November 29 Balance Update Preview - Elementalist

[the krytan assassin.9235]

1 minute ago, Khenzy.9348 said:

One of the best patches elementalists have ever gotten, bar none (it isn't saying much, but still).

FINALLY, Scepter is massively improved after waiting and waiting for more than TEN years.

 

And yet, YET(!), some of you still find ways to complain. As if the removal of some allied healing from friken' Water Trident(!) would break your scepter Tempest builds. I have no words.

 

I'm glad you're such a minority in these forums.

Not sure if this is a troll post or not. 

Scepter changes sure are nice, but practically irrelevant outside of sPvP and roaming (and in both modes it was barely used at all). Im pretty sure AA air scepter currently has the lowest dps ingame except for staff water. Why not fix that instead? Water Trident was the best heal skill of Tempest by a mile. ~500hps per ally and one of the only 2 reliable ranged heals from sc/w Tempest. 

 

Basically scepter changes are a big nerf to all players except for the small minority of players that actually enjoys to sPvP/roam. Even in PvP the overall playrate of scepter is like 5% tops. Its a very hard build to pull off and very squishy. These changes are gonna make 0 difference for anyone but the few ele pvp Gods that can properly manage the build. 

[crosknight.3041]

personally im disapointed.

While i like some of the changes they completely missed the biggest issue. the biggest thing holding back elementalist at the moment are the lackluster core traits and core utility skills.

for core traits, there are way to many conditional traits, specifically the traits that only activate when you swap to or are in a certain attunement. traits for the most part should always be active and effecting your build. For example, Stone Heart (cannot be crited while in earth attunement) is useless if i'm only going to be in earth for 2-3 skills then swap out. quite frankly, these traits are just bad from a design perspective in general. that being said, im fine if there is a bonus for being in specific attunement as long as you still benefit from the trait when out of it (much like most of the weapon specific traits of the other professions).

For utility skills there is an absurd amount of dead weight there. Arcanes are practically forgotten, cantrips have situational uses mostly in pvp, Conjured skills just add unneeded complexity to an already complex profession and only used in for at most a quarter of their duration if used at all (seriously when was the last time you saw flame axe used?). both glyphs and signets are actually close to being decent with only 1 or 2 skills needing buffing (change passives on water/earth signets and make glyph of elemental power work like ashes of the just). recently was trying heal alac tempest, and the complete lack of supportive utility skills made playing it significantly harder (primary out of water heals were ice bow auto attack, and signet of water active effect). Elite spec utilities have long dominated the utility bar of the ele, and even then they are only marginally more useful and when compared to other professions you see they are still weak. look at tempest eye of the storm for example, one group wide stability. meanwhile support guards and revs fart out so much stability it can trivialize some fractals/boss events (stab makes dragonstorm braham sad), and that's just from ONE or TWO utility skills (FB also has their F3 but SYG/hollow ground are more then strong enough to upkeep stab like 60%-80% of the fight).

[Arheundel.6451]

40 minutes ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Not sure if this is a troll post or not. 

Scepter changes sure are nice, but practically irrelevant outside of sPvP and roaming (and in both modes it was barely used at all). Im pretty sure AA air scepter currently has the lowest dps ingame except for staff water. Why not fix that instead? Water Trident was the best heal skill of Tempest by a mile. ~500hps per ally and one of the only 2 reliable ranged heals from sc/w Tempest. 

 

Basically scepter changes are a big nerf to all players except for the small minority of players that actually enjoys to sPvP/roam. Even in PvP the overall playrate of scepter is like 5% tops. Its a very hard build to pull off and very squishy. These changes are gonna make 0 difference for anyone but the few ele pvp Gods that can properly manage the build. 

There are other modes other than PvE in GW2.......scepter not being used outside AI mob farming is exactly the reason why it's getting buffed...because human players are not at stupid as enemies in pve, they don't stand in a red circle drinking tea and hitting you for 20 dmg . Turning ele into something more than fractal/raid speed run bot class is exactly what vet GW1 players and MMO oriented players have always been asking for.

About time we'd be able to hit something else outside dumb AI mob with that scepter....

