Nerf Conjure Earth Shield In Next Patch - Big Mistake To Miss The Opportunity

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

^ Thread title

This is the #1 most bloated skill in the game right now. In 3 arenas this season, for example, a no Tempest team loses to Tempest team 80% of time. There are an amalgam of reasons why that is, but mainly first and foremost because of Conjure Earth Shield making Tempest way way too durable. With Conjure Earth Shield, the Tempest is like a selfish-sustain bunker that is also somehow the best support in the game. Just fix the problem please so we don't have to wait some months or years for it to get fixed.

With specs like Specter & Bladesworn getting put into line, if you do not nerf Conjure Earth Shield, we are going to see the game flooded with Ele play. It's going to be extra dumb because Tempest & Catalyst are already top 2 MVPs as is. Not nerfing CES is going to make them marginally even higher in value than they already are now.

Most of the things in the patch preview are definitely headed in the right direction, but this missed opportunity to nerf CES is a bad move that's going to result in a stale highly Ele dominant meta. Seriously boys, we don't need Tempest/Cata on every team permanently throwing Auras & CES around 100% of the time in every engagement. kitten please stop this before it happens.

Nerf Conjure Earth Shield.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Terrorhuz.4695]

I hear talks about earth shield nerfs all the time. I'm not pro or against, but could anyone explain to me WHAT would you nerf and how, and which results you hope to achieve with that?

[Downstate.4697]

My thing is that if earth shield is nerfed too hard then tempest gets pooped on again. As a staff enjoyer its the only thing that keeps me from being 100 to 0'd by insta port dps builds. Id rather its mag aura be removed so ranged builds can play around it.

[Goldilock.2584]

Only earth 5 needs to be looked at. I would say the timer on the skill at least

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

That's nice and dandy, but how do you want to nerf it though? The only way I can see it nerfed is to increase cooldowns on it and that's it, overall kit isn't that impressive in the slightest in long run, the skills are "decent", but not "immortale".

[Stallic.2397]

Just remove the attribute bonuses applied by the conjure. That takes away toughness and vitality, which are big hits against a class that has

 

... The lowest armor and lowest health pool in the game... 

 

But honestly, nerfing a conjure because tempest is meta is the wrong move. Nerfing core traits because tempest is meta is the wrong move. 

 

Tempest is meta because of multiple mechanics that have slowly climbed in relevance after consecutive balance patches nerfing other classes. None of those mechanics alone are overpowered. Target the mechanics/skills/traits solely used by Tempest, rather than nerfing the class as a whole. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Stallic.2397

[Eddbopkins.2630]

I say take away the invuln and make it a normal block for like 5 seconds and give it resistance with completion of the skill block. That seems far. I'm against any kind of hard uncounterable skills like invulnerabilities.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

4 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

I hear talks about earth shield nerfs all the time. I'm not pro or against, but could anyone explain to me WHAT would you nerf and how, and which results you hope to achieve with that?

Let's take a look at the skills themselves, first:

1. Its auto attack is quite strong for a defensive kit. Compare it to Crossfire - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W). The Ranger will strike nearly twice as fast, but the bleed durations and double stacks from Shield Smack - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) - Shield Smash - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) - Crippling Shield - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) makes CES auto attacking in melee range, on par with Ranger shortbow spam. Even the autos on CES are pretty jacked up.
2. Stone Sheath - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) block next attack, grants roughly 1600 barrier
3. Magnetic Surge - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another free magnetic aura, and a daze CC
4. Magnetic Shield (elementalist skill) - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another CC, a 600 range 3 target pull that is unblockable, grants protection and roughly a 1600 barrier.
5. Fortify - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another invuln, a 3 second invuln.
6. The CES itself also grants the user 180 vitality and 180 toughness just by holding it. The Conjure Earth Shield - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) is on a 60s ICD and each time the Ele uses it, it gets two uses of the CES because it drops a 2nd CES on the ground in addition to the one that goes into its hands directly.

2x uses of that back to back on only a 60s ICD? ^ That's a lot of CC, Magnetic Aura, Barrier, and Invulnerability, on a normal utility skill. Keep in mind this is in addition to what it already has with other auras, weapon skills, attunements, traits, utilities. Not only is the CES itself bloated as all hell in unnecessary ways, but the worst part about it is that while the Ele kites around using this kit which is incredibly self sustaining just by itself with no use of any other skills, it lets the Ele's ICDs on other skills completely refresh. This grants the Ele way way too powerful of reset capability.

