Bleikopf.2491

Should I need a tag just to repair a wall? /s

From all the talk about wanting to incentivise fights it seems like WvW is supposed to be just a giant deathmatch. Either that or some people who only care about fights are sitting in the devs ears.

As long as the yote defender gets defender particiaption..

Conjured Weapons are mostly just clunky. Picking them up is a chore. There are may ways to improve them. From the top of my head: Reduce the time to pick up a weapon from the ground. Or just remove it. Make the ground targeted AoE more impactful. Conjure Fiery Greatsword creates an impact. Add similar effects for the conjures, so the cast times don't feel so horrible. Add a Geyser to Frost Bow, Eruption to Magnetic Shield, Fire Ring to Fire Axe, Lightning Field to Hammer or something similar. Fix the stat bonuses. In theory it allows to lean into the niche the conjure provides, but.. Healing power and Expertise on Frost Bow?

I don't really see the comparison between Stomp here? Granted I don't play Warrior, but Arcane Wave is a very aggressive skill. Get into melee, daze and crit for ~5k? That's what it seems go want me to do. Using it for the leap and the blast is also not bad. If they're going to improve it, I'd rather they reduce the cast time. Unless I need to close the distance, those 3/4s are too long. It's good for getting in (or out) of melee, but in melee it's uncomfortable. As for the combo with Lightning Flash, I think Lightning Flash should just get a Stunbreak to be on par w/ similar blinks/Shadowsteps.

The tale of the meleementalist continues.

I'm confused. Are you arguing that builds are not part of the game? The thing that consists of Traits, Equipment, Runes and Sigil and nowadays Relics? Or are we talking about Rotations? Do we include Rotations in our definition of Builds?

What's the opinion on making the second conjure weapon a trait option? So if you pick the conjurer trait in Fire, you drop a second weapon? I haven't thought this through, but it seems like it would allow base conjures to get a little more power as the powerbudget now includes a trait (that's currently underused).

Something something blame the player, not the game.

Honestly, to me that just sounds like powercrept Lightning Field. Instead of adding new combos, I'd prefer buffing current ones to the point where they're viable strategies to pursue again. If that means Lightning Field now gives Superspeed on Blast.. so be it.

I think we can agree that the might and burning are lackluster and pulling the skill down with its cost in power budget. Some of the proposed changes sound good, but I'm afraid the design constrictions of Fire are limiting. Resistance isn't something I have seen out of Earth yet (maybe water?). Could be in Fire, but it's unlikely imo. There used to be a stunbreak on Cleansing Fire, but I'm not aware of any other Stunbreaks on any other Fire skill. There was also the suggestion of healing per condition cleansed, which is something I'd personally love to see in Water Traitline now that most people pick Fire if they need cleansing instead of Water. Fire is generally lackluster in utility, shoehorning it into damage (or the other way around). I'd personally prefer to see some underutilized aspects of Fire again. Vigor and Regeneration are boons associated with some Fire skills, although Anet might have forgot. Might spam in Fire is tiresome and bland, but not necessarily wrong so a buff to that wouldn't be the end of the world either. Creating a Firefield would be very interesting as we don't have combo fields on utility skills as far as I can tell. That would bring curious interactions as you can now create Firefields outside of Fire attunement.

This actually sounds good. Always hated that Frost Bow is split the way it is. Although it probably aligned with the 2012 idea of elements better.

Cleansing Fire is an ammunition skill. It cleanses 3 conditions per charge, with 2 charges on a 25 second recharge. If we're saying 6 conditions, we should also say 50 seconds cooldown. But even 3 per 25s is a bad rate. Compared with other utility skills I could find, these are the ones with a worse rate: Signet of Agility Shadowstep Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar) Repose Utility Goggles Almost all are either group cleanses, stunbreaks or shadowsteps as well. Cleansing Fire pays a lot for being an ammunition skill and applying 1 stack of burning and 2 stacks of might. Edit: That's 2 might per condition removed. Using it optimally, that's 6 stacks of might. Gaining 6 stacks of might for using a skill optimally was probably good back in 2012. Since then I could not find any change on that in the wiki. You also mentioned water GM. That alone won't be enough, as you'll also need the Water Master Soothing Disruption, which is in direct competition with Cleansing Wave. So if you want your Cantrips to cure 1 more condition, you need two traits, one of which competes with a trait that cures one condition on attuning to water. Even still, there is competition in other traitlines. Fire's Smothering Auras is a Master Trait that cleansws up to 3 condis if you transmute an aura. Due to the synergy with Sunspot it cleanses 1 condition every time you attune to Fire, making it a selfish Cleansing Wave. The only Aura with a higher CD than Cleansing Fire's recharge is Magnetic Aura. If you don't value the spammy nature of Cleansing Fire's ammunition mechanic, you're usually better off with Smothering Auras + an Aura weapon, if you can afford it. And if you want to go through both charges of Cleansing Fire to cleanse 6 conditions, consider if that's really worth 50 seconds CD/25s CD until the next charge. It's an outdated skill that compares bad with other skills of Ele, and worse with skills of other classes.

