Guild Wars 2

NinjaYoshi.3429:

1.25s cast time, but your point still remains the same Mon. It’s amazing how few people know how to dodge Magnet.

There’s actually a bit of windup and aftercast such that the total casting time before the pull executes is closer to 1.5 seconds than the listed 1.25. Desync on a successful pull has sometimes resulted on the pulled victim arriving even later than that, which leads to misses on queued Pry Bars or Jump Shots. It’s not 1.25 seconds, is what I’m getting at.

Yeah, Gear Shield achieving block parity with Warrior /Shield was when TK became quite strong. The only thing keeping TK from being absolutely OP are the desync issues with Magnet pull that throw people in the air or pull only half distance, and the fact that the Throw Wrench is not very useful untraited.

Traited Gear Shield may actually be too strong, and I believe that the block duration should go back down to 2 seconds if Magnet Pull’s desync issues are ever fixed. More offense for less defense.

Regarding the issues brought up in the original post, I don’t see how Stealth plays are any more OP when executed by the Engineer as opposed to the Thief or Mesmer or any other class with reliable Stealth. In fact, Engineer traits have little interaction with Stealth at all except On Immobilise (Cloaking Device), so Engineers must burn other utilities or cooldowns in order to achieve Stealth – no weapon skills provide Stealth by themselves except as Combo Finishers.

Stealth as a mechanic in general needs looking at, but Stealthed Magnet is hardly a gamebreaking issue considering the bugs. Heck, players get hit by unstealthed Magnet all the time despite it being a 1.5 second cast with clear telegraphing from the Engineer and also centred upon the victim. Temporal Curtain → Into the Void or Path of Scars or Binding Blade → Pull are all stronger pulls, with easier setup and faster casting, albeit with shorter range. I would argue that the skill is balanced as it is in the context of Pulls.

Sunshine.5014:

I wrote several constructive posts, for example:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Root-Problem-or-How-to-Balance-PvP/first#post3633033

It never gets any dev response. Well, if you can get them to notice it, it would be great; however, at this point I wouldn’t get my hope high.

ANet engineering team is great. Developing a stable backend that can serve real time combat like GW2 is not a small feat. Nevertheless, the management and internal politics kill this game. Balance is a much more important issue for PvP than PvE, but they put the balance team inside the PvE team, and Tyler can only “talk” to the balance team. It’s pretty sad.

Hey Sunshine. I iterated upon and reposted your original thread in the Balance forum regarding Balance, Iteration and unfixed mistakes . Hopefully enough community attention to be drawn to get Arenanet to realign their priorities and make fortnightly balance a thing.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Since January 2011 Dota has had over 22 patches in 3 years.
League of Legends for the first couple of years since release had biweekly patches.

Those games have over a hundred characters each with at least 4 skills and numerous items to balance around with. The reason they didn’t crash and burn is in good part due to a quick iteration of balance patches based in good part on player feedback.

Why not copy the example of success?

Absolutely. Frequent balance iteration has been demonstrated to have achieved a more balanced result faster. Frequent balance changes also make the meta more dynamic, which prevents stagnation – something that Arenanet has failed to take into account when executing their longer term balance strategy. Mistakes made also have greater leeway for reversion, as the next release is only a fortnight away, such that periods of abuse can only last so long, and player frustrations cannot fester.

Skyhammer (and Skyhammer farming, which utterly poisoned Rank as a currency of player participation), Temporal Curtain Swiftness bug, Healing Signet, Ranger Spirit of Nature, and many many other issues have been left unaddressed and abused for months on end – an unacceptable outcome in any industry, let alone a digital one.

Swagger.1459:

Great posts! Thanks MonMalthias!

I am not the first. As I have said in a previous post, Sunshine.5014 was the first to coalesce these views.

Swagg.9236:

ArenaNet is just a clusterbag of groupthinkers. Telling a round-table of groupthinkers that “HEY, you’re compromising yourselves by just being all ‘Huggy, feely, no problems, guys,’” is not going to get them to stop. As that Glass Door review mentions, ANet needs leadership; they need someone to tell them what to do because they’re not going to do it themselves and they’re too stuck in their own ways to deviate from their current path. No one there has any initiative or backbone because there’s no need for it given the way that their work groups seem to be structured.

At the risk of derailing the thread, Arenanet does seem to have some issues with their management and upper management, but I have deleted those posts due to being off colour.

I do feel that the Balance team has its hands tied, however. Coupling Bug fixes and Balance changes to Feature patches is not a concept any rational balance team would entertain unless there were conflicts with other teams requiring that set changes be released with set content to resolve the issue.

Also with the number of consultants on team and with moving their QA to an external third party, I would think that groupthink would hardly be the source of their issues. The issue remains that there are priorities set by Arenanet, and Balance and bugfixing is not high up.

Avigrus.2871:

I pretty much agree with the OP.

Well said.

We’ve been in the game for 1.5 years and there are still persistent bugs and issues that are simply ignored, yet the pump out this living story content so quickly that it’s hard to even keep up with it.

It gets really old really quickly.

Absolutely. Living Story is a revolutionary concept that should absolutely be pursued given the sky high development costs of producing a AAA MMO – however, Arenanet has taken this concept and run with it to the exclusion of fixing their game.

Honestly half the issues associated with the game at present – Defiance, Utilities and Traits being half-baked, build diversity and bugs – these are all emblematic of a forced early launch. Arenanet and their publisher NCSoft may claim that they had to launch because they ran out of money, but I do believe that the Mists of Pandaria release paid no small part in forcing their decision. This could all have been remedied had there been a focused effort towards finishing their game for the next 6 months post launch instead of working on Living Story.

Redg.9807:

Excellent Thread !
You describe pretty well how balance should be done.
Now let’s hope this thread can get things to move in the right direction.

Actually, this is an iteration of Sunshine.5014’s post The Root Problem, or how to balance PVP with a broader based perspective that enfolds WvW and PvE as well. I claim no credit to the original idea, but since the thread last month by Sunshine received no attention by developers, this is essentially an updated repost.

I hope I have galvanised some people with this thread, and more attention is called to this matter.

falyero.3078:

Excellent posts!! hope anet read it, new game are coming so with no fix a lot of active player could go somewhere else……

Absolutely. With Wildstar, ESO and other MMOs just around the corner, Arenanet’s window of opportunity to retain their veterans and attract new players to stay is gradually closing. Thankfully, with the end of the PvE Living Story Season with the fall of Lion’s Arch, and the finish of the WvW season, now is the time for Arenanet to buckle down and refocus on finishing their game.

style.6173:

@OP: great post.

The problem definitely arises from the balance methodology that ANET employs. It simply does not work. Here is their approach:

1. ANET wants to increase build diversity and so they buff or nerf a trait
2. ANET ends up overbuffing or overnerfing based on their original intention

Now here is where it gets interesting. Most people would say the next step should be to modify what they previously changed. Instead the ANET approach is:
3. Modify a ton of other skills to try to compensate for what they over or under nerfed.

Just not a good balance methodology.

Actually, the balance methodology can be described more accurately as thus:

1. Arenanet pushes out a release and lets players discover the “meta” builds and compositions after a few months
2. Balance changes are introduced addressing the more egregious points of the meta builds, but are overall relatively minor in order to encourage embryonic “off-meta” builds to be developed. Changes are often coupled to “feature” patches that introduce new content.
3. Bug fixes that affect balance are also coupled to “Feature” patches introducing new content, delaying their introduction.
4. Over time, Arenanet hopes to “shave” the apex predators and bring up the “off-meta” builds.
5. Every few months, a larger, more “meta shifting” release is produced, and the cycle repeats.

That is how it is supposed to happen, at least in theory.

What happens in actuality is:

1. After a new release is pushed out, players swiftly find out the strongest builds within the month. Bugs that affect balance are also swiftly exploited. A few threads are created regarding these bugs, and the teams may take it under advisement, but in general fixes are not exactly the highest of priority unless it affects the play experience of connectivity or serverside issues like skill lag or desync.
2. Shaves are introduced every month, but never in a large enough quantity to affect all meta builds. Matchups change a little over time, but some meta specs are abused and exploited for several months before being touched.
3. By the time the next “meta shifting” release rolls around, the changes accumulated are off base due to players finding the counter themselves, or simply joining the FOTM train enough that new specs are meta (actually a good thing; but it means that the release’s changes are disconnected from the actual point of balance.)

Pawstruck.9708:

While I think your thread is very insightful and sparks good discussion, you might want to think twice about posting glassdoor reviews here. I’m not sure it’s the proper place. You might encourage people to go gain insight from those sites themselves, but what you’re doing here is kind of like walking up to A-net’s studio and drawing mustaches on pictures of management. It just seems off color to me, and at the very least might be cause for an unnecessary forum ban or post deletion.

I’d hate to see this thread get derailed or censored due to content like this.

oZii.2864:

I agree with Pawstruck while this topic is excellent I feel that your glass door posts starts to change course away from profession balance and more to the general development of Guild Wars 2.

Pursuant to your concerns I have deleted the Glass Door posts. I do hope that there is enough momentum built at this point that the exclusion of them from the discussion will still be sufficient to prove my point that the priorities at Arenanet need to change.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Phaeton.9582:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.

Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).

Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.

This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).

Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.

But it’s essentially the same thought process as diamond skin. Take something eles are especially weak to, and give them something that completely annihilates that but is useless against everything else. In the case of diamond skin it’s dire necros, in the case of the original suggestion it’s stealthspammers.
I definitely think that stealth needs more counters, but I don’t think it should be through traits, and especially not grandmaster ones. I could be okay with the revamped suggestion making it through flamewall, but I still think we would be better off making stealth a boon and making that skill and others across classes boon rips.

Heh, my thread on making Stealth a Boon did not last 30 posts before being shouted down and dying a mourn-less death.

