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Concerns about Elementalist


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A few thing on Fire traits:Burning Fire is a trait in Fire that is practically useless because it removes conditions. If an Elementalist wants to remove conditions they will spec in Water, this trait doesn't belong to the Fire traits. I know they tried to move condition cleaning to Fire, but it's too little to even be worth it. What I'd like to see added in its place is a trait that removes Boons (burning the boons away)

Conjurer is another bad trait, for two reasons, first it applies the weakest Aura of them all (Fire Aura) and second because Conjures themselves need a rework. The old Might on signet use traits that we used to have some years ago were better than this (and still weak).

One with Fire is another terrible trait. I can see the synergy with Conjurer, so we need to take 2 bad traits for clunky might generation. Again, it offers buffs to the weakest Aura (Fire Aura). Unless Fire Aura is tweaked to be useful I don't see this being powerful enough to be used. Elementalist is squishy and dies easily when hit, yet we get an Aura that requires us to get hit in order to work, this is completely backwards. There is the skill https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lava_Skin available for Weavers, this is how One with Fire could work, a buff around the Elementalist that burns foes and provides might (instead of Barrier which is expansion ability) to the Elementalist constantly, without the need to get hit to work.

Blinding Ashes is the final Fire trait that is weak, 4 sec blind on a 8 sec cooldown that doesn't re-apply blind on damage over time effects is very weak. It needs something more although I'm not exactly sure what.

Something interesting now, Pyromancer's Puissance is the trait I'm using on my Sword/Dagger Weaver (solo play), because there aren't enough blast combos nor fire fields for Persisting Flames, without any investment in Boon Duration I can keep 23 stacks of Might on myself. If only I could share those with my team! Heat Sync is a Tempest skill and Dagger isn't very useful because Fire skills on Dagger are much Weaker than Air, so staying in Fire isn't worth it. Fire skills on Sword are great on the other hand. Adding a way to share Might with the team would make Pyromancer's Puissance a great option (not on the same trait of course)

On a side note: making Heat Sync work on 10 people is another option to increase Tempest Support viability.

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From high-end PvE perspective:

Damage is lacking for the gameplay involved. Ele relies heavily on support. Not only your damage scales with boons, you're relying on support to protect you from interrupts, keep your health above 90%, complement your stats and do enough CC so the breakbar damage buff aligns with your burst. On top of that you have to deal with the clunkiest mechanic in the game by pre-placing your conjures and having to pick them up 20-30 seconds later. All while attunement-swapping off cooldown and placing ground-targeted AoEs. I can live with all of that, I actually like the complexity (although I'd be happy if conjures were addressed for some QoL, they badly need it). I'm not OK with builds that not only have less than half of all this to worry about, but are also more survivable, to deal the same or higher damage. It makes Ele feel unrewarding.

On the support side, Tempest has amazing potential for healing, but it badly needs some sort of offensive support to have any place in high-end PvE. The reason being, the strong healing potential ends up wasted as the group doesn't need it and you ending up trading the offensive support of a druid/firebrand/renegade for nothing of value.It doesn't have to be boon spam. For instance, the Static Charge effect on Air Overload is an interesting idea, but it is way too weak since it is only a single strike per ally per overload. Compare it to how Firebrand's Ashes of the Just work (multiple applications done relatively often). I'm well aware the problems this could create (locking down one slot for a Tempest in the group), but it is still something worth considering.

From WvW perspective:

I suppose Sword/X Weaver is a fine roamer, but I'm not interested in roaming, I'm interested in zerg fights. Staff Eles have always had their place in zergs and they are still sort of fine. That being said, the way I see it the main difference between a necromancer and a backline ele is the way they do area damage. Ele's AoE feels more concentrated. Our "spammable" skills have small area of effect and low duration, making it very hard to actually use them to pressure and control the enemy. Whereas necromancer marks last forever and are huge in comparison. This begs the question - if our skills are more concentrated in nature, why their impact isn't? Their damage feels, again, lacking.

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@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Those of you who care about the ele and its balance, please join this thread and continue to add your thoughtful and constructive comments. Thank you.

Dear Gaile,

Here are my thoughts on how to improve elementalist, as someone who plays core elementalist a lot:

  1. Make Lightning Flash a stun breaker

Lightning Flash is a 900 range teleport, 40 seconds cooldown (32 seconds if traited which most elementalist don't do that), it deals little to no damage and most elementalist use it for traversing maps and for the vertical mobility. On the other hand the mesmer has Blink, a 1,200 range teleport, 30 seconds cooldown (24 if traited which is very likely to be used) and the best part of this skill is that it's a stun breaker.

My suggestion is to get rid of the damage Lightning Flash does and make it a stun breaker. As for the cooldown, it all comes down to you choosing if you want to keep the same teleport range, but reduce the cooldown from 40 seconds to 35 or 30 seconds or increase the teleport range from 900 to 1,200, but keep the cooldown the same.

  1. Revert the changes to Fresh Air

The damage nerf on traits like Electric Discharge has greatly reduced the damage that core elementalist can do. With the weak defensive skills, it has made core elementalist even more vulnerable. It doesn't need to be as high as it was before, but at least bring it close to what it once was.

