Meteor Wars!

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:I can confirm that the initial damage impact is currently too high and we'll be looking to bring it back down to normal levels when possible.

will you also bring down the damage of mesmers, thieves and necros?

because they can attack on the move or out of stealth... so wouldn't it be balanced if they do a lot less damage?

[Egorum.9506]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@Karl McLain.5604 said:I can confirm that the initial damage impact is currently too high and we'll be looking to bring it back down to normal levels when possible.

will you also bring down the damage of mesmers, thieves and necros?

because they can attack on the move or out of stealth... so wouldn't it be balanced if they do a lot less damage?

they did bring down the damage of mirage and necros?

condi mirage is easier to manage now than before, but still very strong. condi scourge is dead in the water, the dhummfire nerf was 40% of their overall damage. if power scourge is giving you trouble, just pressure them. they have to build very glassy to do even reasonable damage, have almost no stability, and no way to gap close @.@

[Anjo.3170]

@ThiBash.5634 said:

@Henrik.7560 said:it's breaking wvw and no one enjoys this meteor nonsense, but it doesn't affect pve so anet don't care

ArenaNet already commented that they're working on a fix. It's probably not as easy to fix as some of the other skills, or maybe it is a riskier change, meaning they need more testing before they can release it. I'm sure they're doing the best they can.

And this is even more reason for them to disable MS until there is a fix.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

so what else do eles have? auto-attack? slow and pityfull damage. Lava Font? A sad Joke. Earth attacks? All a sad joke.

Meteor is the only skill doing ANY damage. And it takes ages to cast. Ages where you can't move.

In the meantime, Necros can run around freely, have 10k more hp, put their fields everywhere and dominate dps meters. And you are complaining/contemplating a nerf?

WHY?

Mesmers and thieves with their 24k hits out of stealth aren't balanced either - and you never nerfed those. WHY?

Why anet, do you hurt eles at every turn, while warriors with their perma blocks run around unmolested, scourges rule dps and are high hp, and mesmers&thieves can gank without having to worry of any kind of defense?

And then you are worried about an easy to dodge field? Seriously?

[Henrik.7560]

A skill with 360 radius that you can blink away while casting at 1200 range that can 1 shot half the people in a zerg seems balanced. I main elementalist and this needs to be nerfed, it's game breaking.

[Absconditus.6804]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:[...]

Meteor is the only skill doing ANY damage. And it takes ages to cast. Ages where you can't move.

[...]

Mesmers and thieves with their 24k hits out of stealth aren't balanced either - and you never nerfed those. WHY?

[...]

And then you are worried about an easy to dodge field? Seriously?

Mesmer has never done 24k damage out of stealth. That is far more HP than you would have on a glass Elementalist at any rate, so throwing ridiculous numbers out there is just silly. Mesmers can't even reliably burst you if you pay attention and keep your Stun Break skills and/or a dodge/evade/block/invulnerability ready for the clones rushing you down. If you can't dodge those clones rushing you, that's on you, you got outplayed (and I'm not saying I never get outplayed). Getting hit by Backstab is another thing entirely. And that too are not going to hit for 24k on its own (— to be fair, I don't remember how hard it hit on Elementalists, there's been a few years since I were a Thief main. I know it typically one-shot, and that is not okay). Do Thieves need a reality check on there being broken mechanics to their class and a balance pass? Definitely. Does that mean Elementalists should be broken with Meteor Shower instantly hitting for literally 16-20k when it's a 1200 range 360 radius skill? No. They are even mathematically doing impossible numbers now based on the skill math. It's also not easy to dodge something that hits you immediately and/or a couple times before you can even get out of the large radius it has. It is broken. It is bugged. It needs a fix. Fast. You and 15 other Elementalists, some of which who are just bandwagon jumping on to the class to abuse the bug with their server, are casting it from the backline/midst of your zerg, that it takes a while to cast is kinda redundant.

