Guild Wars 2

I really hope this thread can remain constructive, as there are some fantastic thoughts and posts. I main a valk’s Ele for team jo0 binder but have pretty extensive experience with every class, especially Engineer/Mesmer/Necro (and excluding ranger/warrior), to give a bit of background.

I’m very much with others in that my biggest problem with the current meta is the ease with which certain builds are successful. It seems with this last patch, skill floors and skill caps are all over the place. Other people have made tons of great suggestions so I’ll try and remain succinct.

Thoughtful play should always be more important and successful than mindless builds. Spirit Rangers, with such incredibly passive play, should not be able to be as impactful as they are. Similarly, builds like the S/D thief and the Dhuumfire Necro with their absolute ease of success should have no place in serious play. I agree that there are problems with other classes and builds (I’d like to see Mesmer GS toned down a bit damage wise, for example) but rather than core issues these are slight tweaks. Simply, at their core, cheese builds like the 30/30/10 Necro, S/D thief, and Spirit Rangers offer way too much reward for too little risk.

I can’t help but laugh when people are quick to point out that Ele burst is currently pretty strong. In reality, little has changed about its burst rotation — I’ve been doing Earthquake>Phoenix/Firegrab>Air for more than half a year now. I agree, it’s a little bit stronger than it should be, especially aided by the increased speed on Phoenix. However, to set it up requires a lot, and as is the nature of the Elementalist in combat, many of your key abilities during that chain may be on cooldown. Sure, it needs slight tweaks… but at ` its core, it requires a thoughtful and engaged player to be successful. Compare an Ele’s gameplay to a thief playing both offensively and defensively by pressing 3,3,3,3,3,3 (yes, an oversimplification, I realize; yet the point stands) and GW2 looks like a completely different game.

I commend ArenaNet for in this last balance patch trying to make unpopular builds more viable. I would absolutely love to see variety in team composition — for example, I think an Ele with Rock Solid could make for a great midpoint bunker alternative to Guardian, with a few changes, and I’d love to see a backpoint Necro — but the truly successful builds can not be mindless. The fact that a Ranger can run entirely passive utilities and provide so much to his team, more so than a class with active play, is genuinely sad and worth consideration.

I really hope the devs are keeping an eye on this thread, and I look forward to how it continues.

uberkingkong.8041:

hharry.1967:

PS: Just compare all the new pve content with the spvp one =(

PS compare PvP to WvW.

PvP 4 new maps since launch, including game modes capture the orb, using skyhammer.
WvW 0 new maps since launch, 0 new modes.

That is a completely unfair and inaccurate comparison. I hope yours is a troll post because otherwise…

Also, as for Stealth changes — a hard cap would be nice. I’d like to see that hard cap allow a team get past mid node on their way to far without stealth breaking, however. Using it tactically as a team is incredibly fun and exciting to watch. It is a bit long currently, as Phanta was referencing with “Let’s get Bob — nah, Jane, etc…” but keep in mind most players have to lose valuable cooldowns in order to gain long stealth. Stealth is a very tricky mechanic to balance.

Putting internal cooldowns in between Elementalist spells would hurt the class immensely. It would also genuinely change the feel of gameplay — that is absolutely the wrong way to go about toning down Ele burst.

I think that Ele burst is strong but I definitely do not believe that it is gamebreaking nor a pressing issue. I like the suggestions about arcane utilities (actually make them feel like utilities instead of extra burst — maybe take away their guaranteed crit chance?) and I would rather see them targeted than any of the S/D spells (except Shatterstone, feel free to change that :P). That being said, I would hope any balance would be extremely careful. Taking an arcane as a utility is already a decent sacrifice and I don’t want to see them become completely unused/worthless.

An addition to Ele — I really think something about Lightning Flash needs to change. I use it and it is a terrific utility but the fact that we can use it while stunned makes for very disjointed gameplay. Getting stunned, LFing away only to be stunned in another spot feels the absolute opposite of fluid. I’d like to see it either get its stunbreak back (which I highly doubt will happen) or make it unusable when stunned. Or hell, maybe just change the way animation works? It just feels off.

