Revert old Ride the Lightning nerf?

Back before HoT, Ride the lightning's cooldown was nerfed where if you didnt hit a target with it, the skill gained a longer cooldown. If i remember correctly, the nerf was put in place because ele was too mobile and could disengage from wvw fights too easily. Since then many classes have gained very powerful movement skills such as soulbeast merged skills, mirage sword leap, daredevil dodge, deadeye rifle, etc.

My question is this:If Ride the lightning had a 15-20s cooldown regardless of whether it hit a target, would that help bring back ele as a more viable wvw roamer?

Hmm, I dunno. While I would never be unopposed to removing the nerfs on RtL, after all I think core Ele needs a lot of the old nerfs reversed for it to become atleast competitive again, I don't really see the point right now? Right now, D/D Ele has some pretty great mobility between Burning Speed, Magnetic Leap and Ride the Lightning.

The issue with Core Ele right now is that the classes out there roaming in WvW just deal way too much burst damage either through condi burst or straight up damage. Along with having high burst, a lot have high mobility as well; not to mention classes having built in defensive mechanics like stealth. And that most classes have higher armor ratings to boot...

Core Ele doesn't need a revert of a nerf of RtL, it needs a buff to its survivability. I feel Weaver can roam decently due to the built in protection offered from the Sword. It works well. Dagger is faster than Sword weaver but lets be honest here what classes don't have some sort of hyper mobility now that can chase down an ele? Or if they can't chase them down outright, knock them down and burst them because we have no decent access to stab outside of Armor of Earth. >_> I dunno.

Dagger does have some survivability built into it but I mean... it just feels dated. a 3/4 evade and a 1 second evade/launch. Compairing those to a 1 3/4 second evade and a 1 second evade, plus a nice barrier pulsing skill for extra health and a 1/4 second daze. and a 1 second float. Not mention, Weaver gets the benefit of using Updraft too if they run dagger. And of course, Twist of Fate is probably one of the best defensive skills in the game imo. At least Dagger's shocking aura and detonation is nice. Still, the recent removal of Tempest Defense really put a dent in that usability though. :angry:

I think a good start to increase survavility outside of water/arcane traits locking is maybe adding the shocking aura to a trait on another trait line, like air, maybe it should proc on being CC'ed, and have like a 60 secs CD or something, it would open up some build opportunities.

I'm always amazed at how easy it is to survive in any other class (but thief) without even trying in situations that would get an ele in 2-3 seconds, and thats just due to built-in higher hp and armor, which I think people under appreciate until they play an ele. I would be ok with taking away some more sustain in exchange of active defenses that didn't require you to triat into 2 traitlines and 3 utilities just to survive, if we gained increased RELIABLE damage. It would push people away from the self-helaing bunker "troll" builds and more into the magey fantasy the class is supposed to be.

Ele traits need reworks and can't compete with certain other classes like the might on cantrips was removed, ring of burning nerfed, auras nerfed to hell, yet guardians have 50% crit in retal which can be permanent, thieves have ridiculous survivability in acro and rangers have self sufficient boons and sustain in NM and WS. Hence in the roaming area its underpowered apart from being able to dance around in circles with and sword Weaver and noodle opponents to death.

Weaver need the vitality from trait to be 200 rather than 120 (guards get 300 granted it is grandmaster..), and to be a minor not a pick.Even play around granting toughness of a % of power and/or vitality.That would be the passive defence.Then up the sword dmg a bit, I mean still falling way behind the thieves, and they can choose to their “Cd” due to initiative system.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/21614/ride-the-lightning#latest

RIP the lightning.

RTL nerf, Electric discharge nerf, tempest defence nerf then removed, what else? Maybe we're supposed to kill stuff with stoning.