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Brasides.9360 said:

Yep, giving up on sword weaver. In the livestream they said they were listening, but it doesn't look like they are listening. I'm a new player and seeing that stream gave me some hope that maybe this is an mmo with responsive development where the devs will listen to the pain points of players and steer development in line with the philosophy they lay out. Sadly does not seem to be the case.

Maybe Ashes of Creation someday will be the game I've been waiting for, but as demonstrated here, it is not GW2.

Yeah, I wanted to believe but the changes to weaver are insulting.  Two minor PvP-only changes and bleeding on a skill that isn't part of any PvE rotation?  That's how you address a spec with <1% representation when multiple threads on the forums and reddit have talked about the need to buff damage on sword?  It's the lowest benchmark of any weapon despite having the shortest range and the fact that it's the weapon the spec is designed for?  Does that seem okay to you, CMC?

This is like a bad joke.  So disappointed in this team.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

2 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Does that seem okay to you, CMC?

Honestly CMC is probably one of the worst things that has happened to ele so far. Balance patches have been horrible since the may balance patch. Its even worse to know that CMC is probably fully aware of the mess he's creating for any ele player. But instead of considering their choice of actions he just decide to lay a giant poopoo on the ele community. 

 

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Yeah, I wanted to believe but the changes to weaver are insulting.  Two minor PvP-only changes and bleeding on a skill that isn't part of any PvE rotation?  That's how you address a spec with <1% representation when multiple threads on the forums and reddit have talked about the need to buff damage on sword?  It's the lowest benchmark of any weapon despite having the shortest range and the fact that it's the weapon the spec is designed for?  Does that seem okay to you, CMC?

This is like a bad joke.  So disappointed in this team.

I feel that Arenanet is doubling down on scepter condi weaver. Sword weaver seems obsolete with the kind of content they are pushing out: you can't deal with moving around a lot and there's just AoE spam everywhere. I don't think sword power weaver is relevant anywhere ingame actually since even in openworld you have better cleave from catalyst or tempest overloads.

If Arenanet wants to truly reimagine power weaver (the easier weaver variant which doesn't use weave self) they would need to rethink how people are going to DPS at more than 130 range and massively increase personal barrier in PVE if using a sword. With the scepter changes I'm inclined to think even power sword weaver is not going to be better than power scepter weaver (or maybe grieving memes) as long as you don't autoattack in air. I was expecting something along the lines of sword in water getting the earth coefficients since earth has condi DPS on top while water has a weak heal.

Sword weaver, water attunement currently:

• Sword in water attunement: 0.5+0.6+1.0 coefficient, with around 2.44 seconds for the entire attack chain and highly susceptible to interrupted autos (~0.85 per second if not interrupted)
  --- could have been 0.7 and 0.8 for first 2 hits increasing autoattack roughly 25% and about in line with guardian mace (which has ~1.0 coefficient per second accounting for the whole chain)
  --- 0.7 , 0.82 if you base off revenant staff with weapon strength adjustment of 1.1x 
• Dagger in water attunement: 0.33 coefficient and possibly double hit , 1 attack every second roughly (~0.66 per second)
• Scepter in water attunement: 0.72 coefficient, roughly 1 attack per second which will drop further due to removal of 170ms of aftercast in Nov 29 patch pushing it to 0.86 coefficient or so
• Staff heals mainly we won't talk about staff...

For power it's more or less going to stay air+fire due to the coefficients on sword skills currently; with swapping into water nuking your damage. This sort of change makes it far less punishing for players that need to resustain in PvE or mistimed a swap for Twin Strike or Natural Frenzy dual attack.

I would not expect sword condi weaver to outperform the buffed scepter nor the staff when there is a stationary target. It doesn't have enough condi output on air or water to allow for that so I would think the use case would be grieving with baelfire rune, flame legion rune, or something of that nature. That would change if there was a minimal might loss on Pyromancer's Puissance since simply swapping out of fire would allow for burn triggers ala PVP fire weaver.

At the same time if staff condi weaver is to be attractive to people that like autoing in between rotations then air attunement auto which does literally nothing other than damage should be sped up else it needs 1.0 coefficient or more. 