If I had a crystal ball, I’d say the only major things we will see in the next balance patch will be necro nerfs and warrior buffs. I hope some of these other things will be touched (especially Mesmer and S/D thief) up but I doubt it with Pax coming up.

Will individuals be afforded more votes based upon their time spent farming in game? Are some players more equal than others?

Just wanted to say that this next patch looks amazing. The ability to make a permanent change in the game’s story and content is beyond cool. I’m very excited to see how it turns out.

That being said, ArenaNet is genius. By giving Evon Fall of Abbadon, they boost the Charr’s chance of winning immeasurably. The secondary bonus? With cheaper Black Lion Keys, ideally more players will feel inclined to try their luck at RNG chests — in order to buy the BLKs in the first place, people need gems. Therefore, I imagine there will be far more gem sales following an Evon win. The cooler the content (Abbadon), the more profit (gem sales) for ANet. Seriously, I’m impressed.

I guess I’ll take off my tin foil hat for a second and also say I can’t wait :P

P.S. WTB “Green” Party Sylvari candidate.

Hey Jedi!

To be frank, Elementalists are only really played to their full potential when they use every attunement. The core mechanic is to ‘dance’ between the attunements and know when to do what in each situation. That being said, I believe it’s hands down the most interactive and interesting of all of the professions.

I’ve never played one, but as I understand it there are a few builds that focus on single attunements, like the “Thor” (Lightning Hammer in water attunement) build or a Staff Earth Condition Ele. Still, I’d like to reiterate that to play an Ele truly well you need to switch attunements constantly.

If you haven’t tried one yet, check out the Mesmer — while not exactly what you’re describing they end up being more of a ‘traditional’ nuke-caster. If you don’t like it, give the Ele another shot! When I want to nuke as an Ele I play Scepter/Dagger 0/30/0/10/30 and while mechanically more complex than other DPS classes I find it has great variety and flexibility. Good luck!

I love that this thread is right next to the announcement about PAX Prime.

Congratulations to ArenaNet and good luck to everyone participating!

Aether McLoud.1975:

0/10/10/20/30 is still bunker.

Not if you run it with a Valkyrie’s or Berserker’s Amulet.

When there are options to the most optimal way to play this map, then I hope we can see Skyhammer back in the rotation. I saw way too many teams running some combination of ranger on skyhammer, full cc engineers (occasionally necros) roaming sidepoints, and guardians running full aoe stability at mid and sidepoint. A meta that consists of three professions is not very inclusive or fun. And yes, I know there are options for other professions to be successful, but this is more or less the optimal way to play the map. And in competitive, tournament play, people will always go for most optimal.

Currently, Skyhammer plays like a minigame.

I think one of the biggest things Arenanet could do to alleviate this is remove the glass panels by the sidepoint nodes (or perhaps make those panels, specifically, only breakable by the skyhammer? Yay teamwork!). Everyone can still get their kicks knocking people off the sides of the map and in between nodes — and I really like that aspect of this map, super dynamic — but having too many ways to instagib someone is really frustrating. I think this is the most important change the map needs to be competitive.

I will say, my team scrimmed against AL on this map last night with our normal comps (engi/2ele/guard/ranger) v (mesmer/2ele/guard/ranger) and it was VERY fun. Not playing against cheese builds allowed me to enjoy the map without the constant fear and anxiety of being pulled on to a glass plate. And even without the cheese, our guardian knockbacked someone off the edge of the map; it was the most legendary knockback I’d ever seen.

Skyhammer is close; make the right fixes, Anet!

