Guild Wars 2

Great information. And from a journalist (myself) I must say everything is well interjected.

Nice work, Mon.

Edit— just saw your reply to me. Yes, CDI’s work. But even on a larger scale. Somethun advertised frequently, taken place through twitch and scheduled to take several hours. I don’t think players on the forums are a great representation of the entire player pool. Just those willing or frustrated enough to actually communicate.

Fair enough there.

Every class has access, and many can maintain perma chill via condi duration, runes and sigils. But not many go for it.

But even in small teams, spvp, gvgs and zergs chill is a reality. I don’t want anything to change with that. I think it’s an interesting condition (certainly better than torment >_> don’t get me started) and deserves to stay around.

I don’t think they’ll change much about necro, and runes and sigils make this condi prevalent in 1v1s, so I hope this change occurs.

Thanks for presenting a different view on the argument.

I’d really love for ANet to give a comment to us on how they feel.

calavel.6249:

No, we have not been over this. You say ele skills have unusually long cooldowns, I say this isn’t true (apart from utilities). I’ll be more specific: Lots of ele weapon skills have short to average cooldowns compared to similar classes. The worst offenders are off-hand skills in general but there is nothing unusual about this. Mesmer and necro have long CD weapon skills as well (especially offhand), compare the skill lists. This is a feature of scholar classes, they are less spammy but each skill has greater potential when used right.

I think most our skills have pretty long cooldowns, are less powerful overall, and don’t have a great deal of control/mobility.

I’m not trying to convince you, like I said. I’m telling you my set of facts.

I can appreciate you stand on the other side of the argument. You’re one of two people thus far who are against this change, which really would have no consequence on the game.

What we’re asking for is access to our other weapon sets at a normal pace. We’ll be affected the same by chill as every other class in that we won’t have access to skills we recently used, but if we were specifically saving a control skill for example, and we switched, that skill is locked out for an abnormally long time. We’re not gaining any edge by having our attunements unaffected by chill. We’re not seeing any unfair bonuses. Just access to — like you said — a well planned out battle.

I like to reserve certain things or time things out, as — like you said — we have to plan well and play smart. We can’t plan for chill. Plain and simple.

If you still disagree you disagree. That is all. No point in arguing further

calavel.6249:

Mbelch.9028:

All I’m seeing from your sentences is that you don’t understand ele. I don’t understand what you’re saying about two seconds, but yes as it is, without chill, eles can get into a great groove with skill and practice. But add chill in, and it is a death sentence.

You have 4 attunements. When you swap away from an attunement, that attunement goes on a base 13s CD. You are now in a different attunement. Within the next 2 seconds, you will have two attunements ready to swap into, with a third (the original one) still being on cooldown. This is my point. This is why weapon swapping is NOT the same as attunement. The mehanics and benefits are similar, but they are not the same.

Oh, and you’re welcome to offer an actual counter-argument this time instead of being patronizing and claiming anyone that does not main ele is not entititled to an opinion on the class in the CLASS BALANCE forum.

Ah now I understand what you’re saying.

Yes. At the start of a fight you have four sets of skills to work with. That’s true. But in order to attack and defend, you need one skill from several different attunements. And while it only takes a second to swap to water if you’ve just swapped to air, you won’t be able to get back to air for roughly 10 seconds. That’s a long time when you’re needing to pick and choose what skills to successfully fight with.

So. A set of Mesmer weapons have offensive and defensive skills. Right? Greatsword does, staff does, sword torch definitely does.

Ele doesn’t. Take d/d. Nothing in fire is defensive. Two skills in air are defensive. One skill in earth is defensive and 4 skills in water are defensive.

We’re locked out of most of our defensive skills once we leave water, and our best damaging skills are forfeited after we leave fire.

This isn’t to mention most of our skills that have real value are double the cooldown of a weapon skill on another class. And those skill cooldowns can be reduced on top of that.

You’re welcome to lose your already dull edge. Sorry to expect someone commenting on an ele suggestion have any skill or knowledge of the class.

