Guild Wars 2

Any nerf to damage is a huge massive buff to the WvW heavy zergball meta.

Mash Hog.5672:

Lets talk specifically about our Attunement Mechanic and how that hurts us instead of helps us.

I already talked a bit about attunements here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-ELE-tism-Balancing-The-Elementalist/first#post3477748

But to further add to it, our weapon skills don’t synergize with our attunements either. If you look at other classes, their weapon skills have synergy with their class mechanics. Mesmers get to create clones which aid their F1-4 powers. Necros can gain additional life force. Warriors gain adrenaline faster with some weapon skills. Rangers buff their pets.

Then there’s the whole using F1-4. Other classes, you hit F1-4, you get an additional ability. Without needing to trait for it, mesmers get to blow up clones for added effect, engineers get an additional ability based on the utilities they equip, warriors get an additional powerful attack, rangers get pet abilities, necros get a whole new health bar and additional attacks, thieves get a range of abilities they steal with, guardians get extra buffs.

Our F1-4, no synergy with our weapon skills, and no additional effect other than being a weapon swap.

As I see this thread fall out of the first page of the balance forums, I am beginning to wonder, do we really have a problem or do people not care about the state of elementalists anymore?

As evident by a few posters above, we see claims that there are no problems with elementalists. Why is that so? For me, the problems are clear as day in sPvP and solo WvW roaming. In WvW zerging, you are shoehorned into the support role with staff, everything else is subpar.

However, in pve, elementalists seem fine. Is this really because elementalists are truly fine in pve or more an indictment of the current ease of gameplay in the pve environment?

Or is it a case where we ancient ones stick too much to the past and can’t look past the old tested builds? If that is so, please for those of you who say that elementalists are fine, tell us where you play in, what your builds are and how you play it.

Teach us old dogs a few new tricks!

I honestly doubt we will get any balance changes until at least another 3-4 months.
Or till ESO or Wildstar launches. *tongue-in-cheek.

Your survey won’t matter. All balance seems to be based on only sPvP.

The 2 major issues for me as an elementalist are:
1. Lack of survivability
2. Class mechanic being a restriction than a benefit.

On the lack of survivability, everyone has covered it well. We have the lowest hp and armor. Somehow, our heals are not the strongest instead needing skills to augment our healing. As someone commented, the heals on our weapon skills are not 0 cost. Each time you heal, you can be interrupted in cast and/or not attacking. Healing as an act is usually handing the initiative to your opponent because you are now taking a reactive action for self-survival. More heals isn’t the panacea.

On our class mechanics, I see 2 major issues. One being our class mechanic giving us 20 skills. However, a major trade off is our skills have far higher cooldowns. That means your capability uptime is poorer and leads to a weaker sustain. Another problem with 20 skills is we have the illusion of being more capable when on truth, our 20 skills barely give us more capability than the 10 which most classes have(not counting that the AA chain is 3 attacks, which add more capability to the 10). So we suffer from increased cooldowns, while having questionable increased capability over the 10 other classes have. And finally, our mechanic does not add bonus capabilities. Other classes’ mechanics gives free added skills in the f1-4. Our f1-4 is a restriction locking 15 skills away from us at any given point.

Our class mechanic needs to give us more.

And no, do not give the excuse that you can trait for attune meant swapping to give benefits. Most classes have traits for weapon swap benefits too.

Josh Davis.6015:

(Please don’t hurt me.)

Josh, while we can promise not to hurt you, the genuine problem is the months of neglect and disregard that has probably turned many people off and possibly even hostile.

It certainly didn’t help either when every single concern laid in front of the spvp devs that elementalist changes for Dec 10th are still not up to scratch were basically brushed aside with the devs saying elementalists are doing great internally.

To really pile on the troubles, even elementalists are divided among ourselves because elementalists have so many issues, that each of these areas which elementalists play in(ie. pve, wvw zerg, wvw solo roaming, spvp solo queue, tpvp) all present different issues. It is just so broken in so many ways that nobody has a clue to how 1 bandaid can patch it up for so many different aspects.