You seem to be talking about Mesmers and Thieves in terms of roaming; yes, Staff Elementalist is not great for duels and roaming. If you want a roaming build, you got to build for roaming. There are Elementalist roaming options. You'll need some Vitality and Toughness mixed in with Power, Precision, Ferocity, perhaps a bit of Boon Duration, some Condition Damage and Expertise thrown in. And you need to not use Staff. It's the same for pretty much all classes. You get forced into certain skills, traits and weapons if you want to be versatile and able to roam.

I do know that in a zerg environment you are expected to use a Staff due to Meteor Shower being one of the few skills capable of dealing with distant siege. But you should also be protected by your zerg. In that environment all you need to focus on is to stay alive and tagging as many bodies as you can for bags. Your individual damage is borderline irrelevant (though more damage is better as it makes dealing with the enemy zerg easier, obviously). Stealthy glass Mesmers and Thieves aren't going to be that useful in a zerg environment either mind you, aside from attacking from the sides. Super risky business with an enemy zerg that actually pays attention and protects their sides and back. Lastly, the solution to what can be considered broken classes isn't to make more broken classes. That won't be fun for anyone. "X and Y can do A and B, so why can't we do C?" is a completely ridiculous argument. Fix A and B instead.

[XenesisII.1540]

It's the weekend... they don't work on weekends... figure people would know this by now...

[Voltekka.2375]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:so what else do eles have? auto-attack? slow and pityfull damage. Lava Font? A sad Joke. Earth attacks? All a sad joke.

Meteor is the only skill doing ANY damage. And it takes ages to cast. Ages where you can't move.

In the meantime, Necros can run around freely, have 10k more hp, put their fields everywhere and dominate dps meters. And you are complaining/contemplating a nerf?

WHY?

Mesmers and thieves with their 24k hits out of stealth aren't balanced either - and you never nerfed those. WHY?

Why anet, do you hurt eles at every turn, while warriors with their perma blocks run around unmolested, scourges rule dps and are high hp, and mesmers&thieves can gank without having to worry of any kind of defense?

And then you are worried about an easy to dodge field? Seriously?

Ele was doing considerable dps even before the meteor buff. It has a different playstyle to necros and mesmers. You can start casting meteor, teleport away, and your meteor will still hit. This isnt pve where you have to continually dish out the 35k rotation. I found out that with the lower lava font CD, I can pressure more (downed or otherwise)Meteor as it is now, is broken. And i play a lot as ele

[Mini Crinny.6190]

Meteor shower doesnt need a nerf since its actually bugged.. alot of people i see dying to MS are dying due to bad play not because of MS being bugged anyway.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@Absconditus.6804 said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:[...]

Meteor is the only skill doing ANY damage. And it takes ages to cast. Ages where you can't move.

[...]

Mesmers and thieves with their 24k hits out of stealth aren't balanced either - and you never nerfed those. WHY?

[...]

And then you are worried about an easy to dodge field? Seriously?

Mesmer has never done 24k damage out of stealth. That is far more HP than you would have on a glass Elementalist at any rate, so throwing ridiculous numbers out there is just silly. Do you know that you can stow all materials in bank storage with three clicks? Open inventory, click on the cog in the top right corner, select 'Deposit All Materials'.

it hit me, for 24k. jumped, hit, jumped out. When people came to rez, it jumped in again, took two people out, jumped out. Broken.

Simple as that.

Mesmers can't even reliably burst you if you pay attention and keep your Stun Break skills and/or a dodge/evade/block/invulnerability ready for the clones rushing you down.

you mean all the stun breaks that have cast time? Block, invul with cast time? arent you confusing something atm?

You seem to be talking about Mesmers and Thieves in terms of roaming; yes, Staff Elementalist is not great for duels and roaming. If you want a roaming build, you got to build for roaming. There are Elementalist roaming options. You'll need some Vitality and Toughness mixed in with Power, Precision, Ferocity, perhaps a bit of Boon Duration, some Condition Damage and Expertise thrown in. And you need to not use Staff. It's the same for pretty much all classes. You get forced into certain skills, traits and weapons if you want to be versatile and able to roam.

