Preliminary Skill Update Notes: March 17

...right, so they are nerfing eles even more. It isn't a huge hit to ER Prot but it does make the build more fragile and makes attunements easier to strip in pvp.

So just tell me straight anet, should I delete my ele at this point? Are you actually going to fix eles, or paras or rangers for that matter, any time soon? I realize WoC may be your top priority now but we aren't asking for a whole skill rework for eles. A simple change to energy storage that is only effective in pve would solve this problem, like you did with mesmer fast casting. Please, at the very least, let us know if you are looking at this issue or not. I was going to get another slot and roll a mesmer as an alt to fool around on, maybe go for ldoa, but there seems to be no reason to do that when I have utterly useless characters that will never see the light of day.

After countless threads on multiple sub forums with hundreds of posts and thousands of views I have yet to see ANY response on this. Are you even looking at the issues with these classes? Is it being discussed? A simple yes or no on this issue would be very nice, even without any timeline. The last time we heard anything about these classes was only about para and that was almost a year ago.

Just lessen the damage of their skills... its not that hard.

Alternatively, give HM monsters around triple the health of a NM with the same exact armor as a NM monster.

Balancing GW isn't that hard when you actually play it. ANet can't balance it b/c they don't understand the game b/c they don't play it.

Truth and more truth.

Honestly, I'm just shocked they didn't accidentally nerf ER protters - making eles completely useless in HM.

Air magic was good enough, I guess.

So it did. Damn.

They just did. See above. Harder to cover/re-cover ER and lost a lot of casting frequency on the best skill for generating energy in a pinch (b/c it's normally the only 5e spell on the bar). Ow.

Really? People are complaining about a slight recharge nerf on AURA OF RESTORATION? REALLY?

Wow.
I play ele's with AoR a lot, and i'm not bothered one bit by it. I do love the attunement buffs

And who the hell cares about some stupid infuse spammer in PvE..

looks like a pvp update only, people gotta relax it might not affect pve except for the skill splits/ function

Do you realize how many skills you'll make worthless or even more worthless from doing that?

They would just be leveled at eles damage. Which is worthless, as you said.

I'm really not seeing much priority in invoke lightning unless you're willing to run chain instead. it seems both skills are nearly the same except for the 2sec cast, otherwise it's a good for saving an elite.

And who the hell cares about some stupid Elementalist build in PvP ... please, if you don't care about PvE, please shut up about it.

Also they really went ahead with the Invoke Lightning nerf ... so sad ...

OK let's put it another way.

A grossly imbalanced PvE build that obsoletes monks got a SLIGHT hit. Boo hoo.

Basically I agree with you.

But 10 sec recharge of Attunements will not be reasonable imo. Look at Awaken the Blood. It's very hard to maintain and with sacrifice penalty. If you want to boost your curses you have to invest a lot in both blood and curses.

And replacing Barbed Signet with an elite is way too expensive.
I was glad to see necros became popular in GvG after several years life of retiree.
Now people choose Ele and Mes over necro again for sure.
I was expecting blood nerf comes with some unused Curses/Death elite changes. (for example: Feast of Corruption)

Despite I did love the huge Dervish changes last time, re-balance is needed.
But Grenth was not that good imho. Nerf the life stealing amount is reasonable, but now the disease duration is even less than Balthazar's burning duration. The only reason it was good is to synergy with necro's foul feast in GvG. But 3 sec is a little bit crappy.

Mesmer was already very very powerful, they still got buffed quite often.
Well, domination dominates indeed.

For PvE, Consume Soul is a pain in the ass for many players since it completely counters MM and spirits team build (after the 7 heroes update you'd probably bring both of them).

I hope they can tweak some more in the near future, especially for PvP.

That's a far better reason not to hate the Aura of Restoration update than "but I don't care anyway so who gives a ****".

Loving the decrease on casting time on Attunement spells. Should help getting my Elementalist into battle a little faster. Disliking the Invoke Lightning nerf... Elementalists are supposed to be the best AoE damage dealers, yet their AoE is being surpassed by many others and still being nerfed on top of that? WTH!?!?
Especially Air Magic nerf... Air Magic never being used much, and still is being nerfed, while something overused such a Domination Mesmer just keeps on receiving buffs. Seriously??

You cannot just put these 2 together.
Domination line is much much more viable than Smiting Prayers.

Didn't Domination dominate enough, huh?
One key Diversion hit results in a completely different story.

