Regarding the August 23 balance preview....power creep is not good .

[GWstinkt.6094]

Which of the planned changes are power creep?

As far as I can tell, they all target weapons and builds that currently under perform. This update doesn't change how much damage players can do or how quickly they can clear content. It just increases the number of builds and options that perform well.

[ATMAvatar.5749]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:47 PM, Sporks.4395 said:

You are not going to see a 500% increase in ele players overnight.

The tragic irony, of course, is that if you look at the wingman profession representation stats, elementalist actually needs an almost 500% increase in players to even be represented equitably (currently ~2% of players).

[wasss.1208]

This thread really shows, that some people can cry about pretty much anything.

Imagine complaining about a patch, that brings a lot of pure/selfish DPS builds up, to do more damage, than a support hybrid. It sure do help diversity, when pBerserker/Reaper/Holosmith does the same amount of damage, as some of the alacdps, or qdps builds... Or look at core builds. Core engineer will finally be able to play a power build, without hindering the group.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that elevates up staff on elementalist, from trash tier. You know, staff, the weapon why most of the newcomers pick up elementalist. Because they want to play the "staff mage" archetype, which is pretty much unplayeable at the moment.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that finally lets people to pick up weapons that they always wanted to play, but they couldn't, because it is borderline griefing. Like picking up hammer on gua, or warrior.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that lifts the damage of the weaker players, so some world bosses won't be a 15 minute slogfest from now on. This is literally a win for everyone. I for one enjoy the faster Dragonstorm lobbies, since mech got broken, and I can't wait to see those LI players realise, that now they can play scepter ele, camping fire, doing good damage, swapping to it, and stop giving me a sore eye with their mechs.

And those, that cry powercreep. Where were these kind of threads 2 months ago, when pretty much every profession can go above 37k? Or during PoF, or even HoT lauch, when staff+conjure tempest did the same damage as we see nowdays.

tl;dr: this patch helps trash weapons on the lower end, and helps power builds, that fell out of viability during the spirit/banner patch on the higher end.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

On 8/19/2022 at 5:30 AM, ATMAvatar.5749 said:

The tragic irony, of course, is that if you look at the wingman profession representation stats, elementalist actually needs an almost 500% increase in players to even be represented equitably (currently ~2% of players).

I rarely see them in open world even.

 

Part of their problem is probably their reputation for requiring an extremely high level of skill to play and being "piano style" in how many different keys and finger twisting you need to do to be even slightly efficient. Whether or not this is true that's the reputation. I even see guides telling new players to avoid ele.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, RadiantWolf.2058 said:

I rarely see them in open world even.

 

Part of their problem is probably their reputation for requiring an extremely high level of skill to play and being "piano style" in how many different keys and finger twisting you need to do to be even slightly efficient. Whether or not this is true that's the reputation. I even see guides telling new players to avoid ele.

Yeah I tried to play it but I could barely get above 4k DPS in the open world. You not only needs the muscle memory to play Elementalist but you need to know exactly which attunement to use at certain points during a fight.

If an enemy repositions then a lot of your DPS goes away, this is probably why weaver is still one of the best DPS for Elementalist.
I mean maybe I can make it work at some point, I know they have great sustain OW.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Xenesis.6389]

Eles are all over the place in WvW 🤷‍♂️

[Karagee.6830]

4 hours ago, wasss.1208 said:

This thread really shows, that some people can cry about pretty much anything.

Imagine complaining about a patch, that brings a lot of pure/selfish DPS builds up, to do more damage, than a support hybrid. It sure do help diversity, when pBerserker/Reaper/Holosmith does the same amount of damage, as some of the alacdps, or qdps builds... Or look at core builds. Core engineer will finally be able to play a power build, without hindering the group.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that elevates up staff on elementalist, from trash tier. You know, staff, the weapon why most of the newcomers pick up elementalist. Because they want to play the "staff mage" archetype, which is pretty much unplayeable at the moment.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that finally lets people to pick up weapons that they always wanted to play, but they couldn't, because it is borderline griefing. Like picking up hammer on gua, or warrior.
Imagine complaining about a patch, that lifts the damage of the weaker players, so some world bosses won't be a 15 minute slogfest from now on. This is literally a win for everyone. I for one enjoy the faster Dragonstorm lobbies, since mech got broken, and I can't wait to see those LI players realise, that now they can play scepter ele, camping fire, doing good damage, swapping to it, and stop giving me a sore eye with their mechs.

And those, that cry powercreep. Where were these kind of threads 2 months ago, when pretty much every profession can go above 37k? Or during PoF, or even HoT lauch, when staff+conjure tempest did the same damage as we see nowdays.

tl;dr: this patch helps trash weapons on the lower end, and helps power builds, that fell out of viability during the spirit/banner patch on the higher end.

All fine and dandy until you realise that power berserker literally has no build (it was doing 32k pre patch and will do 4.5% more damage or 3.5% with banners, based on the uptime of bloody roar). So yeah, while elementalists maybe will be fine playing with a staff, berserkers will have to play with bow, arrows and torch. OR they will have to play the awkward projectile build on bladesworn...

[Kuma.1503]

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Yeah I tried to play it but I could barely get above 4k DPS in the open world. You not only needs the muscle memory to play Elementalist but you need to know exactly which attunement to use at certain points during a fight.

If an enemy repositions then a lot of your DPS goes away, this is probably why weaver is still one of the best DPS for Elementalist.
I mean maybe I can make it work at some point, I know they have great sustain OW.

If you need help making ele work for you in open world, I'm happy to help. I know of quite a few builds that don't require in depth knowledge or complex piano rotations. 

As a rule of thumb though, condi ele is easier to play than power ele. 

