Guild Wars 2

I’ll just leave this alone with I love D/D playstyle I’ve said it, but I don’t think this buff is OP or makes D/D some god.

Maybe I misinterpreted your position but the only one I can think of is dueling. That is the only place I can remotely see anyone calling this OP. Zergs and 5 mans aren’t going to complain about Ele’s blowing them up with burning speed. They will see the attunement of the Ele and dodge it followed by teamspeak chatter of “What was he thinking?” followed by chuckles and then “I don’t know”. Thats what we always say when some Ele comes in Rambo and that won’t change with this buff.

The fight flow against Ele doesn’t change because it has a evade on burning speed it just means the Ele has a way to get in without eating damage. Now you can’t interrupt the Ele doing burning speed he still on his way rotating to Earth after he presses burning speed. Gotta get that might!

If talk to any non ele and ask them what woud bring D/X ele back into the meta and put them up there with the top classes an evade on burning speed would not be the suggestion that comes up.

Advent.6193:

It’s not the damage, Carighan, it’s the durability. A Plague or Lich Necro has some nice Health to soak hits with. Also, IIRC, they do gain additional Toughness to work with.
The same does not seem to hold true with Tornado. Hell, if anything, it seems you lose durability while transformed.

Tornado gives you boosts to your offense and slight HP buff. Tornado is more similar to Lich form then plague.

If you want to be real tanky and hard to kill go soldier and clerics with boon duration setup 2 monk, 2 traveler, 2 water.

Future advice is that 2,2,2 combo’s wont be as good as full 6 sets. So buyer beware there when that patch hits around marchish.

2 beefy trait setups are 0/0/20/20/30 or 0/10/0/30/30 can be run that way also. The 0/0/20/20/30 with runes of melandru and geomancer’s freedom is probably the beefiest you can get for D/D.

Marcos.3690:

[Elite] Signet of Elements (Cooldown: 50 seconds)

Passive: Reduce your attunement recharge rate by 2 seconds
Active: Recharge all your attunements

This elite would:
1) Finally make the arcana trait line a choice, not a must-have.
2) (Combined with lyssa): Give condition cleanse without heavily speccing into water/arcana
3) Make signet builds viable

Hmmm I need to mull this over but I feel like this is solid. Makes written in stone look good. I see some synergy with already heavy arcana specs. If your water is up you can get a heal which the Ele is built around. May allow S/x and D/x users to dig into fire.

I think I like this. It would pretty much be the go to elite but FGS still has it uses so not totally overshadowed.

LightningBlaze.4913:

oZii.2864:

LightningBlaze.4913:

It will be too strong. What is the trade off of this skill when you can land it successfully, deal great amount of damage, help you escape, get closer to someone and all without receiving damage as a setback. The same can be said about focus earth skill 5. It is more powerful than the earlier version of mist form but with focus there are still some skills that need buff. We can’t say that for dagger.

So your whole deal is that you like focus now and don’t want anything else buffed till focus gets buffed? Maybe you sympathize with staff users?

What does dagger main hand getting some love have to do with focus needing love?

I have seen numerous Eles saying and making suggestions about dagger main hands auto attacks. We can dig those up in the December 10 dev thread.

I suggested that dagger main hand get something like rock barrier since it is melee. I suggested this many times dagger main hand isn’t fine! It’s ok it’s in a better shape then focus but it isn’t fine! They aren’t going to raise ele base hp so dagger main hand Eles need something for when they mix it up with melee. When you fight a cc heavy warrior with d/d you run out of cantrips quick and you can’t even get close to do damage because you get stunned.

Hammer was mentioned in stream by Karl so I bet this was specifically done to help d/x warriors against CC heavy warriors with hammer. This helps d/f users also not just /d.

That’s not my “deal” at all. My point is this buff is unnecessary to a weapon set that already have all it’s reliable and useful skills. I have to include focus because this is the weapon set that really cries for some workaround and not dagger. You said auto attacks and not burning speed. There are many suggestions made by players that doesn’t justify to be valid because mostly are based on personal preferences with their playstyle.

So why state that Dagger is fine when in fact it is not Diogo hit it on the head. It is defense that doesn’t require stats. There is a reason why S/X can get away with going 30 in Air and that is called rock barrier. I can spec for 2.4k armor because when I press 2 in Earth I get +250 toughness.

You bring up focus like people run around with just a focus and no main hand. The main issue when you run D/F is what a D/D does to Necro or a Ranger you abuse los on their back. Thieves abuse this against D/F users this helps D/F users and provides it almost with another escape tool to go along with Earths Skills.

I don’t think they say lets buff focus because people just run around with a focus.