I’d necro it if there’s interest in developing the idea further, but Stealth based Thieves would beg to differ and would rather that their class remain in the state it is, which is only fair enough considering their nerfs. That said, Thief matchups should be normalised more such that their efficacy should be better against tanky DPS whilst not crushing squishy DPS as it is right now.

Pawstruck.9708:

While I think your thread is very insightful and sparks good discussion, you might want to think twice about posting glassdoor reviews here. I’m not sure it’s the proper place. You might encourage people to go gain insight from those sites themselves, but what you’re doing here is kind of like walking up to A-net’s studio and drawing mustaches on pictures of management. It just seems off color to me, and at the very least might be cause for an unnecessary forum ban or post deletion.

I’d hate to see this thread get derailed or censored due to content like this.

My original intent of posting the Glass Door reviews was in hopes of demonstrating the point that it is the project management of GW2 and not its developers holding the success of the game back. That said, I recognise that it could be misinterpreted in that fashion. If derailment occurs, then I will edit my posts accordingly. But I do feel that it is important to the discussion to demonstrate why things are happening as they are, and the reviews are an important insight into the matter.

glaphen.5230:

Terrahero.9358:

Are you even real? From what universe did you phase from into ours?

Amazing, you completely destroyed my argument.

Actually, Healing Turret is not the “meta” heal for Decap Engineer, in case you weren’t aware of JinDaVikk’s Decap Engineer build . The reasoning is that due to wanting to exploit Automated Response’s 25% HP threshold, burst healing on the level of Healing Turret is actually suboptimal, as opponents could simply wait until the heal was burned, then condi burst without fear of AR kicking back in. In the mean time, Necro Scepter 1 or any other poison application could be used to reduce the window of reaction that Engineer has once the threshold is passed.

Healing Turret is strong, yes. In some variations that use Accelerant Packed Turrets, it is even stronger. However those variations of the AR Decap engineer build have unique weaknesses to the typical condi-bunker backpoint holders and especially to Thieves that makes it suboptimal.

Nerf Automated Response, and decap Engineer’s matchups against the typical backpoint holder as well as Thieves will become immediately bad – for the Engineer. Looking to nerf Healing Turret when it is the inferior heal for this build (and somehow segueing into Healing Signet discussion) is the wrong direction and has knock-on effects of nerfing many other ancillary Engineer builds.

Simply remove AR’s condition immunity to be replaced by a mechanic that requires cooldowns like On Toolbelt Use to clear conditions, and you immediately kill off decap Engineer whilst bringing up Engineer’s condition cleanse in general.

Knockbacks like Overcharged Shot could do with some looking at, but not before AR is nerfed. Doing so risks the viability of Power Engineer, a setup that is already suboptimal.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Excellent post. I hope you will not be banned for speaking the truth.

If they ban me, there are two outcomes:

• My ideas have been disseminated enough to result in a Martyr’s cry , and the community is galvanised to push for management change
• My ideas have not been disseminated enough, and the direction of GW2 continues unchanged, to the embitterment of all. GW2 goes down in history as “solid, but missing the mark” and history’s mistakes are repeated.

I would hope that – for the present and future of the company – that its errors are corrected. The video game industry is extremely consolidated as it is. To have the talent scatter to the four winds from neglect would be most egregious.

Rahar.9872:

Excellent posts, makes a clear point and outlines the problems with the devs very well, especially how balance changes in general seem to lag behind.

There’s some work to be done, and personally, I’d gladly go without the fortnightly content (in fact, I hardly do it now anyway) if it meant more balance changes.

• “Lagging behind” seems to be the operative word of the state of the game at the moment. If Arenanet is to catch up, it must recognise two things:
  • Arenanet cannot know 100% what its community wants. Testing internally is nothing compared to releasing it to the community that will use and abuse it to the full.
  • Likewise, the community sometimes does not know what it wants. Changes proposed could have knock-on effects that internal testing could not possibly reveal.

• Therefore the solution is to release more often, in the hopes that the hundreds of thousands of man hours spent by the community to collectively abuse the changes will result in a balanced result quickly. As the state of balance then becomes more dynamic, stagnation or stultification leading to community frustration is significantly ameliorated.

Neko.9021:

“Aetherblade/Dhuumfire” patch. The patch that introduced Scarlet’s name and the destruction of PvP balance and fun. Thanks for the name. Let’s rally behind this, and tell ANet not to make another Aetherblade/Dhuumfire patch.

• Overhaul patches in and of themselves are not bad, if issues identified after release are swiftly followed up upon. In this case, issues identified such as Sigil of Paralysation, Dhuumfire reducing TTK to mere seconds, Thieves becoming the meta roamer, Warriors becoming gods – these would all have been ameliorated if changes were swiftly pushed out to correct these imbalances.

• As it stands, the state of the game was effectively untouched until the passing of the PAX tournament. This is a mistake that cannot be repeated if Arenanet is to retain its veteran playerbase, already wary and jaded. If the issues that come up in March 2014 Rune and Sigil overhaul are not followed up swiftly, it will be the beginning of the end for GW2 balance.

• Thankfully, with the end of the WvW and Living Story season, now is the time for Arenanet to realign its priorities. If not to secure their playerbase, then to secure the future of their project. A digital industry in an age of social media cannot afford to leave mistakes to fester.

Sari.9836:

I wholeheartly agree and I would also like to mention that I hope we go with an ELO system later. We have no metrics for our rating on the current Glicko-2 system thus not allowing us to thoroughly analzye our rating and its determinants and possibly take something new and helpful out of it. An ELO system allows for more freedom in rating too. (And thank you for linking my post)

• Thanks for providing your statistical breakdown of the system. Having played other games that use Glicko like Dawn of War 2 amongst others, matchmaking in any PVP context is one of the pillars of a strong PVP experience – failures in which result in considerable player angst.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Great post. Agree 599% with what you said. I only wish ArenaNet would do something about it.

• The community has pushed for changes before, and they have gone through. Issues like Dodge queueing after Stun or diversifying Stunbreaks across all profession utilities – these are changes that have generally had positive results on build diversity. Relenting on Ranger’s Sword 1 root is also another example. Arenanet does listen, on occasion. Hopefully they do so again, on the most important ongoing issue of their company.

caporal moktahr.3408:

Hello. I’m not posting that often too.
I post because i think you post deserves visibility.
It’s full of truth and well thought.

Great Post.

Best Regards
Moktahr

Thanks. Despite prevailing forum attitudes that GW2 is going to hell in a handbasket, the general trend of changes has been positive – bar several major mis-steps. It is correcting their errors and changing their management stance that must occur if the game is to prosper.

Einlanzer.1627:

Good post. I’d like to chime in only to say that in addition to the glacial pace and iteration failures, the balance adjustments that do happen also seem to be highly myopic – focusing far too intently on one specific use of one specific skill/trait in one specific game mode, for example.

They seem to frequently ignore both big picture concerns (like my thread on #1 skills), and how their changes impact other sections/modes when they shouldn’t or fail to impact them when they should, which contributes to the feeling that there are major, large imbalances in the game that simply go without any attention whatsoever for unforgivably large stretches of time.

Meanwhile, a very lackluster presence on the boards leaves players with nothing to assuage their frustration, which has continued to fester with no end in sight.

Actually, Arenanet has shown considerably greater forum presence in the wake of community uproar since the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade patch. The mistakes committed demonstrated that any major change; no matter how rigourously tested internally, could have devastating consequences on balance once released.

A cursory glance through the Dev Tracker demonstrates that developers are engaging with the community, and on a minute-to-minute basis across all areas of the game. What happens as a result remains to be seen.

Collaborative Development and a willingness to engage has been demonstrated by the developers. Unfortunately, it seems that some of the topic results have been stymied by poor prioritisation, so their execution is lacking, if not for lack of trying.

Mbelch.9028:

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.

It is interesting to go through the Game Updates wiki category of GW2wiki to see the overall trends and changes to the game. Overall the game is more bug fixed than at launch and more skills and utilities are usable. It is just that their direction is lacking.

As for a stockholder’s meeting, CDI already has elements of this. I would hope that this time around, the execution is better.

As a clarification to the OP

Just a followup to my OP to further clarify my reasoning and thought process behind my topic.
One point must be made clear: The community should not focus its ire and negativity upon the developers, but upon the management, because this is where the mistakes are being made

Reading through the employee reviews at Glass Door Reviews should also be instructive as to what currently ails Arenanet’s project management and these concerns should – and must – be made more public if change is to be instituted.

To wit:

• The point of this topic is to galvanise the community to a state that pushes Arenanet’s project management in a more positive direction, because it is clear that the current course has its flaws.

• For all of Guild Wars 2’s flaws, it is a thoughtful exercise in innovation and a brave first step in producing the “next generation” MMO that discards old MMO tropes for a stronger game that forsakes the (majority) of the MMO Skinner Box

• It would therefore be a frightful waste of potential if the game was to be abandoned due to neglect in balance and polish in lieu of temporary content.

• Thankfully, we are now in a window of great opportunity for Arenanet to redeem itself and re-align its priorities:
  • Living Story “season” has ended, as has WvW.
  • PvP is clamouring for a shift in meta that has stagnated for months with stultified team compositions and a lack of content like game modes and maps.
  • Now, more than ever, is the time for Arenanet to shift its focus.

(Edit: deleted Glass Door review due to risk of derailing the thread)

We know, as a community from playing this game, that Arenanet is capable – more than capable – of producing quality gameplay within a quality product. Yet without a head, even the greatest teams working on a project will become a conflicting mass of priorities and problems.

This is what we are seeing right now.

This is what the community as a whole should push to correct, if the game is to grow and prosper into the future. To have it wither on the vine, poorly tended, would be the greatest tragedy that could befall one of the strongest MMOs yet released.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Grevender.9235:

phaeris.7604:

Low vitality should = higher damage.

