Guild Wars 2

We will see how much overlap there is between druid and Elementalist. If Druid can do Ele’s job better then I find it hard to imagine that Ele will have a place.

But really it is all speculation until things are finalized. I hope they have a place in raids.

Nike.2631:

Can we actually talk about what would make people want to play a Tempest over vanilla Elementalist?

It seems like some of the Overloads are adequately sexy, so maybe just call out which one you think is the single worst of the 4 and why?

I see a lot of concern about the Tempest having to be a melee in-fighter to set up the overloads. Dose it need +500 Toughness while channeling? Would it make the class more unique vs. its parent if the Tempest had +150 TOUGHNESS AT ALL TIMES as part of swapping into this profession? Because last I checked we were still supposed to get something akin to half the Arcane line’s aspect cooldown for taking Arcane, so maybe tempest could give full-time 150 Toughness instead of cooldown reduction.

Well if you could either 1) Change Elements during a tempest channel without interrupting the skill. Or 2) Have overload not be a channel and just a skill that goes off when you have been in the same attunement for a while. I think it would be more viable. The fact is you cannot dodge out of the channel and you are stuck trying to do more damage but ultimately being more vulnerable. Protection or no Protection some things just hit hard enough that it isn’t enough to justify using overloads.

Other things I think would make it somewhat workable. Base Cooldown 15 sec instead of 20 sec and add back the trait to have attunement cooldowns after overload reduced by 20%. What this would do is have the attunement have a 10 second cooldown compared to the 8 second cooldown it has before and the overall investment for a 4 second channel would be 9 seconds with waiting in an attunement and 4 seconds of channeling. It would also make the class flow better as attunements would be properly rotating for cooldowns. Though the only problem that still remains with this is that you cannot switch attunements while channeling an overload. And lets be honest, not all overloads are worth using all the time.

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

Thing is it isn’t PvP and PvE solely. You also have World v World in this game. Balancing around arguably a smaller group that has very little esports viability due to the nature of the game is very nonsensical.

I don’t play dagger dagger ele because it is the best thing ever, I play it because I find staff and scepter boring. I don’t even bother with PvP as I find the World v World gamemode just straight up more fun than a generic 5v5 computer game that isn’t even in a genre that is good for esports. World v World is the content I felt was most unique of the MMOs I have played so I enjoy it a lot.

Balancing around PvP when there are two other gamemodes makes no sense to me as some things aren’t even a problem in the other two gamemodes. One of which is fairly competitive.

Same issue. Same tug of war.

It’s totally sensical for them to balance around PvP. WvW has zero esports presence at all where as PvP has professional tournaments which amounts to $$$ in advertising and marketing. I actually watch and enjoy them; you learn a lot about the mechanics of the game.

I don’t know of any statistical data that shows which game element is more popular, but given how much balancing does occur around PvP and how many posts I see with concerns about PvP balancing, I would put money on PvP being the most popular.

Except it isn’t structured well to be an esports game. There are 3 game modes and the game isn’t solely based around one mode. That said for “proof” of how popular PvP is compared to the other game modes look no further than GW2’s own official youtube page as well as their stream numbers for purely competitive PvP. The views on youtube are 1/3rd or less of what they are for nearly every other piece of content. The only exception is the pro player explanation videos which are more than likely not as accurate a representation compared to the actual games.

The twitch views average 6k or so I’ve heard which is a very very small amount in the grand scheme of things. And this year’s tournament prize pool is laughable for most to even consider playing competitively. First place gets 25k for a 5 man team. That is 5k for something that doesn’t happen all that often. Fourth Place gets only 500 per person, not even enough to cover hotel/travel costs per person.

Esports and revenue through advertising is a legitimate benefit, however you need the support of your entire playerbase first. And currently it is clear that WvW and PvE players don’t care at all about PvP’s esports scene. The viewership is taking one game community and splitting it simply because this is an MMO not an arcade type structure that works well for an esport.

