter does insane damage, but is far more vulnerable(less Stability, only CC on #3, less mobile, etc.) while the former can do 2 -> 5 -> 4 -> 111 and there’s very little you can do if you get hit by any of the first three moves outside of popping Stun Breakers, which you might have used because you were getting CC-chained by the Warrior’s other skills :L

I’m not calling it OP, but it’s a little unreasonable to deal with sometimes. At least Lich has a projectile I can more easily defend against(LoS, Swirling Winds, Reflects, etc.) and mostly just that.

Both of them pulse stability, so I don’t understand the less stability arguement.

The arguement one has more buttons is also pretty bad when the AA from lich does upward of 7-8k and can proc fire and air.

You only have 2 dodges.

One of them is more mobile true, but one of them isn’t ranged either.
At least with the warrior staying out of range you can waste rampage, with Lich it’s be a class with reflects equipped or die?
Understandable that you notice the CC’s but you can in no way say one is better than the other when one ONLY needs an AA to finish you off in two hits from range.

Lich has 1 stack of Stab, Rampage has 2 stacks.
One is most definitely easier to strip off than the other.

Also, you only have 2 dodges, but Lich has far slower attacks and LESS options against you. With Lich, you only have to worry about the AA in most cases. That’s actually important because he’s a lot more predictable; the Rampage has an AA-chain, 2,4,and 5 to all watch out for. How is that not important to take into account?

Yes, the Lich does more damage, at the same time, it’s easier to counter a projectile than it is to counter a hulking beast with Swiftness that can CC-chain you into oblivion if you don’t have a Stun Breaker ready(which some classes don’t have a lot of).
All ignoring the fact that Lich form has a higher CD, a lower duration, doesn’t reduce the damage you take, and also doesn’t reduce the duration of Cripple, Chill, etc(the only direct “counter” to mobility) while also applying less stacks of Stability.

“P.S.
If you’re on an elementalist why dont you just blink away?
OR arcane shield…..or obsidian flesh……or vapor form……or tornado blind…….or armor of earth……or FG 3-4……”

Assuming I run 3x Cantrips(which Eles are pretty much forced to take anyway, I guess), then running away is my only option. Arcane Shield has a 75s CD, not a good idea.
Obsidian Flesh assumes Focus, Mist Form is again the same as running away, Tornado will get you killed more often than not, Armor of Earth is 60s CD when traited, FGS is also just running away.

Basically, running away from the fight is my only real option then? Armor of Earth only lasts for a little bit, and after that, my only real Stun Breaker is Mist Form.
Lich is difficult to deal with too, but you’re just highlighting the fact that these Elites are “I win” buttons that should ideally be changed. Personally, I can deal with a Lich in a 1v1 scenario, but a Rampage is much harder to handle.

Laraley.7695:

Assuming that Cele D/D being good is a bad thing, they should just fix the Air line, fix Scepter, tone down Burning in general. and give us Fire’s Embrace back in some way, shape, or form.
Additionally, it’d be nice to be able to move away more from Water/Arcana without dying so easily, but it looks like that wont happen and the Tempest is probably going to require Water/Arcana as well.

Never said it’s a bad thing, I said cele ele didn’t really need a buff aside gaining a bit more teamsupport. But that doesn’t change the fact it has access to some strong traits that should be looked at and eventually reworked. [/quote]

Well, from a lot of posts it seems like you view Cele D/D as a bad thing. Right now Cele Ele is one of the more powerful builds because it balances out offense and defense so well. Burning is a little too strong, but that’s not an issue unique to Elementalists.
Having access to Stone Heart and Diamond Skin is also not a direct issue with Cele Ele, but rather the traits themselves. In particular, Stone Heart is fine. Camping is discouraged due to crap Earth skills(in terms of Offense) and switching to avoid burst is actually promotes active play.
Diamond Skin is awful design and should be reworked somehow.

I really think the issue is how weak the sustain in other lines is, forcing us into Water, while the damage in Air is really lacking right now. Fire finally feels like a proper line(or close to it), but the current Burn issue makes it seem like an issue to some.
Scepter is just kinda bad, and we lack any natural defense outside of Focus, so no wonder everyone is flocking to D/F right now.
What Ele needs is those fixes and a new mainhand weapon.

