Guild Wars 2

Looking for PvE help? Check my signature (newest guide at the bottom)

I have no guide for the actual process of levelling though, but you did the right thing by not popping straight to 80: use the rest of the levels to take your time and learn the mechanics, and most importantly learn how to dodge. Good luck!

posthumecaver.6473:

That %20 DR is an illusion

BlackBeard.2873:

The worst part about this change is that the class is about to get hella-passive.

After the change, for pvp you will be stuck in a 1v1 role, which means you don’t really have a role.

People who LOVE the class will keep playing with earth/water/arcana, but will enjoy it way less b/c they have lost 4 skills (either attunement-swap bonus as a skill, or dodge-roll skills). This will be a pretty ez-mode spec, and way boring for most people who love the FEEL of the class now. You will hear lots of qq about this spec b/c it will be strong in 1v1’s.

Air/Water/arcana d/d or d/f eles might creep into the 1v1 scene, as well, but will won’t see high-level usage b/c it will also be lack-luster for actual pvp roles.

Auramancer won’t be as bad as it currently is, but will still be worse than d/d. There isn’t enough active access to auras for this play-style to be truly strong, and fire aura is just bad. If the passive on-crit and on-stun access to auras is frequent enough that could see play as well, but once-again, you are building almost entirely for passives.

Scepter is a dead weapon with fresh air damage reduced unless they actually address all the trash skills weighing it down (especially the auto-attacks outside of air).

Staff support will not be a pvp-thing.

This, very much this.

I am traditionally a support player. I really LOVE timing my water-swap-dodge accurately so that I end up healing and cleansing as many teammates as possible. I find that this is the signature move of the DD ele. This, along with the mobility and the versatility, gives me great satisfaction.

Make me choose between Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement = Make me choose between two of the core traits that make me enjoy my support role with this class. It does not matter the new traits, they have very little effect on my active support role, therefore they have very little effect on my fun.

MyPuppy.8970:

Mesmers needed a buff, they got a big one. Eles didnt need a nerf, they got a big one.

But the worse is that I don’t really mind a nerf but I really have a problem with losing a playstyle that I have enjoyed for so long

morrolan.9608:

BlackBeard.2873:

morrolan.9608:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

morrolan.9608:

It must be said though that with HOT from what I understand the base health of all classes will be standardised to the same value so Ele’s will get some value from that.

Where do you get that from?

The original livestream 2 weeks ago on the changes to existing traits. And I’ve had it confirmed by someone in the know. They stated that base stats will be standardised across all classes.

You are mis-interpreting what was said. What they are doing is increasing all the base stats by a few points to partially counteract the loss of stats from traitlines. The rest of those stats are going on gear/amulets. They have never insinuated that all classes were going to be getting the same health pools.

Nope no misinterpretation, they said all base stats were going to be standardised.

I cannot remember the exact quote but what they meant is that all attributes will be increased for all classes. All attributes are already standardised at 926 (used to be 916) and they will increase this to 1000. The base derived attributes for each profession – such as health and armour – will not change, as far as we know.

If everything else remains constant then technically it implies that the base profession attribute differences will be slightly less stringent.

Edit:
For example, at the moment the ele has 10,905 base health (926 vitality * 10 + 1,645 base profession health) and the warrior has 18,472 health (926 vitality * 10 + 9,212 base profession health) so the warrior has 69% more base health. With the announced changes the ele will have 11,645 base health and the warrior will have 19,212 which will decrease the base health difference to 65%. Therefore this is nothing tremendous and anyway we do not even know all the facts necessary to draw solid conclusions

I expect a super strong synergy between tempest air and fire so that Sw/F is the new DF.
Well I don’t expect that, but I hope for it, I pray for it, I beg for it!!

I’ll be sure to watch this! And beware commentators, I’ll pay close attention to what you say about PvE

Kodiak.3281:

Gaab.4257:

I just don’t get the logic.

It’s so core, everyone uses it -> let’s remove!

The problem with this mentality is not everyone does use it. I haven’t used Elemental Attunement in over a month. In fact I’d have zero points in Arcane if it wasn’t for Blasting Staff in most cases.

Are we talking PvP?

Raif.9507:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Raif.9507:

The fact that staying in one attunement is a viable way to play the class makes me sad.

It is only viable in PvE. And only if your group is at least decently efficient. And only because PvE is designed with a philosophy that is completely different from the rest of the game: your opponents do not move dynamically. For this reason, absurdities like the power of staff fire camping can sadly exist.