PvP is clearly not the most popular otherwise it would pull at least more than half the views of a general video for everybody in the community (same with viewership on twitch).

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

Thing is I would still question the validity of balancing solely around PvP. A gamemode that not a lot of ppl bother with and is highly likely to be overshadowed by PvE and WvW in this MMO. Cele dagger dagger ele wasn’t a problem in PvE or WvW. Only in PvP so instead of finding a way to hit only PvP they hit all gamemodes.

That’s just a reality of playing any multiplayer RPG that has both PvP and PvE AND allows for a large realm of freedom for players to create builds.

The mechanics between the two are so different that balance inevitably becomes a tug of war and it’s really not the developers fault. Every multiplayer RPG that I have played with this kind of setup suffers from the same issue.

If players are going to rage when this happens, I strongly recommend they go play World of Warcraft and I don’t mean that as an insult. They had the same issue and finally got tired of investing so much time and money into game balancing due to people min/maxing the build choices that they pigeonholed people into one of three pre-created builds and restricted player choice down to like 6 talent choices and 3 gylph choices. And EVEN THEN, it didn’t solve the problem completely, leading them to introduce two separate talent lines, one for PvP and one for PvE, in the upcoming expansion.

However, when they did all that, it made the game boring for me, because I like choice in my character builds, leading me to come to Guild Wars 2. But with that, I except the fact that a build I create and like isn’t going to be viable in both PvP and PvE and might get wrecked in the next game update; it’s just the reality of a game like this.

Kind of like how I also like CCGs like Hearthstone and as a result, I accept losing games to top decking. Like, if you are going to get salty over top decking, why play a CCG? The randomness is a core element of the game and what makes it exciting and fun.

Thing is it isn’t PvP and PvE solely. You also have World v World in this game. Balancing around arguably a smaller group that has very little esports viability due to the nature of the game is very nonsensical.

I don’t play dagger dagger ele because it is the best thing ever, I play it because I find staff and scepter boring. I don’t even bother with PvP as I find the World v World gamemode just straight up more fun than a generic 5v5 computer game that isn’t even in a genre that is good for esports. World v World is the content I felt was most unique of the MMOs I have played so I enjoy it a lot.

Balancing around PvP when there are two other gamemodes makes no sense to me as some things aren’t even a problem in the other two gamemodes. One of which is fairly competitive.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Guys, we don’t even know the final list of changes. The version Dulfy posted was explicitly incomplete. Can we please wait to run around screaming about how the sky is falling until the actual patch notes are posted?

They (anet) announced it themselves, it is highly unlikely it will change much or at all at this point.

ZDragon.3046:

vanderwolf.7084:

I think the nerfs were justified. It’s just that I see many other overpowered things that are never complained about.

Hopefully this helps balance a little but people can’t complain about celestial being super sustained, as that’s it’s purpose….on any class that utilizes it well, even engineer.

The problem was that ele could bypass the drawback of lacking damage when using cele with using might on cantrips. Now that the might is being stripped from the cantrips they have a loss of 12 might from the build. IT wont hit nearly as hard or condition nearly as hard and will be brought into line with how cele works on other professions IE engi/necro/ranger etc. It will be good just not godly.

Thing is I would still question the validity of balancing solely around PvP. A gamemode that not a lot of ppl bother with and is highly likely to be overshadowed by PvE and WvW in this MMO. Cele dagger dagger ele wasn’t a problem in PvE or WvW. Only in PvP so instead of finding a way to hit only PvP they hit all gamemodes.

morrolan.9608:

Conncept.7638:

morrolan.9608:

50% nerf to ice bow HAD to happen? Its rendered it entirely useless. This is anets big problem stupid large changes rather than iteraitve smaller changes.

And they nerf ele burning but not guard! Why not?

Do you see the staff water skills doing that much damage? No? Why not? Because they’re support skill just like the ice bow, just like all water skills. It was never supposed to deal that much damage, it was a mistake they babied the ele community about for far too long.

