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I have been hearing that arena net is going in a "good direction" with changes, but I never hear that they have reached a good destination. Nothing changes with the state of this class until arena net decides they want it to exist as a strong class. Which won't happen. I've given up trying to be hopeful for this class. It won't happen.

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@"Waisenpai.6028" said:Easy Weaver fix, just swap "Swift Revenge" with "Master's Fortitude" spot in trait line and you are boss now. Tada.

Core and Tempest are dead, we might just need to reverse some of the old nerfs.

That sounds like the WORST possible nerf to me (having to choose between invaluable hp and stability). Even for the builds that would benefit from it I don't see that much appeal. It would completely destroy the weaver builds that I love playing, and I'm sure it would too for many others.

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It's probably too late to contribute to this thread, which I have only just noticed since mostly I only read the WvW and Lore forums but here's my 2c anyway.

I have three accounts and all the classes in multiple but my most-played class on all three accounts is Elementalist. I have all three expansions on one account, two on the second and just Core on the third. I've been playing since Launch without any breaks. All of them are basic Berserker builds, largely unchanged for years.

Two are Tempests, one is Core Ele. I could play Weaver on one account but I tried it and disliked (too fiddly) it so I don't. I am very happy with my Eles, all three of them.

My main game mode these days is WvW, where I play Tempest and find it enjoyable and effective. I mostly play support in zergs, where I have no major issues or complaints. It would always be nice to have more DPS to finish off downed players faster and the nerf to Meteor Shower has slowed down my ability to destroy siege, which is annoying, but those are minor things.

Regular open world PvE is so easy I doubt it makes any substantive difference what class or build you use. I don't do Fractals, Raids or Dungeons so I have no opinion on what's good or bad about the Ele there. I haven't done PvP in years so I have no idea about that either.

About the only place I do feel some squishiness as a Berserker Staff Ele is in Living Story instances so I do those on my Necro instead. That's why we have multiple character slots.

Obviously I'm not going to complain if my Eles get made more powerful or effective but I'm not feeling the need in the game modes I play.

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@"Waisenpai.6028" said:Easy Weaver fix, just swap "Swift Revenge" with "Master's Fortitude" spot in trait line and you are boss now. Tada.

Core and Tempest are dead, we might just need to reverse some of the old nerfs.

So basically the whole mid column becomes useless for all power builds? No thanks.

@"Poelala.2830" said:I have been hearing that arena net is going in a "good direction" with changes, but I never hear that they have reached a good destination. Nothing changes with the state of this class until arena net decides they want it to exist as a strong class. Which won't happen. I've given up trying to be hopeful for this class. It won't happen.

Depends on your perspective. In PvE the situation definitely improved. I would personally like to see Staff a bit higher and Sword a bit lower, but the fact remains they are both usable, even if Staff is generally the suboptimal choice. And not only that, Fresh Air Tempest is back as well. 3 builds to choose from is way better than just one, and underperforming at that.

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I love the ideal of aura detonation its just all the core lines need to have some part in working with the effect. I like to see air line get super speed on aura detonation earth line get stab on aura and detonation and water give out resistance. The main ideal is to add in these strong melee aimed boons for auras as to use aura and detonation to there strongest effect ele must be at melee ranged. As things stand ele lacks sustables melee support it has at best strong burst self support to get out but this only works as a ranged class trick not a melee who needs to be in real danger to land its effects.

Mostly pvp / wvw aimed i guess it would fit in pve but most boons do not work right vs ai.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Waisenpai.6028" said:Easy Weaver fix, just swap "Swift Revenge" with "Master's Fortitude" spot in trait line and you are boss now. Tada.

Core and Tempest are dead, we might just need to reverse some of the old nerfs.

So basically the whole mid column becomes useless for all power builds? No thanks.

@"Poelala.2830" said:I have been hearing that arena net is going in a "good direction" with changes, but I never hear that they have reached a good destination. Nothing changes with the state of this class until arena net decides they want it to exist as a strong class. Which won't happen. I've given up trying to be hopeful for this class. It won't happen.

Depends on your perspective. In PvE the situation definitely improved. I would personally like to see Staff a bit higher and Sword a bit lower, but the fact remains they are both usable, even if Staff is generally the suboptimal choice. And not only that, Fresh Air Tempest is back as well. 3 builds to choose from is way better than just one, and underperforming at that.