By the way I wasn’t patronizing, but you are being unpleasant now.

calavel.6249:

Ryld.1340:

I’m sorry, what? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? Only Warriors can achieve the 5s Sigil Time. Ele is in the same exact boat as everyone else. So no, there is no “main difference”.

Attunement Swap IS Weapon Swap. It Procs Sigils. It changes your weapon bar. And most importantly, should not be affected by Chill.

Sigils are a part of it, but it’s not my main beef with your attunement = weapon swap argument. Yes, ele has base 13s CD on THE PREVIOUS attunement when they swap. The 2 remaning attunements cooldown in less than 2 seconds, meaning eles can cycle through 20 different skills in a matter of less than 10 seconds, the time it takes most classes to recharge one swap.
Now does it make any sense to do this? No, of course not. Randomly cycling through a large skill pool and casting them at random accomplishes nothing. But the fact that eles can and should often cycle through attunements is the entire point of the class and is a very poweful tool compared to the fact that most other classes are – by design – limited to using 5 specific weapon skills most of the time and sometimes swapping into 5 other weapon skills to execute some spefific moves or perhaps try to switch range. The warrior is the main difference here, and I’d be happy to discuss why this is.

While eles obviously cannot always reliably access every one of their 20 available weapon skills, they almost always have the option of changing within seconds. No other class can do that, and while warriors can change faster (again, this only goes for your last attunement, not all of them), they are still limited to 10 skills like everyone else.

While I’m glad you are inspired to play the class again, I encourage you to spend time with me in spvp and try to learn the class before you speak like this.

All I’m seeing from your sentences is that you don’t understand ele. I don’t understand what you’re saying about two seconds, but yes as it is, without chill, eles can get into a great groove with skill and practice. But add chill in, and it is a death sentence.

So, just to sum this up, please ask your questions you have about this in a numbered format and I will do my best to explain and hit all your points so you don’t feel like we’re yelling at you, and hit me up in game. I’ll try to show you exactly what we’re talking about, and I’d be happy to train you up as a new ele. Always happy to train up another.

Joseph.7213:

calavel.6249:

Please stop pretending Attunement is “just weapon swap for eles”. No other class can weapon swap between 20 different skills. No other class besides warrior can trigger any sort of effect on weapon swap. It’s F1-F4 skills and those skills are affected by chill. Should Engineer toolbelt skills also be immune to chill? No. And only necro has easy, reliable access to chill.

‘No other class beside warrior can trigger any sort of effect on weapon swap’

You don’t play very many classes, do you?

He mains Mesmer.

Thanks for the additional replies and support. ANet please give a statement on this. It is extremely important to us.

Great post, Mon! I agree.

If anet even wants to save face, I’d be happy just forgoing the admission stuff. Just reverse the trends.

What should honestly happen is a “stockholder meeting” with the player base.

phaeris.7604:

If atunements swapping isn’t weapon swapping then surely elementalists should have a second weapon set, as all the other classes do?

Cheers. Then I could have some range, too.

Malthias thanks for going through all that for him. I couldn’t agree more. There was one other person arguing with me over the word “effective”. See Malthias’ post to further understand what I meant.

borya.2964:

“Rangers can easily perma chill.”

No, they can’t, neither easily nor perma.

I’m on a server with two of the best rangers who play the game. They can maintain perma chill. I’m mostly a WvWer and there are some nasty perma chill ranger builds out there. Spirits are less effective in WvW.

This guy has to be trolling.

In the upcoming patch everybody will be trying out sigil of hydromancy.

Thieves steal and then chill eles, along with a venom and chill on the heal skill when running certain runes.

Rangers can easily perma chill.

Eles chill frequently.

Necros can perma chill.

This list is a list of classes that commonly use the condition. It’s a problem.

This guy doesn’t seem to be understanding the trade offs. He’s also a member of the camp who apparently thinks “more skills=more op” well sir every ele would tell you how wrong you are. Having double the weapon skills is taken at a huge price. Huge. I’ll not repeat it for you, as reading the thread would tell you why.