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Grimreaper.5370:

Laraley.7695:

Roxanne.6140:

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

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

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

I’m not talking about the amulet at all.

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

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

Ok, look. Celestial d/d ele was good before the patch, survability was great, damage was okay. By the buffs ele got, celestial ele gained the most. Now it has free EA, whole earth line with powerful traits or fire line with crazy damage. Both survability and damage of the specs got a nice boost. If you look at fresh air, it didn’t really gain that much, condi ele actually saw some nerfs. So out of all these specs cele ele got the most out of it.

Assuming that Cele D/D being good is a bad thing, they should just fix the Air line, fix Scepter, tone down Burning in general. and give us Fire’s Embrace back in some way, shape, or form.
Additionally, it’d be nice to be able to move away more from Water/Arcana without dying so easily, but it looks like that wont happen and the Tempest is probably going to require Water/Arcana as well.

Solori.6025:

DavyMcB.1603:

Rampage is supposed to be better than Lich in term of offense because it is melee. There is greater risk for meleeing. However, I do agree that the effectiveness spread between Rampage and Lich is way too wide. 1k+ (at the very least) auto attack damage with 4CCs of short CD is way too much.

Lich is a power mode, but Rampage is outright godmod (now that it also benefits from physical skill traits)

Not really, Both of them are strong in there own right, but I wouldnt call either god mode when you can simple move away, reflect, blind,dodge, invuln, use terrain, or kite.

Both have something strong. and both can be countered in pretty much the same ways.

What people have a problem with is that they get caught in these elites, panic, and die for it.
But then again I have been rolling on my necro and engi for the past couple of days.
So a lot of problems with things people see I haven’t been seeing.

Well, lets be fair here.
I dodge the Warrior’s CC skills, he goes into Rampage and now I have to dodge 3 more CCs, not including the Auto-Attack chain that still deals decent damage.
Comparing this to a Necro’s Lich form that is really only used for the Auto-Attack is a bit inaccurate.
The latter does insane damage, but is far more vulnerable(less Stability, only CC on #3, less mobile, etc.) while the former can do 2 -> 5 -> 4 -> 111 and there’s very little you can do if you get hit by any of the first three moves outside of popping Stun Breakers, which you might have used because you were getting CC-chained by the Warrior’s other skills :L

I’m not calling it OP, but it’s a little unreasonable to deal with sometimes. At least Lich has a projectile I can more easily defend against(LoS, Swirling Winds, Reflects, etc.) and mostly just that.

Grimreaper.5370:

nearlight.3064:

Laraley.7695:

robertul.3679:

So what ele doesn’t need a new offhand?

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

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

Scepter is trash.

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

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

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

Well, when the only truly good skill is Phoenix…it’s kinda a trash weapon overall.
I personally find Scepter really difficult to enjoy when most of its skills are so weak and clunky.

Lettuce.2945:

Laraley.7695:

Malchior.5732:

Grimreaper.5370:

Lettuce.2945:

Laraley.7695:

PistolWhip.2697:

Don’t know if you deserve a cage or an award at this point Rosicky.

I’m up for the cage.

As for ele, I honestly think this has lots to do with burning, which needs to be fixed. Also, the fire line adds 150 power in each attunement + 150 in fire, that needs to be fixed, too. Not fan of Blinding Ashes either, don’t like traits like this, same goes for Diamond skin and Stone heart, they provide quite too much sustain for the ele. However, at this state I’m not even mad since there’s just too much damage around.

I don’t know how to feel about people saying s/f fresh air ele is the best spec atm. Like really.

Re read the 150 power trait. K? K. You’re a funny guy. Cried about both EA’s being moved to GM, did not see the possibility of how OP ele would be if we were allowed to trait into 3 lines…(When I called it way back then…) and bam…You’re asking for a nerf. Oh how quickly you flip flop.

Lol @ him complaining about 150 power minor, not even understanding how it works.

Uhh, the minor says “Gain 150 Power while in Fire Attunement.”
Am I missing something? This trait doesn’t work like Soothing Mist AFAIK, so it’s not supposed to actually carry over.

