Upcoming changes for Ele - July 2020

[steki.1478]

> ### Elementalist

>

> In this balance iteration, we're looking at the elementalist's grandmaster Fire traits. Persisting Flames is expected to push into more of a damage-over-time role, while Pyromancer's Puissance is getting a few changes focused toward group support and burst damage. With these changes, we are looking to also slightly reduce burning damage output in order to keep overall damage from going significantly higher in raid rotations.

>

> - Persisting Flames: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.

> - Pyromancer's Puissance: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.

> - Flame Expulsion: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.

> - Searing Slash: Burning duration of this skill has been reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds.

> - Primordial Stance: Burning duration has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds, with the PvP and WvW versions remaining at 1.5 seconds. Bleeding duration has been reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds globally.

> - Power Overwhelming: Reduced requisite might stack threshold from 10 to 8 in PvP and WvW.

> - Healing Rain: Reduced cooldown from 40 seconds to 35 seconds.

> - Windborne Speed: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.

> - Shock Wave: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

> - Ice Spike: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.

> - Lightning Surge: Reduced cooldown from 10 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced power coefficient from 1.15 to 0.91 in PvP and WvW.

> - Mist Form: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only.

> - Obsidian Flesh: Increased cooldown from 50 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.

> - Hardy Conduit: Reduced protection duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

> - Glyph of Renewal: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> - Glyph of Storms: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> - Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> - Glyph of Lesser Elementals: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> - Glyph of Elementals: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

>

 

Not a fan of persisting flames change since it's ele's only reliable way to get fury on many solo/roaming/pvp/wvw builds. The trait change favors pve group content by far. 10% damage is nice, but you have no reliable way of getting might or fury, which are IMO better.

 

Pyromancer puissance - if the expulsion might doesnt get shared back to ele, this would be by far the worst change in this patch. Sure, fire GM could use a support trait, but what's the point of removing ele's might when ele's only reliable way of getting might is through blast fields and overloads (which give might to allies anyway). Not to mention that 2 stacks per skill is nothing, especially in pvp/wvw where it lasts only 6 seconds so not only that you barely get might, you also lose it (or get it back again through expulsion?).

 

Condi nerfs I dont undertand, but they are insignificant anyway.

 

Staff buffs are good, but not very impactful. Shorter cooldown on some bursty skills is good considering that wvw weaver needs to swap out of fire from time to time to get the use of dual skills and trait buffs. 6 seconds with some random alacrity makes it possible to cast those skills twice before going back to fire which is pretty good, the issue is obviously alacrity lol.

 

The rest seems unnecessary IMO, but I dont play pvp so idk how strong those are in there.

 

Overall very questionable changes. Last couple of times I saw some pretty good stuff despite many people saying that ele's dead, how it got hard nerfed etc etc, but this time I dont see anything impactful in this patch other than maybe support tempest gaining more popularity in pve/wvw due to enormous aoe might burst after fire overload. Guess we'll have to wait for actual numbers of expulsion (might duration in pvp/wvw, damage everywhere) and if that might affects ele as well or just allies.

 

[Supreme.3164]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > ### Elementalist

> >

> > In this balance iteration, we're looking at the elementalist's grandmaster Fire traits. Persisting Flames is expected to push into more of a damage-over-time role, while Pyromancer's Puissance is getting a few changes focused toward group support and burst damage. With these changes, we are looking to also slightly reduce burning damage output in order to keep overall damage from going significantly higher in raid rotations.

> >

> > - Persisting Flames: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.

> > - Pyromancer's Puissance: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.

> > - Flame Expulsion: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.

> > - Searing Slash: Burning duration of this skill has been reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds.

> > - Primordial Stance: Burning duration has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds, with the PvP and WvW versions remaining at 1.5 seconds. Bleeding duration has been reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds globally.

> > - Power Overwhelming: Reduced requisite might stack threshold from 10 to 8 in PvP and WvW.

> > - Healing Rain: Reduced cooldown from 40 seconds to 35 seconds.

> > - Windborne Speed: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.

> > - Shock Wave: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

> > - Ice Spike: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.

> > - Lightning Surge: Reduced cooldown from 10 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced power coefficient from 1.15 to 0.91 in PvP and WvW.

> > - Mist Form: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only.

> > - Obsidian Flesh: Increased cooldown from 50 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.

> > - Hardy Conduit: Reduced protection duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

> > - Glyph of Renewal: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> > - Glyph of Storms: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> > - Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> > - Glyph of Lesser Elementals: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> > - Glyph of Elementals: This skill will now correctly put all attunement variants on interrupt cooldown when interrupted.

> >

>

> Not a fan of persisting flames change since it's ele's only reliable way to get fury on many solo/roaming/pvp/wvw builds. The trait change favors pve group content by far. 10% damage is nice, but you have no reliable way of getting might or fury, which are IMO better.

