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Concerns about Elementalist


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For me what Anet currently have wrong with Ele is that its base stats are too weak to become competitive in pvp with the current thinking that ele = melee. No idea why they would betray the classic archetype of a caster that players sign up to but its what they are doing it seems and as a result it forces the ele to compromise their build to survive in melee. Either make ele ranged viable again or boost health and armor for eles so they are in a position where they can choose more competitive builds or support both with skill and armor options. Boosting health and armor also has little impact on the raiding, a little boost to armor wont sway things and more health = more stable and no increase in the damage meter wars game.

I would also suggest they stop focusing their balancing on dummies/raids if that's what they are doing, its driving the wrong behaviours and changes and pushes the class further and further away from the original ele vision.

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I'll be focusing mostly on some skill tweaks since I've seen plenty of core trait suggestions in comments, as well as some linked threads. I'll also exclude sword since it's quite popular topic in any pvp discussion about ele. Most of the suggestions here dont have specific game mode context, they should apply everywhere, unless stated otherwise.

Staff
Most of the skills are too slow for what they do. There's too many channels, after-cast animations, long delays.

  • Lava font needs its damage reverted and casting animation removed (replace it with 0,5 second cast time or just make it instant). Cooldown could also be reverted back to 8 seconds. ~~Alternatively, cooldown can stay the same,but persisting flames will need to have different effect instead of +2 sec duration, to avoid more power creep in PvE. A good example which has a lot of synergy with many builds (in any game mode) and skills would be adding 1 stack of burning per second on every fire field. ~~ Additionally, it should pulse burning as well, just like every other fire field (took me a while to notice).
  • Burning retreat could remove movement impairing conditions like similar skills on other classes.
  • Meteor shower should be more reliable. In current WvW situation it's the only source of damage and it's pretty easy to miss it due to long channel time. I feel like it's too impactful skill for any game mode, considering it's a weapon skill. My suggestion would be reducing all of it's numbers down: cast time to 2 seconds (at most), duration to 5 seconds (at most), number of hits to ~15, radius can be a bit smaller too. The goal is to make it more reliable to hit (all game modes) and make it less risky while keeping rather same damage over extended periods of time. Smaller radius also means that it's less RNG dependent in PvE which is easier to balance.
  • Ice spike could use slightly shorted delay.
  • Geyser is also a bit too slow. 2-3 second duration would be much better (with same total healing output).
  • Healing rain has too huge cooldown for what it does. Cooldown could be reduced to ~30, target cap could go up to 10 (big aoes on other classes already do - time warp, banners, spirits, winds of disenchantment). It doesnt heal much, but 3 cleanses on 10 people sounds pretty good with all condies thrown around since PoF.
  • Chain lightning projectiles should be a bit faster (travel speed, not cast time).
  • Static field needs its radius reverted to 240. In addition it could stun all enemies when it (dis)appears to make it more relevant CC in PvE. To not make it broken in other modes, players should only get stunned once by it, whether it's initial stun, stun on walking inside it, or stun while staying in it when it disappears (although this seems to be the case already).
  • Stoning should either be some kind of aoe (like slower version of icebow 3 for example) or have additional damage through bleeding, it's pretty bad auto attack currently.
  • Eruption has way too big delay on top of big cast time. Total duration shouldn be longer than 2 seconds with current damage/condition output.
  • Magnetic aura could use 5 second lower cooldown, staff doesnt have many defenses.
  • Shock wave is too slow and too weak, especially for skill 5. One of the buffs would be adding a stack or two of bleeding, removing target cap (or making it 10) and making the skill unblockable. Although that might be a bit too strong in large scale WvW, so immob would either need to be reduced to 1 second or skill would need to be reworked completely. Another idea is to make it work like scourge torch 5 skill where targets get immobilized after small delay if they dont escape the aoe.

Dual skills

  • Pressure blast: glorified fireball on 15 second cooldown. Travel speed is too slow, base heal is too low. Generally it's a good concept, but very unreliable. I've seen somewhere suggestion to make it ground-based piercing projectile (like gust and shock wave) which heals/damages+blinds once per hit.
  • Plasma blast is a bit too slow and hitbox seems broken, most of the time it doesnt hit downed players. It should also apply burn on hit, like other plasma skills.
  • Pyroclastic blast shouldnt be a projectile at all. It should either spawn like lava font or like meteor. It barely has an impact outside of PvE.
  • Monsoon needs hitbox and travel speed increased (and tool tip updated - it's a moving water field).
  • Lahar could have 2/3 stacks of vulnerability per pulse in addition to previous effects.
  • Pile driver could use some tweaks. Either remove root or make it unblockable (although both would be nice to have). Piercing part is rather useless since hitbox is quite small, so it very rarely hits more than one enemy (in WvW at least).

Scepter
Similar to staff, there's several slow skills, but scepter ones have much smaller radius which makes them nearly impossible to hit on any moving enemy.

  • Flamestrike is too slow and second part doesnt follow the target. I think it'd be best to revert it back to single hit+burn and make it castable when target is behind us.
  • Dragon tooth needs its delay reduced by a lot. Damage could also go down in that case. There's no point of having high damage skill if it never hits.
  • Phoenix has too high cooldown for what it does. It's too slow to hit moving targets, it doesnt hit very hard either. It should be moving faster, and have 12-15 second cooldown. Secondary effects may as well be removed if they are contributing to current state of this skill.
  • Shatterstone could be a bit faster since it's also unreliable skill to hit.
  • Water trident shouldnt be a projectile IMO, it's a defensive skill that can be destroyed with projectile hate. It can spawn from the ground (or be unblockable) and it could also use shorter cooldown (15 or 18).
  • Blinding flash should apply revealed for a few seconds.
  • Stone shards definitely need improved cast speed.

Dual skills

  • Fiery frost and glacial drift should be casted from behind. Glacial drift also doesnt hit moving target even if it's chilled, it needs to be faster.
  • Plasma beam should apply burn on last tick, to match other plasma skills.
  • I feel like stone tide (scepter water/earth) should be swapped with natural frenzy (sword water/earth). ST is the only aoe field on scepter, and throwing projectiles from NF makes no sense on sword (but it does on scepter). Thematically these skills belong to other weapon; scepter gets another skill similar to hurl and sword gets pulsing aoe field (preferably around caster rather than aoe targeted skill) to apply more melee pressure.

Dagger
Nerfs to once strong cele d/d skills made most of these skills irrelevant with expansion power creep.

  • Ring of fire should pulse burning on everyone in it, not just enemies crossing it.
  • Firegrab could use slightly larger cone size.
  • Vapor blade is a bit too slow to be reliable and a bit too weak to be impactful. One of those two should be improved.
  • Cone of cold could use higher healing. It doesnt need to be aoe heal, it could be additional personal heal, but it's very weak for a 2 second channel.
  • Frost aura and cleansing wave could be reduced to 25 second.
  • Ride the lightning has too high cooldown for a gap closer. Ranger gets nearly same effect on a much shorter cooldown. 15 second cooldown with no hitting requirement would be perfect. Not sure how that's manageable considering that skill 3 has 25 second cooldown, and skills are sorted by cooldown.
  • Updraft has way too high cooldown for what it does. It shouldnt be more than 25, even if it means that swiftness should be removed.
  • Impale could use some cripple or higher damage.
  • Earthquake and churning earth could use a bit shorted coodowns.

Dual skills

  • Steam surge needs a bit longer water field since it doesnt have a purpose right now. Or remove water field, reduce cooldown and add personal healing on cast.
  • Plasma burst: cast time increased to 0.5, range increased to 300. Damage could also be higher for this cooldown.
  • Mud slide has quite low hitbox, making it unreliable to hit moving targets.
  • Grinding stones could have some additional effects. Examples: vulnerability per pulse, projectile destroy, barrier.

FocusMost of the skills are great, but some of them could use tweaks.