Please read everything before you comment on something you are very far from understanding (yes I’m talking about eles).

Bran.7425:

Mbelch.9028:

calavel.6249:

Mbelch.9028:

Calavel you’re completely off base. They’re in the F1-4 skill slots, but they’re not considered skills.

This is proof because if so, reducing 20% in earth would reduce attunement swap earth. And since they’re not skills like our skill bar skills, they shouldn’t be affected by chill like our skill bar skills.

Should engie toolbelt skills get this change? No! They are real skills with real effects.
Should engie kits get this change? Yes! They are the only wep swapping mechanics they have as well.

Like Ganathar said, every class can trait for effects on swap, and so can ele. Otherwise we get nothing just like everybody else.

Sorry, but I’m still not convinced. I see I was a bit too quick claiming that only warriors can trait for weapon swap effects, I forgot about engineers and thieves and had no idea rangers could trait for it.
But the fact that Attunement is both weapon swapping and class mechanic (traitable for 30% CD reduction like any class mechanic) obviously makes it different from regular weapon swapping. Saying Attunement should be subject to exactly the same effects and limitations as regular weapon swapping doesn’t seem right to me. It’s not exactly the same and it never will be.

I’m not trying to convince you. I’m telling you facts.

Many classes can trait for lower weapon swapping, just as we can trait for lower swapping. But our swaps — still stuck at an incredibly long 9 seconds — aren’t even reduced by much. Sorry, swing and a miss there.

Elementalists are hit doubly hard for our access to extra skills, when our access ALREADY comes at a very, very high price.

You quite obviously do not play ele. 2/10 for effort.

Actually only warrior is lowering the cool down of weapon swapping through traits. It would take a six piece rune set to lower any other non-warrior to 9 second swap that you consider ‘incredibly long’.

When it takes a few skills from two to three attunements to chain any type of effective attack or defense together, the combined weapon swap becomes 18 seconds or 27 seconds. That’s plain poor planning. Weapon swapping shouldn’t be as easy as engineer kit swapping but it shouldn’t be punished THIS much. Are you joking?

Many classes can get that, is my point. Two cannot. Because our weapon swapping mechanic is different.

F1-4 is ours.

calavel.6249:

Mbelch.9028:

Calavel you’re completely off base. They’re in the F1-4 skill slots, but they’re not considered skills.

This is proof because if so, reducing 20% in earth would reduce attunement swap earth. And since they’re not skills like our skill bar skills, they shouldn’t be affected by chill like our skill bar skills.

Should engie toolbelt skills get this change? No! They are real skills with real effects.
Should engie kits get this change? Yes! They are the only wep swapping mechanics they have as well.

Like Ganathar said, every class can trait for effects on swap, and so can ele. Otherwise we get nothing just like everybody else.

Sorry, but I’m still not convinced. I see I was a bit too quick claiming that only warriors can trait for weapon swap effects, I forgot about engineers and thieves and had no idea rangers could trait for it.
But the fact that Attunement is both weapon swapping and class mechanic (traitable for 30% CD reduction like any class mechanic) obviously makes it different from regular weapon swapping. Saying Attunement should be subject to exactly the same effects and limitations as regular weapon swapping doesn’t seem right to me. It’s not exactly the same and it never will be.

I’m not trying to convince you. I’m telling you facts.

Many classes can trait for lower weapon swapping, just as we can trait for lower swapping. But our swaps — still stuck at an incredibly long 9 seconds — aren’t even reduced by much. Sorry, swing and a miss there.

Elementalists are hit doubly hard for our access to extra skills, when our access ALREADY comes at a very, very high price.

You quite obviously do not play ele. 2/10 for effort.

Calavel you’re completely off base. They’re in the F1-4 skill slots, but they’re not considered skills.

This is proof because if so, reducing 20% in earth would reduce attunement swap earth. And since they’re not skills like our skill bar skills, they shouldn’t be affected by chill like our skill bar skills.

Should engie toolbelt skills get this change? No! They are real skills with real effects.
Should engie kits get this change? Yes! They are the only wep swapping mechanics they have as well.

