Update - December 9, 2010

This is totally the best Dervish update in the history of the universe.

I forgot about the part where Anet said the Derv update was going to be today.

*gives Healing Burst a wink from the other side of the bar*

Anet already killed Winter's Embrace and now they're nerfing Freezing Gust? Have some love for Water Elementalist please anet! And re-define the term "balance"! Freezing Gust was never too powerful compare with many other Ele skills.

I feel Invoke was buffed too much. 1 cast time ,8 cooldown on something that can spike for 130ish... stay in your +8 armor, +10 vs lightning shield set and it's still 100 damage.

On anything with 80 total armor or less, it does 100% damage (25% Armor penetration).

Then again, ineptitude/clumsiness is even more...

Any half decent ranger or mesmer can interrupt the 2 second cast chain lightning though.

Angorodon's Gaze change was kind of lame because you don't want to pump soul reaping, same with Strip enchantment. I usually dropped 9 ranks in Strip enchant to get bulk removal without using rend (it's better than rip enchant). Gaze of contempt might fill the void.

With draw conditions nerfed and Foul feast+ Healing burst buffed, I suspect that monks will be more or less hex removers and party healers.

Invoke Lightning and Chain Lightning look really promising now (and potentially overpowered in PvP). Healing Burst has "power creep" written all over it. Now not only does it heal almost as much as Heal Other, it costs a huge 5e less and provides party healing. What the heck. Overpowered. Although I guess it takes an overpowered skill to compete with the overpowered WoH.

I like the other changes.

I figured the Elementalist changes benefits more for PvE, specifically Hard Mode. After all, a fair share of people complained about Elementalists not doing enough damage in HM.

Do you have information that it would be?... is that why ectos are 9.5-10k at merch today?

Not really: hitting 3 targets is nothing when you have Wandering eye, ineptitude, mistrust, clumsiness, and friends. Also without cracked armor, you don't do even 80% of listed to things that are level 28-30 (less to rangers, warriors, paragons).

Oh and for Freezing Gust, you still have Icy Shackles! Sure you use up your elite slot, but it has 90% snare on enchanted people.

yaaay Invoke and chain lightning was my fav ele build before. ... Me happpy now =)

So when is my dervish update :/

Unnecessary nerfs to cripshot which necessitate unnecessary nerfs to draw mkae me annoyed. Removing sins as a playable class at stand when all that was needed to balance them was the nerf to shadow walk (which they got right) and the nerf to AE. Fox fangs change (unnecessarily) kills the (fairly) balanced YAA sin and basically remove assassins from competetive play. Wheeeee.

Can you guys get lost with the dervishes? John said LAST MONTH when they launched the new GW:B stuff that the dervish update won't happen until AFTER Hearts of the North finishes. No one's been expecting a dervish update until the end of January at the EARLIEST.

Hell yes, Melandru's Shot buff? I can finally go back to Jade Quarry now and enjoy spending time there again.

Still not a good skill. Long recharge (10s) means it's not terribly viable as a snare skill and the damage is still mediocre compared to BA. If they had dropped the recharge down to 8s again, the skill would be usable.

or compromise with them and make it 9seconds :-)
I remember mel shot at 8 was pretty beast

Why can't they be nice to water magic for once?

PvP updates need to stop being posted in Riverside.

The update isn't PvP-only. They were balanced for GvG, but more than half of the skills were changed for PvE as well.

@FoxBat, Haggis of Doom is right. Plus, I double checked in-game to make sure that what was reported was right (sitting in LA at 16 water magic, Freezing Gust had a duration of 5sec and a recharge of 7sec).

I wouldn't mind if they changed some of the skill changes to PvP-only though.

Invoke Lightning looks dangerous as a followup skill. I've been running Chain Lighting + Invoke Lightning in Aspenwood, where it provides a decent balance between NPC killing, creating vulnerable targets when enemy teams ball, and spiking out monks. But it's on a Mesmer, and I'm running Drain/Inspired enchant to take out Kurzick healers (Patient Spirit change helps), Leech Sig for ranger preparations, and Blinding Flash for pesky Assassins. An Elementalist can't take that kind of utility with a spike.

The main flaw for the higher levels of PvP is that if you strip the enchants, a mesmer will exhaust himself out. And the caster has no hard rez or stances to stay alive. I took Windborne for the format over a backup spiking option because getting countered in FA is unlikely. Feels very much like a combo of the two historical air spikes (FC and Chain), but my guess is it's too fragile to take over on a Mesmer. I didn't play it on an Elementalist, because Invoke Lightning is comparable enough to Mind Shock as is with what it does. Mind Shock is an opener, Invoke is a followup.