  • Flamewall (and napalm on engineer) need higher hitbox. They are very strong skills in PvE condi builds, but it's quite hard to keep enemy in them.
  • Fire shield needs additional effect either by buffing aura itself (I've seen plenty of good suggestions like pulsing aoe burn, reduced incoming condi damage etc.) or just adding that effect on this skill. The best case would be replacing all aura skills (staff earth 3, dagger water 4, dagger air 3 and this one) with some effect that gives aura on top (like shouts do).
  • Freezing gust has too high cooldown. It's often compared with winter's bite whose only downside is it being a projectile, but it's like twice as effective. Since offhand weapon cooldowns can be tricky to manage, I'd suggest adding additional effect instead, like 10 stacks of vulnerability for 3-5 seconds.
  • Comet needs to be more reliable since it's not a ground-targeted skill and enemy can avoid it while running.
  • 4 second knockdown on 40 second cooldown is a bit of an overkill. 3 sec duration on 30 second cooldown sounds more healthy, for both sides of this skill.
  • Considering that focus is mostly used on squishy builds, 50 second cooldown for invuln is a bit too much. 40 would be much better, duration could be reduced to 3 seconds everywhere, to keep it in line with other invulns.

Warhorn

  • Heat sync should apply fury by default as well.
  • Tidal surge could have 5 stacks of vulnerability on hit.
  • Sand squall needs higher duration of boons, from 2 to 4 or 5. In addition, it could scale from boon duration.
  • Dust storm should spawn faster and apply more bleeds. It doesnt fit its name at all.

Elite specs need more defined roles. No more hybrid damage/support tempest.

I'd like to see damaging skills from tempest reworked into offensive support skills. All overloads should have improved radius to 360 and affect 10 allies and at least 5 enemies for every pulse and every impact. If they are remaining as 6 second "wait" time and 4 second channel then they need to have additional effect at the end of the channel (not just irrelevant aoe field that everyone can walk out of). Finishing overload grants effect that triggers on attunement swap from traits (each elemental spec has a trait that procs on attunement swap, arcane excluded) - number of procs on finished overload: 1 or 2 (assuming player has those specializations active).

  • Fire overload : pulses minor damage, burning, might, aoe buff that gives burning on hit each second (same effect like ashes of just on FB or sun spirit; stacks up to 5 times - could be reduced in pvp modes). Finishing overload grants aoe 5 might, 5-10 seconds of fury and 3 more stacks of this buff. Tornado after overloading and whirl finisher would be removed.
  • Water overload : pulses small heal, short regen, vigor and 1 cleanse per second. Cleanses 2 conditions, applies large heal and applies 5 seconds of vigor and regen on finished overload.
  • Air overload : pulses minor damage, vulnerability and static charge each second (stacks up to 5 times - could be reduced in pvp modes, damage scales with allies, not the caster; 1 second internal cooldown per enemy hit might be needed in pvp modes to avoid gimmick 1-shots). Finishing overload grants 3 more charges, applies 5/10 vulnerability and blinds.
  • Earth overload : pulses cripple, bleed, minor damage, protection and stability (on all allies) per second. Finishing overload grants immobilize, 5 stacks of bleed, 3 stacks of stability, 5 seconds of protection. Dust cyclone and blast finisher after overloading removed.

When it comes to weaver, one could argue that 4 seconds of global attunement cooldown are a bit too much for delaying offhand skills, which usually provide some defense or utility, but reducing that cooldown could introduce very unhealthy builds, especially since alacrity affects those cooldowns. Alternative defensive source can be higher barrier from dual skills and additional barrier source (for example on applying superspeed or on cleanse).

By now, a big majority of ele players want to see current Unravel reworked. I'd like to see a boon version of primordial stance (pulse boon depending on attunement), since both staff and scepter builds lack boon generation a lot. A lot of people suggested adding condi cleanse to unravel, but I'd rather see some cleanses on traits, for example cleanse on superspeed, barrier, dodge, stance skill etc.

Aquatic stance is also quite weak even if all 5 parts hit (which is impossible in any pvp scenario). It could have a single heal and cleanse condition per hit (on hitting enemy, 1 second cooldown) for example.

Edit: Forgot a very important part: Utility skills

  • Ether renewal: reduce cast time to 1/1.5 sec, reduce conditions cleansed to 5/6.
  • Arcane brilliance: reduce cooldown to 15 to match pvp cooldown.
  • Arcane power: reduce cooldown to 35/40.
  • Arcane shield: increase number of blocks to 5. Alternative change: reduce damage, make it block all attacks for the duration, add flip skill to detonate the shield.
  • Armor of earth: reduce stability stacks to 5 (you cant even get CC-ed 10 times) and cooldown to 30. Make it either aoe or make both stability and protection pulse over time: 2 stacks on cast and every 2 seconds for 6 seconds - something like balanced stance. Guardian has the same skill on much lower cooldown, which is an aoe stability source. Alternatively keep the same version with reduced stability (5 sec stab, 5 sec prot) and same cooldown - 50, but add ammo charge (2 total).
  • Cleansing fire: cleanse burning by default, in addition to 3 cleanses. Reduce cooldown to 30, add ammo charges (2 total).
  • Lightning flash: Currently the weakest teleport skill compared to blink and shadowstep and ele doesnt have stealth to delay enemy, like thief and mesmer do. I'd like to see damage component of this skill removed (it's pointless), range increased to 1200 to match other two and cooldown reduced to 20/25 seconds. Ele doesnt need stun break on flash, it needs more mobility. Considering that mesmer only has stun break on 30 second cooldown and thief can use shadowstep twice, 20 or 25 second flash seems balanced in comparison. Alternatively keep 30 seconds, but add ammo charge (2 total), like rocket boots on engi.
  • Conjured weapons should definitely get a rework. A lot of players like the idea of having those on ammo recharge. The most interesting idea I've seen - using conjured weapon adds a flip skill that allows you to drop another conjured weapon for allies (player who dropped it cant pick it up). That way ele doesnt need to run around and pick up conjured weapons and allies still get a chance to use them. I guess that 60 second cooldown (120 on greatsword, 180 is way too much) and 2 ammo charges sounds healthy.
  • Glyphs of elemental and storm could use a bit shorter cast time. Elemental glyphs could also start cooldown after casting rather than on elemental's death to improve solo pve content even more (pets taking aggro is quite useful there, and both necro and ranger can do this with no downtime, even though they are both tankier than ele).
  • Tornado: add more health, reduce cooldown to 90 everywhere (including underwater skill version), remove cast time (or reduce to 0.5 sec). Add evade to dust charge, increase stability to 3 stacks.

Further edits: clarity and typos (and additional suggestions if I remember any - will be posted here and above).

  • Finishing overload procs attunement-swap trait effects once or twice (arcane boons excluded), of course, if traited.
  • Persisting flames/lava font change. Done with edits here, long term trait (and some skill) change suggestions can be found on page 5.
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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.

Thanks Gaile for this opportunity

Game mode: sPVP

The visionIt's a game, it must be fun to play.Each profession should have a purpose.Profession should not be best everywhere (it's even bad idea), but at least in something the profession must be good.Remember the principle: "Rock - Paper - Scissors"It's fun when player is able to react on happening in the game, it's a main principle of interactive game process,the active defense is a best option for Ele - If you careful and skilled you have chance to play good.

Analysis

Ele is bad today:vitality, armor, dps, spike damage, passive defense, active defense, block, stunbreaks, fast self-buff, tank, cc-removalSo Ele is bad against almost anyone

Ele is average today:Conditions self-removal, self heal under water+any healing amulet, mobilitySo Ele is average against conditions based builds

Ele is good today:Nowhere

What is most annoying? Stun&Knockdowns. You can not do anything like if your keyboard is broken.Ele has not enough stun-breaks. Without stun-breaks Ele will not live considering how squishy it is.