EDIT: BUILD TEMPLATES

Shar beat me to it. I would aruge S/D valks or zerker is more viable/desired than a D/D bunker. If I were you, I’d mess around with S/D valks (with fresh air or with some variation of 20 air, 20 water, 30 arcana) as it really does feel like the intended jack of all trades build, with high survivability, strong burst, and team utility.

That being said, yes, Ele’s options are limited and I would love to see a staff DPS build brought up. And focus, clearly, could use some love. I’d say eles are still one of the better classes in the game now, though.

I’m totally going to have to try this out! Looks goofy fun.

Just a heads up, the Punisher Achievement from the Belcher’s Bluff activity does not track in both the top right-hand UI nor the achievement panel.

On a similar vein, has anyone discovered the least time-consuming way to do this one?

EDIT: It seems to be tracking with some NPCs, but not others. It wasn’t tracking when I used Belch on Poyaqui’s Bluff, but did track for Berddi. It seems very strange.

Currently, while Skyhammer is fun for casual play (and would make for some fun custom tournaments), I don’t think the map is right for the tourney rotation. Maybe if Arenanet:

1) Added build templates so switching builds for this map would require one button (seriously, this is one of the most important and pressing features for spvp)
2) Removed many (or all) of the glass plates near nodes – I feel the ones near the laser are ok as it provides SUCH a huge benefit – dying to a cheesy mechanic is frustrating and not really all that competitive. I also liked the idea of the glass nodes downing a player rather than killing them outright. Regardless, people can still be knocked off the edge of the map, which is a fun addition, in moderation.
3) Slightly tuned down the effectiveness of the laser, either with a cooldown increase, turning cast time, the ability to be dodged (I’m actually ok with it being undodgeable if other things change, adds a unique aspect)
4) Change the way jump pads work by either having them be interact to use or moving them out of regular running paths. The ones by the side nodes are cool and implemented well.
5) Wait for community feedback before putting a new and VERY DIFFERENT map into tournament rotation.

1-3 Are the most important, imo.

God, I hope the Fluffy Bunnies win.

I usually am not one to complain about things like this… but I decided to do the sprint again, just for fun. To my shock, I received 10 silver for completing the race.

Considering I had already completed all of the achievements for Sanctum Sprint (and assuming that amount of silver was the average), I missed out on an entire 2 and a half gold for my efforts in the minigame.

I’m all for live and let live but I think it is beyond absurd that a player would be punished for being excited to experience new content and making sure to enjoy it as soon as possible. I don’t expect any sort of refund… but it’s this kind of thing that just comes off kitten unprofessional on patch release days.

It’s been a year, it’s time for these whiffs to stop occurring.

/Signed

I understand the concern, especially regarding Dragon Ball’s release, but please increase the time before it tries to boot you! It’s incredibly annoying!

Dear god no, it’s a totally different game. For what it’s worth, I would LOVE to see some custom games/tournaments come up around this map. I would watch “Hammers on Skyhammer” or an all engi 8v8 or something, though.

Personally, I think the problem with hotjoin is that it doesn’t even remotely teach players how to play Conquest, as you pointed out. I made a thread about this exactly earlier, no one responded, qq.

But yeah, there needs to be some unranked format which teaches incoming players how conquest works. Removing hotjoins isn’t necessarily the only way to do this though — they could implement easier to watch streams or shoutcasting in-game or could rework the way you accumulate points on the scoreboard, so on and so forth.

/Signed!

Just pointing out, Eles probably have the worst elites in tPvP. Not discrediting your point about Warrior elites compared to other classes (Mesmers, Engineer, Guardian, Necro, and Thief all have fantastic elites for team play).

But yeah, calling an Elementalist’s elites game changing isn’t exactly correct :P – maybe a tornado in WvW but in tourneys… I often straight up don’t use my elemental during a team fight because I’d be more useful using abilities than casting the glyph >.> I’ll work on casting it before the fight though :P

Criminal.5627:

I am aware but a lot of posts in that thread are bias and more or less people whining about other classes being op, or about classes should be higher because they fought 1 person, lacks some view on a whole because of the bias posts.