I don’t see how you can say I am biased when it seems like you think Dagger main hand is only tied to Dagger off hand. This buff to burning speed helps D/F. It doesn’t help S/F obviously. Scepter isn’t the only main hand that gets to play with a focus off hand like you seem to think.

LightningBlaze.4913:

No love for focus yet. D/D weapon set will be even more powerful than what already is

Focus gets to use Dagger to you know D/F

LightningBlaze.4913:

That crit dmg nerf will hurt my burst ele but with fire/air sigil working together and at 100% crit might make up for it. We’ll see. That evasion on burning speed is a huge buff for dd ele and it might cry for nerf on future patches though. I’m still mad there’s not a single buff or fix on my beloved focus offhand weapon set.

Forgot about D/F again?

LightningBlaze.4913:

I still fail to see the logic from Anet on buffing a weapon set that is already very strong and balanced as it is yet fail to arrange the ones that really need attention like focus and scepter. Water trident addition is lame.

only Scepter can be paired with Focus?

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.

LightningBlaze.4913:

It will be too strong. What is the trade off of this skill when you can land it successfully, deal great amount of damage, help you escape, get closer to someone and all without receiving damage as a setback. The same can be said about focus earth skill 5. It is more powerful than the earlier version of mist form but with focus there are still some skills that need buff. We can’t say that for dagger.

So your whole deal is that you like focus now and don’t want anything else buffed till focus gets buffed? Maybe you sympathize with staff users?

What does dagger main hand getting some love have to do with focus needing love?

I have seen numerous Eles saying and making suggestions about dagger main hands auto attacks. We can dig those up in the December 10 dev thread.

I suggested that dagger main hand get something like rock barrier since it is melee. I suggested this many times dagger main hand isn’t fine! It’s ok it’s in a better shape then focus but it isn’t fine! They aren’t going to raise ele base hp so dagger main hand Eles need something for when they mix it up with melee. When you fight a cc heavy warrior with d/d you run out of cantrips quick and you can’t even get close to do damage because you get stunned.

Hammer was mentioned in stream by Karl so I bet this was specifically done to help d/x warriors against CC heavy warriors with hammer. This helps d/f users also not just /d.

It isn’t about the one skill burning speed alone. Look at the entire set up main hand dagger. Yet you say it will be to strong. You stated it would be to strong needing a nerf later.

LightningBlaze.4913:

. For me even if I was still using dagger as main I would still be realistic to see how this skill will be a bit too strong.

This doesn’t match unless you think groups and zergs will start complaining about burning speed Eles.

Phoenix
-Damage- 252
-Explosion – 571
-Unblockable
-Blast Finisher
-Vigor
-Removes condition
-Pierces
-AOE
-Range 900

Burning speed (with update)
- Fire wall damage 34
- Blast Damage 672
- Evade
- Fire field
- Aoe
- Range 600

Nerf phoenix cause it has to much stuff? I’m the biased person though rofl.

zCatchMee.6098:

wow you make it sound like dueling is a competition to show who’s the “best”/ what class can beat a certain class.

I don’t let the outcome of duels change my perspective of the game. I could care less really about the outcome of duels. I stated on these forums I lost to Serane 0-10. So E-Fame and pride is something I care little about. I just tried to put dueling in perspective of what it really is fun. I wouldn’t say they should nerf dragon tooth if they decide to make it more reliable for Ele’s to land just because it would make a duel with a S/D Ele harder. I don’t think they should revert the staff buffs they gave because it technically made them better in a 1v1. Revert the burning retreat buff on staff cause they are harder to kill?

Many people don’t come to duel much anymore to try new things most come to win. Fight a warrior running something weird beat him a few times he comes back with Hambow. Fight a thief running power beat them a few times they come back with P/D Perp I’ll never duel on my P/D thief running perp condi cause I know 9/10 it is a easy win why even bring it to duel?

Why bring my Terrormancer to duel then pick out the shout 30 valor Guardian or the D/D cantrip ele and slot corrupt boon, well of corruption, spectral wall with focus? Then next fight the condi Engi and put on plague signet, off hand dagger? Any necro worth their salt will tell you that you should never lose to another condition class with P/D being the hardest which is true. These type of things happen all the time at duels in the Sanctum.

I don’t duel much anymore except other Ele’s, power rangers, power thieves, power PU or Phantasm Mesmers and Med Guardians. Most sanctums are filled with P/D theives, PU condi mesmers, S/S bow warriors in full apoth with banners, Hambow warriors, Terrormancers.

You get no help since you created PU Blackwater

First thought is squish!!! Try to get to 2.5-2.6k armor

You can drop that critical chance down to about 30% since you have fury. Move some of those precision points into HP, Power, and toughness.

