Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

o_O

:/ ….. :I …. :O

THIS GUY PLAYS INTERNET

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger
3. Mesmer

http://pastebin.com/e9276EXr

Take into consideration that almost all past leaks have been legit and that this shouldn’t have a professional edge to it as the described skills are clearly lacking many details.

Here’s hoping this is genuine.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hi all!
Once again, thanks for the feedback!
We’ve been discussing elementalists quite a bit recently in PvP and one of the things that’s brought up constantly from feedback is the internal cooldown from Cleansing Water. This is something we feel is out-dated and we’ve been playing around with removing the ICD totally from PvP. We’ve got some concerns, but would love to hear some feedback on this.

In general, we’ve got quite a bit more stuff coming. As before, we can’t say what these things are just yet… But there’s a bit of stuff that will shake up the meta. We’re really looking forward to it!

-Karl

Hey Karl,

I feel that with the changes to elementalist condition removal related traits this would be a suitable time to revert cleansing water with the signet of restoration revert. Many players will take advantage of fresh air to maximise their skill casts which will then restrict them from spending both 30 into water and 20 into arcana for elemental attunement as it’s now a master tier trait.

Soothing disruption and cleansing wave in master tier also prevents both combined with cleansing water, something which could result in slightly overpowered on demand condition removal and reduce the need for ether renewal given the signet of restoration buff. I do however feel that some potentially “overpowered” cantrip builds could result from this depending on whether or not zealot stats are released in spvp but the trait limitations to optimise signet of restoration will obviously prevent maximising the use of cantrips.

I would like to know though, what are your thoughts on diamond skin when considering the strength of a reverted cleansing water?

Please change skyhammer to team death match.

Hello,

In the heart of the mists I have been finding increasingly large numbers of elementalist bones as of late which show concerning evidence that the species may not be extinct as previously thought.

I am looking for some colleagues to assist me in my field work that focusses on observing potential habitats that the species may be found in and if the species is in fact confirmed existant then the focus will be aimed on replication of these habitats for ex-situ conservation.

Berserker amulets and warriors are forbidden when in the field as this could cause detrimental disturbance towards the species and decrease likelihood of contact. A prior knowledge on the species is also extremely important as is a great deal of patience.

Thank you for your time.

I give this post a week before a dev checks and removes it.

So brave. Best of luck to you sir.

Elementalist (buff)
Elementalist (buff)

I’m so good at this.

Kyon.9735:

Zuik.7158:

Signet of Restoration: Removed the split on this skill so that the signet passive heal amount will be increased in PvP to match the current PvE amount. – Clearly overpowered. Now the class actually has a heal that is almost as good as other classes.

So the class doesn’t have any rights to get heals as good as other classes do? Even with the buff, we still don’t know if people would actually use it again because in this condi meta right now, Ether Renewal is the ideal heal. Maybe let’s wait 1-2 weeks after the patch comes through and reassess it after that.

Zuik.7158:

Armor of Earth: Reduced recharge from 90 seconds to 75 seconds. – They obviously didn’t take into consideration the thief initiative pool. If elementalists run both the utility and the trait for proc that means a thief might only have enough initiative to steal the first protection and stability and will have to wait a few more seconds.

It’s pretty much the same right now except elementalists can have it activated again faster. If you’re only gonna make an argument for thieves, I think a good thief should know how and when to burst. Why would you burst someone with Armor of Earth up when you can just lie in stealth and wait for 6 seconds (not counting boon duration).

Zuik.7158:

Water Trident: Added 3 seconds of regeneration to up to 5 allies in the radius. Don’t even get me started on this. Why should this class get all the regen? I mean if they take the water grandmaster trait this means they can remove another condition from their group after waiting 5 seconds from elemental attunement. Seriously overlooked, this class has enough sustain already and does not deserve it.

Without traiting 30 points into Water line and traiting for Cleansing water, 3 seconds of regeneration looks useless. Not to mention most scepter builds don’t trait heavily in the water line because it’s more of an offensive weapon set than a defensive one.

Zuik.7158:

Burning Speed: This ability now evades attacks. – Great. So now I have to wait a second before I can hit the elementalist again. Nice one ANet.

You might want to give a better reason than that because it surely sounds like a predator complaining how it’ll take him 1 second longer to kill his #1 prey. If you reverse it, elementalists will say “Great, now I can survive 1 second longer”.

Zuik.7158:

Frozen Burst: This ability is now a blast finisher. Really? So you’re just saying spam your skills and win. They don’t even have to think about how to use an AoE chill anymore because LOL I HAZ MIGHT.

