Guild Wars 2

Lawful.5314:

How about, let the Elementalist feel like the dominant strong class for once, in its entire misserable lifespan? lol

Elementalist has WAYYYY Too low HP, yes its a cloth class, but that doesn’t justify having 16k HP while having THIS kind of damage in PvP, if we can attain something alike 25k HP, while retaining all our current tankyness and damage, then i would consider the class way more balanced than ever.

Lol @ the dominant for once…..

Supreme.3164:

jportell.2197:

bluberblasen.9684:

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

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

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

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

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

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

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

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

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

• Frozen Burst- No longer a blast finisher

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

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

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

and increase the health to medium.

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

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

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

Mal.1670:

Troll troll troll?

Soloque was one of the greatest things ever. The maps however not so much

bluberblasen.9684:

jportell.2197:

Supreme.3164:

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

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

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

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

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

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

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

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

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

• Frozen Burst- No longer a blast finisher

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

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

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

and increase the health to medium.

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

Supreme.3164:

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

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

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

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

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

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

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

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

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

• Frozen Burst- No longer a blast finisher

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

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

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

Zoltreez.6435:

Tao.5096:

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

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

what this is called ? hmmmm oh yeah Balancing….

I would kill for a decent celestial mesmer build…. Too bad mesmer attacks are garbage for AOE, and sustained is terrible as well.

Toxicity comes from being nice trying to introduce players to PvP, laying out some basic ground rules for them. As in things that help your team win and things that hurt your team.

I mean BASIC BASIC things like, don’t get the mobs unless absolutely necessary, don’t mob so far into the enemy lines that you can’t get ressed, and most of all don’t try to 1v1 a bunker on a point you don’t own.

Then have these people that you are trying to help, and have been pretty nice to in trying to show them how to play the maps, and then have everything completely ignored and then they get mad when you lose a team fight because of their ignoring your advice.

Staff on ele needs more CC? lol no. Unsteady ground and static field are already extremele strong, plus you have a push back. Not to mention earth 3 is a great shield for those projectiles that people like to use to interrupt (lookin at you pew pew rangers)

GrimmR.3541:

OP, I hope you do not run your “bunker mesmer“ build in dungeons. No offense!

I was running a 2/4/0/5/3 mesmer phantasm build with reflect uptime for some of the fights and restorative mantras for fights that reflects are not required. I was in full zerker gear with s/f+x.

Lord Kuru.3685:

It’s hard to believe that over three years after the game’s release, it’s not 100% clear how boon removal is done. Is there priority for certain boons? If so, what is the priority list? Or is it the newest (or the most recently refreshed) boon that goes? I always thought it was the latter, but it’s hard to tell since the order in which boons are displayed aren’t changed when you refresh them before they expire.

There is a prioritization somewhere. I think if it is unblockable aegis is the first one removed/converted. I do know stability is 5th in the priority list.

Argon.1563:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

elementalist and thief. Warriors are still okay for DPS though. The only professions with low damage are Necro and Mesmer.

Necro has very high damage, if you know how to play it. Mesmer is on the lower end of it, but it can still do a reasonable amount of damage.

It really depends on the dungeon/pve scenario. Against certan bosses, mesmers have the highest DPS due to reflects.

Hmmm where is this gvg gonna happen? 8v8 on khylo? TROLOLOL.

Simon.3794:

Saiyan.1704:

Mrbig.8019:

Maybe it’s too strong on every single of these things ?

“best 1vs1 proff, especially on point”

“too much damage for its sustain”

“too much sustain for its damage”

“too much mobility”

“too much support”

“too much might stacking” ( it’s support too, but worth of a mention)

It’s not like bunker guard ( full support) is any better, not even on condi clears.

Bunk guard with soldier runes = 2/30+2/35+2/60 = 1 condi clear every 15 secs ( approx).

1 ele properly rotating its attunements will give 1 condi clear every 10 secs AND more healz.

50% prot uptime and might stacking.

Moreover it can be stacked, something u just can’t do with eles.

Basically EVERY SINGLE ELE ASPECT IS OP.

The only thing guard is worth for is SyG.

best 1vs1 proff, especially on point
It’s not.

too much damage for its sustain
Not really.

too much sustain for its damage
That isn’t the culprit.

too much mobility
I’d agree with this.

too much support
Two Ele’s in Group is.
[i] ahem,{/i] Cleansing Water’s icd of 5 was changed to 0… nerf to 2s icd pls.

“too much might stacking” ( it’s support too, but worth of a mention)
It’s fine.

The only thing guard is worth for is SyG.
Have you fought a good guard? You should duel me sometime.

tell me why is it used every where and it’s considered op?
mobility can’t be it, because thief has way more mobility, and i doubt it’s only cleansing water either. it has to be something, much like multiple things that make ele stands out so much! you tell me man.