This sadly isn’t the case.

low vitality is not the problem (just look at Guardian for reference)
our problem is SUSTAIN, which is a different thing.

It sure is PART of the problem. Lets keep in mind a guardian still has 5-7k+ more
HP than an ele AND wears heavy armor.

Uh…what? Guardian shares the lowest HP bracket with Elementalist at 10805 at Level 80 before traits, runes or stats from armour and/or trinkets.

Elementalist sustain did exist – it’s just that it’s been nerfed both directly with changes to condition cleanse and indirectly with bug fixes like Mistform interrupting Ether Renewal.

At this point, consideration should be paid to the weapon skills that can heal on Elementalist like Cleansing Wave, Cone of Cold, Geyser, Water Trident, Healing Rain. Removal of Regeneration on Attunement from Soothing Wave is also an issue that removes significant amounts of HPS given the low base vitality.

Phaeton.9582:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Well, if you did want to add it to a trait, it could go to the 15 point fire magic trait. This already has an “on attunement” affect to it already, so it would just be a direct buff. I’m not sure if people really try to use the damage on attunement swap that much anyways… I guess maybe in a s/x spike build it could work well, but I’m not an ele expert by any means.

That would be so OP though ><

Yamsandjams.3267:

Or perhaps it could be added to persisting flames so that the blast finishers also reveal enemies in addition to the other stuff.

I don’t think it’s worth dedicating a whole trait to this sort of revealing mechanism. Instead, I think it would be better to give it to something that could benefit from it.

Otherwise just add it to a weapon or utility, like cleansing fire or flamewall.

Adding revealed to persisting flames is a cool idea I hadn’t thought of. The only problem is raising the skill cap on s/x glass, but frankly if all classes were ‘buffed’ in this manner ppl would be a lot more content by it.

Revealed on flamewall is also a good suggestion, as focus fire attune is in severe need of a buff. If any weapon should be designed to deal with thieves it should be this one too.

To be honest I think Elementalist needs more play around Boon hate and Stealth in general, but triggering on Fire Attunement is probably not the way to go. I like the suggestions others have raised throughout the thread like reveal on Blast Finishers with Persisting Flames, but in general Stealth counters should also be incorporated into Boon Hate if they are to ever have more broad base applicability.

As it stands, only 3 classes (Engineer, Mesmer, Thief) have the ability to reliably stealth and to restrict Stealth hate to Stealth only without broader application will leave it ignored.

That being said, the Elementalist vs Thief matchup being so unfavourable does not entirely revolve around Stealth. The main reason is and remains the ability of Thief to exert enough threat to force Elementalist to blow 60+ second cooldowns to save themselves – whilst the Thief has the option to dis- and re-engage within that time frame. In some cases, multiple times. (Sword Pistol) This means that the Elementalist will always be at a cooldown disadvantage, if not a health disadvantage (assuming Elementalist played perfectly).

Thief didn’t get to shut out other roamers because of Stealth, or because of its mobility, or its damage – it got to do so because it can operate within the utility cooldowns of the roamers it shut down. Reveal or Boon Hate will address only part of the issue, but the matchup will always remain unfavourable unless Utility skill cooldowns for Elementalist and/or Mesmer are looked at, and Thief becomes less time-starved, such that more of its damage can be done outside of Stealth and Evade frames to make the fight more about the Weapon skills than the Utilities.

I like the idea of colour coding otherwise ambiguous skills like Necromancer Marks or Engineer bombs. I think that the whole Vigour and dodge spam issue could have been sidestepped if only everything was easier to read in the first place. As it stands, people are forced to dodge randomly because it’s hard to tell whether it’s a Reaper’s Mark or a Mark of Blood, or a Concussion Bomb as opposed to a regular Bomb (the most egregious, and that’s coming from a Bomb kit Engi).

GW2 is and remains one of the most fun to play, yet the most impenetrable to watch games I’ve experienced. Teamfights are a cavalcade of coruscating Particle effects and match-turning plays are often lost in the maelstrom. Making Signets, Marks, Bombs, and other otherwise hard to read skills easier to read is good first step towards making the game more accessible and fun to play, as well as fun to watch.

This is definitely a Quality of Life issue deserving of attention if Arenanet can ever hope to recapture the #Esports feel of a high-level GW1 PVP match. Whilst I applaud the efforts of Arenanet’s graphic designers and artists in coming up with the particle effects, more can be done and indeed, more should be done to mature GW2 as a game and as a spectacle.

calavel.6249:

Well, in my opinion reliable chill is limited to necros and eles. I’ve yet to hear you address this other than flat out disagreeing and offering no arguments either way apart from a wiki link. Yes, it’s a very impressive list of ranger pet skills, but unless you get assaulted by an arctic zoo, it’s not going to be a real problem.

And may I repeat myself once again and state that weapon swapping in general is a huge deal and that 4 weapon sets instead of 2 is an even larger one? Is this also to be completely ignored in this discussion or is it simply that anything that messes with Attunement is OP and must be removed/nerfed? Because if that is the argument here, I might as well stop now.

Actually, Elementalist was designed around operating with 20 weapon skills, whilst other classes like Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Necromancer, Guardian, Mesmer are designed around operating with 10. Engineer is a special case having the option to slot more or less depending on the build.

This post will be necessarily vague as it touches on design intent over mechanical concepts like cooldowns and cast times, but suffice it to say that having 20 weapon skills as Elementalist does not make one more powerful than having 10 weapon skills. Elementalist design is centred around finding cross-attunement combos of skills – each with utility that would seemingly be undertuned, but when comboed together result in powerful effects.

The fact of the matter is that Elementalist doesn’t have 4 weapon sets, because each individual set of skills is designed to be used in concert with one another. Staying in 1 set is actually considered to be suboptimal, in fact, whereas Warrior or Ranger for example, it is actually favourable to stay, or at least not punishing, as autoattacks for 10-skill classes are generally stronger as a result.

Having Chill affect Attunement swap is essentially like having Chill affect the weapon swaps of classes with 2 weapon sets on top of having Chill affect the Weapon skills themselves. Would Warrior ever go without Fast Hands if Chill affected weapon swap? Implications for other classes are similar. One can also make an argument for cross-set combos – yet these are unimpeded by Chill, whilst Elementalists are so impaired.

The fact remains that whilst 2 weapon set classes can opt to stay within that weapon set, Elementalists cannot; when their very design forces them to swap constantly just to remain competitive.

That Elementalists can potentially gain the most benefits out of their swaps is a factor, certainly. But to turn that around into the crux of an argument that revolves around Elementalists having more skills available avoids the issue that other classes are not similarly affected.

One could just as easily argue the other way and argue for Chill affecting the Weapon swaps for Thief, Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger, Mesmer and Guardian as well. After all, turnabout is fair play.

Carighan.6758:

I don’t see how #1 is comparable.

I mean, really. How would you balance them? Their target balance depends massively on traits, utility skills, elites, heal abilities, class mechanic and 2-5 skills. They’re not at all comparable.

I think in this context it would be appropriate to consider the autoattacks on all classes and for a balance pass to occur for all of them to truly define their role in applicable builds and setups. Off the top of my head, these are the “problematic” autoattacks for each class:
Elementalist

• Staff Fire, Water, Air and Earth require increases in projectile speed for the autoattacks. In the complete absence of any consideration to DPS as casting time and aftercast should remain invariant; Staff autoattacks should become faster to hit more reliably.
• Dagger Water, Earth require changes that would alter DPS output, but this is because DPS output in these attacks is junk. Weak autoattacks in attunements outside of Air remain an issue for Elementalist in general, but Dagger mainhand in particular requires Air 1 for DPS output – which pigeonholes the playstyle and limits build diversity. Dagger mainhand in particular will never likely have a reliable Condition build due to Earth 1’s horribly bad attack. Aftercast and damage output will have to be re-evaluated.
• Scepter Fire, Earth require less Aftercast, whilst Water’s damage output is bunk and offers no secondary effects.

Engineer

• Rifle 1 has aftercast that pushes the purported 0.75 cast time closer to 0.9 seconds, which is why Rifle is widely regarded as usable largely only in Burst damage builds rather than sustained pressure DPS despite qualities that would predispose it to such: Piercing without trait, good range, good coefficients.
• Pistol 1 has horrible aftercast that turns a 0.5 cast time to 0.9 seconds. With short Bleed duration, horrible coefficients and base damage, Pistol 1 is pretty much disregarded unless used in Condition builds taking Incendiary Powder and lacking a single target skill to proc IP. It’s part of the reason why Pistol/Shield is so often seen with Kits and P/P has waned soon after the Beta Weekends – Kits are so markedly superior in all respects that mainhands deserve no respect – which leaves Kitless builds out in the cold.

The point is to give each profession’s autoattacks a balance pass to give them a defined role and make them useful in that role. I’m also certain that professions like Mesmer would appreciate changes to Scepter 1, for example, or Necromancers changes to Staff 1, or a multitude of other autoattacks for other professions. For Rangers on Shortbow, I’d imagine the problem is the other way around.

Autoattacks are playing a small, but significant role in limiting build diversity as a result. A strong build starts from the basics and autoattack balance does play a role in defining and restricting playstyle – I gave Dagger mainhand for Elementalist as an example. Consideration to sustained damage output plays a significant role in any build, and ignoring it has flow on effects for balance that Arenanet should take into account.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mattmatt.4962:

Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.

It is pretty much that way as it is. All this would do is actually give you a stat boost depending on the attunement you are in.

Already you go Air for Damage, it beats Fire damage already and you go Water for heals and and such so a boost here to healing power would be you know kind of obvious. You go Earth depending on your weapon set for defense, i mean after all you take 5 points in Earth you get more toughness anyway.

