Guild Wars 2

Condition or Power Mesmer? It’s probably PU you can still just ignore them, though power ones you do have to dodge/block/ds and absorb the first opening burst.

apharma.3741:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

What people suggesting stuff like “ele boons need nerfing” always seem to forget is that ele’s don’t have anything else besides boon as defensive options. Thief/Mesmer has stealth, Guard/Warrior/Mesmer have block, necros have shroud, etc.

Eles only have boons really, that’s why our boons are strong, especially the defensive ones.

I know this, the problem is the boons are applied so quickly and frequently especially since our attunement recharge got reduced that it drastically reduces the effectiveness of these strips. Protection is applied in buckets for the ele with little investment. I’d like to see boons increased in duration by a second or two but the application or re application reduced by a second or two.

Just a small shave. Then I’d like to see some cool down reductions on some survival utilities and something other than cantrips and arcane shield for surviving. Glyphs would be a great place to start as they’re very hit and miss in terms of usefulness, with long cool downs.

Have a boon control Necromancer around problem solved. The amount of boon corruption a Necro can do now is way way better than it was before. 2 boons per signet used plague, locust, corrupt boon, one of the boons is a trait. Not every class is suppose to do all things. Corrupting Stability is bugged right now and not converting it to fear it just strips it currently. That one thing would change the effectiveness of Ele making armor earth and rock solid a liability if a necro is around.

Elementalist has been one of the classes I haven’t had any problem fighting on my Necromancer. I’m still a Ele main, but I’ve been playing my necro more post patch trying to get a build down, but signets of suffering will make boon eles(which is just about all eles) life miserable when stab to fear conversion is fixed.

So I grabbed the new signet trait on my Necro and I’m not running might duration runes or even a sigil of battle. 25 stacks of might was pretty easy to get. Take blood magic + Soul reaping for shroud sustain and healing and the spite line. Not sure where this is a Ele specific “problem”.

Urukami.4796:

oZii.2864:

Urukami.4796:

Azure.8670:

Perplexity runes? Garbage.

I gotta get me some

Never let people’s opinion stop you from using what runes you want to use.

Especially if they cost you 10-12g a piece. You shouldn’t have to justify your purchases in a game unless it’s to your wife.

+1

I see in your video that you switch between warhorn and dagger is this just changing it up occasionally or have you decided which one seems to be the best for you. I run a similar build except I have blood magic over spite I’m the same with perplexity runes. I am still not sure about warhorn though, I’m gonna look at your build and video a few times to analyze it. I hope you make another soon. Since the patch my necro has been my favorite class to play so far even more than my elementalist which I am just finding kind of boring atm.

Urukami.4796:

Azure.8670:

Perplexity runes? Garbage.

I gotta get me some

Never let people’s opinion stop you from using what runes you want to use.

Especially if they cost you 10-12g a piece. You shouldn’t have to justify your purchases in a game unless it’s to your wife.

Many eles are getting by with not running arcana or water, though most builds seem to have one or the other. Remember focus has earth 4 which is not interruptable and removes 3 conditions every 17 seconds traited. Earth+hoelbrak are why people feel more comfortable forgoing arcana or water.

You are going to have to change your gear up some I think. I think that is part of the struggle everyone is having now. I think the new system with stats on gear is better than before, but some adjustments have to be made.

Zealots is kind of meh imo for a scepter/focus ele you might as well run zerk since you probably have low toughness the zealots won’t allow you to spike heal because damage>healing, especially now that most classes are doing more damage than before.

I’d mix some celestial in there.

I’d take air over fire with a mostly zealots build since power is still your main stat

Thanks I’ll give weakening shroud another go around.

flow.6043:

Parasitic Contagion!

…jk, Weakening Shroud.

Is Parasitic Contagion that bad? I have been running it since I am in BM also. After playing around in WvW I felt Lingering wasn’t that good. Parasitic contagion seems decent if I can stack multiple types of conditions and get’s even better the more people around I hit with staff and aoe skills.