I don’t envy you. You come on and posted, hopefully on a conciliatory tone. Everyone’s expectations will be raised and you will need to deliver a lot to pacify us all now.

LordByron.8369:

Earth 3 is not a viable option against thieves..
Not to mention its a skill that was infact NERFED and used to be another movement skill.

Finally i just remember that RTL nerf is due to spiritwatch making your Whole theory totally baseless……(and it was already if applied to www)

In short, if you don’t spvp, you don’t have a voice in this game when it comes to class balance?

There is something unfair about this time gating of the ascended cloth.

Light armor will take much longer to complete as a set, compared to medium and heavy.

Bethryn.4087:

Nev.5316:

You still haven’t proven anything. Can you prove that such a meeting took place? Anyone can claim anything in this thread doesn’t make anything facts til it has been proven.

Ah, the Ostrich method.

Occam’s razor, kid. Look it up.

Occam’s razor says the simplest explanation is the reason behind it. Not the simplest conspiracy.

And Occam’s razor simply says Desolation fell because they are not good enough. Stop perverting Occam’s razor for your conspiracy theories.

Before seasons started, discussions all over the WvW forums were about how Desolation were in a spiral, going into a massive free fall. Some even say Tankolation will do a Blacktide v2.

Cue to today, Desolution is accused of tanking and should be a gold league server.

WvW law #2: there are no reasons, only excuses by the winner and loser.

Wvw roaming: Elementalists
Wvw zerg: Elementalists

With the obvious out of the way…

2nd easiest to kill
Wvw roaming: Guardian – without their zerg, they have no surprises to spring. Just grind them down. You will be surprised how squishy they can be.
Wvw zerg: Mesmer – most zerg mesmers are not well equipped to duel and are very squishy.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists will get more build diversity in this patch, not less. Cleansing Water and Elemental Attunement on higher tiers will barely affect current builds.

There will be more build diversity? There has always been build diversity! Question is which builds are viable?

The tower maze spawn is way too over the top. I know there are people who claim they can solo the maze, but I doubt they can solo a full spawn. I think most likely, a zerg probably cleared most of the spawn leaving them to “solo” their way up.

Which brings us to the biggest flaw of the dungeon. People who have not unlocked all the travel golems are going to suffer. Who is going to help them climb up the tower?

If this spawn rate does not change, I honestly see this dying faster than Teq.

LampGhost.9658:

@ Eniav … Haha, are you crazy?!, they didn’t need multiple guildgroups, and we definitely had about 100 guys! Look at the screenshot i included!…

Oh wait.

Yeah! Look at all those hidden asurans at your feet! At least 9000 there!

Interestingly….despite all the wins by Tankolation, the leaderboard shows Tankolation still as rank 10, which means still in silver league.

https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en-gb/eu/wvwmain

When you say pvp, do you mean spvp, wvw solo roaming, wvw zerg running, wvw dueling?

Each class plays quite differently in each of the environments, and in the little enclosed environment of spvp(which I don’t care about), it does sound like the nerfs and restrictions placed on the other classes could make elementalists viable.

Pity it still screws over the elementalist for the other environments. I’m resigned to the fact that as an elementalist in the other environments, we will never get a cookie.

yanoch.7051:

Please tell me what 1 hit ability ou speak off? Since the nerf to stunt runes you have to be a really unlucky player to get the whole HB hit.

What about this Ele build?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdBJw9cBuEo

This one also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gAif9qE4WY

Hooray, you found a couple of burst builds that can kill 1 person every 60s, assuming you either have fast fingers or a nicely programmed macro and the target is as intelligent as a non-dodging golem dummy

In WvW, we have 2 names for such builds. “Free lootbag” or “Deadweight”. Pick your poison.

Look at the 3 traits, they are ALL used for the 1 burst attack. Then look at the traits. Notice how little sustain and defense you have in such builds?

