Guild Wars 2

SotM is meant to be a CC skill. You can’t have a CC and evade also be one of the hardest hitting skills of the profession. It doesn’t matter how difficult it is to use. If the most successful use of a skill (or profession for that matter) is OP, then it needs nerfs.

Precision Strike I agreed didn’t really need a nerf so much. It hits hard, but it’s meant to be a damage skill. It’s the sword AA that hits way too hard still. And since they’re splitting PvP and PvE now, they can actually nerf the AA without hurting PvE. I would even be ok if they rebuffed PS from its past nerfs if that meant a nerf to the AA chain.

It won’t be countered any worse than it already is though. But this is a very nice amulet for them so you’re right that there’ll be more of them.

It’ll be great only to see skilled players using Rev now. You know, the ones who still see the value of the profession, but instead of whining, they adapt to the changes. Or they whine and then adapt. Either way, they adapt and skill shred everything in sight with well timed CCs and bursts. With the exception of Condi Rev’s torment (which is a torment problem not a spec problem), Rev, I think, will actually be balanced. Welcome to the club that Ele’s were in last season, but they were still played by skilled players and they were just fine. In fact, a good one could still even be a bit OP! You guys will be fine. If you’re dedicated enough to the power build, you’ll do fine. Good warriors in season 1 and 2 even did pretty well sometimes.

Rev still has insane boon output and UA and sword AA still hit extremely hard, and now you can run a Condi spec! You…will…be…fine… It’s not like this is real life. If that was the case, then of course you can complain. :P

“Surge of the Mists: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.”

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH! That skill hit WAY too hard for what it does. The other Rev changes look good too. Condi rev really needed a stunbreak and that’s a suitable skill to add it to.

For all those complaining that power Rev will no longer be viable, awesome! Power Rev will no longer be required on a team. If you are ever required on every single team to make it good, you are OP. These changes are necessary. The only thing I think should have been done instead is nerfing the AA instead of Precision Strike. Precision Strike requires more skill than AAing and it uses energy and has a CD. It’s also reflectable.

So stop crying and actually understand that nerfs to OP specs are necessary. This is a good thing. My favourite professions are Mesmer and Elementalist and they have been nerfed many times. Mesmer especially takes heavy nerfs to skills that don’t need them, but often times they take nerfs to skills that do need them, and I’m glad when they do that. Echo of Memory offered way too much sustain throughout the year, so they rightfully nerfed it. Ele healing was too good before so they rightfully nerfed it. Rev power damage is OP now, so they are going to rightfully nerf it. Rev condi spec needs a stunbreak, so they are rightfully buffing it.

Now, there’s one thing that I think is missing from all these changes:

A nerf to Daredevil’s Vault damage. That skill still hits way too hard. Just nerf it and give the damage to another skill (NOT THE AUTO ATTACK PLEASE).

No.

No.

Just no.

The losing team’s overall score is higher. You get points by killing players and capturing points and objectives. So how did Blue lose when it appears that they got more kills and captured more points? Did red get two artifacts at the end of the game or did you suddenly snowball? There are only a few situations in which a team that was playing better than the other can lose, and all of them result from being outplayed in some way.

Even if you don’t see them coming, it still takes a few skill casts to do any great damage against high toughness opponents. These casts are Mirror Blade (GS 2) and Phantasmal Berserker (GS 4), and then Diversion (F3) shatter to get 20-25 vuln stacks plus Mind Wrack (F1) to continue the burst. You have couple seconds to dodge this which is LOTS, and if you don’t dodge and have high toughness, it likely won’t kill you anyway. So yeah, you’re not running any toughness if that combo is one shotting you. The Mesmer also could have been full zerker in which case you deserve you deserve to be one shot for not dodging, and if you survive the burst, he/she either has to run away, stealth again (meaning you can expect a burst), or pop some other big CDs if he/she doesn’t want to be one shot in return. Zerker Mesmers are almost squishier than Zerker Thieves.

If you get Moa’ed from stealth, skill 5 evades, and you can still use your regular dodges.

OR! Hear me out…you could just NOT use UA with confusion on you. It’s not a bug. Each strike is intended to trigger confusion. UA is extremely powerful and confusion makes you think about when to use it. If by some wild chance this isn’t a bug, then ok. Yeah, it should be fixed. But for now, here’s some info about Mesmers and confusion.

When confusion is applied, it’s generally short lived, so you can easily wait it out and use different skills instead or just play defensively. Mesmers can only apply confusion through Scepter and shatters. Most Mesmers run sword because of the short CD evade and the immobilize. And most Mesmers also don’t run max confusion on shatter because they’re forced to take the Inspiration line, mainly because of insanely high damaging attacks, such as UA. So the most confusion a Mesmer can apply with a single shatter, using the meta spec, is 8 stacks from Cry of Frustration (F2). Mind Wrack applies only 4 stacks. If they’re using Carrion Amulet, the confusion only lasts a few seconds. Wanderer’s Amulet will make it last about 33% longer, but still not very long.

