Guild Wars 2

Bertrand.3057:

Firebird.8324:

you know why you don’t see rangers in high level pvp (with the exception of eurantian)? This because being on a ledge is MEANINGLESS against teams that can port there, you know how that ranger got there? HE WALKED. You know when a thief shortbows from there, he teled, you get my drift

Right, not even sure why we need Mesmers now that Power Rangers have more damage, more range, more stability, more mobility, more evades, more invulnerability, more stealth, more armor, more interrupts… Anything I’m missing?

Now that Mesmers have to walk like Rangers being a Mesmer is MEANINGLESS.

Comparing a LB ranger with a Mesmer shatter…god what I’m reading.
Are you actually serious by saying longbow ranger is superior to Mesmer?

Drennon.7190:

This change hurts thief, Mesmer, and medi guard. Notice these are the 3 main zerker classes.

Clearly cele is meant to be the only thing played.

We can’t play anything but tanky specs because of thief/Mesmer/supremacy in the zerker department

1) Thief and Mesmer have relatively short CD “get out of jail” cards when screwing their positioning, fast activation and fluid animation
-Thief can engage at will no tell and that’s a huge advantage against other zerker builds and in the same way they can disengage..too much advantage, less risk…

2) med guardian possess several blocks + outstanding survival for a zerker build, also their skills can handle stealth thieves pretty well

We can’t have any other kind of zerker build..unless we get more benefit for playing one, other than wait to be killed by a stealthed thief who possibly stealthed from behind the corner when you can’t see him stealthing

Without sustain, other professions must go through extremely high CD defense skills, too easy for Mesmer and thieves to go stealth and starve other profession till they’re ready to get downed fast…med guardian will simply outsustain you…

..people asking for buffs on Mesmer…

Even @Supcutie has admitted that Mesmer dmg must go down if they buffs in survival, to ask for buffs on survival while keeping the same level of dmg, all done from distance..it’s simply insane.

Good thing the devs know better and at least few top player realize what would be the consequence of buffing current Mesmer without lowering dmg

robertul.3679:

Yes it’s really nice everybody came to vent their frustration about pvp dailies and broken leaderboards.

But my point was that this is a recent thing. Like the past 4 days or so.
Since personal experience is not an unbiased source I was hoping for some less subjective information.

It’s not a recent thing at all.
They broke the system with the Dec patch, the number of decent players got drastically reduced because of broken matchup.

Things can only get worst

Mrbig.8019:

xDudisx.5914:

Zerker meta would be terrible. There are already too many zerkers in the celestial meta.

If I wanted to play a game where everyone dies/kills the enemy in 3 seconds I would be playing battlefield.

Do u prefer to watch 2 cele eles fightining on point for 2 minutes ?

No I would prefer that zerker ele would be viable, but between thieves and med guardian , it’s not ..so the question is: shall we nerf thief and med guardian to zerker ele level or buff the latter to the other ones level?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Imo zerker meta be fine but they should nerf thief too

Zerker meta would be fine yes..if they rework thief, nerfing them would simply be not enough, never enough.

The initiative mechanic simply doesn’t work when paired with stealth, reason why thieves hold the crown of the zerker meta, they can: disengage at will, attack at will, insta teleportation and the worst of them all, spammable and maintainable stealth

You can outplay a Mesmer, a med guardian, a LB ranger..but thieves simply go and reset the fight indefinitely.

You have a weapon set with skill that require target, you have huge CD on these skills and go through all your rotation to bring a thief down to maybe 20% HP, he just stealth and run away….then comeback while your CD are still up and kills you..yeah ty initiative regeneration

Bran.7425:

I by no means am an expert on all of the professions, but having played from beta I can only really gather one thing:

The issue with the elementalist balancing is the line between garbage and godhood is very thin and so the changes tend to hokey-pokey elementalist in elementalist out.

That’s because ele is only really good as bunker, you nerf the bunker option and you can delete the class

One profession fart conditions at range, has 20k HP by default and can fear chain you to death…buffs? Let’s not forget about dhuumfire

Another profession happily apply huge burst from 1200 range, stealth,teleports on short CD, boon stripping and more and more

Another profession again happily apply huge pressure from distance, can be quite tanky and like necros can fart condis.

These three profession have the ability to sit at range and mock/laugh at you with little effort, but some people still think that being forced in mele range ( warrior/ele) , as your range options suck, should bring no benefits and the professions mentioned above should have your same level of survivability while comfortably sitting at range, kiting you to death

If you want ranger/Mesmer and necro to share same survivability of mele classes..then we remove your range options first. ty

@Marcos.3690

I hope that ele specialization will bring new life to the class, something that will compete against water/arcana combo with a different twist

-sustain through heavy control
-viable zerker build ( comparable to med guardian)

Something like that

@Shiyo.3578

Anet is fully aware of everything you’ve stated….and they won’t change it, they officially said so. In the end yes, ele will remain 30 water/arcana and cantrips till the end of this game cycle, everything else outside of these traitlines and set of utilities, get trashed in a couple of seconds

The mechanic above doesn’t exist anymore as it was ruled out by the introduction of all mechanics mentioned in my previous post( especially mechanic A).
Actually the truth is that a couple of mechanics have been shaping the face of GW2 Pvp..since launch, we all know that but …you know?!

Talking about mechanics….what’s worst?

A) Stealth burst that kill you in seconds with no tells?
B) AI/Pets doing the dmg for you while you stay at range?
C) Spamming conditions with little effort as you have multiple condis linked to skill1?
D) Huge sustain?
E) Absurd amounts of CC?

Tell me which class you play…and I will tell you which option appears the most balanced to you and which meta was the most “balanced” during the brief GW2 PvP history

Vegito.3048:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Nos got his kitten handed to him because of necro weakness. They should have never replaced OE. Because nos was out of play so much they were 4v5ing so much

Nos was target #1, but five gauge and toker seemed to be the ones going down a lot more. I’d say he did pretty well considering how much everyone was focusing him.