It’s really your 3rd statement which is why Ele’s take cantrips. Across multiple classes there maybe 1 specific semi-niche utility slotted. Usually the rest that are slotted are the most flexible/adaptable, and utilities are suppose to be just that; the more pigeonholed a utility feels the less likely people are to take it.

Not many classes seemed to have there utilies changed much in the last patch it is more traits that may have made them more useful like the new Necro signet trait.

Ele signets need a full rework imo I would say that conjurers are useless, but that would be a personal bias since I rarely have a need for them in my primary game mode. I know that have always had a place in PvE I think all the conjurers have been meta at one point besides the shield we are kind of stuck with them in PvP/WvW they are more niche there and usually not worth multiple slots.

I think we will see another balance pass anyway before or close to HOTs utilities barely got touched which is kind of unusual given such a large balance pass.

sinject.4607:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Everyone and their mother now does too much damage with ele being one of the minor offenders here.

And IMHO the biggest offender here anyway are the strength runes which give a quite insane 45% might duration. Same for balthazar runes, 45% burn duration seems way too generous.

Without all the added might duration it wouldn’t be realistically possible in pvp situations to stack so much might so fast and long.

If burning itself gets nerfed too hard eles (and guards) will be left without a viable condition build again, like it was for 3 years before this patch. And that’s not what should happen.

you’re trying to deflect where the blame belongs (the elementalist profession itself) to avoid a nerf to where is needed. no other profession with or without strength runes can stack 25 stacks of might by themselves and have a remotely viable build. this is not an issue caused by runes. this is an issue caused by a profession that has ridiculous access to the strongest condition in the game, ridiculous might stacking ability, compounded with ridiculous survivability all in one completely viable build for literally any situation:
celestial ele.

elementalist isn’t a “minor offender.” it’s the main offender. it’s pretty much unbeatable in 1v1s if played by a wood log, let alone a competent player. it’s teamfighting superiority is also arguably second to none in terms of single-player value. so until ele gets much deserved nerfs to traitlines or weapon skills and burning damage is considerably toned down, yes, you are the main offenders.

I’m pretty sure a condi engineer with runes of aristocracy can stack 25 stacks of might in a viable build with bombs or flamethrower with firearms trait lines+alchemy. Necro’s shouldn’t have to much of an issue getting close to 25 stacks with a signet build and blood is power.

Laraley.7695:

The reason why I picked these traits is exactly the fact that they provide too much for too little, I even stated that. I don’t think all passives should be removed from the game, but there are plenty of them that should. Sigils are another story and I think lots people are annoyed with the fact this game depends on damage from procs, they have no counterplay.

Also, there’s really a difference between having something proc a hard cc and something lowering your cooldown in air.

Aeromancer’s training doesn’t only lower your cooldown it also passively gives you +190 precision or about 9%.

I see your position I can understand that position and there are others that share it. I just don’t think it’s a strong one, because they provide a lot for you ,or like minded playstyles, while water will provide a lot of passives for some support healer.

Geomancer’s training passively drops movement impairment conditions combined with Hoelbrak for -53% duration.

I can get a +21% damage increase as long as they burn and I’m in fire just by picking one trait that is a choice.

I’m probably detracting from the specifics of the topic at hand I think the traits you chose are fine.

None of the reasons given justify a change, because the active/passive play argument on it’s own isn’t a good one. What should be looked at is if a passive trait is to strong compared to other passive traits the same with active skills.

The list is cherry picked of the some passive traits, but ignores all the other passive traits which is just about every trait in the game.

My question is which “passive play” traits are ok and which “passive play” traits aren’t.

If we used the logic of active vs passive play off top of my head you would need to redesign every class and the whole combat system including the PvE side, basically you would need to make a new game.