My point is that confusion is counterplay for UA, and changing that would actually be a massive buff against confusion based specs. And you’re a Rev, so if you learn when a Mesmer will lock you down to shatter, you can avoid most of their shatters anyway and only have a couple stacks of confusion up at most. If they spam their shatters, well, then they wasted them and they’re a free kill.

K, I’ll bite.

Learn when Mesmers are going to shatter or when they’ll CC, etc. Then dodge, block, immune or whatever.

If by some miracle you get fully bombed after learning how to avoid shatters (or if their teammates help them lock you down so they can bomb you), then stop using skills. Confusion does significantly more damage every time you use a skill, and it can even proc off a skills that unleash multiple attacks, like Unrelenting Assault. You’ll take a lot of torment damage still because you’ll still need to move, and it’s one reason why I think torment duration needs a strong nerf across the board (with compensation buffs for condi Rev). Most Mesmers run Carrion Amulet though so torment won’t last too long, and confusion will only last a few seconds at most.

If you’re having trouble spotting the real Mesmer, then the profession is working the way it’s supposed to, and you need to learn how to spot the real one. Once you’ve learned how to avoid shatters, Mesmers will appear a lot less powerful.

Maybe this debate of whether staff has a place in high end PvP would be ended if someone ran it in a professional tournament. They, of course, won’t because D/F works so much better with the design of Tempest because it allows the Ele to survive in melee range. This also points out a huge flaw in the design of Tempest: overloads don’t work at range.

I personally think Staff can be played in top tier SPvP, and the only reason it’s not is because it lacks synergy with Tempest. So not because Staff is weak, but because D/F works better. Tempest is about tanking damage, and so is D/F, but Staff is about avoiding damage in the first place by playing at range, and Tempest is designed as a close range spec with no synergy outside of Water and Earth trait line and close range focused weapons.

Mesmer’s primary conditions are confusion and torment, , the effects of which are weak, but become significantly stronger if you use a skill or move respectively when they are on you. Confusion does a lot more damage for every skill you use, and I don’t think there’s an ICD either. Some skills like Rev’s Unrelenting Assault will proc confusion for all attacks, which can be nearly all of the Rev’s health. Torment’s damage is doubled when moving, which you just have to do in PvP (and is one reason why I think Anet needs to reduce torment duration on skills across the board), so again, something like Unrelenting Assault will make you move and therefore you’ll take twice as much torment damage as you would if you were sitting still. So in some cases, using one skill at the wrong time after being condi bombed by a Mesmer can kill you without the Mesmer needing to do anything. All you need to do is spam your skills and you end up killing yourself.

yin.9653:

I do have plenty of condi clear. However it isn’t right that they can deal so much damage AND evade everything and when you clear their condis they go right back into death blossoming again.

There needs to be longer cooldown duration on that death blossom.

Death Blossom doesn’t have a CD. It uses 4 initiative (I think), so what you want is a higher cost.

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, …
…

No, you’re missing the point, it’s not whether you can hit the thief with your CC, it’s whether you can even cast it. A proficient thief will be able to headshot almost all your skills with cast times with the exception of maybe unsteady ground. Furthermore, everytime a thief initiates on you, he will either have basi, and/or shadowshot. So, in order to land your CC, you’ll need to clear the blind with your slow kitten attacks and then CC.

No, i’m not missing your point, …
…

Everytime a thief interrupts, they do around 3k unmitigatable damage. Staff ele’s shortest cast time is unstable ground at 1/4s, everything else is at 3/4s. That is simple to interrupt. I’m not sure you realise how much this disrupts a class. Have you ever duelled any proficient thieves? Ever?

I’ll assume we’re talking about the berserk spec here
.
1) The 3k you’re talking about is critical damage, if you attack or interrupt me when i’m in earth (which i will be for, like, 80% of the time you do that) stone heart will be up, meaning you won’t crit me, meaning you’ll only be hitting me for around 0.8 k. So.. yeah, the damage is pretty mitigatable.

If that 3k is from Pulmonary Impact, then it’s not critical damage. That damage cannot crit. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

My is almost an exact rip off of the Death Magic Necro trait that applies toughness and condi damage reduction after applying a condition. Numbers can be tweaked and this is only a basic idea that could allow DS to be decent while removing the health threshold.

Diamond Skin: For each stack of a damaging condition you apply, you gain one stack of Diamond Skin for 10 seconds. This reduces the damage and duration of conditions on you by 2% per stack, up to 10 stacks.

Maybe to make it more suitable for Earth while also making it more powerful, it could be:

Diamond Skin: While attuned to Earth, for each stack of a damaging condition you apply, you gain one stack of Diamond Skin for 10 seconds. This reduces the damage and duration of conditions on you by 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks.

This would offer 50% condition damage reduction and duration as long as you can attack while attuned to Earth.