It’s bugged atm. You gain 150 in each + 150 in fire. Just people who do not know how the trait works currently telling others they have no clue, quite normal on forums.

No it doesn’t work like that. It’s in fire only. Swap out of fire, your power goes down 150. I think grim and I know what we’re talking about when it comes to ele. K? K.

Apparently not.
I just tested this in-game.
Power with Cele Amulet and Hoelbrak Runes in Heart of the Mists and NO Fire Line: 1735
Power with Cele Amulet and Hoelbrak Runes in Heart of the Mists and Fire Line while in EARTH attunement: 1885
Power with Cele Amulet and Hoelbrak Runes in Heart of the Mists and Fire Line while in FIRE attunement: 2,035

Grimreaper.5370:

Lettuce.2945:

Laraley.7695:

PistolWhip.2697:

Don’t know if you deserve a cage or an award at this point Rosicky.

I’m up for the cage.

As for ele, I honestly think this has lots to do with burning, which needs to be fixed. Also, the fire line adds 150 power in each attunement + 150 in fire, that needs to be fixed, too. Not fan of Blinding Ashes either, don’t like traits like this, same goes for Diamond skin and Stone heart, they provide quite too much sustain for the ele. However, at this state I’m not even mad since there’s just too much damage around.

I don’t know how to feel about people saying s/f fresh air ele is the best spec atm. Like really.

Re read the 150 power trait. K? K. You’re a funny guy. Cried about both EA’s being moved to GM, did not see the possibility of how OP ele would be if we were allowed to trait into 3 lines…(When I called it way back then…) and bam…You’re asking for a nerf. Oh how quickly you flip flop.

Lol @ him complaining about 150 power minor, not even understanding how it works.

Uhh, the minor says “Gain 150 Power while in Fire Attunement.”
Am I missing something? This trait doesn’t work like Soothing Mist AFAIK, so it’s not supposed to actually carry over.

Morwath.9817:

Not sure if you’re really serious… having most of damage bound to single ability is actualy main Ranger issue…

> I say that having such a strong burst on a single skill is bad
> I say they should fix other Ranger issues instead of giving Ranger 10k+ burst on Rapid Fire
> Having most of the burst on a single ability is an issue

Can you not connect the dots?

Morwath.9817:

Nope, you don’t balance esportz about ’difficulty’*.
Players at top skill level** should be even, it shouldn’t matter how ‘difficult’ is their weapon to achieve top dps/burst possible with it. Otherwise you won’t achieve balance.

1*Something can be ‘difficult’ for you, but not really for someone else. Everything actualy is about knowledge, because pressing buttons really isn’t hard.
2**Players don’t do too much mistakes (everyone does some!).

Mechanical skill is a legitimate way to balance something out…it’s been like this forever in TONS of games.
Higher mechanical skill required = Higher Reward
If something is easy to do, it shouldn’t be as powerful as something that is difficult to pull off mid-fight.
That’s part of the reason why Elementalists used to feel so weak. You’d spend time learning your rotations and when to stray from it and many more things and you would still be one of the weaker classes. Why should you be weaker for having a higher skill floor than most other classes?(at that time, Elementalists were incredibly weak in PvP)

In this sense, Rapid Fire used to give way too much reward for the effort required.

-Thief has to Stealth, close the gap, and get behind the opponent.
-Mesmer has to set-up clones, daze/stun, use Mirror Blade/iZerker, and Shatter.
-Elementalist has to land Phoenix, switch to Air frequently while using #2, etc.
-LB Ranger has to press 2 from 1500 range.

Some classes need to spend valuable utilities, learn rotations and combos, and the Ranger just needs to press 2. Instead of giving Rangers such crazy easy burst, they could have fixed their other issues while still allowing a RF that does good damage.

I had the misfortune to fight one of these as a D/D Lightning Rod Ele while my Armor of Earth was on CD. I don’t really know how to handle this thing outside of RtL to run away.
Maybe if I had Blinding Ashes, but otherwise I got CC’d into oblivion. The Warrior was running Hammer, so I kinda used up my dodges on his CCs, he went into Rampage and I got destroyed afterwards lol

Morwath.9817:

Malchior.5732:

Morwath.9817:

Malchior.5732:

Aomine.5012:

DaShi.1368:

They’re next.

