Currently, when you cast a Conjure Weapon utility, one weapon appears in your hand and the other appears at a targeted location. My suggestion is to add or modify the current weapon skills so that the two summoned weapons interact with each other. This would give more strategic depth to the conjure weapon utilities as well as creating room for clever teamplay.
Here’s an example:
Replace the Lightning Hammer’s “Lightning Storm” skill effect with the following:
“Range 600. 1/2s cast time. When cast, teleport to the other summoned lightning hammer. Summon a lightning storm at your destination which damages nearby enemies and dazes them. 360 aoe. 40 second CD.”
(If the other hammer has already been used up, then this skill is replaced by the current lightning storm skill which just deals some damage).
So if you’re the only one using a lightning hammer and the other lightning hammer is on the floor nearby, you can activate Lightning Storm to teleport to the other hammer and activate the aoe dmg/daze. If someone has picked up the other lightning hammer, then you can each teleport to the other. (If you cast it at exactly the same time then I’d guess you’d just switch places. Or the universe would collapse). If the other lightning hammer is missing, then you’d end up just casting the current weaker lightning storm.
This opens up a whole new dimension for strategic play, both individually and in teams. Furthermore, it’d be a mechanic that currently doesn’t exist in the game so it wouldn’t step on any other class’s toes. The location where you summon your duplicate weapon now makes a huge difference even if you’re solosing. And this would open up a lot of possibilities in teamfights (giving your ally a hammer so that he can teleport to you when getting ganked, or teleporting to your ally to interrupt a key attack).
As it stands now, conjured weapons are seldom if ever used outside of using lightning hammer for easy pve content and firey greatsword for wvw mobility. This change I think buffs conjured weapons in a way that makes for more interesting and dynamic gameplay. What are your thoughts on this?
Here’s some ideas for the other weapons:
Flame axe:
Replace burning retreat with “Firey Bond: Range 600. Create a wall of fire between you and the other conjured flame axe. Enemies passing through the wall take heavy damage and are set on fire.” (For lag reasons, the wall doesn’t move with you — it stays in place. To compensate, the damage is increased. So it’s important to nail that first shot by making sure the two fire axes are lined up properly.)
Magnetic shield:
Crippling shield (the current #2 skill): Throw your shield in a line, crippling struck foes. The shield then bounces off the other conjured magnetic shield before returning to you. (This let’s you get off multiple hits if the other magnetic shield is available and in range).
Ice bow:
Get rid of skill #1, then weaken frost volley (Skill #2) and make it the default autoattack. Add a new skill that creates an aoe healing mist centered around the other frost bow. If the other frost bow isn’t available, then a smaller healing mist is created around you, instead.
Given how repetitive WvW is, the only real variety comes from playing different roles and different classes. Keeping wxp character-bound strongly discourages players from trying out different classes, which ultimately leads to people such as myself getting bored with WvW.
Furthermore, it simply makes more sense for wxp-leveling to be an account-wide endeavor rather than a character-specific one. Character progression currently comes in the following flavors: character XP, gear/fashion upgrades, and completing story missions and dungeons. It makes sense for these things to be character-specific because the end-goal for each is realistically obtainable. It takes a lot of work to max out an alt (esp. getting those ascended accessories), but it’s doable. It takes time to go through all the dungeons and story missions, but it’s realistically achievable. In contrast, there is effectively no end to the WvW grind because the max level cap would take years to attain (maybe less time if you play 10 hours a day). (The one exception to this pattern is fractals, which is character-bound, but fractals is different because it ramps up in difficulty as you go higher, and someone who’s been doing fractals a lot with one character might not be so good at it with another.)
Leveling up in WvW is therefore more similar to gaining sPvP ranks or achievement points (both account-wide endeavors). They are all essentially infinite grinds designed to keep you interested in the game over the long run. People inevitably get bored doing the same things unless some variety is added. And, again, a lot of the variety in this game comes from using multiple classes.
Also, I want to address this:
daweed.6520
Earning rewards for all toons while playing just one heavily favours people with multiple 80s (myself being one) and broadens the gap between players.Let’s look into a scenario that highlights its fundamental flaw:
Bob only has a warrior at rank 999 with the current system. He was never great at playing his toon but the zergs were fun to follow and wxp ranks kept coming. Switching to an account wide ranking system would mean that any toon Bob creates is also ranked 999 …
If Jack (a skillfull player with a ranger ranked at 120) kills Bobs ranked 999 warrior in the current system Bob has to figure a way to do it on his warrior…or switch to a class better suited for the job and lose the rank buffs. Same applies for Jack who can also switch to another class with 0 rank buffs. Both players are on equal levels if you exclude their main toons.
On an account wide ranking system Bob wouldn’t waste time and just log on to his “ranger-killer” toon (also ranked 999). Jack on the other hand can only log on to rank 120 toons….thus being at a constant disadvantage vs Bob.
The ranking system should remain toon based…simply because only a selfish few would want that kind of “balance” brought into the game… the same few who would be looking to exploit the fundamental flaw highlighted above.
I disagree. You forgot to take into account how making wxp account-wide would affect Jack’s level. If Jack and Bob had gained an equal amount of wxp overall, then they would be on equal footing using an account-wide system. I’ll break it down for you:
First, let’s assume Jack and Bob play WvW an equal amount (i.e. we’re comparing similarly situated players to ensure fairness). Bob, who only plays his one warrior, would have all of that wxp distributed to that warrior, putting the warrior at Rank 999 (using your numbers). Jack, who has gained just as much wxp, would have his wxp distributed across his alts, making each of them Rank 120 (again, using your numbers). In this current system, Bob (rank 999) has an advantage over Jack (rank 120), even though they’ve worked just as hard in WvW. In fact, Jack actually worked harder overall, since it takes time & money to level an alt.
Now, if we share wxp accountwide, both Bob and Jack will be on completely equal playing fields. Each of Jack’s alts will be at Rank 999 because he had earned that much XP over the course of his playtime. Bob’s character is also at rank 999. If he makes an alt, the alt will be at level 999. Sure, Bob will have to level and gear his alt as well, but that’s something Jack also had to do. The point is that both of these people worked equally hard in WvW, and now they’re on equal footing.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
No vids, but it was pretty basic. Swap to air for static discharge + lightning strike. Swap to fire for ring of fire and to phoenix her (aim it so that it hits 3 times: once going through her, once exploding behind her, and once more going through her on the way back). You can do all of that while moving. When she leaps up to you, earthquake and drop a phoenix tooth on her. I also had arcane blast slotted, which I kept casting off CD (if ring of fire was close to being up, I’d activate that first for the extra burning). For me, she died in like 2 phoenix rotations.
I finished all the bosses w/o much difficulty running a glassy 0/30/0/10/30 fresh air build using scepter/dagger. I think the trick is timing your instacast blinds and your dodges so you can unload your heavy bursts. If you’re hurt, you can heal up really easily between evasive arcana, water trident + cleansing wave, and whatever heal skill you chose (I used GOEH for everything but the last boss, where I used ether renewal instead).
I actually think the mace/shield + gs warrior is better than the old D/D ele in terms of how well it fulfills the old D/D ele’s roles. But that doesn’t necessarily make the stunbuild OP. You have to gauge the strength of a build based on the current meta, and the alternative builds in the current meta (condimancer, roamer engy, s/d thief, spirit ranger) are much stronger than the builds that were around back when everyone complained about D/D ele.
This build has the mobility of the old D/D ele (gs rush and whirlwind on low cooldowns). You’re more susceptible to cripple/chill than RtL, but your added tankiness means you can usually find a time to dash away when you aren’t crippled/chilled.
This build can apply strong pressure 1v1 because you can put out more stuns than your opponent has dodges & stunbreaks. Also, your damage vs unstunned targets is still fairly high. With good baiting and sheathe-cancelling, you can usually force your opponent to retreat or call in help. Simply saying that the stun is telegraphed doesn’t mean a whole lot. All but one of the D/D ele’s burst attacks are telegraphed, too, and they had far longer cooldowns. (The one exception is updraft, which has a 40s CD).