What kind of changes did you have in mind?

edit: maybe Fire+Arcane could be a stronger archetype for weaver if crit chance were increased on Superior Elements as you would have additional might sources

Edited November 12, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I feel that Arenanet is doubling down on scepter condi weaver. Sword weaver seems obsolete with the kind of content they are pushing out: you can't deal with moving around a lot and there's just AoE spam everywhere. I don't think sword power weaver is relevant anywhere ingame actually since even in openworld you have better cleave from catalyst or tempest overloads.

If Arenanet wants to truly reimagine power weaver (the easier weaver variant which doesn't use weave self) they would need to rethink how people are going to DPS at more than 130 range and massively increase personal barrier in PVE if using a sword. With the scepter changes I'm inclined to think even power sword weaver is not going to be better than power scepter weaver (or maybe grieving memes) as long as you don't autoattack in air. I was expecting something along the lines of sword in water getting the earth coefficients since earth has condi DPS on top while water has a weak heal.

Sword weaver, water attunement currently:

• Sword in water attunement: 0.5+0.6+1.0 coefficient, with around 2.44 seconds for the entire attack chain and highly susceptible to interrupted autos (~0.85 per second if not interrupted)
  --- could have been 0.7 and 0.8 for first 2 hits increasing autoattack roughly 25% and about in line with guardian mace (which has ~1.0 coefficient per second accounting for the whole chain)
  --- 0.7 , 0.82 if you base off revenant staff with weapon strength adjustment of 1.1x 
• Dagger in water attunement: 0.33 coefficient and possibly double hit , 1 attack every second roughly (~0.66 per second)
• Scepter in water attunement: 0.72 coefficient, roughly 1 attack per second which will drop further due to removal of 170ms of aftercast in Nov 29 patch pushing it to 0.86 coefficient or so
• Staff heals mainly we won't talk about staff...

For power it's more or less going to stay air+fire due to the coefficients on sword skills currently; with swapping into water nuking your damage. This sort of change makes it far less punishing for players that need to resustain in PvE or mistimed a swap for Twin Strike or Natural Frenzy dual attack.

I would not expect sword condi weaver to outperform the buffed scepter nor the staff when there is a stationary target. It doesn't have enough condi output on air or water to allow for that so I would think the use case would be grieving with baelfire rune, flame legion rune, or something of that nature. That would change if there was a minimal might loss on Pyromancer's Puissance since simply swapping out of fire would allow for burn triggers ala PVP fire weaver.

At the same time if staff condi weaver is to be attractive to people that like autoing in between rotations then air attunement auto which does literally nothing other than damage should be sped up else it needs 1.0 coefficient or more. 

What kind of changes did you have in mind?

edit: maybe Fire+Arcane could be a stronger archetype for weaver if crit chance were increased on Superior Elements as you would have additional might sources

I don't really care how they do it, honestly.  Condi sword should be the highest damage spec for all ele builds and power sword should be the LI version with somewhat reduced damage.  I'm glad scepter is getting some love, but I think it's complete kitten that we wait for a PvE patch and they do nothing but a few irrelevant PvP adjustments to sword.  Very annoyed with CMC right now...

[Infusion.7149]

30 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I don't really care how they do it, honestly.  Condi sword should be the highest damage spec for all ele builds and power sword should be the LI version with somewhat reduced damage.  I'm glad scepter is getting some love, but I think it's complete kitten that we wait for a PvE patch and they do nothing but a few irrelevant PvP adjustments to sword.  Very annoyed with CMC right now...

So flat 10% instead of 5% to power/condi on EoR?
Or something more specific to sword such as Master's Fortitude? Maybe overcap crit with Superior Elements?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[AliamRationem.5172]

12 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

So flat 10% instead of 5% to power/condi on EoR?

One way or another the numbers need to be higher.  If the top benchmarks are going to be over 40k, then condi sword should absolutely be there and not 10-15% below the top performers as it is now. 

I would have liked some more interesting changes than just a numbers buff to things like weave self, conjured weapons, and the removal of the might loss on Pyromancer's Puissance, too.  But clearly they don't listen to the hundreds of suggestions that have been made toward that end.  So at this point, just please do something!

