And just like that, Arcane Wave becomes worthless

[cheese.4739]

I had managed to get over my initial negativity on seeing the balance preview last month... but Arcane Wave now has a cast time? That completely removes all of its previous utility, turning it into a potential assault skill for close-range weapons and becoming useless for anyone who had any fun with it before. I'd really hoped that 'leaps' was just in reference to a teleport.

I know that melodramatically posting here to whinge about it won't do anything, but I'm really pissed off about this. It was a key part of my survivability as an instant blast finisher for Staff Catalyst, but now it's a janky forced move, with cast time, which doesn't even evade.

And now that the change has been made to completely break it, I know it's not going to get reverted any time soon.
Rest in peace, Arcane Wave. I hope someone else can find a use for you in their PvP build, because you're now dead to me.

Edited March 19 by cheese.4739

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Its a new way for power dps eles to leap into combat and instantly die

[SJWhat.9237]

The new version doesn't even work in water.

[Bleikopf.2491]

I'm looking forward to experimenting with Arcane Leap, but Arcane Wave was very special and I don't really see why they would keep Arcane Blast over it. Arcane Blast is so.. uninspiring. 

[Zoia.3678]

I would prefer it if they removed the leap and kept the 900 range.

The added daze is nice and I understand the reduced attack radius because of it.

[Sweetbread.3678]

Yeah the only situation I can see using it is maybe like Hammer Cata in pvp? I feel like the only Arcane skill that really came out ahead there was Arcane Shield and that was already probably the strongest one.

[cheese.4739]

Arcane Shield and Arcane Brilliance are nice. Arcane Power has always been, and will always be, a bit useless unless it gets a proper rework.

I still wanted Arcane Wave to get given a couple of seconds of Revealed and otherwise stay the same. It would've been so nice to have at least a wee bit of counterplay against stealth bursters.

[Stallic.2397]

Should be a leap finisher now instead of a blast finisher

The latter puts too much responsibility on landing the skill. Also, ele has tons of blasts but not many leaps

Leap finishers grant access to auras as well which is very desirable for eles 

[Jski.6180]

Its ok to have an cast time for an leap as the leap it self is the cast time but not coming with an "cant be root/chilled/cripal" during the leap is an real issues. OR having an evasion during the leap (what the GM could be though it would also need to be an root.)

2 stab is not enofe for arcane shield it needs to be 3-5 to compete with aura stab on cata (or an real stab chose for tempest and waever as well as core). Its better then 1 for sure but 2 feels too low for an GM trate on one maybe 2 skills on an some what long cd.

Arcane power seems ok but only being 4 stacks base and getting 2 more for an GM trait dose not feel worth it. It should be a 5 stacks or just an pure duration as well longer duration when you take the GM. Stacks hits are not good for the ele class due to aoe hitting more then one target to the point of no control.

Arcane brilliance seems good but its GM of protection feels like and is just an worst copy of Gale Song from tempest that is an adept level trait and is aoe. It needs to be an clear OR more def boons duration base off of ppl you hit and blasting an field (same for number of clears.)

Arcane blast was never that great but it was an pure dmg skill. I think the blind was purely base ppl used it for pvp as an build it seems kind of pointless out side of that.

Arcane needs to strip boons its odd that it dose not. It also needs to be unblockalbe not 100% crit. The magic is not finding an person weak spot its blasting them and overwhelming there def.

(Leap is an good chose for the ele if it could make light and dark fields but the other leap effects not courting the blast combos auras is lacking in aura generation over all. If all leaps made an aura base off of the field pisone and shadow auras as well i see the point of making them leaps but because its tide to ele blast are far better for the ele class then an leap.)

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I don't know, it seems nice but the 600 range feels kinda poor.
It is mainly close-gap with daze and two charges, which is okai. But base power is still relatively low,  and 600 range ... come on, it's lame ... It could be a little more worth it : stun, or 900 range, or more power, just one of these.