Finally, it has decent 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 sustain with valk amulet + zerker jewel (no need for zerker amulet cause you can get high crit chance w/ unsuspecting foe). Healing signet + adrenal healing + cleansing ire + GS evade + shield block obviously won’t make you a bunker, but you’re still fairly tanky. As far as condi cleansing goes, you have a kitten CD that wipes all condis, cleansing ire on all your bursts, and you can slot zerker’s stance if you’re up against a heavy condi team.
The net result is, like the old D/D ele, you can roam very effectively and force the other side to 2v1 you if they want to hold one of their far points, thus giving your team a numerical advantage in the main teamfight. And once the odds turn against you, you can WW+rush out to quickly join in the teamfight.
Finally, I think the main reason we didn’t see many warriors in the PAX qualifiers was simply because the teams were still figuring out the new meta when the qualifiers started. It’s risky to change your team comp mid-tournament, and it wasn’t until after the qualifiers were well underway that tpvp perceptions about warriors have changed. (To get an idea of how people’s perceptions have changed, just look at Defektive’s tier list thread). I wouldn’t be surprised to see more warriors in the next tpvp tournament, assuming A.net doesn’t nerf them back into worthlessness.
Unfortunately, the builds that would tend to counter this build the hardest (esp. mesmers) tend to be weak in the current meta. The more traits and utilities you devote to mitigating stuns and bursts, the fewer you have to cleansing conditions.
TLDR: The mace/shield+GS build is analogous to the old OP d/d ele. BUT it is not necessarily OP because the other builds in this current meta are much stronger than what was around back when the D/D ele was considered OP. People are still adjusting to this meta, and I think it’ll still take some time to see how things play out before A.net can make any god balance changes.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
Overall, I think this was a great update.
I love how they made the boss fights in this event more interesting. The bosses have hard-hitting dodgeable/blindable/interruptable attacks and relatively low health pools, which in my opinion makes for a more dynamic and fun fighting experience. I think the Queen’s Gauntlet was great (although it also highlights some of the camera problems this game has whenever you’re under a roof of some sort). I hope A.net continues to adopt this design philosophy in future PvE content.
What I don’t like is the massive farm-fest going on in the Queen’s Pavilion. I suspect it’s purpose is to give A.net a bunch of data so that they can calibrate Champion loot drops, because otherwise it makes little sense to me from a gameplay perspective. All of my friends right now just sit in the Pavilion farming champions because they think that the reward vs. time&risk ratio there is higher than in pretty much every other GW2 activity. Plus, a substantial number of achievements are tied to farming mobs in the Pavilion. I just don’t understand why A.net would want to incentivize people to mass-zerg-farm in a small, instanced area.
Finally, the addition of SoloQ is awesome, or at least it will be once all the kinks get worked out.
I beat all the bosses w/ a near-zerker fresh air ele (3 of my items are either soldiers or knights, the rest are zerker). I found zerker made all the fights incredibly easy. The last boss went down in like 40 seconds after her shield dropped. Some tips from my own experiences:
1) Don’t use staff. I’m not saying it’s a bad weapon, but it doesn’t seem well suited for an arena where you’re usually focusing down a single mobile target at a time. The DPS on moving targets is too low and the amount of self-healing you can put out is limited. When I fought the crew, it seemed like everytime I downed one of them, the rest healed up (I only fought them once and won, so I don’t remember all their mechanics). If they do indeed heal up, then AOE is completely worthless against them. I’d recommend scepter/dagger to leverage your zerker gear’s DPS. Water trident, cleansing wave, and GOEH in water attune gives out much more mobile healing than geyser, healing rain, and GOEH. And DT + phoenix + ring of fire + earth-dodge + earthquake + instacast lightning bolts from air + instacast arcane spells will instagib whichever pirate you’re targeting and (and do significant damage to every other arena boss).
2) If you need more sustain but don’t want to change your gear, retrait so you have Evasive Arcana, Elemental attunement, renewing vigor, and at least 15 in water for the extra heal-on-swap. It’ll be pretty hard to die to any of the non-instagib attacks with permavigor and this much healing. I personally didn’t go with 15 in water, because I took fresh air (so 0/30/0/10/30).
3) Earth 3 in scepter is an aoe blind, and air3 in scepter is an instacast single-target blind. Get used to using those to avoid big attacks so you don’t have to waste endurance.
4) Swapping to earth with elemental atunement gives you 6+ seconds of protection (depending on your boon duration), which drastically ups your survivability. You can time that for situations where you can’t avoid taking damage.
5) As far as the match-specific tactics go, what I did was to use my opening combo to instagib the doctor (I assumed he healed others, but again I don’t really know cause he didn’t get a chance to do anything). Then I dropped the guy who was labeled as “high damage” cause I figured he did the most damage. I saved the cannon-bombardment guy for last cause you can always walk out of the red circles. Otherwise, I just kept running around the arena.
There’s a pretty simple solution to this that would make both camps happy.
Just make it so each player has the OPTION of using normalized models for other players. This would work the same way that the “Show Team Colors” option currently does:
If I check the “normalize models” option, then everyone else’s character will always appear to me as a regular-sized human. BUT, each player will still see his own character as he originally designed it. So if you play an Asura, you will always view your character as an Asuran. You can play in all the tournaments, etc., and on your screen your character will look exactly the way you designed him/her. However, on my screen, your character will look like a regular-sized human.
This solution let’s people keep their character customization, but let’s the hypercompetitive players maintain and even playing field. As far as tournaments go, it would be up to the Caster to decide whether to check the “normalize models” option or not.
I’ve seen other people suggest this solution before, and I don’t claim to have originated it. In fact, it’s already been implemeneted with respect to team colors. I could deck my character out completely in pink, but if you have “Show Team Colors” selected, then my character will look either “Red” or “Blue” to you depending on my team. It is only logical to apply this same idea to the character-race problem.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
Thanks for testing OP. It’s people like you, who are willing to put in the hard work to find and confirm these bugs, that make this game shine.
If you want more crit sample, why stop at 20? I don’t see why you’re so worked up about this one.
If you rely on the 80% crit, to trigger a 30% proc, that’s like rolling 2D10 dice whenever you attack. If you can cut that by rolling just 1D10 die because all your attacks are 100% crit, then your evidence is more solid because auto-attack damage (white damage) is a valid reasonable doubt that may be tainting your result. Since we cannot know this for sure, it is safer to remove white damage from the equation.
Again, you get fewer crits per minute using your method than using the OP’s method. The issue isn’t “why stop at 20?” It’s that, in the time it takes you to get 20 crits, the OP could have gotten 50. The OP is spending his own, personal time doing this testing for us. My problem with your suggestion was that you were essentially asking the OP to waste even more of his time without getting any benefit in the form of better results.
And your “reasonable doubt” argument is completely meritless. We “can know for sure” how many crits vs non crits were scored because, as I stated earlier, crits show up differently both on-screen and in the combat log. You don’t need to use Hidden Killer to know when you’ve scored a crit.
Just as I thought.
If you really want to test the proc-rate, you need to spec for Hidden Killer (30pt CS), this will eliminate the Crit-change randomness.
If you are not proc-ing at a 30% rate, then you did found a bug.
I’m simply helping you solidify your observation using a process of elimination. By having 100% crit, your result zeros-in at the core of the problem.
I do not intend to test this myself since if you can present your observation this way by identifying the source of the problem, you don’t really need anyone else to test it out since you already have a solid case.
But like everything else that is buggy in this game, best of luck having that fixed soon.
This concern is idiotic. His original testing methodology generates a much larger useful sample size than your proposed one.
OP’s observation is that Sigil of Fire procc’d 0 times after he swapped weapons. His hypothesis that the Sigil is bugged becomes more likely as he scores more and more crits without procc’ing Sigil of Fire.
Using your method, he’ll get at most 1 crit every 3 seconds (due to the revealed debuff).
