Curse

Mintha Syl · Sep 14, 2012, 12:40 PM // 12:40

I think they rather meant they want new-lvl skills like flare to be useful outside newbie-circumstances, not that they wanted skills with overcast in pre
(I'm getting so confused, I didn't even remember there's no ex..erhm overcast in pre <.<)

DiogoSilva · Sep 14, 2012, 01:12 PM // 13:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mintha Syl

I fear that for every class overhaul tbh. And the reason why I absolutely don't want ranger to be touched. (Para can't be worse instead so eh...)

I don't understand this. Ele's updates have been very good at keeping what is strong and improving what is weak. Ranger is a profession where its spirit and trap mechanics are useless outside of niche situations, where most bow attacks are lacking, where pet usage is questionable, and is overall mediocre-to-acceptable at PvE, if we ignore when it mimics melee professions. I'm sure an update would make them more interesting.

I also feel that each update has been less filled with powercreep over the time. Both patches for the elementalist, outside of one or two exceptions (shockwave in RA, etc), have been fairly careful, unlike, say, the crazy changes Mesmers and Dervishes have gotten.

But yes, Paragons need it the most.

Mintha Syl · Sep 14, 2012, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

I don't understand this. Ele's updates have been very good at keeping what is strong and improving what is weak. Ranger is a profession where its spirit and trap mechanics are useless outside of niche situations, where most bow attacks are lacking, where pet usage is questionable, and is overall mediocre-to-acceptable at PvE, if we ignore when it mimics melee professions. I'm sure an update would make them more interesting.

Simple. Flawed as it is, I still love ranger. I mean, it's my main, it's the profession of which I have the most chars, it's the only profession I can manage everything with, and always have fun. Yes spirits and traps are useless, pet and bow attacks could be better but...what i know for sure is I like what the class is now, while I'm not sure I'll like it after rework. Sure latest changes didn't introduce insane power creep like for example mesmer one did, but they still changed by a long shot the way those classes are to be played and everything, and liking or not new mechanics is subject to personal taste.
So, I'd rather keep a non-meta and a bit lacking, but very fun and reliable class than have something powerful but that I don't like. Plus, a known evil is always better than an unknown one. And yeah if I would end up not liking my favourite class I'd be really sad.

TL;DR: People that weren't satisfied with a class before might get to use it after changes, and some who liked it too, but as a trend if you like something you don't want it to change, cause then it could not be the class you liked anymore

Coast · Sep 14, 2012, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

I also feel that each update has been less filled with powercreep over the time. Both patches for the elementalist

On what planet do you live?
Its nothing but powercreep eles got the last 2 updates.
Change to gust does nothing.
Stone sheath change doesn't do anything neither.

Conclusion: all this update do is some old bandaids on some problems while creating more problems by making some more overpowered setups.

MithranArkanere · Sep 14, 2012, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Y'all are missing the point. FLARE GOT BUFFED.

I personally love the changes to Ice Spear and Stone Daggers. First time ever I consider bringing them.

I barely play GW1 anymore, but I logged back in to try out stuff. And it's rather fun.

I just wish they made this changes 5 years ago, when I would have enjoyed them more... ¬¬

Well, let's hope they find time to fix the annoyances with smiting, paragons, traps and rangers spirits, for the sake of those left behind.

Missing HB · Sep 14, 2012, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

On what planet do you live?
Its nothing but powercreep eles got the last 2 updates.
Change to gust does nothing.
Stone sheath change doesn't do anything neither.

Conclusion: all this update do is some old bandaids on some problems while creating more problems by making some more overpowered setups.

I wouldn't have said it better...This update just brings some fun for PvE, but this is in my opinion completly useless :

- Elementalist in PvE is already rather useful( if you don't think so, then you don't know how to play elementalist there)
- That update is PvE, but doesn't change anything to the game, so it's not like many players will come back
- None of these OP earth eles skills got nerfed and the only PvP format playable will be infested by more elementalists( That update isn't made concerning PvP.. lol)

So overall, i do not mind on the PvP effect considering there is noone there anyway, but still.. i think there were things more important to do in order to keep players on the game

Mintha Syl · Sep 14, 2012, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Ok I played a bit to see the change in the skills that were in bar already ( Lightning Javelin and Shock Arrow). Obviously i was wrong on SA, the change made it much better, especially since I use Thunderclap (though with overcast being useful I almost wanna put Invoke again), and LJ feels quite cool. It's hard to have foes in a line unless it's a big group or you pack them, but when you have such a situation...and when you get it wrong it's a fast single target skill anyway, as it was before.
Now, I had Whirlwind on my bar, more for the lols and cause "nothing better to fill that slot" but now that some skills are more viable I'll sure change it...the poor ol' Lightning Strike seems interesting and even more Shell Shock and Arc Lightning..but meh the only skill giving overcast I have is Chain Lightning and it's not like I spam it...so I don't know if I should rely on the new effects.