The thing that makes ele stand out, is the stackability of them. Each profession brings something unique to the table, however each profession should also have a glaring weakness that requires it to be made up for by another teammate.

That being said, in general stacking classes in this game is bad (oh no two rangers, oh no two necros, oh no two thieves, oh no two mesmers etc.)

However certain classes bring so much to the table that when they are stacked they synergize even better together. Ele is the biggest culprit. 2 eles SHOULD put your team at a huge disadvantage because well these two eles are supposed to have a weakness that gets maginified when they are stacked on a team, right now two eles just cover for each others weaknesses.

So my big question is, how do we change elementalist (specifically the d/d cele build) to where if two are on a team, you know that it is going to detract from your team overall?

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Bout to quote the crap out of this in my report. Exactly what I’ve gathered from all of this debate.

Okay so my next big question is, if Cele Ele won’t be touched. What needs to change. Because as it stands they are really dominating pvp matches, and the meta in general. The Abjured even stated that their entire playstyle hinges on Phanta and Wakkey.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Amir.1570:

^
Sadistic? More like Cancer in design. It’s not hard to understand how to land Mesmer attacks and it also is NOT hard to spam evades while doing so. I base my “opinions” on in-game mechanics. Therefore I’m actually pretty close to facts.

Mesmer, other than portal plays, is just flat out low-skill cap and a medium skill floor. Once you get to that medium skill floor such as dodge counting and shattering people with no more endurance, its just easy from there on. Mirror image shatter isn’t hard to land, and Phantasms, when people dodge that you are simply open to shatter.

TL;DR Instant cast, easy dodge baits, high uptime without relying on cool downs and evade/block/blind spam isn’t hard to play. Also bad in design because they can’t simply get buffs or they will be cancer.

P.S Just because “Thief” counters Mesmer, that doesn’t make Mesmer weak as a class. That is such a bad argument. Celestial as an argument is also bad considering other builds can be affected by celestial as well.

You couldn’t have possibly been fighting anyone of any decent skill to have come to that opinion. And even then your vague generalizations only refer to 1v1s.

Chaos I sereiously can’t even in this thread. Just yeah. Also to the guy saying mesmer should always beat thief. I invite you to watch any stream where there was The Dankening [BLZD] Vs. The Abjured [RIP]. ANY time there is a 1v1 involving Supcutie and Magic Toker the first thing the shoutcaster says is “Magic Toker is at a huge advantage in this 1v1” Or “Supcutie may be able to win if he plays everything just perfectly.”

For a thief to beat a mesmer they have to do a pretty standard rotation and they can get away with counting our dodges because we really only have 2 (maybe more depending on vigor), to try counting a thief’s dodges specifically magic toker because of his build. Is impossible.

T raw.4658:

jportell.2197:

T raw.4658:

PU Mesmer the mesmer that mesmers want you to not realize exists

That being said they aren’t that viable in tPvP thus stay under the radar

Not to mention most mesmers hate PU mesmers because it is a no skill cheese stupid useless build.

But it exists and can easily topple any class/build 1v1

Same with condi thief

Yeah but by the time either one of those builds kills their intended target (assuming the intended target is designed for point holding.) They lost so many points in cap time that the kill and subsequent capture mean absolute jack diddly.

T raw.4658:

PU Mesmer the mesmer that mesmers want you to not realize exists

That being said they aren’t that viable in tPvP thus stay under the radar

Not to mention most mesmers hate PU mesmers because it is a no skill cheese stupid useless build.

Drennon.7190:

I do block the players that to this, but the bigger issue is the fact that this behavior has become acceptable / expected. As a game that is trying to grow their pvp community, I feel that it would be in their best interest to have a certain standard and hold people to it. The fact that these people are repeatedly reported and still do the same thing, gives people that idea that this type of behavior is okay.

This behavior is a stem of either players that “know” what they are doing and make some of the dumbest plays ever or the players that have become frustrated with teams that you would think know how to play a standard pvp match.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

When it comes to agreement, engineer has a few skills that everyone pretty much unanimously thinks is OP (Overcharged Shot, Slick Shoes, Gear Block). Even warrior, players can mostly agree that war banner is a very strong skill.

1. What skills can both sides of this argument agree on are too strong and COULD be shaved for elementalist? I highly doubt a massive nerf to celestial elementalists is going to happen, so what can we agree is OP or lacks counterplay for elementalist?

The might stacking. In PVP only reduce might duration from 20s to 10s when an ele stacks might. A celestial ele that puts nothing into power has more power damage than a berserkers amulet.

dancingmonkey.4902:

xDudisx.5914:

coglin.1867:

xDudisx.5914:

That is more cc than any other celestial class. More cc than mesmer, thief and ranger. Only thing that has more cc than that is a fearmancer.