Here is a template

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.5n.h2.8.5c.0.d13.0.d14|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|5n.71j.5j.71j.5j.71j.5c.71j.5n.71j.5n.71j.d1c.d16.d17.0.d17.d17|3t.d17.2v.d14.3v.d17.2v.d13.2t.d1d.2v.d13|0.a0.0.u150.u56b|2e.1|1n.1u.1v.1s.28|e

More power, hp, toughness and 2 less critical damage. This has divinity runes but you can change to boon duration if you like. This is what I run but I changed the runes to traveler for the time being. I think divinity runes will be bad when they change crit damage formula. I will probably move to runes of strength.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

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.

38.5 seconds on a 60 second cool down(with the upcoming update to armor of earth) and with the rune rework I’m pretty sure they won’t leave lyssa as it is. Seeing as most people try to complain about it. But yes I do agree it does seem a little much, with assuming I’m running at least 10 in earth, 30 in arcane, full boon duration runes(not being able to take lyssa).
So your theory with the lyssa runes is a little false As taking lyssa rune only gives you:
13 seconds with Elite
7.75 seconds each for armor of earth trait and cantrip
6.5 seconds with lyssa runes
totaling for 35 second
Making lyssa runes less optimal to run for protection and stability up time.

Edit: 38.5>35 and seeing how Ether Renewal’s cast time is 3.5 seconds I believe the 38.5 compared to the 35 make a very large difference(being that it is also 3.5 seconds).

Good catch I meant to separate that part meaning that Ele’s could then look to lyssa as a option.

LightningBlaze.4913:

I already explained my reasons on other threads where you posted Ozi. You support this update because well you main dagger. For me even if I was still using dagger as main I would still be realistic to see how this skill will be a bit too strong. I would argue that dueling balance is definitely not meh but I also understand that is a matter of opinion, experience and preference. I might consider something you find great as “meh” too. In summary, a single skill shouldn’t be offering all 4 excellent features which are: mobility, high damage, field and now evasion. The trade off of d/d is the melee range and that comes at the price of receiving more damage at higher scale battles. Burning speed was never in demand for a buff. It was already balanced. The weapon skills that actually do need buffs are completely ignored by Anet.

I am not biased because I main D/D at all. I don’t think it is that big of a deal that it gets an evade because it is still a highly telegraphed move. The problem with D/D against competent enemies is that as soon as you swap attunements the opponent that has knowledge of a elementalist has an idea of what is coming.

A main hand dagger swaps to fire you know drakes, burning speed or ring of fire is coming. Fire Grab is coming IF you are on fire. It isn’t about the individual skill of burning speed being buffed which is what I think you are focused on it is the entire skill set. The reason Karl gave in stream is that as a D/D you would do burning speed and get smacked with a hammer which is true if you didn’t have stab up. You see 5+ hammer warriors fighting your group and you don’t have stab up all you can do is burn them with drakes or eat retal damage with lightning whip.

I am not saying dueling is “meh” I duel often, I am saying balancing around dueling is “meh” or to clarify I don’t get hung up on dueling balance it isn’t officially supported by Anet and they don’t balance around duels so why get hung up on the fact that something will make it harder to duel a specific spec.

Dueling is rock, paper, scissors so I don’t really get hung up on dueling I know people do but they really shouldn’t. I have 6 of the 8 classes at 80 and I know there is a build to rock, paper, scissor on all of my 6 classes. I can go get on my thief put on P/D with perp runes and kill just about everything in a duel and anything left I can’t beat get on my Necro and run Terrormancer and if that doesn’t work lame it up with Hambow. Still having my mesmer and PU to come off the bench. Win at all cost duelers do this often so why dwell on duel balance when someone can go get a rock to your scissors. Dueling is fun alot of fun but the game just isn’t balanced around dueling.

I want Ele to be viable not just in dueling, S/X and Staff only get play at high level s/tPvP if a Ele is even wanted main hand dagger is last choice. You are hung up on dueling balance when currently your preferred main hand would get picked before my preferred main hand. I am not biased but looking at the whole picture not just duels in the Obsidian sanctum or dueling servers. A S/X Ele gets +250 toughness within it’s set and 900 range and a 1:1 scaling heal with higher base then main hand dagger’s heal. A evade on D/X burning speed is not that big of a deal.

If I looked at it from dueling I see this helps a Ele against Mesmers, Necros, Warriors, Thieves, Engi’s, and Rangers. Classes who can lame it up going range in a duel forcing the Melee D/D Ele to eat all its damage before the Ele even gets there giving them a HP advantage. Something that your S/D or S/F Ele can deal with much better.

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.

