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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:just give ele 5000 more base hp, remove stealth from the game entirely and give ele the same barrier as necro (either more barrier for ele or a lot less for necro, either works). The rest would sort itself out.

That's a bit extreme just saying

why? necros have more hp AND barrier and less restrictions, so giving the same hp and barrier would actually fair.

And as long as a thief or mesmer can jump you out of stealth and just burst you down with no defense at all, why are we even talking about balancing?

Necros dont have any mobility, active defenses, useful stun breaks and the list goes on. 90% of their defense comes from health, which is in some situations useless. The last thing we need is another unkillable build that damages everything it sees, like warrior currently.

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Hello guys and gals, keep posting your concerns. I know Anet is reading them :)

Remember to keep your posts logical and to the point. No bashing or negative criticism.

Call it a hunch, but I feel if players post their 'concerns' with actual proof (i.e. Link, Screenshots, videos etc...) not matter how obvious it is or not; it WILL HELP OUT ALOT to further illustrate your points ;)

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I can get behind redesigning certain skills (e.g. Flamewall and Fire Shield, both of which are underwhelming, as well as _many _of the dual skills on weaver) but is there really a need to revamp the class entirely? That said, I don't see them having the time to do that so how about just reverting some of the more recent unnecessary and ham-fisted changes, such as Arcane Fury's transformation into Arcane Prowess (as if we didn't already have access to might already)?

I get the impression from browsing the GW2 subreddit that a lot of noise from raiders and obsessive types who care far too much about golem benchmarks is negatively directing balance. There was a decent level of choice re: builds when PoF launched that no longer exists. Nobody really used staff in PvP but the changes were pushed through across all game modes. Staff used to be a lot of fun in WvW and there was a satisfying payoff for playing full zerk (even while taking a lot of retal damage). In the last few patches, the nerfs haven't been compensated for outside of minor number tweaks. If I remember correctly, they buffed the direct damage portion of Impale (earth dagger auto) by something like 28% which looks nice if you're skimming through the patch notes but isn't a substantive change.

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@"SnowHawk.3615" said:Yours is a big post, i'm quoting the stuff i want to coment on, and removed the rest for brevity.

Well Is it supposed to be intended that every other class can do something better than Elementalist at this point leaving ele almost obsolete?Every class does something other classes don't. That's the whole point.

This is not a hybrid game and it does not reward hybrid playstyle, so why make a hybrid class? You win with DPS and sustain at the end of the day in that order.That comes from the core/vanilla experience... The goal was to have all classes perform most roles in a group. Of all of those ele, was probably the best suited for most roles, since water had the healing, fire had the dps, earth provided the tankyness, and air provided limited support with cc and some speed boons.Like i mentioned earlier, elite specs and raids changed that profoundly. Elite specs allow for a more focused gameplay, and raids actually require it. In the case of Elementalist, tempest was supposed to be a support spec, but because players wanted to keep ele as the dps, they kinda ceded and changed stuff (the elite skill for example) to allow tempest to be more selfish, and be a dpser. Then they released weaver, and they made it a duelist, but without much tools in terms of dueling itself, just more dps. This kinda marred the identity for elementalists, and now that the damage was reduced a bit, there's nothing else to fall back on.

The introduction of reduced damage per hit was the dumbest kitten they could have done since pre celestial eleThat actually makes sense, although i think risking a obliteration of the identity of those skills, i think at this point they should fall back to meteor shower and similar skills just doing damage pulses inside the circle, hits x targets and done. No more fuss.

Lava fonts only use now is to stack might.That's one of those "curve ball" changes they throw in because being transparent is too hard. It really is nonesense..

Meteor storm should have never been touched with the damage reduction per hit- over all damage redution; sure but per hit? No.

Well, that would mean lowering the duration, to have less hits, which also reduces the chance that stuff gets hit since it's RNG.I think the main problem is that they were too agressive with the 10% reduction. Which isn't really a 10% reduction of the previous damage, but an additive reduction of the original damage.Which ends up with a lower damage value than if they just took 10% from the previous hit.These are the first 9 hits with the current formula (as far as i can tell from the wiki, and i'm using the base damage value from the wiki):646581,4 (90% of original)516,8 (80% of original)452,2 (70% of original)387,6 (60% of original)323 (50% of original)258,4 (40% of original)193,8 (30% of original)129,2 (20% of original)After the 9th hit it stops reducing. This allows for a total of 5426,4 damage, if you assume all 24 hits go into the same target.

Doing a true 10% decay from last value, these are the first 9 hits:646581,4 (90% of original)523,26 (90% of previous hit)470,93 (90% of previous hit)423,84 (90% of previous hit)381,46 (90% of previous hit)343,31 (90% of previous hit)308,98 (90% of previous hit)278,08 (90% of previous hit)

This progression allows for much higher damage as you can see. If you use the same progression without a limit (currently you stop at 20% damage) it's total damage is 5944,71 (that's 500+ higher than the current system, and the last hit would be doing 57 damage;If you limit the minimum damage to ~130, like the current minimum, you get 6326,95 damage.If you only allow the damage to drop in the first 9 hits like currently, you'll get 8127,26.

This is just changing how the formula works, it's still a 10% reduction, i just changed where that is applied. Now imagine if they used a different rate. There's potential for improvement.