[Khenzy.9348]

5 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Not sure if this is a troll post or not. 

Scepter changes sure are nice, but practically irrelevant outside of sPvP and roaming (and in both modes it was barely used at all). Im pretty sure AA air scepter currently has the lowest dps ingame except for staff water. Why not fix that instead? Water Trident was the best heal skill of Tempest by a mile. ~500hps per ally and one of the only 2 reliable ranged heals from sc/w Tempest. 

 

Basically scepter changes are a big nerf to all players except for the small minority of players that actually enjoys to sPvP/roam. Even in PvP the overall playrate of scepter is like 5% tops. Its a very hard build to pull off and very squishy. These changes are gonna make 0 difference for anyone but the few ele pvp Gods that can properly manage the build. 

 

Noone is trolling here. Complaining about just trident allied healing is laughable, just use dagger's Cone of cold if you care that much about number performance.

 

I don't care about scripted repetitive PvE content in the slightest. And numbers can just be tuned, so I give them less importance as well.

 

NOW... usability changes? Reworks? Improvements to a weapon that directly affects my gameplay? Oh YES!

 

-Dragon's Tooth following your foe around and becoming the perfect dodge baiter? Yes, gimme.

-Flamestrike casts faster? Heck yeah. Terrible autoattack that felt slow and clunky now feels somewhat decent? Mmm yes.

-Ice Shards now usable and with a better aftercast? Yes!

-Shatterstone applying Chill and detonating sooner? It's now a crazy good skill. Easy Aoe chill is no slouch.

-Water Trident, two charges and with decent damage now!

-Lightning Strike+Blinding Flash are AoE now?? With Blinding Flash also applying decent weakness uptime?! Welp.

-Rock Barrier actually providing some decent defense in a pinch for once? Hurl is casted faster for  even better burst?

-Dust Devil can be placed wherever and strikes three times now? ...

 

... THESE are the sort of changes this game needs.

 

If you care that much about healing per second, use a dagger or ask a team mate to provide more ally healing, your support tempest will still be perfectly viable regardless.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm just critizing how much the loss of support trident is being overblown, but I'm against the removal of functionality from a weapon such as this one so in this case I'd suggest the following changes:

 

Scepter. Water attunement duality. Allied targeting.

 

Water Trident is now called Ice Trident by default when targeting a foe or not targeting anything.

Ice Trident turns into Water Trident when targeting an ally. Can now be casted on an ally and provides an AoE heal (+ regen).

Ice/water Trident is now a blast finisher.

 

Shatterstone is now called Shattering Orb (or whatever). You now summon a magical water orb at the target area that quickly freezes and shatters. Heals allies on summon and leaves a water field for a second (or two) and damages allies and chills them when it quickly freezes and shatters.

The brief water field would allow some quick combos with the Water Trident now being a blast finisher.

 

Ice Shards now turn into Water Orbs when targeting an ally. Can now be casted on a targeted ally providing some small yet constant healing.

They would all use basically the same animations, maybe slightly modifying the texture of Water Trident to make it more Icy (Ice Trident), similar to the new Shattering Orb and Water Orbs, wouldn't be that resource heavy to implement.

How about something like that?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Khenzy.9348

[Guybrush.4762]

Hi everybody, here is my take on the balance preview.

Scepter change : I think this set of change is looking well for PvE Condi Weaver and Alac-DPS Tempest... the Dragon tooth hanging in the air looks weird and the Water trident visual does not sell the new role of this skill but otherwise I am mostly ok with the changes from a dps perspective. I would have kept a bit of Vulnerability somewhere on water attunement for the sake of justifying Piercing shard though.
Now... that was from a dps perspective. From a healer perspective, adjusting Scepter to be a dps only weapon is bad news! It is a significant nerf to Heal alac tempest. The thing is Scepter did not replace Dagger out of the blue. Daggers lost a lot of attractiveness without Elemental bastion & Powerful auras. Combine this with the serviceable synergy between Phoenix and Latent stamina, the Water trident buff, the two short cooldown blasts in fire (with the good might application at range that came with it) and Scepter became the clear winner. As far as heal alac tempest is concerned, being pushed away from Scepter is a really significant nerf that I would like being addressed by buffing the support potential on Dagger. Now, I don't think it will kill the build (let's not be overly dramatic) but it feels highly unnecessary to gut punch heal alac tempest.