What? Icebow is all damage and cc, barely any support. they would have to completely revamp it to make it a support weapon.

As for Roy appreciation as per the thread title change, why after the gloating on twitter? Very poor choice of wording from him.

Agreed, not sure what there is to be thankful for from them when they act unprofessional concerning buffs and nerfs. Gloating about it just seems in poor taste and screams they had personal bias against a class.

Ganathar.4956:

Senario.2038:

Triflux.8027:

I don’t mind having 1200 range, and it dealing no damage.

Mesmer’s blink is so much better than ours. Breaks stun, 1200 range, shorter CD

I would also be ok with this as long as it matches Mesmer’s. That is if they truly believe in normalization rather than just using it as an excuse for a change.

Be careful there because what you just said may result in Mesmer nerfs instead

Not that they would have all that much of a harder time getting away in WvW lol. Invis and clones already do that. And Chronomancer likely would make the situation worse.

Triflux.8027:

I don’t mind having 1200 range, and it dealing no damage.

Mesmer’s blink is so much better than ours. Breaks stun, 1200 range, shorter CD

I would also be ok with this as long as it matches Mesmer’s. That is if they truly believe in normalization rather than just using it as an excuse for a change.

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

And what about fractals? Honestly fractals are the endgame for PvE right? Not dungeons. usually that unfortunately requires full zerker and you just cannot do that on Dagger Dagger because it simply isn’t safe.

Fractals and dungeon meta aren’t the same. I run staff support in high level fractals with my guild, because they are actually hard enough to justify them.

And once again, there is plenty of builds that aren’t going to be used in high level fractals. It’s just the nature of the game.

And that is very unfortunate because pvp based nerfs don’t do any favors for build diversity in other modes =/ and essentially tells the player “balance concerns will not be addressed unless you play PvP” for the most part. I don’t find Staff Ele all that fun, I put up with it but I don’t enjoy it as much as fighting close up and it is extremely unfortunate that my favorite playstyle on ele is getting nerfed for a gamemode I could care less about. It just straight up feels bad to have to play a certain weapon because other options are not viable due to other game modes.

This game was not made for 5v5 sPvP. If they really wanted to promote a competitive mode they really should not base it off a generic esport setup that will not take off because it is the same as every other PC game. World v World is incredibly unique and I’m surprised they aren’t pushing it at all.

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

MadRabbit.3179:

Outside of ice bow, you are only going to be missing a few might stacks in a staff PvE builf

And if you wanted to play Dagger Dagger in PvE and WvW where it is only just an “ok” build compared to staff?

Welcome to GW2 where only some builds are viable in certain game modes. Please take a ticket and form a line behind necros, mesmers, necromancers and all other classes.

Except Necros are exceptionally good in WvW and decent in PvE. Mesmers are the same. Why shouldn’t we have it so classes can be played to a decent amount within every game mode?

That is not quite true. Necros are pigeonholed into one build for WvW zerg and a couple others for roaming. The don’t have a spot in the current dungeon meta. Mesmers are only in WvW zergs for mainly stealth and portal bots; their illsions die too fast in zergs so their build variety is greatly limited. Thiefs and rangers have no representation in zergs.

The point is every class has limited application in different aspects of the game and are usually pigeonholed into one or two builds.

And it’s not like D/D is rendered obsolete or completely useless in dungeons. Most of the restrictions we place on builds are self enforced. People have this perception that if they aren’t playing the absolute meta as voted by the majority then they are complete failures.

Truth is majority of people are in the meat and potatoe brackets of this game and are never going to play on a pro skill level where the margins of victory are determined by minor differences. Average player plays their D/D elementalist slightly more dogkitten than I play my staff bunker, so I am actually better.

So play staff bunker in PvP. I do all the time. Play D/D in dungeons. I did it when it was considered completely unviable like two years ago.