You run in a zerg. You position yourself. You get ganked. That is the rule. That is how it is. So if you finally have the luck to get off anything, you should be highly rewarded. Not?

btw, thief, just now:

11k mal. backstab2.5k heartseeker14k deaths judgement

all straight one after another.

And people think ele is broken?

High risk, high reward, right?

Thief and mesmer are: no risk, high reward.ele without the meteor shower 'bug' is: all risk no reward.

Sure, scourges, thieves and mesmers are salty about this. All there no risk, rule the field builds finally getting some competition. And sure, warriors with their almost perma blocks and evades might be a bit... lets say, worried.

But all these no risk, high reward builds are BROKEN. So fix them first before you nerf hammer ele AGAIN.

[Evolute.6239]

the only one who is having fun is the elementalist

everyone else just randomly gets oneshot by 14k/15k back to back meteors

it's getting fixed, stop trying to defend this broken skill and compare it to ROAMING MIRAGES (lol) when its broken against GROUPS

[Shagaliscious.6281]

@"TheHeretic.3529" said:3209 armor. Please just disable MS in WvW for now..

This is just hilarious, complaining about MS which is a 30sec CD, but the 10k CoR on a 4sec CD is ok?

[Jski.6180]

@XenesisII.1540 said:It's the weekend... they don't work on weekends... figure people would know this by now...

This bug was known way before the weekend but it was not fixed. There is a lot of reason that the mess in wvw is Anet falt comply now.

[XenesisII.1540]

@Jski.6180 said:

@XenesisII.1540 said:It's the weekend... they don't work on weekends... figure people would know this by now...

This bug was known way before the weekend but it was not fixed. There is a lot of reason that the mess in wvw is Anet falt comply now.

And it wasn't acknowledged until friday in this thread by karl.Earliest I would expect a fix is the tuesday patch.

[Lobsters.3869]

Ele has always done lots of damage, but I believe is probably the most vulnerable of all the classes. No armor, few condi removals + stun breaks available (esp when using staff which everybody is right now).

Its always been the case that a group of eles bombing one target at once usually results in death, im not sure what the real issue everyone is having is. If you manage to get to the backline the eles normally drop fast?

Shrug anyway, its fun everyone is playing alittle bit differently this weekend.

[Absconditus.6804]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@"Absconditus.6804" said:Mesmers can't even reliably burst you if you pay attention and keep your Stun Break skills and/or a dodge/evade/block/invulnerability ready for the clones rushing you down.

you mean all the stun breaks that have cast time? Block, invul with cast time? arent you confusing something atm?

Arcane Shield, instant cast, blocks 3 attacks, Breaks Stun.Armor of Earth, instant cast, Breaks Stun. A secondary version can be traited with Earth's Embrace to trigger automatically at 50% HP.Mist Form, instant cast, invulnerable, Breaks Stun.Glyph of Elemental Power, instant cast, Breaks Stun.Signet of Air, instant cast, Breaks Stun.Twist of Fate on Weaver, 1 second cast time, evades, Superspeed to reposition/disengage, Breaks Stun.

You can also use Obsidian Flesh for instant invulnerability.Vapor Form in downed state can help you retreat to your allies if you happen to get downed and hopefully get revived.

Burning retreat on Staff has an evade, and as far as I remember were pretty much instant. Blinding Ashes can help with more evades through Blinds.Burning Speed on Dagger has an evade, pretty fast at ¾ of a second cast time. Blinding Ashes trait applies the same way here.Steam Surge on Dagger has an evade, ¾ of a second cast time, heals and produces a Combo Field: Water for more heal potential.Updraft from offhand Dagger has an evade, pretty sure it's instant.Fiery Frost on Weaver Scepter has an evade, ¾ of a second cast time.Mud Slide on Weaver Dagger has an evade, 1 second cast time, unblockable and knocks down.