Sword change : Sword received practically no changes in PvE and WvW which is a shame. I don't feel like sword is in good shape in both these games mode. I think Flame uprising locks you into place for too long and as a result feels clunkier than it should. For PvE the damage is simply not competitive with other builds. For WvW roaming I'd say Sword fire weaver is in a below average yet decent-ish spot but it is struggling against the current meta.

Catalyst change : I like the fact that Hammer 3 is no longer dependent on hit-box size. I cannot say I am excited about Aura traits no longer triggering when someone else gives you an aura but I understand where it is coming from. Otherwise I don't have a lot of opinion on Catalyst. I don't play the spec very much if at all because the general mechanic of the spec currently feels unappealing to me.

Elemantal bastion WvW change : Ok, this is a small yet impactful change. For zerg play, both Druids and Tempests received healing buffs so this change is unlikely to shake up the current meta (I think Druid is the better option currently but Tempest retains an edge on heavy melee squad). This buff will be particularly impactful with a Dagger/Focus set-up which rely more on Elemental bastion healing than the Dagger/Dagger variant. I still think Double dagger is the better option for zerg though.
For roaming, this is a big sustain buff to Celestial Tempest which is ok I guess but it is worth mentioning that low burst build may struggle against Tempest in the future.

Evasive arcana bug fix : Yes please! 🥰

Edited November 13, 2022 by Guybrush.4762

[Jski.6180]

I dont mind the scepter updates they seem good and give the wepon an more define of an selfish wepon. I kind of hope they update the earth 1 skill to at least cast faster or become aoe in some way.

The catalyses aura update seems like its missing the mark. I could see if the aura support from the catalyst giving stab and or aura effects but the very ideal of what catalysts was added to the game to get high support from tempest was a very much selling point.

Weaver needs ways to do better dmg vs boon classes. Even if it was unblockable effects from its utility or better yet boon strip.

Tempest should get some use out of the much stronger healing auras in wvw but i think the self heal maybe too much on non support builds for most tempest. It feels like anet is looking to nerf tempest in some way "the healing from auras are too powerful to do x or y so we nerf" i see becoming the logic path anet is setting out to move on.

We need conja wepon reworks for some time even the "usable" conja weapons have so many missing effects or out right impossible to use in the given time to cast and duration for the over all skill needed is an real issue.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

I'd say that Scepter changes are actually pretty good, sure they could change few more skills to be even more useful, but it's still pretty good. About tears of Water Trident changes, I hope you guys understand that Scepter as a weapon is a selfish one, so the sustain for allies from that skill was more like an unintended bonus than intentional design, since most of the time it was for self sustain before anything else.
If it comes to Tempest, Weaver and Craptalyst: well Tempest waits for FB nerfs results, Weaver needs a lot of work to make it "fine" since it's halfkitten e-spec and Craptalyst still needs full rework from design level.
There's also weapons like Daggers, Staff and Focus that wait for reworks, since they're still pretty much garbo tier in long run and after that there's kitten load of skills and traits that need polishing.
Overall I give them 8/10 for this patch, after all, it's not "ELEMENTALIST BALANCE PATCH", but all classes.

[zeyeti.8347]

Ok , now we need dagger rework for a mobility heal ? sounds weird . r.i.p HAT , oh nvm , he was already in the grave , have to dig further i guess.

And sword for weaver , kitten , that sound like a joke , but ... really ... , ele wasnt played in pve , now it's gonna fall in negative numbers playrate .

