[Feedback] Meteor Shower

This thread is about the "latest" change to the Elementalist Staff 5 Skill: Meteor Shower.The change was this:

February 23, 2017 - The cooldown for non-player targets will now apply for 0.33 seconds if the player is affected by quickness.February 22, 2017 - This skill now has a 0.5-second cooldown when hitting nonplayer targets.

And I think everyone will agree that Meteor Shower was incredibly strong on large targets before that nerf happened. But was that nerf the best way to handle that?No, not in my opinion at least. It's still a strong skill and it should always be a strong skill and it should be especially effective against large targets and it is supposed to hit large targets more than small targets - so in essence, it did exactly what it was supposed to do and was nerfed for doing so. That is like telling a sprinter to run a marathon.

I am aware that Meteor Shower was too strong pre-nerf and I agree that a nerf was needed but in my opinion there would be several (4) better ways to handle it which would be (Assuming the February '17 nerf would be reversed):

1. Increase Cooldown in PvE
2. Increase Casttime while keeping the Number of Meteors the same
3. Decrease Damage per Meteor
4. Decrease Number of Meteors

My favorite solution would be to increase the Cooldown, that way we can't use it as frequently which would have the same effect as the February '17 nerf but casting Meteor Shower would feel a lot more rewarding (Which it should considering you're conjuring kitten meteors!). And think about this for a second: Meteor Shower is arguably the stronges Weapon Skill in the game and it is on a 30s Cooldown! That is an incredibly low Cooldown for such a strong skill, other Skills with 30s Cooldown would be Static Shield, Line of Warding, Reaper's Mark (32s), Wail of Doom, Locust Swarm, [...] and the most comparable one: Barrage. I think we can all agree that all of those skills are significantly weaker than Meteor Shower although arguably less situational which doesn't really matter since you are aware of the situation you're getting into, most of the time.Now those examples where of course different classes and different weapons and if we look into other Elementalist Skills, especially the Staff Skills we quickly notice that most Staff skills have very high Cooldowns in comparison to similar skills from other classes. The weirdest thing is probably the fact that Skills like Unsteady Ground and Shock Wave have the same 30s Cooldown as Meteor Shower despite beeing almost useless in every PvE Scenario and beeing a situational strong skill in WvW/PvP while Meteor Shower is a Skill you'll almost always want to use as soon as it is off cooldown.To me the Cooldown of Meteor Shower seem unreasonable low and I wouldn't mind seeing twice the cooldown assuming the February '17 nerf would be reversed. 60s Cooldown on one of the strongest Skills in the game seem fair to me and it would not destroy Elementalist in any way, if anything it would make it more interesting since we would have to use more different skills and especially for Weaver we'd finally have a reason to use some of the more "underused" Dual Skills.

Note that doubling the Cooldown is not the optimal solution, I did not do the calculations for the break even point in dps to have it in line with current dps, I suggested doubling the Cooldown only to express that I personally would prefer that over the February '17 nerf which just made the most interesting part of Meteor Shower less interesting.

Barely related sidenote: I came across this issue when I was working on a Concept for a new Ele Elite spec (which I am going to post soonish™) and came to realize that my spec would make staff ele completely broken, and the main reason is the fact that Meteor Shower is still incredibly strong and can be used way too frequently, of course I could tune down all damage sources of my spec concept, but then it would turn out like Weaver where in PvE Staff is the only really viable Weapon, so in order to release a new elite spec for Ele, I'd imagine ArenaNet running into the same issue that you can't create an interesting new Spec without making Staff Ele stronger or every other Weapon choice worse - increasing the Cooldown would give a lot more wiggle room without breaking Staff Ele.

Thanks to everyone who made it this far, you may get yourself a beer and some cookies now! (Get a water instead if you're below your countries legal drinking age!)

Even with the per target cooldown, meteor shower is way stronger on large than on small. That difference doesn't need to be made any bigger. And meteor shower doesn't need a nerf for small hitboxes.

I couldn't agree with a longer cooldown.

@reikken.4961 said:That difference doesn't need to be made any bigger. And meteor shower doesn't need a nerf for small hitboxes.

That's exactly what the February '17 nerf did though, which is exactly my point - Meteor Shower did exactly what it was supposed to do, it was too strong indeed but a longer Cooldown serves the same purpose as some weird nerf on the mechanical side.