Trivia: the italian translators had the nice idea of using for Overcast a word that means more or less "Effort", just even more lame-sounding. Why o why <.<

DiogoSilva · Sep 14, 2012, 06:29 PM // 18:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mintha Syl

Simple. Flawed as it is, I still love ranger. I mean, it's my main, it's the profession of which I have the most chars, it's the only profession I can manage everything with, and always have fun. Yes spirits and traps are useless, pet and bow attacks could be better but...what i know for sure is I like what the class is now, while I'm not sure I'll like it after rework. Sure latest changes didn't introduce insane power creep like for example mesmer one did, but they still changed by a long shot the way those classes are to be played and everything, and liking or not new mechanics is subject to personal taste.
So, I'd rather keep a non-meta and a bit lacking, but very fun and reliable class than have something powerful but that I don't like. Plus, a known evil is always better than an unknown one. And yeah if I would end up not liking my favourite class I'd be really sad.

TL;DR: People that weren't satisfied with a class before might get to use it after changes, and some who liked it too, but as a trend if you like something you don't want it to change, cause then it could not be the class you liked anymore

What I meant it, you can still play the elementalist the "old way", unlike the dervish or the pve mesmer. Outside of spirits and traps, I doubt rangers would get any drastic changes. This would appeal to both worlds.

Outside of 2-3 three skills for PvP, powercreep is little to none compared to previous updates. Mesmers are broken PvE machines and Dervishes have overpowered builds that are overshadowed by even more overpowered builds. Let's not even compare Panic, Mistrust, or Scythes comboed with an-even-better-Hundred-Battles to anything that the Elementalist has gotten with those two patches for PvE.

Elementalists were mediocre to decent in PvE. You either had an AP Caller builds, or created your whole team around Searing Flames, or you spammed fire nukes one after another while watching TV. There's no such thing as not knowing how to play as an elementalist in GW1's pve, unless you're a newbie to the game's mechanics, at which you shouldn't know how to play any profession. Unlike the GW2 version, playing with a non-AP elementalist was (and will still be with several builds) pressing 123 and watching high number pop up in your screen.

EDIT: As a side note, has anyone managed to make a good pve earth build? Earth-only does not seems very viable to me, despite the extra utility, because the main skills are still put under high recharge. However, I see a lot of potential for 2-3 fire-earth hybrid builds, especially with Elemental Attunement. There's good synergy between both, and each one covers the weaknesses of the other (spammable aoe damage + damage and utility). I also haven't thought of a Master of Magic build yet, will attempt it later on.

instanceskiller · Sep 18, 2012, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Firstly, I am a bit sad that this update didn't really get the attention I think it deserved. People had complained about the lack of the ele update pt 2 during the various miniscule updates we recieved prior to this and the reverie update. This skill update is realistically probably the last major one of the year. I'm sure there are many reasons though why this update has not recieved the attention it deserved (guild wars 2) so it wasn't completely unexpected I guess, but to think that what's left of the guru community didn't even post update notes like they did previously was quite strange. I actually use guru more than the official gw1 site and wiki so it's no wonder I didn't know about the ele update until yesterday even though I checked gwguru whilst playing gw2.

Onto the actual update though. I got to say I think it's pretty good from a pve point of view. Compared to the derv and mes update, this ele update was pretty tame in a mixed way. It's good that it didn't really break the ele when compared to the derv and mes, however, I feel the update could have addressed some more skills or did more with the skills it did address. For example, Maelstrom still seems very lacklustre for it's cost and phoenix feels a bit costly, and while the healing is ok, it's not reliable at all and won't save too many people (but can be an ok option if you want to heal minions...). Nevertheless, the update did still target a sizeable number of skills.