Anyways, was rooting for ORNG because like someone else said, they were running more zerkery stuff and it was fun to watch. Plus Rom seems super respectful and positive and I find that to be really cool, contrary to the stupid trash talking people seem to be so fond of at times.

Edit: Like that sportsmanship from phanta. Respect.

well…I’d love a game were each profession has a zerk and tank viable build, that’s not the case atm.

-Zerker- you need either stealth or huge heal/blocks like med guardian or some other type of sustain with offense in mind

-Tank—..well we all know them

style.6173:

I think everyone, except ANET, has realized that cele has been OP for a long time. Instead ANET took the easy way out, and tried to change might stacking.

They really need a balance team.

Are you….everyone?

-edit- sustain builds don’t bring the burst and don’t recover from burst easily…oRNG proved that.

/thread

Dondagora.9645:

Supreme.3164:

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

jportell.2197:

Miltek.2104:

The problem isn’t existing classes but meta builds.
Celestial is little overpowered ATM.

And anet is clearly going to nerf the cele amulet amirite? /sarcasm.

And your “favourite” team just got rekt despite using celestial godlike builds( well you think they are)..as @ArrDee say : “Get good son”

-Edit-oRNG had like 2x zerker amulet?! O_O LOOOOOL, “get good son”

Oh and how many celestial builds were on the team that “rekt” them? The SAME NUMBER YOU SAY?! OH WOW how crazy!

And team with more zerkers won…it’s called personal skill something you may want to check

So celestial is OP? I don’t get your argument.

Celestial may be the optimal choice on few profession but this is far from making them OP, like many forum warriors want you to believe and…how oRNG showed to the all GW2 community : personal skill > everything else

-edit- Full cele team lost 4 times out of 4

/thread

-edit2- LB ranger beats top ele and top engi in 1vs1 ( both engi and ele are celestial spec)

/double thread + FATALITY

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

jportell.2197:

Miltek.2104:

The problem isn’t existing classes but meta builds.
Celestial is little overpowered ATM.

And anet is clearly going to nerf the cele amulet amirite? /sarcasm.

And your “favourite” team just got rekt despite using celestial godlike builds( well you think they are)..as @ArrDee say : “Get good son”

-Edit-oRNG had like 2x zerker amulet?! O_O LOOOOOL, “get good son”

Oh and how many celestial builds were on the team that “rekt” them? The SAME NUMBER YOU SAY?! OH WOW how crazy!

And team with more zerkers won…it’s called personal skill something you may want to check

The problem is..personal skills

LB ranger beats top ele and top engi ins 1vs1

zapv.8051:

Miltek.2104:

The problem isn’t existing classes but meta builds.
Celestial is little overpowered ATM.

It is the classes though, why don’t we see cele necros, mesmers, or rangers in tournaments? It’s because they can’t use all those stats, which is basically to say that they can’t do enough damage while traiting defensively to actually kill someone, or they could deal enough damage but would die easily. That means they simply aren’t as good in those respects, and sense Anet has always pushed the “play how you want” there is no reason why they shouldn’t perform equally as well as those classes.

-Dankening LB ranger beats top ele and top engi in 1vs1 ..Yeah cele class, surely wins by default..it’s not like player skill count for something O_O!!!!!!!! Am I right??

jportell.2197:

Miltek.2104:

The problem isn’t existing classes but meta builds.
Celestial is little overpowered ATM.

And anet is clearly going to nerf the cele amulet amirite? /sarcasm.

And your “favourite” team just got rekt despite using celestial godlike builds( well you think they are)..as @ArrDee say : “Get good son”

-Edit-oRNG had like 2x zerker amulet?! O_O LOOOOOL, “get good son”

This list is based on the meta defining abilities of each profession, how easily they can influence other professions and the simplicity with which they can be played effectively.

S- Tier ( Meta Defining, push most builds out of the game mode, makes the balancing that much harder as you need a specific trait/utility investment to counter them, positioning doesn’t help at all)

-Thief

A-Tier ( Can influence marginally the meta, a heavy trait investment can help but it’s not necessary, positioning can help against them but won’t solve all problems; most builds are viable against them)

-Engineer
-Mesmer

B-Tier ( Do not influence balance, can’t change meta, can’t force any build out of conquest)

-Guardian
-Elementalist
-Necromancer
-Warrior

C-Tier (More of a liability even when played well, they can’t cover any role better than others)

-Ranger

Kodiak.3281:

Graendall.4765:

If you think D/D Cantrip ele didn’t work before Celestial i am telling you now..you think wrong.Its a good build it works.Its been nerfed and nerfed.No need for more debating.Instead of asking if its OP ask the devs if they plan on changing traits in other lines so Fire(for example) can be used more.

D/D ele was ALWAYS OP in 1vs1 or more in the hands of a good player.It is known.

The problem honestly isn’t the other lines. Fire, Air and Earth all received major boosts in the traits they have on those lines. They all have great options.

The REAL problem is…you’ll rarely see those lines in things like WvW or PvP because we’re pretty much forced into Water/Arcane to get enough survivability to have any kind of sustained presence. We have the weakest armor and HP base yet our mobility has been systematically dismantled and nerfed repeatedly since launch. Instead we’re supposed to rely entirely on large numbers of small heals with pitififul coefficients for sustainability and use boons to give us offense and defense. When they go after these things they give absolutely nothing to compensate. They don’t reduce our boon effectiveness and then add a little armor. They don’t nerf our healing and then add some HP. This just forces us to continuously double down time after time again further into more defense. It’s been this way since release.