@SimBilly.8047 said:I couldn't agree with a longer cooldown.

Would you mind explaining why?

So reduce the skill’s effectiveness in all situations (like against a bunch of targets, like I’m sure it was intended for)Vs just the scenario it was an issue with?

Let's do some maths :

In good conditions (I mean, boons eh ? Might, traits and others), a meteor shower impact can deal 11K.

The whole Meteor Shower makes 24 impacts. So my question is : Is it normal to be able to deal over 250 K damages on larges hitbox with a single weapon skill ?

I really think that Meteor Shower balance was a good one. The ele is still first DPS, so whatever.

They nerfed Meteor Shower for no good reason. Maybe a little PvE nerf was needed because we've been top dps for a very long time (on big hitboxes) but in PvP? That's all we have in terms of consistent damage, and they kinda nerf it.

@SimBilly.8047 said:I couldn't agree with a longer cooldown.

I completely agree with you. Staff already has huge cooldowns and the dmg isn't great either. Increasing meteor shower's cooldown will just make staff worse, specially for those people (like me) who uses staff for dps purposes.

@Guizao.4167 said:They nerfed Meteor Shower for no good reason. Maybe a little PvE nerf was needed because we've been top dps for a very long time (on big hitboxes) but in PvP? That's all we have in terms of consistent damage, and they kinda nerf it.

This nerf only concern PvE, and affect impacts on monsters, not players ;)

Meteor shower need more then raw dmg maybe a burning effect or even a soft cc like cripal and or weakness. You use to be able to do this with the old GoEP but then it become a charged effect and messed up all aoe application.

Staff was ment for pve content, a staff elementalist are basicaly double edge swords we can dish the damage but we cant take it, its a high risk high reward sort of deal, especially when we are channeling meteor shower we are so exposed to a lot of things and need support from other classes to pull off a meteor shower with our already high demand to try and maintain our damage rotations. So basically I see no reason why this nerf was made in the beginning.

Tempest was Power Creep on Base Ele for Staff Power BuildsWeaver was Power Creep on Tempest Staff Power Builds (despite february '17 nerf it toppled tempest top pre-nerf dps)Next Elite Spec will most likely power creep on Weaver as well - why? Because we can cast Meteor Shower just as frequently as we can use whatever mechanic our spec gives us to empower us. For Tempest it was Harmonius Conduit, for Weaver it is Elements of Rage and I assume that every new Elite spec will have some sort of similar mechanic or will have slightly lower but more accessible boosts in order to keep up with other specs which means it will either be srictly worse or stronger than previous specs. And whatever mechanic we get with next elite spec will have to be balanced around Meteor Shower if the next spec is balanced around Meteor Shower then Staff Ele will continue to be the only really viable PvE build because all other weapons will suffer from lower damage and otherwise Meteor Shower will be even more dominating.

I really don't understand how people are so against my proposed changes, longer Cooldown with the February '17 nerf reversed wouldn't decrease your dps in a Bossfight and in short fights you wouldn't cast more than one Meteor Shower anyway, the only thing that would change with my proposed change is that it would be easier to design new specs with viable Builds that are not Staff builds.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@reikken.4961 said:That difference doesn't need to be made any bigger. And meteor shower doesn't need a nerf for small hitboxes.

no I mean the difference between small and large used to be bigger without that nerf. Now the difference is smaller. like large takes 2x as much as small instead of 3x as much, or something. I think the difference is still too big though. Anyway if you remove the per target cooldown, the difference between small and large goes back up, which I, as an ele main, do not want, as it's really bad for balance. (but I think there are better ways to decrease the difference, none of which have been mentioned in this thread)

@reikken.4961 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@reikken.4961 said:That difference doesn't need to be made any bigger. And meteor shower doesn't need a nerf for small hitboxes.

But that is exactly what a Meteor Shower is supposed to be. Strong vs Large Targets, you wouldn't summon a Meteor Shower to kill a rat. I love how Meteor Shower can be incredibly strong against large targets and almost useless against small targets, now it is even worse against small targets because you now have a chance to hit the same small target twice which results in less damage than what you would've done before. Why did they design a Skill like Meteor Shower and then remove the one thing that makes a skill with multiple impacts interesting? Doesn't make any sense to me. Yes it needed a nerf, but why nerf the one thing it's good at? It's still the main dps source of Ele and it's THE skill with the highest dmg potential and has a CD of 30s, that really doesn't make much sense to me but I noticed that apparently everyone disagrees so I'll just go back in my corner and watch.