I think this is how they wanted the class to actually be. They just havent done enough to make it so you can decide what you want to build around, bar damage in which case you would go Fresh Air trait and go Air.

SO this change would pretty much make it so that the attunements actually have a reason and give you a bonus for what ever you would like to use. Why is it that only Earth should give you a buff and even then cost you 5trait points? It is clear they have a specific role in mind for each attunement, they just sorta gave up mid-design.

Surely “we” is totally wrong. You are assuming that EVERY ele thinks the same as you. This simply is wrong. With this change you wouldn’t need to spec into anything to get the benefit. You would get the added stats as part of the class mechanic.

Actually, I tend to cleave to the views of MattMatt in that the current trait design of Elementalist is flawed, with a too-rigid split of Offense and Defense that leaves Build diversity out in the cold.

If you recall Elementalist before the nerfs, most “discovered” builds at the time were all essentially variations on the one build – 10+ in Air, 30+ in Arcana, with the remaining 10-30 points put into Water and/or Earth for defense.

• For D/D: 0/10/0/30/30 Auramancy; all 3 healing options usable. Later dropped in favour of same trait distribution but instead relying on Might Stacking through Sigil of Battle and Boon Duration runes and Cleansing Water/Bountiful Power. Triple Cantrip favoured, but other utilities optional.

• For D/D, S/D: 0/10/10/20/30 or 0/20/10/10/30 or 0/15/10/15/30: A more offensive variation that became available once Stone Splinters was made less situational. Triple Cantrip was de jour. Conditions were not as out of hand back then; nor were Grenadier Engineers, so the build was plenty survivable in the context of the time.

You will note that at all points, 30 in Arcana was considered to be optimal. Even when Fresh Air was introduced, 30 points was considered the best as any less would be sacrificing other Attunements. Conditions were becoming more of an issue now that Engineers and Necromancers were both going condition builds, so Ether Renewal found a way into builds especially since the channel time was reduced.

Water and Arcana were nerfed repeatedly throughout this time, with the final nail in the coffin coming in December 2013. Elementalist was now essentially Thief without Stealth, relying almost entirely on Fresh Air burst and still being shut down by Thieves as well as condition classes.

Now that Elementalists lacked reliable cleanses 10 points deep in Water and heck, the newest source, Burning Fire required 20 points in Fire and a useless Adept slot – matchups were extremely unfavourable, especially given that Fresh Air was now mandatory for enough DPS to kill Warriors.

The whole issue has been the fact that Elementalists lack Condition defense outside of Water (and no, Diamond Skin is not condition defense).

As for Toughness, PvE and WvW Elementalists can slot enough to survive burst damage and indeed, their build diversity is larger there. But in PVP, Valkyrie’s amulet can no longer provide enough DPS to kill Warriors nor the Vitality to survive Conditions whilst at the same time, Thieves still train down Elementalists.

If Elementalist is to have build variety – and I do mean true build variety outside of going 20+ in Water, 20+ in Arcana and calling it a day, then the current design of condition defense in Water, attunement procs in Arcana, Direct Damage in Air, Defense in Earth, Burning in Fire – must be abandoned for continued diversification of these functions throughout all trait trees.

Anything less is still going to make Elementalists put 40+ points in Water and Arcana because otherwise the resulting builds are too glassy to survive.

Celestial Armour and not Trinkets is what you should be aiming for.

Celestial Trinkets have inferior Critical Damage increases compared to Berserker, Valkyries and Cavalier’s trinkets, which makes their inclusion in a direct-damage focused build problematic. Armour on the other hand has superior or equal amounts of Critical Damage in all slots and is therefore superior – especially in the Shoulders, Gloves and Boots. If you’re after a little bit of everything, the best place to start replacing is there. Obviously the gains are higher when you go after the Chest, Helm and Legs, but you may want to use your “main stat” combination in those for the larger bonuses.

• The point is that you should aim for making your armour as invariant as possible, as skins and Transmutation cost a lot of gold and/or time – as do runes.
• On the other hand, one can swap Trinkets in and out with ease given the broad base Celestial gives you to start with.

For Trinkets, it is almost never worth using Celestial for either Direct damage or Condition damage, as the gains are inferior in both. Trinkets are where your customisation can make the most impact and as such you should focus your efforts there.

In PVP, Celestial Amulet and Jewel is trash for all professions, including both Engineer and Elementalist – the two professions touted to be the “best to take Celestial with” due to their hybrid damage nature and requirements for most stats. Unfortunately, Celestial in PVP is massively underbudgeted considering the gains other Amulets and Jewels give, and Condition and Critical Damage there is also inferior, which puts the nail in the coffin.

Adamantium.3682:

MonMalthias.4763:

One way to make Turrets more mobile without giving them free movement would be to replace the Detonate command with a “Recall” command that then chains into Detonate.

I haven’t read the rest of your post yet, but I had to stop here and say ZOMG SPIRIT RIT!

I’ve said many times in the past that the more we can make a turret Engineer to function like a spirit Ritualist, the better!

Having Draw Spirit on a chain skill after Overcharge or on the Toolbelt before chaining into Detonate would be all that Turret Engineer needs to be viable after all the bugs are addressed. At that point, the only weakness of the build would be to Conditions – for which there is Automated Medical Response and Healing Turret.

That said, care needs to be taken, as I have mentioned before, to not turn Turret Engineer into the next MM Necro or Spirit Ranger – both of which rely largely on AI as a shield and the source of their DPS. Turret control should be made as responsive as possible and Turrets should be strong area denial tools, but Engineer Weapon skills should retain the bulk of the damage output in such builds – with Turrets providing the Control and the Support.

An alternative mechanic that has less potential to abuse On Toolbelt Use triggers would instead be to put the Recall function on a Chain skill after the Overcharge skill. Overcharge already implies that the Engineer wishes to keep the Turret on until the Overcharged period is complete – letting the Engineer save the Overcharged Turret with Recall is also an option here, offers more granular balance, and prevents abuse of On Toolbelt use trigger spam.

One way to make Turrets more mobile without giving them free movement would be to replace the Detonate command with a “Recall” command that then chains into Detonate.

Recall would cause the Turret to start flying back to the Engineer’s position, stopping and becoming rooted again once within 130 range of the Engineer.
Recall would also have a cooldown consummate to the relative power of area control conferred by that Turret. Recall for Rifle Turret would have a cooldown of 10-15 seconds as it is mostly single target DPS. On the other hand, Net Turret’s Recall could have a cooldown of 20-30 seconds to reflect its CC power.
Recall should interrupt the skill queue of Turrets for instant response. The lessons of Ranger pets should be applied here to avoid the same mistakes.

This has several effects:

• In mobile combat, Turrets left behind can be recalled to the Engineer’s position.
• This would allow Engineers to save their Turrets from AOE – at the cost of concentrating them into 1 position if Recall is spammed to all Turrets – risk vs reward.
• On the other hand, a triple Recall of Turrets would also concentrate firepower into 1 position. Risk vs Reward.
• Retaining the Detonate command allows the Engineer to double-tap to sacrifice a Turret for damage and a Blast finisher. Would pose issues with Static Discharge unless an ICD of 0.5-1 seconds was imposed, but Turrets would benefit so much that SD should not be a limiting factor here.
• Synergy with Deployable Turrets (Finally!). Throw your turrets out with Deployable Turrets, call them back with Recall.
• Pet manipulation across many professions simply involves attack or recall commands (in the case of Ranger) This introduces the same elements to Engineer, but retains a higher skill floor due to the fact the Recall command has a cooldown – a mistake in Recall would mean a forced Detonate or a killed turret; whereas pets and minions will always revert to following their master.

Traits would have to be reworked to support the Recall mechanic.

• Autotool installation could provide spike healing upon recall, for example.
• Accelerant Packed Turrets could introduce increased Recall cooldown to emphasise the Detonate over the Recall command (might be too counterintuitive)
• Missing trait utility includes reduced Recall cooldown, resetting or halving Overcharge cooldown upon recall at the cost of causing Turret self-destruction at end of Overcharge, etc.

Overall, Turrets need to:

• Scale with player Toughness, Power, Condition damage, Vitality. Precision and Crit damage might also be factored in, but the point is to have glassy turrets that deal damage with a glassy Engineer, and tanky turrets that deal little damage with a tanky Engineer. The lessons of Beastmaster Ranger must be heeded.
• Have their DPS or fire rate when emplaced increased markedly; even when not Overcharged. Rifle Turret should be firing at rates similar to, say, Thief Unload or iDuelist when Overcharged; and Thumper Turret should provide PBAOE pulsing damage on the level of 1 Bomb each time, every 0.5-1 second. Turrets should be as credible threats as Mesmer Phantasms at the cost of little mobility and limited range.
• On the other hand, Turret DPS should never get to the point where Turrets supercede Engineer damage. Phantasm Mesmer builds are mindless – as are MM Necromancer builds. For Turret Engineer to be effective, he/she should be on the level of 2-3kit Engineer in terms of APM requirement for chaining and comboing skills.
• Low-input, low-skill floor builds are bad for the game and low-input should result in low efficiency. Turret Engineer should be no different.

Engineer’s best range is 130 – 600 or so, that sweet spot where all your skillshots are almost guaranteed to hit and where you have enough time to react to gap closers or hard hitting attacks. If you’re playing Bomb Kit, that range decreases to 130-240, but you get better DPS as a result.

Besides range control there is also the need for more active defenses until you get your traits online. Best trait as many people have said is Speedy Kits from 10 Tools. I wouldn’t recommend using Grenade Kit seriously until you hit 60 and get Grenadier – untraited grenades are trash unless you’re playing Condition builds and even then you’re missing 50% of your application from the lack of traited Grenade Kit.

Engineer also uses many conditions for Control – Cripple, Immobilise, Weakness, Blind – use these skills to your advantage to let yourself take on more mobs than should be possible through facetanking alone.