Using some examples similar to whats stated in the OP for elementalist

Soothing Ice
Renewing stamina
Cleansing water
Soothing disruption
Any +% trait while meeting X condition like burning
Static Discharge
Whatever sigil you put on your weapon
Stop, drop, and roll
Geomancers Training
Aeromancer’s training
Aquamancers training
Pyromancers training
Elemental Contingency
Elemental Attunement
Zephyr’s Speed

The list goes on and on the game is littered with “passive play” you pick a trait you get a benefit and all it required you to do is click something = profit.

The only thing really active in this game is dodging, blocking, and landing an attack. You don’t enter D,DF,F to shoot fire grab like a hadoken in Street Fighter you just press 5 while being mindful about some positioning.

I don’t know I’m a pretty black/white kind of guy I don’t think a compelling argument can be made for nerfing something solely based on picking a few “passives” with the position of it’s to strong because passive.

It’s ok I guess I wouldn’t run a condition focused build on my Ele I have my Necro and Engi for that. Right now Engi’s are having fun withe the power/cele builds, but my Engi is still setup for conditions and messing around Flame thrower is strong now and inciendiary ammo plus the flamethrower tool skill with firearms+inventions+alchemy or tools and the new mortar kit blows my Necro’s condition build out of the water.

Many things are different now it still needs more time to play out. Direct damage is still king and even more so now.

Pazu.8320:

This is what I’ve been running too, except Stop, Drop, and Roll rather than Soothing Ice. Soothing Ice icd is 20sec :P, so not that good imo.

I think Soothing Ice>Stop,Drop, and Roll since it gives you reduced damage+chill+regen no matter the attunement with cleansing water that is an extra of any condition removed while also giving you some direct damage reduction. You could get a cripple or chill and probably not even know it because soothing ice procced.

Medi-guard opens with a pretty much guaranteed judges burn and soothing ice wiped it immediately with cleansing water which would probably reduce their damage somewhat if they are running the 7% damage against burning foes and/or not activate the extra fury against a foe with 3stacks of burning as an application example and it didn’t cost you a dodge.

Balekai.6083:

I use Krait Runes on my condi Necro sustain/support builds.

Basically if bleeds and bleed application are practically your main/only source of condi DPS, you should buff them with Krait runes.

With Rabid amulet in PvP Krait does about 21% more damage than Undead Runes. On Settlers (which is toughness primary) Krait runes do a bit less damage compared to Undead (about 19%). The downside is that you’re less tanky with Krait Runes by giving up the toughness bonuses. Also Undead Runes are front loaded condi DPS while Krait rely on duration and the lack of condi clears. Lastly Undead runes up other condition damage from poison, burning and torment stacks.

Still, those stacks don’t compare to the amount of AoE bleed stacks we get.

However, it sounds like you’re build is mostly a Terrormancer with Parasitic Contagion for sustain while dabbling in BM. I would probably take Fear of Death over Vital Persistence since Parasitic Contagion does nothing for you in DS. Also, you can’t build up burning stacks in DS using FitG when you exit for extra healing. I would then take Nightmare or Perplex runes. In BM you’re going to want Blood Bond for sure, Vampiric Presence and Vampiric Rituals or Transfusion, depending on whether you want to use wells or not. For WvW Transfusion may be the way to go if you’re group roaming. In PvP/WvW solo roaming, Vampiric Rituals feels more useful to me with Well of Power/Darkness.

Thanks a lot for the feedback you pretty much hit the build I’m running on the head. This is what I was thinking, but wasn’t sure.

Since I would lose dps by taking FiTG, then Nightmare or Perplex would help me get some of that back I have a set of each of those and I’ll try them out. Also in a roaming setting the 4 piece from Perplex or the 6th from Nightmare would provide a suitable defensive alternative since I’m not running Reaper’s Protection.

This is WvW small group/roaming ..

I’m just coming back to the game and so far my Necro is the one that has really drawn me in I love the new blood magic changes. Looking at different discussions between here, reddit, and videos on youtube it looks like krait runes seem to be the rune of choice for condi builds now.