I know, but it makes me so sad. The class isn’t difficult, it’s not the “piano blah blah blah” it’s simply keeping track of cooldowns. Even the fact that PvE is geared that way makes me sad. The whole fun of elementalist (in my eyes) is the comboing, the weaving of attunements.

I also do think that conjure builds are gimmicky in my eyes (powerful, but gimmicky), but that’s another topic.

So you are asking for DF
You are right my friend, this is the only build that is worthy of true elementalists. Unfortunately it has been nerfed and HoT may nerf it even more.
But I believe that aang DF can save the world.

Raif.9507:

The fact that staying in one attunement is a viable way to play the class makes me sad.

It is only viable in PvE. And only if your group is at least decently efficient. And only because PvE is designed with a philosophy that is completely different from the rest of the game: your opponents do not move dynamically. For this reason, absurdities like the power of staff fire camping can sadly exist.

Yeah PvE=Dungeon + fractals
Then there is LS, WvW and PvP
Know your game modes.

Also I did not say “since the game was released”

morrolan.9608:

It must be said though that with HOT from what I understand the base health of all classes will be standardised to the same value so Ele’s will get some value from that.

Where do you get that from?

That is very nice to hear! Glad I can be of service

I never understood why they insist on giving conjures charges and limited time when we only use them for one skill then ditch them (ok maybe not LH).

If you left a year ago then it is possible that you missed the guide that Haviz and I wrote for the PvE ele. We cover all the optimal builds, including our favourite: DF. Check my signature

Also, if you are looking for historic changes then you should look at the chronological posts in Keyz’s thread as well as my old DF thread. We always post about how patches affect our builds.

Tree.3916:

Step 1. Open Google search engine
Step 2. Type “define permanent”
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Make the realization that Anet hasn’t technically stopped working on a particular area of the game.

Define working

They have stopped producing things for PvE. That’s a fact.
Now if they are working without producing anything that is great, but I am not sure knowing this helps us very much.

Ouroboros.5076:

Honestly guys, get over it : you will not find in this game your typical MMO based on challenging instances REQUIRING gear & builds min-maxing.

This game is BAD at dungeons. They tried multiple times, and I’m fairly confident that they got really bad RoI on those game updates. The bad community response to the Aetherpath was probably the nail in the coffin, I’m fairly confident that only a tiny portion of the playerbase even finished it.
The Fractured patch “fiasco” (not a real fiasco but still very underwhelming) was just the confirmation of what they were already suspecting at that point.

I think they have enough experience now to say that this game does not benefit from new dungeons, and that a substantial part of the community has NO interest in difficult, instanced PvE content aside from what is already in game.

At one point it is good management to stop investing in areas where you failed multiple times, and try something else.

I sincerely hope (for you, I’m mostly done with PvE now) that HoT will bring its own way of providing PvE challenges for PvE fans, but be ready to get into it with an open mind, as I’m fairly sure you are running into massive disappointment if you expect traditional dungeons and raids in the expansion.

Once upon a time, the devs gave us fotm 50-80.
It was a place of great skill and min-maxing. It required no gear. And if you were really stuck you could always spam hammer guardians and experience what the good players had work hard to achieve anyway.
This was the PvE I liked.

See? It is not that Anet is incapable of making content that satisfies us, the problem is just that they tend to remove it because … reasons ….

In fairness, they tried. The fractured patch was an honest attempt at developing content that caters to us. I believe that they understood that a great game needs prestigious challenges, that do not necessarily cater to the masses. They understood that mediocracy does not make a game shine and succeed in this harshly competitive market. And so they worked on the patch. But they did this without consulting us. They ignored everything we had told them, they set themselves on a course with their own unchallenged vision – or actually with no vision: they blindly drove themselves into a wall of failure.

Sine then, nothing happened. No communication, no content, nothing.
Anet, please stop hiding in the corner and come talk to us. We’ll tell you what to, and we promise to be gentle

katniss.6735:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

katniss.6735:

(Punch me if Shockwave tooltip is just a bug.)

Aaah the tooltips

In my view, it is like poetry.

I don’t understand this reply. You linked a minor in place of my GM trait topic.

It’s a pattern.

The tooltip of Lingering Elements has nothing to do with what this trait does.
The tooltip of Evasive Arcana is erroneous.
Many other tooltips shown during the specialisation stream were erroneous.

Wait and see

katniss.6735:

(Punch me if Shockwave tooltip is just a bug.)

Aaah the tooltips

In my view, it is like poetry.

ArthurDent.9538:

With the new update changes and persisting flames being merged with lava tomb, I think the new optimal dps rotation will actually involve going down every 10 seconds or so for the free extra lava font. Not sure if any groups will actively use that.