LightningBlaze.4913:

no nerf. All buffs so far from the stream. Watch it at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/496005243 and skip to 25:16 for the elementalist talk. Burning speed will need a nerffffffffffffffff

Im curious as to why you think burning speed will need a nerf because it will get evade frames? It will be stronger in a duel but thats a duel and dueling balance is meh. You still know when the ele went in to fire anyway. You can proc electric discharge from a fresh air build and put out close to as much damage as burning speed over that same amount of time and thats instant non telegraphed 900 range damage. This allows a safe way for a main hand dagger user to do damage when the numbers get large safely.

Right now if there is any kind of hammer train or group fighting of 4-5 people you can’t safely apply any good damage safely. You can drake breath, cone of cold and churning earth the outside of the group but you can’t drop good damage inside the group. Only if you have armor of earth up, arcane shield or mist can you go in do something get smashed to about half health and mist out.

Harbinger.8637:

Decided to craft some ascended pieces to go with my ascended Celestial. Going to replace the gloves, boots, and shoulders with Zealot.

Just as a warning for ascended, the recipes for Zealot are only TP. So don’t waste your laurels getting them from the vendor because they’re not there.

This is the idea I’m playing around with atm.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFABoAyFYLA7BAAAw1DAAAAA-jECBYfAZmKrJqCilhFRjVNLp6aYKXAaXRWEAzYA-w

There’s no Zealot on the builder yet, so the change would be 820 healing power and 79% CD.

You plan to record running around with this? I would like to see it in action.

I know Jon said in the stream that he wanted us to discuss which should be on hit sigils etc. This could be a good thread for that.

Necrotize.2974:

Ok I’ve always admired D/D eles, they look so complex and yet at the same time everything just flows together like a well oiled machine. So I was wondering, what tips do you guys have for practicing the skills necessary to achieve this? I know you can give me combos(which would help as well) but I also know that the flexibility of elementalists means having something for every situation and that would also help immensely.

This is mainly for SPvP and to a lesser extent WvW once I hit 80 so keep that in mind.

Your assessment of D/D is correct but bear in mind that sPvP is about roles. Do you have a roamer, bunker, etc. D/D can be any of those but the question is there another profession that you can slot in that is better.

I love D/D ele and it is all I pretty much play but just be aware of why it isn’t current meta. WvW is where D/D is the most fun. S/D gets more play in s/tPvP then D/D

Disagree with this there are already plenty of suggestions running around that attempt to remove the action from “action mmo”. Vigor uptime nerf is hitting soon which is more action being nerfed. If this keeps going we could just spreadsheet math everything and already have the outcome of a engagement figured out like we are playing WOW.

I don’t know I think guardian is the one class that can shine with this in WvW. You can trait for some extra toughness with SiN go deeper for critical damage to work with the precision. I don’t think this is something to fully deck out in but can provide some dps lacking from healing builds.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1k.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7x.1g.7x.1g.7x.1g.7x.1g.7x.1g.7x.0.0.0.0.0.0|2u.0.21k.0.31k.0.21l.0.31l.0.2u.0|0.0.k46.u000.k00|2e.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

Cooked this up to see what I could get. The armor total healing would come to 234. Simulated the power and precision from zerk obviously the critical damage would be lower. Just add in 234 in the manual section for the armor. I think this can give a healway build some extra damage.

Rune mix and match will still be possible just not as good. They are also giving them a +10 stat buff to the main stat. So rune of strengths example = 175 power.

I like the idea of making all the runes better. This will have more diversity sure you can still get +30% duration of whatever you want which is ok. I would rather have good full sets to compete with +30% duration.

Right now you have 53 total runes and maybe 8 good ones. Off the top of my head for PvE = Scholar or Orbs

WvW =

Boon duration (traveler, water, monk) which invalidates the need to grab any other specific duration choice like earth. You don’t get the full 6 just 2/2/2. Some grab might stackers fire, strength, hoelbrak.

Ogre, full traveler, full speed, divinity, melandru, hoelbrak, resistance for cheaper melandru, forge, Lyssa, eagle or bugged rune of ranger.

Condition damage = perplexity or scavenger runes

So 13 out of 53 full 6 piece is desirable in WvW and even less in PvE for a “Meta” build. I probably missed a couple niche runes for niche builds.

This is out if you guys didn’t know. There is a thread rolling on the Guardian forums so I figured we start one up here. I love new stat combo’s and theorycrafting.

If you have a legendary you can select this new combo fyi.

Power main stat
Precision/Healing secondary stat.

No toughness on it kind of makes me feel like it’s a better magi’s. I can see throwing it on my Guardian for more deeps in a healway but not sure about Ele. My initial thought is earth magic investors could get some use out of it mixing it with other gear, but that’s all I can think of right now.

Healing power investment goes better with tanking not dps. This might put out similar dps numbers as celestial.