>

> Pyromancer puissance - if the expulsion might doesnt get shared back to ele, this would be by far the worst change in this patch. Sure, fire GM could use a support trait, but what's the point of removing ele's might when ele's only reliable way of getting might is through blast fields and overloads (which give might to allies anyway). Not to mention that 2 stacks per skill is nothing, especially in pvp/wvw where it lasts only 6 seconds so not only that you barely get might, you also lose it (or get it back again through expulsion?).

>

> Condi nerfs I dont undertand, but they are insignificant anyway.

>

> Staff buffs are good, but not very impactful. Shorter cooldown on some bursty skills is good considering that wvw weaver needs to swap out of fire from time to time to get the use of dual skills and trait buffs. 6 seconds with some random alacrity makes it possible to cast those skills twice before going back to fire which is pretty good, the issue is obviously alacrity lol.

>

> The rest seems unnecessary IMO, but I dont play pvp so idk how strong those are in there.

>

> Overall very questionable changes. Last couple of times I saw some pretty good stuff despite many people saying that ele's dead, how it got hard nerfed etc etc, but this time I dont see anything impactful in this patch other than maybe support tempest gaining more popularity in pve/wvw due to enormous aoe might burst after fire overload. Guess we'll have to wait for actual numbers of expulsion (might duration in pvp/wvw, damage everywhere) and if that might affects ele as well or just allies.

>

 

Underwhelming changes

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Very questionable changes.

I don't get what was the idea for changing traits like that.

Persisting Flames this may be used in zergs if you'll have might bot.

Pyromancer's Puissance this on 99% will be used in roaming, but beside its kinda useless beside short burst? Or we're going back to sit in Fire Attument 24/7 meta?

Rest changes(skills) are unnecessary in WvW/PvP, I would rather have reworked skill effects so that they would keep high cd but would be more impactful/useful.

Glyph changes are good.

Still waiting for unnerfs to Meteor Shower, after years, this kitten 'Damage Reduction per Hit' should be removed and old MS should be brought back.

[supreme.3602]

Elementalist will remain dead once again. Nice.

[Arheundel.6451]

How can you give 60s to a weapon skill?......It defies logic....

[shinta.8906]

dogshite as allways

 

[fuzzyp.6295]

The Persisting Flames change is unexpected and perhaps it will make Staff Ele more viable in PvE or perhaps in WvW Zerg battles but I'm just frustrated that whereas Ele was one the king of Fury now has to trait into Air to get any meaningful fury uptime. The Pyromancer's Puissance's change is interesting but I think it really hinges on how strong the flame explosion is. Since it seems to scale and be supportive in nature, I have a sinking feeling it won't be too strong but perhaps I will be wrong there. The buff to Power Overwhelming is welcomed but I don't think its particularly game changing for ele. PvE Nerfs to Condi Ele is fine I suppose, personally I don't think Elementalist should have its best performing build be a condi variant, but I'm sure some Flame Weavers will be disappointed.

 

The Staff buffs are just QoL in the long run. No one has been begging for a cool down reduction on Ice Spike or Windborne Speed. I suppose they argue that you can increase the use of a skill with less cool-down but the skill has to be useful in the first place first. And the nerf to Lightening Surge as a trade for its lower cool down, an already pretty much single target skill on an AoE weapon, is just a bit lol. I suppose it can blind 5 players though so...

 

Mist Form PvP nerf is whatever most players running Mist already trait into Water. I think this just makes it back to where it was a few years back anyway. I suppose its testament to how hardy the Tempest was in PvP though. Obsidian Flesh PvP nerf is also just lol. These nerfs only exist to ensure that the Tempest is traiting in Earth and Water to get that reduced cool down. Protection is pretty strong in this meta so the Hardy Conduit nerf is understandable, Tempest is already running tanky as it is.

 

I hope there is more they just haven't posted yet. But it seems like our notes were pretty cohesive. NGL I'm interested to see if Weaver Runes gain anything from this new change. Having it gain a pathetic amount of barrier on two leap skills was hilarious but that extra barrier might be decent if stacked with Bolstered Elements . Still garbage, absolutely, but it might be fun to see.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

>Mist Form: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only.

>Obsidian Flesh: Increased cooldown from 50 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only

 

:#

Why ?

[Mini Crinny.6190]

just get on your necros lol

[Axl.8924]

What the heck why did they add more cd of onyx skin and mist form? they are way too long.

 

Another trait i can't remember if persisting flames is a core trait but it sounds pretty weak.

 

Also one of the guys above sounds right its like ANET wants us to camp fire? i dunno about those pyromancer puissance changes.

 

I'm kinda annoyed by the changes on mist and onyx skin, especially since its long enough with 50 seconds in my opinion.

[AliamRationem.5172]

These changes suck. Taking away fury and might but not compensating the effective stat loss on the class that is the most starved for it? Just plain dumb.

