Discussion: Glyph of Elemental Power

So, we all know about fire weaver. One of its main burst versus non-stationary targets is due to Glyph of Elemental Power. I do not think it really needs a huge nerfs (unless other meta builds get nerfs too), but I dislike the mechanic for two reasons:

1. It adds to condi not being a wear-down over time mechanic but simply burst with huge numbers. In my view this should be the power damage's domain.
2. You can always precast it and have it available almost at the beginning of the next fight again (precast it when respawn, when capping side and aiming for mid etc.) because it recharges when it is activated.

So I would like to change it. What I can think of:

a) Simply disable the recharge when activated, only recharge when the charges are used up. Reduce the CD on the other hand.

b) Change the mechanic towards more DPS instead of the burst. Less charges, lower CD for example.

c) Currently, you basically only want to activate it in fire, because the other condis are clearly subpar (except in very very special situations). The other conditions could be adjusted to either provide more competitive damage. For example increasing bleed duration. Longer duration = more damage = decision between bursty fire or long-time damage bleeds.

Personally I wish for a combination of b) and c) - but a) would be a very quick solution.

Do you have suggestions? Other ideas? Or don't you think it is no problem at all?

I don't think its a problem.

This is not ele subforum and anyway, it'd be better to fix the other hundred issues on the class rather than focusing the balance on that little thing which may make it work somehow.

The oblivious ele community ignores the fact that you all rely on a single weapon to accomplish anything in this game atm , really just a couple of skills : riptide and earthen vortex , for the rest the class is a complete waste of space ideal for the tryhard only for the glory of their inflated ego to flaunt on the forum.

Once you wash away the fairy dust from your eyes ( courtesy of Anet) , all you're left with ....it's a joke of a class concept

This is only a PVP issue.

There are so many people complaining about fire weaver being OP. Do they not know what to change, what to address, what the problem actually is? Would they rather change something else, the aura for some reason?

Dude they had to buff elemental glyph because it was so bad...just like the rest of ele's outdated kit. Yea, I guess fire weaver is problematic (I'm an ele main so knowing all of the skills off of the class just allows me to make the build useless for the opposite team), but honestly the issue with ele is that you literally can't change anything without breaking it for another six months into uselessness or below average builds. Powercreep and the 2012 utilities along with the lack of a weapon swap is making this class's feet drag pretty badly.

It would be nice if the other attunements offered something for the skill. A part of the problem - the main part, imo - is that ele's traitlines are very much...niche, in the sense that if you take the Fire traitline, everything fire related gets a B E E F boost while everything else remains otherwise meh.

Using gw2skills, the full sage/sanc/etc setup has earth -> bleed doing 500 dmg over 6 seconds, whereas burning from the glyph is 1k over 3 sec. How does that make sense in the slightest?

Even switching Fire out for Earth and taking some more damage oriented traits makes the Earth bleed do 600 dmg over 7 seconds and change, while the fire ticks fall to almost 900 over 3 sec. Still much, much better. Everything has this issue. And even if I did take earth seriously, bleed takes longer to deal damage and so gives the opponent more chances to get cleanses.

Ele has some massive issues with skill scaling. The skill only looks too strong because it HAS to be - because ele gets to boost 2 attunements +weaver, while the remaining 2 attunements languish. Things need to be that strong, otherwise ele just utterly fails to compare to everything else.

It would be nice if anet could make a big 'ol balance pass - evening things out while still letting people specialize if they want, but I doubt they have the manpower/time for that sort of redesign.

Lastly, despite what people may think, condi still is a wear down mechanic. 3 seconds is a LOT of time to do stuff compared to power damage.

Imagine Fire weaver's maximum 'burst'. Primordial Stance + Elemental Power glyph. Primordial stance adds 3 1/2 sec of burn that deals ~1k damage. Which...is actually about the same as Elemental Power. Ele Power has 5 charges, Primordial Stance ticks once per second for five seconds.

Okay, yes, Primordial Stance ticks TWICE if you double attune, so....2k/sec if the ele wants to go balls to the wall and just smash on their opponent and hope they don't get nuked instantly. But still. That'll be. What. 15k damage over 5 seconds (and change because after the last tick, the stacks will take a few seconds to burn out. 7-8 seconds, maybe? Then chunk it down a bit if your opponent bothers to kite even a little bit, or counterpressure so the ele is forced to switch attunements, and....