Elementalist has no place in raids now- I was nicely asked to switch to something else in my raid group. My WvW guild asked us ele mains to play something else. and in PvE I prefer to play my mesmer who hits harder and has more sustain then Elementalist unless you're constantly using barriers as a weaver or playing some version of a tempest that has no place in anything other than solo PvE. Yes it is very fun, but the damage in pure DPS and condi just isn't there. It definitely does NOT feel like a hybrid class.I don't think those are justified. Ele is no where near as bad as to justify removing them from the play.

damage and AoE's need a complete fix- take away the damage reduction per hit. Every other class that has a chain skill with multiple hits needs this implemented as well if it's not taken away to be fair to elementalist nerfs.Most other aoes don't work like meteor shower and it's kin. So it really doesn't make sense to change them to be like that.

Maybe make it so that Tempest have ammo charges to their shouts and the final use gives a medium sized AoE overload that can't be interrupted. Moving AoE's are a stupid mechanic and should be removed from warhorn.Not really, those are quite nice if used well.

New idea for tornado elite- it changes elements based on what attunement you are on. You no longer become a tornado and instead cast it in a chosen spot for AoE effects. Or a swirling AoE ring around you that follows you similar to the revenant skill that has the swiling hammers that lasts 5-8 seconds with a CD of 90 seconds. Maybe make these the new overloads? Give them relevant boons and conditions.Fire attunement: 5 stacks of might, fury for allies and inflicts burning and torment to foesWater attunement: is regen, healing AoE, removes all condi for allies 5s and inflicts chill and slow on foes 4sAir attunement: is quickness, alacrity, for allies and blind and bleed on foes. 4sEarth attunement: 3 stacks of Stability 10 seconds , protection and resistance for allies 3s and cripple and weakness on foes. 6s

A bit overloaded on the effects but i do think that might be a better skill. Mind you, ele isn't the only class with useless elite skills.

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:just give ele 5000 more base hp, remove stealth from the game entirely and give ele the same barrier as necro (either more barrier for ele or a lot less for necro, either works). The rest would sort itself out.

That's a bit extreme just saying

why? necros have more hp AND barrier and less restrictions, so giving the same hp and barrier would actually fair.

Also give ele the same damage as necro then? Btw ele also has barrier, and considerably more damage.

And as long as a thief or mesmer can jump you out of stealth and just burst you down with no defense at all, why are we even talking about balancing?That's the truth. Balance overall is crap. In PvE i don't think it was ever this bad before. And for pvp, i really don't know, but i doubt that it's worse than season 1 and 2 days, although not by far i reckon.
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Yes, a class does something better than the other, but ele does nothing better than any class, make sense?- maybe I should have worded that betterI'm just throwing out ideas and my opinion not saying that this is what needs to happen

and yea my post is big and long bc im frustrated as butt sauce at where ele is right now. the changes aren't really justified without fixes to other skills.

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Ok, hope my post gets read as I see Anet devs actually active arround here!This is mostly coming from a player who doesn't raids, I do T4 content periodically and I enjoy open world very much, being my main activity.I have a Firebrand, Holosmith, Deadeye, Spellbreaker and Weaver, and I have to say, boy, Eles in all specs have it hard... I just find too many downs in the class itself when compared to the pros.

To begin with, I feel the current damage output of Core and specs doesn't justifies the low HP pool. We are supposed to play glass cannons, yet other squishy classes, like Guardian and Thief, have a WAY easier time pulling out high damage numbers without complicated rotations, not to mention, both have great survibability in the form of Aegis and Lifesteal like Invigorating Presition. Holosmiths get Hard Light Arena and they can block attacks and gain regeneration with propper traits. A Tempest loses lots of damage just to slot in some survibability, and a Weaver hits like a wet noodle while being eliminated by oponents. Why other proffesions have simple ways of surviving and pulling out high damage numbers when ours, with such low survibability, can't manage to do the same, if not better? Even worse, when this class struggles to complete open world and story conent unless slotting lots of survibability like earth against something like fire. Again, the rest of the classes can go full damage trait lines because they melt stuff so quick it doesn't even matters. This is even more visible when playing Weaver, having to go on melee range with few survival tools in such a fragile class.

Now, I think the class has some sort of identity crisis, trying to be a generalist yet not being able to do good at any role right now. We know Fire attunement is direct damage, Water is healing, Air is Mobility and Critical Strikes, and Earth is Defense and Condition damage, yet, most of the class mechanics involve switching attunements often to achieve something which, I believe, should be covered by one of the attunements...

It gets really weird when you read Air is High Damage, as in the description, yet Dagger's Lightning Whip Hits for about 890 damage per hit in some mobs...

The effectivity of Ele should be tied to the gear we wear, I mean, we can't expect to go using zerker gear and healing lots and doing good condition damage, but even now it feels like the Attunements aren't really tied into something particular. Even in Zerker, Fire and Air won't deal enough damage for example, and in order to do so one must use weird builds like Fresh Air Tempest whose bets source of Damage is Overcharging Air attnement and... not much in between.

TLDR. I think the class complexity and low HP pool doesn't justifies the lack of damage and utility it really brings to the table, specially when other classes can survive and deal damage easily.

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:just give ele 5000 more base hp, remove stealth from the game entirely and give ele the same barrier as necro (either more barrier for ele or a lot less for necro, either works). The rest would sort itself out.

That's a bit extreme just saying

why? necros have more hp AND barrier and less restrictions, so giving the same hp and barrier would actually fair.

And as long as a thief or mesmer can jump you out of stealth and just burst you down with no defense at all, why are we even talking about balancing?

I think balancing stealth is an issue in its own and probably not one for this thread here. Increasing the Ele's base HP would be cool, I'd support a swap of its HP with Mesmer's HP in PvP/WvW, however this is unlikely to happen and probably the worst way to go about solving any issues at hand. Increasing Barrier gained by the elementalist while extending barrier giving traits to other core lines would be a good step in the right direction to addressing the lack of damage mitigation class mechanics for Ele, but having it reach Scourge levels is probably not really a good idea.