Celestial Amulet is nothing more than the latest variation of that same old problem. Where once we wore Cleric’s gear and relied entirely on Boons for damage source, we now have the option to use the Celestial Amulet and still get a bit of the big defenses while also giving us some offensive stats that when stacked with boons is good enough.

Simple fact of the matter is if they want Elementalists to break out of the Water/Arcane crutch then they have to give us something else to stand on. They refuse to do this and refuse to acknowledge it as a issue so it will continue until they do.

Jon Peters
Game Design Lead

I think the big question here is the base health/armor of the elementalist. Of course if you are just an elementalist you just want us to raise these, but balance must work around some fixed things and profession health and armor are an important part of defining what a profession is so that we can create powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses

Dec 2013 Ele Sub Forum

Ele crap HP base and armour is here to stay, the powerful defensive tools we have is the compensation for that, this won’t change in the end.

Few changes will come I know but this is not the Anet of 2013/14 with its carpet bomb nerfs, some positive changes happened in the development team.

All the current PvP devs : Jon, karl, Hugh and Ron are all reasonable guys. Changes will come but won’t be profession destroying like it happened in 2013.

I’d like to add that in 2013 the ele got almost wiped out because of a really broken thief : spammable pistol whip(less ini compared to now), double boon steal spammable sword( less ini compared to now + Infiltrator did not require target so it was possible to precast it before teleporting for massive dmg and boon steal + poison spamm from stealth using SB ); and finally uber broken Lyssa Runes that used to give all boons in game to thief on a very short CD ( 32s CD with elite venom) and clear all condis at the same time

So even if ele get nerfed to pre-April 2014 levels ( 99% sure it won’t happen), we would still be fine( more buffs to scepter inc also)

mistsim.2748:

i don’t think it’s just a matchmaking issue though. I think I figured out what the problem is…the game is actually balanced around rock, paper, scissors. there are obvious hard counters in the game, thief vs. Mesmer being the most obvious one. it took me a long time to realize this.

so in a system that doesn’t give a hoot about prof/amulet stacking, it’s easy to see how having a bunch of celestial eles and warriors on one team, vs. a bunch of mixed amulets, leads to a blowout. or how having a balanced team vs. a bunch of glassbows and necros (or anything that can’t roam and/or hold a point) on the same team leads to a blowout.

1. eliminate rock, paper, scissors balance and balance around 1v1; i.e. every profession should be able to hold a point as well as cele d/d ele or shoutbow, or roam as well as a thief

2. or allow us to pick our profession and spec AFTER the queue pops, like in dota 2. dota 2 uses the RPS approach perfectly.

TLDR – blowouts don’t occus just because of the matchmaker; it seems devs don’t know which approach to take to balance the game; there are rock, paper, scissors elements but we aren’t permitted to choose our prof and spec after the queue pops, leading to blowouts; celestial specs are obviously the most superior ones in conquest; d/d ele is back to where it used to be in 2013, thieves are as strong as ever and contribute to hardcounters greatly.

I strongly believe that MMOs are not for you, DOTA and similar games may be more of your liking, but definitely MMOS are not for you

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Kodiak.3281:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

So if we are going to have a debate, it needs to be objective.

If at the end of the debate you determine 100% objectively that people are scrublords who don’t know how to play

Kodiak, once more, I am fairly certain that top players are not “scrublords”. Therefore they must have reasons to think that the ele is OP if they think the ele is OP. If the top players do not think that the ele is OP then there is no need for debate.

Now that we have settled this divergence for the third time, could we get to the reasons why top players could objectively think the ele is OP?

:)

Because d/d ele is not free kill like on other specs when played right and this irk them, they do not complain about staff ele, they do not complain about fresh air ele..only things they complain is the d/d ele, only built that can’t be killed by simply looking at it

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Kodiak.3281:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Kodiak, once more, I am fairly certain that top players are not “scrublords”. Therefore they must have reasons to think that the ele is OP if they think the ele is OP. If the top players do not think that the ele is OP then there is no need for debate.

Now that we have settled this divergence for the third time, could we get to the reasons why top players could objectively think the ele is OP?

You haven’t settled anything. You still don’t understand.

You’re asking a bunch of Elementalists why do we think the Elementalist is OP. None of us think it’s OP. None of us can think of a reason it is considered OP. We all play the class and know it’s not OP. Even if you’re a bad player or a good player no one here thinks the Elementalist is OP. We’re all aware of it’s advantages the class has as well as all painfully aware of it’s limitations.

If you want other people’s opinions on the matter, you have to go elsewhere to get them. Debating whether or not the Elementalist is OP in an Elementalist forum where Elementalists come is entirely and completely pointless.

= “I do not have the answer you are looking for”

Thanks Kodiak, I highly enjoyed this fruitful discussion with you

Who are these top players you speak of?

Unseenstrike.2971:

Please don’t tell me how to play

Don’t tell me what skills to use or what traits to have

Don’t troll me because I don’t play the way you want me to

Don’t insult me because I may be a slower player than you

Don’t laugh at me because I don’t have the best gaming pc

I play hotjoin. I’m allowed to learn. I’m allowed to play the game in my own way.

Please stop the trolling, the hating, the insulting, the swearing, the negativity and the intolerance. Not everyone plays in the same way. So let us play the way we want and have the time we need to learn and have fun.

Thank you.

While your frustration is understandable, you should still pay some credit to people who try in a polite way to teach you something:

Don’t tell me what skills to use or what traits to have

It may help to listen sometimes, given ofc the polite attitude of the player behind the suggestion, don’t take it too personal if somebody gives you a suggestion

Lawful.5314:

Supreme.3164:

Only reason why eles were deemed UP prior to the april 2014 patch was because of uber OP thieves = spammable double boon steal on sword 3 and broken Lyssa Runes combo, not so much for dhuumfire necros, they could be controlled; where s/d thieves along side pistol whip thieves were literally decimating the ele community.