Someone else can bother factoring in the ele activating skills. But still, that's...honestly, pretty bad 'burst' compared to power, even if the ele uses a few skills - fire sword 2, 3 and 4 are pretty obvious.

The LAST burn stack will take 3.5 seconds to puff out, so 8.5 seconds total for their 'burst'. If you stand near the ele and do absolutely NOTHING for 8.5 seconds, you will take. Idk. 15k damage? Is there any power build out there that would take more than half the time to kill someone if given the opportunity to smash an opponent who did nothing for that amount of time?

Now, I get that GW2's UI for telling if you have condis is awful, and skills could use a bit more of a tell etc etc, but can we please dispense with the myth that condi has burst in a way that infringes on power's burst in the slightest?

@Curennos.9307 said:Now, I get that GW2's UI for telling if you have condis is awful, and skills could use a bit more of a tell etc etc, but can we please dispense with the myth that condi has burst in a way that infringes on power's burst in the slightest?

Yeah, that's great and all. But you forgot to mention that condi is way more spammy, usually involves builds with more active and passive defenses than it's burst power counter parts, and involves mechanics that stops the victim from either using their defensive skills, running away, or even controlling their character (confusion, torment, fear).

I don't think Ele's glyph is overpowered, I think the overall mechanic of how condi damage works is overtuned.

They should delete Glyph, its the epitome of unskillful gameplay.

@Stallic.2397 said:

@Curennos.9307 said:Now, I get that GW2's UI for telling if you have condis is awful, and skills could use a bit more of a tell etc etc, but can we please dispense with the myth that condi has burst in a way that infringes on power's burst in the slightest?

What exactly is 'way more spammy' anyway.

@Curennos.9307 said:

@Stallic.2397 said:

@Curennos.9307 said:Now, I get that GW2's UI for telling if you have condis is awful, and skills could use a bit more of a tell etc etc, but can we please dispense with the myth that condi has burst in a way that infringes on power's burst in the slightest?

Primordial Stance is evenly every ten seconds with a maximum of ten stacks of burn. And that's if the Ele is being nice. He could just activate Primordial stance twice in only 6 seconds

Oh wait... is this thread about glyph of power? I forgot, Fire weaver has that ability too. Just for kitten and giggles

@Stallic.2397 said:

@Curennos.9307 said:

@Stallic.2397 said:

@Curennos.9307 said:Now, I get that GW2's UI for telling if you have condis is awful, and skills could use a bit more of a tell etc etc, but can we please dispense with the myth that condi has burst in a way that infringes on power's burst in the slightest?

It sounds like you mean

'Condi damage is more spread out, with less damage per skill, but more sources in general, resulting in a situation where a dodge can mitigate x chunk of damage against a power burst build, but only mitigates y damage where y<x against condi because the damage is more spread out - for example, dodging a power thief, GS mes, SB openers vs dealing with a skill that ticks for five seconds'?

But I wouldn't say that is 'way more spammy', or even a problem - mechanically. And, really, there's also a minimum of zero stacks of burn. Fire weaver traded lightning flash for the glyph and dagger for focus. They're relatively slow. I suppose it could be an issue if you're gonna stand in it the entire time.

Alright since Ele hasn't been exactly overbearing since PoF is out wtf do you want us to do?

We had FA Weaver, people whined about it being op (lol it wasn't) so it got nerfed. We had Mender sword, people complained about riptide, so that got nerfed (TWICE). They gave us small buffs to fire because that traitline was useless in PvP up until recent and now y'all want to nerf this.

What EXACTLY do you want from Weaver???? This is not pre nerfed tempest or pre nerfed DD ele. This is literally Weaver who had to get BUFFED because it was awful on release and struggles to keep up with its side node bretheren. So tell us what do you want from ele, as a class, because in every other MMO I know where they have an 'ele' class they are strong. Gw2 is the ONLY game where they actively take a dump on the mage class.

And if you are listing nerfs, give us compensation because I'm tired of seeing nerfs but no suggestion of equal (keyword here because I don't want another dominating trait) compensation replacement/buff.

I feel like I need to point out a couple of things (even though I kinda mentioned them already...):

1. I do not think fire weaver is OP. But I know a lot of people feel like it is. I would love to hear suggestions from these people.

