Guild Wars 2

Supreme.3164:

, ele scepter is exactly as it was 3 years ago

Absolutely not, Cele-Scepter got a huge buff with the recent big specialization-changes and quite frankly, it baffles me that we don’t see this build played more often because it’s IMHO one of the best builds in the game.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhcMozhFOwxB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAUXykYZA-TJBFwAl2fgwDAAaZAAnAAA

In certain 1v1’s, it’s not as good as D/D-Ele (probably in most 1v1’s), but it’s still good enough to be an off-roamer. In all other aspects, especially burst and teamfight, it’s mindblowingly good.

Why does Cele-Scepter work?

Simply because of the rewamped fire-trait-line and the ability to skill deep into it thanks to the new specializations. You get tons of mightstacks, perma fury for you and your team, more power and raw DMG on scepter and shorter CD’s on the fire-skills. The last one is especially important since a vast majority of the DPS comes from bursts with fire 2-5.

I’ve been using this build a lot lately and each time I switch back to D/D, I just feel that the Scepter build is much stronger overall.

I hit for like 7k dragon tooths and with a tooth+phoenix+rnig of fire, I easily down quishy classes in ~a second.

With the extremely low CD’s on fire, I can also prestack 30+ seconds of fury and 10+ stacks of might on the whole team before the fight.

Another big plus is the perma-weakness you put on a target thanks to easily spammable Air-1 (dmg isn’t too great, I give you that) and Arcane Precision. D/D-Eles can’t really make use of arcane precision as well as S/D, but on S/D, it’s an amazing trait.

Just because no1 plays Cele scepter, doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Besides Cele, Fresh Air is also pretty decent and IMHO even meta-worthy in some comps.

totally agreed, posted on this on several other topics:

- It has clear strengths in certain sitatuations but clear weaknesses in others.
- The synergy between pain absorption, the resistance trait and the elite was great, but also allowed strong counterplay by boonstripping and spiking the rev after pain absorption was used.
- The Elite allowed pain absorption to both have a defensive, but also offensive aspect to it, which is now removed, making it purely defensive, so less versatile, less fun and simply easier to use.

You took great synergies and interactions and versatility and dumbed it down and pushed it again in a direction where everything is simply an all-rounder. This creates very stale gameplay and a rigid and boring metagame.

Photinous.4628:

Invictus.1503:

Photinous.4628:

Let me say here that I think the changes to embrace the darkness are great for 2 reasons:

1. If I’m facing a condi heavy build, I prefer to save my energy for pain absorption to keep resistance uptime high.
2. If I’m facing a zerk heavy build, then old ETD is kinda useless but this new one will be great at spamming torment on mesmers and thieves with generally low condi clear.

Overall perfect change, in my opinion.

Seems like you didn’t spend much time using Mallyx during BWE2.
1. With Demonic Defiance keeping resistance wasn’t too hard. Use Pain Absorption, pop EtD, demolish them and if the fight went too long you switch legends, cleanse, go back to Mallyx and repeat. I found very little in the way of a condi build holding up to that.
2. Although definitely less useful, it was far from useless as you had self applying conditions from your own skills that fueled EtD. Not to mention, even zerk warriors and the like apply some condies on their normal attacks, which then fueled your EtD while you enhanced the damage with your own stats.

Not sure why felt you needed to start your post with an insult instead of commenting normally but whatever.

Regarding your comments, sure you could apply your self condis but they did not use your condition duration and were pretty weak anyways. Second, if you are simply relying on demonic defiance together with EtD to survive against a condi build then you will blow all of your energy from EtD very quickly and most likely die in your other legend unless you back off. Staying in Mallyx is pretty important against a condi build.

Well, does the change make the rev more of an allrounder? probably, but why do we need more of that, since every class and every conceivable build is getting pushed into that direction…. -.-°

The old Elite had great synergy, some situations where it was very strong, but also situations where it was almost useless: It was up to you and your team to find the right situations which are suitable for the build.

It was also just harder to use properly for you, your team and harder for the opponent to react to it appropriately: it required actual communication and teamplay – now it’s just another skill that get dumbed down.

Pretty soon, we’ll all have 1 skill only that applies all conditions, removes all boons (and vice-versa for your allies) instarezzes every ally and instakills every enemy while transporting you to any point of the map…. -.-°

In this stage of beta-testing, it should be about creating interesting mechanics and interactions and allowing great team-play and enabling smart counterplay. It shouldn’t be about making everything good in every situation.

Love the stability on overloading (I guess it’ll be 1 stack for 4 seconds?)

I think it was way too easy to get interrupted. Now, if you have good positioning, the other team might have to actively play together and w8 with their interrupts for the overloads, which is a good thing.

I still think it should be baseline though, since overloading is completely useless without it and I cannot imagine sm1 not taking it that actually thinks about using those overloads.

Timtimtimmaah.4069:

The more I read about the negative feedback on the Mallyx changes, the more I’m starting to swing around to your side. I agree that my WvW argument no longer holds water when considering the abundance of condis constantly being dished out overwhelming cleanse. I read someone saying that the Mallyx stance was too niche but the thing about the Revenant is that it can switch between stances, so it can fill two different roles at once. I can go Glint buff machine or go Mallyx condi glutton anytime I want (maybe not now). Maybe it is too early to say since BW3 isn’t here yet but I think keeping the condi pulsing on the Mallyx Elite along with the current torment buff may be viable and not that OP?

Glad to see that there are actually ppl on this board willing to change their mind. ^^

And yes, maybe Mallyx was niche, but as you’ve said, he has another stance and in addition to that, while 2 skills from the demon stance where designed around the opponents actually dishing out enough conditions, 3 of the skills weren’t and at least one of them can still be pretty easily spammed and would still be very useful in teamfights.

Also, being niche isn’t necessarily a bad thing: In the current meta, too many builds just wanna do everything at once and thats to a big part because ppl aren’t used to playing their characters to fit a certain role. Why does every char have to be good at everything? Being niche to a certain degree makes the demon stance stand out and gives it justification in the right team-setup and in the right metagame.

Mallyx was IMHo still good enough in a balanced team to be played against almost all current compositions; yes, you’d probably have to rotate well to be useful enough for a top-tier pick in the current meta, but there were quite a few situations where mallyx could be very useful:

- 1v1 against a D/D-Ele, which is IMHO slightly rev-favoured cuz you simply facetank the burning and reapply it. Also, the condi-removal is very strong. It’s also good against other builds sometimes used i 1v1’s, like burn-guard, nade-engi etc. I had some problems with necros, but it really depends on how well tiemd they use their boonremoval.
- In teamfights against teams that use Nade-Engis, Shoutbow, D/D-Ele’s, Necro’s etc. – which are quite a few teams.
- It’s a quite decent build to kill bunker-guard quickly.