(And yes, this argument is somewhat contradictory since I am referencing the current meta and then saying kitten the meta. There is a point to it though)

And what about fractals? Honestly fractals are the endgame for PvE right? Not dungeons. usually that unfortunately requires full zerker and you just cannot do that on Dagger Dagger because it simply isn’t safe.

Neko.9021:

Leaa.2943:

Neko.9021:

Leaa.2943:

Today was the first time after 3 years and over 6000 hours of playtime that i consider to leave the game. This was the reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK1N_vqJPac&feature=youtu.be

No matter how many times i watch this and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, it still turns out to be Arenanet giving the elementalists the finger, and not in a twisted funny way, but in a gloating ugly way.

Then i see how they tell us that Hey we have buffed your elite skill and it turns out you buffed the glyps, which very few of us ever uses anyway since the pet dies in two hits.

So in the end we still only have one elite still to use which is fiery sword and noone uses it for the damage but to move faster forward. The Icebow is dumbed down to a point were it will be useless, and since the axe and the shield was always uselss, so we now having 5 conjured weapons that noone will use, and we already had the useless glyphs, were one got less cd which have no meaning since the pets are easy to kill, which means in the end ele now have 10 skills that most of us never use.

But thank you for that gloating message from the Arena net staff on the twitch stream, your gtfo message is noticed.

Surely you’ve noticed in your 6000 hours of play that Ele has been the top class in GW2 PvE for a while now. Ice Bow was crazy, did far too much damage, and had to nerfed for the upcoming raid encounters.

So for this it is ok for A-net to insult us? Did you even watch the link?

It was a fun joke. Lighten up.

Fun joke = Acting like a complete jerk. Honestly when presenting nerfs don’t be a jerk about it, present it professionally and with reasoning to go with it. The way this guy did it is pretty much a giant middle finger to any Ele players. Yes, Icebow was broken, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk while presenting nerfs. Ele already got quite a few nerfs with very little good news besides “hey now you can play fresh air a little better”.

I dunno, I was unfamiliar with this guy before the twitch stream as I play this game for fun. I hopped onto stream to see what was going on and at the very end what I saw was a very unprofessional person trying to be edgy but instead being a jerk about it.

Xillllix.3485:

Jekkt.6045:

oh and mesmer can instaburst more or less everything.

Yet manages to not get balanced at all. I’ll never understand Anet’s reasoning to allow classes to insta-kill other classes from stealth.

They are in love with Mesmer currently. Sadly I do not trust many company’s attempts at “balance” because more often than not they don’t do a good job of it.

MadRabbit.3179:

Senario.2038:

MadRabbit.3179:

Outside of ice bow, you are only going to be missing a few might stacks in a staff PvE builf

And if you wanted to play Dagger Dagger in PvE and WvW where it is only just an “ok” build compared to staff?

Welcome to GW2 where only some builds are viable in certain game modes. Please take a ticket and form a line behind necros, mesmers, necromancers and all other classes.

Except Necros are exceptionally good in WvW and decent in PvE. Mesmers are the same. Why shouldn’t we have it so classes can be played to a decent amount within every game mode?

ErazorZ.5209:

Can we please get it back. Revert the nerf and normalize it.

Give it back its Stunbreak properties like the other classes teleports have.

Also thanks for the scepter, i hope itll be good, cuz then ill be a shining beacon of positivity in these forums.

So far everything, but, the vigor nerf seems pretty good unlike some balance patches.
Im not sure how strong engis will be, because i have a feeling they will be kind of broken with all the said buffs. But who knows.

Sure, lets do this lol. “Normalize” makes sense only if it really is normalizing and if they want to normalize they should not have exceptions.

MadRabbit.3179:

Outside of ice bow, you are only going to be missing a few might stacks in a staff PvE builf

And if you wanted to play Dagger Dagger in PvE and WvW where it is only just an “ok” build compared to staff?

Cristobal.8640:

All right, let’s make Celestial DD elementalists have a DPS comparable to Zerk staff eles in PVE, that’s going to be very balanced yay!

