The DPS ele issue. (cooldown rant) Fresh air.

Hey guys, just wanted to give my personal opinions on the state of ele from a PvP perspective.

First and foremost. I believe there are 2 distinct elementalists. One who enjoys bunkering down taking all the hits and straight up out sustaining.

The other is literally the exact opposite and focusses on doing as much damage as possible with as little defenses up as possible.

I for one am the latter. I Preffer to do asmuch damage as possible in a short timeframe. And that is what i want to discuss.With the latest standardization of the scepter weapon, ive really been enjoying ele again after a long period of just being.. basically useless. There are a few points i want to delve in deeper however.

Cooldowns. The enemy of every elementalist. The reason why most glass cannon elementalists stopped playing.Burst. The reason why elementalist is fun to play.Sustain. The possible options to sustain a fight whilst being squishy as a wet noodle.

Cooldowns, in my personal opinion i believe the cooldowns on certain skills (phoenix, gale, obsidian flesh, magnetic wave and ofcourse the lightning flash) Are way too high for a decent ele to actually play around with.

Phoenix: Main damage output of a fresh air elementalist. With the slight buff recently the skill feels allot more powerfull, after the nerfs to the 'bug' of multi hitting people if you cast it behind the target the buff to give a burn is very nice. Personally i believe this to be the hit or miss skill, its easily telegraphed has a long slow travel time and is offset by a 20 seconds cooldown. Why is it 20 seconds? Almost all of the other proffesions have a higher main damage output with a lower cooldown ceiling. And i believe this to be one of the first reasons why fresh airs skill rotations are subpar. (It is also locked behind a dual skill on weaver so sees almost no play at all)

Gale: On a crazy 40 second cooldown in an enviroment where most knockdowns are instantly mitigated by things like stability, teleports and the mesmer dodge. This feels like it needs a severe cooldown reduction. If you want to burst down an opponent having quick access to gale is vital! 40 seconds cooldown means you wont be bursting anytime soon. It is locked behind this skill.

Obisidian flesh: 50 seconds cooldown untraited, 'recently' nerfed to be invurnerable for 3 seconds instead of 5 mainly due to the many options a weaver has to it has also crippled the core and tempest specs by a large margin. I believe this to be a keyskill in the ele department and would like to see a lower cooldown of 40 seconds whilst removing the trait that reduces cooldown on this exact skill. It would give allot more flexibility in making new builds works while having defensive options to work with. However i completely understand if this isnt possible due to giving bunker eles more access to damage mitigation wich is definatly not something you would want.

Magnetic wave: at 25 seconds way too high seeing this is a keyskill in dealing with people who focus on condition damage. I personally believe this skill should have a much lower cooldown. It is unreliable due to the high cooldown and it forces elementalists to 'wait out' of a fight when its on cooldown. Cleansing of a bunker elementalist is already top notch and i personally dont see this skill tip over bunkers by a large margin.

Lightning flash: 40 second cooldown, nerfed back during the celestial D/D days due to the D/D cele ele being too strong. I feel this skill should atleast get its breakstun properties back.I also believe the range in wich it can be cast is too short of a distance. Elementalists are at an all time low on mobility, while superspeed is being granted to everyone these days, teleports are essential for a skilled ele to jump in and jump out with all the mobility buffs classes got due to elite specs. With Fiery greatsword nerfed to not include the superspeed leap. The ele is basically a sitting duck grounded due to not having any reliable ways to escape a fight. I believe this should be atleast at the 1200 range spectrum with a 30 second cooldown. Decrease the damage the hit does And i believe lightning flash might once again be a reliable tool to use.

In my personal Core elementalist build all my skills are on cooldown after i used a burst. I am using 2 cooldown reduction traitlines. Yet still i sometimes have to wait outside of a fight for over 5 seconds being basically unable to cast anything because everything is on cooldown. Shatterstone and Meteor's cast times are too high to effectively cast them properly because once someone spots you standing still 1 hit can 1 shot me. Getting downed before even being able to have cast the 2 skills.