It still had some big enough weaknesses that you’d really have to think where the rev goes and the opposing team had to counter it well, rather than a team with 4 D/D Ele’s where they can basically go wherever they want… -.-°

Timtimtimmaah.4069:

PowerBottom.5796:

Timtimtimmaah.4069:

To all the considering the Mallyx changes to be bad, consider the pre change Legendary Demon Stance:

If you play a Mallyx Rev in any group scenario, you’re gonna be next to useless due to the constant condi clears your own allies give you. Your heal skill won’t do as much and your elite would only pulse out torment.

Well, that’s kinda the mindset that keeps dumbing down the game.

It’s a TEAMGAME. If I play a Rev in a teamsetting with mallyx, I talk to my team so they don’t condi-clear right before I pull the condis on me. Also, maybe the team wouldn’t run shoutgards and Shoutwar and other stuff with mass condi-cleanses.

This game shouldn’t be balanced with random solo-Q’ers in mind, because that doesn’t work.

In a full premade, Mallyx required skill, timing, communication and could be very useful, but it also allowed the opposing team to react to it and punish the rev and/or the team if they don’t set it up and execute it properly.

It was a beautiful skill with great synergies through and through and the fact that ANet now plans on removing it, shows me that they have no clue what they are doing in terms of PvP.

In small group WvW and PvP, sure. That level of communication should be possible. In large scale WvW that’s a lot more difficult to communicate since you’re likely to get pugs. It’s not about catering to “solo-Q’ers”, it’s about being realistic about the current metagame and you will have to deal with pugs.

Well, then your argument doesn’t apply at all, cuz in large scale battles you’ll definitely have enough conditions to pull even with mass removals, since removals have a max number of targets applied skill-fact and the pain absorption radius is so huge, that you’ll defnitely get some condis to pull.

And even if we go the other way and say: well, it will be usless in 1v1’s. Yes, in some 1v1’s, it’ll be mostly useless, but not for example against D/D-Ele’s, which is the Nr. 1 build used for 1v1’s atm.

Also, ppl need to stop to think that everything needs to be good against and at everything. I thought of Mallyx as a great 1v1-build against D/D-Ele’s and as astrong addition to teamfghts against certain compositions. That was IMHO enough to make it a viable option in the current meta.

Besides, since everything costs energy, even without pain absorption and the old elite, you could still be useful and take full advantage of your energy, because every energy you spend is a tradeoff with sth. you didn’t spend your energy on: It’s about maximizing efficiency and from my experience, you really don’t have enough energy to just spam stuff, but you actually have to make a more or less concsious decision for every skill you press.

The old Mallyx Elite was amazing.

It allowed for great teamplays and had beautiful synergy with pain absoprtion and the resistance you get from the trait, but If the opponent reacted quickly and your team didn’t support the rev, you could heavily punish him by removing resistance, having good positioning and quickly spiking the rev down.

It also allowed Pain absorption to be used both offensively and defensively.

Now, the elite is just a dumbed down “press whenever you feel like it skill”, pain absoprtion is purely defensive and another uninteresting AoE-Cleanse and the whole mallyx stance requires little coordination and teamplay and reactions of the oponent are less crucial.

Before, the whole stance and corruption traitline worked like a charm because of the elite and they could’ve just tweaked the numbers. Now, by completely changing the mechanic, they again dumbed sth. down in almost all aspects necessary for an exciting teamgame.

I really don’t understand what they were thinking and I sincerely hope they aren’t gonna go through with that change.

Timtimtimmaah.4069:

To all the considering the Mallyx changes to be bad, consider the pre change Legendary Demon Stance:

If you play a Mallyx Rev in any group scenario, you’re gonna be next to useless due to the constant condi clears your own allies give you. Your heal skill won’t do as much and your elite would only pulse out torment.

Well, that’s kinda the mindset that keeps dumbing down the game.

It’s a TEAMGAME. If I play a Rev in a teamsetting with mallyx, I talk to my team so they don’t condi-clear right before I pull the condis on me. Also, maybe the team wouldn’t run shoutgards and Shoutwar and other stuff with mass condi-cleanses.

This game shouldn’t be balanced with random solo-Q’ers in mind, because that doesn’t work.

In a full premade, Mallyx required skill, timing, communication and could be very useful, but it also allowed the opposing team to react to it and punish the rev and/or the team if they don’t set it up and execute it properly.

It was a beautiful skill with great synergies through and through and the fact that ANet now plans on removing it, shows me that they have no clue what they are doing in terms of PvP.

No fan of the embrace the darkness changes either (really like the unyielding anguish change though, since it was just dumb. ^^‘) and here’s why:

- Embrace the darkness worked really well together with pain absorbtion and the resistance from demonic defiance, both in teamfights and in 1v1’s against certain classes like D/D-Ele.
- It had very clear counterplays though, which aren’t easy to pull off, but had very good results: Boonstrip after pain absorption and maybe a stun and good positioning during embrace the darkness would render it almost useless and often kill the rev instantly.
-> it was a high-risk, high reward play and required good positioning, timing and teamplay both for the rev’s team to set it up properly and protect the rev from a quick counter, but also for the opposing team to react with a quick burst and to have the right classes there to counter the rev (Mesmer, Necro and/or another rev with boonstrip and decent burst).
- With this synergy, pain absoprtion could be used both offensively and defensively, which was IMHO a very good design of how the demon stance worked.

Now, pain absorption is purely defensive, the elite can just be toggled whenever you have enough energy and a few enemies around – you just took all the exciting thing out of it by changing the ult in this manner.

Why did you change it that way? was it too strong? I don’t think so, because as explained above there are very strong ways to counter it. Yes, it’s not gonna be easy for every random solo-Q’er to do it, but thats how it works in a game thats designed to be a teamgame.

I really question this decision and I think it was made hastily on the basis of a few whiners who complained about embrace being too strong, without thinking about how to actually play against it smartly for one second.

The only thing I found kinda weird about it, was that you could apply very strong conditions like fear for longer durations than they have been applied…. So why not just change the application from 3 seconds with 1 seconds pules, to 3 seconds with 3 second pulses? Or 1 second with 1 second pulses….

Are you kidding me? Dragon Rank is way too easy to get…. I’ve probably been r80 2 times already…. I’d be surprised if ppl in the top-1000 don’t all have r80.