Your opinion is biased too, no?

Just a heads up, Defektive has been keeping a surprisingly well maintained thread here — https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/sPvP-Class-Tier-List-Updated-6-30/first that would be a good place for you to post your thoughts.

I suggested this in another thread (and it actually made it on to the SotG, which was pretty cool), but I think that Terror could make for a great Grandmaster trait. It really changes the way the necro is played and is very powerful. It doesn’t shake up builds too terribly and makes one choose between scepter bleed length and a damaging aspect of fear, which together can combine for maybe a little too much pressure.

Happy to hear from the SotG that ANet is onboard and aware that Necros are too powerful. Interested in seeing how they address bringing it down slightly, especially with skill floor/cakitten ues.

I’m honestly in disbelief at the number of people who claim that the Necromancer is in any way balanced. Part of the problem is not only the extreme condition output they have (which has no direct counter; even the most cleanse heavy builds are at a loss) but the EASE with which they are played.

I could take a player who has never touched a necro, set him up well, tell him to just throw his marks on a node during a team fight, go into DS and press every button. Absurdly, I might take this necro over a decent thief or warrior. Balance?

Furthermore, who in their kittening right mind enjoys team fights that are just contests of who can poop out the most conditions fastest? Who in their right mind wants to watch their UI and play Cleanse Wars 2? Part of the thing that makes this game so fun is watching for animations and reacting — genuinely, that makes for reactive, immersive, and exciting gameplay. What’s that? DS 3 and 5 on staff are instant cast? You can’t counter them preemptively by having combat awareness?

Look, to be honest, I think the Terrormancer build (and any variants) is SUPER FUN. I really enjoy playing it. But I’m not delusional. No one should be able to fear-stunlock while bursting a target down with conditions. All this as AoE. And no, burst is no exaggeration — when your condi teammate can burst down a target faster than your glassy thief you know something is kittened up.

The people defending the ‘balance’ of the Necro are simply delusional. This is a thread about how the entire meta of the game and everyone’s builds should change to counter a single class. That speaks volumes.

Conditions are so completely out of hand. No part of their use promotes fun gameplay. I played maybe… 8 tourneys in a row where the other team ran some combination of necro/engineer/third condi. This is the absolute stupidest kittening kitten in the game right now. There’s no such thing as competitive play right now and it’s the dumbest I’ve ever seen this game.

I know ANet doesn’t really do this but we need a hotfix of some kind. Tourneys are in no way fun right now. A meta where whoever kittens out the most conditions in an AoE in the best manner is the lamest meta. This needs to be handled. And fast.

Just putting this together quickly.

S Tier
Necro -

A Tier
Mesmer+
Guardian=
Elementalist=
Ranger -

B Tier
Engineer+
Thief =
Warrior =

I think the game is, as always, very close to balance. Would love to get rid of some of the gimmicky / noob-friendly play, such as fear stun-locking. I’d like to see the necro remain strong but it would be nice if it didn’t have such a high skill floor. Way too easy to be successful on one, regardless of skill level. As for warriors — with a couple of different builds, they are a force to be reckoned with in team fights. They’re certainly not on the “A Tier” but aren’t nearly as bad as people make them out to be.
Mesmers remain the unannounced op force they have been and will be forever. Eles received some variety this patch, but do not feel overly buffed as Fresh Air requires significant sacrifices — all in all a great patch to be an ele. Engineers lost a bit and it has hurt them.

Again, very close to balance. Hoping to see some things get toned down and others brought up.

Thanks for keeping this thread up, Defektive!

Why not move Terror to be a grandmaster trait?

It follows their grandmaster trait philosophy of ‘changing the way your character plays’ and is a million times better than Withering Precision. If it cost 10 more points, it wouldn’t hurt build variety much while disallowing people from freely getting everything else (stability or burning PLUS Greater Marks/Staff Mastery) — people would have to choose between their options.