This single skill alone allows Ele builds to be the best Bunkers and the best Supports, wrapped into one. Ele even gets to maintain decent damage output due to this one skill carrying how hard it can sustain. As with any good game design, things need to have a certain set of drawbacks. In this case in GW2, everything else has to stat for either selfish-sustain to be a Bunker, or ditch selfish-sustain to be a good Support. In GW2, being able to do both is just broken and it makes a build too mandatory to where it begins shutting out the viability of everything else around it.

Simply put, Conjure Earth Shield is way too strong. There are also problems with it being so strong, like Arenanet continuing to balance Ele around CES, which results in nothing important being done to the rest of class. They just expect it to lean on the use of CES, which I know many Ele mains are upset with.

 

As far as direct nerf suggestions:

1. My primary and preferable fix that I'd like to see is that the Ele can't pick up the 2nd CES, if it tries to, the old timer of the first wielded CES carries over and makes the 2nd CES poof early. The 2nd CES would be intended for party members, not the Ele to spam. This is in my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to why CES is just exploitable, that the Ele can use both of the CES. Watch this very short to video that demonstrates how CES is quite seriously perpetual. It actually technically does not have an ICD for its use GW2 - Conjure Earth Shield ICD - for forum - Twitch If the Ele had to wait the 60s of the actual utility cast to be able to wield CES again, that would probably solve the issues with CES immediately.
2. An alternative fix along the same lines would be a much shorter life span on the 2nd CES that lays on the ground after conjuring it up. The 2nd CES says for 30 seconds, which is just enough time for the Ele to use all the good skills on the 1st CES, some of them twice even, and then pick up the 2nd CES which refreshes the timer of the wielded CES, allowing it to use all those CDs again, some of them twice, again. This is plainly exploitable. The timer in which the 2nd CES stays on the ground should be lowered to 10 seconds. Either pick it up and refresh at just the right time to use the invuln twice, or it poofs. The 10s timer on the ground would really pressure the strategy in all of it, which is the way it should be.
3. Or they could go about it in the traditional manner of forum suggestions and just target the numbers/effects on CES directly. If they were do this, I would say Fortify the 3s invuln, should straight up be nerfed into a 2s block.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

14 minutes ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

this post is because i killed trevor boyer without him hitting me once

The ironic part about this post, is that it is likely true that you on a Cata with CES, probably could kill a mostly projectile based class without ever once being hit, even vs. p2+ players, and that is definitely the very real reason why I made this post.

This 90% uptime of "I'm invulnerable" on Ele needs to be culled.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Swagg.9236]

As much as a number of people would scream and cry, nothing of value would be lost if a wave of Smiter's Boon nerds outright deleted a huge number of dumb skills and passives from the game.  Conjures are a failed concept.  GW2 PvP only gets worse on some level with the more buttons that a given player has within the context of any given encounter:  either the player with loads of buttons is a low-effort rotation juggernaut because all of the extra buttons overperform (tempest with earth shields), or the player with several extra skill bars wonders what the point of it all is (firebrand and core engie).  There is no hidden, unique playstyle to derive from between those two extremes.  GW2 is too shallow to support that.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

shocking aura nerf ☒

Conjure shield nerf ☒

Fortified Earth Nerf  ☑

 

6 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

I hear talks about earth shield nerfs all the time. I'm not pro or against, but could anyone explain to me WHAT would you nerf and how, and which results you hope to achieve with that?

I wonder how many people are seeing the ele hold out an earth shield and think it's earth shield and not the actual skill that it is. 

I think the approach needs to be a bit more nuanced.

I'd visit Fortified Earth - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) first, and maybe bump up the cd it by like 5-10 seconds. If eles cast  this in their jade sphere area they have a 3 second block like every 17 seconds. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Then I'd look at Fortify and probably bump up its cd as well, because it's an invuln and can help reset the above. 

The objective (at least, as I see it) is to reduce availability of blockstrings since these can be stacked with auras to weather long periods of incoming damage.  I don't think conjure earth itself is the cause of all the problems, but there is a general issue with catalysts in particular having a lot of access to mitigation. Invulns need to be treated carefully because they can be used to help reset the cds of the blocks. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Arheundel.6451]

1 hour ago, Swagg.9236 said:

As much as a number of people would scream and cry, nothing of value would be lost if a wave of Smiter's Boon nerds outright deleted a huge number of dumb skills and passives from the game.  Conjures are a failed concept.  GW2 PvP only gets worse on some level with the more buttons that a given player has within the context of any given encounter:  either the player with loads of buttons is a low-effort rotation juggernaut because all of the extra buttons overperform (tempest with earth shields), or the player with several extra skill bars wonders what the point of it all is (firebrand and core engie).  There is no hidden, unique playstyle to derive from between those two extremes.  GW2 is too shallow to support that.

