Sooooo....when does ele get a rework?

So, since PoF launch, we have seen a rework of Herald, Mesmer, Deadeye, Scrapper and a major overhaul to scourge.Just wondering if there are any plans for something similar to that for the most underpowered PvP spec in the game right now?!

Considering how Ele hasn't even seen the same amount of power creep as other classes, I think it's safe to say Ele is just too complex in its skills' and traits' possible interactions, or at least perceived as such, that reworking or even meaningfully buffing the class is just too daunting and time consuming when there are other projects which would affect more players sooner (more living world episodes, for instance). Will it happen? Maybe, but I can only imagine it would be after the last expansion is released.

I could be, and hopefully am, wrong about that and ANet's actually had a small team silently working on an Ele overhaul for a few months now. Just don't hold your breath.

Hopefully never, as "rework" term makes me afraid for future of my most favorite profession in the game. Can easily result in dumbing it down, turning it into another bland, face-rolling character. What it needs is not rework, but a set of tactical buffs, some slight changes to how traits are distributed, enhancement to certain mechanics (Unravel turned from utility skill to basic mechanic for Weaver, better Overload mechanics which not turn you into a punching bag and make all overloads useful for Tempest, not just Air, some buffs to other weapons for both, so they could be on par with sword and warhorn) while at the same time other certain powerhouse professions need to be nerfed to combat powercreep.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:slight changes to how traits are distributed, enhancement to certain mechanics (Unravel turned from utility skill to basic mechanic for Weaver, better Overload mechanics which not turn you into a punching bag and make all overloads useful for Tempest, not just Air, some buffs to other weapons for both, so they could be on par with sword and warhorn)

so basically a rework? :#

@Zenix.6198 said:

@"MoriMoriMori.5349" said:slight changes to how traits are distributed, enhancement to certain mechanics (Unravel turned from utility skill to basic mechanic for Weaver, better Overload mechanics which not turn you into a punching bag and make all overloads useful for Tempest, not just Air, some buffs to other weapons for both, so they could be on par with sword and warhorn)

Of course it needs a rework; not on gameplay, not on f1-f4, but on specs and utlity skills.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@Zenix.6198 said:

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:slight changes to how traits are distributed, enhancement to certain mechanics (Unravel turned from utility skill to basic mechanic for Weaver, better Overload mechanics which not turn you into a punching bag and make all overloads useful for Tempest, not just Air, some buffs to other weapons for both, so they could be on par with sword and warhorn)

Getting rid of attunement switching is not what a rework means to Anet. Have a look at the recent mesmer, deadeye and herald reworks. Mesmer rework did not get rid of clones and phantasms. Deadeye rework did not get rid of malice. Herald rework did not get rid of their F1. Even if they did end up encouraging you less to swap between, you would still have the weaver spec which is dedicated to that anyway. Core ele needs a rework and not the elite specs.

Getting rid of conjured weapons would be a miracle btw. Clunkiest skill category in the game and your DPS is balanced around such clunkiness? Would be so nice if they just went away. Changing some weapon skills completely could be part of it or not. Even if they did change some weapon skills, it probably would be a relatively small amount of them. However, it is the core trait lines that need the most work.

Weapon swap ?

The Issue is with re-works it effects ALL GAMEMODES and this dev team has terrible track record of nerfing/removing pvp/wvw builds cause ele did to much damage vs npc golem...

But ele needs reworks and I think that the way more safer is to rework skills and traits that are effectively dead in all gamemodes and that's big list of those.

@"Mr Godlike.6098" said:The Issue is with re-works it effects ALL GAMEMODES and this dev team has terrible track record of nerfing/removing pvp/wvw builds cause ele did to much damage vs npc golem...

To be fair....I think this can be adressed quite easily by actually giving sword weaver some range.It has good dps on stationary targets....But 130 range on dual attacks is a big yikes on anything that actually moves.This is even more funny considering Daggers dont have that issue.

