ArenaNet has temporarily disabled a couple of Guild Wars 2 traits for the elementalist, following reports of an exploit that saw some elementalist players able to do massive damage. The two traits, Weaver and Sunspot, are yet to be reactivated pending a solid fix.
Some streamers and others reproduced the exploit in videos, and bug reports and video evidence poured in of those using a particular combination involving those traits doing such high damage. One player shared the essence of the issue in the Guild Wars 2 bug reports forum:
“I was able to reproduce this after seeing a streamer do it.
The essence of the bug is that is allows repeated procs of "on-element swap" traits, such as Sunspot or Healing Ripple”
Others reported seeing the exploit being taken advantage of in World vs World. Clearly, this was an important one to stop, especially as how to do it spread. While this kind of exploit is bad everywhere, using it in competitive play is one of those things that ANet had to react to fast, and they did.
We are temporarily disabling two elementalist minor traits, Weaver and Sunspot, while we address an issue. We will reactivate them as soon as possible. This will severely impact the weaver elite spec--we recommend that elementalist players avoid it until this is resolved.
— Guild Wars 2 (@GuildWars2) April 16, 2023
Temporarily disabling the two traits was done late on Saturday night. While the team did acknowledge that doing so would have some impacts on the weaver elite specialization (and on other players), “We will reactivate them as soon as possible. This will severely impact the weaver elite spec--we recommend that elementalist players avoid it until this is resolved”.
Not surprisingly, the memes began rolling in while the wait began on a fix. Reddit user Mord3x shared “WvW players hiding from an Elementalist. April 15th, 2023 (Colorized)”.
There’s no word on when we can expect a fix, but that’s not surprising, since these traits were temporarily disabled late on Saturday night. ArenaNet’s weekly maintenance may be where we see these bugs squashed and traits back up, but there will be an official announcement once things are resolved.
