Swagg.9236

Maybe it's just that nobody here played during launch. Maybe nobody remembers how the only thing that Thief couldn't dance around or utterly obliterate was the apex of the time: d/d Elementalist running 3 cantrips and as much passive healing as possible. Maybe nobody remembers how a very viable, often seen and arguably meta comp was 4 d/d eles + X, and most player-held tournaments at the time forced teams to limit their roster to a maximum of 2 instances of a unique class (entirely just to suppress Elementalists). Maybe nobody remembers how the only time any other classes rose up to challenge Thief for a team slot was either because it was a portal bot Mesmer or because some random class got a flavor of the month buff (such as spirit spam Ranger/"petting zoo"). Maybe nobody realizes that all of the buffs and additions over the course of this game's lifespan have basically all been trending toward emulating what Thief has always had: offensive capability while negating damage and movement with impunity. Maybe nobody can see beyond the surface of how basically every class in the game (besides maybe Necromancer) has more or less become a Thief to some degree: evading while attacking; negating damage for protracted amounts of time; teleporting around. Back in 2012/2013, Thief was nearly immune to damage with a single D/P 3 into 5 while spamming autos. That, combined with built-in stealth access, was often enough to scare people into defensive postures or force players to spend huge threat skills just to get the Thief out of damage range. As skill activation times continued to lower and damage continued to increase, the Thief playstyle shifted from D/P to S/D because of the protracted evasion and teleport spam (because blinds just couldn't suppress outgoing damage well enough at that point). Yet regardless of the patch, shortbow 5 was always there to carry Thief to relevance on any team simply due to how it could let a player traverse a map at ludicrous speeds to constantly keep opponents worried about decaps or in order to +1 fights at will without having to resort to utilities or valuable weapon skills in order to speed up movement. Even as Mesmers got more and more buffs, and became a typical staple on teams, some teams would still run Thief and Mesmer in the same comp only because of how powerful that decap pressure was combined with another player's ability to just teleport an entire team to a fight instantaneously. This whole thread was basically supposed to be a call to remove all of the instant-speed attacks and godmode that has been added into the game, but even if you managed to remove everything that was added post-launch, you'd still be left with a class that repeatedly teleports and evades while attacking as its main, baseline flavor. You are, in reality, just playing Thief incorrectly. The value of no-cooldown, ground-targeted teleports is game-defining in GW2, and has been for the entirety of the game's lifespan (which is why Thief has always appeared in every GW2 PvP metagame cycle since launch). If nothing else, Thief has always been "Shortbow 5: The Class." To just dismiss that for no reason other than because maybe Thief occasionally struggles in 2019 PvP is heinously short-sighted of you. It has only one teleport naturally (Steal), but it is useful only for placing the Thief on top of a target... it cannot be used to run away. Daredevils only have half the range on it, and Deadeyes lack it altogether. You say this like you don't bring other teleports on top of that. Daredevils passively get extra evades and typically just run the regular core Thief sets on top of that (which are laden with teleports and evades both on the weapon and utility bars). If you run into combat as a Thief without a suite of teleports, you're again just playing it improperly (or just trying to meme on people really hard in unranked, which is perfectly fine). There is almost zero justifiable reason to consider any of the Thief's skill "options" outside of a tiny, cherry-picked set of the most obviously powerful (and often similar) skills. Except the Thief is constantly pressuring un-guarded nodes, and can easily inflict troublesome damage to lone players without putting himself at too much risk. It's the nature of the class in PvP. If you can't do this as a Thief, you're either bad at video games, or you've just built your bar incorrectly. A Thief should be able to constantly pressure an opposing team's formation, and it doesn't even have to rely on being in combat in order to do this. That's how strong things like Shortbow 5 are. Right, but again, all I've said was that nothing about getting access to stealth or entering stealth is difficult. For Thief, there is absolutely nothing difficult about getting stealth on your bar or going into stealth. Whether or not going into stealth at any given point is "meta" is up for debate (particularly considering how almost no meta Thief build really utilizes it in huge amounts--outside of maybe the Deadeye gimmick--typically opting instead for extra evades and teleports), but what you're basically trying to argue is how just because stealth doesn't operate as a win-button or let you get away from every threat possible, it's "difficult" to use. Seriously, just spare me. That's really just how damaged a lot of this game's playerbase is. You already talked about how you try not to waste stun-breaks until players use huge attacks like Rampage. How do you, as a Thief, not have access to easy LoS cancelling? You're basically failing at a map-knowledge level: a "skill" so fundamental and superficial that anyone should have it after playing GW2 for more than a few weeks (or even just after watching a video on some of the gimmick teleport spots among the PvP levels). Know your gimmick teleport spots and terrain through which you can teleport. It gives Thief (and other teleport classes, although perhaps not quite to the same level) a massive baseline advantage in a lot of fights. You also can just juke people repeatedly by doing things like getting chased up to that bridge area which borders Temple mid, dropping down from the bridge, and then just Shortbow 5'ing back up to the top of the bridge again from underneath. How is this even difficult?? You have evades to cover yourself while you buy time and reposition for this stuff too.