Like Ganathar said, every class can trait for effects on swap, and so can ele. Otherwise we get nothing just like everybody else.

Shaogin.2679:

This is interesting. I’d say maybe the effect chill has on ele was an intentional counter to the large amount of abilities they have access to in the game. But if all these abilities have cooldowns that are crazy long, then such a counter seems unnecessary. Furthermore, have chill affect ene ele’s access to sigil effects seems really unfair. Therefore I, a necro/engi player, support your plight.

Thank you very much. I hadn’t honestly even thought about our sigils. You’re quite right.

I hope they also remove the chill effect on engie kits, even though it doesn’t hurt it much.

As do I. I’m hoping we can keep this on the front page so come Monday they might comment.

I mean we have near unanimous consensus that something needs to change.

Hammer, longbow, greatsword and shield.

Acceptable others would be torch, sword.

This topic is kind of silly. Each class has specific skills which are best in most situations. You don’t see warriors complaining about “shake it off” “berserker stance” and two other skills that are heavily used.

We will eventually see changes and buffs to our lesser skills but they had better not come at a cost of nerfing our old builds/skills.

But if they don’t fix ele as a whole first, everything is for kitten. So stop complaining every time there’s a balance patch. It makes eles look like whining children.

cheese.4739:

Zuik.7158:

Was told to post this here.

Attunements are counted as skills, which is the reason chill affects them, something which is quite frustrating for many elementalists.

So if these are attunement based skills why aren’t the -20% attunement skill cd traits affecting the cd of attunements?

I’m not suggesting this would be smart balancing but it’s clearly overlooked and gives little justification for the situation of attunements with chill atm.

I do believe there will be some regrets however if attunements no longer count as skill casts. You must realise we would lose a large portion of healing from signet of restoration.

Oh, I /like/ this argument for “they’re our weapon swap mechanic, not individual skills”.

Getting the 20% reduced recharge on attunements themselves would be a significant buff to the not-currently-incredible Alacrity traits, but would mean they were skills and so affected by chills.
If we don’t get the 20% reduced recharge, the swaps must be weapon swaps, not spells tied to our weapon skills, and so shouldn’t be affected by chill.

See why I asked him to post it here? Super logical. Just like they’re putting a red circle on meteor shower to follow all other aoe, they need to change our swaps to follow suit with all other “skill usage mechanics/weapon swaps.”

Yamsandjams.3267:

I don’t think chill affects initiative for thieves, which is a bit weird… in light of something like this, it could be considered unfair to apply it to attunements. Or maybe this just means it should just apply to initiative as well.

This is correct. And I would prefer not to drag some other class (especially one so nerfed as thieves) down with us, so I’d like to pull ourselves up out of this mess.

Anet could we please get a response here?

Hmm. I can say you’ll adapt quickly, but coming from a fast paced engineer, staff isn’t for you.

Why not try D/F? I think you’ll like some of your options with it.

Honestly D/D isn’t for everybody, but no weapon set is “generic” as there’s so few to choose from. I main D/D but try to do a little of everything. Focus is very effective, especially if you go 20 deep into earth.

Dagger is our fastest paced weapon. (Scepters might argue with me, but air is the only quick attunement with that one).

You might stick with engie in spvp until our patch hits in march. That’ll really help us there, but we’re super viable in WvW in all forms if built correctly.

I advise you to prepare a budget and buy a tanky set of gear, a mixed set of gear and a bursty set of gear. Run with each under each weapon set and mix and match. You’ll figure out what is right for you.

That’s silly. That doesn’t follow in line with any other skill.

I know you’re upset but it’s just logical.

I don’t think it would be a large amount of healing lost. About 300 health every 8 seconds on average? I’d take it to lose the chill effect.

I asked you to post it here because wether you’re for or against the chill change, you added a great thought to the conversation.

It needed a circle IMO. I don’t think it’s absurd nor out of line with every other aoe skill in the game.