On the topic of stealth though, it's been 6 years ArenaNet: Elementalist needs a skill that inflicts revealed. It still boggles my mind that we don't have one. Considering burst damage is already such a counter to elementalist by its very design, we should have at least some way to deal with it to some degree due to the power creep of stealth heavy classes.

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@fuzzyp.6295 said:On the topic of stealth though, it's been 6 years ArenaNet: Elementalist needs a skill that inflicts revealed. It still boggles my mind that we don't have one. Considering burst damage is already such a counter to elementalist by its very design, we should have at least some way to deal with it to some degree due to the power creep of stealth heavy classes.A bit specific but with regards to deadeye, it's a moot point given they can just reapply stealth using Shadow Meld. Rather than giving us reveal, I'd greatly prefer it if they considered piecemeal revisions on heavy-handed nerfs to bring back some of the previously competitive, fun builds. In WvW/PvP, a well-played Fresh Air weaver had enough pressure to at least force a stalemate or scare thieves/mesmers away. If it's the case that they want to tone down damage across the board, I wish they'd take a look at holosmith which has a little too much in the way of sustain and damage, and is a far better bruiser than sword ele will ever be. They nerfed mirage and weaver damage but left holosmith and soulbeast damage alone which leads me to think they're either inconsistent or they don't want weaver to be a roaming spec. If the first, well, that's no surprise. If the second, what happened to playing how you want? I could talk more about holo because I think when they're stacked, it becomes oppressive like how scourge was but I'll hold off on the tangent.

EDIT: This is from a WvW/PvP standpoint. Prior to the March balance patch, I suspected they'd preemptively tone down the damage of Fresh Air weaver following all the complaints about power mirage. I understand shaving down the damage on Plasma Beam but think they went too far by touching Electric Discharge (which affected base Fresh Air too). The cumulative effect of successive nerfs in the last few months is more noticeable now. Take, for instance, the Elements of Rage nerf in the July patch. I made a mistake earlier in stating that you'll always lose ferocity by speccing vitality. I can see it was an attempt to rein in overall damage and a considerable net loss in stats. EoR is clearly damage-oriented and so is the obvious pick for DPS specs (which are unlikely to invest in vitality) but is more of an afterthought for other builds which have invested in vitality but would also see more mileage out of Woven Stride. As we all know, to get any value out of ferocity, you need power and precision too. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would've made to have just lowered the Power to Ferocity conversion from 14%, rather than swapping the stat to Vitality but the takeaway is:

  1. Marauder's is a straight loss in ferocity than if you'd specced full Berserker's.
  2. Full Berserker's + Valkyrie trinkets sees a miniscule increase in critical damage; less than 1% with full ascended gear.

Glass staff used to workable for roaming but the damage is so piddly now, it doesn't feel rewarding. There's no trade-off. The same applies to damage-oriented specs like Fresh Air; you're not built for sustain but you don't have enough pressure either and so the result is thoroughly underwhelming and unsatisfying gameplay. I'm not asking for excessive powercreep or buffs hence my lack of enthusiasm for some of the changes suggested in this thread, but I really feel like ele was in a decent place before March. Dagger sucked then (and still does now) but at least we had more choice.

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Talking about PVE now:What would everyone say if they removed Conjures from the game, or at the very least they rework them to fit a very specific playstyle.I think the best Conjure at the moment is the Lightning Hammer. It's the only conjure with a set style and the only Conjure with useful auto attacks, it's the only Conjure that you cast it and use it's full potential instead of cast it to get access to one or two skills then discard it. It buffs critical chance and critical damage, all the skills are about dealing high power damage, a leap and some crowd control.

Earth Shield is another well designed Conjure weapon with abilities that fit with each other. The main issue with it is that it's not very useful in PVE, it's a defensive/tanking weapon.

Conjure Flame Axe is a mostly useless weapon because most of its abilities are surpassed by the Elite Conjure Fiery Greatsword, making this skill an excellent candidate for a rework or even removal. It's supposed to be a hybrid power/condition weapon but the elite is better at both so the Axe lacks a unique purpose and identity, which is why it's not used anywhere.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword is a terrible skill for an Elite slot. It's only used for the later skills while the auto attacks are worthless. It's one of those "I pop this, press 4/5 then discard it" kind of weapon which is sad, given the enormous cooldown. Compare https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firestorm with... https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firestorm_(Glyph_of_Storms_skill) they are both called Firestorm and look redundant, one of these could go, and most likely the Greatsword skill.

Conjure Frost Bow is the worst of the conjures. It only has 1 useful overall skill (4) and a situational (due to the long cast) CC skill (5). It buffs healing power although the healing output it provides is abysmal. It buffs Condition duration, yet it has a great Power damage skill. This conjure is all over the place and needs kind of a rework. Also, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Storm and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Storm_(Glyph_of_Storms_skill) are similar, the first applies bleeding, the second chill. Honestly these two skills should be swapped or something.

I know making these kinds of changes to Firestorm and Frost Storm would nerf Elementalist DPS further. But, both of those skills make the rotation more complex, require the clunky usage of conjures and provide a good amount of damage. Damage that appears on benchmarks and if it's removed somehow, perhaps the rest of the Elementalist can get a boost instead.

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@"maddoctor.2738" said:Talking about PVE now:What would everyone say if they removed Conjures from the game, or at the very least they rework them to fit a very specific playstyle.I think the best Conjure at the moment is the Lightning Hammer. It's the only conjure with a set style and the only Conjure with useful auto attacks, it's the only Conjure that you cast it and use it's full potential instead of cast it to get access to one or two skills then discard it. It buffs critical chance and critical damage, all the skills are about dealing high power damage, a leap and some crowd control.