Mainly, my goal is to remove the health threshold that Anet is so stubborn to remove. It’s a freaking GM trait. It shouldn’t be mildly powerful above 75% hp and 100% useless below 75% hp. If they want to keep a health threshold, they need to make it useful somehow all the way to 0%. Maybe something like:

Diamond Skin: Based on your health percentage, you remove a number of conditions each time you are struck.

75-100% is 1 condition, 50-74% is 2 conditions, 25-49% is 3 conditions, and 0-24% is 4 conditions.

It becomes significantly more powerful the lower your hp goes. This could create some risky play if you want to deal with a condi bomb by popping some heavy damage reduction below 25% hp. I don’t know. These are just ideas. Maybe an ICD of 3 seconds would work better for removing 4 conditions at such lower hp.

For something fancy, maybe between certain percentages, conditions would affected differently.

50-100% reduces condition duration by 33%, 25-49% reduces condition damage by 33%, and 0-24% removes 3 conditions when struck with a 1-2 second ICD. Again, these are just ideas I’m throwing out there. They haven’t been thought through obviously. I’ll leave the thinking to those who do it best.

Well, the problems with Druid aren’t that it heals too much, it’s that they heal too frequently. That’s one reason why the CAF CD nerf is good. They can’t clear conditions every 10 seconds now. They can’t stealth every 10 seconds now. They can’t heal to full health every 10 seconds now. They have to wait 5 extra seconds, and that’s a long time in PvP.

Another problem with Druid that the CAF nerf doesn’t solve is pet damage. Pets don’t scale with its owner’s stats, so a heavily defensive Druid can pick a high damage pet and just about compensate for the damage lost from picking healing power and vitality over more precision and ferocity.

And this isn’t even getting into the Staff AA.

This wouldn’t solve the problem of condis doing too much damage. That comes from lower condi attack CDs, traits that allow quick stacking and the condition buffs from June 23, 2015. Adding more resistance isn’t good because powercreep and whatnot. So why not just reduce condition damage? Power damage needs to drop too, but that’s a different topic. Resistance could be nerfed as well to reduce the effectiveness of conditions on you by half while not reducing duration. So damage conditons would hit half as hard, vulnerability would only increase damage by half a percent, immobilize would reduce movement speed by 50%, chill would be 33% instead of 66%, and cripple would be 25% movement speed reduction. With nerfs like that, Condi revs could get a buff to resistance uptime to compensate (or just rework it to actually be good).

Spartacus.3192:

Mr Godlike.6098:

I would love to have celestial back on ele…but i would hate this game if Mesmer and Druid also had again celestial….

Cele Ele ranks as one of the most broken builds in PvP in recent history.

That was because Celestial stats were too powerful. It gave you more overall stats than even a 4 stat amulet. If they just nerf Celestial, I’m very sure Cele Ele wouldn’t be broken again. 560 of every stat with a might stacking build allowed for high power and condition damage while still being tanky. But with, say, 425 of each stat with a might stacking build, Ele’s will be doing a lot less damage and be a lot less tanky overall. Just enough for a good Ele to work, but for good players to still be able to take one down.

To the OP, it sounds like you want a way to test out PvE stats. So propose a location in game where you can select test out builds on different kinds of golems. There would be golems just for DPSing, golems that take damage from something and can be healed, golems that deal damage to a DPS golem so you can practice DPS support builds, etc. There should be a golem for every kind of situation. You could also select any stat for any gear slot, and there would be food and utility slots. Skills would be PvE balanced, so, for example, Lava Font for Ele is 8 seconds instead of 6 seconds in HotM. Basically, this area would be the place to test and practice ANY kind of PvE you want. There could even be champions you could try soloing or bosses simulations for groups, which of course don’t give loot. And best of all, golems and simulation zones would be only for whoever is grouped together, so that other players can’t just jump in and “help” you when you don’t want help. Freaking hate it when players do that in HotM. I’m trying to test some numbers people! Putting 25 vulnerability stacks on the golem isn’t helping me… Neither is attacking the Blue Lord, so stop it!

I’ve never even used Reddit believe it or not, so can’t be me!

Yeah. The forums don’t get much activity, so this should be shared on other media before voting is closed. In fact, with more people aware of this contest at all, we could even get more entries. The more the better!

I like this idea. But for the Warrior one, just make it a giant hammer that flattens the enemy. :P

I haven’t looked at the video and I won’t because it’s probably just another evade spam condi thief. It’s by far the cheapest build in the game, but it’s far from the best. It’s OP, but whatever counters it does have are extremely powerful against it. They have poor mobility, their dodge conditions are projectiles, though reflections don’t work because they’re still evading at the same time, so any projectile protecting skills will help. They are easily blocked and dodged, and a well timed interrupt or burst can make them run because they’re squishy against power damage. If you’re fighting alone and you can manage to get a well timed condi bomb against them, stop attacking and they’ll have nothing to evade to remove the condis. The build only has a few counters but those counters are abundant and powerful, which is why you’ll never see a top tier team running it without a real good reason, a reason which probably doesn’t exist.