I'd rather have a strong, high impact skill on a long cooldown than a slightly weaker skill that I have to include in my rotation every 30s no matter what because it's just the only thing that makes my class viable.

Indeed I wouldn't summon a meteor shower to kill a rat. But then what am I supposed to do vs a humanoid boss? Hitbox is small, but he has a billion health. It's like "I...guess I'll summon a meteor shower. sigh" No other choice. I agree it sucks to use it every 30 seconds just because it's part of your rotation, but you can't fix that without major changes that extend way beyond meteor shower. Otherwise, no matter what tweaks you make, it's going to be used on cooldown in all situations. I'd be all for said major changes, but that's obviously never going to happen.

But with a higher Cooldown and the February '17 change reversed it would feel a lot more satisfying even against humanoid bosses! And if anything a Meteor Shower should feel satifying to cast. But I agree that increased cooldown would not be the most optimal solution, but still better than the current cooldown on hits/enemy - which is really frustrating to see one blazing Meteor after another crash into your target with no numbers popping up (exaggerated example but still).

This discussion doesn't seem to be acknowledging the role of the staff. It's for groups/large hitboxes, not a single humanoid boss. It's not like the elementalist has no tools to handle a humanoid boss. When you face that situation, use a different weapon.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Tempest was Power Creep on Base Ele for Staff Power BuildsWeaver was Power Creep on Tempest Staff Power Builds (despite february '17 nerf it toppled tempest top pre-nerf dps)Next Elite Spec will most likely power creep on Weaver as well - why? Because we can cast Meteor Shower just as frequently as we can use whatever mechanic our spec gives us to empower us. For Tempest it was Harmonius Conduit, for Weaver it is Elements of Rage and I assume that every new Elite spec will have some sort of similar mechanic or will have slightly lower but more accessible boosts in order to keep up with other specs which means it will either be srictly worse or stronger than previous specs. And whatever mechanic we get with next elite spec will have to be balanced around Meteor Shower if the next spec is balanced around Meteor Shower then Staff Ele will continue to be the only really viable PvE build because all other weapons will suffer from lower damage and otherwise Meteor Shower will be even more dominating.

I really don't understand how people are so against my proposed changes, longer Cooldown with the February '17 nerf reversed wouldn't decrease your dps in a Bossfight and in short fights you wouldn't cast more than one Meteor Shower anyway, the only thing that would change with my proposed change is that it would be easier to design new specs with viable Builds that are not Staff builds.

I'm against your proposed changes because they really impact eles in a bad way. If someone wants to take full advantage of Meteor Shower dps one must complete the skill channeling. By doing that you become a sitting duck, vulnerable to everything. Now imagine that situation when you're on zerker stats? You are free food for burst specs and condi bombs. Don't even think about casting meteor shower and cast cleansing fire, arcane shield or armor of earth. Those skills have huge cooldowns which makes our utilities really hard to protect us. You can maybe cast meteor shower and when you're under fire, use Lightning Flash to a better place, but that still won't save you depending on the situation and on your gear.

@"reikken.4961" said:Indeed I wouldn't summon a meteor shower to kill a rat. But then what am I supposed to do vs a humanoid boss? Hitbox is small, but he has a billion health. It's like "I...guess I'll summon a meteor shower. sigh" No other choice. I agree it sucks to use it every 30 seconds just because it's part of your rotation, but you can't fix that without major changes that extend way beyond meteor shower. Otherwise, no matter what tweaks you make, it's going to be used on cooldown in all situations. I'd be all for said major changes, but that's obviously never going to happen.

Scepter will net you faster DPS and big bursts but you know, smash the keyboard.

Also keep in mind that staff is the most effective against big hitboxes and isn't "meant" for small hitboxes, but you can still use it.