How does celestial amulet and CC define anything?

Where did I say that the amulet is defining the CC? I just compared the celestial engi with d/d ele and war which are the other 2 classes that use celestial. Pay more attention when reading.

What makes a PvP build celestial then?

jportell.2197:

Bolded part would be mesmers. Thanks and have a great day!

Why would you wanna bold something only to make an incorrect statement about it?

Looking at meta pvp builds and condition clear, engis have one skill that clears 3 specific conditions, and a heal skill that clears 2 conditions.

Mesmers have…..

….. ………… …. Oh that’s right. Meta mesmer builds have 0 condition clear. Mesmers are only useful for portal to their team (there is one skill slot taken), blink is taken because we need to be able to get out of trouble some way, and decoy is taken because we have no other way to break target in the current build (unless they take torch but bleh torch).

dancingmonkey.4902:

Simon.3794:

Ok guys, let’s just say Cele engi has too much of everything.
but in the end, we may only need to change one area just to bring it down from having too much of everything.

False statements like this are part of the perception problem.

How do they have too much stability?

How do they have too much condition cleanse? (they have the least of all profession)

How do they have too much stealth?

How do they have too much might stacking?

None of those things are in the linked build the are complaining about

As pointed out before, the problem isn’t the skills themselves. It is the fact that too many of those skills either lack an animation for counter play avoidance, or lack a cast time for interrupt options.

Bolded part would be mesmers. Thanks and have a great day!

The Gates Assassin.9827:

While that is a lot of CC, CC is kind of the thing of engineers. That’s like faulting the thief for having too much stealth. If you want to say the CC is too hard to counter, that’s a different argument all together.

Except CC isn’t ONLY kind of the engineers thing, great direct damage, amazing condition damage, great mobility (w/o teleports), and pretty good survivability.

Also if you want to look at class design or “intended” class design, great CC (dazes, stuns, interrupts, pulls, pushes, etc.) and all related traits, then CC is really kind of mesmers thing, however there has yet to be an actual viable high end mesmer build that is built around CC and interrupts. Yes people have made them, yes they are fun, they still haven’t made it past random ranked arena games. +

Okay so what I am getting from some of the people in the thread that are arguing that these cele builds are fine. It is other classes/builds that need to be brought up to compete with these builds.

So my big question: Should the classes that are struggling to find a place be brought up to the point where they can have a proper celestial builds.

Or should the classes previously known for their burst or bunker capabilities be buffed up so that they are once again the masters of bursting/bunkering while these cele builds are just ‘good’ at it. Ways this can be accomplished I think

• Guardians- awhile back anet introduced a bug where pure of voice converted two condis to boons per shout instead of one. I think this bug should be brought back as a part of this trait. This is a grand master trait that right now is so underwhelming it isn’t even funny, especially when you look at ele/warrior condition removal capability (remember when ANET said they want warriors to be weak to conditions! So much for that.)

• Rangers- right now glass LB is kind of everywhere, since I have never mained the class I can’t give input on what should be buffed to make them usable in high tier play.

• Necromancers- Anet once said they should be vulnerable to CC and also be the class that you can just not get away from. Right now necro is likely one of the easiest classes to escape in the game. Also this class is completely hard countered by LB rangers because the necro can never get close enough to them to do anything.

• Mesmers- Like warriors Anet said they want mesmers to be weak to conditions, unlike warriors in general anet has done jack to help us better deal with conditions. Also if not for portal you would never see a mesmer in a team ever, ever, ever it’s kinda sad that one classes usefulness to a team completely hinges on this one skill and how much longer are mesmers going to be completely shut out by thieves?

• Thief-After engis, warriors, and eles thieves are represented very well in the current meta (5/45 WTS players started matches on thief.)

coglin.1867:

What CC uptime are you referring to? you avoid specifics there. What build would we be finding all of this in?

Link the build that you feel is problematic?

Here this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErlcxzLseNCbBNyx0GRuxq85HGgkC-TJxHwADeAAAuAAi2fQZZAA

This is the standard last I checked (I could have some major adepts wrong).

• Launch on 15s CD (also a condi clear for immob/cripple/chill)

• Net shot 2.5 s immob (round up to 3 in this game) on a 10s cd. That means in a perfect world for the engineer you are immobilized for 30% of a fight.

• Magnet pull (yes it’s hard to land but it’s still CC) 20s CD

• Slick shoes (oh this one) 5 seconds continuous knock down and all the engi has to do is run around in circles nading his feet. No stab or teleport and you are dead.

Then there is also the soft CC from box of nails and freeze grenades.

IS that enough CC to talk about without me bringing up the ridiculousness that is supply crate?

SobeSoul.6910:

Arken.3725:

Absolutely they do. Aside from having an incredibly low cd block, arguably the best healing skill in the game plus a ton of control/mobility, this is completely the case.