How can they be next when Thief/Mesmer/Guardian/Ele/War are doing double or triple the damage than ranger right now? (Thanks to the removal of numerous damage modifier, now RF only does like 5~8k maximum. Other classes are doing 18~25k burst right now)

5-8k for a single skill on a Zerker build seems more than fine to me.
It’s already an extremely simple burst with little set-up, do you also want it to deal Mesmer/Thief-like damage at 1500 range? They shouldn’t be buffing LB damage, but rather fix other Ranger issues.

Bro, they haven’t buffed Ranger LB damage, but reduced it, since there are missing +% damage modifers in Marksman line xD

Also it’s not about ‘1 skill’, but horribly long channel thats super easy to dodge/evade/block/reflect/interrupt, which lasts longer than entire ‘burst preparation’ made by Mesmers.

I didn’t say it was buffed. I’m saying it shouldn’t BE buffed.

Also, it is about 1 skill. RF is shot from 1500 range with barely any thought or set-up; at least the Mesmer needs more than 2 buttons to deal 10k+ damage.

Amount of buttons needed to be pressed to acomplish something has nothing with balance, it’s more about time:damage (dps) and possible burst. You can teach monkey to press keys in certain order…

The difficulty in performing a certain combo is definitely an important factor.
Look at Engi Grenade Barrage. If you needed to press 20 different skills in perfect order and perfect timing, then the 20k+ damage would be more in-line(it’d still be a lot, but then again, you can’t be just any random idiot to pull this off in a fight), rather than pressing a single button for the instant 20k+ damage.

Morwath.9817:

Malchior.5732:

Aomine.5012:

DaShi.1368:

They’re next.

How can they be next when Thief/Mesmer/Guardian/Ele/War are doing double or triple the damage than ranger right now? (Thanks to the removal of numerous damage modifier, now RF only does like 5~8k maximum. Other classes are doing 18~25k burst right now)

5-8k for a single skill on a Zerker build seems more than fine to me.
It’s already an extremely simple burst with little set-up, do you also want it to deal Mesmer/Thief-like damage at 1500 range? They shouldn’t be buffing LB damage, but rather fix other Ranger issues.

Bro, they haven’t buffed Ranger LB damage, but reduced it, since there are missing +% damage modifers in Marksman line xD

Also it’s not about ‘1 skill’, but horribly long channel thats super easy to dodge/evade/block/reflect/interrupt, which lasts longer than entire ‘burst preparation’ made by Mesmers.

I didn’t say it was buffed. I’m saying it shouldn’t BE buffed.

Also, it is about 1 skill. RF is shot from 1500 range with barely any thought or set-up; at least the Mesmer needs more than 2 buttons to deal 10k+ damage.

Aomine.5012:

DaShi.1368:

They’re next.

How can they be next when Thief/Mesmer/Guardian/Ele/War are doing double or triple the damage than ranger right now? (Thanks to the removal of numerous damage modifier, now RF only does like 5~8k maximum. Other classes are doing 18~25k burst right now)

5-8k for a single skill on a Zerker build seems more than fine to me.
It’s already an extremely simple burst with little set-up, do you also want it to deal Mesmer/Thief-like damage at 1500 range? They shouldn’t be buffing LB damage, but rather fix other Ranger issues.

EremiteAngel.9765:

honestly 1v1 was all that mattered to me and I think will remain that way till GvG becomes officially recognized and supported in the coming HoT.

5v5 PvP is just one mindless slaughter and ganking again and again.
I dislike this repetiveness.

1v1 displays a lot more skills and does not end up pitting you in unequal fights which is prevalent in PvP 5v5

5v5 is usually a bunch of 1v1s, 2v2, 3v3s and ganking.
If you think it’s mindless it’s probably because you’re playing with randoms.
Also, it’s strange you talk about repetiveness, when in a 1v1 setting, a TON of specs are suddenly not viable and you’re forced into the same builds.

data.4093:

Malchior.5732:

Thieves got some more damage and some extra survivability, but the Shadow’s Embrace nerf(that’s the name, yes?) is actually kinda annoying and the Feline Grace nerf also hurts S/D builds.
Thieves just feel glassier than ever. Shadow Arts only goes so far.