Spammable boon steal is gone and will not be coming back and now there are builds that can hurt s/d thief pretty badly, should that ever happen.

Lyssa runes, something that was giving free stab, aegis, protection to thieves is gone too.

Basically even few harsh nerfs won’t bring ele back again on the brink of extinction , so we can all relax a bit

Oh yeah, it was the thief nerfs, and not the celestial amulet buff, or the signet of restoration un-nerf, or other countless little changes here and there that made the class viable again.

-The thief well deserved nerfs made ele viable again( in a world without d/d, but only with staff and scepter as they’re now, there would be not a single ele in PvP, the class would have been deleted months ago)

-The celestial made ele stackable with no repercussions

But in the end yes, thief with double boon rip/steal +aegis/stability/and all other boons ever 30s or so..was way behind brutal, it was a nightmare to even try an ele in pvp…it was truly a nightmare and I was very close to throw away gw2 and delete my account….before the Dec 10 2013 patch..I was very close ( have to thank my friend for keeping me in at that time)

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Kodiak.3281:

That’s where you’re wrong, as you asked us to enlighten you.

Objective truth, while very informative, is often times not very useful because it doesn’t really propose a path forward but simply explain what is happening. Analyzing that it’s the players who are wrong, while accurate, isn’t a solution. Telling players to nut up and “l2p” also isn’t an acceptable solution. Their only choices involve either nerfing the class in some way to allow other players to counter the class easier or do and say nothing and hope players figure it out.

You are not getting it: I am asking whether my analysis is the only objective explanation for why we appear OP. The question is: can any one else come up with an other explanation? I just want to understand why we appear OP.

We can think of solutions once we have properly stated what the problem is.

Ele is not deemd OP….D/D Ele is deemed OP and this is why:

-You can’t walk away (while holding a cup of tea in your other hand) from every incoming source of dmg with a big grin on your face like you can do against a staff ele
-You can’t gank ,while laughing, and insta kill a d/d ele like you can do with s/f ele
-D/D ele makes ele challenging to fight, not more ele is considered a walking free kill/ loot bag
-People hate to lose 1vs1 more than anything.

You need no more reasons, am I saying lies?

This is what the “nerf ele” community unanimously agree upon when it comes to ele:

-“Staff ele is fine and balanced (easy to kill, kite, never a true source of danger, never wins 1vs1 against a human player) and d/d ele should be like this”
-Scepter burst ele is fine and balanced (can be oneshotted by every single meta build with ease, a free kill in high level pvp, select target and explode him)

Only reason why eles were deemed UP prior to the april 2014 patch was because of uber OP thieves = spammable double boon steal on sword 3 and broken Lyssa Runes combo, not so much for dhuumfire necros, they could be controlled; where s/d thieves along side pistol whip thieves were literally decimating the ele community.

Spammable boon steal is gone and will not be coming back and now there are builds that can hurt s/d thief pretty badly, should that ever happen.

Lyssa runes, something that was giving free stab, aegis, protection to thieves is gone too.

Basically even few harsh nerfs won’t bring ele back again on the brink of extinction , so we can all relax a bit

This is what I was afraid to hear….what a bummer…:-(

Kodiak.3281:

The L2P argument never works in terms of game balance discussions. It just never has, and never will. I land Dragon Tooth all day long in SPvP. You can cry at the top of your lungs that’s a L2P issue for my opponents, and you won’t be incorrect, but no developer is going to openly take the stance “L2P scrubs.”

Ofc they won’t, because they can’t.
They make a living out of this game, if they’d start to assume a “L2P scrubs” stance they would find themselves soon without a job as the game would become a ghost town. Can’t and won’t blame them, that we like it or not the “L2P scrubs” make the 90% of this game population and revenue

Will I be able to use all profession specializations in the upcoming demo event?

xDudisx.5914:

Supreme.3164:

xDudisx.5914:

The amulet is fine. It is not even viable for most classes. The problem is clearly engi + d/d ele. War is close to be balanced since it took the biggest punch from the might nerf+ addrenaline nerf. \

Would you rather see a nerf to the op builds or nerf the amulet so no other class other than ele/engi/war can use it?

D/D is the only build atm that can 1vs1 reliably against any build while maintaining a supportive role, a staff ele meta uses the same trait set up of a D/D ..still there are no complaints about staff build, chances are what really irks people is the fact they lose 1vs1 to an ele and they want that changed, a simplistic view but I believe it to be mostly true

They don’t use all the same traits. Most staff users use blasting staff and earth embrace instead of renewing stamina and elemental shielding. It is possible to nerf those 2 traits or the dagger skills and solve the problem without hurting the balanced builds.

Staff is a balanced build. Focusing in group fights and in supportive role. And is not op in 1v1.

d/d in the other hand has almost the same support as staff and is nearly god mode in 1v1. With very few counters like a fearmancer. Also has more mobility than staff or scepter.

It has already been suggested to move renewing staming to adept minor and increase ICD to 10s and move elemental shielding to master trait, so dunno why you repeat yourserlf

Simon.3794:

Supreme.3164:

I want d/d ele to a level where:

-it can’t be stacked with success, on the contrary a team is more likely to lose if more than one ele in the team

-It has a harder time in being effective, but remains fun and rewarding to use

easy stuff really, but nerfs on things like : elemental attunement, cleansing water would kill the profession in its entirety

And by what changes will bring ele to the level you listed?