Lol, preparations last 60 seconds is crazy.
For PvE, sadly my ranger still uses dagger spam build. Splinter works good with any melees, just need a SoS/Splinter Rit Hero.

Are you serious? That's all the live team DOES. You have got to be kidding me if you seriously propose the devs don't play the game or don't run endless build tests for hours each day.

Why don't you try to come up with a complete remake for the ele, which is perfectly balanced for PvE and PvP and doesn't mess up anything? If you do I'm sure the devs will listen. Try it and we'll see how easy it is and how much time it takes you. The derv update took about a year to do for an entire team, IIRC.

If you are talking about PvE, its really arguable.
But Blood necro is good for triple melees GvG build (only).
And the key skills are Barbed Signet/Oppressive Gaze/Angorodon's Gaze - all are destroyed.
Observe the matches you will see no more necro for a long while for sure.

At least give us a better but not overpowered Spoil Victor(PvP) back. It has beed nerfed 4+ times because of other goodies of blood skills.

I can't find any reason to use blood magics build for now.

lol, in PvE, it's really a pain in the ass for the players' MM and Rt heroes since monsters counter your team build with one skill.

Dervishs are still good. As for PvE, Dervish's PvE only skills is not good tho.
Remind me of the god mode from the old Aura of Holy Might.

Just watched some GvG, a lot of Warriors come back for work.

Look at Smiter's Boon(PvP), 25e 90s recharge, lasts only 5 seconds...
Man, they already gave up for years, so did I. :\

Blood necro was good for any kind of build because of his free elite slot and massive degen.

I agree most of your opinions.
But Angorodon's Gaze actually got nerfed a lot.
let's say, for 10 in Soul Reaping, you used to gain 12-5= +7 en per cast, but now you gain 9-5 = +4 en only.
It's almost halved.

Yes, the cast time worth it in PvP.
But consider splitting for PvE maybe.

man you really made me rofl, those wardens did wipe my minions and spirits out in no time (hard mode).

AE DAZE kills.
Even new Fevered Dreams is still bugged. (Trigger Daze with only one condition when first applied.)
Combine with Fragility it's very scary.

next time you roll an ele, read the class description. They used to be the main damage dealer in GW. This post is proof ele's need a rework. people think they are support characters. I know they aren't because the class description tells me so(sarcasm). ArenaNet: Please update the class descriptions to match how the class actually play at this time. You have redesigned classes to such an extent that they don't match the class descriptions anymore. It's misleading to new players as to what role they are to play on teams.

Also, players whining that they can't play a healer on an ele are the very reason I made this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/g...t10475014.html

are you trying to turn constructive conversation to sophistic bs? Eles are support chars in PvP. PvP update fixed their capabilities. I don't talk about PvE side of the game. End of story.

Right, have to admit that it's quite strong.

But still, the key skills are Barbed Signet/Oppressive Gaze/Angorodon's Gaze - all got nerfed/destroyed.

Even using Signet of Suffering, Angorodon's Gaze supplies much less energy (net +4e vs net +7e per cast if you have 10 in Soul Reaping).
The duration of Oppressive Gaze is only 55% left now.(11 seconds vs 20 seconds)

Killing Barbed Signet is seriously overreacted.
This is a double impact actually. Angorodon's Gaze is no longer a Blood spell.

Since Oppressive Gaze and Angorodon's Gaze are less effective now, Barbed Signet should not be changed.
Because you have to max your Blood and Soul Reaping (for much less effectiveness), you can't invest 3rd attribute any more.
Yes, you can just pick up a non-attribute elite, but every class can do this.


Because this bar doesn't work any more, I prefer building something different.
But they just smacked this bar without giving anything new.

I would rather make Signet of Suffering a completely new function instead of the old Barbed Signet.

No one uses Feast of Corruption and the old Signet of Suffering. I thought they can make them different. Just a little disappointed.

Could just restore the old more OP barbed sig to sig of suffering.

IE for X seconds, your necro spells cause bleeding to target (and yourself)

Personally I'd give a little more time to see how the meta works out the current setup than just theorycrafting however. Old blood necro was played in like every build, new one might still be viable but only in select team setups.

Nope. It might have initially been a design concept, but they failed catastrophically at it. Searing Flames was the one skill they kind of succeeded with, which, as everyone will recall, was absolutely stupid.

Blood necros did way too many things way too well. I still don't think these nerfs are enough, although we'll see with the monthly coming up in a few days.

I am mostly a PvPer, but this so called "PvP updates" is still disappointing.