What I love doing on my Ele and Warrior is popping reflects. That’s called a counter.

It works great against bad P/P thieves who just keep spamming 3. It’s delightful to see the number “10000” appear on my screen for once.

If they do make a pistol elite spec, they’ll find some way to make it so melee oriented that dagger is still required.

Removing class stacking will only temporarily make queue times longer. But with more fun games, more players will join the game which will make queue times shorter. That is, unless Anet finds some way to make games super unfun again…that seems like something easy for them to do.

Why Skyhammer and not any of other maps? It’s not really any better than those.

Is this for PvP? If so, Soldier (PvP version of Trooper) is best because conditions are rampant. You’ll also never need the swiftness from Radiance and increased aura duration just won’t help you more than cleansing a condition. Light Aura can be nice, but again, it won’t help you more than condition cleansing. Soldier also provides toughness which you can never go wrong with right now!

We’ll gladly take a slight healing nerf once we get Celestial back. Right now, it’s our crazy high healing that’s keeping us alive and viable. And even then, it’s super easy to keep an Ele locked down and our long cast times are easy to interrupt. Ever wonder why all Eles run Earth/Water/Tempest? It’s because we have no choice. Without them, we’re too squishy. Plus, no other trait lines have as much synergy with Tempest. This is the result of terrible design. Eles become too weak is one area and too powerful in another. So instead of asking for Ele nerfs, ask for a rework and a Dev who knows what he’s doing.

For now, try learning about Eles and their counters. CCs and interrupts are a nightmare for us. Learn to use those at proper times. Interrupt all overloads (except Earth which should be dodged instead) and heals. Try to keep poison up as much as possible, or apply it when auras are on CD, which you can force with enough pressure. Don’t 1v1 them unless you have tons of interrupts. Thieves, Berserkers, DHs, Chronomancers can all force CDs with constant interrupts and/or condition pressure. Condition removal comes from auras, so high condition pressure eventually works.

TL;DR L2P

Also, why did you post this as a question without asking a single question?

So in other words, Elite specs attempted to hide the flaws of core specs. Totally a good thing!

I think asking for increased defence from an Elite spec is like asking for that elite spec to be mandatory, just like Tempest. Eles have been asking for a base increase to vitality for a while, but instead they want us to be forced into Earth/Water/Elite spec. Removing Celestial and Cleric’s from PvP didn’t help things either. If we want healing, we have to take Sage’s or Menders. Magi’s sacrifices a significant amount of damage for only a few thousand more hp and a teeny bit more healing (hooray, 4 stat amulets are obviously better!). And we have to take healing because the only useful Tempest traits involve healing or enhancing healing. This is through the only GM trait worthy of the GM spot (sort of) and speccing for lots of auras. Earth is also necessary because it reduces damage taken, lowers important CDs and gives us protection on auras to reduce damage by 40% on top of other damage reduction. We’re forced to spec Water and Earth if we want to work at our full potential because Tempest doesn’t work with any other trait lines and stats. It breaks the biggest rule for creating a good elite spec. That is, only two trait lines work well. The rest either don’t work at all or so minimally that it’s not worth considering them. And now with fewer stat options, we’re forced even more into Water and Earth. At least with Celestial, we sacrificed damage but we could possibly spec into an offensive trait line over Earth because we had some healing power, toughness and vitality to compensate. Of course, with the insane burst going around, you had to spec Earth anyway, but if damage was lowered, we’d still be forced into Earth because nothing else works well enough.

Anet doesn’t want bunkers in the game, and yet it’s the only top tier spec for Eles. Now Bunker’s weren’t really OP because you couldn’t kill them. It was because they were always on a point and you only need one player to contribute toward a capture. If the game was made so that the majority wins the point, then bunkers wouldn’t be so OP. You could +1 a point and win it in the end. A bunker would provide the advantage of keeping one player on a point always, even under pressure. And if you can’t cap a point against a bunker, send another player over! I don’t know why the game was made the way it is in the first place…

Personally, I don’t care about the stealth stacking and long lasting stealth as much as I do about stealthing every 3 seconds. Constant stealth and losing your target is by far the most annoying thing in the game, even more than non stop CC. And constant stealth also gives a much more significant fighting advantage than stealthing for a long time because you can burst more frequently with a surprise. Got a solution for that too?

It’s far too overwhelming to go through all these at once, so it’s gonna take a while for me to pick someone. When do you plan to end voting? End of November?

Hammerguard.9834:

condi, power, heal, vit would be op.
condi, heal, vit, power would be op.

That first one is called Sage’s and nobody runs it. So OP. The second one, switching condi and power around is what every Elementalist wants Sage’s to be.