Everything looks good, but the main problem I have with mesmer (which is not only related to the chronomancer) is:

- Mantra of distraction and powerblock are amazing, but you made both much worse by making them not recharge until all the stacks are down.
- The real Problem which made the build imba was confounding suggestions+mental anguish, which made it possible to abuse the mantra as a mindless stun, instead using it as the intended interrupt, which required tons of skill and timing and was a huge amount of fun.

- Now with the chronomancer, it’s even worse using the mantras, because chronomancer is really strong, but has no synergy with mantras: alacrity is nowhere near as good for mantras as for other skills, cuz the CD only gets reduced when all the stacks of the mantra have been used.
- Also, mantras now basically need harmonious mantras and powerblock which gives you little chance to tap into the more defensive traitlines, which makes the build even more squishier than it already is und makes one of the big synergies with the heal-mantra and menders purity fly out the window, or you just have 2 uses of the mantra, which is IMHO not good enough with the new “CD-mechanic” for the mantras.
- Continuum SHift also isn’t that great with mantras, cuz you only have time to fire off 1 interrupt and it’ll most likely just be fired off blindly cuz of the small time-window.

The only reason I’m so stuck with mantras is that during the time where the mantras where really strong and with powerblock, it felt so good playing mesmer and so similar to how certain classes in GW1 felt, that I really started to love GW2 again (I didn’t abuse mental anguish nor confounding suggestions, but actually tried to hit the interrupts on the important stuff).

Then mesmer became the simple stealth-class again and with chronomancer, it’ll just be a combo-beast that’s squishy as hell from what I’ve seen so far.

solution
- Make alacrity reduce CD on mantras while you still have stacks to use. Otherwhise, the whole chronomancer traitline will be completely useless for one skill-category of the mesmer.
- Confounding suggestions only stuns when you interrupt sth.
- Possibly think about switching out temporal enchanter, mental defense or illusionary inspiration for harmonious mantras, cuz it’ll be really hard to utilize the main synergy of the heal mantra when going for chronomancer….

Liewec.2896:

it used to be 8v8 and yep, it was awesome

ranked/unranked/tournaments etc. were always 5v5, but in custom arena’s it’s up to 10v10.

For PvP, there are IMHO several pretty strong builds:

Carrion Teamfight or 1v1 vs builds that rely on conditions (like DD)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAsX5unfN2gSuJvQRHlboskyPU4S5IKor8EllTlhdpnmKNgEWwO93rH-TZRHwAA3fIwTAAZZAAHEABnAAA

I really like the water-rune on both builds actually, since the amount of boons is huge and you benefit a lot from added healing power, since a big part of the traits and skills have a healing component to them.

Power-based offensive roamer
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsemnvN2gS6JvQRVlbosryPUYW5IKYs8EllZlhdmb2RNgEawO6r/G-TpBFABiXGIp9HI4BA02RAYhDBAAnAAA

Pretty sick mobility and DMG. The build also has insane utility:
- Stability + Quickness for stomps, rezzes, downed-cleave and dps-spikes
- Tons of boons for you and the teammates
- A lot of evades and invulnerabilities
- Some CC and very strong AoE on the staff.
- Pretty weak against conditions though and not as good in teamfights (still decent though), since he’s melee only and tons of DMG from Sword 3 get too spread out across multiple targets.

I also have different variations of the build, mostly switching out either retribution or invocation for devastation because of the huge amount of life-leech. Often I’ve also used Pack runes and switched Fury on heal for the condi-remove.
Hammer also works instead of the Staff for better teamfight/ranged DPS, but u loose the best condi-remove of the build and Staff 5 for it.

I absolutely loved playing those two builds; they both are strong, have a pretty clear role and specific things they do well that can’t simply be done better by other classes. They are some of the harder builds on any class IMHO and the opponent has options for counterplay that aren’t easy to pull off, but very effective and rewarding.

Bunker/Support

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsemnnN2gSyJvQRNlbosoyPU4U5IKIs8EllZlhdmb2RNgEewO6r/G-TJxHwACeCAILD4b/BAnCAA

I’ve also been toying around with this bunker-build, it seems pretty strong, but it’s kinda hard to properly test a build like that in random groups, since it doesn’t fit in every teamcomp.

I’ve also been testing it with salvation, but I think the added healing doesn’t make up for the lack of stability (which is IMHO crucial for a full bunker/support) or the added stunbreak.
It’s also possible to play the build with pack-runes for added dps, but again: I just love those water-runes on most rev-builds!

I don’t really like Tempest either:

1) Overloads aren’t fun to use, you simply channel and let the huge AoE do the rest. Besides, it’s so easy to interrupt that it’s very noticeable even in unranked random groups: Imagine how it’s gonna be if good players with mesmers, thiefs and stuff are in the team that can just wreck Overloads with interrupts.

2) The warhorn is kinda fun, but it lacks some critical aspects that are important in most common Ele-builds: Mobility is much lower than on offhand dagger, the fire-field has too long of a CD and it doesn’t even offer any aura’s, which are pretty useful with the tempest traitline.

3) The traits are pretty lackluster too:
- Latent stamina: Completely useless; Ele has enough access to vigor and even if that wasn’t the case, it’s simply way too weak.
- Gale Song: Not bad, but what’s actually needed for tempest is stuff that negates CC and not breaks you out of the stun after your overload has already been cancelled.
- Speedy Conduit: Completely useless
- Unstable COnduit: Would be decent if Overloads wouldn’t be that easy to interrupt; it should probably trigger when activating an overload, not when you’ve finished channeling it.
- Earthen proxy: Sounded good at first, but I was pretty disapointed with it – didn’t even notice it most of the time…
- Harmonious conduit: Also pretty lackluster: it should add sth. else to the overloads, like making them harder to interrupt, make them channel faster or sth. like that.
- Hardy Conduit: I like that one since it triggers during the channel, not after it; makes overloading at least somewhat useful even if it gets interrupted.
- Imbued Melodies: could be pretty cool, but since Warhorn doesn’t look pretty strong, it won’t see any play.
- Lucid Singularity: I kinda like it, also cuz it triggers on channel.
- Element bastion: Pretty decent, though not very interesting or fun to use.

4) The Shouts are IMHO pretty decent; It also opens up the rune of the soldier which might make usage of amu’s without vitality possible.