Remember that you are not Warrior, one of the easiest classes to play in the game. Taking hits means more pressure to use your heals – and whilst Engineer has one of the highest healing available in the game – having to use it in PVE means that you’ve usually bitten off more than you can chew.

Your basic autoattacks – unlike Warrior – are also considered to be weak. Without chain skills, featuring low coefficients and low base damage, Pistol and Rifle are not suited to spamming 1 if you want to live – chaining and comboing skills gets you so much further that it is a requirement for both your damage output and your survivability.

As others have mentioned in the thread, getting Pistol Shield for general utility and then unlocking a Kit is highly recommended. I recommend Bomb Kit to start off with – the combos are obvious. Flamethrower is “meh” at low levels, unacceptably weak at higher levels – outside of FT2, the rest of the kit is normally relegated to general utility.

For a lower APM requirement, consider using Elixirs + 1 kit. I’ll let you figure out which ones are the most useful, but keep in mind that Elixirs are at their best when traited. They are still useful at base, but improve markedly with points in Alchemy.

Lastly, learn how to animation cancel. Rifle 5, Elixir Gun 4, Rocket Boots are movement skills that benefit markedly from increased precision of movement (or in the case of Rifle 5, speed and distance) when animation canceled. Channeled skills within kits also continue channeling when you press the kit’s utility hotkey again – use this to find cross-kit or kit→ weapon skill combos that would not be otherwise possible.

Engineer is a class with a high skill ceiling that only becomes more efficient with experimentation and experience. Reaching for that ceiling is a journey that will make you better as a player.

I would also suggest picking up more professions as you go along as well. Appreciating the individual nuances and strengths and weaknesses of each class design is no less important than fully mastering a single profession.

Karl McLain has laid down the law, and its name is Cleansing Water. All hail the Triple Cantrip Ele, the once and future king of Regeneration.

Elementalist:
Cleansing Water: This trait no longer has an internal cooldown while in PvP.
Meteor Shower: Updated the skill fact to display the increased endurance regeneration while the player has the Zephyr’s Focus trait. Added a red ring to indicate area of effect for enemy players. Added a white ring for allied players.

• This change makes x/x/x/30/30 pretty much meta. Again. Certainly, Staff Elementalists will have no excuse not slotting this trait – the synergy with Healing Rain/Elemental Attunement is far too great.

• This change will further lock down build diversity now that Cleansing Wave (The trait, not the skill) is in Master tier. Cantrip Mastery/Soothing Disruption will become the “locked in” Adept and Master traits once again – especially for Staff.

• Then again, 0/10/0/30/30 triple Cantrip D/D ele will make its triumphant return come March.

• Rock Solid/Ether Renewal less necessary as a result. The revert on Signet of Restoration combined with Cleansing Water may bring it back into favour.

• Glyph Heal + Cleansing Water is also an option now.

• Overall the change is good, but I fear this will ensure that condition clear will never be added to lines other than Water magic, and x/x/x/30/30 will become further entrenched. D/D x/15/10/15/30 will probably never again see the light of day, for example.

oZii.2864:

MonMalthias.4763:

oZii.2864:

@ MonMallthias. I’ve seen you post and you seem reasonable but your facts are indeed wrong.

S/d cantrip was meta. D/d was good in WvW that’s it.

The problem was other classes where bad.

Would the d/d cantrip bunker be op against:

Current hambow wars?
S/d or s/p thieves?
Dhuumfire necro’s’?

Those meta builds above weren’t around when ele was supposedly op. 10/30/0/0/30 thieves could have ran that build back then but it wasn’t nearly as good now. The others I mentioned weren’t viable at all back then warrior wasn’t even close to viable period. Necro’s had no dhuumfire

Not beating a dead horse but you get my point. The old cantrip ele wouldn’t even be viable in today’s meta and would possibly get a consideration if it had the old bugged 1500 range RTL.

Also cantrip =/= d/d ele.

Does decoy = pu Mesmer? Almost ever Mesmer runs decoy and blink.

It’s utilities and everyone can take them ele is no different. Every class has terrible utilities and bis ones.

I was under the impression that the reduction of damage reduction of Frost Aura from (I think it was 15%?) to the current 10% was aimed at D/D due to stacking with Protection, along with an increase of ICD to Shocking Aura. (Double Fury from Shocking Aura notwithstanding). In addition, Signet of Restoration had much better synergy with D/D pre-nerf than Scepter due to faster and better autoattacks (although the Rock Barrier/Hurl was quite strong with it as well).

That said, I didn’t play much Ele back then so I will concede that S/D Ele was meta back in the days when Elementalist was strong.

SOR did have better synergy with D/D but the problem well was really a bug fix you would get 3x procs of SOR from evasive arcana when they nerfed confusion and fixed the bug that caused you to bet hit with 3x strikes of confusion damage with SOR they also fixed the extra heals. That is what made SOR really good it is still my favorite heal but that is why it was much stronger back then.

For the Frost aura IIRC there was no 15% damage reduction on frost aura ever. It was just the chill but when they put a 1s icd on the chill they added the 10% damage reduction to it.

I honestly I would prefer the old no damage reduction but the chill with no ICD.

Oh, right. It’s been a while. I know the Signet of Restoration triple proc was definitely a bug and after the fix I think that was when D/D went into its decline.

oZii.2864:

8 profession 5 roles a old /d ele with no nerfs just bug fixes wouldn’t be that bad off in todays meta and wouldn’t be seen as gimping your team if you had to slot one as a replacement class. In essence it would be viable.

I still don’t think it would be one of the number 1 choices for ideal group comp but it wouldn’t be a terrible choice either like now.

Some of the builds present now weren’t possible back then or where terrible then for other classes.

The devs wanted to bring the other classes up. The players wanted Ele nerfed They went with nerf Ele. You can look it up on the Old SOTG on gw2curse on twitch it was the 3rd SOTG that it came up from Top sPvPers and the 4th SOTG they annouced the nerfs.

I spend alot of time reading on this game and they said before they buffed warrior and people complained that they where terrible that they have to be cautious. The warrior almost shipped according to Chap somewhat similar to what it is now. They don’t want to give Necro healing in DS because they said it use to be like that and it was unkillable which is why they haven’t given necro healing in DS.

So much this. I think the community gives the devs less credit than they are due, because some of their predictions regarding their changes have been remarkably prescient despite community attitudes. Then again, some of their changes have also been poorly thought out.

I think the key take away from the patch changes of late is that they have been coming too slowly. Changes that should be bug fixes are being coupled to feature patches, like Ranger nature spirit regen; as are number tweaks like the 8% Healing Signet nerf. The developers have shown that they are can be right, it’s just fixing their mistakes takes so long.

oZii.2864:

@ MonMallthias. I’ve seen you post and you seem reasonable but your facts are indeed wrong.

S/d cantrip was meta. D/d was good in WvW that’s it.

The problem was other classes where bad.

Would the d/d cantrip bunker be op against:

Current hambow wars?
S/d or s/p thieves?
Dhuumfire necro’s’?

Those meta builds above weren’t around when ele was supposedly op. 10/30/0/0/30 thieves could have ran that build back then but it wasn’t nearly as good now. The others I mentioned weren’t viable at all back then warrior wasn’t even close to viable period. Necro’s had no dhuumfire

Not beating a dead horse but you get my point. The old cantrip ele wouldn’t even be viable in today’s meta and would possibly get a consideration if it had the old bugged 1500 range RTL.

Also cantrip =/= d/d ele.

Does decoy = pu Mesmer? Almost ever Mesmer runs decoy and blink.

It’s utilities and everyone can take them ele is no different. Every class has terrible utilities and bis ones.

I was under the impression that the reduction of damage reduction of Frost Aura from (I think it was 15%?) to the current 10% was aimed at D/D due to stacking with Protection, along with an increase of ICD to Shocking Aura. (Double Fury from Shocking Aura notwithstanding). In addition, Signet of Restoration had much better synergy with D/D pre-nerf than Scepter due to faster and better autoattacks (although the Rock Barrier/Hurl was quite strong with it as well).

That said, I didn’t play much Ele back then so I will concede that S/D Ele was meta back in the days when Elementalist was strong.

If you’re talking triple cantrip D/D with 0 10 0 30 30, the build is already impossible as Cleansing Wave was moved into Master to compete with Soothing Disruption and Soothing Wave’s mechanics were changed to proc only on critical hit instead of on attuning to water. Even with Cleansing Water, these changes alone puts most of the condition cleanse into Cantrips rather than on attuning to Water – which makes triple cantrip ironically even more essential.

If you’re talking reverting all the nerfs to Water Magic and just bugfixes, sure. D/D might even come back as a proper bruiser; even though Stunbreak was removed from Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash.

In this instance, I could well imagine the following matchups to be as follows:

• Hambow Warrior, or any setup bar X/Sword LB Warrior – Bad matchup. The buffs to condition cleanse would make Pin Down and X/Sword condi warrior less threatening, but the removal of stunbreaks from LF and CF makes stunlock a real danger.
• Necromancer (Condi): Makes matchup more even. The real danger would be getting Signet of Spite’d and/or Tainted Shackles from the Necro. MM Necro would still put D/D in the dumpster though. Death Nova Poison along with all the other Minion spells makes facing one in Melee a dangerous prospect with such low EHP.
• Spirit Ranger: Matchup is more even. Significant pressure can no longer be applied just with autoattacks from Shortbow if Elementalist closes. Even so, taking the Ranger down is going to be an uphill slog – just like it is with other classes.
• Condi Engi (Bomb/Nade): Confusion from Bomb Kit and Poison and Chill from Grenade Kit is a significant threat to Elementalist, to say nothing of the immense condition diversity to cover the Burning pressure from Incendiary Powder. That said, Elementalist should have just enough condition clear to be able to put Condi under significant danger. Might come down to Elites or a crucial Fire Grab. Hard matchup for Elementalist even so, but not insurmountable.
• Thief: Puts Elementalist in the dumpster. Still.
• Guardian (Bunker): outcome largely unchanged: D/D should eventually be able to get Bunker Guardian down if Ele hits the skillshots. Duel would definitely last long enough that reinforcements arrive to change the outcome though.
• Mesmer: Matchups unchanged for Shatter. For PU Mesmer, I think advantage goes to PU.
• Other Elementalists (Fresh Air S/x): Fresh Air Elementalist has the advantage in this case, both in range and in burst damage output. With Elementalist’s low EHP, it’ll still come down to skillshots, but with S/x having faster, more reliable burst, I think advantage goes the the Scepter ele.