The Thief class is a flavor-based show-case class for the stealth mechanic. It's fundamental gimmick has always been stealth (even if stealth has been co-opted by basically every other class at this point to some degree). The only reason it has Steal is because somebody (probably sometime around 2009 or 2010) said that it needed a different cover-gimmick so that everyone wouldn't think that they weren't just trying to bait the WoW crowd with another generic rogue rip-off.

But Dagger 5 isn't Stealth on demand. It must successfully hit a target from melee range in order to apply Stealth. And getting a valid hit has as much to do with luck as it does skill. Imagine thinking "skill" equates to chaining a teleport into a buffered attack with a 0.5s activation time. Lmao teleports and Shortbow 5. No Thief ever dies unless it is blatantly their fault or they're going in for some bot-forward, dog-pile play in which they hope to get a positive outcome based on the rest of their team's efforts. There is effecitvely no match-up (aside from another Thief) that can consistently chase down a Thief who knows that they're in a bad position (which should be easy to recognize because this game has a huge field of view and a super helpful minimap with loads of freely given, real-time info; basically zero game-sense required). GW2 is a shallow game. Thief, without sacrificing damage (which is the only thing that really matters in GW2), gets all of GW2's best mechanics in spades without really worrying about opportunity cost. It's effortless.

I for example, I play Fire/Air DD Tempest and DD / Shortbow condi Soulbeast.I play my Holosmith with ElixirsMy Herald is always Jalis/Glint with Hammer as my main weapon. Lately, I only play Core Warrior in pvp, with Dual Axes / GS and as much stunbreaks a possible. Even if it's not "meta," that doesn't at all mean that your builds serve unique, functional roles. Making unique, functional class roles is the goal of legible combat and a "risk vs reward" attack design. No matter what you tell yourself, you're just basically playing less effective versions of the sole, generic playstyle which permeates all classes in GW2.

Yeah, let's shoehorn every class into a single Build. Because that works so well. GW2's fundamental design paradigm already shoehorns all players into more or less the same playstyle regardless of which class is chosen. If you were to limit the ways in which each class respectively deals damage but still maintained the threat from each attack, you would end up with combat that would not only be a lot more legible (as in you wouldn't have each class on the field striking 5-6 times with different actives and passives within 2-second spans), but you would also probably infuse a lot more risk/reward encounters into combat considering how people would know what to watch for and inflicting heavy damage on a targets would require either joint effort among players or a repeated effort from a single player with a limited attack kit. This is the difference between a Warrior just sort of PvE rotating through 8, fire-and-forget combat CDs, some blocks, and some panic buttons before eventually just defaulting to Rampage and a Warrior who would need to move constantly and quickly, only stopping to throw out multiple Eviscerates (or something) when there might be an opening to pressure or finish. It would mean more clarity and risk to combat, which would also mean a much, much higher skill ceiling. If there's only one or two, risk-associated attacks per class to watch, everyone is suddenly charged with avoiding and countering them actively rather than the current meta strategy of just popping a bunch of damage negation and CC immunity before charging/teleporting in and spamming.

This game needs less skills overall. Some builds already have a number of attacks which inflict near-lethal damage on their own. Why have anything more than that? Why not just design classes around one or two powerful attacks and devote the rest of the class' toolkit to unique role support and/or mobility? Within a paradigm like that, protracted damage negation and stability probably have no need to even exist at all. Instead, every GW2 build across all classes boils down to 20 lethal attacks and 4 panic buttons which negate incoming damage and effects.

I find it absolutely nuts that people run core staff ele without Lightning Rod (and Arcane Revival to a lesser extent since I get people just wanting an extra Arcane Shield), but it's cool that people manage to make it work! Oh yeah, also, might while attacking in fire instead of MORE LAVA FONT too. I guess some of the trait options are far more optional than I thought, or maybe I just enjoy surprise rezzing people from the brink and tossing people around with Tornado way too much. Oh yeah, the runes too: I can't imagine playing without Runes of Speed. Permanent super speed is delicious. The whole package displayed in the video is just so foreign to me lol.