@Guizao.4167 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Tempest was Power Creep on Base Ele for Staff Power BuildsWeaver was Power Creep on Tempest Staff Power Builds (despite february '17 nerf it toppled tempest top pre-nerf dps)Next Elite Spec will most likely power creep on Weaver as well - why? Because we can cast Meteor Shower just as frequently as we can use whatever mechanic our spec gives us to empower us. For Tempest it was Harmonius Conduit, for Weaver it is Elements of Rage and I assume that every new Elite spec will have some sort of similar mechanic or will have slightly lower but more accessible boosts in order to keep up with other specs which means it will either be srictly worse or stronger than previous specs. And whatever mechanic we get with next elite spec will have to be balanced around Meteor Shower if the next spec is balanced around Meteor Shower then Staff Ele will continue to be the only really viable PvE build because all other weapons will suffer from lower damage and otherwise Meteor Shower will be even more dominating.

I really don't understand how people are so against my proposed changes, longer Cooldown with the February '17 nerf reversed wouldn't decrease your dps in a Bossfight and in short fights you wouldn't cast more than one Meteor Shower anyway, the only thing that would change with my proposed change is that it would be easier to design new specs with viable Builds that are not Staff builds.

@"reikken.4961" said:Indeed I wouldn't summon a meteor shower to kill a rat. But then what am I supposed to do vs a humanoid boss? Hitbox is small, but he has a billion health. It's like "I...guess I'll summon a meteor shower. sigh" No other choice. I agree it sucks to use it every 30 seconds just because it's part of your rotation, but you can't fix that without

major

changes that extend way beyond meteor shower. Otherwise, no matter what tweaks you make, it's going to be used on cooldown in all situations. I'd be all for said major changes, but that's obviously never going to happen.

We're talking about PvE here, also, higher Cooldown doesn't change how vulnerable you are while casting the skill, nothing about meteor shower itself changes except that it would do more damage but less frequently due to higher cooldown. They don't impact Ele at all except in short fights where you could previously use Meteor Shower twice (which never happened to me since most of those encounters can easily be cleared without wasting 9s channeling Meteor Shower).

@"Guizao.4167" said:Scepter will net you faster DPS and big bursts but you know, smash the keyboard.

Also keep in mind that staff is the most effective against big hitboxes and isn't "meant" for small hitboxes, but you can still use it.

ele doesn't have a weapon swap

@reikken.4961 said:

@"Guizao.4167" said:Scepter will net you faster DPS and big bursts but you know, smash the keyboard.

Also keep in mind that staff is the most effective against big hitboxes and isn't "meant" for small hitboxes, but you can still use it.

The point is if that is your situation just use scepter. Its not like you have to use staff.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@Guizao.4167 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Tempest was Power Creep on Base Ele for Staff Power BuildsWeaver was Power Creep on Tempest Staff Power Builds (despite february '17 nerf it toppled tempest top pre-nerf dps)Next Elite Spec will most likely power creep on Weaver as well - why? Because we can cast Meteor Shower just as frequently as we can use whatever mechanic our spec gives us to empower us. For Tempest it was Harmonius Conduit, for Weaver it is Elements of Rage and I assume that every new Elite spec will have some sort of similar mechanic or will have slightly lower but more accessible boosts in order to keep up with other specs which means it will either be srictly worse or stronger than previous specs. And whatever mechanic we get with next elite spec will have to be balanced around Meteor Shower if the next spec is balanced around Meteor Shower then Staff Ele will continue to be the only really viable PvE build because all other weapons will suffer from lower damage and otherwise Meteor Shower will be even more dominating.

I really don't understand how people are so against my proposed changes, longer Cooldown with the February '17 nerf reversed wouldn't decrease your dps in a Bossfight and in short fights you wouldn't cast more than one Meteor Shower anyway, the only thing that would change with my proposed change is that it would be easier to design new specs with viable Builds that are not Staff builds.

@"reikken.4961" said:Indeed I wouldn't summon a meteor shower to kill a rat. But then what am I supposed to do vs a humanoid boss? Hitbox is small, but he has a billion health. It's like "I...guess I'll summon a meteor shower. sigh" No other choice. I agree it sucks to use it every 30 seconds just because it's part of your rotation, but you can't fix that without

major

changes that extend way beyond meteor shower. Otherwise, no matter what tweaks you make, it's going to be used on cooldown in all situations. I'd be all for said major changes, but that's obviously never going to happen.

Not interesting at all.