As for this, I’m have to admit I’m pretty much surprised. But one thing, you need a fire field to stack might. Going into water attunement to stack up might means you won’t have your water attunement available because it is on cooldown when you actually need it for heals.

I agree that other skills should have been buffed first because they’re a lot more lackluster than the buffed ones. But hey, I think any elementalist would take any kind of buff instead of getting none.

See. This guy gets it.

Despite the tooltip saying it has a cool down of 2 seconds it is in fact 5 seconds when in use. Please correct one of the values.

This is occurring within sPvP to be exact.

scerevisiae.1972:

4/10, too obvious.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m gonna try get job in balance team with this.

Okay so I’m sure many of you are dreading the new elementalist changes as much as I am and are already creating elementalists to use as mains as I type this.

Signet of Restoration: Removed the split on this skill so that the signet passive heal amount will be increased in PvP to match the current PvE amount. – Clearly overpowered. Now the class actually has a heal that is almost as good as other classes.

Armor of Earth: Reduced recharge from 90 seconds to 75 seconds. – They obviously didn’t take into consideration the thief initiative pool. If elementalists run both the utility and the trait for proc that means a thief might only have enough initiative to steal the first protection and stability and will have to wait a few more seconds.

Water Trident: Added 3 seconds of regeneration to up to 5 allies in the radius. Don’t even get me started on this. Why should this class get all the regen? I mean if they take the water grandmaster trait this means they can remove another condition from their group after waiting 5 seconds from elemental attunement. Seriously overlooked, this class has enough sustain already and does not deserve it.

Burning Speed: This ability now evades attacks. – Great. So now I have to wait a second before I can hit the elementalist again. Nice one ANet.

Frozen Burst: This ability is now a blast finisher. Really? So you’re just saying spam your skills and win. They don’t even have to think about how to use an AoE chill anymore because LOL I HAZ MIGHT.

As an elementalist using scepter in spvp I find that blind is actually my main defense against condition necromancers but is also extremely useful against warriors using a hammer to avoid chain cc.

Please never change blinds. Learn to read your own conditions and auto-attack first!

PSX.9250:

Elementalist = Chihuahua. One look and you will “awww” when they go into melee range to roll all over the place to start tickling you.

Only difference between us and a Chihuahua is that nobody wants us.

I would post potential problems and balance suggestions but after playing the elementalist for so long I find it hard to believe it would be anything more than a waste of my time.

I agree that these balance changes are minimal and do not solve most of the problems the class has in sPvP and I don’t understand how they think it’s acceptable to completely ignore many suggestions that would benefit the class in the game mode without making it too strong.

The balance team needs to start understanding the situation of the elementalist and do something about.

I hope you find a more enjoyable game to play Solus.

Conncept.7638:

That doesn’t sound overpowered to me, in fact it sounds a little underpowered and to tell the truth really really boring to use. Anything we could do to make it a little more fun?

And about the aura build, I run my own take on it. If you have two weapon auras and the four signets it actually only takes about 35% boon duration for permanent protection.

I like the idea of it creating a -inc damage aura tbh. Would be extremely useful in group fights when using the water GM trait. As for the fire trait that creates a flame aura, I honestly don’t think it’s worth it as it requires constant use of signets to keep up the buffs rather than smart usage and not all the signets are especially useful. Running all signets and those traits that allow you to spam auras to provide boons to your party that they don’t necessarily need when you could focus on damage instead isn’t fun in slightest imo.

I personally wouldn’t find buffing my party for -inc damage boring, especially with the use of weapon based auras and maybe even tempest defense. The boons from air and earth would also make it valuable if going into tempest defense for consistency.

Carighan.6758:

Well, what about rebalancing the existent abilities and traits then?

This is a suggestion for the long term balancing. I wouldn’t expect a new elite skill to be released until after the living story season 1 ends at the earliest. I truly hope they have looked at some skills and reworked them a bit though as some are clearly lacking enough to be pointless to use.

oZii.2864:

Elementalist utilities are selfish Guardians mostly are not. Elementalist weapon skills provide the support to allies. They are different even though the remove conditions and burn. Guards take purging flames for groups mostly there are other options for self removal.

30 honor , contemplation of purity, purity trait, soldier runes. Save yourself draws all conditions from nearby allies I’m sure that factored into the design of purging flame.

The fact that the elementalist is built on selfish utilities for a start is quite sad considering the only real group contributing weapons are the staff and focus (which barely contributes at all). Also considering this is a selfish skill should it not then have a greater effect on the caster than purging flames?

I would not complain if they made it more group friendly.

scerevisiae.1972:

I think Ele needs build options that don’t involve cantrips and high water/arcane that don’t melt under pressure like warm butter.