I’ll list them again:

-Increased CD on drake’s breath by 5s
-elemental shielding swap with geomancer freedom
-magnetic grasp animation increased from1/2s to 3/4s
-wind up animation added to updraft
-wind up animation added to fire grab, angle increased from 40 to 100 degree
-lightning touch angle increased from 40 to 100
-decreased healing on cone of cold, dmg increased by 33%
-rooting removed from churning earth( channelling remains)
-renewing stamina 10s ICD, becomes air adept minor trait

These change would make d/d more fun to play, less threatening at low/average level but awe inspiring when played right, plenty of counterplay to hard hitting skills, the sustain is less pronounced but still there when used right( easier to land weakness ).
Renewing staming may force some eles to go air , or to take sigil of energy, or don’t bother with it all and have less dodges while having some more toughness respect to those eles who go 2 in air to grab the adept minor

..and people can still keep their dear celestial amulet

Exedore.6320:

Saiyan.1704:

To reiterate what Tao is saying, certain aspects of the game may seem “op” or “inbalanced” for a reason. It’s part of the game’s PvP design. See this video.
http://qqmore.net/video-guide-why-is-guild-wars-2-unbalanced/

Here’s a better version, though not GW2 specific: Extra Credits: Perfect Imbalance

The QQmore.net video does a poor job of applying what Extra Credits taught. Namely, if one build or strategy is the best in all situations, and it’s still the best after players are given time to look for alternatives, then it’s probably overpowered and needs toned down. That’s what we’re seeing with cele d/d ele and cele rfile engi.

If we had a “perfect imbalance” situation, then you would see a variety of different builds and team compositions at the highest levels of play. You wouldn’t see one set of builds in practically every team.

They should have listened to TOP GW1 players when the game was in development, go on gw2guruforum and look for yourself. If they would had, by now each profession would have 4-5 build viables for high level pvp

xDudisx.5914:

The low hp is not a big deal because how fast you can regen the hp and how you can mitigate dmg are more important. Take old bunker shout guardian as example. Their low hp didn’t stop them from been one of the most tankiest builds around.

The light armor becomes almost a medium armor most of the time becuase of stone flesh minor trait combined with lingering elements.

If by fighting toe to toe you mean kill fast almost all non meta builds all the time in 1v1
and rarery losing even for most meta builds…..

What other build in the game has that mobility, is great node fighter, can fight of node, can stale fights if want, is good in team fights?

Fearmancers have no good mobility other than flesh wurm and 1 teleport towards the target.

Mesmer+thives have good mobility but they cant hold nodes.

Rangers… are rangers.

Medi guard has low mobility. If they go bunker they have no dmg and low mobility.

Ele if go staff loses a lot of the mobility. If goes sceper focus loses mobility and is not as strong as d/d.

Shoutbow is not even close to d/d dmg.

Cele rifle engi are one of the only other problematic builds. But still less condi clear and mobility than d/d ele.

At equal skill level between 2 professions, only the best player should win and I accept at 100% any change that bring to that, what I can’t accept is to have somebody lose by default regardless of the skill level.

Your proposed changes would make an ele lose at 100% even when outplaying the opponent.

Being at mele range means that the biggest threat must come from you being at mele, you can’t simply kill all mele pressure from d/d and expect it to remain viable.
What you can do is to make this pressure more skill/direct based, this to divide the bad from the good, so decrease condi pressure but increase direct dmg that takes skill to land, decrease passive defense but increase active defense …this is balance

I want d/d ele to a level where:

-it can’t be stacked with success, on the contrary a team is more likely to lose if more than one ele in the team

-It has a harder time in being effective, but remains fun and rewarding to use

easy stuff really, but nerfs on things like : elemental attunement, cleansing water would kill the profession in its entirety

xDudisx.5914

Staff ele is fine. It acts more like a bunker/support than anything else. Most of its dmg can be avoided by people steping out of the red circle…

Exactly to what level you want to nerf d/d ele?

To the same lvl as staff ele that is not using renewing stamina is right now.

You basically want the D/D to be reduced to staff ele levels, where its dmg can be easily avoided/negated, but the only reason D/D weapon set even exist for eles…is to 1vs1 people more reliably than anything else.

Reason why people don’t complain about scepter or staff ele is because both build lose 1vs1 to all meta builds ate equal skill level.

-One of the best mobility
-survives almost like staff
-has a way easier time to landing dmg

But ofc..what do you expect? I’m a light armour class fighting toe to toe with people ^^

Dunno at this point..do you want a d/d ele to play like a thief maybe? or med guardian?….or maybe, you just want a glorified heal bot that acts more like a free kill?

xDudisx.5914:

Tao.5096:

xDudisx.5914:

rotten.9753:

xDudisx.5914:

The solution is nerf d/d weapon skills or traits or hoelbrak/sigilf of doom etc..

And staff ele, rifle engie and shoutbow weapon skills and traits. Why are you so focused on one celestial build when all of them are imbalanced? Celestial engi is the most often used build along with d/p thief and dps guardian.

Staff ele is fine. It acts more like a bunker/support than anything else. Most of its dmg can be avoided by people steping out of the red circle…

I am focusing in d/d ele because in the beggining of the topic we were discussing engi. And then pvp specialist asked a question about ele. When everyone was talking about engi I was talking about nerf IP, gear shield ,etc.. Also nerfs for heolbrak or doom would be universal and hit war/engi too.

Warrior got hit the most from the might nerf. They also go addrenaline nerf. A small tweak at healing shout trait reducing base healing and increasing the scaling with healing power would be enough.

Why nerf Hoelbrak runes and Doom sigil?
Both are fine and not overpowered.
Nerf them and another rune will be too OP.
Same with sigil.
Then what? Nerf them too?
Dead end, locked circle of endless nerfs.

Power nerf didn’t hit warrior much.
But Nerf on meless weapon damage did.
I’m surprised that Anet does nerf Warrior’s skill damage, while Guardian stays untouched. While it’s no rocket science that Guardian has much higher self sustain and burst than Warrior.

Your first argument makes no sense. By that logic nothing in the game should ever be nerfed or buffed because something else will become the new “op” skill.