They're both significant issues respectively.

Seems like as classes are shaved down making thief viable somewhat in a fight 1v1 players now want thief taken down a peg lmao do u thief players actually want to always be decapper as a role? Since GW2 is mostly designed entirely based on flavor rather than functional elements, there's no reason why any other class could have gotten "Press to teleport 900 range; no cooldown," and even though such an ability is ridiculously overpowered, it's still not enough of a foundation on which to properly base an entire class (and it shows in how janky and tacked-on the Steal mechanic has always been). Point is, I agree that a class deserves to be more than literally "watch minimap; go to point with no players nearby," but the fact that you counter someone criticizing a degenerate passive by saying "Yeah, well, why not also just rip Infiltrator's Arrow out of the game too then??" really says a lot about how a lot of people (but mostly you in particular in this specific case) tend to classify Thief: it's so often just "Shortbow 5 The Class" when it comes any sort of truly unique utility that it could bring to a team, and that's just really not enough to justify its existence (and if you think I'm just picking on you or Thief players in general, I could pretty quickly tailor the same argument for nearly every other class in the game).

What are the non-toxic professions? p.s. thief is a rework of assassin, it has been with gw2 since 2006. lmao, Thief is nowhere near as coherently designed or balanced within a team-based framework as Assassin was. Even when Assassin was at its most broken (i.e. the early Nightfall Shadow Prison days), it was still not super competitive in certain environments where consistency and pressure were key (which is why it harassed places like AB and FA but its presence fell off to a degree in more organized formats like HA). Thief has no attack cooldowns in a game balanced entirely by cooldowns; that's basically akin to making GW1 Assassin and then removing the "lead-offhand-dual" stipulation for attack progression. Teleporting repeatedly or effortlessly chaining evasion and damage together as Thief generally does is more or less the same as if Assassin could have just walked up to somebody and thrown out Death Blossoms before mixing in a Twisting Fangs after a few attacks; the rest of the skillbar would just be self-preservation utilities or super easy damage to throw out between attacks (oh wow, just like GW2 Thief). Assassin was a glass-cannon ganker who typically needed healer support or a lot of ally pressure on opponents in order to be remotely successful. Thief, by itself, more or less passively counters any sort of opponent timing or positioning and evades while attacking in a game which was never created with a dedicated healer.

Thief delenda est. It never belonged.