Thanks for uploading this! This highlights what I have explained to a few different people. If you run 20 water and 30 arcana minimum there isn’t going to be that much of a difference in damage.

his build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmkbwx5wjDAEFucyQRIbUekzM2A-jUCBYgBkEBgIAMBqIaslRht6KalXBRVjIqWbDTGAmxA-w

1696 Power
36% crit chance (prefury)
34 critical damage.

Watch this video look at his lightning whip damage and then see if the numbers are that much different then yours. With the upcoming change to ferocity the gap between knights and zerker is closer. I love 20 water 30 arcana D/D I accept what it is and don’t imagine that it is something that it isn’t.

Good music and vid!

As others mentioned you have to trait for conditions you don’t gear for them. If you have a thief you know SE moved to GM makes thief free lunch.

This is silly even asking this this thread is bad. Asking for a trait to be moved because another class spends less points for condi removal lol. I spend 30 on my ele which is my main and has probably the best condition removal tools in the game and it still isn’t enough. I don’t mind thieves only needing 10.

Przemek Pro.1309:

its 21 today and we dont have a balance patch, maybe some1 know when it is?

Feb or march.

Amineo.8951:

It would’ve been nice if i knew it before making my ascended stuff, now thanks to ArenaNet, i have to farm again in order to get these stats that i want, for both my Guard and Elem, thanks a lot…

Exactly what they want you to do

People that think the Devs are biased toward classes they helped create are immature and grabbing at anything they can to prove a point. I don’t think they need to do that. The community is far more biased then the Devs since most people only care about their “Main” and many don’t have extensive time with other classes.

teg.1340:

The most common WvW build for D/D thieves is either 10/30/30 or 0/30/30/10. I’ve ran both for a long time in WvW. Backstabs with those build normally hit for up to 7.5k damage with 25 bloodlust. Larger hits are only possible against upscaled or full glass players.

A few weeks ago my thief with 2.4k defense got hit in a zergy fight for 15.2k damage by churning earth. I know churning earth is a highly telegraphed skill (played ele by myself). Just saying, thats more damage than a full Steal -> CnD -> Backstab combo on my thief.

Thats what I run which is the common backstab build in WvW. I don’t know what OMGcasey is playing or where but 10k is not the norm in WvW. I put the last 10 in trick I don’t understand the appeal of the 10 in acro. I understand 10 in DA for mug.

BlackBeard.2873:

I apologize if it sounded like I was saying “L2P” before, and I was working under the assumption you were a d/d bunker ele that hits like a wet noodle until it stacks up might (as most posters who I don’t recognize are likely to still run).

Omg Beard I’m still out running full Clerics! Providing supports!

it’s minor cav or zerk is fine. Backpiece is awesome crit damage ratio so one of those 2 will do. The celestial backpiece is terrible. Its basically a glove whereas the other backpieces are basically legs with coat crit damage.

Omg Casey.5973:

oZii.2864:

I don’t know how much you know about thieves but 10k backstabs aren’t the norm at all.

Sounds like you don’t know much about thieves, judging by the statement you just made.

OR you are referring to PvE just going by your guild? Nothing against DnT though so don’t get me wrong there.

10k backstabs aren’t the norm in WvW for backstab thieves which this topic is about. 6-8k for backstab alone is more of the norm with 5k – 6k for warrior and guardians. You can get lucky and get 10k running a standard WvW hidden killer build like Wish’s build but 10k is not the norm. You need signet all in to get consistently higher numbers but at the cost of survivability.

I run wish’s backstab hidden killer build on my thief modified but still at 2100 power no buffs with 110 crit damage and 10k is still not the norm unless you put points into deadly arts. People out roaming in WvW tend to run a bit more tanky shadow arts investment is almost a must in WvW for a thief. What I hit on uplevels doesn’t matter cause they are uplevels.

The condition removal is mostly dictated by your enemy. You do get removal with the trait + HiS and shadow refuge and blackpowder. If you don’t make it back into stealth you can’t cleanse. You can d/p so it is more in your control but the trait does have weaknesses.

Remember seeing a bug report for it a long time ago.

I thought dwayna didn’t work with cleansing or did they fix that?

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

RTL is not the reason Ele is not viable. Warrior have always had as good mobility as Elementalist. The warrior can bunker and still do more damage. Warrior always borderlined taking the Elementalists roaming bunker position it didn’t because it was weak to conditions and had no sustain. It now has the tools now for that.

Those once weak warriors have muscled in on the “Role” that ele use to fill now all E;e can do is wish to TIE the warrior in a mobility race with a RTL revert. Then you would say the mobility tools line up and have to look at the rest of the qualifications for that “Role” and who can do it better. This is more of a problem with conquest requiring certain “Roles”.