Other runes don’t need a nerf because they are not as strong as hoelbrak. For spvp hoelbrak is one of the most used if not the most used rune. It is also one of the top runes for wvw. The price of hoelbrak in the trading post is a good signal of how strong it is. Most runes have the same supply but with different demands. Hoelbrak is always in the top 3 most expensive ones.

Hoelbrak gives a lot of offensive power via power+ might duration + source of might and also is one of the most defensive runes in the game with -20% condi duration.

Exactly to what level you want to nerf d/d ele?

You only ever talk of nerfs, but never explain why you want these nerfs

xDudisx.5914:

rotten.9753:

xDudisx.5914:

The solution is nerf d/d weapon skills or traits or hoelbrak/sigilf of doom etc..

And staff ele, rifle engie and shoutbow weapon skills and traits. Why are you so focused on one celestial build when all of them are imbalanced? Celestial engi is the most often used build along with d/p thief and dps guardian.

Staff ele is fine. It acts more like a bunker/support than anything else. Most of its dmg can be avoided by people steping out of the red circle…

I am focusing in d/d ele because in the beggining of the topic we were discussing engi. And then pvp specialist asked a question about ele. When everyone was talking about engi I was talking about nerf IP, gear shield ,etc.. Also nerfs for heolbrak or doom would be universal and hit war/engi too.

Warrior got hit the most from the might nerf. They also go addrenaline nerf. A small tweak at healing shout trait reducing base healing and increasing the scaling with healing power would be enough.

You focus on D/D, because you lose to it quite frequently.
It requires more skills to avoid its dmg..it’s not a matter of simply walk away from it like you can do with staff, have a staff ele that kills people and suddenly staff ele becomes OP too…oh wait that guy @Lordrosicky was complaining already about staff eles, saying how braindead were and how hard was to avoid their attacks.

MMO Rule n1= as long as it doesn’t kill me, it’s not OP

About your idea that nerfing celestial is not the way to go.
You have 6 profession with a viable zerker build, but none of them get stacked, you have 2 professions that use celestial, but only one of them can be stacked with greater success rate.

You already can’t use celestial as you’ve stated so I don’t see how the nerfing of this amulet would hurt your profession and the other 5, as told already by the OP on page 1, the problem is stacking of celestial builds, not a specific profession alone.

But pls feel free to prove me wrong, find me a successful team that runs double of anything but not celestial..gl

I think you’ve answered your own questions.

You want FACTS, well as you’ve said the ele was considered “unviable” by the community before the April patch, the ele had still access to those traits now deemed OP, we had elemental attunement and shielding and condi clear was not that way worst compared to now,we had already soothing wave adept, it wasn’t that bad really even with the ICD on cleansing water GM…still ele was considered UP.

Those same traits received no buff whatsoever with the patch. Now they’re suddenly considered OP? HOW?

I would agree 100% with you, if teams would stack zerker/soldier/valk/cleric D/D with the same trait set up and would obtain the same results in every single instance, if that would ever been the case then teams would have used double ele D/d way before the April patch….but no double ele, even a single ele was deemed a miracle.

How can you possible tell me that a double ele D/D using same trait set up but different amulet would yield the same results of a double cele comp..when there is no team running anything but celestial amulet?

So here are the FACTS:

-Before April 2014 : same traits + different amulet = Ele is considered UP
-After April 2014 : same traits + CELESTIAL = Ele is considered OP

What more facts do you need?

-edit: about the video I clearly asked you to first try guardian and then ele vs me and my friend, than see for yourself how long you can “bunker” as the point was to establish which profession was able to hold the most in a outnumbered fight. Your answer was :" I can’t play ele"

Arken.3725:

I think quite a few people are reasonable in their requests, it’s just there are those who do not seem to understand/admit the absurdity of what’s going on. From those doing actual detective work being on the side that says there needs to be nerfed vs. those just posting opinions without anything factual backing it up is what confuses me most.

Heck, if you really wanted to boil it down to a most of basic of levels just look at it this way…..class stacking. In fact, there has been less class diversity in spvp than ever before. It’s been posted time and time again but instead of putting a compelling argument on those who think the class is “in a good spot,” we just get baseless opinions.

Faking a natural stance while maintaining a clear biased point of view….

Luckily you’ve given me the tools to dismiss your own claim.
You talk about the negativity of class stacking and with that I agree with you, as this thread focuses on the stacking of eles in PvP by tournament winning teams, I think that asking you to find me evidence of ele stacking prior to the April 2014 patch won’t prove to be too difficult…ty for your time and “unbiased” perspective

Chaith.8256:

xDudisx.5914:

If you are considering blast frost field for +1 aura let’s also consider that d/d can leap on fire field and get 3 auras. d/d still has more

Anyway it is not like everyone is trying to get a frost aura instead of blasting a fire/water field.

Don’t argue with him, clearly he wants to make that point really really bad. How Staff vs. D/D ever became the topic, that’s a mystery tho.

I’m not arguing…because I’m not trying to change people mind which is impossible on a MMO forum. It’s clear that people want to nerf d/d badly, and nothing will change their mind..nothing.

They’re giving their reasons and I’m giving my reasons why it should not, the rest is up to the devs to decide but at the very least I’m giving another point of view, whether valid or not..again it’s not up to you to decide because you’re not a dev.