Sage’s Amulet:

+1050 Power
+560 Vitality
+560 Healing Power
+1050 Condition Damage

What we want (or at least what I want):

+1050 Power
+560 Vitality
+1050 Healing Power
+560 Condition Damage

Actually, what we really want is:

+560 Power
+560 Precision
+560 Ferocity
+560 Vitality
+560 Toughness
+560 Healing Power
+560 Condition Damage

But that was OP and it would still be OP. So how about we balance it and give it back so Eles can maybe run an offensive trait line. Let’s do:

+460 Power
+460 Precision
+460 Ferocity
+460 Vitality
+460 Toughness
+460 Healing Power
+460 Condition Damage

This matches it up with 4 stat amulets. If that’s too much still. There’s this:

+425 Power
+425 Precision
+425 Ferocity
+425 Vitality
+425 Toughness
+425 Healing Power
+425 Condition Damage

This puts it just under 3 stat amulets. Take your pick Anet. I would be happy with any of these Celestial options.

I would like to see Necros be able to heal in Shroud, as long as it’s only either Necro’s heals or at a reduced healing percentage from allies. Think about it this way. If a Necro is in Shroud and almost 0% hp, they could be healed back from their allies to full easily. There are plenty of powerful enough healing skills to bring them back to full hp with enough coordination and a long enough Shroud. This would make Necros nearly immortal. And with their crazy high condition pressure, they can’t be given more survivability without sacrificing damage.

Wait…you mean Revs were nerfed to the point that they actually take some skill to play and kill stuff? Holy crap! Who knew balancing Revs was possible. And yet, they’re still extremely powerful when played well, just like how every profession should be. But they actually now die when played poorly, just like how every profession should be?

Also, I just want to go over this whole stability debate. I’m going to go over all of a Rev’s methods for gaining stability:

- Legendary Dwarf Stance has Inspiring Reinforcement on a 10 second CD. Now LDS isn’t viable. So don’t complain that your Ret’s OP stability got nerfed to require skill. Try suggesting ways to make LDS stance viable without making it OP.
- Retribution line has stability on evade. This was actually sort of a buff too. If you are out of endurance and maybe LAS is on CD, you can use UR or SotM to gain stability now. This “nerf” actually gives you more ways to gain stability through this trait. On the other hand, you have less control over when you get it, but then you also have to think about whether you want to use an evade skill and potentially proc the stability when you might want to save it for a few seconds later. It now requires skill and thought instead of mindless dodging.
- Herald line gives an extra stack of stability when you gain stability

I might have missed something, but it’s true that Revs don’t have much stability, but what they do have is actually really powerful. Even with so little access, you’re stability is still far more reliable than Eles and Mesmers, who have bad stability access and require traits, super long CDs, or super long cast time. But all you need to do is evade one attack and get two stacks from one passive trait and one selected trait. I will give you this. The Herald trait shouldn’t be GM. It only applies to a whole two skills. Honestly, it might be more suitable in Retribution or even Salvation, which actually should have more stability IMO.

Now, let’s look at all your stun breaks:

- Riposting Shadows in LAS costs a good chunk of energy, but has no CD. It also evades and gives endurance.
- Rite of the Great Dwarf costs 50 energy and has a long cast time. It can also proc from a Ret trait.
- Facet of Darkness → Gaze of Darkness doesn’t cost any energy, but instead drains energy whenever FoD is active.
- Facet of Light → Infuse Light, while not breaking stuns, can be used while stunned, as long as Facet of Light is active when being CCed.

Salvation is lacking a stun break, which it really should have being a support stance. Revs don’t have many stun breaks, but what they do have is still pretty powerful, especially RS. Also, I didn’t even go over skills that remove conditions, including crippling, chill and immobilize.

Lastly, let’s look at methods that completely prevent CCs from hitting you in the first place without stability. These are called evades, blocks, immunities and probably other names I’m forgetting. Being skilled allows you to use these at proper times to avoid being hit by CCs and even condition attacks. Here are these abilities. It’s a long list:

- Your dodges, which you have two of and can get more through waiting, waiting for less time with vigor or waiting for even less time with RS.
- Riposting Shadows evades and gives back endurance for more dodges.
- Phase Smash with Hammer evades for half a second.
- Warding Rift with Staff blocks for two seconds. This also applies blind.
- Surge of the Mists with Staff evades, CCs, does huge damage and is only on a 20 second CD.
- Unrelenting Assault with MH Sword evades and does massive damage to a single target, but not as much to multiple targets.
- Duelist’s Preparation with OH Sword blocks for 2.25 seconds.
- Crystal Hibernation with Shield blocks for 3 seconds and heals a little.

You have way more sustain abilities to avoid being hit by CCs in the first place. A good Rev has no excuse to complain about CCs. I haven’t even gone into CCs that just prevent your enemy from even casting CCs in the first place.

One more thing I should remind you about. All this, is after all the nerfs you’ve received. But Revs are over nerfed. kittening get real. You’re ability to avoid CCs and damage at all is OP, let alone your crazy high damage. Other professions actually have to sacrifice sustain and survivability to do a fraction of your damage. The most you have to sacrifice is stability on evade.