WATER AIR EARTH I doubt that what they maybe do is increase the pulses on Lava Font about 2 this would already make me happy in PvE.Because this would increase Weavers DPS from 30 to 34k Yeah, but that's utterly boring. One of the jokes about Elementalist back in 2012-13 was how it was the meta DPS (alongside Guardian autos+scepter 2) by just spamming Fireball and Lava Font (which was true). Also, making Lava Font last longer would just make it a nuisance in any sort of PvP scenario. At least, by adjusting a few numbers and then re-working some skills, you get a universal kit which has a unique style which is somewhat challenging to use, viable in its baseline damage and functionally purposeful in PvE and PvP respectively. Raw numbers are fine for PvE's games of Simon Says, but for places like sPvP and WvW, one needs to be more conscious of skill and player interactions when it comes to combat design. I know that there's loads of bloat in GW2, but it's still better to come at GW2 weapon design from a `holistic perspective of "make this into a purposeful, universal tool" rather than simply "make this do 30k DPS." I'd rather not rely on traits to buff any damage mainly because the way that anet does traits just results in passive increases or passive triggers, changing nothing inherent about the gameplay. By at least designing the weapon around being versatile and threatening in PvP situations, the damage and effects can be later adjusted for PvE, and we end up with a strong option for the class at large. Yeah, and the nerf that they came up with was basically to "address" the issue that Elementalist basically carried all of its damage in 3 skills. We could restore that by just reintroducing the damage in a way so that it is spread out among already-existing skills while also just adding some extra utility to the weapon. If we had buffs to things like Fire Blast, Burning Retreat, and the earth line, staff ele gameplay would still revolve around layering delayed or pulsing damage, and it would finally exceed "meta" PvE damage thresholds while also incentivizing the use of more skills. Lava Font has a extreme small radius I don't know how this can be a nuisance in PvP. A ticking, 180 radius AoE that potentially lasts for 6s (permanent field presence if used in conjunction with Persisting Flames), is definitely a hazard in sPvP at the very least. It's also extremely easy to hit anyone with it even without necessarily resorting to hard CC; 180 radius is pretty forgiving, and it's often easy to get people to walk into at least a few ticks by using yourself as bait. About addressing the dmg well not really or better said which rota you mean I only know the one from HoT the standard is simlear to weavers only shorter. The fresh-air meta was so idiotic simple to such degree I couldn't understand it just spawn air overload. I also said the dmg must be distributed over many skills at best but Tempest is just weaker then Weaver but you have to taker the different built that exist into account to that you don't over do it You can buff:The 1 on airThe 2 on fire, airThe 5 on air ( giving the static field pulsing dmg and cc after it ended)Fire overload on Tempest -You can't buff :-(much) Air Overload because of the old fresh-air built of just spamming just it and because the c/h Tempest built use it too . you would also buff this built when you buff it at best 5-10% more.-Metorshower just because of the oucry but personally I want the old back -You can buff maybe:the 2 and 5 on earth because it would just increase Weaver no other built but for this you must increase the dmg on air skills a lot higher No, see, the point of my suggestions is to make the weapon more viable and interesting in PvP in a way which would carry over a higher baseline DPS into PvE. The main core goals were more movement options and more area control--those are very flexible and engaging gameplay elements which possess a skill ceiling because of how they can be used poorly or optimally. Moreover, the benefit of designing a weapon set's strengths around PvP, is that in order to "make up" for any lackluster showing in PvE, all one would need to do would be to raise some numbers up. If all you do is just raise some numbers without doing anything else, you aren't changing anything about the weapon's potential for playstyle options, and ultimately, you're just going to feed into the same frustrating DPS paradigm of "the same skills but this time with bigger numbers." Design like that invalidates other playstyle choices without any justification (kind of like what it was like in 2012-13 when basically nobody was allowed into Arah unless they were a Banner Warrior, scepter/sword Guardian or staff Ele). At least if you make a weapon with lots of variable combat options, people feel more comfortable with adopting it since it has more than a singular, shallow role which is forced upon them (in this case, it's being the generic DPS). Don't think about the numbers first, think about the weapon's potential function; then think about the numbers. That's what I'm doing. And if you don't see that initially, then look at how I buffed Lava Font and then basically gave staff fire a second Lava Font in a buffed Burning Retreat (and that's not even addressing some of the other buffs and options). An entire second Lava Font on the staff fire bar (even if it has a much longer cooldown) is probably worth your precious 2k DPS).

Despite however sub-par one might consider the staff ele's attack repertoire to be, it's fair. The problem is that to be fair is to be sub-par in GW2. With that said, the goal here with buffing staff ele wouldn't be to make all of its attacks unfair and easy mode, but rather to compliment them with the appropriate utility in order to make the fair damage a little more functional in an environment of faceroll builds. Layered AoE damage can still be a huge threat, especially when combined with ward lines like Static Field and Unsteady Ground. Yes, the problem with Weaver is the same problem with Tempest: they are both just boring DPS increases rather than a true gameplay mechanic. The only difference between them is in how Weaver's DPS boost is slapped onto the weapon bar's 3 slot while Tempest's buttons are baked into the attunements. I detest them both on a fundamental level since what they effectively do could have been accomplished by just doing something like re-working some of the trashy bloat in this game (imagine if ele signets--WHICH NOBODY USES ANYMORE--were just changed into tempest overloads; mission accomplished; Tempest is a worthless concept). On that note, though, the benefit to buffing staff ele with a PvP-centric focus would be that the staff could receive all of the PvP-support that it needs in order to be more viable, and then the numbers could just be adjusted up later on (if need be) in order to make up for any lacking DPS in PvE.