Why you would ever think I’d be concerned of convincing you of anything…I dunno

edit- I dare to say that I find your reasoning of keeping celestial around and expect everything else to be nerfed around it….rather poor taste, I still respect you as individual but as player who promote himself as TOP player ( that by virtue of the term alone should promote the development of an equal playing field in pvp)…you won’t have any respect from me…sorry about that

Staff has 2 auras that can be accessed as fast as d/d( and frozen aura on staff is aoe), this can have additional aura with MG combo. Blasting staff is a choice not a requirement ( the effect radius remain the same where needed so the trait makes lava font a little easier to hit with), renewing stamina can be triggered (well…almost as good as d/d) on a staff, where a single lava font alone can crit , you can chain skills on relative long CD to rigger RS, multiple times ( even though renewing is 5s cd). At equal skill level a staff ele can dodge as much as a d/d if both uses renewing stamina

-edit- a good ele wins at 100% even without those traits, those traits won’t make a new/average ele win when eating all possible dmg…no, having protection doesn’t make you unkillable like people wants you to believe

@Jarvis

I have been playing with the meta build off and on for a couple of months now. I understand the rotations, the need to break rotations, interrupts, cleansing w/ cantrips/water attunement, how to stack might, etc. – but I cannot kill anything. All the studying in the world isn’t helping because of how long it takes for me to get set up. These are usually the scenarios that happen to me when I’m in a 1v1 encounter:

- It’s a burst class, and I’m killed before I can get through any part of my rotation. Can’t get might stacks, can’t do damage, and breaking my rotation to play dynamically just causes even more problem. This is especially true vs lb ranger & s/d thief.

- It’s a bunker build, and I can’t damage him. I get might stacks up, position correctly, but nothing does enough damage to burn him down.

It seems the only place I’m able to have any success is in a 2v2 situation because I cause so much chaos. However, I usually get cc’d in that scenario (even after I cleanse out of it) and beaten down. All the wins I’ve seen in videos make sense until I try those strategies myself and fall on my face. I’m really frustrated. I keep hearing how powerful this build is, andI like the jack of all trades aspect of this class so much, but I feel like I shine in no situation. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

PS – Here is the build I’ve been using: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/Dagger

Protection, even having “perma” protection doesn’t make you a god

Exactly this @Chaith!

You’re basically enforcing my point, the “problem” that people have with d/d it’s not the trait set up; which used also by staff eles; but rather the skirmishing potential and this is real truth behind the nerf requests. It’s not cleansing water, it’s not elemental attunement, it’s not elemental shielding and it’s not the condi clear potential…because staff ele has got them all( even more condi clear) and it’s still not used.

If D/D is 10, other specs ( shatter; terrormancer; s/d+d/p; med guardian ect etc) are 8-9, where staff is 6-7.
If you nerfs the traits , you bring D/D to 7/8 while staff goes down from 6-7 to 3-4 so…

STEP 1
The Traits are not the problem and obviously not the solution

That leaves skills and amulet as possible solution.

-Shall we increase the CD of burning speed, drake’s breath?
-Add wind up animation to updraft and magnetic grasp?
-Shall we reduce the stats on cele amulet by 50 pts?

xDudisx.5914

Staff is giving more support but at the cost of having much less mobility and less 1v1 offensive power.

This reinforce my point even more, traits are not the problem, despite sharing the same survival traits, you still lose 1vs1 when using staff, so…

Exedore.6320:

-snip.

You’re saying that staff and D/D play the same trait set up at 80%, still there are nerf requests for traits shared by both builds ( elemental attunement, cleansing water etc etc)

I repeat the question : Why is that there are no nerf requests for staff?

-They say that d/d with those traits support too much….but staff ele can support as much with those traits, if no more

-They say d/d can have easy access to protection therefore elemental shielding must be nerfed…I can have 2 auras on staff too; Frozen ground + blast finisher = frozen aura and it’s aoe Frozen aura( for allies too ) and then there is magnetic shield

-I can heal the team more that d/d ele ever will, can support better and can CC more

What I can’t do very well on staff is 1VS1 and that’s the reason, the real reason behind nerf requests. It’s got nothing to do with the support capabilities of an ele

Let me teach you something, on a MMO forum people don’t go to complain about the support capabilities of a profession, they will only complain about the 1VS1 capabilities of a profession.

Nerf requests are normally selfish in nature. If you’d improve the 1vs1 potential of a staff ele..tomorrow you’d see somebody complain how staff ele is OP and breaks the game with its support potential, nobody cares about support in reality, all they want is to win that 1vs1

Say you have a friend to play with in PvP, he’s a good player and can multiclass, what profession+spec you’d like him to play ? Try to give a reason if you can.

I would prefer him to play a thief ( D/P or S/D) or a Mesmer ( shatter with portal ). Nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than seeing a friendly Mesmer or Thief quickly approaching, unnoticed , the point where you’re about to get downed.

You think :" thx god he’s here", you close your eyes for a second and then it happens, your aggressor is reduced to downed state in a couple of seconds :-)

What are your preferences?

Lopez.7369:

Supreme.3164:

With the same reasoning, necro and Mesmer should have not access to energy sigil as they have no natural access to vigor, then air+fire sigil use mechanics coming from ele, so they should be removed too…

Not really. There’s a way to make some sigils supplemental instead of defining. I think Sigil of Air and Fire accomplish that since they’re not that strong. Sigil of Energy is definitely overboard, although it’s not too much on necromancer since changing to staff on cooldown is a big DPS loss.

But Sigil of Doom gives nearly full poison uptime to classes that aren’t supposed to have poison. That doesn’t just make some classes overpowered, but* it robs other classes of a unique role they’re supposed to play in team fights*.

You’re 100% correct on that, a sensible solution would be to reduce poison duration on doom sigil from 6s to 2-3s while maintaining the 9 CD or….remove doom sigil but gives an additional condition to profession lacking poison, so that a condition build remain somewhat viable:

-eles get torment
-warriors get chill

Regarding air/fire, what happens is that both sigils triggers at the same time, dealing well over 3k dmg together, that’s a bit over the top

Sigil of air base dmg 988, reduce to 540 and coefficient 1.0, increase CD to 4s
Sigil of fire coefficient is 0.8, reduce to 0.60

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

jportell.2197:

bluberblasen.9684:

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

True! Very True!
Celestial Amulet must be removed from PvP Arena.
It’s the only way to balance PvP in Gw2.
Anet must remove it asap.

il hope this is sarcasm if not well you know they could nerf a bit the classes that benefit from it too much and buff some builds and classes that barely benefit anything from it.