Using his method (just autoattacking), with an 80% crit rate he can generate multiple crits in that same 3-second period. Thus, his useful sample size will be much higher over the same time period.
If your concern is just that the OP wasn’t triggering Sigil of Fire because he simply wasn’t scoring any crits (due to extreme back luck), then the better solution would be for the OP to make note of how many crits he scored. Of course, he probably would have noticed if he wasn’t scoring any crits because it is obvious when you’re critting: the damage number shows up differently, the damage amount is higher, and this information is reflected in your combat log.
Asking the OP to redo the test using hidden killer is just asking him to waste his time for poorer results.
Let’s not start with name calling shall we?
If you and the OP thinks that your findings are sufficient enough, then why even ask for others to try it themselves?
Unless of course you have doubts with your current findings and need some verification.
I have offered a method to remove the non-crit damage from the equation, this way you can present your case that every attack used are critical hits. It also eliminates guessing whether the last attack crits or not, or watching the combat log for crit hits.
Your concern about the time spent is moot compare to the quality of case you can present if all your tested attacks are all critical hits.
If you don’t want to use that method, then that’s up to you, but that it is one way to force a sigil to trigger on crit.
I’d like to first start off with an apology. I came off way too aggressively and I know you were just trying to offer some constructive (albeit wrong) criticism. That said, I submit that you’re still missing the point.
Which of these results do you think would be more compelling: 0 procs out of 50 crits, or 0 procs out of 20 crits? Obviously, 0 procs out of 50 crits presents a stronger case of the sigil being bugged. In the time it takes to get 20 crits w/ HK (your method), you can get ~50 crits just autoattacking with an 80% crit rate (OP’s method). Whether he gets exactly 50 crits, or instead gets 30 crits or 70 crits doesn’t really matter because hypothesis requires a 0% proc rate. All that matters is that he generate as many crits as possible to validate that the 0% proc rate is not the result of bad luck.
The OP did not claim that his methodology is perfect, and I don’t claim that either. But just because he asked for suggestions doesn’t mean that your suggestion is automatically correct.
As to the OP, I’m curious if you’ve noticed the same problem with other sigils? Do you think it’s a bug that’s specific to the Sigil of Fire? You might have discovered a bug that’s common to all on-crit sigils.
Just as I thought.
If you really want to test the proc-rate, you need to spec for Hidden Killer (30pt CS), this will eliminate the Crit-change randomness.
If you are not proc-ing at a 30% rate, then you did found a bug.
I’m simply helping you solidify your observation using a process of elimination. By having 100% crit, your result zeros-in at the core of the problem.
I do not intend to test this myself since if you can present your observation this way by identifying the source of the problem, you don’t really need anyone else to test it out since you already have a solid case.
But like everything else that is buggy in this game, best of luck having that fixed soon.
This concern is idiotic. His original testing methodology generates a much larger useful sample size than your proposed one.
OP’s observation is that Sigil of Fire procc’d 0 times after he swapped weapons. His hypothesis that the Sigil is bugged becomes more likely as he scores more and more crits without procc’ing Sigil of Fire.
Using your method, he’ll get at most 1 crit every 3 seconds (due to the revealed debuff).
Using his method (just autoattacking), with an 80% crit rate he can generate multiple crits in that same 3-second period. Thus, his useful sample size will be much higher over the same time period.
If your concern is just that the OP wasn’t triggering Sigil of Fire because he simply wasn’t scoring any crits (due to extreme back luck), then the better solution would be for the OP to make note of how many crits he scored. Of course, he probably would have noticed if he wasn’t scoring any crits because it is obvious when you’re critting: the damage number shows up differently, the damage amount is higher, and this information is reflected in your combat log.
Asking the OP to redo the test using hidden killer is just asking him to waste his time for poorer results.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
The main problem with this duel is that a duel-specced mesmer is probably the most powerful dueling class in the game. It’s one downside is that it can’t catch people who decide to run away. So any class can just run away, heal to reset the fight, then try again. The only time someone gets downed is if he messes up or gets hit by a string of lucky crits. That’s why these videos aren’t particularly interesting and why it feels like players aren’t punished for making mistakes.
And I just had to respond to this post:
This is a very easy forgiving build for eles even now with mist form nerf. You can make all sort of mistakes and still be perfectly fine. Beginners become great with it but give them any other build and they get slaughter so easily.
You are commenting on bunker builds in general. The whole point of a bunker build is being able to withstand burst without dying. If you think elementalists are unique in being able to bunker, then you don’t know this game very well. A beginner running just about any bunker build can survive despite constantly making mistakes. For example, look at this Mesmer’s tpvp bunker build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNmDSDYOR54 .
I’m sure the player is actually very good, but to showcase his build’s potential, he doesn’t bother dodging. He sits there and eats multiple 100b bursts and still manages to survive.
In short, it’s super easy to survive 1v1 as any class if you play a bunker build. The “skill” involved in 1v1ing with a bunker build is managing to keep enough pressure on your opponent to down him in a reasonable amount of time. It’s easiest to do this with ranger and mesmer because pets and phantasms do strong damage and require little to no management. If you want to down someone as a bunker ele, you need to consistently land burning speed + firegrab whenever they’re off cooldown, and both of these are skillshots.
There’s no need to watch your opponent animation skills in order to know which one to dodge or observe their buffs or the conditions they put on you or using your surroundings towards your advantage, no skill at all to play this right.
This again seems like an issue with you not knowing the game well enough to be able to spot the skill involved playing a d/d ele. You need to spot animations to interrupt/dodge just as much as any other class. Just because you can heal more doesn’t mean that you no longer need to worry about being hit. Time spent healing is time that you’re not pressuring your opponent.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
I think the problem is with your keyboard, not the game. Look up “keyboard ghosting” on google for an explanation of the problem. The gist of the problem is that certain keyboards can’t accept multiple simultaneous keypresses. So it could be that, with your keyboard, pressing W + E locks out a block of keys which includes your f1-f4 keys.
The reason I don’t think it’s a problem with the game is that I have no issues swapping attunements when moving diagonally with m2 held down, and jumping/evading, etc.
If the problem is keyboard ghosting on your end, one possible solution (besides getting a dif keyboard) is rebinding your attunement swap keys to others that are not blocked out when you press W+A/D.
i’ve been playing ele since launch and i actually agree to the nerf.
RTL 1200 range is a fix from hidden 1500 – i don’t see why 1500 is ever intended for a gap closer/ fleeing mechanism; 1500 in 1 cast is higher than everything else
RTL 1200, 40s cd makes this on par with similar skills – guardian’s JI is 1200, 45s cd; – JI requires a target.
in addition to RTL, Ele can cast with lightning flash 900, 45s – which is comparable to mesmer blink 900, 30s – sure cd is slower, but we have 2 options, which adds up to 2100 distance.
imo, the lack of target requirements and superb range still makes it the #1 fleeing/ gap closer.
also i dont know why everyone says THF has better mobility than ELE –
Thief’s shortbow is 900 range, can cast 2-3 times in succession. and thieves only have 25% move speed with shadows signet – that is similar to Ele’s air signet
Ele has perma swiftness (33%), which thief doesnt. lastly Ele shed conditions easily, Thf’s condition removal is laughable.all in all, it is a massive challenge for thief to catch a ele.
sure it is a big painful nerf that takes away the king of hill mobility but i’m still happy with RTL :P
Lots of wrong info in that post.
First, RtL is not comparable to judge’s intervention. Judge’s intervention is an instant-cast teleport. Having played an ele since beta, I’m sure you already know the difference between the two. In case you don’t, here are a few: (1) You can start an attack, then JI next to your target to finish the attack (very useful w/ hammer 3&5). You can’t do the same with RtL; (2) You can’t RtL while immobilized, and you can be pulled/knockbacked out of RtL. The same is not true for teleports, such as JI.
You are, however, correct that JI requires a target (although the target need not be in range); (3) JI, like all teleports, can move up and down the Z-axis to hit people above and below you. RtL can only move down.