I like these changes. Ele doesn’t need much. Other classes do. They literally could balance the game around eles if they wanted to.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-Change-how-Chill-interacts-with-Ele/page/2#post3672441

Voice it there.

I don’t disagree with you.

I don’t think the -20% skills should affect attunements, but I think that’s just one more reason they shouldn’t count as normal skills and be affected by chill.

It will never return to that state. Puh-lease. They’re buffing in the right direction. Naysayers are just those who are scared that the highest skilled players will be OP.

News flash. That is possible for almost any class.

Kyon.9735:

zinavlad.7581:

it should be so, the elements have too many advantages, escape and resistance.

I’m not sure about this. Elementalists in PvP/WvW would be really survivable if this is true. Even if you switch attunements you will still have the effects of chill which already greatly hampers the long cooldown skills of elementalists outside of Scepter Air.

I agree with Kyon, but zinavlad, I’d foster the discussion. You say we are too survivable… But if that were true, we wouldn’t be receiving buffs. Buffs by the way which are in line with this discussion.

If we could have the change we’re asking for here, our cooldowns would be the same on our skills, we’d just have some small benefits through our attunement swapping mechanics. It isn’t a major buff. Just acceptable.

Agreed. It’s interesting to me how it hampers eles so much, but thieves almost not at all.

None of their initiative skills have cooldowns and it doesn’t slow initiative regain, so it wouldn’t be game-breaking to also have it not affect our skill usage tool.

Note: thieves I didn’t make that point to gripe about you, but just to justify this change for us.

With cleansing water unnerfed in spvp, I can’t wait to use my WvW build 100% of the time in there. That was an excellent decision.

That along with the SoR change and the agreement to bring more stat combos into spvp is making me super happy. You’re heading in the right direction, truly I think.

ens.9854:

Of course eles never ‘lose’ in WvW; they are always turtling around their gates with mist form -_-;

Yeah some sure do. I hope that gets nerfed.

I sure don’t. I’m a dueler and a roamer. I usually have no towers to hide in.

This thread is garbage. Please close it. It’s misleading and incorrect.

Bad players get nowhere on elementalist. When will they learn that? We need a sticky.

That’s too much PvT. I understand not wanting to min/max as you don’t play a lot, but you’ll be not very useful with that build.

Crit damage is what makes eles powerful. You have 0 crit dmg.

Full PvT was a “discovery” more towards the start of the game.

If I were you, I’d switch to something burstier, and I’d also try out S/F as a weapon set.

Good luck.

I run something similar to the old D/D builds. Of course my gear is 100% custom, but the only class I lose to on any basis is a dang well played necro with boon corrupt and signet of spite.

What can you do about that? Nothin.

Take it for what you will.

There are certain trolly ranger builds around. None of which inflict anything more than condi damage.

However I like a good duel. If you’re not a tank troll I’ll find and PM you.

Malthias, quite a good point. I think I can confidently say our skills have the highest overall cooldowns and we don’t have any weapon specific 20% reductions.

Guys thanks for all the responses.

Silinsar.6298:

I’m curious what you think about attunement swaps canceling casts, Mbelch. Because if attunements become “real” weapon swaps, they’ll most likely become self-interrupts too.

I love that you brought this up. It’s very valid. I personally am in the camp that thinks the mechanic on how we swap weapons is fair. We have a higher cooldown than any other class, and we have more skills on an exponentially higher cooldown.

However on top of that, we’re plagued by chill. So yes while there are upsides and downsides, I think removing chill’s effect on our weapon swapping isn’t unfair while leaving things untouched.

I hope you understand my thought there. I’m tired so it may be fragmented. TL;DR We have enough drawbacks, IE already having the longest weapon swaps in the game, that removing chill but keeping our current weapon swap isn’t a case of unfair treatment, but balancing us vs other classes.

Andele.1306:

Hell even as a necro who loves his permachilling i fully agree, on the other hand i think that we all know a profession who might need to have their INITIATIVE to cleanse chill increased a bit since its immune to the effects of it.

