Guild Wars 2

Da Beetus.1275:

I would love to see Ice Spike become a blast finisher, but I doubt it would happen. We don’t have combo fields and finishers in the same attunement anywhere else so I am pretty sure the devs are against that.

Fire Attunement with S/D?

Doomdesire.9365:

Ryld.1340:

It’s weaker then Automated Response, sorry.

10% health is easy to break. Super Easy. If anyone even sneezes on the Ele that isn’t a necro, the health barrier breaks and Necros will just melt the Ele before they can regain that health.

Also, it’s a grandmaster trait that is /entirely/ useless against anyone other then a Necro or maybe Cond Engineer as well as in a team fight.

Sorry that your Necro can’t no-brain an Ele 1v1 anymore. You still have more of a chance then an Ele did against Necros pre-patch you know.

I’m not a necro, but thanks for making false assumptions then building insults on said assumption.

Then stop posting from the perspective of a Necro, which is the only class majorly affected by Diamond Skin.

Also, good job refuting my points. They’re all valid, while you’re just ranting.

Shockwave.1230:

Diamond skin is a hard counter to pure condition builds. All you need to do is inflict 1,500-2,000 damage then you can continue melting Elementalists as normal.

Also, note here that that an Ele in 30 Earth will not have 30 Water and will not have as much health as before.

It’s weaker then Automated Response, sorry.

10% health is easy to break. Super Easy. If anyone even sneezes on the Ele that isn’t a necro, the health barrier breaks and Necros will just melt the Ele before they can regain that health.

Also, it’s a grandmaster trait that is /entirely/ useless against anyone other then a Necro or maybe Cond Engineer as well as in a team fight.

Sorry that your Necro can’t no-brain an Ele 1v1 anymore. You still have more of a chance then an Ele did against Necros pre-patch you know.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ryld.1340:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

jmatb.6307:

It’s easy to take the Ele’s health down low enough for your skill-less, braindead condi spam to work, but if someone builds to defend themselves against a condi build expect it to work!

Also, I do not recognize ANY of your account names and none of you Necro apologists are anywhere near top 500 on LB so why should anyone take your opinions seriously?

You do realize that with a mere 20 points in Water Magic and Signet of Renewal, you can stand and auto-attack in water attunement to completely negate the necro’s direct damage? You would heal 274/second if you only auto-attacked once per second, and all water attunement autos fire faster than that. A necro’s direct DPS (with 30 points in our Power line and wearing a Carrion amulet) against a diamond skin ele (minimum 2300 armor) is a bit less than that (only 279 against 2200 armor).

You talk about braindead play? There you are. An ele running X/X/30/20/X can stand perfectly still, using their weakest auto-attack option, and still bring down a condition necro with no fear whatsoever.

The necro won’t die to an autoattacking water attuned ele either.

And how would the necro not die? He is taking damage and, unlike on the ele, it sticks due to only having the #6 to regain health, and even with no power investment, the ele will deal more damage every 26 seconds than consume conditions can heal. Feast of Corruption would give no life force at all because there are no conditions on the target. Necrotic Grasp, the only other source of life force for condition necros, travels so slowly, you can cause it to miss with light strafing.

It may take a long time, but the necro would die. The ele might have to sidestep some slow-moving projectiles, though, so I guess my earlier portrayal isn’t 100% accurate.

Sorry, was at work.

Necro has high up time of Regeneration with Staff. Necro has their heal skill. Necro also have Death Shroud to absorb damage.

Water auto attack also has pitiful damage.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

jmatb.6307:

It’s easy to take the Ele’s health down low enough for your skill-less, braindead condi spam to work, but if someone builds to defend themselves against a condi build expect it to work!

Also, I do not recognize ANY of your account names and none of you Necro apologists are anywhere near top 500 on LB so why should anyone take your opinions seriously?

You do realize that with a mere 20 points in Water Magic and Signet of Renewal, you can stand and auto-attack in water attunement to completely negate the necro’s direct damage? You would heal 274/second if you only auto-attacked once per second, and all water attunement autos fire faster than that. A necro’s direct DPS (with 30 points in our Power line and wearing a Carrion amulet) against a diamond skin ele (minimum 2300 armor) is a bit less than that (only 279 against 2200 armor).

You talk about braindead play? There you are. An ele running X/X/30/20/X can stand perfectly still, using their weakest auto-attack option, and still bring down a condition necro with no fear whatsoever.

The necro won’t die to an autoattacking water attuned ele either.

The necro stands more of a chance against that Ele then an Ele did against a Necro pre-patch.

That necro still stands more of a chance against that Ele then an Ele does against a Healing Signet Warrior or Mesmer.