I’ve tested several builds over the beta-weekend, here are my thoughts on them:

Staff-Ele:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCdOgFOAWYCcYilTAz9rWWfrETgAwCooEMA/AA-TJxHwADuAAAeAAb2foYZAA

I thought the build worked pretty well, but the overloads don’t add much things that the Staff-Ele doesn’t already do pretty well, but earth attunement just makes him a lot tankier.

D/D-Ele:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYn0XCdOgFOAWYCcYilTAz9rWWfrETgAwCooEMA/AA-TJxHwADeAAAOBAb2foYZAA

This build was probably my favourite one, since tempest actually offered sth. where the D/D-Ele doesn’t excell already: teamfight-potential. Yes, the D/D-Ele isn’t necessarily bad in teamfights, but it’s IMHO his weaker side, which is why he’s often used as a roamer.
I’m not quite sure if he’s still good enough as a main 1v1-roamer, but I think he could be. Not quite sure if this will still be the case after the nerf that’s probably gonna come soon.
The tons of auras also work well with element bastion of course and I never felt I was lacking sth. really badly because of the longer CD’s on the attunements.
I also tried a version without shouts and earthen proxy, which worked fine as well.

S/D-Ele

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYn0XCdOgFOAWYCcYilTAz9rWWfrETgAwCoIKOA/AA-TJBGwAKeAAh2fAwJAgZZAA

I mainly play S/D cele-ele atm and it’s IMHo one of the most underappreciated builds (in any situation other than 1v1’s, it’s better than D/D IMHO and in 1v1’s, he’s still good enough to be played as an off-roamer, here’s the build I use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhcMozhFOwxB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAUXykYZA-TJBGwAKeAAh2fAwJAgZZAA)

this one simply doesn’t work with tempest at all, for several reasons:
- The added AoE-Fury, Power, Might and CD-reduction that fire gives you are extremely important for this build to work and give it insanely high burst with the fire-skills, this all falls apart with the tempest trait-line, since switching out anything other than fire would be even worse for the build.
- Overloading fire, which would help out with the less might-stacks is out of the question, since it is where a huge part of the dmg comes from, so you need to switch to it constantly.
- Overloading Air isn’t too good as well, since spamming air-1 gives the target perma-weakness, which is another big part of why I really like this build.
- I don’t particularly like the earth overload, so I ended up overloading only water most of the time.
- Also, similar to the Staff-Ele, S/D with fire absolutely shines in teamfights, I don’t need tempest for that.

The build isn’t bad, but it just feels like all synergy the build has with fire is lost and no synergy is gained with tempest; it feels forced.

I also tried all the builds with Clerics amu and soldier runes, but the DMG was really low and I kinda felt that you cannot properly test a build like that in random groups on a beta-weekend, so it might be decent after all. The sustain isn’t high enough to hold off 2 ppl with semi-decent dmg though, so no clerics bunker meta again – don’t worry.

Idea to make overloading more dynamic
- strenghten the effect when overloading is complete.
- weaken the effects during overload, but make traits like unstable conduit trigger at the beginning of the channel.
- make it possible to dodge while overloading without breaking the channel.

->
- Overloading would make you feel less like a sitting duck.
- the feeling of urgency to interrupt the overload would be hightened, making it interesting in teamfights and exciting to watch as a spectator.
- It would give the ele a chance to dodge crucial interrupts and to get into good positions (often in the midst of fights), with a bit more survivability.

PlasticHippo.8934:

I just fail to see how wanting a fix for the ability to ignoring walls can be written off as QQ. it’s normal for teleports to teleport up walls, not through them. this ability gets you access to all sorts of area’s in every game mode that you were never meant to get to, but hey if I’m the only one that wants a fix then so be it.

Well, this simply shows me that you don’t know your PvP, because teleports that target enemies have always gone through walls (guardian judges intervention and sword 2 for example).

I guess it comes across as QQ because the class hasn’t even been released yet and you are already talking about gamebreaking imbalances and open a thread about a single skill that is perfectly fine.

PlasticHippo.8934:

I thought thieves were supposed to be the most mobile class in the game? with revenants this mobile, is there ever any reason to take a thief?

This is kinda mindblowing. ^^’

1) Thieves aren’t the most mobile class in the game, at least not horizontally. Mobility is the cherry on top of the thief-cake.
2) Probaly one of the biggest reason thieves are seen that much in sPvP are stealth-openers.
3) Thieves also offer tons of spiked-DMG, CC, boonstrip, stealth-rezzing and high sustain thanks to stealth with all it’s benefits like condi-removal and they are one of the hardest classes to stomp.

There is some overlap between a power-oriented rev and a thief, but both are unique enough that one won’t just make the other obsolete.

why do ppl hate on skills that distinguish the class from others and give them a clear role?

Phase traversal is good, yes, but why would you play a revenant if he didn’t have good skills that other classes don’t have?

Phase traversal gives very high mobility and chasing potential, but it offers no dmg and takes away from your ability to use other skills. Also, since various other utilities are spread across other stances, you loose for example condi-cleanse, tons of boons and other stuff simply by choosing the legendary assassin stance.

The fact that it goes through walls is absolutely crucial and totally standard for skills of that nature (like sword 2 or judges intervention on guard).

Maybe they need to make the energy cost a bit higher (25 maybe?), but that’s about it.

I really think this skill that make’s the Rev unique and gives him a clear role on that build shouldn’t be nerfed into the ground.

I think anguish is bugged, I won’t believe that ANet actually thought that this skill going through stability is a good Idea. If they plan on making it go through stablity, it should only be able to trigger on one enemy per anguish.

I see no problem with unrelenting assault though, since good positioning will spread out the dmg so much in teamfights, it’ll be easily fullhealed. Also, the rev doesn’t have the highest sustain on many powerbuilds and most powerbuilds for example lack condition-removal, so the evade is necessary for the build to be viable.

Also, assault has a long enough cast-time before the evades set in and a pretty easily distinguishable animation, so it’s entirely possible to interrupt it.

The problem I have with assault is that you still contest cap-points, which is IMHO overkill.

Darknicrofia.2604:

PowerBottom.5796:

Darknicrofia.2604:

PowerBottom.5796:

I think the virtues work really well with a bunker-guard

are you drunk son?

which of honor/valor/virtues would you possibly drop for DH?

Did I write the whole trait-line is better for bunkers? Nope.

I just like the changed virtues since they give the Bunker-Guard more versatility and utility. We’ll have to w8 to see what they’re gonna change until release to see if it’s really a good choice to go for DH.

So far, I probably wouldn’t go for it, but DH is probably gonna change quite a bit until release.

yes, giving up instant cast aoe condi cleanse and aoe stunbreak/stability sounds like great bunker changes.