2. I really dislike the playstyle. I don't like being a slow tank with focus (which the whole build heavily relies on) and I don't like spamming thwe glyph whenever it is up (and I am in fire).

That is why I suggested changes, not nerfs. No idea where people too that from. One of my main points is, as @Curennos.9307 already pointed out as well (thanks for the only other constructive point here...), the fact that for both the glyph and primordial stance are vastly superior in fire than in any other attunement. That's why I suggested: Make bleeds more powerful, the long wear-down choice and fire the more bursty one.

I know this only tackles my second point (my dislike for the build), but I am open for suggestions if people would like to see more changes.

@Megametzler.5729 said:I feel like I need to point out a couple of things (even though I kinda mentioned them already...):

1. I do not think fire weaver is OP. But I know a lot of people feel like it is. I would love to hear suggestions from these people.

2. I really dislike the playstyle. I don't like being a slow tank with focus (which the whole build heavily relies on) and I don't like spamming thwe glyph whenever it is up (and I am in fire).

That is why I suggested changes, not nerfs. No idea where people too that from. One of my main points is, as @Curennos.9307 already pointed out as well (thanks for the only other constructive point here...), the fact that for both the glyph and primordial stance are vastly superior in fire than in any other attunement. That's why I suggested: Make bleeds more powerful, the long wear-down choice and fire the more bursty one.

I know this only tackles my second point (my dislike for the build), but I am open for suggestions if people would like to see more changes.

Is there anything wrong with that playstyle, though?

I would rather anet address ele's multitude of, let's be honest, utter garbage utility skills than nerf one utility skill just because it happened to be good enough to replace Lightning Flash - one of the few utility skills that's not QUITE as terrible as the rest. And I would still love to see buffs to lightning flash (seriously, 40 seconds, 900 range, a negligible amount of damage? What?)

Arcane skills are only really used in burst builds, if at all. I've never seen anyone use Arcane Power. I can't remember the last time I saw conjured weapons in pvp. Or wvw. Or...anywhere, really. Wasn't the ice bow staff ele dps meta for a while at some point?

Armor of death still has a horrendously long, totally undeserved cooldown. Why does it give 10 stacks of stab? That doesn't do anything and certainly doesn't justify the cooldown anyway.

How long has Signet of Restoration been spvp ele's meta pick? IIRC ether renewal is usedi n wvw, and the rest are just....there. Aquatic stance is awful.

Why does ele REQUIRE focus in order to detonate its fire aura to make up for losing water (and thus having zilch cleanse - honorable mention, equally awful Cleansing Fire that I've never seen used).

TLDR: Op, I'd rather you look at why you DON'T use other skills, instead of why you dislike the few things are are usable on ele. Also, can we bump lightning flash to 30 sec cd, 1200 range, and cooldown scales with range traveled w/0 dist = 1 sec CD, 1200 = 30 sec cd? That'd be pretty interesting.

@Lilyanna.9361 said:Alright since Ele hasn't been exactly overbearing since PoF is out kitten do you want us to do?

We had FA Weaver, people whined about it being op (lol it wasn't) so it got nerfed. We had Mender sword, people complained about riptide, so that got nerfed (TWICE). They gave us small buffs to fire because that traitline was useless in PvP up until recent and now y'all want to nerf this.

What EXACTLY do you want from Weaver???? This is not pre nerfed tempest or pre nerfed DD ele. This is literally Weaver who had to get BUFFED because it was awful on release and struggles to keep up with its side node bretheren. So tell us what do you want from ele, as a class, because in every other MMO I know where they have an 'ele' class they are strong. Gw2 is the ONLY game where they actively take a dump on the mage class.

And if you are listing nerfs, give us compensation because I'm tired of seeing nerfs but no suggestion of equal (keyword here because I don't want another dominating trait) compensation replacement/buff.

Most people don't really think it's over powered per say. It's just really really boring to fight. The passive application of the damage (prim stance and glyph) coupled with an absolutely disgusting amount of evade frames and invuln.

I think Fire Weaver is way more fun, healthy, and bearable to play against than the water variants that had leagues more resustain and less damage.

Maybe we can add a few seconds onto the cooldown of the sword water and Earth evades and twist of fate. But I'm really not that concerned with or offended by this build.