Everyone got a vigor nerf. Thieves got some of that vigor back and new counters in the acro lineup. Anet took away some of the dodging but handed s/d thieves more passive counters. Instead of dodging everything, there are some very forgiving traits in there.

It seems like so many players are still trying to use their old builds without realizing the game has completely changed. Try something new.

I don’t think adding passives instead of valuable active effects is a good thing at all. Before, S/D Thief could spam dodges all day. Now, you can have the old Vigor, but without as much application. Currently there’s so much you need to dodge that you can’t be too wasteful. I would be fine with that if a lot of it wasn’t instant-cast or being done from Stealth.

People are trying to see how the old builds fit in. Some got some good buffs(Shatter Mesmer, Condi Engi, etc.) and others feel kinda weak now(Signet Ele, for example, lost a TON of Protection, Swiftness, and Fury).
Gotta see how the old stuff fares before trying out the new.

Sunflowers.1729:

robertul.3679:

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

If they go into Inspiration, they don’t have enough damage to kill a Cele DD Ele. It’s a close match up even if they go full offensive.

They can already take domination and dueling which are basically the power dps lines.

They used to be limited by the fact that they needed 6 into illusions for persona, elasticity and 30% shatter cooldown.
Now they get 15% of shatter cooldown as base and the other traits as baseline.

Add to all this the option to trait full inspiration for sustain and the overpowered gamebreaking powerblock which makes them rather problematic to deal with.

Isn’t this true for all classes? Eles can now take fire and air while still keeping water (or probably water+arcana+fire), Thieves can take deadly arts and crit strikes while still having shadow arts.etc

Well, Fire doesn’t really offer that much damage and Air lost a ton of important modifiers and also has a bugged Fresh Air :L
Basically, while Eles have always been stuck in Water+Arcana(mostly just for survivability), adding a so-so damage line doesn’t really make it that insane. We didn’t really get very substantial buffs(we didn’t even get the promised Blinding Ashes buff…) either. Condi Ele stacking a billion burns look interesting though.

Mesmer went into damaging lines and now has the option for very powerful survivability lines. There’s a big difference there. Basically, Mesmer already had a very powerful burst, but now they can actually land it and not instantly die if they get caught.

Ele got an extra trait line to play with, but outside of Earth(another mostly-survivability line), they can’t really dish out crazy damage back. Lightning Rod can crit for quite a bit, but you need to land melee-range CCs to make full use of it in the D/D build.

Thieves got some more damage and some extra survivability, but the Shadow’s Embrace nerf(that’s the name, yes?) is actually kinda annoying and the Feline Grace nerf also hurts S/D builds.
Thieves just feel glassier than ever. Shadow Arts only goes so far.

Lot more replies than expected, some helpful, some not, but thanks anyway.

Well guys, my issue wasn’t necessarily dodging the burst(outside of ones started from Stealth). I could do that just fine; my issue was rather the fact that after that initial burst, I had some trouble applying back pressure since his Stealth lasted for so long. I would lose track of him and just eat a burst from Stealth and well, that’s more difficult to predict.

Admittedly I was being too wasteful with my dodges as I’m still accustomed to being able to use Evasive Arcana to Might Stack and Heal whenever I needed and right now that’s a bit wasteful with the Vigor change. I’m gonna try to duel him again(yea, I know it isn’t balanced around 1v1s) with the same build with a few tweaks and try to be more aggressive and smart about my dodges. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll keep trying :P

I wont even bother to use Stone Heart. Not because I think it’s ineffective, on the contrary, it’s pretty good, especially now, but I really don’t want to be that Elementalist we used to be: trait entirely into survivability and never kill anything or trait entirely into damage and blow up instantly. Remember before the Celestial change and when the nerfs were reverted(at least a few of them…some day RTL…)? Those were kinda sad days
You’re not the only ones, Mesmers! I know how it feels to be subpar regardless of what you do and suddenly be useful again.