Suggestions:Let's select for Weaver a role: semi-bruiser & semi-support with best conditions removal and best stun breaks.Can be applied on group as well.Hard counter for any conditions based builds and stun based buildsWeak still against any spike damage or any power based builds (still no armor, no passive defense, no blocks, lowest vitality pool, etc....)

Implementation:

  • Add stun breaks to some other skills (signets, stances) (MUST HAVE!)
  • Add conditions removal without water trait-line. (MUST HAVE!) conditions removal on"swiftness", "protection", "on hit burned target". Make something available for the group.
  • Add active defense skills (or reduce CD on existing). For example add evade to all stances and signets.
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I don't main Ele, but even as a casual observer I can see a number of problems, most of which apply to both PvE and PvP -

They have worst armor and health and, unlike a number of other classes, have very few ways of mitigating damage. Every time I play my Ele solo all I do is die constantly, which is not really a problem I have with other classes. The thief is pretty similar but is saved by things like SoM, Invigorating Precision, and lots of dodges. Eles are desperately in need of better evading, stealth, barrier, or (my favorite option) much more potent control effects built into their toolset to offset their terrible natural attrition. This would also help give them a more specialized group role instead of just "damage", which I don't think is the right way to design the Ele.

Another very obvious issue is that the staff autos (other than fire) have always felt way too weak for their effects. Fire is basically the only worthwhile fallback attunement unless you are in a specialized role in a group. I don't see the point of that, especially since it becomes so thematically limiting. Air, Earth, and Water autos along with Lightning Surge all need significant buffs or to just be redesigned IMO. The animations on them are pretty weaksauce anyway.

I would complain about condition removal, but I honestly think it's more an issue with the design of conditions than it is with the design of Eles (the balance team has messed up making conditions both too strong and too easy to get rid of, which just wrecks the game's balance in a lot of ways). Although, if that isn't going to change, they need better access to it.

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I main ele PVE , i am a casual player, a noob as you might say.. (complete living worlds quest and fight monsters). I just build my char as i see fit, not following any meta. (I do not do any sPVP).

I normally run tempest S/W, Fire for damage, Water for healing, Lightning for Running, Earth.. well only for war horn extending boons. I have no issue with that specialization. My only concern is why i only benefit from 2 of my 3 traits at any given time.. as some traits require you to be attune to that element.. i do not see that in other classes. So i end up picking those traits that like power % -> vitality %.. so i get passive improvement..

When weaver came out, i was excited. I was like thinking.. wow, now we can attune to 2 elements at the same time, while giving up overload abilities.Finally a spec that can fully utilize 3 traits lines. (weaver + fire + water).. So i decided to build fire / water + weaver build.. thinking i might have smoothing mist + damage output from the fire line. Or run faster and heal with the lightning line + water. To my disappointment.. when you switch to the new attunement.. you lose the previous attunement buffs.. .. even when the skills still exist.

I have a simple question / request... why is that so for weavers? Why still single attunement only even when you are hybrid.. wielding both fire / water. I do not see it overpowering to be leveraging on 3 traits line at the same time.. Other classes i believe have access to 3 traits all the time.

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Hello guys, presentations first. My in-game name is Glorfyndel, I am a sPvP/WvW veteran player of Elementalist (as a few of you).I am going to talk about Elementalist Player v Player situation/context (it includes PvP and WvW).As I have experience in computer science/game design/mathematics and image processing (engineer hands up ^^) I will talk about the problems and suggest solutions categorized by cheapest (easy to implement) to expensive (high implementation effort).

I am proud of you Arena net because you made one of the most wonderful expansions I have ever played (it felt like the old hype around nightfall/factions/eye of the north expansions) and please, Gaile Gray, give my congratulations to your team for all the new stuff (specially the mounts implementation) and new specializations.

However I must give you my opinion on Weaver and I hope it will help to take decisions.

Elementalist essential problems (PvP/WvW only):

  1. Dispels related to Water line.· Cheap Solution Suggestion:
    • Diamond skin: reduce the treshold at 50% and reduce internal cooldown to 3/4 sec.
    • Woven strides: speed and superspeed application clean conditions and speed is 33% effectivenes increase.
    • Burning fire: reduce de cooldown to 25 sec.

Because "Cleansing Water" coupled with "Woven Strides" is our only way to get enough dispels to be viable we are forced to all play the same build. With those changes we give more build diversity (aka Fire line with "One with fire" and "Pyromancer's Puissance" for perma 25 stacks of might without any combo field needed, Earth line for a "tankier" build or Air line for a lightning rod/fresh air critical strikes based build)

  1. Buffs on switching element and reduction on swap elements related to Arcane line.· Cheap Solution Suggestion:
    • Elemental attunement: make the buffs on swapping elements base line on Elementalist.
    • Elemental Attunement: Put fury 2 sec on swapping element.
    • Elemental enchantment: make the 15% reduction base line on Elementalist.
    • Elemental enchantment: Increase the concentration to 250.

Because Elementalists are a "buff based" class we all do the same choice. We all play Arcane line because of "Elemental attunement" and "Elemental enchantment" are the two most important traits for us so far. So putting those two abilities into base line will free Elementalist from Arcana. Again it will allow Ele's to play something else as I show in the Water line "independence" example.

  1. Barrier numbers are too low (and related to healing power).· Cheap Solution Suggestion:
    • Reduce de healing coefficient influence on barrier number across Elementalist and increase base barrier numbers.
    • Elemental Refreshment: 500-600 barrier on dual attack.
    • Invigorating strikes: 1500 barrier on dodge and vigor (3sec) on dual attack.
    • Rock solid: Stability: 2sec of stability and 2000 barrier on while switching on earth.

Barrier is an awesome idea! However, the truth is that numbers were not there. So increasing all the barrier will may give the survivability all Elementalist wanted. Finally, if we add barrier to "Solid Rock" it may be in the right direction of a more defensive Earth line.

  1. Some defensive spells have too much cooldown (aka. Twist of fate/mist form etc...).· Cheap Solution Suggestion:
    • Twist of fate: reduce cooldown to 30sec per charge.
    • Mist form: reduce cooldown to 45sec.
    • Cleansing fire: reduce cooldown to 25sec.
    • Lighting flash: reduce cooldown to 25-30sec.
    • Stone resonance: reduce cooldown to 40sec.
    • Conjure Fiery Greatsword: reduce cooldown to 120sec.

This changes are here to equalize cooldowns with other professions. Utility skills and Elite skills are too long compare to other porfessions and we already are the lowest HP/Armor class in the game.

  1. Mechanics on Weaver are bad design (with other weapons than sword).· Expensive Solution Suggestion:
    • Unravel: change to a new mechanic like a 5th Element.
    • Unravel: when pressed (like a 5th element mechanic), you attunement into full element during 4 sec losing dual attack, this ability was 12sec cooldown, no charges and it is not a stance (just like another element).
    • Blaze stance: New stance replacing Unravel as a "fire stance" (because we already have "earth stance (Stone of resonance)", "air stance (Twist of fate)", "Water stance (Aquatic stance)" and "multi-element stance (Primordial stance)".
    • Blaze Stance: You quick jump (1/2 sec evade) to a location (500 range) and release a blast of fire on landing (power base), this movement ability cleans all movement impairing conditions (chill, root, cripple).This ability highly depend on your power to do damage and it is 25 sec cooldown, 2 charges.

This is a rework of the Weaver so you can play other weappons like Dagger/Dagger, Staff or Scepter/Focus without having to use a particular utility skill. It is so sad that your Arena net team work so hard on other dual skill that sword and no one are using them... And the "Blaze Stance" mobility skill could free Ele's from "Lightning Flash" that has been mandatory since the beta.

  1. Mechanics on conjures are bad design.· Expensive Solution Suggestion:
    • Conjures: make all conjure a amo-mecanic 2 charges (45sec cooldown per charge) except for Conjure Fiery Greatsword (120sec per charge)
    • Conjures: all conjures appear "in hand" no more ground targeting, reduce cast animation invocation at 1/2 sec.