Tim.6450:

Wintel.4873:

The problem isn’t chill, it’s how absurdly long attument cooldowns are.

It used to be 16 seconds baseline, ANet brought it down to 13 seconds but I believe it should be more along the lines of 6-7 seconds in order for Ele core mechanic to start feeling USEFUL instead of a frustrating hindrance.

I aggree on this one as well. Their skill have already their cooldown and their auto attacks are not that great, so why do they need such long cooldowns on attunement switches?

Meh, I feel that 13 seconds is fine as a baseline attunement CD. Any less devalues Arcana as a trait line, and any more makes Arcana way too essential. (see: Elementalists pre-buff to Arcana reduction).

The problem remains that Autoattacks outside of Air and (sometimes) Fire are garbage, and Chill affecting Attunement swaps. Fix those and you’ve already addressed half of the niggling class issues with elementalist right now.

Taking the long view, one should also expect more condition removal outside of Water magic with each attunement doing it their own way, along with changes to Signets and Glyphs to make them actually useful utilities in their own right. But removing Chill’s influence on Elementalist’s Attunement swaps would be a good first step. With 20 weapon skills available at any time, most of which are on 30+ second cooldowns, Chill already affects Elementalist more strongly than other classes.

66% Cooldown increase is no joke when your most essential skills like Updraft or Earthquake for /Dagger; Blinding Surge, Gust, Burning Retreat and Unsteady Ground for Staff; and Obsidian Flesh and Magnetic Wave for /Focus could have their cooldowns increased markedly.

Chill in this context is already punishing enough; to have it lock Elementalist out of, say, Water for Healing or Air for Blinds/Interrupts for an extra 1.5-3 seconds is more significant than players that might not be familiar with Elementalist give credit to.

Reserve Mines is definitely the worse Minor trait, being not only higher up in tier, but also having the snowball potential of killing you with Confusion at 25% HP. I still appreciate the extra damage of EPK (I do believe that it is the highest damage on-dodge proc in game), but there is nothing redeeming about Reserve Mines.

Vuh.1328:

Just nerf Automated Response and they are really easy to deal with, just have a condi necro/engi/warrior/spirit ranger to destroy them.

Only broken thing with decap engi is automated response tbh

It’s funny how many times this has been repeated by various people throughout the thread and yet now the conversation is shifting to elements like Overcharged Shot, Supply Crate, Net Shot, Elixir Infused Bombs and so on.

AR Engineer will fall to Spirit Ranger, Warrior (!!!), Thief (!!!), Condi Necro, and so, so many more builds as long as the condition immunity is taken away to be replaced by an active component that requires cooldowns, or whatever else that promotes a skill floor. The change will ensure that time-to-live of Decap engineer will be significantly decreased, whilst not affecting ancillary builds.

Chaith.8256:

What’s actually bad about the new changes to On-Swap sigils is not only that one profession can utilize them far better, it’s the fact that every other sigil will be completely obsolete.

This, pretty much. Unless On-Swap sigils are massively nerfed (and I do mean on the order of, say, making them Major or Minor tier at that point), I could easily foresee combinations like Battle/Doom and Energy/Leeching, or for condi builds, Geomancy/Hydromancy and Doom/Energy. Fire or Air/Intelligence could also herald some 100-0 spikers as well.

Either the current suite of on-swap sigils are entirely revamped, or else I’m foreseeing some ridiculously OP combinations; and Warrior will be a maelstrom of all of them.

This was one of my ancillary concerns going into the proposed changes for Elementalist in March. With D/D arguably being one of the stronger weapon sets and with excellent synergy already inherent within both the weapon set and Traits, why buff it further whilst /Focus and Staff languishes?

What Arenanet needs to realise is that the Triple Cantrip D/D Bunker DPS Ele is only 1 step away from becoming OP again, especially if the proposed changes go through, and that change is any alteration to Cleansing Water ICD. At a stroke, D/D will come back in force overnight; especially now that the PVP/PVE split of Signet of Restoration was reverted. At that point, only a reduction of RTL CD and debugging against Blocks and Aegis is all that is required for D/D to return.

This is a dangerous path that Arenanet is treading. The only consolation is that Conditions still tick through Mistform, and that Ether Renewal is now interrupted whilst Mistforming.

I am puzzled as to why Arenanet insists upon keeping Staff autoattacks as slow as they are, and 2 out of 4 attunements for Focus as weak as they are, and why Signets are so niche and weak that they have no strong place in the current meta; or indeed, why Arenanet does not simply alter Aura functionality as our primary defensive mechanic over Cantrips.

Their internal testing has vindicated them in the past though. 5 second ICD to Cleansing Water was derided widely by other people at the time as insufficient to kill triple cantrip D/D ele – yet Arenanet said their internal testing demonstrated otherwise. Time will tell if the path they tread is correct; but there are many, many pitfalls along the way.

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.

Big explosions guaranteed.

Manuhell.2759:

What i find especially annoying is that there was no problem at all in pve, yet they had to nerf it there as well.
Same for the old flamethrower/juggernaut.

That’s the consequence of “ideally no splits for PVP and PVE” stance that Arenanet has taken. The knife cuts both ways but really, the trait should have been properly tested and balanced in the first place; something that sadly has not happened for many trait effects.

You may commence your cries for a PTR and/or bi-weekly balance updates…now.

Would sweep the issue under the rug if there was simply a way for Arenanet to monetize Kit backpacks with Gem Store skins.
Advantages:

• Engineers no longer complaining about “hobo sacks”
• Money for Arenanet
• Cash Money for Arenanet
• Gems
• Every Engineer is now Fabulous!

Disadvantages:

• Event backpieces still covered by kit skins

hydeaut.1758:

MonMalthias.4763:

I dunno, isn’t that the point of counterplay though? Instant skills take the risk out of casting in the first place. Don’t get me wrong; they have their place; but with effects as powerful as Magnetic Bomb and Glue Trail I think opponents absolutely should get the chance to interrupt us.

Lol, typical Engi-thread:

Engi A: “skill x is now useless”

turns into

Engi B: “but this part of the skill is still somewhat strong, would deserve further nerfing”

Part of the reason why KR was nerfed in the first place was because the proc was instant cast. If you’d read a 100nades thread back then it basically boiled down to:

• 100nades so OP I die instantly no counterplay plz nerf
• Rejoinders to l2p by Engineers defending the build that the magnet pull is plenty telegraphed l2pnub
• counter-rejoinders by annoyed players that the build is ridiculous and shouldn’t belong in the game, instant burst without counterplay belongs to thieves and thieves alone
• arguments as to the place of instant burst in an actiony game like GW2
• calls to l2p on both sides
• descent into ad hominem
• pot, kettle, black.

You can bet the same will happen if people die to the “instant” AOE pull or the “instant” glue trail that they never saw coming

• calls to l2p on both sides
• nerfarino pleaserino dongerino
• grievances settled by moderator lockings
• KR nerfed again, now procs quaggan shaped balloons of different colours depending on kit that float into air and explode, frightening children and showering everyone in candy
• Candy!

Jester.1236:

Wow thanks a ton guys!

No problem.
/15char

Phantaram.1265:

MonMalthias.4763:

Phantaram.4816:

That’s part of the point though. The only power tanky class we’ve ever seen work is warrior and that’s because they are grossly overpowered. We’ve never seen any other class run this because they’ve never had the proper amulet to run it.

It’s simple, introduce proper tanky amulet -> nerf warriors. Ele and Mesmer used valks during the power meta (a long time ago) and let me tell you the game did not feel tanky. Just because there is an actual tanky amulet that works doesn’t mean the game is tanky, that is just a fault of too many dodges/immunities/warriors, not the amulets.

And because ele and mesmer were allowed to run valks because of the lack of condis, we actually survived against thieves, which is exactly what we need rather than just instadieing to the thief that just turns his gaze our way. And we have to run berserkers on ele/mes because otherwise we don’t do enough damage to kill warriors.

I do not think it will make things worse unless warriors are left untouched.

snip of own post

Your post makes it sound like we don’t agree but… I think we agree on everything.

Amulet + nerf to warrior = good addition.

I have several issues with this though.

• What nerfs should Warrior receive in order not to make them monstrous with Knights?
• In addition, would it not be simpler to not introduce Knights to head the potential problems off at the pass?
• How do you nerf a class currently as the king of the hill without making it trash again? Remember that Warriors were bottom of the pile for the longest time after the Quickness meta died.
• With Warrior’s keystone traits of Cleansing Ire, Adrenal health, Armoured attack (best Toughness % conversion in game) , Merciless Hammer and Dogged March all concentrated into Defense along with many other strong traits, how do you plan to nerf Defense without destroying Warrior?
• Do you also plan to nerf Burst Mastery as well? (Interaction with Cleansing Ire). If so, how do you plan on keeping it useful for Eviscerate, Killshot (lol) and Warriors that use Flurry (Condi Warriors, at least until the direct damage is buffed enough to be competitive)

• Will Knights be Power (major) Toughness, Precision (minor) or Toughness (Major), Power, Precision (minor) as it is in PVE?
• Will Knights replace Valks as it is right now? Or will Knights come in side by side with Valks?
• Will Barbarian be replaced by Knights? Or will Knights come in side by side with Barbarian? (Not saying that people actually use Barbarians, but hey, someone might)

Uttar.2341:

Increasing Trait Diversity in WvW

• Autodefense Bomb Dispenser
  • Cooldown: 30s -> 25s (same as smoke bomb)
  • Also trigger on immobilise(!)