Sarcasm and speaking for other people. What he is asking is why balance around one game mode when there are 3.

My guess is because they want to make sPvP into a game mode that gets on the Esports bandwagon. In my opinion they will fail because the game is not built to be balanced around only one game mode. People play 3 game modes and when you nerf based on 1 the other 2 suffer.

fireflyry.7023:

It wasn’t a personal attack, you just took it that way. It was a question…do you actually know enough about MMO balancing to state it’s not that hard?

You’re not thinking of the bigger picture, for example the segregation this would create in the community, the effect all that balancing would have on neglect in other aspects of the game, etc, etc.

These side-effects seem pretty obvious if you put serious thought into it and again, Anet promote this game as being easy to transition, level and play in all modes so I just can’t see it happening.

Yes in fact, I would say I do know enough to know it isn’t that hard to balance an MMO based on game mode. The community will not at all be split based on game mode and balance changes simply because everybody already is split into the game modes that are available. These side effects don’t actually seem to be as much of a problem as you make it out to be as it will be easy to play in all modes regardless of small changes between modes. These aren’t giant changes here such as entirely new skills.

I do think in the bigger picture it is better for the game. People who are playing the game primarily for fun do not want things nerfed in a game mode that has no problem with the build. Having small changes that affect individual game modes is much better as most players who play for fun won’t even notice. At the top levels of play it will matter but only in that specific game mode rather than affecting every player regardless of what mode they prefer.

I will point to ele since it is the most recent nerfs to come out of this “balance around 1 gamemode” type balancing. Dagger Dagger is blatantly too strong in PvP, nobody is arguing this. However it is only a niche build in both WvW and PvE where staff dominates BOTH styles of gameplay. Nerfing the build in general rather than nerfing it within a specific mode has adverse effects on all builds across all gamemodes. Dagger Dagger was largely not an issue in PvE obviously and in World v World the hard CC of Staff Ele was a lot more useful for the group than a Dagger Dagger build unless you were in a very small roaming group. For your average player they will not understand why something is nerfed based on one competitive game mode in a game with 3 game modes. This is not good for the playerbase as discontent leads to quitting. Now, the nerf may be absolutely necessary in PvP but how do you explain to WvW and PvE that now a build that was only meh in those modes is now even more meh and they must play Staff to be effective.

Having seperate balances for gamemodes solves this problem as you can change balance without adversely affecting playerbases who do not participate nor care to participate in one of the 3 gamemodes.

You can argue “but you can already play what you want” though the problem is that now the group suffers because of one person’s want to play a certain style. This is absolutely devastating in World v World where going down is hard punished with multiple rallies for the enemy guild.

fireflyry.7023:

Senario.2038:

Doesn’t mean they can’t do it right. It isn’t that hard.

Oh, so you know all about balancing an MMO then do you?

I honestly see this as creating more work for the devs which imho would create more issues than it would solve. Bugs and balancing issues already take an age to fix.This would increase that ten-fold.

You’re also neglecting that Anet has always wanted and promoted GW2, from day one, as having an open an easy transition between all formats of the game so players can take what they have learnt from one mode and jump straight into another only needing to learn the mode type and playstyle….not a whole new set of skill mechanics.

Except that comes at the expense of balancing around one game mode where other sections are fine. I really don’t appreciate the personal attack about balancing MMOs. It is not huge differences but number tuning for different modes. It is a highly preferable system than having one mode dictate balance in other modes that we have now. The condescending actions of the balance team aside. They were pretty smug about the elementalist changes which is surprising for a professional game company.

fireflyry.7023:

Ok…so we already know Anets record with balancing this game.

Your solution is to create two more games for them to balance.

Doesn’t mean they can’t do it right. It isn’t that hard. Something is a problem in 1 game mode → Figure out how to nerf that mode. If it isn’t? Leave it alone.