The more I think about it, make Terror a Grandmaster trait!

Stealth.9324:

You can even search for all our Offensive Builds, then tell me how many are there that put 30 in Arcana. Well, and also the reason you call me bad Eles because I put t into Fire, then I pretty sure there are a lot of bad Eles out there who want to play offensively?

I think he was mostly joking as the ele fire tree is by far the worst — I wouldn’t take his comment personally. Additionally, EA is so versatile. You can dodge in fire > Fire Grab, use the water heal both selfishly and in order to save your teammates, air for general goodness, and earth to secure kills/escape/support with cripple. Moving the 10 points out of fire and into arcana will make you much more versatile and give you utility that will make killing things easier.

I’ve been playing a 0/30/0/10/30 s/d build with valkyries (zerk gem) and the same utilities as you and it’s been very strong. Ogre runes are also an option and with valk’s instead of zerker Sigil of Accuracy could be taken over Force, though it’s really splitting hairs at that point. The combat for this patch in general feels a bit faster pace (and losing 15-20 in water is noticeable) but this build’s pressure is fantastic.

As for the valk/zerk argument — yes, the ‘meta’ (the patch is 4 days old >.>) is condi heavy, but much of it is avoidable — eles have always been most susceptible to quick burst, imo, and toughness/healing goes a long way.

Figured I’d give this a bump as what I’m saying is important but I wrote a wall of text.

TL;DR: GW2 needs to teach Conquest better through in-game features to all players as even supposedly high ranked people are really bad at the game mode.

I hate to agree with such harsh pessimism… but I might actually agree that the Engineer is the least (or second least, sorry warriors) valuable profession right now — everyone can fill its role better. The necro for condis, mesmer/ele for burst (SD), and obviously guardian/ranger as bunkers. The nerf to R hurt a lot as well as the necro surpassing the engy in condition burst and sustain. I would imagine the only role for engineer until the next balance patch will be on a double condi comp with a necro.

After multiple days of incredibly frustrating tournament solo join play, I felt the need to post this thread. I realize that solo queue is in a really bad spot at the moment – but that doesn’t change the fact that there are a ton of things that need to be addressed.

I personally like Conquest. I know people are interested in seeing other game types (and I would like to see how future game types are implemented) — that being said, the only really supported game type we have now is Conquest. And frankly, people have no idea how to play it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen my team trickle in one after another to a node Rambo-style, 1v3+, or sit 3 people to cap a single node, forget integral parts of a map (like Stillness on temple), so on and so forth. And before someone pipes in saying something to the effect of, “it will change at a higher level ranking” — I want to clarify that these aren’t beginning tPvP’ers (actually, lately, solo-queueing has dropped me from ~600 to 88% ranking).
Now, of course, the logical response is to get a team. That’s hands down the best way to play this game. I’ve actually played on a couple of teams now and I genuinely love it. And when playing with a team of intelligent players, the game is much smoother and legitimately interesting and fun.

But the problem still stands — the average/learning player has no idea how to play Conquest and the game provides little guidance. When playing on an organized team, GW2 is simply a different game than when pugging.

Now, I don’t really enjoy LoL and don’t play it much, but it stands as an exemplar for a competitive PvP game — ArenaNet could take some hints from them. For example, simply opening League, you’re faced with the ability to watch high-level play with a click. Obviously, this is a great teaching tool, as players learning can easily watch top players and see how they do what they do. Personally, I’ve grown a lot from watching GW2Guru’s tournaments, among other streams and videos. But I have to go out of my way to watch these games — there needs to be some sort of in-game access so players of all skill levels can be more aware.
Additionally, LoL boasts some great in-game features that really enhance team play among pugs. Simple clicks that let your team know your enemy laner is missing, or that you’re coming in for a gank allows non-voip’d teams to communicate at least at a fundamental level. Why does GW2 not have an “Incoming!” keybind?