Exactly. This skill would open up the usefulness of the signet grandmaster trait in earth. It would mean you can take the 10% extra damage in 600 range, 10% damage when endurance is full to benefit in PvE and the 5% against bleeding foes. Plus the grandmaster trait which would give you a constant increase to you health pool and provide sustain throughout the fight and a non water based heal with signet of restoration active and an on use defense from the elite.

Alternately you could take signet reduction traits with the grandmaster trait in spvp, the 10% damage in 600 range. This again would provide some much needed healing outside of water and on demand defense when outside of earth. It would bring signet of air into play as a valuable movement speed buff with a stunbreaker and counter blind skill.

I do agree on what people are saying about auras though, it was my initial thought. Though they would have to create an entirely new aura for this or it would be misleading for pvpers that think that frost aura only reduces 10% damage.

Ross Biddle.2367:

So you want to make ele’s more warrior-like, because warriors are the shining example of balance in the game at the moment? Passive healing on a signit, with active boons, hmmmm…..

I mean, I like oZii’s devils advocay. If an ele took all that boon duration and pumped out all that stability, I’d love to arcane thievery it off them for my mesmer. So while I have my concerns, sure, lets buff the eles so I can self buff my mesmer.

I’m not saying make the class like a warrior. I’m saying give the class what it clearly needs. Besides, that’s just the way signets work and I’m pretty sure a signet elite will be released for the class regardless of my suggestion so why not suggest something that the class needs before it is released?

oZii.2864:

Devils advocate I boost boon duration out to +75%.

17.5 seconds of stability and protection using your suggestion
10.5 seconds of stability and protection from armor of earth.
If I have 10 in earth 10.5 seconds of stability and protection at 50% health.

So 38.5 seconds of stability and protection. This would most definitely open it up for eles to run lyssa runes also.

Not saying I agree or disagree just my initial thoughts on it’s potential.

I think the elementalist is one of the classes in most need of stability and protection. Ofc boon duration would be effective but then again so would it be for warrior. The boons are easily removed by a mesmer and necromancer as it’s simply two defensive boons.

I didn’t propose it to be like this to allow insane bunkering builds though it would make them more useful in spvp. I think this would be extremely useful for damage based builds when entering melee or under pressure.

WvW is clearly way beyond balance atm and so the ability to stack boon duration for some awesome roaming shouldn’t be the basis of how to buff the class but the skill would be useful to avoid fast zerging. As for PvE it would be useful in tricky situations when under pressure, simple as that. In spvp it would open up a whole load of potential builds to play and the boon duration comes at a cost of less damage as boon duration isn’t hugely accessible through runes.

The problem with the class is defense. You can say sustain all you like but the reality is it has that. It can spec to heal for ridiculous amounts that make a 1v1 scenario endless.

So why not hit two birds with one stone? Here is the elite I propose to solve the issues.

Signet elite – provides boons similarly to ranger and warrior though we could receive swiftness, protection and stability on use and have vitality as a passive. Perheps 8 seconds of swiftness, stability and protection on a 60 second cd?

I don’t see how this should be considered overpowered. It would open up the signet build options, give the elementalist some on demand defense that can be countered with boon removal and would give us a useful elite that doesn’t force us to play differently when in use. It would also provide d/d eles some benefit when choosing the fight in a cap point for spvp, something that is a major issue currently.

Another option, as suggested by many would be to have an aura on activation that reduces our incoming damage. Ofc something more defensive than frost aura would have to fill this gap. This would not only make use of signet builds but also bring in potential for aura sharing builds. It would also not create huge imbalance through increased boon duration as it would stay unnaffected and therefore would be of full benefit to players using damage specs without the duration which we currently rely on. More feedback please!

Please Anet, at least consider this. I’m sure any of you that play the class as obsessively as I do understand how much this would help solve the balancing issues.

-edited duration values and added swiftness to benefit d/d and reduce stability upkeep, possibility of aura instead?
-passive stat changed to vitality to avoid imbalance through healing and instead provide the needed initial defense

All feedback from experienced players on this proposed skill is much appreciated.

798 power
569 precision
569 healing power

This would allow a trade off for extra sustain instead of damage for both guardian and elementalists, something which would increase build diversity and potentially allow the elementalist a style of play it needs to be valuable in spvp.

798 power
569 power
569 power

Needs more power.

roamzero.9486:

I dont think its fair to compare skills cross-class. I think there is a reason ele utilities have higher CDs, presumably because of the utility of having 4 attunement weapon sets at their disposal which a class like guardian doesn’t have.