I am pretty sure every group will actively not use that

Guys, there is no debate here. The only question is how will the devs allocate the 1400 compensating stats points on gear and amulets.

Haha! Haviz and I found this trick a while back but we could not manage to make it work in PvE – little did we know that our characters are too old! Good catch

Thaddeus.4891:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You are definitely right.

But for the sake of balance I would gladly let all other classes have access to conjures, just so that they know how it feel to dedicate valuable utility slots to such useless nonsense

I have no problem taking Icebow or lighting hammer with my Ele. But if it,s really a problem, maybe you could talk about it to the Warrior, he have it even worst with the banners.

Well they can drop the banner and still pick it up afterwards!
IB and LH are fine in PvE now, but once they “put them in line with other conjures” they will be as useless to us in PvE as they are in PvP now

Thaddeus.4891:

Wander do you know this thing called ’’balance’’. You give different strenght and weakness to different profession so they don’t feel exact replica of each other.

To add to the mistake rabidsmiles pointed at already, you also forgot about Engineer and Revenant which don’t have weapon swap.

Elementalist don’t have weapon swap, but they have Attenument to balance that.
Engineer don’t have weapon swap, but they have kits to balance that.
Revenant don’t have weapon swap, but they have Legend to balance that.

You are definitely right.

But for the sake of balance I would gladly let all other classes have access to conjures, just so that they know how it feels to dedicate valuable utility slots to such useless nonsense

Long term problems with ele you say?

JonPeters.5630:

I do agree that the 5 point minors need looking at. I think the Earth and Water ones are in an ok place right now but Fire and Air need work.

Jon

(source)

The air minor is still terrible and redundant.
The fire minor is not going to work with Lingering Joke Elements, and it is random enough to prevent strategic use: we are the masters of the elements, not the gamblers of the elements, this does not work for us.

It seems that the devs have failed to take into account the constructive feedback we have kept giving them for more than two years.

I would like to give detailed comments on the changes that they propose for HoT, but the truth is that I am tired to saying always to same things. I wish they would discuss with us. I am incredibly disappointed.

Titanimite.2534:

OreoWolf.9564:

Pls. I oneshot a mediguard with LH in pvp and he called me cheese. CONFIRMED OP.

/s

That’s his own fault for sucking at the game. Blind and Aegis hello! LH is so slow he could easily have perma blinded you.

LH doesn’t need a nerf it’s not OP by any means. All of these poor changes to Elementalist are making me want to go back to Thief. #RipEle

“/s” means sarcasm off, that is, everything said before that sign is sarcasm. We all know that LH is not OP. We all know that conjures are not usable outside of PvE. Apparently the devs balance the game for PvE too, by nerfing our damage but

but

but

Why in Kormir’s name would you buff staff and nerf DF ?

I just can’t understand.

The flame barrier change is a sad joke.

First, it does not work with lingering elements, which is just a continuation of an older sadder joke.

Then, I know that the devs said the numbers are not final, but let’s take a look at them. 20% trigger change on attuning to fire. Fire attunement has 10s recharge plus 1.25s attunement swap cooldown (most likely) so 11.25s real cooldown. Therefore, as you can expect to get a trigger once every five times you attune to fire, then you can expect to get a fire aura once every 56.25s. The aura lasts 3s, so the expected uptime of the aura is 3/56.25=5.3% if you attune to fire exactly on cooldown (optimistic).

I find this uptime really low. But this is not the entire picture. It is a random proc which prevents any strategic use. This trait will be as unreliable as Arcane Precision, and therefore it will also be inconsequential.

I am so disappointed at the changes to the air trait line that I cannot bring myself to think about how to save DF

Well if you spec into the incredibly strong fire trait line (flame barrier so OP and totally not RNG based and totally works with lingering elements, sunspot imba) then when you grab a conjure you get an incredibly strong fire aurahahaha no I can’t do this.

Don’t forget about the incredible synergy it used to have with our class mechanics and traits!

On the other hand we are getting access to geomancer’s training (-33% duration on a number of crucial conditions) = less cleansing required, and we get geomancer’s defense = less heal required.

Considering this I would not mind if the devs reduced our cleaning and healing capabilities, as long as the alternative explained above is compensating enough. The idea is acceptable, the devs just need to work on the numbers.

I have one problem with the principle though. The devs stated that they want to nerf Arcane because it is “too strong”. The truth is that Fire, air, and earth were always way too weak. With the proposed changes earth will be more interesting, arcana will be less interesting (although still very desirable) but fire and air are still lacking. By the same token, many of our skills are terribly weak.

Thank you for doing this.