For the good points, I do love some of the new cross attribute combo's especially Teinai's Crystals. It's quite easy to slot on my ele's water bar even though some investment is needed in earth. It makes my water bar feel much more fluid and I like that it's aoe is armor ignoring as well as gives cracked armor. It also pairs favourably with Icy prism because both require a water hex and then gives aoe. The others are also pretty good...(except the ones which require burning as that's a harder condition to meet than the others). I also like some buffs they made like to aftershock (for those niche melee ele builds, but they nerfed that niche a bit with other skills so...hmmm:/)

Now to the bad/mixed...I'm not quite sure about overcast (exhaustion). I like that they tried to make it less of a punishing and more of a positive thing though. Some of the overcast skills are very nice, especially the magnetic and aura skills which can make for good party support I find. However, I'm not sure it's something that should be encouraged too much. I quite liked the original idea of exhaustion being for very powerful and costly ele skills. I think they should have made those big skills like meteor shower, maelstrom, and earthquake/dragon's stomp more appealing and deserving of the exhaustion instead of well...changing it's name and making it feel tacked on to some skills (e.g vapor blade). Changing the idea of the mechanic that has been with the ele since release really does feel like it's stepping on the lines which Mintha Syl said of changing a class to one you may not like anymore. I didn't like/use the previous exhaustion skills, but that's only because I felt most of the skills were not worth it. I liked the idea of a huge powerful exhausting spell that could change the tides...but the ones we got in game were not that. However, if they wanted to encourage us to mess around with overcast, they really should have made more ways for it to be removed so it can be managed more easily, and played around with like how the dervs juggle enchants. Without being able to deal with overcast, I don't like playing it on my hero as their AI well...just plain don't handle overcast well. I like to play with it on my ele though as I can refrain from spamming overcast skills.

Finally, I just want to say thanks to Robert Gee? who I think was the only dev really working on this skill balance judging by his posts on his page that updated us (infrequently, but he tried) on the status of this update and the fact that most other devs went to help with gw2. It will definitely not make everyone happy, but I feel the update had "something for everyone" due to aspects of the ele it tried to tackle. Most importantly though, it enticed me come back to try and discover new builds which is something I enjoy doing. Just to repeat though, I wish this update got a bit more attention and discussion going, and hopefully it may pick up when more players take a break from gw2 or something and return to gw for a time.

**cosyfiep** · Sep 18, 2012, 07:03 PM // 19:03

I havent tried all the other elements yet, but the change to breath of fire means its OFF my skill bar (hero skill bar), just not worth 10 points of exhaustion for a skill that doesnt do all that much...will look into the others...I have an earth ele and will see if this affected her bar (good or bad).

DiogoSilva · Sep 18, 2012, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Now they just need to tone down a few Mesmer skills for pve, expecially Panic and those that deal huge nearby aoe damage, to make sure elementalist heroes do not get overshadowed. For example, I feel like Water and Air hero builds to be decent enough now, but I wonder if an Ineptitude Mesmer isn't simply the superior option.

Bristlebane · Sep 18, 2012, 08:56 PM // 20:56

I have been experimenting a bit with some of the new skills, most notably trying to find fun new hero builds and some occational human ele build. After some experimenting, I find 'improved' Flare to be lacking. Tried Master of Magic to abuse both Phoenix healing and Magnetic Aura prot, but hero AI is lacking in that it casts Magnetic Aura first at Earth @0, then Master of Magic to up elemental attributes to 14+. Otherwise I would have tried out a gimmicky team of 7 ele MoM phoenix/magnetic heroes just for the fun of it.

Age · Sep 18, 2012, 11:06 PM // 23:06

I don't see why Eles needed an update as Monks need one as they haven't been updated in over 2 years.I got an Ele as well.

**cosyfiep** · Sep 18, 2012, 11:17 PM // 23:17

it was what they were last working on,...the other updates they had possible thought about were the smiting monk, ranger and paragon?
so I guess they had started (you can see from the ele update part 1) and decided it was best to finish that up before starting something new?

instanceskiller · Sep 19, 2012, 08:09 AM // 08:09

If IIRC, I don't think you will see a major monk update anytime soon since when they released the last ele update, they mentioned that they were also testing new paragon mechanics parallel to their work on the ele in general, so I would assume the next major skill update will be for the para.

On the topic again of the ele update...I wished they actually made the conjure spells useful for ele's, as at the moment, the only build I can think of that uses them (in pve) is the conjure flame barrage ranger.