Earth Shield is another well designed Conjure weapon with abilities that fit with each other. The main issue with it is that it's not very useful in PVE, it's a defensive/tanking weapon.

Conjure Flame Axe is a mostly useless weapon because most of its abilities are surpassed by the Elite Conjure Fiery Greatsword, making this skill an excellent candidate for a rework or even removal. It's supposed to be a hybrid power/condition weapon but the elite is better at both so the Axe lacks a unique purpose and identity, which is why it's not used anywhere.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword is a terrible skill for an Elite slot. It's only used for the later skills while the auto attacks are worthless. It's one of those "I pop this, press 4/5 then discard it" kind of weapon which is sad, given the enormous cooldown. Compare https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firestorm with... https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Firestorm_(Glyph_of_Storms_skill) they are both called Firestorm and look redundant, one of these could go, and most likely the Greatsword skill.

Conjure Frost Bow is the worst of the conjures. It only has 1 useful overall skill (4) and a situational (due to the long cast) CC skill (5). It buffs healing power although the healing output it provides is abysmal. It buffs Condition duration, yet it has a great Power damage skill. This conjure is all over the place and needs kind of a rework. Also, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Storm and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Storm_(Glyph_of_Storms_skill) are similar, the first applies bleeding, the second chill. Honestly these two skills should be swapped or something.

I know making these kinds of changes to Firestorm and Frost Storm would nerf Elementalist DPS further. But, both of those skills make the rotation more complex, require the clunky usage of conjures and provide a good amount of damage. Damage that appears on benchmarks and if it's removed somehow, perhaps the rest of the Elementalist can get a boost instead.

First off, LH is used in exactly the same manner - you press 4, you do an AA chain (which is actually terrible for an ele... I mean, with so many skills available you still resort to auto...) and then you discard it. It's not fundamentally different from the usage pattern of Icebow (which is still used in some places by the way) or FGS. Personally, I like that. It fits the Elementalist concept as a whole - access different weapon skills to use only the best/those applicable to your situation, then move on to another skill set to do the same.

My only gripe with conjures is how inconvenient their use is, particularly picking them up from the ground. That's plain awful. Aside from that, I don't mind their current state. Sure, I'd like to see Lava Axe being brought to some semblance of useful state. But I wouldn't like to see them made into something powerful enough to make me want to stay on it. It's not what ele is about.

Furthermore, any changes that begin with "nerf ele further in the name of a brighter future" - no. Just no. I have zero faith in brighter futures in general, and particularly when it comes to ele balance in this game.

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@"Feanor.2358" said:Furthermore, any changes that begin with "nerf ele further in the name of a brighter future" - no. Just no. I have zero faith in brighter futures in general, and particularly when it comes to ele balance in this game.

Well if you put it that way you are right. I have very little faith in Ele balance as well but I was wondering if we could make some conjure changes

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@SnowHawk.3615 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Yes, a class does something better than the other, but ele does nothing better than any class, make sense?- maybe I should have worded that betterI'm just throwing out ideas and my opinion not saying that this is what needs to happen

and yea my post is big and long bc im frustrated as butt sauce at where ele is right now. the changes aren't really justified without fixes to other skills.

Yeah, wasn't complaining about the size, sorry i derrailed it a bit, it was late i was cranky, and ranted a bit. Your ideas are valid, and i agree with most of what i didn't comment on.

Well, ele used to have the best aoe damage in the game, they really did nerf it without buffing other tools, which makes it look less relevant. But that's more perception than reality. A good ele will still be a good addition in any group, and a bad one already was a huge liability. That comes from the class's high skill floor that requires you to be very proficient to be decent, where most other classes have much lower skill floors.

Like i said so on my first post, i think it would be great if they reworked scepter/focus or even weaver, which is supposed to be a duelist, to have more survivability and a better time at dealing decent damage (in the 30-32k) with a easier rotation than staff. Then rework staff to have a bit more damage, but have that high skill floor required to get it. This should make ele more balanced.I think the best first step would be for Arena Net to change health pools according to the elite spec's identity. For example, Weaver is supposed to work with sword more, then why not make it so (even with a trait) that equipping a sword gives an automatic health boost, putting it around the mid-health pool. That alone would improve it a bit.Then give a bit more identity to each element, for example, all mixed air skills should have either an engage or a disengage skill, earth should have a bit more defensive skills, fire should be more agression, and water sustain.So for example:Air+Air, for me it should be the opposite of Polaric leap, you'd jump back with an evade window, and gain super speed. Should also reduce cooldown of Polaric Leap by 20%. This would give ele a bit more control over the fight which is what you want on a duelist.Air+earth, should be a disengage+defensive, so i'd pop in a bit of barrier that also applies a blind on enemies around the elementalist.Air+water, should be a disengage+sustain, so i'd make it apply chill, give yourself vigor, and if you have superspeed, refresh it's duration.Air+Fire, fire wants to be agressive, air is about movement, what i'd do is switch around flame uprising and pyro vortex. Makes more sense that way.

Fire+Fire seems ok, it does the extra agression part;Fire+ Earth also seems goodFire+Water lacks the sustain part. I'd add an effect, if enemy is burning, explode the burning stacks, removing the burn stacks but dazing the enemy for 1/4 of a second per stack, up to 2 seconds.

Earth+water should have a defensive and a sustain component. I'd have a ground-cast skill, about the size of lava font, that slows enemies and heals/pulses regen to allies.