 

 

Edited March 30 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Bleikopf.2491]

First thing I noticed is that the cast-time is a bit too long imo. I'd have preferred 1/2 s over 3/4s .

The 600 range is maybe a bit short, but a 900 range brings it to the same distance as Lightning Flash.. which is an issue on Lightning Flash.

[Stallic.2397]

13 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its ok to have an cast time for an leap as the leap it self is the cast time but not coming with an "cant be root/chilled/cripal" during the leap is an real issues. OR having an evasion during the leap (what the GM could be though it would also need to be an root.)

2 stab is not enofe for arcane shield it needs to be 3-5 to compete with aura stab on cata (or an real stab chose for tempest and waever as well as core). Its better then 1 for sure but 2 feels too low for an GM trate on one maybe 2 skills on an some what long cd.

Arcane power seems ok but only being 4 stacks base and getting 2 more for an GM trait dose not feel worth it. It should be a 5 stacks or just an pure duration as well longer duration when you take the GM. Stacks hits are not good for the ele class due to aoe hitting more then one target to the point of no control.

Arcane brilliance seems good but its GM of protection feels like and is just an worst copy of Gale Song from tempest that is an adept level trait and is aoe. It needs to be an clear OR more def boons duration base off of ppl you hit and blasting an field (same for number of clears.)

Arcane blast was never that great but it was an pure dmg skill. I think the blind was purely base ppl used it for pvp as an build it seems kind of pointless out side of that.

Arcane needs to strip boons its odd that it dose not. It also needs to be unblockalbe not 100% crit. The magic is not finding an person weak spot its blasting them and overwhelming there def.

(Leap is an good chose for the ele if it could make light and dark fields but the other leap effects not courting the blast combos auras is lacking in aura generation over all. If all leaps made an aura base off of the field pisone and shadow auras as well i see the point of making them leaps but because its tide to ele blast are far better for the ele class then an leap.)

An evade on the leap would justify the blast then. Cause at least you guarantee a landing. Since Ele is all about combos you really want to have 100% chance of comboing for a utility skill

Plus, since this skill now forces Ele into melee range, like so many changed skills nowadays, the evade is better safety management for such a fragile class. 

It's a good idea. 

 

Side note, I've played Ele for a decade, and it's my main. And I've never used arcane power. Such a waste. I agree Arcane skills should have boon rip

Edited March 20 by Stallic.2397

[Markus.6415]

That leap where my Ele now smacks the ground with her hands... oh what is this... am I a warrior dazing enemies with a groundslam now?

Another crappy skill design in the fashion of ele pistol.

[Keith McManus.4208]

sigh. i play ele as a main and if i wanted to leap/melee i'd play thief of guardian or something less deathy. oh well, i guess it's time i changed my build after 10 years or whatever, i just hate learning new stuff. maybe i'd actually like pistol (who am i kidding, i'll just kill 1k low lever junk for the achievement, 100 down so far .)

[Serephen.3420]

I actually like they gave it a CC now, so I'm not too fussed about arcane wave, that and arcane brilliance might be the only two good changes for ele in the whole patch. the other arcane skills and GM trait however....leave much to be desired. Helps give an easy access cc not reliant on being in the right attunement at the right time at least. I use it on heals and power dps builds, no use in condi however ofc.

Edited March 21 by Serephen.3420

[lol.9027]

This is the second arcane wave topic i read through because i wanted to know peoples opinions and i am really surprised what i see. First i have to say for pvp and wvw roaming the new arcane wave is amazing. Before the change it was so bad in competitive game modes, it could as well just not have existed. Now its really good for any catalyst build with the added mobility and cc.

But from what i read here, the people who are upset are pve players, mostly playing staff. (Feel free to correct me if i am miscategorizing the group of players.)