Like:Twin Strikes - make it similar to Herald's "burst of strength" (Facet Flipover). 180° frontal cone double strike with actual range.Gale Strike - make it similar to Impale (Dagger#1 on earth) or the berserker's "flame breaker" (torch#4) with like ~240 range.Cauterizing Strike - maybe similar to Ranger's "Hilt Bash". With some form of a movement component.Quantum Strike - Just some more range tbh. 220 (like "maul") would be really nice.Im mostly fine with with Natural Frenzy and Shearing Edge...altho a bit more base dmg to the latter would be nice.

This would already help massively with some of Weavers dmg issues in PvP ...without actually buffing the damage.In PvE this wouldn't change benchmarks at all...just some QoL changes there, if anything.

@"Zenix.6198" said:So, since PoF launch, we have seen a rework of Herald, Mesmer, Deadeye, Scrapper and a major overhaul to scourge.Just wondering if there are any plans for something similar to that for the most underpowered PvP spec in the game right now?!

https://youtu.be/GM8Gf2ZHkbY

Actually came to the elementalist sub-forum to make a thread about ele getting a rework.

I don't know what your views on rework are tho but ele needs quite a big rework to make it " work" . Scrapper only got gyros and a few traits reworked and it made it broken

Ele hasn't been good in pvp for a long time and the best ele build is a 1v1 duelist build but it's not the best duelist build in the game so its automatically obsolete. Support ele is sutpid, it can work occasionally but its stupid and DPS ele is just non-existent.I played 935285092582 games on staff dps ele in this game's beta because i loved the concept, i played almost 2k games on staff dps ele when the game went live back in the day because it was still viable and that was a big part because other classes weren't as broken as now and because thieves and revenants couldn't play the game, cause they completely shut down any dps ele build

Was even considering to post more detailed stuff like how i want staff to be reworked because an elemental mage with a staff is like one of the most iconic looks for fantasy setting rpgs and then there's gw2 where staff does laughably low damage. Elemental magic is really cool and yet ele isn't that cool and at best its a tank which is such a backwards/horrible logic, a light armor-cloth class is a tank? it just looks silly

here's a bunch of suggestions on how to make ele more viable, diverse and flashy

element swapping should have lower cd, make it 8 sec instead 10 and with the trait it'll go down a bit more

fireball's dmg should be boosted and it should burn as well, if you wanna play hybrid or condi ele you need to put the dots on fire and on earth cus you cant on wind and water. The cast time/ projectile speed should also be faster

they should rework lava font, make it have burn stack application and increase its dmg cus its pathetic, the cd can be increased by 20-50% as a compensationflame burst should do more power damage, should be usable on people behind you (have your char turn around, make the game more fluid and modern)

burning retreat should do an explosion in the beginning that burns (extra) and does power dmg (not very high since its a retreat skill but some damage since its " burning" ) and also blind on top of leaving the fire trail as it does now. It's a 20 sec skill and it's pathetic in terms of dps, its only really good cus of the extra iframe. Oh it should also remove a condition cus CAUTERIZED XD

meteor could be the coolest looking skill in the game and instead its just a bunch of puny RNG fireballs, just make it one huge meteor that looks flashy and cool and still has slightly more cast time than normal (but not too long) and gives off some warning but also make it deal massive damage. Meteor is easily a top tier spell in most games and it looks super cool and flashy in general but in this game it's pathetic.

look at this 2012 game (which is awesome btw) and it's meteor spell, its absolutely beautiful, the ground shakes and the meteors are " huge " and can be seen coming from the sky, the damage is also incredibly high and it even knock downs people.In gw2 you could get a spell like that, huge meteor with big damage and knockdown and cool animation that shakes the ground , seriously ele deserves it because mages are cool and people want to play a mage cus of stuff like this and we don't have it but we could and it wouldn't even be very hard to implement it. It should be the highest dmg aoe spell in the game because it's "slower " and because it'll give off a warning but instead u can have a warrior do a seismic leap for 10k damage which is just fine (on rampage) but asking for a meteor with more cast time that's also bigger and more overwhelming and cute to do the same is too much? I don't think so.the cd can remain high, 30-40 sec

water auto attack shouldn't heal at all, the dmg should be buffed and it should apply vulnerability. The heal is too clunky to actually make it work, you'll never get an ele just standing there auto attacking in middle of pvp to heal its allies. You can add some extra healing to rain to compensate for the auto attack but not as regeneration but actual healing, and not as much as geyser