For me, nothing will change with my 0/10/0/30/30 build if I use my twin daggers.

Currently, I trait Bolt to the Heart, Soothing Disruption, Cleansing Wave, Cantrip Mastery, Elemental Attunement, Renewing Stamina and Evasive Arcana.

Post patch, I move Cantrip Mastery to adept, Cleansing Wave and Soothing Disruption take up my master and grandmaster slots. Elemental Attunement goes to master and Renewing Stamina goes to adept.

So in short, no buff. Instead, there is a slight nerf if I want to get pedantic about it. Instead of a 60% attunement recharge for investing 30 points in Arcane, I now only get 30% attunement recharge.

PS. I used to run 0/10/10/20/30 on weeks when the matchup are against weaker servers and I don’t need as much survivability. On this build, I go with Cleansing Wave and Soothing Disruption. It will no longer be possible post patch. Need to add that I only care about builds in wvw. I don’t really care about builds in pve since anything works in pve. I don’t care for spvp.

Currently, most WvW support elementalists run a variant of the 0/x/x/20/20 build which can easily be swappable between d/d and staff.

As much as I tried to look ahead and theorycraft all kinds of builds, I cannot find or see any build that improves on survivability and support for WvW.

30 Arcane
Most will take Elemental Attunement(V), Renewing Stamina(VI), Blasting Staff(VIII) or Evasive Arcana(XI) for their traits. Other than some traits being swapped around between master and adept, the 30 Arcane is not any different from current builds, apart from a lack of returns from the attunement recharge for 30 invested points. Easily swappable between d/d, s/d or staff(mostly by replacing VIII).

20 Arcane
Most will take V and VI, unless you are staff where you might drop one for VIII. Again, lesser returns from the 20 points as you gain less in attunement recharge compared to someone who doesn’t invest points in there.

30 Water
While Cantrip Mastery being swapped to adept is welcome, 3 very common adept traits are now being moved to the master tier, Aquamancer’s Alacrity(I), Soothing Disruption(III), Cleansing Wave(V). Cleansing Wave is the must have trait. Without it, most wvw guilds will drop you for a guardian. While on paper, it doesn’t look very bad if you invest 30 in water, it still represents less choice for any wvw support elementalist.

20 Water
This is where you now have very hard choices. If you never took Cantrip Mastery, now it becomes an automatic choice because most wvw elementalists take at least 2 cantrips for pure survivability. Your master option is now a very difficult choice of 3 formerly adept traits.

This is a straight out nerf for WvW support elementalists.
And I do believe many don’t appreciate that a heavy investment in Arcane is sacrificing a lot of stat points from other lines. Yet many cannot drop Arcane because so much survivability depends on investing in Arcane.

“The only hours that should matter are the hours I play!”

I think this is what I distilled this thread down to.

The arcana changes are most likely going to force more people down heavy arcana. Almost all generalist builds today runs at least arcana V and/or arcana VI.

Seems now even more will go heavily down arcana. Not to mention the attunement changes means all those points are giving much less of a return.

Big nerf…..

For everyone who accuses Desolation of tanking, I present to you a conundrum.

Do you let Desolation win, and force them to promote to Gold?
Or challenge Desolation, beat Desolation and perhaps prove yourselves wrong?

Desolation is desolate again! Thank you for the update and new achievements.

Not!

I would argue that teleportation is more a mesmer’s ability.

White Raven.4368:

Stop picking Desolation to win,it is making me nervous.

Winning it is bad! Desolation will get promoted to the gold league. We must throw the our matches!

Congratulations to Vizunah Square! Well won, a lot of respect to you.

Nohealz.7189:

Maybe its time for GoD to do some GvG and and slap some people down a notch

Good luck getting any interest. The guild leaders of GoD have trouble getting anyone in guild to follow any build at all, nevermind getting 20 to a specific group builds.