Basically, I made this thread because I knew the basic burst combos for Mesmers and general tactics, but was not entirely sure what exactly the new patch did for them. I now understand that much better. This meta, at least for now, seems incredibly punishing towards mistakes and wastefulness.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Umm, I guess some people are pretty paranoid.
I’m legitimately asking for advice since I’m not very “in-the-know” for Mesmer traits and such. I know about PU and stuff, but yea.

I main Ele, as such, I’m usually stuck on Cele D/D. Today I went to just go duel a few of my friends and I was using the same build as always, just with Lightning Rod as an added bonus. Decided to play against my Mesmer friend and holy crap.

He started off with the same old Mesmer stuff, throwing his GS or summoning the GS spin guy or whatever Mesmers do(I know the key skills to watch out for, but I don’t really know the names) and I dodged. Suddenly he either Stealths or Blinks over(I couldn’t tell at the moment) and I lost nearly all my health in an instant. In a panic, I switch to Earth as soon as I saw myself taking damage and then switched to Water to heal up a bit.

At that point I decided that I needed to pressure back so I switched to Air and tried to do something, but after a few hits, he stealthed away. I switched over to Fire to maybe spread some Burns and maybe Might stack a little with Ring of Fire. Instead I was instantly bursted from stealth for the rest of my health. I saw my friend with less than half of his health, but wow.

I’ve never had this much trouble with Mesmer and I’m wondering what I could do differently. Should I be more aggressive or more defensive? The latter doesn’t seem to work very well since he just bursts more often than I can Heal and switch to Earth for Protection. I tried being aggressive, but he had a healthy amount of Stealth.

I’m wondering if it’s my lack of practice against Mesmer(I did come back from a long hiatus) or it’s me just committing some silly mistakes. Any ideas on what to do against this type of Mesmer?

Well it’d probably be better without Perplexity just because people see it as a crutch for Condi builds :P

Been fooling around with this: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-o3c;2B2-Y0D5gN-Z0;9;4012;0058257248;4T-1;35NV05NV00r

Seems to have decent survivability due to 16s Magnetic Wave and 33s Obsidian Flesh and good control from all the CC.
Also has Protection upon attuning to Fire and a little extra on Fire and Air due to the Auras.

You guys come up with anything?

Anhomedog.7968:

Im sorry… Power necro more survivable then S/F fresh air? If you have a decent ele playing S/F it can be quite a bit of a challenge to kill them, with all of the invulns, reflects, and blocks…no Im sorry.

4s of Invuln on a 50s CD
3s of Reflect on a 25s CD
6s of Projectile Destruction on a 30s CD
3 Blocks on a 75-60s CD

You basically have 4 – 7s to kill someone if you start to get focused and good luck actually escaping afterwards. You also barely have any cleanses. There’s a reason why Thieves and Mesmers are much better at bursting.

Seeing how powerful those Necro Shouts are….I’m not very hopeful, regardless if they’re Mantras or not :L

I would much prefer Deceptions or Tricks or something.

lLobo.7960:

Jski.6180:

Jerus.4350:

Jski.6180:

rotten.9753:

Jski.6180:

What you dont do that!? I mean removing soft cc effect on movement ability may push d/d ele into more mobility then say a thf who is effectively that way now. If you make the cdr no longer on hit but build in always for rtl it may be to easy for eles to get away.

I guess no movement impairing effect on burning speed (600 range, 15s cooldown, easy to get in combat on khylo) will suddenly make ele much better in mobility deparment. Please, be reasonable, it’s not like warrior’s leaps won’t get changed.

Right but with a 20 sec cd rtl at 1,200 ranges that is not effect by movement impairing effects IS unreasonable.

Hmmmm… http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush

Look you can do a side by side compilation to all the skill in the game and you will find some are stronger then others BUT a skill compared alone dose not give you the full ideal of what going on. The ele class has a lot of movement even with out the skill RtL it also plays very different then the war class.