PvP and WvW.

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I thought I'd add my two cents to this discussion, even though I've seen many threads like this since the launch of GW2, and things have not seemed to change for the better of Elementalist. This is a view based on PvP/WvW, in truth there has always been strong PvE builds for just about any class.

I feel that the elementalist has just fallen behind the curve when it comes to updates to the game. Core GW2 they were very versatlile, you typically had more access to a variety of boons and conditions that, at the time, the other classes didn't have as much access too. Which is why the D/D builds were so much fun, you didn't have any real power creep until you started pulling of blasts to buff yourself up. However update after update through this game elementalists keep getting nerfed, and the other classes now have access to everything an elementalist could achieve. Except for that fact that an elementalist had to work for those things through rotation and combos. These days Anet just chucks 10 might on an ability for everyone else and calls it a day.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/36411/25-stacks-of-might-every-where

The above thread is the real reason why the elementalist feel so far behind. The rampant use of stacking boons and conditions that once use to be a feature of the specific classes is now everywhere, and without any complicated combos.

I don't think there is a quick fix to elementalists; I guess a list of bandaids would look something like this:

  1. The core trait lines need new mechanics. Just one example why do we not have more barrier, or resistance in the earth trait line? In truth the trait lines themselves need to have versatility. I understand from a lore perspective that water is generally viewed as a healing element, but not having any real sustain in other trait lines seems to lock everyone into some forum of build with water in it, when it comes to PvP/WvW.

  2. I also never understood how elementalist have the lowest health pool of the cloth classes, imo the mesmer with the built in defensive mechanic of clones should have the lowest cloth health pool, however if we are to keep sitting in the crap HP arena as Elementalist then there needs to be more focus on traitline bonuses to other stats based off of vitality percentages.

  3. It seems again that updates have dated this classes abilities. To many skills root the elementalist in place. If you have a low hp / low toughness class, this shouldn't be the case.

About all I have. In truth it really is just the power creep of boons and conditions that HoT unleashed on this game that is killing it. If boons and conditions have such emphasis, then the hybrid classes should be the ones with access to most of these things, while other specific classes only have access to a few. That's how I visualize the different classes. Elementalist and Engineers seem like logical choices for varieties in boon and conditions based on their mechanics. Mesmers had their confusion, and misdirections. Guardians always had burning in their mechanics (cleanse and condition). Necros where almost always the condition masters, not so much on the boon side. Thieves should be crit based, but not stacking so much power on their own. Warriors power based. Rangers with range and movement. Some kind of balance like the above. The fact that everyone can now stack 25 stacks of might and or (add high damage condition here), is just a joke. Because of this and the lack of updating defenses on Elementalist you have the current state of the game.

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I'm a silly bean, Feanor is correct!
Anet has been crushing elementalist since Pre hot 2015. Anet has beening hating ele since then. I've been playing ele since Factions 2006 and have been enjoying them since. Backin 2005 eles can only PVE DPS with aoe nukes, they were limited in RA arenas and basically punching bags for melee spikes and mesmer or necros. Weaver is like a sustainable flashy punching bag that won't go down right away and has flashy small damage (it looks like big damage with it's exaggerated damage.
You almost feel no damage difference going d/d cele mix with crusader or zerker to pure glass other than you melt on cc. The damage difference in spvp or wvw is very tiny like the care of elementalist in current guild wars 2.

I assume when I purchase the new expansion aka Guild Wars: FTB aka Feed the Bunny we will have those issue assured. ELE in any of it's states are neither META, Great or very good under the 3 tiers of spvp. They are just alive due the fact of their users dedication and endless finger rotatons. I'm hitting 36 years of age can you surprise me with the ele owe as in 2015 spvp standings or how determine eles were in guild wars 1 HOM or RA spiking and raw damage capabilities. We used to be able to CC so hard no soft but strong flat out KD with raw damage in the first game. Eles were awesome and we were tanky too and regen like crazy and were fast. It seems everyone became eles but eles became cluster bot with baby packet damage. What eles need to have is the raw speed, damage, sustain and CC as we had in the old game. Well we nailed sustain and kinda have speed but it split in two different traits so you can't be both. But other classes can be both!

Some one just stopped batting for ele and decide to bat down ele.

