Elementalist update soon?

I just logged in into the game right now, and there was a notice for a new Elementalist Update, and to check out the developer's notes. But there's no new update for the client, and the notice was removed when I logged in again.

Does this means an update is about to come?

Saw these news too... I'm afraid it was just a mistake ;_; Would be wonderful if they kept on updating the game, especially in terms of skill balance.

It was probably a mistake, but I doubt it was a random mistake. Maybe it's about to come in a few hours, and they made the notice too soon and had to remove it?

One would have to check whether news like these were posted in the past (if indeed, then it might have been an accidental repost). There was an ele update in January, and then some rebalance of the update a few weeks later. Maybe it was a post from then?

Edit:
I did the research (yes, I'm bored). I browsed the archive of the login screen announcements. There was a similar one:

Elementalist Skills Updated
We’ve made a major update to the Elementalist, improving their viability in PvE. Try out the enhanced elementalist today!

...but that's not the one from today, as it featured something about checking the developer update. So indeed it might be something new.

i hope they will nerf that dumb Elite Sw is the most anoying in Ra . Any noob can play that elite

Update is up.

Anyone found any changes in game?
Because there's no update notice to be found yet.

Elementalist changes. There's a new mechanic named Overcast, but I don't know what it is.

Where do you see this Overcast mechanic?

Many elem's skills now have extra bonus if the player is "overcast".

---> http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/de...l_balances.php

I'm glad they tested out how the enemies in PvE might be now with this update.

/extremesarcasm

GW2 ele

/12char

amusingly pointless update

This whole change makes no sense from a PvE perspective. The issue elementalists had was that the spells you had just didn't do enough damage in hard mode. The mesmer and many necro damages were armor ignoring (as well as spirits) and hit people near or in the area. The elemenalists skills had to deal with AC as well as inherent elemental resistances, that made it that most monsters could just out-heal the AE. So elementalist abilities were inferior to mes/necro ones, not to mention that fast casting and soul reaping were superior mechanics.

So now we added some status effects if we're exhausted? It makes no sense. I still see no reason to bring an elementalist. If I need AE i'll go with a dom mesmer or smitter. If I need single-target damage I'll bring.. probably the same thing or some spirits.

All this does is make certain monsters (especially bosses) with the damage bonus to now add status effects. If someone wanted bleeds or cracked armor, there's already plenty of ways to get those with classes that can still deal damage. Not to mention, in hard mode they're casting faster, and most have condition or hex removal as a group, which means it will just get purged off quickly, or worse yet, used against you in condition transfer abilities.

Edit: To put it another way, the other caster classes basically turn the bonuses for Hard Mode against the creatures, by taking advantage of their increased attack speed, or increased HP, or increased casting speed, or their propensity to throw up more hexes/conditions, etc. For the ele, you don't scale at all, which means you don't get better in hard mode. It doesn't help that ES is a totally useless stat. It's sole purpose is basically to allow exhaustion. Contrast with the other primary stats, where the purpose of the primary stat is a bonus to the character irrelevant of what skills they're using. ES does nothing but give you more energy. Additional energy does nothing, it's not enough to provide any drastic casting speed increase in PvE, and you're still required to resort to energy management skills. The only use for it is to provide more leeway for exhaustion. Changing exhaustion to actually provide some bonus might not be bad, but It'd be better if you made ES be useful outside of exhaustion purposes (which is a dead system). Something like "In PvE, for every 5 points of energy you currently have, you gain 1% armor penetration) or something in that regard.

i hope it'll be splits all the way, if they make any changes for pvp

i hope that, i hope they make some less useful skills a lil more useful, they shouldnt OP HM enemies with it, and several useless skills at least useful in pve

ps. this all counts for pve, of course, as thats all i play in GW (any MMO, lol)

even though its not now, its soon see? they didnt leave GW, yay

EDIT: whoops, it IS now, sry tired... sleepy now, so will comment next time

If I'm reading this right they want you to cycle exhausting spells to fuel bonus AoE on a handful of other spells. One positive here is that the Invoker can probably come back with the new Arc Lightning being a nice replacement for the old Chain Lightning. Intensity needs one other fix to make it viable...it needs to be changed to next spell and function on DoT. As it is now you still only get one packet to work with which makes it a waste of a slot.

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."

Umm... 90% slower for 20 seconds, and affecting nearby foes? :O Must be a mistake.