ice spike needs dmg boost and needs to fall down faster and it also needs longer cd as compensation, and it should be unblockable

geyser, frozen ground and rain are actually fine and with lower cd swap on attunements and with higher auto attack dmg and ice spike the people will have more reason to swap to water to do some damage in a fight instead just use it as a defensive tool

chain lighting's speed should be buffed, it's dmg should be higher and its animation should be more visible

lighting surge should be reworked, this skill is stupid, make it a lighting bolt. Lightnings are cool so make them cool, a big lighting bolt (sort of the tempest overload) that's ground targeted and falls on the ground instantly on cast, does the same dmg in small aoe (180 radius is fine, not that small either) and dazes even

gust is super trash, it shouldnt require a target and it should be aoe and it should push everything in front of you. Like mesmer GS 5

windborne speed is stupud cus it doesnt do enough (as with most ele skills) make it turn you into a lightning form (unhittable) for like 2 sec (sort of like mirage cloak but slightly longer) and give u shocking aura when this effect is over. Oh and it should also remove a condition cus you become immaterial lightning and u dont exist in the world XD

static field is also stupid, make it do constant damage (like engi hammer) to people inside of it and the dmg should be decent and not as low as engi hammer cus scrapper is more tanky by default and then if people try to leave the cage w/o stability they get stunned instead. Or even better you can make it so that the cage disappears after it stuns 1 person but the dmg is quite high inside so they're forced to leave or suffer

earth auto attack (stoning) is absolutely stupid, nobody will sit there to auto attack people just to weaken them in today's day and age. Make the projectile faster, make the cast animation faster, increase the dmg big time (make it the highest dmg out of all auto attacks since its not aoe and it doesnt apply vuln like water would or burn) and remove the weakness out of it

eruption should have much faster " erupt " speed, at least 3 times faster. It already has animation time and a warning for the enemy to dodge. It should also do slightly more power dmg

magnetic aura is fine

unsteady ground is fine but maybe it can cover more area or even cripple people that get hit by it

shock wave should do more damage in a bigger radius with more bleed stacks

some traits should be changed to fit the new stuff. Some elements are too good while some are too bad . You completely rely on water for condi removal which is stupid and there should be options, also it should be looked so that weaver/tempest dont get too broken. Tempest can get increase on its overloads because atm they're meh for how long they take to cast. Or make them easier to cast.Weaver should get " unravel " ( the utility skill) for FREE on F5 (like chrono gets an F5) . It shouldn't require a utility slot and it should be free

obviously im not saying they should quite literally copy what i said 1:1 and put it in the game but along these lines, make it actually workable. It hasn't been a good class in years and it's only good when it can be cheesy which is silly. It should be a devastating aoe dps like necro is sort of but necro is more condi oriented and debuff/ boon corrupt oriented while ele should be more damage oriented because it doesnt corrupt boons and because of its concept, and maybe in some world elementalist can do necro's job (as it should be by design and by concept of these classes)

the elementals elite should be reworked (buffed and made better pets with better AI and more impactful skills and with more hp) , the greatsword conjure wep should be reworked or removed or whatever

@"incisorr.9502" Yes, staff could definitely use some love. Scepter as well tbh.

Personally it just feels too slow for my taste in PvP. At least if you want to go for an actual DPS spec.Most of Staffs dmg is too slow or requires stationary targets to do any form of pressure.Air skills on staff feel pretty weak as well tbh....Outside of CC, they are pretty underwhelming.Personally I would also very much like it, if Static Field was more like "Chaos Storm" from mesmer --> Pulsing dmg and some long ass daze would be cool. (Dota 2 Disruptor anybody?)

Personally I would also like it way better if Water spells (Staff as well as scepter) had a bit more "ice-flavor" with a bit more focus on bleeds than vuln tbh.