Anet really needs to stop kittening around with amulets, unless they want to balance out the stats so that 4 stat amulets aren’t so much better than 3 stat ones. Ele would’ve been fine if they just nerfed Celestial, but I guess that takes more effort.

OMG yes, please reduce Eruptions delay time! It’s Staff’s only blast finisher, and it’s really limiting with that excruciating delay. With Frozen Ground, you have to cast Eruption immediately or else you won’t get the AoE Frost Aura. It’s a bit better with Healing Rain since that field lasts a couple seconds longer. However, if you want to blast a fire field, you have to cast Eruption first and then Lava Font or Burning Speed. And I would be fine if you kept it requiring coordination like that if other blast finishers were like that too. It’s probably the best finisher to have and so many other professions and skills (including Ele ones) just crap out blast finishers with no effort. But reducing the amount of blast finishers in the game would have massive balancing consequences, so just buffing Eruption is the easiest and most practical solution. It’s kind of weak anyway aside from the finisher.

What I would like to see with Shock Wave is an actual shock wave. Right now it’s just a projectile that immobilizes foes. Pretty poor for a 30 second CD that can only reliably hit in melee range (assuming you’re not interrupted by the zillion CCs because Armor of Earth and other defensive skills have obnoxiously long CDs). My idea is to make it blast out (and also making it a blast finisher since we clearly don’t have enough of those) and daze for 1 second.

Now we really shouldn’t be asking for too many buffs. Instead, HoT powercreep should be brought down so that there aren’t so many CCs and so much damage. Then maybe we can finally spec into an actual offensive trait line. But we know Anet won’t do that. So let’s ask for buffs to staff! And note, these are just what I would like to see. Most of these changes are likely terrible ideas, but I’m just throwing them out there because that’s what I do.

- Fireball should burn! You’re getting hit by a fall of fire. Don’t you think that would burn a little? It’s power damage is fine because it hits an area around its impact, but a little burning would be just right for it. 1-2 seconds is ok and it doesn’t have to hit hard. This is more a flavour change really.
- Flame Burst requires a half second cast but only does 2 stacks of burning and has a 10 second CD. And again, it’s AoE, but either reduce it’s CD to 8 seconds or give it a third stack or something.
- Ice Spike still doesn’t hit hard for something that hangs in the air for a couple seconds, giving plenty of time to move out of the way. Reduce the delay just like with Eruption or make it hit really, really hard, preferably the latter in order to create contrast from Eruption. The two are too similar, but eruption imo, is better (even though it’s slower and does less damage) because of its blast finisher.
- Frozen Ground imo, has just a tad too long of a CD for what it does. Reduce it to 35 seconds. In my experience, it’s just the one skill that needs a few seconds off its CD to be perfect.
- Lightning Surge cast time reduced by either 1/4 or 2/4 of a second. For a 1.5 second cast time, it’s lacking. The damage boost was nice, but it’s still an issue of being too slow. That’s actually an issue with a bunch of Ele skills. They’re so slow.

This thread is already going through Earth CDs. Eruption and Shock Wave are the only issues imo. Everything else about Earth is great!

Maybe make a poll somewhere to make voting easier?

As long as the profession mechanic can work at range AND melee, I’ll be happy lol. Also, it shouldn’t just be a defence or power based trait line. It should work for all attunements. Give us some traits that help condi damage. Give us some that help healing. You get my drift. Only making the trait line work with defence specs is why we have to spec Earth and Water. The synergies are just too good. It also doesn’t help that damage and CC is so abundant right now that you can’t spec outside of defence trait lines unless you have a myriad of sustain skills, which Eles do not have much of. We have skills that let us tank damageor remove conditions, but not many that let us completely avoid it altogether.

And these aren’t the only problems with Ele. Like why isn’t there baseline stability on Overloads, even though an absurd amount of CC was added to the game? Unless you’re traited for it, a single CC is completely destroy the whole Tempest mechanic. CC doesn’t take Berserkers out of Berserk Mode. CC doesn’t take Chronomancers out of Continuum Split. Even Daredevils, with their super crazy awesome third dodge (yes, I’m being sarcastic) isn’t stopped by a CC, with a couple exceptions. But Tempests, if you Overload and you’re hit by a single CC, you have to go to another attunement and wait 4 seconds and then hope you don’t get CCed again.

It kind of feels like Tempest was made to be almost purely defensive just so that Overloads could be achieved, but they could have just made the Tempest mechanic good and then make the traits work with all different trait lines other than Water and Earth… How much of Tempest works with any Fire skill or trait? Let’s see…there’s healing on auras, and there’s Fire Aura on Focus 5… and that’s it. Nothing that applies weakness on burning…or something that works with burning. What about Air? This line is about power damage and crit damage. But how much of Tempest helps crits give crits or increase crit damage? Well, you have a whole 5 seconds of 10% increased damage after Overloading. But that doesn’t actually helps crits specifically, just damage overall, but only for 5 seconds and after casting for 4 seconds. So once again, nothing to help Air. There’s also Arcane, which also helps crits and crit damage (Don’t know why, don’t ask), and there actually are some traits that work with Tempest! Vigor on crits could give you a little endurance, increased boon duration is useful with Warhorn, and reduced attunement CDs makes also lowers the CD after Overloading. Seriously, use Arcane as an example for how to make an elite spec. There’s something that works with every other trait line. There are crit traits, condi traits, boon traits, power damage traits, defence traits. Hell, just make Arcane the next elite spec!