  1. Rework the scepter auto attacks and focus skills

I love playing core elementalist and the scepter and focus weapons are not only great weapons, but also fit the wizard theme of the elementalist perfectly. That being said, they are not perfect and could be improved. The air auto attack is the best auto attack for the scepter, the water auto attack can deal solid damage, but the fire and earth auto attacks are really lackluster and are never ever used. When you think about using fire or earth auto attacks, you'd think that they would deal more damage than the water auto attack, but they don't.

Not only do they deal pitiful damage, but they also scale with power damage poorly. I recommend you increase the damage on both auto attacks, reduce the cast time on the earth auto attack from 1.50 seconds to 0.75 seconds and maybe have it apply weakness on enemies, reduce the cast time on the fire auto attack from 1 second to 0.5 seconds and make it a ground targeted skill that can hit multiple foes and it applies strong burning damage. As someone who mains core engineer with the Grenade Kit, ground targeted skills would help core elementalist tremendously when it comes to kiting enemies while predicting their movement to deal damage.

As for the focus skills, most of them are fine as they are, but not all of them. For example, I would like to see Freezing Gust changed so that it can apply chill on foes behind you like you can do with Comet and increase the chill duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. The fire focus skills are the worst; you get a wall of flame that deals little to no damage and it only serves for might stacking which for core elementalist isn't worth doing most of the time and Fire Shield might as well not even exist as the burning damage you deal to foes that strike you is very weak.

I hope you take these changes into consideration and thank you for reading.

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@"Quasar.1756" said:Ok, so let's get to the nitty gritty of things.

What is the "biggest' issue with Elementalists? - and - What can Anet do to satisfy / appease the Elementalist community of GW2?

All replies are welcomed.

just some:low HP: Why do Necros have more HP, good health, can cast long time marks and wells on the move and do their walking aoe of death run?

I just want to remind everyone here (including ANet) that these kind of posts are only concerning the PvP gamemode.I.e. as a Necro main, I can see the Necro's potential, still (after a lot of nerfing already, but hey) in PvP and WvW. But that said, it's the WORST pick by far if we're talking about the PvE endgame (Raids, T4 Fractals, CM's, etc.). And history tells us that these kind of posts make professions like Necromancer be nerfed even further to the ground, which might even be deserved as well in gamemodes like PvP and WvW (again, they ARE still doing quite OK in PvP and WvW), but is (I can only believe) accidentally taken along the nerf road in PvE as well, making them even more terrible than they are right now in PvE (if that's even possible). The latest nerf to Dhuumfire being a prime example at that (the ICD in PvE was completely unnecessary)!

Then I also like to give a quick reply on the HP issue (see quoted) concerning both Ele and Necro (and Warrior, Guardian, Thief). I'm a prominent supporter of a "one Health Pool fits all" change! Giving every profession the medium base HP. I know: this will effectively nerf my main the Necro. But, having quite some experience in the game, I see Health as the absolute worst defensive mechanic there is! Compared to active defences like blocks, invulns and (extra) evades it's really insignificant, and mostly only really helpful towards new players that first need to learn (telegraphed) encounter mechanics, before they can use their active defences skilfully. But imo, you should hardly balance to that group, and if you do, do it differently: i.e. by buffing/updating Vitality/Toughness modifiers, so you can at least choose to go more tanky or glassy, whatever you prefer. Now your only option is to switch profession ... which is a wrong choice, imo!

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(pvp focused) Elementalist suffers from the jack of all trades syndrome, where it can do everything but not one thing better than another class. pvp as slowly shifted into ethier full power/condi one shot style builds, full bunker support builds or high evade, high defence slow damaging builds. Elementalist style don't fit in no more, the class has a high skill cap as it is with attunment juggling, long cast times and a low health pool. because of the attunment juggling they will dip into a focuses attument a lot in a rotation. one minute they can be doing some damage, then next some healing or even just doing some defensive stuff. the amount of time I am facing an ele and it does a fair amount of damage to me, it then exhausts its offensive options and then goes on the defence never really finishing me off but saving itself from my consistent pressure.but while its saving its self and not really harming me I'm still keeping up the pressure and all it takes is a good interrupt and burst and it be gone. each attunment needs some options ( not a lot) to break from its arc type. whether this be in trait lines, using glyphs since they swap with attunments or making the 4 and 5 skills of attunements do something different. at moment fire and air the damage and require more defence built into them, water and earth requires more offence built into them. this way a consistant amount of pressure can be applied whatever attunment the ele goes into. a support build should be able support not just with 2 attuenments and a damage build should be able to damage outside of water and earth.

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CONDI:

  • More apply of condition or/and increase time of conditions eles apply to create working condition build (for moving targets) so we can slowly fight back while trying to stay alive.
  • Buff to earth traitline which is rarely used (apply/duration of conditions incrased), something else than +toughness for defence, since its not enough.

WEAVER:

  • Much better barrier at weaver specialization. Better uptime for stability/protection. Better Healing skill for weaver.
  • Overall all stances but Primordial Stances (yay condis) are pretty weak so add effects on Twist of Fate (40sec cooldown is too much for simple skill like this) and Unravel.

AND:

  • Buff elites to not to be joke anymore or just let us use utility skill in elite skill slot.Make Glyph of elementals last forever and to use skills on their own. Buff those skills.

  • Add trait which buffs elemental use to make summoner build. Make companion rune

  • Change visual aura effects of tempest back to where they were. Make Rebound to clear all conditions on use for self.

edit: I request these changes for all gamemodes.

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Talking about PVP!