WATER AIR EARTH I doubt that what they maybe do is increase the pulses on Lava Font about 2 this would already make me happy in PvE.Because this would increase Weavers DPS from 30 to 34kYeah, but that's utterly boring. One of the jokes about Elementalist back in 2012-13 was how it was the meta DPS (alongside Guardian autos+scepter 2) by just spamming Fireball and Lava Font (which was true). Also, making Lava Font last longer would just make it a nuisance in any sort of PvP scenario. At least, by adjusting a few numbers and then re-working some skills, you get a universal kit which has a unique style which is somewhat challenging to use, viable in its baseline damage and functionally purposeful in PvE and PvP respectively. Raw numbers are fine for PvE's games of Simon Says, but for places like sPvP and WvW, one needs to be more conscious of skill and player interactions when it comes to combat design. I know that there's loads of bloat in GW2, but it's still better to come at GW2 weapon design from a `holistic perspective of "make this into a purposeful, universal tool" rather than simply "make this do 30k DPS." I'd rather not rely on traits to buff any damage mainly because the way that anet does traits just results in passive increases or passive triggers, changing nothing inherent about the gameplay. By at least designing the weapon around being versatile and threatening in PvP situations, the damage and effects can be later adjusted for PvE, and we end up with a strong option for the class at large. Yeah, and the nerf that they came up with was basically to "address" the issue that Elementalist basically carried all of its damage in 3 skills. We could restore that by just reintroducing the damage in a way so that it is spread out among already-existing skills while also just adding some extra utility to the weapon. If we had buffs to things like Fire Blast, Burning Retreat, and the earth line, staff ele gameplay would still revolve around layering delayed or pulsing damage, and it would finally exceed "meta" PvE damage thresholds while also incentivizing the use of more skills.

Got bored and ended up re-vamping the list a bit. More work on Stoning (party buff for big PvE value and some PvP flexibility) and Eruption (adjustments to turn it into an ammo skill for more ability to spread out its threat) in earth, the addition of Water Blast (total skill rework) to water, and some number adjustments in fire. Hopefully, we can get some more discussion going again.

There isn't really much skill in GW2 at large, but undead-rogue-motif can indeed teleport onto a target from off-screen, and doing so to a target without any panic buttons will probably result in a kill. Oh lawd, I just saw the OP timestamp for this thread. Please seek help.

Raven Mantel bitte

Haven't touched this game in ages and was going through the fashion locker at the bank. I guess I missed the Raven Mantle sale by about a month (sucks that it's in the gem store). Any idea when that might come around again?

Took a bunch of feedback to heart and updated the top post. In short order: I feel like the proposed buffs to fire were enough to cut some damage and utility from earth.Frozen Ground no longer applies an anti-stab/resi debuff with every pulse, but instead it just removes resi and stab on cast. This effect was also added to Shockwave's middle and closest impact. By spreading this effect out between two skills on two different attunements, it provides a lot of active CC support (CC being the strongest feature of staff ele in PvP) without it being too overpowered in huge team environments like WvW.Stoning got a re-worked secondary effect because the boon removal aspect was refocused into Shockwave. Might be overpowered or worthless, but it's something a bit different; feel free to criticize it.A simpler suggestion for a more easy-to-use Ice Spike.I really appreciate the discussion produced from this thread, and I welcome any continued commentary if anyone feels like throwing up some more responses. There were a lot of good ideas here, and it's not like the edit button will stop existing any time soon.

Those boons are too powerful, and there isn't really a consistent way to remove them throughout the game. There should always be a strong tug-o-war system at play if we are going to constantly have to deal with people just mindlessly walking through obvious or well-placed CC. Two and a half seconds is not oppressive, considering that players would still have dodges, evades and blocks available to them even if they were stripped of resi and stab. Moreover, pulsing instances of such boons would only be disabled for that short time, which means that the Frozen Ground debuff is more of a brief window for offensive coordination than anything oppressive like Rampage, Boonbeast taking 0 damage while attacking or any Mesmer doing anything with a full bar of CDs to blow. My only issue with it is Winds of Disenchantment would be kind of useless as the only boon left would be Protection, and that's nothing compared to the other 2 boons. We're no longer that much of a thing in PvE either, but my only concern is for SpB players.If spellbreakers are your only concern, then they still have a load of blocks and evades on their weapon bars as well as passive stun breaks, a huge HP pool, regular dodges and rampage to reposition. They should really be fine without stab or resi for 2.5s at a time. If it ever gets too bad, then they just bring some more passive cleanse or swap a utility. It wouldn't be a difficult adaption, and it would only serve to increase the skill ceiling on an egregiously low skill cap rotation class. I mean, Alacrity shouldn't have existed in the first place, it caused 3+ years of Chrono only and continuing, with only its providers being viable in PvE. Weakening and Slowing down attacks while on the worst dueling weapon would be quite good imo, but to each their own. For the auto attack, Mesmer only has access to boon removal and its only useful as a boon bot in PvE on a melee weapon, so boon removal from 1200 range is quite broken. I don't know what else to put into this auto attack to make it worth using, but boon removal is strong, and Slow seems to not be good. The boon removal on this thread's stoning rework only applies if the melee-range staff attack strikes a target that already has weakness. The ranged projectile component only applies weakness for 1.5s. That said, it doesn't mean that we should just cave to the passive, boon/condi spam meta. Giving a slow-inflicting cleave to any class, no matter how "weak" you think the debuff is, is unconscionable because it means that you're just throwing darts at a board to see what might stick rather than thinking of a valuable and fair mechanic with risk and pay-off involved. It's inconvenient and frustrating to fight at against a melee auto which inflicts slow, and yet the skill user might encounter situations where it would be useless. You're just making a skill into Deadeye. Don't do that. And in truth, chrono was the first real role in GW2 that wasn't just a basic DPS. It's not the chrono or alacrity's fault that this came about, but rather anet and GW2's lack of depth as a game which allowed a single class to have every valuable buff in the game fit comfortably onto its bar. Given all that, I also agree that alacrity never belonged either.