So how much of Tempest helps Earth and Water trait lines and specs using them? Quite a lot! Earth has protection on auras and protection reduces damage to 40% with Tempest, there are traits to help keep an enemy still or slowed down to make hitting them with Overloads easier, and there’s Stone Heart and Diamond Skin to help reduce condition or power pressure. Let’s look at Water. Well the main, and almost required synergy of Water and Tempest is Cleansing Water with Invigorating Torrents. This makes all auras cleanse conditions, and auras are a big part of Tempest. The Cantrips trait also works with IT. Water is also the healing trait line and Tempest has one particular trait that is a must with any build (mainly because the other two are absolute crap, especially for a GM spot): Elemental Bastion. So with Earth and Water, auras grant a cleansed condition, some healing, and 3 seconds of protection, all on top of what each aura does. And since you force us to Overload in, or near, melee range, we have to spec as defensively as possible and spec for healing because that’s all that Tempest can do. The trait line does not support speccing outside of Earth and Water.

/endrant Got that off my chest.

TL;DR: Tempest sucks. Damage specs suck with it and you can’t spec anything else ’cause powercreep and whatever.

Eles are the jack of all trades profession. We have 4 attunements that all do different things with different stats, and yet we have to pick one amulet with only 3-4 stats, which ends up making certain attunements much weaker than others. Another thing that forces Eles into a support role is that damage is so high and Eles have very few ways to avoid it. They have to heal through it and tank it most of the time, so without healing power and at least one defensive stat, they’ll die quickly unless they’re running a range weapon and are good at running away. Even ally peels won’t help them much if they’re too squishy.

There are only two viable amulets, and only one is actually being used: Mender’s and Sage’s. Both have healing power, vitality, power and one other stat to help with damage. And the reason Sage’s isn’t picked is because its healing power is so much lower, and such high condition damage is far more useless than some extra crit. Every attunement has power damage attacks, but only two have condition damage attacks. Take a look at the trait lines. Earth is the only one that really helps condition damage. Fire has more traits that help increase fire power attacks than condition ones. There are so few traits that actually help condition damage, so why would anyone pick an amulet with half the healing of Mender’s and so much condition damage that would end up being wasted because of the lack of condition attacks and condition damage traits? You have to pick the amulet that helps with power damage because that’ll go a lot further for any Ele.

Don’t take my numbers too literally. They’re very much rounded and general.

foste.3098:

keep the initial on cast self heal but replace the healing tics with ‘’allies that are standing in this well siphon health equal to 20% damage they deal but deal 20% less damage’’ reduce cd to 30 seconds.
This plays more in to the whole vampire health siphon side of necromancer and makes the well unique compared to the mesmer heal well which your suggestion turns it in to.

I can so see people trolling with the 20% damage reduction.

I’m getting crashes in HotM. Can’t be even on for more than a couple minutes.

Well…I consider Symbolic more OP because Longbow imo is way easier to counter, but a good team can remove a player’s ability to counter it so in the end, it’s more powerful, which is why I think Medi Trapper became meta over Symbolic with high end teams. I haven’t really observed why one is meta and one is just “great”, so I’m going by simple reasoning and little in game experience comparing the two.

I used to enjoy Mesmer. I still do, but I kittening hate using CS and I just suck at Mesmer in general…too many bad habits that I just can’t break!

mysticsicness.7598:

answers in order:

Condi ele not viable.
Ele defense still decent.
Ele always best in a team fight.
Warhorn not viable.

I enjoyed the guide! I really like that you went into what a rotation is. I kept hearing that term but just assuming it meant a short combo. I also liked that you explained some of the uses of Conjures, which don’t get any love nowadays.

Something I think would be really helpful to add is the info that you can switch attunements while casting (exception being Overloads). This is especially hand with Meteor Shower. You start casting it, and swap to any attunement for the passive effects or to get a head start on the Overload CD. And speaking of Meteor Shower, you can also cast Lightning Flash anywhere while casting it and it won’t cancel. This includes casting from max range and getting even more range! So in a way, you can sort of cast Meteor Shower from 2100 range! None of this really strictly applies to staff, but it’s always helpful to have it mentioned in any guide because every Ele should know about casting/swapping trick, and I think it’s especially useful with staff because of the long cast times like MS.

Another trick I find handy for mobility is doing a 180 turn around (a very handy bind to have) and then popping Burning Speed. This is helpful for making unexpected movements, escaping and map mobility.