Second, Lightning Flash is not comparable to blink because lightning flash has a 50% longer cooldown. Even when traited, lightning flash has a longer CD than an untraited blink. And while Ele can have RtL on top of flash, mesmer can have phase retreat on top of blink. Phase retreat moves you about 450 units on an 8s cooldown. That means 5 casts per 1 RtL. Even if you don’t manage the cooldowns perfectly and only get 4 casts in the cycle, you still win out on distance.
Third, regarding thief mobility, two SB5s move you farther than RtL and your init will regen before RtL’s cooldown is even half over. SB5 is also a blink, so it can move along the Z-axis, is immune to immobilize, and is slightly more difficult for your opponent to track. Next, while shadow signet only gives +25% movespeed, heartseeker will benefit from this increased movespeed. As a result, a thief spamming heartseeker out of combat will cover more distance than even an FGS ele. RtL is not affected by your movespeed (which is both good and bad). You’ll get 1.2k range whether you have swiftness, cripple, or chill on you. Thief also has shadowstep, which is a better version of blink, along with multiple other teleports. Finally, Thief can shed conditions just as easily as ele w/ shadow’s embrace (10pt trait). It’s only the full-on glass cannon thieves that have trouble with conditions. (Disclaimer: I don’t think thieves need a nerf. I’m perfectly happy with how thieves work.).
The main advantage that RtL has in terms of mobility is that you can jump a lot of gaps with it and you can get the full 1.2k range even when slowed. An ele that wants to disengage now has to rely more on timing chills, cripples, and stuns/blowouts to slow down its pursuers. But those skills are a lot less reliable depending on who is chasing you and how good they are.
The long and short of it is that the RtL nerf was great for tPvP but bad for WvW (encourages more eles to zerg rather than roam) and pointless for PvE (where this kind of mobility is purely a quality-of-life issue).
If iZerker were to hit for 5k+ aoe dmg (even in DPS gear), it’d be one of the strongest-hitting skills in the game, have a low cooldown, and take absolutely no skill to set up. That’s equivalent to a fire grab on a group of burning targets, which takes way more skill to pull off and has 1/4 the range.
I feel like my zerker is pretty comparable to duelist, swordsman, and warlock. The zerker does less single target damage, but the damage is aoe and it cripples.
Maybe izerker used to be bugged and was doing too much damage, but a.net never realized it, and that’s why they currently think it’s working as intended (except for the missing floaters).
except for it does WAY less damage over all… if you look back I posted a screen shot of my toon with 3.6k power which is quite a lot that only hit for 1k damage… Thief auto attack hits for more than that… hell even GS#1 on Mesmer hits for more than that… we can get around 3k with gs#1 at max range… and izerker does less than that… how is that fair?
lol yeah I agree with you that 1k dmg is way too low for those stats unless your target had protection up or something (I didn’t check your pic)
But for all the people complaining that their zerker “only” does 3k-5k damage now when it used to do 10k-11k, come on. That’s not exactly going to convince A.net that we have a pressing problem to fix. They’ll be like “well, 3k to 5k damage sounds about right, and 10k-11k damage on a 1.2k range low-CD skill seems clearly wrong, so maybe things are fine as is.”
If iZerker were to hit for 5k+ aoe dmg (even in DPS gear), it’d be one of the strongest-hitting skills in the game, have a low cooldown, and take absolutely no skill to set up. That’s equivalent to a fire grab on a group of burning targets, which takes way more skill to pull off and has 1/4 the range.
I feel like my zerker is pretty comparable to duelist, swordsman, and warlock. The zerker does less single target damage, but the damage is aoe and it cripples.
Maybe izerker used to be bugged and was doing too much damage, but a.net never realized it, and that’s why they currently think it’s working as intended (except for the missing floaters).
Think of DT more as an area-denial attack. After casting it, circle-strafe around the area where it’s going to land, keeping it between you and your opponent. That way your opponent (who is presumably melee) will have a harder time attacking you. Odds are, you won’t be landing it in 1v1s, but it gives you a small positioning advantage.
The spell works better in somewhat larger fights when the enemies are clustered around a point and aren’t paying as much attention to the aoe circles. And it shines when you have teammates who are packing CC. Then you just cast it on whoever’s getting CCed.
@ResJudicator.7916
1a) I am not contracting myself. Mesmer are design in such a way that they burn through all their cooldown very quickly. d/d Elemental rarely need to use their utilities since most of their survivablity is built in their weapon set. My writing is really bad if I didnt get that message accross. its very easy to burn chaos storm, phase retreat, mirror blade, or any other mesmer skill quickly. They actually need utilites to compasate for the extra down time since some skill are situational such as i leap and others just summon clones for dps which do not add to the survivability.
1c) I watched Helseth streams, he is a god at phase retreat. He is also good at spike combos. He rearly use his clones as a shield. No pro player will be fooled by a clone and he needs it for dps. In fact, wvwvw is easier to body block with clones because clones diversion only works on bad players. If I am using clones as defense, then I basically am insulting that player for their lack of experience.
Apologies, I misunderstood your post about burning through utilities. But I your argument still doesn’t sound right to me. Why do you think mesmer has to burn through his weapon skills any faster than ele does? Both classes need to constantly cycle through their weapon skills depending on how the combat is going. Mesmer’s weapon defensive skills are also on a very low cooldown (e.g. blurred frenzy 10s, or 8s traited).
I think the best argument that can be made for you is that Ele doesn’t use his utilities as much because — except for lightning flash and to some extent armor of earth -- they are purely defensive. Mistform has absolutely no offensive component (except maybe as a terrible gap closer) and cleansing fire’s burning is negligible. Thus, eles don’t use their utilities as much simply because there are fewer situations in which they are useful. And because their cooldowns are so long, eles want to save them for emergencies.
Blink and decoy and mirror image all have offensive as well as defensive components, and they’re all on a short enouh cooldown that most mesmers will use them for offense as well as defense. Thus, mesmers will tend to burn through their utilities faster — NOT BECAUSE THEY NEED TO, BUT BECAUSE THEY CAN. This is part of the reason why mesmers have such strong offensive potential.
In light of the above, I don’t think it’s a good argument to say that the RtL nerf was justified because eles tend to burn through their cooldowns slower.
And about clone bodyblocking, what I mean is you play normally but you tend to keep the clones between you and your opponent. Every good player will know that you’re the real mesmer, but even if they target you, their projectiles will hit your clones before they hit you. This makes it a lot harder for certain classes to land their abilities, such as shadowshot, magnetic leap, headshot, etc.
Clone bodyblocking does not mean using the clones as decoys to trick your opponent, or counting on the clones to shield you from damage. Think of it as another way of LOS-ing your opponent. Like sometimes when someone is shooting at you, you will run behind a rock or a pillar to break his line of sight. Running behind your clone to break their shadow shot is similar. The shadowshot will hit the clone instead of you and the thief will end up teleporting to the clone instead of you. That’s all bodyblocking means.
1) you are describing why the memser is burning through all their skills. They doing combos on limited number of effective skills.
Leap can only be use as a gap closer since it requires a target and has a 600 range limit.
Nobody uses clones as a body block. I starting to wonder if you understand the playstyle of a mesmer from that comment alone.
2) for a build that is considered melee, 600 range is substantial. It will require other melee class to burn a cd or dodge to close the gap between user and opponent
3) Thief have opportunity cost with initative. There is a reason why thief use backstab and heartseeker because it has the best performance to cost ratio. <- Another reason why I think the class is stupidly designed
The problem is that other people are replicating the same feat.
I know potential to OP is hard but because it is possible is an issue. In the end, I do not want to question if I am worse or better player if I lose. If I lose, I want to know definitely that I suck. If the class is OP, then I wonder if I really lost.
I like commenting on Akuma because I consider him a balance bug.