This is a rework of the core Elementalist conjure set of weapons. With the change we are making conjures viable in Player versus Player situation because even in PVE context it was super hard to pick up your second weapon in the middle of AOE's and stuff going on.

CONCLUSION: The problems-solutions examples number 1, 2, 3 and 4 are really a cheap effort implementation and top priority. The number 4 and 6 are more like a poolish of the Elementalist if you want to tryhard on this.

Thank you for listen to us Gaile Gray !

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Here's what I think that is needed to make ele decent (i.e. meta viable) without redesigning the class completely. Some of these has been mentioned over and over since the beginning of PoF much like how Elusive Mind should be reworked for Mirage yet balance team keep thinking otherwise:

================================================PvP:Only talking about sword weaver:

  1. Revert Arcane Prowess trait back to granting fury instead of might

  2. Stop making condi cleanses dependent on a single trait in the water trait line. If there are options in other trait lines to cleanse condis, it can not only encourage build diversity, but can also get people to move away from the "get weaver to 10% hp and they heal to full" (which is mainly achieve through high healing power from Menders amulet, Healing Ripple, and Regen spamming) water build that people keep complaining about.

  3. Either reduce the cast time of all sword #3 double attuned skills to 1/2s or increase their range to 300 with a frontal cone cleave3a. Of all the sword #3 double attuned skills, Aqua Siphon and Rust Frenzy are the most useless. On top of the buff on point #3, Aqua Siphon should either apply some cc such as 1s daze or 5s chill on enemy hit or just do similar amounts of damage as Quantum Strike/Cauterizing Strike. Rust Frenzy, on top of buff on point #3, should be buffed by one the following: have its physical damage (i.e. non bleeding portion) drastically increased, have it apply long immobilize on enemy similar to warrior's Flurry burst skill, or gain evade frame.

  4. Revert the change that prevent Shearing Edge and Natural Frenzy from hitting enemies behind you. You can revert Natural Frenzy's 33% damage buff too if you feel it might be too strong because these 2 skills are just really awful now, especially Natural Frenzy where you have to basically stand still just to reliably get it to fully cast, and enemies can side step to avoid all the attacks due to the projectile being so slow.

  5. Reduce the cast time of all the final attack of sword's auto attack chain to 1/2s.5a. Increase the damage of all of sword's water's autoattack to be similar in damage to other element's, remove the healing if you have to, because currently that autoattack chain don't do anything, and it's better to just spam it while running away to heal with Signet of Restoration instead of attempting to heal by hitting the enemy with it (and get vastly out-traded instead).

  6. Flame Uprising should have its leap range increased to 600 (not just 450+180 flame radius, which, funnily enough falls short of hitting a stationary target that is 600 range away even though it's supposedly 630 range total; holo leap doesn't have this issue). One of the main issue with dealing damage as sword weaver is definitely that enemies can just kite by simply running away in a straight line because you're melee and don't have enough gap closers. Every other classes that wields melee weapons, including warriors, have tons gap closers or can swap to long range weapon (eg. holosmith) so why do sword weavers, the only class that doesn't get the option of 2nd weapon set, get only one high cd gap closer (Polaric Leap on 15s)? Being forced to swap to air attunement just to chase down someone when most of your damaging skills is in fire attunement is also why kiting sword weaver is so easy.

If all of the above changes went through without any random nerfs that balance team seem to like to do to compensate for the buffs, I feel like sword weaver should be in a pretty good spot in Pvp, which can also mean it'll be decent in WvW roaming.

================================================

PvE:

  • Either just revert the unwarranted Lava Font nerf from the recent patch or change meteor shower back to doing the same damage as the bugged week (in PvE only for MS). The elements of rage nerf is already a big enough nerf on weaver's general dps, even more so on huge hitboxes with the lightning hammer, ice bow, and lightning glyph changes. Reverting Lava Font nerf will also help zerging eles in WvW

================================================

WvW:

  • I don't play much of this mode other than just recently started getting into it because I wanted the mistforged armors, but I personally think, on top of the PvP and PvE changes listed above, which should also get applied to WvW, the best thing to do for zerg eles is to completely redesign or buff tempest. Redesigning/buffing staff's autoattack skills so not all of them are useless except fireball (especially staff's water auto, which is in the same state as sword's water auto -- no damage + not enough healing) like another post has mentioned is also good.

================================================

Others:

  • Dagger main hand and Scepters definitely needs buffs or just reworking conjures to serve as a 2ndary weapon that can be swapped to for some time, without long cd similar to engi's kits, can help, but I will already be very grateful if the above changes went through so we can at least have one competitive meta build in all the game modes.
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One problem for Ele in PvP and WvW is that a disproportionate amount of both its survivability and damage have been based on boons compared to other classes. The introduction of scourge, spellbreaker and even meta mesmer builds have hit it especially hard - an interesting change to diamond skin could be to make the Elementalist immune to boon corrupts and strips - no health threshold because these abilities are much rarer than condition applications.

The current diamond skin is an example of the poor “when hit” trait design that is incompatible with Elementalists base stats.

This would be a very different and situationally strong trait, without being OP due to the many classes which don’t rely on strips/corrupts and the fact it still allows normal conditions to be applied.

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Pvp: Ele is in a really rough spot at the moment. If they had better ways to protect against damage, along with faster cast times for their attacks, then they would be in a more competitive spot. A few unimpressive weapon skills could be made more useful, too. (Scepter air #3, focus water #4, both focus fire skills, etc.) Either decreasing their cast times or giving them better access to stability would make it so that they can at least activate some of their attacks. Stun break on lightning flash would be cool too. ^^

Also, thank you to the players who were able to raise awareness of the issues with ele and made this discussion possible, and also to Anet for taking the time to listen. :)

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A lot of suggestions are aimed towards narrowing the focus of specific traitlines, or the elementalist in general. While I understand what those suggestions are trying to accomplish, I personally find the versatility and lack of focus of the elementalist the most appealing thing about the profession.

The main issue in PvE is, in my opinion, is that the ele's versatility is outclassed by the way raid and fractal meta groups are setup. Sure, the ele can provide a lot of boons, but because the druid and chrono already supply the max stacks of everything, those boons are wasted.

When playing with non-meta pugs though, the ele really shines. Whatever boons are lacking can be supplied by the ele, there's snaring, healing or blindness available if required and if you're not stacking max of everything, the added conditions can really help fill the gaps.

Skills like Glyph of Storms (Earth), Geyser (with ress buff) and Healing Rain can be quite useful even to full dps builds. The problem however is that in a lot of situations, they're completely useless (bosses with breakbars come to mind).

One thing I like in particular about staff ele, is the whole combo field/finisher mechanic. You have that 1 blast finishers that you can use to either heal, or stack might, or give swiftness, or add an aura, but you can only pick one of them. That gives the ele a ton of versatility, but balanced by the fact that you only can get 1 of those effects at a time. The added fun is that when playing with others ,you really have to place your combo's carefully to make the most of them (an extra challenge, but it also adds more potential combo's). The downside is that a lot of combos are effectively useless these days (projectile finisher/ice field/chill stack max comes to mind).

Another important thing I'd really like to emphasize is that Weaver and Tempest shouldn't have to be different just by making the first a dps spec and the second a support spec. The playstyle of both specs are vastly different due to how attunement swaps function and that could be their defining difference. So instead of making the spec's traits do a single thing with minor variations, why not make the traits determine if the build is support or dps? Harmonious Conduit vs. Invigorating Torrents is a good example of how the spec could be turned either to support or dps. Let the player decide what kind of Weaver or Tempest they want to play, rather than forcing them to dps or support.

tl;dr My changes would focus on decreasing power creep like druid's 10-man might and chrono's all boons stacking to make the ele's versatility more relevant. The ele itself should get trait choices that allow both elite specs to be played as either dps or support, depending on the individual trait choices rather than the trait line as a whole.