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Expanding on the aura for all atument lines effects:Zephyr's Boon moved to Major Master getting the effect of aoe super speed on aura detonation.Combined Elemental shielding and Rock Solid in Major Master to give protection and 1 stack of shot duration stab on aura and longer duration protection and 2 stack of stab on aura detonation.Soothing Ice moved to Major Master getting a small heal on aura as well as the passive aura on getting crit and aoe resistance and a stronger heal on aura detonation.(I like to see Elemental Bastion because a barrier on auras and let water take over the aura healing.)

Main note is keep the aura detonation use as is no F5 keep it locked to the weapons them self but move in such a way to add in an elite spec that has an f5 that is build aura detonation its class type (all auras, armor, and boons even the non ele ones).

PvP / WvW aimed but viable in pve support and melee.

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this might sound rude and i apologize for that, but they must have tried really hard to kick elementalists out of the game , I guess high skill high reward doesnt apply here? you need to be really,really,really good at weaver to be able to compete with average players let alone 1v1its main purpose is to somehow tank? for a few seconds using alot of heal untill he dies,thats its only purpose, its damage is,.... medicore? at best? any DPS build is laughable with 0 mobility and sustain. alot of self sustain is fine sure but thats litearlly all weaver got, i got to play this game because i really like playing elementalist but this game has by far the most inferior and ridiculously laughable mage class in every game, they made it into a useless tank. horrible design.

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@Silence.3702 said:this might sound rude and i apologize for that, but they must have tried really hard to kick elementalists out of the game , I guess high skill high reward doesnt apply here? you need to be really,really,really good at weaver to be able to compete with average players let alone 1v1its main purpose is to somehow tank? for a few seconds using alot of heal untill he dies,thats its only purpose, its damage is,.... medicore? at best? any DPS build is laughable with 0 mobility and sustain. alot of self sustain is fine sure but thats litearlly all weaver got, i got to play this game because i really like playing elementalist but this game has by far the most inferior and ridiculously laughable mage class in every game, they made it into a useless tank. horrible design.

True that.

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@"maddoctor.2738" said:One thing that I was wondering was how badly designed Staff is. Let's take a look at what each attunement is "supposed" to do:Strongly disagree here, mostly because I kinda feel like you're making up your own definitions and then argue they don't match. Just look at the ingame descriptions for Air Attunement and Earth and you'll see that they don't match your description. Also, fire staff has 2 skills that cause burning so claiming it has none isn't entirely true either.

Staff is actually quite well designed in how the skills on the various attunements can work together. For example, just look at how Lava Font can be double blasted with both Ice Spike and Eruption. That shows quite a lot more thought than some other weapon designs that have setups like 'auto attack, stronger damage skill, charge leap, cc) setups.

@Wraistlin.6072 said:In truth it really is just the power creep of boons and conditions that HoT unleashed on this game that is killing it. If boons and conditions have such emphasis, then the hybrid classes should be the ones with access to most of these things, while other specific classes only have access to a few. The fact that everyone can now stack 25 stacks of might and or (add high damage condition here), is just a joke. Because of this and the lack of updating defenses on Elementalist you have the current state of the game.Totally agree here. Stacking buffs is so easy that it devaluates any buffs that are given by hybrid builds.

And while we're at it: if cripple/weakness/chill/poison actually DID something, it'd do a lot for build viability. Stoning isn't a bad skill, but if any enemy that matters has a breakbar and becomes immune to it, then the whole skill is pointless.

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@ThiBash.5634 said:Strongly disagree here, mostly because I kinda feel like you're making up your own definitions and then argue they don't match. Just look at the ingame descriptions for Air Attunement and Earth and you'll see that they don't match your description. Also, fire staff has 2 skills that cause burning so claiming it has none isn't entirely true either.

Staff is actually quite well designed in how the skills on the various attunements can work together. For example, just look at how Lava Font can be double blasted with both Ice Spike and Eruption. That shows quite a lot more thought than some other weapon designs that have setups like 'auto attack, stronger damage skill, charge leap, cc) setups.