1a) I think you’re contradicting yourself here. Earlier you were saying that Mesmers need to burn through their UTILITY skills because their WEAPON skills don’t help them survive. I pointed out why this is false by listing all the mesmer WEAPON skills that are used to deflect or avoid damage. Thus, Mesmer and Ele both have weapon skills they can use to survive so that they don’t have to burn through their utilities. Does this make sense?
1b) Yes, leap on sword is a gap closer, which makes sense because sword is a melee weapon. Phase retreat is a gap-creator, which makes sense because staff is a ranged weapon.
1c) Many of the top tPvP mesmers use clones to block incoming attacks. You see it less in WvW because most WvW players are not as good. If you doubt me, feel free to look up some streams from the top tpvp players. In fact, I’d suggest you watch Helseth’s streams to get a better understanding of the class.
One of the tricks to being a mesmer is dancing behind your clones so that your opponent can’t hit you with headshot, shadow shot, magnetic leap, etc. Them damaging your clones is a non-issue because you’ll be shattering the clones soon anyway. This is one of the many different things you do during a fight. I’m not saying you summon a clone and sit behind him the entire fight.
2) The point I made earlier was that the Ele doesn’t do good damage if they stay at 600 range. All they have at that range is a low-damage fire1 attack (and only 2 of the 3 projectiles will hit), dragon’s breath, and frost breath (both of which have relatively low damage over the channel time). They also have RtL and Burning speed, both of which will put them in melee range if they plan on hitting the enemy.
3) Agreed about intiative being the opportunity cost. But this isn’t responsive to what I said.
4) You should balance the game around what the best players can do to each other — not what a good player can do to a bunch of terrible players. Your video describes the second situation.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
I find playing a 16000hp ele is no longer fun, but I made a new build with 21500hp yesterday (cantrips) and while you end up making about 20% less damage you do not die at every battle as that was the obvious intention of the nerf. Staying alive longer means you make more damage as well as we all know.
Anyway it’s ridiculous to give 11000 base hp to a class that can only walk around safely in WvW with 20000. They broke the balance so we have to balance the class ourselves.
So yeah, they’ve forced us into making the bunker build they wanted to nerf in the first place.
This ^
Congrats, Anet.
This logic applies to all classes at lowest tier HP. Invalid!
Thieves are at the lowest tier HP. This logic does not apply to them. In fact, most thieves spec the opposite way (pure burst).
Think things through before bashing someone else.
ps. Not saying I agree with Xillix’s logic, either (I don’t).
I stuck with my hybrid build and do just as well in combat. I can still keep up permaswiftness, so I’m not worse off than the other slow classes. I just have to spend longer running around out of combat because of the RtL nerf. So my suggestion to you is to get a good book for when you need to run from Lowlands to Golanta’s.
@ loseridiot
I don’t think your analysis of D/D ele and Mesmer fights is very accurate. I’ll respond to each of your pargraphs in order.
1) Mesmer doesn’t have to burn through his CDs any faster than Ele because both have access to weapon skills that help with survivability. Ele has heals in water attunement + earth attune for protection. Mesmer S/P + staff has phase retreat to dodge, invulnerability w/ blurred frenzy, leap-swap to dodge (you can activate swap while CCed), chaos armor and storm for boons inc. protection and blinds. Mes also has clones which he use to bodyblock single target attacks. Notably, the only thing Ele can do when stunned is to pop a cantrip or lightning aura (which only helps against certain bursts). In contrast, the mesmer can phase retreat or leap or distortion. In short, there’s no reason why a mesmer should have to burn through his utilities any faster than an ele.
2) D/D ele is not quite a kiting class. It is designed to move back and forth between melee and 600-ish range because most of your damage comes from Fire3, which requires that you be at range but it puts you into melee range, and Fire5/Earth4, which are both basically melee range. The ele has to use its mobility skills to effectively transition between these two ranges to keep up constant damage. Otherwise, the D/D ele will only deal a fraction of his damage.
3) Thief has more in-combat mobility than ele because his leaps aren’t on a CD. You can infil strike to teleport right next to the target and immobilize them, then hack away, then hit infil strike again to teleport back a near-infinite distance (the 1.2k range tooltip is wrong) to your previous position. If you’re Dagger mainhand, you have heartseeker. If you’re dagger/pistol, you have shadowshot (which you can backstab off of if you’re fast enough). Not to say that ele mobility isn’t good, but to say that it’s better than thief is a gross misstatement.
Finally, you are correct that balance should be based on what players can do at the skill cap. The problem is that you’re not considering everything at the skill cap if you only look at what one good player can do to a bunch of bad players (ie: osiecat and daphoenix’s videos). You need to look at how a game plays out when everyone is a good player. These videos don’t demonstrate that.
And I didn’t play Street Fighter much so I’ll defer to your judgment on that game.
Just a quick correction — Immobilize is not the only counter to RtL. You can knockdown/pull an Ele while he’s already in lightningball mode and it will immediately knock him out of it. I see this happen the most when I’m playing my mesmer and pop temporal curtain while the ele is running away. I’ve also seen it happen when guardians place a line of warding behind the ele and the ele foolishly tries to RtL over it.
I like the mistform change, as well as the elixir S change for engies. The purpose of the skill is the same as it used to be — to avoid a burst by acting pre-emptively.
People were using mist form as a crutch where they would eat the burst then mist form + heal up to reset.
All in all, I think the mistform change encourages more skillful play.
Besides, you can still swap to water + EA roll to clear some conditions and get a moderate amount of healing.
I don’t think that was the idea behind Mist Form. To avoid burst attacks Lightning Flash with his 45cd and reposition (you avoid the stun/damage AND put yourself in a better place to attack or run) is FAR better. It needs more skill ofc, but the fact that a skill was made for that implies that Mist Form was made with other intentions.
Even with the nerf Mist Form has its uses vs some bosses that other cantrips can´t equal. But its still very “meh” now.
PS: I don’t think that is fair to judge a skill with traits cause that means that it will only work on some builds… that’s not a good design, traits should empower, not “make it work”.
As an initial matter, I agree that it’s not fair to judge a skill with traits. But I believe mist form is still strong whether or not it works w/ EA. That it does is just icing on the cake.
You’re also right that lightning flash can be used to avoid bursts. In fact, all the cantrips are good vs bursts because they’re all stunbreakers (which I think is a problem w/ the class… we need more stunbreakers in other skills instead of having them all concentrated in cantrips).
But mistform does more than lightning flash when it comes to avoiding bursts. First, mistform lets you tank stomps to res/stomp players. Lightning flash does not. Second, lightning flash will not dodge a shatter combo because clones will continue to home in you after you flash. Third, lightning flash will not be as much help in situations where you’re getting pummeled by ranged attacks, or where a ranger has activated his pet dmg buffs because those attacks will also follow you after you flash.
Ofc, lightning flash has many advantages that mist form does not (helping you land attacks, disorienting players, lower CD, etc.), but I’m sure you’re aware of that so I won’t go into it here.
All in all, I think the mistform change encourages more skillful play.
Besides, you can still swap to water + EA roll to clear some conditions and get a moderate amount of healing.
Yeah, that “skill” of knowing when an invisible opponent is about to hit you 3 times in 2 seconds, or the “skill” of mind-controlling that opponent into blowing all his burst during your 3 seconds of invuln, not simply waiting it out and blowing you up, or maybe the “skill” of only getting attacked by unskilled opponents……
But hey, there’s still that 30 point trait (which is “required” for EVERY elementalist build anyway, right?) which is your every 10 second auto-win button (if by “win” you mean hit like a limp noodle then run away without downing anyone but uplevels).
Personally, I liked playing my low/no arcane builds and occasionally actually winning a fight. It’s cool though, I managed to rank my elementalist up enough before the patch to get the first couple levels of arrow cart mastery. It’s pretty cool playing an actual ranged aoe class now. I just carry a staff around in case my arrow cart gets destroyed or I can’t find one to man. Also, I ride the lightning at rabbits a lot now…..