I have a set of rune of nightmare which helps that I am not running reaper’s protection anymore. My build is curses, blood magic, soul reaping all the siphoning traits along with transfusion, curses I take condition damage heals me over lingering curses. In soul reaping I am torn between increased fear duration or vital persistence so I am still trying to decide which one there and I take FitG.

With the changes to conditions is condition damage and duration still as equally important or is the scale tipped more toward damage now? I have about 2000 condition damage in WvW with the runes of scavenging that I’m trying on now and 85% bleed duration.

So is krait> runes of nightmare or anything else for a condition build now when it comes to output?

I don’t know about Radiance Runes. Going super offensive or defensive you have to sacrifice something somewhere, but you can make that up in combat with boons in some areas besides crit damage. I’d mess around with the fire aura trait to see if you notice a significant change to warrant dropping anything, but power/might runes.

Other classes are putting out more damage now so I personally wouldn’t advise losing to much damage and remember power/might=damage. We can sacrifice some of it because we get pretty easy access to might, but I wouldn’t drop to much power.

The only Rune choices I would consider for wvw/roaming would be hoelbrak/strength/eagle/scholar/pack I’d give air a try for some swiftness increase and another guaranteed lightning strike that can crit, but that would be more just for some fun trolling.

If the meta build looks like it’s going to be what phantaram was running earlier today on stream he even said it doesn’t do good damage. Watching him it looks like it’s ok respectable damage, but I didn’t see anything OP about it.

There is some math on reddit that points to the break even vs old condi damage vs new. So pretty much burn you don’t need to much condi damage to still make it good because of intensity so we are good there.

You could probably mix some valk/cav/zerk/soldier if you wanted to forgo condi and healing power. Messing around with different combinations I found celestial gave me numbers I wanted with a little knights/zerk

You could always get that on ele with the right gear setup and going into earth definitely you could get that much toughness.

On my d/d I have 2700 armor, 17.3k health, and 30% chance to crit prefury and 184% crit damage.

Meanwhile my thief has 232% crit damage.

I never really liked using full stacks in builds as a representation of the real build.

Nothing really new here when it comes to those 2 classes vs d/d ele. Mesmer and Necro usually had the upper hand against us. Especially the PU build.

BlackBeard.2873:

Honestly, I am thinking (as of now) you are best off running Air/Water/Arcana:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-o33;2B2VU0z4-NkY0;9;432G;0147046146;9;1F-03F-030y

Why air over fire/earth:

Fire is honestly just bad. At GM, you only would take the blind-spam, but until that has a per-target CD it is just trash. They even nerfed the adept burns. Earth isn’t too bad, but the GM options are pretty lack-luster. Earth can work, but it doesn’t seem to provide that much. Air, however, gives you great mobility and damage options, and I feel like this is a time where a good offense is a good defense.

So within air, which traits are best? Truth is, most options are pretty good besides the glyph trait. Variations:

Fresh air: This is one of the 4 most powerful ele traits (lots of damage AND utility). Not only does it give you more damage from lightning procs, it also gives you access to lightning whip on-demand (our best auto-attack) and much more variability to break out of a “rotation.” If you take this, you probably want one-with-air, as you can get really high super-speed uptime, making you hard to kite and limiting the impact of cripple/chill to really slow you down. I love aeromancer’s training, as 27s RtL is SUPER strong, and more access to updraft and shocking aura is also very powerful. You COULD take tempest defense, which is defensive in a different way. If I did that, I would be tempted to take Zephyr’s boon. However, you probably don’t want to bother with zephyr’s boon, as you should have 100% fury uptime between the pack runes, elemental contingency, arcane fury, and fresh-air giving you extra swaps to air.

Lightning rod: While fresh-air is super strong, this variation might work very well with tempest defense, as you could get VERY HIGH uptime on shocking auras that not only do damage, but also weaken your enemy to really cut down on dps. Ferocious winds would probably be best here as one with air is only very good with fresh air, and you get pleny of fury making zephyr’s boon redundant.