Dahir.4158:

Zintrothen.1056:

There’s no doubt about it. D/F Mender’s is still superior to everything else in PvP. I’ve been toying around with this build, but it’s…meh at best I find.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMMANOgdOAGNAcYilNAjYFkBGBDPgAwF0dvGYPsA-TJRIAB9+AA2uMgP7PAwJAAA

It doesn’t heal well and there’s no power, but weakness is nearly permanent and burning does good damage, but that’s all it has running for it. There’s no bang with it. Overload Air is only useful for the aura, vulnerability and lightning field. And just like with every Ele build right now, it’s super prone to CC, even with HC. It’s the best condi build I could make up using GoEP. I’m going to try it with Viper’s and probably be disappointed, but will try it anyway. I can see Viper’s working with good teammates who can back you up, but I can see good enemies taking you down just as quickly.

You’re trying too hard to play condi with Nightmare runes and Torment/Leech sigil—those aren’t gonna help you win, especially the amulet with no vitality on it.

I think I told you already in the [ele] guild chat, but Sage is the way to go. If you want to play condi then use my build. This is the best condi build.

https://tinyurl.com/condibuild123

What you need to do with this build is pin them down with Signet of Earth and use Fire #4 (it helps to use the Snap function in options so the Fire #4 skill lands on the player). After you’ve used those two skills, you’re free to burst with Cleansing Fire and your Evasive Arcana dodge roll in Fire. Feel free to save your GoEP for something else; it’s entirely up to you.

If you want proof, here’s me roaming with it in wvw (GoEP is not used here, but still the same build. I used Feel the Burn instead.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLS8fYsg0w

My reasoning for Sigil of Torment is that it’s an AoE cover condition, and with high crit, it’s always up. Though yes, Rune of Nightmare probably stretching things lol.

I definitely agree about Sage’s amulet. It has all the stats needed for a condi build. It’s kind of like Celestial, but glassier. And with almost no crit, Sigil of Torment is obviously extra worthless lol.

I really like the Signet of Earth idea, but not so much Arcane. What do you think about running Earth and using the signet trait? This gives you a permanent 180 toughness in all attunements, though you do sacrifice SH or DS. I’m just having trouble buying that some more good boons and better dodging is going to be worth it over reduced Earth CDs and more damage reduction. Plus Final Shielding has suuuuuuch a loooong CD. So I’m wondering what your reasoning is for running Arcane over Earth? Don’t get me wrong. Arcane has some really nice traits, but also some lacking traits. Obviously my bias for Earth is making it hard for me to see the strength of Arcane, so help me out here!

There’s no doubt about it. D/F Mender’s is still superior to everything else in PvP. I’ve been toying around with this build, but it’s…meh at best I find.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMMANOgdOAGNAcYilNAjYFkBGBDPgAwF0dvGYPsA-TJRIAB9+AA2uMgP7PAwJAAA

It doesn’t heal well and there’s no power, but weakness is nearly permanent and burning does good damage, but that’s all it has running for it. There’s no bang with it. Overload Air is only useful for the aura, vulnerability and lightning field. And just like with every Ele build right now, it’s super prone to CC, even with HC. It’s the best condi build I could make up using GoEP. I’m going to try it with Viper’s and probably be disappointed, but will try it anyway. I can see Viper’s working with good teammates who can back you up, but I can see good enemies taking you down just as quickly.

Remember to check your guild tab when you log in for an invite!

Each trait line has a trait to enhance a set of utilities. Right now, it’s as follows:

- Conjures = Fire
- Cantrips = Water
- Signets = Earth
- Glyphs = Air
- Arcane = Arcane

Arcane is clearly about boons and the glyph trait gives boons. Arcane skills are guarenteed crits, but why would the Arcane skills trait not be placed into Air, which enhances ferocity and crit damage? The only reason I can think of is the name of the utilities: it matches the trait line name. That’s it! Arcane skills belong with the Arcane line. Nothing else about them matches the trait line other than their name. BlackBeard’s absolutely right that Arcane skills should just be renamed and placed in Air. It’s a simple rearrangement really. Change the skill set name, move the trait to Air, move the Glyphs trait to Arcane.

I like Criticals as a new name. It’s about as simple as you can get for what they do lol. It also sounds kind of dumb, but whatever. We’ll just pretend it’s a placeholder name till there’s a better one. The new rearrangement would be as follows:

- Conjures = Fire
- Cantrips = Water
- Signets = Earth
- Glyphs = Arcane
- Criticals = Air

Some other trait rearrangements would also need to be made as well.

Resurrecting should be more difficult than stomping. If resurrecting now becomes too difficult, even with an organized group, then maybe they should reduce all the CCs going around. And while they’re at it, reduce the amount of stability going around too.

And you know, they could have also just reduced the resurrecting power of Scrappers and Druids too… This change kind of just adds more powercreep to the game. However, it does make resurrecting more difficult which was the goal. They probably could have made a worse change, like making stomping quicker. God help us if they ever do that.