Mostly just issues with defending and sieging: Walls suck. Due to the way LoS interacts with ground-targeted effects, it's considerably easier to put an AoE on the wall, than it is to cast down from. If you dare step too close to the edge to get a better LoS, you get pulled from the wall or instantly nuked. Even still, sometimes I get pulled off the wall from the opposite side of it. Walls are not safe to stay on and cast down from. Desert Homekeep. It has these hexagonal glass platforms you can stand on and cast down from. Except that the ones above the gate basically always block your own LoS, while being super easy targets to put ground targeted AoEs on from below. Defensive siege, especially cannons, suck for a similar reason. What is the point of having these cannons if I can rarely if ever hit anything with it? The own walls are blocking the projectiles, often enough the wall it is standing on. Desert Homekeep again getting a special mention with these glass platforms. How the hell do I get participation for defending event? This one feels like I have very little agency over it. Scout Participation. You can get some from a Tag that's running, but I'd love some solution independent of having a squad on the map.

Imho, Combos are powercrept. Combos are one of the main legs for Ele to stand on, and with all the fields and finishers they have access to it's still not enough. Catalyst, the spec that should be all about combos, has so little to gain from comboing alone that they simply tacked Auras on top of it because Auras actually have gotten substantial support over the years. I remember, back in the old days of WvW, where you blasted Water fields on regroup and leapt through Frozen Ground for the Frost Aura.. Nowadays, Frozen Ground just gives Frost Aura by itself.

Only here for a min since I'm going to bed after this. But I feel like I am missing something here. Might just me being tired, so I am asking out of confusion. If it only does moderate/low amounts of damage to siege/players, and takes 2 seconds to take effect.. won't the attackers just be back at the siege instantly? How much time would they need to regroup, 2 seconds? If the disruption only gives as much time as it takes to go into effect, the defender ends up burning through their supply. Is this better than just repairing whatever is being sieged? Adding to this, the attackers will probably wisen up after the second time or so and either use stab, if not already, or just pull the defender into their doom.

One of the reasons I won't forgive Ele Hammer. They already had Fire and Air figured out. It had the potential to be the 1200 range Power weapon.

What would the mode switching for Elementalist look like? I can only imagine melee-ranged.

I can only speak for Elementalist, but it should be obvious that I am going to cast my vote for having a functioning long range weapon in PvE again. Staff is somewhere between nerfed Meteorshower, 2012 skill design and a split personality between big AoE fields and support. I don't particularly care what weapon it ends up as. I was always very particular for Rifle Ele, but as we know from Mesmer Greatsword it doesn't really matter which weapon.

We both know how this will end.

First thing I noticed is that the cast-time is a bit too long imo. I'd have preferred 1/2 s over 3/4s . The 600 range is maybe a bit short, but a 900 range brings it to the same distance as Lightning Flash.. which is an issue on Lightning Flash.

This is all I hoped for. Smothering Auras truly is one of the better traits introduced lately. It still leaves me with a sour aftertaste though that heal-on-aura is not in Water, but Powerful Aura has to be somewhere, preferably core. Although now that I think about it, Arcane has room for an Aura-trait, right?

2 Charges on a blink skill sounds overkill. But I do agree that it needs at least one of either Range 1200 Stunbreak Damage out of which I'd prefer to see the Stunbreak.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with Arcane Leap, but Arcane Wave was very special and I don't really see why they would keep Arcane Blast over it. Arcane Blast is so.. uninspiring.

If I had to guess, it's probably because Warhorn skills like Wildfire and Dust Storm are not actually a single AoE field, but multiple. Therefore, you can usually get multiple hits in if the target is big enough.