Right,
so a class with higher HP and armor, higher sustain, cleansing of movement impairing conditions on movement skills and access to more mobility skills on weapons and utilities should have a lower CD on the same skill than a class with no weapon swap, low hp and armor and skills locked into attunement CDs…

Isn’t that how they’ve been balancing Ele this whole time anyway? :P

Sadrien.3470:

Mattmatt.4962:

I’ll just add this:
If ele is that badly balanced, is because of this crappy way of design: water = heal, earth = defense, fire = sustained damage, air = burst.
If you dont understand why, i’ll post again, i’m just so kittening tired (3am for me) to explain this and stay gentle ^^’

I don’t understand your comment… Please post when your not so tired XD ( not that im not guilty of that XP )

My guess:

Ele has all these options, but due to attunements being so specific in what they do(and a lot of them failing at that….Staff Air comes to mind) the CDs being so high and us not being allowed to switch at will, we’re just stuck without any defense/offense for X amount of time every time we switch.

Now look at Engi. With the Tool Kit, they have a Block for 3 Seconds every 20 seconds, a Pull, a very powerful attack that causes 5 stacks of confusion, etc.
If they need to use the Shield for whatever reason and then switch out, they’re not suddenly screwed out of the Magnet Pull for another 10 seconds.
They can just immediately pop back into Tool Kit and use Magnet Pull if they need to.
They suddenly need to Chill someone? Switch to Grenade Kit and use the Ice Grenades. You can switch back out to your regular weapon set and then go right back for Poison or anything else! All at will.
Makes the Engi really feel very varied and like you have a tool at your disposal for any situation.

Elementalist feels like it’s fighting its own mechanics constantly.
It’s fun to play, but other times I really wish I could just switch whenever I felt like it. This is why I enjoy Fresh Air so much. I can stay in Air for sustained damage, switch out for some utility or burst damage with Burning Speed or whatever and go right back into Air immediately for any defense or control I need.

I kinda got off-track, but I guess what he’s getting at is that Elementalist has no defense outside of Water/Earth(excluding Swirling Winds on Focus Air) and no Offense outside of Fire/Air; making you very predictable and makes the trait lines suffer as they want to focus on just themselves(Fire Magic line focuses on Fire and Burning, which can be useless when you switch to Water, for example).

Another problem that happens is easy to showcase with Condition builds. If you want to apply a lot of Burning, you can only really do that in Fire. Any other attunement can’t do it and you’re locked out of Fire for ~10 seconds. That’s ~10 seconds that you’re losing offensive pressure. Can’t fallback on Earth because it barely has Bleeds or any real damage. Water usually just Chills and does an awful amount of Vulnerability and Air doesn’t do much either. Your own class mechanic is holding you back in this case.

On-Topic:
They really wanted to push Aquatic Benevolence and since it was only really used in really specific places, now we’re ALL forced to use it if we want to go into Water, which right now is almost all the time in PvP/WvW.
What they really need to do is give us more spread-out Condition Cleansing(at least one more line needs to have SOME form on consistent cleansing; maybe on signet use/aura application) and now more than ever we need traits to increase our damage output. We lost so many damage modifiers that I lost count. How can Air be about single-target damage when we barely have any way to increase the damage we do?
Then we have Fire, which could be good, but a lot of the traits are way too weak(Blinding Ashes should be PER target and then that would help a lot in its viability). Earth is WAY too passive. Water has ALL of our healing and condition cleansing(Evasive Arcana is good, but is not nearly enough, especially without EAttunement) and Arcana is just a neutered trait line.

Sorry, I kinda rambled a lot. Basically, the changes to the Ele traits are mostly awful.
I might switch to Thief or Engi.
> Has actual burst builds with escapes and survivability(more so Thief)
> Has a lot more viable roaming specs
> Has viable Condition builds

Yea, unless Tempest is amazing and/or they re-re-work a lot of the trait lines, I’m probably just gonna switch unfortunately :L

They’re not removing Conjures, just making the only good ones garbage. Don’t worry, you can still use them, but Lightning Hammer and Frost Bow are gonna get nerfed and probably never used in PvE again.

It’s still a Blind dependent on chance, which makes it less favorable then the current Blinding Ashes anyway :L

BlackBeard.2873:

Malchior.5732:

Right now, even if you’re trying to delve deeper into the Condi side of things, you can properly use Blinding Ashes(even if it’s not that amazing right now), but with a change like that, you’re just hurting all precision-excluding builds and barely helping the Burst builds. Blinds are best when controlled.