Guild Wars 2 direly needs to implement features that teach its players how to play Conquest. Without them, pugging/solo queuing will never be fun (even when they add in a soloq bracket or system) and the gap between top level players and beginners will just continue to grow.

Bumping this with more easily read information.

Ingame name: Salphir
Main Class / Potential Classes (Incase team requires): Ele (Main), Engineer/Mesmer
Region: NA
Practice Times: Flexible, weekdays
Experience: Currently rank 3x, hit 613 on leaderboards solo-queueing, understanding of every class

There was another thread where people brought up this same point and a suggestion was put out that was literally perfect.

Currently, you can set your view options to ‘team colors’ (or some similar option) and see all enemy players as red or blue. If Arenanet added an option for individual players to see all enemy players as human, then there would be no disparity between the races without affecting other players’ experiences.

This option absolutely needs to be in the game.

If you don’t currently have a target, try pointing your camera either straight down (eagle eye view) or straight up (at the sky) before starting your dragon’s tooth cast. You can kind of direct the range with this method.

Hey all,

My name’s Salphir. I’m looking for a relatively serious yet friendly team. I main an Ele but am also very strong with Engy and Mesmer, and decent at Necro, Thief, and Guardian. I’m currently rank 31 and have become quite frustrated with solo queueing in the rank 90%+ area and so have decided to look for a consistent and tight-knit group.

I like to keep myself acquainted with all of the meta builds of every class, so I am very knowledgable with not only how to play each build but how to counter them. I also have been really into watching recent tournaments, so I’m very familiar with the pace of the game as well as knowing where the right place to be is at any moment. I also helped organize and lead a previous team, so I am great at communicating as well as listening.

I am strongest at a support/burst S/D ele so would prefer to play it, but am quite comfortable with other roles and classes if that’s what a team needs!

If interested, please message me in game on Salphir or at rsq.3581. Additionally, feel free to inbox me on the forums. My availability is pretty flexible for the next couple of months.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post!
Salphir

How many Dragon’s Tooths does it take to become Dragon’s Teeth?

Chaosky.5276:

Frankly, it seems like every class is a “jack of all trades” in this game. Not really sure how eles are particularly versatile.

I would tend to agree for the most part, but would contend that even if eles focus all on one role, they can still perform reasonably well in other roles. As in, even if we focus heavily on damage, we still have decent heals and cc. Or if one focused heavily on bunkering, they would still have mediocre damage. The ele definitely has the most claim to ‘jack of all trades’, whether or not other professions can also fill multiple roles in a single build. The engineer is probably a close second.

Scorael.8952:

5) Persisting Flames

Fire fields leave behind a smoke field for a short time after disappearing.

I don’t think adding another damage condition is the right way to go with this. I would love to see Necros get some sort of unique utility. Utility is definitely the way to go — something that requires thoughtful use and has a purpose, rather than a conditionspamfest. I fear that if something similar to Unstable Affliction from WoW were added, the meta would move towards a somewhat stale mini-game contest of which team could put out conditions faster.

Just brainstorming here…

But what about a condition that caused an enemy player to skip the downed state when dying? Like a condition that gives a team a small window in which to down another player and ensure that they get killed? Would be absurdly useful in team fights and with the right window of time could make for some really interesting plays. Literally no idea how it would translate to PvE (who cares :P). I’d love to see something like this in PvP. Would really go with the Necromancer’s themes too and would provide an interesting counter to Illusion of Life / Signet of Undeath / so on and so forth.

Who knows, maybe that doesn’t even belong as a condition but would make a cool utility if Necros saw a rework of some sort…

At that point, the game calculates each team’s players’ individuals scores. Whichever team scored the most individuals points (from kills / caps / so on) wins a tie match.

I think the thing you’ll discover as you level up is that Elementalist condition damage just pales in comparison to other professions. Especially in a PvP situation where your main source of condition damage is easily avoidable/slow, it’s not a consistent form of pressure or damage.