Dervish nerfs: reasonable.

Air of Disenchantment: still overpowered. 10e 1s 10r for a nearby enchantment removal and even non-conditional deadly hex effect.

Avatar of Melandru (PvP): still not viable.

Avatar of Dwayna (PvP): still not viable.

Diversion: recharge is still fast and disable duration still too long.
One key Diversion hit on monk results in a completely different story.

Shatter Enchantment: probably a bit too strong with 10 en, 20 recharge for enchantment removal and 100 armor-ignoring damage. Envenom Enchantments is a joke now (5e, 20 recharge, poor conditional poison).

Shatter Hex: now is cheap so became very scary...makes your melee (of your team) a running bomb.

Mind wrack: Still overpowered when combines with other e-denial. The damage triggers when 0 energy is 100 armor-ignoring damage. Am it's probably the longest duration(40sec) hex. (and this build requires ZERO skill to play.) Take a look at Malaise and Wither, the damage and e-denial effect is pathetic. Mind wrack is too good for a 5en hex.

Barbed Signet (PvP) : completely destroyed.

Rit: almost untouched. Only Consume Soul already has been discussed a lot, So I skip this. But I think there are still a lot unused Rit skills.

Monk, Warrior, Sin, Ranger and Para: untouched at all.

There are too many to list...
General speaking, they just kill the meta, smash meta bar. But there are still a lot of unused skills that need to be buffed.
Previously meta chose blood necro over mesmer, so they nerfed blood and didn't noticed other overpowered mesmer skills.

Ok, so I tried Invoke in RA, and the only thing I noticed is that my energy now runs out a lot faster.

Thanks a lot Anet!

Ok, so it was probably OP in GVG or HA, but they could have at least split it for PVE.

I did that all the time, I played ER prot elly in all my vanqs, and breezed through the Roaring Ether / Ruby Djinn areas with ease spamming prot spirit, spirit bond and infuse.

Heroes arent as stupid as you think, in fact I think they play better than most humans would do.

Sorry, but learn 2 play if you think AoE damage in PVE is too high. Everything right now is such a breeze, try taking the popular panic mesmer along and lock them onto the elly bosses.

Mesmers are far far better with mesmer skills than splashing to useless elly skills in both PVP and PVE.

Nice way to show you dont know anything about PVE, if you think Ellys are usable for damage in HM.

And Monks do more damage than ellys in PVE with RoJ, boo hoo if ellys can at least do one thing useful compared to the other caster classes.

And Smiting Prayers is much more viable than fire, earth, air or water in PVE.

Enough decent suggestions have already been made if you read the elly subforums. The simplest solution that wouldnt affect PVP would be to buff Intensity. If you can argue against that, or defend Anets recent crappy change to intensity, then you dont have a clue. Anet cant be play testing PVE well enough for ellys and even paragons to still be in the state that they are.

OK this is getting a bit stupid.

First: you can't Prot Spirit everyone before engaging a particular boss. You can Protective Bond them, yes, but that forces you to use a player Elementalist.

Second: taking the first wave of damage with Protective Spirit on yourself works in most areas, but can fail, aka. against Burning Spirits and Rage Titans in DoA. Especially in HM.

Third: Lightning Hammer and Lightning Orb aren't useless, especially in PvE, although I would agree that PvE Mesmers at least are better off with Mesmer skills than Elementalist skills. You only have two of them, after all.

Fourth: Elementalists are certainly usable for damage in HM. They don't deal much compared to buff physicals, yes, but they do deal comparable damage to many Mesmer templates, such as the Panic Mesmer you mentioned.

Fifth: Monks don't deal more damage than Elementalists in PvE. RoJ is one spell that, while better than any individual Elementalist nuke, loses to all of them combined. Monks can't deal much damage when RoJ is on cooldown; Elementalists can keep casting even if Invoke / Savannah Heat / whatever is cooling down. For players, Elementalists have GoLe to use with AP while Monks are far less effective with it. Claiming Smiting Prayers far more viable than Fire, Earth, Air or Water is a huge exaggeration. Far more viable than Water, maybe. Far more viable than all four elements? I don't believe it.

Exaggeration doesn't do your case a lot of good ...

Haven't tried anything other than Air (figures that they'd announce the nerf of Invoke Lightning less than a week after I found it... :P) in HM yet, nor have I played it since the nerf went live, and I found that instead of 89 to 100, I was now doing 60-something to 89 to most HM foes. More, of course, if I initiated with Lightning Orb or Shell Shock for Cracked Armor. Not that big a drop, really, and I can't see what everyone's complaining about...