• Autodefense Bomb Dispense pales in comparison to Grenadier right now.
• It’s not so much the cooldown as it is that the Smoke Bomb itself has been nerfed from 4 pulses of 1 second Blind (shuts down Melee completely) to 3 pulses every 2 seconds (fairer, but also makes ABD bad)
• Buffing to trigger on Immobilise is nice.
• Any buff is going to require a fundamental change to its functionality; so how about:
  • Autodefense Bomb Dispenser: Drop a Smoke Bomb when you are disabled or Immobilised. (Cooldown: 30 seconds). When you use a Toolbelt skill, drop a Bomb 100 units in front of you.
• Makes ABD do for Bombs what Grenadier does for Grenades
• DPS DPS DPS YOLOSWAG

Uttar.2341:

• Exploit Weakness
  • 1s immobilise (instead of 5s cripple)

• The OP is strong in this one. Sitting Duck with this will ensure that the cries for Engineer nerfs will be swift.
• Honestly Exploit Weakness should just become an Executioner type trait. i.e.:
  • Exploit Weakness: Cripple foes for 5 under 50% HP for 5 seconds (Cooldown 15 seconds). Deal 10% extra damage to Crippled foes

Uttar.2341:

• Acidic Coating
  • Inflict AoE blindness in a 130 radius around you
  • 120 would not be enough due to 130 melee range

• Acidic Coating is too RNG to be a reliable Blind tanking trait. Instead:
  • Acidic Coating: When you use a Toolbelt Skill, inflict Blind for 3 seconds on foes within 180 radius. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
• Now you can Blind while you toolbelt.
• Makes Hammer Warriors significantly less threatening with their Earthshaking ways and their Backbreaking swings.
• Also gives Engi with Rifle Turret i.e. in SD builds a chance against heavy melee.

Uttar.2341:

• Tools Traits (significant awesome impact on PvP/PvE)
  • Adrenal Implant: Move to Adept.

• Whoa there, buddy. 50% more Evade Frames is no joke, especially now that you can only get 50% Vigour uptime through Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed.
• Double Sigil March 18. Now you can Energy while you Battle, or whatever else comes up to be the next OP combination.
• Adept Tools already saturated with “Meta” traits such as Speedy Kits and Static Discharge. When Turrets are debugged, you will also find Deployable Turrets in there.
• At most I would support a movement to Master.
• There is already way too much spam in this game; dodge spam, AOE spam, condispam. Whilst I enjoy highly processed meats every now and again, there is a point when a little becomes too much.
• We do not need to be as evasive as Rangers. I suppose this is where the sentiment is coming from, but we really do not need it.

Uttar.2341:

• Kit Refinement: Move to Grandmaster. Make it awesome.
• Not WvW-specific but could be amazing and great for build diversity

• Already ideas in the Engineer forum WRT: Kit Refinement.
• Master tier at best considering that GK drops a Mine, FT has Fire Shield instead of Cleansing Flame, and the GCD
• GCD could be kept if it was lower, i.e. 10-15 seconds to prevent comboing. Then allow greater player control by having KR proc only on the activation of the 1 skill.
• Alternatively, have KR proc on unequip. As an example. Equipping Grenade Kit causes the “unequip” to be replaced by “Mine”. Pressing the Grenade Kit hotkey again procs KR and unequips the Kit.
  • Would allow player control of procs by preventing procs from happening if player instead presses “Drop Bundle” or cycles to another kit.
• Overall KR is a mess right now.
  • Procs for Grenade Kit should instead be 1 Flash Grenade
  • Flamethrower should get Cleansing Flame back instead of useless Fire Shield
  • Increased player control lets players actually use the procs to their advantage rather than at random. The mechanics of KR will have to be changed.
  • Changes should not introduce negative synergy with Speedy Kits and Enhance Performance and any other Kit related trait. Multikit already hit hard by KR nerf; yet single kits like Grenade Kit with Throw Mine and Elixir S in the 100mines/nades build still exist.

Uttar.2341:

Longer Term Changes (Minimal)

snip

• Ascended Weapons increasing kit damage
  • Large Scale WvW builds are all power-based and this hurts us by ~5%

• A well needed QoL change. Might make huge scaling kits like Bomb Kit a little OP though. 1.25 coefficient on the autoattack is no joke.

Uttar.2341:

• Elixir Gun (small buff in PvP but probably still won’t be used much)

• Not sure where this is coming from, but EG is standard in PVP triple kit due to Stunbreak + Inertial Converter + Mobility that Pistol Shield lacks. The only other replacement for EG at the moment is Rocket Boots.
  [quote=3649585;Uttar.2341:]
  • Healing Mist: Cooldown 40s -> 30s[/quote]
• As much as I appreciate a 30 second stunbreak, 30 sec CD with 30 in tools makes Healing Mist an unprecedented 23.1 second stunbreak. Even the shortest possible stunbreak CD in-game across all professions is 25 seconds at the moment; and this is excluding the Inertial Converter reset.
• At most I’d make it remove 1 condition. Even this might be too strong, as Healing Mist is a 240 radius AOE.

Uttar.2341:

• Elixir F: Only bounces to enemies (no swiftness on allies)

• Why remove the utility of this skill? Yes, it only bounces once between allies and enemies; but you forget Invigorating Speed. I love crippling my enemies to get Vigour in return.
• All I would change is the bouncing behaviour to force 4 bounces regardless of whether the target was bounced to or not.

Uttar.2341:

• Fumigate: Remove 1 condition on self at end. Replace vuln by 1s cripple.

• Why duplicate Cripple from Elixir F?
• Vulnerability covers the Poison, which is important for down state control. It’s also useful for increasing group DPS, which as a zerger, I would think that you would appreciate.

Uttar.2341:

• Grenade Kit (Retaliation!)
  • Very strong despite slow projectiles but retaliation is a really big problem
  • Only 1 of the 2-3 grenades should suffer from retaliation at all (random)
  • Flash Grenade: 5s->3s Blind but 2x damage (still less than base attack)

• Fix Retaliation instead of changing grenades. Problem solved.
• Flash Grenade is a clutch Blind in melee, channelled range skill spoiler at long range. I don’t feel the need to raise Grenade Kit’s already generous coefficients by adding them to Flash Grenade.
• What would be better would be for Grenade Kit to instead throw 3 grenades untraited and at +25% damage from what they are now; then for Grenadier to increase range and damage to current values. Normalises untraited Grenade Kit whilst making Grenadier still powerful for direct damage grenade builds.

Uttar.2341:

• Flamethrower (Retaliation!)
  • Autoattack should suffer from retaliation on 1st and 10th ticks (1/5th)
  • Autoattack burn duration on final tick: 1s -> 2s (good change for PvP?)
  • Autoattack could maybe hit 5 targets instead of 3 (see guardian staff)

• Fix Retaliation, problem solved. Why alter Retaliation’s effect against multitude of multi-pulse skills when you can attack the problem at its source?
• In all honesty the autoattack should have individual pulse damage doubled and number of pulses _halved.
• Eliminate FT 1 autotracking and give it the same skillshot capability as Drake’s Breath to eliminate the targeting bugs
• Burn should apply on third tick
• 5 target cleave instead of 3 target cleave is fine. Normalises with Guard Staff 1

Uttar.2341:

• Jump Shot
  • Range: 700 -> 900 (gives a decent gap closer without rocket boots)
  • Alternatively find a way to significantly increase effective speed
  • Maybe add an evade at end because it prevents dodging (PvP balance?)

• 900 range makes Jump Shot coupled with Rifled Barrels utterly ridiculous.
• Animation canceling with 900 range Jump Shot with Rifled Barrels turns Jump Shot into Rocket Boots. Congratulations, you’ve just become Sanic.
• Simply speed up animation time.
• Evade at end takes risk out of using the skill. It’s already the single highest coefficient skill in the Engineer’s skillset, and you want to make it stronger? Questionable. 0.9 + 1.8 coefficient is no joke.
• Dodge prevention can be fixed by animation canceling. Also, if you find that you have to dodge at the end of Jump Shot, you probably shouldn’t have Jump Shotted there in the first place.
• If you can’t or won’t animation cancel, I’d be fine with an aftercast reduction. What is it now? 0.5 seconds?

Uttar.2341:

• Glue Shot
  • Significantly increase projectile speed (it’s effectively melee range)

• AOE Immobilise is no joke especially when comboed with Blowtorch, which is melee anyway.
• Casting animation could be sped up, but projectile speed should remain the same.

snip

Uttar.2341:

snip

1. Bomb Kit Autoattack: Reduce explosion delay from 1s to 0.75s (only delay!)

• This change would be un-necessary and lowers the reaction time to Engineer bombs, which are already hard to read, being the same colour and placed at the Engineer’s feet – that are then hidden because the Engineer is likely to then run forward.
• A better change would be to keep the delay, retexture the bombs to have individual colours, and make bombs be placed 75-100 units in front of the Engineer. This eliminates the self kiting problem and simultaneously makes Elixir Infused Bombs actually useful. Also introduces counterplay to an otherwise hard to read weapon kit.

Uttar.2341:

1. Regenerating Mist: Water field duration: 1s->2s (time for others to blast)

• A well needed change. No objections here. 1 second is far too short and requires Big ’Ol Bomb and/or animation-less Blast finishers like Shield 4-4.