Edited November 12, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

I'd say that Scepter changes are actually pretty good, sure they could change few more skills to be even more useful, but it's still pretty good. About tears of Water Trident changes, I hope you guys understand that Scepter as a weapon is a selfish one, so the sustain for allies from that skill was more like an unintended bonus than intentional design, since most of the time it was for self sustain before anything else.
If it comes to Tempest, Weaver and Craptalyst: well Tempest waits for FB nerfs results, Weaver needs a lot of work to make it "fine" since it's halfkitten e-spec and Craptalyst still needs full rework from design level.
There's also weapons like Daggers, Staff and Focus that wait for reworks, since they're still pretty much garbo tier in long run and after that there's kitten load of skills and traits that need polishing.
Overall I give them 8/10 for this patch, after all, it's not "ELEMENTALIST BALANCE PATCH", but all classes.

Weaver needs a lot of work so might as well do nothing, huh?  Yeah, I don't know about that.  The only work it urgently needed in my opinion was a nice buff to sword damage numbers.  But apparently all it needed in the eyes of CMC was...bleeding on shearing edge.  Yeah, that's the ticket!

[Markus.6415]

13 hours ago, Khenzy.9348 said:

One of the best patches elementalists have ever gotten, bar none (it isn't saying much, but still).

FINALLY, Scepter is massively improved after waiting and waiting for more than TEN years.

 

And yet, YET(!), some of you still find ways to complain. As if the removal of some allied healing from friken' Water Trident(!) would break your scepter Tempest builds. I have no words.

 

I'm glad you're such a minority in these forums.

Complaining about the change of 1 (!) of the scepter abilities, wich is removing a potent group heal that existed for over 10 years, doesn't mean that I (can only speak for myself here) hate the whole Patch. The scepter changes for dps are amazing! Catalyst buffs and hammer orbs rework into aoe pulse is amazing and what i was hoping for.
But then there is the support heal tempest that is getting shot at and crippled in numerous balance patches now. I personally don't like to use mainhand dagger for it and trading warhorn for the staff doesn't feel good either.

There are things between that the devs could do with water trident that'll make everyone happy. Give it an aoe heal at the target or around the player insted of the pure self heal for example. Lower healing of course since it gets 2 charges now and everyone would be happier.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

52 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Weaver needs a lot of work so might as well do nothing, huh?  Yeah, I don't know about that.  The only work it urgently needed in my opinion was a nice buff to sword damage numbers.  But apparently all it needed in the eyes of CMC was...bleeding on shearing edge.  Yeah, that's the ticket!

Damage buff? Lmao, damage is fine, it needs better skills to stick to the target aka mobility and being less clunky overall as a whole e-spec. Damage kek, damage matters nothing if it doesn't hit target and that is bigger problem than numbers which are sufficient.

[AliamRationem.5172]

16 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Damage buff? Lmao, damage is fine, it needs better skills to stick to the target aka mobility and being less clunky overall as a whole e-spec. Damage kek, damage matters nothing if it doesn't hit target and that is bigger problem than numbers which are sufficient.

You must be talking PvP?  I agree.  You can't apply effective pressure to moving targets with sword and it's a problem.

However, there is nothing competitive about sword damage in PvE.  It's the lowest damage weapon available and it doesn't deserve to be.

[Terminsel.5728]

9 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

One way or another the numbers need to be higher.  If the top benchmarks are going to be over 40k, then condi sword should absolutely be there and not 10-15% below the top performers as it is now. 

I would have liked some more interesting changes than just a numbers buff to things like weave self, conjured weapons, and the removal of the might loss on Pyromancer's Puissance, too.  But clearly they don't listen to the hundreds of suggestions that have been made toward that end.  So at this point, just please do something!

Suffice it to say, not all balance related decisions are tied to balance. We know this and can't discuss it any further here.  But that is why simple commonsense approaches like this don't happen.

It was frankly astounding that they allowed overperforming Cata to hang around for many weeks this past spring and seemed like an olive branch to let it ride and be fun for a bit because they and we all knew they were going to have to hit Quick Cata hard. And they did.

Also - The light teasing manner with which they opened the Ele portion of the stream, yesterday? Not a fan. 