Well actually ... Elementalist has received many slight reworks till it got released:

• Arcane trait line with the rezzing trait
• The "new" fire GM trait Blinding ashes.
• The charges on conjure weapons becoming a time limitation
• Water GM traits (except cleansing water ofc)
• Loss of fury on attunement swap (RIP)

More recently :

• Air Trait line adding more fury back (it took some time tho)
• Fire trait line adding cleansing on auras weirdly (hek?)

I'm probably missing some tho ! I'm listing this without support so (I could need a FB there uhuhuhu.... bad joke)But ... I wanted to say they planned to "change" or "improve (couldn't remember the exact word) tempest spec and already started last balance patch with the shouts giving some boons +10 targets.

So "REWORK" has already arrived we could say ... sadly ...

@"LolLookAtMyAP.8394" said:Weapon swap ?

Of course we will never get weapon swap...If it was possible to add swapping to eles, it should probably be limited somewhat :

• Allow only staff as a 2nd weapon set (while still allowing another staff on 1st set too)
• Tweak the swapping mechanic, like a longer cooldown, or charges that would refill only when out of combat - this could be traited to add charges, or gain a charge under a specific circumstance.

That would add a bit of tactic to the whole profession without breaking everything, i think

@"Nath Forge Tempete.1645" said:Well actually ... Elementalist has received many slight reworks till it got released:

• Arcane trait line with the rezzing trait
• The "new" fire GM trait Blinding ashes.
• The charges on conjure weapons becoming a time limitation
• Water GM traits (except cleansing water ofc)
• Loss of fury on attunement swap (RIP)

More recently :

• Air Trait line adding more fury back (it took some time tho)
• Fire trait line adding cleansing on auras weirdly (hek?)

trueand also...to be honest, the changes to the fire trailine actually haven't been that bad.Personally I have dropped water on my weaver in favor of fire (with cleansing fire and smothering auras traits)....and with mirage losing some popularity recently, this change has given me pretty good results in P2 so far.

@Zenix.6198 said:

@"Nath Forge Tempete.1645" said:Well actually ... Elementalist has received many slight reworks till it got released:

• Arcane trait line with the rezzing trait
• The "new" fire GM trait Blinding ashes.
• The charges on conjure weapons becoming a time limitation
• Water GM traits (except cleansing water ofc)
• Loss of fury on attunement swap (RIP)

More recently :

• Air Trait line adding more fury back (it took some time tho)
• Fire trait line adding cleansing on auras weirdly (hek?)

I didn't say it was bad. Just it doesn't really fit the fire trait line imo. I'm not into RP tho but it's like if the warrior defense trait line start adding only power damage traits XD

Maybe when anet actually understand the class themselves

even something as simple as ether renewal being 4 pulses but with double value (remove 2 condis per tick and heal for 2x amount and cast 2x faster) would probably actually make some ele builds viable in pvp

same with cleansing fire, if it gets 2 stacks with like 30 sec cd that remove 3-4 conditions it'd be much better than what it is now

playing ele w/o water means not having good condi removal in a game where you can get 4-5 condis in 1 hit even by some non-condi builds

also removing the cast time on the shouts could help tempest dps (mainly for the aftershock to be used as defensive tool while channeling offense) but currently the tempest overloads are pretty mehthey could use more dmg or faster channel or bigger radius or all of those

as well as ele ults, all of them are pretty garbage.. anyway i think with some small changes there could be some builds emerging

edit: oh yeah and then there's the newest concept elementalist has which is transmute aura which is complete and utter failure cause it has cast time which means you cant use it while casting other skills which makes it obsolete, you basically have to stop casting so you can cast transmute aura if you want to get the effect and you even only have it if you're attuned to the element that has it.. its just bad, it would be usable if it had no cast time

@"incisorr.9502" said:even something as simple as ether renewal being 4 pulses but with double value (remove 2 condis per tick and heal for 2x amount and cast 2x faster) would probably actually make some ele builds viable in pvp

same with cleansing fire, if it gets 2 stacks with like 30 sec cd that remove 3-4 conditions it'd be much better than what it is now

playing ele w/o water means not having good condi removal in a game where you can get 4-5 condis in 1 hit even by some non-condi builds

also removing the cast time on the shouts could help tempest dps (mainly for the aftershock to be used as defensive tool while channeling offense) but currently the tempest overloads are pretty mehthey could use more dmg or faster channel or bigger radius or all of those

as well as ele ults, all of them are pretty garbage.. anyway i think with some small changes there could be some builds emerging

edit: oh yeah and then there's the newest concept elementalist has which is transmute aura which is complete and utter failure cause it has cast time which means you cant use it while casting other skills which makes it obsolete, you basically have to stop casting so you can cast transmute aura if you want to get the effect and you even only have it if you're attuned to the element that has it.. its just bad, it would be usable if it had no cast time