You are being disingenuous here or extremely biased.

Guardians have access to way more blocks and blinds than an engie has.

Yes but when a guardian does anything but bunker they have to use a zerker amulet. And once a guardian is out of blinds/bblock’s etc they are stuck in the fight. Engis….. can run away fairly easy

Hardest most skillfull class in pve? Mesmers. Hands down

SobeSoul.6910:

Arken.3725:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Arken.3725:

Their main draw is condition dmg(a bit more physical for cele engie). The amount of sustained dmg coupled with their ability to sustain themselves is what’s the issue. Not a lot of these skills are easily avoidable(Overcharged shot being 1). Hell, even though a lot of the Elementalist’s skills are easy to avoid, there’s only so much you can dodge, you’re going to eat something.

Edit: Still baffles me, after 5 pages of discussion and repeated arguments that some still don’t see the issue’s with the two classes mentioned. Either it’s extreme bias for those who play them or pure ignorance.

Engi definitely has some very hard abilities to avoid (possible, but super super hard). I’m talking pretty much exclusively about ele in this case though. Dodging isn’t the only way to avoid damage. Every build has other methods of shutting down ele damage. Even if you do eat something, it’s not the end of the world.

Since the nerf, there hasn’t really been a moment for me where I went “WOW that damage” from an ele. Maybe engineer, but they’re speccing into it. Not surprising.

I think my biggest issue if I were to put it simply is there’s too much room for error for these professions. Making a mistake or two won’t cost them at all in comparison to the rest of the professions.

Edit: and yes, you’re right that there are more ways to avoid damage aside from dodging but my point remains is there’s still not enough in terms of avoidance OR there’s too much on the offensive side.

Engie doesn’t have any more room for error than a few guardian builds. You eat a big burst from a mesmer you’re going to be cycling through CDs on both class. The major difference I think is engies always have swiftness where as guardians lack it depending on builds to mitigate damage with kiting.

Right now engi is one of the most forgiving classes in the game their condi clear while not on shoutbow/ele level is still pretty strong between healing turret and over charged shot.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

jportell.2197:

That’s just it tho. They aren’t “good” at alot of stuff. They are “great” at everything.

Define great. Their burst/DPS is much lower than the vast majority of DPSers in the game. I really only see their sustain/support/mobility being really strong. Their DPS can be pretty easily handled, while their sustain is what is difficult to counter (instant and lots of condi removal for poison/chilled). Their mobility is pretty crazy too with FGS/RTL/LF. Fire Magic accounts for the vast majority of the damage output of DD eles, all of which can definitely be handled. Even with just healing turret, you can simply clear the burning/poison if you mess up a dodge or get locked down. I’m having trouble accepting the argument that the damage on cele ele is too much to handle.

At 25 stacks of might, their damage burst IS that great. And when looking at alot of other “dps” specs they cannot maintain that high of an amount of might period. And like arken said, you can only dodge so much, before you do get hit by something. Where as with an ele everything they do is good for them bad for you. You cannot counter the ele/engi meta currently, and if your answer is to use healing turret to counter eles, then this conversation may as well be going in circles because you are stating to solve the problem of the cele ele/engi meta by using an engi skill….

SobeSoul.6910:

Cele rifle isn’t “tanky”. You are conflating sustain for the ability to tank.

I honestly think that cele engies and eles are in the right spot, and all the other classes are lacking. Logistically speaking I would prefer Anet’s balance team to work on buffing the other classes up to those levels than nerfing down classes to unplayable.

Then we come into the power creep that was introduced at the time of Dhuumfire, etc. But if ANET wants to revert some nerfs for the classes that are lacking representation in the meta I have some ideas!

The Gates Assassin.9827:

jportell.2197:

I think that the DPS role being filled by celestial engineers is still a problem. Because, these guys put out great DPS and still being extremely tanky. Now the defensive portions of celestial should not be nerfed. The offensive portions should. Once the offensive portions are nerfed, THEN these guys support/defensive role will no longer match bunkers.

It seems like you’re suggesting the concept of the celestial player (good at a lot of stuff, but not great) shouldn’t exist. If the damage on celestial ele is nerfed, then it’s just another bunker.

That’s just it tho. They aren’t “good” at alot of stuff. They are “great” at everything. If you look at the representation of celestial users and the classes that are played using celestial amulet, there is a vast over representation.

Granted just what I got from WTS isn’t the largest sample size of the population, it is considered the highest level of play in this game. The highest used class between EU and NA is more than double the third used class (engi and warr are tied for second). If they were just “good” at everything and not “great” at everything they wouldn’t really be stacked so heavily on the teams.