Uttar.2341:

1. Toolkit Thwack: Should hit 3 targets like rest of chain(!) and +25% damage

• Do you mean for the chain to be dealing +25% damage on top of what it does now? Or do you mean for Thwack to deal 25% damage on top of what is already a double damage final chain?
• Cleaving on the final hit should absolutely be implemented though.

Uttar.2341:

1. Toss Elixir B: Radius 180->300 + Stability 4s->5s + Remove Might/Swiftness

• I think the RNG is fine as it is now. Stability at 4 seconds is plenty to secure a stomp; especially given that it is AOE.
• The only change I would advocate is for the projectile speed to be faster. It flies too slowly for a clutch Stability application when thrown in support, and the slow animation adds un-necessary aftercast to a Stability application that could otherwise be clutch when thrown fast enough.

Uttar.2341:

1. Mine Field: Cast time: 1s->1/2s, Fix Radius (240 traited), +60 Proximity

• No objections here. Although to be honest, Mine Field should simply be more closely spaced, with overlapping AOE in a smaller area, eliminating random spread. That alone would not necessitate a radius increase.

Uttar.2341:

1. (Bug?) Healing Turret: Fix Cleansing Burst to scale with Healing Power

• I think it’s just a tooltip bug. Cleansing Burst already works with Healing Power.

Uttar.2341:

1. (Bug?) +Evasive Powder Keg: Radius: 120/180 -> 180/240 (match other bombs)

• I’d rather Evasive Powder Keg to instead drop a Flash Grenade and deal no damage. EPK has killed me due to breaking Stealth. That said, it is a useful application of extra DPS when you’re #yoloswag and you need that extra 2-3k to down someone with your dodges.
• I think the base radius should be 180 without being able to increase due to Forceful Explosives. 240 is a little excessive given the high Power scaling – not even Reckless Dodge has that much damage on that wide a radius.

Overall I like the intention behind the changes and balance overall should not be overly affected. I just feel that Bomb detonation delay should not be touched; they are difficult to read as is. Making them be placed forward of the Engineer will already solve the self-kiting problem without introducing problems with cast/aftercast interactions altering DPS output.

Jester.1236:

Hello Engineers

I’m really wanting to use Healing Turret in WvW. I love the access to the water field. But as a personal heal for myself. I’m finding it very lacking for healing myself. I usually drop it, and then overcharge it, then detonate it. But when moving with the commander this heal feels very clunky.

I’ve thought about trying to stack regen on my Engineer so I wouldn’t rely on the actual heal as much. With backpack regenerator and mango pie I have decent regen, but not enough to keep me up most of the times.

Any advice you guys can give me on the turret?

Actually you know what here’s a video by Teldo on the matter. It will answer all your questions, and more.

Dirame.8521:

MonMalthias.4763:

Dirame.8521:

Aegael.6938:

Then the bottom line is that they shouldn’t have designed it that way, I think. It’s extremely cumbersome to manage when running multiple kits. I know firsthand how powerful the glue trail and magnetic bomb can be, but I still can’t justify taking the trait when I have such limited control over its activation.

The thing is, the trait is still quite formidable especially when you use it in EG and BK. Glue trail just sets up bomb kit like crazy and the fact that immob duration now stacks makes the combo even more formidable now. What needs to be improved is the other Kit refinement skills. Of course you could make a burning/might-stacking build with the FT but, a Condi cleanse and a 3 sec AoE burn beat that hands down and don’t get me started again on how bad the grenade kit refinement is.

snip of own post

The only reason I’d disagree with your idea is that, with your idea, KR can’t be used as an instant skill. Right now, because of the way kits function you’re able to use kit refinement whilst using other skills but, if we attach activation of KR to the activation of skills we’re at the mercy of stuns and interrupts.

I dunno, isn’t that the point of counterplay though? Instant skills take the risk out of casting in the first place. Don’t get me wrong; they have their place; but with effects as powerful as Magnetic Bomb and Glue Trail I think opponents absolutely should get the chance to interrupt us.

Besides, no 1 skill in Engineer kits exceeds 0.75 seconds in cast time (excluding aftercast); with the slowest being Drop Bandage (ridiculous aftercast) and Tranquilizer dart (minor aftercast, long cast). If opponents interrupt that, more power to them.

Taal.2913:

A lot of good suggestions for D/D and Traits. So I’ll focus mainly on Staff.

Fire Attunement:

• Fireball – projectile speed should be increased since it travels so slow and easy to dodge.
• Lava Font – The delay on its initial damage should be removed. An increase in either duration (up to 5 sec) or radius (to 180 and 240 w/ blasting staff).
• Flame Burst – Up the base damage of burning to 1700-1800.
• Burning Retreat – Be able to control its direction just like you would a normal dodge. It would add more to our survivability.
• Meteor Shower – Increase the number of meteors to 28 up from 24. In turn that ups the damage a bit.

Water Attunement:

• Water Blast – Up the base damage to 150 and the base heal to 400 maybe but dont have much of an idea for this one.
• Ice Spike – Reduce the delay to 1.5 sec. There is about a 2.5 sec delay from the spike forming and dropping on target. Add Combo Finisher: Blast to it(nice to have another one besides Eruption).
• Geyser – Increase duration to 3 sec up from 2. Decrease cast time to 1/2 sec down from 3/4.
• Frozen Ground and Healing Rain- I think these are good the way they are.

Lightning Attunement:

• Chain Lightning – Increase the speed of the projectile(Lighning should not travel so slow). Reduce cast time to 1/2 sec down 3/4 sec. Maybe increase the maximum number of targets to 5 up from 3.
• Lightning Surge – Increase the radius to 180(240 with Blasting Staff) up from 120(180).
• Gust – Make it more conal because this seldom hits it’s target.
• Windborne Speed – It is good they way it is maybe increase the swiftness granted to 15 sec up from 13.
• Static Field – This one is good the way it is.

Earth Attunement:

• Stoning – It is fine in it’s current state.
• Eruption – Add 2 to 3 sec of cripple from when it starts to from on the ground.
• Magnetic Aura – Increase duration to 6 sec up from 5.
• Unsteady Ground – Like Ring of Warding give it a radius 120(180 with Blasting Staff) and Combo Field: Smoke. Adds a new dynamic to Eles
• Shock Wave – Also good in it’s current state.

There’s a lot of good suggestions about changes or buffs to healing, utility and elite skills. I may look at Trident skills next but water combat is a rare occasion.

These changes are great for staff. A few things:

• Not sure about Unsteady Ground becoming a Smoke Field. I’d love for it to Blind and all, but Smoke Fields lead to Stealth, which is something that just grates against my perceptions of Ele for some reason. Then again, it’s not entirely unprecedented for Elementalist; as Earth 5 on Trident (underwater) does have a Smoke Field.
• Chain Lightning needs to have its projectile speed increased, certainly. But I feel that dividing up the damage between 5 targets is going to make it a little too AOE. It would definitely make Air extremely bad in 1v1 scenarios. Fireball and Stoning would pretty much be all we have left. I would only support this if the first hit did 50-60% of the total possible damage, and the remaining bounces were split accordingly.
• Gust absolutely needs to become a cone AOE like Illusionary Wave . I wouldn’t even mind a range nerf; I just want the ability to reliably self-peel.
• Ice Spike becoming a Blast Finisher: Absolutely. Staff is so Field Heavy and finisher weak that it is quite ridiculous. Would force Elementalists to choose between utility (blasts) and DPS (vulnerability stacks); but more Blasts = more better.
• Lava Font no delay: Yes. The frontloaded damage must be decreased if this is to happen though. As it is, Lava Font already forces dodges.
• Flame Burst: Personally I’d just reduce its burning duration and instead introduce direct damage. Make it a skillshot to justify the increase in damage.
• Burning Retreat: Give it Whirlwind Attack’s targeting reticule . The teensy AOE of the fire field is easily sidestepped and gap closers ignore it entirely. I mean, yes, I can do a 180 turn to retreat forwards, but more control over these things can never go amiss.

Phantaram.4816:

That’s part of the point though. The only power tanky class we’ve ever seen work is warrior and that’s because they are grossly overpowered. We’ve never seen any other class run this because they’ve never had the proper amulet to run it.

It’s simple, introduce proper tanky amulet -> nerf warriors. Ele and Mesmer used valks during the power meta (a long time ago) and let me tell you the game did not feel tanky. Just because there is an actual tanky amulet that works doesn’t mean the game is tanky, that is just a fault of too many dodges/immunities/warriors, not the amulets.

And because ele and mesmer were allowed to run valks because of the lack of condis, we actually survived against thieves, which is exactly what we need rather than just instadieing to the thief that just turns his gaze our way. And we have to run berserkers on ele/mes because otherwise we don’t do enough damage to kill warriors.

I do not think it will make things worse unless warriors are left untouched.

Hmm, I don’t know about this one. I think Warrior wouldn’t have actually received half the buffs it did if it weren’t for the fact that Knights amulet (Pow/Prec/Tough) didn’t exist at the time; which relegated Warriors to using Soldier’s or Berserkers – both of which were too extreme on the one end of tankyness vs damage output.

With Warriors as they are now, however, with so much HPS from Healing Signet and overwhelming condition removal, the addition of Knights amulet could well spell disaster. Warriors already put 30 into Discipline for Burst Mastery – the sustained direct damage mitigation from Toughness on Knights amulet coupled with strong regeneration may well further entrench Warrior as the King of the Mountain. Hambow’s damage output would only increase; with 569 Precision behind it granting 31% crit chance before Traits and Sigils.

I think that the addition of Knights; whilst a worthy aspiration, needs to be considered very carefully right now. I for one, would love it on Engineer and Elementalist. But giving Warriors Knights – and with March 18, double Sigil procs every 5 seconds – may well begin the 5 Warrior meta.