This is just the mix skills, there are some other skills that could use some re-branding in the weaver kit.

I really want to point out that you touched an important flaw in how balance works in GW2, it's too often that we see weird changes that aren't really justified or explained, and no compensation for these unjustified nerfs, which usually leaves professions in a worse state than reasonable.Look at what happened to Revenant when they changed the only skill that made it relevant for Raids and for a long time didn't give it any other tools to bring it back to importance. Same thing with scourge, they nerfed their damage, no improvement on other things. People abused the gimmick of epidemic, nerf it, and nerf scourge some more because, why not?

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Talking from a PvP perspective

The problem ele always had in PvP is the fact his stats doesn't allow the class to equip amulets without healing power and vitality because of his stats deficiency. And that causes another problem: if you buff damage and survivability, those buffs will only buff bunker/support builds, pushing ele into bunker roles with mender amulet even deeper. On top of that, water line is the only viable option for condi cleanse, because every other trait line is built to sinergize with the only good grandmaster trait in water line(cleansing water, also powerful aura is good, but you can't afford to loose condi cleanse for that, even with tempest traitline), and in every build we are locked into water traitline. Also, the stat deficiency does not allow you to play with an offensive amulet with melee weapons: you'll get only mediocre damage with no sustain.Imho the ele needs a stat rescaling and needs to rely less on healing power.

Another problem are fire and earth traitline: they just can't keep up with the power creep: playing with those 2 trait lines is like playing with an unfinished build, they don't give you any relevant effect/buff.

Air line is actually amazing (you have acces to weakness, superspeed and damage), but there is a problem with fresh air: it syngergizes too much with scepter! It synergize well with dagger autoattack too, but you can't play an offensive amulet as a melee cause of the stat deficiency as i said before.

Just my two cents, will write more if something comes to my mind. Thanks devs for opening the thread and reading the comments, really appreciated!

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@"Arados.4890" said:Talking from a PvP perspective

The problem ele always had in PvP is the fact his stats doesn't allow the class to equip amulets without healing power and vitality because of his stats deficiency. And that causes another problem: if you buff damage and survivability, those buffs will only buff bunker/support builds, pushing ele into bunker roles with mender amulet even deeper. On top of that, water line is the only viable option for condi cleanse, because every other trait line is built to sinergize with the only good grandmaster trait in water line(cleansing water, also powerful aura is good, but you can't afford to loose condi cleanse for that, even with tempest traitline), and in every build we are locked into water traitline. Also, the stat deficiency does not allow you to play with an offensive amulet with melee weapons: you'll get only mediocre damage with no sustain.Imho the ele needs a stat rescaling and needs to rely less on healing power.

Another problem are fire and earth traitline: they just can't keep up with the power creep: playing with those 2 trait lines is like playing with an unfinished build, they don't give you any relevant effect/buff.

Air line is actually amazing (you have acces to weakness, superspeed and damage), but there is a problem with fresh air: it syngergizes too much with scepter! It synergize well with dagger autoattack too, but you can't play an offensive amulet as a melee cause of the stat deficiency as i said before.

Just my two cents, will write more if something comes to my mind. Thanks devs for opening the thread and reading the comments, really appreciated!

We had this discussion years ago and the consensus was :" remove all heal bursts skills from ele and replace them with something that doesn't scale as well with healing power, but remains equally as effective in providing sustain to the class"

I don't blame people for being afraid of buffing ele sustain because they are right!, you would end up creating stupid cheese unkillable bunkers that everybody hates but at the same time....they gave melee weapons to a low stats class and now everybody expect ele to survive at melee range in GW2 20018 with specs like holosmith and spellbreaker, or boon soulbeast etc etc...

I have no solution atm to suggest

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I'd add this to my long lecture - butConjured weapons are useless.Conjure from the ground? sure looks like it'd be cool in person but in reality it isn't - Your best bet is to not do anything with conjured weapons since you can die so fast as it is, and need skills for survivability. If you're in PvE Axe and Shield are pointless, since more often than not you're running a power build to make FGS, or Frostbow useful.However, aside from Frostbow AoE skills- none of the others have any point to use. You use the big AoE one and discard and hope another player didn't already grab your 2nd conjured weapon.

The damage per hit reduction needs to be taken away or buff other skills like Lava font damage, and Ice spike AoE damage. Give more relevant boons and conditions to the class over all.Conjured weapons need a damage buff overall to make them relevant. Not a significant one, but they need something definitely tweaking and re-work.PvP ele has no real place other than to +1 or hold a point for a small time. Ele on the team? You're basically down a player even if they are good.Hybrids are supposed to be able to do it all without being over powered in a single ascpect- Weaver sword focus is the right path for ele imo- leaving core ele useless and tempest as a boring almost support that offers no relevant boons.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Talking about PVE now:What would everyone say if they removed Conjures from the game, or at the very least they rework them to fit a very specific playstyle.I think the best Conjure at the moment is the Lightning Hammer. It's the only conjure with a set style and the only Conjure with useful auto attacks, it's the only Conjure that you cast it and use it's full potential instead of cast it to get access to one or two skills then discard it. It buffs critical chance and critical damage, all the skills are about dealing high power damage, a leap and some crowd control.

Earth Shield is another well designed Conjure weapon with abilities that fit with each other. The main issue with it is that it's not very useful in PVE, it's a defensive/tanking weapon.