Edit: As a poster above suggested, you COULD run d/f if you used fresh air (as that super speed really helps you get around). However, I personally just LOVE that 27s RtL SOOOOOO much!

I’m running similar in WvW, but I took tempest defense and lightning Rod. Lightning rod is pretty strong when it cries and is unavoidable damage if it procs unless they are invulnerable at the time and combined with attuning to are proc that’s respectable damage. I thought about running runes air and sigil of air for lulz just to have strikes going off all the time but those are pretty bad.

I’m still kind of unsure how to setup water soothing ice is a must, but I’m kind of partial to cantrips on a lower cool down tbh and taking the removing a condi with regen. I think both work though. The pack runes are great but I can’t drop hoelbrak at least in WvW anyway.

Aidan Eighthrain.8612:

Having good results in Ranked with this (Phoenix Rank) :

http://intothemists.com/guides/5552-dd_truely_fresh_air

The sigil on intelligence is a nice touch. I dropped my battle sigil for energy and I still have doom, but I was looking for another alternative.

I think it’s possible or you can make conditions not a factor at all with Water and Earth+geomancer’s training.

I’d say Hoelbrak for just about every build. We mostly take EA for the heal/cleanse, but we never was able to comfortably get to the fire or earth trait like we wanted.

Fuzzion.2504:

so classic dnd eles, any1 tried without arcane. ?

A little bit it made me rethink synergies. F/W/A is really good, but kitten atm because blinding ashes didn’t change like it’s suppose to yet. I looked at earth/water/air the last trait kind of meh on choice there in earth. I’d say fury in fire fields is a must if your going fire and air for movement speed.

I think any kind of earth build with geomancer’s training and a focus is pretty good if you also take water and probably air. You get a projectile reflect and 3 condi clear every 161/2 sec.

I think gear has to be looked at hard again and from what we normally ran and a non arcana damage build is certainly possible to be good. Boon uptime isn’t what it use to be and with more stats on gear prot needed as much. I’d say hoelbrak runes on anything you run for WvW.

I’m about to go mess with S/D 3/3/3 or just 3/3/3 in general and 0/3/3/3

Valin.6873:

Hi people!
So I’m a D/D main ele.. I’m not out of work yet so I’ve yet to be able to play with the new builds. My question is.. can we run similar builds from before the patch? The one I was running was Celestial or Knights armour with traits in arcana/water/earth. Is this still viable? If not is there any suggested builds you guys are running? I like to roam in WvW so I tend to like full knights as it can sustain and hurt hard. Any suggestions? Ty for all the help!

-Valin

It seems decent you would just grab one of the previous unattainable full lines. I tried fire briefly, but no swiftness was a no no. Soothing ice is great.

I picked renewing stamina, elemental contingency, evasive arcana, water traits for condi removal, and air with fresh air but I think bolt to the heart is the way to go to ramp up damage.

Everyone else got buffs also with theives stacking 3 hours of fury from auto attacking(bug) and mesmers can stack like 30 seconds of stealth now(intended with new PU). It’s going to take a few days maybe weeks for things to settle again.

I think medi guards in roaming will become much stronger now. I hopped on my medi guard and zeal+honor+virtures is really strong for roaming/dueling now. Still no swiftness access, but it’s strong.

Loboling.5293:

It was always important to cover ether renewal with stability, shield or los, depending on circumstances.

I’m sure it is still a great ability for some builds. Once I start to find some good working builds with these changes, I’m sure I’ll find one that uses ER. Only time will tell, but I think outside of the glyph, ele’s have good healing skills.

I hope they fix some of our terribad elites and utilities soon though. Elementalist is fun, but it could be so much better with more build options. (in my opinion)

That’s true, but now everyone gets access to another trait line and the ones that had the ability to interrupt it before the most will be able to do it even more now namely thieves/mesmers.

I think ether renewals days are numbered tbh. Messing around with it in pvp doing some duels. Thief can daze with sleight of hand and mesmers get to use confounding suggestions more often now. Impossible to get that off unless you protect it with stab or shield.