KeeZee.7312:

Another statement pulled out of thin air…………

Look at my buffs. See that torch?

I have to sincerely disagree. On Desolation, I have logged on twice since Monday and got the Outnumbered buffs.

Queues are returning to normal, or random pvers are realizing that they have to put in more than 1-2 hours of effort to get their achievements and thus quitting.

All the best Viz! I will be supporting you all the way.

IMHO, I think the AoE nerf is not so much a nerf, but rather an optimization to allow for servers to handle large WvW loads. This “nerf” guarantees that only 5 are definitely calculated for that AoE, rather than 5+indeterminate number due to block/evade/etc.

It has almost absolutely no effect on spvp though.

How do you transmute the white and legendary? Is there a specific order? eg. Keep legendary name, or keep white stats, etc? Or does it not matter?

We should make Karma a currency only obtainable in WvW.

Afterall, wvwers have too much karma and pvers are constantly whining about the slow gain of karma. Let’s just remove karma gain entirely from pve. We get more people in wvw(disrupts the stacked servers, helps the lower population servers).

Then build a whole new set of rewards using karma and badges of honor in wvw.

I’m one of those who hasn’t done the new Tequatl, thinking that it will be way too crowded and congested, and I would wait for a while till the hype dies down.

Unfortunately, it’s not the hype that died. The encounter itself died.
I feel like I’ve been hosed, because now I can’t find anyone doing it.

EFWinters.5421:

The problem is that Devon has painted the whole WvW development team in a corner. When he said outright that the forum community was a vocal minority that can be disregarded, he basically told the forum community that they were completely wrong about the Bloodlust buff, as well as the league system.

Each time I hear a community manager or dev post that the forum posters are a vocal minority, I despair.

It simply shows that the community managers or devs refuse to believe that the forum posters are a representation of the real world population. They simply are denying the idea that a statistical sample can be true. They are probably the same people who believe polls cannot be believed and that statisticians are nothing more than voodoo witchdoctors.

Romek.4201:

On EU its boring and anoying – no balanced matches anymore in all brackets

The EU servers have always had a different playstyle from the NA servers. What I have noticed is how EU servers prefer to fight out in the open rather than siege up keeps/towers.

Bloodlust, in my opinion, helps NA servers but not EU servers.
In NA servers, people are serious about defending keeps and towers with a massive array with siege weaponry.
If you are defending keeps, the expectation is the attackers will gain the bloodlust buffs and then attack the defended keep or tower with an added advantage. The defenders can then weigh the options, get out there and reclaim the bloodlust buff or hold out defensively.

In EU servers, only a select few servers play in the NA mentality. The rest care more about massive open warfare. As a result, the Bloodlust buff hurts the EU mentality because the side with Bloodlust is greatly benefited.

Hence why this Bloodlust buff seems to drive away EU players more than NA. They are being railroaded against their wishes into playing the NA style.

The weekend effect shows quite clearly what the EU servers are about. During the weekends, everyone gets on and has a big massive fight. Weekdays, we know people are working and there are fewer quality fights to be had, so people stay out.

I can imagine it’s “impossible” for them to determine a server’s WvW population.

How do you tag a player as a WvW player and not a WvW player? Even if you want to use the number of players who queue for WvW within a week, what about weeks when a server decides to take a break to “lessen their WvW login for recruitment purposes”?

I imagine a transfer cost that is modified by a server’s WvW ranking is a bit more feasible.

At best O(lg n). More likely O(n), but possibly O(2^n) if the reporting has to be broadcasted.

I always assumed the Unique tag was a silly excuse to make ascended rings rare and exclusive in the past so as to prevent power creep.

I see that excuse flying out of the window now, along with any justification for why the Unique tag should ever remain. If a person can wield 2 Incinerators or 2 Frostfangs or 2 Moots, what is really so unique about those trinkets anyway?

Gobabis.5296:

I would not go so far just queue for EB only refuse to go to borderlands

Don’t the buffs extend to everyone on all 4 WvW lands?