There are better players out there....no amount of nerfs will ever change that....cried for nerfs for the last 10 years..the same people still lose...they will cry for another 10 years...but they will still lose

[Swagg.9236]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

There are better players out there....no amount of nerfs will ever change that....cried for nerfs for the last 10 years..the same people still lose...they will cry for another 10 years...but they will still lose

"Better players" don't develop in an environment with a skill curve akin to a step-ladder and a skill ceiling that has people crawling on all-fours just to fit inside.  GW2 has no player creativity or expression.  It's 90% patch notes.  Where are all the sword/dagger shortbow thieves from 2014?  Surely all the skill they've honed over the years should be able to go toe-to-toe with the meta choices.  Where are all the core mains?  With the most time in existence, you'd think that it would've given the "best" and "most skilled" players loads of times to perfect unique tech and niche knowledge that would have given them a bunch of unique options and leveraged a consistent, defined impact in any given matchup.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

I don't understand how this thread isn't getting more feedback. It's at a point where when it comes to equal skill vs equal skill, teams with no Eles cannot fight teams with Eles. Stress the word "can't". It's not that Ele is strong or OP, it's that it actually completely shuts down and entirely negates over half the builds in the game.

Not sure who's telling the devs it's a good idea to leave Ele as is, but they really need to seek further consultation. This next meta is going be potentially the dumbest meta we've had since Chronobunker if they don't tend to this now.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[rodrigo.5608]

13 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

^ Título do tópico

Esta é a habilidade número 1 mais inchada do jogo no momento. Em 3 arenas nesta temporada, por exemplo, uma equipe sem Tempest perde para a equipe Tempest 80% das vezes. Há um amálgama de razões para isso, mas principalmente em primeiro lugar por causa de Conjure Earth Shield tornando Tempest muito durável. Com Conjure Earth Shield, o Tempest é como um bunker de sustentação egoísta que também é de alguma forma o melhor suporte do jogo. Apenas corrija o problema, por favor, para que não tenhamos que esperar alguns meses ou anos para que ele seja corrigido.

Com especificações como Spectre & Bladesworn sendo colocadas em linha, se você não nerf Conjure Earth Shield, veremos o jogo inundado com Ele play. Vai ser muito burro porque Tempest & Catalyst já são os 2 melhores MVPs como estão. Não nerfing CES vai torná-los marginalmente ainda mais valiosos do que já são agora.

A maioria das coisas na prévia do patch está definitivamente indo na direção certa, mas essa oportunidade perdida de nerf CES é uma má jogada que resultará em um meta obsoleto altamente dominante em Ele. Sério meninos, não precisamos de Tempest/Cata em todas as equipes permanentemente jogando Auras & CES em torno de 100% do tempo em todos os compromissos. gatinho, por favor, pare com isso antes que aconteça.

Nerf Conjure Earth Shield.

weaver is getting more and more dead in pvp... and they still want to nerf even more the only item that saves him from this meta... lol

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

10 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Let's take a look at the skills themselves, first:

1. Its auto attack is quite strong for a defensive kit. Compare it to Crossfire - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W). The Ranger will strike nearly twice as fast, but the bleed durations and double stacks from Shield Smack - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) - Shield Smash - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) - Crippling Shield - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) makes CES auto attacking in melee range, on par with Ranger shortbow spam. Even the autos on CES are pretty jacked up.
2. Stone Sheath - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) block next attack, grants roughly 1600 barrier
3. Magnetic Surge - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another free magnetic aura, and a daze CC
4. Magnetic Shield (elementalist skill) - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another CC, a 600 range 3 target pull that is unblockable, grants protection and roughly a 1600 barrier.
5. Fortify - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) another invuln, a 3 second invuln.
6. The CES itself also grants the user 180 vitality and 180 toughness just by holding it. The Conjure Earth Shield - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) is on a 60s ICD and each time the Ele uses it, it gets two uses of the CES because it drops a 2nd CES on the ground in addition to the one that goes into its hands directly.

2x uses of that back to back on only a 60s ICD? ^ That's a lot of CC, Magnetic Aura, Barrier, and Invulnerability, on a normal utility skill. Keep in mind this is in addition to what it already has with other auras, weapon skills, attunements, traits, utilities. Not only is the CES itself bloated as all hell in unnecessary ways, but the worst part about it is that while the Ele kites around using this kit which is incredibly self sustaining just by itself with no use of any other skills, it lets the Ele's ICDs on other skills completely refresh. This grants the Ele way way too powerful of reset capability.