Sword weaver:The build is in a bad, but not in a completely unviable spot. The survivability is good - even though heavily reliant on the corresponding traits and heals. The damage is completely lackluster compared to spellbreaker, holosmith and condi mirage. I would be fine with starting with two things:

  • Increase the range on (some) skills. Maybe the dual attunement skills could have 180 to make them hit more reliably in a fast paced PVP scenario. The damage buffs to pyro vortex for example simply do not affect this since the vortexes are stationary. Increase range, increase some radii. Maybe increase some teleport ranges too so that weaver gets some chase ability (right now mirage and spellbreaker are faster, holo is roughly the same but holo leap is ridiculous). Also improves the barrier application!

  • To make condi builds more viable, maybe add some cover conditions to some skills. Getting rid of the vulnerability sigil hit sage ele pretty hard. Right now everyone runs so many cleanses in fear of condi mesmers and scourges, any other condi build is just unuseful (this depends a lot on the composition right now, indeed).

This might make sword weaver viable and competitive again. If not, then one might think of damage buffs (or healing or whatever). Weaver also has zero interaction with auras - sword does not have one without comboing, and that's also just the underwhelming fire aura -, making several traits obsolete. But that's too much work and probably not really helpful.

Fresh air builds:I admit I never liked weaver FA, because the main two things you had to do is positioning and then smash air attunement as fast as possible for some instant burst. Rebinding keys was 50% of it's challange - not saying you didn't need a lot of experience though. However I love the old classic FA ele, but it was not competitive at all since HoT and even less with PoF. The burst was bad and happened to rarely. With the nerfs done to FA weaver, it became completely unplayable. So here are my wishes:

  • Revert the changes to the damage of electric discharge. Instead, give it a short internal cooldown of like 1 second. Reduces the instant burst of FA weaver and improves core FA ele. Also allows some more skill usage of offhand non-air abilities for FA weaver for that split second.

  • Reduce cooldowns on double attunement scepter skills like phoenix. Make dragon's tooth more powerful or land quicker. Rework some AA abilities of scepter and don't just buff shatterstone. Maybe the long-term goal can be to make FA weaver a burst spec and core FA a more DPS oriented build - but I don't expect that much work in core tbh.

Tempest:Tempest lacks some things that firebrand has - most importantly stability which makes it too easy to interrupt. Maybe even AoE stability. Right now every overload in a team fight gets interruptes due to holosmith, spellbreaker FC or random necro fear. There are too much interrupts to play tempest without staff - and even then you can hardly use your overaloads, because they are all for close combat. Staff seemingly just doesn't fit tempest all that well (also: only 1 aura without comboing...). And there are hardly any offensive buffs. So maybe think about that:

  • Make stability while overloading baseline or at least not let us decide between stability and aura cleanses. This helps tempest to move to their allies for overloading and healing via auras. They could even interrupt their overload and use the heal shout instead or anything they want, risking the higher attunement cooldown. Nice decisions!

  • Maybe rework some auras. The duration reduction for HoT was good and needed, but right now they have become too weak. Increase the duration on all auras to 5 or 6 seconds. And improve fire aura a bit, maybe add some damage for an offensive buff or include 10% condi reduction.

  • I would also love warhorn seeing an improvement. Some of the cast times are just way too high and get too easily interrupted or predicted. Reducing some of those could make it a more offensive offhand choice for tempest, increasing the pressure in team fights.

Maybe improve overloads in general, but I think with stability they might already become good enough. See what happens with these changes.

Staff zerker:Well, this is a meme, but I loved it for trolling in unranked. There is too much work to do to make it actually viable. I know you have to be careful because of the other game modes, but you could easily split things. But some minor changes would make it fun to play again:

  • Revert the lava font changes.

  • Reduce some cooldowns on defensive abilities such as burning retreat or magnetic aura.

  • Make some defensive abilities be cast backwards like gust and shockwave and let them hit more easily.

General things:

  • Let weavers double attune again! Give the buffs even to the second atunning. In PVP this is extremely dangerous because you lose access to new abilities already, this would give us an additional option for panic protection or cleanses.

  • For the far future: Rework some traitlines. Water as the only reliable source for cleanses has been difficult forever. Also fire is almost useless in PVP. I admit these are bigger changes though.

  • Give more access to fury. Maybe revert or improve arcane prowess? Or give easier access with fire? Maybe some weapon skills?

  • Improve comboing. A lot of classes can easily stack might for example without any combo. Give blast fire field 5 stacks of might, improve fire aura, increase range of blast water or ice fields for more team support. All these things help with complex, but rewarding gameplay.

These are my spontaneous wishes for PVP, feel free to add, comment or criticise.

€: Oh, I forgot for sword weaver: Make the ranged skills go backwards again. The build has to kite sometimes, which is fine. This change did hurt sword weaver a lot in PVP.

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PvX ele here. I also enjoy testing old/odd builds. In summary I think ele's attunement is not following the current power creep and some shaving in CD will really help its current state. Wall of text incoming...

TempestPvX wise tempest simply doesn't fit into the fast-oriented demand in current meta. Currently tempest beats weaver in terms of cleave/group buff, but only by small margin and doesn't justify the weaknesses (long cast time, low damage) it has. Specialisation should reinforce its group capability by increase its boon duration or variety. For example, if 2.5s alacrity is added to Speedy Conduit (1.5s in PvP/WvW) then it is possible to bring firebrand/tempest combo into raid rather than just everlasting chrono/druid.