What are you talking about?

I highly doubt it’s working as intended, since other displacement-skills (like the one the rev has when downed, at least afaik) don’t work through stability, which is the way it should be.

There’s no Problem with burning, but there’s a huge Problem with ppl:

1) not dodging/kiting Ele Burn.
2) not using their condition-removal at the right time.
3) running through the ring of fire.
4) standing in burning-fields of Warrior or Guardian for example.
5) running builds that lack condi-removal, although it’s readily available for most builds.
6) teams not running the proper support-builds which completely negate condition-based builds (ShoutGuard, ShoutWar, Staff-Ele)
7) Ppl getting into situations where they shouldn’t be: If you’re not running much condi-clear it’s one thing, but if you then try to fight a condi-build over and over again, it’s just sutpid.

I’ve never ever had even the slightest thought that burning or condis in general are too strong and I haven’t heard anything like that from good players either.

So? That’s called metagaming and it’s a legit strategy to benefit from the lack of preparation of other players.

Why shouldn’t I run a condi-build if I notice that ppl are playing builds that suck against it?

There is more than enough counterplay to conditions, it’s not my problem that ppl don’t run it.

Darknicrofia.2604:

PowerBottom.5796:

I think the virtues work really well with a bunker-guard

are you drunk son?

which of honor/valor/virtues would you possibly drop for DH?

Did I write the whole trait-line is better for bunkers? Nope.

I just like the changed virtues since they give the Bunker-Guard more versatility and utility. We’ll have to w8 to see what they’re gonna change until release to see if it’s really a good choice to go for DH.

So far, I probably wouldn’t go for it, but DH is probably gonna change quite a bit until release.

I absolutely love the virtue-changes, but the traits don’t really do it for me either…. Longbow could be fun for certain builds, but didn’t really test it out.

I think the virtues work really well with a bunker-guard, cuz he gets better at linebacking and CC. I don’t love the high CD on the shield virtue though, since it’s IMHO such a cool skill that rewards good timing and positioning, I think it should be slightly reworked (shorter duration probably), but with a shorter CD.

The Traps could be useful on some builds, since I absolutely love Traps, but right now, I kinda don’t see in which build they’d fit, since most Guardian-builds rely on heavy synergies (shouts or mediation both benefit from several traits/runes etc.) and certain skills are just absolut staple on Guard (the heal for example is the same in almost all builds that are being played competetively).

Necromonger.4970:

Or how about they do a proper open beta and not this marketing shenanigans.

agreed….

didn’t even play much stronghold (maybe 2-3 games) even though I played a lot during the BWE, because:

- Still way too much running around for supply or other objectives.
- Still too much fighting NPC’s rather than fighting plyaers.
- Archers still useless
- Players are too spread on the huge map with so many objectives and bigger teamfights basically only seem to happen when mist-essences or the Hero-NPC’s spawn, which then results in a team fighting an NPC rather than players yet again.

The Game-Mode can be fixed, but right now it’s just not very fun to play to me.

meow one twenty.4376:

Why is your whole team within 140-600 range of two Reapers?

Positioning is the solution to 90% of the problems most ppl have that constantly open threads like this.

Also, there are TONS of skills that specifically remove or lower durations of those movement-impairing-skills, I don’t see the problem at all.

abc.5790:

You know I’d hate to see the over nerfing of eles. I think if they did the following, dd eles would still be competitive but not too op:

- reduce RoF burn stacks from 3 to 1
or
- increase RoF CD from 10s traited to 30s traited
plus
- increase blinding ashes CD from 5s to 15s

The fire line is the root of all evil. Adjustments should be focused on the fire line.

RoF CD is way more important to S/D-Eles than D/D…..

just nerf the mainhand-dagger in terms of physical DPS and burning-duration – it’s really that simple.

I sincerely hope the nerfs are well thought out as to not also harm Staff and Scepter-based ele builds….

well yeah, ppl have been saying that for the better part of GW2’s existence… :P

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

so how do you kill ele ?

they kill you 1v1

They don’t if you are a Necro….

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

they survive 2v1

Well, against two tanks maybe, but if you have 2 semi-decent damage-dealers, they won’t.

It’s a 1v1-build, so don’t engage it in 1v1’s unless your build is a direct counter or another D/D-Ele, it’s as simple as that.

I feel they found an interesting way to make a class have sustain, without giving them tons of heal and reliance on healing power.

Just like other sustainy classes though, the counter is probably spiked dmg with good CC.

Cuz this isn’t really a thing in random groups, I’m looking forward to all the whiney posts. ^^

Only possible if you give Eles a higher health-pool or it will make eles essentially unusable for pvp.

there could be a way to use the Stronghold-mode and make it feel more like GvG without huge changes:

- Focus more on the fight in mid by getting rid of supply and make the mid-point a sort of cap which makes you spawn 2 archers and 1 DB every 30 seconds as long as you at least have 1 person on it. Both teams could have this at the same time.
- Make the mist-essence spawns mid. I absolutely love the mist essence mechanic, but there’s already too much that’s dividing the team up. Team-fights are fun and with 2 other points of contestion (defense and atk. lane) AND the mist-essence spawns at 2 possible other locations, it’ll just be too much for a 5-man team. We’ll just always have max. 2v2’s, which is not what I personally want from a game-mode like that.

This would pretty much lead to the same “set up” of GW1; very important mid, but the option to split offensively or defensively.
It would also get rid of a lot of boring running around for supply.

GvG was IMHO the best team-based game-mode I’ve ever played and with a few tweaks it would work in GW2 like a charm.

The best thing about GvG was, that the clear focus was on one point (flagstand mid), where big teamfights happen, but there was enough opportunity to split off some teammembers to raid their base, catch their flagrunner etc.

The main problem of stronghold is, that there is no main point of contestion (there are two lanes and very important mist-essence spawns at up to two other points) and there are too many boring tasks to do for a 5-player team (running supply).

Ranger could have several builds that kinda work, but just not quite meta-worthy, here are the reasons in my experience:

Sword/torch Axe/dagger Trapper with settlers amu
- Not enough usage from all the healing power, basically only used for regeneration, the heal skill and some leap-finishers. Other sustainy classes have other weapon-skills/traits that use the healing-power.
- Very low health pool.
- Low mobility.
- Not enough access to stability/stunbreakers

PewPew (beastmastery, nature and wilderness)
- DMG just isn’t quite es high as other glasscannons.
- There is nothing that ONLY the ranger can do (like stealth-openers or portal). The Trapper at least offers sth. kinda unique with the traps.
- Easier to train down than other glasscannons, which mostly have very strong disengages and high stealth-uptime to avoid pressure.