This single skill alone allows Ele builds to be the best Bunkers and the best Supports, wrapped into one. Ele even gets to maintain decent damage output due to this one skill carrying how hard it can sustain. As with any good game design, things need to have a certain set of drawbacks. In this case in GW2, everything else has to stat for either selfish-sustain to be a Bunker, or ditch selfish-sustain to be a good Support. In GW2, being able to do both is just broken and it makes a build too mandatory to where it begins shutting out the viability of everything else around it.

Simply put, Conjure Earth Shield is way too strong. There are also problems with it being so strong, like Arenanet continuing to balance Ele around CES, which results in nothing important being done to the rest of class. They just expect it to lean on the use of CES, which I know many Ele mains are upset with.

 

As far as direct nerf suggestions:

1. My primary and preferable fix that I'd like to see is that the Ele can't pick up the 2nd CES, if it tries to, the old timer of the first wielded CES carries over and makes the 2nd CES poof early. The 2nd CES would be intended for party members, not the Ele to spam. This is in my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to why CES is just exploitable, that the Ele can use both of the CES. Watch this very short to video that demonstrates how CES is quite seriously perpetual. It actually technically does not have an ICD for its use GW2 - Conjure Earth Shield ICD - for forum - Twitch If the Ele had to wait the 60s of the actual utility cast to be able to wield CES again, that would probably solve the issues with CES immediately.
2. An alternative fix along the same lines would be a much shorter life span on the 2nd CES that lays on the ground after conjuring it up. The 2nd CES says for 30 seconds, which is just enough time for the Ele to use all the good skills on the 1st CES, some of them twice even, and then pick up the 2nd CES which refreshes the timer of the wielded CES, allowing it to use all those CDs again, some of them twice, again. This is plainly exploitable. The timer in which the 2nd CES stays on the ground should be lowered to 10 seconds. Either pick it up and refresh at just the right time to use the invuln twice, or it poofs. The 10s timer on the ground would really pressure the strategy in all of it, which is the way it should be.
3. Or they could go about it in the traditional manner of forum suggestions and just target the numbers/effects on CES directly. If they were do this, I would say Fortify the 3s invuln, should straight up be nerfed into a 2s block.

You could just increase cooldowns on Earth Shield skills like kekw, if you haven't noticed cooldowns carry even if you drop and pick it again. On top of that you also forgot to mention that when you pick Earth Shield you lose access to weapon skills and in reality it's "strong skills with occasional F1-F4 mechanics if they exist", it's something like Ranger running with Greatsword and pets doing it's shenanigans. Another thing that Earth Shield can be stolen by others, so it's not "guaranteed" that you'll pick it again at all.
Like come on, it's only strong if stars will align and allow you to pick the second one, otherwise it's just glorified Engineer Kit with long cooldown. Increase cooldowns to make it in-line with other weapon skills and that's it, if it'll need other changes so be it.
Also, please don't compare busted AA from Ranger Shortbow to the kits that has 60s cd.

[Sahne.6950]

13 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

As with any good game design, things need to have a certain set of drawbacks. In this case in GW2, everything else has to stat for either selfish-sustain to be a Bunker, or ditch selfish-sustain to be a good Support.

Trevor i am not sure if you truely understand support tempest... Because what you are saying here IS EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING! Tempests have to examine the enemy team at the start of every round and think to themselves: okey what build do i play, because:

 a tempest can only pick 2 out of the 3 following things:

-Good against powerdamage  (Earth traitline)

-Good cleansing (Fire traitline)

-Supportcapability. (Water traitline)

 

YOU CAN NOT HAVE ALL 3!    If you want to be a support, you will always have a glaring weakness.

Earth/water/tempest is good against powerdamage, but has 0 cleanse.

Fire/Water/tempest has excellent cleanse but literally nothing to deal with powerdamage

Fire/Earth/tempest is a excellent bunker, but it cant support anymore.

You have to stop pretending ele can have it all together. Tempest has to indeed ditch the selfsustain to be a support at all. You are either suspectible to powerburst or have zero cleanse. There is no "ULTIMATE BUNKER SUPPORT ELE" there is just no such thing... It will always have a unavoidable weakness.

The Tempest HAS TO use the Earthshield if he is fighting his "weak damagetype".   If you are playing Earthtempest and a condibuild is jumping on you, You will melt in mere seconds if you dont have the Earthshield to bridge some time till reinforcements arrive.