I don’t even know if I’m going to take Diamond Skin. I simply don’t have the trait points. Do I drop 10 from Arcane and lose Evasive Arcana? Do I not get 15 in Water? I don’t think so.

cheshirefox.7026:

i can kill a “staff nuke” faster than they can cast meteor shower..
just keep that in mind when building a team

I believe the point of staff nuke is to come in after the fight and clear things.

Fire Attunement → Earth Signet → Lava Font – > Meteor Shower → Arcane Power with Elemental Surge – > Earth Attunement

Works pretty well. Lots of damage.

It’s because you only ever see one at a time.

I can go staff bunker. When do you plan on doing this?

IGN: Shizue Tundrapaw

No swiftness bonus stacks. Only the highest applies. All of those are overwritten by Swiftness.

Zanryu.3417:

Mash Hog.5672:

Lots of classes have invulnerability/stability stomps.

I don’t know where you got your idea that skills should be offensive or defensive.
Mist form is a utility skill made to be utilized.

The difference between those skills and Mist Form is that while invulnerable they are unable to do anything due to casting or being locked out of movement and skills, the exception being Engineer’s Elixer S, which functions like Mist Form in that they have mobility and are locked out of skills but can still stomp. I’d say that should be changed as well.

EDIT: I forgot to mention Mesmer’s Distortion, however that one actually takes a degree of timing like using a short Stability or dodgerolling mid-stomp to stop the downed person from knocking you down/pulling you/dazing you/fearing you.

A point to add onto here is that you can’t stomp while in Mist Form. You have to start it, then Mist Form. The same goes for rezzing. Can’t rez while Mist Form, but can start it then Mist Form.

dragonkain.3984:

brannigan.9810:

dragonkain.3984:

Amaterasu.6280:

How are engis different than the downed states of necros, guardians, warriors? They could all be blinded/stability stomped.

Engis have the pull and the blowout which is extremely strong if not blinded.

The only downed state that needs fixing is a ranger’s because of the 900r AOE interupt and lick wounds.

Guardians get instant HUGE AOE knock+they are super tanky+can heal themselves to boot removing 3 weaknesses i pointed out. engineer got only 1 worthless single target pull.
Necros can heal themselves nonstop with 1 giving them very tanky downed state+2-3 sec fear is by far more superior to 1 sec knock that PULLS ENEMY TO YOU+it’s channeled multihit and that counters blinds in some cases. Not even mentioning that fear can’t be obstructed and doesn’t need target facing. Really necros even in downed state can kill some classes 1v1 from FULL HP.
Warriors 2 is balanced by fact that his 3 is nearly imbalanced. new life for 15 sec that has 50% chance to rally you(100% with trait) if you kill/stomp. It’s is everything you can wish for as any class.

Guardian downstate is weak. Some classes have weak downstates I would assume it is by design but take this biased bs elsewhere. Guardians, just like engineers, are an easy stomp.

Following your logic engineer should be a top tier 1 class that is present in every tourney team then? Like a guardian, right? Yet nobody uses an engineer in their lineups (speaking only of successful teams ofcourse)

Ta-da! A class that is weak also gets the weakest downstate, that’s a good balance right there, yeah?

And following your logic, Elementalist (which has the best down-state), should be everywhere in the tourney team’s then? Like a guradian, right? Yet nobody uses an Elementalist in their lineups (speaking only of sucessful teams ofcourse)

Ta-da! A class that is weak also gets the strongest downstate, that’s good balance right there, yeah?

oZii.2864:

This is a snippet of what I posted this in the December 10 patch preview discussion

Let us look down memory lane shall we in regards to Elementalist:

First SOTG – http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593 Elementalist discussion @ 45:51

Elementalist is first classed discussed. Jon Peter’s seemed to think at that time that ele was fine surprised people thought it was strong. Chap sounds like he would side with how we all feel now about Ele that is a high skill cap so it rewards you. The other players don’t seem to feel the same way influenced by the Players, changes/nerfs to ele happened after that video.

I got so upset watching this video.

“Having 2-3 of the same class on your team might show how unbalanced it is.” What about Warrior?

“Something that might seem OP might just be really close to being balanced and we don’t want to change too much of it. We don’t want to be too crazy about our changes.” What? So you just go and change RtL, Mist Form, cut EA and Healing Ripple’s heal co-efficient in half, and remove stunbreaks from some cantrips? Don’t want to change too much?

STRanger.5120:

Actually, have you guys noticed that we are the ONLY class which have it’s healing nerfed for PvP? That seems quite ridiculous to me when I look on the Guardian healing capabilities…..

