Whoa balance update march 19

[Ragnarox.9601]

Whoa did they just killed tempest in wvw and pvp, I dont know why?? Alacrity was just fine.

 

I just...cant believe that...

Edited February 16 by Ragnarox.9601

[Vissarion.6509]

🤷‍♂️

[crosknight.3041]

great, got the monkey paw effect with arcane skill update. i wanted it but my god what we're getting is awful. i wanted some of them to be made into support skills, since lack of viable support options for utility skills is a pretty big issue i have with the class in general.

[Jski.6180]

Very few ran alactrity tempest most of the time and i guess some ppl ran fire wizard build in wvw they are now being removed from wvw but melee ele got an massive buff over all as well as support tempest (it may end up being the best healing support in the game after this coming update.) Arcain buffs are going to be very fun to build with.

[LuNiki.4208]

Fixed an issue with buffing statterstone. Elementalist players gain now a damage increase on water trident.

tytyty

[Emberheart.8426]

1 hour ago, crosknight.3041 said:

great, got the monkey paw effect with arcane skill update. i wanted it but my god what we're getting is awful. i wanted some of them to be made into support skills, since lack of viable support options for utility skills is a pretty big issue i have with the class in general.

Arcane makes no sense for support skills. If you want that ask for a conjure rework, the skill type that was originally designed to be support oriented and was a complete failure in that regard.

With the arcane changes we at least finally get a CC utility that is not a complete pain to use, with a decent cooldown, charges, and even some mobility.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'm lamenting the loss of the Fire Tempest.  It was the closest thing we had to a LI build for ele.  All of those arcane changes remove its strongest skills, making it far less viable than it was previously.  

[Downstate.4697]

Seems a mostly PvP centered update. Will be interesting to see if it matters. FA and LR both have potential to come back into play.

[Ram.5981]

Overall the changes look pretty nice for ele. I'm confused about the change on Lucid Singularity to provide might instead of alac. Tempest can already easily provide 25 stacks of might, so this seems like might overload. why not make it provide stab or something more usefull to help reduce the need for FB's in every group?

[DaKillaOfHell.5907]

I don't get what is so strong about alacrity tempest for it being doom-nerfed in PvP.

 

It is in fact a mechanic many other professions have as well.

And other professions or elite specs such as mechanist or renegade are able to apply alacrity much easier to groups too and with far less effort.Not to mention their heal output being far higher. 

 

I get the problem, alacrity is kinda problematic in PvP, but isn't this true for any class applying Alacrity?

So instead, wouldn't it be important to talk about the status of alacrity in PvP instead of tempest applying alacrity (which is in itself already ridiculously weak compared to other classes)

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, DaKillaOfHell.5907 said:

I get the problem, alacrity is kinda problematic in PvP, but isn't this true for any class applying Alacrity?

Exactly. For me, It feel like they are just cleaning the alacrity spot for Renegade.

[bluberblasen.9684]

i love the buffs for elementalist in WvW🙂

lightning flash finally buffed to 1200 range and cooldown 25 seconds and its a stun breaker again.

Mist Form finally buffed to 35 second cooldown.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword finally buffed to 60 second cooldown.

Lightning Whip finally it has its 360 range back 🙂 

 

 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, bluberblasen.9684 said:

i love the buffs for elementalist in WvW🙂

lightning flash finally buffed to 1200 range and cooldown 25 seconds and its a stun breaker again.

Mist Form finally buffed to 35 second cooldown.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword finally buffed to 60 second cooldown.

Lightning Whip finally it has its 360 range back 🙂 

 

 

 

Arcane wave with 2 charge leap + daze + immob sounds amazing also.

[Jski.6180]

24 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Arcane wave with 2 charge leap + daze + immob sounds amazing also.

I am hoping there no cast time to combo it with burning speed. Like the old light flash burning speed combo but a LOT better.

[CafPow.1542]

9 hours ago, Ram.5981 said:

why not make it provide stab or something more usefull to help reduce the need for FB's in every group?

Because it would reduce the need for FB‘s in every grp and we can not let this happen now can we?

 

8 hours ago, DaKillaOfHell.5907 said:

 

I don't get what is so strong about alacrity tempest for it being doom-nerfed in PvP.