 

 

Cata is already getting the nerfhammer next patch, and tempest is by no means this "god of bunker-support"... id say we have to sip tea, wait and see how the next patch plays out.+

 

Remember trevor... alot of thigns get a hefty buff.... Soulbeast with 2 pets... Druid without stat penalty.... . This is not the time to cry.. we have to wait and play the oct4th patch before making assumptions what will be op and what not. I could also start that Soulbeast having 2 pets will probably be overpowered... but it is simply to early for that.

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

5 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You could just increase cooldowns on Earth Shield skills like kekw, if you haven't noticed cooldowns carry even if you drop and pick it again. On top of that you also forgot to mention that when you pick Earth Shield you lose access to weapon skills and in reality it's "strong skills with occasional F1-F4 mechanics if they exist", it's something like Ranger running with Greatsword and pets doing it's shenanigans. Another thing that Earth Shield can be stolen by others, so it's not "guaranteed" that you'll pick it again at all.
Like come on, it's only strong if stars will align and allow you to pick the second one, otherwise it's just glorified Engineer Kit with long cooldown. Increase cooldowns to make it in-line with other weapon skills and that's it, if it'll need other changes so be it.
Also, please don't compare busted AA from Ranger Shortbow to the kits that has 60s cd.

1. You would need to heavily increase the CDs to make up for the 2nd CES. The idea was to not increase CDs, for the sake of the guy who only picks up 1 CES. It makes more sense to limit spam CES twice as a single Ele.
2. They don't care if they lose access to weapon skills. Best use of CES is to wait out your weapon/utility kit ICDs to begin with. Besides that, even if you use CES early, you can immediately drop it after using valuable skills, spam your weapon kit skills, pick up 2nd CES. What you're saying here for some reason to argue or defend doesn't make sense.
3. "it's something like Ranger running with Greatsword and pets doing it's shenanigans." No, it's not. You can't compare some glass cannon with a single evade and block on its weapon kit to a Bunker/Support with an infinitely looping air tight perfect defense that can't be broken outside of a few niche ways to hit it, that only exist on a few builds in the game.

Ele needs to be able to take damage from things that aren't perma stab melee unblockable.

 

4 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Trevor i am not sure if you truely understand support tempest...

As a person who is relatively new to the game who only mains Ele, I don't think you are understanding the margin of discrepancy between how bloated Ele's defense value with CES is vs. what other classes are capable of.

4 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

YOU CAN NOT HAVE ALL 3!    If you want to be a support, you will always have a glaring weakness.

Earth/water/tempest is good against powerdamage, but has 0 cleanse.

Fire/Water/tempest has excellent cleanse but literally nothing to deal with powerdamage

Fire/Earth/tempest is a excellent bunker, but it cant support anymore.

You have to stop pretending ele can have it all together.

Except that virtually all of the condi damage in this game right now is all projectile based, which Ele has quite seriously 100% anti-projectile uptime. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

8 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I don't understand how this thread isn't getting more feedback.

There are like 20 people left who use the pvp forums. Nerf earth shield only if buff lightning hammer & fire axe & frost bow

[Spellhunter.9675]

5 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

YOU CAN NOT HAVE ALL 3!    If you want to be a support, you will always have a glaring weakness.

Earth/water/tempest is good against powerdamage, but has 0 cleanse.

Fire/Water/tempest has excellent cleanse but literally nothing to deal with powerdamage

Fire/Earth/tempest is a excellent bunker, but it cant support anymore.

While the first sentence about weaknesses is true, rest is not.
Earth/water still has cleanses.
Fire/water still has ways to deal 
with power damage.
Fire/Earth still has support capabilities.

 

 

[Khalisto.5780]

On 9/22/2022 at 12:13 PM, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

I hear talks about earth shield nerfs all the time. I'm not pro or against, but could anyone explain to me WHAT would you nerf and how, and which results you hope to achieve with that?

Prolly removing barrier from 3 and 4 and 5 60secs untraited

[felix.2386]

increase earth shield CD

[phokus.8934]

Finally a Trevor post I agree with.  What strange times 

[Emberheart.8426]

Conjures should just be removed and replaced with a proper core support skill category. We should be able to agree that they are a completely failed and outdated concept at this point. They can only ever be overpowered or almost inconsequential with little to no inbetween. When they are overpowered, even many ele mains don't like it because they are clunky to use. If they get tuned down they become a dead skill category. This btw goes for every game mode. Get rid of them already I say.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Emberheart.8426

[Stallic.2397]

Lol, why remove? Is lightning hammer too strong now as well?? 😅😅