Those boons are too powerful, and there isn't really a consistent way to remove them throughout the game. There should always be a strong tug-o-war system at play if we are going to constantly have to deal with people just mindlessly walking through obvious or well-placed CC. Two and a half seconds is not oppressive, considering that players would still have dodges, evades and blocks available to them even if they were stripped of resi and stab. Moreover, pulsing instances of such boons would only be disabled for that short time, which means that the Frozen Ground debuff is more of a brief window for offensive coordination than anything oppressive like Rampage, Boonbeast taking 0 damage while attacking or any Mesmer doing anything with a full bar of CDs to blow. This game needs means to disable stab and resi for brief windows in order to bring more variability to combat. As of now, everything is so locked into PvE-tier skill rotations, that there isn't much difference between PvP combat and fractal runs outside of juggling capture points. Simply stripping the two boons at the outset with no further boon suppression is not enough to fight that paradigm. Players can't keep getting reward for ultimately making bad decisions. Freely earned boons shouldn't carry players like this. It wouldn't knock people around so absurdly, at the very least. Considering that it's a linear, greatsword spin attack, it would hit targets only twice at the very most. It would also be nice to have a movement option on the Elementalist staff kit outside of Burning Retreat. I don't think that anybody needs an auto-attack access to slow. I personally don't even believe that slow belongs in the game. It's just an arbitrary, flavor-based addition to mirror quickness; and the fact that it's just a flavor addition shows in its overall prevalence and in how little impact it generally has on combat across all player modes in GW2. I do, however, like the idea of moving boon removal to Shockwave and then increasing the amount of boons removed (considering the longer cooldown). I'd be open to other suggestions for "making up" the loss of conditional boon removal from Stoning (although, giving it a potential double-hit effect along with a re-worked projectile for more consistent application of weakness seems like a pretty strong re-work already).

After reading a lot of the thoughts in the thread, I went ahead and tried developing some changes for Ice Spike and Gust as we as some alternative ideas for Eruption and Frozen Ground. If people find them acceptable, I'll probably just put them in the OP. WATER[ice Spikes] (2a) [Frozen Ground] (4) AIR[Gust] (3) EARTH[Eruption] (2)