Conjure Flame Axe is a mostly useless weapon because most of its abilities are surpassed by the Elite Conjure Fiery Greatsword, making this skill an excellent candidate for a rework or even removal. It's supposed to be a hybrid power/condition weapon but the elite is better at both so the Axe lacks a unique purpose and identity, which is why it's not used anywhere.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword is a terrible skill for an Elite slot. It's only used for the later skills while the auto attacks are worthless. It's one of those "I pop this, press 4/5 then discard it" kind of weapon which is sad, given the enormous cooldown. Compare
with...
) they are both called Firestorm and look redundant, one of these could go, and most likely the Greatsword skill.

Conjure Frost Bow is the worst of the conjures. It only has 1 useful overall skill (4) and a situational (due to the long cast) CC skill (5). It buffs healing power although the healing output it provides is abysmal. It buffs Condition duration, yet it has a great Power damage skill. This conjure is all over the place and needs kind of a rework. Also,
and
) are similar, the first applies bleeding, the second chill. Honestly these two skills should be swapped or something.

I know making these kinds of changes to Firestorm and Frost Storm would nerf Elementalist DPS further. But, both of those skills make the rotation more complex, require the clunky usage of conjures and provide a good amount of damage. Damage that appears on benchmarks and if it's removed somehow, perhaps the rest of the Elementalist can get a boost instead.

First off, LH is used in exactly the same manner - you press 4, you do an AA chain (which is actually terrible for an ele... I mean, with so many skills available you still resort to auto...) and then you discard it. It's not fundamentally different from the usage pattern of Icebow (which is still used in some places by the way) or FGS. Personally, I like that. It fits the Elementalist concept as a whole - access different weapon skills to use only the best/those applicable to your situation, then move on to another skill set to do the same.

My only gripe with conjures is how inconvenient their use is, particularly picking them up from the ground. That's plain awful. Aside from that, I don't mind their current state. Sure, I'd like to see Lava Axe being brought to some semblance of useful state. But I wouldn't like to see them made into something powerful enough to make me want to stay on it. It's not what ele is about.

Furthermore, any changes that begin with "nerf ele further in the name of a brighter future" - no. Just no. I have zero faith in brighter futures in general, and particularly when it comes to ele balance in this game.

There are various playstyles for conjures.You can use them as your main weapon while camping an attunement that has poor skills (the old LH in water attunement style, still very good at early levels)You can use them as utility situationally to cover something that you can't with your weapon (like using frostbow for CC, or LH against projectile reflecting opponents)You can use them quickly for burst (LH and FGS are good example of burst)

They do need improvements but really don't need to be removed. They are very cool concepts and a great utility for a class with no weapon swap.1: Make the conjure utility ammunition based.2: Make the conjure utility summon only one weapon per use. It summons one weapon at the caster hands if the caster is inside the conjure AoE, and summons at the ground if the caster is not inside the AoE.3: Frostbow skill 4: froststorm needs to apply chill to foes and regen to allies instead of bleeding. Making frostbow a good CC option for ele.4: Flame axe skill 1: lava axe needs to apply burning so that Flame axe becomes more condition based

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For WvW Only please hug bunnies!

Arcane Trait line-add 1.5 seconds fury to "Arcane Prowess" when you switch attunements-Increase Recharge Reduced: from 15% to 25% for Elemental Enchantment

Fire Trait line -Add 1.5 second burn damage to Minor Mastery Fire Spot-Minor Grandmaster Burning Rage from 10% damage to 15% damage-Blinding Ashes change cooldown back to 5 seconds.

Air Trait line-Increase damage of Minor Master Electric Discharge by 50%-Tempest Defense Shocking Aura (4s): Stun nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 1 seconds for each attacker) instead of 2 seconds

  • Increase Major Grandmaster damage Lightning Rod by 30%

Earth Trait line-Major Adept Serrated Stones gains Bleed Duration Increase to 33% and increase damage to bleeding fores by 15%-Increase range of Minor Master Earthen Blast to 360 radius-Rock solid grant stabilty for 3 seconds to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water Trait line-Cleansing Wave Removes 2 condition from you and your allies when attuning to water. (360 Radius)-Aquatic Benevolence Healing done to allies is increased below 50% Hp increased to 33% 0% to allies above 50% (Only affects healing done to other allies and not the elementalist.)-Powerful Aura increased to 800 radius

Utility skills-Lightning Flash reduced cd from 40 to 32 and increase range from 900 to 1200.-Mist Form Applies 1 stack of chill every second to enemies in a 240 radius.-Armor of Earth applies a 240 radius stun to enemies nearby up to 5 for 1 second

LETS MAKE CORE BETTER GUYS ONE STEP AT A TIME!

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@"Waisenpai.6028" said:For WvW Only please hug bunnies!

Arcane Trait line-add 1.5 seconds fury to "Arcane Prowess" when you switch attunements-Increase Recharge Reduced: from 15% to 25% for Elemental Enchantment

Fire Trait line -Add 1.5 second burn damage to Minor Mastery Fire Spot-Minor Grandmaster Burning Rage from 10% damage to 15% damage-Blinding Ashes change cooldown back to 5 seconds.

Air Trait line-Increase damage of Minor Master Electric Discharge by 50%-Tempest Defense Shocking Aura (4s): Stun nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 1 seconds for each attacker) instead of 2 seconds

  • Increase Major Grandmaster damage Lightning Rod by 30%

Earth Trait line-Major Adept Serrated Stones gains Bleed Duration Increase to 33% and increase damage to bleeding fores by 15%-Increase range of Minor Master Earthen Blast to 360 radius-Rock solid grant stabilty for 3 seconds to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water Trait line-Cleansing Wave Removes 2 condition from you and your allies when attuning to water. (360 Radius)-Aquatic Benevolence Healing done to allies is increased below 50% Hp increased to 33% 0% to allies above 50% (Only affects healing done to other allies and not the elementalist.)-Powerful Aura increased to 800 radius

Utility skills-Lightning Flash reduced cd from 40 to 32 and increase range from 900 to 1200.-Mist Form Applies 1 stack of chill every second to enemies in a 240 radius.-Armor of Earth applies a 240 radius stun to enemies nearby up to 5 for 1 second

LETS MAKE CORE BETTER GUYS ONE STEP AT A TIME!