Guardian’s roll heal was actually halved I believe in sPvP.

Kaleban.9834:

Ryld.1340:

Ele’s can already do a ton, if not the most, damage. We’re just squisher then any other class if we do.

I don’t really consider having three other players dedicating their builds to support just so one Ele can LH for at most 30 seconds out of every 60 a viable build, seeing as how it ignores our core profession mechanic of attunement switching and locks us out of all of our weapons.

Even with a 30 Fire/30 Air build we’re still easily outpaced in the DPS race by most of the other professions who also possess much more inherent survivability. What is it about this that people fail to grasp?

Try Zerker staff. You’d be surprised.

Ele’s can already do a ton, if not the most, damage. We’re just squisher then any other class if we do.

I can actually see your point here. I think out the new traits coming out and I never ever consider leaving EA for them. I was think “Oh, that 20 point fire trait for cleansing would be nice. Or maybe 30 in Earth! But I need 15 in water and 30 in arcane to have any sort of survivability…Darn..”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gallery_of_staves

Possibly Warden Staff.

Elemental Surge, like that, would have to be a grandmaster. Non negotiable. Especially with Shocking Aura and Magnetic Aura there. Combined with 30 Water for Powerful Boons? That’s insane.

As great as this would be, it would be over the top and insanely overpowered.

Arcane Wrath is much better then Arcane Precision.

Stepping in to say that evasive arcana is absolutely worth being a grandmaster trait. I don’t see how anyone could say otherwise.

ThiBash.5634:

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

The limitations exist for engineers as well, but in a different form. You are correct that engineers can bring 4 kits and get 25+. However, the kits are severely underpowered unless traited for, and the engineer cannot trait for all of them at the same time. Also, while he doesn’t give up skill slots, he does give up most of his condition removal and all of his stunbreakers. So for an engineer too, playing with that many skills isn’t really an option.

So to summarize: you are correct that engineers can bring even more skills, but if they do their skills and performance are seriously watered down. For the ele, I wouldn’t recommend going down that road.

Elementalist are in the same exact boat that you just said. Also, you can still get cond removal with elixir gun.

However, the kits are severely underpowered unless traited for, and the engineer cannot trait for all of them at the same time.

This is one of the biggest problems for Ele as well. If you trait for Fire, it does zero benefit for your other attunements. And, unlike Engineers, if you swap kits/attunements for a specific skill’s utility, you can’t just swap back to your traited kit.

lunyboy.8672:

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

Yes they do. To include a kit in a build, Engies have to slot the kit in a utility slot. Additionally, engies are subject to the same lack of weapon swap eles are.

Perhaps I misunderstand your complaint.

Toolbelt skills is what I’m referring to. And, depending on the kit, some of them are pretty freaking good.

It’s exciting to see all the things that ele wins against.

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

ImProVocateur.5189:

You need the same on swap sigil on both weapons right? Seems a waste.

You don’t. Bloodlust and Battle works, if that’s your thing.

It needs a way to deal with conditions or it won’t be used much except in PvE.

storiessave.3807:

Elementalist mobility is bad? Wat. Elementalists are one of the most mobile professions.

No they’re not.

They’re beaten by Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, Thief, and possibly Mesmer.

zencow.3651:

Ele = dependant on traits to deal any amount of damage and lacking mobility since RtL nerf that are otherwise readily available to thieves, rangers and warriors without having to sacrifice ANYTHING.

One with Air is a sacrifice in damage with minimal effect. The only time it’s useful is bunkering with staff where damage matters little. D/D and S/D both require you to be facing the target 90% of the time otherwise you deal no damage.

It’s obvious they didn’t care to address ele issues outside of staff ele with this patch.

Staff will not take One with Air. You have to sacrifice Rock Solid which is a need for Ether Renewal to try and help deal with conditions. And you most definitely won’t be Staff without at least 20 in Water. 15 at the least.

Knote.2904:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

I didn’t say to make it not affect you. I also don’t think it’s as enjoyable to use Elixir Gun Spray or Guardian Torch to cleanse conditions on others but nothing for yourself.

Just make stuff decent on yourself, and strong on others.

Elixir gun spray is awesome! Every time you get a chance to actually use it effectively it’s like a cheerful feeling. It could have a 120 second cooldown without anyone caring, because it’s only usable once every other match or so…but on those rare occasions that you can find a use for it, it’s quite fun.

Yes, that’s the super rare “support” moment that happens. Just like clutch saving a teammate in a MOBA.

Hell, I get more of those same satisfying moments in Lunatic Inquisition than I do spvp…

Clutch Savings happen all the time in Dota2. If you actually play support. I’ve saved countless people with Shallow Grave and Living Armor for example. Support builds in this game just don’t have those game-changing support skills for them.