Let's use the in-game descriptions then and see why staff isn't following them either:

Air: Heavy damage and control abilities. Where exactly is the Heavy damage on Air Staff? And even control effect is low, Earth has an impassable wall and an immobilize, while air has a sad to use blind, a sad to use knockback and a stun field. Earth has more varied control and in more than a few cases it's better at breaking bars than Air, because Static Field can be unreliable. Staff doesn't follow the in-game description at all. Sword, Scepter, Dagger all do actual HEAVY damage while in Air, but Staff is pathetic for damage.

Earth: Superior damage over time and defensive abilities. A weird, hard to hit skill like Eruption and a skills with a very long cooldown, Shock Wave doesn't make Staff a weapon that deals superior damage over time while attuned to Earth. In fact it's rather terrible at bleeding application compared to every other Elementalist weapon. And the only defensive ability Staff has on Earth is Magnetic Shield the rest of them are pure control. Ever other weapon in the game has more reliable and constant bleeding application.

So Staff doesn't follow the in-game descriptions either. As for burning application, have you tried to see how many burn stacks can all weapon combinations maintain on a target?

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Weapons don't have to share the same strict pattern. It's fine that Staff is a power or healing weapon and sucks for condi. Just like Focus is great for defense and condi but sucks for power. It allows all the weapons to have different niches, although obviously not all of these will be relevant in endgame. They never will.

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@Feanor.2358 said:Weapons don't have to share the same strict pattern. It's fine that Staff is a power or healing weapon and sucks for condi. Just like Focus is great for defense and condi but sucks for power. It allows all the weapons to have different niches, although obviously not all of these will be relevant in endgame. They never will.

Focus is an offhand and has a good control skill and a good defensive skill. Go Sword/Focus and you have good heavy damage too.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:Weapons don't have to share the same strict pattern. It's fine that Staff is a power or healing weapon and sucks for condi. Just like Focus is great for defense and condi but sucks for power. It allows all the weapons to have different niches, although obviously not all of these will be relevant in endgame. They never will.

Focus is an offhand and has a good control skill and a good defensive skill. Go Sword/Focus and you have good heavy damage too.

Not as heavy as on sword/dagger. Just like scepter/warhorn or dagger/warhorn would always outperform same/focus on tempest.As for it being offhand, it doesn't really matter. We don't have a second two-hander to compare with.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:Weapons don't have to share the same strict pattern. It's fine that Staff is a power or healing weapon and sucks for condi. Just like Focus is great for defense and condi but sucks for power. It allows all the weapons to have different niches, although obviously not all of these will be relevant in endgame. They never will.

Focus is an offhand and has a good control skill and a good defensive skill. Go Sword/Focus and you have good heavy damage too.

Not as heavy as on sword/dagger. Just like scepter/warhorn or dagger/warhorn would always outperform same/focus on tempest.As for it being offhand, it doesn't really matter. We don't have a second two-hander to compare with.

I don't know when I read what attunements are supposed to do from the in-game descriptions I expect the only two-handed weapon to follow them. After all, if some off-hand or main-hand weapon doesn't follow the descriptions you can always mix and max it with other weapons to make it so. But you can't mix Staff with anything so I find it weird why it's the only weapon set that doesn't follow the in-game provided description.

In fact, in terms of damage, Scepter, Sword, Dagger all do good burning/damage in Fire, heavy damage on Air and good bleeding damage in Earth. Staff does terrible damage in Air and mediocre bleeding in Earth. At least when the damage is concerned every other main weapon follows the pattern, with the exception of the one and only two-handed weapon.

Sword/Dagger deals marginally lower damage than Sword/Focus, meanwhile Staff in Air is garbage.

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It's all give and take.Sword and Dagger both have strong autos in Air, which is why they are the only weapons you'd use without a conjure or using one in a different attunement (no, Scepter is trash in air as well, despite the fast 2).Sword and Dagger again are the best for burning. And again, Scepter can do it in theory, but it is strictly weaker, damage-wise.Sword and Dagger offer better mobility, too, while Scepter has none of it in exchange for a little more control and higher burst.Staff on the other hand has unparalleled cleave, good burst and the best healing potential. Note that despite the big difference in the overall dps between Staff and Sword/Dagger, Staff still has higher burst which keeps it in the fractals meta.

I don't think there's an issue with Staff, really. It shouldn't be good at everything. No weapon should.