 

I didn't see anything for arcane either. Why? You borked that trait line. Fix it!

 

You felt like obsidian skin wasn't bad enough? Mist form? What!? Again, stupid.

[Infusion.7149]

It's a relatively minor improvement for staff tempests in WVW I think , while hurting weaver in both PvE and PVP for the most part.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Infusion.7149" said:

> It's a relatively minor improvement for staff tempests in WVW I think , while hurting weaver in both PvE and PVP for the most part.

 

How exactly is a 10% hurting weaver in pve? Nobody took the might trait in pve and fury was nice but not really needed most of the time. the 10% mod should also be a dps increase when factoring in air proc fury even when assuming 100% fury with persisting flames.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It will depend of the barrier.

The runes are already kitten,

>! (1): +8 to All Stats

>! (2): +10% Burning Duration

>! (3): +12 to All Stats

>! (4): +20% Chill Duration

>! (5): +16 to All Stats

>! (6): +10% Condition Duration; gain barrier after executing a leap combo finisher.

 

Why Chill And Burning ? :/ Without primordial stance how are you suppose to apply "sufficient" ammount of both with elem ? Why not just a flat +25% like rune of tempest, or +10% CD +15% BD ? :/

Plus, the barriers : if it's 240 base like the barrier on dual strike, it'll be useless.

Still, weaver already get barrier on stance (but very few people take this trait since they nerfed the stab) and Weaver has no trait adding a second effect to barrier, which is a wish since pof realease, so I won't see any reason to equip these runes. Just take runes of tempest, or sanctuary) Worst, I see better use for soulbeast axe/x rather than weaver.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > It's a relatively minor improvement for staff tempests in WVW I think , while hurting weaver in both PvE and PVP for the most part.

>

> How exactly is a 10% hurting weaver in pve? Nobody took the might trait in pve and fury was nice but not really needed most of the time. the 10% mod should also be a dps increase when factoring in air proc fury even when assuming 100% fury with persisting flames.

 

I see it more like a nerf for pvp/wvw.

Lava font and pyro? blast were the "main" skills to tag and deal a lot of damage. I don't care to have +10% .... dmg if my fire fields have shorter time.

For pve I agree okay it should be a buff, but very minimal.

You add the extra "This new trait is useless everywhere but raid for mightbot", it starts to be very very annoying. Fury is a lot more useful to me.

 

Edit* My bad it still should increase the duration of firefield. but can't delete the message. :-1:

 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > ### Elementalist

> >

> > In this balance iteration, we're looking at the elementalist's grandmaster Fire traits. Persisting Flames is expected to push into more of a damage-over-time role, while Pyromancer's Puissance is getting a few changes focused toward group support and burst damage. With these changes, we are looking to also slightly reduce burning damage output in order to keep overall damage from going significantly higher in raid rotations.

> >

> > - Persisting Flames: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.

> > - Pyromancer's Puissance: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.

> > - Flame Expulsion: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.

> > - Mist Form: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only.

> > - Obsidian Flesh: Increased cooldown from 50 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.

 

A few thoughts:

 

I get that you guys want to "slightly reduce" burning damage, but had it occurred to you that it looks like the FIRE grandmaster tier has nothing that benefits burning? Let me tell you how jazzed I am as a mostly solo player of a condi ele that I now have the privilege of dumping all my might stacks for a nice boost to a power damage burst, all so raiders can gain might they don't need from a class that isn't expected to supply it. Good call!

 

About Obsidian Flesh. Can we seriously have something else in this slot? You obviously don't want us to have invuln in any usable form. That's perfectly fine! Put something there that we can actually use because this is a completely insane cooldown for a weapon skill and the skill lockout feels awful on weaver.

 

You didn't touch on it, but the second tier of arcane is an embarrassment. Final shielding is a great trait for an emergency passive in PvE, but totally useless outside of it because of that ridiculous CD. The other options are not worthy of their slots in any mode. Please fix this kind of stuff before picking on stuff like....

 

...Mist Form. You're better than this. Seriously. Go do something useful?

 

All in all, this is a huge letdown. Do better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jski.6180]

The ele update dose not seem that bad on its own i like the boon base skills and would love to see them expasted on and the field lost was never that good of an effect it had a use but most support ele just ran blinding ash a far better support skill.

 

I just hope this dose not turn out to be another transmutation where they add in an new effect and do nothing with it.

 

But... the scorge thing is game ending for wvw so the update is better left not to happen then to happen. Anet please try agen.

[Pocky.3159]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

 

> I get that you guys want to "slightly reduce" burning damage, but had it occurred to you that it looks like the FIRE grandmaster tier has nothing that benefits burning? **Let me tell you how jazzed I am as a mostly solo player of a condi ele that I now have the privilege of dumping all my might stacks for a nice boost to a power damage burst, all so raiders can gain might they don't need from a class that isn't expected to supply it**. Good call!