Ele players feel awful about their balance and places in the meta at this point, especially in PvE. The Devs need to read the room in that moment.  Even when they know they might be bringing a few QoL improvements to the class, such as tracking Dragon's Tooth, that's not enough justification for jokes around Ele. Even if they both were to main Ele as their favorite... still not enough justification. Again, read the room.  The Ele community is not in the place where they feel good joking about the years of declining meta space, especially in PvE instanced content, just because a few skills in other game modes are not utterly horrible any longer.  Anything short of getting PvE Eles back into the DPS meta in instanced PvE is going to be met with dissatisfaction.

As for sword, or any underperforming DPS, it should not take a big class rework to temporarily tweak it or improve it. Just bump up the coefficients in a PvE split on some skills by a tiny amount and see if that holds things over until the reworks come. And if it's not overcooked, do it again in the next patch.  They shouldn't have to wait for the perfect class rework or redesign patches to try to balance out DPS builds. But they don't do that for some reason. Curious.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Terminsel.5728
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[Terminsel.5728]

12 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

You must be talking PvP?  I agree.  You can't apply effective pressure to moving targets with sword and it's a problem.

However, there is nothing competitive about sword damage in PvE.  It's the lowest damage weapon available and it doesn't deserve to be.

Actually, I somewhat agree with TD here.  Landing the damage is a big part of the problem, because in a lot of the new content, hanging out in a static, melee range position is being countered by forced-spread out, forced-get-away-from-the-boss, and forced-go-somewhere-to-cc-something mechanics that prevent camping on boss.  The more elaborate the rotation, the harder it is to restart it and actually complete it before some phased mechanic kicks in that interrupts it.  Ele is REALLY feeling the lack of a great ranged DPS option in some of the new PvE stuff right now, especially compared to say...Virtuoso.  And it doesn't have the sheer burst of say... Soulbeast, or even DH in its very nerfed state, to be able to get effective numbers.

When I play sword in Raids/Strikes, my biggest frustration is actually landing hits because of the very tight melee range on Sword.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Terminsel.5728
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[AliamRationem.5172]

1 minute ago, Terminsel.5728 said:

 

Actually, I somewhat agree with TD here.  Landing the damage is a big part of the problem, because in a lot of the new content, hanging out in a static, melee range position is being countered by forced-spread out, forced-get-away-from-the-boss, and forced-go-somewhere-to-cc-something mechanics that prevent camping on boss.  The more elaborate the rotation, the harder it is to restart it and actually complete it before some phased mechanic kicks in that interrupts it.  Ele is REALLY feeling the lack of a great ranged DPS option in some of the new PvE stuff right now, especially compared to say...Virtuoso.  And it doesn't have the sheer burst of say... Soulbeast, or even DH in its very nerfed state, to be able to get effective numbers.

 

When I play sword in Raids/Strikes, my biggest frustration is actually landing hits because of the very tight melee range on Sword.

While I feel your pain and am not opposed to QoL improvements that make the rotation less sensitive to interruptions (depending upon what they are!), the biggest (and easiest!) solution to the disparity between melee and ranged builds right now is to ensure that melee builds are fairly compensated with higher potential damage output. 

That's why it's so frustrating to see ranged builds buffed again to be stronger than their pure melee counterparts and doubly so in the case of weaver because it's designed around a pure DPS melee play style.  There's really no excuse for sword to not be in the top tier in terms of potential damage, but instead we get bleeding added to a skill that isn't even part of any PvE rotation.  That's a big miss from CMC and the team, in my opinion.

[Downstate.4697]

Ele itself doesnt align with their balance philosphy. Cant have purity of purpose for a jack of all trades. Pretty sure anet doesnt know what to do for ele so they ignore it.

What i would do is cap might to 10 stacks in all game modes.

Increase power coefficients in sceptre and remove its condis.

Increase condi damage on sword

Give more condi damage for daggers

Make staff an actual support weapon.

Thats just the start.

[Terminsel.5728]

10 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

While I feel your pain and am not opposed to QoL improvements that make the rotation less sensitive to interruptions (depending upon what they are!), the biggest (and easiest!) solution to the disparity between melee and ranged builds right now is to ensure that melee builds are fairly compensated with higher potential damage output. 