Messing around I think swiftness downtime is to much if you try to run a 3/0/0/3/3 build. To get to 3 fire will require a unconventional build for sure when it comes to wvw/pvp.

Hmm I guess nomenclature will change.

Small things I noticed in playing though I am extremely rusty having not played for a year was that might was still easy to stack, dodging seems fine still. Base stats look better now.

It’s just a datamine they have always done it doesn’t mean we will be getting a warhorn. It’s just a skin. You would be looking for something suggesting skills with a sword or whatever. My guess is they aren’t in the game at all because they know that_shaman is really good at datamining the content. So, I wouldn’t place any money that you will see anything hinting at what Tempest or any other specialization is in this patch. They probably have place holders in there anyway.

My assumption is that Tempest will end up being the most exciting and best of the new specializations. Seriously, I don’t know why, but that is what I think will happen. Then it will be adjusted.

I plan to try F/W/A for some reason I have always been a fan of the fire line. Fury Uptime should be good, but I’ll have to see how it is with out fury/swift on aura’s. I think A/W/A will be the D/D build. Movement speed is pretty important, and I just don’t plan to give up a utility slot for signet of air.

Sitting there thinking about it not as much swiftness/movement speed access might really suck unless I buy some traveler runes, but I don’t want to give up my power from strength. I think how stats are now allocated will influence me between fire and air in the end.

ArthurDent.9538:

oZii.2864:

Guardians have a trait that chills on critical hits with a hammer, but since they aren’t big conditions monsters outside of burning nobody talks about that trait much except how bad it is.

Lol you have been out of the game for quite while, that hammer trait is actually in the new spvp meta build for guardians which is one of the top 4-5 strongest builds right now approximately at the same level as dd ele. Just a funny observation on how the times have changed.

Wow then I have been away to long

I see some people saying ele is going to be OP etc.(I disagree) most likely with the D/D Ele in mind. Looking at the changes and watching the videos I haven’t seen much mentioned about condition duration and boon duration.

The popular D/D build will probably end up like ?/?/?/6/6 depending on what you like. Since stats are being removed from trait lines and condition duration and boon duration are considered stats then that means less boon uptime. 6 arcana gives you +30% now post patch you would have +0% if you take the trait(can’t remember it’s name) you can get +10% I don’t suspect many D/D ele’s will take that trait.

I think 6 Arcana ele’s will gravitate toward elemental attunement, renewing stamina, evasive Arcana, but you won’t have as much boon uptime anymore. Runes would get +30-40% depending on rune type.

I am just coming back to the game after a year away so maybe I missed a discussion on it.

I don’t foresee them putting condition duration or boon duration on armor, weapons, or trinkets.

EremiteAngel.9765:

thematically it makes no sense for ele’s fire trait to be stronger than necro’s dhummfire.
ele’s trait is also only a ADEPT while dhuumfire on necro is a GRANDMASTER!
dhummfire is the god of death’s fire!
it should be stronger especially on a GM trait. it only applies like 1 stack of bleeding per shroud 1 which is incredibly slow???

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Elementalist-Stole-Dhuumfire/first#post5175394

this thread here discusses about the pros and cons of ele fire and dhuumfire.

what are your thoughts?

Condi ele is kind of a thing, but ele’s don’t really take it because we can burn easily from our weapons so it becomes redundant. Feels kind of like your looking at it from a they stole our candy and gave it to Ele in a vacuum. That trait always gave us burning on crit we just never take it because we have easy access to burning. Necro’s didn’t then they had better access with Dhuum initially now they changed it. In the context of what each class is capable of doing Dhuum on a Ele isn’t as good as v1 Dhuum was on a Necro.

What I see is chill becoming more of the necro’s thing since it’s even going on an auto attack.

Shivers of Dread—When you inflict fear on an opponent, you also inflict chill.

Cold Shoulder—Chill lasts longer, and chilled foes deal less damage to you. (protection like)

Context

Guardians have a trait that chills on critical hits with a hammer, but since they aren’t big conditions monsters outside of burning nobody talks about that trait much except how bad it is.