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@"Feanor.2358" said:It's all give and take.Sword and Dagger both have strong autos in Air, which is why they are the only weapons you'd use without a conjure or using one in a different attunement (no, Scepter is trash in air as well, despite the fast 2).Sword and Dagger again are the best for burning. And again, Scepter can do it in theory, but it is strictly weaker, damage-wise.Sword and Dagger offer better mobility, too, while Scepter has none of it in exchange for a little more control and higher burst.Staff on the other hand has unparalleled cleave, good burst and the best healing potential. Note that despite the big difference in the overall dps between Staff and Sword/Dagger, Staff still has higher burst which keeps it in the fractals meta.

I don't think there's an issue with Staff, really. It shouldn't be good at everything. No weapon should.

Scepter may be "Trash" in Air (compared to Sword or Dagger) but it's still way better than Staff in Air. All weapons are better than staff in Air and Earth.

I don't think Staff has any issue as a whole, but my problem with Staff is with certain attunements. Not surprising that the things you mentioned are good about Staff, unparalleled cleave, good burst and healing don't come from Air or Earth which is where my argument against the design of the Staff is focused on (and the lacking Burning compared to other options, but that's less important).

But I guess it's the nature of the Staff to be all about Fire and using the rest of the attunements as random filler (as well as the conjures) because our Ele overlords decided that the rest of it should stay garbage for ever so they don't have to learn new rotations/builds.

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@Feanor.2358 said:It's all give and take.Sword and Dagger both have strong autos in Air, which is why they are the only weapons you'd use without a conjure or using one in a different attunement (no, Scepter is trash in air as well, despite the fast 2).Sword and Dagger again are the best for burning. And again, Scepter can do it in theory, but it is strictly weaker, damage-wise.Sword and Dagger offer better mobility, too, while Scepter has none of it in exchange for a little more control and higher burst.Staff on the other hand has unparalleled cleave, good burst and the best healing potential. Note that despite the big difference in the overall dps between Staff and Sword/Dagger, Staff still has higher burst which keeps it in the fractals meta.

I don't think there's an issue with Staff, really. It shouldn't be good at everything. No weapon should.

What dagger is just weak its the weakest of the weak in-fact its more of an token wepon that has been comply replaced by sword.

Air and fire are the dmg atuments if your not doing dmg when in these 2 atuments then there needs to be an update. Water and earth are the def / support atuments if your not being def or support in these atuments then there needs to be an update. There is no OK mid grond on this point its a yes or no only.

We give passes on air not doing good dmg on staff but its ok for water and earth to be support and tankly on all of the weapons? That what it seems.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Jski.6180 said:Water and earth are the def / support atuments if your not being def or support in these atuments then there needs to be an update.

I agree with the rest, since that's what I've been posting too, but not this part. Earth is not only the defensive attunement, it's also the damage over time (bleeding) attunement.

Bleed more of an hold over from the old condis from a few years back to call bleed a real condi dmg for a full wepon or atument dose not realty fit. All of the weapons on some level have a def tool when in earth even main hand dagger has a anty projectia all be it a 2 sec window (wish it was just a block all). But yes some of the def skill in earth atument are lacking use and need to be updated as such.

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Any way until anet can account for traits that are so weak no one use them at all and there been no real update to them they have no high ground to stand on for the ele class.Blinding Ashes, Inscription (trait), Serrated Stones, Rock Solid, Diamond Skin, Stop, Drop, and Roll, Bountiful Power, Tempestuous Aria, Imbued Melodies, Lucid Singularity, and Woven Stride all traits that are borderline worthless that are effectually not used in any game type at all.

What the point of these why has there been no real update for these for years (Woven Stride not been out as long but has become worthless as a GM at this point). Tempest's traits are the worst of all where you have 2 GM that are not used and are weaker then most classes master level.

Its rage-full that rev got a major rework before any of these have.

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ya allot of those old traits are not getting looked at is kinda sad however what they did was pretty good for ele in general. Well the aura change was kinda what ever cool but unfortunately not much in the line of useful enough I would be interested to see if anyone can make a good build from it though sounds kinda hard. I have noticed a trend they seem to make small but impact changes to skills and traits and only one large overhaul per balance patch. they look at what happens with it and then continue.

I am still hoping for that conjure rework for qol improvements. I already posted it and its in many locations on the forums probably one of the most asked for changes to ele. please anet :)

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