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

Nerf what exactly? A staff celestial uses exactly the same trait set up of a D/D, still nobody complaints about it, why?
I think it’s got to do with the d/d ele 1vs1 capabilities, basically all complaints are based on 1vs1 scenarios..unless you find me a single :" nerf staff " thread.

Staff eles uses elemental attunement, somes take elemental shielding and they can stack might just as good, so what’s the difference?..you tell me.

After all 90% of nerf threads are based on 1vs1 scenarios

So you think the nerfs need to happen specifically to the d/d weaponset. Okay here goes

• Burning speed-no longer an evade, one of their hardest hitting skills on this weaponset should be interruptable barring them having stability or something of the sort.

• Frozen Burst- No longer a blast finisher

• Cone of Cold-Reduced the amount of healing done with this skill

• Drakes Breath- Reduced the burning duration (again.)

• Elemental shielding- Increase the duration to 10s but move it up to master tier. This may affect staff eles but nowhere near as much as d/d eles.

and increase the health to medium.

Except d/d eles arent using these tools just to survive. They are dominating with them.

You can’t dominate anything if you’re forced at mele range and you lack the tools to survive at that range

Lol then why are d/d eles dominating right now? I posted nimbers from the WTS quals on class/amulet usage. I believe 64% (29 out of the 45) of the players were all ising celestial amulets. 11 of the 29 were eles with warriors and engis tied at 9. Those numbers are still pretty harsh considering the small sample size of the survey.

Personally I don’t care how many eles are found in any tournament, for all I care you could have 0 eles and it’d be perfectly fine for me.

Why ele is deemed OP in PvP has already been explained dozen of times, and all the reasons given steer clear from all the “suggestion” I’ve seen in this thread.

The suggestions I have given would make ele less pronouncing in PvP while not destroying its overall presence in the rest of the game, because after all I and others don’t care who win ESL, WTS or whatever and we don’t care how many eles are used by Abjure, Absurd or whatever.

Seriously there is no end to this discussion, if you want to nerf the ele to oblivion then FINE! It seems there is no reasoning with people on a MMO forum, so go on and nerf the profession to the ground….but limit yourself to PvP ty

jportell.2197:

bluberblasen.9684:

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

True! Very True!
Celestial Amulet must be removed from PvP Arena.
It’s the only way to balance PvP in Gw2.
Anet must remove it asap.

il hope this is sarcasm if not well you know they could nerf a bit the classes that benefit from it too much and buff some builds and classes that barely benefit anything from it.

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

Nerf what exactly? A staff celestial uses exactly the same trait set up of a D/D, still nobody complaints about it, why?
I think it’s got to do with the d/d ele 1vs1 capabilities, basically all complaints are based on 1vs1 scenarios..unless you find me a single :" nerf staff " thread.

Staff eles uses elemental attunement, somes take elemental shielding and they can stack might just as good, so what’s the difference?..you tell me.

After all 90% of nerf threads are based on 1vs1 scenarios

So you think the nerfs need to happen specifically to the d/d weaponset. Okay here goes

• Burning speed-no longer an evade, one of their hardest hitting skills on this weaponset should be interruptable barring them having stability or something of the sort.

• Frozen Burst- No longer a blast finisher

• Cone of Cold-Reduced the amount of healing done with this skill

• Drakes Breath- Reduced the burning duration (again.)

• Elemental shielding- Increase the duration to 10s but move it up to master tier. This may affect staff eles but nowhere near as much as d/d eles.

and increase the health to medium.

Except d/d eles arent using these tools just to survive. They are dominating with them.

You can’t dominate anything if you’re forced at mele range and you lack the tools to survive at that range

-edit : And don’t forget that most ele players are WvW/PvErs, so any suggestion must be accurate

BlackBeard.2873:

Bran.7425:

What would switching the placements of arcane resurrection (down to adept) and renewing stamina (up to master) do to the situation otherwise without changing the traits?

That would delete ele from pvp again, sadly. Not only will d/d become strictly worse than other bruiser builds without ANY vigor (a 100% nerf), but you are also deleting s/f ele (the only other semi-viable spec).

Also, to those asking for elemental attunement to be nerfed, it is honestly ridiculous. Yes EA is probably one of THE most OP traits in the game. However, EVERY SINGLE WEAPONS SKILL, TRAIT, AND UTILITY SKILL that is pvp viable is balanced with EVERY ele build having this trait in-mind. Nerfing elemental attunement doesn’t nerf d/d cele ele, it nerfs the elementalist class as a WHOLE (and only d/d is truly viable).

I personally think that some of jportell’s most recent suggestions (remove evade from burning speed, remove blast finisher from frozen burst, perhaps even remove more burning from drake’s breath) would be enough. Taking away frozen burst shaves an additional ~6 might from the best cele eles (180 power and condition damage).

Let’s not forget that a D/D ele must eat AoE all day long while being targeted by Mesmer and Thieves who can enter/exit battle at will ( thief more than Mesmer).

At the same time, d/d eles do posses neither the health or armour of a warrior, or the block/aegis/blind of a guardian , or the CC pressure of an engy

A below average ele on d/d is already nothing more than a number in a team, his presence does not contributes to the victory of a team, basically you don’t carry on an ele on average, not like a thief or engi.

Let’s not forget where other professions sit when making suggestion on ele, at equal skill level it’s not like a d/d ele trash everything in sight by pressing 1-2 buttons so…

It’s already hard to let go of the evade on burning speed, which is more useful than a couple extra dodges in my opinion, because it combines attack and defense in a single move where you know already that it’s impossible to dodge all the random proc crap that flies around in GW2