Some general stuff:
- Shortbow deals way too less condition-dmg
- Better control over the pets would be much appreciated (like being able to control the usage of the other skills of the pet).
- Access to +25% movement-speed or swiftness is much harder than on other classes.

4 Thiefs – so what?

There are tons of builds that totally shred thiefs….

Darknicrofia.2604:

lol at the OP’s suggestion for Blackout

GW1’s version of the skill disabled both the user and the affected player’s skill bar for x duration, it was mostly used to disable the opposing team’s monks prior to a spike, at the cost of the user’s entire skill bar also being disabled (which for all intents and purposes, a ranger/mes or warrior/mes isn’t nearly as important as a monk in a flag stand fight)

Well, my reasons for not making Blackout also disable your own weapon-skills were:

- It’s a 5-man game, not 8, and in GW2, weapon-skills are still mostly offensive, so you’d disable a huge part of your offenses, which would mean it could only be used defensively to take out dmg.
- Mesmer in GW2 is much more used for it’s DMG than it was in GW1 and taking out the mesmers DMG would actually hurt the DMG-output of your team heavily.
- Disabling Utility/Heal-skills would simply be too strong and there is no dedicated backline who have mostly defensive weapon-skills, which means Blackout won’t ever disable enough healing in GW2 to make up for the DMG lost due to the mesmer being unable to add DMG.

-> There’s simply no way to make a trait worth it in both offensive and defensive ways if you are disabled as well.

Srsly guys, I thought this stuff through. ^^’

Also, I was playing GW1 in Top-20 GvG Guilds for years (BdV, Capita Cerberi etc.), I know how Blackout worked in GW1, no need to “lol” at me.

Poxxia.1547:

It was actually GW1 mesmer & ranger I wanted to play in GW2 – unfortunately they are nothing like they were back in GW1.

In addition there is ofc also spirits, which worked very differently back in GW1, and imho they were a much more interesting part back then. In general, the whole point of skills giving you an advantage at the cost of a drawback is an aspect I miss, even if it does promote build-wars.

The problem for mesmer with the reduced dmg and general functionality is ofc thieves and thieves ability to port, connect and burst. As a clothie and in general very reduced ability to body-block, mesmers would be reduced to thief-fodder. Reduce the burst of especially thieves and reduce their ability to connect, and this would certainly be some very amazing changes for mesmer.

I played mostly monk in GW1, but it’s kinda hard to implement stuff from monks into GW2. ^^’

Mesmer vs Thief: In teamfights, I think mesmer wouldn’t really be worse against thiefs by implementing the new Powerblock and switching mental anguish for Blackout. Yes, you’d loose some dps, but I think both the slow instead of dmg on Powerblock and the Blackout instead of more dmg on the shatters are a fair trade-off. In Teamfights, the Blackout would negate tons of dmg and teleport and smokefield+leap, so could also potentially lock down the thief a bit.

In 1v1’s DMG is pretty important VS thiefs, if your class is pretty squishy as well, but most mesmer don’t really want to go into 1v1’s and the new skills would make the mesmer IMHO better in teamfights, so I think it could work out fine.

placeholder! ^^

Ranger

In GW1, ranger was often used as a roamer to slow down flagrunners or in teamfight, to spread conditions and slow down either melee attackers to give your backline room to breathe or to slow down the enemy backline, to make them eat more pressure from your melee damage-dealers. Wow!Another skill that could be used in both defensive and offensive ways! Interrupting was another big part of the ranger, mostly to take out enemy casters. The following skills were the most interesting to me:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Apply_Poison
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Crippling_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Distracting_Shot

The ranger was constantly switching targets applying crippling and poison and had to decide every few seconds which target needed to be slowed down. AoE-Condition-removal (and condition-removal in general) wasn’t as common as in GW2, so targets could be crippled/poisoned for quite some time.

To make the „GW2-crippling shot“ fit into current builds (marksmanship isn’t really used by condition-builds and simple crippling alone won’t do the trick) I added it to skirmishing instead of Most Dangerous Game, which isn’t really used anyways. I also wanted to bring smart pet-control into the trait, to distinguish the ranger more from other classes. To make the skill powerful enough, It defenitely needs to add more than just crippling, so I added another condition that is useful for both offensive and defensive purposes; weakness.

[Predator’s instinct: Enemies hit by your pets basic attack are crippled and weakened for 5 seconds. The same enemy cannot be crippled and/or weakened again in this way for 10 seconds]
-> (Skirmishing T3 major trait, replacing Most Dangerous Game)

[Refined Toxins: Your pets basic attacks inflict 5 seconds of poison. The same enemy cannot be poisoned again in this way for 10 seconds]
-> (simple rebalancing to fit more to what „apply poison“ felt like, again tied to the pet and with a cooldown on the target affected by it)

I think these two traits would have some interesting effects to how the ranger is being played: Controlling the pet and switching targets effectively would become important, it would give the ranger quite potent skills in teamfights (condi-ranger has been more commonly used as a node-defender, which would make these traits loose effectiveness) and the skill-ceiling for using this trait would be quite high. (keeping CD’s in mind of ppl you’ve already affected with the traits, not affecting targets too soon to not be able to cripple/weaken/poison them when you really need to etc.)

[Moment of Unclarity: If you interrupt a skill that has a CD, that cooldown is increased by 15 seconds. Your stun and daze durations are increased by 100%]
-> (Replacing Moment of Clarity. I think another trait similar to powerblock could be very useful, since fights, especially teamfights, often don’t last long enough to make 1 „powerblocked“ skill a huge factor. Also, it would add more of a controlling effect to the pewpew-ranger, which would reward masterful interrupts instead of simply packing more dps onto the build).

Warrior

The most intriguing thing to me about warrior, which could be applied to GW2, was the following skill:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Frenzy

The skill had a very low CD, but there was a harsh trade-off to the added DPS; taking double dmg. The stance could be cancelled by using another stance, but those often had longer CD’s (15-20 seconds), so you had to be very careful about using Frenzy and the enemy team needed to be quick to capitalize on a used Frenzy, which made a very tanky warrior (which also often was a main damage-dealer), very squishy for a short time.