I am hoping SO much that 4 necro honor gayness wins the guildwarsguru tournament. nerfing Barbed Signet doesn't really change anything because the build is easily run by GoLE alone. Consume Soul nerf doesn't matter because a lot moved to 3rd monk Healing Burst anyway (dropping Protective Was Kaolai was suicidal)

lol...why the hell would you think that I think that? More importantly, and even more silly, you're implying that the loss of 10 damage somehow makes a difference in the ele's ability (or lack thereof) to be a serious damage dealer in HM? Heh...no. 10 damage is nothing, it's certainly not worth this massive outpouring of rage. If you want to say that eles suck at damage in HM, then they sucked before this update too, and splitting the skill for PvE wouldn't have changed that fact.

And the 6 second recharge does make a difference, I don't know why people are downplaying this so much. Hell, if you hit a HCT trigger (and you should), you have a 3 second recharge instead of 4. That's low enough that you really could get two casts on the same mob.

Splitting a skill for 10 armor ignoring damage is not worth the 5s it would take. Thats a 5 damage loss against most mobs after armor btw. Eles were shit damage in PvE before and are still just as shit after the update, stop QQing like a noob.

Can...can we please stop having a discussion over 10 damage, please? I remember when we actually had good discussions, like.... stuff that didn't revolve around 10 damage....

You're obviously doing it wrong.


That would mean pve is still a breeze for eles, so there should be no problem. If it comes to a stage that an ele cannot complete certain aspects of the game then I'll understand the need for a rework.

Ive done pretty much every aspect of the game on an ele without using any ER build. So yes, they are usable.

I wholeheartedly agree

a panic mesmer does pretty good shutdown however

does monk need a buff? only two i can think of is smiting prayer elites so something other than roj is worth bringing, and some phat divine/smite favour spamable heal for use with smiters boon

4 Necro and single midline necro build are completely different stories.
Hexway requires less skills to play compared to triple melee + one blood necro.
Barbed Signet nerf is to kill blood midline necro, and it worked.

Well I just saw a lot of triple melees + Me/N to replace necro now.
Me/N runs fast casting Curses, the key skill is Barbs.
It makes mesmer a better curser this way.
Barbs is good but not efficient for necro because 2s cast time.

First and Second: There are plenty of ways to combat huge aoe damage. SB/PS, ST Prot, PI/PD/PB/Panic mes, flag heroes out, imbagon, extinguish or BotGD against sf. Any player should be be able to bring at least three of these in any balanced build. Eles mobs don't scare me in PvE, even if they do get buffed. It also wouldn't be very hard to buff PvE only skills or skills mobs rarely/never use to boost damage output so that it doesn't effect mobs.

Third: And in order to make use of both those skills more than once or twice a fight I need to bring 2-3 energy management skills, one of them elite. Most of my options are enchantments that are now easier to strip thanks to the AoR nerf. Then I need to get through the 2 second cast times those spells come with. In the case of lightning orb, the projectile needs to have line of sight and the mob needs to not move. All of that is for single target damage, that is still affected by armor, granted slightly reduced. Why bother? I can bring another class and go SS, MM, SoS, SoGM, Dom, or Inept and out damage that air build. With more utility/support and armor ignoring aoe damage.

Fourth: Rit, Mes, and Necro players/heroes have bars will out damage any air build. They also don't have to deal with high cast times, retarded energy costs, relying on enchantments with long recharges to manage energy, 2 second cast times, the worst primary attribute in the game, or exhaustion. They will also bring more utility and support than any air bar while they are at it and ignore armor completely. Give me one good reason why I should play or use Eles over any of those classes when I want a damage role in hard mode.

Fiflth: I did go overboard when I said they deal more damage, Ill give you that and I will edit my prior post. Yea Eles do make better AP callers than monks because they have gole, but that really only works with heroes, doesn't work well in areas with hex removal, only 3-4 skills are Ele skills, and CL/LO are the worst skills on the bar. The only time you cast them is when the evas>ap>ymlad>fh combo doesn't kill the target, or when AP gets removed and you don't get the recharge on those skills. The only reason the ele skills are on the bar in the first place is because Sin skills don't offer anything better for caster damage and you are limited to 3 pve skills. When I run the bar, I have actually had better results bringing mark of death over CL to cover AP and reduce healing on the target.