Context

You mention thematically it makes no sense for it to be stronger than a Necro’s trait when Ele’s had burning since the game came out and Necro’s didn’t. Heck every other class could get some access to burning when the game first came out except Necro’s and Thief.

Looks like good changes

I haven’t played in about 2 months or so. Looked at video today thought it was a good overall balanced update. Like the blinding ashes change since going 6 fire makes you squishy this gives you defense when outnumbered. Like the lightning rod change. FGS is better with imo with a real attack on rush not situational. Rush was going to get changed anyway. Like the elemental change to get a good attack on demand. I like the elemental contingency change also.

This is a WvW perspective.

I don’t know the Elementals can’t be traited they are just there but they are good in 1v1’s but larger scale they are bad like all ai is. I don’t think I would have a problem with no active time but like someone else said other summons follow that path. Necro’s have a trait line dedicated to their AI so they are different. On the other hand fighting a thief with thieves guilds with no active time would be pretty rough. Thieves guild almost guarantees a kill for a thief even in a 1v2 situation and it isn’t hard to stealth your thieves and give them those passives like regen, +200 power revealed, etc.

Still a great option. For ele this moves hoelbrak and strength closer in WvW/PvP. For pve I would still go strength for optimal.

Honestly they would have to remove the modifier and drop the might duration to less then 30% for them to not be great on ele. At least it will stop complaining for a while and people that don’t understand the basic stats of this game(most of the people complaining) might be fooled to thinking some other runes are just as good.

It’s a minor nerf in WvW/PvP but still the best for Dps ele builds.

Of course people go crazy and try to rebalance the entire game instead of listing their main professions strengths and weakness should be and your current kryptonite. All of a sudden nobody has a main and balances suggests for every class?

It would make a good discussion if more actually cover what they think their main professions strength and weakness should be and what your kryptonite is. Listing another class and what you want it to be weak and strong against so you can kill it easier is not what he is asking for.

He also isn’t asking people to write a thesis on how to balance all of gw2 or even 1 game mode of gw2.

Some people you Give a inch….

Agree with Bhawb when I heard about the strait I assumed it would prioritize stab. I ask Ren he said it doesn’t and I never bothered to try the trait after that.

Contrivance.7980:

Ision.3207:

The bottom line is that some players, especially those that like to roam in WvW, believe that they have some kind of “right” not to be frustrated, and since stealth and clones do just that, many (not all) re-act like frustrated children, ie, they throw a “forum tantrum”. By the way, this is NOT true of everyone, as there are many folks that do just fine in WvW solo/small group roaming on non Thief or Mesmers classes. In fact, many of them specialize in killing thieves/mesmers. But that won’t get you anywhere in these discussions, because a 16-year old tantrum thrower that just got stomped 3 strait times trying to 1v1 a thief with his PvE build, he does not want to hear it.

My sentiments exactly.

I’m on this train also, thieves and mesmers excel at roaming which is why you see so many. It’s like complaining about guards being great at zergs.

Hsinimod.5784:

Thieves can perma stealth off of structures.

They have zero risk to themselves and nothing but benefit. They can attack players and if they are failing, use any wall to target and perma stealth.

Also, they risk nothing when in stealth and their attack misses, and they get to ambush again. There is no downside to need to weigh in on.

High DPS, High Mobility, Perma Stealth.

Does that seem like a balanced intention?

If you think thieves have no risk at all no downside then you never have killed a thief or seen one die. That is basically what your saying

@luke your spread is to wide for what you find as high damage. 5k-9k is a huge difference with your high end range being almost double your low end. 5k is fairly low for a backstab and anything lower probably didn’t crit. I personally find that acceptable.

Remember what a thief excels at assassination not having a big attack like that means it is leaning more toward extended fight which s/d can handle better and as such does less damage d/d however doesn’t handle extended fights as well. D/p is more sustained pressure with autos and better defensive options but loses CnD damage.