I definitely like the way you’re looking at the build though, even just starting the profession. Currently though, I feel like you’d just get destroyed by incoming conditions. If I were you, I’d take the 15 points you have in Fire and move them to water. There are a ton of good traits there to choose from — at that point, I’d even move 5 from air into water as Bountiful Power, the 25 point in water trait, adds a massive amount of damage.

But yeah, I would suggest playing around in the mists with this, trying it out with condition amulets and then switching to valkyrie or berserker amulets. I think you’ll find that the direct damage far outweighs the condition (though Celestial most certainly won’t be bad). Most Elementalist conditions are really there for control purposes, anyway. Feel free to keep your glyphs though – Glyph of Elemental Power does a great job providing utility.

Good luck!

Looks like a fun build.

Personally, I’d switch out Glyph of Storms (not enough damage or length of utility for its long cooldown) for a cantrips of your choice and use elite Glyph of Elementals (surprised you don’t use this with quick glyphs!)

I’ve always enjoyed glyph builds. Another thing to remember with Glyph of Elemental Power is that using it in Air Attunement gives 6 (six!) seconds of weakness. People often overlook that but in a group fight stacking weakness on enemies can be devastating.

Lastly, Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina could easily be switched out for one another. Both such good traits.

This is a solid build — I’ve been playing it for a while. I believe Phantaram of TP also uses it.

To anyone considering playing it, there are a bunch of things you can switch out and still be super viable. This is how I run in Khylo (which is the current map) http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k34;0J0B2-P015-N-Z0;9;5E-OT;15;308-45ASN0;3qNnCrV2D4Bh – really similar but switches a burst utility for a stunbreaker/blink.

I typically like to go 25 into water instead of 20 in Air because of our great uptime on boons (and also take boon duration runes). The burst is a little bit less than with 20 in air but I think it provides more sustained damage.

I occasionally switch Bolt to the Heart for Quick Glyphs and then take GoEH. Makes for a more situational heal but I can use my elite more often and is just a slightly different way of playing.
Also, as you can see from the build I posted, I usually switch one of the water traits for Cantrip Mastery when playing 2 cantrips.

@Arheundel
I really doubt the Ele will be receiving nerfs because of this build. It’s terrifically balanced. When you make a mistake, you pay for it. You also are rewarded for playing well, with the build having a high skill cap. It doesn’t use a cheesy FotM playstyle but requires a decent amount of thought. It’s a good build! If it is nerfed… then ANet is seriously in the wrong.

@Zoose
Thanks for posting this. Enjoyed your video as well and hope to continue to see more of you!

RyanCid.9270:

You gonna need way more condi dmg :p

Yeah, I certainly discovered this haha.

I switched to Scepter and a Valkyrie amulet and found far more success, keeping the Glyph of Storms for air to keep a constant weakness debuff while attacking from range. It seemed like it put some really nice pressure on anyone being attacking by a bursty build, like a thief or warrior. Still not as good as cleric’s bunker, but was not a bad alternative!

Link – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImibox5gjDAkHn4CLiCVUekzM2A-TMAA0CvMEB

Hey guys, I’ve been messing around trying to find an alternative to the standard (and most viable) cantrips ele build. I just played a couple games with this build —
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImibox5gjDAkHn4CLiCVUekzM2A-TQAg2CtMEZuA

and found it to be relatively successful. However, it still doesn’t feel more useful than the standard build. The only things it brings to the table that are unique are the ability to give an enemy a perma-condition (perma-weakness is pretty great!) and a shorter cooldown on elite. It seems like it would be a slightly stronger roamer but weaker bunker. That being said, most of my success came from people not cleansing my conditions as they assumed I was power based like most eles :P

I’d really like to come up with some more viable alternatives for the Ele. I actually really enjoy the standard build but it would be great to discover more options.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Edit After playing more games, updated to — http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImibox5gjDAkHn4CLiCVUekzM2A-TMAA0CvMEB

I agree that the RtL nerf was not the most well thought out. That being said, I think it is a sad state of affairs when the Ele subforum front page is cluttered with complaints about nerfs yet no one is willing to talk constructively about things to improve the impression.