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I see so many buff request that would make Ele completely OP. We should not do that. We need to diversify Ele trait lines.

  • All trait line should provide some level of Direct Damage, Condi Damage, Defense, Cleanse Utility
  • Stop the Monopoly of Water on defense.

For example:

  • Fire: nerf might generation, small heal when you burn away conditions, add blind to more skills
  • Air: small heal on evading attack, nerf the damage bonus, remove conditions during super speed, add weakness to some skills
  • Earth: small heal on stripping boons from enemies, nerf the defense bonus, remove conditions on hit above threshold, add boon stripping to some skills
  • Water: massively nerf heal (and spread to other lines), significantly increase damage bonus, remove conditions when applied Regen, add chill to some skills

You get the idea: each line must offer something to all aspects of the game. The offer must be small enough (like, each line adds heal for about 1/3 of what Water adds heal). But things need to be spreaded out. You can't let Air has a monopoly on damage, and Water has a monopoly on Defense. That's what make Ele so bad at everything.

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@"Rizach.4852" said:PVP:Elementalist has a triangle of usefulness.Corner 1: DamageCorner 2: SurvivabilityCorner 3: Usability.

And as any triangle you can only pick one corner. Or a middleground and be half of everything.

I think that rather than a triangle, we should think of a hexagon or roles that works across all games modes for all professions:

  • Power
  • Condition
  • Sustain
  • Support
  • Control
  • Mobility

If we give each one a score from 1 to 5, any build that has a score of 5 in more than 2 of those, a score of 4 in more than 3 and 3 in more than 4 is bad news. As well as any build with a total score over 15.

Elementalists have the problem that many of their builds touch too many roles across all game modes even when they do not bring specific traits and stats that go with those . Because of that, they have been progressively toned down until they can't really be particularly good at more than one at a time, while most meta builds can do 2-3 roles, and a few some even more, and when they do have something good, someone else always has something better.

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@Sunshine.5014 said:I see so many buff request that would make Ele completely OP. We should not do that. We need to diversify Ele trait lines.

  • All trait line should provide some level of Direct Damage, Condi Damage, Defense, Cleanse Utility
  • Stop the Monopoly of Water on defense.

For example:

  • Fire: nerf might generation, small heal when you burn away conditions, add blind to more skills
  • Air: small heal on evading attack, nerf the damage bonus, remove conditions during super speed, add weakness to some skills
  • Earth: small heal on stripping boons from enemies, nerf the defense bonus, remove conditions on hit above threshold, add boon stripping to some skills
  • Water: massively nerf heal (and spread to other lines), significantly increase damage bonus, remove conditions when applied Regen, add chill to some skills

You get the idea: each line must offer something to all aspects of the game. The offer must be small enough (like, each line adds heal for about 1/3 of what Water adds heal). But things need to be spreaded out. You can't let Air has a monopoly on damage, and Water has a monopoly on Defense. That's what make Ele so bad at everything.

That's not a bad idea. I especially like the idea of giving eles the ability to strip boons if they spec for it, too. It would really make the specs count for something, too. :)

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@Sunshine.5014 said:I see so many buff request that would make Ele completely OP. We should not do that. We need to diversify Ele trait lines.

  • All trait line should provide some level of Direct Damage, Condi Damage, Defense, Cleanse Utility
  • Stop the Monopoly of Water on defense.

For example:

  • Fire: nerf might generation, small heal when you burn away conditions, add blind to more skills
  • Air: small heal on evading attack, nerf the damage bonus, remove conditions during super speed, add weakness to some skills
  • Earth: small heal on stripping boons from enemies, nerf the defense bonus, remove conditions on hit above threshold, add boon stripping to some skills
  • Water: massively nerf heal (and spread to other lines), significantly increase damage bonus, remove conditions when applied Regen, add chill to some skills

You get the idea: each line must offer something to all aspects of the game. The offer must be small enough (like, each line adds heal for about 1/3 of what Water adds heal). But things need to be spreaded out. You can't let Air has a monopoly on damage, and Water has a monopoly on Defense. That's what make Ele so bad at everything.

What you're suggesting will make ele even worse than what it currently is because now all the trait lines are some bad lines that do a little bit of everything but not enough of anything, especially the heal on rare situations such as removing boons or evading an attack, and fire line definitely does not need its might generation reduced because currently every other class that can generate might generate them at a lot faster rate than eles (even necros with blood is power). It will just be like how sword weaver currently is trying to be hybrid power and condi damage and just end up not enough of anything. Picking tempest or weaver specialization also means you can only pick 2 normal lines, and when you spread these all out across 5 lines it will just not work. Some comments might make ele too OP but a lot of the suggestions are completely reasonably to me.

None of the other classes have trait lines that tries to do everything in a single line and attempt to balance it by making the everything it does insignificant. You can clearly see the many lines in other class are definitely mainly all defensive (eg. Engi's Inventions, Necro's Blood Magic, Mesmer's Inspiration, Warrior's defense), all utility (Engi's Alchemy, Necro's Soul Reaping, Mesmer's Chaos), or all offensive (eg. Engi's Firearm, Necro's Curses, Mesmer's dueling). I just listed some specific examples of lines with specific purposes, if you look at all the classes including Guardian, Revenant, Ranger, and Thief that I didn't mention you can see it's all like that.

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My feedback is about PvE. I've also played PvP and WvW with ele, but it was a longer time ago so I don't want to give an uneducated opinion.

The most obvious issue is the lack of defenses in the class mechanics coupled with the low health pool. In order to reach a decent damage one has to forsake any kind of defense, thus becoming extremely dependant on the team. This damage is more unreliable and goes down considerably without support. A sword weaver might be the squishiest damage dealer there is and worst of all, unlike other classes. the range of the ele is locked by the choice of weapons. A sword weaver has to stay close to his enermy almost all the time to deal damage (though I guess this is a much bigger issue in other game modes).Another problem is that the utility skills are often just plain bad compared to those of other classes. Conjures in particular feel very clunky and unrewarding. Somewhere I read about an idea to turn them into an alternative weapon set, which could also solve the range issue, but I'm not quite sure how to implement this with several conjures.

Something I'd like to see is to shift the focus of the skills from attunements to weapons. Most of the time all defensive skills are on water or earth lines. For a dps orientated build some attunements are never used. Instead I'd give every attument both offensive and defensive skills. and let the general theme be decided by the weapon (e.g. for some weapons power damage is higher, other have more access to conditions, others are more defensive or have a lot of cc), simply so that every attument is at least useful for every kind of build and one shouldn't feel bad for accidentally switching to water in a dps build. Thematically there are more than enough possibilities: Water can be used to hurl huge chunks of ice for strong power damage or shards for bleeding damage. Earth should have overwhelming strength, not just toughness and some sharp rocks.Of course this would require a large rework, but it would make the ele much more versatile, which it's supposed to be, as more than one attunement is useful in a situation.

Of course there are other things as well, but those would be the things I'd like to see done the most.

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@LazySummer.2568 said:

@Sunshine.5014 said:I see so many buff request that would make Ele completely OP. We should not do that. We need to
diversify
Ele trait lines.
  • All trait line should provide some level of Direct Damage, Condi Damage, Defense, Cleanse Utility
  • Stop the Monopoly of Water on defense.

For example:
  • Fire: nerf might generation, small heal when you burn away conditions, add blind to more skills
  • Air: small heal on evading attack, nerf the damage bonus, remove conditions during super speed, add weakness to some skills
  • Earth: small heal on stripping boons from enemies, nerf the defense bonus, remove conditions on hit above threshold, add boon stripping to some skills
  • Water: massively nerf heal (and spread to other lines), significantly increase damage bonus, remove conditions when applied Regen, add chill to some skills

You get the idea: each line
must
offer something to
all
aspects of the game. The offer must be small enough (like, each line adds heal for about 1/3 of what Water adds heal). But things need to be spreaded out. You can't let Air has a monopoly on damage, and Water has a monopoly on Defense. That's what make Ele so bad at everything.