It would be a lot more interesting if the amount of overcast actually affected the bonus damage. If that was the case, then ES might actually be useful, as you could increase your damage output by dumping more points into ES. But all the changes just say "if overcast". Which means, 5 pts is as good as 50.

My page says,

I believe there's a mistake on guildwars.com, but it's correct in the game. It's indeed 3 seconds there.

well, we did want an elementalist update...I guess the adage..'be careful of what you wish' applies.

just means my eles will get some time off to dance in the towns instead.
/sad panda

Not a terrible idea but I'd like to see some numbers attached to it. Would be especially brutal on monsters with bars favoring these combos who seem to completely shrug off exhaustion if they can even have it applied to begin with.

I don't see any reasons why monsters even needed to accrue exhaustion(overcast). Outside of the turtles with second wind, it's basically irrelevant to them. They get huge bonuses to deal with it, so, I say just drop it from them.

The NPC eles aren't the issue. They already have damage bonuses by the fact they're all over-leveled by +6-+10 levels.

I have experimented with some of the new skills. I went to PvE with unpopular elements (water, air) and got surprising results.

Water, with a bit of earth invested, can consistently deal nearby-range damage with low recharge spells, and still have cracked armor, snaring, single-target burst and party support as a side bonus. (Ok, the support skill actually takes its own slot).
I started with Ice Spikes followed by the new earth's Tenai's Crystals, for adjacent/ nearby range decent damage with the snare and cracked armor effects respectively. I followed them with Shatterstone elite and new Icy Prism, for even better damage, nearby or single-target damage. Icy Prism fuels the new Swirling Aura, and Glowing Ice is there for long battles. Water Attunement + Elemental Lord for the final skills.

Air magic was a beauty. Invoke Lightning followed by the new Shell Shock now gives adjacent cracked armor, and the new Intensity coupled with Lightning Orb dealt massive 94+ area damage. I always pre-cast them with Glyph of Swiftness, so my Orb's projectile wasn't a problem, and so that my skills were always ready to be used.
I'm considering an Elemental Attunement build with the new Iron Mist over Glyph of Swiftness, the new Arc of Lightning over Invoke Lightning (no chain L., Iron Mist's overcast generation is dangerous), the new Lightning Hammer over Lightning Orb, and something else over Shell Shock. Should result a very similar build, but I'm unsure which one would be the best.
Or as another alternative, I also considered taking Invoke for Chain, to open space for an elite of choice (Thunderclap over Shell Shock, or Glimmering Mark/ Blinding Surge for more utility while retaining good damage).

To not understimate Intensity. This one is going to be meta in all current builds, IMO. Area damage is a big deal, the skill is instant-cast and cheap, and pretty much allows you to make burst aoe damage. A Rodgort's Invocation should hit for 200+ with Intensity in one cast, plus 80-90-ish to enemies slightly outside Rodgort's range. It also gives your single-target air skills a really strong aoe effect, which in addition to Arc Lightning is a really good thing to fill your air skillbar.

Overall, from those two tests alone, I'd say the update was very successful at fixing the elementalist. It makes non-fire elements much stronger for pve, and it allows for builds that can consistently deal aoe damage, and still bring decent utility and have low spell recharges, something the elementalist used to be weak at. Even the casting times are decent, with only Shatterstone and Lightning Orb having 2s cast time in my examples above. Speccing a bit into a second attunement has also been worth it, but clearly optional, so it shouldn't steal room for secondary prof's utility.

Also, playing with exhaustion/ overcast adds an extra layer of fun to an otherwise basic-to-play profession.

Second Wind's text still says Exhaustion. Someone go inform the cactus overlooking GW1 to fix it.

Same for Glyph of Energy.

these skills are sooo complicated now, are we sure ele heroes are going to work properly with them?

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...)


So, I didn't have time to read everything through yet. First of all I don't like Overcast mechanic. I don't think you should be rewarded for stacking exhaustion, but that's about what I thought when they made a real mechanic out of ench juggling for dervs (and I in fact always played derv as that didn't exist). And I think it will make monsters sooo much stronger, as exhaustion has never been a issue for them.