There is likely a big mistake though: I am almost certain that the devs were using strength runes during the stream, thereby resulting in a 45% increase to might duration – which is reflected in the tooltips. Therefore you should adjust the might durations shown from the stream to take this effect into consideration: only Pyromancer’s puissance has its might duration actually inscreased (10s → 15s).

Yes indeed, this is very sensible

As we will now specialise fully in any three trait lines, the traditional ways of naming our builds (ex: 66600) do not make sense anymore. Instead I propose that we name our specialisation using one letter for each trait line.

Fire = F
Air = R
Earth = E
Water = W
Arcane = A
Tempest = T

So now our specialisation names will be looking like this: DF FRW (Dagger/focus Fire/air/water), DD EWA (dagger/daggger earth/water/arcane), etc.

The devs said they would be reading our feedback over the weekend. I am not going to wait until they have set their minds to not changing anything about useless traits before I tell them

Love you devs =*

But hey, we have the incredible Inscription trait that now comes with cd reduction, glyphs new meta!

Devs, merging useless traits together does not make them good.

Is it me or we are all hoping that the Tempest spec will save us?

They want to make IB and LH more in line with the other conjured weapons, ok.

Devs if you are reading this you need to understand that the only reason we are using IB and LH in PvE is because of their damage. Reduce their damage and we won’t use them in PvE anymore than we use them in PvP, that is, we will not use them at all.

Conjures need to be “broken” for us to use them, because otherwise they are almost completely useless.

It is time to face the truth guys. In fact I do not want conjures to be “broken”, but I want even less to fill my utility bar with useless tools.

The problem with conjures come from their mechanics: we give up all our weapon skills, we give up most of our class mechanic, we give up the effect of many traits (alacrity traits already affect so few of our spells, with conjures they affect nothing), and as soon as we want to retrieve any of the many things we give up to use conjures then we completely loose the benefits of the conjured weapon. It simply does not work.

And no, getting a fire aura on grabbing a conjure will not change a thing. Although I applaud the fact that you finally understood we need traits that affect conjures.

Conjures need a buff, not to their damage, but to their mechanics.

Gaaroth.2567:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

8.7s, so 0.3s less than the cd of on-swap sigils, just to jumble things up a bit

Thought the same

Actually I was not thinking enough when I wrote that

The attunement recharge will be 10 without Arcane and 8.7 with arcane (10/1.15=8.7).
But you cannot swap attunements at will: we have to take into account the attunement swapping cooldown. The attunement swapping cooldown that we have now is 1.625s base and it can be reduced to 1.625/1.3=1.25s with 6 points in arcane. As they mentionned the new attunement recharge will be 10 it is likely that the new attunement swapping cooldown will be 1.25 base and it is possible that specialising in arcane will improve this by 15%. We could therefore expect a 1.25/1.15=1.09s attunement swapping cooldown. But the devs did not mention anything about attunement swapping cooldown, so we cannot be sure.

I expect the real attunement cooldowns (swapping cooldown + recharge time) will be:
10 + 1.25 = 11.25s base
11.25 / 1.15 = 9.78s by specsialising in arcane

Therefore, if my expectations are not too pessimistic then there will be no issue with on-swap triggers.

Laraley.7695:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

No information on any reduction to attunement swapping cooldown from arcana btw, it is almost as if it slipped out of their mind

Didn’t they say something about 8 seconds when you have Arcana?

Attunement swapping cooldown, not attunement cooldown

I want to be a monk too!

No information on any reduction to attunement swapping cooldown from arcana btw, it is almost as if it slipped out of their mind

Isn’t the 10s cd not global but per attunement-boon ?

Most likely fire air water

Elemental contingency might become a good replacement, especially considering the many news ways of generating auras and the increased synergy of aura-related traits. I am not too worried

KaneZ.4910:

Fire :http://i.imgur.com/HOLoIGu.jpg
Air: http://i.imgur.com/sedmwsr.jpg
Earth: http://i.imgur.com/fzRs1qr.jpg
Arcana: http://i.imgur.com/DH70jqk.jpg

Screenshots by Dulfy

Thanks a lot

I missed the ele part of the stream. Tell me: they did not change the fire/air/earth adept minors?

I remember about a year ago they stated that these traits need a rework.

FGS’s tooltips are pretty strong though

Well yes, you unlock them progressively as you progress in the reward track. But once the reward track completed, the ranks of the traits is no longer of any importance.

You guys realise that since specialisations make you go fully in each trait line then the rank of the trait does not matter anymore? When you spec into air you get access to all traits at once, regardless of master or grand master rank, and if you don’t spec into air then you are completely denied access to these traits. Ranks are cosmetic now.