It's not like you completely lack options here. Are all of these skills/traits good? That's up to you to decide. Make your own build to deal with what you struggle with. And yes, in a zerg, I know you are expected to run Staff, so you'll have to rely on your team to keep you safe, your choice of Utility Skills, Burning Retreat, etc. And maybe don't run full glass cannon if you currently are? Get some Vitality and Toughness into your setup somehow.

Here's some videos I found with a quick search on YouTube that maybe can inspire you, one with a Staff roamer fighting Thieves and other classes;

This guy fights both a Thief and a Mesmer at the same time and wins. I also clicked through to a very in-depth guide.

[Jski.6180]

@Absconditus.6804 said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@Absconditus.6804 said:Mesmers can't even reliably burst you if you pay attention and keep your Stun Break skills and/or a dodge/evade/block/invulnerability ready for the clones rushing you down.

you mean all the stun breaks that have cast time? Block, invul with cast time? arent you confusing something atm?

Arcane Shield, instant cast, blocks 3 attacks, Breaks Stun.Armor of Earth, instant cast, Breaks Stun. A secondary version can be traited with Earth's Embrace to trigger automatically at 50% HP.Mist Form, instant cast, invulnerable, Breaks Stun.Glyph of Elemental Power, instant cast, Breaks Stun.Signet of Air, instant cast, Breaks Stun.Twist of Fate on Weaver, 1 second cast time, evades, Superspeed to reposition/disengage, Breaks Stun.

You can also use Obsidian Flesh for instant invulnerability.Vapor Form in downed state can help you retreat to your allies if you happen to get downed and hopefully get revived.

Burning retreat on Staff has an evade, and as far as I remember were pretty much instant. Blinding Ashes can help with more evades through Blinds.Burning Speed on Dagger has an evade, pretty fast at ¾ of a second cast time. Blinding Ashes trait applies the same way here.Steam Surge on Dagger has an evade, ¾ of a second cast time, heals and produces a Combo Field: Water for more heal potential.Updraft from offhand Dagger has an evade, pretty sure it's instant.Fiery Frost on Weaver Scepter has an evade, ¾ of a second cast time.Mud Slide on Weaver Dagger has an evade, 1 second cast time, unblockable and knocks down.

It's not like you completely lack options here. Are all of these skills/traits good? That's up to you to decide. Make your own build to deal with what you struggle with. And yes, in a zerg, I know you are expected to run Staff, so you'll have to rely on your team to keep you safe, your choice of Utility Skills, Burning Retreat, etc. And maybe don't run full glass cannon if you currently are? Get some Vitality and Toughness into your setup somehow.

Here's some videos I found with a quick search on YouTube that maybe can inspire you;

This guy fights both a Thief and a Mesmer at the same time and wins. I also clicked through to a very in-depth guide.

When you can have all of that and still use Meteor you have a point but ele lacks wepon swap so your point is lost.

[Absconditus.6804]

In what way is it lost? You can still use defensive traits, defensive and offensive mixed gear, defensive utility skills like the ones I listed above. If you want to roam, you don't have to use Staff, though if you want to do so, look at the first video I found from my quick search on YouTube. He's an Elementalist using Staff while roaming before this bug from just 4 weeks ago. Blowing up thieves and what not. It's not like you are unable to function with Staff, clearly. If this guy can do that, you can too. You certainly don't need a bugged and clearly broken skill to remain unfixed just because you like abusing it and seeing numbers it shouldn't mathematically be able to produce.

[Jski.6180]

@Absconditus.6804 said:In what way is it lost? You can still use defensive traits, defensive and offensive mixed gear, defensive utility skills like the ones I listed above. If you want to roam, you don't have to use Staff, though if you want to do so, look at the first video I found from my quick search on YouTube. He's an Elementalist using Staff while roaming before this bug from just 4 weeks ago. Blowing up thieves and what not. It's not like you are unable to function with Staff, clearly. If this guy can do that, you can too. You certainly don't need a bugged and clearly broken skill to remain unfixed just because you like abusing it and seeing numbers it shouldn't mathematically be able to produce.

