Stone heart needs to go

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

Seriously, it's time already.

 

Having one trait that completely invalidates power builds is bad design. Rework it please.

[Eugchriss.2046]

I was thinking about this too but didn't know where to start. Also all the core 3rd minor traits  should be become grand master traits. They are too busted to be considered "minor".

[Dadnir.5038]

15 hours ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

Also all the core 3rd minor traits  should be become grand master traits. They are too busted to be considered "minor".

They are minor because otherwise they would hurt build diversity.

 

As for Stone heart, the best bet would probably be something like ranger's protective ward trait. Protection upon entering earth attunment would be redundant so it would probably be more like:

Quote

Stone heart: Earthen blast now also apply 2 bleed stacks (6s) and weakness (3s). Weakness you apply last 20% longer.

 

[Eugchriss.2046]

7 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

They are minor because otherwise they would hurt build diversity.

That's exactly the point. If they are THAT important, they shouldn 't be minor.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Fair, but you should expect eles to be able to hurt you in earth. Right now they kinda cant do that

It's pretty annoying to have one player decide when either of you can do any damage, sure.

Put some power damage on their earth skills (roll that into geomancer's training maybe, since taking earth as a traitline is a huge damage loss), then treat Stone Heart like a little obsidian flesh that gives them a short-duration immune for swapping into (and leaving, possibly) earth attunement. 

I'm not 100 percent sold on the idea though. I feel like pressuring an ele out of stone heart by just autoing them since they cant burst you in earth is the strat here. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Downstate.4697]

Have it reduce damage by 25% while in earth.

[Eugchriss.2046]

28 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I feel like pressuring an ele out of stone heart by just autoing them since they cant burst you in earth is the strat here. 

This only works for 1v1 scenario. The more the fight scales the less this is effective.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

10 minutes ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

This only works for 1v1 scenario. The more the fight scales the less this is effective.

 

I mean, this is true but that also multiplies the incoming damage on the ele, no? 

[Grimjack.8130]

54 minutes ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

That's exactly the point. If they are THAT important, they shouldn 't be minor.

oh bud you do not want to go down this path because whatever ur favorite spec is is guilty of this. theyre minor because making them active choices to take or not would remove tons of diversity and make the game so much worse

[Stallic.2397]

I don't see how the 10% damage reduction from Geomancer training is overpowered. And the Weapon skill reduction was a trait before back in the day. Anet purposely put that trait into a minor because of how unbalanced Ele was. The profession as a whole was a liability without those reductions. 

 

As for stone heart, it should be changed into a barrier trigger instead. Earth line is all about Stab production, condition damage/removal, incoming damage reduction and barrier. Stone heart is an old trait that takes damage reduction to the extreme and it works best with Tempest given the professions mechanic to attunement camp. But changing stone heart to a time based system won't remove the problem. Even if it lasts for a mere 5-6 sec, it'll still kitten off players and be called for nerfs. 

 

Revamped Stone Heart: Recieved critical hits grants barrier (5 sec ICD). Damage is reduced by 15% while the ele player has barrier. 

 

The revision will allow Ele to have damage reduction across all elements. It'll still allow damage absorption with the added barrier output. But it won't shut down power builds like it does now. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Stallic.2397

[Kodama.6453]

50 minutes ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

oh bud you do not want to go down this path because whatever ur favorite spec is is guilty of this. theyre minor because making them active choices to take or not would remove tons of diversity and make the game so much worse

Tbh, considering that all other classes are currently losing the cooldown reduction traits anyway, elementalist should have theirs removed as well and replaced with something else.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[SleepyBat.9034]

2 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Tbh, considering that all other classes are currently losing the damage reduction traits anyway, elementalist should have theirs removed as well and replaced with something else.

Wait they are? Great, when's the Death Magic Nerf?

[Bazsi.2734]

Stone Hearth is an ancient relic from a time where ele had to choose between power damage reduction(earth), or condiremovals (water). I agree that it's kinda weird 10 years later in an entirely different game. Makes brainlessly camping earth too viable.

Ele should get some reworks that reward camping fire(where it's the most vulnerable), and promote swapping out of earth (where it's the most durable). Maybe follow the style of the very well recieved high IQ shadow arts rework: entering and leaving earth attunament could grant you some bonuses. "Double it" if you finish an overload earth as tempest. Simply camping earth should not be the most optimal choice.

Eh who am I kidding, ele needs this damage reduction, how else are they supposed to alt-tab midfight to change the music? Do you guys want to force ele mains to actually watch the screen? This is a casual MMO, grow up.

[Kodama.6453]

14 minutes ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

Wait they are? Great, when's the Death Magic Nerf?

Was a typo, I meant cooldown reduction, not damage reduction.