It’s like trying to go zerk with a scepter necro build you can but it isn’t better then dagger or axe for that role.

Looks like you are headed toward a bunker power build. You keep dropping the condition damage you will get to a point where you don’t have enough damage to kill certain builds other bunkers.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

blitzkrieg.2451:

Warriors and d/d eles are broken in PVP at the moment because of this runeset (for warriors moreso intelligence sigil on PTV amulet coupled with runes). It’s only a matter of time before it’s nerfed.

That is my point. Ele is not viable because the class is strong. They are viable because of an unbalanced runeset and once that gets nerfed and it will. They will just be back down where they were.

Disappointing Ash! If you really know ele you know that strength isn’t why ele is viable. It’s might which could be done with hoelbrak.

Hoelbrak and strength give 6 arcana Eles 9 stacks of might permanent with a battle sigil. The 7% modifier is getting to much credit for what 7% mod actually does it’s an increase but the meta build is a bunker/brawler with 2 in earth.

Just flat no armor consideration. 1500 lightning whip = 1607 with 7% modifier big whoopty doo!

3000 burning speed = 3210 with 7% modifier big whoopty doo.

It’s the might that matters the 7% modifier isn’t as big as people make it out to be on a bunker build with only 2 modifiers.

They nerf strength Eles will use hoelbrak if it’s better, they nerf hoelbrak Eles will use water or pirate if it’s better. They would have to go through 4 rune sets to stop ele from stacking might like it can now or nerf ele.

People complain now imagine if Eles put on water runes.

on topic isn’t meta breaking mean unplayable? Or is there some other meaning to breaking I don’t know like almost OP, kind of OP, sort of OP, to OP.

LordByron.8369:

So your argument is:

you can waste an elite 4 traits, your heal and long CD to get mobility so when you get in fighting ramge your opponent can kill you easily unless you outplay it by a lot…

I give up….

This is not a balance discussion.

The fact that you think picking traits means you don’t want a discussion but agreement. I don’t take aeromancer’s alacrity because it gives me permanent swiftness that is a side effect. I disagree with your assessment that ele is weak because it isn’t the most mobile profession. Mesmer isn’t mobile but you don’t consider that a weakness of the Mesmer. The mesmers main Dps can be completely kited. A Mesmer can’t scare anyone that want to leave a fight on any build unless they are full zerker that is the only way you can force people to fight you as Mesmer.

You don’t scrutinize the other classes you think are better for the same things you penalize elementalist for. It’s like your in awe of mesmers and thieves and don’t see their weaknesses.

The basis of this “balance discussion” is roaming and dueling anyway. It’s basically let’s all talk about anecdotal evidence and see if we agree or disagree. It then assumes we are all the same skill level, our opponents are the same level, about something the game isn’t balanced around.

So if boon duration changed ele being the 3rd mobile profession but I get 100% swiftness uptime by putting 4 points in air is your argument flawed? That is the case

Anyway continue to complain about elementalist we aren’t with you on this one.

Those boons are mostly tied to defensive lines for many classes. How else do you augment defense besides raw vitality and toughness? Damage gets traits to augment damage that aren’t just raw power and defense gets that the augmentation also.

Just seems like a difference in playstyle philosophy you like damage others like tanking. Give me a damage modifier in arcana and I might take it over elemental attunement. I don’t see guards rolling in protection it’s 2 shouts and hammer, and virtues 1 if you even see that setup and that means they went 6 in the vitality line and 1 in virtues at least and are confined to staying in hammers symbol.

Offense > defense that’s why there is protection, vigor, regen. If everyone played on only the extremes of full offense and full defense then offense kills defense.

In other words if 2 enemies have 2500 power and 2 others are stacking protection then only 1 protection is applied but any overlapping damage from the group with 2500 compliment each other. You can focus fire someone but only focus heal someone to keep them alive since you can’t take reduce damage to 0 through stats. Offense can climb far higher then defense.