All of this is about meteor and as far as i know that only a staff thing. As ele cant swap weapons mid combat like other classes ele loses out a lot of your def skill.

[Absconditus.6804]

Yes, Meteor Shower is a Staff skill that is currently bugged. What does weapon swapping have to do with anything? You got some defensive stuff on the Staff too, like Burning Retreat. You can use gear like Marauder mixed with Berserker and Valkyrie that doesn't get you instantly blown up when people look at you the wrong way. You can still use a selection of instant Breaks Stun utilities that also have Blocks, Invulnerability, buffs and so on forth. You can use traits that helps with your survivability like Tempest Defense from Air giving you Shocking Aura if you get disabled or Final Shielding from Arcane which gives you Lesser Arcane Shield and blocks up to 3 attacks over the course of 5 seconds if you get below 50% health. Again, the first video has an Elementalist roaming around only using Staff. He's not swapping the weapon, yet he's not immediately dying. He is using a build that lets him perform while also letting him survive. The majority of the stronger skills I listed are not related to weapons. What I listed are also not all the build options for Elementalists, obviously, it was a small selection to the argument that Elementalists only have long cast skills to Break Stun, block, evade or gain invulnerable state with. Again, check the videos, then look at their linked builds, take some inspiration from those if you think you need Meteor Shower to remain bugged in order to perform on Elementalist.

[michelada.2947]

so are we going to need to wait 2 months for this "HOTFIX"?

[Jski.6180]

@"Absconditus.6804" said:Yes, Meteor Shower is a Staff skill that is currently bugged. What does weapon swapping have to do with anything? You got some defensive stuff on the Staff too, like Burning Retreat. You can use gear like Marauder mixed with Berserker and Valkyrie that doesn't get you instantly blown up when people look at you the wrong way. You can still use a selection of instant Breaks Stun utilities that also have Blocks, Invulnerability, buffs and so on forth. You can use traits that helps with your survivability like Tempest Defense from Air giving you Shocking Aura if you get disabled or Final Shielding from Arcane which gives you Lesser Arcane Shield and blocks up to 3 attacks over the course of 5 seconds if you get below 50% health. Again, the first video has an Elementalist roaming around only using Staff. He's not swapping the weapon, yet he's not immediately dying. He is using a build that lets him perform while also letting him survive. The majority of the stronger skills I listed are not related to weapons. What I listed are also not all the build options for Elementalists, obviously, it was a small selection to the argument that Elementalists only have long cast skills to Break Stun, block, evade or gain invulnerable state with. Again, check the videos, then look at their linked builds, take some inspiration from those if you think you need Meteor Shower to remain bugged in order to perform on Elementalist.

All on long cd vs classes who have stuns on much lower cd. As well as all being super viability to strips something ele cant deal with at all as well as chill. The blocks on ele are some of the weakest in game and the invul are locked behind wepon or put in you in a state that leaves you unable to do any thing during them as well as weekends your pAoE.

Passive def skill that needs you to get hit are the worst things ele could have as an def skill because of the lowest hp / def in the game. As well as the icd on such effects as auras (auras that only work when your getting hit and if your getting hit as an ele your already death).

Ele is a mages but a lot of its effects are not very mage like. There is a real thing about ele trying to be some type of battle mages with out having the effects of "mana shields" where you let your magic take hits for you were ele has your magic simply makes the hits not hit as badly something you should see on a melee class or war class.

Put this all simply ele is locked behind the wepon they want to use so a def wepon will give you ok def but you lose all your dmg as the dmg wepon are the only things that make you worth having for a group. In a way you live though things but do nothing of worth or you do things of worth but dont have any means of living.

[Chasind.3128]

poor ele
all of these nerfs:(

[Kolmena.2416]

If only we could test the balance changes before they were implemented right?

[Strider Pj.2193]

It has just gone past 48 hrs since Karl acknowledged the bug. And it's the weekend.

Like @XenesisII.1540 noted: look for a fix on Tuesday. Otherwise take a deep breath.