In PvP/WvW tempest channel times with 4s are too long to justify its current damage at melee range, and a stack of traited stability is not going to save them from corrupts/boon strips in current era. Unfortunately support tempest is currently overshadowed by firebrand, even at tempest's pride area like condi cleanse. With nowadays fights are dominated by pirateship/point-control from range in these gamemodes, tempest needs to have its overload range increased or channel time reduced to become viable.

In PvE tempest overload nerfs + other base skill nerf has completely knock it out of raid meta. I think at current stage it is reasonable to unnerf overload damage or even reduce channel time from 4s to 3s without much loss in damage, so that tempest can chain other skills without locked in animation to achieve that.

WeaverSpecialisation-wise weaver should be ele's powerhouse but after repeated nerf it is unrealistic to achieve 34k (Snowcrow use huge golem to eliminate RNG from skills which is rarely happening in most game and raid contents). This is heavily due to double whammy from last patch, nerfing both lava font and changing most heavy hitting skills to significant decrescendo-type damage. I think it is reasonable for ANet to aim for weaver achieving high burst and decreasing damage, but considerations should be taken to reward players for their effort. Goals should be so that weaver can at least achieve 36k dps if players can play its rocket-launch-code rotation well under stress. Simple way for power weaver to achieve this is unnerf lava font and buff other commonly used skills that isn't a decrescendo-type skill (eg. pyroclastic blast).

Weapon wise in PvP/WvW sword is very decent in terms of survival, but severely lack in killing power for two reasons: range and cast time. Yes, it is strange that I didn't mention damage in terms of killing power, but current PvP meta focus a lot of disengaging and positioning, and 130-180 range are too easily kited by just about every specs. ANet did buff damage in some sword skills but it made no difference in current meta, so I think it is reasonable to target different approach by reduce cast time and/or increase range by 30-40 universally. Alternatively, reducing weaver attunement swap from 4s down to 3s or 2.5s is going to make everything smoothly as biggest issue sword weaver face in PvP/WvW is long attunement time locking weaver in either full survival (water/earth) or damage mode (fire/lightning) for good 8+ seconds, rarely in between.

Regarding PvE end game content I actually think it is alright to increase condi damage from sword, since it is a hybrid weapon that offers something that staff don't. I'm not particularly familiar with condi sword/focus or dagger build but I think add 2 more burn stacks to Fire swipe, Searing Slash and Fire Uprising would help push the difficult 35k rotation to 37k damage.

Finally I think if unravel can cleanse 2 conditions per cast (30s recharge instead), it'll help ele immensely with the current "go water or die" issue in PvP/WvW. Ele simply doesn't have much utility in cleansing without water and weaver could open up several interesting traitlines combination if not for the requirement of water (for survival against condi) AND arcane (for attunements...and just about anything due to attunement issues mentioned beforehand).

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Essentially, what matters most is that elementalist's melee skills outdamage it's ranged options. Melee elementalist should be the highest damage in the game. Ranged elementalist should be mid-tier.

Clarity: I'm talking mostly about WvW and PvP. Getting into melee range and executing a skill should be rewarded, as it is nowhere near as easy as hitting someone from long range. Melee power should always be the dominant form of damage, followed by melee condition, and then power ranged, and then condition ranged. Imo this is the most logical "general" structure of what the weapon/range hierarchy should be. I know this depends on target-count and class, but as a general rule I think that what I suggested is best.

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Thanks for opening this up, and I wanted to offer my perspective as one of the former top D/D ele players on NA (in WvW and PvP)...

Almost all Elementalist skills have a cast time, or clunky usage, letting players with interrupts, evades, blocks, mitigate most of our damage.Skills like fire grab need a small cast time, but why does almost each and every skill on dagger/dagger force you to open yourself up to being interrupted?

For old ele specs, also, (minus offhand focus) where is the active defense? Sure, we have one skill that blocks projectiles. Staff also has a barrier. But compared to the active defense of Weaver, core Elementalist is left panting in the dust.

This is all coupled with the fact that our health pool is the lowest possible pool, when it should be the medium pool.

Additionally... I wanted to make a note about the careful line Anet needs to take with core Elementalist. When celestial d/d ele (in PvP) was a thing, I was appalled. People were using it to easily win, but Ele itself wasn't inherently OP. The class itself was still nerfed fairly heavily, and then the amulet was taken away/neutered. I know there have been small buffs since, but there needs to be a careful look about how your core class performs in a souped-up, high-performing meta where classes have great access to stability, blocks, evades, damage, control skills and conditions. Elementalist isn't geared up to handle it.

That's why you won't see an Elementalist in any of the monthly games, that's why there are only one or two well-known elementalists (who only play that class) left, and typically they're weavers.

I urge you to take a look at base ele just like you did mesmer. I also would really hope you don't purposefully keep classes nerf-batted down just because they're not part of the newer expansions. I'd hope the core classes will get a look, also. We need more viability/diversity. Not less.

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You can't design a hybrid class like ele and expect it to work...Yes you can and Anet has done a great job of it overall. The class does need a relook and I generally agree with the sentiment that the skill demand is very high but the ceiling is low. In general I think it depends on what Anet feels is good damage.

As it stands several classes outdamage the elementalist.

If Anet likes what the other classes can do, then those classes are balanced and elementalist needs to be brought to standard. If those classes are doing too much, then it's the other classes who need to be brought back down to earth.