The last point I want to make, is classes weaknesses should be magnified the more of them are put on a team. With Engis and Eles especially this is not the case. Several teams are stacking these on the team. They are too synergistic with each other, and since ANET doesn’t prevent doubling up on classes in their “esports” tournaments, the classes weaknesses need to be brought out to the point where stacking of any class results in an automatic handicap for your team.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

The discussion seems to be hitting on a big point here:

Bunkers are not used much anymore.

So here’s my questions now:

1. Is this because Cele is too strong or because bunkers are too weak?
2. If bunkers are too weak, should the support be buffed so that Cele Ele doesn’t creep on it?
3. If cele is too strong, what part of it is too strong? Should the defense go down and the support remain just as strong? Should the defense stay the same and the support potential go down? Is it the damage?
   1. On this note, would it help if some of the support that eles have be other ally only? For example, Cleansing Wave only removing conditions from allies or the healing on certain skills being less effective on the ele, but more effective on allies? Please take this as a concept, not a specific suggestion.
4. The DPS role is taken up by pure DPS players still. While you don’t see mesmer/thief/ranger/guardian/necro as a DPS role as often as Cele Engi, you still see it plenty. That said, we sort of scoff at bunker guardians currently.
   1. Is this because the pure DPSers have a niche or because they excel at DPS enough that they overtake the cele engi role? For example, mesmer has an AMAZING burst, but they also have portal (their niche). If mesmer didn’t have portal, would you still take it? What about thief without stealth or power ranger without entangle?
   2. Do bunker roles need this niche (Some special skill that cannot be matched by other builds) or an increase in their ability to support allies (more heals/condi clears/boons)?

I think that the DPS role being filled by celestial engineers is still a problem. Because, these guys put out great DPS and still being extremely tanky. Now the defensive portions of celestial should not be nerfed. The offensive portions should. Once the offensive portions are nerfed, THEN these guys support/defensive role will no longer match bunkers.

GhOst.4019:

Worst class confirmed. Bunker Mesmer. Have fun!
You want to play the “worst” thing. Just think of something totally absurd and roll with that. Examples:
1: Bunker Mesmer
2: Bunker thief (This one may be the true winner)
3: Power minion mancer (all pets out, don’t slack)
4: Power Ranger beast master (same, all pets out)
5: You get the idea. Have fun and hope to see you on the other team!

You clearly can’t read. I don’t play that garbage spec anymore. I play double ranged shatter.

Bran.7425:

So basically they whined their way out of change like the mesmers did on Deceptive Evasion.

Yeah except when the deceptive evasion change was brought up mesmers were (and still are) one of the bottom tier classes in PvP.

GhOst.4019:

jportell.2197:

NeXeD.3042:

Any class that isn’t cele ele, cele engi, or Shoutbow warrior. Those 3 are the top… everything else seems pretty close to me. Maybe throw theif in there too.

So your answer is going to be different for every person, different for every match, and different in every situation.

Worst class, there are two or three tied for that, Mesmers, and Necros are definitely down there. Worst spec IDK it depends on the class.

^ Reasoning coming from a ‘bunker Mesmer’ that Mesmers are one of the worst classes. UGH. There is no worst class necesarrily. Every class is great against some and hard countered against others. The question is more like, which class has the most hard counters against it. That would be the class most likely to not succeed in a series of matchups against random players.

Rangers are deemed the worst right now but that is only because 99% of the people playing it have no idea what they are doing. They just spam skills. Therefore it’s more of that the actual player itself is bad and not the class. There are just currently more clueless players playing ranger and mesmer than any other class at the moment.

So with all that said, maybe you can solely raise the stigma on rangers by actually playing it good yourself; but 1 man can’t make a difference. There are 3 top classes and the rest are under them in their own way. Nothing necessarily the ‘worst’.

I haven’t played that spec in over two years. It’s just still in my signature. I play double ranged shatter. So yeah

NeXeD.3042:

Any class that isn’t cele ele, cele engi, or Shoutbow warrior. Those 3 are the top… everything else seems pretty close to me. Maybe throw theif in there too.

So your answer is going to be different for every person, different for every match, and different in every situation.

Worst class, there are two or three tied for that, Mesmers, and Necros are definitely down there. Worst spec IDK it depends on the class.

BlackBeard.2873:

Bran.7425:

I can only assume that their vigor trait was untouched due to being a major trait (whimsy logic at best as the profession is loath to avoid that traitline so the not like it is costing much) similarly to the endurance recover of signet of stamina that escape the systematic hunt for low investment sources of endurance recovery.

Actually, people pleaded not to nerf renewing stamina, not for the sake of d/d, but for any other ele build. The closest ele has to a competitive build outside of d/d is s/f, which already gets farmed by a decent s/d thief. Taking away more dodging capability just destroys that build.