What you're suggesting will make ele even worse than what it currently is because now all the trait lines are some bad lines that do a little bit of everything but not enough of anything, especially the heal on rare situations such as removing boons or evading an attack, and fire line definitely does not need its might generation reduced because currently every other class that can generate might generate them at a lot faster rate than eles (even necros with blood is power). It will just be like how sword weaver currently is trying to be hybrid power and condi damage and just end up not enough of anything. Picking tempest or weaver specialization also means you can only pick 2 normal lines, and when you spread these all out across 5 lines it will just not work. Some comments might make ele too OP but a lot of the suggestions are completely reasonably to me.

None of the other classes have trait lines that tries to do everything in a single line and attempt to balance it by making the everything it does insignificant. You can clearly see the many lines in other class are definitely mainly all defensive (eg. Engi's Inventions, Necro's Blood Magic, Mesmer's Inspiration, Warrior's defense), all utility (Engi's Alchemy, Necro's Soul Reaping, Mesmer's Chaos), or all offensive (eg. Engi's Firearm, Necro's Curses, Mesmer's dueling). I just listed some specific examples of lines with specific purposes, if you look at all the classes including Guardian, Revenant, Ranger, and Thief that I didn't mention you can see it's all like that.

You're thinking about it too shallowly. Things add up.

Let's assume:Before:

  • Fire 100% damage
  • Water 100% defense
  • Arcana 100% utility

If you take only Arcana, you will have no heal at all.

After:

  • Fire 40% damage, 30% defense, 30% utility
  • Water 25% damage, 40% defense, 35% utility
  • Arcana 40% damage, 20% defense, 40% utility

Now it opens up the freedom for people to play-the-way-they-want. Of course, the number and specific changes are always up to debate. But I think that's the principle we want to go with. That makes trait line more usable, and none of the trait line becomes a must pick like the current Water line.

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Breaking this down into sections. Mainly do PvE with a little WvW. Mostly the support role in raids (druid, tempest, maybe chrono).

Like many have said the issue with elementalist is that is just doesn't get value for its money. The game as founded in 2012 had a completely different design perspective than what is seen today and elementalist just hasn't kept up. This of course was masked by its high damage in organized PvE and the removal of that damage has highlighted everything wrong with the class today. The issue is that the class is really in a bad spot and the moment and needs nothing short or a major rework to fix.

Elementalist get nothing for free. Unlike mesmer or warrior or guardian or ranger the class mechanic of the elementalist (attunement swap) has real opportunity cost. Sure you get attunements and more skills but it costs something to change attunement. If you are swapping from fire to water you aren't going to be doing much damage. if you swap from water to fire you aren't going to be doing any healing. Other classes don't have this tradeoff. Rangers can equip pets but the pets don't affect the weapon skills and what they are doing at the moment. Case in point; a druid can freely weapon and pet swap in an raid and if things go south can instantly drop into celestial avatar and heal the group. They have absolute freedom and an 'oh crap' heal button. Tempest doesn't; if you attune to earth you have to wait 9 seconds to go back to water (which is why changing attunements feels bad as a support tempest). You simply aren't free - you are constrained by the attunement system. Firebrand likewise can use its weapon skills freely and can at any moment use a tome - 0 opportunity costs or tradeoffs with regards to weapon skills. There is nothing for free in the attunement system (no effects or boons baseline) and it as a class mechanic actively constrains the gameplay of the elementalist. There needs to be some buff here, some change. A possible suggestion would be to make something like elemental attunement baseline (does not affect allies).

The raison d'etre for the elementalist, indeed what all the tradeoffs inherent in the class revolved around was BIG DAMAGE. That simply doesn't exist anymore. Thus the core design goals of the class have been invalidated. And even if the elementalist did marginally more damage than other classes under perfect conditions (it doesn't) the tradeoffs inherent in its design wouldn't make it worth it in competitive environments such as PvP with it has about half the effective HP of other classes. This is why ele sucks in PvP and is very mediocre in WvW. Raids have pushed the balance in this game towards normalizing damage - this would imply that its time to normalize sustain and health to some degree.

As many have said, the trait system is just too confining for the elementalist. Elementalist has 4 attunements and traitlines for each attunement. The elementalist can specialize deeply in traits but the traits when viewed from a global perspective are weak as they only affect 1 of the four attunements to any significant degree. Look at the fire traitline; 2 of the minor traits are completely useless (empowering flame and sunspot) when not in fire attunement and one is situationally useless (burning rage). Grandmaster traits are similar, 2 are completely useless outside fire attunement (Blinding ashes and pyromancer's puissance) and one is only very situationally useful (lava font on downed). Other traitlines are similar. With an elite specialization you can at most buff two attunements leaving two attunements rather terrible (and which you really don't want to swap to). Traitlines need to be made more thematic and less attunement focused. Fire is the raw damage traitline not just the fire traitline. Air affects crits outside of air attunement. Etc. Thus the elementalist would not be so pigeonholed and could make more use of attunement swap. Some traits such as Piercing Shards simply are bad and antithematical - there simply isn't a lot of damage in water attunement.

Weapon skills are the same way. Just unfocused. Many skills just feel weak and useless. Look at focus fire 4 and 5 skills. What is the point of these skills? A firewall which does so little damage and is ultimately inconsequential. Enemies don't care if they cross it because it does nothing to them. Focus 5: gives you fire aura. Again, skill 5 (supposed to be one of the stronger weapon skills) just gives you an aura. I will talk more about just how bad auras are but it needs to be said for itself how weak this weapon skills is. Other skills such as dagger 5 air have hugely unrealistic cooldowns for what they do. This of course goes back to the original conception of elementalist; lots of low impact skills that you are going to juggle between. But this conception is dead. All skills have a cast time - you can only ever be casting (not counting instant casts) one skill at a time. And with this in mind fewer high impact stacked skills are going to be far superior to many low impact skills cast one after another especially when you pad downtime with stronger autoattacks. A mesmer can load their shatters and scourge f abilities do so many things at once. Elementalist, with skills that just do one thing (i.e. Freezing Gust: 3s chill, 1/2s cast time, 25s cooldown) cannot compete loaded skills such as Winter's Bite (4s chill, bleeds (2x 8 sec), 3x direct damage, pet gives 10s weakness, 1/2s cast time 10s cooldown. This skill can also be traited to be AOE). Winter's bite has been buffed according to the wiki 8 times (0 nerfs) since release (original was similar to Freezing Gust but with 10s cooldown). Freezing Gust has been buffed once (aftercast reduced). There is no comparison between these skills. Other classes have vastly more impactfull individual skills than the elementalist but they also in general have significantly stronger auto attacks A LOT of elementalist weapon skills need to be tweaked and strongly buffed to compensate for the power creep applied to other classes. This isn't a exaggeration; look at the power different in this example and you can see the amount of buffing (its a LOT) that is going to be required for weapons sets such as focus to really be viable. Weapons such as dagger, scepter and focus simply don't have the damage, conditions, boons, or other effects on them to make them viable despite the elementalist operating at such a stat deficiency compared to its opponents. Weapons also lack purpose and need to be reworked along those lines (i.e. staff fire 3 is pointless because staff is never run with condition gear, its power or support and this skill simply doesn't fit either of those builds). There are more suggestions on weapons skills (i.e. Healing rain 10 target cap, eruption animation sped up, no bleeds) and others have already posted examples.

Sustain is something that just isn't there. The lack of blocks and/or ways of mitigating damage without huge trait and utility investment is absent. The sustain for the elementalist was initially envisioned as Healing power and raw heals. Which simply doesn't work with a tiny little health pool, the continued nerfs to raw healing output (specifically in PvP), the attunement system and its lockout of simultaneous damage and sustain, and the damage and power creep of the last two expansions. There are a couple issues here but heals as a sustain tool doesn't work too well with a low healthpool and high damage. Raw healing doesn't prevent 1 and 2 shots or being CCd to death. On a small health pool with high damage you want to be topped up but topping yourself up frequently involves overhealing and thus wasted heals. Raw healing has also been reduced (riptide nerf). Long story short sustain through healing doesn't work anymore.