Ayuhmii Shanbwa · Sep 19, 2012, 11:18 AM // 11:18

too much exhaustion (yes, i still call it that) skills now..... especially the exhaustion on weaker skills making it even weaker and prolly worthless, like breath of fire.... bah

anet, eles should become better, not worse... saying this for PvE, i dont care about PvP

breath of fire was/is strong on HM enemies, but not human players builds

all i do like is lightning javelin, as far as i can use it in pve that is.....
oh yea, arc lightning was good... now requires your exhaustion, no need for water hexes with this anymore.... no need for it anymore, as there's stronger air skills

Teinai's Wind is funny now, in a good way, and became better imo
lightning touch is better, but i dont play touchy ele
glowstone is better, as its casting time is reduced
ash blast is nice for my earth/fire ele
stone daggers are awesome

i know this is weird, but i have a perma pre ele, and firestorm's recharge reduced is great

incendiary bonds plain sux (was good skill i used)

searing heat recharge reduced is great

smoldering embers..... bah, exhaustion (overcast, sry) and less unconditional dmg

teinai's heat, i dunno if thats good... ward spells have bad range imo

the rest i dunno, but i hate adding more exhaustion to many skills

i was hoping for MS to get less exhaustion due to its every 3 sec dmg+KD (i used it, and in pve, enemies run away even when not touched by MS yet)
and meteor for less or even no exhaustion, as its weak

well, maybe we'll see a fix about this (i say fix cuz i think its worse than before), yet no OP enemies in pve

more hoping for smiting and ranger pet skills right now o_O

peterr88 · Sep 19, 2012, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Not a terrible idea but I'd like to see some numbers attached to it

Xenomortis · Sep 19, 2012, 06:17 PM // 18:17

So my initial thoughts for PvE are simple:
Me/E FD is gone; Ash Blast is totally useless now: a conditional Blurred Vision with a condition that can't be met in the same line, nor with any skills that approach any degree of usefulness (bar Rodgort's I guess).
Nerf to Lightning Orb will hurt AP Air Eles I guess, but not by too much.
Invoke heroes may come back with Arc Lightning and Shell Shock, but there's a slight reduction on the targeted damage.

Some specifics:

Quote:

Breath of Fire: reduced recharge to 10 seconds; now causes 10 points of Overcast.

With 10 points of Overcast, the effective recharge of Breath of Fire stays the same, but now it can be used more often if the player can pay the Overcast cost.

Sure, but the player has to damn well make sure the targets stay in it for the duration and with only two snares in Fire Magic, Meteor and Meteor Shower, this could be awkward. Not to mention how temporary Meteor is and Meteor Shower is the most aggressively priced skill in the game.
And then there's the 2 second recharge which will prohibit usage of this skill more than exhaustion.
Sure, if you get an enemy group balled up this might be worth the investments, but otherwise it's still a joke.

Quote:

Vapor Blade: reduced cost to 10 Energy; reduced casting time to 1.5 seconds; now causes 5 points of Overcast.

Vapor Blade's high cost has typically made it difficult to afford with the already high average cost of Water Magic skills. The addition of Overcast allowed us to reduce the up-front cost a bit to make it a little more reliable as a damage option when low on Energy.

The good skills in Water Magic are bloody useful (this is PvP now). Hell, they're not even that expensive; 10 energy isn't exactly staggering. I don't like the prospect of promoting any spike options into Water Magic, Mirror of Ice hasn't been gone long enough, but at least this doesn't snare.
This skill doesn't matter in PvE because Water Magic doesn't matter in PvE.

Quote:

Arc Lightning: increased casting time to 1.5 seconds; increased recharge to 8 seconds; changed functionality to: "Target foe is struck for 5...40 lightning damage. If you are Overcast, two foes near your target are struck for 15...85 lightning damage. Damage from Arc Lightning has 25% armor penetration."

The Invoke+Chain Lightning combo was killed off in the last Ele update, heroes simply couldn't handle the exhaustion. This may substitute since only Invoke is needed and it feeds this new skill. I strongly suspect this was the real motivation for this change. Shell Shock might feature in this as well, but it'd be a little bit token.

Quote:

Rust: added the following functionality: "If you are Overcast, foes struck with Rust have their signets interrupted and disabled for 1...10 seconds."

I guess Water Eles can shut down res sigs now?

Quote:

Lightning Hammer: now applies Cracked Armor for 5...20 seconds.

Lightning Orb: no longer applies Cracked Armor.