Thank you very much. When a necro admits it isn’t justified you know it’s pretty bad.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Elementalists have their own downsides with attunements, though. For example, it is the only profession which is range-locked in combat.

This is also a great point. We are either ranged or melee, no inbetween. This is a huge downside we have to face.

Joseph.7213:

<voices support>

Nex for ele balance team.

Thanks lol. I feel like I have a decent grasp on eles. Been my only class I play for a long time.

Brando.1374:

Mbelch.9028:

I’d just like to see wep swapping ignore chill. I think it’s pretty fair.

I would prefer all wep swaps to be affected by chill. to keep it in line with ele attune swaps and Necro DS cd.

Ele weapon swapping has nothing to do with necro death shrouding.

They’re not the same. The only thing that relates them is their location on the skill bars.

Attunements are weapon swaps. Each attunement is about half a normal weapon, so we have two weapon sets.

Yes, the logic can be made to extend weapon swap to chill, but I personally am on the other side of the fence.

I think with upcoming sigil changes, it is imperative to make this change to ele.

I’d just like to see wep swapping ignore chill. I think it’s pretty fair.

You might like ele. D/D is my main weapon set. I love what I do with it.

I find I go from my Main spot — WvW — to dungeons, fractals and spvp even and do not have to change my build. I love that.

I never crash.. Odd that you do. What computer are you on?

LightningBlaze.4913:

dreztina.4820:

Amazing. Make a comment about what I think makes a good video, and the full fan club comes out to tell me I’m a jealous hater.

I think that was only Nex and not directed to you.

Yep. Wasn’t directed at you. All you really said was there was a lack of condi fights, which is true, but Serane has them in other videos.

There are other very real haters in this thread though. Largely why I stopped paying much attention.

MonMalthias.4763:

Relax Mbelch, it’s just a knee-jerk post. Some just don’t read the thread in its entirety, governed by sense over reason.

I will have to say though that once Ele condition removal is reverted to its glory days that this buff (if it does indeed come) may well come back to haunt Elementalist in the form of complaints against it.

You can’t please everyone.

True story. But I’ll know who was with us at the time. I am a relatively dry person, so my posts don’t actually have much emotion in them even if they seem like they do. I’m sparing with my exclamation points, so that’s usually when you can see it. I just like to dish it back to people who don’t take time to read or think before they write.

I hope that day comes to pass. I’ll then defend eles, as yes, there’s no “happy” profession in this game. Everybody has to be in a state of nerf or buff. Upsetting really. Ele only needs a few small buffs to be the ideal class.

Whiteman.9803:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Testing period?

hes talking about his play time since the patch

check his post here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/FPS-DROP-WITH-PATCH/page/5

Thanks!! Yeah. I played for about an hour, went into a zerg and had a bunch of group fights.

Use the abyssal scepter. Great pair with anomaly.

I’ve done it a bunch of other times: BUMP. Please fix.

I won’t play my engi ’till this is fixed.

Thanks so much for finally getting to the frame rate issue. I had more fun in my testing period than I had in the prior two weeks. I’m trying to reach out to the friends who quit because of this and get them back on.

Please keep us in mind before you release patches in the future we aren’t second class citizens.

THE FRAME RATE LAG IS GONE, GUYS!. I’m so excited. I just ran into a zerg of people and escaped. I’m pretty sure the zerg was confused at an ele suiciding into 50 people, but I had to test it out somehow!

Thanks wholeheartedly from the ele community, Tyler. Just please don’t mess any of our existing setups up with these changes.

There was a nice post in the SPvP forums promising a resurgence in our ability to fight conditions. I’ll try to find the link.

Found it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Ele-in-Dev-live-stream-scrimages/first

LightningBlaze.4913:

Once again I consider Serane the best d/d Ele I KNOW. It is just like many across my blackgate server and from other servers consider me to be the best. It is only natural after many people are giving you the same compliment, you start to believe it. However, it doesn’t make it completely true. Of course, there are many great players out there and the majority of them never even visit the forums.

It’s reached a point where it’s not worth it. Each additional ignorant/jealous comment is making me chuckle.