That said I wouldn't be against a purity of purpose redesign, as long as the general flavor of elementalist as it is is preserved.

Fire should do massive unprecodented AoE damage and burning.Water should heal and support, apply regeneration/freeze/vulnerabillity.Air should do massive unprecedented single target damage, do blind/vulnerabillity/weakness?Earth should do control immobilize/cripple, protection, massive bleeding, and do toughness and maybe even bolster the HP pool with vitallity.Attuning to Earth bumps ele from lowest tier health to ranger/mesmer levels or something.

Fire/Earth can do good damage and be the condi spec.Fire/Air is pure DPS.Fire/Water is AoE Damage and heals.Air/Water is big single target damage and heals.Air/Earth is strong DPS with condition and personal defense.Water/Earth is pure support spec with some condi damage.

Something like that.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Thank you to everyone participating in this thread with meaningful and well-thought feedback. I have one request: When you post, could you make it clear what game mode(s) you're writing about? I noticed that a lot of you did -- like Megametzler, Nightmare, and Nicenikeshoe -- and Agrippa's comment made me realize that in order to most accurately assess the recommendations and feedback, it's good to know the context and your point of view.

Thanks.

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@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Thank you to everyone participating in this thread with meaningful and well-thought feedback. I have one request: When you post, could you make it clear what game mode(s) you're writing about? I noticed that a lot of you did -- like Megametzler, Nightmare, and Nicenikeshoe -- and Agrippa's comment made me realize that in order to most accurately assess the recommendations and feedback, it's good to know the context and your point of view.

Thanks.

Hey I will.I am in love with you guys for giving this thread. I have hope that things with the ele will be different next expansion, maybe?Please, can you merge this topic too, it has good suggestions.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50639/i-hope-anet-is-will-be-working-on-long-range-elite-spec-for-the-ele#latestWill quote my last comment:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:We need something with great single target damage potential and great range potential. Not talking only about weapons but spec too. This would be the exact opposite of the tempest (buff+close range aoe overloads) and weaver (close range). It would be fun too. IMO and lite single target oriented spec with a longbow is a great idea as some of you already suggested. I really like my ele but in every game mod (be pve/pvp/wvw) it seems it lacks something. and cant give competitive gameplay vs any content. We should have a build which is awesome for PVP, we should have another build which is awesome for WvW and we should have a 3rd build which gives us good PvE options. I am not here to cry about buffs but only a fresh spec which is simple and effective enough to make other professions fans to try and fall in love with it.

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@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Thank you to everyone participating in this thread with meaningful and well-thought feedback. I have one request: When you post, could you make it clear what game mode(s) you're writing about? I noticed that a lot of you did -- like Megametzler, Nightmare, and Nicenikeshoe -- and Agrippa's comment made me realize that in order to most accurately assess the recommendations and feedback, it's good to know the context and your point of view.

Thanks.

went ahead and edited mine to show the game modes!

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The problems with WvW for Tempest support are that they are boxed out in their class. Like the other support classes FB currently holds far too much weight over any other support class to hold ENOUGH value. Hence the phrase, "meta or gtfo". All support classes need boosting in general in wvw so people have options for support classes besides FB. I would like to see a barrier option added to AURAS. This would be a good rework for auras in general. If that sounds too unreasonable then a general reworking for auras in any form would be appreciated. You could add longer aura uptime, or shorter uptime but 10 targets. I feel for tempest, overloading and auras are the two areas that need buffing for wvw as thats what made them unique. The reason why i targeted support for wvw is obvious, people in general are getting tired of running 2 FB groups in wvw. It's a class that has to be played full minstrel and you spend all your time in books 2 and 3 and then even supporting with all your utilities and weapon skills. Support tempest was a good edition but it got outclasses in POF. Either buff Weaver support OPTIONS significantly at the expense of their damage output, or bring back core/hot support.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

Please, can you merge this topic too, it has good suggestions.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50639/i-hope-anet-is-will-be-working-on-long-range-elite-spec-for-the-ele#latestWill quote my last comment:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:We need something with great single target damage potential and great range potential. Not talking only about weapons but spec too. This would be the exact opposite of the tempest (buff+close range aoe overloads) and weaver (close range). It would be fun too. IMO and lite single target oriented spec with a longbow is a great idea as some of you already suggested. I really like my ele but in every game mod (be pve/pvp/wvw) it seems it lacks something. and cant give competitive gameplay vs any content. We should have a build which is awesome for PVP, we should have another build which is awesome for WvW and we should have a 3rd build which gives us good PvE options. I am not here to cry about buffs but only a fresh spec which is simple and effective enough to make other professions fans to try and fall in love with it.

I am a little leery about merging that thread because merging often inserts unrelated comments in non-sequential order, confusing everyone. Are you good with including that last quote? Or perhaps moving over a few of your earlier thoughts? I am trying to tread that thin line between helpful merging and cacaphony. :dizzy:

@Dante.1763 said:

went ahead and edited mine to show the game modes!

Thank you -- that's helpful.

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Prologue: I come from over 13 years (2006 roughly) of playing multiple MMORPGs, Lineage 2, WoW, Aion, FFXIV, everything from PWE, DnD and the list goes on. What I am about to present are facts, concepts, design choices and so on. Zero interest will be show in specifics, or mechanics implemented currently in the game. Also, this post will be very PvE oriented, since the combat system of GW2 varies quite a bit to make a specific convo on PvP or WvW.