As to your complaints against thieves, you can see the cnd+mug+bs and the bp+hs+mug+bs combos coming before the thief goes invis. Then you can either dodge to avoid it all, or mistform if you’re currently CCed.
As to mesmers, you can see the clones stop what they’re doing and start running toward you when the mesmer hits shatter. That’s when you hit mistform.
There is skill involved in both of the above, but it can be tough to do in a heated fight so I understand your frustration.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
I imagine A.net will increase the trick shot projectile speed. There is absolutely no reason to keep it as is. If A.net thought trick shot was too strong, they should have just reduced its damage. Keeping it as it currently is doesn’t add any depth to the game or encourage any skillful play; it’s not like you can manually aim your trick shot attacks (well, you can, but the means of doing so is really freaking awkward).
I think OP’s general suggestion is great. Turning focus into a true bunker off-hand and dagger-OH into a mobility+damage tool will open up more build variety. It will also address a lot of the complaints people have about mobile bunker eles (which still exist in tpvp since you only need 1 RtL + a little bit of running time to get from one point to another on most tourney maps).
And Kwll, OP is not asking for these changes to take priority over everything else. A.net will prioritize these issues as it sees fit; we’re merely offering suggestions. So please get off your high horse about eles acting entitled and overprivileged. Asinine comments like that are unproductive and undermine your otherwise thoughtful points.
So why are Thieves allowed to do it? Why are Warriors allowed to do it? Why are Rangers allowed to do it? Why were Elementalists allowed to do it and now aren’t?
They still can, but you have to build for it a little. Thief escapes from large groups are accomplished in large part by equipping Shadow Refuge and hoping no one pulls you out of it or downs you whilst you stand in the giant target on the ground. Even then, you kinda need 15 points in Shadow Arts to make it a sure thing, and I actually use Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, and Signet of Shadows on my Thief all just to roam.
You don’t need shadow refuge to roam, or any of the other utilities. D/P alone can stack up 8+ seconds of stealth.
Shadow refuge is for helping the rest of your team roam with you.
I agree that a 40sec cd is a bit overkill… but let’s accept it.
The thing is, engaging on 3 or more people and working it out (with other class than the thief) is quite OP, IMHO. The 40sec cd has no effect on 1v1 battles (with a tanky build, but the glass cannons are pretty much dead now which is bad nerfing) but it will make you think twice before going into the middle of a group of players.
I agree that you generally should not be able to run into 3 people, start losing, and then disengage. But there are ways to prevent that without crippling Ele’s ability to move around the map in general. For example, by reducing RtL’s range to 1.2k (which they already did). Now one RtL won’t take you out of range of your attackers so they can keep you in combat.
Why thieves can survive this then? It is because they can’t accomplish anything solo in that kind of situations. You can’t stomp with a glass cannon thief in the middle of 3 ppl if they know what they are doing.
Warrior has the greatest mobility in game on the long run but is forced to gs, the thief has the best mobility but is not so good in team fights apart from decimating ppl to downed state, otherwise they can just stay ranged or get blown up.
Several things wrong here. First, glass cannon thief can still shadowstep-stomp, which is usually very safe. Second, you’re assuming that the thief is glass cannon. You can make a semi-tanky highdamage D/P thief (see Cruuk’s 10/30/30/0/0 build). I’ve won many 1v3 fights on my D/P thief — often against bad players, but no class wins 1v3s against equally matched players.
Third, Thief is great in WvW team fights. The thief’s weakness in tPvP team fights is that all the fighting takes place on one tiny node filled w/ AOE. WvW team fights are far more spread out, so you don’t have this problem. In fact, WvW team fights are where the thief shines the most, because you can vulture down people who have been injured by your teammates and have been forced to pop their cooldowns.
Ele could do all the things but I think this RTL change will balance up things in the game, glass cannon eles just need new toys to make it worth it. Grab a FGS and you can run like a wind when you need to. Let’s face it, we can still escape, now it just takes more skill and is harded to pull of when there is 2+ ppl.
We’re less effective at escaping. Whether you escape or not depends on who is chasing you. It’s not a “skill” issue for anyone who’s played ele for more than a few weeks — it’s very easy to cycle through your remaining mobility skills and to activate your snares.
Ele has the easiest access to perma swiftness (which is faster than the 25% movespeed signets). You can get it either with Inscription (in which case all you need to do is cast GOEH in air whenever it’s up), or Zephyr’s Boon (use auras, GOEH when it’s up, and keep cycling in and out of air). If you don’t want to use any traits, then you can get it just w/ staff (blast finisher + lightning field + air4), and casting GoEH when it’s up.
It’s not “free,” but it’s far less than any other class gives up to maintain swiftness. Plus, you can usually run through guardian staff symbols for extra swiftness to fill in for any downtime you might have.
This subforum is a circle jerk for elementalist. The amount of elementalist outnumber me. I do not have the time to respond to each and every post.
Many of us play multiple classes. I play mesmer about as much as I play ele. I want Ele to be as enjoyable as the other classes, not for it to be the best.
The fact is that it hard to kill a good d/d elementalist in spvp and wvwvw.
Only if they’re running a bunker build. If they’re not, then it boils down to your skill vs. theirs.
The need some type of nerf and buff to compensate for the mobility nerf. However, Anet have done little to solve this problem.
Agreed, but I would rather they restore the mobility and balance other skills/numbers around that because many people decided to play ele BECAUSE of their mobility. Taking away mobility and buffing other skills to compensate is one way to balance the class, but it is not the ideal way. It’d be like taking away stealth from thief but increasing thief survivability and damage to compensate. You end up with more stale gameplay.
Athough there is daphenoix, tpvp, and other famous people who make this build OP. Anet will definitely have balance it base on the skill cap. Or else, we end up with a situation with Akuma and Super Street Fighter.
What is “this” build that you are referring to? D/D ele is not a build. Daphoenix plays a very different build from what many top players run in tpvp. His setup also does very low damage — he slowly wins in his videos because he isn’t fighting very good players.
Roaming is about being able to hit an undefended area and then to escape when a zerg comes for you. So yes, effective roaming requires that you be able to escape a large group of people without dying.
The classes that can roam effectively all have skills that let them do that. Thieves and mesmers can stealth + juke then TP back to base. Warriors and rangers can outrun through pure speed. Eles used to outrun the same way warriors & rangers do, but now they can’t.
Can you still roam? Yes, just not as effectively — especially not in a T1 server where the zerg is more organized, its response time is faster, and its players keep high swiftness uptime on the group. Are you still better off than necro, engy, or guardian? Yes. But here’s the big thing: those classes were never presented as roamers. People didn’t choose those classes because they wanted to roam. The ele was presented as an extremely mobile roamer, and many people decided to play ele for that reason. Crippling the ele’s mobility hurts because it removes the very thing that caused many people to invest hours in their character.
Finally, the people here who keep saying “but I roam with my mesmer, and I don’t have RtL” don’t seem to understand that mesmer, along with thief, have been and still are by far the easiest classes to roam with. And you don’t have to spec out of your way to do it. I know because I play both classes extensively both in tpvp and wvw.
You can roam with a typical shatter or phantasm mes build w/ focus (which is an incredibly powerful weapon b/c of the strong CC and projectile blocking; pistol is just easier to use). You aren’t as fast as the other roamers but you have decoy and blink, both of which are very strong skills both in combat and for escaping. In fact, a shatter or phantasm mesmer with these two skills tends to be one of the strongest 1v1 builds in the game, especially if you factor in WvW lag. Centaur/air runes help a lot (they’ll give you 100% swiftness uptime) but are not necessary because you can just stealth + waypoint out. On top of that, you can engage from range, which makes it even easier to escape if you need to.
And ofc a thief can roam with just about whatever utilities he wants, so long as he keeps a D/P or Shortbow in one of his weapon slots. I can stack ~8s of stealth without shadow refuge whenever I want with BP+4xHS, and I can keep up the stealth indefinitely since I’ll regen my init before the 8s runs out. Or I can just outpace someone w/ shadowshot. And of course, D/P is one of the best dueling weapon sets and shortbow is great all around.
a bunch of stuff
You’d come off as more persuasive if you actually took the time to understand what others are saying and then respond to their arguments.