I mainly just wanted to free the skill from the GW2 targeting system, but ultimately I came back to, yes, how underwhelming and bloaty the skill feels sitting next to titans like evade roll, meteor shower, persistent AoE damage field and fireball crits; so I gave it the delayed explosion for more field threats. Yeah, the point was basically to just make it a standalone damage threat in PvP, but turn it into a huge DPS rotation booster in PvE (with the right teammates: even something like a Scourge would boost the DPS pretty substantially, so it wouldn't really require a dedicated flame boi like a burn Guardian or something; Banner Berserker is also still pretty meta, I think). You know, considering how many people have brought it up, it's funny how I hung up I was over Ice Spike and Eruption while making this list. I originally had an Ice Spike re-work slated for this as well as a different Eruption one, but I just kept thinking, "This is just turning into another Lava Font." I don't disagree that they could each use something different about them (particularly Ice Spike). Gust is super strong with a Lightning Rod build, but yes, you are right in saying how it sort of flops about without much potential on its own. I had thought of turning it into an AoE, mid-range cone, but I also hate losing out on a 1200 range, linear push (a super strong effect). I personally don't really see an absolute need to buff it, but I could maybe think of a few ways: Reduce recharge to 20s or 15s.Turn it into a 2-stock ammo ability with a 5s skill recharge and a 30s count recharge.Add a very short-range cone to the skill (maybe 200 range; hits up to 5 targets) which applies its effect concurrently with the Gust projectile itself and launches struck foes (600 range launch). At least, the melee-range cone would give the skill some more utility with positioning-based risk or reaction as well as giving the Elementalist a way to possibly mitigate the issue with the projectile hitting a target (i.e. burn a Lightning Flash and follow up with Gust for a more guaranteed forced-movement CC).I still feel like the third buff idea is super redundant, though, because I never have trouble hitting Gust now if I just Lightning Flash into melee range (and I don't really think that slapping an Illusionary Wave on top of the most favorable aspect of the skill--a 1200 range push--would be all that balanced). Furthermore, the skill's hitbox has been enlarged considerably since its original iterations back from around 2012-13, and it can simultaneously strike multiple players standing in file next to each other (I even have some evidence of its lenient hitbox detection in a video I made something like 2 days ago). I still hold by the strongest aspect of those skills is how they apply a sort of danger threat to a designated area for a prolonged period of time: either players will have to avoid the area or play in it knowing that they will have to burn a dodge or some other cooldown just to avoid a big hit later on. It's a risk factor, which is something I want to see more of rather than just resorting to GW2 meta prescriptions like "faster damage" or "CC with damage" or "being immune to incoming effects." I had exactly the same idea at one point, but then I also thought of inverting that same idea: like a Reaper Nightfall in reverse. The reason why I liked the inverse better (start as a big AoE and shrink to a smaller one over the course of a fixed duration) is because one could inherently give the increasingly smaller AoEs respectively stronger and stronger effects without them being too unfair (considering that they are losing size and are therefore easier to avoid), but also because Elementalist staff has a metric ton of area control via hard and soft CC. Something like a reverse Nightfall with a huge, ending pay-off would fit right into the same weapon bar as Unsteady Ground and Shockwave while also just serving as a big AoE threat without hard CC present. Like I said, I did want to avoid "another Lava Font," but something like "multiple Ice Spikes" might not be a bad idea. I could almost still go for the idea I suggested up in response to the person who was worried about having a Water auto heal for WvW: just re-work one of the 95% of trash traits in order to outright change it to a full-on heal cone. As for re-working the current one, I'm also sort of at a loss.

Considering that ele can get a free fire aura just by attuning to fire along with all of the aura generation on tempest, I think that I would rather give a leap to a utility skill with some value rather than just slap it onto Burning Retreat.if you run fire, which support ele doesn't do.That's why I would rather re-work a utility skill into a strong ability with a combo finisher which would allow any ele build to get a fire aura. I just want to reduce as many "gimmies" as possible. If you want to spam heals, you can just unlock from a target and free-aim your water autos at the ground. They will still apply healing even if they strike no targets. This same tactic can be used with fireball in order to snipe stealthed targets. Splash properties on skills is a super utilitarian aspect because it frees players from being bound to this game's horrid targeting system (and its also the reason why I also thought about giving the same property to earth autos).this is so water auto cant get reflected in wvw fights. could also just remove the damage since its puny anyways, but that would be wonky imo. Ah, right, yeah, I could imagine that WvW is coated in Feedbacks and reflect walls. Maybe just re-work a worthless trait into something which would just outright swap Water Blast with something like the Engineer Healing Kit auto? That's just more of what the meta provides. It isn't really a fair or creative effect. Getting hit by an ice spike is punishment enough considering that it deals full-power meteor damage. If anything, it could maybe get an unlockable trait or even a 2 ammo count with a 10s count recharge, but any other change would probably just be better off as a total skill rework.don't disagree. its to help with 1v1s which staff is horrid at.I personally don't feel that every weapon set has to be good at everything. In fact, following that paradigm removes any sort of identity or playstyle from the game (which is why the current GW2 PvP metagame is basically just 6 versions of the same build in different flavors). This would be super cancerous. It already deals ludicrous damage (nearly on par with Ice Spike), and it's very easy to land. It also blinds. It requires at least a 1s cast time in order to be fair.air 2 takes forever to cast for how much it does. so what if it does a lot of damage? nerf the coefficient a bit then. air is supposed to be the "fast cast" element anyways.As anecdotal as this is, I have to absolutely stand firm on how many Lighting Surges I land in ranked matches. Once a user has an on-the-fly grasp for 1200 range, they become incredibly easy to land, and I often use them as an opener or while following opponents who don't necessarily know that I am tailing them from nearby. It's also pretty effective if the cast is started and then the user jumps into the air, allowing the cast to resolve while mid-air. No real need. Maybe, MAYBE a 5s CD reduction, but ultimately it's not entirely necessary (especially considering how my suggestion adds more CC options to earth).i guess. its a very underwhelming skill.I run fire-air-arcane staff in PvP, and having Gust that inflicts weakness and 4k damage on a 25s CD is absolutely nuts. It used to be a lot worse to use, but at least it hits somewhat reliably now: its hitbox is pretty meaty, and it's quite valuable for interrupting desperation stomps. It's also a near-instant knock-back in melee range which can be fired directly behind the user while running in the opposite direction. It could maybe use a buff, but I'm not sure what it would get which wouldn't just make it more insane that what I already experience when using it. I mean, I outright kill dudes with Gust. I kill people with the wind fart which everyone considers worthless, man. It's absolutely insane. Basically same complaint that I have with the Ice Spike suggestion. It threatens a huge area for 3s already, and it hits hard. It doesn't need to daze, and the 1200 range means that it doesn't need a 0.5s cast-time.same as water 2. it also takes forever to activate, most people just walk out of it.Since you are speaking from a WvW perspective, I can see where you're coming from with a lot of these thoughts. Although, if you noticed, I did move the cripple to the front of the skill's total resolution time. At the moment that the cast resolves, the skill would inflict cripple. Moreover, I would personally rather try to balance these skills from team-limited instances such as PvP (or even PvE) rather than trying to balance around a mode which not only features insane player statlines but also inherently imbalanced participation numbers among teams and combat encounters. That's not a knock against the WvW players, it just a worry about what it would mean to apply balances made to open-field, no-objective combat to places with more restricted combat spaces and limited team participants.