The amount of players talking about ranged staff dps surprises me. Maybe i am missing something (and i am absolutely open to learning something here) but from what i see, no matter what game mode you look at (raids, dungeons, fractals, strike missions...) in non of them is staff dps viable. And in no game mode is there a viable build that used the old arcane wave.

Dont get me wrong, of course everyone is free to play whatevere they like. But you cant expect the devs to balance the game for every specific niche build you like to play. For example i think the revenant scepter looks really cool and i would love to make it work in a roaming build, but i am not upset if the devs dont balance for that kind of niche build.

The point i am trying to make is: the old arcane wave wasnt used in any viable build in any game mode. They changed the skill in a way so that it fits the elementalists current play style. Some off meta builds may have suffered from that. But i dont think it would be beneficial for the game to adjust balance to niche cases.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

What amount of players talking about ranged staff ?

I play elem mainly for WvW, a bit PvP, and arcane wave sure is better than previous version (wasn't hard) but still really lack something. The damage is incredibly low;  I guess it's cause of the daze they didn't wanted to push it too close to Sundering Leap or skills similars ... but we're not warrior, we're squishy elem with a skill forcing you to go melee.

Plus you can't even jump above some little holes, the character glides on the ground ... and so falls in holes.  Really great for PvP.

Edited March 30 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[lol.9027]

Some comments specifically mention staff. But also i was assuming from context when reading comments like the one you just made that lable elementalist as squishy and being concerned about going melee.

Ele is one of the tankiest classes if played with dagger/dagger or hammer. Even with scepter survivability is pretty good even when outnumbered. So getting into melee was never something i saw as a concern. Quite the oposite actually. With close range weapons being the strongest ele weapons anyways, the added mobility is rather a bonus than a detriment.

In terms of dmg: In PVP and WVW arcane wave does 85% of the dmg that sundering leap does. Thats not a big difference. Considering that it is a better cc option, has two charges and on top combo finishers are way more usefull to ele than to warrior... i would say its actually the better skill by quite a large margin.

Only in pve there is a big dmg difference to sundering leap. But arcane wave wasnt used in any viable build anyway. So if you dont like it for pve... just keep not using it, nothing changed.

I agree with you that a leap instead of a dash along the ground would have been nice for pvp.

Edited March 30 by lol.9027

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, lol.9027 said:

Some comments specifically mention staff

Well, the only comment that mention staff, aside from yours, also mention PvP.

Keep in mind that 95% of the threads created on the professions subforums implicitly talk about competitive mode balance (WvW/sPvP).

Staff isn't the most sought after weapon in PvE instanced content due to it's shortcomings while open world players hardly come to the forum to complain about their skills effects.

The thread is about arcane wave's change anyway. A not very impactful change since barely anyone used to use the skill before the change. That said, the niche population that made use of it might or might not welcome the change. If you want a "PvE point of view", the change to the trait is more impactful than the change to the skill fonctionality.

[rotten.9753]

9 hours ago, lol.9027 said:

The amount of players talking about ranged staff dps surprises me. Maybe i am missing something (and i am absolutely open to learning something here) but from what i see, no matter what game mode you look at (raids, dungeons, fractals, strike missions...) in non of them is staff dps viable. And in no game mode is there a viable build that used the old arcane wave.

There's a very niche healer catalyst build that uses staff with arcane wave for blasts. It uses blasts because ANet (more like CmC) is adamant in creating selfish utilities that are often useless in PvE setting outside of increasing DPS. There's virtually no team support within our utilities outside tempest shouts. If you want to give stability you either need to pick Earth traitline (which is far from ideal and can't be used on demand) or staff (even worse availability but at least you don't have to pick Earth traitline).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=561HxhcWbPA

Edited March 30 by rotten.9753

[Szymon.5369]

22 hours ago, lol.9027 said:

This is the second arcane wave topic i read through because i wanted to know peoples opinions and i am really surprised what i see. First i have to say for pvp and wvw roaming the new arcane wave is amazing. Before the change it was so bad in competitive game modes, it could as well just not have existed. Now its really good for any catalyst build with the added mobility and cc.