Was talking about the -mancy traits in elementalist, which reduces the cooldowns of a specific element (grandmaster traits in their respective elements).

[SleepyBat.9034]

Just now, Kodama.6453 said:

Was a typo, I meant cooldown reduction, not damage reduction.

Was talking about the -mancy traits in elementalist, which reduces the cooldowns of a specific element (grandmaster traits in their respective elements)

How dare you get my hopes up like that. 😠

[Kodama.6453]

Just now, SleepyBat.9034 said:

How dare you get my hopes up like that. 😠

Hey, I corrected the typo before you answered to it. 🤐

[Grimjack.8130]

18 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Tbh, considering that all other classes are currently losing the cooldown reduction traits anyway, elementalist should have theirs removed as well and replaced with something else.

ele would quite literally be impossible to balance with them gone. do you make burning speed 12s base or 15s base without the 20% cd reduc? well itd be completely op on any Air Dagger build if 12, but on 15 its pretty bad. now on fire builds that currently have it on 12 nothing would change but if it was 15 it would be completely unplayable once again. its like this for every skill every weapon.

consider how autoattacks are intentionally balanced down on elementalist, as well as many other skills (freezing gust etc) and now on these builds that already currently have problems because of these design decisions now you make them 20% worse.

then lets once again consider how elementalists recharge increases or decreases are much more potent than other classes. lets take a skill that has a 15 second recharge, well on most classes youll cast it when you swap to the weapon, then wait 10 seconds to swap off said weapon, wait another 10 seconds to swap back and its off CD, you cast it twice, and a recharge increase to 20 seconds wouldnt change that, youd still cast it twice in that situation. the same is not for elementalist. If I cast a 15 second recharging skill in Water, swap to Air, Earth, Fire, and back to Water, it has been ~10 seconds and its not off cooldown. If i then swap out of water to air, I cannot go back to Water for another 10 seconds, essentially increasing its recharge by another 10 seconds. This is applicable every class to some extent(except engineer) and the reverse is true where it can be a good thing(i never said it cant be a good thing). However on Elementalist its far far more relevant because you "weapon swap" far more than any other class. Its just how the class works. Combine this with how bad autos and most skills are on Elementalist and it becomes very difficult very quick to wait for that Water skill to recharge even for 3-5 seconds instead of attunement swapping.

the amount of overlap and ripple effects that would have is massive. uncomparable to removing it from a set of utility skills that you can easily adjust down and where potentially half of the utilities dont even need to be adjusted afterwards, see WS, you dont need to fix Entangle and Sharpening Stone, or Muddy Terrain, but adjusting the other 3 skills down is a no brainer and causes no issues.

Then consider applying it to PvE and WvW as well. There is no feasible gain from removing them and yes it would essentially be "impossible " to balance. Theres a reason why they are MINOR traits but not baseline either. This is it.

[Eugchriss.2046]

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

I mean, this is true but that also multiplies the incoming damage on the ele, no? 

It might factually increase the incoming damage but it relatively decrease those incoming damage, if that make sense. You won't be able to do deal dmg to the ele if his teamates are peeling him off. It take way less time for ele's allies to kill you than for your whole team to kill the ele. The ele basically "aggro" your team like a tank would aggro mobs in pve.

[Eugchriss.2046]

4 hours ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

oh bud you do not want to go down this path because whatever ur favorite spec is is guilty of this. theyre minor because making them active choices to take or not would remove tons of diversity and make the game so much worse

It's actually the opposite. It would increase game diversity, but like the chaos theory guy said multiple time on this forum (I guess, I ve never read his answers entirely), diversity is not always good.

• Fire traitline: Every build that use this trait line always big Pyromancer puissance over the 2 others. If you swap Blinding Ashes (major) with Pyromancer's training (minor), Pyromancer Puissance wont have the monopole anymore. You would now have 2 builds intead of 1.
• Air traitline: if you swap Aeromancer's training with bolt to the heart, it might not make a huge difference since LR and FA are way to good, but some build might take Aeromancer's training. You are more likely to have 3 builds (instead of 2) with this swap than without it.
• Water traitline:  If you swap aquamancer's training with cleansing water, you would have the same thing that air traitline. You are more likely to see 3 builds than the 2 we have now.
• Earth traitline: If you swap geomancer's training with Diamond skin (and also increase the icd tho), same thing that air and water traitline.
• arcane traitline: if you swap elemental enchantment with Bountiful power, you would have the same thing that air water and earth traitline

No, really if diversity is your main argument, these swaps are actually necessary. I think what you really meant was " [it] would remove tons of effectiveness", in which case your statement would have been true.