[QUOTE]Mesmer OP but slightly less OP. Ele OP but least OP so its not good.[/QUOTE] I’m sorry, what?

Elementalist: Just a lot of changes in general to support ele support. I’m unsure of whether or not they’ll be viable, but I think you’ll see a lot of testing with them and in general more gameplay (for tournaments though? That’s up in the air and will really be determined by what Demise and other ele’s think).

After playing for a bit, I can tell you that pretty much nothing has changed. Staff Ele’s still have an overwhelming weakness to Warrior/Ranger/Necro. Quite a few things about Staff were actually nerfed. I was really excited for this patch in hopes that more would be coming besides just the Unsteady Ground change, which is great, but so much more is needed. The Water Blast wasn’t a buff, as it literally does near nothing in damage and radius so it won’t be used. Earth Shield so far has been neat, but I really really hate having to drop my ~20 skills for only 5. What they should have done was let the One with Air trait ignore immobilize too, which would’ve fixed one of the biggest weaknesses to staff.

Welp. Almost literally nothing of important was done with Elementalist. This was the one patch I was hoping that we /wouldn’t/ get nerfs in.

DiogoSilva.7089:

xiv.7136:

Prepare for disappointment, unless they add something last minute for ele’s

Shocking Aura: Added the shocking aura buff to the skill fact.
Elemental Attunement: Normalized this trait so that each boon can apply up to 5 allies within a 240 radius.
Evasive Arcana: Normalized the radius of each spell created to 180.
Persisting Flames: The duration increase for fire fields is now consistent.
Burning Fire: This trait now lists the proper skill names in its description.
Written in Stone: Fixed an issue which caused Signet of Air to lose its effect partially though the skill’s recharge.
Glyph of Storms: This skill now properly displays the duration of each spell.
Geyser: Increased the base radius to 180. Increased the radius when equipped with the blasting staff trait to 240. Fixed a bug so that the water field radius would match the increased radius with the blasting staff trait.
Water Blast: Increased the healing stat scaling from 10% to 25%. Slightly decreased base heal at low levels but it will heal for same base at level 80.

The rest is random conjure weapon changes

The change to Churning Earth isn’t listed there, which shows that more stuff could have been added since the notes were leaked.

Anyways, staff is going to have better support, conjures are going to be stronger, warrior’s pve damage trait is going to be moved a tier up, and assassin’s s/d boon stealing is going to be toned by half. All goods news to elementalists in pve and in pvp.

Do you have the updated notes anywhere?

Super Riceman.8702:

[Elementalist]

Churning Earth: Remove the self rooting because its cast time is slow and obvious

Fire Shield: Change it so it still gives 1 stack of might on hit, but removes a boon from the attacker

Gale: Reduce the cooldown to 35s

Lightning Flash: Make it a Leap Finisher

Arcane Blast: Make it Pierce and transfer a condition

Cleansing Fire: Reduce the cooldown to 35s

Mist Form: Make conditions not tick down in this form

Conjures: Make autoattacks not count towards charges

Conjure Earth Shield: Make it break stun for creator and whoever picks the 2nd shield

Fortify: Remove the rooting effect

Conjure Lightning Hammer: Make it create a static field around the 2nd hammer

Serrated Stones: Bleed a foe when they critically hit you

Diamond Skin: 50 toughness for each stack of might

Flame Barrier: 45% chance for all attacks in all attunements

One with Fire: Transfer a condition when flame barrier triggers, there are no traits for condition removal outside of water/arcana which pigeonholes elementalists

Signet of Fire: Change the active to 2s of quickness

Persisting Flames: Make your Fire Fields give 1s of stability every second

Glyph of Elemental Power: Make the next five attacks apply a condition for their attunement instead of rng, change cripple to bleed

Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Make them pull a condition from you when summoned and every 25s

Glyph of Storms: Make it give projectile reflection for 1s

Deep Freeze: Remove the self rooting effect

I like a lot of these. Especially the Flame Barrier part.

runeblade.7514:

Ryld.1340:

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

For me (necro) ele is most untouchable class (if he knows how to play ofc). Even with engineers i don’t have such problem.

Ele have too many different block, knockback, stun, move skills. When he is on low hp – he just move in 2k range in bloody second and i’m unable to chase him.

I’m understand for being good on ele you have to properly use all 4 bars, but still, so OP.

>Blocking

I’m sorry, what?

Yes Ele can!

But I assume that OP is talking about Mistform.

Yeah, I thought about it awhile afterwards.