 

And imo it isn’t. Alac is not as strong in wvw as it is in pve.

 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/17/2024 at 5:48 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I'm lamenting the loss of the Fire Tempest.  It was the closest thing we had to a LI build for ele.  All of those arcane changes remove its strongest skills, making it far less viable than it was previously.  

Oddly enough, there are weaver builds that are considered LI. As long as you don't take Weave Self (take GoE instead) or hammer, you can pretty much just bounce between fire and either air or earth.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Oddly enough, there are weaver builds that are considered LI. As long as you don't take Weave Self (take GoE instead) or hammer, you can pretty much just bounce between fire and either air or earth.

I wouldn't consider either condi weaver or BTTH power weaver to be LI.  Fire Tempest only got the title nominally as the easiest build to play, but it still required pressing a lot of buttons relentlessly.  Everything weaver does is far more active and also far more restrictive.    Now the closest thing that we have to an LI build is Fresh Air Tempest, but whenever I tested it, it was barely better than just auto attacking with the sword.  

[draxynnic.3719]

5 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I wouldn't consider either condi weaver or BTTH power weaver to be LI.  Fire Tempest only got the title nominally as the easiest build to play, but it still required pressing a lot of buttons relentlessly.  Everything weaver does is far more active and also far more restrictive.    Now the closest thing that we have to an LI build is Fresh Air Tempest, but whenever I tested it, it was barely better than just auto attacking with the sword.  

Really depends on where you draw the line on being LI. Two-attunement weaver does strike me as being on a similar level of intensity to what you'd expect on other professions outside of true outliers like riflemech.

I had been wondering lately how fresh air sword tempest might fare, so it's... not really good, but useful to know it isn't. They really went overboard with nerfing air overload, didn't they?

Edited February 19 by draxynnic.3719

[Noodle Ant.1605]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I had been wondering lately how fresh air sword tempest might fare, so it's... not really good, but useful to know it isn't. They really went overboard with nerfing air overload, didn't they?

i think this specific interation stems more from the fact that sword has comparatively much higher autoattack dps vs other ele weapons. overload air for a very long time is basically akin to a very strong autoattack, which was very relevant for ele who generally didnt have strong auto weapons. if anything, overloads just havent scaled well with powercreep (same with all of eles core weapons)

i am under the impression that LI players have a preference for builds that dont change skillbars, where they can see everything at their disposal and each button is directly tied to only 1 skill. two attunement ele is simple in theory, but probably creates mental overload for some (many) players. this is particulary true for power weaver whose bar normally flips over every 4s. apm isnt really important as long as the player doesnt need to constantly keep track of a wide variety of buttons (one-skillbar core engi for example is very not LI)

• fire/air camp sword weaver (where #3 is pyro vortex) is much more LI than power-weaver-without-weave-self and should still be fairly serviceable
• firecamp power staff will get access to cc without leaving fire with the arcane wave change
• firecamp condi hammer was probably the most LI but unfortunately got firecamp-specific nerfs. it went from being the best firecamp weapon to the worst
• firecamp condi scepter is mostly unchanged (some builds may need to shuffle traits/uti skills). will probably soon be replaced with firecamp pistol

Edited February 19 by Noodle Ant.1605

[Noodle Ant.1605]

i wanna talk about arcane skills:

• arcane brilliance: when using this to heal, using it as a blast finisher is one of the last things im thinking about. when im using this as a blast finisher, im usually not desperately in need of heals. not all weapon setups have good combo field access either (including those that would rather put fields on enemies and not themselves). why not scrap the arbitrary heal bonus and just lower the cd?
• arcane power: i dont know what this skill is trying to achieve. perhaps replace the ferocity bonus with some boons instead, maybe some self quickness?
• arcane wave: bit peeved that its yet another leap-animation-lock designed to close distance but not really a big deal. pvp version hits harder than pve (despite being cc)?
• arcane lightning (elemental surge): these added effects seem really random. most of them could probably even be baseline:
  • blind makes more sense on arcane brilliance, if it really needs to have some bonus effect
  • id consider completely ditching the damage on arcane wave (at least in competitive gamemodes) and replacing it with the immob
  • stability when arcane shield ends is strong but i dont know if the skill really needs it at this point
  • extra arcane power stacks is silly. the max amount of stacks the skill is able to give should be baseline by default
  • arcane blast can do some other debilitating condi (vuln/cripple/weakness/slow)

theres a non-ele skill called arcane thievery which has quickness, so i was also thinking why not have arcane skills grant self quickness when arcane lightning is traited to keep it thematic? the flat ferocity bonus is also rather outdated and should probably be changed into a proper critical damage increase