I do agree with you here. Making Blinding Ashes blind on-crit makes it pretty useless, as blinds are only good really when controlled. All that blinding ashes needs to be a good trait is make the ICD a per-target effect (like glyph of ele power is currently). Even a 1s ICD that isn’t per-target makes the whole trait useless for burst-builds.

Of course, I am sure they are going to for the lowest-effort approach to eles b/c they don’t actually want to put any real effort into this class.

Effort = Work
That’s a big no no.
Lets just push all the good traits in Arcana into GM so that Eles feel even more shafted and lets cripple the Air line for good measure.

I love this class, but sometimes I feel like there’s just nothing to do with it anymore.
I can’t enjoy Glyphs, Conjures, or Arcane skills in PvP unless I wanna feel useless for a while. Signets are starting to pop up more, but still completely overshadowed by D/D Cele Ele.
I personally hate the Scepter(it feels very clunky and unsatisfying to me; nothing like the fluidity of Daggers) so that’s out the window too.
Staff is only fun for me when it’s Zerker and it’s mostly just a gimmick as you’re probably going to instantly die the second a decent Thief looks in your general direction.

Here’s hoping the Tempest is fun to play :L

Dadnir.5038:

Well, for me the fire magic line is already in a good shape. Like I said, pyromancer’s puissance is already pretty good in it’s current shape. Perhaps it doesn’t suit “burst ele” but it suit “sustain damage ele” which have it’s place in the game.

If you really look at it Fire magic work as an hybrid line focused on conditions and a bit of extra damage along with some self utility. It’s a good line for a lot of selfish build/gameplay. When I say that you nerf Pyromancer’s puissance it’s because it fit in a perspective of gameplay diversity while your version is simply useless (from my point of view).

On an other hand, Air magic is a CC/burst line with a bit of self support. Again, it’s a very selfish trait line but it’s here that lie the core of a “Burst build”. Inscription used along with glyph of lesser elemental have a lot of potential (just to say you got the boon when using the minion skill which have a really low CD. Also work with Pyromancer puissance ). Bolt to the heart will most likely become a 20% damage boost against foe under 50% life along the line of other profession.

Your aeromancer’s training trait is to strong. Anet had a good reason to create ferocity and a 150 ferocity buff is already good for a master trait.

NB.: Complaining about health pool and armor type don’t balance a game. In a lot of way, Elementalist if corectly traited have more survivability than the warrior (which is it’s total opposite). Beside, sometime a large health pool is more of a handicap than a low health pool. I think the Elementalist is pretty well balanced in this regard.

Elementalist tends to have more survivability than Warrior because we always max out two lines that give us survivability…We never spec into damage lines unless we’re going full glass. Even then, ShoutBow Warriors can be pretty tough to kill anyway, so that’s a moot point.
We have the lowest health and armor and no real natural defensive mechanics, so we’re forced into 6 Water/6 Arcana(some builds opting for Focus, which can help stall for a bit, but it doesn’t really sustain for very long).

That being said, I think these changes help BURST Elementalists, but some are just not in-line with their theme, like Blinding Ashes having a chance to blind on Critical hits. How does that fit the Fire Line at all? The only similar trait is Burning Precision, which also doesn’t fit! Fire should be about sustained Damage, either Direct or Condi.
Having a little survivability splashed in(Blinding Ashes) to help out; something that is really lacking in our trait lines. What we really need is a way to add direct damage(currently lacking) and some cleansing/survivability(Make a trait that Cleanses 1 on Signet use or something or give us the ability to get Evades when we use Fire skill other than the Auto-Attacks; we could give the Ele a smoke “aura” while in Fire that lets attacks “phase” through you when you’re casting a Fire skill with X amount of cast time so Meteor Shower is excluded)

Right now, even if you’re trying to delve deeper into the Condi side of things, you can properly use Blinding Ashes(even if it’s not that amazing right now), but with a change like that, you’re just hurting all precision-excluding builds and barely helping the Burst builds. Blinds are best when controlled.