This is the problem with trying to nerf d/d ele: EVERY ele build uses the same traits to get some survivability because 80% of their ability to survive comes from those traits. D/D stacks every defensive trait it can, while any other ele build struggles to survive. Trying to nerf d/d can take ele straight to trash bin because if you overdo it, and make d/d unviable, then there are no builds that ele can truly play that aren’t just thief food. (Side note, this explanation just makes me mad how much thief, as a class, hurts build viability in this game)

Elementalist, trait-wise is a complete mess. The whole class is balanced around some incredibly OP traits, and as such there is next to no build diversity. Trying to nerf those traits not only hurts the meta spec, but also any semblance of competitiveness other specs can get. This is why eles defend their defensive traits so much – without them the class goes strait to C-tier.

You mean like where mesmers, necros, and rangers are at?

Okay lets not touch renewing stamina. Here are some ideas to “Shave” d/d ele. And I say shave because what I would really like to do to this spec is nowhere near what anyone (even ANET) would consider a shave.

• Burning Speed-This skill is no longer an evade. When d/d ele was removed (ele in general) from the meta, this skill wasn’t the reason why. Also with perma vigor, ele doesn’t need all that many evades in a weapon set. Not to mention this makes one of the highest damaging skills on ele uninterruptable.

• Frozen Burst-This skill is no longer a blast finisher. D/D ele didn’t need more blast finishers anyways.

• Frost Aura-Chill duration is one second, down from 2. This skill already reduces incoming damage by 10 , not to mention eles usually have permanent protection, so yeah 43 reduced damage, not okay for the damage that they do.

• Last but not least, reduce the duration of might gained from blast finishers. I think everyone understands that ele is hard to kill, and they are okay with that. What people (alot) are not okay with, is the amount of damage (condition/direct etc) and control eles bring to a fight.

Like I said, this is my version of a shave. What I would really like to do this spec, I know won’t happen so there you have it.

darres.8203:

is there a way to know you tier?
I know anet has a secret stash of mmr stored some where
I just want to know where I stand compared to the top players
leaderboard is still a work in progress

am I below average? average? a maybe even slightly above average?
how do I check?

The problem with MMR in this game is if you soloque, you can only carry bad teammates so far. Thus resulting in losses that are completely out of your hands meaning that you can’t escape your low MMR hell… Really quite frustrating.

So doing some maths on this whole celestial thing and whether or not there is an overrepresentation of it in the game. I came up with the following from the WTS qualifiers for both EU and NA. Of the 45 people (9 teams total) streamed between EU and NA:

• 29 of those players used a celestial amulet
• Those same 29 players played either ele, engi, or warrior
• Elementalist was the most represented class between EU and NA
• Engi was most represented on NA and second most represented over all tied with warrior.
• Thief was the third most represented class with 5 players total on thief
• Mesmer guardian, and necro were all tied for fourth most represented class (mesmers only having Supcutie NA, no necros played WTS quals EU.)
• Rangers were the least represented class with only Eura, and Genyen playing ranger NA.

Some things to note. This does not take into account any profession swapping after the first game, I did one player: one profession. If the player swapped to a different class at any time they were still only marked as listing their initial profession on the first match.

What this shows, over half of the players that played in WTS (64%) were using the celestial amulet, the second most used was berserkers, with other random amulets (Nos using Carrion) sprinkled in here and there.

My feelings on celestial are already pretty clear, it doesn’t allow classes to be jacks of all trades, it helps three specific classes turn into masters of all trades. If you think that a meta where 64% of the players are using the same amulet (and for the most part the same builds), leaving any other build to be useless is okay. Then go a head and tell me these classes with this amulet is okay. If not, don’t stop telling ANET what is wrong with this until they fix it.

serenke.4806:

Fay.2357:

Some of the nerfs were justified. Most of the nerfs were heavy-handed, poorly conceived, poorly executed, and overall awful decisions.

This is very true and i think the root of the problem is, nobody at arenanet plays mesmer, nobody knows what’s what. They are balancing based on forum QQ.

And yet warriors, engis, and eles were the hands down MOST played professions in the WTS NA.

Okay @OP no you didn’t miss a stealth buff, there are very few good mesmers in the game that can get a good shatter combo off (i don’t count myself in those ranks.) And chances are you faced one of them. Or they got the perfect halting strike combo off on you a couple of times

SobeSoul.6910:

jportell.2197:

SobeSoul.6910:

Archaon.9524:

SobeSoul.6910:

I’m tired of having to take the brunt of team fights because clueless people like the person in this screenshot have no clue what needs to be done in matches.

An ele who has no clue what rotation or team healing or anything isn’t someone I enjoy playing with.

Ladder is worthless (With pve tryhards farming losses and still getting points for it, being top ladder with 40% win ratio) why ppl still bother to go ranked anyway? It’s just longer q times

Courtyard, Skyhammer, and Spirit Watch aren’t my idea of fun.