[Reckless Frenzy: Reduce the cooldown of Frenzy to 15 seconds. When you activate Frenzy, you take double damage from physical attacks for 5 seconds]
-> (Strength T3 major trait, replacing distracting strikes, because I don’t really see it being used and it fits the trait-line and current builds well).
I think the warrior currently has enough ways to get out of the double-DMG, similar to stance-cancelling by using another stance in GW1 (no two stances could be active at once), like endure pain, shield block, dodges, tons of movement-skills to get away, but they would mean either not doing using the quickness effectively, or using a big cooldown.

That’s it for now, maybe I’ll write down some other ideas at a later time.

I wanted to use this thread to inspire Anet to bring back some of the skills that made GW1 such an amazing game. Don’t get my wrong, some GW2-skils and traits are amazing, but many of them are a bit unimaginative. I want to go over a few classes and how they were played in GW1 and try to transform those gameplay-mechanics into skills that could be implemented into GW2. I tried to balance them to fit into the current competetive sPvP-metagame and to fit into the builds that are currently played most of the respective classes.

Quick Disclaimer: When looking at the GW1-skills; notice there are also elite-skills, which are obviously more powerful and if you look at the „Progression-levels“, you can probably set it at around 10 to get an accurate depiction of how effective it was in PvP.)

Mesmer

The Mesmer in GW1 dealt moderate DMG, but offered several options to control either the defensive or offensive capabilities of the enemy team by interrupts, manaburns and other skills, like these:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Power_Block
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blackout

General changes to GW2-Mesmer: I’d tone down the DMG a bit and heavily increase the possible control-options to give it a more distinct role. I’d also cut some traits like Confounding suggestions and mental anguish.

Now for the possible new traits and/or modified old ones:

[Powerblock: If you interrupt a skill that has a CD, that cooldown is increased by 15 seconds. The interrupted enemy is weakened for 5 seconds and slowed for 3 seconds]
-> (Domination T3 major trait)
I removed the added DMG, but added the slow, which has both offensive and defensive usage. It’s imho important to design the skills in a way that makes it possible to use them offensively as well as defensively, because the quick decision-making whether you take out DPS or defensive capabilities of the enemy team in a fight makes the class more interesting and versatile to play.

[Blackout: When target enemy is hit by cry of frustration emanating from yourself (so not an illusion), target enemy has all weapon-skills disabled for 5 seconds]
-> (Domination T3 major trait, replacing mental anguish)
I tried to keep it melee-range like in GW1, so you could dodge it and see the mesmer coming, but added a unique effect that you cannot simply get rid off with a stunbreaker. To balance this, I think only disabling weapon-skills is a fair trade.

Elementalist

In GW1, this class was probably closest to what could be called a jack-of-all-trades, because it offered support, healing and dmg. Still, most characters in GW2 can survive better on their own than even a roaming-oriented Ele in GW1. The coolest thing about Ele was IMHO the blinding-aspect, which worked differently in GW1:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blind

The skills mostly used by support-Eles to apply blinding were:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Surge
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Flash

When applying blinding, you had to mostly focus on high-DPS bursty classes, sth. like how Warriors and Thiefs are played now. It was absolutely crucial for them to get rid of the blind before they spike (or have it cleansed by the monks). Compared to the blind in GW2, the GW1 blind was more balanced accross classes (blind in GW2 hurts some classes way more than other, who don’t care about it at all) and ppl actually had to react to it: 5+ seconds without doing dmg is a big deal, but do I really want to use my cleanse to get rid of it, or do I need it for more defensive purposes later? Again, like with the mesmer-skills, there was a constant trade-off, which was hugely important for mana-management (but works in GW2 just as well): Do we need the DMG or do we need defense more? Can we get the target down when I cleanse the blind, or will the target live anyways and we die later cuz I used my CD offensively? My trait that encapsulates this would be:

[Blinding Light: Your blinding flash, Lightning Surge, Signet of Air and blinds from Elemental Surge now apply 20 stacks of blinding, each attack draining 1 stack.]
-> (Air magic T3 major trait instead of Lightning Rod)

ASP.8093:

PowerBottom.5796:

That’s why I realy liked Powerblock after specialization and the fact we saw so many Mantra’s of Distraction. I was very disappointed to see that it was mostly used as a rather easy out-of stealth insta-stun to spike sth. down.

So that’s caused almost entirely by Confounding Suggestions + MoD. That’s what needed to be looked at. It was largely ignored in favor of just breaking mantras and shaving damage.

Yepp, I was quite disappointed by that as well. I’ve pointed out in numerous threads that the main offender is confounding suggestions that is dumbing down interesting skills like MoD and make ppl choose the easy-route with mental-anguish rather than Powerblock, which is a far more skill-intensive trait to use.

ASP.8093:

PowerBottom.5796:

Powerblock for example, doesn’t get used that often anymore, because why would I need a longer recast on an enemy skill when I can just insta-stun him out of stealth and gank him off the map instead?

Power Block was never used for the cooldown effect itself.

People just didn’t take it. They took (the much more accessible) Halting Strike. And what was that? Damage on interrupt. That’s the good part of Power Block and always will be.

After the specialization patch we saw quite a few ppl running powerblock, but yes, not for the added CD – which is exactly what I find a missed opportunity by ANet.

added DPS is fine, but it’s nothing special and mesmer already has lots of burst. Why not strengthen parts that set him apart from other classes? Powerblock was IMHO one of the most interesting new traits and I was getting really excited to play a GW1-Style mesmer, that was mostly there for taking either dmg or healing out of the fight with Interrupts, Manadrain and a few skills like Diversion, Powerblock or Blackout:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Power_Block
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blackout

DPS wasn’t bad of the Mesmer, but the main part was the ability to either deny potential DMG, or potential defensive capabilities of the enemy team with the above mentioned skills.

That’s why I realy liked Powerblock after specialization and the fact we saw so many Mantra’s of Distraction. I was very disappointed to see that it was mostly used as a rather easy out-of stealth insta-stun to spike sth. down.

There is nothing in GW2 that comes close to how the Mesmer was played and yes, GW1 was in 8-man teams and there was place for full-supporters, but I think a decent middle-ground between just DPS and full support/control could be found.