Disclaimer: Elementalist was, is, and probably will be the take on the Mage, fits a specific archetype, and has multiple ways to be implemented. Lets begin by looking at some of those.

World of Warcraft: Simplicity is the name of the game, all 3 talent specs are Damage oriented, the 2 talent trees decide the kind of damage being done, while the 3rd tree focuses on the theme of the Arcanum mage, the school of magic that comes from sheer willpower and thus is element-less, raw energy.Design: Here it takes on a very specific role, where one cannot be flexible out of it, and go for a healer, a support, a tank, a brawler, and so on and so forth.Role: Clean, straight forward, and adaptable on the occasions it comes to clear, depending on the situation, add control, clear, fast burst, constant keep of dps, and so on.Choices here branch on what the encounter is going to be, and allow the player a spot in every content needed, be it grinding, farming, questing, raids, dungeons, and so on.(Druid and shaman are not mentioned because they fit multiple roles and have a very different take on the game, also I do not want to make people disheartened and commit sudoku when looking at their elementalist.)

Aion: 2 cases of the mage, both focused on the elements, the one called a Sorcerer, dealing insane burst damage with fire and ice, very similar to what we see from your standard staff elementalist, and Spiritmaster, a take on the summoner and condition over time damage, where the players is more tactical and strategic, splitting his focus on multiple aspects.Design: Again, a damage dealer, however with the additions of support in the form of short-duration buffs that are shared throughout the combat. Capable of tanking if geared accordingly, because of damage mitigation abilities, and summons, depending on the class chosen.Role: 80% of the times a damage dealer, sometimes an actual agro puller, they both focus on all aspects of a mage at the same time. Sorcerer is clean and direct, throwing large AoEs to deal with multiple adds, activating burst combos to deal with single chunky targets. Spiritmaster spreads damage over time spells on multiple targets while upkeeping most of them, and also has the permanent elemental pet to deal with the mechanic he sees fit, clearly both classes are given the tools they need for their content.

Lineage 2: Over 6 kinds of mages, all attuned into some different department, having a lot of similarities. I will not mention the Necromancer / Soultaker class of this game, since it overlaps to our equivalent Necromancer.Design: All offensive-mages in that game share a lot of skills that are super similar to each other, just have a different elemental attribue, and cause a different condition, VERY close to how our elementalist acts righ tnow. Their name of the game is damage, nothing more, nothing less. The differences between them is their stats, 1 of them casts faster, but hits weaker, the other casts slower but hits the hardest, the other is balanced, and the other has a bit less in all stats in favor of causing crits, and having added crowd control to his kit.Role: All 4 can fit the exact same role in any scenario, having few abilities to mitigate damage and escape the combat, while relying on offense to stay alive when it comes to encounters with mobs, mechanics etc.

FFXIV: 3 kinds of offensive mages once again. One that is your classic super glasscannon rain chaos, one that plays with summons and spreads conditions on multiple mobs, and the last is a mix of glass cannon and melee strikes, reminding a lot of what the mesmer would be if he had elements

Design: Very thematic, living up the design choices presented, one individual relying on direct approach, the other on external mechanisms, and one presenting a mix.Roles: Both damage dealer and healing / support capabilities for all 3 choices, in some way shape or form, some from damaging enemies, others from straight out support spells, others by abusing some condition (similar to our combo fields).

Elder Scrolls Online: Every class can play a mage, they are slightly limited on what said mage can do though.Design: Follows the theme of the class, abusing the school of magic the class is closer to, adding some standard spells common to most to finish off the kit.Roles: Every mage can dps, tank, heal, or support, depending on the stat choices and gear they've taken, as well as the abilities they have equipped, the only case something is "meta" is in extreme cases of competitive clean runs that people are running for the clock.

Overall: The design of the Guild Wars 2 elementalist is trying to create an adaptable yet distinct class, but fails to do so because of the dependencies that come with it. Attunements / Weapon kits are severely miss-configured ending up locking a person into a situation rather than adapting, clearly a re-arrangement and/or re-design of said spots,positions and themes is in order. The traitlines do not focus on a playstyle, but rather on an elemental attunement, while the attunements are focusing on a playstyle, rather than a theme/traitline... There's only 1 word for that, contradicting. Last but not least, the advertising, in-game descriptions, theme, playstyle, design and so on of the whole class is leaning heavily towards one thing, Damage, and that is the one thing that has been getting nerfed, since 2016 (that is 2 years, if not even before that, I am not aware) without really addressing the actual issue.To add on top of that, people that choose to play the elementalist in slightly more competitive content, fractals and raids, (since dungeons are inexistent in any way shape or bug) are not given the slightest opportunity of experimenting and playing around with the class, to see what fits or adapts, but are rather guided to a 3rd party website of people who do keyboard gymnastics for 9 hours a day (no offense or ungratefulness intended, its just that I don't put you in a boxing ring for 3 hours if you just want to learn to defend yourself).

EpilogueThus, in good old Guild Wars 2 fashion, allow me to post a meta build guide on how to relate to your audience:

Biweekly devstreams that share and relate information on changes, choices, thematics, and interaction with the community.https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Warframe

Monthly give or take letters from the producer explaining the implementation, usage, and adaptation of any change that happens to a class, mechanic or encounter.http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/642-Letters-from-the-Producer

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Weaver is a clunky mess that should have never been implemented. It needs to be replaced. The continuous nerfs of ele's in general have made the class pretty much trash. It needs to go back to the drawing board kind like the Mesmer redesign but not as silly OP broken. They did it with one class they can do it with this one.