So, for some time now there’s been a clear weapon set that frankly outperforms all the others. In an effort to give other weapons more utility and have them see more use, I thought we could list some proposed changes to weapon skills. Here are a few that I’ve been considering. I’m interested to see what other Elementalists think and suggest! If enough people weigh in on specific changes, I will update the OP to reflect the community’s thoughts.

Scepter
Scepter, for the most part is a well balanced weapon. However, it has two glaring oversights — the ability to land Dragon’s Tooth and the uselessness that is Shatterstone. Some ideas to change the weapon:

Dragon’s Tooth
The idea to reduce the casting animation time for the attack to hit has been thrown out many times. This simple change could improve the weapon immeasurably.

Shatterstone
Potentially, a combo field would make for some more interesting play, ideally an ice or water field. Alternatively, the spell could be changed to a skill-shot ability that immobilized a target (Icy Grasp?) for long enough for a Dragon’s Tooth to land if the Ele switched immediately to Fire. This would give Scepter more utility/control as well as cause the player to thoughtfully consider their use of Water attunement — should they save it to time their burst or to heal?

Focus
My biggest complaint with focus is that it has practically no damage output. Most of the abilities perform well with one another but when compared to Dagger off-hand there is no contest. Disregarding damage (assuming that the focus is meant for more defensive play), I think this is because the dagger has so many AoE CC abilities, while all of Focus’ are single-target (Why doesn’t Gale have an AoE component?!). Some ideas to improve the weapon:

Flamewall / Fire Shield
Focus is inarguably weakest in Fire attunement, which is odd as fire should be our source for damage. I think this could be solved if they combined the two abilities into one. It could change to be just a flamewall that provided Fiery Aura/Fire Shield to allies that pass through and Burning to foes that passed through. It would make for an interesting terrain-based ability as well as open up Fire 5 for a pure damage spell.

Gale
It would not only make sense conceptually but would improve the Focus’ viability compared to Dagger if Gale was AoE. Perhaps it could push a wall of wind at the target that would affect all foes nearby in a linear fashion, rather than be a circular AoE effect like Updraft.

Very interested in hearing others’ opinions!

waka.9826:

your “bunker” build isn’t even a bunker build. It’s a roamer, bunker, aoe condition remover / aoe haler, sustained dps all into ONE build. I don’t think you understand it well.

I main an ele but have extensive experience on every class except for warrior and ranger. I’m quite aware that the bunker build is overpowered and I am all for toning it down. This nerf doesn’t do that well though – the cleric’s 10/30/30 d/d ele will still be great at holding a point and can quickly roam to one point to support as they only need one RTL to get into a fight. The biggest nerf that build will experience is slightly less condition removal and less ability to completely reset a fight with Mist Form. These nerfs effectively address the bunker build well — they reduce its mobility, making it less of a roamer, and they make it more susceptible to conditions, as bunkers should be.

However, RTL/Mist form changes affect all of the other Ele builds drastically. Good luck running any type of ele other than clerics or PVT from now on. And don’t even get me started on Fire/Air traits. Currently, Eles are practically forced to take at least 20 into arcane to be even remotely serious in PvP. There’s no room for build diversity if 20-30 of our points are already forced.

There are a ton of complaints here from people that don’t seem to play Ele or understand it well.

One of the biggest issues with the upcoming Ele nerfs is that it doesn’t help other builds. Currently, eles are forced into 10/30/30 d/d bunker because it is more or less the only viable build. When these changes go into effect, it will be the ONLY viable build.

If this had come with a buff to scepter, staff, or focus then I’d be more open-minded. As it is… expect to only see d/d bunker eles until the next major update.