Slot Lightning Flash. Trait Cantrip Mastery. Trait One with Air.
Your roaming is fine, just don’t get to roam for free any longer.
One with air? haha.
Is necro a good roaming profession when it slots signet of the locust?
Or are you suggesting that the 900 range lightning flash on a 36s cooldown is what sets it over the top? 36s traited at that, 45s base.
Funny stuff.
Wow you people are spoiled… I roam with my Mesmer with 32 seconds CD traited Blink which also ports 900 range, Mass Invisibility and around 40% Swiftness uptime and I am a happy kitten with that.
And here comes some Ele and says that it is horrible… lol… Just shows how good they had it before…
Get down to earth people!
As another mesmer who tries to keep up with eles, necros with signets, rangers, and thieves, I agree. ;-) I still roam, I still attack camps, and I’m still effective.
I would kill for a 25% passive speed boost, but that’s just not good enough, it seems. You need to have 100% swiftness AND a get out of jail free card on a 20 second cooldown or else you’re COMPLETELY USELESS OMG THE MOST GARBAGEBAG PROFESSION ANET HATES US.
Mesmer has easy access to stealth and blinks. That is a pretty big “get out of jail free” card. They’re also on low cooldowns (~30s w/ just the minor trait). This compensates for the mesmer being slightly slower, although you can still maintain 100% uptime on mesmer so you don’t need a 25% ms signet.
You also for get the low hp and the light armor and healing while in MF is very helpful but if you cant kill someone with a group of five or more quickly so yeah keep thinking that the nerf is good and relevant.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. The point is that MF allowed us to mess up, get completely outplayed, eat a huge burst, and then reset. Now you need to pop MF before you get hit by the burst. This holds true in every game mode. It has nothing to do with whether you (the ele) can kill a group of 5 quickly (are you talking about players or mobs? eles can kill 5 mobs faster than most any class).
And of course the nerf is “relevant,” otherwise you wouldn’t be complaining about it.
Just don’t complain when you can’t kill a Ranger.
Killing a ranger is about being able to put out more damage than he can heal back. The biggest factors here are how consistently you can land your burst skills as soon as they come off cooldown. If you only use burning speed every 20-25 seconds because you lose track of your CDs and you only land 2/3 of them, the ranger is going to outheal your damage. Mist form has nothing to do with this.
I like the mistform change, as well as the elixir S change for engies. The purpose of the skill is the same as it used to be — to avoid a burst by acting pre-emptively.
People were using mist form as a crutch where they would eat the burst then mist form + heal up to reset.
All in all, I think the mistform change encourages more skillful play.
Besides, you can still swap to water + EA roll to clear some conditions and get a moderate amount of healing.
Those are dueling build and dueling builds do not scale unlike a d/d elemental
Besides, wvwvw is huge and stealth does not last that long for a mesmer.
Elemental have an invulnerability get out of jail free card. They have cantrips and other goodies. So, I do not understand your statement sometimes.
Protection boon can add alot of tankiness to any build
If you’re roaming, you should be running a dueling build rather than a zerg-v-zerg build. Even in zerg fights, you can take blink + decoy + feedback (or portal where necessary) and still contribute a good amount.
I don’t know what you mean by dueling builds not scaling. If you mean that dueling builds are not as effective in zerg fights, then I stand by my above statement. In a zerg fight, I can target a player, leap in and shatterburst him (usually killing him and severely damaging those around), then decoy + blink back to safety. But again, we’re talking about roaming and not zerging.
About WvW being huge, I go back to my earlier statement about juking people as a mesmer. Your goal shouldn’t be to outrun people. For example, if you’re Blue or Green on EB and you’re attacking Speldan, you would disengage by cloak+blinking into the hills North of Speldan where you can drop LOS. Then just waypoint back to your keep.
Elementalists can’t juke because they can’t go invis. Your opponent can see you running away in one direction and he’s going to chase you. Whether he catches you depends entirely on how fast you are compared to how fast he is. Your cantrips will give you a headstart but, as you said yourself, WvW maps are large. Your average speed is going to be lower than many classes now.
Wow you people are spoiled… I roam with my Mesmer with 32 seconds CD traited Blink which also ports 900 range, Mass Invisibility and around 40% Swiftness uptime and I am a happy kitten with that.
And here comes some Ele and says that it is horrible… lol… Just shows how good they had it before…
Get down to earth people!
It’s incredibly easy to roam w/ mesmer — I do it all the time. That’s because you have ready access to stealth which, when combined with blink, let’s you disengage and exit combat for a quick WP back to base. Not to mention that both blink and decoy act as stunbreakers. If that’s not enough, you can pop your 90-second CD elite that gives you even more invis. Of course you don’t have problems roaming with your mesmer — I don’t have problems roaming with mine, either.
ps You can also get 100% uptime on stealth with centaur or air runes (although you’ll need +duration buffs if you’re using air runes).
In contrast, Ele doesn’t have the luxury of stealth (unless you’re in water). Disengaging as an ele is purely a matter of speed.
As to necro, yeah roaming w/ Necro is not easy. I concede they have it harder. Although they do have ready access to fears which cause their chasers to run in the opposite direction at max speed. They also can drop chill + cripple fields behind them the whole time b/c they are AOE-targeted skills. A staff ele can do the same thing, but the staff ele has no access to fear. But again, necro is definitely not an ideal roamer. However, a good necro can put out way more AOE dps in a zerg fight than a zerker staff ele.
Why bring up mesmer. Out of all the classes, mesmer have the most problems running away from a fight. Do you play a mesmer at all?
A combination of RTL + perma swiftness will always beat a mesmer in a race.
Staff #2 is only just as as fast as a swiftness boon. Blink have a short cd because Mesmer tends to use all their skill. Most mesmers will find most of their skills on cd because that the way the class is design.
sword #3 skill is extremely buggy
I will only agree about your comment about taking Wvwvw camps if the mesmer portal is set up which the mesmer have to sacrifice dps to use. In most cases, the d/d elementalist will be able to run away easier
I play mesmer a lot in a T1 server (for whatever that’s worth… I don’t think players in T1 are any better, there’s just more of them) and have absolutely no trouble disengaging.
If you’re having trouble disengaging from a fight, then that means you are moving too predictably while stealthed. You shouldn’t be disengaging as a mesmer by bee-lining to the nearest friendly tower and blowing all your cooldowns. You disengage by juking your opponent via blink and stealths. As soon as you drop out of combat, you can waypoint to safety.
Ele relies on pure speed to escape because they lack stealth (unless you’re in the water). The only way to escape for an ele is to either outrun the other guy or to tank the damage until you can reach a safe area.
And ranger’s sword 2 will take you out of the enemy’s range in one sequence, while acting as a dodge for the first half. (It also has a very low cooldown).
Slot Lightning Flash. Trait Cantrip Mastery. Trait One with Air.
Your roaming is fine, just don’t get to roam for free any longer.
The fact that you suggeted One With Air, which doesn’t stack with any other movespeed bonuses (such as swiftness) shows that you have a lot to learn about the class before you start pandering advice to others.
Arcane wave also had a longer CD, which justifies it doing more damage even if it is PBAOE.
Are you kidding me about Mesmer? Mesmer cannot disengage from a battle as easily. They have limited access to teleport and speed boons.
Staff #2 teleport only has a slight range advantage then someone running with a speed boon which means a Mesmer will always be slower than ele or other class
Actually, mesmer is one of the easiest classes to disengage with:
Staff #2 => Decoy => blink. If you’re in WvW, you can toss in your invis elite too if you need it. Temporal curtain (or heal if you have air or centaur runes) for swiftness. You can do this about every 30 seconds.
And in many tPvP maps, you only need to decoy, blink, or staff#2 simply because the person attacking your point is likely to remain on your point so that he can neut it.