More simple example is:

Warrior = 1200 range on rush and lets say 1400 with swiftness(I think it is actually 1500) + rush 16 sec cooldown trait GS. Throw on sword lets say also then has 600 range leap on 8 second cooldown lets say 800 with swiftness.

Ele = 1200 range RTL with old RTL 15 seconds. Burning Speed 600 range on 15 second cooldown lets say 800 range with swiftness now with evade frames.

So the mobility tools line up for D/D vs War with Warrior having the edge slightly. S/D can’t match that mobility.

So then you have to look at the rest of the tools besides mobility since they basically cancelled each other out.

You forgot warrior whirlwind which also has 600 range with swiftness, on a 10 second cooldown.

Ahh very true I totally forgot that one thanks.

piffdaddy.8014:

I do think ride the lightning is the reason eles aren’t completely viable in spvp. Other roamers such as a thief, Mesmer, or even a warrior all have ways to disengage if the fight is not in their favor (for instance 1v1 on far point and 2 others come to assist enemy team). Eles have NO way to get away; ride the lightning is almost always on cooldown when you need it.

Dagger mainhand may be able to be a mediocre side point bunker after next patch, nothing more. Spirit ranger or engi will still be much better side point holders. Burst roamer ele will still be a liability to the team(for reasons I mentioned, no reliable way to disengage like other roamers have). WvW roaming is again lackluster because no reliable way to get away (other than maybe firey greatsword which is a freaking elite skill)

Yes you can wvw roam with a group of friends who are ready to rez you when needed (roll with a thief who has shadow refuge). Solo, you really have no way to get away while a warrior can troll around all day with his greatsword, outrunning zergs. Thieves will chase you down and basilisk venom you from range.

I tried to post a thread about ride the lightning in the balance forum but for some reason I can’t :/

RTL is not the reason Ele is not viable. Warrior have always had as good mobility as Elementalist or better. The warrior can bunker and still do more damage. Warrior always borderlined taking the Elementalists roaming bunker position it didn’t because it was weak to conditions and had no sustain. It now has the tools now for that.

Those once weak warriors have muscled in on the “Role” that ele use to fill now all E;e can do is wish to TIE the warrior in a mobility race with a RTL revert. Then you would say the mobility tools line up and have to look at the rest of the qualifications for that “Role” and who can do it better. This is more of a problem with conquest requiring certain “Roles”.

More simple example is:

Warrior = 1200 range on rush and lets say 1400 with swiftness(I think it is actually 1500) + rush 16 sec cooldown trait GS. Throw on sword lets say also then has 600 range leap on 8 second cooldown lets say 800 with swiftness.

Ele = 1200 range RTL with old RTL 15 seconds. Burning Speed 600 range on 15 second cooldown lets say 800 range with swiftness now with evade frames.

So the mobility tools start to line up for D/D vs War with Warrior having the definitive edge. S/D can’t match that mobility.

So then you have to look at the rest of the tools besides mobiliity because Warrior wins that even with a lower CD RTL.

Edit
Add whirlwind which I forgot 600 range on 8 second cd traited so 800 with swiftness. This puts mobility completely in the warriors favor.

I agree with you there the “must have” traits in builds for a few classes revolve around fighting condtions.

KarlusDavius.1024:

I almost always play WvW. My gear and build are set up around this sole purpose. I run a shield (not just any, my one true love, flame-seeker prophecies). I use it mainly for blocking damage when hitting a Zerg and popping marks, running through arrow cart fire and a whole heap of different scenarios. I love it.

However, I’m always criticised for doing so because my shield actually gives me very little benefit in terms of trait allocation. And the one, sole reason?

Dogged March.

This, for a warrior, is pretty much classed as a mandatory trait. There’s no denying that in this condition heavy game (which is set to get more intense after the upcoming patch), that it’s needed in order to keep mobile and apply pressure without being kited too easily. However, in order for my shield to actually give me something back. I would need to drop this Mandatory trait and take Shield Master. The reduced cooldown and extra toughness would be fantastic and would be amazing for the build I run, yet cripple me in terms of my movement in mostly any fight.

So here’s the thing. Should mandatory traits exist in the form of this trait? Should players of any class have to take any trait which means they are viable, or without it they crumble? Or is that ok by you guys?

In addition, I’d love to see shield master moved from that line and put into something like arms or even the tactics line. I understand the defence line is all about, well, defence. But it seems any other off hand allows a boost from easily accessible traits, except the shield, due to a supposed mandatory trait that we need.

Jormel is correct. In PvP doggged march can be considered a mandatory trait (though you can still get by without it) in PvE nobody goes into defense tree for meta builds.