I very much second the ether renewal and cleansing fire suggestions.In fact I would even be fine with ER cleansing overall less conditions, if it means having a much shorter casttime.--> 4 pulses over something like 1.5s would be great if the overall healing remains the same. Even with just 1 cleanse per pulse.

Same for cleansing fire. Much shorter CD, but less cleanses are much more preferable.I would actually like it to be something along the lines of the Guardian's "Smite Condition".With a 20s CD and 2 cleanses.

Back in the first game an ele was meant to dish out high single target spikes or aoe spikes. Everyone was like that so jack off all trades. When guild wars 2 first came out ele tokk a new route aka jack of all traits so even with low damage you can out sustain most other builds. Till you get cc and than you die in a hard beat. Since HOT came out everyone else became an ele with stain and damage. Lots of other core profession got re-worked with sustain so they can operated as glass or half and half with zero healing power. Ele needs healing and when POF grew further. ele's sustain increased as a weaver but they nerfed the core traitline in arcane or water. Weaver was flat out nerfed, later on it was buffed too a even more gross troll bot healer. I don't think ele is going down the right direction., but no one will fix it. Hey everyone is an ele now sustain damage, condi but better at dishing out damage than us. Eles still work but you are a 6-7 rather than a 10 or meta. You'll have to fight a longtime to beat equally skill people. Endless rotation spamming unless you are spamming a troll scepter burn build via tempest or the better varient on weaver. But those are for small groups hunting roamers or casual players.

I really miss the days when we can roam solo openly and fight everyone on equal grounds. We used to be fun to play, burst burst damage either with daggers or scepter. Back line of front line in zerg fights, yes ele staff used to beable to face tank a zerg for the first 10 -12 seconds before retreating back to backline prior POF. You can do it even back in HOT. Barrier kind killed those fun fights, everyone has access to prot/stabilty.

Well if you can improve classes you guys need to focus on better looking armor skins, make pve more fun and if you still have time fix wvw scaling.

@"Waisenpai.6028" said:Back in the first game an ele was meant to dish out high single target spikes or aoe spikes. Everyone was like that so jack off all trades. When guild wars 2 first came out ele tokk a new route aka jack of all traits so even with low damage you can out sustain most other builds. Till you get cc and than you die in a hard beat. Since HOT came out everyone else became an ele with stain and damage. Lots of other core profession got re-worked with sustain so they can operated as glass or half and half with zero healing power. Ele needs healing and when POF grew further. ele's sustain increased as a weaver but they nerfed the core traitline in arcane or water. Weaver was flat out nerfed, later on it was buffed too a even more gross troll bot healer. I don't think ele is going down the right direction., but no one will fix it. Hey everyone is an ele now sustain damage, condi but better at dishing out damage than us. Eles still work but you are a 6-7 rather than a 10 or meta. You'll have to fight a longtime to beat equally skill people. Endless rotation spamming unless you are spamming a troll scepter burn build via tempest or the better varient on weaver. But those are for small groups hunting roamers or casual players.

I really miss the days when we can roam solo openly and fight everyone on equal grounds. We used to be fun to play, burst burst damage either with daggers or scepter. Back line of front line in zerg fights, yes ele staff used to beable to face tank a zerg for the first 10 -12 seconds before retreating back to backline prior POF. You can do it even back in HOT. Barrier kind killed those fun fights, everyone has access to prot/stabilty.

Well if you can improve classes you guys need to focus on better looking armor skins, make pve more fun and if you still have time fix wvw scaling.

https://i.imgur.com/3sCLJrD.gif

Another hero finally get it! BRAVO