The extra skills the class has at its disposal have harsh cooldowns and are comparably weak. This is how the class was intended to be. It may be unfair to compare to other classes but in this case there’s obviously a huge imbalance.

I could go over many classes condition removal skills to demonstrate how inferior cleansing ire is but I’ll just focus on one similar skill to get my point across.

The Guardian utility skill purging flames removes 3 conditions from the player and surrounding allies. It creates a fire field for 5 seconds and burns those that cross it for 5 seconds. It has a 35 second cd.

The Elementalist utility skill cleansing fire removes 3 conditions from the player and burns surrounding enemies for 3 seconds. It has a 40 second cd.

I think I made my point fairly obvious with this example. The skill could have its cd reduced but this would create an overpowered case when using cantrip related traits. An easy solution would be to increase the burn duration and give it the stunbreak effect which is clearly necessary in spvp.

Please don’t overlook this obviously important skill in this obviously powerless state.

They could simply double the cd on warrior sigils when using fast hands, though that would still create issues.

Phaeton.9582:

Avead.5760:

It would help if we had a dev responce on this.They cant nerf the sigils to compensate cause the relative difference in power will remain between the rest of the classes.
It would also be weird if they put some hidden rules that only 2 on swap can take effect every 10 sec.Not only that but there is a problem with crit sigils as well although not as much with how frequent warrior would get the different effects especially if the rest of crit sigils get balanced and you dont see only air /fire being viable.
Is it weird that i think this actually didnt even cross their mind?? :O

They could also up the cooldowns on swap sigils to 20 seconds, that would be a nice idea for quite a few reasons IMO

Sadly that would just cause bias against Ele and engi though. I really do wonder how they’re going to deal with this as it’s quite a shift in class strength.

As for the fast hands comment. Yes it’s bread and butter for a warrior in sPvP but it should never have been that way to begin with. They need to reduce skill cds, give them additional effects and remove that awful trait.

mini.6018:

Zuik.7158:

@ mini

Warrior:

5 second intervals between weapon sets A and B

A-5-B-5-A-5-B-5-A

A-B-A=10 seconds meaning each sigil triggers every 10 seconds

Ordinary class:

A-10-B-10-A-10-B-10-A

A-B-A=20 seconds meaning each sigil triggers every 20 seconds

Still wrong .Try again.

Tip : Each sigil set can proc once every 9 (10)seconds not 20.

Please link the source where it says sigils will only proc one at the time and not 2 sigils will proc at once.

You know what. Kitten you, I should be studying not explaining simple maths.

You take two sigils per weapon set, they activate every 10 seconds. That’s 2 activations every 10 seconds (1 per sigil). Please read my previous post more carefully.

@ mini

Warrior:

5 second intervals between weapon sets A and B

A-5-B-5-A-5-B-5-A

A-B-A=10 seconds meaning each sigil triggers every 10 seconds

Ordinary class:

A-10-B-10-A-10-B-10-A

A-B-A=20 seconds meaning each sigil triggers every 20 seconds

mini.6018:

Zuik.7158:

Hope they just nerf the weapon swap trait which realistically is overpowered for the points it costs otherwise this is a scary thought.

Imagine the AoE they will be getting out of this…

Geomancy, Hydromancy, Fire and using battle.

Hambow will just become even more dangerous.

Other classes cannot proc 2 sigils at once ?Wow you are serious?

I really don’t understand what you’re going on about mister.

Hope they just nerf the weapon swap trait which realistically is overpowered for the points it costs otherwise this is a scary thought.

Imagine the AoE they will be getting out of this…

Geomancy, Hydromancy, Fire and using battle.

Hambow will just become even more dangerous.

Mrbig.8019:

Blackjack.5621:

someone is mad lol, we play double warrior because my main class isn´t viable btw

devs said ele is balanced dunno whaddya talkin bout

Yeah we have regen on scepter 3 now. That mean’s AoE condition removal… every 5 seconds… which means… we wait 5 seconds because attunement regen put it on cd.

LOGIC<ANET

Blackjack.5621:

EverythingEnds.4261:

^
This.
Do rly want to tell me, that Warriors dont have enough Counter mesures to Condis or not enough stability without Lyssa?

exactly that´s the point, warrior cant deal with conditions and cc without lyssa

On the topic of dealing with conditions as much as I’d like to say you’re trolling I can see how this is possible if you drop bow as a weapon and don’t use Lyssa.

As for cc, troll is troll.

Wouldn’t be surprised if they nerfed it to kitten with the balance patch tbh. Either stability or aegis (maybe even both) will go for sure.

Worst case scenario they change it to converts all conditions into boons.

Completely agree. Despite PvEing my way into an abundance of skill points (so this won’t really be an issue to me) it’s going against their ideals for the game at release.