[Saiyan.1704]

Pretty sure there's at least 1 "Stone Heart Needs a Nerf" thread every year and it always leads to nothing...
The strait doesn't need a nerf as much as Ele just needs to be more susceptible to condis. There isn't many condi specs in the game to pressure Ele's with Stone Heart.

Also i feel Sigil of Cleansing needs to be removed from sPvP and for selfish reasons. I'm tired of condi guard being completely countered by a single condi cleanse 😛 but that's just my wishful thinking lol...

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

5 hours ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

ele would quite literally be impossible to balance with them gone. do you make burning speed 12s base or 15s base without the 20% cd reduc? well itd be completely op on any Air Dagger build if 12, but on 15 its pretty bad. now on fire builds that currently have it on 12 nothing would change but if it was 15 it would be completely unplayable once again. its like this for every skill every weapon.

consider how autoattacks are intentionally balanced down on elementalist, as well as many other skills (freezing gust etc) and now on these builds that already currently have problems because of these design decisions now you make them 20% worse.

then lets once again consider how elementalists recharge increases or decreases are much more potent than other classes. lets take a skill that has a 15 second recharge, well on most classes youll cast it when you swap to the weapon, then wait 10 seconds to swap off said weapon, wait another 10 seconds to swap back and its off CD, you cast it twice, and a recharge increase to 20 seconds wouldnt change that, youd still cast it twice in that situation. the same is not for elementalist. If I cast a 15 second recharging skill in Water, swap to Air, Earth, Fire, and back to Water, it has been ~10 seconds and its not off cooldown. If i then swap out of water to air, I cannot go back to Water for another 10 seconds, essentially increasing its recharge by another 10 seconds. This is applicable every class to some extent(except engineer) and the reverse is true where it can be a good thing(i never said it cant be a good thing). However on Elementalist its far far more relevant because you "weapon swap" far more than any other class. Its just how the class works. Combine this with how bad autos and most skills are on Elementalist and it becomes very difficult very quick to wait for that Water skill to recharge even for 3-5 seconds instead of attunement swapping.

the amount of overlap and ripple effects that would have is massive. uncomparable to removing it from a set of utility skills that you can easily adjust down and where potentially half of the utilities dont even need to be adjusted afterwards, see WS, you dont need to fix Entangle and Sharpening Stone, or Muddy Terrain, but adjusting the other 3 skills down is a no brainer and causes no issues.

Then consider applying it to PvE and WvW as well. There is no feasible gain from removing them and yes it would essentially be "impossible " to balance. Theres a reason why they are MINOR traits but not baseline either. This is it.

Genuinely curious: do you think "splitting the difference" (eg. Remove CD reduction but reducing a skills CD from 15s to 13.5s instead of 12s) would be workable? I realize the numbers aren't "pretty" but would be better than either being "OP" or "unplayable." Thoughts?

[Grimjack.8130]

34 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Genuinely curious: do you think "splitting the difference" (eg. Remove CD reduction but reducing a skills CD from 15s to 13.5s instead of 12s) would be workable? I realize the numbers aren't "pretty" but would be better than either being "OP" or "unplayable." Thoughts?

I don't really think that would be a solution, theres too many things to be able to consider all of the ramifications. It gets really hard because splitting the difference while it can potentially attempt to make up for the autoattack problem, their recharges are either going to primarily be too long or too short still with all the "weapon swapping" pseudo increasing their recharges. It's really just too much effort for the reward even if you could find a solution.

20% traits will largely go eventually I believe, but ultimately if something in the game isn't causing issues, it can stay IMO - and thats whats going on here.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

20 minutes ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

I don't really think that would be a solution, theres too many things to be able to consider all of the ramifications. It gets really hard because splitting the difference while it can potentially attempt to make up for the autoattack problem, their recharges are either going to primarily be too long or too short still with all the "weapon swapping" pseudo increasing their recharges. It's really just too much effort for the reward even if you could find a solution.

20% traits will largely go eventually I believe, but ultimately if something in the game isn't causing issues, it can stay IMO - and thats whats going on here.

Interesting. Thanks for your input.

 

Another take: maybe leave the base CDs alone but reduce attunement swap CD (idk, like 8s or something)? Would rely less on individual skill CDs but rather on utilizing more skills across various attunements...

 

[ollbirtan.2915]

I've officially seen it all now. Why not delete [insert spec I can't learn to counter here] completely? 

[Koensol.5860]

Singlehandedly the most dumb trait in the entire game. It's insane how something so broken is allowed to exist in a game mode where a lot of things were shaved out long ago (think runes, sigils, amulets, etc). Ele doesn't need this to survive. It already has things like blocks, invuln, projectile hate, weakness,  blinds , auras, prot, stab. Yea... you really don't need stoneheart on top. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Koensol.5860