Of course the ladder is bad, but unranked is also like Hotjoin 2.0b.

Then ranked is hotjoin 3.0 had a turret engi say “Everyone burn the beast down fast then rush to mid!” And i’m over here like, so “they have a thief, beast is bad idea” and still they went after it

and still the thief stole it.

So yeah.

You’re not the one to really complain about peoples’ plays in game. I blocked you because you flooded team chat with rage in a game in the first game I ever came across you.

Stuff like that makes you a liability as much as a day one player who somehow stumbles into ranked matches.

The raging in team chat comes from stupid BS like that. So yeah forgive me for going into RANKED matches expecting my teammates to know the common knowledge/safe strats for pugs. Which btw don’t include yoloing far. Or a S/F fresh air ele thinking that he can 1v4.

Mak.2657:

Tbh most of these nerfs was required. They was really OP. Like insta Into the void abuse at cliffs. The are was some buffs too.
More buffs are welcome though.

The blurred frenzy nerf was totally required too? It completely removed MH sword for the longest time. Illusionary leap sucking was only compensated by how good blurred frenzy was. That was nerfed and sword mh was removed from the meta. And since mesmer lacks any other decent power mainhand weapon we were forced into double ranged shatter, which people still gripe about.

SobeSoul.6910:

Archaon.9524:

SobeSoul.6910:

I’m tired of having to take the brunt of team fights because clueless people like the person in this screenshot have no clue what needs to be done in matches.

An ele who has no clue what rotation or team healing or anything isn’t someone I enjoy playing with.

Ladder is worthless (With pve tryhards farming losses and still getting points for it, being top ladder with 40% win ratio) why ppl still bother to go ranked anyway? It’s just longer q times

Courtyard, Skyhammer, and Spirit Watch aren’t my idea of fun.

Of course the ladder is bad, but unranked is also like Hotjoin 2.0b.

Then ranked is hotjoin 3.0 had a turret engi say “Everyone burn the beast down fast then rush to mid!” And i’m over here like, so “they have a thief, beast is bad idea” and still they went after it

and still the thief stole it.

So yeah.

xDudisx.5914:

Donkeyhacks.4391:

Anybody explain to me why every mesmer ive met today has been able to blow me up in 2-5seconds today? ive not had any problems with mesmers recently now every mesmer seems to be god tier

It is not recent a buff. It is a problem that hapens for months/years. Stealth>sumon 3 clones-> melee instacast F1-> profit.

And people QQ about ranger been easy to play and bursting too fast. For a zerker build with a lot of offensive traits 2ranged mesmer has way too many immunes/evades and blinks. Luckly thieves are still around to counter their infinity blinks with infinite gap closers.

Lmao the standard shatter mes has one maybe two stealths, and a good one never opens with them. Double ranged shatter exists because mes cannot survive melee right now.

This guide is a must for any mesmer Btw

BlackBeard.2873:

Arken.3725:

Trying to fight the good fight is admirable, some just won’t listen. I’ll list some changes I think should help.

Ele:

Drake’s breath: Reduce to 1 second per tick. This skill has an absurdly low cd attached to it on top of too much burning. No other profession can apply as much burning in an aoe(or single-target).

Elemental attunement: Reduce the boon duration from 5 to 3 seconds. Even if Elementalist’s spec fully into boon duration, it’ll be about 50% which is still quite a bit.

Frozen aura: Reduce duration from 7 to 5 seconds.

Cleansing water: Put back the 5 second ICD.

Elemental Shielding: Reduce duration from 3 to 2 seconds.

Renewing Stamina: Increase ICD to 10 seconds.

Hello old friend. While maybe one of two of these could use a shave (especially elemental shielding, being as it is an adept-tier trait), I SINCERELY believe that you shouldn’t try to shave down a full-bunker (and cele d/d is full-bunker) ele’s sustain. Instead, you should focus on bringing down the damage (nerf to battle, drake’s breath, and might already started down this path). Nerfing the sustain of the class is a serious risk (as seen by previous rounds of nerfs that took ele straight to C tier for ~1 year). To do this, I would:

-Remove blast from frozen burst (this takes away another 4-5 stacks might on average)
- Perhaps remove one tick from Drake’s Breath (so you can only get 3 attacks)
- Make magnetic grasp blockable
- Shave lightning whip base damage, increase its scaling with power (so that cele eles are rewarded for properly stacking might, but weaker if they can’t just blast away their fire fields).
- (Maybe) Reduce the damage on lightning flash. This also reduces the instant-damage that a scepter ele can do, so we can give it a bit more sustained damage.