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Speaking from a PvE PoV (Weaver to be more specific), ele was in an OK point before the previous balance patch , i dont think it should have been changed so dramatically at all when it was already alright, the whole point of playing an ele was giving up everything, and i do mean everything for very top tier damage at the cost of a complex rotation, low health pole, and being locked down by skills such as meteor and including trying not to move around too much cuz thats dps loss aswell as it b eing dependant of other classes like the healers and chronos for boon uptime that allowed us to keep our rotation goin.What i feel anet failed to realize is that the slightest change in the scenario can hurt the ele and its dps really bad. as of now it is not worth it at all to keep playing ele anymore cuz it does nothing for the party not even damage when it then again only was used for its top tier damage and that alone, now thief does everything better by just auto attacking and either a random stealth or dodge.Ele was hurt way too bad given the complexity of how it is played "well", and i also feel the balance patch was made thinking of the big numbers but then again those numbers are for ppl who practice again and again in order to achieve the perfect rotation and bring it to the live scenarios where things dont always go our way aswell... mentioning again the time we put into it to know exactly when and how to press our skills while still trying to move around and be aware of the encounter (yes i realize every other proffession deals with this too) but in the elementalist case it is magnified to some extent.

I think id be happy reverting back to what it was before, maybe also keep the 6 second cooldown on the lavafont? since at the end of the day lavafont is where our constant damage comes from. yes i like other weapons being usefull but i dont think staff should be thrown off at all cuz it has always felt right and will keep feeling right cuz of how it works and for what we use it.

i cant come up with anything as of what to change or do with it but defently think of it being just as it was before the balance patch or something similar as to it is worth to be played only for the damage and nothing else cuz reality is that, ele became extreemly selfish after the Might LH build was ditched during vanilla and it only became usefull for the fury share but that soon changed wtih druid aswell and well chrono too being able to put out a substantial amount of it. so yes ele literally brings nothing else but damage to the party since our CC capabilities are lacking which is not a bad thing given the idea of how elementalist works.

it sounds salty but i just personally and im sure alot of people will agree given the complexity of the proffession as of now, its rather sad to see other classes who offer more, ontop of better daamge now and are easier to work out should be doing our job which was for 6 years now to be the DPSer way better than us.

thnx to anet for listening to all of us as of now <3

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I love seeing so many ppl (and asura players haha) trying to improve the class! heres my two cents on the subject, I did all the story and Pve content using my Charr Weaver, used to love Ele but its too squishy to go Ele anymore, the spells take forever to cast, the Water trait is a joke, in fractals you get almost inta burned before you have any chance to change to water so I go using the barriers wich kiiinda helps but not a lot, Weaver on the other hand I love to jump around using fire Earth as a main shielding/damage, Air is like water, useless except to do a teleport atack from time to time (I use it to scape enemies I dont intent to fight in pve) I feel like Water and Air should be combined as a shock chill/heal mechanic That way we have Fire for damage, Earth for Stunts, Air/Water Could be for dual purpose like a shield that heals or a heal that shocks haha Healing winds or Shocking Heal :P

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Since launch, the elementalist have been able to dish out high performance in PvE while struggling in PvP/WvW environment. In the vanilla game, it wasn't that obvious but with the 2 expansions and the rework of the way the traitlines work just before HoT, the elementalist ended up seeing it's weakness increased by forcing him into highly specializing himself.

Whatever the gamemode, the elementalist need to be more reliant on it's skills and less on how he trait. All in all, what needed is:

WeaverRemove Weaver's prowess and Element of rage. To compensate for the condi loss, increase base condition duration on sword's skills by 30%. Replace weaver's prowess by utility traits with CC effects and element of rage by a trait that drastically reduce dual attuned skills cool down (40% to 50% CD reduction).Reduce cast times on sword's auto attack and dual attacks in general by 1/4s at least.

This should put the damage and the weaver back where he should be in all gamemodes and give him a rotation that reward him for using dual attuned skills instead of forcing him on the eternal same core skills.

TempestTempest which was supposed to be a support suffer from the fact that he is seemed to focused on boons which is paradoxal since it's selling point as a support seemed to be the auras. The real issue lie in the fact that auras aren't enticing for other professions, to put it bluntly nobody care about having an aura or not which is why the tempest ultimately failed as a support. It's tricky there but I think that what the tempest need is not a direct buff to the elementalist but changes on other professions' traitline so that they gain "links" with auras which shouldn't be an issue since most other professions have the ability to grant themselve auras.For example:

  • Warrior: change pinacle of strength to grant power while under the effect of an aura (the current iteration of the skill is really giving power for free).
  • Ranger: vicious carry's reliance on weakness could be replace by a reliance on auras and the fury proc could be replaced by a fireshield proc.
  • necromancer's death magic could easily replace soul comprehension effect by a gain of life force when struck while under the effect of an aura.
  • ... etc.

This would put the tempest's ability to grant aura as a convenience for all professions and give him a solid, yet not necessarily mandatory, spot as a support.