I really like those suggestions, though I think Cleansing Wave might be a bit much.

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Hello there,First of all. I'm very happy when I see such topics - invitation to discasion in open forum - from GM's. You are great team :) Also im almost non- pvp player soo all my comment is only for PVE and I have to say that my main character (and also almost the only playable) is elementalist.In buffing or nerfing elementalist everyone has to be very careful - because it can shake core of the game. Elemenatlist cannot be too strong in damage because its role will be only damage kite (soo no fun) and many abused in wrong ways (simmilar like chronomancer in insane tank situations). I think that damage is not the way that you should go in changing ele (it's already not the main role). The problem is in that ele has many (all) common things from all professions (like barrier, teleportation etc.) but nothing of that work good. A little bit good in all = good in nothing. That good thing should be survival skill (one) and it could be a barrier - a specialy for weaver with sword in PVE. Because level and utility of barrier - sorry but it's parody. You already have good traits just work with them. Also I think and I want to invite you to participate in normal PVE game (incognito) as normal player and as elementalist (without any immortality buffs etc.): map completition, events, meta, jumping puzzles, collecting materials etc etc. I know - it can be boring for you - but it can really help you to understand your beloved players and their needs ;).

PS. Im very sorry for any mistakes (try to understand that english is not my native language)

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@lLobo.7960 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Talking about PVE now:What would everyone say if they removed Conjures from the game, or at the very least they rework them to fit a very specific playstyle.I think the best Conjure at the moment is the Lightning Hammer. It's the only conjure with a set style and the only Conjure with useful auto attacks, it's the only Conjure that you cast it and use it's full potential instead of cast it to get access to one or two skills then discard it. It buffs critical chance and critical damage, all the skills are about dealing high power damage, a leap and some crowd control.

Earth Shield is another well designed Conjure weapon with abilities that fit with each other. The main issue with it is that it's not very useful in PVE, it's a defensive/tanking weapon.

Conjure Flame Axe is a mostly useless weapon because most of its abilities are surpassed by the Elite Conjure Fiery Greatsword, making this skill an excellent candidate for a rework or even removal. It's supposed to be a hybrid power/condition weapon but the elite is better at both so the Axe lacks a unique purpose and identity, which is why it's not used anywhere.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword is a terrible skill for an Elite slot. It's only used for the later skills while the auto attacks are worthless. It's one of those "I pop this, press 4/5 then discard it" kind of weapon which is sad, given the enormous cooldown. Compare
with...
) they are both called Firestorm and look redundant, one of these could go, and most likely the Greatsword skill.

Conjure Frost Bow is the worst of the conjures. It only has 1 useful overall skill (4) and a situational (due to the long cast) CC skill (5). It buffs healing power although the healing output it provides is abysmal. It buffs Condition duration, yet it has a great Power damage skill. This conjure is all over the place and needs kind of a rework. Also,
and
) are similar, the first applies bleeding, the second chill. Honestly these two skills should be swapped or something.

I know making these kinds of changes to Firestorm and Frost Storm would nerf Elementalist DPS further. But, both of those skills make the rotation more complex, require the clunky usage of conjures and provide a good amount of damage. Damage that appears on benchmarks and if it's removed somehow, perhaps the rest of the Elementalist can get a boost instead.

First off, LH is used in exactly the same manner - you press 4, you do an AA chain (which is actually terrible for an ele... I mean, with so many skills available you still resort to auto...) and then you discard it. It's not fundamentally different from the usage pattern of Icebow (which is still used in some places by the way) or FGS. Personally, I like that. It fits the Elementalist concept as a whole - access different weapon skills to use only the best/those applicable to your situation, then move on to another skill set to do the same.

My only gripe with conjures is how inconvenient their use is, particularly picking them up from the ground. That's plain awful. Aside from that, I don't mind their current state. Sure, I'd like to see Lava Axe being brought to some semblance of useful state. But I wouldn't like to see them made into something powerful enough to make me want to stay on it. It's not what ele is about.

Furthermore, any changes that begin with "nerf ele further in the name of a brighter future" - no. Just no. I have zero faith in brighter futures in general, and particularly when it comes to ele balance in this game.

There are various playstyles for conjures.You can use them as your main weapon while camping an attunement that has poor skills (the old LH in water attunement style, still very good at early levels)You can use them as utility situationally to cover something that you can't with your weapon (like using frostbow for CC, or LH against projectile reflecting opponents)You can use them quickly for burst (LH and FGS are good example of burst)

They do need improvements but really don't need to be removed. They are very cool concepts and a great utility for a class with no weapon swap.1: Make the conjure utility ammunition based.2: Make the conjure utility summon only one weapon per use. It summons one weapon at the caster hands if the caster is inside the conjure AoE, and summons at the ground if the caster is not inside the AoE.3: Frostbow skill 4: froststorm needs to apply chill to foes and regen to allies instead of bleeding. Making frostbow a good CC option for ele.4: Flame axe skill 1: lava axe needs to apply burning so that Flame axe becomes more condition based

Oh, I never said they should be removed. All I'm opposing to is making them strong enough so you always want to camp them. I like their current use in the meta - get the conjure, fire the big bombs, drop it. It fits my idea of the ele ideal playstyle and concept.