Sir full bunkers should not survive forever against a full burst. And they definitely shouldn’t have the damage output to make a full burst class go on the defensive. D/d Cele is not “full bunker” it’s “I have the damage to match your thief/mesmer and they can’t kill me because I can heal myself better than anyone in game”

The Gates Assassin.9827:

jportell.2197:

There is nothing that anyone can say that is going to convince myself and apparently several other players, that these specs are not gamebreakingly overpowered.

Hyperbole doesn’t make your argument stronger. Are they popular? Of course. Are they great S tier builds? Yes. Are they “gamebreakingly overpowered” like the condi necro was when the dhuumfire patch hit or 100 nades? Not at all.

Numbers and solid reasoning will prove your point. Caps lock will not.

To everyone, I highly suggest you try out all of these builds in question. If you have not given them a real good shot, it’s very hard to talk intelligently about the build. Some players have asked for nerfs on skills that aren’t even used on standard D/D builds or skills that are generally considered fine. You might find that these builds aren’t broken when you play them.

As far as numbers go one only has to look at the most successful teams as of late. Celestial builds are stacking on nearly every single successful high end team. Those are numbers enough.

rotten.9753:

jportell.2197:

And who has the best access to chill? Necros however how many necros are you seeing competetively lately? Oh just the same one on this broken team called the Abjured. All other necros either did it for one set, or just one game, then immediately swapped back out.

I don’t really understand this argument. If the best team is using a necro, it should mean it’s perfectly viable.

You are not going to convince anyone that celestial d/d ele and/or celestial rifle engi is not broken. These two specifically are on every SINGLE competitive team, some even have 2 of each and one thief, or necro to help with a lil extra damage.

They are but let’s not forget about shoutwars.

Yes but shout bow is nowhere near as over the top as engis and eles

Stickerhappy, alot of what you are suggesting is where mesmer was at previously.

Fully traited we were at one time the absolute GODS of confusion application. Anet proceeded to gut those traits and skills (lookin at you blinding befuddlement/confusing enchantments) on top of the chaos armor nerf (1s icd per attacker my foot!). Now mesmer confusion is possibly the most laughable “class specific” condition in the game.

I like the changes. However it won’t happen most of what you have proposed, anet has already nerfed. Mesmers used to be a big part of the wvw meta. Glamour mesmer guilds could clean out entire zergs. Now we are relegated to PU roamers that get kitten on by good p/d thieves, and out ran by nearly everyone else.

BlackBeard.2873:

jportell.2197:

1. Armor of earth (vigor, regen, stab, and protection, making your burst useless)

75s CD

1. Lightning Flash (Teleport regen, and vigor OH MY!)

Regen and vigor are useless vs. BURST. These are tools that are strong vs. sustained damage.

1. Cleansing Fire (Vigor, regen, condi clear OH MY!)

40s CD, 3 condis. Once again about the TIMING, if you are condi burst, you bait out cleansing fire then burst your condis OH MY!!! (I can do this too!)

1. Earth attunement (Protection! what burst you say?!)

Boon strip (like steal or shatter), also, TIME YOUR BURST SO THEY DON’T HAVE PROT!!! Most eles try to go: fire—>earth—>water—>air. They are susceptible right after leaving water b/c they aren’t gonna get prot from earth for another ~8s (due to general ICD), and can’t heal with water. That means a total of ~4s window every 12s where they are truly susceptible to burst. This is the timing window.

1. Air attunement>RTL lightning whip auto attack to heal

RtL doesn’t escape a thief, it also is a self-stun if immobed. But why learn all your opponent’s skills and learn to proactively counterplay them? LW auto heals take quite a while (SUSTAINED HEAL). They are very susceptible if they are using RtL.

and then they have water attunement again. Not to mention each cantrip, is also a condi clear on it’s own.

1. Many eles don’t trait for regen on cantrip b/c: each cantrip is 1 condi clear (cleansing fire is 4 if traited), so that is 1 condi every 75s from armor of earth, 1 every 40s from LF, and 4 every 40 from cleansing fire. Most trait for cleanse on water-swaps (that is 1 condi every 10s).
2. That is what TIMING is all about. If you go AFTER water, they have a LONG time until both earth and water attunements. Chill them during this time and gg.

And who has the best access to chill? Necros however how many necros are you seeing competetively lately? Oh just the same one on this broken team called the Abjured. All other necros either did it for one set, or just one game, then immediately swapped back out.

You are not going to convince anyone that celestial d/d ele and/or celestial rifle engi is not broken. These two specifically are on every SINGLE competitive team, some even have 2 of each and one thief, or necro to help with a lil extra damage.

You can not sit back and think that these specs are “A-OK” when nothing is countering them, and they are stacking teams. No build should be stackable it should have weankesses so glaring, that if you take more than one, the weaknesses are 2 fold. That is not how it is with these cele builds. Specifically d/d cele ele.

There is nothing that anyone can say that is going to convince myself and apparently several other players, that these specs are not gamebreakingly overpowered.