That latter part was the reason for the conditional damage amplification: it brings up ele's DPS in a team environment while also just being a consistent field hazard in practice. As for the 2 stacks of 6s burning, they would still contribute to a 20% damage increase, which is pretty substantial and something which I consider built into the skill (and it would put the base damage on a 2-stack burning target up to somewhere around Eruption range). Perfectly fair point. Ultimately, the point of the low-recharge, ammo designs in this collection of suggestions was mostly be to allow players to be extremely flexible with their usage of said skills, but it might end up just being a bit too much spam potential in some cases. That said, it's not like a 5s recharge isn't still very accessible if a player has 2 charges in the tank. Conditions in GW2 nowadays are effectively just damage: a horrendously bloated, mechanical dead-end of the game. Yes, they carry some powerful bonus effects, but the only thing that stacks is just damage, which has ultimately become their main feature. So, yes, I can honestly say that I forgot about poison (especially when things like revive traits just raise downed HP straight through whatever sort of pressure is applied anyway; I can attest to that as someone who frequently uses the Arcane Resurrection trait). That said, an additional revival penalty which could stack on top of poison would be a neat flair to an otherwise somewhat under-performing skill. Inflicting stab and resi on placement seems like a very interesting compromise, but I still hate how this game seems replete with consistently renewing sources of immunity buffs like stability (either via forms, un-strippable, passive buffs or traits). If Frozen Ground provided a persistent debuff which constantly kept stab and resi off of targets within its AoE, it would be a temporary safety zone and huge field hazard without resorting to something as super cheesy and low effort as Rampage, block chains or instant burst. It would be a huge theat, but a threat around which players on both sides could still make moves, and that's the paradigm that I'm trying to preserve and enhance with the current Elementalist staff kit. The ammo at least has a CD of 50s, which either means that someone paces their usage of the skill, blows it both because a team really needs to lock down a particular target, or perhaps even chooses to use one Frozen Ground entirely for its chill-application purposes but is still allowed an extra Frozen Ground in the tank for perhaps stopping a target bathed in stability. The goal is flexiblity; not overpowered memery. To that end, I'd still be willing to make some concessions if people feel that it's too strong. I mentioned earlier in the thread about maybe reducing the AoE down to 180 (Lava Font sized), but reducing the duration down to 3s is also something to consider; raising the ammo cooldown to 60s might also be an option, but I would really like to keep the ammo count just because of how incredibly utilitarian it makes the skill without resorting to GW2 meta designs like full-blown lock-downs with simultaneous damage. Reasonable power reduction. It would be a physical projectile; no piercing. I had considered suggesting that it behave like Fireball (splash on impact; small AoE), but I'm not sure that AoE, multi-target weakness (even if it were 1.5s with a 120 max radius) would be all that fair for opponents. That said, I feel that the melee aspect of the skill provides enough cleave potential. The biggest point, however, is that the Stoning projectile would just need to be replaced. It's arc is huge and the projectile tends to wander off into low orbit against any moving target; it would be better if it flew along the same trajectory as something like Ranger's Long Range Shot or something (but not with the stupid 1800 range).