CoreCore elementalist mainly need some tweeks and a view nerfs reverted. I won't be exhaustif because that would make thing to long but:

  • Fire magic: burning fire change to cleanse a condition on you when you gain fire shield. Blinding ashes changed to blind foes around you when you gain fire shield.
  • Earth magic: Diamond skin grant resistance when you apply an aura. Earthen blast now also apply 1 bleed stack for 8 seconds. Stone heart also increase bleed damage while attuned.
  • Arcane: Arcane prowess changed back to grant fury when switching attunment.
  • Air magic: raging storm changed to grant low duration might on critical hit 1 second ICD.
  • Skills: Add to skills with "impact" a dazing effect so that they have a dazing effect when hitting repeatingly the same foe. A 1/2s daze every 3 hits.
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Not exactly a solution but something that speaks to why playing Ele generally feels a bit unfair -

We have been given a wide array of unique changes to punish our abilities and no other classes with similar abilities seem to receive, classic examples include

  • Ride the lightning, especially given Ele is currently one of the lowest mobility classes there is no excuse for its current state
  • Diminishing returns on 'storm' abilities - which already suffer from RNG in PvE and heavy retal in WvW
  • A wide array of traits which are not particularly powerful yet are restricted to one attunement
  • A comparatively huge array of weapon skills which root us, or have very long cast times, especially given we are the most vulnerable class in either scenario
  • Many classes have traits which have separate ICDs for different foes, but it couldn't be done for blinding ashes
  • Disproportionate trade offs for our elite specs:
    • Tempest's lockout is far too long, as are the cast times of the overload effects, especially given they require us to be melee range
    • Core Ele can swap attunement on average every 2.5 seconds, a weaver swaps half an attunement every 4

Essentially, frustration at the general lack of any initiative taken to fix Elementalist's fundamental problems is exacerbated by the contrasting creativity the balance team puts in to nerfing anything viable we have....

All in all our core mechanic does make up for what we have to sacrifice for it. The lack of weapon swap cutting out the ability to swap between ranged and melee is incredibly limiting - conjures don't even begin to fill the gap. Meanwhile half of the skills on every weapon (and a large number of dual skills) are pointless filler...if your mechanic is having twice as many weapon skills, half of which are useless, you don't have a class mechanic. Every ability needs to be impactful, take air staff 2 - why is a blind on an ability with a 1s cast time?

Another part of the reason Ele remains so weak is that its only real method of survival is healing (less so on sword weaver, but it is still important there!), which requires it to first take damage, which - Ele is poorly built to do; our class is a chicken and egg problem. We need more baseline mitigation or avoidance tools. This is also one of many reasons that Golem benchmarks are atrocious balance metrics. Furthermore, we are the only class that, regardless of build, has to give up our own pressure to heal; all water autos should put out similar pressure to the rest of the stances, the cost of swapping to water is the loss of damage and CC abilities in the attunement - again many other classes do not even have give those up to get their sustain....Even in celestial avatar, Druids still have Smokescale etc!

On a similar note - something which has posted repeatedly in every balance thread for years now - why is almost all of Elementalists condition cleansing dependent on the Water tree? The Devs had a clear ability to remove the reliance with Unravelled Hexes by making it a condition clear when super-speed or swiftness is applied (amongst a number of other options). With Tempest to make introduce condition clears when auras are applied, instead regen is always added. All of these ideas were raised, yet the balance team stubbornly shoe horned water in, it doesn't come across as an unhappy coincidence because of how things were balanced, it seems like Ele players are being flat out forced into something they don't want to do...

Furthermore, a lot of lazy changes have unnescecarily removed a lot of the rewarding aspects of Elementalist - the removal of Arcane Fury is and always will be a mistake.

Elementalist is one of few classes which has a weakness as part of its core design philosophy, similarly its specialisations are one of few which have sacrifices as part of their core philosophy (for comparison: what exactly does Chronomancer give up?)

Whilst there are many widespread problems, I think a start would be - since you appear to have given up on the high damage and versatility parts of the core design, to scrap the vulnerability part as well, move a large array of mitigation traits to the baseline (including Lingering Elements), add more active defences to weapons - not rooting ones like earth sword 2 please... The core theme of weaving the elements will stay in tact even if we stop being 1 shot by auto attacks. This will not solve all of Elementalist's problems, but not having a hollow shell of a baseline class will make it easier to balance in the long run.

Now time for my token crazy:Make tempest work a bit like Scourge - have 2 storms which can't hit the same target, one centred on the Ele, one centred on a (changeable) target at 1200 range. Would make dagger tempest a lot more interesting...

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This comes from my spvp wvw perspective : revert all the nerf ele received, they were all unfair. Reduce cds of ele's most used surviability skills (like Lightning Flash, Arcane shield, vapor form, ecc). Increase drastically healing from water skills . Rework/buff ele underperforming/useless skills (like staff earth 5, air staff 3, scepter fire 2, scepter water 2). Maybe add more evades to specs like d/d and sc/x. Increase drastically the overall access to condi removal.

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just got hit by a mirage for 6+6+2+2 in a split second out of nowhere. Shaved of 16k from my 21, without any effort at all.

Fun. And there is no defense. You dont see them coming and after the first hit, it is too late.

So, Gaile, how is THAT balanced, compared to ele? How are you supposed to fight enemies that can attack and take you out of nowhere, without tell, without a chance to react?

How about the balancing team finally coming forward and confessing, that they love Mesmer and thief and ele players can uninstall? Because ever since HoT that has been the theme of the game.

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