[Serephen.3420]

On 2/18/2024 at 1:49 AM, bluberblasen.9684 said:

i love the buffs for elementalist in WvW🙂

lightning flash finally buffed to 1200 range and cooldown 25 seconds and its a stun breaker again.

Mist Form finally buffed to 35 second cooldown.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword finally buffed to 60 second cooldown.

Lightning Whip finally it has its 360 range back 🙂 

 

 

 

I like those imaginary patch notes you are reading and would like to have some too.

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

i think this specific interation stems more from the fact that sword has comparatively much higher autoattack dps vs other ele weapons. overload air for a very long time is basically akin to a very strong autoattack, which was very relevant for ele who generally didnt have strong auto weapons. if anything, overloads just havent scaled well with powercreep (same with all of eles core weapons)

i am under the impression that LI players have a preference for builds that dont change skillbars, where they can see everything at their disposal and each button is directly tied to only 1 skill. two attunement ele is simple in theory, but probably creates mental overload for some (many) players. this is particulary true for power weaver whose bar normally flips over every 4s. apm isnt really important as long as the player doesnt need to constantly keep track of a wide variety of buttons (one-skillbar core engi for example is very not LI)

• fire/air camp sword weaver (where #3 is pyro vortex) is much more LI than power-weaver-without-weave-self and should still be fairly serviceable
• firecamp power staff will get access to cc without leaving fire with the arcane wave change
• firecamp condi hammer was probably the most LI but unfortunately got firecamp-specific nerfs. it went from being the best firecamp weapon to the worst
• firecamp condi scepter is mostly unchanged (some builds may need to shuffle traits/uti skills). will probably soon be replaced with firecamp pistol

The nerfs weren't recent by any stretch of the imagination, but air overload damage has been reduced by... let me switch to calculater mode... a little more than 30% since it was introduced (first the reduced by 10%, then they nerfed again by 7%, and then they reduced the number of hits from 17 to 14). Combined with power creep to the rest of the game, that's how it dropped to 'strong autoattack' territory. It used to be pretty strong in its own right.

Regarding people not regarding something as LI if it has any bar-switching at all... well, that's a definition, I guess? Build sites do tend to list two-attunement weaver as LI, though, and I'm inclined to agree - it is a relatively simple build to run, and not just by piano profession standards. Other professions do mostly have their own complexities, after all.

[Jski.6180]

Its a very different way of looking at arcane though i still think arcane fits on the air line better then the arcane line and glyph fits better on the arcane line.

I still want arcane to be an counter sustain (boon strip and maybe more dmg vs target that just healed.)

Might on overload in wvw seems kind of an wait it should be vigor it would let the ele play into that evasion support that tempest kind of has but has never really worked out.

Edited February 19 by Jski.6180

[RazieL.5684]

4 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

theres a non-ele skill called arcane thievery which has quickness, so i was also thinking why not have arcane skills grant self quickness when arcane lightning is traited to keep it thematic?

because that would actually make ele good and we don't want that here...

[Sweetbread.3678]

9 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its a very different way of looking at arcane though i still think arcane fits on the air line better then the arcane line and glyph fits better on the arcane line.

I still want arcane to be an counter sustain (boon strip and maybe more dmg vs target that just healed.)

Agreed. Besides the traitline names, it makes a lot more thematic sense considering how crit/ferocity focused Arcane utilities are and how well Glyphs fit into the Arcane line's "augment all elements" thing.

Also agreed. At the very least I've always thought it was strange that Air's never had some sort of skill to blow boons off the target; like, that kitten is right there, but naturally Warriors got the GW2 version of Winds of Disenchantment for some reason.