Eh, yes, it's a no brainer. Any class gets better in pvp if they get more mobility and more CC, but that's just lazy, not everything has to be that, also it's not like Ele (with daggers) was lacking in leap department. Let's redesign every ability into mobility+CC, surely this will make the game better?

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It doesn't do 85% of sundering leap. If you compare tooltips with naked men, perhaps; but coef is quite lower and ... your elem.
Melee elem  (Dagger or sword) running with berserker/marauder, does your skillbar has room for another leap with average damage ? Plus outside Cata it is quite hard to stack damage modifiers compared to warrior(berserker) (sure it has its own issues, but ..).
 

Obviously skills don't have the same effects, range, arcane wave is core etc; I was comparing Damage because I don't think Elementalist needs an other "above" average dps skill in the bar to supplement to all others "above" average skills for piano enjoyers.  They should push the numbers higher on the power or range, stun instead of daze, rework the animation to actually not fall in holes or glide along the obstacles...  one of this to be worth it.

Okai the skill is better in many ways than before, but it's not game changer, and it will rapidly be forgotten due to its mediocrity. I think this is why you see complaints about it and staff, because in their will to update it they kill its niche for some players, for nothing exceptional/needed in exchange.

Edited March 31 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[the krytan assassin.9235]

Honestly arcane wave and being arcane blast being both instant cast+dmge was a big issue (in anet's eye) resulting in a massive nerf for competitive modes in pvp/wvw (Power coëfficient from 1.4 to to 0.6 in 2020). Ever since then the skills feel kinda pointless in wvw/pvp and arcane blast was only being used in PvE as a boring filler utility like mantra of pain. 

I agree that the new arcane wave has its problems. I think thematically the leap+stun makes more sense on arcane blast, the skill animation is a lazy copy of sundering leap and casting time/animation feels way to slow for ele.

However i guess the casting time at least gave back the opportunity to add some dps back into the skill for competitive modes. Also the extra option of a CC (and it being a stun/daze) is quite nice for instanced PvE. Its good for heal alac Tempest and gives pdps (although still not optimal) a way to provide some CC outside of some fresh air Weaver/catalyst builds.

I'd say overall its an improvement over the previous skill, but it could've been way better designed (and the same goes for the other arcane skills). 

 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

There are way more people who used arcane wave than I thought. 

 

[cjttruelife.9172]

On 3/30/2024 at 3:02 AM, lol.9027 said:

This is the second arcane wave topic i read through because i wanted to know peoples opinions and i am really surprised what i see. First i have to say for pvp and wvw roaming the new arcane wave is amazing. Before the change it was so bad in competitive game modes, it could as well just not have existed. Now its really good for any catalyst build with the added mobility and cc.

But from what i read here, the people who are upset are pve players, mostly playing staff. (Feel free to correct me if i am miscategorizing the group of players.)

The amount of players talking about ranged staff dps surprises me. Maybe i am missing something (and i am absolutely open to learning something here) but from what i see, no matter what game mode you look at (raids, dungeons, fractals, strike missions...) in non of them is staff dps viable. And in no game mode is there a viable build that used the old arcane wave.

Dont get me wrong, of course everyone is free to play whatevere they like. But you cant expect the devs to balance the game for every specific niche build you like to play. For example i think the revenant scepter looks really cool and i would love to make it work in a roaming build, but i am not upset if the devs dont balance for that kind of niche build.

The point i am trying to make is: the old arcane wave wasnt used in any viable build in any game mode. They changed the skill in a way so that it fits the elementalists current play style. Some off meta builds may have suffered from that. But i dont think it would be beneficial for the game to adjust balance to niche cases.

purposes of the skill is cc lock , combined with arcane lightning , earth n daggers .

"I had fun with the arcane wave blast finisher on my staff"           ....UpFTheShut

 

Edited April 2 by cjttruelife.9172