That's why it's so frustrating to see ranged builds buffed again to be stronger than their pure melee counterparts and doubly so in the case of weaver because it's designed around a pure DPS melee play style.  There's really no excuse for sword to not be in the top tier in terms of potential damage, but instead we get bleeding added to a skill that isn't even part of any PvE rotation.  That's a big miss from CMC and the team, in my opinion.

 

I agree.  I just mean to say that fixing the damage may not be enough to actually get sword weaver all the way there, and I think we all get that aspect of it.  The range inherent to sword will always be a problem, most likely.  They definitely need to look at the damage too, because it AT LEAST needs to get into the ranges you're describing while on the golem.  But practically speaking, that's not going to get it back into the meta alone.  It won't hurt, but it's only part of the problem.  Power sword especially needs a more accessible burst window outside of the opener that doesn't rely on picking up Lightning Hammer round 2 or FGS round 2 at exactly the right moment.

[AliamRationem.5172]

8 minutes ago, Terminsel.5728 said:

 

I agree.  I just mean to say that fixing the damage may not be enough to actually get sword weaver all the way there, and I think we all get that aspect of it.  The range inherent to sword will always be a problem, most likely.  They definitely need to look at the damage too, because it AT LEAST needs to get into the ranges you're describing while on the golem.  But practically speaking, that's not going to get it back into the meta alone.  It won't hurt, but it's only part of the problem.  Power sword especially needs a more accessible burst window outside of the opener that doesn't rely on picking up Lightning Hammer round 2 or FGS round 2 at exactly the right moment.

It's a melee build.  It's always going to be at a disadvantage in encounters where you're forced to move off of the target frequently.  That's why melee builds need to have higher potential damage than ranged in order to be competitive.  If balance is the goal, you would expect ranged builds to come out ahead in these forced movement encounters while melee builds come out ahead in more stationary encounters rather than ranged builds having better damage in both cases.

As for conjures, it's beyond annoying that they have taken zero action on these skills at this point.  We've been suggesting changes to these skills for years.  It's past time they did something about it.  That it's particularly relevant to a build that is so undertuned that you literally never see it played is, well, it's just what we've come to expect from ANet: extreme neglect of this class.

[thetwothousand.5049]

I've been thinking about what sword buffs I would like to see  over the night, and I know what I would like to see to help weaver move into a position that would be more acceptable in the game right now.

 

First I've seen a lot of argument over whether sword should be power or condi and which should be getting more buffs. The answer imo is both! Sword is and always has been capable of both, to the point where legitimate pure condi, pure power, and a hybrid build have all been viable meta options in the past. Leaning into that with sword makes all players happy and brings the one of the only true viable meta hybrid builds back into focus. Personally the hybrid build is also what I think sword weaver should look like, its dynamic, fast pace, can work in any number of fight, and personally just feel amazing to play.

 

So how do we specifically help sword?

First buffs to Quantum strike, specifically the Lightning Strikes. Looking at the wiki this skill has a modifier of .425 per hit, bump that up to a .6 or .7

Next target burning application. Right now the auto gives one stack of burning on the third hit. Lets add one stack on hits 1 and 2, and the 3rd hit now does two stacks of burning. Cauterizing strike also only does 1 stack of burning, lets bump that up to 2, maybe even three stacks.

Lastly Pyro Vortex should be an absolute truck of a skill! Frankly all the Fire/Air dual skills are underwhelming for what they are, the combination of the two most power damaging attuments ele has access to. This skill should be the most important skill to land for every sword rotation, and right now its probably the 5th best skill in your rotation no matter what type of build youre playing. Bump the measly 1.0 modifier of the initial hit to 3.0, the pulsing damage from .33 to .5, and increasing the burning from 2s to 3s.

 

I'm by no means a mathematician - my thoughts are to get the sword weaver up to ~42k dps across all three builds it can play. The above suggestions will certainly go along way, and if their not enough I would cover the gap by increasing the coefficients to fire and air autos. The above suggestions are made in mind with increasing the overall damage, but also in a way that makes it still stick to mobile targets, and keep rolling on bosses that force you to move away.

I really think that these changes combined with the buff to Elemental Refreshment I suggested in the initial post would take weaver from a sub 1% play rate to a healthy play population with the tools to succeed in any fight that any melee build does well at.