The problem was that too many people confsed Ele’s tPvP roaming ability with Ele’s WvW roaming ability. As a result, A.net applied the same nerf to both.
In tPvP, ele was very good at roaming. This was because RtLing out of combat at one point already put you fairly close to the next point, and it would usually take you far enough away from your opponent so that you’d drop out of combat. The other classes would not get as much distance when using their leap skills to disengage because their leap skills are affected by current movespeed. Thief was about on par because of shadow shot.
But none of this holds true in WvW. Most of the roaming in WvW is just running around a big map with absolutely nothing going on. In these situations, the other leap skills outshine RtL (even pre-nerf) because they benefit from swiftness and have a lower CD.
This is why the RtL nerf should be limited to tPvP.
The RtL change was great for tPvP and terrible for every other game mode. The rationale for applying it to tPvP was to reduce Ele’s roaming capability, which is fine. But there is no such thing as a roamer in PvE, and roaming in WvW is very —very-- different from roaming in tPvP. Applying the RtL change to these latter two game modes was a bad decision and it should be reversed.
About RtL in WvW: if the concern was over ele’s using it to disengage, the range reduction already took care of that. If an ele RtLs away in WvW now, he’ll still be w/in range of most other classes’ ranged attacks or gap closers. So both players will continue to move at in-combat speed, except the other classes’ gap closers will be on a shorter cooldown than even a 20-second RtL. Increasing the cooldown duration to 40s in WvW is overboard.
I think bunker/cantrip eles are fine where they are now. Bunker ele still has just as much sustain, but you’re punished slightly more for mistakes. You can’t spike-cleanse all your conditions at once unless you pop cleansing fire, so if you suddenly eat a big condition spike it’ll hurt. And you also can’t mist-form reset (although you can still water attune + EA dodge for some healing), so if you suddenly eat a huge burst b/c you failed to dodge or blind the attack then you’ll be in trouble. I see no problem with this, and I main an ele (although I play many other classes regularly as well).
I have only two problems with the ele changes. The first is that it doesn’t at all open up any other competitive builds, and it kind of kittenon damage-specced eles, who used to rely on mobility rather than constant healing to survive. The second is that the RtL change was made globally, which radically changes how the class feels in the open world (where balance doesn’t really matter, anyway). Making the RtL change global seems a little bit sloppy to me.
Thieves, rangers, and warriors were already more mobile than ele WHEN OUT OF COMBAT. This will be even more true when RtL’s range is reduced. You spend a lot more time travelling out of combat in game modes outside of sPvP, which is why people want this balance change to be sPvP only.
Is it that strange that the melee classes that need gap closers have more mobility out of combat than the others?
You’re saying that Ele should have less out-of-combat mobility than warrior, ranger, and thief because these other classes need gap closers to get into melee range when they are in combat. I disagree with this sentiment for two reasons.
First, in-combat mobility should be balanced separately from out-of-combat mobility because the two deal with very different purposes. The purpose of in-combat mobility is to either kite/disengage or to avoid being kited. The purpose of out-of-combat mobility in tPv kitten o that you can be a better roamer. (And the purpose of out-of-combat mobility in other game modes is to prevent player boredom). Just because a skill can be used to enhance both your in-combat and out-of-combat mobility doesn’t mean we should conflate these two concepts.
However, I agree that bunker Eles in tPvP could use a nerf to both their roaming capacity and their kiting/disengaging ability. But they don’t need a nerf to their roaming capacity in WvW (because Ele bunkers don’t do anything in WvW) or PvE (because roaming is not an issue in PvE). Which is why I keep saying that the RtL change should be limited to tPvP.
Second, your factual premise is flawed. D/D ele is about as melee of a class as warrior, ranger, and thief, especially if you factor in the latter three classes’ ability to have a ranged weapon in their secondary weapon set. Following this change, Ele will have the most punishing gap closers. Magnetic grasp is easy to dodge just by strafing, and dodging RtL will (presumably) put it on its full 40 second CD. This leaves burning speed, which has the shortest range of any gap closer and is also your only source of burst, so if you use it to close distance outside of its range, then you lose out on your burst for 15 seconds.
In contrast, warriors, rangers, and thieves have slightly superior gap closers — which is PERFECTLY OK given the different ways that their classes play. However, it is inaccurate to say that ele doesn’t need gap closers.
Oh, and by the way, do you all still think this change is about ele? It’s as much, if not more about thieves and warriors. Anet needed to boost thief mobility (since they’re taking their damage) and warrior mobility (since they need it desperately) while also bringing down elementalist overall (since they were too hard to kill while doing other stuff well enough). This is about thieves getting to shine as roamers more and warriors being less kite-able, while also preventing eles from escaping with low HP to heal back up. The alternative to this change would have been increase in range and decrease in cost of other classes’ mobility skills, but that’d be just crazy. Would you like to see a thief infiltrator arrow from one point to another, or warrior finishing you off with whirlwind just as your RTL ended?
Thieves, rangers, and warriors were already more mobile than ele WHEN OUT OF COMBAT. This will be even more true when RtL’s range is reduced. You spend a lot more time travelling out of combat in game modes outside of sPvP, which is why people want this balance change to be sPvP only.
There is no question that A.net should balance sPvP above all other game modes. sPvP is where the competitive play is (or will be . . . hopefully). But if a balance change only helps sPvP gameplay, it should not be imported into the other game modes. The RtL change is only good for sPvP. It’s horrible for PvE and WvW, where a good portion of your time is simply spent auto-running around the map. Thus, the change should be limited to sPvP. This is why some people have been talking about PvE and WvW — not because they think GW2 should be balanced around those two game modes, but because they think balance changes made in sPvP should stay in sPvP unless they also help the other game modes.
(edited by ResJudicator.7916)
As Vence said, you can stand outside the black powder field w/ sword and hit the thief who is standing in the field, unless he moves to the opposite end of the field from you — in which case he can’t hit you either.
That said, even though Mr. Big’s reasoning is wrong, I think his conclusion is still correct. A D/P thief can stealth indefinitely to regen health while still putting out strong backstabs. At the very least, the S/D thief would have to retreat.
I can understand having a 40s cooldown for sPvP, because of a combination of two reasons:
(1) the ability to quickly RtL from point to point in a Conquest-style map is extremely valuable; and
(2) the sPvP maps are small and action-packed enough that having to walk around is not as large a detriment to gameplay.
BUT neither of those points are really valid in either PvE in WvW. The most that can be said in favor of an increase in RtL’s CD in these modes is that mobility in WvW is still somewhat important. But even in WvW, personal mobility is far less useful than group mobility.
I think the biggest cause for complaint that people have right now is simply that one of the reasons they chose ele was because it was fun to zoom around OUT OF COMBAT in PvE zones. And even then, the Ele was still not the fastest out of combat. Warrior, ranger, and thief could still move faster out of combat — the former with their multiple low-CD leaps, and the latter with shadow shot or swiftness+HS.
Again, I fully understand that people also wanted to nerf Ele’s ability to disengage, but this change doesn’t even do that. Most eles will still have their RtL ready when they want to disengage because you shouldn’t be spamming RtL in a fight anyway. The change won’t even affect general mobility in sPvP that much, because you only use 1RtL to get from one point to the other (obviously the RtL won’t get you the whole way there, but you’d cover the remaining distance on foot before even your 20s CD would finish). And again, that makes the RtL change more sensible in sPvP.
But the main effect of this change will be to cripple Ele’s out-of-combat movement in PvE and WvW. I understand that eles can easily maintain perma-swiftness or its signet analogue, but so can just about every other class (save Mesmer, which must rely on runes). One of the things that set ele, warriors, rangers, and thieves apart was their ready access to leap/teleport skills to travel quickly around the world. Taking away this part specific, non-sPvP, characteristic away from the Ele is what bothers me.
In short, I’d either prefer a skill split (the extended cooldown only happens in sPvP) or a redesign that better addresses RtL’s disengage capability without hampering Ele’s out-of-combat mobility.