I don’t know how much you know about thieves but 10k backstabs aren’t the norm at all.

Now a thief can maximize damage to try to get consistent high numbers using the signet burst build.

If you check the thief forums for a recent post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/More-4-signet-bursting/first#post3504166

It contains this video

http://youtu.be/X5STvYuVeCQ

This is the equivalent of the 15k eviserate build pure glass all in. Some thieves run it but not many. You don’t have to run exactly this to hit 10k but if you do get 10k without running this build you got lucky or hit someone very squishy.

If you miss this burst at all your only escape is a quick CnD.

selan.8354:

oZii.2864:

selan.8354:

oZii.2864:

The sad part is that you truly believe this. They don’t like a class they created rofl. They are clearly biased. With your biased observation of them all having warriors. Grouch Mains Engineer anybody that semi follows the s/tPvP scene knows this.

From what I remember Chap mains Necro, Jon Peters is warrior, Powerr is Ele but he plays necro also, Grouch is Engi. I don’t know Karl and Roy’s classes.

Mesmer isn’t suppose to have movement speed and is suppose to be weak to conditions that is a part of their designed weakness.

i wouldnt mind the the swiftness and i am very used to it, same with no stability and terrible condi cleanse. but after the countless nerfs we are being ignored and just nerfed further despite the fact that mesmer is condammned to be a stupid veilbot in wvw. they never fixed any of our bugs and one really braking one is the iwarden that is beyond broken and didnt get fixed!
i dont care if they play other classes but it clearly isnt mesmer and also the way they talked about my class was absolutely disrespectful. hahaha cheesy hahaha no clone for u hahahaha purple hahaha chees ahaahahaha no u gotta work a little bit hahaha. how would u feel huh?

They didn’t say mesmer was cheesey they said DE allowed you to cheese it up with on death traits.

they said chees it up and yes they they constantly laughed and i felt mocked by them. so stop defending your beloved ones. a lot of other mesmer players felt the exact same way. i felt disrespected and u aint gonna change my opinion on that. and btw back on the topic. i really dont mind changing runes at all i am soo used to the slow speed by now i feel weird when i run fast. the only thing that really bugs me is the no aoe dmg as a light armor class, because everything that the mesmer used to be in wvw got nerfed to the ground of the grounds.
gw1 mes had it right gw2 mes is a complete mess with barely any build variety

Ok I love them you hate them but we both play their game how funny. Back on topic instead of mindreading the devs and interpreting what they said so you can play the victim card in a video game. I am sure you have probably been told before that you are running cheese or mesmer is cheesy I guess it hurt extra hard cause it came from the devs? You took it more personal? You should do a march on to Anet’s HQ and boycott NCsofts products followed by a sit-in.

selan.8354:

oZii.2864:

The sad part is that you truly believe this. They don’t like a class they created rofl. They are clearly biased. With your biased observation of them all having warriors. Grouch Mains Engineer anybody that semi follows the s/tPvP scene knows this.

From what I remember Chap mains Necro, Jon Peters is warrior, Powerr is Ele but he plays necro also, Grouch is Engi. I don’t know Karl and Roy’s classes.

Mesmer isn’t suppose to have movement speed and is suppose to be weak to conditions that is a part of their designed weakness.

i wouldnt mind the the swiftness and i am very used to it, same with no stability and terrible condi cleanse. but after the countless nerfs we are being ignored and just nerfed further despite the fact that mesmer is condammned to be a stupid veilbot in wvw. they never fixed any of our bugs and one really braking one is the iwarden that is beyond broken and didnt get fixed!
i dont care if they play other classes but it clearly isnt mesmer and also the way they talked about my class was absolutely disrespectful. hahaha cheesy hahaha no clone for u hahahaha purple hahaha chees ahaahahaha no u gotta work a little bit hahaha. how would u feel huh?

They didn’t say mesmer was cheesey they said DE allowed you to cheese it up with on death traits.

Shockwave.1230:

Bran.7425:

I think that his speculation about thieves with sigils of air and fire together instantly killing “viable” builds seems unrealistic and fear-mongering.

Idk, with high power mug+fire can hit for 3k+ on squishies. Backstab can be landed for about 9k already when traiting for damage modifiers. When I’m in the mood for backstab squishy thieves, guardians, and ele’s are very nearly instantly downed.

Add in air and you’re getting pretty close to pulling off 14k+ instantly from stealth. So much of the thief’s viability comes from it’s weapon and utility skills with some extra benefit from traits that it’s not really a stretch to say that there will be insta-down spikes. Don’t expect to see a warrior or necro drop that fast. However, squishy builds on guardian, ele, thief could potentially drop 100% to 0%.