In all honesty I’d rather take balance on the basis of game mode not on “this class is OP in general” because typically it is not universally true among all game modes.

I agree, PvP dagger dagger ele is a problem but it isn’t really an issue in WvW and PvE. In fact you would have to be in a very small party in WvW (10 ish or less) for it to be highly effective. Otherwise any bigger fights and you want staff Ele for static field/area denial. And in PvE you want staff, period. This could happen with any class, if it is a problem in WvW or PvE nerf those specific modes not the class as a whole.

This game has 3 game modes that are all legitimate. PvE, PvP, and WvW. I would not sacrifice balance in two of the modes for balance in one. Some things like Icebow needed a nerf. And other changes which are not strictly hard nerfs but quality of life or slight nerfs (ex. dagger offhand on ele #4 applying burning inside the ring and 1 more on ring edge) could be permissible.

I would agree and I play World v World and PvE. I could care less about PvP but I don’t see why Dagger Dagger has to be nerfed in favor of PvP balance. Dagger Dagger is pretty lackluster except in small groups in WvW (aka, situations closer to sPvP) and in PvE staff is heavily favored.

I agree with the ice bow nerf as it was simply too strong. However I cannot justify nerfing most of the other stuff for ONE gamemode that will never be a defining characteristic of the game as a whole.

Side note: It is called GUILD WARS not 5v5 sPvP wars. If anything should determine balance it should be taking into consideration all three game modes. PvE is largely unimportant besides the zerker gear meta and WvW and PvP have very different senses of what is good. I would not go into a WvW map as dagger dagger because you play for the benefit of the team and not yourself. I just feel like anet wants a 5v5 mode to capitalize on the overly popular MOBA genre of team vs team but the problem is that this game is not only that one game mode, it is WvW and PvE

I would agree since it is a Major trait. I have to pick it unlike guard and mesmer so it is a straight up nerf. And honestly it feels like they are double dipping into nerfs instead of nerfing bits at a time. 3 seconds is a lot of time, if you really didn’t want 100% uptime make it 6 seconds CD.

Burning too much? They covered that but then they removed might from cantrips making that trait pretty useless.

In all honesty I don’t like sPvP balancing as it makes absolutely no sense to me since it doesn’t apply to two of the three game modes which I am sure make up more of the playerbase than PvP. PvE, WvW, and PvP. While a dagger dagger ele is really good in sPvP it is not as great except in roaming on WvW. And in PvE as well as WvW, staff is already favored heavily. In general it feels like less builds are viable/Ok to use in two of the three game modes for the sake of PvP. And lets be honest, I know anet wants to push esports for PvP and I will say right now it won’t work. An MMO is not structured in a way to promote esports on a grand scale. Most esport games are in an arcade style fashion with predictable and repeatable gameplay. Changes can be made because EVERYBODY in the community is equally affected as there is only one real game mode. However an MMO has multiple game modes which are all valid and balancing around one of those game modes not only feels irresponsible to the rest of the playerbase but the balancing is probably going to be shoddy with all the other projects an MMO team has to work on (HoT expansion and all the little features anybody?)

Not to mention the double/triple dipping into nerfs rather than making them slowly over time. It is totally a knee jerk reaction and really sucks for players like me who bought the game and like playing Dagger Dagger. No, I don’t want to play fresh air, and no I don’t particularly have the most FUN playing staff. Unfortunately I may be forced to play something I don’t find fun due to PvP nerfs even though I only play WvW and PvE.

Icebow change is fine, burning changes are fine, but changing that and the blind then going further to nerf the vigor (which is not a minor but major trait) is just a bit too much all at once.

Edit: before you say “QQ Elementalist fan” I have talked to several of my friends and guild mates about the balancing and in general it seems pretty shoddy. Engineer needed a nerf but it was driven straight into the ground and left there. It remains to be seen if Scrapper would really fix it but even if it did only Scrapper would be in an OK spot. Not a diverse range of engineer setups.