Talking about single skills though, I'll need to see. I like what they did to arc Lightning Javelin for example, but I think they ruined Shock Arrow to me, I always thought energy gain while foe is attacking was very rewarding if cast on the right foe, while with some easy-to-die groups they'll be dead before you can apply cracked armor, and you'll have no way to gain energy back through that skill.
That's just what my eyes catched through fast reading, as I said need to read all still...but my 2cents

Lightning Touch @3 with Fevered Dreams seems like a nice combination.
[email protected] gives 2s blind + 3s cracked to adjacent foes, which guarantees ~3s area dazed.
Low duration blind is better since FD only spread *new conditions. 5e 0.75c 10r makes it suitable for melee since it's cheap, fast, touch range, and only req 3 attribute in air.

Not finding much synergy with Iron Mist and Air Magic.. but I guess it can be useful with Lightning Hammer and Glyph of Swiftness. IM+GoS gives LH 1.1c 2.3r, if single target spiking is your game.

Tenai's Heat possible best suited for caster-centric teams. Weakened foes hitting 33% slower + degen = added caster protection and added chance for EoE to trigger.

Generally it's a bad idea to give Exh.. erhm.. Overcast skills to a hero. I guess the most viable Overcast skills would be Meteor, Meteor Shower, and Maelstrom. So what useful Fire or Water Magic hero builds could we get out of it that gives added Overcast abilities?

The new breakpoints for Glyph of Swiftness is at 2/6/10/14. Basically you only need 6 air compared to 12 to affect 3 spells. Makes it much more viable in non-air and non-ele builds.

lol earth ele buffed once again, also stone sheath being 5 or 10 energy makes no diff in the end...
Also: they make glowstone a 0.75second cast while shock arrow still remains 1second cast.

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

skills like Glowing Ice and Glowing Gaze, Shock Arrow's "while attacking" clause made it difficult to reliably use it for Energy gain. Now that Elementalists have improved access to Cracked Armor it made sense to change the conditional Energy gain on Shock Arrow. Players should find that getting the Energy from this skill is now much more reliable.

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.

my point is why make one a 0.75 and the other one not while theres an abundance of weakness.

Tested Phoenix. The 20..80 ally heal near target does not affect spirits, but it does affect minions. On other hand, spirits shouldn't be in nearby range of foes anyway. 57 nearby fire dmg for 10e and 7r is mediocre so the main use of this skill would be added heals to minions and melee professions. I doubt this skill will find much use except in niche minion teams. Necros can then replace BotM with something more offensive.

No change to Shockwave, or Stoning. I also lol'd at the change from 5e to 10e for stone sheath.

@DiogoSilva: I am leaning towards Thunderclap and Chain Lightning instead of the Invoke Lightning and Shell Shock

I am seeing something good in the new Lightning Javalin.
It seems to hit every foe in at least adjacent but maybe nearby range to the projectile while traveling to the target.

Trying it on the test dummies in the Isle of the Nameless, it managed to hit 5 dummies in row that were more or less in a straight line.
Targeting the fartest dummy, the other 4 were in adjacent or nearby range to the projectile.

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

Oh yeah, Flare is the best skill ever !!!

So when do we see Flare-builds show up in gwpvx meta?
Or Flareway, hahahaha

According to the developer page:
Lightning Javelin is a bit of an experiment on the types of things we can do with projectile skills in the Guild Wars engine.
One need to know how exactly projectiles work. They are obstruction-sensitive, so maybe now they hit anything that they would stop on, if it was an obstruction? The question is, how wide is the, well, how to say it, stripe of obstruction-sensitivity, if you get my drift.
By the way, it kind of reminds of Torment Slash. I believe TS is not a projectile, but still, it hits every enemy in front of the monster, where the danger zone is sort of in shape of a stripe. Why haven't they used that mechanic for player skills before? :O

On another note, the update might affect some Pre-Searing gameplay - while the change of Flare won't do this (no Overcast in Pre), the buff of Lightning Javelin may move this skill from "never used" to "sporadically used", and the buff of Fire Storm makes it even more overpowered in Pre.

Regarding pre, there are foes u encounter during the Vanguard quests that use Firestorm and/or Lightning Javalin.
These foes could become (even) more trouble now

Now you're making me wanna do another pre-ele <.< But I kept mine there for years so uhm no. But it'd be nice to hear from someone else who has a perma-pre ele.

Ouch didn't think about this, it's been a while since I last did those quests...which were they, the bandits?

Funny they mentioned in dev log about starter skills and flare, while pre-flare will be exactly the same due to no overcast :P