Why do you worry about the PvE population?

Do what everyone does, join SFR to win in WvW.
Guest in Desolation for its PvE population.

The problem I see is zergs ignoring the minions and just farming Aetherblade pirates for the number of champions that spawn with the Aetherblades.

What is 2 rares compared to the deluxe boxes you get just focusing on Aetherblade champions?

Most people’s attitudes are just simply farm as many Aetherblade champs as they can. You want the minions, help yourself. You can only get 2 rares from Scarlet once per day.

I think I can only conclude.

There is not a single GW2 player alive who can count.

I have never ever seen Arenanet nerf any of their events before. Why is anyone worried about a nerf to Liadri?

Desolation is so weird.

How is Desolation becoming like Vizunah?

Is it the….

1. Desolation has all the huge hordes of PUGs queuing to help defend the server’s honor?
2. Desolation has lots of claimed t3 keeps and towers with hundreds of superior arrow carts manned?
3. Desolation has all those hundreds of superior arrow carts manned 24/7 by PUGs mentioned in 1.?
4. Desolation stays in the keeps and towers 24/7?
5. Desolation folds and melts away the moment any red name runs into the Desolation ze….blobaliciouszergomfgbigroflslimeballooze?
6. Desolation….bah, forget it. I can’t list all the things Vizunah can do and do 100000000x better than Desolation can.

If Desolation can even achieve anything close to what Vizunah can achieve, heck, flame me all you want, I would love sitting at the top of the charts. Hate Vizunah, loathe Vizunah, but they are the real masters who have NEVER relinquished their position in T1. Nobody gets top position. Vizunah lets you have top position for a while as they drink wine and recuperate.

Everyone else is just merely jealous and taking a mighty high road about their playstyle to justify their jealousy.

From GoD, reset night was awesome. Great thanks to DVG and Coin especially, with our suicidal charges into the circle to stop the caps till the cavalry arrives.

Also special mention to all the pugs who got in with the program. I understand it’s not easy trying to read the minds of the guild commanders, but yesterday you just seemed to be totally in sync with what Desolation needed out of you.

And we must also thank Abaddon’s Mouth for never stopping their assault on the garrison. You gave us a good game and I appreciate your hard honest attempts at taking garrison back. May we have more epic sieges like that!

It was an epic defense to the end till the end of time. Well, server patch really.

Very fun minigame because you have 3 “classes” fighting.

Unfortunately, the achievements are encouraging extremely bad behavior, totally ruining any gameplay for this arena.

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Be happy to never do a PvP event again. I for one am forced to do this even though I hate it for the mini’s. This is what Anet gets for forcing people to do things they would rather not. Players who actually enjoy it, unable to do it because some yahoo is trying to get an achievement. But truthfully being able to kill the crystal carrier is part of not allowing them to score and was designed as part of the game!

I wish everyone will have that attitude that these minigames are to be enjoyed, not a checkbox that they need to ensure ticked.

Killing the crystal carrier is part of the game to deny the opposing team scoring points. Carrying the crystal to score points is also part of the game to ensure a win.

But thanks to the achievements, very very VERY few people are carrying the crystal now. They all want to kill the crystal carrier, why should they carry the crystal?

In light of the fact that being pushed off the ledge doesn’t count as a kill for Crystal Breaker, I know lots of people have tongue-in-cheek said that once they get attacked with a crystal, they are jumping off a cliff.

Zenon.4328:

For sake of argument, what occupation allows you to have vacation in August?

For most of Europe and America, school is still out on summer vacation in August. Teaching professions are mostly still on vacation.

In some European countries, manufacturing shuts down for a month’s vacation in August.

This limited time content is causing a lot of issues with people. Lots of completionists I know are leaving or left this game entirely, because all you need to do is go on holiday or a cruise or a road trip, or something away for some time and you lose all opportunity to complete some achievements.

An absolute no-no in the world of achievements.