With new options to apply Cracked Armor in Air Magic, it made sense for us to remove the Cracked Armor from Lightning Orb as its inclusion made it clearly better than almost every other skill in the line. We moved the Cracked Armor to the more expensive Lightning Hammer to justify its cost.

Lightning Hammer is prohibitively priced. It's very hard to justify a 25e cost and a 2 second cast time doesn't do it any favours. Lightning Orb is much more reasonably priced and is still the superior skill for it; even with an Attunment, there's still a 9 energy net difference between the two. The only time you can make extensive and justified use of this skill is if you're packing dual attunes, but then you should be in Fire Magic using the much more attractive Rodgort's Invocation.

Quote:

Shock Arrow: changed condition for Energy gain to "strikes a foe with cracked armor."

You're feeling really guilty about Invoke aren't you.

Quote:

Glowstone: reduced casting time to 3/4 second.

Compared to the other Glowing skills, Glowstone was a little weak. Since it's a projectile and can be obstructed, unlike Glowing Gaze and Glowing Ice, and does not have bonus armor penetration, like Shock Arrow, we took the casting time down a bit in order to bring it up to par with the others.

Ignoring the fact that Earth Magic had one weakness inflicting skill and it was terrible.

Quote:

Fire Storm: reduced recharge to 20 seconds.

Fire Storm is a fairly generic AoE spell that didn't have much going for it over several of the other AoE skills in Fire Magic. We felt a small decrease to its recharge would help its playability without making it overpowered.

You would have to go a long way to push Firestorm into the realms of overpowered. It's a comically bad for many reasons, it's recharge was only one of them and this update does essentially nothing for it. A multi second cast time, fixed position DoT nature and low damage hurt it more than its recharge did.

Quote:

Intensity: increased radius to include all foes in the area; increased damage percentage to 60...70%.

We liked the previous change to Intensity as a skill to make single-target skills into AoE skills, but it felt a little weak in practice, so we've tuned up the numbers a bit.

I guess some people might like this skill. I can think of at least three others that massively outclass it. The one time nature of this skill will always hold it back.

Quote:

Crystal Wave: reduced recharge to 15 seconds; reduced damage to 10...70; added the following functionality: "Each condition removed deals 5...15 damage."

The unique effect on Crystal Wave always seemed to combo with Fragility but had nothing much to offer on its own.

Get rid of the PBAoE nature of it, lower the unconditional damage and then we'll be talking. Right now, this is still terrible. Even with that, it'll only shine when combined with Fragility and Fevered Dreams, ideally on another player.
I haven't watched PvP at all lately, but if conditions are still everywhere and Stone Sheath is still going then this might feature, although it'd be gimmicky.

Quote:

Earthen Shackles: changed functionality to: "For 5...20 seconds, target and all nearby foes move 90% slower. When Earthen Shackles ends, it applies Weakness for 5...20 seconds."

I don't believe this. Either this'll be split or it'd be nerfed into the ground real soon. Maybe both. However, this is a near ideal candidate for locking foes in place when using Breath of Fire or your favourite DoTAoE skill as mentioned before.

Edit: Turns out this is wrong - the wiki says the snare duration is fixed at three seconds and so my comments can be scrapped.

Quote:

Lightning Javelin: increased recharge to 5 seconds; added the following functionality: "Lightning Javelin strikes all foes between you and your target."

Quote:

Ash Blast: changed type to hex spell; increased recharge to 15 seconds; changed functionality to: "Target and adjacent foes are struck for 35...65 earth damage. Burning foes struck by Ash Blast are hexed for 5 seconds and have a 20...75% chance to miss with attacks."

This is just bad. Ash Blast had one use and it was with Fevered Dreams on a Mesmer. Now it has none.

You've made Guild Wars 2. It's been released; you can stop now.

I'm not sold on any of the cross element stuff really; it never took off for a reason.

DiogoSilva · Sep 19, 2012, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Ashe Blast is interesting to disable melee while bursting them down with Searing Flame/ EA Rodgort builds, and Intensity is basically an instant-cast, area-range 70-100+ damage spell every 10 seconds, which is pretty much better than Liquid Flame for EA, and better than the new Arc Lightning for lightning builds.

Cuilan · Sep 20, 2012, 08:17 PM // 20:17

It's interesting to see how hard they slam Ash Blast into oblivion while still being okay with speed clears. I've put up with that kind of rubbish with this still amazing game, but I'm not going to do that again with any other Anet game.