The exception is Fresh Air tempest, which runs runs around spamming air overload, using 1 or 2 skills from another attunement, and then going back to spamming air overload. 

 

[thorrand.6548]

On 8/12/2022 at 8:50 PM, Sunchaser.9854 said:

"Don't nerf mech, make every class better to compete with them so everyone can eventually afk raid content too. I want to afk raid content and make the game simpler. Who wants to play a pianist and get carpal tunnel for the same (Or often 98% effectively less Average joe) rewards?" 

That's one of the best examples of gatekeeping I've ever seen. No one is AFK'ing in raids that's your hyperbole because others can experience the content you already have. You and people like you are the worst thing for a game that depends on communities. No one is asking for content to be nerfed, just easier to get into so there are more people to enjoy what the developers made. You need to face the fact that mech is fun to play. Everything has a great synergy and if flows amazingly. I can also do actual damage from range and not have to stare at a bosses boots when I play. I can actually learn the mechanics instead of trying to comb through my combat log to see why I'm on my back yet again. The fact my enjoyment is a threat to you is hilarious to me and kinda sorta seals the fate on the future of the franchise if there's this much crying when they make an accessible spec that actually performs. 

My main in gw1 was a spirit spammer, until it got boring then I learned how to dervish. I see this community complain about people pulling 2-3k dps in OW, yet when a build is buffed to help improve the OW experience everyone takes up arms. This is just kittening silly

[wasss.1208]

16 hours ago, Karagee.6830 said:

All fine and dandy until you realise that power berserker literally has no build (it was doing 32k pre patch and will do 4.5% more damage or 3.5% with banners, based on the uptime of bloody roar). So yeah, while elementalists maybe will be fine playing with a staff, berserkers will have to play with bow, arrows and torch. OR they will have to play the awkward projectile build on bladesworn...

I'm aware, that even after the buffs, they won't really hit 35k, let alone 37-40k. This makes the outrage about the powercreep even more odd.

[Zaret.1450]

18 hours ago, RadiantWolf.2058 said:

I rarely see them in open world even.

 

Part of their problem is probably their reputation for requiring an extremely high level of skill to play and being "piano style" in how many different keys and finger twisting you need to do to be even slightly efficient. Whether or not this is true that's the reputation. I even see guides telling new players to avoid ele.

well it has some truth, chrono, engi and ele, having more resourses with elements kits, clones, etc, are more difficult for a new player, now thats a core design thats not bad nor needs changes, come classes having more difficulty isnt bad, whats bad is if those classes dont get rewarded.

If a new player gets to ele, he will prob start swaping atunemets, get locked in chanelings, prob dont know that you need to evade, and ele also has low survival options, low life, defense, etc, i can see many regretting and saying its too dificult, an engi could just put many kits and go mad not knowing what happens, and so on.

While a warr or other classes are more axe up axe down, enemy skull open... sound stupid but we all do that at first, so.... well there are many options, and the game almost forces you to try as many as possible till you find your soulmate so to say.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 8/16/2022 at 1:29 AM, Kuma.1503 said:

This patch wasn't powercreep. 

It was Anet giving back a little of what they took away. 

For some specs like reaper and holo, it's still a net nerf over where they were prior to the patch that removed unique buffs. 

Heal Scrapper and (axe) mirage actually got nerfed, neither of which needed it. 

Power Scrapper got some QoL and coefficient buffs to offset the unique buff removal, but it's still weaker than it was pre impact savant nerf. 

Staff Ele got some nice buffs, but I still doubt it will be anywhere near where it was when Staff Weaver was at its peak. Especially considering it was also hit hard by the unique buff removal, and it wasn't good even before that nerf. 

Anet realized they tweaked the knob down too far, and they're finally starting to tweak it upwards again where necessary. 

Once things start reaching levels higher than they were pre-nerf, cries about "powercreep" might have some merit. 

 

PVE unlike PVP, was never nerfed actually. It's always had buff patches, including February 2020.

 

So generally speaking, ya, this patch, along with many other patches are power-creep patches. This is to not say that power-creep, is any more better or worse than power-dip which is the thing we experience in PVP.

 

To put it another way: 2020 onward, PVP and PVE were like mirrors....where PVP was always getting nerfed, and conversely in PVE, everything was always getting buffed.

Edited August 23, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

To put it another way: 2020 onward, PVP and PVE were like mirrors....where PVP was always getting nerfed, and conversely in PVE, everything was always getting buffed.

Wouldn't mind some buffs in PvP/WvW at this point...

[Serephen.3420]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:05 AM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Eles are all over the place in WvW 🤷‍♂️

What server? I sometimes feel like the only ele for miles😅

[Karagee.6830]

23 hours ago, thorrand.6548 said:

My main in gw1 was a spirit spammer, until it got boring then I learned how to dervish. I see this community complain about people pulling 2-3k dps in OW, yet when a build is buffed to help improve the OW experience everyone takes up arms. This is just kittening silly

I like how you think. Of course there can be no middle ground between 2-3k dps and mechanist doing 30k afk!!! It's one or the other so people should only complain about one or the other. Oh wait.

[Karagee.6830]

16 hours ago, wasss.1208 said:

I'm aware, that even after the buffs, they won't really hit 35k, let alone 37-40k. This makes the outrage about the powercreep even more odd.

Nah, the power creep is real. It's just that when they openly said that power berserker is one of the builds that they want to be viable, they forgot that it was garbage before the patch, had no buff other than bloody roar which meant it should be benching mid 33k now (while fully melee, with weapon stowing and all that jazz), BUT it is benching less than before the patch!!!! All of this while condi berserker (another build they said should be viable) received direct buffs and some weapon ability modification.