 

 

I pretty much agree with this point you made right here. Like; we gotta learn how to optimize stacking burns and building our might, but now we get punished for it because the top people in raids (who can actually perform well with the profession) do higher damage than the balance team wants? Like; really? We're going with that Anet?

 

I'm pretty new to the game, and still learning how to really play ele. Loved learning this profession; even if its not the best, it felt good to learn condi ele in solo. But hey; forget that, no fun allowed here.

 

Its at times like this I wish raiding had separate balancing like PvP does. lol

[Auburner.6945]

PvE: DPS tweaks

PvP: Nerfed solo play (heavily?).

WvW: 20-player scourge shades :trollface:

 

Have fun with perma chill from necros too, not even a weaver can solve that.

 

Overall; no idea what's the aim of these changes. Hopefully, the **full** version of the patch notes holds more.

[Axl.8924]

> @"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:

> > @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > > @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > > It's a relatively minor improvement for staff tempests in WVW I think , while hurting weaver in both PvE and PVP for the most part.

> >

> > How exactly is a 10% hurting weaver in pve? Nobody took the might trait in pve and fury was nice but not really needed most of the time. the 10% mod should also be a dps increase when factoring in air proc fury even when assuming 100% fury with persisting flames.

>

> I see it more like a nerf for pvp/wvw.

> Lava font and pyro? blast were the "main" skills to tag and deal a lot of damage. I don't care to have +10% .... dmg if my fire fields have shorter time.

> For pve I agree okay it should be a buff, but very minimal.

> You add the extra "This new trait is useless everywhere but raid for mightbot", it starts to be very very annoying. Fury is a lot more useful to me.

>

> Edit* My bad it still should increase the duration of firefield. but can't delete the message. :-1:

>

>

 

They shouldn't be touching pve eles at all actually, how much of a DPS loss is this for PVE? just curious.

 

[Auburner.6945]

> @"Axl.8924" said:

 

I think that "+X% damage" traits don't affect condition damage unless stated so. If so then it's a DPS hit to condition builds. If not, it's a slight buff. For power builds, it's a buff.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> > @"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:

> > > @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > > > @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > > > It's a relatively minor improvement for staff tempests in WVW I think , while hurting weaver in both PvE and PVP for the most part.

> > >

> > > How exactly is a 10% hurting weaver in pve? Nobody took the might trait in pve and fury was nice but not really needed most of the time. the 10% mod should also be a dps increase when factoring in air proc fury even when assuming 100% fury with persisting flames.

> >

> > I see it more like a nerf for pvp/wvw.

> > Lava font and pyro? blast were the "main" skills to tag and deal a lot of damage. I don't care to have +10% .... dmg if my fire fields have shorter time.

> > For pve I agree okay it should be a buff, but very minimal.

> > You add the extra "This new trait is useless everywhere but raid for mightbot", it starts to be very very annoying. Fury is a lot more useful to me.

> >

> > Edit* My bad it still should increase the duration of firefield. but can't delete the message. :-1:

> >

> >

>

> They shouldn't be touching pve eles at all actually, how much of a DPS loss is this for PVE? just curious.

>

 

 

 

Shuuuuuuuuuuut, I missread the note.

[Shiyo.3578]

Why should anyone play this class? Shock aura(when shared) and res glyph(no res skills should be in the game at all in PvP anymore) were the issues. Why would you nerf mist form and focus 5 which nerfs other already weak elementalist builds and lowers its build diversity even further?

 

This class has a single good spec, pure support. You nerfed it in the wrong ways that also nerf the base spec. Why?

 

Not even going to get into the random nerfs to a class that sees almost no PvE presence and the build you decided to nerf is incredibly hard to play and thus not even popular. You didn't even make it easier to play, you just made something have a lower reward: effort ratio for no reason. Again I ask, why?

 

There's no reason for this class to be CONSTANTLY butchered in every single game mode since the Vanilla version of this game.

[TheVaultHunter.6835]

My hopes are that Flame expulsion deal around 1.5k dmg with say marauders amulett in PvP.

With 10 stacks of might removed from yourself which should result in 100% increased damage that should be 3k base dmg. lets say you crit 6k on a light armor user which is still fine considering rev and reaper damage

[Widmo.3186]

I dont give af about condi eles, so w/e about that part.

Its a shame that they touch fire traitline this way, but Flame Expulsion might be fun to play with high power build.

 

For me personally, no changes at all. The only one thing that makes me sad, is that they want to nerf Tempest by nerfing all ele specs (or more specifically - core ele and FA too). Both specs are quite dead and in niche, only few people play them, and nerfing Mist Form and Obsidian Flesh aint helping that.

How about nerfing aura share and Tempest CC-spamlock? Too hard?