With that said, I'm all for the changes you proposed. Yes, Lava Axe is underwhelming, and there's an open spot for a condi-based conjure. Yes, ammo-based conjures described as above would be HUGE QoL. No more stealing my conjures, no more someone screwing up the tanking and covering my conjure with Dhuumfire, no more missed pickups for half a second? Shut up and take my money. So yeah. These are the changes I'd like to see.

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My perspective of elemetalist comes from pve and wvw, as I don’t have any pvp experience.

  • But first something general:

I think one of the biggest issues of elemetalist is that it was described by arena net as a jack of all trades, who is capable of everything but exceeds in no place. While the general design, with different attunements, seems like it was meant that way we can also see a different design within the elemtalist, which clashes with the jack of all trades approach. If you look at staff and the fact elemetalist hast the lowest health and lowest armor rating it is clear that it was also designed as the long-range highest dps and lowest defense mage class we are used to from other games. And beeing highest dps over 5 years seems to support this. But how are we the classic mage and at the same time a jack of all trades class? The designs contradict themselves and that is why elementalist has a lot of problems and will have until it finally gets a straight design direction.

But there is more, the jack of all trades design fails in itself. Just look at it, will you become a healer just because you switched to water? No. Do you become a tank when you switch to earth? No. Without the traits and gear to back it up there is more or less nothing to gain from attunements. You simply can’t fulfill a role just by attunement swapping.

This is even more of a problem when you look for example at the water attunement:

With having a lot of damage skills mixed into water, it is not even a full healing/support aspect. The skills do terrible damage anyway so why not remove them and give it more healing options? Or specify the water attunement more for each weapon, for example have only healing/support or damage spell, not both mixed together. Even the traitline is a mix of damage oriented and support oriented traits leaving us here with an unbelievable mess. Other classes like revenent and druid are straighter forward when it comes to their healing specs. But I have to admit I don’t know what the best course of action would be, as switching to water/earth even air is a problem in high end pve. You lose too much damage most of the time for too little utility, which would warrant more damage in those attunements.Another idea I discussed here recently was to introduce a trait that would turn healing form water attunement into damage, opening the option to use it as support, or traited as damage option. With more weapon skills related to healing this could change the focus of water quite substantial dependent on what is needed.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/565895#Comment_565895

  • Weapon and Conjures:

Next big problem is the weapon design. While having 20 skills with 4 different directions seems like you would be capable to adjust to any situation, it simply fails. It is the Problem of range-lock. While we have more skills than other professions, they are mostly one range, either range or close combat only. This limits adaption in combat in a way that no other class has to face. Engie to an extent, but they can at least adapt a little with kits. Here it seems to me that conjures were meant to solve this, but in their current state they can’t cut it. They are terrible and inflexible. They override all your 20 weapon skills and the moment you don’t need them anymore and switch back, they are gone. You could in theory pick up the second one but it comes with too many problems. Either they are gone as well, when you come over the 30s threshold, they are picked up by someone else, or they are in spot where you can’t access it anymore. Not to mention even if you pick it up it is slow and cost a huge amount of time. Overall, they are too inflexible, have too long of a cast time to play them reactively and thanks to the positioning problem you mostly get to use only one per cast. So having those skills for maybe 3-4 seconds with a 60s cd they are simply no tool to adapt to combat flow.My solution would be to change them to kits as well, but with a new ability, a new F-Skill (F5-F0) above the conjure skill which would act as summoning skill to share them. It would have a 30 s cd to cast a conjure for your allies.Also, we could use a conjure healing skill. This would give us the option to remove the healing on frost bow auto attack as well. It never fitted to its damage/chill/cc design.

  • Tempest and Auras:

As many have pointed out Tempest problem lies within the auras. It can do good healing but the initial mechanic, auras are problematic as they are simply worthless. Wile earth and air aura are fine to some extent I found frost aura and especially fire aura extremely underwhelming. No underwhelming is not strong enough to express how much I don’t like them. Fire aura as the focus skill is in my opinion the worst skill this game has to offer.I would change fire aura in the way that it no longer grants might on getting hit, but instead constantly pulses might to yourself and on top of it as fire is the offensive one give it low radius, low damage 5 target aoe, pulsing every second. This would give tempest offensive support as you could increase group dps through sharing fire aura. Next is frost aura which is not in a good state as well. The damage mitigation is just too small, 10% won’t save you when you are under focus. And while chill is an important condition its effect is still not enough to make this aura a useful effect.I see two ways here, either increase the dmg reducing effect for example by increasing the mitigation (maybe double it?) against foes that are chilled to give it some kind of synergy with the chill application. My other idea is to give it a dmg effect like my proposed fire aura but with a lower target cap and double the damage against chilled foes. Just some ideas but auras are in a need of a change they simply are not powerful and important enough as a supportive buff.Let me throw an idea in for a trait change in here. For Pyromancer's Puissance, add an effect to it, that procs a small aoe around you (low damage) throwing sparks whenever you gain might, with a one second icd. Might be an interesting combination with the fire aura change.

  • For skills I posted something in another tread already but it I think it fits here as well:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/446046#Comment_446046

Now to add new thoughts to it Flame Burst could use an update as well. It has no impact at the moment, as staff has no focus on inflicting conditions. My idea is that after the initial effect a cloud of flames start to emerge that starts to move in the direction Flame Burst was cast. It would become slightly bigger over 3 seconds and burn as well as damage foes running through it.Last do something about auto attacks, things like stoning are simply no fun because of how incredible weak and slow they are.

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