The “smooth introduction for new players” line is clearly an excuse for adding unnecessary sinks to the game and it’s certainly an unattractive lie which most of the players are well aware of.

If they’re going to add any form of grind based unlocks how about they start adding some unique rank based armour skins to give more incentive to play rather than to avoid sPvP entirely.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zuik.7158:

I don’t know. I’m just excited that they might actually make the class enjoyable to play.

It’s already a joy to play. To survive in without going extreme that’s the trick

Sorry my bad wording. I meant it’s unenjoyable in spvp because of the relatively (to other classes) weak defense when building for something that contributes to the team (fresh air s/d or zerking staff) as the old meta build just isn’t viable anymore.

I love playing the class though.

Tom.8029:

Cleric’s also has toughness. Why wouldn’t you have fun?

Flying around the place whilst healing yourself does not contribute towards the team. Once upon a time….

I don’t know. I’m just excited that they might actually make the class enjoyable to play.

Try tempest defense with d/f using zerker in spvp. It’s surprisingly effective if you use arcane burst and wave when theyre disabled. Tbh you can deal about 9k on light classes with burning speed if you trait properly.

WARRIOR BUFFS ELE NERFS LOL.

I really believe they will buff us with an understanding this time.

My bet is on a major change to dragon tooth, some rework on focus fire skills, changes lightning staff skills, restoration of pre-nerf stats and possibly some changes to signets or glyphs if we’re lucky.

Class: Elementalist (arcane s/d bursting)

Anything that moves and has eyes.

Having come to Guild Wars 2 from Lotro this is something that endlessly bothers me both in sPvP and WvW. In Lotro the WvW style gameplay involved 24 man raids against each other and some really amazing battles came out of this that lasted well over 10 minutes at times. The reason this was possible is because of the lack of AoE both in radius and availability and believe me when the one class that did have comparably more AoE used it effectively they wrecked other raids. But even then the damage and cd in comparision to single target damaging skills was significantly lower.

In Guild Wars 2 the availability of AoE skills both in terms of cd and radius is plain ridiculous. Theres very little strategy in a 3v3 at a cap point other than mass AoE because some weapons and builds are purely AoE based without any loss of damage. Take 24 vs 24 in Guild Wars 2 and you find yourself in some mindless AoE zerging mess that has absolutely no pace and requires very little in terms of knowledge and tactics to be successful.

It really is a shame because those raid versus raid moments in Lotro were so kitten fun and one of the main issues thats really keeping Guild Wars 2 from becoming a better competetive pvp game is the correlation between AoE and victory.

djooceboxblast.9876:

Zuik.7158:

I have a great idea. Lets unmake fear a condition so that we all have absolutely no chance of beating a necro and so that all meta builds can revolve around chain fearing.

RIP those daring few who choose not to use 3 stunbreakers for utilities.

WHAT? This change would actually make it harder for necromancers to chain fear since the overall duration of fear would be decreased. Are you actually aware of how many fears are available to a necromancer? Doom (DS – 20s cd (17 traited), 1-1½s fear), Reapers mark (Staff – 40s cd, 1s fear), Spectral Wall (Utility – kitten cd, 1s fear). The fear duration noted is without condition duration which complements the idea behind this thread.

If you get chained by these abilities you are horribly bad and should just quit the game!

Are you aware of how accessible condition removal and stability is in this game? I dont think you quite understand how this would impact on things.

I have a great idea. Lets unmake fear a condition so that we all have absolutely no chance of beating a necro and so that all meta builds can revolve around chain fearing.

RIP those daring few who choose not to use 3 stunbreakers for utilities.

Seriously though. Some classes have access to stability in better forms than others, the same with condition removals. Imagine how simple it would be for a necro and mesmer to remove boons, lockdown and chain fear at mid if it wasnt a condition.

lol i hav been plain ele 4 a yr and its way too strong

sometimes i go afk thn come back and all guys are like what the kitten ele wut wus dat and they all dead coz afk skills too strong

nerf ele plz

Cool story bro.

Tom.8029:

Hey guys.
I actually tried tournaments for the first time a few days ago

Having only played 9 tournaments in your GW2 history I dont think you understand the situation with the class. You can play your best and have a ton of luck but you will still be at a huge disadvantage with the Elementalist.

This is coming from someone who spent a month theorycrafting in sPvP for the class and trying to make it viable but the truth is its not worth it. You will stress yourself out when you start playing against truly decent players. In the end I made an engi and ran around feeling like a god, after which I made a meditation guardian and wished that d/d or s/d arcane ele was as powerful as that, because it simply isnt.