As a Staff Elementalist, I’m really looking forward to this patch and to see if it delivers.

If it doesn’t, I just, I don’t know man. I don’t know.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

For me (necro) ele is most untouchable class (if he knows how to play ofc). Even with engineers i don’t have such problem.

Ele have too many different block, knockback, stun, move skills. When he is on low hp – he just move in 2k range in bloody second and i’m unable to chase him.

I’m understand for being good on ele you have to properly use all 4 bars, but still, so OP.

>Blocking

I’m sorry, what?

sorrow.2364:

Divinity.8041:

Throwing money at simple things does fix them, clearly you are still a student and have never actually had money before.

So if I break up with my girlfriend, throwing money at her would work?

Yes.

Jax.5261:

Dodging counters it completely btw, same with GS pull.
This means you have two opportunities to dodge them, you’re doing it wrong.

Please reliably dodge the engy shield pushback.

Svarty.8019:

Ryld.1340:

Maybe PvE is determined from PvP with just extras added in.

Either way, you can’t rally from pets, minions, illusions, clones, elementals, summons, anything else.

Deal with it.

1. All of the things you list fall under the category of Pets.
2. PvE isn’t determined from PvP
3. Dealing with it = informing people via the forum, i.e. this.

Dealing with it isn’t informing people that you think it’s a “bug” when you know that it’s not.

Also, can you prove that PvE isn’t determined from PvP? Because as far as ANET seems to know, E-Sports is the major big thing and that PvE Balance is being affected by skill changes because of PvP Balance.

Also, I know they all count as pets. I was just adding emphasis to it.

Dirame.8521:

LordEarle.9754:

• Active traits deepen the interactions between a player and their abilities, offering multiple options for similar roles and helping to dispel the notion of a “strictly superior” build for a given weaponset or role.

Do you sincerely believe this to be true?

I know I do.

Maybe PvE is determined from PvP with just extras added in.

Either way, you can’t rally from pets, minions, illusions, clones, elementals, summons, anything else.

Deal with it.

Next patch (the 15th), stun breaks will affect those.

jmatb.6307:

This trend keeps continuing where easy elements are being boosted when a class falls out of the meta. Eles are about to get a huge Healing/Second boost from Water Staff auto, Geyser, and Blasting Staff will make AoE healing for Eles huge. Warriors were on the bench forever so they gave them Healing Signet buffs and Zerker Stance. Necros got Dhuumfire.

A bit late, but I want to reply to this.

No. Ele’s are not getting a ‘huge’ buff to Healing. At all. It’s literally almost nothing. Attached picture shows the ‘HUGE’ radius increase for Geyser. It’s not that much bigger. This is with Blasting Staff. Autoattack heal is only getting increased if you have healing power and only for an extra 15% of that healing power. While this sounds good in theory, you have to realize the MAJOR GLARING ISSUE with Water Blast. You can’t heal anyone with it. The radius for healing is way too small. It should heal around the caster or something, that would be a buff to it that would make it worth using.

Second, some of their support is actually getting nerfed. EA dodge effects and some Elemental Attunement effects are getting reduced in their range. This is not a ‘buff’.

Please do compare this to Warrior’s Healing Signet buff. This is still nothing to that.

On the other side, I do want to point out the important buffs that you are neglecting to mention, and that being Unsteady Ground and Earth Shield. These two are getting incredibly buffed and Earth Shield just may well see play in the future. Especially with Invul effects no longer blocking capture points.

I really REALLY like these trait ideas. I have some, but I have to finalize them in my head and write them down in a second.

Again. Love the traits.

Zerker Staff Ele

lol

Some buffs are coming, but they’re mostly for staff. We don’t know everything though, so there’s hope.

Malcastus.6240:

I’ve swapped over to staff for PvP to be prepared when the changes arrive. Hopefully there are other goodies for us, beside the neat sounding Unsteady Ground (reworked). The changes they have revealed won’t make staff viable in PvP. Takes more than that.

The staff builds I currently test..
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmmbyx4gjDAEFm4yQhGjUeMzO2A-TkAgyCmI0SplTLjWStsaN+A

and..

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmmbyx4gjDAEFm4yQhGjUeMzO2A-TkAgyCmI0SplTLjWStsaN+A

.. just for good measure. ^^

Some suggestions:

This one is a maybe, up to you, change to 10 earth and 30 water

Change Cantrip Mastery to Soothing Distruption and Serrated Stones to Earth’s Embrace or Obsidian Focus (Ether Renewal).

Change Cleansing Fire (because it doesn’t stunbreak anymore AND you have Ether Renewal) to Armor of Earth

Like classes? That comes out on the 15th.