They said that they are rebalancing sigils because of this change. So we don’t know if air and fire are exactly the same. I don’t know if helseth just looked up a transcript from the stream but they did say that in the stream.

The sad part is that you truly believe this. They don’t like a class they created rofl. They are clearly biased. With your biased observation of them all having warriors. Grouch Mains Engineer anybody that semi follows the s/tPvP scene knows this.

From what I remember Chap mains Necro, Jon Peters is warrior, Powerr is Ele but he plays necro also, Grouch is Engi. I don’t know Karl and Roy’s classes.

Mesmer isn’t suppose to have movement speed and is suppose to be weak to conditions that is a part of their designed weakness.

There was nothing wrong with them being loose. They have done plenty of ’professional" streams no banter. I liked this much better them being not robotic and they looked relaxed.

The streams are always blogged on reddit and dulfy afterwards.

I sent Josh a message to see if this can get stickied.

After reading some of these I think it is safe to say Guild Wars 2 is “perfect imbalance.”.

Taldren.7523:

oZii.2864:

piffdaddy.8014:

The thing I wantes was a reduces cooldown on rtl….instead we get d/d buffs (wtf?) And passive signet returned to state. Overall, this patch won’t make ele viable. They need their mobility back if they are ever expected to play without water traits

RTL is not the reason they aren’t Viable in sPvP. Everything is viable in WvW so I am assuming you are talking about sPvP.

The reason ele has a hard time fitting into sPvP meta is because everybody else does it better. If you gave RTL back a thief would still be better as your nuker, warrior better as your roaming bunker.

I understand the love with RTL but I don’t see how RTL = viability. This isn’t launch anymore. Unless you mean reset fights like before every 15 seconds so you can Ether Renewal, come back in and attempt burst rotation again which would again be warrior or thief doing it better. Game has evolved classes are better and sadly warrior probably fits every role a ele could fill better outside of ranged aoe DPS.

I have a warrior also that has better mobility and I still run defense traits I still run SA on my thief. Mobility doesn’t allow me to not spec defense lines and Run all dps because I am mobile.

If you want RTL back as a QOL change sure but RTL and viable have nothing to do with each other when it comes to ele.

Ozii, do you even WvW? Have you fought a Warrior, Ranger, or Thief? Post nerf, they can out run/maneuver us and pester us at will … be it solo, group fight, or a zerg. When you get them low they bounce and we have no means to keep pace to finish the job … so they come back and guess who they gun for first.

The worst part of the whole thing is that this whole punishment if you miss on maneuverability weapon abilities was only levied against Elementalists. If it was applied to all classes equally it would at least have been bearable … still bad … but not blatantly hypocritical.

Do you WvW? Everything is viable in WvW. Alot of people play Ele in WvW. Yes I WvW it is all I do pretty much.

If you look at the context of that conversation the point I was making is that mobility is not the reason Ele’s aren’t viable. In s/tPvP because that is the only place Ele’s aren’t currently viable at high levels.

If you want RTL to be returned then don’t dress it up as viability was my only point there. It looks silly trying to say Elementalist isn’t viable in WvW.

I have fought a Warrior the only warrior build that is even trouble for me on my Ele is hambow which is one of the top builds in s/tPvP. In WvW hambow has no mobility there it is just a dueling build so who cares. I have never had any problems with thieves. The hardest to fight is P/D thieves and that has to do with Range not mobility even then it is still winnable. Also this is in a duel context which isn’t really all that important.

magic fly.2041:

I’m glad ele is getting a buff, but…
I really really really do not like the idea of adding an evade to an already decently powerful skill.
It will make eles more powerful, but less fun to fight against. Those two things do not have to be mutually exclusive. Dodges, blinds, and blocks are already overabundant enough as it is.

Things like focus’s fire spells are in much greater need of attention than one of the ele’s better skills.

I don’t see a problem with burning speed now being allowed to be used defensively and offensively. The reasoning was sound and holds true. Now you can chose to save your lf burning speed combo. The skill is strong but it still requires setup and anyone decent can see when the ele goes into fire and expect whats coming. The alternative is give ele something so they can face tank while they do damage which would be a warrior.

I like that the op is one of those people that recognizes that his main has weakness, what those weakness are, and knows it is suppose to have those weaknesses.

Great Post this may help understand some Dev thinking. I have this bookmarked for X class should do Y like Z threads. This isn’t one of them but I think is relevant. These kind of gems from the Devs get lost or not seen. Which is partly why they made this forum for example.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots, for PvE, Dungeons, and PvP.

This is all high level, and I’m in a rush, but I just wanted to explain this real fast…..

It’s funny, being in China, I have more time to post on the forums than I do while in the office. That’s irony or something….like 10,000 spoons….

-Chap from China