Here I will offer my thoughts on the elite specializations and some specific improvements.

Tempest

This specialization lacks identity. The damage is lackingand elementalist already has a dps spec so it would be good if it was given the purity of purpose treatment and make it a proper support specialization. Given the name and theme there should be more of an offensive focus (also to break the druid chrono dominance in PvE and the Firebrand dominance in PvP/WvW. Buffs to other support professions are also needed though to a significantly smaller degree). Honestly give tempest more boons and for thematical reasons give it access to quickness. (Note that the other elementalist traitlines need work because nothing in them outside of water screams support in any conhesive way. For instance the GM earth traits have nothing in a support capacity. "One with Fire" for instance needs the might per aura doubled to be meaningful.)The name brings to mind the raw unbrindled power of a storm but to quote Macbeth the best description of the specialization is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

The traits are just not that great.Speedy Conduit: Gain swiftness on overload.Hardy Conduit: Gain protection on overload, protection has increased effectiveness.Both these traits suck. Ele has tons of swiftness it doesn't need more. The protection effectiveness is only on yourself and is going to be less effective than a simple flat 5% damage reduction (because you only get the bonus if you have the boon, 6.6% with protection). Both these minor traits only apply to yourself making them even worse. Make Hardy Conduit apply protection as well to allies. Change Speedy Conduit to the heal on aura from elemental bastion.Latent Stamina: Terrible, needs buffs. Maybe reduce the ICD.Gale Song: FineUnstable Conduit: Aura's become superior auras.Tempestuous Aria: Weak, have this also reduce shout cooldown by 20%. Shouts are extremely extremely weak with their only value coming from their synergy with auras.Invigorating Torrents: Kinda OKHarmonious conduit: Stability to allies when beginning an overload.Imbued Melodies: Fine. Actually quite good if there was any reason to use a warhorn.Lucid Singularity: Now removes a condition on start of overload and an additional condition on completion to allies.Elemental Bastion: Overloads cause an attunement to have a reduced recharge (20s -> 15s).

WarhornAll skills have far too long of a cooldown; 10-25% reduction in cooldowns.Heat Sync: Grants 10s of fury as well.Watery Globe and Tidal Surge: The healing on these skills is quite weak. Reduce the cooldowns significantly and increase healing by at least 50%. They have 35s cooldowns and maybe 2-3k base healing each.Cyclone: Pull is 360 radius, 5 targets.Lightening Orb: Targets allies, reduced number of orbs, grants small amount of quickness.Sand Squall: 4 second boon increase and this is affected by boon duration.

UtilitiesOther the proc an aura, these skills don't do much. Reduce the cooldown by about 5 seconds on each shout (not the healing one or elite).Rebound: Needs a rework because its bad. It is very hard to predict when people will die. You don't want them to die. So you heal them. So they don't die. So your elite skill just because useless. Even if they would go into down state they still have at most ~5k health so you still need to heal them. Or they die to conditions which rebound doesn't cleanse and so they die 2 seconds later. Rebound needs to cleanse all conditions when it revives someone. Rebound needs to be instant. The healing needs to take place when the effect times out regardless (so it actually does something even if nobody dies). Have this skill grant 5s of quickness when the effect is applied.

Overloads

Overload Air should grant allies swiftness during overload.

Auras

Now stack in duration. This is 100% necessary for them to be actually useful (the auras themselves are just plain bad). Getting hit to proc a beneficial effect is not a good strategy for anyone, especially the low health elementalist. Auras should not be affected by boon duration for balance reasons.Superior Fire Aura: Burns when you hit an enemy (1-2s). 1-2s ICD. Gain might when you hit an enemy (6s, 1s ICD).Superior Frost Aura: Incoming damage reduced by 15%. Small heal on hit (ICD 1s) and chills foes on hit.Superior Magnetic Aura: Reflect projectiles with magnetic energy, if the reflected projectile hits steal a boon and/or transfer a condition.Superior Shocking Aura: Stuns foes you attack. Same conditions as Shocking Aura but you don't need to get hit.

Buffs may seem extreme but yes tempest is that bad. No real flat dps buffs but significantly better boons. Still only 5 man (should be able to maintain 25 might, fury, regen, vigor, swiftness, protection and a smattering of quickness and other boons to others). Healing will be significantly reduced compared to current staff tempest (dagger/warhorn heals way less and you can't take the improved soothing mist if you want aurashare) to compensate.

Weaver

Weaver is in a far better place than tempest. Barrier output needs at minimum a 50% increase.Double attuning needs to trigger all attunement traits (it sucks, the only thing you gain from double attuning is the skill 3 which is not good enough).Sword auto attack chain needs to go. It has no place with elementalist/weaver mechanics.Sword needs the range of all skills increased from 130 to 180 (the issue isn't just the damage but the consistency of the damage). Weaver just gets kited.Stances need reduced cooldowns.Weaver elite can be used while moving (this should also grant some boons).Perhaps to fix the issue of dual attunment the ability to fully attune should be on a shorter cooldown than to change primary attunements. Maybe 2.5 seconds to fully attune and 4 seconds to swap attunements.

Other Comments

What Ele doesn't need: (Much) more damage in organized PvE. It needs to be near/at the top and it needs to do so without caveats (i.e. a huge portion of its damage coming from utilities in PvE leaving it damage deficient in PvP/WvW where it can't use those utilities) but it absolutely shouldn't be top of the line like it was at PoF release.

Taken together all of these changes would/could be excessive.

TLDR: Ele needs a lot of work. Probably the most in need of a complete rework in the game at the moment. If damage across classes is to remain relatively similar for raid balancing reasons then elementalist needs a lot of sustain and support added back in to help neutralize its glaring deficits.

Thanks for the consideration.

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I'm not gonna list very specific changes because I know how tedious is reading through numerical stuff. Instead I'll give you a broader scope of ele's issue (mained ele since august 2012).

Pvp builds:

  • Every successful ele build relies on sustain. We have zero condi builds, and power builds are outclassed.
  • Our entire existence is tied to Water and Arcane. When was the last time you saw a build without either arcane or water?
  • Fire trait line is heavily underpowered. You could give us back the old might on cantrip and it still wouldn't be top tier due to power creep.

Pve builds:

  • Very squishy with complex rotations. Why roll ele when you can just rollface with simpler classes?

Weapons:

  • Sword does everything dagger does, but considerably better. Both weapons fill the same niche. This is a serious problem.
  • Dagger needs significant buffs in both survivability and damage. Both main and offhand (but more main hand). Weaver locking its best 2 abilities (Shocking Aura and Burning Speed) behind a double attunement is also a severe issue.
  • Staff is mostly okay, but lacking in pvp (since release). I assume this is intended by now.
  • Focus is fine. Fire attunement is very, VERY boring but meh, at least the other 3 are good.
  • Scepter is non existent in pve. It has great burst but still keeps the same issues for years. Namely Dragon's Tooth, Phoenix LONG cd, and its poor autoattacks (abysmal dps).
  • Warhorn is okay I guess. Not a lot to say about it.

Healing skills:

  • Arcane Brilliance could use the pvp recharge globally.
  • Aquatic Stance is never a good choice.
  • Ether Renewal could use a shorter channel.
  • All the other heals are okay.

Utility skills:

  • Glyphs remain bad in every game mode. Only glyph of storms sees some value in pve. GoEP 25% dmg buff was nice, but still not good enough to justify its slot.
  • Cantrips are stuck in 2014. The cooldowns are REALLY bad, and the effects are underwhelming.
  • Arcane got a really nice pvp buff in adding charges, but then they received nerfs because FA weaver was oh so OP with its zero condi removal / sustain. Revert.
  • Shouts are only useful because of the auras. Their cooldowns and effects are rather awful.
  • Stances are mostly fine, if not a little clunky. Unravel needs something more to justify its slot.
  • Conjures need a full rework. Give them the engi-kit treatment... or something at least.