Few example:

- Old Mantra recharge is back (although again, I still think it’s useable with the mantra-traits)
- confounding suggestions only stuns when it interrupts a spell.
- Change Powerblock to: [Powerblock: If you interrupt a skill that has a CD, that cooldown is increased by 15 seconds, Your enemy is weakened for 10 seconds and slowed for 3 seconds]
- Get rid of mental anguish; it’s dumb and unimaginative. Make sth. that reminds of Blackout maybe? [Blackout: Add a stacking 5 second debuff on an enemy when he is hit by one of your shatters, at 3 stacks, the enemy player is dazed for 4 seconds]

They could also add sth. like the old GW1-Diversion: [Diversion: If an enemy is hit by cry of frustration, add a debuff on the enemy for 2 seconds that says: the next skill used that has a CD has no effect and it’s cooldown is 15 seconds longer]

Or maybe sth. like this? [Disarm: If you hit a player with a shatter emanating from yourself, all his weapon-skills are disabled for 3 seconds]

see? there are tons of great mechanics ANet could play with regarding the mesmer that aren’t just DPS-oriented but could still be very useful and unique to the mesmer. The inner GW1-nerd would just shout in joy when I’d see things like that implemented!

from what I’ve heard and watching many ESL NA Cups, Storm is doing a very good job, no reason to be salty at him.

And yes, rules need to be clear about ingame chat and simply prohibit it. No reason to boycott Academy gaming, which are doing great things for the community, it just shows that these particular individuals are clearly immature and hurtful for the community and should be banned from further tournaments.

Don’t get all hyper about this, or is this really sth. new for you? You can’t 100% guarantee that nothing like this will happen, you just need to put the rules and regulations in place to punish such behaviour and keep it at a minimum.

Trigr.6481:

Yes I understand that the bug with mantra was unintended, however for the first time in quite a while we saw mantra mesmer come back into the game. But I don’t feel that fixing mantra back to it’s original state was what was needed. Changing confounding suggestions in some way might have been the answer, but instead your decision was to complete gut it to the unbalanced mechanic known as mantra.

That was exactly the thing I thought at first too.

Having tested Mantra’s though (with the trait for 3 activations, which I didn’t use before), I think they are still very good.

But yes, many players switched back to decoy even before the patch, just because it was such a high risk running only 1 stunbreaker, so we’ll probably see even less mantras now.

I also think that confounding suggestions is the real imbalanced and kinda dumb thing in the whole equation, it should be changed to only stun on interrupt. This would kinda negate the ridiculous stealth-openers and synergy with mental anguish you got basically for free.

I think ANet should embrace the interrupting/support a bit more in general and tone the pure dps-stuff on the mesmer down a bit.

Powerblock for example, doesn’t get used that often anymore, because why would I need a longer recast on an enemy skill when I can just insta-stun him out of stealth and gank him off the map instead?

They should get rid of the dmg on powerblock and add additional control-effects instead, like a longer daze when you actually interrupted sth. so you could really take stuff out of teamfights and not just be a burst-cannon.

Mantra’s are still very viable, but you have to use the trait for it now, which is perfectly fine. I didn’t use the trait before and was able to just fire mantras of distraction into the air to recast and get 2 casts again, that’s just too powerful. Now, you have to be a bit more careful with it, which is perfectly fine. Heal Mantra with 3 casts is still very strong and the 10s CD isn’t too long at all. I think they balanced the mantras very well.

Ele not getting nerfed is weird, but I think they wanna use ele as a baseline now, because it’s actually hard to balance the D/D-Ele without hurting all other ele-builds.

Other than that, they buffed Ranger and Engi quite a bit, therefore creating alternatives to mass-D/D-Eles (since both can fit the role of a D/D-Ele).

War probably got the short end of the stick, but rampage-nerf was necessary, even though it’s what really made war picked quite often in competetive PvP.

balance-wise, it was IMHO a very good step.

Maybe War are lower on the tier-list now, but it’s IMHO better to nerf rampage, see where it goes and then buff some other stuff that is a bit more reliable and not just 20 seconds godmode.

I still feel Warrior offers a lot that other classes don’t do in the same way, especially the heavy CC and often bursty cleave.

I’m really curious to see what ROM’s gonna run, since we saw him running ranger (more casually I guess) and with the recent buff to ranger and the nerf to warrior, maybe he’s gonna run ranger in WTS!

it’s a horrible trait on all fronts:

- It’s too strong.
- It makes a great skill like mantra of distraction that you could use for interrupts a simple stun out of stealth you can effectively use anytime you want.
- It rewards a stupid insta-kill playstyle which we already have enough of.
- The synergies with mental anguish, Moa etc. is simply too good.
- It actually makes ppl not take one of the most interesting and fun to use traits (powerblock), just because the synergy with mental anguish is so ridiculous.

An easy fix would be to make it only stun when you’ve interrupted a skill, all the problems named above would be solved.

and a 50% stun would be just absolutely horrible….. you cannot balance a skill with such a huge impact around chance, that’s just lazy.

FrownyClown.8402:

PowerBottom.5796:

Chokolata.1870:

Ok guys, there have been a lot of topics that all call for nerfs on this and that. But, taking a serious look at Ele, how would you go about nerfing it?

Personally I would:

-reduce the stat bonus from the Celestial amulet from 560-480

-reduce the damage bonuses from Pyromancer training and Burning rage from 10% to 7% (similar to how the Guardian +% to burning got reduced)

-reduce the burning duration of Drakes breath from 3s to 2s

-reduce the Ring of Fire burn stacks from 3 to 2

-increase Soothing Ice ICD from 20s to 30s

-reduce the Protection duration from Elemental swapping from 5s to 2s

What do you think? Too much? Not enough??

So, almost all of your proposed changes nerf ele as a whole, although there’s arguably only 1 build that is being played like crazy and considered OP.

D/D-Ele needs to be toned down in DPS a bit, that’s all and I’d probably simply nerf mainhand-dagger dps by toning down the physical DPS on drakes breath, burning speed and cone of cold by 30%. It would put the ele more in the niche of condition-dps (which would make him less of a jack of all trades and less bursty).

that would hurt builds that don’t use celestial or might stacking.

well, nerfing mainhand-dagger would probably hurt way less potential builds than nerfing like celestial amu stats or physical DMG bonus on fire.

Also, the only build that doesn’t use cele is probably S/F-ele with marauder, which most often doesn’t use dagger mainhand.

Realistically, without a huge overhaul of ele in general, we’re probably looking at staff, dagger/X and scepter/X builds all using cele and glasscannon-builds that use marauder, most likely S/F, as viable builds.

Nerfing physical DPS on fire would greatly hurt S/D (more than D/D) which I think isn’t necessary. Nerfing cele-stats would hurt tons of builds on several classes and nerfing protection-duration would hurt ele in general as well.

I don’t think that is at all warranted when 90% of ele’s in the competetive meta play D/D. It’s obvious that the mainhand dagger is the best target to nerf D/D-Ele without overly nerfing the other builds.