@Guizao.4167 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@Guizao.4167 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Tempest was Power Creep on Base Ele for Staff Power BuildsWeaver was Power Creep on Tempest Staff Power Builds (despite february '17 nerf it toppled tempest top pre-nerf dps)Next Elite Spec will most likely power creep on Weaver as well - why? Because we can cast Meteor Shower just as frequently as we can use whatever mechanic our spec gives us to empower us. For Tempest it was Harmonius Conduit, for Weaver it is Elements of Rage and I assume that every new Elite spec will have some sort of similar mechanic or will have slightly lower but more accessible boosts in order to keep up with other specs which means it will either be srictly worse or stronger than previous specs. And whatever mechanic we get with next elite spec will have to be balanced around Meteor Shower if the next spec is balanced around Meteor Shower then Staff Ele will continue to be the only really viable PvE build because all other weapons will suffer from lower damage and otherwise Meteor Shower will be even more dominating.

I really don't understand how people are so against my proposed changes, longer Cooldown with the February '17 nerf reversed wouldn't decrease your dps in a Bossfight and in short fights you wouldn't cast more than one Meteor Shower anyway, the only thing that would change with my proposed change is that it would be easier to design new specs with viable Builds that are not Staff builds.

@"reikken.4961" said:Indeed I wouldn't summon a meteor shower to kill a rat. But then what am I supposed to do vs a humanoid boss? Hitbox is small, but he has a billion health. It's like "I...guess I'll summon a meteor shower. sigh" No other choice. I agree it sucks to use it every 30 seconds just because it's part of your rotation, but you can't fix that without

major

changes that extend way beyond meteor shower. Otherwise, no matter what tweaks you make, it's going to be used on cooldown in all situations. I'd be all for said major changes, but that's obviously never going to happen.

Not productive at all.

Sorry, I honestly have no idea what you're trying to tell me, what exactly is not interesting at all and why? Try to add something to a discussion and if you don't care, don't participate - if you have a opinion, express it, and do it in a way so that others can understand why you think that way.

I didn't open the thread saying: "Meteor Shower sucks, change it pls." I spent a lot of time thinking about the topic and writing down what I think is wrong with the February '17 nerf and how it could've been done better, I intended to have a discussion, not an argument.

I'm absolutely certain these options were all considered and discussed, perhaps some of them even tried internally, before implementing the change. The problem with them is exactly how rewarding MS feels. Waiting longer to fire off an RNG-based skill that ends up doing nothing is no fun. Likewise, waiting the same time to hit like a wet noodle is no fun, and reducing the number of meteors would just make it more RNG-based. Also note that all of your proposed changes will make MS a lot weaker against small targets. What the change did is make MS more consistent without normalizing its damage entirely. I can totally see why ANet went that way.

@Feanor.2358 said:I'm absolutely certain these options were all considered and discussed, perhaps some of them even tried internally, before implementing the change. The problem with them is exactly how rewarding MS feels. Waiting longer to fire off an RNG-based skill that ends up doing nothing is no fun. Likewise, waiting the same time to hit like a wet noodle is no fun, and reducing the number of meteors would just make it more RNG-based. Also note that all of your proposed changes will make MS a lot weaker against small targets. What the change did is make MS more consistent without normalizing its damage entirely. I can totally see why ANet went that way.

Bigger aoe on each meteor and make them hit 5 targets but less meteors over all? It would drop the max dmg vs one target but it would cut back on rng a good bit maybe even open up an added effect with an icd per person to balances out that drop is over all dps. Say a strong burn effect that has a 2 sec duration but can only hit the same person once ever 1 sec. At the same time cut the old icd per meteor not hitting the same target. In effect the aoe of MS will give a constant burning effect that dose not stack high but should push out a stable power dmg effect most of the time.

Keep in mind i am still of the mind set of wvw more then any thing else when i look at things like this with only some understanding of pve i just find that having a meteor hit something and it doing nothing is silly but having it burning effect not hit because your already on fire is not that farfetched.

balancing meteor dmg for single targets is ridiculous> @TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@reikken.4961 said:

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@reikken.4961 said:That difference doesn't need to be made any bigger. And meteor shower doesn't need a nerf for small hitboxes.

Meteor is intended to do extreme damage to a group of people. Large targets are irrelevant, raids represents a fraction of the content of this game and wont be broken by a strong meteor (noone outside raiding gives a crap about topping a dps table) and any large target outside raids is casual play so its more important that skills feel fun. As meteor is designed for large groups and wvw it should be buffed to a point where it actually is powerful in these scenarios - to cover the cost of standing like a statue while you cast the thing.