Elite skills:

  • I'm fairly sure ele has the worst elite skills in the entire game. All of them need help. Tornado needs a lower CD and to be as strong as Rampage / Lich form, Glyph needs targeted aoe abilities, FGS needs a much lower cooldown, Weave Self needs to not root yourself when casting Tailored Victory and the tempest elite a full rework, because it's too similar to an engi healing ability and doesn't fit the Elementalist theme.

Talents

  • As previously mentioned, Fire traitline is underpowered. It only sees use in pve due to its ~~boring ~~flat damage increase traits.
  • Air is mostly fine, but some traits need an update. Such as Zephyr's Boon and Electric Discharge (unfairly nerfed for Core ele).
  • Earth is not a bad trait line, but the overreliance on water and arcane ultimately renders it pointless to most builds.
  • Water. Oh water, if only we could add some of your sustain and survivability to other trait lines in one way or another... I'm not one for homogenizing things, but this is needed. At least the condi clear part.
  • Arcane, the ultimate trait line for an ele, much like trickery for Thief. I don't think the answer is to nerf it, but to make other trait lines (fire, earth) more competitive. A LOT more. Also give us arcane fury back... nobody needs 1 stack of might for 8 seconds on att. swap. Seriously. It's one of those changes nobody asked, like Thief's Blinding Powder becoming a stun break. STOP DOING THAT.
  • Tempest. Very dull traits with almost no impact. Needs a full rework.
  • Weaver. Like already mentioned in water, add some standalone condi clear in here please, don't make us rely on water all the time.

Thank you for reading.

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@Sunshine.5014 said:

@Sunshine.5014 said:I see so many buff request that would make Ele completely OP. We should not do that. We need to
diversify
Ele trait lines.
  • All trait line should provide some level of Direct Damage, Condi Damage, Defense, Cleanse Utility
  • Stop the Monopoly of Water on defense.

For example:
  • Fire: nerf might generation, small heal when you burn away conditions, add blind to more skills
  • Air: small heal on evading attack, nerf the damage bonus, remove conditions during super speed, add weakness to some skills
  • Earth: small heal on stripping boons from enemies, nerf the defense bonus, remove conditions on hit above threshold, add boon stripping to some skills
  • Water: massively nerf heal (and spread to other lines), significantly increase damage bonus, remove conditions when applied Regen, add chill to some skills

You get the idea: each line
must
offer something to
all
aspects of the game. The offer must be small enough (like, each line adds heal for about 1/3 of what Water adds heal). But things need to be spreaded out. You can't let Air has a monopoly on damage, and Water has a monopoly on Defense. That's what make Ele so bad at everything.

What you're suggesting will make ele even worse than what it currently is because now all the trait lines are some bad lines that do a little bit of everything but not enough of anything, especially the heal on rare situations such as removing boons or evading an attack, and fire line definitely does not need its might generation reduced because currently every other class that can generate might generate them at a lot faster rate than eles (even necros with blood is power). It will just be like how sword weaver currently is trying to be hybrid power and condi damage and just end up not enough of anything. Picking tempest or weaver specialization also means you can only pick 2 normal lines, and when you spread these all out across 5 lines it will just not work. Some comments might make ele too OP but a lot of the suggestions are completely reasonably to me.

None of the other classes have trait lines that tries to do everything in a single line and attempt to balance it by making the everything it does insignificant. You can clearly see the many lines in other class are definitely mainly all defensive (eg. Engi's Inventions, Necro's Blood Magic, Mesmer's Inspiration, Warrior's defense), all utility (Engi's Alchemy, Necro's Soul Reaping, Mesmer's Chaos), or all offensive (eg. Engi's Firearm, Necro's Curses, Mesmer's dueling). I just listed some specific examples of lines with specific purposes, if you look at all the classes including Guardian, Revenant, Ranger, and Thief that I didn't mention you can see it's all like that.

You're thinking about it too shallowly. Things add up.

Let's assume:Before:
  • Fire 100% damage
  • Water 100% defense
  • Arcana 100% utility

If you take only Arcana, you will have no heal at all.

After:
  • Fire 40% damage, 30% defense, 30% utility
  • Water 25% damage, 40% defense, 35% utility
  • Arcana 40% damage, 20% defense, 40% utility

Now it opens up the freedom for people to play-the-way-they-want.
Of course, the number and specific changes are always up to debate. But I think that's the principle we want to go with.
That makes trait line more usable, and none of the trait line becomes a must pick like the current Water line.

Water is only a must pick entirely because of the condi clear. The real must pick is arcane because it's utility is just so much better than every other ele line including tempest and weaver spec. The sword lighting rod build running Air/Arcane/Weaver is perfectly fine when there arent much condi pressure on enemy team (eg. mutiple condi mirages/thieves on other team) it even do decent against scourges. it's just a totally different playstyle where instead of water bunker sustaining a node you now kite around and do a bit more dmg instead, but lose node more easily. You still have a decent sustain with just riptide water field blasting and some regen from arcane

Edit: I can also imagine Earth/Arcane/Weaver do just as well bunkering against mostly power heavy comps as water builds, but when condi cleanse in water is a thing and you can also just out heal damages back to full, of course water will be way better than earth.

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Coming from PvE, but my points can be taken generally I think. Mostly just ideas, not hardcore suggestions.

Weapon Skills:An elementalist's weapon should only determine the range and playstyle, not if you go strictly power or condition damage. Many of them feel like fillers with little use. I usually pop 1-3 skills per attunement just because I want to switch attunements a second later and dont want to waste them in the attunement cooldown. Each element should have a role that they fulfill with comperable efficiency (compareable to other specialized professions) when untraited, and expertly when traited (masterfully when traited+stats).

Roles of Elements:Go with logic and what the elementalist misses. Play around with the polar opposition of elements. I suspect that ele is stuck in the damage role only because they have not much else to give. Give each element a good set of boons and conditions and have all weapons deal them out comperatively. listed by commonness, ()'s for possible traited effects maybe?Fire: conditions - burning, (fear); boons - might, (fury)Air: conditions - blind, vulnerability, weakness, (confusion, poison); boons - swiftness, fury, quickness, (alacrity)Water: conditions - chill, slow, immobilize, (poison); boons - regeneration, vigor, resistance,Earth: conditions - bleed, torment, cripple, taunt, weakness, (blind, immobilize); boons - protection, aegis, stability (resistance, might)

Traits:Not a single trait should work only when attuned to a single one element. They can have stronger effects when in their respective element, but locking the elementalist out of any trait completely just because they dont camp in the given element is just... counterproductive to their entire theme.Traits should synergize with each other more. Not just within a single traitline, but across attunements and elements as well. Kinda like how in GW1 there was Enervating Charge and Stoning (EC inflicts weakness, Stoning knocks down weakened foe; Two opposing elements synergize for maximum effect, ungainly in GW1 attribute system, but easy in GW2's attunement swapping).Rearrange some traits as necessary between traitlines to get the most out of the given role (like Powerful Auras to Tempest)

Auras:Anyone can make them with comboing, yet elementalists waste skill-slots on them. Aura weapon skills should either do something significant to warrant a skill slot (akin to Tempest shouts), or the auras that elementalists grant should do something more than what the other professions conjure up. Similarly to how Persistent Flames enhances blasts on fire fields, Auras provided by the elementalist (either through sharing or comboing) should be more powerful. Put this enhancement of auras in the minor grandmaster traits of each element for their respective auras. And get rid of the counterproductive condition of "getting hit while under the aura" to get their full worth, nobody likes to get hurt just to make a trait or skill look not entirely worthless.

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